Dear Readers,

Rate the credence of the following as you wish. I happened upon them through my brief investigation of the NSA national news topic. I don’t read mainstream news with any regularity. When I do, I am highly skeptical; I mainly think about three things when I read or watch “mainstream” media. This is why my Google search results turned these up first for me when I researched the topic. [Why Google gives different results to different visitors]

One, who their audience is—this matters because this will dictate what articles they publish—typically they will publish anything they think their audience will share or be outraged or shocked by, hence $.
Two, who owns the newspaper—which matters because in the example of the New York Times, government officials were able to censor an article about the NSA and delay its publication for a whole year—because then we know who decides what will be published or not, regardless of truth. Three, how low on the psychological manipulation scale they’re going. When they post about Snowden’s “girlfriend” or whether or not his statements are true…that’s just bad journalism. You don’t ask the audience to do your fact-checking for you because then they just think the information is true (it’s being published).

Interview with Snowden <—Laura Poitras interview with Edward Snowden in Hong Kong {search Poitras on wiki and IMDB} I have met her in the Yes Men office, which she was renting to The Yes Men while she lived in Germany. Her co-worker Katie told me she is watched closely in the USA after her award winning films The Oath and My Country, My Country came out.

How NSA works <—This one could be bullshit, the guy seems a little buckwild. However, the way he explains how the NSA detects information seems to make sense (they keyword search and upon suspicion can go back in time to read anything you’ve sent).

Ai Weiwei comment on NSA leak <—“The US is behaving like China.” This one is written by a Chinese artist I HIGHLY respect. He fights against the tyranny of the Chinese dictatorship. He is beloved by many people there for a project he did on reporting about shoddy workmanship in school buildings that were ruined by mudslides in Szechuan. His international fame is all that keeps him safe. Though they once detained him without notice for six months on the grounds that he “misfiled taxes”.

I could be mistaken. Because I am skeptical of most mainstream media (as big money runs them) I trust the first two mainly because they are respectively a primary source and an independent secondary source. The third I trust because I trust the author in light of his political position in China. I’ve never met Ai Weiwei but according to me he is after truth and against forms of tyranny.

Sincerely,
Billy Halibut

In this holiday season, many of us become particularly aware of the amount of products — whether toys or food — bought and then ultimately discarded. Could we significantly address global warming by simply not growing the 50% of food that ends up in the trash? Does garbage have a hidden subversive potential? Award-winning writer China Miéville discusses garbage, capitalism, and art. Critic and historian Tristram Stuart talks about food waste.

The second half gets really good. (at about 33:10) About the equality of trash, countries competing to become the cheapest dumping grounds, E-waste “recycling”, and much more. The first half is nice but not quite as relevant for howLAB. It’s about food waste in the developed and developing world, from farming, and transport to stores, and eventually trash. 

Listen: http://www.againstthegrain.org/program/635/mon-121712-lot-rubbish

Re-Blog: http://chinamieville.net/post/485794999/clutter-glut

“Using digital technology to release us from that clock” Bringing us back to kairos. “in sync with other people instead of an artifact (clock) or seasons”

http://www.againstthegrain.org/program/693/wed-41013-rise-presentism

When we master the head-stand, we conquer Time.
When we master the metaphor, we conquer Things.
When we master instant messaging, we assimilate with Time.
Time is a Thing constructed from language and culture and value on the artifact of physical metaphorical Time.

Computer technology is a technology that freezes Time and instead bases life on punctuated actions separated by stillness.

“Frozen in the Index of Time,” he sang. The sound reverberated through the annals and tunnels and funnels full of books and flipped over folders of pamphlets and papers. All could be accessed, dead matter catalogued and filed and archived in case someone should forget and need a reminder. Everything said will be one way or another„,recovered from its original place.

Put this shit on my tab.
Don’t feel like dealin with it now, I’ll deal with it later.

“No no, finished, that’s over, you cannot shock the public”

Read // Listen

What a year was 1913! Many have called it the true beginning of 20th century culture. From New York, where the first large-scale show of modern art alarmed viewers, to Vienna and Paris, where music by Schoenberg and Stravinsky sparked audience riots —- it was a year of artistic upset and audience apoplexy! A hundred years later, WNYC’s Sara Fishko and guests tell the story of this Mad Modernist moment of sweeping change, and the ways in which it mirrors our own uncertain age.