In 1969, Chairman Mao commanded the construction of a second Beijing beneath the surface of the original city, designed to accommodate all six million of its then inhabitants so that if nuclear war did kick off, folk would still have somewhere to hang out and play Mah Jong while the rest of us burnt to death in a shower of atomic rain. War never came, but the city is still there.

Check it out…

http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2009/11/17/chairman-mao%E2%80%99s-underground-city/

Although I have made money from Punk, it is a modest amount when one considers the bounty that has been bestowed on the companies that promote Punk as some sort of a product to be ingested. It has always been my way to de-value the fashionable, light-hearted, impulsive traits that people associate with Punk, because Punk is more than that, so much more that those elements become trivial in the light of human experience that all punkers share.

Since it has been a part of me for over half of my life, I think the time has come to attempt a definition, and in the process defend, this persistent social phenomenon known as Punk. It is astounding that something with so much emotional and trans- cultural depth has gone without definition for so long, for the roots of Punk run deeper, and go back in history farther than imagined.

Even in the last two decades, it is difficult to find any analysis of the influential effect that Punk Rock had on Pop Music and youth culture. And rarer still are essays detailing the emotional and intellectual undercurrents that drive the more overt fashion statements that most people attribute to Punk. These are some of the wants that compelled me to write this. If my attempt offends the purists, collapses the secrecy of a closed society, promotes confidence in skeptical inquiry, provokes deeper thought, and decodes irony, then I have done my job and those who feel slighted might recognize the triviality of their position. For I have nothing to promote but my observations on a sub-culture that has grown to global proportions, and through visiting much of it, I have found threads of common thought everywhere.

From: http://punkhistory0.tripod.com/punk/id2.html

The message seemed clear: natural variations in the long term warming, might be misinterpreted by the media, out of ignorance, or malice.

Climate deniers were quick to take Latif’s remarks, and begin doing exactly that.

After claiming approximately 100 million victims in the 20th century, communism was dismissed to the ash heap of history. But those who suffered under its boot heel have largely been confined to the history books when not forgotten altogether.

Author and historian Lee Edwards set out to correct this oversight with the creation of the Victims of Communism memorial and online museum, dedicated to those who perished because of Communist regimes between 1917 and 1989.

Reason.tv spoke to Edwards about the importance of historical memory, plans for a forthcoming bricks-and-mortar museum in Washington, DC, and the paintings of Ukrainian gulag survivor Nikolai Gettman, currently on display at the Heritage Foundation, where Edwards is a “Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought.”