Blondie - Radio 2 In Concert (1998)
1 hour ago
Saturday 6 November 2010
Ethical Reporters Against Faux News
HERE
(Thanx Bodhi!)
Friday 5 November 2010
'Big society' must be rooted in altruism
There could be no better example of the coalition government's contradictory ambitions than news that councils, desperate to deliver David Cameron's "big society", are planning to offer supermarket-style reward points to goad people into being good citizens. But, why is that so bad?
Behaviour expressive of certain values tends to form a self-reinforcing loop. Hence, appealing to self-seeking, materialistic gain, makes people less likely to be communally and altruistically motivated. Conversely, being involved in a collective enterprise tends to make us less self-absorbed and more likely to be positively inclined to take part in a "big society". For example, it was the experience of "national unity" during war time, writes the historian Paul Addison, that laid the cultural and political foundations to build a more caring society fit for returning heroes after 1945.
In short, appeal to self-interested individualism and you will get self-interested individuals. Emphasise the intrinsic and mutual benefits of common endeavour and you will begin to grow a nation where people are more inclined to look out for each other.
Effectively paying people to be good citizens can also directly backfire. A classic study looked at the results of different approaches to blood donation in the UK, where people volunteer and in the United States where they got paid. In the US, research by the rightwing Institute of Economic Affairs theorised that paying donors was the way to increase supply. Subsequent analysis by Richard Titmuss found the opposite. Not only did more people give blood when it was unpaid, but that voluntarily donated blood was of a higher quality.
The financial incentive increased dishonesty among donors who lied more often about their health conditions. Titmuss concluded: "Commercialisation of blood and donor relationships represses the expression of altruism." It was a classic and common error. Think of how you feel when good friend invites you to dinner. Now imagine how you would feel if the same friend offered to pay you to go to dinner with them? Relationships nurtured by open gift giving and reciprocity differ from commercial ones. It's the difference between a loving relationship and prostitution.
Economics, too, often boils human relationships down to a caricature of self-interest and competition. In justification, it invokes misappropriated Darwinian notions of "survival of the fittest". But, this misses the equally successful evolutionary strategies of collaboration, symbiosis and co-evolution. Co-operative companies, tellingly, weathered the recession better than others.
The proposed hook-up with commercial, supermarket-based reward cards also appears self-defeating. The point of a big society is an active, engaged citizenry. But research on the impact of big stores on communities shows that their dominant presence can reduce voter turnout. They do so by unweaving the tighter social fabric that grows in more diverse economies. As more of every pound spent by shoppers stays locally if the shops are locally owned and operated, encouraging the opposite will drain not invigorate a big society. It gets more personal, too. Because of their socially alienating store formats, large chain stores even reduce the number of conversations people have while shopping, further dissolving the social glue.
Yet, a further worry might be the disturbing potential for data convergence that would occur once the enormous power of commercial store cards are combined with the personal and other information that government authorities hold on people.
I think it is far more likely that people don't vote with their feet to build the big society due to a lack of time, rather than financial or material incentive.
Recession and chronic public spending cuts are set to hugely stress social cohesion. And, there will be large numbers of people in structural unemployment (probably blamed for their fate) and many, many others working ever longer to stay afloat.
The big society needs more time banks where people swap time and skills, and a shorter working week, underpinned by sufficient safety nets, to create the conditions for a big society. Engaging vastly more people in helping communities to function will not only radically reduce costs (although that is not the reason to do it), it will enormously improve the quality of neighbourhood life, raising individual and communal wellbeing simultaneously. Getting involved ticks all the boxes that the literature tells us really improves life satisfaction: giving, being active, connecting, taking notice and learning. Papers are currently full of politicians and business people encouraging us to shop Britain back to its feet. But if we want the nation to stand up and be a truly big society, it's time that we need to spend with each other, not reward points in supermarkets.
Behaviour expressive of certain values tends to form a self-reinforcing loop. Hence, appealing to self-seeking, materialistic gain, makes people less likely to be communally and altruistically motivated. Conversely, being involved in a collective enterprise tends to make us less self-absorbed and more likely to be positively inclined to take part in a "big society". For example, it was the experience of "national unity" during war time, writes the historian Paul Addison, that laid the cultural and political foundations to build a more caring society fit for returning heroes after 1945.
In short, appeal to self-interested individualism and you will get self-interested individuals. Emphasise the intrinsic and mutual benefits of common endeavour and you will begin to grow a nation where people are more inclined to look out for each other.
Effectively paying people to be good citizens can also directly backfire. A classic study looked at the results of different approaches to blood donation in the UK, where people volunteer and in the United States where they got paid. In the US, research by the rightwing Institute of Economic Affairs theorised that paying donors was the way to increase supply. Subsequent analysis by Richard Titmuss found the opposite. Not only did more people give blood when it was unpaid, but that voluntarily donated blood was of a higher quality.
The financial incentive increased dishonesty among donors who lied more often about their health conditions. Titmuss concluded: "Commercialisation of blood and donor relationships represses the expression of altruism." It was a classic and common error. Think of how you feel when good friend invites you to dinner. Now imagine how you would feel if the same friend offered to pay you to go to dinner with them? Relationships nurtured by open gift giving and reciprocity differ from commercial ones. It's the difference between a loving relationship and prostitution.
Economics, too, often boils human relationships down to a caricature of self-interest and competition. In justification, it invokes misappropriated Darwinian notions of "survival of the fittest". But, this misses the equally successful evolutionary strategies of collaboration, symbiosis and co-evolution. Co-operative companies, tellingly, weathered the recession better than others.
The proposed hook-up with commercial, supermarket-based reward cards also appears self-defeating. The point of a big society is an active, engaged citizenry. But research on the impact of big stores on communities shows that their dominant presence can reduce voter turnout. They do so by unweaving the tighter social fabric that grows in more diverse economies. As more of every pound spent by shoppers stays locally if the shops are locally owned and operated, encouraging the opposite will drain not invigorate a big society. It gets more personal, too. Because of their socially alienating store formats, large chain stores even reduce the number of conversations people have while shopping, further dissolving the social glue.
Yet, a further worry might be the disturbing potential for data convergence that would occur once the enormous power of commercial store cards are combined with the personal and other information that government authorities hold on people.
I think it is far more likely that people don't vote with their feet to build the big society due to a lack of time, rather than financial or material incentive.
Recession and chronic public spending cuts are set to hugely stress social cohesion. And, there will be large numbers of people in structural unemployment (probably blamed for their fate) and many, many others working ever longer to stay afloat.
The big society needs more time banks where people swap time and skills, and a shorter working week, underpinned by sufficient safety nets, to create the conditions for a big society. Engaging vastly more people in helping communities to function will not only radically reduce costs (although that is not the reason to do it), it will enormously improve the quality of neighbourhood life, raising individual and communal wellbeing simultaneously. Getting involved ticks all the boxes that the literature tells us really improves life satisfaction: giving, being active, connecting, taking notice and learning. Papers are currently full of politicians and business people encouraging us to shop Britain back to its feet. But if we want the nation to stand up and be a truly big society, it's time that we need to spend with each other, not reward points in supermarkets.
Andrew Simms @'The Guardian"
Per Bojsen-Moller - The Greatest Dub Techno mix in the World... Ever!
1 - Rhythm & Sound w/ Jah Batta - Music Hit You [Burial Mix]
2 - Rhythm & Sound - No Partial [Rhythm & Sound]
3 - Rhythm & Sound w/ The Chosen Brothers - Mash Down Babylon [Burial Mix]
4 - Rhythm & Sound - Outward [Rhythm & Sound]
5 - Maurizo - M4 [Maurizio]
6 - Basic Channel - Quadrant Dub II [Basic Channel]
7 - Round One ft. Andy Caine - I'm Your Brother [Main Street Records]
8 - Maurizio - M4.5 [Maurizio]
9 - Carl Craig - The Climax (Basic Reshape) [Planet E]
10 - Rhythm & Sound w/ Tikiman - Music A Fe Rule [Rhythm & Sound]
11 - Rhythm & Sound - Smile w/ Savage [Rhythm & Sound]
12 - Rhythm & Sound - Carrier [Rhythm & Sound]
13 - Maurizio - Domina (Maurizio Mix) [Maurizio]
14 - Rhythm & Sound - Queen In My Empire Version [Burial Mix]
15 - Rhythm & Sound w/ Cornell Cambell - King In My Empire [Burial Mix]
16 - Maurizio - M5 [Maurizio]
17 - Rhythm & Sound - Range [Rhythm & Sound]
18 - Rhythm & Sound w/ Tikiman - Why [Burial Mix]
19 - Rhythm & Sound - Free For All Version [Burial mix]
20 - Rhythm & Sound w/ Paul St. Hilaire - Free For All [Burial mix]
21 - Round Two ft. Andy Caine - New Day [Main Street Records]
22 - Maurizio - M6 [Maurizio]
23 - Rhythm & Sound - Mango Drive [Rhythm & Sound]
24 - Basic Channel - Q1.1 [Basic Channel]
25 - Rhythm & Sound - See Mi Version (Basic Reshape) [Burial Mix]
26 - Maurizio - M7 (Unreleased Mix) [Maurizio]
27 - Round Three ft. Tikiman - Acting Crazy [Main Street Records]
28 - Round Four - Found A Way [Main Street Records]
29 - Rhythm & Sound w/ Tikiman - Never Tell You [Burial Mix]
30 - Rhythm & Sound w/ The Chosen Borthers - Making History [Burial Mix]
via kfmw
EDit:
mixed by Per Bojsen-Moller aka mirrorcube
Joy Division by Kevin Cummins
Although they only released two albums during their short run, Joy Division remains one of the most important and beloved bands of the late-’70s post-punk movement, influencing generations of cold, black-clad imitators. In the three decades since Ian Curtis’s death, he has become one of music’s darkest and most solemnly worshiped cult figures. He has been immortalized in countless books and films, printed on all kinds of T-shirts, and his song “Love Will Tear Us Apart” probably holds some kind of record for teenage mixtape overuse.
But even if you think you’ve seen enough of Joy Division to last you a lifetime, you’ll want to make space for Kevin Cummins’s Joy Division (Rizzoli New York, 2010), a book that combines the author’s striking black-and-white images of the band with photos of their instruments, set lists, and flyers, and Curtis’s lyrics and notebooks.
It’s illuminating, as a fan, to examine Curtis’s cross-outs and fun to ogle the concert flyers and fantasize about having attended those shows. Equally absorbing is an unexpected, pitch-perfect foreword by Jay McInerney, who talks about blasting Closer while he wrote Bright Lights, Big City. And the inclusion of a long discussion between Cummins and Bernard Sumner is a great music-nerd read.
But it’s Cummins’s photos, each blown up to fill an entire, large page, that make the book essential for all Joy Division lovers. Known for his photography of the Manchester music scene, Cummins shows the band against the stark backdrop of the dying industrial city in winter, its old churches, plain residential buildings, roads, and (in one famous series) bridges covered in a thin blanket of snow. There are plenty of concert shots here, but it’s the intimate portraits of individual band members (Curtis especially) in their dusty, paper-strewn practice space and those photos of the band around Manchester that hit the hardest.
Judy Berman @'Flavorwire'
Street Art Way Below the Street
A vast new exhibition space opened in New York City this summer, with a show 18 months in the making. On view are works by 103 street artists from around the world, mostly big murals painted directly onto the gallery’s walls.
It is one of the largest shows of such pieces ever mounted in one place, and many of the contributors are significant figures in both the street-art world and the commercial trade that now revolves around it. Its debut might have been expected to draw critics, art dealers and auction-house representatives, not to mention hordes of young fans. But none of them were invited.
In the weeks since, almost no one has seen the show. The gallery, whose existence has been a closely guarded secret, closed on the same night it opened.
Known to its creators and participating artists as the Underbelly Project, the space, where all the show’s artworks remain, defies every norm of the gallery scene. Collectors can’t buy the art. The public can’t see it. And the only people with a chance of stumbling across it are the urban explorers who prowl the city’s hidden infrastructure or employees of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
That’s because the exhibition has been mounted, illegally, in a long-abandoned subway station. The dank, cavernous hall feels a lot farther than it actually is from the bright white rooms of Chelsea’s gallery district. Which is more or less the point: This is an art exhibition that goes to extremes to avoid being part of the art world, and even the world in general...
Continue reading
Jasper Rees @'NY Times'
Paddy Hill to finally recieve counselling after false imprisonment for 16 years
Looming over me in his cluttered, pet-filled Scottish farmhouse, Hill thrusts his face into mine and grips my knees in a vice-like grip. Contorting his face in simulated fury, he shrieks the obscenities that were hurled at him during the police interrogation, the day after 21 people were killed and 162 others injured in the 1974 Birmingham bombings.
"They jammed a pistol in my mouth and smashed it around, breaking my teeth so badly it was agony to even have a sip of water until I finally saw a dentist, two weeks later. They told me they knew I was innocent but that they didn't care: they had been told to get a conviction and that if I didn't admit to the bombing, they would shoot me in the mouth. They slowly counted to three, then pulled the trigger. They did that three times. Each time, I thought I was going to die," says Hill, pulling up his lip to show his toothless upper gum before rolling down his trouser leg to reveal scars and cigarette burns he says were meted out to him later by the same policemen.
It is tempting to assume that, since his release almost 20 years ago, Hill, now aged 64, must have slowly recovered not only from the inquisition – which left him so battered that his two-year-old son needed medication to recover from the shock of seeing him afterwards – but also from the hell of the 16 years of wrongful imprisonment that followed.
The six innocent men were, after all, later awarded compensation ranging from £840,000 to £1.2m. Surely they were also given counselling? Surely they were not just left to cope with their fury, trauma and wasted decades?
But they were. In the 20 years that followed his release on 14 March 1991, Hill has had to fight for help; a battle he has, until now, failed to win.
Quickly spending his compensation money trying to buy back the love of the family he had lost during his years inside and on helping other innocent prisoners still behind bars, he could not afford to pay for medical expertise for himself. Strugging to function in an unrecognisable world, unable to comprehend the depths of his own disturbance, Hill was reduced to ricocheting around the NHS.
Over the years, without funding or guidance, Hill has managed to convince some of the country's best psychiatrists to see him on a pro bono basis. They did their best but, one after another, have been forced to admit they do not have the expertise to help anyone so acutely traumatised. Hill's various GPs offered him drugs, which he refused. "It's not a depressive thing. It's mental. It's my head I need sorting out. I don't need filling full of pills," he says. The charities he approached were forced to turn him away, because their funding only allows them to help with the rehabilitation and resettlement of guilty prisoners.
"There was no lack of money for falsely imprisoning us, torturing us and putting us through a kangaroo court," Hill says. "But when we came out, there was a sudden shortage of memory and of money. The victims of the Dunblane shooting or the Paddington rail crash, for example, they got counselling immediately, as they should have done. But we were victims of the state: it was the state that took us hostage and traumatised us and now they don't want to recognise that in any shape or form. In the end you give up fighting for help."
Over the last 10 years Hill has been visibly shrinking. Twenty years ago, he was a strong, stocky man weighing more than 12 stone. When he appeared on the steps of the court of appeal on 21 November 1991, a free man, he appeared resilient and determined to forge a future.
The psychological stress of the intervening years has, however, played a cruel physical game. Now he is barely nine stone, his hands shake and his face is wizened. He looks broken. But woe betide anyone who mistakes his physical frailty for weakness or defeat: with every year that passes, the tension inside Hill increases. As he rolls cigarette after cigarette in his sitting room, he is as taut as a wire, veins throb in his neck and, even when he speaks gently, he boils with barely repressed fury.
"Every day, all day, all I think about is getting a gun and shooting police. But I'm not evil: I'm traumatised and I desperately need help," he says. "I'm coming apart at the seams. I can't live in this world because after 16 years in jail, I'm not equipped to deal with it any more. The intervening years have made it worse. I'm like a hand-grenade with a loose pin, just waiting to explode.
"Prison kills you emotionally. It's a dark, deep, evil, brutal world filled with anger, violence, jealousy, paranoia. You become brutalised – it's like being in a war zone," he adds. "Prisons are human dustbins. They're full of people who would kill you at the drop of a hat. For 24 hours a day, every day, you're at risk of being stabbed, slashed or having boiling water thrown over you. After a while, it doesn't mean anything if you see that sort of thing happening to other prisoners. You don't feel a thing. It becomes normal to see someone with a big blade sticking into them or be sitting watching TV and have people burst in and throw boiling water with sugar in over someone sitting near you. You don't blink. It doesn't mean anything to you. I became dehumanised and I still am dehumanised."
Shortly after Hill's release, Dr Adrian Grounds, a forensic psychiatrist with expertise in the psychological consequences of wrongful imprisonment, agreed to see him. Without funding from the NHS, the appointment was a personal favour. The diagnosis, however, was no less brutal for the kindness with which it had been offered. "He said the damage done to me was irrevocable but that I needed at least 10 years of intense counselling, starting immediately, otherwise my condition would get worse as time went on," says Hill.
But nothing happened. No help was offered and Hill didn't know where else to turn. Instead, he closed in on himself.
"My flashpoint is very low: anger comes over me in waves and, over the years, it has got worse and worse," he admits in sad mortification. "I'm too paranoid to socialise. I don't sleep and I don't eat. If I had a choice, I wouldn't live with me. Suddenly the shutters come down and I'm reliving it all again; all the horror, all the torment. When I come to, it's hours later and everyone's gone, and I'm still sitting there, staring at the walls with tears pouring down my face.
"Prison killed me: I am dead. I have had to explain to my kids that I feel nothing for them. I have had to tell them I would rather spend my time with strangers than with them, because you expect to feel nothing for strangers. I hardly ever see my kids now. I can't handle relationships."
Ten years ago, Hill married Tara, an artist he met at a fundraising event for the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation. A warm, practical woman, she tolerates Hill's disappearances – last Christmas, he disappeared for three days – his moods and his furies because, she says, she simply feels so terribly sorry for him. "He's such a tortured man: my heart just goes out to him. Yes, he's difficult to live with but it's not his fault; it's because of what's been done to him by the state. He's such a gentle man. He's just such a sad man. So damaged."
Last month, Hill was suddenly told that he had been given funding by his local NHS Ayrshire & Arran health trust for two months' care at London's Capio Nightingale Hospital with the one man in the country who might be able to understand him: Professor Gordon Turnbull, the only consultant psychiatrist in Britain sufficiently specialised in the psychological after-effects of trauma to help Hill. Turnbull, who counselled the Beirut hostages Terry Waite and John McCarthy, and survivors from the Lockerbie bombing and the Gulf wars, says Hill is one of the most traumatised people he has ever come across.
"Being the victim of a miscarriage of justice in your own country is very much more traumatic than being a conventional hostage, who has been held against his wishes in a foreign country by people who have a different belief system," he says.
"It's totally shocking that there is no method of helping these victims re-emerge into society. The state makes less provision for their release than those who have been rightfully imprisoned. The state has an obligation to rehabilitate these victims."
Gareth Peirce, the solicitor who represented the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six defendants, has spent years fighting to get help for Hill and other victims of miscarriages of justice. "When the men came out, it was around the time of the Beirut hostages and the papers were full of how they were going to start a programme of support – and not just for them, but for their families too," she said. "It seems to me that the analogy was so close. These men here had come out of a trauma of immense proportion where they were held hostage in their own country. They emerged surviviors from that extreme trauma but without knowing the extremity of it and its effects."
Pierce says the failure of the government to provide appropriate treatment for Hill is a "national disgrace". "Now he's been offered some help but will it even scratch the surface?" she asks. "They have actually been denied the best expertise for 20 years. They were thrown out on to the pavement and no expertise was made available to them. They were left, stumbling around for help. They didn't know where to go and the state didn't offer it."
Hill had to set up the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation – Mojo – to help other former prisoners, released by the court of appeal after their sentences were quashed. "It's the survivor providing help for other survivors," says Pierce. "It's incredibly impressive but horrible and tragic too. Over the years, the government has repeatedly promised these survivors to set up some sort of refuge for them and every promise has not been fulfilled."
Back in his farmhouse, with the prospect of finally getting the help he has fought for, Hill admits he is now wrestling a new enemy: fear. "I'm scared," he says "I'm scared of the anger counselling will unleash. What if there's too much to put back in the box? What if there's too much to contain?
"I'm not expecting miracles though: I'd settle for just stopping the nightmares and the flashbacks. I'd settle to just be able to stop me crying. I just want to know what it's like to feel happy again. I want to feel normal."
Amelia Hill @'The Guardian'
ADL slams Shas spiritual leader for saying non-Jews 'were born to serve Jews'
The Anti-Defamation League on Tuesday condemned comments about non-Jews made this past weekend by Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.In a sermon given on Saturday on laws concerning what non-Jews are permitted to do on Shabbat, Yosef said: "Goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel."
"Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat." According to Yosef, death has "no dominion" over non-Jews in Israel.
"With gentiles, it will be like any person - they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money. This is his servant... That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew.”
On Tuesday, the ADL said that Yosef's comments contributed "to an atmosphere of hatred and a global trend of intolerance."
"It is disturbing to see any religious leader, and particularly Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, use their podium to preach such hateful and divisive ideas," ADL chief Abraham H. Foxman said.
"In a world where bigotry and prejudice are prevalent, it is especially important for religious leaders to use their influence to teach respect and acceptance," he continued.
In August, Yosef sparked controversy when he called for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to "perish from this world" and said that Palestinians were "evil, bitter enemies of Israel."
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