Rip Torn Allowed to Do As He Likes, for Comedy

They should've given him a Medal:

LITCHFIELD, Conn. (AP) -- Prosecutors say actor Rip Torn has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from allegations he broke into a Connecticut bank while drunk and armed... the Emmy Award-winning actor pleaded guilty Tuesday to reckless endangerment, criminal trespass, criminal mischief and the illegal carrying of a firearm.

The 79-year-old actor was given a 2 1/2-year suspended sentence and three years of probation. Conditions include a ban on firearm possession and random drug and alcohol tests.

This video is supposed to start at 3:30, for the greatest moment in television history, provided by Mr Torn. If it doesn't work, feel free to enjoy ten minutes of Larry Sanders Artie highlights. There's another eight minutes here:

And then another ten minutes of mortifying, unwatchable weirdness as chemically challenged mates Rip Torn and Norman Mailer "improvise" a new ending to Mailer's trainwreck of a film, Maidstone, in 1970:

That there is some Real Biting and Real Hammering in this clip should only convince you that Reality Television is actually probably an improvement over Reality Film.

When in Doubt, Emulate Jay Leno

http://www.saatchionline.com/art/view/artist/16192/art/61024

Tero Nurminen doesn't seem to be lacking in technical proficiency, he just has bad ideas. All of this Thigh-Master kitsch would have been tiring had it been done sometime in 1991, but this piece was done in 2009! Are the Ironic Cultural References of Hack Comedians seriously arriving in Helsinki two decades late?

You can be his friend on Facebook, if you like. Perhaps you've finally found someone to appreciate your lame Murphy Brown-Dan Quayle gags?

Colossal Idiot Makes the Most Idiotic Argument He Can Think Of

(Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos is the one who looks like David Broder, not doing a Nazi salute, on your right.)

Did you know that United States Marines were mentally deficient big babies, unable to protect themselves or others in battle situations, due to their inability to concentrate? United States Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos wants you to know this, because he doesn't want any of his big babies to get hurt:

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/12/14/amos-dadt/

Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos — who has opposed repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — suggested that if Congress lifts the ban against open service and allows gays to serve without hiding their sexual orientation, the Marines could be so distracted that they would die in the line of duty:

The chief of the US Marine Corps said Tuesday that ending a ban on openly gay troops in the military could jeopardize the lives of Marines in combat by undermining closely knit units.

General James Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps and an opponent of lifting the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” prohibition, cited a Pentagon study saying Marines fighting in Afghanistan were worried that permitting gays to serve openly could disrupt “unit cohesion.”

“When your life hangs on a line, on the intuitive behavior of the young man… who sits to your right and your left, you don’t want anything distracting you,” Amos told reporters at the Pentagon.

“I don’t want to lose any Marines to distraction. I don’t want to have any Marines that I’m visiting at Bethesda (hospital) with no legs,” he said.

He added that “mistakes and inattention or distractions cost Marines’ lives. That’s the currency of this fight.”

His comments were the toughest yet on the issue, after he testified at a congressional hearing that he opposed lifting the ban at a time of war.

Amos said Marines fighting in Afghanistan sent a “very strong message” in the Pentagon’s recent study, expressing opposition to the repealing the ban in an survey.

“I have to listen to that,” he said.

The Pentagon’s survey did reveal that Marines are most opposed to repealing the measure, but nowhere did it suggest that the distraction of gay servicemembers would have the effect of killing their straight counterparts. 

Goodness-- I wonder if this sort of argument could be used in any other ways?

Black Marines could be a distraction-- Check!

Catholic Marines could be a distraction-- Check!

Atheist Marines could be a distraction-- Check!

Jewish Marines could be a distraction-- Check!

Muslim Marines could be a distraction-- Double Check!

That's one amazingly useful argument, one used by governments and institutions and corporations and religions for all sorts of things, over all of human history, to prevent Justice. "It's not that we're against it, you understand, it's that we're afraid of the danger it poses to others."

So basically what Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos would like you to know is that the Marine Corps training is so useless and inept, and that Marines themselves are so useless and inept, that they would be institutional unable to make a procedural change and recognize the homosexuals already serving in their ranks, without taking major casualties.

Seems like we might have already known that.

Everything Old is New Again

Did you think this sort of thing had been settled back in 1966 or so, when Naked Lunch was finally declared protected speech? Nope:

http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2010/12/amazons-latest-kindle-deletion-erot...

Self-published author Selena Kitt was first notified that the print version of one of her fiction books violated Amazon's content guidelines last week, followed by the unceremonious removal of two more offerings from the Kindle store. After noticing that the three books that Amazon singled out were all "erotic incest fantasy fiction," she found at least three other authors whose incest-themed erotica had been removed from Amazon, followed by a Kindle support thread full of even more names.

"I want to be clear that while the subject of incest may not appeal to some, there is no underage contact in any of my work, and I make that either explicitly clear in all my stories or I state it up front in the book's disclaimer," Kitt wrote in a blog post. "I don't condone or support actual incest, just as someone who writes mysteries about serial killers wouldn't condone killing."

As Amazon is actually the publisher of the eBook, their decision to not publish certain works flies in their claims of abhorring censorship, but it's still within their rights.

But wait, there's more:

On top of the book removal from Amazon's store, Kitt's readers reportedly found that her books had disappeared from their Kindles as well. "When one reader called to get a refund for the book she no longer had access to, she was chastised by the Amazon customer service representative about the 'severity' of the book she’d chosen to purchase," Kitt wrote.

This is a little bit further down the road than just saying we don't want to sell your trashy erotica, and intend to marginalize works based on incestuous content (like Oedipus Rex and The Bible are also going to be removed from their store, of course), and turns into we are going to remove all traces of your work ever existing.

Which is, of course, exactly what Moral Puritans of all stripes try to do with Book Burning.

Amazon is not the government, but when one company dominates the entire publishing marketplace the way they do, they have become, in essence, a Public Information Utility. When public services become monoliths is the time when Trust Busters need to get to work.

When Having Your Own Highway Isn't Enough

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/12/15/muslim-hotel-workers-israelis/

The Washington Post reports today Muslim workers at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, DC “said they felt discriminated against after being barred over the weekend from floors where an Israeli delegation was staying.” One supervisor reportedly explained to a Muslim worker that the Israeli delegation — which included Defense Minister Ehud Barak — “don’t want no face-to-face with Muslims.” The hotel’s general manager said she told some employees not to come in after the State Department had found “irregularities” in routine background checks on them before the Israeli visit. Yet one worker, who was teased by colleagues as a terrorist after the incident, said he’d worked with other VIPs before with no concern:

“In the cafeteria, they were looking at me, laughing, saying: ‘Ah, they don’t want you there. They maybe think you have a bomb in your belly,’” said the worker, who came to the United States from Africa more than two decades ago.

He said he had worked in proximity to other VIPs, such as George W. Bush, with no security concerns.

“I don’t care about Israel. To me, it’s just another country,” he said. “I work for [the hotel] 12, 14 hours a day, and they profile me like I’m a criminal, like I’m going to harm them. I’m like, ‘If I’m going to harm them, why would you keep me in your hotel even one day?’”

The Muslim civil rights organization Council on American-Islamic Relations is awaiting a statement from the hotel before determining whether to file a complaint. The Post notes that, in 2004 at another DC hotel, a Muslim security guard “was told to stay away from the 10th floor while an Israeli delegation was there. In that case, the hotel’s general manager said the request was made by security units guarding the delegation.”

Uh-huh, and if the Mandarin Oriental's guests were South African government officials during the Apartheid era, they would have had no problem clearing their floors of black workers.

 

An Endorsement of Those Who Are Already in Agreement

The always amicable Amelie Gillette is, of course, correct that Peep Show is worth watching (although less this season than in the past-- the writing seems sort of directionless-- we've seen Mark urinate in retaliation previously, and SuperHans has tried giving up the Crack before, too), but where these YouTube heroes are is a mystery. Try icefilms(and-then-a-dot)info, and you'll probably find that for which you are seeking.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/december-15-2010,49035/

 

Sorry, Your Religious Commercial is Getting in the Way of Our Scientific History

A truly excellent, thoughtful review from Edward Rothstein of the “1001 Inventions” on view through April 24 at the New York Hall of Science, Queens:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/arts/design/10museum.html

There aren’t 1,001 inventions on display, but those that are, along with the ideas described, are meant to show that the Western Dark Ages really were a Golden Age of Islam: a thousand years, in the show’s reckoning, that lasted into the 17th century. During that era, the exhibition asserts, Muslim scientists and inventors, living in empires reaching from Spain to China, anticipated the innovations of the modern world

[...]

[...]As it turns out, though, the account requires extensive qualification. Had we learned more about scientific principles, had we been given sober assessments of, say, how 10th-century science developed, had a scholarly perspective been more evident — had we, in other words, been ushered into this world in a way once expected from science museums — the show could have been far more powerful.Instead, it is as manipulative as it is illuminating. “1001 Inventions,” we are told in the literature, “is a nonreligious and non-political project.” But it actually is a little bit religious and considerably political.It is less a typical science exhibition than a typical “identity” exhibition. It was created by the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilization in London, whose goal is “to popularize, spread and promote an accurate account of Muslim Heritage and its contribution.” The show also tries to “instill confidence” and provide positive “role models” for young Muslims, as Mr. Hassani puts it in the book. And it is part of a “global educational initiative” that includes extensive classroom materials.The promotional goal is evident in every display. The repeated suggestion is that Muslim scientists made discoveries later attributed to Westerners and that many Western institutions were shaped by Muslim contributions.

Yes, this is the sort of Anthropological Advocacy that Corrupts by Flattery. Instead of presenting interesting information and exhibits, its primary purpose is Boosterism. 

Of course this is why no one takes Religious Histories written by the religions themselves (or their adherants) seriously, because the result isn't going to be filled with self-reflection, but self-glorying Hagiography. 

Religious affiliation actually seems far more important here than is acknowledged, keeping some figures out and ushering others in.

[...]

And finally we never learn much about the role of Islam itself. Universities, we read, were affiliated with mosques. Did that affect scientific inquiry or the status of non-Muslim scientists? Did the religious regime have any impact on the ultimate failure of the transmission and expansion of scientific knowledge? And given the high cost of any golden age, isn’t it necessary to give some account of this civilization’s extensive slave trade?

Instead of expanding the perspective, the exhibition reduces it to caricature, showing Muslim culture rising out of a shadowy past to attain glories later misappropriated by Western epigones. Left unexplored too is how this tradition ended, leading to a long eclipse of science in Muslim lands. There is only a recurring hint of injustices done.The paradox is that this narrative is not only questionable but also unnecessary. An exhibition about scientific achievements during the Abbasid Caliphate could be remarkable if approached with curatorial perspective. Why then, the indulgence here?

Perhaps because one tendency in the West, particularly after 9/11, has been to answer Muslim accusations of injustice (and even real attacks) with an exaggerated declaration of regard. It is guiltily offered as if in embarrassed compensation, inspired by a desire not to appear to tar Islam with the fervent claims made by its most violent adherents.

In this case the issue is Islam and its history, but the broader problem of "exaggerated regard" is how America and its public institutions kow-tow to religion, and religious people.

It's All Okay Until It Starts Costing You Money

(Get it? It's supposed to be Oedipus.)

In case you'd gotten the idea that protecting your online privacy was only for the Paranoid, looky here! That tracking is actually costing you money:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/11/AR2010121102435.html

In its most brazen form, it works like this: Retailers read the cookies kept on your browser or glean information from your past purchase history when you are logged into a site. That gives them a sense of what you search for and buy, how much you paid for it, and whether you might be willing and able to spend more.

They alter their prices or offers accordingly. Consumers - in the few cases they recognize it is going on, by shopping in two browsers simultaneously, for instance - tend to go apoplectic. But the practice is perfectly legal, and increasingly common - pervasive, even, for some products.

Banks do the same for products such as mortgages and credit cards, where prices change depending on everything from the customer's credit rating to the manager's whims to what browser the searcher uses. This August, the Wall Street Journal reported on a company that helps Capital One determine what credit-card deals to offer customers when they land at the site.Sellers of time-sensitive, highly price-variable goods (think airline tickets, hotel rooms, or car rentals) do it all the time, somewhat openly. If you have ever had the annoying experience of buying a plane ticket through a portal such as Kayak, then seeing the final price jump $10 or $40 at check out, you have probably found yourself on the receiving end of dynamic pricing.

Here's one way to start protecting yourself, but there's much more you can-- and should-- be doing. Keeping yourself signed out of Facebook and Google  unless you are using that page right then, and then deleting all cookies when you close your browser is the least you can do.

 

Are You a Coward?

(Haha. Remember when Cheney was the Evil One in charge, and not Obama and Holder?)

Even Cowards shouldn't have too much trouble attaching their name to this meaningless petition from FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting):

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/592/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5343

As journalists, activists, artists, scholars and citizens, we condemn the array of threats and attacks on the journalist organization WikiLeaks. 

[...]

Throughout this episode, journalists and prominent media outlets have largely refrained from defending WikiLeaks' rights to publish material of considerable news value and obvious public interest. It appears that these media organizations are hesitant to stand up for this particular media outlet's free speech rights because they find the supposed political motivations behind WikiLeaks' revelations objectionable. 

But the test for one's commitment to freedom of the press is not whether one agrees with what a media outlet publishes or the manner in which it is published.

Or don't, because FAIR isn't the NRA, and the First Amendment is flexible and not worth arguing about.

Charlie Finch, A Voice of Clarity

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/finch/victor-pinchuk-art-prize12-14...

As of last Saturday night, only nine people had viewed the YouTube vid of the presentation of the $100,000 Victor Pinchuk award to some forgettable Brazilian artist who combines dance and collage to make a subtle political statement, or something or other.

Held in a bare bones auditorium in Kiev, the ceremony was hosted by a thick-voiced Slavic centerfold type and a fawning Brit Ryan Seacrest lookalike, whose main task was to project portrait photos of Eli Broad, Glenn Lowry, Miucca Prada and other unmentionables who made up the Ukrainian oligarch's selection committee. Everybody was invited up on stage for a neofascist group hug, except for Yale dean Rob Storr, who is snapped jealously regarding his frenemy Okwui Enwezor, as the African steps across the footlights.

The artist mentors are interviewed: Jeff Koons blandly saying something about "opportunities for young artists" and Damien Hirst enviously remarking that he would "rather receive awards then give them." The Seacrestian comrade then hauls Messrs. Gursky and Murakami on stage, observing that "this is the first time all four of these artists are in the same place together." And the next time any of them actually fabricate their own artworks will also be the first time.

Boldface added, just because highlighting it was so pleasurable.

Faith-based Organizations Require Constant Thought-Policing

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201012150004

FOXLEAKS: Fox boss ordered staff to cast doubt on climate science

December 15, 2010 8:08 am ET by Ben Dimiero

In the midst of global climate change talks last December, a top Fox News official sent an email questioning the "veracity of climate change data" and ordering the network's journalists to "refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question."

The directive, sent by Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon, was issued less than 15 minutes after Fox correspondent Wendell Goler accurately reported on-air that the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization announced that 2000-2009 was "on track to be the warmest [decade] on record."

This is why Daniel Sarewitz says we can't have nice things, because all these "Democratic" scientists keep using Measurable Entities.

Try Googling "X" and See If You Can Find Anything

Nowadays no one cares about the band X, which probably has to do with no one really caring about them back in the early 1980s, when they were good. Unlike the dreadful Germs and other West Coast bands that latched onto punk music as an excuse to stand onstage and be fuckups, X understood the relationship between the punk aesthetic and American folk music.

As the video shows, front man John Doe bore some mild physical resemblance to Jim Morrison, which may have been the reason the perpetually marketing himself Ray Manzarek produced X's first two albums. Despite the obvious Manzarek touches, Los Angeles (1980) and Wild Gift (1981) are the only solid records the band ever released.

John Doe has an extremely limited vocal range, and Exene Cervenka screeches, yet for a few years, backed up by Billy Zoom (guitar) and DJ Bonebreak (drums) they were able to do something that perfectly reflected their culture. Good (if Beat-influenced) observational writing and an ability to filter the essence and structure of earlier American sounds (particularly rockabilly and The Weavers) into their own make their early work still worth listening to.

Unfortunately, as punk's limited appeal withered, their next efforts were marred by over-production and marketing, turning them into an only occasionally interesting Rock Band with Country Overtones, with a palpable desperation for a Hit. After that they just sucked. John Doe decided that a few badly-performed movie roles meant he should be an Actor, and Exene Cervenka thought that Lyrics were Poetry, and then worked as an Assistant Librarian at a middle school (or something).

Decades past it, they get back together fairly regularly and do the punk version of the State Fair circuit, where they all wear a lot of make-up and look like the Beach Boys.

The video looks like the clip that was in Penelope Spheeris' 1979 documentary film The Decline of Western Civilization. Spheeris went on to direct Wayne's World and The Beverly Hillbillies, but Part One of Decline is worth watching, mostly for X.

This Will Apparently Never End

http://www.nowness.com/day/2010/7/11/785/polly-morgan-psychopomps

Polly Morgan... a trained taxidermist, who creates fantastical, surreal and darkly humorous sculptures out of creatures she finds dead from accidental or natural causes.  ...First spotted by street art prankster Banksy in 2005, Morgan has famous fans in Kate Moss and Courtney Love, but it’s taken until now for her to mount her first solo show at Haunch of Venison, London, entitled Psychopomps and opening July 21. 

Granting for the moment that Taxidermy and Diorama are, at their extreme best, no better than Craft projects, was no other person on the planet forced to sit through all two-to-twelve hours of Tedium that was the Paul Rudd, Steve Carell film Dinner for Schmucks? While Sleep blessedly overtook Your Correspondent not many minutes into this alleged comedic farce, was not the very, very long Title Sequence filled with exactly the sort of Kitsch that Polly Morgan is trying to pass off as Art, only with dead mice instead of dead birds? And weren't even the essentially braindead people that made and/or possibly enjoyed this film in even their braindead way aware that this sort of Taxidermy gathers whatever intrigue it might hold strictly from its Creepiness factor, and not from any actual Artistic Merit?

Oh, look, a Whimsical Still from that film has been found:

And even worse, were you to follow this Image Search for "mouse taxidermy" you will find all sorts of Amateur Artists doing inconceivably disgusting things with dead rodents. If only Banksy would find them, too!

 

How to Make a Perfect Black Truffle Pizzapie

This is extremely easy, since virtually any pizzapie made with black truffles is going to be wonderful. This particular instance uses pineapple and green peppers, which proves the point, since pineapple and green peppers don't really belong on anything. Using black truffle pâté on the crust, extremely generous amounts of finely chopped onions, and then the aforementioned fruity-bits with grated Parmesan, oregano, and crushed red pepper on top, finally add your black truffle slices where everyone can see them.

Do not listen to Fools who will suggest that pizzapies need to be cooked as fast and as hot as possible. This is the talk of a Cabdriver, not an Artisan, serious about their Craft. Somewhere around 27 minutes at 425F will do well in creating a pizzapie complex and rich in flavors and textures.

The vegetarian mixture of onions, peppers, pineapple, red pepper and black truffle, although unlikely, is extraordinary vibrant and fulfilling. Try it at once.

 

 

Hating Richard Nixon is Good Exercise

Jack Shafer at Slate takes stock of the newest Nixon tape releases:

http://www.slate.com/id/2277720/

From his throne in hell, Richard Nixon commands our attention once again with newly released White House tapes from February and March 1973 that drop another tanker load of piss and bile on Jews.

"The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality," he told an aide."Most Jewish people are insecure. And that's why they have to prove things," he said.

"I didn't notice many Jewish names coming back from Vietnam on any of those lists; I don't know how the hell they avoid it," he remarked.

When then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said, "If [the Soviets] put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern," Nixon concurred. "I know."

[...]

Give a listen to the way Nixon talked about members of the tribe:

Going after all these Jews. Just find one that is a Jew, will you … —July 2, 1971

The Jews are born spies. You notice how many of them are? They're just in it up to their necks. … Also, an arrogance, an arrogance that says—that's what makes a spy. He puts himself above the law. —July, 5, 1971

Bob, please get me the names of the Jews, you know, the big Jewish contributors of the Democrats. … All right. Could we please investigate some of the cocksuckers? —Sept. 13, 1971

Good. What about the rich Jews? … You see, IRS is full of Jews, Bob. … That's what I think. I think the reason they're after [the Rev. Billy] Graham is the rich Jews. —Sept. 14, 1971

This is national security, you bet we have. We've got all sorts of activities because we've been trying to run this town by avoiding the Jews in the government, because there were very serious questions. —March 29, 1973

There are some Jews, that you, that you might, as you might have guessed, doesn't mean that if there were some Gentiles it might not be this bad. There are some Jews in New York [who wanted an anti-trust suit] because [industrial and Nixon friend Robert] Abplanalp … makes the best val[u]e at the cheapest price. —July 11, 1973

Keep watching this space for the avalanche of Neocon hatred to be directed toward Mr Nixon's ghost at these new (well, not exactly new... newly proved?) reminders of what an awful, disturbed person he was.

While still shocking to see his animus and fear laid open, Nixon would absolutely be at the liberal fringes of the Republican party today. It's not a facetious question to wonder what sort of poisonous tape you'd have from the private conversations of Tea Party members? Not necessarily anti-Semitic hatred, but certainly the same paranoia about Liberal groups.

 

Compromise, But Not on Human Rights, Not on the Constitution

A very interesting historical find, with urgent modern relevance:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/how-lincoln-undid-the-union/

On Dec. 11, 1860, with South Carolina’s secession looming, President-elect Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to Illinois Rep. William Kellogg, a fellow Republican. Publicly, Lincoln was keeping silent on the emerging crisis. But his letter was designed to achieve one objective: to sabotage a sectional compromise to save the Union.

Marked “Private & confidential,” the letter instructed Kellogg to “entertain no proposition for a compromise in regard to the extension of slavery. The instant you do, they have us under again; all our labor is lost, and sooner or later must be done over. … Have none of it. The tug has to come & better now than later.”

Library of CongressA political cartoon from late 1860 depicts the Crittenden Compromise as a cure for Republican intransigence on slavery.

Lincoln was not speaking abstractly. The Capitol was buzzing with talk of a Union-saving deal. Indeed, on Dec. 18, Sen. John J. Crittenden of Kentucky proposed a plan to preserve the Union through a series of actions to protect the institution of slavery. In other words, at the precise moment that a compromise to rescue the country seemed at hand, the incoming president worked aggressively to block it. Lincoln, whom historians often portray as being more interested in saving the Union than opposing slavery, chose to do the opposite.

There are genuine and compelling arguments to be made about Taxes, School Uniforms, and Arts Funding, by which any number of happy and unhappy compromises can be made by honest people. When you start dealing in Execution by Executive Order, Warrantless Wiretapping, and State Censorship of News is when the Genuinely Principled stand up.

The Problem Isn't Fox News and its Lies; It's People Hungry to be Lied To

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brunitedstatescanadara/671.php

Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely), most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points), the economy is getting worse (26 points), most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points), the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points), their own income taxes have gone up (14 points), the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points), when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points) and that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points). The effect was also not simply a function of partisan bias, as people who voted Democratic and watched Fox News were also more likely to have such misinformation than those who did not watch it--though by a lesser margin than those who voted Republican.

Of course, the easy thing to say is that Fox News is doing a disservice as a news organization by misleading or misrepresenting factual information. It is likely more Truthful, however, to say that Fox News willingly misleads Americans who desire to be mislead.

That Fox News is a carbuncle on the face of actual Journalism, and any sort of Decency, is almost too trite to bother typing; everyone knows this, most especially Fox News viewers. Other cable news network viewers do only somewhat better, because they are the sort of idiots who watch cable news, but not the sort of idiots who will watch Fox News.

Attacks on Fox News will be seen as partisan; what Real Journalists ought to do is stop being so grateful to get their faces on the teevee and start condemning television news, and most particularly cable news and local news franchises, as the Bastions of Ignorance they actually are. When public opinion rightly looks down on people who get their "facts" from cable "news" organizations, and rightly looks down on people affiliated with these "news" outfits, the problem will be solved, because the problem isn't Fox News, it's the people who find it acceptable to watch Fox News.

Press Releases Masquerading as Journalism; Plagiarism Masquerading as Art

http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2009/12/damien_hirst_butterfly_paintin.html

Damien Hirst, one of the most famous contemporary artists on the planet, is best known for installing dead sharks in glass vats of formaldehyde.

This makes it a surprise to find a large recent work by Hirst -- who specializes in shocking his audiences -- freshly installed at the relatively staid Cleveland Museum of Art.

Contemporary art curator Paola Morsiani arranged for the five-year loan of "Bringing Forth the Fruits of Righteousness From Darkness," from 2008, a gigantic collage-painting made from the wings of thousands of butterflies.

Firstly, all of this awful Taxidermy should give a pretty big clue as to the level of Artistry actually being displayed (i.e. Craft, not Art), and secondly, the article fails to mention a rather important person in this Butterfly Wings story: Lori Precious.

http://www.loriprecious.com/2008_starlet_site/sculpture/sculpture.html

Butterfly wings have been used in folk art since antiquity, of course, but the obvious similarities in form and use between Hirst and Precious hasn't exactly been kept quiet. That this is a weak and not very interesting sort of mechanical collage (that Hirst doesn't even do himself-- his drones do the actual assembly) is irrelevant to the fact that this sort of plagiarism goes unnoted by the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Plain Dealer.

 

Does Erik Thor Sandberg Know Any People Who Aren't Pink?

Is there an unspoken prejudice against people who attended George Mason University? Just because it seems like more than half the crackpots you see arguing some almost blissfully incorrect and gloriously quibbling point against Anthropogenic Global Warming, or Gun Rights, or Creationism seems to be affiliated with George Mason?

Anyway, the artist whose pictures are being shown in this post (let's call him Thor-- he seems to want us to) got an MFA in painting from George Mason, but he doesn't list this on his resume, for some reason or another. 

As you can see perfectly well for yourself, Thor is a fairly adept illustrator, with the sort of superficial appreciation of Hieronymus Bosch that leaves the viewer curious-- not as to what all this Heavy Symbolism is supposed to be about, but why it is the artist is wasting everyone's time. You only have to look at a genuine Bosch (below) to see the difference between a genuine Apocalyptic Vision and someone who's putting their Lego men into funny positions, to Weird Everyone Out.

Why Worry About Press Freedoms? Weather and Sports Will Never Be Bothered.

(Haha. China's Great Firewall isn't such a strange notion now, is it?)

Salon's Glenn Greenwald is at his High Dudgeon Best, hyperlinking and boldfacing like there's No Tomorrow:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/wikileaks/index.html

 

Amazingly, the Obama administration is surpassing its predecessor when it comes to assaults on whistle-blowing and a free press.  As Politico's Josh Gerstein reported, "President Barack Obama’s Justice Department has taken a hard line against leakers. . . .'They’re going after this at every opportunity and with unmatched vigor,' said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists."  The New York Times similarly documented:  "the Obama administration is proving more aggressive than the Bush administration in seeking to punish unauthorized leaks."  The Obama DOJ has launched nothing less thana full-on war against whistleblowers; its magnanimous "Look Forward, Not Backward" decree used to shield high-level Bush criminals from investigations is manifestly tossed to the side when it comes to those who reveal such criminality.   And they even revitalized an abandoned Bush-era subpoena issued to The New York Times' James Risen, demanding that he disclose his source for an article in which he revealed an embarrassingly botched attempt to infiltrate and sabotage Iran's nuclear program.

But if current reports are correct -- that the Obama DOJ has now convened a Grand Jury to indict WikiLeaks and Julian Assange -- this will constitute a far greater assault on press freedom than anything George W. Bush managed, or even attempted.  Put simply, there is no intellectually coherent way to distinguish what WikiLeaks has done with these diplomatic cables with what newspapers around the world did in this case and what they do constantly:  namely, receive and then publish classified information without authorization.  And as much justifiable outrage as the Bush DOJ's prosecution of the AIPAC officials provoked, at least the actions there resembled "espionage" far more than anything Assange has done, as those AIPAC officials actually passed U.S. secrets to a foreign government, not published them as WikiLeaks has done.

 

Anyway, it's not as though China didn't unblock the BBC's website after all the fuss about Liu Xiaobo was over, and They are certainly worse than Us. 

Are You an Annoying Person? (Yes.) This Annoying? (No.)

Perhaps you are one of those people who often make painful, tortured arguments defending Middle Eastern culture against attacks from ignorant, awful people such as your Elected Officials, or Teevee News Personality?

Please stop that-- trying to defend Middle Easterners by citing Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī is like trying to defend Dancing with the Stars by citing... Well, there haven't really been any great American mathematical prodigies (Charles Reason?), but you surely see what a failure this sort of argumentation is. Merely referencing an atrocity like this video slashes your defense to ribbons-- There is no American Exceptionalism in having an awful, annoying culture.

Yes, Virginia, There is a Real Encaustic Artist Called Dilaceratus Hacketti

For some reason there seems to have been an awful lot of Unhelpful Discussion among this site's newer devotees about whether this "Dilaceratus Hacketti" person ever actually does this thing called "encaustic art" or whether he just bitches about other people's work, in whatever media.

Some particularly Knobbish persons have even gone so far as to suggest that the phrase "encaustic artist" is not meant to refer literally to the the 3,000 year old practice of mixing oil pigments into heated beeswax, but is just a phrase that The Author finds suitable to his particular brand of Slurring, as though some sort of Lye or other chemical agent were being used to remove the layers of Cant and Dung that Marketers, Graduate Students, Anthropologists, and other Pornographers have spread atop the Art World.

Not so.

The photographs illustrating this Post were taken of an installation performed yesterday evening, of a 122cm by 215cm Untitled work of encaustic applied to birch panel. The framing is in Oak.

The painting has been hung in the client's stairwell some 3.5m up, making it the focal point of the large upstairs room. It is placed on the wall so as to be visible above the railings surrounding the stairs.

As may be imagined, working at this height on a staircase was not a simple matter of throwing in a few drywall screws, but rather a Production involving a number of Professional Ladders, and an entirely unnecessary contingent of Unprofessional Kibbitzers, offering any number of Uneducated, or, much worse, Allegedly Humorous, suggestions.

Such are the Travails of Larger Format work.

Unfortunately, proper lighting hasn't been installed yet, and capturing the depth of color of a large wax painting without catching the reflected light of the room on the polished surface is a challenge under the best of circumstances. These photos will together hopefully give some feeling for the work, and the interesting way the layers of wax and pigment capture and hold the light at different angles of sight.

As more readers of a Learned and Sophisticated Nature are welcomed into the Fold Dilaceratus, perhaps in future the modestly becoming Personal Reticence of The Artist will again be overcome, and more samples of his work displayed on This Internet.

Mississippi John Hurt, Spike Driver Blues

You will be surprised to learn that this is not Eric Clapton.

 

That's Pete Seeger and Hedy West interviewing him, ineptly, if you watch the video from the beginning.

A Fully Deserved Two Minutes of Hate

(Me? Jesus is just alright with me.)

As Joseph Heller's bouncing a billiard ball on Henry Kissinger's head in Good as Gold has already been referenced once today, here's some more deserved Kissinger vilification, from Christopher Hitchens:

http://www.slate.com/id/2277744/

Chatting eagerly with his famously racist and foul-mouthed boss in March 1973, following an appeal from Golda Meir to press Moscow to allow the emigration of Soviet Jewry, Kissinger is heard on the tapes to say:

The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.

(One has to love that uneasy afterthought …)

In the past, Kissinger has defended his role as enabler to Nixon's psychopathic bigotry, saying that he acted as a restraining influence on his boss by playing along and making soothing remarks. This can now go straight into the lavatory pan, along with his other hysterical lies. Obsessed as he was with the Jews, Nixon never came close to saying that he'd be indifferent to a replay of Auschwitz. For this, Kissinger deserves sole recognition.

It's hard to know how to classify this observation in the taxonomy of obscenity. Should it be counted as tactical Holocaust pre-denial? That would be too mild. It's actually a bit more like advance permission for another Holocaust. Which is why I wonder how long the official spokesmen of American Jewry are going to keep so quiet. Nothing remotely as revolting as this was ever uttered by Jesse Jackson or even Mel Gibson, to name only two famous targets of the wrath of the Anti-Defamation League. Where is the outrage? Is Kissinger—normally beseeched for comments on subjects about which he knows little or nothing—going to be able to sit out requests from the media that he clarify this statement? Does he get to keep his op-ed perch in reputable newspapers with nothing said? Will the publishers of his mendacious and purloined memoirs continue to give him expensive lunches as if nothing has happened?

Not that Kissinger doesn't deserve an enemy like Hitchens, but a rant like this would be even sweeter if it weren't coming from a chum of Ahmad Chalabi and the war criminal neocons of the Bush Administration.

Situation in North Korea Worse than Anyone Can Imagine

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/12/12/north.korea.wikileaks.clapton...

North Korea campaigned for Eric Clapton performance, cable reveals

(CNN) -- One of the diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks reveals that North Korean officials suggested the U.S. government make arrangements for rock icon Eric Clapton to perform in Pyongyang as a way of building "good will" between the countries.

Somehow, things always seem to be getting worse for the North Korean people.

*     *     *

This brings up the rather unfortunate incident wherein Your Author was asked to partake of a game of Trivial Pursuit, a pastime for which he holds no natural affection. Your Author, being something of a Known Font of Information, proceeded to gather up the little cheeses in a blessedly brief timespan, and was one question away from the dubious pleasure of Taking the Title of this Tournament of Tedium.

This Final Question asked: "What bluesman won such-and-such an award in such-and-such a year," and Your Faithful and Diligent Correspondent, well-versed as he is in American rock-and-roll history, was unable to come up with any response at all. When the "answer" was revealed to be none other than "Eric Clapton" you may well imagine the Furor which arose, as "Eric Clapton" is no more accurately described as a "bluesman" than he is "hoodoo priestess" or "replica Hupmobile."

The gameboard now flipped over, the offending card torn to shreds, and whatever Goodwill previously established through alternating recitation of Pop Culture destroyed, the Group Home has not asked for donations of Time or Money since this event.

If WikiLeaks is Criminal, What About That Thing Called "Climategate"?

Oh, here's something more than somewhat interesting:

Via DeSmogBlog, Carrie La Seur reports:

https://plainsjusticeblog.wordpress.com/2010/12/12/french-wikileaks-coverage-...

Leading French newspaper Le Monde has been delving into WikiLeaks in depth with a growing online section devoted to new revelations. An article posted Dec. 12, titled Pirates informatiques contre climatologues (Computer pirates against climatologists), reveals a few American diplomats’ fears that cyberattacks on climate scientists might increase in the days leading up to the 2009 Copenhagen meeting. One email reveals an unsuccessful attack against the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Oceans, Environment and Science (OES) that has received very little coverage (none that I can find) in domestic press.

Let's recall for a moment, shall we:

Listen: Inhofe Says He Will Call for Investigation on "Climategate" 

Interview on Washington Times America's Morning Show

Monday, November 23, 2009

 

And then, from 23 September, 2010:

https://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/09/23/23climatewire-rep-issa-would-lead-cl...

 

Rep. Issa Would Lead 'Climategate' Probe if House Goes to GOP

 

"Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said a probe of the "Climategate" scandal will top his environmental agenda if the Republicans take over the House next year and he gets the chairmanship."

But back to Carrie Le Seur:

 

The note cited by Le Monde concludes (my translation of the French translation):

As climate negotiations continue, it is likely that attacks like this will persist…. Personnel involved in climate change research or related subjects should remain conscious of the elevated risk.

As loud voices call for prosecution of Julian Assange and warn of the risk of Chinese cyber warfare, I can’t help but wonder, where were the voices of outrage and the demands for investigation and justice when unknown parties attacked the U.S. State Department in an attempt to derail the Copenhagen negotiations? Or does the need for justice depend on the ends pursued by “cyberterrorists”? 

Good question. Republican leadership, two months after saying they were going to probe the "Climategate" scandal (which had already been proved a fabricated firestorm)?:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/29/house-republicans-condemn-wik...

House Republicans condemn WikiLeaks disclosure

WASHINGTON (AP) — The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said Monday that the disclosure of thousands of classified State Department documents undermines U.S. credibility with the rest of the world.

It seems Ms La Seur has a very good point. Are Senator Inhofe and Representative Issa now going to apologize for reading "leaked" personal communications between scientists, and ask for the prosecution of the hackers responsible?

The "Climategate" emails release was unpleasant in that it gave awful people more conspiracy theories to gnaw at, achieving for them the gain they actually seek (obfuscation and nonaction), but did the actual science, and the actual scientists no harm at all (other than showing them to be human, and losing patience with endlessly crabbing pests like Steve McIntyre). 

It's funny how that happens with Responsible People, doing Responsible Work in the public interest.

An Online Intelligence Test for the Artistically Retarded

https://www.othercriteria.com/search/?s=Medicine%20t-shirts&p=problems

Were you worried that the $70 you stole from your aunt's purse was just going to be wasted on enough cough syrup to get you through Friday, when you can probably use the Holiday Thrall to shoplift enough cold medicine to cook up some crank? Here's a better idea:

Why not spend all $70 of those dollars to buy a crappy tee-shirt of one of Damien Hirst's crappy Pill Cabinet things? It's like you're in 1988 all over again, except in 1988 no one would have believed that spending ridiculous amounts of money for utter shit was the New Irony.

Of course you could steal $4,500 in order to purchase "two pills in a box", which, unless they are RuHypnol, will never, ever get you laid.

https://www.othercriteria.com/browse/all/all/two_pills_small/

Interestingly, perhaps the greatest Artistic Value that can be attached to these items for sale at Mr Hirst's online gift shop is that they are absolutely guaranteed never to have never been touched-- or even seen-- by Damien Hirst.

Ted Rall Swings the Biggest Stick He Can Find, Still Misses World's Easiset Target

http://www.gocomics.com/tedrall/

For crap's sakes-- Ted Rall's somewhat unique brand of craziness used to sometimes yield hilarity in its grotesqueness and exaggeration (he also has a strong and original graphic sense, somewhat stylistically indebted to the late Keith Haring), but he has always been way ahead of the curve in Obama Derangement Syndrome. An (unrepentant?) Edwards supporter, who can forget Mr Rall's stirring denunciation of Mr Obama for liking The Godfather better than Repo Man back in 2008? Such are the arguments by which Politics is made great.

Mr Rall's bitterness seems unbounded; Being about the same age as Mr Obama, Mr Rall attended the same school as Mr Obama (Columbia University), at about the same time. Mr Rall was asked to leave Columbia for some reason or another (although he returned to graduate some years later, in a different program), while Mr Obama graduated, and then received a higher degree from Harvard Law School. Mr Obama has done well for himself as a politician and professor, while Mr Rall has drawn some funny cartoons and written some travel books, while moving through a series of failed ventures (radio host, syndicated columnist) that center around his political theorizing. Somehow, that Mr Obama has gone on to become President of the United States, while Mr Rall has not, seems to grind at Mr Rall's psyche in a very unpleasant way, producing some very unpleasant results.

And now, Swastikas? As disappointed as every Reasonable Person (i.e. those poised precisely on the point on the political spectrum occupied by Citizen Dilaceratus) correctly is at Mr Obama's actions (and inactions) in, particularly, the areas of Constitutional and International Law that were supposed to be his specialty, it is a drastic and offensive stretch to start branding people with Nazi Swastikas. It was vile when a few rabble did it to Mr Bush, it is vile when Tea Party knotheads do it to Obama, and it is vile and stupid when Ted Rall does it now.

While Mr Rall has made the best of a dying career choice by courting controversy, short of a call by Mr Obama for the mass extermination of some particular ethnic group, Nazi imagery is the last step before you're out there holding a misspelled piece of posterboard with a racial epithet on it. It is the work of an unstable whacko.

Unfortunately, whackos sometimes produce great Art, but they have yet to produce good Political Cartooning. When Philip Roth mercilessly attacked Richard Nixon in Our Gang, or Joseph Heller reveled in Henry Kissinger kneeling to pray with Nixon in Good as Gold, their viciousness was cruel and uncompromising, but it was accurate. In his blind rage, Ted Rall can't even hit as easy and as juicy a target as Barack Obama.

What You Should Probably Know About Human Rights Day

Did you know that someone, somewhere, decided that today was Human Rights Day? They did! It was likely a vegetarian Hippie, of some hairy sort or the other, interning at Greenpeace, who got this great idea and emailed it over to Amnesty International-- who were Dubious, because, really, in their world, isn't every day Human Rights Day? (Except for Arbor Day, when they care more about the trees?)

Anyway, on 10 December, the whole world really goes mad for Human Rights, as a result of the United Nations and a blog post they made on LiveJournal back in 1948, making the sort of Universal Declaration that young people often do, because they don't like their parents.

By the sort of eerie coincidence that makes you feel God's Chilly Hand on your neck, each year some travel agents and Rotary-type boosters in a cold place with slashed letters and probably umlauts award a Cash Prize to someone they think would look good in long tails and wasitcoat, and this year they're going to present it on this, The Lord's Day of Human Rights, 2010.

Last year they gave this Prize to a gentleman who had a few wars going, and thought it was probably okay to ice a guy without getting all balled up in the court system, so obviously this is a Peace Prize. This year, money being tight everywhere, they decided to keep the money for themselves and eat at Red Lobster for lunch whenever they wanted, so they have done a clever thing, and given this Prize to a jailbird, whom no one will ever see again, because he goes around making disgusting proposals to the Youth, mostly about Representation, which is a gang thing.

This fellow, Liu Xiaobo, wears glasses and smokes cigarettes, which are Terrible Moral Failures most Chinese men have fallen prey to, like Sports here in the United States. As the above photo demonstrates, Liu Xiaobo is also not above wearing a Sweater Vest, which probably means something unpleasant, sexually.

The Chinese government feels as though all of this Prize-giving is a slap in the face for them keeping this man Liu Xiaobo fed and clothed at their expense, just like we do for a lot of homeless Muslims, at Christmastime, and have started a thing that is a little bit like a Prize, about a man they liked called Confucius. This is a non-Western guy who may have been bearded who once tried to write a book about Good Manners, so this Confucius Prize has nothing to do with Peace at all, and is about clichés, because even the Chinese can't name anyone else famous who ever came from China (except for Barbara Boxer, who was a war villain, so can't be Peaceful).

Some other countries who live next door to China and don't want to see a lot of rotten crabapples and broken limbs getting dumped over their fence, have decided not to go to the Big Buffet the Nobel Committee have spread out for Liu Xiaobo, who they know won't be there. China has even stopped any of Liu Xiaobo's friends from leaving China, on the off chance that they might go to the Big Buffet. People of the world are very distressed about this, what with it being Human Rights Day and all, which is why PayPal took their site down yesterday, in protest.

Harry Reid's Blood Pressure Almost Reaches that of an Opossum's

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/nyregion/10health.html

Republicans Block U.S. Health Aid for 9/11 Workers

[...]

[Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid] attacked Republican senators for what he described as misplaced priorities.

“Republicans denied adequate health care to the heroes who developed illnesses from rushing into burning buildings on 9/11,” he said. “Yet they will stop at nothing to give tax breaks to millionaires and C.E.O.’s, even though they will explode our deficit and fail to create jobs. That tells you everything you need to know about their priorities.”        

Beyond the obvious tragedy, does this mean we have to start hearing about the Park 51 mosque again?

Qatar Still a Ways Away from Robert Mapplethorpe

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/12/09/qatar.mathaf.art/

Doha, Qatar (CNN) -- With exhibits showing nudity and politically radical ideas, Qatar's brand new modern art museum may raise a few eyebrows in the traditionally conservative Middle East.

The Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, founded by powerful Qatari art patron Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali Al-Thani, is slated to open in Qatar's capital, Doha, just before the new year.

Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Mathaf's chief curator, says one of the museum's major contributions to the growing Middle Eastern art scene will be to push the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable in the region.

While these collections taking a more liberal stance is admirable, the everyday censorship of Arts and Ideas in Islamic culture is chilling, to both artists and to international relations.

We Are All Communists Now, It Appears

Is this what the Republicans Chatterboxes mean when they talk about Obama being a Communist?

Oh, wait-- the Republicans all side with the Chinese, too. Can someone please prove that Senator Jim Inhofe wasn't secretly brainwashed to be a Red Chinese agent when he served in the Army?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,733630,00.html

Last year's climate summit in Copenhagen was a political disaster. Leaked US diplomatic cables now show why the summit failed so spectacularly. The dispatches reveal that the US and China, the world's top two polluters, joined forces to stymie every attempt by European nations to reach agreement.

In May 2009 the Chinese leaders received a very welcome guest. John Kerry, the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, met with Deputy Prime Minister Li Keqiang in Beijing. Kerry told his hosts that Washington could understand "China's resistance to accepting mandatory targets at the United Nations Climate Conference, which will take place in Copenhagen."

 

Some Painting in a Gallery, with Donated Beer

Do you enjoy this sort of pseudo-cryptic symbolic painting? Well... not painting in the High Art sense, but in the Illustrative sense, maybe? Hustle yourself down to Heskin Contemporary, 443 West 37th, Hell's Kitchen, and see Matthew Fisher's new series.

http://www.heskincontemporary.com/exhibitions/2010/fisher_10/img2.html

Somebody wrote this:

Obsolete treasures are stacked atop one another to create meaningless shrines to unknown recipients. At first the understanding of these totems is limited to their function: a cup is for drinking, a candle for light, a key for a door, etc. Rather, it is through their precise posting, conscience balance and deliberate centering do these utilitarian meanings become secondary to deeper context and narrative.

Oh, okay. Is that Zoboomafoo?

Gawker Probably Crediting Themselves for Getting Wikileaks a New DNS Service

(If everybody already thinks you have, you might as well.)

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/easydns/

A DNS provider that suffered backlash last week after it was wrongly identified as supplying and then dropping DNS service to WikiLeaks has decided to support the secret-spilling site, offering DNS service to two domains distributing WikiLeaks content.

EasyDNS, a Canadian firm that had been attacked last Friday after media outlets mistakenly reported it had terminated its service for WikiLeaks, sent an e-mail to customers Thursday morning letting them know that it had begun providing DNS service for WikiLeaks.ch and WikiLeaks.nl, two of the primary domain names to which WikiLeaks relocated after WikiLeaks.org stopped resolving.

“We’ve already done the time, we might as well do the crime,” Mark Jeftovic, president and CEO of EasyDNS, told Threat Level about his decision.

Gawker were the ones who managed to get EasyDNS confused with EveryDNS, and then acted like total jerks when asked to make a correction of their obvious mistake:

http://www.reddit.com/comments/efyxj/gawker_threaten_bad_press_towards_easydns_due_to/

The Financial Times, and then The New York Times, copied the mistake, and then more and more news services copied their errors. The EasyDNS timeline of the events is an interesting series of snapshots of how fast erroneous information can spread:

http://blog.easydns.org/2010/12/07/timeline-of-an-epic-fail-the-wikileaks-takedown-fiasco/

Those People Aren't Gawking-- They're Appreciating

What's the difference between Modern Art and a Novelty Act?

Well, you do actually have to be able to play the piano to be able to play it backwards.

Is the FBI Infiltrator the One Who Brought Chicken Divan to the Potluck?

Have you heard about this Terrorism thingy? It seems there was this bomb, or something, about ten years ago, and since then a lot of people have been Worried. They've even talked about it on teevee.

As detailed by Newsorgan Dilaceratus, the FBI is not one of these worrywarts, taking a fairly lackadaisical approach-- Setting up a few homeless or mentally retarded people in Sting Operations, handing out Christmas crackers and telling Jihadist wannabes they were pipebombs, and so on. FBI work being heretofore intense, what with John Dillinger shootouts, and being uncomfortably close to cannibals, the agents have enjoyed the opportunity to do some goldbricking, and the chance to chill out on the taxpayer's dime.

One of the best ways the FBI has found to spend their time this decade is by infiltrating Vegetarian groups. The President was always saying he thought they should try and infiltrate Jihadist groups, but the FBI said No, they couldn't, because they were all White and couldn't speak Arabic-- They would look Dumb. The President said, OK then, just go and check up on those wily Vegetarians, who may be up to something suspicious with all those Lentils. The FBI said OK, that does sound suspicious. There's not much Legitimate to be done with Lentils.

Anyway. The FBI agents got some crocheted hats, and ponchos, and really Serpico'd things up. Then they got lost, it seems, because they ended up in Knoxville, Tennessee! This is a place that Terrorists don't like, because it sounds like Nutsville if you're Southern, and Terrorists don't like things that make them look Crazy.

The FBI guys went to some pot-luck dinners to find out about the Lentils. This took a few years, because it turns out there are a lot more things you can do with Lentils than you'd think.

Also, the FBI guys probably had to smoke some dope, to fit in, and to not mind so much about the feet smell, and to take the edge off how Hippie Chicks are the last females in the United States who don't shave. This is how the FBI guys found out it was just like those commercials on teevee: you start smoking dope and the next thing you know, a decade has passed, and you're still just sitting there on the exact same couch, eating a dry Lentil Loaf and talking about how sad it is the baby ducks get eaten by snapping turtles.

Anyway. This sort of determined Man-in-the-Field Legwork is why we don't have to worry about Terrorism anymore. Good work!

http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/fbi-file-reveals-discussion-of-discrediting-animal-rights-activists-by-planting-rumors/3282/

Hiro Yokose (1951, Japanese) Beeswax and Oil on Canvas

(A better Yokose, not in this show.)

Winston Wächter Fine Art (530 West 25th St, Chelsea) will be exhibiting new works by Hiro Yokose, opening tonight. 

http://winstonwachter.com/artist_page_ny.php?folder=Yokose_Hiro

These new works are imagined, romantic landscapes, and look like this:

Yokose's style of encaustic application apparently doesn't mix his pigments into the heated wax, but layers beeswax on top of and between layers of oil, fusing them afterward with a heat gun. He leaves the final layer of oil detailing on top, unwaxed.

Some of Yokose's abstracts are intriguing, but this exhibition looks kind of Bob Ross-y; fantasy dreamscapes that are vaguely decorative. Of course he's more painterly than Ross, but the subtlety of detail doesn't really make up for the lack of theme.

 

We're Finally Back in Safe Hands

Let's see: the wonderful terrific Texas human being Ralph Hall wants to end birthright citizenship, and eliminate the Department of Education, and-- being an oil and gas man-- of course he also wants to do a little drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He has had a Zero rating from The League of Conservation Voters every year since 2004.

Representative Hall is also the charming fellow who personally killed a House bill which would have increased funding for scientific research and math and science education. By the delightful tactic of making a Yes vote a vote that was also one in favor of federal employees viewing pornography.

Yet, while all of this is loathsome, is it really all that different from other House Republicans? Is there something particularly evil about this gentleman which requires he be singled out?

Josh Marshall has something he'd like to add:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/12/anything_for_jack.php

Rep. Ralph Hall (R) of Texas has been in the news this week because the octogenarian anti-environment crusader is taking over as chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee. But here at TPM we remember him for another proud moment: the day thirteen years ago when he slandered a teenaged sex slave into the House record on behalf of then-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. "[S]he wanted to do nude dancing," said Hall of the fifteen-year-old girl who was taken from her parents in the Phillippines and forced to perform sex acts on stage and before video cameras at a Northern Marianas sex club.