A fine documentary about how the 'Me, Me, Me Generation' are little more than a bunch of unintentional corporate shills being exploited through their use of social media...
'Thanks to social media, today's teens are able to directly interact with their culture - artists, celebrities, movies, brands, and even one another - in ways never before possible. But is that real empowerment? Or do marketers still hold the upper hand? In Generation Like, author and Frontline correspondent Douglas Rushkoff (The Merchants Of Cool and The Persuaders) explores how the perennial teen quest for identity and connection has migrated to social media - and exposes the game of cat-and-mouse that corporations are playing with these young consumers. Do kids think they're being used? Do they care? Or does the perceived chance to be the next big star make it all worth it? The film is a powerful examination of the evolving and complicated relationship between teens and the companies that are increasingly working to target them.' (The Pirate Bay magnet link).
'Biologist & writer Rupert Sheldrake explains how each species of animal has a collective memory, his definition of the Science Delusion, how living in India helped develop his theories, why he particularly enjoys 3-way conversations, and how he's never met anyone as lively and fun to be with as Terence McKenna.'
You just know that some idiot is going to try snorting this...
'Palcohol - powdered alcohol - is a new American product that can be sprinkled on all sorts of dishes and drinks. According to the company’s website, Palcohol is the brainchild of Mark Phillips, a physically active guy who was tired of lugging heavy bottles of alcohol during his adventures. So he decided to create instant alcohol - just open the sachet, add some water and get a strong drink to enjoy whenever and wherever he wanted.
'Initially, Mark did search for powdered alcohol on the market, but it wasn’t available. So he got together with scientists from around the world and spent years in experiments, research and consultation. Finally, he succeeded in making powdered alcohol a reality, and called it Palcohol. “Now Palcohol is here,” declared the website. “A great convenience for a person on the go. One package weighs about an ounce and is small enough to fit into any pocket.” The product is now privately owned by a company called Lipsmark.' (Oddity Central article).
Brian Limond is probably one of the most underrated comedians on the planet. Here's a playlist of just about everything he's done to date as far as his series Limmy's Show is concerned.
If you're not Scottish then the language might be a barrier to you, but stick with it and watch it all. This is some of the best observational comedy I've seen to date...
Myself and good friend Dazbo (one of the true-life characters in my book Bothy Culture), are heading off-grid for a week-long bothy bagging cycle tour around the Scottish Central Highlands. As a result there will be no updates to media underground during that period.
'The world's first Cosmonaut; everyone knows his name, but few people ever knew the man. Some say Yuri Gagarin's iconic first spaceflight was the product of immense good fortune. Others believe he was destined for greatness. With the 80th anniversary of his birth drawing near, RT meets some of Gagarin's friends and family, who tell the more personal and untold story of the first man ever to venture into space.' (Russia Today documentary).
Today could turn out to be an historic day for Scotland. At last, the way our land is owned, used, traded and subsidised is being put under some long overdue close scrutiny. There is still an awful long way to go before meaningful Land Reform takes place - and powerful vested interests will need to be taken on - but this is undoubtedly a step in the right direction.
Unbelievably the simple question of 'Who owns what?' in Scotland is still not fully answered, but of course many landowners enjoy and subsequently benefit from such blurry murkiness. So the first task, as this report points out, is to create a robust public register of Scotland's land. Vitally, this report also starts to throw some light on the huge tax-break, tax evasion, corporate investment and massive subsidy sink-hole that much of Scotland's land has become. I watch with interest and I live in hope.
'In a Report published on Thursday 20 March 2014, the Scottish Affairs Committee says any government which is serious about land reform needs full and clear information on existing land ownership and values made widely available.
'The Committee says Scotland lags behind most comparable European countries in providing such data and calls on the Scottish and UK Governments to address this as a priority.
'The Committee heard that Scotland is also “miles behind” other countries in terms of the openness and ease of land transactions. Templates exist which allow land transactions to become simple and straightforward, without the involvement of lawyers.' (UK Parliament article & interim report).
The recent promises delivered by the beastly Johann Lamont (of the Labour Party) remind me of those made by the nitwit Alec Douglas-Home (of the Tory Party) during the 1979 referendum on devolution. One only hopes that the people of Scotland remember these failed promises and vote accordingly...
'In 1979, the No campaign was run by the same commercial and political forces now in play. The Labour Government was notionally in favour of its own legislation, which it had allowed to be crippled by the 40% rule. It sat passive, leaving the trade unions and opposing Labour MPs to join with the Conservatives in opposing the creation of an Assembly with minimal powers.
'Yet the deceptions and threats were still being made. The Assembly, they said, would lead to a wholesale withdrawal of Scottish industry with loss of jobs. The oil located in Scotland's waters was British. It wasn't all that valuable. It would run out and where would Scotland be then? Impoverished and ruined was the answer. And weren't we under a duty to be selfless and help out England's poor? Further generations of those English poor - and Scotland's too are still with us - and using food banks for survival.
'Fifteen years after the setting up of the Scottish Parliament, the disaster has not happened. None of Scotland's companies kept to their threats to pull out. Instead many of the objectors have prospered. If there has been any problem affecting Scottish commerce it has come from the mismanagement of the British economy and its cataclysmic failure to control the credit explosion from which came the 2008 depression.' (Herald article).
'Abby Martin takes a look the state of media today, highlighting instances of journalists who have gone against the editorial lines of their respective networks. Abby also speaks with investigative journalist and former CNN reporter Amber Lyon, about her experience with media censorship and the topic of journalist integrity in a time when disinformation is abound.'
I've been anticipating the arrival of this documentary series for months now. Finally it is here...
'Like David Attenborough, Carl Sagan’s success as a presenter came from a sincere and unrivalled passion for his subject. As he proved with his BBC lectures in the 1970s, he didn’t need props or special effects to be interesting; he spoke as well interacting with a group of school children as he did strolling along a beach, or standing next to a cardboard cut-out of what was supposed to be a spaceship.
'Yet even when these devices were employed, such as in his landmark series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, the project upon which Sagan’s legacy still rests, he himself always remained effortlessly fascinating.
'When he died of pneumonia in 1993, it seemed extremely unlikely that there would ever be a follow-up to the series, or whether a worthy successor to carry on in Sagan’s place would ever be found. But now, thirty-four years after the original aired, it returns, this time hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, presenter of PBS’s Nova ScienceNow and one of Sagan’s close friends during his lifetime.
'Gone this time around are the cardboard cut-outs and what Tyson calls “mutton chops” - i.e. scenes in which historical events are acted out by actors in tights and wigs; in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey such stories are told through graphic novel-style animation and narrated by Tyson, who sits aboard an expensive-looking CGI spaceship, his face illuminated by flickering buttons and the kindly light of distant galaxies.' (On The Box article and Pirate Bay magnet link).
Fortunately UKIP are, politically at any rate, an utter irrelevance in Scotland. Nevertheless it is always good to see them getting a hard time wherever they rear their ugly mugs...
'A leading UKIP member has stood down as his party's economic spokesman after he was branded a hypocrite for striking wind-farm deals on his Scottish estates.
'Professor Tim Congdon agreed the contracts with SSE in Argyll and E.On Renewables in Caithness, the Sunday Herald revealed last month. But Mr Congdon was accused of hypocrisy over the arrangements, which appeared to fly in the face of UKIP's anti-wind farm stance.
'The party claims the developments are economically "unsustainable" and eyesores that blight the countryside. Last night it emerged that Mr Congdon had stood down as economics spokesman following the row. But it is thought he wants to remain as the party's candidate in the Forest of Dean where he is due to stand in the 2015 General Election.' (Herald article).
You've got to be kidding, right? Surely such questions as 'Land Reform' are for the developing world, where nasty corporations are cutting down rain-forests and booting off indigenous people to grow beefburgers on, etc. This is indeed true, but the state of land ownership - and the subsidy system it has - in the UK is a scandal of epic proportions. In fact it is the underpinning reason as to why we have to pay a ridiculous amount for a place to live in the UK; a fact that is then sold back to as: 'high house prices are a good thing for the economy'. Sadly most folks are entirely duped by this nonsense.
This excellent and disturbing article shines some much needed light onto the issue:
'Modern British history, excluding world wars and the loss of empire, is a record of two countervailing changes, one partly understood, one not understood at all. The partly understood change is the urbanisation of society to the point where 90 per cent of us in the United Kingdom live in urban areas. Hidden inside that transformation is the shift from a society in which, less than a century and a half ago, all land was owned by 4.5 per cent of the population and the rest owned nothing at all. Now, 70 per cent of the population has a stake in land, and collectively owns most of the 5 per cent of the UK that is urban. But this is a mere three million out of 60 million acres.
'Through this transformation, the heirs to the disenfranchised of the Victorian era have inverted the relationship between the landed and the landless. This has happened even while huge changes have occurred in the 42 million acres of rural countryside. These account for 70 per cent of the home islands and are the agricultural plot. From being virtually the sole payers of such tax as was levied in 1873 (at fourpence in the 240p pound), the owners of Britain's agricultural plot are now the beneficiaries of an annual subsidy that may run as high as £23,000 each, totalling between £3.5bn and £5bn a year. Urban dwellers, on the other hand, pay about £35bn in land-related taxes. Rural landowners receive a handout of roughly £83 per acre, while urban dwellers pay about £18,000 for each acre they hold, an average of £1,800 per dwelling, the average dwelling standing on one-tenth of an acre.' (New Stateman article and Who Owns Britain website).
Mark Steel of The Independent has written an excellent article on the idiocy of the Unionist plight...
'David Bowie can be excused, as he’s earned the right to be mad. He could have sent a macaw to collect his Brit Award, and squawk “Stay with us Scotland, or you’ll run out of Domestos”, and his reputation would be unharmed.
'But at the risk of seeming controversial, I’m not sure there’s the same universal affection for George Osborne and Danny Alexander. So when Osborne insisted that an independent Scotland would be a disaster as it wouldn’t be allowed to keep the pound, it swung the polls six per cent towards independence.
'This may be because it comes across as slightly arrogant to tell a country that if it votes for independence it won’t be allowed to keep its currency or share the old one or use another currency or stay in Europe or join Europe or go to the bank.
'The next part of Osborne’s plan is probably to announce that if Scotland becomes independent, it won’t be allowed to keep its zoos, so the day after the vote it’ll have to release tigers and bears and crocodiles into the streets of Edinburgh. But it won’t be able to ask for help because it won’t be allowed to use our language, or any of our letters, so they’ll have to communicate by barking.
'Nor will Scotland be allowed to share our orbit round the sun, and Osborne has it on good authority that NASA won’t let it join another one so it’ll have to find a different solar system but if that’s what Scotland wants, it’s up to them.' (Independent article).
Recently I discovered Catholic Online - a one-stop shop for the paranoid Catholic. After wading through all the Catholic tat for sale and other incredible guff, I spotted an article that basically said that "Catholicism in the UK is on its last legs" and that secularists, atheists, etc. are to blame. This was an opportunity too good to miss.
My brief, incendiary, opening post soon had a few takers which was not really surprising. However, after about two weeks now the cyberspace battle of 'The Matron v. The Catholics' rages on incessantly and entertainingly (I obviously have far too much time on my hands). In fact, I would go as far to say that I have a new hobby! Some of the responses really do reveal how the religious mind 'thinks'. Why not check 'the debate' out and make your own mind up, or maybe even pile in? (Catholic Online article).
'One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents.
'Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in the English-speaking “Five Eyes” alliance. Today, we at the Intercept are publishing another new JTRIG document, in full, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations.”
'By publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted some of the key, discrete revelations: the monitoring of YouTube and Blogger, the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses. But, here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself.' (The Intercept article).
You've got to hand it to NASA for taking the time to answer this little kid's questions and potentially inspiring him to pursue a path of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in the future.
I wanna know where this kid is in 20 years. I bet he's on Mars. Doesn't take much to encourage a positive future. Just take the time...
'A British schoolboy was over the moon when NASA responded to his space questions in a personal video.
'Lucas Whiteley, from Wrenthorpe, West Yorkshire, recorded three questions for the US space agency with the help of his dad.
'NASA research engineer Ted Garbeff recorded a ten-minute response, thanking the four-year-old for his questions and giving him a virtual tour of a base in Mountain View, California.' (Metro article).
That said, the NASA engineer - at the end of the video - doesn't explain how to get on with your classmates if all your classmates are fucking assholes. But otherwise this is a very inspiring video methinks.
Richard Happer - author of the wonderful The Hills Are Stuffed With Swedish Girls - has just reviewed my book Bothy Culture on Amazon...
'Just as you don’t need to have hitchhiked through the Mid-West to enjoy On The Road, or been shot in the throat to appreciate Homage To Catalonia, so you don’t need to know the first thing about bothies to be inspired by Bothy Culture.
'At its heart this is a travel book, a voyage of adventure. The author delights in his discovery of these refuges in the Scottish wilderness, and he’s done the exploring, got wet and freezing, met all the weirdos so that now we can enjoy all his distilled wisdom while snuggling on our sofa.
'Bothy Culture is a patchwork narrative, neatly sewn together from stories, reminiscences, tall tales, outrageous opinions, historical facts and touching friendships. It is full of strong viewpoints and is thoroughly refreshing for them. But it is not a polemic. No sooner has Mortimer made a controversial point than he himself offers the counterpoint. A great deal of thought has gone into this book - a lifetime’s perhaps. And where opinions are backed up with such considered observation, surely there must be truth in them.
'This book explores the yin/yang, love/hate dynamic that so many of us feel with society: Mortimer can barely wait for Friday to come round so he can get ‘off-grid’ and escape from routines and responsibility into the bare cell of a bothy, yet he also yearns for good company round a roaring fire. He freely admits to being a bit grumpy and anti-social, but he’d rather share his roast lamb, potatoes and wine than watch you eat a packet of noodles and drink Nescafe. He admits his opinions irritate people, but he writes them so entertainingly that you can’t help but read them all the same. He’s a hermit who packs his rucksack ready for a party.
'Does that make logical sense? Does your life? Does mine? Exactly.
'In many ways Bothy Culture is itself like a night by the flickering flames with good company. Stories are told and ornamented, jokes are thrown in, opinions are debated – there are moments of thoughtfulness, sadness even. But the evening is always entertaining and you are very glad you came. I got the sense that Mortimer’s bothy is in many ways a microcosm of Scotland; indeed, perhaps society itself. We are all entitled to a place at the fire. Just make sure you bring a little coal and have a story to tell.
'The author also has a sound ear for dialogue, knows how gleeful and eloquent swearing can enhance a narrative and he can turn a phrase exquisitely. I snorted tea on several occasions.
'No sooner had I finished reading my copy than I’d posted it off to Scotty, one of my oldest pals who I’ve shared some beautiful adventures with but who I now don’t see nearly enough. I can’t think of a finer recommendation.' (Amazon book review).
Hilarious stand-up comic and regular contributor to media underground, James Inman, has just written a highly amusing review of my book Bothy Culture on his blog Utterly Worthless, where he compares me and my book to Lao Tzu and The Tao Te Ching of all things.
James is completely insane you must understand, but insane in the greatest possible way...
'For several years George Mortimer has run a website called Media Underground which has been a safety valve for the impending dystopian collapse; sort of a catch all for the fringe element of society’s global mind. His new book Bothy Culture is a seriously funny antidote to a world gone mad. In a cesspool of technological trinkets, mobile phones, Twitter, Facebook, the electric toothbrush and global surveillance Mortimer rips out the parking break and makes a complete u-turn. He drops everything and wanders off to a bothy.
'For the “uninitiated” American a bothy is like a small shack out in the middle of nowhere in the Scottish outback free for anyone to use. The description on the book reads, “Bothy Culture focuses on exploring the rich subculture that can be found at some of the remotest locations throughout the Scottish wilderness”. In Scotland I guess they use the word “wilderness” but when Americans hear it we think of an actual jungle. I envisioned it more like a greener version of the Houses Of The Holy album cover with creepy albino kids crawling on their hands and knees. It must be somewhere beyond civilization with no map to point the way and Aleister Crowley poking his head out every now and then.
'Mortimer’s keen observation is a vast uncharted middle ground that no one actually explores because your average Scotsman A) only walks two blocks to the pub or B) is compelled to climb a sheer cliff up K2 with his bare hands. Mortimer creates his own category in the between world of fact, fiction, history, occult initiation and humor. His first bothy trip sends him on the path to record the history and impressions of every single bothy in the Scottish high country kind of like trainspotting for remote shacks. Or more of an off-grid bothyspotter with a backpack filled with beer, coal, roast duck, a pipe and “Blue Cheese” weed.
'And don’t forget to bring coal to stay warm. Not charcoal or a Duralflame log. Actual coal like the kind demons shovel in hell or Santa Claus leaves in your stocking if you suck. It has to be enough coal to make the trip significantly hard as fuck. The whole deal with the coal was interesting because he never divulged the secret where he actually acquired it. As an American I can’t imagine they still sell it at the convenience store. I can only assume you might find it behind an electric plant or on display at a Charles Dickens museum. He keeps his cards close to his chest on the coal or maybe it just falls out of the sky in Scotland. The point is this is not a Fodor’s Travel Guide. This is more like a trail of bread crumbs to an unknown world.' (Utterly Worthless book review).
Hold onto your balls kids! Here we go - just as predicted. It's about time the whole damned thing came crashing down to a grinding halt anyway...
'There are eerie parallels between the stock market’s recent behavior and how it behaved right before the 1929 crash.
'That at least is the conclusion reached by a frightening chart that has been making the rounds on Wall Street. The chart superimposes the market’s recent performance on top of a plot of its gyrations in 1928 and 1929.
'The picture isn’t pretty. And it’s not as easy as you might think to wriggle out from underneath the bearish significance of this chart.' (Market Watch article).
The UN has finally put a serious boot into the Catholic Church/Vatican/Holy See - or whatever bullshit name that the other Italian mafia is using these days - about their appalling response to their child-abuse scandal. UN-speak usually consists of a turn of phrase that is oblique and inquisitive and often not in good old plain English. So, it was refreshing to read this latest report using some no-nonsense language - into the vile crimes committed by this rotten institutionalized religion - that basically says: "Oi Holy See, NO!"
Of course the 'Cover-up Cardinals' have already got to work with their stock-in-trade obfuscation, duplicity and blatant smoke screen...
'The Vatican has failed to acknowledge the huge scale of clerical sex abuse and has implemented policies that have led to "the continuation of the abuse and the impunity of the perpetrators", a UN panel said on Wednesday in a scathing rebuke of the Holy See's handling of the global scandal.
'In grimly worded findings released by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the watchdog urged the Holy See to "immediately remove all known and suspected child sexual abusers" from their posts in the church and hand over the cases to law enforcement authorities in the countries concerned.
'It also asked the Vatican to ensure that an expert commission set up by Pope Francis last year will "investigate independently" all cases of child sex abuse and the way in which they are handled by the Catholic hierarchy. Records concerning past cases should be opened up so that they can be used to hold the abusers - and those who may have sought to protect them - accountable, the panel added.
'The Holy See must establish "clear rules, mechanisms and procedures" for the mandatory reporting of all suspected cases of abuse to civil law enforcement authorities, it said.
'The committee said it was "particularly concerned" that in dealing with allegations of child sex abuse, "the Holy See has consistently placed the preservation of the reputation of the church and the protection of the perpetrators above children's best interests, as observed by several national commissions of inquiry."' (Guardian article and UN report).
Probably one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. If you haven't seen Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa yet then you're in for a treat. Some of the pranks are bust-a-gut hilarious, particularly the 'Beauty Pageant' scene, which takes everything that is wrong with child beauty pageants and adds a whole lot more 'wrong' to it in a way that had me on the floor in tears of laughter at the weekend. (The Pirate Bay magnet link).
My book Bothy Culture has been getting some great reviews on Amazon. I guess people like brutal honesty and scathing social commentary. Here's some excerpts from a number of recent reviews...
Frisky Stixx:'There are many laugh out loud moments especially as he describes the eclectic mix of people that choose to make the mammoth trek up to these remote spots.'
Poetry Maz:'This has been the most refreshing piece of writing I've had the pleasure to devour in a long time.'
Graeme Henderson:'His values are not for the faint of soul but I doubt there is anyone on this planet who would not agree with at least one of his points.'
C. G. Findlater:'Very few people know what really motivates them and even fewer have the insight or the bravery to write about it.'
Stephen T. Lewis:'Even if you never set forth into the wilds of Scotland this well-written book is worth a read for its counter-culture quirkiness alone.'
A big thank you to everyone who has reviewed the book to date. So far no mainstream media outlet (or local press for that matter) will touch it with a barge pole. Good! Clearly the burning bible on the back cover has created the exact reaction I was hoping for. (Amazon.co.uk book reviews).
An investigation into the long-obscured mystery of dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a molecule found in nearly every living organism and considered the most potent psychedelic on Earth.
Last September The New York Times ran a ridiculous article entitled 'Overpopulation Is Not The Problem' by one Erle C. Ellis. At the foot of this article it states that 'Erle C. Ellis is an associate professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a visiting associate professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design'.
Despite all these impressive credentials, however, it is clear that Erle C. Ellis is no wizard when it comes to basic arithmetic as he dismisses the notion that humans are behaving like bacteria exploding out of a petri dish, despite the world population having more than doubled in less than half a century. Fortunately, Robert Walker of The Huffington Post responded with a much more sensible and scientifically based article.
But who gives a shit about any of that? Right? Hell, just keep breeding, producing and consuming whilst at the same time hoping that it'll all work out fine and that boffins will figure out a solution whilst the rest of us go back to sleep.
Come on you selfish smug bastards, breed like there's no tomorrow. After all, if we keep acting like this there probably won't be...
'While acknowledging that we live on a finite planet with finite resources, Ellis insists that there "is no such thing as a human carrying capacity." Other species on this planet suffer massive die-offs when their numbers exceed what nature can sustainably provide, but modern humans, according to Ellis, are an exception to that rule. Humans, in his words, do not have to "live within the natural environmental limits of our planet."
'In support of that bold proposition, he notes that at numerous times in the past 200,000 years humans have altered the natural environment so as to increase the carrying capacity for our species. When we hunted large animals to near extinction, we found ways to hunt and consume smaller species. When our hunter-gather lifestyles did not produce enough food, we domesticated animals and began growing crops. When traditional farming was not producing enough, we manufactured fertilizer and began irrigating our crops. And because we expanded our carrying capacity in the past, we can do so again in the future.
'However, as anyone on Wall Street will tell you, past performance does not guarantee future results. The fact that a value of a stock has doubled or tripled in the past does not mean that it can go on doubling or tripling on into the future. In nature, as in the financial world, there are limits to exponential growth on a finite planet. Sooner or later, what goes up ultimately comes down. And many times it comes down with a crash or a bang. Bubbles burst.' (Huffington Post article).