Police State

I wasn't aware of the acuteness of London's Student Loans battles until listening to the chants of 'off with their heads' to Prince Charles over the World Service and finally till I came across these incredible pictures which Boston.com is revolutionizing photo journalism with. 

I've a couple of comments to make. First I think Marbury (who led me to the photography) underestimates much of what this is all about by attributing a narrow and unimaginative causal relationship to events, but as I like his blog, and there was that whole misunderstanding about the Ellesberg Papers I don't really want to pursue it too hard right now other than to mention my recent 1968 Awesomeness post and to point out the supportive and vocal sympathies of many people who really don't seem to have that much of a view on Student or Educational loans. But his blog is still one of the few political blogs I read for its careful analysis of restrained transatlantic political commentary as the volume from traditional media blowhards in this area is irritating and unhelpful.

Lastly I think it's worth noting that similar civil unrest in Bangkok also caught by the Boston.Com photographers led to Royal Thai Army Snipers picking off white flag wavers and medical staff in the grounds of the most centrally located Buddhist Temple here in Bangkok earlier this year though one has to live in Asia to really understand that life is tragically just so much cheaper. You may find that insensitive but I assure you I'm far from callous and I'm definitely pointing a rice fed finger towards an asymmetric life valuation hierarchy that Orientals know full well is skewed by Occidental standards of living. Worth bearing in mind if sympathy is ever sought, particularly as many of the arrested are still being held and tortured in jail to this day by Royal Thai Army loyalist troops.

Tricia Wang

Digital Urbanism on the Margins: Chinese Migrants and Intensive Technology

View more presentations from triciawang.

Tricia is among other things a digital ethnographer and is heading to China for a few years to hang out with Chinese Migrants who you might remember from this blog are heavily reliant on their mobile phones for both connection to distant family and also as private space in crowded living conditions.

Her presentation here is interesting both for it's hypotheses that she puts forward and because it's a work in progress so maybe we'll get to learn something about a category that for many people in China takes a few months to save up for.

I'm pretty sure that Tricia sucks up even more bandwidth on the internet than I do and I think that's saying something.

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I had some problems embedding two videos in the same post so I've reposted the second half of the Michael Ruppert documentary here. Chronologically it's in the wrong order now, but you can find part one here. Please do let me know if these videos are later removed as I can delete or find another way. Thanks.