Posts

Showing posts from November, 2008

badiou on the financial crisis

Of Which Real is this Crisis the Spectacle? Alain Badiou, Le Monde, 17/10/08. As it is presented to us, the planetary financial crisis resembles one of those bad films concocted by that factory for the production of pre-packaged blockbusters that today we call the "cinema". Nothing is missing, the spectacle of mounting disaster, the feeling of being suspended from enormous puppet-strings, the exoticism of the identical – the Bourse of Jakarta placed under the same spectacular rubric as New York, the diagonal from Moscow to Sao Paulo, everywhere the same fire ravaging the same banks – not to mention terrifying plotlines: it is impossible to avert Black Friday, everything is collapsing, everything will collapse... But hope abides. In the foreground, wild-eyed and focussed, like in a disaster movie, we see the small gang of the powerful – Sarkozy, Paulson, Merkel, Brown, Trichet and others – trying to extinguish the monetary flames, stuffing tens of billions into the c

Appeal for imposition of ban on BT cotton

Save Farmer Movement Here is the petition sent to the President of India. Kind attention: Hon’ble President of India, Rashtrapati Bhawan, New Delhi-1 Subject: Appeal for imposition of ban on BT cotton all over India and President Rule in Haryana State due to death of lakhs of animals due to BT cotton and disastrous ill effects of BT cotton on health of lakhs of humans and animals Hon’ble President Madam, I the undersigned hereby bring to your kind notice that in the state of Haryana genetically modified BT cotton is being cultivated for past about 5-7 years now. Our recent state-wide survey conducted during the year 2007-2008 shows that lakhs of animals including buffaloes and sheep have died due to consumption of the following: 1. BT cotton seeds fed to animals as feed. 2. BT cotton seed based oilcake fed to animals as feed. 3. Fresh Leaves and other plant parts of BT cotton plants. Government of Andhra Pradesh (Animal Husbandry Department) has confirmed presence of

Return to myself

A poem by Jean Wahl which almost, haiku-like, explicates electracy avant la lettre: It's time to pack your suitcases again: Your four ideas, your eight feelings. -----

Virtual Matthew Arnold reading "Longing"