"Net Neutrality" going down the drain (video)

Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Crystal Quintero, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Amy Goodman (DemocracyNow.org, May 15, 2014); Sarah Jaffe, Joel Serino (occupy.com); OccupytheFCC

Net: it's a utility, the "People's Platform," not a portable TV for corporate media (occupy)

 

Not until a fair accounting of votes does anything happen in a democracy. (It sure would be nice to live in a democracy). All those who say otherwise are stirring up anarchy. Destroy the deviants, troublemakers, and perverts! Corporate profits depend on it. That should keep the police state busy. In the meantime, what about our Internet?

 

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is voting today on new rules that may effectively abandon "Net neutrality," the concept of a free and open Internet. (Watch this).

(CGP Grey/cgpgrey.com) Let's tell the FCC to reclassify broadband Internet as a public utility, a Title II common carrier telecommunications service. (Discuss). Music: Broke for Free.

The FCC proposal would let Internet providers charge corporate media companies extra fees to receive preferential treatment, such as faster speeds for their products and content.

Under previous regulations struck down earlier this year, providers were forced to provide ALL content at equal speeds, including Wisdom Quarterly, Democracy Now!, Occupy.com, FEMEN, CodePink, and other outlets.

The encampment begins with activists from popularresistance.org and Fight for the Future

 

Just steps from the vote, demonstrators have set up an "Occupy the FCC" (occupythefcc.com) encampment calling for federal regulators to reclassify broadband service as a public utility.

"Trust me; I'm a banker!"

This will allow for the requirement of "Net neutrality" rules.

The CEOs of 28 U.S. broadband providers and trade groups told their FCC not to classify broadband as a utility, explaining that regulating broadband would "impose great costs [to our private corporations], allowing unprecedented government micromanagement of all aspects of the Internet economy."

Save the Internet (freepress.net)

This debate on Net neutrality features guests Timothy Karr of the media reform group Free Press, who want corporations to be regulated for the good of everyone who uses the Net, and Joshua Steimle, a tech entrepreneur who argues that the government should not be entrusted with regulating the Internet. More

• VIDEO: Today I help free the Internet

NSA book ("No Place to Hide" excerpts)

Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; truthdig.com; Glenn Greenwald via TomDispatch.com

First appeared at TomDispatch; see Tom (Engelhardt)’s introduction. [This is a shortened, adapted version of Chp. 1 of Greenwald’s new book, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Security State, with permission of Metropolitan Books.]

  

Greenwald, author, investigative journalist

On December 1, 2012, I received my first communication from Edward Snowden, although I had no idea at the time that it was from him.

 

The contact came in the form of an email from someone calling himself Cincinnatus, a reference to Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer who, in the fifth century BC, was appointed dictator of Rome to defend the city against attack. He is most remembered for what he did after vanquishing Rome’s enemies: he immediately and voluntarily gave up political power and returned to farming life. Hailed as a “model of civic virtue,” Cincinnatus has become a symbol of the use of political power in the public interest and the worth of limiting or even relinquishing individual power for the greater good.

 

The email began: “The security of people’s communications is very important to me,” and its stated purpose was to urge me to begin using PGP encryption so that “Cincinnatus” could communicate things in which,  he said, he was certain I would be interested. Invented in 1991, PGP stands for “pretty good privacy.” It has been developed into a sophisticated tool to shield email and other forms of online communications from surveillance and hacking.

 

In this email, “Cincinnatus” said he had searched everywhere for my PGP “public key,” a unique code set that allows people to receive encrypted email, but could not find it. From this, he concluded that I was not using the program and told me, “That puts anyone who communicates with you at risk. I’m not arguing that every communication you are involved in be encrypted, but you should at least provide communicants with that option.”

 

The United States of Fear

“Cincinnatus” then referenced the sex scandal of General David Petraeus, whose career-ending extramarital affair with journalist Paula Broadwell was discovered when investigators found Google emails between the two. Had Petraeus encrypted his messages before handing them over to Gmail or storing them in his drafts folder, he wrote, investigators would not have been able to read them.

• When the US National Intelligence Council issued its latest report meant for the newly elected Obama administration, it predicted that the planet's "sole superpower" would suffer a modest decline and a soft landing 15 years hence. The United States of Fear makes clear that Americans should don their crash helmets and buckle their seat belts, because the U.S. is on the path to a major decline at a startling speed.

“Encryption matters, and it is not just for spies and philanderers.”

  

“There are people out there you would like to hear from,” he added, “but they will never be able to contact you without knowing their messages cannot be read in transit.” Then he offered to help me install the program.  He signed off: “Thank you. C.”

 

Using encryption software was something I had long intended to do. I had been writing for years about WikiLeaks, whistleblowers, the hacktivist collective known as Anonymous, and had also communicated with people inside the U.S. national security establishment. More

• Af/Pak Daily Brief - Anand Gopal, Global Dispatches - Atlantic Wire - Rethink Afghanistan

Alternet - Antiwar.com - Arts & Letters Daily - Black Agenda Report -The Browser - Buzzflash - Commondreams - Counterpunch - The Daily Beast-Dollars and Sense - Environment 360 - Fabius Maximus - Foreign Policy in Focus - History News Network - Huffington Post - Israeli Occupation Archive-Lew Rockwell - Mondoweiss - Naked Capitalism - Open Democracy - Opposing Views - Pacific Free Press - Politico - Real Clear Politics - The Smirking Chimp - Talking Points Memo - ThinkProgress - TomPaine - TPM Muckraker - Truthdig - Truthout - Stephan M. Walt - War in Context - War Is a Crime - Wikileaks - ZNET 

Disney to capitalize on RAVE music (EDM)

Dev, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Gerrick Kennedy, Los Angeles Times

Do we have to go to Disneyland to listen to it? No, Cherry Glazerr, just go corporate.

Wooo, Mickey Deadmau5, yeah! (Hard)

“Let It Go,” the soaring showstopper from “Frozen,” has an unlikely remix coming out soon.

 

The Academy Award-winning smash sung by Idina Menzel got a reworking by Dutch electronic dance music DJ Armin van Buuren.
 

Dconstructed morphs Disney tunes into EDM

His remix is just one of more than a dozen that Walt Disney Records commissioned for “Dconstructed,” a compilation album that placed Disney tunes, including several beloved classics, into the hands of EDM (electronic dance music) stars.
 
Songs have been pulled from older Disney films: “Dumbo,” “The Lion King,” and “Toy Story,” and more recent hits, such as “Monsters University” and “The Incredibles.”

The 14-track set will include contributions from Buuren, Avicii, Kaskade, Mat Zo, and Unkle. More

• Raves: Electric Daisy Carnival auditions, Hard Summer

RAVES: Electric Daisy Carnival, Hard (video)

Amber Larson, Seth Auberon, Dev, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Gustavo Turner (LA Weekly)

EDC 2014 hopefuls wait to be called in (Gustavo Turner, 1 of 49 photos in SLIDESHOW)

 
EDC Auditions

Raver hopeful in front of Budai (G. Turner)

Years ago, buses full of hopefuls (males and females) arrived in Hollywood every day. They were the most beautiful young people in America carrying but a ratty suitcase, an "act" or a "talent," and The Dream -- making it "in the movies." 

 

These days, the movies ain't what they used to be. But the hopefuls keep coming to events like the open auditions call put out by Insomniac, the unstoppable creators of mega dance festival Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC). The auditions were held last Tuesday and Wednesday (March 5-6, 2014) at Create Nightclub, in the heart of Hollywood, next door to the Museum of Death.

The Insomniac auditioners the ravers are trying to impress (Gustavo Turner, laweekly.com)

 

Wholesome "Yoga Rave" (Art of Living, L.A.)

Budai (Hotei) and ravers getting ready (LAw)

The tryouts were also being filmed for Insomniac's new YouTube show "#EDCAuditions," a sort of "America's Got Talent" for go-go dancers in tiny bikinis, contortionists, clowns, magicians, stilt walkers, guys who blow up enormous balloons and then get inside them, and...

 

A man in an old-timey explorer outfit who can chug-a-lug a whole gallon of white liquid and vomit it into a bucket while his friend tries to juggle a bowling bowl and a giddy redhead in a skintight dress jumps around. [They were our favorite.] More

(InsomniacEvents) Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas 2014 official announcement

(Art of Living TV) Inspired by Indian teacher Sri Sri Ravi Shankar emerging out of the rich, pro-Buddhist Vedic Hindu yoga tradition, particularly as synthesized by the Sage Patanjali, this course teaches the initial steps of meditation, which is cultivation of mind/heart.

Hard Summer announces new home and dates
Dennis Romero (laweekly.com)

Hard Summer 2013 (Timothy Norris). The mega rave is coming to El Monte, L.A. for 2014 to the location that hosts the annual mega Vesak, the threefold celebration of the Buddha's birth, enlightenment, and final nirvana.

  

Music, dance, yoga: Eat Pray Love

With Los Angeles State Historic Park closed for a one-year renovation, the Hard festivals and other big events previously held there (including FYF Fest, H20 Fest) have had to look for new venues for 2014.

Hard has solved its problem by adopting as its home for their Hard summer event -- held August 2 and 3 -- the 1,492-acre Whittier Narrows Recreation Area in South El Monte, east of downtown L.A. It sounds to [L.A. Weekly] like a novel use for the public park.
 

Hindu Shiva-Shakti merging under the Moon

A source with knowledge of the news pointed to the Ticketmaster listing, saying that it wasn't initially clear if the event would face resistance from South El Monte city officials. (Hard officials will announce that news).
 
While "raves" have become a bad word with politicians around Los Angeles, Hard was purchased in 2012 by the nation's largest concert promoter, Live Nation, signaling that it's a highly professional (and money-making) operation. More

 

(Hardfest) 2014 Teaser: HARD Summer 2014 - August 2 and 3, Whittier Narrows Recreation Area. LA's largest music festival is moving to a BIGGER home just 10 minutes east of downtown L.A. at a beautiful park making the fest harder, better, bigger, and greener with more artists and more stages (facebook, twitter, instagram, soundcloud, tumblr, hardfest.com).

 

Did the Buddha dance?

Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly

Dancing Tara Bodhisattva, Nepal (ebay.com)

Why do human beings dance? Synchronized movements, particularly to rhythmic music or a unifying beat as our cue, are a natural ritual for nonverbal expression and communication. 

 

We are making use of these incredible bodies, which may seem feeble now in the Kali Yuga ("Age of Vice" or "Dark Age") but were and will certainly be much more incredible in earlier and future Golden Ages. (It's cyclical, so all ages repeat).

 

Shakyamuni Buddha was not Shiva Nataraja ("Dancing Shiva," lit. "Shiva Lord of the Dance [of Life]"). According to Hinduism the Buddha was the ninth avatar of Vishnu, the great sustaining god. 

 

The Buddha, however, made it very clear that he is NOT a god/deva, not a messenger angel, not a mythical being, no longer an ordinary human being, not an anything other than "AWAKENED" (Dona Sutra, AN 4.36). Because of this, he came to be called the Buddha, a title which means the "Awakened One."
 

Dancing Shiva Nataraja, India

But if GOD (Brahman, godhead) is an acronym, G.O.D. -- the Generator (Brahma), Operator (Vishnu), and Destroyer (Shiva) of the universe -- then by this logic the historical Buddha was a force for the steady maintenance of this world-system, our universe or, at least, our solar system.
 
(According to whistleblower and former CIA pilot John Lear, our solar system actually has more than 30 planets, which if true might correspond to Buddhist cosmology's 31 Planes of Existence, assuming a "world-system" is only the size of a solar system rather than a galaxy, constellation/celestial sphere like Orion, or a universe).
 
So did the Buddha dance? Find out here: More

RAVE NEWS

• The Ultra Music Festival, Los Angeles (March 28, 29, 30)
• VIDEO: Electric Daisy Carnival 2014 dates announced Electric Daisy Carnival mega-rave will take place in Las Vegas from June 20 to 22, 2014, West Coast Sound has announced. Tickets start at $249 for general admission and $499 for VIP tickets, in addition to service fees. (Over 21) The lineup...
• Why Is Everyone So Pissed About the EDM Reality Show? As the Hollywood-based casting guru behind Jersey Shore and A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, Doron Ofir knows how the lowbrow culture game is played. But even the man who gave the world Snooki might have been caught off-guard by the outrage over one of his latest projects: a...
• Jason Bentley on the Music That Is the Core of His Being Our music feature this week breaks down the career of KCRW Music Director and Morning Becomes Eclectic host Jason Bentley, who has been a central figure in the L.A. electronic scene since almost before Skrillex was born. We spoke with Bentley a number of times for this story, including in... 
• Lightning in a Bottle 2014: new location and dates announced Lightning in a Bottle is moving to central California. This year's installment of the Do Lab-produced music and arts festival will take place May 29-June 1, 2014 at Monterey County's Lake San Antonio Rec Area, Bradley, California. Last year's festival, held at Temecula's Lake... 
• The Evolution of Rave Fashion When deciding what to wear to a rave, it helps first to consider your objective: Do you want to look hot? Dress for the weather? Hook up? Express your personal style? Or should your outfit simply complement the illegal drugs you plan to do? Since raves kicked off in late-1980s England, fashion trends have... 
• Here's what happened to all those people ARRESTED at Lightning in a Bottle last year Organizers recently announced that the 2014 incarnation of the arts and music festival will be held at a new location in Central California. More restrictive sound rules at last year's location were given as the reason. But the elephant in the room is all the arrests of attendees... 



Don't do bad dope, man

• Ravers and Rappers: Quit glorifying DRUGS that kill people Are ravers the modern day hippies? There are plenty of parallels, from the flower imagery to the PLUR mentality. Then, of course, there's the idea of using drugs as a path to enlightenment (or, at least, amazing vibes). But when it comes to drugs there's a key difference: The hippies were safer [using natural DMT-containing substances rather than petrochemical pharmaceuticals]...

-@West Coast Sound

TOP PIC: Downtown L.A. viewed from Native American land now L.A. State Historical Park