David Berman - Composition, Horseshit, Magic
42 minutes ago
Friday, 9 September 2011
9/11 as political propaganda
In stark terms, Providing for The Common Defense highlights the impacts that ten years of hard fighting have had on America's military. In the video, Armed Services Chairman McKeon previews questions that Committee members will be asking this fall of our nation's brightest national security minds; "what if we're attacked in some other area, what is our military going to be able to do if we keep cutting it... tell me the missions we've done in the last couple of years that we won't be asked to do in the next couple of years."
HASCRepublicans
Jon Stewart to Host Q&A With Former Nirvana Members on Nevermind Anniversary Night
Mark Hogan @'Pitchfork'
Why Nevermind is overrated
I guess before the death threats start pouring in and I have to undergo plastic surgery, submit myself to the witness protection scheme and relocate to Huddersfield, I should make one thing clear: Nevermind isn't a bad album. It is full of memorable hooks, perky riffs (even the ones that haven't been lifted off Rainbow or Killing Joke) and exciting galloping beats. It is, in the main, a collection of pretty grunge songs that are nice to sing along to. It has one generation-unifying and genre-codifying all time anthem/irritating student disco staple in Smells Like Teen Spirit, the truly sublime Something In The Way and the genuinely exciting Territorial Pissings. Mainly however it plays to the gallery and is something of a failure (or at the very least a cop-out). It's supposed to be a sardonic dig at mainstream, MTV and FM radio culture but it shamelessly fits very neatly into the schedules of both institutions. If it had a subversive message it must have been generally too cryptic to be understood, as it was a massive hit amongst the jockish, mainstream types that they had always defined themselves in opposition to. This happened because the album was a massive compromise made to reach a mainstream audience. And it was a compromise agreed to by a sensitive, artistic, troubled frontman after he signed to a major label record deal - something he always regretted.
Your relationship to Nevermind perhaps depends on how old you were when it came out. Anyone younger than 35 is guaranteed to have felt full impact by being introduced to it as an angst-ridden teenager. As a gateway from whatever corporate nonsense Radio1 has chosen as its token 'heavy' guitar act of any given year - Green Day, Muse, Kings of Leon et al - into the weird and wonderful world of heavy, underground, alternative, psychedelic, mind expanding rock, it still remains a rite of passage. But to anyone who had been following grunge for a few years back then, it represented nothing more than the genre's cheap ascent into the mainstream.
2. Other bands did it better
Nirvana may have had more of an impact on the state of mainstream metal and stadium sized alternative rock in the 1990s than any other band, except perhaps Metallica, but their roots were firmly in the more obscure American post-punk underground of the 1980s. Acts such as Pixies (who they lifted their sense of high contrast quiet loud quiet dynamics from), Sonic Youth, the Butthole Surfers, The Dwarves, Big Black, Pussy Galore and Flipper were cult acts gigging relentlessly around the US in the late 1980s when bands such as Green River and Mudhoney gave a more classicist Neil Young, Sex Pistols and Black Sabbath-influenced shot in the arm to the scene. But Nirvana's success helped to partially decimate this forward-looking music, replacing it with retro bands and arena alt-rock acts.
But before all this Nirvana weren't much to write home about. Their debut Bleach does not stand up to the early output of Mudhoney. Sure, Negative Creep is a great track but it is blown clean out of the water by the monumentally unhinged swamp metal assault of Sliding In And Out Of Grace. The scene was already becoming overcrowded with so-called grunge bands like Tad, Jesus Lizard and Pearl Jam; Nirvana realised they had to step their game up if they were not to become also-rans. Frontman Kurt Cobain stopped hiding his clear gift as a pop-hook writer under a bushel, they signed to Geffen and drafted in producer Butch Vig who polished everything up to a high shine, ready for their musical ascent. It's just that Cobain had not even considered what this kind of success would entail and more importantly was simply not cut out for it, whether he wanted it or not.
3. In Utero was better
Almost immediately, Cobain quite clearly had misgivings about Nevermind, and what he had created with it, but what was done was done. Personally, my main reason for disliking the album is not the fact that it is - relatively speaking - bland and a compromise, but that it contributed to his subsequent death.
When Kurt Cobain took his own life due to a horrific combination of bad company, bad drugs, an inability to deal with fame and untreated depression, he had really only just begun to reveal his true genius in the form of the vastly superior album In Utero. Recorded by alternative-rock hero Steve Albini, it is a document of a splintering personality, expending the last of his energy in one final creative surge. The undeniable, John Lennon-esque knack for a pop hook is still present on tracks such as Heart Shaped Box but his lyrics were next-level poetry and would be pored over for clues to what went wrong much more than his suicide note would be. But nudging up to this and All Apologies were Radio Friendly Unit Shifter, Scentless Apprentice and Milk It - primal screams of rage emitted too late to do him any use. Ironically, they do reveal to us in a very visceral manner exactly how he felt himself about the pop polish of Nevermind.
4. Do you really need the box-set?
The thing is – it doesn't matter what I think about Nevermind. You almost certainly already have it. And my real point is: it's not that good that you need to buy it all over again. The really sad thing is, if he was around to see this dead-eyed, late capitalist, mercenary squeezing of every last red cent out of his band's reputation and fan base in the form of utterly unnecessary reissues, Cobain would probably pull the trigger all over again. If you genuinely feel you love this band, don't buy the Nevermind reissue. Instead try exploring the back catalogue of one of the many bands Kurt Cobain obsessed over such as Jesus Lizard, The Raincoats, The Meat Puppets, The Vaselines, Joy Division, Pixies, The Butthole Surfers, Earth, Bikini Kill, The Melvins or Daniel Johnson. Or at the very, very least dig out your copy of In Utero.
John Doran @'Virgin Media'
My thoughts exactly!
Missiles looted from Tripoli arms warehouse
(Click to enlarge)
A potent stash of Russian-made surface-to-air missiles is missing from a huge Tripoli weapons warehouse amid reports of weapons looting across war-torn Libya. They are Grinch SA-24 shoulder-launched missiles, also known as Igla-S missiles, the equivalent of U.S.-made Stinger missiles.
A CNN team and Human Rights Watch found dozens of empty crates marked with packing lists and inventory numbers that identified the items as Igla-S surface-to-air missiles.
The list for one box, for example, written in English and Russian, said it had contained two missiles, with inventory number "Missile 9M342," and a power source, inventory number "Article 9B238."
Grinch SA-24s are designed to target front-line aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles and drones. They can shoot down a plane flying as high as 11,000 feet and can travel 19,000 feet straight out.
Fighters aligned with the National Transitional Council and others swiped armaments from the storage facility, witnesses told Human Rights Watch. The warehouse is located near a base of the Khamis Brigade, a special forces unit in Gadhafi's military, in the southeastern part of the capital.The warehouse contains mortars and artillery rounds, but there are empty crates for those items as well. There are also empty boxes for another surface-to-air missile, the SA-7.
Peter Bouckaert, Human Rights Watch emergencies director, told CNN he has seen the same pattern in armories looted elsewhere in Libya, noting that "in every city we arrive, the first thing to disappear are the surface-to-air missiles."
He said such missiles can fetch many thousands of dollars on the black market.
"We are talking about some 20,000 surface-to-air missiles in all of Libya, and I've seen cars packed with them." he said. "They could turn all of North Africa into a no-fly zone."
There was no immediate comment from NTC officials.
The lack of security at the weapons site raises concerns about stability in post-Gadhafi Libya and whether the new NTC leadership is doing enough to stop the weapons from getting into the wrong hands...
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Ben Wedeman and Ingrid Formanek @'CNN'
Thursday, 8 September 2011
Adrian Sherwood (On-U Sound) @ Dubspot! Live Streaming Workshop 09/08 + Dub Invasion
Q&A: Adrian Sherwood On The State Of Dub, On-U Sounds' 30th Birthday, And His Return To America
Guatemala's Colom: Users share blame for drug violence
Consumers of illegal drugs share the blame for drug-related violence and killings, Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom has told BBC Mundo.
"We've been called a narco-state, but consumers, they are narcos too," said Mr Colom. He was speaking a few days before Guatemalans go to the polls on Sunday to elect his successor.
Whoever wins will face the challenge of rising violence, much of which is attributed to local and Mexican gangs.
Mexican cartels have expanded operations into the Central American nation, which is an important transit point for drugs smuggled from South America to the US.
Several presidential candidates are on the ballot paper, among them retired general and front-runner Otto Perez Molina and Nobel Peace laureate Rigoberto Menchu.
But after months of wrangling, Mr Colom's former wife, Sandra Torres, will not be contesting the election.
On Monday, her supporters abandoned their final appeal against her exclusion.
It was the culmination of a political drama that began in March, when Ms Torres filed for divorce, a move critics said was to avoid a constitutional ban on close relatives of the president running for the post.
Guatemalan judges ruled that despite her divorce, Ms Torres' candidacy still violated the constitution and she was therefore ineligible.
Up and down Lack of security is among voters' main concerns, according to recent opinion polls. Some candidates, including Mr Perez Molina, have accused President Colom of not being tough enough on organised crime.
Mr Colom, who was elected in 2007, said his term in office had seen a fall in the murder rate, while drugs worth some $10bn (£6bn) had been seized.
"Honestly, if you compare the results of this government with previous ones, there is no comparison regarding seizures and arrests," he told BBC Mundo's Ignacio de los Reyes. Mr Colom was also clear that Guatemala alone could not tackle drug-related violence.
It was up to countries where drugs were consumed to control guns, funds and the chemicals that go towards producing drugs, to try to reduce consumption, he said.
"Cocaine goes up and guns come down," he said, referring to the trafficking of drugs through Central America and Mexico to the US, and the smuggling of illegal weapons over the US border.
@'BBC'
Phone hacking: even more News International emails deleted
The extra deletions, requested between December 2009 and June this year, included emails from the inbox of a user who had not accessed his account for eight years.
The deletions to the eight-year-old account were carried out a few months after the phone hacking scandal reignited amid reports that hacking at the News of the World was more prevalent than previously thought.
Some deletion requests related to two personal folders and a tranche of “bad or corrupted” files.
Many of the other deletions, performed by HCL Technologies, were carried out before News International ordered its staff in an internal memo to stop deleting emails earlier this year.
Keith Vaz, a Labour MP and chairman of the home affairs select committee, said the disclosures were “concerning” and that the committee would investigate the removal of any information that “pointed to the prevalence of phone hacking” at News International.
Nine previous requests to delete emails – between April last year and July this year – were already identified before lawyers for Delhi-based HCL Technologies wrote to Mr Vaz yesterday with the new information.
Mr Vaz said: “The request for deletion of folders and emails by News International is concerning.
“The committee will continue to investigate the issue of phone hacking and the removal of any information that could possibly point to the prevalence of phone hacking by those working in the organisation.”
The new letter to Mr Vaz shows that on Dec 9 2009, News International requested deletion of emails from the inbox of a user who had not accessed his email account for eight years.
On Feb 24 last year, the company asked for the deletion of personal folders under the name “Gabriel/uploaded”. A personal folder was also removed on Sept 28 last year.
The most recent request came on June 29 this year, when the company asked for deletion of “certain bad or corrupted files”.
HCL, which provides services under contract to News International, informed the committee last month that it was aware of the deletion of hundreds of thousands of emails on nine occasions between April 2010 and July 2011, but said it did not know of anything “untoward” behind the requests.
John-Paul Ford Rojas, Andrew Hough and Mark Hughes @'The Telegraph'
How an omniscient Internet 'sextortionist' ruined the lives of teen girls
Instead, Amy contacted her boyfriend Dave, who had been storing the naked photos on his own computer. (Note: victim names have been changed in this story). The two students exchanged instant messages about Amy's apparent stalker, trying to figure out what had happened. Soon after the exchange, each received a separate threat from the man. He knew what they had just chatted about, he warned, and they were not to take their story to anyone, including the police.
Amy, terrified by her stalker's eerie knowledge, contacted campus police. Officers were dispatched to her room, where they took down Amy's story and asked her questions about the incident. Soon after, Dave received more threats from the stalker because Amy had gone to the police—and the stalker knew exactly what she had said to them.
Small wonder that, when the FBI later interviewed Amy about the case, she was "visibly upset and shaking during parts of the interview and had to stop at points to control her emotions and stop herself from crying." So afraid was Amy for her own safety that she did not leave her dorm room for a full week after the threats.
As for Dave, he suffered increased fear, anxiety, confusion, and anger; he later told a court that even his parents "had a hard time trusting anyone or even feeling comfortable enough to use a computer" after the episode.
Due in large part to the stress of the attack, Dave and Amy broke up.
But who had the mysterious stalker been? And how did he have access both to the contents of Dave's computer and to private discussions with police that Amy conducted in the privacy of her own room..?
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Nate Anderson @'ars technica'
evgenymorozov Evgeny Morozov
Ever since WikiLeaks has added my name to the list of people media should talk to about them, my inbox is, well, not what it used to be
Did the use of psychedelics lead to a computer revolution?
Psychedelics and creativity: 'Any drug experience is determined far less by the drug than by what we bring to it.' Photograph: Fredrik Skold/Alamy
" … in terms of our view of the universe – or my view of the universe – perception can be more powerful than physics can be."You might be excused for thinking these are the words of a philosopher or a stoned Grateful Dead fan, but no. It's from an interview in 2000 with Mike Lynch, the CEO of Autonomy and Britain's first software billionaire, currently in the process of selling his company to Hewlett-Packard for $10bn (£6bn). Lynch, who was talking about the power of the pattern recognition that forms the basis of Autonomy's success, went on to talk about the fascination of dreams, near-death experiences and the accounts of those experimenting scientifically with LSD in the 1960s: all forms of altered perception.
Did psychedelic drugs play a substantive role in the development of personal computing? In 2009, Ryan Grim, as part of publicising his book This Is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America wrote a piece for the Huffington Post that made public a letter from LSD inventor Albert Hofmann to Apple CEO Steve Jobs in 2007 asking for funding for research into the use of psychedelics to help relieve the anxiety associated with life-threatening illness.
He picked Jobs because, as New York Times reporter John Markoff told the world in his 2005 book, What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry, Jobs believed that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he'd done in his life. That 2001 conversation inspired Markoff to write the book: a history of computing with the drugs kept in.
From 1961 to 1965, the Bay Area-based International Foundation for Advanced Study led more than 350 people through acid trips for research purposes. Some of them were important pioneers in the development of computing, such as Doug Engelbart, the father of the computer mouse, then heading a project to use computers to augment the human mind at nearby SRI. Grim also names the inventors of virtual reality and early Cisco employee Kevin Herbert as examples of experimenters with acid, and calls Burning Man (whose frequent attendees include Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page) the modern equivalent for those seeking mind expansion.
There's a delicious irony in thinking that the same American companies who require their employees to pee in a cup rely on machines that were created by drugged-out hippies. But things aren't so simple. Markoff traces modern computing to two sources. First is the clean-cut, military-style, suit-wearing Big Iron approach of the east coast that, in its IBM incarnation, was so memorably smashed in the 1984 Super Bowl ad for the first Apple Mac.
Second is the eclectic and iconoclastic mix of hackers, hippies, and rebels of the west coast, from whose ranks so many of today's big Silicon Valley names emerged. Markoff, born and bred in the Bay Area and 18 in 1967, argues the idea of the personal computer as a device to empower individuals was a purely west coast idea; the east coast didn't "get" anything but corporate technology.
There's a basic principle to invoke here: coincidence does not imply causality. As early Sun employee John Gilmore, whom Grim calls a "well-known psychonaut", says in that article, it is very difficult to prove that drug use led directly to personal computers. The 1960s were a time of extreme upheaval: the Vietnam war and the draft, the advent of female-controlled contraception, and the campaign for civil rights all contributed to the counterculture. Was it the sex, the drugs or the rock'n'roll – or the science fiction?
In 1998 Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet, said in a discussion of his enjoyment of science fiction: "I think it's also made it easier for me to think about things that weren't quite ready yet but I could imagine might just possibly be feasible."
Annie Gottlieb, in Do You Believe in Magic? Bringing the 60s Back Home, recounts the personal exploratory experiences of a variety of interviewees, and comes to this conclusion: "Any drug experience is determined far less by the drug than by what we bring to it." Many people tried acid. Only one became Steve Jobs.
Wendy M. Grossman @'The Guardian'
David Hockney: 'I turned down request to paint Queen'
Artist David Hockney has revealed he turned down a request to paint the Queen because he was "very busy".
The 74-year-old told BBC Radio 4's Front Row programme she would make a "terrific subject" but he prefers to paint people he knows."When I was asked I told them I was very busy painting England actually. Her country," he said.
An exhibition showcasing his landscape work is to be presented at the Royal Academy of Arts in London next year.
Speaking at the London launch of David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, the artist said: "I generally only paint people I know, I'm not a flatterer really.
"I've been requested and it's actually a terrific subject, but I require quite a bit of time."
The Hockney exhibition, which runs from 21 January to 9 April, will be one of the countdown events to the London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad.
With works spanning 50 years, it will explore the artist's fascination with landscape.
Inspired by his native Yorkshire, many of its large-scale paintings will have been created specifically for the exhibition.
The works will be shown alongside related drawings and films.
The artist, who was born in Bradford, said he had returned to paint in Yorkshire because "it is a landscape I know from my childhood and it has meaning.
"I never thought of it as a subject until 10 years ago when I realised that at my age that it is a terrific subject, a marvellous place."I love looking at the world, there is an intense pleasure from my eyes. Enjoyment of the landscape is a thrill."
The exhibit will feature three groups of new work created since 2005, when the artist returned to live in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, which use a variety of media.
A series of films produced using 18 cameras will also be displayed, on multiple screens.
"We filmed on a quiet road and no one never ever stopped us," Hockney said. "It is unique there because there are not many people.
"You can drive along the road in a car and not see anyone. It is a lovely little bit of England that is not spoiled."
The artist has embraced new technology in his recent works, using iPhones and iPads as tools for making art.
A number of his iPad drawings will also be on show at what will be the first major UK exhibition of his landscape work.
@'BBC'
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