The Beatle, the Bankie and the Bouquet

Chris McGachy

Culture Matters | August 06, 2019

Chris McGachy uncovers the full story behind Lennon’s donation to the workers as he transformed from affable moptop to militant activist following the breakup of The Beatles.

50 years ago – in the summer of 1971 – John Lennon was putting the final studio touches to his global anthem, Imagine. At the same time the Government announced the imminent collapse of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. Within weeks defiant workers had seized control of the yards.

‘Killed by capitalism’: The UCS Work-in

The Upper Clyde Shipbuilders’ (UCS) stunning victory against Ted Heath’s Tory government in early 1972 has become the stuff of political legend. It was a time when ordinary workers and communities united in solidarity to demand the right and dignity to work.

With mass redundancies already on the cards, UCS shop stewards led by Jimmy Reid and Jimmy Airlie knew conventional strike action would not win this battle. Their ingenious idea was for the workforce to take control of the yards and continue to produce the ships for which the River Clyde yards had become world-famous.

How to Shape a Productive Scientist–Artist Collaboration

SCIENCE AND ART

Virginia Gewin

The Nature | February 17, 2021

Seoul artist Yunchul Kim assembles his latest work, Chroma, a 15-metre-long structure of laminated polymer in the form of a torus knot.Credit: Yeongho Kim, courtesy of the artist.

Art can be a powerful medium for exploring the deeper meaning of scientific endeavours. Collaborations between scientists and artists are under way around the world, and daily postings to social media with the #SciArt hashtag suggest that the often-disparate domains are merging in fresh and exciting ways. Although many such collaborations aim mainly to engage and educate the general public about science, scientists and artists are recognizing that creative partnerships can turn science into captivating art.

Coal Mines Become Gift Shops: Black Suns at Louvre Lens

ART

Dennis Broe

Culture Matters | August 20, 2020

 

Dennis Broe reviews Black Suns at Louvre Lens in France, on until the end of January 2021

Lens was a small but highly important town in the industrial era of the late 19^th century, located in the former French-Belgium coal belt. It is now the home of the satellite museum Louvre-Lens and the site of the first major post-coronavirus lockdown exhibition in France – and perhaps the first in the world.

Soleils Noirs, or Black Suns, traces artists’ use of the colour black. It also reminds us of the spell that coal – visible in two pyramidal slag heaps just outside the town and visible from all parts of it – has cast over a city which has now transformed itself from a coal-exporting to a tourist economy.

Creativity and Class

CLASS AND CULTURE 

 Dave Lordan

Culture Matters | July 17, 2020

Poetry is indispensable – if only we knew what it was for.
– Jean Cocteau

Before any major hunt the women of the Baka family group will sing “yelli”. This they will do in the early morning before dawn and while the men and children are in their huts. One voice starts – a beautiful, haunting melody reverberating through the trees. After a few minutes another voice joins in, then another. Each voice will sing their own repeating melody, each one with its own rhythm and cycle, and yet all of them sitting together as one song composed of magical polyphonic harmonies that carry far into the forest, blending in with the unending night-time songs of the insects.

To paraphrase the Nobel literature laureate Orhan Pamuk, creativity is putting things together to make new things. It is the modality by which humans shape the material world to meet their various needs and serve their various purposes. In the broadest sense then, it is similar to the Marxist conceptions of labour or work. Creativity is work and work is creativity.

India Now!

 by K P Sasi

Countercurrents.org | July 20, 2017

K.P Sasi is a film maker, writer, activist and cartoonist. He can be reached at kpsasi36@gmail.com

The ‘Truth’ Of The Matter

by Sheshu Babu

Countercurrents.org | June 10, 2017

Lies in heart!
Lies in brain!
Lies everywhere
Truth rarely seen!

News reports are lies!
Political statements…lies!
Growth statistics are lies
Future predictions lies!

Where mobs Lynch people
Talks of welfare state are lies!
Communal forces omnipresence
Proves talks of harmony lies!

‘Aadhar ‘ for everyone
Surveillance on everyone
Speak of fundamental rights
No! All damn lies!

Chemical weapons in Syria
US elections connection with Russia
Reducing carbon emissions
Little truth! Lot lies!

The standing Rock struggle
The Chhattisgarh adivasis protest
The Aussies anti- coal mine movement
Are not at all lies!

Lies propagated as truths
Half – truths and ‘ post truths’
Cannot, for long, hide reality
From vast humanity

Notes

Aadhar …. Unique identification number (aadhar gets new security features … Hindustan times, June 9 )

Syria denies using chemical weapons in Idlib — Al Jazeera ( April 6 2017)

US elections connection with Russia ..Julian assange speaks about US elections and Russian involvement ( you tube 15 – 12 – 2016)

Standing Rock … Protests DAPL

 Sheshu Babu is a writer from anywhere and everywhere and who wants to foster the world