I’m not usually a big fan of animated films.  There have been a few very good ones (such as Toy Story, Shrek and Ratatouille), plenty of terrible ones (such as Shark Tale, Astro Boy and the worst of them all, Resident Evil: Degeneration), and a whole lot of average or overrated ones (in my opinion just about everything else, such as Finding Nemo and Happy Feet).

Accordingly, I approached the latest Pixar/Disney venture, Up, with plenty of scepticism.  I’m not going to discuss the plot – the poster is about as much background as you need.  Anyway, I ended up loving it.

For starters, Up is one of the funniest animated films I’ve ever seen.  It has that Toy Story quirkiness to it, that matter-of-fact approach to completely random and outrageous situations.  There are plenty of WTF? moments, but the execution is so sweet and cute that you can’t help but be captivated, regardless of how crazy it may all seem.

There’s also the wonderful characters – extremely unique characters.  Can you imagine any other film carried by a grumpy old man and a fat little Asian kid (plus a whole bunch of dogs) from start to finish?  Incredible.

Most of all, Up has plenty of heart.  The opening sequence summarising the life of old Carl Fredericksen up to that point is one of the most bittersweet and moving I’ve seen in any film.  And when he comes on board, the back story of Russell the kid is also very touching.  The balance between humour and drama and action is handled brilliantly, each hitting the spot at the crucial moments.

And did I mention the amazing animation?  The gorgeous blend of colours and crisp textures, coupled with the beautiful scenery and perfect character design, took the exuberance and warmth to a whole new level.

Granted, Up is not perfect – it started off wonderfully but dipped a little towards the middle before picking itself back up before the end, but on the whole it is hands down one of the best animated movies I’ve had the pleasure of watching.

4.5 stars out of 5!

Artemisia, Antonia, Aurelia, Arabella, Clara, Clementine, Cleopatra, Crescentia, Dulcinea, Ernestine, Ebelina, Eloisa, Fenella, Fernanda, Genevieve, Gwendoline, Hazel, Hortencia, Imogen, Idahlia, Ishbel, Lucinda, Louella, Leagora, Linnea, Margaret, Maddalena, Maple, Madelie, Nataline, Ophelie, Octavia, Orlantha/Orlanda, Polly, Romilly, Rosalie, Tallulah, Valentina, Violet.

Abraham, Cato, Ezekiel, Emmett, Evander, Edward, Hugo, Ira, Jay, Lazarus, Lysander, Leander, Ned, Orlando, Perrin, Rupert, Russell, Sullivan, Thomas, Theodore, Willoughby.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

reż. Ken Russell

Jest taka scena w “The Devils”, w której Oliver Reed fechtuje (!) żywym (rzekomo) krokodylem. Jak na film mówiący o wolności, zrzucaniu kajdan, miłości, ale też o histerii, paranoi i co tam chcecie, to jest NIE LADA dokonanie. A nawet w najbardziej przejebanych scenach, Russell zachowuje poważną twarz! Rewia nadużyć w imię humanizmu i zaginiona, wycięta scena, w której zakonnica masturbuje się kością spalonego księdza = KULTOWOŚĆ. W tym przypadku całkiem uzasadniona.

3.5 / 5

obejrzane 13 listopada 2009 r.

Nalaga sera titulaire samedi

Il faudra gagner face à Bourgoin et Vern Cotter, le coach de l’ASM, a donc décidé d’apporter quelques retouches à l’équipe qui a perdu contre Biarritz (13-16) le week-end dernier.

Cinq matches que les Jaune et Bleu n’ont plus connu la victoire. Et si les rugbymen de l’ASM ne veulent pas se faire distancer avec le haut du tableau, il va falloir remettre le bleu de chauffe et corriger Bourgoin samedi (match à 19 h au Stade Marcel-Michelin et en direct sur Canal+ Sport). Oui mais voilà, entre les matchs internationaux et les blessures, le staff a dû composer pour construire une équipe compétitive.

Le 5 de devant, convaincant face à Biarritz, devrait être reconduit. Seul changement à noter, la remplacement de Wepener, touché au genou et qui ne sera même pas sur le banc, par Cabello – et non Ledesma comme envisagé, même si ce dernier est bien dans le groupe. De retour de l’équipe de France, Lapandry s’assiéra lui aussi sur le banc de touche. Tandis que la troisième ligne ressemblera à celle du week-end dernier.

Là où les entraîneurs ont décidé d’effectuer le plus de changements c’est dans les lignes arrières. Rougerie se placera au centre, Baby à l’arrière et Floch lui sur le banc. Russel reprendra sa place au centre et Nalaga retrouve sa place à l’aile.

Le groupe clermontois.- Avants : Debaty, Faure, Ric, Zirakashvili, Cabello, Ledesma, Wepener, Cudmore, Pierre, Privat, Samson, Audebert, Lapandry, Vermeulen. Arrières : Radosavljevic, Senio, James, Baby, Fofana, Malzieu, Nalaga, Rougerie, Russell, Floch.

Composition probable : Faure, Cabello, Zirakashvili – Privat, Pierre – Audebert, Vermeulen, Cudmore – Senio, James – Nalaga, Rougerie, Russell, Malzieu – Baby.

J-B

Du côté Bourgoin,trois joueurs sont incertains. L’ailier fidjien Albert Vulivuli, le demi de mêlée John Senio et le 3e ligne centre Yann Labrit pourraient bien de pas pouvoir tenir leurs rangs. Des soucis supplémentaires pour les entraîneurs berjalliens déjà privés de Benjamin Boyet, Karena Wihongi, Albin Louchard, Anthony Forest, Thomas Genevois et Sylvain Nicolas…

I tried to be positive about the TV schedule tonight, but alas…all my positive energy could not save the night that was, this thursday. I cant believe a Thursday TV Night let me down…darn you thanksgiving…darn you.

Just because it’s thanksgiving doesnt mean TV can have a night off! sigh…

Back to being a positive TV fan…Here’s a wrap up of thursday night’s TV:

Survivor- the dreaded “recap” show…SUCH a let down for every Survivor fan…you are always hoping they have FINALLY scraped this annual show…but every season it still rears it’s ugly head on an unexpected Thursday sometime mid-way through the season. But we did get to see more of Russell’s shrewd game-playing, Chicken-catching escapades (which should be a show in itself…think about it…), Shambo being irritating and self-important and people trying to sleep in the pouring rain (ruing the day they signed up for the game thinking it would bring them fame).

A new episode has been promised to us for next week… and it looks like Shambo becomes a ” Shaman” predicting the outcome of the game, and Russell continues to dictate the outcome of the game…can he be stopped?

People of the Year Special— You just want to know who they were right? Well, you’re welcome:

• Susan Boyle (shows the power of YouTube…and Simon Cowell)
• Sully (guy lands an airplane in a river…he deserves a visit/interview from Matt Lauer…)
• Kobe Bryant (wasnt he like…so 3 years ago?)
• Pirate Hostage (yes, pirates…they exist and they all look like Johnny Depp…)
• Octo Mom (If you came in late…you thought Matt was talking to Angelina…doppelganger…creepy.)
• Taylor Swift (so cute, so pretty, so talented…so rudely interrupted)

If you were wondering if any show could go an entire hour WITHOUT an MJ tribute…this wasnt it. Sorry…

So Americans were busy eating their weight in turkey and playing football (watching football…lets be honest) , leaving the rest of us to struggle for thursday night entertainment on our own… I tried, better luck next thursday TV Fans!

The time has come…we knew it would happen, but it doesn’t make it any less painful and depressing…The” end of the year hiatus” for many of our favourite shows is upon us.

With Finales everywhere you turn in the coming weeks…I have to work harder and harder to find TV to watch everynight. But do not fret. No need to actually make plans.

Here’s a list of what you can watch tonight:

Survivor- Ol’ faithful. This show won’t end for awhile, giving us a reason to continue to stay in on thursday nights. If you have NOT been watching, and are thinking of tuning in…(shame on you) let me give you a refresher: Russell is reinventing this game. He may look like a southern Pillsbury dough boy, but I warn you…when you look past the outer shell of this man, you’ll see he is not only hateable, scheming and cunning – he is also one of the best “players’ of this game. He has found every hidden immunity idol (with no clues), he has an entire team wrapped around his finger, he has managed to make (mullett) Shambo smitten and follow his every move, he makes the decision on who gets the vote every week…and no one SEES this! He is a reason 1-100 to tune in tonight… CBS /Global 8pm

Warning: CSI and Greys are both re-runs tonight…see you in January (explains why Greys had a thanksgiving-christmas- new years themed episode last week…shameful).

Other Options:

• Sports: NFL on sportsnet, Sens game on TSN
• NBC People of the Year Special – (interesting timing on this one… what if someone else stages a stunt BETTER than Balloon boy between now and December 31st?) Tune in tonight to see who the (obvious) choices will be (hint: she’s won ever award in music this year, and was rudely interrupted)  NBC 9pm
• A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving- it only airs ONCE per year, so if you’re into the Peanuts Seasonal Movie thing…this classic is airing tonight at 8pm on ABC
• Are you in the mood for a good movie (not of the Peanuts variety)? Cinderella Man (filmed almost entirely in Toronto, and stars Renee Zellwegger and Russel Crowe) is showing on A-channel, 8pm

Whatever you decide to watch tonight (make sure it’s Survivor…) have a great TV Night.

Bartholomew Augustin, Bartholomew Avery James, Bartholomew Dexter,

Bartholomew Elliot Steven, Bartholomew Elias, Bartholomew Eli,

Bartholomew Ezra,Bartholomew Fergus, Bartholomew Frank,

Bartholomew Felix, Bartholomew George,Bartholomew Harvey,

Bartholomew Idris, Bartholomew Isidore, Bartholomew Julian,

Bartholomew Jasper, Bartholomew Jude, Bartholomew Jago,

Bartholomew Marley,Bartholomew Miles, Bartholomew Moses,

Bartholomew Osric, Bartholomew Ofir,Bartholomew Pierce

, Bartholomew Rafael, Bartholomew Russell, Bartholomew Toby,

Bartholomew Thomas.

A stone’s throw from Jerusalem
A walked a lonely mile in the moonlight
And though a million stars were shining
My heart was lost on a distant planet

Sir Gordon Sting Sumner wrote those powerful, and by powerful I mean campy and by campy I mean downright batty, words after a night of heavy tantric sex coupled with hennessey, no doubt, and incidentally  gave me a perfect ruse to piss the hell out of unsuspecting telemarketers. This song is my current ringtone. I make it a point to not answer any calls I receive immediately and instead wait for a while,  right till the point the caller is turns blue with crippling rage - and I have ably timed this by conducting varied experiments with my friends – usually its right when the goat like blustering accompanies the piano right towards the end. If they manage to persist beyond this point without losing their sanity or their ear drums, I find them deserving of a conversation with me and proceed to answer with a calm “Hello” in a Katie Hepburn voice followed by psalms read out in Orthodox Russian tradition. It’s an amazingly well thought of annoyance, if you put your money down, don’t you think? Sets those Shaadi.com solicitors right.

As you can percieve, my date is over.

He was hit by car while postulating about the finer points of oligarchical economies. A most sad end to a rather dull evening, I’ll admit. On the other hand, I am now free to go watch “Waltz with Bashir” for the 30th time. So, all’s not lost.

In life, as in love, one must always look at the silver lining before that hoary stick of thunder chars the last bone in one’s body. (Bertrand Russell)

Brandon Rogers, who has been co-writing and co-tracking with Anoop, just tweeted (4:30 PM EST November 24, 2009):

http://twitter.com/brandonrogersLA/status/6019629808

“Working on the first mix of @AnoopDoggDesai ’s new song, “My Name”… Sounding good people.”

Also, during the live chat hosted by AI Now, Anoop wrote:

“Just finished recording a song called “My Name” that has a lot of bhangra influence, and another called “Not Like This” that we’re recording wtih Russell Ali. Russ, Brandon and I will be working together a lot I think. It’s a great vibe.”

Sometimes it’s hard for me to tell apart the boundaries of my emotions. So I prefer the vague discourse. I revel in a little ambiguity. As what it is ambiguous can be judged in many ways, I don’t risk so much getting it wrong.

Feeling good, feeling bad, feeling ok… These expressions don’t actually mean much, but they are comfortable. The precise naming of a feeling is a dangerous endeavor. What it is named tends to become reality, through the wonderful mechanism of self-fulfilling prophecy.

It was late before the two guests left and Russell was alone with Lady Ottoline. They sat talking over the fire until four in the morning. Russell, recording the event a few days later, wrote, “I did not know I loved you till I heard myself telling you so — for one instant I thought ‘Good God, what have I said?’ and then I knew it was the truth.” [Clark, 1975, p. 176]

(from Daniel Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained)

pongamos que creo en la fraternidad universal, me uno a otros que creen lo mismo en una asociación o un partido y finalmente nuestras creencias se imponen en la sociedad. si al lado existe un país belicoso que crea lo contrario, y entramos en guerra, necesito la bomba atómica para asegurar la victoria de la sociedad que yo considero correcta. pero eso no es muy fraternal, ¿no? si me dejo invadir porque carezco de armas, muere mi idea. si utilizo la fuerza y aplasto a mis hermanos, también.

pues vaya reflexión matutina. ¿te pongo un bol de cereales?

sí. es que ayer vi un documental sobre civilizaciones antiguas. los únicos que no eran nos perros de presa eran los minoicos, ¿y sabes qué les pasó?

no.

que se los tragó el mar.

¿y eso?

una ola gigante, después de la erupción de un volcán. decía el documental que de no ser por este hecho fortuito habría cambiado la historia, y hacía suponer que para mejor, porque era una sociedad muy avanzada, igualitaria y justa, pero no estoy de acuerdo en absoluto. estaban rodeados de imperios con ganas de guerrear. de no haber sucumbido al tsunami, lo hubieran hecho bajo el ejército que tocara. o habrían aprendido peores artes para defenderse de sus enemigos.

osea, que más vale comprar una pistola que un libro de filosofía.

exacto.

mejor Kalashnikov que Wittgenstein.

fesstivamente.

Es gibt neue Bilder auf unserer Homepage: 
Retro-Mops-Girlie Henriette (Bina)
Klick bitte hier.

Und von Lexy (Mara) habe ich gestern dieses Bild bekommen.
Herrchen und Frauchen schrieben mir, dass Lexy teilweise so schnell im Laub zwischen den Bäumen rumgerannt sei, dass man hätte denken können, sie stamme von einem Leoparden ab.

Retro-Mops.net

Ever been on a moving vehicle and been crazy scared? Ever been on a moving house and been out of your mind frightened? It’s not the easiest to know when someone is scared, but when I saw a woman on the subway with her arms stretched out and looking a bit frightened she reminded me of Russell in Up (the Movie). This was pretty funny and a few were laughing at her, not me of course. I don’t do that sort of thing.

Natalie at the Reward Challenge

For the third time in a row, Russell find the immunity idol.  Russell is just a magnet for the immunity idols.  Here is how it happened.  Winning the reward challenge, Russel and his team were able to get a clue for the idol.  The clue was a video message that the idol was hidden under a mossy rock.  When they get back, everyone’s looking for the idol.  Russell is being followed by everyone because they don’t want him to get it.  He spots the likely place and jogs away to lose everyone and then comes back and gets the idol.  This time he doesn’t tell anyone.  Telling someone you have the idol is not a very good move in Survivor as they always make you play it or send you home with it. 

When Laura doesn’t win the immunity challenge, its the perfect time to send her home.  Shambo says Laura is the “bane of her existence”, meaning someone that is a constant irritant to you.  We have all those, right? The Galu tribe actually come up with a somewhat plausible plan to save Laura.  They tell Foa Foa to vote off John and they would vote for him too as they don’t trust them.  Russell sees through it, and it comes down to a tie with the Galus voting for Natalie.  They decide on Natalie, I guess because she helped win the reward challenge.  All of the Foas vote Laura.  It is a tie, which means they will vote again.  If there is another tie, then each of the tribe members will have to draw rocks.  Russell seems a bit nervous.  But, on the second vote John changes his mind and votes for Laura too.  I think he did it to show allegiance to Russell and Shambo.  And, he thinks Galu has very poor strategy.  Unfortunately, I think he might be targeted next week.

Inanity, Intrigue and Inigo Montoya

November 20th, 2009

In the promos for the season finale of Season Six of Project Runway, Lifetime uses dramatic music and a deep-voiced announcer to try to build suspense for the big reveal. However, in their language, they have something wrong: they create anticipation for the reveal of who is “the next big name in fashion,” and my immediate response is “who cares?”

See, what works about Project Runway is that it transfers the aesthetics of the fashion industry into terms that are unrelated to the fashion industry. I know nothing about fashion, but I know a lot about what Nina Garcia likes to see in fashion, or what the series values in terms of creativity. It’s created an audience that, even if they have no knowledge of the fashion industry, have gained knowledge of what Project Runway considers fashion. As such, rather than caring about what these young designers do in the context of the fashion industry, we care about how they situate themselves within the show’s cast of characters from seasons past. For a viewer like me, Bryant Park is the setting of the finale of Project Runway, not a global fashion event, which is why Lifetime language is demonstrative of the season’s failures: I don’t care if they’re a big name in fashion, I want them to be a big name for Project Runway.

And I can confirm that Irina, Althea and Carol Hannah will not be names to remember, a fact which has more to do with the way the show treated them than it does with their individual personalities and talent. And while we’ll never know if this season would have been more interesting if it were in New York, and if the production company hadn’t changed, what we do know is that Season Six failed to provide both the next big name in fashion and a single memorable name for this franchise.

[A few more thoughts on Project Runway, and then some thoughts on both Top Chef and Survivor, with spoilers after the jump...]

I won’t spend any more time identifying what went wrong this season, as Linda Holmes at NPR has pretty much done that for me, but I want to say that Irina is about the perfect winner for the season. She had the most sense of character and the most interesting point of view, but was still ultimately uninteresting and lacking in identity, fitting the season perfectly. I didn’t think her collection was actually that interesting, but compared to Carol Hannah’s (which lacked cohesion) and Althea’s (which lacked clarity – there’s a difference) it was about as close to a winning collection the season could get.

And while some eliminations this season have been impossible to predict thanks to the confusing mismatch of judges, this one was really easy to see coming based on the judges’ deliberation. You could sense the judges were struggling to come up with something to say about each designer: these final critiques are always more positive than negative, and yet you could sense that the positives were all more dull than you could imagine. You could sense the judges trying to pretend as if there was ever a sense of consistency in the design aesthetics: my favourite was Heidi describing Carol Hannah, which I’ll now quote for you.

“You do see Carol Hannah, you see her point of view, and she loves dresses, and she’s impeccable in her tailoring…I mean that’s…what has…made her get this far, because she’s always been very good at that.”

So her point of view is dresses and impeccable tailoring, and the reason she got this far is because she was very good at it. Right there, with all the stammering pauses intact, you have the problem: she had no point of view except making acceptable clothes decently. Michael Kors had a similarly laughable moment when he described Althea as “very plugged into the street,” which made me guffaw. None of these designers could possibly be street-smart, and it was as if they were so desperate to distinguish these designers from one another that they needed to pigeonhole them into one idea. It made for a really hilarious sequence as you could sense things unraveling, and yet they could do nothing but plug on through and pretend that this really was the most dramatic finale of all time.

What’s interesting about Survivor (yep, this is a segueway) this season is that, for a show that often creates drama where there is none in an effort to make the final tribal council interesting, the producers have been able to sit back and watch people self-destruct over the past three weeks. Never before has a merge created quite this much chaos, and I’m sure Mark Burnett is giddy about the whole thing: I’m not sure I can remember the last time I’ve sat through the last quarter of this many episodes in a row. I fell into a pattern a while ago that I would effectively stop watching the show in its entirety after the immunity challenge, knowing that (because of how common pecking orders are, and because of how rarely the immunity idol was in play) the result was inevitable, and there were only a few occasions where something surprising happened during my fastforwarding that would result in me going back to see how it went down.

But after the merge, the self-destruction within the Galu tribe (who were dominant early on) has been a joy to watch – as Erik, sitting on the jury after being the victim of the first set of bizarre circumstances, said last night, “Man, this is some good shit.” After last week saw the Galu tribe fail to listen to Monica and plan some sort of contingency in case Russell managed to find the hidden immunity idol (which he did), resulting in Kelly leaving the game, this week was all about the Galu tribe running around like chickens with their heads cut off. When things finally get to tribal council, the sides are tied at 5, and when John eventually switches sides in order to avoid the drawing of rocks (which could send himself or anyone else home) it’s yet another moment where Galu realizes that they are not, in fact, a tribe anymore. What’s interesting about John is that he is really part of the problem here: I think that Galu would have simply picked off a Foa Foa member in that first week if he hadn’t first suggested taking off Monica, which was the information Erik got burned on as a messenger, so he’s sort of the one who set this all in motion. As such, it’s fitting he puts the final nail in the coffin in what was a really engaging final tribal council. The first merge episode had the frantic switchover that got rid of Eric, last week had Russell’s cagey Idol play, and this week saw John kill Galu for good – a very eventful, and very strong, period for Survivor.

Top Chef, meanwhile, sort of had an off week. This isn’t to suggest that I didn’t like the end result, which has the always likely Final Four come together after Jennifer manages to throw off her demons to win the Quickfire and place respectably in the Elimination Challenge in earning a spot in the Napa Valley finale, which sees Eli sent home. The episode was about the camaraderie of the chefs, as they seemed to all get along and there was a whole lot of emotion to be found in the final sequence was Eli basically admits that he’s okay going home at this stage considering the people who are going on instead (which was especially sad after Eli had turned himself into an Inigo Montoya figure for his mentor Richard Blais earlier in the episode). I didn’t particularly like Eli, but the rest of the chefs did and as a result I found his departure interesting.

However, I think that (to bring this all full circle) the actual challenge suffered because I really had no idea what this supposed “Culinary Olympics” was really about, and more problematically the show couldn’t actually judge based on that sort of criteria considering the amount of time given to the chefs. I understand that they wanted to try to capture the spirit of the event, but while Project Runway has turned Bryant Park into a life long goal that everyone aspires to this competition came out of nowhere and had too little meaning for me to be all that excited about. It also created a strange scenario where the judging was supposed to be based on who best captured the spirit of the event, and yet because nobody really went wild with zucchini baskets or anything similar it ended up coming down to whose food tasted the best, which is why Kevin was ultimately named the winner even when many judges felt Bryan had the most potential within the context of this type of competition. I don’t doubt Kevin deserved to win based on some criteria, but considering the nature of this competition he himself admitted he didn’t show enough technique, so the judges seemed to ignore that aspect of the challenge in favour of simply feeling Kevin best-executed “food” and thus wins the $30,000.

It just goes to show you that there’s only so much you can do in an hour of reality television: sometimes you try to make an exciting season sound interesting, sometimes you have everything go perfectly and barely need to touch a thing, and in another instance you have a big idea that just never translates well into the competition (unless my lack of knowledge of Thomas Keller in some way destroyed my ability to see the challenge as a really big deal).

Cultural Observations

• My favourite thing about the Runway finale was that we had the prior knowledge of the fact that, since this was taped during the period of legal limbo for the show, nobody knew who the designers were and thus they couldn’t actually be seen by the crowd and the media. What this means is that any time you saw any of the contestants watching the show, or saw the families, or saw the designers on the runway, that was all staged either before or after the fact (note how no one but the other designers comment on any contestant by name). What I loved is how, even if I hadn’t known that, the awkwardness of the introductions would have tipped me off: they were clearly uncomfortable with the charade.
• Does anyone have any verdict on Models of the Runway? I stopped watching after about two weeks, and I found that the models were total non-entities for me as a result – I can’t imagine watching another 30-minutes of this terrible season every week, but I did miss not caring about Irina’s model in any capacity when she won.
• My one complaint with Survivor is that they “gamed” the game too much in terms of trying to turn the “Immunity Idol” scavenger hunt that Russell invented into an actual part of the gameplay setup. It was way too easy to find when they were given a visual clue, and while it resulted in the “chase through the woods sequence” and got a good moment out of Dave being oh-so-close to finding it, I thought that it was a bit cheap and sort of took the spontaneity out of Russell’s genius.
• I’ve had no issues with Kevin’s beard on Top Chef this season, as I believed it to be awesome, but then this week we saw what happens when he doesn’t spike his hair at all. It totally makes the beard look about 5x mangier, and the longish greasy hair he had in the preview for next week made it look even more ridiculous. The different hair at Napa (Padma had bangs, Jennifer’s was curly) totally took me out of the show, which really does say something about me, doesn’t it?

This is the fourth installment in a series of posts on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow. You might also want to take a look at the previous posts (first, second & third).

At both levels, the individual and the collective, what prevents flow from occurring is either the fragmentation of attentional processes (as in anomie and attentional disorders), or their excessive rigidity (as in alienation and self-centeredness). At the individual level anomie corresponds to anxiety, while alienation corresponds to boredom. (Csikszentmihalyi 2002: 86.)

I won’t talk about the collective level here – I’m not politically-minded enough – but confess I have fallen victim to both anxiety and boredom. Very – too – often I find myself paralysed by anxiety, my thoughts flying here, there and everywhere, not allowing me to concentrate on otherwise enjoyable activities. The mere existence of future projects or current unfinished assignments can trap me into a never-ending cycle of worry. Anxiety may also trigger unhealthy degrees of navel-gazing, although this is more likely to happen as a result of boredom, a failure to occupy my time in meaningful ways. Whatever the cause, navel-gazing can be equally distracting and destructive to flow.

What to do? How can I conquer anxiety and boredom? I don’t have any answers, but I suspect one key might be to take things a day at a time (something I was reminded of while reading, of all things, a rather nice Russell Brand interview in The Sunday Times). Being more mindful of the here and now. I struggle with an over-active mind and find it hard to let thoughts slip away when doing yoga; my one teenage experience with meditation (on a school visit to a Buddhist centre) was decidedly a negative one. I’ve never been able to count down from ten without thinking and I hate the exercise where you’re supposed to start over every time your thoughts wonder. “Ten…ten…ten…nine…no, wait I just cheated…ten…” In one word: frustrating.

But perhaps that’s precisely what I should do: meditate. Allow the mind to sit still even if it doesn’t want to do so. Any experiences? Suggested reading?

Så när jag färskade upp min grundläggande kunskap om anarkistiskt tänkande kom jag över två fina citat som har mycket gemensamt, och, tror jag, en stor kärna sanning:

Alla som har haft med barn att göra vet att de är nyfikna och kreativa. De vill utforska saker och komma underfund med vad som händer.  Mycket av skolans verksamhet går ut på att driva ut detta ur dem och få dem att passa i en form, få dem att uppföra sig väl, sluta tänka, inte ställa till besvär.

Noam Chomsky, samtal med David Barsamian (Propagandans makt, Ordfront 2002)

Jag har i alla fall anekdotiskt, personligt bevis för denna tes. Skulle vara förvånad om det inte fanns några studier om det. 

Barnasinnet är mjukt. Det är så lätt att bringa det till underkastelse med hjälp av skrämseln. Det är det de [härskande] göra. De göra det ängslig och tala till det om helvetets pina; de omtala för det de fördömda själarnas lidande, en oförsonlig gudoms hämnd. Nästa ögonblick tala de till det om revolutionens fasor; de använda revolutionens spöke för att göra barnet till en “vän av ordningen”.

Peter Kropotkin (Anarkismens moral, Tragus 2004)

…Men nu är spökena mer subtila idag. Man kan så klart imponeras av Kropotkins fina prosa, men som alltid är det nog Lord Russell som gör det bäst:

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

August 21st 2009, the bridge over the Broadmeadow Estuary collapsed moments after a Commuter train went over it. As a result, over the past 3 months, there has been  bus replacements and endless traffic jams. On the 16th of November 2009, the Northern Commuter and Belfast line reopened.

(c)www.rte.ie

I thought as soon as this would happen, bus users like my good self wouldn’t have to endure half as much traffic. I FORGOT, I DON’T LIVE IN AN IDEAL WORLD. Monday morning, the M1, one of the most important road networks in the state had roadworks, resulting in the 120km/h limit being reduced to sod all km/h. I honestly could of walked faster. I thought, maybe when the trains return, there will be less people on the road. NOOOO!! There is as many now.

So it does look as if I am going to have to move out in Feburary as I really cannot hack this travelling to and from college. For example, yesterday I was in at 10am for lectures, had various Club & Soc stuff, went to the DCU Drama LOAFS (which were very very good) and was in the studio learning  radioy thing from Nessy (link to her blog on the right hand side) , and after all this I went to the bar afterwards. Got home at 11.40! And was back in at 9am this morning. Horrible. If I lived near campus, I wouldn’t be half as dead as I am now,  but instead I am almost dead.

And whilst I’m ranting, how disgusting is it that I must pay €7.70 for a day return ticket on Bus Eireann, yet the Dublin Bus 5 Day Student Rambler is €15, which you can get on a bus at 6am and stay on the bus all day until 11pm and not pay anything more than €15.  Total robbery I tell you.

So in short, my rant of the day, based as usual on transport: Bus Eireann are a rip of; there shouldn’t be roadworks during peaktimes on the M1, the trains should try not to go into the river, and I need to begin finishing my essay.

Adieu

1. Indianapolis Colts – Staying perfect and playing in great game means this team is easily number 1.
2. New Orleans Saints – Experts have been saying for a while this team is struggling but at the end of the day they are still perfect.
3. Minnesota Vikings – You can only beat the teams that are put in front of you.
4. Cincinnati Bengals – Another great performance against a divisional rival means this team deserve to be this high.
5. New England Patriots – Looked good for 3 quarters versus the Colts but need to finish games.
6. San Diego Chargers – Could take over the divison lead with a win versus Denver.
7. Arizona Cardinals – Finally they win at home.
8. Pittsburgh Steelers – Huge game to lose on Sunday and yet again it showed how important Polamalu is.
9. Dallas Cowboys – Romo and the offence looked really really bad on Sunday night.
10. Denver Broncos – Orton being hurt actually showed how much they need him.
11. Green Bay Packers – A good win versus the Cowboys showed there is still life in this team.
12. Baltimore Ravens – The Bengals actually helped the Ravens by beating Pittsburgh.
13. Houston Texans – A must win game versus the Titans soon.
14. Jacksonville Jaguars – MJD is playing well and this helps the team to win.
15. Atlanta Falcons – They need a healthy Michael Turner.
16. New York Giants – Their position actually improved without playing.
17. Philadelphia Eagles – They need to win a game again soon.
18. Carolina Panthers – Panthers are finally running the ball well.
19. Miami Dolphins – Brown will be badly missed.
20. San Francisco 49ers – Defence is playing well.
21. Chicago Bears – Cutler continues to struggle and looks like a waste of several draft picks.
22. New York Jets – The defence is struggling and it is hurting this team.
23. Tennessee Titans – One of the hottest teams in the NFL at the moment.
24. Washington Redskins – A good win versus Denver shows that this team can actually play.
25. Seattle Seahawks – This team continues to struggle.
26. Buffalo Bills – Sacking Jauron should have happened in the last off season.
27. Kansas City Chiefs – This team needs to move on from the whole Larry Johnson incident.
28. Oakland Raiders – Russell must be just about be done as starting QB, yet another great draft pick by Davis.
29. St Louis Rams – They keep playing hard and so that is a good point.
30. Detroit Lions – A chance to win another game this week versus the Lions.
31. Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Josh Freeman is a plus point for this team.
32. Cleveland Browns – This team is probably worse than the 08 Lions and that is saying something.

Hey folks, it’s been awhile since we updated the blog but now we have great news. Last February 2009 we got UH administrators to terminate their business relationship with Russell Athletic because of labor violations in their plant in Honduras. Use the search box to find earlier related posts for that history. Anyway, after the largest boycott in the history of modern student activism, Russell agreed to reopen the factory immediately and hire 1,200 workers. Here’s the post from United Students Against Sweatshops listserv:

Read about our victory in the New York Times!

Just over a year ago, Russell Athletic announced it would close Jerzees de Honduras in response to workers’ organizing efforts. During that year, USAS organized the largest boycott in the history of modern student activism. Now, as a direct result of our efforts, we have won an unprecedented victory — the company has agreed to meet worker demands to reopen the factory and re-hire all 1200 workers, who have been without jobs for 10 months or more. View the details of the agreement here.

Landmark Victory: A Precedent is Set
This is one of the most significant youth-led campaign victories in recent times and one of the most significant campaign victories of the global justice movement. No one has ever forced a multinational corporation to reopen a facility it shut down in the global race to the bottom. This victory has also proven that together, we can successfully fight back when those in power take advantage of the economic crisis to attack working people. We should take strength and inspiration from the example of the workers of Jerzees de Honduras. We can fight back — and WIN — against policies that benefit a privileged few and hurt our communities.

Thank You!
Your campus organizing, e-mails, faxes, phone calls, direct action and donations were essential to winning this campaign. We are standing on the shoulders of previous generations of activists. We built on top of USAS victories of the past twelve years, from the sit-ins in the late 1990s that resulted in supply chain transparency and university labor codes of conduct to the formation of the Worker Rights Consortium in 2000. As Russell and SITRAJERZEESH work to implement this agreement, please continue to support our efforts by making a tax-deductible donation to USAS. We need your continued support to sustain our movement.

The struggle continues! ¡La lucha sigue!

In solidarity,

United Students Against Sweatshops

NEW YORK, Nov. 18 (UPI) –

Sportswear manufacturer Russell Athletic has agreed to rehire 1,200 Honduran workers it laid off after they unionized, the company announced.

The decision follows pressure by students and officials at U.S. colleges and universities intended to get the company to reinstate the employees, who were let go in January when the company closed the factory where they worked, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Administrators from 89 schools — including Georgetown, UCLA, Boston College, Columbia, Harvard, New York University, Stanford, Michigan and North Carolina — joined in the campaign, called United Students Against Sweatshops, the newspaper said.

As part of the campaign, colleges and universities either suspended or terminated licensing agreements through which Russell made athletic wear bearing school logos. Some of the agreements were worth more than $1 million in sales, the Times said.

The pressure campaign included pickets at NBA games, distribut…

See the full post at Russell will rehire 1,200 union workers

It’s not often that I watch a cartoon that I really enjoy and keep on quoting, but these wonderful scenes from the latest Disney Pixar movie “Up” I just can’t get over The movie itself is an interesting creation with very serious themes such as death of a loved one, loneliness, an absent father, inability to have children, and how to let go when a loved one dies mixed in with lots of silly stuff and laughable characters. The movie is held in a surprisingly melancholy tone, and yet it’s uplifting with beautiful, bright colors and delightful music throughout the movie. It’s definitely worth watching!

Meet Russell and Mr. Fredrickson:

And the dog, Doug:

Blessings, Torben

UPDATE – AUCTION HERE: http://myworld.ebay.com/iowajulz/

Attention Art Lovers!

You may know the story of Manie, the baby born with Transposition of the Great Arteries (video link – see also: footage of Manie crying after his air tube was removed – mom unable to hold him as a newborn -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHuCMcnihj8). The family has a case pending against GSK for Manie’s heart defect caused by Paxil, a case which is not moving quickly… and medical travel expenses for Manie are hitting the family hard.

Currently dad Russell is looking for work and Julie is unable to work due to caring for Manie and her other kids. The family is now auctioning off some of their artwork. Check back for updates and additional photos, paintings, and other artwork being submitted for auction.

Ten percent of the sales will be donated back to the UNITE / MADNAP cause for public awareness to help save other babies. For more information on how we utilize donations send an email to amy@uniteforlife.org.

To donate commissioned artwork or other goods to this auction, contact Julie & Russell at give2manie@yahoo.com.

We welcome artwork by children or adults, professional or not. Any other items you would like to donate to the family for an auction, as well as direct monetary donations, are appreciated. The auction will most likely run on eBay through December 25.

Here are some samples of the amazing artwork by Julie & Russell (stay tuned for updates):

Who’s America
http://wp.me/phViU-vK

Tattoo
http://wp.me/shViU-tattoo