The Healing Power Of Music

By William Kitner

(KTRN Exclusive) Have you ever been having a bad day, feeling down, depressed, unmotivated, and bummed out?  We all have.  What do you normally do to try to get out of your funk?  For some people, they may take a walk, clean the house, watch a funny movie, or call up a friend to chit chat.  But what about listening to your favorite music?  Try it.  You might be surprised just how much better it makes you feel.  First, you’re sad and lonely.  Then you crank up the volume and the next thing you know, you’re moving, grooving, dancing, and playing air guitar to your favorite album.  I’ll will bet you a million dollars (OK, $1) that you will absolutely feel better, almost instantly.

It’s called music therapy and it can work on virtually anyone.  According to the American Music Therapy Association, it’s “the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals. It is an established health service similar to occupational therapy and physical therapy and consists of using music therapeutically to address physical, psychological, cognitive and/or social functioning for patients of all ages. Because music therapy is a powerful and non-invasive medium, unique outcomes are possible. In addition to its applications in mental health, music therapy is used successfully in a variety of additional healthcare and educational settings.”

There are numerous benefits to music therapy.  You can explore personal feelings and therapeutic issues such as self-esteem or personal insight.  It can help make positive changes in mood and emotional states and enhance awareness of yourself.  It helps you relax and supports healthy feelings and emotions.  It’s even been seen to help develop independence and decision making skills, along with improving concentration or attention span.

A recent video on You Tube has been getting quite a lot of hits.  The video (see below) shows an elderly man in a nursing home.  He is usually unresponsive and dead to the world.  But once he starts listening to his favorite music, he practically wakes up from his slumber.  His eyes widen, he taps his toes, he smiles, and he hoots and hollers.  After a short session listening to music, the doctors as him questions about his past.  Instead of being in a vegetable state, he begins to not only talk about his favorite music, but he even starts singing while remembering his past (he’s got a great voice too).

It doesn’t matter what type of music you listen to.  Some experts will say listening to Baroque classical music will make you feel better, but honestly, pick whatever you like.  If Slayer is your thing, rock out.  If you like bluegrass, that’s cool too.  Prog Rock?  Why not?  Just make sure you turn the volume to 11 like the guys in Spinal Tap.

Only 32 Percent Of Kony 2012’s Invisible Children Charity Went To Direct Aid Last Year

March 21, 2012

ABC News

By ENJOLI FRANCIS AND FELICIA PATINKIN

“If you’re going to donate to a charity, Invisible Children is not one you should consider.” –KTRN

Russell said the charity’s programs in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan included the building of a rehabilitation center, an expanded and early-warning radio network connecting communities and an LRA crisis tracker, which is a mapping platform and data-collection system.

But Visible Children pointed out that although Invisible Children had spent more than $8.6 million last year, “only 32 percent went to direct services with much of the rest going to staff salaries, travel and transport, and film production.”

Click here for the full report.

YouTube Restricts Video Of Engineer Proving How Useless TSA Scanners Are

March 7, 2012

Activist Post

By Steve Watson

“This is really disturbing. Watch how easy this guy gets through the naked body scanner with a metal object in his pocket. He does it not just once, but twice. Here is just one more example that the TSA is not here to protect us.” –KTRN

Google/YouTube has placed restrictions on yet another video that exposes the fraudulent claims of the TSA and highlights how the federal agency’s security theatre is part of a wider social manipulation agenda.

Engineer Jon Corbett of the popular blog TSA Out of Our Pants! posted a video yesterday that demonstrates how the TSA’s radiation firing body scanners can easily be bypassed.

The video shows Corbett carrying a metal case through the scanner, away from his body in his side pocket. Corbett explains that because metallic objects appear as black on the image the scanners produce, the machines do not pick up such objects if they are obscured by the background, which is also black.

Corbett has been rallying against the TSA for some time and has had several run ins with agents at airports. Corbett was also the first person in the country to sue the TSA for invasion of privacy. His case is still ongoing and is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The scanners are now effectively worthless, as anyone can beat them with virtually no effort.” Corbett writes on his blog. “The TSA has been provided this video in advance of it being made public to give them an opportunity to turn off the scanners and revert to the metal detectors. I personally believe they now have no choice but to turn them off.” he adds.

Within hours of the video being uploaded, blogs and news sites, including Yahoo News and the Mail Online had begun to pick up an the video, saying it was sure to go viral.

Now, despite the fact that the video contains no nudity, violence, abuse or other explicit content, YouTube has placed it behind an age restriction wall, meaning anyone who wants to view it on YouTube has to login or sign up for an account and verify their age.

“This video is not intended to teach anyone how to commit criminal acts, nor is intended to help “the terrorists” — if I could figure this out, I’m sure they’ve long figured it out, and by exposing it to the public, we now have an opportunity to correct it.” Corbett writes on his blog.

Click here for the full report.

The Only Thing Governments Have Done Song

February 20, 2012

UTOPIA or BUST

Your Interview With The President – A Complete Joke

February 8, 2012

Huffington Post

By Steven Downing

“If you watched Your Interview With The President on You Tube, than you know it was a total joke. They cherry picked questions and it was obvious Obama knew exactly what he was going to be asked. It was painful to watch.”

Dear Google/YouTube:

In more than twenty years with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), where I retired as deputy chief of police, I saw a lot of puzzling behavior at close range. This week I saw some odd behavior from Google, YouTube and President Obama.

It started when I submitted, via YouTube, a question for the “Your Interview with the President” session, an online chat hosted on Google+. My question asked why the President has not done more to end our disastrous drug war at a time when polls show that a majority of Americans now support legalizing marijuana. The decades I spent enforcing our drug laws with the LAPD convinced me that the war on drugs is worse than unwinnable. It is a boon to organized crime and a worthless drain on limited law enforcement resources, not to mention the fact that it saddles millions of Americans with criminal records that can follow them for the rest of their lives.

In retirement, I have spent that last few years working with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a group that represents police, prosecutors, judges, DEA agents, and others who are working to replace drug prohibition with a system of sensible regulation and control. LEAP and many other groups sprang into action when the call went out for people to submit questions for the president via YouTube. Eighteen of the 20 top vote-getting questions were on drug policy; mine was the highest-ranked video question on the entire site and the second-highest vote-getter overall, trailing only a text question about online copyright infringement.

Along with many other people, I looked forward to hearing what the president would say. But, as it turned out, Google didn’t present the president with my question. And your host, Steve Grove, didn’t say one word during the entire interview about any of the other popular marijuana and drug policy questions.

Instead, you decided to spend several minutes allowing participants to ask the president of the United States to weigh in on truly important issues like… late-night snacking, dancing, celebrating wedding anniversaries and playing tennis.

Click here for the full report.

DOJ Wants To Criminalize Uploading You Tube Videos

November 16, 2011

Prison Planet

By Paul Joseph Watson

“The government hates the internet.  It’s a place where we can share alternative viewpoints on everything.  It is the platform that is changing the way we think.  The internet is the last place where real free speech is occurring and the powers that be want to shut it down.  Yes, there is disinformation and BS on-line too, but it just takes common sense to stop the garbage from the truth.”  –KTRN

The Department of Justice is attempting to criminalize uploading videos that break You Tube’s terms of service, along with any other online action that is deemed to contravene a website’s usage policy, in a shocking expansion of cybersecurity laws deemed draconian by critics.

“In a statement obtained by CNET that’s scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, the Justice Department argues that it must be able to prosecute violations of Web sites’ often-ignored, always-unintelligible “terms of service” policies,” writes Declan McCullagh.

Such violations would include creating a fake Facebook profile, lying about your weight on dating websites, or providing any other item of false information that violates a website’s TOS agreement.

Under the DOJ’s new legal framework, an expansion of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), agreeing to a website’s terms of service would be identical to signing a contract with an employer, with similar punishments for breaking that contract.

“To the Justice Department, this means that a Web site’s terms of service define what’s “authorized” or not, and ignoring them can turn you into a felon,” writes McCullagh, pointing out that millions of Americans violate ‘terms of agreement’ policies every single day.

Indeed, in the case of You Tube, users are often informed months or even years later that they may have infringed on the company’s ‘terms of service’ agreement if another user merely complains about the content of their video.

Click here for the full report from Prison Planet.