(Photo:Mona Street)
Oblique Saturdays
1 hour ago
Sunday, 10 July 2011
Eh???
Please ignore last tweet from this account re NotW - not authorised, and not the paper or its political team's opinion. Has been deleted.
And here's the deleted tweet in question...
Sun_Politics Sun Politics
NotW - RIP. A loss to 1st class journalism. Ed Miliband, Guardian & BBC; how proud you must be of your work > Discuss
Spaceboy's classic film re-enactments #1 - Scarface
NB: No bread rolls were harmed in this remake...
Steve Mason & Dennis Bovell - Yesterday Dub
Former Beta Band man Steve Mason has joined forces with reggae musician and producer Dennis Bovell. The pair have announced the release of an album on 25 July, a radical ‘dub’ reinterpretation of Steve Mason’s Boys Outside‘ LP, which was released last year. A collaborative effort, Ghosts Outside was recorded in early 2011 at Livingston Studios in North London with Dennis Bovell. Using the original tracks as a basis, with Steve’s guidance Dennis added additional instrumentation; the tracks were later given the classic ‘Bovell production’ treatment. Steve met Dennis at a Black History month in Hackney. Dennis is a renowned and much respected artist-producer, central in the development of British reggae from the 1970s onwards. He gained renown with his own group, Matumbi and also worked with the likes of Linton Kwesi Johnson, I-Roy and Janet Kay. He also produced a wide diversity of bands including The Pop Group, Orange Juice and The Slits. He recently featured heavily in the BBC4 Reggae Britannia documentary
♪♫ Ash - Walking Barefoot
Gawdamn - bring on global warming is what I say...brrr!
More examples after the jump...
News Corp would do well not to keep it in the Murdoch family
The chances that Rupert Murdoch would choose to shut a 168-year-old newspaper, a profitable one at that, are nil. The News of the World's closure is a sure sign that the man at the top, known for calling all the shots himself, isn't alone any more.
News Corp is a family-run company – and, more and more, a family imbroglio. Some of the intrigue: Rupert has ceded substantial power to his son James, who made the decision to close the NoW. While James's power is part of a calculated succession plan, he also has his own leverage: he is his father's closest family ally in accommodating Wendi, the patriarch's divisive third wife. His father needs his support.
James has an often tense relationship with his sister, Elisabeth, who has a tense relationship with Wendi. Elisabeth has built her own media company, which her father bought this year, giving her great say within the company. James and Elisabeth's relationship, indeed many of the family relationships, are facilitated by Elisabeth's husband Matthew Freud, the most famous, and most famously slippery, PR man in London. One of Freud's closest friends is Rebekah Brooks, the CEO of News International, who almost everybody believes needs to be fired.
Rebekah, counselled by Matthew, has become James's most dedicated lieutenant. James and Matthew are determined not to fire her (indeed, she is an important instrument in Matthew's business).
As it happens, Wendi doesn't like Rebekah. Rupert, who has described Rebekah as a social climber in his family, can't press for her ousting for fear of siding with Wendi against his children.
Rupert's oldest son, Lachlan, once the presumed heir and now a sullen presence in Australia, fights with his brother and is most closely aligned with his sister Elisabeth. Their older half-sister, Prudence, is aligned with James. Ultimately, they will have four votes between them when it comes to running the company, with no tie-breaking mechanism.
Just as the NoW was a throwback to another era of lawless newsrooms, News Corp is a throwback to an insular and Byzantine family rule, and a them-versus-us relationship to the world. We don't apologise, don't accommodate – we wield our power: that is the Murdochian view. To them, the campaign against the NoW is a campaign by Murdoch's enemies.
The embattled Murdochs – and that is how they see themselves – have denied, stonewalled, stood tough, no matter that virtually every statement they've made about the unfolding scandal has been contradicted by events to come. If there's regret on their part, it's not so much about breaking the law, as it is about giving their enemies a weapon. Shutting the paper down is, they hope, a way to take away that weapon.
James seeks to be his father. He's Rupert without the subtlety – quite something to think about. Even his father was gobsmacked when, during the 2010 general election campaign, James publicly upbraided the editor of the Independent for his paper's coverage of News Corp.
Rupert has watched much of the phone-hacking scandal unfold from afar. And he's been grumpy about it, often complaining to Robert Thompson, the Wall Street Journal editor, about how James has been handling the mess. That's one reason James doesn't much like Thompson or his father's other advisers. He sees himself as his father's adviser, and their advice often leads to his interference. In this he has the support of his siblings, who don't like their father's interference either. (Two of Rupert's key confidantes, his communications chief, Gary Ginsberg, and general counsel, Lon Jacobs, lost their jobs this year in part because they didn't get along with James.)
Recently the Murdochs have started to refer to the hacking scandal as a crisis as serious as News Corp's near-bankruptcy in the early 90s – in family lore one of Rupert's finest moments. That, however, was a crisis resolved by negotiation, cutting deals, and leveraging strength. Rupert is at his best when talking power to power (one reason why the BSkyB deal seems still viable).
But this crisis is about public perception and trust, which is not, to say the least, Rupert's nor his son's métier. Family insiders say it was Freud who suggested closing the paper. He is said to have described it to James as a "Wapping" approach – that is, when Rupert in the dead of night moved his British papers to Wapping to break the print unions.
Closing the NoW may be the first instance of proactive PR strategising during the scandal, but it is probably too little too late. Credibility may be restored, and the public cry for blood sated, only when the company is no longer run by someone named Murdoch.
Michael Wolff @'The Guardian'
News Corp is a family-run company – and, more and more, a family imbroglio. Some of the intrigue: Rupert has ceded substantial power to his son James, who made the decision to close the NoW. While James's power is part of a calculated succession plan, he also has his own leverage: he is his father's closest family ally in accommodating Wendi, the patriarch's divisive third wife. His father needs his support.
James has an often tense relationship with his sister, Elisabeth, who has a tense relationship with Wendi. Elisabeth has built her own media company, which her father bought this year, giving her great say within the company. James and Elisabeth's relationship, indeed many of the family relationships, are facilitated by Elisabeth's husband Matthew Freud, the most famous, and most famously slippery, PR man in London. One of Freud's closest friends is Rebekah Brooks, the CEO of News International, who almost everybody believes needs to be fired.
Rebekah, counselled by Matthew, has become James's most dedicated lieutenant. James and Matthew are determined not to fire her (indeed, she is an important instrument in Matthew's business).
As it happens, Wendi doesn't like Rebekah. Rupert, who has described Rebekah as a social climber in his family, can't press for her ousting for fear of siding with Wendi against his children.
Rupert's oldest son, Lachlan, once the presumed heir and now a sullen presence in Australia, fights with his brother and is most closely aligned with his sister Elisabeth. Their older half-sister, Prudence, is aligned with James. Ultimately, they will have four votes between them when it comes to running the company, with no tie-breaking mechanism.
Just as the NoW was a throwback to another era of lawless newsrooms, News Corp is a throwback to an insular and Byzantine family rule, and a them-versus-us relationship to the world. We don't apologise, don't accommodate – we wield our power: that is the Murdochian view. To them, the campaign against the NoW is a campaign by Murdoch's enemies.
The embattled Murdochs – and that is how they see themselves – have denied, stonewalled, stood tough, no matter that virtually every statement they've made about the unfolding scandal has been contradicted by events to come. If there's regret on their part, it's not so much about breaking the law, as it is about giving their enemies a weapon. Shutting the paper down is, they hope, a way to take away that weapon.
James seeks to be his father. He's Rupert without the subtlety – quite something to think about. Even his father was gobsmacked when, during the 2010 general election campaign, James publicly upbraided the editor of the Independent for his paper's coverage of News Corp.
Rupert has watched much of the phone-hacking scandal unfold from afar. And he's been grumpy about it, often complaining to Robert Thompson, the Wall Street Journal editor, about how James has been handling the mess. That's one reason James doesn't much like Thompson or his father's other advisers. He sees himself as his father's adviser, and their advice often leads to his interference. In this he has the support of his siblings, who don't like their father's interference either. (Two of Rupert's key confidantes, his communications chief, Gary Ginsberg, and general counsel, Lon Jacobs, lost their jobs this year in part because they didn't get along with James.)
Recently the Murdochs have started to refer to the hacking scandal as a crisis as serious as News Corp's near-bankruptcy in the early 90s – in family lore one of Rupert's finest moments. That, however, was a crisis resolved by negotiation, cutting deals, and leveraging strength. Rupert is at his best when talking power to power (one reason why the BSkyB deal seems still viable).
But this crisis is about public perception and trust, which is not, to say the least, Rupert's nor his son's métier. Family insiders say it was Freud who suggested closing the paper. He is said to have described it to James as a "Wapping" approach – that is, when Rupert in the dead of night moved his British papers to Wapping to break the print unions.
Closing the NoW may be the first instance of proactive PR strategising during the scandal, but it is probably too little too late. Credibility may be restored, and the public cry for blood sated, only when the company is no longer run by someone named Murdoch.
Michael Wolff @'The Guardian'
Saturday, 9 July 2011
suigenerisjen Jen Robinson
struck by the irony: #Assange and #WikiLeaks wrongfully accused of hacking and illegal activity when all along it was Murdoch and #NOTW!
Federal government says marijuana has no accepted medical use
The decision comes almost nine years after medical marijuana supporters asked the government to reclassify cannabis to take into account a growing body of worldwide research that shows its effectiveness in treating certain diseases, such as glaucoma and multiple sclerosis.
Advocates for the medical use of the drug criticized the ruling but were elated that the Obama administration had finally acted, which allows them to appeal to the federal courts, where they believe they can get a fairer hearing. The decision to deny the request was made by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and comes less than two months after advocates asked the U.S. Court of Appeals to force the administration to respond to their petition.
“We have foiled the government’s strategy of delay, and we can now go head-to-head on the merits, that marijuana really does have therapeutic value,” said Joe Elford, the chief counsel for Americans for Safe Access and the lead counsel on the recently filed lawsuit. Elford said he was not surprised by the decision, which comes just after the Obama administration announced it would not tolerate large-scale commercial marijuana cultivation. “It is clearly motivated by a political decision that is anti-marijuana,” he said. He noted that studies demonstrate pot has beneficial effects, including appetite stimulation for people undergoing chemotherapy. “One of the things people say about marijuana is that it gives you the munchies and the truth is that it does, and for some people that’s a very positive thing.”
DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart sent a letter dated June 21 to the organizations that filed a petition for the change. The letter and the documentation that she used to back up her decision were published Friday in the Federal Register. Leonhart said she rejected the request because marijuana “has a high potential for abuse,” “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” and “lacks accepted safety for use under medical supervision.”
This is the third time that petitions to reclassify marijuana have been spurned. The first was filed in 1972 and denied 17 years later. The second was filed in 1995 and denied in 2001. Both decisions were appealed, but the courts sided with the federal government.
John Hoeffel @'LA Now'
Paul McMullen admits 'destroying' suicide victim he wrote about & paying police
Ex NOTW journalist Paul McMullan, BBC Radio 4, 2010, repeated, July 2011
Leaky Boat
On the last Sunday of winter in 2001, far off Australia's North West Coast, a fishing boat was sinking. A Norwegian tanker, alerted by Australian Rescue, went to its aid. The Norwegians pulled more than 400 men, women and children out of the little boat. Refugees. The refugees promptly confronted their rescuers and demanded to be taken to Christmas Island or, they told the captain, they would go crazy. As the captain set course for Christmas Island in Australian territory, the Australians radioed. They threatened to seize his ship and throw him in prison if he entered Australian waters. The order had come from the very top: this ship, The Tampa, would not be allowed to land.
That night triggered ten of the most dramatic weeks in our history: the moment that Australia stopped the boats. In one of the most aggressive responses to refugee boats in the world, we sent the major warships of our Navy to confront the boats. Some extraordinary dramas followed: parents were said to have thrown their children overboard, a boat called SIEV X sank taking 353 people to their deaths, refugees wrecked and burnt their boats with deadly results. And as the boats of Muslims came towards us, the Twin Towers came down. It felt like the world would never be the same.
We've rarely felt so strongly about our politics. But we've rarely known so little of what was actually happening. Ten years on, this is the story, told by the men and women who were there. They include John Howard, Philip Ruddock, Peter Reith & Kim Beazley, Navy admirals and sailors, SAS commandos, Afghan farm boys and Iraqi school girls. And there were the pollsters who took careful note of how we responded.
The decision to stop the Tampa was one of the most popular ever taken by any Australian government. So this film is also very much about us -- and the old dance of democracy between the people and our leaders. And its fundamental puzzle -- who is leading and who is following?
A decade later, as we continue to grapple with the scenario of refugee boats arriving, and try to find a way to square the tricky issues of security, compassion and a good orderly migration process, it seems appropriate to lookafresh at the story of 2001.
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/leakyboat.htm
That night triggered ten of the most dramatic weeks in our history: the moment that Australia stopped the boats. In one of the most aggressive responses to refugee boats in the world, we sent the major warships of our Navy to confront the boats. Some extraordinary dramas followed: parents were said to have thrown their children overboard, a boat called SIEV X sank taking 353 people to their deaths, refugees wrecked and burnt their boats with deadly results. And as the boats of Muslims came towards us, the Twin Towers came down. It felt like the world would never be the same.
We've rarely felt so strongly about our politics. But we've rarely known so little of what was actually happening. Ten years on, this is the story, told by the men and women who were there. They include John Howard, Philip Ruddock, Peter Reith & Kim Beazley, Navy admirals and sailors, SAS commandos, Afghan farm boys and Iraqi school girls. And there were the pollsters who took careful note of how we responded.
The decision to stop the Tampa was one of the most popular ever taken by any Australian government. So this film is also very much about us -- and the old dance of democracy between the people and our leaders. And its fundamental puzzle -- who is leading and who is following?
A decade later, as we continue to grapple with the scenario of refugee boats arriving, and try to find a way to square the tricky issues of security, compassion and a good orderly migration process, it seems appropriate to lookafresh at the story of 2001.
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/leakyboat.htm
Steve Coogan tears The News Of The World a new areshole
Bonus Hugh Grant video on bugging Paul McMullen after the jump...
Belarus Under Siege
On June 29 and 30, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Vilnius, Lithuania to participate in a meeting of the “Community of Democracies” and to visit one of the many US-funded international “tech camps.” These camps host “civil society” (i.e.opposition) activists from various nations whose governments the US doesn’t appreciate, and teach them internet and social network organizing skills to be used toward fostering, in official words, “democratic transition,” or more correctly, color revolutions and regime change. According to the AP, “Much of the democracy meeting’s opening day dealt with the new mechanics of protest, such as social media networks.” During her visit Clinton stated that “The United States has invested $50 million in supporting internet freedom and we’ve trained more than 5,000 activists worldwide.” This is of course in addition to the hundreds of millions that the US spends in other ways attempting to destabilize its enemies and to force “democratic transitions.”
The choice of Vilnius was not by chance: it lies 30 kilometers from the Belarusian border. This tech camp is hosting 85 activists from the region, “primarily from Belarus.” Belarus is currently being targeted by a concerted effort towards an orange revolution, financed and remote-controlled by the West. Simultaneously, the country is being subjected to a relatively new pressure from the East: certain Russian elements have apparently decided that Belarus and its profitable state-owned enterprises should belong to them, and are contributing in their own way to the effort to destabilize the government.
I’ve just returned to Paris from a second extended trip to Belarus. Western media faithfully relay the monstrous picture of Belarus that our governments want to convey, and so I’d like to report on the situation in this little-known country, and encourage others to visit it in order to experience for themselves the Belarusian culture, economy, hospitality and character. Among other visits I attended an international conference on the resistance to Nazi fascism, in Brest on June 22, the 70th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. In a country which lost between a third and a quarter of its population during the war, the memory of the ravages of foreign attacks and the heroism of those who resisted it is very strong and alive. Located dangerously between Europe and Russia, entirely flat and endowed with few natural resources, Belarus has fought hard to build a successful independent state. It is not inclined to lose its sovereignty now...
Continue reading
Michele Brand @'Counterpunch'
GuantanamoAndy Andy Worthington
Why Would Anyone Trust David Cameron, As Police Arrest Andy Coulson? - Surely PM is appalling judge of character? #NoTW bit.ly/nIWcH1
JohnFugelsang John Fugelsang
America's struggle is not Liberal vs. Conservative, it's Aristocracy vs. Democracy.
Friday, 8 July 2011
Google+ for journalists at risk
When they're creating new features, software designers talk in terms of "use cases." A use case describes steps that future customers might perform with a website. "Starting a group with friends," would be a use case for Facebook. "Buying a book" would be case for Amazon's designers.
When CPJ talks to Internet companies, we highlight the use cases of journalists who work in dangerous or authoritarian environments. It might be "defending against an attacker who has control of the infrastructure and wants my password." Or, it could be "breaking a controversial story to thousands of readers, which may prompt government supporters to overwhelm the online complaint system." Or, "surviving a series of denial-of-service attacks aimed at censoring my post."
These are not the first scenarios a start-up might envision for their college-friend-sharing site or >text-message-your-friends service. Nonetheless, they're vital to consider. Whether it's Google in China, Twitter in Iran, or Facebook in Egypt, if your social site becomes an essential part of people's lives, it will be used in life-or-death situations. Young but ambitious companies can anticipate and prepare for that.
And if reporters are an edge case, their experiences also shed light on the needs of other groups. For instance, journalists working on sensitive topics talk to a lot of people, often over e-mail. It's vitally important that those contacts aren't revealed to the wrong people, or that information isn't leaked about those conversations. Ex-partners of abusive spouses have a similar need, as they made very clear when Google Buzz abruptly broke that expectation of privacy. If Buzz had "reporters under threat" as a use case, perhaps they might have spotted the other problem earlier.
Shaking out such unintended consequences is, I suspect, one of the reasons the company's new set of social projects, Google+, started with a smaller audience than Buzz. It's a complicated new product, and mapping all of those consequences will only slowly emerge through use. But having played with the service for a few hours, I can offer some tentative analysis of how it may affect journalists--and by extension, the rest of us.
In emergencies, political or otherwise, one of the first acts of involved Net users is to become a citizen journalist, if only for the duration. Everyone who speaks online potentially shares some of the use cases of a threatened journalist. And the most at-risk journalists are canaries in the coal mine for grimly inevitable challenges that will face any successful Internet site.
So, how secure is Google+ for at-risk reporters? From Day 1, everything on Google+ is encrypted with https. That means that no one, not even a maliciously motivated government with control of your local ISP, can intercept your private conversations. Companies like Facebook which did not start out using https, struggle to implement it later. Some wealthy companies like Yahoo still haven't managed it, putting their webmail customers at constant risk of identity theft and surveillance.
What about leaked information about contacts, accidentally revealing who you talk and listen to? Like Twitter's "following" list, Google defaults to telling the entire world who is in your "circles" (its system for organizing your friends and who you are following).
That makes sense for Google: The company is still attracting members for the service, and wants you to hunt through your friends' lists for new colleagues to add. But that's not a good default when a reporter, say, reaches out to a controversial activist, or reveals close family members.
Still, Google+ has learned the lesson of the Buzz fiasco, which is not to arbitrarily and automatically throw who Google thinks are your friends into this list. Even better, Google lets you select who appears in your public circle list. So a journalist can list all his or her public contacts, yet still reserve some for private connections. Boundaries like this will take some tending, and are prone to accidental revelation, but at least you are not obliged to keep everything either private or public, a profound limitation for public writers involved in highly confidential conversations.
A topic that we've covered before is the use of pseudonyms on social networks. Facebook has a strict "real names" policy, which has had consequences in countries like pre-revolution Egypt, where large publicity-generating groups were removed because their owners wished to be anonymous, and for authors like Chinese writer Michael Anti, who prefer to use their well-known pen name over their real name. (Anti, by the way, has joined Google+.)
The rule for Google+ is subtly different: You should go by the name that you're usually known as, and that you should not impersonate others. We'll see how this plays out in practice. One possibility these rules could support is that users may have more than one Google+ account--a strategy Syrian activists have pursued on Facebook, despite this being against the terms of service.
One boon for journalists isn't actually part of Google+, though it works closely with it. Google Takeout is the company's universal way for customers to extract for their own use all of the data the company keeps on them; it was rolled out for all Google services on the same day as the G+ test launch.
Google Takeout offers an opportunity to mitigate against the most drastic actions of Google itself. Like Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and other hosting services, Google will often decide to take down content it deems too controversial for their service. Putting aside whether these companies are right to remove photographs, groups, or news organizations, the more practical question is what journalists can do if their work is taken down. Or, for that matter, what journalists can do if they decide to move the material themselves.
If your web hosting provider throws you off their computers, you want to at least take your data and set up your Internet stall elsewhere. In social networking environments like Facebook or Flickr, it's far less easy. As Michael Anti and Hossam el-Hamalawy discovered, if you leave, it can be very hard to get your content or contacts out of your former host.
Coded by the company's so-called "Data Liberation Front," Takeout is a tool that lets you download all your data into a format that you might carry to another service. (Facebook has an export tool, too, but it won't allow you to obtain your contact's email addresses, thus reducing its usefulness outside of Facebook itself.)
It's too early to say whether Google Takeout will have more than a hypothetical benefit. Its usefulness depends on other services offering the capability to import the data that Google spits out.
Of course, it's too early to tell anything about Google+. Will it be successful enough to be considered a journalist's tool? Will it stumble like Google Wave and Buzz? Will it change the world, or remain a geeky backwater?
It looks like Google has considered some of CPJ's use cases when building Google+, and has strong incentives to fix any other issues before they become a bigger problem. (The company is a member of the Global Network Initiative and also paid $8.5 million in a class action settlement over Buzz's privacy violations.)
With this launch, Google is clearly thinking big. And when a company thinks big for its products, it should also think about the ethical and privacy ramifications of thinking big. People's livelihoods, the openness of their societies, and even their lives may depend on it.
The Beach Boys - Studio argument with Murry Wilson while recording 'Help Me Rhonda' (January 8, 1965)
Murry Wilson"Syncopate a little..."
"Loosen up sweetie..."
"Sing from your heart..."
"Happy! That's all we need..."
"Quit screaming and start singing from the heart..."
"You're flat!"
"So you're big stars..."
"When you guys get too much money you start thinking you are going to make everything a hit..."
"Brian! I'm a genius too!"
The Beach BoysA drunken Murry Wilson (Father of Brian, Dennis and Carl) turns up at the recording studio while The Beach Boys are recording 'Help Me Rhonda' at the invitation of Brian.
We hear him scat singing and castigating the boys for singing flat and generally just meddling.
You can see why the boys installed a fake recording console so that he could twiddle knobs to his hearts content!
Bear in mind that it was due to a blow from his father that resulted in Brian being deaf in one ear and considering that he was 22 at the time this tape was made, when you listen to it you will be amazed how much self control Brian shows.
In the end they went back into the studio to record 'Help Me Rhonda' without Murry's interferance, and this version was eventually released as 'Help Me Ronda' on 'The Beach Boys Today'.
(24 minutes VBR)
These four tracks are taken from an album called 'Journals - Vol. 2'
PS: I downloaded this quite a while back from somewhere that I have forgotten and I couldn't find again while preparing this post.
My apologies and thanks to the original uploader.
Liberated from 'Pathway To Unknown Worlds'
Shark Finning Outlawed In Chilean Waters
The new law will prohibit the practice of cutting the tips of the shark and throwing the rest of the live animal’s body into the sea, and will levy a $4,000 to $41,000 fine for persons caught mutilating sharks in this way.
According to Christine Reed of Discovery News, “The ban effects 30 shark species that cruise the Chilean coastline, which covers an extensive stretch of the eastern Pacific all the way to the Southern Ocean. Of those sharks, 15 are specific targets for finning, including the near threatened Blue sharks (Prionace glauca) and the vulnerable Shortfin Mako sharks (Isurus oxyrinchus).”
“With the passage of this law, Chile becomes a leader in the protection of these animals that are so important to marine ecosystems. We knew that large quantities of shark fins were being exported from our country. This practice meant the deaths of thousands of sharks each year. With this new law we will have a critical tool to protect and recover these most exploited species,” said Alex Muñoz, Oceana vice president for South America said in a statement...
Continue reading
Beth Buczynski @'Care 2'
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
