Watched a documentary on the Cuban missle crisis the other night, and then looked up the letters mentioned in it between Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev. Here’s Castro in a loony and masochistic plea to practically end the world, if the US were to invade Cuba:
I would like to briefly express my own personal opinion.
If the second variant takes place and the imperialists invade Cuba with the aim of occupying it, the dangers of their aggressive policy are so great that after such an invasion the Soviet Union must never allow circumstances in which the imperialists could carry out a nuclear first strike against it.
I tell you this because I believe that the imperialists’ aggressiveness makes them extremely dangerous, and that if they manage to carry out an invasion of Cuba–a brutal act in violation of universal and moral law–then that would be the moment to eliminate this danger forever, in an act of the most legitimate self-defense. However harsh and terrible the solution, there would be no other.
It made me wonder how odd the world must have been back then communicating during emergencies via telegraph.
Researching a potential Chernobyl disaster vacation I came across more pictures this time, along with very haunting graffiti that has gone up, apparently for the 20th anniversary last April, silhouettes of children playing and other spooky but insanely poignant images. There are pictures of the abandoned town of Pripyat, and the graffiti, both on the BBC site, and the 26-04-1986.com site. There’s a lot of interesting stuff on flickr, and don’t miss Phil Coomes photos.
The first reactor exploded (became an unstable mass of white hot nuclear goo) at 0123 Saturday, April 26, 1986. According to the BBC:
Most people spent the Saturday outside, enjoying the unusually warm spring weather. Sixteen weddings took place.
The town was only evacuated 36 hours after the accident, while the evacuation of nearby villages took several more days.
Yesterday, browsing through the philosophy section in a bookstore, I noticed some peculiar titles: Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale, The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer , and The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless. I knew that these pop-culture philosophy hybrid instructional books had become more popular since The Matrix, but I had no idea to what extent. The undead book struck me as particularly interesting with the following question posited on the back:
“Are vampires more morally responsible than zombies?”
Zombies have long been a favorite in Philosophy of Mind courses, pawns in the great debate between dualism and physicalism. I’ve always been a big fan of Zombies and Vampires, despite any alleged philosophical import they have. They’re just cool.
“Zombie Walks,” are all the rage nowadays. I propose that in retaliation for Boston’s hysterically retarded overreaction to Turner’s guerrilla marketing campaign, a massive zombie walk take place through Boston immediately. Let’s show those bitches “terror.”
Chuck Norris, perhaps the biggest GOP celebrity-clown since Ted Nugent, filled in for Hannity on Fox News the other night. Could it be that Fox is forsaking all appearances of responsible journalism for self-parodying performance art? The joke could be on us.
All I can say about Chuck’s website is that all websites are better with audio welcome messages, right?
Finally watched Idiocracy, Mike Judge’s uber-satire of a dumb-as-rocks devolved human civilization 500 years in the future. I had been warned that the movie wasn’t that great, so had low expectations. Quite the opposite story of Children of Men, which carried the burden of so much critical acclaim you almost had to be disappointed within the first 10 minutes. Not for everyone, the ideas in Idiocracy are really what carry the film, but not always their execution. But some of the details just killed me: the world waters it’s crops with Brawndo (a sports drink), Brawndo has purchased the FDA by this time, Fuddruckers has been renamed ButtFuckers (there is a very resonant low-brow scatology to this film), the president is a former pro-wrestler and porn star, the greeters at Costco say, “Welcome to Costco. I love you.” And of course their portrayal of Fox News (probably why the film got the marketing shaft):
Atlanta cops are on a real tear recently. After lying to get a warrant for a no-knock drug raid, in which a dangerous drug beast in the form of a 92 year old woman was gunned down, they terrorize and arrest an oxford historian for jaywalking. Fucking jaywalking sting! Brilliant! So needed in this age of TERROR! More homeland security dollars please, we just can’t decide who to arrest! And let the poor eat fucking Kevlar vests for dogs!
Hmm, what’s next, I wonder. Perhaps I’ll get tasered by some cops on segways for photographing a government building. That’s what I’m hoping for at least. Do you have a favorite way you want to go down?
Why willpower matters – and how to get it | Life and style | The Guardian19 hours ago What they found was that, even taking into account differences of intelligence, race and social class, those with high self-control – those who, in Mischel's experiment, held out for two marshmallows later – grew into healthier, happier and wealthier adults.
Phelps & Ammous: Blaming Capitalism for Corporatism2012/02/05 Now the capitalist system has been corrupted. The managerial state has assumed responsibility for looking after everything from the incomes of the middle class to the profitability of large corporations to industrial advancement. This system, however, is not capitalism, but rather an economic order that harks back to Bismarck in the late nineteenth century and Mussolini in the twentieth: corporatism
The selling of “Anarchy” - Salon.com2012/01/12 But should dissenters be concerned about the possibility of capitalism’s recuperative claws succeeding to commodify (and pacify) even anti-capitalism?
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