Moon Duo - Occult Architecture Vol. 2
43 minutes ago
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Was George Orwell a fan of the News of the World?
In its final issue, the News of the World made much of a 1946 George Orwell essay in which the great writer had namechecked it. But was the Animal Farm author really an admirer of the paper?
History was always going to play a major part in the News of the World's final issue. With few big stories, past glories were to the fore, including the paper's first ever front page from 1 October 1843. On page three, the paper opted for a farewell editorial. It began with a quote from George Orwell - used as a character witness for the paper - repeating the opening of his famous essay Decline of the English Murder.
"It is Sunday afternoon, preferably before the war. The wife is already asleep in the armchair, and the children have been sent out for a nice long walk. You put your feet up on the sofa, settle your spectacles on your nose and open the News of the World."
The News of the World editorial said of Orwell's words: "They were written in 1946 but they have been the sentiments of most of the nation for well over a century and a half as this astonishing paper became part of the fabric of Britain, as central to Sunday as a roast dinner."
But was that what Orwell was really saying? The blogger and communications expert Max Atkinson says they have linked the great writer to some dubious claims. "Are they part of the fabric of Britain? No! As central to Sunday as roast dinner? No! This is self aggrandising, megalomaniac, boastful and untrue stuff."
Orwell was interested in the lives of the working class. But while the essay depicts the quintessential lazy Sunday, it also satirises the prurience that newspapers - the News of the World is the only one mentioned by name - encourage.
"In these blissful circumstances, what is it that you want to read about?" the essay reads. "Naturally, about a murder." Orwell goes on to relate how these murders are "re-hashed over and over again by the Sunday papers".
Atkinson remembers the paper even in the late 1950s as being too racy for him to be allowed to read at boarding school. "In those days they'd send stringers around to the local Crown Courts to report on the local sex cases. They were constantly talking about people having carnal knowledge with underage girls."
For him, Orwell's essay is far from complimentary to the News of the World. "It doesn't sound to me as though the quote they used was Orwell doing a top reader recommends. They're misrepresenting Orwell to suggest he's a fan of the paper." Orwell bibliographer Peter Davison says that in Decline of the English Murder he neither approves nor disapproves of the paper. "He's describing a scene in ordinary households about what's happening on a Sunday afternoon. He had a very good idea of how ordinary people lived."
He has no problem with the News of the World's use of the essay - "they picked up a good quote and used it". But Orwell was often critical of the press. He worried about the power of right-wing press barons then and it is unlikely he would have approved of a Rupert Murdoch now, he says.
"I don't think he would have approved of a newspaper baron who lived abroad and changed his nationality to advance his business interests."
Nick Cohen, author of What's Left, says Orwell loved the "vulgar working class culture" that went hand-in-hand with the News of the World.
In today's terms the 1946 News of the World fitted into the notion of English decency that the Decline of the English Murder was about, Cohen argues. "It was very genteel, it wouldn't run a story like today's paper would have done. It was raucous but also very well written."
Orwell saw the paper as part of decent working class life. For that reason the News of the World are entitled to trumpet his essay about the paper's past, Cohen says. But that was 1946.
"How can you tell what a writer who died in 1950 would say about 2011?" he asks.
Cohen guesses that if Orwell were alive today, he would have been "depressed" by what he read.
Tom de Castella @'BBC'
Beck meets former chair of terror organization
Kach and Kahane Chai (a faction of the party, formed after Kahane’s death) were outlawed in Israel. Both groups are considered terrorist organizations by Canada, the European Union and the United States.
See, for example, item 20 of the State Department’s current list of designated foreign terrorist 0rganizations.
I am sure that Beck, a self appointed expert on terrorism and the new world order, will explain this as part of his field work.
Don’t miss Ami Kaufman’s report from the historic event.
@'+972'
Israel Begins Deporting "Fly-In" Activists
Bethlehem, West Bank - Israel prevented a gathering of foreigners here on Friday by blocking, deterring or deporting hundreds of air travelers who had been invited by Palestinian activists to fly into Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport and then travel to the West Bank for a week of “fellowship and actions.”
Israel has traditionally been welcoming of foreign tourists, including more than a million Christian pilgrims who visited this Palestinian city of the Nativity last year. But the Israeli authorities prepared for days to head off Friday’s planned fly-in. The Israeli news media added to the hype by calling it a “flightilla” — a reference to the flotilla of boats that was supposed to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza last month but has been stymied by Israeli pressure and by the cooperation of the Greek port authorities.
As a result, most of the foreigners who planned to fly to Tel Aviv and join the “Welcome to Palestine” initiative were either deterred from trying to come or were prevented from boarding flights to Israel by foreign airlines, on instructions from the Israelis.
The Palestinian hosts decried the Israeli measures, but also chalked up a small victory.
Fadi Kattan, a Palestinian organizer, said at a news conference in Bethlehem that he was “pleased — sadly pleased” that the episode had exposed what he described as Israel’s draconian anti-Palestinian policies...
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Brazil Reaches Wind Energy Milestone
According to the Brazilian Association of Ecological Energy ABEEólica, by 2013 the nation is on track to produce as much as 5.3 gigawatts of electricity through wind farm projects, and an eight-fold increase in capacity over the next five years -- the highest growth potential in South America, says Renewable Energy Focus.
But despite Brazil's improving clean energy infrastructure derived from wind, it is not without its shortcomings, particularly compared to gains being made in other developing countries. There remains huge swaths of land that have yet to be explored as potential sites for wind farms, largely because the cost to build them is too high compared to other energy sources. Currently, wind accounts for less than one percent of total energy produced in Brazil, though that number is bound to rise...
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Stephen Messenger @'treehugger'
Monday, 11 July 2011
MichaelWolffNYC MichaelWolff
#MURDOCHGATE Get out of Dodge strategy being discussed at News Corp: Sell all of News Int.
#MURDOCHGATE Get out of Dodge strategy being discussed at News Corp: Sell all of News Int.
GeorgeMichael George Michael
Just spoke to my lawyer.... apparently they want to interview me about my comments on Rebekah Brooks here on twitter...
Mona says This?
Mona says This?
Paul McGuinness - Digital downloads: The 'age of free' is coming to an end
Three years ago, somewhere between U2’s album No Line on the Horizon and the 360 Degree world tour, I plunged into the raging debate over the future of music in the age of “free”.
My campaign has focused on the role of internet companies, and the crucial difference they could make if they confronted the systemic copyright infringement that has helped wipe out so many musicians, bands and labels in recent years. It has been a frustrating and slow-moving process. In many countries internet service providers (ISPs) have consistently and stubbornly resisted cooperation.
This week, however, from the world’s largest entertainment market, the US, comes good news. The biggest US ISPs have just agreed with music and film industries to introduce a new system of “copyright alerts”. These are warnings that, with escalating urgency, aim to nudge broadband users away from piracy towards downloading and streaming music from legitimate services. There will be the prospect of deterrent sanctions for those who repeatedly ignore the warnings.
This has been agonisingly slow in coming, but it is an important step forward in the international debate over music in the digital age. The idea of ISPs taking on obligations to stop copyright theft on their networks is moving into the mainstream.
The US is not the first country where ISPs have started to cooperate with rights holders. Similarly sensible thinking broke out in France in 2007, thanks to President Sarkozy. France, along with a growing number of other countries, including South Korea and most recently New Zealand, has introduced a so-called graduated response law, obliging ISPs to take proactive steps to help curb copyright abuse. The UK has passed its Digital Economy Act which, if it is implemented effectively, will go down a similar route.
Different countries will approach this their own way, and there can be no one model for exactly how ISPs get involved. The US agreement is a voluntary private sector deal – elsewhere the route almost certainly needs to be different. In virtually all other countries, private negotiations have proved worse than fruitless, leaving legislation as the only route possible.
Why is the needle in this debate on the move? First, no doubt because “free” is no longer just a problem for the music industry. Film studios, book publishers and newspapers are all now in the same storm, caught in a race against the clock to sort out successful business models before being sunk by illegal file-sharing or other forms of “free”.
Another reason is that it is nowadays impossible to argue, as many used to, that there is a purely market-based solution to piracy. The music industry has led the field with new models for consumers – there are over 470 digital music services worldwide, many of them “free-to-consumer” sites such as Spotify and We7. None of these services has much hope of long- term success while competing in a world where, according to IFPI, 95 per cent of all music downloads are illegal.
For some years, “fighting free with free” seemed the answer to all our problems. Today, that honeymoon is over. Spotify, in many countries the champion of the free-to-consumer music streaming service, is now cutting back on its free offering. It is trying to migrate its fans into payers, offering a £10 monthly subscription. That is a huge challenge.
Like newspapers which have hastened to erect website pay walls they prematurely abandoned years ago, the music industry has discovered an inconvenient truth – “free” does not really pay. It cannot sustain the artist royalties, the copyright fees and the investment that makes the artist’s career possible in the first place.
And that is the fundamental problem – who will fund the future of music? This is not an issue that directly affects a band like U2, of course. Yet I still don’t see a clear answer to the question I asked in my maiden “ISP speech” three years ago – in a world of 95 per cent piracy, where is the investment going to come from to fund the next generation of bands such as U2 and Coldplay?
The answer to me is clear. A thriving music business needs a fair, responsible environment to work in, and ISPs, the internet's gatekeepers, hold the key to this. By the graduated response approach and other measures like systematically blocking infringing websites they can significantly reduce digital piracy. Surveys, the latest by Hadopi in France in May, prove what should be obvious: that when people see rules protecting copyright being enforced, they actually change their behaviour.
No one expects teenagers brought up in the age of Limewire to convert overnight to legal download sites. Yet the migration to legitimate ways of enjoying music, respecting copyright owners, will happen over time.
The ISP agreement in the US is good news for music and the creative industries. It is time now for action elsewhere. In Europe, Commissioner Barnier is reviewing EU copyright enforcement rules for the digital age. This is a chance for Europe to use its legislative clout to get ISPs to cooperate.
Other governments have long been debating their own approaches. Now is the time to stop the thumb-twiddling and the soul-searching. ISPs need to be active partners, not bystanders, in shaping a legitimate internet where artists and creators can be sustained by their work. In the US they have made a welcome voluntary step in that direction. Elsewhere, it will need the pressure of government and legislation to make it happen.
Paul McGuinness is the Manager of U2.
@'The Telegraph'
I really do NOT like being lectured to by millionaire, tax avoiders...how about you?
And don't worry I think U2's music is so crap that I don't even download it for free!
Why is the needle in this debate on the move? First, no doubt because “free” is no longer just a problem for the music industry. Film studios, book publishers and newspapers are all now in the same storm, caught in a race against the clock to sort out successful business models before being sunk by illegal file-sharing or other forms of “free”.
Another reason is that it is nowadays impossible to argue, as many used to, that there is a purely market-based solution to piracy. The music industry has led the field with new models for consumers – there are over 470 digital music services worldwide, many of them “free-to-consumer” sites such as Spotify and We7. None of these services has much hope of long- term success while competing in a world where, according to IFPI, 95 per cent of all music downloads are illegal.
For some years, “fighting free with free” seemed the answer to all our problems. Today, that honeymoon is over. Spotify, in many countries the champion of the free-to-consumer music streaming service, is now cutting back on its free offering. It is trying to migrate its fans into payers, offering a £10 monthly subscription. That is a huge challenge.
Like newspapers which have hastened to erect website pay walls they prematurely abandoned years ago, the music industry has discovered an inconvenient truth – “free” does not really pay. It cannot sustain the artist royalties, the copyright fees and the investment that makes the artist’s career possible in the first place.
And that is the fundamental problem – who will fund the future of music? This is not an issue that directly affects a band like U2, of course. Yet I still don’t see a clear answer to the question I asked in my maiden “ISP speech” three years ago – in a world of 95 per cent piracy, where is the investment going to come from to fund the next generation of bands such as U2 and Coldplay?
The answer to me is clear. A thriving music business needs a fair, responsible environment to work in, and ISPs, the internet's gatekeepers, hold the key to this. By the graduated response approach and other measures like systematically blocking infringing websites they can significantly reduce digital piracy. Surveys, the latest by Hadopi in France in May, prove what should be obvious: that when people see rules protecting copyright being enforced, they actually change their behaviour.
No one expects teenagers brought up in the age of Limewire to convert overnight to legal download sites. Yet the migration to legitimate ways of enjoying music, respecting copyright owners, will happen over time.
The ISP agreement in the US is good news for music and the creative industries. It is time now for action elsewhere. In Europe, Commissioner Barnier is reviewing EU copyright enforcement rules for the digital age. This is a chance for Europe to use its legislative clout to get ISPs to cooperate.
Other governments have long been debating their own approaches. Now is the time to stop the thumb-twiddling and the soul-searching. ISPs need to be active partners, not bystanders, in shaping a legitimate internet where artists and creators can be sustained by their work. In the US they have made a welcome voluntary step in that direction. Elsewhere, it will need the pressure of government and legislation to make it happen.
Paul McGuinness is the Manager of U2.
@'The Telegraph'
I really do NOT like being lectured to by millionaire, tax avoiders...how about you?
And don't worry I think U2's music is so crap that I don't even download it for free!
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