Humane socialism
WE MUST STOP THEM by Phil Hall Gato, the new Google Artificial Intelligence system (tremble in your social media, free speech boots) is a perfect illustration of the point that the hyper-rich are beginning to use AI as their intermediary and control system. At the same time, the owners and purveyors of Artificial Intelligence try […]
Continue Reading
Stop the War! ‘Do you know what I do to people who get in the way of me?’ asked the thuggish manager of a Gazoprom plant sitting across the table from me. ‘No, what do you do to them?’ ‘I destroy them.’ He said. And he stared at me, unsmiling. We must understand one thing […]
Continue Reading
SUDEEP SEN 1. RABINDRANATH TAGOREhaiku triptych ERASURE lines of poems scratched out, erased to ink in — new shapes — art revealed SELF-PORTRAIT gouache shade’s matt-blur — an outline of the psyche — subtle peek into soul’s eye SONG rabindra sangeet’s nasal baritone — honey- tinged, monotonic — Sudeep Sen My emotional and aural response […]
Continue Reading
By Paul Halas The democratisation of the image Art is everywhere, whether it’s highbrow gallery art, pulp, throwaway art, or the vast array of moving images available to us. Perhaps because my parents excelled in the production of animated films – possessing talents I sadly didn’t inherit – I was always fascinated by the incredible […]
Continue Reading
You need to become more self-reliant. by Tasneem Sheikh Wake up! Wake up! I hear my aunt wake my sisters, cousins and me early in the morning. We were teenage girls on a vacation, staying at a distant relative’s house. The host thought it was a great time to throw a huge lunch party for […]
Continue Reading
Remarrying body and mind Our post-enlightenment belief system is built on pure materialism. It must tear before consciousness can be put to work to heal. by Philip Hall What is the experience of dying? Well, the Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thodol) describes it. You can imagine monks told monks, as they were dying, […]
Continue Reading
Reviewed by Peter Cowlam You might posit, from an Hegelian perspective, and given the long-term goals of history, that reformations of one kind or another cannot be avoided. There can be no refining process otherwise. If the long-term goal of human history is spiritual as much as material, then an intractable problem occurs in the […]
Continue Reading
We need socialism if we don’t want to turn into capitalism’s cyborgs The distinction between humans and intelligent machines is consciousness, so in future we must all seek jobs which require consciousness by Phil Hall Machines will soon be able to do a lot of the physical work and some of the intellectual work of […]
Continue Reading
Review by Jon Elsby Assessing Robert Harris’s1 Conclave is not only a question of style. Also singled out are the quality of the dialogue, the architecture of the narrative, the balance between different sections, the sharpness of the characterization, the economy and precision of the descriptive writing, the ability unerringly to choose the telling concrete […]
Continue Reading
The situation couldn’t be more dangerous By Phil Hall Through their actions in recent years, the leaders of Nato have succeeded in rewinding the clock and taking us back to the most dangerous phase of the cold war. The result is that we are now on the verge of a hot war. At the same […]
Continue Reading
All writers have a voice, and Francis Bacon is not Shakespeare – not even Shake-spear By Philip R. Hall Shakespeare is the author of his own work, not anyone else. Why should people try to separate Shakespeare from his own work? My rationale for this is quite simple; it’s a miguided attempt to hoard intellectual […]
Continue Reading
Is “our” culture in peril? By Paul Halas The right wing press doesn’t pull its punches: an army of do-gooders, snowflakes and lefty killjoys are out to rob us of our freedoms and force us to abandon our cherished traditions. Our history is being re-written, monuments are being torn down, our favourite books, films and […]
Continue Reading
My Metamorphosis from Christian caterpillar to Buddhist butterfly By Patrick Taggart Caterpillar: in reality I was a judgemental asshole I am ashamed of the young man I was in 1985. I was an evangelical Christian and I remember chiding a friend for not being sufficiently joyful. Yes, she had lost her only brother, her soulmate, […]
Continue Reading
By Phil Hall Let’s start off by asking who we are. Who are you? Who am I? I’d better check my privileges. As for my family and me, we are middle class. I don’t fall into the category of working class. My parents and a lot of my family have lived by writing, or else […]
Continue Reading
By Phil Hall and the contributors of Ars Notoria I dreamed of a world where people got together into families and then organised into neighbourhoods. From there they organised into districts, then towns and regions and larger regions. I dreamed that everything that was political and economic and social and artistic, and environmental and recreative […]
Continue Reading
All these extraordinary books will make a good read and a memorable present. It is also an honour for the poets chosen.
Continue Reading
ARE WE A NATION BEYOND CARING? By Paul Halas They partied and broke their own rules; they’ve been rumbled but will there now be a reckoning? The whitewash is already underway, Allegra Stratton is the blood sacrifice and an inquiry, of sorts, is to be held – led by someone who allegedly attended one of […]
Continue Reading
Boris Johnson is hopeless By Phil Hall I made a suggestion on Mariella Frostrup’s Book Programme decades ago which she broadcast with a laugh. It was my opportunity to offend the whole English nation: Why not celebrate Saint George’s Day as they do in Spain? Give a book and a flower. This way we can […]
Continue Reading
The king was a genocidal megalomaniac Bluebeard, a Caligula By Phil Hall A beloved and ailing aunt, a great artist and a generous and beautiful soul, someone loved by nearly all living things (from turtles, cats and dogs, to the husband of a favourite niece) woke up in the middle of the night and called […]
Continue Reading
The Edwardian look saw male fashion at its most elegant By Stephen Hoare Algy, the Piccadilly Johnny with the little glass eye, the subject of a popular music hall song by Vesta Tilley presents an enduring image of the male peacock. Miss Tilley, a small but feisty female whose cross-dressing routines on the Edwardian stage […]
Continue Reading
You must be logged in to post a comment.