On the 8 Spot

The Lunch Pail Manifesto

1. We must find the work that brings our lives meaning.
2. We must strive to make our work purposeful, truthful, and authentic, a pure offering to our Muse and fellow human beings.
3. We must wage a lifelong war with Resistance and accept that instant gratification is an oxymoron.
4. We must not speak of our work with false modesty or braggadocio.
5. We must not debase our work for short term gain nor elevate it above its rightful station to inflate our ego.
6. We must not covet the fruits of our work, or the fruits of others’ work.
7. We must respect others’ work and offer aid to fellow professional laborers.
8. We must accept that our work will never be perfect.
9. We must accept that our work will never be without merit.
10. We must accept that our work will never cease.

via Standing 8 Count | Black Irish Books | Get In the Ring!.

We first featured the Holstee manifesto over a year ago, and our fondness for their sustainable social enterprise has only grown since then. Whether you’re raising a family or venture funds for your new business, rallying cries for creativity don’t get much stronger than this:

This is your life. Do what you love, and do it often. If you don’t like something, change it. If you don’t like your job, quit. If you don’t have enough time, stop watching TV. If you are looking for the love of your life, stop; they will be waiting for you when you start doing things you love.”

via Five Manifestos for the Creative Life | Brain Pickings.

A revolution is coming to America.. Not Just America but the World, people are waking up and finally realising how the world works and that their rights as free human beings are slowly being taken away from them..
The 99% are rising up!

——————————————————————————-

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose
sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon
corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and
those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the
people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the
Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic
power.

We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest
over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled
here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage. They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system
through monopolization. They have profited off of the torture, confinement,and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay andsafer working conditions. They have held students hostage with tens
of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’healthcare and pay. They have influenced the courts to achievethe same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance. They have sold our privacy as a commodity.They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit. They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce. They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them. They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil. They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media. They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. To the people of the world, we, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy,we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!

The statement issued from Zuccotti Park, by the general assembly, at Occupy Wall Street.

Those on the streets around Wall Street are the physical embodiment of hope. They know that hope has a cost, that it is not easy or comfortable, that it requires self-sacrifice and discomfort and finally faith. They sleep on concrete every night. Their clothes are soiled. They have eaten more bagels and peanut butter than they ever thought possible. They have tasted fear, been beaten, gone to jail, been blinded by pepper spray, cried, hugged each other, laughed, sung, talked too long in general assemblies, seen their chants drift upward to the office towers above them, wondered if it is worth it, if anyone cares, if they will win. But as long as they remain steadfast they point the way out of the corporate labyrinth. This is what it means to be alive. They are the best among us.

via Chris Hedges: The Best Among Us – Chris Hedges Columns – Truthdig.

 

Read the whole damn thing!

Emphasis mine

What is the appeal of traveling and what do you receive from traveling? Are they reflected to your work? Please let us know what does traveling means to you (Eduard, Twitter)

I’m a pilgrim writer and that inevitably appears in the way my characters deals with space.

I’m in constant movement and very often I find that my characters need to equally find themselves in a journey.

I believe that we are constantly experiencing transformation and that’s why we need to let life guide us.

Every day is different, every day can have a magic moment, but we don’t see the opportunity, because we think: ‘Oh this is boring I’m just commuting to work.’

How many interesting people you are missing, just because our parents told us “don’t talk to strangers”?

You must get as much as you can from any journey, because – in the end – the journey is all you have. It doesn’t matter what you accumulate in terms of material wealth, because you are going to die anyway, so why not live?

You have to look at life itself is a pilgrimage. Therefore, start moving, start talking to strangers!

via Any journey is a pilgrimage « Paulo Coelho’s Blog.

nakakaaliw naman ito, bravo!

Sotomayor, writing for the court’s four liberals and Justice Anthony Kennedy, explained that the pressure of a custodial interrogation is “so immense that it ‘can induce a frighteningly high percentage of people to confess to crimes they never committed’ ” and referred to studies showing that youngsters are particularly susceptible to such pressure. Therefore, she explains, “a reasonable child subjected to police questioning will sometimes feel pressured to submit when a reasonable adult would feel free to go” and that—empathy alert!—”such conclusions apply broadly to children as a class. And, they are self-evident to anyone who was a child once himself, including any police officer or judge.”

Sotomayor points out that the law has no trouble setting distinct standards for children and adults based on the idea that events that “would leave a man cold and unimpressed can overawe and overwhelm a lad in his early teens.” And she notes that “these observations restate what ‘any parent knows’—indeed, what any person knows—about children generally.”

Sotomayor doubles down on the need to show special solicitude to the suspect’s age by mocking the absurdity of a judge trying her level best to imagine how “a reasonable adult [might] understand his situation, after being removed from a seventh-grade social studies class by a uniformed school resource officer; being encouraged Sotomayor, writing for the court’s four liberals and Justice Anthony Kennedy, explained that the pressure of a custodial interrogation is “so immense that it ‘can induce a frighteningly high percentage of people to confess to crimes they never committed’ ” and referred to studies showing that youngsters are particularly susceptible to such pressure. Therefore, she explains, “a reasonable child subjected to police questioning will sometimes feel pressured to submit when a reasonable adult would feel free to go” and that—empathy alert!—”such conclusions apply broadly to children as a class. And, they are self-evident to anyone who was a child once himself, including any police officer or judge.”

Sotomayor points out that the law has no trouble setting distinct standards for children and adults based on the idea that events that “would leave a man cold and unimpressed can overawe and overwhelm a lad in his early teens.” And she notes that “these observations restate what ‘any parent knows’—indeed, what any person knows—about children generally.”

Sotomayor doubles down on the need to show special solicitude to the suspect’s age by mocking the absurdity of a judge trying her level best to imagine how “a reasonable adult [might] understand his situation, after being removed from a seventh-grade social studies class by a uniformed school resource officer; being encouraged by his assistant principal to ‘do the right thing’; and being warned by a police investigator of the prospect of juvenile detention and separation from his guardian and primary caretaker.” She concludes that empathy is hardly impossible to muster in these settings: “Just as police officers are competent to account for other objective circumstances that are a matter of degree such as the length of questioning or the number of officers present, so too are they competent to evaluate the effect of relative age. … The same is true of judges, including those whose childhoods have long since passed. … In short, officers and judges need no imaginative powers, knowledge of developmental psychology, training in cognitive science, or expertise in social and cultural anthropology to account for a child’s age. They simply need the common sense to know that a 7-year-old is not a 13-year-old and neither is an adult.”by his assistant principal to ‘do the right thing’; and being warned by a police investigator of the prospect of juvenile detention and separation from his guardian and primary caretaker.” She concludes that empathy is hardly impossible to muster in these settings: “Just as police officers are competent to account for other objective circumstances that are a matter of degree such as the length of questioning or the number of officers present, so too are they competent to evaluate the effect of relative age. … The same is true of judges, including those whose childhoods have long since passed. … In short, officers and judges need no imaginative powers, knowledge of developmental psychology, training in cognitive science, or expertise in social and cultural anthropology to account for a child’s age. They simply need the common sense to know that a 7-year-old is not a 13-year-old and neither is an adult.”

via J.D.B. v. North Carolina: Sonia Sotomayor shows Samuel Alito the value of judicial empathy. – By Dahlia Lithwick – Slate Magazine.

Transcript

ray bradbury enterprises

[Redacted]

los angeles, california 90064

dear william stanhope:

most important decision i ever made came at age 9…i was collecting BUCK ROGERS comic strips, 1929, when my 5th grade classmates made fun of me. I tore up the strips. A week later, broke into tears. Why was I crying? I wondered. Who die? Me, was the answer. I have torn up the future. What to do about it? Start collecting BUCK ROGERS again. Fall in love with the Future! I did just that. And after that never listened to one damnfool idiot classmate who doubted me! What did I learn? To be myself and never let others, prejudiced, interfer with my life. Kids, do the same. Be your own self. Love what YOU love.

Best wishes,

(Signed, ‘RAY B.’)

Bradbury

10/28/91

via Letters of Note: Be your own self. Love what YOU love..

We kill the light of truth we have because

Whilst searching for a torrent for Sita Sings The Blues I chance upon this. Beautiful.

Dear Audience,

I hereby give Sita Sings the Blues to you. Like all culture, it belongs to you already, but I am making it explicit with a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. Please distribute, copy, share, archive, and show Sita Sings the Blues. From the shared culture it came, and back into the shared culture it goes.

You don’t need my permission to copy, share, publish, archive, show, sell, broadcast, or remix Sita Sings the Blues. Conventional wisdom urges me to demand payment for every use of the film, but then how would people without money get to see it? How widely would the film be disseminated if it were limited by permission and fees? Control offers a false sense of security. The only real security I have is trusting you, trusting culture, and trusting freedom.

That said, my colleagues and I will enforce the Share Alike License. You are not free to copy-restrict (“copyright”) or attach Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) to Sita Sings the Blues or its derivative works.

Some of the songs in Sita Sings the Blues are not free, and may never be; copyright law requires you to obey their respective licenses. This is not by my choice; please see our restrictions page for more.

There is the question of how I’ll get money from all this. My personal experience confirms audiences are generous and want to support artists. Surely there’s a way for this to happen without centrally controlling every transaction. The old business model of coercion and extortion is failing. New models are emerging, and I’m happy to be part of that. But we’re still making this up as we go along. You are free to make money with the free content of Sita Sings the Blues, and you are free to share money with me. People have been making money in Free Software for years; it’s time for Free Culture to follow. I look forward to your innovations.

If you have questions, please ask each other. If you have ideas, please implement them – you don’t need my permission or anyone else’s (except for the copyright-restricted songs, of course). If you see abuses, please address them, but don’t get bogged down in arcane details of copyright law. The copyright system wants you to think in terms of asking permission; I want you to think in terms of freedom. We’ve set up this Wiki to get things started. Feel free to improve it!

I’ve got to get back to my life now, and make some new art. Thanks for your support! This film wouldn’t exist without you.

Love,

–Nina Paley

28 February, 2009

via Sita Sings the Blues.

Nice post read the whole thing.

When I was a child the mailman came once a day. Now the mail arrives every moment. I used to believe it was preposterous that people could fall in love online. Now I see that all relationships are virtual, even those that take place in person. Whether we use our bodies or a keyboard, it all comes down to two minds crying out from their solitude.

via All the lonely people – Roger Ebert’s Journal.

Great speech with several great lines, from gmatv.net here.

“Seven years ago, being myself afflicted with the GFN Complex, I wrestled with The Language Problem. In what tongue was I to express my Filipino soul? In what language was I to write the GFN that I thought was struggling to get out of my skin? Part of the reason I became a college dropout… was the conviction I had arrived at, that the language of my GFN could never be English. The characters I wanted to write about were people who spoke no English at all, or spoke it only when drunk. How could I make a jeepney driver curse the cop on the corner in English? I wrote about a housemaid once and though the story was accepted for publication in this magazine, Free Press, I thought it was funny to have a maid speak like a Maryknoll coed. None of the attempts made by established writers to render native speech in English could satisfy me.”

“I am talking of course, of the so called lower classes, those who have not had much of an education and can only afford the inexpensive pleasures of Tagalog movies and comic books. Higher up on the social scale. Higher up on the social scale,” said Mr. Lacaba, “one needs English to communicate and these are usually the people who are opposed to Pilipino as the national language, knowing as they do that it endangers their position as the current elite.”

And here is poet, critic, teacher and National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera on the language situation:

“In the bourgeois mind of the power elite, the interests of their small group represent the interests of the entire nation. What is good for their class is good for the entire masses…

“Perhaps the Philippine situation can never be fully understood by someone belonging to the power elite. The Westernization of those who have graduated from the university is practically complete. The students who have learned English easily are the same ones who have quickly embraced the culture embodied by the English language. They are the citizens alienated from their fellow Filipinos because they live in an artificial society, a society built on the principle and objectives imported through the use of English. It is surprising that many intellectuals believe that nationalism and the language problem are separate, that is possible to show concern for the country without supporting Pilipino…