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Archive for February, 2009

Phillip Pullman on Britain

Posted by Neil

I read this at the Times Online today and I think Mr. Pullman is no the list of my heroes from now on. Below is a brief extract that I simply loved…

It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as the Protection from Harassment Act (1997), the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), the Terrorism Act (2000), the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001), the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002), the Criminal Justice Act (2003), the Extradition Act (2003), the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003), the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004), the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), the Inquiries Act (2005), the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005), not to mention a host of pending legislation such as the Identity Cards Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

Inconceivable.

And those laws say:
Sleep, you stinking cowards
Sweating as you dream of rights and freedoms
Freedom is too hard for you
We shall decide what freedom is
Sleep, you vermin
Sleep, you scum.

Read the article and cry, just fucking cry.

Linked via BoingBoing

Tags: freedom, politics, trust, writing

Friday, February 27th, 2009 Neil 1 Comment

It is Time.

Posted by Ralph

Don’t know how many of our regular or irregular readers were watching the Grammys last night, I’m thinking not all that many.

Green Day

Right before the nominations for best album came the small piece of news that I, and many others have been waiting for for about the last five years. Green Day‘s new album will be released in May this year, and it’s called 21st Century Breakdown.

No clues as to what to expect musically, though if you follow the link above to the official site and sit around for a while the opening bars of something which may (or may not) be the title track start playing.

Since American Idiot the band have parted ways with their long time producer Rob Cavallo who has worked with the band since from Dookie to AI. 21st CB will instead be produced by Butch Vig. Formerly the Drummer of grunge band Garbage Vig has been working as a producer since the early eighties, and his credits include Nirvana’s Nevermind and Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream. He has also worked on albums with Soul Asylum, Sonic Youth and Jimmy Eat World (Every CV needs a black mark).

Speaking with UK music magazine NME in December last year Billie Joe Armstrong suggested that the then un-named album could be taking a more power-pop direction, naming Cheap Trick, The Who and The Beatles as possible influences. In a surprisingly honest interview Armstrong said “How do you take something… and try to expand on the idea of what is supposed to be three-chord mayhem?”

“How do you do it in a way where the arrangements are just unpredictable? So I’m pushing myself to be progressive in songwriting and being a songwriter.”

The new Album cover-art. Similar in style to the single artwork from American Idiot.

As a Green Day fan, what does all this mean to me? The change in style suggestion isn’t really all that shocking considering that it is possible to listen to any of the five albums from Dookie to American Idiot and find something musically different, though still very much Green Day, will anything from the new album be as much a departure as the segue from Eastern European folk to Mexican Mariachi in Misery from Warning? I’m thinking possibly not.

I’ve been a Green Day fan for about fifteen years now, since a friend passed me a tape with Dookie on one side, and Kerplunk on the other. While some bands never change I’ve seen Green Day grow and mature as I’ve grown and matured I’ve seen them come from the music of the minority to making an Album which has topped Charts the world over. The only concern I have at the moment is when tickets for the obligatory World Tour go on Sale.

Tags: music, Musics What I Like, optimist, superfan

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 Ralph 2 Comments

Intrinsic racism and the strength of our subconscious associations

Posted by Gazz

The Collins English Dictionary defines racism as:

1 the belief that races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary factors and that this endows some races with an intrinsic superiority over others

2 abusive or aggressive behaviour towards members of another race on the basis of such a belief

In a civilised world most people would like to think that they are not racist, and outwardly act with respect towards people of different races. Would America have elected their first black president if this was not the case? Research at Harvard university is showing that subconsciously there is a different story whether we like it or not.

Science has tended to confirm that race is a cultural construct, and there are no scientific criteria to determine race. Despite our obvious differences we are all extremely similar biologically, and to think of one race as superior to another, such as the argument that white people have intrinsically superior intelligence made by Charles Murray in ‘The Bell Curve‘, is clearly misguided. In fact in many circumstances use of the word race is being replaced with the equally ambiguous term ethnicity, as an indicator of the ancestry of a given individual.

Whether we like it or not our subconscious controls our intrinsic attitudes towards others. Without conscious influence we make snap decisions, especially about other people, using a combination of learned responses, non-verbal cues and body language. Interviews and speed dating are perfect examples of how we form an impression of people within moments of meeting them.

These behaviours are the subject of a lot of research, and an interesting tool has been developed by Anthony Greenwald, Mahzarin Banajai and Brian Nosek that shows the links our minds make. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) determines the connections and mental associations that we have made between pairs of ideas. The test works by putting two words or ideas together with words synonymous with good or bad, and registering the time taken to place an image or word into one of the two categories. Try it out for yourself here but be prepared for some uncomfortable results.

Full disclosure, I have a moderate automatic preference for Caucasians, which surprised me somewhat. I don’t consider myself to be racist, and although I don’t know many people of different ethnicities, I don’t think of the friends I have of other ethnicities any differently than the white friends I have. Intrinsically, however, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Even as I completed the test I felt a sense of shame at the ‘wrong’ answers I gave.

The prodominantly white media may have to take some of the blame for this, for reinforcing negative stereotypes about different races, with sensationalist stories, however the good news is that with more exposure to positive examples of other races or cultures this bias can be overcome. President Obama has recieved almost unilateral support with a message of hope and change, showing that the potential of any race for good is there, we just need more examples to help break free of these associations.

Tags: IAT, implicit association test, Obama, racism, science, uncomfortable truths

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 Gazz 3 Comments