Get another cup of java, mercy mercy Mr. Percy
{ U.S. risks China’s ire with decision to fund software maker tied to Falun Gong, a Buddhist-like sect long considered Enemy No. 1 by the Chinese government. | Washington Post | full story }
within the world
Curtsey one, curtsey two, with arms akimbo, devotees.
The second most invaluable insight from contemporary American conservatism has been the recognition of the limits of the politics of grievance. That contemporary American liberalism has made the grievance of racial minorities, women, homosexuals, and the disabled a central part of our political landscape stems from a simple fact: these people are and have been aggrieved. (…) To borrow a metaphor from John Updike, grievance becomes a mask that eats the face; it is not untrue to say that, at times, those within these groups come to believe in the essential truth “we are put down,” and history becomes prophecy. (…)
I am an ultra-leftist; the odds of my preferred economic platform coming to fruition within my lifetime are punishingly low. I have to struggle against what conservatives have to struggle against: that whatever the project of America is, it is a liberal project. Some, for reasons of psychic comfort and partisan squabbling, feel the need to attach “classical” before liberal when asserting this country’s basic character. Perhaps they are right to; it makes no difference. This country’s direction is and will be the direction of John Stuart Mill and Thomas Jefferson, and what that will mean for our vision of societal responsibility for individual problems will ultimately defy them and me both.
The political battle, of course, will always be about the next election, the next piece of legislation, the material consequences of politics. As for what will happen in that realm… who can say. But my intuition, and recent history, compels me to warn my conservative friends, who despite everything I love with my human heart: this is not the moment you think it is; this victory is not the turning point you think it is; the next congress will not give you what you hope it will; and even if you get every last thing from our electoral system you could possibly ask for, politics will never make you happy.
‘The easiest way to feel creative is to find people who are more ignorant than yourself.’ –Ronald S. Burt
How shoes can change your life–and your skeleton
You might think that shoes can only change your life if you are a sex-and-the-city type shoe lover, spending huge amounts of money on designer footwear. And for most of us, that kind of dedication to shoes is fairly incomprehensible - after all, they’re just things to wear to keep your feet safe from broken glass and tarmac, right? Wrong….
In fact, footwear doesn’t just change your life in the way that owning that perfect pair of Jimmy Choos can affect a girl. Instead, it can influence the way you walk, the shape of your foot, and even the number and type of pathologies present in your foot bones.
A recent study by Zipfel and Berger (2007), for example, has found that some 70% of European males and 66% - that’s two in every three! - females has some pathological condition in their big toe, compared to only about 35% of individuals from an archaeological population which habitually walked barefoot.
photos { Lady Gaga visits MoMA | Lady Gaga’s shoes | Thanks Bucky! }
Talking of one thing or another. Lady’s hand. Which side will she get up?
SHOW by Henry Horenstein, published by Pond Press, features images of fetish, drag and neo-burlesque performers. Shot in underground clubs in Los Angeles, New York and New Orleans, these intimate and clever black and white photos capture the pasties, fishnets and lipstick kisses of the superstars of neo-burlesque, including Dita Von Teese and Murray Hill.
related { Clic will be presenting a special exhibit of Ron Galella’s most famous shots in June, to coincide with the HBO release of the documentary SMASH HIS CAMERA. }
Benford’s Law of Controversy: Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.
Two years ago, a police officer in a Brooklyn precinct became gravely concerned about how the public was being served. To document his concerns, he began carrying around a digital sound recorder, secretly recording his colleagues and superiors.
He recorded precinct roll calls. He recorded his precinct commander and other supervisors. He recorded street encounters. He recorded small talk and stationhouse banter. In all, he surreptitiously collected hundreds of hours of cops talking about their jobs.
Made without the knowledge or approval of the NYPD, the tapes—made between June 1, 2008, and October 31, 2009, in the 81st Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant and obtained exclusively by the Voice—provide an unprecedented portrait of what it’s like to work as a cop in this city.
illustration { Stuart Patterson }
I’ve eaten like shit all my life but I run a lot every day
In the early years of the new century, huge force-on-force clashes and low-level irregular warfare aren’t the only threats faced by US military forces. Relatively small hostile groups either have or could acquire in the next few years access to sophisticated and lethal weaponry.
With modest training, modern communications, and strong command and control, these forces can employ such advanced weapons in concert with established guerrilla tactics and gain lethal effects once unavailable to such fighters.
Analysts are calling this type of conflict “hybrid warfare”—blending elements of different forms of combat. Participants in hybrid contests will comprise both nation-states and nonstate actors—sometimes with both on the same side, sometimes opposing one another. This distinctly new type of military challenge requires national security strategists and force planners to understand new realities and prepare America’s armed forces.
Hybrid warfare blurs the distinction between pure conventional and pure irregular warfare. At present, it is also a term with at least three applications. Hybrid can refer, first, to the battlespace environment and conditions; second, to enemy strategy choices; and third, to the type of force the US should build and maintain. Early examinations of this phenomenon have often used the term to apply to all these possibilities. In February, Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis, head of US Joint Forces Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, referred to both hybrid enemies and a hybrid force the US might build.
New York City… You are now rockin w/
7 Ways to Protect Times Square–Without Invasive Cameras.
Otto Dix at Neue Galerie New York, until Aug. 30, 2010.
related { Jean-Michel Basquiat would have turned 50 this year, had the Brooklyn-born painter not died from a heroin overdose in 1988, at the age of 27. His contemporary and competitor, art provocateur Barbara Kruger, considers his legacy.
Brooklyn 1940’s, Brooklyn 1960’s. [More pics | thanks Greg!]
Jason Florio, NY Gun club [photos]
‘I say no to alcohol, it just doesn’t listen.’ –Scott Adams
{ Full on tattoo at Joshua Liner Gallery, Apr. 24, 2010 | Shawn Barber, Tattooed Portraits: Chronicle, Joshua Liner Gallery, Until May 22, 2010 }
The gently champing teeth
{ How many zippers does he have? “One million, millions, I don’t know — more than a million,” said Mr. Feibusch, 86, a zipper man going on 70 years. Anyway, he can find you a zipper. “Tell me what size and what length and I’ll give it to you within 30 seconds,” he vowed. | NY Times | Full story }
Influence of the climate. Flowers of idleness. Azotes.
{ Robert Carlsen | Continue reading | via Nick Bilton | Read more: At 40, Earth Day Is Now Big Business | NY Times }
‘My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.’ –Nabokov
About 3,000 New York City taxi drivers routinely overcharged riders over two years by surreptitiously fixing their meters to charge rates that would normally apply only to trips outside the five boroughs, according to the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission.
The drivers’ scheme, the commission said, involved 1.8 million rides and cost passengers an average of $4 to $5 extra per trip. The drivers, officials said, flipped switches on their meters that kicked in the higher rates, costing New York City riders a total of $8.3 million.
The 1.8 million fares represent a tiny fraction of a total 360 million trips over the 26-month period in question.
photo { Terry Richardson | Related: After two models spoke out about Terry Richardson’s alleged sexual misconduct on shoots, Jezebel asked readers to write in with any stories they may have about the prolific photographer. | NY mag | full story }
‘Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.’ –Carl Jung
There is increasing awareness within the Defense Department that wars are interactively complex or “wicked” problems. (…) This article will examine the challenges interactively complex problems pose to U.S. military planning and doctrine. It will offer some modest suggestions for dealing with these problems. We use the terms “interactively complex,” “ill-structured” and “wicked” interchangeably throughout the article. (…)
Ill-structured problems are interactively complex. By definition, these problems are nonlinear. Small changes in input can create massive changes in outcome, and the same action performed at different times may create entirely different results. It is very difficult if not impossible to predict what will happen. Yet our war-planning process often promulgates detailed plans for well over the first 100 days of a conflict. Obviously, the true value of planning comes from the interactions of those doing the planning, not the plan itself. By shifting our planning focus from details of the plan to defining the problem, we can reap the benefits of intensive planning while exploring other problem definitions that should drive branch planning.
Ill-structured problems have no “stopping rule.” By definition, wicked problems have no end state. Rather, the planner must seek a “good enough” solution based on maintaining equilibrium around some acceptable condition. Unfortunately, our doctrine and practice continue to focus on developing an end state for every plan. When dealing with wicked problems, thinking in terms of an end state will almost certainly lead to failure. Instead, we should think about how to sustain “steady state” over the long term. While apparently a semantic quibble, accepting that wicked problems don’t “end” is vitally important for campaign planners and commanders alike.
‘In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.’ –Lenny Bruce
More than a decade after Bill Clinton left office and Ken Starr returned to private practice, public discourse has never regained its breath. The national conversation is every bit as histrionic as it was back then. Only now, at least most of the time, there’s no equivalent scandal to sustain it.
So we are left with ever-present outrage in search of something to be outraged about. We have a tone in search of a target.
Listen if you let me, I’ll be the reason you shine
The press seems to be having a little trouble distinguishing between verbal and physical harm lately. Earlier this month, New York Post Page Six contributor Ian Spiegelman dashed off an e-mail to writer Douglas Dechert threatening to “push your face inside-out in private or public” and to see “how many times I can slam my fist into your face before someone pulls me off.”
Mami took a bus trip, now she got her bust out
The doors open and three women step on: a blonde, a brunette and one whose hair has been bleached and blown dry so many times it’s not a discernible color. All of the women could stand to have a good 3 inches cut off their hair. They wear slight variations on the Little Black Slut Dress. They wear too much makeup, a pair of shoes that doesn’t quite match the dress, towering heels.
The man in the corner rolls his eyes and thinks to himself, “And I’m the hooker.”
That’s right: I’m 47 years old, I’m a good 30 pounds overweight, and I make my living by taking care of men who come to Las Vegas hoping for some skin time with other men — for a fee. And in case you’re ready to dismiss me as someone clinging onto the last shreds of his faded beauty, you should know that I was well into my 40s before I started hooking.
