The Punishment of Strength 1.3

An epic narrative exploration of the effects of egalitarianism on certain individuals living within society.

The Stoic child part 3

Starting point

The unhappy noisy child is rewarded with attention, the happy stoic child is punished by not getting any.

Consequences

The happy stoic child remains stoic but does not keep his happiness for long, no more than anyone could. Then his stoicism ebbs away replaced by extreme introversion and resentment, he resents his parents and all of his contemporaries regardless of what ever personal pain they may have, he is unable to notice such things and why would he?; as he grows up these feelings grow and deepen he resents not just his parents and contemporaries but society and everyone in it regardless of whatever personal pain any such member may or may not have, he has never noticed such things, and why would he have? The resentment burns ever deeper, his stoicism grows ever weaker, and resentment turns to rage without the temperance of a super ego. He talks to few people and unable to make connections has no outlets, he has little stoicism left but its enough to keep him bottled up.Such people often explode and if you care a jot for the poor beggar’s mental health you’ll pray that this happens sooner rather than later and that he learns quickly to channel his violence against deserving targets. This is from that perspective the best outcome second best is that he develops a taste for violence and employs it whenever angry, worst and most likely of all outcomes is that he never does explode, society is happiest with this outcome, it is least disruptive and produces the particular neurosis that causes the neurotic to become a great cog in the wheel of the economy. It can therefore be seen that it is not within societies best interests to encourage this particular aspect of good parenting.

Nine Inch Nails, Year Zero

For the last few days I’ve been listening to Nine Inch Nail’s new album ‘Year Zero’, suffice it to say, it kicks arse harder than a giant mechanical arse kicking machine, and there is much machine about this album. Trent Reznor can be found to be singing in a manner that I cannot say I have heard from him. He is for the most part barely singing at all, not that this is bad thing, the tone of his voice is calm, cold, ultra clipped and quite, quite terrifying no more so than in the moments when it leaps into full roar and full soar. The beats are more harsh and industrial than they’ve ever been before, they are rather Alec Empire(esque), and the ......... slight obviousness of the albums influences doesn’t end there. When I first started listening to the album I found myself thinking that this was a retread (conceptionaly speaking) of Marilyn Manson’s fine, fine album Holywood (in the valley of the shadow of death), but I quickly realized that this was a false impression, however I did find that the album’s seventh track ‘Capitol G’ has a great Marilyn Manson(esque) stomp to it which is surprising, perhaps even pleasantly so. All in all the album is a great sea change for Trent Reznor and co, with Year Zero they seem to have (with the possible exception of the first two tracks) escaped the straight jacket of the Alternative Rock spectrum that they’d placed themselves within during the course of the previous two albums The Fragile, and With Teeth, in exactly the same way that they escaped the straight jacket of Industrial music with those previous two albums, unfortunately this is in the great scheme of things nothing revolutionary, which is the most truely terrifying thing about the album and its biggest sea change.

Still four stars out of five ****.

The Problem................

The problem, or at least one of the problems, one of the many problems, that I have with religion, or rather, those who practice it, any of it, all of it, is that they choose a set of beliefs, they choose a way to look at the world, and a way to live their lives, a way to view others and to judge them, and they are proud of these choices and yet at the same time they would have you believe that there was no choice, they would have you believe that they were forced, that there was a gun to their head ............ the gun of god. Isn’t that oh so very convenient all your choices made for you, and a ready excuse for every nasty little opinion you have in your head; none the less, its lie, these were their choices no one else could have made them for them and ultimately life is full of them, life is full of choices, in fact its life is made of them, and when you deny your choices, even if its the just one of them, you deny life itself.

The punishment of strength 1.2

An epic narrative exploration of the effects of egalitarianism on certain individuals living within society.

The Stoic child part 2

Starting point
The unhappy noisy child is rewarded with attention, the happy stoic child is punished by not getting any.

Consequences

The happy stoic child becomes more and more quite, he regresses into himself and becomes an ego without desire, boundaries without anyone to keep, a cage without a prisoner; Ego becomes permanent super ego, he becomes a robot of society.... in other words, a door mat.
People upon examining this case cannot say for sure whether this condition is caused by nature, or lack of nurture. I would not want to use the term catatonic.

Well anyway....................................................

What do you think of the slightly new blog design, i'm thinking of making the blue brighter, also gotta love these new label thingys there great.................... no really they are................ i'm so not being ironic...... or any thing of the sort.............. you should be ashamed for even thinking such a thing.......... I write what i say and say what I mean.

I like dots . . . . .

Anyway choi mien gratzias

Holy sweet lord god bloody bloody hell

Chriiiiiiiiiiist the trouble i've had logging in today first i put the wrong username in, though i don't realise this and go through a leangthy process getting blogger to recognise my password only then to find horror of horrors that my blogs were no longer there, which of course is because i have just created a new blogger account, but of course i hadn't worked it out yet so you just cannot imagine how i felt so i try to get it back by reinitialising my old blogger accout and thats when i twig onto it................... Jesus was that a mouse i just saw!!

These thoughts and fevered imaginings were brought to you UTO in assosiation with panic and paranoia.

New Game for the Enjoyment of All.

Game name:
Random. web

things you need:
1 internet connection or access to one
1 blindfold or other eye blinding such as a cloth
1 dice, or indeed a bowel with 6 bits of numbered paper numbered 1 to 6
1 dictionary
2 players

what you do:
First player roles the dice is then blindfolded and goes ito the dictionary the ammount of times suggested by the roll of the dice in order to pick that ammount of words then the other player has to take those words and turn them into the address of a website if the address turns out to exxist then he if it doesn't then he loses, its just that simple.

The punishment of Strength1.1

An epic narrative examination on the effects of egalitarianism upon certain individuals living in society.

The stoic child part 1

Starting point

The unhappy noisy child is rewarded with attention, the happy stoic child is punished by not getting any.

Consequences

The happy stoic child learns to be noisy, then he learns to be unhappy, no amount of attention is ever enough. He never learns that noise does not always promote attention, quite the opposite in fact, in later life people tend to avoid that sort of person. He learns this, eventually, but by this juncture in his life he is simply too old to change. This realization makes him unhappy and his unhappiness makes him weak, and he loses the remnants of his stoicism. He now never expects anything he does to elicit any response from the world and with the loss of his thick skin this hurts him terribly. He is constantly shaking his head and hanging it in shame. He is the sad little man on the bus, you won’t recognize him, you never even notice him.
This story does not end happily he commits ego death and contrary to the Buddhist view on such things it brings him no happiness, it merely makes suicide more easy a task.
Ego is the bastard in the suite, it holds the whip that disciplines the angry ugly monstrous id. Ego is pride, and pride is the light that you drag yourself towards, ego is the power that drives you out of the pit, without it you would be lost but he was lost long before he cast such things out.
All hurt has its start in childhood. I blame the parents.

I'm back

back for good.
Well probably..............

Politically correctly incorrect.

We used to call ‘Native Americans’ ‘Red Indians’, until we decided that the term ‘Red Indian’ was racist, I’m not sure why we did this but I guess we were right, after all what could be more racist than RE - naming one racial group after another one that they almost certainly have absolutely no migrational, or genetic link with? Well how about this, ‘me bucco’,
RE - name them after a racial group that not only do they have nothing to do with, but also is responsible for their complete and utter degradation; that is essentially what we have done with the term ‘Native American’ after all when the white Europeans came to their ‘New World’ i.e. the land that we currently call ‘America’ they raped, tortured, killed, made slaves of, and of course stole the land of the natives not to mention brought in new diseases that the native’s immune systems simply could not deal with, but I’ll think we’ll let that one slide.
Calling the Sioux and the Navajo and the many others ‘American’, native or otherwise is like calling a Jew a Nazi or an Armenian a Turk and in many ways you could say its even less justified.
Another reason why both of these terms are racist is that they imply that there is just one group native to America, when actually...............well I don’t know exactly how many there are but its quite a bit and what’s more they all have completely different cultures. Calling them all Native Americans is somewhat like calling every white guy in my neighborhood ‘Phillip’, not exactly cricket is it?, down right offensive some would call it, not exactly politically correct, is it? But then when you take a close look at it political correctness never is, so maybe it’s just not correct, maybe its just dumb.

Observation et blogging.

I've just noticed something, exciting design means boring content.

The more bright colours, the more pretty pictures, the less time there is to write;

But of course some don't start blogs to write, for some the blog is nothing more than a modern version of the diary, except that diary's are meant to be private.

Was that an adequate summation of your output, well then........ what can i do for you.

Equality of intention.

Insurance policies are like nuclear weapons,
you have them and maintain them but hope to never use them.

Genre confusion 3: Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails are usually said to be an industrial band however their front man has been shown to have very ambivalent feelings towards this term and if you examine their releases ones sees that Industrial is not by any means the full story.

Their first album the now embarrassingly dated ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ was basically Synth Pop.

Their second major release ‘Broken’ is very much harsh, hate fuelled, Punk Rock influenced, Industrial.

Their second album The Downward Spiral is to a certain extent more mellow it brings back the Synth Pop influence and replaces some of the harshness with a greater experimentalism and replaced the Punk Rock with a certain level of Heavy Metal influence creating a Avant Guard Industrial tour de force.

Their third album ‘The Fragile’ is considerably more difficult to describe so I’ll just put in a few descriptive terms that I think fit the album and hope you agree; softly industrial, massive, epic, beautifully destitute and emotive.

Their forth album ‘With Teeth’ is easier by far to describe, it simply combines some of the best elements from all their previous albums and has got them labelled [in the music press at least] Alt Rock [Alternative Rock] rather than Industrial.

From what I can tell they are influenced by Ministry, Alec Empire, Skinny Puppy, Gary Numen, and David Bowie, so make up your own mind.

The influence of genre is mutable and difficult to describe accurately.

Genre confusion 2: Marilyn Manson

Marilyn Manson, like Green Day also have a somewhat contentious history of classification.

They are usually referred to as a Goth band much to the annoyance of Goths [the young and un-knowledgeable nature of many of their fans is once again a contributing factor to this]. However both the band and their eponymous singer have for their part always denied, or at the very least been very ambivalent about the application of this term, mainly due to its constricting implications. Other phrases often used by the more knowledgeable are Industrial, Glam Rock or sometimes Neo Glam, general all purpose umbrella term Metal, and to a considerably lesser extent Punk Rock. The band for their part have often referred to their music as being Rock and Roll.

This hugely eclectic mix is met out in their influences:

The Beatles, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Kiss, The Sex Pistols, Bauhaus, Adam and The Ants, Gary Numan, and in a much more direct way Nine Inch Nails. [the bands only permanent member Trent Reznor is a long time friend of the Mansons and has produced two of their albums as well as being their label boss until he shut up shop as it were.]

Genre confusion 1: Green day

Green Day are said to be chiefly influenced by The Clash, and Stiff Little Fingers I would add to that list: Ramones, The Pogues, The Sex Pistols, and Bad Religion the fact of the matter is that they add very little to that mix. This does not however justify the argument that they are not a Punk band clearly they are, clearly they make Punk music. This argument is based primarily on the fact that they are not only very popular but that they also despite the fact that they’ve been around for something around fifteen years attract a mainly young audience that is for the most part un-aware of the length breadth and history of Punk Rock and thus have a somewhat over inflated view of the bands importance within this history.

Curb my agreement?

I have for quite some time found myself in agreement with Larry David’s character on Curb Your Enthusiasm and I just have some questions;

is this normal?

Is there something wrong with me?

Should I be worried?

I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m often excruciated by his behaviour and find myself at a loss to understand the reasoning behind it [particularly when he makes up horrible lies rather than be honest] having said that, I more often than not have the same reaction to other characters in the show. In any case I think a great number of the things that he does are perfectly reasonable and I get the feeling that most people would act in the same way were it not for the taboos of social convention.

Is this nothing more than a monstrous act of solipsism?

Am I simply trying to justify my agreement with this strange character by suggesting that really 'you all think the same as me and you’re just to scared to say it'?

Racists use this sort of justification all the time, and I can assure you that I’m no racist.

Having said that this sort of solipsism is actually quite common, one sees it all that time, and its actually quite disturbing when you think of how many people must be using it to justify totally abhorrent behaviour and how many of them would not have allowed themselves to do this were it not for that justification.

This has gone rather off topic but then I can’t think of anything else to say on the topic, I do however find that writing this has been rather therapeutic, I find my fears and worries subsiding, besides I’m sure you're all thinking the same thing anyway.

Here's a question i asked on Yahoo answers.

Did Nine Inch Nails re-invent industrial music?

Some aditional information.

industrial music was a genre invented in the mid seventies it is not a sub genre of anything else allthough it does ocasional cross paths with many other genres but its not a part of any of them.

One of the answers i received.

I don't really think of NIN as industrial. It's heavily influenced by industrial, but it's a whole other animal. Pretty Hate Machine was more synth-pop type stuff. It's closer to late 80's Depeche Mode than it is to "industrial." (That's a compliment.) Broken was the most industrial sounding IMHO but it was heavy on guitar (and that's not really industrial.) Reznor made his own genre really. He combined elements of synth-pop, industrial, speed-metal, classical, drum & bass, and ambient (among others.) I've never really liked the "industrial" label much though because it doesn't mean anything. It's usually used to describe music that incorporates a lot of ambient noises and sampling (stuff like machines) for instruments and percussion, but the music over (or underneath) those noises is what's really important. Groups like "Skinny Puppy" rarely even had a "song" mixed in with their chaos. NIN mixes some chaos with what are generally full melodic songs. Almost all NIN songs could be performed with an acoustic guitar and/or piano. That's not really the case for what I consider "industrial."

And my response to it.

This is definitely the best answer i've seen in a long time allthough having said i don't agree with it the term industrial does mean something its bassically a statement against the music industry [look at that word 'industy']
"heavy on guitar (and that's not really industrial.)" the original and some would say only true industrial band throbbing gristle used guitars as did and do ministry, as with any ellement of industrial music its not so much what you use as how you use it. "Reznor made his own genre really. He combined elements of synth-pop, industrial, speed-metal, classical, drum & bass, and ambient (among others.)" all electronic genres of music including synth pop and drum and bass have some level of debt to industrial music
the music of the original industrial pioneers particulaly NON beers some resembalance to the experimental 'neo classical' music that was being made in the 50's and 60's.
ultimetely reznor probably has wed experimental industrial music to the idea of actual song writing and pop sensibility but its hardely a new genre.

Feminism through film.

Certain conventions of filmmaking state that men must fight men, and women must fight women, if a man has to fight a woman then he must either be soundly thrashed by her and if not then he must be a bastard to be hated. He can’t be a ‘good guy’ because no one, woman or man will see him as such.
When the ‘good guy’ beats the ‘bad guy’ its victor and vanquished but if the ‘good guy’ beats a girl even if she is the ‘bad girl’, then it will always be a case of victim and victimiser.
Women are seen as weak creatures to be protected both in movies and the real world. Feminism rather than destroying this perception has fostered it, creating a case of ‘double think’ whereby women are scene as both equal, and in needing of protection not afforded to men, in some cases this is extended to ‘triple think’ whereby women are seen as superior to men, equal to men, and in needing of protections not afforded to men.

A woman slapping a man that’s all par for the course, and we all know he deserved it, even if she kisses him afterwards, I mean that’s passion baby; but a man slapping a woman well that’s unusual, I mean it happens but its just brutal, even if he does kiss her afterwards, did she deserve that? Was that passion?

Picture Angela Lansbury in the original version of ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ I mean her character is just about scariest most evil character ever committed to celluloid but now imagine the character’s long suffering much put upon and manipulated son [Lawrence Harvey] beating her………..

Isn't it funny how......

saying someone's a lady's man means that they let us say greatly enjoy the company and suduction of the female gender, but saying that someones a mans man doesn't mean that they enjoy performing similar actions with members of the same gender.

Strikes me as a tad homophobic wouldn't you say.

The path from man to god.

A man is born; and he shows great bravery, tales are told of his bravery and, with the bounty of his deeds he buys the acceptance of followers and, with the bounty of his followers he becomes king.

As king he performs great deeds and, tales are told of his greatness and the previous tales are brought up to match the new ones and he becomes great and with the bounty of his greatness he becomes magnificent the tales are brought up to match his magnificence and with the glory of his magnificence he becomes glorious and the tales become glorious his deeds become legendary and he becomes a legend, he dies and tales are told of his death and life and they are made to match his legend and he passes into legend.

The tales are made to match his greatness and his becomes a great legend.

The tales are made to match his magnificence and his becomes a magnificent legend as he passes into myth.

The myth is told to match his glory and his becomes a glorious myth and with the bounty of the glory his followers buy him virtue and with the bounty of the virtue his myth becomes not the story of a great or even a man of glorious deed but the story of a god ascending to his heaven.

Story is the key; The first tale is of bravery the second is of great deeds the third is of death the forth of life the fifth and final tale is also the first tale, a tale of the birth of a god.