Love Trumps Hate

In the midst of today’s extremely serious and tragic social, political, racial, gendered, and other conflicts, can amateur and professional music makers and school and community music programs contribute to positive social and community transformations?

Yes. To demonstrate our solidarity with and support for all those who are suffering, we’ll post one example of active music making for positive social transformations every day from today (08/16/2017) until the American Labor Day holiday (09/04/2017), at which point we’ll resume our regular schedule of posts on related topics.

If an important part of positive social transformations includes exposing social injustices and preparing future music makers to “put their music to work” for human betterment—as many classical, pop, rock, and hip-hop performers and composers (and others) are doing now and have done for decades—then we begin to see the potential of what we and others call “artistic citizenship education.”
So artistic citizenship goes beyond academic talking and writing about social justice because it emphasizes actions for transformation. “Intellectualizing”—reading, writing, and discussing—do not by themselves move people to take meaningful embodied and social actions for social change. This point is extremely important for educating our students’ dispositions to participate (now or in the future) for social change. To motivate people to join a social movement of any kind, small or large, it is essential that they engage in some kind of action. For example, students in school and university music classrooms can learn to compose, perform, and record songs, or create musicals and/or other kinds of musical events that challenge a wide range of social injustices.

Musical actions of all kinds, small and large, often rise to the level of what Stephen Duncombe calls “ethical spectacles.” An ethical spectacle is a “dream” imagined (“I have a dream,” said Martin Luther King) that is made concrete when members of social movements of all kinds—including music makers of all ages and levels—participate democratically in creating the spectacle. Their political aims are expressed in their means of protest. (171). Duncombe cites the example of the civil rights movement in which leaders often modeled their interracial “beloved community” in the ways they actually organized and carried out their protests, which included singing and playing music. In these cases, music was not an escape; it was not usually a “staged” performance but participatory music making (Turino 2008). Its meaning was in the actions of transforming the oppressors and the oppressed.

A musical-ethical spectacle “demonstrates” against oppressions. Ethical spectacles help to disrupt cultural hierarchies, build safe communities, promote diversity, and engage with reality while asking what new realities might be possible (Duncombe, 126).

Our students can—we believe they should learn to think critically about and, we suggest, be prepared to—engage in music making to create small and large ethical spectacles in/for their schools and communities.

Crucially, if we conceive “music” not as a noun with rigidly encoded power relationships, but, instead, as a process of mutual music making, shared musical-ethical responsibilities, and reciprocal musical power sharing toward a joint social project involving sympathy and empathy, then we might find a major path to reconciliations through groups that make musics together. This is already happening in many schools worldwide.

Teaching Composing in the Classroom

My own composing efforts began during my middle-school band classes in the early 1960s. Along with many other youngsters, I was given classes with a young composer named R. Murray Schafer, who documented our experiences and conversations in The composer in the classroom (1965). Here is a follow-up documentary of a similar program that Schafer offered in 1969 in a 7th grade classroom in Canada.

Although I was not aware of “democratic teaching-learning principles” then, this is what Schafer modeled (see, too, Schafer’s thoughts from 2006).

But he was not unique, by any means. Composing and arranging projects, with mutual teacher-learner respect, and dialogues, were also regular parts of my secondary school curricula (1963-1967), punctuated with occasional visits by professional composers.

What I valued then, and what I advocate and teach now, is that to learn composing effectively, intelligently, and joyfully, students need continuous opportunities to interact with their peers as fellow music makers and listeners, and to hear their efforts interpreted and performed musically (not merely “produced”).

In addition, Music Matters emphasizes opportunity-finding and formulating, rather than just carrying out musical assignments. By this I mean encouraging students to research and generate their own innovative pieces to perform on their own, or in peer ensembles; generate multiple approaches to interpretive, improvisational, and/or compositional problems; plan innovative interpretations; generate plans and sketches of musical arrangements; edit given compositions or arrangements—all of these in continuous relation to music listening so that students gain understandings of the style frameworks in which they are creating or “crossing over.” All of this can be done in relation to composing pieces about important moral, political, and ethical problems in students’ lives and in our contemporary world. Doing so is common in visual art and English literature classes where students create paintings, poems, and stories for these same reasons. I suggest that all these strategies align with James Mursell’s concept of democratic teaching and teaching for democratic citizenship.

Music education for musical creativity requires sustained periods for students to generate, select ideas, rework, and edit their interpretations and arrangements. During these processes, I state that we need to avoid undermining our students’ motivation, thinking, and enjoyment by gushing-over, hovering-over, or taking-over while students work at producing creative musical results. I state that guiding students toward creative achievements calls for a music teacher-as-coach, advisor, and informed critic; not teacher-as-proud-mother, stern father, or “know-it-all big brother.”

Teaching musical composition and creativity is worth doing for the sake of the self and others. As we say in Music Matters:

The internal goods and values of musicing are not abstractions. Through the progressive development of musical understanding with musical and educative teachers and facilitators, all students can achieve human flourishing, communal well-being, an empathetic sense of self-and-other, as well as a sense of meaningfulness, enjoyment, and a creative way of life.

Musical Identities

Many kind thanks to Raymond MacDonaldDavid J. Hargreaves, and Dorothy Miell for including us in your recent volume, Handbook of Musical Identities.

There, we argue that explanations of why and how music making and listening contribute to many kinds of identity formation—including musical, personal, social, cultural, gendered, and ethical identity development—should begin with a concept of personhood. In other words, selfhood and personal identity are not identical with personhood, but primary dimensions of it. Part one of our chapter presents an embodied-enactive concept of personhood. Part two provides philosophical arguments that support our concept of personhood and explain the roles of empathy, ethical idealization, and moral communities in the co-construction of personhood, musical identities, and musical experiences. And part three knits parts one and two together by offering reasons why music making, listening, and musical praxes can serve as “affordances” for lifelong experiences of identity formation and “full human flourishing,” or eudaimonia.

Inspiration and Joy Through the Arts

Diane Ravitch is an eminent Research Professor of Education at New York University, a prolific author, and one of the strongest voices in the world for the importance of public education. As she’s told David personally, as she’s said in numerous media interviews and speeches, and in her writings, Ravitch fully supports the enormous importance of arts in education, especially music.

Today—Valentine’s Day, 2017—her blog reminds us that, in the midst of stressful and dangerous times, we must find ways to engage our children in joyful and loving experiences. Music can do this! Indeed, thousands of music educators worldwide make this happen, in a wide range of ways, with and for their students.

School lunch and music

Ravitch gives an example. A couple of years ago, the school administrators at a Bucks primary school in the United Kingdom staged a surprise opera “intervention” during the children’s lunch time. Suddenly, the children were being serenaded with the arias of Verdi, Rossini and Puccini!

As a result of this experience, teacher Rozalyn Thomson said: “Mamma Mia! What an experience for the children! They loved the singing, they loved the surprise and they loved the pesto pasta! Next best thing to Covent Garden – they all want to be opera singers now!”

Stand Up for Public School Music

Again: As Carol Burris of NPE said today

Take Away Message

Today, Hannah Arendt’s wisdom takes on new meaning:

9/11 and Musical Artivism

September 11, 2016.

Fifteen years ago today, a great tragedy swept the nation and rippled around the world. We take this occasion to pause and wonder: Can/should music educators, music students, and community musicians put their creativities to work—in small or larger ways—to commemorate this anniversary, inspire hope for a better world, and/or celebrate the valor of those who bravely serve to protect our communities and nations? If so, why? If not, why not? If so, in what ways?

  • Should students perform and listen to musics that have been created to address and resist political/social tragedies
  • Should students compose music—e.g., songs, rap verse, performance/art pieces—that support people’s social rights and challenge wrongs?
  • Should students arrange musics that were specifically composed as tributes to victims of 9/11 and other tragedies past and present—e.g., Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising” or “The Empty Sky”; Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You”; The Beastie Boys “An Open Letter to NYC”; and Neil Young’s “Let’s Roll”?

As you weigh these questions, we leave you with a music video that “performs resistance” and may inspire hope among some listeners and music makers. It affirms that people can make music toward change.

The video is based, in part, on Bob Marley’s “War.” Marley composed  the song in 1976. The lyrics are nearly identical to the speech that Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie gave in 1963 at the United Nations General Assembly. It was the first time that a head of state spoke in the name of Africa at the U.N.  Selassie’s speech called for world peace.  Both Marley’s song and this video echo the need for world-wide positive change.

Maybe our music classrooms and musical communities can/should become—at appropriate times—sites of personal and social reflection and what we might call “artivism,” as practiced by amateur and professional artists in every domain.

5 Examples of Music for Humane Values

Music and music education can yield a wide variety of humane values, including the following:

1. Brass for Africa: Music can engage, empower, and repair.

2. The North Jersey Home School Association Chorale is an award-winning chorus directed by Beth Prins. Prins teaches music as a vehicle for “doing good” in the world. For example, as part of their schedule of events when touring France one summer, they performed at special-needs schools, private boarding schools, juvenile detention centers, homeless shelters, and gave two charity concerts to raise money for the victims of a recent earthquake in Haiti. According to their personal testimonies, the singers make music for “civic goods.” In their minds, their voices embody their personal and collective sense of mutual care, community, and spirituality.

3. Jahmir Wallace and his trumpet provide a moving example of helping a person to make a life of personal and communal significance and meaningfulness.

4.  After graduating from the University of Toronto in the late 1990s, Mary Piercey chose to become a school and community music teacher in a small Inuit community on the western shore of Hudson Bay, in the Region of Canada called Nunavut. When Piercey arrived in Arviat, it was an impoverished, hopeless, drug-infested wasteland.  To make a long story short, and largely because of Piercey’s skillful and imaginative use of musics in the service of social activism and artistic citizenship, the people and the traditional culture of Arviat and the surrounding region began to heal and blossom.

5. Performing, composing, and improvising music—among other musical engagements—can assist people with physical, psychological, neurological, emotional, behavioral, and social challenges. One example of music making for well-being is found at the 30th Street Men’s Shelter at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital. In any given music therapy session at the 30th Street Men’s Shelter there is a revolving number of participants. While the unit usually consists of 30 men, the number of participants in any given session varies, depending on the men’s needs and desires. They are not forced to go to music therapy; they go because they want musical-communal interactions. The sessions focus on musical improvisation. Percussion and string instruments are placed in the center of a session room. When the men walk into a session, they are free to choose whatever instrument appeals to them on that given day. They sit down and, as they wait for the session to begin, they play their chosen instruments, reacquainting themselves with musical materials. Research supports the claim that the men experience transformative communal engagement, and a feeling of power and control over their own lives.

While some people may assume that the values experienced in each of these cases are extra-musical—values such as a sense of community, well-being, social healing, and spirituality—they are not. They are all MUSICAL values because they are products of personal and group music making and listening.

Distinguishing between “musical” and “extra-musical” values makes little sense. The eminent UCBerkeley musicologist Richard Taruskin argues that the musical/extra-musical divide yields more harm than good. He states: “music regarded as set off from the world is still in the world, doing worldly work…musical meaning [arises] out of relation between music and its many contexts.” To characterize these meanings (namely, all results from musical experiences) as “extra-musical” is as illogical as it is pretentious.

Relatedly, music education philosopher Wayne Bowman states that to distinguish between musical and extra-musical value misses the mark entirely. All values, states Bowman, are functions of “the differences they make: the ways they enable people to thrive.” And whether or not music does achieve this potential depends on the ways it is experienced. We agree with Bowman when he says that music does not automatically “make people smarter, or more sensitive, or more perceptive, or better citizens.” It all depends. It depends on so many variables, too numerous to mention here.

Musics are a hub of social, emotional, personal, and worldly interactions. Any values we derive from or experience through music occur because we engage in and feel the results/benefits of music making and listening. In other words, “we make it true” that one or more musical values happen in/to us when we participate in musics.

Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! “Everybody has the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music, especially this broad category called Jazz, there is a stepping stone towards all of these. We must use time creatively.”  Thank you, Dr. King.

10 works or composers I can’t live without

I’m not a tech-savvy person, so I don’t know why a tweet—“10 works or composers you never want to hear again”—from October 7, 2014 showed up on my twitter feed today. But it did. Norman Lebrecht, one of England’s most esteemed (and rightly so) music critics, replied with a list of the 10 works or composers he never wanted to hear again.

At first, I laughed. I scrolled down Lebrecht’s choices, and then I read most of the 150 comments. As I did, my laughter slowly morphed into something more distressing.

I started to feel hurt by some people’s choices. I went back to Lebrecht’s selection. How could he not want to hear Tchaikovsky’s music (except the last 3 symphonies and the violin concerto)? What’s wrong with Messiaen’s music? Bernstein’s Mass? And everything that Puccini created post-Bohème? Really? Is it because this music is overplayed? Badly interpreted? Or, in Lebrecht’s estimation, just poorly composed music?

Then I stepped back and asked myself, Why be bothered by this? I sat and thought about this for a while, and then I realized how and why this “game” turned into a stab in my heart. It wasn’t because I’m overly sensitive. It was because many of these pieces and composers are intimately sewn into the fabric of my personal and musical identities.

There’s a large amount of social and psychological research that examines why and how music and identity are deeply intertwined (see MM2, Chapters 3 and 5).

So part of my hurtful response to this “little game” has to do with my personal attachments and lifelong musical experiences with pieces, styles, and composers that are part of my-and most people’s- emotional, everyday, and autobiographical narratives.

By way of an olive branch, and because I don’t want to seem like a “bad sport,” let’s change the game. I’ll start. Here’s my list of the “10 works or composers I can’t live without”—at least for today. Ask me tomorrow and my list might change.

  1. Mahler’s Song of the earth
  2. Debussy
  3. Bill Evans’s “Some Other Time”
  4. Van Morrison
  5. Prokofiev’s Cinderella
  6. Brahms Ballades Op. 10
  7. While not a composer or specific work, EVERYTHING Jordi Savall performs
  8. Cole Porter
  9. Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man” (Headhunters)
  10. Schubert’s “Swan song”

What’s your list of the 10 works or composers you can’t live without?


The U.S. Supreme Court Hears Arguments Challenging Patents on Breast and Ovarian Cancer Genes: ACMG Is Plaintiff

Apr 17, 2013, 12:30 ET from American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics

BETHESDA, Md., April 17, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a case seeking to invalidate patents on two genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) was one of the first plaintiffs to sign onto this historic legal case.

ACMG was also the first professional medical association to establish a position against gene patenting. In its 1999 ACMG Position Statement on Gene Patents and Accessibility of Gene Testing, which was reaffirmed in 2005, ACMG stated that: "It is the American College of Medical Genetics' position that genes and their mutations are naturally occurring substances that should not be patented."

Wayne Grody, MD, PhD, immediate past-president of the ACMG was actually in the courtroom on April 15 and he said, "While it is always dangerous to try to predict the eventual ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court from listening to an hour of oral argument, I came away from today's hearing guardedly optimistic that the Justices, or most of them, do 'get it' and may see the issue largely along the lines of ACMG's long-held policy. Though the first half of the discussion got a little bogged down in parsing the difference between particular forms of natural and extracted DNA, toward the end the focus was clearly on human gene sequences, in whatever form, as products of nature and no more patentable than any other part of the body."

The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) on behalf of researchers, genetic counselors, patients, breast cancer and women's health groups, and medical professional associations representing 150,000 geneticists, pathologists and laboratory professionals. The patents allow a Utah company, Myriad Genetics, to control access to the genes, thereby enabling them to limit others from doing research or diagnostic testing, which can be crucial for individuals making important medical decisions.

A federal district court invalidated all of the challenged patents in 2010. In 2012, a federal appeals court ruled for the second time that the patents on the genes were valid. Its 2-1 decision followed a Supreme Court order directing the appeals court to reconsider its initial decision in light of a related patent case decided by the Supreme Court last spring.

The patents granted to Myriad Genetics and the University of Utah Research Foundation give the company the exclusive right to perform diagnostic tests on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and thus to control the medical care provided to hereditary breast and ovarian cancer patients and people at high risk for these diseases. Myriad's monopoly on the BRCA genes allows it to set the terms and cost of testing and makes it impossible for women to access alternate tests or get a comprehensive second opinion about their results. It also allows Myriad to prevent researchers from even looking at the genes without first getting permission from Myriad.

The case is the first challenge brought to human gene patents in the United States. For more information on this case, please visit

About the ACMG

Founded in 1991, the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics ( advances the practice of medical genetics and genomics by providing education, resources and a voice for more than 1600 biochemical, clinical, cytogenetic, medical and molecular geneticists, genetic counselors and other healthcare professionals committed to the practice of medical genetics and genomics. ACMG's activities include the development of laboratory and practice standards and guidelines, advocating for quality genetic services in healthcare and in public health, and promoting the development of methods to diagnose, treat and prevent genetic disease. ACMG's website ( offers a variety of resources including Policy Statements, Practice Guidelines, Educational Resources, and a Find a Geneticist tool. The educational and public health programs of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics are dependent upon charitable gifts from corporations, foundations, and individuals.

SOURCE American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics


Global Photographic Camera Market to 2018 - Market Size, Growth, and Forecasts in Nearly 60 Countries
  • Published : April , 2014
  • |
  • Published By : MarketSizeInfo

Report Overview
Global Photographic Camera Market to 2018 - Market Size, Growth, and Forecasts in Nearly 60 Countries is a comprehensive publication that enables readers the critical perspectives to be able to evaluate the world market for photographic cameras. The publication provides the market size, growth and forecasts at the global level as well as for the following countries:

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Senegal, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States

What is the global market size for photographic cameras?
What is the photographic camera market size in nearly 60 different countries?
Are the markets growing or decreasing?
How are the markets divided into different kinds of products?
How are different product groups developing?
How are the markets forecast to develop in the future?
Which are the most potential countries and markets?

The market information includes the total market size for photographic cameras as well as the market size and trends for the following kinds of products:

Cameras for preparing printing plates and cylinders
Instant print cameras
Roll film cameras
Special use cameras
Other photographic cameras
Photographic discharge lamp flashlights
Other photographic flashlights
Accessories and parts for photographic cameras
Accessories and parts for photographic flashlights

The publication is designed for companies who want to gain a comprehensive perspective on the global photographic camera market. This publication makes it easy to compare across different countries and product groups to be able to find new market opportunities and make more profitable business decisions.

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California School Bathroom Bill Heads to Governor’s Desk

Sacramento, CA—California Assembly Bill 1266, the “School Bathroom Bill,” passed the Senate and now heads to the Governor’s desk to be signed into law. AB1266 will require all public schools to allow gender confused youth to use facilities—including bathrooms and locker rooms—, participate in sex-segregated activities, and play on sports teams of the opposite sex based solely on their perceived “gender identity” and not their biological sex.

“As a society, we know we must protect children from harm, but this law is in direct violation of that principle,” said Brad Dacus, President of Pacific Justice Institute. “These politicians have disregarded the safety and privacy of all children, in exchange for appeasing the vocal LGBT lobby,” Dacus continued.


 Rethinking Rejection | Tracy Kobus Rethinking Rejection – Tracy Kobus

Rethinking Rejection

I listened to Jia Jiang do an inspiring Ted talk while painting in my studio and ordered his book, “Rejection Proof” from the library.   I enjoyed reading about Jiang’s 100 day experiment where he sought out, some hilarious, some painful rejections to overcome his extreme fear of asking for something he wanted.

I learned a few valuable things from Jiang.  First that JK Rowling’s Harry Potter was rejected by every publisher in Britain before the head of Bloombury’s own granddaughter couldn’t put the book down.  They published it a year later and Harry Potter went on to be one of the number 10 bestsellers of all time.  Jiang decided “rejection has a number”, meaning you just have to ask enough times.  Every book may not be good enough to be published, but it makes you wonder how many good books may not have gotten published because they didn’t reach the magic number of rejections.

Researchers have discovered that the reason we avoid rejection is biological.  The response in our brains to rejection is the same as pain, so the memory of a painful rejection is likely going to make us avoid rejections in the future.  So much for “just don’t take it personally”.  Jiang finds ways to make rejection feel less awful, like finding humour in the situation – studies have shown that laughter increases our pain tolerance dramatically.

Other valuable lessons Jiang learned in his 100 days of asking things such as: if he could plant a flower in a stranger’s garden, or if he could buy donuts shaped as Olympic rings – is that a person’s mood, their circumstances at the moment or upbringing, are probably influencing their opinion more strongly than your personal request, personality or presentation.  Jiang found if he stuck around to ask why he got a rejection, the reason was usually one he could not have guessed.  He also learned he was more likely to get people to accept his requests  if he explained why he wanted something and of course, was friendly.

I’ve received probably 50-100 rejection letters over the years from art galleries, universities or artist residencies (there were a few acceptances sprinkled in there).   These rejections didn’t cause me to give up painting or to think I was a terrible artist, I just eventually decided maybe there’s another way to do this. The  plans you may have been automatically following may have been what society or others expected of you and actually did not fit your particular situation or personality.  Or, another lesson from Jiang, the higher the number of rejections you receive, may simply be a marker of how much you want something.

Jiang reports on a study that reveals no matter how much people say they love creativity, they actually fear it because it presents a level of uncertainty and disrupts order and rules.  Look at Galileo who spent his life under house arrest for believing the earth revolved around the sun or artists such as Van Gogh who didn’t sell any paintings in their life time, yet they sold for millions years later.  Presently this reminds me of the idea of moving the economy to clean energy…it’s something new and scary – so very hard to change.  Lucky many artists and thinkers didn’t let their fear of rejection stop them from getting their ideas, knowledge and creativity out there.

04. April 2017 by Tracy Kobus
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Highly Recommended : Sherlock Holmes

Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes.
Jude Law as Dr. John Watson.
Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler.
Eddie Marsan as Inspector Lestrade.
Mark Strong as Lord Henry Blackwood.

Directed by Guy Ritchie.

Music by Hans Zimmer.

Released on 25th December 2009.
Released on DVD and Blu-ray/DVD/digital copy combo pack on March 30, 2010.

Watching a movie on its world premiere is always an event to remember. More so if it happens to be about something you grew up reading. Badass, detective, a man on the verge of insanity, a loner, a man losing his best and probably only friend. Sherlock Holmes is all of the mentioned.

The environment of the Sherlock Holmes era has been successfully created. 221B Baker Street is faithfully imagined. The entire of the house and the rooms are as you would expect them; Messy and weird. London is dark and gloomy. Factory workers, police, carriages, prisons, everything is done to the detail. The entire movie is a very exciting and pulling-in experience. Music by Hans Zimmer means it is well suited and top of the notch

Robert Downey Jr. gives a stellar performance, as is expected. This man has been a critical and commercial success. Sherlock Holmes is a man with flaws. Just like us. Robert Downey Jr. plays Holmes to perfection. He was made to play this role (along with Iron Man, of course.) Starting from Holmes eccentricity of experimentation to his fear of losing Watson, he conveys it well. This is a more badder, tougher version of Holmes than ever before. He will fight and do whatever necessary to solve the case. Jude Law plays the ever-dependable and useful Dr. Watson. A Watson that Holmes is depended on. Watson too, has his flaws. Watson’s gambling problems and womanizing habits make him more human. Watson tires to move on and put his crime fighting days behind him and start a married life. But each step of the way, Holmes is the obstacle. Watson is a doctor. A practical man just like Holmes.

Probably the best thing about the movie is the great chemistry between Holmes and Watson. A lot of emphasis is put on the deeper level of their relationship. Holmes dependency on Watson. Watson’s inability to not get drawn in Holmes cases. Watson is the antidote to Holmes insanity. The only one who quite sees things almost like Holmes does. Whether Watson’s marriage will ruin their friendship remains to be seen, but it has tested their relationship. Holmes and Watson are men of justice. That is what bonds them together.

The presence of Irene Adler, played by Rachel McAdams, in the movie is controversial.
Irene Adler is of significant importance in the world of Sherlock Holmes, but whether she was needed in the film is debatable. Holmes does have a respect for her, as she is the only woman to have outwitted him, but there is a difference between respect and love. She mainly serves as love interest to Holmes, but ofcourse you can never keep outwitting Holmes.

Inspector Lestrade and Scotland Yard are always second to Holmes, like expected. Lestarde is completely useless without Holmes to do all his thinking and even fighting. He does, however, have enough wits to know the importance of Holmes, and trusts him fully.

Lord Blackwood, the villain, is a character made up for the film. A character that is heavily rooted on magic and supernatural elements, the inverse of Holmes logic and sense. It is a nod to the firm notion through out the books, magic vs logic.

Guy Ritchie hasn’t had the best times of late. Bad movies, relationship troubles. This movie has marked his return to form. Even thou many will not agree with his directing style in the film, it works and that is all that matters.

The main surprise factor of the film is one that will please all Holmes fans. Professor Moriarty’s appearance is hinted at. There is buildup to a sequel. We are waiting.

All in all, the characters are kept very true to they way they were written in the book. Changes have been made here and there to update them to certain degrees, but that is well justified. This is one for the fans and the unfortunate people who do not know who Holmes is.

This is book adaptation done good.


Out of The Way🌞 and Unconditional love

Well, is time to describe one of my favorite episode: episode 7 “The Fallout”.  The things that come down is this part of the show are mainly how can the characters fall into trouble dramatically, in a innocent way  because of specific daily life’s situation taking to a new different level.

It evolves expectantly around the decision that makes an or more  outsiders that would effect the others perspective.

If you haven’t figured out yet, then I’ll say it. The twins ( Mariana and Jesus) are having complications with one another as well as with their biological mother who needs  help.

Also, Lena trying to get Callie into therapies, and did so.  Oh, and as in for fathermore it introduces the background of a new character.

Liam the guy Callie had a relation ship with when she was underage and it did not ended up well. This time went  different Liam showed up at anchor beach. He attempted to hurt Callie again but Wyatt defended her.

This results in an outstanding moment between Brandon and Callie.

(Brallie-moment) She opens up to Brandon and tells him about her terrifying experience with Liam. Later on, Callie will reveal her story not only to her mothers but to the people at the therapies. On top of that,  we  realizes more indeed that the pages of the journal she teared in episode four talked about him(Liam).

For the first time something is actually  going out with Jude’s life, besides being Callie’s brother, and being an abused child. He mets one of his classmates with who he is paired up with to work on a project.

The guy’s name is Connor, he and Jude made some bonding in this episode.

Once again the twin brutal fight that had as consequence Lexi(Marina’s bestfriend) being pulled out of school. After finding out the involment among Jesus and Lexi.

At least the Mariana and Jesus mother is having hard time staying sober but it does not stop her from being a terrible mom in my opinion. She had the courage to asked her daughter Mariana for money once again.

Incredibly as it sounds she does not know what dignity is nor the meaning of family.

⏰A Fan Observations🌠

The foster is an estimated cycle of wrong actions and events. There are innumerable troubles based on love's relationships. A type of motivation towards homosexuality the attraction or romance of two people of the same gender is being establish during all the seasons. More typically seem by one of the main couples the kids parents who are Steph Lena two lovely women.  Also the love triangle developing between Brandon , Callie and Wyatt-(new character show in the second episode, he talks to Callie)

Although Callie is more connected to Brandon at first and so on he is the wrong choice as we look at it because she wants to be part of the Fosters'family and other word she wants to be adopted. Wyatt the other guy Callie and he are more outgoing meaning not really into a social group, he is a type of rebel and she is misunderstood.

Well, that's my perspective on analyzing the fourth or third episodes in which both of them teared their journal'pages and throw them in the trashcan.

In Mariana's Quincienera you can see all the conflicts, discussion between her an Jesus ( Marina and Jesus the twins⊗). This actually started when Mariana gets money by selling his brothers pills. Then Jesus kissing Lexi-(Mariana's best friend) breaks out reflecting to a greater problem.

On Mariana's bithday Callie goes to the beach where Wyatt is with his friends, after talking with Brandon probably because she does not wants to make the same mistake as she did with Liam-(Liam is Callie anterior foster brother with who she had a kind of relationship more sentimental).

Beyond all of that, us the viewers of the show we would strongly imply that the main focused or idea behind this visual art is the family. How the members of a family should support and love eachother no matter what?. Demonstrating care, respect, but most of all actuable people actions receiving understatement from their love ones. 🌟🌟

Something that must be practiced wider in our society,wait, in our homes.

The Foster:↗ first episode↖

💬💬Okay. This is not about all the things that went down on. the TV show during june 3rd, 2013. Yes I do know mostly every single detail of it.

CALLIE!!. The girl that’s always In trouble, running and messing up with her life.

She meet Steph & Lena future foster mothers. That is not it again but when the excited and also not much important things happen. Those who see as irelevant at the moment but crucial to the story line.

Remember the first minutes at the juvenile detention center. That moment was so rouge Callie’s fight with the girls, she asking for jude like for two seconds before meeting Lena. Those times are not only emotional but they also connect us to the main character. We developed simpathy towards her through those moments.

Before actually getting into it lets talk about the series for those who do not know the fosters is a program that in air on ABC networks that technically just follows the live of the fosters family.

This family is constituted by a lesbian couple( Steph and Lena), two adoptive kids(Jesus and Mariana) and one of the mothers biological son(Brandom). The addition of two more kids as well but that’s later on (Callie and Jude her brother).

Now that, that is set up if you pay attention at Brandom and Callie how they connect with music you can realize Brandom interest in Callie.

Yes; I am a Brallie shipper. I really love them both they are great together. How Brandom help Callie in her problem with jude without any regret about it? and how he defended her by explaining everything to his parents. Oh almost forgeting when he angrilly says “don’t touch her” to her and jude’s foster father. Wow! is all I can get out of there that was so sweet of him.

I believe he is perfect and she is totally broken which make those to an excelent and complicated match. Opposites attrack isn’t that right?.

So that’s about it for right now. My first blog post is done. Working in a second addition with more actions and personal opinions. The next post is going on the first 5 episodes.


MyLifeBits is a Microsoft Research project. It was inspired by Vannevar Bush's hypothetical Memex computer system. The project includes full-text search, text and audio annotations, and hyperlinks. The "experimental subject" of the project is computer scientist Gordon Bell, and the project will try to collect a lifetime of storage on and about Bell. Jim Gemmell of Microsoft Research and Roger Lueder were the architects and creators of the system and its software.

MyLifeBits is an experiment in life-logging and an attempt to fulfill Vannevar Bush's vision of an automated store of the documents, pictures (including those taken automatically), and sounds an individual has experienced in his lifetime, to be accessed with speed and ease. For this, Bell has digitized all documents he has read or produced, CDs, emails, and so on. He continues to do so, gathering web pages browsed, phone and instant messaging conversations and the like more or less automatically. The book Total Recall describes the vision and implications for a personal, lifetime e-memory for recall, work, health, education, and immortality. Since 2010, Total Recall has been published in paperback.


1984 World Premiere, Northern Ballet, September 2015

028Europe’s Best Dance Company, Northern Ballet, made the bold choice to ask young but noted choreographer, Jonathan Watkins to choreograph a ballet and Watkins made the daring choice of George Orwell’s celebrated but what most would assume as undanceable, 1984.  Concepts such as ‘Big Brother, ‘Room 101, ‘Newspeak’, ‘Thought Police’, ‘Ministry of Truth’ etc., have permeated into popular society especially with technology, such as social media and mass media catching up with Orwell’s literary imagination to make such a society a distinct possibility but would a ballet using the choreographic language that was established in pre-Revolutionary France that uses the body only to convey its’ message.  This choreographic language has accommodated vast change throughout its’ history but would ballet be able to sustain and convey such drudgery as twenty-four hour monitoring, leading to a people that no longer think and act for themselves.  1984 was written post- World Wars and in a climate of fear, in the wake of Fascism and paranoia with the rise of Communism.  There have been a lot of works of classical literature being adapted recently that are thought to be pretty much undanceable and the Northern Ballet have a long history of adapting great works of literature such as Wuthering Heights and Great Gatsby and Jonathan Watkins received very high acclaim for his adaptation of another great Northern novel, Kes.  What struck me, whilst watching the dancers performing their prescribed tasks and movements, that, in many ways, ballet is the perfect medium with its rigid perfection of a corps de ballet, moving at the same time and in the same prescribed way but this time with a blankness behind the eyes.  I got the distinct feeling that what I was watching felt like theatre done through the medium of ballet.  The first cast for this World Premiere is one of ballet’s most dramatic pairings around at the moment, Tobias Batley and Martha Leebolt.  To an add an extra frisson to this exciting story of bringing a new ballet to the stage, choreographer and Principal Dancer went to the Royal Ballet School together, having both attended the Royal Ballet School, which must have further enhanced the collaborative process and where where fascination with the literary work began.

The Northern Ballet have been receiving some very prestigious and deserved accolades, awarded Europe’s Best Ballet Company at the Taglioni Awards, a few years after being under threat of extinction, the company is now blossoming with a new building, acquiring exciting new dancers and doing more touring than ever.  The Northern Ballet excel as a company outside of the glamorous environs of London which can mean tighter budgets but maybe a less hot-house atmosphere leads to artistic freedoms that cannot thrive in a packed arena.  The Northern Ballet is renowned for passionate interpretations of the ballet narrative and produce works based on the theatrical end art-form as they used to be names, Northern Ballet Theatre.  The company threw themselves into this work with all the strength of feeling (or devoid of feeling that the work encapsulates).  This is what makes ballet great, the regimentation of class that builds great technique to build a solid foundation with the corps and then layer on top, freedom of expression as ballet is an art-form, first and foremost.  The greatest dancers are able to interpret the story to captivate and engross and can interpret music to another level so that they inhabit their own beautiful timing that takes your breath away, here we have two of the finest dramatic interpreters in Tobias Batley and Martha Leebolt.  Graciousness permeates from every movement but for the grim other-worldliness of they can unleash this in a spectacular pas-de-deux or contain it when being furtive around the other workers of the ‘Outer Party’, they are naïve and also incredibly brave. Tobias and Martha are two of the country’s finest exponents of ballet theatre and their leading partnership has been getting hotter and hotter over the last few years, we see moments of this and Tobias Batley carries this doom-heavy work on his shoulders with a beautiful pas-de-deux with his gracious partner at the middle, before further descent into gloom and destruction.

The setting for this ballet, the West Yorkshire Playhouse, matched the atmosphere of the piece, more than a gilt and velvet grand theatre would and it was a thrill to see every sinew and muscle of the dancer’s body, up close.  When the massed dancers were throwing out hate, the audience were, in some way, complicit, and in the worst light, audiences could be construed as a benign Big Brother, voyeuristically watching in the dark, whilst dancers strain to create beauty for our pleasure.  ‘Big Brother’ watches from video screens at the back of the stage, the rest of the set is sparse and the costumes are drab, almost war-like, uniforms of blue.  There are stifled flashes of brilliance from other dancers and I, for one, would have liked to have seen some more dancing from them but then with ballet theatre this is often the compromise.  Kevin Poeung, for one, gives a ‘boutique’ solo that is enough to witness beautiful dancing and feel the heartbreak of not being able to witness such a talent in full flow.  The poignant parallel would be if, in the 21st century, government and funding exerted too much power over art that it became suppressed and robotic and without freedom.  Tobias Batley plays the everyman, Winston Smith, a member of the Outer Party, a worker whose job it is to erase history and destroying any written accounts that have a personal view contrary to Big Brother’s.  Winston is tantalised as he has made steps to subvert this careful order set by Big Brother by venturing into the Proles district and being lured into purchasing a diary.  To our modern world where we unburden our feelings all the time, the purchase of book with blank pages is so innocuous not to be noted but in a world where thoughts can lead to open rebellion and the total loss of power, this is a serious misadventure.

The Proles are those whose lives are seen as too insignificant not even to warrant monitoring and live somewhat drab lives but their movements have more freedom and maybe significantly, do not dance in pointe shoes, as Victoria Sibson shadows Tobias Batley by always dancing in the background.  Her dancing is rather enigmatic, only being able to hazard a guess as to its purpose but nonetheless, it is striking in the red, earthy colours of the Proles.  Winston rejoins his fellow workers but to partake in the obligatory, daily minutes of hate, he is out of step with his fellow workers of corps dancers and cannot get back in step again, which is a very intelligent use of the ballet form as one of the greatest sins that a corps can make, is not be perfectly in sync.  Not only has something been awakened in Winston by the frisson of his rebellion but also something more than picking up the contraband diary but his soul has been awakened by the sight of Julia, a fellow worker who also has forays into the Proles district and wears a red ribbon with her drab blue uniform.  An element to Winston being out of step, is that he is looking for Julia, he probably isn’t aware of what she has awakened and whether it is a soul or love, that is the beauty of the work, as it is up to the interpretation.  Winston and Julia subvert further laws by passing a note between themselves and it is not long before they are meeting under what looks like a tree that has been long neglected and given up its fight for survival in this blank world, they are in front of a cold blue background but at least it is not metal or concrete which dominates the Ministry of Truth.  Winston and Julia are quickly overcome by passion stripping off their uniforms to costumes that underline their vulnerability for what was a very memorable pas-de-deux.  This pas-de-deux is executed with all the trust that a long-established partnership gives and this was fully necessary as the choreographer gave us dancing that was both tender, very seductive and a real feast for the eyes and these dancers were more than equal to it.  I really didn’t want the first act to end and I found it difficult to get back into the darkness of the piece after he bright lights of the atrium.

Act II took us on a downward trajectory and there is little to fill anyone with hope.  Orwell had lived through extreme times, Europe was recovering from the most violent period in history and Communism was on the march, he was also very ill, so the work reflects this bleak set of circumstances.  Not just that but this work of fiction has seen it become more and more real and pertinent in our own modern times  It is brave that the Northern Ballet are not only pushing the boundaries of what is possible in Ballet Theatre but giving us a work that has also a lot to say about out society, at large.  The piece is not set in a defined period, there are no computers or mobile technology but there is a dominating screen that flashes the eyes of Big Brother which either you will love and think it adds to the ballet or hate for its intrusion and diminish the presence of the artists on the stage.  The screen and graphics are by the same company that provide them for X-Factor.  Maybe some of the subtleties are lost and characterisation becomes glowing eyes on a screen or the villainous O’Brien, played by a suitably menacing, Javier Torres was maybe a little underused or sketched out in one-dimensional only, we don’t know his rise to position and how it’s warped his soul or even hinted at the insecurities that usually lead someone to treat human life as so insignificant that they become a torturer.  The final scenes of the crushing of the human spirit are danced with great aplomb and there is no cheesiness about the very unpleasant scenes of torture, mental and physical, designed to break down any rebellious spirit by playing on Winston’s greatest fears.

Ballet has in previous years been accused of being overly reliant on big classics such as Swan Lake and perhaps it has but with choreographers now producing works that are not just great works of theatre but can have great relevance and provoke thoughts about our own world.  There are clear inferences of Nazism and Communism, totalitarian regimes that depended on paranoia, brutality and most importantly, conformity.  Don’t forget that although many of the terms in 1984 have found their way, tellingly, into modern parlance, Room 101, Big Brother, even describing, for instance, the over use of surveillance or political ‘doublespeak’ as Orwellian, this book was written in a pre-CCTV, internet, social media age Orwell was prophetic in seeing that latent or overt oppression would not end with the end of World War II but would advance.  It is only when it is too late that Winston and Julia realise that they have been caught in a rat-trap and the secret eyes of Big Brother are startling discovered, it is too late for them to escape.

Tobias Batley and Martha Leebolt, entwined as Winston and Julia

Ballet often ends in tragedy but there is usually some sort of sacrificial redemption in it, to uplift the audience, a glimmer of hope.  In a world that increasingly is questioning the value of Arts and freedom to have views contrary to that of the mass media and social media, seems to be in decline, Arts budgets are decided on the size of the audience or how much hashtag activity they generate.  1984 is a cautionary tale to not snuff out consciousness and free expression, to not take history as written without searching out several sources and your make up your own mind.  It is a miracle that a lot of these concepts can be conveyed via the medium of dance and why I love dance so much, stories are told purely via the body and through human dedication alone, there is no device or apparatus, just human empowerment and the highest level of training.  The pas-de-deux in Act I stunning and brave and emotional, sometimes it is the simplest gesture just like the leg of a lover desperately reaching out for another human being, that is the most memorable.  This is a thinking ballet, probably more than an emotional ballet, the further distance I have had from this ballet, the further I have appreciated it.  Northern Ballet artistic output is high for a company of their resources, producing full-length ballets on a regular basis, with Artistic Director, David Nixon and a loyal group of dancers who have been together as an artistic team for several years but with the much-needed injection of cash, they have added up and coming talents like Archie Sullivan, winner of the Ballet section of BBC’s Young Dancer of the Year (and what a lot of people think should have been overall winner). As long as Northern Ballet give us this range of ballets, the announcement has been made that they are returning Yorkshire and the Brontes for Jane Eyre and I’m still waiting for David Nixon to choreograph Pride and Prejudice, that keep us on the edge and excited and doing something different from other companies in the UK and around Europe, they will remain an incredibly exciting company.  With young choreographers like Jonathan Watkins and the company’s own retired dancer, Kenneth Tindall making a name for themselves, Northern Ballet will deservedly own the accolade of Europe’s Best Dance Company.

For more enlightening photographs about this production from Martha Leebolt, see her Vogue article: http://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/2015/08/1984-northern-ballet-ballerina-martha-leebolt-profile


When the housing bubble popped in 2008, the effects spread rapidly from the United States throughout the global economic system, leaving mass unemployment, income inequality, and utter devastation in its wake. More recently, the debt crisis in Europe has left Greece and its inhabitants out to dry, and the strict austerity policies mandated by European lenders are likely to exacerbate these conditions even further in coming years.

Economic crises such as these are complex and multifaceted. To the untrained eye, they are even incomprehensible. After all, everywhere one looks, one encounters competing arguments about how these and other crises occurred and, hence, what policy solutions are most effective. Wall Street greed or government intervention in markets, it is claimed, were the sources of subprime mortgage lending and the financial crisis in 2008. And in response to the Euro debacle, people regularly cite the imprudent spending of the Greek government as the basis for its debt problems, and austerity–forcing Greece to tighten its belt–as the way forward. (An insightful discussion of austerity and the Euro debt crisis can be found in Mark Blyth’s Austerity.)

However, what if economic crises are not brought on by some external factor, like greed, government intervention, or overspending, but rather are internal to the contradictory logic of capital itself? What if crises are part and parcel of the way that capitalism functions? Perhaps more alarming, what if instead of opening the possibility for radical change, crises in fact inspire the reproduction of capitalism—the very economic system that led to such catastrophic conditions in the first place? Well, then we would be compelled to rethink the common wisdom and to devise more radical alternatives to capitalism in the hope that we could avoid economic crisis in the future.

This is precisely what David Harvey seeks to do in his latest book, Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism (Profile Books, 2015), a welcome corrective to the prevailing discourse. Harvey is not only one of the world’s leading Marxist scholars but has also been a trusted intellectual voice on the Left for decades. Without an astute guide like Harvey, the contours of capital would remain forever obscured. Yet for all the challenges that capital poses, Harvey shows us what lies beneath its face, and he does this all while gracefully flowing between issue area and writing in a manner that is accessible to a wide audience. This, it should be said, is nothing short of extraordinary among Leftist theorists today.

Contradictions and Crises as the Core of Capital

As in his previous work, The Enigma of Capital, one of the main takeaways of Harvey’s newest book is that capital is founded on a number of central contradictions, and that if these contradictions are not managed properly, they can—indeed, often do—result in economic crisis. We can thus read Seventeen Contradictions as a continuation of Harvey’s efforts to expose why capital seems especially prone to catastrophe. The answer, he demonstrates masterfully, lies in the contradictory bases of capitalism itself. Of the foundational contradictions that Harvey identifies, several are crucial for understanding the precariousness of our current economic climate.

The first is the contradiction between use value (the utility of a commodity) and exchange value (the monetary value accorded to a commodity). The tension between these value forms helps explain the latest housing crash. While the use value of a house is rather constant over time (e.g., providing shelter), the exchange value is based on speculation and is unpredictable due to an array of social factors (e.g., crime rates, gentrification, local schools). As exchange values increase, more and more people borrow money to get into the housing market, leading to what Harvey says is a “Ponzi” scheme that eventually breaks down. When the bubble bursts, as it did in 2008, countless people are left owing more than their house is worth. As Harvey writes, “the reckless pursuit of exchange value destroyed… the capacity for many to acquire and afterwards sustain their access to housing use values.” Far from corporate greed or government intervention, then, we see that the financial crisis has deep roots within capitalism.

Another core contradiction lies hidden in the representation of value by money. The exchange value of a commodity is not inherent in the object being bought and sold, but rather is constituted through social processes. Yet values must be materially represented for the purpose of economic intercourse. That is where money comes in. Complications arise when the social value represented by money becomes a value in itself. Instead of simply being a material representation, money takes on its own worth, giving those who possess it social power and influence. Harvey terms this “money capital” – when private persons can appropriate endless stockpiles of money solely on the return of speculative value, like interest on mortgages or investments in the stock market.

These days, this situation has turned particularly tenuous because there is no physical foundation to limit money creation and the private accumulation of wealth. Unlike in the past, when silver or gold were used to ground representations of value in something tangible and scarce, no such anchor exists anymore. Accordingly, Harvey writes, “Moneys which were originally required to give physical form to the immateriality of social labour get represented by symbols, by representations and, ultimately, by numbers in computerized accounts.” Wealth accrual becomes virtually limitless, resulting in yet another bubble that is bound to pop.

When coupled with a state determined to uphold capitalist interests at all costs, money capital can lead to expressly anti-democratic politics. Harvey demonstrates this in a discussion of the contradiction between private property rights and state power. In direct contrast to the predominant wisdom that neoliberalism calls for the absence of state regulation and interference, Harvey shows that the modern state is in fact necessary for the perseverance of the capitalist order. “The imposition of private property rights,” he argues, “depends upon the existence of state powers and legal systems… that codify, define and enforce the contractual obligations that attach to both private property rights and the rights of juridical individuals.”

This dangerous combination has inspired what Harvey calls a “state-finance nexus,” in which a relatively small number of people and even corporations have amassed exorbitant amounts of wealth, social power, and political protection through the state. What is worse, from Harvey’s perspective, is that the property rights at the heart of capitalism have subjected public resources to private appropriation. Now more than ever, we can see this with the commodification of nature and the dispossession of the commons, from land to education to healthcare. (See also: Polanyi, The Great Transformation.) In an effort to counteract this pattern, Harvey insists that the simple rebalancing of liberties and state power called for by neoliberals is not enough. The only viable alternative is to transform the existing economic system into a democratic program centered on collectively managed public resources.

Towards a Revolutionary Humanism

Given that contradictions and crises are integral to capitalism, how might revolution be possible? Despite the possibility for radical change opened up by crisis conditions, political actors and economic elites have actively reconfigured certain contradictions in the flow of capital without, at the same time, undermining the existing system. Consider the response to the 2008 crisis, for example. Even as we witnessed a cultural shift in the political mindset concerning capitalism (e.g., the Occupy Movement), there has been no revolution. If anything, government actions to deal with the downturn actually bolstered income inequality, and the neoliberal economic theories that failed to predict the recession have garnered unprecedented support in recent years. (See especially: Blyth, Austerity; Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived The Financial Letdown.) In this way, as Harvey laments in The Enigma of Capital, “Capitalism will never fall on its own. It will have to be pushed.”

Harvey advocates a revolutionary humanism as the philosophical basis for an anti-capitalist project that seeks to counteract these forms of dispossession. Put simply, this tradition implores that we strive to recreate our political-economic reality in ways that make it more humane and democratic. A revolutionary humanism offers an altogether different form of political action. It does not shy away from the need to dismantle the existing economic system, but instead takes seriously the violence and the alienation experienced day in, day out, by every laborer who is forced to participate in the capitalist order merely to survive. The outcome of this everyday experience, as Harvey explains, is that “[p]olitical power backed by intensifying surveillance, policing and militarised violence is being used to attack the well-being of whole populations deemed expendable and disposable. We are daily witnessing the systematic dehumanisation of disposable people.”

To a revolutionary humanist, this situation is deplorable and must be ended. “The only hope” for change, Harvey concludes, “is that the mass of humanity will see the danger before the rot goes too far and the human and environmental damage becomes too great to repair.” That is what Harvey aspires to do throughout the book–to illuminate for the masses the dangers of capitalism, thereby contributing to an alternative, anti-capitalist politics. By uncovering the centrality of contradictions in the way that capital works, Harvey simultaneously reveals the dark undersides of capitalism and provides the basis for a practical revolution.

Further Readings:

About The Author

Tyler M. Curley
Ph.D. Candidate

Tyler is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Southern California. He is currently working on a dissertation project related to the historical dimensions of emergency powers in the U.S., particularly during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration (1933-1945).


Category Archives: Math

Spurious Correlations With Time Series: What We Can Learn

Why do we find spurious correlations?

But with time series data, that could still be wrong.

So what’s the solution to this?

Tolerating Imperfection

It wasn’t too long ago that I came upon an evangelism worksheet that posed the following question: if God is perfection, where in this 2-d space would you place yourself? With each subsequent question and scenario, the reader was supposed to draw stick figures. Pretty soon, the scenario became pretty predictable: there was an unbridgeable gap between you and God. The message? You deserved to burn in Hell forever, of course.

Humanists approach the question of perfection differently. Contrary to popular accusation, we do not celebrate the fact that we are not perfect people. In fact, many of us will admit that the world is a dark place. Our minds are irrational, our societies are broken, and sometimes we do horrible things to each other. Indeed, we should fight for change.

Instead, humanists approach imperfection with a degree of proportion. You said a bad word when you were seven? You stole some money when you were eight? You shouldn’t have done it, but humanists don’t think you deserve to go to Hell.

We also see things in terms of the sentient creatures that are involved and what beings can be harmed, not in absolute theological terms. You think that contraception and/or gay sex is a sin? We beg to differ.

We recognize that rational pursuit of the goal to become better people means we should think critically about justice and punishment. We have to understand there are diminishing returns to enforcing moral values, and that telling people they will face much more “justice” than they deserve is downright cruel.

Vocabulary is tricky. I guess the idea I’m promoting isn’t that we should accept our imperfection and do nothing about it. It’s that we should tolerate them. It’s that we should approach them rationally in accordance with the principle of a compassionate understanding of human limitations.

Of course, you can read and think about this all you like, but there’s nothing like a Tim Minchin song to sum up the ethos of this post:

Reductionism: Still Awesome, Still Misunderstood

I realized that there’s a thing called “missing the point” about “missing the point”. After all, I kind of knew that my defense about the pure awesomeness of reductionism would be misconstrued  into something much much worse. (But who knew it would be my friend Andrew Tripp, of the Depaul Alliance for Free Thought?)

Such is the reality of internet discussion. So let’s clear up some of the charges.

Actually, not quite. As even the original author of my chosen definition of reductionism has said, such use of diction (i.e., “evil evil belief”) are for comic effect (to satirize a culture that seems to consistently misunderstand the concept). Also, I have to point out that that only a passing reference was made to Andrew’s post, and that the post itself was not an ad hominem, or even a specific reply, to what Andrew wrote. (If anything, I was more interested in the replies of a bunch of philosophically-minded Christian Facebook friends). But let’s move on.

By posing this question, it seems that Andrew doesn’t seem to understand what I thought the most distasteful part of his original post was, or what I’m criticizing and not criticizing. And the pride by which he innocently quotes Dan Fincke again in his reply (which is what I was objecting to) seems to confirm my point. Here’s the bulk of the relevant quotation, with my added bolding for emphasis:

The biggest point here is that both philospher (Dan) and social activist (Andrew), by writing this piece or quoting it as if it were accurate, seem to really miss the point about the mere reality of reductionism. For one, they seem to think that reductionism means “judging patterns as somehow artificial”, and that somehow thinking about things atomically destroys features that are interesting on higher levels. However, that doesn’t seem to be what reductionism actually is, which is incidentally covered on my Number Three point about how “maps are really important”. I don’t just think this is just bad philosophy; it’s also quite misleading to a general audience.

But I think Andrew’s beef with the overall secular community is the following:

Now this is just confusing. After proudly quoting an entire Dan Fincke paragraph about the mistaken idea that “reductionism” is about ignoring the importance of human-level maps, and after writing an entire post using the word “reductionism” straight-up, only by the end of Andrew’s reply do we get somewhat of a conditional statement: so we’re not talking about true reductionism but (fake?) over-the-top reductionism.

And hence my point on Number Two, lampooning how people think atheism causes mass murderers, or how Darwinism leads to racism. Somehow Andrew also missed the point here: the thing is, if people want to offer a critique of the misuse of a particular concept, they have to be careful.

Just as eugenicists don’t deserve to be described as “Darwinists” (and in my humble opinion “social Darwinist” is really really pushing it), people who think reductionism implies race-blindness (or any other normative position, implicit or explicit) don’t deserve to be described as “reductionists”. At the very least, we should use language that makes this distinction clear, not wobble around with confused definitions and popular misconceptions. After all, we don’t say of 1940’s America that too many (white) scientists “have an annoying tendency to be Darwinists“.

And to reiterate my points so that everything is really really clear.

1) Human-level maps are really really important. It means that our mental conceptions matter. It means that we have to work towards social justice. It means that race, gender, sexual orientation, political institutions, and the issues and correlations that tie everything together really matter.

2) You have to be careful about what you say is “real”. Especially when you’re talking about reductionism, saying that the patterns of “biology” are real and that you can’t describe it on a lower-level is really bad philosophy. Also don’t fall for the Mind Projection Fallacy, and wear lots of sunscreen.

3) Reductionism is still awesome, beautiful, and unbelievably cool. I think I covered this in my original post.

4) All we need is love. I dunno. I just felt like writing that.

Is There a God? Stephen Hawking

I can’t believe I missed this documentary. Very good scenes, lots of dramatic CGI work.

Can atheists make logical or moral arguments without the Christian God?

I normally would not bother with such questions, but I hope that the beauty of logic (and mathematics) could be appreciated more. Also, hopefully we can collectively learn to be more familiar with popular logical fallacies. One can start by learning about the more classical arguments for the existence of God. These include the Cosmological Argument and the Ontological Argument.

It was Bertrand Russell who noted of such arguments like the Ontological Argument that it “does not, to a modern mind, seem very convincing, but it is easier to feel convinced that it must be fallacious than it is to find out precisely where the fallacy lies.”

Russell’s observation could very well be true for many of the newer, less classical apologetics from very obscure theological traditions (that seem incidentally quite isolated from the larger evangelical community). One argument is called the Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (TAG). It is known not for its popularity but for its ability to become very long and convoluted.

Unsurprisingly, there are many distinct formulations of this argument that one can find at places like CARM. One of the more popular ones, formulated by Matt Slick, has inspired many refutations which you can both read and watch. For the purposes of this post, I will focus on a less formal version covered on this blog. It’s a rehash of the ideas of a relatively little known theologian named Cornelius Van Til.

The argument is given below with cute diagrams.

The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God

The atheist offers many criticisms of Christianity. There must be a basis for such criticisms.

Truth claims like “Christianity is not true” employ logic, science, and ethics.

Logic, science, and ethics need to be accounted for. At the base of logic, science, and ethics are transcendental truths about reality. These truths, like the idea that the universe is consistent across time (see Hume’s Problem of Induction), that the law of noncontradiction holds, etc. are transcendental because they are not contingent on experience or consciousness.

How do we account for what is true? EITHER we are autonomous beings capable of understanding truth OR God decides what is true. This is the position of “non-neutrality”. Christians and atheists cannot agree on anything because the very idea of truth they hold is different.

As it turns out, the diagram above is wrong. It is impossible for a secular worldview to account for the transcendent absolutes that are the foundations of logic, science, and ethics. Autonomous man is trapped in his own experience and cannot by itself rationally justify the transcendental absolutes that allow for logic, science, and ethics.

The only alternative left is a Christian God who accounts for the transcendent absolutes that give rise to logic, science, and ethics.

For the Christian, everything is what it is because God says – and is – so… God is thus the prior and authoritative interpreter of all facts, and the truth of a proposition is equivalent to how well it conforms to God’s interpretation of the facts.

Therefore, the atheist who uses logic, science, and ethics to argue against Christianity presupposes that Christianity is true. This cannot be.

This argument, if valid, is a very damning one. By the author’s own admittance, this would throw out not only all secular criticism of Christianity, but also the arguments of Christians who argue for the existence of God from a neutral point of view (one that says we agree with atheists on some things.)

It has a further implication.

The argument I provided doesn’t a priori prove the truth of Christianity, it just says it’s not rational to assert anything else to be true.  You could think that nothing is true, including the statement “nothing is true.”  You would be left with radical nihilism, which rejects that the meaninglessness of truth claims is a reason for rejecting them, and can’t assert anything to be true, even itself.

It builds a strong choice between Christianity and absolute atheistic nihilism. It means either Christianity is true, or everything we know is meaningless. It would mean that atheists cannot make objective truth claims, and therefore cannot make a logical or moral argument without the Christian God.

Imagine that the only restaurant in town is one that serves only nihilism and Christianity, and you can’t order both.

Where does the fallacy lie?

There are many troublesome and outright fallacious parts of this argument. Many of these objections are interconnected, but we will start with an obvious one.

The most noticeable thing is that the Christian God is not well-defined as a solution. That is, there is no good reason to think that God solves the problems presented by TAG to atheists.

The Christian God, under almost all interpretations, cannot do evil. It is therefore also bound by the ethical absolutes and is therefore neither independent of ethical absolutes nor a possible interpreter of such “facts” because he cannot decide otherwise. Also the principle that God cannot cease to be God (or cease to be perfect, moral, loving, etc.) because of his nature (consistent with the law of noncontradiction) is also a transcendental absolute that limits God’s independence. This Christian God, bound by transcendental absolutes, when used in an argument like TAG, is clearly an example of referring the problem upward. In short, one must still explain why the absolutes transcend God. It is clear that the proposition of God in TAG is merely a semantic slight-of-hand to try to avoid explaining what is still not explained. If the rest of TAG is valid (which it is not), the Christian has the same problem as the atheist because there is no real account of the absolutes that God is also subject to.

Non-neutrality is nonsensical.

The false dilemma given in TAG is either that truth is God’s truth as he interprets it, or truth is what humans seek to interpret it as. Both of these positions on “truth” are nonsensical because, by citing a proper “authority” on truth, they make truth contingent on conscious minds (either God’s mind or human minds). The only working idea of truth is that it is independent of all minds (not just of human minds). The objectivist formalization of this principle is called the Primacy of Existence. Truth is neither decided nor created by humans; rather, truth is what is according to reality, and reality is that which is primary over consciousness.

The dichotomy of Autonomous Man vs. Christian God is therefore not only a false dichotomy, but also nonsensical.

The argument uses a fallacy of equivocation on the words “interpretation” and “truth”. When TAG says that what is true is what God interprets it to be, the direct meaning is that God decides what is true. This is utterly and blatantly confused with the concept of human interpretation of truth, which is not a process of deciding truth, but is rather an exercise of trying to understand what is true in the objective world; it is a mental exercise. Therefore, denying atheists the right to understand the objective world while allowing Christians the ability to understand God’s interpretation is a dishonest form of special pleading.

The assumption of truth-making “authority” is an incorrect premise.

TAG uses the connotation of the word “authority” and presupposes that there is something that grants authority to make truth claims (Man or God). This premise is not only unproven but is also clearly incorrect. Because the purpose of TAG is to show that only by assuming the Christian God can we make valid truth claims, we can merely show how valid truth claims can be made without the need to even mention authority.

As noted above, I believe that the assumption that Existence is Primary is necessary to make any truth claims. In fact, Christianity is nonsensical if the Primacy of Existence is not assumed. Otherwise, God’s existence would be contingent on God (or something else) deciding that he himself exists, which contradicts the fact that God must be eternal.

On the contrary, if we assume that the existence of all things is what it independently is; that is, all interpretations of X do not affect the actual existence of X. In this context, valid truth claims are simply made based on how well they conform to existence; they do not require ill-defined concepts like “authority” and “autonomy”.

TAG fundamentally misunderstands logical systems.

TAG at its core asks that logical systems must be fully accounted for, that is, they must be consistent and complete. Its solution of the Christian God, as I have shown, is not a solution but an incoherent deux ex machina. But a more fundamental problem is that it is searching for a solution to a problem that probably has no solution (see Kurt Godel).

Neutrality is correct.

There are two main reasons why neutrality is correct (and why non-neutrality is wrong). The first is that TAG fundamentally does not allow for probabilistic arguments. The need for a completely satisfactory answer to the Problem of Induction, for example, is a search for logical certainty about the validity of the inductive method (and therefore logical certainty that the sun will rise tomorrow given enough experience, for example). This is not only inconsistent with the spirit of scientific inquiry, but it also mistakenly excludes positions of neutrality.

Secondly, the Christian cannot be consistent without agreeing with many of the assumptions that atheists commonly hold. As in all logical systems, it is impossible to derive logical truth without some unprovable assumption. Atheists choose to believe assumptions like the Primacy of Existence and the reality that we are not Brains in Vats. Christians also believe this too, but also in addition to other theological claims that I have shown are neither necessary nor coherent.

TAG assumes neutrality.

TAG is made to convince the atheist that there are only two justifiable choices (nihilism and Christianity) based on commonly agreed knowledge. If it did not assume neutrality, then all attempts to refute TAG would automatically be wrong because the atheist cannot assert it to be wrong. TAG would then be a logical fallacy called begging the question.

Further comments and fallacies

Christianity does not solve the problems given by inductive skepticism; instead it exacerbates the problem. Hume’s critique of induction is that given that we see that the sun rises in the morning everyday, there is no reason to think that the sun actually rising tomorrow will happen rather than its negation, that is, the sun not rising tomorrow. Christianity, incidentally, says that it is indeed possible for the conclusions of induction to be invalid. That is, at any time, and at any moment, God may choose to suspend the laws of nature. This has happened not only at events like Joshua’s halting of the sun and , but also at events fundamental to the truth of Christianity, like the Resurrection of Jesus. Christianity itself is not consistent with the uniformity of the Universe.

Introducing a new form of pseudoscientific model that says the universe is uniform as long as God says otherwise is not only another form of special pleading, but it renders science as we know and use it today completely irrelevant (hence pseudoscientific). A scientific and inductive method that is accepting of supernatural phenomenon renders science absurd and opens the floodgates to unfalsifiable explanations like intelligent design and faith-healing. Christianity cannot account for science as we know it.

Let us ignore all the above problems and grant that TAG is 100% valid.

TAG does not hint at the existence of God and is therefore poorly named. TAG merely questions the logical absolutes that we hold and asks for an account of them. The proper conclusion of TAG (assuming it is 100% valid, which it is not) is that either that the Universe is completely nihilistic or that there is some mind accounting for logic, science, and ethics. This mind does not have to be a “god” in the perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful sense. This entity merely needs to be capable enough to interpret facts and create a rational, objective universe where logic, science, and ethics are valid.

Let us go even further and assume that TAG is 100% valid and does actually hint at the existence of God.

Then this God is not necessarily Christian. To show uniqueness would require not only serious theological interpretation of all current ideas of God, but also all existing and future conceptions of God. Specifically, TAG does not show how this supposed “God” sent a son down to Earth. It does not demonstrate the validity of the Adam and Eve “metaphor” or the revelation that Jesus is returning one day. It does not show much of what is essential in the Apostle’s Creed and Nicene Creed to be true. TAG demonstrates almost nothing that is important in Christianity.

Therefore, even if we make the absurd assumption that TAG is valid, its final conclusion of reducing the only possibilities to nihilism and Christianity is a false dilemma, and a very bad one.

Final comments

It was Bertrand Russell, of course, who wrote that many of the Ontological arguments reduce to “bad grammar” and “bad syntax”. I think this is a good paradigm for many of these “arguments for God’s existence”.

I personally find it hard to believe that the Christian God spread his message so well as to send his own Son to die in an illiterate and superstitious part of Palestine, only to not give any reasonable argument for his existence to be passed on. Rather, we have questionable 20th century “experts” on theology to tell us exactly how to think on their fallacious grounds.

I agree with many Christians who say that God “transcends all reason”. He is illogical, incoherent, and so blatantly nonsensicalthat human comprehension is impossible (and perhaps human knowledge of his existence is unattainable). It is clear that belief in God requires faith, and, as Kierkegaard might note, a mega-gigantic leap of faith. After all, it is faith that gives “evidence for things not seen, and the substance of things hoped for.” In short, it makes people think there is evidence when there is not, and it gives things for people to believe just to fulfill their wishes.

I hope you enjoyed it. If you didn’t, the good news is that I’m never posting one of these apologetic refutations ever again.

Math, Infinity, and Beautiful Design

In his book The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins discusses the appearance of design.

In the context of evolution, the appearance of design makes sense. But I want to explore an area of geometry and mathematics that relates simple algorithms to beautiful appearances of design.

Welcome to the world of fractals. This is a world where I can draw a bounded snowflake that has a boundary of infinite length. It’s a world of paradox, a world where it doesn’t matter how big you are, because you won’t notice the difference when you zoom in. It’s a world of infinity, a world of endless iteration. More importantly, it’s a world of simplicity in terms of beginnings, and stunning beauty and complexity in terms of ends.

The Koch snowflake shows how simple the rules are for fractals to be constructed. One starts with an equilateral triangle. The next iteration involves the union with another triangle, which forms triangles on the periphery. Now we union the smaller triangles with rotated versions of themselves, which forms even smaller triangles on the periphery, and so on…

The resulting snowflake is not only aestheticallly pleasing, but it can also be shown to have infinite length.

The most iconic figure of fractal geometry, however, is the Mandelbrot Set.

Few people know or understand how simple the rules are that define this set. Formally, the M-set consists of all the elements C in the complex plane such that the iteration Z_n+1 = (Z_n)^2 + C is bounded, starting with Z_o = (0,0).

Computers can calculate by repeating the iteration over and over for different values of C to see if the norm of Z_n goes toward infinity.

The resulting graph of the M-set is mesmerizing. It’s a set that features very complicated arrangements of symmetry and self-similarity.

The more beautiful renditions of the M-set are created by assigning colors to values that allow Z_n to diverge, depending on the speed of divergence. As we can see below, there are all kinds of intricate “designs” in these renditions. There are seahorses and islands, shells and spirals, peninsulas and antennas.

So what can computer generated graphics show about nature, evolution, and biology life? Do fractals have any useful function besides being “beautiful”?

1) Fractals allow things that work on a large scale to be reproduced on a smaller scale (or maybe vice versa). The heart pumps blood to larger blood vessels, which branch out to smaller vessels, to smaller capillaries, and so on, and each branching pattern mimics the level above it. No designer had to use his intelligence to think about each step along the way. No God had to draw a blueprint of the location of every tiny blood vessel. Fractals allow simple patterns that work to be expanded and repeated into smaller, more intricate settings without any need to think about them, without any design.

2) Fractals are nearly ubiquitous in nature; they are found in places ranging from snowflakes and seashells to leaves and mountains.

3) Fractals are optimal for many purposes. For example, it was proven mathematically that the self-similarity of fractals allowed them to serve as the one and only optimal solution for antenna design. The fact that so many living things have fractal qualities also suggests that natural selection favored the advantages that fractals gave to certain species.

Of course, the creationists are really looking for trouble here. They look at the word “infinity” and not only do they think “intelligent design”, they think Yahweh, Jesus, and one version of one book in particular.

And they trip all over their watchmaker-design argument. After all, everything that is complex and specified must have a clear designer, right? And what do they say when we can’t find a designer for such things as fractals?

Their conjectured unknowable and untouchable god was, in fact, the very knowable Judeo-Christian God of Creation. And His methods actually express themselves as geometry. But it is a geometry that the Greeks could scarcely have imagined.

Just assert and assert and assert the superiority of your God and your One True Religion over and over again.

Let’s give them a round of applause.

This. Is. Awesome.

Euler’s Identity

Due to a math problem set, I have absolutely no time to write a lengthy post today. But I’ll share what really rattled my mind in high school:

My first thought was that this identity doesn’t make sense. How can you take e to an imaginary power?

Anyways, the fun part is staring at it and appreciating all the elements involved here in their elegant simplicity:

i – an imaginary number

1 – the identity in multiplication

0 – the identity in addition

pi – the commonly used irrational number

e – the commonly used transcendental number

Now the not-so-fun part is proving it (from the power series definition of e^x). Good luck with that.

P.S. Actually both pi and e are transcendental.


New years wish -life for the children of Aleppo

They cannot play, sleep or attend school. Injury or illness could be fatal. There is no food, nor water, no electricity and no hope. They live with their parents in windowless underground shelters — which offer no protection from the powerful bombs that have turned east Aleppo into a kill zone.

Among the roughly 250,000 people trapped in the insurgent redoubt of the divided northern Syrian city are 100,000 children, the most vulnerable victims of intensified bombings by Syrian forces and their Russian allies. Iranian militias are stalking the “liberated” streets and executing everybody they find, mainly women and children.

At the cost of lives, dreams and freedom of human beings?

Our new years wish is a free and amiable life for the children of Aleppo, not only from this war, but also for their entire future to come.

Source: Unicef

Sources: The telegraph, by Hamish De Bretton – Gordon. December 14, 2016.
The New York times, by Rick Gladstone. September 27, 2016.

Human rights day 10 december 2016

Human Rights Day calls on everyone to stand up for someone’s rights, and reaffirms our common humanity.

Wherever we are, we can make a real difference by behaving in a just and generous manner. These small acts gather up and builds a fence towards the disrespect for human values, intolerance and hatred.

Let us all keep ourselves reminded of this, every day.

The rise of populism in the world

Another attack on freedom, another transmission of fear, extremism hit both Berlin and Ankara yesterday.Policemen investigate the scene where a truck ploughed into a crowded Christmas market in the German capital last night in Berlin

The word populism is widely used in media but not often defined. Populism derives from the Latin word populus meaning people. Ideologically it is ultimately defined on the society being divided into two separate and antagonistic groups: the free people and the corrupt elite.

Populism is often linked to the radical right political parties. Empowered by the election of Donald Trump, Brexit and not to mention the recent terror attacks in Europe, populist parties are moving across Europe spreading nationalistic and euroskeptic opinions with great impact on the upcoming European elections.

These far-right groups including The National front in France, The alternative for Germany, The Party for Freedom in the Netherlands and the Sweden Democrats Party are increasingly popular among voters.They are all using words like freedom and democracy to attract voters but the message is quite the opposite and intentions are clear; to build walls, to keep to themselves, to act without compassion and responsibility for the worlds future. In effect they are doing exactly what the extremists are asking for. Owen Jones at the Guardian put it well: “If, in a century’s time, historians ask why the west fell into a spiral of decline, the answer will not be that we were overrun by fanatics, but that we succumbed to their wishes.”

A placard reading "Why?" is placed at the Christmas market in Berlin

Images source: Reuters


... a severe complex because of ADD/ADHD? Early on in my education I was diagnosed with ADD and my parents and the school made every effort possible to make me feel different and less than. In all actuality I have an extremely high IQ and while I did struggle at times in a typical classroom environment, I usually understood the material beyond my peers. Maybe it's time we stop telling children that the way they are is what's wrong, and start telling the school system that they are wrong. Empower your children, rather than making them feel that they need a medication to make them think right. There is more than one way to learn, and we can accommodate every way there is, without putting perfectly capable children in remedial classes that will only hold them back.


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