Jonathan Brun

Fire and Thunder

I love TED Talks because the people are so insanely passionate about what they are doing. As stated by Erin McKean, “The internet is made up of words and enthusiasm.”

And Keroac’s famous (unaltered) musing: “the only people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing … but burn, burn, burn like roman candles across the night.”

Forget complacency, waiting in line or doing what you’re told. Burn baby burn.

Debates as they were

Intellectual debates (at least in North America), no longer resemble anything like this. Sound-bite interviews on the major networks make more time for the host than the guest.

The closest thing I see to the attached video are the debates on www.edge.org or posts with comments on 3 quarks daily. TED talks and Slate’s www.meaningoflife.tv offer interesting points of view, but are not interactive debates.

Anyways, I picked up Foucault’s ‘Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique” at a local bookstore. Despite my initial enthusiasm, French philosophy always seems magical on the bookshelf, daunting on the night-table and eventually heavy in the hands. I also think that Foucault is wrong regarding the basis of the judicial system and Chomsky is right (see clip Part II – linked on Youtube).

The brief mention of rising multi-nationals is noteworthy. Here’s to the dreamers:

Part II:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXBfOxfmSDw]

Agreements with Natives in Canada and Australia

Natives.

The way we (Canada) treat (some of our) natives:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070813.wnunavik13/BNStory/National/

And the Australians:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/22/news/outback.php

The Australians seem set on ‘telling’ the aborigines what is good and bad. Their hard handed approach smacks of colonialism and the white man’s burden to transfer our glorious way of life to the locals.

Canada, has made significant steps to transferring genuine authority to the natives in the hopes that they will slowly develop the skill set which is required for a civil society and self-governance. We have also started giving ‘one-time’ transfers of cash and ruling out future transfers; thus, forcing the natives to become self-reliant. This is the most logical and low-cost method of dealing with the natives in Canada.

Perhaps helping their communities enter the 21st century will absolve some of the crimes we committed.

The Insane Artist

Just saw the Bruce Nauman exhibit in Montreal.

Very cool stuff. I repeatedly fail to understand modern art. It seems to be the sane observing the insane artist with little hope of truly understanding their madness that created the ‘art’.

Can a doctor understand, or worse – cure – insanity? What do I understand of Nauman, Kerouac, Duchamp, Ginsberg, …. except that they existed over the edge and looked back at us.

That being said, Nauman’s work is definitely worth seeing and you should check out the exhibit before it closes.

More Global Warming Zealots

Building on Dyson’s Heretics article, here is a piece about the various players who hate global warming skeptics (read NOT deniers).

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/15/opinion/edjacoby.php?page=1