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Tag: Hostis
Call for Submissions, Hostis Issue 3: Fuck The Police
Posted on November 15, 2016 by youandwhosearmy?
The Police = The Enemy
We are persuaded by the Situationist belief that all good critiques can be boiled down to a slogan. Those for our issue? "All Cops Are Bastards." "Fuck The Police." "Off the Pigs." "Fire to the Prisons." The job of the police is to put everything and everyone in its proper place. On its face, such a description sounds rather clinical, reminiscent of the boring work of an accountant preparing tax filings. But is this not how policing describes itself? Judges, lawmakers, and good citizens say it the same way – good policing happens with a smiling face, whistling a tune, and chatting with neighborhood kids. Like a game of cops and robbers, they attribute any resulting violence to 'the bad guys.' Always childishly pointing their fingers at someone else, as if to tattle on 'the ones who started it.' If slogans like 'ACAB' or 'FTP' belong to a larger political horizon, it is one that has also been articulated in slogan form: une autre fin du monde est possible [Another End of the World is Possible]. The aim is to usher in an end to this world other than the looming catastrophe of capital by reiterating that the police act as the guarantors of a perpetual present. It is within this context that this issue of Hostis seeks to embolden slogans that single out the police as a true enemy. If the police are an enemy, then it is because enemies are not to be fought simply through negation but to be abolished completely. The lesson we draw from this: the enemy is the one whose existence must be abolished without qualification.
But where did it all start? Slavery. Food riots. Urban revolt. The police have always been civil society's response to the existence of what we today call masses, publics, or even the most sacred of democratic ideas: the People. That is to say, the police have always been conjured to control masses and crowds whereas the old canard of criminality materializes only after the police have been summoned. Despite this already being old wisdom, it bears repeating: the police do not carry peace as an olive branch to seal a cessation of hostilities. Rather, the peace offered by the police are the terms of a surrender through which they legalize their dominion over us. Their peace institutionalizes a racial order, sanctions the proper means of economic exploitation, and criminalizes anyone who fights back.
In the face of this all, we are continuously confronted with a well rehearsed justification for the necessity of the police that repeats the sick notion that it takes violence to deal with the most dangerous elements of society. As the argument goes, police officers put themselves in 'harm's way,' and since the police are the only thing standing between unfettered chaos on the one hand, they exist as a necessary evil for the upholding of civil society. This old story of police work being dangerous, however, is only half correct. It is true that police arrive on the scene like the grim reaper, stinking of death. Yet cops rarely encounter danger. In the US in 2016, it is more dangerous for police to enter their cars than to put on their badges, according to a recent FBI report that noted auto fatalities as the leading cause of police on-the-job death. Statistics point to truckers, garbage collectors, taxi drivers, and landscapers having more hazardous jobs than a pig on patrol. Moreover, our task is not to provide the tools, manpower, and legitimacy to make their job easier. On the contrary, we wish to make policing so impossible that it stops making any sense at all.
We would like many of our friends to reconsider how they oppose the police. Social anarchists do not wish to abolish policing, just certain types of police. In fact, they seem most worried about restoring the foundational political legitimacy laid bare by police violence. This is why social anarchists talk about empty concepts like democracy, the people, or other 'legitimate authorities.' "Strong communities don't need police," they say, followed up by an assortment of police reforms or alternatives: community review boards, citizen policing, restorative justice. Self-policing then appears as the alternative to state policing. We think it absurd to imagine any of those social forms as even possible in our age of fragmentation, that is, except for those erected to protect a privileged few. And who would want to live in a 'strong community,' anyway? We are even more frightened by the violence done by neighbors who police each other than a stranger with a badge and a gun.
This issue of Hostis is interested in contributions that elaborate on our critiques-slogans, "All Cops Are Bastards," "Fuck The Police," "Off the Pigs," and "Fire to the Prisons." We look forward to submissions on:
Anti-Cop Cultural Production (Slogans, Poems, Art)
The History of the Police (Racial History, Food Riots, The Carceral State)
The Impossibility of Police Reform (Civilian Review Boards, Body Cameras, Demilitarization)
Critiques of Alternative Policing (Community Policing, Restorative Justice, Anti-Violence Programs)
Comparative, historical, materialist, and/or structural analyses of how policing is carried out in the US and abroad, and its implications for ongoing anti-police struggles worldwide (e.g. Police killings in the U.S. and the Philippines)
Strategies for Confronting the Police (Riots, Rebellion, Anti-Social Acts)
Hostis is looking for submissions from those who are tired of compromising themselves, who are repulsed by the police, who want to fight the cops, and who are working to abolish the police. In addition to scholarly essays, we are looking for any original work suited to the printed page: 'rap sheets' of police officers, police departments and/or precincts, strategic diagrams, logistical maps, printed code, how-to instructions, photo-essays, illustrations, or mixed-media art. To remain consistent with the journal's point of view, we seek material whose tone is abrasive, mood is cataclysmic, style is gritty, and voice is impersonal.
Submissions will be selected by an editorial collective. Contributors should expect to receive critical feedback in the first stage of review requesting revisions to improve their submission and make it consistent with the other contributions selected for inclusion. While we are not soliciting proposals, we are happy to comment on possible submissions before official review. The deadline for submission is January 15, 2017. All submissions should be sent to hostis.journal@gmail.com or hostis@lbcbooks.com (PGP encrypted message accepted) as MS Word, rtf, pdf, jpg, or png files. Include a title, author name, content, and any formatting requests. Expect to complete requested revisions between March-April 2017.
Tagged acab, Activism, all cops are bastards, anarchism, anarchy, Autonomy, civil war, Communism, ftp, fuck the police, Hostis, Marxism, Police, Politics, Power, Race, SurveillanceLeave a comment
HOSTIS: A Short Introduction to the Politics of Cruelty
Posted on March 26, 2016 by youandwhosearmy?
[This is a brief excerpt from the introduction to Hostis Issue 1. A PDF of the full issue can be found here.]
THE PROBLEM with the social is not that it fails at its intended goals. There is no use in disputing the advances in education, science, or medicine brought by scientific planning of the social – they work. We instead take issue with the means through which the social brings social peace. As French historian Michel Foucault points out, the social was invented simultaneously with the science of the police and publicity, or as they are known today, Biopower and The Spectacle. The former ensuring that everything is found and kept in its proper place, and the latter making certain that everything which is good appears and everything which appears is good. The historical effects is that within the span of a few decades, the governmentalized techniques of the social were integrated into contemporary life and began passively making other means of existence either unlivable or invisible.
Today, the social is nothing but a de-centered category that holds the population to blame for the faults of government. Prefiguration fails to question the social. This is because prefigurative politics is: the act of reinventing the social. Socialist radicals come in a number of flavors. There are dual-power anarchists, who believe in building parallel social institutions that somehow run 'better' (though they rarely do, or only for a select few). There are humanist anarchists, who believe that when most styles of governance are decentralized, they then bring out human nature's inherent goodness. There are even pre-figurative socialists ("democratic socialists" or "reformists") who believe that many equally-allocated public resources can be administered by the capitalist state. Ultimately, the social functions for prefigurative politics just as it did for utopian socialists and now the capitalist present – the social is the means to an ideal state of social peace.
Let us be clear, we are not calling for social war. Everywhere, the social is pacification. Even social war thinks of itself as (good) society against the (bad) state. This is just as true of an 'anti-politics' that pits the social against politics. Look to John Holloway or Raúl Zibechi, who focus on indigenous resistance to the imperialism of capital and the state. Both argue that the threat is always 'the outside,' which comes in the form of either an external actor or a logic that attempts to 'abstract' the power of the social. Holloway argues that when the state is an objective fetish that robs the social of its dynamic power (Change the World, 15-9, 59, 94), while Zibechi says that indigenous self-management provides "social machinery that prevents the concentration of power or, similarly, prevents the emergence of a separate power from that of the community gathered in assembly" (Dispersing Power, 16). Such a perspective is deeply conservative in nature, and they lack a revolutionary horizon – they reject whatever are dangers imposed from without only by intensifying the internal consistency of a (family-based) community from within, thickening into a social shell that prevents relations of externality. Without going into much detail, this is the largest drawback to already existing utopian socialist experiments – the same autonomy that allows a group to detach from imperialistic domination also becomes cloistered, stuck in place and lacking the renewal provided by increased circulation.
CIVIL WAR IS THE ALTERNATIVE TO THE SOCIAL. Against the social and socialism, we pit the common and communism. Our 'alternative institutions' are war machines and not organs of a new society. The goal cannot be to form a clique or to build the milieu. Insurrectionary communism intensifies truly common conditions for revolt – it extends what is already being expropriated, amplifies frustrations shared by everyone, and communicates in a form recognized by all. We fight for sleep, for every minute in bed is a moment wrested from capital. We deepen the hostility, for anger is what keeps people burning hot with fury during the cold protracted war waged by our faceless enemies. We spread images of insubordination, for such scenes remind everyone of the persistence of defiance in these cynical times. If we build infrastructure at all, it is conflict infrastructure. Most of the time, we take our cues from pirates, who would never strike out alone like Thoreau to invent something from scratch. They commandeer full-formed tools of society and refashion them into weapons. The other thing we have learned from pirates is that duration is a liability; abandon anything that becomes too costly to maintain – a project, a struggle, an identity – there are a million other places to intensify the conflict. But even in our life behind enemy lines, we agree with Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, who insist that war is only a secondary byproduct of the war machine; producing new connections is its primary function (A Thousand Plateaus, 416-23). We like how Tiqqun elaborates on this difficulty. If one focuses too much of living, they descend into the insulated narcissism of the milieu. If one focuses too much on struggling, they harden into an army, which only leads down the path of annihilation. The politics of civil war, then, is how exactly one builds the coincidence between living and struggling. Though most know it by its reworking, Call: to live communism and spread anarchy.
Tagged Activism, Autonomy, Capital, civil war, Communism, Cruelty, Deleuze, Deleuze & Guattari, Derrida, Hostis, Philosophy, Police, Political Theory, Politics, Power, Resistance, spectacle, StateLeave a comment
'5 Theses on the Politics of Cruelty' – Hostis: A Journal of Incivility
Posted on December 1, 2015 December 1, 2015 by youandwhosearmy?
(A preview from the forthcoming Issue of Hostis: A Journal of Incivility)
I). The politics that seduces us is not ethical, it is cruel.
We contrast the politics of cruelty to the politics of ethics. Ethics goes all the way back to the Greeks, whose ethics was the study of 'the good life.' Our interests do not lie in being better than our enemies.There is only cheap satisfaction in telling yourself that you have more exciting sex, stronger friendships, or fiercer personal convictions. The point is not to be better, but to win. Perhaps this leaves a bad taste in some mouths. However, we ask: is ethics not just a last resort for the impotent? Are ethical people what is left after struggles collapse into impossibility, futility, or counterproductivity
If abandoning ethics leaves one disturbed, it is because ethics is a wholly personal affair. To be ethical today is not even reformist – it is politics rendered as fantasy, a live action role play of those who 'mean well.' The sphere of ethical life is a world of braggarts and bullies looking for others to affirm that they have made the right personal choices. Ethics valorizes the virtue of activist intentions while leaving the systemic destruction of globally-integrated capital intact. In other words, it is fueled by the elitism of 'being better than everyone else.' And the problem with elitism is that it plunges us back into the milieu.
Cruelty has no truck with the individualism of ethics. It does not guide political action with virtue or best intentions. We are not looking to win the respect of those we wish to defeat. Ethics is the trap laid for those who walk the earth searching for respite from the destruction and violence of capital and the state. There is no use in making peace with an enemy whose realized interests entail your subjugation. There was nothing 'ethical' about the colonial world. And as Fanon reminds us, it could only be destroyed by giving up on an 'ethical' method. It is in this sense that a politics of cruelty picks up the old adage that one must 'destroy what destroys you'.
II). Few emotions burn like cruelty.
It is already old wisdom that emotions are at stake when we talk about becoming 'politicized.' Emotions are what render the speculative and abstract into a lived reality. Winning is not simply a question of having the right ideas or right principles, this is why we define politics as the transformation of ideas into a whole mode of existence where one's principles are at the same time one's impulsion toward the world. If the politics of cruelty follows from the belief that we must destroy what destroys us, the emotion of cruelty is revenge. Only this taste for revenge offers resistance to the voices of this world that tell us to put up with the daily violence done to us. To feel cruel is to know that we deserve better than this world; that our bodies are not for us to hate or to look upon with disgust; that our desires are not disastrous pathologies. To feel the burning passion of cruelty, then, is to reclaim refusal. We refuse to compromising ourselves and the million tiny compromises of patriarchy, capitalism, white-supremacy, heter/homo-normativity, and so on. As such, the subject of cruelty no longer convinces themselves to love the world or to find something in the world that redeems the whole. Simply put: the subject of cruelty learns to hate the world. The feeling of cruelty is the necessary correlate to the politics of cruelty; learning to hate the world is what correlates to the political task of destroying what destroys us all. And as we already noted, it is because these two principles have a long history behind them that a politics of cruelty does not posit itself as a novelty: The Women's Liberation movements are correct in saying: We are not castrated, so you get fucked.
III). Those motivated by cruelty are neither fair nor impartial.
Fairness is the correlate to the 'ethics-as-politics' paradigm. Why? Because fairness suggests that we relate to everyone in the same way. There is nothing about this world that encourages universal fairness or acting according to mutual support of any and all interests. Rather, we live in a world where everyone is pitted against each other – we have a structurally determined interest to be mean and to succeed at the expense of others. Fairness, as it currently exists, is the fairness of neoliberal competition; a state sponsored 'state of nature'. Impartiality is the counter-tendency to the subject of cruelty. Unlike the cruel subject who understands that there can be no agreement made between capital and its dispossessed, the impartial subject furthers the myth that agreements can and should be found between the two parties. Impartiality is the idea that power is symmetrical and that a social contract can give this symmetry its proper force through law.
We know that we are in the midst of a civil war. We act as partisans. And as in any war, we have friends and enemies. For our enemies, we have nothing but disdain, hatred, and cruelty. Our only engagement with them is when it strategically advances our side in the conflict. For our friends, we extend care, support, and solidarity.
Some say that capital and the state operate through cruelty; and contrary to their cruelty, our struggle is to take the higher ground. This is to misunderstand what few things are unique to our position. Our enemies must reproduce their bases of power, which is takes a costly investment in corrupt political systems, crumbling industrial infrastructure, and expensive wars of ideology. As anarchists, we do not need to reproduce much – we do not need to justify our actions, we do not need to be consistent in our activities, and we need not defend any of the institutions of this world. To limit ourselves even more than our enemies by following the narrow path of ethics is to give up our only advantage.
IV). Their actions speak with an intensity that does not desire permission, let alone seek it.
There is a qualitative difference between the cruelty exercised by us and the cruelty of capital and its State(s). In the United States, there is the idea that the 18th amendment guarantees the protection of citizens from 'cruel and unusual punishment.' This was to juridically curtail the power of the State over and against its citizenry. But due to the explicitly bourgeois heritage from which it emerges, this guarantee against State-cruelty only goes as far as the eyes of the State can see; that is, only insofar as two isolated individuals are coming into conflict with one another, and where the State intervenes impartially as the mediating third term. It is in this way that the curtailing of State-cruelty remains within the logic of recognition: metrics of intelligibility only pertain to situations of isolated actions. State recognition ignores situations of collective antagonism. What is more, is what we gain via the channels of State recognition (e.g., desegregation in the 1950's) was already being eroded through other State sanctioned economic mechanisms (e.g., redlining as early as the 1930's). The conclusion should be obvious by now: State-recognition is nothing more than the continuation of war by other means.
Thus, if our politics of cruelty seeks to destroy what destroys us coupled to its subjective correlate of revenge – which means our learning to hate the world while staving off the internalization of those norms which teach us to hate ourselves – then it is clear that our political-cruelty cannot treat the state and capital as reliable sources for recognition since what we want and need cannot be tolerated by globally integrated capital and thus pre-emptively renders us all variations of pathological, trouble-making, hysterical, killjoys alike.
V). While social anarchism sings lullabies of altruism, there are those who play with the hot flames of cruelty.
Altruism comes in at least two variants. The first is already well known; the emphasis on collectivist ethics that diffuses any antagonism through its criteria of absolute horizontalism. The second, more insidious, is a zealous altruism; here the emphasis is placed on the absolute destruction of the individual put in the service of actualizing an Idea. These are not the actions of the dispossessed. Rather, it is the altruism of an anarchists crucifixion. If the latter at least agrees that struggle is an ineluctable fact of politics, the zealous altruists weakness still lies in his belief that to engage in civil war means to burn out in the process. For every form of communal horizontalism that defers the moment of attack there is a correlating tendency to collapse heroism and martyrdom. Additionally, it is true that we have said that our political-cruelty seeks to destroy what destroys us. However, this does not necessitate the assertion that real transformation means our own self-destruction. There is a world of difference between converting structural oppression into a fight for abolition and identifying existential abolition as the proper means toward the abolition of capital as such. In a word: "Even if we had the power to blow it [the State] up, could we succeed in doing so without destroying ourselves, since it is so much a part of the conditions of life, including our organism and our very reason? The prudence with which we must manipulate that line, the precautions we must take to soften it, to suspend it, to divert it, to undermine it, testify to a long labor which is not merely aimed against the State and the powers that be, but directly at ourselves."
That said, the first iteration of altruism should not be given scant attention precisely because of its prevalence. In place of weaponizing our feelings of cruelty, social anarchism substitutes a straight forward Habermasianism sutured to the mantra of 'returning to a class based analysis'. This helps some sleep at night. Contra these political sedatives, we again confront the history and cruelty of our politics. What is at stake is the feminist lesson we must never forget: that the personal is political; that few emotions burn and catalyze collective insubordination like those of pain, vengeance, and cruelty. The lesson is that the efficacy of political-cruelty lies not in the never ending reflections and discussions on what pains us; rather, that emotions such as cruelty are what constitute the armature of our collective antagonism.
A Brief Note For Enemies And Allies:
We could care less about those whose politics amounts to being a good 'friend' to those who struggle, or being a good 'ally' by reading up on the history of people of color, queers, and so on. A politics of cruelty is not a politics of friendship; since we do not see a softer world here because sociability has its cruelties, friendship has its rivalries, and opinion has its antagonisms and bloody reversals.
Friendship is already too Greek, too philosophical, and too European for our politics of cruelty. In its place, we should reinvigorate the politics of the Guayaki in Paraguay or the many tribes in that territory known as Zoma. That is, political cruelty does not seek to be included into the universality proposed by the history of Western capitalism and instead seeks to find the means of escaping from a universality that was never ours from the start. For those who would prefer reductive formulations, we could say that while the West continues its process of inclusion and expansion, our political-cruelty maintains its relation to the Outside. To our enemies who get off on finding contradictions that abound in this politics of cruelty we say to them 'all the better!' For them, whose desire is to be the intelligible subjects of globally integrated capital, these contradictions are mere impasses on their road to being exceptions to the rule. To our allies, who opt for a politics of cruelty, we say 'savor these supposed contradictions!' From the point of view of political-cruelty a contradiction simply means that we have a weapon with more than one side.
Tagged Activism, Affect, Autonomy, Biopolitics, Capital, Communism, Cruelty, Deleuze & Guattari, Dialectics, Ethics, Fanon, Feminism, Feminist Theory, Hostis, Labor, Marx, Materialism, Negation, Police, Political Theory, Politics, Queer Theory, Racism, Resistance, Rupture, Surveillance, Tiqqun1 Comment
ON DESTROYING WHAT DESTROYS YOU: Hostis interviews Thomas Nail
Posted on June 30, 2015 June 30, 2015 by youandwhosearmy?
An interview with Thomas Nail. For original piece click here.
Hostis: One may see the aims of Hostis and feel a tinge of moral discomfort when it begins to ask questions regarding the status of migrants, of refugees, and of exiles [1], if only for the very reason that there remains some commitment on our part to the idea that to be content with a politics of recognition and a strategy of representation perpetuates the illusion of emancipation when all that can be achieved is Statist inclusion. In other words, once recognition as political strategy is exhausted, the very people who are indexed by this representation are left wanting. In this same vein, then, we might say that the question of representation, recognition, and the figure of the migrant forces us to go one step further⎯to say that "the real content of the demand 'citizenship papers for all!' could also be formulated as: everyone must have citizenship papers so that we can all burn them."[2] How does your concept of "migrant cosmopolitanism" deal with the potential merits and many shortcomings of this exhaustive and truncated application of Statist inclusion?
Thomas Nail: Historically, there have been numerous figures of the migrant. For example, the nomad, the barbarian, the vagabond, and the proletariat are four major kinds of migratory figures. For me, the figure of the migrant is not a class or identity; it is a vector (a position in motion). As such, anyone can move into and out of it as territorial, political, juridical, and economic factors change. This position is one defined by the primacy of movement and can be formulated in the following way: the figure of the migrant is the political figure who is socially expelled or dispossessed as a result, or as the cause, of their mobility. The migrant is the collective name for all the political figures in history who have been territorially, politically, juridically, and economically displaced as a condition of the social expansion of power.
Migrants are the true movers of history and political transformation, but this does not mean their movements are immune from cooptation by states, capital, or other forms of expulsion. In fact, it is their captured motion that is the very condition of social power in the first place (slavery, serfdom, waged labor, and so on). In this sense I think it is too simplistic to say that all of their movements are either antistate or reformist, in part because the difference between reformist acts and revolutionary acts is not an essential or formal one, it is a contingent and material one. An act is revolutionary when it results in revolution. Burning passports may or may not be revolutionary; it depends on the collective effects.
However, what is interesting to me about the figure of the migrant is that it has produced some pretty incredible collective effects that are completely outside territorial, statist, juridical, and capitalist circuits of social motion (slave and maroon societies, vagabond collectives, workers communes, and so on). If we want to think seriously about the possibilities of some kind of social organization distinct from the reactionary forces of territorial nation-states and capitalism, then we should start with those historically invented by migrants. Cosmopolitanism is the name often taken by the reactionary forces of states toward "including" migrants. This is not the worst thing that could happen, but it also does not accurately describe the tendency of what I am calling "migrant cosmopolitanism" to create nonexpulsive social structures outside such structures of representation.
H: Do you see "migrant cosmopolitanism" as something distinct from more reformist and liberal notions of seeking the inclusion of, and the granting of rights to undocumented persons? The occupation of the Saint Bernard church, which you have thought a lot about and which lasted from June 28 to August 23, 1996, strikes one as being something more than a politics of recognition. You also mention the No One Is Illegal migrant justice group based in Toronto as embodying the subversive and more radical aspects of the struggles around immigration, political refugees, and exiles. Obviously the tenacity of these struggles came from their level of self-organization and their ability to gain various forms of popular support, both materially and symbolically. What is it about these examples of migrant struggles that point beyond the shortcomings of a type of liberal approach to piecemeal reformism?
TN: What is so exciting to me about these movements is that they are not just asking for rights, they are demanding the abolition of citizenship altogether in a very specific way: by creating autonomous communities open to anyone regardless of their status. The slogan "Status for All" can be interpreted in two ways: "Everyone who lives here should have legal status within the juridical nation-state" or "If everyone has status, no one has status." The latter is consistent with No One is Illegal's demand for the abolition of nation-states and borders. Universal status undermines the territorial and national aspects of the state, and therefore undermines the state tout court. I have written elsewhere about the details of their Solidarity City campaign in Toronto.[3] The aim of this campaign is to bypass the state altogether and organize migrants, social service providers, and allies into mutually supportive relations, regardless of status. Another example I have written about in Returning to Revolution is the Zapatistas.[4] The Zapatistas are indigenous people in Mexico expelled from their land. As migrants in their own country, they have decided to not simply demand rights from the state or migrate to the United States, but to build autonomous communes with their own nonexpulsive social structure.
H: Between 2008-2010 there was some publicity around the notion of migrant struggles taking up the idea of "demanding the right to stay home."[5] This idea of trying to force a situation on the State where migrants don't have to leave, don't have to live the vicissitudes of migration itself also strikes us as something of interest, primarily for two reasons. First, the demand is situated in terms of an initial refusal to migrate, the demand to not be forced to live the life and fate of migrants moving from the global south to the global north; and second, because this initial refusal also refuses what capitalism has increasingly gained ahold of, namely, public imagination and a people's way of investing and/or desiring a certain future. As Guattari said, "In my view, this huge factory, this mighty capitalistic machine also produces what happens to us when we dream, when we daydream, when we fantasize, when we fall in love, and so on."[6] So this initial refusal of being forced into the life of a migrant also acts as a refusal of investing in a future that coincides with whatever capitalism codes and reformulates as a desirable life for everyone⎯moving to a Western country, living a suburban lifestyle, replicating the heteronormative narratives found in Hollywood/Blockbuster cinema in one's own personal life, or what have you. Simply put, this "demand for the right to stay home" fights at the level of "forms-of-life," and not simply at the level of Statist recognition of certain rights. What, if anything, has your work on these issues helped you clarify for yourself and others regarding this difference between struggling for State inclusion versus struggling for a 'form-of-life'? Or do you perhaps find this distinction unhelpful, outdated, conceptually ineffective, and so on?
TN: This is a great example and I deal with it at more length in The Figure of the Migrant.[7] But in short, let me make two points. First, the "right to stay home" is a migrant movement and not the rejection of migration. Most folks involved in this movement are people who have already been expelled from their homes at one point or another. "The right to stay home" could just as easily be called "the right to return home" since most are already migrants. Take for example the millions of Mexican migrants in the United States who would much rather be back home in Mexico with their families. Or think of the millions of indigenous people around the world who are being expelled from their land by the capitalist accumulation of agricultural land. Even if they are not yet territorially expelled, they are already juridically, politically, and economically expelled from their social status in order to facilitate their geographical displacement. Even if some people are allowed to stay, what does this mean if everything around them has been destroyed by mining companies, monocrop farms, hydroelectric dams, and so on. One can become a migrant even if it is only the environment that changes.
Second, the idea of a migrant social movement around the right to stay or return home is a very old one. This strategy was the invention of the ancient figure of the migrant: the barbarian. The ancient world (Sumer, Greece, Egypt, Rome) is absolutely filled with slave revolts by captured barbarians, only a fraction of which were recorded in any detail, unfortunately. The primary demand of almost all of these revolts was the same: to return home or find a new home. In fact, this is the etymological meaning of the world "revolt" in the context of mass slavery: to return home. There is a fascinating reason why this becomes the dominant form of counterpower in the ancient world. For me this is less an issue of "form-of-life" than the "form-of-motion" proper to the migrant.
H: In Means Without End, Agamben presents the refugee as a figure of the threshold. Agamben's other chosen figures are quite tragic, the most famous being Bartleby and the muselmann of the camp. This is all to say that theoretical takes of the refugee routinely associate them with the power of incapacity. We're curious about why popular media seems all too ready to also characterize them in this way. Most high-profile news events, such as the recent migrant boat disasters in the Mediterranean, depict them as helpless. What is the form of power you find most useful in your analysis?
TN: Ah, yes. Agamben has this great line in his essay "Beyond Human Rights" that is very inspiring to me. He says, "It is even possible that, if we want to be equal to the absolutely new tasks ahead, we will have to abandon decidedly, without reservation, the fundamental concepts through which we have so far represented the subjects of the political (Man, the Citizen and its rights, but also the sovereign people, the worker, and so forth) and build our political philosophy anew starting from the one and only figure of the refugee."[8] It's too bad he never followed up on this claim. I agree with the spirit of his point but I disagree about the content and method of this claim. This quote is one of the reasons I wanted to write The Figure of the Migrant. Agamben is on the right track, but he does not see the refugee as only one among many other figures of the migrant as I do, and therefore as part of a much larger philosophical project focusing on political motion and migrant counterpower.
But to your question: The refugee is an ancient figure of the migrant related to the barbarian. The two emerge at roughly the same time in history in the context of widespread slave revolts. Only when there is barbarism and slavery can there be the escaped slave who seeks asylum. The refugee (from the Latin word fugere) is the one who reflees: first being forced to flee one's homeland as a captured slave, and then having to flee one's captor in favor of the refugium, or ἄσυλον (asulon, asylum). But the political limit of the figure of the refugee is that it does not follow the same imperative to revolt or "return home" as with barbarians like Spartacus, the Goths, and others who tried to fight their way to freedom. Instead, the refugee remains tied to the refugium. In this way the refugee was simply bound to a new master: the god, temple, and priests that managed all the first refugee asylums for escaped slaves in the ancient world.
Of course, I do not want to say that this means all refugees are helpless! My point is simply that the political figure of the refugee has a long genealogy that is still active today and tends to imply in its genealogy someone who is simply looking for a new master, a new nation-state, church, or refuge. Nation-states prefer dealing with this figure and would like to keep this historical meaning. Compare this to the refugee's historical twin, the barbarian! The barbarian is wild, chaotic, destructive, mobile, active, powerful, and so on: the destroyer of civilization. Historically, the barbarian is to be feared and the refugee is to be pitied by the gods. On this point I am against Agamben and on the side of Nietzsche, Benjamin, Hardt, Negri, and many of the anarchists of the nineteenth century: we need a new barbarism.
H: We are quite inspired by migrants' penchant for burning down the detention centers in which they are held captive. High-profile events include riots where inmates have taken over or destroyed large parts of facilities, as in Texas, Australia, and across the EU. Most political commentators have nothing positive to say about these events, though sometimes a litany of abusive practices come to light. Hostis is happy to celebrate these moments as a collective demonstration of the anarchist principle "destroy what destroys you." What do you see in this insistent desire to rebel?
TN: This brings us to another figure of the migrant: the vagabond. The masterless men and women of the Middle Ages (serfs, peasants, beggars, witches, rogues, and so on) significantly developed the migrant art of rebellion in its strictly etymological sense: turning back in direct violence. Since barbarians are kidnapped from their home, their counterpower is related to their desire to return home. All violence is a means to the ends of escape. While barbarian slaves could potentially escape the limits of their empires, by the Middle Ages there were fewer and fewer places left to flee outside the jurisdiction of some lord or another. Thus, vagabonds increasingly began to directly confront authority from within, by rebelling. This is not to say that there were not also raids or revolts of some kind, or that direct violence was missing from raids and revolts in previous ages, but simply that during the Middle Ages the primary goal of most migrant counterpower was less about supplies (raiding) or radical escape (revolt) than about direct assassination, political murder, burning, revenge, and desecration from within society without the goal of leaving it. Today the figure of the vagabond persists in migrant attacks on detention centers, the burning of passports, squatting, theft of electricity, property destruction, violent battles with police, and so on.
H: To hazard a deceptively straightforward postcolonial question: what does the migrant tell us about ourselves?
TN: Well, for one, we are all becoming migrants.[9] People today relocate to greater distances more frequently than ever before in human history. While many people may not move across a regional or international border, they tend to change jobs more often, commute longer and farther to work,[10] change their residence repeatedly, and tour internationally more often.[11] Some of these phenomena are directly related to recent events, such as the impoverishment of middle classes in certain rich countries after the financial crisis of 2008, subsequent austerity cuts to social welfare programs, and rising unemployment. The subprime mortgage crisis led to the expulsion of millions of people from their homes worldwide, 9 million in the United States alone. Foreign investors and governments have acquired 540 million acres since 2006, resulting in the eviction of millions of small farmers in poor countries; and mining practices have become increasingly destructive around the world, including hydraulic fracturing and tar sands. This general increase in human mobility and expulsion is now widely recognized as a defining feature of the twenty-first century.[12] "A specter haunts the world and it is the specter of migration."[13]
However, not all migrants are alike in their movement.[14] For some, movement offers opportunity, recreation, and profit with only a temporary expulsion. For others, movement is dangerous and constrained, and their social expulsions are much more severe and permanent. Today most people fall somewhere on this migratory spectrum between the two poles of "inconvenience" and "incapacitation." But what all migrants on this spectrum share, at some point, is the experience that their movement results in a certain degree of expulsion from their territorial, political, juridical, or economic status. Even if the end result of migration is a relative increase in money, power, or enjoyment, the process of migration itself almost always involves an insecurity of some kind and duration: the removal of territorial ownership or access, the loss of the political right to vote or to receive social welfare, the loss of legal status to work or drive, or the financial loss associated with transportation or change in residence. For all these reasons, the migrant is becoming the political figure of our time.
Thomas Nail is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Denver and author of The Figure of the Migrant (Stanford University Press, 2015) and Returning to Revolution: Deleuze, Guattari, and Zapatismo (Edinburgh University Press, 2012). His publications can be accessed at: udenver.academia.edu/ThomasNail
Hostis is a journal of negation. Fed up with the search for a social solution to the present crisis, it aspires to be attacked wildly and painted as utterly black without a single virtue. Hostis Issue 1: Cruelty is available from Little Black Cart. It is currently accepting submissions on the topic of "Beyond Recognition." More information can be found at incivility.org.
1. For instance, in the CFP for issue 2 we begin by asserting the following: "Seeking recognition is always servile. We have little interest in visibility, consciousness raising, or populist pandering."
2.Tiqqun, Untitled Notes on Immigration
3. Thomas Nail, "Building Sanctuary City: No One is Illegal–Toronto on Non-Status Migrant Justice Organizing," Upping the Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action no. 11 (2010): 149–162.
4.Thomas Nail, Returning to Revolution: Deleuze, Guattari, and Zapatismo (Edinburgh University Press, 2012).
5. See David Bacon's 2008 article 'Immigration and the Right to Stay Home' (http://www.alternet.org/story/92639/immigration_and_the_right_to_stay_home) & his 2010 piece 'All Over the World, Migrants Demand the Right to Stay Home' (http://inthesetimes.com/article/15793/all_over_the_world_migrants_demand_the_right_to_stay_at_home)
6. Félix Guattari, Molecular Revolutions in Brazil
7. Thomas Nail, The Figure of the Migrant (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015).
8. Giorgio Agamben, "Beyond Human Rights" in Means Without Ends (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 16.
9. With the rise of home foreclosure and unemployment people today are beginning to have much more in common with migrants than with certain notions of citizenship (grounded in certain social, legal, and political rights). "All people may now be wanderers": Zygmunt Bauman, Globalization: The Human Consequences (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 87. "Migration must be understood in a broad sense": Nikos Papastergiadis, The Turbulence of Migration: Globalization, Deterritorialization, and Hybridity (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2000), 2.
10. World Bank's World Development Indicators 2005: Section 3 Environment, Table 3.11, http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=141.
11.International annual tourist arrivals exceeded 1 billion globally for the first time in history in 2012. World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), "World Tourism Barometer," vol. 11, 2013, http://dtxtq4w60xqpw.cloudfront.net/sites/all/files/pdf/unwto_barom13_01_jan_excerpt_0.pdf.
12. I use the word "expulsion" here in the same sense in which Saskia Sassen uses it to indicate a general dispossession or deprivation of social status. See Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014), 1–2. Many scholars have noted a similar trend. For an excellent review of the "mobilities" literature on migration, see Alison Blunt, "Cultural Geographies of Migration: Mobility, Transnationality and Diaspora," Progress in Human Geography 31 (2007): 684–94.
13.Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 213.
14. Bauman, Globalization.
Tagged Agamben, Biopolitics, Hostis, Migration, Politics, ResistanceLeave a comment
Hostis Vol. 2 CFP – 'Beyond Recognition'
Posted on May 2, 2015 May 2, 2015 by youandwhosearmy?
Seeking recognition is always servile. We have little interest in visibility, consciousness raising, or populist pandering. Recognition always treats power as a give-and-take. On the one hand, the dispossessed use recognition as respite from exploitation; while on the other, the State expects its authority to be recognized as the first and final say. According to this logic: for the dispossessed to even get a step up, they must first acknowledge a higher power than themselves.
The particulars of our own time are even more obscene. Following the spread of economic rationality on a global scale, it is clear that the flow of forces has reversed. The State pornographically exposes its long-protected interior for others to abuse while lasciviously grooming what is beyond its regular reach. Recognition chastely reassures the State of its powers. All the while, the most banal State functions are farmed out to the highest bidder. So when their parking ticket is authored by a private corporation, those who seek recognition fall back on the State dictum that nothing good comes from the outside.
By far the worst aspect of recognition is its role in resolution. From where we stand, civil society appears only as a degraded arm of the state. Collective process, democratic representation, and community accountability might feel radical, but they are the actions of the State dressed in black. They transform our desire for antagonism into 'agonistic' fuel for the engine of statecraft. The process of recognition that begins with a riotous insurrection, makes into an angry mob, into an unruly crowd, into a gathering of concerned citizens, into a protest organization, into a political party, and finally into a class of legislators. Some enlightened 'direct democrats' believe in abbreviating the process of resolution in a return to representation. Our path is far darker. Ours is the 'mad black communism' that haunts the good will of these leftist party bureaucrats. This does not simply mean a politics where your socialist party finance minister wears a suit without a tie, or walks the halls of Parliament with his hands in his pockets. It means, first of all, to transform what is present within riotous insurrection into sites of material leverage, to the point where any 'movement' worthy of the name is, in itself, irreversible.
However, it is worth noting that there is nothing new in saying we must move beyond recognition. Remembering Stokely Carmichael on non-violence, we refuse the game of back-and-forth. Add to this the reminder from our 'Tarnac' friends that 'waiting is madness… [because] we are already situated within the collapse of a civilization. It is within this reality that we must choose sides.' It is this manner in which we assert that waiting for recognition is like waiting for the democracy to come: a war by other means waged through infinite deferral. As in warfare, there are enemies whether regardless of whether a declaration of formal conflict is recognized. Empire does not have a conscience. Empire does not give a shit about critique.
From these friends and their allies we must learn how to weaponize the concrete asymmetry between Empire and the dispossessed. We are drawn to those who sharpen the gap between the State and its subjects, not into biting tongues but cutting edges. Thus, against the State's idealized invocation of authority, Hostis listens to military strategists who say that opening with a concession is to begin from a position of weakness. The point of Hostis is to spread the crisis of representation; to antagonize the vulgar translation at every step along the way. Hostis evades recognition altogether. It leaves the job of identification to the police.
We are looking for submissions that elude recognition. In addition to scholarly essays, we are looking for any original work suited to the printed page: strategic diagrams, logistical maps, printed code, how-to instructions, photo-essays, illustrations, or mixed-media art. To remain consistent with the journal's point of view, we seek material whose tone is abrasive, mood is cataclysmic, style is gritty, and voice is impersonal. Submissions will be selected by an editorial collective. Contributors should expect to receive critical feedback in the first stage of review requesting revisions to improve their submission and make it consistent with the other contributions selected for inclusion. While we are not soliciting proposals, we are happy to comment on possible submissions before official review. The deadline for submissions is September 1st, 2015 at which point we will begin the review process. All submissions should be sent to hostis.journal@gmail.com as MS Word, rtf, pdf, jpg, or png files. Include a title, author name, content, and any formatting requests. Expect to complete requested revisions between November-December, 2015.
Tagged Activism, Capital, Hostis, Political TheoryLeave a comment
Hostis: A Journal of Incivility – Now Available
Posted on January 12, 2015 May 2, 2015 by youandwhosearmy?
It was great to get to work with AC over at AwC on this project – a huge thanks to AC as well for doing a huge chunk of the work in putting this journal together. Snag yourself one of the sandpaper cover copies (limited to 100) while you still can.
Our journal 'Hostis' is now available via Little Black Cart. Thanks to our publisher Ardent Press. The first 100 copies of this journal have been printed with sandpaper covers (they couldn't do more because it was chewing up the equipment).
Hostis is a negation. It emerges devoid of ethics, lacking any sense of democracy, and without a care for pre-figuring anything. Fed up with the search for a social solution to the present crisis, it aspires to be attacked wildly and painted as utterly black without a single virtue.
In thought, Hostis is the construction of incommensurability that figures politics in formal asymmetry to the powers that be.
In action, Hostis is an exercise in partisanship – speaking in a tongue made only for those that it wants to listen. This partisanship is neither the work of fascists, who look for fights to give their limp lives temporary jolts of…
Tagged Activism, Capital, Hostis, Political Theory, PoliticsLeave a comment


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Ghana Politics News OnlineLocal News in Ghana Today
Tragedy hits NDC again days to elections as chairman in Eastern region dies
a month ago read comments by Mohammed Awal
- Dr. Godfred Osei Bonsu died on Tuesday, December 1, 2020, according to a Starrfm.com.gh report
- The late chairman of the party in the Nsawan Adoagyiri constituency was also a former MCE
- His death comes days after two supporters of the party died in a gory accident in the Bono region
Another tragedy has hit the National Democratic Congress, YEN.com.gh can report.
It follows the passing of the chairman of the party in the Nsawan Adoagyiri constituency in the Eastern region just days to the general elections.
A former Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Dr. Godfred Osei Bonsu, died on Tuesday, December 1, 2020, Starrfm.com.gh reported.
Tragedy hit NDC again days to elections; chairman in Eastern region dead Source: Twitter|NDC
In a statement announcing Bonsu's passing, the party said its campaign strategy had been dealt a deep blow five days to December 7, 2020.
Vote my husband; he neither quavers in despair nor shirks responsibility - Rebecca Akufo-Addo
"Indeed, he has left us all dumbfounded and speechless," mourned the party.
The latest tragedy in the largest opposition party comes on the back of a car crash in the Banda constituency of the Bono region that claimed the lives of two of its supporters.
They were on their way to a political programme. At least, 12 others were injured in the crash.
Also, on Saturday, November 21, 2020, in the Ashanti region, six supporters of the same party died on the spot in another accident while about 50 others sustained various degrees of injuries.
Meanwhile, the national hierarchy of the party declared a three-day prayer and fasting ahead of the elections to seek God's intercession.
A series of polls published days to the elections dimmed the party's chances in the elections.
NDC announces another prayer and fasting 5 days to elections
The latest, published on Tuesday, December 1, 2020, said Akufo-Addo would beat the presidential candidate of the party, John Dramani Mahama, in the presidential race.
According to the poll, the president would be victorious with 56.6 percent of the valid votes cast while Mahama would collect 38.8 percent.
In an earlier report, YEN.com.gh reported that First Lady, Rebecca Akufo-Addo, urged Ghanaians to reject Mahama and retain her husband, President Akufo-Addo.
In an adoring appeal to electorates, Rebecca expressed confidence in the future of Ghana under the stewardship of her husband.
According to her, Akufo-Addo had shown since taking oath office "the clearest vision" about the West African country.
Have national and human interest issues to discuss? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome.
Get interactive via our Facebook page.
NDC - National Democratic Congress
Top ten dancehall artist in the world Happy weekend
I would vote for Mahama - TV star Bridget Otoo gives reason for December 7 decision

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Today is Achebe day at the Nigerian Senate; House wants monument named after him
Senate defends unpopular N5.5 billion spending on official cars – why it matters
Nigeria Prisons Service has a new name – why it matters
Why PDP's constitutional concern about Edo Assembly shutdown by NASS is valid
Lawan says he is not Buhari's rubber stamp – but Nigerians are right to be concerned
TheScoop
by Dare Lawal
The Senate has scheduled a session on Wednesday in honour of the late Chinua Achebe, who died on March 21 in the United States.
During the senate's sitting on Tuesday, a senator from Anambra, Chris Ngige raised a motion on matters of urgent national importance.
Ngige, acknowledged and said he was pleased with the deluge of tributes flowing in for the late Achebe who he described as his "constituent."
Over at the House of Representatives, the legislators urged the Federal Government to name the National Library under construction or any other monument in the country in the honour of late Achebe.
According to reports:
The motion was moved by Rep.Charles Odedo (ACN -Anambra). The motion entitled: "Tribute to Professor Chinua Achebe'' was adopted in Abuja when put to vote by Speaker Aminu Tambuwal.
Odedo said the late Achebe brought honour to Nigeria with his literary works that included his novel, "Things Fall apart''.
He said the novel, which was written in 1958, had been translated into more than 50 languages, and had sold more than 12 million copies.
Odedo said the late Achebe in 1992 was represented in Everyman's Library Collection.
Contributing to the debate, Hassan Saleh (PDP-Benue) said the late Achebe was one of the greatest human beings to have emerged from Nigeria.
He said the late Achebe had done so much in his literary works for "past generation and other generations to come''.
The legislator urged members to support the motion so that future generations would draw lessons from the late literary icon.
In his tribute to the late Achebe, Toby Ikechukwu (PDP-Enugu) said the writer was a poet and novelist, adding that his works represented various stages of Nigeria's democracy.
Ali Madaki (PDP-Kano) said Nigerians do not celebrate their heroes until their death.
He said: "We should learn to identify our heroes when they are alive and not wait until they are dead."
The motion was not opposed and the Speaker, thereafter, referred it to the Committee on Governmental Affairs for further legislative inputs.
Related Topics:Chinua Achebe, National Assembly, Senate
Putting the House in order – Tambuwal sacks Lawan
Sen. Etok, the senator who Gov. Akpabio claimed to have made, is disappointed with the governor


Search remarketing can produce great results: after all, you're targeting searchers who already know your website. That's good, as far as it goes, but what if you want more of those searchers?
What about those people who are searching for similar things? What of the potential new customers who haven't yet discovered your website?
Drum roll, please…Google has just extended search remarketing reach, with the launch this month of similar audiences for search.
Using machine learning, Google identifies searchers who are currently conducting comparable searches to those people who recently visited your website and are on your remarketing lists.
Citing results for beta advertisers such as John Deere and Fiat Chrysler, Google reports that similar audiences for search produced substantially higher clickthrough and conversion rates in beta testing.
While logic suggests we assume the improvements in performance to be in comparison with visits from other new search visitors, Google and its beta advertisers did not explicitly say as much.
You want to attract better qualified visitors to your site, of course you do. But what's the catch?
None really, except that you'll need to have remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) that include at least 1,000 cookies. And they'll need to have enough recent participants who exhibited similar search behaviours for Google to create a similar audience.
For our clients, we'll be using this new targeting option where appropriate, learning from our results before customising bid modifiers or targeting similar audiences separately.
We'll also be refining RLSA audience lists as necessary to improve RLSA and similar audiences for search performance. WordStream reports good results in beta tests from applying remarketing lists to dynamic search ad campaigns (RDSAs), something we're also keen to test.
Of course, in using similar audiences for search to attract new visitors to client websites, we'll also be building and improving our remarketing lists.
No, you won't have people on both your remarketing and similar audiences lists. Google says it automatically updates Similar Audience lists based on member activity, removing people once they have visited your website.
Bonus Points for Retail websites: With this announcement, if you're running Google Shopping campaigns you can now also use similar audience and Customer Match lists for Shopping.


Friday was busy for me – Finn to the vet (he's fine!), real-work busy-ness, horse-shoer….bottom line, when I got ready to get a project together to share with you for today, I needed to select from one of my quicker to-do-list goodies!
Besides being quick and easy – they're quite paper-efficient! You can get 7 of them from one 12″ x 12″ piece of DSP!
I started with a 2″ x 10″ strip of Whole Lot of Lovely DSP and, on the long side – scored and folded it at 3″ and 3 3/4″. The long end is punched with my Scalloped Tag Topper Punch.
With my 3/4″ Circle Punch, I punched a hole in the rough center of the shorter panel.
With Fast Fuse, I adhered the end of the shorter panel to the "back" of the holder, creating the pocket for the pen.
I stamped the sentiment from Truly Tailored in Tangerine Tango on Whisper White – then I fussy cut it. With the Tailored Tag Punch, I created a mat from Pool Party card stock.
I adhered the sentiment to the mat and then to the pen holder with Liquid Glue and added a Rhinestone Basic Jewel.
I threaded a length of Calypso Coral ribbon from the Sale-A-Bration 3/8″ Shimmer Ribbon Pack (available and free for the rest of today only!) thru the top. I tied it with some Silver Baker's Twine in a simple knot.
I stuck a Glue Dot to the back of the cap of my Sharpie highlighter, stuck it in the hole I'd punched with the 3/4″ Circle Punch, and stuck it to the back of the holder.
Et Voila! Use any DSP you like! Add any sentiment! What fun gifts for teachers or kids headed off to college!! Or – Stampin' Up! Demonstrators! I hope you like – and that you'll whip up a few (dozen?) for yourself!
1. All orders of $50 or greater (before shipping and taxes) placed through my online store between now and the end of the today (31 Mar) will earn DOUBLE PEPPERMINT REWARD POINTS!!
Second – Sale-A-Bration ends tonight – meaning your last chance to get those cool SAB freebies has almost flown the coop! Time to get off the stick and grab your favorites before it's too late! Take a gander thru the three SAB flyers – just to be sure you haven't missed anything!
Third – this is the last day to join the Stampin' Up! team and reap the SAB benefits of TWO ADDITIONAL stamp sets for FREE!!
Right now during Sale–A-Bration is the very best time! Cuz – on top of your awesome Starter Kit (in which you'll pick $125 and pay $99 plus tax, with free shipping!), you get to pick TWO ADDITIONAL STAMP SETS ABSOLUTELY FREE!!
And – you're guaranteed to be active for the release of the new 2018-2019 Annual Catalog in June! And you'll be snapping up all the new goodies with your cool 20% discount!
So – time to get a move on – and cash in all the goodness that's only going to be around for the rest of today! These great deals won't be back again until the 2019 Sale-A-Bration, so…. you know what you need to do!
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Well. Finn is doing much better today – thank you to all his Finn-Friends for the well-wishes yesterday!
Now – I know in my heart he wasn't feeling well. I do. I could feel it.
But. His behavior at the vet – while perfectly sweet as always – didn't really make me think he was feeling all that bad.
Like…if dogs had guile (which I don't believe they do!), he'd be the kid who held the thermometer up to a light bulb and had a shocking temperature of 146 degrees!
The vet and the tech came in and sat with him on the floor – which he "hated".
By which I mean – he LOVED that! He was all up in the tech's lap – and loving all over her (fickle thing) the whole time!
Smiling his great big Finn-Kujo smile! Wiggling his wagger as hard and as fast as it would wiggle.
Bottom line – vet thinks he just wasn't feeling well – nothing too worrisome or earth-shattering. We left with pills for nausea and diarrhea, and a "prescription" for chicken and rice to eat for the rest of the day.
He did well all the rest of the day – yes, he does enjoy a nice scoop of homemade chicken and rice, thank-you-very-much.
So – today, if the night went well – he'll go to Doggie Day camp and I'll make the trek north to get a hair cut!
Well, Mary, I don't know if you saw Kristi's post about the page not being here. I got the email about new post and it said, "not found". I figured it was the same deal as when we schedule our blogs and it just wasn't live yet. Anyway, I had to enter your url to be able to get to this page. Couldn't get to it from the email like usual. Weird!
Anyway, I really like this marker idea. Cute little gifts. I will be making a BUNCH of these for an upcoming event so I have a little something for each guest.Thanks. Clever of you to 'pun' the sentiment!!
HOLY COW……a 106 lbs!!! That is fabulous…..congratulations. What an accomplishment. Even though you have a few more lbs. to meet your goal……that is amazing. I have struggled with weight all my adult life….so I know how difficult it is to do. Sure hope your "fur-baby" is feeling better. It is so hard when you feel that they are not up to par & you sure wish they could tell you what is going on. Like the new blog……need to get used to the wonky font, but I like it. My resolution was to send more cards out….I love to create them & why not share them with more people. They don't lift spirits sitting in my craft room!!! So far, doing pretty good on that resolution. Sure wish I could do the "lbs. thing" but hasn't been a success……..yet! Again, a BIG congratulations.
It's so funny, I just saw The Papered Chef yesterday and looked at this. I didn't get the notice of you posting this morning though…only through your second post. I'm glad you sent out a second post otherwise I would have missed your boy. These holders are cute and I love the pun.


text:
El Chapo's lawyer admonished for opening statement
The lawyer for El Chapo made a statement that riled Mexican presidents by accusing them of taking bribes
El Chapo's lawyer admonished for opening statement The lawyer for El Chapo made a statement that riled Mexican presidents by accusing them of taking bribes Check out this story on detroitnews.com: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/nation/2018/11/14/el-chapo-lawyer-admonished/38527241/
Tom Hays, Associated Press Published 1:03 p.m. ET Nov. 14, 2018
In this courtroom sketch Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, center, sits next to his defense attorney Eduardo Balazero, left, for opening statements as Guzman's high-security trial gets underway in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018. Guzman pleaded not guilty to charges that he amassed a multi-billion-dollar fortune smuggling tons of cocaine and other drugs in a vast supply chain that reached New York, New Jersey, Texas and elsewhere north of the border. The infamous Mexican drug lord has been held in solitary confinement since his extradition to the United States early last year. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)(Photo: Elizabeth Williams / AP)
New York – A federal judge admonished the lawyer for Mexican drug smuggler El Chapo on Wednesday after an opening statement that riled Mexican presidents by accusing them of taking bribes.
Federal prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan to throw out the defense's opening statement at the New York trial of Joaquin Guzman, saying it was "permeated with improper argument, unnoticed affirmative defenses and inadmissible hearsay."
Cogan stopped short of that Wednesday but admonished defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman for having gone "far afield of direct or circumstantial proof." He said he would instruct the jury to focus on the evidence.
"Your opening statement handed out a promissory note that your case is not going to cash," the judge said, calling Lichtman's opening misleading.
In his opening statement Tuesday, Lichtman told jurors that U.S. prosecutors had dreamed "for decades" of convicting Guzman, adding "the world is focusing on this mythical El Chapo figure."
Lichtman said his client was not the real leader of a cartel that sent tons of cocaine into the U.S. He sought to shift blame to Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, another reputed drug trafficker in the cartel's leadership. Zambada remains on the loose in Mexico, Lichtman claimed, because of bribes that "go up to the very top," including hundreds of millions of dollars paid to the current and former presidents of Mexico.
"This is a case that will require you to throw out much of what you were taught to believe in about the way governments work and how they behave, governments in South and Central American and Mexico and even the United States," Lichtman said. "This is a case which will require you to open your minds to the possibility that government officials at the very highest level can be bribed, can conspire to commit horrible crimes– that American law enforcement agents can also be crooked."
A spokesman for Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto called the allegations "completely false and defamatory." Former President Felipe Calderon dismissed them as "absolutely false and reckless."
Guzman, who has been held in solitary confinement since his extradition to the United States early last year, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he amassed a multibillion-dollar fortune smuggling tons of cocaine and other drugs in a vast supply chain that reached well north of the border.
Despite his diminutive stature and nickname that means "Shorty" in Spanish, Guzman was once a larger-than-life figure in Mexico who has been compared to Al Capone and Robin Hood and been the subject of ballads known as narcocorridos.
Lichtman resumed his opening statement Wednesday, describing "the myth of El Chapo" as "very strong." He said law enforcement agents had his client autograph $100 bills for them upon his arrest.
"Mr. Guzman was somebody who enjoyed the publicity," Lichtman said. "He enjoyed the notoriety."
The defense attorney also described the government's witnesses as liars seeking to mitigate their own jail sentences. "They're here because they want to get out of jail by any means necessary," Lichtman said.
Federal prosecutors gave jurors a video tour of a tunnel between Mexico and an Arizona warehouse – a corridor Guzman allegedly used to speed drug deliveries to America. The warehouse was just two blocks from a U.S. Customs office.
The tunnel was half the length of a football field and large enough that a 5-foot-8-inch man barely had to lower his head to walk through it. It was equipped with electric lights and a hydraulic system to lift away flooring that was covered by a pool table.
Retired U.S. Customs Agent Carlos Salazar, the trial's first witness, told jurors that agents were surprised at how sophisticated the tunnel was. Authorities used heavy tools to smash through concrete, he said, only to realize later that it all would have opened up on the Mexican side with the twist of a water faucet valve.
"We didn't know there was a hydraulic system," Salazar said. "We didn't know the floor came up."
Read or Share this story: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/nation/2018/11/14/el-chapo-lawyer-admonished/38527241/


We ask that dogs are kept on a lead around the immediate vicinity of the house and Peacock Cafe as there are chickens and Peacocks within this area.. However, once you are approaching the woodland walks, please do let your dogs off the lead for a good run.
Dogs but are welcome in the seated area outside the Peacock Cafe and also in the picnic area. Water bowls are available outside the Gift Shop and the Cafe. Complimentary dog biscuit available in the Gift Shop!
Malton, North Yorkshire. Well behaved dogs on a lead are most welcome on site and Winstan's Bunker Cafe is dog friendly too.
The only areas we ask them not to be taken into are the children's play area and the gift shop.
See what the Castle and village would have looked like before its destruction by Cromwell's troops in 1646.
Dogs are welcome at the Model village: they are allowed, on a lead, throughout the whole attraction, including the tea room.
There is a water bowl at the entrance to the gift shop and on our terrace in the garden.
Dogs are welcome on lead. Open Easter to end of October.
Access is via steep, uneven, natural paths through the wood, making this garden unsuitable for the disabled and wheelchairs.
You can walk in the woods, bring the dog, visit the lakeside café or bring a picnic.
We welcome amateur photography throughout the site and buildings.
Well behaved dogs, on leads, are welcome in the gardens.
Dog Walkers and their dogs are welcome in the Clock Tower Café in the designated seating area all year round. Outside seating is also available.
An admission charge is made to the gardens during the summer months, however, entry is free throughout the winter.
Well-behaved dogs on short leads are welcome to the Gardens all year round!
Dogs are not permitted to enter the Heligan Tearoom. However, there is a large undercover and very well sheltered seating / eating area, next to the tearoom, where dogs are welcome.
Dogs are also now welcome in the Shop & Plant Sales area.
Waymarked walks and cycle routes. Dog drinking bowls around the cafe and dogs welcome inside.
Dogs should be kept under close control, or on leads, as required.
Please remember to clear up after your dog as requested (bags or stick-and-flick).
An exciting and varied day out awaits you at this award winning attraction. Discover what soldiers' living conditions were like, sit through an air-raid, climb up to the huge gun emplacements or down to vast echoing tunnels built in the cliffs. Dogs on leads are welcome.
The park and visitors centre are open all year round. And entry's free! Easy parking and trouble free access for everyone, the Forest Centre is a natural place for your family to come and explore.
There are no keep off the grass rules here. Lowther is a magical place for discovery and letting imaginations loose. Magnificent Castle and Gardens hidden away for 70 years.
The sandstone remains of a romantic Castle. 130 acres of once grand Gardens undergoing loving restoration. Woods to wander.
Glastonbury Abbey welcomes dogs on leads - stunning 36 acres of parkland.
"Dogs are welcome on the trains but please keep them off the carriage seats. Bicycles are carried subject to space availability. A charge of £2 per dog/bicycle is applicable" Please check their website for full details.
Wander around the 16th century garden, one of the most important historic gardens in Europe. It has barely changed over the years.
Take a leisurely stroll around the lush estate you may discover the Leeds engine house and stack, the remains of the Godolphin family mine.
Disappear into the tranquil and mysterious woodland, where the years of mining have left an unnatural, undulating landscape.
Dogs on leads are welcome to all outside areas. Pushchairs admitted to estate and garden.
Visitors are encouraged to explore the garden at their leisure and dogs on leads are also very welcome. We request any dog waste be cleared and placed in the bins in the grounds.
Please note: Dogs are not permitted in the children's play area, Cafe or the House.
Dogs, on leads, allowed on site in museum and cafe, and on main train rides, however, please do not allow them on the seats. Rides on some vehicles are restricted. Water bowls available around the site.
Please see our website for operating dates & times.
Visit our railway where you can travel up and down on our steam trains all day with your ticket. Take a guided engine shed tour and listen to the onboard live commentary as you travel along (Depending on Volunteer Availability).
Steam trains run currently to North Thoresby which gives you around 40 minute round trip, (we are currently extending the railway).
Dogs welcome in our cafe and on train in our dog friendly carriages & water is available. Check out our website for more info.


text:
Empress Of - "Water Water"
Once a candidate vying for dream-pop's essence, Lorely Rodriguez (Empress Of) sounds fully charmed by the vigor of house music on latest single "Water Water." But unlike other songs from artists that have fallen for these same sources, no shortcuts were taken, no attempts to reduce the vision that we've come to expect from her. "Water Water" is turbulent to the end, enduring harsh elements by way of echoed cries and the emotions they represent. What saves it from relying on pure abstraction, of course, is the gorgeous release in its dance elements, which come together like a runway walk in the fourth dimension. Through this Lorely is able to split (or maybe even reject) the one-sided pop spotlight. ("I want to care much more, But I'm feeling less and less"). Anyone else have chills?
Empress Of will soon release her debut album on Terrible Records and XL Recordings.
Labels: brooklyn, empress of
Colornoise - "Amalie"
Video: La Mafia del Amor & El Combo Perfecto - "La...
Silva de Alegria - El Silencio en la Tierra
Video: Gepe (feat. Wendy Sulca) - "Hambre"
Jessy Bulbo - "Alma Traviesa"
Boogat - "Londres" (feat. Pierre Kwenders)
Video: Torreblanca - "Como un amigo"
Video: SILVA - "Volta"


Pav Bhaji Masala Dosa, is a real good twist to our usual masala dosa recipe. Its spicy, tasty, tangy and perfect to break the usual routine of plain dosas. We South Indians love our dosa and idly, its a life saver in the kitchen, weekly preparations of dosa batter is a staple even in our home. I never knew the whole techniques when I was at my parents place. Its only during my trial and errors did I actually learn to make perfectly crisp dosas, idlies, utamppam, paniyarams and so on. The recipe can get endless when it comes to dosa batter. I have hardly blogged about them that's because we usually have dosas idlies and the likes for breakfast or dinner and its like a rush hour marathon I hardly have the patience to sit and click pictures. But I am determined to post them beating the odds ;-). Now lets move on to the recipe.
bhaji masala ahead and you are good to go.
1. Wash and soak Urad dal and idly rice with the fenugreek seeds overnight.
2. Grind urad dal with less water to help grind using a mixie set aside in a bowl.
3. Grind the idly rice in batches with little water at a time to make a smooth batter.
5. Cover and set aside in a warm place to ferment around 6-8 hrs.
Prepare dosa batter and set aside. Heat a iron skillet or non stick dosa pan and rub with oil using a cut onion.
Drop a dollop of the dosa batter and make a thin crepe like dosa spreading the batter evenly and as thin as possible.
Add 2 tsp of oil on the dosa and as it cooks 70% add in 1 tbsp of the pav bhaji masala and spread it on the center and around the dosa.
Sprinkle chopped onions and coriander minced on top and fold the dosa.
Use a really hot iron skillet to make perfect crispy dosas. Oil or ghee can be used as per your preference.
Usually when you have a grinder the proportions vary for urad dal and idly rice but while using a mixie to grin dosa batter I find this 1:3 (urad dal:idly rice) works best for crispy dosas.
wow..super crispy and tempting masala dosa, i too have tried this one with left over bhaji masala :) inviting pics and presentation Priya !!
Loved the idea of using pav bhaji masala for this masala dosa! Very interesting twist to the regular masala dosa! Looks super yummy da.. Love the presentation da!
The dosa looks awesome Priya, love this pav bhaji version..


text:
The 3 Most Important Numbers for Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
The struggling chip company enters 2016 with all the pieces in place for a possible, but certainly not inevitable, turnaround.
(TMFBargainBin)
Feb 10, 2016 at 7:31AM
For Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), 2016 will prove to be a pivotal year. The company continues to struggle, posting a massive $660 million net loss in 2015, which followed a $403 million net loss in 2014. AMD has seen its share of both the CPU and GPU markets disappear, and extremely weak demand for PCs is only adding to the pressure.
A few major developments will play out this year in all of AMD's core businesses, and it's not hyperbole to say that the future of the company is at stake. With that in mind, here are three numbers that will be extremely important for AMD in 2016.
Source: AMD
$1 billion
The only real success for AMD over the past couple of years has been its semi-custom business. AMD supplies semi-custom SoCs for all of the major game consoles, based on the company's CPU and GPU technology. This revenue and profit have prevented the company's finances from deteriorating even further.
But even with strong sales of game consoles, AMD receives less per chip as time goes on. During the fourth quarter, for example, semi-custom revenue slipped 15% year-over-year, while operating profit tumbled 46%. Game consoles will not be a source of growth until the next generation of devices is announced, which is likely years away, and that assumes that AMD remains the only supplier.
The good news is that AMD has announced a few additional semi-custom design wins, and the company expects to begin realizing revenue from these wins during the second half of this year. The first two wins were announced in October of 2014, and AMD expects to generate a total of $1 billion of revenue over the course of three years. A third design win was announced last year, but details are scarce.
This new revenue should help offset declines in console SoC sales, and depending on how quickly console revenue falls off, AMD may actually be able to grow the semi-custom business. With the company's PC business still flailing, the semi-custom segment provides a much-needed source of revenue and profits for the company.
During the second quarter of 2014, AMD shipped about 40% of discrete graphics cards, with rival NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) claiming the rest. Since then, AMD has seen its market share collapse, driven by both disruptive products from NVIDIA and a lack thereof from AMD. During the third quarter of 2015, AMD's market share had slumped to just 18.8%.
The company has taken some steps to improve the performance of its graphics business. Late last year, AMD formed the Radeon Technologies Group, which now oversees graphics development for all AMD products, including discrete GPUs, APUs, and semi-custom chips. This separation could make it easier for AMD to spin-off the graphics business at a later date, although there's been no indication that the company plans to take that step.
This year, AMD will have a chance at regaining some of its lost market share. The company plans to launch a brand new graphics architecture, Polaris, toward the middle of this year, and the company promises major boosts in performance and efficiency. According to AMD, Polaris is substantially more energy efficient than NVIDIA's current Maxwell architecture, opening the door for AMD's graphics chips to power laptops and other small form factor devices.
That said, NVIDIA will be launching new GPUs of its own this year, based on its next-gen Pascal graphics architecture. Pascal promises major performance and efficiency gains of its own, and at this point it's impossible to say whether Polaris or Pascal will prove superior. AMD doesn't need to blow NVIDIA away in order to win back some market share, but the company's execution needs to be better than it was in 2015.
Toward the end of 2016, AMD plans to launch the first CPUs based on its new Zen microarchitecture. Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) is currently as dominant as it has ever been in both the PC and server CPU markets, thanks in part to AMD's previous Bulldozer architecture being a major disappointment. In terms of single-threaded performance, Bulldozer fell short of comparable Intel products by a wide margin.
Zen is expected to fix this problem. AMD has stated that Zen will bring a 40% improvement in instructions per cycle, a measure of single-threaded performance, compared to Excavator, the latest revision of the Bulldozer architecture. This is a big leap, and if AMD can both hit this target and launch Zen-based chips on time, the company may have its first truly competitive high-end CPUs in years.
If an AMD turnaround is going to take hold, 2016 is the year it will happen. With new semi-custom revenue and a chance at winning back some lost GPU and CPU market share, the string of big revenue declines may finally come to an end. AMD expects to return to non-GAAP operating profitability during the second half of 2016, which would be quite the reversal from the same period last year when the company posted a non-GAAP operating loss of $136 million.
AMD will still post a net loss based on this outlook, given the $40 million in quarterly interest payments the company makes, but if AMD meets its goals, it would be the first true sign that the turnaround is making progress.
NASDAQ:AMD
NASDAQ:NVDA
NASDAQ:INTC
How Advanced Micro Devices Shares Rose 10.8% in June
AMD's Third-Gen Ryzen Cements Its Comeback
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AMD Leapfrogs NVIDIA for the First Time in Years
AMD Cuts Prices Two Days Before Its Graphics Card Launch
The 3 Most Important Numbers for Advanced Micro Devices Inc. @themotleyfool #stocks $AMD $NVDA $INTC Next Article


text:
Q: Global Resource Authorization based on route value I'm working on an ASP.Net Core 3.1 web API.
The API users are from an Azure AD.
The users can access the API if they have a license, each user can be assigned to multiple licenses and the same license can be assigned to multiple users.
The client want me to structure the API routes with a template like <api_url>/{licenseId}/controller/action.
My controllers are like:
[Authorize]
[Route("{licenseId}/Foo")]
public class FooController : ControllerBase
{

If I think of the License as a Resource, I can use the Resource based authorization as detailed here.
It works but I find myself copying and pasting the auth check for all the actions.
Is there a better way to authorize an user using the route values?
Here what I've got so far:
public class LicenseRequirement : IAuthorizationRequirement
{
    public Guid LicenseId { get; private set; }

    public LicenseRequirement(Guid licenseId)
    {
        LicenseId = licenseId;
    }
}

public class LicenseAuthorizationHandler : AuthorizationHandler<LicenseRequirement>
{
    private readonly IHttpContextAccessor _httpContextAccessor;
    private readonly ILogger<LicenseAuthorizationHandler> _logger;
    private readonly DBContext _db;

    public LicenseAuthorizationHandler(DBContext context, ILogger<LicenseAuthorizationHandler> logger, IHttpContextAccessor httpContextAccessor)
    {
        _logger = logger;
        _db = context;
        _httpContextAccessor = httpContextAccessor;
    }

    protected override async Task HandleRequirementAsync(AuthorizationHandlerContext context, LicenseRequirement requirement)
    {
        var userId = new Guid(context.User.GetUserId());
        var licenseId = _httpContextAccessor.HttpContext.GetRouteData().Values["licenseId"];

        if (await _db.ApiUsers.SingleOrDefaultAsync(x => x.LicenseId == new Guid(licenseId as string) && x.UserId == userId) is ApiUser user)
            context.Succeed(requirement);
    }
}

Now I'm a bit stuck as I don't know how to set it up in Startup.cs and use it as an attribute or area filter creating those requirement at runtime with the licenseId route's value.

A: I found IAuthorizationFilter pretty straightforward to implement. When I tried it yesterday, I couldn't found the RouteValues but they're there:
public class LicenseAuthorizationFilter : IAuthorizationFilter
{
    private readonly ILogger<LicenseAuthorizationFilter> _logger;
    private readonly DBContext _db;

    public LicenseAuthorizationFilter(DBContext context, ILogger<LicenseAuthorizationFilter> logger)
    {
        _logger = logger;
        _db = context;
    }

    public void OnAuthorization(AuthorizationFilterContext context)
    {
        var userId = new Guid(context.HttpContext.User.GetUserId());
        var licenseId = new Guid(context.HttpContext.Request.RouteValues["licenseId"] as string);

        if (!(_db.ApiUsers.SingleOrDefault(x => x.LicenseId == licenseId && x.UserId == userId) is ApiUser user))
        {
            context.Result = new ForbidResult();
        }
    }
}

public class LicenseAuthorizationAttribute : TypeFilterAttribute
{
    public LicenseAuthorizationAttribute() : base(typeof(LicenseAuthorizationFilter))
    { }
}

And the controller can neatly become:
[Authorize]
[LicenseAuthorization]
[Route("{licenseId}/Items")]
public class ItemsController : ControllerBase
{
    [...]
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange