 | Like so many others in this day and age, they fought against the pressures of modern society to maintain a happy, respectable and responsible family life. Andy … was a model employee, hard working, personable and well liked. |
The quote above is a statement by John Underhill, former managing director at the firm where Andy Case used to work, before he killed his two daughters, his wife and himself.
• Sep 10, 2010 link notes tagged: communication mass murder family debt nexus nexum slave critic insurrection news UK violence death modernity society life potentiality stress pressure happiness economy
| An especially disturbing section of the book delves into a lawsuit brought against Eli Lilly by survivors of a rampage by Joseph Wesbecker, who was the company’s worst nightmare: a Prozac user who went on the rampage in 1989 with an AK-47. Fortunately for Eli Lilly, the 1994 trial was concurrent with the O. J. Simpson trial, the facts were carefully manipulated, a secret settlement was made between plaintiffs and the drug company even as the trial continued, and Prozac avoided a warning label about possibly violent or suicidal behavior. All the particulars of this remarkable legal travesty are laid out here. |
The quote above is an excerpt from the review of the book Overcoming the Dangers of Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil and Other Antidepressants With Safe, Effective Alternatives by Joseph Glenmullen, M.D. (383 pages. Simon & Schuster). On the same subject, read also “Papers indicate firm knew possible Prozac suicide risk” by Tom Watkins, January 3, 2005:
An internal document purportedly from Eli Lilly and Co. made public Monday appears to show that the drug maker had data more than 15 years ago showing that patients on its antidepressant Prozac were far more likely to attempt suicide and show hostility than were patients on other antidepressants and that the company attempted to minimize public awareness of the side effects. (more)
Previously on Skandalon: Eli Lilly and Co.
• Sep 03, 2010 link notes tagged: technology rampage lawsuit antidepressant drug Prozac depression suicidal suicide homicide violence psychiatry pharmaceutical science industry capitalism individuation
He put the knife in the robot’s hand and caused the arm to raise. Then something went wrong.
Learn more about Thrilling Wonder Stories on Wikipedia
• Jul 28, 2010 link notes tagged: technology art comic illustration robot human machine murder violence creation creature creator cybernetic wrong error vintage BW
| Iran has summoned the Canadian charge d’affaires to the foreign ministry to condemn human rights violations by Canadian riot police against G20 protesters. The Canadian envoy was summoned to the ministry on Wednesday to receive Iran’s protest over the “violent and inhuman” treatment and the massive arrests of G20 protesters by the country’s riot police. Voicing concern over human rights abuse by the Canadian police, the Iranian representative reminded Canada of its international commitments to allow peaceful demonstrations and called on the government to respect the rights of detainees. |
About PressTV and its “vision” :
Press TV takes revolutionary steps as the first Iranian international news network, broadcasting in English on a round-the-clock basis.
Heeding the often neglected voices and perspectives of a great portion of the world;
Embracing and building bridges of cultural understanding;
Encouraging human beings of different nationalities, races and creeds to identify with one another;
Bringing to light untold and overlooked stories of individuals who have experienced the vitality and versatility of political and cultural divides firsthand. (more)
• Jul 16, 2010 link notes tagged: communication politic protest human rights violence humor Iran Canada demonstration
First caption:
Storming of the Bastille:
The citizens of Paris led by the Gardes Françaises on the 14th of July 1789. Building of this fortification started in 1369 during the reign of Charles V. Hugues Aubriot, a native of Dijon and Provost of Paris, laid the first stone. Construction was completed in 1382. Aubriot was born in Dijon. He became one of the first prisoners of the Bastille, imprisoned under the pretext of heresy. He was liberated by the Parisians during the troubles that stirred the capital, and escaped to his motherland.
Second caption:
This is how we punish traitors.
• Jul 14, 2010 link notes tagged: art etching drawing illustration France revolution violence terror death citizen
David Vivó photostream on Flickr: personal project, Paul Auster’s “Leviathan” book cover / 120x185 mm
• Jul 11, 2010 link notes tagged: art communication illustration illustrator design poster cover book author novel state power politic community Hobbes violence Auster freedom terror terrorism loser United-States
Learn more about the frontispiece on wikipedia.
Here’s another way to interpret this illustration:
The incorporation of the father on the part of the sons corresponds to the incorporation of the sons of the part of which, upon the death of the father, substitutes for him. What else does the celebrated image of the Leviathan represent, composed as it is of many small human forms wedged in together one against the other in the shape of a scale of impenetrable armor, if not the inclusion again of the murderous sons on the part of the “second” father in one’s own body? (Communitas. The Origin and Destiny of Community by Roberto Esposito, trans. by Thimothy Campbell, Standford: Stanford University Press, [1998]2010, p. 40)
• Jul 09, 2010 link notes tagged: art communication book frontispiece engraving Leviathan Esposito communitas Freud father son murder violence death sacrifice
| One day the expelled brothers joined forces, slew and ate the father, and thus put an end to the father horde. Together they dared and accomplished what would have remained impossible for them singly. Perhaps some advance in culture, like the use of a new weapon, had given them the feeling of superiority. Of course these cannibalistic savages ate their victim. This violent primal father had surely been the envied and feared model for each of the brothers. Now they accomplished their identification with him by devouring him and each acquired a part of his strength. The totem feast, which is perhaps mankind’s first celebration, would be the repetition and commemoration of this memorable, criminal act with which so many things began, social organization, moral restrictions and religion. |
Previously on Skandalon: Freud
• Jul 09, 2010 link notes tagged: communication community hord father son parricide murder sacrifice death destruction life sacred violence society Freud psychoanalysis book author moral religion art totem taboo
Si on en croit la Bible, c’est Caïn qui créa la première ville, pour avoir, selon la remarque de Bossuet, où étourdir ses remords. Quel jugement ! Et combien de fois n’en ai-je pas éprouvé la justesse dans mes déambulations nocturnes !
Quoted from De l’inconvénient d’être né by Emil Cioran, Paris:Gallimard, coll. Quarto, [1973]1995, p. 1307
About Fernand Cormon:
At an early age he attracted attention for the perceived sensationalism in his art, although for a time his powerful brush dwelled with particular delight on scenes of bloodshed, such as the Murder in the Seraglio (1868) and the Death of Ravara, Queen of Lanka at the Toulouse Museum. The Musée d’Orsay has his Cain flying before Jehovah’s Curse; and for the Mairie of the fourth arrondissement of Paris he executed in grisaille a series of panels: Birth, Death, Marriage, War, etc. A Chiefs Funeral, and pictures having the Stone Age for their subject, occupied him for several years. He was appointed to the Legion of Honor in 1880. Subsequently he also devoted himself to portraiture. (wikipedia)
• Jul 07, 2010 link notes reblogged from circuitry [via] tagged: art communication death violence murder remorse city painting painter Cioran
| The sacrifice serves to protect the entire community from its own violence; it prompts the entire community to choose victims outside itself. The elements of dissension scattered throughout the community are drawn to the person of the sacrificial victim and eliminated, at least temporarily, by its sacrifice. |
Original French text:
C’est la communauté entière que le sacrifice protège de sa propre violence, c’est la communauté entière qu’il détourne vers des victimes qui lui sont extérieures. Le sacrifice polarise sur la victime des germes de dissension partout répandus et il les dissipe en leur proposant un assouvissement partiel. (éd. Bernard Grasset, coll. Hschette Littérature / Pluriel, Paris, [1972]1998, p. 18
Consider this for example. It doesn’t really matter (for what’s at stake here) if it’s true or not. What matter is that some people find it necessary to see McChrystal resignation as a sacrifice and are representing that belief by their talkings and writings:
Respected conservative Toby Harden of the UK Telegraph notes: “the way Obama fired McChrystal was choreographed to humiliate the general and bolster the President’s credentials as a macho man. So much for ‘no drama Obama.’ The manner of the firing came dangerously close to putting political theatre and image-burnishing above the conduct of a war.” Mortified, dishonored, ruined? I think not. General McChrystal may no longer be commanding the troops in Afghanistan, but his act of valor may very well have won the war here at home. Army General Stanley McChrystal may have taken a bullet, but crawling through the trenches on his belly the wounded patriot managed to set off a warning flare alerting America it is presently under presidential siege. (American Thinker: “McChrystal’s sacrifice?” by Jeannie DeAngelis, June 24th, 2010)
Previously on Skandalon : Rene Girard, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal
• Jul 05, 2010 link notes tagged: communication sacrifice violence victim community sacred immunitas communitas Esposito protection order war McChrystal United-States news representation anxiety Girard
| He would rage and he would cry, my lost soldier. And I said to him, “There are two of you, don’t you see? One that kills and one that loves.” And he said to me, “I don’t know whether I am animal or a god.” But you are both. |
The entire script of the Redux version is available here.
• Jul 03, 2010 link notes tagged: art communication film movie filmmaker war soldier lost kill death love relation relationship violence horror Hobbes communitas Esposito
| People are not alone in waging war. Their closest living cousins, chimpanzees, also slaughter their own kind—in brutal attacks that primatologists increasingly view as strategic, co-ordinated assaults rather than random acts of violence. But however tempting it is to see these battles through the lens of human warfare, the motives for chimp-on-chimp violence are poorly understood. In particular, researchers have long debated whether the apes fight for land, or for females. |
• Jul 02, 2010 link notes tagged: communication war land power violence killing death animal chimpanzee human behavior instinct culture nature
| Unlike, say, her performance at the Grammys, which was a perfect fusion of spectacle (a nine-months-pregnant woman rapping in a see-through dress) with content (Maya’s fervor was linked to the music), the video for “Born Free” feels exploitative and hollow. Seemingly designed to be banned on YouTube, which it was instantly, the video is set in Los Angeles where a vague but apparently American militia forcibly search out red-headed men and one particularly beautiful red-headed child. The gingers, as Maya called them, using British slang, are taken to the desert, where they are beaten and killed. The first to die is the child, who is shot in the head. While “Born Free” is heard in the background throughout, the song is lost in the carnage. As a meditation on prejudice and senseless persecution, the video is, at best, politically naïve. “The video was more than fine with me,” Jimmy Iovine told me later that night. Despite Maya’s efforts, he had seen it. “I didn’t even have a blink.” A canny showman, Iovine knew that the video would get attention, that Maya would get her visa (which she did) and that all the noise was good for business. He has a long history of driving record sales with violent imagery: in the 1990s, Interscope was home to Death Row Records, where Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and Tupac Shakur made millions rapping about all things gangsta. Iovine also appreciates the outrageous: Interscope’s biggest artist is Lady Gaga, who has melded big-time theatricality with disco-based pop, a kind of love child of Elton John and Madonna. |
Excellent article by Lynn Hirschberg and a great follow up on the “Born Free” music video controversy.
[UPDATE - August 16th, 2010] Apparently, M.I.A. didn’t like the article by Lynn Hirschberg:
MIA is upset about a New York Times Magazine cover story about her, so she tweeted the phone number of the piece’s writer, Lynn Hirschberg.
“917.834.3158 CALL ME IF YOU WANNA TALK TO ME ABOUT THE N Y T TRUTH ISSUE, ill b taking calls all day bitches ;)” she wrote.
Because MIA presented the number as her own, Hirschberg has been deluged with calls from fans wanting to hook up with MIA. (The Huffington Post: “M.I.A. Freaks Out At ‘New York Times,’ Tweets Reporter’s Phone Number”, June 2, 2010)
• Jun 08, 2010 link notes tagged: art video music pop culture mainstream entertainment industry consumption critic integration representation revolution simulacrum loser lost violence contradiction controversy media
