You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2015.
The Collected works of Simon and Garfunkel was my very first CD purchase. Let me assure you that all three of those disks saw a great deal of rotation back in the day (1987ish onward). The third disc was my favourite back then, as it was the most ‘modern’ of the trio and “Cecilia” was track number 3 and also one of my favourites.
I like what these intrepid soundcampers brought to the table with some coffee cups, rich harmonies and of course beans to shake all about.
One of the problems they had is that many of them were unfamiliar with the song. And I was like…whaa? How can you not be familiar with Cecilia? Then I was like…daaaamn…I must be getting old. :) Anyways, here is the behind the scenes stuff that led up to the take we see in the first video.
I usually don’t pay attention to the Oscars and other such award shoes. Playing League of Legends, tweezing my eyebrows, cleaning the tiles in the bathroom all are significantly higher on my to do list that giving a frack about the Oscars. This story caught my attention though, provocatively titled “Academy Responds to Diversity Firestorm“.
Unaware that diversity comes in firestorms and how mega-rad that would be, I read on.
“Responding for the first time to the firestorm of criticism over the lack of diversity in this year’s Oscar nominations, film academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs says the all-white acting slate inspires her to accelerate the academy’s push to be more inclusive. She also hopes the film industry as a whole will continue to strive for greater diversity.”
Inspires the push to be more inclusive in for the striving of greater diversity… *bleh* I need to strive toward the chamber pot to cleanse my system of the above-mentioned overtly-florid way of saying nothing at all.
All 20 of this year’s acting contenders are white and there are no women in the directing or writing categories. After the nominations were announced Thursday morning, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite started trending on Twitter.
Now there is an oopsie. But we need to hear some more doublespeak about the situation first.
“Yet Boone Isaacs insisted the academy is “committed to seeking out diversity of voice and opinion” and that outreach to women and artists of colour is a major focus.
“In the last two years, we’ve made greater strides than we ever have in the past toward becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization through admitting new members and more inclusive classes of members,” Boone Isaacs said. “And, personally, I would love to see and look forward to see a greater cultural diversity among all our nominees in all of our categories.”
I’m not sure what is worse, outright lying or the baffle them with bullshit tactic that Boone Isaacs has clearly perfected. Before you rush me with market theology lets look a bit further…
“A 2012 survey by the Los Angeles Times found the academy was 94 per cent white, overwhelmingly male and with a median age of 62. A more recent survey determined the percentage of older white males had dropped by one point, the Times said. But with nearly 7,000 members and no requirement to retire, diversity is going to take some time.”
Oh damn. Certainly looks like the market deciding in a free and unfettered environment. The sample bias is juuuust about right considering that 94 percent of the US population is comprised of middle aged white dudes.
And here…here is the crux of every fucking debate about thinning out white hegemony in our society. The people who are the movers and shakers – the culture elite – the people that make things happen are predominantly dude and white. Their preferences are translated, projected and ensconced into what gets attention and what doesn’t. The orthodox market argument naively contends that if a good product is made that the people like it will sell well and therefore be popular.
Bullshite. The market is always, always, always, skewed and that bias happens not to favour your particular entry – no matter how qualitviely good your product is, it will fail – too fucking bad for you chum.
I get this argument about the “market deciding” when it comes to video games as well. If women just make video games than weren’t andro-centric testosterone fuelled killing sprees and get them to market then the market would “decide” whether or not the product was good.
Bullshite. This argument is bollocks precisely in the same way the Oscar argument for more inclusiveness is bollocks with its 94% white dude voting pool. The preexisting structural conditions dictate what gets out the public and what is ignored. No frakking market involved in that. You may have the bestest game evar!!! (movie to be produced) just waiting to be published, but if it goes against the status-quo (racism,sexism etc.) you’ll need a lot more than “the market” to see chance of success.
This is what feminists struggle with all the damn time. The standards and norms that implicitly and explicitly favour one sort of discourse/behaviour over another that are almost always conveniently ignored, and instead, “merit” is discussed vis-a-vis the free and open market place of ideas, and if non-status-quo game/movie is actually good, it like creme will rise to the top.
They never-ever mention the 12 filters that the creme has to pass through before even seeing the light of day.
Feminist rants aside, back to Boone and her not particularly pauciloquent way of obfuscating the issue:
“It behooves Hollywood — as an economic imperative, if not a moral one — to begin more closely reflecting the changing face of America,” the statement said.
Boone Isaacs agrees, saying that as the academy “continues to make strides toward becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization, we hope the film industry will also make strides toward becoming more diverse and inclusive.”
Though she repeatedly stressed the Oscars are a competitive process and that she’s proud of the year’s nominees, Boone Isaacs acknowledged that diversity needs to be mandatory in both story and storyteller.”
If you need to see an example of apologia in action, you need not look further that Boone Isaacs and her statement about the great white wave that is the Oscars in 2015.
P.S. I would categorize “The Birdman” as something one would fling over the wall, along with diseased corpses and flaming pitch to scare, horrify and bewilder one’s enemies. Watch it at your own risk.
We can file this Orange Juice Fiasco safely under the heading of corporate conduct that manages to screw the consumer, adhere to the barest letter of the law, and be scandalously profitable all at same time! Heuristically speaking, what the major orange juice producers are doing is considered the standard of corporate behaviour. So when your right-wing friends tell you about how evil restrictive government policies/regulations are literally choking the life out of the (sacrosanct) market you can tell them about this orange juice story and watch them wiggle and squirm as they try to think of what combination of market theology/bombast will shut you the hell up.
“The cartons say “100% pure and natural.” But juice-drinkers who believe that premium juice is minimally processed and freshly made may find that their glass is only half full.
A joint investigation by CBC Marketplace and Radio-Canada’s L’épicerie reveals that much of the premium not-from-concentrate orange juice on the market, including juices from Tropicana, Simply Orange, Oasis and others, is highly processed and may be stored for several months before making its way to supermarket shelves.
That processing may keep the juice from spoiling, but it also strips the flavour, which has to be put back into the product to give the juice its orange flavour.
“If you’re paying premium thinking that it’s a fresh-squeezed product, then there is a problem there, because it’s not,” Alissa Hamilton, […]”
Not past your first cup of life yet, let me highlight the key point – Your premium “freshly squeezed” OJ has probably been stored in a vat for serveral months, in a flavourless, pasteurized state. To make it palatable, they have to add orange concentrate back into the mix. I know I’m jumping ahead here, but this is the gist of what is going on in the OJ industry.
“But many leading juice companies do not disclose, either in marketing or on the packaging, that they add natural flavour to juice.”
Whoops. Not like consumers would need to know about that right? It wouldn’t be like they were contradicting themselves or anything with the rest of the OJ label claiming to be “freshly squeezed”.
“Canadians spend almost $500 million a year on orange juice, including premium juice, which is often marketed as “fresh,” “pure,” “natural” and “not from concentrate.”
And that premium comes at, well, a premium.
“’Not from concentrate’ costs quite a bit more than ‘from concentrate,'” says Hamilton. “They’re trying to convince you that that’s because of the fresher product, that you should pay that much more.”
The Marketplace survey, conducted online by the polling firm EKOS in November 2014, also found that 62 per cent of Canadian orange juice drinkers said they believed that premium juice is fresher than juice made from concentrate, and 58 per cent say they believe it’s more natural.
In fact, 46 per cent were willing to pay more for these juices because they believe them to be more natural.
The survey involved English speakers who said they had bought or consumed orange juice in the last six months.
But Hamilton says that “what you’re getting back in these flavour packs is an engineered product.”
Shocked I tell you, just shocked am I about juice producers dishonestly labelling their products to make a buck.
“Flavour packs are made when fragrance companies take extracts from orange peel to reproduce the aroma and taste of freshly squeezed oranges.”
Mmmmmm…I love the taste of freshly squeezed flavour packs in the morning…
“Solange Doré, vice president of Lassonde Beverages Canada, which makes Oasis juices, told L’épicerie “these are flavours that come from the fruit, they are an integral part of the fruit. So, in essence they’ve been lost and we collect them and restore them.
“So we’re not adding synthetic flavours, it’s very important to understand that difference,” she said.
For that reason, juice companies don’t feel that the labelling is misleading and say that the packaging complies with existing regulations.
Coca-Cola, which owns popular brands Simply Orange and Minute Maid, told Marketplace in a statement, “orange oil and orange essence is extracted during juicing to capture the natural orange taste and aroma, which may be later blended back into the juice to ensure a consistent, fresh-squeezed taste.
“The amount of orange oil or orange essence that may be re-added to the juice is within the range that is commonly found in freshly squeezed orange juice,” the statement said.”
Well, there is the greasy technicality they are using to bilk you, gentle Canadian reader, out of your hard earned dollars.
The immoral of the story, as usual, with corporations is that greed and the bottom line take precedence over all other concerns. Take heed conservative voters who think that deregulation and ‘cutting red tape’ are mega-fracking awesome ideas because this OJ debacle is only a minor jaunt into the world of corporate malfeasance.
Sometimes the Pope makes a error when speaking. We all do. But this was not one of those times and Mr.Deity unabashedly and quite colourfully rips into the perfidious pontiff over his comments about the recent murders in France.
*Strong Language Warning*
I’m not sure what the pope was thinking on this one, but I think rightly he deserves the chastisement Mr.D brings to the table.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…