Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Saturday, February 11, 2006
The Duchess of Northumberland just spent 3.3m lbs on the worlds most kick ass treehouse.
Bridget Riley, early 90s
This Ohio state law prohibts any queer parent from having children in their houses, it is the most retrograde legistaltion wrt parent raising, but it includes progressive langauge, using words like transgendered, etc...it is supposed to be about adoption, but the langauge is really more restrictive then that, wor th a derridan analysis...
One is 90 pages of early lunar photographs, from the Eastman collections. (all 90 :here
DAnny's Land, is a blog about the cultural and social history of amusement parks, adn its a great blog, this entry is about super security that resulted when the radical Yippies tried to take it over, hoping to storm sleeping beauty's castles, and hoisting a vietcong flag on its summit.,
The nuns of the Holy Name Monastery say they have been swept into the net cast by the nation's antiterrorism laws. The sisters say the monastery's main bank account was frozen without explanation in November, creating financial headaches and making the Benedictine nuns hopping mad. They were told the Patriot Act was the cause
Full Story: here
a complete list of cuts and elimantions that Bush wants to make to pay for his little excursion into Iraq...My favourites:
Elimantions:
Educational technology state grants, $272 million
Arts in education, $35 million
Elementary and secondary school counseling, $35 million
Perkins Loan cancellations, $65 million
Maternal and child health small categorical grants, $39 million
Urban Indian Health Program, $33 million
Bureau of Indian Affairs Johnson-O'Malley assistance grants, $16 million
Small Business Administration microloan program, $14 million
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, $114 million
Cuts:
Conservation operations, $77 million
Wildlife habitat incentives program, $30 million
Perkins Loans Institutional Fund recall, $664 million
Clean Coal Power initiative, $45 million
Environmental management, $762 million
Substance abuse and mental health programs, $71 million
Public housing capital fund, $261 million
BIA school construction, $50 million
I am not going to comment, just report.
FEMA, having the pacing of a drunken snail, fails to get their fucking act together, and now thousands of hurricane katrina victims are being evicted from hotels in time for mardi gras
dozens of aerial photos of mexico city, taken by helicopters, beautiful.
huge article on important stolen work, in promeinit american and european collections.
Feingold grows balls, takes axe whacks to the NSA's rape of the constitution
Cameroon has had a hysterical campaign of homophobia, tabloids outing people, general violence, and murder. One of the most promenit Cameroonian pop stars (Yannick Noah) has been outed, amongst any number of other people. The Bishop there hasnt really helped any, adding to the usual arguements against queer issues in the west, the african arguements about colonial decadence. Strange times.
BYU of all places, has released information on a new AIDS cocktail, that looks like it might be really quite promising.
just to balance the anti muslim cartoons from Denmark, here is a large collection of anti jewish cartoons, from a variety of arabic location.
Story on outed american soilders.
Half of the JT Leroy team comes out, and admits the hoax, the other half, is keeping v. v. quiet.
Bridget Riley, early 90s
This Ohio state law prohibts any queer parent from having children in their houses, it is the most retrograde legistaltion wrt parent raising, but it includes progressive langauge, using words like transgendered, etc...it is supposed to be about adoption, but the langauge is really more restrictive then that, wor th a derridan analysis...
One is 90 pages of early lunar photographs, from the Eastman collections. (all 90 :here
DAnny's Land, is a blog about the cultural and social history of amusement parks, adn its a great blog, this entry is about super security that resulted when the radical Yippies tried to take it over, hoping to storm sleeping beauty's castles, and hoisting a vietcong flag on its summit.,
The nuns of the Holy Name Monastery say they have been swept into the net cast by the nation's antiterrorism laws. The sisters say the monastery's main bank account was frozen without explanation in November, creating financial headaches and making the Benedictine nuns hopping mad. They were told the Patriot Act was the cause
Full Story: here
a complete list of cuts and elimantions that Bush wants to make to pay for his little excursion into Iraq...My favourites:
Elimantions:
Educational technology state grants, $272 million
Arts in education, $35 million
Elementary and secondary school counseling, $35 million
Perkins Loan cancellations, $65 million
Maternal and child health small categorical grants, $39 million
Urban Indian Health Program, $33 million
Bureau of Indian Affairs Johnson-O'Malley assistance grants, $16 million
Small Business Administration microloan program, $14 million
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, $114 million
Cuts:
Conservation operations, $77 million
Wildlife habitat incentives program, $30 million
Perkins Loans Institutional Fund recall, $664 million
Clean Coal Power initiative, $45 million
Environmental management, $762 million
Substance abuse and mental health programs, $71 million
Public housing capital fund, $261 million
BIA school construction, $50 million
I am not going to comment, just report.
FEMA, having the pacing of a drunken snail, fails to get their fucking act together, and now thousands of hurricane katrina victims are being evicted from hotels in time for mardi gras
dozens of aerial photos of mexico city, taken by helicopters, beautiful.
huge article on important stolen work, in promeinit american and european collections.
Feingold grows balls, takes axe whacks to the NSA's rape of the constitution
Cameroon has had a hysterical campaign of homophobia, tabloids outing people, general violence, and murder. One of the most promenit Cameroonian pop stars (Yannick Noah) has been outed, amongst any number of other people. The Bishop there hasnt really helped any, adding to the usual arguements against queer issues in the west, the african arguements about colonial decadence. Strange times.
BYU of all places, has released information on a new AIDS cocktail, that looks like it might be really quite promising.
just to balance the anti muslim cartoons from Denmark, here is a large collection of anti jewish cartoons, from a variety of arabic location.
Story on outed american soilders.
Half of the JT Leroy team comes out, and admits the hoax, the other half, is keeping v. v. quiet.
Friday, February 10, 2006
ad busters took a story based on this pitch:
I live in a small town, and work as a photographer/writer. Part of my
photographic practice is to take photos where ever I go, including Wal
Mart. The last time I took a photo in Wal Mart, a floor worker told
his assistant manager, who told me that the law prohibited this. She
forced me to erase the photos from my memory card, and threatened to
have my arrested. This bullying is regular to Wall Mart, it is the
only place to get DVDS, CDs, photo-processing, Polaroid film, and
other daily resources. To live in this town is to interact with Wal
Mart. To record it, is to reclaim it. I have taken photos of the
taxidermy in the sporting goods, of patterns in the floor tile, of
large scale capitalism and human scale interactions. I am not
competition, and there is no excuse for me not to use it. I want to
write about the complicated, sometimes violent and often exhausting
relationship between citizens and Wal Mart. To do this, I want to take
photos in Wal Mart, and attempt to get permission as well. Writing
about what happens in various Wal Marts in assorted Albertan small
towns, when I try to take photos without talking to Canadian
headquarters in exurban Toronto, and the labyrinthine maze that occurs
when interacting with those who lead, I want to implicate the
pyscho-geographic complexities that occur here.
I live in a small town, and work as a photographer/writer. Part of my
photographic practice is to take photos where ever I go, including Wal
Mart. The last time I took a photo in Wal Mart, a floor worker told
his assistant manager, who told me that the law prohibited this. She
forced me to erase the photos from my memory card, and threatened to
have my arrested. This bullying is regular to Wall Mart, it is the
only place to get DVDS, CDs, photo-processing, Polaroid film, and
other daily resources. To live in this town is to interact with Wal
Mart. To record it, is to reclaim it. I have taken photos of the
taxidermy in the sporting goods, of patterns in the floor tile, of
large scale capitalism and human scale interactions. I am not
competition, and there is no excuse for me not to use it. I want to
write about the complicated, sometimes violent and often exhausting
relationship between citizens and Wal Mart. To do this, I want to take
photos in Wal Mart, and attempt to get permission as well. Writing
about what happens in various Wal Marts in assorted Albertan small
towns, when I try to take photos without talking to Canadian
headquarters in exurban Toronto, and the labyrinthine maze that occurs
when interacting with those who lead, I want to implicate the
pyscho-geographic complexities that occur here.
some other things remembered:
the personality inventor had 3 questions about being famous, and more then a few about pain, body pain, lower back pain, that sort of thing
he seemed really weirded out about my desire to get theological training, and when i said i was queer, he said, like unusal, i said no, he said like homosexual, and i said yeah
and he gave me three diagnosies
central nervous system hyperarousal disorder
dyspraxia
executive dysfuction disorder
how come everytime i go to a shrink, i get different diagnosies.
the personality inventor had 3 questions about being famous, and more then a few about pain, body pain, lower back pain, that sort of thing
he seemed really weirded out about my desire to get theological training, and when i said i was queer, he said, like unusal, i said no, he said like homosexual, and i said yeah
and he gave me three diagnosies
central nervous system hyperarousal disorder
dyspraxia
executive dysfuction disorder
how come everytime i go to a shrink, i get different diagnosies.
some other things remembered:
the personality inventor had 3 questions about being famous, and more then a few about pain, body pain, lower back pain, that sort of thing
he seemed really weirded out about my desire to get theological training, and when i said i was queer, he said, like unusal, i said no, he said like homosexual, and i said yeah
and he gave me three diagnosies
central nervous system hyperarousal disorder
dyspraxia
executive dysfuction disorder
how come everytime i go to a shrink, i get different diagnosies.
the personality inventor had 3 questions about being famous, and more then a few about pain, body pain, lower back pain, that sort of thing
he seemed really weirded out about my desire to get theological training, and when i said i was queer, he said, like unusal, i said no, he said like homosexual, and i said yeah
and he gave me three diagnosies
central nervous system hyperarousal disorder
dyspraxia
executive dysfuction disorder
how come everytime i go to a shrink, i get different diagnosies.
pysch assesment done by dr massey and asst. (half day)
intro interview, questions about family, hearitage, birth, narrative, etc--he from the beginning had a thesis, but apparently did not read the case notes, the same story told over and over again, cheap memoir, treated it like talking to a lawyer (as little info as possible, cynical, and exhausted)
then 15 arthemtic questions, addition, subtraction, division, fractions, factoring, algerebra, and the like.
spelling test, 20 questions, then pronouncing, 15 questions, real words, but made to sound like others lucubration, among them
some pattern recognition then, a series of ever more ocmplicated drawings, in sets of five or ten--they had a numerical value, and i had to tell the pysch, well thats a four or thats a five, fairly difficult, but pronounced typical
379 question personality inventory, 3 obvious controls (including high jumping is my favourite sport to watch on television and raymond kerezxk is my favourite poet), lots of questions about being sick more often then others, having my sickness being hard ot diagnose, having my illness being strange, that sort of thing...same difficulties about answering contextually heavy, deeply complicated questions about my personal and social history/current existence in a 3 point scale, some questions phrased so that it is impossible to advertise as such, lots more questions then usual about drinking and drug use, less of the pyschotic scale then i was used to.
then dr masseys asst (mellissa, dressed in black, rings on her fingers, diamond double cs at her throat), did the rest of the exams.
a pattern recognition set, which i did badly at.
the first verbal one, where they asked analogy questions and i did really well in, a series of make this pattern out of tesslating tiles, which i really cant do, a quiz on defitions of words (including insurgency, aposotsy, anarchy, mosquito and machine--the hardest word to define was machine, and the easiest was anarchy (but not in a way that i think she liked)
then a bunch of hand eye cordination excercises (if God in Her infinite majesty, ever decides to punish me in hell, She will make me do the excercise where i have to put interlocking pins in holes--the pins were shiny, with one end raised, so that the raised end would fit in a correspondingly shaped hole, they slid around, they were small, and it was a dask best designed for those who spent theirt lives playing video games) also, two electronic machines one meant to test hand strength and one meant to test reaction time)
then two more personality inventories, one with 79 questions, about anger, temper, mood, and anxiety and one with 100 questions, a full half of them about fucking, with questions that alluded to moral postions on bdsm, casual sex, anon. sex, etc--which i am sure they give to all faggots, and which i told nice old melissa that i had serious ethical questions answering, she played dumb, and i prayed to saints michel and dythmia for courage.
written report in a month, verbal report in time for dr sanderson.
intro interview, questions about family, hearitage, birth, narrative, etc--he from the beginning had a thesis, but apparently did not read the case notes, the same story told over and over again, cheap memoir, treated it like talking to a lawyer (as little info as possible, cynical, and exhausted)
then 15 arthemtic questions, addition, subtraction, division, fractions, factoring, algerebra, and the like.
spelling test, 20 questions, then pronouncing, 15 questions, real words, but made to sound like others lucubration, among them
some pattern recognition then, a series of ever more ocmplicated drawings, in sets of five or ten--they had a numerical value, and i had to tell the pysch, well thats a four or thats a five, fairly difficult, but pronounced typical
379 question personality inventory, 3 obvious controls (including high jumping is my favourite sport to watch on television and raymond kerezxk is my favourite poet), lots of questions about being sick more often then others, having my sickness being hard ot diagnose, having my illness being strange, that sort of thing...same difficulties about answering contextually heavy, deeply complicated questions about my personal and social history/current existence in a 3 point scale, some questions phrased so that it is impossible to advertise as such, lots more questions then usual about drinking and drug use, less of the pyschotic scale then i was used to.
then dr masseys asst (mellissa, dressed in black, rings on her fingers, diamond double cs at her throat), did the rest of the exams.
a pattern recognition set, which i did badly at.
the first verbal one, where they asked analogy questions and i did really well in, a series of make this pattern out of tesslating tiles, which i really cant do, a quiz on defitions of words (including insurgency, aposotsy, anarchy, mosquito and machine--the hardest word to define was machine, and the easiest was anarchy (but not in a way that i think she liked)
then a bunch of hand eye cordination excercises (if God in Her infinite majesty, ever decides to punish me in hell, She will make me do the excercise where i have to put interlocking pins in holes--the pins were shiny, with one end raised, so that the raised end would fit in a correspondingly shaped hole, they slid around, they were small, and it was a dask best designed for those who spent theirt lives playing video games) also, two electronic machines one meant to test hand strength and one meant to test reaction time)
then two more personality inventories, one with 79 questions, about anger, temper, mood, and anxiety and one with 100 questions, a full half of them about fucking, with questions that alluded to moral postions on bdsm, casual sex, anon. sex, etc--which i am sure they give to all faggots, and which i told nice old melissa that i had serious ethical questions answering, she played dumb, and i prayed to saints michel and dythmia for courage.
written report in a month, verbal report in time for dr sanderson.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
From an article about Ratzinger's personal history and his popedom, in the 2/6/06 New Yorker, and related to the odd (buried, and vital) wording about charity, love, and the state from his first encylical. he made these remarks in a Spring, 2004 event, at Normandy...
In this hour we bow in respect to teh dead of the Second World War, We remember the many young people from our homeland whose futures and hopes were destroyed in the vloddy slaughter of the wara. As Germans, we cannot hep but be painfully moved to realise that their idalism and their obdeicence to the state were misused by an unjust government...they simply tried to do their duty--even if beset by terrible, inner ocnflicts, doubts and questions
Animosty and bitterness remained between the combatant natiosn after the First World War, esp[ecialyl beyween the German and the French, resulting in a poisoning of the nations souls
The treaty of VErsailles was deliberatley intended to humilate Germany and to burden the country with so much debt that it radicalised the people, therby opening the door to dicatorship and to belief in its depcepive promises of the return of freedom, honor and might to GErmany"
An Eye for an Eye, a too for a tooth for , that does not lead to peace. We have seen the results"
Thank God the same thing was not repeated after the Second World War
The Americans generously helped us GErmans with their Marshall Plans, helped wus rebuild our country, and made prosperity and freedom possible.
The rest of the article deals with Catholics post war history, including the convent built near Dachau and two future popes visits there, Ratzinger in Auschwitz, the Protestant and CAtholic confentations in 68 in Turinberg, Ratzingers discomfort at mentioning the victims of the holocaust (namely in a one page 1978 statement, on the 40th anniversary of Kristalnacht, "It also cannot be forgotten that, in these same days, the same Nazi leaders publicly declared war on the CAtholic church...Just as the Jewish shops, the (church) windows were broken and smashed...(the holocaust) as a "preliminary step" to the eridication of Xinity. The article also talks about Ratzingers position as a Bishop to Bavira and Sudentenland, where he played games with history, instead of being humble about his role, and the churches role in the holocaust, he places the sudentenland as victims, of a "lost homeland". "horrific conditons" and "injustice", which "the public does not like to hear about this, for many reasons," "It does not fit into their understanding of history. They try to forve a veil of silence around this injustice, and even well intentioned indivuiuals feel that it should no longer be discussed for the sake of reconfilliation". that this lead to "sipressed truths" which led "to a poisoning of the spirit".
well worth reading
In this hour we bow in respect to teh dead of the Second World War, We remember the many young people from our homeland whose futures and hopes were destroyed in the vloddy slaughter of the wara. As Germans, we cannot hep but be painfully moved to realise that their idalism and their obdeicence to the state were misused by an unjust government...they simply tried to do their duty--even if beset by terrible, inner ocnflicts, doubts and questions
Animosty and bitterness remained between the combatant natiosn after the First World War, esp[ecialyl beyween the German and the French, resulting in a poisoning of the nations souls
The treaty of VErsailles was deliberatley intended to humilate Germany and to burden the country with so much debt that it radicalised the people, therby opening the door to dicatorship and to belief in its depcepive promises of the return of freedom, honor and might to GErmany"
An Eye for an Eye, a too for a tooth for , that does not lead to peace. We have seen the results"
Thank God the same thing was not repeated after the Second World War
The Americans generously helped us GErmans with their Marshall Plans, helped wus rebuild our country, and made prosperity and freedom possible.
The rest of the article deals with Catholics post war history, including the convent built near Dachau and two future popes visits there, Ratzinger in Auschwitz, the Protestant and CAtholic confentations in 68 in Turinberg, Ratzingers discomfort at mentioning the victims of the holocaust (namely in a one page 1978 statement, on the 40th anniversary of Kristalnacht, "It also cannot be forgotten that, in these same days, the same Nazi leaders publicly declared war on the CAtholic church...Just as the Jewish shops, the (church) windows were broken and smashed...(the holocaust) as a "preliminary step" to the eridication of Xinity. The article also talks about Ratzingers position as a Bishop to Bavira and Sudentenland, where he played games with history, instead of being humble about his role, and the churches role in the holocaust, he places the sudentenland as victims, of a "lost homeland". "horrific conditons" and "injustice", which "the public does not like to hear about this, for many reasons," "It does not fit into their understanding of history. They try to forve a veil of silence around this injustice, and even well intentioned indivuiuals feel that it should no longer be discussed for the sake of reconfilliation". that this lead to "sipressed truths" which led "to a poisoning of the spirit".
well worth reading
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
52 book project
i have decided that instead of recording all my books this year, im going to try to read 52 fiction books (novels, anthologies of short stories, ficciones, post modern constructions, et. al) and record those--aside from the usual research, and nf i will read, which i will not record (i read 37 books of fiction last year)
completed so far:
52
The Tent--Margaret Atwood
really short, really simple, parables and rerealised fairy tales, cautionary works, more concered with eco-politics then the gender politics of good bones, but basically a (clever, funny, well constructed) version of that.
51
Best American Erotic--2006
one of the best, i have written before about this, but this one was funny, tender, hard, and viscous in equal measures, with small town americana and wild raelbais in equal measure--the more typical/vanilla hetroeroticism tend to be better written then the kink for the sake of kink, as is the usual case.
50
BAE--1996
Just getting on her feet, of its time, with 3 (!) vampire stories, not worth another read.
49
Holleb ecq--Elementary Particles
kinky, self involved, hateful, boring, misogynyst, racist, obtuse, philosophical and actually mastabtory (ie mentions jacking off once every 5 pages or so) and hates americans, in a really cheap never eaten a big mac, never seen kansas kind of way a parody of populist french philosophy of the celine/batialle school, the first 100 pages were readable but the rest is easily dismissed
i have decided that instead of recording all my books this year, im going to try to read 52 fiction books (novels, anthologies of short stories, ficciones, post modern constructions, et. al) and record those--aside from the usual research, and nf i will read, which i will not record (i read 37 books of fiction last year)
completed so far:
52
The Tent--Margaret Atwood
really short, really simple, parables and rerealised fairy tales, cautionary works, more concered with eco-politics then the gender politics of good bones, but basically a (clever, funny, well constructed) version of that.
51
Best American Erotic--2006
one of the best, i have written before about this, but this one was funny, tender, hard, and viscous in equal measures, with small town americana and wild raelbais in equal measure--the more typical/vanilla hetroeroticism tend to be better written then the kink for the sake of kink, as is the usual case.
50
BAE--1996
Just getting on her feet, of its time, with 3 (!) vampire stories, not worth another read.
49
Holleb ecq--Elementary Particles
kinky, self involved, hateful, boring, misogynyst, racist, obtuse, philosophical and actually mastabtory (ie mentions jacking off once every 5 pages or so) and hates americans, in a really cheap never eaten a big mac, never seen kansas kind of way a parody of populist french philosophy of the celine/batialle school, the first 100 pages were readable but the rest is easily dismissed
insane film director ken russell (lizstmania, the devils) started as a photographer, and here dozens of photos he took of teddy girls, a varration of rockers in mid century, post war london. the gender and class signifiers of these photos are amazing, some of the girls basically drag kings.
The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract worth up to $385 million for building temporary immigration detention centers to Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary that has been criticized for overcharging the Pentagon for its work in Iraq. full story here here NY Times
Hedda Gabbler, with robots
Syrian protesters who burnt and looted the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus at the weekend were encouraged to organise by the Syrian authorities, and received text messages from Islamic study centres urging them to gather, according to participants in the riot. from the uk independentThis ties into the information, that booklets of the danish cartoons, with new more damaging ones, being translated and passed thru europe...the islamic study centers, i have seen in vancouver, new york, toronto, edmonton, calgary, seattle, victoria and they have the same colours and the same fonts, a sort of jihad mcdonalds...i wonder how close they are connected, the explicit mechanics of information dissemation, it seems closer to the ground and less instutional then xians, but this might be my ignorance.
Father George V. Coyne, SJ, who runs the Vatican Obseratvory, talks movingly about the implications of science and faith, in this talk given to catholic university students text here
these are two early photos of the holy land, from 1870 to 1910 from here
Sun Ra and Al Koopers, brilliant, strange, space rocky genius is found mostly in the Arkestra, and the Bluesmen, their session musicans--they did a batman and robin sound track for the super camp Adam West series for a New Jersey Toy Company--DOWNLOAD EVERY FUCKING SONG here
The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract worth up to $385 million for building temporary immigration detention centers to Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary that has been criticized for overcharging the Pentagon for its work in Iraq. full story here here NY Times
Hedda Gabbler, with robots
Syrian protesters who burnt and looted the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus at the weekend were encouraged to organise by the Syrian authorities, and received text messages from Islamic study centres urging them to gather, according to participants in the riot. from the uk independentThis ties into the information, that booklets of the danish cartoons, with new more damaging ones, being translated and passed thru europe...the islamic study centers, i have seen in vancouver, new york, toronto, edmonton, calgary, seattle, victoria and they have the same colours and the same fonts, a sort of jihad mcdonalds...i wonder how close they are connected, the explicit mechanics of information dissemation, it seems closer to the ground and less instutional then xians, but this might be my ignorance.
Father George V. Coyne, SJ, who runs the Vatican Obseratvory, talks movingly about the implications of science and faith, in this talk given to catholic university students text here
these are two early photos of the holy land, from 1870 to 1910 from here
Sun Ra and Al Koopers, brilliant, strange, space rocky genius is found mostly in the Arkestra, and the Bluesmen, their session musicans--they did a batman and robin sound track for the super camp Adam West series for a New Jersey Toy Company--DOWNLOAD EVERY FUCKING SONG here
Monday, February 06, 2006
Best Picture: Munich
Best Director: George Clooney for Good Night, and Good Luck.
Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote
Best Actress: Judi Dench for Mrs. Henderson Presents
Best Supporting Actor: Jake Gyllenhaal for Brokeback Mountain
Best Supporting Actress: Michelle Williams for Brokeback Mountain
Best Original Screenplay: The Squid and the Whale - Noah Baumbach
Best Adapted Screenplay: Brokeback Mountain - Larry McMurtry
Cinematography: The New World
Editing: Cinderella Man
Art Direction: King Kong
Costume Design: Memoirs of a Geisha
Original Score: Brokeback Mountain
Original Song: "Travelin' Thru" - Transamerica - Dolly Parton
Best Makeup: Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Best Sound: King Kong
Best Sound Editing: King Kong
Best Visual Effects: King Kong
Best Animated Feature Film: Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Best Foreign Language Film: Tsotsi (South Africa)
Best Documentary Feature: Murderball
Best Documentary Short: The Life of Kevin Carter
Best Live Action Short: Six Shooter
Best Animated Short: 9
Defective Yeti (Seattle on the left) does the software to make this super easy!
Best Director: George Clooney for Good Night, and Good Luck.
Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote
Best Actress: Judi Dench for Mrs. Henderson Presents
Best Supporting Actor: Jake Gyllenhaal for Brokeback Mountain
Best Supporting Actress: Michelle Williams for Brokeback Mountain
Best Original Screenplay: The Squid and the Whale - Noah Baumbach
Best Adapted Screenplay: Brokeback Mountain - Larry McMurtry
Cinematography: The New World
Editing: Cinderella Man
Art Direction: King Kong
Costume Design: Memoirs of a Geisha
Original Score: Brokeback Mountain
Original Song: "Travelin' Thru" - Transamerica - Dolly Parton
Best Makeup: Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Best Sound: King Kong
Best Sound Editing: King Kong
Best Visual Effects: King Kong
Best Animated Feature Film: Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Best Foreign Language Film: Tsotsi (South Africa)
Best Documentary Feature: Murderball
Best Documentary Short: The Life of Kevin Carter
Best Live Action Short: Six Shooter
Best Animated Short: 9
Defective Yeti (Seattle on the left) does the software to make this super easy!
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Excerpts of Ratzinger's first encylical.
...His love, moreover, is an elective love: among all the nations he chooses Israel and loves her—but he does so precisely with a view to healing the whole human race. God loves, and his love may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape...
Jesus gave this act of oblation an enduring presence through his institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. He anticipated his death and resurrection by giving his disciples, in the bread and wine, his very self, his body and blood as the new manna (cf. Jn 6:31-33). The ancient world had dimly perceived that man's real food—what truly nourishes him as man—is ultimately the Logos, eternal wisdom: this same Logos now truly becomes food for us—as love. The Eucharist draws us into Jesus' act of self-oblation. More than just statically receiving the incarnate Logos, we enter into the very dynamic of his self-giving. The imagery of marriage between God and Israel is now realized in a way previously inconceivable: it had meant standing in God's presence, but now it becomes union with God through sharing in Jesus' self-gift, sharing in his body and blood. The sacramental “mysticism”, grounded in God's condescension towards us, operates at a radically different level and lifts us to far greater heights than anything that any human mystical elevation could ever accomplish.
The parable of the Good Samaritan (cf. Lk 10:25-37) offers two particularly important clarifications. Until that time, the concept of “neighbour” was understood as referring essentially to one's countrymen and to foreigners who had settled in the land of Israel; in other words, to the closely-knit community of a single country or people. This limit is now abolished. Anyone who needs me, and whom I can help, is my neighbour. The concept of “neighbour” is now universalized, yet it remains concrete. Despite being extended to all mankind, it is not reduced to a generic, abstract and undemanding expression of love, but calls for my own practical commitment here and now
True, no one has ever seen God as he is. And yet God is not totally invisible to us; he does not remain completely inaccessible. God loved us first, says the Letter of John quoted above (cf. 4:10), and this love of God has appeared in our midst. He has become visible in as much as he “has sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 Jn 4:9). God has made himself visible: in Jesus we are able to see the Father (cf. Jn 14:9). Indeed, God is visible in a number of ways. In the love-story recounted by the Bible, he comes towards us, he seeks to win our hearts, all the way to the Last Supper, to the piercing of his heart on the Cross, to his appearances after the Resurrection and to the great deeds by which, through the activity of the Apostles, he guided the nascent Church along its path.
Only my readiness to encounter my neighbour and to show him love makes me sensitive to God as well. Only if I serve my neighbour can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves me.
The Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the Sacraments and the Word.
Since the nineteenth century, an objection has been raised to the Church's charitable activity, subsequently developed with particular insistence by Marxism: the poor, it is claimed, do not need charity but justice. Works of charity—almsgiving—are in effect a way for the rich to shirk their obligation to work for justice and a means of soothing their consciences, while preserving their own status and robbing the poor of their rights. Instead of contributing through individual works of charity to maintaining the status quo, we need to build a just social order in which all receive their share of the world's goods and no longer have to depend on charity. There is admittedly some truth to this argument, but also much that is mistaken. It is true that the pursuit of justice must be a fundamental norm of the State and that the aim of a just social order is to guarantee to each person, according to the principle of subsidiarity, his share of the community's goods. This has always been emphasized by Christian teaching on the State and by the Church's social doctrine. Historically, the issue of the just ordering of the collectivity had taken a new dimension with the industrialization of society in the nineteenth century. The rise of modern industry caused the old social structures to collapse, while the growth of a class of salaried workers provoked radical changes in the fabric of society. The relationship between capital and labour now became the decisive issue—an issue which in that form was previously unknown. Capital and the means of production were now the new source of power which, concentrated in the hands of a few, led to the suppression of the rights of the working classes, against which they had to rebel.
Bishop Ketteler of Mainz (1887)
The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church. Yet the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply.
As citizens of the State, they are called to take part in public life in a personal capacity. So they cannot relinquish their participation “in the many different economic, social, legislative, administrative and cultural areas, which are intended to promote organically and institutionally the common good.” [21] The mission of the lay faithful is therefore to configure social life correctly, respecting its legitimate autonomy and cooperating with other citizens according to their respective competences and fulfilling their own responsibility.[22] Even if the specific expressions of ecclesial charity can never be confused with the activity of the State, it still remains true that charity must animate the entire lives of the lay faithful and therefore also their political activity, lived as “social charity”.[23]
In the Catholic Church, and also in the other Churches and Ecclesial Communities, new forms of charitable activity have arisen, while other, older ones have taken on new life and energy. In these new forms, it is often possible to establish a fruitful link between evangelization and works of charity. Here I would clearly reaffirm what my great predecessor John Paul II wrote in his Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis [28] when he asserted the readiness of the Catholic Church to cooperate with the charitable agencies of these Churches and Communities, since we all have the same fundamental motivation and look towards the same goal: a true humanism, which acknowledges that man is made in the image of God and wants to help him to live in a way consonant with that dignity. His Encyclical Ut Unum Sint emphasized that the building of a better world requires Christians to speak with a united voice in working to inculcate “respect for the rights and needs of everyone, especially the poor, the lowly and the defenceless.” [29] Here I would like to express my satisfaction that this appeal has found a wide resonance in numerous initiatives throughout the world.
The proper way of serving others also leads to humility. The one who serves does not consider himself superior to the one served, however miserable his situation at the moment may be. Christ took the lowest place in the world—the Cross—and by this radical humility he redeemed us and constantly comes to our aid. Those who are in a position to help others will realize that in doing so they themselves receive help; being able to help others is no merit or achievement of their own. This duty is a grace
In the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta we have a clear illustration of the fact that time devoted to God in prayer not only does not detract from effective and loving service to our neighbour but is in fact the inexhaustible source of that service. In her letter for Lent 1996, Blessed Teresa wrote to her lay co-workers: “We need this deep connection with God in our daily life. How can we obtain it? By prayer”.
Men and women of every time and place have recourse to her motherly kindness and her virginal purity and grace, in all their needs and aspirations, their joys and sorrows, their moments of loneliness and their common endeavours. They constantly experience the gift of her goodness and the unfailing love which she pours out from the depths of her heart. The testimonials of gratitude, offered to her from every continent and culture, are a recognition of that pure love which is not self- seeking but simply benevolent.
found here
Notes:
The idea that g-d is our lover, a source of erotic power, has a long (mostly female, mostly mystic) tradition, and has been only hinted at by the pope, he qoutes a male theologian to make the point, but the holiness of god's genitals remains.
This seems so obvious to me, but I hadnt really thought about it, until i read this...the euchurist is an extenstion of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, in that it is about plenty in a place of hunger. when the lord says feed my sheep, he is being painfully literal, he is extending the idea that his sacrament should be tied to charity, that the bread of the holy supper should be not only a bread of communion but a bread that staves phyiscal hunger, that the bread blessed on that table should grow enough to feed everyone, just like Jesus did w. the loaves and fishes. (and it makes again logos less abstract, logos becomes the lingustic formulae to make the abstract concrete)
I like this, it means that charity is more then being nice to people, for having a wishy-washy generalised lets all hug sense of the world---even if all men are brothers, it means we must go past the tribal nastiness of our world. it means, that to the fullness of our abilty, we must muck out the collective shit of humanity.
How do we deal with a god so much larger then ourselves, he answeres this, and its an answer that has come from the gospel since, to the least of my brethern...so the guy you give a couple of bucks to, to spend on what ever he wants, as a panhandler, is christ. the bishop, with his rectory, is less so...we, as xians, continue to refuse to internalise it in a concrete way, and i dont think that hte pope has here, either..
he has a way w. the aphormism, means that hes gunning for a legacy, which betrays the humility the press has reported, about how he didnt really want to be the pope.
i think this is a vast misreading of both the gospels and marx, and his unwillingness to make "the world turn upside down", as in the fools masses of the 12-15th century, i think betrays this encylical. the world turn upside down, once a day, happened during carnival (so in a couple of weeks really), and what happened, was the poor took over the positions of power and privelege, they became kings and queens, and the kings and queens became peasants--that one day a year, indicated to the world, was variable, and they were in danger if they were not just, that the revoution was not far off...it was a symbolic gesture, but it allowed that the church could stand to be destablized. so it was a longtime before christ talked, that allowed for a mobilty that ratzinger refuses...(other examples of medival christian mobility, no longer availble: pilgrims, monastaries, covents) back to the gospels, one reads the gospels to correspond to a personal ideology...and my ideology of course tends towards radicalism, and economic leveling, so i see that in the gospels, but i think perserving an unjust order (ie late market capitalism) is not something that a Man who worked so hard against poverty would encourage--he w. the loaves and fishes, of the money changers in the temple, of a rich man and an eye of the needle, of sell everything and follow me, the beatitudes which promise all of heaven to them--this does not sound like a leader who was advocating a top-down model of charity, but a world turned upside down recalcuation of class...and this was before marx. i wonder why lib/theo is so threatening to these people?
I have no idea who Kettler of Mainz is
I think that this is meant to settle the fear that w. the disoloution of hte nation state, the church will try their old role of crowning empires--its also disingenous, because this pope and the last pope, have consdliated power as effictvley as humanly possible, engaging in state craft and the refusal of state craft when ever politcally conveinet. this is the closest to the old ratzinger is, and its pure machavelli.
He is qouting this: John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (30 December 1988), 42: AAS 81 (1989), 472. I havent read it, so I will hold off on commenting until i can get proper context.
I think he is making apolgetics for the old school, "like a drunk in a midnight choir" school of catholic good works, which sturck me as both desperate and rathwer dangerous--and which you can see in assholes like FRanklin Graham, tying the giving of charity to the giving of the gospel has never worked for Mother Church, it allows for cruelty and hunger, and i cannot imagine it is what christ meant by "feed my sheep"
I found the connection b/w charity, justice, and humility intesnely powerful, and something that the church has to work on, and almost ending with this idea, is to center the levelling i expect of christs gospel...
it makes my skin crawl, to read Blessed Theresa of Calcutta, because of the speed of her cannozation, because of her rigour, because her lack of humilty and justice, and because of her hyprcosy--she is the conserative pin up, and it should be paid attention to, b/c he qouted her twice (and Martin of Tours, Virgil, Plato, Augustine, and Thomas)
so its a mixed bag, things that are revelatory, radical, just and beautiful, things to pay attention to, and things that seem horribly fucked up
...His love, moreover, is an elective love: among all the nations he chooses Israel and loves her—but he does so precisely with a view to healing the whole human race. God loves, and his love may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape...
Jesus gave this act of oblation an enduring presence through his institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. He anticipated his death and resurrection by giving his disciples, in the bread and wine, his very self, his body and blood as the new manna (cf. Jn 6:31-33). The ancient world had dimly perceived that man's real food—what truly nourishes him as man—is ultimately the Logos, eternal wisdom: this same Logos now truly becomes food for us—as love. The Eucharist draws us into Jesus' act of self-oblation. More than just statically receiving the incarnate Logos, we enter into the very dynamic of his self-giving. The imagery of marriage between God and Israel is now realized in a way previously inconceivable: it had meant standing in God's presence, but now it becomes union with God through sharing in Jesus' self-gift, sharing in his body and blood. The sacramental “mysticism”, grounded in God's condescension towards us, operates at a radically different level and lifts us to far greater heights than anything that any human mystical elevation could ever accomplish.
The parable of the Good Samaritan (cf. Lk 10:25-37) offers two particularly important clarifications. Until that time, the concept of “neighbour” was understood as referring essentially to one's countrymen and to foreigners who had settled in the land of Israel; in other words, to the closely-knit community of a single country or people. This limit is now abolished. Anyone who needs me, and whom I can help, is my neighbour. The concept of “neighbour” is now universalized, yet it remains concrete. Despite being extended to all mankind, it is not reduced to a generic, abstract and undemanding expression of love, but calls for my own practical commitment here and now
True, no one has ever seen God as he is. And yet God is not totally invisible to us; he does not remain completely inaccessible. God loved us first, says the Letter of John quoted above (cf. 4:10), and this love of God has appeared in our midst. He has become visible in as much as he “has sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 Jn 4:9). God has made himself visible: in Jesus we are able to see the Father (cf. Jn 14:9). Indeed, God is visible in a number of ways. In the love-story recounted by the Bible, he comes towards us, he seeks to win our hearts, all the way to the Last Supper, to the piercing of his heart on the Cross, to his appearances after the Resurrection and to the great deeds by which, through the activity of the Apostles, he guided the nascent Church along its path.
Only my readiness to encounter my neighbour and to show him love makes me sensitive to God as well. Only if I serve my neighbour can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves me.
The Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the Sacraments and the Word.
Since the nineteenth century, an objection has been raised to the Church's charitable activity, subsequently developed with particular insistence by Marxism: the poor, it is claimed, do not need charity but justice. Works of charity—almsgiving—are in effect a way for the rich to shirk their obligation to work for justice and a means of soothing their consciences, while preserving their own status and robbing the poor of their rights. Instead of contributing through individual works of charity to maintaining the status quo, we need to build a just social order in which all receive their share of the world's goods and no longer have to depend on charity. There is admittedly some truth to this argument, but also much that is mistaken. It is true that the pursuit of justice must be a fundamental norm of the State and that the aim of a just social order is to guarantee to each person, according to the principle of subsidiarity, his share of the community's goods. This has always been emphasized by Christian teaching on the State and by the Church's social doctrine. Historically, the issue of the just ordering of the collectivity had taken a new dimension with the industrialization of society in the nineteenth century. The rise of modern industry caused the old social structures to collapse, while the growth of a class of salaried workers provoked radical changes in the fabric of society. The relationship between capital and labour now became the decisive issue—an issue which in that form was previously unknown. Capital and the means of production were now the new source of power which, concentrated in the hands of a few, led to the suppression of the rights of the working classes, against which they had to rebel.
Bishop Ketteler of Mainz (1887)
The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church. Yet the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply.
As citizens of the State, they are called to take part in public life in a personal capacity. So they cannot relinquish their participation “in the many different economic, social, legislative, administrative and cultural areas, which are intended to promote organically and institutionally the common good.” [21] The mission of the lay faithful is therefore to configure social life correctly, respecting its legitimate autonomy and cooperating with other citizens according to their respective competences and fulfilling their own responsibility.[22] Even if the specific expressions of ecclesial charity can never be confused with the activity of the State, it still remains true that charity must animate the entire lives of the lay faithful and therefore also their political activity, lived as “social charity”.[23]
In the Catholic Church, and also in the other Churches and Ecclesial Communities, new forms of charitable activity have arisen, while other, older ones have taken on new life and energy. In these new forms, it is often possible to establish a fruitful link between evangelization and works of charity. Here I would clearly reaffirm what my great predecessor John Paul II wrote in his Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis [28] when he asserted the readiness of the Catholic Church to cooperate with the charitable agencies of these Churches and Communities, since we all have the same fundamental motivation and look towards the same goal: a true humanism, which acknowledges that man is made in the image of God and wants to help him to live in a way consonant with that dignity. His Encyclical Ut Unum Sint emphasized that the building of a better world requires Christians to speak with a united voice in working to inculcate “respect for the rights and needs of everyone, especially the poor, the lowly and the defenceless.” [29] Here I would like to express my satisfaction that this appeal has found a wide resonance in numerous initiatives throughout the world.
The proper way of serving others also leads to humility. The one who serves does not consider himself superior to the one served, however miserable his situation at the moment may be. Christ took the lowest place in the world—the Cross—and by this radical humility he redeemed us and constantly comes to our aid. Those who are in a position to help others will realize that in doing so they themselves receive help; being able to help others is no merit or achievement of their own. This duty is a grace
In the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta we have a clear illustration of the fact that time devoted to God in prayer not only does not detract from effective and loving service to our neighbour but is in fact the inexhaustible source of that service. In her letter for Lent 1996, Blessed Teresa wrote to her lay co-workers: “We need this deep connection with God in our daily life. How can we obtain it? By prayer”.
Men and women of every time and place have recourse to her motherly kindness and her virginal purity and grace, in all their needs and aspirations, their joys and sorrows, their moments of loneliness and their common endeavours. They constantly experience the gift of her goodness and the unfailing love which she pours out from the depths of her heart. The testimonials of gratitude, offered to her from every continent and culture, are a recognition of that pure love which is not self- seeking but simply benevolent.
found here
Notes:
The idea that g-d is our lover, a source of erotic power, has a long (mostly female, mostly mystic) tradition, and has been only hinted at by the pope, he qoutes a male theologian to make the point, but the holiness of god's genitals remains.
This seems so obvious to me, but I hadnt really thought about it, until i read this...the euchurist is an extenstion of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, in that it is about plenty in a place of hunger. when the lord says feed my sheep, he is being painfully literal, he is extending the idea that his sacrament should be tied to charity, that the bread of the holy supper should be not only a bread of communion but a bread that staves phyiscal hunger, that the bread blessed on that table should grow enough to feed everyone, just like Jesus did w. the loaves and fishes. (and it makes again logos less abstract, logos becomes the lingustic formulae to make the abstract concrete)
I like this, it means that charity is more then being nice to people, for having a wishy-washy generalised lets all hug sense of the world---even if all men are brothers, it means we must go past the tribal nastiness of our world. it means, that to the fullness of our abilty, we must muck out the collective shit of humanity.
How do we deal with a god so much larger then ourselves, he answeres this, and its an answer that has come from the gospel since, to the least of my brethern...so the guy you give a couple of bucks to, to spend on what ever he wants, as a panhandler, is christ. the bishop, with his rectory, is less so...we, as xians, continue to refuse to internalise it in a concrete way, and i dont think that hte pope has here, either..
he has a way w. the aphormism, means that hes gunning for a legacy, which betrays the humility the press has reported, about how he didnt really want to be the pope.
i think this is a vast misreading of both the gospels and marx, and his unwillingness to make "the world turn upside down", as in the fools masses of the 12-15th century, i think betrays this encylical. the world turn upside down, once a day, happened during carnival (so in a couple of weeks really), and what happened, was the poor took over the positions of power and privelege, they became kings and queens, and the kings and queens became peasants--that one day a year, indicated to the world, was variable, and they were in danger if they were not just, that the revoution was not far off...it was a symbolic gesture, but it allowed that the church could stand to be destablized. so it was a longtime before christ talked, that allowed for a mobilty that ratzinger refuses...(other examples of medival christian mobility, no longer availble: pilgrims, monastaries, covents) back to the gospels, one reads the gospels to correspond to a personal ideology...and my ideology of course tends towards radicalism, and economic leveling, so i see that in the gospels, but i think perserving an unjust order (ie late market capitalism) is not something that a Man who worked so hard against poverty would encourage--he w. the loaves and fishes, of the money changers in the temple, of a rich man and an eye of the needle, of sell everything and follow me, the beatitudes which promise all of heaven to them--this does not sound like a leader who was advocating a top-down model of charity, but a world turned upside down recalcuation of class...and this was before marx. i wonder why lib/theo is so threatening to these people?
I have no idea who Kettler of Mainz is
I think that this is meant to settle the fear that w. the disoloution of hte nation state, the church will try their old role of crowning empires--its also disingenous, because this pope and the last pope, have consdliated power as effictvley as humanly possible, engaging in state craft and the refusal of state craft when ever politcally conveinet. this is the closest to the old ratzinger is, and its pure machavelli.
He is qouting this: John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (30 December 1988), 42: AAS 81 (1989), 472. I havent read it, so I will hold off on commenting until i can get proper context.
I think he is making apolgetics for the old school, "like a drunk in a midnight choir" school of catholic good works, which sturck me as both desperate and rathwer dangerous--and which you can see in assholes like FRanklin Graham, tying the giving of charity to the giving of the gospel has never worked for Mother Church, it allows for cruelty and hunger, and i cannot imagine it is what christ meant by "feed my sheep"
I found the connection b/w charity, justice, and humility intesnely powerful, and something that the church has to work on, and almost ending with this idea, is to center the levelling i expect of christs gospel...
it makes my skin crawl, to read Blessed Theresa of Calcutta, because of the speed of her cannozation, because of her rigour, because her lack of humilty and justice, and because of her hyprcosy--she is the conserative pin up, and it should be paid attention to, b/c he qouted her twice (and Martin of Tours, Virgil, Plato, Augustine, and Thomas)
so its a mixed bag, things that are revelatory, radical, just and beautiful, things to pay attention to, and things that seem horribly fucked up
Saturday, February 04, 2006
A Lexington writer points out that maybe the prayer breakfast should be something more then jesusriffic, and the spokesperson calls back, causing all sorts of chaos (foul languge and personal insults, amongst others) the article has that gee whillikers tone that peeves me, nad ive been around enough theologians who use fuck freely, but still an amusement.
more info on how the warhol authentication board is deeply in trouble--running out of money, attempting to control the uncontroallbe, and doing really obvious power grabbing moves. ive been following this story for at least half a decade, but this is the mainstream, at least in england. i find it really funny, and i think warhol would too, the attempt to make his work "authentic" in order to bolster his market space.
flying spaghetti monster hentai
The Ampulex Compressa is a wasp thatmakes zombie cockroaches to do its billing--like something out of the Alien films (the blog linked is worth reading, as it is written by an entomolygist with a taste for weird parasits)
speaking of parasites several women have died in iraq, of dehydration, because they didnt want to go to the latrines at night, fearful of being raped.
thousands of photos of body builders, and other decadents, have been found in the soviet archives, esp. images thought lost from the studios of KK Bulla, who spent a large portion of his life in the gulag, for mysterious circumstances...the interesting thing about Bulla's (and his sons) photos, is how tender they are, and how deeply erotic, like the dual uses of american studios 40 years later, or italian nymphs at about the same time...qouting the gaurdian:
The KK Bulla studio was the first to record the discreet gay culture to which tsarist Russia turned a blind eye, according to Dr Dan Healey, a history lecturer at the University of Wales, who has published a comprehensive study on Russia and its attitude to homosexuality. Traditionally, the Orthodox Church had not taken a firm line against sodomy, and it was not until 1835 that a ban on it was extended from the armed forces to the general population. "Even then, it was rarely enforced," Healey says. "While the French and German police entrapped gay men using sting operations, the Russian police most often did nothing, enabling a gay culture to evolve in St Petersburg and, to some extent, Moscow." Men met partners in bathhouses or on the street. For women, the only escape from society's expectations of femininity was joining the Cheka (secret police) or army.. v. much worth reading, this article
House Republicans are taking a mulligan on the first ballot for Majority Leader. The first count showed more votes cast than Republicans present at the Conference meeting. Found
here
Denmark is really interesting, the first scandavian country to elect a reactionary, anti immigrant, neo-con government, prone to be more martial then its siblings, and with the desctrution of Cristina, and the maina for mainting a western european liberal democracy, what ever that means, having a bunch of fairly insular c artoons in the national paper, and then being too fucking pigheaded/stupid to figure out why they are offensive, doesnt suprise. neither does the reaction of the middle east, who's fundementalism is confusing to me, i want to perserve freedom of speech, i belive deeply in the mechanics of offense, but really, i wish that the offense was better constructed, if you are going to piss off a billion people, then be clever about it, dammit
here are the cartoons
a dozen or so american national security specialists write to Congress and point out, with precedent and history, exactly how fucked up Bush's ideas on executive power, an exhausting document, in every sense of the word.
hopper, gas station, mid30s
airbrushing, mid 50s
anon graffiti 2006
(missing: rosenquist ca 1960/warhol basquit ca 1980)
With the goal of challenging the Roe vs. Wade ruling that ensured a woman's right to an abortion, lawmakers in Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, South Dakota and Tennessee propose banning all abortions except when the woman's life is in danger,
1/31/06 Washington Times article (not linking, cause ive linked the fuckers once)
oded ezer does nift, scuptural things with hebrew typography.
more info on how the warhol authentication board is deeply in trouble--running out of money, attempting to control the uncontroallbe, and doing really obvious power grabbing moves. ive been following this story for at least half a decade, but this is the mainstream, at least in england. i find it really funny, and i think warhol would too, the attempt to make his work "authentic" in order to bolster his market space.
flying spaghetti monster hentai
The Ampulex Compressa is a wasp thatmakes zombie cockroaches to do its billing--like something out of the Alien films (the blog linked is worth reading, as it is written by an entomolygist with a taste for weird parasits)
speaking of parasites several women have died in iraq, of dehydration, because they didnt want to go to the latrines at night, fearful of being raped.
thousands of photos of body builders, and other decadents, have been found in the soviet archives, esp. images thought lost from the studios of KK Bulla, who spent a large portion of his life in the gulag, for mysterious circumstances...the interesting thing about Bulla's (and his sons) photos, is how tender they are, and how deeply erotic, like the dual uses of american studios 40 years later, or italian nymphs at about the same time...qouting the gaurdian:
The KK Bulla studio was the first to record the discreet gay culture to which tsarist Russia turned a blind eye, according to Dr Dan Healey, a history lecturer at the University of Wales, who has published a comprehensive study on Russia and its attitude to homosexuality. Traditionally, the Orthodox Church had not taken a firm line against sodomy, and it was not until 1835 that a ban on it was extended from the armed forces to the general population. "Even then, it was rarely enforced," Healey says. "While the French and German police entrapped gay men using sting operations, the Russian police most often did nothing, enabling a gay culture to evolve in St Petersburg and, to some extent, Moscow." Men met partners in bathhouses or on the street. For women, the only escape from society's expectations of femininity was joining the Cheka (secret police) or army.. v. much worth reading, this article
House Republicans are taking a mulligan on the first ballot for Majority Leader. The first count showed more votes cast than Republicans present at the Conference meeting. Found
here
Denmark is really interesting, the first scandavian country to elect a reactionary, anti immigrant, neo-con government, prone to be more martial then its siblings, and with the desctrution of Cristina, and the maina for mainting a western european liberal democracy, what ever that means, having a bunch of fairly insular c artoons in the national paper, and then being too fucking pigheaded/stupid to figure out why they are offensive, doesnt suprise. neither does the reaction of the middle east, who's fundementalism is confusing to me, i want to perserve freedom of speech, i belive deeply in the mechanics of offense, but really, i wish that the offense was better constructed, if you are going to piss off a billion people, then be clever about it, dammit
here are the cartoons
a dozen or so american national security specialists write to Congress and point out, with precedent and history, exactly how fucked up Bush's ideas on executive power, an exhausting document, in every sense of the word.
hopper, gas station, mid30s
airbrushing, mid 50s
anon graffiti 2006
(missing: rosenquist ca 1960/warhol basquit ca 1980)
With the goal of challenging the Roe vs. Wade ruling that ensured a woman's right to an abortion, lawmakers in Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, South Dakota and Tennessee propose banning all abortions except when the woman's life is in danger,
1/31/06 Washington Times article (not linking, cause ive linked the fuckers once)
oded ezer does nift, scuptural things with hebrew typography.
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