I officially love Dave Carroll now. Not only is he a good singer, but he's classy (check out how he defends the United employee in this video response) and has principles. The best part is at the end he encourages all of us us to stay tuned for song #2. United hoped it could pay for the guitar and put an end to the bad publicity—but it looks like you're not getting off that easily, United. Check out the full video response below.
The Official Transcript :
"Hi, everybody. I'm Dave Carroll, and I'm coming to you from an undisclosed warehouse somewhere in Nova Scotia, Canada, and I would like to express my deep gratitude to everybody in the world who's been supporting United Song One the way you have, which is more than I ever could have hoped, especially after two days.
United has been in contact with me, and they have generously, but late, offered us compensation, and I'm grateful for that, but like I said before, I'm not looking for compensation. And if they would chose to give that money that they were thinking I might want to a charity of their choice, I'd be very happy to see that happen. I'd only ask that they'd share that news with us as to where that money went.
I'd also like to mention Ms. Irwig — she was mentioned in Song One, and through many of the posts I read, she may be being treated a little unfairly. And in my experience, she was a great employee, and unflappable, and acting in the interest of the United policies that she represented. So, I think she deserves a bit of a break, and one day, I hope to have a good laugh with her about [aboot] all this, because in Song Two, I feature my dealings with her a little bit better, in a very lighthearted way. So, stay tuned for Song Two, everybody. It's coming very, very soon. Thanks."
7.10.2009
Islam's Double Standard
Tarek Fatah, National Post
This week, more than 100 Muslims have died and thousands more have been arrested in China. Yet not a peep of protest has been heard on the streets of Cairo, Karachi or Tehran. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, it seems, is too busy imprisoning and herding Iranian Muslims to jail to hear the outcry in Xinxiang, while Egyptian religious leader, Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, has also ignored the persecution of the Uighurs. China, after all is the trusted ally of the Arab world.
This is not the first time the so-called ummah has shrugged off the massacre of fellow Muslims. During Kosovo's war with Serbia, Islamists depicted Kosovar Muslims not as victims, but as American agents. More recently, the genocide of Darfuri Black Muslims at the hands of the Arab janjaweed militia and the Sudanese government has passed unnoticed by the larger Islamic world.
My friend, the Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy explained this phenomenon: "Many Muslims only pay attention when America and Israel behave badly." If Israel invaded western China, she mused, maybe the rest of the Muslim world would wake up, cry foul and protest.
It is worth noting that on Monday, thousands of Egyptians did come out in Alexandria to protest ... but not against the Chinese government. Their anger was directed at Germany, where a racist hate-monger had murdered Marwa Sherbini, an Egyptian woman (a crime that I wrote about in Wednesday's Post).
The Muslim demonstrators in Alexandria shouted a bizarre chant to express their anger. "There is no god but God, and the Germans are the enemies of God," they screamed. The chant is a twist on the Muslim oath and declaration of faith, "There is no god, but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God."
But where were these protesters when, on Dec. 30, 2005, hundreds of Egyptian riot police stormed through a makeshift refugee camp in central Cairo to clear it of 2,500 Darfuri Muslims, beating to death 28 people, among them women and children? Were those lives less valuable than the life of Marwa Sherbini?
Yesterday in the Post, I wrote that Sherbini's "murder will prove to be manna from heaven" for the Islamists. They, I argued, would use it "as the ultimate symbol of the West's 'war against Islam,' and to fuel the propaganda that Muslims are victims."
Unfortunately, I was correct. Within hours, the tragedy was being held up as symbolic of the West's hostility toward Muslims. The Canadian Islamic Congress led the charge, accusing the Canadian media of "intentionally" ignoring the news of Sherbini's murder. Apparently, my commentary about the crime on this newspaper's Editorial page -- not to mention articles on the subject in The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star -- wasn't good enough for CIC president Wahida Valiante, who said that "the Canadian media are still locked into a discriminatory double standard when it comes to news events involving Muslims."
Ms. Valiante further accused the Canadian media of abdicating its responsibility to inform Canadians of "a growing menace that has plagued Europe for centuries."
Elsewhere, there were calls for revenge and a boycott of German goods. No one in the Middle East mentioned the fact that the German court had imposed a fine on one of its citizens for uttering racist epithets against a Muslim woman.
We Muslims need to wake up to an ethical challenge. It is immoral for us to stay silent when Muslim-on-Muslim violence takes place, but yell at the top of our lungs when the victims suffer at the hands of non-Muslims. This is a double standard that the Koran prohibits: It urges Muslims to "speak the truth" even if it hurts us.
Marwa Sherbini should not have died, but we know that the German judicial system will come down with the full force of the law on her killer.
Moreover, no one seems to be looking for the murderer of another Muslim girl. Neda Agha-Soltan was shot dead in Tehran by the Iranian government-backed militia. No one protested her death in the Muslim world outside Iran, nor asked for her killer to be brought to justice. Why? Perhaps because her killer was a fellow Muslim.
The question remains:Will Muslims come out to the streets and chant, "There is no god but God and the Iranian government is the enemy of God"?
-Tarek Fatah is author of Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State. Currently, he is working on his second book on the roots of Jewish-Muslim friction, to be published by McClelland & Stewart in the fall of 2010. Fatah is also co-host of Strong Opinions, an afternoon talk show on CFRB 1010 in Toronto.
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'Rude' French are worst tourists
French tourists are the worst in the world, coming across as penny-pinching, rude and terrible at languages, according to a new survey.
The study by travel company Expedia asked 4,500 hotels worldwide to rank tourists on their behaviour.
Japanese tourists - seen as clean and tidy, polite, quiet and uncomplaining - came top for the third year running.
French travellers made amends on elegance - classed third - as well as for their discretion and cleanliness.
But the French were the least ready to try a new language, unlike US tourists who were most likely to swallow their pride and order a pizza, baguette or a paella in the local lingo.
WORLD'S BEST TOURISTS
Japan
Britain
Canada
Germany
Switzerland
Holland
Australia
Sweden
USA
Denmark
Source:Expedia.co.uk
US tourists also got top marks for generosity, as the biggest spenders and tippers.
But they fell short on other counts as the least tidy, the loudest, the worst complainers and the worst dressed.
Britons came second for their overall behaviour, politeness, quietness and even elegance - second for dress sense only to the Italians.
But in Europe, the British were seen by the hoteliers as the worst behaved.
Jonathan Cudworth, the head of product marketing at Expedia.co.uk, said: "Being voted the worst tourists in the world by our closest neighbours highlights the fact that the 'Brits Abroad' moniker is a label we still haven't managed to shrug off.
"While we are in second place in the global best-tourist rankings, we clearly have a job to do to convince our European counterparts and those at home that we can be better behaved on holiday."
The model Japanese were followed by Canadians as the least likely to whinge when a trip goes wrong.
France's rivals for the world's "worst tourist" tag, Spaniards and Greeks, came near the bottom of the pack in almost every category.
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The study by travel company Expedia asked 4,500 hotels worldwide to rank tourists on their behaviour.
Japanese tourists - seen as clean and tidy, polite, quiet and uncomplaining - came top for the third year running.
French travellers made amends on elegance - classed third - as well as for their discretion and cleanliness.
But the French were the least ready to try a new language, unlike US tourists who were most likely to swallow their pride and order a pizza, baguette or a paella in the local lingo.
WORLD'S BEST TOURISTS
Japan
Britain
Canada
Germany
Switzerland
Holland
Australia
Sweden
USA
Denmark
Source:Expedia.co.uk
US tourists also got top marks for generosity, as the biggest spenders and tippers.
But they fell short on other counts as the least tidy, the loudest, the worst complainers and the worst dressed.
Britons came second for their overall behaviour, politeness, quietness and even elegance - second for dress sense only to the Italians.
But in Europe, the British were seen by the hoteliers as the worst behaved.
Jonathan Cudworth, the head of product marketing at Expedia.co.uk, said: "Being voted the worst tourists in the world by our closest neighbours highlights the fact that the 'Brits Abroad' moniker is a label we still haven't managed to shrug off.
"While we are in second place in the global best-tourist rankings, we clearly have a job to do to convince our European counterparts and those at home that we can be better behaved on holiday."
The model Japanese were followed by Canadians as the least likely to whinge when a trip goes wrong.
France's rivals for the world's "worst tourist" tag, Spaniards and Greeks, came near the bottom of the pack in almost every category.
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7.08.2009
Smashed guitar, YouTube song — United is listening now
by Christopher Reynolds
Smashed guitar, YouTube song — United is listening now
Here, without rhythm, harmony or rhyme, is Dave Carroll’s problem: Last year, while he was flying from Nova Scotia to Nebraska on United Airlines, somebody broke his $3,500 guitar.
Big deal, you’re thinking. Who has time to keep track of all the things United breaks?
But Carroll and his band, Sons of Maxwell, have told their tale with rhythm, harmony, rhyme, not to mention some wicked humor, and their four-minute, 37-second complaint, “United Breaks Guitars,” above, is racking up views on YouTube.
Before we tell you what United has to say about all this, here’s a quick version of Carroll’s saga, as distilled from his website. (Messages to Carroll’s home phone and e-mail address went unanswered Tuesday night.):
In spring 2008, Carroll and company headed from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Omaha, by way of (shudder now, frequent fliers) Chicago. Just after landing at O’Hare airport, says Carroll, one of his bandmates and another passenger looked out their windows and saw baggage handlers heaving around guitars with wanton disregard.
Carroll says he complained immediately to three flight attendants, but was met with indifference. Some time after arrival in Nebraska, Carroll says, he discovered that, sure enough, the base of his 710 Taylor acoustic guitar had been smashed.
But he had gigs to play, so he found a way to do that. As Carroll acknowledges, he didn’t attempt to complain again until beginning his return flight a week later.
Over the following days, weeks and months, Carroll made many phone calls to United representatives in Chicago and (who didn’t see this coming?) India, but basically he says United did nothing for him.
Meanwhile, Carroll spent $1,200 getting the guitar repaired “to a state that it plays well but has lost much of what made it special.”
The capping blow, Carroll says, was an e-mail from a Ms. Irlweg, who denied his claim for compensation because he didn’t complain in the right place, or at the right time. The airline wouldn’t even give him $1,200 in travel vouchers, Carroll contends.
So he vowed a sort of musical revenge - not one protest song, not two, but three, with a video for each, all to be posted on the Web. Carroll says he told Ms. Irlweg all about it, but got the usual response.
The video was posted on July 6. In its first 23 hours, “United Breaks Guitars” had drawn 461 comments on YouTube, most of them maligning the airline, and one of them hearkening back to Tom Paxton and his tune of aerial guitar trouble, “Thank you, Republic Airlines.” (The viewer counter appeared to be stuck at 3,441, but the video quickly went viral, with the Consumerist showing more than 24,000 views by Tuesday night.)
Among the comments: “Revenge is a dish best served with country accompaniment.”
So what does United have to say about the song?
“This has struck a chord with us, and we’ve contacted him directly to make it right,” said Robin Urbanski, a spokeswoman for United. (Urbanski also said she “loved” the video.)
Urbanski said a phone meeting had been scheduled for Wednesday, and that before the airline decides exactly what to do for Carroll, “we need to have that conversation with him directly.”
Meanwhile, Carroll’s website says he’s written and recorded the second song, with video to follow soon. And he has all sorts of other plans for a third song, and various tactics to achieve a million Web hits, which he believes will give some sense of revenge.
In fact, he writes, “I should thank United…. If my guitar had to be smashed due to extreme negligence I’m glad it was you that did it.”
By the way: In the U.S. Department of Transportation’s tally of lost, damaged, delayed or pilfered baggage in April 2009, United ranked 10th among 19 carriers, with 13,517 “baggage reports” among 4.03 million passengers.
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What Your Tattoo Really Says About You
Tattoos are more popular than ever. People from nearly every social, cultural, and ideological background are using tattoos as a way to identify themselves to the world. But sometimes your tattoo can send a message that's different than what you intended. Here's what your tattoo is really saying about you:
Tribal Band Around Bicep
What You Think It Says: I am totally badass, and everyone is gonna be able to tell that I hit the gym regularly. Now nobody's gonna mess with me when I put on my sleeveless "Event Security" t-shirt.
What It Really Says: I only do curls at the gym, so I need to circle my one muscular body part to divert attention away from my scrawny legs, and this design was the coolest one in the tattoo guy's book.
Statement Heard From This Person: " Hey, pussy! You can't bring that camera in here! There are photos of Triple H and Chris Jerico available inside the arena."
Celtic Symbol on Back
What You Think It Says: I'm out of the house now, so I'm totally getting that tattoo. I'm freakin' rebelious, and when school starts everyone is gonna know it!
What It Really Says: I can't go swimming when Granny is around.
Statement Heard From This Person: "Do you promise mom and dad don't know about my tattoo? Okay, and what about those porn sites I charged to Dad's credit card?"
Butterfly on Small of Back
What You Think It Says: This is a cute accent to my already attractive body. It will draw attention to my waist, which is a good feature of mine. Then when they see what it is they'll say, "Aw, how cute! It's an adorable butterfly! It must be an accurate representation of that girl's personality!"
What It Really Says: Aim your cumshot here.
Statement Heard From This Person: "There are seriously no hot guys in here. I'm gonna go talk to that Mexican busboy for a while."
Poem on Forearm
What You Think It Says: I'm artistic and creative. I went to a Liberal Arts college for a while, and my experiences there made me a better person and expanded my world view. My new outlook on life is best-represented by this particular poem, so I wear in on my body at all times.
What It Really Says: Hi, I'm a bike messenger. I'm here to deliver some important documents.
Statement Heard From This Person: Oh, you can definitely read a book and ride a bike at the same time...unless you're reading Neitzsche."
Small Heart on Pelvis
What You Think It Says: This tattoo is a special gift for someone who I care deeply about...when they go down on me.
What It Really Says: I paid a hairy, sweaty tattoo artist $35 to rest his hand on my vagina for an hour.
Statement Heard From This Person: "Hi, it's nice to meet you. Do you have a tattoo? 'Cuz I do. Wanna see it?"
Flower on Foot
What You Think It Says: I'm officially the coolest R.A. in the dorm building! The other grad students are never going to believe I went through with it, and they are gonna think I'm so awesome! Plus, I can hide it with my socks when people I respect come around.
What It Really Says: I will regret this when I graduate and have to get a real job.
Statement Heard From This Person: "You have to let me check your backpack if you want to go up to your girlfriend's room."
Fierce Animal on Calf
What You Think It Says: Hey, I'm still a badass. It just so happens that I fathered a couple of children recently, so I've got some responsibility now. I have to have a job, so I can hide this tattoo with pants. But if it weren't for the family and the job, I would totally unleash! That's why it's a tattoo of a fierce animal: because if I didn't have all of this "life" stuff piling up around me, that's how crazy I could be.
What It Really Says: I'm probably going to steal something from this convenience store.
Statement Heard From This Person: "Did you see the Lakers game last night? I almost bet my friend five bucks that they'd lose, but then I didn't."
Funny Cartoon on Ass
What You Think It Says: I'm going to be the life of the party now with this hilarious ass tattoo! Everyone is going to pay attention to me!
What It Really Says: I let a stranger put his hands inches from my butthole for three and a half hours.
Statement Heard From This Person: "You're laughing at the tattoo and not me, right?"
Spider on Your Skull
What You Think It Says: I'm not satisfied by just freaking people out with my normal peircings and tattoos. I need something that lets people know that I really, really don't give a shit about anything. Just shaving my head and wearing only black clothes won't do, so I've decided to stack some badass on top of badass.
What It Really Says: I'm on probation, and there's a good chance I might kill you.
Statement Heard From This Person: "I'm not allowed near that playground."
Awful Name in Cursive on Neck
What You Think It Says: There's a woman that I love somewhere, but I gotta drive this big rig all the time, so I don't see her much. That's why I got her name tatooed right here on my neck: so that everytime I check my rearview mirrors, I'll be reminded of her. Also, I couldn't put it on my chest because I already have a huge tattoo of a naked woman there.
What It Really Says: I totally f*cked this chick named Destiny once.
Statement Heard From This Person: "You ever made love in the back of an 18-wheeler on top of forty-eight hundred boxes of string cheese?"
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Tunguksa Blast Mystery Solved by Space Shuttle?
by Brian Handwerk
Space shuttles blasting off from Earth may have helped solve the mystery of what came careening down from space to explode over Russia in June 1908.
The so-called Tunguska event leveled 770 square miles (2,000 square kilometers) of forest in a remote area of Siberia.
What caused the blast has puzzled scientists, because only a handful of people saw the explosion and it left no easily recognizable debris.
The leading theory has been a mid-air explosion of either a rocky meteor or an icy comet that rocked the region with the force of several hundred atomic bombs.
Now studies of so-called night-shining clouds sometimes linked to space shuttle launches suggest that it was, in fact, a comet that caused Tunguska.
Tunguska "Afterglow"?
Atmospheric scientist Michael Kelley of Cornell University first noticed a potential link between the Tunguska event and night-shining clouds decades ago as he was combing through historic scientific papers.
"Several British scientists commented that three days [after Tunguska] they could read a newspaper at midnight in England," Kelley said.
Around the same time Kelley had begun studying night-shining clouds, and it occurred to him that such features could have caused the strange afterglow.
Night-shining, or noctilucent, clouds form only in the high, cold skies on the edge of space, when water vapor condenses around dust particles and freezes into tiny ice crystals.
The clouds shine because they are high enough to be lit by the sun from below while an observer stands in twilight.
Kelley was studying such clouds in Alaska when the space shuttle Endeavour launched on August 8, 2007.
"We had a huge [cloud] display on the 11th," Kelley said. "For me that really sealed it."
Similar clouds had been spotted in the days following previous shuttle launches, Kelley reports in a paper currently in press, which will appear in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
A space shuttle's engine, which combines liquid oxygen and hydrogen, produces an exhaust plume of 300 metric tons of water vapor, which reaches 62 to 72 miles (100 to 115 kilometers) during each launch.
For Tunguska, Kelley theorizes that an entering comet shed its icy coating at a similar altitude, releasing similar amounts of water vapor and creating the clouds.
There is, however, a lingering mystery: "How do you get a water vapor plume from Florida to Alaska in a day and a half?" Kelley asked.
One possibility is that the plume got caught in giant, counter-rotating upper-atmospheric eddies that moved it at speeds of nearly 300 feet a second.
The same 2-D turbulence process was at work to create the 1908 British clouds.
Still Up for Debate
William Hartmann, an astronomer at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said he was intrigued by the study but noted that the distinction between comets and meteors can be somewhat semantic.
A wide range of bodies likely exists with various proportions of rock, metal, and ice, he said.
The space rock that caused Tunguska could have come from anywhere on such a spectrum and possibly still produced night-shining clouds.
"Noctilucent clouds can be caused by any fine particulate matter deposited at very high altitudes, so that they catch the sun well after sunset," he said.
"Ice crystals are one possibility. But if a weak [carbon-rich] meteoroid, or explosion of [some kind], injects a lot of dust at high altitude, that too could produce noctilucent clouds."
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Hitler's stealth bomber: How the Nazis were first to design a plane to beat radar
By Marcus Dunk
With its smooth and elegant lines, this could be a prototype for some future successor to the stealth bomber.
But this flying wing was actually designed by the Nazis 30 years before the Americans successfully developed radar-invisible technology.
Now an engineering team has reconstructed the Horten Ho 2-29 from blueprints, with startling results.
It was faster and more efficient than any other plane of the period and its stealth powers did work against radar.
Experts are now convinced that given a little bit more time, the mass deployment of this aircraft could have changed the course of the war.
First built and tested in the air in March 1944, it was designed with a greater range and speed than any plane previously built
and was the first aircraft to use the stealth technology now deployed by the U.S. in its B-2 bombers.
Thankfully Hitler’s engineers only made three prototypes, tested by being dragged behind a glider, and were not able to build them on an industrial scale before the Allied forces invaded.
From Panzer tanks through to the V-2 rocket, it has long been recognised that Germany’s technilowcal expertise during the war was years ahead of the Allies.
But by 1943, Nazi high command feared that the war was beginning to turn against them, and were desperate to develop new weapons to help turn the tide.
Nazi bombers were suffering badly when faced with the speed and manoeuvrability of the Spitfire and other Allied fighters.
Hitler was also desperate to develop a bomber with the range and capacity to reach the United States.
In 1943 Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering demanded that designers come up with a bomber that would meet his ‘1,000, 1,000, 1,000’ requirements – one that could carry 1,000kg over 1,000km flying at 1,000km/h.
Two pilot brothers in their thirties, Reimar and Walter Horten, suggested a ‘flying wing’ design they had been working on for years.
They were convinced that with its drag and lack of wind resistance such a plane would meet Goering’s requirements.
Construction on a prototype was begun in Goettingen in Germany in 1944.
The centre pod was made from a welded steel tube, and was designed to be powered by a BMW 003 engine.
The most important innovation was Reimar Horten’s idea to coat it in a mix of charcoal dust and wood glue.
He thought the electromagnetic waves of radar would be absorbed, and in conjunction with the aircraft’s sculpted surfaces the craft would be rendered almost invisible to radar detectors.
This was the same method eventually used by the U.S. in its first stealth aircraft in the early 1980s, the F-117A Nighthawk.
The plane was covered in radar absorbent paint with a high graphite content, which has a similar chemical make-up to charcoal.
After the war the Americans captured the prototype Ho 2-29s along with the blueprints and used some of their technological advances to aid their own designs.
But experts always doubted claims that the Horten could actually function as a stealth aircraft.
Now using the blueprints and the only remaining prototype craft, Northrop-Grumman (the defence firm behind the B-2) built a fullsize replica of a Horten Ho 2-29.
It took them 2,500 man-hours and $250,000 to construct, and although their replica cannot fly, it was radar-tested by placing it on a 50ft articulating pole and exposing it to electromagnetic waves.
The team demonstrated that although the aircraft is not completely invisible to the type of radar used in the war, it would have been stealthy enough and fast enough to ensure that it could reach London before Spitfires could be scrambled to intercept it.
‘If the Germans had had time to develop these aircraft, they could well have had an impact,’ says Peter Murton, aviation expert from the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, in Cambridgeshire.
‘In theory the flying wing was a very efficient aircraft design which minimised drag.
‘It is one of the reasons that it could reach very high speeds in dive and glide and had such an incredibly long range.’
The research was filmed for a forthcoming documentary on the National Geographic Channel.
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14 Basic Skills All Men Should Possess
By Sean Percival
In today’s modern world there are many things we take for granted, many things our fathers would have known how to do, and some others that might baffle them. Additionally, on average, Americans and European men are starting to get married older, meaning that there is now a need to be self-sufficient in things long-considered to be within the realm of the woman. Whether you’re out camping, or at home or work, there are some basic skills a man must possess. The following are fourteen of examples of these skills - if you don’t know them, you should learn them, or you may be caught unaware sooner than you think.
Drive a Stick-Shift
It’s a sad thought that more men, every day, are coming of age with absolutely no experience driving a stick-shift. To really add insult to injury, there are more men running around who don’t know how to drive a car period, but they’re beyond help if they’re that far gone. Driving stick is not a difficult thing to learn, and you don’t need to own a manual-transmission vehicle to acquire this skill. Have a friend teach you, hell, rent a car if you have to, it only takes a couple of hours to get the hang of it. At some point, just about everyone comes across a situation when they need to drive someone else’s car, and there’s a pretty decent chance that car will be stick. You’ll want at least a vague familiarity with it.
Hook up an Entertainment Center
There is absolutely NO excuse for this one. It’s now 2009, TV’s with wires coming out the back of them haven’t been new or fangled for 20 years. The wires are color-coded, and even labelled with handy names like “input” and “output.” Here’s a hint, if something outputs, there’s an input somewhere waiting for it. With HDTV’s on the rise now, it’s even easier with HDMI plugs, since there’s only one cable. Your grandfather may get away with having the Geek Squad come out to the house to install his new TV, but you need to man up and handle your own business.
Fix a Toilet
Everyone has a toilet, most houses even have more than one. They’re not new and they’re not that scary inside, either, yet somehow this all goes out the window the moment that flush handle stops making noises. Odds are, if you take the lid off the back of the toilet and peek in there, you’re going to immediately see what’s wrong. It’s not a complicated assembly, and if you really can’t figure out how the flapper works, the guy at Home Depot will be happy to take one and half minutes to explain it to you.
Navigate a Map and Use GPS
There should never be any instance when a man is handed a map and says “I don’t know what I’m looking at here.” It may sound silly to some, but it happens every day. The culprit is usually the same guy who can’t drive. Roadmaps aren’t exactly of the difficulty level the Goonies had to deal with; they have clearly marked labels and landmarks, just like the road you’re on. The same goes for ditching the map and using a GPS device, which are built to be easy enough to operate one-handed and without looking. That’s their purpose, so you shouldn’t have a problem learning how to use one.
Change the Oil
Granted, in a decade or so cars that even have oil to change will be much less common, but right now they’re the run of the mill and have been since your grandparents were toddlers. Every man should be able to, if needed, change the oil in his car, as well as swap the spark plugs and the air filter. These three things make up the bare minimum maintenance-skills trifecta for car-owners. The only exception to this rule would be if you grew up filthy rich, and only drove cars that required special garage tools and special knowledge and calibration. That’s probably not you.
Balance a Checkbook
A man needs to be able to manage his money. That’s just a simple fact of life, a part of growing up, and a major factor in whether or not he spends his life alone and miserable. Now, while it’s true that money isn’t everything, it definitely matters quite a bit. A woman isn’t necessarily shallow if she doesn’t want to spend her life with a guy who can’t keep his bank account from over-drafting, she’s just got good sense.
Cook the Perfect Steak
A timeless symbol of manhood, cooking the perfect steak is a long sought-after goal for any man who’s ever touched a grill. It’s just one of those things we all have to strive for in life. On top of that, it’s a great way to garner respect around the neighborhood, and it’s sure to get you a reputation as a good cook regardless of any actual cooking skills. The last thing you want is for your own wife or girlfriend to ask that you let your friend man the grill on the 4th of July. It should always be you.
Swim the Breaststroke
The need to be able to swim is one of basic survival. If you fall into a body of water, you need to be able to get back out, otherwise you’re a danger to yourself and others. You don’t need to be an Olympic-style swimmer, but you should at the very least be able to pull off a breaststroke if your life depended on it, and it might, you really never know. If the whole impending doom thing doesn’t sway you, then the fact that you look lame dog-paddling across the lake might.
Write Effectively
Unless you plan on spending your entire life working construction, and not as the foreman, you’re going to have to write more than one paragraph at some point. When that time comes, you need to be able to string something together that’s both coherent, and correct. That means spelling, grammar, and proper punctuation, all things taught throughout high school. If, like most young men, you weren’t paying any attention during high school and now can’t write a paper to save your life, there are plenty of resources available on the Internet; take some time and rectify your mistakes before it’s too late.
Dress for the Occasion
Jeans and a T-shirt are great, every guy needs to be comfortable, and nobody would fault a guy for wearing his favorite jeans to the store. That’s a far cry from going to a job interview, a wedding, or to a yacht party dressed like this. A man needs to have a presence and that means not looking like a drowned rat in unwashed clothes. You need to be able to dress yourself, and women will attest to this. It may be a little more expensive than the thrift store, but the payoff is ten-fold. If you lack fashion sense, and many men do, take a woman with you. There is no better shopping partner than a fashion-conscious woman.
Sew a Button
Yes, you can run around asking every woman in sight if she can help you fix your broken button, but you’re going to look like a jerk. It’s pretty easy to fix a rogue button if you can get a hold of a needle and thread. All you need to do is thread the needle, and then start looping it through the button holes and fabric. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to keep the button on your clothes until you can replace them or find someone to do a professional job (like your mother). The last thing you want to do is to just walk around missing a button, that just looks ridiculous.
Do Laundry Properly
Many men get away without the most rudimentary of laundry skills, but they’re the guys who only own one pair of Levi’s and three black T-shirts. Socks and underwear are always optional to these gentlemen and they live the perennial single life. A man needs to be able to take care of his clothes, and that includes sorting them to allow for color-bleed as well as fabric types. The dryer can also be a deal breaker- even when washing correctly, and you don’t want to end up with a shirt that fits a 10 year old. Learning this skill is actually a pretty involved, drawn-out process, but with enough trips to the laundromat, and enough stupid questions annoying the women that happen to be there, you can learn how to handle your clothes like a fashion expert- and maybe even get a date while you’re at it.
Handle Roadside Emergencies
If you’re going to be out on the road, then you need to be able to handle a flat tire or jump a battery. Not knowing these two simple things can be just as bad as walking into the desert with no water. It’s also important that you be able to stop to help others who are stranded on the side of the road when they don’t know how to change their flat tire.
Build a Fire
Much like swimming, this is a basic survival skill that mankind developed long ago. There is always the off-chance that you may need to spontaneously build a fire, and you should have at least some inkling of how to go about doing it if the need ever arises. You don’t need to become an expert fire-starter, but you should at the very least be aware of the various methods that exist. There is no shame in taking the easy way out; always having a lighter, or a book or box of matches on hand. Weatherproof matches in your glovebox are always a good idea, and flint-strikers are cheap and non-combustible alternatives as well. Man discovered fire, don’t be the guy who never learned how to use it.
Link
In today’s modern world there are many things we take for granted, many things our fathers would have known how to do, and some others that might baffle them. Additionally, on average, Americans and European men are starting to get married older, meaning that there is now a need to be self-sufficient in things long-considered to be within the realm of the woman. Whether you’re out camping, or at home or work, there are some basic skills a man must possess. The following are fourteen of examples of these skills - if you don’t know them, you should learn them, or you may be caught unaware sooner than you think.
Drive a Stick-Shift
It’s a sad thought that more men, every day, are coming of age with absolutely no experience driving a stick-shift. To really add insult to injury, there are more men running around who don’t know how to drive a car period, but they’re beyond help if they’re that far gone. Driving stick is not a difficult thing to learn, and you don’t need to own a manual-transmission vehicle to acquire this skill. Have a friend teach you, hell, rent a car if you have to, it only takes a couple of hours to get the hang of it. At some point, just about everyone comes across a situation when they need to drive someone else’s car, and there’s a pretty decent chance that car will be stick. You’ll want at least a vague familiarity with it.
Hook up an Entertainment Center
There is absolutely NO excuse for this one. It’s now 2009, TV’s with wires coming out the back of them haven’t been new or fangled for 20 years. The wires are color-coded, and even labelled with handy names like “input” and “output.” Here’s a hint, if something outputs, there’s an input somewhere waiting for it. With HDTV’s on the rise now, it’s even easier with HDMI plugs, since there’s only one cable. Your grandfather may get away with having the Geek Squad come out to the house to install his new TV, but you need to man up and handle your own business.
Fix a Toilet
Everyone has a toilet, most houses even have more than one. They’re not new and they’re not that scary inside, either, yet somehow this all goes out the window the moment that flush handle stops making noises. Odds are, if you take the lid off the back of the toilet and peek in there, you’re going to immediately see what’s wrong. It’s not a complicated assembly, and if you really can’t figure out how the flapper works, the guy at Home Depot will be happy to take one and half minutes to explain it to you.
Navigate a Map and Use GPS
There should never be any instance when a man is handed a map and says “I don’t know what I’m looking at here.” It may sound silly to some, but it happens every day. The culprit is usually the same guy who can’t drive. Roadmaps aren’t exactly of the difficulty level the Goonies had to deal with; they have clearly marked labels and landmarks, just like the road you’re on. The same goes for ditching the map and using a GPS device, which are built to be easy enough to operate one-handed and without looking. That’s their purpose, so you shouldn’t have a problem learning how to use one.
Change the Oil
Granted, in a decade or so cars that even have oil to change will be much less common, but right now they’re the run of the mill and have been since your grandparents were toddlers. Every man should be able to, if needed, change the oil in his car, as well as swap the spark plugs and the air filter. These three things make up the bare minimum maintenance-skills trifecta for car-owners. The only exception to this rule would be if you grew up filthy rich, and only drove cars that required special garage tools and special knowledge and calibration. That’s probably not you.
Balance a Checkbook
A man needs to be able to manage his money. That’s just a simple fact of life, a part of growing up, and a major factor in whether or not he spends his life alone and miserable. Now, while it’s true that money isn’t everything, it definitely matters quite a bit. A woman isn’t necessarily shallow if she doesn’t want to spend her life with a guy who can’t keep his bank account from over-drafting, she’s just got good sense.
Cook the Perfect Steak
A timeless symbol of manhood, cooking the perfect steak is a long sought-after goal for any man who’s ever touched a grill. It’s just one of those things we all have to strive for in life. On top of that, it’s a great way to garner respect around the neighborhood, and it’s sure to get you a reputation as a good cook regardless of any actual cooking skills. The last thing you want is for your own wife or girlfriend to ask that you let your friend man the grill on the 4th of July. It should always be you.
Swim the Breaststroke
The need to be able to swim is one of basic survival. If you fall into a body of water, you need to be able to get back out, otherwise you’re a danger to yourself and others. You don’t need to be an Olympic-style swimmer, but you should at the very least be able to pull off a breaststroke if your life depended on it, and it might, you really never know. If the whole impending doom thing doesn’t sway you, then the fact that you look lame dog-paddling across the lake might.
Write Effectively
Unless you plan on spending your entire life working construction, and not as the foreman, you’re going to have to write more than one paragraph at some point. When that time comes, you need to be able to string something together that’s both coherent, and correct. That means spelling, grammar, and proper punctuation, all things taught throughout high school. If, like most young men, you weren’t paying any attention during high school and now can’t write a paper to save your life, there are plenty of resources available on the Internet; take some time and rectify your mistakes before it’s too late.
Dress for the Occasion
Jeans and a T-shirt are great, every guy needs to be comfortable, and nobody would fault a guy for wearing his favorite jeans to the store. That’s a far cry from going to a job interview, a wedding, or to a yacht party dressed like this. A man needs to have a presence and that means not looking like a drowned rat in unwashed clothes. You need to be able to dress yourself, and women will attest to this. It may be a little more expensive than the thrift store, but the payoff is ten-fold. If you lack fashion sense, and many men do, take a woman with you. There is no better shopping partner than a fashion-conscious woman.
Sew a Button
Yes, you can run around asking every woman in sight if she can help you fix your broken button, but you’re going to look like a jerk. It’s pretty easy to fix a rogue button if you can get a hold of a needle and thread. All you need to do is thread the needle, and then start looping it through the button holes and fabric. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to keep the button on your clothes until you can replace them or find someone to do a professional job (like your mother). The last thing you want to do is to just walk around missing a button, that just looks ridiculous.
Do Laundry Properly
Many men get away without the most rudimentary of laundry skills, but they’re the guys who only own one pair of Levi’s and three black T-shirts. Socks and underwear are always optional to these gentlemen and they live the perennial single life. A man needs to be able to take care of his clothes, and that includes sorting them to allow for color-bleed as well as fabric types. The dryer can also be a deal breaker- even when washing correctly, and you don’t want to end up with a shirt that fits a 10 year old. Learning this skill is actually a pretty involved, drawn-out process, but with enough trips to the laundromat, and enough stupid questions annoying the women that happen to be there, you can learn how to handle your clothes like a fashion expert- and maybe even get a date while you’re at it.
Handle Roadside Emergencies
If you’re going to be out on the road, then you need to be able to handle a flat tire or jump a battery. Not knowing these two simple things can be just as bad as walking into the desert with no water. It’s also important that you be able to stop to help others who are stranded on the side of the road when they don’t know how to change their flat tire.
Build a Fire
Much like swimming, this is a basic survival skill that mankind developed long ago. There is always the off-chance that you may need to spontaneously build a fire, and you should have at least some inkling of how to go about doing it if the need ever arises. You don’t need to become an expert fire-starter, but you should at the very least be aware of the various methods that exist. There is no shame in taking the easy way out; always having a lighter, or a book or box of matches on hand. Weatherproof matches in your glovebox are always a good idea, and flint-strikers are cheap and non-combustible alternatives as well. Man discovered fire, don’t be the guy who never learned how to use it.
Link
Stepping off the hedonic treadmill
By Art Markman, Ph.D
My grandfather, Emanuel Gold, died on July 6, 2009 at the age of 92. By conventional historical standards, he was not a great man. A million people did not clamor for tickets to his funeral. He was a very good and decent man, though. One who cared a lot about his family and who led by example. All of his grandchildren were asked to say a few words at his funeral. In putting together my remarks, I realized that I had learned a number of valuable life lessons from my grandfather. And because CNN is not releasing podcasts of the funeral, I wanted to share a few of those lessons here.
The first of those lessons was that it is important to make a good living, but not important to make a great one. Like many people who lived through the Great Depression (the one in the 1920s, not the Great Recession going on right now), my grandfather experienced tough times. His family struggled to make ends meet. As a result, he was very concerned with having enough money to pay for the necessities.
Obviously, we all care about being able to deal with our true needs. In the 1940's Abraham Maslow argued that people are first concerned with their basic bodily and security needs
For my grandfather, though, once he was sure that those basic needs would always be met, he was not concerned with accumulating stuff. He was content to drive his cars until they started to break down (or until a grandchild with a new driver's license asked if he could have it). His house did not have to have the latest gadget. He did not have to dress in the latest fashions.
The Psychologist Danny Kahneman talks about the hedonic treadmill. He argues that people set goals and aspirations that they seek to achieve. They may feel unsettled when they have a goal that they have not satisfied, and that motivates them to aim to achieve the goal. Once people achieve these goals, they are briefly satisfied, but then the motivational system will set a new goal or aspiration that goes beyond what they have achieved, and once again they will feel unsettled until they achieve this next goal. Because aspirations are constantly being reset further away, Kahneman argues people are rarely satisfied with what they have at that moment.
My grandfather found a way to step off the hedonic treadmill. He had what he needed, and he seemed content with that. Perhaps more importantly, he passed that on to his grandchildren in the way that he talked to us about our careers. Because I chose to go into academia, my grandfather was always concerned that I would have trouble making a living. (I guess the stereotype of the starving academic was a strong one for him.) Over the last 20 years, whenever I saw him, he would ask if I was doing ok...financially. When I assured him that I was doing fine, he never went further. There was never a sense that he felt you had to be doing better than ok financially. After that, he just wanted to know if I was happy.
The hedonic treadmill is an easy one to get on. It is easy to begin to take your current life for granted and to seek the next level of fulfillment. But the hedonic treadmill is not a necessary part of human experience. At some point, it is fine to just enjoy what you have.
Link
My grandfather, Emanuel Gold, died on July 6, 2009 at the age of 92. By conventional historical standards, he was not a great man. A million people did not clamor for tickets to his funeral. He was a very good and decent man, though. One who cared a lot about his family and who led by example. All of his grandchildren were asked to say a few words at his funeral. In putting together my remarks, I realized that I had learned a number of valuable life lessons from my grandfather. And because CNN is not releasing podcasts of the funeral, I wanted to share a few of those lessons here.
The first of those lessons was that it is important to make a good living, but not important to make a great one. Like many people who lived through the Great Depression (the one in the 1920s, not the Great Recession going on right now), my grandfather experienced tough times. His family struggled to make ends meet. As a result, he was very concerned with having enough money to pay for the necessities.
Obviously, we all care about being able to deal with our true needs. In the 1940's Abraham Maslow argued that people are first concerned with their basic bodily and security needs
For my grandfather, though, once he was sure that those basic needs would always be met, he was not concerned with accumulating stuff. He was content to drive his cars until they started to break down (or until a grandchild with a new driver's license asked if he could have it). His house did not have to have the latest gadget. He did not have to dress in the latest fashions.
The Psychologist Danny Kahneman talks about the hedonic treadmill. He argues that people set goals and aspirations that they seek to achieve. They may feel unsettled when they have a goal that they have not satisfied, and that motivates them to aim to achieve the goal. Once people achieve these goals, they are briefly satisfied, but then the motivational system will set a new goal or aspiration that goes beyond what they have achieved, and once again they will feel unsettled until they achieve this next goal. Because aspirations are constantly being reset further away, Kahneman argues people are rarely satisfied with what they have at that moment.
My grandfather found a way to step off the hedonic treadmill. He had what he needed, and he seemed content with that. Perhaps more importantly, he passed that on to his grandchildren in the way that he talked to us about our careers. Because I chose to go into academia, my grandfather was always concerned that I would have trouble making a living. (I guess the stereotype of the starving academic was a strong one for him.) Over the last 20 years, whenever I saw him, he would ask if I was doing ok...financially. When I assured him that I was doing fine, he never went further. There was never a sense that he felt you had to be doing better than ok financially. After that, he just wanted to know if I was happy.
The hedonic treadmill is an easy one to get on. It is easy to begin to take your current life for granted and to seek the next level of fulfillment. But the hedonic treadmill is not a necessary part of human experience. At some point, it is fine to just enjoy what you have.
Link
7.06.2009
7.04.2009
The Death of High Fidelity
In the age of MP3s, sound quality is worse than ever
ROBERT LEVINE
David Bendeth, a producer who works with rock bands like Hawthorne Heights and Paramore, knows that the albums he makes are often played through tiny computer speakers by fans who are busy surfing the Internet. So he's not surprised when record labels ask the mastering engineers who work on his CDs to crank up the sound levels so high that even the soft parts sound loud.
Over the past decade and a half, a revolution in recording technology has changed the way albums are produced, mixed and mastered — almost always for the worse. "They make it loud to get [listeners'] attention," Bendeth says. Engineers do that by applying dynamic range compression, which reduces the difference between the loudest and softest sounds in a song. Like many of his peers, Bendeth believes that relying too much on this effect can obscure sonic detail, rob music of its emotional power and leave listeners with what engineers call ear fatigue. "I think most everything is mastered a little too loud," Bendeth says. "The industry decided that it's a volume contest."
Producers and engineers call this "the loudness war," and it has changed the way almost every new pop and rock album sounds. But volume isn't the only issue. Computer programs like Pro Tools, which let audio engineers manipulate sound the way a word processor edits text, make musicians sound unnaturally perfect. And today's listeners consume an increasing amount of music on MP3, which eliminates much of the data from the original CD file and can leave music sounding tinny or hollow. "With all the technical innovation, music sounds worse," says Steely Dan's Donald Fagen, who has made what are considered some of the best-sounding records of all time. "God is in the details. But there are no details anymore."
The idea that engineers make albums louder might seem strange: Isn't volume controlled by that knob on the stereo? Yes, but every setting on that dial delivers a range of loudness, from a hushed vocal to a kick drum — and pushing sounds toward the top of that range makes music seem louder. It's the same technique used to make television commercials stand out from shows. And it does grab listeners' attention — but at a price. Last year, Bob Dylan told Rolling Stone that modern albums "have sound all over them. There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like — static."
In 2004, Jeff Buckley's mom, Mary Guibert, listened to the original three-quarter-inch tape of her son's recordings as she was preparing the tenth-anniversary reissue of Grace. "We were hearing instruments you've never heard on that album, like finger cymbals and the sound of viola strings being plucked," she remembers. "It blew me away because it was exactly what he heard in the studio."
To Guibert's disappointment, the remastered 2004 version failed to capture these details. So last year, when Guibert assembled the best-of collection So Real: Songs From Jeff Buckley, she insisted on an independent A&R consultant to oversee the reissue process and a mastering engineer who would reproduce the sound Buckley made in the studio. "You can hear the distinct instruments and the sound of the room," she says of the new release. "Compression smudges things together."
Too much compression can be heard as musical clutter; on the Arctic Monkeys' debut, the band never seems to pause to catch its breath. By maintaining constant intensity, the album flattens out the emotional peaks that usually stand out in a song. "You lose the power of the chorus, because it's not louder than the verses," Bendeth says. "You lose emotion."
The inner ear automatically compresses blasts of high volume to protect itself, so we associate compression with loudness, says Daniel Levitin, a professor of music and neuroscience at McGill University and author of This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. Human brains have evolved to pay particular attention to loud noises, so compressed sounds initially seem more exciting. But the effect doesn't last. "The excitement in music comes from variation in rhythm, timbre, pitch and loudness," Levitin says. "If you hold one of those constant, it can seem monotonous." After a few minutes, research shows, constant loudness grows fatiguing to the brain. Though few listeners realize this consciously, many feel an urge to skip to another song.
"If you limit range, it's just an assault on the body," says Tom Coyne, a mastering engineer who has worked with Mary J. Blige and Nas. "When you're fifteen, it's the greatest thing — you're being hammered. But do you want that on a whole album?"
To an average listener, a wide dynamic range creates a sense of spaciousness and makes it easier to pick out individual instruments — as you can hear on recent albums such as Dylan's Modern Times and Norah Jones' Not Too Late. "When people have the courage and the vision to do a record that way, it sets them apart," says Joe Boyd, who produced albums by Richard Thompson and R.E.M.'s Fables of the Reconstruction. "It sounds warm, it sounds three-dimensional, it sounds different. Analog sound to me is more emotionally affecting."
Rock and pop producers have always used compression to balance the sounds of different instruments and to make music sound more exciting, and radio stations apply compression for technical reasons. In the days of vinyl rec- ords, there was a physical limit to how high the bass levels could go before the needle skipped a groove. CDs can handle higher levels of loudness, although they, too, have a limit that engineers call "digital zero dB," above which sounds begin to distort. Pop albums rarely got close to the zero-dB mark until the mid-1990s, when digital compressors and limiters, which cut off the peaks of sound waves, made it easier to manipulate loudness levels. Intensely compressed albums like Oasis' 1995 (What's the Story) Morning Glory? set a new bar for loudness; the songs were well-suited for bars, cars and other noisy environments. "In the Seventies and Eighties, you were expected to pay attention," says Matt Serletic, the former chief executive of Virgin Records USA, who also produced albums by Matchbox Twenty and Collective Soul. "Modern music should be able to get your attention." Adds Rob Cavallo, who produced Green Day's American Idiot and My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade, "It's a style that started post-grunge, to get that intensity. The idea was to slam someone's face against the wall. You can set your CD to stun."
It's not just new music that's too loud. Many remastered recordings suffer the same problem as engineers apply compression to bring them into line with modern tastes. The new Led Zeppelin collection, Mothership, is louder than the band's original albums, and Bendeth, who mixed Elvis Presley's 30 #1 Hits, says that the album was mastered too loud for his taste. "A lot of audiophiles hate that record," he says, "but people can play it in the car and it's competitive with the new Foo Fighters record."
Just as cds supplanted vinyl and cassettes, MP3 and other digital-music formats are quickly replacing CDs as the most popular way to listen to music. That means more conven- ience but worse sound. To create an MP3, a computer samples the music on a CD and compresses it into a smaller file by excluding the musical information that the human ear is less likely to notice. Much of the information left out is at the very high and low ends, which is why some MP3s sound flat. Cavallo says that MP3s don't reproduce reverb well, and the lack of high-end detail makes them sound brittle. Without enough low end, he says, "you don't get the punch anymore. It decreases the punch of the kick drum and how the speaker gets pushed when the guitarist plays a power chord."
But not all digital-music files are created equal. Levitin says that most people find MP3s ripped at a rate above 224 kbps virtually indistinguishable from CDs. (iTunes sells music as either 128 or 256 kbps AAC files — AAC is slightly superior to MP3 at an equivalent bit rate. Amazon sells MP3s at 256 kbps.) Still, "it's like going to the Louvre and instead of the Mona Lisa there's a 10-megapixel image of it," he says. "I always want to listen to music the way the artists wanted me to hear it. I wouldn't look at a Kandinsky painting with sunglasses on."
Producers also now alter the way they mix albums to compensate for the limitations of MP3 sound. "You have to be aware of how people will hear music, and pretty much everyone is listening to MP3," says producer Butch Vig, a member of Garbage and the producer of Nirvana's Never- mind. "Some of the effects get lost. So you sometimes have to over-exaggerate things." Other producers believe that intensely compressed CDs make for better MP3s, since the loudness of the music will compensate for the flatness of the digital format.
As technological shifts have changed the way sounds are recorded, they have encouraged an artificial perfection in music itself. Analog tape has been replaced in most studios by Pro Tools, making edits that once required splicing tape together easily done with the click of a mouse. Programs like Auto-Tune can make weak singers sound pitch-perfect, and Beat Detective does the same thing for wobbly drummers.
"You can make anyone sound professional," says Mitchell Froom, a producer who's worked with Elvis Costello and Los Lobos, among others. "But the problem is that you have something that's professional, but it's not distinctive. I was talking to a session drummer, and I said, 'When's the last time you could tell who the drummer is?' You can tell Keith Moon or John Bonham, but now they all sound the same."
So is music doomed to keep sounding worse? Awareness of the problem is growing. The South by Southwest music festival recently featured a panel titled "Why Does Today's Music Sound Like Shit?" In August, a group of producers and engineers founded an organization called Turn Me Up!, which proposes to put stickers on CDs that meet high sonic standards.
But even most CD listeners have lost interest in high-end stereos as surround-sound home theater systems have become more popular, and superior-quality disc formats like DVD-Audio and SACD flopped. Bendeth and other producers worry that young listeners have grown so used to dynamically compressed music and the thin sound of MP3s that the battle has already been lost. "CDs sound better, but no one's buying them," he says. "The age of the audiophile is over."
Link
ROBERT LEVINE
David Bendeth, a producer who works with rock bands like Hawthorne Heights and Paramore, knows that the albums he makes are often played through tiny computer speakers by fans who are busy surfing the Internet. So he's not surprised when record labels ask the mastering engineers who work on his CDs to crank up the sound levels so high that even the soft parts sound loud.
Over the past decade and a half, a revolution in recording technology has changed the way albums are produced, mixed and mastered — almost always for the worse. "They make it loud to get [listeners'] attention," Bendeth says. Engineers do that by applying dynamic range compression, which reduces the difference between the loudest and softest sounds in a song. Like many of his peers, Bendeth believes that relying too much on this effect can obscure sonic detail, rob music of its emotional power and leave listeners with what engineers call ear fatigue. "I think most everything is mastered a little too loud," Bendeth says. "The industry decided that it's a volume contest."
Producers and engineers call this "the loudness war," and it has changed the way almost every new pop and rock album sounds. But volume isn't the only issue. Computer programs like Pro Tools, which let audio engineers manipulate sound the way a word processor edits text, make musicians sound unnaturally perfect. And today's listeners consume an increasing amount of music on MP3, which eliminates much of the data from the original CD file and can leave music sounding tinny or hollow. "With all the technical innovation, music sounds worse," says Steely Dan's Donald Fagen, who has made what are considered some of the best-sounding records of all time. "God is in the details. But there are no details anymore."
The idea that engineers make albums louder might seem strange: Isn't volume controlled by that knob on the stereo? Yes, but every setting on that dial delivers a range of loudness, from a hushed vocal to a kick drum — and pushing sounds toward the top of that range makes music seem louder. It's the same technique used to make television commercials stand out from shows. And it does grab listeners' attention — but at a price. Last year, Bob Dylan told Rolling Stone that modern albums "have sound all over them. There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like — static."
In 2004, Jeff Buckley's mom, Mary Guibert, listened to the original three-quarter-inch tape of her son's recordings as she was preparing the tenth-anniversary reissue of Grace. "We were hearing instruments you've never heard on that album, like finger cymbals and the sound of viola strings being plucked," she remembers. "It blew me away because it was exactly what he heard in the studio."
To Guibert's disappointment, the remastered 2004 version failed to capture these details. So last year, when Guibert assembled the best-of collection So Real: Songs From Jeff Buckley, she insisted on an independent A&R consultant to oversee the reissue process and a mastering engineer who would reproduce the sound Buckley made in the studio. "You can hear the distinct instruments and the sound of the room," she says of the new release. "Compression smudges things together."
Too much compression can be heard as musical clutter; on the Arctic Monkeys' debut, the band never seems to pause to catch its breath. By maintaining constant intensity, the album flattens out the emotional peaks that usually stand out in a song. "You lose the power of the chorus, because it's not louder than the verses," Bendeth says. "You lose emotion."
The inner ear automatically compresses blasts of high volume to protect itself, so we associate compression with loudness, says Daniel Levitin, a professor of music and neuroscience at McGill University and author of This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. Human brains have evolved to pay particular attention to loud noises, so compressed sounds initially seem more exciting. But the effect doesn't last. "The excitement in music comes from variation in rhythm, timbre, pitch and loudness," Levitin says. "If you hold one of those constant, it can seem monotonous." After a few minutes, research shows, constant loudness grows fatiguing to the brain. Though few listeners realize this consciously, many feel an urge to skip to another song.
"If you limit range, it's just an assault on the body," says Tom Coyne, a mastering engineer who has worked with Mary J. Blige and Nas. "When you're fifteen, it's the greatest thing — you're being hammered. But do you want that on a whole album?"
To an average listener, a wide dynamic range creates a sense of spaciousness and makes it easier to pick out individual instruments — as you can hear on recent albums such as Dylan's Modern Times and Norah Jones' Not Too Late. "When people have the courage and the vision to do a record that way, it sets them apart," says Joe Boyd, who produced albums by Richard Thompson and R.E.M.'s Fables of the Reconstruction. "It sounds warm, it sounds three-dimensional, it sounds different. Analog sound to me is more emotionally affecting."
Rock and pop producers have always used compression to balance the sounds of different instruments and to make music sound more exciting, and radio stations apply compression for technical reasons. In the days of vinyl rec- ords, there was a physical limit to how high the bass levels could go before the needle skipped a groove. CDs can handle higher levels of loudness, although they, too, have a limit that engineers call "digital zero dB," above which sounds begin to distort. Pop albums rarely got close to the zero-dB mark until the mid-1990s, when digital compressors and limiters, which cut off the peaks of sound waves, made it easier to manipulate loudness levels. Intensely compressed albums like Oasis' 1995 (What's the Story) Morning Glory? set a new bar for loudness; the songs were well-suited for bars, cars and other noisy environments. "In the Seventies and Eighties, you were expected to pay attention," says Matt Serletic, the former chief executive of Virgin Records USA, who also produced albums by Matchbox Twenty and Collective Soul. "Modern music should be able to get your attention." Adds Rob Cavallo, who produced Green Day's American Idiot and My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade, "It's a style that started post-grunge, to get that intensity. The idea was to slam someone's face against the wall. You can set your CD to stun."
It's not just new music that's too loud. Many remastered recordings suffer the same problem as engineers apply compression to bring them into line with modern tastes. The new Led Zeppelin collection, Mothership, is louder than the band's original albums, and Bendeth, who mixed Elvis Presley's 30 #1 Hits, says that the album was mastered too loud for his taste. "A lot of audiophiles hate that record," he says, "but people can play it in the car and it's competitive with the new Foo Fighters record."
Just as cds supplanted vinyl and cassettes, MP3 and other digital-music formats are quickly replacing CDs as the most popular way to listen to music. That means more conven- ience but worse sound. To create an MP3, a computer samples the music on a CD and compresses it into a smaller file by excluding the musical information that the human ear is less likely to notice. Much of the information left out is at the very high and low ends, which is why some MP3s sound flat. Cavallo says that MP3s don't reproduce reverb well, and the lack of high-end detail makes them sound brittle. Without enough low end, he says, "you don't get the punch anymore. It decreases the punch of the kick drum and how the speaker gets pushed when the guitarist plays a power chord."
But not all digital-music files are created equal. Levitin says that most people find MP3s ripped at a rate above 224 kbps virtually indistinguishable from CDs. (iTunes sells music as either 128 or 256 kbps AAC files — AAC is slightly superior to MP3 at an equivalent bit rate. Amazon sells MP3s at 256 kbps.) Still, "it's like going to the Louvre and instead of the Mona Lisa there's a 10-megapixel image of it," he says. "I always want to listen to music the way the artists wanted me to hear it. I wouldn't look at a Kandinsky painting with sunglasses on."
Producers also now alter the way they mix albums to compensate for the limitations of MP3 sound. "You have to be aware of how people will hear music, and pretty much everyone is listening to MP3," says producer Butch Vig, a member of Garbage and the producer of Nirvana's Never- mind. "Some of the effects get lost. So you sometimes have to over-exaggerate things." Other producers believe that intensely compressed CDs make for better MP3s, since the loudness of the music will compensate for the flatness of the digital format.
As technological shifts have changed the way sounds are recorded, they have encouraged an artificial perfection in music itself. Analog tape has been replaced in most studios by Pro Tools, making edits that once required splicing tape together easily done with the click of a mouse. Programs like Auto-Tune can make weak singers sound pitch-perfect, and Beat Detective does the same thing for wobbly drummers.
"You can make anyone sound professional," says Mitchell Froom, a producer who's worked with Elvis Costello and Los Lobos, among others. "But the problem is that you have something that's professional, but it's not distinctive. I was talking to a session drummer, and I said, 'When's the last time you could tell who the drummer is?' You can tell Keith Moon or John Bonham, but now they all sound the same."
So is music doomed to keep sounding worse? Awareness of the problem is growing. The South by Southwest music festival recently featured a panel titled "Why Does Today's Music Sound Like Shit?" In August, a group of producers and engineers founded an organization called Turn Me Up!, which proposes to put stickers on CDs that meet high sonic standards.
But even most CD listeners have lost interest in high-end stereos as surround-sound home theater systems have become more popular, and superior-quality disc formats like DVD-Audio and SACD flopped. Bendeth and other producers worry that young listeners have grown so used to dynamically compressed music and the thin sound of MP3s that the battle has already been lost. "CDs sound better, but no one's buying them," he says. "The age of the audiophile is over."
Link
Michael Jackson Died For Our Sins
by Jaime O'Neill
On June 25th, Michael Jackson was one of an estimated 154,400 people who died, from Los Angeles to Lahore, from Buenos Aires to Bhutan, from Tokyo to Timbuktoo. According to the World Health Organization, some 56 million people die each year, at the current global average. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, husbands and wives, all lost in death's daily holocaust. It took the determined efforts of the Nazis to kill six million over a six year period, but plain old death kills nearly ten times that many in a single year as a matter of course. Many are carried off by time, but many more are claimed by accident, misadventure, war, disease, or hunger, life's implacable mortal enemies.
In the hour of Michael Jackson's death, some 6,000 of his fellow mortals also breathed their last. All of them had names, most of them were mourned as the most significant loss their loved ones would ever know. Many of them had endured desperate deprivation, had struggled for their daily necessities, had lived lives blighted by cruel and indifferent squalor . Whatever their circumstances--from high to low--their individual stories will never be known to any beyond their small circles of friends or acquaintances, nor will the forces that shaped their experience on this planet ever attract the media attention given to the death of Michael Jackson. No remotely equivalent media resources or energies will be directed to ferreting out the corruption, the special interests, and the goliath of international power-brokering that weighs so heavily on the billions who live in the ghettos, the slums, the barrios and favelas of this world. The fourth estate has been transformed into a sideshow, an entertainment medium, yet another method of distracting attention away from any or every thing that an informed electorate might be able to do something about. News programs aren't called "shows" without reason.
In the days following June 25th, it would have been possible to believe that all human endeavor had been suspended--that no laws were being passed, no crimes were committed, nothing of importance transpired. None of the machinations the news media is charged with noting were being noted. In effect, so far as the electronic news media were concerned, the world stopped to let Michael Jackson off.
We are trivialized by such media coverage, infantilized and made stupid while being kept ignorant of things that matter. Keith Olberman nattered on for over an hour on the subject of Michael Jackson, Wolf Blitzer was heard to say "we all grew up on his music," forgetting even his own age and personal history in the hysteria, and while health care reforms got whittled away by a corrupted congress, George Will and George Stephanopoulis spent ten minutes on a Sunday morning public events show discussing whether or not the Michael Jackson coverage has been excessive.
The coverage was not excessive; it was insane. When our grandchildren come to face the scourges that are building for their futures--overpopulation, pollution, global warming, dying oceans--they will look back at us and wonder who left the inmates in charge of the asylum. They will wonder at our sense of priority and importance, and they will find a symbol for all that ailed us in "the King of Pop," a cartoonish figure with a white glove, whitened skin and a very dark side who we deemed to be more important than the host of problems from which we sought the most mindless diversion.
Today, more than 150,000 of our fellow human beings will slip on over to the other side, their passing unheralded and unregarded by all but a few. Those who don't die will consult the news to see if anyone who truly mattered found themselves among the dead.
Link
On June 25th, Michael Jackson was one of an estimated 154,400 people who died, from Los Angeles to Lahore, from Buenos Aires to Bhutan, from Tokyo to Timbuktoo. According to the World Health Organization, some 56 million people die each year, at the current global average. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, husbands and wives, all lost in death's daily holocaust. It took the determined efforts of the Nazis to kill six million over a six year period, but plain old death kills nearly ten times that many in a single year as a matter of course. Many are carried off by time, but many more are claimed by accident, misadventure, war, disease, or hunger, life's implacable mortal enemies.
In the hour of Michael Jackson's death, some 6,000 of his fellow mortals also breathed their last. All of them had names, most of them were mourned as the most significant loss their loved ones would ever know. Many of them had endured desperate deprivation, had struggled for their daily necessities, had lived lives blighted by cruel and indifferent squalor . Whatever their circumstances--from high to low--their individual stories will never be known to any beyond their small circles of friends or acquaintances, nor will the forces that shaped their experience on this planet ever attract the media attention given to the death of Michael Jackson. No remotely equivalent media resources or energies will be directed to ferreting out the corruption, the special interests, and the goliath of international power-brokering that weighs so heavily on the billions who live in the ghettos, the slums, the barrios and favelas of this world. The fourth estate has been transformed into a sideshow, an entertainment medium, yet another method of distracting attention away from any or every thing that an informed electorate might be able to do something about. News programs aren't called "shows" without reason.
In the days following June 25th, it would have been possible to believe that all human endeavor had been suspended--that no laws were being passed, no crimes were committed, nothing of importance transpired. None of the machinations the news media is charged with noting were being noted. In effect, so far as the electronic news media were concerned, the world stopped to let Michael Jackson off.
We are trivialized by such media coverage, infantilized and made stupid while being kept ignorant of things that matter. Keith Olberman nattered on for over an hour on the subject of Michael Jackson, Wolf Blitzer was heard to say "we all grew up on his music," forgetting even his own age and personal history in the hysteria, and while health care reforms got whittled away by a corrupted congress, George Will and George Stephanopoulis spent ten minutes on a Sunday morning public events show discussing whether or not the Michael Jackson coverage has been excessive.
The coverage was not excessive; it was insane. When our grandchildren come to face the scourges that are building for their futures--overpopulation, pollution, global warming, dying oceans--they will look back at us and wonder who left the inmates in charge of the asylum. They will wonder at our sense of priority and importance, and they will find a symbol for all that ailed us in "the King of Pop," a cartoonish figure with a white glove, whitened skin and a very dark side who we deemed to be more important than the host of problems from which we sought the most mindless diversion.
Today, more than 150,000 of our fellow human beings will slip on over to the other side, their passing unheralded and unregarded by all but a few. Those who don't die will consult the news to see if anyone who truly mattered found themselves among the dead.
Link
6.28.2009
The Most Dangerous Lake in the World
Written by Alan Bellows
In late 1945, along the banks of the Techa River in the Soviet Union, a dozen labor camps sent 70,000 inmates to begin construction of a secret city. Mere months earlier the United States' Little Boy and Fat Man bombs had flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leaving Soviet leaders salivating over the massive power of the atom. In a rush to close the gap in weapons technology, the USSR commissioned a sprawling plutonium-production complex in the southern Ural mountains. The clandestine military-industrial community was to be operated by Russia's Mayak Chemical Combine, and it would come to be known as Chelyabinsk-40.
Within a few years the newfangled nuclear reactors were pumping out plutonium to fuel the Soviet Union's first atomic weapons. Chelyabinsk-40 was absent from all official maps, and it would be over forty years before the Soviet government would even acknowledge its existence. Nevertheless, the small city became an insidious influence in the Soviet Union, ultimately creating a corona of nuclear contamination dwarfing the devastation of the Chernobyl disaster.
By June 1948, after 31 months of brisk construction, the first of the Chelyabinsk-40 "breeder" reactors was brought online. Soon bricks of common uranium-238 were being bombarded with neutrons, resulting in loaves of pipin'-hot weapons-grade plutonium. In their haste to begin production, Soviet engineers lacked the time to establish proper waste-handling procedures, so most of the byproducts were dealt with by diluting them in water and squirting the effluent into the Techa River. The watered-down waste was a cocktail of "hot" elements, including long-lived fission products such as Strontium-90 and Cesium-137–each with a half-life of approximately thirty years.
In 1951, after about three years of operations at Chelyabinsk-40, Soviet scientists conducted a survey of the Techa River to determine whether radioactive contamination was becoming a problem. In the village of Metlino, just over four miles downriver from the plutonium plant, investigators and Geiger counters clicked nervously along the river bank. Rather than the typical "background" gamma radiation of about 0.21 Röntgens per year, the edge of the Techa River was emanating 5 Röntgens per hour. Such elevated levels were rather distressing since that the river was the primary source of water for the 1,200 residents there. Subsequent measurements found extensive contamination in 38 other villages along the Techa, seriously jeopardizing the health of about 28,000 people. In addition, almost 100,000 other residents were being exposed to elevated-but-not-quite-as-deadly doses of gamma radiation, both from the river itself and from the floodplain where crops and livestock were raised.
In an effort to avoid serious radiological health effects among the populace, the Soviet government relocated about 7,500 villagers from the most heavily contaminated areas, fenced off the floodplain, and dug wells to provide an alternate water source for the remaining villages. Engineers were brought in to erect earthen dams along the Techa River to prevent radioactive sediments from migrating further downstream. The Soviet scientists at Chelyabinsk-40 also revised their waste disposal strategy, halting the practice of dumping effluent directly into the river. Instead, they constructed a set of "intermediate storage tanks" where waste water could spend some time bleeding off radioactivity. After lingering in these vats for a few months, the diluted dregs were periodically piped to the new long-term storage location: a ten-foot-deep, 110 acre lake called Karachay. For a while these measures spared the Techa River residents from further increases in exposure, but the Mayak Chemical Combine had only begun to demonstrate its flair for misfortune.
By the mid 1950s the workers at the plutonium production plant began to complain of soreness, low blood pressure, loss of coordination, and tremors–the classic symptoms of chronic radiation syndrome. The facility itself was also beginning to encounter chronic complications, particularly in the new intermediate storage system. The row of waste vats sat in a concrete canal a few kilometers outside the main complex, submerged in a constant flow of water to carry away the heat generated by radioactive decay. Soon the technicians discovered that the hot isotopes in the waste water tended to cause a bit of evaporation inside the tanks, resulting in more buoyancy than had been anticipated. This upward pressure put stress on the inlet pipes, eventually compromising the seals and allowing raw radioactive waste to seep into the canal's coolant water. To make matters worse, several of the tanks' heat exchangers failed, crippling their cooling capacity.
The workers were aware of these faults, but the ambient radiation in the cooling trench forestalled any repairs. A flurry of calculations indicated that most of the waste water in the tanks would remain in a stable liquid state even without the additional cooling, so technicians continued to operate the plutonium plant in spite of these problems. Their evaporation calculations were in error, however, and the water inside the defective tanks gradually boiled away. A radioactive sludge of nitrates and acetates was left behind, a chemical compound roughly equivalent to TNT.
Unable to shed much heat, the concentrated radioactive slurry continued to increase in temperature within the defective 80,000 gallon containers. On 29 September 1957, one tank reached an estimated 660 degrees Fahrenheit. At 4:20pm local time, the explosive salt deposits in the bottom of the vat detonated. The blast ignited the contents of the other dried-out tanks, producing a combined explosive force equivalent to about 85 tons of TNT. The thick concrete lid which covered the cooling trench was hurled eighty feet away, and seventy tons of highly radioactive fission products were ejected into the open atmosphere. The buildings at Chelyabinsk-40 shuddered as they were buffeted by the shock wave.
While investigators probed the blast site in protective suits, a mile-high column of radionuclides dragged across the landscape. The gamma-emitting dust cloud spread hazardous isotopes of cesium and strontium over 9,000 square miles, affecting some 270,000 Soviet citizens and their food supplies. Over twenty megacuries (MCi) of radioactivity were released, almost half of that expelled by the Chernobyl incident.
In the days that followed, strange reports began to emerge from downwind villages. According to author Richard Pollock in a 1978 Critical Mass Journal article, residents of the Chelyabinsk Province became "hysterical with fear with the incidence of unknown 'mysterious' diseases breaking out. Victims were seen with skin 'sloughing off' their faces, hands and other exposed parts of their bodies." After the customary ten-day period of hand-sitting, the government ordered the evacuation of many villages where skin-sloughers and blood-vomiters had appeared. This mass migration left the landscape littered with radioactive ghost towns.
The facilities at Chelyabinsk-40 were swiftly decontaminated with hoses, mops, and squeegees, and soon plutonium production was underway again. The intermediate storage system had been partially compromised by the accident, but the factory was still able to squirt its constant flow of radioactive effluence into Lake Karachay. The lake lacked any surface outlets, so optimistic engineers reasoned that anything dumped into the lake would remain entombed there indefinitely.
Many locals were hospitalized with radiation poisoning in the weeks after the waste-tank blast, but the Soviet state forbade doctors from disclosing the true nature of the illnesses. Instead, physicians were instructed to diagnose sufferers with ambiguous "blood problems" and "vegetative syndromes." The Russian government likewise withheld the colossal calamity from the international community. Within two years, the radiation killed all of the pine trees within a twelve mile radius of Chelyabinsk-40. Highway signs were erected at the edges of the contaminated zone, imploring travelers to roll up their windows while traversing the deteriorated swath of Earth, and to not stop for any reason.
Ten years later, in 1967, a severe drought struck the Chelyabinsk Province. Much to the Russian scientists' alarm, shallow Lake Karachay gradually began to shrink from its shores. Over several months the water dwindled considerably, leaving the lake about half-empty (or half-full, if you're more upbeat). This exposed the radioactive sediment in the lake basin, and fifteen years' worth of radionuclides took to the breeze. About 900 square miles of land was peppered with Strontium-90, Cesium-137, and other unhealthy elements. Almost half a million residents were in the path of this latest dust cloud of doom, many of them the same people who had been affected by the 1957 waste-tank explosion.
Soviet engineers hastily enacted a program to help prevent further sediment from leaving Lake Karachay. For a dozen or so years they dumped rocks, soil, and large concrete blocks into the tainted basin. The Mayak Chemical Combine conceded that the lake was an inadequate long-term storage system, and ordered that Karachay be slowly sealed in a shell of earth and concrete.
In 1990, as the Soviet Union teetered at the brink of collapse, government officials finally acknowledged the existence of the secret city of Chelyabinsk-40 (soon renamed to Chelyabinsk-65, then later changed to Ozersk). They also acknowledged its tragic parade of radiological disasters. At that time Lake Karachay remained as the principal waste-dumping site for for the plutonium plant, but the effort to fill the lake with soil and concrete had halved its surface area.
Thirty-nine years of effluent had saturated the lake with nasty isotopes, including an estimated 120 megacuries of long-lived radiation. In contrast, the Chernobyl incident released roughly 100 megacuries of radiation into the environment, but only about 3 megacuries of Strontium-90 and Cesium-137. A delegation who visited Lake Karachay in 1990 measured the radiation at the point where the effluent entered the water, and the needles of their Geiger counters danced at about 600 Röntgens per hour–enough to provide a lethal dose in one hour. They did not linger long.
A report compiled in 1991 found that the incidence of leukemia in the region had increased by 41% since Chelyabinsk-40 opened for business, and that during the 1980s cancers had increased by 21% and circulatory disorders rose by 31%. It is probable, however, that the true numbers are much higher since doctors were required to limit the number diagnoses issued for cancer and other radiation-related illnesses. In the village of Muslyumovo, a local physician's personal records from 1993 indicated an average male lifespan of 45 years compared to 69 in the rest of the country. Birth defects, sterility, and chronic disease also increased dramatically. In all, over a million Russian citizens were directly affected by the misadventures of the Mayak Chemical Combine from 1948 to 1990, including around 28,000 people classified as "seriously irradiated."
Today, there are huge tracts of Chelyabinsk land still uninhabitable due to the radionuclides from the river contamination, the 1957 blast, and the 1967 drought. The surface of Lake Karachay is now made up of more concrete than water, however the lake's payload of fission products is not completely captive. Recent surveys have detected gamma-emitting elements in nearby rivers, indicating that undesirable isotopes have been seeping into the water table. Estimates suggest that approximately a billion gallons of groundwater have already been contaminated with 5 megacuries of radionuclides. The neighboring Norwegians are understandably nervous that some of the pollution could find its way into their water supply, or even into the Arctic Ocean.
Russia has long been fond of producing the most massive specimens of military might: the monstrous Tsar Cannon, the 200-ton Tsar Bell, the cumbersome Tsar Tank, and the 50-megaton Tsar Bomba. In that "biggest-ever" tradition, the Mayak Chemical Combine is now credited by the Worldwatch Institute as the creator of the "most polluted spot" in history, a mess whose true magnitude is yet to be known.
Small Towns vs. Nestlé
by Jenny Tomkins
When Nestlé Waters North America, the world's largest bottler of water, comes a-courting, promising jobs and increased tax revenues in exchange for local water rights, many small, rural towns get nervous.
Deborah Lapidus, an organizer with the Think Outside the Bottle campaign, says this skepticism stems from Henderson, Texas, which in the '90s saw Nestlé suck one of its wells dry.
"The company prioritizes its own use over the environment and other uses," says Lapidus.
As well as draining water, Nestlé also attempts to deplete these communities' finances, Lapidus says. Towns trying to defend their reservoirs have found themselves in costly legal battles. Fryeburg, Maine, for example, has been sued five times by Nestlé for "interfering with the right to grow their market share."
Last summer, when Nestlé Waters North America/Poland Spring negotiated with the Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and Wells Water District, public outcry forced the proposal to be tabled. The trustees of Wells Water District discussed a deal in which 433,000 gallons of water were to be extracted daily from the Branch Brook Aquifer for 0.06 cents per gallon.
Wells residents organized in the group Save Our Water proposed a local ordinance to prohibit the corporate withdrawal of water for resale. Such legislation, first implemented in Barnstead, N.H., had been adopted by two other towns in Maine. Barnstead's ordinance declares water a common resource for its residents and, more importantly, decrees that within its jurisdictions, corporations may not wield state or federal constitutional powers.
But Wells' ordinance was defeated in May, after Nestlé poured money into a campaign convincing local businesses that the ordinance would also curtail their rights.
Jamilla El-Shafei believes the community made a tactical error by introducing the ordinance before Save Our Water had time to present its case. However, she's optimistic that Wells' trustees will turn Nestlé down.
McCloud, Calif., began its struggle with Nestlé in 2003, when the town negotiated a deal wherein the community would only receive 0.001 cents per gallon of water for a minimum of 50 years. No environmental assessment was conducted, nor was any community input sought in this proposal. It took five years and intervention by the California Attorney General to break the agreement. And Nestlé is still courting the community for a revised deal.
Faced with increased public scrutiny and a growing bottled water backlash, Nestlé is launching a charm offensive. "We're one of 70,000 different types of beverages you can buy. ... We use the least amount of water and the least amount of plastic, and we're good for you," says Nestlé spokesman Brian Flaherty.
Peter H. Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, disagrees. In the February issue of Environmental Research Letters, he wrote that bottled water requires "as much as 2,000 times the energy cost of producing tap water." Americans consume around 33 billion liters each year, which requires between 32 to 54 million barrels of oil to produce.
While Nestlé is focused on staking out the environmental high ground, the Out of the Bottle campaign is assisting communities whose water supplies are being threatened and educating the general public on the fundamental question of water.
There are some signs that water activists are succeeding. In 2008, for the first time in its history, the bottled water market declined-mostly due to the recession. This victory was followed by New York Gov. David Paterson's decision to impose a statewide ban on public expenditures for bottled water.
Will 2009 be the year when Americans begin to kick their bottled water habit? Small towns like Wells and McCloud hope so.
Link
6.26.2009
Why Do We Mourn Some and Not Others?
Pop!
Did you hear that? No?
Put your ear closer to the suds of culture and listen more closely.
Pop. pop.
Two more tiny bubbles of celebrity burst. Two people whom I never met have passed, and all around me, I'm watching folks mourn.
Yes. I understand that if "I'll Be There" was playing in the background the night you lost your virginity, well maybe you feel some affinity to the singer of the song.
And if in high school, someone once told you that your hair looked like Farrah's, well, maybe you thought that gave the two of you a special bond.
But what did you know of either one of them? You watched Farrah's 'documentary' about dying from cancer and you were moved. You've seen The Jacksons on VH1 so often, you know by heart the moments when Papa Joe blows a gasket and beats poor Michael.
But what do you really know?
Yes. It is sad when a person transitions from life to death. We, the living, call it mourning, we call it grief, we attend funerals and wakes and memorial services. But, in general, when someone passes, they are someone who has been part of our life in some tangential way. We spoke to them, we touched them, we held them, we gave birth to them, we made love with them, we teased them at the dinner table, we went for walks with them on summer afternoons. We formed real, emotional bonds with these people and we grieve when they are gone.
What does it say about our culture that we are mourning people that the vast majority of us had no contact with whatsoever? What does it say that we are mourning one man in particular who was the butt of jokes, who, until 2:30 pm Pacific Time yesterday was a washed-up pop phenomenon who lived in isolation and who freaked us out with his constantly changing looks and his hooded or masked children, who always looked as if they were being held hostage by Shining Path Guerrilas?
I listened to Michael Jackson when I was a teenager. I remember "Motown 25 years" and the moonwalk. I remember the ubiquitous poster of Farrah in her orange tank top and her mass of hair and perfect teeth.
But they were not my friends. They were not people I could call in the middle of the night to say I was having trouble sleeping. I wasn't going to go sit with them when they were having a hard day. They weren't going to loan me money during a tight spot, or come with me on a hike.
In a lot of ways, Farrah and Michael were abstract nouns. Since hearing of their deaths yesterday, I haven't shed a tear. Truth be told, I haven't even felt sad.
But show me this:
A child dying of starvation in Darfur, or
A woman who bled to death from an illegal abortion, or
women whose bodies were destroyed by rape in the Congo Civil War or
a young American soldier killed in Iraq,
and I get angry. Or sad. Grieve. Cry. Feel called to action. Want to change the world.
For those folks who feel that they have lost some genuine connection with the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, I say, "Let you find comfort in your grief."
But for the rest of the world, that seems to be participating in some meaningless ritual of rending garments and leaving flowers and gathering together to mourn dead pop icons, I say, please find ways to connect with the real and the genuine.
Make a difference in the life of a child.
Aid a woman who seeks shelter.
Provide an ear to a young soldier who needs to talk.
Give money to aid organizations trying to feed and protect people in Africa.
There are different ways of connecting us, one to the other. I cannot join you as you weep for voices you heard on the radio, or an actress you saw on a mid-1970's piece of schlock television. I can weep with you as we work to give aid and comfort to those who need it.
Pop
pop
pop
Some bubbles are easy to hear as they burst.
But listen closely:
help me
feed me
I'm dying
Underneath the pop bubbles, real people are drowning.
Link
(Warning - graphic images)
Did you hear that? No?
Put your ear closer to the suds of culture and listen more closely.
Pop. pop.
Two more tiny bubbles of celebrity burst. Two people whom I never met have passed, and all around me, I'm watching folks mourn.
Yes. I understand that if "I'll Be There" was playing in the background the night you lost your virginity, well maybe you feel some affinity to the singer of the song.
And if in high school, someone once told you that your hair looked like Farrah's, well, maybe you thought that gave the two of you a special bond.
But what did you know of either one of them? You watched Farrah's 'documentary' about dying from cancer and you were moved. You've seen The Jacksons on VH1 so often, you know by heart the moments when Papa Joe blows a gasket and beats poor Michael.
But what do you really know?
Yes. It is sad when a person transitions from life to death. We, the living, call it mourning, we call it grief, we attend funerals and wakes and memorial services. But, in general, when someone passes, they are someone who has been part of our life in some tangential way. We spoke to them, we touched them, we held them, we gave birth to them, we made love with them, we teased them at the dinner table, we went for walks with them on summer afternoons. We formed real, emotional bonds with these people and we grieve when they are gone.
What does it say about our culture that we are mourning people that the vast majority of us had no contact with whatsoever? What does it say that we are mourning one man in particular who was the butt of jokes, who, until 2:30 pm Pacific Time yesterday was a washed-up pop phenomenon who lived in isolation and who freaked us out with his constantly changing looks and his hooded or masked children, who always looked as if they were being held hostage by Shining Path Guerrilas?
I listened to Michael Jackson when I was a teenager. I remember "Motown 25 years" and the moonwalk. I remember the ubiquitous poster of Farrah in her orange tank top and her mass of hair and perfect teeth.
But they were not my friends. They were not people I could call in the middle of the night to say I was having trouble sleeping. I wasn't going to go sit with them when they were having a hard day. They weren't going to loan me money during a tight spot, or come with me on a hike.
In a lot of ways, Farrah and Michael were abstract nouns. Since hearing of their deaths yesterday, I haven't shed a tear. Truth be told, I haven't even felt sad.
But show me this:
A child dying of starvation in Darfur, or
A woman who bled to death from an illegal abortion, or
women whose bodies were destroyed by rape in the Congo Civil War or
a young American soldier killed in Iraq,
and I get angry. Or sad. Grieve. Cry. Feel called to action. Want to change the world.
For those folks who feel that they have lost some genuine connection with the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, I say, "Let you find comfort in your grief."
But for the rest of the world, that seems to be participating in some meaningless ritual of rending garments and leaving flowers and gathering together to mourn dead pop icons, I say, please find ways to connect with the real and the genuine.
Make a difference in the life of a child.
Aid a woman who seeks shelter.
Provide an ear to a young soldier who needs to talk.
Give money to aid organizations trying to feed and protect people in Africa.
There are different ways of connecting us, one to the other. I cannot join you as you weep for voices you heard on the radio, or an actress you saw on a mid-1970's piece of schlock television. I can weep with you as we work to give aid and comfort to those who need it.
Pop
pop
pop
Some bubbles are easy to hear as they burst.
But listen closely:
help me
feed me
I'm dying
Underneath the pop bubbles, real people are drowning.
Link
(Warning - graphic images)
6.25.2009
Why I, as a British Muslim woman, want the burkha banned from our streets
By Saira Khan | 24th June
Shopping in Harrods last week, I came across a group of women wearing black burkhas, browsing the latest designs in the fashion department.
The irony of the situation was almost laughable. Here was a group of affluent women window shopping for designs that they would never once be able to wear in public.
Yet it's a sight that's becoming more and more commonplace. In hardline Muslim communities right across Britain, the burkha and hijab - the Muslim headscarf - are becoming the norm.
Saira Khan, runner up in the first series of The Apprentice, believes the burkha is an oppressive tool and says it is time to ban it from the streets of Britain
In the predominantly Muslim enclaves of Derby near my childhood home, you now see women hidden behind the full-length robe, their faces completely shielded from view. In London, I see an increasing number of young girls, aged four and five, being made to wear the hijab to school.
Shockingly, the Dickensian bone disease rickets has reemerged in the British Muslim community because women are not getting enough vital vitamin D from sunlight because they are being consigned to life under a shroud.
Thanks to fundamentalist Muslims and 'hate' preachers working in Britain, the veiling of women is suddenly all-pervasive and promoted as a basic religious right. We are led to believe that we must live with this in the name of 'tolerance'.
And yet, as a British Muslim woman, I abhor the practice and am calling on the Government to follow the lead of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and ban the burkha in our country.
The veil is simply a tool of oppression which is being used to alienate and control women under the guise of religious freedom.
My parents moved here from Kashmir in the 1960s. They brought with them their faith and their traditions - but they also understood that they were starting a new life in a country where Islam was not the main religion.
My mother has always worn traditional Kashmiri clothes - the salwar kameez, a long tunic worn over trousers, and the chador, which is like a pashmina worn around the neck or over the hair.
When she found work in England, she adapted her dress without making a fuss. She is still very much a traditional Muslim woman, but she swims in a normal swimming costume and jogs in a tracksuit.
I was born in this country, and my parents' greatest desire for me was that I would integrate and take advantage of the British education system.
They wanted me to make friends at school, and be able to take part in PE lessons - not feel alienated and cut off from my peers. So at home, I wore the salwar kameez, while at school I wore a wore a typical English school uniform.
Now, to some fundamentalists, that made us not proper Muslims. Really?
I have read the Koran. Nowhere in the Koran does it state that a woman's face and body must be covered in a layer of heavy black cloth. Instead, Muslim women should dress modestly, covering their arms and legs.
Many of my adult British Muslim friends cover their heads with a headscarf - and I have no problem with that.
The burkha is an entirely different matter. It is an imported Saudi Arabian tradition, and the growing number of women veiling their faces in Britain is a sign of creeping radicalisation, which is not just regressive, it is oppressive and downright dangerous.
The burkha is an extreme practice. It is never right for a woman to hide behind a veil and shut herself off from people in the community. But it is particularly wrong in Britain, where it is alien to the mainstream culture for someone to walk around wearing a mask.
The veil restricts women. It stops them achieving their full potential in all areas of their life, and it stops them communicating. It sends out a clear message: 'I do not want to be part of your society.'
Every time the burkha is debated, Muslim fundamentalists bring out all these women who say: 'It's my choice to wear this.'
Perhaps so - but what pressures have been brought to bear on them? The reality, surely, is that a lot of women are not free to choose.
Girls as young as four are wearing the hijab to school: that is not a freely made choice. It stops them taking part in education and reaching their potential, and the idea that tiny children need to protect their modesty is abhorrent.
And behind the closed doors of some Muslim houses, countless young women are told to wear the hijab and the veil. These are the girls who are hidden away, they are not allowed to go to university or choose who they marry. In many cases, they are kept down by the threat of violence.
The burkha is the ultimate visual symbol of female oppression. It is the weapon of radical Muslim men who want to see Sharia law on Britain's streets, and would love women to be hidden, unseen and unheard. It is totally out of place in a civilised country.
Precisely because it is impossible to distinguish between the woman who is choosing to wear a burkha and the girl who has been forced to cover herself and live behind a veil, I believe it should be banned.
French President Sarkozy has backed moves to outlaw burkhas in France
President Sarkozy is absolutely right to say: 'If you want to live here, live like us.'
He went on to say that the burkha is not a religious sign, 'it's a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement... In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity.'
So what should we do in Britain? For decades, Muslim fundamentalists, using the human rights laws, have been allowed to get their own way.
It is time for ministers and ordinary British Muslims to say, 'Enough is enough'. For the sake of women and children, the Government must ban the wearing of the hijab in school and the burkha in public places.
To do so is not racist, as extremists would have us believe. After all, when I go to Pakistan or Middle Eastern countries, I respect the way they live.
Two years ago, I wore a burkha for the first time for a television programme. It was the most horrid experience. It restricted the way I walked, what I saw, and how I interacted with the world.
It took away my personality. I felt alienated and like a freak. It was hot and uncomfortable, and I was unable to see behind me, exchange a smile with people, or shake hands.
If I had been forced to wear a veil, I would certainly not be free to write this article. Nor would I have run a marathon, become an aerobics teacher or set up a business.
We must unite against the radical Muslim men who love to control women.
My message to those Muslims who want to live in a Talibanised society, and turn their face against Britain, is this: 'If you don't like living here and don't want to integrate, then what the hell are you doing here? Why don't you just go and live in an Islamic country?'
Link
6.23.2009
Your Eyes Cheat Your Brain
No matter how strongly you want to believe you are seeing blue and green spirals here, there is no blue color in this image. There is only green, red and orange. What you think is blue is actually green. You can check this through Photoshop, if you need an affirmation. Your eyes cheat you.
6.22.2009
U.S. Health Insurers Revoke Policies To Avoid Paying High Costs
According to a new report by congressional investigators, an insurance company practice of retroactively canceling health insurance is fairly common, and it saves insurers a lot of money.
A subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee recently held a hearing about the report's findings in an effort to bring a halt to this practice. But at the hearing, insurance executives told lawmakers they have no plans to stop rescinding policies.
The act of retroactively canceling insurance is called rescission. It happens with individual health insurance policies, where people apply for insurance on their own, not through their employers. Their application generally includes a questionnaire about their health.
The process begins after a policyholder has been diagnosed with an expensive condition such as cancer. The insurer then reviews the health status information in the questionnaire, and if anything is missing, the policy may be rescinded.
The omission from the application may be deliberate, to hide a health condition that might have made the applicant ineligible for insurance. But sometimes there's an innocent explanation: The policyholder may not have known about a health condition, or may not have thought it was relevant.
The rescissions based on omissions or immaterial conditions incensed many lawmakers.
"I think it's shocking, it's inexcusable. It's a system that we have in place and we've got to stop," Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) said at the hearing.
From the other side of the aisle, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) was also appalled.
"Doesn't it bother you to do this?" he asked Don Hamm, CEO of Assurant Health, who appeared with the CEOs of UnitedHealth's Golden Rule Insurance Co. and WellPoint's Consumer Business.
Losing Insurance At A Critical Time
Hamm's insurance company rescinded the policy of Otto Raddatz after he was diagnosed with lymphoma. Raddatz had not told the company about a CT scan by a now-retired doctor that showed gallstones and a weakened blood vessel.
That's because he didn't know about the findings, his sister Peggy Raddatz, an attorney, testified. She spent weeks on the phone and ended up at the Illinois Attorney General's office, which began an investigation. The retired doctor turned out to be off on a fishing trip.
"Luckily, they were able to find the doctor, who was able to say, 'Yes, I never discussed those issues with him; they were very minor,' " Raddatz testifed.
After Minor Misunderstanding, A Policy Revoked
One of Barton's constituents, Robin Beaton of Waxahachie, Texas, did know that her health history included acne and a rapid heartbeat. But she didn't think they were relevant to her current health and left them off her application.
After she was diagnosed with breast cancer and was scheduled for a double mastectomy, her insurer cancelled her policy, leaving her devastated.
"I had to completely refocus on what to do, where to turn, because my insurance canceled me," she said. Beaton called Barton's office, which started a series of phone calls to her insurer. It took a call from Barton himself to get her reinstated.
Committee investigators found a total of 19,776 rescissions from three large insurers over five years. The rescissions saved the insurers $300 million.
Insurers Say They Won't Change Rescission Practice
During the hearing, Barton asked Hamm how he felt hearing the three cases of people who'd been burned by rescission.
"I have to say I felt really bad," Hamm replied.
"It's my hope there will be changes made that this will no longer be necessary," he said. His hope, and that of the other insurance company CEOs who testified, is that a health care overhaul will mean that everyone has insurance. If that were the case, people couldn't wait until they got sick to apply, and insurers wouldn't have to worry about whether someone had lied on an application.
Several lawmakers at the hearing suggested there were things the companies could do right now: They could vet applications when they receive them, rather than waiting until people get sick; they could consider whether something that was omitted was related to a current health condition before rescinding; and they could be more careful to positively identify fraud before rescinding a policy.
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), who chaired the hearing, asked all three CEOs if they would agree to stop rescinding policies except in cases of fraud.
All three said no.
If they don't do something to stop it, said Barton of Texas, Congress will.
Link
A subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee recently held a hearing about the report's findings in an effort to bring a halt to this practice. But at the hearing, insurance executives told lawmakers they have no plans to stop rescinding policies.
The act of retroactively canceling insurance is called rescission. It happens with individual health insurance policies, where people apply for insurance on their own, not through their employers. Their application generally includes a questionnaire about their health.
The process begins after a policyholder has been diagnosed with an expensive condition such as cancer. The insurer then reviews the health status information in the questionnaire, and if anything is missing, the policy may be rescinded.
The omission from the application may be deliberate, to hide a health condition that might have made the applicant ineligible for insurance. But sometimes there's an innocent explanation: The policyholder may not have known about a health condition, or may not have thought it was relevant.
The rescissions based on omissions or immaterial conditions incensed many lawmakers.
"I think it's shocking, it's inexcusable. It's a system that we have in place and we've got to stop," Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) said at the hearing.
From the other side of the aisle, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) was also appalled.
"Doesn't it bother you to do this?" he asked Don Hamm, CEO of Assurant Health, who appeared with the CEOs of UnitedHealth's Golden Rule Insurance Co. and WellPoint's Consumer Business.
Losing Insurance At A Critical Time
Hamm's insurance company rescinded the policy of Otto Raddatz after he was diagnosed with lymphoma. Raddatz had not told the company about a CT scan by a now-retired doctor that showed gallstones and a weakened blood vessel.
That's because he didn't know about the findings, his sister Peggy Raddatz, an attorney, testified. She spent weeks on the phone and ended up at the Illinois Attorney General's office, which began an investigation. The retired doctor turned out to be off on a fishing trip.
"Luckily, they were able to find the doctor, who was able to say, 'Yes, I never discussed those issues with him; they were very minor,' " Raddatz testifed.
After Minor Misunderstanding, A Policy Revoked
One of Barton's constituents, Robin Beaton of Waxahachie, Texas, did know that her health history included acne and a rapid heartbeat. But she didn't think they were relevant to her current health and left them off her application.
After she was diagnosed with breast cancer and was scheduled for a double mastectomy, her insurer cancelled her policy, leaving her devastated.
"I had to completely refocus on what to do, where to turn, because my insurance canceled me," she said. Beaton called Barton's office, which started a series of phone calls to her insurer. It took a call from Barton himself to get her reinstated.
Committee investigators found a total of 19,776 rescissions from three large insurers over five years. The rescissions saved the insurers $300 million.
Insurers Say They Won't Change Rescission Practice
During the hearing, Barton asked Hamm how he felt hearing the three cases of people who'd been burned by rescission.
"I have to say I felt really bad," Hamm replied.
"It's my hope there will be changes made that this will no longer be necessary," he said. His hope, and that of the other insurance company CEOs who testified, is that a health care overhaul will mean that everyone has insurance. If that were the case, people couldn't wait until they got sick to apply, and insurers wouldn't have to worry about whether someone had lied on an application.
Several lawmakers at the hearing suggested there were things the companies could do right now: They could vet applications when they receive them, rather than waiting until people get sick; they could consider whether something that was omitted was related to a current health condition before rescinding; and they could be more careful to positively identify fraud before rescinding a policy.
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), who chaired the hearing, asked all three CEOs if they would agree to stop rescinding policies except in cases of fraud.
All three said no.
If they don't do something to stop it, said Barton of Texas, Congress will.
Link
Fire ant infestation startles Nova Scotians
They've got a bite like a hornet's sting, leave an itch as bad as poison ivy and are smart enough to learn to avoid insecticide.
It sounds like a B-movie scare but this invasive species of ant is a real and growing concern in Nova Scotia. European fire ants have been turning up in new areas and there are localized infestations so bad that yards are unusable and people mow the lawn wearing protective gear.
Halifax is holding a briefing Monday night on how residents can protect themselves from these insects, which have appeared in New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario as well. But some scientists say little can be done to halt the march of the ants.
“I'd want to be three kilometres away, on the other side of some water, maybe with nuclear weapons,” joked Eric Georgeson, a retired entomologist with the province's Department of Natural Resources.
“They don't spread fast but they're persistent,” he said from his home in Lyons Brook, N.S. “I think the big thing with these ants is their ability to survive, to adapt and survive.”
Mr. Georgeson said that he started seeing the ants in many more parts of the province over the past decade and that their aggression toward other species has left the woods “quiet, too quiet.”
The ants can damage property, drive down real estate values and attack those who come too close to their homes. They are lethal only to a small percentage of people, who are thought to be hypersensitive to their venom, but cannot be dismissed as just a nuisance to others.
“If you had a toddler that fell down out there, those ants would be all over them,” Mr. Georgeson said. “It'd be like being bitten by a lot of hornets. It'd be a very unpleasant situation.”
Scientists warn that the national spread of the ants, which are vulnerable to cold, may be sped by warming winters.
“The cold was one of the great things about moving here,” said Rowan Sage, a professor in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto.
He had so many fire ant mounds near his former home in Georgia that his garden was an “obstacle course.” He would build bonfires on them occasionally, he said, but between the fire ants and the ticks and the chiggers, anyone who was active outdoors could look forward to months of itching every year.
“We had two seasons…the scratching season and the non-scratching season,” he said.
The itching from a fire ant attack, which Dr. Sage compared to a case of poison ivy, comes up to a day after the initial pain of the bites.
“When one of the ants starts biting it sends some kind of signal and they all start biting at once,” he said. “If you want to know the feeling, get a needle and heat it up until it's red hot and then stick it in your skin.”
Eric Ashton knows that feeling all too well. A Halifax resident, he is watching nervously as his neighbours grapple with fire ant infestations. They haven't colonized his property, but he's not sure he will be able to stop them.
“They seem to be a hell of a lot smarter than a normal black ant,” he said. “You're always looking down…wondering ‘are they here today?' It sounds like one of those television shows about aliens coming, but that's how we feel.”
The retiree has one neighbour who has to put on rubber boots before she'll dare go outside to hang her laundry.
“There's got to be something that the city will do or allow us to do,” he said. “They've got to allow us to kill the bastards. Not shoo them away, but kill them.”
Link
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