Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Business
War is, in reality, horrific and something that I sincerely hope we evolve past. As a metaphor and when depicted artistically, it does make for some great art. However what I find utterly reprehensible, even as I can reframe it as being justifiable if you were interested in achieving new streams of revenue is profiteering from it. By that, I mean making money off of the inefficiencies of the supply stream and more importantly, off of the deaths of soldiers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/28/AR2010072802525.html
There is no point asking yourself how they sleep at night, they do because they have the relative luxury of being removed from the idea that these are people who see these policies as anything other than numbers, revenue streams, opportunities. Morality and ethics do not make for revenue streams and financial opportunities. That our country and the U.S trumpet our war effort, whilst certain elements of the business sector see it as an opportunity to make money speaks volumes about who really is in control of things. Not that I am a conspiracy theorist, because as Jon Ronson put it so eloquently - it is far scarier if you believe that no one is in control of anything, that it all comes down to the markets. Business eats first. More later
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Cruelty - Reality
Four Weddings - The Biggest Loser - two examples of shows that claim to be 'reality', when in truth they are carefully edited narratives made on the cheap with the same adherence to protagonists and antagonists, peaks and troughs and moral points. It is amateur dramatics, cinema verite made with the intention that it somehow shows people 'as they are'. LIE.
It holds up a mirror, sure, but a funhouse mirror, one that highlights whatever the producers want to show up about us. I have a problem with the cruelty of some of these shows, and I exclude Pineapple Dance Studios as it is arch camp theatre rather than reality per se.
People can say things that are cruel, misanthropic and ill-tempered, but usually they are spoken in hushed whispers because they understand tact. But no, we live in an age that oscillates between berry oiks like Clarkson and Kyle, skeletal pie-eyed wraiths who exist on prescription pills and celebrity tragedy and lumpen scowling nonentities who sit in judgement on everyone but themselves. Our new gods encourage us to be honest, so go tell that old lady on the bus that she smells of piss or point out that crop tops and post-natal weight gain are not a good luck, laugh OUT LOUD at the old man wearing shorts and a parka in July heat. You don't need talent or determination anymore, its about how much frenzied adulation you can create, or how thick your skin/brain is. Go on, set up a Facebook group so that your squalid opinions can meet with other less defined prejudices and they can all daisy chain one another, breeding so that you can all walk around laughing to yourselves that at last you have people who agree with the voices in your lumpy greasy skull.
I am not saying that I want to live in some kind of repressed, twisted sub-Victorian hell but I want people to come from a place of deep compassion in how they live. We should stop taking the piss as a reflex and try to show some restraint on the important things, we should be teaching people, giving them good choices(the important kind not Cameron's version of it, which is choose to businesses run everything, yeah!)
I like blogging
Relationships
OK, some things about relationships:
1. Mentioning your girlfriend/boyfriend/wife etc in every post/breath is endearing at first, because we have all been in love, but when it becomes the internet equivalent of a nervous tic, it is FUCKING BORING. Seriously, there is no one secret to happy relationships, because it is about negotiations between two individuals(or more- giggedy) and sometimes there are misunderstandings, there are always emotions and you know what, if I talk to you, and all you have to talk about is your relationship - 'well, I remember when I first got laid'. Babies are the exception, because having a baby is although not a miracle, is fairly fucking close especially when you struggle to have one or lose one. Babies blow your world apart, they do not repair relationships, they are not distractions from the gaping void when you look in the mirror and as long as you know that the commitment is for life, and that you think about how and when you raise your child, you're golden. Its great being a precocious fucker like me, with a thirteen year old and a seventeen year old, seeing all my friends now having babies. Friends' babies are awesome because you can give them back.
That's the secret - we tell our single friends how awesome marriage and babies are because WE WANT YOU TO SUFFER AS WE HAVE. As you revelled in adventure and drowned yourself in nubile flesh, whilst we sat there watching television, eating Doritos AND NOT HAVING SEX, we plotted our vengeance. It wasn't that we didn't like you nor did you rub our noses in it, but it is something that married people do to their single friends, like a genetic imperative. I have broken the vow all Married Men and Women take to reveal this, but I cannot live with the lie anymore. You know blow jobs, they stop - I didnt tell you that the time, I wanted to but there was a married guy with a Dragunov and he had a clean shot that would have turned my skull to mush. Sorry.
2. Relationships. Some people would be more dignified if they stuck to masturbation.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Welcome To My World
I feel like Superman sometimes, alive and determined in a way I have not for years. I am so much more confident now than I used to be, I use the nerves I feel when entering into something new to give me the confidence and energy I need to power through whatever life throws at me, I understand how to use language to achieve my goals and to positively influence both myself and other people. I can enter trance states, recall memories and either relive them or minimise their impact within me.
When you recall that feeling, feel it spreading out to every part of your body, permeating every fibre of your being until you feel composed entirely of that feeling. Every breath increases the sensation until it becomes a pure state of being - you are calm, enervated and utterly relaxed.
Welcome to my world
Saturday, February 13, 2010
English and Progressive aren't mutually at odds
Scotland and Wales have their own political structures, and there are differences in terms of things like prescription charges, education fees etc Yet England is denied its own identity, its own referendum, allusions to it made by Gordon Brown were disguised as being about Britishness, when in fact the source was George Orwell talking about England. I do not understand how and why England is denied such a thing, what I do understand is that unless perceptions change, then we continue the juvenile assertion that the white working class is essentially racist, which isn't true, we allow the likes of Nick Griffin to co-opt the feeling and identity for his own gross purposes.
We are, as a people, tolerant and civic-minded, and the notion of being English is not something to be ashamed of, but certainly we need to ascertain whether or not we want to change the debate from something juvenile and dissonant to something inclusive and positive - the immigration debate speaks right to the heart of this, even as I sometimes have proved to me, that it is merely an acceptable way to promote racism without being overt about it. And the media distortion over that, is something that I see time and again.
You can be English and Progressive, you need no other permission than your own.
We are, as a people, tolerant and civic-minded, and the notion of being English is not something to be ashamed of, but certainly we need to ascertain whether or not we want to change the debate from something juvenile and dissonant to something inclusive and positive - the immigration debate speaks right to the heart of this, even as I sometimes have proved to me, that it is merely an acceptable way to promote racism without being overt about it. And the media distortion over that, is something that I see time and again.
You can be English and Progressive, you need no other permission than your own.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Things To Be Scared Of
You should be more scared of the press than the government. Ask Winston Silcott. Ask anyone who has been the subject of stories that had no basis in truth what it is like to have them rip into your life.
The press in this country are an uneasy amalgam of incompetence, laziness, malevolence and expediency. The lies that get propagated, the common assertions that are simply prejudices enforced and enflamed, they ruin people, or betray their memory - I wonder if Mark Speight might have found the will to live had the papers not dug through his life whilst his girlfriend was barely cold. I wonder if there is a child dead or crippled because their parents trusted the stories, unable to detect and disassemble the lies contained therein. There are many whose lives have been damaged by the agendas of daily newspapers.
The paranoia and fear that these papers engender has done more to prevent bold leadership decisions, (and it is important to define these apart from expressing public opinion) We hear how Britain is broken, yet never ask why the cheerleaders for the policies that ruined this country for anyone who earns less than 50k are still on the sidelines, no matter what team is on the field.
If only we had a PCC that had balls, or libel laws that were actually sensibly implemented and enforced.
The press in this country are an uneasy amalgam of incompetence, laziness, malevolence and expediency. The lies that get propagated, the common assertions that are simply prejudices enforced and enflamed, they ruin people, or betray their memory - I wonder if Mark Speight might have found the will to live had the papers not dug through his life whilst his girlfriend was barely cold. I wonder if there is a child dead or crippled because their parents trusted the stories, unable to detect and disassemble the lies contained therein. There are many whose lives have been damaged by the agendas of daily newspapers.
The paranoia and fear that these papers engender has done more to prevent bold leadership decisions, (and it is important to define these apart from expressing public opinion) We hear how Britain is broken, yet never ask why the cheerleaders for the policies that ruined this country for anyone who earns less than 50k are still on the sidelines, no matter what team is on the field.
If only we had a PCC that had balls, or libel laws that were actually sensibly implemented and enforced.
Rise of the Idiots
The idiot is international, it recognises any and all flags, particularly if it can be used to justify the causal racism that is the stock and trade of the newspapers, and of the thriving network of jokes by text that seem to clog up my phone, in particular. My fellow countrymen, some of them are closeted racists, and the sad thing is, its not even an informed or considered opinion that they hold.
Our migration and asylum intake figures are far lower than a great many countries, yet people still persist in perpetuating this tide of immigration still exists, fuelled by the papers, the failure of housing and medical allocation and their own refusal to see that they are being lied to and manipulated, kept afraid, because a nation afraid is a nation that does as it is told.
Your common-variety racism can be pointed out, most people find it distasteful and I know that it is not a set of opinions that would be easily voiced in public, there is still that coyness about outing onself in that regard, but it is the insidious, causal racism that bothers me more. It is like beating up fog, a lie that gets repeated so often that it bears the veracity of truth. I am not racist, consciously but growing up where I did, there is that taint, but it is something that I have innoculated myself against, through education, through acquaintance, through knowledge.
The Facebook groups, the people who say that they will vote for BNP, but aren't racist, the people who pass on the jokes about 'Pakis and Niggers', they will say that they are not racist, but they are reinforcing racist ideas through repetition and through vertical integration. Yet these people deny the essential truth of what makes our country great - its diversity, its ability to blend and celebrate disparate cultures yet still remaining essentially England.
The arguments about the housing being allocated are untrue - essentially the Homeselect scheme is not streamed in the same way that those seeking asylum are housed, in truth, a great many asylum seekers are housed in detention centres. The reason why the waiting lists are so long, is that huge amounts of council properties were sold off to tenants, I am sat in one right now, I didnt consider my social responsibility, I was twenty and about to start a new career in the Navy, I wanted somewhere permanent to call home. This isnt an investment opportunity, this is my home. But all of those houses have, by necessity, made for a much smaller pool of resources to allocate, so its not the fault of people coming here, for the most part, to either work as is their right under the EU, as they have jobs and rent privately.
They are taking all our jobs - No they are not, they are taking whatever work is available, seeing as we enjoy a higher standard of living than some of our EU counterparts, they come here to work, some of them are exploited, paid less than the legal minimum wage or treated as indentured servants because of a language barrier. Its you who are being exploited, causal racist, by the businessmen and landowners who would prefer to pay EU workers because it is cheaper, not because of racism or cultural concerns, but because it costs less! The labour market being made 'flexible' in order to allow for free movement of manpower, the destruction of our manufacturing base, none of those were invented and implemented by anyone other than white men and women who wanted to keep what they had swindled and keep on doing it.
Martin Luther King was most famous for his work on racism, but I think that what got him killed was his desire to find common cause with the truth that poverty transcends race, and that white and black poor people have more in common than you might think, and it is that dissonance, that exploitation that carries on today, denied by idiots, propagated by those intelligent enough to know its untruth, but desperate to maintain their own wealth and influence.
Our migration and asylum intake figures are far lower than a great many countries, yet people still persist in perpetuating this tide of immigration still exists, fuelled by the papers, the failure of housing and medical allocation and their own refusal to see that they are being lied to and manipulated, kept afraid, because a nation afraid is a nation that does as it is told.
Your common-variety racism can be pointed out, most people find it distasteful and I know that it is not a set of opinions that would be easily voiced in public, there is still that coyness about outing onself in that regard, but it is the insidious, causal racism that bothers me more. It is like beating up fog, a lie that gets repeated so often that it bears the veracity of truth. I am not racist, consciously but growing up where I did, there is that taint, but it is something that I have innoculated myself against, through education, through acquaintance, through knowledge.
The Facebook groups, the people who say that they will vote for BNP, but aren't racist, the people who pass on the jokes about 'Pakis and Niggers', they will say that they are not racist, but they are reinforcing racist ideas through repetition and through vertical integration. Yet these people deny the essential truth of what makes our country great - its diversity, its ability to blend and celebrate disparate cultures yet still remaining essentially England.
The arguments about the housing being allocated are untrue - essentially the Homeselect scheme is not streamed in the same way that those seeking asylum are housed, in truth, a great many asylum seekers are housed in detention centres. The reason why the waiting lists are so long, is that huge amounts of council properties were sold off to tenants, I am sat in one right now, I didnt consider my social responsibility, I was twenty and about to start a new career in the Navy, I wanted somewhere permanent to call home. This isnt an investment opportunity, this is my home. But all of those houses have, by necessity, made for a much smaller pool of resources to allocate, so its not the fault of people coming here, for the most part, to either work as is their right under the EU, as they have jobs and rent privately.
They are taking all our jobs - No they are not, they are taking whatever work is available, seeing as we enjoy a higher standard of living than some of our EU counterparts, they come here to work, some of them are exploited, paid less than the legal minimum wage or treated as indentured servants because of a language barrier. Its you who are being exploited, causal racist, by the businessmen and landowners who would prefer to pay EU workers because it is cheaper, not because of racism or cultural concerns, but because it costs less! The labour market being made 'flexible' in order to allow for free movement of manpower, the destruction of our manufacturing base, none of those were invented and implemented by anyone other than white men and women who wanted to keep what they had swindled and keep on doing it.
Martin Luther King was most famous for his work on racism, but I think that what got him killed was his desire to find common cause with the truth that poverty transcends race, and that white and black poor people have more in common than you might think, and it is that dissonance, that exploitation that carries on today, denied by idiots, propagated by those intelligent enough to know its untruth, but desperate to maintain their own wealth and influence.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
State of the World
Things are probably as fucked as they ever are, but I still believe that change is coming, if not from Obama(I am coming to the conclusion that current leadership, both here and in the US will not give us that change) then certainly from somewhere outside the current framework.
I believe in comedians more than I do politicians these days, I have learnt that you have redress against the institutions that you thought were impregnable, even though you have to sift out the inevitable rants about lizard men.
I understand that every institution fails the individual, and I learnt that, both from years of employment and from David Simon's The Wire. What that means for me, is that I am still determined to do good things, but there exists a certain amount of detachment, which saddens me even as I know that it will be necessary for me to survive.
Will be blogging more now, FB gets a bit turgid and Twitter is oddly enough, too intimate.
I believe in comedians more than I do politicians these days, I have learnt that you have redress against the institutions that you thought were impregnable, even though you have to sift out the inevitable rants about lizard men.
I understand that every institution fails the individual, and I learnt that, both from years of employment and from David Simon's The Wire. What that means for me, is that I am still determined to do good things, but there exists a certain amount of detachment, which saddens me even as I know that it will be necessary for me to survive.
Will be blogging more now, FB gets a bit turgid and Twitter is oddly enough, too intimate.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Been A While
But feeling the need to blog again, am watching Before The Music Dies, which is a brilliant documentary and is trailed here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tsNO4PEhNw
It makes me angry, because if you are attractive and in your twenties, you have nothing to complain about, let alone sing. Yes, I could be argued as being bitter but the real music is being sidelined in mainstream culture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tsNO4PEhNw
It makes me angry, because if you are attractive and in your twenties, you have nothing to complain about, let alone sing. Yes, I could be argued as being bitter but the real music is being sidelined in mainstream culture.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Down But Not Out
I am fucking gutted that both the bands I am in have split, due to El needing to keep college and his new job in balance with his marriage and Rich having an attendant loss of confidence. I feel shit about it, because I wanted to have something that was mine, somewhere I could shine and that hasnt happened. Not sure how I feel right now, sort of abandoned but in one sense determined to carry on.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Something I Wondered
Would Fox News and the Republicans be so angry about Obama if he were white? There seems to be this undertone that, being english and possessed of an understanding of irony and subtext, I see as having the idea that he should know his place. He is, in the end, mortal and failing on some issues, but then those of us who armchair quarterback his decisions have no real idea of what is involved in the running of America, and much the same applies to Gordon Brown, because when we look at George Osbourne and David Cameron, I dont feel that the country should be run by the likes of them.
Brown fucked up, but he is trying and personally I would welcome a return to Old Labour values and the financial industry getting smacked down, with some hard tax legislative statues being applied to the oligarchs and tax exiles who work and live here, but are virtually registered in a PO box in Jersey or Bermuda.
But with Obama, it seems intensely personal, and to be honest, although the left in the US criticised Bush et al, it was still with the innate deference for the office, but Hannity, Beck, O'Reilly, Coulter, Malkin and the whole sick crew seem to steam in with the insults.
So here are some of mine:
Sean Hannity
Looks like he still lives with his mother, and struggles with overpowering sexual feelings towards her which he suppresses by combing his hair really hard and polishing his shoes until he can see his acromegalic, doughy face in it and hopes that the tears blur the reflection enough so he can look at it.
Glenn Beck -
Looks like he would be aroused by sideboob and upskirt shots on gossip websites, and upclose I imagine he smells of babysick and wet bread. Has joyless awkward sex with transexual prostitutes who then cradle him in their arms as he weeps for what might have been.
Bill O'Reilly
Has the expression of someone who is never happier than when a dominatrix has him sobbing into a pair of her used underwear and would probably fake being a haemophiliac to get out of an honest fight.
Michelle Malkin -
Knows that her attractiveness is a cage and a label, and ultimately when the Republican Apocalypse happens, will sit in a metal bikini on a chain as Dick Cheney has eurasian orphans fight each other with shards of glass for his amusement. Republican valley Girl with the depth and candour of a council estate slag.
Ann Coulter - If the Angel of Death did meth for four years whilst stalking a Concentration Camp, most men would still fuck it rather than her. Speaks with a sullen drawl that attempts to convey ennui and learned cynicism but ultimately shows her to be detached and devoid.
No one on Fox News is as clever or witty as they think they are, and the insecurity comes off the screen in waves. I watch it because of schadenfreude.
Brown fucked up, but he is trying and personally I would welcome a return to Old Labour values and the financial industry getting smacked down, with some hard tax legislative statues being applied to the oligarchs and tax exiles who work and live here, but are virtually registered in a PO box in Jersey or Bermuda.
But with Obama, it seems intensely personal, and to be honest, although the left in the US criticised Bush et al, it was still with the innate deference for the office, but Hannity, Beck, O'Reilly, Coulter, Malkin and the whole sick crew seem to steam in with the insults.
So here are some of mine:
Sean Hannity
Looks like he still lives with his mother, and struggles with overpowering sexual feelings towards her which he suppresses by combing his hair really hard and polishing his shoes until he can see his acromegalic, doughy face in it and hopes that the tears blur the reflection enough so he can look at it.
Glenn Beck -
Looks like he would be aroused by sideboob and upskirt shots on gossip websites, and upclose I imagine he smells of babysick and wet bread. Has joyless awkward sex with transexual prostitutes who then cradle him in their arms as he weeps for what might have been.
Bill O'Reilly
Has the expression of someone who is never happier than when a dominatrix has him sobbing into a pair of her used underwear and would probably fake being a haemophiliac to get out of an honest fight.
Michelle Malkin -
Knows that her attractiveness is a cage and a label, and ultimately when the Republican Apocalypse happens, will sit in a metal bikini on a chain as Dick Cheney has eurasian orphans fight each other with shards of glass for his amusement. Republican valley Girl with the depth and candour of a council estate slag.
Ann Coulter - If the Angel of Death did meth for four years whilst stalking a Concentration Camp, most men would still fuck it rather than her. Speaks with a sullen drawl that attempts to convey ennui and learned cynicism but ultimately shows her to be detached and devoid.
No one on Fox News is as clever or witty as they think they are, and the insecurity comes off the screen in waves. I watch it because of schadenfreude.
Celebrity
Lily Allen recently posted her feelings on piracy, it was heartfelt and based on her experiences, but perhaps a tad uninformed about how, in the death of it, copyright is complicated for everyone, beit consumer or artist.
Personally, i think that were the record industry to die, music would still exist, maybe not Lily VV Lott LaRoux, JLS et al and the vast army of backroom producers would have to be a little less arrogant but if you worked hard and produced good stuff, then you would have a career. There are means around it, but the industry would rather maintain salaries, cut back on artist development and take legal action than invest in such, so it is, in my mind, entirely their fault.
Katie Price - she makes me feel ill when i look at her, there is nothing to her but raw need, and she believes she is somehow being provocative and interesting when all she does is undermine women by her example. That she alleges rape, and will not seek prosecution nor allow her accuser the right to seek redress, because people know, its just that it has not reached a wider platform within the media, is sickening. I could not care less about her, personally, she angers me because she is everywhere and therefore I feel I cannot ignore her, especially when she is being promoted so vigorously. I believe that any liberation and any change within society will come only when women and men work together, and this sort of thing feeds the misogynistic elements of the media. If she has been raped, and this is how she deals with it, I do not see how it can help her or anyone else who looks to popular culture for guidance on dealing with such a violation. There still exists a lack of will within law enforcement and culture to deal with rape with the same seriousness as murder or, if we are being honest, property crimes.
Personally, i think that were the record industry to die, music would still exist, maybe not Lily VV Lott LaRoux, JLS et al and the vast army of backroom producers would have to be a little less arrogant but if you worked hard and produced good stuff, then you would have a career. There are means around it, but the industry would rather maintain salaries, cut back on artist development and take legal action than invest in such, so it is, in my mind, entirely their fault.
Katie Price - she makes me feel ill when i look at her, there is nothing to her but raw need, and she believes she is somehow being provocative and interesting when all she does is undermine women by her example. That she alleges rape, and will not seek prosecution nor allow her accuser the right to seek redress, because people know, its just that it has not reached a wider platform within the media, is sickening. I could not care less about her, personally, she angers me because she is everywhere and therefore I feel I cannot ignore her, especially when she is being promoted so vigorously. I believe that any liberation and any change within society will come only when women and men work together, and this sort of thing feeds the misogynistic elements of the media. If she has been raped, and this is how she deals with it, I do not see how it can help her or anyone else who looks to popular culture for guidance on dealing with such a violation. There still exists a lack of will within law enforcement and culture to deal with rape with the same seriousness as murder or, if we are being honest, property crimes.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The Daily Mail
I am not going to post at length all the things wrong with this paper, on every level it disturbs me but there are those who blog relentlessly about it and its reasoning.
http://www.angrymob.uponnothing.co.uk/
Genuinely funny and thoughtful, I wish that these were the mainstream opinions - the mercurial reaction time, the surgically precise humour and the sheer power of the truth. Instead we get well-meaning apologies and partisanship towards those who are too afraid to compromise on their ignorance.
http://www.angrymob.uponnothing.co.uk/
Genuinely funny and thoughtful, I wish that these were the mainstream opinions - the mercurial reaction time, the surgically precise humour and the sheer power of the truth. Instead we get well-meaning apologies and partisanship towards those who are too afraid to compromise on their ignorance.
Psychopathology
http://tinyurl.com/rd9hdw
Israel - a complicated situation, almost indistinct in the storm of potential accusations of anti-semitism and the counter accusations that it has co-opted the memory of the Holocaust for propaganda purposes. Its right to exist, and to defend itself is the stuff that degrees and bibliographies are built upon.
Yet it waged war upon the people of Gaza, as the above link reports. The Israeli army bombed factories from the air, and then sent in mines and soldiers to ensure it was destroyed to the foundations, they bombed hospitals and mosques. Some of the testimonies are damning and uncomfortable, but you should read them.
It is important to seperate Israel from Judaism, in as much as we should seperate Islam from Al-Qaeda and KKK from christianity, because Israel, it is reasonable to conclude, is a state turned to terrorism. Al-Qaeda with a Michael Bay budget and the US onside. If there is justification for this, I long to hear it.
Israel - a complicated situation, almost indistinct in the storm of potential accusations of anti-semitism and the counter accusations that it has co-opted the memory of the Holocaust for propaganda purposes. Its right to exist, and to defend itself is the stuff that degrees and bibliographies are built upon.
Yet it waged war upon the people of Gaza, as the above link reports. The Israeli army bombed factories from the air, and then sent in mines and soldiers to ensure it was destroyed to the foundations, they bombed hospitals and mosques. Some of the testimonies are damning and uncomfortable, but you should read them.
It is important to seperate Israel from Judaism, in as much as we should seperate Islam from Al-Qaeda and KKK from christianity, because Israel, it is reasonable to conclude, is a state turned to terrorism. Al-Qaeda with a Michael Bay budget and the US onside. If there is justification for this, I long to hear it.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Politics
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_ID=10&article_ID=106355&categ_id=5
Interesting article, and I am always prepared to be wrong on whatever opinion I have held regarding terrorism.
Interesting article, and I am always prepared to be wrong on whatever opinion I have held regarding terrorism.
Suicides Will Continue Until Morale Improves
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8252547.stm
23 people killing themselves, working at one location, is very disturbing. That it could be down to management actions and drives designed to undermine and reduce the human element to nothing is not in the least surprising. The drive to maximise profits at the expense of all else kills, either immediately or eventually.
23 people killing themselves, working at one location, is very disturbing. That it could be down to management actions and drives designed to undermine and reduce the human element to nothing is not in the least surprising. The drive to maximise profits at the expense of all else kills, either immediately or eventually.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Bass Post
Not doing much bandwise at the moment, trying to transition from surge lounge to the new thing with Ben, Laura and Sean and champing at the bit to get Floating Leaf going again, and this post is about some of the things I consider when I play.
I view my playing as part of the rhythm section, working almost as one instrument with El, and part of that comes from having spent lots of time locking in with him, and generally jamming with him. Sonically, I prefer to play flatwound strings because I tend to prefer that the guitar and vocals stay in the mids, whilst I like to work in with the drums sonically. If I can get that rumble, it sounds huge.
I view my playing as part of the rhythm section, working almost as one instrument with El, and part of that comes from having spent lots of time locking in with him, and generally jamming with him. Sonically, I prefer to play flatwound strings because I tend to prefer that the guitar and vocals stay in the mids, whilst I like to work in with the drums sonically. If I can get that rumble, it sounds huge.
True Blood
It is artfully camp, but thoroughly entertaining, the Deep South setting and the absolutely gorgeous cast(who deliver some great performances) all combine into a rich, thick stew of decadent, white trash opera. The interpretation of vampirism would, in any other setting, be awfully antiquated, but here it is somehow beautifully baroque.
That, and Anna Paquin is mesmerising. Genuinely gorgeous and sweet.
Watch it, or download it, it is fun
That, and Anna Paquin is mesmerising. Genuinely gorgeous and sweet.
Watch it, or download it, it is fun
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