Here’s some background on “safety” at oil companies, in this case BP. Tthey really have to to cut costs at any price – or this is what the managers learned in business school.
More at the Frontline homepage.
artefact of extinct culture and people: Easter Island Long Ear Statue
In this video Jared Diamond is talking about the collapsing of societies. He shortly mentions new facts to account for the happenings to the Easter Island people and more recently the Salomon Islanders. I find this stuff highly interesting, what about you?
https://www.ted.com/talks/jared_diamond_on_why_societies_collapse
More on easter island by Jared Dianmond.
A while ago I posted a link to the work in progress, here it is now filled to the brim.
200 Exotica Music Videos on YouTube
The Leak appears to be plugged, 7/15/2010, here’s hoping the cap will hold the pressure.
Believe it or not, I heard this tune for the first time tonight and when I saw how many versions there are on YouTube and considering the nearness of spring I made a playlist for you!
link to the YouTube playlist Spring is Nearly Here.
The father of the Beach Boys’ Wilson brothers was the personified dark cloud over the family. Now a lengthy letter surfaced on the internet that documents this. Apparently in his own words.
Quote from Letters of Note:
In 1964, less than three years after the release of their first single Surfin' and following many years of psychological and physical abuse, Murry Wilson was fired as manager of The Beach Boys by his son Brian. A year later, Murry wrote him the following eight page letter. In it, he blames Brian's mother for their ongoing rift due to her less severe punishment techniques, questions Brian's honesty and the actions of his friends in the music business, and even recommends that Brian dissolve the band as soon as possible in order to avoid any future problems. It's an incredibly interesting – albeit dark – snapshot of a showbiz family in free-fall, made all the more remarkable when you consider that just a few months after this was written, The Beach Boys began to record Pet Sounds, an album regarded by many as one of the best ever produced.
Quote from the actual letter:
No matter how many hit songs you write or how many hundreds of thousands of dollars you may earn, you will find when you finish this short cycle of Beach Boy success that you didn’t do it honestly and for this reason you are going to suffer remorse. I have been trying to fight you on every act of what I thought was not honest to protect you from yourself some five or seven years later; because I knew that when competition hit you between the eyes that you would not be able to cope with this vicious competition, regardless of how talented you are, because you got so much much too fast and the fact that you used your own father and then threw him away when you thought you didn’t need him will come back into your mind over and over again.
via Letters of Note: All I tried to do was make you all honest men.
Domenic Priore writes this, check it out here:
Pop expo: A column explained.
Here’s a playlist of 40 pretty random skating (as in sidewalk surfing) videos on YouTube. I never searched systematically. Obviously I find 60s and longboard films the most interesting, you don’t have to turn down the sound as much as with some of the hectic stuff.
YouTube – Broadcast Yourself..