“Literature is not a game for the cloistered elect. Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it and it has not changed except to become more needed.”
Source : TheGuardian
Tag: Literature
#17 Collected Reading
Quote of the week
“When we are shown scenes of starving children in Africa, with a call for us to do something to help them, the underlying ideological message is something like: “Don’t think, don’t politicize, forget about the true causes of their poverty, just act, contribute money, so that you will not have to think!” – Living in the End Times by Slavoj Zizek
1. Calling all Dickens detectives
“Week in week out, for over 20 years, Dickens was at the helm of two of the most successful weekly magazines available in the mid-Victorian era, working with a tiny team out of bare offices in Wellington Street”
Literature, UK, Dickens, Editorial, Curation
Source :The Guardian
2. Obama as Chess Master: ‘Think of Him as Bobby Fischer’
“Liberals: Obama will end two wars, ended DADT, created the CFPA, got $20b from BP in the face of strong opposition, saved Detroit, signed New START, and enacted universal healthcare – the defining goal of the liberal movement.”
Politics, Policy, USA,
Source : The Atlantic
3. Lost world: Scenes from North Korea’s closed society
“With few factories, the unpolluted air over Pyongyang is crisp and clear, though at dusk, with power stations struggling to crank out enough electricity to light up the streets, the city turns prison-grey. At night, dim 40-watt bulbs wink from apartments. The brightest-lit structures are the illuminated Kim portraits dotted throughout the city and the560ft Juche Tower, a monument to Kim Il-Sung’s deluded philosophy of self-reliance.”
Photography, Reporting, North Korea, Culture
Source : The independant
4. Niger delta oil spills clean-up will take 30 years, says UN
“Since life expectancy in Nigeria is less than 50 years it is a fair assumption most people in Ogoniland have lived with chronic oil pollution throughout their lives,” the report says.”
Environment, Nigeria, Policy, Global, Corporations
Source : The Guardian
5. The Hidden History Of Prison Labor
“Prison labor has already started to undercut the business of corporations that don’t use it. In Florida, PRIDE has become one of the largest printing corporations in the state, its cheap labor having a significant impact upon smaller local printers. This scenario is playing out in states across the country.”
Prisons, USA, Policy, Work
Source : The Nation
Hope you like this collection. Please comment, share and most of all enjoy.
– Kaushik
#8 Collected Reading June 12th, 2011
Quote of the week
“We see a regulation when we don’t endorse the moral values behind it.
– Ha-Joon Chang”
1.V&A Illustration awards 2011: the shortlists in pictures
“The winners of this year’s V&A illustration awards were announced last night. Take a look at some of the shortlisted work”
Illustration, UK
Source :The Guardian
2.The Slow Media ManifestoSlow
“The Slow Media ManifestoSlow Media focus on quality both in production and in reception of media content: Craftsmanship in cultural studies such as source criticism, classification and evaluation of sources of information are gaining importance with the increasing availability of information.”
Internet, Media, Process
Source : Slow-Media
3. Why the Arab Spring Hasn’t Spread to India—but Should
“Two formal reports have independently estimated the proportion of Indians living below the poverty line as 77 and 50 percent, though the Indian government touts a third report, which found a more palatable 37 percent. But even this figure would put some 420 million Indians in poverty.”
Democracy, Poverty
Source : The Atlantic
4. TRADING STORIES
“My first experience of hearing stories aloud occurred the only time I met my maternal grandfather, when I was two, during my first visit to India. He would lie back on a bed and prop me up on his chest and invent things to tell me. I am told that the two of us stayed up long after everyone else had gone to sleep, and that my grandfather kept extending these stories, because I insisted that they not end.”
Literature, Writing
Source : The New Yorker
5. Slash and burn: Brazil shreds laws protecting its rainforests
“Slash and burn: Brazil shreds laws protecting its rainforestsAbout 20 per cent of Brazil’s rainforest has already been destroyed, and the battle to preserve the remainder arouses heated debate. Yesterday, it emerged that a green activist, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva, had been shot and killed in the jungle state of Para in northern Brazil. He recently predicted that he would be murdered for criticising deforestation by local ranchers”
Environment, Destruction
Source : The Independent
Hope you like this collection. Please comment, share and most of all enjoy.
– Kaushik
Collected Reading 