View allAll Photos Tagged anonymity
When Saturday comes...and today, finally, it did
like a pressing in the chest, of a most unwelcome kind
sharpish and persistent it echoes a pain so long hid
attacking my senses beyond control, peace I cannot find
Hell, when is this going to end, get this giant pain off my frame
it now pierces my shoulder that can no longer carry the weight
blame loses balance in anonymity, and more's the shame
before midday of my life I'm beginning to fear all I couldn't contemplate
That which raises it's head well above mine and grins, sickly
down it spits lava, the burning-up heart of me
whatever will become of this weekend, growing ever more prickly
hopes no longer approachable, my power is out as far as I cannot see
Another couple of beats lost...forever...now the fight to regain a steady pulse
oh this is exhaustive...motionless, breathlessly crazed
gasping a pocket of air, from somewhere, for the ticker to convulse
this doesn't get any easier, what the world can't see it remains unfazed
"If I look alright then I must be alright" is now making me utterly sick
for this body has suffered long and hard enough to die several times over
but survives as a testament to self will and a loyal walking stick
just what does it take for an admission, moreover-
If I'm so well, why is this living getting so goddamned difficult?
being marooned in the scudding of 'pins and needles'
that which frightens the sweat out of me in forsaken tumult
as if I've seen a ghost in my own mirror where reality dwindles
There goes another beat, and another, seconds without life
my fingers ache the absence with a trigger-twitch
sooner or later, surely, I'm going to fall asleep from this rude, awaking strife
as wide-eyed visions delineate with a slight glitch
Absence of working heart has made the end grow nearer
please, put me on hold a while longer, if nothing else
I can just about withstand the present, even if the future is no clearer
now I know not where to look; it's darkness this ruddy pain impels
If minutes could turn the hours in less than the blink of an eye
then I could remain awake where I presently lie
this, even a devilish nightmare could not deny
it may even become a stipule where my heart went awry
Within this "healthy" looking frame is a writhing sea of torment
a spine of land smashed by a surging swell of hurt
eroding the golden beaches of past plays, the current serial lament
when will the 'New Year's Day' usher in a uniting concert?
"Under a blood-red sky..." entwines my recall of past mobility
only, the gathering crowd, wrestles my own emotional will -
to live and rejoin them; "I will be with you again"; is heard with invisibility
with or without, my heart is stealing the life from me, still.
by anglia24
11h30: 23/08/2008
©2008anglia24
This was taken a few years ago, before wearing mask became common. He was working construction, so he covered his mouth and nostrils, to protect from the dust.
Who would have thought that a few years later, covering the mouth and nostrils became the norm all over the world.
As much as I enjoy the anonymity mask gives me, I very much look forward to the day when I no longer have to wear the constricting mask. Nowadays, I wear the N95 type mask. It is more bearable as the normal mask I used to wear touched my lips and that drove me nuts!
ps: I updated my ONE and only gallery called WHY NOT???
Please visit the 100 photos gallery and enjoy :-)
You folks out there are a lot smarter than me, so I am counting on someone, ANYONE, to tell me what's going on here.
Personal experience with the above product would be a bonus. Anonymity guaranteed.
Peccatum Rostro, is a series of images in which I explore anonymity, people without distinctive features from whom no information can be obtained in a Society in great need of identification.
Peccatum Rostro es una serie de imágenes en la que exploro el anonimato, personas sin rasgos distintivos del que no se puede obtener ninguna información en una Sociedad con mucha necesidad de identificación.
www.ravishlondon.com/londonstreetart
Together Shoreditch and Spitalfields in the East of London constitute the most exciting place to be in London. The population is young, dynamic and imaginative; Friday and Saturday nights are a riot with a plethora of bars and clubs many with their own unique flavour. But what makes this area really special is that Shoreditch and Spitalfields comprise what one might call, ‘the square mile of art’; a de factor open air art gallery; with graffiti, posters and paste-ups being displayed on the main streets, down the side roads and in all the nooks and crannies of this post-industrial environ.
From Eine’s huge single letters being painted on shop shutters, to the haunting propaganda posters of Obey, to Cartrain’s political black and white pop-art; and to the one very small bronze coloured plastic circle, with the imprint of a dog shit and a man's foot about to step into it, which I once saw pasted to a wall, there is an incredible diversity.
Being on the streets, the work can be destroyed, taken or painted over at any minute. It is fragile and transient. Furthermore the juxtaposition of different pieces of art is random and unpredictable both in content and its location, which means that each day throws up a new and unique configuration of work within the streets, which you can only experience by travelling through the city.
Street Art Beginnings
The reasons for why East London has seen the flowering of street art are manifold. The post-industrial legacy of Shoreditch’s crumbling low-rise warehouses, not only provides an environment in which the artists and designers can do their work, but East London’s proximity to the City of London provides an economic source of support for the artists and designers; and finally Shoreditch with its building sites, old dilapidated warehouses provides a canvas upon which those artists can display their work and increase their commercial value.
Set against the characterless nature of the steely post-modernity of the city, the autumnal colours of the terraced warehouses in Shoreditch, no bigger than four to five stories high; offer a reminder of the legacy of a thriving fabrics and furniture industry which blossomed in the seventeenth Century. Both Shoreditch and Spitalfields have industrial pasts linked to the textiles industry, which fell into terminal decline by the twentieth century and was almost non-existent by the end of Wolrd War II. The decline was mirrored in the many three to four storey warehouses that were left to decay.
The general decline was arrested in the 1980s with the emergence of Shoreditch and Hoxton (Hoxton and Shoreditch are used interchandeably to refer to the same area) as a centre for new artists. It is difficult to say what attracted the artists to this area. But it was likely to be a combination of the spaces offered by the old warehouses, the cheap rents, and the location of Shoreditch and Spitalfields close to the City of London; where the money was to buy and fund artistic endeavour.
Not just that but post-war Shoreditch dominated by tens of post-war tower blocks, built amidst the ruins of the terraced housing that lay there before, which was bombed during World War II; had the rough edge which might inspire an artist. Shoreditch hums with the industry of newly arrived immigrants but also of the dangers of the poorer communities which inhabit these areas. Homeless people can be found sat underneath bridges on the main thoroughfares on Friday and Saturday nights; and Shoreditch is apparently home to one of the largest concentrations of striptease joints and a number of prostitutes. So, Shoreditch is a crumbling dirty, dodgy, polluted mess but it also has money; and these two factors provide an intoxicating mix for artists, who can take inspiration from their environment, but also rub shoulders with people who have the kind of money to buy their work.
By the early nineties Hoxton’s reputation as a centre for artists had become well established. As Jess Cartner-Morley puts it ‘Hoxton was invented in 1993. Before that, there was only 'Oxton, a scruffy no man's land of pie and mash and cheap market-stall clothing…’ At that time artists like Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin were taking part in ‘A Fete Worth than Death’ an arts based event in Hoxton. Gradually these artists began to create their own gravity, attracting more and more of their own like. Clubs and bars began to emerge, as did a Hoxton style, ‘the Hoxton fin’ being a trademark haircut. Many designers and artists located around Shoreditch and Spitalfields. Shoreditch has also become a hive of studios for artists, vintage fashion shops, art students and musicians.
At the same time as an artistic community was forming fuelled by money from the City, London was subject to a revolution in street art. According to Ward, writing for Time Out, the street art scene began in the mid-1980s as part of London’s hip-hop scene. Graffiti artists, emulating what was going on Stateside, began to tag their names all over London. According to Ward many of those pioneers ‘went on to paint legal commissions and are at the heart of today’s scene’. That is to say, from the community of artists congregating in East London, a number were inspired by graffiti, and because the East London, with its countless dilapidated warehouses, and building sites, offered such a good canvas; they went on to use the East London as a canvas for their work.
Little seems to have been written about the individual journey’s particular street artists have taken to get to where they are, which help illuminate some of the issues talked about in this section. Cartrain said that Banksy was a huge influence for him commenting that, "I've sent him a few emails showing him my work and he sent me a signed piece of his work in the post."
What created the East London street art scene may also kill it
The East London urban art scene is unlikely to last forever, being the symptom of a delicate juxtaposition of industrial decline and economic forces.
The irony is that the same factors which are responsible for the creation of the East London art scene are likely to destroy it.
Politicians from all parties, spiritual leaders for global capital, tell us of the unstoppable forces of globalisation. They say if Britain is to continue to dip its paw into the cream of the world’s wealth it needs to become a post-industrial service economy; suggesting a rosy future of millions of Asians slaving away co-ordinated by keyboard tapping British suits, feet on desk, leant back on high backed leather chairs, secretary blowing them off.
Art, which is feeble and dependent upon the financial growth of an economy for its survival, will have to shape itself around the needs and demands of capital.
The financial district of the City of London, lying to the south of Shoreditch, has been successfully promoted as a global financial centre, and its mighty power is slowly expanding its way northwards. Plans are afoot for the glass foot soldiers of mammon, fuelled by speculative property investment, to gradually advance northwards, replacing old warehouses with a caravan of Starbucks and Japanese sushi places and a concomitant reduction in dead spaces to portray the art, increased security to capture and ward off street artists, increased property prices and the eventual eviction of the artistic community. Spitalfields has already had big corporate sized chunks taken out of it, with one half of the old Spitalfields Market being sacrificed for corporate interests in the last five years.
So then the very same financial forces, and post-industrial legacy, which have worked to create this micro-environment for street art to thrive, are the same forces which will in time eventually destroy it. Maybe the community will move northwards, maybe it will dissipate, but until that moment lets just enjoy what the community puts out there, for its own financial interests, for their own ego and also, just maybe, for the benefit of the people.
Banksy
Banksy is the street artist par excellence. London’s street art scene is vibrant and diverse. There is some good, cure, kitschy stuff out there, but in terms of creativity and imagination Banksy leads by a city mile. His stuff is invariably shocking, funny, thought provoking and challenging.
Banksy considers himself to be a graffiti artist, which is what he grew up doing in the Bristol area in the late eighties. According to Hattenstone (2003) Banksy, who was expelled from his school, and who spent some time in prison for petty crimes, started graffiti at the age of 14, quickly switching over to stencils, which he uses today, because he didn’t find he had a particular talent for the former. His work today involves a mixture of graffiti and stencils although he has shown a capacity for using a multitude of materials.
Key works in London have included:
•In London Zoo he climbed into the penguin enclosure and painted "We're bored of fish" in six-foot-high letters.
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•In 2004 he placed a dead rat in a glass-fronted box, and stuck the box on a wall of the Natural History Museum.
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•‘A designated riot area’ at the bottom of Nelson’s Column.
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•He placed a painting called Early Man Goes to Market, with a human figure hunting wildlife while pushing a shopping trolley, in the British Museum.
•
His work seems to be driven by an insatiable desire to go on producing. In an interview with Shepherd Fairey he said, ‘Anything that stands in the way of achieving that piece is the enemy, whether it’s your mum, the cops, someone telling you that you sold out, or someone saying, "Let’s just stay in tonight and get pizza." Banksy gives the impression of being a person in the mould of Tiger Woods, Michael Schumacher or Lance Armstrong. Someone with undoubted talent and yet a true workaholic dedicated to his chosen profession.
Its also driven by the buzz of ‘getting away with it’. He said to Hattenstone, ‘The art to it is not getting picked up for it, and that's the biggest buzz at the end of the day because you could stick all my shit in Tate Modern and have an opening with Tony Blair and Kate Moss on roller blades handing out vol-au-vents and it wouldn't be as exciting as it is when you go out and you paint something big where you shouldn't do. The feeling you get when you sit home on the sofa at the end of that, having a fag and thinking there's no way they're going to rumble me, it's amazing... better than sex, better than drugs, the buzz.’
Whilst Banksy has preferred to remain anonymous he does provide a website and does the occasional interview putting his work in context (see the Fairey interview).
Banksy’s anonymity is very important to him. Simon Hattenstone, who interviewed Banksy in 2003, said it was because graffiti was illegal, which makes Banksy a criminal. Banksy has not spoken directly on why he wishes to maintain his anonymity. It is clear that Banksy despises the notion of fame. The irony of course is that ‘Banksy’ the brand is far from being anonymous, given that the artist uses it on most if not all of his work. In using this brand name Banksy helps fulfil the need, which fuels a lot of graffiti artists, of wanting to be recognised, the need of ego.
Banksy is not against using his work to ‘pay the bills’ as he puts it. He has for example designed the cover of a Blur album, although he has pledged never to do a commercial job again, as a means of protecting his anonymity. Nevertheless he continues to produce limited edition pieces, which sell in galleries usually for prices, which give him a bit of spending money after he has paid the bills. Banksy has said, ‘If it’s something you actually believe in, doing something commercial doesn’t turn it to shit just because it’s commercial’ (Fairey, 2008). Banksy has over time passed from urban street artist into international artistic superstar, albeit an anonymous one.
Banksy has a definite concern for the oppressed in society. He often does small stencils of despised rats and ridiculous monkeys with signs saying things to the effect of ‘laugh now but one day we’ll be in charge’. Whilst some seem to read into this that Banksy is trying to ferment a revolutionary zeal in the dispossessed, such that one day they will rise up and slit the throats of the powers that be, so far his concern seems no more and no less than just a genuine human concern for the oppressed. Some of what seems to fuel his work is not so much his hatred of the system but at being at the bottom of it. He said to Hattenstone (2003) ‘Yeah, it's all about retribution really… Just doing a tag is about retribution. If you don't own a train company then you go and paint on one instead. It all comes from that thing at school when you had to have name tags in the back of something - that makes it belong to you. You can own half the city by scribbling your name over it’
Charlie Brooker of the Guardian has criticised Banksy for his depictions of a monkey wearing a sandwich board with 'lying to the police is never wrong' written on it. Certainly such a black and white statement seems out of kilter with more balanced assessments that Banksy has made. Brooker challenges Banksy asking whether Ian Huntley would have been right to have lied to the police?
Brooker has also criticized Banksy for the seemingly meaninglessness of some of this images. Brooker says, ‘Take his political stuff. One featured that Vietnamese girl who had her clothes napalmed off. Ho-hum, a familiar image, you think. I'll just be on my way to my 9 to 5 desk job, mindless drone that I am. Then, with an astonished lurch, you notice sly, subversive genius Banksy has stencilled Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald either side of her. Wham! The message hits you like a lead bus: America ... um ... war ... er ... Disney ... and stuff.’ Brooker has seemingly oversimplified Banksy’s message, if indeed Banksy has one, to fuel his own criticisms. It is easy to see that for many the Vietnam painting tells us that the United States likes to represent itself with happy smiling characters, that hide the effects of its nefarious activities responsible for the real life faces of distress seen on the young girl. Something that we should be constantly reminded of. But then that’s a matter of politics not of meaninglessness.
Banksy’s ingenuity comes through in his philosophy on progression, ‘I’m always trying to move on’ he says. In the interview he gave with Shepherd Fairey he explained that he has started reinvesting his money in to new more ambitious projects which have involved putting scaffolding put up against buildings, covering the scaffolding with plastic sheeting and then using the cover of the sheets to do his paintings unnoticed.
Banksy has balls. Outside of London he has painted images in Disney Land; and on the Israeli wall surrounding Palestine. How far is he willing to push it? What about trying something at the headquarters of the BNP, or on army barracks, or at a brothel or strip club employing sex slaves, or playing around with corporate advertising a la Adbusters?
When Gods House
Becomes an Abode of Terror
Than God has to delete the file
Rectify the error
radicalism
dessiminating hatredness
anti Islam
children who come to study
men women
toting guns
Islamic Truth Brotherhood
standard bearer
destroying
Allah s name
in a Reign of Terror
photo courtesy Nd Tv..
Islamabad, July 3 (Xinhua) The chief cleric of the controversial Lal Masjid here Tuesday declared jihad after an exchange of fire between students and Pakistani security forces, Dawn News channel reported.
He also ordered Lal Masjid militants to launch attacks on forces.
Witnesses verified that Lal Masjid militants destroyed some posts set up by government security forces. Some government buildings were also under attack from the religious students.
At least three policemen were reported injured after Lal Masjid students exchanged fire with security forces.
Hundreds of students took to the street in protest, chanting pro-jihadi slogans. Security forces opened fire that triggered retaliations from the students.
Pakistan had Monday deployed more forces near the mosque to tighten security around it, Dawn newspaper reported Tuesday.
The move has brought the total number of Rangers deployed around the mosque to 1,500, with 500 police commandos in support.
The newspaper, quoting informed sources, said the authorities of the mosque have also reinforced security of its brigade, which is equipped with advanced weapons and wireless systems, and threatened to raid more massage centres in the city.
–Xinhua
ISLAMABAD: Parents and close relatives of the students of Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Faridia on Wednesday criticised Lal Masjid chief cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz and his deputy Abdur Rashid Ghazi for endangering the lives of their children in the name of jihad.
Talking to Daily Times, the concerned parents said they would never allow their children to return to the madrassas run by Lal Masjid and opposed the two clerics’ declaration of jihad.
A large number of parents and relatives were seen waiting at Aabpara bus station on Wednesday to take their children back to their hometowns. They were asked to contact Aabpara police station to facilitate contact with their children.
Students started coming out of the madrassa by midday and they numbered over 800 by evening. The government facilitated their meeting with the parents and arranged buses and coaches to safely transport them to their respective homes.
Thirty-five buses had sent over 290 males and 82 female students home by evening. Officials said each student had been paid Rs 5,000, as announced by President Musharraf, adding that any students who had surrendered to the security forces were not arrested.
The students who surrendered were unsure of the exact number of students still in the mosque. One female student said the mosque administration was imparting training for jihad to the remaining students. However, she added that female students were not forced to participate in the training.
“We would never let anyone use our children for vested interests,” said a parent, adding that he would never allow his daughter to return to Jamia Hafsa. Another parent said the declaration of jihad by the mosque administration made no sense, while a female student’s brother said if anyone wanted to participate in jihad, they should join the people fighting in Kashmir.
Agencies add: A female student told Geo News that 6,500 to 7,000 female students were still in the madrassa.
Several parents termed the government action just and one Qari Liaquat Ali said the government should be praised for exercising restraint. He said the madrassa administration had not allowed him to retrieve his daughter before the operation.
A 17-year-old student, Raheela, said many female students were being forced to remain on premises and were being used as shields. “I came here for religious education but the brand of Islam propagated by the administration was horrendous,” she added.
Several students said they would never return to the madrassa, even if conditions return to normal. “Though jihad is good, we are not here to fight,” said Zabia, a young student from Jamia Hafsa.
A top-level government official, on condition of anonymity, told APP that male students were being detained for questioning before they were allowed to depart while female students were being released into their parents’ custody promptly.
www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=200775\story_5-7-2007_pg7_14
Lal Masjid cleric in Pak military net
4 Jul 2007, 2310 hrs IST,PTI
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan military personnel surrounding the Lal Masjid here arrested Maulana Abdul Aziz, one of the two radical clerics of the mosque, when he tried to escape wearing a burqa on Wednesday, Dawnnews TV said.
Aziz, along with his younger brother Abdul Rashid Ghazi, was leading the militant students of the madrasas run by the Lal Masjid in their standoff with the government.
Chief Police Commissioner of Islamabad, Tariq Pervez, confirmed Aziz's arrest, saying that he was captured when he came out along with several burqa-clad women.
His identity was established during the screening, he told reporters here.
Aziz tried to sneak out in burqa when the troops guarding the area permitted 50 odd parents of students holed up in the mosque to go in to persuade their wards to surrender.
His arrest could perhaps help the government to end the stand-off as he could be effectively used to negotiate the surrender of the rest of the several hundred heavily armed militants headed by his brother Ghazi and holed up in the mosque.
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Pakistan/Lal_Masjid_cle...
Mosque leader foresees end of siege
Kansas City.com
Posted on Thu, Jul. 05, 2007print email Digg it del.icio.us AIM
Mosque leader foresees end of siege
By MUNIR AHMAD
Associated Press Writer
PTV
An image taken from the Pakistan Television shows on Thursday, July 5, 2007, the chief cleric of radical Lal mosque Maulana Abdul Aziz, who was arrested by police, Wednesday in Islamabad, Pakistan, removing his veil. The chief cleric of a radical mosque was arrested and more than 1,000 of his followers surrendered Wednesday as troops backed by armored vehicles and helicopters tightened their siege of the complex, officials said. Female police officers searching women fleeing the mosque's seminary discovered Maulana Abdul Aziz under a black head-to-toe veil, said Khalid Pervez, the city's top administrator.
A radical cleric arrested while fleeing his government-besieged mosque in a woman's burqa and high heels said Thursday that the nearly 1,000 followers still inside should flee or surrender.
The comments by Maulana Abdul Aziz raised hopes that the standoff could end without further bloodshed, but his brother remained inside the mosque with followers and said there was no reason to surrender.
Gunfire erupted repeatedly around the Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid Aziz, but no large-scale fighting was reported. Four helicopters hovered over the area, from which journalists were barred.
At least 16 people, including eight militants, have been killed and scores injured in the standoff between Pakistan's U.S.-backed government and Aziz, who has challenged President Gen. Pervez Musharraf with a drive to impose Taliban-style Islamic law in the city.
The bloodshed in the heart of the capital has added to a sense of crisis in Pakistan, where Musharraf faces emboldened militants near the Afghan border and a pro-democracy movement triggered by his botched attempt to fire the country's chief justice.
Aziz's brother, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, remains inside the mosque and an Interior Ministry official estimated that the cleric had about 30 diehard supporters with him. Intelligence officials said there could be as many as 100.
The official, Javed Iqbal Cheema, said Ghazi was using women and children as "human shields," something which Ghazi denied in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
"Why should we surrender? We are not criminals. How can we force those out who don't want to leave?" Ghazi, the mosque's deputy leader, said by telephone.
Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim said some of the more than 1,100 supporters who had fled the mosque and an adjoining girls' madrassa told them that Ghazi had retreated to a cellar along with 20 female "hostages" and that the holdouts had "large quantities of automatic weapons."
Azim said there would be no more negotiations with Ghazi.
"Enough time has already been wasted. It has to be total, unconditional surrender," he said.
Still, he said security forces were holding back from storming the complex to avoid civilian casualties.
"As long as there are women and children inside, I don't think that we will go in," he said.
Aziz was nabbed Wednesday evening after a female police officer checking women fleeing the mosque tried to search his body, which was concealed by a full-length black burqa. Azim, the deputy information minister, said the cleric had also been wearing high-heeled shoes.
In an interview with state-run Pakistan Television after his arrest, the gray-bearded Aziz, still dressed in a burqa, appeared calm as he said his mosque has "a relationship of love and affection with all jihadist organizations" but no actual links with them.
"We have no militants, we only had students. If somebody came from outside, I have no information on that," said Aziz, despite past vows to launch suicide attacks if authorities attack the mosque.
Security forces were sent to the mosque after the kidnapping of six Chinese women alleged to be prostitutes, a brief abduction that drew a protest from Beijing and proved to be the last straw in a string of provocations by the mosque stretching back six months.
Militant students streamed out of the mosque to confront the government forces, leading to a daylong battle on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the Pakistani army surrounded the mosque, determined to end the actions by the clerics and students.
Aziz said that as many as 700 women and about 250 men remained inside the mosque compound and an adjacent women's seminary, some armed with more than a dozen AK-47 assault rifles provided by "friends."
Associated Press reporters Sadaqat Jan, Zarar Khan and Stephen Graham in Islamabad contributed to this report.
www.kansascity.com/449/story/177892.html
update
july 10 2007
Pakistani forces storm besieged Red Mosque
Pakistani forces have stormed Islamabad's Red Mosque after talks to end a week-long stand-off with radical militants holed up inside broke down. The assault took place in the early hours of the morning. Dozens of militants and several soldiers have reportedly been killed, but it is reported some 20 children were rescued. Sporadic fire rang out over the capital and thick smoke was seen rising from the compound which also houses a religious school and a library.
An unknown number of women and children were believed to be held inside, to be used as human shields. The Red Mosque has been a centre for militancy for years and in recent months was used as a stronghold by radical students who wanted to install Sharia law in the city.
On Monday, at the behest of President Pervez Musharraf, a delegation of Muslim scholars had gathered outside the mosque and attempted to discuss with the militants by loudspeaker, but to no avail. "We have done everything which was possible on the end of the government," said Pakistani Information minister Mohammed Ali Durrani. "And we are really disappointed by the behaviour on the other end."
The radical cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi who is leading the opposition movement said no one was being held against their will. He and his fighters were ordered to surrender or die.
euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=431987&l...
Up to 50 dead as Pakistanis storm mosque
Tue Jul 10, 2007 8:10AM BST
Kamran Haider
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani forces stormed a mosque compound in the capital on Tuesday, killing up to 50 militants as they fought their way through an Islamic school where women and children were feared to be hiding.
While militants mounted a last stand in the basements of the madrasa, commandos had yet to encounter any women and children, with more than two-thirds of the complex cleared.
However, military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad said rebel cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi was barricaded in a basement, using women and children as human shields.
Three soldiers were killed and many more people wounded, while 50 militants were arrested, Arshad said.
But he said these were initial casualty reports and the assault to end a week-long standoff at Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, was still in progress eight hours after it began.
Women and children were feared to be in areas of the compound security forces had still to clear.
"They have yet to be encountered." Arshad said.
Nearly 30 loud blasts rocked the heart of Islamabad for an hour beginning at around 9.30 a.m. (0430 GMT). There was no sound of gunfire
uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKISL25141320070710?src=...
40 militants killed in Lal Masjid attack
10 Jul 2007, 0950 hrs IST,PTI
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani troops stormed the Lal Masjid complex in the capital early Tuesday morning after talks with radicals to end the week-long standoff broke down, triggering a heavy gunbattle, which left 40 militants and three security personnel dead.
Heavy gunfire erupted and loud blasts were heard as Operation Silence was launched at 4 am with commandos surrounding the mosque, where militants are believed to be holding 150 hostages, from three sides.
Twenty children escaped as the operation started and were taken in the care of security forces. Fierce fighting raged at the religious school and library in the compound where hundreds of women and children were believed to be present.
Deputy Administrator of the Masjid Abdul Rashid Ghazi and his supporters are believed to have taken shelter in the bunkers built in the basement of the mosque are putting up a stiff resistance, Defence Ministry Spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad told reporters.
"The militants are using small arms and grenades. They are in the basement," he said adding "we are facing resistance from the basement. Such an operation could take three or four hours".
"According to my information part of the mosque has been cleared but heavy fighting was on in madrassa," he said.
The militants are believed to be armed with machine guns, rocket launchers, hand grenades and petrol bombs.
Arshad said three security force personnel and 40 militants have so far been killed in the operation.
As the explosion began rocking the besieged mosque complex, Ghazi spoke briefly to TV channels and blamed the government for the failure.
Ghazi said he was ready to leave as suggested by the government but at the same time insisted that clerics and media should visit the mosque complex to prove his claim that no foreign militants or heavy weapons were there.
"It is the final push to clear the mosque of armed militants," Arshad said.
He said he has no information about the claim of Ghazi that his mother has been killed.
Asking the residents of the capital not to come out or go onto their terraces, he said they could be hit by shrapnel and stray bullets.
He said estimates are that about 200 to 300 militants were holed up in the complex and the troops hope to finish it as early as possible.
Emergency has been declared in all the hospitals in Islamabad and nearby Rawalpindi and doctors and other medical staff were kept on stand by before the operation began.
The operation was launched as soon as ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) President Shujaat Hussain in a brief nationally televised press conference said talks to find out a peaceful solution to the stand-off had failed.
Hussain said he was never disappointed so much in life as an agreement could not be reached even after the government showed maximum flexibility.
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/40_militants_killed_in_Lal_Ma...
Sunlight reflects a little brighter off of this American bittern than it does off of the surrounding reeds, making the bird less inconspicuous than it usually is in this setting.
It's the Industrial Revolution and the growth of urban concentrations that led to a sense of anonymity.
Vint Cerf
There is a restaurant parking lot a few blocks from my house that offers this view. Some day when I build up some ambition I'm going over there to see if there is anything happening at sunrise or sunset. I am, you see, a lazy photographer...
If a question can choose it's direction
will it ever match the debatable answer
held in tow with a mighty discretion
which confers with a galloping lancer
the one that yields to tempting force
within a world of no gravitating remorse
hell no! that's no Proteus for today
in the field of urban conflict
no-one is free from the all-questioning survey
prying eyes that drive the politicked
a trick of edictal panic measures
an ill-omened fit for the swain's treasures
where's the lifeguard for those of us all at sea
drowning in this ocean of anonymity
our identity if you please, give it back to me
afloat this life in search of some equanimity
in the illimitable world we're all dead sure
of nearing the first taste of a vintage lure
drink to the health of the life that runs on empty
to the bottom of the glass we toast again
such is our indifference to the volupty
and all her sail in her, amen!
a navvy is the engine that fires warnings across life's brow;
the polluter beyond all doubt that bear witnesses can allow
such naked truth is a bookmark to return to
when hate and loathing fail to find home
and the conscience to a goose can't even say boo,
who are we to mock the mirror's line-laughing tome
our most loyal love-hating accessory
a pale reflection of the party-pooping supervisory
unstated are the efforts of the past that go in a flash
remembered as thundery grizzles
forgotten grains of time that weathering turns to ash
a suntrap in the emotive heart that sizzles
to please the hunger for youthful gilt
that satisfies the edge of a conscientious tilt
the world is a lonely place when you're on your own
is a 70's line sung in this propaedeutic musing
before sidetracked I am completely overthrown
bidding farewell with a wave thus confusing
the issue of this sorrowful flame
melting the very end of all it became.
by anglia24
14h45: 13/07/2008
©2008anglia24
I asked the managers of the bar whether I could take some photographs as normally (and understandably) photographs are not allowed. I made it clear I would retain the anonymity of the workers and not show them in a degrading manner.
Everyone deserves respect in Thailand.
When footlights dim in reverence to prescient passion forewarned
My audience leaves the stage, floating ahead perfumed shift
Within the stammering silence, the face that launched a thousand frames
Betrayed by a porcelain tear, a stained career
You played this scene before, you played this scene before
I the mote in your eye, I the mote in your eye
A misplaced reaction
The darkroom unleashes imagination in pornographic images
In which you will always be the star, always be the star, untouchable
Unapproachable, constant in the darkness
Nursing an erection, a misplaced reaction
With no flower to place before this gravestone
And the walls become enticingly newspaper thin
But that would be developing the negative view
And you have to be exposed in voyeuristic colour
The public act, let you model your shame
On the mannequin catwalk, catwalk
Let the cats walk, and the cat walks
I've played this scene before, I've played this scene before
I the mote in your eye, I the mote in your eye
A misplaced reaction, satisfaction
You can't brush me under the carpet, you can't hide me under the stairs
The custodian of your private fears, your leading actor of yesteryear
Who as you crawled out of the alleys of obscurity
Sentenced to rejection in the morass of anonymity
You who I directed with lovers will, you who I let hypnotise the lens
You who I let bathe in the spotlights glare
You who wiped me from your memory like a greasepaint mask
Just like a greasepaint mask
But now I'm the snake in the grass, the ghost of film reels past
I'm the producer of your nightmare and the performance has just begun
It's just begun
Your perimeter of courtiers jerk like celluloid puppets
As you stutter paralysed with rabbits eyes, searing the shadows
Flooding the wings, to pluck elusive salvation from the understudy's lips
Retrieve the soliloquy, maintain the obituary
My cue line in the last act and you wait in silent solitude
Waiting for the prompt, waiting for the prompt
You've played this scene before
Restaurant in Paris. Even in October many people could sit outside early in the evening. For sure because everywhere heaters were installed to make it possible.
I was drawn to an interesting looking couple drinking a coffee and wanted to take a photograph of them. Not an easy task when one wants to get unnoticed. When I managed to take a photo, it was mainly from her and she clearly noticed me. But she did not show any further reaction.
Because she is smoking and her face is small and a bit blurry, she is not really recognizable. So I think it is one of those cases where anonymity is largely guaranteed and it is fine to post the image.
They promised sunshine but all we got were showers
This damnable cloud has lasted four days straight
No break, no let-up, not even a glimmer that towers
Beyond the blanket of central slumber, November's trait
I hear the rain a-tapping beside me, all around me
Her pearls decorate my windows as if sympathising
With the mood that construed this is how it must be
When waiting becomes watching this whole darn thing
They still promise sun but can't our forecasters see it isn't so
Are my eyes deceiving me or is there a flickering out there?
Where my Hazel will shortly sleep, her shadows show
With elegance perhaps she may show me soon herself laid bare
Is that the hope of a mind's turning quest for hidden jewel,
That which lies beyond the pearls and forever between
She is the place in which I may ignite desire's fuel
On a dull day my alternatives are too few to chose anything other than my queen
They announce sun to the west but my east is nicely-oriented
Whether the weather is to be or not no longer receives my applause
I've left that theatre already and her observation is now unlamented
Time-tied to it's own anonymity upon fallen leaves winter draws
A breath, of Her into me, my lungs receive all She is willing to give
She is colour for my off-day as I lay betwixt Her loving boughs
Fresh from the night air a purity dewdrop for life must live!
And more! like single carriages upon Her sentimental branch lines surely arouse
The sun of so many yesterday's pulling into Her station with equestrian grace
Up off my haunches I barely raise an eyebrow for the presence I kiss
A ticketed heart reaches Her destiny as my legacy we interlace
Though unforecast the Sun remained shy, as She showed me just how to reminisce.
by anglia24
10h00: 07/11/2008
©2008anglia24
The theme for “Smile on Saturday” for the 4th of November is “talk to the hand”. In the last two years, I have been exploring a new avenue in my photographic creativity, that of portraiture photography. I used a somewhat illusive sitter for several “Smile on Saturday” themes in the past. My model has kindly returned to sit for me yet again for this theme. My model has, in my opinion anyway, beautiful hands. I couldn’t think of anyone better who would be happy to hold up his hand to shelter himself and protect his anonymity! My model spots his own rather smart trilby, which he and I both thought a nice touch to add some interest and contrast to this image. I hope you like my choice for this week’s theme, and that it makes you smile.
When I spotted the scooter there was no girl. Just a lone, abandoned scooter in the middle of a hallway that caught my eye so I thought I’d take a picture.
As I raised my camera to my face the little girl ran out of nowhere to claim it. Staring straight at me, she smiled as I stood there awkwardly with my camera pressed to my eye.
I don’t like to take photos of children I don’t know that can be recognised. It’s a guideline I set when I first started to shoot #streetphotography. So you can imagine the sigh of relief when she turned around to face her oncoming family.
An image that went down a storm on Twitter, yet so far has bombed on Instagram. Lets see the response here
Have a look at my facebook page
Berlin, Germany
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Feel free to comment my pics or contact me - in English or German.
I am very thankful for every constructive criticism that helps me to get better!
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From Dunes to Mountains. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.
The view across the floor of Death Valley to eroded hills.
I made this photograph in the very late afternoon, just before sunset, on a relatively quiet and calm evening. These short dunes lie near the end of a large dune field that is quite popular with visitors, but their small size gives them a kind of landscape anonymity, and not many people visit or photograph them.
There is a lot of interesting geography/geology in this little scene, and it is part of what caught my attention. The bottom half of the photograph includes the valley floor, a large, sandy playa that, in places, gets enough blowing sand to form dunes. Beyond that, many miles in the distance, a large alluvial fan rises from the playa to the base of the hills, where valleys have spilled material over millennia to form this massive tilting structure. At the very top is a range of short, rugged hills. Out of the photo above them is a very tall range of mountains.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
1943 War Effort. Still relevant today in efforts to respect our shared Home! Photo posted in my complex’s lobby.
In the spirit of Recycle, Repurpose, & Regift, Richard Rohr in his daily meditations, quotes Potawatomi botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer [who] critiques our obsession with economic growth:
“The threat of real scarcity on the horizon is brought to us by unbridled capitalism. Extraction and consumption outstrip the capacity of the Earth to replenish what we have taken. An economy based on the impossibility of ever expanding growth leads us into nightmare scenarios. I cringe when I hear economic reports celebrating the accelerating pace of economic growth, as if that were a good thing. It might be good for [some in power], for the short term, but it is a dead end for others—it is an engine of extinction.”
Kimmerer learns about the benefits of a “gift economy” from a local farmer and businesswoman who occasionally offers surplus Serviceberries to her neighbors for free.
Paulie has a reputation to uphold for being no-nonsense in her approach to life …:
“It’s not really altruism,” she insists. “An investment in community always comes back to you in some way. Maybe people who come for Serviceberries will come back for Sunflowers and then for the Blueberries. Sure, it’s a gift, but it’s also good marketing. The gift builds relationships, and that’s always a good thing….” The currency of relationship can manifest itself as money down the road, because Paulie and Ed do have to pay the bills….
“Even when something is paid for as a commodity, the gift of relationship is still attached to it. The ongoing reciprocity in gifting stretches beyond the next customer, though, into a whole web of relations that are not transactional. Paulie and Ed are banking goodwill, so-called social capital….
“I cherish the notion of the gift economy, that we might back away from the grinding system, which reduces everything to a commodity and leaves most of us bereft of what we really want: a sense of belonging and relationship and purpose and beauty, which can never be commoditized. I want to be part of a system in which wealth means having enough to share, and where the gratification of meeting your family needs is not poisoned by destroying that possibility for someone else. I want to live in a society where the currency of exchange is gratitude and the infinitely renewable resource of kindness, which multiplies every time it is shared rather than depreciating with use….
“I don’t think market capitalism is going to vanish; the faceless institutions that benefit from it are too entrenched. The thieves are very powerful. But I don’t think it’s pie in the sky to imagine that we can create incentives to nurture a gift economy that runs right alongside the market economy. After all, what we crave is not trickle-down, faceless profits, but reciprocal, face-to-face relationships, which are naturally abundant but made scarce by the anonymity of large-scale economics. We have the power to change that, to develop the local, reciprocal economies that serve community rather than undermine it.”
Quoted in Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations,
Center for Action and Contemplation, October 9, 2025.
Hello,
It's been a while since I've been here on flickr. I tried to come back once, but didn't really succeed. To be honest, in the constant search for the meaning of my job, while studying and graduating in last September, my love for photography faded a bit. I became tired in the mere thought of picking up a camera, I felt like I no longer knew how to make good pictures. I was - well, I still am - afraid of judgement, but in the end it's always my own judgement that screams loudest.
While pandemic still holds its grip and I've lost touch with time, physical space and people, I slowly became stuck somewhere in a dark pit, just like before, when I started 365 Days Project. Uploading here helped me once back then, and even though there are few who would ever read this note, I need to write, because I can't speak no more. And this place feels safe. Letting this out to the world, but still in the safe arms of anonymity.
The Calling is a public artwork by American artist Mark di Suvero located in O'Donnell Park, which is on the lakefront in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The artwork was made in 1981-82 from steel I-beams painted an orange-red color. It measures 40 feet in height, and it sits at the end of Wisconsin Avenue in front of the footbridge that leads to the Milwaukee Art Museum. di Suvero's artwork was commissioned by an anonymous donor. It stands tall at 40 feet and is made from steel I-beams, which the artist painted an orange-red color. The sculpture resembles a rising sun, and is colloquially called the Sunburst. It currently sits in O'Donnell Park, next to the Milwaukee County War Memorial building and in front of the Milwaukee Art Museum. When the piece was first commissioned, the Milwaukee Art Museum did not extend to its present location. The sculpture's backdrop consisted of the bluff and Lake Michigan. With the rising sun behind it, The Calling truly captured di Suvero's intent. Milwaukee's downtown lakefront had been a transportation hub since the 19th century. In 1968 the lakefront's railroad passenger depot was torn down. The site was developed into a parking lot and an urban park. In 1980 the Milwaukee Department of City Development decided to place a sculpture in this new urban park, and asked the Milwaukee Art Museum to select an artist to make the piece. The Milwaukee Art Museum chose Mark di Suvero, while an anonymous donor offered to fund the sculpture. Di Suvero's design for The Calling dated back to 1975 when he did some drawings for Emily and Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. The sculpture was never built, but when the artist came to Milwaukee and visited the proposed site for his work, he knew that the strong verticals of The Calling were needed to complement the scale of the bluff and the lake. Since its proposal, The Calling has been fraught with controversy. Community members and politicians have had a problem with the cost, the use of industrial materials, the abstract design, the placement, and the donor's anonymity. Local politicians delayed the building of the sculpture while they debated the sculpture's design, even though the museum owned it. "Gerald Norland, Director of the Art Museum, led the fight for approval throughout most of 1981, presenting its case to eleven separate hearings. Finally, the museum received a favorable vote in the Common Council in January 1982." Di Suvero proceeded to create the sculpture in his New York City studio. Once it was complete, he disassembled The Calling, shipped it to Milwaukee, and directed the reassembly of the piece. It was dedicated in April 1982. A new controversy arose when the Milwaukee Art Museum's Santiago Calatrava-designed new wing opened in 2001. Dissenters advocated that The Calling be moved as it blocked their view of the new art museum. Di Suvero refused to move the sculpture, stating "If you don't want it, take it apart and ship it to me."When questioned whether the sculpture should be moved, Calatrava deferred to di Suvero. He told Milwaukee art critic Whitney Gould several times that he had designed the museum addition to relate to the placement of "The Calling." The sculpture and its placement continue to be a point of contention between art critics and community members alike.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Calling_(di_Suvero)
Peccatum Rostro, is a series of images in which I explore anonymity, people without distinctive features from whom no information can be obtained in a Society in great need of identification.
Peccatum Rostro es una serie de imágenes en la que exploro el anonimato, personas sin rasgos distintivos del que no se puede obtener ninguna información en una Sociedad con mucha necesidad de identificación.
I took this picture in Brooklyn at a bar while watching the Pistons get taxed by Cleveland. The couple next to me started making out furiously, and in order to both protect their anonymity and at the same time convey kind of an anonymous intimacy I shot them from below the table.
“Now, Mr. Trump’s attitudes and actions are coming under renewed scrutiny as the national security adviser, defense secretary and multiple cabinet members face questions about their use of Signal, a commercial messaging app, to discuss details of impending military strikes many experts say were classified.
The conversation was described in an article Monday by The Atlantic’s editor in chief, who was mistakenly added to the group chat.
By Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Trump conceded that he “didn’t know” if the information disclosed was classified or not. Still, he seemed far more concerned about how the editor had been added to the chat than about whether Americans had been put at risk.
And that, former officials say, goes to a disrespect of government, its rules and safeguards, that has trickled down from the president to his key aides. The former officials spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation from the White House or its allies
The line from Trump administration officials, including the director of national intelligence, was that nothing classified was shared.
The response was met with incredulity among Democrats, who noted that the chat included the times pilots would take off to conduct airstrikes, details that are usually closely guarded secrets.
“The casualness with which he dealt with information has clearly become the culture of this new team,” said Sue Gordon, who was a top intelligence official in the first Trump administration. “I think it bespeaks a breathtaking lack of understanding of the reality of the risks posed by very capable adversaries and competitors who would advance their interests at the expense of ours.”
Military experts say Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, appears to have retyped information from classified documents or a classified message from U.S. Central Command and placed it into the Signal group for the senior officials.”
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission. © 2010 All rights reserved
My new Project has started, to show the anonymity of this big city ... !!!
The Calling is a public artwork by American artist Mark di Suvero located in O'Donnell Park, which is on the lakefront in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The artwork was made in 1981-82 from steel I-beams painted an orange-red color. It measures 40 feet in height, and it sits at the end of Wisconsin Avenue in front of the footbridge that leads to the Milwaukee Art Museum. di Suvero's artwork was commissioned by an anonymous donor. It stands tall at 40 feet and is made from steel I-beams, which the artist painted an orange-red color. The sculpture resembles a rising sun, and is colloquially called the Sunburst. It currently sits in O'Donnell Park, next to the Milwaukee County War Memorial building and in front of the Milwaukee Art Museum. When the piece was first commissioned, the Milwaukee Art Museum did not extend to its present location. The sculpture's backdrop consisted of the bluff and Lake Michigan. With the rising sun behind it, The Calling truly captured di Suvero's intent. Milwaukee's downtown lakefront had been a transportation hub since the 19th century. In 1968 the lakefront's railroad passenger depot was torn down. The site was developed into a parking lot and an urban park. In 1980 the Milwaukee Department of City Development decided to place a sculpture in this new urban park, and asked the Milwaukee Art Museum to select an artist to make the piece. The Milwaukee Art Museum chose Mark di Suvero, while an anonymous donor offered to fund the sculpture. Di Suvero's design for The Calling dated back to 1975 when he did some drawings for Emily and Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. The sculpture was never built, but when the artist came to Milwaukee and visited the proposed site for his work, he knew that the strong verticals of The Calling were needed to complement the scale of the bluff and the lake. Since its proposal, The Calling has been fraught with controversy. Community members and politicians have had a problem with the cost, the use of industrial materials, the abstract design, the placement, and the donor's anonymity. Local politicians delayed the building of the sculpture while they debated the sculpture's design, even though the museum owned it. "Gerald Norland, Director of the Art Museum, led the fight for approval throughout most of 1981, presenting its case to eleven separate hearings. Finally, the museum received a favorable vote in the Common Council in January 1982." Di Suvero proceeded to create the sculpture in his New York City studio. Once it was complete, he disassembled The Calling, shipped it to Milwaukee, and directed the reassembly of the piece. It was dedicated in April 1982. A new controversy arose when the Milwaukee Art Museum's Santiago Calatrava-designed new wing opened in 2001. Dissenters advocated that The Calling be moved as it blocked their view of the new art museum. Di Suvero refused to move the sculpture, stating "If you don't want it, take it apart and ship it to me."When questioned whether the sculpture should be moved, Calatrava deferred to di Suvero. He told Milwaukee art critic Whitney Gould several times that he had designed the museum addition to relate to the placement of "The Calling." The sculpture and its placement continue to be a point of contention between art critics and community members alike.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Calling_(di_Suvero)
“Cities have always offered anonymity, variety, and conjunction, qualities best basked in by walking: one does not have to go into the bakery or the fortune-teller's, only to know that one might. A city always contains more than any inhabitant can know, and a great city always makes the unknown and the possible spurs to the imagination.”
― Rebecca Solnit
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Thanks to all for 20,000.000+ views, visits and kind comments..!
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This is in tribute to my dear friend Cruella De Vil. She has recently left Flickr so I wanted to repost this in her honor.
It's really a shame that people can hide behind the anonymity of a screen name and say mean, crude and disturbing things to and about someone and make that person feel like they want to leave........
Why is that?......What has our society become?
Here's to you Cruella......you are sorely missed my friend......................