Artists Responding to the BP Disaster

I've been coming across some sites and news about artists addressing the BP sponsored disaster in the Gulf Coast. These are small actions but they matter.

The Tate Britain has recently "celebrated" 20 years of sponsorship by BP which has to be the most ill timed celebration in museum history. The sadness of this is beyond words. Platform reports on a group of artists denouncing the event and the practice of BP sponsorship. Some major names on the list are Hans Haacke, Lucy Lippard and Rebecca Solnit.

A letter today was published in the Guardian today signed by 171 figures from the art world condemning BP’s sponsorship of cultural institutions in the UK. The letter has been published on the day that Tate Britain is hosting a party to celebrate 20 years of BP’s sponsorship. [1] A group of artists under the banner of ‘The Good Crude Britannia’ are planning on protesting outside the event, and will be handing out the “Licence to Spill’ briefing to people attending the party.[2]

Arts/activist organisation Platform [3] has gathered 171 signatories from the international arts community, for a letter that says:

“As crude oil continues to devastate coastlines and communities in the Gulf of Mexico, BP executives will be enjoying a cocktail reception with curators and artists in the Tate Britain. These relationships enable big oil companies to mask the environmentally destructive nature of their activities with the social legitimacy that is associated with such high profile cultural associations.”[4]

continue here

Also, I've just come across Poets for Living Waters which describes itself as a poetry action in response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. There is a call for entries and I thank Poet Brett Evans for leading me to the site.


image: Poets for Living Waters

Twitter as Hangman

I'm for a transparent bureaucracy but this isn't what I had in mind. Social media as medieval spectacle. More death tweets at Infocult.

Save NY Libraries - Read In

It always seems to come down to an assault on the humanities. NYC as you may know is suffering more than its share of economic woes and the cuts are coming. One thing on the chopping block is the public library system where job cuts have begun. This comes at a time where the high number of unemployed need library resources more than ever. According to the Library Journal.com the Mayor's office issued his Executive Budget, and the cuts are even worse, nearly 25 percent, representing a 30 percent reduction over two years. That would lead to perhaps 1500 layoffs (30 to 40 percent of staff), some 40 closed libraries, and drastically curtailed hours and materials.

In addition to calling elected officials, here is another way you can try and stop these cuts.

Read-in coming June 12
Library workers and advocates gathered under the Save NYC Libraries banner are backing that call with a series of actions, notably a 24-hour Read-In to be held in front of the Brooklyn Public Library's Central Library at Grand Army Plaza beginning at 5 p.m. on Saturday June 12.

Details:

Start Time:	Saturday, June 12, 2010 at 5:00pm
End Time:	Sunday, June 13, 2010 at 5:00pm
Location:	Steps of BPL Central Library
Street:	10 Grand Army Plaza
City/Town:	Brooklyn, NY

From the organizers:

Come out and support libraries during the 24 hour We Will Not Be Shushed Read-In. This is going to be a unified libraries effort with readers and library workers from all three tri-li systems. We already have the full endorsement of Brooklyn Public Library and Queens Library administration. This is going to be a huge event in support of libraries.

To Volunteer: savenyclibraries@gmail.com

We need volunteers for the event, not to read though. No we need people for the hard boring work, to get petition signatures and make sure that people fill out postcards and sign petition and then sign another, then another. We need people who will work the crowd and man the tables. We need people to do the heavy lifting.

Louise Bourgeois 1911 -2010

Yet another light has gone out. I think everyone was wishing she would continue making art into her second century. Here's a good bio from Art 21.

Louise Bourgeois was born in Paris in 1911. She studied art at various schools there, including the Ecole du Louvre, Académie des Beaux-Arts, Académie Julian, and Atelier Fernand Léger. In 1938, she emigrated to the United States and continued her studies at the Art Students League in New York. Though her beginnings were as an engraver and painter, by the 1940s she had turned her attention to sculptural work, for which she is now recognized as a twentieth-century leader. Greatly influenced by the influx of European Surrealist artists who immigrated to the United States after World War II, Bourgeois’s early sculpture was composed of groupings of abstract and organic shapes, often carved from wood. By the 1960s she began to execute her work in rubber, bronze, and stone, and the pieces themselves became larger, more referential to what has become the dominant theme of her work—her childhood. She has famously stated “My childhood has never lost its magic, it has never lost its mystery, and it has never lost its drama.” Deeply symbolic, her work uses her relationship with her parents and the role sexuality played in her early family life as a vocabulary in which to understand and remake that history. The anthropomorphic shapes her pieces take—the female and male bodies are continually referenced and remade—are charged with sexuality and innocence and the interplay between the two. Bourgeois’s work is in the collections of most major museums around the world.

More on the artist's life here and here.


image:Louise Bourgeois, Femme Maison, 1947, ink on paper, 9-15/16 x 7-1/8 in.,Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, photo by Eeva Inkeri, © Louise Bourgeois.

Gandhiwarmer

This past Saturday I had the pleasure of attending the Gandhiwarmer event at Union Square which was a memorial to honor the great peacemaker on the anniversary of his death. There was sitar music, rose petals, and hats and scarves for those in need. The event was conceived by an old peer from art school, Tippy Tippens. Personally this proved one of the better interactions with public sculpture I've seen of late. Despite the frigid temps their was much warmth in the air. For more pics and details head over to the official site.




image: Tippy Tippens

ACS Panel: Bloggers as America's Watchdogs

I received the below via a Facebook friend and looks quite good. If you live near Philly it might be well worth attending. You can RSVP with the ACS here.

Here's gist.

Wednesday Feb. 4, 5:30PM -7PM
University of Penn. Law School
3400 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA

Bloggers as America's Watchdog:
New Administration, New Roles

The blogosphere began during the early months of the Bush Administration with opposition and criticism being the dominant modes for online progressives. With a new administration in the White House, how will the role of the netroots change? How do leaders of online opinion see their responsibilities with respect to the new President?

Featuring:

John Aravosis
Editor, AMERICAblog

Christy Hardin Smith
Blogger, Firedoglake

Baratunde Thurston
Co-Founder, Jack & Jill Politics and
Blogger, The Huffington Post

Daniel Urevick-Ackelsberg
Founder, Young Philly Politics

Moderator: Adam Bonin, chairman of the Board of Directors, Netroots Nation

the most loathsome

So yes, I'm posting another list for our dearly departed 2008. Sometimes a list comes along that is so scathing, brilliant, and timely you have to look to it for guidance and perspective. I present Buffalo's the Beast - 50 Most Loathsome Americans. This is a brutishly cynical masterpiece about our collective narcissism and dysfunction. In other words it's mean - you'll love it. THE TOP 50

43. You

Charges: You think it’s your patriotic duty to spend money you don’t have on crap you don’t need. You think Hillary lost because of sexism, when it’s actually because she’s just a bad liar. You think Iraq is better off now than before we invaded, and don’t understand why they’re so ungrateful. You think Tim Russert was a great journalist. You’re hopping mad about an auto industry bailout that cost a squirt of piss compared to a Wall Street heist of galactic dimensions, due to a housing crash you somehow have blamed on minorities. It took you six years to figure out what a tool Bush is, but you think Obama will make it all better. You deem it hunky dory that we conduct national policy debates via 8-second clips from “The View.” You think God zapped humans into existence a few thousand years ago, although your appendix and wisdom teeth disagree. You like watching vicious assholes insult each other on TV. You support gun rights, because firing one gives you a chubby. You cuddle falsehoods and resent enlightenment. You think the fact that 43% of whites could stomach voting for an incredibly charismatic and eloquent light-skinned black guy who was raised by white people means racism is over. You think progressive taxation is socialism. 1 in 100 of you are in jail, and you think it should be more. You are shallow, inconsiderate, afraid, brand-conscious, sedentary, and totally self-obsessed. You are American.

Exhibit A: You’re more upset by Miley Cyrus’s glamour shots than the fact that you are a grown adult who is upset about Miley Cyrus.

hat tip: Jeffrey Weaver

Office of Blame now in NYC

Having worked the streets of the DNC and the RNC, the Office of Blame comes into its final stop in NYC tomorrow. Seeing that this will be the 7th anniversary (amazing) of the vicious attack on our citizens here in the Big Apple, there should be plenty of blame on people's minds. I'm sure it will be quite emotional for us all here.

Yours truly will be subbing in for [Geoffrey Cunningham] this stint and assisting Carla Repice on the phones. So if you are in Manhattan from 4-7pm we will be at Union Square. Stop by and bitch about something.

from the website:

Here at the OBA, our accountants specialize in taking your blame. Through our easy filing method, we will:

• record and provide witness to your blame

• notarize and file your blame securely and anonymously

• provide you with a receipt for your personal record

• all for FREE!

How? Now placing blame is easier than ever! You can find us at our select office hours and locations (updated below) -OR- We are now pleased to announce our ONLINE iBlame filing system! It’s still easy and anonymous and you will receive a receipt via email.

Just click here for the form.

We at the OBA thank you for choosing us to shoulder your blame. Feel free to use us as often as you like, and don’t forget to share our services with anyone.

no you can't

the GOP platform 2008

Image © Austin Cline

office of blame at the DNC

Artists Carla Repice (NJ)and Geoffrey Cunningham(CA) have an event/project currently ongoing at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Welcome to the Office of Blame Accountability.
Their website reads:

Here at the OBA, our accountants specialize in taking your blame. Through our easy filing method, we will:

• record and provide witness to your blame

• notarize and file your blame securely and anonymously

• provide you with a receipt for your personal record

• all for FREE!

How? Now placing blame is easier than ever! You can find us at our select office hours and locations (updated below) -OR- We are now pleased to announce our ONLINE iBlame filing system! It’s still easy and anonymous and you will receive a receipt via email.

Just click here for the form.

We at the OBA thank you for choosing us to shoulder your blame. Feel free to use us as often as you like, and don’t forget to share our services with anyone.

So far the report from the field is that people have been lining up to participate. At this time they haven't been harassed by SWAT teams either so all signs pointing to a positive intervention. If you are in Denver definitely go by the OBA desk and speak with Carla and Geoff. There's plenty of blame to go around.

Their next stop is the RNC in Minneapolis!

J. Edgar Chertoff

The new policy by Homeland security to seize any laptop, camera, or mobile phone they wish at international airports sure has me more than chilled. Visiting this country will become an act of pure masochism and for us natives, we may never be able to leave our harrowing hamlet again without the fear of some twit at the airport picking us out of the crowd only to fuck with our identity and long term personal safety. This could be especially problematic for artists and documentarians dealing with sensitive or controversial subject matter. It's harrowing to think of the costs and abuses of such a policy especially when you consider the "trained" eye of TSA workers.

Wired, should get a lot of credit for speaking to Chertoff about some major questions/concerns for us all. Of course our little czar misleads and answers in some of the greatest doublespeak ever uttered. What exactly is an "experiment in interactive policy-making" ?

be afraid and speak out.


image: Wired (an my sincere apology)

your new FISA flow chart

Ok, so I'm still rather gripped by this legislation because frankly it scares me. Also because there continue to be excellent posts generated examining this bill. You do have to wonder, did Congressional staffs give this the same attention?

So for the latecomers to the issue or those simply confused/indifferent to it all , here is a handy flow chart examining and comparing the "old FISA" with the "new and improved FISA".

From Ketchup and Caviar:

The focus of change is the bolded red line marked “U.S. or non-U.S. Persons Located Inside or Outside the U.S.” Currently a warrant is required in this case. Notice the changes involving the bolded blue lines and text in the following chart:

continue reading Wes Alwan here and see if you can figure out how this new bill improves anything...

Dodd-Feingold Amendment

Firedoglake is running the current voting tallies as the Congress debates for the final time on the approval of the Protect America Act and it's revision of FISA (and telecom immunity).

Call your rep today and check out where they stand here.

August 8, 1974 v. July 9, 2008

from Glenn Greenwald:

The votes in the Senate on various amendments to the FISA "compromise" bill and to the underlying bill itself were originally scheduled for today, but have been postponed until tomorrow (Wednesday, July 9) to enable Senators to attend the funeral of Jesse Helms. Rejection of the amendments -- including the Dodd-Feingold-Leahy amendment to strip telecom immunity from the bill -- is all but certain, and final passage of the bill (with the support of both presidential candidates) is guaranteed.

Once passed by the Senate, the FISA bill will then immediately be sent by the Democratic Congress to an eagerly awaiting and immensely pleased President Bush, who will sign it into law, thereby putting a permanent and happy end to the scandal that began when -- in December, 2005 -- he was caught spying on the communications of American citizens in violation of the law. The only real remaining questions are (a) whether Bush will host Steny Hoyer and Jay Rockefeller at a festive, bipartisan White House signing ceremony to celebrate the evisceration of the Fourth Amendment and the rule of law, and (b) whether Bush, when he signs the bill into law, will append a signing statement decreeing that even its minimal restraints on presidential spying are invalid.

If nothing else, as the Democratic-led Senate follows in the footsteps of the Democratic-led House this week by passing a bill demanded by George Bush and Dick Cheney to cover-up and retroactively legalize their surveillance crimes and protect the lawbreakers, there will be a clear record -- delivered to their front doors -- of what they're really doing, along with an accounting of the deceitful propaganda they are disseminating to mask and justify it.

continue reading here

Senator, get FISA right

Sorry for being offline, finally finally got the computer sorted and online. Anyway, if you are like me and have been deeply disappointed by Obama's position on the new FISA bill and telecom immunity from civil suits, you can pressure him via his campaign website

If you want to take further steps try these.

• Take 3 minutes to contact the Obama campaign office about the FISA bill.
• Call (866) 675 2008
• Press 6
• In your own (calm, coherent) words, tell them what you think. See here for suggestions on how to say it.
  

• Contact Barack Obama's Senate office and do the same.
• Phone: (202) 224-2854
• Fax: 202-228-4260
• Detailed contact information here
• In your own (calm, coherent) words, tell them what you think. See here for suggestions on how to say it.

• Use Cause Caller to contact both the Senate and Campaign Offices
• As an alternative to the above options, you can use the Cause Caller website to help you contact the Senator and his campaign by phone
• Click here for the Cause Caller page. The page provides a script of suggestions for things to mention on the phone, and an auto dialer for the campaign and senate offices.
• In your own (calm, coherent) words, tell them what you think. See here for suggestions on how to say it.

• New! Use Blue America's Whip Count Call Tool to call your senators in support of an amendment to strip telecom immunity from the FISA bill.

• Click here so they can connect you to your senator. (If they connect you directly, the call is free.)
• The page has suggestions for things to say in support of the Dodd-Feingold-Leahy amendment.
• You can help track support for the Dodd-Feingold-Leahy amendment.
• In your own (calm, coherent) words, tell them what you think. See here for suggestions on how to say it.

• Contact your own senators by phone and tell them why this is important.
• Find their phone numbers. (Phone is a much better option than email or "snail mail". Why? See here.)
• In your own (calm, coherent) words, tell them what you think. See here for suggestions on how to say it.
• Want to know more about the best ways to contact Congress?

The Fourth amendment is at stake and with it a free society. This is a very dangerous and slippery slope towards opaque government and abuses that history reveals all too clearly.

From Glen Greenwald:

Just to get a flavor for how fundamental a reversal is Obama's FISA position, here is what Obama said back in February when accepting Chris Dodd's endorsement:

We know it's time to time to restore our Constitution and the rule of law. This is an issue that was at the heart of Senator Dodd's candidacy, and I share his passion for restoring the balance between the security we demand and the civil liberties that we cherish.

The American people must be able to trust that their president values principle over politics, and justice over unchecked power. I've been proud to stand with Senator Dodd in his fight against retroactive immunity for the telecommunications industry. Secrecy and special interests must not trump accountability. We must show our citizens -- and set an example to the world -- that laws cannot be ignored when it is inconvenient. Because in America –- no one is above the law.

Here is what he said back in January:

Ever since 9/11, this Administration has put forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand.

The FISA court works. The separation of power works. We can trace, track down and take out terrorists while ensuring that our actions are subject to vigorous oversight, and do not undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend.

No one should get a free pass to violate the basic civil liberties of the American people -- not the President of the United States, and not the telecommunications companies that fell in line with his warrantless surveillance program. We have to make clear the lines that cannot be crossed. . . .

A grassroots movement of Americans has pushed this issue to the forefront. You have come together across this country. You have called upon our leaders to adhere to the Constitution. You have sent a message to the halls of power that the American people will not permit the abuse of power -- and demanded that we reclaim our core values by restoring the rule of law.

It's time for Washington to hear your voices, and to act. I share your commitment to this cause, and will stand with you in the fights to come.

And obviously, his vow last October to "support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies" can't be reconciled with his vow to "support" such a bill now.

The issue is not -- as one extremely confused Obama-cheering blogger put it -- that Obama has done "something contrary to what conventional wisdom as dictated by a small coterie of prominent bloggers agrees with," nor is it -- as an equally confused, Obama-cheering Ed Kilgore put it -- that Obama is "stray[ing] from Democratic Party orthodoxy or from strict down-the-line partisanship" by "expressing heretical thoughts on FISA" (incidentally, it's amazing how the rule of law, the Fourth Amendment and accountability for Bush lawbreaking have now -- in service of defending Obama -- all been instantaneously reduced to nothing more than quirky, self-absorbed, petty blogger "dictates," and Obama's disregarding of those core political values is a bold demonstration that he won't be held hostage to anyone's narrow partisan demands).

The issue is that Obama has repeatedly, over the course of the last year, made emphatic commitments and clear statements about his core political values that are completely irreconcilable with his support for the FISA bill. It's possible to recognize that someone is just a "politician" and still trust that they're telling you essentially the truth about what they think and what they'll do.

fisa/telco amnesty - the race to erase the past

There are a few prescient observations today on the never say die FISA bill and why it is detrimental not only to your privacy and the 4th amendment but our legal system as a whole. The entire bill looks and feels so Soviet that it depresses the hell out of me. If this passes, America becomes are very different kind of place. The enormous unchecked power acquired will have bad consequences for a lot of innocent people.

Firedoglake:

In short, the bill outlines a crazy process where the Attorney General will give secret information to the judge sitting on a pending telco case. The information will mostly consist of the AG certifying that the previous certifications by prior AGs were legal, and if the judge dismisses that case on the basis of this or other information given to him in secret by the AG, the judge cannot talk about it in his opinion (I suppose other than to say he is basing his decision on secret info from the AG).

So, if the judge made a mistake of fact in reaching his decision, no appeal because the plaintiffs won't know what that fact is. If the judge made a mistake in his analysis of the application of the law to the facts, no appeal because the plaintiffs don't know what that analysis is.

Further, no stare decisis, no using the decision in an earlier telco case to help figure out a later case. For a legal system built around case law precedents, this is a sea change. It could make briefwriters like me obsolete.

Telcom immunity means we will never find out what happened in the PAST. OK, that's bad. Cases that can't be used as precedent can, over a long period of time, erode the legal system as we know it. That's bad, too.

But changing the definition of who can be surveilled under a basket warrant to remove any requirement that the surveillance subject be a spy or a terroist or any kind of bad guy--that's way beyond bad.

David Kris /Balkinization:

It is interesting to compare the pending legislation to the TSP as it may have been implemented just prior to, and just after, the January 2007 FISA Court orders. There appear to be two main differences. First, the pending legislation applies only to targets located abroad, while the January 2007 orders may have allowed surveillance of targets in the U.S. (as long as they were making international calls). Second, more importantly, the pending legislation focuses only on the target’s location (or the government’s reasonable belief about his location) not his status or conduct as a terrorist or agent of a foreign power. In other words, there is no requirement that anyone – the FISA Court or the NSA – find probable cause that the target is a terrorist or a spy before (or after) commencing surveillance. [David Kris Post one and Post two - required reading]

Call your senators if you haven't already.

fisa fisa fisa

Our spineless peers in Congress just can't seem to roll over enough to destroy the 4th Amendment.
Here's Russ Feingold on why last week's House capitulation is bad for you. The objective is to strip immunity from the bill as it heads for the Senate.

Reports of the newest FISA compromise indicate that, on telecom immunity, a federal court would be compelled to grant the telecoms immunity if there was substantial evidence that the Bush administration assured them that the warrantless surveillance program was legal. Doesn't that actually endorse and extend to private actors the Nixonian view that if the president says it's legal, it's legal, regardless of what the law says and the Constitution says? Wouldn't that set an awful precedent that an administration could get private actors to do whatever they wanted including breaking the law? [Laura Rozen]

Here's a call list:

SEN. Barack Obama
Phone: 312-819-2008 Toll Free: (866) 675-2008 FAX: 312-819-2088

Name	Phone	FAX
Bayh	(202) 224-5623	(202) 228-1377
Carper	(202) 224-2441	(202) 228-2190
Obama	(202) 224-2854	(202) 228-4260
Inouye	(202) 224-3934	(202) 224-6747
Johnson	(202) 224-5842	(202) 228 5765
Landrieu	(202)224-5824	(202) 224-9735
McCaskill	(202) 224-6154	(202) 228-6326
Mikulski	(202) 224-4654	(202) 224-8858
Nelson (FL)	(202) 224-5274	(202) 228-2183
Clinton	(202) 224-4451	(202) 228-0282
Nelson (NE)	(202) 224-6551	(202) 228-0012
Pryor	(202) 224-2353	(202) 228-0908
Salazar	(202) 224-5852	(202) 228-5036
Specter	(202) 224-4254	(202) 228-1229
Feinstein	(202) 224-3841	(202) 228-3954
Webb	(202) 224-4024	(202) 228-6363
Warner	(202) 224-2023	(202) 224-6295
Snowe	(202) 224-5344	(202) 224-1946
Collins	(202) 224-2523	(202) 224-2693
Sununu	(202) 224-2841	(202) 228-4131
Stevens	(202) 224-3004	(202) 224-2354
Byrd	(202) 224-3954	(202) 228-0002
Lincoln	(202)224-4843	(202)228-1371
Reid	(202) 224-3542	(202) 224-7327
Coleman	(202) 224-5641	(202) 224-1152
Durbin	(202) 224-2152	(202) 228-0400
Smith	(202) 224-3753	(202) 228-3997
Stabenow	(202) 224-4822	(202) 228-0325
Kohl	(202) 224-5653	(202) 224-9787
Leahy	(202) 224-4242	(202) 224-3479
Schumer	(202) 224-6542	(202) 228-3027

Enough already with lawless behavior!!


ad: Blue America PAC

why a media anyway? Moyers on the media crisis

Bill Moyers addresses the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis, June 7, 2008:


via Juan Cole

Amnesty International takes aim at Beijing

The text reads: “In the name of ensuring stability and harmony in the country during the 2008 Olympic Games, the Chinese Government continues to detain and harass political activists, journalists, lawyers and human rights workers.

more here.

475 Kent - fighting to save it

Perhaps like many of you, I have had several friends displaced by the city since the evacuation of 475 Kent. Despite a lot of hearsay, about 100 or so of the tenants have banded together to fight and save their home and in many cases their studios and livelihoods. The NY Times has a pretty good article here on the displacement and the history of the efforts of the tenants to reclaim this lost building into a home and the new struggle to keep it. Remember these are not some random collection of jaded hipsters, but real people- real cultural producers.

And if you are in a fighting mood contact the mayor's office with the following.

Please show support for the artists living at 475 Kent Street.

Online Petition here or write the Mayor:

Please email your letter to the Mayor at:

mike@cityhall.nyc.gov

mbloomberg@cityhall.nyc.gov

___________________

Here is a sample letter:

To:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg

City Hall

New York, NY 10007

USA

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

My attention has recently been drawn to the problem of the artist's building at 475 Kent Avenue in Brooklyn, New York.

You are certainly aware by now that over 200 artists are in danger of losing their homes and workplaces permanently - which usually spells financial ruin in a community already subjected to considerable risk.

In the spirit of the cultural tradition that has long prevailed in this great city, I urge you to do everything you can to help the artists return to their professions immediately and to foster our common creative capital.

image: artist/resident Simon Lee