Monument to Alfredo Kraus

Monumento a Alfredo Kraus
Originally uploaded by Miguelángel

Maestro Alfredo Kraus is remembered in a statue erected in his honor at Las Palmas, at the entrance to the auditorium that was named after him.

Going Independent

Well, as some of you may or may not know, the Second Life News Network has expired. I do not know what its ultimate fate has been, since I myself stopped writing for the newspaper after finding out that my employer was a socialist and that she endorsed Barack Obama.

Instead, you may soon find me plying my skills at the Metaverse Messenger. They sent me an e-mail indicating they would be thrilled to have me among their reporters. Let us see how that goes!


Of course, I can't exactly change the name of my blog , so let us leave it at that and we'll keep it in fond memory.


Until then

Nosy Newshound

Since SLNN has gone offline...

Since SLNN has gone offline, I am archiving the website's post about the Institute here:

The Objectivist Institute in Second Life set to open
by Delaynie Barbosa
January 30, 2008
previously at http://www.slnn.com



Fleets Cove Beach- The Objectivist Institute opens to the general public on February 1st. Founded by Merryjest Chatnoir, Kain Scalia, Kadar Talbot, and Alexandra Talbot, The Objective Institute was created to represent the philosophy of Objectivism in Second Life.

Objectivism is a branch of philosophy developed by author Ayn Rand in the twentieth century. Many of the author's works were based on her philosophy. Rand's philosophy has grown so popular that a real life learning facility, the Ayn Rand Institute, was opened in Irvine, California.

While The Objectivist Institute is not associated with the Ayn Rand Institute, the founders of the hope to gain enough interest in Second Life to collaborate with the Ayn Rand Institute in virtual worlds. Accomplishing this goal would allow seminars and classes at the Ayn Rand Institute to be streamed into Second Life; students from around the world who do not have the means to travel to California would be able to attend the Ayn Rand Institute's classes in a vitual setting.

"We are an association of individuals who are interested in the philosophy," Alexandra Talbot, co-founder of the Objective Institute, said. "[We] wish to provide a place to meet, learn and discuss, and for those who may be curious about the philosophy to get a first exposure with introductory materials."

The Objective Insitutute is a five story structure containing an art gallary, a meeting space, a parklike roof terrace, and two lecture halls- one of which will also serve as a concert hall and general autotorium. The third floor features the Reference Room, where many free items, information about philosophy, Objectivism, and Ayn Rand can be found. This is the place to start for anyone interested in these subjects.

The Grand Opening of The Objective Institute will take place on Friday, February 1st, 2008. The Innauguration Ceremony takes place at 12:30 p.m. SLT , and encompasses a speech by Kain Scalia about what Objectivism is.

Following the Innauguration Ceremony, a series of live events will take place as follows:

1:00-2:00 SLT: Jaynine Scarborough (Juliane Gabriel).
Gabriel worked and performed with the Berlin Chamber Opera, David First (The Manhattan Book of the Dead), and Walter Norris; assisted Tom Waits/ Robert Wilson (alice/ alice in bed). Gabriel developed a vowel modell, that makes it possible to experience and explore energy and presence through voicework in the body.

2:00-3:00 SLT: Benito Flores.
The virtuoso pianist Benito Flores studied piano with Marco Vincenzi, obtaining the diploma with honours (summa cum laude) and he continued his studies at the 'Scuola di Musica di Fiesole' with Maria Tipo and Pietro De Maria. Besides his musical studies he also obtained a graduate with honors in philosophy at the 'Università di Pavia' with a thesis about Fernando Liuzzi's philosophy of music. He was also a merit student of the Almo Collegio Borromeo, one of the most ancient and important European colleges. After winning several national and international awards, Alessandro appeared in many musical events in Europe, both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. He is recording the complete piano works by Rossini (Pechès de vieillesse) for Naxos. In 2007 he won the prestigious “Amici di Milano” International Prize for the Music.

3:00-4:00 PM SLT: TomoFumi Mayako.
TomoFumi is a piano student attending the Manhattan School Of Music in New York City. At the age of 18 TomoFumi has demonstrated the talent and the character to become a virtuoso in the field.

4:00-6:00 SLT: Break in performances for informal meet and greet between staff and guests, free time to explore The Objective Institute, and engagement of informal discussion.

6:00- 6:30 PM SLT: Jaycatt Nico.
Jaycatt was born Sacramento, California and now resides in Oregon. He recently re-discovered the joy of playing the piano and, together with his roomate and friend Frogg Marlowe, he has become one of the most well-known performers in Second Life.


Interested parties are invited to attend the Grand Opening, explore The Objectivist Institute, and join the group, "The Objectivists." The group can be found in Second Life's search function; it is open enrollment and free of charge.

How NOT to write

If there is something I ever learned from Thomas Wolfe, was how to write one hundred pages full of very elaborate nothing.

No, really, I mean it.


Take a look at this (my 'commentaries' are in bold, to break the monotony)--

From 'Of Time and The River' by T. Wolfe

Ah, strange and beautiful, the woman thought, how can I longer bear this joy intolerable, the music of this great song unpronounceable, the anguish of this glory unimaginable, of this prose unreadable, which fills my life to bursting and which will not let me speak! THEN PLEASE, DO NOT! ... Oh magic moment that is so perfect, unknown, and inevitable, OOOOOOH sweet msytery of life at last I've foooound youuuuuuu! to stand here at this ship's great side, here at the huge last edge of evening and return, with this still wonder in my heart and knowing only that somehow we are fulfilled of you, oh time!


... Ah secret and alone, she thought- how lean with hunger and how fierce with pride, and how burning with imposing desire , and how heavy with adjectives he bends there at the rail of night (which was but recently installed after several romantic heroes took a nasty fall)- and he is wild and young and foolish and forsaken, and his eyes are starved (Note to self: Feed Eyes), his soul is parched with thirst (That's what gatorade is for: "It's got Electrolite.. it's what souls want"), his heart is famished with a hunger that cannot be fed, and he leans there on the rail and dreams great dreams, and he is mad for love and is athirst for glory (Clearly, he is very thirsty all over), and he is so cruelly mistaken- and so right!



...Oh passionate and proud! -how like the wild, lost soul of youth you are, how like my wild lost father who will not return! ... Riiight. She's falling in love with this man, and immediately thinks of HER DADDY. Iiiiiiiisues.

And isn't it me, but every single paragraph so far has begun with this woman moaning? oooh, Aaaah, Oooh... WHAT THE HELL IS SHE DOING ON THAT DECK?


He turned, and saw her then, and so finding her, was lost, and so losing self, was found, (Amaaaaazing graaaace..> I oooonce was loooost but noooow I'm foooound) and so seeing her, saw for a fading moment only the pleasant image of the woman that perhaps she was, and that life saw (I oooonce was bliiiind but nooow I seeeee).

He never knew: he only knew that from that moment his spirit was impaled upon the knife of love. Then he slammed his fingers in the automovile door of love, over which he wrapped the bandages of despair and angst.


From that moment on he never was again to lose her utterly, never to wholly re-possess unto himself the lonely, wild integrity of youth which had been his (He likes the word 'wild' a lot). At that instant of their wild meeting, that proud wild inviolability of wild youth was wildly broken, not to be restored.


At that moment of their meeting she got into his life by some dark magic, and before he knew it, he had her beating in the pulses of his blood (Got it, she's a plaquette) - somehow thereafter- how he never knew- to steal into the conduits of his heart (Apparently he's got a mechanical heart), and to inhabit the lone, inviolable tenements of his one life; so , like love's great thief, to steal through all the adyts of his soul, and to become a part of all he did and said and was-


through this invasion so to touch all loveliness that he might touch, through this strange and subtle stealth of love henceforth to share all that he might feel or make or dream, until there was for him no beauty that she did not share, no music that did not have her being in it, no horror, madness, hatred, sickness of the soul, or grief unutterable , nor story unreadable,, that was not somehow consonant to her single image and her million forms (She's a mutant!).


And no final freedom and release ( He should have gone tot he bathroom BEFORE starring in the book), bought through the incalculable expenditure of blood and anguish and despair, that would not bear upon its brow forever the deep scar, upon its sinews the old mangling chains, of love.


==============

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is Thomas Wolfe, the Author Laureate of Asheville, North Carolina.

Nowadays, he'd probably be writing Harry Potter Mary Sues.

==============

Vatican blasts "Golden Compass", reveals shoddy agenda in poorly-written editorial.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican on Wednesday condemned the film "The Golden Compass," which some have called anti-Christian, saying it promotes a cold and hopeless world without God.

In a long editorial, the Vatican newspaper l'Osservatore Romano, also slammed Philip Pullman, the bestselling author of the book on which the family fantasy movie is based.

It was the Vatican's most stinging broadside against an author and a film since it roundly condemned "The Da Vinci Code" in 2005 and 2006.

"In Pullman's world, hope simply does not exist, because there is no salvation but only personal, individualistic capacity to control the situation and dominate events." the editorial said.

Catholic groups in the United States have called for a boycott, fearing even a diluted version of the book might draw people to read the bestselling trilogy. The Vatican newspaper said the film and Pullman's writings showed that "when man tries to eliminate God from his horizon, everything is reduced, made sad, cold and inhumane".

===============================================

Damn, that editorial was so poorly-written that they revealed their whole shabby secret in one bad paragraph. Of course, Christianity- and all other magic-worshipping dress-up cults, has always been against individuals being able to control the situations and events surrounding their lives. An independent, free-thinking person who does not bend his knee to an immaterial non-existent fabrication with whom they cannot communicate directly is not an easy person to dominate and manipulate.

The Vatican calls it 'chilling' and 'hopeless' because it is hopeless for them. Anything that even remotely postulates the empowerment of an individual, his earthly salvation, without buying into their mystical snake oil, is indeed a hopeless vision of the world for them, cold and sad, because they aren't on the driver's seat, telling everybody what they should do. There is a lot more of the Magisterium in the Catholic Church (and religion) than they are willing to admit.

Dealing with Yosemite Sam

Sam I am


Dealing with Yosemite Sams on the internet (and in real life) happens more often than we think. Yosemite Sams are those people who take a certain approach to discussion: they will rarely make a clear stance indicating who they are and what they stand for and believe- but rather all their efforts go towards attacking and undermining you, your position and your philosophy. As they make no identifying stance and often refuse to state any specifics but rather find themselves perpetually on the edge of vagueness, the actual exchange of ideas is greatly hindered. However, discourse is the farthest thing from Yosemite Sam's mind.

His tactics usually begin with a direct attack of an idea, often using emotional appeals in lieu of reason, and many times casting themselves as the stars of these emotional appeals, setting the discussion up for its next inevitable phase:

All disagreements or refutations of the emotional appeal will inevitably be sen as a personal attack by our Sams. This is, many times, an intentional setup because they believe it gives them sanction to respond in kind.

Upon being refuted out of his emotional corner, the Yosemite Sam proceeds to grab a handful of samples from the Ad Hominem and Poisoning of the Well argument stores, which they will proceed to liberally pepper upon you, while holding a double standard that prohibits anyone else to take the same steps.

Great horny-toadies, what are you doing upside-downy?

A good example of this is a series of online arguments with a rather recurrent person (he turns up more often than cancer). After being refuted he said that no-one had the right to judge anyone because they don't know all of that person's circumstances. A little later he became incensed and said that I possessed "an ugly soul" and that therefore the mysteries of music must be beyond me (by these standards, I guess Wagner must have been a saint in his personal life in order to write what he wrote). The contradictory fact that he had, in fact, judged me made no dent in his psyche- specially since he judged my "soul" which, according to those that believe in such things, is knowable only to that person and their creator. Interestingly enough, upon receiving a judgement on his character, however, he withdrew again into "You don't KNOW ME! How an you judge me?"

And this is where the Dancing Yosemite begins.

Listen, rabbit!! Yosemite Sam NEVER makes a mistake!\

The next step in Yosemite's strategy begins by retreats that are intended to call attention away from his own errors and contradictions. I have a prime example from this discussion:


Nucleardawg: "You have an ugly soul, the mysteries of music are beyond you!"
Me: "I moved people to tears with 'Dies Bildnis' in rehearsal yesterday."
Nucleardawg: "Mozart moved people to tears. Try doing it with VU's "Oh Sweet Nothing"

Here we come across the typical qualitative negation of the Yosemite strategy: he avoids qualitative and categorical judgments so that the specifics of his embarrassment can no longer be applied. For example, his categorical invalidation presupposes that anyone who performs Mozart's music will move people to tears, regardless of their skill level or artistry. Therefore Fritz Wunderlich is on the same level as Mari Lyn and Florence Foster-Jenkins. Furthermore, it also presupposes that the voice of an opera singer is perfectly suited for Rock, and that the sensibilities and stylistic tools you use for classical music will be exactly the same as the ones you use for a Rock Ballad or whatever.

When you deny standards, it is very easy to get away with anything, and that is precisely what Sam does.

Stay Still, Ye Varmint!

Finding himself with the possibility of looking like a fool, he begins to draw lines in the sand and then daring you to cross each and every one of them in succession (hence the name of Yosemite Sam, following that particular Bugs Bunny skit). With each new line, the challenge becomes more ludicrous and unbelievable, at times seeming even surrealistic, something that his avoidance of qualitative judgment allows him to do with ease. However, this is nothing more than an ineffective strategy to divert attention from the fact that the first line was crossed. When pressed on this issue they will dance around it like Ana Pavlova at the Bolshoi.

When faced with the challenge of discussing specific points of what they criticize (i.e. points on epistemology, ethics, etc), they scatter and reach for more vague generalities, shifting from point to point to a new subject or a dimly-related one, all in order to avoid answering that very important question. And there is no reason why they should, considering their aims, since an actual honest answer of the answer would devastate their stance. This can be either intentional in the more malicious mentalities, or completely accidental and indicative of the kind of mind that is incapable of following a plainly-written train of thought (an anti-conceptual mentality).

Great horny toads! Somebody's been getting footy-prints all over my desert!

So, how do you deal with Yosemite Sams? Why, it is elementary: don't talk to them. An exchange of ideas and a serious discussion may occur when both parties use arguments that attempt to be rational, are devoid of emotional appeals, and include specifics in stance, and no matter how much each part may dislike each other or disagree, there is still the possibility of a debate. Debating with Yosemite Sam is impossible because he lacks all substance in his arguments, to be accurate he even lacks arguments themselves as what he uses is nothing more than provocation. You will be more successful in trying to nail fog to the wall than to get anywhere with Yosemite Sam... if anything, the only use you can get from such a person is as a training tool: they are excellent teachers in how people refuse to address specific issues and back away from having to define their stance as anything other than a vague but strident opposition of yours.

Their clumsy steps are a good way to train yourself to eventually see the subtler evasions of more capable, more intelligent individuals who are much less oafish in their attempted tactics. But further than that, Yosemite Sams are nothing more than a waste of time... think of all the fun things you can do in the time you waste with these individuals: you could go see a movie, learn how to draw some cool art, listen to an opera, read a book ... heck, masturbate for all it's worth, or enter a coma. Any of these activities is of greater value than wasting your time with Yosemite Sam. Let Bugs Bunny take care of him, you've got better things to do.

Current Writing Portfolio

This is my current news portfolio for SLNN:

1) http://www.slnn.com/article/transformers-winner-announced/
2) http://www.slnn.com/article/ahz-senior/
3) http://www.slnn.com/index.php/article/about/update-breaks-products
4) http://www.slnn.com/index.php/article/about/tolkien-themed-sim-opens