Large sections of moscow risk collapsing because of underground parking garages

one of those large scale conceptual mail art things that seems to be popping up like mushrooms on the interweb, this one called stains on paper, and it features annotating stains on paper

they are selling old tube carriages, and offer to ship them

big interview with E Howard Hunt, a big player in central american anti commmunist activities for most of the 50s to the 70s, its almost nostaligic to read this now, the fear of communism seems almsot quaint. the american operations in gautlemea, among other places, were violent destabilzing, things, but listening to him say things like:

Slate: Some 200,000 civilians were killed in the civil war following the coup, which lasted for the next 40 years. Were all those deaths unforeseen?

Hunt: Deaths? What deaths?

Slate: Well, the civil war that ensued for the next 40 years after the coup.

Hunt: Well, we should have done something we never do—we should have maintained a constant presence in Guatemala after getting rid of Arbenz.

are not the condi era brinksmanship idea, but the long game, pax americana, view of present neo-cons--deaths, what deaths can be framed with bushes torture what torture (esp his recent interview with matt lauer, where he refuses to go off policy points, and looks foolish pressed slightly)

footage of the bush interview

(this is also very funny:

Slate: Did you ever actually meet Jacobo Arbenz?

Hunt: They [he and his wife] were neighbors of mine—years later—on the same street in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Slate: What were you doing there?

Hunt: I was the CIA chief of station.

They had come from [exile in] Czechoslovakia, and nobody in Washington had told me they were coming and so it was a big surprise to me, to my wife and me. We went to the country club for dinner one evening and lo and behold, the Arbenzes were seated a few tables away.

Slate: What did you do?

Hunt: Well, nothing. I sent a cable to Washington saying, "In the future when we have important arrivals, please let me know." It's the least they could do.

ideology matters less than power to he ruling classes


clear, concise, powerful, and non rhetorical writing, still angry from teh ajc, about iraq here

scans of the Toadstool, the preschool text children read in nazi germany, about the jews...not realy much different than what was always taught about the jews in germany--the effectiveness of the propghanda campaigns was to bring offical discourses seal of approval into unoffical discouse


Antler Arch, Jackson Whyoming

Bronze Age Paris funeral practices fail to work when there are no vultures left, and figuring out what to do about it is proving difficult.

a fomrer NOI, now a mainstream muslim (see Mohammed Ali, Ami Baraka, and Malcolm X) may actually win a senate seat in Minnesota

I wish the episcopals would quit talking and jsut get to the schism already--the latest set of meetings is in nyc

and some kiwi presberyians are handing out bumper stickers that say gays are cancer...



Massuchestts
legistors are cracking down on too high interest rates, and heavy morgtates

A banking system most common in 17th Century holland is making a comeback in senegal...and its collective.


Charger, from an updated and moderniszed Willow Pattern, its lovely...
(english designers, W2, they have full dinner sets)

here is a traditional willow pattern charger


Cautionary Tale of bad girls and good girls, from the 20s, beautiful examples of illustration


Sofia Coppala, in London, For Prada.
A lovely, sophiscated peice of film making


Steve Misel eroticises terror, for vogue italia...great images, including this one:


problems with the seires, are the usual left liberal problems of making pretty things that are dangerous, and the femmisnt probelms of staging highly ritualised tabeloux that center around violating women...but the whole seires reminds me the most of Death of Marat, a terrified, despeate plea to make something calm ordered and beautiful otu of a world that seems barely in control...aesthetically framing terror is one more way (and perhaps a safer way) of taking our emotions back...

here is the Death of Marat:



the horizontal and vertical interactiosn of power adn picture plane are vital to understanding both of them i think