Century of the Self

[After WWI, corporations] were frightened of the dangers of overproduction, that there would come a point where people had enough goods and would simply stop buying. Up until that point, the majority of products were still sold to the masses on the basis of need...What the corporations realized they had to do was transform the way the majority of Americans thought about products. One leading Wall Street banker Paul Mazur of Lehman Brothers was clear about what was necessary. "We must shift America," he wrote, "from a needs to a desires culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old have been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America: man's desires must overshadow his needs."

- from the BBC documentary, Century of the Self. See the film here on Youtube.

Alexander Hamilton Rap

Assume the Position with Mr. Wuhl

If links are dead, try Wimp.

All We are Doing is Manifesting

Old school parkour and breakdancing:

Work

The growth of the exploiters' revolution on this continent has been accompanied by the growth of the idea that work is beneath human dignity, particularly any form of hand work. We have made it our overriding ambition to escape work, and as a consequence have debased work until it is only fit to escape from. We have debased the products of work and have been, in turn, debased by them. Out of this contempt for work arose the idea of a nigger: at first some person, and later some thing, to be used to relieve us of the burden of work. If we began by making niggers of people, we have ended by making a nigger of the world. We have taken the irreplaceable energies and materials of the world and turned them into jimcrack "labor-saving devices." We have made the rivers and oceans and winds niggers to carry away our refuse, in doing this to the world that is our common heritage and bond, we have returned to making niggers of people: we have become each other's niggers.

But is work something that we have a right to escape? And can we escape it with impunity? We are probably the first entire people ever to think so. All the ancient wisdom that has come down to us counsels otherwise. It tells us that work is necessary to us, as much a part of our condition as mortality; that good work is our salvation and our joy; that shoddy or dishonest or self-serving work is our curse and our doom. We have tried to escape the sweat and sorrow promised in Genesis -- only to find that, in order to do so, we must forswear love and excellence, health and joy.

from The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry

Black Latino Lineages and Linkages: Historical Ties that Bind

I got this email the other day. Looks pretty good --I've heard about the Schomburg Center and have wanted to visit, and Mark Naison is an entertaining speaker.

Saturday, May 17, 2008 1 – 4 pm
Schomburg Center — 135th Street & Malcolm X Blvd.

Join us for a public conversation on the historical and cultural connections between New York's
African American and Caribbean communities with particular attention to the AfroLatino/a experience.

Co-hosted by Schomburg Center & El Museo del Barrio

Participants:
William "Sandy" Darity – Duke University
Manuela Arciniegas – Cultural activist, The Legacy Circle
Mark Naison – The Bronx African-American History Project
Victoria Archibald-Good – Social Worker & long-time Patterson Houses resident
Ryan Mann-Hamilton – Graduate student researching U.S.–Samaná, D.R. migrations
"Music of Morrisania"– students of PS 140

Cat vs. Crawfish and The Unknown Rebel

Here's a cute video of a pet cat toying with a very well defended crawfish (and a disinterested dog in the background). I love the acoustic version of the Imperial March (Darth Vader's theme song in Star Wars).


The video reminded me of one of the heroes of the late 20th century, the Unknown Rebel.

Watch the video of the Unknown Rebel defying a fleet of tanks here. What do you do when you're staring down impossible odds? Very few choose to stand and fight.