George Galloway

rabble.ca will livestream George Galloway beginning at 8 p.m. tonight.  An everyday act of rebellion:  listen to what your government doesn’t want you to hear!

This Complex, Heartbreak Survival

The Gilded Shadow

The impact is simmering down, as into

a solvent liquid. That I’ll never hear your voice

again, but through a medium like

rain. Or will see you but in a lightning flash.

You are nature’s speech, the young girth

and deadly imprint.

I eagerly wait the date of your rebirth, in

the endless window-sky. Hovering cloud, really a

gilded shadow that lights your face outline. Waters

and land permit no elegy translated.

But a stark villanelle, facts rendered.

An indefinite, glorious seeding,

the element that draws us closest. Nucleus of

a meadow, the grass-tips’ ghost your

being. Bend me to earth, the only hereafter after death.

O shades beneath the sun. Or I don’t understand it —

like embracing a mystery hole in our minds,

this complex, heartbreak survival.

Jane Mayhall

- died March 17, 2009

For a Rainy Sunday Afternoon

Ruthie Foster

Up Above My Head

Chomsky on Geithner

Sigur Rós

Glósóli

Defend Free Speech

Defend Free Speech

QotD

… our political class cheers on treasury-draining wars, allows financial elites to rob and pillage, witnesses huge transfers of wealth to the richest, and then when the whole thing explodes, the “real fiscal answer” is for ordinary Americans to have their Medicare benefits “slashed” and Social Security benefits reduced.

Glenn Greenwald

“Hey Paul Krugman” – A Song

Chaos in Afghanistan

From Afghanistan on the Brink by Ullrich Fichtner at Speigel:

… in the eighth year of the Afghanistan mission, at the beginning of an Afghan election year that could spell the end of President Hamid Karzai’s government this summer, there are still many difficult questions to be asked: What exactly are the 60,000 international troops stationed there fighting for, if Afghanistan, despite their presence, actually dropped by 59 positions on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, to 176th out of 180 countries, in only three years? How is it possible that Afghanistan’s opium production did not shrink during the years that NATO has been present in the country, but in fact grew larger, so that 92 percent of worldwide opium production today comes from Afghanistan?

[...]

Day after day, foreign soldiers are killed and Afghan policemen are murdered, and the life of President Karzai is constantly in danger. Nowadays, his convoy only ventures into the streets outside the presidential palace walls in Kabul with an escort of two Apache attack helicopters. Is Afghanistan lost? Is it a failed state? A failed experiment by one of the biggest coalition of nations ever formed? Is this the end of the world order dominated by powers like the United States, the UN and NATO? And exactly how strong is the Taliban?

[...]

To gain a realistic picture of the current situation in Afghanistan, one should consult the grand old men of Afghan politics, representatives of the Aga Khan, provincial mayors, members of parliament and Turkish reconstruction workers, bankers involved in micro lending and telecommunications entrepreneurs, election monitors, bodyguards, school principals and even the owner of the “Humaira Aria” beauty salon, where wealthy Kabul girls come to prepare for their weddings. Their comments merge into a single conclusion, namely that their country is on the brink, that the global public is being strung along with empty promises that perseverance will lead to success, and that 2009 will be the decisive year for Afghanistan.

Read the whole thing here

Isadorables

The Isadorables

Abraham Walkowitz

The Isadora Duncan Dance School opened in 1903 in Grunewald, Germany. Eighteen to twenty girls, ages four to ten, were boarded and educated free of charge. In order to provide the tuition for the girls, it was necessary for Isadora to tour extensively. In her absence, Isadora’s sister Elizabeth was the director of the school; however, it was Isadora, who provided the artistic vision for the venture. Because of continuing financial difficulties, and Elizabeth’s desire to assume a more significant position in the school, the Grunewald experiment closed in 1908. Elizabeth opened her own school in Darmstadt, with the majority of the pupils leaving with her. Six of the girls, who had become the principal dancers of the Grunewald school, remained with Isadora and were given the title: “Isadorables.” They were Anna Denzler, Maria-Theresa Kruger, Irma Erich-Grimme, Elizabeth (Lisa) Milker, Margot (Gretel) Jehl, and Erica Lohmann. In 1919, Isadora legally adopted the six girls, and of these, Irma, Lisa and Anna permanently assumed the name Duncan.

In Walkowitz’s depiction, he shows in successive registers the Isadorables, and as the root and progenitor, Isadora is shown in the bottom row. Around the border of the composition, Walkowitz has lettered names of modern dancers, composers, and choreographers. It appears that this collage is a “family tree” of modern dance, and in it the ink drawings capture the persona of each dancer in dynamic abstract fashion without straying into generic formulas.

h/t wood s lot