Archive for December 2006
A citizenship to die for
You’ve heard about Green card loteries. Now comes the US citizenship russian roulette: fight in Iraq, if you survive – you’re welcome to the US.
the Peacemaker trailer
100 years of violence in 30 seconds. Can change the story?
This is a passage from the play (Oper…
This is a passage from the play (Operetta, really) “the enchanted pig“:
OLPC Human Interface Guidelines: yeah!
Finally, a system design that get it. OLPC guidelines work out of the assumption that people use computers to *do stuff* and they do it in a *social context*. Vygotsky is dancing a foxtrot in his grave. Even if these machines never catch, the guidelines should be copied.
War on terror: out, War on kiddy porn: in
digg tells us that
A new bill introduced by Senator John McCain last week would require all registered sex offenders to give their e-mail addresses, IM screen names, and chat room handles to the government.
and there’s some good comments too, like:
This is nothing more than Legislative masturbation: It doesn’t really accomplish anything, but you feel kinda good afterward.
The only thing this will lead to is people being harassed. Let people serve their term and leave them alone.
But I think this is worse. You don’t need more than 1000 lines of perl code to catch the baddies. No, this is about something else. Its just another excuse to get your identity tracked. War on terror is loosing its charm, you know – all those boys (and girls) killed and no WMDs, let’s look for something even those liberal fags can’t possibly object to. Like, protecting children from sexual predators. On the internet. Oooo that will scare the jibbers off them.
O the Chimneys (Koppenplatz, Berlin)
And though after my skin worms destroy this body,
yet in my flesh shall I see God. JOB 19:26
O the chimneys
On the ingeniously devised habitations of death
When Israel’s body drifted as smoke
Through the air -
Was welcomed by a star, a chimney sweep,
a star that turned black
Or was it a ray of sun?
O the chimneys!
Freedomway for Jeremiah and Job’s dust -
Who devised you and laid stone upon stone
The road for refugees of smoke?
O the habitations of death,
Invitingly appointed
For the host who used to be a guest -
O you fingers
Laying the threshold
Like a knife between life and death -
O you chimneys,
O you fingers
And Israel’s body as smoke through the air!
Nelly Sachs
Translated by Michael Hamburger
Thanks to:
http://www.telisphere.com/~cearley/sean/camps/chimney.htm
http://www.berlin-hidden-places.de/yuba_web3/regional_en/mitte/mit_verlraum_en.htm
