*SIGH!!!*
Friday 1 October 2010
John Cage's 4'33'': the festive sound of a defeated Simon Cowell
How long does it take to make an annual tradition? The idea of fixing the Christmas No 1 via Facebook is only three years old, but already feels cosy. In fact, to some of those trying to send a song to the top of the charts, it's a given that Rage Against the Machine scored but the first of many such victories. "It seems obvious that a similar Facebook-inspired campaign will triumph again," writes the webmaster of a Surfin' Bird for No 1 group. It seems even more obvious that it won't, since every fanbase with a grudge against The Man is massing their forces separately and dissension is rife. The Children of Bodom group doesn't even mention Simon Cowell: "Better than Rage, anyway," it huffs. Splitters!
To have any point, this kind of campaign needs to do two things. It should still seem like a clever idea months after you sign up, and it should be funny even if it completely fails to top the charts. The only effort this year with a hope of ticking these boxes is Cage Against the Machine, whose candidate for Christmas No 1 is a recording of John Cage's 4'33". This notorious "silent composition" from 1952 will "make Simon Cowell's head explode", promise the organisers. The piece is already a flypaper for all kinds of official foolishness: one recording on YouTube has had its audio disabled for copyright infringement.
The group's activity so far is predictably jocular – "I'm humming it already," writes one member. Others ask after remixes. It's the social media equivalent of a Radio 4 panel show, and I wonder if that mildly donnish atmosphere would dissipate if the campaign got the kind of momentum that turned the Rage effort from a gag into a cause. You get the impression most of the 15,000 Cage fans so far care as much about showing that they get the joke as any eventual result. And why not – it's a good joke: the well-known horror radio presenters have for "dead air" makes the idea of four blank minutes anywhere in the chart a ticklish prospect.
I found the group particularly appealing because I was in the audience for a performance of Cage's piece earlier this year. In fact, I was the audience: one friend performed the piece, another recorded it, and I listened. I'd wanted to hear 4'33" for ages – one of the peculiarities of it is that statements like that invite derision, but it's true. And I wasn't disappointed: as in a long ceremonial silence you become aware of the tiniest sounds, which is part of the point. Cage saw the piece as an experiment in interpenetration: letting chance sounds affect – and in this case overwhelm – what the composer intends. The performance ended just when I'd stopped expecting it to. Afterwards, with those 273 seconds sealed off as a recording, time seemed to race: so many sounds just getting lost. The moment passed and we went to the pub.
Researching 4'33" later I found that we'd got the piece wrong – it was composed as three separate movements, and Cage was explicit that it be presented as such. He took five years between his conceptualising the idea and actually writing it – he knew 4'33" would be seen as a joke or a stunt and deliberately took as much effort over it as possible in order to prevent that interpretation. That was surely in vain: the piece reflects preconceptions. If you come to it as art, or a joke, or a stunt then everything new you find out about it will point in that direction.
So would Cage have disapproved of the Facebook campaign? I'm not so sure. You could try an elaborate justification along the lines of social media events interpenetrating the established order, but it's easier just to look at why the piece is 4'33" long. According to Cage historian Larry Solomon, the original conception of the piece was as a response to canned music, and he knew it would be roughly four and a half minutes long, since that was the average Muzak song length. So while he might raise his eyebrows at the campaign's tone, stopping Cowell is as true a use of 4'33" as any.
Tom Ewing @'The Guardian'
HA!
NOTICE This video contains an audio track that has not been authorised by WMG. The audio has been disabled. More about copyright
'Exile' received yet another DMCA take down notice yesterday, this time for linking to the legal Grinderman stream at VPRO in The Netherlands, which incidentally is still up.
WTF???
The RIAA/BFPI are making it very hard to like record companies to say the least...
Settlement freeze? It was barely a slowdown
The official statistics supplied by the Central Bureau of Statistics describe the story behind the 10-month construction moratorium in the West Bank. The story can be called many things but "freeze" is certainly not one of them. What took place in the past few months is, in the best case scenario, not more than a negligible decrease in the number of housing units that were built in settlements.
The data that appeared in the bureau's tables clearly show that. At the end of 2009, the number of housing units that were actively being built on all the settlements together amounted to 2,955. Three months later, at the end of March 2010, the number stood at 2,517. We are therefore talking about a drop of a little more than 400 housing units - some 16 percent of Israeli construction in the West Bank over that period.
The sounds of lamentation and wailing coming from the settler functionaries, for whom moaning is a profession, shouldn't surprise anyone. After all, they did not cease to whine even when Ehud Barak, "the leader of the peace camp," built 4,700 housing units for them in 2000, the only entire year he held the position of prime minister.
But the truth is that the settlers know better than anyone else that not only did construction in settlements continue over the last 10 months, and vigorously, but also that a relatively large part of the houses were built on settlements that lie east of the separation fence, such as Bracha, Itamar, Eli, Shilo, Maaleh Mikhmas, Maon, Carmel, Beit Haggai, Kiryat Arba, Mitzpeh Yeriho and others.
The real story behind the PR stunt known as the freeze took place in fact in the months prior to that, during which the settlers, with the assistance of the government, prepared well for the months of hibernation foisted upon them. In the half year that preceded the declaration of the freeze, which started at the end of November 2009, dozens of new building sites sprang up, especially in isolated and more extreme settlements east of the fence.
This piece of information is also well documented in the bureau's numbers. In the first half of 2009, they started to build 669 housing units in the settlements, and then, as the months wore on, the pace of construction increased. Thus in the second half of 2009, no fewer than 1,204 housing units were built - an increase of some 90 percent in construction starts as compared with the first half of the year...
Continue reading
Dror Etkes @'Haaretz'
Thursday 30 September 2010
Hollywood legend Tony Curtis dies aged 85
Tony Curtis, the 1950s Hollywood heartthrob who won acclaim as a sleazy press agent in Sweet Smell of Success and earned stardom as a skirt-wearing saxophone player in Some Like It Hot, has died aged 85, Sky News reported.
Curtis appeared in 90 movies and was nominated once for an Academy Award, for Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones (1958). Curtis impressed critics in the film about a prison escape, playing a convict shackled to a black inmate (Sidney Poitier) he despises until they forge a bond fleeing through the US South.
A year later, Curtis co-starred with Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot, the Billy Wilder comedy about two musicians who hide from the Chicago mob by donning dresses and joining an all-female band. In 2000, the American Film Institute called it the funniest US movie ever made...
Continue reading
Afghan opium production 'halved'
Opium production in Afghanistan has almost halved in the past year, a United Nations report says.
The sharp drop is largely due to a plant infection which has drastically reduced yields, says the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
But it warns that production is unlikely to stay low, with rising prices tempting farmers to cultivate more opium poppies.
Afghanistan produces 90% of the world's opium, the main ingredient in heroin.
The UNODC's 2010 Afghan Opium Survey showed production in 2010 was at its lowest level since 2003, estimated at 3,600 tonnes - a 48% decrease from 6,900 tonnes in 2009.
"This is good news but there is no room for false optimism; the market may again become lucrative for poppy-crop growers so we have to monitor the situation closely," said Yury Fedotov, executive director of UNODC.
But with opium prices rising again after years of steady decline, the UNODC has warned that production is unlikely to stay low.
The total area of the country used for poppy cultivation remains unchanged despite government eradication programmes, and Mr Fedotov has called for a comprehensive strategy to counter the opium threat.
Most of the poppies are grown in the restive southern and western provinces, the report says, underscoring the link between the insurgency and the opium trade.
Last year Helmand accounted for nearly 60% of the country's total production of the drug, the UNODC said.
What a fugn moron!
Right Of Center Media Leave James O’Keefe Stranded Over Latest Stunt
The Script!!!
...and on page 3 you will see he has no taste in music either LOL!
New report warns iconic Kimberley tourism brand at risk from industrialisation
A new study by the Curtin University Sustainable Tourism Centre identifies plans for a massive polluting LNG industrial site near Broome as a serious threat to the Kimberley’s unique and globally-recognised tourism ‘brand’.The report entitled “Kimberley Whale Coast Tourism: A review of opportunities and threats” by Dr Michael Hughes and colleagues from Curtin University was commissioned by The Wilderness Society and launched on 31 August, 2010 in Kings Park, Perth.
Some key findings:
- The Kimberley tourism ‘brand’ is based on the unique natural and cultural values of the region, including its wildlife and vast, unspoiled coast and landscapes;
- Tourism is more valuable to the regional economy than resource projects which return less to the local economy, employ fewer local people and have relatively short lifespans;
- When iconic brands are damaged – as occurred in the 1970’s with the location of an oil refinery on the Shetland Islands – it takes a lot of time, money and effort to rebuild
- Currently around 10 tour operators, including Aboriginal run businesses, offer whale-watching experiences out of Broome & the Dampier Peninisula – the site of the proposed LNG hub and port.
- There appears to be a substantial imbalance between government support for tourism, including Indigenous tourism enterprises, and the far greater level of funding for resource extraction projects.
- The government needs to recognise the findings of the study which highlight the fact that Broome and surrounding communities do not need large scale industrial projects to secure their economic future.
Environment groups believe Kimberley tourism needs better management and requires much more Indigenous involvement. This can be achieved through expanded Indigenous Rangers programs, creation of new Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs) and the introduction of a comprehensive licensing and permit system for tourism operators and tourists accessing remote land and sea country.
Wednesday 29 September 2010
ubuweb [MP3 link] A recitation of all the rock songs the US played during the PSYOP campaign against Noriega: http://is.gd/fzUSL
♪♫ Grinderman on 'Later'
Show the little upstarts how it's done guys!!!
At the beginning of this last clip there is an old boss of mine Simon Raymonde behind Sandie Shaw (to the left) probably better known to most of you as one third of the Cocteau Twins!!!
(Thanx JC!)
At the beginning of this last clip there is an old boss of mine Simon Raymonde behind Sandie Shaw (to the left) probably better known to most of you as one third of the Cocteau Twins!!!
(Thanx JC!)
Q & A w/ Adrian Sherwood tonight...
onusherwood doing a Q&A session tonight on the On-U Sound messageboard at 2100 GMT http://www.onu-sound.com/messageboard/
Side effects of drugs in water still murky
After a recent study found traces of eight illicit drugs, including cocaine, ecstasy, and methamphetamines, in the waterways of a Spanish national park, fear started to circulate along with the headlines.
Is the environment, people have started to wonder, becoming a wasteland for discarded and partially digested medications?
As studies continue to find a growing number of pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs in a growing number of places, experts say, there are some real concerns about threats to wildlife and human health. But most substances are at levels far too low to cause problems. Many others are big question marks.
Scientists still don't know how a lot of chemicals, especially the illegal ones, might affect animals or at what level they become dangerous. Those studies just haven't been done.
"The vast majority of compounds do not pose a threat," said Paul Sibley, an aquatic toxicologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario.
"For illicit drugs, we're not quite as sure," he added. "My gut sense is that we probably don't need to be worried about this. But because studies have never been done looking at their toxicology or the responses of animals, we can't say there won't be a problem."
Whether over-the-counter or under-the-table, the most common way for drugs to escape into the environment is through the sewage system. When you pop a pill, your body breaks down some, but not all of the active chemicals in a drug. Whatever is leftover comes out in your excrement and goes down the toilet.
Most sewage treatment plants are designed to break down biological matter in substances like human waste and food scraps. But pharmaceutical chemicals often slip right through, either in wastewater that flows into streams and lakes, or in sludge that is often spread on agricultural fields.
Farm animals often consume antibiotics and other drugs, too, and their manure also helps taint agricultural run-off. From there, the chemicals end up in streams, lakes and other waterways.
Hundreds of studies have found traces of pharmaceuticals in water, Sibley said, especially downstream of treatment plants. Other studies have found these compounds in the tissues of fish and other animals. In most cases, at least in the developed world, levels are too low to have major consequences. But there are some major exceptions.
Scientists are particularly concerned about a class of pharmaceuticals known as endocrine-disruptors. Traces of estrogen from birth control pills, for example, are now known to affect animals at really tiny concentrations.
Antibiotics are another concern, because once they are unleashed in the environment, they can prompt the development of dangerously drug-resistant bacteria.
Even drugs that don't fit into those categories have been shown to cause problems in some cases, especially when levels get high enough, said Bryan Brooks, director of the Environmental Health Science program at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
A 2004 paper in the Journal Nature, for example, documented a catastrophic vulture die-off in India. It turned out that the birds were eating the carcasses of cows that had been given a type of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication, similar to ibuprofen or naproxen. The drug was making the birds sick.
In a paper published earlier this year in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, scientists reported that minnows exposed to certain antidepressants were slower to flee from predators. Another paper in the same journal issue found that tadpoles exposed to antidepressants -- at levels similar to what might show up in the environment in some places -- ate less and grew more slowly.
"We don't really have a good handle at all about how drug side effects may present risks to aquatic organisms," Brooks said. "Where the science is going now is trying to scrutinize the available data for pharmaceuticals and how they act in animals, and to prioritize which drugs may require further study."
A similar toxicological focus on illegal drugs will probably soon follow, Sibley said. The new study out of Spain looked at water in a park that is surrounded by nightclubs and malls. Many places face the same type of exposures.
"I'd be willing to say you could go to any major urban center globally, including in the U.S. and Canada, and find trace levels of these compounds, especially if you've got an active area of social life," Sibley said. "They are likely very, very ubiquitous."
Emily Sohn @'Discovery'
Is the environment, people have started to wonder, becoming a wasteland for discarded and partially digested medications?
As studies continue to find a growing number of pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs in a growing number of places, experts say, there are some real concerns about threats to wildlife and human health. But most substances are at levels far too low to cause problems. Many others are big question marks.
Scientists still don't know how a lot of chemicals, especially the illegal ones, might affect animals or at what level they become dangerous. Those studies just haven't been done.
"The vast majority of compounds do not pose a threat," said Paul Sibley, an aquatic toxicologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario.
"For illicit drugs, we're not quite as sure," he added. "My gut sense is that we probably don't need to be worried about this. But because studies have never been done looking at their toxicology or the responses of animals, we can't say there won't be a problem."
Whether over-the-counter or under-the-table, the most common way for drugs to escape into the environment is through the sewage system. When you pop a pill, your body breaks down some, but not all of the active chemicals in a drug. Whatever is leftover comes out in your excrement and goes down the toilet.
Most sewage treatment plants are designed to break down biological matter in substances like human waste and food scraps. But pharmaceutical chemicals often slip right through, either in wastewater that flows into streams and lakes, or in sludge that is often spread on agricultural fields.
Farm animals often consume antibiotics and other drugs, too, and their manure also helps taint agricultural run-off. From there, the chemicals end up in streams, lakes and other waterways.
Hundreds of studies have found traces of pharmaceuticals in water, Sibley said, especially downstream of treatment plants. Other studies have found these compounds in the tissues of fish and other animals. In most cases, at least in the developed world, levels are too low to have major consequences. But there are some major exceptions.
Scientists are particularly concerned about a class of pharmaceuticals known as endocrine-disruptors. Traces of estrogen from birth control pills, for example, are now known to affect animals at really tiny concentrations.
Antibiotics are another concern, because once they are unleashed in the environment, they can prompt the development of dangerously drug-resistant bacteria.
Even drugs that don't fit into those categories have been shown to cause problems in some cases, especially when levels get high enough, said Bryan Brooks, director of the Environmental Health Science program at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
A 2004 paper in the Journal Nature, for example, documented a catastrophic vulture die-off in India. It turned out that the birds were eating the carcasses of cows that had been given a type of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication, similar to ibuprofen or naproxen. The drug was making the birds sick.
In a paper published earlier this year in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, scientists reported that minnows exposed to certain antidepressants were slower to flee from predators. Another paper in the same journal issue found that tadpoles exposed to antidepressants -- at levels similar to what might show up in the environment in some places -- ate less and grew more slowly.
"We don't really have a good handle at all about how drug side effects may present risks to aquatic organisms," Brooks said. "Where the science is going now is trying to scrutinize the available data for pharmaceuticals and how they act in animals, and to prioritize which drugs may require further study."
A similar toxicological focus on illegal drugs will probably soon follow, Sibley said. The new study out of Spain looked at water in a park that is surrounded by nightclubs and malls. Many places face the same type of exposures.
"I'd be willing to say you could go to any major urban center globally, including in the U.S. and Canada, and find trace levels of these compounds, especially if you've got an active area of social life," Sibley said. "They are likely very, very ubiquitous."
Emily Sohn @'Discovery'
Tea & Crackers - How corporate interests and Republican insiders built the Tea Party monster
It's taken three trips to Kentucky, but I'm finally getting my Tea Party epiphany exactly where you'd expect: at a Sarah Palin rally. The red-hot mama of American exceptionalism has flown in to speak at something called the National Quartet Convention in Louisville, a gospel-music hoedown in a giant convention center filled with thousands of elderly white Southerners. Palin — who earlier this morning held a closed-door fundraiser for Rand Paul, the Tea Party champion running for the U.S. Senate — is railing against a GOP establishment that has just seen Tea Partiers oust entrenched Republican hacks in Delaware and New York. The dingbat revolution, it seems, is nigh. "We're shaking up the good ol' boys," Palin chortles, to the best applause her aging crowd can muster. She then issues an oft-repeated warning (her speeches are usually a tired succession of half-coherent one-liners dumped on ravenous audiences like chum to sharks) to Republican insiders who underestimated the power of the Tea Party Death Star. "Buck up," she says, "or stay in the truck."
Stay in what truck? I wonder. What the hell does that even mean?
Scanning the thousands of hopped-up faces in the crowd, I am immediately struck by two things. One is that there isn't a single black person here. The other is the truly awesome quantity of medical hardware: Seemingly every third person in the place is sucking oxygen from a tank or propping their giant atrophied glutes on motorized wheelchair-scooters. As Palin launches into her Ronald Reagan impression — "Government's not the solution! Government's the problem!" — the person sitting next to me leans over and explains.
"The scooters are because of Medicare," he whispers helpfully. "They have these commercials down here: 'You won't even have to pay for your scooter! Medicare will pay!' Practically everyone in Kentucky has one."
A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can't imagine it...
Continue reading
Matt Taibbi @'Rolling Stone'
Iran jails pioneering blogger for 'anti-state activity'
An Iranian court has sentenced a prominent Iranian-Canadian blogger to more than 19 years in jail, rights groups and Iranian media say.
Hossein Derakhshan was charged with "propagating against the regime" and "co-operating with hostile states".
Mr Derakhshan was arrested in 2008 during a visit to the country.
He is credited with launching Iran's blogging revolution. Originally critical of the government, he later backed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Derakhshan was also sentenced for promoting counter-revolutionary groups, insulting Islamic thought and religious figures and managing obscene websites, Mashreq news website reported.
Judicial sources said he could appeal the ruling.
After moving to Toronto, Canada, from Tehran in 2000, he posted simple instructions in Farsi on how to publish blogs - thus helping to spark an explosion of blogging in Iran.
He paid a highly-publicised visit Israel - Iran's arch-enemy - in 2006, saying he wanted to act as a bridge between the two countries.
Pressure group the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran called Derakhshan "a prisoner of conscience, prosecuted and sentenced solely for his opinions and writings".
The group says there are more than 500 prisoners of conscience in Iranian jails.
Iranian opposition bloggers continue to be active despite a government crackdown since disputed elections last year that saw President Ahmadinejad re-elected.
Opposition leaders said the election was rigged.
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