Bosch update!

Further to JD's piece (August 28) on Hieronymous Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights", here is an animation recently done for a Netherlands museum:


PARADISE - A contemporary interpretation of The Garden of Earthly Delights from STUDIO SMACK on Vimeo.

Friday Night Is Music Night: Strings Attached

JD presents a cittern selection...

Music from four of the world's finest guitarists.

"How to play the guitar":















I think you might enjoy that :)

Post-Trumpification

JD comments on the outcome:

The dust is settling on the US election and, I am pleased to say, Frankie Boyle managed to insult everyone last night!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b083s663

There have been other, not quite so iconoclastic, voices recently:

This was the day before the US election-

"Now is the time to change the global image of America into a land of well-being, wealth and ideal ways of living, rather than a source of war."



In contrast, Adam Curtis has produced this new documentary in which he sees how the modern world is presented to us as an illusion, a deliberately created confusion-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p04b183c/adam-curtis-hypernormalisation

At almost three hours long, I am not going to watch it. Life is too short to sit through what seems to be an argument based on a false premise; who exactly is fooled by the falsehoods in the newspapers or the glamorous unreality of the entertainment industry, with its simple minded certainties?

It is very many years since I worked out that the newspapers and TV/cinema give a false view of the world: what I read in the papers bore no resemblance to my daily work or social life or that of anyone I know. What I saw on screen was an outright lie, whether it be 'Coronation Street' or 'Saturday Night And Sunday Morning' - people in real life do not behave in that way.

Curtis is guilty of looking at people as 'interest groups' or stereotypes instead of looking at us as individuals, an attitude he has in common with all of those he criticises. Two others have taken apart the Curtis film so I don't have to.

https://awkwardvoiceblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/19/to-trump-or-not-to-trump/
http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2016-10-19/adam-curtis-another-manager-of-perceptions/

And the day after the US election, Sadhguru had this to say-

Will Hammond's organ respond to the needs of women?

I hear Chancellor Philip Hammond plans to instruct his office to crack down on scams targeting pensioners. 

Will that include the National Insurance Fund, which is running a far-beyond-recommendation £22.7 billion in surplus* as WASPI women watch their State Pension retirement age fade into the distance?
___________________________________

* According to Wikipedia: "Levels of benefit and contributions are set following the advice of the Government Actuary, who recommends that a prudential balance of two months contribution revenue (about £8 billion) should be kept in the fund."

Friday Night Is Music Night: A Heart Full Of Soul

JD writes:

No it's not the Yardbirds but their song title is a good description of Sinéad O' Connor and the way she lives her life and sings her songs-

Sinéad O' Connor:











In memory of Veronica Guerin -





You said that people respond positively to what is delivered with great passion. Not many wear their heart on their sleeve the way Sinéad does and she is, in fact, a very fine singer.

The Democrats Cannot Believe the Results

Jim in San Marcos comments:

Mr. Trump won the election and we have Democrats protesting out in the street even before he takes office. I remember when Obama won, and I sucked it in and said he’s our President now. What he did over 8 years irritated the hell out of me! To say the least.

I get the feeling from these protestors that Democracy is great, only if your candidate wins. And the sad thing is that most of the losers in this race were one issue voters; global warming or the woman President fulfilment goal. I get the feeling that the protestors are either incredibly stupid or have been brainwashed by all of the nonsensical ads about Trump. Many are students that were confused as to why they can’t get a job after spending big bucks on college.

The issue we have here, is that the present protests are over a candidate that has never held a political office and has not yet taken the oath as the next President. He has no political record to censure but yet these disrupters of our Democracy do not give a damn. They want him out before he has even been in.

What we really need to look at, is that we have Donald Trump, a dyed in the wool Democrat, elected as a Republican to be President. He did not fit into the liberal establishment of being politically correct. If you say something that the establishment doesn’t want to hear, you are labeled racist, homophobic, sexist, misogynist and so on. Most people in this situation, shut up and keep quiet. Donald in this case, said bring it on, it won’t stick.

We have come to a point now, where this politically correct police force is visible. Tell a black joke and you are a racist. Tell a religious joke and you’re anti-Semitic. You’re not graded on how funny the joke is.

The real joke is on the political system. It was too corrupt to select real people to run for office. The Democrats had morphed into socialists. Trump was considered harmless. He beat all the Republicans in the Republican primary, got on their white horse and then slew the Hillary dragon.

The one thing that really stands out, is that the news media failed us and showed everyone how manipulative they are as a group. The misinformation they fed us during this election, calling it news, was deplorable. Everyone thought The Donald was exaggerating and bashing the media unfairly.

The Democrats became the party of the rich with socialism for the poor, while the party ignored the middle class. The socialistic Democrats that voted for Hillary, didn’t see Trump as a Democrat. The Republicans were wondering what made Trump a Republican; they were satisfied with the fact that he wasn’t a “damn Socialist” and liked the second amendment. Sooner or later the people of this country will come to realize that the Republicans, without knowing it, put a Democrat into the Oval office.

The good thing is, we have elected a President with a lot of common sense that will speak his mind and is not beholden to the lobbyists in Washington D.C. Obama the politician can probably take credit for the Trump Presidency. He pissed off the wrong person one too many times. Obama, you're fired!!

The neat thing is that both parties won. The Republicans got the man they voted for and the Democrats are too stupid to recognize a Democrat, unless he's holding his hand out for a bribe. "Draining the swamp" just might cure that.

Editor's (i.e. Jim's) note:
I define a true Democrat as representing the middle class.

Original post at: http://greatdepression2006.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/the-democrats-cannot-believe-results.html

Voice Of The People

My old Principal was a former computer teacher who had been granted early retirement on account of partial deafness caused by the screeching of the old-fashioned printers. He was born and bred in Lancashire but had come to a school in the Forest of Dean, 140 miles further south and having a very different dialect. At his 65th birthday celebration in the Speech House his old headteacher told this story about (let's call him) Eric:

Soon after he had started at the school, the head was passing in the corridor and asked him how he was getting on. "I can't hear what the boys are saying," said Eric.

Later, after Eric had had a hearing aid fitted, the head asked him again. He replied, "I can hear what the boys are saying, but I can't understand what they are saying." Dean, in rural Gloucestershire and close to the Welsh border, speaks its own language.

Time went by and Eric eventually picked up the lingo. The head repeated his query, and Eric said, "I can hear what the boys are saying, and I understand what they are saying. But - I don't like what they are saying." Dean people, a tight community, are accustomed to running their own affairs and speaking their minds freely, hence their Speech House.

In 2016, after the RefEurendum and Trumpquake, this tale has a fresh resonance.