Being in Cape Town for business on Sunday night we decided to have supper somewhere and we landed up at the Vangate mall. I was really hungry and we went to Spur. The seating was a lot like the Mango flight we had just come on – very little leg room. If the tables were a bit more comfortable I’m sure it will do good for business.

Anyway, I ordered a fillet steak 270g and after having eaten a few times at the halal Spur in Argyle road, Durban, I was really surprised when I was served a decent looking size of steak – juicy and tender! It tasted great and the friendly waitress even offered us some free chips to try their new ‘masala’ source. I suppose she didnt know we were Indians from Durban and the source really didnt go down well with us. It tasted a lot like a Capetown impression of what a Durban masala chutney tastes like. Stick to the steaks O Kaapies as I can tell you – I havent tasted anything like that in the Spur in Durban, a place I now seldom visit.

R99 well spent on that fillet steak.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Chief of Facilities, Alan

Sumeriski, announced today that motorists can expect single lane closures

on the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge Spur and on the Gatlinburg Bypass beginning

November 2 and extending through mid-January.  No work will be allowed from

noon on Fridays to Monday mornings or on holidays or the week between

Christmas and New Year’s.

A contractor will utilize single lane closures along the Spur to

allow workers to clear the brush along the shoulders of the road and to cut

back overhanging branches, to increase the clearance for tractor trailers

and large RV’s.   On the two-way Gatlinburg Bypass flaggers will control

traffic flow around one-lane closures.

“We scheduled the work so as to get it done between the heavy October

leaf season traffic and the worst of the winter weather.” Sumeriski said.

“We also plan to begin on the Bypass rather than the Spur to avoid impacts

motorists who are only travelling to Gatlinburg and back without going into

the Park. By the time the Bypass is completed, traffic should taper off

even more than it will earlier in November.”

“It’s all about safety.” Sumeriski said, “Brush at the edges of the

roadway limits a driver’s sight distance around the road’s tight curves,

reducing his or her reaction time to stalled traffic or obstructions.

Overhanging limbs either strike the tops of higher vehicles, or cause their

drivers to edge away from the road’s edge, sometimes creating a hazard as

they crowd the vehicles in the adjoining lane.”

NPS

Bob Miller
Management Assistant
Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The recovery is too weak to end stimulus moves, top economies say as Britain suggests a financial transaction tax to fund bailouts…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: france recession. The blog is also related to: world recession.

(CFD.net.au – Contract for Difference, Share, Forex, ETFs, Commodities Traders) –

October 9, 2009

The Purchase, New York, maker of drinks and Frito-Lay snacks earned $US1.72 billion ($A1.93 billion), or $US1.09 per share, in the three months ended Sept 5. That’s up from the $US1.58 billion ($A1.77 billion), or 99 cents per share, a year ago.

The results beat expectat …

Source: PepsiCo Third-Quarter Profit Climbs on Cost Cuts; Sales Fall

Following Sai Gon Giai Phong’s stories about a ridiculously overcrowded school in Ho Chi Minh City, local authorities promised to resolve the problem immediately by transferring children to another school and opening a temporary one.

An Hoi learners study at a makeshift classroom in Pham Van Chieu Junior School (Photo: SGGP)

At a meeting held by the Department of Education and Training November 4, the Go Vap District People’s Committee said around 1,000 kids would be transferred from An Hoi Primary School to Luong The Vinh School.

The former has 103 classes and more than 5,300 students, three times the number allowed by rules.

But the heads of both schools were unhappy with the decision and said it could affect the transferred psychologically since they would have to leave their friends behind and other problems such as parents’ contributions to schools.

District authorities promised to begin construction of a new school, Lam Son, and have it ready for the next academic year.

Head of Go Vap’s Education and Training Bureau, Dang Thanh Tuan, then said only students living near Luong The Vinh would be transferred with a makeshift school set up for some of the other children.

The department’s deputy chief, Nguyen Hoai Chuong, said the district must resolve the problem by the end of the first semester in December.

The district plans to seek the help of the city Party Committee and People’s Committee to obtain sites for schools.

Related articles:
City to tackle overcrowded schools: official
City school grapples with skyrocketing population

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Magnetkarten gibt es in zwei verschiedenen Ausführungen: HiCo (HighCoercivity)- und LoCo (LowCoercivity)-Karten unterscheiden sich durch die Feldstärke mit der sie beschrieben und gelesen werden. Die Speicherkapazität und der Aufbau der Magnetstreifen ist bei allen Magnetkarten die/der gleiche.

Auf Magnetkarten befinden sich drei beschreibbare Spuren mit unterschiedlichen Eigenschaften:

• Spur 1: 76 Nutzzeichen (alphanumerisch 7 Bit/Zeichen)

  Diese Spur ist für Informationen gedacht, die in Verbindung mit einer Datenbank stehen, z.B. bei automatische Einchecksystemen.

• Spur 2: 37 Nutzzeichen (numerisch 5 Bit/Zeichen)

  Diese Spur ist für numerische Informationen ausgelegt, also z.B. zum Speichern und Angeben von Geldbeträgen oder Kundennummern.

• Spur 3: 104 Nutzzeichen (numerisch 5 Bit/Zeichen)

  Auch diese Spur kann nur numerische Zeichen, also Zahlen, enthalten und ist für Daten gedacht, die häufig auf den neuesten Stand gebracht, also überschrieben werden sollen.

In Kombination mit einer entsprechenden Software können natürlich Daten, die über 104 Zeichen hinausgehen, gespeichert werden. D.h. nur der Code, den die Software aus den Kundendaten erstellt und der auf der Plastikkarte gespeichert wird, darf die angegebene Länge nicht überschreiten.

Die Feldstärke, mit der die Magnetkarten beschrieben und gelesen werden sollen, beeinflusst die Wahl des Magnetstreifens:

LoCo-Magnetstreifen haben eine Oersted-Einheit von 300, HiCo-Magnetstreifen gibt es mit 2700 und 4000 Oe.  D.h. dass zum Beschreiben und Lesen von Plastikkarten mit LoCo-Magnetstreifen ein geringeres Magnetfeld erforderlich ist. Es heißt aber auch, dass die Kodierung, wenn die Plastikkarte versehentlich mit einem Magnetfeld in Kontakt kommt, also z.B. auf einen Lautsprecher gelegt wird, u.U. beschädigt wird.

HiCo-Karten sind also aufgrund der höheren Feldstärke vor allem strapazierfähiger was die Beeinträchtigung durch magnetische Felder angeht, d.h. sie können nicht versehentlich durch äußere Einflüsse gelöscht werden. Außerdem sind sie auch bei intensiver Nutzung und mit Verschmutzungen eher lesbar. Äußerlich lässt sich LoCo und HiCo nicht unterscheiden, allerdings werden für LoCo meist braune, für HiCo schwarze Magnetstreifen verwendet.

EC-Karten und Kreditkarten sind übrigens zumeist LoCo-Magnetkarten, da sie auf einem Standard beruhen, der eingeführt wurde, bevor  die HiCo-Technologie entwickelt wurde.

Ob HiCo oder LoCo, das hängt zu guter Letzt von Ihren Magnetkarten-Schreib- und Lesegeräten ab. Alle Geräte können LoCo-Magnetkarten beschreiben, aber nur entsprechend starke Geräte können HiCo-Magnetstreifen beschreiben. Bitte informieren Sie sich im Datenblatt Ihres Gerätes. Im Zweifelsfall bestellen Sie am besten LoCo-Magnetkarten. Wir bieten beide Versionen an.

Suchen Sie noch nach passenden Kodiergeräten? Dann googeln Sie einfach nach „Lese- und Schreibgerät Magnetkarten“ oder „Codierer Magnetkarten“ und Sie werden eine breite Auswahl finden.  Als Anhaltspunkt: Schreibgeräte für LoCo-Magnetkarten bewegen sich üblicherweise im Preisbereich von 400 Euro, HiCo-Codierer gibt es ab ca. 1000 Euro.

Didnt get to take the boat out today, nor was there any fishing done, this is all thanks to the gale force winds today.

Our cat, Checkers, was taken to the vet about a week ago because she was not eating and losing drastic weight, the doctor thinks its luchemia and gave us some anti-biotics to give to her, he also said that if she does not improve in the next week the best option would be is to put her to sleep.  Today i had the duty to take her, once the doctor examined her, he said that is advisable to put her to sleep as there is not much they can do, yes they can perform tests and see exactly what it is, which could be luchemia or AIDS, but would be costly. Unfortunately we put her to sleep for good, this was the best for her as she was suffering.  It wasnt easy but it is one of those things that had to be done i suppose.

Well Michelle and I went to the Spur today at Melkbos strand for something to eat.  We had pork riblets as a starter and then moved onto main courses, i had a burger with pepper sauce and Michelle had the calamari and chips starter as her main, it was a nice little outing.

Came home to do some more studying, i hope i can do these exams and i really hope it works out the way i planned, unfortunately its about 12 exams for the first qualification i want to do (MCSA) and costs around R1000 per exam, guess a saving plan needs to be established.

My Mom and Jamie left Swaziland back to Durban today, oh which reminds me that i havent heard from them yet… Just phoned my Mom and heard that they are home safely and had a great trip, my Mom took about a 1000 photo’s, and said she will send me some once she has gone through all of them.

“My bestfriends girl” is the 8 0′clock movie tonight so i will be watching that now.

Until then, good-bye and thanks for reading,

-orosman

“ To encourage an activity to make it happen faster”

MORE :

A spiked wheel that attaches to the heel of the horse rider’s boot.

EXAMPLE

A business tax cut is needed to spur industrial investment

COMMENT :

- is par – kya bolu ?

I really look forward to watching this series of videos on planning, created by Redscout and hosted by PSFK. 

I especially like this quote from the trailer, by Paul Woolmington from Naked Communications:

If you’re a passionate practitioner, then the business of planning, the business of marketing, the business of ideas, intellectual pursuit, culture, consumer – that needs to be your hobby as much as your day-to-day job.

Below: my paper from the fantastic ‘Rethinking Complicity and Resistance’ conference at Aberdeen last weekend (abstract).

‘The existing images only reinforce the existing lies’: The Situationist International in and against visuality.

Still from ‘In Girum Imus Nocte et Consumimur Igni’ (1978)

‘The existing images only reinforce the existing lies’.

This statement, from the voiceover of Guy Debord’s 1978 film, ‘In Girum Imus Nocte et Consumimur Igni’, is striking not only for its absolute denial of the radical or emancipatory potential of the image, but also for its melancholy, its despondency. Though we might imagine that Debord was ruminating on his failure to discover a visual language that could destabilise what he had identified as the spectacular order of modern capitalism – the society of the spectacle – he had actually shown signs of having lost faith in the image as early as 1952, when his first film, ‘Howls in Favour of Sade’, had consisted of a black screen with no accompanying sound, interspersed periodically with nothing more than a white screen and some fragmented voiceover. ‘Howls…’ contained nothing of the visceral Sadeian exuberance suggested by its title and in its imagelessness it discarded the fundamental unit of the cinema. By contrast, ‘In Girum…’ was far less absolute, far less cynical.

The sixteen years between ‘Howls…’ and ‘In Girum…’ had seen the rise and fall of the Situationist International, which had undertaken an extended exploration of the possibilities of visual or artistic production within an oppositional political programme. I want to look at the first five years of the Situationist International (SI) from 1957 to 1962, a period of rapid development of situationist theses on aesthetics, accompanied by a gradual dissociation from the artistic avant-garde from which the SI had emerged. This analysis shall take three sections: firstly, I shall introduce the complementary theoretical motifs of détournement and recuperation; followed by tracing the widening schism within the movement across its fourth and fifth conferences, which culminated in the expulsion of the majority of artists from the SI; and finally, I shall pay some attention to post-situationist (pro-situ[1]) movements, whose attempts to move beyond the spectacle necessitated a movement beyond the SI itself.

1.

Like the avant-gardes of the early Twentieth Century which had been predicated on a single conceit – futurism, constructivism, dadaism, surrealism – the Situationist International was originally something like a single-issue political party. The SI held that the historical project of the avant-garde, identified by Peter Bürger as ‘the destruction of art as an institution set off from the praxis of life’[2], could be fulfilled through the perpetual construction of lived situations. These situations would undermine the logic of the spectacle which had served to replace direct experience with representation. In a preparatory document for the July 1957 conference at which the SI was founded, Guy Debord wrote that,

Our central idea is the construction of situations, that is to say, the concrete construction of momentary ambiences of life and their transformation into a superior passional quality.[3]

Debord proposed that such situations would be created primarily through engagement with the urban environment, thus advocating active forms of social participation such as the practice of psychogeography, rather than aesthetic production in the visual arts. Nonetheless, during the first few years of its existence, various elements within the SI courted the art world, with exhibitions from prominent figures such as Asger Jorn and Giuseppe Pinot Gallizio, and Debord sought to ensure that these events demonstrated situationist principles such as the constructed situation, the momentary ambience and, especially, the aesthetic technique of détournement[4].

Image from Internationale Situationniste 9[5]

Drawn from Lautréamont’s assertion that plagiarism is necessary and implied by progress, and passed through a prism of Duchamp’s readymade and the Surrealist collage, the concept of détournement was introduced in the first issue of the SI’s journal, Internationale Situationniste, as:

Short for “détournement of prexisting aesthetic elements.” The integration of present or past artistic productions into a superior construction of a milieu. In this sense there can be no situationist painting or music, but only a situationist use of those means. In a more elementary sense, détournement within the old cultural spheres is a method of propaganda, a method which reveals the wearing out and the loss of importance of those spheres.[6]

In simpler terms: détournement, at least in relation to the visual image with which we are concerned here, changes the meaning of an existing image through adapting or recontextualising it. The Situationists insisted that it was their intention to transcend art as a domain of specialised activity and integrate creativity and free play within a renewed practice of everyday life. They did not seek to create an identifiably situationist aesthetic. Even in the pre-revolutionary meantime, within a world still dominated by capital and the spectacle, there could be no situationist art, although détournement did offer something of a stopgap measure. Whilst not, strictly-speaking, the production of unique images, détournement assumes a dialectical function, a negation of already-existing culture, a productive iconoclasm. Détournement feeds off the surplus, waste and detritus of capitalist production, its excess of imagery, whilst problematising notions of private property and individual authorship. The politics of détournement were described by Debord as, ‘a real means of proletarian artistic education, the first step towards a literary communism’[7].

Image from Internationale Situationniste 9[8]

Examples of détourned images are found throughout the SI’s journal, but for now I want to concentrate on those that engage with pornography. Pornographic images epitomise Debord’s understanding of the spectacular image: they replace sexual experience with its representation, objectifying the sexual figure and reducing sexual desire to an alienated engagement with images. One situationist treatment of such imagery simply attached speech bubbles with quotations from Marx or slogans that praised the workers; elsewhere, the images were reproduced without embellishment, used to illustrate essays on alienation, and specifically the alienation of desire. Kelly Baum argues that the sexual images reproduced (détourned) by the SI generally represent ‘the becoming-image of desire’[9]. The juxtaposition of the loaded political sentiment with the lascivious image, the suggestion that an image of a nude model could be anything more than an image of a nude model, as well as the implied association between life under the spectacle and prostitution, was intended to expose the alienation contained within and propagated by the original image.

Page from Internationale Situationniste 1[10]

However, the gaze elicited by the SI’s détourned images is complicated, not least because détournement takes only a negational role, and cannot point towards an alternative, situationist, image of non-spectacular sexuality. These détourned images also provide evidence of the internalised sexism of the SI: Why this willingness to investigate only the heterosexual male gaze? Or, as Kelly Baum asks, who is the SI blaming for the alienation of desire: ‘capitalism, women, or both?’[11] Whilst the Situationists maintained that they represented an orgiastic conception of untrammelled sexual freedom derived from the Marquis de Sade and Charles Fourier, their political-aesthetic framework precluded any visual representation towards those ends. When used against sexual imagery, détournement lacks the libidinal energy or sexual abandon that we might expect from an assault upon the spectacle’s reduction of life to a passive engagement with images. The détourned image offers no exit from a visual paradigm established by the spectacle.

The description of détournement as ‘literary communism’ signals that the Situationists’ preferred application of the technique was to textual sources, rather than within the visual arts. Situationist theory, even in its earliest stages, was very suspicious of the visual as terrain for mounting cultural revolt. The Situationists’ critical apparatus, to borrow Martin Jay’s phrase, denigrates vision. The spectacle – if not a visual thing unto itself, ‘is a social relation between people that is mediated by images’[12] – has irrevocably colonised the visual, precisely so that every image reinforces the same lies.

The Situationists recognised that détournement only ever offered a temporary destabilisation of visual meaning within spectacular society. The rewriting could go either way, so that a seemingly benign image could be radicalised as easily as a critically-loaded image could be defused. Every gesture of resistance is accompanied by a latent complicity; and thus the SI identified recuperation as the spectacle’s reciprocal absorption of oppositional or radical voices: a de-détournement of sorts. Détourned visual imagery, then, always already contains its own reintegration back into the spectacular order, in a feedback loop or vortex of détournement-recuperation. The two processes cannot be separated.

2.

As it reformulated its programme to jettison any vestigial reliance on the visual image, the Situationist International began expelling its more artistically-inclined members. Artistic production was judged (rather prematurely) to have no function other than feeding and bolstering the spectacle. The question of the SI’s self-identification with art or with politics – a false dichotomy, of course, but one which was to determine the direction of the SI’s activities – became a central concern at the fourth conference, held in London from the 24^th to the 28^th of September, 1960. It was asked, ‘To what extent is the SI a political movement?’[13] The German section, composed of the Spur group of artists, aligned the SI with what Peter Bürger has since called the historical avant-garde, saying that,

The German section considers that the SI should prepare to realize its program on its own by mobilizing the avant-garde artists, who are placed by the present society in intolerable conditions and can count only on themselves to take over the weapons of conditioning.[14]

The German proposal was rejected by the Parisian core of the SI, not only because it criticised the SI’s unwavering faith in a revolutionary proletariat, but also because it associated the SI with a specialism – artistic production – when situationist theory had been expressly wary of any specialist pursuit, or any separation of art from everyday life. Asger Jorn responded to the Germans by saying that the SI should not strive for recognition as artists, but instead ‘it is necessary for the world to become artistic in the sense defined by the SI’[15].

These tensions, the (false) division between the artistically-inclined and the theoretically-inclined Situationists, were not resolved by the time of the next conference, held this time in Gothenburg on the 28^th to the 30^th of August 1961. Raoul Vaneigem’s orientation report introduced a hard pro-theory, anti-art line, and reiterated the SI’s dismissal of situationist art:

The point is not to elaborate the spectacle of refusal, but to refuse the spectacle. In order for their elaboration to be artistic in the new and authentic sense defined by the SI, the elements of the destruction of the spectacle must precisely cease to be works of art. There is no such thing as situationism, or a situationist work of art, or a spectacular situationist. Once and for all.[16]

Attila Kotányi was rather less absolute, offering a summation of where the SI stood in relation to artistic production as it currently existed:

Since the beginning of the movement there has been a problem as to what to call artistic works by members of the SI… I propose a very simple rule: to call them ‘antisituationist.’ We are against the dominant conditions of artistic inauthenticity. I don’t mean that anyone should stop painting, writing, etc. I don’t mean that that has no value. I don’t mean that we could continue to exist without doing that. But at the same time we know that such works will be coopted by society and used against us. Our impact lies in the elaboration of certain truths which have an explosive power whenever people are ready to struggle for them.[17]

The SI’s split with the artistic avant-garde came most decisively in the first few months of 1962, when, in February, the German Spur artists were expelled, followed by the Scandinavian artists centred around Jørgen Nash in March. The following issue of Internationale Situationniste poured scorn on the ‘Nashist’ artists, who were depicted as using their Situationist connection to further their own artistic careers. In that diatribe, the remaining Situationists neatly encapsulated the dialectical nature of their conception of cultural revolt:

It seems to us that Nashism is an expression of an objective tendency resulting from the SI’s ambiguous and risky policy of consenting to act within culture while being against the entire present organization of this culture and even against all culture as a separate sphere.[18] [my italics]

To engage critically with spectacular society, the SI had to operate within the remits of visibility as determined by the spectacle and its distribution of visual sensibility. Yet at the same time, the situationist aesthetic sought an anti-spectacularity, which even involved becoming anti-situationist. The SI’s visual productions needed to carry the seed of their own supersession, their own negation. Détournement was thus necessarily dialectical, a preliminary formulation of auto-destructive art.

3.

Where the Situationist International was unable to move beyond the spectacle – or, more precisely, chose to remain dialectically suspended within and against the spectacle – the trajectory of situationist critique after Debord and Vaneigem reveals an attempt to move beyond the SI. The absence, for the most part, of visual erotic forms from the SI’s aesthetic marks a notable difference between themselves and contemporary or spin-off ‘pro-situ’ groups, who took tactical and theoretical influence from the SI but generally placed more emphasis upon confrontational sexuality and the imminence of a sexual revolution, with graphic depictions thereof. In this final section, I want to look at some instances of situationist sexual aesthetics beyond the SI, as the attempted realization of the project heralded by Vaneigem and Debord in their respective détournements of Sade’s call, ‘Frenchmen! One more effort if you want to be Republicans!’ into, ‘Nihilists, one more effort if you want to be revolutionaries!’[19] and, ‘One more effort if you want to be Situationists!’[20]

Unattributed Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker poster [21]

The most sexually aggressive and aggressively visual pro-situ current is demonstrated in the American Ben Morea’s anarchistic Black Mask and Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker groups. Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker – or, the Motherfuckers – offered a particularly primal image of sexually liberated man (and we should note it is always man), through an iconographic repertoire that consisted of skeletons, werewolves, and fiercely masculine Native and Latin American revolutionaries. The posters of the Motherfuckers are clearly oriented towards the male, heterosexual gaze; and reflect the pseudo-mystical and quasi-pornographic imagery of the more radical hippie and beatnik movements, which would eventually attract the various obscenity trials faced during the late Sixties by the Anglo-American underground press, most notably by the magazine Oz which was taken to court in 1971 over images within its Schoolkids issue.

Oz 28, the Schoolkids issue.

The imagery of the Motherfuckers was in turn reproduced in the posters of King Mob, an incarnation of the English Section of the Situationist International after its expulsion by Debord in 1967, for allegedly siding with Morea in a dispute with Vaneigem[22], a moment that demonstrated the division between the Continental SI and Anglo-American pro-situs. Although King Mob was ideologically closer to the French Situationists than to the hippie mysticism of Morea’s groups, it utilised the latter’s pornographic imagery, replacing its alpha male excesses with an Anglicized, less erotic, black humour. Geronimo is replaced by Andy Capp, and the erect phallus becomes a toilet-door scribble of a cock-and-balls.

Unattributed King Mob poster[23]

King Mob is particularly merciless in its iconoclasm, as even the fêted sexual revolution is made puerile and pathetic. Should it be considered in terms of the authentic – the SI’s perennially vague denotation of the alternative to life under the spectacle – such imagery is repulsive. But it is supposed to be shocking, even to King Mob’s sympathisers. King Mob’s ‘Keep the dialectic open’[24] poster, for example, is supposed to be jarring, exploitative and misogynistic, replicating crude sexist iconography under the guise of progressive sexual liberation. With such a cartoonish overload of sarcasm and insincerity, King Mob’s proto-punk aesthetic blurs the SI’s distinction between serious, stony-faced authenticity and repressive, spectacular, insincerity.

Unattributed King Mob posters [25]

King Mob’s imagery in particular is pure bagatelle, a relentless attack on liberal values. Where the SI’s insistence on the authentic tied their aesthetic project to realism, King Mob attempted to produce the ‘irreality’[26] that Roland Barthes attributed to the Marquis de Sade. At the root of the SI’s concern over the authentic is a sense of social responsibility; the Sadeian project, revitalised in these Anglo-American pro-situ groups, is more concerned with obscenity, taboo, violence, a concerted social irresponsibility. Quoting William Blake, a famous piece of King Mob graffiti rationalises the group’s ‘hysterical over emphasis of violence’[27]: ‘The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom/ the tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction’.

These pro-situ aesthetics disregard the SI’s concerns over the fallibility of the radical image. King Mob’s response to the vortex of détournement-recuperation was to make something so ugly that the spectacle would not want it, yet their project was still determined only in the negative. There remained no constructive principle to proffer an image of an alternative sexual praxis; and however violent the affront upon the spectacle’s own production of images, by waging the battle solely on the terrain of the visual (through pushing it to its extremes), the underlying moral-ideological base was not challenged. Hence, even the situationist or pro-situ project can regenerate old forms of sexism, anti-feminism, heteronormativity and other forms of reified consciousness[28].

What, then, does détournement offer to an oppositional political programme, and what are its limits? Détournement promises something like Walter Benjamin’s conception of the dialectical image, to expose the insoluble contradictions of capitalism via its own regime of visual representation. Yet the Situationists were not content with Benjamin’s assertion that it is enough to simply demonstrate these irreducible antinomies in order to catalyse their supersession. Recuperation steps in before that moment, and reclaims the isolated images for the meaningful whole.

McKenzie Wark has argued recently that détournement’s radical promise is in its practice rather than its product: ‘The key to détournement is not to appropriate the image, but to appropriate the power of appropriation itself’[29]. Détournement’s oppositional worth is not to be found on the level of the visual or the image, but as a gestural politics, an active engagement with the spectacular image that reveals the latter’s fallibility. To return to ‘In Girum…’, Debord reincorporates the image into his filmmaking whilst simultaneously denouncing it: ‘In the present film, for example, I am simply stating a few truths over a background of images that are all trivial or false. This film disdains the image-scraps of which it is composed’. Détournement must receive the same treatment: as a limited combative measure, productive in its contradictions[30].

[1] ‘Pro-situ’ is the derogatory term Debord uses for peripheral members of the Situationist International and hangers-on in Guy Debord, The Real Split in the International, trans. John McHale (London: Pluto Press 2003).

[2] Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, trans. Michael Shaw (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1984), 83.

[3] Guy Debord, ‘Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency’s Conditions of Organization and Action,’ in Ken Knabb (ed.), Situationist International Anthology (Berkeley CA: Bureau of Public Secrets 2006), 38.

[4] For example, Debord wrote to Gallizio on the 8^th January 1958 to say that the latter’s upcoming exhibition ‘offers us extremely important opportunities’. Guy Debord, Correspondence: The Foundation of the Situationist International (June 1957-August 1960), trans. Stuart Kendall and John McHale (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e) 2009), 71.

[5] Internationale Situationniste 9 (August 1964): 21.

[6] Situationist International, ‘Definitions,’ in Ken Knabb (ed.), Situationist International Anthology, 52.

[7] Guy Debord & Gil J. Wolman, ‘A Users Guide to Détournement,’ in Ken Knabb (ed.), Situationist International Anthology, 18.

[8] Ibid., 36.

[9] Kelly Baum, ‘The Sex of the Situationist International,’ October 126 (Fall 2008): 34.

[10] Internationale Situationniste 1 (June 1958): 11.

[11] Ibid., 39.

[12] Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, trans. Ken Knabb (London: Rebel Press 2002), Thesis 4.

[13] Situationist International, ‘The Fourth SI Conference in London,’ in Ken Knabb (ed.), Situationist International Anthology, 81.

[14] Ibid., 82.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Situationist International, ‘The Fifth SI Conference in Göteborg,’ in Ken Knabb (ed.), Situationist International Anthology, 115.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Situationist International, ‘The Counter-Situationist Campaign in Various Countries,’ in Ken Knabb (ed.), Situationist International Anthology, 146.

[19] Raoul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (London: Rebel Press 2006), 182.

[20] Guy Debord, Guy Debord présente Potlatch 1954-1957 (Paris: Gallimard 1996), 269.

[21] The text includes: ‘What is our program? We’ll know we’ve got it if it makes us feel good’. See Up Against the Wall Motherfucker! An Anthology of Rants, Posters and More (Parkville, Australia: Homebrew Press 2007).

[22] See Debord’s account in ‘The Latest Exclusions,’ in Ken Knabb (ed.), Situationist International Anthology, 375.

[23] Tom Vague (ed.), King Mob Echo: English Section of the Situationist International (London: Dark Star 2000), 91.

[24] Malcolm McLaren remembers that, ‘King Mob printed all these posters for a Vietnam demonstration. We all went around flyposting London with this image of a girl’s crotch and the slogan over the top of it that announced; “Keep the Dialectic Open”.’ Tom Vague, King Mob Echo: From Gordon Riots to Situationists and Sex Pistols (London: Dark Star 2000), 47.

[25] From ‘A Hidden History of King Mob (Posters/Cartoons)’, at http://www.revoltagainstplenty.com/index.php/recent/34-archivelocal/128-a-hidden-history-of-king-mob-posterscartoons [accessed 14-10-2009].

[26] Roland Barthes, Sade, Fourier, Loyola, trans. Richard Miller (London: Jonathon Cape 1977), 36.

[27] Dave Wise & Stewart Wise, ‘The End of Music’, in Stewart Home (ed.), What is Situationism? A Reader (Edinburgh: AK Press 1996), 69.

[28] A different response to the problem of the image as formulated by the Situationists came by way of Alexander Trocchi’s attempts to organise a cultural opposition movement that shunned all forms of visual representation. In 1962, Trocchi, a Scottish Situationist and novelist, published an essay entitled ‘A Revolutionary Proposal: Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds’, which was followed by the essay ‘Sigma: A Tactical Blueprint’ to launch what Trocchi called Project Sigma. Attempting to produce a loose confederation of like-minded cultural revolutionaries whose form of organisation would be impervious to recuperation, Trocchi introduced his conception of an invisible insurrection, a ‘cultural coup-du-monde’ that would operate beneath the radar of the spectacle through its refusal to participate in the spectacle’s regime of visibility. Invisibility meant not only refusing to produce recuperable images, but also to organise without clearly demarcated boundaries in order to achieve a sort of amorphous invulnerability. However, Trocchi’s plans were vague and deemed to be ‘unclear to all except a few devotees’. The invisibility that was supposed to evade surveillance and spectacular recuperation actually rendered the project indecipherable and immeasurable, and the project faltered precisely because it failed to operate within the spectacle’s regime of visibility. Trocchi’s foray into the anti-aesthetic seems to validate the Situationists’ continued engagement with the image despite having acknowledged its inherent conservatism within the spectacle.

[29] McKenzie Wark, ‘Détournement: an abuser’s guide,’ Angelaki Vol. 14 No. 1 (April 2009): 146.

[30] This conclusion is drawn from Kelly Baum’s description of détournement’s contradictions as ‘productive and illuminating… whose primary source of dialectical energy was contradiction’. See Kelly Baum, ‘The Sex of the Situationist International,’ 42.

 Asian stock markets rose Friday, spurred by another batch of optimistic quarterly reports from major companies in the U.S. and Asia even as worries remained that this year’s rally has overshot reality.

The region’s broad advance followed an overnight rise on Wall Street, where investors were heartened by stronger profits and upbeat outlooks from companies seen as bellwethers of consumer demand in an economy emerging from recession.

The string of encouraging quarterly results continued in Asia, with South Korean auto maker Kia Motors Corp. and chip maker Hynix Semiconductor Inc. reporting higher profits that suggested global demand was turning for the better.

People walk past the Citibank building in New York City

Oil prices, meanwhile, rose to near $82 on hopes the global economic recovery is gathering pace. The dollar rose modestly against the yen and fell slightly versus the euro in the aftermath of a weekslong drop.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average was up 48.69, or 0.5 percent, at 10,315.86 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 327.42, or 1.5 percent, to 22,537.94. South Korea’s Kospi advanced 0.7 percent to 1,641.03, while China’s Shanghai index climbed 2.3 percent.

Global stock markets have rocketed higher since March, lifting benchmarks in the U.S. and Asia to new yearly highs in recent weeks, amid a weakening dollar and massive liquidity.

But there are fears markets may have overestimated the strength of recovery. The possibility governments will start withdrawing lavish monetary and fiscal stimulus could also lead investors to rethink the strength of the rally.

“People are still somewhat jittery,” said Song Seng Wun, an economist at CIMB-GK research in Singapore. “The market has done relatively well. The question is how much has been priced in.”

“There’s still concern about the potential drag of the U.S., inflation and the weaker dollar … And there are signs governments may pull some of the liquidity. And that won’t be so great news for equities,” Song said.

Elsewhere in Asia, Australia’s index gained 1 percent, Singapore’s market was up 1.3 percent and India’s Sensex climbed 0.9 percent.

On Wall Street, the Dow rose 131.95, or 1.3 percent, to 10,081.31. The index is 11 points below its highest close of the year, which it reached on Monday.

The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 11.51, or 1.1 percent, to 1,092.91. The Nasdaq rose 14.56, or 0.7 percent, to 2,165.29.

In oil, benchmark crude for December delivery rose 35 cents to $81.54 a barrel. The contract rose 18 cents to settle at $81.19 on Thursday.

Among currencies, the dollar rose to 91.62 yen from 91.31 yen. The euro gained to $1.5024 from $1.5020.

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WORD:

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” Galatians 6:7

FOCUS:

At Sagamore Hill, the “Summer White House” of Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, the following family motto is carved carved on the beam over the north door, Qui Plantavit Curabit. It can be translated – “He who plants – preserves.”  A corollary could be “He who plants not – preserves not,” for nothing will be reaped, if nothing is planted.  It is an extension of the natural and spiritual Law of the Harvest. The Law of the Harvest can be summarized as below:

If you are planting bad things in your life (thoughts, desires, etc.) , then you will end up reaping bad actions.  James 1: 14-15 addresses this spiritual working of the Law of the Harvest,

“but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”

ACTION:

What sort of seeds are you planting in your life?  What are the thoughts and desires that you are allowing to grow in your heart and mind?  Be sure that they will bear fruit in time of their own kind.  Take every thought captive to Christ, and don’t allow sinful desires to root in your heart or dwell in your mind.  Be a vigilant gardener and guard your heart and mind.  Find a friend to keep you accountable for your thought life and your desires.

“Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you. But you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception…” Hosea 10:12-13

“As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it.”  Job 4:8

Ich glaube ich habe ein neues Interessengebiet von mir entdeckt!
Und zwar das Fährten- oder Spurenlesen.

Unterwegs mit den Hunden begegnen wir immer wieder neuen Abdrücken im Schnee und es ist unglaublich spannend und macht tierischen Spaß zu erfahren von welchem Tier diese Spur stammt und wie alt sie vermutlich ist!

Ich denke, damit werde ich mich in nächster Zeit näher beschäftigen! =)

I cannot ride my bike enough in this city. It’s electric. Unlike NYC, where I am almost positive riding will get me killed, San Francisco has been an absolute playground for Blanca (left).

Not only does cycling help keep me fit (kinda) and provide all the adrenaline I need, it has also helped reshape my values. I am much more environmentally and civically conscious. As a proud, card-carrying member of the SF Bicycling Coalition and Spur Urban Center I am eager to volunteer for a few upcoming events to help promote this healthy and creative mode of travel.

One of these kick ass events is coming up this weekend. It’s hosted by ArtCrank and sponsored by Chrome Messenger Bags, a SF cycling staple.

This event, like another I’ll touch on soon, is a great way to embed an urban sport like cycling into street art culture. That’s not to say that there isn’t already a natural connection. Bikes are just extensions of our personal brands. They reflect who we are and what we have to say. They are easily customized and designed to brighten up the city streets and flash some style while weaving in and out of frustrated motorists.

The fixie trend has definitely brought some additional awareness about cycling too (although I’m not too keen on riding something without brakes). Either way, bicycles are evolving as a legitimate creative medium that should be recognized.

Recently, one gallery connected the dots and dedicated a huge installation to the bicycle. The exhibit, which was titled “Bicycles: people + ideas in motion” was curated by Lorie Mertes, Director at The Galleries at Moore. The final product was an exploration of the art and design of bikes and their impact on urban landscape.

I wish I could’ve seen Ryan Humphrey’s installation (below) in person. Mertes was quoted saying that “Humphrey draws inspiration from Evel Knievel, Eddy Van Halen and Duchamp.” That’s awesome.

Crikey : Bolt’s one-sided scepticism on Tamil asylum seekers

Eine gute Kur
hinterlässt ihre Spur.

(Oscar-Benno Rülpsilanti über das Kuren)

Book Exchange

The Book Exchange is in the basement of the Presbyterian Church in Downtown Nampa.

205 15th Ave So. Nampa, ID 83651

Hours: 10am-6pm

UNIVERSITIES hope to boost student aspirations…. From The Australian. Full story

This site may contain information about: education department. The blog is also related to: mathematics.

“Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?” Psalm 74:1

“It is a terrible thing when the anger of God smokes, but it is an infinite mercy that it does not break into devouring flame.”–Charles Spurgeon

God does delay his judgment so that we might repent, spurred on by his kindness.  “Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:3-4).

Oh that grant each reader repentance that leads to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone.  Want to know more about how to escape God’s wrath? Go here.

Calcaneal Spur or Heel Spur is one of the chief causes of heel pain.

Calcaneus bone or Calcaneum: It is the largest bone forming the foot and also the largest tarsal(Tarsals are the bones of the foot and are 7 in number). It forms the heel and is also called the heel bone.

Calcaneal spur is an abnormal growth of bone in the form of a hook either underneath the foot(inferior aspect of calcaneus) in relation to the attachment of the plantar fascia or behind the heel(posterior aspect of the calcaneum) at the insertion of the Achilles tendon.

Other conditions which produce heel pain:

*Another condition called Plantar Fascitis is often confused with Calcaneal spur but infact it is a different diagnosis. Plantar fascia is a ligamentaneous tissue which extends from the calcaneum to the ball of the foot. It helps in maintaining the arch of the foot and substantially bears the weight of the body while walking or running. It is thus prone to wear and tears and is thus subjected to trauma. This condition also produces similar type of foot pain. They are often interrelated but not as a rule.

*Retrocalcaneal bursitis: Inflammation of the bursae related to calcaneal bone

*Achilles tendonitis: Inflammation of the Achilles tendon at its insertion over the calcaneum causing posterior heel pain

*Tarsal Tunnel Syndrome: Compression of the posterior tibial nerve in the bony passages amidst the tarsal bones.

Causes: Constant pressure on the heel due to long standing jobs requiring standing or walking for long periods, Ill fitting foot wears..

Symptoms: Pain in the heel either below or behind. Pain aggravates in the morning after waking up from the sleep or after standing or walking for long periods.

Treatment:

*Rest

*Cold or ice packs

*Analgesics

Ayurvedic approach in healing heel pain:

*Shodana: Virechana with Gandharvahastadi oil is definitely beneficial in this condition.

Matra Vasti with Gulgulutiktaka gritham either singly or in combination with Narayana tailam or Dhanwantara tailam/Mezhupakam provides a long standing relief and also prevents recurrence.

*Shamana: The below mentioned medicaments are prescribed for an effective relief-

• Tablet Kaishora Guggulu or Kaishora Guggulu(DS)
• Tablet Yogaraja Gulgulu
• Gulgulu Tiktakam Kashayam or Gulgulu Tiktakam Kashayam tablets
• Sahacharadi Kashayam or Sahacharadi Kashayam Tablets
• Dashanga Lepam

*Sthanika(Local): Abhyanga and Ishtika Sweda work out wonders in the treatment of calcaneal spurs.

Raktavasechana(Blood letting) and Suchi Daha(hot needle cauterization) are also advised.

Ishtika Sweda(Brick Fomentation):

CS can be compared to Vata Kantaka in Ayurveda.The easiest form of treatment of CS is Ishtika Sweda. It can be performed by the patient itself at home since it is simple and cost effective.

Method of preparation:

*First of all the painful area of the spur should be given an Abhyangam(massage without force) using any vata hara tailas viz Mahanarayana taila or Ksheerabala taila or Dhanwantara taila. Bricks should be taken and broken into small pieces. They should be heated red hot and dipped in rice washed water i.e tandulodaka or Dashamoola kashaya and immediately tied in a cloth in the form of a bolus. The hot bolus should be placed on the massaged part removing intermittently. Before fomenting the affected part the heat of the bolus should be tested by putting it on the palm by the person doing it to avoid burns. This is not advised in diabetic patients or in conditions where the sensation is disturbed.

*Alternately the brick pieces are heated to tolerable heat and tied in the cloth and sudation is given to the painful part without dipping it in the decoction or rice wash. But abhyanga should be done before the procedure as a rule. Once the bricks lose the heat they are removed from the bolus and heated again. The procedure is repeated.

*In Plantar fascitis without spur, abhyangam with any one of the above said tailas is given and later the patient is advised to keep his foot in the hot decoction of Dashamoola (when it is tolerable) or just in hot water or salted hot water.

For details contact: Dr Raghuram Y.S,MD(ayu),

Consultant Physician

Arogya Ayurvedic Centre

12^th cross,Jayanagar 7^th Block/Off K.R. Road

Bangalore – 82

Landmark: Opp Upahar Sagar hotel/Behind Shastry’s Bakery

Ph: +919480071422 or 080-26766291

Mail us at: drraghuramys@gmail.com

drraghuram@avnarogya.in

Visit us at: www.avnarogya.in and www.arogyabangalore.com

When the Yakuza has to go for the local gangsta equivalent of SPUR and jobs re-training, you know the economy is in some serious shizzle. From the Mainichi Daily News:

As soon as you become a parent, you will come to be a Spur regular – I can almost guarantee it. Not because you want to, or that the food is superior or even for the atmosphere. Nope. You will frequent this family oasis purely because the manager doesn’t care if your tot-of-terror runs between the tables with the bottle of Spur chip sauce screaming mezzo-soprano notes.

The franchise saw a niche and filled it to overflow. They will feed your kids, entertain them, and even sing happy birthday to them. There’s a play are with trampoline, playhouse, slide, jungle gym. And if the weather turns bad – no worries – they even have indoor entertainment. The older and more dexterous kids can enjoy the console games. Bored teens can stare at the TV. All while mom and dad decide between the beef- or chicken snitzel.

And with Amelia’s arrival, we too have become regular patrons of this family dining experience. She’s a cheap age now, still too small to eat a child size portion. So I order my meat and ask for veggies. There’s usually a choice of two or three. I load up a side plate with sweet pumpkin, cheesy broccoli and little gem squash, and the two of us have our fill.

I’m still a bit wary with putting her on the trampoline. But I know she’ll jumpy-jump as soon as she gets a grip with this whole walking thing.