Disinvitation to Sociology

http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/berger-peter_on-sociology-as-a-science.html


" ... one of the root insights of classical sociology is that human actions can be surprising."

Contra Obama

http://protestobama.org/


http://www.amconmag.com/blog/peace-out/
"The antiwar Left defeated itself by electing a Democrat little different from Bush. And now Barack Obama is dismantling his own party by repudiating the causes that animated his base—the opposition to war and fear of the imperial presidency." 


"The Democrats’ decline owes nothing to Republican leaders like John Boehner or Mitch McConnell; it is entirely the result of Obama betraying the antiwar Left at the same time as the grassroots Right finally returned to its economic principles."


"One thing is certain: thanks to Barack Obama, the change this country seeks will not come from the Left."

Meritocracy - as it was originally meant

http://www.economist.com/node/3518560?story_id=3518560

"Everywhere you look in modern America — in the Hollywood Hills or the canyons of Wall Street, in the Nashville recording studios or the clapboard houses of Cambridge, Massachusetts — you see elites mastering the art of perpetuating themselves."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2001/jun/29/comment


www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers/pap133.doc


http://books.google.com/books?id=DqlGuTpjmFUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Big+Test:+The+Secret+History+of+the+American+Meritocracy&source=bl&ots=2qsNli7h4Z&sig=o6qUqxxgcTAPS50XS15TbOnezMA&hl=en&ei=qUgMTdqgLYKC8gbP9MykAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false

Mao's Contradictions: Rebecca Karl's book

http://newleftreview.org/?view=2874&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nlr66


http://www.thechinabeat.org/?p=2193: 

" ... the whole book is designed to counter the idea that Mao was just a crazy megalomaniacal tyrant."


"China cannot be understood without the world, the world cannot be understood without China. I take this proposition in a very literal way. "


http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/chinesehistory/pgp/index.html


http://chinastudygroup.net/

Regrets of the Dying

http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html

... the five 'most common'.  

Behind the Smiles is Coercion & Ideology: The Thai Military & Monarchy in Alliance

http://www.scribd.com/doc/41175341/Military-Monarchy-Coercion-Ideology-Ungpakorn#fullscreen:on

"... the ‘double act performed by the military and the King’ (p. 96): the military uses the monarchy to legitimize its coercive rule, while the monarchy provides the ideological justification for elite capitalist rule more generally."

Herald of cyber transparency

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/12/future_wikileaks

"The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive 'secrecy tax') and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption.

Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance."

EP Thompson

“We learn, for neither the first nor the last time, that it is a terribly long and thankless task to try to influence the course of history by little movements ‘from below’.  Yet such minority positions, through most of recorded human history, have been the only honourable places to be; nor do they always fail in the long run.”

Yoko Ono on John Lennon

'They say teenagers laugh at the drop of a hat. Nowadays I see many teenagers sad and angry with each other.  John and I were hardly teenagers.  But my memory of us is that we were a couple who laughed.' 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/opinion/08ono.html?ex=1307422800&en=6c30c32402fecfe5&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=OP-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M179-ROS-1210-PH&WT.mc_ev=click


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xB4dbdNSXY

Moral disobedience

http://at.bc.edu/disobedience/


Interview with sociologist Lisa Dodson, author of The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy.
 

Assange: No Secrets

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/12/01/assange.profile/index.html


http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian?currentPage=all

“Most of this period of my childhood was pretty Tom Sawyer.  I had my own horse. I built my own raft. I went fishing. I was going down mine shafts and tunnels.”

Assange’s mother believed that formal education would inculcate an unhealthy respect for authority in her children and dampen their will to learn.  “I didn’t want their spirits broken,” she told me. In any event, the family had moved thirty-seven times by the time Assange was fourteen, making consistent education impossible. He was homeschooled, sometimes, and he took correspondence classes and studied informally with university professors. But mostly he read on his own, voraciously. He was drawn to science. “I spent a lot of time in libraries going from one thing to another, looking closely at the books I found in citations, and followed that trail,” he recalled.  He absorbed a large vocabulary, but only later did he learn how to pronounce all the words that he learned.

'Saya Sayang Chow Kit Kita'

http://sayaanakbangsamalaysia.net/

Great pics - and more.

Encryption systems - WikiLeak's 'potent weapon'

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/the-shameful-attacks-on-julian-assange/67440

"The true importance of Wikileaks ...  lies ... in the technology that made it possible, which has already shown itself to be a potent weapon to undermine official lies and defend human rights.  Since 1997, Assange has devoted a great deal of his time to inventing encryption systems that make it possible for human rights workers and others to protect and upload sensitive data.  The importance of Assange's efforts to human rights workers in the field were recognized last year by Amnesty International, which gave him its Media Award ..."

WikiLeaks, etc: Because it's all digital today

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/06/charlie-brooker-phones-embarrassing-info


" ... in our terrible modern hell, it's possible for absolutely anyone to leave a comprehensive dossier of ultra- sensitive private information about themselves on the back seat of a bus just by misplacing their phone."




http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/12/wireless_photo_transfers


the Eye-Fi, a digital camera storage and networking card:  "So long as an active and reachable Wi-Fi network existed (or a photographer was carrying a portable Wi-Fi/mobile router like the MiFi), photos of alleged misdeeds would be immediately uploaded into the cloud, beyond the reach of law enforcement or criminals. Wresting the physical device from a pesky photographer and theatrically ripping out the incriminating roll of film, or nowadays more likely a memory card, would finally become futile."

http://www.amazon.com/Being-Digital-Nicholas-Negroponte/dp/0679762906

"The change from atoms to bits is irrevocable and unstoppable."  - Negroponte, 1996

Hic salta: why

Proverb

hic Rhodus, hic salta:  (politics) Prove what you can do, here and now.

Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)

209. THE BOASTFUL ATHLETE

There was a man who had been away on a journey and had then come back home. He strutted about town, talking loudly and at great length about the brave deeds he had accomplished in the various lands he had visited. In Rhodes, the man said, he had jumped such a long jump that no man alive could equal it, and he claimed that there were witnesses who could back up his story. A bystander then remarked, 'Alright! If you're telling the truth, here is your Rhodes: go on and jump!' 

The fable shows that talking is a waste of time when you can simply provide a demonstration.

Note: This fable enjoyed popularity as a Latin proverb: 'Here's your Rhodes, jump!' (Erasmus, Adages 3.3.28).