M.I.A. does NOT agree with the 'NY Times' assessment that Sri Lanka is the top destination spot this year!
Voyager
35 minutes ago
Wednesday 13 January 2010
Italian agent Claudio Pasqualin claims Inter Milan are preparing to make a formal transfer bid for Steven Gerrard.
The Italian giants believe Liverpool's owners could be tempted with a bid in the region of £40million for the skipper due to the current financial standing of the club.
Pasqualin - who is rumoured to be already working on a proposed summer offer - said: "Teams are already working for the market in June and there will be surprises.
"Inter are working on the Steven Gerrard prospective given Liverpool's economic difficulty."
The Liverpool skipper obviously isn't available as far as Rafa Benitez is concerned but the £40million question is, is he available as far as the owners are concerned?
Crazy
Apparently following the seventh death, in Dundee this time.
The anthrax/heroin story has finally reached the evening news bulletin in Scotland...
The anthrax/heroin story has finally reached the evening news bulletin in Scotland...
William Burroughs's Stuff photographed by Peter Ross
Like estate sales or cat burglary, Peter Ross’s photographs of William Burroughs’s possessions provide a glimpse into the material world of someone we thought we knew. In the interview below, Ross explains how the pictures (see here for the complete collection) explore the myth of the man through a selection of weird, touching, and often unexpected possessions found in Burroughs’s windowless New York City apartment, preserved since his death in 1997.
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How did you end up photographing William Burroughs’s stuff?
William Burroughs lived for many years in the former locker room of an 1880s YMCA, on the Bowery in New York City. The almost windowless space was known as The Bunker. When he died in 1997, his friend and mine, John Giorno, kept the apartment intact, with many of Burroughs’s possessions sitting as they were. Part of the space is now used for Buddhist teachings, and the apartment is a wonderful mix of Buddhist wall hangings and pillows and carpets and Burroughs’ personal furniture and collections.
Is the room still intact?
His bedroom is as he left it, with all his stuff in place. Giorno looks after it, and occasionally houses visiting artists and friends and Buddhist teachers who come to teach in the main area of the space.
Did these objects go back to their home after being photographed?
I spent my day going through the room and removing items to photograph on a backdrop that was set up in the kitchen, on Burroughs’s dining table. I would then return the objects to his room.
How did you choose what articles you wanted to photograph?
Most of the items just jumped out at me. How could I pull a book titled Medical Implications of Karate Blows out of a stack and not photograph it? Or the typewriter with his name on it? The blow darts and board that hang on the wall in his bedroom?
Well, how did you decide on the angle for each photograph—why the bottoms of the shoes, for example, instead of the tops?
I challenged myself to try and find what was unique to the items. I was looking for something historical and specific to their owner, and short of that I was pushing for an off-kilter angle or placement.
Shoes are just shoes, but only one man wore the holes into the bottoms of this pair. Just think of where these shoes have been, the conversations they have witnessed. These shoes likely have met many of my heroes of New York’s 1970s and ‘80s culture.
Was photographing each piece out of context an attempt to separate the stuff from the man? Should the pieces tell their own story?
I think it’s interesting that I know where these items sit and what those rooms look like. I know the lighting, the stillness, and the thick concrete walls, but the viewer does not. The viewer’s imagination is put into play with each image. That might not have been the case if these pictures included their physical surroundings.
I’m trying to look at these photos and separate the stuff from what I already know or think I know about Burroughs. But, blow darts, nunchucks, The Magical Art of Karate—it does seem appropriate for a man who shot his wife playing William Tell. Were you surprised? Did the nature of the things Burroughs had in his possession at the end of his life make sense to you?
I never met the man, and so I have no way of knowing what these items meant to him. Many seem representative of the ‘‘myth” of the man, and seem appropriate to the public image we all have of him. But I have no idea if he was a lover of pinwheels, a collector of old quilts, or a compulsive shoe shiner. Maybe John Giorno knows. Maybe no one does.
I have a sense that this stuff couldn’t have existed at the same time as an iPhone or even a digital camera—it seems very much from another era. Do you feel like this is just because Burroughs was old, or is there something else going on?
Well, I bet I’ll go through half a dozen iPhones in the time it would have taken Burroughs to resole those shoes. That makes me feel greedy, wasteful, and self-indulgent. Maybe I’d be better off keeping the modern world out. Maybe we all would. Let’s all just grab our nunchucks, put on our shoes and hat and walk the streets of Manhattan.
“Stuff” really is the perfect word to describe this collection. But what makes this “stuff” rather than belongings, or possessions, or effects? What does our stuff say about us, or Burroughs for that matter?
“Stuff” seems appropriately random and irreverent, although I don’t really mind what we call it. I use my grandfather’s ‘stuff’ in my daily life to eat, to keep time, to store clothes. These acts keep him with me. But to you, it’s just stuff, not memories. These items certainly tell a portrait of what interested this man, although none of us can know to what extent. Maybe I chose items that just played to his public image, the one in my head? Why didn’t I shoot his couch, or bedside lamps, or dining chairs?
If you could walk away with one item of Burroughs’s stuff, what would you take?
The shoeshine kit. My shoes are a mess.
How does the work compare to other projects you’ve done—your portraits or your photographs of brains, for example? Could it be said that these are portraits of the objects?
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find the right balance between people’s inner and outer identities, their common peacefulness. And the anonymous decades-old brains are a shared portrait of all of us. But these items are very specific to one man, and a man with a public identity at that. His portrait has been made over and over, and it exists inside many heads: the man in the suit, in the city or the country, wearing a hat, serious, maybe holding a rifle, or talking to Mick Jagger. This is as close as I can ever get to that man.
I tried to find something unique in each object, regardless of its history or ownership or curation. I love the brittle paper of the magazines, the shapes of the various bullets, and the textures and colors of the quilt.
(Via 'Mogadonia' with thanx!)
RIP MASOUD ALI MOHAMMADI
Professor of Physics
Department of Physics
University of Tehran
North Kargar Avenue
Tehran
Iran
Tel (+98-21) 88.63.30.21
Fax (+98-21) 88.00.47.81
e-mail: alimohmd@ut.ac.ir
Downloadable PDF's of his science papers
HERE
From a comment left at another blog:
"I am a theoretical physicist.
As I have explained other places, his articles are all of very theoretical/mathematical nature (quantum groups, Yang-Mills theory on curved spacetime, dark matter and such). None of these are closely related to what is needed to build a nuclear reactor, that is a job for experimental physicists and mainly engineers. It not very likely that he could do anything of importance in a nuclear project. Not to mention he could not be trusted, being a supporter of Moussavi.
Downloadable PDF's of his science papers
HERE
From a comment left at another blog:
"I am a theoretical physicist.
As I have explained other places, his articles are all of very theoretical/mathematical nature (quantum groups, Yang-Mills theory on curved spacetime, dark matter and such). None of these are closely related to what is needed to build a nuclear reactor, that is a job for experimental physicists and mainly engineers. It not very likely that he could do anything of importance in a nuclear project. Not to mention he could not be trusted, being a supporter of Moussavi.
It is quit(e) convenient that a foreign agency has killed a physicist unimportant for the nuclear project and a political opponent, in a time the regime really needs stuff for propaganda."
Okkervil River team up with Roky Erikson for new album
Fourteen years after his last album of original material, psych-rock legend and onetime 13th Floor Elevators frontman Roky Erickson is readying a new record called True Love Cast Out All Evil, out April 20 via Anti-. And he got some top-shelf help to bring his songs to life: fellow Austinites Okkervil River back Erickson on the whole LP, and Okkervil frontman Will Sheff produces. The team-up isn't a surprise, since Erickson played with Okkervil River at SXSW in 2008 and 2009.
The album features songs written by Erickson throughout his life, as well as "found-sound and archival recordings culled from Erickson's home videos and recordings made in the Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane," according to a press release. (Erickson spent several years in the hospital in the early 70s, after a drug possession arrest.)
Talking about the record in a press release, Sheff said, "When we started out, I was given sixty unreleased songs to choose from. There were songs written during business setbacks including the Elevators' painful breakup, songs written by Roky while he was incarcerated at Rusk, and a great deal of songs that reminded me of the sense of optimism and romanticism that I think sustained Roky through his worst years and ultimately reunited him, a few years ago, with his son Jegar and his first wife Dana."
Erickson has been plagued by mental illness for decades-- his plight was chronicled in the excellent 2005 documentary You're Gonna Miss Me.
UPDATE:
Assassinated professor's name among 420 Tehran Uni profs who supported Mousavi during #iranelection http://bit.ly/8hUTyI less than a minute ago from TweetDeck
It would also appear that the killed professor was not a nuclear physicist but a theoretical particle physicist
and was also a part of the SESAME Project.
It would also appear that the killed professor was not a nuclear physicist but a theoretical particle physicist
and was also a part of the SESAME Project.
Salman Sima Sentenced to Six-Year Jail Term #iranelection Ali Behzadian has been sentenced to 6 yrs, charged w spreading anti Gov news on Internet #iranelection half a minute ago from TweetDeck
Mohamad Reza Norbakhsh sentenced to 3 yrs, charged w operating the site Jomhoriat & spreading anti Gov news #iranelection
Hesam Tarmasi has been sentenced to 1 yr, charged with participating in illegal protests #iranelection less than a minute ago from Twubs
Mohamad Reza Norbakhsh sentenced to 3 yrs, charged w operating the site Jomhoriat & spreading anti Gov news #iranelection
Hesam Tarmasi has been sentenced to 1 yr, charged with participating in illegal protests #iranelection less than a minute ago from Twubs
Baidu hacked by 'Iranian cyber army'
A group claiming to be the Iranian Cyber Army redirected Baidu users to a site displaying a political message.
The site was down for at least four hours on Tuesday, Chinese media said.
Last year's attack on micro-blogging service Twitter had the same hallmarks, sending users to a page with an Iranian flag and message in Farsi.
"This morning, Baidu's domain name registration in the United States was tampered with, leading to inaccessibility," Baidu said in a statement.
Visitors to the site were greeted with the message: "This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army".
The message was accompanied by a picture of the national flag of Iran.
"In China, Baidu outranks Google as the search engine of choice, receiving millions of visits every day. That makes it an extremely attractive target for cybercriminals," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security firm Sophos.
Political graffiti
It is not yet clear whether the site itself was compromised or its so-called DNS records.
DNS records are like a telephone book, converting website names like baidu.com into a sequence of numbers understandable by the internet.
"It's possible someone changed the lookup, meaning whenever surfers entered baidu.com into their browsers they were instead taken to a website that wasn't under the search engine's control," explained Mr Cluley.
It seems as if the hackers used the attack as an opportunity to create political graffiti rather than inflict real damage.
"If that third party website had contained malware then millions of computers could have been infected and identities stolen," said Mr Cluley.
"Attacks like this are a reminder to everyone that you always need to have security scanning every webpage you visit, even if it's a well-known legitimate website," he added.
UPDATE
A terrorist group, whose radio station broadcast from the United States, took responsibility Tuesday for the fatal attack on an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran.
The Iran Royal Association, an obscure monarchist group that seeks to reestablish the Pahlavi reign in Iran, announced in a statement that its “Tondar Commandos” were behind the assassination of Masoud Ali-Mohammadi.
Israel and US behind blast that killed physicist says Tehran
Iranian state media have accused Israel and the US of being involved in a bomb attack which killed an Iranian physicist in Tehran.
State broadcaster Irib quoted Iran's foreign ministry spokesman as saying there were signs of Israeli and US involvement "in the terrorist act". Masoud Ali Mohammadi - described as a "devoted revolutionary professor" - was killed by a remotely-controlled bomb.
Israel and the US have so far made no comments about Tuesday's blast.
 | ANALYSIS  Jon Leyne, BBC Tehran correspondent The original story seemed straightforward. According to Iranian media, Masoud Ali Mohammadi was a nuclear scientist, assassinated by counter-revolutionaries, Zionists and agents of the "global arrogance". The implication was clear - it was a Western plot to sabotage Iran's nuclear programme. But as so often in Iran, there was more to it. According to British academics, Mr Mohammadi is an expert in another branch of physics, and highly unlikely to be involved in nuclear research. At the same time, the reformist movement issued what it said was evidence that Mr Mohammadi supported their presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi in last year's election. It all added to suspicions created by the unusually prompt and thorough coverage of his death in the Iranian media. Whatever actually happened, the opposition will certainly fear this killing will be used as an opportunity for a new crackdown. |
There was also confusion as to whether the attack had any political overtones.
One university official said Mr Mohammadi was not a political figure. But other reports said his name appeared on a list of academics backing opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi before the 2009 presidential election.
Tensions have been high in Iran since the disputed election led to mass protests against the government.
Mr Mohammadi, who worked at Tehran University, "was killed in a booby-trapped motorbike blast" in the city's northern Qeytariyeh district, state-run Press TV reported earlier.
It showed pictures from the scene of the blast, saying windows in the nearby buildings had been shattered by the force of the explosion.
'Triangle of wickedness'
Local media reports say the bomb was attached to a motorcycle parked outside Mr Mohammadi's home, although one agency said it had been planted in a rubbish bin.
 Professor Mohammadi was killed as he was leaving his home, media say |
Press TV quoted security officials at the scene as saying that the equipment and system of the bomb used in the attack had been related to a number of foreign intelligence agencies, particularly Israel's Mossad.
In its earlier report, Irib said Mr Mohammadi "was martyred this morning in a terrorist act by anti-revolutionary and arrogant powers' elements".
The BBC's Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne, who is in London, says Iran usually refers to its enemies in the West as "the arrogant powers".
The opposition in Iran will fear that Tuesday's blast will be used against it as part of a crackdown, our correspondent adds.
 |
Some conservatives have suggested that the People's Mujahideen Organisation - a banned militant group opposed to the Tehran government - was involved. The group denied the accusation.
No-one has claimed responsibility for the blast and at this stage there could only be speculation as to possible motives for the attack, correspondents say.
There has been much controversy over Iran's nuclear activities.
Tehran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful energy purposes, but the US and other Western nations suspect it of seeking to build nuclear weapons.
In December, Tehran accused Saudi Arabia of detaining an Iranian nuclear scientist and handing him over to the US.
Saudi Arabia denied the claim.
Out'n'about
Met up tonight with an old blogging compatriot 'The Sweet Spot Diviner' and when Rowland S. Howard was brought up in conversation I was asked if I had seen his brother Harry's band 'Pink Stainless Tail'?
Being a single mother of three I could only answer "I wish".
You can check them out
Tuesday 12 January 2010
Simon Reynolds' Notes on the noughties: Grime and dubstep – a noise you could believe in
If you were looking for something to believe in this last decade, you couldn't have done much better than that zone of music some of us have taken to calling the hardcore continuum.
In the noughties, sound-wise that meant grime and dubstep primarily (plus offshoots and edge cases like bassline and funky). But scene-wise it's fundamentally the same London-centric (but not limited to London) subculture that coalesced in the early 1990s and is based around pirate radio, dubplates, rewinds, MCs etc. What made it something to believe in? Well, there was the power of the music, obviously, and the way it seemed propelled by some relentless forward drive that was less a matter of ideology or aesthetic stance on the part of its creators than an inherent force within the music itself. Then there was its Britishness, and the things it told you about modern Britain: not always pretty, and not always communicated through words but through beats, bass, space and atmosphere. And finally it's because the music stirred up and surrounded itself with sharp thought at every level, from producers and artists to fans and professional observers. Some of this chatter was your typical inwardly focused "what's hot, what's not" discussion that you get in any musical niche, but quite a lot of it was attempting to work out the buried credo within the music, the reasons why it mattered and was so belief-worthy.
The hardcore continuum's claim to pre-eminence has always been that it's not just dance music. That's no slight to dance music, but the truth is that there's tons of it in the world, all different flavours, and if you fancied shaking your stuff in the noughties then you'd probably have been better off with hip-hop, or dancehall, or that hardy perennial house music. With jungle/garage/grime/dubstep, there's always been something extra, an X factor that made it "dance music + _____". The two main things that filled the blank were a) innovation, the idea that no other music around moved faster or mutated wider, and b) a relationship to "the real", whether that was coded as "street knowledge", "the dark side", late capitalism/post-socialist Britain, etc. In the noughties, the danceability element even slipped somewhat: grime was more moshable than groovy, while dubstep could be a bit slow-skank sluggish and head-noddy. But more relevant to this survey is that the pulse of those X-tra factors seemed to grow fainter as the decade proceeded, or at least more indistinct and muddled.
Let's look at innovation first. Dubstep's big foundational club called itself FWD>> but I think what happened in the noughties was that the innovatory drive shifted its axis and became less extensive than intensive: instead of giant strides into the unknown, it was about a quest for under-explored spaces and new hybrid possibilities within the frontiers staked out during the 90s. That decade had been convulsed by an acceleration (in tempo and complexity of rhythm) that impacted the dancefloor massive like g-force. Change was experientially measurable all through the 90s, in the way that the beats kept on testing the bodies of ravers. That headlong surge lasted from 1990-97: bpm kept rising, breakbeat science and bass-warpage got ever more intricate yet devastating. And then it hit a dead end. So the music stepped sideways into house-inspired sensuality, with speed garage. Assimilating R&B, the music got slower, slinkier and sexier and turned into 2step (and it's worth remembering that this decade started with 2step garage still reigning over the pop charts). Then UK garage itself split in two like a fertilised egg forming twins. Except these were non-identical twins: grime and dubstep, so unlike yet indissolubly bonded.
Where grime was verbose and articulate, dubstep was mute and atmospheric; where grime was aggressive and manic, dubstep was meditational and subdued. Although UK garage was the immediate ancestor, in crucial ways they were both more like the reactivation of different aspects of jungle. Grime's rapid-spat chat was the blossoming of the latent potential in jungle for the MC to become a star to rival the DJ, a genuine creative force. Dubstep picked up on the bass-drop, the aura of dread, the rootical echoes of 1970s reggae at its peak of spiritual militancy. But it shed jungle's hyperkinetic tempo and at the extreme (the style known as half-step) became as torpid as trip-hop. (Small wonder that Bristol was dubstep's second city.)
Grime and dubstep were brothers, often cohabiting on the same pirate stations, like Rinse FM. You didn't have to choose between the two, of course, but on a visceral, almost involuntary level the choice made itself for me. Grime was the one I believed in, or rather the one that kept me believing. From 2002-05 it felt like an unstoppable force, but in retrospect I can see why it never quite managed to bust through into the mainstream, at least on its own terms (as pure uncut grime as opposed to the innocuous poppified version that's topped the charts these last couple of years). With grime, those two X-tra factors were operating at full-tilt. The innovation was in your face, the jagged beats and harsh electronics making it music that few people would put on at home as relaxing listening. And then the real-ness was off the charts. For most British fans, I suspect, it was simply too close to home. Unlike American gangsta rap, which was well-produced and cinematic and had an element of exotic remoteness, grime was always going to remind non-converts, people from outside the scene itself, of hooded youths on the top deck of buses sodcasting tinny music at top volume out of their mobiles. But when it tried to nice itself up and play the pop game, it fell between two stools, as with Kano and Lady Sov's crossover bids.
Grime and dubstep were brothers, often cohabiting on the same pirate stations, like Rinse FM. You didn't have to choose between the two, of course, but on a visceral, almost involuntary level the choice made itself for me. Grime was the one I believed in, or rather the one that kept me believing. From 2002-05 it felt like an unstoppable force, but in retrospect I can see why it never quite managed to bust through into the mainstream, at least on its own terms (as pure uncut grime as opposed to the innocuous poppified version that's topped the charts these last couple of years). With grime, those two X-tra factors were operating at full-tilt. The innovation was in your face, the jagged beats and harsh electronics making it music that few people would put on at home as relaxing listening. And then the real-ness was off the charts. For most British fans, I suspect, it was simply too close to home. Unlike American gangsta rap, which was well-produced and cinematic and had an element of exotic remoteness, grime was always going to remind non-converts, people from outside the scene itself, of hooded youths on the top deck of buses sodcasting tinny music at top volume out of their mobiles. But when it tried to nice itself up and play the pop game, it fell between two stools, as with Kano and Lady Sov's crossover bids.
In contrast, dubstep's slightly lower levels of the two X-tra factors enabled it to prosper. Not in chart terms obviously, but it steadily accumulated an international audience (who could understand its non-verbal message in a way they could never with grime's spraying verbals). It also became an album-based form that captivated listeners who rarely or never actually checked out dubstep as a dancefloor scene. Burial was the great genre ambassador here, but figures like Shackleton, Pinch, Martyn and 2562 also helped to spread the music's reach by making it home-listening compatible. For much of the noughties, my annual favorites list has included a bunch of dubstep full-lengths but as an ex-raver used to the artificial NRG vibe I've generally found the music too downtempo as a dancefloor experience. With a handful of exceptions (Skream's Midnight Request Line, Benga & Coki's Nite), the Big Tracks rarely feel like anthems to my ears, although the scene's bangers can be impressively ugly and inhuman (as with Coki's Spongebob, whose metallic wobble-riff is apparently made from the cartoon character's laugh slowed down drastically).
My other misgiving about dubstep was always the discernible disconnect between what the music was attempting to signify – tension, menace, sufferation, Babylon-shall-fall – and the affable mellowness of the scene itself. If you went to a jungle or UK garage night back in the day, there'd be a palpable tension in the audience that could be uncomfortable but lent the experience a certain electricity. But with dubstep, there was a degree of non-congruence between the music and the vibe. Being extensions of rave, jungle and garage were weekender scenes; their audiences had stuff they needed to release. I don't get the sense that the same function of social catharsis was ever really served by dubstep. In the early days the scene's foundational club FWD>> was a Sunday night event, which suggests that the people attending had more flexible lives than hardcore ravers. It's a different demographic, with a much higher proportion of people who've been through (or are still in) higher education, and who work in jobs to do with information, media, design, etc. Everybody finally waking up to this mismatch between the scene's signifiers and its actual social reality might explain why dubstep has veered so dramatically in the last year or so from dread and darkness towards a cartoon ultra-brightness suggestive both of videogames and psychedelics. This year's array of post-dubstep sounds are no longer chained to realness but are much more about garish hyper-reality. "Purple", the buzz-term for the Bristol-based micro-genre created by Joker, Guido and others, is colour rich in psychotropic associations, from Jimi's Purple Haze to the "purple drank" cough syrup that Dirty South gangsta rappers love to sip.
And then there's funky: another London pirate continuum offshoot that's unshackled itself from the real. Merging the traditions of disco house and Caribbean upfulness (soca, etc), funky is about pure celebration, with a songbook that entirely consists of songs of love'n'desire or injunctions to party. Funky gets near to being just dance music without any X-factor element. Certainly the realness that grime and dubstep both overstated in their different ways now mainly subsists in funky's demographic, the fact that its audience is street, from "the ends". As for the other X factor, funky's champions point to the broken rhythms and lo-tech grittiness of some productions as proof that the spirit of innovation does persist here, it just doesn't make such a big song'n'dance about da phuture like yer Photeks and Goldies did back in the day.
One way of thinking about the hardcore continuum is as a game of two halves: the 90s and the noughties. The question now is whether the current moment is just extra time or whether there can actually be a third half. Or is UK urban underground dance turning into a completely different game, a whole other sport with new rules?
Sorry Simon, for probably the first time I disagree with you!
One only has to have got hold of the recent '5 Years of Hyperdub' compilation to hear that dubstep as it evolves IS where it is happening NOW.
But then we are both listening as ex-pats so what do we really know?
And I speak here as someone who apreciates that certain 'frisson' in the air having been to many a blues dance or sound-system from when I first set foot in London back in 1976.
And I speak here as someone who apreciates that certain 'frisson' in the air having been to many a blues dance or sound-system from when I first set foot in London back in 1976.
How Cocaine Scrambles Genes in the Brain
It's hardly a secret that taking cocaine can change the way you feel and the way you behave. Now, a study published in the Jan. 8 issue of Science shows how it also alters the way the genes in your brain operate. Understanding this process could eventually lead to new treatments for the 1.4 million Americans with cocaine problems, and millions more around the world.
The study, which was conducted on mice, is part of a hot new area of research called epigenetics, which explores how experiences and environmental exposures affect genes. "This is a major step in understanding the development of cocaine addiction and a first step toward generating ideas for how we might use epigenetic regulation to modulate the development of addiction," says Peter Kalivas, professor of neuroscience at the Medical University of South Carolina, who was not associated with the study.
Though we think about our genes mostly in terms of the traits we pass on to our children, they are actually very active in our lives every day, regulating how various cells in our bodies behave. In the brain this can be especially powerful. Any significant experience triggers changes in brain genes that produce proteins — those necessary to help memories form, for example. But, says the study's lead author, Ian Maze, a doctoral student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, "when you give an animal a single dose of cocaine, you start to have genes aberrantly turn on and off in a strange pattern that we are still trying to figure out."
Maze's research focused on a particular protein called G9a that is associated with cocaine-related changes in the nucleus accumbens, a brain region essential for the experience of desire, pleasure and drive. The role of the protein appears to be to shut down genes that shouldn't be on. One-time use of cocaine increases levels of G9a. But repeated use works the other way, suppressing the protein and reducing its overall control of gene activation. Without enough G9a, those overactive genes cause brain cells to generate more dendritic spines, which are the parts of cells that make connections to other cells.
Increases in the number of these spines can reflect learning. But in the case of addiction, that may involve learning to connect a place or a person with the desire for more drugs. Maze showed that even after a week of abstinence, mice given a new dose of cocaine still had elevated levels of gene activation in the nucleus accumbens, meaning G9a levels were still low. It is not known how long these changes can last. Maze also showed that when he intervened and raised G9a levels, the mice were less attracted to cocaine.
It's a big leap from a mouse study to a human study, of course — and an even bigger leap to consider developing a G9a-based treatment for addiction. The protein regulates so many genes that such a drug would almost certainly have unwanted and potentially deadly side effects. But a better understanding of the G9a pathways could lead to the development of safer, more specific drugs. And studying the genes that control G9a itself could also help screen people at risk for cocaine addiction: those with naturally lower levels of the protein would be the ones to watch. Still, there's a lot to be learned even from further mouse studies — particularly if the work involves younger mice, unlike the adults used in Maze's research.
"We know that the greatest vulnerability [to addiction] occurs when adolescents are exposed," says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the study. "Would you see the same results in adolescent [mice]? And what happens during fetal exposure?"
New treatments are definitely needed for cocaine addiction: there are helpful medications for addiction to heroin and similar drugs, but so far, none are particularly useful against stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamine. And with federal reports now showing that more than two-thirds of all cocaine in the country is cut with a veterinary deworming drug called levamisole, which can cause potentially fatal immune-system problems, the risks from cocaine are greater — and the search for new answers more urgent than ever.
Interview with Shirin Ebadi
The conflict in Iran is coming to a head: The state confronts demonstrators by brutal force. BZ editor Annemarie Rösch discussed the situation with Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate from Tehran.
BZ: Ms Ebadi, when will you return to Iran?
Ebadi: Iran is my base. My husband is there, my family. Due to the difficult situation, there is currently more that I can do for my country from abroad. If I return to Iran, everything can happen to me. You see, my sister was arrested just recently. They have taken my sister hostage, because none of my children is in Iran. My husband also is in danger in Iran. However, I will not do what they want me to do, I will not be silent.
BZ: Do you consider yourself a member of the opposition?
Ebadi: I am a human rights activist. I must not side with any one position. I do not belong to any of the opposition groups.
BZ: Currently it looks like protests are growing. What is your opinion on that?
Ebadi: Meanwhile, there are protests even in minor cities. People continue to take to the streets, knowing that they might even be killed during a demonstration. This shows how serious they are about their protest against the regime. On the other hand, much less people followed Ahmadinejad's invitation to join the pro-government rallies - even though Ahmadinejad's people rewarded them for their participation.
BZ: Do the protesters want the regime to be reformed from within, or do they prefer to abolish it?
Ebadi: Currently, the slogan is still "Death to the dictator". This means that the protesters above all want Ahmadinejad to resign. Their peaceful protests show that they want a peaceful reform from within - for now. However, they might eventually start chanting "death to the system". The regime should listen to the demands of the Iranians. If they don't, the protests will turn more radical.
BZ: Can the revolutionary leader Ali Khamenei actually still afford to cling to president Ahmadinejad, whom the opposition accuses of electoral fraud?
Ebadi: Right now there is no indication that Khamenei is ready to abandon Ahmadinejad. However, everything is possible in Iran.
BZ: What is your interpretation of the aggressive actions of the regime against the opposition?
Ebadi: Khamenei and Ahmadinejad both know how dangerous the situation is for them. That's why there is an increasing extent of violence. The more a regime feels threatened, the more it will resort to violence - everywhere in the world.
BZ: Allegedly, Ahmadinejad has expanded his influence on the clergy. What is your view on that?
Ebadi: Ayatollah Khamenei still controls everything. The question is, however, how long this will last.
BZ: What is the role of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guards who so brutally confront the protesters?
Ebadi: Well, what is striking is that Ahmadinejad has given the Revolutionary Guards access to many key positions. Today even the Chief Prosecutor has an aide who is a member of the Revolutionary Guards. That the military has such an important position in the judiciary is unprecedented.
BZ: Is it possible that the regime of the clergy will be replaced by a military dictatorship?
Ebadi: As I said, currently everything is possible in Iran - even a military dictatorship.
BZ: Could Iran become the first democratic state in the Near East?
Ebadi: I wish that. I hope that negotiations will take place between the regime and the opposition before violence escalates. Since the Iranians still remember very well how painful the revolution 30 years ago was for them, how many people died, I still hope for a reconciliation of the different political camps.
BZ: What kind of democracy do the protesters have in mind?
Ebadi: Many probably wish for a democratic system where state and religion are separate. This is what I personally would prefer as well. However, this separation is not the most important thing for me. There are secular states that do not deserve to be called democracies. What Iran needs is truly free elections. How exactly this democracy will look like in the end needs to be negotiated.
Satellite Crush - Paris to London
A backwards British Invasion....
After graduating from art school in Ohio, Elliot moved across the Atlantic to London, England with hopes of starting a band. Heavily influenced by British music, and determined to follow this path, he barely made ends meet by bar tending at a nearby pub and busking on the streets. In the extreme loneliness that followed, he spent much of his spare time writing songs in his small studio flat in central London. Having just left the girl with whom he was in love with, naturally she became the subject of many songs to follow.
Elliot began playing open mic shows around the city, eventually playing several solo gigs before forming a small band with several other Londoners he met at a show. Despite some promising success this however, proved to be short lived following some members' habits. In an attempt to escape the loneliness and addiction that London so warmly embraced, Elliot moved back to the states eventually planting himself in Los Angeles.
Shortly after moving to L.A, Satellite Crush was formed, basing their material around the songs that were written in London. The name came from a reference to the subject of the songs, the girl left behind, who he had minimal contact with while in London through emails, and occasionally a phone call, she was his "satellite crush".
Murdoch - you have SO much to answer for
Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, will return to her broadcast roots and take her conservative message to Fox News as a regular commentator, the cable channel announced Monday.
"I am thrilled to be joining the great talent and management team at Fox News," Palin said in a statement posted on the network's Web site. "It's wonderful to be part of a place that so values
fair and balanced news."
Fair & Balanced LOL!
Monday 11 January 2010
The Israel Lobby by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (2006)
For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.
Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.
Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing that given to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance since 1976, and is the largest recipient in total since World War Two, to the tune of well over $140 billion (in 2004 dollars). Israel receives about $3 billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-fifth of the foreign aid budget, and worth about $500 a year for every Israeli. This largesse is especially striking since Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to that of South Korea or Spain.
Other recipients get their money in quarterly installments, but Israel receives its entire appropriation at the beginning of each fiscal year and can thus earn interest on it. Most recipients of aid given for military purposes are required to spend all of it in the US, but Israel is allowed to use roughly 25 per cent of its allocation to subsidise its own defence industry. It is the only recipient that does not have to account for how the aid is spent, which makes it virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the US opposes, such as building settlements on the West Bank. Moreover, the US has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems, and given it access to such top-drawer weaponry as Blackhawk helicopters and F-16 jets. Finally, the US gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its Nato allies and has turned a blind eye to Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Washington also provides Israel with consistent diplomatic support. Since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It blocks the efforts of Arab states to put Israel’s nuclear arsenal on the IAEA’s agenda. The US comes to the rescue in wartime and takes Israel’s side when negotiating peace. The Nixon administration protected it from the threat of Soviet intervention and resupplied it during the October War. Washington was deeply involved in the negotiations that ended that war, as well as in the lengthy ‘step-by-step’ process that followed, just as it played a key role in the negotiations that preceded and followed the 1993 Oslo Accords. In each case there was occasional friction between US and Israeli officials, but the US consistently supported the Israeli position. One American participant at Camp David in 2000 later said: ‘Far too often, we functioned . . . as Israel’s lawyer.’ Finally, the Bush administration’s ambition to transform the Middle East is at least partly aimed at improving Israel’s strategic situation.
This extraordinary generosity might be understandable if Israel were a vital strategic asset or if there were a compelling moral case for US backing. But neither explanation is convincing. One might argue that Israel was an asset during the Cold War. By serving as America’s proxy after 1967, it helped contain Soviet expansion in the region and inflicted humiliating defeats on Soviet clients like Egypt and Syria. It occasionally helped protect other US allies (like King Hussein of Jordan) and its military prowess forced Moscow to spend more on backing its own client states. It also provided useful intelligence about Soviet capabilities.
Backing Israel was not cheap, however, and it complicated America’s relations with the Arab world. For example, the decision to give $2.2 billion in emergency military aid during the October War triggered an Opec oil embargo that inflicted considerable damage on Western economies. For all that, Israel’s armed forces were not in a position to protect US interests in the region. The US could not, for example, rely on Israel when the Iranian Revolution in 1979 raised concerns about the security of oil supplies, and had to create its own Rapid Deployment Force instead...
Continue reading
Lieberman And McCain In Israel Back Netanyahu Against Obama
Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain and fellow senator Independent Joe Lieberman said today they would oppose any move to withold loan guarantees to pressure Israel. The pair are in Israel and were meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
“I don’t think it’s helpful and I don’t agree with it,” McCain said in Yerushalayim. Lieberman said there would be a fight in Congress if a move to pressure Israel was initiated. “Any attempt to pressure Israel, to force Israel, to the negotiating table by denying Israel support will not pass the Congress of the United States,” Lieberman said.
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RIP Blasta
Just heard that someone I knew way back from my time in Amsterdam passed away in Cambodia on Xmas day.
If anyone out there knows more details could they get in touch.
Thank you.
A Film By Aron Ranen
From a comment left at the blog:
Please take a moment to watch my documentary film POWER AND CONTROL: LSD IN THE 60'S.
It features a new interview with Ram Dass about the Harvard days...
Plus, an actual participant in Tim Leary's Miracle of Good Friday Experiment....btw..when I interviewed him..he was the DEAN & President of the Divinity school where Leary recruited the original participants!
Lots more, CIA & LSD with Marty Lee, Groucho Marx's LSD trip with Paul Krassner....Free Speech Movement and ACID.
It features a new interview with Ram Dass about the Harvard days...
Plus, an actual participant in Tim Leary's Miracle of Good Friday Experiment....btw..when I interviewed him..he was the DEAN & President of the Divinity school where Leary recruited the original participants!
Lots more, CIA & LSD with Marty Lee, Groucho Marx's LSD trip with Paul Krassner....Free Speech Movement and ACID.
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