These last few days I’ve been stumbling across articles and reading books that coincidently have been dealing with the sources of human emotions and passions. And the views these subjects spur are in a sense limitless. Scientists keep trying to figure it all out, why we like the things we do, how they fit alongside Darwin so he doesn’t start turning in his grave, etc. I thought this article from The Economist was going to be much more enlightening than it turned out to.
Aldous Huxley, in his Brave New World and Return to the Brave New World seems to think that we’re all not that hard to condition positively. That is, not through fear of retribution but through awards for precise, desirable actions. And that this availability of ours could be exploited on a large scale and lead to the implementation of an entirely uniform, Read the rest of this entry »
I discovered the lovely poem in Kai Hammermeister’s book ‘The German Aesthetic Tradition’ (p. 180) . His writing is wonderfully clear. In a note he also thanks Richard Rorty for having pointed out the poem.
Faptul ca “Inima tare” a aparut cu rolul de ‘album de debut’ a ridicat cateva sprancene. Parea ca a trecut destul timp de la “Cum am crescut” si ca Dagga nu mai are nevoie de nici o introducere. Publicul bucurestean ii cunoaste si clubul a fost plin. “Deci… cum se face ca totusi scot primul album?”
Evenimentul a fost organizat de Hades Records si deschis de KST. Organizatoric totul a decurs fara probleme, dar piesele Dagga au fost the highlight of the evening. Au fost interpretate toate cele 17 piese de pe album:
Well it’s early Christmas day and having woke up in a writing mood, I thought I’d invite you all to let us know… which are the brands that made it to your sack of presents this year… in no particular order. I know Christmas presents aren’t about the label and I’m not trying to suggest otherwise, but this is probably that time of the year when we go the extra mile to actually offer the best things to others as well as to ourselves.
Well, here are mine in alphabetical order.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Well… these would be it, alongside a pile of bought hand-made stuff and non-brand-name items. So… how about you?
Well, he was after all the first 2.0 candidate in history and though I didn’t manage to keep up with his campaign entirely when it was going on, I though of looking back at a few things. Because this election spurred the most media in history and benefited from everything 2.0 communication has to offer. Now, due to the extensive discussions on this subject, I just wanted to share with you my favorite pro-Obama videos, via YouTube.
3rd place – I got a crush… on Obama – by Obama Girl – because of the underlying satire on popular r’n'b
2nd place – Obama is here – by Ludacris – because it’s just cool
1st place - Cocoa Tea’s Barack Obama Reggae Song & Video – because it’s the funniest clip on the subject and actually, the most veridic display of how black communities around the globe have responded. And quote:
“It is not Hillary Clinton (Obama!)
and it is not John McCain (Obama!)
It is not Chuck Norris (Obama!),
And I know it’s not John Wayne (Obama!),
It is not the one Rambo (Obama!),
And it is not the Terminator (Obama!),
But a new trendsetter (Obama!),
Him hottin’ up the whole America”
“Well it’s no joke it’s a fact,
We’re gonna paint all the white house black (Obama!)”
I loved these soon as I laid eyes on them. They’re pretty, funny, sarcastic, fairly absurd and very witty. My favorite one is the first one, but each of them has something particular and well worth a watch. Now… I know the French are known to be disagreeable at times but we all know that there are still some things that they’re damn good at. Most of those things are short… but we all do the best with what we have. Lemons and lemonade, that sort of thing.
This is by one of the most talented people I know and my best friend. He used to do this in high school during class. And in return we would bake pancakes at my place. We had a lovely thing going there.
Anyway, if anyone wants to see more of these or get in contact with him, let me know.
I’ve been getting into hip-hop as of late, a bit of schooling ’bout it helped since I was clueless before. Anyway, made this up so some of you could avoid that.
My advice would be you start with Gang Starr’s ‘You know my steez’. It’s what got me into it and still my personal favorite.
1991 – Tim Dog – Penicilin on wax – Fuck Compton
1992 – Gang Starr – Daily Motion – The Illest brother
1992 – Dr. Dre – The Chronic - Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ thang
1993 – Wu-Tang – Enter the Wu-Tang (36 chambers) – Protect ya neck
1993 – KRS-One – Return of the Boom Bap – Sound of da police
1994 – Gang Starr – Hard to Earn – Code of the streets
1994 – Nas – Illmatic – Memory Lane
1995 – Mobb Deep – The Infamous – Shook ones Pt. 2
1996 – The Fugees – The Score – The Mask
1997 – Notorious B.I.G – Life after Death – You’re nobody ’till somebody kills you
1998 – Gang Starr – Moment of truth – You know my steez
1999 – Mos Def – Black on both sides – Umi Says
And for what’s been up on the Romanian scene, here’s Kazi Ploae & Bean – Wake up. And quote: ‘Nu mai taia copacii coae, respiram acelasi aer!’
I discover all sorts of things in my RSS reader and this particular article attracted my attention due to the shocking title: “Poor Children’s Brain Activity Resembles That Of Stroke Victims, EEG Shows”.
Makes you go ‘Oh my God, save them, I’ll donate, I promise!”. But anyway, I looked into more than just the title and this is what I found:
“The researchers discovered a dramatic difference in the response of the prefrontal cortex not only when an unexpected image flashed on the screen, but also when children were merely watching the upright triangles waiting for a skewed triangle to appear. Those from low socioeconomic environments showed a lower response to the unexpected novel stimuli in the prefrontal cortex that was similar, Kishiyama said, to the response of people who have had a portion of their frontal lobe destroyed by a stroke.”
Now… this may just be me, but this how I see it: a bunch of scientist flashed moving pictures at a small horde of 9-10 year-olds and the one from the poorer families didn’t exactly hurry to react to them. Which should apparently mean they have lower brain activity. Um… wrong! How about kids from underprivileged families just… don’t care about your moving triangles?! How about you show them a giant Mars bar? See if their brain activity improves there?
I do know that these people supposedly know what they’re doing. But it just seems reasonable to assume that… sometimes lack of creativity and early response to stimuli can come from lack of motivation. Extended to a general lack of hope, even in the case of children that we’ve gotten used to see as the great optimists of the universe. Maybe they’re not doing well in school and being poor has something to do with it, but before thinking that it’s damaged their brains isn’t it in plain sight that they’ve simply been raised with and under a different perspective? One that may very well limit not speed but the will to respond to whatever people unable to really help you may ask.
And for things that seem to not be affecting us personally, here’s what’s been going on:
When I started this blog I wanted to keep up with it but with all that’s going on it’s probably harder than ever. But I wanted to share with you the amazing video above, that warmed me once after a very long day.
Sometimes you give up believing that things will ever change. I’m currently enjoying Saul Bellow’s writing in his ‘The Dean’s December’. It’s a real life inspired story about a college dean that follows his native Romanian, famous astrophysicist, wife to Bucharest, to see to her dying mother. It outlines the strange things of communism with an interesting air – how they seemed to a foreigner from the utter inside. Bellow’s character, the dean, says at a certain point that facts were so prohibited here that feelings grew and spread in (tentacle-ish) ways that he could barely understand.
In certain ways, due to the fact that those are in fact the people that brought us up, we’ve inherited part of that peculiarity. We bother with much nonsense and manage to resolve very few things altogether. Still, this is a silly example, but the most recent one that comes to mind… YouTube went wide. And in a sense, such things, that have become a part of daily life, we take for granted. I’m sure that YouTube has changed a lot since our first interaction and it has taken steps far more important than this one. However, it just seemed to always look the same. And I took it for granted that it always will look the same as well as provide the same comfort. I sank into that certainty immediately.
Things change slow around here. Bucharest seems to just be getting dirtier and dirtier. With the, if possible, increasingly horrible traffic. But on the outside stuff is happening. On the outside it seems things have changed all the long. And theoretically I know they have here, as well. I know people couldn’t even imagine this level of comfort 15 years ago. And me writing on my white, shiny macbook complaining about this country, while affording to pay rent and enjoy a Starbucks once in a while. Things have skipped over here and changed dramatically compared to the ‘outside’. Yet we still have this habit of thinking that things are wrong and they always will be… ’cause that’s just us. We don’t see the small things.
We don’t Twitter. I don’t Twitter. I have 2 friends that do and that’s about it. I’ll start doing it soon enough myself, once i don’t have to go from my bed to work, then to school, then to work, then back to sleep. The web hasn’t entered our lives over here as much as it seems to have done to others in the west. We’re still suspicious of it, unwilling to give in, unable to let go of keeping our lives private. And we have that right in fact, to privacy. Except that privacy’s evolving. And the concepts of work and workspace are changing. As is the one of communication. And we’re still missing out on it. Because we can’t get used to the fact that yes, most things we did were wrong and we have to let them go. Because what’s new may be awful and destructive at times, but it can be clean, if we let it. It offers novelty or, better put, novelty is offered to it. And this does not mean abandoning tradition. Not real tradition at least. But it is time to let go of all the ridiculous pretentiousness that used to be associated with well-breeding.
These last few days I’ve been stumbling across articles and reading books that coincidently have been dealing with the sources of human emotions and passions. And the views these subjects spur are in a sense limitless. Scientists keep trying to figure it all out, why we like the things we do, how they fit alongside Darwin so he doesn’t start turning in his grave, etc. I thought this article from The Economist was going to be much more enlightening than it turned out to. 
