Noise Annoys and essay by Mark Vernon

I can’t tell you how much I miss having peace and quiet. Especially in seattle it was so nice to go hiking in the mountains and just enjoy the sounds of nature, coming up on a stream that you can hear, what seems like miles, and the sounds of birds, wind rustling the leaves, and if it’s not windy then …. Nothing … it was the one true joy that I had. Going hiking in the mountains! I can’t wait to do it again. Too bad there aren’t a lot of jobs in the woods.

I haven’t contributed in a while and this is not going to change that since “I” didn’t do it.

But it’s a great essay that I have to share with all of you. And notice that I resisted the urge to "texify" it by saying ‘y’all’.

I don’t think the pictures are going to show up on the blog, so feel free to click on the link to follow it.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7078882.stm

Noise annoys

By Mark Vernon

Silence is golden, but it's under threat in a world where as business booms and prosperity looms, noise is growing.

A composer recently described how orchestras find it impossible to play a piece of her music. The problem is not that she has written too many notes. Neither is it that she requires unusual musical instruments. Rather, it is that in the piece she has written 25 seconds of silence.

The pause is intended to build tension. But when they see it, she said, conductors baulk. They fear that musicians wouldn't know what to make of it, and worse, that audiences wouldn't be able to take it. Over such a long period of time, a concert hall would be plunged into near panic.

When the last episode of the Sopranos was broadcast this year, finishing with a sudden cut to black and silence, many baffled viewers assumed there was a fault with the signal.

Lewis Hamilton is moving to Switzerland for a quieter life

We live in a society with a growing aversion to the emptiness that comes not just with silence but, more generally, with a fear of not knowing what to say.

Consider what might mark someone out as your best friend. For some, it is the person who they don't see for some time and yet, when they do, it is like they have never been apart. Perhaps more commonly today, in the era of mass mobile communication, a best friend is someone with whom you are in constant contact, texting or messaging as automatically as breathing.

But there was a time when it was said that a true friend is someone with whom you can sit in complete silence, without a hint of embarrassment or need to fill the space.

Silence as sin

Then there are politicians. For them, to be caught off guard in front of the cameras could result in nothing less than the curtailing of a career. Alastair Campbell famously filled the political day with the "grid". He argued that 24-hour news loathes a vacuum and that if he did not fill it, an editor or producer would. That is undoubtedly true.

But as Douglas Hurd has observed, on some subjects silence might not only be a good policy, it might be more honest. "Silence is regarded as a sort of sin now, and it has to be filled with a lot of gossip and sound bites," he has written.

Some people are ready to defend their right to quiet

Not knowing what to say can be social death, as well as political. Everyone can remember a time when they got into a tangle over something, and then - horror of horrors - they then said the wrong thing; they were in a hole and could not stop digging. It can be amusing to watch.

Probably the most famous episode of the classic comedy Fawlty Towers was built around Basil Fawlty, played by John Cleese, trying not to talk about the war. "Don't mention the war!", he endlessly repeated and mentioned nothing but, because he could not just shut-up.

Research suggests that there is a connection between the wealth of a society and the levels of noise within it. A project at Sheffield Hallam University tracked the levels of noise in UK for a number of years. It is rising - in Sheffield city centre, for example, by 3 decibels in 10 years.

Firework hell

A report from the Noise Association this month says that sound levels on the Piccadilly Line of London's underground can exceed that of a jet taking off at Heathrow Airport. And complaints about noise from domestic premises rose almost fivefold in the twenty years up 2005 in England and Wales, according to the UK government.

Then there is Bonfire Night and fireworks. "All the surveys show that people are concerned about noise," Val Weedon, National Coordinator for the UK Noise Association says. "The fireworks issue is an example of that. Thousands of people contact their MPs about it getting out of control."

Planes are loud but so is public transport

Now, for all that we can hate it, it might be that we use noise and chatter to protect ourselves. There are people who can't stop talking and would panic if they did.

And then there are iPods and Walkmans that create a bubble of noise to keep the outside world out. Some users might even be listening to Simon and Garfunkel singing their song, Sound of Silence: "People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening."

But does this matter? I think it does. I know a monk. He spends the majority of his day not talking. The aim is that he lives in quietude punctuated by periods of noise - when in chapel or talking with his brethren.

A more usual way of life is exactly the opposite, for most people live in noise and occasionally seek out silence.

Speech is shallow

For a monk, not talking has an intrinsic value, since it is then that he is able to listen, notably to the "still, small voice of God". To put it in secular terms, silence is necessary in order to perceive and understand things.

As Thomas Carlyle wrote: "Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as time."

That, then, might be the most profound worry about rising noise levels in our society: it stops us from thinking. Or to put it differently, the next time you don't know what to say, don't be alarmed. Try saying nothing.

Mark Vernon is the author of What Not To Say: Finding the Right Words at Difficult Moments.

del.icio.us Tags: noise annoys urban noise overwheleming society

The Music Man

Let me just start off by saying that this whole fiasco, or another way to say it is débâcle, or even another way to say it is, disappointment. This is how I truly feel under the anger and the betrayal of trust. I am speaking of the Jena Six case. The case that really broke out in September when black America took it upon themselves to inflate the population of this sleepy little Louisiana town of 3,000 to 10,000+. For a demonstration in support of six teenage boys that on the surface seemed to be suffering an injustice at the hands of a biased system. The bias in this case seemed to be based on race and not facts, because this being the deep south, and it being Louisiana, the state that openly popularized corruption in the late 20th and early 21st centuries! Ah ha, au contraire, there where some pretty substantial facts that the folks organizing the demonstrations didn't think we, the public, were privy to either through omission or by blatantly lying to us, the public. Now the folks that I believe share the blame for this distasteful lack of judgment for preying on sympathies of the public for perceived racial injustices are the notorious SOB's, (that's actually the name of the club they are in), they are in order of notoriety...

Rev. Jesse Jackson - Who is a low life, hypocritical son-of-a-bitch, bible thumping, adulterous, racists, and let's not forget a classic example of a type A narcissist. He is the founder of the Rainbow/PUSH collation, whatever the hell that is supposed to stand for anymore. This man is from another era. A time when he was in the right place at the right time. He rode the coattails of a truly great man. He never actually did anything great himself. It's not like he's a great diplomat or negotiator he's just good at inciting a mob. Just like his friend and protege(?) business associate...

Rev. Al Sharpton - is just as slimy as his former boss and compatriot. He does likes to march into a situation and twist and construe the facts to the point of them being lies and will even step over the line to get his way.

Both of these gentlemen belong to the same club. They are both past their expiration dates. Meaning that when Dr. King, was assassinated and the civil rights movement was embraced by American mainstream as a just cause. As things started to change, abet slowly, since you cannot just stop and reverse course overnight, this is still an ongoing process, mainly an educating one for the rural folks since this is where most of this residual racism seems to be, i.e. Jena (pop. 3,000). However this is not necessarily a blog so much about racism as it is self-righteous public speakers taking advantage of small folk for their own personal gain. Alas i am getting to the heart of what it is that really chaps my hide in this situation.

Both of these guys organize a demonstration, and start to inflame racial tensions, insinuating, and exaggerating facts to fit the situation for their own personal glory, just so it'll look good as a bullet point on their resumes. And the public, yours truly included, believe's them. Yes, believe's that this town's d.a., judge, and police department, where in a conspiring to victimize these six young black men for beating the snot out of this white kid. Who more than likely hung the nooses. What the protest organizers seemed to forgotten to mention is that, they didn't beat him up at school right after finding out what had happened. No they jumped the kid, yes all six of them, almost like a gang, as he was leaving a gas station on foot. They put him in the hospital. The police did investigate the "noose" incident, and decided that charges where not warranted in this matter. Well, we all know, that all the police, d.a., and the judges like to do, is totally screw up innocent peoples' lives, right. That's all they live for. Seriously, how diluted have we become. I know we all agree that checks and balances for the judicial system seem to be going out of whack, however that is on the scale of whole system in large. But when you get down to the local level, the officials don't want to screw up the lives of six kids, especially if they are innocent!

Now for the article that sparked this rant on my soapbox, was about Mychal Bell. He was the one that the conviction got over turned on due to technicalities, well it turns out he was on probation for those prior run-ins with the law, he got thrown into jail due to violating the terms of his probation. Here is a quote(s) from his dad:

"He's locked up again, No bail has been set or nothing. He's a young man who's been thrown in jail again and again, and he just has to take it."

This is what the illustrious Rev. Sharpton had to say:

"We feel this was a cruel and unusual punishment and is a revenge by this judge for the Jena Six movement"

And one more quote from his dad,(last one):

"I don't know what we're going to do, I don't know how we're going to pay for any of this. I don't know how we're going to get through this."

Maybe you should ask your new friends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to give you some money to help you through these rough times, and to help you become a better dad, since apparently you weren't involved in your son's life enough to know what kind of people he was hanging around with, or that he wanted blood for the noose incident.

Anyhow, this is the end of my rant for this edition. I don't normally get worked up over things like this, because usually we (the public) don't always get the whole story about a situation, like the McCann's and the daughter that disappeared in Portugal. That incident was picked up by the media and blown sky high, and for no other reason but for ratings, it was a slow news week. But what made me jump on the Jena six band wagon, was that it was almost a year later, and it was easy to grasp the hope that was being peddled for these kids, in the face of a grave in justice. Since almost a year had passed since the transgression in question, it seemed logical that the media would've had plenty of time to research the topic before just accepting what the Music man (men) had to say. That would be what they are getting paid for no? At least in the movie the Music Man came back and did the right thing.

The Article:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071012/D8S7K6680.html

 

del.icio.us Tags: jena six 6 racism opinion editorial jesse jackson al sharpton music man