Τα εφήμερα

[Costas]

Το ΠΑΣΟΚ θα εξαφανιστεί;
Πολύ πιθανό. Χοντρικά, υπάρχουν δύο λύσεις για το χώρο που εξέφραζε κάποτε. Ο γαλλικός, στην πορεία έγινε κι ελληνικός, που πρότεινε μια τριπολική δομή – δεξιά, κέντρο, αριστερά. Κι ο άλλος τρόπος, ο ιταλικός. Με δύο πόλους, την κεντροαριστερά και την κεντροδεξιά. Οι Έλληνες έχουν μάθει να σκέφτονται με τον πρώτο τρόπο, ενώ έχουμε το παράδοξο ο ΣΥΡΙΖΑ που θεωρητικά θα ήθελε τη δεύτερη διπολική εκδοχή να κάνει ότι [sic] μπορεί για να την υπονομεύσει. Πάντως το μόνο σίγουρο είναι ότι η Ελλάδα ή θα πάει με την Ευρώπη ή θα πεθάνει.

Από τη συνέντευξη με τον Παύλο Τσίμα στο ίδιο μέσο, popaganda.gr (γλυκούλι μού φαίνεται).

 

[Costas]

Ουάου!

William Ash, Danger-Loving Escape Artist, Dies at 96
By DOUGLAS MARTIN / MAY 9, 2014
(ΝΥΤ)
Before World War II ended, Mr. Ash had attempted 13 escapes from Nazi P.O.W. camps and made it outside the barbed wire a half dozen times.

After his Spitfire was shot down over France in the spring of 1942, William Ash made his way to Nazi-occupied Paris with the help of the Resistance. His plan was to go to Spain, then on to England to resume flying. While waiting, he sauntered through Parisian streets as a tourist, visiting the Louvre and the zoo, dining out and swimming daily.

“He loved doing stuff for the hell of it,” said Brendan Foley, who helped Mr. Ash write his autobiography, published in 2005, and confirmed his death, on April 26 in London at the age of 96.

While in Paris, Pilot Officer Ash was seized by the Gestapo and sent to the notorious Fresnes Prison, south of the city, where he was tortured. After it was determined that he was an airman and not a spy, he was shuttled from one Nazi P.O.W. camp to another in Germany, Poland and Lithuania. It was in the camps that he discovered his true calling: would-be escape artist.

Before the war ended, he had attempted 13 escapes and made it outside the barbed wire a half-dozen times. He went under, over and through fences. He walked out in disguise. He tunneled through a latrine. He was always recaptured.

Mr. Ash said the routine was “a bit like being sent back to Go when playing Monopoly — only with more bruises.”

Most prisoners never tried to escape, much less become serial escapologists. Many who did were killed, like two-thirds of the 76 prisoners who participated in the mass breakout in March 1944 that inspired the 1963 movie “The Great Escape.”

Mr. Ash was not among the 76, though at the time he was in the same prison camp, Stalag Luft III, in an area of eastern Germany that is now part of Poland. He was in solitary confinement, or “the cooler,” where Virgil Hilts, the brash American played by Steve McQueen in the movie, often landed.

Some have suggested that Mr. Ash’s escape record made him a likely model for Hilts. “If I was, no one told me,” Mr. Ash wrote in his memoir, “Under the Wire: The World War II Adventures of a Legendary Escape Artist and ‘Cooler King.’ ”

John Sturges, the director of the film, said the characters were fictional composites.

William Franklin Ash’s exceedingly full life began on Nov. 30, 1917, in Dallas. His father was an unsuccessful ladies’ hat salesman. As a boy on vacation in New Mexico, he listened raptly as George Coe, an accomplice of Billy the Kid, told tales, brandishing the hand whose trigger finger had been shot off.

(Mr. Foley insisted that he had documented this and other claims by Mr. Ash. “Every time I researched an event, Bill had, if anything, played down his part,” he said in an interview.)

As a boy Mr. Ash worked at enough odd jobs to amass $200 in savings by the time he was 12 (equal to about $2,760 today), then lost it all that year in the 1929 stock market crash. Forever after he called himself “a ruined tycoon.”

Mr. Ash graduated with honors from the University of Texas, then wandered as a hobo, bouncing from boxcar to boxcar, job to job. He worked at a bank operating an elevator. (An acquaintance asked if his employer knew about his academic success. “Yes,” he replied, “but they’ve agreed to overlook it.”) In 1934, as a cub reporter for The Dallas Morning News, he gazed on the bullet-riddled corpses of Bonnie and Clyde.

Disappointed to have missed the Spanish Civil War, he decided to join the Royal Canadian Air Force to battle Hitler. (The United States was neutral at the time.) Reaching Detroit in early 1940, he walked across the Ambassador Bridge to Canada to enlist, giving up his American citizenship.

He found he loved to fly, a delight that ended abruptly when six German fighters shot him down near Calais on France’s northern coast.

His first escape attempt as a prisoner of war involved hiding in a shower drain. Two weeks’ solitary confinement followed. He nonetheless found the act of escape exhilarating, despite — or because of — the danger. He loved to take risks.

“If he saw a big red button,” Mr. Foley said, “he had to push it.”

Mr. Ash said his escape attempts had a larger purpose: to help the war effort by forcing the Germans to squander time and resources chasing escapees. But the stakes were high and the consequences could be harsh. After the real-life “great escape,” Hitler ordered 50 of the men to be massacred.

Mr. Ash had three stints at Stalag Luft III, the last camp he was in. In 1945, after a forced march in the snow, he limped across a battlefield to freedom as the war neared its end.

After the war, Mr. Ash was granted British citizenship, and King George VI made him a Member of the Order of the British Empire. He earned a second bachelor’s degree in philosophy, politics and economics from the University of Oxford, and he became manager of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s operations in India.

The BBC later fired him, however, because of his leftist politics. Even the Moscow-oriented Communist Party rejected him, saying he was too radical to be a member. He responded by helping to start a British Maoist party.

In 1946 he married Patricia Rambault, who as a member of the women’s branch of the Royal Navy had corresponded with him when he was a P.O.W. The marriage ended in divorce. In the late 1950s, Mr. Ash married Ranjana Sidhanta, who survives him. He is also survived by his daughter, Julia Ash; his son, Francis; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Mr. Ash was a published novelist, chairman of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and a prolific author of radio dramas.

One of his most daring moves during the war was to trade identities with a P.O.W. named Don Fair, who was being transferred to Stalag Luft VI, a camp near Heydekrug (now Silute), Lithuania. Mr. Ash sought the switch because he feared he was becoming too well known. Each man climbed barbed-wire fences between machine-gun towers in broad daylight to change compounds. Mr. Ash went to Lithuania with Mr. Fair’s ID papers. The real Mr. Fair, a New Zealander, remained in the camp under Mr. Ash’s name.

After escaping from the Lithuanian prison, Mr. Ash found a boat on a beach that was too heavy for him to move. He approached some men in a field, by his account, and told them he was an escaped American pilot.

“Yes, we would love to help you,” one of the men said, “but we are soldiers of the German Army, and you are standing on our cabbages.”

Mr. Ash returned to the cooler.

Σε τέτοιες περιπτώσεις θέλω να δω και το παρουσιαστικό του ανθρώπου.

 

[Earion]

William Ash (1917-2014). American-born British writer and Marxist who served as a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II.

 

[Zazula]

«You have to enjoy the sheer stupidity of someone picking a fight with exhibitionists and expecting them to keep it private.»
http://uproxx.com/filmdrunk/2014/04...nk-account-weeks-early-after-she-went-public/

 

[Alexandra]

Αν μπορείς, βάλε με κόπι-πέιστ το κείμενο, επειδή το Kaspersky μού το έκοψε για phishing.

 

[Zazula]

Αν μπορείς, βάλε με κόπι-πέιστ το κείμενο, επειδή το Kaspersky μού το έκοψε για phishing.

Chase Shut Down A Porn Star’s Bank Account Weeks Early After She Went Public

Chase’s exact reasons for shutting down a number of adult performers’ and directors’ bank accounts this week are still hazy, but one thing we do know is that they’re acting pretty touchy about all the publicity.

If you’ll remember, yesterday I published a letter that former adult actress Teagan Presley and her husband received from Chase. That letter advised them that Chase would be closing their accounts on May 11th. Only, according to Presley’s husband, Josh Lehman, Chase ended up closing the accounts much earlier. About 90 minutes after their story went up on Perez Hilton, to be exact.

Lehman says the response he got from Chase was “Our twitter team saw that your wife posted her account number on Twitter,” and tried to paint the early closure as a fraud protection measure. Only, as you can see in the original image, the only letter published publicly had all of the account numbers blacked out. Clearly the early closure was intended as a punitive measure. You have to enjoy the sheer stupidity of someone picking a fight with exhibitionists and expecting them to keep it private.
Now, Lehman says, his money is basically frozen in limbo and could remain there for up to 90 days.

Chase still isn’t commenting on the closures – which are widespread, with Lehman, Presley, Stoya, Layton Benton, Veronica Avluv, and even more porn stars off the record all reporting having their Chase accounts closed. “Hundreds of accounts” were closed, according to reports. But when Lehman asked why this was happening, he was given three separate reasons.
First, when he went into the bank, he was told that their accounts were being closed because of “the nature of their business.” When he called the loss prevention department, he was told it was because his wife is “an infamous porn star.” Finally, he got a call from someone at the executive branch (presumably a person charged with how best to spin these account closures), who (laughably) denied that Lehman and his wife’s account closures had anything to do with porn. According to Lehman, the spokesperson, Carlos, told him that his account was being closed because Lehman “did business with a convicted felon.” This, a person Lehman had worked with for 20 years.

So what’s going on? In the past, the government has cracked down on banks for failing to monitor suspicious activity – a $2.6 billion fine against JP Morgan (Chase’s parent company) for ignoring Bernie Madoff being one such example – which has in turn led to them doing more and more investigations into clients with “unusual” sources of funds, supposedly as a way to crack down on fraud and money laundering. They’ve basically been shutting down any merchants the FDIC defines as “high risk” – regardless of how legal their business may be – with impunity.

Theoretically, the porn connection is that web cams are a great way to launder money, but that doesn’t explain why Chase would target Lehman and Presley, who Lehman says haven’t even shot porn for a year, are basically retired, and get paid by Viacom. “It was my personal account,” Lehman says. “We never used it for porn business of any kind.”

Why would Chase (and other banks) be going after porn stars, seemingly for little financial gain? Most of the coverage on this so far has been written under the assumption that it’s another way porn stars are stigmatized. Is this really just another case of the morality police? Banks are a lot of things, but moralistic isn’t one of them. One possibility is that porn has been officially tagged as a high risk, and they just figure it’s easier to go after recognizable porn stars than do the research required to identify any specific transactions as high risk. Human laziness and stupidity always seems like a decent explanation.

If you’re more conspiracy minded, there’s always the Operation Choke Point angle that VICE pointed out in their initial coverage. From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Operation Chokepoint was launched in 2013 “reportedly to crack down on online payday lenders and others industries identified as ‘high risk’ for fraud.” It has been called “stop-and-frisk for banks….regulators frisk the bank by sending a subpoena for all the financial information on their clients that could potentially be up to no good. If the government finds something suspicious, it investigates further.
​

Could these closures be a way for Chase to keep the government from investigating further? Obviously, this is totally speculative at this stage, but when a bank goes on a closing spree shutting down the accounts not of porn stars with the shadiest transactions, but some of the most public ones, you naturally wonder if they’re trying to manipulate publicity somehow.

And obviously, that a bank can just freeze someone’s bank account for three months without even accusing that person of doing something illegal, let alone proving it, seems wildly unjust.

 

[Palavra]

Το Ευρωπαϊκό Δικαστήριο υποχρεώνει τη Google να διαγράφει προσωπικά δεδομένα πολιτών.

 

[bernardina]

Πόσα αχρείαστα κόμματα.

 

[nickel]

Πόσα αχρείαστα κόμματα.

Αυτό πρόσεξε να μην το πεις δυνατά την Κυριακή των εκλογών καθώς θα ξεφυλλίζεις τα ψηφοδέλτια...

 

[daeman]

Πόσα αχρείαστα κόμματα.

Αχρείαστα και παραπλανητικά, π.χ. αυτή την πρόταση πρέπει να τη διαβάσεις τουλάχιστον δύο φορές για να την αποκρυπτογραφήσεις:

Αν οι ίδιοι επιθυμούν, να διαγραφούν από τα αποτελέσματα των μηχανών αναζήτησης στο Διαδίκτυο, λανθασμένες πληροφορίες ή στοιχεία που «δεν αφορούν κανέναν άλλον», έχουν το δικαίωμα να το ζητήσουν, ακόμα και αν οι πληροφορίες έχουν αναρτηθεί νομίμως.

ενώ, παρά το μάκρος της, η κατανόησή της θα ήταν πολύ εύκολη χωρίς τα παραπανίσια κόμματα:

Αν οι ίδιοι επιθυμούν να διαγραφούν από τα αποτελέσματα των μηχανών αναζήτησης στο Διαδίκτυο λανθασμένες πληροφορίες ή στοιχεία που «δεν αφορούν κανέναν άλλον», έχουν το δικαίωμα να το ζητήσουν, ακόμα και αν οι πληροφορίες έχουν αναρτηθεί νομίμως.

 

[bernardina]

Όσοι ψηφίζετε εκεί, μην παραλείψετε να ρίξετε την ψήφο σας σ' αυτό τον υπέροχο άνθρωπο που νοιάζεται για τους δημότες του και, κυρίως, αυτούς που έχουν προβλήματα όρασης.

 

[Costas]

Στην προκειμένη περίπτωση, ενεργός πολίτης = πολίτης με σουγιαδάκι...

 

[daeman]

...
Στις 18 Μαΐου, εκτός από τις κάλπες, ραντεβού στα μουσεία:

Δωρεάν ξεναγήσεις, εικαστικές εκθέσεις, θεατρικές παραστάσεις, μουσικές εκδηλώσεις, παιχνίδια και διαγωνισμούς για παιδιά και μεγάλους, μπορούμε να απολαύσουμε στα μουσεία όλης της χώρας, με αφορμή τον εορτασμό της Διεθνούς Ημέρας Μουσείων στις 18 Μαΐου. Ανήμερα του εορτασμού η είσοδος σε όλα τα μουσεία θα είναι ελεύθερη ενώ τα σπέσιαλ προγράμματα θα τρέχουν όλο τον μήνα.

Για τη φετινή γιορτή, το Διεθνές Συμβούλιο Μουσείων ICOM επέλεξε τη θεματική «Οι συλλογές των μουσείων μάς ενώνουν». Τιμώμενος φορέας είναι το Βυζαντινό και Χριστιανικό Μουσείο, το οποίο φέτος συμπληρώνει 100 χρόνια από την ίδρυσή του.
www.doctv.gr/page.aspx?itemID=SPG6316

​

network.icom.museum/international-museum-day/imd-2014/the-theme-for-2014/

 

[daeman]

...
Προφανώς για τέτοιους δίσκους, τα εξώφυλλά τους δεν είναι εφήμερα, τα κουιζάκια όμως είναι:

Quiz: How many of these 60s album covers do you recognise?

Quiz: How many of these 70s album covers do you recognise?

Quiz: How many of these 80s album covers do you recognise?

Quiz: How many of these 90s album covers do you recognise?


Στη δεκαετία του '90 δεν τα πήγα πολύ καλά, τουλάχιστον όμως έμαθα μια καινούργια λέξη: provactive = provocative + proactive.

 

[nickel]

Αυτή την ιστορία την πρωτοδιάβασα στο in.gr, αλλά την απόλαυσα στα ωραία αγγλικά αυτής της ιστοσελίδας:

Brain Surgery Made A Man Obsessed With Johnny Cash

 

[Costas]

Πέθανε ο Μιχάλης Πρωτοψάλτης, αναρχικός εκδότης του περιοδικού Ο κόκορας που λαλεί στο σκοτάδι και των εκδόσεων Βιβλιοπέλαγος. Εδώ ένα άρθρο του Φίλιππα Κυρίτση γι' αυτόν και εδώ ένα βίντεο με μέρος της τοποθέτησής του για το βιβλίο "Η πολιτική βία είναι πάντοτε φασιστική", των εκδόσεων Διάπυρον. (enallaktikos.gr) Τελικά δεν κατάφερε να κατεβάσει Κόμμα Αναρχικών στις εκλογές, όπως ήθελε.

 

[SBE]

Μια είδηση από Ιρλανδία, από δύο πηγές. Για τα παιδιά που οι καλόγριες τα πέταγαν στο βόθρο του ιδρύματος όταν πέθαιναν.
Εδώ και εδώ.

Πριν λίγο καιρό είχα πει ότι δεν έχω σε μεγάλη εκτίμηση τους Ιρλανδούς και κάποιοι συν-λεξιλόγοι διαμαρτυρήθηκαν για τη μουσική, την καλή διάθεση κλπ των αδερφών Ιρλανδων, αλλά ρε παιδιά, τέτοια αδέρφια- ξαδέρφια τι να τα κάνουμε; Και μη μου πει κανένας ότι η εκκλησία φταίει, γιατί η εκκλησία στην Ιρλανδία από Ιρλανδούς αποτελείται

 

[Palavra]

Μια είδηση από Ιρλανδία, από δύο πηγές. Για τα παιδιά που οι καλόγριες τα πέταγαν στο βόθρο του ιδρύματος όταν πέθαιναν.
Εδώ και εδώ.

Μπα, και σ' αυτό έχουμε την πρωτοκαθεδρία ως έθνος και ως εκκλησία. Είναι γνωστή η ιστορία της Μάριαμ Σουλακιώτου, της καλόγριας που γύρω στο 1950 αναδύθηκε στην επιφάνεια της ειδησεογραφίας ως μια από τις καθ' έξιν δολοφόνους με τα περισσότερα θύματα παγκοσμίως σε μονή της Κερατέας. Εδώ κι εδώ και αλλού.

 

[SBE]

Οι διαφορές, σύμφωνα με τις πηγές σου, είναι:
Στην Ελλάδα η δικαιοσύνη επενέβη τότε και έγιναν οι σχετικές έρευνες και δίκες και η οργάνωση χαρακτηρίστηκε παράνομη. Στην Ιρλανδία έχουν αρχίσει να το αναφέρουν τα τελευταία χρόνια, ψιθυριστά, κι οι περισσότεροι ξέρουν. Και μάλλον δεν θεωρούν ότι είναι λάθος, γιατί αλλιώς πώς θα έμενε κρυφό πενήντα χρόνια;

Στην Ελλάδα, σύμφωνα με την πηγή που δίνεις, ήταν περίπτωση ψυχοπαθούς ηγουμένης που στρεφόταν και εναντίον των τροφίμων του ιδρύματος και εναντίων των άλλων μοναχών. Βλέπουμε επίσης ότι τα εγκλήματα ήταν: απαγωγή, κακοποίηση, δολοφονία, εκβιασμός, απάτη και κατάχρηση χρημάτων, και ότι τα θύματα τα είχε αναγκάσει να της μεταβιβάσουν την περιουσία τους πριν τα σκοτώσει. Στην Ιρλανδία δεν υπήρχε οικονομικό κίνητρο και ούτε ήταν μεμονωμένη περίπτωση σε ένα ίδρυμα. Ήταν κοινή πρακτική σε όλα τα ιδρύματα της χώρας. Επιπλέον, το αδίκημα στην Ιρλανδία είναι προσβολή νεκρών, αν υπάρχει τέτοιος νόμος εκεί, γιατί τα παιδιά πέθαναν φυσιολογικά, δηλώθηκε ο θάνατός τους στις αρχές και πέρασε στο ληξιαρχείο. Και αντί να τα θάψουν όπως θα περίμενες από κληρικούς, τα πέταγαν στο βόθρο.

Στην Ελλάδα κατάληγαν στο ίδρυμα για φροντίδα ασθενείς ή ηλικιωμένοι ή φτωχές οικογένειες, προφανώς πιστέυοντας ότι θα είχαν φροντίδα. Στην Ιρλανδία τις γυναίκες και τα παιδιά τα είχαν βάλει στο ίδρυμα οι οικογένειές τους για τιμωρία επειδή "είχαν αμαρτίες". Δηλαδή τα ιδρύματα αυτά ήταν φυλακές. Όχι μεταφορικά, φυλακές κανονικές, που πήγαινες να εκτίσεις ποινή, χωρίς τη μεσολάβηση του νόμου αλλά με απόφαση του λαϊκού δικαστηρίου της οικογένειας ή της γειτονιάς. Οι οποίοι ήξεραν τι γινόταν στο ίδρυμα. Αυτός είναι ο λαός- έξω καρδιά;

 

[SBE]

Να προσθέσω ότι δεν κάνουμε διαγωνισμό για το ποιός έχει τις χειρότερες καλόγριες.
Διάβασα την είδηση, μου σηκωθηκε η τρίχα και είπα να τη μοιραστώ.