A movie is really provocation. It's not a message, it's not a statement.
Al Jazeera has abandoned even the semblance of a credible media outlet, and it broadcasts - both within Gaza and outside it, to the world - anti-Semitic incitement, lies, provocation, and encouragement to terrorists.
For the most part, editors no longer view 'Doonesbury' as a rolling provocation, which is fine by me. It makes no sense to intentionally antagonize the very people on whose support you most depend.
You take a number of small steps which you believe are right, thinking maybe tomorrow somebody will treat this as a dangerous provocation. And then you wait. If there is no reaction, you take another step: courage is only an accumulation of small steps.
Academic scientists aren't generally interested in books for the public. So when one comes out, the authors can't expect much praise from scientists. My goal both as a singer and an instructor is to educate through provocation and entertainment.
It isn't only in the name of free speech that the views of an itchy polemicist should be tolerated - and I say itchy polemicist promoting thought, not itchy ideologue promoting violence - but because provocation is indispensable to the workings of a sound, creative culture.
One of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation purposes, actually represents that person's beliefs at the time.
The provocation with Holmes is the fact that he's described by Doyle as a man without a heart - all brain... and that's very difficult to play, or even indicate.
To be able to bear provocation is an argument of great reason, and to forgive it of a great mind.
Mammalian cells of all types disgorge prostaglandins at the slightest provocation, but the tissue content of prostaglandins is very low compared with the release.
