Month: January 2012
Cool new website http://eyeearbrain.webs.com/
Daily inspiration for spooky music, cult film and weird ideas…
TEHRAN, Iran – Police have closed down dozens of toy shops for selling Barbie dolls in Iran, part of a decades-long crackdown against “manifestations of Western culture,” the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported Friday.
Barbie dolls are sold wearing swimsuits and miniskirts in a society where women must wear headscarves in public, and men and women are not allowed to swim together.
A ban on the sale of the Barbies, designed to look like young Western women, was imposed in the mid-1990s. In its latest report, Mehr quoted an unidentified police official as saying authorities confiscated the dolls from Tehran stores in a “new phase” of the campaign.
In 2008, the Iranian judiciary warned against the “destructive” cultural and social consequences and “danger” of importing Barbie dolls and other Western toys. Even so, Iranian markets have been full of them. One-third of Iran’s population of 75 million is under 15. (read more)
- Labels: censorship, Culture, liberation, religion, sex, women
political office in the country, he has been subjected to a remarkable degree
of political hyperbole and vitriolic attacks designed to impugn not only his
policies, but his character as well.
These attacks originate not only from prejudiced and highly ignorant
individuals and the right wing media, capitalizing on this kind of hatred, but
also by his opponents in Congress. They
have continually portrayed him as an enemy and essentially inimical to
so-called âAmerican values.â Using this
kind of language, they have attempted to thwart his efforts in every
conceivable manner often using political blackmail. In this way, many of the endemic problems
that face American society have been left to fester.
abundantly clear by the nature of the debates now being aired as the aspirants
to the Presidential office from the Republican Party challenge their
adversaries for the nomination. The
language of these debates have been mean-spirited, ugly, unflattering and
filled with vilest of accusations and rhetoric designed to appeal to ignorance
and bigotry. Those among the aspiring
group who have chosen to use reasoned argument to make their respective cases
have been effectively silenced as the front runners attempt to appeal to what
has become the radical, right wing base of the Republican Party.
apprehension regarding their future as a direct result of the onslaught of the
so-called âGreat Recession.â It is at
such times that reasoned judgment and a cooperative effort to face and resolve
acute national problems are the attributes most required.
language filled with hateful speech that is destined to fill the airways until
the November elections. What we do not
need as a people is the further polarization that will be the inevitable
outcome of this kind of dialog. Furthermore,
it would be most distressing if one of the underlying reasons for this
intensely negative environment is, in reality, racial hatred and bigotry.
- Labels: Labels
Etta James (born Jamesetta Hawkins; January 25, 1938 â January 20, 2012) was an American singer whose style spanned a variety of music genres including blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, gospel and jazz. Starting her career in the mid 1950s, she gained fame with hits such as “Dance With Me, Henry”, “At Last”, “Tell Mama”, and “I’d Rather Go Blind” for which she claimed she wrote the lyrics. She faced a number of personal problems, including drug addiction, before making a musical resurgence in the late 1980s with the album The Seven Year Itch.
She is regarded as having bridged the gap between rhythm and blues and rock and roll, and is the winner of six Grammys and 17 Blues Music Awards. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in both 1999 and 2008. Rolling Stone ranked James number 22 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time and number 62 on the list of the 100 Greatest Artists.
James encountered a string of legal problems during the early 1970s due to her heroin addiction. She was continuously in and out of rehabilitation centers, including the Tarzana Rehabilitation Center, in Los Angeles, California. Her husband Artis Mills, whom she married in 1969, accepted responsibility when they were both arrested for heroin possession and served a 10-year prison sentence.
Etta James had once been considered one of the most overlooked blues and R&B musicians in American music history. It wasn’t until the early 1990s when James began receiving major industry awards from the Grammys and the Blues Foundation that she began to receive wide recognition. In 2011 James was voted one the Best Singers On Earth by viewers to Btoe, the multimedia Web site founded by Colin Larkin, creator of the Encyclopedia of Popular Music. (read more)
- Labels: music
Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.
Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.
The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.
- Labels: censorship, communication, computers, internet
2012 Wikipedia blackout
The January 18 blackout page
(as proposed by User:Pretzels on January 16)
The 2012 English Wikipedia blackout is a proposed blackout of the English Wikipedia for 24 hours on 18 January 2012. In place of articles, the site would show only a message opposing the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).
| TAKE ACTION
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a dangerous bill that would give the Department of Justice and big content unprecedented power to censor the Internet. There’s a critical hearing this week about the bill, part of big content’s effort to steamroll the bill through Congress, which means we have no time to lose. SOPA’s supporters are desperate to get this bill through quickly by convincing Congress there’s no real opposition to it. We know better, but we need to make our voices heard loud and clear. |
This proposal was made by the English Wikipedia community after a month of discussions on the project in various polls and requests for comment. The date was chosen to coincide with similar action by other websites, such as Reddit, and will run for 24 hours starting at 05:00 UTC on 18 January. The Wikimedia Foundation published a letter of support for the action later that day.
more > 2012 Wikipedia blackout – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Press releases/English Wikipedia to go dark – Wikimedia Foundation
San Francisco — January 16, 2012 — On January 18, 2012, in an unprecedented decision, the Wikipedia community has chosen to blackout the English version of Wikipedia for 24 hours, in protest against proposed legislation in the United States â the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and PROTECTIP (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate. If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States.
âToday Wikipedians from around the world have spoken about their opposition to this destructive legislation,” said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. “This is an extraordinary action for our community to take – and while we regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening precedent of Internet censorship for the world.”
> more
English Wikipedia anti-SOPA blackout – Wikimedia Foundation
To: English Wikipedia Readers and Community
From: Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director
Date: January 16, 2012
Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States â the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate â that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia.
This will be the first time the English Wikipedia has ever staged a public protest of this nature, and itâs a decision that wasnât lightly made. Hereâs how itâs been described by the three Wikipedia administrators who formally facilitated the communityâs discussion. From the public statement, signed by User:NuclearWarfare, User:Risker and User:Billinghurst:
It is the opinion of the English Wikipedia community that both of these bills, if passed, would be devastating to the free and open web.
Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a âblackoutâ of the English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.
On careful review of this discussion, the closing administrators note the broad-based support for action from Wikipedians around the world, not just from within the United States. The primary objection to a global blackout came from those who preferred that the blackout be limited to readers from the United States, with the rest of the world seeing a simple banner notice instead. We also noted that roughly 55% of those supporting a blackout preferred that it be a global one, with many pointing to concerns about similar legislation in other nations.
In making this decision, Wikipedians will be criticized for seeming to abandon neutrality to take a political position. Thatâs a real, legitimate issue. We want people to trust Wikipedia, not worry that it is trying to propagandize them.
But although Wikipediaâs articles are neutral, its existence is not. As Wikimedia Foundation board member Kat Walsh wrote on one of our mailing lists recently,
We depend on a legal infrastructure that makes it possible for us to operate. And we depend on a legal infrastructure that also allows other sites to host user-contributed material, both information and expression. For the most part, Wikimedia projects are organizing and summarizing and collecting the worldâs knowledge. Weâre putting it in context, and showing people how to make to sense of it.
But that knowledge has to be published somewhere for anyone to find and use it. Where it can be censored without due process, it hurts the speaker, the public, and Wikimedia. Where you can only speak if you have sufficient resources to fight legal challenges, or if your views are pre-approved by someone who does, the same narrow set of ideas already popular will continue to be all anyone has meaningful access to.
The decision to shut down the English Wikipedia wasnât made by me; it was made by editors, through a consensus decision-making process. But I support it.
Like Kat and the rest of the Wikimedia Foundation Board, I have increasingly begun to think of Wikipediaâs public voice, and the goodwill people have for Wikipedia, as a resource that wants to be used for the benefit of the public. Readers trust Wikipedia because they know that despite its faults, Wikipediaâs heart is in the right place. Itâs not aiming to monetize their eyeballs or make them believe some particular thing, or sell them a product. Wikipedia has no hidden agenda: it just wants to be helpful.
Thatâs less true of other sites. Most are commercially motivated: their purpose is to make money. That doesnât mean they donât have a desire to make the world a better place â many do! â but it does mean that their positions and actions need to be understood in the context of conflicting interests.
My hope is that when Wikipedia shuts down on January 18, people will understand that weâre doing it for our readers. We support everyoneâs right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. We think everyone should have access to educational material on a wide range of subjects, even if they canât pay for it. We believe in a free and open Internet where information can be shared without impediment. We believe that new proposed laws like SOPA and PIPA, and other similar laws under discussion inside and outside the United States â donât advance the interests of the general public. You can read a very good list of reasons to oppose SOPA and PIPA here, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Why is this a global action, rather than US-only? And why now, if some American legislators appear to be in tactical retreat on SOPA?
The reality is that we donât think SOPA is going away, and PIPA is still quite active. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. All around the world, we’re seeing the development of legislation intended to fight online piracy, and regulate the Internet in other ways, that hurt online freedoms. Our concern extends beyond SOPA and PIPA: they are just part of the problem. We want the Internet to remain free and open, everywhere, for everyone.
Make your voice heard!
On January 18, we hope youâll agree with us, and will do what you can to make your own voice heard.
Sue Gardner,
Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Stop Online Piracy Act – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as House Bill 3261 or H.R. 3261, is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, by House Judiciary Committee Chair Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors. The bill, if made law, would expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.[2] Presented to the House Judiciary Committee, it builds on the similar PRO-IP Act of 2008 and the corresponding Senate bill, the PROTECT IP Act.
> more
TAKE ACTIONThe Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a dangerous bill that would give the Department of Justice and big content unprecedented power to censor the Internet. There’s a critical hearing this week about the bill, part of big content’s effort to steamroll the bill through Congress, which means we have no time to lose. SOPA’s supporters are desperate to get this bill through quickly by convincing Congress there’s no real opposition to it. We know better, but we need to make our voices heard loud and clear.
see also
• what next: From Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales
“If everyone reading this donated $5, we would only have to fundraise for one day a year. But not everyone can or will donate. And that’s fine. Each year just enough people decide to give.
“This year, please consider making a donation of $5, $20, $50 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.”
- Labels: Labels
Ustad Allah Rakha
“Alla Rakha is the Einstein, the Picasso; he is the highest form of rhythmic development on this planet.”
Once in a great while, there emerges a musician who, through his genius, injects that certain spark necessary to elevate an instrument to another level of expression and appreciation.
For tabla, Ustad Allarakha was such an artist, having brought his instrument a stature and respect never before enjoyed. A disciple of Mian Kader Baksh, the great guru of the Punjab gharana, Ustad Allarakha was, in his lifetime, the most celebrated exponent of this style.
Sandeep Sagar: Abbaji – Ustad Allah Rakha
Leading American percussionists in Rock n’ Roll, such as the Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart, admired him and studied his technique, benefiting greatly even from single meetings. Hart, a published authority on percussion in world music, said “Alla Rakha is the Einstein, the Picasso; he is the highest form of rhythmic development on this planet.” Alla Rakha also collaborated with jazz drummer Buddy Rich, on their 1968 album Rich à la Rakha. Ustad Alla Rakha Khan was awarded the Padma Shri in 1977 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1982.
Alla Rakha – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
more > what next: Ustad Allah Rakha & Zakir Hussain | Tabla
- Labels: Labels
“Forgiveness is not an occasional act,
it is a permanent attitude.”
- Labels: acceptance, love, martin luther king, now, peace
Unity Day
Members of the African-American faith community have joined forces with Occupy Wall Street to launch a new campaign for economic justice inspired by the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Faithful to its philosophical origin, the “Occupy the Dream” coalition has called for a National Day of Action to Occupy the Federal Reserve tomorrow to focus attention on the gross injustice visited upon the 99% by the financial elite. Clergy members and Occupiers in over 16 cities will come together in Austin, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, DC, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Richmond, San Francisco, St. Louis, Wilmington, and beyond. In Manhattan, we will gather tomorrow (Jan. 16th) from 10am to 1pm at 33 Liberty Street (NY, NY 10045)…
more > Occupy Wall Street | NYC Protest for World Revolution
#J20: Occupy The Courts Nationwide, San Francisco to Occupy Wall Street West
via Occupy Portland:
This is a national day of action (January 20,2011) just one day before the second anniversary of the infamous Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which held that corporations (as people entitled to the rights of the U.S. Constitution) can spend unregulated and undisclosed sums of money in order to influence elections. [There are] over 80 rallies at federal courthouses around the country, including the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.
Occupy Wall Street | NYC Protest for World Revolution
There are only
two levels above death,
…acceptance and sharing.
- Labels: acceptance, human condition, Life, love, peace, sharing
- Labels: Labels
War, it’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.
Decapitation of prisoner in Korean War.
James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 â May 22, 1949) was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense.
Forrestal was a supporter of naval battle groups centered on aircraft carriers. In 1954, the world’s first supercarrier was named USS Forrestal in his honor, as is the headquarters of the United States Department of Energy. He is also the namesake of the Forrestal Lecture Series at the United States Naval Academy, which brings prominent military and civilian leaders to speak to the Brigade of Midshipmen, and of the James Forrestal Campus of Princeton University in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey.
Forrestal observed a famously punishing work schedule in the last years of his life, and rumors had circulated in the press as to his health. President Truman’s decision to dismiss him as Secretary of Defense on March 31, 1949 is said to have caused him to suffer a “nervous breakdown”, a charge denied by Forrestal’s brother. Forrestal was hospitalized on April 2, 1949. On May 22, 1949 he was found dead on the roof of a covered walkway below the window of a kitchen across the hall from his 16th floor room at the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC, commonly known as the Bethesda Naval Hospital), a bathrobe sash knotted tightly around his neck. This happened on the day Forrestal was to be discharged from the hospital. The news media reported that he had committed suicide, and the local coroner and U.S. Navy officials agreed. The circumstances of the death were reviewed, however, by a committee convened by Rear Admiral Morton D. Willcutts, the head of NNMC (1948â1951). The committee released only a brief list of conclusions several months after it had completed its work. The conclusions noted only that Forrestal “died following a fall” and that the fall caused his death. The board did not speculate as to what might have caused the fall.
The committee’s full report was not released until 2004. In a review of the board’s evidence and findingsâsolicited by the Navy and kept secret with the report until 2004âChairman of the American Psychiatric Association Dr. Winfred Overholser concluded that Forrestal “came to his death by suicide while in a state of mental depression,” but the report’s own conclusions were seen to have been accurately reported 55 years earlier, that is simply that Forrestal died from the fall. Debate over the exact circumstances of Forrestal’s unusual death continues today, with some critics citing the U.S. government’s withholding of the official report and autopsy results as well as possible signs of struggle in evidence photos as indicating foul play.
There were unsubstantiated reports in the press of paranoia and of involuntary commitment to the hospital, as well as suspicions about the detailed circumstances of his death, which have fed a variety of conspiracy theories as well as legitimate questions. For example, among the discrepancies between the report and the accounts given in the principal Forrestal biographies are that the transcription of the poem by Sophocles appears to David Martin, author of the six-part series Who Killed James Forrestal? to have been written in a hand other than Forrestal’s. If Forrestal’s, according to some intelligence sources, then he could not scribble the word “nightingale” in the poem because it was the code name of the Ukrainian Nazi elite unit Nachtigall Brigade which Forrestal had helped to smuggle to the United States to supplant Kim Philby’s failed ABN (Anti Bolshevik Nationals), an MI6 Soviet émigré fascist group. There was also broken glass found on Forrestal’s bed, a fact that had not been previously reported. Theories as to who might have murdered Forrestal range from Soviet agents, to U.S. government operatives sent to silence him for his knowledge of UFOs. (read more)
- Labels: above top secret, death, military, murder, mystery
“People should not be afraid of their governments.
Governments should be afraid of their people.”
- Labels: anarchy, fascism, government, liberation, lies, now