The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

Without community, there is no liberation

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one’s own actions or lack of action

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors

We're not too far away from a general election, so we thought it would be fun to put the political convictions of Doctor Who companions under the microscope. Is your favourite a leftie, or a neocon? Green or anarchist? Read on...

It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

Pay no attention. Drunks cry very easily. It's only the whiskey

    TIRED OLD QUEEN AT THE MOVIES 

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton make sparks fly and head an all-star cast in Anthony Asquith's film version of Terence Rattigan's The V.I.P.s (1963).

Set in London's Heathrow Airport and made in order to cash in on the scandalous affair between Taylor and Burton on the set of Cleopatra, The V.I.P.'s is a glamorous combination of melodrama and comedy in the grand tradition of Grand Hotel. Maggie Smith in one of her early roles shines as the frustrated secretary of hunky Rod Taylor. Orson Welles plays a Fellini like movie director trying to cope with tax evasion and his Italian mistress, Elsa Martinelli. But the film is stolen by Margaret Rutherford, in an Oscar winning turn, as a pill-popping dowager trying to save her ancestral home from bankruptcy. The V.I.P.s is elegant, funny, dramatic and wonderfully entertaining. Steve Hayes

(Syndication is with the kind permission of Steve Hayes.)

For once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

The language by which we have been taught to dismiss ourselves and our feelings as suspect is the same language we use to dismiss and suspect each other

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

Robert Riggs

 A R T 
 S K O O L 

"Art is the lie that enables us to realise the truth..."

Your silence will not protect you

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

Indeed, there is an eloquence in true enthusiasm that is not to be doubted

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

12 Years A Slave is evil. Here's why.

Chikonzi writes exclusively for kaos about why he has such a problem with "12 Years A Slave". London-based Zimbabwean Chikonzi teaches psychology and sociology.

Torture Porn

I REMEMBER WHEN Roots was first screened on Zimbabwean TV (and was repeated endlessly thereafter). Suddenly everyone started saying "Boss", mimicking characters on the show. It's an example of how audiences respond to fictionalised respresentations of history, how T.V. and film can inadvertently trivialise the subjects they purport to honour.

That's what's going to happen to Steve McQueen's 12 Years A Slave: it will be parodied, people will find a way to laugh at it. The artists responsible for reducing this horrific slice of history to a few popcorn-fuelled thrills won't care; they'll have moved on to their next project, having plundered this one for what they could take from it - the accolades of their peers, and the applause of the adoring audience. Glittering Oscars will be handed over by wealthy Americans, still getting fat off the blood of slaves. Well done. Nothing about this is honourable; like the film itself, it's a nauseating spectacle, of self-indulgent artists, celebrity and big business in one great big circle jerk.

Hollywood only values black people when they're being degraded, when it's plundering our history of suffering and pain. Octavia Spencer bagged an Oscar for being a maid, and Halle Berry for being shafted by a white man. Now Chiwetel Ejiofor is likely to get one for being a slave.

How can anyone think it's right for people to go into a cinema to be entertained, to be "moved" by this story of degradation? If it shocks and appalls them - so what? What does that achieve, what does that fix? This film achieves nothing, and it's a lie to pretend otherwise. It is torture porn.

Then there's the sense of competing with Idris Elba in Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, that whiff of "how do we top that?" Oh yeah - slavery! There are stories to be told of human suffering around the world now, of Zimbabwe and the Central African Republic and South Africa's townships, but movie goers aren't interested in these tales. They aren't sexy stories. Slavery is sexy, and it's in vogue. Disagree? Did you go to see 12 Years A Slave? Why? Really, ask yourself why, and try to pretend that there wasn't some part of you that didn't find it exciting and sexy.

There is something inherently evil in the total lack of responsibility, to history, and to their suffering. I won't be watching 12 Years a Slave. I don't need to be told how horrific slavery was; I already know. Enjoy your Oscars guys, I hope their pain was worth it.

We're twins, and so we love each other more than other people

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

There lives no man who at some period has not been tormented, for example, by an earnest desire to tantalize a listener by circumlocution

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

I was never insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 

men, in pictures