Southisms officially endorses Obama

• Author: Kim
• Filed under: 'Ze Think Tank, Ethics, Politics, Society
• Date: Oct 29,2008

Just so we’re clear, kids, I am not a US registered voter nor am I a citizen yet. My mom’s Republican husband is voting for McCain (despite initially rooting for the more formidable Ron Paul), naturally with the intention of keeping Obama from winning the presidency. If you are a registered American voter, I advise you to vote for Obama instead and let me tell why you shouldn’t vote McCain.

If you are voting McCain, you will give the presidency the political leverage to continue to spend more money on the expensive and highly unethical war in Iraq.  As Nicholas Kristof of NY Times had put:

An American President who keeps troops in Iraq indefinitely, fulinates about Islamic terrorism, inclines toward military solutions and antagonizes other nations is an excellent recruiting tool. In contrast, an African-American president with a Muslim gradnfather and a penchant for building bridges rather than blowing them up would give Al Qaida recruiters fits.

If you are voting McCain, the likely chance that your ability to afford medical services will not change from the way they are now.  Under McCain’s policy, it will result to Americans still battling with self-interested insurance companies rather than government securing that the insurance is not a question but a right. McCain proposes that the US government should have nothing to do with insurance and is leaving your health care in the hands of those who wish to make money out of you.  Good luck.

If you are voting McCain, you will be backing a leader who is hesitant in sending foreign aid where the world needs it, panders to the interest of private corporations and has a little or no humanitarian world view.

Finally, if you are voting McCain, you will give the government the power to withhold or insufficiently subsidize important government responsibilities apart from health care, and that is education, advanced medical research and improved domestic welfare.

Listen to the Global preference, a cry for reason.   You are not only voting for an American leader but a world power.  Understand the gravity of your choice and how it impacts people across the globe.  Sense the desperation for renewal in American leadership and political narrative. 

Vote Obama. Vote Change.

Nokia E71 White and my current phone playlist

• Author: Kim
• Filed under: 'Ze Think Tank, Artist: Foreign, Music, Playlists, Technology
• Date: Oct 16,2008

I was able to do a phone trial for WOMWorld for the new Nokia E71. I wrote an extensive review on my other blog which I hope you guys should check out. Here’s an excerpt:

Their E71 model inspires enthusiasm among Nokia consumers especially among the growing number of people who have jumped in to the Wireless LAN bandwagon. Personally, it’s about time that mobile phones began to fully embrace the internet and enhance its flexibility and capability to surf it.

It also has its own built-in music player which comes in handy if you don’t have your own mp3 player like in my situation. I use the phone to listen to the Music I’m in to at the moment so I’ll let you in on some of the songs on my current list.

• Ellen Allien & Apparat - Do not break
• Sigur Ros- Gobbledigook
• Trentemoller - Miss you
• De la Mancha - Lotus seven

By the way, the song from Sigur Ros on my playlist from their newest album entitled in a long Icelandic name I can hardly pronounce. The album is a bit happier than the more epic tunes we’re so used to hear from the band like from the original soundtrack of the movie Vanilla Sky. Speaking of movies, the movie The Fountain which is a personal favorite features the song from Trentemoller, a pensive new age tune. Check ‘em out.

Y’all have a nice weekend!

Long gone the days of Urban to the new Hip-hop tripe

• Author: Kim
• Filed under: 'Ze Think Tank, Artist: Foreign, Genre: Hip-hop, Mainstream, Movies
• Date: Oct 6,2008

The movie The Wackness starring Josh Peck and Ben Kingsley was so nostalgic.  It might be a classic Sundance bleeding heart movie, but you could easily forgive the theme when you listen to the music featured on the film.  It was the music of 1994 - such a great year for music, championing in that time are greats like A tribe called Quest and even The Smashing Pumpkins who really shook the scene with the release of Siamese Dream, which was in my opinion the best album they released.

But let’s talk about the state of Hip-hop now. The truth is, I’m a snob when it comes to mainstream Top 40 Rap, Hip-hop and RnB, if you could call it that.  It all began when these Hip-hop artists wanted to sound more like SoSoDef.   Suddenly, Hip-hop wasn’t soul music anymore, or talked about the harsh realities of racism and ghetto violence.  It wasn’t the music that we used to call in the 90’s as Urban.  The tripe you hear from Hip-hop these days are about grinding, girls on the side, car upgrades and partying.   Not that these wouldn’t count for realities, but where’s the depth?

I knew that the death of Tupac changed the face of hip-hop.  Kanye West is trying to revive part of the glory that belonged to that great era of Urban, but he doesn’t have the exquisite rhyme of old school artists nor enough humility to really overcome the insipidness of the mainstream that riddles his exposure. We can’t identify deep issues from the likes of new hip-hop artists like Eminem or Nelly or T-Pain.

The groups who managed to resist the trend of materialism that is evident in most Hip-hop music have disappeared in the background of the multimedia spectacularism, simply because they choose not to.  If you’re attentive enough, you realise that music pundits harp about them, appealing to everyone’s music sensibility.  But strangely, there’s just not enough promotion: most of the MTV generation just doesn’t buy in to that kind of music anymore.   The mainstream music entices its lot with people’s vanity and hype not their intelligence.

The Roots are one of those artists who have stood their ground.  In 2002, they released an album entitled Phrenology. Phrenology is the pseudo science of assessing the figure of someone’s head to determine their intelligence - an idea which used to justify racism.

Peace out.

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The Roots - The Seed [Download] [Lyrics]

Li Eid il Feter Al Mubarrak: End of Ramadan

• Author: Kim
• Filed under: 'Ze Think Tank, Artist: Foreign, Indie, Music
• Date: Oct 3,2008

I know this is a couple of days late, but I believe I have never mentioned to anyone on this blog that I’d love to go to Istanbul someday.   My curiosity was piqued when Kaye gave me a promotional music CD for a hotel in Istanbul.  It’s a full album featuring different Turkish artists, and although still bordering on the electronica, it wasn’t the Trance Eurasia music I had expected were proponents of their country’s scene.  The Music was more diverse than I expected. The Point Hotel’s album collection is aptly titled, “Sweet Dreams”, like you could dream about a very culturally sacrosanct Byzantine Turkey while you’re in Modern Istanbul (formerly Constantinople). I am very in love with the track entitled, “Pink Wings”, which sports undertones of the Islamic beat combined with ethereal vocals.

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Point Hotel - Pink Wings [Download]

Again, Eid’l Fet’r.