Saturday, January 13, 2007  

Ha! Voila...Ecco...

I just LOVE this.
People who are fully bilingual and speak both languages every day for most of their lives can delay the onset of dementia by up to four years compared with those who only know one language, Canadian scientists said on Friday.
For all you English Only folks out there, a little more info on why bilingualism is GOOD and GOOD FOR YOU.

And instead of bugging the rest of us with your stupid, nativist paranoia, maybe you could make better use of your time and learn another language.
It's not like it's going to kill you, eh...

Thursday, January 11, 2007  

Et tu, Dante...



So, now we have a more recent idea of what Dante looked like. Italian scientists says they're surprised. I'm not. He looks like a typical Toscano - it's like looking at one of my uncles...

 

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Time to dust off some 70's Motown and marching chants and go to town!

Aretha Franklin got it right, and it's time to tell the Congress to listen up.

Shrub the younger has said his piece, threatening the US with the Al Queda bogeyman, but not quite explaining why we are now bombing the crap out of Somalia (and what is with the silence, y'all? The parallel with Israel going into Lebanon is deafening). We cannot "lose" in Iraq. Well, if we are not "losing" now, what are we doing? He wants to send 20,000 more troops to control the insurgents and he rattles the bones of terrorism at us. And yet several reports have suggested that less than 10% of the insurgency is made up of foreign fighters/Al Queda. Which means that at least 80% of the insurgency are Iraqis who don't want us there. Think on that for a moment. And why you might ask? Well, for starters, we kill civilians. We steal. We have left cluster bombs all over the place. We have arrested, detained and tortured people. We scorn the Iraqi civilians. Just call up Youtube and Iraq and watch the marines mock the very people we are supposedly trying to help. Think about it- would you want to be occupied like that?

And just where are these 20,000 soldiers coming from? Ain't going to be me in boot camp- and quite possibly not you, either. So who?
Look to the border- the states along the border, look to the green card soldiers, the immigrants with limited chances, the young and disenfranchised in towns laid low by an economy struggling to support armed conflicts on at least two fronts. These are the expendable soldiers- the poor, the under-educated, the cannon fodder least likely to be missed by an ungrateful government.

So, to the cries of Que Viva! It's time to tell Congress

What do we want?
Impeachment!
When do we want it?
Now!

I am a big fan of DIY - do it yourself.

Ingrid over at Blogger Roundtable has some very good information on how to join the DIY Impeachment movement.
Impeach for Peace, a Minnesota-based impeachment group, has researched a method for impeaching the president using a little known and rarely used part of the Rules of the House of Representatives ("Jefferson’s Manual").
After learning this information, Minnesotan and Impeach for Peace member (Jodin Morey) found precedent in an 1826 memorial by Luke Edward Lawless which had been successful in initiating the impeachment of Federal Judge James H. Peck. Impeach for Peace then used this as a template for their "Do-It-Yourself Impeachment." Now any citizen can download the DIY Impeachment Memorial and submit it, making it possible for Americans to do what our representatives have been unwilling to do. The idea is for so many people to submit the Memorial that it cannot be ignored.


Vist Ingrid for more and then visit Impeach for Peace and make your voice heard.

In the words of San Diego's B-side Players:
If you want one world,
One love,
one race,
How you wanna make this
Ha!
A better place?
{...}
And Bush needs to know that we are going to bring the power to the people back.


Wednesday, January 10, 2007  

Thus spoke

you know who, on national TV. According to Shrub the younger, it's still about spreading democracy and freedom, helping a fledgling democracy (never mind ours is in danger from him and his little friends), and it's still about spreading American values at the end of a gun, or under wheels of a tank or via the fists of whacked out Johnny from Nebraska.
Wow.
And he invoked 9/11 again.
Double wow.
And all this blah blah about how Al Queda will spread like a virus threatening the lives and well-being of the good people of Iraq and other moderate Arab states.
Excuse me, but what moderate Arab states are you talking about?
Egypt? You must be joking. Have you read the latest? There are videos out showing the police whaling on people.
Morocco? Oh, please. They just shut down a magazine for insulting Islam. Now, how do you justify free speech in that case?
Pakistan? Don't get me started.
Saudi (sorry friends)- have you even been paying attention?
What about Lebanon? You think they feel "moderate" about us since our proxy army invaded and killed all kinds of people? I doubt it.

And what is this about spreading like a virus?

Hmmmmm. Let's see, in the last five years we've invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, we recent;y sat on our hands while Israel invaded Lebanon (remember that?) and now we're having a shindig in Somalia with the warlords who made that place a living hell. And, we arresting people right and left, dumping them in black holes, offering them up to the tender mercies of various 3rd part interrogators.
Sounds rather viral to me.

I'm really not sure why Shrub even bothered. Every word, and I mean every word of that little show invites comparison, ridicule, irony and scorn.
The man is a moron and his speech writer is criminally stupid.

BTW, there is a DIY Impeachment movement afoot. Watch this space for more info.

 

Something to think about...

A friend, Naeem, is co-curating this show in Sienna, Italy (Toscana- right on!)- opening Feb 4. It poses some interesting questions,in particular, one that is very disturbing to artists whose work has been focusing on the present situation. I've often thought about this and wondered if it is true...more on this later.

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Palazzo Papesse Explores Our Addiction to Endless War

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SYSTEM ERROR: WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING
February 3-May 6, 2007
Curated by Lorenzo Fusi & Naeem Mohaiemen
http://papesse.org
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Palazzo Papesse Centre for Contemporary Art in Siena will present a new show "SYSTEM ERROR: WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING." The show is co-curated by Papesse head curator Lorenzo Fusi and New York +Dhaka based artist Naeem Mohaiemen.

The curators set out to explore this fundamental question: if war is universally opposed, why do new conflicts keep breaking out? Is there an addiction to warfare in the human psyche? Has it become a drug we cannot quit? These and many other questions including the nature of "hard" and "soft" conflict; the allure of flags, national anthems and nationalism; and pop culture's profitable fascination with bloody violence are explored in this project.

While certain conflicts tend to dominate global media, the curators also emphasized conflagrations that often slip under the radar. These include Beslan school raid, U2's expensive lawyers, rebranded School of Americas, East Timor library, Oaxaca burning, Darfur refugee camps, Rome assassination, Iraq's managed chaos, "Safe" Area Gorazde, D.W. Griffith's Night Riders, Vietnam's burning monk, Oliver Stone's 9/11 blockbuster, Jetblue's t-shirt policy, Paris cat graffiti, Newsweek's Rwanda amnesia, Iranian embassy takeover, Che Guevara's New York visit, Bangladesh's gun culture, and Thailand's rose coup.

Featuring the artwork of more than 40 international artists including internationally established pioneers (Chris Marker, Alfredo Jaar, Lebbeus Woods) to newer artists (Chris Naka, Rheim AlKadhi, Yara El- Sherbini), as well as those who have never shown in the museum or gallery context (Chaleerat Ngamchalee, Israel Rosas). While some artists have exhibited at venues such as the Whitney, Venice and Sydney Biennial, the curators also discovered many of these works while attending protest rallies, going to a concert, browsing a comic book store, and surfing YouTube and Flickr. In the choice of artists, mediums and genres, this project looks at some possible futures for politically engaged visual arts, both inside gallery walls, and on the streets of modern cities.

As well as established mediums such as video, sculpture, print, and conceptual art, the selection has an emphasis on newer mediums and genre-breaking work: flash animation (Young-Hae Chang), Hollywood mashups (Chris Naka, Jackie Salloum, Chris Moukarbel), TV satire (Yara el-Sherbini), t-shirt wars (Usman Haque), comic books (Joe Sacco, Dawolu Jabari Anderson), video games (Jon Haddock), library rescue (Tom Nicholson), music mix (DJ Spooky), street performance (Richard DeDomenici), museum intervention (Meir Gal), bullet opera (Emily Jacir), radio piracy (Negativland), and musicals (Damir Niksic).


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Artists in Show
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Brian Alfred, Rheim Alkadhi, Dawolu Jabari Anderson, Julieta Aranda, Shishir Bhattacharjee, Sarah Bridgland, Matt Bryans, Kevin Carter, Richard Dedomenici, Birgit Dieker, Meir Gal, Felix Gmelin, Jon Haddock, Usman Haque, Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries, Alfredo Jaar, Emily Jacir, Agnieszka Kalinowska, Chris Marker, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, Carlos Motta, Chris Moukarbel, Chris Naka, Negativland, Chaleerat Ngamchalee, Tom Nicholson, Damir Niksic, Stefano Palumbo, Gilles Peress, Sarah Pickering, Wilfredo Prieto, Walid Raad/Atlas Group, Joe Sacco, Jackie Salloum, Yara El-Sherbini, Francesco Simeti, Speculative Archive, Do-Ho Suh, The Critical Voice, Alejandro Vidal, Lebbeus Woods.


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Artists in Companion Book
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Ayreen Anastas+René Gabri, Doug Ashford, Jimmie Durham, Jean Fisher, Coco Fusco, Matt McAllester, Josh Neufeld+Martha Rosler, Michael Rakowitz, Raqs Media Collective, Israel Rosas, Collier Schorr.


 

hey Holland!

Yup, yeah, you. Cool stuff happening at the Hague starting today and going through Jan 14.


Catch Moorish Girl, aka Laila Lalami (moorishgirl.com) in person Jan. 12.
Click here for schedules, times and other info.

 

The Godfather Eats Curry

“They have the kind of power that can shut down a city, but they’re living in constant fear,” Mr. Chandra said. “So they construct a comprehensible moral universe for themselves. I asked one of these guys, ‘How can you justify murder?’ And he said, ‘Look, their death is already written,’ pointing upwards. Murder in their view is part of the divine play of the Lord.”


A very cool interview with the author of what promises to be a (long!)rather interesting book, Sacred Crimes.

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