Del.icio.us links for June 15th through June 20th:
- Neither a Contract Nor a Promise: Five Movements To Watch Out For – It’s been a while since we’ve had some red-hot literary-movement action. Part of the problem is that the declaration of such movements, schools, salons, moments, manifestoes, sets, etc, tends to be a post-facto thing. Someone–a participant or otherwise–notices a bunch of writers and artists doing some stuff through which the observer considers there to be some shared thread(s). Give it a name, and boom: performative taxonomy complete.
Tags: literature criticism funny chinamieville writing genre fiction - “God, that’s a merciless question”: China Mieville’s Interview From Weird Tales – Last year, I interviewed China Miéville for Weird Tales’ 85th anniversary issue. I’m posting the full interview now, on my blog, because I think it’s relatively unique, in that China was between books and the point of the interview was more about discussing “weird” fiction. So the emphasis is a little different than in some of his other interviews. And, because it was conducted via IM, there’s an interesting flow to the conversation. Besides, you gotta love an interview that mentions not only Cloverfield and Vin Diesel but the aesthetics of the weird, and ends in a face-off between reptiles and mammals.
Tags: fiction writing prose literature criticism chinamieville fantasy weird monsters deathoftheauthor politics - British Newspapers – 1800-1900 – One century of archived British newspapers.
Tags: history britain newspaper media UK resources reference archive - Diary of a Defiance: Iran un-Interrupted – This nation, as always, can take care of itself. It needs nothing but the active solidarity of ordinary people around the globe to be a witness to their struggles and demand from their media an accurate and comprehensive representation of their movement. So please, hands off Iran! No “democracy project,” no sanction, no threat, no military attack, no regime change.
Tags: Iran electoralpolitics democracy middleast - The Angry Arab News Service: Iranian developments – Typically, I support neither side in the Iranian situation: but I support those Iranians who are struggling against both sides. I have worried before about the impact of Ahmadinajad’s stupid rhetoric on the Iranian public attitudes toward the Palestinian question. I am in no way sympathetic to Moussavi. He is a man who suddenly discovered the virtues of democracy. When he was prime minister back in the 1980s, he presided over a regime far more oppressive than Ahmadinajad’s.
Tags: Iran electoralpolitics democracy solidarity middleeast - Ahmadinejad Won. Get Over It. – Without any evidence, many U.S. politicians and “Iran experts” have dismissed Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s reelection Friday, with 62.6 percent of the vote, as fraud. They ignore the fact that Ahmadinejad’s 62.6 percent of the vote in this year’s election is essentially the same as the 61.69 percent he received in the final count of the 2005 presidential election, when he trounced former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The “Iran experts’” shock at Friday’s results is entirely self-generated, based on their preferred assumptions and wishful thinking.
Tags: Iran electoralpolitics electoralfraud middleeast democracy USA pundits - These are the birth pangs of Obama’s new regional order – “They have elected a Labour government,” a Savoy diner famously declared on the night of Britain’s election landslide in 1945. “The country will never stand for it.” From the evidence so far coming out of Iran, something similar seems to be happening on the streets of Tehran – and in the western capitals just as desperate to see the back of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Tags: Iran politics electoralpolitics electoralfraud middleeast USA democracy coups - What can the opposition win? – If the protest movement were to die down following a recount in which Mousavi won, the result would probably be a few blunted reforms coupled with a more aggressive neoliberal policy. If a dozen deaths are to mean anything, the movement must surely acquire an independent organisational backbone to sustain it when the inevitable disappointments come.
Tags: Iran electoralpolitics democracy middleeast solidarity - SchNEWS 679 – Well Unfair Reform – With unemployment in Britain passing the two million mark and steadily rising, the government is seemingly still clinging to a fantasy that they can boot everybody off benefits and into non-existent jobs. The Welfare Reform Bill received its first airing in the House Of Lords this Wednesday, proposing a dismantling of the welfare system on a scale Margaret Thatcher would be proud of if she still had any marbles left.
Tags: welfare britain newlabour policy government reform - Italian government to legalise vigilantes… – The Italian government has just issued a White paper on law and order that gives the go-ahead to private vigilante groups. While the paper states that such groups will have to sign up to a licensing scheme, it’s interesting to take a peek at those who are enthusiastically jumping at the opportunity.
Tags: vigilantes rightwing paramilitaries italy europe fascism oligarchiccapitalism stateterror silvioberlusconi - Andrew Humbled By Hungry Kids Of Hungary – Some good advice on reviewing music.
Tags: writing music reviewing musicjournalism - What’s in a booking fee? – Despite the best efforts of Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen, Ticketmaster still rakes in millions in ‘service fees’ for concert tickets – but where does all the money go?
Tags: music bands gigs livemusic corporategreed - Conversing with myself and another: DiS meets Future Of The Left – Future Of The Left’s Andy Falkous is a man with a lot to say. If you’ve seen their titanic live show, you’ll no doubt be aware of his sardonic wit; the between-song banter is something which – for better or worse – they’ve become renowned for, as well as putting on one heck of a rock show. But what, exactly, makes him tick?
Tags: music band interview futureoftheleft - Shut Up, Bands – because bands say the stupidest things.
Tags: bands music funny blog