Female Narcissim. Stating the Obvious.
An interesting article in The Daily Mail. Note, narcissism seems to be increasing for both sexes but especially for the fairer sex.
Pako M photography
I'm liking Pako Magabane a photography, he hails from Johannesburg Soweto. He studied photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg. His work has been widely published in Applause magazine and The Sunday world Newspaper. His is also featured on a television program called Agape, which is broadcast every Sunday morning at 10am on SABC1. His work was part of an exhibition called In transit held at the Market Photo Workshop and at the Goethe Institute in Johannesburg.
Gaming
This foosball table was designed by the GRO design team and developed by TIM model makers. The 22 players are made of bright silver chrome, with lighting effects and the software controlling the game adds further excitement to the experience of the player. This table is set to attract a new league of players. It’s unfortunate that only one prototype model exists. The table was exhibited for the first time at the Milan Design week.
Thoughts on the Beautiful and Sublime: A Reply to Thursday.
Commentator Thursday put up quite a good post on the subject of the beautiful and the sublime. I thought I'd offer him a reply.
Whilst I am a conservative, I've never been a big fan of Burke. Burke's meditations on beauty, as his meditations on politics, seem to display more description of the fact rather than an understanding of the subject. His describes conservatism more than he understands it; likewise on the subject of beauty.
To a certain degree, I subscribe to the Platonic idea of Forms, and the more perfectly a thing resembles the form from which it partakes, the less flawed it is. Everyone, I imagine, has seen the comedy skit of the beautiful woman who enchants the man until she smiles,revealing her rotten teeth, at which point the man becomes repulsed. The "flaw" in the woman quashing the sensation of beauty. In fact it's quite interesting to speculate as to why there even is such a thing as perfect teeth. Why does a certain arrangement and colour of teeth give us pleasure and deviation from that ideal lead to the sensation of progressive repulsion?
It would appear, at least to my mind, that the mind has pre-concieved notions of how things should be or if you believe in the supernatural, the mind the has the capacity to recognise things as they are meant to be.
This capacity to recognise "perfection" is a sense of the intellect. In the same way we can feel pleasure from our physical sense organs, stimulatating the intellect through sense data, i.e sight can cause pleasure to arise in the intellect. Beauty is the pleasurable sensation felt in intellect's apprehension of the perfection of form. Ugliness, it opposite.
Thinking of beauty this way explains things which a first would seem incompatible. A gargoyle, which is physically repulsive, has its beauty insofar as it conforms to the perfect form of a gargoyle. War, something so horrible and destructive, can also generate a sense of beauty insofar as it is a perfect example of war. This why we can speak of things as "terrible beauties", things that are bad but perfectly bad.
The appreciation of beauty is also contingent on the intellect, that's why we say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The ignorance or refinement of the intellect determines the conditional status of the perception of beauty. The cultivated man and the moron will disagree with regard to the nature of beauty as the dullard's intellect, through either deficiency or habituated neglect, is incapable of apprehending the perfection of form. To a dullard, beauty is reduced to its most primitive form; sexual. The refined man wants more because his intellect is habituated to demand more.
With regard to female beauty, I think its wrong to think that there is one type of female beauty, in the same way that one can err in thinking there is only one type of perfect colour. In order for a woman to be beautiful she must approach perfection as a woman and in the specific features that distinguish herself. Audrey Hepburn with a scar on her face does not equal Grace Kelly with a pimple on her nose. Rather each woman becomes more beautiful as she approaches the perfection of herself. The less flawed a woman is the more beautiful she becomes.
This of course leads us to the concept of the sublime. The sensation of the sublime become more apparent as the subject apprehended by the intellect approaches perfection. Then not only does the intellect percieve the subjects perfection of form but the subject in question is apprehended in its entirety. Mountains are meant to be thought of as dangerous, oceans and the night skies vast, the desert barren. A man standing on the beach alone infront of the vast sea is meant to be feel both beauty, awe and terror as the see is capable of inspiring all these things. As the the thing apprehended by the intellect approaches more perfectly it's form, it also becomes more efficient in transmitting to the intellect its nature. Marilyn Monroe "oozed sexuality" because she closely approached one of the forms of female sexuality. The intellect could apprehend her sexuality without effort. Thefore objects which are meant elicit fear become more efficient in eliciting the effect the more perfectly they approach the form of the thing they are meant to be. Tiger cubs progressively elicit more fear as they become adult tigers. It follows therefore that some of the fear associated with beauty arises from the nature of the thing considered beautiful.
However, there is another aspect of beauty that needs to be considered, and that is once beauty is apprehended, men seek to keep it in their gaze; they desire to posses it. Failure to achieve it is a cause of grief and pain. And just as beauty is a positive sensation arising from the sense of the intellect, fear is also a sensation of the intellect based upon the intellect's perception of potential loss. A fearful man is a man who percieves he is in a position where he can potentially lose something. Be it his material possessions, pscyhological well-being or his life. Once a thing lost, grief sets in. Grief is the intellect's sense of loss. It follows therefore the more beautiful a woman a man desires, the more fear their will be at his approach, since he wishes to gain what he finds beautiful. It is in the intellect's appreciation of the fear of rejection from whence the fear associated with beauty arises.
There fore the fear associate with beauty can arise from fear projected by the nature of the object apprehended by the intellect and by potential of pleasure that loss of that object.
The Bilble says that no man can see the face of God and live. For years I thought this meant that God would punish a man for looking at him, but I was wrong. Dante gave the first clue to my intellectual error. When Dante first gazes upon Beatrice she tells him to turn away from him, as her beauty will kill him. The film, Somewhere in Time deals with the same theme, of a man so capitvated by the beauty of the woman he loves that he simply wills himself to death.(Yes, I know its soppy) It think it is this mechanism that kills men when gazing upon God. Seeing him we will fall in love with him instantly and not wish to live on this earthly vale any more. The judgement of God will be in that moment where he decides whether to accept us or not. The terror for a moment will be horrifying since the potential loss will be everything. The damned will be those whom falling in love with God upon seeing him will be rejected. Their grief will be eternal. The terror of beauty is in its possible rejection of us.
Whilst I am a conservative, I've never been a big fan of Burke. Burke's meditations on beauty, as his meditations on politics, seem to display more description of the fact rather than an understanding of the subject. His describes conservatism more than he understands it; likewise on the subject of beauty.
To a certain degree, I subscribe to the Platonic idea of Forms, and the more perfectly a thing resembles the form from which it partakes, the less flawed it is. Everyone, I imagine, has seen the comedy skit of the beautiful woman who enchants the man until she smiles,revealing her rotten teeth, at which point the man becomes repulsed. The "flaw" in the woman quashing the sensation of beauty. In fact it's quite interesting to speculate as to why there even is such a thing as perfect teeth. Why does a certain arrangement and colour of teeth give us pleasure and deviation from that ideal lead to the sensation of progressive repulsion?
It would appear, at least to my mind, that the mind has pre-concieved notions of how things should be or if you believe in the supernatural, the mind the has the capacity to recognise things as they are meant to be.
This capacity to recognise "perfection" is a sense of the intellect. In the same way we can feel pleasure from our physical sense organs, stimulatating the intellect through sense data, i.e sight can cause pleasure to arise in the intellect. Beauty is the pleasurable sensation felt in intellect's apprehension of the perfection of form. Ugliness, it opposite.
Thinking of beauty this way explains things which a first would seem incompatible. A gargoyle, which is physically repulsive, has its beauty insofar as it conforms to the perfect form of a gargoyle. War, something so horrible and destructive, can also generate a sense of beauty insofar as it is a perfect example of war. This why we can speak of things as "terrible beauties", things that are bad but perfectly bad.
The appreciation of beauty is also contingent on the intellect, that's why we say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The ignorance or refinement of the intellect determines the conditional status of the perception of beauty. The cultivated man and the moron will disagree with regard to the nature of beauty as the dullard's intellect, through either deficiency or habituated neglect, is incapable of apprehending the perfection of form. To a dullard, beauty is reduced to its most primitive form; sexual. The refined man wants more because his intellect is habituated to demand more.
With regard to female beauty, I think its wrong to think that there is one type of female beauty, in the same way that one can err in thinking there is only one type of perfect colour. In order for a woman to be beautiful she must approach perfection as a woman and in the specific features that distinguish herself. Audrey Hepburn with a scar on her face does not equal Grace Kelly with a pimple on her nose. Rather each woman becomes more beautiful as she approaches the perfection of herself. The less flawed a woman is the more beautiful she becomes.
This of course leads us to the concept of the sublime. The sensation of the sublime become more apparent as the subject apprehended by the intellect approaches perfection. Then not only does the intellect percieve the subjects perfection of form but the subject in question is apprehended in its entirety. Mountains are meant to be thought of as dangerous, oceans and the night skies vast, the desert barren. A man standing on the beach alone infront of the vast sea is meant to be feel both beauty, awe and terror as the see is capable of inspiring all these things. As the the thing apprehended by the intellect approaches more perfectly it's form, it also becomes more efficient in transmitting to the intellect its nature. Marilyn Monroe "oozed sexuality" because she closely approached one of the forms of female sexuality. The intellect could apprehend her sexuality without effort. Thefore objects which are meant elicit fear become more efficient in eliciting the effect the more perfectly they approach the form of the thing they are meant to be. Tiger cubs progressively elicit more fear as they become adult tigers. It follows therefore that some of the fear associated with beauty arises from the nature of the thing considered beautiful.
However, there is another aspect of beauty that needs to be considered, and that is once beauty is apprehended, men seek to keep it in their gaze; they desire to posses it. Failure to achieve it is a cause of grief and pain. And just as beauty is a positive sensation arising from the sense of the intellect, fear is also a sensation of the intellect based upon the intellect's perception of potential loss. A fearful man is a man who percieves he is in a position where he can potentially lose something. Be it his material possessions, pscyhological well-being or his life. Once a thing lost, grief sets in. Grief is the intellect's sense of loss. It follows therefore the more beautiful a woman a man desires, the more fear their will be at his approach, since he wishes to gain what he finds beautiful. It is in the intellect's appreciation of the fear of rejection from whence the fear associated with beauty arises.
There fore the fear associate with beauty can arise from fear projected by the nature of the object apprehended by the intellect and by potential of pleasure that loss of that object.
The Bilble says that no man can see the face of God and live. For years I thought this meant that God would punish a man for looking at him, but I was wrong. Dante gave the first clue to my intellectual error. When Dante first gazes upon Beatrice she tells him to turn away from him, as her beauty will kill him. The film, Somewhere in Time deals with the same theme, of a man so capitvated by the beauty of the woman he loves that he simply wills himself to death.(Yes, I know its soppy) It think it is this mechanism that kills men when gazing upon God. Seeing him we will fall in love with him instantly and not wish to live on this earthly vale any more. The judgement of God will be in that moment where he decides whether to accept us or not. The terror for a moment will be horrifying since the potential loss will be everything. The damned will be those whom falling in love with God upon seeing him will be rejected. Their grief will be eternal. The terror of beauty is in its possible rejection of us.
MOS DEF: ECSTATIC MOMENTS Exhibition in L.A
We would love to see this exhibition is
HVW8 Art & Design Gallery, Union LA & Frolab present a photo exhibition entitled MOS DEF: ECSTATIC MOMENTS. Photographer, filmmaker, visionist Cognito showcases rare performance and behind-the-scenes images captured during the two year journey of making and supporting the June 2009 release of The Ecstatic (iTunes) This special one-week exhibition features candid photographs of Mos Def, including images from visits to the Cape of Great Hope, South Africa, performing in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and a powerful series of US Summer Tour “end-of-the-night posse shots” featuring such artists as Jay Electronica, Talib Kweli, Erykah Badu, and even a surprise guest appearance by the legendary Shuggie Otis.
The exhibition will be open to the public from January 30, 2010 through February 6, 2010
at the HVW8 Art + Design Gallery, located at 661 N. Spaulding Ave., Los Angeles CA.
RSVP here for 01/29 VIP opening reception (7-11pm)
Video Thirstday: Mighty Mos Def
Mos Def remains active within the music scene as he drops yet another video for his loyal fans. The visual serves as a teaser for Director/Photographer/Musician Michael Sterling Eaton’s highly anticipated album Mictape Vol. 1 featuring the likes of Mos Def, Curren$y, Ernie Gaines, Scoop Deville, Stalley, The Cool Kids and many more. Check it out.
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Video Thirstday
How I wish South African music artists can go creative on their album covers. This is a crazy concept that lets the consumer feel like the designer of the cover. Innovation meets the consumer. Designed by Hubero Kororo
PAPPELTALKS from vizage on Vimeo.
">Mencken on Democracy.
Next time you wondering why government sucks and why they can't do anything right, ponder these thoughts by H.L. Mencken:
The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.In a democracy, the fools that govern us have earned their right by popular assent. The morons in government are the mirror of the people. The people stink.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
Flight of the Conchords
Taken straight from their official website. These dudes are totally awesome. We don't have the airing in SA & me; well through my most trusted source of vision; I was hooked up & got hooked...Tit bit facts about the most dumbest- most briliant duo:
• Bret and Jemaine first met in 1996 at Victoria University Wellington.
• They were both acting in a University Drama Club production called Body Play. Bret and Jemaine were put in a group of five men to create a short theatrical piece about male body issues.
• Melbourne International Comedy Festival
• Unfortunately the Australians didn’t appreciate the show like they had in New Zealand and the season was cancelled after one week.
• In 1998 Bret and Jemaine decided to start a band. With a combined knowledge of three chords on the guitar they set about jamming out. The first song was Foux Du FaFa, (two chords) and they called themselves Moustache. The four piece band had Bret on casio-tone, Jemaine on guitar, and their friends Toby Laing and Tim Jaray on trumpet and double bass. They performed their one song at the Wellington Fringe Festival late night club and members of the audience were said to have been “mildly impressed” by the act.
After the encouraging feedback the pair continued to write songs in their living room, subjecting their six flatmates to relentless three chord jams. After several weeks they knew four chords and Jemaine got them a gig to perform at the Thursday night Comedy Club. On the afternoon of the gig they realised they needed a band name. The initial list of names included Roxygen Supply, Albatrocity, and Tanfastic. But the final name was chanced upon in a series of events that went something like this: Jemaine went to the bathroom and noticed the flat toilet was called the Concorde, he returned from the bathroom to suggest the name Conchord, and Bret said “What about Flight of the Conchords”, and Jemaine said “okay”, and Bret said “okay “, and Jemaine said “okay then” and Bret said “We should go to the gig, we’re late
• By 2000 they had written a dozen songs and decided to escape the New Zealand winter and perform at the Canadian Fringe Festival
• In 2002 they decided to again escape the New Zealand winter. This time travelling to Scotland to perform in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Their venue was an underground tunnel called The Cave. When it rained, which was most days in Edinburgh, the ceiling dripped onto the audience and a dank slime crept down the stone walls. Apparently in the 17th century the room had been used to quarantine plague victims. They performed every night for the month of August and won the Mervyn Stutter Spirit of the Fringe Award. By the time the left they had dozens of fans, and severe chest infections.
• They returned to Edinburgh in 2003 and again performed in the same subterranean grotto. The show had developed to include a xylophone and a dancing toy flower. Their new songs included If You’re Into it, Bret You’ve Got It Goin’ On, Sexy Flower, and Hiphopopotamus vs. The Rhymenocerous.
• In 2004 they returned to Edinburgh this time performing above ground. The sell out show included the songs Jenny, Business Time, Stana and an unfinished love song called The Scientist and the French Teacher.
• From their success in Edinburgh the BBC Light Entertainment Department commissioned the band to make a six part radio series. Bret and Jemaine moved to London in 2005 and spent five months writing and recording a mockumentary about the lives of a fictional version of themselves. The show was the first time they collaborated with NZ comedian Rhys Darby who played the character Brian Nesbitt, the fictional band’s manager.
• Later that year Bret and Jemaine received an invitation to perform at the Aspen Comedy Festival, in Colorado, USA. Against tradition they left New Zealand’s summer to go to the northern hemisphere’s winter and were shocked by the snow when they stepped off the plane in t shirts and jandles. The HBO executives liked their act and asked them to film a half hour performance for a stand-up comedy show called One Night Stand.
• Over the next four years they made a TV pilot, a sitcom, released an EP and a full length album, toured North America, made a sandwich, filmed a second season of the sitcom, toured North America again, released a second album, and went back to New Zealand.
The jazz voice of a generation
The jazz voice of a generation, José James returns with a moodier, edgier and more sensual sound, drawing inspiration from the worldwide underground. His debut LP ‘The Dreamer’ (released in 2007 on Brownswood Recordings) was crammed with smoky, low-slung jazz grooves blessed with Jose’s rich baritone vocals. Magnificent self-penned works nestled alongside uniquely crafted cover versions of John Coltrane, Rashaan Roland Kirk and even West Coast hip hop institution Freestyle Fellowship. Pursuing the same deeply soulful vocal jazz tradition exemplified by Babs Gonzales, Billie Holliday, Joe Williams and Leon Thomas, ‘The Dreamer’ quickly cemented Jose’s stature and raw talent within the worldwide jazz community.
Since ‘The Dreamer’ José has performed in 30 countries, worked with some of the best, wisest and finest artists in the world such as Chico Hamilton and Junior Mance and he has built a community of friends and fellow music-lovers all over the globe. The distance from
“There is community on this record and my community has grown –Minneapolis gave way to New York, while New York in turn gave way to London, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Sao Paolo, Berlin, LA, Rotterdam, Detroit, Barcelona, Brussels... I've been living and working in these cities – digitally, long-term, short-term, paying rent or whatever, for 2 years or so and it's all there.”
José started the process with LA’s beat conductor supreme Flying Lotus (Warp/Brainfeeder) in April 2008:
“In a phone call he changed the entire scope of my musical direction and focus.”
Tossing ideas back and forth between the East Coast and West Coast, the pair crafted a handful of delightfully dusty, slightly dishevelled hip hop soul joints. Anchoring the album in hip hop’s boom-clap foundation, José is perfectly at ease riding FlyLo’s bumpy sketches, just as he is contributing good-time vibes to DJ Mitsu’s sunshine soundtrack ‘PROMISE IN LOVE’, blessing Moodyman’s retro jazz-funk groove ‘DETROIT LOVELETTER’, or indeed morphing Benga’s dub step anthem ‘Emotions’ into a killer live jazz workout.
José announced his comeback with a killer 12” featuring ‘BLACKMAGIC’ remixes from the hotly-tipped Joy Orbison and dub step innovator Untold. Reworks by dOP and IZMABAD are available digitally.
JOSE JAMES – ‘BLACKMAGIC’
1. CODE
2. TOUCH
3. LAY YOU DOWN
4. PROMISE IN LOVE
5. WARRIOR
6. MADE FOR LOVE
7. SAVE YOUR LOVE FOR ME
8. THE GREATER GOOD
9. BLACKMAGIC
10.
11. LOVE CONVERSATION
12. BEAUTY
13. NO TELLIN'
The bands performing at the Haiti Benefit
The Haiti benefit night is shaping up to be a great mix of live performances from a diverse range of local (and not so local) artists.
Here is a list of the artists playing (in no particular order):
UPSTAIRS presented by This is our battlefied
Holy Mountain
Sludge Bass and rapid fire Drums duo whose live shows are the stuff of legend
Grozny
Up and coming Literate punk rock from Glasgow.
Eternal Fags
First gig for local ex-Plaaydoh members.
DOWNSTAIRS presented by ACN Glasgow
Eastborn
Scottish Political Hip Hop.
NorthenXposure
BAFTA Nominated NorthernXposure are Scotland's No.1 rap crew. Though still unsigned, they have toured in the USA with such groups as 'Naughty By Nature' and 'The Roots', and in the UK and Europe with 'MC Solaar', 'Busta Rhymes', and 'Amy Winehouse' to mention but a few.
Levi and Swiss
Local and soulful Hip Hop
... DJs on the night will include..
DJ Nano (latin sounds), The Legendary DJ Tchico (African sounds), Bass Warrior Sound System (Reggae)..
Salsa classes from 9pm
Salsa & Merengue Beginners/Intermediate Dance Class with Elena Mayorga "La Nicaraguita"
Poetry compere on the night form Graham Campbell
...............................
Entry by donation.
Suggested £3 unwaged £5 waged but feel free to donate more to a great cause...
Cheers
- The GSC Team
Here is a list of the artists playing (in no particular order):
UPSTAIRS presented by This is our battlefied
Holy Mountain
Sludge Bass and rapid fire Drums duo whose live shows are the stuff of legend
Grozny
Up and coming Literate punk rock from Glasgow.
Eternal Fags
First gig for local ex-Plaaydoh members.
DOWNSTAIRS presented by ACN Glasgow
Eastborn
Scottish Political Hip Hop.
NorthenXposure
BAFTA Nominated NorthernXposure are Scotland's No.1 rap crew. Though still unsigned, they have toured in the USA with such groups as 'Naughty By Nature' and 'The Roots', and in the UK and Europe with 'MC Solaar', 'Busta Rhymes', and 'Amy Winehouse' to mention but a few.
Levi and Swiss
Local and soulful Hip Hop
... DJs on the night will include..
DJ Nano (latin sounds), The Legendary DJ Tchico (African sounds), Bass Warrior Sound System (Reggae)..
Salsa classes from 9pm
Salsa & Merengue Beginners/Intermediate Dance Class with Elena Mayorga "La Nicaraguita"
Poetry compere on the night form Graham Campbell
...............................
Entry by donation.
Suggested £3 unwaged £5 waged but feel free to donate more to a great cause...
Cheers
- The GSC Team
Idiot.
More wisdom from the Fairfax Press.
What do Haitians need most? To get away from Haiti
Haiti is dysfunctional society because it is run by Haitians. And while the disaster is Haiti is truly terrible: it is terrible and yet utterly predictable. Professor Hale has commented on the disaster and its causes and quite simply, he's right. Poor building practices in a corrupt society mean that building codes(which no one even to bothered to propose ) don't get enforced. When the inevitable earthquake happens, the predictable disaster ensures. Tragedy.
But poor building practices are not the result of government fiat, but of a culture. A culture that values the short term over the long and culture that places little value on life itself. The War Nerd wrote an interesting article on the culture of Haiti. Bottom line; a corrupt society from the top to the bottom. Once again for my pea brained detractors, not all Haitians are corrupt; only most of them. Now this may be cruel thing to say to a nation which has suffered so much misfortune, but facts are facts, Haitian culture does not seem to be able to produce men capable of disinterested service even in the midst of so much foreign aid.
Now I can understanding that people are moved by the plight of Haitian individuals caught up in the earthquake, but feeling good about oneself and actually doing something useful are two different things. Now Chris Berg's article is full of errors which will compound the problem instead of making it better but the question I want to ask is, should we be importing people from a dysfunctional culture which is the product of those same people?
People who are pro-immigration tend to ignore this fact. The influx of Italian migrants into Australia and the U.S. was not a one sided thing. In importing Italians, America and Australia profited from both a better cuisine and worse a criminal element, the Mafia. And whilst on balance, I think Italian migration a good thing, it serves to illustrate the point that when a man brings in migrants he brings in more than just the man, but his ideas, his culture and the way he lives. Of course the dominant culture also makes its mark, so what happens in the end that a fusion occurs, the flavour of which is dependent on the elements of the mix. S
Now the question to ask is, are there cultures which are bad, which are incompatible with our way of life? Do we want more Haitian culture in our society? A culture that seems to glorify the thug, the bling king, self interest and opportunism. A cursory look would suggest not, and idiot would propose spreading the contagion around the world.
To a pro-immigrationist, multiculturalism means a different cuisine every night, retiring home to your uppity white suburb at night. The wogs are good to visit but you don't really want to live with them. The problem though is though, if you bring enough people from a bad culture into your country you also bring a bit of that bad country in as well. As many your own poorer people who--because of economic necessity--have to live next to the newly arrived immigrants will tell you, not all immigrants are fun to be around with. But that demographic does not make social policy. The world does not need more Haitis.
In fact the only time Haiti ever seemed to have a period of prosperity was when American culture was forcibly imported into Haiti. Some cultures seem to bring more benefit than others.
What Haiti needs is not exodus of its people but good governance, and if the local culture can't produce men that can govern humanely then perhaps humane men should force good governance on Haiti from the outside. This of course is true but politically incorrect.
What do Haitians need most? To get away from Haiti
Haiti is dysfunctional society because it is run by Haitians. And while the disaster is Haiti is truly terrible: it is terrible and yet utterly predictable. Professor Hale has commented on the disaster and its causes and quite simply, he's right. Poor building practices in a corrupt society mean that building codes(which no one even to bothered to propose ) don't get enforced. When the inevitable earthquake happens, the predictable disaster ensures. Tragedy.
But poor building practices are not the result of government fiat, but of a culture. A culture that values the short term over the long and culture that places little value on life itself. The War Nerd wrote an interesting article on the culture of Haiti. Bottom line; a corrupt society from the top to the bottom. Once again for my pea brained detractors, not all Haitians are corrupt; only most of them. Now this may be cruel thing to say to a nation which has suffered so much misfortune, but facts are facts, Haitian culture does not seem to be able to produce men capable of disinterested service even in the midst of so much foreign aid.
Now I can understanding that people are moved by the plight of Haitian individuals caught up in the earthquake, but feeling good about oneself and actually doing something useful are two different things. Now Chris Berg's article is full of errors which will compound the problem instead of making it better but the question I want to ask is, should we be importing people from a dysfunctional culture which is the product of those same people?
People who are pro-immigration tend to ignore this fact. The influx of Italian migrants into Australia and the U.S. was not a one sided thing. In importing Italians, America and Australia profited from both a better cuisine and worse a criminal element, the Mafia. And whilst on balance, I think Italian migration a good thing, it serves to illustrate the point that when a man brings in migrants he brings in more than just the man, but his ideas, his culture and the way he lives. Of course the dominant culture also makes its mark, so what happens in the end that a fusion occurs, the flavour of which is dependent on the elements of the mix. S
Now the question to ask is, are there cultures which are bad, which are incompatible with our way of life? Do we want more Haitian culture in our society? A culture that seems to glorify the thug, the bling king, self interest and opportunism. A cursory look would suggest not, and idiot would propose spreading the contagion around the world.
To a pro-immigrationist, multiculturalism means a different cuisine every night, retiring home to your uppity white suburb at night. The wogs are good to visit but you don't really want to live with them. The problem though is though, if you bring enough people from a bad culture into your country you also bring a bit of that bad country in as well. As many your own poorer people who--because of economic necessity--have to live next to the newly arrived immigrants will tell you, not all immigrants are fun to be around with. But that demographic does not make social policy. The world does not need more Haitis.
In fact the only time Haiti ever seemed to have a period of prosperity was when American culture was forcibly imported into Haiti. Some cultures seem to bring more benefit than others.
What Haiti needs is not exodus of its people but good governance, and if the local culture can't produce men that can govern humanely then perhaps humane men should force good governance on Haiti from the outside. This of course is true but politically incorrect.
Happy Birthday PlayKayStat
Two turntables ,two cdj's ,a mixer ,scratchamp, effex machine & macbook these are the gadgets he needs to rock a party.
Kabelo Taukobong also goes by the name of PlayKayStat
PLAY [ Spin, bmx, collect, brand]
KAY[ cliche...we all love it, no need to mention]
STAT[ making numbers, Recruit]
That' s how he explains himself and who am I to question that?
This very cool dude co-owns one of my good friends GINGA BRED a publicist company, I once took an Alter Route with.
Catch him live at the next Jam Session on the 07th of February.
Killer Looks!
Photographer: Pako Magabane; Stylist: Nombulelo Dhlomo; Make Up Artist: Musa Sekele; Models: Tumi Selatlhedi & Nombulelo Dhlomo; Stockist: Thesis Concept Store 011 982 1182
Smoking
The first time I even took a drag was when I was in high school. It didn’t make sense why I was doing it. I just became dizzy in a very peculiar way & it wasn’t nice at all. Smoking is a very bad habit for the fact that it was painful starting it; it’s like losing your virginity; to pollution & unhealthy lifestyle!! Its much more painful letting it go. You fight with so many demons: your conscious; your craving; your social status & your smoke buddies. You tell yourself you quitting from tomorrow; from today, from now or after this one!! When will the day of “stopping at once” come?? When our chests start wheezing or when you start getting tired after 3 flights of stairs..... All smokers should be ashamed of being bad role models to your own selves. I curse the day TV, magazines came to life. Be honest, these mediums play a big role in making us think smoking is so damn cool!!!!!!!
They say it’s not about you saying or trying to quit, but quit quitting!! Well I say nothing, because I still have a cigarette in my mouth! Hopefully this journey of letting go, wouldn’t be as hard as letting go of an old ex-girlfriend. Apparently the craving stops completely after 3 weeks. Damn, that’s like waiting to find out if your girlfriend is pregnant or not!! Hoping also the fruits of great health would’ve been harvested for me enjoy after I stop. Here is to stopping smoking & asking ourselves why we doing it in the first place.....
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