Friday 9 March 2012

If You Repeat A Lie Often Enough, It Becomes Politics.

               'in a world which really is topsy-turvey, - the true is moment of the false.'
               
               - Guy Debord

Thursday 8 March 2012

International Women's Day - Bread & Roses remake by Queen Cee



Bread and Roses - James Oppenheim.

As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"

As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!

As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for - but we fight for roses, too!

As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more drudge and idler - ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses.

The above poem written by James Mc Millan was written to celebrate the movement for women's rights and was first published in American Magazine in 1911, and is closely associated with the Lawrence Textile mill strike of 1911, where the above picture was taken.
During this strike, which was in protest of a reduction in pay,  under the leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World  ( The Wobblies) and led primarily by the women workforce, the women mill workers carried signs that quoted the poem, reading 'we want bread and roses too.'
It has since become an anthem for labor rights, and especially the rights of working women, across the globe. 

Marya Mannes (14/11/04 - 13/09/90) - (extract from) Out of My Time.

American writer and lecturer

' . . .  life demands that the duality in men and women be freed to function, released from hate or guilt. All wars derive from lack of empathy: the incapacity of one to understand and accept the likeness or difference of another. Whether in nations or the encounters of race and sex, competition then replaces compassion; subjection excludes mutality.
Only through this duality in each can a man and a woman have empathy for each other. The best lovers are men who can imagine and even feel the specific pleasures of women; women who know the passions and vulnerabilities of the penis - triumphant or tender - in themselves.
Without empathy, men and women, husbands and wives, become tools of each other: competitors, rivals, master and slave, buyer and seller. In this war the aggressions of the wholly ' feminine' woman are just as destructive (mostly to the male) as the aggressions of the wholly 'masculine' man.
For centuries the need to prove this image of masculanity has lain at the root of death: the  killing of self and others in the wars of competition and conquest; the perversion of humanity itself.
We need each other's qualities if we are to understand each other in love amnd life. The beautiful difference of our biological selves will not diminish through this mutual fusion. It should indeed flower, expand; blow the mind as well as the flesh. When women can cherish the vulnerability of men as much as men can exult in the strength of women, anew breed could lift a ruinous yoke from both. We could both breathe free.


Reprinted from ' Out of my Time'

Victor Gollanz Ltd and David J. Blow.

Happy International Women's Day.

Monday 5 March 2012

March of the Mad Hares .



Well spring is well and tuly in the air, time when certain senses awake, the season too of our 'mad march hares'..... boxing, prancing, dancing, having it large. The female of this species is superfecund at the moment, so the males get a bit frustrated, and tend to bounce around the female erratically, its  the ritual of fertility,   and of course desire is in the air, but  for the lady, when she stands on her hind legs - no means no. To us humans they can seem to look crazy, demented. No madder than your average human being though.
Witnessed by those that walk the veil. Long have they been seen as mysterious and sacred to us, for some messengers of the underworld, they come and go as they please.And long have they been invested with mystical property, I for one find them enchanting.The hare in mythology crops up, time and again across the globe.
It is perceived to be solitude and remote.They're mostly silent. seen as the last light fades from the day. and enjoy the darkness.Active at night, a symbol of the intuitive, and fickleness of the moon, an unpredictable creature. It is seen as sacred to the White Goddess/mother earth.


The constellation Lepus was named for the latin word for hare. It's located below the constellation Orion,which was named for the hunter in Greek mythology.Orion has often been depicted  pursuing Lepus with his hunting dogs Canis Minor and Canis  Major.


The hare was originally linked to the ancient Germanic Goddess Oestara (oestrous cycle) or Eostore (Easter) who was said to rule over spring and the dawn. Oestara, who brought on spring late one year as she was nursing a dying bird back to life by changing it into a hare. Thereafter the hare was revered as a magical shapeshifter.
Celtic myths often told of shapeshifting hares. The great warrior, Oisin was said to have wounded a hare in the leg while out hunting ne day. The hare fled into the undergrowth and Oisin followed only to find a woman inside with a cut to her leg.
The hare was also regarded as the solitary keeper of ancient places .with ability to guide spiritual transmigration upon death. Wherever hares roam the Sidge are close by.
In Saxon times there was a cult of the hare and then christianity came along and suppressed this cult and the hare totemic values were  replaced with the safer images of the easter bunny and the easter egg.
Hares that were seen to be acting oddly were also thought to be shape-shifting witches or 'were-hares.'
It was also said that if one crossed your path, it was seen as a warning of imminent danger. Sailors apparently , thought of them as unlucky, but for others a hare's foot was seen as a symbol of luck, but I wouldnt recommend hunting them for any purpose, long may we have them around.
Can dissapear quite quickly, here one minute, gone the next. Swift and nimble, at full speed can get up to 40 miles per hour.They tend to come out around dusk, graze and play all night, and go to bed about dawn. Because of their shyness, don't like to attract to much attention, but if you catch a glance a beautiful sight to behold. They live in a small depression in the ground called a 'form' above the earth, and will often be found in open fields.
 Who knows  could be at a tea party somewhere or if you look out this week, you might  be lucky enough to see one or two , leaping over the moon.

Leaping Hare - Ian MacCulloch
http://www.hayrackgallery.co.uk/catalogue/default.php?product_Artist_ID=26


' The common sort of people suppose that hares are one year male and one year female. . . .
yet hunters object that there be some which are only females and no more, but no male that is not also a female, and so they make him an hermaphrodite.' -

- Edward Topsell , History of Four-footed Beasts 1607.




March of the Mad Hares represents the art of Professor Ralph Skelton, done in the printmaking process called, intagilo. His animal images represent the individual cages in which humans hide and the surreal landscapes that exist within each individual.

Link to Hare Preservtion Trust.
http://www.hare-preservation-trust.co.uk/

Protect threatened Hares Petition.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/protect-threatened-hares-in-the-uk/

Saturday 3 March 2012

No Way Through



Imagine if London was controlled by the military and you had to go through specific checkpoints to go to school, go to work, visit your friends, or got to hospital.
This award winning seven minute video, brings the shocking reality of Palestinian life in the West Bank uncomfortably close to home.


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Friday 2 March 2012

Davey Jones (30/12/45 - 29/02/12) R.I.P

Bit late with this one. Found out yesterday Mr Jones had passed away from a heart attack. He always struck me as forever young. With his good looks and British charm, this Manchester born singer/actor starred in the seminal series The Monkees. Between 1966 and 1970 the Monkees released 9 records. I've got a few on vinyl, very crackly , that's how often I've dug them out.
I used to watch their zany, knockabout antics a lot in their T.V show the monkees, when I was younger. They should put them back on the box. As for their head trip movie Head , wow...... well worth checking out. Far out.
For me Davey Jones was always the groovy one. Hey hey......always monkeying around...... Mr Jones R.I.P. I'm still a believer.

As reported in the Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/feb/29/davy-jones-monkees-dies-66?newsfeed=true

The Monkees - Last Train to Clarkesville.

The Monkees - I'm a believer


The Monkees - Steppin Stone


The Monkees - Porpoise Song ( from HEAD)