Check again Choggie

In reply to this comment by siftbot:
Sorry, but the requeue invocation has been removed; you must use promote instead - ignoring requeue request by choggie.

David Byrne is my hero (at least one of them). Check out his spot-on new article about changes in the music business: http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne

continued...

Togo sent Ambassador Sato to Moscow to feel out the possibility of a negotiated surrender. On July 13, four days before Truman, Churchill, and Stalin met in Potsdam to prepare for the end of the war (Germany had surrendered two months earlier), Togo sent a telegram to Sato: "Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace. It is his Majesty's heart's desire to see the swift termination of the war."

The United States knew about that telegram because it had broken the Japanese code early in the war. American officials knew also that the Japanese resistance to unconditional surrender was because they had one condition enormously important to them: the retention of the Emperor as symbolic leader. Former Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew and others who knew something about Japanese society had suggested that allowing Japan to keep its Emperor would save countless lives by bringing an early end to the war.

Yet Truman would not relent, and the Potsdam conference agreed to insist on "unconditional surrender." This ensured that the bombs would fall on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It seems that the United States government was determined to drop those bombs.

But why? Gar Alperovitz, whose research on that question is unmatched (The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, Knopf, 1995), concluded, based on the papers of Truman, his chief adviser James Byrnes, and others, that the bomb was seen as a diplomatic weapon against the Soviet Union. Byrnes advised Truman that the bomb "could let us dictate the terms of ending the war." The British scientist P.M.S. Blackett, one of Churchill's advisers, wrote after the war that dropping the atomic bomb was "the first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia."

There is also evidence that domestic politics played an important role in the decision. In his book, Freedom From Fear: The United States, 1929-1945 (Oxford, 1999), David Kennedy quotes Secretary of State Cordell Hull advising Byrnes, before the Potsdam conference, that "terrible political repercussions would follow in the US" if the unconditional surrender principle would be abandoned. The President would be "crucified" if he did that, Byrnes said. Kennedy reports that "Byrnes accordingly repudiated the suggestions of Leahy, McCloy, Grew, and Stimson," all of whom were willing to relax the "unconditional surrender" demand just enough to permit the Japanese their face-saving requirement for ending the war.

Of course, political ambition was not the only reason for Hiroshima, Vietnam, and the other horrors of our time. There was tin, rubber, oil, corporate profit, imperial arrogance. There was a cluster of factors, none of them, despite the claims of our leaders, having to do with human rights, human life.

We face a problem of the corruption of human intelligence, enabling our leaders to create plausible reasons for monstrous acts, and to exhort citizens to accept those reasons, and train soldiers to follow orders. So long as that continues, we will need to refute those reasons, resist those exhortations.

wiki: Howard Zinn (born August 24, 1922) is an American historian, political scientist, social critic, activist and playwright, best known as author of the bestseller, A People's History of the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn

Howard Zinn served as Second Lieutenant and bombardier, U.S. Army Air Corps where he flew combat missions in Europe, 1943-45.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

It's like raaaein on your wedding.

Yep, great cover of the Byrne / Talking Heads tune.

Hate to nit-pick but "The" is not part of the band name. Just "Arcade Fire".

Actually an incredible tune by David Byrne.

Metagnostic
noun-a. beyond understanding; the unknowable.
© Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words, by Josefa Heifetz Byrne

No problem, fletch, I've been at the bottom of a pile before.

Perhaps you didn't see the Winky after "I see many votes." It was a joke. As for the methods used in this film, I agree they are panhandling to New Ageism through historical mysticism with nothing more but a new spin on Peale's book, but hey...it certainly worked for Byrne's dreams of success, hmmm?

I certainly don't believe that you can think yourself into health or success the way this film describes. I do however, think that you can have a powerful affect on your life with positive thoughts. My mother woke every day as if she had a chance to make it good, and it was. I definitely think that you can attract negativism if you constantly complain, and that negativism is a huge stressor on the human psyche. I avoid negativism (and sometimes even controversy) at almost all costs: I just don't waste my time dwelling on the negative aspects of every day situations or events. I certainly don't take all this as far as The Secret people do, I just know that I can control a very large part of my psyche, even my life, by harnassing positive energy. Generally I just choose to be happy and make it good. And for the most part...it works.

I simply detest this woman, her video and her goddamn book.

Nothing what she says is a secret, it's common sense that has existed for eons. If it was called "Positive Thinking For the Win" no one would have bought the book, but it's called the Secret and sold off as being some ancient texts and rubbish like that becuase it's the same rehashed story you can find in Self-Help texts dating back to the 19th century.

It's just so vapidly stupid... Her entire case is that if you think about it hard enough it will happen? Oh yeah? Tell that to the people in Darfur or Iraq am sure they can just wish all the death and violence away.

Oh I found something that does a much better job...

Karin Klein, editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times, called The Secret "just a new spin on the very old (and decidedly not secret) The Power of Positive Thinking [book by Norman Vincent Peale (1952)] wedded to 'ask and you shall receive'." The editorial, in one of its strongest criticisms, asserted Rhonda Byrne "took the well-worn ideas of some self-help gurus, customized them for the profoundly lazy, [and] gave them a veneer of mysticism..."

Journalist Jeffrey Ressner, reporting in Time, writes that some critics are concerned with the film’s attitude toward "using ancient wisdom to acquire material goods." In one example in the film, "a kid who wants a red BMX bicycle cuts out a picture in a catalog, concentrates real hard, and is rewarded with the spiffy two-wheeler."

Jerry Adler of Newsweek notes that despite the film's allusions to conspiratorially suppressed ancient wisdom, the notions presented by the motivational speakers who make up the film's cast have been commonplace for decades. Adler notes that the film is ethically "deplorable," fixating on "a narrow range of middle-class concerns — houses, cars, vacations, followed by health and relationships, with the rest of humanity a very distant sixth." Noting that the scientific foundations of the movie are clearly dubious, the Newsweek article quotes psychologist John Norcross, characterizing it as "pseudoscientific, psychospiritual babble."

Tony Riazzi, columnist for the Dayton Daily News, also questions the merits of The Secret, calling Byrne's background as a reality TV producer a "red flag." He also said that "The Secret's" ideas are nothing more than "common sense. Take out the buzzwords and pseudo religious nonsense about what you 'manifest' for yourself, ignore the vague prose and you get the message that thinking positively serves you better than thinking negatively."

Ok...I wouldn't count on The Secret for curing my cancer (if I had it), but positive thinking definitely works wonders. There's a book out and people are jumping on the bandwagon. This type of thought process can be beneficial...My parents taught me this theory a long time ago. Professionally I've taught classes on Emotional Intelligence, alot of this stuff really holds true: You are only as good as you think you are, create positive energy, avoid the negative. Visualize success to make it happen...

I see many upvotes.

Ed Byrne on Wiki...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Byrne

Emerson,Lake and Palmer, Zappa, Fripp, Bowie, Joplin,......soul....heart......the muse.....Joss Stone, Don Was, Mark Mothersbaugh, David Byrne, Annie Lennox,Laurie Anderson,Butthole Surfers, 13th Floor Elevators,Sex Pistols,Ramones,Bootsy Collins,la lal lal lal alllaaaa lla lalall a lala lal aqualuuuuuunnngggg!!!.......

Hexstatic is a UK music duo, consisting of Stuart Warren Hill and Robin Brunson, that specializes in creating "quirky audio visual electro."

Formed in 1997 after Hill and Brunson met while producing visuals at the Channel Five launch party, they decided to take over for the original members of the Ninja Tune multimedia collective Hex that had disbanded around the same time.

They soon collaborated with Coldcut for the Natural Rhythms Trilogy, including the critically acclaimed A/V single Timber. Much of their music involves integrated visual experiences, and both of their main album releases have been CD and DVD combinations; the latest, Master-View, includes 3D "anaglyph" versions of some of their music videos and comes packaged with 3D glasses. Hexstatic has also been instrumental in designing VJ equipment, including the Pioneer DVJ-X1 professional DVD player. Other artists they have worked with include EBN, Juice Aleem and David Byrne of the Talking Heads.

- More @ Wikipedia

Tags changed from "narfwaur,canada,pop,puppetry,byrne" to "nardwuar, canada, pop, puppetry, byrne" by gold star member rickegee.

...me too, sometimes that makes the post....my favorite...
"Beauty Kit for Little Girls"-and, incicentally, in the category of the bizzaro, best Viddy of the Year.....


From True Stories, Byrne conceptualized a small Texas town , its many complexities, and a Celebration of Specialness,
which culminates in the best Talent Show ever filmed, in a Texas cowfield....Anyone know where this was filmed????