Go-Go: Pretty Cool Late ‘80s Documentary About Washington D.C.’s Funk Scene

I was turned on to "Go-Go" by none other than Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye, when i was just getting into hip-hop circa '82 these two would always get me listening to some of their own home grown tapes. Trouble Funk, E.U. Redds and the Boys, Rare Essence and others... especially on long drives, 45 minute grooves, records that go from one side to the next before a jam is done. I was always grateful. It's amazing to me that Go-Go has never really spread beyond the Washington DC area, other than some hard core fans here and there, and it's still thriving to this day! Live shows, radio shows, public access on cable TV, it's still going down!



Thanks DangerousMinds for this post!

The Godfather of Go-Go Chuck Brown, with his Soul Searchers

Background information on David N. Rubin’s 1990 documentary Go-Go Swing is pretty hard to come by. But that hardly takes away from how deep a snapshot it is of the highly regional Washington D.C. brand of funk called go-go.

Developed first by jazz guitarist and singer Chuck Brown (whose group the Soul Searchers were at the top of D.C.’s scene), go-go is characterized by its laidback but dynamic funk rhythms accented with heavy conga beats, freaky keyboards, blasting horns and call-and response vocals. And its been a staple of the mid-Atlantic scene for the past 35 years. 

Go-go reached a crest during the 1980s, as bands like Trouble Funk, E.U., Rare Essence, Redds and the Boys, Hot Cold Sweat, the Junk Yard Band and others got signed and discarded by various majors and independents. E.U.’s performance of “Da Butt” on Spike Lee’s School Daze was a coup as far as national exposure for the music.

Go-go has retained its shine to this day, as plenty of R&B artists dabble in its rhythms to this day, and D.C. troupe Beat Ya Feet Kings bringing next-generation go-go dance style to a range of tempos and genres.

Rubin’s doc goes deep into the context of the go-go scene, dealing with the trials, tribulations, mournings and celebrations that are all part of living in D.C. Check out the whole thing—it’s really worth it.



Part II  || Part III || Part IV || Part V || Part VI

Here's some footage of the excellent go-go rhymer D.C. Scorpio performing “Stone Cold Hustler” at the Capital Center, backed by the Soul Searchers.

One of the most classic Go-Go recordings that actually made it to a record.
Touble Funk "Drop The Bomb" (short/edited version)



Rarely are these groups captured on studio recordings that are any good, but here's a few undeniable classics:

Trouble Funk "Pump Me Up"


Chuck Brown "Bustin' Loose"

Remembering The [1st] All-Black Lineup

Yesterday, September 1st, 39 years ago to the day, my favorite team as a pre-teen kid, put nine black players in the starting lineup of a major league baseball game. here's a great story about it that was sent to me via these guys working on the Dock Ellis "No-No Dockumentary" from the MLBlogs Network.

The events of September 1, 1971 have never received much media attention, paling in comparison to the coverage of Jackie Robinson's historic entrance into the major leagues. Yet, the happenings in Pittsburgh on that date, 35 years ago, constitute one of the most significant milestones in the racial history of major league baseball.

That afternoon, while sitting in his office at Three Rivers Stadium, Pittsburgh Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh prepared to oppose the Philadelphia Phillies and left-handed pitcher Woodie Fryman. Murtaugh filled out the following names on his lineup card:

Rennie Stennett, 2B
Gene Clines, CF
Roberto Clemente, RF
Willie Stargell, LF
Manny Sanguillen, C
Dave Cash, 3B
Al Oliver, 1B
Jackie Hernandez, SS
Dock Ellis, P

At first glance, Murtaugh's lineup seemed to represent nothing particularly out of the ordinary. In fact, the lineup appeared typical of ones that he would use against left-handed starters like Fryman, with the exception of the lefty-swinging Al Oliver at first base in place of the right-handed batting Bob Robertson. Upon further review, however, observers in the press box noticed that the lineup consisted exclusively of African-American and dark-skinned Latin American players. Baseball experts surmised that for the first time in the history of baseball, and 24 years after Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier, a major league team was employing an all-black lineup.

Gene Clines, one of the players in the lineup that evening, initially believed that the Pirates had used an all-black lineup several years earlier. Willie Stargell, one of the senior members of the 1971 Pirates, corrected Clines' speculation. "No, this is the first time," said Stargell, the Hall of Fame outfielder-first baseman who died in 2001. "Back in 1967, in Philadelphia, [former Pirate manager] Harry Walker started eight of us, but the pitcher, Denny Ribant, was white."

Although Murtaugh's decision to write out an all-black lineup drew relatively little attention from the fans and media, it was immediately noticed by some Pirate players in the clubhouse prior to the game. "We saw the lineup on the [clubhouse] wall... Oh yeah, we were aware," recalled pitcher Steve Blass, the eventual winner in Game Seven of the 1971 World Series.

In 1971, the Pirates represented baseball's most heavily integrated team, with black and Latino players accounting for nearly fifty percent of the club's roster. The Pirates also featured one of baseball's most harmonious teams, with friendships and gatherings often crossing racial lines. White players often socialized with black and Latino players, either at bars and restaurants after games, or at barbecues and parties organized by one of the team's leaders, Willie Stargell. Considering the unity of the team, the players' reaction to the all-black lineup was not surprising. "We had a loose group, [so] we were all laughing and hollering about it and teasing each other," said Blass. "I thought that was a great reaction."

Third baseman Richie Hebner, who sat out the game with an injury, said the players' pre-game reaction to the lineup typified the kind of good-natured racial humor that was prevalent with the Pirates. Hebner said such humor was doled out purely for fun, and not intended to be taken seriously. "Some of the guys joked around the clubhouse, saying, 'Hey, you white guys, you can take a rest tonight'... Back then, Ellis and Stargell would get on us [white players] and we'd get on them. You could do that," Hebner recalled.

Other players, like Al Oliver, didn't realize that the Pirates were actually using an all-black lineup until the middle of the game. "I had no clue," Oliver said, "Because as a rule we had at least five or six [black and Latino players] out there anyway. So, two or three more was no big thing. I didn't know until about the third or fourth inning. Dave Cash mentioned to me, he says, 'Hey, Scoop, we got all brothers out here.'" Oliver pauses for a moment and laughs. "You know, I thought about it, and I said, 'We sure do!' "

The fact that Oliver even started the game was strange for several reasons. Why was Oliver, primarily a center fielder in 1971, playing at first base instead of usual starter Bob Robertson? Even more strangely, why was Oliver starting against a left-hander, when Murtaugh had benched him against many southpaws that summer? "That's a good question," Oliver replied. "That's a good question, because to this day when people ask me who was the toughest pitcher I ever faced, it was Woodie Fryman." One article indicated that Robertson sat out the game with a minor injury, but didn't specify what the injury was. According to Oliver, Murtaugh may have been looking to light a fire under a slumping Robertson, who had gone 2-for-14 in his previous four games. "Bob Robertson normally would have played that day, but Dave Cash had told me within the last [few] years, and I never knew this, that Murtaugh was kind of disappointed in Bob for whatever reason. I don't know what the exact reason was, but he was disappointed in Bob, so he sat him down. He played me that night at first base."

Popular and patriarchal, Murtaugh had become a comforting, father-like figure for almost all of the Pirate players, regardless of skin color or nationality. In the past, he had not hesitated in giving significant amounts of playing time to black and Latino players, and now seemed to be showing pioneering courage in making out the first all-black lineup when he was under no pressure to do so. So why did Murtaugh write out the lineup the way he did on September 1, 1971? Given the decision to start Oliver over Robertson, was it possible that Murtaugh was looking for a way to put an all-black lineup on the field? Oliver doesn't think so. "In my estimation, I think Danny was just putting the best team on the field, and he probably didn't notice [the all-black lineup] until later. I didn't know until the third or fourth inning."

read the rest of the story here.

from Bruce Markusen's Cooperstown Confidential

Bike Lane Indicators Get Straight to the Point

from my friend Sean Bonner's Tumblr:


This photograph was taken by Carlton Reid, and the stencil street art it documents is the work of Peter Drew of Adelaide, Australia.

Prof. Michael Lebowitz: The Socialist Alternative

Continuing with our several days of great biting from DangerousMinds, here's another clip worth watching with Metzger interviewing:

Due to increasing competition for scarce natural resources, a barbarism haunts the planet. In the drive for expansion and profits, the endgame of the capitalist system promises imperialism, domination of impoverished peoples and an ecological nightmare. The capitalist path is a death trap, but there is a just, people-based alternative: Socialism. In this wide-ranging interview, Prof. Michael Lebowitz discusses his latest book, The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development.

D-Nice’s True Hip-Hop Stories: Great vid about Masta Ace and Marley Marl’s “The Symphony”

I've know D-Nice since the 80's, always the nice guy, and a good rapper, he had one minor hit "My Name Is D-Nice", MTV and the whole sha-bang, and eventually came to be an adult, now he makes movies, websites, and has been a photographer and a photography fan for a long time. Here's a nice pice I found on DangerousMinds a few days ago.

This culture always seems to conflate hip-hop’s artists-turned-marketing-moguls—Diddy, 50, Jay-Z—with its true renaissance people, those who are truly hands-on in many of the disciplines inside hip-hop. People like Bronx-raised Derrick Jones a.k.a. D-Nice, who for the past couple of years has put together the excellent short video series True Hip-Hop Stories.

Starting as a teen in the mid-‘80s Jones was the third original member along with KRS-ONE of Boogie Down Productions, and he put out a couple good but undersung albums as part of that crew. Since then, he’s become one of hip-hop’s original go-to guys for web design, and he’s also made his name via his photography and video work, along with getting back into DJing.

Basically he’s pushing culture rather than colored water or a clothing line. That’s refreshing. Here’s one of his first videos for the True Hip Hop Stories series—it’s Masta Ace talking about how he got in on one of hip-hop’s quintessential posse cuts, the Juice Crew’s fantastic “The Symphony” from 1988. It’s recommended you check out the rest of his vids.

True Hip-Hop Stories: Masta Ace from D-Nice on Vimeo.

Here’s the damn funny official video for “The Symphony.” Classic!

here's a few bonus tracks that i love from this crew:

Kool G Rap:



Big Daddy Kane's Debut with Biz Markie as host:

America's Got some glaring cultural contrasts

Once again, from our friend Richard Metzger at Dangerous Minds:

Two viral videos today in the Summer of Hate caused me to think some more about the IQ stratification in this country. In truth, the only thing they have in common is that I watched one right after the other.

First we have the grotesque, transparently manipulative commercial for Glenn Beckstock this weekend in D.C. I won’t even go into the reasons why watching this made me throw up a little in my mouth because the reasons are just so glaringly obvious to anyone with a decent education or even a rudimentary grasp of American history. Dare to press play and watch this for as long as you can stand it. This commercial, as dumb and as boring as it seems, functions as nothing short of a sophisticated mindrape of our most stupid and easily manipulated citizenry. I’m not overstating the case here. I’ll bet there are people who fucking cried when they watched this cynical, brain-damaged glorification of crazypants, megalomaniacal Beck (and not for the same reason I wanted to cry, either).

And then there is the bottom clip, of LA-based performer Prince Poppycock’s flamboyant appearance on America’s Got Talent. Poppycock’s beautifully costumed and choreographed run at Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” where he, as Piers Morgan puts it “outcamps Freddie Mercury” is a delight and a lot of fun to watch, but what’s fascinating here is to think about the overlap in the audiences of the Glenn Beck show and of America’s Got Talent.

WHAT did the teabagger types, who obviously make up at least some portion of that show’s audience, make of Poppycock moving into the semi-finals? Imagine all the homophobic lemon faces that were pulled in “Good Christian Homes” all across Amerikkka on Monday night!

It's amazing to me that the people who are able to appreciate and embrace an unusual performer like Prince Poppycock in a national talent show, can coexist with the type of “patriotic” idiots we’re going to see showing up for the Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin rally this weekend.

As you watch the news this weekend, ask yourself for how much longer will this be the case?

Rubble Kings: New York City street gangs and the music that brought them together

This looks incredible!



From Shan Nicholson, director of Downtown Calling, comes this new documentary on New York City gangs called Rubble Kings.

From 1968 to 1975, gangs ruled New York City. Beyond the idealistic hopes of the civil rights movement lay a unfocused rage. Neither law enforcement nor social agency could end the escalating bloodshed. Peace came only through the most unlikely and courageous of events that would change the world for generations to come by giving birth to hip-hop culture.

from DangerousMinds Via Stupefaction

Target, stop trying to buy elections!

I just got this great message via MoveOn.org:

The retail company Target just gave over $150,000 to buy ads supporting a far-right Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota.

That's bad enough. But the stakes are much higher than one candidate and one company. If we don't push back hard, this will just be the tip of the iceberg. Other corporations will learn that they can pour money into elections to buy the outcome they want. So we're sending a message to Target's CEO that we won't shop there if Target continues spending money on elections.

check out http://targetboycott.org

This Modern World asks:A mosque near ground zero?

I'm offended even thinking about it! On earth and parallel earth alike, the wingnuts escalate the crazy BY TOM TOMORROW

(click on story image to read it full size)



getting caught in the shitstorm vortex...

Thanks, Eric

M O S Q U E (cont.)

I'm a New Yorker by residence since 1986 and in spirit my whole life.
I was here that day, 9/11/2001
Friends of mine were covered in World Trade Center dust.

This is a no brainer for most New Yorkers,
including those who lost family and lived closest to the destruction.

Let it be.

Stop The Wars,
Educate Our Children
Get us National Health Care
Feed The Hungry
Regulate Wall Street

Fuck this fake controversy!
No matter how stupid i think religions are, this is BEYOND stupid.
THIS IS NEW YORK, five blocks is like... 20 miles in most towns in this country.
All this republikkkan media shit storm is so fucking lame i can hardly believe people are even reporting it.
What The Fuck is the world coming to?
STAY THE FUCK OUTA NEW YORK IF YOU ARE AGAINST THE MOSQUE OR ARE AFRAID OF PEOPLE UNLIKE YOURSELVES, YOU FOOLS.

That said,
so of course we got lots of good supportive press for our efforts yesterday.
Read yesterdays post below and you can see why.

Thanks for your support of all the causes that make humans better.

GEF

UPDATE: Lots of piss-poor horribly written and horribly slanted press as well, it's really incredible.

now for a laugh . . .

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Parent Company Trap
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

All In A Days Work...On a Non-Issue, Diversion from the Real Problems Facing Our Nation.

-please click on each image to see bigger-


Monday morning my old friend Russell Simmons called me up. Before he even finished the sentence I knew what was going down and what I wanted to do. We were going to revisit The Liberty Street protest. This was warrented by all the insanity surrounding the proposed building of a new Muslim mosque about six blocks away from "Ground Zero" (never mind that there is already a mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero already, for 40 years) and isn't there going to be a multi-denominational grieving place at the actual memorial on the hallowed ground? ...

Anyway, my personal idea was to just label the entire building with the huge 7 foot letters spelling out M-O-S-Q-U-E (similar to how we did N-O W-A-R back before the Republikkkan convention in 2004), but unfortunately Russ, and my wife (who came up with the idea to use "CoExist"), thought it was a bit too harsh, or "punk", and feeding into the frenzy of "negativity"... Well they are Russell's windows, and there are many things we don't agree about, being friends for over 25 years, you overlook some things, besides, it was still a great opportunity to make a statement that the world could see from his windows overlooking the actual World Trade Center site, not blocks away like the proposed mosque/cultural center will eventually be. So we went over some ideas and searched some existing graphics (with my friend and design collaborator over the years, Sean Bonner) and came to where we did. I think it's pretty cool, even if a bit tame.

(Yes, the "aum" symbol is backwards, this was obviously liberty taken in the original to help spell out the "Coexist" message that inspired our rendition.)

I mean seriously, of course we don't give a shit about where a mosque is. There should be one there closer by the WTC! We have them all over New York City. Personally if someone needs the crutch of religion, why not there? I don't give a fuck! This is a matter of principle. This is not being fought by real New Yorkers, this is being fought by some right wing assholes who have nothing to do with our city, carpetbaggers trying to make the news for their batshit, fucked up, xenophobic, racist agenda. The whole thing is fucking disgusting, I can hardly believe how so much of the country is falling for this diversion, it's pathetic and sad.


from the Bible. Mark 12:31 "Love thy neighbor..."

Verizon & Google Want to Kill the Open Internet -- Media Mogul Confirms Their Bad Intentions

Google's market capitalization is $150 billion. Verizon's is $85 billion. They don't care about our wellbeing. Even if one of them tells us it won't "be evil."

By Rep. Alan Grayson, from AlterNet

"[Barry] Diller asserted that the Google-Verizon proposal "doesn't preserve 'net neutrality,' full stop, or anything like it." Asked if other media executives were staying quiet because they stand to gain from a less open Internet, he said simply, "Yes."" New York Times, August 12, 2010

The Verizon-Google Net Neutrality Proposal begins by stating that "Google and Verizon have been working together to find ways to preserve the open Internet." Well, that's nice. Imagine what they would have come up with if they had been trying to kill off the open Internet.

Actually, you don't have to imagine it. Because that's what this is. An effort to kill off the open Internet.

Much of the coverage of the Verizon-Google Proposal has focused on only one of the proposal's many problems: the fact that the proposal allows wireless broadband carriers -- like, say, Verizon, for instance -- to discriminate in handling Internet traffic in any manner they choose. They can charge content providers, they can block content providers, and they can slow down content providers, just as they please. That sure doesn't sound "neutral."

We've already seen examples of political censorship over mobile networks. In 2007, Verizon refused to run a pro-choice text message from advocacy group NARAL, due to its supposedly 'unsavory' nature. Yes, this happened; yes, this kind of censorship would be continue to be legal under the Google-Verizon deal; and yes, Google, this is evil.

But the Verizon-Google Proposal allows almost as much latitude to other internet carriers, like cable and DSL carriers. Under the heading "Network Management," all carriers can "engage in reasonable network management," which "includes any technically sound practice" (which means what?). And it specifically includes the power to "prioritize general classes or types of Internet traffic, based on latency." The term "latency" means delays in downloading, from carrying video files and such. So if you want video, and YouTube won't pay Verizon to provide it, then Verizon can "prioritize" other traffic. And then your two-minute video will take two hours to see. And let's say you want to start a new website that offers video -- good luck getting through to Verizon's customer service department, to have Verizon place it in the right 'tier' of Verizon's internet service. In my experience, customer service requests have extraordinarily high "latency."

Furthermore, under the heading "Non-Discrimination Requirement" (that sounds promising!), wireline carriers cannot engage in "undue discrimination." "Undue discrimination!" What, exactly, is "due" discrimination? And even then, the presumption of non-discrimination "could be rebutted."

And if a carrier somehow manages to run afoul of these absurdly loose standards, the FCC doesn't even have the power to act, unless someone actually finds out about the discrimination, complains about it, and can prove it. And even then, the Verizon-Google Proposal limits the penalty to $2 million.

Do you happen to know what Verizon's revenue is every 10 minutes? It's . . . $2 million. That's right. The maximum fine is equal to what Verizon takes in every 10 minutes.

Do we laugh? Or do we cry?

This would give Verizon -- and every other large internet carrier -- the equivalent of a cheap "put" option on every company with an internet-based product or service. For a mere $2 million, Verizon could secretly block (or just mess with) the internet content of a billion-dollar company, destroying its market value overnight. And, perhaps, sending those customers to Verizon's rival product or service.

Now, I really would like to believe that the FCC can deliver on guaranteeing net neutrality. But remember, this 'proposal' came after months of secret, closed-door meetings with the FCC, spurred by Chairman Julius Genachowski, that sought an industry- brokered deal along the lines of the Verizon-Google Proposal. And when the proposal was issued, net neutrality's longtime ally, Commissioner Michael Copps, responded as follows: "Some will claim this announcement moves the discussion forward. That's one of its many problems."

When I see our most stalwart friend on the commission coming out against a deal shepherded by the Chairman, it doesn't inspire confidence that the FCC can hold the line against telecom and cable companies, when those companies have something else in mind.

Google's market capitalization is $150 billion. Verizon's is $85 billion. They don't care about our wellbeing. Never have, never will. Even if one of them tells us it won't "be evil."

It's time for the FCC to step up. It's time for Congress to step up. It's time for all of us to step up. We need for the law to protect the internet: No discrimination in pricing or in service. No self-regulation by corporate titans. And no blessing of corrupt deals at the FCC.

And we need all citizens to engage, to be vigilant. Remember, no one in Big Business has an interest in keeping this medium open to all of us. The only interest that wants to keep the internet open and free, for you and me, is you and me.

So if you care about a free and open internet, uncensored by Big Business, then look toward the horizon. A storm is brewing. There's a hard rain coming.

Alan Grayson is congressman for Florida's 8th District.

© 2010 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/147921/

Future Currency: Redesigning The American Dollar

(Click on images to see full details)

Duncan Dowling has come up with some stylish concepts for redesigning American dollars. The vertical layout makes the money easier to handle because that’s the way paper currency is exchanged between people and machines.

You can read more about the project at Dowling’s website.

We have submitted a design concept to a competition being run by New York designer Richard Smith. The Dollar ReDe$ign Project hopes to bring about change for everyone. We want to rebrand the US Dollar, rebuild financial confidence and revive our failing economy.

Thanks, DangerousMinds

"Theory of disgust’s moral role and the evolutionary forces that determined it"

Ewwwwwwwww!
The surprising moral force of disgust

By Drake Bennett | from the Boston Globe

“Two things fill my mind with ever renewed wonder and awe the more often and deeper I dwell on them,” wrote Immanuel Kant, “the starry skies above me, and the moral law within me.”

Where does moral law come from? What lies behind our sense of right and wrong? For millennia, there have been two available answers. To the devoutly religious, morality is the word of God, handed down to holy men in groves or on mountaintops. To moral philosophers like Kant, it is a set of rules to be worked out by reason, chin on fist like Rodin’s thinker.

But what if neither is correct? What if our moral judgments are driven instead by more visceral human considerations? And what if one of those is not divine commandment or inductive reasoning, but simply whether a situation, in some small way, makes us feel like throwing up?

This is the argument that some behavioral scientists have begun to make: That a significant slice of morality can be explained by our innate feelings of disgust. A growing number of provocative and clever studies appear to show that disgust has the power to shape our moral

judgments. Research has shown that people who are more easily disgusted by bugs are more likely to see gay marriage and abortion as wrong. Putting people in a foul-smelling room makes them stricter judges of a controversial film or of a person who doesn’t return a lost wallet. Washing their hands makes people feel less guilty about their own moral transgressions, and hypnotically priming them to feel disgust reliably induces them to see wrongdoing in utterly innocuous stories.

Today, psychologists and philosophers are piecing these findings together into a theory of disgust’s moral role and the evolutionary forces that determined it: Just as our teeth and tongue first evolved to process food, then were enlisted for complex communication, disgust first arose as an emotional response to ensure that our ancestors steered clear of rancid meat and contagion. But over time, that response was co-opted by the social brain to help police the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Today, some psychologists argue, we recoil at the wrong just as we do at the rancid, and when someone says that a politician’s chronic dishonesty makes her sick, she is feeling the same revulsion she might get from a brimming plate of cockroaches.

“Disgust was probably the most underappreciated moral emotion, the most unstudied one,” says Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist at the University of Virginia. “It’s become politically much more relevant since the culture wars of the 1990s, and so within the broader renaissance of moral psychology disgust has been a particularly hot topic.”

Psychologists like Haidt are leading a wave of research into the so-called moral emotions — not just disgust, but others like anger and compassion — and the role those feelings play in how we form moral codes and apply them in our daily lives. A few, like Haidt, go so far as to claim that all the world’s moral systems can best be characterized not by what their adherents believe, but what emotions they rely on.

There is deep skepticism in parts of the psychology world about claims like these. And even within the movement there is a lively debate over how much power moral reasoning has — whether our behavior is driven by thinking and reasoning, or whether thinking and reasoning are nothing more than ornate rationalizations of what our emotions ineluctably drive us to do. Some argue that morality is simply how human beings and societies explain the peculiar tendencies and biases that evolved to help our ancestors survive in a world very different from ours.

continue reading the original article HERE.

thanks, Arts & Letters Daily

The Majestic Plastic Bag

Ah, the plastic cycle of life! Heal The Bay produced this advocacy video, the message of which is: put an end to plastic pollution. The short-form "nature mockumentary" is narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Jeremy Irons and tracks the "migration" of a plastic bag from a grocery store parking lot to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the Pacific Ocean.

from Xeni at BoingBoing [via Submitterator] - thanks!

Solar Power Is Cheaper Than Nuclear Power for the First Time

(actually in the long run, i've always KNOWN solar power was less expensive, especially when you consider all the "extras" of nuclear power. It's cool that penny for penny now just the cost to the consumer is beginning to shine)

Here’s bright spot in the news of the day: energy from new solar installations has, for the first time, become cheaper than energy from new nuclear plants, according to a new Duke University study. Thanks to cost-saving technologies and economies of scale, price can no longer be an excuse to invest in nuclear power rather than solar.

In North Carolina, nuclear energy costs 16 cents per kilowatt hour (the energy required to run 10 100-watt light bulbs for an hour), whereas solar is now going for 14 cents per kWh — a rate that continues to fall. In regions with more annual sunlight, the price gap is almost certainly even more pronounced. The data also analyzed only conventional photovoltaic power, not the concentrating technologies of troughs and reflectors, which also bring costs down.

The study was developed in response to aggressive lobbying by the nuclear industry, which has tried to position itself as the most affordable way to reduce carbon emissions. The study factors in governmental subsidies for both power sources, but found that even if all subsidies were removed, solar power would still be cheaper within a decade.



from The Energy Colective via inhabitat.

The Land Of Giants

The Land of Giants is a project by Choi + Shine Architects. The project transforms mundane electrical pylons into statues on the Icelandic landscape by making only small alterations to existing pylon design.

The pylon-figures can be configured to respond to their environment with appropriate gestures. As the carried electrical lines ascend a hill, the pylon-figures change posture, imitating a climbing person. Over long spans, the pylon-figure stretches to gain increased height, crouches for increased strength or strains under the weight of the wires.


Learn more about the project here.



thanks, Presurfer

Skateboarders from HELL?

I've got no idea of the origins of this clip or even any idea when it was actually made. but it's ridiculous nonetheless.

>

Thanks, DangerousMinds

The FOX NEWS scam I discovered!

You're hearing it first here, at least as far as i know and i'd really appreciate it if some one forward this blog post to an investigative journalist who knows there shit. But as far as I can tell FOX news holding onto the ratings they have is a scam, in the truest sense.

Last week i was staying at a friends house out on Long Island, and to my dismay, every time we turned on a television set in any room in his huge house with huge flat screen TVs , FOX news came on, it was in fact the de-facto, default start up channel on each and every set!

I was disgusted and made a few calls to the cable operator, Cable Vision, iO, or Optimum, all the same company according to the technician who i eventually got on the line after calling 1-866-541-0548.

SO what i found out was that this cable company remotely rebooted all my friends TV's from their headquarters earlier in the year, and at that same time all customers got a new pre-set start up channel: motherfucking, racist, xenophobic, America hating, Obama Bashing piece of shit, FOX NEWS!

So what does this tell me, that either the owners of the cable provider are conservative assholes or FOX has paid them off and probably many other cable providers (did i forget to mention that this particular provider happens to be one of the largest in the country?) and this has helped them get those hard to believe high ratings for such disgusting programing (can't really be called "news"). Or at the very least so many more ignorant viewers. I believe this to be the case.

Now the fact is you can re-program each individual set top box to start up on any channel you like, but it's a bit of a pain, and takes several minutes for each individual set, if you could even figure it out.

Now how many people do you think actually go through the extra effort to adjust this? And how many do you think just end up leaving it on that channel because it was on already, pre-set by the cable provider?

Particularly after reading just the other day that Fox News viewership is mostly people over 65 years of age. This statistic alone is that which gives them the artificially inflated credibility with the Amerikkkan people they now seem to have, at least according to Fox and the idiots in the Tea Party.

Someone please look into this further, I feel there is a serious story here.

And call this cable provider, as i did and complain about how horrified you are by this despicable practice, if not totally disconnect from them.

They Are UsA project for the homeless in Dublin

It is a tribute to the city: northside and southside, the visible and the secret, the good and the bad.
The aim of the project is to raise money for the homeless of Dublin.
The images were painted by graffiti artist Maser and feature words by musician Damien Dempsey.

Shot by my friend and Dublin curator, the photographer Aidan Kelly







to see more images and to find out more go here.