Inside the Issue: Article by max milford / London 19 Votes / Average: 4,5
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the rocking horse the ďŹ rst (ever) blogpaper issue NO1. / 25/09/09 / - Submit your content to www.theblogpaper.co.uk
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politics Article by Jamie Potter / Midlands, UK 19 Votes / Average: 4,1
www.jamie-potter.blogspot.com
The BNP must be fought in the open The BNP must be fought in the open Unite Against Fascism (UAF) couldn’t have picked a better day to release the analysis of their campaign against the BNP during the European elections. In an interview with a BBC reporter, BNP leader Nick Griffin made some utterly revolting remarks about “sinking immigrants’ boats” as they try to make it to Europe. Such hideous views do a lot of the anti-fascist campaigners’ work for them, revealing the BNP for the extremists they really are, no matter what kind of respectable veneer they may try to smear themselves in. But looking at UAF’s analysis document, you also can’t help but wonder if the anti-fascists are making life difficult for themselves. Do not get me wrong, the UAF are doing important work, but it seems they are flirting with ideas that could well damage the antifascist campaign and undermine the hard work being done by the movement. In the document, UAF hinted at their tactics for combating fascism in the elections by encouraging people to get out and vote: “Throughout the campaign we put out 2.5 million leaflets and newspapers pushing a consistent message – that the BNP was a fascist party, that there was a serious danger of them winning seats, and that they could be stopped if enough people turned out to vote against them.” While this is undoubtedly vital it is only half the battle. What about the people who do and will vote BNP? Combating fascism isn’t simply a case of winning more votes than the fascists, but engaging with those who, for whatever reasons, support the BNP. Focusing on winning more votes does nothing to tackle the existing racism, xenophobia and discontent. A lot of people still voted for the BNP, something the UAF do recognise, and these people are just as important as those who didn’t feel inclined to vote at all. More worrying however, is the belief UAF hold in restricting the BNP access to the media: “Incidents such as these [racist attacks] highlight the fact that the BNP cannot be fought on a purely ideological level but must be vigorously confronted and excluded from our democratic culture.
One vital aspect of this involves the media. The fact that there are now two BNP Euro MPs will lead to specific pressures on journalists and media workers to treat the party as if it were a legitimate political voice. This could mean interviews with leading BNP figures, invitations onto “Question Time” style panel debates, or even misguided attempts at “exposing” the BNP that end up merely sensationalising them. “The danger is that the BNP will be allowed to worm its way into the media establishment. It will use any platforms it is granted to consolidate its presence in the political mainstream, normalise its racist arguments, pull the political spectrum to the right and build its organisations on the ground. And as the fascists grow, so do the pressures on people to capitulate to them. The danger today is that the BNP breaks through the “cordon sanitaire” to become a regular fixture in our media.” How can you define a ‘legitimate political voice’? Is the working class man on a sink estate in the North-west not a ‘legitimate political voice’? Many of the issues they bring up, such as immigration, are ‘legitimate’ political issues and they have every right to air their beliefs. We [apparently] have something called free speech in this country. As much as people don’t like it, this also applies to the BNP. As Noam Chomsky puts it: “If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all.” The BNP have as much of a right as the rest of us to talk about issues affecting Britain and if it strays too far and becomes incitement to racial hatred then they’ll be dealt with by the police.
The BNP need to be fought in the open. Denying them space in the media forces the BNP ‘underground’ where it is harder to tackle the ideas they propagate and plays into the hands of the BNP rhetoric that talks of a ‘liberal conspiracy’ to exclude them from the political discussion in this country. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - let the BNP have their soapbox and then whip it away with reason, logic and well informed arguments. It’s not the medium that normalises the racist argument but the capitulation of a counter- argument. Many of their policies are based on ignorance, such as the notion that migrants get favoured in social housing. People need to understand what exactly it is the BNP stand for and arm themselves with the arguments that can unravel the BNP. To deny the BNP a platform is to pretend the problem doesn’t exist and further reinforces the idea of a liberal conspiracy against their supporters. If we don’t win the intellectual argument, it vindicates their policies. However, if we do win that argument then we reveal them for the sham they are.
Article by jonnywalker / UK 8 Votes / Average: 3,4
www.jmw220.blogspot.com
Citizenship - are you British enough? A new Home Office paper on tackling immigration is proposing a “points test for citizenship”. These points come out of a speech given yesterday by the Immigration Minister, Phil Woolas. There is so much I dislike about how they are going about this, but I’ll try and keep it short. First, potential migrants can increase their chances, and the speed of their application being processed if they canvass for a political party. This is pretty low of Labour. Migrants are quite naturally going to vote for the party in government - it’s the ‘Do not bite the hand that feeds’ principle. Labour are more sympathetic to immigration than are the Tories, so Labour are essentially blackmailing the migrants into canvassing. Who else would the migrants vote for? Most British don’t know what the Lib Dems are, so migrants are less likely still. By encouraging this canvassing by aspirational citizens, Labour are just trying to get a few more dark faces on the street, and a few more languages in which to espous the Labour vote, thus increasing the numbers of people they can contact. Something just doesn’t seem right with it. Next, so-called ‘Orientation Days’, which the aspirational citizens will have to attend, where they will be taught about British values, norms and customs. I can think of nothing more precise to say here than ‘what?!’. Who really defines themselves as British? I don’t think there really is a Britishness at all. Any geographical identity is much more tightly focused - Yorkshireman, Country Bumpkin, Welshman, Geordie. I wonder what these ‘British values’ might be - I dare say these will be values that are pretty rare amongst the general population. I’d hazard a guess it will consist of telling them to respect others, queue politely, please and thank you and other such condescending crap that exists mostly in the rhetoric of retrospective middle-market journalism, pining for the good old days. These orientation days will essentially be preaching passivity and compliance. And as for norms and customs... by god. Binge drinking and getting passionately reamed twice weekly in an alleyway? Competitiveness in every sphere? Not knowing your neighbours’ names? Giving your kids a good smack around the chops if they do something wrong, or more likely, if they just piss you off? These are the real ‘norms’ we face.
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politics On from this, an ‘active disregard’ of UK values will lead to penalisation for the applicants. Isn’t this just the spirit of multiculturalism? You WILL do things our way, or else we won’t let you in. Phil Woolas has said that migrants would be expected to show their allegiance to Britain. Bollocks to this! All I’ll say is that I’m lucky I was born here, else I’d never get in. Essentially then, our Labour government are here saying that unless migrants do as we ask and expect them to do, support our government and indeed canvass for it, unless they support our actions and do not protest, their chances of entering the country and receiving a passport will be hacked down. And there is more. Upon their arrival, migrants can expect to wait 3 years before they receive citizenship, but this can be cut down to a year if there is proof that they are demonstrating integration into British life. The government proposes ‘active citizenship’ - getting involved in institutions such as being school governers, joining Unions, doing voluntary work and joining political parties. But oh how quick people would complain if they DID truly integrate into British life! If they integrated with white British life by climbing the career ladder and taking the well-paid jobs. If they integrated into the working-classes by joining the fight for the meagre rations of employment that are occasionally thrown into the estates. How quick people complain, and how quickly then the government will pander to their whims, when communities become as racially ghettoised as they are along class lines. To bring this to a close, there is also the existing Citizenship test which must be passed (Life in the UK), but there will also be a ‘more challenging test on British politics and history’. My knowledge of British history consists of sitting with grubby knees after playtime in Year 4, reciting the names of Henry VIIIs wives. And heaven forbid, a true appreciation of British politics, and few would want to come! And the price of all this - just seven hundred and twenty of our noble Queen’s own pounds. And of course, it is the migrants themselves who will be paying for the privelege of having their feet walk upon Englands pastures green or probably not, since the majority will be turned away for having ‘bad character’. Unlike the tens of thousands of Brits in prisons of course... The whole thing makes me feel dirty.
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Article by Nosemonkey / UK - Europe 12 Votes / Average: 3,6
www.jcm.org.uk/blog
National Identity vs European Identity The debate continues to rage in the comments to my history: starting assumptions post, much of it coming from EUtopia regular Robin, a man firmly convinced of the superiority of national identities over any “European” one:
“your national identity comes readily to you but this EUropean identity seems manufactured by those who are stakeholders in this EU project or its supporters. “I also pointed out that Europeans may not, depending on their nationality, have that much in common with other Europeans, and many will have more in common with nations outside of Europe.” Some fair points there, for sure. But what about the claim that “your national identity comes readily to you” contrasted with “this European identity seems manufactured” - the implication seems to be that national identities are somehow organically-formed. This certainly can be the case - true national identities are usually based on a closely-shared culture and language. Think the Basques or Celts or Roma - not confined within the borders of any one country, but with a definite sense of nationhood.
The rise of national identities
Nation states, however, are entirely different beasts. The histories of France and Germany - two of the Great Powers of Europe, and key personifications of the nation state concept - are dominated prior to the last couple of hundred years by centuries of internal conflict and power struggles as their various constituent parts battled for control. People in the 16th century may have felt “French” or “German” - but only AFTER they felt themselves Angevin, Bavarian, and so on. The same goes for Spain, Italy, Poland, Austria, Switzerland - pretty much every European state. Even England was formed from constituent parts, albeit rather earlier than many other future European nation states. In every case, a “national” identity had to be superimposed over the smaller-scale, pre-existing identities of the units that were brought together to make up the new, larger nation state, to forge a sense of shared identity between Angevins and Provencals, Bavarians and Saxons, Catalonians and Andalucians, where previously there was not just none, but also frequently a sense of hostility and rivalry. www.theblogpaper.co.uk
Much of the time this has been due to the perception of some external threat, either real or fictional - in the case of 16th/17th century France, the rise of the Habsburgs in Spain, the Spanish Netherlands, Austria, Northern Italy and the Holy Roman Empire; in the case of 19th century Germany, the perceived threat from Austria-Hungary to the south and Denmark to the north; in 1930s Germany, the perceived threat was the Great Depression, communism and “the Jews”. The reason for forging a new sense of unity is aimed both internally - to promote loyalty to the state in a time of crisis - and externally - to demonstrate that unity to your enemies, and make clear that your constituent parts are no longer potential allies. As Robin is so keen on his English/British identity, let’s take that as a more detailed case study.
The rise of the British and English national identities The British national identity has only been created during the last 3-400 years (first under James VI/I to try to mesh his Scottish/English subjects together - something that didn’t work - then after the Act of Union of 1707, mostly in response to the rise of France under Louis XIV to prevent the revival of the old Franco-Scottish anti-England alliance). Yet this British identity *still* hasn’t fully taken hold, with sizable chunks of the population still feeling Scottish/Welsh/English/Cornish/Irish/whatever far more than they feel British - a feeling heightened by the different cultures and traditions, languages and religions and even (in the case of Scotland) legal systems still in place in the various constituent states of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Just as the British national identity rose in response to a threat, so too did the English. The Danish/Viking invasions of the 9th/10th centuries first led to concerted efforts at defence, then to alliances, finally to the expansion of the old Kingdom of Wessex as the Anglo-Saxons fought back against the Danes. The Heptarchy - the old kingdoms of Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia, Northumberland, Kent, Sussex and Essex (not to mention smaller kingdoms like Bernicia, Deira, Surrey, Lindsey, the Isle of Wight, Hwicce, Magonsaete, Pecsaetan, Wreocensae, Tomsaete, Haestingas, the Middle Angles, and Cornwall which were mostly sucked into the major seven during the course of the Dark Ages) - was united as England not due to any inherent feeling of shared identity, but thanks to the Viking threat and Alfred the Great’s realisation that the best bet was safety in numbers. (A very similar idea to that which led to the European Union, in fact.) But that’s just the creation of England as an entity - not Englishness as an identity. As Robin rightly notes, just because you can identify a geographical area with some common features (like England back in the 9th century, or Europe today), doesn’t mean that there is any sense of shared identity among the people of that area.
politics English national identity took several centuries to emerge after England’s unification - there were early hints under Edward I as he battled the Welsh, Scots and French (again, the threat of war being the key), though most historians now agree that it was first fully conceived during the reign of Henry VII as a more or less entirely political, top-down attempt to reunify the kingdom after the Wars of the Roses. (One of the key manifestations of this new “English” identity was Henry’s entirely PR-driven decision to name his first-born son Arthur, after the legendary English King, made newly popular by Thomas Mallory’s Le Mort d’Arthur, published the very year that Henry seized the throne and brought the long-running civil wars of York vs Lancaster to a close. How much better a symbol of England’s unity could there have been than for a new King Arthur to take the throne? Shame he died, really...) “Englishness” was maintained as an idea by Henry VIII, first to secure his throne and then (almost by accident) during his dispute with the Papacy and subsequent Reformation. It was further solidified under Elizabeth I as she tried to unite her religiously-divided country in the face of the constant threat of Spanish and French Catholic invasions (trying to create a sense of national identity that could override the Catholic identities of some of her subjects). But even that didn’t work - witness the Civil War that erupted 40 years after her death.
Local vs national identities Even today, there are sub-categories beneath “Englishness” that many people within England will pick as their primary “identity”: Scouse; Geordie; Brummie; Yorkshireman; Northerner - and so on. (Some of the pre-English kingdoms have retained some sense of identity notably in Cornwall (mostly due to the older Celtic national identity that pre-dates Cornwall as an entity); others have been entirely forgotten - how many people in modern-day Lincolnshire perceive themselves to be Lindseyans?)
All of these local identities are far more natural in origin than the “English” or “British” “national” identites that lie above them as a broader unifying concept - and such smaller-scale identities will always exist - because before both English and British identities arose, the most important identities were (quite naturally) local - the village, the town, and at a push the county. And little wonder - until the 19th century, let’s not forget, it would take at least a week to travel from London to Edinburgh or Penzance.
The only other “Englishmen” you’d be likely to meet - unless you were a politician or noble - would be at the local market or the county fair. Why should someone from Devon feel any kinship with someone from Yorkshire? They would never meet, and even if they did they would speak differently, have different customs and traditions - and after the Reformation sometimes even different religions. (The conversion to Protestantism was a decidedly localised affair in England, despite being a top-down, state-ordained decision there are even records of neighbouring villages in early 17th century Somerset, less than five miles apart, where one was Catholic, one was Protestant - they went on to join different sides in the Civil War, one supporting Parliament, the other the King...) This argument about not meeting people from far away and having little in common with them when you do, of course, you could use against the concept of a “European” identity today - what does a Yorkshireman have in common with a Romanian?, etc. Only today we are far more likely to encounter people from other EU member states than our forebears ever were to meet a fellow Englishman from the other side of the country. You can drive to Romania in a couple of days - a journey time that, when the English national identity was being formed, wouldn’t have got you even a quarter of the way from Cornwall to London. It’s quicker to fly from London to Romania today than it would have been, back in the 16th/17th/18th centuries when national identities were forming, to ride to the next town. An attempt at a conclusion All this, of course, goes to explain my belief that that broad, higher-level senses of belonging - at national or European level - are less important than lower-level, “primary” identites. Yet even this isn’t entirely true - because senses of identity are entirely personal things. You can pick a bunch of people who were all born and raised in the same village, and yet there will still be a wide range of opinions among them as to what their primary identity (or identities) may be. Some may pick their national identity as most important, others that of their local area, still others their religion or their class. Because if the case study of the manufacture of Britishness and Englishness has proved anything, it shows that the topdown imposition of a broad identity will only ever meet with limited success. A broad identity can be a positive unifying force - the creation of a sense of “Britishness” in particular has prevented war within the island of Great Britain for the last three hundred years - though it can also cause conflict - as in Northern Ireland, where the imposition of the concept of Britishness continues to meet with violent resistance. As such, although I don’t see a “European” identity as a threat to my own sense of identity or place, I can see how others might. www.theblogpaper.co.uk
And although I agree with Robin that there have been efforts to artificially create such a European identity - just as the English and British and French and German and Spanish and Italian (and so on) identities were artificially created before it - I don’t agree entirely. The growth of a European identity is also partially natural and organic as the economies and societies of Europe grow closer together, and as improvements in technology and transportation bring Europeans from different countries into more regular contact with each other - just as a sense of “Britishness” grew organically during the course of the last few hundred years as Britain’s infrastructure improved and people from Devon and Yorkshire and Scotland encountered each other more regularly, and grew to see the things that they had in common as well as those things that were different. Some pre-English and pre-British identities have been lost; others have survived. The same will doubtless be the case in Europe if the European identity takes hold. But the process will be a long one. More than a thousand years after the formation of England, the Cornish still feel Cornish; seven hundred years after the conquest of Wales, the Welsh still feel Welsh; three hundred years after the Act of Union, the Scots still feel Scottish. And so, in short, while I have no wish to impose a European identity on anyone who doesn’t wish it, I honestly can’t see how it can be seen as a threat. And likewise, I can’t see how any attempt to break down the perceived barriers between peoples of different identities in pursuit of a common good can be a bad thing. The creation of a European identity is not an aggressive movement, like the creation of a German identity was in the late 19th through to the mid-20th century it is a positive attempt to bring together a continent whose entire history has been marked by warfare and conflict. I can only see this as a good thing.
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comment by el_bing
The problem with identities, in the sense discussed here, is that they are usually handed down from above... tools to bind the mass of the people to the Elite agenda... it is probably the case that the real identities found amongst non-elites have much more in common with our counterparts in other nation states than they do with the ruling classes and their conceptions of belonging... (25/09/09)
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worldnews Article by MediaActivist / London 8 Votes / Average: 3,9
www.mediaactivist.com/blog.html
Those Bloody Scots! Everyone remembers 9/11, and most people agree it was the defining moment of the “Noughties.” It changed everything. The hijackers of the planes flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center were predominantly from Saudi Arabia. It’s a testament to the power of propaganda, then, that the U.S. and U.K. politicians got away with using the terrorist attacks to launch their very own - not on Saudi Arabia, no, but Afghanistan and Iraq, where Operation Iraqi Liberation began (later changed to Operation Iraqi Freedom, when White House adviser Karl Rove thought O.I.L. might be a bit too blatant a giveaway as to what they were really after). The War on Terror™ had begun. Then came mass protests, the resignation of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and American President George W. Bush Jr. seeing his approval ratings to the lowest levels since Harry Truman. And here we are, with Hope™ and Change™ as the brand-new brands bought by the general public, and - hey - everything is OK! Hmm. But what 9/11 also provided was - as one British spin doctor put it - “a good day to get out anything we want to bury.” Jo Moore did her job, suggesting that coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks would dominate airtime so much that any other revelations would barely be noticed. Unfortunately for her, she was caught doing her job by the people, when her email suggestion was leaked, and she was fired - as if that sort of thing didn’t happen all the time (they even took her advice!) Blair’s chief propagandist, the infamous and odious Alastair Campbell, supported her removal - because, I suppose, it gave spin doctors, y’know, a bad name. Were we to instead believe they never manipulated facts and events to portray a politician more favourably than they deserved? That they had our interests at heart? What exactly did Jo Moore do that was so wrong? I wouldn’t be surprised if her contract and job description even included “advise Transport Secretary Stephen Byers...liaise with civil servants... bury bad news.” She was just doing her job! (Just like Evening Standard journalists, according to Ken Livingstone) So, what’s dominated the news the last several weeks? The release of the Lockerbie Bomber! You no doubt remembered the bombing of Pan-Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21st, 1988 - and if you hadn’t, you will have by now. I was just a kid at the time, and had pretty much forgotten about this horrific yet isolated incident until this summer.
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A Libyan named Megrahi - or Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing - was tried and convicted of being responsible for the attack. There has been some doubt as to whether or not he actually did it, but aside from that, this summer, he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer (so he was going to die, basically). That saved anyone calling for a death sentence! He was done; finished; kaput. Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice, released Megrahi on compassionate grounds for him to be returned to Libya to spend his last dying days in the desert. You’d think that would be the end of it, really; even if you were as Old Testament-badass enough to want the guy dead for what he did, he was indeed about to die, anyway. But no, that wasn’t good enough! He had to stay in prison and die in Britain! I watched the news and almost expected to see people running through the streets of Scotland carrying flaming torches. They wanted him staying in his British cell, dying there, and - I’m only assuming, here - publicly gutting in front of Scottish children who were then to play with the entrails before burning them to prove their loyalty to the British Commonwealth. But seriously, every time I was in the pub for a peaceful pint of real ale, I’d glance at the television screen and see yet more coverage of the Lockerbie Bomber™! Days of it. Weeks of it! I was hoping Kanye West would interrupt the whole thing. And I couldn’t help but thinking that - with a drawn-out, blown-up story like this one - the spin doctors would be busy burying the bad news that actually affects us all. Thanks, angry mobs! Thanks a bunch. One local chap even suggested this was the fault of the Scots themselves and the devolution of their parliament; “they have too much power!” He went on to suggest that with Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, and the whole line of Scottish blood through New Labour’s history - from John Smith, to Tony Blair, to Alastair Campbell - the Scots were taking over Britain, and ruining it! Sabotage? You think? Oh yeah. Because, like, the Scots have really been bad, eh? www.theblogpaper.co.uk
Ah, Scotland. I’m from Northern England, but thanks to my Scottish neighbours up there, I’m from the heart of the country of Great Britain. The Scots gave us Robert Burns, Irvine Welsh, Billy Connelly, the Bay City Rollers, a football team called “Hamilton Academical,” the Land Reform Act, and Grand Theft Auto. How could they be bad? Nah, the Scots were just pawns in a bigger game here. The racism wasn’t directed at them. The friendly rivalry between the English and the Scots was used as an excuse to express the real racism: hatred of Asians and Muslims. I was in a seminar recently and one guy claimed the reason there weren’t many jobs available for an ordinary white working class man like himself was because “the foreigners’re takin’ all the jobs.” Mere minutes later, when prompted to take an opportunity to elaborate on his views, he said “I’m not racist,” following it with that immortal word “but,” before explaining “there’s an Afghan guy moved in on the end of our street, and I know for a fact he’s not got a job; I know for a fact he’ll never ever work.” I had to give it to him: he’d done his homework - he knew for a fact, after all, and was even able to see into the future. I wanted to hire him right there on the spot to work for me. So, in other words, if they do work, they take our jobs, and if they don’t then they’re lazy welfare recipients. Wow, and this is the thanks they give us for bombing their country into oblivion and driving them from their homes to all across the globe, eh? And this is what’s funny about the case of the Lockerbie Bomber™. To keep him in prison here in Britain would have cost money. That’s okay, I guess - but giving money to honest, hard-working Asians who are then free to use it to buy goods and services and boost our economy is wrong. There is something deeply racist in the fibre of British society. Such racism surely has to be attributed to all the “positive” images Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News and similar channels provide us of Muslims and Asians, eh? Forget the Scots - the Lockerbie Bomber™ is not just a good way to bury bad news...he’s the best enemy they can give us.
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Article by ntsavage / Kansas 12 Votes / Average: 3,7
www.theblogpaper.co.uk/ntsavage
Remember the Nineties? On May 31st 2009 a man was shot and slain in cold blood while acting as usher in the vestibule of his church in Wichita, Kansas. His name was George Tiller, he was a doctor who performed abortions and he had been the subject of numerous sit-in demonstrations, death threats, bombings and shootings at the hands of radical evangelicals and pro-life hate groups such as Operation Rescue, the Society for Truth and Justice and others of their ilk. During the nineties when their pro-life ideologies were in the minority, the American south was replete with senseless and sanguinary acts of violence. This was the way that they communicated their agendas, through disobedience that was far from civil, through assassination and terrorism. History may be repeating itself. In 1993, with Bill Clinton recently elected to the White House and congress predominantly left-wing, the southern United States was subjected to a rash of God-motivated killings. In Pensacola, Florida on March 10, 1993 Dr David Gunn, a provider of OB/GYN services, was instructed to ‘stop killing babies’ before being shot in the back three times by Michael Griffin. Rachelle Shannon, a disgruntled abortion opponent who shot George Tiller in either arm later in the year, wrote devoted letters to Griffin commending his work prior to commencing on her own. A year later Dr John Britton, another abortion provider from Pensacola was murdered with a shotgun by yet another disenfranchised, debased and demented evangelical fanatic. Other doctors were killed. Other families were left with holes that cannot be filled. But let’s return to 1993, when in February a psychotic, pedophiliac Christian cult leader named David Koresh refused the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms entry to his Branch Dividian compound in Waco, Texas and a two month siege ensued, memorably culminating in a sickening denouement of smoke, flames and needless death.
This, along with the Ruby Ridge incident, served as the inspiration for Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols’ insidious truck bomb machinations that resulted in the end of 168 burgeoning lives and the injury and mutilation of nearly a thousand American citizens. This was the most abhorrent and wholesale murder in America during the 1990s but it was not an isolated incident. Scott Roeder, the man who was arrested in connection with today’s sad events, was apprehended by the police in Shawnee County, Kansas in 1996 with the ingredients for a homegrown bomb in the trunk of his car and convicted and charged for Criminal Use of Explosives. Bombing has always been the touchstone of terrorists. However, the United States government didn’t suspend his habeas corpus and extradite him for an indefinite residency at Torture Island, we respected his rights and released him from prison when his sentence was finished and allowed him to leave George Tiller’s four children fatherless. It’s so regrettably stupid that people are so willing to ruin their own lives as well as the lives of their victims, achieving new zeniths of hypocrisy by labeling themselves pro-life and then nonchalantly dispatching it. What a stupid bloody paradox. We see this again and again. There is a reason behind it. Like young children attempting to get attention from their parents by slamming their siblings in the head, the far-right will distract public attention from substantive issues like, I don’t know, our faltering economy or unprecedented climate change or diminishing sources of energy, by assassinating controversial figures. Along with being horrible it is petty and small and altogether effective. I hope that, as a country, we have the strength to not focus on the traditionally divisive and polarizing issues of the eighties and nineties (abortion, euthanasia, the sanctity of marriage), the stronghold of hatespeak and Manichean typecasting, to address the sickness of a subculture that kill when they feel threatened or outnumbered, and to continue to attend to what matters (vis-a-vis our faltering economy and unprecedented climate change and diminishing sources of energy). Let’s not retrogress; we can’t afford to.
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worldnews comment by JKHatfield
Your meanderings would be humorous if they weren’t so scary. As an evangelical Christian, I unequivocally denounce the (relatively few) attacks you reference in your above article. I am not ashamed of the titles “Evangelical” or “Christian” and claim them proudly. What is nearly humorous is that you expect those of us who believe abortion to be murder to focus our attention on what you feel are substantive issues like the economy, (supposed) Global Warming and alternative energy. In doing so, you ask us to lay down the most substantive issue, the murder of over 50 million Americans since Roe v Wade. I certainly have no desire to see anyone harmed, regardless of their participation in horrific, barbaric acts of violence against innocent, helpless victims and in no way condone those who commit such heinous acts actions. But you must admit, if you flet that 50 million had been murdered, would you honestly devote your time to such unworthy issues as the economy (which hasn’t killed anyone), global warming (which hasn’t been proven to exist beyond normal climate fluctuations, much less proven to be a true, dire emergency) and alternative energy? I’m not saying attention shouldn’t be given, in fact I believe the Right Wing radicals like myself to be open to conversations as long as true debate is allowed and many on my side of the aisle have offered worthwhile ideas. What I’m saying is, those of you who simply dismiss abortion as a woman’s right (based on a ruling handed down by unelected judges, 35 years ago that does not take into account significant advances in what we know about life, it’s beginning and the pain caused to the child during abortion) are completely removed from reality if you think WE WILL EVER GIVE UP THE FIGHT FOR LIFE! It simply will not happen. As frustrating as it must be for you to hear that we exist and aren’t going anywhere, it is equally vexing to see the ignorance you spew, lumping all Christians together as if we’re all a part of this vast killing frenzy when really, your side leads 50 million to 5 based on your above writing, and that’s just here in the good ol USA.
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www.theblogpaper.co.uk (25/09/09)7
environment Article by joebs1 / London 17 Votes / Average: 4,1
www.ferguswalker.com
Flour to the people! PEOPLE POWERED FLOUR MILL by designer Fergus Walker
Article by davidnucci / Worldwide 37 Votes / Average: 4,4
www.theblogpaper.co.uk/davidnucci
Innocent Until Proven Guilty This shimmering coloured fish is called the Lionfish. Don’t be fooled by his funky look, he is a dangerous predator. He is actually able to gluttonously devour everything as long as it can enter its mouth. While the Lionfish has never been so numerous in our seas he also has never been so jeopardized. Let me set the record straight: in 1992 the state of Florida faced the fourth strongest hurricane of the America’s history. “Andrew”, the hurricane, caused more than $40.5 billion of damage! In addition, Andrew destroyed an aquarium in South Florida. This aquarium contained six Lionfish, all of which were washed into the open sea. The native environment of the Lionfish is the Indo-Pacific Sea, so because of Andrew they are now in the Atlantic and managed to spread quickly, even into the Mediterranean Sea. It has been said that even if it’s impossible to take a census of them, there could be millions by now. Being a real bullyboy (or at least a bullyfish) this aquatic hooligan can eat all the other little Flounders and Nemos and can also take delight in eating seaweeds and aquatic plants.
„
comment by Matthew Moggridge
You say that this fisherman guy is getting in the way of nature and that the hurricane was a natural event. Yes, on the hurricane you’re right, but that the Florida aquarium had lion fish in its tanks was NOT natural. So, while the hurricane was perfectly natural, the fisherman is not really standing in the way of nature’s course at all – he can’t stop a hurricane for heaven’s sake – but the problem was caused by a human, man-made situation: that of keeping the lion fish in the first place. It is the human element that has caused the lion fish to be in the Atlantic, NOT the hurricane.
8
(25/09/09)
That is why it is watery clear that the Lionfish is a real threat for the biotic balance. But things are not so simple, an utter moron, named Bobbie Lindsay, decided to take the situation in hand by organizing what the clever Bobbie calls a “Lion-rodeo”. Because the shrewd Bobbie loves nature for nature’s sake, he decided to offer $2,000 reward for the hunter who will catch the most fish. What a lovely social gathering! This ‘solution’ sounds very debatable to me. For sure the Lionfish is a dangerous fish for the ecosystem. But he now lives in the Atlantic Ocean and if he has survived it is because of natural reasons; I mean the hurricane is a natural thing. So the question is: why men would have to play God by circumventing the laws of Nature? People are getting madder and madder with global warming, saying that we are responsible for all the plagues it causes. For once, an event is completely natural and people are trying to curb it, to stop it. I think that if the fish managed to go to the Atlantic Ocean thanks to a hurricane, Nature will be able to cope with it on its own and does not need bright Bobbie and his $2,000 to fix the situation. Nature is certainly smarter than Bobby and smarter than the scientists who try their best to find a solution…while there is no problem. What would these scientists have done if they lived at the end of the dinosaurs’ era?
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The People Powered Flour Mill is a bicycledriven grain grinding mill designed to connect the community to its local food production. Its purpose is education and inspiration: children, parents, grandparents can all come and take part, they themselves providing that vital link between fields of wheat and loaves of bread. This mill is destined for the town of Falkland in Fife, where it will be used for milling demonstrations and baking workshops. Since flour loses nutrients within hours of being milled, putting the grinding nearer to the baking brings additional health benefits that are lost at a larger scale. With its flexible drive shaft, the mill could be plugged into any power source for more continuous milling. Conversely, the bicycle could potentially power a range of appliances, essentially harnessing the calories wasted in fitness gyms and channelling them straight back into food production
Fergus Walker: “I believe there is a need for a new generation of designers, who strive to create designs which forge a connection with community and place. The consideration of social and ecological profit, rather than economic profit, should be central to the design process. “There is a need to re-involve the people, and to re-empower them. Users of ‘products’ should have more say in the design process; and communities need to regain control of production, starting with food.”
comment by Matt_Tucker
Tampering with an ecosystem should only be done with extreme care. The australians introduced a breed of toad to australia (the cane toad?) to combat insects on crops - the toad would eat them. But the toad has become a huge problem and are overrunning the countryside; their habitat expands 15 miles every year and they are marching across australia. The solution to combating the toad? You guessed it - introduction of another non-indigenious species... will people never learn?
www.theblogpaper.co.uk
Please recycle this paper. or give it to a friend...
environment Article by Emsbabee / UK 18 Votes / Average: 4,1
www.emsbabee.blog.co.uk
Forgive me tuna, for I have sinned Last night I spilled chilli on my white lacy top. I knew this was going to happen, but I was reluctant to wear a bib. Eager not to let the stain set and the evidence of my ineptitude with a fork to be forever on display, I sprayed some pre-emptive stain remover on it, which is specially designed for clumsy dribblers. That’s why it has a nozzle y’know. The advertisers of products such as these always make it clear to gullible viewers, much like myself, that stepping out with collar and cuffs that aren’t the same shade of pristine as a nun’s knickers, is tantamount to social blasphemy. What will people THINK? That you are grubby, and lazy, and probably wanton. According to advertisers, there are two choices. Crack a fresh shirt from the packet every morning, and burn the old ones. Or treat your whites with their super-charged product and stop complete strangers from questioning your standards and ultimately, your morals. So naturally, I had to move fast or risk social exclusion. Once my top was spinning safely inside the drum, I could kick back, relax, and read the instructions. Thank god I managed to get it in the wash within the allotted three minutes after treatment! Otherwise, who knows what these chemicals could have done if left out to play:
Note: Dave Beck / Jennifer Jacquet / NY
www.scienceblogs.com/guiltyplanet www.davebeck.org “Overfishing has reduced jellyfish predators and climate change has increased ocean temperatures. Jellies thrive in empty, warmer oceans. Without changes in global fishing policies, the seafood of the future is rubber - the jellyfish burger is so close to becoming a reality, we can taste it.“ - Created by digital artist Dave Beck (davebeck.org) and marine scientist Jennifer Jacquet (scienceblogs.com/ guiltyplanet/).
C12-C15 Pareth-3; Trideceth-7; Sodium Citrate Parfum; Hexyl Cinnamal; Acrylic Copolymer Methylchloroisothiazolinone Methylisothiazolinone What exactly did I release into the environment to get those stains out of my top? Google is proving inconclusive. But anything with that many vowels probably does a fair bit of damage, e.g. deforestation, carbon dioxide, MacDonalds. OK, I’m taking a fairly basic stance on this. But it has since occurred to me that we are screwing up the eco-system, and effectively our survival for, amongst other perhaps more explicable reasons, convenience and vanity. It seems to have been ordained that we must have an entirely laminated and rigorously hygienic exterior only achievable by dousing ourselves in a whole host of products. It’s a pretty shocking system. I didn’t really need to spray that stain remover on my top. It’d probably have come up ship shape and shiny with a good long soak. But I didn’t want to and couldn’t really be bothered to risk it. I’d rather risk the planet, to put it a bit too simply. And so, in my own pitiful way, I have become a chemical terrorist. If I’m going to blithely carry on mopping up every little mess with fearsome concoctions like the one above, then over a lifetime I could end up responsible for wiping out shoals of marine life. What to do? This has to stop! How do I offset the damage? Clean my teeth with bark? Plant a tree every time I have a shower? I don’t know. Sustainable living looks like seriously hard work, but then anything worth doing usually is. I have to try. I owe it to the tuna. www.theblogpaper.co.uk
(25/09/09)
9
sports Article by Matthew Moggridge / London 17 Votes / Average: 3,8
www.matthewmoggridge.blogspot.com
There’s no disguising it, I really don’t like football ‘Thugs return to drag soccer back into the gutter’ screamed a headline on the back page of The Sun following the West Ham versus Millwall match at Upton Park this week. Hold on a minute, let’s go back on that headline. ‘…drag soccer BACK into the gutter’. It’s never left the gutter! I speak from the perspective of somebody who has never really enjoyed football.
Article by sirjogalot / London 19 Votes / Average: 4,1
www.sirjogalot.com
A message to Usain Bolt’s competitors. Lose the bling! This summer has left biologists and statisticians speechless as Usain Bolt smashed his 100m record by over a 10th of a second (a video I have watched an extortionate amount since Sunday). His closest competitor, Tyson Gay, ran a 9.71 (pretty close to Bolt’s previous record - breaking run in Beijing of 9.69). In short distances like the 100m, a tenth of a second is an age. Technological advances in sports clothing have given us lighter shoes and aerodynamic materials, designed to streamline the body. In a sport where every hundredth of second counts, an athlete’s weight is crucial. So why, in the name of all that is holy, would the elite athletes drag themselves down with the unnecessary jewellery that the 100m finalists were wearing on Sunday? Here comes the science bit, concentrate... Lets say that, during his 100m final, Usain Bolt is running at top speed (roughly 12.44 metres per second*) by the time he reaches 60 metres. Bolt reached 60m in 6.31 seconds and he weighs 86kg (it’s amazing what you can find out online). That’s an acceleration of just under 2 metres per second, per second.
Force = mass x acceleration 172 Newtons. 10
(25/09/09)
Add a watch (10g), a bracelet (7g) and a gold chain with a ring around it (15g) and the extra force required to accelerate to top speed is an extra 0.064 Newtons! OK, in reality that isn’t very much, in fact it’s the equivalent to a slight breeze. But in a sport where a race is cancelled if there’s a tail wind blowing at more than 2 m/s then this is a significant difference. If... 1. that meant nothing to you... 2. you don’t believe me... 3. you think I got my maths wrong... ...then check the table below. Usain and Gay (sans jewellery) came first and second. Bet you wish you’d paid more attention in physics class now eh?
100 Metres Final 1. Usain Bolt - 9.58 - NO BLING 2. Tyson Gay - 9.71 - NO BLING 3. Asafa Powell - 9.84 - WATCH, BEADED NECKLACE 4. Daniel Bailey - 9.93 - CHAIN NECKLACE WITH A RING ON IT! 5. Richard Thompson - 9.93 CHAIN, WATCH 6. Dwain Chambers - 10.00 WATCH 7. Marc Burns - 10.00 - BRACELET 8. Darvis Patton - 10.34 - WATCH Lose the bling... * Calculated using the time it takes for him to run between the 60m and 80m marks during his 100m final. www.theblogpaper.co.uk
Ever since I can remember, ‘footy’ has been the sport of the numpty, the racist and the hooligan. Football is all about tattoos and cheap lager and it has the audacity to call itself, rather self-consciously, ‘the beautiful game’. What’s beautiful about football? Football is such an unattractive sport, that it’s almost hard to work out where to begin in this tirade against it. Well, how about the stereotype? That awful thing about all men liking football and all women rolling their eyes affectionately as ‘their men’ – yes, we’re talking about women with lower back tattoos, or ‘slag tags’ – go down the pub to watch the match on the plasma. Needless to say, they return later, having missed their dinner (it’s in the f**kin’ dog! – and he’s a pitbull called Tyson) and their ‘slag tag’ women are still rolling their eyes. Men who like footy are often called Gary or Kevin – alright, we’re sticking with the stereotype, but bear with me – and they wear football shirts and knee-length shorts, exposing a calf muscle tattoo which only sees the light of day in the summer or down at the local authority leisure centre on a Sunday afternoon along with all their other tattoos. Look at any photograph of football violence and you can be guaranteed to see a tattoo somewhere. It goes with the territory. And what about the ‘professional supporters’ who reinforce the stereotype? There are high profile people who want other people to know that they are staunch supporters of some team or other just so that they can be seen as ‘down with the plebs’ when it comes to getting a vote at the next general election. There’s nothing worse than politicians who ram their support of a football club down our necks. I’m thinking David Mellor, the late Tony Banks and, of course, the original ‘spin doctor’, Alastair Campbell...
sports Oops, I almost forgot Adrian Chiles, copresenter of The One Show, and his very public obsession with West Bromwich Albion, cue eye-rolling from Christine Bleakley and any other women in his vicinity. The worst thing about all of this is that men are sort of expected to like football from an early age. There is that great stereotypical ‘man and boy’ nonsense that involves father taking his son to the ‘footy’ and then his son becoming a diehard supporter until the day he dies. Yuk! We hear people talk about their ‘beloved Burnley’. Give it a rest! Football is a bad-tempered game for strops, which, ironically is ‘sports’ spelt backwards. Is it just me or is the word ‘football’ the only sport one can add the word ‘violence’ to without flinching? Somehow they go together quite nicely and there are countless examples of football violence, including the recent West Ham/Millwall incident, which prove that football is a yob’s game. You never hear of tennis hooligans or cricket hooligans. Personally, I dislike the assumption that all men like football and the fact that men feel obliged to engage other men in conversation about the ‘beautiful game’. I would go as far as to say that it used to make me feel inadequate, the fact that I knew very little about the game, but now I am quite proud of my ignorance towards it. I’ve noticed that, armed with just a few miniscule facts, one can keep a football conversation going all afternoon if need be – it’s that shallow. “You watch the game last night?” - “Er….” - “Chelsea Man U?” - “Oh, no, I missed it, but Chelsea won didn’t they?” - “Yeah, 4-1, a good match. Felt sorry for Giggsy, though” - “Who?” But if you swear a bit, bring in a little of history and then swear again, you can go on throughout the night if need be and even convince the person you’re talking to that you know a bit about about ‘the beautiful game’. “You watch the game last night?” - “Yeah, f**king shit. Ooh you support?” - “Chelsea.” “Ah right, the f**king blues, yeah? Well, yeah, like, I’m with Man U. Never been to f**kin’ Manchester, though, but nor have half of their f**king supporters, have they?” - “Nah, right. Felt sorry for Giggsy, though.” - “The f**king Giggsmeister? Star f**king player, Giggsy. Could do with a f**king shave, though.” - “4-1, though, you were thrashed.” - “Yeah, well, if we’d had star players like Sir Bobby or Bryan Kidd on the field, we’d have won hands down.” - “Nah, your team’s f**king useless, mate; you should support a decent team like Chelsea, you c**t.” - “Yeah, yer c**t, we’ll beat you in the next round, you wait an’ see.” And on and on and on it goes, the play-acting, but now, thanks to a few choice expletives, you can carry on the chat, even if your level of football knowledge is virtually nil. Throw in a pint of gassy, cheap lager, go and get a tattoo on your calf and you’re one of the lads. And don’t you hate all that ‘Giggsy’ rubbish? Everybody’s name gets an ‘eee’ at the end: ‘Giggsy’, ‘Crouchie’, ‘Wrighty’, ‘Colesey’.
While I use to be concerned about my lack of knowledge of the beautiful game, I no longer care. In fact, I make a point of intensifying my ignorance of the game by bringing in players long retired if ever the conversation arises. If, for example, Chelsea is about to play a big match, I might ask if Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris or Peter Osgood is still playing. Such a remark is normally met with a sigh of impatience as football people hate it when they converse with somebody who doesn’t understand the sport or who might be taking the Michael. I wallow in the fact that I am completely in the dark as to who is playing who, which teams have made it to the FA Cup Final or who is where in the Premiership or the Champions League. I was on a foreign business trip once when the people I was with – both Arsenal supporters – spent the entire dinner time watching their mobile phones as friends back in the UK kept them updated on the score of a crucial match. To watch these two grown men glued to their handsets was both disappointing and irritating in the extreme and I almost found myself wondering, is this just put on? Have they reached a point in their lives where even they believe they like the game so much that they have to exclude themselves from any form of human interaction just to keep up with the score of some match back in the UK? It was pathetic to watch. Within my own family there are idiots who quite happily plunge themselves and the rest of their immediate family into a state of depression if their team loses a match. They don’t stop to think that it’s only a game. But for me the worst thing about football is the uncalled for hatred it generates among the supporters – especially in the case of so-called ‘arch rivals’, which are normally those involved in what is called, for some reason, a local ‘Derby’. What the Derbyshire town or the Epsom horse race has in common with football I don’t know – apart from Brian Clough once being manager of Derby County. So if Arsenal is playing Spurs, or West Ham is playing Millwall or Brighton is playing Crystal Palace, Everton playing Liverpool and so on, there’s always a heightened sense of trouble on the horizon. Brighton and Crystal Palace fans refer to one another as ‘scum’ – which sums up the level of ignorance among their football supporters; and we all know what happened at Upton Park the other night. The level of ignorance is turned up a notch or two when you consider that supporters at a football match are not allowed to watch a game of football and drink alcohol at the same time. It doesn’t happen in any other sport: people drink solidly all day at cricket and rugby matches but you rarely hear of there being any trouble. At a football match, however, as soon as the players run on to the pitch, the shutters go down on anybody in corporate hospitality drinking a can of lager. Why? Because that’s the law and your average football supporter is such an idiot that he cannot be trusted to watch the game and drink at the same time for fear that he might go on the rampage. Racism – or being racist – is a sign of ignorance anyway, but in football, it often goes with the territory. www.theblogpaper.co.uk
Many white football supporters think it is acceptable to call a black player certain names if he scores a goal for the rival team and again there are countless examples of this in press reports dating back years. Hell, even the players and managers have been accused of making racist remarks.hWhen there is ‘violence on the terraces’ it tends to reinforce my argument that the game is its own worst enemy. Try as they might to stop the trouble, the football authorities are fighting a losing battle because that is the way it is with football and its supporters and nothing will change it. If football supporters are so volatile that they cannot be trusted to watch a match and drink a pint of lager at the same time, then what hope is there?
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comment by fozzfoster
That stereotypical fan has largely been eradicated from the game, yes the elements are still there, but the ‘football’ hooligan is now being dealt with by the football authorities. Before the Hillsborough disaster/Taylor Report, football was the people’s game, the average man could afford to go, this was working man’s escapism, after a week working down the pits or other manual labour, this was his chance to relieve stress and be part of a community. Footballers in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s were your average man they were essential the same as the man in the crowd, so an affinity grew. Most other sports have there strong hold in upper & middle classses, where as football was very much working class. To respond to the issue of the ‘football’ hooligan, these people tend to be violent outside football as well. Margaret Thatcher asked the FA to “remove your hooligans from my society”, the then head of the FA asked Thatcher to “remove your society’s hooligans from our sport”. He had a point, most ‘football’ hooligans were the same people rioting on the picket lines. In fact the Chesterfield v Mansfield game sparks trouble to this day, because of the miners’ strike. The men you see fight at football, are the men who fight in town on a Saturday night, the men who fight at protests, some men just like fighting, football has pretty much got ‘its house in order’ now it’s time the rest of society took responability for creating these men who are frustrated at having little money and being made to feel like scum. Racism has also been almost totally eradicated from inside grounds & most incidents of racism are punished. Appologises for getting a little serious, but as someone who goes to a game shouts, but is not violent, I have to put up with this stereotype so often, non-football fans, never trust me and are often a little scared, despite my lack of tattos. Trying to fight ignorance about modern football is so frustrating. All my ‘defences’ of the hooligan are not me condoning it, but pointing out people can’t expect football to remove violence alone, there are too many external factors. (25/09/09)
11
technology
Photos by marie eaton / London 14 Votes / Average: 4,5
totodesign@gmx.de
The Mosquito German Designers Tom Mudra and HansTobias Schicktanz designed a new way to get around within the city – the Mosquito.
“Our aim was to create a lightweight and attractive E- Bike suitable for urban places. The motor is powered by lithium batteries which cost about 50p to charge. The Mosquito has got a range of about 60 km (37 miles) with a maximum Speed of 50 km/h (31 miles)” The ergonomics of the design make it rather easy to get on the bike due to a removable center pole - (Very nice feature!). This however will have no effect on the bikes statics and handling.Different materials can be used for the frame cover which incorporates batteries and motor e.g. carbon fiber, wood and plastic. Most parts used in the mosquito are available at conventional bike stores, which makes it easy to maintain as well as keeping repairing costs at a minimum. For further details please contact us at totodesign@gmx.de
12
(25/09/09)
www.theblogpaper.co.uk
2
technology Article by grahamjones / London
Note: the Source
16 Votes / Average: 4,0
www.olivercraigdesign.co.uk
www.grahamjones.co.uk Source is a water bottle and fountain system that gives consumers convenient access to free filtered tap water within busy urban environments. High street retail stores would buy the source water fountain and install it at the entrance to their store. Consumers would buy the source water bottle from stores that support the system and then fill it up whenever they pass a fountain. The bottle fills via a valve in the base, thus providing an innovative, clean, hygienic, fun and fast method of filling the bottle. To encourage regular use of the bottle, every time it is filled with tap water, points will be transferred on to the bottle using RFiD technology. These points can then be redeemed against items in the stores supporting the system.
Don’t social network with the opposite sex - its does your brain in
The Yike Bike is a folding electric bike that weighs about 10Kg with a range of about 10Km ( 6.2miles )
www.yikebike.com
Award winning design company, man works design designed this rather cool looking device - “Saint B”
www.manworksdesign.com
The BMW “Vision” concept car aims to show what efficient transportation might look like 2020...
www.bmw.co.uk
www.theblogpaper.co.uk
Men who social network with women could be affecting their brain power. New research on male-female interaction suggests that when men are talking to women, their brains spend much of their effort on trying to impress, which reduces their ability to think clearly. If you are using social networks to help promote your business, you may not be thinking as straight as you want..! Psychologists at Radboud University in The Netherlands found that when people of the same gender interacted their cognitive performance was not affected. However, when the group consisted of mixed genders, there was a reduction in cognitive capabilities in men. Women were not affected when they were in mixed gender groups, though. It seems they are able to think more clearly when men are around than men are able to do when women are present. Although this research wasn’t conducted online, it has some important implications. For instance, one of the research findings in this study was that men were more impaired in their ability to remember things if they rated women they encountered in the experiment as attractive. Online in social networks this means that men could easily be distracted by pictures of attractive women in profiles, for instance. Equally, online men may be more likely to respond with messages designed to impress and attract women engaged in the conversation, rather than contribute anything of real substance. This research actually only really confirms earlier studies which show that men have a tendency to behave in ways designed to find a mate. However, the brain processing power that is needed to do this appears to reduce the functional ability of men, making them less able to recall things accurately, the new study shows. But, it also confirms one other thing; women just get on with things and “be themselves” which appears to prevent any reduction in brain abilities. And one thing we know about online social networking is that no matter what gender you are, you want the other people you meet online to “be themselves”. Fake identities, people pretending to be something they are not - well, they are given short shrift online. It means that whether you use Facebook or Twitter, people want you to be genuine. And, if you are a bloke and you “be yourself” rather than trying to impress, guess what, your brain function will improve, you’ll remember more and you will be doing what women have been doing so well for centuries - thinking straight. (25/09/09)
13
design
the rocking horse Article by max milford / London 19 Votes / Average: 4,5
felix(dot)goetze(at)gmail(dot)com So that’s something i would have enjoyed when i was young. Felix Götze designed this rocking horse out of few bits and pieces of old german motorbikes. Now here is the story behind the bike / horse: Otto Komei is three years old. Frequently he is sitting next to the window while watching the chopper gang on the other side of the street customizing and repairing their bikes. Just yesterday the one with the colored arm drove his chopper on the rear wheel down the street. Just as this rat bike Otto is dreaming of. Because hes got no drivers license and because of his own room being the only safe district, he needs a hybrid of chopper and
rocking horse. With this machine he could learn to keep his balance and most of all to sit on it in easy position. So he closes his eyes and his arms broad. Oldschool-bikes he likes the most with a high handlebar and classic parts like lights and seats with old style. Furthermore he wants an one-cylinder two-stroke engine with 150 ccm for getting a really nice sound with a short and empty exhaust without muffler and skewed ending. Because everybody rides V2 four-stroke. Moreover it is so bad when everybody rides the same. The frame should be cantilever and the engine holding well hidden for giving the ride a clean look. At last he definitely wants a pinstripe from German airbrush-artist Thomas Weber as final detail.
Note : www.team-tentakulus.de
Shocker
www.11bikes.com 11bikes is a project of Team Tentakulus Owners Jens Rohdenburg and Sven Fischer. They design bicycle frames for custom bikes that are handcrafted and somewhat beyond ordinary. Each style is limited to 11 pieces per continent and comes with tag and certificate. And on top, there’s an exclusive 11bikes shirt with the customer’s name and the unique serial number. Together with the Team Tentakulus network it is a platform for concepts, experiments, design and arts.Our focus is on creative services. Flexible design consulting guarantees extraordinary Interior and Industrial Design based on our interdisciplinary brain pool. They develop innovative concepts and offer extensive project management.
14
(25/09/09)
www.theblogpaper.co.uk
design
the scifi coffee table Article by will challis / London 16 Votes / Average: 4,5
SamGHewitt(at)aol(dot)com Sam Hewitt just graduated from University of Lincoln with a degree in furniture design. His final project is the SCIFI Table: My work is inspired by my own experiences, passions and the world around me; I have based designs on architecture, natural forms, science fiction and my own imagination. My work this year has centred on science fiction themes and concepts. I am exhibiting my ‘Sci-Fi Cabinet’ – ‘TOS’ (The Original Series) along with a supporting body of design work.
The ‘TOS’ cabinet has been made to look as anatomical as possible, utilising metal bar joints and contrasting timbers, to give the appearance of mechanised joints, with one component moving over another, and the body enhanced with laser engraved circuit detailing.This is an entirely speculative item of furniture, designed as self-expression, but also as a way of demonstrating the abilities I have acquired in the course of my education. Made from walnut with maple and threaded steel rod ‘TOS’ exhibits both traditional (Tennon and Mitre) and contemporary (Resin & Bar) joints, application of new technology (laser engraving), and effective use of veneers as well as interpretation of traditional fan construction in the door.
Note:
www.jungmyungtaek.com Korean designer Jung Myung Taek has created the Ducking Lounge Chair. The chair will be exhibited at the Tent London show from 24-27 of Sept. (Tent is located in Truman Brewery)
www.theblogpaper.co.uk
(25/09/09)
15
art Article by Matt_Tucker / London 21 Votes / Average: 4,0
www.matttucker.blog.co.uk
“Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed” “Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.” - William Blake: English poet, painter, and printmaker. This summer, sculptor Antony Gormley is inviting the public to help create an astonishing living monument. He is asking the people of the UK to occupy the empty Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in London, a space normally reserved for statues of Kings and Generals. They will become an image of themselves, and a representation of the whole of humanity. Every hour, 24 hours a day, for 100 days without a break, a different person will make the Plinth their own. With 42 days of Plinthing already behind us, ‘One & Other’ will soon be reaching its half way point in the project. As a Plinth applicant waiting in the wings, I’ve visited the Plinth several times over the weeks and seen some great Plinther action. It’s impossible not to enjoy the buzzing atmosphere around the Plinth in Trafalgar Square, including overhearing lively debate on Antony Gormley’s Fourth Plinth Art. One recent discussed subject has been the matter of public nudity. Plinther Simon caused a stir when he stripped off on Wednesday 14th at 1am, only to be told to cover up after the police received a complaint from the public. As crowds cheered Simon on, he became a symbol of the right to freedom of expression on the Plinth, even inspiring a poem. He also ruffled a few feathers on Twitter - here are some tweets of displeasure: @notfortoffee They shouldn’t interfere! The police are there for safety reasons, not to censor the plinth! #oneandother @Dave_Piper If 1000 folk can cycle naked around London for WNBR, why not a lone nude on a plinth? #oneandother @notfortoffee Someone said “nudity is not illegal, it only becomes a problem when someone complains.” So: Who complained? #oneandother The complainer may not have been in the majority on this occasion, but they have made many of us ponder where we stand on public nudity in 2009.
We’ve come a long way from previous attitudes; the Victorians couldn’t bare the thought of the human body on public display. Objects that might resemble human anatomy were covered up by the prudish Victorians; piano legs were fitted with trousers, lest the shapely wooden legs caused impure thoughts. Perhaps public nudity as a taboo is a hangover from this repressive era? Some think that the complaint against Simon was an overreaction.
Simon wasn’t arrested, whereas a ‘Streaker’ at a football match probably would be. So the intention behind an act of public nudity matters to people. Indeed, Simon was acting in the name of Art. Does this mean that 2009 Britain is free and easy with public nudity if committed in the name of Art, in the spirit of artistic expression and celebration of the human body? Like Simon’s challenge to convention last Wednesday, there have been similar challengers in the past. In the 1930’s, The Windmill Theatre in London wanted to follow in the footsteps of the Moulin Rouge, Paris, by bringing the public nude to the people. The Lord Chamberlain was convinced to pass a law that permitted public nudity to be legal so long as the performer behaved like a motionless “living statue” - a phrase often referred to Plinthers! The living statues of the Windmill Theatre were known as the “Windmill Girls” and you can learn all about them in the film “Mrs Henderson Presents”, starring Dame Judi Dench. Perhaps there is a motionless nude Plinther out there, waiting to dedicate their one hour to an eighty-seven year-old bygone law? The question of the boundaries of censorship has been hotly debated over recent decades, with one pioneer becoming a household name: Mary Whitehouse, a formidable activist in the 1960’s who launched relentless “clean up TV” campaigns. Perhaps the complaint to the police about Simon’s nudity was made by a relative of Mary Whitehouse: we may never know. The Artist and the Nude go back a long way in Art history. In centuries past, nudity in painting and sculpture was only acceptable in a non-contemporary context; such as displaying a scene from Greek or Roman antiquity. In modern day, the life model is commonplace in an art class. But even this tradition fell under the glare of censorship this year when Channel 4’s programme Life Class received dozens of complaints from viewers about the nudes filmed in art classes. The UK has a long way to go to catch up with more nudity-friendly countries in the world. It is widely accepted that airbrushed photos of celebrity bodies in the media do not promote healthy self-esteem; perhaps we have a duty to bring the human body, warts and all, into the public spotlight?
the “dragon” is part of a collection of vector graphocs by illustrator Michelle Matieu
www.mmatieu.wordpress.com 16
(25/09/09)
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comment by davidnucci
Nudity and arts are -and have been- tightly linked...but not always for the best! For instance the leitmotiv of Venus -in both sculpture and painting- is really often a naked one. William Blake makes a point saying that art and nudity go well together. But the question is: are they made to go together? Is this a real unbreakable link between them? And the answer quickly happens to be: ‘No’ It’s crystal clear that a lot of pieces of Arts do not use nudity and even not sensuality. It’s all about the different artistic movements, the historical period and so on... What is possible today was not necessarily possible a couple of years, decades and centuries ago. Are these changes for good? Who knows? The time will speak… Antony Gormley’s work is Art, that’s for sure. But nowadays art is much more about concepts and ideas than about a pleasing result. While Da Vinci was judged according to the final result of his paintings, Antony Gormley’s work, as most of our modern pieces of arts, are judged according to the idea they represent, the message they take… Magritte, Duchamp and some others are perfect examples this modern sea change in art. Gormley’s idea is brilliant, cheeky and interesting –if not really new or trendsetting-. There are plenty of things to understand in this work: A portrait of 2009 Great Britain, the lack of imagination of our modern times, the Peeping Tom hidden in each of us, and also the exhibitionist… Nudity on the Plinth was forecasted but also really debatable. I mean the concept of nudity on the Plinth makes sense and reminds of the ancient Greek statues. But when the concept is embodied in flesh and blood by some plinthers, everything becomes trickier. The censorship is not always a menacing shadow, actually I can understand that some people do not want to see a willy when they are enjoying the view that offers Trafalgar Square. Parents should be able to choose the best way to explain certain things to their children without being obliged to do so because their children have see a bit flesh on the Plinth. When you go to the museum, when you watch real TV shows, when you go to the theatre, you know what you are going to see or listen to. Real TV is full of fake tits and strong words, National Gallery is full of tortured Christs and lascivious naked women but you are warned. You know what you are going to find if you go there. The point with the Plinth is that everything can happen, the best and the worst.Even if I understand that it’s a bit of a shame that this guy has been asked to cover up, I also think that freedom is not being able to get naked in front of everybody. Freedom is being able to choose what you want to see and hear. People should not extol the virtues of this so-called Freedom. Freedom is a beautiful concept, but when Freedom is embodied by a naked man standing in one of the most touristic spots, I would like to have the Freedom of not seeing it.
art Article by corblimey / London 19 Votes / Average: 4,2
www.binge-thinking.blogspot.com
Art is subjective. Trying to argue otherwise is like a pencil without lead Pointless. Artist Peter Jansen recreates human motions into one physical object
www.humanmotions.com
Internationally acclaimed illustrator Noma Bar has compiled his newest collection of work, Negative Space. In this book Bar focuses on subject matter ranging from sex, global warming and nuclear warfare to religion, crime and corporate greed. www.dutchuncle.co.uk/illustrators/du/noma-bar
By now, many of you will be aware of the David vs Goliath story that has hit the headlines this weekend – the guerrilla artist Cartrain is having his balls handed to him for daring to steal a packet of pencils from ‘Pharmacy’ – a conceptual installation by Damien Hirst, a man with whom he has a ongoing feud. Unlike the Biblical story, things are not going well for the deviant David, he’s been arrested for the prank and awaits news whether he’ll be charged for stealing £500,000 worth of pencils as well as damaging an iconic artwork worth £10 million. I found the stunt and the accompanying ‘missing’ style posters pretty entertaining – and the reaction of Hirst and the Tate to be slightly pathetic. But what really interests me are the figures that are being thrown about. Newspapers were right to lead their stories with a paragraph about the price of the pencils. So what if they are rare “Faber Castell dated 1990 Mongol 482 Series?” They are still pencils - as functional and mundane as before they were displayed – and I cannot conceive how someone can justify pricing them at five hundred grand. But then that might be because I just ‘don’t get’ a lot of contemporary art. During a recent trip to the Edinburgh festival I went to see Yasmina Reza’s terrific play, ‘Art’. The play depicts the rapidly deteriorating friendship between Serge, a self confessed
dilettante who has bought a ‘white’ canvas for an extortionate amount of Euros, and Marc, his friend who ‘doesn’t get’ contemporary art, but can’t accept that Serge thinks he has a masterpiece. As far as my appreciation of contemporary art goes, I’m with Marc. However, whilst I remain unimpressed by many things that aesthetes would cut off their right arm to own, I do understand that appreciation of art is subjective. I also know that when it comes to valuing something, an object’s price is determined by market forces (even if the market itself may be a Hirst Inc. creation). I suppose it’s not dissimilar to football transfers. Just as Ronaldo is now ‘worth’ £80 million, someone was willing to pay £10 million for ‘Pharmacy’ so that is the value it attracts. The ethical and moral questions that such attribution of value brings up are a different kettle of fish, but from a purely economic standpoint I can almost - almost - see how a shark preserved in formaldehyde could be worth seven million pounds. Needless to say were my pockets currently bulging with that sort of wonga, I would not be shelling out for contemporary art. No - I’d be going for something rather older. 66 million years older to be precise. Because a Tyrannosaurus skeleton, one of the three most complete ones in existence, is expected to sell for £5 million at auction in Las Vegas next month. As far as aesthetic majesty, sublime creativity and imagination-bending spectacle go, Mother Nature will never be matched. Contemporary art can go swivel. I doubt ‘Pharmacy’ at the Tate has caused anywhere near as many audible gasps of wonder as the dinosaur skeletons that greet visitors to London’s Natural History Museum.That is why, were I to possess a cool seven mill, I wouldn’t buy a preserved predator; I’d buy an extinct one – and still have change enough to buy four packets of “Faber Castell dated 1990 Mongol 482 Series” pencils.
Photos by joebs1 / London 16 Votes / Average: 4,4
www.iartistlondon.com
IartistLondon by Naroa Lizar IARTISTLONDON is the cool new brand that enables you to make real contemporary pieces of art from the comfort of your home. All those pieces that you always wanted to have but couldn’t afford. IHIRST: For the Love of God is an amazing piece by Damien Hirst that consists of a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with 8,601 diamonds including a massive pear- shaped one on the forehead. It cost 14 million pounds to produce. This is the ultimate contemporary piece of art that everyone wants to display in their home.
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(25/09/09)
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culture Photos by Anne M / London 15 Votes / Average: 4,9
A gypsy wedding
www.hugophotoart.com Spanish photographer Hugo Alonso Larrinaga (Colindres 1983) captured wedding celebrations of a gypsy family who are based in Colindres (Cantabria) and Mirasol (Cataluña) in Spain. The weeding party itself can take 3 to 6 days of non stop partying and is one of the most important days of the bride’s life. The rules of the procedure are very strict as Hugo explains: “First the future husband has to go to the brides parents and ask for permission to marry his loved one. If he is accepted everybody speaks with the patriarch of the family who is in charge of about 120 family members.
In this particular wedding the patriarchs were the great grandparents of the wife and husband because they are cousins. It is normal to get married to a cousin. It is tradition that they can only get married if she is a virgin. The women gather around to “test” the brides virginity. An old lady who apparently has “some kind of powers” (as they claim), inserts a white tissue in the bride’s vagina to see if she still is a virgin – and if there is blood the party starts! The husband has to take care of all the guests, which makes this day rather stressful for him. The bride on the other hand is enjoying complete attention of everybody, receiving loads of presents. The party crowd sings songs just for her. Then the couple is being lifted into the air whilst guests throw candy at them. After the reception everybody gets some cake (which they only get in exchange for money they put in a huge basket beside the cakes..). These are the first hours of the ceremony, but the party continues.”
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(25/09/09)
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culture Article by el-bing / UK 17 Votes / Average: 4,1
www.bing-em-all.blogspot.com
What Fun are Festivals? My sister came back from the Latitude festival the other night and tried to tell me all about it knowing full well that I am opposed to ‘Fun’ in general (being an anti-fun activist) and have a special place in my seething for festivals. To my mind there is nothing so bastardised and depraved as the vulgar obscenity that is the modern festival… a slight exaggeration perhaps, but my point is clear enough… ‘But it’s just about having a good time,’ says my sister – who is great, for the record. Shuddering I try and explain what I cannot; it is bastardised because it is removed from its origins in rebellion against establishment music norms and its celebration of the ‘alternative’ and the maligned ‘Other’. And it is depraved because the ‘fun’ comes at a price that we don’t know that we are paying… or to better describe this depravity, I’ll steal Slavoj Zizek’s analysis of Donald Rumsfeld theory of Knowledge… Rumsfeld is famous for his 3 points of intelligence: 1)There are the things we know we know… 2)There are the things we know we don’t know… 3) There are the things we don’t know that we don’t know… Zizek points out that there is a missing fourth point… the things we don’t know that we know… and these things are the basis, he says, for ideology. So, the ‘fun’ we have at a festival comes at a great price… the highest of which is a price we don’t know we pay… or rather we don’t know that we know it… all those unspoken prejudices we most definitely have… The wealth accumulated from centuries of colonial tyranny allows us to pay for the portaloos and the plastic cups, burger vans and their generators… not to mention the mass squandering of energy to pump decibels, by the thousand, of meaningless, dull, safe noise into the universe… and for anyone to suggest that it is all for any other reason than corporate profit is to explicitly demonstrate their own ideological conditioning… The unthinking acceptance of an experience handed out, doled out for common consumption in turn silently reinforces and consolidates the insane sociological construct that festivals are without consequence… the unknown awareness that by congregating in groups of thousands and thousands, participating in a crazy orgy of consumption, we are all good people, having fun, doing no harm… Now, don’t get me wrong, I am the most disgraceful of hypocrits… I am a musician and have played some small festivals. It’s just a bit a sad to see how we, youthful and potent, can so readily let the wool fall, slip over our eyes… no pulling needed… www.theblogpaper.co.uk
(25/09/09)
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culture
Sex please. To go.
Article by WashRinseRepeat / London 27 Votes / Average: 4,0
www.washrinseandrepeat.blogspot.com
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Article by hecklerspray / London 14 Votes / Average: 4,1
www.hecklerspray.com
Avril Lavigne & Deryck Whibley Split: Hey, Remember Them? Are you invested in the lives of people who you once sort of half-liked but now no longer remember at all? You are? Then you might want to sit down. Remember Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley? Come on, yes you do. They were the king and queen of bad, faux-rebellious teenage music from several years ago. Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley. You remember. She was definitely a punk because sometimes she wore a tie in an ironic way and his name was both stupid and hard to spell. You remember Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley. You do. Anyway, they’ve split up. It’s always sad when a marriage comes to an end. Actually, no, that statement needs a qualifier. It’s more accurate to say that it’s always sad when a marriage comes to an end, unless it’s the marriage between Avril Lavigne and Sum 41 singer Deryck Whibley because – even if you sat in a darkened room for a month contemplating the end of their marriage while listening to the world’s saddest violin aria and remembering your most traumatic childhood moments – you’d still be hard pressed to feel even the slightest twitch of emotion about it. There, that makes much more sense.
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Anyway, when Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley got married, they had the whole world in their hands, by which we mean an embarrassingly large collection of skinny ties,a few songs that sounded suspiciously like songs recorded by other people, a fairly large house and a two sets of genes which – if combined – would almost certainly produce a rubberfaced midget baby with an uncontrollable drool problem and an unpleasant sense of entitlement. But how quickly things change. According to reports, Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley have now split up. We’ll give you a few minutes to look up who Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley are on Wikipedia, and then you can read how Avril broke the news on her MySpace blog. Actually, we should probably give you a few more minutes so that you can look up what MySpace is on Wikipedia as well. Ready? “Deryck and I have been together for six-anda-half years. We have been friends since I was 17, started dating when I was 19, and married when I was 21. I am grateful for our time together, and I am grateful and blessed for our remaining friendship. I admire Deryck and have a great amount of respect for him. He is the most amazing person I know and I love him with all my heart. Deryck and I are separating and moving forward on a positive note.” You see? That’s love. We wish that we could find someone who we loved, admired, respected and generally considered to be amazing enough to dump in order to find someone better, too. That Avril Lavigne, she’s so lucky. Reports suggesting that Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley had agreed to break up months ago, but didn’t tell anyone because Avril had spent the intervening time trying to dumbly type her split statement on a microwave instead of a computer and Deryck kept clattering into walls because he’d forgotten what doors were, are untrue. Probably. www.theblogpaper.co.uk
No, the gaping, blank facial expression on the model in the Burger King poster (left) shouldn’t be mistaken for an imitation of a blow-up doll passively awaiting seven inches of hot meat in her mouth; rather, it should be read as an expression of witless boredom which shows the model yawning at the tedious sexism, gender stereotyping and sexual innuendo which has become an advertising horse as dead and flogged as the one inside that burger bun. An ad agency in Singapore (which may or may not have been Crispin Porter Bogusky) created the poster earlier this year. Yes, that’s this current year, 2009, although you could be forgiven for thinking it was 1979. And it wasn’t just an unfortunate blip on the creative radar either. Saatchis poster for the Cadbury’s Creme Egg Twister bar emerged at around the same time; you might say they ‘came together’ [ho ho].Take a look at the banner execution above. Whichever creative team dreamt that up have taken the concept of willy-waving to a whole new level. ‘Goo on the loose’!? There’s a money shot if ever I saw one (which reminds me: the Baileys ‘Lips’ TV ad from last year, anyone? Google it). Not to be indelicate, but did they call their product a Twister because of what the advertising does to your stomach? Because it’s making me want to ejaculate a different type of bodily fliuid entirely - vomit. What is it with all these subversive fellatio references? They say that sex sells, but is that even true any more? Does using sex to sell products offend more often than it excites these days? Especially if your brand isn’t sexy in the first place. It’s kind of an obvious route if your brand is a contraceptive or lingerie, not so much if your brand is a hamburger. Trying to shoehorn sex into a non-sexy conversation is like semiological rape. We are living in the age of the internet, and as everyone knows, the internet is for two things - porn and connecting. Traditional advertising such as the examples above and the Baileys TV I already cited, have, amongst others, in their attempts to stay relevant, skewed towards porn. Which jars. Consumers want to be intellectually stimulated, talked to, connected with and respected, which is why the communications model for brands like Nike and O2 have set the benchmark for engaging brand activity through being connective. Nike has created online communities and encouraged consumers to interact not only with the brand but with each other. O2 has created a real life space where, thanks to the brand, people can gather and enjoy music and events together. The current sexual imagery in some advertising has all the empathy and emotional resonance of a one night stand. What consumers need first and foremost is the option to consent to the message. After that, they just want to be spooned all night and taken for breakfast in the morning.
music Article by EmilyDymond 20 Votes / Average: 4,1
www.theblogpaper.co.uk/emilydymond
Last.fm, Legendary or Lazy? ‘Last Fm?’ I shrugged, ‘Never heard of it’, a look of sheer horror spread across my friends face, ‘ I am shocked, I would have thought you of all people would have known about it’, an insult and a compliment in one. Having bizarrely never heard of last.fm I felt it was time to do some well informed research into the latest cyber music sensation that had apparently exploded and was on a par with ‘Myspace’ as the best virtual way of finding new music. What could possibly be so great about this apparently majestic music site? Well according to a friend it metaphorically searches through your brain, learns your musical taste and then recommends artists it thinks you will love, whilst also offering you a personal radio station based on your tastes. Sounds great, my only problem with this is that I find the art of a computer system configuring you a new list of music slightly mind numbing, I feel a sense that I have sold my soul to the devil, to a world where I can be figured out by a computer system. Maybe it’s my arrogance that wants to say to the computer (with no brain) ‘How dare you assume to know what I like or do not like, YOU’RE NOT REAL’ Being analysed and evaluated by something that consists of bits of plastic, a few wires and a chip is somewhat worrying to me, or am I just digging my heels too hard into a soil that was replaced by a new modernised flooring system long ago? Living in a consumerist society where we can all be bracketed into a target market or rated on our credit worthiness without our knowledge is bound to spread into other areas of our life. Despite this somewhat negative view on the site I willingly signed up. I must admit I was pleasantly surprised, the site had a friendly welcoming feel to it, but what I really wanted to know was just how good it would be at suggesting new bands and artists. After entering what I would consider as a varied array of my favourite music, from ‘Fleetwood Mac’, ‘Van Morrison’, and ‘The Smiths’ to ‘MGMT’, ‘Soulwax’, and ‘The Moldy Peaches’, I eagerly awaited my new music that was to be served to me on a virtual plate. The result... Annoyingly, rather accurate. I have to admit that last. fm did manage to tap into my musical taste to a rather irritatingly, impressive level. I tried to ‘Out smart’ last. fm by purposefully not entering certain artists of the moment that I love to see if they would recommend them, and you’ve guessed they did, some of which were ‘Lightspeed Champion’, and ‘Does It Offend You, Yeah? Outsmarted and impressed, so last.fm knows its stuff. I’ve got to give it to them, for anyone who is constantly on the look out for new music last. fm must surely be the latest cyber accessory you cannot afford to live without. So where does this leave me? Does the devil now own my soul? Am I now just a Username and Password? My conclusion is of this, the world is changing, fact. Technology has happened and will continue to happen and expand, so accept it, and make the most of it, but don’t forget about the good stuff, the real stuff, magazines made of paper, gigs where you can actually see the band play and feel the energy of the crowd, record stores where you can loose yourself for an afternoon and be reminded of how it all began. A balance is what I believe is the answer, everything in moderation, last.fm is great but it is easily consumable and I don’t think that anyone can argue with the fact that the satisfaction of discovering new music is much sweeter when you work for it.
Article by Gabstargardter / NY 15 Votes / Average: 3,9
www.anglocolombine.blogspot.com
The sound of nu-New York house Not since Masters at Work and Nervous were still a force to be reckoned with has New York had such a buzzing and necessary house scene as it does now. The city, not known for offering much in the way of reliably consistent electronic fare, does nonetheless have a long history of affiliation with house. Larry Levan’s epic dubbed out disco sets at the Paradise Garage were always in stark contrast to the Jackin’ beats emanating out of Chicago, just as they were with the more self-consciously cerebral and middle class sounds that a certain Belleville Three would make their own in Detroit, and Levan’s legacy undoubtedly lived on through the 90s (particularly so in the case of Masters at Work, less so in the case of Nervous whose sound always approximated more the Jackin’ Chicago aesthetic). Essentially, what is important to acknowledge is that between this triumvirate of electronic cities, a vast network of sonic experimentation took place that came to define not only the respective cities, but the musical direction those cities would take. Thus, out of the ashes of Cybotron and the Belleville Three in Detroit came Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin, John Acquaviva, Carl Craig and the rest of the Detroit second wave. In New York, the story is more complicated. With the death knell of disco sounding louder than any soundsystem in New York could manage, the scene split both musically and geographically. The sound that remained in New York became more tribal, based on ancilliary percussion, foreign and exotic samples, and a less agressive beat. The young sample mavericks of New Jersey retained the lyricism and soul of Levan’s disco re-edits, but chose to cut them, splice them, rework them, leaving us with what we now know as garage (I doff my cap to you Todd Edwards). Cue the wilderness years. Apart from a few guys who managed to leave the States behind for the pastures new of Europe (the M.A.W. heavy-hitters of Armand van Helden, Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzalez, Louie Vega, and Roger Sanchez, Danny Tenaglia, etc.) and a couple who kept plugging away at things in New York, living off past glories (Francois K), the scene seemed to pretty much die. Perhaps this was to be expected - it is no surprise that this epoch coincided with New York’s next great musical dalliance, signalled by the arrival of two earthshattering albums, ‘Ready To Die’ and ‘Illmatic’.
Fast forward a few years, and with disco revivalism still an increasingly potent force to be reckoned with, and with no Hip Hop to get excited about in New York thanks to the dominance of Crunk, Chopped and Screwed and the ATL/Houston/New Orleans/even Bay area mafia, a (relatively) new generation of house producers have been recalibrating their weaponry, and are now making a full frontal attack on dancefloors around the world. In many ways, it is Jus-Ed who has set the tone for this new breed of New York house. The basic components available to Levan are still present, the way Levan could play the same record for half an hour, drawing out a dub, then a re-dub, then the original mix, then another reedit, and whipping crowds into a frenzy, but it is all a lot more stripped back. To a certain extent, Detroit and New York have fused, and it is no surprise that a lot of these releases are reminiscent of Omar S, Kerri Chandler or Patrice Scott tunes. Therefore, we get vocal soul samples, but often they are brutally re-rendered and placed in an off-kilter, minimal techno surrounding. Its useful to mention minimal techno and techno at large because there is a real awareness from these producers of what is going on in Europe. It’s no surprise that Europe is where they make most of their cash, and there is a real appetite for this stuff at the moment. DJ Qu is another of the stalwarts of the scene. He also releases material on Underground Quality (Jus-Ed’s imprint) and retains that deep, dub-inflected soultech, which often seems so indelibly yoked to the precision and teutonic savagery of German house and techno. However, whereas Jus-Ed and Qu have both been around for a long time, Levon Vincent is relatively new on the scene (this is actually not true, he has been around for a while, but it wasn’t until his self-imposed exile in Indiana that his releases really started turning heads). ‘Games Dub’, released on ‘Minimal Soul Part 2’ by Underground Quality may well be one of the best songs I have heard this year. Jus-Ed is the Ezra Pound to Vincent’s Eliot and I expect seriously big things of him. So where does this leave the ever-changing house scene in New York? Well, in short, in a thouroughly healthy state. Personally, it has never been any other way for me. Whilst Tenaglia et al chose to ply their trade in ‘Beefa, I was quite happy to slap on a Masters at Work boxset, or tune in to some Todd Edwards, maybe kick back with some Louie Vega, and it was exactly that loyalty which allowed me to tap into this new wave with such abandonment and joy. A begrudging high five does have to be extended to the DFA crew who have also shown the loyalty that allows those mentioned above to exist as a vital part of the zeitgeist (with releases by ‘House of House’ for example who are little more than Jus-Ed with a pop sensibility), but the future looks undeniably bright for nu-New York house.
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(25/09/09)
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fashion
Collection by Bahar Alipour Photos by ryan mullen / London 19 Votes / Average: 4,4
bahar(dot)alipour(at)mmedu(dot)net
DESIGNER STATEMENT : In my design work I always try to cut through traditional ideas of design and realization, creating clothes with individuality that are understated and sophisticated. This is reected in the choice of material, the ďŹ nish and attention to detail. My inspiration and ideas are usually very personal and built around one key idea - in this case I drew on themes from the tailoring of Sardinian garments. My aim was to evoke something timeless and nostalgic, while remaining modern and relevant.
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(25/09/09)
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fashion Article by StylingEve / London 9 Votes / Average: 3,9
www.stylingeve.com
A September Issue It must be said that September gets a bad rep. But while most people are hoping for an Indian summer, for the fashionista, the summer frock has been cast into the wardrobe abyss for another year. For among us fashion types, September can only mean one thing…time for a whole new look. So now let us hang up our gladiators and embrace September and the new fashion season… There is something about Autumn/Winter that always feels so shiny and new. Whilst the fashion press dictates the same things year after year about investment coats and cosy knits, somehow every Autumn has a new feel. And this year, Autumn feels shinier and newer than ever, as it brings with it a whole new silhouette. The crop tops of summer are history (and not a moment too soon for most of us). Right now it is all about the shoulder and when it comes to the shape, it’s the bigger the better. Slouchy t-shirt dresses give way to dramatic silhouettes and strong lines.
The seemingly unstoppable 80s revival continues with the re-birth of the shoulder pad, in tops, dresses and jackets a like. For designer fashion, look no further than Balmain for classic structured perfection. But the high street too is awash with strong shapes. If all else fails, make like a true recessionista and buy your own set of shoulder pads for a cheap and easy update to your t-shirts. Autumn also brings with it the promise of the impending party season, ever synonymous with sparkle and splendour. This year, designers have taken the trend and run with it, with catwalks overrun with sequins. The subtle details of Autumns past have gone and this season demands nothing less than complete embellishment. For a look that’s oh-so fashion forward why not ditch the classic LBD for some full length sequined harem pants or some thigh high sequined socks, adding an edge to any outfit. But the adornment doesn’t stop there. The Glamorous Grunge or ‘Glunge’ trend has been around for a while now and it sees a huge dramatisation this Autumn (think dirty nails and shiny hair). Studs and fringing provide an instant update to the classic blazer and the now mandatory leggings. Even leather is experiencing a twenty first century revival for a modern interpretation of the biker-esque look. So what are you waiting for? Don’t mourn September…embrace it. Ditch the summer dress and think shoulders sequins studs, for the shiniest and newest Autumn look yet.
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After Hours Photos by benpetercatchpole / Falmouth 15 Votes / Average: 4,5
www.benpetercatchpole.com
Beigefoldedshoe by Marloes ten Bhömer is made from a single piece of folded leather and stainless steel heel construction.
www.marloestenbhomer.com www.theblogpaper.co.uk
This is an ongoing project in which I use dark and surreal fashion photography to explore energetic emotions, often sexual or frenzied in nature.
Berlin based designer taranè hoock just released her second collection “silvan light”.
www.taranehoock.com (25/09/09)
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