Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Indeed you do...
"...It’s a heavy tune with no definable emotional tang beyond an odd ‘fleeting rapture’; in this respect, it fits nicely with the Basic Channel aesthetic, where the productions of Von Oswald and collaborator Mark Ernestus are glorious and overwhelming, but distant – not cold, but somehow removed. Their impact relies on submission; you willingly lose yourself in the luster of their gun-metal, greyscale noises – grainy reverb and tape hiss, rolling waves of texture, endless plateaus of rhythm."Historic Sounds of Newport Jazz & Folk Festivals, Newly Online
As the future of the Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals continues to unfold, its recorded past has suddenly been thrown open.Recently the festivals themselves almost disappeared, amid the financial collapse of their producing company, the Festival Network LLC. They returned last summer in a new guise, at their usual site, once George Wein, the founder of both festivals, regained the right to hold music events there.
It’s a complicated story. But if you want to know why the Newport Jazz Festival has been so important to American music, it’s easy: you just have to hear the recorded evidence. Bits and pieces have emerged over the years, in live recordings by Ellington, Coltrane and others. Now Wolfgang’s Vault, the online concert-recording archive, intends to fill in the gaps...
RIP - Robert Enke
The 32-year-old - set to star for his country at next year's World Cup - was fatally injured at a level crossing near Hannover.
Early reports suggested troubled Enke may have killed himself.
The Hannover 96 captain was devastated when his two-year-old daughter Lara died of a rare heart ailment in 2006.
He leaves behind his wife, Teresa, and an eight-month-old daughter the couple had adopted in May.
Last night, his club president Martin Kind was reported as having described the keeper as "unstable" in recent weeks.
Enke was struck by a regional train travelling between Norddeich and Hannover at a railway crossing in Neustadt am Rubenberge and died at the scene.
A German police spokesman confirmed late last night: "The victim is national team goalkeeper Robert Enke from Hannover 96.
"The first police indications are that it was a suicide."
@'Daily Record'
Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) G20 Pittsburgh
johannhari101/Twitter
Accept the facts – and end this futile 'war on drugs'
The proponents of the "war on drugs" are well-intentioned people who believe they are saving people from the nightmare of drug addiction and making the world safer. But this self-image has turned into a faith – and like all faiths, it can only be maintained by cultivating a deliberate blindness to the evidence.The recent furore about the British government's decision to fire its chief scientific advisor on drugs, Professor David Nutt, missed the point. Yes, it is shocking that he was ditched for pointing out the mathematical truth that taking ecstasy is less dangerous than horse-riding, and that smoking cannabis is less harmful than drinking alcohol. But this is how the war on drugs has to be fought. The unofficial slogan of the prohibitionists for decades has been: The facts will only undermine the war, so invent some that show how successful we are, fast.
Look at the United States, the country that pioneered the drug war, and still uses its military and diplomatic might to demand the rest of the world cracks down. In 1998, the Office of National Drug Control Policy was ordered by Congress to stop funding any scientific research that might give the impression that we should redirect funding from anti-trafficking busts into medical treatment of addicts, or that there is any argument to legalise, regulate or medicalise drug use.
It's Nutt cubed: only tell us what we want to hear. So, to give a small example, the ONDCP spent $14bn on anti-cannabis adverts aimed at teenagers, and $43m to find out if the ads worked. They discovered that kids who saw the ads were more likely afterwards to get stoned, so the evidence was suppressed, and the ad campaign marched on...
Johann Hari
@'The Independent'
(RePost) The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month



Private ARTHUR JOHN HADDOCK
2766529, 6th Bn., Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)
who died age 20
on 24 April 1944
Son of Robert Arthur and Catherine Haddock,
of Orrell, Bootle, Lancashire.
Remembered with honour
CASSINO WAR CEMETERY
Radiohead - Harry Patch (In memory of)
Blackwater Approved Iraqi Payments After Shootings
Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.Blackwater approved the cash payments in December 2007, the officials said, as protests over the deadly shootings in Nisour Square stoked long-simmering anger inside Iraq about reckless practices by the security company’s employees. American and Iraqi investigators had already concluded that the shootings were unjustified, top Iraqi officials were calling for Blackwater’s ouster from the country and company officials feared that Blackwater might be refused an operating license it would need to retain its contracts with the State Department and private clients, worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Four former Blackwater executives said in interviews that Gary Jackson, who was then the company’s president, had approved the bribes, and the money was sent from Amman, Jordan, where Blackwater maintains an operations hub, to a top manager in Iraq. The executives, though, said they did not know whether the cash was delivered to Iraqi officials or the identities of the potential recipients.
Blackwater’s strategy of buying off the government officials, which would have been illegal under American law, created a deep rift inside the company, according to the former executives. They said that Cofer Black, who was then the company’s vice chairman and a former top C.I.A. and State Department official, learned of the plan from another Blackwater manager while he was in Baghdad discussing compensation for families of the shooting victims with United States Embassy officials...
Scotland's Secret Shame
Produced by Murdoch Rodgers.
Transcript:
HERE
(Painful, painful reading!)
Congrats Murdoch!!!
An investigation into the quality of home care for older people - which led to the brief arrest of its journalist, who went undercover to report the story - was among the winners at a celebration of Scottish TV and film.
At the BAFTA Scotland awards last Saturday night, the News and Current Affairs title went to 'Panorama - Britain's Homecare Scandal', whose reporter, Arifa Farooq was arrested for giving false information about her identity while applying for a job that gave her access to the standards of domiciliary care.
The programme was made by the BBC Scotland Investigations Unit. In the end, the Procurator Fiscal chose not to pursue Farooq, whose efforts led to inquiry being held by the Scottish Parliament into home care contracts.
The producer was Murdoch Rodgers and the assistant producer was ex-Sunday Herald reporter, Liam McDougall.
This is the third year in a row that BBC Scotland has won the News and Current Affairs title at the Scottish BAFTAs.
Disclaimer: Murdoch is my 'brother-in-law'
"Gie him a big kiss frae me sis!"
Morrisey should just have taken Josh Homme's advice and "buttfuck 12 year old dickless boys"!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Alan Moore on 'Dodgem Logic'
So there's an overtly political thrust to the mag?To a certain extent. In the second issue I'm doing a piece on anarchy: the practicalities of it, and how it might be made to work without just fucking everything up forever (laughs). I've been reading some stuff about Sortition, which is basically a bit like the old Athenian government by lot. Which strikes me as a way you could still have a government which would not contradict the central anarchist tenet of no leaders. Yes, you need massive constitutional reform, but on the other hand when circumstances are as desperate as they are at the moment, when our political masters are buying mink coats for their swans on expenses, then what is unthinkable, politically, in this day and age?
Alan Moore launches his bi-monthly magazine Dodgem Logic in November, featuring articles and artwork by himself and various other contributors, including Mustard magazine. We spoke to him at his Northampton home.@'Mustard'
Remember that Alan Moore knows the score...
The Beatnigs - Television (On-U Sound Remix by Adrian Sherwood, Gary Clail & Mark Stewart)
On their debut album, this striking San Francisco quintet explodes in a tight and danceable riot of industrial percussion, vocals and tape manipulations. According to an enclosed booklet ("Aural Instruction Manual"), the word "nig" is defined as "a positive acronym...[it] has taken on a universal meaning in describing all oppressed people who have actively taken a stand against those who perpetuate ethnic notions and discriminate on the basis of them." Assailing "Television" (the medium, not the band), poverty and hunger ("Burritos"), the "CIA" and South Africa ("Control"), the Beatnigs cross Devo, Test Dept. and the Dead Kennedys in a brilliant, original coincidence of extremist musical ideas and radical politics. "Television" was subsequently given a pair of head-spinning remixes by Adrian Sherwood, Gary Clail and Mark Stewart and issued on a four-version 12-inch.Beatnigs leader Michael Franti went on to front the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and then Spearhead in the '90s.
(Ira Robbins - Trouser Press)
The Beatnigs - Television (On-U Sound Remix)















