Metacognitive Defibrillator & Nutwerx Squirrelizer; Surrealist Review of the World Nest (v2.3); Unofficial recycler of the disposable society; anti-judeo-christo-islamo-fascist-zombie-brigade resistance cell; Twenty Three Thousand Armed Buddhas; Nanobeachhead of Optimysticism; & future home of the manned mission to dwarf planet Eris. Nothing to see here, people; move along. Do not attempt to adjust your monitor. We control the html; we control the css. Submitted for your perusal. WTFWIT?
Manythings.org/shuffle/ has a good explanation of how to fix the iPod Shuffle. It links directly to the sourceforge page of rebuild_db. It also explains why any reasonable person --such as a language student-- might find it useful to rebuild the database. I wish I had known about this sooner.
There are several audio players and managers in Linux which function as alternatives to iTunes. I started off using the default application (for Ubuntu) Rhythmbox but later switched to Banshee as Rhythmbox had a few unacceptable problems: not transferring tracks to an iPod on occasion, not downloading podcasts on occasion, and not playing music on occasion. I have also tried Amarok, Exaile, Songbird, and a few other minor ones but all of these failed to support iPods, podcasts, or my computer's audio. I need iPod support because I have a few iPods around and probably will for a long time, although the mass-storage USB is a much better way than the closed iTunes-managed corporate podware which crAAPL grants its devotees.
I recently misplaced the (2005?) 1st-generation Shuffle that never seemed to die, so I went to a second or third generation clippy Shuffle Emerald(?) that someone else didn't need. My needs are simple: just to be able to play 3-6 hours of podcasts and some music every day during my commutes. Banshee doesn't recognize it, so I've switched back to Rhythmbox. Rhythmbox seems to be working better than before, so far, although some podcasts seem to go offline much of the time.
One thing I noticed when I was giving Exaile a spin again was the excellent selection of internet radio stations. Because they are pre-installed in Exaile, you tend to use them. I decided to add some radio stations to the poor selection that pre-exists in Rhythmbox. Here are the URLs I added, in rough order from higher bitrates to lower. I can't stand commercials, so I selected mostly public and college radio.
If you don't find what you are looking for there, try radio-locator, which lets you search by city, zip-code, country, format (genre), or call letters.
Update: Rhythmbox still sucks. "...could not parse the feed contents..." Banshee chocked on the iPod mb229 a few more times but finally rebuilt the database without crashing and now is good. Banshee wins. Here's another way to rebuild the (Shuffle) database.
I've been listening to WTF with Marc Maron, as mentioned in a previous post. I've gone through most of the backlog and have to conclude that this is a better situation for Marc in that he is producing better, more timeless and higher-quality comedy-centered content now.
I tried to integrate a QR code into the (existing WTF) show graphic, so I could learn how to use the G.I.M.P. a little more, and maybe even contribute something back to Marc.
I used the Google chart API to make a URL like this or this with error correction level H (allowing 30% of the code to go missing). My first idea was to go with Marc's face. Hmmm. It's not great but I suppose his face would be enough to remind people what the link was for. My second attempt was the weirdo-at-the-screendoor effect, in 2 versions. Git yer gun, Pa!
(click for full size)
It doesn't really work unless you see it at full size; the grid doesn't scale. I tried this blue 600 pixel hippie gif because I didn't like the Huck Finn quality of the existing letters WTF. I'm not really satisfied with any of these. All of this "code" may be out of date soon as you can apparently just point your cellphone camera at buildings and things and have them recognized.
BTW, since I was working on this in the presence of a 7-year old, WTF now stands for Where's the fish?, What's that fish?, or What's that for? This final one looks like it wouldn't work, but it scans in very quickly.
The GIMP is better than Photoshop. It's almost the same ease of use (if you start from zero), is cheaper at 0 yen vs $700, and is guilt-free for pirates. And although I personally like the gimpy-sounding name, I would propose the next version be called "The PIMP", Photographic Image Manipulation Program, or Professional Image Manipulation Program, to satisfy the people who are uncomfortable with the name. Hell, why even wait for someone else to change the name? Change the branding yourself just for your own personal use. The Windows version should go with the WIMP as the name, and perhaps The ChIMP would be appropriate for Christians or anyone who can think of a good acronymical reason for that.
Marc is back, apparently podcasting out of his garage in LA? I hope he's given up any abusive relationships with AirAmerica. Just listening to my first episode of it now. I needed some good news. Via Brilliant at Breakfast.
I finally converted the mac mini to Edubuntu Linux by enabling printing, the last remaining barrier to use. Without being able to print, I would be forced to boot back into the Mac OS X every time I wanted to print. Contrary to the information on the Linux Printing database page, the Canon Pixus 990i, (AKA the i990 outside Japan) does have support.
I downloaded turbolinux and that got printing up and running although it may only work for 30 days before putting some logo or something on my printouts. I'll find a workaround w/in 30 days, or buy a new printer, or boot back into MacOSX, or install an rpm-based distribution to keep my printer happy. I hope nothing gets so broken that I have to go back to the Apple world.
Apparently it's also possible to convert rpm to deb using "alien" but that involves command line interface (CLI)toral skills of a higher level. I don't think I would need that anyway since I have the source.
Printing was the final barrier because sound is good, and I decided that no physical shutdown or restarting is not really such a show-stopper; I am old enough to remember computers that had to be shut down in software and then shut down physically. It was about 15 years ago. Back to the future. Also, Mac and Linux usually run for months without needing to reboot, anyway. (I don't know about WinDOS--never ran it long enough to see if it was equally stable.)
This is "Linux Transition v4" because there has been the Little Sucker (Eee pc 4G), Little Puppy (Eee pc 1000HE), the iLamp (M9290J/A), and now the 2009 mac mini. I had to change the mini since I tend to work on it, use it for mail, and use it for podcasts and iPod syncing. In addition to being figuratively locked in classrooms with Windows five hours a week, if I use the Mac as my main home computer, I may not even use Linux everyday. I was probably using MacOSx 50 or 60% of the time, then Linux, then Windows. This will put Linux on top, with the obligatory Windows time at work, and Mac and Windows available at home as a secondary boot option should I ever need them. This fourth install puts me over the hump. Edubuntu, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, and the Netbook Remix and Moblin Remix are the ones I am using now. I'm done with Mandriva for a while and I not using OpenSuSE anymore or Fedora (yet). I am interested in looking into Fedora, Debian, and FreeBSD but Ubuntu is serving me best right now, I like the philosophy, and I think it may be more productive to try to use a larger rather than smaller distribution and build a bigger community, all else being equal.
That leaves only the 2003 eMac and some 1999-2000 iMacs in my 3rd floor PPCLounge running MacOS. I rarely get up there these days. The challenge of the eMac will also require me to finally master editing the xorg.conf file and get the eMac display challenge right. In addition to those, there are also 2 other Windows computers run by others in my family. They seem happy as Windows drones.
I'm very happy with the mac-mini-bootcamp-edubuntu-OS. It seems better than the MacOS, but I could be biased. The text editor gedit is certainly better than Text Edit in that gedit is tabbed. Rhythmbox sees my iPod and plays the music without complaining about it being synched to another computer or such nonsense. I don't know well yet, but if it doesn't support the iPod well, I'll try gpodder and some other tools or just get a SanDisk. Basically, freedom is better. MacOSX is like sleeping in your office because it's a really nice office; Linux is more like having your own place made of prefab parts that you built from free materials donated to a co-op. We might compare it to being out in the forest in some cabins since GNU-Linux(&BSD) is a whole ecosystem of competing and co-evolving operating systems and software, while the Windows-Mac duopoly is a shiny glass office building. Don't you dare try knocking holes in the walls or redecorating. Edubuntu with Google Gadgets and a lot of small customizations looks much better than MacOSX right away. Part of it may be because the 22 inches of screen looks better than the ten inches of screen I was looking at in the netbook experience. Possible 2.2 times better. Squared. Somehow it looks great. I had been looking at that brushed aluminum for years and years. It's a nice look, and it would have been good for 4 to 6 months. But give me a break. Try something different for Steve's sake. Mahogany. Concrete. Stone. Something. I can't stand looking at it anymore. Only one choice in everything. The Cult of Mac. It's like Steve Jobs is dad and you have to live in his house and follow all of his rules as he gets older and a little slower at staying up to date all the time. Grow up, MacAddicts! Stop sucking corporate ass'le. I will enjoy not having only the Mac hardware to choose from for my OS of choice. However, I do intend to keep one working Apple CPU and MacOSx around for odd jobs. I miss the RSS news screensaver; I've got schools of fish now and it's very AfterDark Flocks-esque.
I tried to set my Shuffle to download the latest podcast of some select daily favorites and delete the previous day's. I always do it by hand. I knew it was possible because the Nano can do it. But I found it was not possible. The Shuffle is only allowed to download a random mix, or you synch files manually. Crippleware. Steve Jobs apparently decided the Shuffle was for jogging, that it should be nearly impossible NOT to shuffle it (1 mm slider has to stop halfway to NOT shuffle) and that users should be forced to upgrade to the Nano if they wanted to automatically offload and onload their daily (or frequently updated) favorites. The Shuffle is better for me because I want to operate it by touch in my pocket, so APPL just lost another customer. When I hear "Shuffle" I imagine a crippled old man walking slowly without lifting his feet. I sometimes call it the iPot-snuffle or the iPot-sniffle. It's yet another entry in the Top 50 Things I Hate About APPL. I will have to write that list up sometime. Maybe I should go for 100?
Speaking of things I hate about APPL, how about the situation where Windows has a (near) 90% market share and is somehow NOT a monopoly? Can you imagine any other business in which a company has a 90% market share and is NOT considered a monopoly? Imagine if one company had 90% of the phone lines. How much competition would there be? What if one company had 90% of the rails, or roads, or gas stations, or cars, internet service providers, or television stations? Is there any chance it would not be considered a monopoly and not be broken up? Looking back at it, what happened is that Apple saved Microsoft. By taking Microsoft's investment and staying afloat as a token make-believe competitor, they saved Microsoft from Microsoft's worst nightmare, being an undeniable monopolist. The two of them carved up the market. Maybe Steve promised not to sell computers for much under $1000. Bill promised to delay or screw up Windows enough to help APPL get over 5% again. In the alternate timeline where Apple did go broke, Windows would have to be clearly recognized as a monopoly and might have been broken into a few competing companies, teams, and versions of Windows by now.
Apple has an SD card in their laptop computers now, much like they finally have a radio function in some iPods, after refusing to consider it for the first 5 years when it would have been cutting-edge. However, you cannot get the SD card in their one laptop for $1000. You need to pay more and get the more expensive model. Guys. Computers at the $200 and $300 level have the SD card slot. They've had it for years. You don't use that as a feature to squeeze more money out of people--unless you really think of your customers as dumb farm animals (no insult to sentient farm animals intended).
Here is a funny spoof of the iconic I'm-a-Mac ad. The producer says he wrote the script before Google bought YouTube, which is why an anthopomorphised MySpace makes an appearance (as opposed to YouTube). The Linux guy should have been based more on Linus Torvalds or Richard Stallman. Unix is like Stallman. The Google hacker guy is not really my image of Google (but what do I know). Perhaps what the Mac is experience is a kernel panic. IMHO, the video could be improved by incorporating a Spinning Beachball of Death as the end.
I was wondering what portable audio players would be good for interoperability with GNU Linux-based OSs, and according to CNET's MP3(!) Player Finder, the SanDisk Sansa Fuze is about right for me. It comes in 4 or 8 GB sizes, but I would take advantage of the fact that it accepts microSD cards and put a 16 or 32 GB microSD card in. Note that it also can record audio. And has FM. Supports WMA, WAV, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC. Seven of your top 50 reasons for hating Apple right there.
Actually, it looks a bit on the large size for me. I like tactile controls (such as those of the iPod shuffle) so I can operate it by touch in the pocket of a shirt or jacket. Assuming it will also work with Linux (both reviews omit mention of that OS), the Clip+ might be better.
Marc Maron has been continuing his abusive off-again-on-again relationship with Air America radio. This time he's working with Sam Seder on BreakRoomLive.
The show hasn't built up to the heights of Morning Sedition, and Seder will never be as funny as Jim Earl, but Marc and Sam seem to work pretty well together.
Lawton Smalls called in last month. Can Angus McFarquhar be far behind? Sammy the stem cell? Cardinal Milfington?
The voicemail
The first call: Don't Stim Me, Bro
The second call: Republican diversity (March 9)
Speaking of retired radio (or podcast) characters rising from the dead, Dick Cheney: Confidential hasn't run out of steam yet, either, with Harry Shearer placing, uh, Dick, in some continuing undisclosed locations.
MR. BROKAW: We're back live in Wilmington, Delaware. And with us now, having traveled from Washington all that way, author of the new book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America," Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist from The New York Times, Tom Friedman.
Friedman is very vivid but a bit too glib and tends to jump from idea to idea. I don't think I would buy his book. He had a good point to make about "the price signal" and making that national policy instead of surfing the market.
That reminds me that I recently downloaded Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman from http://wiki.stealthiswiki.org/ That is a book which I once found in a used bookstore around 1980 and considered a fossil even then. Updated 2008 versions and variations have been created for online reading and downloading, for what it's worth.
Most E-mailed stories podcast 09-02-2008 Stories: 1) Finally, Guidelines On Cleaning Ears Released 2) An Oscar Crop With An Instinct For Change 3) Bulger Case Changed FBI's Role With Informants 4) VP Nominee Says Teen Daughter Is Pregnant 5) A French Marionette Tradition 6) Fall Movies: Corsets, Crises, Comedies and Cranks
There just had to be something happening in the world on September 2 that was more important than NOT cleaning your ears too much.
Strike Two: I have heard the expression "swing state of Minnesota" several times, but couldn't remember where. It's odd because Minnesota has voted Democratic in the last 10 elections. In the last 12 elections, it crossed over to the Republican side once, to re-elect Nixon in 1972. It occurred to me to Google the source of this and I found… NPR!
Debate Reaction from a Swing State : NPR Morning Edition, October 14, 2004 · NPR's Juan Williams watched the presidential debate with voters in the swing state of Minnesota. Williams reports on how ... www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4108759 - Similar pages Blog House: With GOP's No. 1 question settled, it's onto No. 2 20 Feb 2008 ... Popular in the swing state of Minnesota (where the GOP convention is going to be held). Has fairly modest roots (can't allow Dems to play ... www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/15822002.html - 71k - Cached - Similar pages
That story's from 2004, when Republicans came unexpectedly close to winning Minnesota. I'm blaming NPR anyway. POS News.
Trouble is, among their suburban lifestyle stories they occasionally have a great science or anthropological report. As a standard train-commute audio news report, Democracy Now is best, but still leaves a little to be desired. Here and Now is fairly OK but poofy at times as well. When a story like earwax begins I usually press skip, and this occurs far too often.
Science Friday last week was a great one, with Ray Kurzweil and Richard Preston (Panic in Level 4) appearing. Kurzweil is low-key but persuasive. Preston had some amazing stories told with humanity. The fuel-cell piece and the piece about the climate change bill were good, too. It looks like today, June 13, they will have a segment about Mars.
Richard Preston 'Journeys to the Edge of Science' Best-selling author Richard Preston, known for his New Yorker profiles of science and scientists, talks about his latest project, Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science. Preston talks with host Ira Flatow about his craft, and about the stories and people he has covered over the years.
Will We Recognize the Future? Futurist Ray Kurzweil explains the idea of the "singularity" — what happens when technology advances so much that it's impossible to predict what happens next. Will artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and biotechnology be able to completely reshape what it means to be human?
Greener Cars Change U.S. Auto Landscape Honda plans to lease at least 200 fuel cell vehicles in the U.S. over the next three years. And automaker General Motors announced it will shift production away from large SUVs toward smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles — and close four factories in the process.
Climate Change Legislation Fails in Senate The U.S. Senate debated proposed climate change legislation on Tuesday — but the bill failed to win the needed number of votes to avoid a filibuster and was pulled from the floor. The bill would have cut greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds by the year 2050.
Last week before Golden Week started I was in the train listening to a Howard Zinn podcast from Progressive Podcast, called "You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train". It was over an hour long, and I never got to the end, but I was struck by the relatively charming and humanistic speaking style of Zinn as contrasted with the more Noam Chomsky, for example. I am looking forward to hearing the rest of it on some boring commute soon. I think I mentioned in a post or the sidebar before about the online availability of A People's History of the United States, which I am glad for since I gave my copy of that big heavy book to a friend before I moved to Japan. I thought there might be some video of Howard Zinn on YouTube, too, and there is a lot more than I thought.
Results 1 - 10 of about 3,410 from youtube.com for Howard Zinn. (0.27 seconds)
In a major address, Noam Chomsky says there has been little change in the conventional debate over a US invasion abroad: from Vietnam to Iraq, the two main political parties and political pundits differ only on the tactics of US goals, which are assumed to be legitimate. On the other hand, public opposition to war has also remained consistent, Chomsky says, but, whether Iraqi or American, ignored.
AMY GOODMAN: … Since the presidential race began well over a year ago, Iraq has been one of many topics of debate. However, the war has not been the central issue of the campaign as it was in the midterm elections in 2006, and there are still more than 160,000 US troops deployed in Iraq. Why is this?
That was the subject of a recent talk by Noam Chomsky. A professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for over a half-century, Noam Chomsky is the author of scores of books on US foreign policy. His most recent is called Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. We spend the rest of the hour with Noam Chomsky. He recently spoke before a packed audience in Massachussetts at an event sponsored by Bikes Not Bombs.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Not very long ago, as you all recall, it was taken for granted that the Iraq war would be the central issue in the 2008 election, as it was in the midterm election two years ago. However, it’s virtually disappeared off the radar screen, which has solicited some puzzlement among the punditry. Actually, the reason is not very obscure. It was cogently explained forty years ago, when the US invasion of South Vietnam was in its fourth year and the surge of that day was about to add another 100,000 troops to the 175,000 already there, while South Vietnam was being bombed to shreds at triple the level of the bombing of the north and the war was expanding to the rest of Indochina. However, the war was not going very well, so the former hawks were shifting towards doubts, among them the distinguished historian Arthur Schlesinger, maybe the most distinguished historian of his generation, a Kennedy adviser, who—when he and Kennedy, other Kennedy liberals were beginning to—reluctantly beginning to shift from a dedication to victory to a more dovish position. And Schlesinger explained the reasons. He explained that—I’ll quote him now—“Of course, we all pray that the hawks are right in thinking that the surge of that day will work. And if it does, we may all be saluting the wisdom and statesmanship of the American government in winning a victory in a land that we have turned,” he said, “to wreck and ruin. But the surge probably won’t work, at an acceptable cost to us, so perhaps strategy should be rethought.” Well, the reasoning and the underlying attitudes carry over with almost no change to the critical commentary on the US invasion of Iraq today. And it is a land of wreck and ruin. You’ve already heard a few words; I don’t have to review the facts. The highly regarded British polling agency, Oxford Research Bureau, has just updated its estimate of deaths. Their new estimate a couple of days ago is 1.3 million. That’s excluding two of the most violent provinces, Karbala and Anbar. On the side, it’s kind of intriguing to observe the ferocity of the debate over the actual number of deaths. There’s an assumption on the part of the hawks that if we only killed a couple hundred thousand people, it would be OK, so we shouldn’t accept the higher estimates. You can go along with that if you like. Uncontroversially, there are over two million displaced within Iraq. Thanks to the generosity of Jordan and Syria, the millions of refugees who have fled the wreckage of Iraq aren’t totally wiped out. That includes most of the professional classes. But that welcome is fading, because Jordan and Syria receive no support from the perpetrators of the crimes in Washington and London, and therefore they cannot accept that huge burden for very long. It’s going to leave those two-and-a-half million refugees who fled in even more desperate straits. The sectarian warfare that was created by the invasion never—nothing like that had ever existed before. That has devastated the country, as you know. Much of the country has been subjected to quite brutal ethnic cleansing and left in the hands of warlords and militias. That’s the primary thrust of the current counterinsurgency strategy that’s developed by the revered “Lord Petraeus,” I guess we should describe him, considering the way he’s treated. He won his fame by pacifying Mosul a couple of years ago. It’s now the scene of some of the most extreme violence in the country. One of the most dedicated and informed journalists who has been immersed in the ongoing tragedy, Nir Rosen, has just written an epitaph entitled “The Death of Iraq” in the very mainstream and quite important journal Current History. He writes that “Iraq has been killed, never to rise again. The American occupation has been more disastrous than that of the Mongols, who sacked Baghdad in the thirteenth century,” which has been the perception of many Iraqis, as well. “Only fools talk of ‘solutions’ now,” he went on. “There is no solution. The only hope is that perhaps the damage can be contained.” But Iraq is, in fact, the marginal issue, and the reasons are the traditional ones, the traditional reasoning and attitudes of the liberal doves who all pray now, as they did forty years ago, that the hawks will be right and that the US will win a victory in this land of wreck and ruin. And they’re either encouraged or silenced by the good news about Iraq. And there is good news. The US occupying army in Iraq—euphemistically it’s called the Multi-National Force–Iraq, because they have, I think, three Poles there somewhere—that the occupying army carries out extensive studies of popular attitudes. It’s an important part of counterinsurgency or any form of domination. You want to know what your subjects are thinking. And it released a report last December. It was a study of focus groups, and it was uncharacteristically upbeat. The report concluded—I’ll quote it—that the survey of focus groups “provides very strong evidence” that national reconciliation is possible and anticipated, contrary to what’s being claimed. The survey found that a sense of “optimistic possibility permeated all focus groups…and far more commonalities than differences are found among these seemingly diverse groups of Iraqis” from all over the country and all walks of life. This discovery of “shared beliefs” among Iraqis throughout the country is “good news, according to a military analysis of the results," Karen de Young reported in the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago. Well, the “shared beliefs” are identified in the report. I’ll quote de Young: "Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the US military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of [what they call] ‘occupying forces’ as the key to national reconciliation.” So those are the “shared beliefs.” According to the Iraqis then, there’s hope of national reconciliation if the invaders, who are responsible for the internal violence and the other atrocities, if they withdraw and leave Iraq to Iraqis. That’s pretty much the same as what’s been found in earlier polls, so it’s not all that surprising. Well, that’s the good news: “shared beliefs.” The report didn’t mention some other good news, so I’ll add it. Iraqis, it appears, accept the highest values of Americans. That ought to be good news. Specifically, they accept the principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal that sentenced Nazi war criminals to hanging for such crimes as supporting aggression and preemptive war. It was the main charge against von Ribbentrop, for example, whose position was—in the Nazi regime was that of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. The Tribunal defined aggression very straightforwardly: aggression, in its words, is the “invasion of its armed forces” by one state “of the territory of another state.” That’s simple. Obviously, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan are textbook examples of aggression. And the Tribunal, as I’m sure you know, went on to characterize aggression as “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself all the accumulated evil of the whole.” So everything that follows from the aggression is part of the evil of the aggression. Well, the good news from the US military survey of focus groups is that Iraqis do accept the Nuremberg principles. They understand that sectarian violence and the other postwar horrors are contained within the supreme international crime committed by the invaders. I think they were not asked whether their acceptance of American values extends to the conclusion of Justice Robert Jackson, chief prosecutor for the United States at Nuremberg. He forcefully insisted that the Tribunal would be mere farce if we do not apply the principles to ourselves. Well, needless to say, US opinion, shared with the West generally, flatly rejects the lofty American values that were professed at Nuremberg, indeed regards them as bordering on obscene, as you could quickly discover if you try experimenting by suggesting that these values should be observed, as Iraqis insist. It’s an interesting illustration of the reality, some of the reality, that lies behind the famous “clash of civilizations.” Maybe not exactly the way we like to look at it. There was a poll a few days ago, a really major poll, just released, which found that 75 percent of Americans believe that US foreign policy is driving the dissatisfaction with America abroad, and more than 60 percent believe that dislike of American values and of the American people are also to blame. Dissatisfaction is a kind of an understatement. The United States has become increasingly the most feared and often hated country in the world. Well, that perception is in fact incorrect. It’s fed by propaganda. There’s very little dislike of Americans in the world, shown by repeated polls, and the dissatisfaction—that is, the hatred and the anger—they come from acceptance of American values, not a rejection of them, and recognition that they’re rejected by the US government and by US elites, which does lead to hatred and anger. There’s other “good news” that’s been reported by General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker that was during the extravaganza that was staged last September 11th. September 11th, you might ask why the timing? Well, a cynic might imagine that the timing was intended to insinuate the Bush-Cheney claims of links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. They can’t come out and say it straight out, so therefore you sort of insinuate it by devices like this. It’s intended to indicate, as they used to say outright but are now too embarrassed to say, except maybe Cheney, that by committing the supreme international crime, they were defending the world against terror, which, in fact, increased sevenfold as a result of the invasion, according to a recent analysis by terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank. Petraeus and Crocker provided figures to explain the good news. The figures they provided on September 11th showed that the Iraqi government was greatly accelerating spending on reconstruction, which is good news indeed and remained so until it was investigated by the Government Accountability Office, which found that the actual figure was one-sixth of what Petraeus and Crocker reported and, in fact, a 50 percent decline from the previous year. Well, more good news is the decline in sectarian violence, that’s attributable in part to the murderous ethnic cleansing that Iraqis blame on the invasion. The result of it is there are simply fewer people to kill, so sectarian violence declines. It’s also attributable to the new counterinsurgency doctrine, Washington’s decision to support the tribal groups that had already organized to drive out Iraqi al-Qaeda, to an increase in US troops, and to the decision of the Sadr’s Mahdi army to consolidate its gains to stop direct fighting. And politically, that’s what the press calls “halting aggression” by the Mahdi army. Notice that only Iraqis can commit aggression in Iraq, or Iranians, of course, but no one else. Well, it’s possible that Petraeus’s strategy may approach the success of the Russians in Chechnya, where—I’ll quote the New York Times a couple of weeks ago—Chechnya, the fighting is now “limited and sporadic, and Grozny is in the midst of a building boom” after having been reduced to rubble by the Russian attack. Well, maybe some day Baghdad and Fallujah also will enjoy, to continue the quote, “electricity restored in many neighborhoods, new businesses opening and the city’s main streets repaved,” as in booming Grozny. Possible, but dubious, in the light of the likely consequence of creating warlord armies that may be the seeds of even greater sectarian violence, adding to the “accumulated evil” of the aggression. Well, if Russians share the beliefs and attitudes of elite liberal intellectuals in the West, then they must be praising Putin’s “wisdom and statesmanship” for his achievements in Chechnya, formerly that they had turned into a land of wreck and ruin and are now rebuilding. Great achievement. A few days ago, the New York Times—the military and Iraq expert of the New York Times, Michael Gordon, wrote a comprehensive review, first-page comprehensive review, of the options for Iraq that are being faced by the candidates. And he went through them in detail, described the pluses and minuses and so on, interviewing political leaders, the candidates, experts, etc. There was one voice missing: Iraqis. Their preference is not rejected; rather, it’s not mentioned. And it seems that there was no notice of that fact, which makes sense, because it’s typical. It makes sense on the tacit assumption that underlies almost all discourse on international affairs. The tacit assumption, without which none of it makes any sense, is that we own the world. So, what does it matter what others think? They’re “unpeople,” nice term invented by British diplomatic historian [Mark] Curtis, based on a series of outstanding volumes on Britain’s crimes of empire—outstanding work, therefore deeply hidden. So there are the “unpeople” out there, and then there are the owners—that’s us—and we don’t have to listen to the “unpeople.” … Last month, Panama declared a Day of Mourning to commemorate the US invasion—that’s under George Bush no. 1—that killed thousands of poor Panamanians when the US bombed the El Chorillo slums and other poor areas, so Panamanian human rights organizations claim. We don’t actually know, because we never count our crimes. Victors don’t do that; only the defeated. It aroused no interest here; there’s barely a mention of the Day of Mourning. And there’s also no interest in the fact that Bush 1’s invasion of Panama was a clear case of aggression, to which the Nuremberg principles apply, and it was apparently more deadly, in fact possibly much more deadly, than Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, happened a few months later. But it makes sense that there would be no interest in that, because we own the world, and Saddam didn’t, so the acts are quite different. It’s also of no interest that, at that time of the time of Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, the greatest fear in Washington was that Saddam would imitate what the United States had just done in Panama, namely install a client government and then leave. That’s the main reason why Washington blocked diplomacy in quite interesting ways, with almost complete media cooperation. There’s actually one exception in the US media. But none of this gets any commentary. However, it does merit a lead story a few days later, when the Panamanian National Assembly was opened by President Pedro Gonzalez, who’s charged by Washington with killing two American soldiers during a protest against President Bush no.1, against his visit two years after the invasion. The charges were dismissed by Panamanian courts, but they’re upheld by the owner of the world, so he can’t travel, and that got a story. Well, to take just one last illustration of the depth of the imperial mentality, New York Times correspondent Elaine Sciolino, veteran correspondent, writes that “Iran’s intransigence [about nuclear enrichment] appears to be defeating attempts by the rest of the world to curtail Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.” Well, the phrase “the rest of the world” is an interesting one. The rest of the world happens to exclude the vast majority of the world, namely the non-aligned movement, which forcefully endorses Iran’s right to enrich uranium in accordance with the rights granted by its being a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But they’re not part of the world, even though they’re the large majority, because they don’t reflexively accept US orders, and commentary like that is unremarkable and unnoticed. You’re part of the world if you do what we say, obviously. Otherwise, you’re “unpeople.” Well, we might, since we’re on Iran, might tarry for a moment and ask whether there’s any solution to the US-Iran confrontation over nuclear weapons, which is extremely dangerous. Here’s one idea. First point, Iran should be permitted to develop nuclear energy, but not nuclear weapons, as the Non-Proliferation Treaty determines. Second point is that there should be a nuclear weapons-free zone in the entire region, Iran to Israel, including any US forces that are present there. Actually, though it’s never reported, the United States is committed to that position. When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, it appealed to a UN resolution, Resolution 687, which called upon Iraq to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction. That was the flimsy legal principle invoked to justify the invasion. And if you look at Resolution 687, you discover that one of its provisions is that the US and other powers must work to develop a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, including that entire region. So we’re committed to it, and that’s the second element of this proposal. The third element of the proposal is that the United States should accept the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a position which happens to be supported by 82 percent of Americans, namely that it should accept the requirement, in fact the legal requirement, as the World Court determined, to move to make good-faith efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether. And a fourth proposal is that the US should turn to diplomacy, and it should end any threats against Iran. The threats are themselves crimes. They’re in violation of the UN Charter, which bars the threat or use of force. Well, of course, these four proposals—again, Iran should have nuclear energy, but not nuclear weapons; there should be a weapons-free zone throughout the region; the US should accept the Non-Proliferation Treaty; there should be a turn to diplomacy and an end to threats—these are almost unmentionable in the United States. Not a single candidate would endorse any part of them, and they’re never discussed, and so on. However, the proposals are not original. They happen to be the position of the overwhelming majority of the American population. And interestingly, that’s also true in Iran; roughly the same overwhelming majority accepts all of these proposals. But that’s—the results come from the world’s most prestigious polling agency, but not reported, as far as I could discover, and certainly not considered. If they were ever mentioned, they would be dismissed with the phrase “politically impossible,” which is probably correct. It’s only the position of the large majority of the population, kind of like national healthcare, but not of the people that count. So there are plenty of “unpeople” here, too—in fact, the large majority. Americans share this property of being “unpeople” with most of the rest of the world. In fact, if the United States and Iran were functioning, not merely formal, democracies, then this dangerous crisis might be readily resolved by a functioning democracy—I mean, one in which public opinion plays some role in determining policy, rather than being excluded—in fact, unmentioned, because, after all, they’re “unpeople.” …
I was channel surfing and I found that Asahi Newsstar has Democracy Now (Japanese site http://democracynow.jp/). I'm not sure how long they have carried it. It even has Japanese subtitles -- and why not, since do a good job with the English transcripts, it's easy for another station to pick up the content. Unfortunately, though, according to the schedule, it's only on once(?) a week and rebroadcast a few times. Still, it's a great alternative to CNNjesusland and the Beebie-Sea. I haven't been listening to Democracy Now because the volume that it is recorded at is too quiet to be heard over the noise of the train on my commute.
They are calling it katakanaデモクラシー and RomajiNOW! Who decides these things? But I guess the direct translation of 民主主義＋現代 looks pretty strange. Democracy is a difficult word so they katakana-ized it so people could pronounce it and left NOW as it was. But sometimes katakanize it too, randomly.
Unfortunately, today's program is from May 9, 2007. What are they trying to pull? I just hope that they decide, after showing a few select shows for a month or so, to carry it on a daily basis.
I was pleased to find a new Brazzaville podcast on my computer (from NPR-affiliated WXPN program WorldCafe:Next) and learn that they have a new album out, East L.A. Breeze. I never even got their last album, Hastings Street, despite having been in Vancouver, the namesake of the album, last summer. It might have something to do with the album being released in Russia, where they found some kind of pop star status, and the fact that they are based in Barcelona now. I don't have the Welcome to… album either, but it only had 2 new tracks. It seems that they have never toured in Japan -- as far as I know. Their myspace page isn't as suckingly fugly as most myspace pages are. David Brown has a journal on the band's site. They have 3 free tracks and a hyena on their site, too. I see some links to YouTube videos that I haven't watched yet. The AllMusicGuide page has been considerably enhanced, and perhaps they have found enough success in Eurasia to make progress on the ship.
I have long been listening to the Notes Underground music podcast. Podmeister Mitch recently mentioned the Matador mp3 collection, which was really well worth visiting. I also subscribe to NPR - All Songs Considered. I have added some new feeds in recent weeks to keep a stream or at least a trickle of new music in my ears: KCRW - Today's Top Tune KEXP Song of the Day MPR - The Current Song of the Day Indiefeed Radio Three Sixty NPR - Open Mic I have finally retired NYUB - Not Your Usual Bollocks. I always found myself fast-forwarding through it. For a year. It is the usual bollocks. Or unusual bollocks, but not my kind of music. What was I thinking? Also retired Spacemusic but I think it died by itself first. You always think that someday you will actually listen to these or find a use for them. I archived some so that if I am ever hospitalized in a coma for a year or more, maybe someone could play them to me. I should leave someone a note.
In the news department, Democracy Now has no equal. It is strange to see how the podcast sphere went from no mainstream corporate media in mid 2005 to almost nothing but mainstream now. I am only speaking of the news sources now. You have to dig through the ABCs, CNNs, FOXes, CBS-walmarts, Newsweaks, and others to find Pacifica or anything non-corporate. I'm very bored with NPR - Most E-mailed Stories. Man, is that bad. Still not as dishonest as most of the other news reports, but very suburban topics such as Robert Plant's post-Zeppelin career as opposed to today's news of global destruction. I didn't get much out of the Washington Post, NYT, or BBC either. I guess I'd rather read them. Only Democracy Now is better listening than reading. (I'm too tired to link but you should search and subscribe in iTunes or another podcast-rss-feed-aggregator client.)
It's not NEWS, but Le Show is the best variety show or whatever you want to call it. Harry Shearer's regular voice features such as Dick Cheney Confidential and 41 calls 43 are the best. I am now adding Sam Seder of (just sold) AirAmerica after finding that Marc Maron is often on as a guest. I'll also give a listen to Ring of Fire. I can't stand Ed Schultz (but I would readily recommend him to anyone who likes the Rush Limbo "Limpboy" Experience as a low-fathead alternative).
On Saturday, November 25, five police officers in Queens fired fifty bullets into a car carrying 23-year old Sean Bell as he left a bachelor's party. He died. He was to be wed later that day. This story has been extensively reported in the media, and I have little to add but to refer you to Democracy Now, which you can read or listen to. I suggest you subscribe to the podcast. Al Sharpton said exactly the right things. I would point out that these things always seem to happen in America, never Belgium or Singapore, although there is an American tradition of air-dropping bombs on weddings in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also seems to me that if the Al Capone school of policing is being employed, the police may have other resemblences to the famous criminal. Face it: New York City cops are notoriously crooked and some of these may have had a reason to off Mr Bell, but we will have to wait and see if it was complicated by corruption or just simple brutish incompetent fatal gun violence by the peace officers. Premeditated murder, or just murder on the impulse of the moment? I made the above collage, unable to resist the symbolism of the number 50.
I've been a fan of Richard Dawkins since I read The Selfish Gene back in the late 70s or early 80s. I recently listened to him promoting his new bestseller, The God Delusion, on a podcast, and my friend Erik sent me these links from a television series. It's not just a lecture or one-sided intellectual argument; Dawkins gets into heated arguments with Islamofascists, Judeofascists, and Christofascists who readily profess their hate for him and all atheists.
Al Gore was on NPR's Fresh Air yesterday(?), interviewed by Terry Gross. I listened to it as a podcast on my way home. It is quite a long interview, and the best interview I have heard with Al Gore. Get it on iTunes, or go to the website to listen to the realmedia or windowsmedia audio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5439305
By the way, I don't agree with the sensational shocking,terrifying, marketing for this. It sounds even more affected next to the faux blasé word "Inconvenient". Don't get me wrong. Global warming is very likely to be true, and even if we aren't sure of it, we should err on the side of not roasting the planet. Ice ages have extended ice caps nearly to the equator in the past. At other times, Antarctica was ice-free. Only 10,000 or 15,000 years ago, sea levels were over a hundred meters lower, and most of what is now land was ice. Industrial-scale activities are having industrial-scale changes, changing global climate. Events like Katrina may happen every few years, drowning cities just as 20th century cities were once prone to burn down. (Tokyo burned to the ground in 1923 and again in 1945, twice in a century.) We should not have so much trouble getting our heads around the reality of climate change. (The IPCC says the polar melting will span the next 1000 years, so there will be some time to move house.) However, I think the emotional and apocalyptic language of this trailer adds emotional distance, makes it more unreal, harder for people to accept. I also disagree with the arrogance in the idea that we will kill Gaia. Every species that has lived on the Earth has eventually died. Gaia is a tough chick, and will shake us off long before her own wounds are fatal. I believe Gaia is kind enough to give us a good kick in the teeth first, maybe knock us down for a century or two while she sops up some of that CO2. That doesn't change the need to make our own adjustments, like Alan Greenspan soft-landing the economy, in order to avoid Mother Nature adjusting us. "Aw, c'mon Mom, give Fire Monkey another chance!"
All that from a cookie?
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Just you and me and the tour boats… Photo courtesy of Judy Thai. Cookies
from China.
The post All that from a cookie? first appeared on Engrish.com.
Mix: The Best of Shibuya-kei, Volume One
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The time has been right for a new mix that showcases, celebrates, and
reintroduces the best tracks from Shibuya-kei’s peak years: dj david, mon
amour - “Th...
Five years, that's all I've got
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*NEW BLOG HERE*
Loyal readers of this blog, if there are any left, may have noticed that I
have departed from my original purpose in 2011 of writing about ...
