Random thoughts thread

[Statto]

Not going to argue about 9/11 theories again – but as for the piece with Aphex Twin...

I keep forgetting that most people are totally friggin’ oblivious to how they are being programmed and controlled from birth upwards

Translation: "I'm really smart and can see through all the system's trickery with my extra-special perceptive perception, whereas you're all really stupid."

This is the sort of thing you believe when you're 16.

He's a dickhead.

Seems like it.

Bird flu outbreak not dangerous to humans, that's a relief. #bbc

A friend's blog posted today:

Africans respond to the re-release of the charity song Do They Know It’s Christmas? by One Direction, Bono, Sam Smith and others.



Abdullahi Halakhe, 31, policy analyst, Kenya

“I think the fundamental problem with the “saving” Africa posture is that it is predicated on the notion that Africa/Africans are agency-less, which for me is problematic because it is the continuation of never-ending paternalistic tendencies towards Africa.

“Also, the idea that Africa needs to be saved in 2014 by washed up C-list pop artists is a perverse example of a messiah complex.”
Robtel Neajai Pailey, 32, PhD researcher, Liberia

“Western charity songs like the one being proposed by Geldof are not only patronising, they’re redundant and unoriginal. Producing an Ebola song now to raise money, nearly one year after the first reported case in Guinea, is belated at best. It reeks of the “white saviour complex” because it negates local efforts that have come before it.”
Dawit Gebreselassie, 26, financial analyst, Ethiopia

“Ethiopia has for the last few years been trying extremely hard to change its image as a poster child for poverty. It has been trying to depict a new bright image to the world so as to attract tourists and foreign direct investment. But this uphill battle is always hindered when such reminders of the past appear again on the screens of the people that are trying to be persuaded.

“Africa’s only hope of success against poverty is through sustained, structured and equitable economic growth brought about through things such as investment and tourism. It’s hard to imagine how a few dollars raised every so often can possibly outweigh the damage it does by blemishing the continent’s image.”
Hadiyya Mwapachu, 30, student, Tanzania

“The oft-quoted observation by Marx that “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce” applies here for both its acuteness and how it has become a cliché. The Band Aid songs reflect this pattern. They begin as an attempt to respond to catastrophe and then excise all historical context and specificity.

“The meaning that remains is that one should help as “well tonight, thank God it’s them instead of you”. This erases the history of state actions in fostering armed conflict and the deliberate displacement of civilians. The 1984 and 1989 Ethiopia famine relief editions did not recognise this history. The genocide in South Sudan was also absent in the 2004 version to raise money for Darfur.”
Chitra Nagarajan, 31, human rights activist, Nigeria

“It’s yet another classic sign of white Western saviourism, in this case with celebrities swooping in to “save” the people of Africa. Not only does this take away the agency of people living in African countries who are the ones who actually lead and make change happen, but it perpetuates stereotypes of conflict, poverty and disease as the single story of the continent.”

Cordless drill dynamics, free and noisy

Gabe Gurnsey @GabeGurnsey

When one finds oneself staring into the abyss of a kebab slowly rotating to the soundtrack of euro trance, one does not fear anything anymore

Rory Gibb ‏@Rory_AE

The endless corridor that winds off miles into the difference, lined with shops, each selling almost the same set of things but not quite

Yeah, nice things are nice, but ever since then I've been trying to recapture the 'real shit', the struggle, as nothing comes close to that.

pendulums made of rich tea biscuits

'But the working-class too has been historically the bunch of people who taught the rest of the world about solidarity. We fought the Battle of Cable Street. We invented trade unions. We allied with gay men and lesbians during the Miner's Strike. A great number of working class people are immigrants or minorities themselves, and the vast majority live peacefully alongside white British neighbours. Although the majority of Ukip voters are working-class, that does not mean the majority of the working class vote for Ukip.

And we've all also seen England flags flying in farmers' fields, outside detached houses which vote Tory, across ironic Islington pubs celebrating the jubilee.

So: the Ukip spokespeople claiming Labour have betrayed the working-class with this tweet: nope. Flags, implied nationalism and even white vans aren't the staples of an entire class, you bleeding biogted and pitiful fools.

But as to how Labour reacted to this whole debacle - with Thornberry stepping down from the cabinet as I write and earnest, careerist people in suits holding their heads in their hands... Christ. The reactions to this supposedly classist kerfuffle have been so classist themselves that I'm beginning to think I'm living in a satirical novel. The tweet was blown out of proportion by a media and Twittersphere who have no idea of the lives of ordinary working people, and then supersized even further by a party who have now made clear they've no idea either.

Because Labour comes from the working class which unites, not divides. That lesson we taught everyone else in solidarity? It was meant to be the Labour Party. By wholeheartedly agreeing that Thornberry's tweet was a betrayal of its roots, all the party have done is agree with the rest of this small-minded, snobbish culture that working-class people are a bunch of white-van driving, three-flag waving stereotypes.

And until we all stop seeing the working-class as that: a dangerous and vital segment that's to be chased for its xenophobic votes at the same time as being persuaded out of them, a yucky, common uncomfortable truth who can only be engaged by being as patronising and as stereotyping and as unchallenging as possible, then no party, let alone Labour, will ever represent it - and that means most of us - properly.'

Follow Rebecca Winson on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/rebeccawinson

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/rebecca-...97296.html

uncontrollable hedonism

Sometimes repetitive noises can go too far.

Men can be testosterone toxic.

Eenie meanie - wait, brain, don't be mean, you're not meant to do that.

butter me like a chicken thawed of pain

so much better with an orchestra

Chips off the old stopcock

I wish all those who think 'You and me, we're intercom-patible' would learn to shout "PIZZA DELIVERY" at the front door instead.

I like to pretend I'm a catfish so I can stare contemptuously at passing hare-brained activity and get away with it post-Wurzeleze challenge

"Of course, the level of the parallel channel may need to change as the track undergoes further development; if the arrangement suddenly expands to include a range of more powerful sounds, we may need to increase its volume, whereas if it drops back to a sparser arrangement, less level may be required. It's common for mix engineers to use extensive automation on parallel channels to ensure that they're at the right level. In whichever DAW you work with, don't be afraid to create volume automation lines to keep parallel channel volumes under control."

http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?2095

Fucking snidy wanker

Full kit wanker

"Yeah so I created this amazingly different tuning where I basically play 3 out of tune notes at the same time" ~ random AFX hipster, 2014.

"Call To Me" Bible-based proverb is full of theoretical errors. I.e the 'if the voice you want to hear is from God':
"Is it consistent with Scripture?" That would ultimately deride the divine aspect and multidimensionality of spiritual
practice. God is everything. It (he or she or trans) is good and evil. All you can hope for in the respect of humanity
is that those values are congruent with what is perceived as humane, by the vast majority of people living on the Earth,
who want peace.

After love is after life - there is no gap bridging love and life, and no way of knowing what is the flip side of the coin without either.

One key to a good life is to love living. One key to a sad life is to love dying, which we all are, all the time.