Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Batteries Not Included
I haven't posted as often these past few days because my keyboard was slooooow. After slowing down as I wrote over the weekend it bit the bullet. After a couple of days of defraging, cleaning up my files, doing everything I could to get my computer to work, I realized maybe I should check the batteries in the wireless keyboard. And viola I discovered once again the righteousness of Occam's Razor; "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one." So I have replaced dem batteries and things will now get back to normal...I hope.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Trumpetlingus
The dirtiest song ever.
Don Ellis performing Pussy Wiggle Stomp from his Live At the Fillmore album.
There are no lyrics it's all grunts groans and licking the mouthpiece. Reminiscent of the later grunting orgasms of Keith Jarrett as he plays his piano, or the Japanese Cellist I saw in the seventies play with the Edmonton Symphony, who grunted and groaned playing his cello.
I found it a very funny song when I first heard it, and was suitably impressed with Don Ellis speeded up time signature.
However what was really funny was to hear him make dirty with what trumpet players do everyday, that is warm up their lips blowing into their mouthpieces before they even begin to practice with their horn.
Don Ellis was a unique product of the sixties, he mixed jazz, rock, electronica, classical and world music before anyone else in jazz. As the Sights and Sounds documentary on Don; Electric Heart, points out.
As a trumpet player myself, Ellis was a breathe of fresh air, and was as radical as Frank Zappa, and as underrated.
Until Ellis trumpet even when it was solo or big band, Miles or Herb Albert, was not a lead instrument, the source of the sound, with the band in the background. Ellis did for trumpet what great rock guitar soloists of the sixties did for that instrument.
In that wonderful world of blog syncronicity I find that there is a revival of sorts around Don and his music with last summers re-release of Pieces of Eight and Don Ellis Band Goes Underground.
But as I discovered years later writing this article and realizing I have no Don Ellis CD's . But I do have vinyl albums. So as a result of this article I ordered some Don Ellis from my pal Peters store; South Side Sound.
I made a special order mistakenly of Don Ellis Live At Monterey, which does not have Pussy Wiggle Stomp on it. But is does have 33 222 1 222 which after listening too I realized was the musical basis, sub structure tonality for Pussy wiggle Stomp.
Listening to this break through Live album I realised that I had never heard it before. And suddenly it was all fresh. Why and what I remembered of Don Ellis, and what made him and his band unique. They were a band, and they went beyond cutting edge in sound not only for their time, for their moment in history, but beyond. And for a white jazz big band. They dared, they broke boundaries.
And for me as a young trumpet player, who had been forced to pick an instrument to learn, because that's what you do to keep up with the Jone's. So I picked trumpet as it broke through in pop music with Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass.
But it was Don Ellis that really turned me on as to what a trumpet and a modern big band could do.
In the post modern Jazz world of the seventies, Don broke open a dam, and the flood created the new jazz, including the urban funk of Miles as well as the popularization of Jazz fusion of Chick Corea. It was the new sound of classic rock meeting classic jazz.
Thanks to Don Ellis.
Ellis encouraged Falzone to begin writing and invited him to join his orchestra, for which he was to serve as performer, composer, and road manager from 1965-1976. The Don Ellis Orchestra not only was one of the most exciting and persistently innovative large jazz ensembles of the time, but also attracted a large and enthusiastic following. Falzone was frequently featured as a soloist ("Salvatore Sam" on Live at the Fillmore, "Pussy Wiggle Stomp" on Autumn) and composer/arranger ("Get It Together" on Tears of Joy, "Go Back Home" on Soaring, "Put It Where You Want It" on Connection).
Don Ellis at Fillmore
by Don Ellis
Sale from
$13.81
This is a crazy and consistently riotous two-disc set that... More features the Don Ellis Orchestra at its height. The 20-piece orchestra (with trumpeter Ellis doubling on drums along with a regular drummer and two percussionists) often used electronic devices (such as ring modulators) at the time to really distort its sound. When coupled with odd time signatures and such exuberant soloists as Ellis, trombonist Glenn Ferris, tenor saxophonist John Klemmer (showcased on the remarkable "Excursion II"), guitarist Jay Graydon, altoists Fred Selden and Lonnie Shetter, and tenor Sam Falzone, the results are quite memorable. Highlights of the date include "Final Analysis" (which contains a countless number of false endings), a bizarre rendition of "Hey Jude," and an often hilarious remake of "Pussy Wiggle Stomp." In 2005, the Wounded Bird label reissued this session on CD for the first time. Unfortunately, no bonus tracks were available. ~ Scott Yanow & Al Campbell, All Music Guide
Don Ellis on YouTube
Favorite Oddball Song Titles
Jazz Blogs
A group of Jazz blogs that rip music and do reviews of the hot jazz period of the late sixties and early seventies.
My articles on music:
Before MTV
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
jazz, world music, rock, Don Ellis, Don Ellis BigBand, jazz fusion, Pussy Wiggle Stomp, trumpet, music
Don Ellis performing Pussy Wiggle Stomp from his Live At the Fillmore album.
There are no lyrics it's all grunts groans and licking the mouthpiece. Reminiscent of the later grunting orgasms of Keith Jarrett as he plays his piano, or the Japanese Cellist I saw in the seventies play with the Edmonton Symphony, who grunted and groaned playing his cello.
I found it a very funny song when I first heard it, and was suitably impressed with Don Ellis speeded up time signature.
However what was really funny was to hear him make dirty with what trumpet players do everyday, that is warm up their lips blowing into their mouthpieces before they even begin to practice with their horn.
Don Ellis was a unique product of the sixties, he mixed jazz, rock, electronica, classical and world music before anyone else in jazz. As the Sights and Sounds documentary on Don; Electric Heart, points out.
As a trumpet player myself, Ellis was a breathe of fresh air, and was as radical as Frank Zappa, and as underrated.
Until Ellis trumpet even when it was solo or big band, Miles or Herb Albert, was not a lead instrument, the source of the sound, with the band in the background. Ellis did for trumpet what great rock guitar soloists of the sixties did for that instrument.
In that wonderful world of blog syncronicity I find that there is a revival of sorts around Don and his music with last summers re-release of Pieces of Eight and Don Ellis Band Goes Underground.
But as I discovered years later writing this article and realizing I have no Don Ellis CD's . But I do have vinyl albums. So as a result of this article I ordered some Don Ellis from my pal Peters store; South Side Sound.
I made a special order mistakenly of Don Ellis Live At Monterey, which does not have Pussy Wiggle Stomp on it. But is does have 33 222 1 222 which after listening too I realized was the musical basis, sub structure tonality for Pussy wiggle Stomp.
Listening to this break through Live album I realised that I had never heard it before. And suddenly it was all fresh. Why and what I remembered of Don Ellis, and what made him and his band unique. They were a band, and they went beyond cutting edge in sound not only for their time, for their moment in history, but beyond. And for a white jazz big band. They dared, they broke boundaries.
And for me as a young trumpet player, who had been forced to pick an instrument to learn, because that's what you do to keep up with the Jone's. So I picked trumpet as it broke through in pop music with Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass.
But it was Don Ellis that really turned me on as to what a trumpet and a modern big band could do.
In the post modern Jazz world of the seventies, Don broke open a dam, and the flood created the new jazz, including the urban funk of Miles as well as the popularization of Jazz fusion of Chick Corea. It was the new sound of classic rock meeting classic jazz.
Thanks to Don Ellis.
 |
Don(ald Johnson) Ellis was a jazz trumpeter, drummer, bandleader, touring performer, recording artist, composer, and arranger. Born in Los Angeles in on July 25, 1934, he died of a heart attack at his home in North Hollywood on December 17, 1978. Ellis studied composition at Boston University (BMus 1956) and spent a year as a graduate student at UCLA, where he later taught. Ellis played with a variety of prestigious big bands and jazz groups, including those of Charlie Barnet, Sam Donahue, Maynard Ferguson, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman, Ralph Marterie, Ray McKinley, Stan Kenton, George Russell, and Claude Thornhill. He also led big bands, jazz orchestras, trios, quartets, and other small combos of his own. He performed with the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, DC, under the direction of Gunther Schuller, the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Leonard Bernstein, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the direction of Zubin Mehta.
Ellis is perhaps best known for his unusual and complex meters, amplified trumpet, electronic distortion, and quarter-tone melodic structures. He often used 9/4, 5/8, 7/8, 9/8, and 19/4 time signatures. He played a quarter-tone trumpet with four valves, which gave subtlety and microtonal effects to his music. In later years, he played a "superbone," a combination valve and slide trombone. Ellis received Grammy nominations for Live at Monterey (1967), Electric Bath (1968), The New Don Ellis Band Goes Underground (1969), Don Ellis at Fillmore (1970), and "Theme from The French Connection" (1972). "Theme from The French Connection" won the Grammy for "Best Instrumental Arrangement" in 1972.
Don Ellis Web Archive
DonEllisMusic.com -- Dedicated to the Music and Life of Jazz ...
Before his untimely death in 1978 at the young age of 44, Don Ellis was one of the most creative and innovative jazz musicians of all time. In a career span of less than 25 years, Don Ellis distinguished himself as a trumpeter, drummer, composer, arranger, recording artist, author, music critic, and music educator. However, Don Ellis is probably best remembered for his work as a big band leader. His orchestra, which was active from 1966-78, achieved enormous popular appeal at a time when the influence of big band music was noticeably fading.Don Ellis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Don Ellis: Information from Answers.com
CD Baby: SAM FALZONE: A Family Sweet
While employed as a school teacher in 1965, Falzone met Don Ellis who was in residence at the University of Buffalo - a meeting that would rechart Sam's life for the next twelve years.Ellis encouraged Falzone to begin writing and invited him to join his orchestra, for which he was to serve as performer, composer, and road manager from 1965-1976. The Don Ellis Orchestra not only was one of the most exciting and persistently innovative large jazz ensembles of the time, but also attracted a large and enthusiastic following. Falzone was frequently featured as a soloist ("Salvatore Sam" on Live at the Fillmore, "Pussy Wiggle Stomp" on Autumn) and composer/arranger ("Get It Together" on Tears of Joy, "Go Back Home" on Soaring, "Put It Where You Want It" on Connection).
Don Ellis at Fillmore
by Don Ellis
Sale from
$13.81
This is a crazy and consistently riotous two-disc set that... More features the Don Ellis Orchestra at its height. The 20-piece orchestra (with trumpeter Ellis doubling on drums along with a regular drummer and two percussionists) often used electronic devices (such as ring modulators) at the time to really distort its sound. When coupled with odd time signatures and such exuberant soloists as Ellis, trombonist Glenn Ferris, tenor saxophonist John Klemmer (showcased on the remarkable "Excursion II"), guitarist Jay Graydon, altoists Fred Selden and Lonnie Shetter, and tenor Sam Falzone, the results are quite memorable. Highlights of the date include "Final Analysis" (which contains a countless number of false endings), a bizarre rendition of "Hey Jude," and an often hilarious remake of "Pussy Wiggle Stomp." In 2005, the Wounded Bird label reissued this session on CD for the first time. Unfortunately, no bonus tracks were available. ~ Scott Yanow & Al Campbell, All Music Guide
DON ELLIS THE FINAL ANALYSIS
A miscellany of quotes made over the years by and about Don Ellis ... The late Leonard Feather once prophesied that Don Ellis would become the Stan KentonDon Ellis on YouTube
  | As a huge fan of Don Ellis it's really special for me to get a chance to play his music this one in particular is one of my favorite tunes. It combines Don's "out there" writing and monumental trumpet lines reminiscent of Maynard Ferguson o (more)    |
 | This is Don Ellis playing the song "New Horizons" |
Don Ellis MP3 Downloads - Don Ellis Music Downloads
Favorite Oddball Song Titles
Jazz Blogs
A group of Jazz blogs that rip music and do reviews of the hot jazz period of the late sixties and early seventies.
My articles on music:
Revolutionary Music Flashback
Happy Birthday Mozart
Soul of a CityBefore MTV
Nazanin
Happy Birthday Bob
Daniel Barenboim's Dream
Rich Man's War
Classical Rock
Ennio Morricone A Fistful of Composer
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Sunday, February 25, 2007
Padrone Me Is This Alberta
The boom that is bringing thousands of temporary foreign workers to Alberta is also attracting recruiters hoping to profit from the demand. Some recruiters may be breaking the rules by charging foreign workers for the privilege of earning a paycheque in Alberta.It's called Padronism and it's the soure of old world Immigration to North America in the fin de sicle of the 19th Cnetury and the early years of last Century.
Rules? Rules? What rules, in Alberta we have no stinking rules for business. That's why the government got out of the business of regulating business.
We got into a situation where just anybody hangs up a shingle and calls themselves a consultant, simply by virtue of the fact they may know some people abroad and think that they can link them to employers," said Edmonton Castle Downs MLA Thomas Lukaszuk.
Even worse, says the Alberta Federation of Labour, no one is enforcing the law, creating a situation ripe for exploitation. "It's like the Wild West," said AFL president Gil McGowan. "We need a sheriff to bring some order to the situation. Unfortunately, neither our federal or provincial governments seem willing to put on the badge."
And we wouldn't be having a labour shortage if we did not have an unregulated, unplanned development boom in Fort McMurray.
Unlike his counterparts in Ottawa and Victoria, Stelmach doesn't see the political potential in going green. On the contrary, he's using the issue to titillate the NEP base, a la Ralph Klein. Speaking in downtown Calgary this week, Stelmach said Alberta is not prepared to make any grand sacrifices or interventions to cut greenhouse gas emissions. "My government does not believe in interfering in the free marketplace," he said.
In Alberta and BC the new internal Labour Immigration agreement (TILMA) opens up both provinces to influxes of workers not just from their respective provinces but from across North America because it is NAFTA compliant.
And with our new Federal Minister of Immigration and Human Resoucrces being pro-temporary workers, is allowing an extension of two years to work in Canada.
While the move was applauded by stressed western Canadian businesses desperate for foreign workers, it was panned by labour leaders worried about Canadians' jobs and workers' rights.
"Employers shouldn't be put in the driver's seat when it comes to who gets into the country, because their interests aren't necessarily in line with the broader Canadian public," said Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour.
The new temporary worker extension was announced the same day that the Business Councils of North America met with Mexican, Canadian and American politicians in Ottawa to discuss the North American Security and Prosperity treaty. Meetings which were held in secret. This exploitation will continue until these workers are unionized.
It is forward to the past, backwards to the future.
Montreal's King of Italian Labour: A Case Study of Padronism
Robert F. Harney
Abstract
"Montreal's King of Italian Labour" concerns the activities of Montreal padrone, Antonio Cordasco, who served as an intermediary between Canadian big business and Italian migrant labour during the early part of the century, in relation to the nature of padronism itself. The padrone's activities extended both along the communications network between European labour and North American industry and into many aspects of Italian life in Canada. Although the dishonesty and corruption of the padrone are clear, it is also clear that it was not the migrant labourers who objected to his work, or indeed, when it suited them, the Canadian government itself. Big business in Canada, backed by the government, needed transient labour and it was the actual immigrant policy of the Canadian government, the wish to make use of Italian labour but to prevent it from turning into permanent immigration, which made Cordasco's role possible. The migrant labourers, looking for means to make money and then return to their hometown, were happy with the padrone as long as he supplied the jobs promised them. It is shown then that the padrone came under attack only when the needs of Canadian big business did not satisfy the requirements of migrant labourers. Cordasco was destroyed, in the end, not by the Canadian government's concern for migrant labour, but by a more practical dilemma, that is, the existence of hundreds of labourers caught in Canada without work and without means of returning to their homeland.
Captive Workforce: Human Trafficking in America and the Effort to End It.
Prior to the middle of the twentieth century, “human trafficking” in its modern
sense was referred to by a wide variety of terms, from “Padronism” to “White Slavery.”
In the present day, “human trafficking” has not only been used to describe a wide range
of activities with respect to the commodification of humans, but other terms, from
“modern-day slavery,” to “involuntary servitude’ have been loosely used to describe
situations that qualify as “human trafficking” under the United Nations’ definition. Thus
because the terms “human trafficking,” “slavery” and “forced labor” have been and
continue to be used with enormous variation, any study on the subject has a tendency to
be enormously confusing. For my part, I attempt to be as clear and consistent as possible
in the application of terms throughout my work. However, readers should be aware that
there is a great deal of over-lap between each of these concepts, and thus any discussion
of the subject is bound to contain semantic slippages and blurred conceptual boundaries.
Rural Work, Household Subsistence, and the North American Working Class
This essay examines seasonal rural work as part of the survival strategies of rural and urban households and individuals in the Midwestern United States. Using workers' memoirs and data from government investigations, the lives of so-called “hobo” workers are examined in relation to communities, labor markets, gender and sexuality, and class formation. “Hobo” was a colloquial term for seasonal migrant workers; most were young, immigrant and US-born men of European ancestry employed in crop harvesting, logging, mining, railroad construction, and other short-term jobs. The seasonal labor market drew together a heterogeneous workforce including farm owners, farm laborers, displaced industrial workers, and young men seeking adventure, as well as criminals, marginally employable drunkards, and disabled men. The essay traces the lives of individual workers, explains labor market structures, and places the mostly-male seasonal workforce in the context of families and communities. The history of rural work in the Midwestern US confounds notions of class formation that posit a one-way trip from peasant to worker, and suggests the ways in which theories of class formation have leaned too heavily on an unexamined image of rural life.JSTOR: Reinventing Free Labor: Immigrant Padrones and Contract
Reinventing Free Labor: Padrones and Immigrant Workers in the North American West, 1880-1930. By Gunther Peck (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. xiii plus 293 pp. $54.95/cloth. $19.95/paperback). In this rigorous and readable study, Gunther Peck provides a new perspective on an archetype of immigration history--the padrone, the immigrant labor contractor who held great power over his workers by controlling their employment. Early twentieth century reformers and some historians have viewed the padrones as villainous Old World relics, corrupt throwbacks to feudal hierarchy and deference trying to retain their power and stature amidst the rapid dynamic of modern industrial capitalism. Peck's padrones emerge as "entrepreneurs of space," providing critical links and a variety of functions in the volatile transnational labor markets that spread out across the North American continent.See
Temporary Workers
Labour
Unions
NAFTA
AFL
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Friday, February 23, 2007
Anti-Terrorism Act Abolished
I guess this takes the wind out of the Conservatives erroneous claims that the Anti-Terrorism Act is supported even by the Supreme Court.
This decision was unanimous.
See:
Anti-Terrorism Act
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Air, India,, John, Marshall,, RCMP,, CSIS,, Sikh,
This decision was unanimous.
We didn't have to wait for March 1 either for the sunset clauses, which were the most offensive assault on our civil liberties, to expire.Court strikes down security certificates
Federal Government has one year to craft a new system, court says
Once again the Judiciary defends the civil liberties of Canadians that the State would eliminate for the good of "Law and Order" that is their police and spies.Mr. Harper said it was "dangerous" to defeat the measures.
"I can assure you that we have all kinds of security information that indicates that there are very real circumstances under which these provisions could be used," he said. "I think the facts are clear here. It's a simple question of whether we have the leadership as a Parliament to do the right thing when we have to do the right thing, regardless of the kind of pressure we may feel from our caucuses."
As for Harper, yesterday he recruited families of the Air India tragedy to bolster hiscase and further isolate the Liberals. He cited RCMP plans to use the anti-terror law's compulsory hearings to force reluctant witnesses to testify in the ongoing investigation of the 1985 terrorist bombing. In short, civil rights should continue to be suspended to compensate for shoddy police work. The RCMP bungled its first investigation by destroying evidence; it has had three years since the acquittals of two prime suspects to invoke investigative hearings. Why hasn't it? Its defenders say there wasn't time; witnesses are hard to locate. Or is it just that the RCMP, or any police force, does not want to give up blunt tools that may offend soft-on-crime whiners, but could some day be useful?
See:
Anti-Terrorism Act
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CN not hurting
CN awaits the State to legislate UTU workers back to work. They have made no effort to deliver just in time.
Rather they would sacrifice Canadians needs on the backs of their workers. It is after all a sure fire way of increasing your stock price. And your salary.
Ironically 'precision railroad' sounds a lot like precision model trains, and that is how Hunter Harrison has been running CN. Like his own toy railroad in his rec room. Or should that be wreck room?
The bottom line: Did CN push too hard?
In his four years at the throttle, Hunter Harrison has revolutionized how CN Rail does business, driving productivity, boosting the stock price by 150 per cent and making $56-million in 2005 for himself in his pursuit of a "precision railroad."
Five day stock price during strike
CNR (Canadian National Railway Company ) Last: $54.45 Change: +0.51 (+0.95%)
Revenue (ttm): $7,716.0M EPS: 3.91 Market Cap: $27,493.13M Time: 4:23pm ET
The strike is unlikely to have much of an impact on Canada's economy if it's settled within a month, Robert Hogue, a Bank of Montreal economist, said today in a report. ``While the current impact on business and many remote communities can be heavy, much of the broader economic toll, if any, will only surface if the strike carries on significantly longer,'' Hogue said.
The government is using the pretext of inconvenience to bring in Back To Work Legislation today. But inconvenience by whom?
Blaming the workers instead of CN which refuses to bargain. Notice the State always brings in " back to work" legislation, never back to bargaining legislation. And notice who is returning to work for the good of the country.
SeeLee Rawsthorne of the United Transportation Union local in Winnipeg said the returnees include about 150 workers in Winnipeg, roughly 30 in Dauphin and about six in Brandon.
Workers in Melville, Sask., are also reported to have laid down their picket signs.
Rawsthorne said the national union may not approve of the return to the job, but he said workers felt it was the right thing to do.
"It was never our intention to damage our country," he told CBC News. "It was to try to negotiate a deal.
CN
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Another Dirty Little Secret
Science and Shamanism combine in the unusual discovery of our Lady of Flores aka the Hobbit.
Catholicism fits well with Ancestor Worship since both deal with veneration of the dead over the living. And Christianity and Ancestor Worship arise from guilt over murder.
This was the time of the Stone Age, and for the scientists to assume this is an obvious modernist bias. Like this....
No final word ... the disputed picture of a male hobbit,
which became the defining image of the new species.
Disputed is right this is a male and so far the archaeological remains found are female, hence our Lady of Flores. This is her undisputed skull.
The people of Flores follow an unusual mix of Catholicism and ancestor worship. Sacrificing chickens and reading their entrails was all in a day's work for the archaeologists to ensure their digs proceeded smoothly, with the invaluable help of local villagers.
Catholicism fits well with Ancestor Worship since both deal with veneration of the dead over the living. And Christianity and Ancestor Worship arise from guilt over murder.
Morwood and van Oosterzee now believe our species, modern humans, killed the hobbits about 12,000 years ago.
Another dirty little secret revealed? So the humans occupying the area having race memories realize them through religion.This was the time of the Stone Age, and for the scientists to assume this is an obvious modernist bias. Like this....
No final word ... the disputed picture of a male hobbit,
which became the defining image of the new species.
Disputed is right this is a male and so far the archaeological remains found are female, hence our Lady of Flores. This is her undisputed skull.
Homo floresiensis (Liang Bua Cave, Indonesia)
and a modern human skull
And here is the result of the female skull being fleshed out...
But at least we now accept that they are a different species of humans. That was still being contested last fall.
And like the Neanderthals before them, they were wiped out by colonizers say the scientists. Imperialism and War are the natural outcome of Homo Sapiens need to dominate and colonize.
The hobbit pre-dates modern peoples in the region. Though race memory may create a zeitgeist in the wilderness, a hint, a legend, a myth of people who came before. The little people of legend. This is what the shaman experiences in their trance state. It is after all one of our oldest cross cultural beliefs.
This just another cultural/historical conjecture by scientists, based on little evidence and theorizing, speculating, hypothesizing, a priori on looking backwards from todays culture of war and Imperialism. After all they are still contesting the evidence that Our Lady of Flores is a different species.
So this assumption is contestable as well. The fact that humans and our hominid relatives existed side by side does not mean that we killed them off. There is just as much evidence for mutual co-existence, as Kropotkin asserts in his work Mutual Aid, and assimilation, as there is that we wiped out Neandertal.
It appears that our closest living relatives in the primate world are now also discovering tool making , and experiencing their own Primate Stone Age,including the making of spears. Chimps using spears to hunt bushbabies
And like our Lady of Flores, the female of the species stands out in this as well.
This new information on chimpanzee tool use has important implications for the evolution of tool use and construction for hunting in the earliest hominids, especially given our observations that females and immature chimpanzees exhibited this behavior more frequently than adult males.
Mistaking tool use for weapons use has been a common problem amongst anthropologists, archaeologists and historians of religion.
A case in point is William Irwin Thompson's expose of an ancient neolithic shaman's (male) warrior spear which he speculates is not, but is actually a woman shamans lunar calendar calculated on menstrual cycles and womens collective dream time.
Pruetz noted that male chimps never used the spears. She believes the males use their greater strength and size to grab food and kill prey more easily, so the females must come up with other methods.
And to defend themselves and their babies from more aggressive males.
Maria Gimbutas suggests that during the period of Our Lady of Flores and after there was a long period of matriarchal cultural development, which was not based on later armed male nomadic warfare, but settled peaceful civilizing of the world.
There remains no scientific evidence that humans wiped out Our Lady of Flores, they could have assimilated or have been wiped out by disease, lack of food, natural disasters, etc.
It is idle speculation like this that moves beyond science into science fiction. Just like 2001 a Space Odyssey.
See;
Primates
Neandertal
Apes
Evolution
Primates
Magick
Shamanism
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Indonesia,, Our Lady of Flores,, Flores,, Homo floresiensis,, hominid,, humans,, evolution,, cryptozoology,,
and a modern human skull
And here is the result of the female skull being fleshed out...
But at least we now accept that they are a different species of humans. That was still being contested last fall.
And like the Neanderthals before them, they were wiped out by colonizers say the scientists. Imperialism and War are the natural outcome of Homo Sapiens need to dominate and colonize.
The hobbit pre-dates modern peoples in the region. Though race memory may create a zeitgeist in the wilderness, a hint, a legend, a myth of people who came before. The little people of legend. This is what the shaman experiences in their trance state. It is after all one of our oldest cross cultural beliefs.
This just another cultural/historical conjecture by scientists, based on little evidence and theorizing, speculating, hypothesizing, a priori on looking backwards from todays culture of war and Imperialism. After all they are still contesting the evidence that Our Lady of Flores is a different species.
So this assumption is contestable as well. The fact that humans and our hominid relatives existed side by side does not mean that we killed them off. There is just as much evidence for mutual co-existence, as Kropotkin asserts in his work Mutual Aid, and assimilation, as there is that we wiped out Neandertal.
It appears that our closest living relatives in the primate world are now also discovering tool making , and experiencing their own Primate Stone Age,including the making of spears. Chimps using spears to hunt bushbabies
And like our Lady of Flores, the female of the species stands out in this as well.
This new information on chimpanzee tool use has important implications for the evolution of tool use and construction for hunting in the earliest hominids, especially given our observations that females and immature chimpanzees exhibited this behavior more frequently than adult males.
Mistaking tool use for weapons use has been a common problem amongst anthropologists, archaeologists and historians of religion.
A case in point is William Irwin Thompson's expose of an ancient neolithic shaman's (male) warrior spear which he speculates is not, but is actually a woman shamans lunar calendar calculated on menstrual cycles and womens collective dream time.
Pruetz noted that male chimps never used the spears. She believes the males use their greater strength and size to grab food and kill prey more easily, so the females must come up with other methods.
And to defend themselves and their babies from more aggressive males.
Maria Gimbutas suggests that during the period of Our Lady of Flores and after there was a long period of matriarchal cultural development, which was not based on later armed male nomadic warfare, but settled peaceful civilizing of the world.
There remains no scientific evidence that humans wiped out Our Lady of Flores, they could have assimilated or have been wiped out by disease, lack of food, natural disasters, etc.
It is idle speculation like this that moves beyond science into science fiction. Just like 2001 a Space Odyssey.
See;
Primates
Neandertal
Apes
Evolution
Primates
Magick
Shamanism
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Thursday, February 22, 2007
No Room for Red Tories
The Conservative government has turfed party luminary Hugh Segal from the helm of a high-profile Senate committee
And it was Foreign Affairs. After the issued a scathing report on Afghanistan, that while supports the governments concerns about NATO commitment does not recommend continuation of Canada's involvement if NATO cannot get more support from its EU members.
The fact, as the article points out, that he also voted against the Government on three occasions in this sitting of the Senate must have pissed them off.
So they sicked Conservative Senate House Leader Marjorie LeBreton after him.
If you are a Red Tory there is no room under Harpers big blue tent for you.
LeBreton who is a pillar of Senate Caucus integrity, is on the board of MADD.
I wonder how it is going with the fraud allegations around MADD fund raising.
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And it was Foreign Affairs. After the issued a scathing report on Afghanistan, that while supports the governments concerns about NATO commitment does not recommend continuation of Canada's involvement if NATO cannot get more support from its EU members.
The fact, as the article points out, that he also voted against the Government on three occasions in this sitting of the Senate must have pissed them off.
So they sicked Conservative Senate House Leader Marjorie LeBreton after him.
If you are a Red Tory there is no room under Harpers big blue tent for you.
LeBreton who is a pillar of Senate Caucus integrity, is on the board of MADD.
I wonder how it is going with the fraud allegations around MADD fund raising.
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Reading Entrails
The other reason Harper acted as he did yesterday, in pushing the Liberals buttons, is that he has read the entrails; the polls.
He is laying the groundwork to piss off the opposition enough that they get sucked into a confrontation that will lead to an election. Clever that.
He will wait till after March 26 to really begin pushing their red election buttons.
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Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Canada's Two Opposition Leaders
Canada does not have a PM it has an Opposition Leader running a Minority Government.
That is what was revealed by Stephen Harpers actions in the House during Question Period today.
He attempted a personal slander against a Liberal MP but was shouted down by the Official Opposition Liberals before he could finish quoting this from the Vancouver Sun;
The Vancouver Sun reporter is on a campaign to link the Federal Liberals directly to the Air India disaster. And it is a conspiracy theory worthy of a tinfoil hat. Her apparent political biases are gleefully pointed out by at least one sympathetic conservative blogger at the National Pest. She goes way back to show that the whole Air India disaster was Liberal bungling, or worse, conspiracy with nationalist militants in the Sikh community.A young Liberal MP who delivered Stephane Dion 250 leadership votes is the son-in-law of a man police have interviewed in connection with the Air India bombing case. Navdeep Singh Bains, MP for Mississauga-Brampton South, shot on to the national stage after the December 2006 convention in which he delivered huge support to Gerard Kennedy and later to Dion, who won the Liberal leadership by 437 votes.
The number of questions surrounding why the Liberal party has suddenly done an about face on extending important provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act, provisions needed to continue the investigation of the Air India bombing, continues to grow.
Reporter Kim Bolan at the Vancouver Sun revealed that former prime minister Paul Martin sought the support of a terrorist group, the International Sikh Youth Federation, during his 1990 bid for the Liberal leadership.Mr. Martin, flanked by other notable Liberals (Albina Guarnieri and Maurizio Bevilacqua) appeared at an ISYK convention asking delegates for their support as he sought the leadership of the party.
Here is the critical line in Ms. Bolan's report: "The Martin speech came two years after then Conservative external affairs minister Joe Clark warned Canadian politicians to steer clear of the federation, the Babbar Khalsa and the World Sikh Organization because of terrorist links."
Harper used the pretext of the Air India Inquiry and his attempt to renew the Liberals Anti-Terrorism Act to personally vilify and call into question the integrity of a sitting MP and his family. He was so eager he almost jumped out of his ill fitting suit.
Like the blogger at the National Pest, Harper is attempting to opportunistically use the Air India disaster and its 'about to fail public inquiry' to throw heat on the Liberals.
The Conservatives in opposition have long held that there was something nefarious and untoward in the Liberals working with their traditional base; immigrants and new Canadians. The Vancouver Sun reporter continues her articles in the same vein. The swipe by both the Vancouver Sun and the Conservatives is that the Liberals are guilty of associating with terrorists because of their support and fund raising in the Sikh and Tamil communities. A broad brush is used condemning whole communities, and the terrorist smear is one of convenience for the Conservatives. After all they have skeletons in their own closet.
What Harper attempted to do today was something that was NOT Prime Ministerial. Being the autocrat and autarch he is, he could not resist.
But PM's being statesmen and parliamentarians do not do such things. They leave the bullying and bully boy tactics to underlings, to cabinet ministers, to right hand men and women, whom they trust. To be able to sit back serenely in knowing you ordered the hit but not taking the pleasure or abuse that comes from delivering it.
But pompous megalomaniac he is Harper could not resist, nor could he trust anyone else to deliver his hit on Dion and the Liberals.And so he showed himself to be what he really is, an Opposition Leader. Not a Prime Minister.
And what he was today was an Opposition Leader, a strong one, one who is gaining in the polls. And thus one doomed by his limitations of office, and personality, to act like an Opposition Leader rather than as a PM. Holding on to power with a minority, but acting like you are majority has won Harper the polling support of some Canadians.
But in reality what the recent polls have shown is that he is far better as Leader of the Opposition than Dion is.
And that is what he confirmed today. He does not have the stuff to be PM. He is no statesman, and no parliamentarian.
He spoke of being the Executive branch of the government, and he is one who wants Executive power and prestige that the office of President has to the south.
And as such he will always be a pretender not a PM in the Canadian system of parliamentary politics.
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Cover Up
Another cat is out of the bag. And another Pandora's box has been opened by the Harper government. No less than the Air India Inquiry.The ex Supreme Court Justice appointed by Harper to conduct a public hearing into the Air India F.U. has discovered that like the Arar Inquiry the State has marshelled all their forces in a united front called National Security.
The RCMP, CSIS, Foreign Affairs, the whole crew of bunglers has blacked out what could be incriminating evidence, refusing the Justice to even preview it in private.
And what could their reason be? Besides being creatures of paranoia, that their secret security state would fall apart if it was revealed how they operate? Or perhaps like bungling Keystone Kops they fell all over each other in jurisdictional sectarianism that meant no one cooperated letting the bad guys get away with murder.
Or perhaps it is more sinister than that.
CSIS specializes in deep cover operations, as they did with setting up the Heritage Front, may have set had an agent provocateur within the cell. Did they in effect create this very cell to keep track of Sikh Nationalist Militants. Did they end up supplying them with the explosives they needed.
It has been done before by the RCMP. Who were also bugging the same cell, and could they be in possession of evidence of CSIS wrong doing?
Again a jurisdictional dispute arises allowing each security division of the State point fingers at each other for their mutual failure to halt an operation they both had under surveillance. Mountie cited Air India threat days before bombing, memo says
We may never know unless Justice Major gets to see all the evidence.
And if ever there was a case against State Security Laws like the Anti-Terrorism Act that give the police unlimited powers of arrest and detention, as well as the ability to declare operations secret and blacked out, then this is it.This along with the Arar case, the Ottawa Citizen Case, etc. etc. is evidence that we have the same old Keystone Kops operating in the same old fashion that the MacDonald Commission on the RCMP identified as the problematic source of their wrong doing and undoing as a secret security force.
Something that the Conservatives fear dreadfully hence their out and out attempt to fabricate links between the Air India disaster and their current attempt to extend the Anti-Terrorism Act. An act that was put in place years after Air India.
How embarrassing for a self declared Right Wing Law and Order government that is demanding an extension of its draconian authoritarian Anti-Terrorism Act being told it is this very act that is halting the Air Inquiry.
Instead the Harpocrites take a page from the Bush White House and their yellow cake from Niger, Saddam has Nukes, falsehoods.
Harper and Co. are now spuriously linking the renewal of the Anti-Terrorism Act with the Air India inquiry, claiming the RCMP need the act to catch the bad guys twenty-five years later, and after a court case freed them because of CSIS/RCMP bungling.
What Justice Marshall needs is open access to ALL Government files from all its agencies involved in the Air India affair. And that demands the elimination of all Official Secrets Acts including the Anti-Terrorism Act that allow the State to cover up it's Keystone Kops agent provocateur's and their incompetence.
“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” Karl Marx
New Math
Why The Tories Want Tory Judges
More Foreign Affairs Incompetency
Statist Anti-Terrorism Act
Paranoia and the Security State
Fascists were CSIS FrontCSIS vs. CUPW
Canada’s Long History of Criminalizing Dissent
Also See:
CIA
Torture
RCMP
CSIS
Arar
Crime
Terrorism
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