Song of Our Country

[cheerfulstoic]

A couple of days ago Dad forwarded me this article about the use of music as torture device in Guantanamo and other U.S. military prisons. They use a wide variety of songs ranging from Britney Spears to the Bee Gees to the Barney theme song, but heavy metal has proven especially effective:

As an interrogator for the U.S. Army's 361st Psychological

Comments

[earthbound01]

I agree about music and torture- anything too much can be a source of terrible discomfort or distraction, although, conversely and absurdly, it also makes me think of the kind of things ascetic mystics do to take their selves out of themselves.
Also, I'm going to play some Miles Davis to my (Filipino) roommate and see if it bugs the shit out of him or not.

[marstheinfomage]

in a western society this would have turned into a The-Big-U-esque music battle, but still very nice :)

although i can't shake the feeling that what it would really work out as is
Tiabo: *covering her ears* oh this is terrible! turn it off!
the rest of the island: *pull out lighters and hum along*

[cheerfulstoic]

On a gut-instinct level I find it almost impossible to believe that anyone could possibly actively dislike Miles Davis, but it's a big world, potentially full of people with very odd tastes in music.

[marstheinfomage]

"We've got BOTH kinds of music here - country AND western!" -- the Blues Brothers

i'll go look up miles davis in a bit, only 170 or so unread LJ posts left :)

[cheerfulstoic]

YOU DON'T KNOW WHO MILES DAVIS IS!?! omg.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Davis
http://www.last.fm/music/Miles+Davis
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=miles+davis&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=VN2ZSb-SEpi2Meup4I4M&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#

[magnificentme]

My first thought when I read that was the terrible Chinese pop that they play 24/7 on the overnight trains in China. Sometimes I wanted to cut my own ears off, but it wouldn't have helped because the damn stuff gets stuck in your head.
Then I thought about making daddy listen to 94.5 the Buzz.

[cheerfulstoic]

And then you laughed?

[erinmind]

I read that book. Very entertaining. I just started his sequel, Getting Stoned with Savages. I'm only one chapter in but it's good so far. The transition from the island life back to corporate America was pretty difficult for him, especially the concept of keeping track of time and meeting schedules.

[cheerfulstoic]

It's on my list, but I still have so much to read from Christmas that it may be a while.