10/31/2008
10/29/2008
Murals by Chor Boogie
All kinds of associations come to mind here but carnival art is the strongest one that occurs to me right now. Carny meets folk meets graffiti, with a nod or two to Sol Lewitt, oddly enough. Sphere: Related Content
10/28/2008
Vintage Halloween Photographs now on view at Wired.com
Keep in mindthat none of these people made it out alive.The ghosts of these spooky siblings, for example, could be literally anywhere.
Maybe that little boy -- after becoming a man and then an old man --
maybe he likes to visit people who view him in this Halloween photo.
Maybe he's visiting you right now.
Why, he could be
right
behind
you.
10/26/2008
Andrew J. Bacevich at LATimes.com strongly argues that "The Age of Triumphalism" has ended and "The Age of Salvaging What's Left" is upon us.
Bacevich connects George W. Bush's wars with those begun by previous administrations, wars in which American ideals were used to justify subjugation, theft and murder.
We've heard this before, but Bacevich contends that Bush entered administration in an Age of American Triumphalism, and through his blatantly deceptive exercise of wars in the manner that proved successful in the Polk and McKinley administrations, he brought this triumphalism to an abrupt end.
America's Frat Boy President and C-minus History major couldn't understand a cultural quantum that Stephen Hawking himself might have cooked up: as communication delays near zero, the amount of bullshit required to maintain the intellectual subjugation of the people approaches infinity.
Think of it, folks. America could have stood for something as the world's only superpower. We could have been an authentically positive force in the world, rather than a force that calls itself positive by supposedly spreading democracy, or vanquishing terrorism (as though a tactic could be an enemy) when really it's just settling old scores, serving the shrill paranoia of an increasingly parasitic ally, and aggrandizing its wealthiest class at the expense of its middle-class and poor, not to mention at the expense of the world's weakest people.
Think what we could have done in Darfur, as just one example, had we not been burdened with the ridiculous Iraq occupation. Think of how much easier the current economic problems might have been for an America that wasn't pouring billions each month into Iraq.
Yet you voted for this, America, not once, but twice. This is the America you asked for, and this is the America you deserve.
10/25/2008
Barack Obama provides an antidote to the misinformation of the GOP pundit machine
This was up on Reddit under the headline "Interviewer attempts to editorialize with McCain talking points, but Biden doesn't miss a beat".
Watch closely -- notes to follow.
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Did you see what I saw?
Listen to the way she takes the ideas of the GOP's punditocracy and states them in their most extreme form, very clearly -- and in question form for Joe Biden.
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10/23/2008
A terrific Barack Obama quote from Joe Klein's recent article in Time Magazine
"I have to tell you, one of the benefits of running this 22-month gauntlet is that ... you start realizing that what seems important or clever or in need of some dramatic moment a lot of times just needs reflection and care."
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10/18/2008
Terry Tate says "Find out where to vote, Sucker!"
Wait for it... wait for it...
10/14/2008
10/13/2008
Think the GOP might not even want to win?
I read an interesting comment on a social bookmarking site and thought I'd pass it along:
Now I realize that political parties exist to get candidates elected, but they do have long-term strategies as well. This is making more and more sense to me when I consider the choice of the utterly laughable Sarah Palin.The GOP badly needs a Democrat in the White House to take the blame for the remaining fall-out from the Bush administration -- which is going to continue to bring pain and suffering to Americans for years to come.
Why else would they have let McCain -- their most doddering, least charismatic, least capable and most irritating possible choice -- become their candidate? Keep in mind, most of the GOP doesn't like McCain. Letting him be painted as the loser in a year when they know loss is much more likely for them leaves untainted candidates they will want to run in the future.
Why else would the GOP have manipulated things to the point that McCain's only choice for a VP was a woman who makes Dan Quayle look like John F. Kennedy?
The GOP does not want to win this presidential election or even a majority in Congress. They won't want it again until the coast is clear from the damage they brought you during the past eight years, and, not incidentally, when there's more cash in America's coffers to absorb.
Meanwhile, as Democrat majorities in the House and Senate and a Democratic president struggle through the upcoming years to fix the incredible mess Bush & Co has put us in, the GOP will twist and spin repeatedly, through every media outlet they can afford, until by 2012 America believes it was Democrats and Democrats alone that caused the current financial crisis and all the suffering that followed.
In the meantime it's interesting to watch this man flail desperately away.
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10/11/2008
10/03/2008
10/02/2008
Looking for studio space
My work's blowing up, so I need roughly 20 x 20 feet, at least 12 foot ceiling, at least two clear walls, two electric outlets. Ideally it holds 50 degrees in winter and is located in or near Canton, CT. Send me any offers you have. Thanks - B
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Now listen to the way she doesn't argue with Joe as he refutes each premise very clearly and directly. Note that her behavior is completely unlike the punditocracy -- think O'Reilly, Chris Mathews, Lou Dobbs et al -- who as a matter of policy interrupt vociferously when interviewees disagree with them.
This interview is very clearly an info piece generated by Obama's campaign. It targets the large swath of Republican voters who would like to vote for change, but who are feeling the pressure of messages from their own punditocracy who suggest in murky, shifty ways the very ideas this woman stated very clearly and succinctly.
Punditry is pure poison, regardless of which side it advocates. It displaces dry but important information with much more potent emotion and entertainment. Punditry teaches people to vote from their emotions rather than their heads. The most recent, most extreme examples of this are broadcasting's supporters of Sarah Palin, who must resort to emotional appeals because there are no intellectual attributes by which this candidate is worthy of office.
This piece is an outright inoculation against the lies of the punditocracy, something we haven't seen in my lifetime -- certainly not in so effective a form -- and it's yet one more way that Barack Obama is revolutionizing the way campaigning is done in America.
Should ideas like this ever effectively disarm the pundits, who knows -- maybe the news outlets will have to resort to honest journalism.