All posts by <3

On breathing pattern in Anxiety and Panic

There is not only one “good way” to breathe, there are different situations in life and different ways to most efficiently breathe through them (whether we are resting, running for our lives, playing the flute…). Below is  a good article describing how a “paradoxical” breathing pattern affects body functions,  and is notoriously involved in chronic anxiety / panic attacks. From there we see how to (help) operate a switch from anxious states to a relaxed state, and generally restore balance between the systems/functions, using guided deep abdominal breathing and massage of the accessory respiratory muscles. KEY.

>> A Bridge to reducing chronic anxiety and panic attacks, by Dale G. Alexander in Massage Today

More resources to Hack Anxiety on HWC’s wiki here

A breath of fresh Justice for Assange !

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“The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found that Julian Assange is being arbitrarily and unlawfully detained by Sweden and the United Kingdom; and that he must be immediately released and compensated. More”

>> Justice for Assange

>> Freeing Julian Assange: The last chapter, by John Pilger (+ em Portugues : O preso politico que expoe o Imperio)

>> Julian Assange: What happens to your body when you are indoors for three years ? Kashmira Gander

Panic attack info and first aid guidelines

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Sudden shortness of breath, choking, racing heartbeat, pain in the chest, nausea, sweating, shaking, feels like dying, completely losing it… What is happening ? It might well be a Panic attack.

Although very impressive, panic attacks are often not as dangerous as they look, manageable, reversible, and can be avoided in the future. Much of the terror they bring can be controlled by understanding what is actually going on in the body and mind of the person. Whether it’s you or friend. So, in times of peace and quiet, do a bit of research on that extreme physiological state, so you are able to help yourself or someone when the attack attacks. Also, when the emergency has passed, it is important to consider the personal context in which the attack(s) took place, identify, maybe, some triggers. Only then can remedies be found in life and lifestyle that will prevent such challenging crisis from happening again.

Here are some suggested reading:

>> Panic attacks information sheets, Centre for Clinical Intervention

>> Panic attack first aid guidelines, Mental Health First Aid Australia

 

From AI WEIWEI with LOVE

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Today AI WEIWEI shuts down his exhibition in Copenhagen in protest at a new law that allows authorities to steal asylum seekers’ valuables as they enter Denmark. Meanwhile, those who couldn’t make it to his great exhibition in the Royal Academy of arts in London can now enjoy a full 360 visit of the show online – Julian Assange, for example, fellow political dissident and refugee still trapped inside the Ecuadorian embassy not far after years of a really stinky legal deadlock, is grateful and has a little foreword to share (check how he says hello).

“Create something new” – Nafeez Ahmed on making a difference

“We are, therefore, in the midst of a momentous civilisational transition, the outcomes of which are not set in stone. In this context, the chronically bad news we see everyday is not just bad news: it also signals the inevitable decline of a particular way of being in the world. But this also opens up, here and now, opportunities to forge what comes after.

Within the very accelerating failure of the present paradigm, the opportunity to explore and build new paradigms that work also accelerates.

So what can we do? What can you, as one person do?

Here’s, roughly, what I tell people when they ask me this, based on my own limited experience and efforts.”

>> How to change the world in 3 easy steps, by Nafeez Ahmed, investigative journalist, founder of Insurge Intelligence

An End to Self-Care, B. Loewe

“I’m going to say it. I want to see an end to “self-care.” Can we put a nail in self-care’s coffin and instead birth a newer discussion of community care?

As I most often hear it, self-care stands as an importation of middle-class values of leisure that’s blind to the dynamics of working class (or even family) life, inherently rejects collective responsibility for each other’s well-being, misses power dynamics in our lives, and attempts to serve as a replacement for a politics and practice of desire that could actually ignite our hearts with a fuel to work endlessly.

Talking about how we sustain ourselves, honor our personal needs, and prioritize our well-being in this brusque and brutal world is a huge advance from movement culture generations before.  However, centering that conversation on ‘self-care’ devoid of our place in the collective misses the central point of why we need to care for ourselves. And that is because we must have all of our strength in place to counter the systems which, without our ability to resist and transform, without the self-preservation Audre Lorde describes, would see us destroyed.”

>> Continue reading  An End to Self-Care, by B. Loewe, and visit Organizing Upgrade for more thoughts on the subject and community care resources

Mãozada – The Handshake: HWC hands massage manual !

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Hacking with Care is happy to share a hands massage manual we have created for everyone to enjoy ! Now available in full on our wiki and right here in pdf, ready for printing 🙂 

Love to our friends and to all those yet-strangers who will become friends after a good handshake <3 !!!

Mãozada − The Handshake was redacted in Portugal, in 2015.

Texts are by Emily King. Drawings are by Dayana Lucas. Special thanks to La Quadrature du Net, Sarah Hiltner, and everyone who helped in the making of this manual <3 !

You are free to print, copy, circulate, and remix as you please. Do not, however, make any commercial use of this work in whole or part. It was conceived as a gift; please use it as such.

From the Introduction :

Our hands are tools; they transform thought into action, shape our reality, connect us to the world and the beautiful beings that are part of it.

An extension of our hearts, they can bring the ones we love closer, and keep at a distance those we distrust.

Their sophisticated anatomy enables both the use of brute force and the most delicate of gestures. They feed us, defend us, but also hold onto a lot of stress.

As the bark of the tree, the skin of our hands holds the traces of the many stories that make up our lives.

Since all body parts tend to reflect a greater whole, a hand massage will have positive effects on the general state of being.

 

 

 

 

Captain Paul Watson doesn’t do Stress

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Sea Sheperd Captain Paul Watson who knows a thing or two about about stress shares his insights and tips :

“I am often asked how I deal with stress considering I’m wanted by Japan and Costa Rica, I have a price on my head from the shark fin mafia of Costa Rica, we have numerous ships on the sea in dangerous campaigns, I am being sued, threatened and harassed continuously and I have a lot of enemies, critics and people who wish me harm.

The answer to this is simple. I don’t deal with stress, because I do not suffer from stress. And these are ten primary reasons why, and for anyone suffering from anxiety, worry or stress, I would like to offer this advice.”

Continue reading “Dealing with that Killer called Stress”, by Paul Watson

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DOCTEURE DUCHESNE @Toulouse, 7-8 Nov

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DocteurE Duchesne dit :

Le DocteurE Duchesne vient faire un tour à Toulouse !

SAMEDI 7 NOVEMBRE
À 16H
Je serai au festival Femme Scandal à Terre Blanque, pour un talk interactif sur les sexualités et la santé féminines, trans & queer. Ecrivez vos questions sur un pâpier, on met tout dans un saladier, et je répondrai en public pendant 1h30 aux questions les plus inspirantes !!!

DIMANCHE 8 NOVEMBRE
À 15H
Atelier auto-exam au spéculum dans un lieu cozy secret à Toulouse !!! Ça va être super love comme d’hab. Dans la première partie, “théorique”, je raconterai histoire du spéculum et de la gynécologie (TW : c’est violent !!), puis on passe à la pratique pour (re)découvrir son col de l’utérus et s’initier aux bases de l’auto-examen (manipulation du spéculum, observation). Atelier non-mixte meufs/gouines/trans.


PLACES LIMITÉES !! Réservation obligatoire par mail, à poussydraama@riseup.net
Le lieu te sera révélé à la suite de ton inscription !
Je fournis les spéculum, apporte un petit miroir et une lampe de poche !

LOve

 

Alan, the Monkey in your Mind

monkeymindzntacle

Thoughts on the restless mind (a.k.a “monkey mind” ), exhaustion from over-thinking, and simple breathing exercise to help drop the bananas, here in this article on Zentacles.

“You’ve got a monkey in your brain. Let’s call him Alan.

Alan is like most normal monkeys. He swings about from tree to tree, he loooooves bananas, and in all likelihood he will never stay in one place for longer than a few minutes. Now let’s say you have something you need to tell Alan – you get him down from whichever tree you find him in, you sit him down on a chair, and you start talking to him. Only before you’ve even finished your sentence, to your dismay, Alan is off back up the tree. You try a few more times, and Alan very helpfully sits there for a number of seconds whilst you try and get your words out. But the same pattern continues, and in the end you give up.”

MIAU !

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Quinta-feira, dia 8, às 19h
Filme MIAU: Movimiento insurrecto por la autonomía de Una Misma
* seguido de conversa de boca cheia sobre saúde sexo e autonomia

“Convidamos todas e todos a assistir a este documentário!
É uma chamada a todas as que ignoramos o funcionamento do nosso corpo e nos vemos submetidas a qualquer estrutura machista e patriarcal, seja a médica, a farmacêutica ou qualquer pessoa ou instituição que nos tente silenciar.
Nós lutamos para viver numa sociedade livre e enquanto o fazemos, criamos laços de confiança e compartilhamos o conhecimento aprendido, esperando que se entenda que aí está a graça, em aprender e ensinar, com generosidade, matando o ego e a usura.
Por isso este documentário é uma prenda, porque é conhecimento livre.”

Sexta-feira, dia 9, às 18h
Workshop livre – Calendário menstrual e partilha de experiências

>> MIAU no vimeo

>>JORNADAS LIBERTARIAS PORTO

CYCLE : calendar program for women

cycle

CYCLE is a “calendar program for women. Given a cycle length or statistics for several periods, it can calculate the days until menstruation, the days of “safe” sex, the fertile period, and the days to ovulations, and define the d.o.b. of a child. It allows the user to write notes and helps to supervise the reception of hormonal contraceptive tablets.

Cycle is written in Python (also wxPython required) and distributed under the GNU General Public License.”

 

ZEN and the art of making tech work for you

Gender and Tech Ressources >> ZEN and the art of making tech work for you,  complete manual (Tactical Technology Collective + Association for Progressive Communication)

From the Introduction:

“This manual is a community-built resource for our growing community of women and trans* activists, human rights defenders and technologists. It is designed to be a living, growing collection of practical guidance and information that uniquely speaks to our needs, experiences, and activism, both online and offline. Content listed in the manual was created in response to our community’s requests for ideas and guidance they needed, but couldn’t find elsewhere. Therefore, this initial manual content doesn’t cover many other topics that we hope to add with your support and input as it evolves here on the wiki. The current manual explores two overlapping issues:

  • First, how can we craft appropriate online presences (or a series of them) that strengthen our ability to communicate and work online safely?
  • Secondly, how can we collaboratively create safe online and offline spaces that enable our communities to share, collaborate, and communicate safely?

This is a process: Stay centered, cultivate patience, and practice self-care

The first most important thing to remember when using this manual, is that we have used the concept of “zen” in the title to highlight the importance of embracing technology with the calm understanding that it won’t always work perfectly. Sometimes you might need to spend time pondering technology and the significance of it in your life, in your community and in the world. And other times you might need to take a break and come back to it.”

On regulating the spirit in accordance with the Qi of autumn

Grimshaw-John-Autumn-Sun

“The three months of autumn,

they denote taking in and balance

The Qi of heaven becomes tense *

The Qi of the earth becomes bright.

Go to rest early and rise early,

get up together with the chicken.

Let the mind be peaceful and tranquil, so as

to temper the punishment carried out in autumn**.

Collect the spirit Qi and

cause the autumn Qi to be balanced.

Do not direct your mind to the outside and

cause the lung Qi to be clear.

This is the correspondence with the Qi of autumn and

it is the way to nourish gathering.

Opposing it harms the lung.

In winter this causes outflow of undigested food and

there is little to support storage. ***”

*Wang Bing: Wind blows with a cutting sound

** Violent storms in autumn appeared like a punishment. This was also the season, in ancient China, to perform executions of criminals sentenced to capital punishment. Wang Bing: When the mental Qi is hectic, one is not careful in their activities. If one is not careful in their activities, one accentuate the severity of autumn punishments, goes along with killing, and destroys life. Hence, one establishes a peaceful and tranquil mind to soften the punishments carried out in autumn.

*** Wang Bing: It is to say: to carry out the orders of summer in contrast [to the requirements of autumn]. The lung corresponds to metal and flourishes in autumn. Hence, to carry out [in autumn] the orders of summer, this harms the Qi. In winter the water flourishes and the metal perishes. Hence, the disease develops in winter. If one opposes the [orders of] autumn and harms the lung, this results in diminished Qi [with a reduced ability] to receive the storage in winter.

Comprehensive discourse on regulating the spirit in accordance with the Qi of the four seasons,  in Huang Di nei jing su wen, annotated translation, by Paul U. Unschuld and Hermann Tessenow, University of California

Painting: John Grimshaw, Autumn Sun

The Wikileaks Files

wikileaksfiles

The Wikileaks Files, The World according to US Empire (Verso books) is out !! Julian Assange’s Introduction HERE. 

“The WikiLeaks Files presents expert analysis on the most important cables and outlines their historical importance. In a series of chapters dedicated to the various regions of the world, the book explores the machinations of the United States as it imposes its agenda on other nations: a new form of imperialism founded on varied tactics from torture to military action, to trade deals and “soft power,” in the perpetual pursuit of expanding influence. It illustrates the close relationship between government and big business in promoting US trade.”

The Lifelong Activist guide

The Lifelong Activist is a self-help guide for activists by Hillary Rettig. Topics include Manage your mission, manage your time, your fears, your relationship to yourself and to others. Translations section with Indonesian, Italian, Spanish..

“I believe that progressive activists are the world’s most precious resource. We tackle the most difficult and important problems— including hunger, war, disease, poverty, violence, cruelty and exploitation— and work to further humanity’s evolution in the direction of compassion and kindness. Conservatives may create more wealth, but we create more of the values, including justice, equality and freedom, that make life worth living. As history has repeatedly shown us, and as we are unfortunately witnessing in the United States today, wealth without the tempering of progressive values and mores leads inevitably to corruption and despair.”

 

Police infiltration, traumatized trust

“The news that people we knew, trusted, worked with and loved are not who we thought they were, has come as a shock to many people. For some, it has meant that close and intimate relationships were not what they seemed, representing a massive personal betrayal. Others may not have known the police infiltrators so closely, or even at all, but the news can still have a big impact on us, as individuals, groups and movements.”

Read Activist Trauma Support leaflet on the sickening effects of police infiltration, how to heal, support each other – and find more resources (on PTSD, self-care in activism..), contact info, on their website.

+

Watch “Lily”, Harry, and Jason’s talk about their experience at Chaos Communication Camp 2015:

“Resisting surveillance: It’s not just about the metadata. The infiltration and physical surveillance of activists.

 

JOY (Victor Serge)

Russian revolutionary Victor Serge on JOY in his book MEN in PRISON

“The only healthy reaction of the organism against the incessant, multiple, insidious, and harassing pressure of madness is joy. We all have great powers of vitality. We are filled with such deep love of life that sometimes it takes only the slightest outside impulse to make the flame of joy suddenly rise up in us. And we are elevated above ourselves, the present, despair, prison.”

 

Wildlife sound archives (Australian Dawn Chorus)

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Revive your spirits by immersing yourself in nature, and if you can’t access all of nature now: There is the fantastic collection of wildlife sounds digitized and archived by the Macaulay Library project of the Cornell lab of Ornithology.  For when we get tired of words, for daydreaming, creative drifting, for when beauty has been eclipsed too long, when we need to feel the world is big and full of life and we are part of it.

Early risers might like a DAWN CHORUS of Australia rainforest birds

Other curious suggestions on the blog

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Barrett Brown’s Temazcal experience

In his article on The Intercept, unjustly imprisoned US journalist and activist Barrett Brown relates his experience of joining Lakota Indians inmates friends for a Temazcal / sweat lodge ceremony, from building the bonfire to sweating and singing together inside the hut. Temazcal are powerful collective physical and spiritual healing ceremonies practised by native Americans, with strong emphasis on the natural elements, fire, water, air, earth.

temazcal

freebarretbrown

Recommended: More Barrett Brown Prison Writing

Donate, Write, Send a book : HELP Barrett Brown HERE 

” In the meantime, I continue to have neat adventures. Last month one of the American Indian inmates invited me to attend their weekly sweat lodge ceremony, which is held in a fenced-off area that each federal prison is required to provide for ritual use by the Natives. The next morning I showed up at the appointed time and, having determined that it wasn’t an ambush, I began helping the 20 or so resident Indians break up tree branches for fire kindling, something I did very much with the air of a five-year-old who believes himself to be “helping Daddy.” Next we built a large bonfire (I assisted by staying out the way and being good) by which to heat up several dozen large rocks that would be used for “the sweat.” The fire-making process was expedited by strategically placed crumpled-up sheets of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which I gather is not a strictly traditional aspect of most shamanistic ceremonies. As if to acknowledge this, one of the Indians declared, “The one good thing the white man ever did was invent paper.” Naturally all eyes were on me, and I knew that this might be my only chance to win them over. “We didn’t invent it,” I blurted out. “We just stole it from the Chinese.” This produced appreciative chuckles all around. “I got a laugh out of the Indians!” I thought exultantly, my triumph so complete that I was unbothered by the fact that what I’d said wasn’t really true.

By and by we crawled into the lodge, a wood-and-canvas structure with a dirt floor, in the middle of which had been dug a pit to hold the heated rocks that would be providing the extraordinary heat we would need to sweat out our sins. The flap was then closed from the outside, leaving us in perfect darkness, and thereafter began the first of the 15-minute “rounds” of the sweat ceremony, which consisted of all manner of tribal songs, entreaties to the spirits, and sometimes just discussions and announcements. At one point my sponsor, a Lakota, declared that although superficially white, I might nonetheless have an “Indian spirit.” It was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said about me, this polite supposition that I might not really be descended from the fair-skinned race of marauding, treaty-breaking slavers whose Novus Ordo Seclorum had been built on a foundation of genocide. But insomuch as I’d spent the bulk of the ceremony not in prayer, but rather in a state of neurotic concern over whether or not my self-deprecating comment from an hour earlier about whites stealing paper could have perhaps been a bit more crisply phrased, I’m afraid my spirit would seem to be Anglo-Saxon after all.

Although undeniably majestic, the ceremony was also something of a disappointment. I had gone into the thing hoping that I might mysteriously know exactly what to do — how to pass the peace pipe and all that — and maybe even start singing old Cherokee songs that the eldest of those present would barely recall having heard from their own grandfathers. Stunned, the Indians would collectively intone, “He shall know your ways as if born to them,” this being the ancient prophecy I had thereby fulfilled, and then I would unite the tribes under my banner and lead the foremost of their warriors on a jihad against our shared enemies, as Paul Muad’Dib did. Instead, the Indians had to remind me several times not to just stand up and start walking around during the ceremony.”

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Ateliers DIY Gyneco avec Poussy Draama (Aout @la campagne)

En Aout Poussy Draama, a.k.a DocteurE Duchesne, vous convie à deux ateliers DIY gyneco camping et partages, dans la campagne en été :

“Pour changer des consultations individuelles, nous travaillerons en groupe autour des thèmes habituels du DocteurE.

2 sessions au choix :

du 1er au 4 août
et
du 8 au 11 août

– Discussions, écriture, lecture, partage de connaissances
– Initiation et pratique de l’auto-examen
– Cueillette/transformation de plantes
– Rituels, healing, chill et amitié !

Construisons ensemble une gynécologie adaptée à tous les corps, non-violente, non-jugeante et non-discriminante !

Enfants et femmes enceintes bienvenu.e.s !

Couchage en tente ou en caravane
Repas et good vibe inclus
Tarif : ±30 € selon tes moyens (gratuit si tu es du planning familial, ou sex educator, ou si ta vie est dédiée à changer le monde à temps plein)
Nombre max. de participant-e-s : 5

Emmène ton sac de couchage et des vêtements dans lesquels tu te sens bien. Attention ! Ici nous n’avons ni eau courante, ni électricité, ni internet : les prince-sse-s sont prévenu-e-s !

Possibilité d’arriver et repartir quelques jours avant ou après, pour prolonger le plaisir ou si tu viens de loin.

Infos et inscriptions :
poussydraama@riseup.net
ou 06 86 14 00 02″

Big bisous !

Anarchy & Alcohol

 

“It’s no exaggeration, then, to say that alcohol has played a key role in the epidemic of fascism, racism, statism, imperialism, colonialism, sexism and patriarchy, class oppression, ungoverned technological development, religious superstition, and other bad stuff that has swept the earth over the past few millennia. It continues to play that role today, as the peoples of the whole world, finally universally domesticated and enslaved by global capitalism, are kept pacified and helpless by a steady supply of spirits. These evil spirits squander the time, money, health, focus, creativity, awareness, and fellowship of all who inhabit this universally occupied territory – “work is the curse of the drinking classes,” as Oscar Wilde said. It’s not surprising, for example, that the primary targets of advertising for malt liquor (a toxic by-product of the brewing process) are the inhabitants of ghettos in the United States: people who constitute a class that, if not tranquillized by addiction and incapacitated by self-destruction, would be on the front lines of the war to destroy capitalism.”

>> ANARCHY & ALCOHOL (CrimethInc.)

So, Marriage and Love, Emma Goldman (1910)

Marriage and Love, Emma Goldman (audiobook here)

“THE popular notion about marriage and love is that they are synonymous, that they spring from the same motives, and cover the same human needs. Like most popular notions this also rests not on actual facts, but on superstition.

Marriage and love have nothing in common; they are as far apart as the poles; are, in fact, antagonistic to each other. No doubt some marriages have been the result of love. Not, however, because love could assert itself only in marriage; much rather is it because few people can completely outgrow a convention. There are to-day large numbers of men and women to whom marriage is naught but a farce, but who submit to it for the sake of public opinion. At any rate, while it is true that some marriages are based on love, and while it is equally true that in some cases love continues in married life, I maintain that it does so regardless of marriage, and not because of it.”

Marriage : Thanks but no thanks ?

Michael Cobb shares an opinion on marriage in The Supreme Court’s Lonely Hearts Club (NYT, June 30)

“Marriage equality activists could have pursued a different agenda — challenging the need for sexual scrutiny by the state, and the constellation of benefits that belong to marriage — but they didn’t. Instead of dreaming up new forms of governance, they asked to be ruled by the ones that already exist.

And so old questions remain: Why can’t I put a good friend on my health care plan? Why can’t my neighbour and I file our taxes together so we could save some money, as my parents do? If I failed to make a will, why is it unlikely a dear friend would inherit my estate?

The answers to all these questions are the same: It’s because I’m not having sex with those people. (To make matters worse, that also means we probably didn’t have children together.) For the only thing that truly distinguishes romance and marriage from other loving intimacies like friendships, other familial relationships and close business partnerships is that sex is (or once was) part of the picture.

So yes, marriage equality erases an odious and invidious distinction among straight and us not-straight citizens for which I’m truly glad and which I celebrate. And it’ll make lots of people’s lives better. But it also leaves unexamined the reason sex seems to give you benefits and recognition — and why it orders the world and civilization.”

Au lit avec une Histoire: La Commune, Louise Michel

Sur Librivox (Acoustical liberation of books in the public domain), lecture dans nos oreilles des souvenirs de La Commune par Louise Michel

Louise Michel (1830-1905) était une anarchiste française très active dans la Commune de Paris de 1871. Son livre “La Commune” écrit en 1898 raconte ce qui s’y passa durant cette période.

Louise Michel (1830-1905) was a french anarchist very active during the Paris Commune of 1871. Her book “La Commune” written in 1898 describes what happened in that event.

Pas Sage en Seine @NUMA, Paris 18-21 Juin

Ateliers, conférences, accès libre de aujourd’hui à dimanche, au NUMA rue du caire à Paris. Le programme est ICI.

Suggestions:

Samedi à 18h, Benjamin Sonntag avec “Turing, Asimov, Orwell, Huxley: 70 ans d’histoire de l’informatique et de la surveillance” et à 21h, les inculpés et amis de Tarnac “Hacker veut dire se rendre ingouvernable”

et Dimanche à 13h, “Un an de campagne avec La Quadrature du Net” par Adrienne Charmet

+ une chiffro fête aka cryptoparty

Bonne fin de semaine

>> Pas Sage en Seine

>> Pas Sage en Seine, 4 jours d’haktivisme au coeur de Paris, Jerome Hourdeaux sur le blog de Mediapart

 

Freedom to Breathe (A. Solzhenitsyn)

“A shower fell in the night and now dark clouds drift across the sky, occasionally sprinkling a fine film of rain. I stand under an apple-tree in blossom and I breathe. Not only the apple-tree but the grass round it glistens with moisture; words cannot describe the sweet fragrance that pervades the air. Inhaling as deeply as I can, the aroma invades my whole being; I breathe with my eyes open, I breathe with my eyes closed – I cannot say which gives me the greater pleasure.

This I believe, is the single most precious freedom that prison takes away from us: the freedom to breathe freely, as I now can. No food on earth, no wine, not even a woman’s kiss is sweeter to me than this air steeped in the fragrance of flowers, of moisture and freshness.

No matter that this is only a tiny garden, hemmed in by five storey houses like cages in a zoo. I cease to hear the motorcycles backfiring, the radios whining, the burble of loudspeakers. as long as there is fresh air to breathe under an apple-tree after a shower, we may survive a little longer.”

Freedom to Breathe

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

(Stories and Prose Poems)

Wikileaks release: TPP Transparency Chapter Healthcare Annex + Expert analysis

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“Today, Wednesday 10 June 2015, WikiLeaks publishes the Healthcare Annex to the secret draft “Transparency” Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), along with each country’s negotiating position. The Healthcare Annex seeks to regulate state schemes for medicines and medical devices. It forces healthcare authorities to give big pharmaceutical companies more information about national decisions on public access to medicine, and grants corporations greater powers to challenge decisions they perceive as harmful to their interests.

Expert policy analysis, published by WikiLeaks today, shows that the Annex appears to be designed to cripple New Zealand’s strong public healthcare programme and to inhibit the adoption of similar programmes in developing countries. The Annex will also tie the hands of the US Congress in its ability to pursue reforms of the Medicare programme.

>> WIKILEAKS FULL PRESS RELEASE with expert analysis

See also

>> Public Citizen Statement and Public Citizen Analysis

 

SENG: Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted

“SENG’s mission is to empower families and communities to guide gifted and talented individuals to reach their goals: intellectually, physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually.

SENG envisions a world where gifted, talented and creative individuals are supported to build gratifying, meaningful lives and contribute to the well-being of others. To this end, SENG reaches out to diverse communities that share our mission across the nation and the globe. ”

Check the Resource Library !!

 

Depression in gifted individuals

This article explores depression in gifted individuals and offers suggestions on how to help, notably through touch, a powerful sensory response to emotional difficulties, and bibliotherapy, where reading about history and others people’s great struggles and achievements can bring support.

>> Existential Depression in Gifted Individuals, James T. Webb

“A particular way of breaking through the sense of isolation is through touch. In the same way that infants need to be held and touched, so do persons who are experiencing existential aloneness. Touch seems to be a fundamental and instinctual aspect of existence, as evidenced by mother-infant bonding or “failure to thrive” syndrome. Often, I have “prescribed” daily hugs for a youngster suffering existential depression and have advised parents of reluctant teenagers to say, “I know that you may not want a hug, but I need a hug.” A hug, a touch on the arm, playful jostling, or even a “high five” can be very important to such a youngster, because it establishes at least some physical connection.” 

Encryption and anonymity technologies essential to protection of human rights

TOR

>> UN Special Rapporteur : Anonymity is gateway to free expression 

“We at the Tor Project have long said that Tor is a technology for free expression. Today, that view was endorsed by UN Special Rapporteur David Kaye in a new report on encryption and anonymity. The report, a close look at international law and its relation to technology, concludes that encryption and anonymity technologies are essential to the protection of human rights to privacy and freedom of expression and opinion”

SWBO

Capture d’écran 2015-05-31 à 20.52.36

Performer Porn Artist Sexologist Annie Sprinkle big hearted advices on How to cure sex worker burnout :

 

Step 1

Admit you are burnt out. This sounds easy, but it’s the hardest step. Our egos, as well as our incomes, are invested in feeling good about our work. It’s not easy to admit that you are a mess. See it as an opportunity to grow.

Step 2

Take breaks and vacations from your work as a matter of course. Get sun, fresh air, take a boat ride. Spend time in nature. You may never even get crispy.

Step 3

Spend time alone. Do something relaxing and meditative. A languorous candle lit herbal bath can do wonders.

Step 4

Get in touch with your feelings and express them. Repressed emotions alone can create burn out.

POSTER HERE http://anniesprinkle.org/photos/writings/swbo.pdf

 

Biblioteca Digital de la Medicina Tradicional Mexicana

>> Biblioteca Digital de la Medicina Tradicional Mexicana 

“La medicina tradicional es reconocida hoy como un recurso fundamental para la salud de millones de seres humanos, un componente esencial del patrimonio tangible e intangible de las culturas del mundo, un acervo de información, recursos y prácticas para el desarrollo y el bienestar, y un factor de identidad de numerosos pueblos del planeta.

La medicina tradicional mexicana, como toda institución social, ha cambiado en el curso de los siglos, interactuando con otros modelos terapéuticos para conformar lo que llamamos el “sistema real de salud” de millones de mexicanos del siglo XXI, habitantes del campo y la ciudad. Asociada fuertemente a las plantas medicinales –su recurso más abundante, accesible y conocido-, la medicina tradicional es mucho más que botánica medicinal, y esta obra que hacemos pública hoy trata, precisamente, de dar cuenta de su riqueza y diversidad.

Tomando como base la información contenida en la Biblioteca de la Medicina Tradicional Mexicana que elaboramos en el Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI) entre los años 1990 y 1994, la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México decidió preparar una nueva versión, recurriendo a las posibilidades y ventajas que ofrecen las Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicaciones: se trata, en consecuencia, de una Biblioteca Digital de la Medicina Tradicional Mexicana. La posibilidad de consulta y recorrido interactivos enriquecen a la versión impresa, la ponen a salvo de mutilaciones y alteraciones, y ofrecen al lector una cómoda y funcional labor de interacción de nombres, conceptos, pueblos, enfermedades y recursos materiales y simbólicos.”

“Wellness” can’t do what we won’t do for ourselves

“Despite the endless column inches devoted to how we can find balance in our busy working lives, the solution here isn’t personal, it’s political. Those of us working in the health and wellbeing industries have had our skills hijacked by commercial interests. Employee Assistance Programs, corporate stress management training and the burgeoning multi-billion dollar wellness industry all trade on, support and are supported by the culture of overwork. If we are truly committed to wellbeing, we need to remember who our clients are meant to be and be willing to risk acting in their best interests.

No amount of multivitamins, yoga, meditation, sweaty exercise, superfoods or extreme time management, as brilliant as all these things can be, is going to save us from the effects of too much work. This is not something we can adapt to. Not something we need to adjust the rest of our lives around. It is not possible and it’s unethical to pretend otherwise. Like a low-flying plane, the insidious culture of overwork is deafening and the only way we can really feel better is if we can find a way to make it stop.”

>> No it’s not you: Why “wellness” isn’t the answer to overwork, Zoe Krupka, the Conversation

24/7 : Late capitalism and the end of sleep

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>> 24/7: Late Capitalism and the end of sleep, by Jonathan Crary (a Verso Book)

“24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep explores some of the ruinous consequences of the expanding non-stop processes of twenty-first-century capitalism. The marketplace now operates through every hour of the clock, pushing us into constant activity and eroding forms of community and political expression, damaging the fabric of everyday life.

Jonathan Crary examines how this interminable non-time blurs any separation between an intensified, ubiquitous consumerism and emerging strategies of control and surveillance. He describes the ongoing management of individual attentiveness and the impairment of perception within the compulsory routines of contemporary technological culture. At the same time, he shows that human sleep, as a restorative withdrawal that is intrinsically incompatible with 24/7 capitalism, points to other more formidable and collective refusals of world-destroying patterns of growth and accumulation.”

Pyjama Letter

“Dear Vasco,

In response to your question, “What is worth doing and what is worth having?”, I would like to say simply this. It is worth doing nothing and having a rest; in spite of all the difficulty it lay cause you must rest Vasco – otherwise you will become RESTLESS!

I believe the world is sick with exhaustion and dying of restlessness. While it is true that periods of weariness help the spirit to grow, the prolonged ongoing state of fatigue to which our world seems to be rapidly adapting is ultimately soul destroying as well as earth destroying. the ecology of evil flourishes and love cannot take root in this situation. Tiredness is one of our strongest, most noble and instructive feelings. It is an important aspect of our CONSCIENCE and must be heeded or else we will not survive.

When you are tired you must HAVE that feeling and you must act upon it sensibly – you MUST rest like the trees and the animals do. Yet tiredness has become a matter of shame ! This is a dangerous development. Tiredness has become the most suppressed feeling in the world. Everywhere we see people overcoming their exhaustion and pushing on with intensity-cultivating the great mass mania which all around is making life so hard and ugly-so cruel and meaningless-so utterly graceless- and being congratulated for overcoming it and pushing it deep down inside themselves as it it were a virtue to do this. And of course Vasco, you know what happens when such strong and natural feelings are denied – they turn into the most powerful and bitter poisons with dreadful consequences. We live in a world of these consequences and then wonder why we are so unhappy.

So I gently urge you, Vasco, do as we do in Curly Flat – learn to curl up and rest – feel your noble tiredness – learn about it and make a generous place for it in your life and enjoyment will surely follow. I repeat: it’s worth doing nothing and having a rest.

Yours sleepily,

Mr. Curly xxx

by Michael Leunig

Basic hand and forearm massage tutorial

Here is a nice tutorial for basic hand and forearm massage, using oils or cream, with giver and receiver sitting face to face at a table (beauty salon set up). It shows easy lovely moves, smoothly executed and described. It conveys good standards for care, with clear instructions for set-up in the beginning and remarks about hygiene and health precautions.

Hint: Observe how she warmly secures the person’s hand in hers when she needs to turn it.

Video tutorial By Homespa beauty

The Body as a sound Post Gender instrument – Akelarre Cyborg workshop @Lisboa 6-7/06

Neste workshop de dois dias, os participantes são introduzidos na arte da performance enquanto instrumento político, através da modificação dos corpos com recurso a diferentes tipos de próteses e da criação de identidades híbridas, que procuram ultrapassar dicotomias como natural/artificial, homem/máquina, humano/animal, homem/mulher, hetero/homo, arte/vida, ciência/pré-tecnologia, entre outras.
Akelarre Cyborg é um projeto de dois laboratórios artísticos, Transnoise e Quimera Rosa, que investigam e experimentam questões de género e sexualidade e as suas relações com as artes e a tecnologia. O seu trabalho centra-se na criação coletiva de artefactos do-it-yourself enquanto ferramenta de re-significação da nossa relação com a tecnologia e no seu papel na produção de subjetividade. Ao mesmo tempo, tenta criar um espaço recreativo através do desenvolvimento de organismos híbridos (cyber drag) num processo simbólico de mutação de objetos quotidianos.
Através da manipulação de pequenos circuitos eletrónicos serão construídas exoesculturas que serão usadas numa performance final.

Em inglês

Sala de Ensaios
Preço único 10€
excecionalmente não se aceitam reservas • venda disponível apenas até 48h antes do início da oficina

Máximo 20 participantes
Não é necessária experiencia prévia
Os participantes podem trazer os seus próprios materiais

 

TEATRO MARIA MATOS

LISBOA