Killing Hope, 16” x 20” acrylic, 2011

MEDIA ROOTS– Never before Barack Obama’s presidential campaign had I ever seen a candidate brand themselves with a corporate logo. Obama’s official logo appears to be a giant blue “O” sun rising over an American flag horizon, symbolizing the supposed dawn of a new beginning. The manipulative branding of the loaded words “Hope & Change” worked beautifully- most of the world rallied strongly behind Obama as he took on the role of the new world leader.

Two years and three months into Obama’s presidency, his administration has not only continued most of the corrupt, unjust and inhumane policies of the criminal Bush term, but in many cases his administration has exacerbated them. After the escalation of the Afghanistan war and drone attacks in Pakistan, the unconstitutional bombing of Libya, the financial and political backing of murderous governments, the further dismemberment of the Bill of Rights as well as the unabated support of Bush’s “War on Terror”, it’s more than fair to say that the Obama regime has blood all over its hands.

My interpretation of Obama’s logo is one where the American stripes are spilling into a deep pool of blood. The dripping blood represents the carnage and death that has resulted from the perpetuation of these horrendous policies. The blood also represents the slow death of the false sense of “hope” that Obama’s campaign galvanized. Broken promise after broken promise, more people are breaking out of the baseless propaganda and empty rhetoric and starting to acknowledge that true change and hope can only be sustained through love, strength and peace- not a corporate marketing campaign financed by corrupt banks and bloodthirsty military contractors.

Abby

This piece is going to be part of Abby Martin’s upcoming art installation called Dystopian Musings at Mama Buzz Gallery on May 6 in Oakland, CA for the monthly art murmur. Her new series of mixed media work intends to provoke a stark reflection of modern day politics and society by visually critiquing major players, events and unsettling trends. To check out more of Abby’s art go to www.ABBYMARTIN.org

SALON– One of the most intense scandals the field of psychology has faced over the last decade is the involvement of several of its members in enabling Bush’s worldwide torture regime.  Numerous health professionals worked for the U.S. government to help understand how best to mentally degrade and break down detainees. At the center of that controversy was — and is — Dr. Larry James.  James, a retired Army colonel, was the Chief Psychologist at Guantanamo in 2003, at the height of the abuses at that camp, and then served in the same position at Abu Ghraib during 2004.  

Today, Dr. James circulated an excited email announcing, “with great pride,” that he has now been selected to serve on the “White House Task Force entitled Enhancing the Psychological Well-Being of The Military Family.”  In his new position, he will be meeting at the White House with Michelle Obama and other White House officials on Tuesday.

For his work at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, Dr. James was the subject of two formal ethics complaints in the two states where he is licensed to practice: Louisiana and Ohio.  Those complaints — 50 pages long and full of detailed and well-documented allegations — were filed by the International Human Rights Clinic of Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program, on behalf of veterans, mental health professionals and others.  The complaints detailed how James “was the senior psychologist of the Guantánamo BSCT, a small but influential group of mental health professionals whose job it was to advise on and participate in the interrogations, and to help create an environment designed to break down prisoners.”  Specifically:

During his tenure at the prison, boys and men were threatened with rape and death for themselves and their family members; sexually, culturally, and religiously humiliated; forced naked; deprived of sleep; subjected to sensory deprivation, over-stimulation, and extreme isolation; short-shackled into stress positions for hours; and physically assaulted. The evidence indicates that abuse of this kind was systemic, that BSCT health professionals played an integral role in its planning and practice. . . .

Writing in 2009, Law Professor Bill Quigley and Deborah Popowski, a Fellow at the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program, described James’ role in this particularly notorious incident:

In 2003, Louisiana psychologist and retired Col. Larry James watched behind a one-way mirror in a US prison camp while an interrogator and three prison guards wrestled a screaming, near-naked man on the floor.

The prisoner had been forced into pink women’s panties, lipstick and a wig; the men then pinned the prisoner to the floor in an effort “to outfit him with the matching pink nightgown.” As he recounts in his memoir, “Fixing Hell,” Dr. James initially chose not to respond. He “opened [his] thermos, poured a cup of coffee, and watched the episode play out, hoping it would take a better turn and not wanting to interfere without good reason …”

Although he claims to eventually find “good reason” to intervene, the Army colonel never reported the incident or even so much as reprimanded men who had engaged in activities that constituted war crimes.

Read full article about Top Bush-era Psychologist Obama’s Newest Appointment.

Written by Glenn Greenwald

(Video Below)

LA TIMES– How did Japanese workers at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant jury-rig fire hoses to cool damaged reactors? Is contaminated water from waste pools overflowing into the Pacific Ocean? Exactly who is the national incident commander?

The answers to these and many other questions are unclear to U.S. nuclear scientists and policy experts, who say the quality and quantity of information coming out of Japan has left gaping holes in their understanding of the disaster nearly two weeks after it began.

At the same time, they say, the depth of the crisis has clearly been growing, judging by releases of radioactivity that by some measures have reached half the level of those released in the Chernobyl accident of 1986, according to new analysis by European and American scientists.

Read full article about Gaping Holes Surrounding Japan’s Nuclear Crisis.

© 2011 LA Times

REUTERS– Japanese engineers struggled on Sunday to pump radioactive water from a crippled nuclear power station after radiation levels soared in seawater near the plant more than two weeks after it was battered by a huge earthquake and a tsunami.

Tests on Friday showed iodine 131 levels in seawater 30 km (19 miles) from the coastal nuclear complex had spiked 1,250 times higher than normal but it was not considered a threat to marine life or food safety, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.

“Ocean currents will disperse radiation particles and so it will be very diluted by the time it gets consumed by fish and seaweed,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a senior agency official.

Read full article about Japan’s Radiation Spikes.

© 2011 Reuters

 Photo by flickr user OiMax

Fresh radiation fears have emerged in reactor 2 of the Fukushima nuclear plant, as the radioactivity levels are reported to be 100,000 times the normal level.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC– According to a new study, a star discovered 75 light-years away is no warmer than a freshly brewed cup of coffee.

Dubbed CFBDSIR 1458 10b, the star is what’s called a brown dwarf. These oddball objects are often called failed stars, because they have starlike heat and chemical properties but don’t have enough mass for the crush of gravity to ignite nuclear fusion at their cores.

With surface temperatures hovering around 206 degrees F (97 degrees C), the newfound star is the coldest brown dwarf seen to date. (Related: “Dimmest Stars in Universe Spotted?”)

“Over the years there has been steady but slow progress in pushing the boundaries of finding the coldest stars,” said study leader Michael Liu, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii.

“But with this latest discovery we have made a big leap forward—besting the previous record holder by at least 150 Kelvin [270 degrees F, or 150 degrees C],” he said.

Continue reading about the Coldest Star Found—No Hotter Than Fresh Coffee.

© 2011 National Geographic

Photo by flickr NASA

(Free album download below)

“Perhaps within the next hundred years, science will perfect a process of thought transference from composer to listener. The composer will sit alone on the concert stage and merely ‘think’ his idealized conception of his music. Instead of recordings of actual music sound, recordings will carry the brainwaves of the composer directly to the mind of the listener.” – Raymond Scott, 1949

MEDIA ROOTS- In early 2010, what would eventually become Antique Electronic Synthesizer Greats was simply a concept for a live set. Fluorescent Grey, aka Robbie Martin, cut almost a thousand tiny samples and loops from works dating from 1955 to 1984, limiting his sources to strictly electronic and/or synthesized recordings.

His rules allowed for non-synthesized compositions (e.g., Delia Derbyshire’s tape cutting based tones) as well as synthesizer audio of any kind, including the Hammond Novachord. And far from simply a stolen sample collage, or meta-mash-up project, Robbie wanted to allow the mix he composed to preserve and highlight the eras’ best sounds in a comprehensive backdrop.

Some of those painstakingly found and excised snippets may be all but indiscernible to most, while some tease with their familiarity (Depeche Mode bass drum? YMO hi hat?), and some are nakedly in homage (synth lines from Vangelis, Giorgio Moroder). All are as playful as the puzzling track names, one of the most obvious of which are pieces that re-imagine the sound of John Carpenter’s best synth-centric movie scores. From the uneasy sounds of horror to the sweet spot of vintage synth-pop and industrial, to the brief satisfyingly bizarre vocal cameos by Alan Vega and a Spanish industrial/noise outfit, it runs the gamut of its chosen time period exhaustively.

One might wonder, why stop at 1984? or 1983 (the original cutoff)? In all honesty, the cut off year was first altered to make one Zoviet France record eligible. But why is it so important to draw the line in the early 80’s when many classic and important electronic albums came out between 1984-1990, Skinny Puppy’s Bites or DJ Pierre’s Acid Tracks. The answer is simple, until 1984 most music that was ‘electronic’ relied primarily on synthesizers.

Around mid-1983 romplers/samplers become par the course. The techniques sent waves through the electronic music production circles and arguably diluted the powerful earlier sound of acts like Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk (ie electric cafe). Maybe most notably, the Klaus Schulze album ‘Dig it’ that proclaims the death of  analog on it’s opening track. Additionally the rules were not set yet, before rave culture took hold there was a more playful less specific purpose to it all. Lending itself automatically to a more varied feel.

Given the uncannily nostalgic or modern moods evoked, it can be all too easy to forget that the entire mix is comprised solely of an endlessly rotating roster of up to 15 isolated loops, all at least a quarter of a century old, some twice that age. On some songs, you could imagine a DJ dialing into the sounds of AFX or Mr. Oizo, an amusing stunt for some of the source material sounds unmistakably dated in a way that has yet to be retrofetishized. Proto-electronica futurism captured in Chris Carter’s sequences or Morton Subotnick’s Autechre-like FM synth splatters, works that indisputably sound futuristic in their own right. Dated or not, the novelty factor of an overwhelmingly corny synth brass sample is sometimes too good to resist, making it nigh impossible to prevent that old fashioned sound from antiquing the whole mix.

This pastiche is offered up in both a mix and an individually tracked album for maximum utility. Use the cover art and the hidden messages contained herein as a resource for your own Antique Electronic Music search.

Acroplane Records Presents:

Artist:  Fluorescent Grey
Catalogue no.:  ACP077
Release date:  15.03.11
Format: digital / free

1. Dacca Thermotensile Loony Smut Syst
2. Baba Rube Drone Lions
3. Ice Age Fire Loving Zool; Troy
4. Ramadan Greek Winter Trek (aka Coricidin)
5. Chicken Hypnotism
6. Abc Condom Motorist = Trunks Tony
7. Juanita Ciardelli
8. Basal Metabolic Rate Niggle Vishnu; Intr. Slur
9 . Cinema Isn’t Soul Sorn
10. Gomez Childs Shult
11. Gunner McRagburn
12. Dead Pink Sphere Pussy Envy
13. Leaf-Laden Amber Hued GUI
14. Abaca Cede, Love to Lie……… Iris Truly
15. Johnny Rocket-Ball
16. Endless Saccharic Acid Deed… Every Show Oozy
17. Calcium Cyclamate: Eighteen Helix Horn Worms
18. Arcjet Penhorn
19. Applebaum Watersnake
20. PPink Sun, Venial Gypsies
21. Where From Tape Deck Ked
22. Would You Say I Have A Plethora Of Piñatas?
23. Rick Santorum Smokes Salvia Divinorum
24 .Abadox
25. Québécoise Italo

26. Pierce Molten Dog Rose
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Mixcloud link to beat-matched version of the album.

320kb/s MP3

Download tracks and mix together

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Flac

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Wav

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Stay tuned for an exclusive Media Roots interview with Fluorescent Grey. To find out more about Fluorescent Grey and his label Record Label Records go to www.RecordLabelRecords.org.

Written by Laurie Kirchner