Sunday, 4 April 2010

Commerce Dept. Supports RIAA Bailout Radio Tax | Techdirt

This probably isn’t a huge surprise, but the Commerce Department has now come out in favor of the performance rights tax on radio stations, which will force radio stations to pay up to promote music. Basically, as it stands right now, when a radio station plays music, it pays the songwriters/composers, but not the performers. That’s because the performers are getting free promotion by getting their songs heard on the radio. As we’ve pointed out, this is really something of a “bailout” for the RIAA, which will get a new stream of cash for something that makes absolutely no sense in an open market. Historically, record labels have always been known to (often illegally) pay the radio stations to play music. That’s because they knew, quite explicitly, that there’s value in having their music played. 
But, then, when they started pushing for this new tax, suddenly they amusingly started to claim that radio is “a kind of piracy.” Seriously. However, they then immediately contradicted themselves by then accusing one radio station of illegally not playing their music. Basically, the recording industry is willing to make any argument, no matter how contradictory to get this free money, which they claim they’re entitled to. They say that they need to get paid for music played on the radio at the same time that they’re pushing money the other direction just to get on the air (since they know it’s really a promotion). They say that radio is “pirating” from them, but when a radio station stops playing RIAA music (which should make them happy if it’s really “piracy,”) they accuse them of abusing the airwaves, and demand an FCC investigation. This has been nothing but a blatant attempt by the recording industry to get free money through legislative fiat, and it’s ridiculous that the Commerce Department would support such an effort.

Herman Brood & His Wild Romance - Saturday Night

One of the many Sunday night gigs at The Lyceum...this was 1979!

The Church's Long History of Pedophilia

The Catholic Church’s present scandals may seem horrifyingly new, a development of the late 20th-century. In fact, a pedophilia epidemic was going on during the first decades of Christianity. If only the Catholic hierarchy would address pedophilia with the courage and passion of the Apostle Paul, whom we can probably credit with spreading through Greco-Roman society the idea that this behavior was always evil and should never be tolerated.
There doesn’t seem to be any uncertainty about this crime to be found within the Christian tradition or the mandates of scripture. The hierarchy must take full responsibility for all of the enabling it has done.
In my recent book, Paul Among the People, I explore in detail the first chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. This passage, in which the great evangelist excoriates practitioners of “these things” as unnatural, cruel, rebellious against God and humanity, and deserving death, is widely thought to be about homosexuality in general. But a reading in the context of Paul’s time reveals that his targets were pederasts, as pederasty and its variations were quite common and accepted. It is these acts, not homosexual interest or flirtation or even making out among adults, that Paul is clearly writing of, and his clear concern is the aggressors’ exploitation of the young and vulnerable. Not only was sexual penetration of juveniles painful and humiliating (as it always is), but in this society it placed a gristly stigma on the passive male partner. You wouldn’t do this to someone you cared about—only to a strange youngster with no one to protect him.
A seduced boy risked losing his civic rights, and his loss of reputation would be life-long. He would remain a “faggot,” though no one would dare profess a nonviolent sexual interest in him. Boys alone were worth courting. The active sexual partner got off scot-free to flaunt his aggressive “manliness.”
In poetry, scores of such men boasted, under their own names, of infiltrating schools, bribing boys, and throwing away their conquests once these grew body hair. Where citizen-class boys with protective parents were concerned, these tales are not believable, and are probably about as factual as the average letter to the Penthouse Forum. Slave boys, in contrast, must have found themselves on the wrong end of a turkey shoot. They had no rights and no escape; effective compassion for them was unheard of. One pedophile insouciantly published the following:
If you were still uninitiated in what I’m trying to persuade you to do, you’d be right to be afraid, perhaps expecting something terrible. But since your master’s bed has made you an expert, why do you begrudge someone else what you’ve got? Your lord calls you in when he needs you, then he goes to sleep and lets you go—he doesn’t even share a word with you. But here I can spoil you. You can play as an equal, chatter in confidence, and do other things because you’re asked, not because you’re ordered.
Against this background, Paul’s fury in Romans 1 seems commonsensical. He repeatedly uses the word “injustice” to describe these sex acts. (“Wickedness” is a common mistranslation.) He pours onto the offenders his fiercest insults ever, including the accusation that they “hate God.” The apostle is aflame with the revolutionary notion that everyone matters, that pederasts are not exempt from judgment because they have power and position and customary immunity and think they can impose (because they always have) the entire cost of their acts on the victims: “You have no excuse,” Paul writes, “whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.” Paul was a true follower of Jesus, who had boldly addressed a characteristic abuse of his homeland when he faced the woman caught in adultery: the least powerful person was going to suffer alone for a forbidden act. He made it known that this couldn’t happen; the entire society must re-examine itself.
As modern forensic experience confirms, Paul showed particular insight in directing his most irate moral condemnation at pedophiles. Pedophilia is an addiction feeding not on inanimate things but on the most vulnerable human bodies and personalities. Unlike a drug user or alcoholic, this kind of addict doesn’t destroy himself but is sturdy and ready for more into old age. Pedophilia challenges any belief in salvation through human agency alone, because not even the most expert therapy seems to prevent recidivism. As Paul no doubt recognized, God alone understands pedophilia. We are far out of line in thinking that we can usefully tinker with or rationalize such an evil thing, or that we can in any other way deny hard and humble responsibilities to the weak that God has given us in allowing such an evil thing to exist.
The Catholic hierarchy has denied these responsibilities, and quite clownishly. It has not only sent confessed pedophiles on brief retreats, as if in the conviction that lazy good intentions are enough. It has also, in the realm of homosexuality, directed its most energetic policy enforcement against a class of people Paul had nothing to say about because he could not have imagined their existence: men in committed, exclusive sexual relationships who are trying to set up homes together with public recognition. What makes them a priority for censure?
I don’t want to suggest that homosexuality is a straightforward issue for any church to deal with; presumptions about how doctrine and practice should turn out are not religious; they are simply political, and not worth much. But is it not absurd for bishops, cardinals, and popes to strengthen the barricades against gay couples (whose wrongdoing is in much dispute) while leaving the victims of a plainly abominable crime to fend for themselves—if not bullying them, shaming them, and manipulating them?
There doesn’t seem to be any uncertainty about this crime to be found within the Christian tradition or the mandates of scripture. The hierarchy must take full responsibility for all of the enabling it has done. If not, perhaps it’s time for an object lesson. The Western rule of law rose primarily out of a Christian distaste for the rule of human self-interest and whim, as opposed to transcendent and enduring principle. Clergy who pressured molestation victims into signing secrecy agreements may need to go to jail for obstruction of justice, like anyone else.
Sarah Ruden @'Daily Beast'

Ballet Mécanique (1924)



Directed by Fernand Léger

All those years ago...

I used to squat in this building...about 1981/2!

Quelch House in Tufnell Park!
Forgot about this until I got reminded about it thru old friends...
Hello to Mark and Jo!!!

People like who?


Furious BNP chiefs have drafted in security guards - to protect a POSTER. The far-right party splashed out £2,000 on its first billboard campaign in Scotland. But just hours after the massive sign was unveiled, it was targeted by outraged protesters and torn down. And since being replaced, the poster has been pelted with paint, covered in graffiti branding the BNP "nazi scum" and even set on fire. The party has now hired two security guards to keep an eye on the Aberdeen billboard round the clock.Barry Scott, the BNP's north east organiser, said: "We thought we might get a problem with graffiti but we never expected the poster would be destroyed."If people have a problem with the BNP we would rather they emailed us."On their website, the BNP boasts that the poster on Aberdeen's Great Northern Road is "yet another breakthrough" for the party.But local Labour councillor George Adam said: "There are certainly people who are extremely concerned about this, who think the poster is offensive."And Ken Ferguson, of the Scottish Socialist Party, added: "It's not surprising that a poster for the BNP has attracted hostility. Their racist views are repugnant to the vast majority of people in Scotland."Grampian Police said four men aged between 20 and 25 have been charged in connection with three incidents involving the billboard.

The best April Fool this year

Preschoolers know all about brands...and that's a sign of intelligence

A new study released this month examined how well a group of 3- to 5-year-olds were able to recognize "child-oriented" brands. The answer—very able, thank you—is a parent's worst nightmare: Disney has almost certainly already colonized your 3-year-old's brain. McDonald's has planted a flag in there, too, along with My Little Pony and Pepsi and even Toyota. Preschoolers recognize brand names and symbols, and they are increasingly willing and able to make judgments about products and people based on associations with those brands, found the researchers at the University of Madison-Wisconsin and the University of Michigan.
That's the usual set-up for yet another article ringing the death knell for childhood innocence. And this is the part where you rush out and yank your kids away from the pernicious influence of the big, bad marketing machine. Everyone knows that advertising is bad for kids, right? It makes them putty in the hands of the purveyors of corn syrup and artificial coloring, and inspires them to want things that will only make them more stupid. We don't want kids to learn to recognize the golden arches. We want them to learn things that are useful and that help them function in our culture. We want kids learning things that support their ability to learn even more.  Which, it turns out, is exactly what identifying brands helps them do. Adults use branding as a shorthand to narrow choices and locate particular items or qualities they're seeking. In order to keep from being overwhelmed by choice and information on a daily basis, kids need to learn to do the same. Far from a lazy acceptance of spoon-fed culture, early recognition of the Hamburglar is proof of small, keen intellects hard at work decoding their environment
(Thanx Bill!)

What living in a free society entails...

Saturday, 3 April 2010

REpost: Erykah Badu - Window Seat


What a brilliant video!
#windowseat was shot guerilla style, no crew , 1 take , no closed set , no warning , 2 min . , don town dallas , then ran like hell... 

Girlz With Gunz # 95


rosemaryCNN
Reports from Russia: 1 of the female metro bombers was 17yo widow of Islamist rebel from north Caucasus.

Smoking # 55

Friday, 2 April 2010

World Autism Awareness Day

*Upgrade @320*


The track was originally written and recorded by Jon Anderson & Vangelis on their 1981 album 'The friends of Mr. Cairo'. Donna Summer recorded her version a year later on her 1982 self-titled album, with Quincy Jones producing. Her version of the song features an all-star choir including among others Michael Jackson, Brenda Russell, James Ingram, Dionne Warwick, Kenny Loggins, Lionel Richie and Stevie Wonder.

Dark Side of the 8-bit Moon