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11 Views
09:15:52 02/09/12
Fun Friday 'Fermented beans and sex'
[LESS INFO] 11 VIEWS | ADDED 09:15:52 02/09/12
Love it or hate it, you've gotta hate it, NATTO. Actually, there are millios of strange people who like this weird food. Mind you, I like Marmite so I
0 Views
22:25:48 01/30/12
Dutch Uncles - "Cadenza": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 22:25:48 01/30/12
Dutch Uncles - "Cadenza": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
Dutch Uncles are one of the bands at the fore-front of Manchester's (UK) vibrant new music scene that whilst remaining respectful, tries to swerve the city's 'lad-rock' stereotype. Pulling unlikely influences from Steve Reich, XTC and Talking Heads, the band have an unconventional approach to songwriting with individuals scoring tracks much the same way a classical composer would, presenting songs and ideas to the rest of the band as sheet music. Combining jaw-dropping musicianship, whip-smart hooks and strangely danceable time signatures along with the flamboyant stage presence of lead singer Duncan Wallis this makes Dutch Uncles one of the most interesting pop dichotomies in a very long time. Signing to Memphis Industries, the band released their album 'Cadenza' in April 2011 to critical acclaim with much of the UK press and fans alike falling deeply in love with their unmistakable brand of what has been coined 'Math-pop'. With singles hitting the BBC 6Music playlists and regular plays across BBC Radio 1, 2011 has seen the band sell out shows across the UK along with major festival appearances and touring Europe with Wild Beasts. Prolific and inventive, the band will be returning to the studio just 7 months after the release of their debut to record the follow up album due in the Spring, 2012. From: sxsw Views: 456 25 ratings Time: 03:19 More in Entertainment
0 Views
22:25:48 01/30/12
Dutch Uncles - "Cadenza": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 22:25:48 01/30/12
Dutch Uncles - "Cadenza": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
Dutch Uncles are one of the bands at the fore-front of Manchester's (UK) vibrant new music scene that whilst remaining respectful, tries to swerve the city's 'lad-rock' stereotype. Pulling unlikely influences from Steve Reich, XTC and Talking Heads, the band have an unconventional approach to songwriting with individuals scoring tracks much the same way a classical composer would, presenting songs and ideas to the rest of the band as sheet music. Combining jaw-dropping musicianship, whip-smart hooks and strangely danceable time signatures along with the flamboyant stage presence of lead singer Duncan Wallis this makes Dutch Uncles one of the most interesting pop dichotomies in a very long time. Signing to Memphis Industries, the band released their album 'Cadenza' in April 2011 to critical acclaim with much of the UK press and fans alike falling deeply in love with their unmistakable brand of what has been coined 'Math-pop'. With singles hitting the BBC 6Music playlists and regular plays across BBC Radio 1, 2011 has seen the band sell out shows across the UK along with major festival appearances and touring Europe with Wild Beasts. Prolific and inventive, the band will be returning to the studio just 7 months after the release of their debut to record the follow up album due in the Spring, 2012. From: sxsw Views: 922 26 ratings Time: 03:19 More in Entertainment
0 Views
13:33:54 01/26/12
Lagerfeld Launches Economy Fashion Line - Online
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 13:33:54 01/26/12
Lagerfeld Launches Economy Fashion Line - Online
For more news and videos visit ☛ english.ntdtv.com Follow us on Twitter ☛ http Add us on Facebook ☛ on.fb.me Paris-based fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld launches new low-cost fashion line for sale online with a show on the streets of the French capital. It's good news for women as he says the line does not compromise on the quality of design. Paris-based fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld on Wednesday launched a line of clothes he designed that will be retailed by an online fashion portal. Lagerfeld says it's a bid to bring affordable luxury to more people at a time of global economic crisis. The designer held a fashion show at the heart of the capital's 6th arrondissement, a neighborhood which over the years has turned into one of Paris' upmarket retail districts. [Karl Lagerfeld, Fashion Designer, Paris]: "One can't just do the very expensive things that I am lucky enough to do in the best conditions. I love the idea, too, of doing things that cost very little and which everyone can afford that are still well designed." Lagerfeld says the show takes one's mind off the threat of economic meltdown. [Karl Lagerfeld, Fashion Designer, Paris]: "What is strange is that economic crisis hasn't yet affected luxury items. The crisis is international, it's not regional. In any case, one shouldn't prevent women from buying new things, even if they don't have much money. But this is so cheap that it's a lot more affordable." The show drew an enthusiastic response from the crowd ... From: NTDTV Views: 75 7 ratings Time: 01:44 More in News & Politics
0 Views
12:47:18 01/26/12
Aspergianstar2012 - Doctor Who our Ideas and Spoilers Season 7
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 12:47:18 01/26/12
Remember you can return to this video any time and continue where you left off without having to remember your place. So do not worry about the length :) Quote of the Moff "The big thing is, nothing in the next run is starting out as a two-parter, At this stage, everything is a single episode, and the only reason anything will become a two-parter is if we think it needs to be; not so much that the story is too long for 45 minutes, because nothing is too long for 45 minutes, but if it feels as though there are two distinct stages to the story..." Airdate Begins Autumn 2012 (Filming to begin mid to late February 2012) 13 episodes + 2012 Christmas Special Alex Kingston to return as River Song yawwwwwwwwn Rory and Amy will appear in a number of episodes but will leave in a heartbreaking way. Moffat himself has said no 2 parters this year. But who knows as he is prone to lying. Hopefully Rory will get killed off with Amy and we will get a new companion. Doctor Who is our life we love the program and countary to what people think we have been fans for a very long time. I think however that Moffat has gone a bit strange with this story lines for the past Seasons. I also hate the fact that he split up series 6. It was a long time to wait for the second part of the Series. Now there is talk that Series 7 will be different. Just how different nobody knows. Maybe he has listened to fans and it will be more about The Doctor and less about the companions.
0 Views
19:19:12 01/23/12
Arborea - "Careless Love": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 19:19:12 01/23/12
Arborea - "Careless Love": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
Arborea is a musical duo from Maine, formed in the summer of 2005 by wife and husband Shanti Curran and Buck Curran. Since 2007 they\'ve toured extensively throughout the US, UK, and Europe, curated two various artists compilations; We are All One, In the Sun: A Tribute to Robbie Basho and Leaves of Life, and released several full length albums including their latest Red Planet which made Rolling Stone 'Best Under-the-Radar Albums of 2011', Top Vinyl Pick in Mojo, Portland Phoenix Top Ten Albums of 2011, Uncut Magazine's Top 100 Albums of 2011, and Editors Top Pick in Guitar Player Magazine. Portland Mercury writer Ned Lannamann recently described their music..."If you could take a shiver and slow it down so that it lasted for 50 minutes, you'd have Red Planet, the fourth album from Arborea. It's folk music that runs through your veins ice cold, but in a way that's so compelling and irresistible you can't help be moved by it. Red Planet is released by Portland label Strange Attractors Audio House, but Arborea actually hail from a spot much closer to the other Portland; the husband-and-wife duo of Shanti and Buck Curran live in Maine, a state of rugged beauty, endless forests, summertime bugs the size of hummingbirds, and a cold and rocky coastline. Shanti's voice rises above sparse instrumental backing like a cool fog, and while the pair has earned comparisons to acts like Pentangle and Alela Diane (whose sometime backup singer Alina Hardin opens tonight's show), to me ... From: sxsw Views: 2 0 ratings Time: 02:49 More in Music
1 Views
19:19:12 01/23/12
Arborea - "Careless Love": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 19:19:12 01/23/12
Arborea - "Careless Love": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
Arborea is a musical duo from Maine, formed in the summer of 2005 by wife and husband Shanti Curran and Buck Curran. Since 2007 they\'ve toured extensively throughout the US, UK, and Europe, curated two various artists compilations; We are All One, In the Sun: A Tribute to Robbie Basho and Leaves of Life, and released several full length albums including their latest Red Planet which made Rolling Stone 'Best Under-the-Radar Albums of 2011', Top Vinyl Pick in Mojo, Portland Phoenix Top Ten Albums of 2011, Uncut Magazine's Top 100 Albums of 2011, and Editors Top Pick in Guitar Player Magazine. Portland Mercury writer Ned Lannamann recently described their music..."If you could take a shiver and slow it down so that it lasted for 50 minutes, you'd have Red Planet, the fourth album from Arborea. It's folk music that runs through your veins ice cold, but in a way that's so compelling and irresistible you can't help be moved by it. Red Planet is released by Portland label Strange Attractors Audio House, but Arborea actually hail from a spot much closer to the other Portland; the husband-and-wife duo of Shanti and Buck Curran live in Maine, a state of rugged beauty, endless forests, summertime bugs the size of hummingbirds, and a cold and rocky coastline. Shanti's voice rises above sparse instrumental backing like a cool fog, and while the pair has earned comparisons to acts like Pentangle and Alela Diane (whose sometime backup singer Alina Hardin opens tonight's show), to me ... From: sxsw Views: 4 1 ratings Time: 02:49 More in Music
0 Views
16:54:51 01/16/12
David Ramirez - "Fires": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 16:54:51 01/16/12
David Ramirez - "Fires": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
I'm a wandering man, got no money in the bank, got no wife at home watching children". Nothing could more accurately depict the adventurous, carefree spirit of singer-songwriter David Ramirez. Uneasy with being in one place for too long, David repeatedly finds himself on the road playing his brand of modern Americana that fans have coined "Folk-brewed Pop". He's been writing and performing for over 10 years. From his teen years swapping songs with friends in Houston to the struggles of making a name for himself in Nashville, David's songwriting journey has spanned multiple EP's and a full-length, American Soil which garnered over 1200 downloads in a 48-hr. period on Noisetrade. In 2010, David played 150 shows on numerous, independently booked tours. Feeling truly at home on the road, he calls his second home Austin, Texas. It\'s here where he wrote and recorded his latest release, Strangetown EP. The songs, with their heart-yearning lyrics and sparse musical backdrop, tells things as he sees them: honest, unfiltered and true. \"Wandering Man\" is a revved up, foot-stomper that would make Johnny Cash proud and turn even the most fickle listener into a true believer. \"Shoeboxes\" and \"Argue With Heaven\" find David coming to terms with life\'s ups and downs and the reality of lost loves and broken hearts. \"I Think I Like You\" hits your ears like a whispered secret and the title track, \"Strange Town\" weaves a memorable, melancholy lyric with an infectious, heart ... From: sxsw Views: 238 28 ratings Time: 05:08 More in Music
0 Views
16:54:51 01/16/12
David Ramirez - "Fires": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 16:54:51 01/16/12
David Ramirez - "Fires": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
I'm a wandering man, got no money in the bank, got no wife at home watching children". Nothing could more accurately depict the adventurous, carefree spirit of singer-songwriter David Ramirez. Uneasy with being in one place for too long, David repeatedly finds himself on the road playing his brand of modern Americana that fans have coined "Folk-brewed Pop". He's been writing and performing for over 10 years. From his teen years swapping songs with friends in Houston to the struggles of making a name for himself in Nashville, David's songwriting journey has spanned multiple EP's and a full-length, American Soil which garnered over 1200 downloads in a 48-hr. period on Noisetrade. In 2010, David played 150 shows on numerous, independently booked tours. Feeling truly at home on the road, he calls his second home Austin, Texas. It\'s here where he wrote and recorded his latest release, Strangetown EP. The songs, with their heart-yearning lyrics and sparse musical backdrop, tells things as he sees them: honest, unfiltered and true. \"Wandering Man\" is a revved up, foot-stomper that would make Johnny Cash proud and turn even the most fickle listener into a true believer. \"Shoeboxes\" and \"Argue With Heaven\" find David coming to terms with life\'s ups and downs and the reality of lost loves and broken hearts. \"I Think I Like You\" hits your ears like a whispered secret and the title track, \"Strange Town\" weaves a memorable, melancholy lyric with an infectious, heart ... From: sxsw Views: 222 27 ratings Time: 05:08 More in Music
0 Views
18:14:33 01/13/12
David Ramirez - "Fires": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 18:14:33 01/13/12
David Ramirez - "Fires": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
I'm a wandering man, got no money in the bank, got no wife at home watching children". Nothing could more accurately depict the adventurous, carefree spirit of singer-songwriter David Ramirez. Uneasy with being in one place for too long, David repeatedly finds himself on the road playing his brand of modern Americana that fans have coined "Folk-brewed Pop". He's been writing and performing for over 10 years. From his teen years swapping songs with friends in Houston to the struggles of making a name for himself in Nashville, David's songwriting journey has spanned multiple EP's and a full-length, American Soil which garnered over 1200 downloads in a 48-hr. period on Noisetrade. In 2010, David played 150 shows on numerous, independently booked tours. Feeling truly at home on the road, he calls his second home Austin, Texas. It\'s here where he wrote and recorded his latest release, Strangetown EP. The songs, with their heart-yearning lyrics and sparse musical backdrop, tells things as he sees them: honest, unfiltered and true. \"Wandering Man\" is a revved up, foot-stomper that would make Johnny Cash proud and turn even the most fickle listener into a true believer. \"Shoeboxes\" and \"Argue With Heaven\" find David coming to terms with life\'s ups and downs and the reality of lost loves and broken hearts. \"I Think I Like You\" hits your ears like a whispered secret and the title track, \"Strange Town\" weaves a memorable, melancholy lyric with an infectious, heart ... From: sxsw Views: 83 5 ratings Time: 05:07 More in Music
0 Views
18:14:33 01/13/12
David Ramirez - "Fires": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 18:14:33 01/13/12
David Ramirez - "Fires": SXSW 2012 Showcasing Artist
I'm a wandering man, got no money in the bank, got no wife at home watching children". Nothing could more accurately depict the adventurous, carefree spirit of singer-songwriter David Ramirez. Uneasy with being in one place for too long, David repeatedly finds himself on the road playing his brand of modern Americana that fans have coined "Folk-brewed Pop". He's been writing and performing for over 10 years. From his teen years swapping songs with friends in Houston to the struggles of making a name for himself in Nashville, David's songwriting journey has spanned multiple EP's and a full-length, American Soil which garnered over 1200 downloads in a 48-hr. period on Noisetrade. In 2010, David played 150 shows on numerous, independently booked tours. Feeling truly at home on the road, he calls his second home Austin, Texas. It\'s here where he wrote and recorded his latest release, Strangetown EP. The songs, with their heart-yearning lyrics and sparse musical backdrop, tells things as he sees them: honest, unfiltered and true. \"Wandering Man\" is a revved up, foot-stomper that would make Johnny Cash proud and turn even the most fickle listener into a true believer. \"Shoeboxes\" and \"Argue With Heaven\" find David coming to terms with life\'s ups and downs and the reality of lost loves and broken hearts. \"I Think I Like You\" hits your ears like a whispered secret and the title track, \"Strange Town\" weaves a memorable, melancholy lyric with an infectious, heart ... From: sxsw Views: 83 5 ratings Time: 05:07 More in Music
1 Views
16:17:47 01/12/12
Perfect Sense: Movie Trailer
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 16:17:47 01/12/12
Susan (Green) is a scientist searching for answers to important questions. So important that she has given up on other things, including love - until she meets Michael (McGregor), a talented chef. Suddenly everything starts to change. While Susan and Michael are experiencing new and unforeseen depths of feeling, all around the world people are also beginning to feel strange - something is affecting the emotions. Susan and Michael find themselves embarking on a sensual adventure, experiencing head-spinning, stomach-tightening moments of pure connection. Is this because they are falling in love or is it because the world is falling apart? A life-affirming look at what it means to love and be loved in these turbulent times.
Ranked 3.50 / 5 | 21 views | 0 comments
Click here to watch the video (02:15) Submitted By: videodetective Tags: Movie Trailers Movie Trailers Perfect Sense Ewan McGregor Eva Green Connie Nielsen Ewen Bremner Stephen Dillane Denis Lawson David Mackenzie Drama IFC Films Categories: Entertainment
0 Views
03:50:40 01/06/12
REVELATION BLUE
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 03:50:40 01/06/12
For the time is near… Ex-preacher Devon Blue, now Philadelphia homicide detective investigates suspicious cases involving strange and unusual situations. Devon Blue is a man who has left the ministry to focus on using his faith in God and spiritual approach to life to help the police department. Often troubled by conflicting feelings on leaving the ministry and entering the hard edged life of being a homicide detective, Devon Blue faces the conflicts of following and enforcing the laws of man and being judged by the law of God. While being a father figure and mentor to his young teenaged friend Annie Stevens, detective Devon Blue investigates the murder of an innocent homeless man and a prosperity evangelist, who hold the secrets and revelations to recent crimes. REVELATION BLUE Starring Nicolas Torrens, Samantha Louise Wischnia Executive Producer Tony Lankford Executive Producer Nanette Lankford Directed By Tony Lankford
13 Views
09:59:01 12/22/11
That's Love
[LESS INFO] 13 VIEWS | ADDED 09:59:01 12/22/11
A woman on "My Strange Addiction" admits she can't eat anything since her husband passed away--except his ashes!
5 Views
20:00:00 12/19/11
Havel the Dissident: A Legacy Worth Claiming
[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 20:00:00 12/19/11
Former President Havel addresses a European cultural congress on the economics of culture
On a warm evening in 1991, a colleague and I found an out-of-the-way café in the old part of Prague. Two men with blank expressions stood outside. The interior was dim and close, with room for only eight or nine tables. The place was almost empty. Just a sleepy waitress, a bartender polishing glasses, and a single patron who sat alone drinking wine and chain-smoking cigarettes.
The President of Czechoslovakia wasn't reviewing official papers. He was reading a book, a startlingly un-Presidential act to our American eyes. My companion, a neoconservative State Department official, already admired him for defying and defeating a Communist state. He'd impressed me by bringing a writer's sensibility and an affinity for true underground culture to his role as head of state.
Václav Havel even tried to appoint Frank Zappa as his Minister of Culture. "We're not rock musicians," Zappa told a reporter back in the sixties. "We're electronic social workers." The State Department wouldn't let Zappa assume the post, but Havel had made his point to the Czech public by offering this apparatchik's position to the composer of songs like "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?" ("Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind .")
We never spoke to Havel that night. It didn't seem polite to offer anything more than the curt nod of acknowledgement any café patron gives another at that hour. But Havel spoke to us, to all of us. And on the occasion of his death, the real lessons of his life's work are in danger of being lost.
Today we're told that the Occupy movement is too idealistic, too naïve. Naïve? Try Havel's words if you want naïve: "May truth and love triumph over lies and hatred."
Think of that as the Velvet Revolution's "one demand."
Portrait of the President as a Young Freak
As millions of people know, the underground playwright Havel first made his political mark in Charter 77. That group was formed to defend the Plastic People of the Universe, a banned and imprisoned rock band working in the Zappa mold of musical dissonance and cultural dissidence.
The Occupy movement is not on the cultural fringe, despite what its detractors say. But Havel's movement began as a Yippie-like creature of the underworld. Charter 77 rarely had more than a thousand members. It was a strange blend of political idealism and the hippie subculture where people proudly labeled themselves "freaks" to the conventional world. Despite its later alignment with economically conservative forces, it was more Allen Ginsburg than Alan Greenspan.
And it was created to defend the Plastic People of the Universe, whose grating music makes Occupy's drum circles seem like a children's choir serenading the bored residents of a home for aging veterans.
Words
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité - what wonderful words! And how terrifying their meaning can be! Freedom in the shirt unbuttoned before execution. Equality in the constant speed of the guillotine's fall on different necks. Fraternity in some dubious paradise ...
Havel addressed the liberal democratic West on words in the 1970s, noting that the suppression of speech can give language enormous power: >
I ... live in a country where a writers' congress speech is capable of shaking the system ... a manifesto served as one of the pretexts for the invasion of our country one night by five foreign armies ... a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.
When a system has become inflexible and is in danger of collapsing, what it fears most is words. Think about that the next time you see a phalanx of cops tear down a tent city on television.
Havel had been burned by language, too: >
The same word can at one moment radiate great hope, at another it can emit lethal rays ... true at one moment and false the next, at one moment illuminating, at another, deceptive. On one occasion it can open up glorious horizons, on another, it can lay down the tracks to an entire archipelago of concentration camps.
And as we approach an election year that will be filled with the rhetoric of freedom, this observation still resonates: >
The same word can at one time be the cornerstone of peace, while at another time machine-gun fire resounds in its every syllable.
Control
In 1975 Havel had the presumption to write directly to Czechoslovakian head of state Gustáv Husák with a few suggestions. There's more than a passing resemblance between the fear-driven Communist society Havel condemned in that letter and the financial anxiety many Americans endure today: >
The technique of existential pressure is ... universal. There is no one in our country who is not, in a broad sense, existentially vulnerable. Everyone has something to lose and so everyone has reason to be afraid. The range of things one can lose is broad, extending from the manifold privileges of the ruling caste... down to the mere possibility of living in that limited degree of legal certainty available to other citizens.
Today, one out of two Americans lives in financial insecurity. Even many upper-middle-class citizens live from month to month, just one layoff notice away from medical bankruptcy or home foreclosure.
"Everyone has something to lose," observed Havel.
Havel's description of his 20th Century Communist society echoes our own: >
The more completely one abandons any hope of general reform, any interest in suprapersonal goals and values, or any chance of exercising influence in an 'outward' direction, the more one's energy is diverted in the direction of least resistance, that is, 'inwards.'"
People today are preoccupied far more with themselves ... They fill their homes with all kinds of appliances and pretty things, they try to improve their accommodations, they try to make life pleasant for themselves, building cottages, looking after their cars, taking more interest in food and clothing and domestic comfort ...They turn their main attention to the material aspects of their private lives.
Havel concluded that "Despair leads to apathy, apathy to conformity, and conformity to routine (political) performance - which is then quoted as evidence of 'mass political involvement.'"
Ambition
Havel understood the psychology of greed and power, too. From his letter to Husák: >
If it is fear which lies behind people's defensive attempts to preserve what they have, it becomes increasingly apparent that the chief impulses for their aggressive efforts to win what they do not yet possess are selfishness and careerism.
It is not surprising that so many public and influential positions are occupied more than ever before by notorious careerists, opportunists, charlatans, and men of dubious record.
From Prague to Washington, from Moscow to lower Manhattan, the opportunities change. But human nature never does: >
Seldom in recent times has a social system offered scope so openly and so brazenly to people willing to support anything as long as it brings them some advantage; to unprincipled and spineless men, prepared to do anything in their craving for power and personal gain; to born lackeys, ready for any humiliation and willing at all times to sacrifice their neighbors' and their own honor for a chance to ingratiate themselves with those in power.
Technocracy
It's a historical irony that those who claim they'll govern with the most efficiency usually wind up governing with the least effectiveness. Today corporate-funded politicians from both parties argue that the country should be led by "technocrats' who'll govern without messy "ideologies."
That's a false premise Havel knew well. He called it the "process by which power becomes anonymous and depersonalized, reduced to a mere technology of rule and manipulation."
Washington's technocratic "bipartisans" dream of a world where, in Havel's words, the "professional ruler is (seen as) the 'innocent' tool of an 'innocent' anonymous power ... legitimized by science, cybernetics, ideology, law, abstraction, and objectivity - that is, by everything except personal responsibility to human beings as persons and neighbors." Havel's Prague is our Beltway: >
States grow ever more machinelike; people are transformed into statistical choruses of voters, producers, consumers, patients, tourists, or soldiers, (where) in politics good and evil, categories of the natural world and therefore obsolete remnants of the past, lose all absolute meaning (and where) the sole method of politics is quantifiable success.
Havel condemned a system of state-orchestrated political theater, and the self-perpetuating failures of imagination which mistook the indifferent and pro forma participation of its citizens for genuine democracy. And he saw its universal nature: >
(It) has a thousand masks, variants, and expressions. Essentially, though, it is the same universal trend ... the essential trait of all modern civilization, growing directly from its spiritual structure, rooted in it by a thousand tangled tendrils and inseparable even in thought from its technological nature, its mass characteristics, and its consumer orientation.
"The contemporary concept of 'normal' behavior is," Havel wrote, "deeply pessimistic."
Responsibility
"I favor 'antipolitical politics,'" said Havel, "politics not as the technology of power and manipulation, of cybernetic rule over humans or as the art of the utilitarian, but politics as one of the ways of seeking and achieving meaningful lives, of protecting them and serving them." >
I favor politics as practical morality, as service to the truth, as essentially human and humanly measured care for our fellow humans.
None of us--as an individual--can save the world as a whole, but . . . each of us must behave as though it were in his power to do so.
Decades later he said this to the leaders of Western countries: >
Today, more than ever before in the history of mankind, everything is interrelated ... Because of this, the future of the United States or the European Union is being decided in suffering Sarajevo or Mostar, in the plundered Brazilian rain forests, in the wretched poverty of Bangladesh or Somalia.
Havel had glaring faults. American neocons offered him small favors during his final rise to power. He reciprocated, consciously or unconsciously, by aiding their destructive military ventures and adopting their foolish economic policies. He succumbed to the politics of personality, both his own and those of the leaders who courted him. But it would be a shame if that's all the world remembered.
Havel seemed unhappy in the role of leader. It's possible than he lost sight of his deepest insights, his truest gifts. It was the outsider Havel, the dreamer of the impossible, the surrealist and absurdist, we should remember. That's the Havel who can and should inspire dissidents everywhere.
"Is the human word truly powerful enough to change the world and influence history?" he once asked. With his life and his words, Václav Havel gave us his answer. He showed us the power in each individual and the responsibility that accompanies that power.
At his best, and above all else, Havel was a dissident outsider who realized his power and used it. Now it's our turn.
17 Views
18:24:01 12/17/11
Top 5 Games For The Hardcore Gamer - Press Pause Daily
[LESS INFO] 17 VIEWS | ADDED 18:24:01 12/17/11
Jaime, the Press Pause Christmas Elf is here with a Top 5 list of games to get the hardcore gamer on your Christmas list.
SHOW NOTES:
5.
At number five we have L.A. Noire.
This game places you in the shoes of a cop in 1940’s Los Angeles as you solve crimes, and work your way up the ladder of the LAPD.
This game comes from Rockstar, who is well known for their gritty crime games. It features an engrossing story, and the graphics are some of the best out there.
4.
At number four is the sequel to one of 2009’s best games: Batman Arkham Asylum.
Batman Arkham City picks up a year after the events of the last game. Since then, a large section of Gotham has been sectioned off and turned into a prison for all of the worst of the worst.
The story finds Batman going into Arkham City to discover why the prison was built, and what it’s new warden, Hugo Strange is up to.
Bottom line, it’s Batman, his most famous rouge’s gallery, and a LOT of ass kicking. What more do you need. And hey...everyone wants to be batman.
3.
At number three we have a game that has been shattering sales records across the board: Modern Warfare 3. The latest in Activision’s massively successful Call of Duty series begins exactly where Moder Warfare 2 left off. You will play as several characters as you battle the forces of Russian Ultranationalist Vladimir Makarov.
If your gamer loves the thrill of shooter action, then this is the game for you. They will work their way through an intense single player story, and then they can take the battle online to test their skills against the world.
2.
At number two we have the latest in the long running Legend of Zelda series: Skyward Sword.
This story is set at one of the earliest points in this series’ long running continuity, taking place many years before the events of The Ocarina Of Time.
The game starts off in a floating city of Skyloft. Again you play as a character named Link as he sets out to save his friend Zelda from forces unknown, and have many adventures along the way.
This is the first game made especially for the Wii system, and utilizes the Wii Motion Plus for accurate controls. If your gamer loves Nintendo and the Zelda series, you can’t do wrong with this game.
1.
And last, at number one we have a game that needs no introduction. It is of course The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
There are of course millions of people who have been engrossed in the latest game in Bethesda’s long running game series.
Set 200 years after the end of the last game, you play as a “Dragonborn” as you venture out to defeat Alduin. You will travel the land of Skyrim, which is in the midst of a civil war after the assassination of it’s High King.
Your gamer will find a large open world to play in, non linear gameplay, and many quests to finish. This game will keep your gamer engrossed for hours and hours.
So if they are fans of a good RPG, then this is a definite no-brainer.
Well that will do it for our list of games for the hardcore gamer on your shopping list. We hope that this will be helpful to you, and we hope that you holidays are very special for you and yours. From our family to yours. Happy Holidays.
