The Same Story

Two Head lines for the same story

One is from a newspaper, the other is from Murdoch's "Fox News for Investor-Class Snobs"

GULAG ROCK

1980, NYC....Gulag Rock. A brave little band. I play bass guitar, Janet Kerr/autohap and vocals, Didier Poursain/guitar and vocals and the fabulous Tim Chisolm on drums. Didier wrote the words, we all were co composers. A song about life in the Soviet Union. I am dedicating this to the brave people of the Ukraine and my hopes for their future,  I designed the poster.

Timeholes

A 2 minute sort of sci fi film by British Director Ben Mallaby.

It's 2015 and time travel has not only been invented but has become just another new technology

to be abused by obnoxious idiots.

My New Car?

A 1950's Norwegian Nordhaug, designed by Almar Nordhaug. I like everything about it but the paint job...I was thinking a 2 toned green metal flake...spruce and lime accents with the chrome tinted copper, like Plymouth did as an option back in 1960. I remember a sea foam blue Plymouth Fury with copper tinted chrome accents sitting in our driveway in Detroit. It was so cool!

Suspicious Observer

I was trying to get some good sources for information about the massive solar flare that occurred early this morning and ran across this site, Suspicious Observers. At first the name kind of put me off,(you know, kind of X FILES sci fi-ish?) but when I started to check it out, I was really impressed. Real time planetary weather and seismological information explained and analyzed real experts. And they don't stop at the edges of Earths atmosphere.  I highly recommend checking them out and subscribing to their youtube channel.  Some of the critics of this site seem to think that the SO collective has an agenda to promote climate change and geo engineering theories. I found it factual and it might just be the critics who are projecting their agenda in their interpretation of the information presented by Suspicious Observers.  Her are some shots of yesterdays flare with filters for various wavelengths of light.

These images were taken yesterday at around 7:25 pm EST by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, a satellite circling the Sun. What you're looking at are the first moments of a massive solar flare — an explosive force more powerful than all the firepower humans have created, combined.
While solar flares, in general, release mindbogglingly huge amounts of energy, this one was large and powerful even in relation to its brethren. The most intense solar flares are classified as "X" flares. Then, scientists add a number after the X to tell you how powerful the flare was. These images show the beginning of an X4.9 flare — big enough to make even the people who study massive solar eruptions sit up and go, "WOAH."

Mr. Glicker Leaves The Reservation

Note: Grosse Pointe North High School is in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. It is a public high school. Mr. Glicker is a substitute teacher. One day last month, Mr. Glicker reported to work for an assignment as a substitute teacher at Grosse Pointe North High. A student in the class made this video with his cell phone. The original video I snatched from YouTube posted by the student was pulled down due to the threats he received from the crazy assholes who were defending Mr. Glicker. They fervently believe every piece of crap Mr. Glicker was spouting here and that as you probably have gathered, the underlying philosophy of this blog is that the concept of belief is the triumph of ignorance, the end of knowledge.

Mr. Glicker describes the terrorists who attacked the world trade center in September 11, 2001 as not being men motivated by a faith or belief system but either "paid thugs" or products of CIA brainwashing. He discusses a few other conspiracy theories including some having to do a CIA brainwashing program called "MK-Ultra".  Oh, yeah, by the way,  FDR bombed Pearl Harbor....So, given a captive audience, Mr. Glicker feels free to turn the opportunity to spout every wingnut conspiracy theory out there to his students. They snigger and laugh, which is quite reasonable, but what I found most amusing was when I looked at every repost of this video on youtube, the comments were from wingnuts who were upset that the students weren't just sitting there and being silent as Mr. Glicker went on and on and on and on and on....A lot of people "believe" this mentally debilitative crap. Just shut up and sit there kids, while Mr. Glicker fixes your brainz...I hope the Grosse Point School Board is aware that Mr. Glicker has wandered off the reservation and they are taking steps to make sure his back on his meds.

No Free Pizza For You.....

Wazz More Amurrican than Pizza? Every ones like a da Pizza! Stuffed Crust, Garbage, Extra Cheeze Pleeze! Pineapple and ham...Only Commie weirdos don't like pizza! And who could turn down FREE PIZZA? FREE FRIKIN PIZZA!!!!! Cause if you live near a "fraking zone" this is your lucky day! If one of those "fraking suckers"  explodes you are gonna get FREE PIZZA! An entire goddam pie, (within reason, I mean let's not abuse the topping thingie...offer only good for a "special combo only." Remember, Chevron's yearly profits declined in 2013 and the firm made just barely over $21 billion. You weren't really expected pepperoni, too, were you? the pizza shop confirmed that about 100 of the certificates were distributed by Chevron.) a ) and and a liter of soft drink of your choice, well, as long as it's a Pepsi product, but hell, who doesn't like Pepsi? That was the offer made to Pennsylvania residents in Green County last week after a well exploded on February 11th, killing one worker and burning out of control for over a week and still leaking gas into the atmosphere.  This is the real deal! If you love pizza, then sell your house and buy a piece of property in a frikin frakin zone! Here's the authorized Chevron offer and coupon!

You'd of thunk that anyone sitting on a fraking site would realize that they are sitting on a gold mine! But a few so called Americans don't think so and even more so, THEY DON"T WANT THEIR FREE FRIKIN FRAKING PIZZA! The CEO of Exxon/Mobil,  Rex Tillerson whose job is to promote the hydraulic fracturing enabling the recent oil and gas boom, and fight regulatory oversight. The oil company is the biggest natural gas producer in the U.S., relying on the controversial drilling technology to extract it for example, doesn't want his free pizza. Neither does his neighbor, Dick Armey. Tillerson, Armey and his wife have joined in a lawsuit to prevent a fracking operation water tower from being built near their Dallas area luxury ranch estates claiming that it would create a noise nuisance and traffic hazards." Trucks would be needed to haul and pump water.
Tillerson and Armey's primary concern seems to lie in damage to the aesthetics and privacy of the property in which, as he repeatedly reminded the audience at a Bartonville town meeting in November, he’s invested millions of hard-fracked dollars. We might focus more on the danger of water contamination that tends to accompany fracking infrastructure, for which XTO Energy currently faces criminal charges in Pennsylvania. But what is Pennsylvania doing these days to deal with any environmental damage that fracking has caused or could cause in the future? Hell, you can't even legally analyze the patent protect ingredients of fracking fluid unless you have have a special legal dispensation, and this stuff is another potential gold mine, as the NorthEast runs out of salt for the roads. It seems that Pennsylvania is selling it's used fracking fluid waste as the magic ultimate deicing solution to any takers:

Meanwhile,  in Pungesti, Romania, a massive anti Chevron fracking movement is taking shape. The peasant farmers are even conducting religious exorcisms to rid themselves of fracking demons! Maybe the Romanians would like a slice of free Pizza? I don't think that BobTown Pizza has a branch in Romania, but  perhaps Chevron should consider a PR Campaign of Free Cabbage Rolls and Yoghurt and what the hell? Vodka for the masses! 

UPDATE: Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) has released a statement kindly inviting Tillerson to an exciting new club:
“I would like to officially welcome Rex to the ‘Society of Citizens Really Enraged When Encircled by Drilling’ (SCREWED). This select group of everyday citizens has been fighting for years to protect their property values, the health of their local communities, and the environment. We are thrilled to have the CEO of a major international oil and gas corporation join our quickly multiplying ranks.”

ON BOREDOM

Can boredom be elevated to an art?

No, indeed, it can’t. Boredom is inexcusable and worse is to say that other people are boring. When we say of somebody else that he is boring, it is ourselves we criticize because we have not made ourselves into that wide-open vessel into which people can pour their entire lives. Nothing is boring except a lie. Anyone who would tell the truth about himself is interesting. If people are not telling you the truth it’s because they are afraid of you: you’ve said something to them which makes them guarded. This is of course the whole purpose of having an image, because it removes all those guarded assertions, all those generalities, all those platitudes. They are removed once a person knows from looking at you what he can profitably tell or ask of you.

Nobody ever talks to me about the weather.

Quentin Crisp

One day after a video of Pussy Riot being horsewhipped by cossacks in Sochi went viral, the band had released a new music video in which the footage is heavily featured, amid anti-Putin rhetoric.
And a day later the video was released. But instead of reenacted scenes of police beatings, this music video, courtesy of Sochi’s over-zealous Cossacks, features real live state violence perpetrated against unarmed dissidents. Hard to imagine a more fitting music video for Vladimir Putin’s favorite whipping girls.

Mr. Hulot listens to his favorite record.

Les Vacances de Mr. Hulot

Jacques Tati 1953

On The Ground In The Ukraine

This post comes via a blog from Maine called The Unvarnished Truth, written by a great guy who calls himself Ol' Buzzard. He reposted it from a friends blog, The Blog Fodder who lives outside of Kiev in the midst of the action there. The Blog Fodder author wanted him to share it, and be reposted, so here it is! Today the buzz is that the Yanukovych Government has made an agreement that will stop the protests that have killed over 100 citizens. The French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius was instrumental in the negotiations, but he has frankly stated that Yanukovych is not to be trusted. The Guardian's inside reporters seem to believe that the government is crumbling with many desertions of key members. The latest reports in the French media state that if Yanukovych doesn't resign immediately, the protest will resume and now police from the anti Russian western cities are coming to Kiev to join the demonstrations and protect the demonstators. Stay tuned!
Here is The Blog Fodder post from yesterday in it's entirety:

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Ukraine. I break radio silence.
There is a great deal of misinformation about the Ukrainian situation on many North American news sites and even on the BBC.
Putin is trying to rebuild the Russian/Soviet/Russian Empire of which Ukraine is seen as a significant part. Russia has Ukraine by the short and curlies and has been applying pressure for a long time to pull Ukraine away from the West and back into the Russian fold. Anyone with even a small amount of knowledge of history will understand why Ukrainians resist that.
Most of Ukraine’s trade is with Russia. Russia has used that leverage to warn Ukraine they will destroy the country simply by closing the borders to Ukrainian goods. There have been “disputes” and slowdowns and last summer the border was shut for five days and created a panic in Ukraine. Ukraine owes Russia billions in unpaid gas debts. The official story is that Ukraine doesn't charge enough to cover the cost. That may be partially true. Unofficially, a great deal of gas money disappears between home and factory owner and the national account to pay the bill.
At the same time, Ukraine has huge debts for other stuff too. Like Hyundai trains and Euro 2012 football matches (mini-Sochi) and so forth. I am not sure if the debts of the country would match dollar for dollar the fortunes of the rich and powerful but close enough.
So when Putin told Yanukovych what would happen to Ukraine and to him if he signed any deal with the EU, he was between a rock and a hard place and went into survival mode. The EU made it easy for him by demanding that Ukraine meet certain standards of honest and civilized behaviour on the part of the country’s government, which of course he could never agree to.
The original demonstration, mostly young people, students, was about closer ties with the EU. If Ukraine has a future it is with the EU and they knew it. Then the Burkut (bear-COOT) savagely attacked the demonstrators and Ukrainians surged to the Maidan. The Berkut are the riot police. (You know the kind. In other countries, they shoot 14 year olds and old men and beat homeless people to death).
With no change in Yanukovych’s stance on EU and more acts of violence by his police, the demonstration changed from EU vs. Russia to get rid of Yanukovych. To the everlasting shame of Ukraine, this guy and his parliamentary “majority” had been elected in what may prove to be the last fair and free election in Ukraine. They knew what he was like but were so disillusioned by the total failure of Yushchenko and Timoshenko after the Orange Revolution that they actually voted for this thug. Yushchenko and Timoshenko bear most of the responsibility for what is happening today, in my opinion. And of course, other criminals have been freely elected to high leadership positions in other countries in the past, once in 1933 even.
Then to add insult to injury, the Rada (parliament) illegally passed a series of Putinesque laws designed to turn Ukraine into a total locked down police state. The Communists and the Party of Regions huddled together and did a quick one-reading, show-of-hands straw vote and had it “passed” before the opposition who were meeting to discuss strategy even knew it was happening. That was the last straw and the country exploded. People who do not live here have no idea how corrupt this government is and how it impacts people’s day to day lives.
People are fed up and they know that getting pulled into the Russian orb will only make it worse with NO hope of it ever improving. The demonstrations were not organized nor were/are they controlled by the opposition political parties (Ukraine as 180 banks and 190 political parties). The leaders of the two main moderate opposition parties tried to show leadership and negotiated with Yanukovych to the extent that they could.
Resignation of Yanukovych and his government with early presidential elections, repeal of the draconian laws, amnesty for all arrested in the course of events and a return to the 2004 constitution were the demands. A sort of amnesty law was passed and the Prime Minister resigned. The cabinet ministers all resigned but continue to serve. The “anti-protest” laws were more or less repealed. But there was no real change in the situation and as time progressed, people were growing frustrated.
As always happens when moderates fail, the extremists take over because they have the drive and the will. Ukraine has a couple of very “not-nice” parties, nationalists, extreme right wing, borderline neo-Nazis who refused to accept anything other than Yanukovych’s resignation and gradually their leaders gained ascension because they were willing to fight and to die. This does not mean that Ukrainians agree with them in any way but they are fed up to the teeth and will take leadership where they can get it. And nothing pushes people to radical positions like desperation.
The neo-Nazis to my understanding are leading the fight now. They held the line Tuesday night, pushed it back Wednesday and are holding it now. They are armed with a few small arms and hunting rifles mostly to keep Berkut snipers off the roofs of surrounding buildings but there is no doubt they have shot directly at police. I saw pictures of some of the dead militsia (police) and they are just kids, reportedly with little or no training. Sent to die as PR. The number of demonstrators dead is close to 50 I think last count.
The government have declared the ALL the demonstrators to be Fascist terrorist extremists and have begun anti-terrorist actions against them. TV news is hard come by. As of Tuesday, pro-opposition Ukrainian channels are showing old movies. As Hugo Chavez said, “The revolution will not be televised”. The only place you can get any news is the Russian channels which is like watching Fox News to get an idea of how things are going in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia or Central America. The Russians are milking the Fascist thing to death. Fascists are to Russians what Socialists and Communists are to Americans – great labels for everyone you don’t like. And of course they are all terrorists.
All the TV coverage is of dead police and armed “terrorists”. All the interviews are with government supporters. It is hilarious until you realize that is ALL that Russian people get to see unless they are smart enough to go to the internet.
It is the fascist stuff that seems to be surfacing in North American news and of course drawing comments from those to whom anything Russia does against America is good. Russia wants to expand her empire like the old days; America wants to block it. That is fair. In many cases in the past America supported the Yanukovyches of the world against those who were fighting for freedom and a future. For once they can support the good guys.
For those that question who the good guys are, it is the demonstrators, the people of Ukraine fighting against an extremely criminal government, fighting for freedom and a future for themselves and their families. It is NOT Eastern Ukraine vs. Western Ukraine. People all over Ukraine are fed up and the demonstration/uprising/revolution has supporters in every oblast. No one wants to see the country split. It is just that the supporters of Yanukovych are stronger in the eastern parts of the country and have violently suppressed anything that even smells of a demonstration.
If Yanukovych wins this war (and it is a war he cannot afford to lose as he and all his “Family” and cronies will go to jail for life if they survive. Ceaușescu didn’t.) Western Ukraine will separate or keep on fighting. They will never go back. They have had some experience with Partisan (guerrilla) warfare in the past and I expect if necessary it will again be “War even to the knife”, though I doubt it will come to that.
I have been terrified of Russian intervention (Hungary 1956, Poland 1968) but I think it is not likely to happen. If even one Russian is identified here, Putin will lose face after all his harping about “Western Interference”. (Makes me smile; like America bitching because Iran was interfering in Iraq). This is up to Yanukovych to make or break. Putin has his own means of interfering, depending on the outcome. On the other hand, if he were "invited" to assist against these terrorists...
Living in the countryside has its advantages. We are reasonably safe from violence unless the entire country is up in flames.
Tanya just told me that there are 30 charters waiting a the airport to take officials out of the country. Also internet may be cut off and mobile phone service too. Gas stations may be shutting down according to one source and stores are only taking cash as banks are shutting down ATMs etc. We had problems with ATMs for a while this afternoon but then they worked again but...

UPDATE! Feb. 22, 2014: As of 2pm CET, Yanukovych seems to have vanished and here is an update from DaBlogFodder!
More updates! Yanukovych was arrested this morning in an attempt to flee The Ukraine to Russia in a private jet....
STAY TUNED!

Oh Baby Doll....

Chuck Berry, 1957, simply just being a whole lot cooler than Prince ever even tried to be.

The Conceptual Completion Of A Reciprocal Ready Made In Time And Space

Hey, stop me if you've heard this one before, okay? See, this retired seed merchant walks into a white room in a gallery in Nimes, France and sees a porcelain urinal mounted on the wall. He quickly steps up and unbuttons his fly and pisses into it....then takes a hammer and starts to destroy the urinal, but he is restrained by the security guards before he does more that just fracture it. The old guys name is Pierre Pinoncelli and he had morphed into a conceptual artist. He was arrested for his act, because it just wasn't any urinal, it had the signature of one R. Mutt and had been titled "Fountain" one day in 1917. It wasn't the original porcelain urinal that bore the signature R.Mutt.
See the story begins with Marcel Duchamp buying a new porcelain urinal from a porcelain manufacturer when he lived in New York City in 1917, taking it back to his studio and signing it "R.Mutt". He then leaves it off as an entry to The Independent Art Exhibition at the Grand Central Palace which was hosted by the Hoi Polloi of New York Society and Culture. The 27 year old rising art celebrity, Duchamp was on the board of directors of the exhibition and paid the $6 entry fee quietly for the sculpture by R. Mutt. There are a few explanations for the pseudonym. One of course is Duchamp's fascination with American comics (Mutt and Jeff) and the German word, Armut, which means poverty. When asked what the "R" stood for, Duchamp off handedly replied Richard, which either meant nothing, or referred to the French slang term for a wealthy man. The Exhibition was sorely disappointed when the much anticipated work Duchamp had hinted he was submitting to the show, to be titled, Tulip Hysteria Coordinating, never materialized. The Fountain was denied submission to the show when the director pronounced that it was in no way to be considered a work of art. Duchamp resigned immediately in protest. After the exhibition, the urinal was found in the debris and found it's way to a prominent NY Art Gallery where Alfred Steiglitz took the photo that immortalized it. Soon after, Duchamp was revealed to be the real R. Mutt, and the surrounding scandal brought the young artist still more fame. He had taken the viewer out of the traditional museum space and led him next door (to the restroom). Duchamp became a hero for his generation of artists, and an icon for those to follow. Duchamp’s iconic invention left the world as strangely as it had entered it. It simply disappeared. The exact circumstances remain a mystery, but in all probability the original was discarded as a urinal—a fitting, and, for a urinal, noble death. It is here that the chain of events leading to the arrest of a French seed merchant began to tighten. As interest in the work grew despite its disappearance, Duchamp responded with a surprising decision: he authorized a series of “replicas,” first in 1950 for an exhibition at Sidney Janis Gallery, and ending with an edition of eight that he put up for sale. All in all there were 17 authorized version of the "Fountain" by Duchamp. If you'd like to see them all, click here!
So what Pinoncelli destroyed in Nimes was a copy, one of many copies of the vanished original. Pinoncelli used that as part of the justification of his conceptual act and went on to attempt the destruction of another of the copies in 2006 at The Pompidou Center Museum.
Duchamp, though had opened the conceptual door that freed what we considered art. It is the gesture, the idea, the joke, the CONCEPT! It is what the artist decide is art. Duchamp used the term Readymades to label what he was doing. A bicycle wheel, a snow shovel, a bottle drying rack all became art when invested by the artist with an identity. They had a new reason to exist. What is today’s student of art to make of such a series of events? Perhaps Pinoncelli is a monomaniacal, toy-smashing, self-mutilating vandal. Perhaps he is an artist. Perhaps he is both. How are we then to understand his repeat attacks on Duchamp’s not-so-singular Fountain? The question is difficult because of the spectacular status of the object in question. Two years after the Independents show, Duchamp produced a work entitled L.H.O.O.Q.—this time under the pseudonym Rrose Sélavy. L.H.O.O.Q. was a

she has a hot ass
Rrose Selavy, 1919

the egnimatic Rrose Selavy

reproduction of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa with a handlebar mustache and pointed beard painted on it, and with its title written at the bottom. When spoken aloud, L.H.O.O.Q. becomes the French sentence, “Elle a chaud au cul,” “She’s horny.” Asked in an interview, “What is a readymade,” Duchamp’s first response was to laugh. When this laughter subsided, he gave an example: Mutt’s Fountain. Asked to expand upon the matter, he turned to other possibilities for readymades. He noted that there was the “assisted readymade” (ready-made aidé), and gave as an example his mistreated Mona Lisa. And then he offered a final variation, what he called a “reciprocal readymade” (readymade réciproque). He said that this would be a work of art used as an everyday, readymade object, such as “using a Rembrandt as an ironing board.” The readymade took an everyday mass-produced object and treated it as art. The assisted readymade took a mass-produced reproduction of a work of art and made it into a unique commentary on that work. The reciprocal readymade took a unique work of art and treated it like a mass-produced utilitarian object.
Okay, so let's go to China where the brilliant socio/politcal activist conceptualist artist, Ai Weiwei purchased a number of authentic Han Dynasty urns. One he famously destroyed in his 1995 performance piece, Dropping  a Han-Dynasty Urn. I would say that this expands Duchamp's definition of a reciprocal readymade exponentially.

Stop me if you've heard this one before, okay? An artist walks into a gallery in the Perez Art Museum in Miami last week and picks up one of the Han Dynasty Urns that were bought and altered by Ai Weiwei. He totally changed their character with bright colored paint. He had already turned them into Duchampian "assisted readymades" called, Colored Vases. The man, Miami artist, Maximo Caminero as a conceptual act to highlight the lack of exposure that American Artist receive in their own communities, picks up one of the Weiwei assisted readymade urns and smashes it on the floor. As a conceptual gesture, he has completed the work, turning it into a reciprocal readymade. At the time, Caminero stated that he was inspired by photos on display in the same room of Ai himself dropping and breaking a vase — ”I saw it as a provocation by Weiwei to join him in an act of performance protest,”, But, of course, like Pinoncelli, he was arrested and charged with the destruction of property. The authorities have put a value of $1,000,000 on the vase. Ai Weiwei has stated that , in his words, he finds this “misleading. You cannot stand in front of a classical painting and kill somebody and say that you are inspired by the artist. … This doesn’t make any sense.”

the name of this piece from 1923
by Duchamps friend and fellow
artist, Man Ray, was actually titled
Object To Be Destroyed

Some people have questioned whether Ai is being hypocritical or taking himself too seriously, but it seems pretty clear that the issue here is ownership: “Ai Wei Wei, I believe, has owned in one way or other the things that he has destroyed. Caminero was destroying someone else’s property. That strikes me as a form of vandalism and not a form of art,” said Kerry Brougher, interim director of the Hirshhorn Museum and organizer of the exhibition Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950, in an interview with the Washington Post. But Weiwei has been criticized for his destruction of Chinese heritage. Get real...millions of pieces of ancient Chinese pottery were looted sold and destroyed by the West over the centuries of colonialization. I'd say that Weiweis's act was more of a statement of defiance against the rape of Chinese culture. If you want to get pissed at artists who have defiled art as a concept, why not pick on the Chapman Brothers, who in 2003, defaced and "rectified" an edition of supposedly priceless Goya Aquatints, The Disasters of War and presented them as Reciprocal Readymades...or as they put it,"rectified" them and then exhibited them and turned a tidy profit. As an interesting conceptual "aside" here is an article that describes an participatory conceptual art "happening" in 2002 in Detroit in which a reproduction of Duchamp'as Fountain and many other works of art as well as part of the museum itself were gleefully destroyed. As one young participant in the event stated."I never had so much fun in my life!"

And what would that property be without a value? News outlets have reported the vase as being worth $1 million, a figure that apparently comes from the Florida police affidavit for the incident. Asked about that sum by the AP, Ai called it “exaggerated” and “a very ridiculous number.” What do you think? I would only hope that Ai Weiwei could come to terms with this singular act and realize that there is not so big a gulf ideologically between himself and Maximo. It would be a very interesting thing if Weiwei would consider the destruction of his vase as a collaborative art work with Caminero. It would take the concept of reciprocal readymades to an entirely new level! For the record, Caminero has apologized for action. I truly sympathize with and support Maximo Caminero, who is a great and passionate artist in his own right! Anything I can do to publicize this guy as a great artist is not enough!

Areito Taino by Maximo Caminero
Born in the Dominican Republic in 1962. Maximo Caminero\'s work is rooted in ancient Taino (first inhabitants of the Antilles) forms resonate in the present with a modern optic. The versatility of his paintings adorning the caribbean horizon, touching without hiding, the African legacy. His work has not supported or religious ritual other renowned artists such as Wilfredo Lam been studied. The only captures the physical essence of these desires away. His work as he himself defines it: \"It \'s a reflection of thought\" where we wander in a world more real, beyond what man-made, everything is philosophy, he says and adds, nothing is found, man creates his dreams and unreal and is based on fictional worlds. I will not escape it and create my own world, my language. Although my story is recreated in the day by day, in the human struggle in his defects and effects plasmo the subconscious and this is manifested, sovereign and incognito, my religion, he concludes, is uncertainty, because I also know, no nothing. Backed by a number of prestigious critics. His works have been auctioned at prestigious houses in America and some acquired by American museums.

This was from 1955? And I'm still waiting?

Okay, after 75 Russian generated spam posts today, I turned the verification system back on. Sorry if you find this an inconvenience. I have had it with this shit.....

On The Ground In Bangkok

The media has been full of the horrific images of the violence in Bangkok as the corrupt Thai puppet government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has tried to use the police to clear the ongoing demonstrations and occupation of Bangkok by anti corruption protestors who are demanding her resignation.  Though she was able to declare a state of emergency, just a few hours ago, the Thai courts declared that it was illegal for her to use the police to attack the demonstrators. The western media has reported from a safe distance all through this crisis and relied on the Thaksin Sinawatra controlled media to supply them with a stream of propaganda and PR friendly press releases to help them report this in the Western press.  The Sinawatra regime has tried to portray the protests as a minority problem and tried to blame the violence on the protestors. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Most of the real violence has come from gangs who were bussed into Bangkok by the Shinawatra regime to brutalize the protestors. When the protestors resisted or fought back, these were the images that the official Thai media released. The reports from such prestigious news associations such as BBC and CNN give the impression that the Thai regime is well ensconced and the real details of what is happening are not being reported anywhere!

Well, if you want the inside info, here it is, from thebrainpolice! We are embedded in Bangkok. I have a number of friends who are involved in the opposition movement and my nephew, Tommy, who has lived in Bangkok for years is an extremely eloquent observer. These are the last days of the Shinawatra regime. It is over. The government controlled police force is backing down and if they continue to defy the courts, the next step is the Thai Army stepping in. But here is the real gossip from my nephew, Tommy this morning:

Oh there is SUCH exciting stuff going on here, with the protests. Today, Yingluck has been indicted for malfeasance and corruption in the rice-pledging scheme, and it looks like she's not going to be able to stay in office for more than a week or two, as the indictment is formalized and she will have to be arrested and then let out on bail.
And more things to be gleeful about - the government, which is broke, has been desperately scrambling to find money to pay the farmers whose rice they bought this year and last year, at the absurdly inflated prices, as part of the rice-pledging scheme. The farmers are now so angry at not being paid that they are starting to join the anti-government protests, and the rice farmers are at the pinnacle of Thaksin's vote-base. But here's the great part: None of the private banks would touch it. And even the government banks (the Agricultural and Farmers Cooperative Bank, or the Government Savings Bank) wouldn't agree to lend any money to the government for the rice scheme, since it's under investigation now for corruption and they're afraid they may never get their money back. The trade unions in these government banks have stormed their bosses offices to stop them from even considering loaning any money to the government. Well finally, a couple of days ago, the director of the Government Savings bank was persuaded (probably bought off) to issue a 20 billion Baht (more than half a billion dollars) to the government, with the first instalment of 5 million Baht. The guy first said that the loan was NOT for the rice scheme, but for "general government expenses and entirely normal", but then the next day confessed that the loan was for the rice scheme. There was almost instantly a massive run on the bank, and within 24 hours, people all over the country had withdrawn all their money from the Government Savings Bank - over 50 Billion Baht taken out. The news reports showed angry people queuing up around the block to get their money out, and staging demonstrations when the branches ran out of cash, and the people refused to accept cheques! The run continues today, and the director of the GSB has announced his resignation in shame, and the GSB looks in danger of failing, because they are coming close to maxing out their liquid assets on the withdrawals! Meanwhile, all of Thaksin's cronies and relatives are making a big show of "supporting the rice farmers" by noisily depositing their millions into the GSB, to show their support, and protesters are throwing rotten eggs at them as they come to the GSB branches to make their deposits!
Plus, the other great thing has been the donations to the anti-government protest movement. A week or two ago, the emergency decree authority (run by a big-time gangster and old Thaksin crony, named Chalerm) announced it would start freezing the accounts of people and companies discovered to be donating to the anti-government protests and issue warrents for their arrest, since so many big companies and so many prominent people were giving millions to support the oust-Thaksin movement. Well the first thing that happened was that the donations increased dramatically, and people started insisting that they be filmed by TV crews and give their full names and bank account branches when handing their donations over to Suthep (who is the leader of the protests). They just defied the emergency decree! So there is now a constant stream of people - millions of people, and many are famous movie stars, journalists, academics, aristocrats, government officials, famous writers and artists, sports stars, etc. - and just a lot of ordinary people, and the TV cameras roll all day long as they smilingly and gleefully hand over their 1,000 Baht or 5,000 Baht or 100,000 Baht to Suthep, and sing out their full names and addresses, so Chalerm can come and arrest them whenever he's ready!
Then, the civil court came out with a fabulous ruling that the protests are entirely legal and peaceful, and within the boundaries of acts of peaceful civil protest that are protected by the Thai constitution, and so donating anything to support such protests cannot be considered illegal, since the protests themselves are legal. Which in turn allowed a group of prominent companies and public figures, who had donated and been exposed and threatened to be arrested and have their assets frozen, filed a class action suit in the Constitutional court against the government and the emergency decree authority for criminal malfeasance, and it looks likely that the courts will rule in the protestor's favor again.
So every evil, wicked, clumsy thing these corrupt goons do to try to hang on to power and to stop the movement to oust them is back-firing, and is ending up in their having to retreat in embarrassment.
And to top it all off, we learned yesterday that Thaksin has made a pilgrimage to a certain famous astrologer and fortune teller in Burma, to see why he's having such bad karma these days - the same Madame Rosa (or whatever her name is) who was his chief policy consultant during his period in power, and his subsequent periods in absentia-power. And on the protest site stages, there is endless joking about this, and suggestions that Mr. Thaksin find a new astrologer, since this one doesn't seem to be doing him much good!
But these wicked devils are still not giving up, and some think things may get very ugly before they get pushed out finally. Just yesterday, four people killed by a bomb at the protest site just near Poo's house, and the rumors all say that it was the police who brought the bomb, and that it accidentally went off before they could toss it into the crowd. 

All of this contradicts what is being reported in the mainstream Western Press. More updates soon!

Mon Oncle

Mr. Hulot lives in the little garret at the top of this building in Paris. His entry was as if he lived in an M.C. Escher woodcut. From the classic film, Mon Oncle, written, directed by and starring
 Jacques Tati as Mr. Hulot. There still are places like this, you know.
Below is the actual sequence from the film.

America Needs A Postal Banking System

A Familiar Sight In Every Village In Frnace
La Banque Postale

Here in France, anyone can easily open a bank account with the Postal Service. Many nations have banking systems connected with the Post Offices. Great Britain has had postal banking since 1861. America had a postal banking system until 1967. Postal banks offer basic banking services to customers, like low-interest savings accounts, debit cards and even some simple types of loans.An estimated 68 million people live in “bank deserts,” areas without access to financial services. The big banks don’t want to serve these people because they’re mostly poor, leaving them to be gouged by check-cashing shops and payday lenders. Postal banking could save low-income families who rely on these services thousands of dollars a year. But Post Offices maintain offices that service people in bank deserts already.
What’s more, postal banking could provide a new revenue stream for the Post Office. This is a win-win-win: Cuts down on predatory businesses, saves low-income families money, and helps shore up the Post Office’s finances and the hundreds of thousands of jobs and pensions it supports. Here is a petition to ask President Obama to sign an executive order to create a postal banking system in America. It's one way he can prove the sincerity of his words in his State Of The Union Address about income inequality being a top priority for his administration.

Here is the text of the petition: 

We applaud your work to affect income inequality through executive action. Please use this power to bring back postal banking.

Here is an active link to The Daily Kos Petition page where you can find the Postal Bank Petition. Below is an active link to the petition at MoveOn.org. Please sign and share this petition: Give everyone the option to bank at the Post Office. 

White People Can't Dance

Was/notwas 1988

I recently turned off the word verification feature for my comments. I am now being inundated with hundreds of what seem to be automatically generated spamming posts....they show up everywhere, all day long on posts going back 6 years in my archives. Blogger seems to catch a lot of them and they never get posted on the blog...some do. I think the spamming is of Russian origin because many of the comments are in Russian, but they are in French and English as well. I think I got 45 yesterday and already this morning, there have been 8. They show up in my email which is linked to this blog. I want to make commenting easy for anyone who wants to comment...I rarely ever "censor" comments and I have to admit I have gotten some pretty offensive and stupid comments in the past, but as long as they are real, that does not bother me. Does any one have an opinion as to whether I should start using the verification system again? 

I just ran into this and had to post it...

SCTV

Return Of Per Ulv

Another piece of music that follows me around. Terje Rypdal is more than just a guitarist, he is a poet,  a sound painter, an avant garde jazz/rock classicist who has created his own genre. His orchestral work is totally unique and somehow captures the spirit of the Norwegian Island he has lived on for the last 35 years. Here he is in Stugart, live in 1994 with Miroslav Vitous on bass and Trilock Gurtu on percussion.

Meet A Few Of My Friends

Here are three of the green tree frogs living in the giant hylocereus jungle cactus in my living room. From what I have learned, they are an officially endangered specie, but they can live to be 17 years old. I always have planters with geraniums on my windows all through the spring, summer and fall. This year, we had an explosion of frogs...they seem to breed in the water reservoirs in the geranium boxes. That is a very good sign, because they are endangered because of chemicals and pollution. I never use pesticides and this is a very unpolluted atmospherically place to live.They were all over the house and I tried to get them all out so they could hibernate over the winter. Then, I heard croaking in the corner....there are at least 12 of them living in the floor to ceiling jungle cactus! It's like a big terrarium with a floor to ceiling glass door. They seem very happy and have gotten quite used to me and the doggies. I haver a little swimming pool installed. I mist them every day and feed them what ever bugs I find running around the house...At least once a day, they start croaking loudly. Great entertainment at dinner parties.....

Before He Kills Again

Obviously, this interview was not considered admissible evidence in the Florida Murder Trial of Michael Dunn in his shooting of 17 year old Jordan Davis after a dispute over loud music at a Jacksonville convenience store. Nevertheless, Dunn is all but certain to face a lengthy prison sentence as he was convicted on three counts of attempted second degree murder — one for each of three of Dunn’s friends who were also in the line of fire. Dunn had been charged with first-degree murder, as well as the attempted murder of three of Davis’ friends who were with him in his sport utility vehicle as Dunn shot ten rounds at the car. 

The shooting occurred after Dunn asked the boys to turn down their music while parked next to him in a Jacksonville convenience store parking lot. His fiancée, Rhonda Rouer, says the last thing she heard him say was, “I hate that thug music.” Rouer was in the convenience store when she heard gunshots, and when she ran outside, he told her to get in the car and they drove away. 

Dunn claimed he saw a gun and believed the boys were armed and dangerous. But police found no gun in the car. He said he heard Davis threaten to kill him, and responded by rolling down the window of his car and asking, “Are you talking to me?” Dunn and Rouer spent the night in a hotel, as planned, and their testimony differed about what happened that night, and in the days that followed. Dunn’s friends testified that they knew him as a calm and non-violent man. Obviously, no one every to get testimony from Charles Hendrix, Dunn's neighbor, who  describes violent behavior, lies, insurance fraud, cocaine use, bragging about putting a hit out on someone, and a first wife who said he'd held a gun to her head and threatened to kill her. He says Dunn bragged that he was smarter than everyone else and could outthink them.

During closing arguments, prosecutor John Guy told jurors, “Jordan Davis didn’t have a weapon. He had a big mouth. And that defendant wasn’t gonna stand for it. And it cost Jordan Davis his life.”

The police never found the imaginary gun that Dunn claimed was his reason for "standing his ground" and committing not only murder, but attempted murder upon the other occupants of the car.

Dunn’s lawyer Cory Strolla cited Florida’s Stand Your Ground law in his closing argument, “His honor will further tell you that If Michael Dunn was in a public place where he had a legal right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force.” As in the George Zimmerman trial, the Stand Your Ground law was included in the jury instructions. 

Just prior to the trial, the state’s attorney’s office released a set of letters Dunn sent from prison revealing significant animus toward blacks. “The more time I am exposed to these people, the more prejudiced against them I become,” he said in one. “This jail is full of blacks and they all act like thugs,” he said in another. The letters did not come into play during trial. But they reveal the sort of racial undertones that have been prominent in many Stand Your Ground cases. One study found that white defendants with black victims are far more likely to have their killings deem “justified” under the Stand Your Ground law.

Dunn fits the classic psychopathic profile of a serial killer. He believed that he was above our definition of morality. He believes he is smarter and can outwit our sluggish and primitive legal system. He is a classic manipulator. He cried on the stand in a classic psychopathically manipulative performance about  his concern for his puppy dog but he showed no absolutely concern over the kid he murdered.

Michael Dunn is a sick dangerous man who believes he is above our primitive morality. He is deluded enough to believe he is smarter than you. The "Stand Your Ground" laws in Florida and many other states are the tool sick bastards like him use to believe that their sick egos are superior to ours, He may go to jail, but not for long and he will kill again. This ain't much, but here's a petition from CREDO to repeal the "Stand Your Ground " Laws. They make a pretty compelling case in their  documentation to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the laws and the destructive nature we live with in our society.

Just My Imagination

And I thought it was just my imagination.

Rainin' In Paradize

The Spanish artist, Manu Chao has done a bit of collaboration with the Serbian film maker, Emir Kustarica and this is a pretty good little clip. Rainin In Paradize from the 2010 recording Radiolina.

The Gong Show

You kind of get the sneaky suspicion that this dilettante amateur philosopher billionaire dude, Tom Perkins is auditioning a routine for some kind of stand up Konservative Komedy Klub. I guess the Wall Street Journal under the guidance of Rupert Murdoch qualifies as a Konservative Komedy Klub these days. Just a few weeks ago he tried to make a pathetic comparison of the ultra rich 1% to the ethnic cleansing and horrors that the Jews of Europe faced under the Third Reich. That got a few laughs, so now he's doubling down and added a few new gags to his routine.  On stage in San Francisco's Kommonwealth Komedy Klub earlier this week he unveiled his latest schtick, that Americans shouldn’t be able to vote unless they pay taxes and that the wealthy should have more votes.
“The Tom Perkins system is: You don’t get to vote unless you pay a dollar of taxes,” Perkins said. “But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes. How’s that?” Watch the full interview above.
The audience thought that this was a billion dollar idea and it triggered a hearty laff-a-thon, though the billionaire did not indicate that he was joking. Afterwards, he suggested that he was being purposely controversial, “I intended to be outrageous, and it was. What a joker. If this is his idea of humor, then perhaps he should explain the joke, because, the nation’s growing gap between the rich and poor has become a full-blown crisis, with the top 1 percent of families experienced a 278 percent increase in their real after-tax income from 1979 to 2007, while families in the middle 60 percent saw an increase of less than 40 percent. A large body of research suggests that high inequality leads to lower levels of representative democracy and a higher probability of revolution, as poorer citizens become convinced that the government is only serving and representing the interests of the rich. 
Wealthy people’s disproportionate impact on democracy also has the effect of perpetuating income inequality. During the 2012 elections, “the top 0.01 percent of campaign donors — one percent of the one percent — contributed more than 40 percent of all the money spent in the 2012 elections,” compared to 15 percent in 1980. Harvard economics professor Edward L. Glaeser argues that as the rich become richer and secure more political influence, they support policies that make them wealthier at the expense of everyone else. “If the rich can influence political outcomes through lobbying activities or membership in special interest groups, then more inequality could lead to less redistribution rather than more,” he explained in a 2006 paper. But that's boring, right? We just want to be entertained. So if that was this jerks biggest joke, then perhaps we should bring back the the ultimate peoples joke, the ultimate pie in the face of the French Revolution...that always got the biggest laugh:

"Hah, Hahhh" to quote the great American Philosopher, Nelson Muntz. Now let's bring on Gene, Gene, The Dancin' Machine while we clean up the stage for our next act!

NY PARIS EXPRESS

This could be the railroad journey of a life time. Why can't there be a rail bridge across the Bering Straits? A continual voyage into a sunset.....

Formidable

The Belgian artist Stromae was the big winner in the French Victoire de la Musique Awards tonight, but this guy deserves it. This was the official"Best Video" clip for Formidable, but believe me, he is an incredibly totally original performance artist live on stage. The song involves a pun, formidable and miniable....miniable sort of means pathetic. I think part of his brilliance is to present two sides in his raps...I posted his very controversial piece, Tout le Meme a few months ago, where he really is both male and female and instantly switches roles in mid phrase. 

It's Too Late

Berlin, WW2, shut up and just pretend every thing is okay.
This was everything you thought you wanted, right, baby?
Too Late To Turn Back Now!

My Piano's Been Drinking

One of the high water marks of American Television Comedy was the Norman Lear produced Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman Spin Off fake Late Night Talk show hosted by Martin Mull with Fred Willard as his sidekick, Fernwood 2 Night. It only ran for a few episodes. I guess not a lot of people got the joke. I loved it with the guitar great Tommy Tedesco as the real musical director of the house band, but the official name of the band was Happy Kyne and his Mirthmakers. They had real guests but they all became visitors to the fictional Ohio town of Fernwood. Here is an 1975 appearance by Tom Waits who is stuck in Fernwood when his tour bus breaks down en route to Toledo. Waits best line in the interview is, "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."

Post by Meteorologist Ryan Wichman.

I had to repost this. I worked as a railroad bridge operator for 4 years in the middle of The Maumee River in Toledo, Ohio.  I worked at the mouth of the River as it empties into Maumee Bay on Lake Erie. This was the view this morning, looking west away from Lake Eerie, up river at the Anthony Wayne Bridge, where it was perhaps -15 Celsius.  I remember all too well being in the bridge house at 7 am in the morning as a blizzard roared down from the west. The screen doors and loose propane tanks blew off into the river and I was enveloped in a cloud of steam and snow. The steam actually occurred because the air temperature was so much colder than the river. I was stuck out there for 2 days before any one could relieve me. Here, in France, this winter, it has simply rained and rained and rained some more. I've only seen a few frosty mornings, but every rier and stream is over it's banks and all the flat fields are flooded. It's unusually cold in Toledo and way too warm here. It is interesting to see world weather charts. The arctic air is channeled through North America in a sort of climate amplification system. That explains why the center of America has such violent weather. It's extremely cold in the winter and very hot in the summer and the violent extreme changes and topography explain the particularly midwestern tornado phenomena. The polar air is channeled into the south, where it propels the air over the mid Atlantic ocean and creates the energy that gives us in Europe relatively warm rainy winters. It's just that this year it is warmer and rainier than I have ever seen it and we have broken all rainfall records and it is, now, officially. the warmest winter ever recorded

USA#46 USA#46 USA#46 YAY!

click on map to see it enlarged

In 2013, I was disturbed to see that the United States had sunk to #32 with Reporters Without Borders in their Freedom of the Press rankings...well, don't hold your breath, this year America is now the #46 rated country. Far behind many of the former Soviet republics.Here is the link to their downloadable PDF which explains the methodology used in determining the 2014 ratings.Here is the link to the piece with the rankings. America, you can do better than this! BTW, FInland was #1!

YAY FINLAND 2014 #1!!!!!

The Hall Of Mirrors

The Hall of Mirrors At The Palace Of Versailles

From the 1971 recording The Church Of Anthrax by Terry Riley and John Cale. 

Today Is The Day

Last January, I posted about the international action that would take place today, February 11, 2014.  That's today, and if you would, please add your name to the petition on the pop up banner on this page.  You know the facts, but here are a few at your finger tips:
THE FACTS
The NSA "has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world."— THE NEW YORK TIMES
The NSA "is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world."— WASHINGTON POST
The NSA "is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world."— WASHINGTON POST
The NSA collects the content and metadata of emails, web activity, chats, social networks, and everything else from fiber-optic cables "that carry much of the world's Internet and phone data."— WASHINGTON POST
NSA "officers on several occasions have channeled their agency's enormous eavesdropping power to spy on love interests."— THE NEW YORK TIMES
NSA "is secretly piggybacking” on Internet advertisers'"cookies" and location data “to pinpoint targets for government hacking and to bolster surveillance."— WASHINGTON POST READ MORE: WIKIPEDIA EFF.ORG THE GUARDIAN

This day is just beginning in much of the world and this banner will work no matter where you are reading it from. The last time I looked there were almost 130,000 signatures. In a few hours I hope it will be millions. Your voice counts!

The Revenge Of Godzilla

Japan has dealt with the reality of the atomic age for almost 70 years since the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed in the only wartime use of the atomic bomb by the USA. It has produced a desensitized, traumatized society that is dealing with the reality of atomic energy like a wounded war veteran with severe PST. I've written extensively about the almost surreal state of incompetence of the Japanese government and the Energy Company in managing their nuclear facilities. It all culminated with Fukushima, sitting on a fault line and experiencing a continuing series of earth quakes since the original disaster.  Just last week, there was a 5.1 offshore quake. As they retreat farther and farther from reality and sink deeper and deeper into corruption, the Japanese government has criminalized reporting alarming news from Fukushima. The homeless and poor are being recruited by the Japanese Yakuza Mafia as expendable workers, who don't have to be paid before they are contaminated and die to do unsafe clean up work. One way the Japanese dealt with the immediate trauma of the Atomic horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was fantasy. Read the origins of the popular, lovable monster Godzilla. Godzilla was an atomic mutant monster. It was all about how a traumatized society deals with nuclear trauma and turns it into fantasy. Now, it is as if Godzilla is taking his revenge against the rest of the world. They are doomed and so must the rest of accept our fate as victims of Japans Nuclear incompetence. The latest reality is the inability of the Japanese to deal with the contaminated ground water at Fukushima, so the solution? Dump it into the Pacific Ocean.
All trust has been shattered. It isn’t as if the Pacific Ocean needs more radioactive mire, but the Japanese government is trying to dump their poisoned ground water into an ocean that is already quickly dying. A senior scientist at MIT, Ken Buesseler, and co-author of Japan’s Continuing Nuclear Nightmare says, “ultimately you can’t keep putting contaminated water in tanks. You are going to have to decontaminate and release some of that water. There’s a finite amount of real estate . . .” but Tepco isn’t decontaminating that water. They simply don’t have the resources to do it. High strontium-90 levels found in groundwater are simply going to be redirected to the Pacific if the government gets approval.
The question is whose approval? Who ultimately is in charge of saying, “sure you can put so much poison in the ocean, it will never be able to support life again, and while you’re at it, go ahead and start watching that toxic, radioactive sludge travel up the food chain, until it reaches human beings, and kills them off faster than the plague.” The Nationwide Fisheries Foundation has been called upon to support the dumping, ‘as long as the water’s contamination level is far below the legal limit,’ one that has been recently changed by governments around the world. Please read this piece, 50 Reasons Top Fear The Worst From Fukushima in EcoWatch by Harvey Wasserman to see the real dangers we are facing today.
While the measure is an attempt to keep the toxic water from piling up in tanks, it certainly isn’t a wise decision to dump it into the ocean, especially since Tepco has been imprudent in reporting the true levels of contamination up to this point. Officials are requesting a more stringent level of – how shall we put this – appropriate contamination compared to legal limits before releasing the water into the ocean, but most of us are well appraised, there are no longer any safe levels of radiation in the Pacific – sea lions, whales, deep sea squid, lantern fish, sardines, sea stars, and even plankton are showing up with radiation poisoning and dying on our shores. Enough already. Japan, and the rest of the world – wake up! You are killing life on earth as we know it. Or maybe that was Godzilla's plan all along.