Saturday, December 4, 2010

Knocking Down swimming pools to pay for Drone bombers

WikiLeaks cables: Conservatives promised to run 'pro-American regime'

Leaked dispatch reveals how US diplomats are amused by Britain's 'paranoid' fears about so-called special relationship
  • guardian.co.uk,
  • Article history
  • David Cameron and Barack Obama
     
    David Cameron with Barack Obama at a press conference at the White House earlier this year. The incoming Conservatives appear to have made some wide-ranging offers of political co-operation with the US. Photograph: Rod Lamkey Jr/AFP/Getty Images Conservative party politicians lined up before the general election to promise that they would run a "pro-American regime" and buy more arms from the US if they came to power this year, the leaked American embassy cables show. Despite British leaders' supportive stance, the dispatches also reveal – in what some will see as humiliating detail – how US diplomats in London are amused by what they call Britain's "paranoid" fears about the so-called special relationship. One said the anxious British attitude "would often be humorous if it were not so corrosive" and that it was tempting to take advantage of this neurosis to "make London more willing to respond favourably when pressed for assistance". The UK was said to offer "unparalleled" help in promoting America's aims. The incoming Conservatives appear to have made some wide-ranging offers of political co-operation with the US. The cables detail a series of private meetings with Tory frontbenchers, many of whom are now in the cabinet. Liam Fox, now the defence secretary, promised to buy American military equipment, while the current foreign secretary, William Hague, offered the ambassador a "pro-American" government. Hague also said the entire Conservative leadership were, like him, "staunchly Atlanticist" and "children of Thatcher". Fox met the US ambassador, Louis Susman, a year ago. In a 10 December 2009 cable marked "confidential", Susman recorded: "Liam Fox affirmed his desire to work closely with the US if the Conservative party wins power … adding that 'we (Conservatives) intend to follow a much more pro-American profile in procurement'." He reportedly went on: "Increasing US-UK 'interoperability is the key' since the US and UK will continue to fight together in the future" and "expressed confidence regarding US leadership in Afghanistan and optimism about the way forward". The frontbencher admitted that there was an opposed faction within Tory ranks. "Fox asserted that some within the Conservative party are less enthusiastic, asserting that 'we're supposed to be partners with, not supplicants to, the United States'. Fox said he rebuffed these assertions, and he welcomed the ambassador's reassurance that senior US leaders value the UK as an equal partner." Hague pledged his own loyalty in an earlier meeting with the US deputy chief of mission, Richard LeBaron. A confidential cable marked "no foreigners" from 1 April 2008 records: "The deputy chief of mission asked Hague whether the relationship between the UK and the US was 'still special'. Hague said he, David Cameron and George Osborne were 'children of Thatcher' and staunch Atlanticists … For his part, said Hague, he has a sister who is American, spends his own vacations in America and, like many similar to him, considers America the 'other country to turn to'. "Asking his senior adviser her views, [Arminka] Helic (who is Bosnian), said: 'America is the essential country.' "Hague said whoever enters 10 Downing Street as prime minister soon learns of the essential nature of the relationship with America. He went on: 'We want a pro-American regime. We need it. The world needs it.' " These enthusiastic approaches came against a backdrop of what American officials termed British "paranoia" following the arrival of Barack Obama as an unknown presidential quantity. In a lengthy classified dispatch in February 2009 headed "The British ask, is our special relationship still special in Washington?" LeBaron wrote: "More than one HMG senior official asked embassy officers whether President Obama meant to send a signal in his inaugural address about US-UK relations by quoting Washington during the revolutionary war [against Britain], while the removal of the Churchill bust from the Oval office consumed much UK newsprint." The Times had written, allegedly quoting British embassy sources in Washington, about the distress caused by the removal of the bust, lent to George Bush by Tony Blair from the UK government art collection, in happier times. It was headlined: "Churchill bust casts shadow over special relationship". LeBaron noted dryly: "This period of excessive UK speculation about the relationship is more paranoid than usual … This over-reading would often be humorous, if it were not so corrosive." He advised against taking advantage of British neuroses and said the UK remained highly useful to the US because of its "unparalleled" help in promoting America's aims. "Though tempting to argue that keeping HMG off balance about its current standing with us might make London more willing to respond favourably when pressed for assistance, in the long run it is not in US interests to have the UK public concluding the relationship is weakening, on either side. "The UK's commitment of resources – financial, military, diplomatic – in support of US global priorities remains unparalleled; a UK public confident that the USG values those contributions and our relationship, matters to US national security." Britain's willingness to invest in expensive weaponry is a key part of the so-called special relationship. The UK's annual military budget is running at £37bn a year. Fox's reference to more procurement from the US shows his zest for heavy spending on two future big-ticket items – the joint strike fighter [JSF], and the £20bn replacement for the Trident nuclear weapons system. The largely US-built JSF will be formidably expensive, and the original scheme was for Britain to buy up to 138 of them at £150m each, to go on giant aircraft carriers. Fox is having an uphill fight: the recent defence review promised only to buy a cheaper version, and to cut the numbers of planes. Some are urging the purchase of US-made drones instead: the Ministry of Defence recently announced the purchase of 100 small Desert Hawk III drones and five extra Reaper killer drones. Other US purchases may be in the pipeline. Frustratingly perhaps for Fox, decisions on the Trident replacement scheme, which will rely on submarine-launched ballistic missiles leased from the US, have been delayed until after the next election. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-cables-us-special-relationship

Sunday, November 28, 2010

shopping trolley over the river Stour

Stour Trolley over the River Stour 360

Doctor Marshmallow Cubicle Syblings at the Pick Up Club

Save Pick Up Rockers by STEVEFLY

The Death of Crippled Super-Market.

The Death of  Crippled Super-Market.





When I was only six years old I remember Superman as being the most inspiring charcter to me then, a super hero, with super powers to save people, to help them in times of distress and disaster, to fight injustice wherever it may be, and best of all superman went after the super-villains causing most of the problems in city areas and population centers, superman loved the people, and even animals, I wanted to be like superman and I dressed like him a few times when I visited Stourbridge in the early 1980's, before the age of the giant supermarket chains, before the age of the super-American 'style' shopping mall, and before the shopping mall culture came into my life like an all pervasive new religion: shopping.

The punchline here is supposed to spell out to you my horror and general outrage toward any decision to invite TESCO into Stourbridge Town Center. I have always opposed the superstore, and have spent many years watching their strategy both locally, nationally and internationally; to many this is a story of super-success, Billions in Profits, millions of new jobs and countless 'services' all from one single pivot, surely any critic of such a great money making and employment machine would be hard pressed to provide any meaningful criticism?

To begin with the relationships between Tesco executives and senior members of the British Cabinet raise concerns to my mind, especially in relationship to Tony Blair, and generally the ease by which TESCO in particular are allowed to buy land, build super-stores and expand into thousands of supermarket services, in fact becoming a mini-government all by itself, a Big Brother store for all your needs. That's what I see, and I see the Government and the private enterprise plotting to exploit the poor and vulnerable generally, in every and any way possible when I look at the last decade and the sordid business warfare operations. Others view this warfare as a successful campaign, defined by the it's profits, the numbers, and the employment figures all evidence that in fact, the supermarkets are enhancing our lives, giving us time and gifting us with convieniance, who can argue with that Mr. Pratt? "It's just a damned shop, and if its cheaper than anywhere else I'll shop there god damn it"--Homeless man in Dudley.

Here's some advice if your on the fence about Tesco. Simply look at their wikipedia entry on the internet, and then search for 'Tescopoly' and 'every liitle bit hurts' at your search engine of choice. Ask yourself, will you be the change you wish to see in the world, or do you just want other people to keep doing 'change' for you on T.V.
I am not such a negative and critical person as to be stupid enough to simply denounce the building of a new supermarket, without providing an alternative for new 'areas' in which my vision of what we could achieve together can be realized. How about TESCO invite me and bunch of local friends to help both design the store and attenuate the local production and distribution lines? to work out how to include all the local producers of goods and services that they might also provide.

Lets create a local supermarket partnership where we share our vision for a really supermarket, a supermarket with a cape and funny shoes, lets build a supermarket vision that sweeps all the others out into the car-park area and into the plastic bins where they belong with the plastic trash.

A Supermarket partnership vision that includes every voice, especially the voice of creative criticism and alternative models, superior in vision to those it opposes and therefore obsoleting the opposition with superior methodology. Here's goes.

TESCO stourbridge, when built shall be designed along the lines of two major principles, for starters, laid out by the greatest design scientist I have ever encountered: R. Buckminster Fuller; these primary two principles are.
a) Tensigrity
b) Synergetics

In short every possible way to use less energy in the design process, the construction, and the maintainance of this super-store should be implemented, to strive to create a super-store, where the word 'super' can be seen as synonomous with 'green' and 'effecient' or 'synergetic' to use Bucky's own terms. Why not? why wouldn't the richest and biggest of the UK Supermarket build us a really super market built upon the the most 'super' archetectual and design principles as laid out by the great Buckminster Fuller?

Also in tune with some other ideas I got from Bucky why not have each product have a signiture that can tell you how far it travelled, from where, when, and details about the growing conditions, and the payment and payment schemes of those who grew, packed, sliced, diced or dialled up whatever goods or services you receive. This is not TOO MUCH INFORMATION, but vital information to keep track of 'values', and a fair request in the face of supermarkets tracking the buying habits and details of their customers, the customers should ask their PRODUCTS and their manufacturers for equal information, or, as I propose, a program could simply display the best performers, or the products that produced the smallest carbon footprint, maybe by travelling the least amount of distance to the store? Therefore, we can begin to provide evidence for the whole principle of synergy from root to the fruit to the ceiling.

I would utilize the International reach of TESCO to provide a new interactive multicultural shared information and comparative 'values' resource, where different cultures and peoples can interact and share their local successes, both on-line and in groups, discussing their own day to day uses of all the goods and services they use, being encourgaed once again, for creative criticism and alternative ideas and design solutions opposed to rude, meaningless angry grunts, like '*%^k Tesco, the *;&'£*ing Robbing @0&Ts" These remarks get us nowhere fast, Tescno' however, and 'Tescopoly' seem more like it. 'Tescoticular Cancer' seems boarderline insulting and 'Tesco: A crippled Supermarket' once again, does not help us in a partnership. Name calling and insults are simply way below the belt, and I for one am not messing with no Tesco junk, no sir.

Every piece of packaging would be bio-degradable in no less than the time it takes to come back and buy another of whatever was once inside. Every piece of fruit and every vegetable grown as close to the store as possible, and wherever possible actually outside of the store itself.

The New Tesco should employ the goods and services providers and pay them well to continue doing what they are doing, and have people visit them or contact them for goods and/or services.

TESCO Music could help build a new wave of creativity throughout the land, providing free space, recording facility and International 'in store audiences' to local artists.

TESCO sports could provide free space for healthy fitness activities and support entire communities in their health and nutrition plan, all in harmony with the foods available at the store, and wherever and whenever possible in the local area.

TESCO film could trigger a new local journalistic and creative film revolution by simply buying 200 or so hand held cameras per-store and giving them away 'free' to local creatives to record their local environment and feeback on any concerns they have, especially regarding environmental concerns and how 'tensigrity' and 'synergetics' design science principles may assist and solve.

TESCO god might just be the thing that we have all been waiting for, now, just consider for a moment the greatest strategy I have yet to propose, TESCO GOD, a special god department in the store where you can commune with god and pray for forgiveness, redemption, rapture or some cranberry sauce.

TESCO time-bank could help revolutionize how we view work, shopping and trade by introducing 'time' as a valuable 'currency' and allowing volunteers to work for themselves and invent their own responsibilities in the local community and have a mean to evaluate and share the fruits of any such work.

TESCONO would be my idea of a library and global village space, where anybody can ask a question and is encouraged to say 'no, I'm not satisfied with that answer' whenever possible. As with the usual cheesy sauce advertisement I would go with 'Say Tesknow' marketing strategy.

TESCO nspiracy is an alterantive counter-intelligence operation that creates conspiracy and a small but significant amount of bad press for TESCO. Nspiracy moves the news headlines into crooked and extremely shallow waters, builds a Straw man, burns it and pretends to own all. Every supermarket needs a good local fable and nspiracy operation to help tap into the local community spirit.
 

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Smoking a fat Stourbridge cone

Up the Stourbridge Glass cone went our lonely hero. 
Up and out the top of great Glass factory where 
Stourbridge Clay lead to a Crystal meme sale.

Royal Clay from the earth,
Mud and clay people, clay artists
And what is Industry? Who owns it and how?

Sandstone and Rocks of earth,
 Geological formations, coal, bones, calcium
 Oil are from the earth, how
can we own them?

Who’s industry and patent, who’s business?
Earth business and man business.
 Trees and paper.
 Rivers and River banks.

What is money and how did it get that way
In Stourbridge 
Who set the gold standard?
 How are Royals majestic? 
Why no Glass pipes in Stourbridge?

Who’s pencil that draws the boundary
Who’s eye’s to perceive the line, the divisions
And divisions. 
Who’s visions and translations of God.
Who’s Christ Jesus story,
Who’s pen, who’s now
Who’s when?
What Gods give the all seeing eye?
Who’s shepherd and who’s sheep?
Where in the small print?
What authority do you claim on this earth here?

Who’s feet and hands walked and dug,
Work for who and for what?
God and Earth, God or Earth.
Who measures the weight, 
How did the instruments get that way?
What is your margin of error tolerance?
What about humans who did not vote
How can you represent us, Oh Politician?
How can you represent Earth or God
Truth and sanity? 

How do you represent?
What media do you share, what is private
And what is public representation.

All property maybe theft,
All things may lead back to earth
Why laws prohibiting Marijuana and LSD
And tax breaks for Monsanto, Glaxosmith?


Open source education, on-line schooling
Open Source Omniversity is underway
I am a proponent of the shared arts of
Education.
We are the Maybe Logic Academy
See Magick, NLP, and Non-Euclidean politics.

We are the representatives of the Black Country
We draw the lines and erase the boundaries
We are the creative heart of the Blackcountry
Writers, poets, painters, sculptors, dancers.

Art is our shared language of resistance
To reshape and edit our worlds, shared worlds
Shared Inhabited realities, built by urban Shaman
Shared through voluntary risk and struggle.



Artists and the equivalence theory?
10’000 hours of hard crafting and grafting
 vs. 5 seconds it takes sign a contract?
And forward along the credit,
 Borrowed from the Royal chest,
Bottomless, Jewel encrusted and in league
With the printers of the majestic paper?
 Who makes the paper Majestic and how?

What economic knowledge?
Excuse me, usury?

Basic truth of fairness and equality
Humanity.
To have equal share of the profits 
Divided honestly and equally,
Economics without distortion and the 
Genghis Kahn virus:
The biggest and most powerful,
The richest and most brutal
Rule.

 I present Open Source Economies
Transparency and new Social Credit systems
Employment seems a kind of disease,
Spreading bad business practice, bully boy tactics
Lawyer Run Capitalism.


The core of Conservative Rule.
The core of Deaf Labour,

 And even the liberals hate the poor
What of sub minorities?
 Why highlight something as flimsy as race?
 To base wrongheaded policy and funding scheme?
What do you mean?


You do not represent me, my friends and my experiences
 Within the territory you claim to represent.
 In fact everything you say it is, it isn’t.

 British Labour danced in a conservative agenda dressed in
Blood Red bondage gear.
 Another Christian evangelical called Blair,
In league with Bush and Cheney.


Hello...corporal Malvern.
We have seen your continued conservative trickery
Over 34 years.

Every day in Britain, under the boot of the Big
London Banks, the Christian American Business
Partnership.
The discrimination against minorities,
Against self owning ones, against social co-operatives

From Thatcher to Major, to Blair, to Brown and Cameron.


No change in the crying game, the lies, the support
Of military intervention for private interest
Continued useless and failed Multi Billion Pound
War on some drugs, and the Irony of British Opium history
Poppy fields and Government Heroin cartels.



Oh, don’t start me to talking,
And backing up my lines with historical evidence.
Labour/Conservative, what is the difference?
 Politics has become a business game show,
Played by some families with large fortunes.

Why do we love our Royalty so much?
And so our political leaders and goons that beg pardons
Beg spies and join the privileged classes.


The language of Army Majors, the 
Mind of a serial killer and temper of a psychopath.
The role of a modern representative is best described as
Henchmen of the Devil and his Lawyer Run Apocalypse

Lo! The gravity of the situation 
The measure of damage and death, destruction
 Globally based on British rule  
Balanced with the great help we give foreign nations?
Our Industry and Heritage is the double cross system.

Getting the otherside to work for us, 
Laywer Run Capitalism and Banking Monopoly
 American, Dutch and Swiss Banks.

 American, Dutch and English slavery history? 
Why make a man work for what is inherently his?
The Earth and God within, without and throughout all men
All space and time?
What of light? Who owns light? 
Can you really buy a star and name it?
What if the stars named you?
What is a Stourbridge Clay Kitchenette?

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Stourbridge Tesco's and the 2012 Olympics

  
Oh Tesco's, you old juggernaut of sadness. You bully, you, your just a brand name, behind which who knows how many sit? Yet, I will address 'Tesco's' as if you were an entity, with some of the emotional and physical 'feelings' human beings have. But, I do recognize that your really a ficticious 'business entity' a bank account and a business enterprise company, a tool, an 'operating system'. And a really really really big one at that.

The impersonal nature of 'companies' and the tendency for NEWS groups to write about them like they were people, often without actually writing the names of those 'behind' the company, but making out that they do wonderful 'things' for the society, like a Samaritaine or a even a new god, such is the fever-pitch of those in favor of a TESCO superstore, based on the 'modern' architecture, the new 'job' opportunities, and the redevelopment of the 'eye-sore' that is the Crown Center and Multi-story car park. I can understand these arguments for inviting TESCO into town, but I have something to say about that, something to say about supermarkets in general, urban renewal in general and 'shopping' as a means to attain emotional 'drug induced' neurological states. Shopping releases endorphins 'drugs' into the brain. Shopping malls and supermarkets release endorphins into the brain, and media signals, and smells, tastes, texture and light, lots of lights burning bright, as our fossil fuels cough a last dying breath, every 'lamp' that burns, so to speak, makes me wonder. Are the supermarkets worth it?


Pros and cons, cons and pros?
Somebody, please!
 

“If it gets the go-ahead we’d be looking to start on site this time next year, and ready to open prior to the 2012 Olympics.”http://www.stourbridgenews.co.uk/news/8195115.Praise_for_new_stourbridge_Tesco_plans/

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

TTOTT 150 v1.0

30 x TAILORS/TEACHINGS/TOTEMS/THEO-DEITIES/TEXTS
...of the tribe. To be arranged in concentric rings on a wheel.
A-Z plus four arbitrary choices to make 30.
x 2 = 60
x 3 = 90
x4 = 120
x5 = 150

To be memorized and studied as a guide map to 'the tale of the tribe' inspired by the life and works of Dr. Robert Anton Wilson.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Unevenly Distributed: The Wheels Fall Off the Cart -- Mark Pesce CHU Fly

A selection from the brilliant new work by Mark Pesce, (Future Present) embellished with the Genius of CHU. Enjoy, love, steve fly.


Mark Pesce - Words.
CHU - Images.
Steve 'Fly Agaric'' - Mixing



Unevenly Distributed: Table of Contents

Production Models for the 21st Century

external image amsterjam_60-640x220.jpg

I. The Wheels Fall Off the Cart


In mid-1994, sometime shortly after Tony Parisi and I had
fused the new technology of the World Wide Web to a 3D
visualization engine, to create VRML, we paid a visit to the
University of Santa Cruz, about 120 kilometers south of San
Francisco. Two UCSC students wanted to pitch us on their
own web media project. The Internet Underground Music
Archive, or IUMA, featured a simple directory of artists,
complete with links to MP3 files of these artists’ recordings.
(Before I go any further, I should state that they had all the
necessary clearances to put musical works up onto the Web –
IUMA was not violating anyone’s copyrights.) The idea
behind IUMA was simple enough, the technology absolutely
straightforward – and yet, for all that, it was utterly
revolutionary. Anyone, anywhere could surf over to the
IUMA site, pick an artist, then download a track and play it.

This was in the days before broadband, so downloading a
multi-megabyte MP3 recording could take upwards of an
hour per track – something that seems ridiculous today, but
was still so potent back in 1994 that IUMA immediately
became one of the most popular sites on the still-quite-tiny
Web. The founders of IUMA – Rob Lord and Jon Luini –
wanted to create a place where unsigned or non-commercial
musicians could share their music with the public in order to
reach a larger audience, gain recognition, and perhaps even
end up with a recording deal. IUMA was always better as a
proof-of-concept than as a business opportunity, but the
founders did get venture capital, and tried to make a go of
selling music online. However, given the relative obscurity of
the musicians on IUMA, and the pre-iPod lack of pervasive
MP3 players, IUMA ran through its money by 2001,
shuttering during the dot-com implosion of the same year.
Despite that, every music site which followed IUMA, legal and
otherwise, from Napster to Rhapsody to iTunes, has walked in
its footsteps. Now, nearing the end of the first decade of the
21st century, we have a broadband infrastructure capable of
delivery MP3s, and several hundred million devices which can
play them. IUMA was a good idea, but five years too early.

Just forty-eight hours ago, a new music service, calling itself
Qtrax, aborted its international launch – though it promises
to be up “real soon now.” Qtrax also promises that anyone,
anywhere will be able to download any of its twenty-five
million songs perfectly legally, and listen to them practically
anywhere they like – along with an inserted advertisement.
Using peer-to-peer networking to relieve the burden on its
own servers, and Digital Rights Management, or DRM, Qtrax
ensures that there are no abuses of these pseudo-free
recordings.

Most of the words that I used to describe Qtrax in the
preceding paragraph didn’t exist in common usage when
IUMA disappeared from the scene in the first year of this
millennium. The years between IUMA and Qtrax are a
geological age in Internet time, so it’s a good idea to walk back
through that era and have a good look at the fossils which
speak to how we evolved to where we are today.

In 1999, a curly-haired undergraduate at Boston’s
Northeastern University built a piece of software that allowed
him to share his MP3 collection with a few of his friends on
campus, and allowed him access to their MP3s. This scanned
the MP3s on each hard drive, publishing the list to a shared
database, allowing each person using the software to
download the MP3 from someone else’s hard drive to his own.
This is simple enough, technically, but Shawn Fanning’s
Napster created a dual-headed revolution. First, it was the
killer app for broadband: using Napster on a dial-up
connection was essentially impossible. Second, it completely
ignored the established systems of distribution used for
recorded music.

This second point is the one which has the most relevance to
my talk this morning; Napster had an entirely unpredicted
effect on the distribution methodologies which had been the
bedrock of the recording industry for the past hundred years.

The music industry grew up around the licensing, distribution
and sale of a physical medium – a piano roll, a wax recording,
a vinyl disk, a digital compact disc. However, when the
recording industry made the transition to CDs in the 1980s
(and reaped windfall profits as the public purchased new
copies of older recordings) they also signed their own death
warrants. Digital recordings are entirely ephemeral,
composed only of mathematics, not of matter. Any system
which transmitted the mathematics would suffice for the
distribution of music, and the compact disc met this need
only until computers were powerful enough to play the more
compact MP3 format, and broadband connections were fast
enough to allow these smaller files to be transmitted quickly.
Napster leveraged both of these criteria – the mathematical
nature of digitally-encoded music and the prevalence of
broadband connections on America’s college campuses – to
produce a sensation.

In its earliest days, Napster reflected the tastes of its collegeage
users, but, as word got out, the collection of tracks
available through Napster grew more varied and more
interesting. Many individuals took recordings that were only
available on vinyl, and digitally recorded them specifically to
post them on Napster. Napster quickly had a more complete
selection of recordings than all but the most comprehensive
music stores. This only attracted more users to Napster, who
added more oddities from their on collections, which
attracted more users, and so on, until Napster became seen as
the authoritative source for recorded music.

Given that all of this “file-sharing”, as it was termed,
happened outside of the economic systems of distribution
established by the recording industry, it was taking money out
of their pockets – probably something greater than billions of
dollars a year was lost, if all of these downloads had been
converted into sales. (Studies indicate this was unlikely –
college students have ever been poor.) The recording industry
launched a massive lawsuit against Napster in 2000, forcing
the service to shutter in 2001, just as it reached an incredible
peak of 14 million simultaneous users, out of a worldwide
broadband population of probably only 100 million. This
means that one in seven computers connected to the
broadband internet were using Napster just as it was being
shut down.

Here’s where it gets more interesting: the recording industry
thought they’d brought the horse back into the barn. What
they hadn’t realized was that the gate had burnt down. The
millions of Napster users had their appetites whet by a world
where an incredible variety of music was instantaneously
available with few clicks of the mouse. In the absence of
Napster, that pressure remained, and it only took a few weeks
for a few enterprising engineers to create a successor to
Napster, known as Gnutella, which provided the same service
as Napster, but used a profoundly different technology for its
filesharing. Where Napster had all of its users register their
tracks within a centralized database (which disappeared when
Napster was shut down) Gnutella created a vast, amorphous,
distributed database, spread out across all of the computers
running Guntella. Gnutella had no center to strike at, and
therefore could not be shut down.

It is because of the actions of the recording industry that
Gnutella was developed. If legal pressure hadn’t driven
Napster out of business, Gnutella would not have been
necessary. The recording industry turned out to be its own
worst enemy, because it turned a potentially profitable
relationship with its customers into an ever-escalating arms
race of file-sharing tools, lawsuits, and public relations
nightmares.

Once Gnutella and its descendants – Kazaa, Limewire, and
Acquisition – arrived on the scene, the listening public had
wholly taken control of the distribution of recorded music.
Every attempt to shut down these ever-more-invisible
darknets” has ended in failure and only spurred the
continued growth of these networks. Now, with Qtrax, the
recording industry is seeking to make an accommodation with
an audience which expects music to be both free and freely
available, falling back on advertising revenue source to
recover some of their production costs.

At first, it seemed that filmic media would be immune from
the disruptions that have plagued the recording industry –
films and TV shows, even when heavily compressed, are very
large files, on the order of hundreds of millions of bytes of
data. Systems like Gnutella, which allow you to transfer a file
directly from one computer to another are not particularly
well-suited to such large file transfers. In 2002, an
unemployed programmer named Bram Cohen solved that
problem definitively with the introduction of a new filesharing
system known as BitTorrent.

BitTorrent is a bit mysterious to most everyone not deeply
involved in technology, so a brief of explanation will help to
explain its inner workings. Suppose, for a moment, that I
have a short film, just 1000 frames in length, digitally
encoded on my hard drive. If I wanted to share this film with
each of you via Gnutella, you’d have to wait in a queue as I
served up the film, time and time again, to each of you. The
last person in the queue would wait quite a long time. But if,
instead, I gave the first ten frames of the film to the first
person in the queue, and the second ten frames to the second
person in the queue, and the third ten frames to the third
person in the queue, and so on, until I’d handed out all
thousand frames, all I need do at that point is tell each of you
that each of your “peers” has the missing frames, and that you
needed to get them from those peers. A flurry of transfers
would result, as each peer picked up the pieces it needed to
make a complete whole from other peers. From my point of
view, I only had to transmit the film once – something I can
do relatively quickly. From your point of view, none of you
had to queue to get the film – because the pieces were
scattered widely around, in little puzzle pieces, that you could
gather together on your own.

That’s how BitTorrent works. It is both incredibly efficient
and incredibly resilient – peers can come and go as they
please, yet the total number of peers guaratees that
somewhere out there is an entire copy of the film available at
all times. And, even more perversely, the more people who
want copies of my film, the easier it is for each successive
person to get a copy of the film – because there are more
peers to grab pieces from. This group of peers, known as a
“swarm”, is the most efficient system yet developed for the
distribution of digital media. In fact, a single, underpowered
computer, on a single, underpowered broadband link can, via
BitTorrent, create a swarm of peers. BitTorrent allows
anyone, anywhere, distribute any large media file at
essentially no cost.

It is estimated that upwards of 60% of all traffic on the
Internet is composed of BitTorrent transfers. Much of this
traffic is perfectly legitimate – software, such as the free
Linux operating system, is distributed using BitTorrent. Still,
it is well known that movies and television programmes are
also distributed using BitTorrent, in violation of copyright.
This became absolutely clear on the 14th of October 2003,
when Sky Broadcasting in the UK premiered the first episode
of Battlestar Galactica, Ron Moore’s dark re-imagining of the
famous shlocky 1970s TV series. Because the American
distributor, SciFi Channel, had chosen to hold off until
January to broadcast the series, fans in the UK recorded the
programmes and posted them to BitTorrent for American
fans to download. Hundreds of thousands of copies of the
episodes circulated in the United States – and conventional
thinking would reckon that this would seriously impact the
ratings of the show upon its US premiere. In fact, precisely
the opposite happened: the show was so well written and
produced that the word-of-mouth engendered by all this mass
piracy created an enormous broadcast audience for the series,
making it the most successful in SciFi Channel history.
In the age of BitTorrent, piracy is not necessarily a menace.

The ability to “hyperdistribute” a programme – using
BitTorrent to send a single copy of a programme to millions of
people around the world efficiently and instantaneously –
creates an environment where the more something is shared,
the more valuable it becomes. This seems counterintuitive,
but only in the context of systems of distribution which were
part-and-parcel of the scarce exhibition outlets of theaters
and broadcasters. Once everyone, everywhere had the
capability to “tuning into” a BitTorrent broadcast, the
economics of distribution were turned on their heads. The
distributioin gatekeepers, stripped of their power, whinge
about piracy. But, as was the case with recorded music, the
audience has simply asserted its control over distribution.
This is not about piracy. This is about the audience getting
whatever it wants, by any means necessary. They have the
tools, they have the intent, and they have the power of
numbers. It is foolishness to insist that the future will be
substantially different from the world we see today. We can
not change the behavior of the audience. Instead, we must all
adapt to things as they are.

But things as the are have changed more than you might
know. This is not the story of how piracy destroyed the film
industry. This is the story how the audience became not just
the distributors but the producers of their own content, and,
in so doing, brought down the high walls which separate
professionals from amateurs.

Lies Lies Lies by CHU
Lies Lies Lies by CHU


II. The Barbarian Hordes Storm the Walls


Without any doubt the most outstanding success of the
second phase of the Web (known colloquially as “Web 2.0”) is
the video-sharing site YouTube. Founded in early 2005, as of
yesterday YouTube was the third most visited site on the
entire Web, led only by Yahoo! and YouTube’s parent, Google.
There are a lot of videos on YouTube. I’m not sure if anyone
knows quite how many, but they easily number in the tens of
millions, quite likely approaching a hundred million. Another
hundred thousand videos are uploaded each day; YouTube
grows by three million videos a month. That’s a lot of video,
difficult even to contemplate. But an understanding of
YouTube is essential for anyone in the film and television
industries in the 21st century, because, in the most pure,
absolute sense, YouTube is your competitor.

Let me unroll that statement a bit, because I don’t wish it to
be taken as simply as it sounds. It’s not that YouTube is
competing with you for dollars – it isn’t, at least not yet – but
rather, it is competing for attention. Attention is the limiting
factor for the audience; we are cashed up but time-poor. Yet,
even as we’ve become so time-poor, the number of options for
how we can spend that time entertaining ourselves has grown
so grotesquely large as to be almost unfathomable. This is the
real lesson of YouTube, the one I want you to consider in your
deliberations today. In just the past three years we have gone
from an essential scarcity of filmic media – presented through
limited and highly regulated distribution channels – to a
hyperabundance of viewing options.

This hyperabundance of choices, it was supposed until
recently, would lead to a sort of “decision paralysis,” whereby
the viewer would be so overwhelmed by the number of
choices on offer that they would simply run back, terrified, to
the highly regularized offerings of the old-school distribution
channels. This has not happened; in fact, the opposite has
occured: the audience is fragmenting, breaking up into eversmaller
“microaudiences”. It is these microaudiences that
YouTube speaks directly to. The language of microaudiences
is YouTube’s native tongue.

In order to illustrate the transformation that has completely
overtaken us, let’s consider a hypothetical fifteen year-old
boy, home after a day at school. He is multi-tasking: texting
his friends, posting messages on Bebo, chatting away on IM,
surfing the web, doing a bit of homework, and probably
taking in some entertainment. That might be coming from a
television, somewhere in the background, or it might be
coming from the Web browser right in front of him.
(Actually, it’s probably both simultaneously.) This teenager
has a limited suite of selections available on the telly – even
with satellite or cable, there won’t be more than a few
hundred choices on offer, and he’s probably settled for
something that, while not incredibly satisfying, is good
enough to play in the background.

Meanwhile, on his laptop, he’s viewing a whole series of
YouTube videos that he’s received from his friends; they’ve
found these videos in their own wanderings, and immediately
forwarded them along, knowing that he’ll enjoy them. He
views them, and laughs, he forwards them along to other
friends, who will laugh, and forward them along to other
friends, and so on. Sharing is an essential quality of all of the
media this fifteen year-old has ever known. In his eyes, if it
can’t be shared, a piece of media loses most of its value. If it
can’t be forwarded along, it’s broken.

For this fifteen year-old, the concept of a broadcast network
no longer exists. Television programmes might be watched as
they’re broadcast through the airwaves, but more likely
they’re spooled off of a digital video recorder, or downloaded
from the torrent and watched where and when he chooses.

The broadcast network has been replaced by the social
network of his friends, all of whom are constantly sharing the
newest, coolest things with one another. The current hot item
might be something that was created at great expense for a
mass audience, but the relationship between a hot piece of
media and its meaningfulness for a microaudience is purely
coincidental. All the marketing dollars in the world can foster
some brand awareness, but no amount of money will inspire
that fifteen year old to forward something along – because his
social standing hangs in the balance. If he passes along
something lame, he’ll lose social standing with his peers. This
factors into every decision he makes, from the brand of
runners he wears, to the television series he chooses to watch.
Because of the hyperabundance of media – something he
takes as a given, not as an incredibly recent development – all
of his media decisions are weighed against the values and
tastes of his social network, rather than against a scarcity of
choices.

This means that the true value of media in the 21st century is
entirely personal, and based upon the salience, that is, the
importance, of that media to the individual and that
individual’s social network. The mass market, with its
enforced scarcity, simply does not enter into his calculations.
Yes, he might go to the theatre to see Transformers with his
mates; but he’s just as likely to download a copy recorded in
the movie theatre with an illegally smuggled-in camera that
was uploaded to the Pirate Bay a few hours after its release.

That’s today. Now let’s project ourselves five years into the
future. YouTube is still around, but now it has more than two
hundred million videos (probably much more), all available,
all the time, from short-form to full-length features, many of
which are now available in high-definition. There’s so much
“there” there that it is inconceivable that conventional media
distribution mechanisms of exhibition and broadcast could
compete. For this twenty year-old, every decision to spend
some of his increasingly-valuable attention watching
anything is measured against salience: “How important is
this for me, right now?” When you weigh the latest episode of
a TV series against some newly-made video that is meant only
to appeal to a few thousand people – such as himself – that
video will win, every time. It more completely satisfies him.

As the number of videos on offer through YouTube and its
competitors continues to grow, the number of salient choices
grows ever larger. His social network, communicating now
through FaceBook and MySpace and next-generation mobile
handsets and iPods and goodness-knows-what-else is
constantly delivering an ever-growing and increasinglyrelevant
suite of media options. He, as a vital node within his
social network, is doing his best to give as good as he gets.
His reputation depends on being “on the tip.”

When the barriers to media distribution collapsed in the post-
Napster era, the exhibitors and broadcasters lost control of
distribution. What no one had expected was that the
professional producers would lose control of production. The
difference between an amateur and a professional – in the
media industries – has always centered on the point that the
professional sells their work into distribution, while the
amateur uses wits and will to self-distribute. Now that selfdistribution
is more effective than professional distribution,
how do we distinguish between the professional and the
amateur? This twenty year-old doesn’t know, and doesn’t
care.

There is no conceivable way that the current systems of film
and television production and distribution can survive in this
environment. This is an uncomfortable truth, but it is the
only truth on offer this morning. I’ve come to this conclusion
slowly, because it seems to spell the death of a hundred yearold
industry with many, many creative professionals. In this
environment, television is already rediscovering its roots as a
live medium, increasingly focusing on news, sport and “event”
based programming, such as Pop Idol, where being there live
is the essence of the experience. Broadcasting is uniquely
designed to support the efficient distribution of live
programming. Hollywood will continue to churn out
blockbuster after blockbuster, seeking a warmed-over middle
ground of thrills and chills which ensures that global receipts
will cover the ever-increasing production costs. In this form,
both industries will continue for some years to come, and will
probably continue to generate nice profits. But the audience’s
attentions have turned elsewhere. They’re not returning.

This future almost completely excludes “independent”
production, a vague term which basically means any
production which takes place outside of the media
megacorporations (News Corp, Disney, Sony, Universal and
TimeWarner), which increasingly dominate the mass media
landscape. Outside of their corporate embrace, finding an
audience sufficient to cover production and marketing costs
has become increasingly difficult. Film and television have
long been losing economic propositions (except for the most
lucky), but they’re now becoming financially suicidal.
National and regional funding bodies are growing
increasingly intolerant of funding productions which can not
find an audience; soon enough that pipeline will be cut off,
despite the damage to national cultures. Australia funds the
Film Finance Corporation and the Australian Film Council to
the tune of a hundred million dollars a year, to ensure that
Australian stories are told by Australian voices; but
Australians don’t go to see them in the theatres, and don’t buy
them on DVD.

The center can not hold. Instead, YouTube, which founder
Steve Chen insists has “no gold standard” of production
values, is rapidly becoming the vehicle for independent
productions; productions which cost not millions of euros,
but hundreds, and which make up for their low production
values in salience and in overwhelming numbers. This
tsunami of content can not be stopped or even slowed down;
it has nothing to do with piracy (only nine percent of the
videos viewed on YouTube are violations of copyright) but
reflects the natural accommodation of the audience to an era
of media hyperabundance.

What then, is to be done?

Sodtherich by CHU
Sodtherich by CHU


III. And The Penny Drops


It isn’t all bad news. But, like a good doctor, I want to give
you the bad news right up front: There is no single, long-term
solution for film or television production. No panacea. It’s
not even entirely clear that the massive Hollywood studios
will do business-as-usual for any length of time into the
future. Just a decade ago the entire music recording industry
seemed impregnable. Now it lies in ruins. To assume that
history won’t repeat itself is more than willful ignorance of the
facts; it’s bad business.

This means that the one-size-fits-all production-todistribution
model, which all of you have been taught as the
orthodoxy of the media industries, is worse than useless; it’s
actually blocking your progress because it is effectively
keeping you from thinking outside the square. This is a
wholly new world, one which is littered with golden
opportunities for those able to avail themselves of them. We
need to get you from where you are – bound to an obsolete
production model – to where you need to be. Let me
illustrate this transition with two examples.

In early 2005, producer Ronda Byrne got a production
agreement with Channel NINE, then the number one
Australian television network, to make a feature-length
television programme about the “law of attraction”, an idea
she’d learned of when reading a book published in 1910, The
Science of Getting Rich. The interviews and other footage
were shot in July and August, and after a few months in the
editing suite, she showed the finished production to
executives at Channel NINE, who declined to broadcast it,
believing it lacked mass appeal. Since Byrne wasn’t going to
be getting broadcast fees from Channel NINE to cover her
production costs, she negotiated a new deal with NINE,
allowing her to sell DVDs of the completed film.

At this point Byrne began spreading news of the film virally,
through the communities she thought would be most
interested in viewing it; specifically, spiritual and “New Age”
communities. People excited by Byrne’s teaser marketing
could pay $20 for a DVD copy of the film (with extended
features), or pay $5 to watch a streaming version directly on
their computer. As the film made its way to its intended
audience, word-of-mouth caused business to mushroom
overnight. The Secret became a blockbuster, selling millions
of copies on DVD. A companion book, also titled The Secret,
has sold over two million copies. And that arbiter of
American popular taste, Oprah, has featured the film and
book on her talk show, praising both to the skies. The film
has earned back many, many times its production costs,
making Byrne a wealthy woman. She’s already deep into the
production of a sequel to The Secret – a film which already
has an audience identified and targeted.

Chagrined, the television executives of Channel NINE finally
did broadcast The Secret in February 2007. It didn’t do that
well. This sums up the paradox distribution in the age of the
microaudience. Clearly The Secret had a massive world-wide
audience, but television wasn’t the most effective way to reach
them, because this audience was actually a collection of
microaudiences, rather than a single, aggregated audience. If
The Secret had opened theatrically, it’s unlikely it would have
done terribly well; it’s the kind of film that people want to
watch more than once, being in equal parts a self-help
handbook and a series of inspirational stories. It is wellsuited
for a direct-to-DVD release – a distribution vehicle that
no longer has the stigma of “failure” associated with it. It is
also well-suited to cross-media projects, such as books,
conferences, streamed delivery, podcasts, and so forth.
Having found her audience, Byrne has transformed The
Secret into an exceptional money-making franchise, as
lucrative, in its own way, and at its own scale, as any
Hollywood franchise.

The second example is utterly different from The Secret, yet
the fundamentals are strikingly similar. Just last month a
production group calling themselves “The League of Peers”
released a film titled Steal This Film, Part 2. The first part of
this film, released in late 2006, dealt with the rise of filesharing,
and, in specific, with the legal troubles of the world’s
largest BitTorrent site, Sweden’s The Pirate Bay. That film,
although earnest and coherent, felt as though it was produced
by individuals still learning the craft of filmmaking. This
latest film feels looks as professional as any documentary
created for BBC’s Horizon or PBS’s Frontline or ABC’s
4Corners. It is slick, well-lit, well-edited, and has a very
compelling story to tell about the history of copying –
beginning with the invention of the printing press, five
hundred years ago. Steal This Film is a political production, a
bit of propaganda with an bias. This, in itself, is not
uncommon in a documentary. The funding and distribution
model for this film is what makes it relatively unique.

Individuals who saw Steal This Film, Part One – which was
made freely available for download via BitTorrent – were
invited to contribute to the making of the sequel. Nearly five
million people downloaded Steal This Film, Part One, so
there was a substantial base of contributors to draw from. (I
myself donated five dollars after viewing the film. If every
viewer had done likewise that would cover the budget of a
major Hollywood production!) The League of Peers also
approached arts funding bodies, such as the BritishDocumentary Council, with their completed film in hand, the
statistics showing that their work reached a large audience,
and a roadmap for the second film – this got them additional
funding. Now, having released Steal This Film, Part Two,
viewers are again invited to contribute (if they like the film),
promised a “secret gift” for contributions of $15 or more.
While the tip jar – literally, busking – may seem a very weird
way to fund a film production, it’s likely that Steal This Film,
Part Two will find an even wider audience than Part One, and
that the coffers of the League of Peers will provide them with
enough funds to embark on their next film, The Oil of the 21st
Century, which will focus on the evolution of intellectual
property into a traded commodity.

I have asked Screen Training Ireland to include a DVD of
Steal This Film, Part Two with the materials you received this
morning. You’ve been given the DVD version of the film, but
I encourage you to download the other versions of the film:
the XVID version, for playback on a PC; the iPod version, for
portable devices; and the high-definition version, for your
visual enjoyment. It’s proof positive that a viable economic
model exists for film, even when it is given away. It will not
work for all productions, but there is a global community of
individuals who are intensely interested in factual works
about copyright and intellectual property in the 21st century,
who find these works salient, and who are underserved by the
media megacorporations, who would not consider it in their
own economic best interest to produce or distribute such
works. The League of Peers, as part of the community whom
this film is intended for, knew how to get the word out about
the film (particularly through Boing Boing, the most popular
blog in the world, with two million readers a week), and,
within a few weeks, nearly everyone who should have heard of
the film had heard about it – through their social networks.

Both The Secret and Steal This Film, Part Two are factual
works, and it’s clear that this emerging distribution model –
which relies on targeting communities of interest – works
best with factual productions. One of the reasons that there
has been such an upsurge in the production of factual works
over the past few years is because these works have been able
to build their own funding models upon a deep knowledge of
the communities they are talking to – made by
microaudiences, for microaudiences. But microaudiences,
scaled to global proportions, can easily number in the
millions. Microaudiences are perfectly willing to pay for
something or contribute to something they consider of
particular value and salience; it is a visible thank you, a form
of social reinforcement which is very natural within social
networks.

What about drama, comedy and animation? Short-form
comedy and animation probably have the easiest go of it,
because they can be delivered online with an advertising
payload of some sort. Happy Tree Friends is a great example
of how this works – but it took producers Mondo Media
nearly a decade to stumble into a successful economic model.
Feature-length comedy and feature-length drama are more
difficult nuts to crack, but they are not impossible. Again, the
key is to find the communities which will be most interested
in the production; this is not always entirely obvious, but the
filmmaker should have some idea of the target audience for
their film. While in preproduction, these communities need
to be wooed and seduced into believing that this film is meant
just for them, that it is salient. Productions can be released
through complementary distribution channels: a limited,
occasional run in rented exhibition spaces (which can be
“events”, created to promote and showcase the film); direct
DVD sales (which are highly lucrative if the producer does
this directly); online distribution vehicles such as iTunes
Movie Store; and through “community” viewing, where a
DVD is given to a few key members of the community in the
hopes that word-of-mouth will spread in that community,
generating further DVD sales.

None of this guarantees success, but it is the way things work
for independent productions in the 21st-century. All of this is
new territory. It isn’t a role that belongs neatly to the
producer of the film, nor, in the absence of studio muscle, is it
something that a film distributor would be competent at. This
may not be the producer’s job. But it is someone’s job.
Someone has to do it. Starting at the earliest stages of preproduction,
someone has to sit down with the creatives and
the producer and ask the hard questions: “Who is this film
intended for?” “What audiences will want to see this film – or
see it more than once?” “How do we reach these audiences?”
From these first questions, it should be possible to construct a
marketing campaign which leverages microaudiences and
social networks into ticket receipts and DVD sales and online
purchases.

So, as you sit down to do your planning today, and discuss
how to move Irish screen industries into the 21st century, ask
yourselves who will be fulfilling this role. The producer is
already overloaded, time-poor, and may not be particularly
good at marketing. The director has a vision, but might be
practically autistic when it comes to working with
communities. This is a new role, one that is utterly vital to the
success of the production, but one which is not yet budgeted
for, and one which we do not yet train people to fill.
Individuals have succeeded in this new model through their
own tireless efforts, but each of these have been scattershot;
there is a way to systematize this. While every production and
every marketing plan will be unique – drawn from the
fundamentals of the story being told – there are
commonalities across productions which people will be able
to absorb and apply, production after production.

One of my favorite quotes from science fiction writer WilliamGibson goes,
“The future is already here, it’s just not evenly
distributed.” This is so obviously true for film and television
production that I need only close by noting that there are a lot
of success stories out there, individuals who have taken the
new laws of hyperdistribution and sharing and turned them to
their own advantage. It is a challenge, and there will be
failures; but we learn more from our failures than from our
successes. Media production has always been a gamble; but
the audiences of the 21st century make success easier to
achieve than ever before.

Monorex 5th Birthday Party by CHU
Monorex 5th Birthday Party by CHU


Mark Pesce - Words.
CHU - Images.
Steve 'Fly Agaric'' - Mixing

Monday, July 12, 2010

Dudley Council Challenge. LET US HAVE OUR SAY like in Stoke-on-Trent

LETS TALK!

Hell yeah, lets talk, lets have a power point presentation, then talk. I hereby call upon Dudley Council, Ms. James and the Black Country to speed up the 'open' let's talk principle that STOKE-ON-TRENT council are trying.

In principle this seems like a 'democratic' process, where the 'people' actually get to vote on HOW their money and resources should be divided, shared, secured, advertised, etc.

So...what is the catch?

--Steve.


Residents Invited To Have Their Say On How To Save Approximately £30m


12 Jul 2010
Posted by Tony Walley

Residents are to be asked what they would like Stoke-on-Trent City Council to prioritise its spending on for the next financial year, on the back of stiff government cuts.

The authority, which has a budget of £209 million, needs to save approximately £30 million next year – a 14 per cent reduction.

A six-week ‘Let’s Talk’ public consultation will begin on Monday, and residents’ responses will help with tough decisions on where government cuts need to be made.

The consultation, which will run between 12 July – 20 August, will include:

* Face-to-face surveys carried out in local centres, shopping centres, markets, libraries, museums and bus stations
* An on-line survey via stoke.gov.uk/letstalk
* Billboard advertising to inform people about the consultation
* A dedicated phone line – 01782 235104 – where people can give their views in person

The council is responsible for hundreds of services in the city, from bin collections to schools. Some of the services are statutory, which means the council has to carry them out by law – these include looking after children in care and vulnerable adults, to highway maintenance and planning regulations. The authority also provides many discretionary services which the council believes it is right to offer residents – these include libraries, swimming pools, museums and allotments.

The survey questions ask people to say what is important to them from a list that includes:

* Encouraging more jobs and businesses
* Reducing anti-social behaviour and fear of crime
* Looking after the environment and tackling climate change
* Improving health and well-being
* Repairing and maintaining roads and pavements
* Keeping streets clean
* Improving educational achievement
* Supporting and protecting vulnerable adults and children
* Increasing recycling
* Providing sport and leisure facilities
* Providing decent and affordable housing

The results of the consultation will be reported to the council’s cabinet and the overview and scrutiny committees that help to put the budget together.

Councillor Kieran Clarke, cabinet member for finance, performance and governance, said:

Quote:
“We face very tough economic times, and the amount of money the government is asking us to save means we have to make very difficult decisions on where we prioritise our spending.

“Residents views are always important to us, but are even more so given the cuts that need to be made. Saving £30 million is a very hard task and will simply mean that we will not be able to deliver some of the services that we have been doing.

“The government’s emergency budget made it clear that we will not be allowed to raise council tax next year to help pay for services, so it is crucial to know what services are important to residents to help identify where the savings must be made.

“I urge as many residents as possible to respond to the consultation. By getting a good range of views from across the city, we will be able to take their views into account when setting the budget.”

http://pitsnpots.co.uk/news/2010/07/residents-invited-have-their-say-how-save-approximately-30m

UK demoloshion of swimming pools for leisure clubs.

The theme of this blog and most of my writings and my activities include swimming.  I have been involved in campaigning to save three pools in the Dudley burrough, Stourbridge, Brierley Hill and Coseley.

From my experience meeting and listening to councillors, M.P's and reading the news press, and protesting I have concluded that lawyer run capitalism, and the 'leisure and tourism' business in the UK is for the most part responsible for this national closure of 'swimming pools' in favour 'fun pools, before the 2008 economic heist, this process of removing 'free' public services has been on-going and has a complex of 'origins.

Generally I presume the process of 'privatization' and the wrestling of the 'agency for change' from the people, in effect turning us into property. The degradation of the consumer as well as the product.  I have seen this process eat away at the 'economy' with private off-shore banking, public services with private investors, health and nutrition with 'private' health clubs, social community injury's inflicted by 'private' surveilance, private 'security', private 'clubs' and private 'pubs'. Profit based death-cogs in the super-rich, super-major corporate ooze that's eating up global resources and turning the UK into a mini American satellite state, one giant mall with the occasional internement camp linking the parts together.

I don't presume that voting can make a difference in this process. I suggest that every individual must familiarize themselves with some simple questions:

1. Who distributes it?
2. How?
3. How did it get that way?
4. A hieracrhy of values?
 
--Steve
A swimming pool that sparked protests when it was threatened with closure has failed to sell at auction.
Campaigners rallied to save Edwardsville Swimming Pool in Treharris, Merthyr Tydfil, but were unable to secure enough money to keep it open.
Merthyr council closed the pool to make way for a new £30m leisure complex.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/wales/south_east_wales/10346418.stm

Meeting discusses Leeds sports centre community plans

* Social enterprise plans ambitious £1.5m scheme for threatened South Leeds Sports Centre
* Organiser 80 per cent certain community ownership will go ahead
Beeston residents last night attended a public meeting to discuss plans for the community to take control of a sports centre threatened with closure.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/leeds/2010/jul/08/south-leeds-pool

David Cameron and Nick Clegg and control

David Cameron and Nick Clegg : We'll transform Britain by giving power away

Dealing with the deficit is vital, but the real mission of the Coalition is to give people control over their lives, say David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

 
David Cameron and Nick Clegg
 
For decades, governments have assumed that the only way to make things better is to centralise Photo: Getty

When we formed our Coalition just nine weeks ago, we did so because we shared a view that our country needed strong and stable government to steer it through a time of enormous difficulty. With the largest peacetime deficit in our history, the inevitable short-termism of an unstable minority government wouldn't have been good enough. So we put aside our differences to work together in the national interest, and have set to work tackling Britain's debt.
But, for both of us, sorting out the public finances is a responsibility, not a passion. We didn't come into politics just to balance the books. We are both ambitious for Britain: we want to change our country for the better. We want to see the best schools open to the poorest children, a first-class NHS there for everyone, streets that are safe, families that are stable and communities that are strong.
Whatever the differences that exist between us and our parties, we both passionately believe in giving people more power over their lives. It has become increasingly clear to us that we can be a strong, reforming government if we build outwards from the instincts we share.

But our commitment to give power away isn't just born of instinct; it has been strengthened by the evidence of the past. For decades, governments have assumed that the only way to make things better is to centralise. Of course, central government has a crucial role to play, but it cannot and should not try to do everything. It's time for the central state to allow the genius of grassroots innovation, diversity and experimentation to take off.
We know this won't be easy. We know that the political machine has an inbuilt tendency to centralise. That's why we are bringing in a new way of coordinating government action. Last week we started publishing Structural Reform Plans, one for each government department. Don't let the dry name fool you. These are radical documents that are going to change the way government works.

Each government department has its own plan, with a list of objectives and deadlines to achieve them by. So far, this might sound like the last government with its Public Service Agreements and Prime Minister's Delivery Unit. The difference is in what we're asking departments to do – not to control things from the centre but to put in place structures that will allow people and communities to take power and control for themselves. In place of the old tools of bureaucratic accountability – top-down regulation and targets – are the new tools of democratic, bottom-up accountability – individual choice, competition, direct elections and transparency.

Decentralisation will mean different things across different services. In the plan for schools published last week we identify the major task for the Department for Education: to set schools free, encourage diversity and allow people to start up new schools, thereby opening up the state monopoly on education.

Instead of teachers thinking they have to impress the department, they will have to impress parents, who will finally have a real choice over where to send their child. The most disadvantaged children will benefit from a "pupil premium" so that schools have an incentive to take them on, rather than the incentives they have at the moment to keep them out.

Today we launch our White Paper on health. Yes, we're committed to increasing NHS resources in real terms in each year of this parliament, but we're also committed to reforming the NHS. To help achieve that we'll make sure every penny is spent more effectively, removing £1 billion a year by 2014/15 from bureaucracy and waste.

The plan for health, like all the others, says a lot about the Coalition – not just that we're committed to reform, but that the very act of combining our policies has made us more radical about decentralising power.
It combines Conservative thinking on choice and competition with the Liberal Democrat belief in local democracy to create a truly radical vision for the NHS – giving general practitioners authority over commissioning and patients much more control, and ensuring democratic accountability with councils taking greater responsibility, in particular over public health.

Dealing with the deficit will be painful, but if we ensure reform goes alongside it, Britain will be stronger, freer and fairer. We hope and expect that people will look back at the days when central government held all the power and think it arcane and bizarre. If we continue on the path laid by these plans, if we are bold enough to let go of the controls of government and if we can truly empower people and communities, this country has a great future to look forward to.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/david-cameron/7884681/David-Cameron-and-Nick-Clegg-Well-transform-Britain-by-giving-power-away.html

Thursday, July 8, 2010

2010 words on the Gulf Oil Spill (edited from a previous poem)

Us clams must stick apart” –Feudal Baron Periwinkle III.

Aphrodite rose from sea foam in film.
A centrifugal waterspout, sucking out the poison.

A Shell and a Sunflower are branded,
Sucked of meaning.
Twisted arms of godsoilmen
Workers, investers, safety chiefs,
Some work with sludge in hands
Some on the tongue, others dodge
Regulators.

Meet the supermajors
Finance and business from sifting Oil
Gulf scoop past oily Slick Cheney
Eating Warburtons with Shell fish

We roe past energy task force positions.
In still of night, calm waters, we release
The mycelium.
From the world Clam.

The Galloping Scallop clad man of greek myth come up
Knights of the Periwinkle clown swimming,
Bejewelled with clam lips and kisses.

Rich blue Oil spill or mother of pearl?
Like blended parrots and dead plankton,
Mixed emulsions. Beautiful Miss Oil Spill?
How can I find beauty in this Oil terror? I tried
And reality slapped me across the Horizon

Crude awakening to the spill-age.
A Collosal squid princess come's up
Riding old Jakobsschelp, a Mycelium Goddess
To help a Hutch load of old scallops rise out
The Seafloor Blues
And infiltrate the slick.

The Deep sea Mollusc speak out:
“Lo! Scallops of the ocean,
Down by the great rising Chiefs of coral.
Take this Big Periwinkle into your earshel and Smell the sign
Touch the logo and ask:
How many ridges does a dream have?

Who regulates the regulator’s.
Dead Plankton in the paint
And the city sewers flowoil
Heed the clam of commerce and the
Cockle-shock shimmy of stock.
What sea-shell, what Sunflower?

Up comes a horse covered in Scallops,
Prince Periwinkle gargling:
“Skullops for one shelling a dollop”

Sea wave-wind Mussels flex into fossils.
The smell of oilamp from the limpet.
“Lets Oil the Oystery of Oil and stir with a staff,
Lets foil sharks with electric shocks,
Struck coil!”.

“Swim with the titanic Semantic shift,
Up out the shell flower.
Again, to tell a snail tale of the planetary shaft.
Rock Drill. Oil Men. Usury. Greed.
Son’s of Thunder Juice, Snel, quick up
To defend the word.
A sea slug with untold feet runs with you
On a hyperbolic plane.

Hoily Tools of the Big Petrol scoop
Walloping the marine scene with oil sheen.
Another spellage. Ocean deep n' blue and
Black rusty red, bloody.

Petrochem generation X. Drill here.
Die here. Who makes the plans, the cuts,
The safety checks, who sets the profits,
Who banks in the cayman Islands, and
Exploits every loop-hole, who, now who.

So wee rise up like foam,
Mycelium to eat the Oil
My thoughts on it: I ride a bike.

Waxy Parrot Snot in the sea bank
How to dress up a death spill?

Casting Shells from my hand,
The wavy lines trace a swellmighty calm.
His Holiness the Buddhaclam Caliph of Pearl
Comes up, out of the Santiago Shell mound gate
To tell us of what fate?

Great clam emperor of the
Mollusca lineage comes up
“By nature the sign, 500 Million years of geometry spun
Into this Sunflower, into this Shell. What lies?”

The Duke Periwinkle of Clam tissue
And the Ivory Sheen realm
Comes up
“Look down the well. Oily DEA and ivory salt newspaper
Scalping truth, their lies litter our vessel,
Truth and beauty from underwater vents”

Meanwhile oilmen pollute the ocean-Green with
Sculpted Pipe lines, crime lines, below
Waves of DEA projects, No Oildea how sticky
the handshell shakes over the Sunflower.
Ode to the Great Old One's,
Please hear us and help a sign-sailor resist
A super-major temptress,
Ocean blackmail.

Oil spill, pipe-line, spoil, Usury, coercion,
Interference with natural deep sea black smokers

Oyster Gods of ancient oceans sculpt the wave
And weave pearls
Serpents teeth sew
Sew Sew an oil net to stop the leak.

A solution in the name of thy snakeoil potion,
Rise up Sea-meat wonders with one hundred eyes
You that dwell upon Old heraldic shields,
Rise up like bubbles and show us your shape.

If only Molluscs could grow wings?
Dutch English American Oil statistics?
More scallops?

Now our chariot of sea gods roam the ocean wide
With the Sigil of Galloping Periwinkles,
Sea weed tales of a great green whale and
A clam with hinged jaws.

Big Blood and looting operation disaster
After disaster, after disaster.
We charge the water and turn the planet
Back into a healthy paradise,
In this poem.

Our Seal: Coningklick.
We raise a toast to Scallops and the food of Godzilla,
And celebrate the marvel of Clam propulsion.
Bio-technology is trying to show us HOW.

Venusa comes up
Surfing on a scallop, leading with a shell in hat
And staff in hand.

Ms. C. Scholar and her mussel
Swimming down Saint James's glory-gate to
Oil Cow & coo

“Now Scoop it. What News Independence.
Who distributes it, how?

And the church wants TTOTTAL Informollusc awaveness.
Sculpt a skull and crossbones in the Crude
Awakening to sea Pirates.
Send in Jack Sparrow to help waterworld.”

Cockoily and Crude Millions scalloped out
Of the earth's body PO.
To the Botticelli Shell-mex
Mix of Soupermajor Bumbling Patroilmen.

Heart of calcite, home of crystal, listen,
I Toil to swim with the Amateur Swimming Association
Esso sponsored swimming, like
Greenpeace sponsored Oil Drilling.

Pick a Shell and drink our James Juice.
The word can plug that sucker up.
The word, the vessel of communication.

The sacred periwinkle proportion.
Now sea gold and Periwinkle Cockle
And aragonite Shillyshellying,
On land we're all out of gas?

Crashing oil and Blood in synchronous waves,
Half-mollusc, half man with vulva comes up,
The crowned Cuthulu cult riding a clam to shore,

To soil on past British Patrolingmen.
We and the sea leagues of 93’000 species
Of Mollusc, and cuttlefish, calcium from sea foam
We are the froth of Saint James Juice.
We lament the spill to blunt the drill,
Gather and think to cap and fill.

Rock Drill and Throne.
HOLY Scollop of truth Swim on your way!
Scooping the word and sludge, selling lies.
How deep does the drill hole go?
Blue Black pills sp'ills?

Up comes the Count of cockles
To calculate fossil fuel foolishness.
Re-shore em’ that Oystery contains Pearls.
History is ours, oceanic.

Hollow Earth Krewe come up to protect the crust.
Don't drill, hear!
Listen, HEMP!
Pull down thy vanity,
Pull up thy drill rig.

The silver pink flesh of salmon
Emerald sea weed and Electric blue
Dance on our Shield.

What pearls lie in the sign?
Schaaldrake Unreeled from the Well,
The conscious net.
The day of the Dolphin Gulf prayer,
calling all Oystery’s hero’s.

Winds blow above the abyss of humanity
Deep space
Mind link sleeping beauty on the sea bed.
Awake.

A clamber of underwater shimmers
“What the devil’s covering you, old directors?”
Holy floor, must be peak oil time!

Fisherman on fire, Oil brigade, fire brigade
What Sustenance?
Entangled oil pipline artery of earth rot?
Well well well, Oil be damned!

The dead seamen-oil-blood transfusion.
The workers that died, the injured?

Investigative poetry safety bill,
The profit margin and depths of energy mob
Investment.

The TAX dodge.
The Tectonic shifts and shafts of geopolitics.
The ocean gods versus the greedy monkey man.

Swallow the shilly-shally sea
And go a’ rummaging
Through tears,
Craft a dam good idea.
Boom, boundary and boundary dissolution
Be A solution

The ocean, the salt.
Oil and sea water mixed.
A mussel bound with a wisdom tongue in a Dutch
Pit, Venus in shell, A tongue enters shell.
That feminine Scallop.

Yes, make love, and drill for love
In a land bed, not a sea bed,
Drilling for oil, making death.

Beware the starfish and oystercatchers
The Condi Rice tankers,
Our boat enters the earshells of Leviathon.
Invisible on a mind wave,
Seers are feeding,
We meditate on bivalvia underground chants
We grow new ears from our Gulf of tears.

Total germs and a fake Sunflower
A suspect Shell and five sided fuel mob are
Apprehended by Sea worms.

Please dive off the Euro board, twist and tuck pike
Summersault in James Juice.
Send word, make merry love.

Hoily Houses Haunt the Oystery sauce.
The currents of Oysery in the Musselmen’s mind.
How to Oil the machine and then stir, sir?
Who distributes it, how?

Scallop filtration of nature’s Mouth pit.
The Dogon Dragon’s of ocean deep
Breathing black smoke
The mouth to hell.

Up comes,
Hermaphrodite of the black-gold waters.
Global eyes of the oceanic gleam
Where Ibskal speak of sea diamonds, pearls
Nommo booty.

Do not disturb the Calm mud.
Look Deep, look well , Deeper.
Lick the James Juice-oil, drink the poison
And ride the snake to the pit of Saint DEA,
Eat them all, spit fire and burn off.

To planet Exo-Clamboil.
Go drill land if you must drill.
Elders send word of Hopi,
Inducing Amanita Mollusca.
Sometides wash nutrients up Ripples of the great
Allrudy wish-ways, ripples and
Baron periwinkles dimples.
Smiles.

Chevrollop, clamswallop, wham, Bully Peakoil
Big Shh’ galaxy, in silence.
Sit ans send ‘word’ shaman styles.
Get roots, touch and ingest earth.

And inside the noble clam chamber
Mr. Mussel finds shelter from transfusions
And Cockledoom on a dinner plate. He says:

“Oh shil, you supermajor logo shystirs.
Rumble of waves around scalloped edge
Where Venus teleports - to visit ecstatic ten-thousand
Million hundred gallons.

And Brand new standards, drink the ocean ink
Of clam soup, Ingest the Hoily Ocean Extracts
Spit fire and burn of excess Vapourdiz

Wade through the bauxite,
Don’t step on our eggshares
Show foresight. Transparent business
Transparent waters, in soiled by fuel addiction.

Juice the wellwell markets, be merry,
Ppeak into these eggshawls. Schelp,
I need some clammy mammy?
Muscle and sperm of capitol, testoss and hydrocarbons,
Spilling on land, sea and air. Who’s share
Who...and how?

Thankyou, the pearls really shine.
500 Million years of Scallop evolution
Sculpted from chalk with tyme.
Real Crotch Oil spread and royal flush
Roe Smoothie ripple?
The synchro-swimming around,
Mixing a schaal Pink into the rusty current.

Shellfish swim for Global ecosystem
And it’s edges.
Interconnected, balanced, shared biological systems
Ecological logic and example, begging to be copied
By Human industry, ECOnomic.

The taste and the Zap,
Filtering compost on a sea-bed,
The underwater awakening like Fungus,
The Clam infiltrates the swill.
To Clam the cap, and Clam the leak.

Shell shaped filler, nature’s way has your answer
Physics of plugging.
Heaven and Hell,
The birth canal off Lucifer von Periwinkle and his
Turned Kingdom of Oilmen! Lo,
The Darth Vader, using modern technology:
The force,
To extract fuel from our mothers vitalorgans

The chatter and Swell at the centre of the Earth.
The Venus Princess and the Vulva of life,
New birth.

Up against the rig,
Marian’s well like a Mermaid's pool
Moist and as a peachy love nest.

Master of devices and of painted Green weeds.
Help us Grow. Overcome Oils vices.
A Pilgrim Artefact slyjacked.
Van Gogh’s Sunflowers stolen by British thieves.

Marian! Murmur and maid,
With comb and mirror,
Homeless, bedless.
Comb exchanged for a clam-pick to pluck
Our Lyre songs of ocean goddesses vs.
Godsoilmen.

Merry tinkles of shells and deep-blues for heads.
Shimmer of garments, skirt trim with coral.
Oh yeah, to schell the proof to buy the truth.
Can’t buy these shell shoes sir.
Only our boat is for sail.

Sea Red and sigil read
Backwards. Michelle, and her pink mantle.
Swimming with our vows
To explore the edges of the Sun behind
The sun, the Sirius star system of
Galactic ideas, focused on the Gulf Hole.

Elixir of Baron Periwinkle
To makes a tasty tipple.
A plug mixture, to cap the hole with a
Fungus cap. An intelligent goo.

A tale of a virus so vile to us! Oil.
With a treacherous hijacked Scallop
Snapping at your toe,
Hoily mollusc of Saint James,
Protect all sea life.

Claims the clams that a clamp down on
Periwinkle’s clump, a cap oer’ the hole to hell
Dive down and pry benearth,
Think.

The Venus Mermaiden’s
Have risen from the sea to show you how
She-sails.