Archive for October, 2010
Kenneth Anger Interviewed by Gaspar Noe
Here is an interesting match-up… Pioneering esoteric filmmaker Kenneth Anger gets interviewed by pioneering esoteric filmmaker Gaspar Noe in this match-made-in-heaven (hell?) tete-a-tete:
Kenneth Anger, the octogenarian American underground filmmaker, has largely been heralded as one of the founders of experimental film, with his role in inspiring directors such as Martin Scorsese and David Lynch. He pioneered queer, cult and psychedelic film without ever imagining himself in a gere, and this year he crossed over into fashion and created a piece (with longtime collaborator Brian Butler) for the Italian fashion house Missoni.
Gaspar Noé, director of the recent film Enter the Void and creator of the controversial film Irreversible, has long been a vocal supporter of Kenneth Anger…
Dictionary Contains Dirty Words: SoCal Parents Move to Protect Children After Shocking Discovery
Source: Booksworm (CC)
This from Alison Flood at The Guardian:
Dictionaries have been removed from classrooms in southern California schools after a parent complained about a child reading the definition for “oral sex”.
Merriam Webster’s 10th edition, which has been used for the past few years in fourth and fifth grade classrooms (for children aged nine to 10) in Menifee Union school district, has been pulled from shelves over fears that the “sexually graphic” entry is “just not age appropriate”, according to the area’s local paper.
The dictionary’s online definition of the term is “oral stimulation of the genitals”. “It’s hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we’ll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature,” district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus told the paper.
While some parents have praised the move – “[it's] a prestigious dictionary that’s used in the Riverside County spelling bee, but I also imagine there are words in there…
A Critical History of the Hipster
Mark Greif writes an obituary of hipster culture for New York Magazine:
If I speak of the degeneration of our most visible recent subculture, the hipster, it’s an awkward occasion. Someone will point out that hipsters are not dead, they still breathe, they live on my block. Yet it is evident that we have reached the end of an epoch in the life of the type. Its evolution lasted from 1999 to 2009, though it has shifted appearance dramatically over the decade. It survived this year; it may persist. Indications are everywhere, however, that we have come to a moment of stocktaking.
Novelty books on the order of Stuff Hipsters Hate and Look at This Fucking Hipster began appearing again this year, reliving the hipster’s previous near death in 2003 (titles then: A Field Guide to the Urban Hipster; The Hipster Handbook). Institutions associated with the hipster label have begun fleeing it. Dov Charney,…
Why Glenn Beck Will Win
Photo: Erna-Louisa (CC)
No, not the 2012 presidency! At least I hope not, but Brandweek’s Todd Wasserman says he will beat the attempted advertiser boycott urged by progressive groups:
It seemed like a good idea: To get a program canceled, go after the advertisers. But such logic doesn’t seem to apply in Murdochland.
A yearlong attempt to have advertisers boycott Fox News’ Glenn Beck Program—by organizations including StopBeck, People for the American Way and MediaMatters.org—has actually resulted in more than 100 advertisers fleeing the highly rated program. But try telling that to News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch. Fielding questions during a News Corp. shareholder meeting this month, Murdoch flatly denied that the advertisers had pulled out of the controversial show even though many have been quoted on the record. “That’s not true,” said Murdoch. “Maybe four or five have been moved over to [Bill] O’Reilly’s program. [But] no one has taken any money…
Video From Inside A Tornado
This incredible video really needs no commentary other than the reporter’s repeated mantra, “We are in the tornado!”
The Secret War Between Wikileaks And The Pentagon (And Some Media Outlets)
It happened on a Friday, the anniversary of the first U.S. casualties of the Vietnam War, way back in 1957. It was also the anniversary, in 1964, of French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre’s announcement that he was turning down the Nobel Prize. He later sat as a judge on Bertrand Russell’s Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal, which indicted that conflict’s carnage and lies.
It was the day this year that the often shadowy Wikileaks, chief nemesis of the Pentagon, maybe their worst nightmare—considered perhaps even more dangerous than the Taliban—surfaced again with the largest public drop of secret military documents in history. Wikileaks is a public web site run by the Sunshine Press, a non-profit group.
For understandable reasons, the Pentagon is at war with its information war against the war—literally.
Wikileaks introduced the significance of their immense treasure trove of secrets on their website this way: “The 391,832 reports (’The Iraq War Logs’),…
Museum Offers Ultimate Magic Mushroom Trip
Psilocybe mexicana. Photo: Cactu (CC)
What’s the price of magic mushrooms where you live? Probably not $1,400 per trip, but if you want a fully immersive experience, head to Berlin for Belgian artist Carsten Hoeller’s new exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, as reported by Reuters (one thing to note however, “magic” mushrooms are generally considered to be psilocybin mushrooms, not fly agaric, as Reuters says):
The installation, which includes a floating hotel room on a platform shaped like a mushroom, gives guests an “opportunity to dive into the world of soma,” the museum said.
Soma is a mythical drink with powers to heal, enlighten and provide access to the divine, according to the beliefs of Vedic nomads in northern India during the second millennium BC.
It is no longer known what soma was made of, but research suggests the fly agaric mushroom, more popularly known as “magic mushrooms,” may have been the ingredient…
Top 50 Psychiatrists Paid by Pharmaceutical Companies
An interesting look at the highest paid drug dealers in the psychiatric industry. What is the price of a medical doctor’s immortal soul? This list shows about $200,000 for the shrewdest players. Escobar would be proud. From PsychCentral:
Who were the top 50 psychiatrists in the U.S. paid by the top seven pharmaceutical companies?
This past week, ProPublica, an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest, recently decided to answer that question by compiling a list of 384 physicians and health care providers who earned more than $100,000 total from one or more of the seven companies that have disclosed payments in 2009 and early 2010. Click here for the full list of 384 physicians.
We combed that list and found the top 50 psychiatry earners for the past two years (2009-2010). You can click on any name below to learn more about the physician.
According to an accompanying article to this…
Do Placebos Really Exist?
Photo: Ragesoss (CC)
From ScienceDaily:
The thinking behind relying on placebo-controlled trials is this: to be sure a treatment itself is effective, one needs to compare people whose only difference is whether or not they are taking the drug. Both groups should equally think they are on the drug — to protect against effects of factors like expectation. So study participants are allocated “randomly” to the drug or a “placebo” — a pill that might be mistaken for the active drug but is inert.
But, according to the paper’s author, Beatrice Golomb, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, this standard has a fundamental problem, “there isn’t anything actually known to be physiologically inert. On top of that, there are no regulations about what goes into placebos, and what is in them is often determined by the makers of the drug being studied, who…
Taiwanese Animation: America’s ‘Giant’ Bedbug Problem
In its latest CGI masterpiece, New Media Animation tackles America’s takeover by bedbugs. This is an accurate depiction of what is already happening in certain apartments in New York:
Mexican Police Seize 121 Tons Of Marijuana In History’s Largest Drug Bust
In what is assumed to be the largest drug bust in history, authorities seized a staggering 121 tons of marijuana, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, from a drug cartel in Tijuana. The haul was then destroyed in a massive controlled bonfire. The sheer quantity of pot involved is surreal, made slightly surreal-er by being packed with labels adorned with Homer Simpson. Via Asylum:
Insane Video Mapping Show Celebrates the Prague Astronomical Clock’s 600th Anniversary
The Prague Orloj is an elaborate astronomical clock constructed in 1410. It has animated statues, a calendar and a zodiacal ring with moving Sun and Moon. This video mapping show to celebrate its 600th anniversary comes via The Daily Grail:
Wikileaks Iraq War Logs: Every Death Mapped
Simon Rogers reports in the Guardian: “The Wikileaks Iraq war logs provide us with a unique picture of every death in Iraq. These are those events mapped using Google Fusion tables.”
Did Google Street View Find God Above a Swiss Lake?
So, even God can’t hide from Google Street View? Max Read writes on Gawker:
Who are those blurry, possibly robed figures hovering above a lake in Quarten, Switzerland, visible on Google Street View? Is it something on the camera lens? Or is it maybe… God and His only begotten Son? And who’s to say that God isn’t “something on the lens,” in some kind of a cosmic, metaphysical sense?
What in the World Are They Spraying?
What would you say if you were told that airplanes were regularly spraying toxic aerosols in the skies above every major region of the world? That is exactly what a group of protestors were claiming outside of the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting that was held in San Diego from February 18-22.
However, inside the convention center was a different story. The scientists gathered to discuss the “plausibility” of implementing various Geo-engineering campaigns throughout the world, all under the guise that the Earth has a man-made global warming problem that can be solved in-part by spraying aerosol aluminum and other particles into the sky to block the sun.
When these scientists were asked about the possibility of existing aerosol programs; they stated that no aerosol spraying programs have been implemented to date. A little confused? Why would protestors gather outside of a meeting making claims that world-wide aerosol programs were under way if scientist were only now discussing the possibility of implementing these programs? Could it be that one of these groups is being deceived?
Reality TV in the Age of Credulity
Joseph Allen writes on Confessions of a CyberCasualty:
I recently got my foot smashed to hell while doing something stupid. Crippled and couchbound, I indulged the great American painkiller: Reality Television. That just made me more stupid.
We all know the Idiot Box is an insidious device. The TV snares your attention and lulls you into a passive stupor, polluting the subconscious with compulsive memes and corporate logos. It’s like getting blown by an android in a Wal-Mart stockroom. Yet there I was, swilling beers and letting Jersey Shore, American Idol, and truTV’s All Worked Up drown me under electromagnetic waves of human detritus.
Reverend Ron is a redneck repo man with a bleached flattop and cameras in his face. Ron cruises Lizard Lick, NC with Bobby the badass sidekick, reclaiming unpaid vehicles from ignorant white trash and whippin’ ass when necessary. That’s what All Worked Up is all about. Real people with detestable occupations,…
New Equation = Breakthrough In Solar Research
Organic Semiconductor. Image: Frank Trixler; adapted from LMU/CeNS: Organic Semiconductor Nanostructures (CC)
Researchers at the University of Michigan announced they’ve developed a crucial new equation that can describe “the relationship of current to voltage at the junctions of organic semiconductors,” which could lead to big breakthroughs in solar cells and high-efficiency lighting.
Computer chips only became possible through a 1949 equation developed by William Shockley that accurately described the relationship between voltage and electric current in silicon and other inorganic semiconductors. One technology site notes that this new equation “will lead to better organic semiconductors that could conceivably change the future as much as the computer has changed our lives in the last 61 years.”
“We’re not making complicated circuits with them yet…” explains the school’s Vice President of Research, but “from my perspective, it’s a very significant advance.”
Dead Sea Scrolls Go Digital
Want your very own copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls? You’ll soon be able to access the ancient writings in their – sort of – original form thanks to this interesting new project brought to you by the Israel Antiquities Authority and Google.
Joel Greenberg of The Washington Post explains:
The joint project is the latest stage of gradually widening access to the 2,000-year-old documents, once available to only a restricted group of scholars but made more accessible in recent decades through facsimile editions and published studies. Organizers say the first images will be online in a few months.
The project marries “one of the most important finds of the previous century with the most advanced technology of the next century,” said Pnina Shor, the director of the project at the Antiquities Authority. “We are putting together the past with the future in order to share it.”
The scrolls were discovered in the late 1940s…
Biodynamics: Natural Wonder or Just a Horn of Manure?
Rudolf Steiner’s biodynamic farming techniques have never made any sense to me, especially the fact that they seem to work! It also strikes me as odd that the Wall Street Journal would assign bad boy author Jay McInerney to write a report on the spread of biodynamics in the world of high end wine, but here’s what he found outside of the Bright Lights, Big City:
Burly, heavily bearded Stu Smith has been tending his vineyard atop Spring Mountain with his brother Charlie for more than 40 years. The Smith Brothers have gained a quietly loyal following for their Smith Madrone wines, despite eschewing such Napa conventions as new French oak, irrigation and Robert Parker raves.
Stuart, the more loquacious of the brothers, has been known to complain about the high alcohol and the high prices of many Napa wines. Recently he has directed his contrarian streak at a fashionable new target: biodynamic…
