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Wednesday 30 September 2015

Progress

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An Afghan girl sheds a tear upon her arrival with other refugees and migrants to the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey on September 29, 2015. More than half a million migrants and refugees have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year -- 383,000 of them arriving in Greece, the United Nations said

An Afghan girl sheds a tear upon her arrival with other refugees and migrants to the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey on Tuesday: photo by Aris Messinis/AFP, 29 September 2015

This is the only chance we are ever going to have
to be here. Finding traces of liquid water once flowing on the red planet
is a way of forgetting that there's not much time left
for the long awaited benefits of progress
to finally kick in where we are. I'm still a little unclear on that concept says radio
lady who's now quoting Pope, the.  And there went the End
of Days again. A White Moon appeared to Kim above the cabins
but she don't care. Have we moved to an earlier chapter, when in Big Smoky Valley
the nights of the infinitely small figures in the picture
which has fallen over on the mantle during every almost imperceptible tremor
rippling away from the test range, and is held together by some kind of tape,
grow longer now, touched by mists and a light
rain has begun to fall. That gal don't know one thing. One tear
shed here on ancient desiccated Earth in this moment means more to tiny me
than a rocking briny lake last week or a million years ago on Mars.


Scientists find first evidence that briny water flowed on the surface of #Mars: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 28 September 2015

A picture taken from an airplane on Sept...A picture taken from an airplane on September 30, 2015 shows a section of the Egyptian capital of Cairo and the Nile River

Cairo taken from an airplane on Wednesday shows a section of the Egyptian capital of Cairo and the Nile River: photo by Khaled Desouki/AFP, 30 September 2015

Big Smoky Valley Nº 1 | by efo

Big Smoky Valley #1. Nevada.: photo by efo, 7 July 2015

Sand Dune at Crescent Dunes Nevada | by Mjr Kool

Sand Dunes at Crescent Dunes, Nevada. In the Big Smoky Valley, Nye County, Nevada.: photo by Mjr Kool, 11 May 2010

The struggles of migrant mothers
: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 29 September 2015

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A migrant child leans out of a train window for food at a station in Tovarnik: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 29 September 2015 

Turbulence

An Israeli policeman prevents a Palestinian man from entering the compound which houses al-Aqsa mosque, known by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City: photo by Ammar Awad/Reuters, 29 September 2015

Turkish tourists are seen trying to take shelter during clashes between Palestinians protesters and Israeli police near the entrance of al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalems old city on Monday. New clashes broke out between Palestinians and Israeli police who stormed Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound, as an expected increase in Jewish visitors to the site over the Sukkot holiday boosted tensions.

Turkish tourists are seen trying to take shelter during clashes between Palestinians protesters and Israeli police near the entrance of al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalems old city on Monday: photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP, 29 September 2015

Palestinian protesters throw stones at Israeli troops during clashes over tension in Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque, in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron...Palestinian protesters throw stones at Israeli troops during clashes over tension in Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque, in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron September 29, 2015. Israeli police and Palestinians clashed on Sunday at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound, where violence in recent weeks has raised international concern.

Palestinian protesters throw stones at Israeli troops during clashes over tension in Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday: photo by Mussa Qawasma/Reuters, 29 September 2015

A local resident collects stones from the Xindian river after Typhoon Dujuan passed in the New Taipei City on September 29, 2015. Super typhoon Dujuan killed two and left more than 300 injured in Taiwan before making landfall in China.

Waves in the Xindian river after Typhoon Dujuan passed in New Taipei City on Tuesday. Super typhoon Dujuan killed two and left more than 300 injured in Taiwan before making landfall in China: photo by Sam Yeh/AFP, 29 September 2015

A paramilitary policeman holds onto a fence as tourists dodge tidal waves increased under the influence of Typhoon Dujuan, at the bank of Qiantang river, in Hangzhou

A paramilitary policeman holds onto a fence as tourists dodge tidal waves increased under the influence of Typhoon Dujuan, at the bank of Qiantang river, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province: photo by Reuters, 30 September 2015

Walter Benjamin: Kafka and Progress: In a Swamp World
 
 NUCLEAR-POWERED NAVAL VESSELS TIME 09/17/1956 p. 101

General Dynamics nuclear-powered naval vessels ad: Time, 17 September 1956 (Gallery of Graphic Design)


Kafka's shame, then, is no more personal than the life and thought which govern it and which he has described thus: "He does not live for the sake of his own life, he does not think for the sake of his own thought. He feels as though he were living and thinking under the constraint of a family. . . . Because of this unknown family . . . he cannot be released." We do not know the make-up of this unknown family, which is composed of human beings and animals. But this much is clear: it is this family that forces Kafka to move cosmic ages in his writings. Doing this family's bidding, he moves the mass of historical happenings as Sisyphus rolled the stone. As he does so, its nether side comes to light; it is not a pleasant sight, but Kafka is capable of bearing it. "To believe in progress is not to believe that progress has taken place. That would be no belief." Kafka did not consider the age in which he lived as an advance over the beginnings of time. His novels are set in a swamp world. In his works, created things appear at the stage which Bachofen has termed the hetairic stage. The fact that it is now forgotten does not mean that it does not extend into the present. On the contrary, it is actual by virtue of this very oblivion.

Walter Benjamin: excerpt from Franz Kafka: On the Tenth Anniversary of his Death, from Jüdische Rundschau, 1934, translated by Harry Zohn in Illuminations, 1968


NUCLEAR PUMPS LIFE 04/08/1957 p. 156

Borg-Warner advertisement: Life
, 8 April 1957 (Gallery of Graphic Design)

Disney - Bad Day At The Office? | by Express Monorail

Disney -- Bad Day at the Office? Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress (Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress, Tomorrowland, Magic Kingdom, Disney World Resort, Bay Lake, Florida): photo by Joe Pennington, 15 November 2008

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 #HTV5 descends to Earth today as #Progress rolls out to launch pad for Thurs cargo launch...
: image via Intl. Space Station @Space_Station, 29 September 2015

IMG_3049 | by princesskoko

[In the breakfast nook, Halloween approaching]: photo by princesskoko, 27 September 2012


Theodor Adorno on the Concept of Progress:  "it promises an answer to the doubt and the hope that things will finally get better, that people will at last be able to breathe a sigh of relief"

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/highsm/04800/04890v.jpg

Antique cars and trucks along the roadside, Montana
: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, 29 September 2005 (Library of Congress)


For a theoretical account of the category of progress it is necessary to scrutinize the category so closely that it loses its semblance of obviousness, both in its positive and its negative usage. And yet such proximity also makes the account more difficult. Even more than other concepts, the concept of progress dissolves upon attempts to specify its exact meaning, for instance what progresses and what does not. Whoever wants to define the concept precisely easily destroys what he is aiming at. The subaltern prudence that refuses to speak of progress before it can distinguish progress in what, of what, and in relation to what, displaces the unity of the moments, which within the concept ritually elaborate each other, into a mere juxtaposition. By insisting on exactitude where the impossibility of the unambiguous appertains to the subject matter itself, dogmatic epistemology misses its object, sabotages insight and helps to perpetuate the bad by zealously forbidding reflection upon what, in the age of both utopian and absolutely destructive possibilities, the consciousness of those entangled would like to discover: whether there is progress. Like every philosophical term, 'progress' has its equivocations; and as in any such term, these equivocations also register a commonality. What at this time one should understand by 'progress' one knows vaguely, but precisely: for just this reason one cannot employ the concept roughly enough. To use the term pedantically merely cheats it out of what it promises: an answer to the doubt and the hope that things will finally get better, that people will at last be able to breathe a sigh of relief. For this reason alone one cannot say precisely what progress should mean to people, because the crisis of the situation is that precisely while everyone feels the crisis, the words bringing resolution are missing. Only those reflections about progress have truth that immerse themselves in progress and yet maintain distance, withdrawing from paralyzing facts and specialized meanings. Today reflections of this kind come to a point in the contemplation of whether humanity is capable of preventing catastrophe. The forms of humanity's own global societal constitution threaten its life, if a self-conscious global subject does not develop and intervene.
 
Theodor Adorno: excerpt from Progress, Lecture at Münster Philosophers' Congress, 22 October 1962, translated by Henry Pickford in Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords, 1998


http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/highsm/04800/04888v.jpg

Antique trucks along the road, Montana
: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, 29 September 2005 (Library of Congress)

IMG_3027 | by princesskoko

[Window upon a World That Never Was]: photo by princesskoko, 27 September 2012

Tuesday 29 September 2015

Diesel; or, Inexplicable Safety Measures Must Be Good Or Why Would We Have Them?

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Inexplicible safety billboard | by efo

Inexplicable safety billboard. Carvers, Nevada: photo by efo, 2015

How Volkswagen Got Away With Diesel Deception: New York Times International Edition, 28 September 2015

Volkswagen said on Monday that 11 million of its diesel cars worldwide were equipped with software that was used to cheat on emissions tests.
 
How Did the System Work? The software sensed when the car was being tested and then activated equipment that reduced emissions, United States officials said. But the software turned the equipment off during regular driving, increasing emissions far above legal limits, possibly to save fuel or to improve the car’s torque and acceleration. It is not yet known which systems were modified. But experts are focusing on parts of the exhaust system that are designed to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide, a pollutant that can cause emphysema, bronchitis and other respiratory diseases. 
 
Which Cars Are Affected? The Environmental Protection Agency has said it will order Volkswagen to recall seven of its American car models with the affected engine type, for a total of about 500,000 vehicles. Volkswagen has not released a list of international models that have the same engine. 

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How Volkswagen got away with diesel deception, in graphics: image via New York Times World @nytimesworld, 29 September 2015

Diesel (Carvers, Nevada) | by efo

Diesel. Carvers, Nevada: photo by efo, 4 July 2015



Taking my #Volkswagen Golf for a spin: image via Matt @Dunlough, 26 September 2015 Cork, Ireland 
 

"Suicide." @DerSpiegel cover on #Volkswagen: image via Mathieu von Rohr @mathieuvonrohr, 26 September 2015
 

 #VOLKSWAGEN My daily driver is a Golf GTD. My MOT is due in 2 weeks. Any thoughts or words of comfort??: image via Stuttgart Legends @StuttgartLegend, 26 September 2015  

Regal | by efo

Regal: photo by efo, 26 August 2014

Inexplicible safety billboard | by efo

Inexplicable safety billboard, Carvers, Nevada: photo by efo, 2015  

Diesel panorama | by efo

Diesel panorama. Another view of this splendid tank. Carvers, Nevada: photo by efo, 4 July 2015

Monday 28 September 2015

Easy To Forget

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Refugees and migrants arrive on the shore of the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey on Monday. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the European Union's decision to inject $1 billion to help countries overwhelmed by Syrian refugees, but said more must be done to relocate migrants

Refugees and migrants arrive on the shore of the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey on Monday: photo by Aris Messinis/AFP, 28 September 2015

Not in the same boat,
never the same boat. Not

until the poor come
into the house of the rich
do the rich even
notice
that the poor exist.

They wash up
on the rocks
of Lesbos
in orange inflated
jackets, weeping,
crying out
thanks to their God.

Same scale, but not
the same notes. We live
in the same
time, but we don't
live in the same world,
they say.
We breathe the same
 
air, but only after you
have breathed it first,
and you always found it easier
not to go there,
never to know.



Gibraltar: Charles Pears for the Empire Marketing Board, c. 1930 (National Archives UK)

Trials of the Voyage: Water



GREECE - Afghan refugees arrive to the island of Lesbos after crossing Aegean sea from Turkey. By @ArisMessinis #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 28 September 2015


Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 28 September 2015


Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 28 September 2015


Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 28 September 2015
 

Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 28 September 2015
 

Refugees and migrants arrive from Turkey in the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 26 September 2015


Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 27 September 2015


Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 27 September 2015


Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 27 September 2015


Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 27 September 2015

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GREECE- Syrian refugees are covered with life blankets upon arriving to the island of Lesbos. By By @ArisMessinis #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 28 September 2015
 

#migrants arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos. #AFP Photo by @ArisMessinis: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 28 September 2015
 

#migrantcrisis - A man wearing a life blanket walks after arriving on Lesbos island. By Iakovos Hatzistavrou #AFP: image via Christophe Delattre @chrisdelattre7, 24 September 2015
 

#Migrants and refugees arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos. #AFP photo by @ArisMessinis: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 28 September 2015


#Migrants and refugees arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos. #AFP photo by @ArisMessinis: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 28 September 2015


#Migrants and refugees arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos. #AFP photo by @ArisMessinis: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 28 September 2015


#Migrants and refugees arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos. #AFP photo by @ArisMessinis: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 28 September 2015


Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 26 September 2015


Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 26 September 2015
 

Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 26 September 2015


Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 26 September 2015


Migrants and refugees from the Middle East arrived at Greece’s Lesbos Island on Saturday after crossing the Mediterranean Sea by rubber raft from Turkey
: photo by
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times, 26 September 2015

Thousands of life jackets from refugees and migrants form a small hill in the island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 28 September 2015

Trials of the Voyage: Overland

Migrants and refugees queue near a registration camp after crossing the Macedonian-Greek border near Gevgelija on Monday. Macedonia is a key transit country in the Balkans migration route into the EU, with thousands of asylum seekers and migrants -- many of them from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia -- entering the country every day

Migrants and refugees queue near a registration camp after crossing the Macedonian-Greek border near Gevgelija on Monday. Macedonia is a key transit country in the Balkans migration route into the EU: photo by Armend Nimani/AFP, 28 September 2015


Refugees and migrants look out of windows aboard a train in Gevgelija. #AFP @armend_nimani: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 25 September 2015
 

Macédoine: des migrants dans l'attente d'être enregistrés dans un camp près de Gevgelija. Photo @armend_nimani #AFP: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 26 September 2015


Macédoine: des migrants dans l'attente d'être enregistrés dans un camp près de Gevgelija. Photo @armend_nimani #AFP: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 26 September 2015


Macédoine: des migrants dans l'attente d'être enregistrés dans un camp près de Gevgelija. Photo @armend_nimani #AFP: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 26 September 2015


Macédoine: des migrants dans l'attente d'être enregistrés dans un camp près de Gevgelija. Photo @armend_nimani #AFP: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 26 September 2015


MACEDONIA - Refugees wait to board a train at the registration camp near Gevgelija. By @armend_nimani #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 28 September 2015


#Slovenia Barbwire fence, set up by Hungarian Army, at the Slovenian-Hungarian border in Pince. #AFP by Jure Makovec: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 25 September 2015
 

#Slovenia Barbwire fence, set up by Hungarian Army, at the Slovenian-Hungarian border in Pince. #AFP by Jure Makovec: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 25 September 2015


#Slovenia Barbwire fence, set up by Hungarian Army, at the Slovenian-Hungarian border in Pince. #AFP by Jure Makovec: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 25 September 2015
 

#Slovenia Barbwire fence, set up by Hungarian Army, at the Slovenian-Hungarian border in Pince. #AFP by Jure Makovec: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 25 September 2015
 

Military escorts of #refugees assumes they might run. But where? #Hungary: image via Laurence Lee @laurielee67, 26 September 2015
 
Migrants and refugees arrive at the registration camp after crossing the Macedonian-Greek border. By @armend_nimani: image via Stephanie Beauge @sbeaugeAFP, 26 September 2015
 

Refugees look out from the window of the special train which transported them across Hungary to Hegyeshalom. By @armend_nimani: image via Stephanie Beauge @sbeaugeAFP, 26 September 2015



#Macedonia Migrants and refugees wait to board a train near Gevgelija, yesterday. #AFP @armend_nimani: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 28 September 2015
 

#Macedonia Migrants and refugees wait to board a train near Gevgelija, yesterday. #AFP @armend_nimani: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 28 September 2015

What There Is To (Never) Forget



اكثر من 100 شهيد في دوما: image via Kamel Almast 20165 @SYR, 16 August 2015


قبل الموت بلحظه ضمته حدث في هذا اليوم في ريف حلب: image via Kamel Almast 20165 @SYR, 8 June 2015
 

اين حقوق الطفل اللذي تتكلمون عليه ... ... ياالله مالنا غيرك: image via Kamel Almast 20165@ SYR, 4 June 2015

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مجزرة جديدة في مدينة حلب ..#Aleppo #Genocide @Syria: image via Ahmad Bhaa Hanifa @AhmedHanifa, 12 May 2015

Signs and Omens

 
The spectacular #SuperBloodmoon, seen around the world: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 28 September 2015
 
 
The spectacular #SuperBloodmoon, seen around the world: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 28 September 2015
 
A lunar eclipse coincides with a so-called "supermoon" in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England. Sky-watchers around the world are in for a treat Sunday night and Monday when the shadow of Earth casts a reddish glow on the moon, the result of rare combination of an eclipse with the closest full moon of the year
 
A lunar eclipse coincides with a so-called “supermoon” in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England. Sky-watchers around the world are in for a treat Sunday night and Monday when the shadow of Earth casts a reddish glow on the moon, the result of rare combination of an eclipse with the closest full moon of the year: photo by Carl Recine/Reuters, 28 September 2015
 

If you missed it, take a good look at the astonishing #SuperBloodmoon: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 28 September 2015
 
A man collects coconuts and other items thrown as offerings by worshippers in the Sabarmati river, a day after the immersion of idols of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, in Ahmedabad, India, September 28, 2015.

A man collects coconuts and other items thrown as offerings by worshippers in the Sabarmati river, a day after the immersion of idols of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, in Ahmedabad, India: photo by Amit Dave/Reuters. 28 September 2015
 
People hold their umbrellas while walking against strong winds caused by Typhoon Dujuan in Taipei, Taiwan, on Monday

People hold their umbrellas while walking against strong winds caused by Typhoon Dujuan in Taipei, Taiwan, on Monday: photo by Pichi Chuang/Reuters, 28 September 2015


Pope Francis speaks at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on September 26, 2015. AFP PHOTO / Vincenzo Pinto: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 26 September 2015

Microbrew trend in Holy Land turns water to hummus beer: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 28 September 2015

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Clashes at Jerusalem holy site as Jewish holiday starts: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 28 September 2015


Lightning flashes around the statue of Christ the Redeemer at Corcovado hill in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 28 September 2015



The spectacular #SuperBloodmoon, seen around the world: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 28 September 2015