John Taylor Gatto - I Quit. I Think.

Many people are familiar with Sir Ken Robinson's TED Talk on schools killing creativity.

Regretibly he doesn't get that it is deliberate, manufactured if you wish.

John Taylor Gatto was the most awarded teacher in NY State. 

He figured out the systematic dumbing down process.

Sadly, he died last week but you can learn more about his extraordinary research over here.

Sandy Hook Has Profuse Information Gaps - See For Yourself

Whatever happened at Sandy Hook it isn't the story portrayed in the media. Thus it's important to not let it slide like all the easily distracted, story for the day junkies who have forgotten what they felt yesterday, or at least have forgotten enough to ensure they don't examine new information.  

The Memory Hole is doing excellent work and asking the best intellectual questions on this troubling issue.

Slavoj Žižek On Advertising Vs. Academia

I love Slavoj Žižek though as our existential crisis moves up the hierarchy of needs, I find his musings on spirituality (for an atheist who says my God more than anyone else) somewhat threadbare. Particularly so when in this 2004 interview he wades into a shameless defence of St Paul while pointedly ignoring the Archontic threat articulated in the Gnostic texts....or maybe he just doesn't know.

However he's still brilliant and likeable given his shtick is to offend everyone while rarely stating what he believes in. I loved the end of this interview where he talks about taking money for some advertising work.

The Believer Magazine: You wrote some Lacanian-style quotations for last fall’s Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. How did that come about?

Slavoj Žižek: Oh yes, I was helping someone who helped me once. It was easy, he sent me a series of provocative images, and I just wrote silly Lacanian statements about them. My critics have attacked me saying, how can you conscientiously accept money from such a company? I said, with less guilt than accepting money from the American university system.

Charlotte Iserbyt - Rewiring Education To Make Children Conform & Adults Compliant

Charlotte Iserbyt's father and grandfather were (like John Kerry and George Bush) Skull & Bones members and so her qualifications to comment on the matter of using education to programme children to be wired for obedience later on in life, and in the corporate environment are solid. She explains how the process is designed so that children are stripped of the ability to question, interrogate, push for better solutions and solve problems and thus obedient later on as a profit unit within the corporate machine. In short Charlotte blows the lid off the illusion of school as education when it no longer is. She is bright, lucid and articulate and has worked at a senior level within the Reagan administration.

Only a fool could watch this interview and fail to conclude that elite groups conspire to keep the masses stupid. But then how could you tell if you are stupid? 

Here's your chance. Don't blow it.

A New Dawn

I've had some messed up sleeping patterns for a couple of months now, and I was kind of hoping that the continental move and time zone difference would cancel that out. It hasn't and so I finally got to sleep between 5 or 6 in the morning earlier today a wee bit worried that I'd be fading very quickly. However I felt quite perky on getting up and thought I'd take a snap of the view from my new apartment to share with you.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you "The Jing". The air here is frequently polluted but this morning (as indeed was the first morning I spent here in September) felt like a morning for heroes. The glare from the sun on the buildings was so strong that I nearly broke out into a chorus of 'The future's so bright I gotta wear shades'. Well OK I lied about that bit but what's a blog for if I can't blag a bit right? So really I hailed a taxi and made my way into my shiny new work place.