the line

"Intuitively, I find black beautiful, mysterious, elegant, and radiant."

2012-01-18T15:27:00.000-06:00

several years ago a friend of mine [Miss Jessica Vaughn] had a showing of some of her black on black on black pieces & these reminded me of how dope they were...they also reminded me of how toxic & dirty everything seems to be in spite of the hipster concept of "greening everything" is now mainstream.

enjoy the pics & link to Lauren Fensterstock's website...the title of this post is a quote from Fensterstock describing her installation that features the black garden in the photos

INSPIRATION: George Wright Destroys The System

2011-12-19T13:44:00.004-06:00

George Edward Wright

is a living legend. you always hear stories about black panthers & other militant social organizers from the 1960's & 70's all being either dead, in jail, or [unfortunately] tenured university professors sculpting the minds of young neo liberals to believe that pacifism & working within the system are the only effective methods to change it, but this brother from another mother has been on the run for over four decades & in september 2011 he finally got a tiny taste of that unbelievably over used & under experienced word/concept......freedom!

after 41 years, multiple militant actions, after serving over 7 & a half years in prison, self emancipating a.k.a. escaping from prison in new jersey, commandeering a.k.a. hijacking a plane from detroit to boston to refuel for the new intended destination of algeria a.k.a. political asylum. George Edward Wright a.k.a. José Luís Jorge dos Santos was finally granted citizenship & immunity from the government of Portugal. without critical analysis of Wright's situation its easy to think he got away with something, but the bittersweet truth is that the past 41 years of his life were probably full of paranoia & turmoil. the truly gangster thing he did was maintain his personal liberty & even more impressive is how he refused to allow the system to control his destiny @ all costs...as the kids say, "He did it REAL BIG!"

real talk: mr. george wright is an international super thug/gangster [meant in the wonderfully powerful & free dirty corporate c.e.o. or politician its alright because its all white sort of way]. there's no surprise that no one has ever heard any of the stories about him or his incredible exploits. there is waaaaaay too much inspiration to be gleaned from wright's story that would surely motivate wayward #occupy protesters to actually do something instead of loitering to make symbolic gestures...of course there have been instances where instead of taking police sponsored beatings, or pepper spray to the face while getting arrested like a lil crying bitch for loitering in public places, organizers have actually helped people get back into or skirt eviction from their foreclosed homes.

for more information on Geroge Wright here's a good starting point on wikipedia which interestingly lists this disambiguation as fugative instead of militant freedom fighter, or political exile

Perhaps the BEST SINGER EVER!!!: NIKKO GRAY

2011-03-08T22:31:00.002-06:00

the list of singers i adore is surprisingly minimal. unbelievably, over the weekend i stumbled upon my newest love...the amazingly talented Miss Nikko Gray. she has the type of voice & vibe that other vocalists employing swagger coaches can't even imagine reproducing.
she has the rapturous presence you feel in gina rene's voice with the sassy soulfulness esthero always brings.
simply put: nikko is a bad motherfucker.
she is truly blessed on the joss stone/christina aguilera level + she likes working it out on unconventional electronic hip hop/neo-soul instrumentals = blackdaylight is in love! please do not take my word & have a listen to Nikko Gray's extraordinarily dope music
Miss Gray liking music so similar to mine is enough to re-inspire me to self actualizing all of that potential that i'm supposed to have!

perhaps i could charm my way into doing a song with her one day...finger's crossed!

dig this:

The BEST Pan-African Historian EVER! John Henrik Clarke - A Great and Might Walk

2011-01-30T17:24:00.003-06:00

a million times more interesting than listening to my man noam chomsky, twice as soulful as howard zinn documentaries...i present to you one of my all time favorites via our new overlords @ google video Mr. John Henrik Clarke setting the records straight on world history once & for all

...because as we all know there is no such thing as black history (unless you're referring to the black out on the true role of non europeans in history books the world over)because all of our histories are & have always been interconnected.

its time to arm ourselves with accurate information in order to fight back effectively...globally such a thing will make street protests in portugal, italy, greece, spain, tunsia, egypt, yemen, etc. into an international & intergenerational revolt against the current status quo that has trapped us all.

REAL TALK: Belafonte on Obama

2011-01-29T14:01:00.008-06:00

attention spineless liberals!!!
for those of you that believe i'm too hard on president obama i found a video clip to corroborate my sentiments featuring a much more mature, thoughtful, & (perceived as) safer older black guy...Mr. Harry Belafonte

our lives are too precious & times are too volatile to surrender to the perceived safety of the center...fight back

Real Talk with Dr. Gabor Maté

2010-12-24T14:32:00.004-06:00

randomly catching an interview with Dr. Maté back in the spring of 2010 totally changed my life. if it wasn't for the good doctor's insightful words i never would have began the introspective psilocybin based summer benders that helped me deal with all of the personal emotional turmoil that the past 2 years have introduced to my generally healthy psyche. beginning to independently dissect my own history has been unbelievably liberating & helpful. the general population being either thoughtful or mindless sheep are lost in the age of consumer capitalism. people need to engage some serious introspection to better understand the true mechanics of how we make decisions, the basis for the ways we interact with the outside world, why we mistreat ourselves & others.
perhaps working as a preschool teacher has colored my opinions on the way that we raise our children in the modern world...but it actually kinda seems to have just reinforced many of my previously held beliefs...(in fact one of the craziest things is the link between why i am crazy & work as a caregiver!)

the 2010 release: blackdalyight - LOST

2010-12-11T17:19:00.001-06:00

The New Jim Crow

2010-11-13T12:04:00.005-06:00

both of the 2 parts of legal scholar, author, & seemingly all around lovely & thoughtful person Michelle Alexander's democracy now interview discussing how her book delves into the new age of legal institutional discrimination...aka america's new caste system [notice its caste not class...there is no escaping your caste]

SPLIT (The New International Co-Op Compilation)

2010-11-03T22:15:00.004-05:00

so apparently i work so hard that i somehow forgot that this compilation was coming out! its a little something from my german friends over @ stigae music put together with 2 other netlabels [Another Chance Records from Espana & CUNTROLL based out of Russia].
in the spirit of workaholism i'm posting this link without having listened to any of the songs (except the 3 that are mine of course!),but i'm almost positive that my experimental european musical contemporaries can keep it groovin...

please feel encouraged to let me know if my assumption is correct

H o m a g e

2010-11-03T17:14:00.005-05:00

ok, so i am not a salesman or a corporate stooge, but since Image-Line's FL Studio software has been one of the best things in my life for the past 6 or 7 years i figured that i would give them a shout & people reading my blog a link to how i make musical madness...+ you know you might as well buy the full, legal, stable version.

The Best Skater EVER!

2010-10-04T23:02:00.004-05:00

marc johnson is my favorite skater. i just saw yeah right! & this guy murders everything!
literally the cleanest rider that i have ever seen. of course i'm no skate video fiend, but i know that mj is a bad motherfucker.

enjoy!

Scarlet Monk & Her Orchestra featuring blackdaylight on beatbox LIVE! @ The Albany Park Art Festival in Chicago

2010-08-21T00:42:00.001-05:00

LIVE!!! from Albany Park...The New Band

2010-08-21T00:39:00.002-05:00

in case you've been wondering what mr. daylight has been up to this summer dig this live clip from the new band

New World Water

2010-07-03T16:31:00.004-05:00

big maude barlow keeps it hella real & really scary with some ridiculously ominous statistics about the current & future state of the global food & water systems.

when the chickens really come home to roost we're all gonna wish that our problems were as easily solved as the ones characters face in Dystopic, post-apocalyptic movies like mad max.

Maude Barlow heads the Council of Canadians which is Canada’s largest public advocacy organization. She’s also founder of the Blue Planet Project. This is a part of what she had to say @ Toronto's Messy Hall in opposition to the g20 summit

Live from the Frontlines of the End of the World

2010-06-05T00:12:00.004-05:00

this may be the most honest & insightful piece about bp gulf coast disaster that anyone has produced so far.

the 1st interview is with a member of the u.s. coast guard & its difficult to tell if he's just being candid because he's caught off guard by the questions or if he's simply naive. either way his honest explanations are welcome & definitely more than a bit upsetting.
the real meat of this piece is mr. dean blanchard, a resident of louisana's gulf coast & the owner of the largest shrimp business in the area. dean is incredibly knowledgeable & agonizingly honest. this man is hitting us with the realest of talk & he desperately deserves to be heard.
it always seems that every mainstream news outlet reports this story as some sort of semi-tragic novelty about bp's ineptitude at capping the oil well instead of seriously discussing the vast destruction & dealing with the fact that this is one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in human history. comparable environmental destruction has occurred in the past, but those disasters only laid the groundwork of oceanic sickness that bp is turning into a plague.

clean energy now or there will literally be no tomorrow

Jamie Lidell "Rope of Sand" music video

2010-05-09T01:34:00.000-05:00

a lil bit mo painfully beautiful soul music from jamie lidell

Daedelus - Stampede Me

2010-04-25T03:22:00.001-05:00

dig this achingly wonderful piece by daedelus

M E X I C O

2010-04-21T22:34:00.003-05:00

if i ever have a bit of "free time" i'll be sure to share some of my thoughts on mexico...until then drink in the unbridaled thoughtfulness & old school journalist masculinity that is charles bowden as he breaks down the bloodshed, drug cartels, & international governmental ineptitude going down in Murder City aka Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

Just In Case You're An Idiot

2010-03-27T19:56:00.014-05:00

& haven't been paying attention to the dramatic changes in weather patterns that have been taking place throughout your lifetime there's a new quantitative scientific study that will spoon feed you the facts about how hot its been getting.
in fact its been so hot that the last 10 years have been the warmest ever recorded!
its been so hot that the temperature of the globe has increased 1.5 degrees F since 1880!*

the title links you to the article on science daily, but you can also get more info via the new york times & democracy now [for all of you that need another reference for the research paper you're citing my blog in!]...here a preview of the ny times article by leslie kaufman:
"The finding by the association, a United Nations agency, corroborates research by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which has already said that its measurements show that the period from 2000 to 2009 was the warmest since modern instrumental recording of temperatures began in the 1850s."

we're all doomed!-)

*in the 1980's the data said that @ least 3 of the hottest years in recorded history were in the 1980's...in the 1990's the data said that @ least 5 of the hottest years in recorded history were in the 1990's...its a shame that many people do not appear to appreciate the realities of our lifetime

Inappropriate Music [live aware mix] by blackdaylight

2010-03-23T01:36:00.013-05:00

so what's going on with all of these new blackdaylight songs?

they are purposefully crazy, but i think that somewhere along the way i lost control of the wheel & the music has just been doing its thing without me.
it feels almost unfamiliar yet completely enriching...like i'm on the cusp of really tapping into some sort of artistic self actualizing action!

its like how visual artists & the tao te ching describe the feeling of not doing anything & simply allowing the process to happen.

its dangerous because its totally uncertain.

i keep thinking that i would never listen to any of this music unless it was by someone that was known for doing a specific style & this sound was a definite departure from the expected. i keep thinking that...& now i realize that's exactly what's going on with me [but i am completely divorced from most people's artistic radars so its not really the same]...

del says something like: "but music is there without you or me we just manipulate for better or worse..." & that's one of the most eloquent descriptions of what the new songs have been like.*

~dammit! now i feel anxious about sounding pretentious on a blog that no one really reads any way...ha!

art. life. tragedy. comedy.

*...here's the entire last verse that i was attempting to quote: from deltron 3030's "madness":
Simple minded people always poin't the finger
To bring it to a close as if life is their role, their path
When all paths are intersections
It all depends on the persons perception
When I'm mad as fuck you get shot
& To some its bad luck
I believe you held something back for too long
It grew strong
And enegy has its own will
And people think they make music still
But music is there with out you or me we just manipulate
For better or worse so let it situate
I get to make records and dough
Paid out the ass hole
And still seen as another face on the totem pole
Conquer, my sponsors are monsters
And everybody thinks that I owe them one
I'm glad I love music and life
cuz it's easy to see the pain and strife and end it all tonight
I'm caught in the grip of the city . . . M a d n e s s

Devolutionized [live] by blackdaylight

2010-03-23T01:26:00.003-05:00

something i just began on a work-a-holic style bender...straight from my mind to the world...aaahhh, the delight of internet cross-self-referencing!

eliminated limitations [live beta version] by blackdaylight

2010-03-23T01:20:00.006-05:00

upon repeated spins i am quite proud of this song & all the other noisy , high bpm pieces that i've been slinging together in a recent fit of deconstruction-ism...

deconstruction with these audio sketches is not explicitly a dismantling of the structure of a my style, but instead simply a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. the 2010 songs have appeared fast & hard. they're primitive & crazy & challenging & they have really grown on me.

Inequities Like A Motherfucker

2010-03-12T14:24:00.005-06:00

THE FACTS:

*$* For every dollar of wealth owned by the typical white family, the typical family of color owns only 16 cents. And for single women of color, the wealth gap is far wider.

*$* Nearly half of all single black and Hispanic women have zero or negative wealth, meaning their debts exceed all their assets. The median wealth for single black women is only $100; for single Hispanic women, $120. This compares to just over $41,000 for single white women. About a third of single Hispanic women and one-fourth of single black women have no checking or savings account.

*$* Today there are more African Americans under correctional control, whether in prison or jail, on probation or on parole, than there were enslaved in 1850. And more African American men are disenfranchised now because of felon disenfranchisement laws than in 1870

THE EDITORIAL: unrealisticly flowery speeches about sticking together & bootstrap economics fall on deaf ears in the face of the myriad of legal discriminatory practices employed by nearly all u.s. institutions. in an age where employees are subjected to credit checks for lower-middle class jobs the people must advocate for themselves.
in the episode of democracy now below amy goodman & juan gonzalez dive deep into the ever widening wealth gap in the u.s. & discuss the symptoms & solutions with Mariko Lin Chang, chief author of the study “Lifting as We Climb: Women of Color, Wealth and America’s Future”, C. Nicole Mason, Executive Director of the Women of Color Policy Network at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service @ NYU, & Michelle Alexander, author of the new book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
dig what these sisters have to say about what is essentially 21st jim crowism & check out the full study to digest all of the other facts & figures @ Insight Center for Community Economic Development

i even took the time to embed the videos into smaller chunks for all you cyber wisdom seekers on the go

& here's a lil somethin' about what happened to ACORN one of the unfortunately few organizations that work to end poverty in a real way

remember if money is the root, then poverty is the handmaid of oppression. the modern caste/class systems must end if anyone wants even an illusion of security & freedom.

fight back

blackdaylight: raw & uncut

2010-02-26T14:28:00.002-06:00

this is one of the 1st dj mixes i recorded using the hercules rmx console. as the title implies it is a very raw blend of mostly live & unreleased instrumentals...enjoy!

Blackdaylight - Raw [Demo] by Blackdaylight on Mixcloud

amp soul's got flava

2010-02-26T14:23:00.003-06:00

here's a random mix of freshness from ampsoul on mixcloud.com

..:Ampsoul:.. Flava Of The Month Mix by Ampsoul on Mixcloud

Malcolm X: “By Any Means Necessary”

2010-02-26T12:37:00.002-06:00

unfortunately timeless words from the man himself

D O O M

2010-02-15T13:45:00.003-06:00

we're all doomed.
surviving 2009 definitely cemented this uncomfortably obvious fact in the forefront of my sphere of being.
its not pessimistic. it is freeing. i think it was voltaire who said: "to the thoughtful mind life is comedy to the confused mind life is tragedy" but i'm not sure it was him & even if it was that particular heavily quoted dead white man i'm fairly sure that i paraphrased the actual quote.
anyway i like give up because i have my head in the clouds & heart in the gutter [perhaps an errant j* davey quote] so for all of you that share this gift/affliction i present the art of give up

A Blast From The Past: Brother West Says...

2010-02-15T12:58:00.004-06:00

definitely not kanye for those that were hoping for some neo hip hop assholery. this is a clip of Dr. Cornell West from way back in september of 2009 discussing the release of his long-awaited memoir, “Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud”.
there was definitely something specific about this interview that made me bookmark it & save it for all these months. what it is i cannot remember, but i'm sure it gave me a quantum of solace during a very difficult personal adjustment period. if nothing else its worth watching for Dr. West's delightfully thoughtful pontifications on life

its been a long time......

2010-02-15T12:07:00.002-06:00

i shoulda left you with some deeper thoughts to sift through.

its no secret that 2009 the worst year of my life. for a myriad of reasons 09 was so inexplicably awful that it stifled me creatively & almost made me completely disappear from the scene.
many months & one album later i've returned to the horus set with new personal revelations that were very randomly spurred by Dr. Gabor Maté in his democracy now interview from this morning...the monday after valentine's day 2010...perhaps the good doctor's perspective will further enlighten some of you as well

So Much For Promises & Bailouts

2009-03-29T13:55:00.004-05:00

well...i definitely failed on the updating the horus set blog more often. i suppose that i could say i was taking black history month off to reflect, but i've really just been busy teaching babies how to talk, count, recognize words + colors, walk on stairs, eat with utensis, & fight the system by sharing!)

everyone everywhere is still talking about the economy which has been a frequent subject of the the light & the dark blog here, but i was really impressed by Thomas Geoghegan's take on what's been going on for decades & ultimately culminated in the current catastrophe. below is the tuesday march 24th episode of democracy now which features an interview with Mr. Geoghegan about 16 minutes into the show.
feel free to skip ahead, but there's some really interesting news in the headlines (especially for those of you that eat red meat).
there's also a really insightful interview with Riki Ott, a community activist, marine toxicologist, former commercial salmon fisherma’am and author of two books on the Exxon Valdez oil spill. she helps shed light on the seldom discussed topic of how corporations got the same rights as individual people despite it being in complete contradiction to the bill of rights & u.s. constitution.
the Riki Ott interview starts about 40 minutes into the broadcast & is very deserving of your time.

Transport von Colani

2009-01-25T15:05:00.007-06:00

hopefully this is not your first exposure to the sumptuous & brilliant designs of Luigi Colani. his flamboyant biodynamic style is an extreme re-definition of form following function. it seems impossible to not fall in love with the voluptuous organic shapes that inhabit most of Colani's work. here i thought that it would be interesting to showcase some of Colani's vision for the future of mass transit. the designs scream elegance & efficiency by sampling the bodies shapes of some of earth slickest wildilfe...you gotta love the dolphin, whale, & dragonfly inspired aircrafts!

just a little inspiration for those that are tired of the lip service about change for the future.

post script...
if you're interested in more of mr. eccentricity's work check both of the links in this post as they lead to different websites

whatever happened to intergrity???

2009-01-06T18:21:00.006-06:00

it seems like somewhere along the way everyone forgot about having integrity. didn't dignity used to be en vogue??? today money is everyone's supreme motivation & it leads them down a host of awfully shameful pathways. the thing about money is that its supposed to give people power when they have enough of it, but nowadays rich people act like they're wealthy & waste all of their doe buying shiny things to impress the other idiots.
in our modern world there's a lot of coons that will do anything for money, but when they finally get it they don't use they're power for anything.

imagine if jordan, lebron, or kobe ever said or did anything that made a difference. i'm not talking about throwing money @ non profits & charities that only serve as band-aides over the bullet wounds of society's ills. truly utilizing power would be more in the range of talking to the media about the merits of universal single payer healthcare, or using their stardom to open a dialog about raising the minimum wage to something that not insulting.

katt williams says something interesting about his experience hosting the not so surprisingly racist roast of flavor flav on comedy central. katt talks about how flav's kids were so embarrassed by the way their father was treated that they left in tears before it was over. after the show flav told katt that he didn't care about what the comedians said about him because no matter what comedy central had to pay him. flavor flav is not uplifting his family (or any other black folks for that matter) by allowing moderately humorous white people disgrace him in front of the world.

how did we allow money to become the thing that has the highest value in our world? back in the day when black entertainers absolutely had to coon to get booked in paying venues its more than understandable that they did it. old school jazz cats like cab calloway broke all the barriers & kicked in all of the doors specifically so there would be no need (or excuse for) a motherfucker like t-pain to essentially perform in black face in 2009. they say that everyone has a price, but didn't people also used to say that there's a line that you simply do not cross??? in fact i contend that cats like the ying-yang twins are so successful that they make it impossible for more thoughtful musicians to become popular. by no means am i saying that everyone isn't entitled to unlimited freedom of expression. however, when the people holding the purse straps see how easy it is to make money on the backs of individuals without a grain of integrity its easy to understand why youngsters frequently emulate what they've always seen as being acceptable behavior (that supposedly ends in them getting big money).

i guess my chances of becoming another one of those pop-tart musicians with deep pockets is waning because everyday the list of things i'm not willing to compromise (for any reason, let alone the false promises of money) gets longer.

the NiN9

2009-01-01T14:25:00.003-06:00

greetings from the jungle!

instead of feeding into the pre-2012 tensions that i'm sure many of us have somewhere in the back of our minds i've decided to take this opportunity to discuss the (i believe) serious possibility that peace will break out all over the world & what we thought of as utopia for so many generations will only be a shadow of the infinitely inclusive & delectable possibilities of our new reality.
it seems like earth is tired of us being so clueless. & those of us with even half an idea of where the keyhole is know that finding the key (shared prosperity) is inevitable. so with 3 years & 11+ months before the world as we know it changes i wholeheartedly encourage everyone to be the change you wish to see...& keep in mind that the world we know is terribly flawed & impossibly difficult for most of our brothers & sisters to deal with day to day.
hope, love, peace, & shared prosperity to us all in the new year whether its 5769, 4706, or 2009.

& on the post script tip i just wanted to say that i have been adding posts to the blog in december, but i just haven't finished editing them because of my new gig as a preschool teacher [which gobbles up an ungodly amount of my time for far less money than i deserve for being such a stupendous teacher...but i digress] & i will be posting them in the next few days. in order to avoid this problem in the future i'm also considering revamping the horus set & turning it into a video blog so that digging into the nuances of modern life becomes just a bit easier................peace in palesrael!

blacks vs. gays...fact or fiction

2008-11-27T01:44:00.003-06:00

the silly wedge issue of gay marriage has added a new equally silly nuance since the election. apparently the lazy corporate media has framed a debate between black folks & homosexual
s. this morning i heard a brother named Kai Wright breakdown all of the smoke & mirrors surrounding this hot button issue on fair. org's weekly show counterspi
n. he also wrote a great piece for the root. com & here's a little of it in the hopes of understanding how the media really pushes a lot of disinformation & how key critical thinking & analysis are when dealing with the corporately sponsored news channels:

Why white gays and black homophobes both need a reality check.
Nov. 12, 2008-
Somebody forgot to tell gay people that race wars are no longer in vogue. While the rest of the country has spent the last week reveling in the afterglow of Grant Park, gay America has devolved into a Sarah Palin rally.

The issue is a particularly nasty California ballot initiative, Proposition 8, which passed last Tuesday with just over half the vote. Prop 8 repealed a historic state Supreme Court ruling that gave gays the right to wed—and it appears to have won massive black support. That's a fact that ought to shame black folks everywhere.

But it also ought to finally convince the white-led gay rights movement to take people of color seriously, a case black gay activists have been trying to make for the better part of the past 30 years. Addressing the destructive reactions of too many of my white gay compatriots in recent days would be a good place to begin.

It started when a CNN exit poll declared that 70 percent of black voters supported the initiative. That finding led many in Cali's white gay community to conclude they lost their rights because of black homophobia. Things went downhill fast from there. Much of the ensuing outcry has been nasty, even hateful. As one college student wrote to the black gay blog Rod 2.0 in describing a Los Angeles protest, "It was like being at a Klan rally, except the Klansmen were wearing Abercrombie Polos and Birkenstocks.
"

I wish his remark could be easily dismissed as hyperbole. The comment sections of blogs ranging from progressive standard-bearer Daily Kos to black lesbian rabble rouser Jasmyne Cannick have been swarmed with racist rants and reports of slurs hurled at African Americans. Big-name gay scribes have piled on. By 10 a.m. the day after the election, popular columnist Dan Savage had shot off at the mouth, declaring himself "done pretending" that "the huge numbers of homophobic African Americans" aren't a bigger threat to gays than racist gays are to blacks. Whatever that means.

There is no question that homophobia runs deep in black America—or that it wreaks far more acute damage than denying marriage rights, frankly. Just ask the families of Sakia Gunn or Rashawn Brazell or any one of the scores of black queers whose murders have been met with a collective shrug in black communities. Or all the families destroyed by a raging AIDS epidemic we go on ignoring, in large part because of our uneasiness with sexuality of any sort, let alone the homo and bi and transgender kind. It's long past time black people have a conversation about this ugly reality.

But first, as with all things involving race and sex, there's a whole mess of facts about the California marriage fight that must be straightened out.

Not least of these is the shaky assertion that black voters made the difference. DailyKos diarist Shanikka has gained small celebrity for her post debunking it. The fact that blacks are densely clumped in just nine out of 58 California counties makes any race-based claim in CNN's geographically random sample muddy at best. Further, the poll excludes all of the state's 3 million early votes and counts blacks as 10 percent of voters when they're less than 7 percent of the population.

Of course, you don't have to get into such devilish details to notice something weird about this blame-the-blacks narrative. Even if 70 percent truly did support the marriage ban, why single them out? So did six out of 10 people over 65. Ditto white Protestants and people with children under 18. Look at the electorate through any of these lenses and you identify a far larger share of the vote than when viewing it by race.

"The reason why people are so fascinated with the 70 percent number is Obama and this kumbaya moment that we were having," says Ron Buckmire, a leader in L.A.'s Barbara Jordan/Bayard Rustin Coalition, a black gay group. "To discover that not everyone was in the same place was really shocking and surprising for some people."

It should have been a no-brainer. The Mormon-funded, anti-gay side aggressively targeted every racial and ethnic group in California—often dishonestly. Anti-gay operatives launched a robo-call scheme directed at black voters that falsely claimed Barack Obama supported their initiative. Obama does not support gay marriage, but neither did he support Prop 8. (Not that Obama did a hell of a lot to counter the lie.) The underfunded, pro-gay side responded with too little, too late.

These shenanigans explain why many black voters supported the marriage ban. Still, that's no excuse. "I am far less concerned with a white gay backlash than I am with the need for us to have a dialogue within the African-American community about what it means to have equality," says H. Alexander Robinson, who heads the National Black Justice Coalition, a black gay rights group.

Here, here.

Let's be clear, these hateful repudiations of gay relationships hurt black people. According to the U.S. Census, 10.5 percent of same-sex households are black, and they are at least twice as likely to be raising kids as their white counterparts. Denying these families access to civil marriage bars them from hundreds of rights and responsibilities.

Many black folks wince when they hear gay rights compared to the black civil rights movement. And when it comes from white gays whose only interest in black people is appropriating our history, I do too. But here's what Coretta Scott King had to say, in an address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. "Homophobia is as morally wrong and as unacceptable as racism," she declared. "We ought to extend to gay and lesbian people the same respect and dignity we claim for ourselves. Every person is a child of God, and every human being is entitled to full human rights."

The whole community faces consequences when those human rights are denied. Look no further than AIDS for proof. Black people were overrepresented from the epidemic's outset, but fear and hate of the gay men who bore its first burn paralyzed the community as the virus spread. Now black people account for half of all new infections.

At some point, we all must ask difficult, self-critical questions. No, as black people, we're not any more or less homophobic than anybody else. And yes, the white gay community needs to look at its own failures before casting blame on others.

But so what? Too many of us are homophobes, and we need to talk about it. Last Tuesday's vote should remove any doubt about the urgency of the discussion.

for the entire article go to http://www. theroot. com/id/48845

dear mr. president...

2008-11-26T19:06:00.003-06:00

we will protest you & your neo-liberal agenda whenever it goes against the greater good.

many obama supporters seem to believe that our soon to be president is only adding so many clinton era neo-liberals to his staff because it will give him more credibility when he implements the radical policy changes that everyone swears he will bring. history shows us that revisionist history & unrealized wide-eyed optimism never work out for the people of the united states. obama promises to listen to dissenting views to develop more inclusive policies, but surrounding himself with the warmongering cronies that set up all of the circumstances that are playing themselves out as global calamities today is not a progressive step toward a peaceful & prosperous future.

check out democracy now from tuesday november 25th to get some more insightful commentary on how obama may already be fucking up...........

more tips & questions for the new u.s. president

2008-11-26T05:09:00.003-06:00

as usual i have an opinion about our new president's dealings, but in lieu of ranting myself i will again differ to some folks that have much more experience in researching & speaking truth to power...here's some transcript from democracy now's tuesday november 25th episode featuring some very interesting commentary...

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Hudson, at least when he is talking about infrastructure, is he talking about mass transportation?

MICHAEL HUDSON: Largely that.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, as opposed to highways and roads, and actually mass transit?

MICHAEL HUDSON: That is certainly the key. Mass-transit and almost every country creates an increase in real estate values along the routes that could actually rental that is increased by this could actually finance the entire transport system. In London when they built the tube extension to their financial district of the loop, they created 13 billion pounds worth of increased in real estate value. The tube itself cost only $8 billion. They left this $13 billion real estate value in the hands of the private landlords. Same thing in Chicago in the US. It can be a very heavy investment in mass transportation here. This is going to create enormous real-estate values. The tax system, leaves these in private hands. I think all of the tax proposals that Mr. Obama have spoken about, have to do with income tax primarily. The rich people prefer not to earn income. They prefer to make capital gains. So the intention of the economic gain that Mr. Obama brought in is really to create a huge capital gains economy. Even more disparity of wealth while leaving in place the one thing that should address in the last year and that is the enormous debt overhead. Nothing is happening on that. He is adding to debt, not reducing it.

AMY GOODMAN: Barack Obama throughout the campaign continually said that well the people should be taxed, after the Bush tax cuts, but now owing to yesterday’s address, he seemed to back off, saying well, he would let them expire perhaps, that’s a possibility, in that I think it was 2011. Your thoughts?

MICHAEL HUDSON: The kicker is when he is talking about, Obama is talking about tax, he is talking about income tax. Most wealth, is not taxed, because most wealth, takes the form of return capital gain, most wealth does not pay, if I see a wage if not others, so what Obama is talking about, well, is taxation at the margin. He is not talking about kind of wealth, and the kind of returns that Wall Street gets, which are not subject to taxation at all, in fact, the give aways, that the treasury put in to the bank available, says that because the banks are bought, affiliates that have cash, they are not even going to be subject of the income taxation. So the whole issue of the devils of detail of the small print and Mr. Obama, thanks to his appointing Summers in this aim, is going to leave it there. The Russian cryptnocrats didn’t have to tax on income, as the phrase went, only the little people pay taxes, I am afraid that’s going to be the case under Mr. Obama also.

...i will try to leave a lil more original commentary on the subject of making our soon to be new president an honest man that serves the common good tomorrow.

How to Keep Obama Honest

2008-11-21T12:58:00.001-06:00

as some of you may have noticed i'm not a fan of the new u.s. president or the line of thinking that goes anyone is better than bush. unfortunately president obama has already backed off of many of the progressive ideals that galvanized the country behind him & with each passing day the man with the plan surrounds himself with more & more advisers from the clinton era that do not have the best interests of the proletariat at heart.
but perhaps my outsider perspective doesn't have enough credibility for your erudite tastes...don't listen to me, watch wednesday november 19th's democracy now & allow my brother from another mother dr. cornell west from princeton break down the ways we need to organize to keep president obama honest.

UI Evolved

2008-11-18T18:58:00.002-06:00

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

imagine the possibilities...

things blackdaylight likes

2008-11-08T23:39:00.010-06:00

i like releasing new music as often as possible. so far this year i've dropped 4 solo projects the latest of which is called attack of the extravagant minimalist released on stigaemusic.com on friday november 7th as a post u.s. election gift to the world.
as an artist i feel obligated to share my talent with as many people as possible & also because its a great esteem booster to get messages from people all over the world about how much they enjoy indulging in the blackdaylight experience. its also really cool to have strangers tell me that they like songs that lost their magic sparkle to me weeks after i made them [aka months or years before they're released].
but i don't want to be completely self indulgent. i'd like to take this opportunity to plug some of the new music that i've recently discovered & become infatuated with:
1st off let me point you to the lovely & talented Chelsea Wolfe & Sister Crayon. i've always been a huge fan of female singers & i've worked with more than my fair share of incredibly talented vocalists in the past but there's something about Chelsea's painfully honest & hauntingly beautiful voice that has quickly propelled her onto my collaboration wish list & into my top friends list on myspace [although i must admit it would probably be more of an honor if i was more popular myself, but i digress]. Sister Crayon has a similar vibe, but i love the rhythmic sensibilities & the trip hop flutters that run throughout the songs on her myspace page...which i listen to repeated online & on my mp3 player. i'm particularly fond of i'm still the same person & lavender liars by Sister C & i have literally listened to Miss Wolfe's Gold & the way we used to a half dozen times back to back catching flashback of hearing jeff buckley for the 1st time when i was 12 or 13...i sincerely hope that one or both of these sisters gives me the honor of writing to a blackdaylight song some day soon.Comfort Fit is a cat from germany that i stumbled across on lastfm that has been rocking my musical world very thoroughly for the past few weeks with an abstract hip hop sound that's reminiscent of my former audio hero prefuse 73, but with an infinitely more accessible & groovy sound.keeping it electronic & instrumental hip hop based but moving across europe to the u.k. there's another cat i found on lastfm while listening to music that allegedly sounds like mine, his name is Lukid & his sound is tight. its a lil denser & more meandering & esoteric than Comfort Fit but still more than appropriately fresh.of course the other i still bump Muhsinah's Daybreak & Lokua's Trails nonstop in the young mp3 player, but i just wanted to shine a lil light on some newer finds that i haven't already gushed about being unbelievably dope yet...so if you're in need something new or to quote Homer Simpson just "something much more else" to listen to in the closing days of 2008 be sure to click the links & explore the sonic gems that i'm trying to hip the world to.......

since we last spoke

2008-11-03T13:10:00.006-06:00

i've never really been sure if anyone has actually been reading the horus set blog, but i must admit i do feel like i've dropped the ball a lil recently on the not regularly updating it tip so here's what i've been up to............
i started working @ the chicago costume shop literally everyday [without taking breaks mind u] & as a result i started kicking it after work very frequently with my co-workers. i've spent too much money, drank waaay too much, stayed out waaaaay too late & still somehow made it to the shop the next day with minimal hangovers & attitude...even after getting robbed by some random bar skanks @ hogs & honeys...my only excuse for being in a low class, trashy, white, chain-dive bar is that the cats i was with wanted to go & somehow the $2 pitchers from the 1st spot we went to made me more agreeable than usual. so if anyone's in chicago & interested in some sexy fuck costumes u should stop by the store all of our packaged costumes are 40% off!)

watch out for bar skanks!)

Sharing is Caring

2008-10-17T18:12:00.004-05:00

steal this film ii is an insightful exploration into the war on peer-to-peer sharing. the film goes deeper that the status quo representation of "intellectual property piracy" debate into the heart of the real issue at hand: media owners discouraging & attempting to end the dissemination & production of new media & information.
steal this film ii is a million times more interesting & watchable than its predecessor. the film breaks down the history of copying & sharing from gutenberg's printing press, to the resistance of sheet music writers to the advent of recorded music, to the current beef over sharing mp3's & downloading movies.
in the end its all about creativity & our natural, human instinct to share with each other. this piece is only 45 minutes long so its not too time consuming especially considering how enlightening it is. open your mind & take the time to arm yourself in the war on do-it-yourself production & sharing...which i always think of as being synonymous with caring!)

growth & development

2008-10-15T09:21:00.003-05:00

Kanye West - Love Lockdown from Chester Ebona on Vimeo.
now i'm definitely not the hippest cat & i'm not really upon what's happening in popular music nowadays, but this brother kanye west never disappoints when it comes to injecting creativity & innovation in his music & videos. i'm not even sure if he's still making his own music anymore, but even if he isn't you have to admit that the music he is using is always on the cusp of brilliance...in fact a few months ago i was thinking about starting a rumor that kanye wanted me to produce his next album because i was actually born & raised chicago & my sound is reminiscent of the kind of ultra groovy electronic music that his boys daft punk make, but i don't use samples so mr. west wouldn't have to spend half his recording budget on clearing them...nonetheless yesterday my friend rebecca put me up on this video from kanye which is one of his freshest & the entire package illustrates huge artistic growth.

MUHSINAH

2008-10-12T19:45:00.003-05:00

i have to thank my brother drunken monkeee for introducing me to Muhsinah...this sista is the truth! while listening to her album Daybreak all i could think of was, "why can't i find someone to write to my songs in such a breathtakingly interesting way???"...after googling her to see what the deal was i realized that the most likely reason that all of Muhsinah's songs are so incredible & intricate is because she a quadruple threat: produce, singer, writer, & engineer.
of course this sent me through the roof because i absolutely love finding female producers that make creative music...or any music period, because for what its worth the mainstream media makes it appear that missy is the only producer that (thoroughly) reps for her gender.
i just wanted to show some love to an incredibly talented artist on g.p. so please support Muhsinah & other independent artists so that we can all eventually stop complaining about how terrible commercial music has become

The Global Economic Meltdown

2008-10-09T16:24:00.004-05:00

yessur, its rough all over the world...even our erudite european counterparts are feeling the burn. check out this episode of democracy now from wednesday october 8th 2008 to get the low down on the global economic slow down

warning the song in the second break is absolutely awful...perhaps they should use some blackdaylight music instead!)

Art Break

2008-10-08T16:44:00.006-05:00

i thought it would be a good idea to take another small break from talking about the fall of babylon & get a inspirational & share some designs from a few of my favorite contemporary artists...i love damien hirst's brazen baller-holic style & that he's cultivated this public persona as an effeminate dick [like many popular white male artists]. i also love that he cut out the middleman & sold an entire collection back in september for $198 million directly to the wealthy [tired of investing in an uncertain stock market] & pocketed all of the earning himself instead of splitting it with a gallery. its kind of like how radiohead released their album independently earlier this year with a pick your price gimmick that was heralded as a hugely innovative stroke of genius. the truth of the matter is that once you're as large as hirst or radiohead you'd be a fool not to do it yourself...it would only be incredible if an truly independent artist such as myself did so well.
when people see some of my visual work they automatically assume that pollock is the main influence on my abstract organic style, but in fact its clyfford still & the rest of the cool jazz influenced post WWII cats that really captivated my imagination. mr. daylight is all about extravagant minimalism!
& as far as jeff koons is concerned his shiny, superficially, sensual work has always been incredibly interesting to me because of the social commentary on materialism being an enormous component of modern life. koons' work is so tongue & cheek & on the nose (& 2 more face based analogies that i can't think of right now) that on the surface it may seem difficult to read too much into it, but i see that as the point. (for some) modern life is deceptively perfect. the wealthy have tons of emotional issues that poor folks like me don't really appreciate...koons reminds us that keeping up appearances is always what's up.

1 of my favorite things

2008-10-02T18:09:00.007-05:00

attack of the show on the unfortunately gen y named g4 network is the best talk/variety show on television! i've been watching it for years hoping that the chemistry between regular hosts olivia munn & kevin pereira to really gel & it definitely has....even the replacement hosts chris hardwick [of singled out & online nerdom fame] & allison haislip hold it down quite thoroughly.
admittedly atos is infinitely more interesting & entertaining than call for help which if i'm not mistaken used to air in the same time slot back before the network allegedly got hip & ditched the tech tv name in favor of something that has more 2k+ fanboy appeal.
it took a while for olivia to let her guard down, but now that she has damn near everyone on the show is equally comfortable being crazy as hell on national television...even the precosious & unreasonably sexy layla kayleigh appears to be more comfortable rolling with the live basic cable punches.
it would have been infinitely more interesting to see a co-ed, low budget [big on creativity], ubber current show like atos replace conan's late night show when he takes over the tonight show next year...instead of just handing it to some questionably popular, hacky, somewhere between has-been & never was "comedian" like jimmy fallon. but i digress because if there's one thing that television has taught me its that creativity is definitely not king & anything even remotely interesting is either never gonna make it to air or make it past the 2nd or 3rd season [see arrested development].
i just felt the need to gush about attack of the show because i've been watching it almost daily for the past month+...& also because the horus set blog seems to need a lil break from heavy topics. so if you get g4 give atos a chance. its on monday - friday @ 6p & the replay airs @ 12a [all times central]. & if u can't afford an arm & a leg each month for entertainment clips are also available on hulu & veoh...so check it out when u can. atos is literally the only live daily show i even attempt to be interested in aside from democracy now which if you've ever talked to me or read this blog before is the only news source i trust & whole-heartedly endorse.

Economic Terrorism

2008-10-02T10:40:00.012-05:00

the way today's economic situation is being presented to the american people is nothing short of economic terrorism. the "debate" is framed as though its $700 billion to wall street as quickly as possible with as little oversight & accountability as possible or the sky will fall & there are no alternatives. for some additional insight into the consequences of the bailout please enjoy this episode of democracy now from thursday october 2nd.

the blackdaylight cloud

2008-09-29T14:54:00.004-05:00

"Trouble Is" Video

2008-09-26T17:39:00.004-05:00

this is one of the most interesting hip hop videos i've seen in years...i don't really listen to too much rap music anymore [i guess the hip pop terrorists like young ___ & lil ___ won] so i have no idea who this guy is or who the people in the video are but its dope & that's really all that matters.

all of us independent artists gotta support each other!!!

Corporate Welfare 2008:The True Cost of the "Free Market"

2008-09-22T23:56:00.003-05:00

wanna know what's really up with the under estimated $700 billion bail out for wall street? need to hear specific details from experts & lawmakers?
watch this video...

blackdaylight music

2008-09-20T11:43:00.005-05:00

free download available @

www.stigaemusic.com

full album & various reasonably priced singles available for download @
www.tarniusmusic.com/blackdaylight

free download available @
www.garganrecords.com

Economic Implosion

2008-09-19T15:31:00.006-05:00

not sure you have a full understanding of what's going on with the economy? well beyond the same old wall street fat cats that demanded deregulation in the 1990's are now begging for the government to bail them out with billions of your tax dollars, all-the-while your brothers & sisters are getting their lives repossessed & foreclosed everyday without any help!
leave it to democracy now (the only daily national news show that gets mr. daylight's seal of approval) to break it down for you with intelligent & insightful explanations from industry insiders naomi prins & michael hudson.

zeitgeist

2008-09-16T16:07:00.005-05:00

by popular demand, here it is; the full length, uncut, remastered version of zeitgeist. the subject matter is heavy, but its also very necessary if you intend on understanding all of the perverse things happening in the today's world & how they've been manifesting themselves for thousands of years deliberate distribution of disinformation.

generally speaking the first 8 - 10 minutes of this movie are a little hard to watch & may wind up killing your interest in this most interesting of films, but if u can make it to the end you will see that it was well worth your patience.
+ @ about 16 minutes into the piece there's a lil discussion about the origins of horus & set...who are the inspiration for the title of this blog.

know your enemy?

2008-09-16T15:17:00.001-05:00

think you know about osama bin laden, his family, their history, & their ties to the united states government? author of the bin laden's: an arabian family in the american century steve coll spent 15 years researching osama bin laden & his family chronicling nearly everything from his father's rise to prominence to well after september 10th 2001.
one of the last refuges of unfettered journalism & the only daily news show that gets the blackdaylight stamp of approval democracy now's amy goodman spends an hour with investigative journalist steve coll.

take a break from 9/11 propaganda

2008-09-12T02:41:00.006-05:00

here's a lil witty chart of all of the wacky shit that consumes a lot of our daily lives.

its also a lil love from mr. daylight to the program directors at current.com & a break from all of the allegedly serious b.s. about 9/11 that's damn near impossible to dodge...i spent the evening watching loose change: final cut which is completely different from the first 2 editions. you can click on the link to see it + its also posted here on the horus set blog. if you're not completely burned out on the day that stole your freedom i strongly suggest setting aside some time to watch the entire film.

a place to laugh @ hipsters

2008-09-09T02:36:00.006-05:00

i started noticing people dressed like hobos that live behind an american apparel store a few years ago when i started playing live gigs with the moment sound crew. initially i just thought fans of our style[s] of electronic music were eccentric & had their own unique style of dress. as the months flew by & we continued to spend more & more time in wicker park (aka mecca for chicago hipsters) i quickly became aware that it was a takeover not a makeover. i love our random fans, but not so much for the hipsters in general. i just happened to stumble upon www.diehipster.com...not quite as funny as the stuff white people like blog, but nonetheless an appropriately inappropriate blog for those of us that dress funny because we can't afford new gear & are just a lil tired of self important, post yuppies that "just wanna be different" by dressing like every other trend-chaser with a man-purse or lamé leggings.

some of the entries are truly hilarious. u can really feel the contempt for hipsters.

things white people like

2008-09-06T00:36:00.006-05:00

its not all brutal truth & awful revelations here @ the hours set. apparently there's a book & a blog called Stuff White People Like by a guy named Christian Lander, who just happened to be on Late Night with Conan Obrien (the only late night talk show that's even remotely tolerable). the interview was actually pretty funny. this Lander guy kinda sounded like me talking about white people, but in a much safer & cuddlier package.
recently i've been on a quest to figure out how to think like a white man so i can continue to advance my plans for world domination. i've been busy watching lots of Woody Allen movies, the Muse on Bloomberg TV & listening to NPR as much as possible all in an attempt to foster my delicate liberal sensibilities, but little did i know that my man Christian Lander literally wrote the book on all the whimsically ridiculous shit that white people like!

here are some hilarious examples:
#101 Being Offended

#105 Unpaid Internships who else can afford to work for free?

#108 Appearing to enjoy Classical Music
#107 Self Aware Hip Hop References
#97 Scarves
#89 St. Patrick’s Day
#90 Dinner Parties
#95 Rugby
#96 New Balance Shoes
#86 Shorts white folks do seem to really hate wearing coats!)
#82 Hating Corporations
#81 Graduate School
#73 Gentrification there goes the neighborhood!
#72 Study Abroad
#8 Barack Obama
#69 Mos Def
#5 Farmer’s Markets
#1 Coffee this may be true but it seems like #1 should be exploiting brown people
#9 Making you feel bad about not going outside
#20 Being an expert on YOUR culture
#19 Traveling
#12 Non-Profit Organizations
#30 Wrigley Field damn i don't even think this Landers cat is from chicago!)
#28 Not having a TV
#36 Breakfast Places ann sather, clarks & overeasy do always seem to be packed
#40 Apple Products i am the only person i know that has never had an i-anything
#62 Knowing What’s Best for Poor People
#61 Bicycles
#50 Irony its all about hipsters with unicorns or bears hugging on their tshirts
#54 Kitchen Gadgets every time i go to a dinner party i learn about a new one or a vegetable i've never heard of before
#53 Dogs there's definitely plenty of evidence of this on the north side!
#106 Facebook
#104 Girls with Bangs
#11 Asian Girls but then again i've definitely been afflicted with the yellow fever more than a few times myself

i'm surprised that blogging & not saying excuse me in public weren't on the list, but then again i suppose that i'm not an expert!) check out the Stuff White People Like blog for the complete list.

prefabricated homes

2008-09-05T19:11:00.001-05:00

prefab homes & buildings are experiencing a new wave of popularity among trend-chasing hipsters & green-minded yuppies, but it is a very efficient construction method. prefab buildings are not only visually stunning, but can also save tons time & money on construction costs...not to mention the reduction in noise pollution that is inevitable when construction work is taking place while you're trying to sleep next door.

cork furniture

2008-09-05T16:19:00.000-05:00

its sustainable, fresh, naturally antimicrobial & waterproof...now if it was only affordable!)

b l a c k d a y l i g h t

2008-09-05T15:42:00.001-05:00

Now playing: blackdaylight

u know shit's getting wild when...

2008-09-05T03:51:00.003-05:00

even mtv is producing ads trying to wake up the gen. pop.

Arm Yourself

2008-09-05T03:33:00.001-05:00

google the following terms: rex 84, Operation Garden Plot, amero, REAL ID, military industrial complex, lend lease act

[warning: the music in the video is a little irritating & loud, but its worth it to get the facts]
try not to be frightened. remember that knowledge is power. being aware is a form of self defense, so always make it a point to know your enemy.

Ayurveda

2008-09-05T03:19:00.000-05:00

this documentary is was my introduction to this ancient methodology

The word "Ayurveda" is a compound of the word āyus meaning "life," "life principle," or "longevity" and the word veda, which refers to a system of "knowledge" or "wisdom." Thus "Ayurveda" roughly translates as the "wisdom for living" or "knowledge of a long life"."Life" itself is defined as the "combination of the body, sense organs, mind and soul, the factor responsible for preventing decay and death, which sustains the body over time, and guides the processes of rebirth."
Ayurveda is concerned with measures to protect "ayus", which includes healthy living along with therapeutic measures that relate to physical, mental, social and spiritual harmony. Ayurveda is also one among the few traditional systems of medicine to contain a sophisticated system of surgery.

loose change: final cut

2008-09-05T03:10:00.000-05:00

a little research & a thoughtful mind goes a long way

[not so] current tv

2008-09-03T20:40:00.000-05:00

the funny thing about current.com & current tv is that most of the things that they deem hipster worthy have already been circulating on the web for days or featured on g4's attack of the show before they magically appear anywhere on current's multimedia stroke-fest.
current is always on in my house because even a sexual intellectual such as myself eventually tires of pbs & democracy now. what really kills me about current is how despite tremendous word of mouth popularity growth over the past 3 years, somehow the network has managed to have less content. the mini documentaries that they not so cleverly refer to as pods used to be really innovative & almost unbelievably diverse, but have sadly morphed into oddly homogeneous not-so-thinly-veiled ads for all types of hipster friendly bullshit. current has matured into a slightly more erudite E! channel embellished with a healthy dose of mtv style repetition.
the good folks @ current always encourage feedback yet only seem to air sugary, praise heavy love notes from the peanut gallery. the handful of times that i have offered my critiques of various programming issues i get very standard boilerplate responses that are always sure to gloss over my deepest & most obvious concerns for something that i used to be so unbelievably excited about 3 years ago.
perhaps i'm naive, but it really used to seem like current was down to fight the good fight for multimedia savvy web 2.0 fiends.

creepy fembot from korea

2008-08-30T14:25:00.000-05:00

here's something i found on desigmboom.com that's almost unbelievably creepy

the one on the right looks like she's winding up to bitch slap one of those kids for running up on her

the boy on the right hiding behind the much smaller kid definitely captures the weird spirit of the moment

here's a lil info on the korean fembot:
EveR-1 gets her name from the historical first woman eve, with an 'r' that stands for robot. built for both entertainment and educational purposes, EveR-1 can understand 400 words in english and korean and can engage in very basic conversation.

more beauty

2008-08-30T06:28:00.001-05:00

these are just the tip of the iceberg...i've been working with this concept on & off for 4 or 5 years

truth series

2008-08-30T06:17:00.000-05:00

truth series…
the words may be leading, but [I still believe] the destination is always unique experience for each individual. Is the viewer more enraptured by the colors, words, positions & facial expressions of the subjects or are the vaguely familiar, amateur erotic models’ nudity & sensual appearances too much for them to get past?
If the viewer is familiar with a certain model does the new context the truth series places them in change the way the viewer feels about her?
Its interesting that I’m really not into using audio samples in my music, but feel so comfortable basing an entire series of visual pieces on found photographs [of women I have no real connection to].
Maybe I have just fallen into the classic group of artists that worship the female form. Maybe I just wanted to show a lil homage to Andy Warhol & my other street art influences? Maybe I just like chopping up pictures of naked girls?

Banksy in the N.O.

2008-08-30T05:44:00.000-05:00

these 2 pieces are definitely on some worth a thousand words shit

somethings u should know about joe

2008-08-30T05:43:00.001-05:00

By choosing Joe Biden as their vice presidential candidate, the Democrats have selected a politician with a mixed record on technology who has spent most of his Senate career allied with the FBI and copyright holders, who ranks toward the bottom of CNET's Technology Voters' Guide, and whose anti-privacy legislation was actually responsible for the creation of PGP.

That's probably okay with Barack Obama: Biden likely got the nod because of his foreign policy knowledge. The Delaware politician is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee who voted for the war in Iraq, and is reasonably well-known nationally after his presidential campaigns in 1988 and 2008.

Copyright
But back to the Delaware senator's tech record. After taking over the Foreign Relations committee, Biden became a staunch ally of Hollywood and the recording industry in their efforts to expand copyright law. He sponsored a bill in 2002 that would have make it a federal felony to trick certain types of devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs. Biden's bill was backed by content companies including News Corp. but eventually died after Verizon, Microsoft, Apple, eBay, and Yahoo lobbied against it.

Sen. Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee, whose anti-encryption legislation was responsible for the creation of PGP.

(Credit: Biden.senate.gov)

A few months later, Biden signed a letter that urged the Justice Department "to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks." Critics of this approach said that the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, and not taxpayers, should pay for their own lawsuits.

Last year, Biden sponsored an RIAA-backed bill called the Perform Act aimed at restricting Americans' ability to record and play back individual songs from satellite and Internet radio services. (The RIAA sued XM Satellite Radio over precisely this point.)

All of which meant that nobody in Washington was surprised when Biden was one of only four U.S. senators invited to a champagne reception in celebration of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act hosted by the MPAA's Jack Valenti, the RIAA, and the Business Software Alliance. (Photos are here.)

Now, it's true that few Americans will cast their votes in November based on what the vice presidential candidate thinks of copyright law. But these pro-copyright views don't exactly jibe with what Obama has promised; he's pledged to "update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated." These are code words for taking a more pro-EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) than pro-MPAA approach.

Unfortunately, Biden has steadfastly refused to answer questions on the topic. We asked him 10 tech-related questions, including whether he'd support rewriting the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, as part of our 2008 Technology Voters' guide. Biden would not answer (we did hear back from Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Ron Paul).

In our 2006 Technology Voters' Guide, which ranked Senate votes from July 1998 through May 2005, Biden received a mere 37.5 percent score because of his support for Internet filters in schools and libraries and occasional support for Internet taxes.

Privacy, the FBI, and PGP
On privacy, Biden's record is hardly stellar. In the 1990s, Biden was chairman of the Judiciary Committee and introduced a bill called the Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act, which the EFF says he was "persuaded" to do by the FBI. A second Biden bill was called the Violent Crime Control Act. Both were staunchly anti-encryption, with this identical language:

It is the sense of Congress that providers of electronic communications services and manufacturers of electronic communications service equipment shall ensure that communications systems permit the government to obtain the plain text contents of voice, data, and other communications when appropriately authorized by law.

Translated, that means turn over your encryption keys. The book Electronic Privacy Papers describes Biden's bill as representing the FBI's visible effort to restrict encryption technology, which was taking place in concert with the National Security Agency's parallel, but less visible efforts. (Biden was no foe of the NSA. He once described now-retired NSA director Bobby Ray Inman as the "single most competent man in the government.")

Biden's bill -- and the threat of encryption being outlawed -- is what spurred Phil Zimmermann to write PGP, thereby kicking off a historic debate about export controls, national security, and privacy. Zimmermann, who's now busy developing Zfone, says it was Biden's legislation "that led me to publish PGP electronically for free that year, shortly before the measure was defeated after vigorous protest by civil libertarians and industry groups."

While neither of Biden's pair of bills became law, they did foreshadow the FBI's pro-wiretapping, anti-encryption legislative strategy that followed -- and demonstrated that the Delaware senator was willing to be a reliable ally of law enforcement on the topic. (They also previewed the FBI's legislative proposal later that decade for banning encryption products such as SSH or PGP without government backdoors, which was approved by one House of Representatives committee but never came to a vote in the Senate.)

"Joe Biden made his second attempt to introduce such legislation" in the form of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which was also known as the Digital Telephony law, according to an account in Wired magazine. Biden at the time was chairman of the relevant committee; he co-sponsored the Senate version and dutifully secured a successful floor vote on it less than two months after it was introduced. CALEA became law in October 1994, and is still bedeviling privacy advocates: the FBI recently managed to extend its requirements to Internet service providers.

CALEA represented one step in the FBI and NSA's attempts to restrict encryption without backdoors. In a top-secret memo to members of President George H.W. Bush's administration including Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and CIA director Robert Gates, one White House official wrote: "Justice should go ahead now to seek a legislative fix to the digital telephony problem, and all parties should prepare to follow through on the encryption problem in about a year. Success with digital telephony will lock in one major objective; we will have a beachhead we can exploit for the encryption fix; and the encryption access options can be developed more thoroughly in the meantime."

There's another reason why Biden's legislative tactics in the CALEA scrum amount to more than a mere a footnote in Internet history. They're what led to the creation of the Center for Democracy and Technology -- and the Electronic Frontier Foundation's simultaneous implosion and soul-searching.

EFF staffers Jerry Berman and Danny Weitzner chose to work with Biden on cutting a deal and altering the bill in hopes of obtaining privacy concessions. It may have helped, but it also left the EFF in the uncomfortable position of leaving its imprimatur on Biden's FBI-backed wiretapping law universally loathed by privacy advocates. The debacle ended with internal turmoil, Berman and Weitzner leaving the group and taking their corporate backers to form CDT, and a chastened EFF that quietly packed its bags and moved to its current home in San Francisco. (Weitzner, who was responsible for a censorship controversy last year, became a formal Obama campaign surrogate.)

"Anti-terror" legislation
The next year, months before the Oklahoma City bombing took place, Biden introduced another bill called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of "terrorism" that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detection of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review. The Center for National Security Studies said the bill would erode "constitutional and statutory due process protections" and would "authorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations."

Biden himself draws parallels between his 1995 bill and its 2001 cousin. "I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing. And the bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill," he said when the Patriot Act was being debated, according to the New Republic, which described him as "the Democratic Party's de facto spokesman on the war against terrorism."

Biden's chronology is not accurate: the bombing took place in April 1995 and his bill had been introduced in February 1995. But it's true that Biden's proposal probably helped to lay the groundwork for the Bush administration's Patriot Act.

In 1996, Biden voted to keep intact an ostensibly anti-illegal immigration bill that outlined what the Real ID Act would become almost a decade later. The bill would create a national worker identification registry; Biden voted to kill an Abraham-Feingold amendment that would have replaced the registry with stronger enforcement. According to an analysis by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the underlying bill would have required "states to place Social Security numbers on drivers licenses and to obtain fingerprints or some other form of biometric identification for licenses."

Along with most of his colleagues in the Congress -- including Sen. John McCain but not Rep. Ron Paul -- Biden voted for the Patriot Act and the Real ID Act (which was part of a larger spending bill). Obama voted for the bill containing the Real ID Act, but wasn't in the U.S. Senate in 2001 when the original Patriot Act vote took place.

Patriot Act
In the Senate debate over the Patriot Act in October 2001, Biden once again allied himself closely with the FBI. The Justice Department favorably quotes Biden on its Web site as saying: "The FBI could get a wiretap to investigate the mafia, but they could not get one to investigate terrorists. To put it bluntly, that was crazy! What's good for the mob should be good for terrorists."

The problem is that Biden's claim was simply false -- which he should have known after a decade of experience lending his name to wiretapping bills on behalf of the FBI. As CDT explains in a rebuttal to Biden: "The Justice Department had the ability to use wiretaps, including roving taps, in criminal investigations of terrorism, just as in other criminal investigations, long before the Patriot Act."

But Biden's views had become markedly less FBI-friendly by April 2007, six years later. By then, the debate over wiretapping had become sharply partisan, pitting Democrats seeking to embarrass President Bush against Republicans aiming to defend the administration at nearly any cost. In addition, Biden had announced his presidential candidacy three months earlier and was courting liberal activists dismayed by the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping.

That month, Biden slammed the "president's illegal wiretapping program that allows intelligence agencies to eavesdrop on the conversations of Americans without a judge's approval or congressional authorization or oversight." He took aim at Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for allowing the FBI to "flagrantly misuse National Security Letters" -- even though it was the Patriot Act that greatly expanded their use without also expanding internal safeguards and oversight as well.

Biden did vote against a FISA bill with retroactive immunity for any telecommunications provider that illegally opened its network to the National Security Agency; Obama didn't. Both agreed to renew the Patriot Act in March 2006, a move that pro-privacy Democrats including Ron Wyden and Russ Feingold opposed. The ACLU said the renewal "fails to correct the most flawed provisions" of the original Patriot Act. (Biden does do well on the ACLU's congressional scorecard.)

"Baby-food bombs"
The ACLU also had been at odds with Biden over his efforts to censor bomb-making information on the Internet. One day after a bomb in Saudi Arabia killed several U.S. servicemen and virtually flattened a military base, Biden pushed to make posting bomb-making information on the Internet a felony, punishable by up to 20 years in jail, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

"I think most Americans would be absolutely shocked if they knew what kind of bone-chilling information is making its way over the Internet," he told the Senate. "You can access detailed, explicit instructions on how to make and detonate pipe bombs, light-bulb bombs, and even -- if you can believe it -- baby-food bombs."

Biden didn't get exactly what he wanted -- at least not right away. His proposal was swapped in the final law for one requiring the attorney general to investigate "the extent to which the First Amendment protects such material and its private and commercial distribution." The report was duly produced, concluding that the proposal "can withstand constitutional muster in most, if not all, of its possible applications, if such legislation is slightly modified."

It was. Biden and co-sponsor Dianne Feinstein introduced their bill again the following year. Biden pitched it as an anti-terror measure, saying in a floor debate that numerous terrorists "have been found in possession of bomb-making manuals and Internet bomb-making information." He added: "What is even worse is that some of these instructions are geared toward kids. They tell kids that all the ingredients they need are right in their parents' kitchen or laundry cabinets."

Biden's proposal became law in 1997. It didn't amount to much: four years after its enactment, there had been only one conviction. And instead of being used to snare a dangerous member of Al Qaeda, the law was used to lock up a 20-year old anarchist Webmaster who was sentenced to one year in prison for posting information about Molotov cocktails and "Drano bombs" on his Web site, Raisethefist.com.

Today there are over 10,000 hits on Google for the phrase, in quotes, "Drano bomb." One is a video that lists the necessary ingredients and shows some self-described rednecks blowing up small plastic bottles in their yard. Then there's the U.S. Army's Improvised Munitions Handbook with instructions on making far more deadly compounds, including methyl nitrate dynamite, mortars, grenades, and C-4 plastic explosive -- which free speech activists placed online as an in-your-face response to the Biden-Feinstein bill.

Peer-to-peer networks
Since then, Biden has switched from complaining about Internet baby-food bombs to taking aim at peer-to-peer networks. He held one Foreign Relations committee hearing in February 2002 titled "Theft of American Intellectual Property" and invited executives from the Justice Department, RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft to speak. Not one Internet company, P2P network, or consumer group was invited to testify.

Afterwards, Sharman Networks (which distributes Kazaa) wrote a letter to Biden complaining about "one-sided and unsubstantiated attacks" on P2P networks. It said: "We are deeply offended by the gratuitous accusations made against Kazaa by witnesses before the committee, including ludicrous attempts to associate an extremely beneficial, next-generation software program with organized criminal gangs and even terrorist organizations."

Biden returned to the business of targeting P2P networks this year. In April, he proposed spending $1 billion in U.S. tax dollars so police can monitor peer-to-peer networks for illegal activity. He made that suggestion after a Wyoming cop demonstrated a proof-of-concept program called "Operation Fairplay" at a hearing before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.

A month later, the Senate Judiciary committee approved a Biden-sponsored bill that would spend over $1 billion on policing illegal Internet activity, mostly child pornography. It has the dubious virtue of being at least partially redundant: One section would "prohibit the broadcast of live images of child abuse," even though the Justice Department has experienced no problems in securing guilty pleas for underage Webcamming. (The bill has not been voted on by the full Senate.)

Online sales of Robitussin
Around the same time, Biden introduced his self-described Biden Crime Bill of 2007. One section expands electronic surveillance law to permit police wiretaps in "crimes dangerous to the life, limb, and well-being of minor children." Another takes aim at Internet-based telemedicine and online pharmacies, saying that physicians must have conducted "at least one in-person medical evaluation of the patient" to prescribe medicine.

Another prohibits selling a product containing dextromethorphan -- including Robitussin, Sucrets, Dayquil, and Vicks -- "to an individual under the age of 18 years, including any such sale using the Internet." It gives the Justice Department six months to come up with regulations, which include when retailers should be fined for shipping cough suppressants to children. (Biden is a longtime drug warrior; he authored the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act that the Bush administration used to shut down benefit concerts.)

Net neutrality
On Net neutrality, Biden has sounded skeptical. In 2006, he indicated that no preemptive laws were necessary because if violations do happen, such a public outcry will develop that "the chairman will be required to hold this meeting in this largest room in the Capitol, and there will be lines wandering all the way down to the White House." Obama, on the other hand, has been a strong supporter of handing pre-emptive regulatory authority to the Federal Communications Commission.

Say Goodbye to Nutrients

2008-08-30T05:30:00.000-05:00

with so many distractions people tend to overlook some of the most simple & essential things that are key to life...here's a crash course in codex alimentarius from the http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/ website:

Codex Alimentarius was founded in 1962 by the UN to establish international free trade foods. It is jointly administered by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) through annual and regional meetings.

Codex sets advisory standards and guidelines which nations may adopt or modify. If they modify them without special protections, nations may be found guilty of setting up trade barriers by the World Trade Organization (WTO), and be assessed crippling financial penalties. If, on the other hand, countries deviate from Codex texts by creating a scientifically strong alternative guideline or standard, and pass enabling legislation (a process we refer to as "The Codex Two Step") they are free to deviate from Codex without being found guilty of creating barriers to trade. WTO has repeatedly refused to grant Codex a unique position as THE international food code, saying it is one of several such standards.

Codex decisions are, however, often perceived as inevitable by many developing nations which are not aware of the flexibility to protect the health of their people through the Two Step Process.

Codex' decisions are heavily influenced by the desires of multinational special interest groups who send representatives to sit on national committees and as NGO delegates. Because Codex is so heavily influenced by corporate interests, its decisions are, in our opinion, often helpful to corporate well-being but strikingly detrimental to human and einviromental health.

Codex pertains to every bite - and kind of - food traded internationally and allows high doses of pesticides, veterinary drugs, synthetic hormones, contaminants, artificial sweeteners, and other dangerous compounds and processes (like mandated irradiation of food) while it forbids health claims for food.