text:
The domination-resistance paradigm has been replaced by modulation that de-centers power and makes it impossible to cut the head off of the king. Resisting the clutches of the school didn't make one free of the police, or even the asylum for that matter. It was only vulnerable to entropy and sabotage. But when considered with the even more complicated relational network of control societies, formulating a radical political project on resistance to domination is inadequate. Contemporary resistance has to consider that governance thrives primarily off of transgression. Continue reading "resistance"
Month: July 2011
i am all the names of history
Only as creators! — This has given me the greatest difficulty and goes on being my greatest difficulty: to recognize that unspeakably more depends on what things are called than on what they are. Continue reading "i am all the names of history"
i got 99 problems but an axiom ain't one
ATP on Problematic-Axiomatic
Axiomatics vs Problematics 1, p374 — Nomadology
Although safety is a fundamental element in the theoretical norms of the State, and of the political ideal, there is also something else at issue as well. Due to all their procedures, the ambulant sciences quickly overstep the possibility of calculation: they inhabit that "more" that exceeds the space of reproduction and soon run into problems that are insurmountable from that point of view; they eventually resolve those problems by means of a real-life operation. The solutions are supposed to come from a set of activities that constitute them as nonautonomous. Only royal science, in contrast, has at its disposal a metric power that can define a conceptual apparatus or an autonomy of science (including the autonomy of experimental science). That is why it is necessary to couple ambulant spaces with a space of homogeneity, without which the laws of physics would depend on particular points in space. But this is less a translation than a constitution: precisely that constitution the ambulant sciences did not undertake, and do not have the means to undertake. In the field of interaction of the two sciences, the ambulant sciences confine themselves to inventing problems whose solution is tied to a whole set of collective, nonscientific activities but whose scientific solution depends, on the contrary, on royal science and the way it has transformed the problem by introducing it into its theorematic apparatus and its organization of work. Continue reading "i got 99 problems but an axiom ain't one"
The Only Good Fascist Is A Dead Fascist
He should be forgotten. In the best ab/use of history, we should let that sleeping dog lay in His cold grave. Continue reading "The Only Good Fascist Is A Dead Fascist"
I Would Rather Be Goliath: Homage to Chaplin
My first memory of Chaplin is the memory of an irritation. What attracted me was the terror of his cold gloating malice at the roller-skating rink or on the assembly line, but I was disgusted by the obscenity in his humor inspired by his fear of the hostile giant. Continue reading "I Would Rather Be Goliath: Homage to Chaplin"
Running to the Hills
Avoiding the state was, until the past few centuries, a real option. A thousand years ago most people lived outside state structures, under loose-knit empires or in situations of fragmented sovereignty.11 Today it is an option that is fast vanishing … Continue reading "Running to the Hills"
"Get Rid of Yourself" Transcript
Bernadette Corporation
(2003, DV, 61 min, featuring Chloe Sevigny and Werner von Delmont)
Get Rid of Yourself is a video-film-tract addressed to those who anonymously embody the return of political activism within Empire. While its initial sounds and images were filmed during the riots in Genoa, 2001, these materials are pulled apart and recomposed in order to locate the intensity of a shared experience, rather than producing one more documentary version of the programmed and hyper-mediatized confrontation of the G8 counter-summit. Elaborating a complex and rhythmic form of address via sound/image disjunctions, cheap video effects and performance, the film declares its own exile from a biopolitical space-time where nothing ever happens. The crisis it announces is the sudden return of history, but this time without characters or a story, and of a politics without subjects.
Provisionally aligning itself with the so-called 'Black Bloc' movement – with the arrogance of its discourse as well as the force and style of their resistance – Get Rid of Yourself is an encounter with emerging, non-instituted or identity-less forms of protest that refuse the representational politics of the official Left. Edited in the aftermath of 9/11 – a period of doubt, reflection and heightened security measures worldwide – the film also attempts to measure the strange distance these events have crossed, and the increasing repression under which the feeling of 'civil war' has been buried in the meantime. A filmed essay that works by betraying its own form, Get Rid of Yourself tries to approach what is most open in an event, rather than capturing and completing it as something recognizable.
PDF Transcript / BC Film Interview
Transcript: (by anarchistwithoutcontent.wordpress.com)
[the sea interspersed with the collapsing world trade centers]
[medical security state, fires, title of film "get rid of yourself"]
[Female Voice] (modified text from Tiqqun2: "How is it to be done?")
TWENTY YEARS. Twenty years of counter-revolution. Of preventive
In Italy.
And elsewhere.
Twenty years of a sleep under the eyes of security guards behind security gates,
guards. A sleep of bodies, imposed by curfew.
Twenty years. The past does not pass. Because war continues.
Circulates. Extends.
A new (?) calibration of subjectivities. In a new superficial peace.
An armed peace
well made to cover the course of an imperceptible
civil war.
Twenty years, there was
punk, the movement of 77, Autonomy,
the city Indians, an eruption,
a whole counter-world of subjectivities
that no longer wanted to consume, that no longer wanted to produce,
that no longer even wanted to be subjectivities.
The revolution was molecular, the counter-revolution was also molecular.
[genoa g8 protestors / police]
[different female voice, in French with subtitles]
Once, during the first day
we ran into a group of pacifists.
They were blocking our escape route
after we burned the banks by the sea.
Nearby, there was a big social democrat march,
and in front of us was a stairway.
It was the only way out
to avoid getting caught between the police and the demonstrators.
But it was blocked by these pacifists from LILLIPUT
who started to interrogate us and our friends, saying:
Why do you go on doing this?
There's already been on death, do you want to cause another?
And then we told them:
What the fuck are you saying?
It's not our fault that someone died.
It was an act of repression.
Something we must react against,
and not hide at home under the bed.
If it comes to that, it means that THEY have already won.
We kept running into this same kind of logic,
one that's completely perverse and has to be stopped.
Their aggressiveness was so delirious…
standing there, breathing tear gas, with the cops advancing,
blocking our way saying:
Yeah, but anyway. You've understood nothing.
Because you rise up its' your fault.
You're the ones who really killed Carlos Giuliani.
And there was one woman who said to me:
My dear, I've been protesting since before you were born.
And if we have a society like this, it's also thanks to me.
I said [sarcastically]: Hey, thanks for the society you've left me
and for the position you occupy, still, after all these years.
It was astonishing her aggression.
It's a kind of thinking that is very close to the logic of the police.
I mean, those who rationalize the police monopoly on violence,
will always need more cops
just to keep enjoying life.
So in a way, pacifists, with their so-called virginity
end up reinforcing the system they say they criticize.
[images of cruise missile, followed by protest footage of a busy street with people talking by – protestors and regular people, covered in the mist of teargas and smoke]
"Empire is everywhere where nothing happens." flashes across the screen.
[Bernadette Corporation logo, other credits – mix of music]
[white texts scrolls across a black screen:]
They say, "another world is possible." But I am another world. Am I possible? I am here, living, stealing, doing cocaine, subtracting myself from the bad movie of urban love stories, inventing weapons, elaborating the complex constellation of my relations, building the Party. They say "another world is possible." But we do not want another world, another order, another justice: another logical nightmare. We do not want any global governance be it fair, be it ecological, be it certified by Porto Allegre. We want THIS world. We want this world as chaos. We want the chaos of our lives, the chaos of our perceptions, the chaos of our desires and repulsions. The chaos that happens when management collapses. Capitalism defeated traditional societies because it was more exciting than they were, but now there is something more exciting than Capitalism, itself: its destruction.
[images of black bloc'ers]
[male voice]
Well, the black bloc thing is is is,
when you view it from the media, the police, it is an organized group,
and they are organized because they all dress the same, because they all put the same things on, because they move together.
They are very well organized, says the papers or the police communiques.
But what you realize, when you are part of it, is that it is just some sort of spontaneous, intelligent… moves… you dress in black because (sighs) so you can more easily know who you are walking with. And to.. uh… everybody is looking the same so it is far more difficult to spot out .. uh.. individuals. It is simple, what, you have to be, uh, realistic about the whole thing. So you're moving in the street with some kind of uh… undercover army, you've got your body protected, you've your black (image of 'noir radical chic') [baroque music fades in]
…. your face is hidden behind a mask or a handkerchief or whatever
[image of models having makeup put on, then posters and newspapers]
[images of black bloc store smashing in a small window on a laptop screen on a table somewhere]
[male voice in french. images of beach cut against people in sleeping bags.]
Well, I think it's the moment
where there's no more scenario.
No prescribed scenario,
as to which objectives, which directions to go,
or what to confront.
[images of cars passing a residential street, all honking]
There's a moment …
when you arrive at these kinds of situations
with some people you know,
friends, people you meet, chance encounters.
And then you begin to lose them,
because the action makes everybody scatter.
[images of a protest scene. mist of tear gas in a square. small group of protestors, cameras, and a black bloc'er in the middle of the shot. people scatter]
It's at that point where you feel something that goes beyond you.
[return to residential street]
You're no longer a subject, the points of references are lost.
And then it's about what you observe around you
[back to protest, with someone throwing something back in the direction the tear gas came from]
and the way you begin to imitate what's happening.
[residential street]
In my opinion, that's the improvisational element,
and this is one of the most important elements.
But it has little to do with spontaneity.
[back to protest, group of protestors excitedly milling around together]
Improvisation is how things begin to really happen.
[back to residential street]
And it's a coordinate beginning, musical …
It's not about pure chaos, pure spontaneity.
[Protest. Police vehicle spraying water cannon advances toward the viewed from the middle of the shot.]
What's more is that you don't see much in these moments.
[Protest. Protestors running from side to side, barely on screen for a moment. Background is a haze of tear gas.]
You don't have a wide field of vision.
There's a general opacity, because everyone's masked,
[beach. Shot follows a jetski.]
the cops as well as the rioters,
plus there's the tear gas,
and also there's the opacity of the crowd.
And so the greater part of perception
[Quick pan. Police helicopter appears in shot where the jetski was. Bad FX multiplies the screen – 2×2, 3×3, 4×4, 5×5, 6×6…]
of what was going on was organized by sound.
We advanced through the city,
[back to protest. someone on his cellphone.]
not knowing where to go.
[pans to someone throwing things]
Sometimes we blocked the streets
to keep the police away.
[beach. Family playing]
We put up barricades for protection,
using trash containers we found in the street.
We set them on fire.
And then we would move on.
People were looting all the shops along the streets.
Newsstands, real estate offices, travel agencies.
[beach. From a porch, towels and suits hanging on the railing, drying.]
Breaking everything, burning cars …
[A table outside in the sun.]
[Women's voice from before, in french]
No, I wasn't breaking things. I was taking things.
[Different table. Shot from above, a man cutting a melon, another sweeping, a woman sitting on the side, a few others barely seen — all of their faces obscured.]
It's very strange, the store's shelves without any lighting, the darkness.
You get the impression of stepping into a territory
[Zoom into the table. The melon, an open box of corn flakes, a wine opener, and some comic books.]
that's familiar and at the same time totally bizarre.
It's like going into a cinema, but there's no movie playing.
[Bad FX: the center of the screen starts to 'melt away' like it was being stretched]
The lights remain half on, as if something will be ending or starting.
It was just like that when I was in the supermarket.
[A billboard of prepared food: waffles, deli cheese, sausages.]
Really odd … no cops, no security guards, no cashiers, nothing at all.
[Zoom out of the billboard to see the whole store – 'Despar', with cars parked all around.]
Just darkness, and all the products you can barely see,
with plenty of people around, taking whatever they want.
It's a funny experience.
You know, when you're in a normal supermarket under normal conditions,
sometimes there's this little voice that wakens up inside you,
and it says: "All this could be different."
And maybe then you start to sneak things into your pockets,
because the rules of consumerism are just too stupid to deal with.
[Zoom back in on the waffle wall.]
[Back to the beach]
[Male voice from before. French]
It's simple. It's just that…Personally, I can no longer take a walk in the city
[Supermarket. Man rides off on a motorbike.]
without feeling the violence of everything around me.
[Train lines next to a parking lot for the beach.]
I get slapped in the face every day.
Whether it's from the normal bullshit people dish out,
[shot begins to pan]
or the extra-violent force of things already in place,
everything that holds the present society together.
[different male voice interjects, also in French]
So in fact, when you submit everyday to a violence like that …
There's a point where you start to get violent, too.
Otherwise you're deeply unhappy,
just like a lot people are unhappy.
[A young woman sitting in the back of a car. A toddler cries in the background.]
Unhappy because they're taught that violence isn't a solution,
while it's the main thing causing all their psychological problems.
[Back to the trail line. Music swells, a train goes by, a few people walk by with beach chairs.]
[Protest. Black bloc'ers drag objects down a street, imitating the beach bums, forming a barricade. Camera men walk alongside.]
[Male voice. English]
I was… well, i was uh.. well, because of fright I came here.
[beach, setting sun]
I was curious to endure and cope with my fears…
[onto a beach. shaky hand-held shot, women lies on beach towel]
about a lot of things. About the violence from the cops, physical violence. The risk of being arrested.
[More barricade construction.]
The trial and everything.
[Train passing again]
[New Male voice, French.]
I guess something extraordinary happened there.
It was the first time in my life
[Repetition of first blockade shot. But with the left third of the screen covered by a black ribbon.]
that I experience a zone…
a zone arising in a determined space where power has lost control.
The place was crawling with cops, but they couldn't do anything.
[Black ribbon, replaced with a scene form the beach. Blockades continue on right third. Epic music plays.]
[beach and music stop.]
You go. You are lost.
Nowhere is your measure of value.
You go, with no idea of who you are.
[Chloe Sevigny (CS) sitting in a middle-class kitchen, with a script lying in front of her.]
But your ignorance is your blessing,
and like the first human, you have no value.
[The dialogues start to overlap]
[CS] I helped blow up a gas station.
[M] Go follow the paths…
[CS] I helped blow up a gas station…
[M] If you were not so lost, you'd have no destiny for encounters.
[CS] I helped blow up a gas station.
[Rock music swells. Protest. Man kicks tear gas canister. Loud sirens.]
[Superimposed handwritten text dances across the screen.]
(anarchy, with workers-councils, with direct democracy, no communist party)
[Fat man without a shirt, with a crazy wig, pipe, short cane, and obvious facial prosthetics sits on a log in a park, opening up a newspaper.]
[Reads loudly from newspaper in Italian]
What beautiful news!
[Back to Chloe in the bourgeois kitchen. Nervously leans on counter, looking at the script.]
[CS reads very quietly, under her breath, like she's doing a 'read over']
screaming … out of control… [can't make out.]
[CS moves to table, clears her voice. Shot moves to her hands as she fidgets and plays with something on the table.]
[Male voice, in french]
So we saw these people
pulling on a supermarket gate,
the roll-down security gate.
[Back to wide shot, CS writing on her script]
And they tore it halfway off.
[Shot of the torso of a woman at a table, eating a sandwich.]
This gave everyone access.
[More kitchen shots.]
We broke the windows and went inside.
We grabbed stuff to eat and drink,
bottles of alcohol, these little chocolate cakes…
You know the brand PICNIC BREAK? I was eating those.
[A child enters the scene. An unidentifiable woman plays with him.]
The first thing everyone did when we went in the store
[CS's face, she giggles.]
was destroy all the cash registers.
Some people were into 'gratuitous pillaging'
[legs, fidgeting]
They got their kicks breaking whiskey bottles,
[CS standing at counter, writing on script]
knocking down shelves, throwing jars of jam,
tearing apart racks of ham.. that kind of thing.
[water bottle poured on a disembodied hand]
After that, I went back outside.
[CS back at counter]
Then everyone else piled in
and emptied the place. All I got was two bottles of whiskey…
[quick cycle of shots from previous scenes of film]
[back to CS in the kitchen. she has her hand on her face, looking reflective]
In the middle of the first day the whole thing happened, I ran into an old friend of mine I hadn't seen in months.
I saw her all by herself, smashing up an ATM machine with a hammer.
She seemed completely in her own world.
A year ago, we had a little argument about street violence.
She was hesitating, really resisting the idea.
And now there she was, all by herself, apart from the others, hammering away.
She spent like ten, fifteen minutes destroying the ATM screen.
She looked crazy. She looked happy.
It was a kind of joyful insanity.
['Snap', like she was doing 'another take' of the narrative.]
[Protest footage. (A) graffiti on the wall, next to an ATM]
There she was. And there she was, next to the bank all by herself.
No. Now, there she was, next to the bank, apart from the others. Thrashing at the ATM machine. Hammering away.
Fuck. [giggles. Back to CS]
Now, there she was, next to the bank, apart from the others. Hammering away. She spent like ten or fifteen minutes.
[starts looking down at the script, as if she is trying to memorize her lines but failing]
Destroying the ATM screen. Really out of control. She looked happy… she looked crazy… it was a kind of joyful insanity.
[Protest. Water cannon trucks are faced down by protestors, tear gas slowly fills the shot.]
[CS, writing on script]
This… life… is… shit… and… you… choose… to… burn… it… up.
[slaps hands together like 'I'm done.' and goes for a cigarette]
a moment of clarity it helps you underst…. moment of clarity helps you understand that this life is shit and that you choose to burn it up…
smashing […] feeling, that's when you actually start laughing for once. Burning desks and cubicles. All these pathetically humanized work spaces. A moment of clarity helps you do it. You'll understand that this life is shit and you choose to burn it up.
[CS lights cigarette]
[happy imitation 50s music, a couple walking by a river, into the sunset]
[male voice, in french]
In the great social body of Empire…
[a department store]
which has the inertia of a beached jellyfish.
[a tourism boat goes under a bridge]
In the great social body of Empire which is like a huge jellyfish beaches all around the earth,
[People drinking in a fancy restaurant, watching the sunset]
electrodes are implanted.
Hundreds and thousands, an unbelievable amount,
[People milling about a renaissance festival]
so diverse they don't even seem like electrodes.
There's the TV electrode, the money electrode,
[Billboards for DKNY]
the pharmaceutical electrode, the JEUNE FILLE electrode.
[A blank plastic head.]
With these millions of electrodes,
[A narrow city street]
the dull encephalogram of the Imperial metropole is maintained.
[Models waiting for a photoshoot.]
These mostly imperceptible conduits
constantly send information, thoughts, affects, and anti-affects,
that prolong the universal sleep.
[Zoom in on a model reading a magazine.]
I almost forgot the receptors attached to the electrodes…
the journalists, sociologists, cops,
[Couple walking into the sunset, again.]
intellectuals, professors, and other agents
who have been generously delegated the task
[Chase Bank advertisement, "Good Times. Bad Times All Times. Chase is committed…"]
of directing the activity of the electrodes.
[Small talk, glasses clinking, and a piano plays. We watch the city out of a highrise window.]
It's not accident they transmit at any convenient moment
these or those feelings of terror, satisfaction, or threat.
The population is kept at a certain level of anguish,
and receptive to general regression: "the taste for dependence."
No one should escape their bored or rebellious passivity,
or be heard above the awful hum of claims and demands
generated by the Imperial incubator.
They say, "the time of heroes is over,"
hoping to bury with it all forms of heroism.
[Music changes. Bells and beeps. Fast pans across the city.]
[Jagged parts as if a 'broken pane' cycle across the screen. A smashed up office with "Fight Kapital" sloppily graffitied on the wall.]
[Outdoor furniture on a large patio, at the tail end of sunset. A consistent beep.]
[A full zoom to a dull, lit corner. Claustrophobic.]
[Woman, in French.]
I gathered stones and put them in my pocket.
[A gecko crawls out from the corner.]
But I don't know, when you…
I guess a metal pole's not bad for bashing in windows.
[Gecko disappears. Move to a trashed room. Eerie music starts.]
And what's really good for self-defense are chains.
You can hide them in your pockets.
They're a good means of deterrence.
For a woman that's important
[Back to the gecko, who peaks out of the corner, then stays in the light.]
just for going out at night.
So then what else?
Basically, I didn't burn that many things
since I didn't bring Molotov cocktails.
[Protest. Car on fire. Everyone running from it. Eerie music swells.]
We had to make them on the spot
by breaking open the gas tanks of motorcycles.
They're small, but usually have enough gas to fill a bottle.
Then you throw them at a bank, or in a car for a barricade,
and they start a decent fire.
[Manipulated crowd noise. Black. Man jumps from rock into ocean. Black again.]
[British accent]
A riot atop the street, […] burning.
[Pavement goes by, like the camera-person is running.]
[CS in the kitchen]
I gathered stones and put them in my pockets. [rehearsing, pacing, exaggerated gestures]
I gathered stones and put them in my pockets. [gestures like putting something in her pocket, though she's wearing a dress]
But I don't know, metal poles aren't that bad for bashing in a window.
And what's really good for self-defense is chains.
You can steal them off traffic poles.
They're discreet because you can put them in your pockets.
And they work great. If only as an instrument of dissuasion.
Also, you can break open the gas tank of motorbikes to make molotov cocktails. There's usually at least … at least enough … there's usually enough to fill at least one bottle. These you can . um. throw into banks or into a car to make a barricade with a burning car or thrown them at cops. The best molotov cocktails are made with acid, a mix of gas and acid, they burn better and cause more damage to cops… because … [looks at script] they burn better and cause more damage to cops because they eat through riot gear when the burn. Voila! [frustrated yelp]
[grabs dress, frustrated]
I gathered stones and put them in my pockets. But I don't know, a metal pole isn't that bad for bashing through a window.
Hmm, and through a window…
I gathered stones and put them in my pockets. But I don't know, a metal pole isn't that bad for bashing a window.
[background is cut away from CS, revealing a white mist that becomes a protest scene seen before]
And what's really good for self-defense is chains. They're discreet because you can hide them in your pockets. And they work great. In only as an instrument of dissuasion.
[CS clears throat]
For a woman in the streets, it's really important.
[Kitchen returns.]
For a woman in the streets, that's really important.
[Fades again. Protest scene is an overturned car.]
Also, you can break open the gas tank of motorbikes to make molotov cocktails. There's usually enough to fill up at least one bottle. These you can throw into the banks, or into a car, to make a barricade with a burning car. Or throw them at cops. The best molotov cocktails are made with acid. A mixture of acid and gas. These burn better and cause more damage cops because they eat throw riot gear when they burn.
[TV showing riot cops.]
[Man in English w/ European accident]
Well we were just going for a little walk. And I saw all these young people there, you know. They're having all these signs, and carrying them around, and protesty-protesty. Then came the policemen. And we watched the policemen. And then there was the fire burning. And then I saw the police car burning. And then I saw the police shooting these tear gas bombs. And then everything went crazy. And then people were running.
[Fat man.]
And look at all them blisters here. Do you see this? [shows foot]
[struggles to stand, groans, puts feet in pond]
[puts wet feet on newspaper.]
[walks around pond, picks up metal rod and a catfish]
This is capitalism today. [throws fish back]
A fat fish that doesn't swim anymore.
Capitalism has created the pesce [fish], and then they killed the pesce, because it doesn't want to swim in the direction or something that this. Now we can't even eat it, it is rotten. Everything is rotten today.
[Clouds. Sullen piano.]
[Overlay on clouds of young woman putting her head on a pillow.]
[Man, in French]
The sleep of this time is not a restful one,
but rather an anguished sleep that leaves you more exhausted,
only desiring to sleep again and escape the irritating reality.
There is a narcosis that leads to an even deeper narcosis.
[Woman disappears.]
[Full moon through the branches of a pine tree.]
[Man, in French]
Those who, by luck or misfortune, awaken from this sleep,
enter the world as lost children.
Where are the words, where is the house?
Where are my loves, my friends, my ancestors?"
[Dance club. Dance music.]
There are none, my child.
Everything must be built:
the language you inhabit,
the house where you will not be alone,
the ancestry that will make you more free.
And you must build a new sentimental education
through which you will love once more.
And all this built upon a general hostility,
because the awakened ones
[world trade centers]
are the nightmare of those still asleep.
[Black screen. Very loud music. It stops. Then yelling and the screaming of a young child. After a while, you realize it's the Genoa protest in the middle of a hail of tear gas. The volley of tear gas stops, some yelling rallies an advance. More screams. Quiet. Then shots. Yelling and screaming. A helicopter flies over. Sounds fade]
[At sunset, a couple leaves an umbrella on the rocks at the beach. The umbrella is on fire.]
[Male, in French]
At the end of the Roman Empire, everything was equally worn out.
The bodies tired, the gods dying, and presence in crisis.
A great sigh resounded throughout a world in exile:
Let's be done with it!
The end of a civilization sparked a new beginning.
Wandering relieved the condition of feeling foreign everywhere.
One had to extract oneself from the 'civilizing business'.
While the famous sects led unique experiments in communism,
others found the necessary exodus in solitude.
They were called the monakhoi, or 'solitaires' or 'only ones'.
They went off into the desert, miles away from Alexandria.
There gathered so many of these solitaires, or deserters,
that they had to invent rules for collective living.
Influenced by Christian asceticism, these became the first monasteries.
One could say that the monasteries quickly gave birth
to a civilization more dreadful one than previous ones.
Nevertheless, a civilization was born.
This is to illustrate the value of an offensive retreat.
At certain moments in the art of war,
places and friends are more strategic than weapons or shields.
Those who go into exile, exile others.
When the stranger leaves, he takes the inhabitable city with him.
[CS, quietly rehearsing]
And insanely aggressive?
[Looks at script]
And they can be insanely aggressive.
[Looks at it again]
They said, we've been protesting since…
they say… they say.. we've been protesting….
[Male, in French]
If I must define the old world, I'd say it's a way of linking
affects to gestures, affects to word.
It's a sentimental education that we've had enough of.
And if I muse define an orgy, I'd say it happens when
one person or another starts breaking the links
between affects and gestures, affects and words,
and then everyone else joins in.
We've been protesting since before you were born. And it's thanks to us that you have a protest culture at all.
And I saw, thanks so much for your lame protest culture.
[looks at script]
I'm so grateful.
And thanks for making the space for me in your beautiful alternative world.
[Protest. People running past a street ad. Then the remains of the burning umbrella on the beach.]
[Black screen, fades into remains of umbrella on the beach.]
[Male, in French]
So now, there's the metropolis.
Appropriate what can't be appropriated.
Pretend to ignore our perdition.
Play at being men, women, husbands, wives, lovers,
play the couple — stay busy.
Set up the most serious world in the most tiresome infantilism.
Forget in a flood of feelings the cynicism of metropolitan life,
and talk about love, always and again, after so many ruptures.
Those who say "Another world is possible" and do not offer
another sentimental education besides novels and teledramas
deserve to be spat on the face.
[blond model. then grinning face painted w/ Amerikan flag has clouds projected on it. then a red dot like a flare passes over it.]
[Noisy mass protest that is too massive to fit in the shot.]
[Female, English]
[…]these protests, these desire killing demonstrations where nothing happens.
And which demonstrate nothing more than the collective absence. To go the other end of the world to protest global economy. Only to come back. After a good bath of togetherness and mediatized separation. And to submit onesself to a local economy. And further in the newspaper. Everyone alone together. Once upon a time… young. bored. empty.
[Eerie distorted music.]
[Shot of mass demo flattened onto a plane like a piece of paper, refit on the screen at a sharp, wriggling angle like a flag waving in the wind.]
[Shots of single men looking isolate, alone, bored. Then a few women. Then a mix.]
[Really bad exit shot, screens dissolve into blocks that spinning into oblivion. Revealing a G8 protest map – red zone, yellow zone.]
[Alternating shots of construction vehicles/surveillance equipment and red/yellow map (from Situationist book?) with text "Remnants of Auschwitz" e.g. Agamben's book, then the text changes to "Remnants of Woodstock" then fireworks begin appears on the map.]
[Male in American English, but heavy accent, children in the background]
I think that it is obvious that when are living in big cities, you are always subjects to control devices like very very very simple and … like when you drive a car on a one-way-street, all your attention is captured by not breaking any rules so as not to be caught. And when we're there, it was possible because of the number, to act more freely. To find new difficulties [challenges], like how to evolve in a medium where you can decide and not rely or count upon any immediate reactions from the police or the forces because it was more an event-reality or a ruled-reality or a substantial-reality.
[Fenced state-barricades, opened up into a street with riot police trucks]
[Female voice, English]
A step to the side, a slight displacement. To begin again means to inhabit this displacement.
To assume capitalist schizophrenia in the sense of an increasing capacity of desubjectivi….
[CS on the floor of a living room, face down]
[back to riot police trucks on the street]
to become opaque extracting as a living and as a fighting
so that, at a chosen moment, i test this slight displacement.
i become a whatever singularity.
[a green car passes by. then a man in green pants walks by, imitating the car]
everything that isolates me as subject,
as a body endowed with a public configuration of attributes
[back to shots of cop cars]
i feel it dissolve, bodies fray at their edges
at their limit, they blur
little by little, i achieve a new nakedness
[street fades to a tiny glowing cross]
that's what i need for communism is.
i need for nocturnal spaces,
where we can find each other beyond our qualities.
[protest street, covered in smoke. radio voice of woman]
little tiny pieces of building is just floating in the wind, around it.
[…] a huge cloud has enveloped that part of lower Manhattan.
[male radio voice]
people are running down the street, screaming…
[Male, in French]
And then there can be these long moments of wandering,
[Protest. Riot trucks, police, mass protestors. Crowded.]
where you're searching for the continuation … the intensity.
You're asking everybody where it went,
so somebody passes you a joint, and says, "It's this way."
Then someone else says, "No, it's that way."
[zoom into crowd. one young protestors looks around frantically, like he's lost]
And these moments when you find yourself alone,
really alone, in the middle of a riot…
That's when you've lost your part.
You don't know what keeps you going.
[Protest. Advancing shields/bodies of the Tute Bianche]
It becomes obvious that being in a riot is simply the fact that
for once, you feel that being 'whatever'
is not the same as being someone who is nowhere.
These are really two different things.
Being 'whatever' is a situation of improvisation, like I said before.
[Protest. Lone Tute Bianche in the middle of street, looking lost.]
And to be nowhere, alone in the crowd,
to be what we normally mean when we say 'whatever'
is a kind of suffering … an immediate suffering.
[Ocean. Small floating iceberg in the foreground.]
[Iceberg explodes upwards, revealing that that it's a sheet and that there is someone underneath it making it jump.]
[Disorienting shots of a woman with pulled back brown hair and a drapey white blouse, holding a camcorder, fly across the screen. Up, down, backwards, Then with exaggerated proportions that give her a small head and large hands.]
[Graffiti: "PRODUCI CONSUMA CREPA" 'produce consume drop dead']
[Baroque harpsichord music.]
[Woman in the middle of a studio, carelessly putting electronic equipment in a box.]
[Laptop with a small window open showing a riot.]
[Female voice.]
This attempt to freeze the unpredictable corpse of my becomings.
Between the veils of an identity.
[Protest scenes. Eyewash. "Destroy false dreamlands" graffiti.]
The attempt to convert me to the religion of the coherence I do not choose.
[Overlay: peasant couple / World Trade Center]
[Fat Man]
The […] oikos…
[CS, art filter]
[Ocean overlay protest]
[Female voice.]
I need to become anonymous in order to become present.
THe more anonymous I am, the more present I am.
[Ocean iceberg]
[Birds sing.]
[Male voice]
What do you think about youth violence?
[Fat man scene. Fat man responds.]
It's not the violence.
[Q] Smashing things.
[FM} It's to create pictures, you know.
You create pictures.
[Italian Paper on G8, shows the "ANARCHIA" writing shown earlier. Shots go between Fat Man and newspaper clippings.]
I think the young people of today, they need a little bit more strategy.
They are a little bit too confused about their own … you know… what they are supposed to do.
You see, they made it. They were made, but why … if they are made… why are they so confused?
They are themselves, so astonished that they can do these things.
And they have so much fun in doing it.
But they miss a little bit more of intelligence. Strategic intelligence.
So they become aware that they are created. And they act in a more sophisticated way.
They have to create the pictures, the images, in a more sophisticated way.
Do you understand this?
[M] Mhm.
[FM] I mean, they barely good images yesterday. There was a whole underpass burning. The police couldn't go through. And all these things. But they are too confused because they are too astonished about their own being made.
[Protest. Mass journalists taking pictures of a small group of protestors. Foreboding music starts.]
[Fat man, asked by questioner…]
Corporate images. Bank machines.
[FM] Yes, I mean, this is normal you know. There is this stupid sentence "Macht kaput machten[???]"[in German] This means 'Destroy what it destroys." So this was, in 1970. And since then, it doesn't hasn't really advanced. Maybe a little bit. I see now that they destroy what they like. And this is much better.
[Models. Preparing a shot.]
[Protest. Some women screaming a phrase – incomprehensible.]
[Renaissance Fair. Woman sitting, dressed in a costume, holding a tree with butterflies.]
[Male, in French.]
There is this old notion, Bolshevik, and a little frigid, for sure:
The building of the Party.
I think think that our present war is about buidling the Party.
Or rather, it's about giving new content
to this depopulated fiction.
We talk, we lick each other,
[Protest. Picture of tipped car from before.]
we prepare a film, a night out, a riot
we meet a friend, we share a meal, a bed, we fuck.
[Overlay protest w/ dog.]
In other words: we are building the Party.
Fiction is a serious thing.
We need fiction to believe in the reality we are living.
The Party is the central fiction.
the one that tells the story of the war of this time.
[Dog disappears, right where a line of riot cops appear on screen.]
[Stack of political theory books, Foucault, Haraway, Arendt, etc]
Whoever acts, today,
acts as a lost child.
Wandering governs this abandon, so we wander.
[Protest. Mass march, protestors holdings hands as they walk. Shots slowly overlay sidewise, and in many different directions.]
We wander among the ruins of civilization.
But precisely because it is in ruins, this civilization,
there are no givens in confronting it.
It's a curious war that we are engaged in.
One that wants to produce words and languages
to open up laces and establish homes in the middle of the disaster.
A society that has exhausted all its vital possibilities
has good reason to judge as terrorist
those who experiment beyond it,
and to suspect what some call survival
as just an obscure conspiracy.
[Loud noise. A circle in the middle of the screen warps the image.]
[Protest. Picture of a bank w/ the graffiti '$=Swastika']
[Screen warp appears by itself, a green glowing orb amidst a flashing green field, then red. Like a police light, alternating colors.]
[Protest. Same bank. Then pan right to a makeshift blockade still awash with tear gas. A bourgie older man in a polo gets out of his card and takes a picture.]
I was surprised by a lot of the gestures.
And then it was all about
the pure flight…
of a metal bar crashing through a window.
[Bank. ATM and revolving door smashes. Defaced by paint.]
That pure seductive noise.
[Another store front, completely torched. And so on.]
Or even, here and there,
the pure seduction of a fire.
The moment when a supermarket is opened up…
[Dior window.]
and (you) know you can start looting…
[Fresh fruits and veggies sitting in baskets, waiting to be plucked.]
It's pretty funny. I remember…
[Protest. Charred barricades. People standing around.]
being at…
[Department store mannequins.]
the moment of smashing…
[Slick new nike shoe on display.]
and pillage of a supermarket.
[Store charred but still on fire. People watching and videotaping.]
What was really funny to see was a purely symbolic assault
on an apparently invincible cash register,
[Funny children's toy in a window]
like striking the heart of capitalist circulation.
[Ultra-modern furniture in a display window.]
So there were these intensely charged moments.
[Strange sculpture, on display.]
that oriented the perceptions and the actions of each of us.
[Men's fashion-suit in store window.]
[Protest. People running, including camera-person. Yelling. Horns. Noise]
[Finally stop in a crowd.]
[In a car, driving fast down a winding road with lush plants that quickly pass by.]
[Male, in French]
And you're not really more free when in a riot.
But at least there's this feeling
of a challenge that you pose to armed power:
I'm here. I'm in the city.
I'm free. Fuck you.
Not only are we ready to smash things,
[Movement stops. Black, then back to the road. Fades into the brightness of the sun.]
but we're also expecting more of a battle, if it's possible and useful.
[Movement returns.]
A lot of my friends and I were really frustrated by this absence of combat.
But it's not about fighting the cops just for the pleasure of it.
It's just a frustration with the lack of conditions to confront the police,
in a way that would obviously be a shake-up to the present situation.
And we didn't have those conditions.
Things were like that in the past, but not anymore, not in my lifetime.
[Protest. Tear gas can enters the screen. Stringed music.]
[Serif font, bit white letters, "Get Rid of Yourself". Words break in the middle and chase to the four corners.]
[Music cycles – folk, rock, strings – like switching channels on a radio.]
[Various scenes of protest]
[Ends with some strange rock-fusion.]
[Slow pan of a forest. Music drops out, replaced by weird groaning and bells.]
[Protestor trying to rock a pole out of the cement. Gives up.]
[Back to forest.]
[Protestors break rocks from the street for projectiles.]
[Protestors drops from tree in city.]
[Protestor breaking through the concrete.]
[Forest. Pan stops with the sun peaking through the canopy.]
[Shot shifts to a cow rubbing up up against a tree in a wooded area.]
[Close shot of CS's head, at an angle, leaning on her hand. She is looking down.]
The civil war should not be confused with it's representation.
[Flips page of manuscript, wipes hair aside.]
[The pitch of her voice changes with different lines.]
Becoming attentive to the Tiqqun face[?] of things, of beings.
[high] To their eventness.
[high] To the stubborn silent edge of their own… [low] temporality?
[other voice] mmhmm
[low] Becoming attentive to the Tiqqun place of things, of being. To their eventness. To the stubborn and silent edge of their own temporality.
[normal] To open up spaces where the act we commit is no longer…
[high] …assignable to a given body.
[high] Where bodies rediscover the ability to perform a gesture.
[high] The all-knowing distribution of metropolitan dispositives.
[normal] Computers, cars, schools, cameras, telephones, hospitals, television, sports, cinema, etc. have stripped from them, by recognizing them, by immobilizing them, by making them turn and avoid, by making the body exist separately from the head.
To liberate space liberates us one hundred times more than any free space does.
[turns page]
How, now what.
[high] How to. Not the question of goals or objectives.
[normal] The question of tactics.
How to.
[low] A technical question. Not a problem. Problems are for the experts. The question of technique. Which becomes a question of the transmission of techniques.
How to. Attention to the how.
[even lower] Attention to the ethical difference.
[even lower still] The ethical element.
[high] How, not what. How to.
made with the support of
The French ministry of Culture
Délégation aux Arts Plastiques
( Image / Movement )
Colin De Land
American Fine Arts, Co.
big gap — couple minutes
[CS in living room. Sitting on floor, throwing head back on couch.]
[high voice] How, not what. How to.
[mashup of voices, but lines not previous included]
French + English about "being shot at with rockets. panic." etc.
[quick flashing of images previous seen]
[Goes back to the motorbike scene. Motorbike drives off.]
[credits, scrolling]
a production by
made with the support of
The French ministry of Culture
Délégation aux Arts Plastiques
( Image / Movement )
Colin De Land
American Fine Arts, Co.
computer edition equipment
provided by
The Bohen Foundation (New York)
Cindy Rockwell (Paris)
additional assistance provided by
Surface to Air
made from 2001-2003
a new nomenclature
The struggle against alienation has to give the words their real meaning as well as to return to the their initial force Continue reading "a new nomenclature"


text:
Five years ago, toward the tail end of the Bush era, Jim DeMint, a first-term South Carolina senator, teamed up with J. David Woodard, a political scientist at Clemson, to write a book about the limits of politics. The book was called, "Why We Whisper: Restoring Our Right to Say It's Wrong," and its ominous front cover depicts Uncle Sam with his index finger to his lips. We, apparently, are his obstreperous nieces and nephews, and we are being shushed.
In the preface, the authors warn that America is embroiled in "a serious culture war," and the book is full of stories about liberal secularists eager to drive religious faith out of public institutions—and, by extension, out of public discourse. The book is, in part, an assault on the notion that "public" and "private" spheres can be neatly delineated. The authors write, with approval, about the decades-long effort to stigmatize and marginalize cigarette smokers. "The detrimental effects of smoking on individuals and society make it 'right' for the government to discourage smoking," they argue. In their view, a similar case can be made against "the homosexual lifestyle," which is, they say, "notoriously unhealthy and destructive, with huge financial costs to society." Using the language of public health policy, they also deliver indictments of gambling, unmarried cohabitation, and Internet pornography, which they call "the new crack cocaine." The book scarcely mentions President Bush, who seems almost irrelevant to the story of decline that the authors want to tell. Although they blame "government policy" for many of the ills they decry, it's not always clear that these problems have political solutions. In the context of a culture war, perhaps there's only so much that a President can do, let alone a senator.
In the years since, DeMint has spent less time talking about culture war, and more time talking about the federal budget. He emerged as one of President Obama's most implacable opponents in the Senate, and became a hero to insurgent conservatives, who wanted Republicans to take a firmer stand against a legislative process that seemed, to them, hopelessly corrupt. But on Thursday, DeMint made an even more dramatic statement about the limits of politics: he announced that he was resigning from the Senate to become president of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank.
Woodard, DeMint's former co-author, said he wasn't surprised that DeMint was leaving the Senate. "He never made the Senate's inner club, anyway," Woodard said, by telephone. "He was not accepted by the Lamar Alexanders, the John Cornyns. He was not one of the fellows—even though he, personally, was not acrimonious, or bitter. But nonetheless, his positions were uncomfortable." DeMint has been widely credited with helping to nurture a new generation of upstart Republican legislators, including Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul; all of them had to defeat establishment-backed opponents in Republican primaries before winning their general elections.
In the books that followed "Why We Whisper," DeMint presented himself as a single-minded advocate of small government. Where once he had argued that government should "favor behaviors that promote the common good, such as home ownership," now he criticized the Federal Reserve for "artificially lowering the interest rate, thus allowing people who could not afford homes to buy them." That criticism comes from "Now or Never: Saving America from Economic Collapse," which was published earlier this year. Five years ago, DeMint named "the legalization of drugs" as one of the ills brought on by a "secular-progressive" worldview. But "Now or Never" has a foreword written by Paul, who believes that states should be allowed to legalize marijuana.
There is a connection, to be sure, between DeMint's old priorities and his new ones. In "Why We Whisper," DeMint and Woodard distill American history into an adage that links cultural rot to financial bloat: "Traditional values faded as the federal government grew." And Woodard says that, from his perspective, it's a mistake to try and separate the culture war from the economic one. "These cultural issues abide, regardless of what you're doing on some of these taxing and spending issues," he says. "The economy rides on top of the culture."
Some observers, though, wonder whether DeMint's evolution represents a change in world view, not just a shift in emphasis. Earlier this year, he gave an interview to Reason, the libertarian magazine. Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, the interviewers, tried to nudge DeMint toward articulating a libertarian-friendly agenda. DeMint obliged, to a point: "There's a lot of common ground with libertarians," he said. But when the interviewers asked him about the link between being a "fiscal conservative" and being a "social conservative," he argued that the two identities often overlap:
A senator has reason to convince a wide range of voters that he's on their side, even if the electoral opposition isn't particularly formidable. Woodard says he understands why DeMint tended to avoid writing about some of these cultural issues in his later books. "We both learned that it's so contentious—there are such strong emotions on all these kind of things, that as a politician you kind of avoid 'em," he said, chuckling. "And as a political science professor, I avoid 'em, too." As a senator, DeMint nimbly navigated the shifting currents of the conservative movement; perhaps, in his new position, he'll be freer to strike his own balance between the old Jim DeMint and the new one. If nothing else, his short, bright Senate career showed how versatile a term like "conservative" can be. We can be sure that, under his leadership, the Heritage Foundation will remain staunchly conservative. But we can't say exactly what that will mean.
Photograph by Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Last weekend, the lovely Miss Erin and I completed the 2012 Courage Classic, a three day bike ride through the Colorado Rockies that benefits the Children's Hospital of Colorado. In total we rode our bikes 128 miles and climbed approximately 7,000 feet. For some, just another weekend of biking, for myself, probably the most physically demanding thing I've done in my life. Our ride was dedicated to the life and memory of Miss Erin's Uncle Brent.
Day 1 (43 miles, approximately 3,000ft elevation gain) :
In retrospect, day one was probably the toughest of the three for me. The ride started in Leadville, Colorado, took us around Turquoise Lake, and then to Copper Mountain via Highway 91 over Fremont Pass. We rounded Turquoise Lake as the sun started its day and I remembered camping at the lake with my family when I was a kid. Fremont Pass heading to Copper Mountain was my personal hell and often had me contemplating why I was doing what I was doing at present moment. I feel I do better on short but steep ascents. Long drawn out climbs are not my forte, and I felt that is exactly what that climb was. The decent into Copper Mountain was well worth the effort of climbing the pass. We could have tacked on an extra 12 miles and climbed the east side of Vail pass, but with impending rain and the desire to conserve energy for the next two days we opted not to. I'm not sure I would have been able to complete the original ride scheduled for the day which was slated to go around Turquoise Lake, down highway 24 to Vail, and over Vail Pass into Copper Mountain.
Day 2 (53 miles, 2,230ft elevation gain):
The second day of our ride was my favorite of the three. Much better suited for myself, my steel framed bike, White Lightning Thunderbolt Booyah, and her 5 working gears. She flies on the flatlands. We stared in Copper Mountain at a balmy 42°F, followed I-70 to Frisco, crossed the Lake Dillon Dam eventually making our way to Keystone, climbed Swan Mountain to get to Breckenridge, and thru Frisco once again to finish our ride by returning to Copper Mountain. I'm not sure I had ever been over the Swan Mountain Pass prior to this ride, so it was nice to see that part of my state. The biggest challenge of the day was the onslaught of rail and wind we received as we arrived in Breckenridge for lunch. With no end in sight, we ended up having to ride from Breckenridge to Frisco in the rain rendering all clothes, shoes, and gear soaked.
Day 3 (32 miles, 2,200ft elevation gain):
The final day of the ride had me the most anxious of the three which was the day one ride in reverse. The climb from Copper to the top of Fremont Pass was no joke. Much steeper in parts than the opposite direction while still comprising 11 miles from start to summit. Plus, the highway on that side of the mountain has much softer shoulders which made me rather nervous prior to starting, luckily the State Patrol closed one lane of 91 for riders. The decent from the summit to Leadville was complete with wonderful vistas and passed rapidly at 35-40 miles an hour. The three day ride concluded with a gradual ascent to Leadville with thunderstorms looming over the mountain peaks in the distance.
All truth be told, I bitched and moaned about training for this all summer. I had a lot of fun riding my bike around Colorado, however, it wore me out and was rather time consuming. Once again, for some my preparation and the ride was a walk in the park. For me it was hard. Training cut into the precious time I have for my other hobbies. and I'm no model for human physique. In the end, I am glad Erin encouraged me to do this ride. I am proud of what I accomplished, as it was a feat for me to complete. I'm proud of her and thankful for her encouragement, I couldn't have done it without her. I'm humbled to have helped out a great staple in our community. The positive impact the hospital has on the community is evident through out the ride.
Responses to my "style" of bike riding helped me get through the ride while also making me smile. Everything from "animal" to "crazy" were adjectives used to describe my vintage-esque bike, clothes, and shoes by fellow riders who easily passed me by at all points in the ride. Truth be told, my shirts were boss. So are my shoes. My bike is sexy as hell. Unfortunately, while cleaning White Lightning this evening, I found a few more concerning maintenance issues, so this may have been her "last tour hurrahâ€. Same goes for my yellow kicks. All joking and humor aside, I don't deserve kudos for any of them in regards to my completion of the ride. Fact of the matter, 30 years ago, people were probably completing similar rides on the same bike with ease. If anything, I need to get in better shape. The people that deserve praise are those that complete the ride on bikes powered by their arms. Those that completed the ride with disabilities. Those who road the race on tandem bikes in order to provide an experience to individuals who otherwise might not have been able to ride the ride. I am blessed to complete the ride under my own power.
Finally, I want to extend a sincere thank you to those who donated to our ride. I really appreciate the generosity. Times are tough and a lot of people in our community are in need of help. It means a lot to me and I'm sure it means a lot to the people that the hommie papers will benefit. If you'd like to make a donation to either of our rides, they can be made through the end of August.
Donate to my ride:Â http://www.couragetours.com/2012/dhilgier
Donate to Miss Erin's ride: http://www.couragetours.com/2012/erinwilliams


text:
Clonal disorders of eosinophils (chronic eosinophilic leukemia, clonal hypereosinophilic syndrome)
What every physician needs to know:
The upper limit of normal circulating eosinophils in the peripheral blood is 350 to 500/mm3. The severity of eosinophilia has been defined as follows:
Mild eosinophilia: 500 to 1,500 eosinophils/μl
Moderate eosinophilia: 1,500 to 5,000 eosinophils/μl
Continue Reading
Severe eosinophilia: greater than 5,000 eosinophils/μl
The term "hypereosinophilia," has been used to refer to an absolute eosinophil count of greater than 1,500/microl, thereby encompassing moderate and severe eosinophilia. In contrast, the term "hypereosinophilic syndrome" is usually reserved for hypereosinophilia (generally severe) occurring in the absence of an obvious underlying process.
Hypereosinophilic syndrome (HES) is a rare myeloproliferative disorder defined by sustained peripheral blood eosinophilia (greater than 1,500/mm3) and end-organ damage (heart, lung, skin) in the absence of evidence of any cause (such as parasitic disease, allergy, or neoplasia).
Chronic eosinophilic leukemia (CEL) is diagnosed when eosinophils are clonal or blasts are increased.
In the absence of a clonal marker, the clonality of HES is indeterminate, and it remains unknown how many of these patients have clonal disease.
Are you sure your patient has clonal hypereosinophilic syndrome? What should you expect to find?
As noted above, HES is associated with sustained moderate to severe eosinophilia. Clonal markers demonstrated by cytogenetics or fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) for the FIP1L1-PDGFRA gene fusion, establish a diagnosis of clonal HES. However, it is unknown how many of the patients who lack an easily identifiable clonal marker have clonal disease.
Of note, nearly half of the responding patients in the original study establishing the efficacy of imatinib in the treatment of HES, lacked a definable marker, suggesting that many of these patients have a clonal myeloproliferative disorder for which the molecular lesions remain undefined.
Beware of other conditions that can mimic clonal hypereosinophilic syndrome:
The differential diagnosis of eosinophilia distinguishes reactive (polyclonal) from primary (clonal) syndromes. The clonality of idiopathic hypereosinophilic syndrome in the absence of a clonal marker remains undefined.
Reactive (polyclonal):
Allergic/immune disorders
Organ specific eosinophilic disorders
Paraneoplastic (solid or hematologic malignancy)
Aberrant T cell populations (lymphocyte variant HES)
Primary (clonal):
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML), myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS)
Myeloproliferative disorders (myeloproliferative variant HES)
Hypereosinophilic syndrome/chronic eosinophilic leukemia
Other MPDs with eosinophilia
Idiopathic hypereosinophilic syndrome
Which individuals are most at risk for developing clonal hypereosinophilic syndrome:
HES is a rare disease, occurring in less than 1/1,000,000 individuals. It occurs predominantly in individuals between the ages of 20 and 50 years, and is more common in men than in women.
What laboratory studies should you order to help make the diagnosis and how should you interpret the results?
The laboratory evaluation of eosinophilia is outlined in the "Eosinophilia" chapter. Briefly, laboratory development is directed at ruling out secondary eosinophilia:
Full chemistry panel
Liver function tests
Complete blood count with manual smear/differential
Immunoglobulin subclasses (especially immunoglobulin E [IgE])
Evaluation for infection
– Including HIV serology +/- viral load, the Human T-lymphotropic virus Type I and II (HTLV-I and II) serology; stool examination for ova and parasites; serology for Strongyloides, Toxocara canis, trichinella, Schistosoma, echinococcus, coccidiomycosis, Histoplasma, or Aspergillus
Skin testing for reactivity to Aspergillus antigens
Serologic testing for autoimmune disease
Serum tryptase level
Other tests are directed at finding evidence for a malignancy-associated eosinophilia or primary HES:
Peripheral flow cytometry for leukemia or lymphoma markers
Bone marrow examination for flow cytometry and cytogenetics
– Cytogenetics for evidence of AML or MDS, FISH or reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for FIP1L1-PDGFRA fusion, and T cell clonality studies
What imaging studies (if any) will be helpful in making or excluding the diagnosis of clonal hypereosinophilic syndrome?
If you decide the patient has clonal hypereosinophilic syndrome, what therapies should you initiate immediately?
Identification of the FIP1L1-PDGFRA fusion or other clonal cytogenetic abnormality is diagnostic of clonal HES, and treatment with imatinib should be begun promptly. Required imatinib doses may be quite low, compared to those required to treat chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Usual therapeutic dosing is 100 to 400 mg/day. A short course of steroids is recommended when initiating imatinib, as it may reduce toxicity of the initial treatment.
In patients in whom the diagnosis is uncertain but in whom an alternative reason for secondary eosinophilia is not identified, it is reasonable to initiate a trial of imatinib. The drug is very well-tolerated, and many patients without the diagnostic translocation still respond to imatinib. Indeed, nearly half of the responding patients in the original reported trial did not have evidence of the FIP1L1-PDGFRA fusion gene. In myeloproliferative HES, an elevated tryptase may be a marker of aggressive disease, but is also predictive of imatinib response.
More definitive therapies?
In patients responding to imatinib, treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors should be continued indefinitely. This will usually lead to complete and durable molecular responses. Cessation of imatinib leads to relapse, although most patients can be salvaged with reinstitution of therapy. Imatinib resistance is very rare, but can arise from mutation in the tyrosine kinase domain in a manner that parallels that seen with CML. Treatment with other tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) may overcome resistance, although there is one mutation (FIP1L1-PDGFRα D842V) that is highly resistant to all TKIs.
It is not known why imatinib resistance is so rare in CEL/HES, but is thought to reflect the fact that cells with the FIP1L1-PDGFRA mutation are 100-fold more sensitive to imatinib than BCR-ABL.
In patients who do not respond to TKIs, especially in the absence of a clonal marker confirming the diagnosis of clonal HES, alternative therapies include hydroxyurea, alpha interferon, and anti-IL5 (interleukin-5) antibody.
What other therapies are helpful for reducing complications?
As previously noted, steroids for 1-2 weeks at the initiation of imatinib may prevent toxicity resulting from the rapid lysis of eosinophils.
What should you tell the patient and the family about prognosis?
Patients with clonal HES who respond to TKIs have an excellent prognosis. They need to continue to take imatinib indefinitely, as cessation of therapy is associated with relapse. However, continued imatinib is associated with durable and complete responses with rare toxicity.
Patients with non-clonal hypereosinophilia have variable prognosis related to the disease underlying their eosinophilia. This is discussed in the general chapter on eosinophilia.
"What" if scenarios.
Patient does not have a clonal marker for HES
If the patient does not have evidence for a secondary form of eosinophilia or a lymphoma-related HES, and has symptoms related to end-organ damage, an empiric trial of imatinib seems reasonable.
Patient with clonal HES develops congestive heart failure in response to imatinib
Patients with significant cardiac infiltration with eosinophils may develop acute cardiac problems upon initiation of imatinib. It is recommended that patients receive a short course of steroids upon initiation of imatinib therapy, although there are limited definitive data demonstrating the efficacy of this approach.
Patient wants to discontinue imatinib
Discontinuation of imatinib therapy is not recommended in patients with a good clinical and/or molecular response to imatinib, since the disease does not appear to be cured by the therapy. However, relapsed patients usually can be salvaged with restarting TKI therapy.
Many cases of clonal HES harbor the FIP1L1-PDGFRA fusion gene. FIP1L1-PDGFRA is a fusion protein generated by an interstitial deletion on chromosome 4. HES associated with PDGFRA fusion proteins are in the spectrum of classic myeloproliferative diseases, where translocation leads to constitutive tyrosine kinase activity and hyperproliferation. Point mutations of PDGFRA have also been identified in HES and likely also result in constitutive kinase activity.
Interestingly, mice expressing FIP1L1-PDGFRA in a bone marrow transplant model develop a myeloproliferative neoplasm without eosinophilia. Why this fusion protein in humans predominantly manifests in the eosinophilic lineage is unknown. A few studies have suggested that cooperation of FIP1L1-PDGFRA with interleukin 5 (IL-5) may promote eosinophil proliferation. PDGFRA mutations account for 10 to 20% of HES. Other mutations associated with myeloproliferative clonal HES include abnormalities in PDGFRB or FGFR1.
Eosinophilia may also be seen in association with myeloid leukemia, most notably M4 leukemia. The cause of the eosinophilia is unknown. Eosinophilia in association with T-cell lymphoma may be associated with hypersecretion of IL5.
The pathophysiology of idiopathic HES is unknown.
What other clinical manifestations may help me to diagnose clonal hypereosinophilic syndrome?
What other additional laboratory studies may be ordered?
As previously noted, a tryptase level predicts for a higher likelihood of end-organ damage from HES, but also predicts for TKI-responsive HES.
What's the evidence?
Cools, J, DeAngelo, DJ, Gotlib, J. "A tyrosine kinase created by fusion of the PDGFRA and FIP1L1 genes as a therapeutic target of imatinib in idiopathic hypereosinophilic syndrome". N Engl J Med.. vol. 348. 2003. pp. 1201[Original description of the characteristic fusion gene in HES and its response to imatinib. Of note, half of the responding patients did not have a FIP1L1-PDGFRA fusion.]
Gotlib, J, Cools, J, Malone, JM. "The FIP1L1-PDGFRalpha fusion tyrosine kinase in hypereosinophilic syndrome and chronic eosinophilic leukemia: implications for diagnosis, classification, and management". Blood.. vol. 103. 2004. pp. 2879[Review of FIP1L1-PDGFRalpha fusion tyrosine kinase-associated HES.]
Gotlib, J. "WHO-defined eosinophilic disorders: 2011 update on diagnosis, risk stratification and management". Am J Hematol.. vol. 86. 2011. pp. 678-688. [A review encompassing the recent changes in classification of eosinophilic disorders by the WHO and guidelines for diagnosis and management.]
Klion, AD, Noel, P, Akin, C, Law, MA, Gilliland, DG, Cools, J, Metcalfe, DD, Nutman, TB. "Elevated serum tryptase levels identify a subset of patients with a myeloproliferative variant of idiopathic hypereosinophilic syndrome associated with tissue fibrosis, poor prognosis, and imatinib responsiveness". Blood.. vol. 101. 2003. pp. 4660[Report of the observation that HES and elevated tryptase level were more likely to develop end organ damage, but also demonstrated a clinical and hematologic response to imatinib.]
Klion, AD. "Eosinophilic myeloproliferative disorders". Hematology. 2011. 2011. pp. 257-63. [Recent review of the spectrum of HES and CEL.]
Simon, HU, Rothenberg, ME, Bochner, BS. "Refining the definition of hypereosinophilic syndrome". J Allergy Clin Immunol.. vol. 126. 2010. pp. 45[Suggested new diagnostic algorithm for the definition of HES.]
Tefferi, A, Gotlib, J, Pardanani, A. "Hypereosinophilic syndrome and clonal eosinophilia: point of care diagnostic algorithm and treatment update". Mayo Clin Proc.. vol. 85. 2010. pp. 158-64. [Suggested algorithm for evaluation of patients with eosinophilia, with emphasis on defining variants of myeloproliferative HES. These authors feel that imatinib should only be used in the presence of defined PDGFR fusion genes.]
Copyright © 2017, 2013 Decision Support in Medicine, LLC. All rights reserved.
No sponsor or advertiser has participated in, approved or paid for the content provided by Decision Support in Medicine LLC. The Licensed Content is the property of and copyrighted by DSM.
- Clonal disorders of eosinophils (chronic eosinophilic leukemia, clonal hypereosinophilic syndrome)
- What every physician needs to know:
- Are you sure your patient has clonal hypereosinophilic syndrome? What should you expect to find?
- Beware of other conditions that can mimic clonal hypereosinophilic syndrome:
- Which individuals are most at risk for developing clonal hypereosinophilic syndrome:
- What laboratory studies should you order to help make the diagnosis and how should you interpret the results?
- What imaging studies (if any) will be helpful in making or excluding the diagnosis of clonal hypereosinophilic syndrome?
- If you decide the patient has clonal hypereosinophilic syndrome, what therapies should you initiate immediately?
- More definitive therapies?
- What other therapies are helpful for reducing complications?
- What should you tell the patient and the family about prognosis?
- "What" if scenarios.
- Pathophysiology
- What other clinical manifestations may help me to diagnose clonal hypereosinophilic syndrome?
- What other additional laboratory studies may be ordered?
- What's the evidence?


text:
Aug. 29, 2012 — -- The eyewall of Hurricane Isaac is expected to barrel "right over" Assumption Parish, La., today--the home of a massive sinkhole that has raised fears of expansion and possible explosions from nearby gas-filled caverns.
The eye wall of a hurricane is a band of clouds just outside of the eye, or center, of a hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The most intense winds and rain happen near the eye wall, making it the most dangerous part of a hurricane.
"The latest update puts the track of Hurricane Isaac right over Assumption Parish," police wrote in a statement.
The area is expecting sustained winds of 60 to 70 mph with gusts at 85 mph, according to the Assumption Parish Police Jury. Seven inches of rainfall are expected.
The 400-foot deep hole measures about 526 feet from northeast to southwest and 640 feet from northwest to southeast. It is in Assumption Parish, about 50 miles south of Baton Rouge.
On Aug. 16, the sinkhole swallowed the boat of two cleanup workers, who had to be rescued from the hole.
Greg Hancock, a professor of geology at the College of William and Mary, said it's hard to predict how the hurricane could affect the sinkhole.
"The fact that we're going to get more rain doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a great collapse of the sinkhole," Hancock told ABCNews.com today, but said it was possible that "getting additional water into the sidewalls of this sinkhole could lead to a collapse in the sidewalls."
Hancock likened the situtation to building a sandcastle on the beach.
"The last thing we want is for the sand to be really wet," he said. "The more water gets added to the sand, the less stable it is."
"There's no reason why this sinkhole shouldn't continue to grow, but I don't know if it'll have anything to do with how much rain they get," Hancock said. "I'd want to keep an eye on it, but I don't think there's a reason to think that there's going to be significant growth to this associated with the hurricane."
A mandatory evacuation of all of Assumption Parish was issued on Tuesday night. Schools are closed Wednesday and Thursday, a midnight curfew is in effect and the sale of alcohol has been banned, according to officials.
A "shelter of last resort" was opened at a middle school, but officials warned, "All evacuees should bring all necessary items such as sleeping bags, pillows, blankets, toiletries, personal hygiene items, medicines, food, water, and personal identification. No cots will be provided."
The sinkhole sits in the middle of a heavily wooded space where it has consumed all of the soaring cypress trees that had been there. Flyover photos show some of the treetops still visible through the mud.
While officials are not certain what caused the massive sinkhole, they believe it may be have been related to a nearby salt cavern owned by the Texas Brine Company.
After being used for nearly 30 years, the cavern was plugged in 2011 and officials believe the integrity of the cavern may have somehow been compromised, leading to the sinkhole, which appeared in early August.
Louisiana's Department of Natural Resources required that Texas Brine drill a well to investigate the salt cavern as soon as possible, obtain samples from the cavern and provide daily reports on the findings.
The sinkhole is on the outside edge of the salt dome where this particular brine well is located.
"There are some indications that it very well may have been connected, but there's just indications," Texas Brine Company spokesman Sonny Cranch told ABCNews.com. "There's nothing concrete that has connected the sinkhole to the cavern."
The exploratory rig is being assembled but parts of it are still being shipped. It could take 40 days for the actual drilling to begin, even with an expedited process, Torres said.
In the meantime, officials and residents are left to worry about the possibility of an explosion.
All of the neighboring natural gas pipelines that were of concern last week have been depressurized and emptied, but the nearby caverns are still causing concern.
One cavern that contains 940,000 gallons of butane is of particular concern, Torres said. It's about 2,000 feet from the sinkhole.
Authorities are concerned about the massive explosion that could result from the butane's release to the surface if the sinkhole were to expand far enough to reach it.
There was bubbling in the water and the sinkhole is near areas where there has been exploration for oil and gas in the past. This would make the presence of low levels of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) possible.
The state's Department of Environmental Quality said water samples from the sinkhole showed oil and diesel fuel on its surface, but readings have not detected any dangerous levels of radiation.
"It's not going to get fixed tomorrow," Torres said. "We urge the residents to leave to protect themselves. We have no idea how far this sinkhole will expand or in what direction. We have no clue."


text:
The Tigers featured a balanced attack while earning yet another top-10 team finish with seventh place overall at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships to finish off the 2013 season. Leading the way were nine All-Americans scoring in events ranging from the sprints and relays to the jumps and throws as the Tigers again established their position as one of the premier teams in all of collegiate track and field.
They will follow that formula for success again in 2014 as they return seven of their nine All-Americans from last year while welcoming one of the nation's top recruiting classes to Baton Rouge to help fuel a national championship run this season. Led by the likes of Aaron Ernest, Rodney Brown and their powerful relay teams as NCAA event contenders, the pieces are in place for the Tigers to contend for their first national championship in 10 years.
Fourth in a 10-part series previews the men's jumpers during the 2014 season.
Men's Jumps
The 2013 season closed the book on one of the storied careers in the history of the LSU Track & Field program as Tiger great Damar Forbes wrapped up a brilliant four years in Baton Rouge by sweeping SEC Outdoor and NCAA Outdoor championships in the long jump for 2013.
Forbes certainly went out with a bang as he saved his two farthest jumps in his career in sweeping gold medals with wind-aided leaps of 27 feet, 4 ½ inches at the SEC Outdoor Championships and 27-4 ¾ at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in his final appearance as an LSU Tiger. He raised his wind-legal personal best to 27-0 ¾ last summer while winning the Jamaican long jump title in qualifying for the IAAF World Championships in Athletics for the second time.
Forbes trails only 2004 Olympic silver medalist John Moffitt on LSU's all-time list in the men's long jump with his career-best mark of 27-0 ¾. Moffitt set the school record of 27-9 ¾ in a silver-medal-winning performance at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.
Not only did Forbes sweep SEC and NCAA titles in the long jump, but he also captured a conference title and earned All-America honors as the leadoff leg of LSU's 4×100-meter relay for the 2013 outdoor season. He went out as a six-time All-American and six-time All-SEC athlete in his four seasons with the Tigers from 2010-13.
While the Tigers will certainly miss having Forbes lead the way in the jumps during the 2014 season, they return a talented squad featuring the likes of returning NCAA qualifiers Fitzroy Dunkley in the triple jump andAndreas Duplantis in the pole vault in the new season.
A native of Trelawny, Jamaica, Dunkley arrived at LSU in January of last year and quickly established himself as one of the SEC's top high jump and triple jump prospects while he set personal bests of 6-11 ¾ and 51-5, respectively, during his rookie season. Despite qualifying as the No. 47 seed out of 48 competitors in the triple jump at the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds in 2013, Dunkley set a nearly two-foot PR of 51-5 in the event to take third place and claim a spot in the NCAA semifinals at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in his debut.
Dunkley looks to build on his early success following a strong fall training campaign and will certainly lead the way for the Tigers in the jumps in 2014.
Duplantis has quickly emerged as an All-America candidate as one of the nation's elite pole vaulters after setting personal bests of 17-9 ¼ indoors and 17-7 outdoors as a sophomore last season. After competing in the national semifinals at the NCAA Outdoor Championships during a breakout freshman season in 2012, he qualified for the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds again last spring. He also won the SEC Indoor bronze medal and ranked among the Top 20 pole vaulters for the 2013 indoor season while just missing a spot at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
Duplantis will be joined by two other 17-foot pole vaulters in the 2013 season as seniors Joseph Caraway (17-5) and Jaora Johnson (17-3) have All-American aspirations during their final season with the Tigers in 2014.
The Tigers are also set to welcome two standout recruits this season as Mandeville, La., native Cameron Robichaux owns a personal record of 16-0 in the pole vault and South Brunswick Township, N.J., nativeJonathan Pitt has set personal bests of 23-3 in the long jump and 49-7 ½ in the triple jump during their respective high school careers.
From: http://www.lsusports.net/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=5200&ATCLID=209368468
*** The articles that we post on this website are searched from the Internet and don't reflect our views. VAULTER Magazine LLC. is bringing the pole vault news to the reader in one central location. ***


text:
CROSS 9-11- Tangle of Terror - Who Can Untangle the Terror
That Globalization and Free Trade Economics Has Bred.
Communications by rank - the age of unreason and misinformation.
.. and Trump says, We will never surrender to the false song of Globalism
Ray Tapajna, with thousands of references and resources online since 1998 brings you real world news relating to our economic day and your workday in the global economy. There are many untold stories to tell. Many of Ray's sites are now a history of free trade economics failures. Too many are outside looking in while just a few control the flow of wealth outside the will of the people. Workers and Small Business have no voice in the process.
Communications by rank - Tapsearch Com
Individualism in our economic day is exalted . Communities and Society take second place. Upper classes are living off the suffering of others. About 50 percent of all possible voters do not vote feeling it serves no purpose.
Free trade economics remains the major cause behind our economic and social crisis.
Free trade today is not trade as historically practiced and defined. In our times it is about divorcing investments from production and moving production anywhere in the world for the sake of cheaper labor and more profits. The value of workers and labor is manipulated for the sake of investments. The stock market once rewarded companies for the number of workers they could employ while showing a good balance sheet. In the free trade economic world it is the opposite. The stock market reward companies who fire instead of hire and call it an increase in efficiency.
The globalist free traders change history to fit their process. They blame protectionism for the the cause of the Great Depression. It never happened this way.
The actual conditions were quite different. They point to the Smooth-Hawley trade act as the culprit. It was not passed until 1930 and really never took effect. Nations did not have sufficient funds to trade. Money was scarce. The stock market crashed in 1929. All trade was at a standstill because of an international money crisis. You can not do business with people who do not have money.
Actually, President had the power to lower or raise tariffs at any time when he was in office from about 1934 on. Finally in the late 1930s, he said he was not going to let the lack of the dollar stand in his way and instituted the Lend Lease program. This allowed major ways to export goods without worrying about being paid upfront. It acted as a stimulus as products and food began to be exported to our "future" allies. Then World War came and it helped launched the most awesome industrial power the world has ever known. Coming out of the war, through the Marshall Plan, the U.S. was able to restore economies in Europe and Asian. They did it my duplicating success. It did not chop up our economy and send the pieces outside of the U.S. Our industrial might also was able to support the GI Bill which created a massive middle class in our society.
In the 1950s, I worked at several factories while going to college. If these jobs were available today, there would be millions standing in line to get them including college graduates.
The globalist free traders and dismantled our industrial might and even more. They ravaged the computer industry and sent most of it outside of the country. What took more than thirty years to develop was washed away this way in a short space of time.
In the 1990s, more than a million workers in the computer industry lost their jobs. Thousands of computer businesses closed down. Hundreds of major computer manufacturers bit the dust. The "rust belt" industries were not the only ones who were taken out.
Free trade economics has a history of failures. Our own Federal Government sponsored the moving of factories outside of the U.S. starting in 1956. It was the same year the Suez Crisis exposed an international money crisis and many nations were looking for ways to make money on money instead of making things. Obviously, it was an inherent mistake from the beginning.
Somewhere along the way, the moving of production outside of the country was branded as free trade. The main commodity being traded were human beings who were put on a global block to compete with one another for the same jobs. So the moving of production from place to place anywhere in the world for the sake of cheaper labor and more profit for few took over. The most awesome industrial power in the history of the world was shredded into pieces. They killed the golden goose that laid the golden eggs.
President Clinton had to bail out the process in 1995 rushing billions of dollars to Mexico to save the peso and the Mexican economy even though by then, more than 4,000 U.S. factories had been moved to Mexico. So the first bail out of the process went to a foreign nation as millions of their people flocked to the U.S. seeking economic survival.
It was a prediction of things to come. In 2008, President Obama had to bail out the process by mortgaging the future but he only bailed out those at the top and ignored the suffering of the millions who lost their jobs and businesses as our economy based on making money on money is burning away - The American Dream is still Burning away .
Explore lost worlds in Globalist Flat World - Tapsearch Com
Free trade betrays workers and their dignity
List of jobs and companies lost in just 1998.
The American Dream Is Burning Away
Are you a Gladiator in the Global Economic Arena


text:
How to 'Regift' for the Holidays Without Embarrassing Yourself
Here are eight things to keep in mind before you give someone a gift that was given to you.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
For entrepreneurs in the early stages of growing their business, every penny counts. With many business owners choosing to reinvest all their profits back into their companies, oftentimes they're left with very little money to play with.
Regifting is the perfect solution if you're short on cash. You'll still be able to give friends and clients holiday presents and, if you're strategic, the only thing you'll pay for is shipping. The most important thing is to keep organized, as giving an obvious regift to someone can be humiliating.
Here are eight guidelines to follow to avoid any regifting repercussions.
Related: 7 Ways to Stay Out of Trouble During Your Holiday Office Party
1. Designate a space for potential regifts. Keep a stockpile of gifts you've received throughout the year that you don't want or haven't used. You'll be able to pull from the pile when you find the perfect recipient or when someone surprises you with a gift. Keep items in plastic bags to avoid dust and fading from sun exposure.
2. Don't include any gifts you've used or opened. The item you plan to pass along should be in good condition. Ideally you'll want to give the gift in the original box with the seal intact. If you plan to give a perishable item, check the expiration date to make sure it is still fresh.
3. Ensure the item is worthy of regifting. Be sure the person will enjoy and appreciate the gift. Promotional items or free swag bags from someone else's company should not be regifted to anyone unless you plan to participate in a gag gift exchange.
Related: Office Etiquette: The Rules of Saying Thank You
4. Remove any evidence that the gift was given to you. Remove the original card or receipt. I once received a candle from a friend only to find a card addressed to her when I opened the box. Any evidence that the present is a regift should be removed.
5. Rewrap the item. The gift should look brand new. Use fresh wrapping paper and include a personalized card. There's no need to announce the item is a regift to the recipient.
6. Don't regift in the same social circles. Make sure the person receiving the gift doesn't know the person who originally gave you the gift. To prevent a mistake, jot down when you received it and who gave it to you.
7. Know when you can't regift. Ensure the receiver of your present will enjoy the gift. If you have a pile of unwanted fruitcakes and tacky holiday sweaters, it's probably time to dump them or donate them to your favorite charity.
8. Don't feel guilty. If you've followed all the guidelines above, you'll avoid wasting a gift while giving the recipient a present they'll love — all while choosing the best financial path for your company.
Related: Master Your 'Mingle-Ability': 5 Creative Ways to Network