Josh McNeill

Month: June 21, 2008

Wagner is cool, really!

June 21, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Some of you that know me probably know already that I’ve been getting really into the whole classical music thing for the last year or so. It sounds kind of ridiculous to listen mostly to a genre that the great majority of people out there would consider background music at best but there’s very good reason. There’s real depth to classical music and it isn’t as hard to grab onto as you would think, it just takes time. Modern pop music is all about instant gratification and while that’s great, there’s a lot to be said for art that forces you to slow down and get caught up in the whole story that’s unfolding in front of you.

A great example is Richard Wagner. You know, the opera guy with all the valkyries and whatnot. He was a master at building tension and suspense in his music. One of his operas, Tristan und Isolde, spends the entire opera building up tension and only finally releases it at the very end. Unfortunately this mastery is also why most people can’t bother to listen to his stuff, we’re too impatient. So, I’d like to invite anyone who is willing to listen, and I mean really listen, to Wagner’s Prelude to his last opera Parsifal to give it a shot. It’s very slow to pick up but, if you allow yourself to get caught up in it and see it through to the very end, it’s incredibly rewarding.

One of those questions about trees falling.

June 18, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I got into a discussion, an internet argument even, which is never a good idea, recently about whether it makes sense to label all Muslims your enemy (assuming that you’re not a Muslim) based on the fact that the Qur’an contains passages that can be read as, “Kill non-believers.” My stance was, obviously, that this was stupid. My opponent’s stance was that he labels all Muslims enemies because of these passages but probably wouldn’t have a problem with a Muslim if they were standing in front of him. His reason? He suggests that people can believe things that they don’t follow. If this were true then it would be possible for a Muslim to believe that their holy text is telling them to kill the guy in front of them and yet they don’t.

Regardless of the rampant contradictions in such a stance, the whole conversation made me really wonder how someone can believe something and yet do the opposite. For instance, in the example of the Muslim in front of my short-sighted online debating partner, does that Muslim, who we’ll assume does believe he’s being commanded to kill the guy in front of him, not follow through with his God’s command out of sheer willpower to go against his beliefs or is it that at the time he believes that it’s not a good idea to kill this person. Basically, if you believe something and then act in a way that goes against that belief, did you really just have a couple beliefs overlap each other?

Upon trying to think of some examples where someone is acting against their beliefs, I came up with a couple that were questionable. Lets take priests who molest children. These people most likely don’t interpret the Bible to be saying that it’s honky dory to ruin children’s lives in this way yet they still do it. When those particular priests are in that situation where they decide to go through with these actions, is it just some blind moment like blacking out after drinking too much or do they justify the action in the moment? If they do justify the action, does that justification enact a new belief? For example, the priest normally believes that it’s not okay to touch small children but at the time that they are doing so they also believe that it is okay to do so for such and such a reason. You can do the same thing for recovering alcoholics. They believe that they should stop drinking but they still end up drinking because they believe at the time when they fail in their endeavor that it’s okay for them to drink.

So yeah, is it safe to say that no one ever acts against their beliefs, or no?

Obama helps and his opponenets criticize.

June 16, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I am amazed. By now I’m sure everyone is at least somewhat aware of all the flooding in Iowa. This is a pretty big deal. I’ve read that the flood levels are high enough that they’re hitting people who aren’t in high risk areas at all and aren’t likely to have flood insurance. Apparently this isn’t likely to be over yet either and more flooding is expected in other areas.

Normally I wouldn’t bring something like this up but there has been some heavy criticism of Barack Obama because he went to fill sand bags in Illinois in preparation for more flooding. Check it out:

His actions have spurred hatred and cynicism among those who already don’t like him. There are claims that he’s pandering. Apparently leading by example and helping those in need is now considered pandering. Then there are claims that he was only there for a photo op. According to an ABC News blog he filled at least 15 sandbags. This may not be enough for those that think the only way he can help is to spend 60 hours a week for a month filling bags but helping out in this way for even an hour can make a big difference. It can especially make a difference when your presence brings more attention to the issue and adds morale support to those in the area. While getting his photo taken in this situation probably does benefit his campaign, there’s a good reason for that. There are even more outrageous claims made to the detriment of Obama’s character but they’re not worth going through one by one.

It appears that we live in such a cynical world that even when a person is being directly helpful we can still find ways to try and tear them down. What’s the alternative to Obama’s actions? Do nothing? Sit back and tell the press when they ask you that those people are proud and can help themselves so there’s no reason for you to try and obtain more help for them as McCain has done? McCain was sitting in at a fund raiser in California while all this was going on and didn’t even have the decency to mention the issue on his website where Obama put a link right on the opening page that went to the donations section of the American Red Cross site. Or, instead of doing what Obama is doing, politicians could follow Bush’s example and just fly over the area like Bush did during Katrina. That helps immensely, right? Katrina was handled effectively, right?

Seriously, lets all take a step back and question our own cynicism. I’ve been guilty of it myself on numerous occasions but I no longer think it’s worth it. Sure, you might get burned from time to time but the alternative is to live in a world where you have to constantly be paranoid that everyone is out to dupe you.

Small country, big talent.

June 8, 2008 / / 0 Comments

It amazes me how good the music that comes out of Iceland is. There aren’t many people there, some 300k, and as a result there aren’t an enormous amount of well known musicians from the area. The ones I do know of are pretty amazing though. I’ve been a pretty big fan of Bjork for a while. Sigur Ros comes from Iceland, obviously as they sing in Icelandic and Icelandic gibberish, and are pretty mind blowing. Now I’ve come across another group who has impressed me quite a bit: Amiina.

Amiina was originally a string quartet but the stuff they do now is all original. It reminds me a lot of CocoRosie without singing. I also hear a hint of traditional chinese music sneaking its way up there in how they use some percussive string instruments. Basically they’ve switched from 2 violins, a viola, and a cello, to a multi-instrumentalist spectacle complete with everything from synths to toy bells. They play in a minimalist style that goes a long way into painting a scene that you can sit back and relax in.

I don’t know what it is about Iceland but they’re doing something right. Not only are the aforementioned musicians highly effective at what they do, they’re also intensely original sounding. Maybe that comes from being stuck on an island many miles out in the ocean. Whatever it is, it’s worth a listen.

I don’t know anything about Lee Hazlewood but the addition of his poetry to this track works perfectly.

How Bush convinced me that voting matters.

June 5, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I can remember a time, not even all that long ago, when I didn’t care all that much about voting. I would usually only vote in the presidential elections and never, ever, ever for a democrat or republican. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t agree with their views, I didn’t even really know what their views were, it was more this subconscious feeling that there was something wrong with only having two realistic options in every election. Even more prominent was this feeling that no matter who was put in the White House my life really didn’t change at all. I didn’t feel effected in the slightest by the people running the country. This seemed to also manifest this feeling that these people were making empty promises since they always would talk about how things will be better when they’re put in office yet it never seemed to make anything better.. or worse.

What finally convinced me that it really does matter, that I’m effected, by who is put in charge of things was George W Bush’s presidency. Good ol’ GW managed to be so absurdly bad at running a country that there are now constant reminders to show how much a president can really do. It wasn’t some angelic savior of the people that made it obvious that the president determines the quality of life for Americans, it was a stubborn alcoholic who can’t even repeat a proverb correctly (anyone remember the “fool me once..” screw-up?). From our deteriorating dollar and all its economic implications, to the Iraq War, to soaring gas prices, to the attempts to strip Americans of constitutional rights, Bush has done a thorough job of showing how much power a president really has.

I won’t get into the details about all the ways he has screwed up, unless you somehow missed these things and would like me to, but I will draw some conclusions from this revelation. If one man can run a government into the ground so thoroughly, can one man or woman also turn our lives into cushy bastions of pleasure? Now that may be a stretch, but not all that much of a stretch. It’s not so much that every little thing will be taken care of and we’ll never have any worries, just that the opportunities to put ourselves into a position where we have no worries can be created. Do you know how much college costs now compared to 8 years ago? Do you know how much gas cost 8 years ago? Do you know how easy it was to find affordable housing 8 years ago? These are pretty concrete changes that effect everyone who doesn’t want to live with their mom for the rest of their lives. If we could fall off the wagon to this degree then I don’t see why we couldn’t hop back on that wagon with the right management and get it moving even faster.

I think there’s also this growing since of responsibility for one’s world that comes from getting older. As a child and a teenager you’re, usually, very sheltered from the realities of the world. Once that shelter disappears you start to realize, or at least I did, that the things that you seemed to be able to take for granted didn’t come without a cost. Some of this I realized when I lived in New York. I remember when it would get hard, and I’d be trying to stretch each penny, and my biggest concern was the idea of having to move back to south Jersey and take a hit to my pride when I needed to rely on a parental figure yet again. It made me think, what if I didn’t have those figures in my life? Parents aren’t there forever. There’s always that chance that you won’t have someone to pick you up in life when you’ve royally screwed yourself over. All those solutions that I could have followed up on when I lived in New York would have been necessary if I didn’t have some enormous safety net to fall back on.

The point I’m getting to is that, while it may seem like it on the surface, life is not something that should be taken for granted. Anything can happen and the world that seemed so safe and secure as a kid was really illusory. If you want to maintain that illusion you have to be proactive. When this stops seeming true, just remind yourself of what a guy like Bush can do to your life.

Energy beamed down from space, sounds safe, eh?

June 3, 2008 / / 0 Comments

There’s a report on CNN.com about India’s energy troubles. The article focuses on a guy named Pranav Mehta who has suggested that instead of building coal power plants in India they should instead put solar panels into space and beam the energy down. This would apparently be a lot more efficient than coal energy so in the long run India would probably benefit greatly if they were the first country to be able to do this.

Correct me if I’m wrong here but hasn’t wireless electricity been possible since Nikola Tesla? I thought the problem wasn’t so much the technological difficulties but the health concerns of being megawatts of energy through the air, and you know, buildings and people too. I’m certainly not an electrical engineer or anything but it just doesn’t sound safe. It doesn’t seem to me that electricity could be transmitted on something similar to a radio frequency.

Still, this would be nice if it were truly feasible. The article says that you could use one kilometer of solar panels and generate power equal to all the coal plants in the world at the moment. That’s pretty impressive. It’s a pretty win-win for the environment and the advancement of civilization as well. I think until it’s proven that beaming enormous amounts of electricity through thin air we should stick to Richard Branson’s idea of storing computer systems in space so that we wouldn’t have to beam energy down, we’d just beam the information superhighway down.

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