Thursday 23 July 2009
John Cage Meets Sun Ra
Modern classical composer John Cage and jazz maverick Sun Ra performed together in 1986 at Coney Island, New York. The result was recorded and released on this long out-of-print album. We are fortunate that Ubuweb is able to make this fascinating record available again. Sun Ra begins with improvisations on the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer. John Cage performs his vocal work, Empty Words (Part IV), and each alternates performances. Cage’s performance is wonderfully trance-like with long silences as is typical of him. Sun Ra’s playing is other-worldly with little of the jazz quality that one hears in his Arkestra works. As a combined effort this “meeting” may not be very convincing. However if you consider each individual’s artistry, especially Sun Ra’s incredible sojourn at the synthesizer, you will find this a very rewarding experience.
The album is available on two 160kbps MP3s.
Download
(The downloads are #6 and #7)
(Words from: 'Free Albums Galore')
Black Eyed Peas Have Officially Written The Worst Song Ever
...and it's called "I Gotta Feeling". Mixing Yiddish phrases with autotune skanks is something only the fabulous Black Eyed Peas could attempt. You know - just like rhyming 'up' with 'up' and 'cup' with 'mazel tov'.
Google Accused Of Invisibly Deleting Blog Posts On The RIAA's Say-So
The fight between music bloggers and record labels reached its most visible point when a guy who uploaded a leaked copy of the latest Guns N' Roses album to his site got arrested by the FBI. But many music bloggers are now fighting a much more invisible menace, with posts they've written suddenly disappearing from their sites (via Tyler Hellard) hosted on Google's Blogger platform. An RIAA source says that the group sends Google a list of URLs it doesn't like, and Google "then deals with the problem." Google says that it notifies bloggers after their posts have been taken down, in accordance with the DMCA. But it should hardly be surprising that many of those affected say they've gotten no such notice, nor that the offending material was either legally posted and/or supplied by the labels themselves. So two possibilities emerge: the RIAA is filing false DMCA takedowns, and/or its legal right hand doesn't know what the labels' promotional left hands are doing. The upshot of this is that lots of music bloggers say the threat of landing in legal trouble -- particularly for posting music supplied to them by labels and artists -- is having a chilling effect on them, and could eventually stop them from blogging, shutting down a valuable promotional tool for the labels. That sort of shooting itself in the foot, though, seems to be the record industry's specialty.
From 'Techdirt'
From 'Techdirt'
Wednesday 22 July 2009
Nice to see that you no longer get told when you get a DMCA take down notice...
Interestingly enough I just discovered this. a translation by 'Pyrolse Bred' of an article in French from Jan 2009 here.Is the music business in crisis?
If by “crisis” you mean something similar to the steel industry in the 1970s or the automobile industry now, then the answer is no. The music industry had its heydays at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, when people replaced their vinyl records by CDs, while still buying new releases. Those exceptional days are over, but the industry is still doing well. In France, money collected by the Sacem (the main institution responsible for collecting and redistributing royalties) increased from 600 millions € in 2000 to 750 millions € in 2005.
This “crisis” is in fact a crisis of the CD, their sales declining steeply (by 20% in 2008). But this decline is offset by an increase in revenues from live shows and public broadcasting. The sales of digital music (like ringtones and so forth) are fast increasing (+ 26.8%) and music on demand has increased by 85%.
Are illegal downloads responsible for the decline in CD sales?
There’s actually no proof of that. One downloaded song doesn’t mean one lost sale. First, because the song might not have been purchased otherwise. Second, because the discovery of an artist thanks to a free download may induce the purchase of albums or of derived products (ringtones, concert tickets, video games etc).
Are CDs and DVDs the main source of revenues for artists?
No. The sales of records represent only a fraction of their revenues. In 2007 they represented (only) 16.5% of the money collected by the Sacem. Artists earn more money from live shows and public broadcastings (radio, TV, nightclubs).
How many artists suffer from the decline of CD sales?
If we imagined a sudden collapse of sales, only a few music writers would seriously suffer: the ones who never get played on the radio and never give any concerts. Others would see their revenues go from very comfortable to comfortable. In fact, in their vast majority, artists sell too few CDs to be hurt financially by illegal downloads. Only 5% of artists could be earning money from the sales of records. The issue for the remaining 95% of artists is to be known, not to fight piracy.
How come so few artists live off the sales of CDs?
Major record companies are largely responsible for this situation.
From the year 2000 onwards, they focused their marketing strategies on a small number of “safe” artists. Between 2001 and 2004, the number of artists who had a contract with one of the 4 majors has strongly decreased. The result is that by 2006 less than 6% of the artists represented 90% of the market.
Radio stations have also played a big role in impoverishing the market. A 2006 report by the “Observatoire de la musique” stated that on 31 radio stations (making up 92% of the audience) less than 3% of the songs played represented ¾ of the broadcasting time. And on radio stations aimed at young people the situation was even worse: the presumed 40 most popular songs represented 60% of the broadcasting time.
Who is the biggest loser of the decline in record sales?
The record companies: Universal (25% of the market), Sony BMG (21%), EMI (13%) and Warner (11%). They’re the ones who collect the biggest chunk of money from the sales of records. Off the price of 15-20€ for a CD, 19.6% is VAT, 21% goes to the distributor and 50% is collected by the record company. The main artist, writers and musicians collect together about 9%. In theory. Because record companies often deduct the costs of recording, marketing and shooting the video(s) from those 9%.
Could music be cheaper without ripping off artists?
Yes. Right from the start CDs were sold at a price 50% higher than vinyl records. But the manufacturing costs have quickly dropped below that of vinyl LPs. Moreover, in 1987, VAT on records went from 33.6% to 19.6%. The price of CDs on the other hand has only dropped by a mere 8%, and it subsequently never decreased further. Needless to say, artists are still not being better paid now than in the 1980s …
O Rappa - Minha Alma
Bonus:Audio
The original studio version of this from O Rappa's album 'Lado A Lado B' was produced by Bill Laswell
The original studio version of this from O Rappa's album 'Lado A Lado B' was produced by Bill Laswell
Illinois:Lawsuit: Cops tasered 3 kids, threatened one with sodomy
A shelter for adolescents in southern Illinois is suing the local sheriff’s office for what it describes as an unprovoked attack by two police officers on four children, three of whom were tasered, and one of whom was threatened with sodomy by a sheriff’s deputy. The Southern Thirty Adolescent Center near Mount Vernon, IL, filed the lawsuit on behalf of three children in its custody, who the lawsuit says were tasered by Jefferson County sheriff’s deputies who had been called to help subdue two misbehaving children, aged 11 and 12. Neither of those children were among those who were tasered during what one news service described as a police “rampage.” The incident took place on July 4, 2008. The federal lawsuit was filed in an East St. Louis court on Friday. In the suit the children are named only by their initials: B.B., R.E., and Z.P. According to the legal filing, quoted in the Mount Vernon Register, one deputy “physically pushed R.E. towards his bunk and shocked him repeatedly with a taser. … R.E. was tased multiple times to multiple locations on his person, including, but not limited to, his neck. Deputy Bowers shouted to B.B. to lie down in his bunk and physically forced him to lie down. “Without physical provocation and/or physical gestures from B.B., Deputy Bowers held B.B. down on his bed and shocked him repeatedly with a taser. While he was tasing B.B., Deputy David Bowers threatened to sodomize B.B. As a result of this repeated and excessive tasing, B.B. urinated and defecated himself. Deputy David Bowers was aware that B.B. urinated himself after the tasing.” The filing goes on to say that a 17-year-old female visitor to the center, who had pleaded with police to stop the attack, was grabbed by an officer, choked, and locked in a closet. From the Mount Vernon Register, quoting the legal filing:
“As Z.P. was being repeatedly tased, [17-year-old] Megan Geisler pleaded with Deputy David Bowers and Deputy Lonnie Lawler to stop. Deputy David Bowers ordered Deputy Lonnie Lawler to handcuff Megan Geisler. … Deputy David Bowers grabbed Megan Geisler by her arms, lifted her off her feet, and carried her through the male dormitory to a nearby closet. On the way to the closet, Deputy David Bowers lifted Megan Geisler off the ground, pressed her against a wall and choked her. While choking her, Deputy David Bowers said, ‘do you want to live or die bitch’ to Megan Geisler. Megan Geisler was then thrown into a closet. At this time she began vomiting and heaving.”
According to AP, no criminal charges have been filed in the case, and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office says the deputies “acted appropriately.” The Illinois Department of Family and Child Services told southern Illinois’ WSIL-TV that “shocking children with Tasers can result in serious physical and mental injury. Use of these weapons is especially troubling in cases where the children involved have committed no crime and have not even been charged with wrong doing.”
@ 'Raw Story' via 'Renegade Futurist'
To protect, serve, choke, shock and sodomize.
Asia swathed in darkness with the longest total eclipse of the century
Solar eclipse is seen in Yinchuan, capital of northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, at 8:33 a.m. on Wednesday, July 22, 2009. Photograph: Wang Peng/AP@ 'The Guardian'
Watergate Hotel attracts NO bids
An attempted auction of the Watergate Hotel, part of a Washington landmark made famous by a presidential scandal, has failed to attract any bids.The opening price on the hotel was $25m (£15.2m), but none of the 10 people registered to bid did so.
@ 'BBC'
Israel's internet war
The passionate support for Israel expressed on talkback sections of websites, internet chat forums, blogs, Twitters and Facebook may not be all that it seems.
Israel’s foreign ministry is reported to be establishing a special undercover team of paid workers whose job it will be to surf the internet 24 hours a day spreading positive news about Israel.
Internet-savvy Israeli youngsters, mainly recent graduates and demobilised soldiers with language skills, are being recruited to pose as ordinary surfers while they provide the government’s line on the Middle East conflict.
“To all intents and purposes the internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose,” said Ilan Shturman, who is responsible for the project.
The existence of an “internet warfare team” came to light when it was included in this year’s foreign ministry budget. About $150,000 has been set aside for the first stage of development, with increased funding expected next year.
Full story @ 'Counterpunch'
(Thanx Paul)
Israel’s foreign ministry is reported to be establishing a special undercover team of paid workers whose job it will be to surf the internet 24 hours a day spreading positive news about Israel.
Internet-savvy Israeli youngsters, mainly recent graduates and demobilised soldiers with language skills, are being recruited to pose as ordinary surfers while they provide the government’s line on the Middle East conflict.
“To all intents and purposes the internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose,” said Ilan Shturman, who is responsible for the project.
The existence of an “internet warfare team” came to light when it was included in this year’s foreign ministry budget. About $150,000 has been set aside for the first stage of development, with increased funding expected next year.
Full story @ 'Counterpunch'
(Thanx Paul)
'Death of Neda'
Death of Neda A finely detailed portrait bust of Neda will be presented at a massive rally in front of San Francisco City Hall on July 25th. More than 20,000 people are expected to attend the event.
Story here.
Green Brief 35
Clinton: U.S. Will Extend 'Defense Umbrella' Over Gulf if Iran Obtains Nuclear Weapons
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Iran Wednesday that the United States would extend a "defense umbrella" over its allies in the Persian Gulf if the Islamic Republic obtains a nuclear weapons capability. Appearing on a Thai TV program, Clinton said the U.S. would also take steps to "upgrade the defense" of America's Gulf allies in such an event, a reference to stepped-up military aid to those countries. Clinton's reference to a U.S. "defense umbrella" over the Persian Gulf represented a potentially significant evolution in America's global defense posture. Washington already explicitly maintains a "nuclear umbrella" over Asian allies like Japan and South Korea, but seldom, if ever, has any senior U.S. official publicly discussed the concept in relation to the Gulf. The secretary's remarks also suggested the course the Obama administration might pursue if, as many analysts predict, an unchecked Iran succeeds in obtaining a nuclear weapons capability before President Obama's term expires -- in effect, how the United States might live with a nuclear-armed Iran. Clinton's comments evoked a vision of the U.S. countering such a threat by bolstering regional defenses and reminding Iran of the dangers of mutually assured destruction -- but not by seeking regime change in Iran or by taking military action to destroy the country's nuclear apparatus. "We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment that if the United States extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to support the military capacity of those in the Gulf, it's unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer because they won't be able to intimidate and dominate as they apparently believe they can once they have a nuclear weapon," Clinton said. Asked about the Obama administration's attempts to engage Iran, Clinton said she "had hoped we would get a positive response ... but then their elections happened." Clinton told her Thai TV interviewers there was "no doubt" that "irregularities" occurred in Iran's disputed presidential election and that the regime then "brutally repressed" those citizens that protested the announced outcome. Because of these events, the secretary said, the Iranian regime has been "preoccupied" and thus not responded to American overtures. "The nuclear clock is ticking," she said, noting that Tehran has continued to pursue its nuclear programs and adding that the U.S. and its allies in the nuclear diplomacy surrounding Iran "will not keep the window open forever." She repeated previous pledges to work to impose "crippling" sanctions if Iran does not halt its enrichment of uranium.
Tuesday 21 July 2009
Live tweets
Rt Iran Clashes in 7Tir square now, tear gas in Vali Asr. Smaller groups,lots of chanting. #iran #gr88 #iranelection
UPDATE: EVERYONE IS GOING TOWARDS KARIMKHAN ST. Vali Asr and 7-TIR is TAKEN by the Basij. #iranelection
protests reported in tabriz, isfahan, and shiraz as well, "Khmnei is murderer, his rule is void", clashes reported, #iranelection
IMPORTANT: PLEASE RT: **Green Blackout** Tonight at 9 all appliances ON, at 9:05 all appliances OFF #iranelection
Freedom Messenger - Confrmed;People moved to Karim khan Zand from 7 TIR Square. Heavy SF Presnt attack w/teargas right now #iranelection RT
Iran updates
Iran's hardline leaders failing to stem discontent
Iran's post-election power struggle is shaking the Islamic Republic to its roots, with no sign that its supreme leader can assuage popular anger or regain the trust of alienated politicians and clerics any time soon. The turmoil since hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected in a June 12 vote his opponents said was rigged has rendered moot U.S. President Barack Obama's offer of engagement with Iran, which the West suspects of seeking nuclear weapons. It is hard to see how Iran could forge consensus on nuclear negotiations or dialogue with the United States while Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is facing unprecedented challenges to his authority and deep fissures within the ruling elite. Tehran, which says its nuclear programme is purely peaceful, faces a September deadline to agree to substantive negotiations with the West or risk tougher international sanctions. "Whether or not you can find an interlocutor in Iran at this moment is questionable because the whole regime is in crisis," said Rasool Nafisi, a U.S.-based Iran expert. "Whatever move it made would be perceived as either arrogance or weakness." The nuclear issue may have to await the outcome of Iran's gravest internal upheaval since the 1979 Islamic revolution. A hard-hitting Friday sermon by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a disaffected regime heavyweight, has re-energised the opposition after security forces quelled last month's huge street protests and jailed hundreds of prominent reformists and intellectuals. "The main problem the opposition faces is that their brains trust is either in prison, under house arrest, or unable to communicate freely," said Karim Sadjadpour, an analyst at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There remains tremendous popular outrage, but at the moment there is no leadership to channel that outrage politically." Sadjadpour saw no sign of an early compromise because hardliners feared any concession would only encourage their foes, and for now they still control the levers of power. "While there are pronounced cleavages among Iran's clerical elite, Khamenei's power base is not the clergy but the Revolutionary Guards. When and if we start to see rifts among the Guards it could be fatal for both Khamenei and Ahmadinejad." Khamenei, apparently stung by Rafsanjani's sermon in which he said Iran was in crisis because of doubts over the election result and demanded an end to detentions and press curbs, warned senior figures on Monday not to help Tehran's enemies. "Elites should know that any talk, action or analysis that helps (the enemy) is a move against the nation," he said. But Rafsanjani appears too powerfully entrenched to ignore. "He is not just anybody. He is one of the leading figures of the revolution and well-anchored among large groups of clerics," said a Western diplomat in Tehran. "He has a fantastic network." CLERICS IN A QUANDARY Defeated candidates Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi have defied Khamenei's efforts to silence their protests. Former President Mohammad Khatami, a mild reformist, on Monday boldly proposed a referendum on the legitimacy of the government. Ideologically, the backing of Iran's clerical establishment is crucial for the leadership's standing, but few ayatollahs have endorsed Ahmadinejad and some, like dissident Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, have even attacked Khamenei. "The clerics don't know what to do," said Baqer Moin, a London-based Iran analyst. "They are stuck between Khamenei's uncompromising position and an emboldened opposition which is demanding more than Khamenei is willing to give." Khamenei, who succeeded revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as supreme leader in 1989, has endorsed Ahmadinejad and the election result, risking his own credibility as a mediator in disputes and ultimate arbiter of state policy. "The supreme leader has lost his power to pronounce the final word," said Moin, a biographer of Khomeini. "He is just another politician ... reflecting the interest of various groups surrounding him, not the system as a whole." Rafsanjani, 75, a veteran insider who heads a body that can in theory dismiss the supreme leader, was accused of corruption by Ahmadinejad during a mud-slinging election campaign. But he took a lofty line at Friday prayers, saying unity and people's trust in the voting process must be restored after a "bitter day" -- trenchant indirect criticism of Khamenei. "Rafsanjani has played it quite cleverly and in fact gave the speech the leader should have," Ali Ansari, an Iran scholar at Britain's Durham University said of Friday's sermon. At stake now, he said, was the political survival not just of Ahmadinejad, but of Khamenei, who was "weakening by the day". Some analysts see an outside chance that Iran's hardline leaders, feeling isolated at home, might seek an accommodation with the West to gain legitimacy and shore up their position. So far, however, Khamenei and Ahmadinejad have repeatedly accused Western powers of inciting post-election unrest and have ruled out any concessions on Iran's nuclear projects. Conversely, Obama may be in no haste to embark on any negotiation that might bolster Iranian leaders caught up in such a fluid, unpredictable political drama in Tehran. "I fear Ahmadinejad's presence serves as an insurmountable obstacle to confidence-building with the United States," Carnegie's Sadjadpour said of the prospects for engagement. "It's going to be impossible for Tehran to reassure us that its nuclear ambitions are purely peaceful as long as Ahmadinejad remains so outspokenly belligerent towards Israel." (Editing by Jon Hemming)@Reuters
Is compulsion to amputate healthy limbs mind or matter?
One day, after years of agony, an Australian man took a large quantity of dry ice and intentionally damaged his left leg, so that a surgeon would have to amputate it.The action was intentional and the man, Robert Vickers, described the feeling of waking up in the hospital without his leg as “absolute ecstasy.” He’s one of a small number of people who have what psychiatrists have come to call body integrity identity disorder in which patients report the desire to have one or more of their limbs amputated because the extremities don’t feel like they “belong” to their bodies.Full story by Alexis Madrigal @ 'Wired' via 'Renegade Futurist'
Smoking # 26
No credit @ the moment as I liberated this picture from a site that constantly steals other people's pics without credit.If you ARE the original uploader then please get in touch and I shall be happy to credit YOU!
What is the world coming to...?
A boy pretending to be a girl on the internet. Tsk! Tsk!
Who would have thought of such a thing...?
Who would have thought of such a thing...?
Sextortion at Eisenhower High
Last year, an awkward high school senior in Wisconsin went online, passed himself off as a flirtatious female student, and conned dozens of his male classmates into e-mailing him sexually explicit images of themselves. What he did next will likely send him to jail for a very long time.
By Michael Joseph Gross; Photograph by Glen Erler.
stop being a wuss, x told himself. x was only 15, and he didn't know a lot about girls, but he did know this:
If you wanted to get with a girl like Kayla, you couldn't be a wuss. She IM'd him again.will u send it? she asked. Yes. He would. X pulled down his pants. When he was ready, he pointed the camera, snapped a picture, and sent it. omg, Kayla wrote. u r so hot. now its yr turn, he wrote. A minute later, Kayla sent a picture: shirt up, no bra, with the head cropped out. Fuck, X thought. That's hot. Even her screen name was sexy. Kayla's Facebook page said she was a junior, and though he'd never actually met her, you couldn't know every girl in a school with 1,200 kids. The night before, Kayla friended him with a message saying she always saw him in the hall and wanted to say hi, but she was too shy. Now she was asking for another picture.he typed. 1 minute. X looked in the mirror and flexed. He pointed the camera, snapped, then checked the shot. Nah. He could do better. He turned, flexed again, and snapped a few more. He picked the best one, cropped it, and sent it. She loved it. Totally loved it. Okay, now it was her turn. He wanted to see her face and body together, too. sorry, she wrote, too embarrassed. :-\ She'd make it up to him, though. That was a promise.*
If you wanted to get with a girl like Kayla, you couldn't be a wuss. She IM'd him again.will u send it? she asked. Yes. He would. X pulled down his pants. When he was ready, he pointed the camera, snapped a picture, and sent it. omg, Kayla wrote. u r so hot. now its yr turn, he wrote. A minute later, Kayla sent a picture: shirt up, no bra, with the head cropped out. Fuck, X thought. That's hot. Even her screen name was sexy. Kayla's Facebook page said she was a junior, and though he'd never actually met her, you couldn't know every girl in a school with 1,200 kids. The night before, Kayla friended him with a message saying she always saw him in the hall and wanted to say hi, but she was too shy. Now she was asking for another picture.he typed. 1 minute. X looked in the mirror and flexed. He pointed the camera, snapped, then checked the shot. Nah. He could do better. He turned, flexed again, and snapped a few more. He picked the best one, cropped it, and sent it. She loved it. Totally loved it. Okay, now it was her turn. He wanted to see her face and body together, too. sorry, she wrote, too embarrassed. :-\ She'd make it up to him, though. That was a promise.*
Full story @ 'GQ'
via 'Who's afraid of the world wide web' by Conor Friedersdorf
@ 'Daily Dish'
"A long piece at GQ tells the disturbing story of Tony Stancl, an 18 year old high school senior who created a fake female identity on Facebook, flirted with male classmates by Internet chat, and successfully encouraged hundreds of them to send along naked photographs. These he kept on his computer. The unluckiest victims were subsequently blackmailed. The made up female would threaten to release the photographs unless the boys performed oral or anal sex on "my friend Tony." Some boys agreed, and allowed that to be photographed too.
It is difficult to imagine a more striking cautionary tale for teenagers who inhabit the Internet age.
One can only hope that the victims of "sextortion" in this case aren't permanently traumatized -- and that the perpetrator is appropriately punished, hopefully discouraging other would be predators from preying on classmates in the same way.
Having laid out the story, the GQ writer reaches the following conclusion:
What happened here is shocking because it was not all that shocking. In the beginning, when Kayla and Emily asked these boys for naked pictures, the majority of them thought little of saying yes. This exchange was within the range of what kids—lots of kids—consider normal. Online, a boy chats with a girl he's never met. Pants go down. Pictures are sent. And a chain of unpredictable, unknowable consequences is set in motion. Whatever else he may be, Tony Stancl is an opportunist. He rode the big wave that more and more kids ride, out to a place where every flesh-and-blood kid is also a phantom, where adolescence isn't so lonely, where you don't have to wonder, Isn't there anybody who wants what I want? In this world, no IM goes unanswered—and for every teenager who types the question will u send it?, there is another typing, Yes.
Am I alone in thinking that the casual attitude taken by many teenagers toward naked pictures generally -- as opposed to the horrific deception specific to the case above -- isn't surprising at all? In the annals of American history, how many high school boys have exposed themselves to high school girls they met only recently? I am certain that very few stopped beforehand to ponder whether being seen naked would traumatize them, and that very few were ever traumatized by the experience. (I'll avoid speculating one way or another about the experience of women.) I hasten to add that exposing yourself to high school classmates is a bad idea! It would seem to inculcate unhealthy attitudes toward sexuality, and risks prosecution under overly broad child pornography laws. Would my high school senior self nevertheless have complied if a beautiful classmate cornered me at a party, intimated that she had a huge crush on me, and hinted that maybe we could be a thing if only I'd undress? He probably would have!
This issue is so thorny. If I ran for office and confessed that as a 21-year-old I went skinny dipping in mixed company one drunken night in Nice, France, I'd be unembarrassed about the experience, which was innocent enough, pretty damn fun if you want to know the truth, and an exploit with which I imagine most people can identify. What if a classmate from those days, having taken photographs (or even worse, video) without my knowledge, subsequently released them online? I'd be embarrassed. Some folks would regard it as a minor scandal. Can you see the Drudge headline? "Senate candidate exposed in naked romp!"
Like the (apocryphal?) tribes who feared that being photographed would rob them of their souls, we've reached a strange point in society where lots of behavior, whether desirable or undesirable, is considered far worse if it is documented on the Internet. This is at times perfectly rational, or else understandably irrational, but it sure is vexing, and I am quite thankful that my own teenage years were blissfully free of having everything I did documented in the cloud."
via 'Who's afraid of the world wide web' by Conor Friedersdorf
@ 'Daily Dish'
"A long piece at GQ tells the disturbing story of Tony Stancl, an 18 year old high school senior who created a fake female identity on Facebook, flirted with male classmates by Internet chat, and successfully encouraged hundreds of them to send along naked photographs. These he kept on his computer. The unluckiest victims were subsequently blackmailed. The made up female would threaten to release the photographs unless the boys performed oral or anal sex on "my friend Tony." Some boys agreed, and allowed that to be photographed too.
It is difficult to imagine a more striking cautionary tale for teenagers who inhabit the Internet age.
One can only hope that the victims of "sextortion" in this case aren't permanently traumatized -- and that the perpetrator is appropriately punished, hopefully discouraging other would be predators from preying on classmates in the same way.
Having laid out the story, the GQ writer reaches the following conclusion:
What happened here is shocking because it was not all that shocking. In the beginning, when Kayla and Emily asked these boys for naked pictures, the majority of them thought little of saying yes. This exchange was within the range of what kids—lots of kids—consider normal. Online, a boy chats with a girl he's never met. Pants go down. Pictures are sent. And a chain of unpredictable, unknowable consequences is set in motion. Whatever else he may be, Tony Stancl is an opportunist. He rode the big wave that more and more kids ride, out to a place where every flesh-and-blood kid is also a phantom, where adolescence isn't so lonely, where you don't have to wonder, Isn't there anybody who wants what I want? In this world, no IM goes unanswered—and for every teenager who types the question will u send it?, there is another typing, Yes.
Am I alone in thinking that the casual attitude taken by many teenagers toward naked pictures generally -- as opposed to the horrific deception specific to the case above -- isn't surprising at all? In the annals of American history, how many high school boys have exposed themselves to high school girls they met only recently? I am certain that very few stopped beforehand to ponder whether being seen naked would traumatize them, and that very few were ever traumatized by the experience. (I'll avoid speculating one way or another about the experience of women.) I hasten to add that exposing yourself to high school classmates is a bad idea! It would seem to inculcate unhealthy attitudes toward sexuality, and risks prosecution under overly broad child pornography laws. Would my high school senior self nevertheless have complied if a beautiful classmate cornered me at a party, intimated that she had a huge crush on me, and hinted that maybe we could be a thing if only I'd undress? He probably would have!
This issue is so thorny. If I ran for office and confessed that as a 21-year-old I went skinny dipping in mixed company one drunken night in Nice, France, I'd be unembarrassed about the experience, which was innocent enough, pretty damn fun if you want to know the truth, and an exploit with which I imagine most people can identify. What if a classmate from those days, having taken photographs (or even worse, video) without my knowledge, subsequently released them online? I'd be embarrassed. Some folks would regard it as a minor scandal. Can you see the Drudge headline? "Senate candidate exposed in naked romp!"
Like the (apocryphal?) tribes who feared that being photographed would rob them of their souls, we've reached a strange point in society where lots of behavior, whether desirable or undesirable, is considered far worse if it is documented on the Internet. This is at times perfectly rational, or else understandably irrational, but it sure is vexing, and I am quite thankful that my own teenage years were blissfully free of having everything I did documented in the cloud."
Aung San Suu Kyi by Shepard Fairey
Most heard opinion why Obama won the presidential election last year is because of the effective use of social media. True. But also very important was the Hope-poster made by Shepard Fairey. How a piece of design went viral. Now Shepard Fairey made new stunning work portraiting imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi from Burma. “This Human Rights cause is something I believe in strongly,” said Fairey. “I created this portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi to raise awareness of her on-going house arrest and the oppressive nature of the military regime ruling Burma.”Full story @ 'osocio'
A killer blog...
A really great blog that I have just discovered:'Killed In Cars'
A treasure trove of music, some that I have never even heard of!
Tonight I downloaded four or five albums purely on the recommendation of this blog after I found it while I was looking for some 'Basic Channel' tunes...
What can I say apart from check it out and take a chance on something you don't know about and maybe you will get blown away like I did by this album.
Ahmahdinejad's pick for VP bows out after three days
Mashaie’s appointment came under harsh criticism by the conservatives, normally allies of Ahmadinejad. They objected to a remark he had made last year saying the Israeli people were friends of the Iranians. The appearance of nepotism (Mashaie’s daughter is married to Ahmadinejad’s son) also did not help his case. [...] The last thing he needed was being attacked by Shaiatmadari and the conservatives on the very first appointment to his new cabinet. He should have expected the reaction from the right to this nomination, but it seems that he may be loosing touch with the realities on the ground.
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