Things We Like

Statues, from Jack Bruce's 1968 solo recording, He plays acoustic bass, Dick Heckstall-Smith plays sax...and at times, saxes a la Roland Kirk, Jon Hiseman, Drums and John McGlaughlin, guitar.I still own the original vinyl which I purchased to the derision of the fat snotty arrogant poofy clerk who ran the music store at the Woodville Mall outside of Toledo.....

The Innocence Of Christians

William Dafoe as Christ in Scorcese's film

This was Pat Robertsons anti Muslim rant last week after the violence began to spred in response to the deliberately provocative scam, The Innocence of Muslims. He claimed that Muslims respond violently because they cannot deal criticism of their religion because they have no logic to deal with it. In his words, "They are possessed with the spirit of a wild donkey". This is now, this is Robertson, the senile propagandist spinning his own illogical, manipulative religious scam in 2012.

In 1988, Martin Scorcese released the film, The Last Temptation of Christ. A film that dealt with attempting to depict and portray the humanity of Jesus Christ. You cannot compare the cheap piece of manipulative propaganda trash, The Innocence of Muslims to Scorcese's intelligent film, which tried to depict a compelling psychological depiction of Christian belief...in other words, Scorcese tried to present Christ as a human and analyze the emotional reality....it is impossible.

The controversial photo PISS CHRIST earned
Richard Serrano a hailstorm of outrage. It was
vandalized in in the early 90's in A NYC Gallery, and
 more recently, earlier this year in Avignon, France,
where it became the object of demonstrations by French
Fundamentalist Catholic protestors. This perceived
controversy was exploited by Nicolas Sarkozy and
Marine LePen in their failed attempts to exploit
Fundamentalist Christian sentiment for political
gain.

The Cover of Kazantzakis book

But, none the less in 1988, Pat Robertson condemned the film as ‘an offence to a hundred million Christians. It ridicules and blasphemes the faith that we have all committed our lives to'. Christian fundamentalists like Robertson organised a major protest outside Universal Studios. Ironically, they parked their cars in the studio car park, generating $4,500 in parking charges for the studio. Another protestor, Bill Bright of the Campus Crusade for Christ, offered the studio $10 million to allow him to destroy the film. In 1989, Albuquerque high school teacher Joyce Briscoe found herself at the centre of controversy when she screened the film for students at La Cueva High School, thus provoking the wrath of the student’s parents and local Christian radio station KLYT.
On 22nd October 1988, a French Catholic Christian fundamentalist group firebombed the Saint Michel cinema in Paris severely burning four people and injuring a further nine. A similar attack was staged In Besancon, the capital of the Franche-Comté region, and tear gas was released in other French cinemas.    This is the same group responsible for the vandalism of the Andre Serrano exhibition in Avignon earlier this year and the Front National supported demonstrations embraced by Nicolas Sarkozy.
In Greece, the homeland of the novelist Nikos Kazantzakis, on whose book the film was based, Archbishop Iakovos, the primate of the Greek Othodox Church, called for a boycott of the film (Kazantzakis was excommunicated as a heretic by the Greek Orthodox Church, and the book placed in the Catholic Church’s index of forbidden books when it was first published).
The film was banned in many countries, including Argentina, Chile, Ireland, Israel, Mexico and Turkey, and bans remain in place in the Philippines, Singapore and South Africa. Even in more liberal countries such as Britain, the film has been the centre of much controversy; as late as 1992 the House of Lords was questioning the wisdom of the BBC’s decision to screen the film on national television...
The Innocence of Muslims, indeed....
The Hypocrisy of Christians......

How Banking Works

C'mon, everybody, everywhere, full screen, full volume

and do the funki porcini with me!

The Smirking Smirkers Smirk

Hey, suckah! Who you be smirkin' at?
Why, I be smirkin' at you!
But you are me...
I know I am but what are you?
No, I'm not! Oh yes you are! Oh, no I am!
uhhhh...I'm so confused!

In the last few days, Mittens has again proven that he is his own worst enemy. He can't help it.

The totally inappropriate and frankly bizarre nature nature of his reaction to the embassy attack in Libya has put his entire party into hyper crazy defense mode. Then there was the little statement earlier this where Mittens, ever the dilettante amateur, tried to prove his manly grasp of foreign affairs by stating that Moscow was the number one geopolitical foe or America. This of course was jumped on immediately by Vladimir Putin, who stated that Romney smirking statement actually helped Russia.

“I’m grateful to him (Romney) for formulating his stance so clearly because he has once again proven the correctness of our approach to missile defense problems,” Putin told reporters, according to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

But who is Bishop Mittens really smirking at? You, suckah! Because he believes he is entitled to be President of The United States and it's not really up to you. He will be, at least in his world of Mormon logic, your CEO in Chief by what ever means necessary. Now that he has exploited 2012's September 11th Debacle, take a look at how he exploited September 11, 2001.  Let's have a look at how deep Willard's hunger for power and profit actually goes, shall we?
Via Politicker.com:

Endurance Specialty Holdings was one of many insurance and reinsurance startups that cropped up in the wake of 9/11.These companies were designed to purchase debt from insurance companies who faced billions of dollars in claims after the attacks and sold insurance at high prices generated by the soaring rates that resulted from the cash crunch on traditional insurance companies. Mr. Romney was invested in Endurance Specialty Holdings both through Golden Gate Capital, a private equity firm founded by a former Bain Capital executive in 2000 and through his direct interest in another investment firm, CCG Investment Fund, LP.
In documents filed with the SEC ahead of a proposed IPO in late 2002, Endurance Specialty Holdings, which began operations in December 2001, a little over three months after the World Trade Center attacks, boasted about how they were taking advantage of economic opportunities created in the wake of September 11th.
But, but, but...Willard wasn't involved with Bain after 1999, was he? And didn't he have his money in a blind trust controlled by his close personal friend and lawyer? Yeah, that's not a blind trust, and Mitt knew exactly where his money was, because he was one of the original investors.
Endurance made a ton of money on those September 11th attacks, and so did Mitt Romney. But did he pay any taxes on the profit? Doubtful.
In addition to Endurance’s history of profiting from the September 11th attacks, Mr. Romney’s investment in the company is also interesting because the company was domiciled in Bermuda, though none of its initial investors hailed from the island nation and ten of them came from the United States. In SEC filings,Endurance noted this arrangement ensured it was not “subject to taxes computed on profits or income or computed on any capital asset, gain or appreciation, or any tax in the nature of estate duty or inheritance tax or to any foreign exchange controls.” Throughout this election, the Obama campaign has accused Mr. Romney of using similar offshore investment schemes to avoid paying U.S. taxes.
What a patriot. This is the man who wants to be president, profiteering from a national tragedy and doing so without even paying a dime of taxes on it. Some might call him enterprising. I call it greedy.
Remember, the smirking smirker always smirks at you......

Pops, Can I Get You A Drink?

Or Blame It On The Medication / Part #1

June 23, 2013...an undisclosed location in Maryland

"There! The damn thing moved!" Dick shook his head muttering..."I must be having some kind of episode from this new medication...a lawn jockey doesn't move..."

He automatically grabbed the secure Blackberry from the top pocket of the fishing vest he had taken to wearling lately and pressed the button which automatically paged his medical staff.

He tried not to look at the lawn jockey, but in his undeniable trance like fascination, he couldn't help it. The lawn jockey had turned its head, with it's garish red lips grinning on its coal black enamel face and was looking right at him! It's vaudevillian pickaninny eyes were bugging out...

Then, incredibly in slow motion, the lawn jockey raised its lantern and seemed to beckon him....

Mr. Cheney gasped involuntarily and clutched at his chest and scrambled in a bizarre crab like gait, as quickly as the pain in his chest would allow back into the front door and collapsed in an overstuffed chair, wheezing painfully.

His vision began to blur and he felt like he was going to pass out, but he still couldn't resist the hypnotic urge to look out the window..."The fuckin' thing is moving!" Cheneys eyes bugged out in a bizarre almost hilarious imitation of the painted characature of the lawn jockey's badly painted iron face...

Yes, it really did seem as if the lawn jockey was moving in extreme slow motion, it had turned and was heading for the front door....

Sweat covered Dicks clammy face as he tried to get out of th chair in utter panic and  make it to the door to securely close and lock it, but it was almost with relief, a blessed sense of acceptance as his body slipped into shock and he fell to the floor and lost consciousness.

"Hey Pops, wake up!" the strange adolescent breaky voice annoyingly demanded that Dick listen, he seemed to be clawing his way back to an uncomfortable conciousness, aware that he had collapsed on the cool marble floor of his front doorway entry hall.

"You don't mind if I call you Pops? Okay? I mean father seems so formal." the annoying scratchy cartoon teenage voice went on..."Listen, Pops, can I get you a drink?"
The pain in Mr. Cheney's ribs seemed to be abating. He cautiously opened his eyes, disoriented and the first thing he saw was the face of the black enamel painted lawn jocky grotesquely grinning as it stood over him, peering intently into his face.
"Gahhh" said Dick Cheney.
"Pops, don't worry. Everythings cool. I already have a nice drink, Chivas and soda with an ice cube...just the way you like it!' The lawn jockey's face came into focus and Dick felt as if he could actually see it's concerned expression....The glass looked real enough.
"Am I insane?" he thought.
As if he could read Cheneys mind, the jockey said in his cartoon voice, "Hey pops, you aren't crazy. This is real, well, I'm as real as I will ever get. Thanks to you. Now have that drink. You really need it!"
The sound of sirens started to get louder. Cheney remembered paging his medical staff before passing out. He instinctively reached for his Blackberry in his hunting vest, but it wasn't there.
"You lookin for this?" the jockey laughed and pointed to a mangled mess of plastic and circuits on the table. "You won't need this anymore, Pops. You got me, your sonny boy!"
Dick automatically grabbed the drink and gulped it down. The Chivas burned just right and instantly, he felt better. He breathed deeply and noticed the pain in side had abated.
He felt he could think again. He looked at the painted face and tried to be logical.
"Don't call me Pops. Okay?"
There was a frantic knock at the door....

Romney Comma Mitt

Vote for Romney Comma Mitt, he appears almost human and he hasn't actually eaten any

humans yet, well not any we know of...perhaps I am being a trifle intolerant of alien life forms...

A Little Goes A Long Way In The Desert

I really would like to thank my blog buddies, MikeB302000, The Man With The Muckrake and Squatlo-Rant for giving me the opportunity to reach a wider audience in our appeal project to raise emergency funding for the NGO, Groupe Coordination Aude Mali. There is a Paypal donation button installed on the upper right hand corner of this blog with which we are gratefully accepting donations to help this brave little NGO in their long term mission to assist Touareg refugees fleeing the Militant Islamic Al Qaeda AQMI Coalition Coup d'etat which is attempting to seize control of Mali. In my original posts, the last dated Sept. 2, 2012, I tried to give as much background of Groupe Coordination Aude Mali's involvement in assisting the Malian Touareg people over the lat 25 years and their present plight as a persecuted, refugee minority having to flee their ancestral homes or face death because they are involved in the resistance to AQMI. We are limited in what we can actually say because the delicate nature of revealing too much on the internet with out compromising the very lives of all involved in the effort. I would really like to thank all of the great folks so far who have been able to give just a little or in some cases a lot to help. GCAM has been involved intimately with the Touaregs in Mali and I can assure you that every penny you donate is used as efficiently as possible by the little group to get the urgent job done1
The focus, of course is to get as many people out of harms way as quickly as possible. They are being relocated to hastily built and quickly growing refugee camps in Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Algeria. This involves transportation over hundreds of miles of Saharan desert.
I am presenting 2 videos below from UNHCR, The United Nations Relief Agency working in the  refugee camps in Mbera, Mauritania and Burkina Faso. This is where Groupe Aude Coordination Aude Mali is based on the ground now coordinating rescue, transportation, and getting the vital basics to sustain the lives of these brave people. These are the conditions the refugees are presently enduring:

Mauritania

below, Burkina Faso

I think it is very important to understand that the work that Groupe Coordination Aude Mali is trying to do is not political. These are people are refugees in clear and present danger and had to leave their traditional homes for the second time in 25 years. Groupe Coordination Aude Mali has been working with them for over 25 years and hopefully, the survivors will be able to return. It's our mission to help them survive and continue their  lives and traditions.

This is a photo of the work of the Touaregs we are assisting.This is a painted leather camel bag. Through your donation, you can participate in the long term goal of preserving their unique culture

It's easy to feel as if this is a remote foreign alien world you could never relate to or be affected by, but I feel that this is a learning experience. If you think that Islam is an unified alien world, you could never comprehend, directly in conflict with your way of life, then take the time to learn that Islam is a multifaceted theology as fragmented as Christianity. There are so many good, big hearted Christians on this planet, there are so many good hearted generous open Islamic people on the planet, but with in Christianity as in Islam there are those who would coherce the rest of the us to conform to their beliefs by what ever means they feel they can get away with to enforce their fundamentalist ideology on everyone. It's not just theology, it political....We live in the luxury of America with the rule of law and a constitution and the veneer of civilization, but it is simply a thin veneer that separates us from the harsh reality of the desert. The struggle of the Touareg is our struggle. Donate just a little to Groupe Coordination Aude Mali by simply using the Pay Pal button on the upper right hand button of the blog. Your money will not be wasted. You can make a difference. Please help us....

don't even ask me about 9/11

Instead, please read this really great piece in todays NY Times which I am publishing in its entirety, after the break:

Musical moment No. 3 in F minor by Franz Schubert, played on glass harp

 (musical glasses) by Robert Tiso. 

This tune was used in Federico Fellini's film "e la nave va".  (The Ship Sails On)

Two musicians play the piece on many wine glasses, the real track was recorded probably by Bruno Hoffman and arranged for the glass harp by Nino Rota.

My buddy, Brian sent this image to me last night. I had to post it because
I know that Suze Rotolo, who was the woman on the original record cover and a life long best friend would have been so damn proud.
Suze died almost 2 years ago and we still miss her so much!

MORMON SEX

When Mitt Romney walked down the aisle toward the stage at the Republican National Convention, among the people whose hands he shook was the conservative billionaire and major political donor David Koch. But it was a moment missed by the tens of millions of viewers at home. While Democracy Now! was there on the floor and captured the handshake on video, the networks cut away just before the handshake to show footage of two enthusiastic young women supporters and then an overhead shot of the convention center. Then, the shot came back to Romney shaking hands further down the aisle as he ascended the stage. Groups in the network of David Koch, and his brother Charles, intend to spend nearly $400 million ahead of the 2012 election. Hey boys, you could get a motel room, okay?

 

The Clear And Present Threat To Your Democracy

"Do you really want to live in a country where one party is so desperate to win the White House that they go around trying to make it harder for people to vote if they’re people of color, poor people or first generation immigrants?," Bill Clinton asked rhetorically on Tuesday night during an event organized by the Arkansas Democratic Party.

 The Nation's Ari Berman highlighted  these remarks by Clinton and they would be a "preview" of the former President's remarks last night in Charlotte, where he headlined the DNC. In Arkansas, Clinton savaged the Republican efforts, particularly in Pennsylvania and Ohio, to suppress the Democratic vote:
“Do you really want to live in a country where one party is so desperate to win the White House that they go around trying to make it harder for people to vote if they’re people of color, poor people or first generation immigrants?
“In Pennsylvania, where they passed all these voter ID requirements, the House Republican leader who passed it said it was one of the most important achievements because it will enable Governor Romney to defeat the president in Pennsylvania.
“In Ohio, they passed the whole nine yards. The problem was in Ohio you can actually put this stuff on the ballot pretty easily to overturn it. So they went back in—you gotta give it to Republicans, they’re good. They vetoed it, then they snuck in an end to advance voting. Then they allowed the counties—and every county in Ohio has an election commission of three Democrats and three Republicans [Ed Note: actually it's two and two]—to decide if they were going to go around advance voting. The Democrats, we were for it. So in every county that was Republican, Democrats said ‘OK, we’ll have advance voting.’ And in every single county that is overwhelming Democratic, the Republicans voted against allowing advance voting."

Berman went on to note that Clinton offered similar sentiments during a speech he made last year, when he decried the "Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today":
In last year's speech, a clip of which I'll post again below, Clinton said:
I can’t help thinking, since we just celebrated the Fourth of July and we’re supposed to be a country dedicated to liberty, that one of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time. There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the other Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today.

Why is all this going on? This is not rocket science. They are trying to make the 2012 electorate look more like the 2010 electorate than the 2008 electorate.

 Clinton did offer similar sentiments in last nights very powerful performance.

In a shout out Clinton did give a shout out against GOP voter suppression in his speech and I am paraphrasing as closely as I can here : "If you think it's wrong to change voting procedures to reduce the turnout of minorities, the poor and disabled voters, you should support Barack Obama!"

But some Universes Are Way Cooler Than Others

1974, Space Is The Place, the entire movie...One of the greatest "cult films" ever made.

Absolutely indispensible for the opening sequences alone, but the entire film is full of inventive low budget alternate reality wit, wisdom and music of another universe from the Master, Sun Ra.

The Coolest Universe, Anywhere

On August 31, 2012 a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the sun's atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space at 4:36 p.m. EDT. The coronal mass ejection, or CME, traveled away from the sun at over 900 miles per second. This movie shows the ejection from a variety of viewpoints as captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), and the joint ESA/NASA Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
A really great video presentation. We live in the coolest universe, anywhere.

When Marcel Met John

John Cage first met Marcel Duchamp in the 1940s. Duchamp asked Cage to write music for his part in Hans Richter’s film “Dreams that Money Can Buy” (1946). But it took twenty more years before the two actually became close. Cage didn’t want to bother Duchamp with his friendship until he realized that Duchamp’s health was failing. Then he decided to actively seek his company. He knew that Duchamp was taking chess very seriously, and it was easy for Cage to use this pretext, so he simply asked him to teach him the game. And for the last three years of Duchamp’s life the two men and Teeny Duchamp, the bachelor’s bride, met at least once a week and played chess.

Actually, Cage hadn’t lost every single match with Duchamp. There was one that he definitely won, after a fashion. It happened in Toronto, in 1968. Cage had invited Duchamp and Teeny to be with him on the stage. All they had to do was play chess as usual, but the chessboard was wired and each move activated or cut off the sound coming live from several musicians (David Tudor was one of them). They played until the room emptied. Without a word said, Cage had managed to turn the chess game (Duchamp’s ostensive refusal to work) into a working performance. And the performance was a musical piece. In pataphysical terms, Cage had provided an imaginary solution to a nonexistent problem: whether life was superior to art. Playing chess that night extended life into art – or vice versa. All it took was plugging in their brains to a set of instruments, converting nerve signals into sounds. Eyes became ears, moves music. Reunion was the name of the piece. It happened to be their endgame.

John Cage would have been 100 years old today.

A Sacred American Tradition

So, like, will he soil his Star Spangled, Red, White and Blue Depends if Chuckie doesn't get his way? I suppose you could attribute it to one too many blows to the brain from a lifetime of stunts gone awry...but Chuck is just following the time honored sacred American political tradition of sheer hyperbolic assholelianism. 

Great blasts from the very emotional presidential campaign of 1800:

Thomas Jefferson, election campaign of 1800:
“[John Adams is] a hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” 

—politics is and ever was politics 

John Adams’ campaign, election of 1800: 

“[Thomas Jefferson is] a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father … raised wholly on hoe-cake, bacon, and hominy, with an occasional change of fricasseed bullfrog.” 

personal, ad hominem attacks, brought to you at least since 1800 … 

John Adams’ campaign’s prediction of the results of Thomas Jefferson’s election, 1800 :

 “Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will all be openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes.” 

—from the “there’s nothing new under the sun” file …

That's The Ticket!

The GOP nominee now for Al Gore’s position in the 1990s is making the Nobel Peace Prize winner look like George Washington and the cherry tree. In matters large and small, Paul Ryan is setting Olympic records for public lies.
In 1999, Gore took heat for claiming he “invented” the Internet. What he actually said was “in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” This year he was inducted into the Internet Hall of Famewith the citation: "Gore recognized the importance of building the information infrastructure and making it available to everyone."
This week Ryan's convention speech set off truth meters clanging everywhere to keep up with lies, distortions and omissions, numbers mounting into double figures.
That his indifference to truth is a matter of disposition rather than expedience is suggested by an off-the-cuff claim following the convention speech. Asked about marathons, the VP runner casually notes, “I had a two-fifty something.” When Runner’s World checks, the number is actually 4.01.
Lie or mistake, Ryan’s impulse to bend the truth seems instinctive, a reaction that kicks in even when no political gain is involved. In less than a week, he has provided more evidence of lying than Joe Biden’s reputation for gaffes rests on in 40 years.
The irony here is that the GOP’s vaunted “truth teller” about the nation’s economic woes is himself a prime example of everything he denounces about government. Since he graduated from college, Paul Davis Ryan has been sucking at the taxpayers’ teat, first as a legislative aide in Congress and then as an elected member—-not one minute out in the real word, job-creating.
After years of embracing and spreading the Ayn Rand credo that government dependency creates “looters” and “moochers,” dependent Ryan threw her under the bus while campaigning this spring, saying her ideas are “completely antithetical to mine because she has an atheist philosophy."
Less than a week after his nomination, it’s hard to believe that Paul Ryan believes passionately about anything other than Paul Ryan. In that respect, he is a perfect running mate for Mitt Romney, who has been flip-flopping on his bedrock principles for more than two decades.
If they win, the Dick Cheney era of VP snarls will return in the form of baby-faced bald-faced lies.
Update: Paul Krugman chimes in on Ryan’s veracity, observing that his “whole political persona...is built around big boasts about accomplishments he hasn’t accomplished...
“He calls for huge tax cuts, while proposing specific spending cuts that, while inflicting immense hardship on our most vulnerable citizens, would fall far short of making up for the revenue loss. His claims to reduce the deficit therefore rely on assertions that he would make up for the lost revenue by closing loopholes that he refuses to specify, and achieve further huge spending cuts in ways that he also refuses to specify...
“Ryan basically told the budget office to assume that his plan would slash the deficit, then claimed the resulting report as vindication of his deficit-slashing claims.”
And in record time.

Somewhere In America
There's a Street Named After My Dad
Was (not was) live in Montreaux

Groupe Coordination Aude Mali

A bit of information about the new PayPal button on the side of my blog. Last Sunday, August 22, I posted a piece titled Songs For Desert Refugees with information about the critical situation involving the very survival of Malian Refugees who are fleeing their homes after the invasion and coup d'etat of the country by the Islamic Al Qaeda linked AQMI. In the piece, I tried to explain the basic situation and gave some links to a project the NGO groups, Tamoudre and ETAR with the English music label, Glitterhouse to raise money to help the refugees with the profits from a CD of Malian music called Songs for Desert Refugees.
I am trying to work with a small NGO group which has been involved directly with a Touareg tribe in northern Mali for the last 25 years. This group of highly committed individuals have put their lives on the line and dug into their own pockets to realize their projects. One of the members is a person who I am very proud to call one of my best long time friends.
The NGO Group is called Groupe Coordination Aude Mali. I will post my friends own words explaining what they have done and the situation today:
"We are a NGO with about 30 volunteers. It all started some 25 years ago with continuing a water project in the desert of northern Mali abandond by another organisation after the big draughts in 1982-83. It developed into a production site of vegetables and soon a tree nursery was started with another groupe of Touaregs. We planted special trees that produce different colors used for painting artisanal products. Later we started a school to educate the children. In 1995 these people ended up in Mauritania, Mbera refugee camp fleeing a civil war. One of our members went to Mbera to work with CARE-International on water supply for three camps around Bassikounou. The people went back finally to their homes and restarted, rebuild life again .... everything they had left was destroyed, school, nursery, well, cattle. We helped those people to rebuild all for more than 15 years and now they are back again in the camps, dispersed between Mauretania and Burkina Faso. We assist those people as good as we can to make life supportable during this "misserable etappe" and hope for better times."

Here is a good video which gives an overview of the situation:

It's very hard to be specific about this situation. Why? Any personal or logistical information puts those most vulnerable directly into extreme danger. To further quote my friend:

"Why can we white people, especially french, not go to the refugee camps any more and why do we have to delegate our supprot to locals? Because we are "cibles" for the jihadist and we won't get any visa anyway. It is just too dangerous."

Your donation will be used to provide for the immediate survival needs of the refugees and put directly into the hands of those who can obtain the basic food and fuel they need for transport and survival. The situation became all the more drastic today as the latest news reports that AQMI has taken Douentza sand now control 2/3 of Mali as of today. If you care enough to donate on the PayPal button, you will have done something real and immediate and I humbly thank you.

I will keep you updated.

Marcel Duchamp Discusses Comb

Marcel explains his 1916 Readymade "Comb"

The Idiot Bastard Son

44 years ago, Frank Zappa was able to see directly into the black heart of American political commercialism....well, the effects of corporate corruption that had forever   destroyed and perverted our national...uhhh...soul and psyche...you could say, every body's doin it, but some folks do it so much better: 

The Romney campaign staff w/ Paul Ryan & Mittens. Get ready for a nation run by frat boys & their little sorority sisters.
I believe I have been blinded by the WHITE!

Your Daily Duchamp

In the mid 1920's Duchmap amused himself by producing a series of rotating glass
plates some of which contained puns, but were designed to create an optical effect.
He called them Rotoreliefs and Man Ray documented them in a film called
Anemic Cinema

In 1966, he created a multiple edition version of them. A portable record player  in a suitcase.
He used the idea of a suitcase throughout his life. At one point, he made an edition of his entire
work miniaturized with an "operating manual" called The Green Valise

Rotoreliefs”, 1966

By: MARCEL DUCHAMP….

Old Man Yells At Chair

Well, my immediate reaction to the Republican National Convention and the United Psychotic State of America is...well...there comes a time when the only appropriate and noble reaction is complete and utter anarchistic pointless and  meaningless mayhem...RAMMING SPEED!


Politicians from both parties twist facts or spin policy, but Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has had a particularly strained relationship with the truth, repeating false claims with impunity — even after fact checkers, mainstream media organizations, and blogs have all debunked their assertions.

From claiming that “Obama gutted the welfare work requirement” to insisting that his own policies won’t deregulate Wall Street, Romney has led a post-truth campaign. A top adviser even admitted earlier this week, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”

ThinkProgress has compiled a Viewer’s Guide comparing what Romney says with the facts:

Romney On His Tax Plan || Romney On Wall Street || Romney On The Budget
Romney On Bain Capital || Romney On Obamacare || Romney On Medicare
Romney On Women’s Health || Romney On Energy || Romney On Global Warming
Romney On The Auto Bailout || Romney On Welfare Reform || Romney On Food Stamps
Romney On Security || Romney On LGBT rights

And what about Gramps Eastwood and his little performance? It was....kinda special:

Here's a recap if you missed it:

Frankly, I sincerely believe America is totally fucked, but don't ask me...Today. my only comment is 

RAMMING SPEED!

Dixie Fried

I love this song...Carl Perkins, 1957, the master....
It's almost dawn, the cops are gone.
Let's all git Dixie Fried!

Dusquene Whistle

                   

                   

                   

                Bob Dylan releases his next cd on the 11th of Sept...this is a pretty cool pre release video courtesy of the Guardian UK....I think Bobby's beginning to channel Louie Armstrong these days!

Thunder Road

I have been reading the great bio of Robert Mitchum, Baby, I Don't Care, by Lee Server.

I discovered a totally original self made artist, Mitchum was bigger than any of his roles...and among his other personas. he occasionally made records. By all accounts he was a pretty good saxophonist.

In the early 50's he was passionate about calypso and recorded a record and in the late 60's he reocrded some Country and Western and had a #1 C&W hit.....When I hear some of the stuff from this period, I think of a stylistic cross of Keith Richards and Dean Martin......

But in the late 50's he made the original bad boy moonshine car chase classic which set the standard for an entire genre. The film which he wrote, starred in and directed was Thunder Road and he wrote and sang the music as well...I'm going to watch Thunder Road this weekend!

The Sky Is Pink

THE SKY IS PINK by Josh Fox and the GASLAND Team from JFOX on Vimeo.

This is the latest urgent piece by Josh Fox, who wrote and directed Gasland and was arrested for trying to document the congressional hearings on fracking earlier this year.

Below is the very eloquent editorial piece by Sean Ono Lennon from todays NY Times:

Destroying Precious Land for Gas
By SEAN LENNON
Published: August 27, 2012

ON the northern tip of Delaware County, N.Y., where the Catskill Mountains curl up into little kitten hills, and Ouleout Creek slithers north into the Susquehanna River, there is a farm my parents bought before I was born. My earliest memories there are of skipping stones with my father and drinking unpasteurized milk. There are bald eagles and majestic pines, honeybees and raspberries. My mother even planted a ring of white birch trees around the property for protection.
A few months ago I was asked by a neighbor near our farm to attend a town meeting at the local high school. Some gas companies at the meeting were trying very hard to sell us on a plan to tear through our wilderness and make room for a new pipeline: infrastructure for hydraulic fracturing. Most of the residents at the meeting, many of them organic farmers, were openly defiant. The gas companies didn’t seem to care. They gave us the feeling that whether we liked it or not, they were going to fracture our little town.
In the late ’70s, when Manhattanites like Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger were turning Montauk and East Hampton into an epicurean Shangri-La for the Studio 54 crowd, my parents, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, were looking to become amateur dairy farmers. My first introduction to a cow was being taught how to milk it by hand. I’ll never forget the realization that fresh milk could be so much sweeter than what we bought in grocery stores. Although I was rarely able to persuade my schoolmates to leave Long Island for what seemed to them an unreasonably rural escapade, I was lucky enough to experience trout fishing instead of tennis lessons, swimming holes instead of swimming pools and campfires instead of cable television.
Though my father died when I was 5, I have always felt lucky to live on land he loved dearly; land in an area that is now on the verge of being destroyed. When the gas companies showed up in our backyard, I felt I needed to do some research. I looked into Pennsylvania, where hundreds of families have been left with ruined drinking water, toxic fumes in the air, industrialized landscapes, thousands of trucks and new roads crosshatching the wilderness, and a devastating and irreversible decline in property value.
Natural gas has been sold as clean energy. But when the gas comes from fracturing bedrock with about five million gallons of toxic water per well, the word “clean” takes on a disturbingly Orwellian tone. Don’t be fooled. Fracking for shale gas is in truth dirty energy. It inevitably leaks toxic chemicals into the air and water. Industry studies show that 5 percent of wells can leak immediately, and 60 percent over 30 years. There is no such thing as pipes and concrete that won’t eventually break down. It releases a cocktail of chemicals from a menu of more than 600 toxic substances, climate-changing methane, radium and, of course, uranium.
New York is lucky enough to have some of the best drinking water in the world. The well water on my family’s farm comes from the same watersheds that supply all the reservoirs in New York State. That means if our tap water gets dirty, so does New York City’s.
Gas produced this way is not climate- friendly. Within the first 20 years, methane escaping from within and around the wells, pipelines and compressor stations is 105 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. With more than a tiny amount of methane leakage, this gas is as bad as coal is for the climate; and since over half the wells leak eventually, it is not a small amount. Even more important, shale gas contains one of the earth’s largest carbon reserves, many times more than our atmosphere can absorb. Burning more than a small fraction of it will render the climate unlivable, raise the price of food and make coastlines unstable for generations.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, when speaking for “the voices in the sensible center,” seems to think the New York State Association of County Health Officials, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the New York State Nurses Association and the Medical Society of the State of New York, not to mention Dr. Anthony R. Ingraffea’s studies at Cornell University, are “loud voices at the extremes.” The mayor’s plan to “make sure that the gas is extracted carefully and in the right places” is akin to a smoker telling you, “Smoking lighter cigarettes in the right place at the right time makes it safe to smoke.”
Few people are aware that America’s Natural Gas Alliance has spent $80 million in a publicity campaign that includes the services of Hill and Knowlton — the public relations firm that through most of the ’50s and ’60s told America that tobacco had no verifiable links to cancer. Natural gas is clean, and cigarettes are healthy — talk about disinformation. To try to counteract this, my mother and I have started a group called Artists Against Fracking.
My father could have chosen to live anywhere. I suspect he chose to live here because being a New Yorker is not about class, race or even nationality; it’s about loving New York. Even the United States Geological Survey has said New York’s draft plan fails to protect drinking water supplies, and has also acknowledged the likely link between hydraulic fracturing and recent earthquakes in the Midwest. Surely the voice of the “sensible center” would ask to stop all hydraulic fracturing so that our water, our lives and our planet could be protected and preserved for generations to come.
Sean Lennon is a musician.

Even Sicker

On August 14th 2012, I published a piece, Sick To My Stomach on the programmed closing of a profitable American business in Freeport Il, The Sensata Company which was acquired by Bain Capital, which in and of itself, stands as a shining example of the callousness of Republican vulture capitalism. I wrote of another company in Troy, Michigan which was acquired a few years back by Bain when Mittens was still officially at the helm. In both cases, highly profitable companies were acquired, and outsourced to China to save money on labor costs. The employees are being offered the "opportunity" to train their Chinese replacements. Romney recently extolled the virtues of Chinese "sweatshop" labor.

Now imagine how it would feel to someone reeling from the effects of Romney's business model?
Employees of the Bain-owned company Sensata, watched the video and were asked for their reactions.
Not surprisingly, they had some very harsh words for the Republican candidate.
If you want to know what the “Romney Economy” is, why don’t you look up Sensata in the book and see what Sensata’s doing for the people of Freeport, Illinois. If that’s what you want for your future….but I’m sorry to tell you that’s not what I want for my future. This is the disease and it is making the American economy even sicker.

Bonnie And Clyde

My wife and I were walking the streets of the village of Courgnac sur Lisle yesterday and found ourselves in front of a little house with these names on the mailbox:

BONNIE AND CLYDE

Here's the 1968 hit by Serge Gainsbourg and Bridgette Bardot.

Songs For Desert Refugees

I have been trying to write about Mali and the present growing humanitarian refugee crisis. It has been a learning process for me and I have been inspired by a very close friend who is personally involved in the relief effort. He does not want me to reveal any of the details of his organizations involvement because of the extremely dangerous situation for the organizations and the refugees themselves. It is superhuman and the toll has already been much too steep.
This was a piece published on August 5, 2012 on the Les forums de Kidal.info blog which gives you a pretty good overview of what is happening:

GENEVA (AP) — A crisis of huge proportions is brewing in Mali that could spread throughout the nine-nation Sahel region of northern Africa and beyond due to insufficient humanitarian aid for millions of people, top U.N. and U.S. officials said Friday.
Mali recently experienced a coup that emboldened rebels to seize the country's north. Islamist and other insurgent rebel factions have since been fighting each other as they try to keep ahold of northern Mali. The violence, and the imposition of harsh Islamic law in some areas, has forced many residents to flee their homes.
The officials warned that widespread hunger, displacement, insecurity, political unrest and other factors in Mali are putting countless lives at risk — and setting the stage for a global headache.
"There is a very serious threat for peace and security, not only for the whole region but, in my opinion, with global implications," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told reporters at the U.N. in Geneva. "We are witnessing in the Sahel a dramatic humanitarian situation."
Guterres appeared a press conference beside U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Anne Richard, who oversees population, refugees and migration. They had just returned from a trip to visit Malian refugees in Burkina Faso.
Guterres said 260,000 Malian refugees have fled for neighboring Mauritania, Niger and Burkina Faso, which have kept their borders open and shared their food supplies despite the dire hunger crisis they face within their own nations. Some 200,000 people also have been displaced within Mali, facing dire conditions.
The U.N. humanitarian office says 18 million people already face severe hunger and malnutrition in the Sahel region. In Mali, many of those in need are beyond the reach of aid workers, the two officials said.
"The United States is very concerned about the crisis, and we're also concerned that's there not sufficient resources going to it," said Richard, adding the U.S. has contributed $355 million of aid and food to countries in the Sahel, including $34.5 million for refugees.
A group of middle-ranking soldiers toppled Mali's democratically elected president in March. After international pressure, they allowed an interim president to be named in April. But in May, that interim leader, Dioncounda Traore, was beaten up by a group of protesters, and left the country for medical treatment. He returned last week.
The initial coup gave insurgents in Mali an opening. Ethnic Tuareg rebels seeking secession took control of the country's north — an area larger than France — but were driven out in June by extremist Islamists with links to al-Qaida who vowed to introduce an ultra-strict interpretation of Islamic law.
Guterres said the threat goes "far beyond northern Mali" partly because many of the heavily armed fighters there have come from Libya, where they had been in the army and militias that supported the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and others have come from Nigeria, Somalia and Afghanistan.
The crisis in Mali could become conflated with the unrest in Sudan-South Sudan, Somalia and even Yemen, he said.
"So if proper humanitarian assistance is not provided, and if a political solution is not found, the risk of this conflict to go far beyond Mali is, in my opinion, enormous," Guterres said. "And the implications are very serious for the whole region. Let's not forget that many of the states of this region are very fragile."

There is only so much that can even be spoken of on the internet about the crisis. Needless to say, this is not only a humanitarian but a cultural disaster.

The traditional residents of Mali are a number of desert tribes including the Tuaregs who have preserved the ancient heritage of what UNESCO has designated a cultural world heritage site, Timbuktu which is the place where some of the oldest actual libraries still exist in the unique timeless buildings made of mud and straw. The Tuareg among other groups have resisted the AQMI coup and jihad that is seizing control of their country. As a result, they are the victims, being slaughtered and driven from their traditional homeland. International NGO Groups such as Medicins Sans Frontiers are trying to do what they can to assist the refugees, It is extremely dangerous for a non Malian looking person to be involved in the area as being even suspected of being foreign is reason alone to be singled out and killed.
The result is a mass exodus of refugees coming into Mauritania and Burkina Faso and the inevitable human crisis that is occurring from too many people in hastily assembled refugee camps in a part of the world already strained to the max as far as available resources. There are a few groups working to provide assistance and logistics, but due to the difficult nature of working in Africa, the work is inefficient and much is wasted. There are a few small organizations who have to remain relatively anonymous to be directly involved in assistance. Medicins Sans Frontiers is there (Doctors Without Borders in America) and you can link to them through the Haitian Relief Button on the upper right hand corner of this blog page and learn about what they are doing and how to donate through them. You can be assured that any donations made to them will be used as efficiently as possible.

I will write more about this and have a direct link to provide aid in a following posts.

Here is a project already on the ground,. The music of Mali is world renown, Some of the greatest African music comes out of the Desert...and the  English label, Glitterhouse Records released “Songs for Desert Refugees” a benefit compilation of unreleased Tuareg music from across Mali, Niger and Algeria including names such as Tinariwen, Tamikrest, Bombino, Faris and more. It also features sleeve notes from UK journalist (and former Tinariwen manager)Andy Morgan. All proceeds from the album will go to two NGOsTAMOURDRÉ and ETAR who are working directly with refugees from North Eastern Mali. You can order the recording directly here: Tamoudre or you can buy individual songs digitally and listen to samples here at emusic..
Here are a few samples of some of the great Tuareg artists featured on the recording:

Mali’s strife does not seem likely to end soon and while the international community decides what steps to take, regional African coalition ECOWAS is already readying military intervention in the north while experts have warned the country could become the “next Somalia”.  If you love this music and are inspired to buy the recording, I humbly thank you. More information soon, I promise!

So 21st Century

Now, people are signing a petition so that the Ecce Homo is not restored to its former state, because in their opinion this version is much more XXIst century. 

The result of the intervention cleverly combines primitive expressionism Francisco de Goya, with figures such as Ensor, Munch, Modigliani or Die Brücke group,belonging to the artistic movement of German Expressionism.