Category Archives: capitalism

June 16, 2011 · 12:59 am

Buying music in 2011: Numero resists the cloud

Personal Numero favorite "Local Customs: Downriver revival"

I like music I can hold in my hand.  When Itunes started I bought a few .mp3s, and I have occasionally bought a few digital files of hip hop albums that I can’t find locally.  But I tend not to buy digital if I can help it.

At the heart of it is simple: I don’t really trust digital files!  I want a backup — which is silly in a high-speed capitalist world where the mantra is buy another one.  (I also like the inserts, liner notes, and photos . . .)

I’m not a purist about sound or ownership.  I believe there is a real value in sharing music and ideas.  At the exact same time I also hold the role of artist as holy in our society.  I think that artists should be given living wages, safe working conditions, and credit for their creative contributions.  Not to mention respect and care.

Digital distribution puts many of those things at risk.  The next articulation of digital distribution is cloud computing — where a corporation hosts your files, allowing users to download files to any number of computers.  Both Apple and Amazon have cloud projects.  The Apple version is interesting in that it seems to promise amnesty for previous illegal file sharing.

When Apple came around to the history-obsessed Chicago re-issue masters the Numero Group to invite them to make a contract with the new cloud file-sharing, they refused.  The  Numero pursue unpublished and under-appreciated music, find the real producers, pay them and then reissue some of the hottest lost tunes.

(I probably own twenty Numero record albums.)

Here is Rob Sevier, a Numero dude explaining their decision in the L.A. Times:

Sevier said he is sensitive to customers who want a back-up of the product, and noted those who buy the CD essentially have one. The iCloud will still require data management on the part of the user, as even those who pay $24.99 will have to download the song to their devices or computers. Apple has not yet unveiled any music streaming ambitions.

However, Numero’s statement contended that any income derived from the iCloud “will very likely not be enough.” An earlier Times story reported that the aggreements (sic) “call for Apple to share 70% of any revenue from iCloud’s music service with record labels, as well as 12% with music publishers holding the songwriting rights.”

“We represent a host of copyright holders,” Sevier said. “Some are just small families with only a handful of copyrights, and we’re their only life-line into this world. We have to take a more responsible view.”

via Acclaimed reissue label Numero Group ‘declined’ invite to Apple’s iCloud – latimes.com.

Respect to Numero for drawing the line somewhere.  As a company that tries to play the music creators and their families some actual money, they offer a healthy perspective.

And no diss to cloud users.  I appreciate the convenience.  I’m sure I’ll probably wind up with both a cloud account and a couple of thousand records.

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June 5, 2011 · 3:28 pm

Arab spring in context: Talking blues about the news

Thanks to Reuters and the Atlantic for the photo of protesters in Yemen

My kin has laid out some good old fashioned cynicism about the Arab spring uprisings.

People everywhere hoped that the Arabs would overthrow their dictators and enjoy democracy, political freedom, and economic opportunity.

That would have been nice. But instead what has happened is slaughter. The rulers of Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain decided that the revolutions could be defeated by mass murder and indiscriminate torture, and, so far, that tactic has been 100% successful. Nothing good has come of it. The Mideast is more unstable, Israel is more paranoid and aggressive than ever, Arab demonstrators have been shot down by the thousands, and no one in the entire region is yet enjoying any increase in democracy, political freedom, or economic opportunity.

via Sad But True: The “Arab Spring” Is A Pipe Dream « Talkin’ Blues About The News.

Zing!  Can’t disagree with any of that!  It’s a good argument, and important to make in this time, where our impulse to action (read helicopter gunships in Libya) obscures reflection.

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June 2, 2011 · 4:23 pm

Thought harpoon

Rammellzee’s Cerembric neutron harpoon.  One  of the best explanations for communications which corrode against other discourse.  As Rammellzee writes:

CEREMBRIC NEUTRON HARPOON (Thought Lance) holds complete thought-processes to constructions and launches outline that can construct any shape energy it wants to construct in any dimension of physical magnetics. Several remanipulators such as dimensional doors, dimension cracks.

via GOTHIC FUTURISM.

Layer this idea against Walter Benjamin writing about Dada:

“Dadaist manifestations actually guarateed a quite vehement distraction by making artworks the center of scandal.  One requirement was paramount: to outrage the public.  From an alluring visual composition or an enchanting fabric of sound, the Dadaists turned the artwork into a missile.  it jolted the viewer, taking on a tactile [taktisch] quality (Walter Benjamin, The work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility. 39.)

Despite having read chunks of Benjamin in gradual school, I’m finding the re-read to be really insightful.  Crucial to my recent reflection about Walter Benjamin was a lovely 1993 film about Walter Benjamin that helped to located his thought in the context of some recent ideas about fragmentation and power. Here is the link to John Hughes film One way street: fragments for Walter Benjamin.  Thanks to Ubuweb.com for the brilliant resource!

 

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May 30, 2011 · 5:31 pm

Roundup and toxins: Talking Blues about the News

Uncle Barry pointing out the foibles of modern society in his subtle and gentle exposition:

What else have the dumb Americans been persuaded to buy? Three or four wars and a bankrupt country. Enough corporations to pollute a thousand solar systems. A military big enough to conquer south China. Global warming, plus geoengineering to make it worse. A house full of air fresheners, air conditioners, oven cleaners, bug spray, chlorine bleach, scented candles, antimicrobial soap, water softeners, spray-on furniture polish, lawn mower exhaust, red dye #2, out-gassing plastic products by the hundreds, and some fragrant radon for dessert. And that’s before the exterminator comes for his monthly visit. Got to pay for that too, right?

via Talkin’ Blues About The News.

As usual, buttery-smooth prose and no corporate sponsors over there!

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May 29, 2011 · 4:14 pm

Capitalism runs the bases

Nice work from Simon Winchester in the New York Times about the word run.  The Oxford English Dictionary says that run is the word with the most number of distinct usages — six hundred forty five distinct potential articulations.  Winchester connects the development of new meanings with the tempo of the industrial age.  Despite the arty conclusion to the essay, the heart of it contains some good data.

For while in the first edition of the O.E.D., in 1928, that richest-of-all-words was “set” 75 columns of type, some 200 senses, the victor in today’s rather more frantic and uncongenial world is, without a doubt, the three-letter word “run.”

You might think this word simply means “to go with quick steps on alternate feet, never having both or in the case of many animals all feet on the ground at the same time.” But no such luck: that is merely sense I.1a, and there are miles to go before the reader of this particular entry may sleep.

It took Peter Gilliver, the O.E.D. lexicographer working on the letter R, more than nine months harnessed to the duties of what Samuel Johnson once called “a harmless drudge” plus many more months of preparatory research to work out what he believes are all the meanings of “run.” And though some of the senses and their derivations try him — Why does a dressmaker run up a frock? Why run through a varlet with a sword? How come you run a fence around a field? Why, indeed, run this essay? — Mr. Gilliver has finally calculated that there are for the verb-form alone of “run” no fewer than 645 meanings. A record.

In terms of sheer size, the entry for “run” is half as big again as that for “put,” a word on which Mr. Gilliver also worked some years ago. But more significantly still, “run” is also far bigger than the old chestnut “set,” a word that, says Mr. Gilliver, simply “hasn’t undergone as much development in the 20th and 21st centuries as has ‘run.’ ”

via ‘Run,’ a Verb for Our Frantic Times – NYTimes.com.

I also liked the cool little graphic quiz for the article.  Without the text, this is a wonderful exposition of the current state of our nation: boat run aground, robbed by capital, some left behind, patriotism, empty tanks, brain explosions, homeruns and James Joyce.

Thanks to NYT for image

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May 23, 2011 · 11:38 pm

Supreme court fear mongering: the California release of prisoners

I just don’t know.

Sam Alito. Thanks to Slate for the photo

Reflecting upon the recent Supreme Court decision which requires California to deal with overcrowded prisons by reducing prisons by 30,000 inmates.   There were two conservative dissenting opinions.  Sam Alito’s writing, as reported in the NYT,  leans toward the military model to describe the incarcerated.

In a second dissent, Justice Alito, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., addressed what he said would be the inevitable impact of the majority decision on public safety in California.

He summarized the decision this way: “The three-judge court ordered the premature release of approximately 46,000 criminals — the equivalent of three Army divisions” (italics in original).

via Supreme Court Upholds Order to Reduce Calif. Prison Population – NYTimes.com.

I think the simplistic scapegoating of prisoners like this is at the core of the California overcrowding problem. They aren’t soldiers, or enemies, they are people who are locked up. Sure they may have been convicted of a crime, but that doesn’t end their humanity — it emphasizes it.  To compare them in size to three Army divisions suggests that a legion of Huns is being released to hold innocent civilians hostage.

It is a choice of language which distracts from the very real problem of prison over crowding.  California currently houses about 140,000 inmates, the requirement to reduce the prisons by 30,000 gives you some sense of conditions.  Of course this new number — 110,000 prisoners, the maximum we are allowed to currently lock up —  is still 137.5% of housing capacity!

And lets be clear, this ruling doesn’t mean we have to release prisoners.  California can also use “new construction, out-of-state transfers and using county facilities,” according to Justice Kennedy.

All three of these alternatives seem pretty grim.   Prison building boondoggles, paying other states to house our inmates when we are so far in debt, and of course the trickle down from prison to county lock up will wreck a number of communities.  And opportunities for circumvention abound. California can also ask for more time after two years. And of course politicians will jump through every hoop to avoid being seen as soft on the incarcerated. Judicial unfunded mandate with a political poison pill makes the mass release of inmates portrayed by the dissenting justices unlikely to happen.

Can we just own up and start seriously diverting non-violent offenders?  And stop labeling people locked in the language of enemy creation?

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May 22, 2011 · 12:09 am

capitalism: car shortage

The end of the American empire is going to be rough.   There is no doubt that many working class folks will suffer as our economy continues to crash.  Interesting dimension — the L.A. Times notes that we are in a car crunch — not enough automobiles for the American market — thus the prices are high.

Doug Stevens

The cause identified for this shortage is the earthquake which killed more than 14,000 people (official police estimate), left uncontrolled mox reactors dumping nuclear fuel into the ocean air and water, and wrecked people’s homes and businesses.   Given the chance, we’d rather read disaster in terms of the impact on our consumer market.  News stories about radiation abatement and the deadly nuclear reactor don’t get coverage, but we get the explicit run down of how much the earthquake and tsunami hurt the run of 2011 Hondas.

“Although automakers will work hard to catch up during the second half of this year, ultimately about 700,000 vehicles will never be built because of the quake.

The shortfall has allowed Toyota and competitors such as General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. to raise sticker prices.”

via Car shoppers advised to postpone purchases: Best option for car shoppers: postpone buying – latimes.com.

This is capitalist semiotics at it’s most refined — there is no doubt that natural disasters have an impact on business —  but it is the prioritizing of the disruption of automobile production as it impacts United States consumers that seems so grimy to me.

For those who make a living selling cars, this story is particularly important.  So as the article progresses, they note that one result has been an enormous surge in the trade-in value of cars:

In 2007, a 3-year-old Ford Explorer would bring about $7,100 as a trade-in for a new car. Now, a 3-year-old Explorer gets double that amount — $14,200 — according to auto price information company Kelley Blue Book. The trade-in value for a 3-year-old Honda Civic has jumped by $3,500 to $12,200 in the same period.

via Car shoppers advised to postpone purchases: Best option for car shoppers: postpone buying – latimes.com.

Another way of reading this change is to note the declining value of the dollar.  American money is less valuable — and this makes all the valuable goods cheap for other countries to buy.   If you are over thirty, then you probably remember the phenomenon of travelling to other countries for a “deal” — well, now the United States looks like a deal.

I’m not all that concerned about the actual corporations who make money off of these transactions — but the folks who need transportation and can’t afford a safe used car are going to struggle.   The United States is a nation which holds fierce the right to individual automobile transit, and has stubbornly refused to invest in public transportation.

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