Bob Dylan’s Live Band Shakes Up Guitarists Mid-Tour
12 minutes ago
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Jimmy Reid 1932 - 2010
We are not going to strike. We are not even having a sit-in strike. Nobody and nothing will come in and nothing will go out without our permission. And there will be no hooliganism, there will be no vandalism, there will be no bevvying because the world is watching us, and it is our responsibility to conduct ourselves with responsibility, and with dignity, and with maturity.
I really don't want this blog to turn into an obituaries column, I'm no Mathew Bannister but I thought that it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the passing of a hero of mine.
Jimmy Reid was just an "ordinary working man who believed in equality and fairness". I became aware of him through a TV programme in which he travelled around the Soviet Union, a country which for a 15 year old studying the Russian Revolution fascinated me.
I found out that he had led a work in in the shipyards in Govan and asked my uncle Jimmy, who was a figure in the steel workers union around the same time about him and the quote above was the response that he gave me.
From then on I followed Jimmy through his columns in the Glasgow Herald and The Scotsman but drew a line at buying The Sun, I always thought that it a strange decision to write for that paper although I suppose he was trying to convert the readership of the rag to socialism, fat chance.
I didn't agree with all of his columns but his arguments were persuasive and eloquent. I was also dismayed in his decision to back the SNP post 1997, I understood why he did it but just thought it misguided.
In Reid's passing, I think we have lost one of the last heavy weight political activists and politicians we had in Scotland. One thing is for sure Jim Murphy and Nicola Sturgeon and the rest of our representatives couldn't hold a candle to the likes of John Smith, Donald Dewar or Jimmy Reid.
Dick Gaughan - The Freedom Come-All-Ye
I really don't want this blog to turn into an obituaries column, I'm no Mathew Bannister but I thought that it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the passing of a hero of mine.
Jimmy Reid was just an "ordinary working man who believed in equality and fairness". I became aware of him through a TV programme in which he travelled around the Soviet Union, a country which for a 15 year old studying the Russian Revolution fascinated me.
I found out that he had led a work in in the shipyards in Govan and asked my uncle Jimmy, who was a figure in the steel workers union around the same time about him and the quote above was the response that he gave me.
From then on I followed Jimmy through his columns in the Glasgow Herald and The Scotsman but drew a line at buying The Sun, I always thought that it a strange decision to write for that paper although I suppose he was trying to convert the readership of the rag to socialism, fat chance.
I didn't agree with all of his columns but his arguments were persuasive and eloquent. I was also dismayed in his decision to back the SNP post 1997, I understood why he did it but just thought it misguided.
In Reid's passing, I think we have lost one of the last heavy weight political activists and politicians we had in Scotland. One thing is for sure Jim Murphy and Nicola Sturgeon and the rest of our representatives couldn't hold a candle to the likes of John Smith, Donald Dewar or Jimmy Reid.
Dick Gaughan - The Freedom Come-All-Ye
Beautifully written, as a just about to be teenager in Glasgow when the UCS dispute was on the news it has to be said it was the dawning of my socialist principles that I still try to hold true.
RIP Jimmy.
Regards/
RIP Jimmy.
Regards/
Friday, 13 August 2010
An Ayn Rand fan with way too much time on his hands
So he drove his car that adheres to NHTSA safety standards on roads owned and operated by state and federal governments to write a message utilizing a device made by someone else entirely that utilizes signals from satellites orbited by... you guessed it, the federal government. How Randian.Now you know!
=
Richie Hayward RIP
Richie Hayward passed away. According to the official LITTLE FEAT Facebook fanpage, Richie Hayward (from the band LITTLE FEAT) passed away August 12,2010.
2 messages have been posted reporting this:
One from the member of the family, Amanda Condry-Krizan : "RIP Uncle Richie, we love u so very much!!!"
The other one from Little Feat: "Respected by many as a musician, loved by more as a person. R.I.P. Richie."
A message from his wife:
Hello everyone x
The long journey to finding out the why and the what, became clear to us all yesterday.
Richie had Adult respiratory fibrosis, for many many years.
Left untreated, this disease compromises the lung tissue.
He then got pneumonia last week. Which with his history of lung damage, made him unable to successfully overcome it.
His body, as a response to the pneumonia, developed ARDS, Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome, which means for most who get it, automatic life support systems. This would be one condition, he was looking at never being without.
He fought a long battle with liver, and all that comes with that.....and quite successfully managed to get it in pretty good shape, with his name going on the list as he was now ready and able as of Sept 1st.
His additional battle with lung disease however.....he did not manage to win.
He passed away in my arms, at 11:45 am this morning.
There could never be more love between two people x
As I was helping him to continue on his journey, I asked him to let me know every day of my life, that I am not alone...and he is still with me.
I told him to be the wind that blows my dress up at the corner,...or be the wave that splashes me when I don't want to get wet....just be with me, and let me know he is there, and I am not going to be without him.
I told him that our love is stronger than these bodies,...and this life xo
And we will be together forever x
I want to thank you all, for your love and rainbows x
It meant the world to us both, on this beautiful journey Richie and I were so blessed to have shared xoxo
Richie Hayward.....you are my champion xoxo
I miss you already xoxo
♪♫ Sophia Loren - Tu vuò fa l'americano (1960)
Sophia did it way back in 1960
"It Started in Naples' with Clark Gable...
Andre Perkowski - Nova Express (Excerpt)
An excerpt from draft 5 of "NOVA EXPRESS"
A film by Andre Perkowski
A film by Andre Perkowski
Based on the writings of William S. Burroughs
Readings by Phil Proctor, Anne Waldeman and William S. Burroughs
(Thanx Robin!)
charlesdavis84 WikiLeaks kills _another_ 3 Afghan civilians -- http://bit.ly/9jmfNU
-- Oh wait, it was the US military. Never mind, nothing to see here.
♪♫ UNKLE - The Answer
Ray Winstone talks about being hit by lightening as a child in UNKLE's stunning new video. Director John Hillcoat, the man behind ‘The Road’, gives his take on UNKLE track ‘The Answer’ with this promo
Thursday, 12 August 2010
The Slap leads best-selling Booker longlist
Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap has been on Australian bestseller lists since its publication in 2008
The 13 novels being considered for this year's Man Booker prize are selling better than any other longlist since 2001.
Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap is most popular longlisted book, selling more than 5,000 in the first week of August, according to Nielsen BookScan figures.
It sold more than three times as well as Emma Donoghue's Room (1,422 copies).
The Booker shortlist will be announced on 7 September, with the winner crowned on 12 October.
"The selection committee of the Booker Prize has deliberately tried to select more commercially feasible titles in the list, and it's reflected in the sales," said Andre Breedt, research and development analyst at Nielsen BookScan.
In The Slap, the pivotal moment takes place at a Melbourne barbecue, where one of the guests hits a three-year-old child who is not his own.
The story is narrated by eight characters, all of whom were guests at the barbecue.
The book's recurring themes of sex, infidelity, racism, domestic violence and alcoholism have split critics.
Neill Denny, editor-in-chief of The Bookseller, told The Guardian that there "hasn't been a divisive book on taste grounds" in the Booker line-up for years.
One early blog review described it as "a satanic version of Neighbours".
The Slap won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2009 and was the fourth biggest-selling title by an Australian author that year.
Other books on the Booker longlist include David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Paul Murray's Skippy Dies, Rose Tremain's Trespass, Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America and Tom McCarthy's C.
The longlisted books sold 10,597 copies last week - up 47% on the same period in 2009 and an increase of 246% on the 2008 longlist.
The Bookseller points out that this year's sales are at their strongest point since 2001's 24-book longlist, which included Ian McEwan's Atonement and Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass.
The winner of the 2010 Booker Prize will receive £50,000, while the five runners-up will each receive £2,500 each.
Hilary Mantel won last year's Man Booker for her historical novel Wolf Hall.
Woman sentenced to stoning 'confesses' on Iranian TV
Iranian TV has aired what it says is a confession by a woman under threat of being stoned to death.
In the broadcast, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani admits to murder and denounces her lawyer, who fled the country after authorities tried to arrest him.
Ms Ashtiani's case prompted international outrage when she was initially sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.
Her death sentence was then temporarily halted by the authorities.
With the broadcast, the Iranian authorities have confronted head-on the enormous embarrassment they clearly feel over this case.
The confession was aired on one of the main channels of state TV.
There was no mention of the stoning sentence and the focus was moved away from the allegation of adultery, to a claim that she was complicit in a plot to murder her husband.
In the televised confession she admitted her part in the murder, despite earlier telling western media that she had been acquitted of the charge.
Ms Ashtiani also criticised her lawyer, Mohammed Mostafaie, for interfering in her case.
Mr Mostafaie has now sought asylum in Norway.
Another of Ms Ashtiani's lawyers has said that she was tortured for two days in prison to force her to make her confession.
Human rights activists fear that she is now in danger of imminent execution.
Jon Leyne @'BBC'
Ill Blu & the DMCA
exilestreet @Hyperdub received a DMCA notice at my blog for linking to this mix http://bit.ly/cIjgLU that you tweeted. Do the IFPI really act on yr say?
Hyperdub @exilestreet owt to do with us.The usual bullshit from the IFPI...
three out of my four DMCA notices have been for legal links, two at archive.org and now this!
three out of my four DMCA notices have been for legal links, two at archive.org and now this!
The Ploy to Promote Genetically Engineered Seeds and Pesticides to Poor Mexican Farmers Is Impoverishing Their Communities
The Obama administration's Feed the Future initiative promises a second Green Revolution that will feed a planet of nine billion people by doubling crop yields by 2050. But considering that we produce enough food to feed the planet today and a billion people still go hungry, are yields really the problem? And if they are, are providing Green Revolution technologies like hybrid and genetically engineered seeds, chemical fertilizer and pesticides to subsistence farmers the best way to achieve them? I visited subsistence farmers in Mexico to find out.The homes of campesinos, peasant farmers, in the rural areas surrounding Cuquio, Mexico (about an hour from Guadalajara) no longer have dirt floors. The Mexican government initiated a program to replace them with cement floors in 2008 and now most homes sport a plaque celebrating their new piso firmes. Electricity came about 20 years ago. For many, running water and bathroom facilities are modern conveniences they do not yet have. The government has recently distributed composting toilets to many, but not all, families.
One of the tiny adobe homes is decorated by flowers growing in upside-down Coca-Cola bottles turned into flower pots. Another is located next to a fencepost sporting an empty bag of Monsanto corn seeds -- seeds presumably planted in the adjoining cornfield, or milpa. This little corner of the world and the people who live here seem to be forgotten by everyone except for Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and multinational agribusiness corporations like Monsanto and DuPont.
The campesinos here are easy prey for savvy, first-world corporate marketers. Many have only a sixth-grade education, and they know how to grow their traditional milpas of intercropped corn, beans and squash because they learned the techniques practiced by generations before them, often first handling a horse and plow at the tender age of 6. They know their lives are hard and that some years they don't produce enough food to eat. Moreover, they are desperate to give their children better lives through education, but subsistence farming does not come with a salary and many cannot afford the fees, supplies or uniforms required by schools. Several express regret (or even despair) that their children had to drop out of school to work at the local shoe factory for 500 pesos per week -- about $1.05 per hour with current exchange rates. A new technology that could provide enough food and perhaps some income would be welcome.
Further depressing news from the "World of Managers" with deliberate sales of highly toxic chemicals to countries that require food sustainability, and not the ongoing problems associated with poisonous chemical usage. That these "intelligent managers" and shareholders condone and profit from the misery they produce is a blight on Western society. Once again the prevailing cheers of profits before people, deafen the less fortunate in cycles of starvation, pollution and toxic lifestyles, for a few dollars more. With these chemical substances banned by Western society for agricultural use, the continued production and sale to other countries, despite all available knowledge of their toxicity, surely ranks as a crime against humanity. How can this "World of Managers" and shareholders blithely add to the misery of so many people/, when the effects of their products are so widely, scientifically known?
One of the tiny adobe homes is decorated by flowers growing in upside-down Coca-Cola bottles turned into flower pots. Another is located next to a fencepost sporting an empty bag of Monsanto corn seeds -- seeds presumably planted in the adjoining cornfield, or milpa. This little corner of the world and the people who live here seem to be forgotten by everyone except for Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and multinational agribusiness corporations like Monsanto and DuPont.
The campesinos here are easy prey for savvy, first-world corporate marketers. Many have only a sixth-grade education, and they know how to grow their traditional milpas of intercropped corn, beans and squash because they learned the techniques practiced by generations before them, often first handling a horse and plow at the tender age of 6. They know their lives are hard and that some years they don't produce enough food to eat. Moreover, they are desperate to give their children better lives through education, but subsistence farming does not come with a salary and many cannot afford the fees, supplies or uniforms required by schools. Several express regret (or even despair) that their children had to drop out of school to work at the local shoe factory for 500 pesos per week -- about $1.05 per hour with current exchange rates. A new technology that could provide enough food and perhaps some income would be welcome.
Continue reading
Jill Richardson @'AlterNet'
Jill Richardson's Blog Further depressing news from the "World of Managers" with deliberate sales of highly toxic chemicals to countries that require food sustainability, and not the ongoing problems associated with poisonous chemical usage. That these "intelligent managers" and shareholders condone and profit from the misery they produce is a blight on Western society. Once again the prevailing cheers of profits before people, deafen the less fortunate in cycles of starvation, pollution and toxic lifestyles, for a few dollars more. With these chemical substances banned by Western society for agricultural use, the continued production and sale to other countries, despite all available knowledge of their toxicity, surely ranks as a crime against humanity. How can this "World of Managers" and shareholders blithely add to the misery of so many people/, when the effects of their products are so widely, scientifically known?
♪♫ Demdike Stare - Extwistle Hall vs Forest Of Evil (Dusk)
Fact Mix 151
Tracklist:
1. Demdike Stare – Rain And Shame
2. Demdike Stare – Matilda’s Dream
3. Guru Guru – Atommolch
4. Demdike Stare – Caged In Stammheim
5. Keith Hudson – Satan Side
6. Unknown – Unknown Thai track
7. Elias Rahbani – La Dance De Nadia
8. Robert Hood – Grace Under Fire ( Nightime Mix )
9. Demdike Stare – The Stars Are Moving
10. Carl Craig – Darkness
1. Demdike Stare – Rain And Shame
2. Demdike Stare – Matilda’s Dream
3. Guru Guru – Atommolch
4. Demdike Stare – Caged In Stammheim
5. Keith Hudson – Satan Side
6. Unknown – Unknown Thai track
7. Elias Rahbani – La Dance De Nadia
8. Robert Hood – Grace Under Fire ( Nightime Mix )
9. Demdike Stare – The Stars Are Moving
10. Carl Craig – Darkness
♪♫ Dan Bull - Dear Mandy [an open letter to Lord Mandelson]
the lyrics
Samples used:
Lily Allen - Never Gonna Happen
Lily Allen - Who'd Have Known
Dan on Twitter: http://twitter.com/itsDanBull
Dan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/itsDanBull
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/danbull
download
Historic Russian Seed Bank Faces Destruction
Priceless Plant Collection in Peril
Ninety percent of the more than 5,000 varieties of berries and fruit seed at the Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry seed bank in Leningrad, Russia are found in no other seed bank or plant research center in the world. During WWII, with Leningrad under siege, twelve scientists protecting the seed bank's valuable specimens starved to death, unwilling to eat the rare seeds.
What makes a few hundred thousand plant seeds worth dying for? The carefully tended seed collection at VRI -- one of the oldest seed banks in the world -- preserves rare genetic traits that could one day help farmers save entire nations from famine.
Yet today, part of Vavilov's priceless repository is in danger of being lost forever. The seed bank's research station at Pavlovsk, home to thousands of rare plant varieties, is facing destruction by one of the most banal evils imaginable: a housing development. A group of Russian real estate developers plans to bulldoze the historic agricultural research center -- and its fields of rare berry bushes and fruit trees -- to build the Russian equivalent of a subdivision of McMansions.
TAKE ACTION: SAVE THE SEED BANK FROM DESTRUCTION!
The Crop Diversity Crisis
Modern industrialized agriculture has encouraged the standardization of crop seeds. Most of the world now depends on fewer than 150 species of plants for food, and 90% of the crop varieties grown just 100 years ago are no longer commercially produced, leaving most of humanity dependent on just a few varieties of vital food crops like corn, wheat or apples.
This lack of crop diversity makes the food plants most people depend on for survival highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, disease and insect pests. With an artificially limited gene pool, most conventional food crops cannot evolve new defenses quickly from one generation to the next to deal with a changing environment. And planting the same variety of a plant from one field to the next makes it easy for plant diseases to spread. A new virus or fungus might wipe out not just one farmer's field, but an entire state's crop.
But older, heirloom varieties of food plants often carry genes that can help plants withstand drought, flooding and pestilence. And that is why seed banks like the one at Pavlovsk are so vitally important -- by preserving a wide variety of plants and seeds, seed banks preserve genetic traits that one day might save entire plant species from extinction.
Save the Seed Bank
If the Russian real estate developers have their way, the Pavlovsk agricultural research station might be destroyed in just a few months. The Global Crop Diversity Trust and botanists around the world are petitioning the Russian government to save Pavlovsk's seeds.
The director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, Dr. Cary Fowler, is encouraging anyone who would like the Russian government to stop the destruction of this historic seed bank to join a Twitter campaign to convince Russia's President, Dmitry Medvedev, (@kremlinrussia_e)to intervene.
TAKE ACTION:
Costs of Major U.S. Wars Compared
More than a trillion dollars has been appropriated since September 11, 2001 for U.S. military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. This makes the “war on terrorism” the most costly of any military engagement in U.S. history in absolute terms or, if correcting for inflation, the second most expensive U.S. military action after World War II.
A newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service estimated the financial costs of major U.S. wars from the American Revolution ($2.4 billion in FY 2011 dollars) to World War I ($334 billion) to World War II ($4.1 trillion) to the second Iraq war ($784 billion) and the war in Afghanistan ($321 billion). CRS provided its estimates in current year dollars (i.e. the year they were spent) and in constant year dollars (adjusted for inflation), and as a percentage of gross domestic product. Many caveats apply to these figures, which are spelled out in the CRS report.
In constant dollars, World War II is still the most expensive of all U.S. wars, having consumed a massive 35.8% of GDP at its height and having cost $4.1 trillion in FY2011 dollars. See “Costs of Major U.S. Wars,” June 29, 2010.
Travelling Solo
It's really simple: the great thing about travelling alone is that there is no one else with you. No one whose wishes and needs you have to consider when you want to spend the day at your hotel in bed reading excursion brochures or gloomy Thomas Bernhard. You want to stay in bed? You stay in bed. You want to lie at the edge of an ocean and let the surf play with your feet? You do that. You want to see the sights? Really? Do you really? Well, if you must, you can.
You travel alone, you do exactly as you want. This surely needs no further explanation. But, of course, I'm from what Margaret Thatcher (that well-known communitarian) called the Me generation. Being with other people on holiday makes me anxious. Are they comfortable, happy, restless, resentful, bored? On the whole, togetherness requires compromise and why would you want to compromise (more than already required by the location and budget) while travelling, as well as in your real, everyday life?
Nevertheless, I know that there are those who find the word "alone" distressing. That scene in Les Enfants du Paradis where the insufferable toddler enters the theatre box, in which the gloriously tragic Arletty watches her secret love on stage, and pipes: "Vous êtes toute seule, madame?" makes being toute seule a lifelong terrifying prospect. Well then, try "solo".
The difference between travelling solo and travelling alone is a state of mind. I've been travelling alone for decades, long before I could call myself a "travel writer" – not that I do call myself a travel writer. But the word could is essential here. It's true that, for different reasons in different places, people can be curious, suspicious even, of a woman (young, middle-aged or old) travelling alone. Yet tell them you're a writer and not only is everything explicable but people will stay and talk to you, telling you sometimes wonderful stories about their lives. Use the writer excuse with a different look on your face, and people will understandingly leave you alone.
In those circumstances where you might feel awkward – eating alone in a restaurant full of holiday couples and families, lizarding on a beach hoping for perfect peace, ordering a drink at a bar in a small town – only think of yourself as a writer on an assignment and the unease falls away. You are, after all, doing what a writer does: looking, thinking, playing with characters or ideas, and idling. Once you've explained yourself to yourself it does wonders for not worrying about what other people think. It makes all social unwillingness acceptable. You can talk, not talk; join, not join; everything's covered for other people and for you. You're travelling solo, not alone.
I've chilled out in the Caribbean, encircled America by train, cargo-shipped across the Atlantic and explored the Antarctic peninsula, all solo and at ease, using my laptop as a flag of peace and quiet. Even before I really did write travel stuff, I went to Greek islands in that blissful condition of being alone but free to talk to people if I wanted, by using the journalism excuse.
There are other ways to travel solo without raising eyebrows, as I did when I went with my three-year-old to Lake Como and was stared at with deep suspicion and disapproval by the other, mostly elderly, Italian guests in the hotel. Eventually, I made it a point to "find" myself sitting in the foyer next to the crossest-looking elderly lady and explained how sad and yet comforting it was to return here where my late husband and I had enjoyed such happy holidays. She broke into a relieved smile to discover I was a virtuous widow and not a disreputable single mother, as I was, and passed the news around, so that the rest of the vacation allowed me to "mourn" while basking in benevolent glances.
As a young woman in Greece, I found a polite but very firm "no, thank you" was sufficient to send young Greek men, who were both practical and fatalistic, off to try their luck elsewhere.
There are limits to easing your way alone in the world. None of these strategies would have worked in the train I took in my late teens from Rome to Assisi. It was full and I had no seat booked, so I spent the journey standing in the corridor in a tube-like crush with what seemed like an entire brigade of the Italian army. This was awkward and uncomfortable.
For several hours the young men, every one of them, stared unblinking at me with that deadly gaze poised between loathing and lust, until the train reached Assisi, where I fought my way through hands, mouths and groins to the exit. I hadn't thought of the journalism justification at that stage, but it really wouldn't have helped.
Jenny Diski @'The Guardian'
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
