Archive for August 2008
The Artist's Duty-Kenneth Patchen
[FACT comments: We can think of no better commentary on the recent demonstrations in Bangkok than the following rather Zen koan by one of our favourite Beat generation poets. It has been FACT’s mission to inspire artists and discourage sheep. On the one hand, the nonviolent tactics employed by PAD are to be applauded. However, it seems that both sides are mostly concerned with winning rather than right and wrong. Neither side offers us simple citizens FREEDOM which is what we need to grow as a responsible society. The duty of an artist is to resist.]
The Artist’s Duty
So it is the duty of the artist to discourage all traces of shame
To extend all boundaries
To fog them in right over the plate
To kill only what is ridiculous
To establish problem
To ignore solutions
To listen to no one
To omit nothing
To contradict everything
To generate the free brain
To bear no cross
To take part in no crucifixion
To tinkle a warning when mankind strays
To explode upon all parties
To wound deeper than the soldier
To heal this poor obstinate monkey once and for all
To verify the irrational
To exaggerate all things
To inhibit everyone
To lubricate each proportion
To experience only experience
To set a flame in the high air
To exclaim at the commonplace alone
To cause the unseen eyes to open
To admire only the abrsurd
To be concerned with every profession save his own
To raise a fortuitous stink on the boulevards of truth and beauty
To desire an electrifiable intercourse with a female alligator
To lift the flesh above the suffering
To forgive the beautiful its disconsolate deceit
To flash his vengeful badge at every abyss
To HAPPEN
It is the artist’s duty to be alive
To drag people into glittering occupations
To blush perpetually in gaping innocence
To drift happily through the ruined race-intelligence
To burrow beneath the subconscious
To defend the unreal at the cost of his reason
To obey each outrageous inpulse
To commit his company to all enchantments.
Kenneth Patchen
The Artist’s Duty-Kenneth Patchen
[FACT comments: We can think of no better commentary on the recent demonstrations in Bangkok than the following rather Zen koan by one of our favourite Beat generation poets. It has been FACT’s mission to inspire artists and discourage sheep. On the one hand, the nonviolent tactics employed by PAD are to be applauded. However, it seems that both sides are mostly concerned with winning rather than right and wrong. Neither side offers us simple citizens FREEDOM which is what we need to grow as a responsible society. The duty of an artist is to resist.]
The Artist’s Duty
So it is the duty of the artist to discourage all traces of shame
To extend all boundaries
To fog them in right over the plate
To kill only what is ridiculous
To establish problem
To ignore solutions
To listen to no one
To omit nothing
To contradict everything
To generate the free brain
To bear no cross
To take part in no crucifixion
To tinkle a warning when mankind strays
To explode upon all parties
To wound deeper than the soldier
To heal this poor obstinate monkey once and for all
To verify the irrational
To exaggerate all things
To inhibit everyone
To lubricate each proportion
To experience only experience
To set a flame in the high air
To exclaim at the commonplace alone
To cause the unseen eyes to open
To admire only the abrsurd
To be concerned with every profession save his own
To raise a fortuitous stink on the boulevards of truth and beauty
To desire an electrifiable intercourse with a female alligator
To lift the flesh above the suffering
To forgive the beautiful its disconsolate deceit
To flash his vengeful badge at every abyss
To HAPPEN
It is the artist’s duty to be alive
To drag people into glittering occupations
To blush perpetually in gaping innocence
To drift happily through the ruined race-intelligence
To burrow beneath the subconscious
To defend the unreal at the cost of his reason
To obey each outrageous inpulse
To commit his company to all enchantments.
Kenneth Patchen
Turkish Blogs Shutting Down to Protest State Censorship
TechCrunch reports that Turkish blogs are now banning themselves in protest. The fake bans started with Firat Yildiz, who put this message up on his blog:
Bu siteye erişim kendi kararıyla engellenmiştir
which roughly translates to:
The access to this web site is prevented by its owner’s free will.
Nearly 200 Turkish blogs have (temporarily) shut themselves down in this manner. The point is to show Turkish Web surfers what the Internet would look like if the censorship continues unabated. The protest will last until Wednesday.
In Turkey, any complaint to a lower court is likely to get a website blocked. YouTube, DailyMotion, Alibaba, Slide.com, and some WordPress blogs are among websites that have been banned.
Read full report at TechCrunch
ฐานข้อมูลกฎหมายสื่อ โดย คปส.
Media law repository (in Thai), by Campaign for Popular Media Reform (CPMR), Thailand.
ฐานข้อมูลกฎหมายสื่อ โดย คณะกรรมการรณรงค์เพื่อการปฏิรูปสื่อ (คปส.)
China's Olympics: Censorship as usual-NY Times
[FACT comments: We can be in no doubt that all governments do precisely what they please: they take the will of citizens into consideration only when it serves their interests to do so. It is a mammoth task to look after a population of more than a billion. So it should come as no surprise that China chooses to ignore the rest of the world. They don’t care about international image only about trading partners. Nevertheless, all people have the right to free expression and free information. China deserves world censure.]
Beijing Games Denying Media Full Use of Web
By ANDREW JACOBS
The New York Times: July 31, 2008
BEIJING — The International Olympic Committee failed to press China to allow fully unfettered access to the Internet for the thousands of journalists arriving here to cover the Olympics, despite promising repeatedly that the foreign news media could “report freely” during the Games, Olympic officials acknowledged Wednesday.
Since the Olympic Village press center opened Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages — among them those that discuss Tibetan issues, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown on the protests in Tiananmen Square and the Web sites of Amnesty International, the BBC’s Chinese-language news, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse.
The restrictions, which closely resemble the blocks that China places on the Internet for its citizens, undermine sweeping claims by Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president, that China had agreed to provide full Web access for foreign news media during the Games. Mr. Rogge has long argued that one of the main benefits of awarding the Games to Beijing was that the event would make China more open.
“For the first time, foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China. There will be no censorship on the Internet,” Mr. Rogge told Agence France-Presse just two weeks ago.
But a high-ranking Olympic committee official said Wednesday that the panel was aware that China would continue to censor Web sites carrying content that the Chinese propaganda authorities deemed harmful to national security and social stability. The panel acquiesced to China’s demands to maintain such controls, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not the designated public spokesman for the International Olympic Committee. Read the rest of this entry »
China’s Olympics: Censorship as usual-NY Times
[FACT comments: We can be in no doubt that all governments do precisely what they please: they take the will of citizens into consideration only when it serves their interests to do so. It is a mammoth task to look after a population of more than a billion. So it should come as no surprise that China chooses to ignore the rest of the world. They don’t care about international image only about trading partners. Nevertheless, all people have the right to free expression and free information. China deserves world censure.]
Beijing Games Denying Media Full Use of Web
By ANDREW JACOBS
The New York Times: July 31, 2008
BEIJING — The International Olympic Committee failed to press China to allow fully unfettered access to the Internet for the thousands of journalists arriving here to cover the Olympics, despite promising repeatedly that the foreign news media could “report freely” during the Games, Olympic officials acknowledged Wednesday.
Since the Olympic Village press center opened Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages — among them those that discuss Tibetan issues, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown on the protests in Tiananmen Square and the Web sites of Amnesty International, the BBC’s Chinese-language news, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse.
The restrictions, which closely resemble the blocks that China places on the Internet for its citizens, undermine sweeping claims by Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president, that China had agreed to provide full Web access for foreign news media during the Games. Mr. Rogge has long argued that one of the main benefits of awarding the Games to Beijing was that the event would make China more open.
“For the first time, foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China. There will be no censorship on the Internet,” Mr. Rogge told Agence France-Presse just two weeks ago.
But a high-ranking Olympic committee official said Wednesday that the panel was aware that China would continue to censor Web sites carrying content that the Chinese propaganda authorities deemed harmful to national security and social stability. The panel acquiesced to China’s demands to maintain such controls, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not the designated public spokesman for the International Olympic Committee. Read the rest of this entry »
FACT on Twitter
get the FACTs, follow ‘facthai‘ on Twitter.
ติดตามข่าวสาร FACT ทางทวิตเตอร์
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, or email.
ทวิตเตอร์ เป็นบริการเครือข่ายสังคมออนไลน์จำพวกไมโครบล็อก ผู้ใช้สามารถส่งข้อความว่าตัวเองกำลังทำอะไรอยู่ ความยาวไม่เกิน 140 ตัวอักษร. ผู้ใช้สามารถรับข้อความทางเว็บไซต์, ไอเอ็ม, เอสเอ็มเอส, อาร์เอสเอส, หรืออีเมล.
FACTback - Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (Backup) 