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Roundup of G-20 News - New Media and Politics
Trying to get back in a regular groove what with holidays and a weird sense of burning out on litany of lies crap and bad news. None of which would be half as bad were it not for the frustration I feel when it's not reported in on detail and with context by the MSM. Things have gotten far more wankerish here in Canada that I could have imagined - even with Harper at the helm.
That G-20 get-together that produced a record number of mass arrests, the most in Canadian history, drew this response from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association: "To us, it’s abhorrent that we would be arresting more than 900 people to find maybe 50 or 100 … vandals. This makes no sense. It’s a fundamental breach of Canadian law to have done that,” said Nathalie Des Rosiers, the organization’s general counsel.
If this was the worst thing that came out of Harper's billion dollar vanity project I'd have moved on to other things, sadly it is not. Naomi Klein explains how we all got screwed at the summit, Faced with the effects of a crisis created by the world’s wealthiest and most privileged strata, they decided to stick the poorest and most vulnerable people in their countries with the bill. Paul Krugman of the NYT's thinks the deal signed on at the G-20 could lead to the 3rd great depression. One he believes will be, primarily a failure of policy. Around the world — most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting — governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending. But our PM was busily advocating and cheering on these cuts. That may end up being his true legacy.
NGO's (Non-Governmental Organizations) gave the summit a failing grade and to top it all off Canada actually blocked taking action on poverty at the summit. How proud of our PM are you at this moment? But he doesn't deserve all the brickbats - keep some handy to fling at Ontario's Liberal(?) premier Dalton McGuinty who refuses to explain why his cabinet passed a secret law giving police more power to arrest people during the G20 summit in Toronto.
And one final note from the awesome summit of the wealthy on behalf of the rich, the PM signs a nuclear co-operation deal with India.
CJLO Live at the Caribbean Curry House
Join CJLO for a live broadcast and BBQ at the Caribbean Curry House this holiday long weekend! Beat the World, Caribbean Callaloo, More Fyah and the Lime Light will be hosting their shows and broadcasting live from the Curry House back garden.
There will be a BBQ and lots of great food and music so come on by and join us. If you can't make it or are from out of town be sure to listen in at 1690 AM, cjlo.com or on iTunes Radio.
It's all happening this Saturday, July 3rd from noon to 8pm. Curry House can be found at 6892 Avenue Victoria in Montreal.
If you're a business in the area and would like to get involved, feel free to email us at manager(at)cjlo(dot)com for sponsorship opportunities.
Don't miss it!
See the Facebook event here for RSVP and more info.
Gusher in the Gulf and Environmental News
The news about the gusher in the Gulf continues to be bad and strangely we find out something new and terrible every week that this goes on. Today I learned that, unknown to the majority of the public, this particular area that was chosen by the BP geologists has been described as unstable and even dangerous due to the possible super sized methane beds embedded deep in the earths crust. Scientists from the Texas A&M University who have been running tests in the area within a 5 mile radius of the drill site, have found levels of methane in the ocean that are through the roof. In some pockets of the ocean the concentrations of methane gas levels are up to 100,000 times the norm and even more incredibly up to 1 million times higher.
I have no idea of how to react to that except with fear. I'm all out of outrage for BP - there are no excuses for the numerous ways in which they screwed up and brought this disaster about.. They should be dismantled but sadly they have politicians and media to help disseminate their propaganda and lies and thus assure their survival. Obama's getting BP to pony up in advance was good politics which is why the Republicans and the corporate media freaked out
The oil in the Gulf, says my favourite blog on all things global warming, looms like disease for birds and turtles. Also over at Climate Progress there's a report about the so-called "Climategate," and MSM retractions of that lying meme, that noted of course, the damage has been done. That's what it's all about, creating narratives. Here's one that's undeniable except by the anti-science types who deny everything: the Arctic is experiencing record sea ice shrinkage.
Obama keeps his promise on whale conservation - the MSM tries to lie about it.
A beautiful and kinda' sad slide show of art made out of our consumptive excesses.
Weekends Get Longer - Canadian News Edition
This will be brief. There was more bad news from Afghanistan yesterday as two Canadians were amongst the six NATO soldiers that died during what has been the deadliest month for NATO forces since the nine year old war began. Master Corporal Kristal Giesebrecht, 34, and Private Andrew Miller, 21, were on their way to deal with a mine that had been found in the doorway of a home when the vehicle they were in detonated an IED killing them both.
From Truthout an essay on how the shift to General Petreus signals an Afghanistan war policy crisis. I'm not sure I agree entirely, but it does mean most certainly that there will be change of some sort in strategy and that will most definitely affect the mission and Canadians serving there. And from Think Progress a terrific backgrounder on the Afghanistan war and questions about changing course.
The vandals dressed in black are not to be confused with the peaceful protesters who attempted to let the leaders of the G-20 know how they felt about the never-ending war in Afghanistan, the same austerity measures they are always recommending for us but not for banks or corporations, Harper's stand on the maternal health care issue and a myriad of other issues. None of which will now get a hearing because a bunch of thugs claiming to be anarchists marched up and down Toronto streets breaking things for reasons that make little sense to me.
The idea is usually stated these acts are undertaken so as to show the face of the oppressor - the police state. Thing is, it doesn't work. Most people, when they see this stuff get angry and want to see the protests stopped. That includes legitimate ones along with the idiocy and violence.
And that's the thing. The only thing that works is non-violence. Civil disobedience is fine but it has to be civil. If you want to show the face of an oppressive state try a non-violent protest. If the police attack that then you'll achieve your goal of unmasking the state for what it is. Until a way can be found to dis-include the black balaclava wearing miscreants all protests will be seen as illegitimate and worse, their message will not be heard. This kind of behaviour gives the jack-booted types licence.
So Harper's $1.2 billion dollar vanity project gets a black eye but he gets to make the claim (more plausibly than he otherwise would) that the violence justifies the enormous bill Canadians are footing for it. - Ontario's McGuinty get a share of the blame too for pushing through a bill when no one was looking that takes Canadian's rights away.
Black Sheep: An Unconventional look at Good Ol’ Family Values
Karyn A. Gray recently published her first book, Black Sheep: An Unconventional Look at Good Ol’ Family Values. It is a compilation of photo’s and thoughts on family as seen by some of the underground elite. The book looks at family life as told by the artists, musicians and celebrities themselves, accompanied by photo’s of their family life, past and present. Black Sheep incorporates underground A-Listers including contributions by such prominent artists as Ian MacKaye, Henry Rollins, Sage Francis, Mr. Dibbs, Melissa Auf der Maur and Danny Diablo. The contributor’s show that looks and/or career choice do not define us as a hole, and too see the whole picture, one only has to ask, which is exactly what Karyn Gray did. The contributors all have varied stances on family, but for the most part it seems to be just as important to the tattooed roughneck as it is to their cardigan wearing counterparts.
Black Sheep is a throwback to my and many others childhoods. We can see ourselves in the reflections of the artists. Whether we don ourselves with a plethora of tattoos or listen to aggressive music, we still (for the most part) have a family that we care for. The underground music, tattoo, art and fashion scene are not “defined” in Black Sheep, as they can’t be defined in general. Every person is an individual and therefore holds individuals ideas on the underground scene. As the Generation X era moves into a dominant position in the world and takes the place of the baby boomers, the “underground” raises slowly to the surface. Black Sheep: An Unconventional look at Good Ol’ Family Values begs its readers to look beyond the surface and to not judge a book by its cover, you should however read this book from cover to cover.
News June 25th 2010
News produced by Drew Pascoe, read by Erica Fisher
Stories by Jonothan Moore, Alina Gotcherian and Erica Fisher
Shout out to Mr. Pascoe (senior) who's birthday is today. Happy Birthday from the News Team!
News June 23rd 2010
Read and produced by Lachlan Fletcher.
Stories written by Emily Brass and Gareth Sloan.
Death of the Silly Season in Canada? New Media and Politics
I'm expectantly waiting for summertime to bring an end to political wrangling of all sorts but maybe I'm being naive. Maybe it's just not possible in an era where the media operates under the rules of 'there must be constant frenzy' so as to continuously keep the readers titillated. Does this signal the death of the silly season in Canada?
Witness today's opening story about interview with CSIS director Richard Fadden that happened months ago and wasn't released until just this week. I didn't cover it immediately because it sounded like some mad crank. He said that a number of politicians were being directly influenced by foreign states. Sounds like crazy conspiracy talk to me. Turns out he actually said it, and the CBC which aired the interview on Tuesday sat on this explosive information for a considerable time. Maybe to ease the pain of quiet summers? What the hell were they thinking?
He backtracked a bit later saying, “I have not apprised the Privy Council Office of the cases I mentioned in the interview on CBC,” and added “CSIS has not deemed the cases to be of sufficient concern to bring them to the attention of provincial authorities.”
The Summits are about to get under way starting with the G-20 in Toronto, which is under lockdown. The world has noticed Harper's egregious spending on "security" and the fake lake making fools of us all. There will be an anti-war rally on the 26th outside the US consulate. At Massey Hall on Saturday there will be at the Council of Canadians, Shout Out for Global Justice with prominent social and environmental justice leaders from around the world including Amy Goodman from Democracy Now.
Oh by the way, in case you missed it, the Tories prison bill to cost Canadian taxpayers one billion dollars a year. Conservatives all over the world suck at actually being fiscal conservatives - they just talk about it endlessly.
Lastly, Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore labels critics of Bill C-32 (the Canadian version of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act) "radical extremists" and urged confrontation against those who argue for fair copyright, and then tries to cover it up. Here's Cory Doctrow, a Canadian author who also who blogs over at boingboing.net who do an extraordinary job of keeping on top of this issue.
Music Review: Review Round-Up Thursday
Drowning Pool
Drowning Pool
eleven Seven
So Drowning Pool released an album recently called Drowning Pool. No? You don't remember them? They were that band who had that "Bodies" song in 2001 and then their lead singer died. Oh, yeah, now you kind of remember right? Well, they have a new album now. Believe it or not its their fourth album, the third after the death of their first lead singer (whose name is/was Dave Williams).
After Dave died they decided to get a new singer named Jason Jones, who I guess was qualified because as a former tattoo artist, he was either standing around the band when they decided to look for someone new, or he gave them a bunch of tattoos and rather than pay him they offered him a spot in the band. Either way he left and then the lead singer of Soil, Ryan McCombs, who looked around at his band and saw they weren't doing anything, decided that he could sing for them.
This is Ryan's second album with the group, so naturally its probably some great leap forward with the band since they've been touring and writing music together. I'd love to tell you that this is the case, but I really couldn't convince myself that I wanted to go and find the last album and listen to it to compare it to this one. I just couldn't convince myself that I'd done anything bad enough to warrant such a punishment. But what's the current album like?
To be honest, this album is even less than memorable, much like the band itself. As I write this, I'm four songs in and I haven't really noticed that anything has changed. All the songs sound like rip offs of Soil songs, which is like saying, "Hey, let's pick a band to sound like, but not someone good, that?s too obvious. Let's go for someone who no one will notice if we rip off. Hey Ryan, what's that band you're in? Soil? Great, we're going to sound like you guys now."
The album is only 39 minutes long, and therefore is longer than a full episode of Say Yes to the Dress on TLC. Speaking of which, that's just one of the many shows that grab my attention more than this album. Granted, pretty much every show on TLC throws me into an almost incomprehensible anger, but the reason for both is the same. The reason I feel such anger at any show on TLC is that I see no reason why it exists. I mean, who needs to make a show called Extreme Poodles or Toddlers and Tiaras? It's the same thing with a new Drowning Pool album. Sure, you can make it, but why would you want to? The only difference is that on TLC, I become angry because of the stupidity of the whole thing. For the Drowning Pool album, I don't feel anything, that?s how bland and uninteresting it is.
Still though, in both cases the person that really loses is the consumer of these media. That time in front of I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant is never going to come back, just like the 39 minutes that I had to sit through of this boring hard rock. I demand retribution. I propose that Drowning Pool watch a day of TLC programming and TLC programmers listen to a day's worth of this Drowning Pool album. By the time it's over, both sets of them will either died of boredom, become so brain damaged that they won't be able to hurt anyone any more, or will have taken their own lives in a futile attempt to stop the pain. Though this seems cruel, I think it would be best for all mankind, and isn't that a small price to pay?
Holy Fuck
Latin
Holy Fuck, now here's a band that constantly draws flack over its name... Not necessarily because it's obscene, but because people always feel they fail to live up to their mind-blowing promise. Well with the recent release of their new album Latin the flame wars are sure to heat up once again. Why? Because if Latin is anything, it's simply OK.
Holy Fuck is a hard band to pin down, they fall into an odd space between electronic and rock music (the same place my house keys probably disappear to too). However rather than combining the more aggressive traits of each they opt for the more minimal side of each. In the end the product sounds somewhere between shoe gaze and efficient german techno... If Helvetica Oblique had a sound this would be it. It is most adventurous with "Red Lights" (which combines genres well) and "Sht Mtn" (which has some tasty and fuzzy guitar parts).
So will Latin cause you to exclaim in shock and surprise? I doubt it, but it's also not bad enough to be, well... bad. Listen to the whole album and you it might find it blurs together, but if you like white space and straight lines this will go nicely with your morning espresso.
(Gareth Sloan)
Sleigh Bells
Treats
The duo that makes up M.I.A. proteges Sleigh Bells come from very diverse backgrounds: guitarist/sonic architect Derek Miller used to play guitar in notable hardcore band Poison The Well during their most productive years and singer Alexis Krauss was part of pop outfit Rubyglue. The year-old duo joined forces to create Sleigh Bells, a band categorized as... Noise pop. And no, that's not a typo. The band's sound is equal parts My Bloody Valentine and La Roux (and bands of its ilk) – overcharged electro beats, meaty guitars and soaring, reverbed vocals. The sum of the parts, however, are way better than the resulting whole: Treats is a half-hour ride of empty, basic pop music and sonic screeches, disposable and forgettable bits of musicality that are entirely interchangeable. It's hard to deny the record's ability to get folks up and dancing with its many percussive elements, though most would be hard-pressed to tell which song they were dancing to.
Barrack and Stanley - New Media and Politics
It's been all over the media already but I thought I should post top story of the last couple of days anyhow: Obama replaces McChrystal with General Petreus. In short, he found a way to dump McChrystal, for his ridiculous statements to a Rolling Stone reporter, and thus avoid being called a wimp or milquetoast. He did it without upsetting his Afghan allies, and the lack of uproar from the right on this speaks to his canniness on dealing with the crisis. No doubt after a weekend of thinking it over the right will emerge with quibbles but you can put his handling of this in the victory column for Barrack.
Rachel walks us through all the complicated issues in play including the COIN strategy and whether or not Obama should use this crisis as an excuse to re-evaluate the war and its' goals. The point that this is, and has been of late, an unsexy war which mirrors what I've been saying for weeks. This decision will affect Canadians serving in Afghanistan. We'll learn how soon enough but hopefully it will be for the better as Petreus is a more flexible individual than the blood and guts McChrystal was.
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