REASON’s to be Cheerful

REASON TURNS 25!

Propellorheads reason was, and still is an astoundingly powerful and intuitive environment for music creation.

After burning out from working professionally in creating music for moving image,(after several years) the only tool I could face was Version 1 of a new program by Propeller Heads called REASON.

It replicated a load of the hardware tools I had been using before I retired, allowing the unique routing and manipulation the hardware had provided, but with the incredible convenience of software. It  was also extraordinary stable at a time where most music software was … significantly less so…

If you’re wondering about getting into music software… CHECK IT OUT!

Little Box of Folded Fun

The very xlnt Tim Prebble was kind enough to lend me his  MakeNoise 0-coast. For a tiny little box, its remarkably deep and flexible (in a very MakeNoise way)

For those that don’t know Tim, he is a sound designer and recordist and makes pretty definitive sound libraries for film sound design under the handle Hiss and Roar

Before I returned it I sampled the living be cheeses out of it, both multi-sampled, and a load of long freeform noise generating.

I’ve since thrown a selection of exerts of these into my µFreak and are in some ways able to recreate some of the mayhem of the original.

WARNING– MAYHEM:

Save 20k lives, get death threats.

Jacinda Ardern

“It still baffles me that a leader that did her best, with undeniably good intentions, saved a minimum of 20,000 Kiwi lives, had her team shepherd the economy right through to November 2023 in a way where National inherited “better finances than expected”, all with one of the lowest debt to GDP levels in the OECD, as well as securing and keeping higher credit ratings in her tenure, and did her best to preserve water infrastructure in public hands, taking the political hits and death threats to herself and her family as graciously as anyone could, could have this level of reaction.”


Opinion

Mountain Tui

Should be Obligatory Reading EVERYWHERE

Omar El Akkad’s confrontation of the West’s hypocrisy over the continuing genocide in GAZA. 

This is a book with an undercurrent of anger through it, but it’s not a book that shouts.

Instead, it’s a quietly convincing indictment of the West’s institutions and of its moral failings, and a thorough laying out of an argument about breaking away from the ideas and ideals we’ve held ourselves to.

Although, of course, it criticises right-wing institutions, one of the book’s biggest targets for critique is the Western liberal.

LINK to Interview  HERE

 https://sarahshaffi.com/

 

Incomprehensible

Unless you have been paying attention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism_in_North_America

 

Donald Trump and Fascism

Some scholars have argued that the political style of Donald Trump resembles the political style of fascist leaders. Such assessments were first made during Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign,[37][38] continuing over the course of the Trump presidency as he appeared to court far-right extremists,[39][40][41][42]including his attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election after losing to Joe Biden,[43] and culminating in the 2021 United States Capitol attack.[44] As these events have unfolded, some commentators who had initially resisted applying the label to Trump came out in favor of it, including conservative legal scholar Steven G. Calabresi and conservative commentator Michael Gerson.[45][46] After the attack on the Capitol, Robert O. Paxton, a historian of fascism, went so far as to state that Trump is a fascist, despite his earlier objection to using the term in this way.[47] In “Trump and the Legacy of a Menacing Past”, Henry Girouxwrote: “The inability to learn from the past takes on a new meaning as a growing number of authoritarian regimes emerge across the globe. This essay argues that central to understanding the rise of a fascist politics in the United States is the necessity to address the power of language and the intersection of the social media and the public spectacle as central elements in the rise of a formative culture that produces the ideologies and agents necessary for an American-style fascism.”[48]Other historians of fascism, such as Richard J. Evans,[49] Roger Griffin, and Stanley Payne, continue to disagree that fascism is an appropriate term to describe Trump’s politics.[44] Jason Stanley argued in 2018 that Trump uses “fascist techniques to excite his base and erode liberal democratic institutions”.[50]

 

FUCK RACISM

Born and raised in a VERY racist homeland.

Sadly watched as… people I grew up with * succumbed to the viral toxicity.

Now sickening to see even the idea of racism, being inverted by the right wing…that acknowledgment of those things is now a thought crime in Aust .

Interesting / hilarious to see some of these people deciding to self identify as being racist ‘outed‘ by this comment despite not being named)

The definition of self incrimination!  Narcissists will Narcissist! 

A choice between crossing the bridge to our future, or floundering in the past : Noel Pearson

On 14 October, Australia will vote in a historic referendum that cuts to the core of how it sees itself as a nation.

If successful, the proposal – known as the Voice – will recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the constitution, while creating a body for them to advise governments on the issues affecting their communities.

Yes advocates say it’s a “modest yet profound” change that will allow Indigenous Australians to take “a rightful place” in their own country – which has often dragged its heels confronting its past.

But those campaigning against it describe it as a “radical” proposal that will “permanently divide” the country by giving First Nations people greater rights than other Australians – a claim legal experts reject.


“Too many of us have grown up as strangers,” leading Voice advocate Noel Pearson told the Canberra Press Gallery last week.

“This referendum is the largest mirror we will ever look into as a nation… we, the Australian people, face a choice – a choice between crossing the bridge to our future or floundering in the past.” : Noel Pearson

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-66944609

Sickeningly it currently looks like failing.


This referendum has made utterly transparent 2 things:

1: How casually Deeply Racist so much of Aust is.

2: How much control over the population the hard right media has.

Double Jeopardy

The aust ‘Voice to Parliament’ vote in Aust (where the predominantly white australian population vote on giving the indigenous population who have lived in australia for around 60,000 years <yes 60,000> an official voice to the govt.

It looks like it will fail because racism in aust is rife, (FARK) …. is on the same day as the election here in NZ where a smug hard right racist pentecostal who’s entire agenda is to gut all social services to provide a a $20 tax break to the general population, but a really large tax break to the weathly, who has a massive advertising budget and looks like winning.

My head is fucking exploding.

2 sickening likely outcomes on the same day.

TASMAN RICHARDSON (is rather good)

Who would have thought turning off TV’s could be this exciting !

This is an extract of his work Firing Squad I first witnessed as a live performance at the Nemo Festival in Paris 2011. I found it astoundingly powerful and really inspiring at the time. I highly recommend having a dive into his work!


Longer cut if its of interest.

https://www.tasmanrichardson.com/

Option 2: Accept that we are deluding ourselves.

Get Ready for the Forever Plague

Public health officials’ COVID complacency has opened the door to new illnesses and devastating long-term damage.

First read this by Andrew Nikiforuk:

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/07/04/Get-Ready-Forever-Plague/

Then while ya all fired up and trying to reject it:

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/07/08/Forever-Pandemic-Nikiforuk-Replies-Critics/