call for papers

Brett and Sarah and I are trying to put together a panel for the undergraduate research conference this spring. If you're enrolled as an undergrad and think you'll have a paper to present by April let us know.

Putting together a panel will allow us to create a more coherent and productive discussion following our presentations. No one will be tossed into a panel of unrelated papers, and folks who come to hear us speak will likely stay for all of our papers, instead of hopping up half-way through and not contributing to Q&A.

So. That said, our 'topic' is still rather broad. We're thematizing neoliberalism, public space, and development, especially as articulated through story-telling, feminist theory, and the urban landscape.

Abstracts are do 17 November. 250-350 words. Please contact one of us ASAP if you want to present. mcdougal-webber [dot] 1 [at] osu.edu

G20 Day 1 Wrap Up

Some brave souls are protesting the G20 in Pittsburgh, as we speak. I'm sure you all know all of the problems that tends to precipitate from global economic planning (50,000 people dying every day of starvation, preventable diseases, global economic divide being nearly 72-to-1, over a billion people living on less than a dollar a day, etc etc).

And as you all know, capitalism came by force (Marx's chilling description in chapters 26 and 27 of Capital are classics: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch26.htm), it also remains only through force. When enough people show up to actually challenge business as usual, capital and the state respond with overwhelming force that is otherwise hidden in the millions of everyday compromises needed to survive.

The mass media portrayal has been highlighting the usual trench warfare between the anarchists and the cops. This is an old story, long-drawn out and much expected (and with serious consequences if it doesn't occur). But the secret story are those unexpected casualties.

Let me illustrate a few stories of the unexpected casualties.

Pitt students: caught up in the confusion, riot cops move in on Pitt students because they are scared of any crowd over 50 convening anywhere in the city during the G20. Students were trapped, gassed, beaten, and shot. Here are some videos:


This video wouldn't embed: http://indypgh.org/g20/#k-fbd79b0e2ce5faae

Houseless: in an attempt to find protesters looking for a cheap (read: free) place to stay, cops have run everyone out of the city. the houseless who have usually found temporary housing, whether it be in abandoned homes, places around downtown,


Additionally, the police have rolled out the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) sound cannons. Deployed in international contexts and in military conflicts, they have been brought to protests since Miami FTAA in 2001 but this is their first documented domestic use. These weapons cause extreme audio pain to anyone within 100 yards (football field), disorienting them in an attempt to make them flee. If people remain in the area or are too disoriented to leave, it can cause permanent damage if used for more than a few seconds. There are numerous examples of these weapons being used against regulation (for more than a few second bursts at a time).
proper use:


improper use:


here's a tv explanation of the device:

Here's international condemnation over OTHER states using similar "crowd control" techniques:

Columbus Metropolitan Library to Time-Travel to 1988

Dear Supporter of Columbus Metropolitan Library,

Our Board of Trustees has authorized our plan to implement cuts in response to an $8.5 million reduction in state funding.

After exhaustive consideration, we believe we have charted a course that will allow CML to provide the best customer service possible under these difficult circumstances and that is fair and equitable to all.

Effective September 6, 2009

• All 20 branches of CML will be closed on Sundays. Main Library downtown will remain open on Sunday.
• Hours will be cut at all locations. This represents an 18% cutback of hours.

All branches and Main will be open:

• Monday through Thursday: 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.
• Friday and Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
• Sunday: 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. MAIN LIBRARY ONLY

• Materials budget has been cut back to 1988 levels
• Hours/pay cuts for staff

I want to personally thank all of you who have shown such incredible support over the last few weeks. More than 30,000 of our customers sent emails to legislators and we’ve seen a considerable spike in volunteers and donations. Without your help, we know our budget losses would have been even greater.

We know that this library is so much more than books. It is about helping people find jobs, helping kids with homework and getting them to read – and so – succeed in life. While these cuts are challenging for us, we have important work to do.

Thanks for your support.

Patrick Losinski
Executive Director

Iran Protest Update

Kaboom.

White male privilege, the prison system, and Israel

I don't think I could have somehow connected these three things--not even in a magical-realism short story.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Ohio watchdog criticizes prison purchases

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The former deputy director of Ohio's prison system wrongly steered a $120,000 contract to a college fraternity brother in a deal that cost the state an extra $40,000, according to an investigative report released Wednesday.

Michael Randle, now head of the Illinois prison system, referred an Israeli company that manufactures inmate-tracking devices to Ohio company KBK Enterprises, according to the report by the state inspector general's office.

KBK, a Columbus real estate development company, acted in this situation as the distributor of the devices to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Company President Keith Key was in a fraternity with Randle at Ohio State University in the late 1980s. The state purchased the equipment in 2004 for use by seven prison work crews.

The inspector general said Wednesday that the state could have purchased the equipment directly from the Israeli company, called Elmo-Tech, and avoided KBK's $40,000 markup.

The equipment wasn't popular with prison guards, Randle told investigators.

"The product worked," Randle said in a transcript of an interview with investigators reviewed by The Associated Press. "But in terms of implementation, I wasn't really ... comfortable with how our staff kind of took to the product."

The state no longer uses the devices.

"The equipment worked OK, but technology has greatly improved since then," prisons spokeswoman Andrea Carson told the AP. She noted the inspector general's report did not require the Ohio Department of Corrections to change any of its policies.

"As public servants we know our responsibility is to be good stewards and to continue to be transparent in our daily operations," Carson said.

The report also criticized Randle for referring Elmo-Tech to KBK and then failing to tell his superiors about his relationship with Key.

Key and Randle didn't immediately return telephone messages seeking comment.

"While there are no laws expressly prohibiting a state employee from doing this, provided the employee receives no personal benefit from the purchase, the referral and subsequent purchase clearly give the appearance of impropriety," the inspector general's report said.

The report did not find that Randle benefited financially from his actions, which would be illegal.

Andrew Cohen, a former Elmo-Tech representative, said Randle had no involvement in the product's purchase other than suggesting KBK as a distributor, according to a summary of Cohen's interview with state investigators reviewed by the AP.

40-day Memorial of the Death of Neda Agha-Soltan

Y'all may remember the grisly video I posted 30-odd days ago showing the death of Neda Soltan in one of the protests in Iran. Nobody knew at that point what a symbol she would become for Iranians.



Her name means "voice," "calling," or "divine message." It was pretty easy to see why this would soon become meaningful. Her death, or martyrdom, has many more sociopolitical implications than we Americans might realize:

From Times Online:

More protests planned in Tehran to mark end of 40-day mourning

Defiant opposition supporters will return to the streets of Tehran today, emboldened by tales of prison abuse and an eruption of hostilities between President Ahmadinejad and his fellow hardliners.

The occasion is the passing of 40 days — the official end of the mourning period for Shia Muslims — since Iranian security forces killed Neda Soltan and protesters during a demonstration on June 20.

A mourning ceremony in the Grand Mosala prayer hall, which can hold 100,000 people, has been banned so the opposition is planning demonstrations in at least nine locations around the capital.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, the defeated presidential candidates, will visit the grave of Ms Soltan whose death, which was caught on video, made her a global symbol of the regime’s brutality.

The 40-day mark has particular resonance for Iranians: when protesters were killed during the 1978-79 revolution, the Shah’s opponents turned commemoration ceremonies into political demonstrations.

They were suppressed, more people were killed, bigger demonstrations were held — and so the cycle continued until the Shah was eventually ousted.

Thousands are expected to take to the streets this evening and the security forces are likely to disperse them forcibly, but the opposition has been heartened by the ruptures that have opened within the regime.

Mr Ahmadinejad has incurred the wrath of conservatives by choosing Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, the father of his daughter-in-law, to be Deputy Prime Minister, defying an order by Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, that he drop him.

Mr Ahmadinejad may have wanted to surround himself with friends to provide a buffer, or to show that he was not Ayatollah Khamenei’s puppet.

Some have speculated that he considered Mr Mashaei as his successor. Conservatives loathe Mr Mashaei, considering him soft on Israel and a liberal.

Several ministers protested at the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday last week. Mr Ahmadinejad relented but dismissed at least two of the ministers and appointed Mr Mashaei as Chief of Staff instead — an act of deliberate provocation that infuriated hardliners.

More than 200 of Iran’s 290 MPs have signed letters of protest over the President’s actions. The conservative newspaper Yalesarat yesterday demanded that Mr Ahmadinejad apologise to the people.

The Islamic Society of Engineers, an influential conservative body, demanded his “unconditional obedience to the Supreme Leader” and warned that he could be deposed.

The problems of the regime have been compounded by accounts of torture and death from the prisons where hundreds of opposition activists were taken after the disputed election.

The stories are redolent of the Shah’s era: one released man told how he was forced to lick a toilet bowl; another prisoner described how guards squashed inmates into a cell, smashed the lights and beat them in the darkness, during which at least four died; others said that they were tortured to make them sign false confessions.

Relatives have described being taken to an improvised mortuary packed with corpses and being ordered to say nothing about how their sons or husbands died.

The death toll is thought to be in excess of the 30 that the regime acknowledges, but the most damaging fatality was that of Mohsen Rouhalamini, 25, who was beaten during the two weeks that he spent in the Kahrizak detention centre.

Mr Rouhalamini was the son of a prominent conservative and his death has shocked even the political elite.

“The perpetrators must be identified and punished,” one hardline MP demanded. “Those who have turned this country into a police state ... have to be held accountable,” said another. “There’s absolute disbelief among many conservatives at what’s taken place,” a Tehran analyst said.

Mindful of the accusations against it, the regime is making some concessions. In the past two days the Government released 140 detainees, Ayatollah Khamenei ordered the closure of the Kahrizak prison and the head of the judiciary has promised that the cases of all detainees will be reviewed within a week.

Even Mr Ahmadinejad has asked that the detainees be shown mercy, but the state news agency said that about twenty prisoners accused of terrorist links and violence would stand trial on Saturday.

Mr Mousavi is expected to press home his advantage by beginning a political front — a coalition of groups seeking justice and democracy — before Mr Ahmadinejad’s inauguration on Wednesday.

Mr Ahmadinejad’s troubles may be only just starting. Ali Larijani, the Speaker of Parliament, has become one of his harshest critics and the President will struggle even to have his Cabinet confirmed.

Mr Ahmadinejad also faces severe economic problems. The funds that he lavished on favoured constituencies in his first term have dried up, ministries have been ordered to slash budgets and projects have been suspended. Oil no longer brings in the revenue that it did before the world economic crisis.

On top of that, a substantial proportion of the population, including many clerics and senior politicians, regard him as illegitimate. “He’s in trouble — not fatal trouble but he’s wounded. He’s damaged goods,” the analyst said.

Here's significantly more information about Neda on Wikipedia, if you're interested: Death of Neda Agha-Soltan

The History Machine Is Running on Full Steam

Some cutting and some pasting in the collective memory of Arabs and Jews in Israel and occupied Palestine.

BBC News:

Israel's education ministry is to drop from an Arabic language textbook a term describing the creation of the state of Israel as "the catastrophe".
The Arabic word "nakba" has been used with Israeli-Arab pupils since 2007. It does not appear in Hebrew textbooks.
Education Minister Gideon Saar said no state could be expected to portray its own foundation as a catastrophe.
Israeli Arab MP Hana Sweid called the move an attack on Palestinian identity and collective memory.
The passage in question, which occurs in one textbook aimed at Arab children aged eight or nine, describes the 1948 war, which resulted in Israel's creation, in the following terms: "The Arabs call the war the Nakba - a war of catastrophe, loss and humiliation - and the Jews call it the Independence War."

Israel concern at UN use of Nakba

The sentence was introduced when Yuli Tamir of the centre-left Labour party was education minister.
Ms Tamir's successor in Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing administration, Mr Saar, said: "There is no reason that the official curriculum of the state of Israel should present the establishment of the state as a 'holocaust' or 'catastrophe'."
Mr Saar added that state education for children was not supposed entail the de-legitimising of that state.
"Including the term in the official curriculum of the Arab sector was a mistake, a mistake that will not repeat itself in the new curriculum, which is currently being revised," he concluded.
Correspondents say most Hebrew-language history books, especially when written for schoolchildren, focus on the heroism of Israeli forces in 1948 and gloss over the mass exile of Palestinians.
If it is mentioned at all it is attributed to a voluntary flight, rather than the deliberate expulsion which later revisionist historians claim to have uncovered from archive sources.
The term Nakba is usually applied to the loss suffered by millions of Palestinian refugees displaced by the 1948 war and subsequent conflicts; their fate remains a key factor in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Jafar Farrah, director of Israeli-Arab advocacy group Moussawa, told the BBC that removing the word Nakba from textbooks would not stop Arabs from using it, but it would complicate relations.
Far-right members of the Israeli government are pursuing legislation to make it illegal in Israel to commemorate the Nakba, as Palestinians and their supporters do every 15 May.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8163959.stm

The Washington Post:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has ordered its diplomats to use an old photograph of a former Palestinian religious leader meeting Adolf Hitler to counter world criticism of a Jewish building plan for East Jerusalem.

Israeli officials said on Wednesday Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israeli ambassadors to circulate the 1941 shot in Berlin of the Nazi leader seated next to Haj Amin al-Husseini, the late mufti or top Muslim religious leader in Jerusalem.

One official said Lieberman, an ultranationalist, hoped the photo would "embarrass" Western countries into ceasing to demand that Israel halt the project on land owned by the mufti's family in a predominantly Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem.

Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967, annexing it as part of its internationally unrecognized claim to Jerusalem as its capital.

Some diplomats opposed Lieberman's move, arguing it could earn Israel stiffer world criticism for seeming to sidestep the wider conflict it faces with the Palestinians who want East Jerusalem as capital of a future state, another official said.

Asked why Lieberman issued the order, a spokesman said: "because it's important for the world to know the facts" and would not elaborate.

The United States and Europe this week protested the plan by private Israeli developers to build 20 apartments on the land which Israel says was bought by an American-Jewish millionaire as well as Israel's threats to demolish Palestinian homes that could leave thousands homeless.

The controversy has complicated an Israeli rift with the U.S. over its refusal to meet President Barack Obama's demands to halt Jewish settlement building throughout the West Bank so that stalled peace talks may resume.

About half a million Israelis live in the settlements built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas that are home to some three million Palestinians.

An official in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's government accused Lieberman of "political bankruptcy" in ordering the distribution of the Husseini-Hitler photograph.

"It's an old story that has its own circumstances and doesn't apply to the present," Adnan al-Husseini, the Palestinian Authority-appointed governor of Jerusalem, and a relative of the late mufti, told Reuters.

Israel's Yad Vashem memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust said Husseini supported Nazi Germany to try to win backing for Arab nationalistic goals and that he lobbied for the extermination of Jews in North Africa and Palestine.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/22/AR2009072202500.html

What is Anarchy?

My friend Joe Bertka is organizing this event. It'd be a good opportunity to sharpen up the old critical faculties that, at least in my case, have been dulled by the decadence of summer living.

Discussing Anarchism
July 29, 7:00 pm
Sporeprint Infoshop

Come take part in a group discussion of the ideas and practices of anarchism, whether you are highly familiar with the topic or are interested in finding out more. The goal is to have a free exchange of thoughts and perspectives. Some helpful background essays can be found at the following websites, though the discussion forum is not limited to these materials. See you there.


http://blackcrayon.com/

http://hermetic.com/bey/taz_cont.html

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/ANARCHIST_ARCHIVES/index.html

No Leaders

Hunter Thompson Knew It Well: Robert McNamara's Vision for America Was Imperial and Elitist

By Joe Costello, AlterNet. Posted July 7, 2009.


The death of Robert McNamara is a time to remember how dangerous the idea of technocrats running Washington has been.

The announcement of Robert McNamara's death brought the good Doctor Hunter S. Thompson to mind. These two men were contemporaries on the public and political stage. While vastly different in so many ways, Thompson and McNamara were profoundly American and their stories offer some thoughts on where we are today.

McNamara entered public view first, while entering the public stage as Defense Secretary for JFK, Thompson was hitching a ride on a smuggling boat to disembark on the shores of Columbia with a few dollars in his pocket, spending a couple years in South America honing his skills as a journalist. Thompson, though younger in age by a couple decades, was a much older American. Nietzsche said true radicals were much older than their times, and this was true of Hunter. Thompson was a son of the old republic; high school graduate, relished his independence, considered the Bill of Rights sacred, became an outstanding member of the free press, and in his one attempt in electoral politics ran locally for Sheriff of Pitkin County Colorado.

McNamara on the other hand was very much of a younger age, a product of the 20th century, of the republic as it evolved from the twin challenges of the Depression and World War II. He had a degree from Harvard Business School and rose to be President of Ford Motor Company. Mr. McNamara defined the word technocrat. He had a fanatical faith in the omniscience of numbers and models, which as Defense Secretary, he would use monstrously on the people of South East Asia. "The Best and the Brightest," David Halberstam ironically labeled McNamara and his fellow cohorts who conducted the Vietnam War.

Today, Mr. McNamara's ilk remain very much in charge. Our political system is even more centralized than it was when he was at Defense. The idea that technocrats can run a large and unwieldy government is the true-faith of DC. While we are no longer bombing SE Asia, we kill with the same technical ferocity in the illegitimate wars of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. While our auto companies, no longer the shining star of global industry, still remain vital to the health of the US economy, or so we are told from DC. And behind the present financial fiasco, we find any number of well educated young men working in elaborate offices and manipulating numbers and formulas thinking they control the world. And yes, at the same time committing fraud after fraud, and lying through their teeth every step of the way.

Mr. McNamara's America is a fairly ugly place, it is in so many ways against the politics of this republic's founding. It is imperial, elitist, and predatory. Today, we are in desperate need of Dr. Thompson's sensibility to castrate power, to uphold the idea that anyone with great power, deserves even greater distrust. A revival of the truth that any system of self-government, needs no great power, no great leaders, it needs good citizens. We all need a little more of the strength of the old republic about us, not to avert our eyes from the belly of the beast, but to stare straight at it, and get involved to change it.

Doctor Thompson had scary accurate political instincts. He was a self-appointed Doctor of Journalism, whose beat he said was the death of the American dream. About a year before he left, he said the final half of the 20th century in America would look to history as a "party by a bunch of rich kids." That's quite an epithet for a couple of generations who were the wealthiest and most widely educated in world history. That, as the good Doctor would say, is heavy stuff Bubba.

festival football...

antifa football club...!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_St._Pauli

Worst Day of Riots So Far

At 19:05 June 20th
Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st.

A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim's chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes.
The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St.

Stay tuned for time and place of a protest in solidarity with Iranians being organized by local Iranian-Americans here in Columbus.

Protests Over the Presidential Election in Iran

YAH's resident Persian has sent the following links for our consideration:

25khordad at Wordpress
Rayeman kojast? at Wordpress
tehranlive.org
Daneshgah Sanati Esfehan at blogspot

My limited Farsi knowledge tells me that these are all pretty much from university areas. Note that these are pictures and videos from Iranian bloggers and activists from the past couple of days in the wake of the re-election of Ahmadinejad, who is believed to have stolen the election from the reform candidate Mousavi due to the unprecedented number of young voters (think the past US presidential election except Obama loses by a landslide). It's pretty intense.

Smash the Suburbs!!!

Intriguing Plan in Michael Moore's Home Town: Bulldoze the Ghost 'Burbs, Return Them to Nature

By Tom Leonard, The Telegraph (UK). Posted June 13, 2009.

Concept of razing post-industrial "rust belt" empty neighborhoods draws interest in Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore and other cities.

The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, Michigan, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.

Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 percent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.


http://www.alternet.org/environment/140629/intriguing_plan_in_michael_moore%27s_home_town%3A_bulldoze_the_ghost_%27burbs%2C_return_them_to_nature/

Redheads Protest Wendy's

Redheads Protest Wendy's

Check Out This Site and Help End Poverty

http://hoenir.himinbi.org/

I’ve always admired Hunter S. Thompson. I love his sense of a story from the edge of something. I also love the idea of duplicating him. Wouldn’t “crazed rambling drunk” be an awesome job? To Hunter S. I dedicate these two weeks of semi-coherent rambling.




(I can’t figure out how to get rid of that sidebar player atm, sorry.)

I’m not going to watch the video before posting it and most of it is a blur, but I know I said I had a plan to save the world.

I actually do have a plan to save the world. My goal for this little experiment is to sell people on an endearing mix of rambling and philosophy so they’ll follow me on Twitter. A week and a half from now I hope to be taping these videos on my way to Oprah’s show. I actually do have an idea that can fundamentally alter how our economy works. I just need fame since I’m too poor to pay people to do all the things I need done to move the plan forward.

The ending poverty idea is more entertaining than the Homage to Hunter S., a million Twitter followers and the siege on Oprah, so by all means stumble this post and stop by again. If enough people do, I’ll get my audience with the queen.

Free Artem Loskutov!

When I was in Russia I spoke to a few people about their interactions with the KGB and it is FUCKING SCARY to know that post-Soviet interrogation practices are more-or-less the same.

On May 15, the young contemporary artist Artem Loskutov was arrested in his native Novisibirsk and charged with possession of a narcotic substance (marijuana) by the local branch of the Interior Ministry’s notorious Center for Extremism Prevention (Center “E”). Loskutov and his supporters claim that the police planted the marijuana in his bag in order to incriminate him. As one of the inspirations behind the annual “Monstration”—a flash-mob street party in which young people march with absurdist, non-political slogans—Loskutov had long been an object of the Center’s attentions. At a pre-trial custody hearing on May 20, it was revealed that the Center had been tapping the phones of Loskutov and his friends for the past six months. In April and on May Day itself, Loskutov had been summoned to the Center for “discussions”; his parents had also been called and told that their son was a member of a dangerous sect. The circumstances of the case and the way that he was arrested thus point to a campaign of intimidation directed both at Loskutov and his fellow free-thinking “monstrators” in Novosibirsk.

"Judge: This person is guilty!
Fighting for increased wages - guilty!
Not loving the police - guilty!
For the inclination towards critical thought - wanted!
Cosmopolite. Internationalist. Atheist. Extremist. Are there any such people among you? Are any of you extremists???"

http://www.metamute.org/en/free_artem_loskutov

FIELD TRIPS

(YOU ARE HERE) FIELD TRIP TO THE DAYTON AIR SHOW JULY 18th or 19th
-confront the militarized spectacle!

http://www.usats.org/

more details soon...

_________________________

also im sure you have all heard-

G20 SUMMIT TO BE HELD IN PITTSBURGH SEPT 24th and 25th
-oh SHIT!

xo
brett

Post-Authentic Authenticity

Brian Massumi's "Realer than Real" is a great rip on Baudrillard and all those other simulacrum hacks.

Didn't they know that it's the age of post-post-irony?

This cannot be done by whining. The work of Baudrillard is one long lament. Both linear and dialectical causality no longer function, therefore everything is indetermination. The center of meaning is empty, therefore we are satellites in lost orbit. We can no longer act like legislator-subjects or be passive like slaves, therefore we are sponges. Images are no longer anchored by representation, therefore they float weightless in hyperspace. Words are no longer univocal, therefore signifiers slip chaotically over each other. A circuit has been created between the real and the imaginary, therefore reality has imploded into the undecidable proximity of hyperreality. All of these statements make sense only if it is assumed that the only conceivable alternative to representative order is absolute indetermination, whereas indetermination as he speaks of it is in fact only the flipside of order, as necessary to it as the fake copy is to the model, and every bit as much a part of its system. Baudrillard's framework can only be the result of a nostalgia for the old reality so intense that it has difformed his vision of everything outside of it. He cannot clearly see that all the things he says have crumbled were simulacra all along: simulacra produced by analyzable procedures of simulation that were as real as real, or actually realer than real, because they carried the real back to its principle of production and in so doing prepared their own rebirth in a new regime of simulation. He cannot see becoming, of either variety. He cannot see that the simulacrum envelops a proliferating play of differences and galactic distances. What Deleuze and Guattari offer, particularly in A Thousand Plateaus, is a logic capable of grasping Baudrillard's failing world of representation as an effective illusion the demise of which opens a glimmer of possibility. Against cynicism, a thin but fabulous hope--of ourselves becoming realer than real in a monstrous contagion of our own making.

Know Your Memes, Ya'll

The Rocketboom Institute for Internet Studies presents
"Know Your Memes"
Documenting Internet phenomena: viral videos, image macros, catchphrases, web celebs and more…

http://knowyourmeme.com/

Associated content:

Media Assemblages

Sweet blog I just found.

Media Assemblages
"A media theory and history blog diagramming how media form assemblages of people, populations, technologies, meanings, and sensations. The evolution of these assemblages, their non-linear dynamics, their affects, and self-organizing capacities are what is explored in these postings."

--->
A tour de force of various post-structuralist thinkers as they relate to media ecologies. An amazing mix of cut-up, hyper-text, youtube, diagrams, pictorials, and the like. Definitely worth taking a look at.

Take a peak at "The Production of Habit: On Two Conceptions of Difference in Foucault’s Discipline and Punish"

or "On the Work of Art Today: Benjamin and the Machinic Phylum".