Kumbyah, Pakistan Style....last post for 2010

NYT:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A crippling strike by Islamist parties brought Pakistan to a standstill on Friday as thousands of people took to the streets, and forced businesses to close, to head off any change in the country’s blasphemy law, which rights groups say has been used to persecute minorities, especially Christians.

The law was introduced in the 1980s under the military dictatorship of Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq as part of a policy of promoting Islam to unite this deeply fractious society. Many attempts to revise the law have since been thwarted by the strong opposition of religious forces, which continue to gather strength.
******

Luckily all of my bitching and moaning on this blog has solved the world's problems.

Beat the reaper again... 12+ years with ALS.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

s.

Do we need the Department of Education?

This a verbatim, accurate and complete exchange appearing on a comment board, News Journal (Wilmington, DE, a Gannett property) tonight associated with the headline Tucker Carlson: Michael Vick should have been 'executed'

User Image
captain_sane wrote:
Replying to blackgirlfound:

Replying to captain_sane:

Replying to nottoooldtocare:

Replying to blackgirlfound:

Siht! What's the difference between a dog and a moose?


Do you know anyone who has been arrested and convicted of running moose fighting rings?


Mooses are hunted for food. The dogs were electrocuted. Your comment is racist and singles out Sarah Palin. You know that. Like I said racists on here every day.



Guess what they say about hit dogs hollering loudest is true. I didn't say jack siht about Sarah Palin. I just asked the difference between a dog and a damn moose. They were both killed for sport.


EINSTIEN: Mooses are killed for food! His dogs were torchered. You are clueless.
12/29/2010 8:23:14 PM

Assignment #1: Guess your sex

This is a nativity scene in front of the Chester County (PA) Courthouse erected by the West Chester city Department of Public Works using taxpayer money.



This is a nativity scene in front of a home outside of Chicago, erected by the homeowners.



Use a #2 pencil to underline the statement that best describes what will happen if someone suggests that the nativity scene in the first picture violates the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution.

a. The world will end.
b. The Jews will take all our money.
c. Santa will destroy all the adult novelty stores in Rainelle, WV.
d. America will loose the space race to the Russians.

Sometimes, NYT columnists believe common knowledge

Sir:

Frank Rich describes the vanished world and ethos of 1956 "middle class America" depicted in a home movie. He extols 1956 middle class America's quasi-egalitarian values; its "faith in its own unbounded future" and its belief in "shared sacrifice and...lower-case democratic values", apparently in partnership with benign industrial giants like 3M.

He presents a 21st century contrast: "Many of America’s best young minds now invent derivatives, not Disneylands".

Neither derivatives nor Disneyland (nor Scotch Tape) have any significance or societal value beyond their function as lucrative products and profit centers for their inventors. The racially and socially segregated "homogenous" middle class of 1956 may be viewed as a self-serving Scotch Tape repair applied to the American society depicted in Richard Wright's "Native Son", published in 1940.

The Scotch Tape repair failed decades ago.

s.

My ol' feets failed on me then

click here

New York Times
U.S. Rethinks Strategy for the Unthinkable
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: December 15, 2010

Suppose the unthinkable happened, and terrorists struck New York or another big city with an atom bomb. What should people there do? The government has a surprising new message: Do not flee. Get inside any stable building and don’t come out till officials say it’s safe.

Holy sleeping shit!!

Luckily, the article linked to this offical government publication:


It had real good advice:

Communicating about a high-stress, life-threatening emergency is always a difficult task; however, communicating about a nuclear detonation poses two unique challenges:

1. Many people do not believe that a nuclear detonation is survivable. The sense of futility, fatalism, and hopelessness severely impacts the public’s desire and even ability to absorb information and follow instructions.

2. A nuclear explosion will more than likely destroy or severely disable the communications infrastructure (any mechanism or system used to give or receive information) in the blast damage zones where people need to act quickly and appropriately to protect themselves. Residual power failures and overloaded systems could cause a cascade of communications failures into the surrounding area, including the dangerous fallout zone (DF zone) where fatal levels of fallout must be avoided to save lives.

To successfully address these challenges, a well-planned and prepared approach to both pre-incident preparedness and post-detonation messaging is essential.

The American Electorate Chooses the Best of the Best

NYT, today

Nixon said he was not prejudiced but continued: “I’ve just recognized that, you know, all people have certain traits.”

“The Jews have certain traits,” he said. “The Irish have certain — for example, the Irish can’t drink. What you always have to remember with the Irish is they get mean. Virtually every Irish I’ve known gets mean when he drinks. Particularly the real Irish.”

Nixon continued: “The Italians, of course, those people course don’t have their heads screwed on tight. They are wonderful people, but,” and his voice trailed off.

A moment later, Nixon returned to Jews: “The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality.”

“Bill Rogers has got — to his credit it’s a decent feeling — but somewhat sort of a blind spot on the black thing because he’s been in New York,” Nixon said. “He says well, ‘They are coming along, and that after all they are going to strengthen our country in the end because they are strong physically and some of them are smart.’ So forth and so on.

“My own view is I think he’s right if you’re talking in terms of 500 years,” he said. “I think it’s wrong if you’re talking in terms of 50 years. What has to happen is they have be, frankly, inbred. And, you just, that’s the only thing that’s going to do it, Rose.”

We Consider Dance

We are presenting our inaugural bi-weekly podcast tonight. The podcast will be called "Give the Fiddler a Dram". The theme music should tell you where we're coming from, musically, at least.

One of the defining events in my life came when I was an undergrad at Northwestern University (my advice is to steer clear of the place). John Cage was doing a one week residency in the School of Music. We cut classes and followed him everywhere. He was very open and engaging. We talked continuously for a week about everything from collecting wild mushrooms, Buddhism, ethnomusicology, music theory, dance, art, and sound. I learned that music was sort of a cross between a universe, a religion, and an identity. I closed my mouth, opened my ears, and let the Ghost World engulf me.

Podcast Nr 1
We Consider Dance

Rubberrrrrzzzzz!

I know, I promised, but I couldn't resist making fun of someone the whole world wants to kill over Wikileaks...

Today's Globe and Mail:

Mr. Assange has denied the rape accusation, made by two women who hosted a party for him in Stockholm in August. He has acknowledged having had consensual sex with the complainants. Reports say the sex became non-consensual over disagreements about condom use.

Electronica

The podcasts aren't quite ready yet. Soon, soon...

Here is a collection of electronic compositions absolutely free, as in free beer. You'll need WinRAR to open the archive, and open ears connected to an open mind...as John Cage told me, "There is only music...and silence."

A subwoofer or good headphones would be useful.

Electronica - 2010

Here are the program notes:

I played music most of my life. I can no longer play. I compose. Electronic music is one of the areas I am exploring.

Electronica is a collection of compositions I selected from the past five years of work. I am influenced by the ambient, drone, minimalist, and late 20th century neoclassic schools, but conform to none.

Neurological Disorder
White Ocarina
Enter a Cloverish Silence
Quaker Loops
Spin-Echo
Howl I
Walk Evening
Kaddish for Liviu Librescu, Virginia Tech 2007
Distant Loss
Walk Morning
Elegy for Norma Lane - 2010
I Am the Edison Phongraph

I am making this work freely available, but I am retaining copyright.
Copyright 2010 by SG Senderoff

Image from the Hubble Telescope, NASA