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Make people LAUGH, and then THINK (September 9 2012) Make people LAUGH, and then THINK (September 9 2012)

Marc Abrahams the American editor and co-founder of Annals of Improbable Research, and originator and emcee of the annual Ig Nobel Prize celebration, has published an article in The Guardian titled ‘Strange but true: science’s most improbable research’ in which he highlights that ‘Science isn’t always about the big questions, spending his time studying research that seeks the answers to more unlikely problems – little conundrums that others dare not tackle’. Abrahams on his web site states “…is the father and master of ceremonies of the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, honoring achievements that make people LAUGH, and then THINK. The Prizes are handed out by genuine Nobel Laureates at a gala ceremony held each autumn at Harvard University and broadcast on National Public Radio and on the Internet. The Washington Post called Marc “the nation’s guru of academic grunge.” The Journal of the American Medical Association called him “the Puck of Science.” …Marc and several Ig Nobel Prize winners are the heroes in a manga in Young Jump Magazine, Japan’s most popular manga magazine. The Improbable Research editorial board of more than 50 distinguished scientists includes nine Nobel Laureates, IQ record holder Marilyn Vos Savant, and a convicted felon. …Marc has a degree in applied mathematics from Harvard College, spent several years developing optical character recognition computer systems (including a reading machine for the blind) at Kurzweil Computer Products, and later founded Wisdom Simulators, a creator of educational software. Marc is the subject of a Harvard Business School case study called “Marc Abrahams: Annals of an Improbable Entrepreneur.”

 

Inspired by The Guardian ow.ly/djsCm image source Twitter ow.ly/djsym

Anthony Kapel “Van” Jones the 43 year old USA lawyer environmental and civil rights advocate, and president co-founder of Rebuild the Dream, a platform for bottom-up, people-powered innovations to help fix the US economy. Jones has published an article on The Nation titled ‘The 99 Percent for the 1 Percent’. Jones states “The “99 percent versus the 1 percent” argument falls short in a lot of ways. The vast majority of Americans do not oppose their fellow Americans, simply because they are rich. To the contrary: more than perhaps any other people on this Earth, Americans admire success. What we detest is greed. We like economic winners; we hate economic cheaters. We cheer economic innovation; we despise financial manipulation. Like most people, I don’t hate rich people who buy yachts. (The workers who build those yachts are happy.) We don’t mind when wealthy Americans buy expensive toys; we do mind when they try to buy governors and Congresspeople. …We need everyone in our country to be involved in healing our economy and fixing our democracy. …A movement of the 99 percent for the 100 percent—powered by a deep love of working people and laying claim the best of our nation’s values—could yet transform our nation.”

Inspired by The Nation http://ow.ly/aEdzh image source Wikipedia http://ow.ly/aEdjC

Steve Fraser the US labor and economic historian and co-founder of the American Empire Project has put forward a modest proposal for the Occupy Wall Street Movement to consider in an Aljazeera publication. Premised on a famous essay from Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public”. Swift’s simple idea was “the starving Irish should sell their own children to the rich as food”. Fraser states, “The basic idea is that we offer ourselves up, 99% of us anyway, on the altar of high finance as a sacrifice to the bond markets.  It was Karl Marx who first observed that high finance is ‘the Vatican of capitalism’ … Anticipating Swift, we are already eating our own children or, at least, the futures available to them.”

 

Inspired by Steve Fraser http://ow.ly/82L9t image source facebook http://ow.ly/82Luc

Kalle Lasn the 69 year old Estonian Canadian author, activist and co-founder of the anti-consumerist Adbusters magazine has been credited with “branding” the OWS Movement by William Yardley in a New York Times article, “…as uprisings shook the Middle East and much of the world economy struggled, Mr. Lasn … felt the moment was ripe to tap simmering frustration on the American political left. On July 13, he and his colleagues created a new hash tag on Twitter: #OCCUPYWALLSTREET. They made a poster showing a ballerina dancing on the back of the muscular sculptured bull near Wall Street in Manhattan … For Mr. Lasn, they were tools to begin remodeling the “mental environment,” to create a new “meme,” the term coined by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins for a kind of transcendent cultural message. “There’s a number of ways to wage a meme war … I believe that one of the most powerful things of all is aesthetics.”

 

Inspired by William Yardley http://ow.ly/7VnB5 image source freerepublic http://ow.ly/7VogT

Rebecca MacKinnon the US journalist blogger and co-founder of Global Voices Online, and former researcher for the George Soros funded Open Society Institute, believes the issues she raised in calling on internet users to “take back the Net” have “grown more obvious and urgent”. MacKinnon in a recent TEDTalk presentation highlighted that global information technology companies have become the new “sovereigns of cyberspace.” MacKinnon calls on the world’s Netizens to “…work to make sure that the Internet, the geopolitical system, and the international economy evolve in a way that serves everybody’s rights and interests, not just those of the most powerful one percent … The time has come to occupy the Net. Existing political and legal frameworks have so far proven incapable of preventing and constraining the abuse of digital power … political innovations [are] needed to ensure that government and technology really do serve the world’s people — and not the other way around.”

 

Inspired by Huffington Post http://ow.ly/7VmUJ image source Joi Ito http://ow.ly/7VmXG

Arianna Huffington [Stasinopoulos] the 61 year old Greek born US columnist and co-founder of the news website The Huffington Post, has been profiled by Vogue Magazine as “slightly teeter-tottery.” Huffinton’s profile included observations from her colleague and former other Huffington Post co-founder Kenny Lerer, refuting Huffinton’s claim of de-emphasizing the politics of the liberal website, stating the site had never been left wing to begin with, and was only seeking to pacify advertisers by appearing to move away from progressive stances on issues. The profile included descriptions of Huffinton’s clothing tastes, including the excessive use of thick makeup and the drinking of cappuccinos’ with a straw. Huffington is the ex-wife of former Republican congressman Michael Huffington, and stood as an independent candidate for Governor in the 2003 California recall election.

 

Inspired by Kat Stoeffel http://ow.ly/6FY4J image source Jezebel http://ow.ly/6FYFN

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