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Blu-ray: Recommended
Sale Price 7.99
List Price 20
3rd Party 7.99
Review Date July 13th, 2010 by Nate Boss
Overview - A sizzling, star-studded cast brings to life the legendary battle to deliver justice to TOMBSTONE! Kurt Russel turns in a gripping performance as US Marshall Wyatt Earp, and Val Kilmer ignites the screen as the outrageous Doc Holiday. Together, they team up to bring law to the lawless in a notorious showdown with ruthless outlaws at the OK coral! Get ready for an explosive, action-packed adventure the Wild West would never forget!
Technical Specs: BD-50 Blu-ray Disc
English Descriptive Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround Sound
French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Subtitles/Captions: English, English SDH, French, Spanish
Special Features: The Making of Tombstone
The Director's Original Storyboards
TV Spots
Movie Studio: Disney/Buena Vista
"1879. The Civil War is over, and the resulting economic explosion spurs the great migration West. Farmers, ranchers, prospectors, killers and thieves seek their fortunes. Cattle drovers turn cow towns into armed camps, with murder rates higher than those of modern day New York or Los Angeles. Out of this chaos comes legendary lawman Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell), retiring his badge and gun to start a peaceful life with his family. Earp's friend John, "Doc" Holliday (Val Kilmer), a Southern gentleman turned gunman and gambler also travels West, hoping the dry climate will relieve his tuberculosis. Silver is discovered in Arizona. Tombstone becomes queen of the boom towns, where the latest Paris fashions are sold from the backs of wagons. Attracted to this atmosphere of greed over one hundred exiled Texas outlaws band together to form the ruthless gang recognized by the red sashes they wear. They emerge as the earliest example of organized crime in America. They call themselves... the Cowboys."
With those words, perhaps one of the most entertaining of westerns begins, a tale of morality, justice, and revenge, with the slightest hint of romance thrown into the mix. A tale that has grown in popularity over the years, already considered a classic by many. But the leads aren't named Eastwood or Wayne, and the director wasn't Leone or Ford.
This is 'Tombstone,' a classic western, with a slightly modern feel, if ever there was one. This is a story that needs no synopsis, no recap. It's reluctant law standing up to (and eventually against) outlaws that have formed a formidable gang, outnumbering any group, or even town standing in their way.
The characters here are all terribly flawed human beings, driven by greed more than anything. Earp and his two brothers (Sam Elliot and Bill Paxton) are in search of silver lining for their pockets. "Doc" is lining his with gambling earnings. The Cowboys have some financial motives at hand, though chaos seems to be their driving force... until spite and revenge become their only drive.
I'll say this: I'm not a big Kurt Russell guy, as his voice and body language have never done much for me, but Snake doesn't become an irritation here in the legendary lead role. In fact, Russell does a great job selling Earp's inner conflict: The will to stay the hell out of conflict and avoid future involvement as a lawman. But no man could have outperformed a certain co-star of the film, the 1990's chameleon, Val Kilmer. Sure, award ceremonies all ignored him (all besides the oh-so-credible MTV Movie Awards, giving him his only nomination), but Kilmer's drunken, smarmy, duplicitous turn as second banana steals the show with every single line, and that's no exaggeration whatsoever. Kilmer's performance is just unbelievable. It's also unbelievable to look at him at him in his prime, and look at him now (It's even a shock to compare him now to how he looked just five years ago in 'Spartan!'). He'd have killed his poor horse had 'Tombstone' been filmed this year!
This film succeeds on countless levels. One, the dialogue. Find a western film more quotable than this. It's damn near impossible. Of course, there's the famous "I'm your huckleberry" line that gets uttered a few times that is just a laugh riot, but it's not alone. Discussion of turning heads into canoes, double vision requiring double pistols to hit a mark, and plenty of pissed off threatening statements can't help but draw one into the characters and their world. Sure, some slang feels a tad out of place, a bit too modern feeling, but suspension of reality isn't always a bad thing, as characters are more fleshed out through their words than their actions.
The villains are a crucial element to any tale of good versus evil, as they make the conflict that the film has to rely on, and the motley crew in 'Tombstone' is more than capable of the task. Start with the underrated Powers Boothe ('Sin City') as Curly Bill, the leader of the chaos, a calm, collected, intimidating killer, made all the more intimidating due to the fact that Boothe is the absolute master of the blank, soulless stare. Michael Biehn stands alongside him as Johnny Ringo, a psychotic second-in-command if ever there were one. And while there are numerous other villains, mostly character actors (including Michael Rooker), the other scene stealer has to be a young Thomas Haden Church ('Sideways') as the big talking Billy Clanton, one of the men destined to get his ass handed to him at a certain showdown in some Corral or another.
'Tombstone' is a film made exponentially better by the sum of its parts. Great performances, led by Kilmer and Boothe (sorry Russell...well, alright, not sorry), enjoyable characters, great dialogue, creepy, ominous, yet developed villains, and a pace that beguiles a film of its length make this one an instant classic in the genre. Is it perfect? Hardly. But it's perfectly enjoyable, entertaining, and captivating. "Justice is Coming!" Justice to the story of Wyatt Earp.
The Disc: Vital Stats
'Tombstone' arrives on Blu-ray via Touchstone/Disney, housed on a Region Free (A/B/C) BD50 disc in a standard keepcase. There are a few horribly annoying trailers and menu screens (the audio is what makes them aggravating), but everything is skippable through the top menu button. A hidden feature on this release is that it will remember where you left off last time you played, and ask if you want to continue. Another hidden feature is the damn lingering timeline that stays on screen for ten seconds after you resume play after pausing.
BD-50 Blu-ray Disc
English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround Sound
English, English SDH, French, Spanish
The Making of Tombstone
To quote Wyatt Earp: "No. No. No. No.
NOOOOOOOOO!"
Sure, said quote is out of context, but it's fitting, since the transfer for 'Tombstone' is all out of whack. The AVC MPEG-4 (1080p, 2.40:1) encode is an example of both the best and worst things that can happen to a fan favorite. When it wants to, 'Tombstone' can look like almost like a five-star transfer. There are moments with such amazing clarity and detail, with superb pop, that the shortcomings found in other scenes become that much more frustrating. Basically, when it's good, it's great, but when it's not, it's just awful.
I'm no fan of ringing, not of telephones, and certainly not of edges, but it's all over the place. It's so prominent that it deserves the first or second supporting actor slot in the credits. But it brought its own gang of cowboys with it, since one dirty nasty scoundrel can be overcome. So the nefarious aliasing, and its brutal cousin shimmering showed up first. Then, intrigued by the get together, the no-good fuzzy and soft shot gang decided to jump into the chaos. Then, captain crush and his poor delineation crew decided to make any non-exterior, non-daytime shot their victims. Brightness altering and inconsistent grain and noise levels, bastards that they are, decided to loot when they could. And then there's the worst fiend of them all, the Damned Nasty Rogue, who faces the death sentence in twelve states, making random shots look straight out of Madam Tussaud's museum.
There's no complaining about the audio on 'Tombstone,' though, as the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is pretty damn solid. Considering the film is approaching its 20th anniversary, well, that only makes it all the more impressive.
Dialogue doesn't move through speakers, and has the occasional muffled or hollow feeling to it, but every spoken word is clear and crisp. Every single awesome word. Rear channels get some nice (though soft) random atmosphere, and get some solid, engaging bits of movement, as horses permeate the room, as they pass by from each angle, threatening to run you down. There is a nice little bass heft that doesn't steal any attention from the rest of the film, just laying the groundwork, while volume can find itself spiking up and down to match the intensity of scenes.
Sure, it's slightly limited in sound design due to age, but a little bit goes a long way here, and this mix certainly has it where it counts.
Fans of 'Tombstone' may be disappointed with its fairly weak supplement package.
The Making of 'Tombstone' (SD, 27 min) - This three part feature focuses on the cast, the making of the film, and the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, perhaps the most famous part of Earp lore. The cast session spends more time discussing the characters, rather than the cast (fail), the making of is interesting, but kind of boring if you have seen any behind the scenes featurette, and the Corral feature is truly engaging, concerning historical accuracy, and beliefs/legends.
Director's Original Storyboards (SD, 4 min) - Check out some hand drawn storyboards for the O.K. Corral sequence.
Trailers & TV Spots (SD) - A teaser, a trailer, and a few tv spots, all in standard def. The music in the tv spots? Painful and out of place.
When a review doesn't even have room to mention the supporting roles by Jason Priestley, Dana Delany, and Charlton Heston, there may be something going on. Something very, very good. This western packs so much punch, particularly from a certain former-Batman, that it's impossible to ignore. Love it, but don't hate it, as us fans may take it personally.
This Blu-ray release has middling video, very good audio, but a weak assortment of extras that's sure to disappoint what with there being no new content, and the loss of a few essential items, including the extended cut of the film. 'Tombstone' has been on sale a few times, coupled with 'Armageddon' (Hey, have to find a way to sell that "film" somehow!), so keep an eye out for a great deal on this release. It's well worth it, for fans, and newcomers alike.


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Kunsthalle Bremen - Tradition & new perspectives.
REMIX 2020. See the collection anew.
Kunsthalle Bremen
Bold wall colours, an elaborate installation and a completely new arrangement of the works offer surprising new aesthetic experiences.
The Kunstverein Bremen can look back on a history of over 200 years. About 160 years ago, the Bremer Kunsthalle was built not far from the Bremen market place, the heart of Bremen. It is one of the most important and beautiful museums in Europe. In the Kunsthalle visitors will find countless works of art from eight centuries of human history.
Through an active programme of exhibitions and events, the Kunsthalle Bremen seeks to bring together past, present, Bremen and the world in a dialogue. Under the title "Remix 2020 – Seeing the Collection anew", the in-house exhibition will be presented in a fundamentally new way for the first time in almost a decade.
To the Kunsthalle Bremen To the Kunsthalle Bremen
"ReMix" – Tradition and new perspectives
The Kunsthalle Bremen tries to offer visitors a surprisingly new aesthetic experience, above all through bold wall colours and elaborate installations. In addition, there are many works that visitors have not seen for decades. This great event was the reason for the cooperation between the Kunsthalle Bremen and FILMFLUT. In order to give the "new" in-house exhibition the appearance and attention it ultimately deserves, the Kunsthalle Bremen decided to approach us and work out a concept together to honour the in-house exhibition.
The fast procedure could only be achieved through our excellent customer service and our short and fast communication channels. The actual production took two days. It was extremely important to the Kunsthalle Bremen and FILMFLUT that the people who worked on the exhibition and the actual works of art were presented on an equal footing in a film.
The interviews were filmed inside the breathtaking and beautiful Kunsthalle Bremen. The most important thing is to give the interviewees a pleasant, joyful and trusting feeling in order to guarantee an authentic interview. On the second day the beautiful close-ups of the individual works of art were filmed. By playing with light, colour, fog and the beautiful location of the Kunsthalle Bremen, breathtaking and individual pictures were created, which really represent each individual work of art in its own unique way.
The company FILMFLUT also interprets itself in terms of the "Remix" in-house exhibition of the Kunsthalle Bremen. The mix between the craftsmanship, the know-how of each individual employee, but also the breaking up of long-established entrepreneurial orders and the trust in the digitalisation of the FILMFLUT company leads to a mix of the "old" entrepreneurship and the modern "start-ups". Perhaps this is also an indicator that the Kunsthalle Bremen approached us and that we were allowed to film the "new" "old" exhibition.
The Kunsthalle Bremen is completely satisfied. Both with the professional and flexible process, the young or modern identity of the entire team and the finished product. We are very much looking forward to further projects with the Kunsthalle Bremen and furthermore to a future partnership. B2B, art, culture, PR and much more under one roof can only be found here at FILMFLUT.
Artist presentation Next Project
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World Athletics: Okpekpe 10km Road Race Is Next Stop In Our Calendar
James Agberebi 4 May 16, 2022 7:53 am
World Athletics says the next elite label road race on its calendar will hold on Saturday May 28, 2022 in Okpekpe, Edo state of Nigeria.
The event in Okpekpe, the Okpekpe international 10km road race is coming after the successful organisation of the TCS World 10K Bengaluru in India on Sunday May 15, 2022.
The governing body for the sport on its label road race page on its website alerts the whole world to the fact that the next World Athletics elite label road race will hold in Nigeria.
It is the only label road race in all label categories that will hold that day before the Kigali International Peace Marathon in Kigali, Rwanda and the Tartan Homes Ottawa International Marathon in Ottawa, Canada which hold the next day.
Also Read: CAF Confed Cup: Ndah Helps Orlando Pirates Seal Final Ticket
World Athletics Label Road Races are races that the World Athletics designates as one of the leading road races around the world.
The classification was first introduced for the 2008 running season, upon the suggestion of the IAAF Road Running Commission and the Okpekpe international 10km road race is the first road running event in West Africa to be granted a label status which confers on it the status of one of the leading road races in the world.
The Okpekpe race is returning after suffering two covid-induced postponements in 2020 and 2021 and organisers have promised a better and bigger race this year to be in line with its new classification as an elite label race.
The quality of elite athletes that will be competing for the top $20,000 prize money is the best so far assembled and will be led by Ethiopia's Yasin Haji who ran 27:00 under two months ago in Lille, France to jump into the world top 10 list of performances so far this year and Kenya's Sandrafelis Chebet Tuei who has improved her best from the 30.57 she ran in January 2018 to 30:45 last October at the 10K Valencia Ibercaja in Valencia, Spain.
This year's race, the eighth edition will start in Apama Road and ends in the rural, rustic town of Okpekpe famous for its position on the hill top in the Edo North Senatorial district and its huge agricultural and investment potential and quite a suitable tourism destination.
The race is organised by Pamodzi Sports Marketing, a leader in sports marketing, sponsorship, hospitality and rights acquisition business with operations in Nigeria.
Sports News Extra 3906 edo state 44 Okpekpe International 10km Road Race 58
Newcastle vs Arsenal – Preview And Predictions
Sancho: Life At Man United Has Been Difficult For Me
Eliot Omonike 9 months ago
https://youtu.be/cYWNnRrcl_s?t=332
This is an improvement in the 2019 version. I wish all the participants well while hoping to see new faces on the block.
Correction* an improvement 'to' and not in.
ISHAKA BLIKISU 9 months ago
Sarkay Sarki 9 months ago
For the fact that it brings good development to Nigerians and especially Edo people where the World is meeting for the event, it has our support. God bless Sunday Dare as Edo people look forward for more good news.


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Following our previously reporting on the leaked names, TakaraTomy has released images of LG-54 Bumble and Exo-Suit Spike, LG-55 Targetmaster Slugslinger, LG-56 Perceptor and LG-57 Octone. Interestingly, every one of the toys comes with an additional figure to enhance play value; read on to see what they are!
Unite Warriors UW-06 Grand Galvatron Mini-Comic!
TakaraTomy Unite Warriors UW-06 Grand Galvatron Revealed!


Driving down total cost of quality is a critical directive shared by all quality leaders regardless of their industry or company size. But lowering costs without disrupting product quality, safety, efficacy, compliance and continuity, presents a major hurdle that may seem impossible to overcome; a problem that is compounded by the rise of 3D printing, automation, cloud computing, IoT, personalized medicine, and other emerging technologies within manufacturing.
A strong foundation for a quality management system will uncover hidden cost-savings and value-add opportunities, and will help companies to thrive during this next stage of manufacturing.
The consequences of an inferior quality management system.
Cost saving and value add opportunities that help companies to thrive.


If you aren't seeing an upgrade banner message at the top of your WordPress Admin dashboard, go to Tools -> Upgrade to trigger the cron job upgrade manually.
To upgrade WordPress in two steps without having to disable plugins, or if automatic upgrade fails, click here. If you've never been able to use automatic upgrade due to errors you could never explain click here.


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Q: Please let me kick a bad post when it's down On sites where I either have 10k rep or am a moderator, I'll sometimes see a clearly-bad post -- incoherent, not even remotely an answer, etc -- that's already been deleted.  So yay for the immediate problem being fixed, but not all deleted posts get downvoted first, and sometimes deleted posts get undeleted.  The OP, in particular, can undelete on his own if he's the one who deleted, and sometimes -- shocking, I know -- members of communities disagree about what's "clearly bad" and might bring back something I would have downvoted.  Further, undeletion doesn't bump a post, so that clearly-bad post might sneak back to haunt the site later.  What I'd really like to be able to do is to add my downvote1 when I see the post, even though the post is already deleted, just in case.
As a side benefit, if that post does come back later, I'll be alerted to that fact by my -1 rep (if it's an answer), so I can take a look to see if any action is called for (remove the DV because it was fixed, comment, flag, vote to delete, etc).
As a moderator I could, in especially-dire cases, undelete the post, downvote, and then delete it again, but that feels like an abuse of the mod powers, plus it clobbers the deletion attribution, plus this doesn't help 10kers at all.
As with any other deleted post, reputation changes from the vote, for both the recipient and voter, take effect only if the post is undeleted.  This is not a proposal to do additional reputation damage to somebody whose post is already deleted.
1 For fairness's sake, it should also be possible to upvote a deleted post.  This could help in the case (which I've seen) where somebody self-deletes a post he thinks isn't good enough and others try to persuade him to undelete -- some votes waiting to be claimed could be additional encouragement.

A: I hate saying no to something because it would cause issues with something that isn't implemented yet, but ... I have some concerns with how this would affect some moving parts we're about to introduce as part of the quality project. I'll break them down, and try to be as brief as possible, please bear with me as there is a bit to discuss.
Question blocks have been significantly improved.
We now slow you down much faster and provide better guidance prior to outright not accepting questions from you until your most negatively scored question falls out of scope of a query - which can take up to a year.
Part of that guidance, which I'm working on improving, is edit what's salvageable rather than deleting it. However the problem is, especially on sites like Stack Overflow - your first couple of belly-flopping-off-topic questions probably aren't going to be salvageable - which is why so many people were stuck at being blocked indefinitely with only a few questions to their credit.
Allowing down-votes on deleted posts is going to really skew the algorithm that goes into determining when someone should be rate limited, and for how long. While it does look at deleted posts, it was not designed with the idea that deleted posts can be voted on. The system also gives you credit for substantial edits to your questions, and sometimes the best way to go back to the drawing board with something is to delete it, edit it and then restore it - otherwise it could be -10 by the time you actually turn it into something that might be useful.
You won't see as many of these (in question form) as you currently do, soon.
Near the end of this answer, Shog9 goes into describing a system where quite a few questions will be evaluated at a fundamental level and quickly sorted by people working in review. The idea being, help folks salvage questions that could be valuable before giving them much visibility. Questions that are just indecipherable, completely off-topic or otherwise show no hope of being suitable for the site are more quickly moved out of the way to be closed and deleted, and due to a much more enhanced quality score that counts something like 20 more points of signal, will probably never be seen again unless you're working a close queue.
There might be room to tweak answer blocks
The answer block system is pretty smart, and it does consider a bunch of things, including the number of deleted answers you have (even if they're not negatively scored). It takes a little longer to kick in than question blocks do, and it's not yet rolling like the new question limits.
I'd much rather bring the rolling limit functionality to answers, as that's the best way to solve the problem at its root. I see so many folks on Stack Overflow posting links to something in their Github outright blocked while they though they were just being helpful. If the problem that you describe continues to grow, I think larger strides, where more just-in-time help (and a brief slow down) lets the user know what they're doing wrong, and how to fix it.
If that were in place, and I'm seriously considering it, anything getting around it becomes a pattern of abuse, which we have several established ways to deal with.
Let's roll out everything we've got close to shipping in the se-quality-project, and revisit this if it becomes a pattern rather than occasional exception.

A: I completely agree, and also request that we can:

*

*Close deleted questions (actually I think this is already possible, but not sure)

*Mod-nuke already deleted posts (ex. self-deleted posts)

Just today there was a blatantly off-topic "question" I saw on PPCG, and it was self-deleted (I found it via the flag queue). What would have really been convenient is if I could have given it the mod nuke-from-orbit so the author couldn't just undelete it later without being noticed (the post looked questionably spammy).
I eventually decided to just leave it since the OP had already posted the same trash on a different site (flagged, of course), but this ability would be really helpful for these cases in the future.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Claude Fischer - Sweet Land of . . . Conformity?
So much that American rebel spirit - it's all good as long as well all rebel in the same way. According to The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), and the World Value Surveys (WVS), Americans are far less individualistic than those pinko socialist Europeans.
Even the kids at the high school next door all rebel in the same ways. We are not much different than dogs in some ways - we can be as individualistic as we like, as long as we don't stray too far from the pack. Same thing is true with adults and their politics.
This seems to reflect the still-dominant authoritarian worldview many Americans hold:
At 45 percent, Americans were the least likely out of nine nationalities to say that people should at least on occasion follow their consciences — far fewer than, for example, the Swedes (70 percent) and the French (78 percent).
Law and order (and for many, the Bible) trumps what we know in our hearts to be right - politically and morally. We are still pretty low as a nation on Kohlberg/Gilligan's scales of moral development.
Sweet land of... conformity?
Americans aren't the rugged individuals we think we are
By Claude Fischer June 6, 2010
Americans like to see themselves as rugged individualists, a nation defined by the idea that people should set their own course through life. Think of Clint Eastwood rendering justice, rule-bound superiors be damned. Think of Frank Sinatra singing "My Way."
The idea that personal liberty defines America is deeply rooted, and shared across the political spectrum. The lifestyle radicals of the '60s saw themselves as heirs to this American tradition of self-expression; today, it energizes the Tea Party movement, marching to defend individual liberty from the smothering grasp of European-style collectivism.
But are Americans really so uniquely individualistic? Are we, for example, more committed individualists than people in those socialist-looking nations of Europe? The answer appears to be no.
For many years now, researchers worldwide have been conducting surveys to compare the values of people in different countries. And when it comes to questions about how much the respondents value the individual against the collective — that is, how much they give priority to individual interest over the demand of groups, or personal conscience over the orders of authority — Americans consistently answer in a way that favors the group over the individual. In fact, we are more likely to favor the group than Europeans are.
Surprising as it may sound, Americans are much more likely than Europeans to say that employees should follow a boss's orders even if the boss is wrong; to say that children "must" love their parents; and to believe that parents have a duty to sacrifice themselves for their children. We are more likely to defer to church leaders and to insist on abiding by the law. Though Americans do score high on a couple of aspects of individualism, especially where it concerns government intervening in the market, in general we are likelier than Europeans to believe that individuals should go along and get along.
American individualism is far more complex than our national myths, or the soap-box rhetoric of right and left, would have it. It is not individualism in the libertarian sense, the idea that the individual comes before any group and that personal freedom comes before any allegiance to authority. Research suggests that Americans do adhere to a particular strain of liberty — one that emerged in the New World — in which freedom to choose your allegiance is tempered by the expectation that you won't stray from the values of the group you choose. In a political climate where "liberty" is frequently wielded as a rhetorical weapon but rarely discussed in a more serious way, grasping the limits of our notion of liberty might guide us to building America's future on a different philosophical foundation.
The image of America as the bastion of libertarianism is a long-established one. Our Founding Fathers stipulated a set of personal rights and freedoms in our key documents that was, by the standards of that day, radical. The quintessentially American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, in "Self-Reliance," extolled the person who does not defer to outside authority or compromise his principles for the sake of any collectivity — family, church, party, community, or nation.
This quality in the American character struck observers from overseas, including Alexis de Tocqueville, who in his 1830s book, "Democracy in America," famously tied the relatively new word "individualism" to what seemed so refreshingly new about the Americans. Popular culture today reinforces this image by making heroes of men (it's almost always men) who put principle above everything else, even if — perhaps especially if — that makes them loners.
But in modern America, when you look at real issues where individual rights conflict with group interests, Americans don't appear to see things this way at all. Over the last few decades, scholars around the world have collaborated to mount surveys of representative samples of people from different countries. The International Social Survey Programme, or ISSP, and the World Value Surveys, or WVS, are probably the longest-running, most reliable such projects. Starting with just a handful of countries, both now pose the same questions to respondents from dozens of nations.
Their findings suggest that in several major areas, Americans are clearly less individualistic than western Europeans. One topic pits individual conscience against the demands of the state. In 2006, the ISSP asked the question "In general, would you say that people should obey the law without exception, or are there exceptional occasions on which people should follow their consciences even if it means breaking the law?" At 45 percent, Americans were the least likely out of nine nationalities to say that people should at least on occasion follow their consciences — far fewer than, for example, the Swedes (70 percent) and the French (78 percent). Similarly, in 2003, Americans turned out to be the most likely to embrace the statement "People should support their country even if the country is in the wrong."
Such results contradict the message we send when we assign students the work of say, Henry David Thoreau, a follower of Emerson's who wrote "Civil Disobedience," or celebrate the bravery of Martin Luther King Jr. They contradict much of the justification for the Second Amendment, whose supporters see it as empowering the individual with a gun to say no to the state.
But what about more intimate arenas of life? In 1991, the ISSP asked respondents whether they agreed that "Right or wrong should be a matter of personal conscience." Americans came in next to last of seven nationalities with 47 percent agreeing, one point ahead of the Norwegians, but almost 20 points behind the Dutch and more than 40 points behind the Austrians. Americans are also unlikely to put individual happiness before the institution of marriage — they were second most likely (after the British) to agree that even a childless couple should "stay together even if they don't get along." (The Italians, overwhelmingly Catholic, were much more likely to support divorce in these circumstances.) And Americans were the least likely, in the 1998 ISSP, to accept the idea that it might be acceptable for "a married person [to have] sexual relations with someone other than his or her husband or wife." (Coming in first were — no surprise — the French, 31 percent of whom endorsed this sort of individual liberty.)
The nature of individualism is complex, however, and there are at least a couple of ways that Americans in the ISSP and similar surveys do appear more individualistic than Europeans. For one, Americans are usually the most likely to say that individuals determine their own fates. What happens to you is your own doing, not the product of external circumstances. For Americans, things are the way they are because individuals made choices.
Also, the closer survey questions get to matters of economics and government, the clearer it is that Americans are strong believers in laissez-faire. Americans are much likelier than Europeans to reject government or workers interfering with owners' authority to run their businesses. Americans are the most likely to choose freedom over equality, when equality is defined as a situation in which "nobody is underprivileged and...social class differences are not so strong." Not surprisingly, Americans are the most hostile to having the government redress economic inequality.
Nonetheless, the libertarianism of Emerson does not characterize Americans' broader understandings of the role of the individual in society. In fact, Americans seem much more willing to submerge personal liberty to the group than Europeans are.
Yet, the notions of individualism and liberty have lost none of their rhetorical power in today's America — we clearly see ourselves as individualists, far more so than Europeans do. How do we explain this contradiction, between the celebration of America as the land of individual freedom and Americans' actual tendency to favor the group?
The answer, I think, is that Americans have historically adhered to a distinctive view of the individual's place in society, a view that can be called "communal voluntarism."
Americans insist on the reality and value of individual free choice, including, critically, free choice to join or leave groups, be they companies or countries. However, Americans also believe that, once individuals are members of the group, they must be loyal. You could think of this philosophy as "love it or leave it" — with the understanding that you aren't forced to join and are genuinely free to leave.
In the Old World, communities were more commonly imposed on individuals, and constraining. Traditionally, one was born into a clan, ethnicity, church, village, or nation and pretty much locked into it. In the New World, with the noted exception of Indians and slaves, membership became a matter of free choice and voluntary commitment.
Americans believe in contracts — or covenants, to use religious language. Our culture insists that if you marry, if you take a job, if you join a club, and so on, you are signing an explicit or implicit contract to cooperate and conform. If the group no longer works for you, the door is open. American-style individualism lies in the freedom to choose; American-style collectivism lies in the commitment to the group that freely choosing entails.
We can see this impulse, too, in the very earliest days of American settlement. In 1630, John Winthrop, who would be the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, addressed his shipmates sailing to the New World. They were a mix of Puritan refugees and those simply traveling to seek their fortunes. He urged each one to submit to the group: "We must be knit together in this work as one man...[W]e must delight in each other, make others' conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor, and suffer together, always having before our eyes...our community as members of the same body." How un-Emersonian; how un-libertarian to urge such submission to the "body." But how American. Winthrop's plea underlines the choice; he is asking his listeners to voluntarily submit. The settlers simultaneously made the highly individualistic choice of leaving their old ties behind and the communal choice of binding themselves with others in a new community.
Communal voluntarism characterized the Protestant congregations that sprung up all over the United States in the late 18th and the 19th centuries. They provided the archetype of the American community — freely formed but highly absorbing. Americans are especially likely to switch denominations and churches, but also to be religiously enthusiastic members of the ones they are in. Americans behave much the same with regard to neighborhoods, clubs, friendships, and even marriages. Western Europeans' connections to churches are almost a mirror image: born into a lifetime membership in a national religion, they are more often indifferent to religion.
There are several strands to what makes Americans a distinctive people. One strand is certainly the antigovernment impulse; and one is the embrace in the 19th-century of laissez-faire ideas. But another, perhaps greater strand is the communalism that emphasizes making, in Winthrop's terms, "others' conditions our own." If we want to celebrate Americanism, we can emphasize dumping taxed tea off the ship — or we can, with even more justification, emphasize that we are all in this boat together.
Claude Fischer is author of "Made in America: A Social History of American Culture and Character," just published. This essay is adapted from a post on the associated blog, http://madeinamericathebook.wordpress.com/.
Tags: Claude Fischer, Sweet Land of . . . Conformity?, Boston Globe, The International Social Survey Programme, ISSP, World Value Surveys, WVS, rugged individualism, libertarianism, personal liberty, culture, Politics, values, society, socialism, rebellion, rebels
Posted by william harryman at Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Labels: culture, Politics, society, values
Marmalade said...
I wonder how this book fits into other books that propose a variety of cultures in America:
Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America
By David Hackett Fischer
American Nations: A history of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
By Colin Woodard
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All in the Mind - The Master & his Emissary: The D...
Toward a Dialectical Theory of Human Tool Use
An Evening with Karen Armstrong
The Dalai Lama - Go for Refuge to the Buddha, Dhar...
Marion von Osten: Editorial — "In Search of the Po...
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche - Three Words That Strike ...
Susan Piver - Love, Spirituality and Four Noble Tr...
Babies Grasp Number, Space and Time Concepts
Blogisattva Awards Are Back - Nominations Are Open...
Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. - Mindfulness Meditation a...
Adbusters - Narcissism Is the Fast Food of the Sou...
Buddhist Geeks - On Enlightenment: An Interview wi...
Dietary Patterns and Alzheimer's Disease Risk
The Beautiful Brain - PODCAST: The Keepers of Memo...
Alison Gopnik - Why Babies Are More Conscious than...
Mark Edwards - Metatheorising development - Let's ...
Not Your Parent's Psychotherapy: Psychodynamic The...
UCtelevision - Food and Addiction: Reflections on ...
Deborah Serrien - Decisions of voluntary action: w...
Douglas LaBier, Ph.D. - Building An Inside-Out Lif...
Oxytocin Increases In-Group Empathy . . . and Aggr...
Authors@Google: Rick Hanson
The Psychology Behind Your Nutrition
Buddhist Geeks #176: The Place of the Erotic (Chri...
Venerable Tenzin Palm - Dharma Quote
Rick Hanson - Your Wise Brain: The Evolution of Lo...
Mindfulness and Meditation in the News
Davidson Loehr - Is God Irrelevant?
Steven Pinker - Talking about Talking
RSA Animate - The Secret Powers of Time
Pema Chödrön - Don't Bite the Hook
NPR - Military Still Failing To Diagnose, Treat Br...


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This humanoid close encounter case has become a classic in Swedish ufology. It was documented by one of the first active field investigators in Sweden, Sven Schalin. Unfortunately we have never been able to trace the original witnesses which of course reduces the credibility of the case. But I still think it is worth a presentation because of several unique details in the story.
The incident occured on the evening of August 23, 1967 in Kolmården, a small community close to my hometown Norrköping. The witnesses were two teenagers around 15 years of age, "Peter" and his girlfriend "Fia". Sven Schalin heard of the incident from a workmate to Fia´s father on August 25 och visited the family of Fia on August 26. Here he interviewed Fia´s parents and the also the teenagers. A couple of days later he paid a second visit and did a more thorough interview with Peter and Fia. The witnesses wanted to remain anonymous because of the high strangeness of what had happened.
It was a little past 8.00 p.m. on August 23 when Peter and Fia was strolling on a small road close to an industrial plot in the small community. The sun had just set and it was twilight. Suddenly the teenagers notice a red light over the trees in a nearby forest. The light is not very bright, has no special shape and there is no sound as it descends rather fast towards the ground in front of the forest. Peter and Fia become apprehensive as they have a feeling of being observed and they decide to leave the spot and head for home.
On their way home they notice that the red light once again has risen and hovers above the forest. Close to home they feel safer and they decide to follow another road to find out what has happened to the light. Once again the notice the red light but it disappears from the forest and is gone. Peter and Fia arrive at an uninhabited cottage and to their surprise small yellow lights are hovering and moving around the place. In one of the windows the notice that the lights are also inside the cottage and there is a distinct sound like someone pounding on wood. While watching these lights the teenagers discover that the red light has appeared once again and is coming in lower than before and "landing" not far from a brook nearby.
Peter and Fia are now rather frightened and return home at a fast pace on the same road. Close to home a small round light suddenly appears in front of them, not more than three meters from the ground and and at the same distance. Like a flashlight hanging in the air. A very sharp whistling sound is heard from nearby and fast and light footsteps are coming closer. Suddenly a figure jumps up from behind the bushes or it rather seems to float up not more than ten meters from Peter and Fia.
The figure is not more than 130 centimeter in height, wearing dark clothing. As it is rather dark they can´t at first observe the face and Fia get the idea that it could be a friend of hers playing some trick and she takes a few steps closer wherein the figure rases the arms and looks straight at Fia. The movements are jerky and unnatural. Peter immediately realize that something is wrong. He grabs Fia shouting "watch out, he is not human". The figure carries some form of object in the left hand which it points to the teenagers. The object is obviously heavy as the humanoid have to use the right arm as support. There is some sort of light visible on the top of the object. Very frightened the teenagers turn around and run home telling their parents and sisters what had occured.
The humanoid had a head out proportion to the body that was skinny. Some sort of hood seemed to cover part of the head. Eyes were dark and Peter experienced the gaze as intensive and nasty. Mouth and nose appeared like an X. The humanoid looked bow-legged and had some wire around the ankles that for a short moment shone with a bright white light. It appeared both tough and somewhat frightened, shivering.
Ufologist Sven Schalin could find no natural explanation for the case. He regarded the witnesses as sincere and serious when recounting the experience. Peter´s mother confirmed that the teenagers were shocked when coming home and Peter didn´t want to go outside after dark for some time. This was an unusual behavior on his part. The day after the incident strange "footprints" were found at the spot where the humanoid had been observed.
Provided this case is valid what do we have here? A visitor from the multiverse, a robot used by aliens from somewhere, a leprechaun, a sportive nature spirit materializing and playing tricks on unsuspecting teenagers?
In the magazine collection at AFU we have a complete set of Pursuit, published between 1967-1989 by the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU). This organization was founded by Ivan T. Sanderson, well known biologist who devoted much of his life to Cryptozoology and other Fortean subjects. The original name of the organization was the Ivan T. Sanderson Foundation, founded in 1965, but it changed into SITU in 1967. An excellent and very informative site is A Tribute to Ivan T. Sanderson by Richard Grigonis.
Pursuit is a treasure trove of Fortean data and discussions of all aspects of unexplained phenomena. While perusing some older issues I found an interesting article, Fortean vs. Orthodox Science, presenting the, unfortunately still unsolved, basic problems facing UFO and Fortean investigators. It was written by Robert J. Durant and published in vol. 7, no. 2, April 1974. Durant begin his article with the sociological fact well known to all ufologists and Forteans: "... there is a great range of physical phenomena that has been reported, and reported time and again for centuries, often in every part of the globe, but that orthodox science ignores." From an academic perspective this is not entirely true. UFOs and paranormal phenomena are studied by orthodox science but then usually in disciplines like history of ideas, history of religions, folklore and psychology. Within these disciplines scientists stay on the safe side of the fence not adressing the really interesting ontological question regarding the reality and origin of all these unexplained phenomena.
1. UFO and fortean events are generally of short duration and they occur sporadically. "How is one to approach the study of events for which there is little evidence other than an eyewitness report? To be sure, there is a great deal of secondary or circumstantial evidence to back up the eyewitness reports. I refer here to footprints, feces samples, photographs in the case of ABSMs, and to the various deformations of the ground and surrounding foliage in the cases of UFO landings, as well as all of the EM effects, movies etc., that form the UFO evidence. But the scientist is neither trained nor accustomed to process anecdotal or circumstatinal evidence."
2. "Fortean events very often are most difficult, if not impossible, to classify in any established scientific pigeon hole. Here we would list falls from the sky, the physical phenomena that are popularly but, we think, falsely, designated "psychic" phenomena, the "flying saucers" and so forth. This taxonomic difficulty has had an effect that at times has been humorous and at other times pitiful." Durant mention the classic situation regarding UFOs. As the best selling books claimed they were spaceships, everyone thought it was a task for the astronomers to come up with an answer. But as I have stated many times, to have an astronomer comment on a close encounter UFO case is as interesting as having an ornithologist comment on nuclear physics. The only person whos view is of value is the field investigator who has done a thorough and critical study and documentation of the case. Being a critic is not enough. You must have knowledge and empirical data.
3. Fortean events makes them unappealing to the scientific community because they present an enormous challenge to established theories. "It has to do with that almost universally expressed human frailty, the closed mind,. It is the blind refusal to even consider any alleged fact or event or theory that conflicts with a predetermined viewpoint." Durant mention that many scientists who joined SITU insisted on anonymity.
As a scientist to openly advocate the serious study of UFO, Fortean and paranormal phenomena within academe is to be a heretic. You have then entered the domain of Forbidden Science as presented by Jacques Vallee and stand all the chances of becoming the Giordano Bruno of your cultural epoch.
"I advocate that psychologists studying alleged paranormal phenomena should at least be able to state what their own beliefs are on the topic they are studying... If we can imagine that a committed Christian can legimitately study personal prayer, why not a medium studying mediumship?"
When it comes to the serious study of UFO, Fortean and paranormal phenomena we clearly need heretical scientists, a pathfinder force of daring and iconoclastic scholars not trapped in the flatland paradigm of a materialist and reductionist worldview.
The following case came to my attention in October 1996 when I received the original document from Christian Fester, M.D. His wife was Siw Fester, who experienced an extraordinary close encounter and landing case on August 21, 1983, which I mentioned in an earlier blog entry. Christian Fester lectured on his wife´s UFO encounter to Norrköpings UFO-förening on October 14, 1996.
Christian and Siw Fester had received the written document in 1988. They were sent by Erich Svensson, brother of the witness Arne Svensson. In 1996 I contacted Erich Svensson to gather some more data on the case. Unfortunately I didn´t at the time pursue the documentation any further but I regard the case of special interest as it happened in 1943, before the UFO era. The original witness died in the beginning of the 1990s.
In a phone conversation October 20, 1996 Erich Svensson related the following details regarding his brother. Arne documented his experiences in a manuscript written shortly after it had happened. He kept the manuscript hidden in a secret place in a drawer as he didn´t want to be laughed at during his lifetime. In the 1970s Arne finally revealed the secret to his brother, tears streaming when he told of the incident that had affected him so deeply. "You can thank God it didn´t happen to you", he told Erich. Arne was a big och physically strong man born in 1913. He worked as a clerk at a paper mill in Örebro, Sweden. This was his only UFO experience.
During the Second World War Arne Svensson was stationed at the Swedish-Norwegian border between 1941-1944. He was attached to the I 3 military unit of Örebro with regular guard duty at the border between Sweden and Norway at a place named Röjdåfors, about 40 Swedish kilometers north of Torsby, in the province Värmland. The incident occured sometimes in August 1943.
Arne begins his guard duty att 10 P.M. The former guard report that all is quiet. "Standing at the post I become aware of a faint sound that I couldn´t identify. It encreased very fast in strength, the tone becoming unbearably strong. I put the rifle towards a rock and put my fingers in the ears. Suddenly I notice a dark object in the sky, looking like two saucers put together. It is coming right towards me very fast, emitting what looks like intensive welding flames. The craft stops in midair and I notice small windows around the central part, emitting a bluewhite light. The bottom of the craft opens up and a small round object comes out sinking towards the ground. Flames are emitted from a central belt on this object, like som form of steering mechanism."
Arne is blinded by the strong light. His eyes feel like there is gravel beneath the eyelids. With tears running, fear and terror engulf him. He tries to shout, with no success, neither can he telephone his military unit or run. Arne cannot move and he feels nauseated and dizzy. There is a smell like sulphur in the air. "I feel an intensive pain in my left arm and behind the tears I notice that the bracelet is emitting a strong light. I succeed in yanking off the wristwatch. There is a faint light, a strong swishing sound and all becomes peaceful. Time and space disappear. I can hear the next guard like a voice far away: "Go home and go to bed. You are not well"".
Arne gets a sick leave for three days. His doctor cannot find anything wrong with his condition except a few small burns around his left arm and the middle finger on the right arm. Arne goes back to the place where it happened and finds the rifle loaded standing towards a tree. But he has a hard time getting the cartridge from the rifle because part of it is covered with small dots like welding sparks. Eventually he also locates his missing wristwatch. It had stopped at 10.13 P.M and the watch-case is also covered with what looks like welding sparks. The bracelet is totally black. Later a watchmaker complains: "What the hell have you done with this watch. It is welded inside and there is nothing I can do." Unfortunately this wristwatch is gone, according to Erich Svensson.
For several days Arne scrutized the place where he had been that fateful night. About 500 meters from the command post all vegetation was burned in a square of 30 x 30 meters. There was also the same smell of sulphur at this place, though somewhat weaker.
Arne Svensson concludes his written document with these words: "I have seen German and Swedish airplanes and in the 1920s I saw the dirigible Italia. There is nothing in shape or speed that can be compared with this unknown.
Are we observered from somewhere else?
Do we have visitors from other planets?
You who is now reading this will maybe dismiss all with a smile and say phantasy.
Maybe you have the answer, which I am convinced will come in the future.
Today we are sitting in a tent in the woods of Värmland listening to news about the Germans from a small box (radio) placed in the straw.
What will happen in the unknown future. I have tried to describe an experience that has convinced me that we have visitors from somewhere else, in spite of what scholars say."
In his letter to me in 1996 Erich Svensson comments that his brother was a down to earth man and very trustworthy. He is convinced that the document is an honest description of what actually happened. What I do find somewhat extraordinary is that Arne is convinced already in 1943 that this was an interplanetary craft instead of some secret German airplane. This mystery will remain as both Arne and his brother Erich are dead since many years. What we have left is the story of an intriguing encounter with an unknown craft.


As an artist the image of the vandalized face of seventh century, Jehanabad Buddha, which was destroyed by terrorists in Swat Pakistan, is etched in my mind. It has inspired me to work on my latest series of 'Buddha still lives in Pakistan'.This work reflects my South Asian identity of a practicing Muslim but the magnificient Gandhara civilization also a part of it.
While working on my recent work and what better medium to choose than chitarkari a folk art from my hometown in Hazara. The somber grey slate gets an amazing palette of colours, as a result of hundred of years of natural process involving different minerals one finds all sorts of images already in the stone. Some stones have wonderful metallic sheen, all a result of different minerals in the slate. I really enjoy carving the slate with more clay in it as it is so much softer that the dark grey one. It is while I am carving the stone I get ideas of further exploring it. Although my work is about expression of ideas but while working with slate it is also about exploring the material and keeping its integrity intact.
Besides the image of Buddha, I am also repeating the images of dancing figures in different Bharatnatyam poses, all the symbols of beauty a part of our South Asian heritage that are fading away as a consequence of the 'engineering' of our identity. I find my inspiration in Gandhara art. I love this beautiful fusion of the East and West.


The Careto malware, a.k.a. The Mask, could have been a Duqu-like cyberweapon – but more sophisticated.
What if your network was compromised for the past five years and you didn't know?
That seems to have been the situation for many victims of one of the greatest security threat to have been recently discovered.
On February 11, Kaspersky Labs announced its discovery of a particularly insidious piece of malware dubbed "The Mask" – also known as "Careto" (Spanish for "mask" or "ugly face"), the name given by the attackers to one of the two primary backdoor implants used on target machines. Kaspersky has detected at least 380 unique victims of the attack across at least 31 countries, concentrated among energy companies, government offices, private equity firms, research institutions, and political activists. Kaspersky further concedes that many more victims could remain undetected.
Kaspersky reports that The Mask has been active for at least five years, until January of this year. This means that, for years, major public and private sector organizations have had their networks and data deeply compromised and not known about it.
Some samples of The Mask were found to have been compiled even before then, in 2007. Disturbingly, this is the same year as the origins of major cyberweapons like Stuxnet and Duqu. What's more, Kaspersky reports that The Mask is a more sophisticated piece of malware than Duqu because of the former's capacity for flexibility and customization.
Working through a highly complex combination of modules and plug-ins, The Mask would secretly gather and steal data from all manner of systems and networks – including remote and virtualized ones – while monitoring all file operations. It would then hide its tracks in highly sophisticated ways, including replacing real system libraries, entirely wiping log files (as opposed to simple deletion), and blocking the IP addresses of renowned computer research entities (including Kaspersky) from its command and control servers.
For these reasons, and because of the unique and sophisticated way this malware would work from a network infrastructure management perspective, security experts hypothesize that The Mask was created or sponsored by a nation-state, similar to Kaspersky's conclusions about the Stuxnet worm.
"The attack is designed to handle all possible cases and potential victim types," Kaspersky reports. Kaspersky has uncovered versions of The Mask that affect Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux. Kaspersky also reports that there are mobile versions of The Mask, including one known to attack Nokia devices. While Kaspersky has not been able to obtain a sample to 100% confirm, the computer security firm believes that versions of The Mask affect both iOS and Android devices. The Mask also works through a variety of browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and even Opera.
"Depending on the operating system, browser and installed plugins," Kaspersky notes, "the user is redirected to different subdirectories, which contain specific exploits for the user's configuration that are most likely to work."
Among these exploits are plugin modules that attack anti-malware products (including those by Kaspersky), intercept network traffic, obtain PGP keys, steal email messages, intercept and record Skype conversations, gather a list of available WiFi networks, and provide other network functions to facilitate other modules. One module even creates a framework for extending the reach of The Mask with new plugins.
The Mask also has the ability to profile its targets. Its modules would automatically determine details of its victims' systems and software and then customize attacks using that information. It can even figure out if it is targeting a remote desktop portal or a virtualized environment.
"The installer module can detect if it is being executed in a VMware or Microsoft Virtual PC virtual machine," reports Kaspersky.
Network administrators and information security officers should find these revelations particularly disturbing. The fact that something so flexible, complex, and sophisticated could compromise so much information across so many platforms and go undetected for several years is bad enough. The fact that it is probable that this is the work of a nation-state or nation-state-sponsored group is yet more disconcerting. As cyber warfare ramps up, so must cyber defenses. The logical consequence may be greater government oversight (some may prefer the more uncharitable characterization "intrusion") over private sector systems, particularly in essential industries like energy, banking, and transportation.
For now, basic security measures are still the best protection against these kinds of attacks. Use up-to-date antimalware and firewall software. Don't open suspicious attachments or click suspicious links. Use air gaps where practicable, and when transferring files across the air gap, use media with small storage space filled with random files to prevent malware from storing itself on your USB stick or CD and leaping the air gap.
In the present case, The Mask appears to have been focused primarily on obtaining information. Still, such information – especially considering the sheer volume of system information accessible to those behind The Mask – could be used to develop and enable outright destructive Stuxnet-like attacks in the future. Therefore, those who were compromised should not consider themselves out of the woods yet. New security measures, perhaps right down to a complete network infrastructure overhaul, may be necessary to avoid serious system disruptions down the line.
And then there is the even bigger question: If something as sophisticated as The Mask went undetected in the wild this long, then what else is still out there?