In fact, I’m sure you already know all the gory details about that shameful human rights fiasco so I’m writing about a battle a lot closer to home instead. Has anybody noticed the increasingly unpredictable behaviour of coat hangers recently? I for one am getting fairly tired of hanging a shirt or sweater and then by merely touching it (opening a door or banging into it a little bit) it falls on the floor. It’s quite annoying. It wouldn’t surprise me if the government has introduced a de-stabilizing element into the manufacturing process to waste our time so we’re less productive and spend more time bending over to pick things up thereby increasing spinal wear and tear and lining the pockets of health care professionals and pharmaceutical companies who then in turn make “donations” to the government. Of course I’m kidding. This is my first blog of any kind, but you may find further comments from me about real issues in the future. By the way I made up all the stuff about Vietnam, there’s no such thing as Operation Coathanger as far as I’m aware, but if there was it would probably have been led by Brigadier General Francis X. Hummel United States Marine Corps. Go figure.

Post from: White Mercury

The Coat Hanger Conspiracy

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Traditional economic models assume that people are self-interested in the narrow sense. If “homo economicus” - the stereotypical rational actor in these models - finds a wallet on the sidewalk, he keeps the cash inside. He doesn’t leave tips after dining in restaurants that he will never visit again. And he would never vote in a presidential election, much less make an anonymous donation of money or time to a presidential campaign.

This posture stems from the so-called free-rider problem, a cornerstone of rational-choice theory. The problem, as described by Mancur Olson in his classic book, “The Logic of Collective Action,” is that even those who share a presidential candidate’s policy goals will reap no significant material advantage by donating their time or money. After all, with cash donations legally capped at $2,300, even donors who give the maximum have no realistic hope of influencing an election’s outcome. Nor can any individual volunteer — even one whose efforts resulted in hundreds of additional votes for his candidate — realistically hope to tip an election.

Although the logic of the free-rider problem may seem compelling, people’s behavior strikingly contradicts many of its predictions. Die-hard proponents of self-interest models sometimes counter that by becoming involved in campaigns, volunteers reap a variety of personal advantages. They often meet interesting people, for example, or they may learn about attractive employment opportunities. Major donors, for their part, are often rewarded with ambassadorships or other prominent positions when their candidate wins.

Researchers at the intersection of economics, psychology, sociology and other disciplines have had interesting things to say about the anomaly inherent in collective action. Albert O. Hirschman, an economist at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, was one of the first to grapple seriously with it. In his 1982 book “Shifting Involvements,” he acknowledges that self-interest indeed appears to be the dominant human motive in some eras. But over time, he argues, many people begin to experience disappointment as they continue to accumulate material goods. When consumption standards escalate, people must work harder just to hold their place. Stress levels rise. People become less willing to devote resources to the public sphere, which begins to deteriorate. Against this backdrop, disenchanted consumers become increasingly receptive to appeals from the organizers of social movements.

Eventually, Mr. Hirschman argues, a tipping point is reached. In growing numbers, people peel away from their private rat race to devote energy to collective goals. The free-rider problem ceases to inhibit them, not only because they now assign less value to private consumption, but also because they find satisfaction in the very act of contributing to the common good. Activities viewed as costs by self-interest models are thus seen as benefits instead.

From an informal survey of 20th-century American social movements, Mr. Hirschman concluded that these cycles have an average duration of about 20 years. But sometimes patterns take much longer to recur.

Self-interest is surely an important human motive, perhaps even the most important motive much of the time. But it is never the only important motive. And during at least some moments in history, narrow self-interest models miss the essential story line completely. This may be one of those moments.

Read the full article at The New York Times.
Robert H. Frank is an economist at the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University. E-mail: rhfrank@nytimes.com.

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Homo Economicus Swinging Back - The Ceasing Free-Rider Problem

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The current political climate is showing a political will that is struggling to effectively come to terms with global warming, let alone deal with it. Whilst a serious threat of this nature is a first for civilisation, politicians struggle with it because it can directly conflict with the agendas of those who helped them into power - and it is those same agenda’s which seem to be contributing to global warming in the first place.

The finance required to fund an election attempt in the 21st century is now of a size that can only be raised in the corporate sector. (It also raises the issue of whether these financial implications inhibit the true application of the democratic process for anyone seeking office, because of onerous financial considerations.)

As far as the leadership of any political party is concerned, raising financial support produces the problem of divided loyalties between sponsors and electors. A solution seems to have been found in the introduction of the “Party Line”, which effectively fudges the issues of local democracy by confining activity to the Party Agenda.

Political parties can demonstrate control over their members through adherence to the Party Line. This in turn provides corporate sponsors with the confidence to invest and support an organisation that can manage its direction and any changes to that direction. In so doing it can deliver on policies which are capable of supporting corporate views and desires.

For business to invest in anything, be it new equipment, staff or sponsorship, it needs to be sure that there is an acceptable level of return on that investment, whatever that might be. That is the nature of business and we should have no problem with that discipline.

However the actual democratic process seems to be under increasing threat from the powerful influences the corporate sector can now wield, further exacerbated by the acceleration of the doctrines of Capitalism across the globe.

The challenge lies in the shift in people power that this process seems to be implementing. We now have a reduction in voters at the ballot boxes because of apathy we are told, but a greater assertion of control over the corporate sector through consumerism.

Companies react to the will of there customers and this in turn causes movement by political reaction to meet corporate need. Somehow the corporate sector has managed to inject itself between the politician and the voter, enabling it to increasingly introduce corporate values and the dictates of profit into our everyday life.

Whilst consumerism operates in a similar fashion to democracy, our ability to influence and change could become restricted to our needs as consumers, rather than our needs as members of society. This new democracy is unhealthy because of the serious imbalance it creates within society, at a time when we need to be able to function as flexibly as possible in coming to terms and dealing with climate change.

Copyright 2008 - John Coombes

Born in 1946 in South London and with a Secondary education, for 35 years John Coombes had a successful career in the City where he built several companies and a £100 million group. In the late 80’s he became disillusioned with “just making money” and in his early 40’s suffered several traumas including ME, Breakdown and Bankruptcy. In the space of 18 months Coombes went from a City boardroom to the paint shop in a small art metal works factory. At the time the Stock market and housing market also collapsed and he lost everything, including his family.

Over the last 20 years he has embarked upon a sabbatical which has resulted in him now coming to view life and its workings from a new, totally different and more meaningful perspective. In his manuscript “What if WE are God”, of which this article is an extract, there are amusing as well as very poignant stories that provide the backdrop to a deeply penetrating observation on the human condition, and how we seem to continually hold ourselves back from realizing our true potential as a species in this thing called life.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Coombes

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WHAT IF WE ARE GOD - Threat To Democracy In The 21st Century

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This fifth offering from Jean Seaton, Professor of Media Studies at Westminster University, is a passionate appraisal of news and the basis of it within society today.

In ten tight chapters Jean takes the reader through her principle ideas, from Blood in the High street to Global Compassion, dissecting the representation of major tragedies played out by news corporations for mass consumption and arguing passionately that news is an essential part of a free society.

The frank and often personal accounts of news digestion and analogies to food, especially Jeans sincere and compelling accounts of her own childhood experiences in her Fathers butchers shop make an otherwise complex and often inaccessible subject matter personal, memorable and hugely relevant.

Carnage and the Media: The Making and Breaking of News about Violence is available from all good book shops: priced £19.99
Published by Penguin Books

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CARNAGE & THE MEDIA - The Basis of News Within Society

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“…We don’t need more heat in government, we need more light … Hope … That thing inside us that exists, that despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better is waiting before us around the corner; but only if we are willing to work for it and fight for it. To shed our fears and our doubts and our synicism. To glory in the task before us of remaking this country block by block … There is a moment in the life of every generation where, if we are to make our mark on history, this spirit must break through… Our moment is now”

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BARACK OBAMA - Iowa Speech Excerpt 2007

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George Galloway:
“I could run through the world now, tyranny by tyranny and virtually every one of them is backed by the United States. It only stays in power, because of the United States. The Pakistan example, which is the perfect crystallisation of this; a soldier called ‘The General’, called himself a president, you’ll remember that, president Bush couldn’t remember his name, he was blaggarded by everyone, put on the black-list, pushed out of the commonwealth, subjected to an arms embargo and on September the 12th, a huge red carpet was rolled out in front of him and we all started calling him president, and this mistake you’ve (the United States) played out, over and over and over again, all over the world. You’ve backed dictatorships and tyrants; and now you come here bucolically speaking against dictatorships. What hypocrites you are.”

Robert McGeehan:
“You just don’t know what you’re talking about on this as well as everything else”

George Galloway:
“we’ve already worked out that I’m stupid and the 80,000 people who elect me every 4 years, they must be stupid too. We’re all out of step except Uncle Sam over here, the whole parade ground.”

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GEORGE GALLOWAY - Dinner with Portillo Excerpt 2003

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Sure it feels like the end of the road for what is a light entertainment/Factual show…
Or Cruelty TV as we knew it…

Racism was the last taboo, these type of show had never tackled. While class war, sexism, etc…had already been through the big brother machine… Having said that…Isn’t it the very function of CBB and his ‘brother’ show BB to higlight the ills of our society and to somehow weather the storm…?

And my point is…although I feel for the poor Shilpa….she is actually - bless her - bearing the brunt of what a lot of us are experiencing on a daily basis whether at work or at school or while being stopped and searched in the streets….She is almost a martyr for a just cause….

If a stunning ‘princess’ out of Bollywood’s finest can suffer racism …then it says a lot about what ordinary Asians (and others by proxy) are going through on a daily basis….
If people are ready to behave in such a way on National Tv…then it says a lot about our society…and I am not only talking about Jade who has been made the ‘EscapeGoat’ (To use a Goodysm) but also Danielle and Jo, who often were more plain in their speech, albeit behind closed doors and far away from Shilpa….

If people can reach the level of ‘fame’ and income reached by the three Witches and still behave so appallingly against a particular individual while displaying a level of ignorance and miseducation seldom seen on National Tv.. it does say a lot about the society we are living in…

Rather than brushing it under the carpet let’s expose the ills of our society in prime time TV. And yes (poor Shilpa) thank you for your grace and dignity in such a horrid time…

I also applaud the 30 000 peoples whichever background they are hailing from who complained about her treatment. Ultimately, the producers are rubbing their hands and seemed to be willing to keep that storyline alive…Although I was for the show to be kept on-air, they also have a duty of care for the people they do invite on the show and if their livelihood or safety might be at risk by appearing on a Tv Show, then they should take their responsibility of course and inform the ‘contestants’ properly.

Next? The ’storm’ will hopefully go away, new standards of behaviors and etiquette will be introduced on national Tv…As for our daily lives? Do not expect much I suspect, although Gordon Brown must have just been able to salvage the Anglo-British trade relations. As for Jade, who is said to be on ’suicide-watch’… I suspect her camp has hired the PR machine that got Kate Moss off the hook and turned cocaine addiction to ‘Cocaine Chic’….What will be the PR Buzz word for that: ‘Goby Chic’ …’Chavy Chic’…? But I’m just an old cynical…

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BIG BROTHER - Cruelty TV As We Knew It

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FOLK BRITANNIA provides an idiosyncratic snapshot of British folk music in the 21st century.

A year ago, the festival Jazz Britannia was such a success that the Barbican along with BBC Four are bringing to us this year, a 3 day festival which celebrates the evolution of British folk music from the end of the Second World War right up to its modern day revival. From the 2nd to 4th February ‘06, the Barbican holds a series of live events encompassing three themed concerts, free music, films and talks. Tying in with the event is BBC Four’s very special three-part documentary series of the same title that engages with the disparate and sometimes argumentative elements of the contemporary folk scene.

To kick off on Thursday 2nd February, Which Side Are You On? is a night that features two of the biggest names in folk music of the British Isles and will be hosted by the force that is, Billy Bragg. The monumental Scottish firebrand singer-songwriter Dick Gaughan, will take to the Barbican Hall stage alongside Martin Carthy, a mainstay of the English folk scene.

Daughters of Albion on Friday 3rd February brings together some of England’s finest female folk artists and singer-songwriters in a themed concert to sing songs of experience. The set list places ancient folk ballads alongside West Country trip hop and 21st Century R’n’B. All performances will be accompanied by an ensemble featuring ex-Pogue and master multi-instrumentalist David Coulter, guitarist Neil MacColl and Van Morrison’s drummer Liam Bradley, all arranged by MD Kate St John. Artists include June Tabor, Sheila Chandra and Norma Waterson.

The final night, Into The Mystic celebrates the current resurgence of interest in the psychedelic, mystical, neo-folk of the late 1960s and early 1070s. It explores how this renewed interest has been reflected on a new generation of artists today. It will feature artists from pioneer bands such as Pentangle, The Incredible String Band, Donovan and Vashti Bunyan.

Meanwhile, the BBC 4 series will be divided into three one hour episodes which chronicles how the music was coerced into a revolutionary soundtrack by the Left in the 50s, how the hippie generation bent it into progressive folk-rock in the 60s and 70s only for punks like The Pogues and Billy Bragg to bring things back to basics in the 80s and 90s. The story of folk will be told by a stellar cast of musicians, live performances and archive footage and the debates that arise in its argumentative world will be discussed.

www.barbican.org.uk/music

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FOLK BRITANNIA AT BARBICAN - 21st Century Folk Music

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Shakila Rajendra chats to the London collective who are determined to make a mark with their cross-genre brand of hip hop/funk music.

Let’s get one thing straight, Shorty aren’t an all singing all dancing group of (let’s be politically correct here) ‘vertically-challenged people’. Neither are they a girl band who named themselves so, out of devotion to 50 Cent and that infamous line from the song In Da Club. Far from that, Shorty are, with the exception of two band members, well over six foot tall and are, with the exception of vocalist Celeste, male. Shorty was just an aptly ironic name for a band whose members are often referred to as ‘trees’. As for 50 Cent and the reference to ‘fine women’ Shorty were around long before that. What the band Shorty can be referred to however, is a seven- piece hip hop/funk collective that thrive on the live scene who have already been establishing themselves as a force in UK hip hop to be reckoned with.

The beginnings of Shorty started in Leeds when bassist Dan French met guitarist Jim Reynolds and drummer Charlie Taylor at university. Later on in London, DJ Hudge along with MCs Ducane and Cisco filled in the gaps while vocalist Celeste completed the picture when they found her singing at a friend’s party. So what happens when you throw seven strong minded people together and ask them to produce a sound? The good news is, Shorty landed on the right side of the term ‘mish-mash’.

With seven people who are all massively into music, how does a band find their sound? Shorty have taken in a varied range of influences; from Led Zeppelin to Gangstarr, from Stevie Wonder and Lauryn Hill to A Tribe Called Quest and Fela Kuti. These influences have thus contributed to their producing a sound that can’t quite be placed into a genre as such. Celeste agrees that “it is a fantastic thing although it can be difficult to explain sometimes”. The reason it is a fantastic thing is because, Shorty have found a way to ‘smash it all down and mix it up’ and produce something that appeals. “When you look at people’s influences these days you find that they like a bit of rock and they like a bit of hip hop but they also might like a bit of jazz and a bit of soul. There aren’t necessarily too many bands that mix them all together. They find it refreshing as music genres aren’t so defined anymore. It appeals to a much broader section of people,” say the band.

Their sound is further emphasised by their lyrics which broach anything that needs calling to attention. The majority of lyrics are written by Cisco, DuCane and Celeste who say that their songs, “come from experiences or things in a particular moment that spark a creative process.” Shorty’s songwriting process is as organic as sitting in Celeste’s flat, looking out a window and finding inspiration from an average Brixton street nut.

So does a band that so evidently know what it takes to produce good music ever think of using it as a tool to perhaps get political? Shorty acknowledge that “there are people who do the political thing really well and they should be commended, but we don’t want to jump on the bandwagon and do the political thing, just for the sake of doing politics.” They like to consider themselves more of a party band. That is not to say however, that they would ever sway in the direction of so many hip hop type bands that have started to jump into that other bandwagon of superficiality.

The superficiality here refers to the notion of sex, ‘bling’ and videos that feature ‘wall to wall ass shaking’ which more often than not, gets clumped into the urban culture scene. Shorty realise that they inevitably are representative of this scene and stress that they want no part of the trivial side of things. Says Celeste, “It’s a shame because there’s a whole generation of kids that are ‘plonked’ in front of MTV and there’s a whole generation growing up on this sort of degradation. It breeds ignorance and the more cynical that this generation gets, the more sex and porn that they have to sell to drag people in. There’s no aspect of our music that ever goes there and there never can be.” Shorty would rather stick to making quality music that is “slightly quirky and appeal to different people’s sense of humour.”

With attitude and their feet firmly stuck to the gravel, Shorty have been carving themselves a niche in the UK urban/hip hop scene. They’ve been dubbed the next big thing and have collected themselves the Diesel-U-Music Award for Hip Hop back in 2002. The band have worked with UK heavyweight producers, Blackbeard and have toured in Europe which included a Roots Manuva after show. Shorty reckon they would do well in the US as their brand of sound that blends different sorts of music has more of a niche there. However, for now, they are setting their sights on home ground. “There is a lot of talent and good music that hasn’t been given the chance and hopefully, we’ll be seen as a breath of fresh air,” says Hudge.

In the pipeline, is a mixed tape that they are in the process of producing for online release which will feature the best of five or six tracks that could sum up their sound and Shorty hope to be seen at the festivals of 2006. In the nearer future, they will be playing Cargo on 8th March 2006.

This band is set to make an impact. A tall order but one Shorty aren’t afraid to take on.

Cargo
83 Rivington St
Kingsland Viaduct
Shoreditch
London EC2A 3AY
www.cargo-london.com
www.shortyonline.co.uk

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GET SHORTY - Seven-Piece Hip Hop/Funk Collective

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Currently exhibiting at The National Gallery is an east London artist depicting real life stories taken from The Hackney Gazette.

Tom Hunter tells these stories using carefully staged, large format photographs, restaging them in compositions that often directly refer to classic paintings of the past, many of the paintings to which Hunter has referred for his compositions can be found in the National Gallery. Using his friends as models, Hunter directs them to use gestures, body language and facial expressions in the same way as the characters seen in paintings by historic artists.

Left: The Fight between the Lapiths and the Centaurs piero di cosimo c. 11500-15 (The National Gallery, London)

Hunter first came to public attention in 1998, when he won the John Kobal Photographic Portrait Award, with a photograph entitled Woman Reading a Possession Order. With its meticulously arranged composition and sensitively captured light, it is a direct quotation from Vermeer’s painting, A Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden). Hunters reputation was further established with a series of engaging, puzzling and compelling photographic re-workings of other paintings from the past. They provoke thoughts about issues that are relevant in our everyday lives, however shocking.

Girls’ Sex Acts in Club: Court. Cop ‘It can only be described as having sex through clothes’

Living in Hell and Other Stories continues Hunters’ interest in the stories of inner-city life that take place in his own locality, having lived in Hackney since the age of 19. Tom Hunter is not a photo journalist. His photographs are not literal reconstructions of the actual events. It is not the specific details of the story that attract him; rather it is the idea of a story that is provoked by the eye-catching headline. The idea of turning to his local press as a source for inspiration was suggested by the example of Thomas Hardy. Thomas, like hunter, was born and brought up in Dorset and would trawl through back copies of his local paper to find the stories of public hangings, wife selling and other unlikely events that he eventually wrote about in his novels.

Murder: Two Men Wanted

‘Living in Hell’ was the headline printed in The Hackney Gazette above the story of a 74-year-old woman whose house was infested with vermin. Borrowing from the National Gallery’s Four Figures at a Table by the Le Nain brothers, Hunter composed a photograph with the help of a retired actress and several hundred cockroaches bought over the internet. The Le Nains’ paintings of around 1643 show a woman and children in a modest peasant interior. She has the expression of a care-worn older woman tempered with a quiet sense of self-respect; in Hunters 2005 version the woman has no companions, she is alone. She sits wrapped up against the cold, the electric heater switched off. The sofa is filthy and worn, decaying food lies uneaten. A naked electric light bulb illuminates the room and shows literally hundreds of cockroaches crawling over every surface. This harsh lighting starkly reveals her shocking fate. The Le Nain’s dignified poverty is ripped from its original 17th century context and in 2005, becomes brutally undignified.

A Satyr mourning over a Nymph

National Gallery paintings depict the eternal themes of love, sex, violence, life and death and Tom Hunter has used these and reflected on them in an uncompromisingly contemporary way. He has turned newspaper headlines into commentaries on both the modern world in which we live and the classic themes seen represented throughout the National Gallery.

Cupid complaining to Venus by Lucas Cranach the Elder, c.1525
(the National Gallery, London)
Girls’ Sex Acts in Club: Court. Cop ‘It can only be described as having sex through clothes’

Tom Hunter : Living in Hell and Other Stories
Until 12 March
The National Gallery
Trafalgar Square
London, WC2N 5DN
Tel: 020 7747 2885
www.nationalgallery.org.uk
Admission Free

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TOM HUNTER - Living in Hell and Other Stories

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