Piracy as activism

Piracy as activism In spite of its long and intense presence in the popular imagery, piracy is a concept that has only scarcely and timidly been linked to forms of political activism. Mostly seen through the lens of criminalisation and policing (including also the transgression of the existing order by the heroic pirates) piracy has [...]

Free Gaza

Any surprise that Israeli commandos might ‘botch’ a raid on the boats of the Free Gaza flotilla should be tempered by the recognition that they planned this provocation, at night, with guns. In response, a new Dunkirk? Another Malta convoy? Send all boats, Send in the navy, The Trident subs to find a use at [...]

Struggle for Justice is necessary. Free Gaza by whatever means. This time by donation.

[Readers will know I do not endorse charity giving - see Rumour - but note the distinction between buying a boat for the Free Gaza movement and other good causes. This one must float. Lets buy a boat, ahoy]. AN URGENT APPEAL TO HELP BREAK THE SIEGE OF GAZA Monday, 04 May 2009 15:47 Last [...]

Burt

Alongside Barbara Stanwyck, my other fave mainstream movie star is Burt Lancaster (and though the woman on the beach in this still is, if you did not know, Deborah Kerr, Stanwyck and Lancaster teamed up together in “Sorry, Wrong Number” way back in 1948). As I am on a bit of a Burt tip this [...]

Manifesto for Thought-crimes.

Be ‘a’ creative, facilitate, synergize, even for autonomy, for enhancement capability, for institutionalization. They say everything is new, (out with the old) but everything is contract (same old same old) Be energized, Optimism of the will, post-humanize, Ontologize! White noise. This transmutation of meaning, as meaninglessness. it speaks for itself, not to be theorized away. [...]

yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

So I searched out the lyrics of this song that I wanted to use as a send off for a pirate mate (gone sailing someplace) and I am somewhat astonished at the lyrics – the bit about the captains daughter seems particularly problematic, but, well, pirates eh (Yellowbeard, for example). Then I discovered the second [...]

Paul Hendrich

I can’t reconcile this at all – impossible and horrible that we (all crushed) have lost another great comrade. I can’t see how he had the time, but Paul was often a commentator on this blog. But importantly – among so very very much else that’s nearly impossible to list – Paul was key to [...]

Floating Prisons

This post from Subtopia is the sort of thing that puts blog-diary-experiment-notes like mine to shame. Even as I feel I need to skip over the authors first paragraph of self-deprecations (sorry) I find this really really useful. Sure, I have a long interest in prisons, see here, but if you want to start to [...]

four quibbles

Several arguments I’ve had lately have stalled in what I am tempted to call a kind of ‘ontological disarray’. That is, the people I start these conversations with, in affable conviviality (ie in the pub) seem to give up too quick and angry. We each know these are necessarily first moves, so why concede/defer? Is [...]

Posthegemony

Pirates are “in” – see Jon B-M’s recent action in Canada. Why suddenly do so many of us catch the stench of privateering as it wafts from the harbour across the campuses… echoed in Mick Taussig’s course last term at Columbia on pirates too, and more Posthegemony: “piracy, nomadism, and the stateThe complexity and confusion [...]

The Pirate Party

Check this out : The Pirate Party “Because kidnapping and killing people on the high seas is exactly the same as sharing music with your friends!” http://www.freeculture.org/pirates/ Music video contest! For the Pirate Party, we want to show pirate-themed music videos while we dance. Thus, we are also holding a Pirate Video Remix Contest! The [...]

With Cat Like Tread… stomp stomp

Gulp, the week has flown by and being in Melbourne has landed me with the old allergies and hay-fever that is part of what keeps me away, but news sent from Pirate Paul reminds me that going back to England isn’t necessarily a return to the real: This item:‘April 5, 2006: BBC News: “Terror fear [...]

Drink and the Devil had done for the rest

As the New Year’s escape winds on, my reading regresses in a way (back to the classics of yore) and I’ve just reread Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island”. No doubt there is a big incisive critique to be made here of the British Empire. The novel is full of stirring worthy stuff – so called [...]

Research (in search of pirate treasures)

I am seeing out the end of 05 in a hammock… and as I already said to some friends, I am looking at effects of the terror war on the tourist economy in these parts (South East Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippinnes) – where less and less rich westerners now tend to go – [...]

The Golden Hind

From our good friends at “Avast Ye Applications”: Seán Mac Mathúna writes: “There are four statues on the front of Deptford’s old town hall in NewCross Road. Three of them are connected with slavery in the West Indies: Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake and Oliver Cromwell. In 1652, Cromwell had been a regular visitor [...]