Love Bites...And So Do I

Lzzy Hale rocks!     

The new American rock 'n' roll Queen!

Don’t listen what your girlfriend says
She reads those magazines
That say you failed the test
You don’t have what she needs
I slither like a viper
And get you by the neck
I know a thousand ways to help you forget about her

That bitch can eat her heart out!
Love bites, but so do I, so do I.
Love bites, but so do I, so do I.
Love bites!

My lips are pale and vicious.
You’re foaming at the mouth.
You’ve suffered in the darkness.
I’ll suck the pain right out.
So come and taste the reason
I’m nothing like the rest.
I kiss you in a way you’ll never forget about me.

That chick can eat her heart out!
Love bites, but so do I, so do I.
Love bites, but so do I, so do I, so do I!

It checks you in and kicks you down,
And chews you up and spits you out.
It messes with your sanity by twisting all your thoughts around.
They say it’s blind they say it waits but every time it seals your fate.
And now it’s got you by the balls it won’t let go until you fall.
I was down and out, got up I said “Hey love I’ve had enough!”
I’ve felt pleasure without pain.
My soul you’ll never tame!

Love bites, but so do I.
Love bites, but so do I, so do I
Love bites, but so do I, so do I, so do I!
Love bites, but so do I, so do I.
Love bites!
Love bites!

Star Spangled Woodstock

 Photograph by Elliot Landy/Magnum Photos  Slate

On August 15 Kate Philips posted a selection of Elliot Landy's photographs from Woodstock in the Magnum Photos/Picture of the Day feature in Slate. These include images of Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, The Band, Ravi Shankar, Richie Havens, The Grateful Dead, Arlo Guthrie, Creedence Clearwater Revival – and Martin Scorsese is there too. 

It has been 43 years since what perhaps is the greatest rock concert of all time, as well as a timeless countercultural point of reference. Woodstock's longevity was furthermore sustained by the documentary film and the soundtrack album, which is how it reached someone like me, who wasn't even born at the time. And if I was to choose just one track, that would most certainly be Jimi Hendrix's astonishing version of the Star Spangled Banner:

Woody Allen on Ingmar Bergman

thecafephenomenon.wordpress.com

Bonniers Halyen/AFP/Getty  Time

Ingmar Bergman is Woody Allen's favourite director, and when the latter speaks of the former, he interestingly combines the view of a filmmaker with that of a devotee; see, for example, his piece in The New York Times, as well as his interview with TIME, when Ingmar Bergman passed away in 2007. The Swedish director holds a prominent place in the history of cinema as an artist and an innovator, and at the same time his work escapes the stereotypes often associated with auteur cinema. This is how Woody Allen put it, when he was interviewed by Mark Kermode in the context of Film4's 2011 Ingmar Bergman season (1:53):

The fact that he's got a mind and an intellect, and the films are about something, and they're substantive, and they're philosophical, and they're profound on a human level, that's all great; but he's first and foremost an entertainer, so it's not like doing homework, it's not like going to see some film that you hear is great, and you watch it, and you figure "well, yes, it is great but I was bored stiff, and I'm sure it's great but it's all this talky, boring stuff;" not at all.

 

Amnesty International: Greece must bring an end to racist and xenophobic attacks

Helen Frankenthaler, Blue Atmosphere, 1963  

aseriesofsmallthings.com

Following another racist attack, in which an Iraqi migrant was repeatedly stabbed in the centre of Athens and died in hospital, Amnesty International calls on the Greek authorities to do more to prevent racist and xenophobic violence, fully investigate the incidents that have occurred, and bring the perpetrators to justice. This call is available both on the organization's main website, and the website of Amnesty International USA. 

Amnesty International points out the alarming rise in racist and xenophobic violence by organised groups, and provides examples of attacks in Athens and elsewhere in the country; it furthermore calls on the Greek society to stand up against the attacks and reassert its condemnation of racial hatred. It is also noted that the fatal attack on the Iraqi man came days after Amnesty International had called on the Greek authorities to halt the police sweep operations against immigrants, as they "have raised serious concerns that people may be discriminated against on the basis of their perceived ethnicity, and such actions fuel xenophobic sentiment." The full text is as follows:

The Greek authorities must do more to prevent racist and xenophobic attacks and fully investigate those that occur, Amnesty International said following the fatal stabbing of an Iraqi man amid a rise in xenophobic attacks.

The 19-year-old died in hospital on Sunday after being repeatedly stabbed near an unofficial mosque in Anaxagora Street in central Athens by a gang of five people riding four motorcycles, police officials said.

The gang had earlier tried to assault a Romanian and a Moroccan national before the attack, but the pair managed to escape, witnesses told police.

“Such attacks are unacceptable and the authorities must do all within their power to stem their rise,” said Jezerca Tigani, Deputy Europe and Central Asia Programme Director at Amnesty International.

Attacks by unidentified groups and individuals against foreign nationals and places of worship have also been reported in the past week in Athens, Pireus, Crete and other towns.

In one attack last Thursday in Pireus, flares were reportedly thrown into a prayer room for Muslim worshippers by some 15 members of an extreme right-wing group riding motorcycles as 10 migrants were praying inside. 

There are no official mosques in Greece. Muslim worshippers pray in rooms, flats, warehouses, and any space that can be turned into a praying room. So far, plans to build official mosques have failed. 

Two Pakistani nationals were taken to hospital after being beaten by a group of unknown men who entered their house in Vonitsa in Western Greece last Sunday evening.

 

Two Egyptian nationals also told the organization in July that they were attacked by around 20 members of an extreme right-wing group as they slept in a house in Pireus with four fellow nationals. One of the two men, a young fisherman, had to have two operations on his face and remained in hospital for days after the incident. Five men and a woman were arrested after the attack. 

“The number of attacks is worrying and it shows how much rage and hate there is in the society. It is time for the Greek society to stand up against such shameful attacks and reassert its condemnation of racial and ethnic hatred,” said Jezerca Tigani.

The attack against the Iraqi man on Sunday came days after Amnesty International called on the Greek authorities to halt a police crackdown launched last week on “irregular immigrants”, in which more than 8,000 foreign nationals were arrested in the Greek capital. Of those, 1,660 individuals were found to be without official documentation and were placed in administrative detention, according to Greek police today.

“Recent police operations against immigrants have raised serious concerns that people may be discriminated against on the basis of their perceived ethnicity, and such actions fuel xenophobic sentiment.”

Amnesty International, while recognizing the Greek authorities’ right to control immigration, has previously stated they “do not have the right to treat people in the street like criminals purely because of the colour of their skin".

“Greek authorities must prioritize and build up the confidence of minorities and foreign nationals in the ability of the authorities to protect them from the threat of racist violence by sending a strong message to all those who carry out these attacks – they will not be tolerated and will be fully and vigorously investigated, with perpetrators brought to justice,” said Jezerca Tigani.

Further information and background:

Racist attacks on the rise in Greece - migrants group

Reuters, 14 August 2012

Migrants targeted amid rise of Greek extremists

NPR, 12 August 2012

Greece: Halt mass migrant round-ups

Human Rights Watch, 8 August 2012

Greece: Migrants report 300 attacks since April

Huffington Post, 19 July 2012

EU to probe racist attacks

ekathimerini.com, 15 July 2012

Greece's other crisis: Xenophobic violence

Human Rights Watch, 13 July 2012

Neo-Nazi party on the rise in Greece

The Guardian, 7 May 2012

Greece's epidemic of racist attacks
The New York Times, 26 January 2012

Greece must not leave asylum seekers at the mercy of extremists

The Guardian, 29 December 2011

Put a halt to racist violence

United Nations High Commission for Refugees - Greece, 16 September 2011

Film quotes #5: The Seventh Seal

 classiccinemaclub.co.uk

Ingmar Bergman's landmark 1957 film The Seventh Seal is such a rare jewel in the history of cinema. It tells the story of a disillusioned knight, Antonius Block (Max von Sydow), who returns from the crusades to find Sweden ravaged by the plague, and torn apart by religious fanaticism and violence. Early on in the film Antonius Block challenges Death (Bengt Ekerot), who has come to claim him, to a game of chess, in an iconic scene which you can see here. The game of chess continues throughout the film, while Antonius Block is tormented by existential questions, as well as tries to help the people he meets along the way.

I have always felt that the film's centerpiece is the scene where Antonius Block meets a family of travelling players; Jof (Nils Poppe), an innocent man who sees visions but others think of him as a fool, his wife Mia (Bibi Andersson), and their infant son Mikael. Wild strawberries and a bowl of milk is all they have to offer him, but it is because of this gesture and their kindness that Antonius Bloch will be able to reflect upon the joy of life in a new light; and although he knows that eventually it will not be possible to win the game of chess, it is these kind people that he will help escape Death.

ANTONIUS BLOCK: To believe is to suffer. It is like loving someone in the dark who never answers.

(He takes a strawberry)

ANTONIUS BLOCK: How unreal that is in your company. It means nothing to me now.

MIA: You're not so solemn now.

ANTONIUS BLOCK: I shall remember this hour of peace. The strawberries, the bowl of milk, your faces in the dusk. Mikael asleep, Jof with his lute. I shall remember our words and shall bear the memory between my hands as carefully as a bowl of fresh milk.

(He takes a sip of milk)

ANTONIUS BLOCK: And this will be a sign and a great content.

(He walks away, and DEATH appears behind him)

DEATH: I have been waiting.

ANTONIUS BLOCK: Forgive me. I was delayed.

(They sit around the chessboard)

ANTONIUS BLOCK: As I have given away my strategy, I beat a retreat. (Smiling) Here, it's your turn.

DEATH: Why so pleased?

ANTONIUS BLOCK: That is my secret. 

Amnesty International: Greece must halt mass police crackdown on 'irregular migrants'

Photograph: Thanassis Stavrakis/AP    sfgate.com 

On 8 August 2012 Amnesty International criticised the Greek authorities for their treatment of the migrant population in the country; and it is not the first time it does so. "Migrants and asylum-seekers are not criminals and should not be treated as such," the organization had argued in early April with regard to the plan to round-up and detain undocumented migrants and asylum seekers. It held that "these deeply alarming measures specifically target the most vulnerable people based on discriminatory criteria," and called on the authorities to "withdraw such measures immediately;" the full text is available here.

In addition, the Amnesty International Annual Report 2012 made reference to "inhuman and degrading detention conditions" persisting in immigration detention facilities in Greece, while "[a]sylum-seekers and irregular migrants, including unaccompanied minors, continued to be detained for prolonged periods." The report also mentions that the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture took the exceptional step of publicly condemning Greece’s continued failure to improve very poor detention conditions, and discusses a landmark ruling of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights pointing out that there are major structural deficiencies in the Greek asylum procedure.

Amnesty International is now calling on the Greek authorities to stop the current mass police crackdown on "irregular migrants;" the call is available on the organization's main website, as well as on the website of Amnesty International USA. "While Greece has the right to control migration, it does not have the right to treat people in the street like criminals purely because of the colour of their skin," argued Jezerca Tigani, Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia Programme; "these police sweep operations violate international human rights standards and should stop immediately."

Amnesty International also puts forward two key points; firstly, the Greek authorities need to establish an effective asylum system, thus ensuring that those in need of international protection are provided with access to it. The organization also expresses its concern about the police crackdown on "irregular migrants" in relation to the sharp rise of racially motivated attacks against foreign nationals, holding that "such a massive and discriminatory operation will fuel further attacks and xenophobia." The full text is as follows:

The Greek authorities must halt a mass police crackdown on "irregular migrants" and allow for effective access to asylum-seeking procedures to those in need of international protection Amnesty International said today following reports that more than 7,500 foreign nationals have been arrested in Athens since last Thursday.
 
A large number of those arrested were reported to be of Asian, African and North African origin. Many have since been released because they were found to be legally residing in Greece.
 
According to Greek police, around 2,000 of those rounded up were found with no papers and were placed in administrative detention. People are being held in overcrowded conditions at the Attika Aliens Police Directorate or at other police stations in Athens. Others have been transferred to police academies in Northern Greece which are being used as detention facilities.

"While Greece has the right to control migration, it does not have the right to treat people in the street like criminals purely because of the colour of their skin," said Jezerca Tigani, Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia Programme.

"The scale of the police operation in Athens at the weekend raises serious concerns about discrimination on the basis of perceived ethnicity."

According to reports some people were transferred to police stations despite showing police papers proving their legal residence in Greece.
 
One of the men arrested on Saturday told Amnesty International that he was held at Petrou Ralli in a room with around 170 people. He said he was only given water on the day of his arrest and later could only eat bread because religiously inappropriate food was provided. Many detainees were sleeping on the floor and because of the overcrowding many were taking it in turns to sleep.

In view of the sharp rise of racially motivated attacks against foreign nationals in the past year, Amnesty International said it is concerned that such a massive and discriminatory operation will fuel further attacks and xenophobia

"Greece may be going through financial difficulties while at the same time facing one of the highest migration flows among the EU countries, but these police sweep operations violate international human rights standards and should stop immediately," said Jezerca Tigani 

"Such arrests may put at risk of deportation individuals who are in need of international protection but are unable to apply for asylum."
 
Two men (from Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire) were arrested and detained during the recent sweep operations and sent to Attika Aliens Police Directorate (known as Petrou Ralli) where they were detained until last night when they were transferred to another facility in Northern Greece. 

An Amnesty International delegation met with the two men last month while they were queueing outside Petrou Ralli to apply for asylum.

One of them told Amnesty International how he has repeatedly requested to apply for asylum during his detention at Petrou Ralli and that his requests were ignored by the police. 

"The Greek authorities must ensure that anyone wishing to apply for asylum is provided with effective access to it. They must also act to ensure that immigration-related detention is used only as a last resort. Those detained should be notified of their grounds of detention and of their rights and ensured access to their lawyer and the outside world," said Jezerca Tigani.

Asylum-seekers in Greece often face serious obstructions when attempting to access asylum procedures. The vast majority try to apply for asylum at the Attika Alien’s Police Directorate at Petrou Ralli in Athens. Only a small number of applications are registered by the authorities each week.

Long queues of asylum-seekers wait in appalling conditions for two to three days outside the Directorate to lodge asylum applications each Saturday morning. 

An Amnesty International delegation witnessed the poor conditions in immigration detention centres in Athens during a recent visit to the country last week.

The organization's delegates visited six detention facilities in Athens including Petrou Ralli. While the wings visited at Petrou Ralli were clean at the time of the visit, the facility was in need of repairs. In two other facilities, those of New and Old Elliniko, conditions were inhuman and degrading.

Hate on the Streets: Human Rights Watch on racist violence in Greece

  hrw.org
 

This report is based on interviews Human Rights Watch conducted with 59 people who experienced or escaped a xenophobic incident, including 51 serious attacks, between August 2009 and May 2012. Victims of serious attacks included migrants and asylum seekers of nine different nationalities and two pregnant women. Patterns emerge from the victim testimonies: most of the attacks take place at night, on or near town squares; attackers, who include women, work in groups, and are often dressed in dark clothing with their faces obscured by cloth or helmets; bare-fisted attacks are not uncommon, but attackers also often wield clubs or beer bottles as weapons; most attacks are accompanied by insults and exhortations to leave Greece, and in some cases the attackers also rob the victims.

Among the migrants and asylum seekers Human Rights Watch interviewed, Ali Rahimi, an Afghan asylum seeker, was stabbed five times in the torso outside an apartment building in Aghios Panteleimonas in September 2011; Mehdi Naderi, an undocumented Afghan migrant, has a prominent scar on his nose from a December 2011 attack in which he was beaten by a mob with sticks and an iron bar near Attica Square; and Afghan refugee Maria N.’s left hand was ripped open in August 2011 when two men on a motorcycle hit her with a wooden club with iron spikes as they drove by.

 

[...]

 

The true extent of xenophobic violence in Greece is unknown. Government statistics are unreliable due to failures of the criminal justice system, beginning with law enforcement, to adequately identify, investigate and prosecute hate crimes. 

 

[...] 

Non-governmental sources help fill in the gaps. In June 2011, Doctors of the World director Nikitas Kanakis estimated that 300 victims of racist attacks had sought treatment at the organization’s clinic in Athens in the first half of 2011. Tzanetos Antipas, the head of the Greek non-governmental organization (NGO) Praksis, said at the same time that they had treated just over 200 victims in roughly the same period. Finally, a network of NGOs recorded 63 incidents between October and December 2011 in Athens and Patras.

Greece has clear obligations under international human rights law to undertake effective measures to prevent racist and xenophobic violence, to investigate and prosecute perpetrators, and should condemn publicly and unequivocally such violence. These obligations apply whether the perpetrators of the violence are agents of the state or not.

 

Yet the cases documented in this report demonstrate that migrants and asylum seekers have little chance of seeing justice done. Victims of xenophobic attacks in Athens face many obstacles in reporting crimes and activating a police response to attacks. Prosecutors and the courts have so far failed to aggressively prosecute racist and xenophobic violence for what it is. Preoccupied by the economic crisis and concerned with control of irregular immigration, national authorities—as well as the EU and the international community at large—have largely turned a blind eye.

 

This is a characteristic excerpt from the Human Rights Watch report on racist violence in Greece (my emphasis); the full text may be read online here, and is also available as a free download here. 

This report is a substantial international account of "Greece's epidemic of racist attacks," as the title of Eva Cosse's article in The New York Times had put it, and provides detailed documentation of xenophobic violence in Athens, as well as elsewhere in Greece. It also discusses the political context, including the government's plan to round up and detain undocumented migrants and asylum seekers, which is incompatible with the country's obligations under international law, and the role of the neo-fascist party Golden Dawn. 

Furthermore, the report documents the failure of the police and the judiciary to acknowledge, record, prevent, and punish racist violence. As Judith Sunderland put it in her article Attacks on democracy in Greece, "[a]bove all, those who engage in violence need to be held to account."

The report concludes with significant and detailed recommendations to the Government of Greece, and specifically to the Ministry of Public Order and Citizen Protection, and the Ministry of Justice, as well as to the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the United Nations. Its key recommendations are as follows:

       To the Greek Government

• Publicly and unequivocally condemn, at the highest level, instances of racist and xenophobic violence.
• Urgently address deficiencies in police action to prevent and investigate reports of racist violence by: 

• Moving quickly to institute the special form for recording allegations of racist violence and the centralized database;
• Ensuring obligatory and appropriate training at all levels and in-service training on detecting, preventing, responding to, and investigating hate crimes, including racist and xenophobic violence for all police officers; and
• Disseminating detailed guidelines for police for the investigation of hate crimes, including racist and xenophobic violence.

• Adopt and implement a preventive strategy to counter xenophobic violence, including appropriate deployment of law enforcement in areas with high rates of such violence.
• Ensure, either in law or through binding circulars, that regardless of the nature of the offense, any crime that may be categorized as a hate crime is subject to mandatory state action – investigation and prosecution – without the requirement that victims pay the 100 Euro (US$ 125) fee.
• Improve the response of the judiciary by:

• Reforming the Criminal Code to improve the scope and application of the aggravating circumstance of racist motivation;
• Ensuring appropriate training, including through inclusion of special seminars in continuing professional education courses, for prosecutors and judges in national and European anti-racism legislation; and
• Encouraging the appointment of one or more specialized prosecutors in relevant public prosecutor’s offices including Athens to provide technical expertise to colleagues prosecuting such cases.

         
       To the European Union 

• The European Commission’s Directorate General on Justice should assess Greece’s compliance with its human rights obligations with respect to preventing and prosecuting racist and other hate violence, and allocate funding to support initiatives to address the deficiencies in state response to racist and xenophobic violence, as well as public awareness-raising campaigns.

A Brief History of John Baldessari

Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell, 1966-68  artnotebook.tumblr.com

A Brief History of John Baldessari is a short film dedicated to one of the most influential figures in contemporary art; it is directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, written by Gabriel Nussbaum, and narrated by Tom Waits. Rather than relying upon a conventional art history perspective, the film provides a fresh, witty, and unpredictable view of John Baldessari both as a leading conceptual artist and an ordinary person, showcasing the same subversive sense of humour that characterises his work:

TOM WAITS (voiceover): John Baldessari is so successful that he carries absolutely nothing in his pockets.

 

JOHN BALDESSARI: Not a thing.