Coherence is not overrated

Since returning to civilian life two weeks ago I've been gleefully working on my thesis like a madman. It took almost a week and a half of steady work just to review all the notes I had accumulated from my last six months at McGill and during subsequent year and a half of articling and lawyering. Its pretty amazing to see it all come together, whatever it is. Tables of Contents can be such thrilling and reassuring beacons, but also somewhat melancholy. I unfortunately did have to ditch the rhizomaic double-helixical structure I imagined the thesis taking in the interests of actually finishing the god damn thing.

I make a lot of hay out of Chris Jordan's 2006-2007Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait series. Based on statistical data, he uses incredibly oversized canvases to show the "simultaneity" of otherwise discrete every day acts, such as flying in a plane or disposing of a plastic bottle. In our ego-centric world, these acts are often only experienced (and thus known and reacted upon) in the microscopic abstract as individual acts or in the macroscopic abstract as statistical figures in a government report somewhere. An encounter with Jordan's 20-foot photographs is a true confrontation and a chance to look at consumption otherwise than tiny individual acts or inconceivable wholes. Knowing that each individual object in the photograph was arranged by the artists hand further impresses the sense that each object has a life beyond the moment the consumer makes use of it.


"Jet Trails" depicts 11,000 jet trails -- equal to the number of commercial flights in the US every eight hours


"Plastic Bottles" Depicts two million plastic bottle beverages, the number used in the US every five minutes

March 28th, 2008 / 0 Comments / Tags: simultaneity, Chris Jordan, thesis

Demonstrations at China's Toronto Consulate Continue Unabated

It is really inspiring to wake up with a morning air that gently carries aloft the emotional cries of sovereignty, freedom, self-determination and peace.

As with yesterday (and the day before that, and frequently last week), hundreds of demonstrators have taken up position in front of Toronto's Chinese consulate a few blocks from my house. I'm not often taken with marches and chants, but this morning I felt compelled to walked over and pitch in for a little while. The spineless lack of global state outrage and condemnation of China is viciously inexcusable. I am deeply disappointed in Canada for its mute and tacit acceptance of what is nothing less than China's sadistic and opportunistic state massacre and obvious attempt to round-up dissenters prior to the Olympics. And indeed the message of the protest today was very clear: "Stop The Killing! Stop The Killing! Stop the Killing!"

The particularly inspiring video below brings the wider issue into focus. It shows a demonstrator from last Monday's gathering successfully scaling the entire building and raising the Tibetan flag over the consulate. Brilliant.



March 18th, 2008 / 7 Comments / Tags: free Tibet, state violence, demonstration

Obama wins Texas

With all votes tallied and the proportional representation formula applied, it seems as though Obama has won Texas in terms of both delegates and the popular vote.

Which brings up an interesting point: no one seems to care, the story is already being buried, and Clinton certainly isn't going to honor her offer to drop out if Ohio and/or Texas were lost.

Much like the post-facto determination that Al Gore won the 2000 election, there seems to be a greater compulsion or need to instantiate electoral certainty rather than electoral truth. Indeed, the very question is why such a determination was only "post facto". Post facto of what? How can making the final tally be post facto of an election that hasn't been counted? Until the vote is counted the will of the people is not really known -- in theory.

The reality is that the magical suspension of an election is mistaken (or mischaracterized) as a crisis demanding immediate resolution. TV news networks define their reputation on the ability to "call" the election, concession speeches quickly follow and the narrative of finality trumps all other considerations. This artifice is what Derrida calls a "coup de force" narrative. The crisis designation ultimately demands a resolution whether it is real or imagined. An election is rendered as little more than a highly ritualized and rigorously reported coup. It is a fiction serving no interest but of the person who controls the media message.

What's so wrong about allowing the presence of democracy linger for a few days?

March 8th, 2008 / 0 Comments / Tags: Obama, Clinton, crises, elections, coup de force narrative