Donkeyshott & Xuitlacoche

The metaphor of the sea and waves is misleading because it offers no readily accessible analogy for separateness and intention. People are vastly complex systems of systems. Intention and thought are emergent properties of these complex systems. The metaphor of the ocean is unhelpful. In the end most metaphors are misleading, but if we are going to use them, lets be more picky. The dependence connectedness and implied causality discussed here are of course not linear at all, and only makes sense within rich systemic hierarchies. How can something be connected to everything unless that connecting all embracing something is wholeness – the theory of everything. For humans we should use the analogy of gravity, perhaps. Gravity is a that relatively weak force that connects the Earth to the rest of the cosmos, but it also allows separateness. Somehow gravity is a product of matter which is, in turn, a product of subatomic forces and particles that build up in different ways and quant...

We arrived in Morocco from a murky Britain. On the way to the airport the A23 looked undersea. The lamps along the highway spraying muddy light at intervals - a murky fish tank. In Morocco, Teresa and the girls put on sun glasses and posed in front of the Arabic airport sign: Marrakesh. And from there we went to the hotel and went out into town and visited the Gardens that were maintained by an Yves St Laurent foundation. It was full of French people, and quite plashing and pretty- painted in Berber blue, or electric blue and with fountains and palms and cacti. It was a riff on the Moroccan rather than Moroccan. From there we went to the Tank of Health. It was on the periphery of a vast set of gardens. The Tank of Health was full of aggressive, competing carp. A man dangled a piece of bread on a string and one of the large fish leaped out and hit the morsel into the water with its tail. Moroccans travel around a lot on mopeds. Families coming to picnic in the d...

Black Beach, Malabo I was working near the British Museum , about 50 yards from it in fact. I worked there for about a year and a half on-and-off in 2002 and 3. I would listen to the reflections of top scientists, millionaires, senior managers of European companies, politicians and sports people and, having understood what it was they did and thought and said and needed to do, I would have to help them explain themselves to themselves and others in English. It was fun. It was de luxe, personalised education - for me. I had a few failures: Once I had the top management of the oil company from a small little country in the nook of Africa: Equatorial Guinea. He sat in front of me with two body guards. I am here, he explained, because Exxon Mobile has come to Equatorial Guinea and is extracting oil off shore and we don't know how much they take. We have no computer systems and we don't speak English. They take what they want and leave and we have no control. He looked ups...

Photo of Ait Ben Haddou Folded mountains; bouleversant Folding people, émouvant Grass and the sprinkle of pines Cedar, cactus and spruce. Berber women mill bitter Agar, To make oil, and love juice Clay-cooked in Mountains Our mutton stews and softens The uvular /q/ before the /a/ In Ait ben Haddou

Like idiots we came to Marrakesh just as the demonstrations started. Hotel shutters down. Playing pool and eating Paninis. Tomorrow off to the Atlas mountains, inchallah.

Trailer for the movie Dear Mr. Hall, Dennis is presently on a LONG WALK across the US for the next 5 months to bring awareness to the high rates of diabetes on the reservations and will not have easy means to respond to important emails such as the one you just sent him. I can tell you that the American Indian Movement began (1968) in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota the state where Dennis was born because of  the unfair treatment of Indian people forced off the reservations and into the cities where they could not find decent jobs or housing and where police brutality toward Indian people was intolerable. Dennis  is Ojibwe and was born on Leech Lake reservation in a far northern area of MN in 1937. The American Indian Movement was the spark that began Native Peoples Movements all over the world and over the years Dennis has responded to requests to appear in numerous countries to address the very questions you have asked him here.  He is a man o...

By Asad Karimi When I was in Afghanistan and I was six or seven years old I didn't like going to school. I hated it. I loathed it. I couldn't stand it. The teachers, all men, didn't help the students, they were not polite to them or nice to them in any way. On the contrary. I was feeling exited about going to school. My Mother and my family wanted me to go because they wanted me to learn something and to become a doctor or engineer. Ha! They spent their precious money and paid for my fees and for the books and for the uniform and they thought that the teachers would look after us. But I couldn't learn anything at school because of the violence of the teachers. They beat you with a long wooden pole when you were two minutes late. They beat you when you made a mistake. They proper hit you; on the stomach everywhere, and the teachers humiliated you in front of the class. You felt so embarrassed. While I was trying to write they hit me on my back...

Tony Hall My 'speech' for Eve's 65th party at Matumi - a much shorter version was given extempore, without reading. Dear friends, dear family... Thank you all for copming to celebrate with us, with Eve,  and with Sherry... What a lovely turnout, what a fine broth of humanity you are, so many interesting eminent and dear people, making the trek all the way from the wilds of Gauteng, from the metropolis of Nelspruit, from the slopes of Msilezi, from the abundant orchards of the Crocodile, from the middle reaches of the Houtbosloop Valley, from Eden itself...We are honoured and excited to know you, each and every one - let alone plseased and highly entertained to see you here tonight. As I look round I am also tempted to say something about everybody in turn, because your stories are quite wonderful. So I can't mention a single one - just look at each of you in awe and delight. We are sorry there are friends and family who couldn't make it - but if they had, ...

In the spirit of 'magical literalism', here's the story of my pub tour with Anthony. The start was not propitious. The trip began at a bus stop by the A3. You may see the bus approaching, though I didn't. I was too busy taking the picture and almost missed it. I have a new phone and wanted to play with the camera. In New Malden I stepped off the bus at the Fountain , crossed the road and walked past the boarded up police station. Then caught the train to Waterloo . All erudition, and reeking of cordite, the first thing Anthony quoted to me was Liebknecht's description of a pub crawl with Karl Marx ; which he took in the spirit of investigating the roots of an old British tradition - Wilhelm not Karl, of course. 'One evening, Edgar Bauer, acquainted with Marx from their Berlin time and then not yet his personal enemy […], had come to town from his hermitage in Highgate for the purpose of “making a beer trip.” The problem was to “take something” in eve...