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!

let them eat cake

Sitting in my "cone of silence" here on a Friday, wondering how much longer I have to endure this this rather long winded Obama veep reveal, it's good to know you can still laugh at the little things. I was directed this week to Cake Wrecks blog. Here are some personal faves.

Pro-life Cannibal cake

Kermit's Watermelon Vagina cake

Grand Theft Toddler cake

relationships

cartoon: Pablo Helguera [via ArtworldSalon]

rhinestone cowboy returns

A good friend sent the above picture as he had the great fortune to see Glen Campbell this week at the Troubadour in L.A. Apparently Glen is getting the Johnny Cash treatment with a back to future image update - a selected covers type of thing. Jury is out on whether it's any good but glad to see a great voice get another crack.

the partisan viewing of cable news

The latest Pew Research survey on the partisan make up cable news network viewership:

CNN: 51% Democrats, 18% Republicans, 23% independents

MSNBC: 45% Democrats, 18% Republicans, 27% independents

Fox News: 33% Democrats, 39% Republicans, 22% independents

It is quite surprising to see that 33% of Democrats watch Fox News. That seems to indicate to me that many viewers can't even differentiate between political messages on cable news. Not good for November.


via:political wire

ronnie lane

Debris (the Faces version) is always on my heavy rotation. So finding this version with Slim Chance is a treasure. Ronnie Lane is one of my musical heroes - so much integrity in his sound. This has me daydreaming on a lazy summer night.

water falls in new york

Wired readers submitted the following the pics of Eliasson's waterfalls here in NY. Some good images in there and not everyone in the crowd is impressed....

a studio view

McCain enables job loss in Ohio

The above is a powerful ad put out by Ohio Democrats last week. Obama is on the record as saying this is a turning point for his campaign.

It shows footage from a recent town meeting:

"Mary Houghtaling, who runs a hospice in Wilmington, Ohio, choked up as she told McCain of DHL's plans to close its domestic air hub in her town, a move that could throw 8,600 people out of work. "This is a terrible blow," McCain told her. "I don't know if I can stop it. That's some straight talk. Some more straight talk? I doubt it.""

Interspersed with the footage are screens that say:

"McCain and his campaign manager, Rick Davis, played roles in the fate of DHL Express and its Ohio air park as far back as 2003."

And:

"Those jobs are on the chopping block because Sen. McCain and his campaign were involved in a deal that resulted in control of those positions being shifted to a foreign corporation."

-- Joe Rugola, president of the Ohio AFL-CIO"

And:

"The firm of Rick Davis, John McCain's campaign manager, earned $185,000 lobbying for foreign ownership, and $405,000 after the deal passed Congress"

In case your wondering, it appears that the McCain camp knew job loss was enevitable while lobbying for the deal.

via: Obsidian wings

Isaac the great

few give so much.

intervention

image: William Lamson(2007-2008)
via: Space and Culture and Phronesisaical

Suskind's transcript

While the media goes haywire with John Edwards sex life one has to wonder if they will have the same reaction to the following transcript release from author Ron Suskind:

A note to readers

I've decided to post a partial transcript of one of a number of taped conversations in which Rob Richer and I discussed, on the record, the Habbush letter. We discussed it many times through the spring of 2008.

Rob Richer received a copy of The Way of the World on Monday night, August 4, the day before publication. On Tuesday, he said he had read key portions of the book and was comfortable with what they contained. Later that day, though, he issued the following the statement:

"I never received direction from George Tenet or anyone else in my chain of command to fabricate a document from Habbash as outlined in Mr Suskind's book."

The conversation below took place in June 2008. As in all of our conversations, it shows Rob pressing to get at truth and embrace probity.

This posting is contrary to my practice across 25 years as a journalist. But the issues, in this matter, are simply too important to stand as discredited in any way.

--Ron Suskind

I'm guessing this will get the back burner and yawn that all the other whistle blowers receive. Just another disgruntled CIA employee, nothing to see here move along. This isn't shocking to many of us except that it is SHOCKING and CRIMINAL and every other negative that you can conjure. At least historians will asses the contents of The Way Word Works. Of course whether those historians will be American is another question. This should be the only story the media is concerned with, regardless of partisanship. What bigger story than impeachment and treason? Just keep saying to yourself - the Surge works, the Surge provides....political cover and media myths that is.




image: Christopher Hitchens Watch

beijing opens

The politics aside, you have to admit these opening night shots from Beijing are fantastic. Soooo much more advanced than the Disney type crud we usually get at such forums. Gursky be damned! Great tip from Jagers.

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)

infinities and limits

The landscape is infinite and the imagination limited. I see an endless plain under a blue sky while I think of all the places on earth that cannot be touched in a single life time. Yet try as I might, I cannot image the moment of my death. - Bill Viola

image: Gerhard Richter

anatomy of a painting [2]

So this is the new stage for the painting shown last week or so. This is a probing period, and like I said, I ditched the photocopy you saw in the last image. I like to attack the canvas(linen) at this point in the process with as much paint as I can reasonably manage. This is always, a wet into wet situation, rough, fast handling with highly charged colors. If I'm doing it right, I'm combining as many colors as I can at once. Of course there is a pre-set of colors, that are quite considered for mood, tempo and scale. I trowel these on and work the surface for a few hours - playing the drying times of each color - manipulating the high oil density colors against the more absorbent colors.
The results, if I'm on my game are that within the drying process I get rewarded with some encaustic type areas along with passages that feel geologic, and reflective. What I'm looking for here is a topography that will lead to other decisions. Lately, I am also concerned with the smoothness of the surface, and this seems to be pushing me towards and almost c-print quality.

Also, I want to have a certain freedom with the materials that can at times overwhelm me physically. If my arms and hands are not fatigued and aching after this stage, then I haven't fulfilled my obligation to get as much of my physical presence into the piece as I should. For me this is critical at this point in the process because I need to feel a commitment to and from the surface before proceeding into more complicated waters.

This "second stage" may repeat itself a few times until the skin of the canvas feels right, this skin being critical to how the paint glides in future passes. The glide has everything to do with how the colors combine and mutate seamlessly. Another critical aspect besides an internal commitment, is somehow getting a light to present itself. Light is very important to me and I need to have a source developing immediately upon covering the ground layer. This isn't necessarily directional light but should be evident throughout the surface in this foundational stage.

So I think I'm pretty sure about where this is going next, and I have a maquette or two in the wings. I should have a new update in a week or so on this one.

birth of the CUIL

So the new search engine CUIL just launched - crashed- and reloaded.

From the NY Times:

SAN FRANCISCO — In her two years at Google, Anna Patterson helped design and build some of the pillars of the company’s search engine, including its large index of Web pages and some of the formulas it uses for ranking search results.

Ms. Patterson left Google in 2006 to found Cuil. The new company has other prominent ex-Google employees, including Russell Power, who worked with Ms. Patterson on the large Google index, and Louis Monier, a former chief technology officer at AltaVista, a pioneering search engine. Cuil, which has about 30 employees and is in Menlo Park, Calif., has raised $33 million from venture investors.

I checked it out (searched myself of course) and there seem to be the obvious bugs and such but I do like the design. This could be promising and that is good news to all of us embedded into Google.

hot summer looks

Looks like Goth may finally be getting a much needed image update after 30 years!

Check out all the jokers at Comic Con..



image: wired

making us proud

I sincerely hope that you had a chance to watch and listen to the Obama speech in Berlin today.
It was incredible. I mean a hundred thousand people or more. An endless sea of people, a rapt audience. Even Obama faltered on his words a couple of times. Who wouldn't with that many eyes upon you? It was impressive and presidential and uplifting and clear. I actually got choked up. This is what leadership looks and sounds like. This is what free people should aspire to. As Americans we should be very proud of the fact that man speaks on our behalf - and relieved. Truly awesome.

Of course, CNN promptly plants the seed that this success and welcome by so many in Germany may be a bad thing. The bullshit never ends with the media.

believe it...?

FORMER NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell - a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission - has stunningly claimed aliens exist.


our world unravels a little more, not to mention this little ditty about Flight 93 being shot down via the war crimes trial of Bin Laden's driver...



image: the famous Lubbock Lights