the time machine (dirty synth mix)

so, the update is now complete, i just have to finalize a tracklisting.

written in early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. further remixed over july, 2014 and again in may, 2015. this version of the track was completed on may 27th, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/dirty-synth-mix

the time machine (updated midi nylon guitar mix)

here is the midi classical guitar mix, with a more listenable sample-based sound font.

i gotta be clear: i don't like doing this. i'm a guitarist. this is a computer. my teeth are grating a little.

but, the reason i moved the track from guitar to piano (and then abandoned it, until this year when i turned it into a jazzy techno thing) is that you need a 21-fret classical to play it. there's a live electric guitar mix - because electric guitars have 21 frets, minimum (mine are 23 and 24). but i just don't have a 21 fret classical. i can't even fudge the harmonic; all i have is a miniature 19-fret thing, and it just can't do it.

but here's the thing: maybe i should have a 21-fret or more classical. and i will, eventually. i'd even go so far as to suggest that, when i get done the discography, classical guitar music may be the only music i keep making. that means i can't permanently close this - in fact i can virtually guarantee that i will eventually add a live classical mix to the ep.

but, i won't remove this one, because it's a different slant on it. so, here it is...

this evening, i'm going to do a full drum and bass techno romp mix with crunchy synths in replace of guitars. as of this moment, i'm thinking it will probably finish this off, but i'll need o give it a good listen before i get to that conclusion. i'm also not entirely sure about the tracklisting yet...

written in early 2001. rendered may 27, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/updated-midi-nylon-guitar-mix

the time machine (updated midi piano mix)

when i initially uploaded this, i had the silly idea that it would be a bad idea to change the sound font, for the reason that it was important to maintain the sound of the piece as i had written it, for historical reasons. but...who wants to listen to a lonely sequenced piano through a budget 90s soundcard....

i've kept the initial files up, because, hey, why not? but, i've updated the font to sound considerably better.

the piano wasn't so bad to begin with - i've used the soundcard for plenty of piano parts, but it sounds a lot better near the higher end of the register, and with a little reverb. it's worth it on an a/b but it wasn't really terrible. i'm going to be updating the guitar part as well, which is going to be a much more noticeable update.

written in early 2001. rendered may 27, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/updated-midi-piano-mix

the time machine (atmospheric electric guitar mix)

written in early 2001. reinterpreted in july, 2014; this version of the track was initially completed on july 21st. remixed to include background atmospheres on may 27, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/atmospheric-electric-guitar-mix

the time machine (string orchestra mix)

inri025 is being overhauled, and almost doubled in length. that's fine, it's why i'm doing this run through.

when i did this last summer, i was thinking less comprehensively than i came to think over the course of the year. in truth, there's quite a few ideas to work out further, and a few that were kind of not the most interesting thing to begin with. this is going to be all digital; the tracks are down and done.

so, this is the second of what i'm thinking will be at least six additions to the single.

i kind of want to get all the "ep-singles" up over 40 minutes, as well. eps are usually conceptual, and subject to different requirements; singles are singles. but i consider the ep-single to be a sort of mini-record. that's what i grew up with - it's what i'd want, as a consumer. the releases are currently priced to sell (*ahem*...hint...), but if i get to a certain number of homemade sales i'd like to press some of them. what i press will depend on what sells - the magic number is 5000, which should pay for a pressing of any specific disc, if i get to that point. so, ensuring these are all "mini records" makes them a bit more worthwhile as possible physical items. i guess it's also worth pointing out that everything is designed for instant printing, should a label decide to pick me up on terms i'm willing to accept...

i don't want to just upload crap, though, either. what's coming is largely based around compilation ideas that actually work. i'm a little skeptical about a chamber works of synthesized string music, but we'll see what comes up.

it's often stated that a song is really good when it sounds good on just an acoustic guitar. i can't agree with that - but i've never been a fan of folk music, either, so it's partially an issue of defining what is "really good".

i think a better metric is "if it sounds good when arranged purely for strings". decide for yourself, i guess...but this isn't going to be the last one of these...

written in early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. further remixed over july, 2014 and may, 2015. this version of the track was completed on may 27th, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/string-orchestra-mix

you know, it really is remarkable just how difficult a concept the press finds the idea that you can't just drop a nicaraguan in mexico. it really exposes an "us v them" mentality that is just unshakable by appeals to basic reason.

would you expect the mexicans to just release canadians into texas? does that make it easier to understand?

yeesh.

in societies with social-leaning health care systems, it's a legitimate social issue because it drains resources. and, no, i don't think the answer is to move to private sector health care. poor kids shouldn't lose access to health care so overweight rich people can hog the resources. fat people should stop hogging the resources.

social theorists refer to peer pressure as an "informal control mechanism". i think you're getting at something a little deeper, involving things like individualism v collectivism, and statism v anarchism. i don't see a problem with the idea of using exclusion and mockery as a method to try and alter antisocial behaviour. i would maybe question the efficacy of certain tactics, but not the general idea.

and i have to be blunt in stating it: if it makes you uncomfortable, that's the point. the next step is to stop making excuses and do something about it.

but the thing that really bothers me is the air conditioning. especially up here in canada, where we only get a few weeks of weather over 30 degrees. i want to enjoy that, not be running the heater in june because the fat guy upstairs breaks a sweat at 20 degrees.

this article treats a research topic as a closed book. plate tectonics are not currently well understood - there's vague ideas that are probably mostly right, but acting like we're certain about something we're only beginning to understand is a type of arrogance that only the internet is capable of. there's plenty of published, peer-reviewed material out there that considers tidal drag to be a primary force in plate movement, and the movement in the field is towards a greater acceptance of this, not a lesser acceptance of it.

regarding the issue of gravity in planetary alignments, the "too far away" rebuttal simply misunderstands the argument - and is mostly flat out wrong. it's not about the "creation of new gravity", or something, but about offsetting an equilibrium. if it weren't for jupiter, the earth would fall into the sun. the larger bodies in our system have effects on our orbit that we can calculate quite easily if we know a little about celestial mechanics. the idea about the alignments having an effect on tectonic movement is that it "blocks" the gravity that we already know has an effect for a few moments in a sudden manner, creating a shock.

you also have to keep in mind that small planets can block out large ones if they are much closer. and i'm not going to present an opinion on whether there's actually an alignment on the date in question, because i don't feel like doing the math, because there's nothing that could be done about it.

the ancients kept very detailed seasonal and astronomical records. they were very interested in the topic. after a few centuries of record keeping, it's reasonable to think a few correlations could be pulled out of the data using crude identification tactics. and, they were pretty good at arithmetic, too. what we see coming down to us as astrological mumbo jumbo is partly a preservation of this, in the face of barbarian destruction horizons. it needs modern methods to confirm. but it's not inherently absurd.

so, take heed: viral rebuttals are often as bad or worse than the nonsense they claim to debunk.

www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/for-science-debunking-2015-earthquake-asteroid-doomsdays/51599/

brad - Jessica's fist post states that 'plate tectonics are not currently well understood'. Really, I always thought the geology was pretty advanced, as mankind has been studying the earth for a long time, and they have a solid understanding of what makes earthquakes and volcanoes.

jessica murray - the theory of plate tectonics did not develop until the 1960s, and there's still a lot of kinks to work out. it's pretty clear that there are giant slabs of rock moving around on the earth, but exactly what makes them work is not at all clear. if we understood this well, we'd be able to predict earthquakes and volcanoes. when alfred wegener initially made the proposal that continents move around (around 1910), he was written off as a fringe lunatic and more or less ignored until after he died. and he actually initially proposed tidal drag as the dominant factor.

jeremy - Jessica, one planet passing in front of another does not block the gravity. The force of gravity passes through mass without being hindered. There would be no shock effect during a planetary alignment. There would be a very tiny, very gradual rise in the magnitude of gravitational force acting in that particular direction. Tidal forces and the moon may well have some sort of effect on plate tectonics. But gravity drops off rapidly as distance increases. So the gravity we feel from the moon is so much greater than the gravity we feel from the other planets that it would totally dominate the effect, and the gravity from the other planets would be insignificant when compared to the moons.

jessica murray - it's not true that gravity passes through without hindrance. i put "block" in quotes for a reason. it's more of an interference issue, that can create amplification (+ or -). nor is it true that we don't feel the effects of gravity from another planet. i actually looked this up, and the argument you're presenting comes from a rebuttal to the idea that pluto could affect human weightlessness - an obvious farce. but, you weigh much less than the earth's crust does, and pluto is very far way, so it's consequently a very bad argument.

as mentioned: jupiter has a measurable effect on our orbit. this understanding is a consequence of relativity, which calculates the center of mass differently than newton did. nor does gravity from the moon "overpower" gravity from jupiter based on distance. rather, both forces continue to act.

as mentioned, the idea is that a disturbance in the gravitational field would put the balance of existing forces out of whack. jupiter and the earth are already pulling on each other in a measurable way. any disturbance of this would necessarily create a shock, by definition - the question is whether that shock (and it's countershock) is big enough to have an effect. and, as i mentioned, this is currently an open research topic.

the time machine (percussion & bass mix)

this is a "drum and bass" mix, with pitched percussion for the melodic parts.

written in early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. further remixed over july, 2014 and may, 2015. this version of the track was completed on may 26th, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/percussion-bass-mix

republishing stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (inri043)

i've been in the process of closing down my second artistic phase for longer than i'd like, but i'm really getting to the final points on it, which means taking one last run through everything and making final decisions on it. this is the fourth mix i've appended to this single over the last week, but it is now final. closed.

so, behold inri024, which is now a 90 minute 12-track "single" of reinterpretations of this track.

inri024 has been updated and permanently finalized.

===

this is one of the tracks that i can't date well. i do, however, remember working on it during the winter, which means it must have been late '00 or early '01. i'm going to consequently deduce that it must have been what i was working on over the 2000 christmas break and date it coming out right after it.

actually, i have another reason to date it in early '01 rather than late '00: the introductory piano part was recorded live into my notation program on my dx100, which i was given over christmas (maybe a little before; it was a cheap garage sale pickup) to act as a controller for my recently broken jx-8p, that i had tried to take apart over the summer to clean a sticky key (a common problem with mid-80s roland analog synths) but failed and left keyless. it's still keyless. yet, the dx still drives it....

that introductory piano part formed the basis of the track, which built itself up fairly quickly. somewhere, i lost the nwc file by saving it as midi, which ruined all the formatting. it's been sitting on my drive ever since.

why put together seven different midi versions of the same track, and sequence them after a polished recorded version? well, this was never actually meant to be computer music. i was just composing something the old fashioned way with the intent of later giving it to some musicians to play. that never happened. what did happen was that i found myself playing it back on multiple sound cards over many years, trying to make it sound as good as possible in the short run - until i could finally get the chance to sit down and actually record it. while each of the different renders has it's strong and weak points, i ultimately don't feel that they form a total order. something i thought about doing was recording tracks independently on different cards and then pasting them together, but that would have just created another dozen incomparable mixes. rather than arbitrarily pick one, i decided to just upload all of them.

in hindsight, i think the format is interesting in itself in terms of it being a psychological experiment with sound. the differences from track to track are sometimes inaudible and sometimes extremely noticeable. stringing it all together in a row like this is challenging to any listener in the sense that it rips apart the process of becoming familiar with a piece. it means listening to exactly the same song through multiple different sound libraries. i think your brain would have to interpret that as a sort of a trip, especially when it comes to trying to build associations in sound within tracks that are both similar and different sounding, soundcard wise. i think that might be part of the reason i had so much difficulty isolating tracks in the first place.

so, listening to the ep through all the way is likely to be a bit disorienting and might ultimately be a strange experience. however, if you like the track for what it is as a collection of overlapping sequences of notes then i hope you get something out of the process of comparing and contrasting the renders together.

i have included the original midi file as a bonus item in the download, if you want to play with it on your own. the added guitar sections in the final version are recent additions and have not been written out.

thematically, the track is meant to orchestrate a feeling of claustrophobia with society pushing down on you too hard. it's meant to transmit a feeling of existential dread. at the time, i really felt stuck with life in general and not sure how i was going to get out of it.

four further remixes were added at the end of may, 2015, which has forced me to move two of the midi renders to 'download only'.

written late 2000 & early 2001. the renders present here are all from after 2013. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. live guitars were layered into the final version over may, 2014. initially released on june 7, 2014. four new orchestral mixes were added in late may, 2015. re-released & finalized on may 26, 2015. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - electric piano, programming, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals, vocoders, digital effects & treatments, digital wave editing, composition.

the rendered electronic orchestras variously include piano, bass, synth bass, distorted electric guitar, clean electric guitar, other guitar effects, steel string acoustic guitar, nylon string classical guitar, sitar, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, french horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, oboe, english horn, bassoon, synthesizers, clarinet, flute, piccolo, xylophone, glockenspiel, woodblock, tubular bells, orchestra hit, jazz drum kit, hand drums, melodic toms, orchestral drum kit, hammered percussion, marimba, taiko drum, synthetic percussion and electronic drum kit.

released january 10, 2001

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/stuck-in-the-middle-of-an-alley-closing-in-on-all-sides
 

stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (slow string orchestra fade out)

so, as mentioned, i'm going through inri024-inri050 and posting final updates.

this has been added to inri024 as an absolute final update.

written late 2000 & early 2001. rearranged, rendered and faded out on apr 27, 2014. further remixed on may 26, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/slow-string-orchestra-fade-out

crazy glen beck is actually on to something here. but he's still crazy.

it's not taught because it's extremely speculative. there's a hodge podge of random evidence, and if you interpret it a specific way it becomes compelling. but...

the phoenician writing - if it's not a hoax - is probably carthaginian. we know that carthage was pretty special in the ancient world, but we have a deficit of their history for the specific reason that the romans wrote them out of history by carrying out a genocide against them and literally tearing down every building in the city to it's foundation, then paving over it. look that up some time - it's dark reading. they were probably more important than egypt or greece, in their era, but they've been wiped out by an act of violence.

we can prove that they had large trading networks all the way around africa (not emulated by a european power until the portugese went out looking to get around the arabs), and north at least as far as ireland. beyond that, it gets sketchy, but it's long been speculated that they did find their way to america. the small amounts of evidence that exist are intriguing, but there's nothing strong enough to rewrite history...

this is in the list of "if they found it, they wouldn't believe it" type theories. but, i think it's very likely. we went through this with the vikings. and it's increasingly clear that the chinese made their own voyages from the other side. give it time.

but to answer the question: why haven't you heard of this? because the evidence isn't powerful enough. at least not yet, anyways.

have you considered sending a correspondent to the white house? i know: costs, and what's the point, it's propaganda, right? but i think this is actually quite important - if not from democracy now, then from some other independent and left-leaning organization.

i've been watching the white house press briefings for a few months now, and there's nothing even approaching a centrist position from much of anywhere. you'll get some ethnic groups standing up for their own from time to time, but it's all very one-dimensional. it's just right-wing journalist after right-wing journalist asking questions that seem framed around fox news coverage. i'm sure there's somebody at the show that watches these things and will agree how painful they are to watch. the closest thing i've seen to somebody asking about the humanitarian issue on the border was a trick question to try and get the secretary to admit that the administration was trying to weaken border security - when anybody aware of the facts knows how deport-happy the administration is.

what that creates is a situation where the only press pressure that the president is getting is from the right and the extreme right. there is still a facade of democracy in the united states, enough that the president needs to react to the press, for political reasons. the absolute deficit in the press corps of anybody approaching anything left wing means he has zero pressure to hold on policies, or move in a more progressive direction. it follows that getting somebody in there that's asking less outrageous questions is likely to actually have a policy effect, in allowing him to stand still or forcing him to moderate a little.

again: it's easier said than done. limited resources. i get it. but even a single, indignant voice can turn a room enough to turn up the heat. and, if it's not within the abilities of democracy now, i still think it's something you can float around to like-minded organizations.

watching the press conferences, you'd think obama set the dream act up to create an overground railroad to smuggle in illegals, and his secretary is doing a bad job in distracting from it. and yet we see here what's really happening.

---

Rachel Golem
Yes, of course. All the problems in Honduras are the fault of white people who have never been there!!!!!!

NeoGeo12
CIA coups, Corrupt trade deals and the heinous drug war are the major reasons why America government is responsible for all this mass immigration.

deathtokoalas
the trade deals are key. this was predicted in the 90s.

russia invades crimea: it's a terrible breach in international law.
israel invades gaza: it's a sovereign right of nations to undertake military action.

i'm not taking a position here on which position is correct. i'm just pointing out that the united states merely uses international law as a tool of propaganda, and in truth hasn't the slightest interest in it's enforcement.

something has changed, though. this used to be a right-wing position - all the fear mongering about the nwo and the totalitarian order at the un is a calculated disinformation campaign to build popular support against the united nations, to stop it from being able to restrict american actions. the democrats, from roosevelt on, generally sought to uphold the legitimacy of the institution.

then, iraq happened. and the governing party has adopted a uniform position on the matter.

the un is dead. international law is dead. deal with it.

as some other people have pointed out, "europeans" in this period would not have been r1* or migrated in from asia, but would likely have migrated in from northern africa and probably have been light brown, like modern arabs.

on the one hand, i'm willing to mostly write this off as mormon revisionism. the dna evidence linking natives to siberia is pretty overwhelming.

on the other hand, i think it's important to point out that it's not necessary for large numbers of solutreans to have migrated to america in order for the technology to get there. a few stragglers is all it really would have taken. and, i don't find the idea of a small group moving along the pack ice - or even being lost at sea - to be all that outrageous.

the key piece of evidence would be to find some of these blades somewhere along the way. now, i want you to note that what apparently led this guy to this hypothesis was that he couldn't find any blades in alaska. but, the same problem still exists - now he needs to find blades in...

wait. those ice sheets are gone. so....

this is unfalsifiable.

it's a nice story. but there's no way to prove it one way or the other. unfortunately, it's not even wrong.

regarding the x chromosome, i think that carthaginian or greek contact in the pre-roman period is far more likely.

ah, smiley face dmitry.

he always looked like his mom dressed him.

you know, testing on dogs has indicated that they're not supposed to be able to figure something like this out - they're notoriously bad at "problem solving". and i'm not convinced this is luck, either - it seems to get the geometry.

my understanding is that wild predators - lions, especially, but also wolves - need to have an intuitive concept of geometry in order to carry out the hunts they carry out, which often have to do with using angles to their advantage. it's a base, intuitive understanding of trigonometry. and it's both taught behaviour and necessary for survival.

but, this is unexpected in a domestic dog.

believe it or not, this is actually a research area. not the astrology, exactly, but the general idea. there is a developing understanding that gravitational forces involving outside astronomical bodies are a factor in plate tectonics on earth, and planetary alignments are consequently important in understanding events like earthquakes and volcanoes - as well as their consequences, like climate change.

the best argument i can present in this space is to simply think of how tides work: gravitational forces between the earth and the moon. that should be enough to realize this isn't a crazy idea.

now, if he happens to be right, it's through luck rather than method. but, he is probably on to something.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uVI8cQ3Hpo

publishing orchestral works (inri072)

this is inri049 - an orchestral works compilation to close my second compositional period. these pieces are diverse, but the commonality is that they are arranged for the whole orchestra.

==

an unexpected result of the project to complete my discography, undertaken in late 2013, has been the construction of a handful of orchestral pieces, mostly as remixes of original tracks from the jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj period. while these tracks were initially written out as scored pieces for expanded instrumentation, they were generally written around the guitar and the expanded instrumentation was largely meant simply for colour. the exception to this is the psilocybin symphony, which was written as a piano concerto from the start and previously completed in early 2006.

the ability to expand these pieces into orchestral works is the result of the advances in vst sampling technology that have occurred since 2003. while changes in instrumentation have been accompanied by extra writing (mostly on the guitar), tempo shifts and other general rearrangement choices, the existing technology makes it very easy to rearrange a rock song for an orchestra, by simply multiplying staves and changing the sound fonts.

the condition i've set for a piece to be "orchestral" is that it must utilize the entire orchestra: it must have percussion, piano, horns, woodwinds/reeds and strings. guitars are generally treated like "first violins", whereas violins are generally not considered to be more special than other similar string instruments. some of the tracks also have prominent choral sections. all of these pieces meet this condition, except the last one which does not have a woodwind/reed section.

my delve into scorewriting ended in 2003; the material in my third phase is more focused on live and manipulated guitars and synthesizers. i consequently feel that this is an interesting summary of my second period, taken from a specific angle that is otherwise largely relegated to single-only remixes.

initially written and recorded between 2001-2003 and remixed and recorded further over 2014-2015, except track 2 which was completed in early 2006. final compilation date is may 23, 2015. as always, please use headphones.

credits
j - controller inputs, drum & other programming, orchestral & other sequencing, live guitars, live bass, live synths, effects, sound design, digital wave editing, composition, production.

the various rendered electronic orchestras includes violin, viola, cello, contrabass, electric guitar, nylon guitar, guitar fret noise, bass guitar, synthesizer bass, french horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, english horn, oboe, bassoon, clarinet, saxophone, bamboo flute, flute, piccolo, synthesizers, mellotron, organ, piano, harp, koto, music box, clavinet, kalimba, xylophone, agogo, mallet, hammered percussion, woodblock, tubular bells, tinkle bells, glockenspiel, orchestra hit, melodic toms, electronic drum kit, timpani, orchestral drum kit and choir.

released april 29, 2003

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/orchestral-works-vol-1

reflections (orchestral mix)

written and recorded in early 2003. transcribed, slightly rearranged, remixed and re-rendered over may, 2015. this render was completed as an ambient mix on may 16, 2015 and expanded to include a horn section on may 23, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/reflections-orchestral-mix

stuck in the middle of an alley with angry googley-eyed robots slowly closing in on all sides

i wanted to check that two outs from the orchestral mix mostly nulled, and ended up with somewhat of a musical - albeit very glitchy - difference file. i created this collage out of that difference file on may 22, 2015.

written late 2000 & early 2001. rearranged, rendered and faded out on apr 27, 2014. live guitars were layered into the final version over may 2014. further remixed for the ambient works on may 19, 2015, again for the orchestral works on may 22, 2015 and a third time for this glitch mix on may 22, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/stuck-in-the-middle-of-an-alley-with-angry-googley-eyed-robots-slowly-closing-in-on-all-sides

stuck with a guitar in the middle of a slow electronic orchestra playing on all sides

for the orchestral works (inri072). the sound font on the strings was modified to sound less synthetic and the live guitars from the original mix were worked in at the slower tempo.

written late 2000 & early 2001. rearranged, rendered and faded out on apr 27, 2014. live guitars were layered into the final version over may 2014. further remixed for the ambient works on may 19, 2015 and again for the orchestral works on may 22, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/stuck-with-a-guitar-in-the-middle-of-a-slow-electronic-orchestra-playing-on-all-sides

people are going to be arguing about this for basically ever. at the end of the day, the key point is that people aren't necessarily rational - if you want to know why people do things, you need to ask them and hope they aren't lying. but, i see it like this:

1) the most confounding point is why austria attacked serbia, knowing it was going to spark a war against russia. you can say something about historical control or whatever, but none of the arguments are really good. the only thing that makes any sense to me - besides outright idiocy - is that they were trying to dismantle prussia under the hope that they'd gain control in the end. that is, it might have been a sneaky tactic to unite the german heartland under hapsburg rather than hohenzollern control. that makes it an indirect result of the austro-prussian war of 1866, and ultimately an inter-german conflict.

2) russia had long been looking for an excuse to "unite the slavs". they were aiming to dismantle austria and absorb most of it. this is well understood.

3) the ottomans had their own interests in eastern europe and saw russian expansion as a security threat.

4) the germans knew that the belgians were not truly neutral. that's the unstated point, the necessary revision. if they left belgium sitting on the coast, it would have opened up staging grounds and spy networks. if they were going to invade france (and they had to to deal with the two front problem), they had no choice but to attack belgium.

5) i agree that the french saw the germans as weak and intended to dismantle them, with russian help. but, they expected the russians to do most of the work.

6) the british involvement had less to do with europe and more to do with africa. "belgian neutrality" meant "not taking over belgian colonies in africa". the british were both interested in reducing german influence in africa and, frankly, in not letting the germans get the spoils of belgian absorption. they may have agreed with the principle of neutrality so long as belgium was under de facto british alliance, but as soon as the germans invaded the congo became up for grabs.

7) the americans intervened largely to prevent a socialist revolution in germany and france, after what was happening in russia became clear.

the thing that screwed everything up for the western powers (and austria) and created the stalemate was russia's greater interest in the south than the north. had russia marched straight to berlin as they were supposed to, the prussians would have been dismantled and probably partitioned, and the british would have taken over most of their colonies in africa. oddly, the british and french may have ended up aligning with the ottomans in a drawn out russian-ottoman conflict that may have seen deep russian penetration into the middle east.

this is a dramatically different outcome and potential world order, and was likely made in a snap decision by the russian generals.

publishing ambient works vol 0-2 (inri071 + inri035)

i've got the mix tape up which means inri048 is now done...

i've got a number of snippets after about 1999 that i'm not sure what to do with. i'm probably going to just forget about most of it, but some of it will no doubt end up on volume 3, which will be somewhere in the 60s or 70s. so i'll just put it aside for later.

i put aside a number of compilation ideas as i was sorting through the material. i wasn't expecting anything to get a release in this space, but i'm now questioning that. it's largely a process of elimination. but right now it'slooking like inri050 is actually going to be a similarly epic guitar-focused disc.

that said, there's plenty of guitars on this disc, especially in the mix tape. i'll post it when i figure it out...

===

i've taken to splitting my discography into phases, and my hitch-hiking trip to british columbia is a very important separation point - both in terms of the nature of the material that came out afterwards and what is now a substantial body of work that came before it. that makes it a natural point to look backwards and build compilations of intersecting ideas.

a characteristic of my work is that it does not conform well to genre norms. this is not an accident; when compiling a record, i'm guided more by the late beatles' philosophy of vast diversity in a small space than i am by any kind of desire to collect together nice singles, or by some kind of compulsive organizing into categories or concepts. i write psychedelic music. that means something different in 2015 than it did in 1966, but the commonality is that it's necessarily challenging. i want all of my records to do everything at once, and accomplish everything by their end point. that makes compilations of this sort inherently difficult, because every song touches on every compilation idea at the same time. the jazz record would have the same tracklisting as the punk record, the classical record and the folk record - and none would really be what they're claimed to be.

the one exception to this conundrum is how i interacted with ambient music in this period. i very regularly utilized ideas from the genre, but i tended to interpret ambience as something that is necessarily obscure. in this period, ambient pieces are almost always outtakes or b sides. i tended to interpret covers and remixes as ambient pieces, probably because that was unexpected. when ambient ideas make it on to the record, they're almost always for effect: introductions, endings, connecting passages, that sort of thing.

when i began reconstructing my discography in early 2014, i came across a handful of songs i'd written out into midi format and put aside for later. a number of these ended up reworked into ambient pieces, and released as b sides. i also ended up converting some of the material i wrote in this period into ambient sound collages that are more in the style of music i created after 2003.

the end result is enough bsides and remixes to put together two full cds of ambient music. none of the tracks on volumes one or two are on any official record as they appear here; this is technically a collection of remixes and outtakes.

initially written and recorded between 2000-2003 and remixed between 2014-2015. sequenced over mid may, 2015. final compilation date is may 21, 2015,. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - guitars (acoustic, electric, nylon), effects & treatments, bass, synthesizers, electric air reed organ, orchestral & other sequencing, drum & other programming, generative programming (sounder), "projectile synthesis" (audiomulch), granular synthesis (granulab), sound design, electronic and conventional drum kits, sampling, loops, films, voice, digital wave editing, composition, production.

sean - vocal ideas (tracks 4 & 7, disc 1), ring modulator (track 9, disc 1)
jon - background guitar performance (track 4, disc 1)
greg - drum performance sample source (track 5, disc 1)

the various rendered electronic orchestras include synth bass, electric bass, acoustic bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, nylon guitar, guitar effects, guitar noises (fret noises, pick scrapes, knocks), synthesizer, synth pads, mellotron, choir, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, string section, pizzicato strings, french horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, oboe, english horn, bassoon, clarinet, flute, piccolo, mallet, piano, woodblock, music box, xylophone, tubular bells, other bells, orchestra hit, electronic drum kit, melodic toms, drum machine and orchestral drum kit.

released april 28, 2003

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ambient-works-vol-0-2

ambient works vol 0, side b

side b mixes various ambient sections from period 1.2 and period 1.3, which, here, is all over 1999. mix created on may 21, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/side-b

ambient works vol 0, side a

side a mixes various noise and ambient sections from period 1.1 and period 1.2, which is 1996-1999. mix created on may 21, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/side-a

strange headline; i was expecting to get a good rant on, but the video doesn't make the argument that i was expecting. so, i'm not needing to tear anything apart. however, i feel that an opportunity was missed to build a larger narrative. on a broader point, though: what's the point of independent media if it's going to parrot the propaganda in the mainsteam media?

and, the idea that europe wants to buy exports from america is just that: propaganda. to get your head around this, you have to understand the nature of the global economy that the united states built after world war two. of course, this order mostly collapsed as a consequence of reaganomics, and is now more or less gone. but, the current administration has put a bigger focus on exports...

back in the years between 1945 and 1993, the united states actually built stuff. a lot of stuff. more stuff than anywhere else in the world. and, as a result, it needed export markets. huge ones. the economic relationship between america and europe that emerged after world war two was (and i'm grossly over-simplifying) something along the lines of "you europeans are going to buy our stuff, in exchange for protection from russia. and, if you don't like that....you don't want to think about what happens if you don't like that. put it like this: or else.".

this is what america tricks itself into thinking a "friend" is.

so, in the world order created by the american empire, europe is designed as an export market for american goods. that is, it's a colony of america.

now, there's lots of reasons europe never really liked this idea, and a lot of it underlies the things europe has done to seek greater sovereignty over the last many decades, and especially since the "end" of the cold war. one of the biggest problems is that when you're stuck in these coercive trade relationships, you're forced to over pay for goods at the tip of a shot gun.

europe wants to buy gas from russia. it's cheap. it's stable. it's easy. and that's a threat to the economic order that exists. which is one of the reasons why the americans are doing everything they can (and largely failing...) to create divisions between russia and europe.

bird's eye view (sounder mix)

this is a sounder sequence, which was rendered some time in late 2002. i've dated the file to december 25, 2002. published on may 19, 2015.

this actually gets to the point of why i don't like to use the term "apartheid", and prefer to use the term "genocide".

when you start thinking in terms of israel being an "apartheid state", it's correct to conclude that it's unstable. no slave state has ever been stable. it's the actual reason we don't support slavery in "western liberal democracies" - it just doesn't work, in the long run.

but, when you start understanding the situation in terms of genocide, a different logic asserts itself. there is a way out of the logic of inevitable collapse. that is, if you take a step back and look at all of the options, you're left with a much more disturbing choice. it's true that the state is ultimately unsustainable, as it is. that means israel has the option of dismantling itself, or killing the palestinians off.

now, standing up and stating that is going to produce an immediate emotional reaction for a number of reasons on a number of levels, and that's fine - i think any halfways empathetic person has no choice but to react that way. but, if you look at the situation with a cold, analytical eye, it begins to seem less and less outrageous with every israeli action. from the continuing colonization of the occupied areas, to the continued imprisonment of gaza, it really would be obvious that that's the path israel is following - if it weren't too ghastly to consider.

unfortunately, surrounding countries like egypt are more likely to collaborate than intervene.

people are going to look back and wonder why nobody saw it coming.

right. so the answer isn't restricting voluntary association - private or not - but abolishing the concentration of capital into small amounts of hands. the problem is private property. that's some confusing a symptom for a cause, alright.

stuck in the middle of a slow electronic orchestra playing on all sides

so, i've appended a mix to inri024.

written late 2000 & early 2001. rearranged, rendered and faded out on apr 27, 2014. further remixed for the ambient works on may 19, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/stuck-in-the-middle-of-a-slow-electronic-orchestra-playing-on-all-sides

i've also decided that i need to prioritize getting over the final "not smoking" hump. i've been in this transitory state with this for...years...where i'll quit for a month, go back for a month, cut down, quit, pick up...

a lot of it has to do with focusing. nicotine increases alertness. that's well understood.

i'm convinced the swallowing issues i'm having are not exactly from smoking, but are probably the beginning symptoms of ms. but, if you have ms, the worst thing you can do is smoke.

so, i'm going to the doctor tomorrow or the next day to get the ball rolling on that. i've done enough experiments with not smoking, not drinking coffee, increasing water, etc to conclude it's the rational next step.

ironically, it will also help my financial situation if i can get diagnosed with it. that's permanent. capitalism: that system where you hope you get auto-immune disorders as a path to economic freedom.

there's two ways i can get over that week hump: (1) get sick and (2) focus on reading/writing. just about anything else requires that focus.

so, the next thing i'm going to do - before i start the lost symphony - is to migrate all of this into a new website.

i've been trying to get off facebook for quite some time. it's going to take a while to get off of it. but, it's what i need to do next.

this isn't just going to go quiet, it's going to more or less disappear. i'm going to need a more open journal interface to embed in my appspot site. facebook is just awful in every way. livejournal, maybe. tumblr. even blogspot. i'll have to see what works best. or i may even just hardcode it...

this will be reduced to a sort of cv, that uses the timeline in a minimal manner. you'll be able to scroll through and see major releases. but, i won't be posting here much longer.

consequence of impulse

this is an instrumental/ambient remix of a section of "me, myself and the time i thought this was a good idea". i did not initially reclaim this track from rabit is wolf because the source file for the bass and vocals are in the same wave file (making them inseparable) and i felt that redoing the bass would destroy the track's rough, lo-fi feel. i created this mix for this collection by removing both the bass and vocals via phase inversion and then reconstructing the bass via loops and strategic editing. i then faded the track out before the "chorus". it works in this context, but wouldn't work in any other, so this is an exclusive mix to this collection.

written and recorded in the fall of 2001. remixed on may 19, 2015.

trepanation nation (ambient mix)

written over 2001 and rethought repeatedly over 2002, again in 2007, a third time in 2009 and one last time in late 2014. this mix was initially completed on december 5, 2014 and augmented to include some further effects work on may 18, 2015.

richard wolff isn't just a master on the topic, he's also a treat to listen to. very colourful, engaging speaker. although i might suggest that the influx of attention is due less to occupy and more to some older people getting "scratched off the list" due to age or death. i've known of and listened to wolff for many years, i just think he was that extra name or two down the list....

and, the reaction of the third speaker is actually very indicative of why these ideas are so difficult to get across in a society that fetishizes wealth. you want to interpret her comments through some kind of hefty ironic psychoanalysis.

i mean, to begin with she's got everything backwards.

1) the leftists in the french parliament were those that opposed state power, whereas the rightists were the ones in favour of it. deregulation is a decrease in state power and is consequently left-wing.
2) wolff wasn't arguing for deregulation in terms of less oversight - in fact, he'd not be opposed to that kind of regulation. he was arguing in terms of more democracy. democracy does not mean less oversight. democracy means more oversight.
3) marx' politics were of course about abolishing the state.
4) his supply and demand argument on wages is classical marxism. it's the reserve army of labour.

you put that together, and she's suggesting that marx was a reactionary conservative. and, while marx had some strange authoritarian streaks, that's actually simply a contradiction in terms. "marxist conservative". it's almost funny.

it's easy to conclude she's simply ignorant - that she doesn't know anything about marxist economics. but i think it's deeper than that. what she's saying, in terms of her body language and actual language, is the following:

i worked hard to get ahead in society. i am experiencing class mobility. your ideas threaten my ability to get ahead by exploiting others. i am therefore going to run off an absurd character assassination based on emotional hubris, and rely on the audience's presumed ignorance to get away with it. hopefully, that stops these people from getting ideas that may take away my privilege.

you need to cut through all kinds of bravado and bullshit to get there, but it's basically that: it's a reactionary support of statist institutions to uphold the privilege she believes she's entitled herself to.

and that's dangerous.

because my immediate reaction is that if you're going to force me to choose between pluralism + hierarchy and homogeneity + democracy, i'll choose the latter. i'm not about to just shrug off being a wage slave so that she can be rewarded for her protestant work ethic. i didn't put that on the table, she did. but, where's my self interest here? it's not in upholding her interests at the expense of mine.

in reality, there's no danger in me taking that position: i understand that there's no contradiction between democracy and pluralism; she's got her cause and effect backwards. you'll never get to economic equality through political equality. you need economic equality before political equality is possible. it's a kneejerk, but it's intellectual - it's abstract. i know better.

but, not everybody is as clear thinking as i am. and, when you reduce complex issues to absurd ultimatums, don't be surprised when people react in a way that you didn't expect - because you're blinded by the arrogance of your own privilege.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5IU5n729YI

as remains obvious, i'm very behind on my youtube newsfeed. which demonstrates how useful subscriptions are in building a channel. regardless...

i've been posting on the videos in the feed leading up to this that of course the germans knew, and he confirms that here in his necessary diplomatic language. so, it brings up the obvious question as to what they're angling for.

is it just domestic politics? well, josh makes an argument here that i've seen nowhere else - that sanctions on russia are beneficial for germany. really. i'd be curious to see if josh can cite somebody that shares his opinion, because then i'll know they're working for the state department.

there's something fishy going on here. something a real-life, serious investigative journalist should look into - to confirm the obvious. and it's about as obvious as obvious can be....

merkel, herself, might not be in on it, though.

and that's the most unsettling part of it.

open carry laws are bullshit and shouldn't exist - and i don't care about your constitution, which is about two hundred years out of date. but, regardless, you have to expect that the cops will behave like this. the purpose of the police force is not to keep law and order, it's to protect property. when you live in a country with massive racial correlated inequality, a great deal of what the cops do is uphold it. what you're seeing here is a logical necessity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKGZnB41_e4

this comes off as some kind of cancelled republican propaganda program.

fucking victoria's day. every year, no matter where you go, there are waves of degenerate idiots that get their jollies off on producing neon flashing lights in the sky. it's annoying because it's loud. why can't they just sit inside and drink themselves stupid while staring at winamp visualizations?

broadly speaking, he's got the right idea. but i think this is a good example of how you can get lost in something and lose perspective. it's been a plank on the left for a while now to defer to voices within a conflict. and, there's certainly value in ensuring those voices don't get lost. but, if you were to do a survey on global conflicts - that is, look at this empirically - i think you'd find it's more often the case that being outside it allows for a broader perspective.

the blame everything on israel thing is easy, and they're certainly rarely "good guys". but, what's happening here is bigger than israel. he points out that turkey and the gulf states are proxies for nato, and they have their own interests. he's able to see the conflict for what it is, but is lost in the battle on the ground.

the commonality with countries that america has attacked since yugoslavia is that they are all former soviet allies or puppets. it's clear as day when you look at it from a cold war perspective: yugoslavia, afghanistan, libya, syria. egypt and iraq are somewhere in between, but let's not forget the history of the baath party and it's connection to "arab socialism". now, sure, it's a long time ago in some cases. but the key point is that these are not "our guys" in power. and, now ukraine - tomorrow it'll be kazakhstan.

the meta level analysis is that all these conflicts are about prying states away from russian influence at what is perceived in the west as the end of the cold war. russia is defeated. it's time to clean up. israel doesn't play much of a role in that, besides providing for the odd air strike - because it can't. anybody can get involved except israel.

what that does is open up a power vacuum. or, at least, it would if it were a correct analysis. if you're stuck in this hegelian unfolding of history with liberal democracies as the end point, you assume that assad evaporates on contact. then, the power vacuum opens up, and you get these american allies jockeying for influence.

but i also wanted to say something about kosovo, because i think he has the exact wrong idea with that. kosovo happened when the west was hooking up to the internet, which broke the state's media monopoly and allowed for a wider cross-section of news to get out. as a young person at the time, i remember the war against serbia as the moment that i stopped trusting the state. i had access to that information. my parents didn't, and didn't quite understand; they thought i was reading pravda or something. but, there's no turning back from that point. and, i think that story is widely shared.

iraq produced a massive backlash. that required a shift in approach. the american-backed wars of the future are going to look like the funding of the contras or the mujahideen in afghanistan - or indeed of isis in the levant. secret wars. wars beyond critique.

that's of course what happened after vietnam, but that neo-con clique thought it had an answer. that failed to generate the support they were hoping for. so, it's back to the cia ops.

and, that's why it's useful to get that outside perspective. standing from where i am, all i see is a lot of co-option by state interests.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEX05-7IGaA

publishing refractions (inri065)

inri046.

the just uploaded ambient mix is track 11. you might want to sit down for this, it's something else.

--

some time in late 2002, sean sent me a message over msn or icq requesting that we begin a song based on looped birds chirping. i thought his idea was kind of cliched, but i took to working around his suggestions by converting them into something more musically expressive. i didn't want to write a song that literally climaxes around birds chirping, but i was willing to write something tonal that evoked the feeling of birds chirping.

at the time, i had my sister's electronic piano downstairs. she had a miniature grand upstairs. it was initially written on the keyboard with a very strange timing, which the scorewriter had difficulties capturing - partly because i was inconsistent in performing it. the piece was greatly simplified as it was arranged.

however, i believe the piece sat for a long time before the second section was added to it.

sean and i didn't talk much over the next few months, and the truth is that i just never brought this piece up to him. by the time it was finished, i had firmly placed it in my successor project, the trivial group. it was initially dedicated to sean as a part of the going away disc, but that's really as close as this ever got to being a rabit tune.

i don't have clear memories around composing it, although circumstantial evidence makes it very likely that this happened in the late winter and early spring of 2003. i vaguely recall playing it on the grand upstairs, which could have only happened after sarah moved home to the outer suburbs to get ready for the trip. this was around march. i do remember recording the guitar parts and percussion parts, and am convinced this was in the spring due to memories of the spring sun hitting the bowls. the april 25th date may be a little late, but i have every reason to believe that this was not finished until after exams that year.

the percussion sections in the track are notable. the metallic sounds were created by smashing cutlery into a metal bowl, whereas the woody sounds were created by "playing" a pen on a desk. the track also includes hand claps.

these percussion parts were not notated until 2015. this was a careful, lengthy process that required a lot of careful listening, and a bit of napkin math. notating the percussion allowed for a more comprehensive exploration of the track over midi.

this is sequenced for indefinite looping.

i've included the midi files of the original composition, if you'd like to mess with it on your own.

written and recorded in early 2003. transcribed, slightly rearranged, remixed repeatedly and re-rendered repeatedly over may, 2015. all renders finalized on may 16, 2015. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synth, voice, bowls, claps, tables, ebow, orchestral sequencing, drum & other programming, loops, digital wave editing, composition, production.

the various rendered electronic orchestras include synth pad, synth bass, synthesizer, mellotron, fingered bass guitar, picked electric guitar, bowed electric guitar, guitar noises (fret noises, knocks, pick scrapes), violin, viola, contrabass, cello, string section, piano, celesta, xylophone, marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel, tubular bells, woodblock, mallet, electronic drum kit, jazz drum kit, orchestral drum kit and choir.

released april 25, 2003

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/refractions

reflections (ambient mix)

i wanted a longer version, but i went a little overboard on the ambient mix, and got a twenty-five minute head cave that sounds like the climax to a sentimental film.

there's a level of randomness to the mix, so i need to listen to a few different renders. as it's 25 minutes, that's a lengthy process. but it will be up before the sun is.

and that closes the period. i just need to go over the last 25 records i finished to try and separate out compilation material.

--

this is the ambient mix, created by slowing the track down, running it through some cut/paste algorithms and putting it through an array of arpeggiators and delay effects.

render from may 16, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/reflections-ambient-mix

reflections (vst guitar mix)

so, i set up the guitar mix over vst with the intent of arranging it and then playing it, but the reality is that the piano part spans seven octaves - meaning i'm going to need at least an eight string guitar, and i don't have access to one. it would defeat the point to put it through a pitch shifter, as a pitch shifter is a synthesizer. i could see myself revisiting this one day if i ever get one of those monster guitars...

as it is, this is going to have to stay like this. i had to mix and match the guitar synths a little as sample-based guitar synths can't hit the higher registers (because no such guitar exists to sample...), but i think it sounds pretty good. so i'm happy with it.

render from may 15, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/reflections-vst-guitar-mix

reflections (vst mix)

written and recorded in early 2003. transcribed, slightly rearranged, remixed and re-rendered over may, 2015. this render is from may 14, 2015, and was edited mildly on the fade-out on may 15, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/reflections-vst-mix

roaches23
Update: those guys got fired from their jobs and got lifetime bans from Toronto FC, Raptors, and  Maple Leaf games.

deathtokoalas
that would never hold up in a court. employment contracts refer to conditions inside the workplace. this is textbook wrongful dismissal - unless somebody files charges. if he challenges this, he'll win a large payout. and he should. your boss is neither judge, nor jury, nor executioner.

A Hermit
+deathtokoalas You're awfully naive I'm afrad. This kind of vulgar, abusive behaviour is actually grounds for firing. He could try and fight it I suppose, but depending on his actual position he's certainly not guaranteed a win. (Does he supervise others? Does that include women? Does he deal with customers? What effect does his notoriety have on his ability to work with co-workers, subordinates, customers?)

His employer has a code of conduct which includes not harassing women. That he's been caught on camera doing exactly that kind of leaves him without much of a case.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/firing-of-shawn-simoes-for-off-duty-fhritp-video-reflects-employment-trend-1.3071919

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/fhritp-outbursts-can-easily-cost-your-job-lawyer-1.2371690

There's a good discussion of the legal issues around his firing here:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/05/13/does-hydro-one-have-the-right-to-fire-tfc-fan-shawn-simoes.html

deathtokoalas
+A Hermit your employer can set conditions as to how you must behave at work, but they are your employer and not your owner. a good intuitive comparison is to drunkeness. you can get fired for coming to work drunk. you can't get fired for being drunk on the weekend - unless you get charged for something, like a dui.

basically, nothing you're talking about is at all legally relevant.

droptop10001
I bet these guys will take legal actions

deathtokoalas
+droptop10001 a factor in the case is likely to be that hydro one doesn't have any competitors.

i'd lean heavily towards the idea that the only way to successfully make the argument for dismissal in a court is if it involves a conviction. just about anything else reduces to the boss morally intervening in your private affairs, which is a definite no-no. even an acquittal just says "not guilty of the accusations". the legal analysts in the papers are focusing on the idea of financial harm, but i think it's only half the argument. at the end of the day, your boss does not have the right to convict you of a crime and punish you for it. but, it can certainly react to a judicial decision.

there's really no way to argue financial harm, here. electricity is largely inelastic in demand and consumers don't have any other option to turn to.

i'm quite certain he'd win this case. these lawyers seem to be misunderstanding the situation (hydro one is not private sector) and then applying the wrong test.

Ella Jones
+droptop10001 They don't have a legal leg to stand on.

deathtokoalas
+Ella Jones rather, it's the opposite. the talking heads in media have been quick to point out that they're talking in abstract, and this kind of firing has never withstood a court challenge.

Ella Jones
+deathtokoalas That's strange, a women I worked with got fired, soooooo.

deathtokoalas
+Ella Jones i don't think anybody is arguing that they'll get their jobs back. it's a question of back pay and punitive damages.

Ella Jones
+deathtokoalas Write down the date and time, they will never get their jobs back and won't go to court.

deathtokoalas
+Ella Jones well, i don't expect them to get their jobs back - or to try. i don't know what the government actually gave them in terms of severance. court is not free, one needs to apply a cost-benefit analysis....

i'm just pointing out that, if they did go, they would almost certainly be awarded about a year's pay on top of hefty punitive damages.

A Hermit
+deathtokoalas Well that last link I gave you was was to three labour/employment lawyers discussing the issue. I'll take their opinions over some anonymous Youtube commenter's any day.

And what they're saying is that you can be fired for behaviour which might reflect badly on your employer even if legal charges aren't involved. That can't be for something like expressing a political opinion but if it's behaviour which would be in violation of your terms of employment (like sexually harassing someone) you are unlikely to have any success fighting the dismissal.

And I don't think that's unreasonable. If an employee is in the habit of sexually harassing women who are complete strangers to him in public on his time off how can you trust him to behave himself at the office? The guy's a lawsuit waiting to happen. No employer should be expected to take that chance.

deathtokoalas
+A Hermit
a few things.

i was maybe a little sloppy in what i was saying. in ontario, nobody gets reinstated under much of any circumstance. imagine getting fired and then having the court send you back to work - that's not a healthy work environment, and basically can't be. and the court can't be firing bosses, either.

when i said "you can't get fired for this", what i meant to say was "you can't get fired for this without your boss being liable for paying financial consequences.". the argument is over punitive damages for wrongful dismissal, not reinstatement. that damage is done and can't be reversed.

one of the talking heads acknowledges he is speaking abstractly, not basing his analysis on legal precedent. further, the basic idea is that people can be fired for making a firm look poorly compared to their competitors - which doesn't apply here, because this company is not private sector. you're misreading your source, which is misunderstanding the situation in the first place.

now, i agree with what you're saying about harassment in principal. the question is who gets to decide on this point. again: your boss is not the legal system. he can't go around accusing you of harassment without a conviction, then firing you for it. in addition to wrongful dismissal, this guy has defamation in his list of legal remedies.

in order for what you're saying to make sense. the only legally effective argument is a conviction. just about anything else is going to be the boss taking the law into his own hands, which he will be liable for in terms of punitive damages - because he can't and shouldn't be able to do that.

once a conviction is established, what you're saying becomes reasonable. and i would agree with putting somebody on leave while they're being tried. but, your boss can't just charge, try, sentence and execute you in the kangaroo court of his office - and if he tries then that is wrongful dismissal.

in this case? i think the behaviour falls short of harassment. the bottom line is that your boss can tell you not to be a misogynist at work, and enforce it, but he can't tell you not to be a misogynist at home. we don't have thought crimes in our legal code. we're not placed into permanent categories of thought criminals like "racist" and "sexist" by the law. rather, we're forced to deal with the consequences of specific actions that occur under specific circumstances. there's no reason to think he couldn't behave more appropriately at work, or that he didn't behave more appropriately at work.

again: the alcohol comparison is the correct one, here.

so long as he doesn't act like that at work, and no charges are filed outside of work, he is likely to win a large settlement. and despite thinking that we need to get to the root cause of this, i think that's correct.

i mean, today it's getting fired for saying stupid things to a reporter. tomorrow, it's getting fired for organizing a union. and, that's why he can't lose the settlement.

A Hermit
+deathtokoalas There's a big difference between organizing a union and sexually harassing women. I don't think the slippery slope you're proposing here is actually much of a concern.

deathtokoalas
+A Hermit see, the crux of the matter is that this accusation of harassment is not proven anywhere. i'm not presenting a slippery slope like you're suggesting. this doesn't come down to a conviction, or even an arraignment. it's just some random accusation. it's ultimately no different than firing somebody for using contraception, or being gay. i know that nobody wants to think of it like that, but there's really no objective standard of behaviour being applied here. that is why it's a problem.

it's easy to say there's a difference. but, until the issue is proven in a court? there really isn't.

so, what's the right answer then?

well, if you're going to fire him you have to give him sufficient notice if you want to make sure he can't sue you. but i think he's a network admin. that's a bad scene, for obvious reasons. and he can still sue you for punitive damages (although i think his chances of convincing a judge decrease if he gets notice).

so, to get out of all that, you give him a year's severance, and then some. i know - rewarding bad behaviour.

i think maybe the better option is to give him the option between getting fired (with sufficient severance) and going to counselling. ultimately, the goal here should not be to punish the guy. i mean, if he pushes it far enough, it's likely to backfire, yeah, but that's not really the point i'm trying to get across - punishment isn't an answer, and doesn't correct behaviour. ultimately, what you want is for him to understand he's a douchebag and knock it off. counselling is the right means to that end.

then, if it doesn't work out, there's a stronger grounds for termination without the need for a payout.

Boaz Ezekial
+deathtokoalas why you hate koalas so much?

deathtokoalas
+Boaz Ezekial it's their nefarious cuteness. they must be destroyed. and they don't deserve due process - too evil to the core.

A Hermit
+deathtokoalas Not proven?  It's right there in the video above...

deathtokoalas
+A Hermit you're not much into due process, are you? just shoot 'em all and let god sort them out? you sound like a self-righteous, moral majority type reagan republican.

if the accusation is harassment, the evidence in the video is very ambiguous. i think we can agree it was a stupid thing to say. but, the question of whether it is harassment or not requires a trial to arrive at.

based on the video? i would argue that it is not harassment. which just demonstrates that your value system is arbitrary, and you can't be going around punishing people for not adhering to your subjective code of morality.

A Hermit
I'm all for due process (and Hydro One reports that they are engaging in a process to terminate this joker's employment, so all that speculation you're engaging in about notice and severance is presumably being worked out right now.) But the idea that we can't reach conclusions without going to trial is just absurd.

Look, the guy did what he did on video in front of the whole world. He's part of a group of men who acknowledge participating in the harassment of that reporter, and admit planning to do it again and he not only defends that harassment (he knows that she's been repeatedly subjected to this demeaning threatening phrase being shouted at her) he decides to pile on more by telling her she's lucky not to get a dildo shoved in her ear.

You shouldn't need a trial to figure out that what you just saw is harassment. No one should have to put up with that kind of verbal abuse on the job. participating in that abuse is a violation of his employment contract and his employer has every right to can him.

Oh, and I'm a sex-positive feminist social-democrat, a secular humanist and a fan of the labour movement so you fail at making assumptions about people too.

deathtokoalas
+A Hermit "But the idea that we can't reach conclusions without going to trial is just absurd."

so, who gets to be dictator, then? you?

i've just disagreed with you. how do we figure this out without a trial, besides through the force of your authority?

harassment in canada is not about discomfort, it's about fear. the law does not lean towards some dictatorial concept of "safe spaces" and let one group of people demand that the other uphold their arbitrary moral convictions under the weight of some kind of self-righteous superiority, it leans toward freedom of expression regardless of consequence. from a legal perspective, it's blatantly obvious that the guy was not attempting to frighten the reporter, and it consequently would not result in a harassment conviction. it's just somebody being a moron.

if you claim otherwise, you have an argument that you need to make. and you need to convince people of the point.

until that evidence is analyzed and weighed in an official capacity, his employer remains liable for it's actions in firing him.

"i don't think your joke is funny" != "sexual harassment". even if the joke is obviously unfunny.

A Hermit
+deathtokoalas But if the "joke' is obviously sexual insulting and demeaning, directed at an individual because of their gender, repeated even after it's clear the attention is unwanted and added to with more sexual comments/innuendo and possibly threatening language...that's undoubtedly harassment. And that's exactly what happened here.

deathtokoalas
+A Hermit regarding the legal definition of harassment (which is different than the workplace definition of it - that is, people are held to a higher standard at work than outside it), the important part is the last point - repeated threatening behaviour, after being asked to stop. the reporter indicates that she deals with this repeatedly, but you can't hold an individual to account for a group's behaviour (and despite "soccer hooligans" not being an identifiable group, it's clear what i mean when i say that). his defence is actually relevant: it wasn't intended specifically at her, and wasn't meant to be threatening. the video would actually likely be used as evidence in his favour, on that point.

now, if you consider the possibility of this specific individual being filmed repeatedly? well, that's closer to the definition. i mean, if he's stalking her, than that's intimidation. but it's a different issue than what is at hand.

i'm not clear on the actual process being used to deal with this. the initial reports made it seem like he'd been turfed and asked to not let the door hit him on the ass, kind of thing. on reflection, i suppose that was never likely: i really have no doubt that hydro one is aware of the legalities surrounding a firing of this nature.

the point is that this isn't open and shut. it's far from obvious; it's actually extremely subtle, and the legal arguments are actually very delicate, because it's in a grey area of socially unacceptable but (in my estimation) legally acceptable behaviour. and, if the company wants to avoid a payout, it needs to be very careful in how it deals with this.

again: i'd prefer counselling as the best option. the only thing that's clear to me from the video is that these guys need some therapy.

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deathtokoalas
+Mr Magoo you have clearly been brainwashed by the nefarious koalas. for all i know, they may have advanced in their pursuit of global domination to the point that they can use the internet; you may, in fact, be a koala. if that is true, god help us all.

no civilized society can tolerate these creatures and their disgusting cuteness. they must be annihilated, before it is too late.

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deathtokoalas
+Mr Magoo see, here's the thing: i'm an anti-capitalist, alphabetical egalitarian and general grammar anti-authoritarian. i don't believe in hierarchy, or in centralized grammar authorities. the abolition of punctuation is the redemption of sanity. if we lack the freedom to order our own thoughts as we choose, we lack any freedom at all.

(deleted comment)

deathtokoalas
+Mr Magoo let me state to all who can hear: behold the manipulative nature of the koala. but, you do not fool me! no! i am on to your koala tricks, your evil plans, your nefarious aims. your cuteness disgusts me. how long can we tolerate this?

people, open your eyes! the koalas are taking over! before we know it, there will be a eucalyptus tree to replace every maple. eucalyptol to replace the maple syrup. imagine this: drunken koalas everywhere, terraforming the planet for their disgusting habits.

and, now they can type! i fear it may be too late to save us. but heed my warnings: we must declare a war on koalas. not tomorrow, but immediately! the future depends on our action, or our inaction, against this grave threat to our national security.

(deleted comment)

A Hermit
+1jomojo I think it's more like sexually harassing someone and getting fired...

No wait, it's not "like" that, it actually IS that...

deathtokoalas
+A Hermit again: these accusations are defamatory. this has been explained to you. this is rather clearly not sexual harassment under canadian law; rather, your continued insistence on defaming his character is harassment.

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deathtokoalas
+Hem3fiction it doesn't matter that she went to talk to them. harassment is not about offending people, it's about intimidating them. as offensive as these idiots are, they're neither succeeding in nor attempting to scare anybody.

one way to understand this is to research the difference between the "offense principle" (which is the conservative approach to speech, sometimes pushed by a peculiar brand of right-wing foucaldian quasi-fascists) and the "harm principle" (which is the liberal approach to speech).

this is explained a little here:
plato.stanford.edu/entries/freedom-speech/

because workplaces are inherently conservative institutions, they tend to lean towards the right-wing "offense principle". this defines ideas like "safe spaces".

however, in canada, we have a legal history of liberalism, and our law is entirely focused on the "harm principle".

what that means is that the legal argument is not "you offended me", but rather "you pose a threat to harm me.".

if you don't like that, you can always move to a more conservative society.

A Hermit
+deathtokoalas And you think there's no harm in sexually harassing someone?

That's interesting...

deathtokoalas
+A Hermit that's an interesting choice of words.

A Hermit
+deathtokoalas Well you're making a distinction between "offense" and "harm".  you seem to think there is no harm in the kind of sexual harassment on display here. (and it is plainly sexual harassment by any reasonable definition.)

http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/internal-human-rights-policy-working-draft/appendix-definitions

"Harassment: means a course of comments or actions that are known, or ought reasonably to be known, to be unwelcome. It can involve words or actions that are known or should be known to be offensive, embarrassing, humiliating, demeaning or unwelcome..."

"Sexual harassment: A course of comment or conduct based on an individual’s sex or gender that is known or ought reasonably to be known to be unwelcome...

Forms of sexual and gender-based harassment could include:

Suggestive or offensive remarks or innuendoes about members of a specific gender

Propositions of physical intimacy

Gender-related verbal abuse, threats or taunting

Rough and vulgar humour or language related to gender"

I think it's reasonable to take repeatedly having "fuck her in the pussy" shouted at her and being told she's lucky not get a dildo shoved in her her fit any number of those criteria.

But you see no harm in any of that?

deathtokoalas
+A Hermit you're accidentally making my point. the ohrc is not a body that creates or enforces law, it is a body that interprets whether laws are followed. it cannot charge you with criminal harassment, it can only award damages in a situation where the human rights code is violated under the specific circumstance that the claim refers to a body or individual in authority over the claimant.

criminal law of this nature is a federal responsibility, not a provincial responsibility. again: the relationship between our provinces and central government is the opposite of what exists in the united states, because our constitution was largely built in order to prevent a civil war, which our framers blamed on the american concept of "states rights". the province does not have a criminal code.

the appropriate federal criminal law to cite is the following:

Criminal harassment

264. (1) No person shall, without lawful authority and knowing that another person is harassed or recklessly as to whether the other person is harassed, engage in conduct referred to in subsection (2) that causes that other person reasonably, in all the circumstances, to fear for their safety or the safety of anyone known to them.

Prohibited conduct

(2) The conduct mentioned in subsection (1) consists of
(a) repeatedly following from place to place the other person or anyone known to them;
(b) repeatedly communicating with, either directly or indirectly, the other person or anyone known to them;
(c) besetting or watching the dwelling-house, or place where the other person, or anyone known to them, resides, works, carries on business or happens to be; or
(d) engaging in threatening conduct directed at the other person or any member of their family.

that's harassment in canada. it is neither more than this, nor is it less than this.

before you can claim harassment, you have to demonstrate that the behaviour "causes that other person reasonably, in all the circumstances, to fear for their safety or the safety of anyone known to them.". if that's not true, it's not harassment in canada.

do we know this is true? i claim it isn't. but, the point is that it's not my choice or your choice. note the following, which is the civil rights issue i'm attempting to get across to you:

http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/code_grounds/record_of_offences

as mentioned, the legal basis of our law is mills. canada is the only part of the british empire where the liberals got to actually build the country, and the law is consequently erected on somewhat of an extreme basis, in terms of liberal ideology. speech issues in canada require a very high bar.

just to clarify the point: the ohrc enforces the human rights code, which is a law that primarily puts restrictions on the ability of government bodies to behave in a discriminatory fashion. it's not a criminal law. it's mostly in place to prevent things like not handing out driver's licenses to women, or not hiring somebody because they're muslim. it's primarily a civil litigation body, and it's remedies are largely restricted to forcing payouts for damages. it can't send you to jail or force you to do community service or anything like that.

the reporter here can't just take this random guy on the street to the human rights commission. if it was her boss? sure. but, in this circumstance, it's not the right to law to cite.

there are some limited private sector circumstances regarding things like housing and employment opportunities where the human rights code can intervene on the basis of something systemic; authority or hierarchy type circumstances.  but we don't have a general "social human rights code" that forces random people to not discriminate against each other in random on-the-street circumstances.

the code is explicit in it's application, but i would expect a concept of "analogous grounds" around the idea of "not using authority to oppress" to apply.

In Ontario, the Code prohibits all forms of discrimination based on sex – and this includes sexual harassment.

The Code applies to five “social" areas:

services, goods and facilities (including education)
housing
contracts
employment
membership in vocational associations such as trade unions.

this is hierarchical and authoritarian type stuff. not random idiots on the street.

you can kind of think of it like the same way that people often define racism as something that is only hierarchical - that is, comments and statements aren't racism, but profiling or racial hiring standards are.

the tl;dr there (after a few edits designed to clarify a few specific points....i took three years of law, but i'm not a lawyer, and the law is famously byzantine, so i'm going to sometimes get broad ideas across correctly while being a little off on specific details) is the following:

1) the ohcr definition of sexual harassment is specific to situations of authority that do not apply here. it has to be some kind of abuse of power.
2) the ohcr does not have the power to make criminal charges and must defer to federal law.
3) the federal definition of harassment necessitates the creation of fear.

i'd argue that all of this leads to the conduct in the video neither being legal nor civil harassment.

but it's apparent - from the existence of this debate - that a trial is necessary to get to an answer.

A Hermit
+deathtokoalas Very impressive, but the question here isn't whether the reporter can take the guy to court, it's whether his employer has grounds to fire him. Since his behaviour in so many ways fits the definition of harassment and his contract forbids harassment I'd say they clearly have cause. Behaviour doesn't have to rise to the level of criminality to be cause for firing.

Any honest observer shouldn't need a trial to see that he was participating in a continuing effort to demean and harass that reporter.

And whether or not that rises to the level of criminal harassment I'm amazed that anyone could look at that kind of behaviour and say that it does no harm.

deathtokoalas
+A Hermit but the question of whether he can be fired (without a payout.....your boss doesn't actually need a reason to fire you, it just might have to pay damages....) is largely dependent on whether the behaviour fits a trial definition of harassment. when a court asks the question "is this harassment?", that's what it looks at.

as mentioned, i think the situation really had nothing to do with shauna hunt. i think it had to do with trying to get on tv, and be the centre of internet attention. she just happened to be the reporter there. if it was a different reporter, it wouldn't have made any difference. this neither has anything to do with an abuse of power, nor is it really an attempt to "demean" - although being "demeaning" is not any kind of legal argument. "moooooommmmmm. he's being mean!". it's just not going to fly. and, i can't see how you - as a claimed "honest observer" - can't see that my continued counter-arguments don't make the necessity of a trial clear.

there was a similar case the other day with a comedian. now, to begin with, i think that is a situation that was legally criminal harassment - it was something like "i want to fuck you", clearly intended to intimidate and with the end result of the comedian leaving the stage, partially out of fear for her safety. those are the ingredients for a criminal harassment suit. so, this is a case of (i'd argue) far worse behaviour. the next day, she got a call from his boss indicating he's been put on paid leave while an internal investigation concludes. the employee there would have no argument for wrongful dismissal, if it happens.

icbones
+A Hermit It's not harassment.  He was asked an opinion on what some other dude did.

deathtokoalas
+icbones wait. is this issue surrounding the guy in the red shirt, or the guy that actually took the mic?

A Hermit
+deathtokoalas It's about both of them, and the rest of the nitwits who were egging on the first guy and planning to harass the reporter again.

By the way I think it's interesting that after accusing me of being a "self righteous moral majority type" you're the one hiding behind rigid legalism to try and deny the obvious...

A Hermit
+icbones He's participating with a group of people who are harassing, encouraging the harassment and planning more harassment.

And he wasn't asked for his opinion; she was talking to someone else when he jumped in to tell her how fucking hilarious it would be to see someone shove a vibrator in her ear...

deathtokoalas
+A Hermit "aiding and abetting being mean".