a place beyond reality, a place where all of my posts since wednesday have vanished to,
a place where comments came and went...a place neither here nor there...
THE BLOGGER ZONE!

stupid fucking blogger

The Next Meltdown May Be On Your Dinner Table

Here in France and Europe, the battle is being fought and it seems to be a losing battle because the opposition is insidious. Laws cannot stop a natural process which has been highjacked. The enemy is GMO crops, genetically modified biotech seed protected by the manipulation of the patent system.
The Green Party and other ecological groups have done a very good job of alerting the public to the dangers of GMO crops. Activists like Jose Bove  made headlines and earned jail terms by destroying fields of the crops. Bove ran for the French presidency in the last election and stood trial at the same time.
In America, the GMO biotech corn now being grown for ethanol production has already been shown to be destructive to the land and the genetically altered seed produces pollen which cross fertilizes and corrupts the food species.
The major developer and marketer of this seed is the corporate money vacuuming beast known as Monsanto. I have written a bit about Monsanto and the dangers of GMO biotech plants in the past. Part of the genetic engineering of the plants is the programing of the genetic code so that the seed produced by the plants is not viable. New seed must be bought from the Monsanto distributers each year.
The seed, of course, is marketed as a miracle product. It grows faster  and produces a uniform crop with pest and disease resistance programmed in. The kicker is that Monsanto has patented the genetic code in the seed which they claim gives them the right to prosecute any resulting use of seed produced by another plant that has been pollenated with their genetic material.
They have destroyed fields of cross pollinated rape seed in Canada and prosecuted farmers who happen to be growing crops with seed that their plants have cross bred with. They have been trying to market in Europe and have met with heavy resistance and in spite of pumping millions upon millions of dollars into lobbying efforts, they are meeting with ever stronger resistance from the farmers and the governments.
But Monsanto knows that nature is on their side. Their frankencrops will not obey national boundaries. They are selling billions of dollaras of seeds in India and Africa and destroying the lives and livelihood of hundreds of thousands of small farmers in the process.
In the USA, in January, the Obama administration has unbelievably chosen to approve three new biotech crops patented by Monsanto. Roundup Ready GMO Alfalfa and Sugar Beets and a new corn designed for ethanol production. The administrations approval will make it possible for the new crops to be planted next spring, in spite of widespread acknowledgement that these crops are certain to contaminate both conventional farmers and organic famers non GMO crops. The USDA's approval took place over the massive protests from major food companies who know that that the corn will certainly contaminate and possibly ruin the food they sell you everyday.
This is a blow to democracy and the basic rights of farmers to choose the crops they grow and how they want to grow them and your rights as a consumer to have the ability to choose the quality of the food you want to consume. This is happening as more and more Americans want to support organic and healthful sustainable farming.
In effect, this could be the end of organic farming in the United States.
Here are a few links for the facts on the corn, alfalfa and beets. There is a lot here on why this is so bad, including:
Monsanto's Roundup Ready GMO alfalfa - Jan.27th, 2011- Over the objections of hundreds of thousands of Americans, the White House approved this unnecessary crop - despite the fact that 93% of alfalfa hay grown in the U.S. does not use herbicides and in fact, the genetic contamination with conventional, non-GMO and organic alfalfa threatens the livelihood of tens of thousands of family farmers and the food choices of more than 50 million consumers.
Now Monsanto can legally go into the fields of organic farmers, collect samples and sue farmers if the fields contain any crops contaminated by Genetic material patented by Monsanto.
Monsanto won over Tom Vilsack, the president U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, because of pressure from the White House. 
In effect, Monsanto has a license to print money, issued by Barack Obama who represents a major corn, wheat and alfalfa producing State, Illinois. For more on the relationship between Obama and the agribusiness of corn, read the introductory story in this 2006 profile which Ken Silverstein wrote in Harpers.
You only have to look at photos of Americans of the 1950's and compare them to the NOW...to see the damage our unhealthy diet has done. The food is killing us. Now that Monsanto has been granted a White House-enabled monopoly to force anyone out of business who is growing grain crops with un patented Monsanto genetically altered seed, the future looks even deadlier.
Is the USA going to be ground zero for an agribusiness, genetically altered food meltdown? The problems that farmers have already had in the mid west with GMO ethanol corn crops and land burn out are a small taste of the uncharted waters we have unwittingly let Monsanto let us drift into. We are playing with the long term effects of evolution for short term profits, or perhaps, the real conspiracy here:
Monsanto is a multinational chameleon like corporate entity whose concept of business has evolved as it has created disasters in chemical and substances, like asbestos. It has gone bankrupt a few times learning how to avoid legal responsibilities for the disasters it has been responsible for. This multinational corporation has evolved into a force which is bigger than governments. This is not about just short term profits, but long term corporate world domination.

That just about says it all....

Life's like a play; It's not the length but the excellence of the acting that matters,
so let's play better and better.

Teatime's Over, Back On Yer Heads

the long rows

My 10 day working break was over Thursday night. I was totally unplugged, so to speak. From the evening of the 25th of April until the evening of the 5th of May, the only news I got was from my French co workers who gave me bits of info, like, "The Americans killed Ben Laden" or tidbits about the tornadoes in the south of the USA and the bombing in Marrekech. I tried to listen to BBC4 on my radio, but I always fell asleep before or even during a news cast at night and woud wake up at 4 am with the radio crackling away.

Vieux Chevrol

So, I spent 10 days in another century, in an alternate world getting up at 7 am and at work at 8 am. I was at my home away from home, The Chateau Vieux Chevrol in Neac, located in the Lalande de Pomerol  area. A wine making chateau of the Bordeaux Region is a working, self contained operation. Some of the chateaux are of course huge showy grand estates, but most are a collection of working buildings and with a grand house or two. Vieux Chevrol consists of 3 big houses of various ages and a new grander one under construction with a battery of buildings with the caves where the wine is made and aged in oak barrels.  The Chateau produces one variety of wine, an oaky deep red Lalande Pomerol made in the traditional fashion. The owner of the Chateau, Jean-Pierre Champseix tries to use traditional techniques and relies on his personal experience and observation.  The results at Vieux Chevrol is a consistently excellent flavorful dry red, at first the flavor has the tang of the tannin of the oak barrels it is aged in before it is bottled and reaches it full maturity in about 6 years. A very complex wine with the hints of raspberry which varies from year to yo year.  Except for a break of one year, I have been working with them since 2002. 

l'epamprette

at work

The operations we perform in the spring are called L'ebourgeonage and l'epamprage. A group of 6 people remove the excess buds (ebourgeonage) and growth from the base and wood (epamprage) from the grape vines with a medieval looking hand tool called l'epamprette. There are approximately 20 hectares of plants, so we were completing about 2 hectares a day. A well trimmed plant usually has about 7 new buds for the season and 2 others which are left for the next season. The operation which seems insane at first, usually takes about 20 seconds a plant once you enter into the "grape zen" zone. I have found that the best thing is to not think about what you are doing, it becomes automatic. Time passes relatively quickly and this year there was a very nice group, an English couple, a Moroccan woman, an older Frenchman and his niece and me the American. For me it is an opportunity to speak in French all the time and try to tell jokes and make small talk. The older man, Robert and his niece, Celine are extremely gourmand and about 3:30 each day, the conversation would turn to food. I am dying to make an omelet with salsify buttons finished with a little balsamic vinegar. 
Though the work is hard, potentially boring and physically demanding, the Champseix family treat us very well. I get a nice room, and very good meals and of course, the opportunity to taste wines and learn about varieties and technique. We take outings in the region occasionally. This time we visited the Tower of the Renaissance Philosopher,  Michel de Montaigne, near Castillon.
Later this summer, I will work for another 10 days when it tis time to perform the Vendenge Vert, which is the removal of the excess immature grapes and leaves to promote the quality and health of the grapes which will be harvested. That will be basically the same small group. Then in the late summer / early fall, it is time for the Vendenge, the harvest. That is usually a full two weeks and takes about 20 to 30 people to cut, carry and sort the grapes. Hopefully I will try to capture the spirit on film. For now, though, teatime is over, back on your heads!

French Lesson #28,383 (existential star wars)

Star Wars with a French existentialist twist. Almost all the subtitles (except for little things like "Despair!" and "I die!" and a few others) are actually quotes from Jean-Paul Sartre. And obviously this will make no sense if you understand French. If you do know it, hit yourself in the head repeatedly before watching this. And then hit yourself repeatedly when you're done watching.

Paul Jones - The Dog Presides

I never hear this before...1967...Paul Jones, vocals and harmonica, Jeff Beck and Paul Samwell-Smith of the Yardbirds on guitar and bass and a little known drummer named Paul MacCartney.....

Your Daily Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp with one of his Rotary Glass Plate
Machine Paintings (in motion)
photo by Man Ray 1920

Birthday Party

This is officially my final post before my spring working break in Libourne, but since it is my birthday as well today, I am having a party and you all are invited. See you in a week or so!

My Birthday Song!

Spring Break

Due to the rather precocious spring we are enjoying here, nature seems to have gotten a jump start. Everything is early. I just received a call from Chateau Vieux Chevrol, where I have been involved in various medieval aspects of viticulture for the last 10 years, informing me that the vines were ready for l'ebourgeonage. So, I am going to a little place outside of Libourne called Neac which is the heart of the Lalande Pomerol area and spend the next week of so with a group of 6 people cleaning and removing the excess buds from 21 hectares of grape vines. Usually it starts in May. 

So, I am packing and getting ready for the little train trip from my local station in Condat and will be out of civilization for the time being. The video is of the area where I work, a little view of the vine country around the village of Pomerol. I also included a video of views of St. Emilion, which is very nearby and I visit often when I am working at Vieux Chevrol.

 A bientot, toute le monde!

Friday

was it good for you?

wORd ApRIL 22, 2011

the fish slapping dance

"If I had not gone into Monty Python, I would have probably stuck to my original plan to graduate and become a chartered accountant,  perhaps a barrister lawyer, and gotten a nice house in the suburbs, with a nice wife and kids, and gotten a country club membership, and then I would have killed myself."
John Cleese, 1997

Terror Alert 2011

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorists threats and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved". Soon, though, security levels may be raised again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross". The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the Blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out.
Terrorists have been recategorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance". The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.


The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's Get The Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British Army for the last 300 years.


The French government announced yesterday that it raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide."  The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.


Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly And Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."


The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress In Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade A Neighbor" and "Lose."


Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.


The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.


Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No Worries" to "She'll Be Alright, Mate." Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend," and "The Barbie Is Cancelled." So far no situation has ever warranted the use of the final escalation level.

John Cleese-2011-British Writer, Actor and Tall Person

Climbing Up The Ladder

Last night I posted a piece by the great Ernie Isley. The night before, I posted a piece by Phillip Lithman, aka Snakefinger. Tonight, I am posting Climbing Up The Ladder, which was a hit for the Isley Brothers which Ernie played on, but this is a live version by Snakefinger and his band 

The Vestal Virgins, from 1987. 

We Demand Nuclear Accountability Now!

My first New Year's Eve in France was in 2000. I had flown from New York the day after Christmas via Frankfort to Toulouse. My plan was to take a train from Toulouse to Brive la Gaillarde. The night before I left, the news was pretty ominous from France because the storm of the century had sliced across the country and had devastated the region around Paris. I was relieved, because the Dordogne seemed to have been spared, but the storm was a one, two punch...the next day another more powerful storm came ashore at the mouth of the Gironde, above Bordeaux and roared south. I was blissfully unaware, on my Lufthansa flight. As I took my connecting flight from Frankfort to Toulouse, there was rough weather at one point, but in Toulouse, there was gentle rain and rather mild temperatures for the season. I took a bus from the airport to the train station, le Gare de Toulouse Matabiau, where all hell was breaking loose. My French at the time was pretty spotty. I looked at the board of arrivals and departures and saw the train I wanted. I was wondering what all the carrying on around me was about. I stood in line to buy my ticket only to have the clerk tell me that there was no train to Brive. I thought it was my bad French and I didn't quite understand, so I pointed to the big board where my train was still posted as "on time" and the clerk again tried to tell me that there was no train to Brive.
Then, a fellow who spoke English explained to me that there had been a second more terrible storm and the lines were totally out of service. Dis oriented, I called my wife from a pay phone to tell her. She was amazed that the phone rang at our house. It had been out all day. She had been in the house in terror during the storm which destroyed the veranda and damaged the roof. We had gotten off easily, but I was stuck in Toulouse for a few days until they could get some sort of arrangement. My wife couldn't leave because there was no gas for the car as the electricity for the gas station pumps was out. Finally, I made it to Montauban and we arranged a rendezvous. The trip in the car from Montauban to our little house outside of Thenon was heart wrenching as we viewed the increasing devastation of roofs and forest. It took years for the forests to recover. We still come across areas that show the scars of the storm.
When we finally got back, it was a week of living in the middle ages. No electricity, no water as the system was powered by electric pumps, the only heat was the fireplace. Still we had out New Years Eve with friends who lived just inside the area that had power.

the Blayais Reactor complex

In the days to come, we learned how serious the damage really was. The electrical system had been crumpled like toys cast off by a petulant ill tempered child. Then news about a "little problem" at the Blayais Nuclear Reactor on the estuary of the Gironde. There had been a "little' release of radioactivity, but nothing to look at, move on....
Only now, 11 years later, after the disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan is data making it to the public as to what really occurred at Blaye. Blaye was hit by a tidal wave and totally flooded and lost power and began to over heat. It took days of frantic work to shut the plant down and it was months before it went back on line. Nobody knows the levels of radioactivity that was actually released.

Surry Nuclear Facility

Earlier this week, a series of devastating tornadoes swept through the south and mid Atlantic states in America. The storm system was said to be the worst in 40 years.  A news item which I never really saw reported in the American press, surfaced in the Guardian. It reported that the Surry Nuclear Facility in Virginia had suffered damage and had shut down. The electricity to the plant was knocked out and they were trying to operate the cooling system with diesel generators. I googled for more information and found nothing in the American Press but a reference in a Virginia Business News Site that was little more than a passing reference.
The other place I found a reference was through Reuters Africa Energy News. 
As the reality of what occurred in Japan unfolds and though the enormity of the disaster is hard to comprehend, one point cuts through...the level of disinformation and denial of TEPCO, The Tokyo Electric Power Company, who operates the plant. After a weeks of denial, now we learn that there was actually a partial melt down in Unit 2. The clean up will never be over. Like Chernobyl, this will become another Nuclear Industry Sacrifice Zone on the planet. 
As long as our governments sanction the insane nuclear power industry, they will cover up the realities.
Germany abandoned it's Nuclear energy program definitively after the Fukushima disaster and had already started to phase nuclear out after a supposedly safe Nuclear Waste Storage facility was compromised by an unforeseen shift in the geological structure of the abandoned salt mine it was located in. 
That is why, the next post down, the post about the RDTN Kickstarter project is so interesting. It is about creating a network of independent monitors to hold government and the industry accountable by making our own real time data base of nuclear levels and emissions. Watch the video.

RDTN Radiation Detection Hardware Network

This is a video about a project on Kickstarter which is creating a network of independent non government observers who will monitor world radiation levels. They are presently trying to get the system going in Japan, where the information is not reliable and there are many areas that are not monitored. RDTN.org has a website and software that allows independent observers to report and record their realtime data.
The immediate goal of the Kickstarter project is to purchase at least 600 Geiger Counter devices to be deployed in Japan. The information collected will be made available to anyone who needs it. Watch the video and if you are interested, here's the link to the Kickstarter project.

Back To Square One

Another of the most distinctive players in rock, but probably one of the most unsung, Ernie Isley, who started playing with the family band, The Isley Brothers when he was just a kid. His first mentor was a guy named Jimi, who played with the Isleys while he was becoming Experienced! I'm sure you've heard Ernie a million times on the iconic Isley Bros hit, Who's That Lady?

Immersion (Piss Christ)

Immersion (Piss Christ)
Andres Serrano 1987

In 1987, New York artist Andres Serrano placed a plastic crucifix into a glass of his own urine and artfully lit and photographed it as part of series of photographs he made of religious objects submerged in fluids such as milk and blood. The exhibition of the pictures in 1988, specifically, the Immersion (Piss Christ) photo led to a heated debate in the Senate about the public funding of the Arts. Senator Jesse Helms went as far as to become an art critic, saying of Serrano, "He's not an artist, he's a jerk."
Serrano defended the concept of the photos as a criticism of the "billion dollar Christ for profit industry" and as "a condemnation of those who abuse the teachings of Christ for their own ignoble ends."
The photo of course, only gained power from the controversy and became a powerful icon and an expensive piece of art. It made Serrano's career.
There was an attempted incident of vandalism in New York by a priest in the gallery it was first exhibited in and it was vandalized in Australia and by neo Nazis in Sweden in 2007.
The work has been shown in France several times with out incident and was presently being exhibited in Avignon by Yvon Lambert, a dealer who put together a show called, I Believe In Miracles for the last 4 months. The show is scheduled to finish next month.
France, of course is supposed to be a laic state. The Catholic Church has been stripped of it's property since 1905. France has had a long and violent history of religious racism and violence. Supposedly, we were over that.
Until recently, when Nicolas Sarkozy started to play the religion card to court the far right. The far right is traditionally conservative Catholic and was the backbone of Vichy France. The extreme right party, The Front National, which until lately had been discredited and losing membership has become newly energized by linking the issues of the economy and immigration under their new leader, Marine LePen, the daughter of the founder, Jean-Marie LePen. The Front National's base is fervently professed fundamentalist Catholic.
As the fortunes of the UMP, Sarkozy's party, faltered, he is presently the least popular president in the history of the 5th Republic, Sarkozy, the ever imaginative manipulative campaigner has exploited racism and religion to court the far right conservatives that he his party was losing.
He tried to sponsor a failed "debate" on Laicity, which even his party had to disown as they were promoting it. Most of France does not want to go there. The leaders of every major religion in France denounced it. Even though, at the same time, France passed the most restrictive ban the public display of head coverings and the burka in Europe. The laws are being contested as counter to the EU Constitution now.
But passing an unworkable and unconstitutional law never stopped Nicolas. He is playing to the grandstand, the racists hooting in the balcony of his political theater. The results? The empowerment and legitimization of the sentiments long banished to the dark shadows. Racist commentators and politicians now openly justify their statements by saying, "I'm just saying what everyone is thinking." Of course, as we have seen in America, people don't think about something until they are told it's okay to think it.
So last weekend ago, Piss Christ was destroyed in an act of vandalism after a campaign led by the far right archbishop of Vaucluse, Jean-Pierre Cattenoz and public demonstrations organized by the far right Catholic Group, Civitas.
After a few weeks of threats, the gallery hired guards, but on Palm Sunday, 4 youths entered the gallery and in a violent scuffle, they managed to slash and smash the picture.
The Gallery director, Eric Mezil, said they would continue the exhibition with the destroyed work on display, "so people can see what barbarians can do."
In a statement, he said the movement against Piss Christ had started at the time of President Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling UMP party's controversial debate on religion and secularism in France. At a record low in the polls before next year's presidential election, Sarkozy has been accused of using anti-Muslim and extreme-right rhetoric to appeal to voters and counter the rise of the Front National.
Asked by the daily Libération why the Piss Christ protest had happened now, Mézil pointed to Sarkozy's speech in March lauding "the Christian heritage of France" at Puy-en-Velay, where the first Crusades were preached.
He said: "Clearly we saw in Saturday's demonstration that a Catholic fringe wanted to take the president at his word, with extremely violent appeals." He said there was a climate of tension, with protesters insulting museum staff of north African origin. One guard said he heard: "I'm going to pour donkey piss on the Qur'an." An email to the museum talked about "plunging the diary of Anne Frank in urine".
In earlier posts, we discussed what is art. Clearly, this is a powerful piece that fulfills any definition of art. More importantly, it can be physically destroyed, but it is a conceptual piece that can be easily recreated by the artist. This act of destruction, perhaps was just as important as it's creation, wouldn't you think?