Scholars and activists, personally through Detroit City of Hope, have made me aware that what is transpiring right now in the world is more than a recession or something contrived like globalization. It is a transition and an evolution. As a species we are asking ourselves the simple question what it means to be human. Think about your 7th grade socials studies class when you learned about hunting and gathering, agriculture, and then industrialization. Right now we are in the transition into something new, something unknown. Right now we may call it “post” industrialization but intuition manifests that it may be something else. Detroit is a focal point of this “something else”. Detroit is offering alternatives.

The Zeitgeist Movement leads us up to this point. Right now it is two documentary movies. Some alternatives are offered for humanity’s future, especially The Venus Project, but the crux of the Zeitgeist Movement is to exmaine how the powers that be (whether subconsciously or intentionally) have controlled and corrupted our human evolution. Quite literally on the surface it looks to be money and power but it goes deeper than that…it is the control of how people relate to the sun, the moon, and the stars.

Make a point to look up at the sky.

I digress- the point of this post is deepindub.org. This is another netlabel which describes this movement in music right now.
According to Wikipedia a netlabel is-

A netlabel(also online label, web label or MP3 label)is a record label that distributes its music primarily through digital audio formats (mainly MP3 or Ogg Vorbis) over the Internet. While similar to traditional record labels in many respects, netlabels typically emphasize free distribution online, often under licenses that encourage works to be shared (e.g., Creative Commons licenses), and artists usually retain copyright. Most employ guerrilla marketingto promote their work; few netlabels earn money for participants.

Deepindub.org is my world right now. My ipod is maxed out. I have hours and hours of music to listen to. This is Basic Channel type stuff. Dubby future. Night time snow driving desolation to let go to. Big up to this crew from Italy. The world comes together in this transition.

I also love the lo fi computer animations. so random. so pure. so raw. so corny. so sexy. so punk.

One of the sites I use ZapReader for is Stratfor- Geopolitical Intelligence. According to their website:

Stratfor provides published intelligence and customized intelligence service for private individuals, global corporations, and divisions of the US and foreign governments around the world. Stratfor intelligence professionals routinely appear at conferences and as subject-matter experts in mainstream media.

They offer a free email of a sampling of their report which I signed up for. What is striking to me is the indepthness of the report. It shows how we are so misinformed, perhaps not even intentionally, as we absorb so much on websites, tv, and radio. There is so much information out there and we’ve been trained to go to one soundbite to the next.

In the first email that was sent to me it described the current conflict in Gaza:

The reaction from the Arab world has been mixed. On the one hand, a look at the so-called Arab street will reveal an angry scene of chanting protesters, burning flags and embassy attacks in protest of Israel’s actions. The principal Arab regimes, however, have either kept quiet or publicly condemned Hamas for the crisis — while privately often expressing their support for Israel’s bid to weaken the radical Palestinian group.

This lengthy article talks about the undercurrents of what is going on this conflict from a global perspective. It goes beyond Israel and Hamas, it is tied in with Egypt, Syria, and Saudia Arabia.  They connect the dots. Read up.

This past week I was speaking with a colleague in the accounting field. We both commented how there is so much information and news out there especially to us who have ditched the nostalgia of printed newspapers. Times are tough. Knowledge is power. Some resort to prescription pills to make them more clairvoyant, stay up longer and retain more. We’re junkies.

Here’s a speed reading drug for you. Absorb it all in. ZapReader. Hit on the reader, copy and paste  text in and select your desired words per minute from 100 all the way upto 500. The words flash one by one, one after the other. For lengthy articles I want to read I’ve started using this. I notice I take the information in differently, it’s almost like I’m using a different part of my brain for comprehension. Its more subliminal and seems to go deeper into my subconscious. I imagine news sites will be offering content in this format. How sweet would it be if sites heavy on text content had a little widget where this just popped up and you could read it as such. Or reading this way on your mobile device. It’s coming.

We’re junkies.

In this third part Grace Lee Boggs talks about the misconceptions of Detroit, the future of the automobile industry, and projects she has been working on, namely Detroit City of Hope.

High Resolution Media – Grace Lee Boggs – Part 3

In this past politically charged year we heard so much labeling of a candidate as “socialist” or policies billed as capitalist or communist. Like the latest music fad, these terms are thrown around without knowledge of what they mean or where they come from. When folks start saying, “He’s a socialist”, what does that really mean?

I asked in my interview with Grace Lee Boggs to try and explain these words from her rich political and academic background. As Bob Marley called them, the ism schism, I asked what are all these “isms”. One popped up I wasn’t necessarily expecting- humanism.

A few items of interest from the interview.

a poem from William Wordsworth:

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.–Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Also mentioned in the interview a reference to Immanuel Wallerstein, author of The Modern World System.

High Resolution Media – Grace Lee Boggs – Part 2

I have always been inspired by Mrs. Boggs’ fearless and tireless spirit, not to mention her intellect. She has also lived in the city of Detroit since 1953. It was an honor to sit down with her. This is the first part of a few podcasts.

I began by asking her about what the city was like 50-60 years ago. There is so much heart and soul in the city, and driving around, one senses the ghosts of Detroit’s economic heyday. I was curious to her thoughts. It is very interesting how she reflects on Detroit’s economic and social history and relates it to the event’s of today, specifically the Obama election.

Some links applicable to the interview.
Boggs Center
Boggs Center Blog
Grace Lee Boggs’ columns at the Michigan Citizen
Also mentioned in the podcast- Shrine of the Black Madonna

High Resolution Media – Grace Lee Boggs – Part 1

Podcast 11

And it gets kind of tiresome driving around all the bombed out buildings, especially when you travel to another city and see and feel what vibrancy is about. The disconcerting thing about Detroit is that it once was the center of the world in an economic and even cultural sense. You would think there were vast remnants of that era. A onetime visitor might see and feel the skeleton which conjures up archetypal ruins a la the fabulous ruins of detroit. What can seem strange though, the more you spend time is the ghosts have gone. The result is emptiness.

So now I’m commuting twice a day up and down 8 mile and ending up in Warren. A new side of town for me. I realize something about Detroit, not to be flippant or negative. It’s the model of our country’s economy. The system is falling, some call it a recession, whatever. The big boys and the big boxes are in trouble much like the auto industry began falling in the 70s and 80s. When the system fell, people left, and people who stayed became hungry. Detroit demonstrates this.

There is a new economy emerging, one I am hopeful and eager to see grow. It’s in Detroit, you gotta know and you gotta look, and that’s what is fascinating. As the economy rises the ghosts will come back.