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New Media and Politics - News Roundup
Was under the weather and couldn't make it in for the show but will be there Friday morning. In the meantime here's a whole bunch of links to the war news and the continuously gushing spill in the Gulf.
Since everyone seems to give the overseas wars short shrift, I start there.
General McChrystal seems to be stalling for time so that coming offensive in Kandahar will be extra awesome - because war always is. An attack so brutish that the Taliban doesn't claim credit, but then they're murderous liars. Hamid Karzai has lost faith in US ability to defeat Taliban - turning to Pakistan. It's been a pretty bad month for Nato allies in Afghanistan and it's only 1/3 done.
Obama got his sanctions against Iran but no one actually believes they'll accomplish much.
On to the volcano of oil spewing into the Gulf, and the numbers are not good. The numbers have been revised upwards by the government and the uppermost estimates are frightening: 20 to 40 thousand barrels per day, and maybe even as high as 50 thousand, or 2.1 million gallons!
The right are trying to blame environmentalists for the oil spill - their fault for being right about the risks of off-shore drilling. John Boehner, minority House leader suggesting taxpayers should pay for the oil spill cleanup. BP still denying the existence of large oil plumes underneath the ocean waters. Aaaaand they couldn't be bothered to attend hearings on the oil disaster.
A couple of articles on how Dick Cheney and GWB jr. helped create a culture of corruption and deregulation that led to the BP disaster. Obama and his administration, especially Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, deserve to shoulder their fair share of the blame while we're doling it out. There really is no excuse for not doing more to change the culture and dynamics at the MMS.
The last five months have easily been the warmest on record. The Obama administration have been complacent about acting on global warming issues too.
Review Round-Up Thursday
Thee Oh Sees
Warm Slime
In The Red Records
I'd like to start this review with a pithy maxim (is that redundant?) I crafted while watching TV in my underwear: You don't get into psychedelic music, it gets into you. Not like religion or love, more like Cordyceps. And if any album is going to drive you insane, make you climb a tree and then burst out the back of your skull, it's Warm Slime.
Warm Slime's sound drips off it in thick gooey rivulets, each a unique child of the driving title track. Every song throbs with a pulse, but each heartbeat is different. "Everything Went Black" is a dark march, driving an army of freaks, while its neighbour "Castic Tackle" runs at twice the speed and bears an unmistakable connection to the surf rock scene.
None of the lyrics are quite coherent, the opening track is 13 minutes long and all the guitars sound like they're on mushrooms, in other words a finely crafted entry into the genre.
(Gareth Sloan)
Nas and Damian Marley
Distant Relatives
Universal/Def Jam
Distant Relatives combines the soulful reggae jams of Damien Marley with the lyrically-meaningful hip hop of Nas. They come together to give us socially conscious music with a message. With songs like "Tribal War", "My Generation" and "Promise Land, they take their listeners on a journey to Africa and give insight as to how we've all come to be distant relatives. The album combines steel band, reggae, rap, and rock that work together harmoniously. Damien channels his father (the late Bob Marley) through his lyrics and rhythm. The "One Mic" rapper, and "Welcome to Jamrock" singer come together to make inspiring music that takes risks, and preach the message of struggle and hope. They give us a much needed dose of reality. Nas brings the guns and Marley brings the Ganja.
(Sarah El Fangary)
blessthefall
Witness
Fearless Records
The mew album Witness by blessthefall hardly makes an impression while listening to it. As an old extreme blessthefall fan I was excited to hear their new album with their new vocalist Beau Boken, however after a quick listen to the album it was clear that something was missing. The screams feel empty, the breakdowns lack energy and overall the songs are rather boring. The only song that I actually enjoyed off the album is “To Hell & Back”. This is the only song in my opinion that captures what blessthefall use to be about, it has everything that the rest of the album lacks but it is only 1 track off of a 12 track CD.
(Katrina Kuras)
Shad
TSOL
Black Box Recordings
Three years after he wowed critics with sophomore effort The Old Prince, Shaddy K returns with a third album full of introspective raps, solid production, witty wordplay and a barrage of flows that best his Canuck contemporaries. Where others are all flash and no substance, every verse spit by the Ontario native is deep with strange allusions and double-entendres, forcing multiple listens in order to get some sense of some of the lines he drops. The beats Shad has crafted/sought out complement the songs perfectly – heavy on live instrumentation as well as atmospheric qualities, the words and music are a perfect marriage. First single "Yaa I Get It" has Shad playfully boasting while at the same time self-deprecatingly making fun of himself (much like the character he creates on The Old Prince's "The Old Prince Still Lives At Home"). Literate yet inviting, Shad straddles the line in-between backpacker and crowd rocker with a set of songs that are sure to please most rap fans.
(Brian Hastie)
Politically Canuck - New Media and Politics
Been busying myself with posts on single issues of late and kind of enjoying it. It's not really how my radio show works so it seems odd sometimes and I feel as if I may be short-shrifting the readers who show up looking for the day's wrap on Canadian politics. There's really not that much news out of Ottawa at this time of year (or there shouldn't be) as the silly season in Canadian politics is set to swing into high gear so we'll do our best.
Before the silly season can begin though, there's the matter of C-9: the budget bill loaded down with items that have nothing to do with budget matters and Liberals too focused on the polls to vote against what really is an egregious omnibus bill and force an election as budgets are always a matter of confidence. Strangely here, there's a reliance on the Senate to do what Parliament could not and that's remove the non-budget items from the bill - expect the requisite outrage from the Tories. If that doesn't work out, then a really terrible budget will have been foisted upon us that will have far-reaching consequences.
You have to give the Tories for credit keeping me fairly busy. By having money for things like fake lakes but not for poverty programs, they keep me wondering when Canadians will sit up and notice what they're up to. The Conservative's rigid ideology on the maternal-health initiative is proving to be an embarrassment for the country as there are whispers in the corridors of the major women’s reproductive-health conference in Washington condemning Canada for not funding abortion as part of its G8 maternal-health initiative.
Lastly, a link to a story about those rather persistent rumours of an NDP, Liberal merger which everyone is vehemently denying.
Soylent Green - New Media and Politics
I can remember being a kid and watching the film about a future dystopia, "Soylent Green," and thinking it quaint. I don't get that same sense of kitschy fun now when I view it. Characters portrayed by Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson live in a world where complete desertification has taken over the planet, destroyed the environment, and the inhabitants live a hard-scrabble life in a world completely depleted of all its' wonders and natural resources. It's (quite famously and literally) a dog eat dog world.
Today, as I busy myself posting the news links to stories I covered on my radio show, stories that are not getting enough MSM coverage because the medias are far too busy focusing on fake scandals like Obama using the word "ass," I find myself thinking of that fictional world. (My only problem with Obama's use of that word is that he did not direct it those truly responsible for the continuing disaster in the Gulf and those who really lower the level of discourse, especially when it comes to policy and politics.) Anyhow, as I continue following the nightmarish stories that are coming out of the Gulf while those on the right continue to push for an end to the moratorium on drilling, I see nothing but people blind to the real potential of this disaster in concert with everything else that is taking place around the globe. So much so that an entertainment I once regarded as a B-movie fantasy now seems prophetic and frightening.
News June 9th 2010
Read and produced by Lachlan Fletcher.
Stories by Jonathan Moore and Gareth Sloan.
Stephen Harper: Control Freak - New Media and Politics
With our PM there's never any shortage of adjectives to hurl his way. He makes it easy, heck he even inspired us at NMPCanada to create two new ones just for him: assalogue and sanctihole. Today however, we're going to stick to words that are already in the English dictionary.
A story being reported by the Globe and Mail describes his obsession with Tory message control, and how that reaches ...around the world in an attempt to orchestrate virtually every public utterance by seasoned diplomats from Britain to Bangladesh, a Canadian Press investigation concludes.
The Conservative government scripts every event using a communication tool they call the Message Event Proposal (MEP's). The MEPs have blurred the time-honoured separation of non-partisan public servants and political staffers and sidelined seasoned government communicators, sapping morale across the civil service.
It's far worse than just uninspired photo-ops. Quoting Jonathan Rose, a political scientist from Queen's University, “You've got bureaucrats who are doing the government's partisan work and also political staffers who are doing bureaucrats' work. So there's this huge blurring of lines between the two.” Those are lines that the government has no right to blur.
Jeffrey Simpson of The Globe and Mail describes Tory message control this way: The MEP describes the request/event, the likely audience, the desired headline or sound bite, the appropriate backdrop, the best photograph or camera angle, the appropriate clothing, the accompanying materials, and so on. Nothing, if possible, is left to chance by this spin machine, which is why so many of Stephen Harper’s events, and those of other ministers, have such a lifeless, deadening sense about them.
There's something inherently sad about these tactics that prevent Canadians from ever getting an honest look at who is governing and what it is they believe as opposed to what they purport. It's also hard to read about this and not think that Harper and the Conservatives have co-opted the Republican playbook which has been been all about message control from the top down - and look where that has brought American public discourse.
The Psychology of Denialists - New Media and Politics
From Debora MacKenzie at New Scientist comes an article on the psychology of denialists. It's illuminating and helps to explain how we can be in the middle of a crisis - Global Warming - and the concrete steps necessary to mitigate this imminent disaster are for the most part not being taken.
I have never been able to get my head around the deniers of anthropogenic global warming, and the science behind it. I understand why people in the fossil fuels business are fighting it tooth and nail but the followers, the believers in this tripe have always left me cold. I tend to get extremely dismissive and condescending. It makes absolutely no sense - not because the science couldn't be wrong, it could be - but because the deniers objections always rely on anecdote and science produced by people with vested interests. The conspiracy part of the equation is just goofy. That scientists from all over the world could all be in on the climate change fix is so absurd as to be beyond ludicrous.
In discussion just a couple of days ago someone sneered at me that I was one of those who believed the science produced by NASA the NOAA and the IPCC as if these were organizations were staffed by ducks, and mad ones at that. I lost my temper, not because I was sneered at or even because he was disparaging organizations whose integrity I believe in - certainly more than the word of profit driven corporations - but because an otherwise sane human being could advance a line of reasoning so obtuse.
To believe that global warming is not happening bizarre judgements are being made. Firstly, that the intuition of the denier trumps the hard work and study of tens of thousands of scientists and hundreds of thousands of man hours of research. Second, that the evidence visible before all our eyes is somehow all part of the normal vagaries of weather patterns when there is ample proof from around the globe that things are changing markedly, rapidly and dangerously. Lastly, to make these arguments at all, one has to have come to the conclusion that the constant stream of CO2 that humankind is pumping into the atmosphere from cars and factories all around the globe are of little or no consequence (9.5 billion tons so far this year, and it's only June!).
Ms. MacKenzie points out that I should consider being less judgemental of deniers: Whatever they are denying, denial movements have much in common with one another, not least the use of similar tactics. All set themselves up as courageous underdogs fighting a corrupt elite engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the truth or foist a malicious lie on ordinary people. This conspiracy is usually claimed to be promoting a sinister agenda: the nanny state, takeover of the world economy, government power over individuals, financial gain, atheism. They're just trying to be do-gooders in their own strange way.
She also says these people are neither ...malicious, or even explicitly anti-science. Indeed, the alternative explanations are usually portrayed as scientific. Nor is it willfully dishonest. It only requires people to think the way most people do: in terms of anecdote, emotion and cognitive short cuts. Denialist explanations may be couched in sciency language, but they rest on anecdotal evidence and the emotional appeal of regaining control.
And there's the rub, scientific evidence and facts will not dissuade the denier, ...against emotion and anecdote, dry statements of evidence have little power. To make matters worse, scientists usually react to denial with anger and disdain, which makes them seem even more arrogant.
She does a great job of describing the crossover of corporate interests funding groups that play into these beliefs for their own benefit and gives the very definition of what are commonly referred to in the blogosphere as 'asrto-turf' movements (fake grass-roots): Many denialist movements originate as cynical efforts by corporations to cast doubt on findings that threaten their bottom line. Big Tobacco started it in the 1970s, recruiting scientists willing to produce favourable data and bankrolling ostensibly independent think tanks and bogus grass-roots movements. One such think tank was The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), set up in 1993 by tobacco company Philip Morris. TASSC didn't confine itself to tobacco for long. After getting funds from Exxon, it started casting doubt on climate science.
The consequences of denialist movements have cost people their lives and this one may cost many more. This is not some quaint discussion about people who believe in anecdote and those who believe in science, it's about preserving a livable environment for our descendants.
With Gay Abandon Visit... Teen Sleuth!
Photo by Jocelyn Michel
Taking the stage at Montreal's Fringe Festival on Friday June 11th 2010, Teen Sleuth and the Freed Cyborg Choir is a multi-faceted musical experience not to be missed.
Debuting last year at the St. Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival, Teen Sleuth and the Freed Cyborg Choir is back, armed with their debut EP. Their EP will also be available as a limited edition pop-up version, to help simulate the Teen Sleuth “experience” at home. The live experience, self-described as an “ope-raw!” features a 12 piece band, including a full string section, as well as dancers, theatric visuals and projections, dream-like costumes and puppetry. The many aspects of their live performance illustrates the capacious nature of their sound. Their performance will be done in the open- air, outside, adding to the heightened sensory journey of their romantic rockouts.
I had the chance to catch up with two of the main teen sleuths, Ellen Smallwood – creative director, co-musical director/arranger and main vocalist, and Aleks Schürmer – band leader, co-musical director/arranger and keyboardist/vocalist. Inspired by Nancy Drew, cyborgs, post-humans, post-mammals and ghosts, Teen Sleuth and the Freed Cyborg Choir is guaranteed to leave you pining for more of their incredibly artistic, creative storytelling.
Click here for the Facebook info for their performance on Friday June 11th.
With Gay Abandon: Here we are on CJLO 1690 AM, CJLO.com. And we are with two, maybe they could be teen detectives, we will find out. I am going to ask you to introduce yourselves...
Teen Sleuth Ellen: Hi I'm Ellen, I'm the singer and one of the songwriters of Teen Sleuth and the Freed Cyborg Choir.
Teen Sleuth Aleks: Hi, I'm Aleks and I do the arrangements for said show, and I play keyboards, and also sing sometimes...
TSE: Slash all the time... [laughs]
TSA: [laughs]
WGA: Amazing... Okay, you have a pretty interesting name, can you tell me about that?
TSE: It's true. Well we've kinda decided that we are doing sort of two different things here. We kinda just call ourselves Teen Sleuth but we have a multi-disciplinary show as well, that is a combination of theatrics, dance, and projections and puppets, and so kind of from now on when we are going to be doing that show, which we call our "Ope-rah", we are going to be going as Teen Sleuth and the Freed Cyborg Choir, but umm, as we are moving forward we are kinda focusing more on being a band, Teen Sleuth, so we are kinda distinguishing ourselves like that, but of course it is based on, you know, the lovely feminist folk hero, Nancy Drew, the original teen sleuth.
WGA: Nice...
TSE: Fearless!
WGA: Amazing! That is an interesting concept that you have two versions, almost, depending on how elaborate...
TSE: Totally. Well it wasn't so much distinguished like that at first but then I guess just through a process of learning by doing, and seeing all of the aspects at every show took into account, we kind of realized that in some instances it's fun to have all of that stuff in the “Ope-rah”, and have all of the fun that goes on there, but in another way we want to be able to do things where it's more just music stuff as well, so there we're cool with, you know, being Teen Sleuth. And it's easier to remember anyway. [laughs] You know I'm fighting... I wish I could get...
TSA: It's a lot to say.
TSE: Yeah, teensleuth.com, wish we could own it, we can't. Someone else's got that.
WGA: Somebody else does?
TSE: A photoblog, yes.
WGA: No!
TSE: And they never use it. They never use it and they have the Myspace, and they just randomly upload a photo, and I'm like “don't you know the pain you've caused me on a daily basis?” Like “I want your domain name” [laughs]. But it's the Freed Cyborg Choir, that's a good time too.
WGA: Yeah I actually revealed that name to another musician, and she was stoked...
TSE: Oh yeah? Nice.
WGA: ...to say the least, she was like “whoa! That sounds amazing! I need to hear it!” and I was like “you need to hear it.”
TSE: Yeah. That's what I like to hear.
WGA: So tell me a little bit about what would one expect at a live Teen Sleuth experience?
TSE: The Teen Sleuth experience. Okay well, the new kinda thing that we're launching next Friday is actually is music and projections, but the projections are sort of featuring the elements of our opera, so the puppets, the costumes and the dance, and it sort of taking these and juxtaposing them into little storybook worlds that Frances McKenzie, our sort of art guru, makes so it's gonna be pretty intense. I'm pretty excited. So it's like going to see a band but all of the music is going to be illustrated at all times, so..
WGA: That's amazing.
TSA: It's a whole lot of crazy.
TSE: A whole lot of crazy going on.
WGA: Aleks, can you tell me a little bit about the musical aspect?
TSA: Yeah... ummm... Honestly, it's different every time, something that's... I don't like to say that, but it's organic, like I think that I don't like when I see other bands when it sounds like the CD at the show.
WGA: Mmhmm definitely.
TSA: And that's not that interesting 'cause to be honest it's cheaper and probably a lot more comfortable to be at your house and just listen to a CD. So every time we get together, if it's like not very nice out, or we're tired, or had a bad day, it sounds different than if we're super excited and it's really nice out, and you know something cool just happened.
WGA: That's awesome, that's great, that's a cool sort of thing to think about though, when you're like...
TSA: I think it's something that makes it more interesting for us because it's been now sort of two years of Teen Sleuth, with a lot of the same music so at some point, you know, we've done it that way before. We've done it in so many different formations too and even I wasn't there at the beginning, I mean I was there, but I wasn't in it... [laughs] And you know it was like a lot smaller and it was more, I don't even know, like experimental, kind of, and it had a phase that I am not entirely proud of that our slightly Broadway-ish overtone... [laughs]
TSE: Hey! We were just coming of age, you know.
TSA: But we ironed it all out.
TSE: We were trying to figure it out.
TSA: But I mean I think that the music the stuff that Ellen comes up with is so... I don't even know what kind of music it is, and it references so many different things, and then, you know, I put my own kind of spin on it, and you know make little comical references to this indie band, or like one of the songs probably has what some of the wankiest classical orchestrations possible [laughs], and so, over time trying to like make it sound like one band is some that is, that we've like finally done. [laughs]
WGA: Awesome.
TSE: I think also that recording this EP has really kind of like helped us think a lot about what our sound recorded is gonna be, what a Teen Sleuth recording sounds like, so it was kind of like a long winter of sort of working that out but...
TSA: Very very long.
TSE: Very long winter, but it's summer now, so we're ready.
WGA: So are you ready to launch the Teen Sleuth At Home experience?
TSE: Yeah, yes.
[all laugh]
WGA: The port-a-Teen Sleuth.
TSE: Totally, and it's under the stars, and our EP is called Where The Animals Chase The Stars, so we're excited that it is going to be an outside launch and...
WGA: Yeah.
TSE: ...hopefully the weather is gonna be awesome.
TSA: I mean honestly, I don't even care if it rains, as long as we can still do the show. [laughs]
WGA: Yeah.
TSE: Well apparently there's...
TSA: ...Put up a little tent for us...
TSE: ...A rain location.
TSA: Everyone else can get wet.
TSE: Yeah.
TSA: They will anyway.
WGA: And so that's part of the Fringe right?
TSE: It's part of the Fringe. It's being put on by Indyish, we're co-presenting it with them, and so it's the Indyish Fringe Mess, and so there's gonna be other stuff going on, and other bands: Reversing Falls, and David Simard, who plays with us, and Brie Nelson And Her Other Men, and Willow Rutherford from Toronto, and...
TSA: And a bunch of others...
TSE: And a bunch of other stuff. [laughs]
WGA: And will that be your official EP release as well?
TSE: Yah, that's the official one. I mean, who knows what we'll do after that, but for now this is... You come and you can you can get a copy, and you can even order a special edition pop-up version if you so choose.
WGA: Oooooh! A pop-up version! That would be the real take-home experience!
TSE: Yeah, well that's for hours of pop-up fun in your own environment.
TSA: It's for the true fans really.
[laughs]
WGA: Yeah no, that sounds it. Now how would people get a hold of you?
TSE: Get a hold of us?
WGA: Yeah!
TSE: Uh...
WGA: My listeners!
TSA: You can find Ellen in the alley on St Laurent very often!
WGA: Oh pishaw!
TSE: Yeah well that's where we practice!
TSA: She in fact lives in an alley.
TSE: Yeah, and we practice in an alley, we're being real with you.
[all laugh]
TSE: Well, you can go to our myspace, which is myspace.com/teensleuthfreedcyborgchoir or our website, teensleuthfreedcyborgchoir.com.
What Could Go Wrong?
Reading that the current administration in Ottawa has decided to jump into what's called a "sole-sourced" (think no-bid) purchase of 65 high-priced fighter jets, I can't help but get a queasy feeling. One really has to wonder why the contract worth up to $9-billion is being awarded without competition.
Stephen Harper's rationale that "the only other aircraft that could eventually meet the needs of the Canadian Forces would be built in China or Russia, and that such a purchase wouldn’t fly in Canada, is specious at best and a flat out lie, with a little demagoguery tossed in for good measure, at worst. Harper is suddenly against competition and against the possibility of saving some of those hard earned tax dollars he's always claiming to be spending so judiciously? And I missed the note that said China and Russia are the enemy once more. I thought they were valued trading partners in a global economy.
It's not only the Russians ands Chinese that have been cut out of the bidding. Boeing doesn't get a shot at maybe providing a better product or beating Lockheed-Martin's price either. Harper's Defense Minister, Peter Mackay ducked questions on the matter answering NDP critics with only, "Stay tuned!”
We will.
Learning Curves - New Media and Politics
I probably pick on Iggy too much, but it's only because I like him. Not as leader of the Liberal Party per say, but as a person. I've seen him up close, followed what he has too say and it's pretty obvious he's a decent and caring human being. Which does not necessarily make him the best candidate to be a party leader - in fact quite the opposite. He would be better suited, it often seems to me, to be the policy wonk behind the scenes doing policy grunt work. Or, as I've said before, he should be the guy behind the guy, and not the guy.
At every turn Harper seems to have had an edge on Michael Ignatieff up until now. Even when he was using cheap American style politicking tricks like demagoguing, fear-mongering and sneering. Today however Michael Ignnatieff fired back at Tory spin in a manner the suggests we may be in for a learning curve. I did say I thought he was smart, right?
In an interview this weekend, Ignatieff said he'd be open to a coalition with the NDP if the electorate didn't give the Liberals a mandate to govern solo. For some reason the Tories believe this can be made into a controversy. I fail to see how - but they've tried before. It's not unprecedented in Canadian history and I have this vague memory of a party called the Alliance Party wanting to merge with the Conservatives and form a coalition to oppose the Liberals - but that could just be a bad dream.
So when the Tory spinsters got hold of this they declared, “It’s not acceptable to ignore the election result and install a party and leader rejected by the voters,” according to the talking points. “It’s not acceptable to give the NDP co-management of the economy.”
I have never understood their objections to a progressive coalition. If Canadians vote for progressives from the Green Party, the NDP and the Liberal Party, and those number far exceed the number of people who vote Conservative why shouldn't they form an alliance and govern? It's the Parliamentary system. That's how it works.
Anyhow, instead of apologizing for thinking this way, Iggy shot back that the Tories were being "ridiculous."
"To say that coalitions are legitimate is like saying the earth is round,” a senior Ignatieff official said Monday morning. “It happens everywhere. Mr. Cameron (British Prime Minister David Cameron, who leads a coalition government) said so to Stephen last week."
You go Iggy!
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