June 2013
10 posts
“Lady Gaga provides a fake sense of feminism that harms the movement (and is unnattainable) and does so in a manner to attain more attention. Nicki Minaj on the other hand, has appropriated the “Barbie” into a new-age feminist figure that young women of color can relate to while still providing a backdrop or canvas to express creativity.”
—My anthropology professor.
(via gemmawardvevo)
(via gemmawardvevo)
“My loneliness can’t even be described: I’ve forgotten how to talk, and I surprise myself even if I accidentally say a loud word. For going on four weeks now I haven’t heard my own voice.”
—Fyodor Dostoevsky in a letter to his wife, Anna Dostoevskaya, 28 August 1879 (via lungsattachedbywires)
“Everyone struggles against despair, but it always wins in the end. It has to. It’s the thing that lets us say goodbye.”
—Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (via larmoyante)
May 2013
6 posts
“Being born a woman is an awful tragedy… Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars - to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording - all is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yet, God, I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night…”
—Sylvia Plath (via ihatenietzsche)
April 2013
18 posts
Having tattoos and piercings is not unprofessional.
What’s unprofessional is turning down an aspiring employee due to superficial reasons and not their skill level or experience.
I differ. Would never trust a school teacher with the swastika tattooed on his forehead with my child for e second. Whatever his/her experience or skill. Neither would I leave my car with such a mechanic.
Pulse of the Motherland →
webstermadanhi.wordpress.com
Guest poet: Omekongo Dibinga
Did Zuma Fail Africa in CAR? →
webstermadanhi.wordpress.com
An excellent analysis
“An honest bookstore would post the following sign above its ‘self-help’ section: ‘For true self-help, please visit our philosophy, literature, history and science sections, find yourself a good book, read it, and think about it.’”
—Roger Ebert, I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie (via larmoyante)
“The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding.”
—Albert Camus, The Plague (via pensivefrangipani)
“Anarchism is a philosophy of freedom. It is a body of revolutionary ideas which reconciles, as no other revolutionary concept does, the necessity for individual freedom with the demands of society. The word “anarchy” has been universally used in the sense of disorder, chaos and confusion – even violence; and it is to this day used in that sense by the ignorant and uninformed as well as by political opponents with an interest in distorting the truth and gaining power, which is the universal goal of all politicians. It must be pointed out that violence, contrary to popular mythology, is not part of the anarchist philosophy. It has repeatedly been pointed out by anarchist thinkers that the revolution can neither be won, nor the anarchist society established and maintained, by armed violence.”
—Jack Robinson; An Account Of Anarchism (via awonkytable)
Body, Mind, and Spirit: Revolution →
magik-aimee.tumblr.com
I know many people are of a similar mind-frame as myself.
We’re spiritual but not “religious”, Earth-loving, animal-loving, peace-loving free spirits who are frustrated and angered and broken-hearted over the many tragedies and atrocities occurring in our world on a day-to-day basis.
The problem…
Things must change indeed.
“As every writer knows… there is something mysterious about the writer’s ability, on any given day, to write. When the juices are flowing, or the writer is ‘hot’, an invisible wall seems to fall away, and the writer moves easily and surely from one kind of reality to another… Every writer has experienced at least moments of this strange, magical state. Reading student fiction one can spot at once where the power turns on and where it turns off, where the writer writes from ‘inspiration’ or deep, flowing vision, and where he had to struggle along on mere intellect.”
—John Gardner; On Becoming a Novelist (via wordpainting)
March 2013
24 posts
Watch "Wealth Inequality in America" on YouTube →
webstermadanhi.wordpress.com
I might have blogged this here before, but the interest this post is generating on my other blog has made me share it here, again. People need to wake up to these realities of the world’s wealth. Not just America’s.
“The more a society’s income distribution is determined by politics and not markets, the more it will be skewed away from whatever pattern would emerge in a less fettered market economy. And in general, that skew will be toward greater inequality. As the political component grows, we can expect power to be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands and income distribution be more and more unequal. If political power is growing, we should strongly suspect that some of the rich are using the state to squeeze money from most of the poor.”
— Roger Koppl an Austrian declares, “Income Inequality Matters” (via tofias)
Zimbabwe Justice Minister Speaks to the BBC about EU Santions
Zimbabwe Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa has been speaking to BBC Africa about the recent lifting of EU sanctions on his country.
Beatrice Mtetwa and the Rule of Law →
webstermadanhi.wordpress.com
The trailer is for the just completed film Beatrice Mtetwa and the Rule of Law which is seeking distribution around the world.
Medicine: 14 Adults Have Been "Cured" of HIV(via @Gizmodo) →
gizmodo.com
This could really be happening. Just weeks after a baby girl was functionally cured of the HIV virus, early treatment has been found to put HIV into seemingly permanent remission in 14 adults.
I liked a comment to this story which went along the lines of… “HIV CURE MIGHT HAVE ALREADY BEEN FOUND BUT…” I have copied the full script here: “I strongly believe a cure for HIV/AIDS exists and has existed for a while. Our understanding of viruses are limitless. And when it comes to HIV, one of the most researched viruses, I wouldn’t doubt it. We’ve been using genes from HIV to create transfer vectors for a while. Why cant we find a cure? Because the research groups that can afford the research to find a cure, well they’re most likely owned by larger companies; all of these getting paid off by pharmaceuticals. You know what pays more than a cure? Years of treatment. Now before all of you tell me to put on my tinfoil hat, hear this. I work on a virus called AcMNPV. It’s used a biological pesticide (mostly outside of the united states). It kills most major crop pests (i research mainly those of the Lepidopteran variety). It’s a great virus: kills the bugs rapidly, great short-range horizontal transfer, does not effect humans or the plants in any way, degrades quickly outside of the hose, does not travel, EXTREMELY CHEAP and many other benefits. Effectively it’s a pesticide without the whole ability to kill us. Now i knew a guy who had manipulated the virus to make it more virulent to several other major crop pests for the mid-west. Well, this guy was just a researcher, he had no means to create this for farmers. So of course, he tried his best to sell it. After months, he got a guy who wanted to buy it. He researched him thoroughly and his background looked good (a farmer who also had a businessman-like roll) and sold it to him. Little did he know, a massive pesticide group hired him to buy this biological pesticide, transfer it to the company, after which, the company buried it. It’s a better pesticide that is considerably cheaper = less overall profits. Companies in America are heartless. They want money, that’s it. It’s the reason why we have the highest CEO pay:AVG worker pay ratio out of any nation. It’s the reason why 1% of the population own 40% of the money; the to 10 percent own 80%. (BTW that 10 percent is not a lot of people and that 1% is like under 1000 people). It’s just sad, and make me sad, as I’m getting into disease research and i’ll probably experience the exact same thing as my colleague.”
“
“THESE MONSTERS THAT WE PREACH”
These monsters that we preach Disguised as advertisements and fun TV shows
They lead to this hate that we have now reached
Guns passing faster than silly love notes during boring track meets
A generation fast fading in neighborhoods unseen
Their backs turned to themselves and their dying consciences
Hate is glorified in the most lavish of ways
Who can curse faster and better?
Be the bully to that freckled fatty with redhead
Love now larger and farther than a once four letter word
Still a heavy burden on the hearts of those who seek to live it
Monsters are disguised in the most beautiful of ways
Thousand dollar purses on Robertson Boulevard
Katherine’s growing baby bump the obsession of many dawns
Youths in disdain adults in disarray Corrupt economies on the rise as the chocolate cookies crumble
Grease stained fingers pointed in diverse directions
Yet those monsters we continue to preach have nothing to do
With the hate that we have now reached”
“It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, to absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex”
—Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (via pensivefrangipani)
