Blog Recommendation -- NOT THE SINGULARITY

My former blog host, Steve Hynd, has put together a top-notch team of smart people at NOT THE SINGULARITY, an eclectic presentation -- the blogging equivalent of fresh red meat -- divided into four categories: Culture, Gaming, Tech and Politics.  I'm not "into" gaming at all, and my interest in technology is strictly that of a layman. But culture and politics are categories I can get my teeth into. They're mostly opinions. "...like a**holes: everybody has one & they all stink...."  And ...."I don't know if it's art but I know what I like."  Here is a sample of very rich content that caught my eye today.

Exposing the Abuse-Riddled “Troubled Teen” Industry
Yet another (*take-ur-pik*) Industrial Complex developing in our bubble economy...

Naturally, some teens are more confused and conflicted than others as a result of specific influences in their lives and may sometimes employ inadequate coping strategies. This often translates into troublesome behavior. It is this type of teen that the “troubled teen” industry latches onto with a fierce marketing campaign that speaks the language of love and caring to ensnare unsuspecting parents. Check out this recruiting website which exudes a sense of “softness” with its image of a pink flower positioned beside a few white capsules. 

However, many of these institutions are anything but caring heaping abuse upon abuse on these adolescents that have long-lasting effects.

There are places where no cell phones or Internet are permitted. Places isolated in the wilderness miles from any form of civilization, where children are taken to correct their behavior — and suffer a wide array of vicious torments.

Many of the survivors suffer from PTSD or continue to have nightmares years after their ‘treatment’ in one of these institutions.

How Destroying Evidence Of Torture Gets You Promoted In Obama’s CIA
The reader will discover here that Steve is nobody's sycophant.

If you helped cover up evidence of war crimes by destroying unknown numbers of tapes of torture during interrogations and had actually run the “black site” prisons into which detainees were disappeared for torture, then given the President’s past rhetoric the last thing you’d have expected the Obama administration to agree to would have been your promotion to head of the clandestine service of the nation’s premier intelligence agency, right?
Fast forward to 2013.
[...]
...the decision on whether to allow one of the worst perpetrators of this crime against humanity to lead the nation’s clandestine service is in the hands of John Brennan, keeper of Obama’s “kill list” and a man who during the Bush administration was either fully complicit in illegal rendition and “enhanced interrogation” or at minimum looked the other way.

Shocking: The Nazis Hated Jazz
In the short span of a few paragraphs Matthew Elliot points to another blog, a promising new movie (Yep, trailer included) and a historical factoid with contemporary resonance. (How do you spell Rap, Punk or Grunge?

As per the late Czech writer and dissident Josef Skvorecky, courtesy Open Culture (h/t):

An aspiring tenor saxophone player living in Third Reich-occupied Czechoslovakia, Skvorecky had ample opportunity to experience the Nazis’ “control-freak hatred of jazz.” In the intro to his short novel The Bass Saxophone, he recounts from memory a set of ten bizarre regulations issued by a Gauleiter, a regional Nazi official, that bound local dance orchestras during the Czech occupation.

HR933 “Monsanto Protection Act”
As I said, this blog is not anybody's sycophant. It's not hard to be Liberal and critical of Democrats at the same time when you're paying attention.

HR 933 was signed into law on Tuesday, called the ”Monsanto Protection Act”. This bill was suppose to be a simple spending bill but section 735 of the bill made it impossible for you or me to sue Monsanto if we get sick from their genetically modified crops. I want to scream at the Republicans for sending Sen. Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, to craft the provision with the help of Monsanto itself. I want to kick the ass of the Democrats like Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski who turned her “back on consumers” according to Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety,