Showing posts tagged: Politics
Vietnam Veterans Against the War occupy the Statue of Liberty via Retronaut
“On December 26, 1971, fifteen VVAW activists barricaded and occupied the Statue of Liberty for two days in a successful attempt to bring attention to the antiwar cause. VVAW occupied the Statue of Liberty a second time in 1976 to bring renewed attention to veteran issues.” - Wikipedia
“PEACE” LINES: A SELECTION OF WALLS DIVIDING REGIONS via Socks Studio
Some days ago, Italian news website il Post selected and published the photographs of a number of still-standing or just-erected physical barriers between countries, regions, ethnies, religious groups or conflicting cultures.
- India-Pakistan, Photo: January 16, 2013 (AP Photo / Channi Anand)
- Saudi Arabia – Yemen, Photo: February 9, 2004 (KHALED FAZAA / AFP / Getty Images)
- Belfast, Northern Ireland, (AP Photo / Peter Kemp)
- Israel – Egypt, Photo by Moshe Milner / GPO via Getty Images
- Tijuana, Mexico, Photo: August 12, 2012 (FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP / GettyImages)
- Dandong, China, Photo: October 16, 2006 (LIU JIN / AFP / Getty Images)
Free Speech For People: Your Logo Here via I believe in Advertising
Watch the video here
China declares war on Apple - Salon.com
The Chinese are no exception when it comes to Apple users’ loyalty, and they’re coming to the iPhone maker’s defense following a widespread state media campaign accusing the Cupertino, Calif. company of greed and arrogance.
One of the latest salvos came in an op-ed today in the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily that ripped into the computer company under the headline “Destroy Apple’s Unparalleled Arrogance.”
It accuses Apple of “Westerners’ traditional sense of superiority” in its policies toward China. Although China requires all companies to offer two-year warranties for thier products, Apple has only a one-year global warranty for its devices, according to People’s Daily.
The article denounces Apple for being greedy, profit-driven, and “arrogant” in what Beijing commentator Bill Bishop calls a “fairly nasty nationalist tone.”
![Parliamentary Chambers by Ana Filipovic via Deconcrete
Parliamentary Chambers, by Ana Filipovic, 2012, within Cultures of Assembly, Architecture + Critical Spatial Practice, Städelschule Frankfurt:
‘The word parliament derives from the French “parlement”—the act of speaking, the discussion. The chamber in which parliamentary assemblies meet is therefore a spatial setting for that very discussion. The comprehension of the nature of this discussion should hence inform the architectural design.
The spatial organization of formal assemblies has not substantially changed much from Athenian assembly to the modern concept of prime ministerial government that goes back to the Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800) and The Parliamentary System in Sweden (1721–1772) that coincided with each other. Classical democracy not only influenced the formation of later constitutions, it also created an architectural legacy which has dominated both the form and style of parliament buildings to the present day. [Sudjic, Deyan, “Architecture And Democracy”, Laurence King Publishing, 1992]
The most appropriate form remained to be hemicycle—semicircular, or horseshoe shaped, debating chamber (plenary chamber), where members sit to discuss and pass legislation.
The circular shape is one, which was primarily designed to encourage the politics of consensus among political parties rather than confrontation. The design is used in most European countries (and hence was adopted by the European Parliament) and the United States. The equality in its shape—the equal distance from the speaker, for example—is being used whenever democratic dialogue is anticipated. In contrast, the Westminster system, in which the government and opposition parties face each other on opposing sets of benches, points at an interesting potential: the exploration and exacerbation of spatial confrontation and conflict as a form of agonistic ground condition. This research questions the seemingly causal relationship between the spaces of parliamentary chambers and the system they represent.’](http://25.media.tumblr.com/e34207b66fe0754338ac1b80e5d0e619/tumblr_mjgx2grP6n1qzpyz2o1_250.jpg)
![Parliamentary Chambers by Ana Filipovic via Deconcrete
Parliamentary Chambers, by Ana Filipovic, 2012, within Cultures of Assembly, Architecture + Critical Spatial Practice, Städelschule Frankfurt:
‘The word parliament derives from the French “parlement”—the act of speaking, the discussion. The chamber in which parliamentary assemblies meet is therefore a spatial setting for that very discussion. The comprehension of the nature of this discussion should hence inform the architectural design.
The spatial organization of formal assemblies has not substantially changed much from Athenian assembly to the modern concept of prime ministerial government that goes back to the Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800) and The Parliamentary System in Sweden (1721–1772) that coincided with each other. Classical democracy not only influenced the formation of later constitutions, it also created an architectural legacy which has dominated both the form and style of parliament buildings to the present day. [Sudjic, Deyan, “Architecture And Democracy”, Laurence King Publishing, 1992]
The most appropriate form remained to be hemicycle—semicircular, or horseshoe shaped, debating chamber (plenary chamber), where members sit to discuss and pass legislation.
The circular shape is one, which was primarily designed to encourage the politics of consensus among political parties rather than confrontation. The design is used in most European countries (and hence was adopted by the European Parliament) and the United States. The equality in its shape—the equal distance from the speaker, for example—is being used whenever democratic dialogue is anticipated. In contrast, the Westminster system, in which the government and opposition parties face each other on opposing sets of benches, points at an interesting potential: the exploration and exacerbation of spatial confrontation and conflict as a form of agonistic ground condition. This research questions the seemingly causal relationship between the spaces of parliamentary chambers and the system they represent.’](http://24.media.tumblr.com/fcff0ff2528829866f3ef0714a59abbe/tumblr_mjgx2grP6n1qzpyz2o2_250.jpg)
Parliamentary Chambers, by Ana Filipovic, 2012, within Cultures of Assembly, Architecture + Critical Spatial Practice, Städelschule Frankfurt:
‘The word parliament derives from the French “parlement”—the act of speaking, the discussion. The chamber in which parliamentary assemblies meet is therefore a spatial setting for that very discussion. The comprehension of the nature of this discussion should hence inform the architectural design.
The spatial organization of formal assemblies has not substantially changed much from Athenian assembly to the modern concept of prime ministerial government that goes back to the Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800) and The Parliamentary System in Sweden (1721–1772) that coincided with each other. Classical democracy not only influenced the formation of later constitutions, it also created an architectural legacy which has dominated both the form and style of parliament buildings to the present day. [Sudjic, Deyan, “Architecture And Democracy”, Laurence King Publishing, 1992]
The most appropriate form remained to be hemicycle—semicircular, or horseshoe shaped, debating chamber (plenary chamber), where members sit to discuss and pass legislation.
The circular shape is one, which was primarily designed to encourage the politics of consensus among political parties rather than confrontation. The design is used in most European countries (and hence was adopted by the European Parliament) and the United States. The equality in its shape—the equal distance from the speaker, for example—is being used whenever democratic dialogue is anticipated. In contrast, the Westminster system, in which the government and opposition parties face each other on opposing sets of benches, points at an interesting potential: the exploration and exacerbation of spatial confrontation and conflict as a form of agonistic ground condition. This research questions the seemingly causal relationship between the spaces of parliamentary chambers and the system they represent.’
Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913 via wiki
The Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913 was a march down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. on March 3, 1913, organized by the suffragist Alice Paul for the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The march was scheduled on the day before President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration to “march in a spirit of protest against the present political organization of society, from which women are excluded”, as the official program stated.
President Obama has announced that he plans to create a new federal department at the cabinet level called the Department of Cities. Although the President has listed many issues that he would like to focus on in his second term, such as immigration, gun control and climate change, this initiative to create a more promising future for American citiescould define the President’s term and create a lasting legacy.
The President made efforts in his last term to rethink and revitalize America’s urban centers with the Office of Urban Affairs, created in 2009, but these efforts have gone largely unnoticed. Pair this with the existing Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is becoming increasingly out of date and irrelevant, and it’s clear that Mr. President has a lot of work to do. But despite the challenges that the Obama Administration faces, creating a Department of Cities to finally tackle the issues plaguing our most vital urban nuclei may be one of the most important and far-reaching moves he makes.
According to the NY Daily News, “it is seldom acknowledged by our political culture, which routinely and reflexively sees small-town America as the ‘real America,’ but the well-being of the United States is increasingly determined by the well-being of its cities.” This is evidenced by the fact that a whopping 2/3 of our population resides in cities and that these metropolitan areas produce 3/4 of our economic output as a nation.
The Department of Cities would recognize the importance of our cities by addressing their problems with a more efficient, holistic attitude. It would absorb the functions of several different organizations: the two mentioned above, as well as that of Transportation, Education, Commerce and Interior. It would consist of a wide variety of people, such as previous mayors and city officials, city-builders and experts on various urban matters, as well as developers and business leaders, creating a truly unique and bipartisan department united by a shared goal: to improve American cities.
What the White House Looks Like Completely Gutted VIA National Jorunal
Harry S Truman inherited a White House that was in horrendous shape. After the British nearly burnt it to the ground in 1814, the construction of 20th-century innovations—indoor plumbing, electricity, and heating ducts—had also taken its toll on the structure. The building was nearly 150 years old, and it showed its age. In November 1948, the building was in a near-condemnable state, as The New York Times reported:
“The ceiling of the East Room, elaborately done in the frescoes of fruits and reclining women and weighing seventy pounds to the square foot, was found to be sagging six inches on Oct. 26, and now is being held in place by scaffolding and supports…. But it took the $50,000 survey authorized by Congress to disclose the fact that the marble grand staircase is in imminent danger. Supporting bricks, bought second hand in 1880, are disintegrating.”
So it had to be gutted. Completely. Every piece of the interior, including the walls, had to be removed and put in storage. The outside of the structure—reinforced by new concrete columns—was all that remained.
