tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87247042024-03-19T00:20:16.787-04:00Utenzil's Electronic Music Adventureone electronic musician's chronicle of various things.Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.comBlogger349125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-75983199866416288982015-08-20T23:07:00.001-04:002015-08-20T23:37:37.164-04:00Some more writ(h)ing<p dir="ltr">A long while ago, now, it somehow became an overriding theme for the media to approach everything as critically and negatively as possible. The reason for this was because the US government had been outright deceiving the voting public about a great many things during the Vietnam War, and this sort of "there is no doubt the government is lying, it is just how much" kind of approach was actually very informative and important. People really learned about the extent to which the government would go in order to ensure the agenda of various interests.</p>
<p dir="ltr">At this point, however, that theme has been run into the ground. It is as if every single person who comes into the public eye must be thoroughly examined and their inevitable seedy agenda exposed. It us as if every positive person has to be deconstructed to the point where their flaws are revealed. In addition, it's like every seemingly positive person that comes into the public eye is also being set up to be revealed as a dark creature indeed.</p>
<p dir="ltr">You have to wonder, is it the notoriety that corrupts the person, that they are pumped up to the braking point by the feeling of power or invincibility? Or is it the pressure of the media attention, that causes them to amplify a shocking dark side in order to get that attention turned off once and for all?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Because anyone who has observed the trajectory of the once-media-darling now discredited stars, televangelists, athletes, coaches, product spokespeople, politicians etc. sees that once that seedy underside is exposed, they disappear to be left alone, mostly in anonymity.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I don't think we are entitled to know as much as were told about these people. We are entitled to know some things in cases where they are asking for donations, making claims about products or processes. If they claim to be particularly moral along the lines of done traditional sense, for example, then they should live up to those claims. But if they don't, then they shouldn't be held to some popular sense of morality. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The astonishing thing is that many of these public figures seem to make claims that they are the exact opposite of who they truly are. It is very strange. Again, is it the notoriety that gives them this sense that they will not be found out?</p>
<p dir="ltr">An even scarier thought is that this can happen to anyone who finds themselves in this position. That some kind of switch gets flipped, and they start testing the limits of the "public eye".</p>
<p dir="ltr">It <u>i</u>s just really weird.<br>
</p>
Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-24072094190783337302015-08-04T22:47:00.002-04:002015-08-04T23:36:23.481-04:00What is going on?<p dir="ltr">HYPERDYSTOPIA</p>
<p dir="ltr">So, some wild shit has gone on. My phone went missing. I have not posted for a long time. </p>
<p dir="ltr">A bunch of bad/weird things. I think some !/+=###//==# has gotten hold of some of credit card info, because some weird crap showed up. My phone got stolen also yes.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But, I continue the word electronic music.</p>
<p dir="ltr">On Sunday nights, every third week, I play music. Mostly to an empty room, it is a restaurant and bar downtown.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I have laboured lo these many years and continue to do so. Someday I will be dead, but that has not occurred.</p>
<p dir="ltr">My thought is today the United States is being dismantled. It is very sad. Long term, the remaining population will be used for medical experimentation under the guise of "battling cancer" and other crap.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The various military equipment is being "recycled", that is, key components ate being removed so these are no longer working. New equipment under construction is being sabotaged, while the actual, viable designs for this new gear are being siphoned off elsewhere.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It is bad. Very bad. </p>
<p dir="ltr">De facto, at this point, the world can be sectioned into three new Orwellian "super blocs" that vie for control, but will never achieve it.  EuroNorAmWestPac, SinoMoscvastan, and IndoAfricaSudAm.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The key insight that brings the mind to th is conclusion is the appropriate de emphasis of the middle east. The middle east is part of IndoAfricaSudAm.l, the "resources bloc".</p>
<p dir="ltr">I am using a cell phone. It has auto complete. I have wished with it, and will no longer struggle worth it. Whatever it spotlights,b is right. It knows Howe typo spell better than I, so why not? App have your way you little protect of ship. This is encoding rust over could only Jupiter for.</p>
<p dir="ltr">So the world is not veering sliced up, and the last Rothschild had been given a taste for ecological woofers. Radiological woofers can only've be found in um spotless areas, where Baroda governments gave preserved there. There are being used as COLLATERAL. This was not supposed to be allowed. Bit, various DiCK heads permitted outit, one in particular.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The north important thing: the Indians, the native nations, become guarantors off the land and it's peoples by haVing signed their treaties worth peoples.  With THOSE peoples, not the banks or anyone else. Do you see? Triad is why so much history has been against three INDIANS, the Native Nations. Because they signed agreements with PEOPLE, not Banks.</p>
<p dir="ltr">So this is why one should escapade t top tribal lands.m, to be close to THE Indians.  My pHone will not allow net typo risk tippy add quicker as I need, doo you must doggie poor the works. The woofers that room am writing can be deCided, and them you will know.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The last hands of poker are being played. Various people have other purple under Control, and them there is a trail to the bank. Each one is anchored in the bank arty the end of the chain.</p>
<p dir="ltr">We don't have good without pull, we don't have pull without the bank. No food, no purple. New legions of purple, stupid people, super stupid, ate being pulled into three places once held by learning, growing people. Went? Because they ate used to serving dictators. Europe is being flooded with stupidites, who will gladly serve whomever butters their bread. </p>
<p dir="ltr">That is all. I am sitting and dying.<br></p>
Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-82627648351544931542014-10-13T08:48:00.001-04:002014-10-13T10:17:48.898-04:00Poetry and povertyYou can't spell poverty without poetry...<br />
<br />
Beautiful broken arches paper thin soles<br />
Of my feet aching with every step<br />
The world sucks, sucks me down with gravity<br />
To the grave, gravity pulls down down<br />
Over and over again the message repeats:<br />
Will you take the challenge, the hollow challenge<br />
Posed by talking ashtrays and open noses<br />
Posing, losing tossing away the entire mess<br />
Of a life most wasted, wasted living?<br />
Do you have a living room?<br />
A rhetorical question most well rounded,<br />
Massive open lungs sucking air<br />
Sucking hard, the mud and the stench<br />
Covered by sweet blue ooze.<br />
Dare we consider it, the future the past<br />
At last we fast, nay eating another way to suck.<br />
Broken broken, aching soles: feet in a nother dimension.<br />
Slow moving, witless yet with just the right amount of fat.<br />
Seven different nutrients all with deadly intent, still making<br />
Meaning, greening, keening like a hawk on the roof the tiny<br />
Birds are my food, with which to feed my brood.<br />
One can be certified insane, but never certified cured.<br />
Inured to the moment, pressing on to belong, for a song the odd intent.<br />
Motion, lotion, consume the potion: inside an ocean of lament.<br />
Where is the dignity? Where is the trust?<br />
We see ineptitude and consume it with lust-- superior feelings,<br />
Feeling superior like the giant lake: so much fresh water!<br />
And so deep! Filled with wrecks and the corpses therein.<br />
The Rex of Lakes, so potent are we! Moving like ligers on trampolines.<br />
The mind numbing boredom of it all, an awl for the ears, keeping them open,<br />
Painfully conceiving with every detected vibration some new strange being.<br />
The ontology of monotony, providing nothing but a bolus of empty solace,<br />
Solace! The cup of bleck, dark schmeck the dreck is endless. Feckless.<br />
Recklessly he plods ahead, instead. Gravity sucks, does it suck to be dead?<br />
It may suck less, yes: I'd guess, but why leap that chasm? some stupid last spasm<br />
It never occurs.<br />
A drifting off, more like. I held my mother's dying hand.<br />
She lay so quiet, but whispering with each breath "I'm here".<br />
Here, so dear, so near and still so far far away please fly.<br />
I know you had to die, but now?<br />
It was such a stupid time.<br />
To think, that<br />
they'd never leave.<br />
Love,<br />
My love.<br />
The mourning dove each morning mourns,<br />
Sorrows borne anew with every passing day<br />
The paper thin soles, pain in stepping,<br />
My instep instead intends to reach, to overarch,<br />
But the balls! The Heels! The painful aching hurt,<br />
It really sucks, this gravity. The force, not the weight of words.<br />
Not the fetid lump of thought flow trapped in icy letters, characters all.<br />
Strings of them, involved in feats of deliberate magnitude!<br />
I helped move the lifeless body to the stretcher, with it's clever cover.<br />
A vessel emptied, a life lived. But to the full? I can hope only that life<br />
Lasts after life, my father's wife deserves this.<br />
What a stupid time.<br />
Young<br />
Dumb<br />
Man<br />
Without a plan! Roamed the earth, sought refuge, refuge from that storm<br />
To Which each and every one is subjected! Idiocy! Rather so.<br />
Why would that one wave from the curb, from the curb on a street in a dream?<br />
Waving and smiling, silently like that, dumb yet brilliant, my brave teacher.<br />
Strange choice: it's said that all in a dream is from within you.<br />
Of course it is, how could it be otherwise?<br />
Playing a role, to control, the fear within. The storm without, raging.<br />
Clattering against the side of the house,<br />
Nuts loosed from the trees.<br />
Walnuts, chestnuts: horse chestnuts these, simmering sounds, slamming hard like bullets<br />
Into the whitewashed stone.<br />
What a storm!<br />
Trees uprooted. Made the news.<br />
So much suffering.<br />
Sells good soap, good news. Strage soap: Dove. Take the challenge.<br />
See if film, that sinking stinking wretched type of film will apply,<br />
Then dissolve. Soap scum, they call it. Soapy scum, tainted with lye.<br />
With lies, swift abandon.<br />
She lay there,<br />
empty.<br />
The vessel, so light! She'd finally lost all that weight.<br />
stupid time. All the time is stupid time: you know that I know it,<br />
And you know that you live it, we live it all the time.<br />
The moment unfolds before our eyes.<br />
What is it?<br />
Connections are attempted then fail, the holy grail, we've now set sail again.<br />
To distant shores, where snores abound. We've run aground, but the silly soldiers wait with spears.<br />
Too many times I've ignored this way, these crimes of passion.<br />
Too many times the lines are jagged, blurred. In a word: broken.<br />
Unspoken and unfettered the fleeting thoughts will wander where they will.<br />
I will, when I will it, it will become as one with the son in the Sun of summertime we manage peace.<br />
Yet a piece of it remains, right here: in this son of one who was a son of one who...<br />
Endless on and on. Stupendously stupid on and on.<br />
Where are your friends?<br />
Where is that light?<br />
Friends are treacherous things, they lie.<br />
Surprise you when you least expect it!<br />
I'm engaged! I'm enraged! Turn the page, this stupid arrgh.<br />
Arrgh! How stupid, lost for words?<br />
They float, like fetid turds in bluest goo.<br />
Was it her perfume? No, it was dinners doom, bought from food trucks,<br />
Meters deep. To sleep, perchance to scream!<br />
My wife hates it when I do that.<br />
No solace there, hah. The cupboards bare. The mouse's lair,<br />
Crumbs in piles abandoned.<br />
For the cat's away, but even still the poison did its trick!<br />
He embedded himself instead in the radiator, there to stink: that empty vessel.<br />
Fucker. What a dick, to stink up the place like that. What the hell? Really.<br />
You eat my food, you drink the morning dew and then leave a fucking putrid corpse you sack of shit!<br />
Now, *that* sucks.<br />
What a pain,<br />
My paper soles. Paper thin, with dried leaf veins. So you say it, so it is.<br />
Wish it were otherwise, that it were no so:<br />
So sewing into one's final shroud, oneself.<br />
With words,<br />
Stitching quickly. No real reason.<br />
I hate this season with it's wicked rain,<br />
Cold like a bitch? No, I'm just bitching. Stupid saying, stupid times. Bitches are hot, like glowing irons.<br />
Irons, glowing: now isn't that ironic?<br />
Supersonic, superhypertronic stereophonic hijinks. With an ancient Bogen way.<br />
Not the 42 Bogon, but the one with the golden hue. So true! My ancient box, glowing tubes.<br />
Those things are silly, stupid things again. So much in here!<br />
Like a shitty attic, full of just crap, really.<br />
Stupid crap. What the hell?<br />
What's that smell?<br />
Oh yeah: that fucking mouse, jeez.<br />
How lame.<br />
Rain is sorrow, rain is the tears of the departed: it's a saying among the indians of the southwest.<br />
They're the best, those ones: bright jewelry, so pure like morning sun over the mountains. Beauty all around.<br />
Walking in beauty, erasing the dew, that simpering slippery sorrow of bygone souls.<br />
I slipped on a toad, once. In the grass, slick with morning dew. Delivering papers.<br />
I stepped down, hard, to toss the paper in its plastic sack,<br />
Over the backyard fence.<br />
That's when I stepped on the toad, and slipped. Caught my balance, but...<br />
It was awful! Oh it crunched and yuck, eck: yeesh, etc..<br />
Now that sucked. Especially for the toad.<br />
"Thanks for that, you huge bastard!"<br />
"I had a day planned, and everything"<br />
And everything.<br />
My... wow. Goodness.<br />
Is there any left? I mean, to call it mine?<br />
Who knows.<br />
What a load, it pulls me down. Pressing on my paper soles, my bones,<br />
In a sack. Relax, it's only a toad.<br />
Now I've done it,<br />
Slipped the track, lost the trail. Fail. No holy grail here, dear. My mom again?<br />
I have no friends, like Deputy Dan.<br />
Firesign Theatre, I was a fan. Now there's a bunch of bawdy bards!<br />
Repackaged now, momentum lost, tossed to the wind. "A murmur in the heart of Philadelphia"<br />
Their words, not mine: the only good ones on this page I think.<br />
You're all over the place, a disgrace. Without a trace I wander, tasteless, mindless. Soul-less?<br />
Goodness gracious, not at all like that. Please, why for? Wherefore? no more.<br />
Rotten to the core.<br />
Bore.<br />
Hah, a label I will wear, you make it: I will wear it.<br />
"Hello, my name is..."<br />
Who gives a fuck? You have been forced to wear that label, I know it.<br />
Like everyone else here at this fucking seminar.<br />
"Hello, your name is..." some stupid dickhead forced to wear a fucking nametag, you dumbshit.<br />
"But there was a door prize!"<br />
Is that what it's come to?<br />
A doorprize?<br />
You emblazon yourself with your huge stupid nametag,<br />
Practically forcing me to read it?<br />
You are a fascist,<br />
And that's all there is to it.<br />
Put that on your stupid nametag,<br />
Better yet, let me put it there: I will carve it in with a knife!<br />
Hold still you bastard!<br />
Ok: that wasn't fair.<br />
Ok: there was a door prize. We all wanted it.<br />
A dark paneled oaken door, with burnished brass accoutrements!<br />
Who wouldn't want such a door?<br />
What wonders must lay behind it.<br />
I saw that door in a dream, I wanted it: I must have it.<br />
In the dream it was a double door.<br />
Stately, oaken, sturdy yet swinging open to reveal...<br />
Clouds.<br />
Just clouds?<br />
What do you mean "just clouds"?<br />
Clouds are vapor, water vapor. Icy, and superior, just like the aforementioned lake.<br />
Feel them, can't you? Before the plague, you could see them from a plane, close up.<br />
A dog barked. I heard it.<br />
Time to let him in.<br />
<br />
<br />Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-74663077703939248522014-07-16T23:12:00.001-04:002014-07-28T15:30:11.761-04:00Ukraine, BRICS, future, end. Crazy talk, right?<p dir="ltr">The last blog post covered the importance of Ukraine. This one unfolds the plan that the Putinic Circle has for all of mankind. This will seem crazy, until you reflect on what has happened since 1991.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In the nineties, we in the US and Europe anticipated decades of unprecedented peace. The Soviet Union, slavering devourer of half of Europe, contributing to the delinquency of fledgling third world countries and scheming evil empire, had fallen apart like one of its many hastily poured concrete apartment blocks. </p>
<p dir="ltr">But, like many of the previously anticipated strings of peace decades, the first one was squandered. Rather than look forward, we sighed and started to wind down. The Cold War is done. No more Mutually Assured Destruction hanging over us. In the U.S., the biggest news that decade was the President receiving some extramarital genital stimulation while on the clock.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Meanwhile, Russia was forming the ex-Soviet states into a loose confederation, and seeing actual capitalist activity starting to occur. However, this activity was oddly "carpetbagger" in its nature, where people like the robber barons of Soviet anti-Western rhetoric came to life. This wasn't apparent at the time: we perceived what we wanted to.</p>
<p dir="ltr">People of means, who may have acquired those means in an unsavory way but maybe not, were collecting industrial assets. That's the way it should work, right? </p>
<p dir="ltr">But the acquisition of these assets was roped off for a select few. Oil and gas, steel, paper, mining, aerospace... all of these things that had been built with the intention of outpacing the West were being bundled into portfolios for exclusive investors. This was discussed in the previous post.</p>
<p dir="ltr">That activity created the oligarchy that we see today. Now, in the first years of the 21st century, we saw what we thought was a Russia finally entering into the economic compact of nations, to take a proper place therein. We weren't paying attention much, of course, at that time.</p>
<p dir="ltr">That was not happening. At the same time that we were heavily preoccupied with a semi-fictional war on terror, Vladimir Putin was planning the future of Russia, and using Russia's military in key places across western Central Asia in order to secure pipeline routes.  These were required in order to bring oil and gas from that region to European customers that could pay with hard currency. Industry and government working hand in hand to serve the purposes of a few... hmm, what's that called?</p>
<p dir="ltr">We were lulled into complacency by the mild Mr. Medvedev, seeing reforms slowly moving across Russia. We knew Mr. Putin was the real power holder, but we were seeing what wanted to. However, as we see now, all of these reforms could be rolled back almost overnight.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Back to the Russian "robber barons": most of the shell holding companies owned by the billionaires of Russia were created "offshore" through western banks and legal mechanisms. These holding companies are like empty shopping carts. The Russian assets they were filled with were secured by aforementioned dubious means, to the sound of grumbling, squawking smerds in Russia, some of more articulate of which were silenced for good. Only "smerds", this was becoming crystal clear: not a population whose will should be represented. Again, we in the west saw what we preferred.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Then, in the last few years, in the twinkling of an historical eye, we see the autocratic totalitarian streak that ran through the Soviet era reconstituted full force. People being murdered here and there in KGB-ish style. We see a large part of the Russian people embrace the long missing strong leadership embodied by Mr. Putin. We see the gas fields of Asia under fascist Russian control. We see a mechanized land army destroying chunks of European cities in Ukraine, changing borders.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Now, in the present: Putin has discarded any and all pretense, driven by the inspiration of nationalist thinkers who see Russia rightfully at the center the world as a dominant power. A plan had arisen from this.</p>
<p dir="ltr">And now, the plan is accelerating.</p>
<p dir="ltr">First, the BRICS bank will be created. Ukraine is a real pain at the moment, a problem, but will be brought to some "workable" arrangement with sufficient control.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This bank will allow the Oligarchate as well as shady elements within the Chinese establishment to launder any monies as needed. This network of capitalist reserves will fund various "projects", including those that deliver arms and other assets into the most capable anti-Western hands. Also, this is likely a bank without true audits.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Iran will assist in identifying and fortifying those elements in the Middle East that will best lead to the establishment of a Caliphate strong enough to impose borders that assemble the assorted squabbling ethnicities into more amenable bins. Iran will cover all with their newly built nuclear umbrella. Israel well shriek, but it won't matter, because it's all held in a state of "next move is final checkmate". </p>
<p dir="ltr">Russia economically subjugates northern Europe with a combination of energy deals and military demonstrations, along with promises of security. Europe sees how quickly Russia could move in militarily. The cities of Europe are valuable, valuable economic clockwork engines that can't be smashed even a little. Yeah, all that hands across the ocean stuff is romantic, but it doesn't stop speeding tanks with systems that blind pilots.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Europe ditches NATO, looking to Russia to supply security. The wolf is guarding the henhouse. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Now, Ukraine is a problem because it is a mechanized force's magic carpet into the soft belly of Europe. This is an important point. But it's also a demonstration area that will show how much of a European city just a little of the mechanized army can destroy. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Meanwhile, note how each of the oil producing  countries outside of the Middle East that the U.S. depends on are "infected" with an insurgency or rogue element of some sort. Nigeria has Islamist fanatics. Venezuela it's pro-Cuban factions. So all of these oil centers have receptacles for BRICS backing funds that will help them neutralize pro-American factions.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Then, suddenly,  the unified Islamist contingent will bring southern Europe under its military control, as the wolf holds open the door for the foxes, at the same time the wolf militarily subjugates any remaining European regimes that require it. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Security agreement? What security agreement?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Russia, the allied Caliphate, India and China now have de-facto control of all of Europe, and all of Asia. Brazil has de-facto control of South America.  China has also chipped away at Africa and Oceania, establishing de-facto <u>dominance</u> there. </p>
<p dir="ltr">European books and historical records are destroyed to make way for a new, improved history and culture. People are taught a new reality.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This is the plan of the "New Axis" for the next three decades. Ambitious? Yes. Science fiction? Maybe. Read a little about "Eurasianism", <u>i</u>t worked out splendidly for Genghis Khan.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Dramatic? I will not say. Why I worry about this should be clear: should it happen, it is the end of artistic freedom, of human expression, of freedom of belief and the beginning an endless era where vast majority of humanity is reduced to utter slavery.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Possible? You decide.</p>
Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-60837040687378120392014-07-14T17:05:00.001-04:002014-07-14T22:13:36.956-04:00Ukraine's Multi-Dimensional Importance<p dir="ltr">There are many things that are clear about the nature of Ukraine prior to the ouster of their President Yanukovych. One of the clearest is the extent to which the government economically sapped the people, requiring bribes and kickbacks at every stage of any business deal of significance, and the other is the extent to which the Yanukovych and Putin regimes were identical.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It's extraordinary how quickly we're learning all of this: the billions of dollars spent on the Sochi Olympics, with the obvious errors and cost overruns being something a source of humor, but also an indicator of how deep the corruption runs. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Then, the well documented rise of dubious oligarchs who somehow procured portfolios of Russian businesses despite living in a society where investment capital was nonexistent was mirrored in Ukraine, and even amplified. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Almost incredibly, these people seem to have no sense of duty to their foreign customer base, their local customer base or, with minor exceptions, any sense that they need give back at all to the society that they stripped of its commercial value.</p>
<p dir="ltr">We don't understand what it is like to live under a totally corrupt government. The police coming up and demanding money because you are in a public place. If you have a job, you need to bribe landlords to keep your place, along with extortion level rents-- and if your address is in a nicer neighborhood, you just might be visited by goons and asked to leave. If you own a business, the rules have been crafted so that every single transaction has some bribe or kickback involved. There is no judicial branch to appeal to: they're all in on it. There is no "congressman", "councilman" or news outlet to write to. They're all in on it. </p>
<p dir="ltr">This is the situation that precipitated the revolution in Ukraine, and it explains the behavior of all the people involved. If you were one of the thieves, you saw the jig was up and you ran. If you were one of the victims, you couldn't take it anymore. If you were retired, getting a pension, you were maybe upset by the upheaval.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>This sort of revolution in Russia</i><i> </i>is what Putin fears most: that the Russian people that have been fleeced just can't take it anymore. They start to protest en masse, and the minor, then major, regime functionaries see that the jig is up: <u>they</u> stop following orders and go with the tide.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The grab of Crimea raised Russian's hopes for a while: at least someone else was getting fleeced, even better to the surprise and embarrassment of the snooty and foppish EU, and especially the arrogant and conniving anti-Russian US. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Over it all, their President commanding a podium on the world stage, confident and forceful: not like the clowning Obama or the flustered Merkel!</p>
<p dir="ltr">But with that grab, Putin wrote off Ukraine. If he could cause the <u>rebellious</u> country to fall apart, so much the better--  volunteer mercenaries wanting adventure might assist with that, they would be equipped. So, some eager beavers were given the opportunity to field such a force, and equipment staged near the border with Ukraine for their ready use.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This is what happened: it was planned well in advance, the core units were trained, more recruited. As an garnish, an inspiring story involving historical precedent and privilege was spun and wrapped around the whole plot.</p>
<p dir="ltr">People in Ukraine have experienced some real hardships. Many of the people in the East above 40 are not highly educated. Farmers, factory workers, miners. They were trained under Soviet rule not to expect much, but to expect at least something along the lines of welfare no matter what, and this runs through that demographic.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This is the key, you see: in the Soviet "workers paradise", everyone was supposed to own the means of production. If that was so, then their 'slice' was auctioned off at a bargain price, or maybe not even auctioned but simply "transferred" through corrupt clerical sleight of hand to a cunning oligarch.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Putin has identified the US as having the purpose of thwarting Russia: the U.S. wants Russia to have zero advantages in his view, and the U.S. strives to ensure Russia is marginalized, inconvenienced and disrespected. </p>
<p dir="ltr">It seems this way because Russia is a corrupt state and acts as one, where the U.S. is much less so. The U.S. prefers to work with countries that share the same sort of notions of reciprocal regulation, open investment and commerce, where Putin's Russia will put up with what they have to, but not because  they think it's a good idea. For example, foreign investors in Russia being arbitrarily dispossessed of their businesses through specific machinations of the bureaucracy is ok, if that's what the leadership wants and thinks they can get away with it.</p>
<p dir="ltr">What has happened iin Russia and Ukraine is truly frightening: people have been bribed, threatened, violently injured and worse so that a cadre of billionaires, are mentioned in the sanctions, could have their businesses for cheap and expand their portfolios. This is the way they operate, it is what they know and they want the whole world to be that way. No anti-trust mumbo jumbo, no FINRA, no SEC: just straight ahead ultra hostile no bounds set acquisition. They have amassed the wealth to be able to operate that way with impunity in Russia, and irritates them it's not like that everywhere! </p>
<p dir="ltr">So of course they see  U.S. as making up rules that make it hard for them to do what they want, just to irritate them. This is what an egomaniac would think.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Understand, then, that Ukraine is currently a battleground where this amoral, self-serving clique of billionaires wants a cozy pocket of corruption to operate in. Thanks to these Russian military adventurers, the attempt is is being made to carve this out of the eastern portion of the country. At the best, they will achieve their aim. At the worst, they will be a constant source of disruption for the government in Kiev unless they're completely defeated. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Russian arms and fighters will continue to be pumped into this situation unless the Ukrainian army can close off the border securely. Then, without resistance from the people actually living there in Donetsk and Luhansk --poor people, battered people, people who stand to lose everything-- the billionaires' henchmen will continue <u>to</u> have their way. </p>
<p dir="ltr">It doesn't seem hopeful: the city of Donetsk is built to hold a million people. It is an valuable economic asset. Even if all the non-combatants leave the city, the occupiers will force the Ukrainian army to destroy portions of it, which they already have. The night fighting equipment, stealth aircraft, the armed drones, the laser guided munitions that the U.S. is able to bring to bear in narrowly targeted strikes are not in Ukraine's arsenal. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Instead, both sides are using "Grad" (Hail) systems, aptly named multiple rocket launching systems, artillery, and air ground rockets that saturate an area with explosives. The sorts of things you aim the best you can and hope you don't hit the wrong things. The most useful platforms are those in the air, but the Russian occupiers now have support from sophisticated anti aircraft missiles.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Russia is acting as much "within the rules" as it thinks it has to-- that is, as much outside the rules as can away with. All the other countries involved are acting within the rules because they are the "keepers" of the rules, but also because it's comfortable.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It's coming down to this battle being fought in the hearts and minds of each Ukrainian involved: will they take arms and which side? Will they hide, and if so can they report intelligence on social media-- but for which side? Or <u>w</u>ill they leave, and for where? </p>
<p dir="ltr">Each decision inches the vector of history this way and that.</p>
Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-4986811107003695592014-04-07T20:09:00.003-04:002014-04-07T20:56:49.570-04:00Flight 370 ScenariosFirst of all, it is a very somber thing, that has happened to the people aboard that flight. I think of this situation and my thoughts become quiet: this appears to be a very awful thing, no matter how it happened. I'm not writing this as some sort of "sensationalism" because this blog is very much unsensational. There are few pictures, not a lot of interesting or useful info outside of a very narrow scope, and even what is provided within a narrow scope is spurious at best.<br />
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Before I start, one thing first: CNN is really more than a little asshole-ish. I was listening to CNN on SiriusXM radio, and their whole angle was "boy, now that the good ol' US of A has their equipment in place, boy, we really have found out some stuff right?" and they would ask that question in one form or another, overtly or less overtly, to the various people they had on. Which is really pretty... well: asshole-ish.<br />
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But, I'm writing these things down so I can tweet the link and then maybe some feedback, but most likely not. I enjoy reading conspiracy theories, all kinds, to make my imagination run wild.<br />
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So here my "not too crackpot but most likely fairly crackpot theories" about Flight 370.<br />
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SCENARIO ONE: Really, really, really horribly bad misfortune:<br />
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The pilots flew as planned, towards where the flight was scheduled to be flying, and everything was lined up for a smooth flight. But moments after they sign off, a catastrophic mid-air collision with something occurs, or something wholly unexpected and damaging to the plane occurs, and the cockpit is rendered instantly a) depressurized and b) un-enterable, as well as leaving the pilots mortally incapacitated.<br />
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Because of this, in their last moments, the pilots react as best they can, heroically pulling the plane up and turning towards the next nearest landing zone with all their strength, but then lose consciousness and slump forward, bringing the plane down and swinging it on a wild heading. This has the effect of decompressing the cabin, which causes the emergency oxygen masks to drop down for the passengers. But these only last for so long, after which the passengers also slip into unconsciousness and then, so very sadly, pass on.<br />
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The plane makes a wild looping turn, and as a result it, horrifically, enters a "seam" between two radar zones. In addition, a fire was raging in Indonesia, which may or may not may have limited radar effectiveness there. However, the bottom line is that the plane's diversion goes unnoticed.<br />
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One or both of the heroic pilots' now lifeless bodies now slumps against the controls. The cold high altitude air along with the process of death renders them rigid: horribly, the turn they intended to make is followed by a random one, now tragically "locked" into place.<br />
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Another variation on this is the plane being damaged somehow, either through sabotage or natural act, where the pilots lose key systems, but retain yet others. Again, they set on a heading that will take them to the nearest landing area, but circumstances prevent them from carrying out that contingency before their end.<br />
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Another variation is a huge mistake: a very incorrect heading is put into the computer, which takes them in a very wrong direction. Somehow, this goes unnoticed by the pilots, and they fly on until it's too late. This seems very farfetched.<br />
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Another variation is that a malicious crew member with access to the flght deck for some reason decides to sabotage the flight and set the wrong heading into the computer. Or that a virtuous crew member somehow tries to turn the plane back around after both pilots become unable to fly. The pilots guide them through a turn, but then succumb to their illness, nobody is able to operate the plane, then never can make contact with the ground given the heading they are on? Also very unlucky and farfetched, but if not again really sad and awful.<br />
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The plane continues on it's course, hugely off course over the most remote reaches of the ocean, runs out of fuel and falls into the sea.<br />
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So awful. Too awful for words, a horribly tragic story that will bring about all sorts of preventive measures.<br />
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Actually, regardless of what actually happened, if any of these variations are remotely plausible, it should bring about all sorts of preventive measures to address this question-- what should happen if both pilots are unable to fly the plane in the absence of any sort of criminal plot, and there is either nobody on board who can fly it or the cockpit cannot be entered?<br />
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SCENARIO TWO: Crew complicity in a mass murder and possibly suicide<br />
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This is the more straightforward one or the most complicated one, depending on the variations, and there are several variations of this scenario. The primary gist is that one or more of the crew decides that, for whatever reason, this planeload of people is going to be one where everyone deserves to die, with possibly a limited exceptions, or not. But, they cause all the passengers to die, after which they plug in a course that will take them over the most remote reaches of the ocean, where they run out of fuel.<br />
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If it is just one pilot, he has to kill or otherwise incapacitate the other, then barricade himself in the cockpit. He decompresses the main cabin, deploying the masks for the emergency O2 supply which, as in the first scenario, finally runs out and kills all the passengers. Maybe it is both pilots. Maybe it is multiple crew.<br />
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Then, the plane is brought to a lower altitude and the remaining human(s) on board either cruise[s] on into the night psychotically enjoying the quiet and waiting for the plane to run out of fuel. Or, the plan never included dying:<br />
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Once the passengers are dead, the conspirator(s) rob[s] the passengers, taking as much money, jewelry, and other small valuable belongings as possible in the time remaining until the plane is over a planned drop point.<br />
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The conspirator(s) break out jumpsuit(s) and parachute(s), then parachute[s] from the plane over a coordinate where a previously anchored a small boat awaits. <br />
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The plane flies on into the night, eventually crashing into the sea.<br />
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SCENARIO THREE: similar to two, but with passenger hijackers.<br />
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Hijackers demand that the plane turn around and goes to Australia. They have thought ahead enough to demand headings that will take them around radars, but not far ahead enough to know how far they can get at what altitude with the fuel on board. The pilots try to convince them that there is not enough fuel to do what they want, but of course the hijackers don't believe them.<br />
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When it turns out the pilots were correct, they attempt a landing in the ocean, which is far too rough to handle such a landing.<br />
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Any of these things ends equally horribly for the people on board, but those are my crackpot theories.<br />
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<br />Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-969019608276870132014-04-04T12:57:00.003-04:002014-04-04T12:57:39.081-04:00Ukraine/Russia, part two: the other side of the coinIf you do a Google search on <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=how+did+russian+oligarchs+get+so+rich" target="_blank">"how did russian oligarchs get so rich"</a> the results are interesting. One, there are a great many articles answering the question with a title almost identical to the question. Two, there are a lot of answers from relatively reputable sources, and some from less reputable sources.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><br />
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But the answers are interesting, and they start with the failure of the Soviet Union. Did the Soviet Union really fail, and if so, why?<br />
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Yes it really failed. It was not a coup, it was not a foreign orchestrated collapse: it failed. It failed because the only way it could keep going was to borrow money from some of the very same concerns that it's founding philosophy reviled and threatened to tear apart. This is an important point: a house divided against itself cannot stand.<br />
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Why did it need all that money? A simple answer is that the Soviet Union plowed billions of dollars worth of effort, that is man years and materiel, into building a modern society without providing increasingly valuable material incentives to the people doing the building. What does that mean?<br />
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What it means is that if one has a leaky roof and miserable food, and you give one a chance and say "hey, work for me and you can earn a fixed roof and better food", then they will work for you only if that actually happens. In many cases, that did actually happened in the Soviet Union: people got more than they had by working for the state apparatus.<br />
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But, once you have a fixed roof and better food, then the next stretch of work you do should earn you even more and better: a patio, or a bigger apartment, etc.. Thatt only makes sense: because if effort "X" pushes you five miles, then that same effort should push you another file miles, or at least close to that. If it doesn't, then you don't expend the effort. Why bother?<br />
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Once they saw that that next five to ten miles was going to be very hard, the Soviet state put huge amounts of effort into telling people that the things they had were enough, and not to look at the things people in the West had as desirable, while at the same time all Soviet plans revolved around making the Soviet state have everything and more than the West had. It couldn't, because it wasn't realistic, and things that are unrealistic become unreal. So the Soviet union collapsed.<br />
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I didn't mention anything about corruption, because it is a term that implies a certain context. The context is that there is a society which values rules based on the rules' intrinsic value: you are honest because it is a virtue, because truth is highly valued, because truth is what lies at the basis of all advancement and knowing. This is a belief system, you can ascribe to it or not. This particular society chose not to ascribe to it. There was no corruption because it was all corruption. Rules were written, there was a constitution and written documents describing rights, but there was a <b>societal unspoken agreement</b> that these things were meaningless: for show. People couldn't leave the country, they simply were not allowed to unless they escaped.<br />
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Why was there such an agreement? Because people had been systematically murdered, imprisoned and banished based on being processed by state sanctioned miniature lynch mobs who decided that the accused had too many material possessions or were otherwise undesirable. So it had been established as a key tenet of the system that human life was not intrinsically valuable, therefore anything deriving from the notion that human life had intrinsic value was null and void. So the State could write these things in as flowery a language as they might like in order to impress Western idealogues, but everyone involved knew it was a fabrication: that some denouncements in the right ears could ruin a career or end a life. The only way to get ahead was to game the system, to build alliances. So people became very smart at doing that.<br />
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Back to the subject at hand: because the State did put a lot of money and effort into certain things, when it collapsed, those things still existed on a fairly large scale: paper mills, concrete plants, oil refineries, aircraft manufacturers. Because people also knew where the state started, and where it ended off. They were clever survivors, they were the industrious, they did build things, they were smart: people who wanted to accomplish things and found a way to do this despite everything else. Because they had some values that made then want to build a better world for their own pride and for their children. Because they were people who cared about learning, because truth could be found there.<br />
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But, at the time things collapsed, all of it was in disrepair, almost all of it had been mismanaged. Some factories produced aimlessly. Others were filled with betrayed and hostiled workforces.<br />
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Even so, these things were worth something. How much? and to whom?<br />
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Now, what SHOULD have happened? Wasn't all this now the property of the people? Shouldn't some sort of voucher or share system been put into place, where everyone got an equal number of shares? Then, shouldn't it have been sold off to the highest possible bidder, who would then fix it up and get it running again? Then shouldn't the people have been able to redeem their shares, or hold onto them?<br />
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Maybe. But who would make sure that would happen? Probably.But the government wasn't going to sprout a unified patrician wing overnight, if ever.<br />
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It seems like the absence of the notion of a socially active, philanthropic patrician class in Russian society is a product of its isolation. i'm not an expert, but it seems like the most notable projects to "improve the quality of Russian life" were undertaken, this was of the sort of scale and type that would further enrich the rich. Philanthropy is viewed skeptically, as a way to avoid taxes, launder money, or provide a project as means for an associate to snag a lucrative contract. It takes many years, maybe generations, of wealth and stability to produce such a patrician outlook, tempered with pragmatism, and with a certain preference for a cherished cause. You have to focus on something.<br />
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But that didn't happen because of all that had gone before. To someone in the West, it was a huge gamble to invest. Some investment occurred, and some of that was gleefully gobbled up by ex-Soviets with a grudge. Very risky, very adventurous investment that would not pay off in the short term. But, for someone in Russia, there was no capital other than state owned, which meant borrowed or "liberated" capital.<br />
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How could anyone afford anything? Well, because Soviet society was corrupt, shrewd and connected people of course did have more than others and that was that. Because the remaining society continued to be corrupt, certain clerks could be handsomely bribed to record various transactions that transferred the ownership of any number of these things that had never had ledger sheets, or appraisals, or valuations. Who could blame them? All of a sudden you are in a position where you can finally leave this ailing country that was falling down around your ears: a nice bribe under your belt would do the trick. From the point of view of the would-be oligarch, a million dollar bribe that helps close the deal on a $100 million dollar business is a huge return on investment. Theoretically, if the government is corrupt all the way up, so much the better. It's just a matter of the right amount in the right pocket.<br />
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This same sort of things happened in the 1980s in Texas in the US, although somewhat in reverse, when real estate had been artificially elevated through the machinations of government assessors working hand in hand with real estate speculators with large "extended families". Rural real estate near booming cities could be had cheaply. They would pick some of this up, flip the land between one another, sometimes within hours, back and forth, and with each transaction the value would go up. Use the equity to secure loans to build developments on that land: a game of hyper-Monopoly that was finally unraveled when the developments didn't sell as well as projected.<br />
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Nobody is unblemished by some kind of corruption, either handed down by history or directly. But how many revel in corruption, owe their existences to it?<br />
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So, the oligarchs are really the most advanced products of Soviet society: cunning in their ability to work the crumbling Soviet system, shrewd in their choices of business alliances, quick to learn the nuances of gaming the Western system: setting up offshore holding companies where they could hide their direct association with transactions, pragmatic in their acquisitions and willing to apply ruthless, violent force if needed.<br />
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There is a saying: "Earth's Security, Human Integrity". It is true: if large scale abandonment of integrity occurs, this includes the abandonment of the discernment of the valuation of truth and the lack of courage to state it, this results in the inabilty to be true witnesses to the evidence of the real consequences of our actions, and we lose the planet.<br />
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<br />Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-88050194493043227732014-03-20T12:58:00.000-04:002014-03-20T12:58:12.233-04:00This is an electronic music blog, why the politics?Sorry.<br />
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Because some really cool electronic music comes out of the region in question<br />
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thlqGlP_XcE<br />
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There is also some very credible industrial music that is a bit foretelling<br />
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTBL7yjvQ3E<br />
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The Russian sense of music syncretism is different, a different angle. Some purists might say inappropriate, but actually mostly very smart.Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-74272254827096214672014-03-19T07:14:00.003-04:002014-03-19T07:14:28.425-04:00What I think Ukraine should do now.The logistics involved in making Crimea part of Russia are not insignificant. Russia will require the cooperation of Ukraine, and it will take a long time to accomplish.<br />
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In the meantime, there will be all sorts of sponsored subversion of the government as it attempts to get things on the right path. So, the government should pre-empt the subversion: announce it will accept petitions calling for referendum in each Eastern Province that shares a border with Russia. The petitions will need to have 100,000 valid Ukrainian citizen signatures.Once the petitions are submitted, then arrangements will be made to hold and schedule these votes in each province, where the ballot is straightforward and not deceptive.<br />
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The government should announce strongly, compassionately, that its main interest is that the people of Ukraine puruse liberty and happiness in a brotherly and sisterly environment. If a province thinks they have a better chance of doing this with Russia, then so be it.<br />
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If Ukraine is going to move forward, it doesn't need the constant turmoil in the eastern provinces-- this turmoil will be bankrolled by the Putin government. The call for petitions will pre-empt and re-focus the notion of secession as a practical matter. Is this an issue that has been truly burning in people's hearts in the east? Or is it planted there by foreign interference? Establishing a process to determine this will subdue more radical actions that are aimed at supporting Russia's will, and then will allow the government to proceed with removing corruption and setting things right.<br />
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<br />Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-32033044780452053772014-03-12T23:37:00.004-04:002014-03-12T23:37:53.635-04:00Vladimir Putin, a bystander's unwanted opinion...Everybody has an opinion on Vladimir Putin since the Crimea Incursion has begun. Some are very learned, others are very sensationalistic, others are complimentary and yet others are scathing. So, because everyone seems to have an opinion, here is mine, which is probably both none and some of the above.<br />
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I'm writing this in very simple language, so a translation program should be able to effectively convey what is being said.<br />
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<b>The Summary</b> of the article is this:</div>
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More than anything, the situation in Crimea is an experiment, and an opportunity for increasing understanding. The integrity of the Ukrainian state is important, and the recognition that this is a violation of that integrity is important, but this is much less some kind of wild overture to WWIII than it is a very calculated re-set of borders drawn in Soviet times, in this case by a Soviet leader who happened to be an ethnic Ukrainian.<br />
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As always, Oil. It's about oil and natural gas. Russia has a lot of oil, and it surrounds countries with a lot of oil. The Russian Federation is truly a federation, it encompasses a great many different ethnic groups with which Americans are not familiar because we've rarely had a chance to encounter them: how would we? Since the invention of the airplane to the early 1990's, they were under the control of the Soviet Union and even so would be too poor to travel here, and since the 1990's most of them are still too poor to travel. It is not out of the question to see a Yakut tourist at the grand canyon, but it is unlikely. At any rate, this large number of ethnic groups is what makes the Russian Federation a federation. So, while the "outward face" of Russia are these dour, pale gentlemen we see on the news, the Russian Federation consists of a wide assortment of ethnic groups, many of whom are the majority in their respective historical geographic regions.<br />
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It seems that the goal of the Russian government is first to ensure complete control of oil emanating from the areas inhabited historically by non-Russian ethnicities, as well as to control the oil emanating from other countries in Central Asia. Enormous pipelines have been built with the aid of multi-national oil corporations, and Russia needs to secure these pipelines. Some questions are how much Russia should profit from this oil, how much of that should really be under Russian control, given that a lot of this oil does not actually emanate from within Russian Federation territory. But there are not questions mostly of politics, or military strategy. These are questions of commercial ethics and international trade. Surely, the Russian Federation should get some compensation based on oil coming through pipelines on its territory: it bears the burden of securing and hosting these pipelines. The question of how much should be fairly negotiated.<br />
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Now, as a part of the "tide of history", the remnants of what was once the Soviet amalgam are being undone, this amalgam which included countries and ethnic groups forced into that regime's control, and this has resulted in a great deal of tension reduction.<br />
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But, in the eyes of the Russian Federation's leadership, there are some things that remain to be undone, and one of these is the national assignment of sovereignty over Crimea. Because the area has a particular strategic importance, the rather brutal method of invading this area is a huge tension generator. It is a clear breach of international law. But what is more important is what happens next, not what is happening now. It may be that an "all clear" is sounded, the Crimean populous votes overwhelmingly to remain Ukrainian and Russia withdraws once Ukraine is stable and the status quo continues. This seems unlikely, but it should be a possible outcome given a true respect for the will, rights and safety of the people in Crimea. It is important that the Russian leadership indicate that they would honor such an outcome.<br />
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In my opinion, which of course is based on some intensive internet reading, a potential grain of innate intelligence and a sense of past vs. future, the question of the national assignment of responsibility for Crimea should be left up to the people who inhabit that place. That the Russians forced the issue is maybe not a horrible thing, although it was maybe a horribly done thing.<br />
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But it should also be the case that Crimeans who want to live in Ukraine should be able to relocate there freely, and that there would be guarantees that they'd be compensated at fair market value for the property they leave behind. Various bases within the region would be abandoned or held depending on this decision, and the Ukrainian armed services people therein free to go if the decision went that way, taking any and all equipment. Strategic importance aside, it is a more temperate area, much of it having the value of sea front property, and moving to back Ukraine proper would be seen as something of a downgrade, live moving from Florida or Puerto Rico to Iowa or Pennsylvania.<br />
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So: Yes, it is an invasion, a breach of sovereign borders and an attempted "land grab". Yes, it is against international law. Yes, it is both the culmination of a long term plan and rabid opportunism on the Russian leadership's part. It was also a somewhat arbitrary assignment in the first place, which once the Soviet Union dissolved, an international border caused a more rigid formalization of that assignment. Even so, locally in Crimea, there is corruption, a sense that the Russians ran the place much more than the Ukraine, and also there is the reality of the people of Crimea being provided some economic opportunities by the Russian naval presence. At the same time, there is a long term record of Russian disregard for Ukrainian regulations in several aspects.<br />
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The West had some benefit from the arrangement of Crimea being a part of Ukraine, where there was some sense of Ukrainian control over the premiere base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. If Ukraine went to NATO, the Russians would be in the awkward position that the US is in with regards to Guantanamo, where that base's "landlord" is a hostile regime. However, Sevastopol is a much more substantial naval base, and having to rent that sort of facility from NATO would be a very odd conundrum for Russia.<br />
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This is key, then: Putin has gambled, but he has gambled based on a reasonable premise. That premise being that Ukraine will become more integrated with the EU, and that Ukraine will likely become a member of NATO. But in the meantime, there are some things to attend to, and some obvious realities to assert: Russia and Ukraine are economically, historically, culturally and linguistically linked. There are advantages to that for both countries.<br />
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In terms of the EU and US interests, they see the cards falling this way and that, but the larger trend is that Ukraine will be more aligned with the West than previously. At the same time, a shrewd and capable Ukrainian ruler would work both sides of the equation, to get the best of both worlds. Recently, this ruler has made some pointed and poignant observations about a possible hollowness in the promise held out by the west. This is all for the better, because acting with integrity is what is most important in this particular situation.<br />
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In addition, there is something interesting occurring not-so-behind the scenes. The notion of the BRICS bank (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) that would be established along the lines of the IMF, and which would loan money to regimes in developing countries in Africa and elsewhere as an alternative to IMF controlling that same loan and the conditions thereof (in reality, it is likely six of one, half a dozen of the other: there must be conditions to a loan. At the same time, competition is supposed to be good for the consumer).<br />
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For BRICS to be solid, Russia must consolidate control over the materiel running through the pipelines across it's territory, and be solidly regarded as equivalent to NATO in order to negotiate most successfully.<br />
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In addition, there are layers to this that run deeper, with regards to large religious concerns and the control they exert throughout their various regions of the world.<br />
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But, mostly, right now: it is an experiment, and an opportunity for better mutual understanding. Because change happens, it happens in a way we'd prefer it not to, but even so it can surprisingly turn out for the best<br />
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<b>In Depth</b><br />
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We are well aware of the colonial European powers having drawn arbitrary borders throughout the world, in Asia, Africa, North and South America. There have been battles between peoples within these borders to retain or even extend them, mostly in the 17th-20th centuries, and in very many cases the matter is settled.<br />
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It is also the case that some borders that were more or less arbitrarily drawn by the Soviet regime between the various political units in Central Asia and what is now the Russian Federation.<br />
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Included in this set of semi-artificial borders was the assignment of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR. This was done by an ethnic Ukrainian Soviet leader, Nikita Krushchev. True to form for a Soviet leader,he used his office to his personal advantage and to the advantage of his favored constituency. This can also said to hold true for any political leadership, and may be a measurable as a "matter of degrees" where at some point the needle on the gauge points into the "corrupt" zone, and in fact countries have been ranked based on the perceived <a href="http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2013/" target="_blank">level of corruption present.</a> This is not to condemn, but to illustrate the prevailing level of integrity throughout the world.<br />
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There is an interesting saying, and I don't recall where I saw it, but the saying is this:<br />
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EARTH'S SECURITY: HUMAN INTEGRITY</div>
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This is a very first world notion, that somehow just by being good people we ensure our future. The idea is this: one must be objective, selfless and weigh everything against a true measure, otherwise one is lost. If many are subjective, selfish and do not weigh by a true measure, then all are lost. <br />
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This notion is abstract and has a lot of dependencies. If one is starving and scrabbling for food, being selfless is a difficult thing to achieve. If one is oppressed, and integrity can only be exerted under pain of punishment, then this is likewise difficult.<br />
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Conversely, if one has the potential for a great payoff, one that will set them up for life at the cost of their integrity, then it is also difficult.<br />
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With regards to Crimea, as horrified observers, we are at risk of losing objectivity, and we grapple for a sense of the true measure to apply.<br />
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The true measure that is held out to us is the democratic will of the people in Crimea. But of course there is a finger on the scale of that true measure: the election is being constructed in a way that doesn't seem to impose any notion of a minimum vote, and the ballots are being constructed in a way that favors the "unity with Russia" choice, then after it occurs and we don't like the outcome, we are reduced to squabbling about the fairness of the construction of the election.<br />
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Like the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, like apartheid South Africa, operates a great deal in terms of ethnic groups, ethnic "homelands". So, the picture of the Russian Federation is something like this:<br />
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<a href="http://tony.mapledds.com/blago/russia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://tony.mapledds.com/blago/russia.jpg" height="241" width="320" /></a></div>
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In a way that picture is very similar to the United States, where the early colonies that became states are bunched together in the east, and then the "frontier region" states are much larger and sparsely populated. The difference is that, in the Russian Federation, the people who traditionally lived in those frontier regions still exist and are the majority in many of those political units.<br />
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In addition, during the Soviet era, there was both incentive-based and forced Russian settlement in historically non-Russian areas. The theory was to ensure an ethnic Russian presence in the frontiers that was loyal to the Moscow regime. Whether or not this played out in practice and continues to play out is unclear. But when looking at the colored blotches on the map, one should view each blotch as having a central city as it's capitol, and more as a network of city states connected by roads, railways and air routes, than a quilt of densely populated regions.<br />
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Now, Vladimir Putin is the President of this federation, this network, which is extremely large and complex. When something is this large and complex, it helps to have important areas well defined and controlled. This control, and the impression of having this control, has been something of an historical obsession with Russian rulers. There is a reason. In many places, the winters are very difficult, you have to have food stored in order to make it through. You have to heat buildings and houses You have to have sewage treatment, roads and railroads that operate in harsh winter conditions.<br />
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In a more temperate region where winters are mild and resources more abundant, there is naturally a sense that things will tend to go well more often than not. In a harsher region, there is a sense that things will go wrong more often than not. When this is the sense of how things go, you want to have more control, to avoid more things going wrong. This seems utterly natural, then: not only does the government want to exert more control, but the governed want to make sure that things are in place to get through the winter. If this means some hardship, then that is borne with varying degrees of acceptance.</div>
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So this is a disadvantage, that much of the far flung federation is sparsely populated. People do tend to cluster in cities, connected with some logistical network for supply, which makes it easier.<br />
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However, the Russian Federation does have a great advantage: it has a lot of oil under it, and it surrounds neighbors that have a lot of oil, in such a way that their oil has to go through Russia-- through Russian based pipelines-- to get to market. These pipelines are the easy route from point A to point B. The pipelines have been built in concert with multi-national oil corporations, whose economic power operates in a separate realm from that of public funded works. This oil and gas is a big advantage, and they are trying to maximize that advantage, to ensure they can always get through the winter. This is maybe overly naive/simplistic, but my reading supports this view.</div>
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Now, imagine that after all that oil or natural gas goes through Russia, it has to go through <u>one</u> <u>last</u> <u>neighbor</u> to the West in order to get to market, to be sold, in order to have what's needed to get through the winter. At that point, it is out of Russian control. </div>
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That neighbor is, for the most part, Ukraine. That is the one neighbor you really want to be able to depend on. However, just recently, that neighbor has become unstable, and it can't pay it's bills, which include some really big bills owed to Russia.</div>
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So, what would you want to do if you were President of the Russian Federation? You'd want to make sure that instability was no longer an issue, that control was in place, and you'd also want to be able to recoup any losses from those unpaid bills, by getting something tangible in hand. Like, real estate.</div>
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That's pretty much what he did.</div>
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Simply put, Russia is sitting on a great deal of oil, and also sitting around a great deal of oil. Oil, natural gas, a whole bunch of it. And they want to sell it at a good price to people who can afford to buy it. </div>
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There is one thing, which is an important thing, and that is getting it to the market. They need pipelines. Huge, immensely long pipelines. But these can afford to be built, because after all they pay for themselves in months. However, they also need to go across some other countries before they can get to the "tail end" of the distribution system where the paying customers are.</div>
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That is where Ukraine is very important. Ukraine is important because a great many pipelines run through it. Natural gas, a lot of it, and pipelines, so many they could almost lose track of where the gas is going, because there is so much.</div>
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The customers are the western economies that need it and can afford it. Russia is in a very good position in this regard, because their customers are well established and generally prosperous. However, Ukraine, where the pipelines run through, is not. </div>
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Why is it not? It has rich farmland, it has a frontage to the Black Sea where ships can offload, it borders several other countries, all of which are members of the EU with the exception of Belarus. Bordering EU members include Poland, the sixth most populous member of the EU.</div>
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The Ukrainian pipelines, come in straight from Russia on its eastern border and fan out like the tines on a leaf rake on its western border. Ukraine's culture is historically entwined with Russia's, where in the late 800s AD the seeds of what became the Russian Empire were planted by the rule of a few Vikings, with a strong ethical and legal code, and who ruled over a vigorous population of Slavs who tended to quarrel but were also situated in some very prosperous farmland. It seems that the original Viking population was rapidly and totally assimilated during and after setting things in order, which included conquering the city that became Kyiv. This wide flung, loose confederation of the Kievan Rus found itself situated favorably around a valuable pipeline of that time, the eastern trade route known as the Silk Road. </div>
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Now, whether the Rus were Viking mostly or Slavs mostly, or some of both; or whether or not what is now Russia proper was once all "Bulgars", or whether it was once all "Khazaria" or some of both, is something that maybe only a few people care about. But the point is that the richness of the trade routes required that somebody guard it from raiders, and that fortified cities be built along those routes where goods could be traded and preparations could be made for the next leg of the trader's journey. By the late 800s AD, the Khazars who build Kyiv were conquered by the Rus, which became the Kievan Rus, all in that area that we now call Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.</div>
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What is more purely Russia, historically, is not the huge sprawling "bear atop the continent", but the area that extends east from the border of Ukraine, which is near the Don River, to the Urals in it's southernmost part, and east and from the borders of Belarus, Latvia and Estonia to the Urals in the northernmost part. </div>
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I mention the Don River because it is considered somewhat a geographical boundary. To the west of the Don, there are some Turkic people, but mostly other peoples. To the east of the Urals, there are mostly nothing but Turkic peoples and Russians that were purposefully transplanted there in order to help cement the Soviet Union. Many of the subdivisions of the Russian Federation contain specific types of Turkic peoples, or Siberian peoples: ethnicities that few people in the US have ever even heard of. That is a generalization, but the current Russian Federation has 83 subdivisions ranging from single major cities to giant territories that span the federation from north to south, and there at least as many ethnic types encompassed by these subdivisions.</div>
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At any rate, speaking geographically, what is more purely Russia consists of a relatively small portion of the overall Federation, and it does not encompass the areas where the bulk of the oil is being found.<br />
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Now imagine that you're President of this place. Imagine you really, truly want this place to be the greatest it can be. You need to really know what all those ethnic types are, and you need to be able to help them out when they need it. This is important, because many of these places are very hard to reach, especially in winter.<br />
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Again, the winter can be very hard. Again, this kind of winter makes for a certain kind of thinking: you want to constantly maximize your advantages, and minimize your disadvantages, because a mistake can mean you don't have enough to get through the winter. So if you are a good governor, a ruler and a man of the people, you want to make sure all of your people can always make it through the winter at the very least. In a federation so large, just this is not simple.</div>
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Then, you want to trade. You need to compete with the rest of the world, because what some of the best advantages come from being able to operate in the global marketplace. You need good, desirable products at a good price, with high availability. But that which you can produce locally that brings high value internationally is good to have a lot of.<br />
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What better thing to have than oil? It will not last indefinitely, but that only makes having a lot of it a big advantage.<br />
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So, as the leader of the Russian Federation, you want to continually maximize and ensure that advantage. Vladimir Putin is doing this. There are civil rights, human rights problems that exist that the West doesn't agree with. He is popular some places, despised in others. Not too much different from any other world leader in that regard.<br />
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But to have laid in wait for Crimea to be picked like a plum, to have engineered the Georgian defeat and partitioning of its ethnic enclaves, this is very troubling to Western eyes.<br />
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Is it the further undoing, additional de-Sovietization? Setting things straight, tidying up? Of is it chess-board like skirmishing with Western interests. Or both? It manifests itself as being both irrespective of intent.<br />
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Imagining this through European eyes, you are troubled. You are dependent on this gas and oil from a neighbor that has proven to have a militaristic, intractable, greedy and opportunistic way of looking at things. You have some local production, but it is further away from many of the centers where gas is needed and it is not enough. You can bring it in on tankers from the US, which has an abundance of natural gas and which trades fairly, but this is costly and can be dangerous.<br />
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How can you ensure that this Russian trading partner always acts with integrity, and uses strength wisely? Mostly, you must negotiate from a position of power.<br />
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But this is a big question. It is a big question for Russia, it is important for Russia because it truly is in a place to be a long term, stable and valued trading partner that can truly be prosperous and peaceful, and it is a big question for the world. It must act with integrity. It must act with wisdom and as a predictable, peaceful presence.<br />
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So, again, more than anything, this is both an experiment, and an opportunity for better understanding. <br />
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Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-12075024406463088122014-03-04T20:58:00.000-05:002014-03-04T20:58:43.612-05:00Playing every third Sunday Night at the Black Squirrel in DC.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ9fWXTtwUG20qg82BIUI5mrAc1jCrDKrEFT29WxjhyTf0kJMa-bEw5u75c0Rx071VD-ueLYFnbkrJLyZa6iK5GGTSQvSwGoKG-3n2QcDy8AKGl4Kh8aOStsFLZ-lNylg028i2wQ/s1600/BS-3-16.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ9fWXTtwUG20qg82BIUI5mrAc1jCrDKrEFT29WxjhyTf0kJMa-bEw5u75c0Rx071VD-ueLYFnbkrJLyZa6iK5GGTSQvSwGoKG-3n2QcDy8AKGl4Kh8aOStsFLZ-lNylg028i2wQ/s1600/BS-3-16.png" height="228" width="320" /></a></div>
Yay!<br />Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-32958757751451825742013-07-29T12:54:00.003-04:002013-07-29T12:54:44.598-04:00Blow the dust off the blog, Some realizationsJust a brief note, the previous post had some things quoted and they ended up getting weird background/font colors applied. This was not some kind of auto-redaction applied by Google under order of the NSA or such. As far as I know anyway :).<br />
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This is to post something that I posted elsewhere in a discussion on a message board:<br />
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"...like everyone else there are some things the gov't has done here there and everywhere that I don't like. But I have come to the following realization about the world we live in:<br />
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You don't hear a great outcry of "it's not fair" from the masses in a way that intends to protect the rights of minority "b" where there's a majority of "a" anywhere else in the world but in the first world. <br />
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In most of the rest of the world in any given country it is the primary focus of majority "a" to get minority "b" to either die or go somewhere else, regardless of the label you want to insert for either a or b. In these countries, this condition is not regarded as some kind of inequity or deficiency. It is regarded as the way to be. In many cases, the governments of these countries will pretend it's otherwise in order to get aid money, and there are cases where once they get the aid money they apply it to getting rid of the minority opposition in their country.<br />
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So I guess if you look out on that political landscape and you find yourself having to operate in it, there would be a tendency[on the part of the first world] to adopt a viewpoint of 'well, those people are f'ed up no matter how you cut it, so maybe I should use that to my advantage'. <br />
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Every single first world country in one way or the other has used developing nations' dismal backwater racist ethnist political tensions to their advantage and reaped big economic benefits."<br />
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Now, this is kind of a different thought for me. I like to think of an idea world where everyone in some kind of position of influence is trying to reconcile issues between "majorities" and "minorities". People like music, everyone likes music, so eventually everyone can "sing along", rise above, dream and aspire and so on.<br />
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But if you think about it, not only is it not the case, but it is exception: most any country outside of the first world Europe and North America that countries have or are trying to reconcile their internal differences. Instead, elites among the majority become the "haves" and the rest become "have nots". As long as the majority gets to identify with the "elite haves" they feel like they are haves as well, or at least they have a chance to become so. It works in a similar way with the elities in the minority-- the minority thinks "well, if we can only do this or that we could be there too." And in some cases they do, but most of those cases are in the "first world" where the laws and processes exist for people to invent, patent, create businesses and stay in business without having to pay extortionist bribes<br />
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You can be alarmist, or smug, or concerned, or shrug, but you pretty much have to say that is the reality.<br />
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Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-52207976734009429162013-06-10T13:13:00.001-04:002013-06-11T16:18:31.451-04:00Upcoming new song collection, and IronyFestI will be putting out another collection of songs in that unified set once referred to as an "album".<br />
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My 11 year old daughter asked me "What's an album?" the other day, and I had to explain about records and record covers and how they were kind of like a photo album so they called them albums. I was about to look up the actual etymology of the word "album" when she sensed my intent and said "ok thanks" and ran from the room.<br />
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But because you, dear reader, cannot run screaming from the room, I offer the following from the most wonderful <a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=album" target="_blank">Online Etymology Dictionary</a>:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
album (n.) <br />
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1650s, from Latin album "white color, whiteness," neuter of albus "white" (see alb). In classical times "a blank tablet on which the Pontifex Maximus registered the principal events of the year; a list of names." Revived 16c. by German scholars whose custom was to keep an album amicorum of colleagues' signatures; meaning then expanded into "book to collect souvenirs." According to Johnson, "a book in which foreigners have long been accustomed to insert autographs of celebrated people." Photographic albums first recorded 1859. Meaning "long-playing gramophone record" is by 1951, because the sleeves they came in resembled large albums.</blockquote>
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...and so we have it. So a digital blank tablet will be filled with the principal musical endeavors of the past while since I put out the last one that was resoundingly ignored, due to my marvelous marketing aplomb which consists of doing hardly any marketing at all. Because I refuse to sully my pursuits with such things, you see.
It's been so long since I've written anything, because I've been very busy with all kinds of things which appears to the be the condition that the world wishes all humans to be in.
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There is something interesting about the most recent revelations regarding the various security arms of the United States' of America collection of intelligence from within its' borders in a manner usually reserved for scheming foreigners.
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The revelations come from yet another whistleblower, conscientious leaker, attention seeking nobody, constitutional idealogue-patriot or hated and hateful treasonous leech (depending on one's point of view). It is very disturbing information, really, that all of the big companies that provide information and communication services are involved in turning over information about what goes on across those services to the Gum Mint, in a way very reminiscent of the way that the nefarious Chinese Communist Gum Mint monitors their population's online activities.
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So what the hell is going on nowadays?<br />
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My conclusion is that the 21st century so far has been nothing less than an IronyFest thus far. Let's recap:
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<ul>
<li>In the first year of the new century, religious extremists who support a rollback to a medieval social structure break the lying, stealing and killing commandments and use high-technology jet airplanes to destroy modern architecture. Their green cards arrived in the mail shortly thereafter. </li>
</ul>
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<li> In the first decade, we find out that the people who so carefully ensure that money is lent to people who reliably pay it back are in fact involved in a free-for-all mortgage application blowout where manicurists who claim that you make $300K get a loan that is "robo-signed". In response to that, the financial institutions crack down by raising credit card interest rates as high as possible.</li>
</ul>
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<li> Then, we found that the people who apply the sort of advanced mathematical calculations to package "derivatives" basically pay the people who are supposed to apply the same sort of mathematical calculations to rate the validity of those packages, and we find no real advanced math used at either end other than that applied to calculating what they might be able to get away with, and then that which is used to send signals to their Ivy League shoulders in order to elicit a shrug. </li>
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<li> THEN, we found out that our Gum Mint was doing all kinds of things that seemed like the sorts of things we wouldn't want honest, straight-shooting, fair dealing, God-trusting Americans to do because somebody gave a private in the Armed Forces the key to all of the information about everything sort of embarassing. OK, well: they are operating in a world full of sneaky, hateful people that can't be trusted, so they sometimes have to get their shirtsleeves a little dirty. </li>
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<li> Now, we find that the Gum Mint believes that we honest, straight-shooting, fair dealing, God-trusting Americans that live right here in U.S.A. are sneaky, hateful people that can't be trusted, and they need to collect a lot of information about the phone calls and emails they send, just like the Chinese Communist Gum Mint does.
We found this out because a guy who was hired as a contractor was apparently let in on the scheme, and he told everybody because he thought it was so not right... </li>
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<ul>
<li> And then, he ran away to China. </li>
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IronyFest 2000-2100 !!!<br />
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[edit] Forgot something, In China, this week there is a holiday. The holiday is celebrated throughout the country and even throughout South East Asia, it has been celebrated for centuries. It is the Duanwu Festival also called the "Dragon Boat Festival", and the "Double Fifth" because it occurs on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar. From Wikipedia:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;">The sun is considered to be at its strongest around the time of summer solstice ("mid-summer" in traditional East Asia) when the daylight in the northern hemisphere is the longest. The sun, like the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_dragon" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px; text-decoration: none;" title="Chinese dragon">Chinese dragon</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;">, traditionally represents masculine energy, whereas the moon, like the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(mythology)" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px; text-decoration: none;" title="Phoenix (mythology)">phoenix</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;">, traditionally represents feminine energy. The summer solstice is considered the peak annual moment of male energy</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-5" style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duanwu_Festival#cite_note-5" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">[5]</a></sup><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;"> while the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, represents the peak annual moment of feminine energy. The masculine image of the dragon is thus naturally associated"</span></blockquote>
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People get in really big canoe-type boats that are decorated as dragons and race them: it actually looks like it is pretty exciting, community-building holiday. People cooperating to paddle these boats as fast as possible.<br />
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There are some differing academic opinions as to the reason for the holiday, shrouded in antiquity as its origins are. The belief is that it was always practiced widely, possibly as an ancient celebration, and also that particular historical figures, both who died in water-related suicides, are associated with the holiday. The admiration for these figures caused villagers with boats to race to save the revered figure from the drowning, and then if too late they could at least recover the body to prevent the dishonorable devouring by river wildlife, so they could be buried with the respect they deserved..<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;"><br /></span>
The best historical figure as a candidate for the subject of the celebration is:<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qu_Yuan" target="_blank">Qu Yuan</a> who was a scholar and high ranking minister in the state of Chu who advocated an alliance of smaller states against the expanding Qin state, However, he was discredited in a false way by a scheming colleague, and was exiled, During his exile, he wrote one of China's most highly regarded collections of poetry. Long story short, Qu Yuan was very wary of the growing power of Qin and opposed any cozying up to this giant. His ruler and other advisers thought otherwise, and so Qu was out. In exile, he wrote the first collection of Chinese poetry with an author's name attached to it.<br />
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But while he pondered and wrote poetry in his exile, sure enough Qin had maneuvered politically and militarily to capture the capital of Chu. His advice not to trust Qin was good, all along, and his exile while it was being ignored was all the more painful. Now that the worst case scenario had played out, his despair became unbearable, and he walked into a river carrying a large rock, drowning himself.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;">Popular legend has it that villagers carried their dumplings and boats to the middle of the river and desperately tried to save Qu Yuan after he immersed himself in the Miluo River, but were too late to do so. However, in order to keep fish and evil spirits away from his body, they beat drums and splashed the water with their paddles, and they also threw rice into the water both as a food offering to Qu Yuan's spirit and also to distract the fish away from his body. However, late one night, the spirit of Qu Yuan appeared before his friends and told them that he died because he had taken himself under the river. Then, he asked his friends to wrap their rice into three-cornered </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px; text-decoration: none;" title="Silk">silk</a> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;">packages to ward off the dragon. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;">These packages became a traditional food known as </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C3%B2ngzi" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px; text-decoration: none;" title="Zòngzi">zòngzi</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;">, although the lumps of rice are now wrapped in reed leaves instead of silk. The act of racing to search for his body in boats gradually became the cultural tradition of</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_boat" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px; text-decoration: none;" title="Dragon boat">dragon boat</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;"> racing, which is held on the anniversary of his death every year. Today, people still eat </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;">zòngzi</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;"> and participate in dragon boat races to commemorate Qu Yuan's sacrifice on </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duanwu_Festival" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px; text-decoration: none;" title="Duanwu Festival">Duanwu</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;">, the fifth day of the fifth month of the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calendar" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px; text-decoration: none;" title="Chinese calendar">Chinese calendar</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;">. </span></blockquote>
Not exactly sure how dumplings came into the mix as they raced to save Qu Yuan, but this is the story. It is a very, very sad story. The "hero" is heroic not for what he did, or for what he said in his job as an adviser, but for the lasting poetic legacy that he was able to produce while in disfavor. Ultimately, while Qu Yuan's earthly existence was washed away by his river of sadness, and his beloved country was washed away by the tide of politics, his poetry endured and floated above all of it, remaining even into the current age.<br />
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This story is applicable in various contexts, but a sad point is that Qu Yuan in his age could do nothing with his clarity and purity of understanding of belief other than to fatally drown it. In our age we should ask, "What should have been different so that Qu Yuan might have convinced the king and saved his country?".<br />
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<br />Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-38200141992855147252013-01-04T16:42:00.002-05:002013-01-04T16:52:44.271-05:00Very Important Things, thoughts, "Idle No More"I've written in my blog about this fellow, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgR6uaVqWsQ" target="_blank">Zizek</a>, before. He has criticized, been criticized, analyzed, been analyzed, and seems to have consumed voractious learning as well as dispensed it. It usually takes a lot longer for him to get a point across, and part of this is mainly because to so many audiences he is new so he takes time to frame his context. But first watch the video if you would because it frames the context herein. Also, he is getting to that point of course where he's not quite "avante garde" but just "garde", and so pop-culturally dismissable and because he's pop-culturally dismissable you must pay that much more attention to the short things he formulates.<br />
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Because he is a person who is finding his way. Despite being steeped in some of the deepest thinking that the modern world has formulated, he is merely a person finding his way but to me his words beg to be heard.<br />
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There is a sort of movement going on, and the movement is called "Idle No More". It is a native American movement, which started in Canada in response to a bill that the current PM there was forcing through. It has resonated with many people because it is a concretization of some of the more cogent and less easily dismissed "conspiracy/truther think" which has become popular on the internet, which has formed a sort of hard "conceptual kernel" that is coloring all manner of things, from movies to TV shows to satirical faux twitter personas.<br />
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The conceptual kernel, in a nutshell (harhar) is this: there are people who are in power who want more power, and what they seek is to dispossess everyone they can of something that will add to that power. It might be your time, or labor, or financial equity, or your ability to mount a physical defense, but they will work insidously, patiently and continually to pry it out of your hands.<br />
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"They" will do this because it is "their" nature and training. And of course there is always the Pogoism of who they and us is, but the notion here is that this "they" really has a coordinated means to ensure their plans succeed. So there is also the notion of "just because you're irrationally afraid of a wild conspiracy doesn't mean there isn't something like what you're afraid of really going on".<br />
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At any rate, because of a great many things, there's been this drumbeat on the internet about the impending Orwellian reality that the world is converging towards, pushed along by the pop apocaplypse.movement and various "weirdo alternative thinking" that is normally on the fringe but has washed into the mainstream.<br />
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And the thing is this: suddently, it really isn't all that "weirdo". I mean, some of it really is, lizard people and all that but those things are almost kind of like "props" to facilitate the understanding of the concept, because some of it is really something that, like the dimly seen form emerging from the mist. is about to break into our cognitive space and it is our reflection in our own eyes.<br />
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Another "concept in a nutshell" is this: there are "the colonizers" and there are "the indians". The actual racial identity and ethnicity of these is not actually the issue at this point. It describes two modes of human operation. Both modes are human. This is what's hard to swallow, both modes are human. so they are related. The trick is to get them to relate in alignment, and not in opposition, on a true long term path.<br />
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It is the matter of each of us finding our way as one human among our relations. It is the matter of our purpose, as I mentioned before, and it helping us to find our way while at the same time it being our way.<br />
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It's getting where words fail, but like the Zizek says in this video, it's a matter of thinking, and good thinking, and thinking that sits well, and finding the time and space to think, and just think without worrying about whether the thought will cause doing, because it is not doing that has to happen after the thought, it is expression, real expression, that has a force.<br />
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There is a lot of bitterness, people wrapped it up in a cloak or a flag or a fur and they call it purpose but it is really not wholesome purpose, it is the snarling reflex resulting from a previous wounding. At the same time, that bitterness is not necessarily unaligned with that which can convert into clarity and bring about the complete dispersion of bitterness.<br />
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It is a Giant Thing, the implications of Idle No More. For my way, I find it very true to listen and think and think well, because it is the time for others to be busy and no longer idle, but we all have to find our ways as each of us among all of us. All of us forever have been grappling with the human condition, and we need some time to really think.Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-16470229379147462772012-12-20T17:00:00.002-05:002012-12-20T17:00:59.040-05:00Averting the worst case consquences from violent actorsI read this today about <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/sales-of-kids-bullet-proof-backpacks-soar/2012/12/20/6cba668a-4a1e-11e2-820e-17eefac2f939_story.html?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost" target="_blank">bulletproof backpacks</a> for children and <a href="http://www.abc2news.com/dpp/news/national/would-arming-teachers-keep-our-schools-safer" target="_blank">arming teachers</a>, and so I write this brief post.<br />
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Putting a crunchy shell around the little piggy should not be the first thing to think about if you are trying to thwart big bad wolves.<br />
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If you want to avoid a big bad wolf, you don't build a straw house then sit inside it holding a gun that you're not sure how to use, dressed in an outfit that makes you harder to chew. <br />
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Of course, first you build a brick house or a castle.<br />
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Then even better, you set up a perimeter around your house that will detect the presence of big bad wolves and inhibit their approach. On the brick house's lawn you have all manner of things that detect things that seem to be big bad wolves and alert you to their presence.<br />
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Then, once they approach the brick house, you make it more difficult to get in. Castles had a great security mechanism called a <a href="http://%22bent%20entrance%22/" target="_blank">"bent entrance"</a>. Basically, it was a hallway that an attacker had to walk through with at least one turn in it. This meant that they wouldn't see what was beyond that turn, and also that the entrance could be instrumented with windows and angled archer's windows, and which closed remotely at the far end. But it wasn't so obstructive that significant traffic could not move in and out of the castle under normal circumstances.<br />
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So, if they get to that point, you have the big bad wolf in a bent entrance.<br />
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If the wolf has the wherewithal to break into the door at the end of the bent entrance, upon their first attempt the most urgent and alarming klaxon possible should sound, along with a silent alarm that would call help.<br />
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This allows everyone in the castle to get to battle positions or safety, depending on their role, and alerts the countryside.<br />
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But if the door is broken, then, on the other side of the door is another bent entrance! And then, when they went through the broken door, a door that would slide down on the other side of the broken door! You see? Now you've trapped the wolf.<br />
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All during this time people inside the castle are manning the archer's windows that point into the bent entrances and the people who aren't archers have gotten into their safe positions.<br />
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Now the wolf is trapped and surrounded by arrows.<br />
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Also, these things needn't be medieval or prison-like in their function or aesthetic. In a bank lobby, there is significant security, and even more security between a person in the lobby and the vault, and bank lobbies can be pleasant enough. Surely a classroom full of children is worth more than what's in a bank vault.<br />
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If we think about the most recent tragedies perpetrated by wolves, we see that no alarms at all were triggered upon the initial illicit entry. Remember the video of the 9/11 hijacker strolling through airport security? Recall the description of the person entering the back entrance of the movie theatre? Think about how loud a firearm is and then realize that people inside a building whose door is being shot open either still can't hear it or understand the implication of the sound they are hearing?<br />
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Then, think about how the most recent shooter incident on the Virginia Tech campus after their initial tragedy was thwarted by a series of sightings of someone walking along with something that appeared to be a rifle, how these sightings were conveyed immediately to authorities and how the police swarmed over the campus while faculty locked down and students sheltered in place. Nobody was shot, no shots were fired. Was it a false alarm?<br />
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If it was or wasn't, who cares? It had a happy ending.<br />
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<br />Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-19625865383936884712012-12-19T13:35:00.001-05:002012-12-19T13:38:01.400-05:00Some more on the whole 2012 thing...I think I'm like a lot of people when I want to be a part of some new spiritual/cultural/intellectual dawning/awakening event. Even if that event is the end of the physical world as we know it. So, I will freely admit, the thought of a worldwide ascension to a higher plane is not something I'd be totally against, even if it meant a giant catastrophic extinction event.<br />
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Other people would think that's crazy. Understand I am absolutely not saying this is something I think we should try to bring about, but that if a worldwide extinction event were to happen due to gigantic forces beyond our control, I tend to look at as all of humanity moving to some different plane of being. </div>
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The various outre' theories about the impending end of the world have got me to thinking about things and I've gotten a lot of amusement from it. A lot! One way I do this is by giving the doomsayers the benefit of a doubt: "Ok, you're right, it's going to end! But, gosh, just <i>how </i>is that going to happen?" and then try to get all the crazy theories to mesh somehow. So, treat it like a hypothetical, "If the world was to end on a certain day without any warning, how could we see this as feasibly happening?"</div>
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1) So far, any asteroids large enough to cause a giant kaboom that have whizzed near us have missed, and there are none on the radar screen. But that doesn't mean there isn't one that we haven't seen yet!! Asteroids explode in the atmosphere all the time before they are discovered, or just hours or days after they are discovered.<br />
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2) The sun, gigantic explosions coming off the face of the sun and hurtling a massive amount of energy towards us. Now, that sort of thing has been going on forever, but we could have a really big one, and we'd have only days to react!!<br />
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3) Finally, intense radiation from some source outside of our solar system. A supernova within a 25 light year radius could do it. Can we predict supernovas?? Shouldn't we be carefully watching all the nearby stars for this kind of thing?? A star could have already exploded nearby, undetected, sending a deadly blast of invisible radiation hurtling our way, to arrive at some unknown time..</div>
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So there are those things. Now, in past blog posts I have amused myself with "what if" musings about an apocalypse, but the items on the above list have one thing in common: there's not a damn thing that can be done about them. There is maybe a perspective that one gets from contemplating these things, and that's a positive, but if you actually worry about them, then that is only harmful.</div>
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Then, there is the "government knows that this is coming, but they're not telling us" aspect of this genre of thinking. This is a widely popular mode of thought game, and like a lot of these thought games it skips over some essential realities, the primary one being "if an extinction level event can be predicted, and our government knew, then what if other governments know?". </div>
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Because, for one, for better or worse, the government is charged with dealing with just this sort of wide-ranging catastrophe,and for another, do you really want everybody freaking out all at once? Where we might like it to go something like the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=louXPUW7tHU" target="_blank">David Bowie song, "Five Years"</a>, it wouldn't be as orderly as that. People regarding the notion of being blasted into oblivion by an extinction event as somehow a path to a higher spiritual plane being decidedly in the minority, who can imagine what last minute scores would be settled either personally or internationally given the knowledge that it is a matter of days left for the world? The real game would be the various governments wondering about what other governments might know. So of course it would be a closely guarded secret, and possibly used by less scrupulous government officials for their own benefit, but not kept secret out of malice for the populace at large.</div>
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In China, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/mayan-apocalypse-prediction-china-detains-100-people-for-spreading-end-of-the-world-rumours-as-california-dashes-for-the-survival-bunkers-8423618.html" target="_blank">people are being arrested for spreading Nibiru-like rumors</a>, and in the US these stories are <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/nasa-asks-public-nibiru-talk-article-1.1210389" target="_blank">generally exasperating scientists</a>. Setting aside any of the religiously oriented prophecies, there is a long, rich history of pseudo-scientific doom cults and people making themselves famous with world catastrophe predictions based on some physical event due to occur. It takes just a few ingredients: a commonly understood principle (cyanide kills things) an unusual cosmic event (Halley's Comet) and a more esoteric observation (a scientific analysis of Halley's comet that indicated at least a portion of it was cyanide-bearing ice). Therefore,"Oh no, we're going to fly through the tail of Halley's comet, we're all gonna die!" </div>
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Now, the best part about coming up with some kind of doomsday narrative is that you look up information to either support it, improve it or debunk it. So the "we're all gonna die" aspect of it provides some motivation to know more, but after doing some reading it's "well, we're not all gonna die... but this and this and that sure is interesting". </div>
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So, maybe the best view is to take the predictions for the end of the world in a couple of days as a learning opportunity.</div>
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Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-78296180797914541882012-11-29T17:09:00.001-05:002012-11-30T14:08:13.232-05:00November Native American History Month thoughtsI have a troubling interest in American Indian history. It is troubling because, it troubles me as a firmly established member of the Colonizing population that there are many things to come to terms with when considering this history. <i>(note, this post has been edited slightly since it's original, to add some formatting, emphasis and explanation, and to correct errors)</i><br />
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The reason for my interest is not crystal clear to me, but it has a lot to do with trying to understand humanity as a whole, and also trying to deal with some inconsistencies in the more convenient narrative I've been taught and the actual, more detailed history. So better said, the interest is, well: interesting.<br />
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But the material is troubling.<br />
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Along with this interest, a notion as to the purpose of humankind.has emerged.<br />
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You want to know what your purpose is? Well, here's what I think it is: you can try it on for size:<br />
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It is to reconcile one's beliefs with reality, and to reconcile one's beliefs that conflict with others' with one another, and in turn to reality..A Christian way of saying this is "To love God, and to love others as you would be loved". This way of saying The Purpose will be referred to later with regard to reconciliation with reality, but saying it this way does not change The Purpose: that is, be you atheist, animist or agnostic, The Purpose remains the same..<br />
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If you care not to consider this as valid, whether you are Indian or Colonizer, no matter, you can read on. It won't change the history discussion.<br />
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The pursuit of this interest and the resulting notion of this purpose has provided a wealth of insight. From conversations and correspondence with Native scholars and teachers online, from some gatherings including some in support of Native sovereignty and talking with people there, and of course reading a lot of books, both by mainstream historians, Native authored histories, older writings by American frontiersman, and even those who were called commie hippies in the 1970s, <br />
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So the views expressed herein are not from a credentialed expert, then, but from an amateur both amazed and troubled by the input and conclusions therefrom.<br />
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Having said that, the convenient narrative is very useful, because it lends a lot of insight to the narrating culture, the colonizing culture, and it isn't wholly untrue. However, because it is convenient, it does omit a lot of information and has a built-in bias.<br />
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If there is something to remember, it is this:<br />
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<li>The Colonizer history can, and is, viewed through a port hole. </li>
<li>The Indian views history through a wall-to-wall-to-ceiling picture window.</li>
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So, our view causes Colonizers to say things like "but that treaty was a century ago" and "why can't you get over it?".<br />
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Their view causes the Indians, at worst, to say nothing to people who can't share it and at best they are both understandably tired and mischievously clever at trying to get non-Indian people to at least glimpse it.<br />
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Those Colonizers who may have a passing interest in the history of the Colonizer/Indian relationship tend to see two milestones in the relationship "time of contact" and "USA". <br />
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Those Indians who have a passing interest in the history of the relationship see thousands of years of "normal", then their individual nation's struggle against a catastrophic human tsunami, with varying outcomes based on the nation, and then a human rights and sovereignty struggle.<br />
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Centuries of calm, followed by a massive pan-cultural calamity that still continues in different ways, and at different intensities.<br />
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Then, important things to understand that are often forgotten or widely misunderstood, please forgive any obvious points as intended for a less familiar audience.<br />
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<li>The relationship between Colonizer and Indian is much older than the United States of America. Therefore, the "foundation" for the relationship is firmly set in pre-Independence times, in the absence of any of the ideals regarding equality and human rights established as part of founding of the United States. </li>
<li>There was a single minded purpose to colonizing the Americas: enriching the established European enterprises as embodied by nations and sponsoring companies. To ascribe the settlement of North America to the notion of pilgrims escaping persecution is maybe a noble notion, but more of a sidebar in the overall true arc of history. Canada was the <a href="http://www.canadiana.ca/hbc/intro_e.html" target="_blank">Hudson Bay </a>company before it was Canada Virginia was <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/fasttrack101/jamestown-and-the-charter-of-the-virginia-company-of-london-presentation" target="_blank">The Virginia Company of London</a> before it was the Commonwealth of Virginia, and so on. Every settlement a sponsor, and every sponsor a royal government that it was beholden to tribute. Decisions that are made by the Colonizers that seem to favor Indians in the relationship are made strategically in order to ensure the continued enrichment of these sponsors.</li>
<li>The number of Indian cultures is at least as vast as the number of European cultures and subcultures. There is no "American Indian language", there is no "Native headress". There are hundreds of Native languagess and Indian clothes, dwellings, practices, religions and cultures. </li>
<li>Europeans, all humans, were just as "tribal" as Indians at the time of contact. Circumstances that did not exist for Indigenous People caused Middle Easterners, Asians and Europeans to become highly militaro-hierarchical hyperpossessors, and adopt all of the behaviors and pursuits pertinent to that schema, as laid out in amazingly well in <a href="http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/" target="_blank">Guns, Germs and Steel</a>.</li>
<li>The convenient narrative goes that when the colonists arrived, they were poor and not very able to feed themselves. The Indians helped them. This is true, but the Indians helped them strategically as well, to serve their own interests. The relationships differed from nation to nation.</li>
<li>The Colonists had things that the Indians did not, so once they got over the initial hardships of establishing self-sustaining settlements, they were able to apply the majority of their energy to the harvesting of resources and accumulation of wealth. The Indians "had land". This is widely understood and reflected in the "convenient narrative". However, what is not as plain is that the Indians had other "things", some of them less tangible things, that the Colonists did not, and this is not just the survival knowledge. The freedom to hunt anywhere, for example, was an extraordinary luxury to people who came from a place where hunting on a nobleman's land was a hanging offense. Effective medicines, congress-like governments, innovative means of personal water transportation, all of which were unregulated and freely available.</li>
<li>Yes, Indians were decimated by disease, wars, and outright Colonial genocidal strategies. Unspeakably cruel acts were performed by both sides, but those committed by the Indians tend to continue to color the convenient narrative and the popular stereotype. The mainstream early settler depiction is the Pilgrim, the later settlers are a grizzled but hopeful family in a covered wagon. Not pawns in an imperial game of land grabbing, not village burning squatters and treaty breakers. Stereotypes were a weapon in themselves, a powerful weapon to galvanize a thoroughly racist society. Propaganda readily generated by land-hungry settlers, songwriters, newspaperman, politicians and the writer of "The Wizard of Oz". They continue today in times of relative enlightenment, and if there is one "hatchet that has not been buried", it is these stereotypes. </li>
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Entertain for a bit the notion of the history of the Colonizer/American Indian relationship as occurring between two people, where at the time of meeting they are both infants, but each embodying the whole of their peoples, and independent of a shared timeline.</div>
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One infant, call him Indy, is in a nursery where as long as he can remember he's been provided for. There are a few things he needs to do to ensure he gets what he needs, but he gets them. From time to time, he has some internal colic and stomach aches (conflicts between tribes) but for the most part he sometimes builds some things with blocks, does the things he needs to get food, and grows. The nursery is large and uncluttered-- really, the nursery is his family, his relations are all part of the environment of his nursery..</div>
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Another infant, Colin, is in another nursery. His nursery is crowded with other infants, it is actually rather squalid. Building things with blocks is a very important activity: in fact, if you don't build with blocks, you don't get to eat, so making sure nobody takes your blocks takes significant effort. If someone takes your blocks, you get with others that have blocks, so you can build more stuff for you. The other kids are always knocking over what you build, to take your blocks.</div>
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Then, something happens, and Colin gets moved to Indy's nursery.</div>
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Because they are infants, there is a genuine innocent curiosity. What does Colin do? He looks for blocks. There are plenty of blocks, but they are a little different from the ones he's used to. Indy sees this, and he shows Colin how the blocks work. This period lasts for a relatively short time, but it changes Colin in subtle ways. It is one of the most important brief periods in Colin's life.</div>
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Now, we add some weird magic in the story because they mature as their relationship grows. Up until now, they've been infants forever. Separate, they would have remained infants forever. </div>
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But what causes them to age is the progression of their relationship: the more they interrelate, the more they age.</div>
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A peculiar thing about Colin is that he brought some things from the other nursery that allowed him to actually change the blocks into new shapes of blocks. He starts to change the blocks in Indy's nursery into blocks more like the ones he is familiar with. There are so many blocks, more than Colin has ever seen, but his old habit is to make piles of them for himself. </div>
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There is another peculiar thing about Colin. He has to build with blocks to eat, there is some invisible relationship he has with his old nursery where when he builds with blocks, they send him food. Indy eats as he always has, the nursery seems to automatically provide for him. This is clear to Colin, who starts to shape some blocks for Indy that Indy likes, and trade them for the food Indy automatically gets.</div>
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And this is why this brief period is so important. to Colin. He sees how life can be different, and:a curious thing has happened. When Colin does some of the same things that Indy does, he doesn't need to get food from his old nursery-- this new nursery takes care of him just fine.</div>
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Colin's need to build with blocks causes friction between the two, now rapidly approaching toddler-hood.In fact, they have come to blows. At first, they are evenly matched, but Colin is much more aggressive, and his tendencies formed in his old nursery. He inflicts some terrible physical hurts on Indy. One very bad thing that Colin has brought into the nursery has been some sickness. Some times Colin has touched Indy, whether in friendship or anger, it makes parts of Indy's body very sick. So sick, that some of the parts don't work as well, or at all. What's worse, Colin sees that this can happen, and tries intentionally to make Indy sick. </div>
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When they are not fighting, Colin might give gifts to Indy, and even help him, but Indy knows at this point that Colin usually has a reason for being nice. </div>
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Colin shares some of the food from his old nursery, and Indy likes some of this, Indy shares food that he is accustomed to, and Colin finds that his nursery thinks some of this is almost as good as building things with blocks! He can get extra food when he shares some of Indy's food with his old nursery. This will start to be a very important activity for Colin, getting the new nursery food back to the old one.</div>
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They are now well into toddler-hood, Indy has always been able to get around better and is generally still the same person despite the disruption that Colin's presence has brought. But the illnesses he's caught have made him less energetic, and much more wary of Colin, who has grown surprisingly large. </div>
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Colin, who was once much more amiable and friendly to Indy, has become arrogant and bossy. This isn't helped by severe bouts of colic-like internal illness that cause him to act unpredictably, thrashing about and knocking over his own block constructions.</div>
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But, there are still plenty of blocks in the nursery, even though they've become a bit harder for both of them to get to. Despite arguments (which Colin always seems to win) they still share things: Indy, who has never wanted for anything, likes more and more of some of the blocks of Colin's style has, and Colin gives him some of these. Colin, who up until his move to Indy's nursery, has always had to scrabble for what he has, is getting plenty. The have occasional disagreements, but the nursery is also large enough where they don't have to be in each other's way. But, again, if they don't interact, they don't age.</div>
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Even so, there is something disturbing: about Colin: through interactions with Indy they is aging at about the same rate,<i> but Colin is growing and growing at an alarming rate.</i></div>
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Fast forward a bit: Colin gets huge, Indy gets more and more pushed to the corner of the nursery and his growth is stunted. </div>
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He still sends food to the other nursery, but now he sends them more food than they return. Then,Colin declares it is *his* nursery and their all *his* blocks, and Indy doesn't even belong in certain places, and his other nursery shouldn't bother him for food, he'll send food if he feels like it.. </div>
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Colin then changes his mind, and lets Indy have some places.. Then, he says that those aren't really Indy's places to have, but he's only just there because Colin *allows* him to be. Colin says Indy is *dependent* on him. Colin has some terrible fights with Indy, calls him names, pushes him into the corner of the nursery, even as Colin babbles strange things about people being equal. </div>
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Colin says this, Colin says that... Colin does what he wants.</div>
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Indy hunkers down and gets what he can. He's still the same person, deep down inside, but it's been very difficult. Sometimes, he doesn't know why he goes on at all. </div>
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But he knows one thing for sure about Colin:</div>
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He's become the biggest baby ever. </div>
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And those are my November Native American History Month thoughts.</div>
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(addendum 11/30/2012)<br />
So I finished an unfinished earlier sentence that left off in the middle, and made some corrections, and in reading through, some questions came to mind:<br />
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1) What might have happened if the colonizing powers had negotiated with the Indians fairly in all matters, and made fair exchanges for the land, made agreements that were clearly understood by both parties in a way that they could be adjudged fair and honored today? Because there were some exchanges that were regarded fair and indisputable, as well as wars that were fought with both sides having equivalent equipment and settled by peace treaties. A thought is that we'd have an incredibly wealthy "old money" Indian aristocracy, and that the lands they retained would be as rich as any. But the majority population would still be European immigrants: the westward surge would still have happened, Indian populations would still have been ravaged by diseases, and the same level of discontent that created the United States would have occurred among the colonists, with the exception of the grievance about "savages on our frontiers" not mentioned in the Declaration.<br />
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2) In terms of our nursery story, as I was writing the last lines, my thought was, and here I exhibit my complete inculcation in Colonizer culture, "What's a mother to do? What's the daycare person supposed to do with a kid like Colin?".<br />
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And, thinking about our current spate of natural catastrophes, I think "maybe she's doing it".</div>
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<br />Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-69773523244886745602012-08-25T18:52:00.002-04:002012-08-25T18:52:59.201-04:00Really intense series of dreamsI read a lot of things that are sort of <a href="http://www.urantia.org/" target="_blank">weird</a> and view <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dhPCjAplTM" target="_blank">youtube videos</a> that are a little odd. The reason I do this is because it helps me imagine things and also to remind me that we might know a lot, but what we know might not be enough to paint the well-ordered picture about everything that we end up painting.<br />
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Meanwhile, the people who produce these various <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitchin" target="_blank">weird things</a> are a little fanatical about their theories, and the irony is that they come up with these theories by daring to "step outsie of conventional thinking" but then get trapped into some fallacies that they refuse to step out of or modify even when confronted with scientific findings that disprove them. For some reason, they come up with an hypothesis, and then piece together evidence that proves the hypothesis, while throwing out or ignoring pieces that don't.<br />
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Meanwhile, the purveyors of the conventional thinking, the sort of things taught in accredited universities which form the basis for the progress of our civilization in general, might also "spin" that information in order to advance a particular focus or mindset. This sort of practice is accepted, because there's always some room for interpretation, and multiple interpretations often improve the overall picture conveyed by the information, like adjusting the contrast on a TV.<br />
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I don't have any facts to add to any discussion about ancient alien visitors or the reasons the pyramids were built the way they are, or how they were built and by whom, but I like finding out about these things because it brings about an appreciation for the abilities of ancient humans.<br />
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At any rate, I read these things and think about them, and last night I had a really intense series of dreams. Here is my description as best as I can provide:<br />
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At the beginning of the series, I was in a sort of work setting near my home and I was leaving the door of the building. I saw a large number of aircraft heading overhead, of a type that wasn't familiar to me, but it was a very large number and they seemed to be military aircraft or cruise missile type aircraft. People were alarmed, and I seem to have contacted my wife about getting home and we did.<br />
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Then, at home, another series of aircraft went over, and these were famliar to me, more like the military aircraft I'm used to seeing, and it was a huge wave of these aircraft. The feeling was that these were going to meet the opposing force. Also, it seemed that the initial wave of aircraft was not hostile, but it was a remainder of a force from another country that had retreated to the US, and it was getting repaired here in the US.<br />
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The nature of the conflict wasn't clear, it didn't seem to be directly between the US and another country, but between several countries and some manner of undefined opposition. <br />
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After that large wave went over, I recall there was something like a news announcement, that the forces had been defeated. It seemed to be on some kind of large screen or TV we were all watching, but also over the radio. This was very alarming, nobody knew what would happen next. It still wasn't clear who the "enemy" was, but they were obviously very powerful to defeat such a large force.<br />
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At any rate I was making sure that there was a safe place fo myself and my family and several other people I felt were friendly but can't name offhand. At that point a new type of announcement started coming, but it was different, as if a different technology was being used to communicate. It calmly described that what had happened is that an extraterrestrial expedition had been opposed by terrestrial forces, and those forces were neutralized in a way that caused their equipment to stop functioning. <br />
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The reason for the expedition had been misinterpreted as hostile, when their mission was very important: they had come to evacuate Earth. This information was conveyed in a very convincing way, as if there was some technology that not only provided the information but invoked the emotional calm and acceptance of it. All of the instructions were very clear, there would be assignments to ships that would carry peoiple, and the started to broadcast assignments of people to ships, with the names of the ships being indicated. <br />
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All the ships stared with the letters "Oe" which was kind of interesting, but I can't remember the full names of any of them. It was an amazing amount of data to broadcast, because it would require a huge number of assignment to be made, but the lists were conveyed locally as if to the screen that a group was watching, so the assignments referreed to the people in that group.<br />
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At that point it seemed like my "character" changed, I wasn't myself, but I was someone else, and I was worried that I wouldn't be assigned to a ship, but then I was and I was happy. This person was a little selfish, they didn't really care about who else was assigned or not.<br />
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Then I was back as "myself" and an assignment had not yet been provided for me. At that point, I saw a large "zeppelin-like" airship appear from a very high altitude. It started getting larger and larger, and I saw that it was really gigantic, it was elongated and rounded at either end, with one end more tapered, like a zeppelin, but without the "ribs" that a rigid airship would have. .<br />
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I walked up with my hands in the air, sort of motioning this thing to stop, to see if it would have any effect, and surprisinly it did. It started to slow down and dip the front end towards me. The movements were gliding, like a lighter than air craft, but the fuselage was perfectly smooth, there were no motors or guiding fins that I could see.<br />
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As the front dipped down it had a protuberance on the front that extended towards me, like a flexible tube. As it got closer, the perception of distance seemed to "contract" and it was like the tube was getting closer but I was also moving closer to the tube. There was a brief communication, it was like a decision was been made or being requested, and then a kind of star-burst pattern appeared at the base of the tube, a very intricate pattern that provided some kind of test for me to take. I found the pattern very pleasing but I had some comments on why I thought it was not quite perfect, and that seemed to be the test: I was conveyed directly into the ship.<br />
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I remember very clearly what happened when I was inside the ship, there was no experiments or any interbreeding or that kind of scifi movie stuff, but it is less germaine to the story line and this is already a long post. Suffice to say that at the point I was taken on the ship both myself and the inhabitants were very contented, and they relayed some important things that I needed to do.<br />
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Now, this was a dream so all kinds of dreamlike imagery was in play, and the ship sort of "dropped me off" (although they mentioned that the technique used was more of a "winking in") to a depor where various specialized ships were being prepared, and I needed to make sure that these ships got off safely and that they were being loaded correctly. So I was to be involved as part of the team making the assignments for these ships, and they were important because they were like school busses. And they were, they were like colorful school busses without wheels, the aliens had dsigned them this way so as to avoid alarming the children that they'd be carrying. When a school bus "pulled away", it flew up then out of sight. One after the other, the busses flew away on sort of an arcing pattern, one after the other.<br />
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Once all the busses were away, the first phase of the evacuation was complete, and then the expedition could begin to move out.<br />
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All along I was kind of plugged in to this "higher consciousness" and I got the impression there was a lot of other information conveyed, but it was very fast and very encoded. I kind of recognized this, that when I woke up I'd be disconnected. There were two pieces of guidance, one was to "keep my thoughts still" and the other was kind of "it is farther along and will happen sooner than you think".<br />
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Very wild dream, Some cool visuals, but it was rapid fire, sort of glimpses of things rather than memorable vistas like some dreams have.Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-61439717556607980702012-08-22T13:35:00.003-04:002012-08-22T14:04:36.593-04:00The Utenzil Logo<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
The Utenzil Logo, and its cryptic meanings:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUHEcL0tfIzQI7VdqkgtA2Wql23i1Epi3KIxhPJ5jAa6Vx0p3jVpbDSpIBZa301aiX-JaFluR1V047X61D4CRc2G4R1xlkFfOzlYMEOsx0liDeL9TbTLlg0V1XujHkztWVdRZZ/s220/utenzil-iphone-icon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUHEcL0tfIzQI7VdqkgtA2Wql23i1Epi3KIxhPJ5jAa6Vx0p3jVpbDSpIBZa301aiX-JaFluR1V047X61D4CRc2G4R1xlkFfOzlYMEOsx0liDeL9TbTLlg0V1XujHkztWVdRZZ/s220/utenzil-iphone-icon.png" yda="true" /></a></div>
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I had a t-shirt contest some years ago, <a href="http://www.cafepress.com/utenzilshop" target="_blank">where the winning designs would go in my Cafepress shop.</a><br />
The winner would also get a free shirt with their design on it. <br />
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The designer who came up with variations of the black and white design in the center was the winner.<br />
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The winning designer actually put some thought into the approach, by using the shape of my custom midi controller as the motif-- here a picture of me playing it:<br />
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<a href="http://utenzil.com/images/utenzil-w-guitron.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://utenzil.com/images/utenzil-w-guitron.jpg" width="240" yda="true" /></a></div>
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So that is the reason for the pattern in the center. More on it's significance later.</div>
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The logo contains that pattern, and the rest is a "frame" around the pattern.</div>
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The squares of color around the edge, white (the black right angle demarks this square), yellow, blue, red refer to the races of man, borrowing from Native American color symbology, and the set contains the primary colors as well as white the combination of all colors. This is indicative of Utenzil's worldwide appeal and musical influences, you see.</div>
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The pattern formed by the squares also implies a bold cross in the middle of the square. This is intentional, it is the cross of <a href="http://www.nskstate.com/" target="_blank">the NSK state.</a> This represents my inspiration by and sublime bemusement with the concepts of the <strong>Neue Slowenische Kunst, </strong>a group of artists whose insight, bravery, creativity, cleverness and wit is very admirable, the key concept being to strip the meaning away from an aesthetic and re-apply that aesthetic in a way where the echo of the original, historic meaning becomes a statement about the current reality, causing that reality to vibrate and shatter when faced with it's own ridiculousness. Can I imagine being <a href="http://this%20clever/" target="_blank">this clever</a> while in the clutches of totalitarianism? Maybe. Could I be? I have to doubt it, but I would like to think I'd try to be.</div>
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Also, I'm Christian and as mentioned earlier I get inspiration from that, so that is the meaning of the cross. </div>
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It is a simple design with some complexity, but a balance. It's square, but the central pattern implies a circle. I will show you one thing about that:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOHHo_7hHvp5lyBgCfCyAGz05nQwPmpaSNomt2vj45uLvx2ZsJOXpi7ZOyzLUbAm2BN2pf962p7r6c9WY5JSk1uuoRQYEePMCFP4BR6g-VZe6NpwcozihWMXP6Ov8P9vP8fT19rA/s1600/utenzil-logo-circles.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOHHo_7hHvp5lyBgCfCyAGz05nQwPmpaSNomt2vj45uLvx2ZsJOXpi7ZOyzLUbAm2BN2pf962p7r6c9WY5JSk1uuoRQYEePMCFP4BR6g-VZe6NpwcozihWMXP6Ov8P9vP8fT19rA/s1600/utenzil-logo-circles.PNG" yda="true" /></a></div>
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This is the pattern that results when we circle each of the repeated "guitron shapes" in a way where alternating circles touch first the smaller neck, then the longer. Then we trace around the entire center motif where the circle touches the outmost tips of the necks (my tracing is inexact for lack of the precise software to do that, but close enough to convey the concept).<br />
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The result is an <strong><em>oblique </em>view</strong> of the beginnings of a sacred geometry known as the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7GJ-8SY068" target="_blank">Flower of Life</a>, so it is an allusion thereto, and also to three dimensionality, and there are various other ways to draw circles within the logo that result in this allusion.<br />
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The pattern in the center is derived from this, this shape repeated four times, with eight "necks" or arms. 4x8= 32, 4+8 = 12, 32+12=44, 4+4 =8: numerosymbolically, it is a circle and a square. </div>
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The word "utenzil" is case normalized. In ASCII,</div>
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u=117, t=116, e=101, n=110, z=122, i=105, l=108</div>
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drop the leading 100 that they all share, we get</div>
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17,16,01,10,22,05,08 added = 79, 7+9=16, or 2x8, 1+6 = 7</div>
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8,7,1,1,4,5,8 added = 34, 3+4 = 7</div>
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so these letters are harmonically numerosymbologically balanced with regard to computer values</div>
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Moreover, if we take the letter values given their order in the alphabet,</div>
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21,20,5,14,26,9,10 added = 105, 1+5 = 6</div>
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3,2,5,5,8,9,1 added = 33, 3+3 = 6</div>
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they are hamornically numerosymbologically balanced also with regard to human values.</div>
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Now, taking first the odd numbers then the even from the reduced "human alphaordinal-based sequence", we'll assign musical values from a 12 tone scale based on number of semitones, starting from any note</div>
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3,5,8,1 minor third,fourth, aug fifth, then include the starting note (assign to right hand on the piano)</div>
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2,5,9 second, fourth,major sixth (assign to left hand on the piano)</div>
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Played together, these notes will sound like crap, which is what most of the post after the point I start doing the number stuff is.</div>
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And there we have it. May peace, joy and deep indwelling love be yours.</div>
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Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-5154312930146704312012-08-20T01:39:00.003-04:002012-08-20T12:24:00.128-04:00Pussy Riot, the Kingdom of God, Ideawars, and OilThis lengthy post starts with a sort of lengthy disclaimer, apologies: First, I'm a Christian, an Episcopal Protestant, and I consider myself spiritual. The Episcopal church is a liturgical church, which is somewhat more like the Eastern church than the Roman church. Secondly, I am a naif on most things, but I'm also curious and thoughtful. That is not to say that I am utterly gullible, but it is to say that I am receptive to ideas that are clearly and sincerely stated on how they resonate with me, irrespective of the source. At the same time, I'm shrewd enough to understand that people have agendas, and also that just because someone has an agenda doesn't mean they can't be sincere and truthful.<br />
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[Also, I have added some things since my original post, I wrote it very late at night and there are some things I want to improve and expand]<br />
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A long time ago, I wrote <a href="http://utenzil.blogspot.com/2004/10/conspiracy-theory-theory.html">http://utenzil.blogspot.com/2004/10/conspiracy-theory-theory.html</a> as an observation about global social trends. <br />
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I use the term "guild centric". What this means is that people are more likely to adhere to the mores, practices and/or traditions of the group they align with professionally as opposed to those of their locale or nation. This is likely to cause some friction, but it is all a part of international communication and the sharing of practical information and ideas.<br />
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Now I'm going to include some Wikipedia pages, one about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy_riot" target="_blank">a punk rock band</a> and another about a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Dugin" target="_blank">political ideologist.</a><br />
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I am taking neither of these pages as being entirely true and accurate, because it's Wikipedia, but I recognize this information as being supplied by people who are very interested in the subjects for one reason or another, and so it should have a fair amount of validity. <br />
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So, the punk rock band is behaving in accord with the practices and mores of their guild: expressing personal outrage and frustration about social inequity through rock music. A punk band gets popular because their expression matches the feelings of others. This works everywhere <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_rock" target="_blank">punk rock</a> existed and exists now, even though the genre was started in English speaking countries. The punk rock guild, community, whatever you like to call it, works at pushing emotional social buttons and boundaries.<br />
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The reason for the sort of stilted writing style is because I'm being objective. I've liked a lot of punk rock music, and I've played in bands that did some punk rock style tunes, so I'm inclined to easily understand that point of view.<br />
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So we all hear now about the punk band called Pussy Riot and how they've pushed the boundary in Russia. Everyone in the West sees it that way, they are a punk band pushing boundaries, and this particular boundary was designed to stir up trouble and I'm fairly sure that a common reaction among most people in the US was "*yawn* another band pulling a stunt".<br />
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For myself, I was a little disquieted and disappointed that this had happened in a church. I know all too well that non-faithful people see Christians as judgemental, narrowminded and probably a little stupid. Maybe some people were thinking "Well, punk rock band in church, fine: that gets them back for all the smarmy television evangelists" and I can understand that point of view.<br />
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The reason I was disturbed that this happened in a church is this: a church is where I go to to think about things that are bigger than day to day things, and I really try to get myself in a position of spiritual understanding. I've lost people close to me, and I've gone to church to feel the consoling words and ideas. I go to some bible study sessions, because he church I go to has some very informative, interesting and open discussion during bible study.<br />
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I enjoy contemplating the concept of God, for me there is a sense of unlocking an inner potential when I do this. I recognize that many people go to church when they're children, taken by their parents, and they "grow out of it" like believing in Santa Claus, and they tend to look at people like me as lacking intellect and practical realism. That's ok, they can have their opinion, I just happen to know how I feel. My experience has been that to visualize and think about a being whose existence and knowledge transcends time and distance, whose arc of existence is truly transcendant, and that a spiritual level is present that we can be attuned to if we try... for me it opens a lot of doors for me intellectually.<br />
So when I heard the story, as a naif, I thought about someone sitting in a church, maybe mourning and thinking about a lost loved one, when a bunch of loud people rush in and start screaming and rocking out about something political and that doesn't sit well with me. On the other hand, I'm a musician and an artist and I cherish freedom of expression.<br />
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Because of this, I asked a question on twitter "What would happen if someone did this in a church here, what do you think?"<br />
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And someone in Russia answered me "What do you think?" and the conversation that followed is the reason I'm writing this.<br />
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My answer was, probably pretty similar, although they wouldn't be held so long prior to trial and they'd more likely be fined and have to perform community service.<br />
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Community service, by the way, is forced labor. It's important to understand this. It is not necessarily harsh or strenuous forced labor, but that is what it is. When you hear the phrase "community service", maybe you think of dishing out soup in a soup kitchen, but it can also be a little harder, like shoveling snow from around a church or community center parking lot in the dead of winter.<br />
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One thing that's interesting is <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2012/07/31/what-do-russians-think-about-pussy-riot-the-answer-might-surprise-you/" target="_blank">what seems to be the reaction of most Russians</a>. You might be surprised that some people in Russia had a pretty good handle on the event, and their opinion presaged the outcome.<br />
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I would also ask you to read this, commentary from the Russian who responded to my tweet:<br />
<a href="http://www.twitlonger.com/show/iu8ttn">http://www.twitlonger.com/show/iu8ttn</a><br />
(the translator he used unfortunately renders a phrase "Russia has always tried to destroy" but he clearly means that others have tried to destroy Russia, or that Russia has always tried to defend itself). There is nothing wrong with what this writer is saying, he views it through the lens of his understanding of his country's history.<br />
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Another thing that's interesting is <a href="http://youtu.be/IxhxRyeX8tY" target="_blank">what this man says about it.</a> It is really very interesting, you have to watch it to understand the rest of this post.<br />
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His commentary starts with an excellent description of "information war". Also, he invokes some very powerful religious concepts. One of them is "the kingdom of heaven on earth". It really is the fondest wish of Christians that this come about. Imagine walking down the street and everybody is acting and doing in accordance with God, and treating one another as Jesus taught. So this is a very dear thing, it is the realization of the New Jerusalem, the church eternal, God's dearest wish for us as his children.<br />
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He goes further to emphasize the longstanding alliance in Russian history between the church and the government, and how in the pure Byzantine model, the ruler was under the guidance of the Russian Orthodox Church.<br />
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Now, to give you an idea of how I receive this, it's as kind of an epiphany. Because I have been taught to see Russia as having been derailed first by a self indulgent monarchy which corrupted the church: priests were used as agents, gathering information in confessions and then passing this along to the authorities for their own use-- a sacrilege. Then, the communists came in and decided to destroy both the corrupt monarchy and their puppet pseudo-church, where only vestiges of the latter remained. I'm not sure what sources I got this notion from, but this was my understanding. <br />
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But the church was not wholly false or corrupt, however: there were clerics and parishoners that were very true to their faith and their church and who somewhat miraculously pulled through this period into the present day. "Gold tried by fire", you could say truly. Again, I am a naif, but I feel this has to be true because I know what it is to believe and feel the belief deeply. <br />
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So here the political ideologist invokes this concept, and to me it is a dear thing, the reconstitution of an historic church body from it's purified vestiges. As he talks, I think he is correct, that the punk prayer in the church was the vanguard of what would be a larger protest, the signal for that to start.<br />
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He also mentions the US ambassador to Russia as supporting this, and it was the case that members of groups opposing Putin had visited with this ambassador, and he uses the phrase "serious information war".<br />
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I'm going to examine that notion. An "information war" is mainly the presentation and exchange of information that has an agenda. I think you could say information becomes "weaponized" when it backs a particular agenda without seeming to, or when it is shaped to induce a certain effect. It works best when it contains a fair amount of truth, but where some truth is emphasized and other truth either omitted or downplayed. <br />
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I also think it's pretty easy to avoid "information war" if you are forthright about your intentions and opinions, it is simply an information exchange, a debate. I also understand that doing that this may not be possible if you are in a situation where freedom of expression is dangerous: you are apt to communicate primarily in a roundabout or encoded manner as a matter of course. Freedom of speech is a pre-requisite for information exchange.<br />
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Now, (and this finally gets back to music and art and the like) this is important, because the act that Pussy Riot performed was a symbolic communication. This is where they have a bit of an advantage over a commentary or editorial piece, because it is a multi-level communication, not just words-- a sort of play or recitation, some particular actions and a protest song.<br />
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I'm going to talk about the "performance" a little-- it was very brief. Here is the video of it: <a href="http://youtu.be/PN5inCayfnM">http://youtu.be/PN5inCayfnM</a><br />
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It happened in a church, so I'm indulging myself to think of it as maybe more of a truly religous appeal than it actually was. It could very well have been simply a "stunt", but the symbolism is very evident. They go into "the temple" and they anger the authorities and then they are given what many believe is an overly harsh sentence in comparison to the seriousness of the offense. <br />
<br />
Sounds kind of like Jesus, doesn't it?<br />
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What makes a stunt or not depends on how much truth lies in their assertions. Their assertions are that Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church are forming a stifling political framework that will not allow opposition, dissent or protest and is especially disadvantageous for women. <br />
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They are all university students, and they are not dumb: they knew that posting the incident on the internet would gain some attention, and, again, they are true to the punk rock "guild", so they now how to push society's hot buttons.<br />
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One thing I find very impressive is the level of the discourse, the intelligence and intellectual approach of both sides. Gudin's rhetoric is really quite lovely when he talks about the Eternal Church being reflected in the Russian Orthodox Church, and the whole situation as an "existential duel". Meanwhile, in the US, we have idiot politicians using phrases like "legitimate rape". <br />
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He's very correct that the concepts he describes are not like the Western model, I don't believe at all he is correct when he asserts that these concepts are the target of the rest of the world, but this is the exact kind of hyperbole that a right wing US pundit like O'Reilly would resort to. It is the case that Russia has suffered all manner of aggression in her history, this is important to understand, and allusions to the humiliation and defeat of the country it is a sort of button that can be pushed as well to achieve an effect. The "consumer culture" as exported by the West is seen as a threat, but this is something else also: the consumer culture is not driven primarily by any Western government, it is driven by their client corporations and supported by the governments. But the push by these corporations to expand markets is seen as nothing less than "forcing our culture" on other countries.<br />
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He's also probably not wrong to consider all manner of nihilists and lunatic fringe elements would spring up in a "Westernized Russia" that enjoyed full freedom of expression, because they certainly do everywhere else. But that the presence of these would result in the destruction of the entire country and culture is not a realistic assertion.<br />
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Also, to consider a politician as the "embodiment" of a nation's ideals is something very un-Western: not even the most ardent pro-Obama editorial writer would invoke this concept.<br />
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OK, so not to be outdone, there is another level, a level beyond what Gudin proposes in a sort of resurrection of a Holy Russian empire and even the level what might be a "westernized" more egalitarian, open Russia.<br />
<br />
At a point during the oratory, as a Christian, I am offended by the mention of spiritual things alongside the political. It is very clear that the Spirit of Truth transcends all and remains all the while kingdoms rise and fall, and if someone is going to invoke sacred eternal concepts in order to advance political agendas then that is antithetical to those sacred things and it will not be to earthly things that one answers to for this kind of machination. This applies to anyone who would manipulate people towards a self serving goal by twisting these ideas.<br />
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It is really beautiful, the eternal transcendent realm, the idea of it. Any music I attempt and all of the things I mention in this blog are inspired by this, and so there it is.<br />
<br />
But, in the realm of the firmament: what does the West really want Russia to be, and how much of that can Russia really be? Probably what is really the only important thing, what does Russia want to be?<br />
<br />
The "Byzantine symphony of powers" seems not to exist for the people, but for the powers themselves. Is that really what Russians want, what Russia wants to be? I mean, I know that some Russians want <a href="http://kazantip.com/" target="_blank">Kazantip.</a><br />
<br />
I think what the Russian people really want is safety and prosperity.<br />
<br />
If there is any American idea that is helpful in this case it is the idea that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are the rights of every human, and that this is self evident.<br />
<br />
US administrations seem to think we can lecture Russia about all manner of things, and we actually can't nor should we because look at what they've endured! <br />
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But these inalienable rights not a unqiue cultural concept-- the identification and summation of these rights might be uniquely American-- but this statement is an observation of natural fact. It follows that if everyone has these rights, then if my exercise of liberty or pursuit of happiness is somehow at odds with yours, then some arbiter is needed and so, in the United States, the government springs from this.<br />
<br />
The phrase "pursuit of happiness" does lend itself to being interpreted as a hedonistic statement. But if you are grounded, and having a loving family and faith can help in that, what ends up happening is the pursuit of a long lasting, fulfilling happiness, of the sort that being glad with your beliefs and accomplishments brings. That's what it means, pursuing that happiness.<br />
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So if the symphony of powers could work from that concept, where the church and goverment faciliated the way to that fulfilling happiness, and where it might accomodate a bit of punk music now and then, it might very well be the kingdom of heaven on earth.<br />
<br />
But before we play the happily ever after music, I think what some of the key interests in Russia want, and those interests are like those client corporations in the West, is oil. <br />
<br />
Specifically, they want control of the pathways used to convey oil. If there is an ideology that somehow lends support to conditions that would facilitate the people supporting an assertion of that control, then it will be embraced and amplified by those key interests and fed back into the government. This is what happened during the Bush adminstration in the US, and it continues to happen.<br />
<br />
So this is the backdrop, always, that the forces of Mammon lurk in the shadows, for both East and West. Bringing them to light with the Spirit of Truth, catching them up so that Michael might rebuke them and cast them out, that's the real existential duel.<br />
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[addendum, edit]<br />
You might be asking "well, is he on Pussy Riot's side or is he on the conservative nationalist's side?". My true opinion is that, both probably to their horror, they are on the same side, as part of the exchange of ideas as their country moves forward into a new era. The protestors have established their position, some people think they got a harsher punishment than they should have, other people think they got off light. I know in the US that the punishment wouldn't be as severe, but I also know 100% that, depending on the church, they could have very well been shot by the parishoners. <br />
<br />
Now more of the world is watching, although mostly in a more shallow way, but at least aware. At home, behind the catcalls of "Putin's afraid of a few women" and "they are poisonous pornographic hooligans" a dialogue has opened up. From my reading , Russia has extraordinary ideas and thoughts to offer the world, some of these are very profound, and it doesn't hurt to listen. <br />
<br />
Here are some additional articles:<br />
<br />
Wall St. Journal<br />
<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/08/20/pussy-riot-rocked-my-family-dinner-table/">http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/08/20/pussy-riot-rocked-my-family-dinner-table/</a><br />
<br />
The Atlantic<br />
<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/the-kony-ification-of-pussy-riot/261262/">http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/the-kony-ification-of-pussy-riot/261262/</a><br />
Guardian, UK, "Punk Prayer" in English<br />
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/20/pussy-riot-punk-prayer-lyrics?newsfeed=true">http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/20/pussy-riot-punk-prayer-lyrics?newsfeed=true</a><br />
RT, a story on "copycat Cathedral Crashers"<br />
<a href="http://rt.com/news/pussy-riot-support-germany-111/">http://rt.com/news/pussy-riot-support-germany-111/</a><br />
<br />
Telegraph, UK, Russian perspective, remarks from Putin, more perspective<br />
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/the-daily-beast/9481567/Analysis-how-Pussy-Riot-rocked-Russia.html">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/the-daily-beast/9481567/Analysis-how-Pussy-Riot-rocked-Russia.html</a><br />
<br />
The Eurasian Union<br />
<a href="http://vestnikkavkaza.net/articles/society/29499.html">http://vestnikkavkaza.net/articles/society/29499.html</a><br />
<br />
The Concept of Mega-regional Multi-national Unions in "Thrive"<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVEDwnvwQkM&t=80m00">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVEDwnvwQkM&t=80m00</a><br />
<br />
More background from the same movie<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVEDwnvwQkM&t=69m37s">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVEDwnvwQkM&t=69m37s</a><br />
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<br />Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-67993024576717929352012-08-08T18:59:00.001-04:002012-08-08T18:59:07.874-04:007.23cmI learned about the significance of 7.23cm. It is the wavelength of a vibration that goes on everywhere, coming from everything. <a href="http://selfexpressions.net/QuarterlyePub/Pubs-Archive2/Sum2001/SE-DidYouKnow-2.htm">A "cosmic" vibration</a>. Moreover, I learned that the frequency of a sound wave with this wavelength is 4744.1217 Hz. Isn't that wonderful? <br />
<br />
So I have some thoughts and here they are:<br />
<br />
If you extrapolate down from that wavelength, you can create a 12 note scale. You can do this by dividing the number by 1.059463095, and then dividing that resulting number by 1.059463095, and so on. At some point you'll come close to the 440 Hz frequency that you can use as a tuning frequency, then tune your guitar or whatever thing, and you'd have a thing that was tuned based on that cosmic frequency.<br />
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<br />Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-32388248454057689742012-07-27T19:56:00.001-04:002012-08-01T15:04:18.322-04:00trying to buy a part for something: online chat with online support<div class="infoText">
<span class="infoText" style="background-color: #666666;">I have edited to anonymize this exchange, which I found poignant</span></div>
<div class="infoText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="infoText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;">Please wait for a [CompanyName] Customer Service Representative to respond. This chat may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance purposes. Your average wait is 1 seconds. Thank you for holding. </span></div>
<div class="infoText">
<span class="infoText"></span><span style="background-color: #666666;">You are now chatting with [S]. How may I help you?</span></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="operatorName"><strong>S: </strong></span>Thank you for choosing [CompanyName]. My name is S. How may I assist you today?</span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>i am looking for a part for a portable top loading diswasher.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="font-size: large;"><em><span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>sorry, clothes washer</span></span></em></span></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="operatorName"><strong>S: </strong></span>Certainly I will be more than happy to locate and order the part for you, in the meanwhile may I have your name and phone number, please?</span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>it is in your catalog with model number 44722</span></span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>that is, in your online catalog.</span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>it is item number 02644722000</span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>a [brand name] 2.1 cu ft top loading portable washer</span></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="operatorName"><strong>S: </strong></span>Thank you for the information.</span></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="operatorName"><strong>S: </strong></span>In the meanwhile may I have your name and phone number, please?</span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>when i search by model number it does not come up</span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You:</strong></span> [[my name and phone number]]</span></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="operatorName"><strong>S: </strong></span>Hi Mike. </span></span></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="operatorName"><strong>S: </strong></span>How are you doing today? </span></span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>hi</span></span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="font-size: large;"><em><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>it is very hot here</span></em></span></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: large;"><em><span class="operatorName"><strong>S: </strong></span>Nice to hear that.</em></span> </span></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<strong><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="operatorName">S: </span>I'm sorry, I'm unable to locate any appliance from the above provided model number.</span></span></strong></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<strong><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="operatorName">S: </span>It seems to be an incorrect or incomplete model number, could you please re-check for me to assist you better?</span></span></strong></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<span class="visitorName"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><strong>You:</strong><em> [big honking URL to the exact description of the item on the company's webstore]</em></span></span></span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>that is the link to the page on the site</span></span></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<span style="font-size: large;"><em><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="operatorName"><strong>S: </strong></span>I am sorry to inform you that the manual or the web site model number is incomplete.</span></em></span></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<u><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="operatorName"><strong>S: </strong></span>I would recommend you to please provide me the model number directly from the appliance to check and help you order the exact part for your needs. </span></span></u></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="visitorName"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><strong><u>You</u><em>: </em></strong><span style="color: black;"><em>i don't have the appliance, someone has given me the info on the appliance based on what's on your website.</em></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>you're a bot, aren't you?</span></span></span></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: large;"><em><span class="operatorName">S: </span>I am a real person and my name is S.</em></span> </span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>oh, sorry.</span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>the item we want to buy is in a store...</span></span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>it is missing a part.</span></span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>if we can find the part, we can buy the item.</span></span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>it is a [brand name] appliance at [store]</span></span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666; font-size: large;">Y<span class="visitorName"><strong>ou: </strong></span>i have the UPC.</span></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span class="operatorName"><strong>S: </strong></span>Okay, I see the condition</span>. </span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>It is the item that is described on the link I sent.</span></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><u><span class="operatorName"><strong>S: </strong></span>I need to have the correct model number, so that we order the correct part.</u> </span></div>
<div class="operatorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: large;"><em><span class="operatorName"><strong>S: </strong></span>Please have a check with the appliance directly.</em></span> </span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<span style="background-color: #666666;"><span class="visitorName"><strong>You: </strong></span>ok, thanks</span></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<br /></div>
<div class="visitorText">
<strong><u>ended chat</u></strong></div>Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-23324067185491287792012-06-26T11:59:00.002-04:002012-06-26T12:01:19.677-04:00Iceland is interestingI have been interested in Iceland for a while, I visited there once, and it is a different sort of place-- adding to that is being out of sync with time at that latitude, it was late May so midnight looked like 4 o'clock in the afternoon.<br />
<br />
I'm always impressed by Icelandic music. Specifically, when I hear it, I'm impressed by the high production values in Icelandic recorded music. I'm not sure why it is the case, it seems to be in the clarity and sense of "space" or "air" in the sounds. Whether they are electronic or acoustic, but the overall sense of the depth and breadth of the sound seems to be captured expertly and lovingly in a way that reflects and supports the meaning of the music.<br />
<br />
The United States is a very very big place. It is very diverse, and busy and all of that. When you go to a place like Iceland, it is still much bigger than you. This is the interesting thing-- a population not much larger than a medium-small city in the US is still much more than just you is still more than enough to have a language and a culture, to have ideals and peculiar ways.<br />
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I came across this site, <a href="http://www.sir.is/">an Icelandic music blog and web tv series</a>, that appears to have wound down, but which provides links to ongoing music sites like <a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fkraumur.is%2F">Kraumur</a>, which I'm translating using Google.<br />
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Because Iceland is a tiny place compared to the rest of the world (but still a very very big place compared to, say, just you or me), there are Icelanders who recognize the music that they have there will not get exported unless some special effort is made. Also, because they are small, they don't have the hangups about actually having a culture that many of us in the US seem to have, and they don't have an aversion to sharing because they recognize that they are all in the same small boat. <br />
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When I say "hangups" I mean this thing where we in the US "celebrate diversity" at the same time we elevate blending and assimilation. So when African-Americans in the urban inner city developed Rap and Hip-Hop, drawing on the ancient tradition of verbal storytelling and poetry, it was new and profane and daring. Now, it has been blended as a practially essential ingredient into the mainstream popular music culture. Once again, the <em>avant garde</em> has become just "<em>garde</em>" and that is really pretty much the way it goes. <br />
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That's not bad, it's the nature of cultures to interweave: it is just different from a place like Iceland where a homogenous culture exists. But it's also interesting because that homogenous culture has a broad spectrum of musical notions, where the "weirdos" set the outer bounds, where "weird" is anything that's not currently mainstream.<br />
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For example <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81rst%C3%AD%C3%B0ir">Árstíðir</a> are what we'd think of as a folk group with cellos and beautiful vocal harmonies, reminiscent of CSNY, but also transcending that. Given the current musical mainstream, and given the predominance on the world stage of artists like Björk and Sigur Rós,<strong> </strong>this is more than a little offbeat, but a spate of Icelandic groups in the vein of "indie folk rock" have been successful and there are several of these types of groups. Even so, when you look at a list of Icelandic bands, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bands_from_Iceland">they run the gamut</a> of musical genres, although more are represented than others.<br />
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The amount of music festivals they have in Iceland seems disproportionate to the amount of people, it's fun to <a href="http://www.musik.is/dofine.html">read about these festivals</a>. It's something that Icelandic people do. So while there is maybe a sense of attitude that some bands feel they need to project that is appropriate to their genre at large, it seems that for a lot of the music there is far less segregation of audiences by age and gender.<br />
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Maybe people interested in the evolution of music can gain an understanding from the Icelandinc scene in the way that genetic scientists have regarded the study of the isolated Icelandic people, better understanding humanity as a whole..<br />
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<br />Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-65950920062455308892012-06-18T12:36:00.002-04:002012-06-18T12:36:52.187-04:00a silly blog it isLooking back on the earliest posts, as the project begins, we see some silliness.<br />
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At this point, my beloved notebook that the Utenzil project started with is completely outdated. In addition, it was damaged in a malicious act by a vindictive person so it needs a new monitor. That's ok, an external monitor can be used, and it is still great as a music computer. But, it is not powerful enough to run the most recent versions of Ableton Live, so it will be forever stuck at version 6. That's ok. Also, it runs Windows XP, but that's ok also: there is one HID to MIDI utility in particular that only runs on Windows XP.<br />
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My more recent machine is dual core. It's running Live Suite 8. But it's four years old, runs Vista. But that's ok, because it's got a firewire port, needed for my MOTU Ultralite interface.<br />
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And now, I've got a brand new machine, running Windows 7. i7 processor, Quad core, SSD cache for the drives, should be super nice and fast. But it has only USB ports. I don't find any Windows notebooks offering firewire ports any longer, these being replaced by HDMI. Isn't that something? <br />
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So, a new USB audio/midi interface is needed.<br />
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USB 3.0 has been available for a while now, but audio interfaces that connect using it have not appeared. <a href="http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/426691-usb-3-0-audio-interfaces.html">This discussion</a> provides a cross-section sampling of the observations and feelings about this. <br />
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The choice for the new USB interface is <a href="http://www.focusrite.com/products/audio_interfaces/scarlett_18i6/">Focusrite.</a> Why? Good price point/feature balance, sturdy unit, has an ADAT optical input for future expansion, has a software bundle that looks useful and is from a company that builds a line of other outboard audio gear. The other consideration was the MOTU Audio Express, because MOTU has provided a good experience and good quality thus far, but it's $100 more for fewer features. So we'll see if this is a good choice.<br />
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Also picked up a <a href="http://www.novationmusic.com/products/midi_controllers/launchpad">Launchpad</a> because it looks <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du-tt5tZimY">like a lot of fun.</a> The way it can be set up is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nOAtX_U2gk">nicely sophisticated</a> even though it is very easy to see how it can be used to trigger clips.<br />
<br />Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8724704.post-62595460825639025142012-05-15T15:27:00.001-04:002012-05-15T15:31:30.333-04:00Live show coming up!A rare Utenzil live show will occur, in Poolesville, MD, scheduled for July 6th 2012, <a href="https://maps.google.com/maps/place?ftid=0x89b6253b21eb9c27:0xbcb4c52a61a37059&q=Beall+Street,+Poolesville,+MD&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=39.151196,-77.418637&spn=0.000017,0.000021&t=m&z=16&vpsrc=6">at the park on this street.</a> It will be a free concert, starting in the late afternoon/early evening and going for a few hours, I'm hoping. I'll post the exact time when I know, but if you got there around 7pm it would probably be fine.<br />
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Why this place? Because it is a nice new little stage outside in a pleasant town not too far from where I live, and I am able to have the whole block of time.Utenzilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00689848544394599624noreply@blogger.com0