24-5-18 [NK+XIR] Kim might want war - DW > .
24-2-9 Is North Korea Seeking Conflict With SK [XIR vs West]? - gtbt > .Societal Manipulation
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
DPRK - Anti-Western Propaganda
Sour-cherry picking by one of the planet's most oppressive regimes ...
24-2-10 KOREA | A Final Separation? - Prof J K-L > .
Devouring vs Digesting
20th-century commentators attacked the social discrimination of ‘consumption’ language [devouring, digesting]. Janice Radway’s ‘Reading is Not Eating’ (1986), for example, exposed elitist attitudes towards readers of popular romance, showing how metaphors can structure contemporary prejudice. The opposition between digesting and devouring became an unfashionable one after the 1980s, laden with politically incorrect connotations.
This defensiveness about popular reading now coincides with another phenomenon: the fear that reading might lose its cultural potency completely. This is why the language of reading-as-devouring is rehabilitated, with its unprecedented positive spin. ‘Devouring’ is reclaimed because, at its base, it signifies interest. And in a world where Facebook, WhatsApp and Netflix compete for our attention, any interest in good old-fashioned reading is encouraged at all costs.
Ironically, however, the tendency to endorse any kind of reading as good reading fosters new assumptions about what good reading entails. ‘Devouring’ implies a certain tempo – it idealises the fast-paced reading experience. It also promotes a certain kind of writing, as the Guardian’s description of the Booker panel shows. If a book grips us, if it sucks us in like a Hollywood thriller, it’s doing its ‘job’. Any work that elicits a slower, more ruminative reading experience is cast as defective. Any reading strategy that resists or disrupts the linear drive of the page-turner is dismissed.
https://aeon.co/ideas/is-devouring-books-a-sign-of-superficiality-in-a-reader
This defensiveness about popular reading now coincides with another phenomenon: the fear that reading might lose its cultural potency completely. This is why the language of reading-as-devouring is rehabilitated, with its unprecedented positive spin. ‘Devouring’ is reclaimed because, at its base, it signifies interest. And in a world where Facebook, WhatsApp and Netflix compete for our attention, any interest in good old-fashioned reading is encouraged at all costs.
Ironically, however, the tendency to endorse any kind of reading as good reading fosters new assumptions about what good reading entails. ‘Devouring’ implies a certain tempo – it idealises the fast-paced reading experience. It also promotes a certain kind of writing, as the Guardian’s description of the Booker panel shows. If a book grips us, if it sucks us in like a Hollywood thriller, it’s doing its ‘job’. Any work that elicits a slower, more ruminative reading experience is cast as defective. Any reading strategy that resists or disrupts the linear drive of the page-turner is dismissed.
https://aeon.co/ideas/is-devouring-books-a-sign-of-superficiality-in-a-reader
1897-5-26 Dracula, Bram Stoker
.26th May 1897: Bram Stoker's gothic novel Dracula is published - HiPo > .
Although not the first vampire novel, Dracula was certainly responsible for defining modern ideas of vampires and for forever associating them with Romania.
Vlad III was king of Romania before it was Romania, and he had such an enormous bloodlust that he was given the epithet ‘the Impaler’. However, during his lifetime he also had another name. He was known as Dracula. Many people therefore believe that Stoker based his character on a real historical prince. But he didn’t.
Vlad III’s father, Vlad II, was a member of the Order of the Dragon, a chivalric order charged with fighting the enemies of Christianity. In the case of Vlad, this meant the Turks on his southern border. As a member of the Order of the Dragon, Vlad added the Romanian word for dragon – dracul –to his name, and so he became known as Vlad Dracul. As son of the dragon, Vlad III was known as Vlad Dracula. However, the word dracul also has another meaning in the Romanian language: it means devil.
We know from his notes that Bram Stoker read the 19th Century British Consul William Wilkinson’s book about life in Romania, the snazzily titled, “Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia”, and that he came across various references to the term Dracula. However, Stoker’s only interest in the word Dracula was that it was associated with people who portrayed devilish or cruel behaviour. The name fitted his literary creation perfectly.
Vlad III was king of Romania before it was Romania, and he had such an enormous bloodlust that he was given the epithet ‘the Impaler’. However, during his lifetime he also had another name. He was known as Dracula. Many people therefore believe that Stoker based his character on a real historical prince. But he didn’t.
Vlad III’s father, Vlad II, was a member of the Order of the Dragon, a chivalric order charged with fighting the enemies of Christianity. In the case of Vlad, this meant the Turks on his southern border. As a member of the Order of the Dragon, Vlad added the Romanian word for dragon – dracul –to his name, and so he became known as Vlad Dracul. As son of the dragon, Vlad III was known as Vlad Dracula. However, the word dracul also has another meaning in the Romanian language: it means devil.
We know from his notes that Bram Stoker read the 19th Century British Consul William Wilkinson’s book about life in Romania, the snazzily titled, “Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia”, and that he came across various references to the term Dracula. However, Stoker’s only interest in the word Dracula was that it was associated with people who portrayed devilish or cruel behaviour. The name fitted his literary creation perfectly.
Dunkirk - Defeat to Miracle (BBC 40-6-5)
Dunkirk "Little Ships" beach evacuation > .
Miracle Of Dunkirk: Operation That Saved Britain | War Stories > .
Miracle Of Dunkirk: Operation That Saved Britain | War Stories > .
As the UK marks the 80th anniversary of the rescue of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from Dunkirk between May 27 and June 4 1940 ("The Great Escape"), we shall hear much of the author JB Priestley’s first “postscript” for BBC Radio on Wednesday June 5. That broadcast coined the phrase “Little Ships” and even acknowledged Priestley’s own part in shaping understanding of Dunkirk.
...
Before pledging to “fight them on the beaches”, Winston Churchill himself reminded the House of Commons in the same speech that “wars are not won by evacuations”. He acknowledged that the BEF had courted disaster before depicting its escape as “a miracle of deliverance”. That the British public regards it as a triumph owes much to the work of British newspaper journalists and the Royal Navy press officers who briefed them.
...
It took Hilaire Belloc, the Anglo-French author of Cautionary Tales for Children, to recognise in his column for the Sunday Times (The Evacuation and After, June 2) that the withdrawal from Belgium and the collapse of Britain’s key ally, France, constituted a “catastrophe”.In his defining examination of the elements that comprise Britain’s “received story” of 1940, The Myth of the Blitz, Scottish historian and poet Angus Calder noted that elements of the way the story was reported were misleading. However, Calder agreed that “Dunkirk was indeed a great escape”.
...
British newspapers worked to stiffen resolve and sustain morale at that time of grave national peril. In a democracy fighting totalitarianism, newspapers must balance their obligation to hold power to account and their duty to the national cause. The newspapers certainly colluded in the creation of myths about Dunkirk, but their readers might not have welcomed any efforts to report Dunkirk any other way.After all, myths are not lies and this one was studded with harsh facts. In Bernard Gray’s words for the Sunday Pictorial, Dunkirk was glorious despite the truth that: “The British Army has not won a battle. The British Army has retreated. The British Army has had to leave the Battlefield.”
The BEF was conveyed under planned arrangements to the Channel Ports for embarkation by train as were nine Ambulance trains out of the 25 such trains that existed at that time. This rail.co.uk report is taken from official publications published at the time.
Thirty four casualty evacuation trains were strategically located near the south coast but were not all required to perform their task. They were however used to evacuate hospitals and what were called ‘Public Assistance institutions’ to safer locations. The rail operation associated with ‘Dynamo’ (the Dunkirk evacuation) as it was called, started at 5pm on Sunday May 26th and by dawn of the 27th, the procession of trains had started.
The BEF was mobilised ready for rail transport from January 1940 and literally thousands of troop trains ran from ports to military camps across the south of England. Official publications published in 1944 said that ‘One railway ran 164 special trains over 24 days’. The railways were stretched in every way in early 1940 as many staff had been called up for service. But when the BEF was mobilised, 40,000 civilians were drafted into the forces and moved by rail from main line stations to selected centres in just 72 hours.
Moving the BEF for embarkation to France involved the Southern Railway running 1100 troop specials carrying 390,000 troops. In addition to these, special ammunition and stores trains also operated. The scene was set then for the unexpected Dunkirk evacuation a few months later when 319,116 troops were evacuated on 620 trains over 16 days. One day alone saw 110 trains operate from the south coast. Another 200 trains operated carrying more evacuees over several days.
The railways evacuated these troops via eight Channel ports using 2,000 carriages pooled by the various railway companies. There was no timetable to run to, the whole operation was directed over the phone and many ordinary services were cancelled along the coast. The GWR provided 40 trains, the LMS 44, the LNER 47 and the Southern 55 trains for the evacuation.
One train every 20 minutes departed Dover with each evacuee being given a bun and a banana reported Mr Steward, the Marine Superintendent there. Dover saw 327 trains, Folkestone 64, Ramsgate 82, Margate 75 plus 21 Ambulance Trains and Sheerness another 21 trains. The peak of rail operations was on June 1st - which was marginally busier than June 4th when 60 vessels berthed at Dover.
When the exhausted evacuees landed, they had to be fed and it was the Royal Army Supply Corps that did the business assisted by many civilians. The first stopping place for food was Headcorn with a staff of three or Paddock Wood for evacuees. A total of 145,000 evacuees were initially looked after by 100 people at these two stations, working 24 hours a day for nine days. The food logistics HQ was set up in a nearby barn and carried across a field and the railway to the Up platform.
Apart from sandwiches, the menu contained jellied veal, sardines, cheese, oranges, apples and traditional railway food in the shape of meat pies, rolls, sausages and hard boiled eggs. Nineteen stoves kept the hot drinks going day and night but one problem was supplying enough cups. When a train was about to depart, a cry of ‘Sling them out’ went up from the platform and it is reported that a shower of tin mugs appeared from the train clattering on the platform. They then to be washed up ready for the next train!
Apart from sandwiches, the menu contained jellied veal, sardines, cheese, oranges, apples and traditional railway food in the shape of meat pies, rolls, sausages and hard boiled eggs. Nineteen stoves kept the hot drinks going day and night but one problem was supplying enough cups. When a train was about to depart, a cry of ‘Sling them out’ went up from the platform and it is reported that a shower of tin mugs appeared from the train clattering on the platform. They then to be washed up ready for the next train!
The railways owned 130 ships in September 1939 and were mainly fast twin-screw turbine steamers built for passengers and mail traffic. The railways also owned and operated coastal cargo ships and out of all these, the Government chartered 92 for the war effort. The last passenger sailing from France was made by railway ship the SS Hantonia from St. Malo carrying passengers and troops which arrived at Southampton on June 17, 1940.
There was one final sailing from Europe to England made by another railway owned ship, the SS Hodder which was from Dunkirk. She arrived there to find no passengers (troops) waiting to be evacuated and was used to tow a disabled Admiralty store vessel back to England laden with petrol and ammunition, perhaps a curious combination!
All in all, the railways in conjunction with the ‘little ships’ save the day for the UK and the free world.
Dunkirk was a victory for morale but ultimately a humiliating military defeat .
How Fleet Street turned Dunkirk from catastrophe into cultural icon .
What happened to the French army after Dunkirk .
Dunkirk survivors’ terror didn’t end when they were rescued .
40-5-25 Dunkirk Evacuation - Dynamo 40-6-4 ..
40-6-1 Dunkirk - June 1 1940 ..
There was one final sailing from Europe to England made by another railway owned ship, the SS Hodder which was from Dunkirk. She arrived there to find no passengers (troops) waiting to be evacuated and was used to tow a disabled Admiralty store vessel back to England laden with petrol and ammunition, perhaps a curious combination!
All in all, the railways in conjunction with the ‘little ships’ save the day for the UK and the free world.
Dunkirk was a victory for morale but ultimately a humiliating military defeat .
How Fleet Street turned Dunkirk from catastrophe into cultural icon .
What happened to the French army after Dunkirk .
Dunkirk survivors’ terror didn’t end when they were rescued .
40-5-25 Dunkirk Evacuation - Dynamo 40-6-4 ..
40-6-1 Dunkirk - June 1 1940 ..
Dystopian Narratives
.
George Orwell's 1984: Why it still matters - BBC N > .25-1-15 BATTLE Over George Orwell: How Elon Musk et al Misuse Him - i Paper > .
Individual totalitarian-dystopian storylines vary. To give a few popular examples, torture and surveillance feature in George Orwell’s 1984 (1949); organ harvesting in the Unwind series (2007-) by Neal Shusterman; mandatory plastic surgery in the Uglies series (2005-7) by Scott Westerfeld; mind control in Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993); gender inequality in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985); government-arranged marriage in the Matched trilogy (2010-12) by Ally Condie; and environmental disaster in the Maze Runner series (2009-16) by James Dashner. But all such narratives conform to genre conventions of character, setting and plot. ... In these societies ‘the ideals for improvement have gone tragically amok’. While there are occasional exceptions, dystopian fiction typically valorises dramatic and often violent rebellion by a courageous few.
23-7-16 Inequality Becoming Problematic | EcEx > .
Organ harvesting in Xina
A growing body of research shows that there is no ‘strong toggle’ in the brain between fiction and nonfiction. People often incorporate lessons from fictional stories into their beliefs, attitudes and value judgments, sometimes without even being aware that they are doing so.
Dystopian fiction is likely to be especially powerful because it is inherently political. The totalitarian-dystopian genre portrays a dark and disturbing alternative world where powerful entities act to oppress and control citizens, violating fundamental values as a matter of course. Post-apocalyptic narratives, including those about zombies, can also be considered ‘dystopian’. However, the standard setting is politically very different, emphasising chaos and the collapse of social order, and thus is likely to affect people in different ways.
Individual totalitarian-dystopian storylines vary. To give a few popular examples, torture and surveillance feature in George Orwell’s 1984 (1949); organ harvesting in the Unwind series (2007-) by Neal Shusterman; mandatory plastic surgery in the Uglies series (2005-7) by Scott Westerfeld; mind control in Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993); gender inequality in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985); government-arranged marriage in the Matched trilogy (2010-12) by Ally Condie; and environmental disaster in the Maze Runner series (2009-16) by James Dashner. But all such narratives conform to genre conventions of character, setting and plot. ... In these societies ‘the ideals for improvement have gone tragically amok’. While there are occasional exceptions, dystopian fiction typically valorises dramatic and often violent rebellion by a courageous few.
...
Is dystopian fiction a threat to democracy and political stability? Not necessarily, although the fact that it is sometimes censored suggests that some leaders do think along these lines. For example, Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) is still banned in North Korea, and even in the US, the top 10 books most frequently targeted for removal from school libraries in the past decade include The Hunger Games and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1931). Dystopian narratives offer the lesson that radical political action can be a legitimate response to perceived injustice. However, the lessons people take away from media, be it fiction or nonfiction, might not always stick and, even when they do stick, people don’t necessarily act on them.
Dystopian fiction continues to offer a powerful lens through which people view the ethics of politics and power. Such narratives might have a positive effect in keeping citizens alert to the possibility of injustice in a variety of contexts, ranging from climate change and artificial intelligence to authoritarian resurgences worldwide. But a proliferation of dystopian narratives might also encourage radical, Manichaean perspectives that oversimplify real and complex sources of political disagreement. So while the totalitarian-dystopian craze might nourish society’s ‘watchdog’ role in holding power to account, it can also fasttrack some to violent political rhetoric – and even action – as opposed to the civil and fact-based debate and compromise necessary for democracy to thrive.
Is dystopian fiction a threat to democracy and political stability? Not necessarily, although the fact that it is sometimes censored suggests that some leaders do think along these lines. For example, Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) is still banned in North Korea, and even in the US, the top 10 books most frequently targeted for removal from school libraries in the past decade include The Hunger Games and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1931). Dystopian narratives offer the lesson that radical political action can be a legitimate response to perceived injustice. However, the lessons people take away from media, be it fiction or nonfiction, might not always stick and, even when they do stick, people don’t necessarily act on them.
Dystopian fiction continues to offer a powerful lens through which people view the ethics of politics and power. Such narratives might have a positive effect in keeping citizens alert to the possibility of injustice in a variety of contexts, ranging from climate change and artificial intelligence to authoritarian resurgences worldwide. But a proliferation of dystopian narratives might also encourage radical, Manichaean perspectives that oversimplify real and complex sources of political disagreement. So while the totalitarian-dystopian craze might nourish society’s ‘watchdog’ role in holding power to account, it can also fasttrack some to violent political rhetoric – and even action – as opposed to the civil and fact-based debate and compromise necessary for democracy to thrive.
- Alternate history
- Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
- Biopunk
- Cyberpunk
- Digital dystopia
- Dissident
- Inner emigration
- Kafkaesque
- List of dystopian comics
- List of dystopian films
- List of dystopian literature
- List of dystopian music, TV programs, and games
- List of dystopian works
- Lovecraftian horror
- Plutocracy
- Police state
- Self-fulfilling prophecy
- Social science fiction
- Societal collapse
- Soft science fiction
- Utopian and dystopian fiction .
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sī vīs pācem, parā bellum
igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war sī vīs pācem, parā bellum if you wan...
