Charles Manson dead at 83…

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Date: November 20, 2017

01) Hippie cult leader Charles Manson dead at 83

“LOS ANGELES (AP) — Charles Manson, the hippie cult leader who became the hypnotic-eyed face of evil across America after masterminding the gruesome murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six others in Los Angeles during the summer of 1969, died Sunday night after nearly a half-century in prison. He was 83.

Manson died of natural causes at a California hospital while serving a life sentence, his name synonymous to this day with unspeakable violence and depravity.”

What is there to say?…

…I never revered him…though I did find some of his dispositions he was born into, and some of his resulting cognition [and honesty] on society, to be sympathetic.

This honestly is a guy, who was “raised by the system”…

I know it’s unrealistic, to expect everybody can turn out okay…or that “the system” even has that kind of power…

…But, I’ve commonly seen people like Charles Manson, as being direct products of “the system”…

It’s a system which expects and demands that everyone conform, on every level of life [including those dealing with simple survival]…when it’s known all along, that many people simply cannot conform…and there is no place allowed for them…It kills and degrades those people, to live their life in subservience to this…Countless people become unstable, under the stress…and we get predictable outcomes.

It’s an absurdity, wherever humans behave as though they own portions of planet Earth…If anything, planet Earth owns us, as animals inhabiting Earths life sustaining atmosphere…As such, we all have equal right to Earth’s resources…just as wild animals have right to them.

…It’s an absurdity, to imagine anything can control any species…especially one so complex as humans…

…And while the system continues to dominate and degrade, in attempts at attaining such a fools goal…it continues to create “Charles Manson’s”, of varying sizes, shapes and degrees.

I don’t know if any model of system even can exist, which avoids doing this…

…But it does seem to me, that we need to keep striving for something a hell of a lot better…than what currently exists.

Album: Yule Love It! – Songs of the Winter Château Book III…

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The Expressions Forum [Xmas]
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Date: November 20, 2017

Yule Love It!: Songs of the Winter Château Book III [48:35]

01) The Night Before Christmas

02) Hark The Herald Angels Sing

03) We Gather Together to Ask the Lord’s Blessing

04) Angels from the Realms of Glory

05) Angels We Have Heard on High

06) Joy to the World

07) God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

08) Once in Royal David’s City

09) Gather Around The Tree

10) Light The Advent Candle

11) Oh Come Oh Come Immanuel

12) One Bright Star

13) It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

14) Toyland

15) Boars Head Carol

16) Exidus

17) Come Little Children

18) In the Bleak Mid Winter

19) Star of Christmas Morning

20) How Quietly

21) Candlelight Carol

22) Lo How Rose E’er Blooming

23) The First Noel

24) A Child A King

25) Oh Come All Ye Faithful

26) Alleluia Acclamation Christmas

27) Bring A Torch Jeanette Isabella

I’m releasing this one a little bit early…but late November isn’t “too early”…

I still have to get the video exhibition put together for this one, at the time of this writing…I’m confident I’ll have it done by early December.

I should point out…this album was actually started just shortly after completion of “Yule in Strings”…But it got shelved for a long, long time…And I had a collection of tracks I wasn’t entirely pleased with…I pruned a few of those away, and probably should have taken at least one other out…but…I’m pleased with what is here.

I was beginning to wonder if I’d have this completed by Yule time…I’m happy to put out another alternative version [a la “Yule in Strings”] of this series…but, I’d been promising the third installment for at least a year now…so, I needed to get this done.

Unfortunately, as happens sometimes when a project gets shelved…sometimes you forget what you was doing, and you wander off the path a bit…and there are two different styles of track on this album…Several are of a more typical acoustic piano…and all the rest are “Baby Grand”…and the difference is obvious…I wanted to keep these albums as uniform as possible…Guess I didn’t.

I trust this will hinder no ones enjoyment of the album.

As to this series of albums…I set out to make a trilogy, and this is the third…

…Of course, there’s lots to do with alternate versions of the music already covered…I expect a second “Yule in Strings” at some point…and an orchestral album…plus a church organ album…If I can come up with something I find release worthy…I may even play around with the choir synthesizer…and I’ve got a few nice tracks with the Celtic harp…a few other synthesizers I’ve never even tried, are just waiting for me…

…I’ve got some stragglers, however…I don’t think I’m going to release most of the tracks I’ve pulled [over not liking how they turned out]…but I’ve still got some material I haven’t even loaded up yet, to see what I can do with it…There’s still a bit of fertile ground to dance upon…

…Which means there might be a small “encore” album, in the future…I make no promises…

…except that I’ll rummage through what I already have on hand, and see how many albums I can make of them…They’ll likely be small…like, ten or so tracks…But I’ll be releasing things, well into the future…

…And I’ll get back to my regular albums, too.

– Steve

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The_Expressions_Forum_[Xmas]_SB_Archive

R.I.P. The Internet, 1983-2017…

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Date: November 20, 2017

01) R.I.P. The Internet, 1983-2017

“The head of the Federal Communications Commission is set to unveil plans next week for a final vote to reverse a landmark 2015 net neutrality order barring the blocking or slowing of web content, two people briefed on the plans said.

In May, the FCC voted 2-1 to advance Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to withdraw the former Obama administration’s order reclassifying internet service providers as if they were utilities. Pai now plans to hold a final vote on the proposal at the FCC’s Dec. 14 meeting, the people said, and roll out details of the plans next week.

Pai asked in May for public comment on whether the FCC has authority or should keep any regulations limiting internet providers’ ability to block, throttle or offer “fast lanes” to some websites, known as “paid prioritization.” Several industry officials told Reuters they expect Pai to drop those specific legal requirements but retain some transparency requirements under the order.”

Internet Citizens: Defend Net Neutrality [2014]:

I’m not really sure how this will play out…I mean…the online resources I tend to most use [WordPress, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, etc.], are big and well established…

…But I’d be shocked if this internet coup doesn’t happen…despite that virtually everybody is dead set against it.

I don’t know if this is going to mean higher internet bills, in order to reasonably access much of the content online…or if the cost is all going to be dumped on individual companies and people who own that content…Either way, it’s likely to be catastrophic.

At least if it falls upon the individual internet subscriber…they have some type of potential for easy access, across the board…But if everything is reliant on the individual abilities of millions of companies and people, then even that potential will no longer exist.

The true power of the internet has always been, that even the grossly disenfranchised groups can have their own easy to access networks and media…Internet culture, is primarily about “the alternative”…

What’s happening right now, is likely the old media companies trying to re-establish their dominance over the public…in an age where few people even want what they have to offer.

We all know this is coming, eventually…They’re not going to stop…

…They’re getting weaker…and it seems, it’s time to make their strike.

…Maybe, it’s their “Hail Mary”?…

…Wouldn’t it be nice to imagine, that they’ll fail at this…crumble…go away, and stop harassing us?…

…If they had any respect for the public, they’d have stopped a long, long time ago.

Seth Andrews: The Satanic Panic – The Witch Hunt of the Late Twentieth Century…

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Atheist_Media
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Date: November 19, 2017

01) Seth Andrews: The Satanic Panic – The Witch Hunt of the Late Twentieth Century

“Join Seth Andrews for a humorous (and occasionally shocking) romp through The Satanic panic of the 70s, 80s and 90s.

His speech was given at the 2017 Florida Freethought Conference.”

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Atheist_Media_SB_Archive – Atheist Media Links

CRISPR…

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….

Date: November 19, 2017

01) Update: CRISPR

02) Direct Download [MP3]

“It’s been almost two years since we learned about CRISPR, a ninja-assassin-meets-DNA-editing-tool that has been billed as one of the most powerful, and potentially controversial, technologies ever discovered by scientists. In this episode, we catch up on what’s been happening (it’s a lot), and learn about CRISPR’s potential to not only change human evolution, but every organism on the entire planet.

Out drinking with a few biologists, Jad finds out about something called CRISPR. No, it’s not a robot or the latest dating app, it’s a method for genetic manipulation that is rewriting the way we change DNA. Scientists say they’ll someday be able to use CRISPR to fight cancer and maybe even bring animals back from the dead. Or, pretty much do whatever you want. Jad and Robert delve into how CRISPR does what it does, and consider whether we should be worried about a future full of flying pigs, or the simple fact that scientists have now used CRISPR to tweak the genes of human embryos.”

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The Black Community, Education, and Taking Down Statues (Johnny C. Taylor Pt. 1)…

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Date: November 19, 2017

01) The Black Community, Education, and Taking Down Statues (Johnny C. Taylor Pt. 1)

“Johnny C. Taylor (CEO, The Thurgood Marshall College Fund) joins Dave to discuss historically black colleges and universities, The Thurgood Marshall College Fund, the family dynamic within the black community, the debate surrounding taking down monuments and statues, incarceration within the black community, and more.”

Immigration Debate and Racial Tensions in America (Johnny C. Taylor Pt. 2):