Arguably capitalism’s greatest feat in the last century is the almost complete separation of production from consumption. Modern Americans rarely see where anything is produced, whether food or consumer goods. This is an intentional move by corporations to shelter themselves from pressures to produce goods in anything other than brutal conditions that maximize profit.
We simply have no idea of knowing what goods are produced under any sort of labor conditions, but especially prison labor. What corporations are directly benefiting from prison labor? At what point do Americans enter into the process? What responsibility do we have to find out? But because of the extreme capital mobility lauded by the political and economic elite for the last fifty years, we simply have almost no way to find out the answers to the questions.
The state of Louisiana (and the voters themselves) have cut off funding for the last operating ferry in New Orleans. Big deal, right? Who takes the ferry anymore? The answer here is a lot of poor African-Americans coming to work in New Orleans from their homes on the west bank of the river. The ferry has about 1 million pedestrians and 175,000 cars on average. The drivers will be fine, but what about the walkers? How are they supposed to get to work? Part of this is a general American indifference or hostility to public transportation, but of course that feeling has its racial competent, whether it is Atlanta suburbs turning down MARTA service because it was afraid of black people coming into town or the reduction of public transportation services anywhere, since they disproportionately affect the poor and in the United States the poor are usually people of color.
that was the best beer-cation ever! (new belgium brewery, o’dells brewery, funkwerks brewery - not all in one day.) found my new favorite beer - which is unfortunately available only at the brewery, so i had do drink a lot of it. now i am tired and would like to lie down.
Copyrights (2011- Ongoing)
The Google Art Project (http://www.googleartproject.com/) contains several paintings which have had a blur filter applied to them so as to make them unrecognisable. Google explain this decison stating that they were, ‘required to be blurred by the museums for reasons pertaining to copyrights.’
After collecting all of these images by taking screenshots and cropping out the blurred images, they were emailed to oil painting reproduction companies in China (chosen for its own issues with internet censorship and for its ongoing difficulties with Google), where they were painted to the scale of the original painting. These reproductions were shipped back to the UK and now become the art work. (Phil Thompson)
i have been trying not to become completely obsessed with this bjork headpiece (by Maiko Takeda) that she wore at the hollywood bowl show but i am failing. (WOW)
Four Planet Sunset Image Credit & Copyright: Chris Kotsiopoulos. Explanation: You can see four planets in this serene sunset image, created from a series of stacked digital exposures captured near dusk on May 25. The composite picture follows the trail of three of them, Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury (left to right) dropping toward the western horizon, gathered close in last month’s remarkable triple planetary conjunction. Similar in brightness to planet Mercury, the star Elnath (Beta Tauri) is also tracked across the scene, leaving its dotted trail still farther to the right. Of course, in the foreground are the still, shallow waters of Alikes salt lake, reflecting the striking colors of sunset over Kos Island, Greece (APOD)
things the other (longtime) volunteer at the homeless shelter said about homelessness and poverty
- “oh yeah, i support more transitional housing, i think it’s a good idea. i just don’t want it near where i live with my kids, you know?”
- “they’re not exactly health nuts. some of them will take like 5 hard boiled eggs at breakfast.”
- “poverty is such a problem because people keep on doing things in the wrong order. i mean, get married first and then have a family, you know? it’s not rocket science.”
- “i try to put out serving utensils but they’ll just reach for the muffins with their hands.”
This is a particular type of narrative about disability that can appear in fiction and nonfiction, in a wide variety of media. It conceptualises disability in a very specific way, tragedising the lived experience of disabled people and underscoring the idea that disability is the worst thing ever, the most awful imaginable thing that could happen to someone. It collapses all disabled experiences into one umbrella of misery.
i feel like all of tumblr could benefit from this post, because man this place looooooooves it some disability tragedy/inspiration porn
(via scaredystark)
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Andrew O’Hagan reviews ‘The Bling Ring’ by Nancy Jo Sales · LRB 20 June 2013
FOR FUCKING REAL
— Andrew O’Hagan reviews ‘The Bling Ring’ by Nancy Jo Sales · LRB 20 June 2013
