Everyone decries the decay of our civilization. Pollution, crime, vandalism, distrust, lockdowns in the schools, deadbolts on the doors, the homeless everywhere, endless demonstrations, lawyers and regulators at every turn. What happened? How did we get so bonked? As Soft Machine sang, "Why are we sleeping?"

When I recruit players for our community band I tell them of Yellow Submarine. I remind them of that scene where the lads from Liverpool must tip-toe in the night, up past the guards and their dogs, their urgent mission up the hill to break into the sealed-up grand bandstand and the bandroom where the ancient brass-band gear of Sargeant Pepper's band is locked away.

"What happens next," I tell them, "is what WE do." Our job, as community musicians, is to sustain Pepperland.

To my disappointment and shagrin, I've heard players put down their community bands. They look down at honest citizens working their best to barge in and defend where these 'pro' players fear to tread: oh they are just amateurs they'll say, oh, it's that music, as if it is not hip, not with-it, not real music, not real like, say, commercial fodder like RnB or Heavy Metal.

They may be happy to know that Sun Ra agrees with them, that it isn't anything like their paid gig commercial music, because it is The Avantgarde:

"While in HS I never missed a band.. the music they played was a natural happiness of love, fresh and courageous. It was unmanufactured avantgarde and it still is because there was no place for it in The World. Part of the emptiness of teen life today is due to that fact."

The Purpose of Ihnfinity Inc.

"To perform works of a humanitarian nature among all people of earth. To help stamp out (destroy) ignorance destroying the major purpose, changing ignorance to constructive live creativity. To own and operate all kinds of reasearch laboratories, studios, electronics equipment, electrochemical communcational devices of our own design and creativity, and electromechanical equipment, electronic equipment relating to audio and video devices and audio and video devices themselves including sound recordings and tapes as well as video recordings, tapes, teleportation, astral projection devices, mind cleansing sound devices, magnetic computers, electrical and electronic devices related to all phases of enterplanetary space travel including magnetic energy producing ships with speeds greater than the speed of light (as presently known), including enterplanetary cosmonetic devices of an astro infinity nature. To own real estate including land, building, factories, water, including air space above same. To use these values for the greater advancement of all people of earth and creative live beings of this galaxy and other galaxies beyond the sun."

that's what I call a Mission Statement

The whole building still functions as a combination museum, gallery, think-tank, research centre, rescue mission and rehearsal space, well below the radar of the city authorities. “They really should have a plaque up outside,” shrugs Arkestra dancer and percussionist Ted Thomas, visiting his bandmates for the day. “If it was anyone else this place would be supported by the city as part of its cultural heritage.

Everybody loves predictions

The future is not what it used to be.
It never was.

Controversially, bacteria could even have cognitive talents that rival our own. Predatory behaviour, cooperation, memory -- Jules Verne eat your heart out -- Natasha Mitchell takes you on a strange adventure into the secret world of microbial mentality.

Twentieth Century Props is going out of business next month and it's auctioning all of its 93,752 items, ranging from tea cups to a life-size submarine.

Due to the dry spell of film production, items up for sale include the rattan sofa from The Golden Girls, the futuristic shower Tom Cruise used in the Minority Report and the chandeliers from Titanic.

Also on the market is the robotic torso used by Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 3, which has been awaiting its next role in the deep shelves of the Hollywood warehouse.

Harvey Schwartz, the owner of 20th Century Props, stood amid it all in tears wondering how his business had become a victim of rapidly changing Hollywood.

"I ran out of money three months ago, and I don’t know what else to do. It’s terrifying. I’ve devoted my entire life to something that is over."

Warning: Some images by 4-year-old witnesses contain graphic scenes of human suffering. Parental discretion is advised.

“Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes."

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

Widely believed to have been imposed unilaterally on Japan by MacArthur’s occupying Allied GHQ, Article 9 was in fact drafted and proposed by Japanese lawmakers, representing a country that understood all too well the folly of aggressive empire-building and the bitter futility and tragedy of war.

Since 1947, and in sharp contrast to its past as a fascist Axis empire-builder, Japan has not committed a single atrocity against the people of another nation, has not re-militarized, has not produced nuclear weapons, nor entered the lucrative arms industry. In part because of Article 9, Japan was able to transform itself into the second largest economy in the world. Moreover, its subsequent ODA expenditures, amounting to 10 to 15 billion dollars (U.S.) each year over the past 18 years — along with the growth of several hundred NGOs active in development, the environment, human rights, and peace — would never have been possible if Japan had remained a militarized nation.

Imagine then the worldwide benefits of taking Article 9 to the global level.

It isn't that the acting is bad and contrived, it is way beyond that, it is actors (who are B-picture actors) acting as bad actors, spoofing themselves, their genre and the whole Hollywood-Disney comedy industry that was so big at the time. Remember "Herbie the Love Bug" with Dean Jones? It is that caliber of forced performance turned up a notch, mixed with three six-packs of 4th-wall gags, Three Stooges shticks like tiny offices with low-hanging bookshelves and multiple entrances. It's Looney Tunes with Frankie Avalon as Daffy Duck.

Plot-wise this is ... well, hey, you have bikini FemBots way ahead of Woody Allen's Casino Royale, you have Vincent Price with a Disney-style dunderhead for his Igor, you have a spy agency and the lamest Secret Agent Car you've ever seen, there's just no room for a plot!

those of you in the US can apparently watch this by direct download from Amazon at half the price of the new CD (and you save on shipping), and trust me, for all it's charm, unless it's fundamental to your beat-era film-arts thesis, you're going to want to spend as little on this one as possible.

"magnetism must originate in the Earth’s core"

“Everyone accepted this, but in reality there has never been any proof,” said Gregory Ryskin, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern University in Illinois. “It is just an idea we have accepted for a long time without questioning it enough.”

A pause now to wonder which is better, to hold to some myth founded on ancient superstition, or to hold to some scientific fact based on nothing at all? Like the tale of the topical demonization of the plastic shopping bag, the etymology of science myths can be a fascinating study in human communications.