Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Antidote / "Kindness at the Crossroads"


















It took me years to realize that waiting for someone else to change is not fruitful and, besides, it's unkind to all involved.

Here's one wildly creative antidote to that, with lyrics here.



Thanks to Doonesbury's Featured Video.

And to Sabine for this:

Don't go into the tangled jungle
looking for the great elephant
who is already quietly at home.
Nothing to do,
Nothing to force,
nothing to want -
and everything happens by itself.

("Kindness at the Crossroads," a computer trackpad drawing by am from 2005)

4 comments:

Sabine said...

Reminded me of how much I enjoyed this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w&feature=related

am said...

Sabine -- Thanks for the link. I had not heard of this band until coming across the video on the Doonesbury website.

Interesting that the ad preceding the video you linked to on YouTube was a 12-minute ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ylfJzJ_AA8

I usually skip those ads. What caught my attention was that a veteran of the war in Iraq was speaking, and so I listened. It was Aidan Delgado, a conscientious objector:

http://www.amazon.com/Sutras-Abu-Ghraib-Conscientious-Objector/dp/0807072702.

Then I noticed that the ad was 12 minutes long. It turned out to be a campaign ad for Ron Paul. At the end of the ad, it said that most people over 45 don't watch YouTube and encouraged young people to send a link to older people so that they will be convinced that Ron Paul should be elected U.S. President in 2012.

Now I'm curious why Ok Go would be associated with Ron Paul in this way. I am guessing they have no connection at all with Ron Paul.

With a little research, I found this on Yahoo! answers:

"If your video contains copyrighted music/audio then the people who own the copyrights are advertising on your video and making money from the ads."

This gets curiouser and curiouser ...

I first read about Aidan Delgado on a blog that would be unlikely to support Ron Paul. Aidan Delgado contacted that blog in 2007, looking for exposure for his book.

"... something's happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear ..."

Sabine said...

Certainly curious. I don't get this ad when I open the video. Maybe because I am not in the US or maybe because I have an addblock installed with the browser (firefox), so I don't get any ads at all, just a short period of blank nothingness from time to time, but not with this video.
Now I am thinking that I may be missing out on something...

am said...

Sabine -- Thanks for your feedback on this. I didn't realize that I might be able to block those ads.

In general, the ads I skip are movie trailers. A political ad was something new. Now that I think of it, these only appear with some YouTube videos. From now on, I will pay more attention to them to see what the pattern is.

I did notice yesterday that when I replayed the OK Go video, there was a different ad. Just now, when I replayed "This Too Shall Pass," there was a T-Mobile Valentine's Day ad. It appears to be generated in connection with Ok Go's YouTube Channel.