Something went very wrong for Vladimir Putin last Sunday. It was not just that the party of power, United Russia, lost popularity. That he could have expected and anyway he thought he had a plan. If voters had expressed their opposition either by boycotting the polls or spoiling their ballot papers, United Russia would have benefited, either by identity fraud or by legally acquiring their share of the vote.
Putin did not count on a third form of protest vote, as advocated by the blogger Alexei Navalny: voting for any party but United Russia proved a devastatingly successful tactic. A consensus was created between voters of different political colours – western-leaning liberals, nationalists, communists. When it found out what happened, the Kremlin went into a tailspin, and quickly had to make up the lost votes. United Russia's real vote in Moscow was 23.5%, but it came out officially at 46.5%. That means one million votes were stolen in one city alone. So the demonstration on Monday and the bigger one due this Saturday are about a concrete demand: a stolen election.
Thus far, Putin has responded with a series of panic measures. Calling Golos, Russia's only independent monitoring organisation, Judas and the agent of foreign governments is playing the nationalist card. It won't work, because Russian nationalists are by nature oppositional, and people like Navalny are more astute players of this game than the Kremlin. Shutting down websites was also a panic measure, and when they came back online, the flames were simply stoked again. Putin is learning what Mubarak in Egypt and Tunisia's Ben Ali could have told him. You cannot fight YouTube; certainly not after the clips of election commission officials stuffing ballot boxes have gone viral.
But here come the caveats. First, Moscow is not Russia. Big protest movements do start first in Moscow and spread outwards, as they did in the late 1980s. But this is not a snowy Tahrir Square, nor is it Ukraine in 2005. Not yet, anyway. If there were hundreds of thousands on the streets of Moscow, parallel demos in St Petersburg, Nizhni Novgorod, Ekaterinburg and Perm, then it could be. But this is very far from being the case now. The democrats are low in the public esteem, after the damage they did to democracy when they were in power. The opposition is leaderless. Besides, the target of voter ire is not Putin but his appointees. Putin himself has no serious political rivals. Yet.
This political crisis – and let us be clear, this is the biggest political challenge he has faced to date – is as much a result of his mistakes as it is of disenchanted voters. The biggest mistake was to announce he was swapping jobs with Dmitry Medvedev a month before the elections. This humiliated voters, because it made them redundant. This is the contradiction inherent in the concept of a managed democracy, or electoral authoritarianism. Getting the elite to do what it is you want them to do is easier than getting people to vote for it. Elections need votes. Despots rely on elections not as a means of expression, but as an act of acclamation. A dictator certainly does not go to the electorate for a mandate; he believes he already has one. Another mistake was to remove from the elite anyone powerful enough to represent a different line or policy. The elite is unbalanced and only one man matters.
Putin has not decided what to do. There is ample scope for him to make matters worse. He could do this by a combination of more repression and scapegoating. He could turn the water cannons on the next demonstration and organise a show trial of one egregious case of corruption. The other option is to take the message he has been delivered to heart. But this is not without risk. Separating yourself from the party of forgers and crooks will not be easy, if you yourself can be accused of the same thing on a bigger scale. It's his call to make. What he can not do is pretend that none of this is happening.
@'The Guardian'

Twitter Bots Drown Out Anti-Kremlin Tweets

A (J.) Spaceman

Spiritualized Announce New Album

Jason Pierce (aka J. Spaceman)'s Spiritualized have announced the release of their seventh album, Sweet Heart Sweet Light, on March 19th through Double Six.
Sweet Heart Sweet Light was recorded over the last two years in Iceland, LA and Wales, and mixed at home by Pierce over the last year.
"This time around, I wanted to do something that encompassed all I love in rock 'n' roll music," said Pierce. "It's got everything from Brotzmann and Berry right through to Dennis and Brian Wilson. I'm obsessed with music and the way you put it together and I don't believe there are any rules."
The full tracklist for the album runs as follows: 'Hey Jane'
'Little Girl'
'Get What You Want'
'Too Late'
'Heading For The Top'
'Freedom'
'I Am What I Am'
'Mary'
'Life Is A Problem'
'So Long You Pretty Things'
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In Tokyo Tonight?

ON-U SOUND ダブと爆音の冒険
― その30年に捧げる一夜限り戦慄の重低音パーティー！ ―
ADRIAN SHERWOOD DUB SESSIONS: ON-U SOUND 30TH SPECIAL
2011.12.9 FRI @ SOUND MUSEUM VISION (www.vision-tokyo.com)
OPEN, START: 23:00
TICKET: ADV. ￥3,500 / DOOR ￥4,000
UKアンダーグラウンド・シーンに多大なる影響を与えて来たON-U SOUNDが、ファースト・リリースから30年を迎えた。そのON-U SOUNDの首領でありダブ界の第一人者、ADRIAN SHERWOODを迎え、強烈なパーティーが開催される！当日、会場となる渋谷SOUND MUSEUM VISIONに大口径サブウーファーを大量導入決定！！
ADRIAN SHERWOODによるON-U SOUNDの過去30年と未来とをぶった切るスペシャル・ダブ・セットや、またON-U SOUNDと言えば、日本が誇るAUDIO ACTIVEが実に久しぶりにステージに姿を現す！しかもADRIANがダブ・ミックスする必見のライブだ！
15年に渡って日本のベース・ミュージック・シーンを支えて来たKURANAKA、驚きの全編インスト・アルバムを発表するAO INOUE、ドライ＆ヘビーやリトル・テンポ、フライング・リズムス等のミキシング・エンジニアとして大活躍をしてきたNAOYUKI UCHIDAが秘蔵マルチテープを持ち込みスペシャルなダブ・ミックスを披露する。また客演でLIKKLE MAIも参加！
ハウス～テクノ～ダブ、様々な音楽を呑みつくし、唯一無二のDJプレイでフロアを暑苦しくしてきたMOODMAN。日本が誇るレゲエ・ミュージシャン/トラック・メーカー/プロデューサー、森俊也と外池満広による、NEW ROOTS～DUB IMPROVISATIONユニット、DOUBLE BARREL。
レーベル「PART2STYLE」のコアメンバーによって構成され、ダンスホールレゲエのサウンドシステムスタイルを軸に、ジャングル、ダブ、ダブステップ等も織り交ぜ幅広くプレイするPART2STYLE SOUND。道無き道を切り開くが如く突進する猛獣のようなドラム達を世に放ち、他の追随を全く寄せ付けない完全オリジナルなビート職人O.N.O 。
FLOWER OF LIFEを核に、トラックライブ/DJ/スタジオワークを様々な名義を使い分け、しかける奇人ALTZ。
HIP HOPをルーツにしながらも様々な幅広い音楽表現で、80年代後半から90年代にかけて国内外の様々なレジデント、DJとして輝かしい経歴を持つDJ KENSEIなどなど。
ダブやベース・ミュージックをキーワードに、問答無用の錚々たる連中がここVISIONに集結する！
一切の普通を排除した有り得ない歴史的一夜を体感すべし！
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The Future of 'On the Wire'

Everyone has heard about the cuts that are about to be made by the BBC in the "Drive for Quality" initiative. What is not so well known is how these cuts will impact the specialist shows hosted by local radio. Effectively there will be no "local radio" after seven o'clock in the evening. Shows will be shared between groups of stations. In the North West this group will be the Lancashire, Manchester and Merseyside stations. At this stage it is understood that BBC Radio Lancashire will only be responsible for shared programming on a Sunday afternoon. The high probability is that any output in this slot will be in an "easy listening" format. Therefore. sometime between now and April 2013, by which time all the agreed changes will be implemented, On the Wire will disappear from the airwaves after over twenty eight years of continuous broadcasting.
The proposals are subject to public consultation by the BBC Trust - so you can have your say and, hopefully, make a difference. Go to www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust and look for the "consultation" button or write to Lord Patten, Chairman, BBC Trust, 180 Great Portland Street, London W1W 5QZ. You could also write to your MP and local paper.
Failing all this being successful, we will be aiming for On the Wire to continue one way or another, preferably still within the BBC where the programme was identified as a unique BBC product by the BBC Board back in November 1991 when the show was last under threat.
Thanks for your support.
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@SaveOnTheWire

SaveOnTheWire Save On The Wire

A certain Steve Barker was the one that introduced Lee Scratch Perry to @onusherwood. History was made!

For Son#2 :)

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TIME's The Top 10 Everything of 2011

1. Occupy Wall Street Protests Spread

My Occupy LA Arrest

Denis Chapon: 12 Drawings a Day

During 3 years (2008-2011) i have been drawing 12 drawing of animation every day, it make one second of film. I had no plans what so ever before starting the first drawing. And then, each of the folowing days, I took the 3 last drawing from the day before and kept on animating. I use a none erasable pen, and drew on the back side of used A4 paper.
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