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Tag: China

“Ugly Beauty” (#55 in “a shining moment” series)

 

Ugly Beauty is a composition by Thelonious Monk.

Received notions, prejudices and phobias can prevent people from seeing or hearing clearly.

Less so posthumously, but very much so during his lifetime, many just did not “get” Monk’s music – for reasons not hugely dissimilar to those which can blind people to an arachnid’s or a reptile’s beauty.

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Daylight’s opening hour: upland (#54 in “a shining moment series)

 

Today’s song with words is a lovely celebration of daybreak on “the spine of England”.

Its image comes from “the roof of the world”, where even flat, “low” places are several thousand metres higher than England’s Pennine Hills.

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Word power: Soros skewers Facebook & Google

Something very harmful and maybe irreversible is happening to human attention in our digital age. Not just distraction or addiction; social media companies are inducing people to give up their autonomy. The power to shape people’s attention is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few companies. It takes a real effort to assert and defend what John Stuart Mill called “the freedom of mind.” There is a possibility that once lost, people who grow up in the digital age will have difficulty in regaining it. This may have far-reaching political consequences.

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