Fire in the Sky

NRO put out a funny story about the new paranoia that has taken over American citizens: Arab terrorists doing dry run assembling of bombs inside domestic airplanes. It has turned out that the "terrorists" inside Northwest Airlines 327 flight were just a band lead by the Syrian musician Nour Mehana. The situation could be only pathetic, if it was not tragic and has not awaken a new wave of jingoism and racism, as indicates one of the last posts of the neo-fascist Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds: Are we still frisking grandmothers and six-year-olds and letting Mohammed Atta-lookalikes cruise through metal detectors? If so, why? Reynolds got worried about the conclusions of 911 Commission Report and made a "call of action". I suppose he also got worried that America is suffering from a lack of foreshadowing and not just imagination, as affirmed by Tom Kean. God only knows to what sort of snake pit America is going down. If I were Reynolds, I’d vote for Crosby-Nash. (Layman might want begin with this masterpiece. Thank you, Vowe!)

[Listening to: Jim White - Bluebird]

Surreal But The Real

As I was searching for an old entry I've made about Max Ernst, I've found Jerzy Kujawski (1921-98), an obscure polish surrealist painter. Nice to know that my parenthood is not just natural backgrounds in Gunter Grass "Dog Years" (1963). Well, someone has digitalized and put in the Internet all Ernst's "Une Semaine de Bonte" (A Week Of Kindness). Surrealists are more vivid as ever. I guess even more than beatniks and hippies.

[Listening to: Kultur Shock - Tutti Frutti]

I Want to Ride My Bicycle

Not everybody knows Kraftwerk's Hütter bicycle-obsession. It is not by chance that the robot-man and his electronic band made an entirely piece about Tour de France. Speaking of the world's most famous bicycle race, not everyone knows that it has a blog (read all about the last Gilberto Simoni's prowess). I'm very eager to learn what might be Hütter's opinion about the Brompton folding bike...

[Listening to: Sonic Youth - Unmade Bed]

Global Idiocy

Following suit the post The Orkut Curse I have another considerations about how the mob gather itself as a unified mind. In the book "The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations", James Surowiecki explains that the "wisdom of crowds" emerges only in groups with many different points of view. Apropos, Thomas Paine has said, in 1783: I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies another this right makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. And, as quoted by Kotke, "the problem with the global village is all the global village idiots" (Paul Ginsparg). That is exactly why I prefer a thousand times the isolated biodiversity of rappers in Senegal than a single group in Orkut.

[Listening to: Sun Kil Moon - Glenn Tipton]