#not nams hijacking their moment

[wishmcker]

She is surprised to see a new colour dust along his cheeks at her questions. Nami knows well that he can catch on easily when the situation permits it, but she had anticipated more back and forth or that she would have to be more direct in the way she spoke. But again, he manages to catch her off-guard. She almost melts at the feeling of his hand curled around her own and she is drawn forward so that she is closer.

There is his smile again, the one she sees everyday and will never grow tired of. He really is the sun and she cannot look away.

Nami mirrors his happiness easily, gazing at him with a particular sense of tenderness. Every day he made life worth living and the promise of being at side from today onwards only more determined to do so.

❝ Really? ❞ she breathes out. Her eyes have glassed over slightly now from the emotion that wells up in her chest. Her heart is practically beating out of her chest and she needs to be closer to him. She leans further towards him and rises their enclosed hands to brush against her lips. A small sign of affection, a kindly relief. It is a nice, few moments of such a touch.

Nami blinks for a moment and looks at him. ❝ Hang on, if you thought that way, why didn't you say something? ❞ she asks, expression incredulous.

more that we are now..luffy had to think about what nami had said, and instantly it clicked! there was a brush of pink that littered his face at how foolish he had been thinking that she was talking about the crew, no she was talking about THEM! his heart raced at the thought of them, after everything, the adventures that they had shared--there was a lot of the two of them in his mind when he thought back at the situations they've gotten into. sure not all of them were the best thoughts, but if those moments got them to where they were now?

luffy wouldn't change a thing.

seeing just how nervous she was right now, luffy's hand stretched out to take nami's own, that smile on his face was back in full force though not a childish one like it normally was--something more soft but the warmth was still there just for her.

"you're someone that i hold dear, nami," he started, sitting a bit more comfortably upon the head of the sunny. he was trying to get all his thoughts in order as his brain was running through his head. "i've always thought of you as the one i would end up with. there's nobody else i've ever wanted." and knowing now that nami had felt the same way? he was belated.

[thuviencoin]

Celer Network bị tấn công DNS, thiệt hại ước tính 240.000 USD

Celer Network bị tấn công DNS, thiệt hại ước tính 240.000 USD

Lại thêm một dự án bị tấn công DNS. Và lần này là Celer Network với thiệt hại ước tính khoảng 240.000 USD. Celer Network bị tấn công DNS, thiệt hại ước tính 240.000 USD Rạng sáng ngày 18/08/2022 (giờ Việt Nam), Twitter chính thức của Celer Network đăng thông báo rằng: 📢📢📢We are seeing reports that reflects potential DNS hijacking of cbridge frontend. We are investigating at the moment and please…

[robert-c]

Thoughts on How We Became a Nation of Distrustful Conspiracy Theorists

I think it begins with President Johnson. LBJ was not the charismatic leader that JFK was. He would never command the popularity or loyalty of JFK. LBJ’s only real claim to fame (and likely reason he was chosen as VP) was his political dealing, his knowledge of how to work Congress. He was not a leader in the sense of inspiring others with ideas and ideals. He was more adept at finding pressure points, domestically, to force others to give him what he wanted.

When Kennedy was assassinated LBJ’s biggest fear was that the Soviets might be behind it, because that would mean he would be forced into a war that would certainly hijack any agenda he wanted for his presidency. So when LBJ, the backroom deal maker and manipulator, formed the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination with the intent that it find that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, things quickly got off the rails. Having a predetermined outcome at the beginning of an investigation, coupled with LBJ’s reputation, was an invitation to alternate conclusions.

Conspiracy theories about the assassination began almost immediately, with Mark Lane publishing an article a month after the assassination in December of 1963, and later a book (Rush to Judgment). Perhaps, as William Manchester speculated, people would have invented some more involved explanation to make it seem “balanced” because it seemed inconceivable that a vibrant and powerful man like the president could be taken down by a “loser loner”.

Nevertheless, it was LBJ and his administration that gave credence to the ideas that the government couldn’t be trusted. Add to this his failed attempt to sell the public that we were winning the Viet Nam war, when it was clear to everyone that was not the case, and the well of trust in good government was running dry fast. Add to this the fact, surmised at the time and now confirmed, that the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was the excuse for escalating our role from “advisors” to combatants, was a huge mistake responding to misread radar signals which then was packaged as an attack.

The “establishment’s” resistance to obvious changes needed for social justice only further undermined a sense that the institutions of society could be relied upon to be responsive to the people, let alone to do the right things. Their resistance was made both more ridiculous and more frightening by the petty issues they also chose to focus on, e.g. hair and clothes. Follow this quickly with the assassinations of Rev. Dr. King, and Robert Kennedy and the lengths to which some would go to stop change was now clear. It was clear who had the money, power and desire to stop these changes and that no doubt helped inspire the next round of conspiracy theories, whether or not those people were involved.

No account of the decline of public trust in and decency of our leaders would be complete without mentioning Richard Nixon. His dirty tricks during the elections, and subsequent cover ups may not have been entirely new, but their exposure and his “ham-handed” way of handling them added another blemish on the highest office.

As the erosion of trust in public institutions, and other crises increase, it is sadly common for people to turn to simple (even simplistic) answers. Thus we have the rise of cults, and the extreme religious right. They offer simple, if not valid or provable, explanations that appeal to the biases and fears of their audiences.

This reaches a critical point when Ronald Reagan essentially gives the religious right a key seat at the Republican table to avoid the possibility of having independents split enough of the votes to leave him without a victory. Of course Reagan is independently an example of the erosion of the office of President as, by his own admission, he was playing a part, just like the actor he always was.

The incompetency and/or self-dealing associated with the high offices of our nation, and the electorate’s black or white thinking, insisting on simple answers to complex problems further undermine our institutions and our sense that there is some objective standard of truth. In fact, the rise of the Internet and social media turned everyone’s right to an opinion into every opinion is of equal value.

It would be another of those simple explanations to say that this is all the fault of greedy opportunists who found a way to make money publishing their conspiracy theories, or even that “loser nobodies” spread them for their moment of fame, even if only in the eyes of a handful of associates. There are surely some of the above involved, but I honestly think it has been a slow erosion over the last sixty years, and that worries me about how we can reconstruct a society that isn’t divided into camps that ignore the facts because they are unwilling to honestly examine them. We must get past this position where every rumor or piece of hearsay is taken as fact, but only if it supports our preconceived opinions.

Perhaps we could start with agreeing to validate and examine the actual facts of each issue, instead of presuming that they are lies if we don’t like them. Then maybe we could stop the “slippery slope” arguments. These have been overdone to the extreme. BTW the proper use of “slippery slope” is not what you think might happen next, but where there is no way to make a clearly definable limit between what is and isn’t to be permitted. Permitting abortion is not on a slippery slope with euthanasia because there is a well definable difference, the actual birth, the separation of one life from being hosted by another. Banning books, movies etc. because they are “offensive” is a slippery slope because there is no universal standard for what is offensive.

Maybe we could acknowledge that societies are very complex things and claiming to know exactly what will unravel one is at least potentially arrogant and wrong. Every restriction or regulation on gun ownership isn’t necessarily a step toward outlawing all gun ownership. Allowing people of color, gay and lesbian, transgender etc. to be free of discrimination in public society does NOT mandate your personal feelings. You can still think they are going to Hell, you just cannot try to make their life Hell here, any more than you would want someone to do the same to you for who you are and what you feel. (Isn’t there a “golden” rule about that somewhere?)

I am genuinely worried about those who embrace violence in the name of returning this country to what they think was its days of greatness. I will oppose them with violence if forced to, but I am still hopeful that there are enough sensible conservatives and progressives to work together to make a better world.

The conservatives often raise valid concerns about change and its destabilizing effect. We progressives should take some of that counsel and not leap so blindly. Conservatives need listen to progressives as they tell them of the way the world looks from the bottom side of our society of privilege and try to understand that everything bad or unfortunate is not someone’s own fault. Progressives need to acknowledge that sometimes some of the people we want to help are not doing enough to help themselves, that maybe some need a different sort of help from us. Both sides need to understand that there are dishonest players who will take advantage of either side’s programs and protections – and work together to end that abuse, instead of exaggerating it to criticize the other.

Most of all, we need to start and end these “debates” with an examination of all of the facts, the verified facts; not the gossipy hearsay of social media and opinion pieces masquerading as “news and information”.

[sound-art-text]

Sound, video and participation at Tate Modern

This week, I’m showing a group of third year Digital Music and Sound Arts students from Brighton University around Tate Modern. I’ve chosen my fav works currently on display, and devised a tour taking in landmark works spanning sound, video and performance. 

The Tanks

Wen-Ying Tsai 

Wen-Ying Tsai, Umbrella, 1971

Light activated by sound, in this early cybernetic sculpture from the 1960s. 

Trisha Donnelly

Listen out for bells chiming through the Tanks in the artist’s untitled work. The source of the recordings have not been revealed by the artist, and they do not ring out at even times, but instead mark an unexpected moment, inviting the encounterer to pause and consider the passing of time. 

Marvin Gaye Chetwynd

Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Hermitos Children, the pilot episode, 2008

Sit on a multi-person beanbag stitched out of costumes from the video work in front of you. The artist arranges amateur performers in an almost pornographic mock soap opera. 

Nice video of the artist in her studio here:

Media Networks

Cildo Meireles

Cildo Meireles, Babel, 2001 

A stack of second hand radios, each tuned to a different international station, spurts out a multitude of languages. The tower is named after the biblical myth - God was angry at his people for building a tower almost reaching the heavens, so punished the builders by inventing different languages so they could no longer communicate. 

Meireles is an important conceptual artist, one of the younger members of Brazil’s neo-concrete movement. His seminal works address censorship and oppression during the Brazilian military government, a coup propped up by the US which removed the leftist government in 1964 and ruled through terror and dictatorship till 1985, notoriously killing students and disappearing dissidents. The artist printed names of the disappeared on Coca Cola bottles and asked ‘Who Killed Herzog?’ on banknotes that he returned to circulation, thereby hijacking the government system. 

Read more about US support of coups in the Southern Cone in Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine. Whilst you’re at it, also read Angela Davis on the Military Industrial Complex. 

There’s a longer documentary on the artist here, beginning with a view of the making of Babel. 

Hito Steyerl

Hito Steyerl, How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File, 2013

This work is concerned with privacy in the digital age. We are constantly visible - CCTV recording our every move, networks recording and selling our browsing data. This tongue in cheek video recommends surreal strategies for opting out.

Interesting article by the artist In Defense of the Poor Image here: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/

Interview with the artist about the work here:

Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik, Bakelite Robot, 2002

Pioneer of video art and Fluxus artist extraordinaire - Paik played with the emerging sensation of TV, stacking and reformatting monitors to create psychedelic installations. Paik collaborated with John Cage, and was a key player in Fluxus. For a period of time, Paik kept a pet violin, which trailed after him on a lead, enacting the Fluxus vision of liberating music from the confines of bourgeois traditional practices. 

More on Paik’s work with video:

Art of Participation

Santiago Sierra

Santiago Sierra, 160 cm Line Tattooed on 4 People El Gallo Arte Contemporáneo. Salamanca, Spain. December 2000, 2000

The artist pays four sex workers, in heroin, to have a line tattooed on their backs. In selling the action and documentation thereof to the art institution, Santiago makes the institution and viewer complicit in this unethical transaction, highlighting the inevitability of exploitation in the art world and, more generally, capitalism. 

Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic, Rhythm 0, 1974

In a dramatic action, the artist assembled a table of objects, from food to weapons, and allowed the audience to enter the gallery and do anything they wished to her using these objects. In one scenario, the exhibition was closed by the gallery after a visitor pointed a loaded gun at the artist. Abramovic’s work often involves a level of risk or, as in Light/Dark, pain - testing the endurance of the body. 

Insights from the artist here:

Collective Actions

A group that invited the audience to board a train to outside of Moscow centre to witness a sometimes bizarre happening. The audience’s conversations and interpretations following the experience became the artwork. 

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/collective-actions-haensgen-russian-world-t14345

Turbine Hall

Philippe Parreno

Philippe Parreno, Anywhen, 2016

A small room in the corner of the Turbine Hall houses a complex machine reading the movements of micro organisms, turning them into instructions which alter the lights, sounds and visuals throughout the Turbine Hall. 

The artist explains:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvpZ8HCLTCU

[newstfionline]

The ‘Ivanka Trump of North Korea’ captivates people in the South

By Anna Fifield, Washington Post, February 10, 2018

GANGNEUNG, South Korea--They marveled at her barely-there makeup and her lack of bling. They commented on her plain black outfits and simple purse. They noted the flower-shaped clip that kept her hair back in a no-nonsense style.

Here she was, a political princess, but the North Korean “first sister” had none of the hallmarks of power and wealth that Koreans south of the divide have come to expect. In looks-obsessed South Korea, many 20-something women list plastic surgery and brand-name bags as life goals.

Most of all, Kim Yo Jong was an enigma. Just like them, but nothing like them. A woman with a sphinx-like smile who gave nothing away during her three-day Olympic-related visit to South Korea as her brother Kim Jong Un’s special envoy.

“I thought Kim Yo Jong was going to be so serious, but she smiled all the time, so she made a good first impression,” said Kwon Hee-sun, a 29-year-old South Korean woman attending the women’s ice hockey match at the Winter Olympics on Saturday night. The Korean teams had been combined--three North Koreans were playing on the merged team.

“I’m curious about her. I wonder if she’s married. I think it’ll be very meaningful if she comes to the game,” Kwon said. She soon got her wish: Kim Yo Jong showed up to cheer on the united Korean team.

Kim is “the Ivanka Trump of North Korea” because of her family connections and her ability to be a compelling saleswoman, said Sue Mi Terry, a former Korean analyst at the CIA who is now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

South Korean television drew that exact parallel, noting that Kim Jong Un had sent his sister to the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, while President Trump was sending his daughter to the closing.

Very little is known about the current generation that runs North Korea: leader Kim Jong Un and his glamorous wife, Ri Sol Ju; his reclusive older brother, Kim Jong Chol; and his younger sister, Kim Yo Jong.

We know that the Kims, the children of second-generation North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and his Japanese-born ethnic Korean wife, Ko Yong Hui, all spent several years at school in Switzerland. We know Kim Jong Chol likes Eric Clapton because he’s been spotted at concerts around the world, most recently in London. We know that Ri used to sing in a propaganda band. But that’s about it.

We don’t even know Kim Yo Jong’s age. The South Korean intelligence service says she was born in 1987; the U.S. government thinks it was 1989.

So when she arrived in South Korea on Friday afternoon, becoming the first member of North Korea’s ruling Kim family to come South since the Korean War broke out in 1950, South Koreans were enthralled.

If the outside world is puzzled by this regime that threatens nuclear war and deprives its people of food and information, just imagine how strange North Korea seems to those in the South. They speak the same language, share the same myths, love the same food. Yet the leaders are so foreign.

The wall-to-wall coverage began even before Kim stepped off her brother’s private jet at Incheon airport, west of Seoul, on Friday afternoon. Television cameras broadcast footage of the runway, waiting for her to arrive. They noted that the plane had been given the flight number 615--a reference to June 15, the final day of the first inter-Korean summit in 2000. It was auspicious.

In the VIP room upon arrival at Incheon, television cameras show a smiling Kim gesturing to Kim Yong Nam, the 90-year-old who is technically North Korea’s head of state and was technically leading the delegation.

Both Koreas are bound by Confucian hierarchical rules that prize age and maleness, and stipulate who should sit where according to seniority. Those rules mean, without question, that a 90-year-old male head of state, should sit in the best seat.

But South Korean papers marveled at Kim Yo Jong’s “humbleness.”

Then, from the moment she stepped out of the airport, there was a media scrum around her--well, around the four North Korean bodyguards who surrounded her as she walked through train stations and Olympic venues.

When she arrived at the Blue House for a meeting with South Korean president Moon Jae-in on Saturday morning, the cameras zoomed in on her high cheekbones and her fine ears. No detail was too trivial to be noticed, commented on.

Look at her posture, the commentators said. She sat so upright--maybe she’d been a dancer like her mother--and was so well-mannered.

Look at her unusual handwriting, they said after Kim Yo Jong wrote a message in the guest book at South Korea’s presidential Blue House, which--of course--then appeared everywhere. The cross strokes were all angled, making her handwriting look like a kind of calligraphy.

“I hope Pyongyang and Seoul will become closer in the hearts of Koreans and will bring unification and prosperity in the near future,” she had written.

Somehow, Kim managed to pass the whole visit without uttering a word in public. Moving through the crowds, she kept her Mona Lisa face on and her mouth closed. When local journalists asked her how she felt to be in South Korea, she didn’t respond. She just smiled. Footage from the meetings she had with Moon again showed her smiling and relaxed, but the cameras didn’t catch a single word.

“I thought she was really pretty,” said Moon Jin-young, a 19-year-old student. But she wasn’t sure how humble the visitor was. “She didn’t look nice because she kept her chin up all the time, so it looked as if she was always looking down on others.”

Certainly, Kim Yo Jong, who is under American sanctions for human rights abuses related to her role in censoring information, was treated like royalty during her visit.

The government provided a Hyundai Genesis, a luxury car that media noted could be made bulletproof, to ferry her around. She stayed in the five-star Sheraton Grande Walkerhill hotel on the outskirts of Seoul, which markets itself as “the ultimate place to relax and unwind.”

For lunch with Moon, the North Korean delegation was served grilled flatfish, soup with dried fish balls, buckwheat crepe with persimmon sauce and two types of kimchi. There was dried persimmon and walnut cake for dessert.

Then for dinner, her South Korean hosts took her to a fancy restaurant in Gangneung, on the east coast, before the hockey game.

Vice President Pence, who was also in South Korea for the opening of the Winter Olympics but studiously avoided Kim, had worried in advance that North Korea would “hijack” the Olympic Games with its “propaganda.”

Pence and his staff were alarmed by news last month that South Koreans were dazzled by the arrival of Hyon Song Wol, a singer in North Korea’s all-female Moranbong Band and a rising political star in Kim’s regime.

His worries were well founded.

Those who saw Kim at the hockey game were puzzled by mismatch between the gruesome stories they’d heard and the slight young woman before them.

“Kim Yo Jong kept smiling, and she seemed nice,” said Lee Ryoon-ryong, a 25-year-old man at Saturday’s match. “I was surprised because she looked different from the image I had about North Koreans.”

He figured, however, she must have a strong personality behind that smiling face.

Indeed, Terry warned against being sucked in by Kim’s good cop routine. “Kim Yo Jong is totalitarianism with a human face,” she said. “She is acting as a goodwill ambassador for a country that has earned no goodwill.”