Meanwhile, here’s a thoughtful piece from Peter Singer in this month’s Harper’s. Singer is famous for Animal Liberation and was relevant in our discussion on food, but here he is talking about another recent Junta topic: Wikileaks.

Singer’s essay revolves around the Panopticon, the conception of a system in which everyone can be observed by a central authority, without knowing if we are being watched at any given moment. (Oddly, this is something I was recently thinking about.) Foucault called it “the perfection of power,” and Orwell dramatized it as Big Brother. Drawing a line from Rodney King to Julian Assange, Singer argues that the technology used to control us can be used against our controllers; therefore the Panopticon, icon of totalitarianism, is actually a great thing. Turns out we all behave better when we think we’re being watched.

This essay being behind the paywall, I’ve posted it here for your reading pleasure.

Read on: John Cage: Searching for Silence

Apple argued in this jailbreaking case that copyright law prevents people from installing unapproved programs on iPhones. But the EFF successfully argued that making a phone interoperable amounts to fair use. Copyright law says that if you pay for something, you have the right to use it as you wish as long it is not for some kind of commercial benefit.

The ruling also applied to video remixing, so is it possible we’ll see the return of all those great Hitler parodies spun out of Downfall?

Can capitalism survive the present trauma? Yes, of course.” But, Harvey explains, it can only do so at a terrible price. The mass of the people will be required “to give generously of their fruits of labour to those in power, to surrender many of their rights and their hard-won asset values (in everything from housing to pension rights) and to suffer environmental degradations galore, to say nothing of serial reductions in their living standards which will mean starvation for many of those already struggling to survive at rock bottom. More than a little political repression, police violence and militarised state control will be required to stifle the ensuing unrest.”

—David Harvey (who must be the only Marxist in America)

Fun stuff. This video shows a cartoon animation of Harvey’s explanation of the financial crisis, being drawn in real time with Harvey’s lecture on the audio track. Very creative delivery that adds zing to the dry academia of it all. Can one be any more contrarian than to be a Marxist in the USA of 2010?

Well-Being Is Related to Having Less Small Talk and More Substantive Conversations

Is the happy life characterized by shallow, happy-go-lucky moments and trivial small talk, or by reflection and profound social encounters? Both notions—the happy ignoramus and the fulfilled deep thinker—exist, but little is known about which interaction style is actually associated with greater happiness (King & Napa, 1998). In this article, we report findings from a naturalistic observation study that investigated whether happy and unhappy people differ in the amount of small talk and substantive conversations they have.

Next time you see somebody in the office kitchen, getting a coffee, don’t ask about their weekend. Ask what they think about Iran getting the bomb, or the nature of God, or … hell, at least talk about a movie. Just no more about the weather. It’s making you depressed.

This is the malevolence we are resisting. Ours is a worthy battle.

Via the Times

Via Boing Boing, H.P. Albarelli Jr claims the CIA sprayed liquid LSD over the air and spiked the bread supply of Pont-Saint-Esprit, a village in southern France, in 1951.

From the Telegraph:

One man tried to drown himself, screaming that his belly was being eaten by snakes. An 11-year-old tried to strangle his grandmother. Another man shouted: “I am a plane”, before jumping out of a second-floor window, breaking his legs. He then got up and carried on for 50 yards. Another saw his heart escaping through his feet and begged a doctor to put it back. Many were taken to the local asylum in strait jackets.

Words escape me. Weren’t we just talking about how actions can have unintended consequences? One would think that—even in 1951—people would have considered how much could go wrong by feeding a large, unknowing population with heavy psychotropic drugs. But maybe not.

The SEC used to compile a list of companies that were evading sanctions in this manner. Lobbyists fought successfully to end that practice; however, the New York Times carried a story over the weekend listing 74 companies doing business with Iran despite US laws and national security strategies that aim to stifle such business. So who is really in charge? Uncle Sam or the oil and gas corporations? (For it is mainly energy companies on the list).

What’s more, the companies in violation (in spirit, if not in letter) are also recipients of major government contracts—totaling over $100 billion in the past decade. So not only do they flout the national policies of their government, but they aren’t even ostracized for doing so. Sounds like a compelling case for the pointlessness of sanctions.