June 2012
“If you’re one of Mr Cameron’s “resentful taxpayers”, please wear a badge so the rest of us can avoid accidentally assisting you in a crisis.”
—I said it once before but it bears repeating.
“Whether they’re called “liberal” or “conservative,” the major media are large corporations, owned by and interlinked with even larger conglomerates. Like other corporations, they sell a product to a market. The market is advertisers—that is, other businesses. The product is audiences. For the elite media that set the basic agenda to which others adapt, the product is, furthermore, relatively privileged audiences.
So we have major corporations selling fairly wealthy and privileged audiences to other businesses. Not surprisingly, the picture of the world presented reflects the narrow and biased interests and values of the sellers, the buyers and the product” —
So we have major corporations selling fairly wealthy and privileged audiences to other businesses. Not surprisingly, the picture of the world presented reflects the narrow and biased interests and values of the sellers, the buyers and the product” —
How the World Works - Noam Chomsky (via noam-chomsky)
think about this in regard to Facebook, too. Or, hell, Tumblr.
You’re not the consumer. You’re the product.
(via champagnecandy)
“The need to go astray,
to be destroyed,
is an extremely private, distant, passionate, turbulent
truth.” —Georges Bataille (via thebodyasconduit)
to be destroyed,
is an extremely private, distant, passionate, turbulent
truth.” —Georges Bataille (via thebodyasconduit)
“We can tell our children that school is important until we’re blue in the face, they’re not stupid. They see the loudest applause is for the kids on the field. They know teachers are paid poorly and don’t drive fancy cars. They know people plan Super Bowl parties but mock the National Spelling Bee. In other words, they see the hypocrisy, and we can’t expect society to correct itself. If we want to have any lasting influence on the way our kids approach education — the way future generations approach education — then we have to grab our pom-poms and paint our faces and celebrate intellectual curiosity with the same vigor we do their athletic achievements.”
—Why I’m raising my son to be a nerd - CNN.com (via amstibovvered)
(on the trigger vs the bullet)
I never know when to share the fact of my rape with anyone. If I bring it up early, it’s this thing that defines me more than I would like— “dont trouble yourself getting to know me: just know this!”, and it colors every interaction a certain tint and lays eggshells out for fragile steps. If I wait too long, though, then it’s a looming, heavy, soggy shame, that grows heavier with more consequence than it deserves: “I never knew… Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”, or implies an earning of trust that is greater than it deserves— it’s not that I was afraid to share this with you until now… It’s just that (oh, this is so sad) we are always worried about putting others at ease. If I tell you, it is going to make you more uncomfortable than it is going to make me, and I don’t like to make anyone ill at ease. I don’t want you to feel any burden of appropriate response, or apologize, or laugh nervously, or (the worst of all, the most frequent response of all, and maybe the reason we all should get better about telling each other?) tell me: “Me, too. It happened to me, also. Mine…was like…this…”
The math is straightforward. It is almost as likely that we will have this thing in common than it will be a thing that alienates. If we don’t talk about it, it is something that happens to strangers, to others, to a friend of a friend. If we talk about it, it happened to you, to me, your roommate, your sister, your former boyfriend, aunt, brother, niece…
But as much as I want that awareness, I get angry in sensing that it defines me. It does not define me, at least, not as a victim. It defines me as a survivor. It defines me as someone who learned (maybe a “hard way”, but I know that there are harder) that she fucking loves life, and will be all-caps JOYFUL— and that I want… simply to FEEL, and that every single experience, no matter how much it hurts, is better than feeling nothing. I know with absolute certainty that I do not want to die. And that— the gift of appreciating my life (with all of its ugly nooks and crannies and all of the jaw-dropping beauty and humanity and tenderness and fragility), is a fucking TREASURE. And with that gift, I am certain: He did not win.
He lost.
What he took from me is so small and insignificant compared to what he gave me. The fact, which, out of context becomes a sick joke, is this: being raped was the most important and valuable thing that ever happened to me, and I would not go back and undo it if I could. I WON. I am still winning.
So are you. You are so strong. I can see you shining from here.
“Everything I’ve ever let go of had claw marks on it.”
—David Foster Wallace (via entropicarus)
“People say she broke up the Beatles. Maybe she did. I’m glad she did if she did. She should have broken up the Rolling Stones while she was at it.”
—Thurston Moore, speaking on Yoko Ono, 1995 (Paper Mag)
