Gandhi, The Occupy Movement & The Amritsar Massacre

I've been wanting to watch Richard Attenborough's movie Gandhi again for a couple of decades. The recent Occupy movement has really impressed me by not responding to police violence. I really don't know if I could control my temper if I was attacked by a cop and obviously it would be me that would suffer in the long run so it's probably a good thing that I'm putting effort into other areas like writing and social media.

If you haven't mentioned it yet in social media ask yourself why.

I'm posting the scene above because it's the definitive evil-of-empire massacre part of the story. The film goes on to outline how the Muslims and Hindus killed each other before and during partition of India and Pakistan though it doesn't mention that the British set up much of this conflict as a leaving gift. More than even Gandhi ever new.

The film is excellent and so long I was caught by surprise because it's one of the few films to have a five minute intermission half way through and so I took a screen grab of it. There's a lot I could write about this movie and I took inspiration from Gandhi again and again from it. I will probably write about different parts at a later time. In the mean time I urge anyone with Occupy on the mind to watch the entire movie (I think it's all on Youtube in parts) and take time to consider what non violence really means.

Without a question Gandhi's way is even more relevant today than ever. I urge people to watch it and learn a thing or two about changing the world. A truly remarkable man and unlike any other we experienced in the last century. Is it only me that wants our leaders in loin cloths?


Update: The entire movie is below.

Satellite Images Of The Flooding In Thailand & Cambodia

Thailand and Cambodia continued to cope with widespread flooding at the beginning of November 2011.  Barely discernible in 2008, Thailand’s Chao Phraya River and its tributaries have spilled onto floodplains in 2011. Meanwhile, in neighboring Cambodia, Tônlé Sab (Tonle Sap) and the Mekong River have soaked normally dry land. Rivers are also visibly swollen in eastern Thailand.

Too Much Information - Puking On Big Data

Excellent new TED talk by an obviously likeable but neurotic speaker confusing obsession with art and inadvertently highlighting why we're choking on information and starved of wisdom.

Hasan Elahi

When the Feds come after you, you have several options: panic, resist or, if you’re interdisciplinary American artist Hasan Elahi, flood them with information. It all started in 2002, when Elahi was detained in Detroit after a flight from the Netherlands, suspected of hoarding explosives in a Florida locker. Though lie detector tests subsequently cleared him, Elahi – who is an associate professor at the University of Maryland and has exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the Centre Pompidou, and the Hermitage – was subjected to six months of questioning about his extensive international travels. Figuring once in the system, never out, he decided to turn the tables and cooperate – with a vengeance.

Starting with constant phone calls and emails to the FBI to notify them of his whereabouts, what started as a practicality grew into an open-ended art project. He began posting photos of his minute-by-minute life, up to around a hundred a day, on TrackingTransience.net – hotel rooms, train stations, airports, meals, beds, receipts, even toilets – generating tens of thousands of images in the last several years. Just for good measure, he also wears a GPS device that tracks his movements on his site’s live Google map. And as if to prove his point that “the best way to protect privacy is to give it away,” Elahi – while still being watched by the authorities, according to server records – hasn’t been bothered since.

He says: "By putting everything about me out there, I am simultaneously telling everything and nothing about my life."

"He figures the day is coming when so many people shove so much personal data online that it will put Big Brother out of business."