Lisbon and World Government (the abridged version)

The answer to Lisbon is easy. It’s a yes. There is nothing in it that affects any of the issues Irish people had. The no was a paranoid vote I think. That said the idealist in me has to say the rerun of the referendum is undemocratic. It necessarily is undemocratic but it should be ratified.

The world government issue. This is more than a conspiracy theory, and the paranoid language of the conspiracy theorist should not be used. This is a discussion of political and historical philosophy and those that dismiss the idea out of hand are those naive enough to ignore the 200 years of thought that the enlightenment started and think that there is something unique about the time we live in. Political shifts have taken place throughout history. We’ve had Feudalism, Monarchy, Dictatorship. If you want to think that Democracy is the last stop then you can leave the conversation and lose yourself in the time you live.

Given that the western political system that has developed gives about as much power to the individual as is possible in the current progression, where can we imagine it to go? The people rebelled against monarchy to give responsibility to the individual and I think the natural evolution of democracy would seem to have become a slow and subtle return of power to the state. (Sorry, this is going to continue to be very shorthanded. That sentence should have rightly been pages long). I think that it is inevitable and it is what we’re doing here in Europe with the EU centralising power more and more and furthermore, it is what every western nation is doing when we ask our governments to decide what we can and can’t put in our bodies, what we can and can’t say in the media etc.

This doesn't have to be a scary thing, in fact it can be great. We have economic, migratory, trade etc policies decided by the smartest people in Europe instead of in our countries, we’re not going to kill each other over resources or ideological standpoints, we can move around etc. Political correctness is annoying but it’s a price to pay. If there’s a world government we are less likely to have wars as differences will be first solved at a judicial level. This would be because it’d be cheaper and less damaging than war. Less military spending, more education, more health, perhaps an evening of world resources etc.

Many people in answer to the question “Is democracy good” will respond that it’s simply the best we’ve got. It’s easy to step out of our capitalism driven middle class lives for a moment to think that as a whole the world has problems. So changes from this, for the world as a whole, might be no more of a risk than any political change in the past, we’re just too comfy to think that way daily. I might agree with such a change perhaps because I know that it won’t affect my lifetime much or I might just accept it as inevitable.

There are 2 frightening things to think about though. Firstly, if there is a group of political figures secretly manipulating us into democratically opting for a world order (that this movement towards a world order might be presently being orchestrated by a group of politicians is no more mad an idea than the rumour that the working class were planning a rebellion was to the French noble class prior to their revolution) they are removing our civil liberty in the most profound of ways. If we want to accept such change then we have to abandon the importance that we attribute to civil liberty.

Secondly, I have no doubt that if this is happening that these people are doing it for good reasons, like the benefits of world government I touched on earlier. They have nothing to gain from this movement as it will take a number of lifetimes to complete and has probably been going on for a couple of others. But in 200 years or whatever I have no doubt that human nature will have its way. You will likely have 2 billion people not happy with the situation and how do you keep that many people in check if you're a world parliament? With military and economic force. Not to over-dramatise but I think there was a novel about it.

What can we do?

Dirty, Smelly, Beautiful

Wandering through streets, the sides stiffly towering in over you and the traffic you share the space with, it all looking much like films have conditioned you to expect. It's not a problem though, aromas are where memories breed, jaded eyes don't spoil the sensual feast. It's a wander of slight purpose, scrambling to gather a normally under-stimulated sense of smell to sample the treats of a new place. The thickest, hottest air I've ever breathed, dense with water, spices, pollutants and human perfume. The slightness of the purpose is a comfortable one but may be one that isn't serving well for this, I've run out of the tourist's description of Bankok already. I've done little else but laze in the apartment, smoke, eat, drink, and meet some very nice and enjoyable people. Not to suggest that I've some regret of the experience thus far, it just leaves me little that I want to share here.

In 4 nights I have eaten better oriental food than has ever crossed my mouth, which, needles to say, is just called food here. I played some bingo (?) Thursday; Friday, I took in some mad thai-ness at club culture before almost getting in a fight in a bar which houses the largest collection of music videos on VHS in Asia; returned to the club for the fairytale of a Battles concert last night; and other than that have been a lazy cunt. The itinerary has been kindly punctuated by the company of others - my new found friend Joanne's in particular. Off in a car tonight to take in some countryside for a few days. Bets are on for our survival with a western fool at the wheel of a thai car.

It's been a wonderful social scenic tour, and somehow, in spite of how situation dependent and blissfully externalised all of this has been, I return inside for a realisation that ought be an obvious thing for one to hold - It's easy to be happy. (That is of course if you have your basic needs fulfilled, something so many of us take for granted; a luxury that if you're in a position to read this, you probably enjoy, etc.) Maybe I'll be a little less full of shit - it should be easy for anyone in a similar position to me to to be happy, a matter perhaps of being confident enough not to allow the things in your life to outpace you.

New Music

Hear some over on myspace of mine.
If you like soft skin, express so.

www.myspace.com/kevinquigley

Fashionable Cinema

This week I very fashionably took a trip to the cinema to see what won best picture in some award ceremony or other.

Now I think that because Slumdog Millionaire was more bolly than holly my viewing of the film wasn't very much interrupted by the hype surrounding it.

I enjoyed the film as a light-hearted but emotionally charged piece. That should be about all I'd like to say about it. But because such a flurry of raving came from the critical community I have to go further. So the film wasn't just a coming of age, rags to riches story, it raised some issues. Is this enough for critical lauding now? It didn't even engage with the issues, it was pointing them out and tossing them away. For me the more serious sides of the film simply served as distraction from the fact that essentially there wasn't a lot going on. Throw in a suicide and hat tip to secondary school musical and we'll get an oscar.

Now, I know they didn't want to engage with the issues. They were being fluttered around through it to give some insights into Mumbai life, or whatever (I feel quite happy to be as vague as the film). But why? Why not make a shit romantic comedy and a social drama? Why would you crash the two into each other and leave the social drama aspects unexplored and the romantic comedy bits not so funny or shit? I don't know what this film is for, I can't imagine that those involved in it's making really gave it as much thought as they should have.

No I haven't read the book, and I shouldn't have needed to do so to be given something to engage with in the film.

Good film, well directed, well played and well produced. A firm 3 star. Congratulations.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7914758.stm

How Music Was Designed to Be Heard

The standard way to tune a western musical instrument is to do so such that the note 'A' above 'middle C' resonates at the pitch 440Hz. My use of the word 'standard' is for precision's sake as it was thus set by the International Organization for Standardisation 1955. This was the eventuality from a mostly dull but somewhat relevant series of events from the end of the 19th century. In 1885, the the Austrian government recommended that 435Hz be the frequency we take to be 'A'. At this time in the US the musical instrument industry was making instruments engineered to play 'A' at 440Hz. This was made official by the American Standards Association in 1936. Europe, for the most part was tuning 'A', as it had done historically for a long time, to 432Hz. Joseph Goebbels in 1939 attested that 'A' be adjusted to 440Hz, a move many seem to think was one of his more peculiar techniques to manipulate people. I've mentioned the war, but I'll get away with it. This isn't about the war, not at all, and how he might have used this to manipulate will reveal itself as a side note.

Prior to our discovery of the physical operations of sound, musical instruments were tuned to a pitch that was pleasing to the ear. We now know this to have been with 'A' at 432Hz. Mozart and all the dead, white and male chart toppers of the preceding centuries to the last would have been composing for instruments tuned in this way. Looking at the differences between the two tunings ('A' at 440Hz and 432Hz, we exclude the Austrians' 435Hz thing because that's just stupid!) you find something startling. If you divide the western tonal intervals out from 'A' at 440Hz the frequential differences between the notes are irrational numbers (aside from 'F#' to 'G'). Someone has done this for us here. Where it gets really interesting is that when you divide out from 432Hz the frequential differences are rational and line up with Phi.

Music played with 'A' at 432Hz is better defined, fuller, notes resonate more clearly, and they sustain for longer. Any music you have heard based on 440Hz tuning (the vast majority of recorded music) can be heard slightly better if transposed down to 432Hz. And it doesn't stop there. If you're familiar with the extent to which Phi weaves nature together it won't come as a surprise to you to learn that music heard in this way can have a more positive affect on your mood and, it's argued, in the long term, your well-being (to round up the 'The War' reference). It's even suggested that loud music that hurts or stresses the ear wouldn't if tuned at this more natural pitch. One wonders what musical oppression we may have been putting ourselves under with this, and how things might have been different if we hadn't been fighting the music's nature in our artistic endeavours for the last century. I, for one, will do so no longer.

And if you're a skeptic of the physicality of music, or you just like being amazed, hopefully you're the latter,

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=6sonpvUxGL8
Mind your ears and speakers with that one.

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=YFm2ukO0w7s

The world really is an awe inspiring place.

Songsmithing

So the good retards over at microsoft research have been working very hard, perhaps even using all of their brain matter and presumably time, on a program that seems specifically designed to further promote the validity the modern human satisfaction with inadequacy, self-delusion and a computer doing for the user what should take human skill and talent and inviting them to take credit for it. I suppose it's necessary for them to validate their own existence somehow. At least self preservation instinct survives.

So with this atrocity you sing as retardedly as you might see fit into your computer along with a drum beat and then the program arranges instruments around your voice including bass melody and chords à la casio kids' keyboards in the 80's. Even if your awful singing voice is indistinguishable from your speaking one this program will make you sound as if it was all part of the ingenious avant-garde-atonal-jazz-fusion genre you always aspired to invent. I know I simply seem venomous and lacking any real direction here but that is because, honestly, I really have no idea where to start. "Why are you such a snob?" you might say, "what harm is this doing to anyone?". I'll tell you what harm it does (jesus this was supposed to be amusing, I'm proper angry). This is another software invention that is aimed primarily at children that will teach them to believe that the world will bend to their concept of reality. What happens when little Mary reaches the age of 10 and doesn't understand why her musical genius has been stripped from her by Jenny who has been playing piano since she was 6? Some asshole like you or me has the responsibility of telling her it's "because, Mary, YOUR PARENTS ARE RETARDS AND HAVE PRESENTED YOU WITH THE MUSICAL EQUIVALENT OF A CHAPTER GENERATOR UPON YOUR SUGGESTION OF THEMATIC KEYWORDS, DO YOU THINK THAT WOULD HAVE MADE YOU A COMPETENT WRITER, NO, NOR DO I. YOU'RE SHIT AT MUSIC"! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Fuck! Hopefully Darwin's right and Mary and her ilk will die off before spawning too many offspring.

Witness another cause/symptom of our downfall here.
Can anyone explain why everyone in that video has a broken jaw?

And they weren't even first. They just stole the software from the late, great songsmith Wesley Willis.

Reawakening

I have recently woken up to my reality and learned that I have been self obsessing to the point of debilitation since I left college, at the latest traceable point. This 'reawakening' as the title suggests is to some degree at least something of a return to form. A return to a time of emotional and intellectual courage. You might be amused by the irony of the evident self-obsessiveness inherent in this writing but I don't care. It's a journey and I can't simply snap out of it.