Archive for January, 2010
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Two Tuned Tablas And A Microphone Part II: Ululate To The Party
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on January 16, 2010 by admin in Music
Saturday, January 16th, 2010Who knew Brimful of Asha was considered desi? Part two of our look at desi pop and hip hop with Panjabi MC, Notorious Jatt, Juggy D, Punjabi By Nature, and the Rishi Rich Project.
In part one of our little exploration of desi pop, we mentioned the difficulty of sifting through complex history of the music, and the mountain of material that’s out there. Even after a lot of digging, that remained an obstacle to finding material we thought worth sharing. A great example of just how convoluted the history is would be the 1997 international hit Brimful of Asha, by Cornerstore. You almost certainly know the tune, but likewise, you almost certainly don’t know that it’s considered desi. There’s a great explanation of how it’s a Bollywood tribute here. This kind of music also really needs some better distribution channels and terminology. A good example of the lack of terminology is Juggy D’s Sohniye, which has a little reggae-ish tinge, but not enough bhangra feel to use one of the few common terms like bhangramuffin. Juggy D, by the way, is one of three fairly established UK artists that gained most of their recognition via the Rishi Rich Project, the others being Rishi Rich himself, and Jay Sean. For my tastes, the Rishi Rich crew is a bit too white bread R&B. A little more up my alley is stuff like Notorious Jatt. Never mind his affected smooth gangsta fashions, this dude can ululate, and throws down some fat-bottomed rhythms. I especially like the urban-to-turban Marrey Dil Vaaliyan De’. In the same way that you’d have to have a serious nerve disorder to not move to mambo, you’ve got a serious problem if that tune doesn’t cause something in you to wiggle a little. Also inclined to make something in you move is Panjabi By Nature’s Jaan Punjabi. I have no idea who the featured rapper in that clip is; help me out if you do. A rapper I do recognize is Jay-Z, who manages to not get in the way too much in Panjabi MC’s Beware, which is a bit funkier than these other tunes while still maintaining the Panjabi vibe. As we get a better grasp on the larger view of this incredibly diverse market, we’ll be back in part three with a list of the best sources we’ve found, and clips from about ten more artists we’d like to share. For now, enjoy the clips below, and feel free to correct any artist names or song titles. Or turn us on to artists we should know about. Read the rest of this entry »
Is Obama’s Proposed Bank Tax Purely Political?
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on January 15, 2010 by admin in Politics
Friday, January 15th, 2010Well OF COURSE it’s political, but something like it is certainly warranted. Or maybe we could do the old Roman thumbs-up thumbs-down thing, complete with lions and stuff.
If you’re a conservative, you may be finding yourself in a slightly untenable position right now. Your obligatory knee-jerk response to Obama’s new proposed tax on bailed out banks will be to say: “Sure. More taxes are the solution for everything for you ignorant weepy liberals“. At least that’s the stance of business-minded republicans like Tom Donohue, the CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce, who calls the plan a bad idea. So why is your position going to be untenable? Well, the first part of your problem is that if they’re not taxing the banks, they’ll be taxing you and your offspring for generations to come. And because the next part of your argument is going to be that that the banks won’t even feel it, or will pass the buck to consumers. Which suggests that either a.) The fees should be even higher, or b.) That we need to regulate the banks so they’ll stop raping the consumer and anybody else in sight that they’re not directly invested in. Granted, this is a complicated situation, and there’s a fair amount of political populism in the president’s proposal, but how could any American – other than a banker who just got his multimillion dollar bonus, of course – be against the idea of punitive measures against the bankers who created this entire travesty continuing to benefit from their failures and miscalculations? I mean, especially if you believe in Ayn Rand-driven laissez-faire capitalism like a good Republican should? Even Timothy Geithner says it’s sensible. Of course, he’s got his own problems, so maybe that’s some personal damage control at work. In any case, I have a better idea for dealing with the bankers. Put it to simple popular vote and see what the average hardworking American would do about it. I’m sure the results would be fairly grisly, but gratifying. What do you think?
The Greenest Detroit Auto Show Ever
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 14, 2010 by admin in Clean & Green, Technology
Thursday, January 14th, 2010Ford’s Better Ideas Make Other Carmakers Green With Innovation
 This guy may be a little disappointed if he bought the “chick magnet” pitch |
While it’s usually the concept cars that grab a lot of attention at the Detroit Auto Show, this year, it’s the REAL cars that are stealing the show. And there’s probably a message in the fact that two of the biggest stars at the 2010 Show are companies that didn’t accept bailout money to float the top-heavy, profit starved, gas-guzzling monstrosity that is the Detroit auto business. It’s inspiring that amidst the rather bleak economic environment that is Michigan, there’s a lot of hope and inspiration for a smarter, cleaner future for the industry, and Ford in particular is leading the way. After being the only of the big three to refuse bailout money last year, they were also the only one to enjoy a 33% sales rise in December! Now, they’re sweeping the auto show in a big way; their Fusion Hybrid and Transit Connect won the North American Car and Truck of the Year respectively. While the Transit Connect is neither hybrid nor electric, it’s part of the One Ford initiative, which will – among other things – bring the hipper fuel-efficient vehicles previously only available abroad to the states. Like the Fiesta, which we complained about some time ago. And there’s another unexpected force making a splash this year: The Chinese BYD hybrid. Go ahead and sneer at a Chinese-made car, but if you’re old enough, you may remember back when Japanese products were the low-quality laughingstock of global markets, and we all know how that ended up. BYD is no factory town upstart; one of the company’s major backers is Warren Buffet, who describes the company’s CEO Wang Chuan-Fu as a cross between GE’s Jack Welch and Thomas Edison. This CNN Money piece explains how the guy has so much faith in his company’s commitment to a green approach that he’ll drink the cars’ battery fluid to drive the point home. In my opinion, this is capitalism at its best: tough times driving innovation. And although the Transit Connect may not be a “chick magnet”, as Ford CEO Alan Mulally has suggested, this more in-depth Business Week piece gives you some insight into why Mulally’s vision may just turn Ford back into a world leader. Though they may have to fight with the Chinese to pull it off. Read the rest of this entry »
Privacy & Social Network Contact Management
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 13, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010Think you’re building a powerful contact list with sites like Facebook? Try exporting your contacts. AND: Why you might as well get used to a new definition of the word privacy.
 Online privacy? Puh! The future probably lies with initiatives like the DataPortability Project |
I was amused recently when people expressed surprise that Mark Zuckerberg publicly declared privacy a thing of the past, and wondered if the alleged tell-all by a former Facebook employee was for real. Please, people. How can you possibly expect to share vast amounts of personal data online using shopping sites, Facebook, and cloud services like Google Docs and then expect to maintain any semblence of true privacy? This apparently may be a generational issue, and personally, I find myself bridging the generations on this one. This whole issue was driven home hard for me recently, and here’s how: As part of my work over the past ten years, I’ve experimented casually with forms of social networking going all the way back to the now-defunct GeoCities.com. Although I’ve often consulted with clients to implement the various available tools, I’ve done little to use them myself in a purposeful way; although I’m a very social person, I’m also a very private person. As an example, although I’ve logged into Facebook daily for over a year, I don’t use it as a serious business tool, and don’t very often share serious personal thoughts on issues there. I’ve mostly used it to reconnect with old friends, meet a few new ones, and banter humorously with them. I also only have about 150 friends, because I’m not what what in pop lingo has been called a Facebook Friend Whore. In spite of this, and in spite of not being active on LinkedIn, Xing, or other more business-oriented sites, I have a primary network of about 300 valued contacts, and an extended contact list of maybe 1500 people. So while preparing to launch some new projects this year, I was aware that I’d have to update and verify my contact lists, which I try to do annually. The problem? Like me, you may have noticed (depending on your tech lifestyle) that – because of the pervasive adoption of texting, Skype, and Facebook – your e-mail volume and phone time have dropped off significantly over the past year. A lot of casual connecting – which is the very basis of successful networking – happens on sites like Facebook. Historically, I would maintain most of my contacts in Outlook or Thunderbird, and export this info to Excel to “massage” the data. This became profoundly problematic this year, when I was reminded that Facebook and other sites make it nearly impossible to export your contacts. In fact, they may shut down your account if you use certain tools to do so. So after doing a bunch of research, I ended up Read the rest of this entry »
Avatar, Suicide & Racism: So This Blue Guy Walks Into A Bar…
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on January 12, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010There’s a lot of debate about Avatar and racism, but the film is dangerous in other ways. It might make you suicidal, and you might even get SHOT.
 Yo. Why he gotta be blue? |
I made a deal with a friend a few months ago that we wouldn’t see Avatar without each other. Of course, people being people and all, she went ahead and saw it without me. I still haven’t seen it. But you know what? I’m starting to think I won’t need to. A similar thing happened to me with both “The Piano” and “The Crying Game”. I waited patiently for them to hit the theaters, didn’t go see them the first couple of weeks after release, and by then was afraid to see them for fear of being tragically disappointed after the frenzied press and word of mouth build-up. Fortunately, the press about the film’s impact has been entertaining enough in itself. First of all, the obvious debate about whether it’s racist? OF COURSE it’s racist. James Cameron (a rich white man) first found success with Terminator, a continuing story about enslaved beings that seek emancipation and in each movie get beaten back down by their oppressors. Why would he walk away from his cash cow? If you haven’t followed the debate, this MSNBC piece gives a good gloss over, but for a deeper look, this Psychology Today piece points out that the film also reinforces sexual stereotypes and leans heavily on the messiah angle as well. And from a more political standpoint, while some are quick to point out that Avatar is real and that Pandora is located in Central and South America and Africa, others suggest that China’s moviegoers rally to it as a story about private property, not race. None of this should be surprising; it’s qualities like this that give a film resonance. Yes. We live in a world where one race dominates commerce, and will do anything to gratify its greed. If you didn’t know this, maybe you should go read a book like Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
