Eberhard Weber on ECM: Primary Colours
3 hours ago
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
NaomiAKlein < Isn't Bono's RED all about buying lots of corporate crap to show how much we care about poverty? What's the difference? http://is.gd/flly7
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
If I can handle this, I can handle the fugn Fall!
The Spaceboy and I had a BIG day out...
to say the least...now I need two days to recover!
Monday, 20 September 2010
REpost: Could you torture somebody? Would you?
Stanley Milgram’s 1961 obedience to authority experiment countered the participant’s moral beliefs against the demands of authority. For this study, Milgram took out a newspaper ad that offered $4.50 for one hour of work, at Yale University, for a psychology experiment that sought to investigate memory and learning. Participants were told that the study would look at the relationship of punishment in learning, and that one person would be the teacher, and the other would be the learner (a confederate), and that these roles would be determined by a random drawing. The learner was then strapped into a chair, and electrodes are attached to their arm. It was explained to both the teacher and the learner that the electrodes were attached to an electric shock generator, and that shocks would serve as punishment for incorrect answers. The experimenter then states that the shocks will be painful, but that they will not cause any permanent tissue damage, while in reality no shocks would actually be received. The teacher and learner are then divided into separate rooms.
The experimenter shows the teacher the shock generator, which has 30 switches, with a voltage ranging from 15-450 volts, and are labeled from “slight shock” to “danger: severe shock,” and the last switch labeled “XXX.” The teacher is told that it is their job to teach the learner a simple paired associate task, and that they must punish the learner for incorrect answers, by increasing the shock 15 volts each time. The teacher was then given a 15 volt shock to show that the generator was actually working. When the experiment begins, the learner found the task to be difficult and made various mistakes, which resulted in increasing intensity of the shocks. When the machine reached 75, 90, and 105 volts, the teacher could hear the learner grunting through the wall, and at 120 volts the learner claimed that the shocks were getting painful, and at 150 volts he screamed, “get me out of here! I refuse to go on.” When the teacher questioned progressing, the experimenter said things such as, “you can’t stop now,” or “the experiment depends on your continuing compliance.” As the shock voltage increased the learner cried out, “I can’t stand the pain,” at 300 volts the learner began to pound on the wall and demanded to be let out. When the machine reached 330 volts there was no longer any noise coming from the learner. The experimenter then told the teacher that his lack of response was to be considered as an incorrect answer, and that shocks were to still be administered. The experiment concludes when the highest shock level is reached.
Milgram found that 65% of participants would render shock levels of 450 volts, and that these were everyday normal people. In the post-experiment interview, Milgram asked the participants to rate how painful they thought the shocks were, the typical answer was extremely painful. Most of the subjects obeyed the experimenter, however the subjects did show obvious signs of an internal struggle, and demonstrated reactions such as nervous laughter, trembling, and groaning. These interviews confirmed that everyday normal people can cause pain and suffering to another person, under the right set of circumstances. Milgram also found the tendency of the teacher to devalue the learner, by saying such phrases as, “he is so dumb he deserves to get shocked,” which helped to interally justify the teachers behavior of continuing to administer the shocks. This experiment by Milgram has given a tremendous amount of insight into human behavior and obedience.
Milgram summarized the experiment in his 1974 article, "The Perils of Obedience", writing:
'The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.
Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.'
Melbourne psychologist and writer Gina Perry has now tracked down and interviewed four participants in the 1961 experiment and the resulting hour long programme, 'BEYOND THE SHOCK MACHINE' broadcast on Radio National here in Australia in October 2008.
Sunday, 19 September 2010
Israeli Beauty Products Company Ahava Complicit in the Sins of Occupation
Walk into any Ricky's store, a beauty shop chain in New York, and you will find a shelf filled with Ahava products. For $28, you can buy mineral toning cleanser; for $22, Dead Sea liquid salt; and for $9, purifying mud soap. The products made by Ahava (which means "love" in Hebrew) seem innocent enough, perfectly enticing for anyone fond of beauty products.
But looks can be deceiving. As activists from the peace group CodePink's Stolen Beauty campaign are fond of chanting at protests, Ahava can't hide its "dirty side."
For nearly two years, an international campaign spearheaded by Palestine solidarity activists has targeted Ahava and the various stores that carry its products, including Ricky's, calling for a boycott. The boycott campaign has heated up recently, eliciting push-back from Jewish organizations around the country and a response from the CEO of Ahava.
While Ahava labels its products "made in Israel," they are actually manufactured in a settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in Palestine. According to the Web site Who Profits?, a project of the Israeli anti-occupation group Coalition of Women for Peace, the company exploits Palestinian resources from the Dead Sea.
Under the Geneva Conventions, and various United Nations resolutions, all of Israel's settlements--which house about 500,000 settlers--are illegal, as is excavating natural resources in an occupied area. Israel has occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip since the 1967 Six-Day War. The settlements are widely seen as an obstacle to the creation of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state.
"[The boycott] is about a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians," said Nancy Kricorian, CodePink's coordinator for the Stolen Beauty campaign. "The situation on the ground there is dehumanizing and demoralizing and terrible."
Ahava, which rakes in profits of nearly $150 million a year, according to a Dec. 2009 CNN report, is owned by entities deeply involved in Israel's settlement project in the occupied West Bank. According to Who Profits? 37 percent of the company is owned by Mitzpe Shalem, an illegal settlement located in the eastern West Bank; another 37 percent by the private investment fund Hamashibr Holdings, which also is a major shareholder in two companies that export produce made in settlements; 18.5 perent by the U.S.-based Shamrock Holding, owned by the Roy E. Disney family of Walt Disney fame, and which is a shareholder in a company that manufactures electronic detection systems that are used on the West Bank separation barrier; and 7.5 percent by the West Bank settlement of Kalia.
In an interview, Kricorian acknowledged that Ahava is a huge target, and likened the Stolen Beauty campaign to a "game of whack-a-mole," as new places where Ahava products are sold pop up frequently. But Kricorian says it isn't just about hurting the company's sales.
"A boycott campaign is strategic, and it's a long-term thing," she said. "It's not just about hurting the company's sales. It's also about educating the public about, in this particular case, the company's illegal practices and sullying the company's name and reputation."...
Continuue reading
But looks can be deceiving. As activists from the peace group CodePink's Stolen Beauty campaign are fond of chanting at protests, Ahava can't hide its "dirty side."
For nearly two years, an international campaign spearheaded by Palestine solidarity activists has targeted Ahava and the various stores that carry its products, including Ricky's, calling for a boycott. The boycott campaign has heated up recently, eliciting push-back from Jewish organizations around the country and a response from the CEO of Ahava.
While Ahava labels its products "made in Israel," they are actually manufactured in a settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in Palestine. According to the Web site Who Profits?, a project of the Israeli anti-occupation group Coalition of Women for Peace, the company exploits Palestinian resources from the Dead Sea.
Under the Geneva Conventions, and various United Nations resolutions, all of Israel's settlements--which house about 500,000 settlers--are illegal, as is excavating natural resources in an occupied area. Israel has occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip since the 1967 Six-Day War. The settlements are widely seen as an obstacle to the creation of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state.
"[The boycott] is about a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians," said Nancy Kricorian, CodePink's coordinator for the Stolen Beauty campaign. "The situation on the ground there is dehumanizing and demoralizing and terrible."
Ahava, which rakes in profits of nearly $150 million a year, according to a Dec. 2009 CNN report, is owned by entities deeply involved in Israel's settlement project in the occupied West Bank. According to Who Profits? 37 percent of the company is owned by Mitzpe Shalem, an illegal settlement located in the eastern West Bank; another 37 percent by the private investment fund Hamashibr Holdings, which also is a major shareholder in two companies that export produce made in settlements; 18.5 perent by the U.S.-based Shamrock Holding, owned by the Roy E. Disney family of Walt Disney fame, and which is a shareholder in a company that manufactures electronic detection systems that are used on the West Bank separation barrier; and 7.5 percent by the West Bank settlement of Kalia.
In an interview, Kricorian acknowledged that Ahava is a huge target, and likened the Stolen Beauty campaign to a "game of whack-a-mole," as new places where Ahava products are sold pop up frequently. But Kricorian says it isn't just about hurting the company's sales.
"A boycott campaign is strategic, and it's a long-term thing," she said. "It's not just about hurting the company's sales. It's also about educating the public about, in this particular case, the company's illegal practices and sullying the company's name and reputation."...
Continuue reading
AlexKane @'AlterNet'
Saturday, 18 September 2010
Row after Pope's remarks on atheism and Nazis
A speech in which the Pope appeared to associate atheism with the Nazis has prompted criticism from humanist organisations.
However, the Catholic Church has moved to play down the controversy, saying the Pope knew "rather well what the Nazi ideology is about".
Humanists have said the comments were a "terrible libel" against non-believers.
In his address, the Pope spoke of "a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society".
He went on to urge the UK to guard against "aggressive forms of secularism".
The Pope made his remarks in his opening address to the Queen at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.
He said: "Even in our own lifetimes we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live.
"As we reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny."
'Highly political'
A statement from the British Humanist Association said the Pope's remarks were "surreal".
It said: "The notion that it was the atheism of Nazis that led to their extremist and hateful views or that it somehow fuels intolerance in Britain today is a terrible libel against those who do not believe in God.
"The notion that it is non-religious people in the UK today who want to force their views on others, coming from a man whose organisation exerts itself internationally to impose its narrow and exclusive form of morality and undermine the human rights of women, children, gay people and many others, is surreal."
The German-born Pope has previously spoken of his time growing up under the "monster" of Nazism.
He joined the Hitler Youth at 14, as was required of young Germans at the time.
Late on in WWII he was drafted into an anti-aircraft unit in Munich.
He deserted the German army towards the end of the war and was briefly held as a prisoner-of-war by the Allies in 1945.
The Pope's conservative, traditionalist views were intensified when teaching at the University of Bonn in the 1960s he was said to be appalled at the prevalence of Marxism among his students.
In his view, religion was being subordinated to a political ideology that he considered "tyrannical, brutal and cruel".
He would later be a leading campaigner against liberation theology, the movement to involve the Church in social activism, which for him was too close to Marxism.
There Are Books a Young Man Should Read OR How Not To Get Laid
There are books a young man with literary pretensions should read if he wants to get laid—see the other entries in this department—and then there's Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. This slim little packet of social anthrax was delivered to me six weeks into my freshman year at college by another very nice young man with literary pretensions who purported to be my friend. Let the record state that this individual wore a cinnamon-colored beret around campus and listened to exactly one album, Einstürzende Neubauten's Haus der Lüge, on repeat on his jet-black Sony Discman. Let the record also state that this individual had (or seemed to have) a lot of sex. As far as I could tell, the world had gone insane: where I'd grown up, my new friend would have been beaten into a quiche-like gruel every Saturday night as a trust-building exercise for the rest of the community. But I was only too happy to accept his reading recommendation, if only because my first month at school had been a washout. If talking in a fake Scottish accent and brewing non-alcoholic absinthe in your dorm room had sexual currency in this new world, after all, there might actually be hope for me...
Continue reading
John Wray @'Paris Review'
PDF's Of Bataille books
@'Supervert' Friday, 17 September 2010
Fact Mix 185: Midland
Midland takes charge of our 185th FACT mix.
The up-and-coming producer/DJ announced his arrival earlier this year with the ‘Your Words Matter’ 12″, a collaboration with his friend Ramadanman released on Will Saul’s Aus Music label. This was followed by Play The Game, a four-track EP on Phonica Records that really showcased the breadth of his sound. Midland makes warm, tensile house and techno, but the narrative shape of his tracks and his regular deployment of fragmented, ethereal vocal snippets betray the influence – conscious or otherwise – of dubstep individualists Burial, Pangaea and Joy Orbison.
If his epic 23-track FACT mix is anything to go by, our man also draws inspiration from much further afield. It’s packed with unreleased material, including Midland originals ‘Shelter’, ‘Hub’ and ‘Dead Eyes’, together with his remix of Caribou’s ‘Sun’ and cheeky re-edits of Washed Out and Massive Attack, and Appleblim & Ramadanman’s immense, forthcoming ‘Void 23′. There’s also classic house from Kerri Chandler, shark-eyed minimal from Arnaud Le Texier and DJ Koze, plus recent cuts from Space Dimension Controller, Workshop, 6th Borough Project and a special edit of Boards Of Canada exclusive to this mix.
Tracklist:
1. Boards of Canada – Corsair - Warp (Hyde park field recording)
2. Matthew Dear - Honey - Ghostly International
3. Midland feat. Anywayawana – Hub – Unreleased
4. Al Green – Truth n time – The Right Stuff Records
5. Space Dimension Controller – BBD Alignment – Royal Oak
6. Boards of Canada – Olson – Warp (Midland Re Edit – FACT Version)
7. Massive Attack – Unfinished Sympathy (Nellee Hooper Instrumental Remix – Midland Rearrangement) – Wild Bunch
8. Ron Deacon – Untitled B2 – Workshop
9. Rainer Trueby – Ayers Rock – White
10. Loot – Dollkraut – Doppelschall Records
11. Washed Out – You’ll see (Midland Re- edit) – Unreleased
12. Roberto Rodruigez – I Got – Forthcoming Fina Records
13. Archie Bronson Outfit – Chunk (6th borough project remix) – Domino
14. El Txef A – She Kissed Me first (Minilogue Hypno Remix) – Forthcoming Hypercolour
15. Mathias Kaden – Kawaba (Dj Koze’s Kosi-san Remix) – Vakant
16. Adultnapper & Big Bully – Low point on high ground – Simple Records
17. Sideshow – Scary Biscuits (John Tejada Remix) – Aus Music
18. Midland – Dead Eyes – Forthcoming This is Music
19. Terrence Dixon (Arnaud Le Texier remix) – Change – Children of Tomorrow
20. Ramadanman & Appleblim – Void 23 – Forthcoming Aus Music
21. Midland – Shelter – Forthcoming Aus Music
22. Kerri Chandler – Fortran (Argys Legendary Bonus Beats) – Deeply Rooted House
23. Caribou – Sun (Midland Remix) – Unreleased
How has Subbuteo survived?
If you thought that Subbuteo went the same way as flares, space hoppers and sherbet spaceships - that is, to the dustbin of history - think again, says Brendan O'Neill.
Like an ageing, slightly bloated former star of the footballing firmament who decides to sign for a Second Division team, Subbuteo seems to be making something of a comeback.
Or at least some people hope that it is.
It may be a super lo-tech game that involves little more than flicking 11 men at an oversized ball on a rolled-out felt pitch, but some believe that Subbuteo can be called off the subs' bench to entertain a whole new generation of gameplayers.
This weekend, the Subbuteo World Masters Tournament will take place in Ashton in Bristol.
Champion finger-flickers from around the world - including Spain, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Holland and Austria - will compete for a prize fund of £10,000 and for miniature cup glory.
England (represented by the Bedminster-based Subbuteo star Darren Clarke) will be hoping that the little plastic figures can do in Ashton what the real flesh-and-blood guys failed to do in South Africa: play well.
Cardboard players
The tournament is being organised by a 25-year-old Bristolian and former Subbuteo World Cup finalist, Kaspar Bennett, who says he wants to make Subbuteo as popular as it was in the 1970s and 80s.
"Hopefully [this tournament] will make people want to go back to playing the game themselves", he told the Bristol Evening Post.
World Cup hero Gordon Banks lost to the 16-year-old Subbuteo world champion, Peter Czarkowski, in 1970
But can Subbuteo ever really make it back into the Premier League of pastimes?
In an era of snazzy, computerised gaming - when young people can play increasingly life-like footie games on their Xboxes and PlayStations - is there really space for a game that involves fingers, a green felt pitch, little plastic men, and tiny goals?
Subbuteo was invented by Peter Adolph (1916-1994) in the mid-1940s. Its arrival was announced in the August 1946 edition of Boys' Own magazine and it finally went on sale in 1947.
The contents of the game have changed over time. When it first came out, the little men were made from cardboard and were weighted down with buttons and lead washers, and they only came in two strips: red shirts or blue shirts.
The original version of the game didn't even have the famous green-felt pitch - instead you got a piece of chalk and instructions on how to mark out a pitch on an old blanket.
Through the 1960s and 70s, various design modifications were made, the pitch was introduced, and along came the now famous weighted plastic men - who you could even get in your favourite teams' colours, giving rise to the cult of Subbuteo team collecting.
There have been more than 700 different strips.
Royal fan
At its peak, more than 300,000 miniature teams were sold each year. The first Subbuteo World Cup was held in 1987, the same year in which Justin Finch, a 16-year-old Brit who was then ranked fifth in the world at Subbuteo, made the front pages of the papers after insuring his right hand for £160,000. Subbuteo was a bona fide national pastime, if not obsession.
Yet its popularity waned. And in 2000, Hasbro, owners of the Subbuteo brand, announced that production of the game in Britain would cease. A spokesman blamed "the huge number of football-related products" - including computer games - that had "flooded the market".
Today Hasbro, which still licences out the Subbuteo brand to other manufacturers, no longer distributes the toy in the UK, forcing fans to buy products online. Subbuteo recently made a move into the video game market - a virtual version of this old classic table game has been produced for the Nintendo DS.
So has this finger-flicking institution of British childhood had its day?
"Playing table football for real can't be reproduced on the Xbox or PlayStation, and for that reason I think there will always be an interest in Subbuteo", says Pete Whitehead, who runs Subbuteoworld, a website he created in June 2000 to sell Subbuteo stuff to fans across the globe.
It has customers in Korea, China, Russia, Hawaii, Australia, South Africa and "even to someone at Buckingham Palace".
The figures have weights to keep them upright
Mr Whitehead first played Subbuteo as a child in the late 1970s and got interested in it again as an adult in the mid-90s. He says the attractive thing about Subbuteo - and what distinguishes it from computer-based football games - is both that it involves thrilling gameplay and it can be an old-style, collector-based hobby.
"The beauty about the game is that it requires skill, dedication and lots of practice. And it's also a great game to collect, with a huge amount of stuff out there spanning over 60 years."
Yet playing football-based videogames, you can choose to be any one of 510 football teams from 27 leagues across 20 countries and you can control, pass, shoot or curl the ball with remarkable lifelikeness. Can Subbuteo really compete with all that?
"I don't think there is a substitute for a real hands-on game", insists Mr Whitehead. "There will always be a place for table football."
James Gordon, who runs the Subbuteo Rugby website, admits video gaming has contributed to the decline of Subbuteo but thinks there is still a place for it. The 22-year-old thinks the decline of Subbuteo over the past 10 to 15 years springs a lack of spare time.
In the 1950s, the game was in its infancy
"Lifestyles now are a lot more hectic, hence the popularity of the pick-up-and-play video games. For Subbuteo, you need an opponent, then you need to get it all set up, and then play; it takes time."
For many people it's all about nostalgia, says Pete Whitehead. "I have lost count of the number of people who have visited our website and then called us up to say what great memories it bought back.
"Then we get loads of customers who say they have a son who is always on the PlayStation and they want to get him away from that…"
But not everyone wants to get stuck back into Subbuteo. Faizaan Sacket, a recruitment consultant in London, was an avid player in his teens - but he wouldn't want his three young sons to play it today.
"Time moves on. Technology advances. Why would anyone want to sit around and play Subbuteo on a mat now, especially when you can buy an electronic version for your Nintendo DS?
"Would I want my thee sons to play it? No. Kids today do not have the patience. The world moves too fast, and so do they. My boys would reduce a Subbuteo set into a green confetti killing ground in minutes."
Still got my Subbuteo set but my goalies are fuct!
Hear Edwyn Collins' new album early at NME
Edwyn Collins is set to release new album 'Losing Sleep' on Monday (September 20) – but you can hear the album now on NME.COM.
The full tracklisting for 'Losing Sleep' is:
The full tracklisting for 'Losing Sleep' is:
'Losing Sleep'
'What Is My Role?' (co-written with Ryan Jarman)
'Do It Again' (co-written with Alex Kapranos & Nick McCarthy)
'Humble'
'Bored'
'In Your Eyes' (co-written with The Drums)
'I Still Believe In You' (co-written with Ryan Jarman)
'Come Tomorrow, Come Today' (co-written with Johnny Marr)
'It Dawns On Me' (co-written with Romeo Stodart)
'Over The Hill'
'All My Days' (co-written with Roddy Frame)
'Searching For The Truth'
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