Humanity, Culture, Life

Sorry for the lack of updates. Holidays and work have been really kicking my ass as of late. C’est la vie. On a brighter note, 10ZenMonkeys has thrown up a piece written by the late, great Robert Anton Wilson entitled, “Santa’s Crimes Against Humanity.”

An excerpt:

It wasn’t the first time Mr. Claus got the boot from a Christian congregation. Pope John XXIII threw the suspiciously merry old clown out of the Roman Catholic church back in the late 1960s. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have always denounced Santa for his unsavory pagan past. (They also recognized Christmas trees as phallic symbols long before Freud.) Many fundamentalists believe that all pagan gods are basically one false god — the same demon in different disguises — and they think the disguise is thin in the case of this particular elf. It only takes a minor letter switch, they point out, to reveal Santa Claus as SATAN Claus.

I sort of think the fundies have it right for once. Santa not only has an unsavory pagan ancestry but a rather criminal family history all around. Let me Illuminize you…

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season.

Dave at Cognitive Daily posted an interesting article about a listener’s ability to discern the differences between high-quality (256kbps), low-quality (128kbps), and really low-quality (64kbps) MP3 samples. I was able to choose them all correctly using my ears, my MacBook Pro’s sound card, and studio quality in-ear monitors.

Let’s see how humemes readers do. Here are the MP3’s he used in a different order:

Copland 1:

Copland 2:

Copland 3:

Santana 1:

Santana 2:

Santana 3:

After you’ve listened, post your guesses in the comments.

An article at the New York Times by Benedict Carey talks about how we’ve become acclimated to ignoring the psychological shortcomings of individuals in our social groups to make our social interactions easier.

From the article:

In the modern vernacular, to say someone is “in denial” is to deliver a savage combination punch: one shot to the belly for the cheating or drinking or bad behavior, and another slap to the head for the cowardly self-deception of pretending it’s not a problem.

Yet recent studies from fields as diverse as psychology and anthropology suggest that the ability to look the other way, while potentially destructive, is also critically important to forming and nourishing close relationships. The psychological tricks that people use to ignore a festering problem in their own households are the same ones that they need to live with everyday human dishonesty and betrayal, their own and others’. And it is these highly evolved abilities, research suggests, that provide the foundation for that most disarming of all human invitations, forgiveness.

In this emerging view, social scientists see denial on a broader spectrum — from benign inattention to passive acknowledgment to full-blown, willful blindness — on the part of couples, social groups and organizations, as well as individuals. Seeing denial in this way, some scientists argue, helps clarify when it is wise to manage a difficult person or personal situation, and when it threatens to become a kind of infectious silent trance that can make hypocrites of otherwise forthright people.

This opens up all sorts of questions regarding our own self-perceptions of honest, forthright behavior. While I’m not sure how effectively social scientists and psychologists are truly able to quantify the number of allowances of dishonest behavior, it is an interesting study nonetheless.

According to a news.com article, a bill introduced to the House last Friday by Democrats would put responsibility on college’s to monitor their students traffic, with some very serious consequences if they choose not to do so.

From the article:

According to the bill, if universities did not agree to test “technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity,” all of their students–even ones who don’t own a computer–would lose federal financial aid.

First of all, I’d like to applaud the Democrats for threatening their base. Seriously, what the hell are you guys thinking? For a party who insists that they want to separate government interests from corporate interests, this is a perfect example of protecting corporate interests by implementing advertising supported venues for music distribution.

My main beef with all of this is that the people who are making the laws do not know ANYTHING about the technologies they are attempting to put a stop to. They don’t seem to realize that the people they are threatening (”Stop the piracy or we’ll take away your loans! Seriously this time guys!”) are some of the only people who continue to be innovative and help maintain the basic infrastructure that politicians rely on to disseminate their BS and propaganda.

I rarely download music anymore and I’m not currently in college, but these kinds of policies and bills are not what is going to solve the problems that are currently being experienced by the media companies in this country. It has been said a thousand times before, but they need to embrace this technology, not try to dunk it, and certainly they shouldn’t attempt to stop it by threatening the people that put money into their pockets and keep some of these politicians in office.

Here is a short documentary about the composer and experimental musician, Steve Reich. I love the man’s work and think he paved the way for a lot of modern experimental musicians. He’s been covered and sampled by a lot of modern artists and there are still people performing some of his most famous pieces.

Check it out: