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John Hay on Bob Dylan: Untangling the Tracks
Posted by Bruce Robbins | Feb 25, 2019 | Features, Uncategorized | 0
Mid-1970s Bob Dylan is the best Bob Dylan. Mid-1960s Dylan may be the historically significant Dylan, the canonical Dylan now regularly appearing on college English syllabi, but for me—I was born in 1984—that Dylan requires historicization. It's not that the songs aren't good (they're terrific), but the hype and hysteria are hard to understand. That whole "going electric" thing . . . I guess you had to be there. It strikes this millennial as a little naïve in retrospect—in the same way that John Updike's elevation of suburban sex as secular miracle now seems misguided. Sixties Dylan was a clever lyricist and a modest musician, with a performance style that has become a figure of parody (think John C. Reilly's Dewey Cox).
Seventies Dylan retains the brilliant wordplay and adds much better music. In 1974, Dylan began touring again after a seven-year hiatus, revising the lyrics to many of his songs and honing a high-energy stage presence for bigger crowds. (The 1975 re-tooling of "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You" is an impressive improvement.) The full power of Dylan's singing and songwriting comes across in the remarkably fruitful period between Planet Waves (1974) and Desire (1976), an era that also includes the live album Before the Flood (1974) and the 1975–1976 "Rolling Thunder Revue," best captured by The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975 (released in 2002), and soon to be the subject of a Netflix documentary titled "Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese." Appearing at the pinnacle of this period is Dylan's greatest album, Blood on the Tracks (1975).
Blood on the Tracks is a masterpiece that features both an emotional intensity and what biographer Michael Gray calls a "corrosive intelligence." More personal and more mature than his earlier work, it has struck many as a breakup record about separating from his wife, Sara (Amazon reviews suggest that the album is especially popular among divorcés ), though Dylan always dismissed that interpretation. If the lyrics are not autobiographical, they are certainly more introspective, colored by longing, confusion, regret, and chagrin. Pete Hamill, who wrote the original Grammy Award-winning liner notes, claimed that Blood on the Tracks was about the Yeatsian "quarrel of the self." The album was initially recorded over four days in New York City in September of 1974, but half the tracks were recut in December with different musicians in Minneapolis when the quarrelsome Dylan decided he was unhappy with the first go-around. The result is a peculiar hybrid of original ideas and second thoughts. Carrie Brownstein (of Sleater-Kinney and Portlandia) has described Blood on the Tracks as "one glorious mess of songs, one tangled story, told and then retold," and that gets to the heart of the record's appeal.
The 6-CD More Blood, More Tracks, released this past November as Volume 14 of the Dylan Bootleg Series, offers all 86 of the initial 1974 New York studio takes in chronological order. (A one-disc sampler, for less rabid fans, was also issued.) These sessions are raw and uneven but also intimate and hypnotic. Gone is the soft echo effect in which producer Phil Ramone enveloped the songs. Some of the strongest tracks are Dylan's first forays on Disc One, a solo set consisting of acoustic guitar, vocals, and harmonica. He clearly walked into the studio in September with a strong sense of what he wanted. The sound suggests a lonely troubadour; the buttons on Dylan's vest audibly smack into his guitar, an effect that can also be heard on "Wedding Song" in Planet Waves.
Subsequent tracks recorded with Eric Weissberg's country band (fresh from their "Dueling Banjoes" hit) largely fall apart—only "Meet Me in the Morning" would make the final cut. Their tempo never seems to settle. Whereas Dylan is often solemn and reflective, the band tends to be bouncy. Dylan got rid of them after a single evening. Most takes on More Blood, More Tracks feature just Dylan and bassist Tony Brown, culminating in the four other New York versions to appear on the finished album: "Shelter from the Storm," "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go," "Buckets of Rain," and "Simple Twist of Fate." These tracks have a quiet intensity. But even here Dylan struggles to find a tonal balance between jaunty and maudlin. The tracks rerecorded in Minnesota ("Idiot Wind," "You're a Big Girl Now," "Tangled Up in Blue," "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts," and "If You See Her, Say Hello") are in contrast much noisier, and Dylan responds with greater excitement to the driving drums of jazz percussionist Bill Berg. Guitarist Kevin Odegard felt he was playing with a "snarling, spitting" Dylan who was "throwing an agonizing poetic tantrum." If the New York sound was of a coffeehouse performance, the Minnesota sound is of a bigger auditorium show.
The twice-told quality of its production helped to make Blood on the Tracks such a revered album, but it remains best known for its astounding lyrics—among the strongest that Dylan ever penned. The most fascinating feature of More Blood, More Tracks is the accompanying booklet of "Photographs, Writings and Memorabilia," which includes high-resolution images of the tiny notebook pages in which Dylan laid out the verses for each song. Begun months before recording, these first drafts offer an incredible glimpse into Dylan's poetic process, revealing, for example, three separate attempts at "Idiot Wind." Among the surprises is the fact that one of Dylan's most iconic dicta—"keep on keepin' on," from "Tangled Up in Blue"—was initially written as the far more pedestrian "keep on pressing on." (It had become "keepin' on" by the time Dylan entered the studio.)
"Tangled Up in Blue" is clearly the star of Blood on the Tracks. A strong competitor for Greatest of All Time (The Telegraph called it "the most dazzling lyric every written"), it has remained one of Dylan's most protean productions, with lyrics and arrangements changing drastically in his performances over the years. Dylan's lyrics have often been unstable, always susceptible to revision, but "Tangled Up in Blue" has been especially altered and rewritten over the course of his career. The pronouns in particular—she and him, you and I—have gone through many iterations, each changing the positions in a love triangle, and fans may enjoy the earlier version available on More Blood that assumes a perspective both more voyeuristic and more enthralled.
But while "Tangled Up in Blue" may be the star, "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" steals the scene. This short song has always been my personal favorite on the album—partly because Dylan claims to be looking for a girl in Ashtabula, Ohio, about an hour from where I grew up, but also because he rhymingly compares his troubled relationships to the affair between Verlaine and Rimbaud—and More Blood really opens it up. The lyrics notebook reveals that the refrain was originally written as a less-sonorous "You gonna make me miss ya when ya go." Interesting alternate lines are provided parenthetically, such as "(Up til' now the road's been steep, / I been killin' time, fighting sleep.)" In the studio, Dylan goes through eight takes in a row with the band on the first day of recording. On the first take, the song falls apart on the line "When something's not right, it's wrong." The band can't get the rhythm, so Dylan changes the line to "When something's not right, it must be wrong." But this lyric is inferior, and it leads into a bizarre bump-along jug band version. Dylan returns the next morning with Brown and knocks it out in two takes.
The brilliant "Up to Me" perhaps epitomizes the studio work here. "Up to Me" is a brilliant song with killer lyrics ("In fourteen months I've only smiled once and I didn't do it consciously"), but Dylan left it off the album, possibly because it sounded too much like "Shelter from the Storm. (He later released "Up to Me" on the 1985 Biograph). His ability to discard such a gem is what makes Dylan's work on Blood on the Tracks so fascinating. He was clearly building an album, not strategizing singles for radio play. As Jeff Slate notes, More Blood, More Tracks is "a portrait of an artist who never seems to tire of the chase." It's not the voice of a generation speaking truth to power; it's a man trying to get a grip in a slippery world.
The Dylan fans laying out Nobel laurels hail largely from the generation that came to his music in the 1960s. Those of us born later found it through different channels. (My earliest memory of Bob Dylan is actually of Dana Carvey's impersonation on Saturday Night Live.) It's hard to know which Dylan—if any!—will be most popular for a generation weaned on the Internet, but I suspect that Seventies Dylan will be a strong contender. Spotify lists "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" (1973) as Dylan's most popular track, and the video for Miley Cyrus's 2012 cover of "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" has over sixteen million views on YouTube. Blood on the Tracks is a record of the Watergate era, a self-reflective record of loss and uncertainty that realizes you can't go back. For aging millennials in the age of Trump, Dylan here offers a post-disillusion vibe and timeless advice for getting through: Keep on keepin' on.
1. The Norton Introduction to Literature has alternately included "Mr. Tambourine Man" (1965) and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" (1964) in recent editions.
2. Updike—no surprise—preferred Joan Baez to Bob Dylan.
3. Michael Gray, Song & Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan (London: Cassell, 2000), 181.
4. See Anne-Marie Mai, Bob Dylan the Poet (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2018), 117.
5. Carrie Brownstein, "Blood on the Tracks (1975)," in The Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan, ed. Kevin J. H. Dettmar (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 155–159; 156.
6. While the process here is different, customers picking up the one-disc sampler may be reminded of Let It Be… Naked (2003), Paul McCartney's stripped-down, "un-Spectorized" version of the classic 1970 Beatles album.
7. Andy Gill and Kevin Odegard, A Simple Twist of Fate: Bob Dylan and the Making of Blood on the Tracks (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2004), 119.
8. Some notebook pages of "Tangled Up in Blue" were accidentally omitted from the More Blood, More Tracks booklet, but Dylan's official website now supplies them.
9. Jeff Slate, "Bob Dylan's First Day with 'Tangled Up in Blue,'" The New Yorker (31 October 2018).
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« May Oct »
Day: 13th Sep 2018
Russia Working Overtime to Beef Up Syria
… and Moscow wants it known publicly
As I wrote in Russia As A Cat, Russia will continue to "eat chicken" at her own pace ignoring angry monologues from the "democratic world" and will continue extermination of unicorns and humanitarian terrorists in Idlib apace. The process continued today with new airstrikes against those "rebels".
It is symptomatic, then, that Russia's Ambassador to Syria gave this statement to TASS. I offer this news piece in full and wish to remind everyone, that Russia's high level military and diplomatic figures DO NOT make statements off the wall. Those statements are always sanctioned from above:
DAMASCUS,September 7. /TASS/. Russia is helping Syria restore and modernized its air defense system, Russia's Ambassador to that country, Alexander Kinshchak, told TASS on Friday.
"We are helping our Syrian partners to restore, modernizeand boost the efficiency of the integrated air defense system," he said when asked how well Syria is protected against possible airstrikes by Western nations.
"Much is yet to be done because everything was in utter devastation, but certain results can already be seen," he said.
In late April, chief of the main operations directorate of the Russian General Staff,Sergei Rudskoi, said that Syria would soon receive new air defense systems and promised that Russian specialists would help the Syrian military to master them. He refrained from details of the systems, saying only that the S-125, Osaand Kvadrat systems used by the Syrian army had been restored and modernized with Russia's assistance.
In late August, the Russian Defense Ministry warned about a possible provocation plotted in the Syrian Idlib governorate by militants under supervision of British special services. Thus, according to the ministry, militants were planning to simulate the use of chemical weapons against civilians by Syrian government troops to furnish the United States, the United Kingdom and France with a pretext to deliver an airstrike on Syriangovernment and economic facilities.
So, it is becoming increasingly clear that Russia is on the move. In fact, things are getting in the open very fast. Such as the situation in Donetsk after the murder of Alexandr Zakharchenko. As Andrei Babitsky noted from Donetsk–there are no vacancies left in any more or less decent hotels in Donetsk–all occupied by FSB people. This is not to mention some other interesting developments which need to be verified, but it looks like Moscow is moving in big time and openly.
That is why this report, about Russia's Uragan systems being deployed, as MoD said "just in case", near Russian and the LDNR border. The message is clear:
There will be no UAF "victory" under any circumstances and it seems that Russia is about to openly (before that it was hidden by a fig leaf) take charge in defense of the republics with all that follows, which is, well… turn on your imagination.
But the funniest, in a good sense, thing is that while the US imposes sanctions on Russia, it continues to buy Russia's hi-tech products such as rocket engines and now aircraft.
As TASS reports (in Russian) at Gelendzhik exhibition of hydro-aviation, US (Seaplane Global Air Services) and Russia (Beriev Corp.) signed the contract for delivery of 4 of these excellent fire-fighting jets, plus option for 6 more is also envisioned.
It is well known fact that US, especially southern states, suffers from serious forest fires and BE-200s are perfect planes to fight those fires. They already have shown their worth in Portugal, Greece, Spain, Russia, just to name a few countries.
This post first appeared on Russia Insider – written by Andrei Martyanov
Posted on 13th Sep 2018 13th Sep 2018 by Highly Likely News Posted in Guest Articles, News, World News	Tagged Al Qaeda, Donbass, Idlib, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, Uragan Systems	Leave a comment
Turkey Sends Troops, Tanks to Syria's Idlib to 'Deter' an Offensive
Article by Jason Ditz Originally appeared on Antiwar.com
Turkey sends more military aid to rebels for 'protracted battle'
Turkish officials announced Wednesday that they sent hundreds of additional special forces, along with tanks, armored vehicles, and other equipment, across the border into Syria's Idlib Province. They are intended to reinforce Turkish military posts in northern Syria.
Turkish officials say that the intention is to deter the Syrian military from launching an offensive against the Idlib Province, which is under the control of various Islamist rebel factions, the largest of which is al-Qaeda's Nusra Front. Turkey is aligned with some of these fighters in supporting regime change in Syria.
In addition to boosting their direct military presence in Idlib, Turkey has also sent a large amount of additional weapons and ammunition for the rebels to use.
Rebel sources say they have been told Turkey will provide military support "for a long, protracted battle."
Idlib and neighboring areas are the last major rebel enclave inside Syria. For Syria to recover the territory would effectively end the war, though doing so is likely to take a major offensive. Syrian and Russian planes have been conducting airstrikes along the outskirts, trying to soften up defenses before a ground invasion. There is no timetable for such an invasion.
Posted on 13th Sep 2018 14th Sep 2018 by Highly Likely News Posted in Guest Articles, News, World News	Tagged Idlib, Syria, Turkey	Leave a comment
New Film 'Active Measures' – A Perfect Example of Abhorrent Political Misinformation
If you believed Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons, this movie is for you. If you're an ideologue on an anti-Russian bender, you'll find this movie intoxicatingly pleasant. But if you want a real dose of reality about the troubling Trump-Russia scandal "Active Measures" has nothing for you except an object lesson in how mass deception is done.
"The President is a puppet of Vladimir Putin!" That sums up the revelations of the blockbuster movie "Active Measures." It recently debuted at theaters in New York and Los Angeles.
This couldn't be more timely as we approach the November midterm elections. We've seen Republican candidates get a real boost from a Trump endorsement in recent special elections. Will Republican candidates be propelled to victory in November on the strength of Trump's support?
If Trump really is a puppet of Putin's do we want to let that happen? Are we headed for another "attack on America's democracy" in the wake of what happened in 2016? This could have very serious consequences.
As I watched Active Measures from start to finish I had a couple of pointed reactions. The first was to observe the apparent strength of conviction the cast of characters seems to have regarding the movie's avowed theme. The second was to realize that the strength of evidence they produced pales by comparison.
Active Measures has a star-studded cast. It includes former presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and the late John McCain, former US envoy to Moscow Michael McFaul, the former presidents of Georgia and Estonia, and a host of others. Each appears in the role of an interview subject. There's no host asking questions — just the commentaries and quips from the interviewees alone.
Now, some of you may wonder just what the movie title Active Measures means. It is a term I first heard from a former State Department intelligence official. It was coined during the Cold War era to describe a variety of Soviet political warfare activities that included propaganda, disinformation, and others.
Active measures is definitely a pejorative term, much in keeping with the movie's theme. Indeed what is that theme? According to the International Movie Database (IMDb): "Russian president Vladimir Putin attacks the 2016 American Presidential Election in collaboration with The Trump Campaign."
That theme is in effect a premise for the film's implied and explicit conclusions. The theme has been all over the news throughout the past two years. You can't miss it. As a media business analyst and senior fellow at American University in Moscow I've devoted a lot of attention to examining that premise and searching for factual confirmations. As a result I was quite interested to learn what Active Measures had to offer. Is there indeed convincing proof that Trump is Putin's puppet?
One fact stood out clearly. This is a movie that seems intent on convincing audiences of its premise. But it doesn't offer much proof of anything.
For instance, Clinton says of Putin, "He wants to be the richest man in the world." How in the world does she know that? I've never seen any assertion of that goal by Putin. What's the point of Hillary's comment? It's simply a hyperbolic disparagement I think.
Then there is McCain's comparison of Putin with the rise of Hitler. McCain was a widely lionized senator, respected by many. But he had a long history of making vacuous, diminishing statements about Putin. He could have been more constructive if he had focused on reality-based problems with the Russian president in the US-Russia relationship. Instead McCain just joined Clinton with more hyperbolic disparagement.
That approach to things is more worthy of mindless bar room banter than of honest and serious discourse. McCain had acknowledged that he made some mistakes during his career. His negative fixation over Russia seems to have been one of them.
Other characters in the movie touched on issues that are very well known to me. For starters there's a comment by Jonathan Winer. He brought up the 2006 polonium poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko. Winer said it was a "murder that was very directly linked to Russia." That alludes to the long-running mainstream narrative that Putin was behind it all.
But that is a false narrative. I meticulously studied the Litvinenko case at the behest of the International Federation of Journalists. Subsequently I wrote two books about it. They document that the popularly believed narrative is actually a magnificently perpetuated hoax orchestrated by a political enemy of Putin's. I don't know whether Putin had anything to do with Litvinenko's death. But my books prove that the people who made the case against Putin were lying.
What did Winer know about the Litvinenko case? According to the State Department he's a former official from its Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. He was State's special envoy for Libya.
Perhaps more interesting is information from a February 2018 Weekly Standard article. It reports that Winer had been "old pals" with Christopher Steele, the guy of Trump Dossier fame. That's the document that plays a key role in the ongoing Robert Mueller Russiagate probe.
The Weekly Standard article claims Winer and Steele were at one time "both in the business of selling 'business intelligence,' much of it involving Russia." More recently, according to CNN, Winer was "the man who gave the [State Department] the Steele dossier." The document has since been largely discredited and tied to the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.
Next up is the matter of Russia's media problems. This dates back to the early days of Putin's presidency. He was widely accused of clamping down on the press freedom that had been nurtured under Yeltsin.
In Active Measures former State Department official Daniel Fried claimed that "Putin started forcing the independent media to knuckle under, putting in state control, turning them into propaganda outfits."
The only problem with Fried's claims is that there had been no real press freedom for Putin to have clamped down on. Right from the start Yeltsin had instituted laws that made it practically impossible for media companies to operate profitably and be self supporting. That thrust the outlets into the clutches of government officials and oligarchs. They put money into the loss-making media companies in return for the opportunity to color the news to their own favor.
The media were "propaganda outfits" right from the start. How could Fried have missed all that? At one time he was the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Why, he had even been on the staff of the National Security Council and a special assistant to president Bill Clinton!
If Fried got the press freedom issue so wrong, one wonders what other issues he bollixed. Well actually he tells of another in Active Measures. After misrepresenting the press freedom quagmire so badly he goes on to claim that Putin started "going after independent journalists." Fried said, "They ended up dead."
That's an allusion to another mainstream myth about Putin. It is that when Putin became president, journalists who wrote unfavorably about Russia's president suddenly were becoming victims of murder. The facts speak differently, however. The Committee to Protect Journalists maintains statistics on journalists murdered in the line of duty. Those stats show there was actually a precipitous drop in the number of journalist murders when Putin took over. The reality is the opposite of what Fried contended in Active Measures. And there's no evidence that all these murders were tied to silencing oppositional voices.
What's going on here? This Active Measures cast of characters is beginning to look more like a rogues' gallery.
Some of their assertions seem to belie a level of confusion. That's what I saw in the comments of former ambassador Michael McFaul. Speaking about the alleged 2016 election hacking he said "They stole the data. Let's be clear about it… This is theft. If the Russians walked into my house and took something out, this is exactly the same thing."
But if Russians had walked into McFaul's house and walked out with, say, his TV there would be no more TV in the house. It would be gone. With a data breach, the data owner still has the data. What's lost is the secrecy of the data, not the data itself. I don't want to minimize the significant problems that can emanate from a data breach. But it surely is not "exactly the same thing" as McFaul contended.
A more consequential matter is that of Putin's KGB background. Past reports had often repeated McCain's line, "I looked into his eyes and saw three letters: a K, a G and a B." Now Active Measures says this about Putin's KGB past: "His role in the KGB was to support Russian intelligence officers living under assumed identities under deep cover inside the United States and developing active measures to impact the policies of the United States."
That is a quote from Jeremy Bash, identified as CIA chief of staff 2009-2011. I could find no evidence that Bash has any particular Russia expertise. So I sought to examine his comment from a security service point of view. To do that I called upon a colleague in whom I have considerable trust. He has extensive expertise both in security matters and Russian issues. I showed him Bash's statement and requested his analysis. Here is my distillation of what I was told:
As a non-Russia expert in the CIA it is unlikely that Bash would be privy to who was doing what in the KGB during the 80s.
Putin's actual role in the KGB was extremely insignificant, virtually that of a clerk assigned to a backwater posting in Dresden, East Germany.
As to running an American operation, Putin couldn't even speak English at the time; his specialty was Germany. Putin didn't learn English until late into his presidency.
Upon returning from his Dresden assignment Putin was fired by the KGB. It is well known that agents involved with foreign deep cover operations can neither be allowed nor forced to leave the service irrespective of their personal qualities or performance.
Russia's undercover operations are known to be run directly out of Moscow, and not from a remote outpost such as Dresden. For twenty years General Yuri Drozdov was understood to be the boss of the foreign deep cover work, certainly not Putin.
Active Measures presents still more specious, factually unsupported stories to advance the movie's primary premise. For example, there is the matter of the 2016 Republican platform with regard to Ukraine. There's also the mysterious death in Washington DC of the head of Russia's English language broadcasting arm. These and other vignettes follow the same pattern of deception as the stories above that I examined in depth.
I'm not saying that every word spoken by cast members is untrue. But the ultimate impact of all the words is to mislead the audience to a conclusion that is at odds with the truth.
I was a high school student during the Soviet era. And I recall in a course titled "comparative government" the teacher defining propaganda this way: It is the presentation of half truths and fabrications with the goal of misleading an audience toward a false conclusion.
That's exactly what I found in Active Measures. Cast members state unfounded premises as if they are facts. Then they draw conclusions based on those premises. Audience members unable to tag the premises as false will likely be drawn into accepting the conclusions without realizing they've been hoodwinked. That's the danger presented by Active Measures.
Aside from the Russia-specific content, Active Measures also deals with Donald Trump's business activities and finances. That's an area in which I have no expertise. As a result, I don't know whether or not the information presented by cast members is honest.
I'm not suggesting that all cast members are liars. There may be some outright liars within their midst. But there are others who simply have blindly adopted beliefs about Russia based on misinformation that they've heard from others. And there are also cast members who have publically become so personally tied to the mainstream false narratives they espouse that they lack the courage to back away from the fraud. Perhaps even some were innocently drawn into participating in the film without realizing what they were getting into.
But whatever brought these individuals to this course of deceit, I think they certainly should not be given a presumption of honesty or reliability. Their words deserve extreme scrutiny. Here are the cast names and affiliations as presented in Active Measures:
Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State (2008-2013): Toomás Hendrik Ilves, President of Estonia (2006-2016); Mikheil Saakashvili, President of Georgia (2004-2013): Senator John McCain, Senate Armed Services Committee; Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Senate Judiciary Committee; Congressman Eric Swalwell, House Intelligence Committee; Steven Hall, CIA Chief of Russia Operations (1985-2013); Michael McFaul, US Ambassador to Russia (2012-2014); Nina Burleigh, Journalist and NewsweekCorrespondent; Craig Unger, Journalist and Vanity Fair Contributing Editor; James Woosley, Director of Central Intelligence (1993-1995); John Mattes, Bernie Sanders Organizer, Investigative Journalist; Richard Fontaine, President, Center for New American Security; Michael Isikoff, Author, Russian Roulette; John Dean, White House Counsel to President Nixon (1970-1973); Dr. Herb Lin, Director Cyber Policy and Security, Stanford University; Clint Watts, Former FBI Special Agent on Joint Terrorism Task Force; Evan McMullin, US 2016 Presidential Candidate, CIA Operative (1999-2010): Dr. Alina Polyakova, Brookings Institution, Foreign Policy Fellow, Center on the United States and Europe; John Podesta, Chair, Hillary for America, Founder, Center for American Progress; Jonathan Winer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Law Enforcement (1994-1999); Jeremy Bash, CIA Chief of Staff (2009-2011), Pentagon Chief of Staff (2011-2013); Ambassador Daniel Fried, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (2005-2009); Scott Horton, International Law and Human Rights Attorney, Columbia Law School; Heather Conley, Kremlin Playbook Author, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Steven Pifer, US Ambassador to Ukraine (1997-2000), US Department of State (1978-2004); Asha Rangappa, FBI Special Agent on Counterintelligence (2002-2005), Associate Dean of Yale Law; Molly McKew, Information Warfare Expert; Alexandra Chalupa, DNC Consultant
So what does this all add up to?
Active Measures sets out to warn of how active measures are being used to deceive Americans about a "conspiracy hiding in plain sight."
The irony of it all is that Active Measures itself is an actual exemplar of active measures. It presents specious commentary as if it were factual. In a sense it is sucker bait. Its producers call it a documentary. That's true. It documents its own deception.
But don't skip watching the movie over that. It offers a perfect opportunity to witness highly polished political misinformation in action.
This post first appeared on Russia Insider – written byWilliam Dunkerley
Posted on 13th Sep 2018 13th Sep 2018 by Highly Likely News Posted in Guest Articles, News, propaganda	Tagged Active Measures, Hillary Clinton, Litvinenko, misinformation, propaganda, Trump campaign, USA	Leave a comment

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From what I've been able to gather from the others participating in the read-a-thon, they started at a later hour than I did. I started at 1:30 AM EST and it's now 1:00 AM the following day. I am going to bed. Between falling asleep, running errands, and attending birthday parties for 2 friends (I read on my phone while at the parties!) I certainly did not spend a full 24 hours of reading. I'll wager I read and listened to books for a good 12 hours.
12 hours is quite good I think. About 11 hours more than usual.
Still, it doesn't seem right to sign up for, and participate in, a 24-hour read-a-thon without reaching the goal. So, I plan to make it up this week. I don't think I'll be able to fit another 12 hours in tomorrow, but I certainly can over the next few days. I will keep all ya'll updated by posting my progress here.
Thanks to all the 'cheerleaders' who have commented on my posts for encouraging me to keep reading!
Lenore October 25, 2009 at 4:08 AM 12 hrs is great! Good for you!
Lydia October 25, 2009 at 4:06 PM Go Ryan! You are awesome. I think the most I have read is about 6 hours straight. Let me know when the next 24 hour read-a-thon is and I will participate.


By now, you are likely stuffed full of turkey and contemplating a conference call with the couch, all while in a holiday-induced stupor.
But along with the thanks given around the dinner table, wouldn't this be a good time to send out a note of thanksgiving to your mentor?
Most mentors have voluntarily stepped up to be your guide during difficult career decisions or transitions.
They've lent their counsel, advice, insights and recommendations when perhaps you couldn't see so clearly yourself.
Mentors have also been our cheerleaders when things got tough. They have provided us with a needed boost, kind word and/or a beyond-the-call-of-duty effort to give us a helping hand when we needed it most.
Mentors aren't paid. They don't volunteer to help others with any expectation of anything in return.
They just do it because they are nice.
And more importantly, because they are good people.
And in a world where we don't do enough to recognize good news or good deeds, a little bit of return on their kindness can go a long way.
So take the time to drop a mentor a short note, telling them how much they mean to you. Nowadays, we get so few handwritten, personalized notes that receiving one via snail mail can be a very special gift.
You can surprise them with a gift, or invite them to lunch or coffee (your treat, of course). Surprise them with a little extra touch of your own, if you have the resources to do so.
Resolve to stay in touch and not let so much time pass since you last saw them.
But never forget one thing: You wouldn't be where you are without their assistance and generosity.
And for that, you should take the time to express your thanks and appreciation.


Welcome to the research section of our website! We began as a small group of dedicated biologists interested in tamarin genetics, but have continued to grow each year, expanding our research into new species and fields of biology. We now operate the largest primate mark and recapture program in Perú, and one of the largest on the continent, which has catapulted us into areas of research such as primate communication, visual and olfactory perception, parasite ecology, dispersal behaviour, territoriality, development and senescence. The information that follows is a snapshot view of how the project operates from start to finish, with an overview of our research foci and some recent progress. We invite you to contact us for more information to satisfy a curiosity, inquire about collaborating, or get involved.
Section 4: The primates at the Los Amigos Biological Research Station. Click the composite image for a visual description of each species we investigate.
Section IV: The Primates. Click the banner to learn more.


text:
package org.apache.isis.core.tck.dom.scalars;

import org.apache.isis.applib.annotation.*;
import org.apache.isis.applib.query.Query;
import org.apache.isis.applib.query.QueryDefault;
import org.apache.isis.core.tck.dom.AbstractEntityRepository;

@Named("PrimitiveValuedEntities")
@ObjectType("PrimitiveValuedEntities")
@DomainService
public class PrimitiveValuedEntityRepository extends AbstractEntityRepository<PrimitiveValuedEntity> {

    public PrimitiveValuedEntityRepository() {
        super(PrimitiveValuedEntity.class, "PrimitiveValuedEntities");
    }

    @QueryOnly
    @MemberOrder(sequence = "1")
    public PrimitiveValuedEntity findById(int id) {
        final Query<PrimitiveValuedEntity> query =
                new QueryDefault<PrimitiveValuedEntity>(PrimitiveValuedEntity.class, PrimitiveValuedEntity.class.getName() + "#pk", "id", id);
        return this.firstMatch(query);
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
The era of brand activism
How effective are brands in implementing their activism-based initiatives?
Ayesha ShaikhUpdated 30 Oct, 2017 05:13pm
The people have spoken
1) Activism commands a price-premium
2) Activism fosters loyalty
3) Activism wins customers
4) Activism matters to Millennials
Brands turn activists
The power of digital
The cost of activism
"Consumers today are perfectly able to differentiate between brands that slap on the label of 'doing good' during Ramzan and those which advocate this message consistently throughout the year, every year."
The last couple of years have seen an exponential increase in corporate spending on cause-related campaigns, and this is now predicted to reach an all-time high of $2.06 billion by the end of this year (source: IEG Sponsorship Report), making 2017 the year when "activism comes of age", according to many marketing and branding specialists.
Christian Sarkar and Phil Kotler have defined brand activism as a natural evolution from corporate social responsibility with businesses moving from corporate-driven operations to models driven by values. This shift is driven by the fact that the world we live in is increasingly defined by seismic political changes, economic uncertainty and social angst – a combination of factors that has led consumers to want to associate themselves with brands they believe stand for a greater purpose and share their values.
Uber makes for an excellent example to describe this changing customer behaviour. Earlier in 2017, '#DeleteUber' trended worldwide on Twitter and almost 200,000 Uber users deleted their accounts. Triggering this reaction was the perception that the company was endorsing President Trump's immigration policies by virtue of having taken a neutral stance on the demonstrations arising from these policies; in the same period, Lyft (Uber's competitor) announced a one million dollar donation to the American Civil Liberties Union. Not only was Lyft praised for 'standing up to' President Trump's executive order, angry customers switched their allegiance to Lyft and within hours, the company registered a huge increase in their user base – overtaking Uber for the first time.
This shift in behaviour has important implications for marketers worldwide. Unfortunately, due to the paucity of data it is difficult to determine whether this global wave is creating ripples in Pakistan. To try and find out a little more, Aurora conducted an online survey on whether brand activism is indeed a factor among Pakistani customers.
The analysis of Aurora's online survey yielded four interesting consumer insights.
1) Activism commands a price-premium
Forty percent (see figure 2) will buy a brand supporting a cause they consider to be important to them (for example, working with acid burn victims or providing free education to the underprivileged) even if it is priced well above the market average.
2) Activism fosters loyalty
Forty percent (see figure 3) will continue purchasing a brand (they use frequently) even if the brand raises its price in order to implement community development programmes. Furthermore, 54% (see figure 4) will stop using a product or service they are loyal to, if they think the brand has behaved unethically.
3) Activism wins customers
Thirty percent consider sustainability to be the most important factor when deciding which household consumption or personal care brand to buy. To put this statistic into context, respondents prioritised sustainability over the product's availability, advertising and even price. Furthermore, 40% (see figure 5) were more inclined to try a new product if they know their purchase will benefit society in meaningful ways.
4) Activism matters to Millennials
Almost 75% of the respondents were Millennials (researchers Neil Howe and William Strauss describe Millennials as individuals born between 1982 and 2004). Given that the survey results make a case for brand activism, this implies that these young people want to support causes that are important to them through the brands they patronise and expect corporations to be actively involved in addressing environmental, social and economic challenges. Since over 50% of Pakistan's population falls within this age bracket (source: CIA World Factbook), this means that more than 100 million (existing and future) buyers believe activism to be important when deciding on what to spend their money.
So, if activism is an important consideration for more than half of Pakistan's population, to what extent, and how effectively, are brands engaging in activism? To answer this question, Aurora then spoke to some of the brands already engaged in activism, to understand their reasons for shifting from traditional marketing strategies and aligning their brand and the company's vision with specific causes.
Brands turn activists
There is unanimous agreement that brand activism is now an integral component of branding strategy. This is because of the growing realisation among marketers that to be successful and stay relevant, brands have to say and do more than simply promote their functionality and benefits; they must have a larger purpose.
A case in point is how Surf's positioning has changed. The brand's tagline used to be 'Surf Excel Haina' The message was that the "detergent has the power to thoroughly wash any dirt or stains due to superior ingredients". Then, in the 2000s, Surf flipped the message with 'Daagh To Ache Hotey Hain' (Dirt is Good).
According to Madiha Saeed, Senior Brand Manager, Surf Excel, "dirt was always seen as the enemy that had to be fought with a quality detergent. So, when Surf Excel labelled dirt as 'good' this may have seemed odd. This shift in the brand's message was a conscious effort to bring about a change in the typical mindset of our society of keeping children safe and clean at all times and discourage activities that may soil their clothes."
"We were telling our children that they should not try anything new, take chances or experiment; Surf Excel wanted to change this and therefore our advertising showed children getting dirty while learning new skills, making discoveries and helping others; and if they get dirt on them in the process, then Surf Excel is there to deal with it," explains Humayun Shaikh, Director Marketing, Home Care, Unilever Pakistan. As a result, Surf Excel stopped talking about its strong washing powers and switched the focus on the benefits of letting children play and be themselves.
Another brand that changed strategy to incorporate activism is Reckitt Benckiser's (RB) Veet. Until 2015, RB were organising the Miss Veet Super Model, a competition that provided young women, aspiring to join the world of show business, a platform to showcase their talent. However, given that RB is not a fashion brand, there was a realisation that despite its popularity, the competition was "off the brand footprint". According to Fahad Ashraf, Director Marketing, RB, "this event was not adding value to the brand and neither was there a larger purpose to it. As one of the top beauty brands in Pakistan, Veet wanted to come up with a more holistic approach that would reach out to a wider cross-section of young women and make a difference in their lives; this is why Miss Veet Super Model was shelved and Miss Veet Pakistan was curated in 2016."
The event now involves three stages. The first is outreach, whereby the brand team visit colleges and universities across Pakistan to create awareness and interest in the event; RB is hoping to reach out to at least one million young women this year. The second stage is driven by digital; the participants are encouraged to prepare for the final stage by studying the courses posted on the Veet Academy's Facebook page and YouTube channel. The third and concluding stage is a head-to-head contest among the shortlisted participants who are tested on the five personality dimensions. The most accomplished young woman will be crowned Miss Veet Pakistan.
An integral and innovative component of the revamped event is the Veet Academy, a free, online mentorship programme. To this end, Veet brought on-board five activists who are offering tutorials and conducting courses focused on five core areas of a woman's personality. Masarrat Misbah will give tips on charm; Hareem Farooq will coach on health and fitness; Sidra Iqbal will offer guidance on developing effective communication skills; Amina Sheikh will advise on developing mind and brain power through games and puzzles, and Sarwat Gilani will discuss confidence-building exercises. To maximise reach, all the courses are in Urdu. RB's objective is to reach out to young and ambitious Pakistani women who dream of a better life, but do not have the confidence to achieve them. As Ashraf puts it, "the Veet Academy aims to bridge the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' in our society. The focus is on self-improvement and exploring career paths; our objective is to instil confidence and self-worth in young Pakistani women, making them realise how small changes in personality and attitude can unleash their potential and give them a better chance at life."
The move from Miss Veet Super Model to Miss Veet Pakistan reflects a shift in the brand's messaging. Veet is still celebrating 'beauty'; the difference is that the concept of beauty is no longer promoted as being 'skin-deep'.
The power of digital
The marketing professionals Aurora spoke to believe that an important reason for the accelerated adoption of activism by brands is the impact of digital. Ashraf remarked that "there is a realisation that brands can no longer 'manage' a PR disaster no matter how great their crisis management team is. Thanks to the 24/7 nature of digital, when brands are 'caught' being unethical or socially- irresponsible, the repercussions can be instantaneous, devastating and long-lasting." This comment is on point given the recent incidents involving Espresso and Fifth Avenue; the former apologised for posting content that people termed "highly insensitive" and "in bad taste", while the latter had to discontinue an entire line of branded shirts that carried the slogan 'LYING IS TOO MAINSTREAM, SO I GULA-LIE'. Both apologised on their Facebook page as soon as the criticism started pouring in, but the damage was done.
Read: Social Media – The Double-Edged Sword
However, there are other brands that have wielded the digital sword adeptly and taken advantage of this cost-effective medium in reaching wider audiences. RB added digital to their marketing mix to maximise the reach, impact and effectiveness of Miss Veet Pakistan, while Adamjee Life is a brand that has digital – and activism – almost woven into its DNA.
When Adamjee Life (established in partnership with Hollard Insurance Co. Limited, the largest private insurance group in South Africa) started operations in Pakistan in 2008, instead of targeting the general public by developing an extensive network of insurance agents, the company decided to focus on micro insurance through mobile phones. According to Sadi Syed, Senior Manager Marketing & New Initiatives, Adamjee Life, "micro insurance through the mobile phone is an important strategy because the majority of our population is financially excluded and there are limited insurance products available for them; yet Pakistan has one of the highest mobile phone penetration rates in the region."
The advantage that Adamjee Life had when executing this strategy was the fact that Hollard had already gained considerable experience in mobile insurance in other emerging markets, and the same model was replicated in Pakistan; partnership agreements were signed with cellular service providers, and all people had to do was send an SMS to buy insurance. Instead of having to pay premiums in lump sums, a specified amount would be deducted from the mobile account balance every day, depending on the package selected.
Syed says that mobile insurance is an important part of the company's strategy because Adamjee Life "has a vision of a secure Pakistan, where every family is covered against uncertainties and financially protected in case of a calamity. We aim to provide financial assistance and protection to every individual, no matter where they live or which socio-economic segment they belong to."
Improving quality of life is more than just a component of Adamjee Life's mission and vision statements. Last year, the company conducted a digital campaign called 'Ensure A Smile', whereby people were asked to tweet #ShareASmile – and for every tweet received, Adamjee Life donated Rs 10 to The Citizen's Foundation; over Rs 10 million were generated through this campaign. Given this success, this year, Adamjee Life has developed yet another digital-only campaign (for Ramzan), focused on addressing malnutrition. "Research indicates that currently 22% of the population is suffering from malnutrition, and this number is expected to go up to 45% by 2025. This means that half the people in Pakistan will be malnourished. This is very alarming, which is why we came up with the '#FillthePlate' campaign this year," Syed explained. The idea is that for every tweet of #FillthePlate, one underprivileged person will be offered a nutritious meal. A total of seven million tweets were received, a number far in excess of the company's expectations. Syed says the reasons why Adamjee Life has a preference for digital are firstly, the medium allows the brand to reach very targeted audiences and engage with them and secondly, it allows maximum reach and exposure with limited spending, which is not possible on any other medium.
The cost of activism
There is no denying that cause-related marketing and activism are shifts that brands in Pakistan may no longer be able to afford to ignore, but is it expensive to be an 'activist brand'? The answer was an emphatic "no". However, what is crucial is that brands have to be extremely careful about how they incorporate activism in their communication, products and services and they must understand that activism is an investment that yields returns in the long-term.
In Ashraf's view, brands have to decide whether their objective is trading or brand-building. In trading, the idea is to meet sales targets; brand-building is about developing a persona, associations and relationships. "For brand activism to be financially sustainable, it is vital that the cause you have associated your brand with is closely tied in with your commercial agenda. If more young women want to be well turned-out and confident, they will get more out of life while the chances are that Veet sales will also increase. If more people become hygiene-conscious, they will be healthier and sales of Dettol soap will also grow."
Shaikh concurs with this viewpoint. In his opinion, for brand activism to succeed, the product or service must be the driving force. "Surf Excel's view is to let children play, make mistakes and learn from them, while Surf Excel is there to wash away the stains, relieving mothers of their worry. When a brand successfully seeds a thought in the customer's mind and lives up to the promise made, only then will it translate into long-term business value in the form of a loyal and engaged customer base."
This brings us to a criticism often directed at brands whenever cause-related campaigns or initiatives are announced: "This is just a marketing gimmick and a ploy by big corporations to exploit people's emotions and maximise their profits."
Shaikh's answer makes for the perfect response to this.
"Brands are commercial entities and should not be equated with non-profit welfare organisations. Statements such as 'brands are maximising sales' and 'they must be making a lot of money' do not hold water because that is our job. Having said that, it is more important for a responsible corporate entity to do good for society along with its commercial activity"
He adds that consumers today are perfectly able to differentiate between brands that slap on the label of 'doing good' during Ramzan and those which advocate this message consistently throughout the year, every year. "Authenticity, credibility and consumer trust can only be achieved through consistency," Shaikh adds.
This is perhaps why EFU Life Assurance recently decided to turn their 'Meri Shan Mera Pakistan' (My pride, My Pakistan) campaign into a year-round activity, rather than tying it to the August 14 Independence Day celebrations.
According to Aman Hussain, AGM Marketing, EFU Life Assurance, "our vision is to beautify and reclaim the walls of major public areas of the city and replace the wall chalkings in Karachi with visuals depicting the history, culture and heritage of Pakistan."
The project started when EFU Life was approached by Abdoz Arts, a student organisation, which presented the idea of painting the walls across the city. 'Meri Shan Mera Pakistan' started last year by painting a 2000-foot wall at Ayesha Manzil, based on the theme of 'Ek parcham kay saye tale hum aik hain' (we stand united under one flag). The objectives, adds Hussain, were to celebrate Pakistan's regional diversity in terms of culture, food, attire and festivals, and yet convey the message that Pakistanis are united as one nation. EFU Life now plans to take 'Meri Shan Mera Pakistan' to other Pakistani cities in the forthcoming months.
In conclusion, an increasing number of consumers (a significant proportion of which are Millennials) are selecting brands that stand for values and causes that are important to them.
Irrespective of whether we think of brand activism as yet another marketing tool, or as a genuine effort by companies to bring about positive change, statistics indicate that an increasing number of consumers expect a commitment to social purpose. Moving forward, marketers in Pakistan have to start thinking strategically about how they want to build their brand's voice in a way that evokes authenticity and brings a genuine consideration for the issues that resonate with their audiences. To succeed however, brands must, first of all, understand that sincerity and consistency must underlie any effort they make towards harnessing the power of brand activism.
For feedback, email aurora@dawn.com
Learning from the activists
Of political puns and social commentary
Diversity and activism
sania Nov 01, 2017 02:27pm
impressive :)
Sidra Humayun Dec 19, 2017 02:13pm
Such a great report. However, brands needs to work on direct and focus messages with gender lens because women not only entity who do washing. Working men who lives in other cities also do their washing and I'm talking about mazdoor, dhoobi, watch man, driver and many other segments.


text:
Thailand's Democrat Party, former coalition parties to form new gov't
Members of five political parties and one faction, including Democrat Party's secretary-general Suthep Thaugsuban (C), join hands after forming a new coalition which hopes to create Thailand's next government, after a news conference in Bangkok December 6, 2008.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
Thailand's former opposition Democrat Party and four former coalition parties announced on Saturday that they would form a coalition government which hold at least 250 MPs.
At a press conference in Bangkok in the evening, Democrat Party secretary-general Suthep Thaugsuban announced the formation of a new coalition. Also present were representatives from the former Chart Thai and Matchima Tipataya, both just recently disbanded, Ruamjai Thai Chart Pattana, Puea Pandin and the "Friends of Newin" faction, a defector group from the former ruling People Power Party (PPP).
Democrat Party's secretary-general Suthep Thaugsuban (C) leads a news conference in Bangkok with members of five political parties and one faction, after forming a new coalition which hopes to create Thailand's next government on December 6, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
Sanan Kachornprasart, who was former leader of the Chart Thai, said the coalition of the defunct PPP could not run the country so the Chart Thai decided to switch side for the sake of the country.
Sanan said the Chart Thai listened to the call from all walks of life for former partners of the PPP to switch side to tackle the divisiveness among Thais and to tackle the economic crisis.
Members of five political parties and one faction join hands after forming a new coalition which hopes to create Thailand's next government, during a press conference in Bangkok on December 6, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
The PPP, Chart Thai and Matchima Tipataya parties, all in the former six-party coalition government led by the PPP since its first formation in February, were altogether disbanded on electoral fraud charges by the Constitution Court on last Tuesday. All executives of the three disbanded parties were banned from electoral process for five years as punishment. Somchai Wongsawat, as PPP's acting leader, was disqualified as prime minister immediately.
A new PM must be elected in a special parliamentary session expected early next week to form a new government.
The 480-seat House of Representatives has 441 active MPs after some executives MP of three disbanded parties were disqualified. The non-executives MPs have 60 days after the party disbandment to switch to another party in order to stay in post.
Among the 441, 213 are from the now defunct PPP. The Democrat Party, formerly the only opposition party in the House, has 164 seats. The laws require that a party or coalition of parties must enjoy a simple majority of the House seats to form a government.
Five killed, 12 injured in Thai southern bomb attack
Thailand protests remarks of Philippine gov't spokesman
Thailand to hold reelection on Dec. 11
FM: China hopes Thailand will resume social stability
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Streaming has become the new primary way through which individuals get a majority of their media, which means buying physical media (videos, mp3s, etc.) is strongly discouraged. Don't buy a stack of CDs or an expensive satellite radio package: create a company playlist on any of the major streaming platforms and watch employee interaction and satisfaction levels lift.
Humanity is still a ways away from seeing self-driving pizza trucks, but autonomous delivery bots are a different story. These little machines look like something right off the set of Star Wars, but they could play an essential role in your business (if you can find one).
Data centers are a thing of the past—it's all about the cloud now. But it will not be the case for long: companies are becoming less reliant on cloud services and technologies, and many are citing privacy concerns as the cause for the shift.
Companies like Amazon, Google, and Samsung are leaders when it comes to the exploration of ideal employee workspaces. All of these companies have made employee comfort and productivity high priorities, and they are continuously trying to create workplaces that appeal to all fives senses. Environment has so much to do with how your brain operates—simple decisions over lunch, as well as those that are major, are affected by what's going on around you.
The adage silence is golden is not appreciated enough in most workplaces, an unfortunate reality that most who spend eight hours in a cubical know all too well. Human voices evoke some of the most potent emotional responses in our auditory experience, which means they can very easily be distracting.
If your business already utilizes the hardware associated with a traditional phone service, all you need is a VOIP converter and telephone adapter. The converter is convenient because it attaches to your computer in a way similar to that of a USB. Once you have all these items and are ready to make a call, all you need is an internet connection and a private VOIP phone number and you'll be ready to go. VOIP will save you time and money.
Time, money, and peace of mind are precious facets in life—and even more so when you're running a business. For that reason, hiring experts to go over essential business decisions doesn't only mitigate potential risk for waste and abuse; it has also shown to be one of the most profitable decisions an entrepreneur can make.


Ever been in a situation when you are at home waitnig for important email/im/sms/phone call but someone else were studying or sleeping and you didn't want to wake them up? I'm pretty sure most of us were there. Now, wouldn't it be cool to "see" a notification as a big light behind your tv? It would. Read after the break for instructions how to do it.
Second, assuming you have configured boblight/hyperion, allow devices from local network to connect to it.
Install Bobdroid from google play store and configure it. Go to settings of bobdroid and put correct IP and SSID of your home network – it will save some battery when you are not around home. Flip Enable forwarding in Forward notifications seciton to ON. Change color to favorite one.
Then go to Android Settings -> Accessibility and under Services section turn Bobdroid on to allow it to receive notifications and forward them to your boblight. And you are done! I'm using it for about a day and it works well. Unfortunately you cannot configure color per application like in Lightflow but it is useful app nevertheless. Do you know about any alternatives? Some better uses for boblight? Don't forget to comment and share.


text:
Europe: What Future?
Felix Vogel
Co-authored with Barbara Steiner.
The Europe (to the power of) n project is an international collaborative art project founded to explore the possibilities of community in Europe today without transforming "us" into a substantial and exclusive identity.
A scenario is – according to its general definition – the portrayal of a possible future event or situation, including the paths of development leading up to it. In the political, economic and social spheres, but also in climate and energy research, the enactment of scenarios allows orientations regarding future developments to be discovered. The scenario technique is often used as a tool for decision-making. However, even if certain methods, procedures, and instruments are implemented, the scenario technique is a hypothetical construction of possible futures based on current and past knowledge that implicitly points towards the possibility of further alternative futures. It is this aspect of developing scenarios, the one that leads us to imagine alternatives beyond the status quo, that is especially interesting for many artists and curators. However, the correct implementation of instruments and procedures generally used in the scenario technique such as trend analysis, participant analysis, cross impact analysis, modelling, Delphi methods or road mapping techniques, and criteria such as consistence, explication of premises and statements of range do not matter. The fact that scenarios are there not only to produce or consolidate knowledge, but also to reveal the limitations of knowledge, makes them accessible to art, as one of the few social areas in which the aspects mentioned here are seen as widely productive factors.
For the project, "Europe (to the power of) n", ten curators from Brussels, Istanbul, London, Łódź, Minsk, Novi Sad, Høvikodden/Oslo, San Sebastián and Taipei were invited to develop three scenarios, each exploring how to think about Europe from the perspective of visual art, resulting in thirty scenarios, and therefore thirty hypothetical constructions of possible futures, be they utopian or dystopian. The heterogeneous cluster of themes and aspects revolve around community, beginning with the relationship between the individual and society, forms of social organisation and of living together. They speak of the friction and the potential that arise when various cultures, hierarchies and hierarchisation meet, of the asymmetry in societal structures, of medial and mental shaping, of identities and representations of collective subjects. The complexity of art – here referring to its multiple connotations – is used to place the individual aspects in relation to one another and test them for possible associations.
In contrast with many debates concerning the concrete implementation and accomplishment of joint European agendas in the fields of politics and economics, utterances from the field of art should be understood in the following ways: as impulses that allow alternative perspectives on perception, thoughts and actions; putting opinions and values we take for granted to the test; criticising hierarchies and asymmetries; demanding that responsibility be taken; and as voicing doubts concerning the "natural" given order of things. In this respect art can begin a productive discussion about potential common values, about what Europe could be, both in the present and in the future, but it cannot close it down. In other words, the strength of art is to challenge our perception, thinking and acting without giving us specific directions but inviting us to take part in the search for a possible course of action.
Melanie Gilligan – "Popular Unrest" (2010)
The narratability of a future is shown in a very vivid way in Melanie Gilligan's "Popular Unrest". The five-part series, in a television format like that of "CSI", is set in a future world that is frighteningly similar to the present. All transactions and social interactions are kept under the surveillance of a system called "the Spirit". All over the globe, mysterious murder cases have taken place. The murders are often committed in public, but eye-witnesses can never ascertain who the attacker is. Just as strange is the fact that, suddenly, groups of people who do not know each other are coming together everywhere. In an inexplicable way, they feel a deep and lasting connection with one another. Gilligan develops a (not improbable) scenario of the world in which the self, due to its mere physicality, is directly subject to the requirements of capital. Insufficient disease prevention is punished; "debts" to society (e.g. those incurred by the unemployed) have to be paid back in the form of physical energy; and there are foodstuffs that "digest" the body from within. Cinematographically, Gilligan refers to television formats such as "CSI" or "Dexter", or to the director David Cronenberg.
In Gilligan's work narratability is closely related to questions of probability. Elena Esposito reduces this to a simple formula by saying that reality is improbable, whilst the fictive reality of the novel (written or filmic) is not a fiction of reality but, and here the author quotes Hans Blumenberg, "The fiction of the reality of realities". The fictive reality of the novel portrays conditions that cannot normally be observed in the real world, i.e. conditions that allow something to appear realistic. In order to be realistic then, the novel must avoid being real. If we spoke to an economist, a scientist or even a military strategist – all professions in which the technique of the scenario plays a relevant and extremely serious role – few of them would be willing to admit the fictional character of their results. On the other hand we see that these fictions are by no means simply non-existent, or, as Joseph Vogl puts it, "[they are] facts, we can also say constructions, that intervene in reality in a manifest way." In art the fictional character of a plot is played out. Gilligan's "Popular Unrest"is both realistic and abstract, the scenes appear to be realistic but are not real. The series shows its construction and is frightening close to current social debates and developments.
"Popular Unrest" was commissioned and produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London, Kolnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Walter Philips Gallery, The Banff Centre, Banff and Presentation House, North Vancouver. Supported by Franco Soffiantino Gallery, Turin. It can be viewed online here.
Melanie Gilligan was born in Toronto in 1979. She currently lives in London and New York and works in a variety of media including video, performance, text, installation and music.
READ MORE IN THIS 360° SERIES
Europe: Individually Together
Barbara Steiner • October 24, 2012
Europe: Who is In and Who is Out?
Barbara Steiner • May 10, 2012
Genetic Freedom
Barbara Steiner • March 21, 2012
Europe: Of Whose Culture Do We Speak?


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Medical Disposables™ 13 panel drug test cup is very simple and easy to use. NO control key activation, NO tipping, NO dipping, NO dripping, NO leaking and NO tweaking. MDC™ 13 panel drug test cup is OTC, FDA 510k and Clia-Waived. Seemless results, they are fast and accurate appearing in the test windows within 1 to 5 minutes with rapid response.