NinjaRadio: Recent Episodes
None
The CNE, otherwise known as the Canadian National Exhibition, runs for a little over two weeks at the end of the summer. The grounds are very near the northern shore of Lake Ontario in Toronto, about one to two kilometres away. One of the highlights of the CNE is the Air Show that features U.S. and Canadian Forces jets and planes. Sitting on the border of downtown and midtown in Toronto gave the neighbourhood a good chance to see the roaring jets flying overhead. Amid the cicadas, birds, insects, and random comments, the jets drowned out nature. Have a listen to the sound scene I captured of the air show overhead on its second to last afternoon, ahead of Labour Day 2023. Best listened in a quiet room with headphones.
Listen Here: 12.1mb 05m05s
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/0034rebelnotion9cneairshow.mp3U.S Navy Blue Angels F18 Super HornetsHardware and Software: Zoom H4 Recorder in 4 channel surround sound, Windows 11, Audacity 3.1.3, Samsung s22 Ultra for photos. Best listened to on headphones.
The garden tour is finally done. Peaceful, but not quiet, the bullfrogs, insects, and birds are settling in for the night on June 13, 2023, 9:00 pm. Listen Here: After The Garden Show (13mb 5m34s) Hardware and Software: iPhone 12, … Continue reading →
Joe Rogan and Madge Weinstein Discussing Conspiracy TheoriesNinja defends Buck Angel and Madge defends Dave Chapelle . Madge doesn’t see the point of fanning the flames of the culture wars. Ninja frets about her powerlessness over the existential threats facing humanity. Those threats include AI, climate change, and nuclear destruction. adge imagines in a thought experiment that she could be the only conscious being in the universe. We discuss the ethics of using AI to create a show where Joe Rogan interviews Madge. Madge likes that idea and asserts that we could use AI to subvert the messages of Donald Trump. Check out the Madge’s version of this show at YR1609.
AI Generated Robot Pic With Human Features
Listen right here: RebelMatters241 170mb 1:34:35
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2023/05/241hotfrmthefutureofaiisfakeroganandfakemadge.mp3Other things discussed: Donald D. Hoffman – Is Reality an Illusion? Is Lex Fridman Just Another Celebrity Kiss-Ass?, Archive Org, digital hoarding, child labour
Movies mentioned: The Whale, Once Upon a Time in the West – Spaghetti Western from the 1960s
TV shows or characters mentioned: Ted Lasso, baby Yoda, The Mandalorian filmed on a round stage using game tech, Uncle Fester, Abbot Elementary
Books discussed: Greta Thunberg’s New Climate Book, Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, Moby Dick – An American Classic
Other Important Links: Pride48.com, mynoise.net – bespoke soundscapes, meditation, and tinnitus relief, www.drobo.com – Direct and Network Attached Storage solutions (DAS and NAS), Lily Pons,
Tea Being Poured (AI generated image i made just for this podcast)At the end of January, Special K and I went to the Toronto Tea Festival. The last time we were there was February 2020. It’s the first time it has been held since the pandemic started. Speaking of the pandemic, we are still in it as I post this episode in February 2023. It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost three years since the pandemic was declared, but here we are. I know, you possibly think it’s over. Maybe you’re not wearing a mask anymore. Anywhere. Well, I still am. Everywhere I go. Five vaccine shots and one Covid infection later, I am still wearing my mask. It was no different going to the tea festival. The venue was very small. And quite crowded. Everyone there wanted to taste the best teas the world has to offer. So, with the few exceptions where I tasted tea and talked to vendors, Special K and I kept our masks on. The festival has been held annually except for 2021 and 2022 since, well, sources differ on when it first started, but it might have been 2014. It is set up in what I think is too small a space for the number of people who attend, in the Toronto Reference Library steps
from one of the most famous intersections in Toronto – Yonge and Bloor.
There were a total of 41 vendors at the festival and I started my journey at table 41 Daniel’s Chai Bar. Daniel has even served tea to HRH King Charles III. I asked him to share a few words for ninjaradio and then moved on to talk with Isabelle and Nickola who have what I can only describe as the smoothest teas I have ever tasted. A more frothy mellow matcha latte I have never had.
We then headed over to the David’s Tea booth where we chatted for a long time with Nadia, the Director of Sustainability for the company. We were rather intrigued that a Tea company would have such a position defined. But they are committed to fair trade and eco-responsibility. They have a partnership with Teahorse.ca, a women led indigenous owned company out of Thunder Bay. The featured tea from this partnership is Manoomin Maple. Manoomin is Ojibway for Wild Rice. 10% of the proceeds of their maple tea will go towards the David Suzuki Institute to support Indigenous communities.
Finally, we tested the award winning Cream of Earl Grey at Blink Tea, where I had a chat with the President, Michael Prini. It is astounding how many different types of tea there are and the history and rituals that surround them. I’ve put some links in the show notes if you want to explore furthe. Have a listen here to my conversations with experts in the field. Enjoy the show.
Listen here: HotFRM 240 35m59s 65.96mbs
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2023/02/240hotfrmseriepandemiqueleafencountersofthesteepedkind.mp3AI Generated Tea Bag I Made (well not me, the AI) Links:
Annual Toronto Tea Festival
Daniel’s Chai Bar
Seta Organics
Moringa
Cordyceps Mushroom
https://www.davidstea.com/ca_en/
https://www.davidstea.com/ca_en/steeping-together-podcast/
Indigenous owned from Thunder Bay: Teahorse
David’s tea ethics, sourcing, and sustainability efforts: https://www.davidstea.com/us_en/sustainability/
Michael Prini’s Blink Tea
When Special K and I stepped into the AGO in Sep 2022, the dulcet tones of Jónsi, the Icelandic artist and singer/guitarist for the band Sigur Rós, reverberated in the hall. Drawn onward by the music I listened and poked … Continue reading →
On October 17, 2021 an International Drumming Festival was held at the Wychwood Barns in heart of what we now call midtown Toronto. Mostly, a cool and windy day, later in the afternoon, it rained which ultimately drove Special K … Continue reading →
Distracting myself from the end of the world, I do some gardening. Famous anti-semitic poets mentioned: T.S. Eliot. Apparently his anti-semitism is a matter of debate so I can no longer say for sure that it is so. Other subjects broached: … Continue reading →
More depressing discussion about the end of the world. The beautiful people of Tik Tok. Boostagrams. Premptive Strikes. Abortion. Building love into robots. Deep talk about the consciousness of biological beings. Trying to simulate life on earth. The impossibility of … Continue reading →
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/236hotfrmseriepandemiquerespectthefungus.mp3 Today I have another conversation with Madge Weinstein of Yeast Radio. The conversation will be cross-posted there. And will be slightly different so listen there too.
Birds Nest Fungi in Our Rock Garden at Summer’s End Things don’t start well for me. I have numerous technical problems despite the fact that I tested my setup before the show was to begin. The problems started when I noticed that the battery was drained on the crappy computer I was going to use. Actually the computer isn’t that crappy. But the power cable is flaky. The laptop rebooted when I reconnected the power, delaying me further. I had to swap laptops and cables, and reset all my inputs, outputs and levels. But that’s amateur podcasting for you. Raw and real. You know like Prince coughing in his Raspberry Beret video or Lucy misting up when Desi kisses her on air. Even so, you might thank god for the fast forward button. There are a few other minor glitches you’ll hear, but we soldier on.
Also. Trigger warning. Our sometimes stream of consciousness conversation is guaranteed to offend everyone in some way. We mispronounce some names and we swear. I also get the bomb that is dropped on England, in the movie Threads wrong. The bomb goes off 20 miles from Sheffield, not in the South China Sea. The South China Sea one goes off in the TV series Years and Years.
Madge asks me to explain Andrew Gallimore’s concept of the Hypergrid which I fail at miserably. I think I need to have Gallimore on the show so he can explain it himself. Also we wonder how the plural of fungus is pronounced. I love the English language. Do you know it has the largest vocabulary of any language in the world. Why? I think because English speakers have absolutely no shame when it comes to just making up words as they go along. It’s a long tradition You know like quark and smog and snog and laser and google and irregardless. (Sorry about that last one. Speakers of a certain age will not accept irregardless as a word and will view you with much disdain if you use it around them). English speakers proudly steal from every other language, (French and German are favourites), and such words are promptly incorporated it into the lexicon. Other words can crop up without warning ,and suddenly, crowdfunding, deplatforming and whataboutism are things. Don’t even get me started on English spelling.
Madge and I cover a lot of ground. Listen to the show right here:
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/236hotfrmseriepandemiquerespectthefungus.mp3 Other Subjects Discussed:
- Bitcoin and replacing the banking system
- Cluster Headaches
- Fungus and Mold
- Mushrooms: the fruit of the Fungus and Mycelium
- Vatican Pedophiles
- The stoned ape hypothesis
- Female Values – Sharing and Empathy
- The use of religion
- Deep tech talk about ground loops
Famous old people mentioned:
- Mary Steenburgen
- Robert Duvall
- Wagner
TV shows mentioned:
- Squid Game
- Succession
- Mini series about some of Michael Jackson’s victims – Leaving Neverland
Films mentioned:
- Dancer in the Dark – Lars Von Trier
- Requiem for a Dream – Darren Aronofsky
- Eraserhead – David Lynch
- Threads – Mick Jackson
- Even Dwarves Started Small – Werner Herzog
Books Mentioned:
- Immortality Key – Brian C. Muraresku
- The Entangled Life – Merlin Sheldrake
- True Hallucinations – Terrence McKenna
- The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss – Dennis McKenna
- Alien Information Theory – Dr. Andrew Gallimore
- On Fire – Naomi Klein and The Green New Deal
- A Hundred and Fifty Years of Gynarchy – Viola Voltairine
Today I have another conversation with Madge Weinstein of Yeast Radio. The conversation will be cross-posted there. And will be slightly different so listen there too. Things don’t start well for me. I have numerous technical problems despite the fact … Continue reading →
In this episode it’s Sunday June 27, 2020. In the absence of a 2020 Pride celebration, some of our neighbours organized our very own pandemic Pride street party. Several streets were invited. Complete with floats, music, face painting, and a … Continue reading →
In this episode it’s Sunday June 27, 2020. In the absence of a 2020 Pride celebration, some of our neighbours organized our very own pandemic Pride street party. Several streets were invited. Complete with floats, music, face painting, and a poem by Zoe Leonard. Voices in our heads. Angry drivers. Supportive drivers. Abba. Children. Dogs. We are family. You make me feel mighty real.
Small Float for a Small Parade Just for fun, here is my hardware and software: Zoom H4, Roland CS-10EM Binaural Microphones, Windows 10, Audacity 2.3.2, Hauwei P30 (for photos).
Dragon speaking virtually from Anne Lister’s Shibden Hall My guest today is Dragon, a dear friend and Uber Fan of the British television Series Gentleman Jack. The series is based on the actual diaries of the landowner Anne Lister, who lived in early 19th century in Halifax, England. She lived, as much as 19th century England would allow, as an openly queer woman. There may be some debate about what queer means, but I would define it here as someone living against the expected gender roles and sexual norms of the time. She documented, in her own secret code, her private thoughts, opinions, and romantic escapades with a score of women. At more than 26 volumes it is a fascinating chronicle of the life of a female landowner in a time when options open to women were extremely limited. Dragon enlightens me on why Anne Lister’s story is so important to British history and what makes a Gentleman Jack fan.
Listen to the show HotFRM234 (138Mb 59h08s)
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/234hotfrmseriepandemiquewhoisgentlmanjack-1.mp3 Other things discussed: Rhubarb Liqueur, Downton Abbey, Diversity in the entertainment arts, The sacrament – of marriage, English laws of landownership, epigenetics.
Links to interesting resources: Halifax, England. Shibden Hall. Shibden After Dark Podcast. Out on the Street, a Toronto Gay Village Business. Gentleman Jack–The Real Anne Lister. Take a Virtual Tour of Shibden Hall.
TV Shows referenced: Last Tango in Halifax. Happy Valley. Scott and Bailey. Normal People. I May Destroy You.
Movies Referenced: Bound. Carol. Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
Authors Referenced: Jill Liddington. Helena Whitbread.
My guest today is Dragon, a dear friend and Uber Fan of the British television Series Gentleman Jack. The series is based on the actual diaries of the landowner Anne Lister, who lived in early 19th century in Halifax, England. … Continue reading →
Listen here: HotFRM 233 (133MB 58m21s) Today, I have a conversation with one of the bravest people I know. Buck Angel is a transman who began his transition from a woman to a man twenty-five years ago amid personal turmoil, … Continue reading →
Buck Angel – Chilling remotely with Ninja Listen here: HotFRM 233 (133MB 58m21s)
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/233hotfrmseriepandemiquetranpabuckangel.mp3 Today, I have a conversation with one of the bravest people I know. Buck Angel is a transman who began his transition from a woman to a man twenty-five years ago amid personal turmoil, against the tide of social convention, and during a time when little was understood about how to medically transition from female to male. He was a trailblazer in the pornography industry and became famous for his work in that space. He was then and still is an activist. Today, he considers himself the Tranpa and an elder of the transsexual/transgender community. He spends his energy working with the LGBTQ+ community, with youth, the homeless, and others. He has developed sexual and other wellness products exclusively for the transman community and has a cannabis business in California.
We talk about how he feels about this time in American history, possible ways to heal the divide, and what his fears and hopes are for the country and for the transgender community.
Other topics discussed:
California Senate Bill 132, Canadian Bill C16 (gender identity and gender expression federal protection), Jordan Peterson, J.K. Rowling, Feminism, Trump, Biden, Harris, Russia, COVID-19, Active Measures, seed to sell.
Another bill to note: Canadian Bill C6 (to end conversion therapy)
Definitions:
Tranpa: An elder transman who has wisdom to share with the younger generation.
Cisgender : Born biologically as a male or female
TERF : Trans-exclusionary radical feminist.
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/233hotfrmseriepandemiquetranpabuckangel.mp3 Buck Angel https://www.buckangel.com/
In this episode I talk with long-time friend and pod-colleague Madge Weinstein, of Yeast Radio, who happens to be my cousin about 30 times removed. After all, we are both descended from the same 350 people that may have originated … Continue reading →
Marvin the Robot In this episode I talk with long-time friend and pod-colleague Madge Weinstein, of Yeast Radio, who happens to be my cousin about 30 times removed. After all, we are both descended from the same 350 people that may have originated from the middle east and settled in eastern Europe around the fourteenth century.
Hotfrm 232 (64mb 1h09m27s) Listen here:
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/232hotfrmlivingintheupsidedown.mp3 Topics discussed:
Keeping roses in cold water. Trump. Biden. Pence. Harris. Authoritarianism. Ancestry. Eudaimonia. The end of democracy. Lack of critical thinking skills. Yuval Noah Harari. Global Warming. Marvin the Depressed Android. 23 and Me. Being kicked out of the middle east because we ate with our mouths open. Shtetls. Audio tech. Genderqueerness. Stonewall. The fly on Pence’s head. Political theatrics. The narrative is what it is. Nonbinary should extend beyond gender. Don’t stay in your ideological bubble. Health Care Terrorism. Canadian Health Care that we pay for with our taxes which I completely omitted to say – so sorry to mislead. ObamaCare. Money talks. Activism. Direct action. The end of democracy. The Green New Deal. Did I say, the end of democracy?
Other Related links and cultural references:
America is Dying
Free to be You and Me
Madge is soaking in it
Snopes
Orange Pill Podcast
Joan Rivers
Stranger Things
Ninja’s Mind Dowloaded Into A Cyborg
Shelter In Place, Physical Distance, and Wash your Hands Unless Otherwise Instructed
Last week a friend sent me a link to a removed YouTube video and the question, “Censorship?” That sent me on a search for the video by Drs. Erickson and Massihi, two Californian physicians who want sheltering-in-place ended in their state. The doctors provide unsubstantiated claims about the virus SARS-COV-2 and one even goes as far as suggesting that there will be gun violence about this issue. This video is full of misinformation, pseudoscience, false hopes and fear-mongering. You are free to watch it, do your own research and make up your own mind, but I give you this rant in any case on a sunny cool spring day during my lockdown. Let me know what you think. (Have I ever said how much I love spring in Canada?)
Have a listen: (22m04s 52mb)
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/231hotfrmseriepandemiquenotcensorship.mp3
Show Notes and Links:
This Week in Virology (Thanks to Okaexa, who alerted me to this site last month)
John Hopkins Medicine Site
What Canada’s Theresa Tam Has To Say About Herd Immunity
What Dr. Kurtsinger Has to Say About the Video
Another Opinion on the Video
The Video Taken Down by YouTube: Bakersfield Doctors Dispute Need For Stay at Home Order
The Doctors’ medical practice: Accelerated Urgent Care
If the video has been taken down again on NewTube, Let me know at hotfrm@gmail.com and I’ll give you another source.
Last week a friend sent me a link to a removed YouTube video and the question, “Censorship?” That sent me on a search for the video by Drs. Erickson and Massihi, two Californian physicians who want sheltering-in-place ended in … Continue reading →
Special K and Ninja meet Charlie at the St. Lawrence Market. Ninja waits for the balalaika player to begin and it seems like it will never happen. Special K and Charlie entreat Ninja to spare you this visit but … Continue reading →
A balalaika
Special K and Ninja meet Charlie at the St. Lawrence Market. Ninja waits for the balalaika player to begin and it seems like it will never happen. Special K and Charlie entreat Ninja to spare you this visit but Ninja maintains that every moment is a podcast moment. They help Charlie choose hors d’oeurves for an evening soiree. Ninja concludes that the world is full of Eleanor Rigbys.
Eleanor Rigby by Mary Ann Farley
Listen below to Balalaika Breakfast (35mb 15m19s)
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/142hotfrmbalalaikabreakfastencore-1.mp3
Listen to this episode (25mb 10m38s) I read Life Hacks by Keith Brandon so that you don’t have to. There are 1000 so-called life hacks in this book. I share my review that is more of a rant against misinformation that … Continue reading →
I don’t always drop my phone in the toilet, but when I do I put it in a bowl of rice
Listen to this episode (25mb 10m38s)
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/230hotfrmrantonmisinformation.mp3
I read Life Hacks by Keith Brandon so that you don’t have to. There are 1000 so-called life hacks in this book. I share my review that is more of a rant against misinformation that Brandon is guilty of shamelessly spreading.
Extra Info you may want to know:
Link for hack number 317: “Daytime naps help to improve your memory and cut the risk of heart disease” can be found at ynquiz.com.
Link to my new favourite podcast: Were you raised by wolves?
Link to the YouTube playlist builder: https://www.youtube.com/disco
Despite the disclaimer that the author and publisher accept no responsibility for misadventure caused by following any of these hacks, this reader thinks that it is extremely irresponsible and unethical to publish this book without rigorous fact checking. There is no excuse for propagating false, incomplete, or misleading information. And the author shouldn’t be profiting from it. If he wanted to maximize his credibility, citing sources and proof would have helped. Save your money and time and skip this one altogether.
I cross-posted this review to https://www.goodreads.com/ so you can also see it there. If you are interested in connecting with me on goodreads, my site on it at https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1169678-ninja
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/230hotfrmrantonmisinformation.mp3
Did I Say “street” in the Podcast? I Meant Avenue.
This week Special K and I, by chance, happened upon an apartment building that was top to bottom inside and out done up with colourful and original Halloween decorations. Debbie Andrews and Gary Smith have been doing up the building at 88 Bernard Avenue in Toronto for thirty-five years. This year was the last time they would be doing it. Every year they have had hundreds of children and adults visit their haunted building. They bring home buckets and pillowcases full of candy after being scared in all manner of ghastly goulish ghostly ways.
Now they are on to smaller but no doubt better things. They are leaving the building and moving out to a smaller town in the province. Debbie says they won’t be doing this ever again but I say never say never. Have a listen to the interview I did with her about the joys the last thirty-five years have given her and the neighbourhood.
Listen here (17m44s 42mb)
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/229hotfrmalocalhalloweenlasthurrah.mp3
Things mentioned you may not be familiar with:
Union Station: Toronto’s main train Station
Community Service Hours: High School Students in Ontario have to accumulate a minimum of 40 community service hours of approved types in order to graduate.
Also there is no such movie I can find that is called What a Wonderful Nightmare.
A Deceased Tenant
Climbing Skeletons
Nightmare before Christmas
This week Special K and I, by chance, happened upon an apartment building that was top to bottom inside and out done up with colourful and original Halloween decorations. Debbie Andrews and Gary Smith have been doing up the building … Continue reading →
School Strike for Climate
On Friday, September 27, 2019, Special K and I participated in the Climate Strike. We headed down to Queen’s Park, home of the Ontario legislature, to take part in the rally and march. I spoke to a number of interesting people about their thoughts on the Climate Crisis. Jagmeet Singh, leader of the nation’s New Democratic Party (NDP), calls it the Climate Crisis and I think it is apt. If we don’t take action, I am not sure what the future holds. In this episode we debrief on the strike and I share audio of the people I interviewed or otherwise talked with. Enjoy.
Listen here (74mb 31m26s):
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/228hotfrmthefutureswhatwereaskingfor.mp3
On Friday, September 27, 2019, Special K and I participated in the Climate Strike. We headed down to Queen’s Park, home of the Ontario legislature, to take part in the rally and march. I spoke to a number … Continue reading →
Old City Hall Toronto – Nov 11 2018
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/227hotfrmacenturyofremembrance.mp3
November 11, 2018 was the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, the war dubbed as the war to end all wars. In honour of the Armistice, Special K and I went down to what we, in Toronto, call the old city hall, where the Cenotaph, one of our war memorials, was erected in 1925. In this country, more than two generations have lived in a time of peace and have no first hand knowledge of the realities and horrors of war. What would another world war look like? In the face of some 14, 000 nuclear weapons spread over nine countries, one deployed bomb would almost certainly result in the deployment of many others, decimating the world population and ending civilization as we know it today. Sobering. So I think it is important to reflect on the sacrifices made by others and past generations to mitgate the ravages of military confrontation.
During breakast at a local cafe, Special K and I had a chance meeting with a woman who was from Sweden. We struck up a conversation with her and found out she had never experienced a Remembrance day event. We invited her to join us and I think we may have overwhelmed her with our non-stop anecdotes of Canadian history and military efforts.
This Sunday November 11, at the Cenotaph, we observed the customary two minutes of silence at 11:00am followed by poem recited in English, Oji-Cree, and French, a thought provoking address by our Mayor, and a reading of the poem In Flanders Fields, written by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae in 1915.
Have a listen to my sound scene audio of an historic remembrance day.
Part of the program is reproduced here:
Committment to Remember (read in English, Obi-Cree, and French)
They were young, as we were young,
They served, giving freely of themselves.
To them we pledge, amid the winds of time,
To carry their torch and never forget.
We will remember them.
Address by Mayor John Tory
Hymn to Freedom
When every heart joins every heart and
Together years for liberty,
That’s when we’ll all be free.
When every hand joins every hand and
Together moulds our destiny,
That’s when we’ll all be free.
Any hour any day, the time soon will come
When men will live in dignity,
That’s when we’ll all be free.
When every man joins in our song and
Together singing harmony,
That’s when we’ll all be free.
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Here’s the audio
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/227hotfrmacenturyofremembrance.mp3
War courtesy of: Jamison491
Barking, crying and other sounds of human suffering courtesy of: http://soundbible.com
Photos: Mine
November 11, 2018 was the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, the war dubbed as the war to end all wars. In honour of the Armistice, Special K and I went down to … Continue reading →
Fringe 2008 – Rebecca Belmore
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/226hotfrmrebbecabelmoreatago1.mp3
In 2008 Rebecca Belmore created piece of art called Fringe. It’s a photograph of a woman, reclining, her back to us. Sown into her back are fringes, hanging down, some red, some white. You might see these on the bottom of a skirt for instance. The scar running the length of her back is obvious and disturbing. She says of this work:
As an Indigenous woman, my female body speaks for itself. Some people interpret the image of this reclining figure as a cadaver. However, to me it is a wound that is on the mend. It wasn’t self-inflicted, but nonetheless, it is bearable. She can sustain it. So it is a very simple scenario: she will get up and go on, but she will carry that mark with her. She will turn her back on the atrocities inflicted upon her body and find resilience in the future. The Indigenous female body is the politicized body, the historical body. It’s the body that doesn’t disappear.
The Canadian Encylopedia says this about her:
Increasingly recognized as one of the most important artists of her generation, Rebecca Belmore’s performances, videos, sculptures, and photographs starkly confront the ongoing history of oppression of Indigenous peoples in Canada…
Rebecca Belmore was raised in a large Anishinabe family in Upsala, Ontario. She left her small hometown to attend high school in neighbouring Thunder Bay. During the summer, Belmore migrated northwest to spend time with her maternal grandmother — who maintained a traditional lifestyle of trapping and fishing and spoke only her native Ojibwa — in the Anishinabe district of Sioux Lookout.
Ostracized as an Indigenous woman in a largely white high school, Belmore dropped out in her midteens to work a number of odd jobs before deciding to complete her secondary education. Upon returning for her final year, she befriended the high school art teacher who encouraged her to submit a drawing to a local competition where she won first prize. Buoyed by the positive response, the following year Belmore enrolled at the Ontario College of Art (OCA) to pursue a degree in Experimental Arts; she remained in the program from 1984 to 1987…
In 2005, Belmore was chosen as the first Indigenous woman to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale. The piece she produced for the show — a two-and-a-half-minute video loop back-projected on a curtain of flowing water in the darkened room of the Canada pavilion [called Fountain] — took her over a year and half to complete. The video depicts the artist frantically filling buckets of water from the Strait of Georgia and throwing its contents…at the screen.
And she said this about her art in 2008:
Part of my interest in making art is to provoke a viewer to think about certain issues. And I do that through creating images that may, on first sight appear to be – hopefully!- beautiful. But when you look closer you may see something that’s a little out of sync with that beauty. That’s where I hope to get people to think about the image they’re looking at.
At Pelican Falls 2017 – Rebecca Belmore
I saw Facing the Monumental, which featured these and more pieces by Rebecca Belmore on Aug 5, 2018 at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Here is the audio of my experience with her works.
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/226hotfrmrebbecabelmoreatago1.mp3
Find out more about Belmore at:
http://www.rebeccabelmore.com/home.html
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/rebeccabelmore/
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/rebecca-belmore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Belmore
http://www.gallerieswest.ca/magazine/stories/facing-the-monumental/
https://ago.ca/exhibitions/rebecca-belmore-facing-monumental
In 2008 Rebecca Belmore created piece of art called Fringe. It’s a photograph of a woman, reclining, her back to us. Sown into her back are fringes, hanging down, some red, some white. You might see these on the … Continue reading →
Rebel Matters 225 (47mb 25:42) I am an avid and passionate art appreciator. If there is a genre or artist I like that’s being shown in my city (or anywhere I’m visiting), I’m in. But I should have known better … Continue reading →
Don’t Fall For It
Rebel Matters 225 (47mb 25:42)
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/225hotfrmstevelazaridesisnottobetrusted2.mp3
I am an avid and passionate art appreciator. If there is a genre or artist I like that’s being shown in my city (or anywhere I’m visiting), I’m in. But I should have known better in this case. I should have realized and read the fine print. I should have paid attention when posters read “unauthorized”. As soon as I stepped into the Banksy Exhibit in Toronto, I saw it right away. The so called 80 original pieces, were mostly photographs of Banksy attributed works taken in various cities. At worst they were photographs of other people’s photographs. There were very few original pieces. I dutifully went through the spaces in the warehouse wondering whether anyone else was feeling the way I was. Special K was feeling the same way. So was Drag-On. I asked Drag-On. She didn’t want to talk about it in public. I wanted to spread the word that we were all being ripped off. Forty-four hard-earned dollars to see how an opportunist exploits someone else’s art for profit. Well maybe it was partly my experience at the Yayoi Kusama exhibit. That was massively well attended and disappointing for many who wanted more time in her infinity rooms. Now there’s someone who got the last laugh. But that’s for an entirely different podcast. Then there is the question of the theft of a piece of the art just three days before the opening. Some are reporting that it was a hoax. A publicity stunt to entice people into the show. Well I don’t know. All I know is that I wasn’t expecting mounted photographs out of context.
I wonder if he is just using Toronto to see if it’s viable to take it elsewhere. I guess we’ll find out at the end of the summer. This is just a money grab by Steve Lazarides, So, please don’t waste your money if this hits your town. Stay away. Here is my sound scene audio of our visit to the event and how we reacted to it. Enjoy or rather buyer beware.
People’s Names I forgot: Samuel L. Jackson
Details I left out: Everything I saw at the Banksy exhibit you can easily find, for just the price of your data provider, on the internet.
Titles of this show that ended up in the Bit Bucket:
- Human Beings are Radically Flawed.
- The Gorillas are Already in Charge.
- I’ve been pwned
Here’s the link again:
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/225hotfrmstevelazaridesisnottobetrusted2.mp3
A Plea to my American Cousins Listen Up (36:53): Transcript: There are so many things happening in the news every day, that I can’t keep up. I’m not even going to try. But what I can do is … Continue reading →
A Plea to my American Cousins
Listen Up (36:53):
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/224rebelmattersresistrebelreact.mp3
Transcript:
There are so many things happening in the news every day, that I can’t keep up. I’m not even going to try. But what I can do is explore how the big picture is shaping up, because it will unfold regardless of the rapidity of the day to day events that are confounding, confusing and unrelenting. I hope that my podcast today will be an historical record of a failed prediction.
In the opinion of some journalists, historians and philosophers, America is headed towards authoritarianism and dictatorship. As Timothy Snyder points out in his book On Tyranny, “…no doubt the Russians that voted in 1990, did not think that this would be the last free and fair election in their country’s history which thus far it has been.” The situation unfolding is not about this president. He is merely a symbol of what has been percolating for decades in the United States. Snyder’s book On Tyranny provides twenty lessons designed to help us cope with this time. These lessons draw on the historical record of the twentieth century. With the book, he is attempting to prevent dictatorship and all that goes with it, the suppression of the media and free speech, control of the judicial systems, control of policing, control of education, suppression of the arts, a crackdown on dissent, oppression and violence directed against targeted minorities and other scapegoats.
Dictatorship happens in small steps, so that each step along the way becomes normalized. As freedoms, rights and privileges are removed, we become acclimatized and complacent, until we are taking part, colluding, and consenting. It’s happened before many times. There is no reason to assume that it will not happen again. Snyder is not alone in his thinking. Critics such as the educational theorist Henry Giroux, journalist Chauncey DeVega, and retired American naval Chief Petty Officer Malcolm Nance have similar views. And their views are informed by many others who have written about the loss of freedoms and the dangers of authoritarianism. These others include the political theorist Hannah Arendt, psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, sociologist philosopher Zygmunt Bauman, and activist poet Abdulmajeed K. Nunez just to name a scant few.
We must stop focusing on only the president as the enemy of freedom. We must also stop discounting him as a buffoon. Now is the time and it is more important than ever to keep these things in mind. The president is the noise. His tweets and missteps are the shiny pennies we keep turning our attention to while forces around him, including Russia, attempt to dismantle American democracy. He may be signing bills and executive orders, but he is not drafting them. And, everything we know about him tells me he is not even reading them. He is, however, as Malcolm Nance said, “[P]art of a wrecking crew that appears to be designed to destroy the government for a foreign power and for his own personal gain.” It is that wrecking crew against whom we must resist. Our vigilance must not wane regardless of the fate of the president himself. Maybe he will be impeached. More probably he will not, but should he be brought to account for his behavior, actions and irresponsibility, it still won’t be time to breathe a sigh of relief. At that point, the fight may only be starting in earnest. There are those in his circle, flying at and under our radar, who are harboring ways to turn America into a one-party, totalitarian state that suits the purposes of homophobia, misogyny, racism, antisemitism, anti-intellectualism, anti-truth, climate change denial, and oligarchy. They would continue to be a threat we don’t recognize until it is too late.
Snyder reminds us that the founding fathers of America installed the checks and balances not as a one-time, fait accompli prevention measure, but to ensure that Americans are ever vigilant against the destruction of democracy, freedom of the press, equality, and free speech. The current regime wants to dismantle those checks and balances one by one until what is left bears little resemblance to the protections Americans are used to having. We each must defend the freedoms we enjoy. Each can be taken away in the blink of an eye.
Snyder hopes that he is wrong, that his book will have been cautionary advice. I hope so too.
There are three podcasts I urge you to listen to: First, listen to episode 127 of The Chauncey DeVega Show. In it, DeVega talks with retired naval officer Malcolm Nance. Nance is a cryptography expert. He has written extensively on terrorism and ISIS. Next listen to episode 133 where the educational theorist and cultural critic Henry Giroux looks at the current situation in America and frames it culturally and educationally. For him, how we teach our children, the language we use, and the culture we create can all contribute to effective acts of resistance. Also listen to episode 79 of the Waking Up podcast hosted by Sam Harris in an interview with historian Timothy Snyder. Chauncey DeVega also speaks with Timothy Snyder is episode 134 of his own show.
All these men and the scholars and experts they refer to warn against what they think will be inevitable if we don’t keep resisting, reacting, writing and talking. To do my part, I am going to tell you what I found most compelling about what I heard and how it resonated with me. Henry Giroux in episode 133 says a lot of things. Halfway into the interview, he invokes Zygmunt Bauman and says, “There is no society that is just enough.” He is not suggesting that there is a perfect solution – just that there are solutions and we are obligated to work towards them. “This administration,” he says, “is about terror and terrorism.” Chauncey DeVega wants to know what we should be doing to force issues. They discuss the merits of active disruption such as general strikes and nationwide protests. What, Chauncey DeVega muses, does the future hold? Giroux is clear that he believes that “every facet of society…will be criminalized”. The state will become a punishing state. He quotes the poetry of Abdulmajeed K. Nunez from Occupy Belmopon II, when he tells that we have already “tipped over into neo fascism…” It’s just more subtle. Neo- Fascism. Neo-fascism comes in different forms. What about “mass ethic violence?” DeVega asks. Giroux tells us that “…neo Nazi and white supremacists are already in the highest reaches of government. What is the end point of that?” Will there be mass “…learned helplessness of the public?” He drops what I wonder is his favorite phrase, “public pedagogy”, “…a term he coined to describe the nature of the spectacle, the new media and the political and educational forces of global culture,” according to Wikipedia. Pedagogy, if you don’t know what it means, is the method and practice of education. DeVega says that he is “…trying to write for history.” Simply put, he wants it on record that he has tried to fight this unjust regime. He wants his descendants and future citizens to know that he did not sit by watching or implicitly collude. I’m not sure that it is true, but Giroux says that there is “no precedent for what has happened in America” now. I am confident instead that history will show that there were similarities with movements in Europe and elsewhere in the world. One thing is certain, there are danger signs and we all must face them. One of the main danger signs is that the president has never stopped saying and doing things that give the public license to express their distrust of facts and hatred of other groups, promote ignorance of economics, the current health care act, and environmental issues. Giroux says that we must face the dangers. And make peace with the consequences. Giroux reminds DeVega that “…as a public intellectual…” DeVega is “…a model for others…” He tells him “…[l]ive with dignity. Don’t turn your back on the requirement for justice, on the question of justice.” He is telling all of us this.
They talk about the media. Because media is driven by profits, Giroux suggests that we go to web sites that “…demonstrate dignity and courage.” Some websites he mentions are Salon, Truthdig, Counterpunch and Alternet. Giroux wonders what has happened to historical memory. What a great question. Snyder in his book shares an editorial that appeared in a German Jewish newspaper in 1933:
We do not subscribe to the view that Mr. Hitler and his friends, now finally in possession of the power they have so long desired, will implement the proposals circulating in [Nazi newspapers]; they will not suddenly deprive German Jews of their constitutional rights, nor enclose them in ghettos, nor subject them to the jealous and murderous impulses of the mob.”
Indeed, this is exactly what happened. The quote continues:
They cannot do this because of a number of crucial factors hold powers in check…and they clearly do not want to go down that road.
They did. The quote ends with:
When one acts as a European power, the whole atmosphere tends towards ethical reflection upon one’s better self and away from revisiting one’s earlier oppositional posture.
Ethical Reflection?! Naïve and chilling.
Giroux says we must “apply matters of the past to the present in ways that offer a new language”, a new political language that mobilizes people. For example, he believes we should not be using terms like fake news or alternative facts. Call it out for what it is: “lies”. It is very Orwellian to make up names to sanitize, negate or distract from the true meaning of what someone is saying or claiming. To call something out as a lie means that sooner or later the liar will have to defend that something. That requires work and research. According to Giroux, Paul Ryan and the rest of the cabal “…are not looking for literature that informs them. They are looking for literature that confirms them and their existing ideology.” He continues, “The new model is American Psycho. Ayn Rand’s model was Wall Street and that’s over; about celebrating heroes that moved up the ladder and didn’t care about other people. Ayn Rand was [entirely] about self-interest. Today it’s about sadism and cruelty and psychopathology. Things that only Wilhelm Reich understood.” When DeVega mentions the Purge series of movies, Giroux links it back to how we might be soon living, in a “…cage-like existence in which fear becomes the only commodity that matters and then gets translated into a kind of violence that is so spectral that it actually captures something about the soul of a society that can no longer exist, in a way, except through sadism, a kind of precarity, and an unwillingness to even remotely examine itself, in terms of its own potential for social and political responsibility.” According to Wikipedia, The Purge franchise is a series of American dystopian action horror films written and directed by James DeMonaco. There are three films in the franchise: The Purge (2013), The Purge: Anarchy (2014) and The Purge: Election Year (2016).
It may also be worth defining precarity. Precarity is a condition of one’s life that lacks predictability, job security, material or psychological welfare. According to Judith Butler, all human life is one of precarity regardless of government, economic, or historical context. All life to her is precarious, because we depend on each other from cradle to grave, on a global scale. I discuss this more extensively in my review of her Frames of War, that you can find on my site or on Goodreads, so I won’t repeat it here. Giroux continues. He mentions the movie Elle, for which Isabelle Huppert was nominated for an academy award in 2017. It is about a woman who eventually enters into a relationship with her rapist. It is, in his words, “…the ultimate expression of the assumption that the only path to intimacy is through violence… [it’s a] …celebration of sadism.” DeVega refers to another movie, Blue Demon, apparently a self-reflective B-movie about narcissism and fashion. Giroux asserts that “[w]e live in a culture of precarity.” DeVega changes the subject by musing, “Teaching is a political act.” Giroux responds that “Academy is an enemy of the Trump state.” Well that’s perhaps an understatement to be sure.
At the beginning and end of every Chauncey DeVega podcast, DeVega vents, rants and otherwise muses on whatever subject he pleases. At the beginning of podcast 133, he asks, “Trump!? Is it madness? Is it incompetence? Is it incompetent genius? He has surrounded himself with white supremacists…plutocrats…He will never be impeached. Jeff Sessions, a product of Jim Crow, enemy of the…rights of black and brown people. He’s dangerously effective. Mainstream, so called liberal, corporate news media focuses on trivialities, foolishness.“ At this point, let me give you a taste of some of the things that Malcolm Nance, retired naval officer, who I mentioned earlier, had to say in episode 127 of the Chauncey DeVega show. Nance tells us: “Moscow has a three-point strategy:
- The dissolution of NATO
- The breakup of the EU and the common market
- The belief that Russia should be able to whatever it wants in Eastern Europe”
“Russia,” he goes on “[practices a] neo-soviet capitalism.
- [they practice the] management of dissent
- It is a dictatorship
- [they practice] perception management” and,
- “[they practice] the weaponisation of information”
He goes further. “[It’s an] uprising of the stupid…we are living the first step of [an] idiocracy… [Russia is] a mafia with atomic bombs.” We want to make note of Aleksandr Dugin, “a political philosopher, the Rasputin of Putin, [wants] to bring down democracy…Trump controls 4,000 atomic weapons. Trump is part of a wrecking crews that appears to be designed to destroy the government for a foreign power and for his own personal gain.”
I am going to cycle back now to minute 26 of Podcast 133 where Giroux continues to talk about what is wrong with America. He says, “…the left has refused to really engage this discourse in ways that embrace the comprehensive politics that get beyond the fracturing of single-issue movements and [he] began”, Giroux says, “to understand both what the underlying causes of this authoritarian movement and what it might mean to address it. This thing with Hillary Clinton that went on in the face of Trump. This Hilary bashing, [not that he supports or supported HRC]…there was something much darker on the immediate horizon that should have been addressed and that while the policies that the democrats produced, this complete blindness to that issue and to the notion of education.” What he means by education is that America has to have a pedagogy that supports critical thinking and a relationship to the truth – provable truth. Then he invokes that political theorist Hannah Arendt. She “was a German born Jewish-American political theorist…often described as a philosopher. She rejected that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with ‘man in the singular’ and instead described herself as a political theorist on the grounds that ‘men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world’.” That was from Wikipedia. Giroux says that Arendt said that there is, “…the notion that thoughtlessness is the precondition of fascism.” He asks us to think about the following things: “What are the forces at work in the United States around civic culture? Around celebrity culture? Around the culture of fear? Around the stoking of extremism and anger about issues? About a media that creates a culture of illusion? About the long-standing legacy of racism and terror in the United States? Around the self-interest, the unchecked individualism? How did that all come together, in a way, to produce a kind of authoritarian pedagogy that basically isolated people, made them feel lonely? As Hanna Arendt would say, ‘loneliness is the essence of fascism’. People need a movement. They need to belong to something. The debate around fake news and fake facts – that’s nonsense. The real issue here is that the populist movements like this, they don’t care about whether something is right or wrong. All they want is a coherent fictional narrative that they can belong to. So, whether it is right or wrong is irrelevant. What’s really important is all of a sudden they find themselves in a community of believers in a public sphere in which they can affirm themselves and no longer feel that they are isolated.”
DeVega intervenes, “Regardless, Trump voters voted to hurt people.”
Giroux seems to agree, “It was about racism, white supremacy, white nationalism. It was about inflicting pain on people. It’s about taking away social provision that even they would benefit from in the name of false appeal to freedom and liberty. One. What’s the form of the culture that turned these people into barbarians, in some ways? Two. They are responsible.” By this he means the voters. “Three. What would it mean to figure out what it is that drove them, so these questions can be addressed in ways in which these people are not simply dismissed as victims, but actually become capable of being mobilized in a very different way?” It seems that there is no mechanism or appetite to tackle this. Republicans and other representatives would have to agree with Giroux’s line of thought. There would have to be an answer to how to mobilize them in a very different way. What would convince them? How would the politicians get them there? I am assuming that it would have to be the politicians. But voters are not listening to educators and certainly not academics or the science community. He continues, “If they don’t become part of the script, the transformation, then we’re done. It’s not going to work.” Absolutely. “The polarization will be too great and the possibility for violence will be outstanding…how do we make the political more pedagogical while at the same time not painting the people, who in fact voted for Trump and put us into this place, simply as dupes? I want to know how agency got constructed in the name of fascism – neo-fascism. That’s really the central question. That doesn’t absolve them of responsibility, but it does place an enormous burden on all of us who are concerned about these issues, about how we address it.”
DeVega responds, “…at least at this moment in the U.S. context, the left has an inability to craft a powerful narrative in terms of the use of language. The republicans didn’t vote against [the Obamacare repeal] because it was morally objectionable and cruel. [They voted against it because] …it wasn’t cruel enough. The media failed us in not recognizing this. The media is playing checkers and the regime is playing chess. Media and liberals and progressives and democrats are no better. The media cannot win if they think they are dealing with reasonable, rational people who believe in empirical reality.” We see glimpses of it, for example, when the media recently kept saying “you mean Russian hookers”, when people interviewed insisted on calling it by the more watered-down term “salacious material.” I wonder what it would cause or look like if the media did what DeVega is suggesting. Would it be powerful and raise awareness or would they be suppressed, controlled, and threatened by the regime? Are they afraid that this would give the regime an excuse to shut them out of press briefings? The way the media has been behaving, it certainly looks that way to me. How far can they push Spicer before he just stops answering or ignores the press more than he does now?
Giroux continues to address the problem of public transformation, “We need an overriding vision. We need to talk about radical democracy. We need to name cruelty when we see it. These people are killing people. Language translates in policies that affect people in very specific ways.” America has a “crisis of civic literacy, crisis of cultural literacy, agency, civic, culture…commercial interactions are the only ones with meaning…Anti-intellectualism has taken over the country. Critical reflection becomes not just simply an object of disdain, but an object of contempt.”
“And treason!” DeVega adds.
Giroux continues, “What happened to the formative culture that offered resistance to that? In what way are the schools contributing to this? What does it mean when language succumbs to the esthetics of idiocy and vulgarity? What does it mean when celebrity culture confers more authority than higher and public education? What does it mean when happiness becomes a private right – or when people can no longer translate individual problems into larger public issues? This is a crisis of civic liberty…you’re talking about mass produced ignorance…when a formative culture disappears that makes self-reflection possible, then you get people saying and doing things that are incomprehensible with respect to the question of reason.”
DeVega finally says what almost certainly is a shared reality, “I think Donald Trump has unleashed something that has been bubbling beneath the surface.”
Giroux addresses this in terms of violence. “Violence becomes the cohesive element that brings people together. Violence becomes a sport. Violence becomes policy. It’s a spectacle. Violence is the language of disposability. We just get rid of people. Violence becomes the driving force which is one of the few forces left by which people can feel anything. Violence and idiocy – a lethal combination. Agency will be weaponized.”
DeVega feels that, “Donald Trump is the crystallization of everything that is wrong with this country.”
Giroux expands on this sentiment. “He is the distillation of an attack on democracy that has become more cruel, more virulent, more poisonous, more militarized and more violent since the 1970s. To simply view him as eccentric…as some kind of clown, who now has tapped into a certain element of culture is really to miss the point. Flawed democracy has been transformed into a new form of neo-fascism…You combine the authority that a celebrity culture confers with the utter isolation that people are feeling and the precarity that people now finds themselves – a neo-liberal culture – couple that with a culture of spectacle – of immediacy and entertainment and man there is really not a lot of wiggle room for democratic formative culture to emerge in a way that have resisted them. “The regime has people like, “…Bannon and Gorka driving policy. Trump doesn’t have the attention span to think through policies like this. [The m]ainstream press won’t call them out…in the next two years, they will attempt to destroy, with a vigorousness and aggressiveness, every major element of the social contract and every provision, policy, social relationship, public good that basically the corporate elite sees as a burden on their own resources. If the left fails to take up and develop a commanding vision, a new language about civic culture, about the possibilities of democracy and gets away from the…fractured politics that they’re involved in and be able to build a social movement, an educational movement, we may get somewhere.”
Giroux’s offers a recipe: “Liberals have to bang home that Trump is elite. There is no politics without identification. Policy goals to win over voters: National Health Care Plan. Social Wage – Guaranteed minimum income plans. Jobs programs. The commons matter.” Ok. There are two things I’d like to provide a definition of. First here is how the Oxford dictionary defines Identity Politics: “A tendency for people of a particular religion, race, social background, etc. to form exclusive political alliances, moving away from traditional party politics.” What that means is I’m gay so my political positions are informed and influenced by my interests and perspectives with respect to my identity as a gay person. I agree with Giroux that my identity is completely reflected in my politics. How can it be otherwise? What I think has importance is how we respect each other’s identities so that we can come to shared and fair public policies and visions. Second a refresher on what the commons are. According to Wikipedia it is, “the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water and a habitable earth.” It’s not a leap to suggest that we as a species have struggled to protect and share our commons and may be losing that battle.
Giroux continues in a passionate way, “Bernie”, he starts, “argued for progressiveness within a party that is actually reactionary. He didn’t get the power of the Democratic party to embrace the third way…third way equals neo-liberal…Democrats [are] not liberal. [They are] very conservative…party of the neo-liberal capitalism…erasure of historical memory. Historical memory does not matter…in our culture of short term gains, being the only thing that matters, culture of immediacy. Speed has overtaken the possibility for thought itself… [It’s a] very dangerous scenario…anti-intellectualism and cruelty…lapse of being able to draw any relationship between action and social cost. Our age [is characterized by t]he politics of disappearance…” He then lists all the things that have or will disappear in his opinion:
- “Disappearance of memory
- Disappearance of racial justice
- Disappearance of immigrants
- Disappearance of young people who are poor
- Disappearance of people who don’t buy into the logic of capitalism
- Disappearance of intellectuals
- Disappearance of media who have the possibility of holding power accountable.”
And in what I think is a natural extension of these ideas is as DeVega responds, “Phil Zombardo says we can ‘other’ people. ‘Othering’ is necessary for evil.” You can find more on this by reading Judith Butler’s Frames of War and Precarious Life.
Giroux agrees, “In a criminogenic society, that society is organized for the production of death; that civil society is organized for the production of violence. We have so individualized these problems.” We act as though the president is the cause and not the system or society. “Trump as eccentric, just stupid – it’s a diversionary tactic. The press picks up on the diversion. Who’s going to die? Repealing of Healthcare, rolling back environmental protection. State violence is being produced. “
And DeVega feels that, “Our media lies to us. We have a culture of spectacle and disposability…lack of civil literacy.”
Giroux picks up on this by talking about the importance of education, his specialty. He tells DeVega, “This is where the question of education and literacy becomes crucial. We have produced a culture that is contemptuous of truth, leading to a situation where democracy cannot function. We can’t hold power accountable because there’s no such thing as the value of argument. There is no such thing as ability to know when people are being fooled, when they are being used as fodder in the interest of concentrated power, that basically will say anything to create a cohesive narrative that allows people to believe somehow that narrative benefits them when actually it’s just the opposite.” I don’t think Giroux feels that the media is necessarily complicit and without courage. Media has just been corrupted by wealth. They are driven by profits and what gets me to their media outlets be they TV, the internet, newspapers or magazine stands. Giroux continues, “Youth can’t just criticize culture. You have to be a culture producer.” Finally, Giroux tells a marvelous story of how his father taught him about appreciating diversity. “You ought to realize,” his father had said, “that different people be in the world in different ways. They have different languages and different skills. When you realize that your language is not the only language, then you’ll be able to listen to people and you’ll be able to understand where they come from.”
Are we looking at the end of democracy, at a new western dictatorship? At some dark dystopian future? I don’t know. In today’s world, I think we have a duty to be courageous and fight to protect the freedoms we have come to know.
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/224rebelmattersresistrebelreact.mp3
“Imagine all the people living life in peace.” Photo taken Sunday September 21 2014.
On Sunday September 21 2014, Special K and I attended the first international People’s Climate March. It was an event held around the world with a special focus on New York City two days before the U.N. Climate Summit was set to begin. It was organized by 350.org an environmental group founded by writer and activist Bill McKibben. 350 represents the parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that scientists say we need to stay at to keep further climate change at bay. Earlier last year there was a point where the parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere was recorded at 400ppm.
Wikipedia records an estimate of 311,000 people attended the People’s Climate March. There were numerous staging areas for different groups that started at Central Park West at 59th street and went as far as 86th street. Special K and I ended up joining the designated area for the generational groups at around 66th street. Among the participants we marched with were families, the elderly, and students. It was intended to be a peaceful march and it was. I interviewed several people: One of the peacekeeper volunteers, some students, a carpenter, an urban planner and a TV film editor. Join Special K and I as we take you through the march on that humid cloudy day. Enjoy the show.
Listen up (36m45s) :
https://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/223hotfrmthepeoplesclimatemarch.mp3
Other things discussed:
Hegemony – “…is the political, economic, or military predominance or control of one state over others.”
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc.
Tesla Battery – “…shouldn’t the government legislate its use?” – Liam
Deliverance / Dueling Banjos
Imagine by John Lennon
Casa Loma
Jane’s Walk
Taken Sunday September 21 2014
Photo taken Sunday September 21 2014
On Sunday September 21 2014, Special K and I attended the first international People’s Climate March. It was an event held around the world with a special focus on New York City two days before the U.N. Climate Summit was … Continue reading →
I am not an expert on these matters. I merely know what I like and what I don’t like. And though there were movies of his that I absolutely did not like, I cannot ignore the profound impact his … Continue reading →
It took me more than two years to get through this book. I put it down after page 42 in 2012 because of its dense content and academic language. I am a fan of Judith Butler because she has some … Continue reading →
This week I caught up with a Brazilian drumming troupe practicing in the park for their summer season. They call themselves MaracaTall. This is a play on the word maractu, a type of drumming, song and performance genre popular … Continue reading →
I was very saddened to hear about Mark Peacock’s passing. He was known in the podcasting world as Special Delivery Mark. He was someone I met early in podcasting and up until a few years ago, enjoyed lively and interesting … Continue reading →
On January 26, Special K and I were scheduled to participate in an event at the Royal Ontario Museum called Carbon 14 – A Day of Dialogue – The Changing Arctic Landscape. The Arctic government and policy makers are very … Continue reading →
I’ve been away now for quite a few months, and I am sorry for that. Life has been busy. But today I am back with some more soundscene audio, this time from our travels in Scandinavia last spring. As Molly … Continue reading →
“Why can’t we just do everything we can while we’re here for one another?” – Pearl Goodman, 2013 On today’s show I interview Pearl Goodman who has written Peril: From Jack Boots to Jack Benny. In 300 pages, Pearl gives us … Continue reading →
Listen up: Or Download HotFRM 216 (43:20 80mb) In today’s show we once again visit the Art Gallery of Ontario. First to see the art and life of the famous artistic pair Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Among the things … Continue reading →
If you don’t know what Nuit Blanche is, it’s a sunset to sunrise festival of art held in cities across the globe. In Toronto, it is normally held the last weekend of September. Originally conceived in Paris in 2002, the … Continue reading →
Late spring in Chicago. It’s hot. It’s humid. Though we did quite a lot of walking around and hanging out in the warm downtown core, the highlight of our trip were the exhibits we saw at the Art Institute of … Continue reading →
Ed Champion is the creator and producer and correspondent for the Bat Segundo Show, a cultural and literary podcast that in no way intentionally tries to imitate the conventional interview format. He has been podcasting for over 6 years and … Continue reading →
My neighbour, a Vietnam vet, has always watched American politics very carefully. This year he is especially interested in the upcoming American Election and wonders how the Republican party got to what he thinks is a very sorry state. He … Continue reading →
In my fourth and final installment of sound and visual art and artists I recorded at the Toronto Electro-Acoustic Symposium this summer, I end with the bees. After-all I started the series with bees for Hot Fossils and Rebel Matters … Continue reading →
From her website we read that: Alexandra Gelis is a Colombian-Venezuelan visual artist based in Toronto, Canada. She holds an MFA degree from York University, Toronto, Canada. Her work incorporates photography, video, electronics and digital processes…Gelis’ work addresses the use … Continue reading →
What do you think? What should your government be doing to improve yours or our lives. What is important to you?
In this second of a four part series of soundscapes and interviews I did at the Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium this August, I share two sound exhibits. PluseCubes by Ryo Ikeshiro. From the program: “is an interactive sound where visitors … Continue reading →
This show is the first in a series of soundscapes and interviews conducted during the Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium this year. On my way to view the sound installations at the Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium on a hot humid night in August, … Continue reading →
It’s hard to decide which piece I loved most on the evening of August 16. It was the second concert night of the Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium hosted by New Adventures in Sound Art. The theatre at the Wychwood Barns on … Continue reading →
It’s September 6 and 1. My four o’clocks have germinated again. 2. Some of the trees in the neighbourhood have re-blossomed. 3. The first morning of school was warmer than the first morning of school usually is. 4. A mother … Continue reading →
On the occasion and eve of the final Podcasters Across Borders conference, I, Mike, Shane, Adam, and Rick do a content walk from Ottawa’s Elgin Hotel to Parliament Hill and back again. We try to get into trouble but it … Continue reading →
Listen to the show or Download : HotFRM 206 (70mb) “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth” – Pablo Picasso. So, here we are four avid art gallery goers, who don’t really like Picasso’s work and never have. … Continue reading →
Listen to the show: 205HotFRM (60Mb) For the last eleven years New Adventures in Sound Art has conducted what has been known as a Radio Without Boundaries art symposium. This year the name was advertised as the Trans X … Continue reading →
Just because I give it three stars out of five does not mean I didn’t love it. It was the concepts I loved, not the writing. Because it’s an academic book, it was slow going and plodding. Like all works … Continue reading →
Well – this is a drag: Podshow/Mevio removed all my audio files from episodes 198 down. I’ll be uploading them and re-pointing them to this site over the next few weeks. So stay tuned while I repatriate my shows. … Continue reading →
Listen to the show: Or Download: HotFRM 204 (100mb) At Podcamp Toronto 2012, Heather Leson led a session called Dispatches of Disruption. The description of the session was advertised like this: “Every day someone uses the power of the Internet … Continue reading →
Listen : Or Download HotFRM 203 (46mb) Podcamp is more than a way for podcast hobbyists to get together once a year and talk about how we are podfading. Although, we did that too. It was also about social media, … Continue reading →
Listen to HotFRM 202 The Hookah is a single or multi-stemmed device for smoking tobacco. The smoke is passed through a water basin before inhalation. And the smoke is inhaled through a long hose, a slender flexible tube that allows … Continue reading →
Listen to the show HotFRM 201 (8mb) Today I give you a Ninja original Snow Globe Christmas Mashup with ambient household white noise including the refrigerator. Listen to the show HotFRM 201 (8mb)
Listen to the show: HotFRM 200 (28mb) Every year, Toronto participates in an all night festival of art known as Nuit Blanche, so named because it colloquilally means “all-nighter” in French, but literally means “white night”. It’s a sunset to … Continue reading →
This past summer, Special K, Dragon, Fly and I went to Ottawa’s Canadian Museum of Civilization. The highlight of the visit was the exhibit called Japan: Tradition. Innovation. The exhibit showcased Japan’s achievements in design. I wanted to take home … Continue reading →
Listen to the show : HotFRM 198 (25 mb) Are you a lesbian? Have you ever been a lesbian? Well Holly Near was. Singer, songwriter and activist, she was a lesbian-feminist in the heady, crazy days of early gay … Continue reading →
Listen to the show: Hotfrm 197 (35mb) On Canada Day this year, July 1st, Special K and I went to Royal Ontario Museum, the ROM to view three separate exhibits. The first is on water, what it is, what it … Continue reading →
In the aftermath of the horror that took place in Norway recently, the headline on the Globe and Mail print version today reads: Can Science Really Explain Evil? Doesn’t that seem just a bit sarcastic to you? It did to … Continue reading →
Listen to the show HotFRM 196 (16mb) At 1:20am on the morning of Saturday June 28, 1969, police entered a Mafia run gay bar called the Stonewall Inn. It is still located at 51 and 53 Christopher Street in Greenwich … Continue reading →
what? has my poll been closed by polldaddy?. what a harsh man. It was 100% (5 out of 5) for Yes.