Australian actor Ray Barrett dies at 82
(AP) – 1 hour ago
BRISBANE, Australia — Veteran Australian actor Ray Barrett, who became a star of British television in the 1960s, has died, his agent said Wednesday. He was 82.
Barrett's last film role was as the character Ramsden in director Baz Luhrmann's movie "Australia," released last year.
His Sydney agent Jane Cameron said Barrett died in hospital Tuesday after a fall at his home at Gold Coast city in Queensland state.
"He was an extraordinarily good actor who loved doing it," Cameron said. "He was such a skilled actor that he was always a very solid presence on the screen."
Raymond Charles Barrett was born in the Queensland capital Brisbane on May 2, 1927. He moved to England in the late 1950s and starred in the long-running British television series "The Troubleshooters" in the 1960s.
Cameron said Barrett did a wide range of acting work in the United Kingdom for almost 20 years, including voices for the iconic puppet television series "Thunderbirds," before he returned to Australia in the mid-1970s.
In Australia, he became a prominent player in a rejuvenated Australian film industry. He received one of Australia's greatest acting accolades, an Australian Film Industry Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his role in director Fred Schepisi's 1978 film "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith."
Barrett is survived by his third wife, Gaye, a daughter from his first marriage, Suellen, and two sons from his second marriage, Reg and John.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Cognitive Dissonance is no accident
Somewhere between the engineering of consent and some people's innate intellectual laziness is a broad agenda not just to dumb people down- small enough effort required there, on average- but also lower expectations.
In the real estate sales game they call it conditioning the seller. Their client, the seller, wants to sell their house, and get as much for it as possible. Contrary to this, most real estate firms want nothing more than to milk the sucker seller for money until there isn't any more then sell the house for whatever they can get. The commission doesn't vary too much whether the house sells at a premium or not.
But all that is a different story. What matters for the purposes of this little dialectic tract is that the real estate crooks con their own client, in the same way educational outlets and the media con their audience. They move people emotionally, exploit their vulnerability... In short, they condition their audience. Not really controversial news any more. Although the mere fact that all these truths have to run a gauntlet in the media and from the half educated doyens of what is left of the educational system tells you something.
For fifty or more years the catchcry has been, "those who can, do; those who can't, teach." And it is very true. As a result the least intellectually fit have prospered in classrooms and universities at the expense of the bright all rounders who used to drag the rest of society along kicking and screaming into an increasingly bright future.
Conditioning is not only turning out a bottomless hellpit of Homer Simpsons of both sexes in the civilised world, it's also lowering expectations for the future. Reducing people's ambitions to base consumerism and animalism is the credo at work here.
It must be stopped. Which means WE all have to try and stop it.
Best of luck, wish me the same.
In the real estate sales game they call it conditioning the seller. Their client, the seller, wants to sell their house, and get as much for it as possible. Contrary to this, most real estate firms want nothing more than to milk the sucker seller for money until there isn't any more then sell the house for whatever they can get. The commission doesn't vary too much whether the house sells at a premium or not.
But all that is a different story. What matters for the purposes of this little dialectic tract is that the real estate crooks con their own client, in the same way educational outlets and the media con their audience. They move people emotionally, exploit their vulnerability... In short, they condition their audience. Not really controversial news any more. Although the mere fact that all these truths have to run a gauntlet in the media and from the half educated doyens of what is left of the educational system tells you something.
For fifty or more years the catchcry has been, "those who can, do; those who can't, teach." And it is very true. As a result the least intellectually fit have prospered in classrooms and universities at the expense of the bright all rounders who used to drag the rest of society along kicking and screaming into an increasingly bright future.
Conditioning is not only turning out a bottomless hellpit of Homer Simpsons of both sexes in the civilised world, it's also lowering expectations for the future. Reducing people's ambitions to base consumerism and animalism is the credo at work here.
It must be stopped. Which means WE all have to try and stop it.
Best of luck, wish me the same.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Scrabble on Facebook: if you are a retard or an ignoramus, this is the game for you.
Disgusting, stupid and embarassing Game. If your name is Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin, this is the word game for you- a game where being able to speak read and write English counts against you.
It allows countless gibberish words like ud, mun, zo, ae, aa, ai, ab, al, boh, shope, and on and on- whilst disallowing known normal albeit educated words. It is a disgrace.
It doesn't allow challenge of these pathetic non-words, it lags or freezes constantly, and its stupid system of scoring prevents its constant errors and failure to adhere to the English language to be reflected in scoring.
If you are re tarded, lacking in self respect, horribly badly educated or just a typical unintellectual member of the underclass- this is the game for you.
If you play this game, see it for the disgrace it is to our language and culture and play it anyway, you are a pathetic sheep and deserve what the future will most certainly bring you and your class of society. OBEY SLEEP NO IMAGINATIVE THOUGHT.
A word game where wrong words are allowed. If that doesn't sum up modern life, nothing does.
cue the Simpsons theme.
I am forced to give it at least one star- facebook admins - I do so under duress, this game deserves NOTHING and doesn't even work well enough to be playable by the sheeple who like it.
When trying to post this review, I was told some of its content was reported as abusive by facebook users- interesting since it hadn't been posted yet. Fascist much?
It allows countless gibberish words like ud, mun, zo, ae, aa, ai, ab, al, boh, shope, and on and on- whilst disallowing known normal albeit educated words. It is a disgrace.
It doesn't allow challenge of these pathetic non-words, it lags or freezes constantly, and its stupid system of scoring prevents its constant errors and failure to adhere to the English language to be reflected in scoring.
If you are re tarded, lacking in self respect, horribly badly educated or just a typical unintellectual member of the underclass- this is the game for you.
If you play this game, see it for the disgrace it is to our language and culture and play it anyway, you are a pathetic sheep and deserve what the future will most certainly bring you and your class of society. OBEY SLEEP NO IMAGINATIVE THOUGHT.
A word game where wrong words are allowed. If that doesn't sum up modern life, nothing does.
cue the Simpsons theme.
I am forced to give it at least one star- facebook admins - I do so under duress, this game deserves NOTHING and doesn't even work well enough to be playable by the sheeple who like it.
When trying to post this review, I was told some of its content was reported as abusive by facebook users- interesting since it hadn't been posted yet. Fascist much?
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Synchromysticism: Stuck in neutral because...
Synchromysticism is stuck in neutral because it is a process, towards an end. But all too often the process is being used inappropriately, by uneducated, not especially clever and frequently not all there people to make random connections through a combination of seeing what one wants to see and using "near enough is good enough" rather than scrupulous accuracy.
For example.
There are many real and documented "coincidences" in the Charles Manson cases. There is the occurrence of the date October 12. There is the crossover with the Church of Scientology. The presence in the same prison, sometimes the same cell, at the same time as Manson of a variety of other 60s figures. The references made by Manson to the Beatles, who possibly met him and certainly stayed within walking distance of him. The crossover with the Four Pi Movement. The crossover with the underground bases mythos (and its underlying reality). And much more.
This is totally different from the frequent use by uncritical and rather silly people calling themselves synchromystics (a profession not requiring qualification, handily enough*) who pick a given date, then use events that fall ANYWHERE WITHIN A MONTH of that date as "hits" to correlate. That kind of howlingly stupid imprecision discredits the very real significance of certain dates, the genuinely odd repetitions in the lives and deaths of public figures, the fact that there really have been sinister groups linking many an alleged "lone assassin" or "serial killer" and so on.
*and thus on the level of many an Arts and Computing graduate
For example.
There are many real and documented "coincidences" in the Charles Manson cases. There is the occurrence of the date October 12. There is the crossover with the Church of Scientology. The presence in the same prison, sometimes the same cell, at the same time as Manson of a variety of other 60s figures. The references made by Manson to the Beatles, who possibly met him and certainly stayed within walking distance of him. The crossover with the Four Pi Movement. The crossover with the underground bases mythos (and its underlying reality). And much more.
This is totally different from the frequent use by uncritical and rather silly people calling themselves synchromystics (a profession not requiring qualification, handily enough*) who pick a given date, then use events that fall ANYWHERE WITHIN A MONTH of that date as "hits" to correlate. That kind of howlingly stupid imprecision discredits the very real significance of certain dates, the genuinely odd repetitions in the lives and deaths of public figures, the fact that there really have been sinister groups linking many an alleged "lone assassin" or "serial killer" and so on.
*and thus on the level of many an Arts and Computing graduate
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