And to be honest I just don’t like it down there. The place that I live is beautiful and right on the beach. There’s some good surf most days. But it’s just to remote for me, I’m a city boy I need to be connected to the web, news and well everyone. Its just impossible down there I’m stuck with a day and a half a week to try catch up with my on my news and job applications just doesn’t seem enough. At the moment I believe myself and west Cork are approaching the end of out brief relationship. I’ve made my choice with regard to what next and I won’t be finishing the course, I probably won’t stay in Kinsale past the end of January.

Maria Robinson once said,

“No one can go back and make a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending”

This current scandal is becoming less and less about the abuse that took place and more about the coverup that followed the abuse. To me this is worse than the actual abuse, purely based on the fact that so much would’ve been avoided if everything had been reported to the civil authorities. What strikes me most is the sheer arrogance of the church back then, I believe that in “Song for a Raggy Boy” this is shown best where, at the end the Bishop shows up and simply says it’s sorted. The probable involvement Cardinal Brady in the cover up and oaths of silence with two of Brendan Smiths victims is, actually I don’t have a word to describe the how deplorable that was. Words such as deplorable, shameful, inexcusable, heinous and despicable seem to mundane to even scratch the surface of the disgust that the nation as a whole feels about what has recently come to light.

For decades Irish people lived in fear of the church and the damage that was done in those decades is irreparable, From the magadalene laundries to the child abuse and the fear that the clergy could wield. Without challenge or question priests could destroy families and exile people from their communities. Despite all this the church still has their devout fanatics who insist that the church can do no wrong. The letter from the pope is apparently in the spirit of healing wounds and moving on. The problem is that these wounds should never have happened in the first place. For an organisation that’s core commandments are concerned with loving your fellow man and always selflessly for the greater cause of being good. They have exhibited an extreme case of selfishness that has destroyed hundreds if not thousands of lives across the world.

The catholic church seems to subscribe to the slogan of

Do as I say not as I do

To sum up in words the church may understand. You’ve lost most of the flock.

Given that the above is a general statement of the difference between the last two generations. The above will apply to different people in different degrees but some of the above applies to everyone born in those years. But then again they are very general attributes and I’m sure someone will point out that some of each applies to them. But that’s the nature of general assertions of a generations characteristics.

Anyhow apparently one of our greatest attributes is our complete rejection of the counter culture that was a major part of generation X and the 1960′s baby boomers. We don’t scorn our parents as previous generations have and surveys have shown that among generation Y college students in the US they talk to parents an average of 1.5 times a day about a variety of things instead of just a “checking up” conversation. We are also the most liberal generation ever with a large proportion being in favour of same sex marriage and LBGT rights. Despite us being a relatively liberal and progressive society, this generation has seen an increase in the number of youth organisations dedicated to the conservation of well conservative views and ideals.

In terms of technology we well rock! completely with the vast majority of us being completely techno-literate and adaptable to changes in technology user interfaces and the such. We IM, network and multi task like no generation has before thanks in large part to the explosion of the internet in the late 90′s and early 00′s. What surprises most of the older generation is out ability to multi task strangely enough. They can’t seem to comprehend how having an im conversation with 2/3 people, writing report and listening to some music is nothing out of the ordinary. Generation Y are also the most important component of the emerging web 2.0 trend. Without us and our seeming love of being connected to our friends sites like facebook, youtube and digg would never have taken off. Without this love of participation and being able to connect and share virtually everything we do with our friends almost instantly these sites would never have taken off the way they did.

One of the most interesting things I found when reading about generation Y was that we repeatedly shun big music industry manufactured artists and prefer to deal with independent bands and acts. This is one of the main reasons attributed to the indie rock breakthrough into the mainstream. Also shockingly we tend to live at home for longer than previous generations have. Also a fun fact is that we make up over 20% of the worlds population. So with most of having liberal and progressive social views and having the highest proportion of college graduates it seems like our generation could be the greatest ever. It’s possible that during our tenure of society that real change could happen. Maybe it’s already started with Barack Obama’s election in 2008 and the introduction of a bill in Ireland allowing same sex civil partnerships in 2009/2010. Things look like they are starting to change.

The reason that this block is so pointless is the same way that the napster situation in the late nineties early noughties was. unless every ISP agrees to block every site suspected of facilitating copyright infringement then banning just one or a selection of these sites is pointless. People are just going to switch to another site or service. Listening to an interview with an IRMA representative on the radio a few weeks ago it came across to me as though he genuinely believed that illegal downloading by Eircom customers was genuinely going to be stopped by this ban.

I don’t think that these people realise how the internet works, it goes beyond one I.P address, URL or set of servers. The pirate bay could very easily just copy everything across to a new set of servers with a new name and then the IRMA would be back to square one. It really is mind boggling. Being a child of the internet generation so to speak I am amazed at the fear of change exhibited by the big media companies. Being honest I see record companies influence diluting in favour of artists direct marketing to fans through services such as MySpace, iTunes and Facebook. Record sales were falling before napster and any of this became a topical issue. There’s a lot that could be said about how the napster incident was handled on both sides and being honest I don’t know enough about the subject to comment one way or the other about what happened. iTunes was released a few months later which I suppose could be seen as a happy compromise. (I’m a fan of iTunes btw).

I suppose now would be a good time to move onto my second point. I can’t understand why Eircom would allow this to happen. As an ISP (Internet Service Provider) they shouldn’t be censoring anything. It is not the duty of the ISP to filter content. What’s worse about this is that it has set a precedent now in Irish law. It is a bad precedent since it was all decided before it went before the court. The fact that it was stated in the Judges comments at the end of the trial maybe a saving grace for ISP’s that do not back down from the record companies. UPC and Esat BT have stated that they will not follow in Eircom’s foot steps. There is no legal condition in this country to force ISP’s to monitor their customers usage of broadband services. What it really boils down to is that Eircom backed down when threatened with legal action. Hopefully UPC and Esat BT which are larger companies and owned in turn by bigger multinationals will not.

Some justification for my first point maybe that they are only going to use this information to find out how much of their copyrighted material is available in YouTube and how many times it has been viewed. But can a private company whose sole purpose is to make money and increase profits really just ignore all that information that can be used for Marketing? Imagine it, one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world with access to millions of peoples personal details and viewing preferences. We could see a wave of spam and targeted marketing that nobody signed up for. What’s more if there are no conditions attached to the data, what is to stop Viacom selling the lists to spammers. I don’t believe that this is simply about the court case and an attempt by Viacom to gain access to a huge bank of data that SHOULD be kept confidential by Google.

There are various news reports that are quoting the various laws that this ruling may be infringing on. I’ll link to these at the end of the post.

But more worrying to me is that in recent times the US has become hypocritical and seem to have reverted to the dreaded McCarthyism of the 50′s and the cold war. Recently I found out that the Irish government have given the US government to carry acts of rendition on IRISH citizens that they believe have broken US law and allow them to take them out of the country without going near a court or the Irish judicial system. Also the US government is negotiating with the EU to make this “privilege” Europe wide.

America is after doing a 180 on its views. After the long staunch against communism and steel resolve for the freedom of expression and speech. It seems that American citizens must now be careful about what they say and think in public. Michael Moore’s films while they should be viewed with a pinch of salt do present a somewhat accurate account of what has been happening in American politics and law making in recent years.

But alas Europe is not much better, given the blatant bitch slap given to democracy and due process recently with Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. As soon as that NO vote was announced the treaty should have been dead in the water and abandoned. But no, at the EU in Brussels other member states were encouraged to continue and ratify the treaty. The country has voted NO and that should be it there should be no re vote. There needs to be a new treaty drafted and explained to the people in clear terms not with that farce of a leaflet they sent out.

Democracy which has been around since Ancient Greece, comes from to words Demo and Crate which mean power to the people. This seems to be failing lately as governments try and place more and more restrictions on their peoples. The words of V from the movie V for Vendetta ring especially clear to me lately.

There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the <Insert Relevant Government here>

And to finish another quote from V,

“People should not be afraid of their governments, Governments Should be afraid of their people”

Links to reports on the YouTube ruling.

BBC Reports

EFF.org Report

While I like the idea that there is a path layed out before me, bearing my life towards some sort of conclusion ( I’m hoping for a fireball in a very expensive car while being chased by Ninjas). The logical part of my brain which thankfully stays quiet most of the time won’t let this one lie. Although this may make sound like a schizophrenic its happens to be true, I have actually argued with myself over whether or not destiny/fate exists. And sadly the logical side has won…….for the time being

No point to this…just thought i should have something new Agey up……

iTunes provides most of the music anyone could ever want and on the US version you are even able to buy tv shows for as little as $2. It truly has revolutionised the consumer side of the music industry, has it depreciated the actual music?

If you listen to the previous generation listening to music was a big thing. Putting on a record when the house was quiet. Just listening to the album. When was the last time anyone from the ipod generation just sat and listened to what was on his/her ipod without doing anything else. Probably never. I’m as guilty of this as anybody else, whether its at the gym, walking, car trips or just reading. The music seems to have slowly being degraded to nothing more than background noise.

The Ipod is not totally to blame, most people will say that they don’t have time to listen to music there lives are too busy. With work, socialising going to the gym etc. but those aren’t real reasons, just excuses to cover up the fact that music doesn’t have the same effect it used to.

Sadly Eminem was the last person to have any sort of impact with his music. Among the homosexual communtities of the US. But was it really? If you look back at rock stars, like Jimmy Page and the Sex Pistols their lives were controversy not just their two songs on one album and there were no attempts to apologise with public displays to try and quiet the masses. It was simply this is me…..accept it or F*&k off.

To a large degree thats what all artists should be like. Music isn’t a 9 to 5 job with stock options and a good basic salary. Its a life style, all the people who are in the music buisness are there because they love it.

To quote James Hetfield of Metallica at Download in Dublin in 2006
“This next song goes out to every band who had played here, because they bring a smile to you and make our hearts sing with music, which is why I’m here”

It seems a common miss perception that the music industry is a way to get rich quick. Theres a reason that its called the hardest industry in the world. Because there are no guarantees, if you are a quailified doctor you can pretty much be guarateed a job.

But for the music industry, you need to have talent, the look and an audience willing to pay to hear you. Even if you have all those there is no guaratees that you’ll even get to cut a record let alone have a house on cribs.

But is it worth it?

yes

Well since you’re reading this I’m going to presume you do. I happen to be a huge music fan and what the soprano’s did is inexcusable in my eyes. They brought back a genre I’d hoped dead. 80′s Power-Ballad pop. Most people heard the first few seconds of Journey’s Don’t stop Believin’ wondering what the song was. Some “clever” DJ/researcher thought it would be a great laugh to play the song and tell everyone what it was from and who it was. Since then any request show has played it at least twice, plus the other DJ’s who just play it. (for reasons unknown)

Now I’m not a miserable old coot who resents popular culture or the retro side of things. And okay it has in some way relaunched Journey, they were top of the download charts on iTunes after the show.

What concerns me is that the whole 80′s power pop ballad genre could be resurrected. The flood gates could open to the proverbial uncle/dad’s embarrassing record collection. The airwaves will be jammed with Europe’s The Final Countdown, Van Halen’s Jump and who knows what else will come off the bargain shelf at HMV/Virgin.

One thing that is important to remember is that these songs were popular already…..and presumably there is a reason why they weren’t up until the Soprano’s played it.

Luckily for me since the summer is over, so are my radio listening days for a long time………

Hopefully

BTW this is just my opinion……