Here’s some sights of some of the commonest things in the world. The commonest things in the world, seen in a new way. These are living insects, resting on plants outside, and becoming covered in the morning dew.

A common house fly and water.

A moth resting on a twig, covered in dew.

This and more from the Daily Mail Online (2010-03-26).

These photographs were taken by Miroslaw Swietek, a physiotherapist and amateur photographer who lives in Jaroszow, Poland. He takes the photos because he loves photography, and he wants to show something wonderful to the world. Sights of miracles and wonders that he can capture, and we can witness, because Technological civilization is awesome. Sights so wonderful that they look like a glimpse of another world — a world that is strange, wonderful, and new. And yet is the very world we all dwell in now. A world where creatures so common that we think of them as nothing more than annoying pests, and a substance so plentiful and ordinary that we use it to flush our toilets, can, when you catch them at the right time and look at them the right way, shine in the darkness, like creatures of light, shimmering in their living skin of diamonds.

Awesome.

(Via John Gruber @ Daring Fireball 2010-03-30.)

See also:

• GT 2009-08-17: Technological civilization is awesome. (Cont’d.)

• Turns out a lot of men look forward to the oops pregnancy. pandagon.net – we are the public option (2010-03-26). by Amanda Marcotte I know I've been writing a lot about reproductive rights and sexual health issues, but the stories I want to comment on seem to be increasing lately.  As someone who writes a lot about these issues, I've noticed something interesting over the years about the feedback I… (Linked Friday 2010-03-26.)

• ACORN’s Original Sin. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-03-26). The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as ACORN, will shut its doors as a national operation next week. A wellspring of activism for four decades, the left-wing group has gotten more attention lately for a series of scandals, from an embarrassing embezzlement case at the top… (Linked Saturday 2010-03-27.)

• Zomia, the 100 million strong stateless society that's been evading states for 2000 years. Cal, Everyone's Blog Posts – FR33 Agents (2010-03-19). http://www.cornell.edu/video?videoID=625&startSecs=0&endSecs=4625 Yale anthropoligst James C. Scott, author of The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, describes the history of Zomia. Also, read about it here: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/12/06/the_mystery_of_zomia/ http://books.google.com/books?id=oiLYu2-uc8IC&printsec=frontcover&dq=art+of+not+being+governed&hl=en&ei=HEmkS96WIsH7lwff5510&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false (Linked Saturday 2010-03-27.)

• Shakesville: The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck. shakespearessister.blogspot.com (2010-03-28). On hate, love, misogyny and trust. (Linked Sunday 2010-03-28.)

• Paying for school on $2 a day. Aid Watch (2010-03-28). Countereducation in action in rural villages and urban slums in India, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and China. “Aid agency officials and local government administrators did not receive the news warmly. Most flat out denied that such schools existed. Even if they dod exist, said the experts, they can’t possibly be any good. … The most surprising thing to those of us who harbor prejudices (hidden even to ourselves?) that illiterate, unschooled parents can't possibly know more than education experts, is that these parents were making smart, informed decisions. Not that the private schools were perfect—far from it: … But Tooley found that in low-cost private schools, across the board, classroom sizes were smaller, and teachers were much more likely to be found teaching during an unannounced visit. They are also achieving better results: the students in private schools outperformed their public school peers in nearly every subject they were tested in.” (Linked Sunday 2010-03-28.)

• Darwin 'CCTV perve' cop keeps job – Ninemsn. Nation – Google News (2010-03-29). Men in Uniform (cont’d) / Police accountability (cont’d) (Linked Monday 2010-03-29.)

This week, at the Vegas Anarchist Cafe — specifically, THURSDAY, 1 April 2010 — Vegas ALL will be sponsoring a special Ask An Anarchist! event with ALLy Charles Johnson. Ask An Anarchist! is a freewheeling Q&A session, where A-Cafers, guests, the anarcho-curious and anyone interested in a conversation about the idea of a stateless society, all get the chance to fire away with any question they care to ask about Anarchy, Anarchism, or Anarchists. As our handbill puts it:

re you curious to learn more about Anarchy, Anarchism, or Anarchists? Have you got questions about Anarchist ideas, the history of Anarchism, how Anarchism has affected mainstream culture, Anarchist solutions to contemporary social problems, or how Anarchists believe that a free society would work without government? Want to know whether the picture of Anarchism that you've gotten from the mainstream culture is accurate or based on misconceptions? Want to try and stump an Anarchist? Bring all your burning questions this Thursday, and our speaker will do his best to answer any question you care to ask. Come on in and fire away!

This event is for anyone curious about the ideas of philosophical Anarchism, or interested in conversation. All are welcome to attend.

The Q&A session will run from 6–7pm. An informal meet-up and discussion will follow from 7–8pm. f you're in the Vegas area (or even if you're not), it'd be great to see you there. If you know anyone around abouts who might be interested in a talk about Anarchism, or a chance to find out more, then please do forward the announcement on to them.

• WHAT: Ask An Anarchist! Q&A with Vegas ALLy Charles Johnson.

• WHERE: Weekly Anarchist Cafe at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Running Rebel Plaza (4550 S. Maryland Pkwy, right across the street from UNLV), Las Vegas, Nevada

• WHEN: This Thursday, 1 April 2010, 6:00pm – 7:00pm. The regular A-Cafe informal meet-up and discussion will continue after the talk, from about 7:00pm to 8:00pm.

• WHO: Anyone curious about the ideas of Anarchism, or interested in conversation.

Hope to see y’ALL there!

See also:

• GT 2009-09-02: Rad Geek Speaks: “Ask An Anarchist!” at the Vegas Anarchist Cafe. Las Vegas, Nevada, 3 September 2009, 6:00pm
• GT 2009-08-26: Rad Geek Speaks: a talk on Anarchism and its ideas
• GT 2009-05-19: Rad Geek Speaks: Motorhome Diaries interviews me on agorism and counter-economics
• GT 2009-03-04: Rad Geek Speaks: Ask An Anarchist!
• GT 2009-01-27: Rad Geek Speaks: a talk on Anarchism and its ideas
• GT 2009-02-03: Southern Nevada ALLy Kelly Patterson speaks at Las Vegas Anarchist Cafe: We Need The Wobblies Now More Than Ever! A Brief History of the Industrial Workers of the World.
• GT 2009-02-11: Rad Geek Speaks: a recording of my talk What Is Anarchism? at the 28 January 2009 Las Vegas Anarchist Cafe

Hey everybody. If you notice some unexpected posts popping up and around, pardon my dust. This weekend has been spent largely in coding and gardening. (Right now, clearing up planting space in the courtyard, and putting down some okra and hot peppers.) The dirt under my fingernails is largely the result of the latter; the dust around the blog is largely the result of the former.

But whether gardening or coding or inciting revolution, we all must have a day of rest. A day of communion. A day of Shamelessness.

It’s been a while — due to my travels one weekend after the other. So let us come together today in our Shamelessness. What have you been up to these past few weeks? Write anything? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.

Corporate Land Grab in Africa. Free Association (2010-03-27):

Much of the modern world has been shaped, alas, by governments’ grabbing land from peasants and yeomen, whose families had worked it for hundreds of years, in order to give it to the nobility or other privileged interests. As a result, many self-sufficient farmers became tenants of politically created absentee…

No doubt 40 years from now, if agribusiness dominates Ethiopia and the dispossessed majority has to rent their lives away in factory labor or other forms of corporate-controlled mass labor, some “pro-globalization” type will come along to tell us all about the neoliberal revolution and how the market outcome is obviously the result of market efficiencies, the division of labor, comparative advantage, and economies of scale.

In reality, this is just another round of privateering, and a massive, corporate-engineered, government-inflicted violation of poor farmers’ property rights. Carried out largely with the purpose of enriching foreign corporations and the domestic political class, on the excuse that the folks being stolen from are just too stupid to know how to “develop” their own land or the fruits of their own labor. Genuinely free and equal exchange — the consensual social order that would emerge from free trade among working people when they are freed of existing government restrictions and government borders, and also left in possession of their own, without massive dispossession in the name of forced modernization — would look absolutely nothing like the rigged markets we have, and nothing like gigantic screwjob that is passed off as “freedom” by modern neoliberalism.