Interstitial Approximations of a thought

Oh MAN! I Love it!!

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 23:47:13 -0500

Oh MAN! I Love it!!

Emancipatory Simulations

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:45:26 -0400

People confused by the shape of their world would be served well by remembering that it makes no sense. Simulation, the dominant mode of producing the real, no longer bears any relationship to anything as a ground. It no longer operates by force, but by recursive absurdity. We are constrained not by coercion, but by befuddling circular choices which leave us with no way out of the silly self-referential play of a system which exists purely based on its belief in itself. The real has been overwhelmed by the simulacra, and only its incensed and non-sensical practice and reproducing form remains. No reason. No purpose. No basis in any possible reality. Only circulation and reproduction spiraling out of control.

Reform is no longer possible. Only a radical new beginning can threaten it. It is the meta-modern mindset which knows the simulacra, but is able to re-invest it with the strength of the Real, which is leading us. By knowing that our reality is the product of ourselves, of Simulation, instead of pretending that Power exists outside this play, we are able to invest the product of our play with the seriousness and reality which will dissolve the absurd remains of a lying objectivity. Our simulacra can emancipate us, because we can use it to escape the bonds of an old and useless frame of mind.

Knowledge that reality is fake and real at once, the inescapable reality of simulation, gives us a new creative power to live in the world of our own production. Perhaps.

execrablefrippery: “Fuck the upper class / versigtig”

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:32:39 -0400

execrablefrippery:

“Fuck the upper class / versigtig”

The Construction of a Welfare Nation, or: Alas! Where have all the Socialist parties gone!?

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 01:20:16 -0400

I have seen a variety of complaints about Occupy Wall Street going around which basically give it shit for some variation of ‘not having a clear agenda’. And I have to say that I cannot disagree strenuously enough with this view. But I will still try:

The way I see it, the issue areas which the Occupation has chosen to focus on are actually very coherent, it’s simply that these people are looking at the organization in the wrong way. There is a false optic of the Occupation as a traditional “Pressure Group”: that it represents interests in the public and is trying to get a political party to endorse and then enact those interests (think Tea Party hijacking the republican party). This might work well for the Right populist movement, since the entire political system at this stage of most Liberal Democracies is so far right (‘Neo-Liberal’) that, they can easily find an ear for whatever they want done. The Left is not so lucky in our world anymore. (c.f. Alas! Where have all the Socialist parties gone!?)

The welfare state of old is today dwindling, walking down the path of privatization. In many ways the State itself is no longer the locus of the People’s interests (or Agency), but rather of Business & Government’s interests. Increasingly marginalized as Protest, and eventually submitted to the Ruler’s Logic, modern forms of dissent and resistance which try to reform the state have essentially lost meaning. Today’s Left requires a totally new means of mobilizing to actually express their political ideals. Fittingly, the difference between Protest and Social Movement has become reductionist in the case of OWS. Entering into the third continuous week of activity, it has clearly moved past the point of traditional “protests”, and is instead exactly what it calls itself: it is an Occupation. It is today a full blown social movement, constituted by its own structures of Governance.

Its supposedly ‘broad agenda’ is actually a set of issues all linked by very simple common values. Concepts of Justice (economic, social, environmental, etc) as being all inter-relatable, combined with the simplest (and thus most radical) ideals of democracy. It is these very simple common values, so divisible into a dizzying array of individual issue area, which create this inter-linked, but seemingly heterogeneous, constellation of issues which really allows the OWS protests to be such a draw for so many passionate people. Because all these causes are united by common values, disparate movements and groups can find links of solidarity which allow them to create a successful collective action. I think this is why OWS has seen such a continuing, and growing, success.

I honestly think that OWS is a part of a larger movement happening worldwide, that it is a part of the coalescence of a new Left which is able to take up the work done by so many other generations. Historically, we have had to fight for the least aspect of Human consciousness and compassion in our societies. It has been the tireless organizing of countless people which has made the modern world even a tolerable place, and which has worked to reform the State along more humane lines. Today it is up to us to take over after the work made to procure even the basic Welfare State and to move it into a past-materialist concept of collective identity.

Occupy Wall Street is a piece of that movement, a real and new artifact of this coalescing new Left. We are witnessing the construction of what is perhaps the first Welfare Nation. They are not a traditional pressure group, with well-defined demands to make of existing State apparatus. They are out there decrying the State apparatus itself, deciding to give up on ‘reform through channels’ and to appeal directly to the People for a totally new system. One which they are taking it onto themselves to begin the process of sketching out.

OWS has demands, but it also has Ideals. Itself it is the expression and enactment of those ideals, not to reform some rules, but in an attempt to change the very nature of the game. It is an example of a real and viable form of self-governance happening right now, today. It is a real community holding itself alive Outside the state. Even if this occupation fails, and it easily could, the imaginations of our generation have already been set on fire. The Left has a new rallying point, and it is Occupy Everything.

new-aesthetic: Watch a prostate surgical robot peel the skin...

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 09:50:57 -0400

new-aesthetic:

Watch a prostate surgical robot peel the skin off a grape (Wired UK)

C’mon. Too good.

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:10:32 -0400

C’mon. Too good.

left4rocket: Women protesters penned in and maced collectively...

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:47:29 -0400

left4rocket:

Women protesters penned in and maced collectively at Wall Street protests.

Truly disturbing images of police brutality.

Photo

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 10:11:11 -0400

Untitled: What a New Yorker has to say about Occupy Wall Street:

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 09:17:59 -0400

Untitled: What a New Yorker has to say about Occupy Wall Street::

workandentropy:

anticapitalist:

thought-emancipation:

Protesting or occupying Wall St on Saturday is a terrible idea to begin with. The scoundrels you are protesting are in their apartments on the Upper East Side or at their vacation homes in the Hamptons at this time of year. If you want to actually…

On the one hand, this New Yorker should rethink the strategic power of symbolic acts:

“Never attack the system in terms of relations of force. The is the (revolutionary) imagination the system itself forces upon you — the system which survives only by constantly drawing those attacking it into fighting on the ground of reality, which is always its own. But shift the struggle into the symbolic sphere, where the rule is that of challenge, reversion and outbidding. So that death can be met only by equal or greater death. Defy the system by a gift to which it cannot respond except by its own death and its own collapse.” - Jean Baudrillard, The Spirit of Terrorism

Yet, on the other…

The problematic also bears a postcolonial aspect. Because we, as citizens, as consumers, as protestors, are not just produced (i.e, subjectivated, in the Foucauldian sense), but manufactured, by and for capital. And what is manufactured is always already colonized. Any longer, the difference between capitalist and colonizer, consumer and colonized, is nil. The problem of capitalism is the problem of a colonialism that has permeated and colonized our lives and beings at the most fundamental and basic levels.

“It is the colonist who fabricated and continues to fabricate the colonized subject.” - Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

Hence, the question of attacking Wall St. is not merely a question of anti-capitalists attacking capitalism and its capitalist agents. The question is one of a new kind of colonized attacking the imperialist structure of a new kind of colonialism and its colonialist agents: not just a material colonialism, but, one might say, a phenomenological colonialism, an ontological colonialism, even perhaps a metaphysical colonialism. Therefore, the attack on Wall St. should be considered in terms of an attempt at decolonization, however impotent, since

“At a descriptive level […] any decolonization is a success.” - Ibid.

And, one must keep in mind…

“Decolonization, which sets out to change the order of the world, is clearly an agenda for total disorder.” - Ibid

And,

“You do not disorganize a society, however primitive [or ‘advanced’] it may be, with such an agenda if you are not determined from the very start to smash every obstacle encountered.” - Ibid.

In short, then, symbolic weapons are some of the most powerful technologies available for attacking capitalism and engendering the process of decolonization, and perhaps the poster should not dispense with them so quickly. However, the poster is also right that a prim and proper protest, the kind of protesting manufactured in the imaginary by the system itself, manufactured for the sake of its intellectuality and tractability, for its inevitably disciplined disposition, will not suffice to change anything. The depth of symbolism required must go deeper, and bear a more resounding impact. In short, to use Malcolm X’s echoing of Fanon, it must be a symbolism that imparts meaning “by any means necessary.” I am not advocating outright violence, just as neither Malcolm X nor Fanon were; I am not saying “Let us bring out the black bloc” or “let slip the dogs of war” (even though it is, in fact, a war) so hastily. Such an advocacy would not only be inevitably misunderstood, but would engender very real and grave consequences, ones that brashness should neither incite nor maintain. But one needs to keep in mind that the system, pushed far enough, will not hesitate to use such tactics in order to suppress resistance, to maintain its oppressive hold. And, more importantly, one needs remember that there are many forms of symbolism that can effect a kind of violence more powerful than any amount of bloodshed ever could. The task at hand is to remember them, redevelop them, reclaim them, or simply conceive of new ones, and then apply them, with total dedication and readiness to face the grave consequences of the kind of social upheaval that they will inevitably precipitate, and that can offer us possibly our only hope for any kind of future that is any future at all.

The true symbolic acts, the ultimate violence against the system, are the acts which incite that violence from the system itself. The best means of forcing the system to respond with its own death, are to pursue your own in your resistance. The symbolic act must fall outside the ability of the System to respond to it, to Account for it. Such that it is forced to respond instead with the violence which stems from fear. Once it begins attacking and repressing, in the real, those who are challenging it only symbolically, then the tide begins to shift, and each attack by the system brings its own death inevitably closer.

new-aesthetic: (Source unknown) That is so very WTF. Hard to...

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 09:08:44 -0400

new-aesthetic:

(Source unknown)

That is so very WTF. Hard to even hold in one’s brain all at once…

new-aesthetic: Sentient City Survival Kit - Quick Start Guide...

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 08:47:38 -0400

new-aesthetic:

Sentient City Survival Kit - Quick Start Guide (by mark shepard)

I don’t even.

staygoldmedia: Yolandi Visser, Ninja and Baby Ninja.

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 08:38:05 -0400

staygoldmedia:

Yolandi Visser, Ninja and Baby Ninja.

VEILS

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 08:26:12 -0400

jxcca:

hours:

“You must not grieve that the world is glimpsed
Through veils. How else can it be seen?
How will you rip away the veil of the eye, the veil

That you are, you who want to grasp the heart
Of things, hungry to know where meaning
Lies.”

— Suji Kwock Kim, “Monologue for an Onion”

If you rip away the veils, would you not find disappointment anyway? Perhaps one should find some veils whose colours and textures seem preferable, to defer that disappointment. Add and remove patterns as preferred. Cover them, layer them with other veils and see what happens.

What if there is nothing But veils? Should one disturb their whole perception to discover the deep nothing at the heart of everything? Perhaps. But one is left rebuilding what was destroyed afterwards, realizing that only illusion exists.

Haha! Aw man, this is really funny to me for some...

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:03:00 -0400

Haha! Aw man, this is really funny to me for some reason.

intrepidteacher:

Painting I saw at restaurant in Jakarta. (Taken with instagram)

An initial analysis of the BOG's response to the EGRC report, as seen in their Amendments to Concordia's By-Laws

Sat, 03 Sep 2011 14:39:00 -0400

Look, as I’m sure you can all guess already from the title: This is gonna be an Exciting post!!!!! Seriously though. I spent my time analyzing how well the Board of Governor’s proposed amendments to Concordia’s by-laws match up to the recommendations made by the External Governance Report Committee, so I thought I might as well post it. Obviously not a topic of general interest, but something which interests me. So everything is under the break, and I recommend you not look into it! Cause it. is. Dry!

Woohoo!

In analyzing the response of the BOG to the EGRC report, as seen in the Institutional changes proposed in an updated set of Concordia By-laws, it is important to keep one very important concept in mind, namely the purpose itself of these institutional changes. The EGRC report makes concrete recommendations on how to improve the functioning of the BOG, but the purpose of these changes is in the interest of also changing the Culture of the university, particularly relating to the interaction of its varying governance bodies. This means that reforms to institutional forms and procedures are only a small step towards closing that “credibility gap” incurred by the Board over the last several years. That change will take Much longer, and institutional reform can only be the first step towards it. Thus no matter how promising (or not) changes in the by-laws might seem, it will always be the implementation of these, and the factual practices of the Board itself, which will be the true test of whether this muddy chapter of Concordia history truly serves to change the Culture of the institution.

To begin, I have simply attempted to summarize some of the interesting changes brought to the By-Laws, particularly those which are not directly related to the recommendations in the EGRC report. Following that I have laid out the 27 Recommendations which were impacted by these institutional changes (Essentially those relating to the BOG and the office of the President, while those intended for the Senate were left aside by this round of reforms, thus are not included) and attempted to find where and how those recommendations are enacted (or not) in these proposed amendments.

Overall it seems as though the core of the suggestions for the BOG from the EGRC report are faithfully included in these amendments. However there are several small dodges included which will be very interesting to see play out. The language used seems to leave enough wiggle-room for the Board to theoretically maintain their autonomy of action. (read: their lawlessness.) In particular, the vast majority of recommendations intended for the office of the President seemed to have been left on the side. Thus any effort to strengthen the office of the President seems to have been put on hold. Whether this is intentional because the Board wanted to focus first and foremost on their own institution and leave it for a further date, or whether it is intentional because they simply do not wish to have a strengthened office of the President is, obviously, unclear.

As stated at the beginning though, these changes can only possibly be seen as a beginning. Obviously such efforts to reform their institution on the behalf of the board should only mean that they are observed in the future with even More scrutiny, to see whether this is a light and smoke kind of show, or a substantial desire to change their Actual practices and methods to close that aforementioned “Credibility gap”. Only time and vigilance will tell. There are important differences in almost every implementation of the recommendations, and for those included almost verbatim from the EGRC report, they are vague enough that implementation will have to watched closely.

This is merely a preliminary analysis, produced in a couple days of short work. A more informed approach could be taken to contrast these changes more fully against the original documents (particularly the procedures for board meetings, and for appointments of senior administrative staff) and against the backdrop of actual historical practices and their relationships to the old and revised document of the by-laws themselves. Obviously such an analysis would require much more time, and ideally a better knowledge of the practices of the Board itself up to date.

Anyway, enjoy some dry institutional wrangling!

-Gene

General changes in language, such as updating the “Act of Incorporation” to the “Concordia University Act”, capitalizing all instances of the words Committee and Committees,

Article 3: Additional Officers of the University specifically stated: The Vice-President, Research and Graduate Studies, The Vice-President, Advancement and Alumni Relations, The Chief Financial Officer,

The Chief Communications Officer. Eternal-Relations becomes Institutional Relations, and the office of the Vice-President of Finance is eliminated. The ability to name any other officers which the BOG sees fit is retained.

Article 18: Changes Quorum for all Special Meetings of the Corporation to 75% of its members, as well as motions in general meetings requiring 60% or 2/3rds votes to be carried. (Seem like positive changes to ensure more members of the corporation are present for important matters.)

Article 29: Number of Meetings of the BOG changed from once a month to 5 times a year.

Article 32: Establishes the same 75% Quorum requirements as for the Corporation in Article 18.

Article 36: Establishing the broad powers of the BOG is left intact, powers given are Illustrative.

Article 37: Gives examples of the board’s powers, and re-iterates their illustrative nature.

j): “to approve the criteria for evaluating the Board’s performance;” (interesting note, the board decides the standards by which its own performance is measured.)

u): Continues to grant the BOG power to establish the Senate. (A continued knock to bicameralism, or a necessary inclusion as the Charter cannot yet be altered to establish it?)

z) It is now the BOG itself who has the power to remove one of its own members, rather than the Corporation. (Interesting, but meaningful? BOG Appoints members of Corporation, Corporation appoints members of the Board. It’s like the Holy Roman Empire up in here!)

Article 39: Establishes the Standing Committees of the Board, changing the total number from 14 to 9, with some committees changing names, and others being rolled into new ones altogether.

Article 46 – 54: Lays out the explicit roles and duties of each Committee, their assigned responsibilities. However Article 45 seems to state that these assigned duties remain only illustrative, since additional responsibilities can be given to them by the Board at any time, and that they “shall perform any such tasks as may be deemed necessary to carry out their respective mandate and responsibilities.”

Section 11, Articles 55-68: Dealing with the Senate remain substantially unchanged, pending the decisions which Senate itself makes towards the EGRC report and its recommendations towards them. Thus, under these new By-Laws, Senate remains subsidiary to the BOG. Some small changes in language to harmonize with new titles, changing of Articles to match new ordering. The biggest change is in Article 65, in which an additional Standing Committee of Senate is added, the Library Committee.

Recommendation 2

That the Board of Governors be composed of not less than 60% external members and not less than 35% internal members. (rolled into R3)

Recommendation 3

That the composition of the Board of Governors be reduced to twenty-five members, fifteen external and ten internal.

Article 22: Sets BOG to 25 members. Establishes what constitutes an internal and external member.

Recommendation 4

That the status of non-voting observer on the Board be abolished in the By-laws.

Article 23: BOG retains the Chancellor and the Secretary-General as non-voting observers.

Recommendation 5

That the ten internal members be the President, five full-time faculty, one part-time faculty, two students and one staff member.

Article 23: Sets quotas for members from each community internally, and number of external members.

15 External members: 13 Community-at-large nominated by Governance and Ethics Committee, 2 nominated by Alumni Associations

10 Internal Members match those given in R5, added an additional Alternate Governor for Undergraduate Students. This alternate can replace the original appointee, and has “the right to be present but not to speak at the closed sessions of all regular and special meetings at which the Governor is in

attendance.” (Some ambiguity here… also limits the ability to split the two undergraduate students between different committees in closed sessions?) Possibly resolved in Article 41: “The Alternate

Governor elected under Article 23 g) shall be considered as an internal Governor for the sole purpose of the membership of the Standing Committees of the Board.” Seems to say that the Alternate Governor will be treated as an additional Governor for sake of appointments to Committees.

Recommendation 6

That in choosing its external members, the Board consider the diversity of skills required and the need for some representation from alumni. It should also strive for a reasonable balance among members with experience in business, non-profit organizations, the professions, fine arts, and the public sector.

Article 23: “A variety of experience and expertise profiles must be sought in appointing members of the Board of Governors in order to enable the Board to exercise its functions properly.” (No explicit mention of what that constitutes, such as coming from different communities, etc.)

Recommendation 7

That membership on the Board of Governors, whether by appointment or by election, be limited to no more than two terms of four years each, with the exception of students who shall be limited to two one-year terms.

Article 24: President is member of BOG for length of term. All other members, other than the student members, serve for 3 years and can be reappointed twice. (Making for a total of 9 years?) If a governor serves 2 years or less (6 months for students), that does not count as a term in their number of reappointments.

Recommendation 8

That in the specific case of the Chair, the term limit for Board membership be extended to not more than twelve years, including the time spent as Chair.

Article 24: Chair may serve 2 terms as such, previous terms on board are not taken into account.

Article 24: “Governors shall remain in office until replaced by their successors.” (Sensical, but also an interested loophole for extending terms “if a replacement cannot be found”.)

Recommendation 9

That membership terms on the Board of Governors be staggered so that only a limited number of Board members retire in any one year.

Article 23: “Membership terms on the Board of Governors shall be staggered so that only a limited number of Board members retire in any one year.” Inserted word for word into the By-laws, the implementation will have to wait to be seen, especially with the changes to the composition & size of the board delayed until July 2012.

Recommendation 10

That the proposed term limits be embedded in the University’s By-laws rather than, as at present, in a guideline, and that these provisions be strictly enforced.

Embedded in Article 24 of By-Laws, enforcement is to be seen.

Recommendation 11

That the University find significant ways to continue the involvement of its former Board Members in the life of the University, such as service on Board committees or the creation of a “Conseil des Sages.”

(In no way mentioned, alluded to, or referenced in By-Laws.)

Recommendation 12

That the number of Vice-Chairs be set at two and that they be elected by the whole Board, one from among its external members and one from among its internal members.

Article 3, a): Sets the number of Vice-Chairs at “No Fewer than Two Persons”, “one of whom shall be an internal Governor”.

Recommendation 13

That the Executive Committee be composed of the Chair of the Board, the two Vice-Chairs, the President, one internal Board member, and two external Board members.

Article 49: Matches this proportion exactly. Although it gives them as the minimum number of members, leaving room for additional Governors being appointed.

Recommendation 14

That the Chair and the President be the only members of the Executive Committee who are also members of the Governance and Ethics Committee.

Article 51: Explicitly establishes this recommendation.

Recommendation 15

That the Audit Committee, appropriately limited to external members of the Board, be distinct from the Finance Committee which should include internal members.

Article 47: Audit Committee is composed only of External Members.

Article 39: Audit & Finance Committees kept separate.

Recommendation 16

That all Board committees, including the Executive Committee, report on a regular schedule to the full Board.

Article 45: “All Committees shall report to the Board, through their Chair, at the regular meetings of the Board.”

Recommendation 17

That the practice of seemingly extending Board meetings for external members only be abandoned.

Recommendation 18

That those items on the Board’s agenda which have to be discussed “in camera” be put as much as possible at the end of the agenda.

R 17 & 18: The “SUMMARY OF PROCEDURES AT BOARD MEETINGS AND RULES OF ORDER” attached to the revised by-laws seems to be totally unchanged. Thus, if any change is to happen on these practices it will be in practice. Clearly they were not formal procedures, however they also did not see fit to produce institutional or formal solutions to explicitly contravene such practices.

Recommendation 19

That the President be the face of the University to the Board and that any contacts between individual Board members and other administrators be limited to those directly sanctioned by and arranged through the President.

Article 45: Seems to explicitly contravene R19: “Any Committee may call any official of the University to its meetings to deal with a particular subject.”

And again in the Summary of Procedures, Section B: “Committees shall consult with appropriate members of the University”. No mention of an intermediate role for the President is added.

Recommendation 20

That the Board of Governors develop, in partnership with the senior administration, a substantial professional development program for all members of the Board.

Article 23: “Governors must be willing to participate in orientation and ongoing training

programs to enable them to fulfill their mandate.” Although not specific over what these would constitute, still embedded in by-laws. Must be seen in practice.

Recommendation 21

That the Board of Governors produce an Annual Report documenting its major decisions and activities and that it be published on the University’s website.

Article 37, c): “to approve the University’s budgetary estimates, annual budget, capital plan, financial statements and annual report;” (The only mention of an Annual Report inserted into the new by-laws, should require it’s production? Is only given as an example of the board’s responsibilities and powers.)

Recommendation 30

That in and for the immediate future, the amendments to the Rules and Procedures for Senior Administrative Appointments regarding the presentation of candidates recently brought forward by the board’s Ad Hoc Governance Review Committee be adopted for the selection of Concordia’s next President.

(Those amendments are here presented, I assume.)

Recommendation 31

That, in the longer term, the Presidential Search Committee be chaired by the Chair of the Board and be composed of a majority of Board members, internal or external.

Senior Administrative Appointments, Point 70: So alters the Search Committee. Establishes the Chair of the Board as Chair of the Committee, and changes Ecternal Board Members on the Committee from 2 to 7. Meaning they represent 8 out of 15 members of the Search Committee. Full-time Faculty reduced from 5 to 3, Part-time, Staff, and Student representation remains unchanged.

Recommendation 32

That within the process for the selection of the Concordia’s President, the practice of a presentation to the University community by the short-listed candidate be abandoned.

Senior Administrative Appointments, C.9: Eliminates the shortlist & Presentation. Thus the Search Committee selects their preferred candidate, and simply presents them to the full board for approval.

Recommendation 33

That the President have the prerogative of determining those members of the senior administration whose assistance is necessary for any given issue at any Board meeting.

(Not addressed at any point in By-Laws or in the Summary of Procedures for Meetings of the Board.)

Recommendation 34

That the Rules and Procedures for Senior Administrative Appointments be modified to expressly state that all relevant search committees be advisory to the President and that the President have the sole responsibility to recommend to the Board the appointment of all senior administrators.

Rather than being present in that document, though it was amended, the only allusion to this is in the By-Laws, where it is stated in Article 3, b) that Appointments other than “Chancellor, the Deputy Chancellor, the Chair of the Board of Governors, the Vice-Chairs of the Board of Governors and the President and Vice-Chancellor are proposed by the President and Vice-Chancellor and approved by the Board.” However this Should mean that the Board is only responsible for the those positions here listed.

Does it truly accomplish what this Recommendation suggests?

Recommendation 35

That an incoming President be expressly granted the right to review the mandates and the appropriateness of his or her immediate staff as well as that of the Vice-Presidents and be free to use the current policy to bring any of their terms of office to an end within a year.

(Nowhere mentioned or alluded to in any proposed changes in any of the documents.)

Recommendation 36

That informal advisory groups within the senior administration not be characterized as part of the governance structure.

(Not brought up in any changes to any of the Documents. A cultural shift rather than an institutional one?)

That, is very, very funny. new-aesthetic: AI vs. AI. Two...

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:11:21 -0400

That, is very, very funny.

new-aesthetic:

AI vs. AI. Two chatbots talking to each other (by CornellCCSL)

Welcome back to the New Aesthetic.

Sometimes I stay up at night and reach out for that random human touch. But the asynchronous...

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 01:43:00 -0400

Sometimes I stay up at night and reach out for that random human touch. But the asynchronous confounds me. Still. Plant seeds. I always hope they will grow into genuine human contact.

Of course, I am a fool. I have an unbelievably lovely wife in bed already, and so I am off to join, to find that human who loves me most.

Goodnight!

Truth is action. Action is truth.

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:11:41 -0400

It is my belief that the Truth of anything is only ever visible, created, articulated, whatever term, but that it is only ever present in Actions. Actions are what create, what concretize and establish the Reality we take as the basis of everything else. Within ourselves we are filled with ideas and beliefs, but we can never know the truth of those ideas and beliefs until they are put into action. Until they are tested in practice.

Everything we say about ideals is a type of action which attempts to promulgate a belief in those ideals. But the content of those ideals is never tested until we are called to actualize them.

Commentary on an event, such as radical public collective actions, are attempts to place them contextually in the existing frame of the speaker, however the actual truth of those actions exists only, and can only be known, on the ground, where they are happening. Their truth can only be articulated from there.

Everything is a construct until called into action, then even our own actions can surprise us. Can reveal us. Our constructs change when we are called to actually use them constructively, in the actualization of the real.

For me, the purpose is to harmonize my beliefs and my ideas to the reality of my actions. To try and strip the illusions within, to see myself clearly, and to affect change on myself based on what I see to be true.

The truth then, is something that we discover as much as something that we create.

"‘I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen..."

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 04:47:05 -0400

“‘I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless; it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing, so you don’t get to say ‘I’m bored.’”

- - Louis CK Louis is heir the George Carlin throne. (via suicideblonde)

new-aesthetic: “A third co-evolutionary force: algorithms. And...

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 14:15:15 -0400

new-aesthetic:

“A third co-evolutionary force: algorithms. And we will have to understand those as nature. And in a way, they are.”

Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape our world | Video on TED.com

An absolutely brilliant talk on how our machines are beginning to live on their own.