Saturday, February 6, 2010

January Music

Bored, I decided to listen to all the mp3s I've downloaded between W and Z...

Amethyst - Wake Up Call
Arthur Yoria - I'll Pretend
Band of Skulls - Death By Diamonds And Pearls
Beyond The Element - Walk Into Fire
Black Mountain - Queens Will Play
Blackamore & Company - Dead Man
Bon Iver - Skinny Love
Boyce Avenue - Not Enough
Caro Emerald - Back It Up
Chris Harper - The Pain Beneath
Closure in Moscow - Sweet#Hart
Dave Matthews Band - The Stone (I know, even though I generally loathe DMB)
Doves - Compulsion
Esterlyn - Faster, Faster
John Randolph - Rewind
Mechanical Moth - Black Queen Style (this one got overlooked)
My Brightest Diamond - Tainted Love (Soft Cell cover...actually, their version was a cover too)
Shaka Ponk - How We Kill Stars
Small Town Boredom - Void Lighting
Spanking Machine - Cult of Lies
Summerbirds In The Cellar - Beware Of False Prophets
The Kooks - Stormy Weather
The Starlight Mints - Power Bleed
Thermostatic - So Close So Near
Thornley - All Comes Out In The Wash
Tom Petty - Turn This Car Around
Warpaint - Elephants
Washed Out - New Theory
We Are Scientists - Chick Lit
We Versus The Shark - I Am Destined For Greatness
White Rabbits - Rudie Fails
WhiteMoor - Three Words
Wintersleep - Danse Macabre
Wohllebe - Not Quite Right
Wolf and Cub - Seven Sevens
Woodhands - Dancer
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Dull Life
Yeasayer - Forgiveness
You Am I - Berlin Chair
You Me At Six - Kiss & Tell
Young Dubliners - Foggy Dew (Carbon Leaf fans who need more penny whistle tunes will like this one)
Young Vinyls - Avalanche
Youngbloods - Darkness Darkness
ZAZA - The Call
Zebra & Giraffe - Fight! Fight! Fight!
Zero 7 - Pop Art Blue
Zigmat - Machine
Zorch Boomhauer - Wanting U is EZ

As usual:

Bold = I have other songs by them in my mp3/cd collection
Italic = I'd heard but didn't like other songs by them
Neither = never heard of them before


"I want nothing but the love of the next stranger who walks through that door" - The Black Ghosts, I Want Nothing

Friday, February 5, 2010

Wakefield Discredited

Well, it's been a long time coming, but that quack Andrew Wakefield is finally having his falsefied autism study discredited. It's too damn little, way too late, though. Too much hurt has been done in his name and people who believe him are too rabidly consumed by the fabricated connection between the MMR vaccine and autism to see reason - otherwise they'd understand that Japan stopped using the vaccine a decade ago and has seen rising autism rates since.

You know how they say the path to hell is paved with good intentions? I think it's closer to the truth that damage is done through unintended consiquences. Did Doctor Wakefield intend to scare people into not vaccinating their children, and by doing so spark a reinsurgance of diseases like the measles that haven't killed scores of children in decades? Probably not. But the fact remains that he falsified a study at the behest of lawyers who were looking to sue vaccine makers over autism, and "made" the study fit the conclusions that they wanted. Everything after that was a dominio effect. Evil doesn't necessarily rely on the intentions, because in many cases like this one, you can determine it from the results instead.


I've mentioned why I care about this before, haven't I? I worked with kids with autism a couple of years after I got out of college. And I do think that they've been done a disservice through Wakefield's work - there have been counter-studies done over and over again in attempt to discredit Wakefield, and these unnecessary duplications have stolen time and resources away from other research that might help kids like those two little boys and countless others like them. What if someone who was laboring at proving that there's no link between vaccines and autism might have found a way to prevent it?


"Now that the statue has toppled, the word is all over town. The mob has already gathered to pick the jewels from the crown" - Adam Cohen, How The Mighty Have Fallen