nothing like a little mind aids to clarify your thinking. happy birthday to me.
the russians have been prioritizing deepwater ports for centuries. they really, really value having access through the black sea, past the dardanelles and into the mediterranean. so, the transit point in syria (tartus) is of central priority to a continuous russian naval strategy going back centuries. and there has equally been a british, and anglo-american, strategy to contain russian shipping through this region, for nearly as long as the russians have been valuing the access. this is a really basic struggle over control of shipping lanes by two powerful monarchical centres, two empires, that precedes the existence of the modern world.
the time was right for russia to be more aggressive in it's strategy, arguably even devastatingly too late. whether through real naivete or some kind of strategic fake naivete, the russians passively allowed themselves to be outmaneuvered for decades, stemming from an apparent (or contrived?) attempt to legitimately establish peaceful and common interests. with each clumsy russian gesture towards friendship, the americans became more contemptful in their deceit. something seems to have finally clicked after libya, where the russians were rudely discarded as fools. the russians seem to realize, finally, that the americans have no desire to be at peace. this is a very important recent shift in the balance of world power.
so, syria is quickly turning into a militarized russian base to protect those interests. assad is losing control, alright, but not to the rebels - to the kremlin. in the end, that's who picks up the spot on the risk board.
and bloody hell cry the saudis, who started the mess in the first place, by launching an attack from a position of weakness. the russians will happily allow assad to follow his enemies, and one cannot think there is any other option should he remain in power, under kremlin guidance or not. assad cannot simply quietly rebuild, and show up cheerily to the arab league meetings. revenge is inevitable. and why wouldn't the russians nurture that? some ruthless asshole probably pointed out that you'd better kill the fucker while you get the chance, when in such situations.
but in the end it's just the russians and english fighting over shipping lanes. same shit as for the last forever.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
i know wolff is trying to present workable alternatives, and i give him credit for it, but i think he's missing the point: the apathy about worker co-ops is built in large part by the absence of meaningful working class jobs. organizing a mcdonalds is not just different than organizing a car factory on a question of scale, it's different on a question of value. do we really want worker-run fast food restaurants, grocery stores and call centres? does that really have the potential to improve anybody's life?
the numbers points towards mechanization, rather than offshoring, as the prime contributor. isn't this a step forward in quality of life over actually running the factories with manual labour? if we could seize these forces of production for everybody....
i'm on record for my disdain of zizek, but something he's pointed to repeatedly is the idea that we've already passed through the socialist stage. marx wasn't a clairvoyant. historical materialism is more magic than science. maybe it's time to look around us and realize that actual communism is within our reach.
this is what the kids can see, and why they're convinced this co-op shit belongs in the 20th century.
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20991-worker-coops-and-left-strategy
the numbers points towards mechanization, rather than offshoring, as the prime contributor. isn't this a step forward in quality of life over actually running the factories with manual labour? if we could seize these forces of production for everybody....
i'm on record for my disdain of zizek, but something he's pointed to repeatedly is the idea that we've already passed through the socialist stage. marx wasn't a clairvoyant. historical materialism is more magic than science. maybe it's time to look around us and realize that actual communism is within our reach.
this is what the kids can see, and why they're convinced this co-op shit belongs in the 20th century.
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20991-worker-coops-and-left-strategy
what the numbers actually say is that roughly 60% of voters don't care about platforms, they just vote based on branding. when you factor in leaning, meaning the people that think before they vote, it's 47-41. that leaves around 10%, the traditional independent faction.
however, it's long been understood that independents that refuse to admit a political leaning actually lean republican. that puts the split where it's been for years.
gotcha politics from the soft-left press.
the only way an independent candidate is going to break through the mess is by appealing to a populist issue that transcends the traditional right/left divide. somebody like ron paul could have done it by building on opposition to the drug war and standing up for civil liberties, if he wasn't a racist, misogynist corporate stooge. somebody with glenn greenwald's politics and ross perot's money. of course, s/he'd be dead in a flash...
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18408-republican-voter-identification-falls-to-new-low-point-as-independent-voters-surge
however, it's long been understood that independents that refuse to admit a political leaning actually lean republican. that puts the split where it's been for years.
gotcha politics from the soft-left press.
the only way an independent candidate is going to break through the mess is by appealing to a populist issue that transcends the traditional right/left divide. somebody like ron paul could have done it by building on opposition to the drug war and standing up for civil liberties, if he wasn't a racist, misogynist corporate stooge. somebody with glenn greenwald's politics and ross perot's money. of course, s/he'd be dead in a flash...
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18408-republican-voter-identification-falls-to-new-low-point-as-independent-voters-surge
publishing ignorance is bliss (inri038)
the third of what will be four eps of material cycling around the deny everything lp, this is definitely a pretty heavy listen. as i tend to do, i've mixed some weird styles together here. electro-goth-grunge? noise-hop? industrial blues? ambient post-punk? i dunno. it's not easily describable, and i aim for that. as a piece of electronic music, it's pretty neat. let's leave it at that. three times in a row with subtle variations is going to require an interest in the topic. but, i demand some grit from my listeners; i expect that, in turn, from the musicians i admire.
so, have some fun tripping out into this. or don't. whatever.
--
this is a collection of versions of a track that was important to me around the turn of the century: three electronic versions and an electric folk version that i often played as a sort of a drunken party trick. the three electronic versions are arranged in decreasing complexity, and the electric folk version is at the end.
it's sort of about me, and sort of about my dad, and sort of about caricatures. we never had a dog drown, and i simply have no knowledge of the dynamics of my parents' sexual relationship. that's just an old country song. yet, there were a lot of stressful problems in both his work and family life, and that was being pointed to as a cause of his heart problems.
in hindsight, i'd tend to lean more towards genetics than stress. of course, that's something i have an interest in understanding further as i age. at the time, though, the focus was all about reducing the amount of stress he was dealing with.
i really just sort of didn't get it. i still don't *really* get it. stressed? well, chill out then. spark one up. put on a tune. it's maybe not as easy as snapping a finger, but it has to be about a general philosophy of life. see, i guess i place a lot less faith in the idea of free will than most people do - and my father, being a rush fan, and don't get me started on that travesty, put far more faith in it. when one is absolutely convinced that their entire life is determined by the choices they make, including the ones they don't make, it produces a lot of pressure to make or not make the right choices. meaning? he did it to himself - his atlas never shrugged.
ultimately, universe gonna hate. your so-called free will is doomed to be crushed in a wave of stochastics. the universe is a random, chaotic place defined by poorly understood probabilities. so, why bother concerning yourself so deeply with the consequences of your actions in this pointless existence, to the point that it might cut that existence short? it was the idea of him driving himself to cardiac arrest that pissed me off. you could be hit by an asteroid in your sleep. you could spontaneously combust. you could even wake up one day to find that aliens have landed and are taking over the world using robot gunships. once you get *that*, trying to fight for control seems pointless. embrace the random, and spiral out....
or, so, the debate went. i wasn't really comfortable writing a song *about* my old man, so i took a fictional first-person perspective and went to town with it a bit.
the vocals have come in and out of the track, but in the end they became attached solely to the electric folk version, leaving the electronic version solely as a piece of music.
the cover art bitmap is one of the files i put through coagula to produce sound out of light. inristart was a working title for the piece.
written and recorded, 1999-2001. track 2 was reconstructed out of existing sound in june, 2004. sequenced as is in jan, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, sequencing, drum programming, vocals, vocoders, sound design, sampling, digital wave editing, production
released july 11, 2000
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ignorance-is-bliss
1) this was the meta mix: recorded from may to july, 2000 and included on the original deny everything demo. it's also the most produced mix, in the sense that it utilizes a number of electronic and guitar based sound effects that were dropped from the final mix. note also that the bass part is different and arguably better, if slightly out of sync.
i should point out, in the context of streaming it from this site, that it starts about 15 seconds in. this was a conscious thing that was designed to startle the listener. you're supposed to listen to the first fifteen seconds, adjust your volume, scratch your head, etc - and then jump a foot in the air when it actually comes on and scares the fuck out of you. even if you know it's coming, the suddenness is still jarring.
2) i've held to this version since june, 2004 but i'm going to update it for inclusion in deny everything, yet again. the fun part of being an unknown composer is that you can modify your works at a whim. well, known composers have done that, too. fuck the rock era. fuck rock stars.
it contains more of the track than the "original" inristart may, 2000 version but less of the track than the abandoned vocal mix (july, 2000).
the sections that were abandoned for this mix were largely overflows of the vocal version. for example, a short guitar solo was ignored because it seemed pointlessly indulgent and empty without it being an introduction to the vocals. there's also a sequenced "ukulele" part that ran through the vocal version that was discarded; it was a vocal accompaniment (in a way that may bring to mind lady in satin, or perhaps vespertine) that seemed to just appear out of nowhere. a thunder crack only made sense relative to the lyrics. a noise-funk guitar part was meant to work with the bass part and no longer did.
i was also in a more minimalist frame of mind back in '04 when i put it together. today, though, i want to bring in more of the vocal version. this version just feels half done.
this differs from the inristart version only in the addition of a lead guitar part that bridges the first and middle sections and a subtle feedback swell around twelve minutes in. these, however, are substantial differences that i feel are worth maintaining in their own mix.
the 2004 date seems anachronistic, but all the parts were recorded in the spring and early summer of 2000.
3) this is the oldest version i have and formed the basis of the final version.
4) this was never meant to be recorded like this, only played live, usually drunk, but a friend of mine talked me into recording it for inclusion in a radio rock project we were hatching up. well, he was hatching up. i didn't really have much of an artistic investment in it, i just agreed to play bass, because my friend needed a bassist more than any other reason. he wanted this to be a "hidden song". i obliged.
however, he was a little taken aback by the result. he wanted it to be twangy and country, which indicated a misunderstanding of the content. it's comical on a surreal level, but it's not a cheap comedy skit. his ideas would have devalued it and that sort of pissed me off; my refusal to redo it pissed him off. this was part of the reason that the project never went anywhere, except to spark rabit is wolf:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/rabit-iz-wolf
this recording did not happen until mid 2001, but i was playing it at parties months before that. it's only very slightly anachronistic to attach it to here; the conceptual unity overpowers.
so, have some fun tripping out into this. or don't. whatever.
--
this is a collection of versions of a track that was important to me around the turn of the century: three electronic versions and an electric folk version that i often played as a sort of a drunken party trick. the three electronic versions are arranged in decreasing complexity, and the electric folk version is at the end.
it's sort of about me, and sort of about my dad, and sort of about caricatures. we never had a dog drown, and i simply have no knowledge of the dynamics of my parents' sexual relationship. that's just an old country song. yet, there were a lot of stressful problems in both his work and family life, and that was being pointed to as a cause of his heart problems.
in hindsight, i'd tend to lean more towards genetics than stress. of course, that's something i have an interest in understanding further as i age. at the time, though, the focus was all about reducing the amount of stress he was dealing with.
i really just sort of didn't get it. i still don't *really* get it. stressed? well, chill out then. spark one up. put on a tune. it's maybe not as easy as snapping a finger, but it has to be about a general philosophy of life. see, i guess i place a lot less faith in the idea of free will than most people do - and my father, being a rush fan, and don't get me started on that travesty, put far more faith in it. when one is absolutely convinced that their entire life is determined by the choices they make, including the ones they don't make, it produces a lot of pressure to make or not make the right choices. meaning? he did it to himself - his atlas never shrugged.
ultimately, universe gonna hate. your so-called free will is doomed to be crushed in a wave of stochastics. the universe is a random, chaotic place defined by poorly understood probabilities. so, why bother concerning yourself so deeply with the consequences of your actions in this pointless existence, to the point that it might cut that existence short? it was the idea of him driving himself to cardiac arrest that pissed me off. you could be hit by an asteroid in your sleep. you could spontaneously combust. you could even wake up one day to find that aliens have landed and are taking over the world using robot gunships. once you get *that*, trying to fight for control seems pointless. embrace the random, and spiral out....
or, so, the debate went. i wasn't really comfortable writing a song *about* my old man, so i took a fictional first-person perspective and went to town with it a bit.
the vocals have come in and out of the track, but in the end they became attached solely to the electric folk version, leaving the electronic version solely as a piece of music.
the cover art bitmap is one of the files i put through coagula to produce sound out of light. inristart was a working title for the piece.
written and recorded, 1999-2001. track 2 was reconstructed out of existing sound in june, 2004. sequenced as is in jan, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, sequencing, drum programming, vocals, vocoders, sound design, sampling, digital wave editing, production
released july 11, 2000
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ignorance-is-bliss
1) this was the meta mix: recorded from may to july, 2000 and included on the original deny everything demo. it's also the most produced mix, in the sense that it utilizes a number of electronic and guitar based sound effects that were dropped from the final mix. note also that the bass part is different and arguably better, if slightly out of sync.
i should point out, in the context of streaming it from this site, that it starts about 15 seconds in. this was a conscious thing that was designed to startle the listener. you're supposed to listen to the first fifteen seconds, adjust your volume, scratch your head, etc - and then jump a foot in the air when it actually comes on and scares the fuck out of you. even if you know it's coming, the suddenness is still jarring.
2) i've held to this version since june, 2004 but i'm going to update it for inclusion in deny everything, yet again. the fun part of being an unknown composer is that you can modify your works at a whim. well, known composers have done that, too. fuck the rock era. fuck rock stars.
it contains more of the track than the "original" inristart may, 2000 version but less of the track than the abandoned vocal mix (july, 2000).
the sections that were abandoned for this mix were largely overflows of the vocal version. for example, a short guitar solo was ignored because it seemed pointlessly indulgent and empty without it being an introduction to the vocals. there's also a sequenced "ukulele" part that ran through the vocal version that was discarded; it was a vocal accompaniment (in a way that may bring to mind lady in satin, or perhaps vespertine) that seemed to just appear out of nowhere. a thunder crack only made sense relative to the lyrics. a noise-funk guitar part was meant to work with the bass part and no longer did.
i was also in a more minimalist frame of mind back in '04 when i put it together. today, though, i want to bring in more of the vocal version. this version just feels half done.
this differs from the inristart version only in the addition of a lead guitar part that bridges the first and middle sections and a subtle feedback swell around twelve minutes in. these, however, are substantial differences that i feel are worth maintaining in their own mix.
the 2004 date seems anachronistic, but all the parts were recorded in the spring and early summer of 2000.
3) this is the oldest version i have and formed the basis of the final version.
4) this was never meant to be recorded like this, only played live, usually drunk, but a friend of mine talked me into recording it for inclusion in a radio rock project we were hatching up. well, he was hatching up. i didn't really have much of an artistic investment in it, i just agreed to play bass, because my friend needed a bassist more than any other reason. he wanted this to be a "hidden song". i obliged.
however, he was a little taken aback by the result. he wanted it to be twangy and country, which indicated a misunderstanding of the content. it's comical on a surreal level, but it's not a cheap comedy skit. his ideas would have devalued it and that sort of pissed me off; my refusal to redo it pissed him off. this was part of the reason that the project never went anywhere, except to spark rabit is wolf:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/rabit-iz-wolf
this recording did not happen until mid 2001, but i was playing it at parties months before that. it's only very slightly anachronistic to attach it to here; the conceptual unity overpowers.
Jessica Amber Murray
ok, i responded
mom
K...I'm off the phone with her now. How are you?
Jessica Amber Murray
i'm ok. was fighting with my hard drive, but it seems to have resolved itself for now at least. i don't know what happened, really. it's not doing the things that hard drives do when they die, leading me to believe it's not really dead, just had a hiccup.
mom
Mine is working good for awhile and then makes very loud noises as well....I took it into apple and they said it was an old dinosaur and they could not service it...told me to just back my stuff up and continue to use it...They tested my fan activity and said my fans were running right....Not sure what it is all about...I am just using it and hoping for the best.
Jessica Amber Murray
yeah, i still think it sounds like your drive. i think i may have actually accidentally zapped mine with a jolt of static electricity, because the plates aren't misbehaving. which means it could be fine or could be waiting to implode. but the guy is right - back your data up. it's a shame they won't just put a new drive in it. that's kind of jerky.
mom
Well, there is another place...The Mac Group, where I bought it from in the first place that I could bring it into and I think they would actually service it. I only have pics on it...I did put them onto a couple of usb sticks.
Jessica Amber Murray
well, if your drive is dying, you're either going to need a new drive or a new laptop. the electronics industry is so wasteful. people just buy new computers when a part breaks, it's craziness, really.
mom
It seems such a waste...I have so much space on mine...I have hardly used any at all...Do you think it just needs a good cleaning?
I did pull out some dust and crap with some extra long tweezers that I have and it did seem to work better after that.
The stuff that I could see.
Jessica Amber Murray
well, did the guys at the store say it was the drive? if it's the drive, you can't clean it. drives whir like that because they're off balance. your hard drive is sort of like a record player. it spins around and around. now, imagine a record player that wobbles. that's the clicking sound. ....if it's your drive. ultimately, it's a mechanical device, and it will break, eventually. like i said before: i've never actually seen a fan break like that. i can see how it's theoretically possible, but if that's what's going on it's the first time i've ever actually heard of it. more likely is that if your fan is misbehaving then it's getting jolted by a misbehaving power supply (power surges, basically).
mom
The guy just didn't know...He said the fans had the right whatever they are(I forget what they are?)...Could there be dust and dirt collected on them at all?
I pulled out a whole wad of crap...dusty piles of fibers or something from some of my fuzzy blankets or something...there was even some dried old tobacco that was attached as well.
Jessica Amber Murray
well, sure, they could collect crap, but i couldn't see it creating that kind of clicking. but, i mean, it seems possible in the abstract. 98% of the time, though, when a laptop clicks and whirs, it's the drive.
mom
Well... I guess eventually I will be looking at buying a new one then...Unless, I bring it into the mac group and see what they may do.
ok, i responded
mom
K...I'm off the phone with her now. How are you?
Jessica Amber Murray
i'm ok. was fighting with my hard drive, but it seems to have resolved itself for now at least. i don't know what happened, really. it's not doing the things that hard drives do when they die, leading me to believe it's not really dead, just had a hiccup.
mom
Mine is working good for awhile and then makes very loud noises as well....I took it into apple and they said it was an old dinosaur and they could not service it...told me to just back my stuff up and continue to use it...They tested my fan activity and said my fans were running right....Not sure what it is all about...I am just using it and hoping for the best.
Jessica Amber Murray
yeah, i still think it sounds like your drive. i think i may have actually accidentally zapped mine with a jolt of static electricity, because the plates aren't misbehaving. which means it could be fine or could be waiting to implode. but the guy is right - back your data up. it's a shame they won't just put a new drive in it. that's kind of jerky.
mom
Well, there is another place...The Mac Group, where I bought it from in the first place that I could bring it into and I think they would actually service it. I only have pics on it...I did put them onto a couple of usb sticks.
Jessica Amber Murray
well, if your drive is dying, you're either going to need a new drive or a new laptop. the electronics industry is so wasteful. people just buy new computers when a part breaks, it's craziness, really.
mom
It seems such a waste...I have so much space on mine...I have hardly used any at all...Do you think it just needs a good cleaning?
I did pull out some dust and crap with some extra long tweezers that I have and it did seem to work better after that.
The stuff that I could see.
Jessica Amber Murray
well, did the guys at the store say it was the drive? if it's the drive, you can't clean it. drives whir like that because they're off balance. your hard drive is sort of like a record player. it spins around and around. now, imagine a record player that wobbles. that's the clicking sound. ....if it's your drive. ultimately, it's a mechanical device, and it will break, eventually. like i said before: i've never actually seen a fan break like that. i can see how it's theoretically possible, but if that's what's going on it's the first time i've ever actually heard of it. more likely is that if your fan is misbehaving then it's getting jolted by a misbehaving power supply (power surges, basically).
mom
The guy just didn't know...He said the fans had the right whatever they are(I forget what they are?)...Could there be dust and dirt collected on them at all?
I pulled out a whole wad of crap...dusty piles of fibers or something from some of my fuzzy blankets or something...there was even some dried old tobacco that was attached as well.
Jessica Amber Murray
well, sure, they could collect crap, but i couldn't see it creating that kind of clicking. but, i mean, it seems possible in the abstract. 98% of the time, though, when a laptop clicks and whirs, it's the drive.
mom
Well... I guess eventually I will be looking at buying a new one then...Unless, I bring it into the mac group and see what they may do.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)