ethan

Banned Books Week!

This week is Banned Books Week! Celebrate by reading something that has been challenged. Need some ideas? Check out Harry Potter, Judy Blume, Steinbek, or Dr Suss, you can't miss with those guys. Need more ideas look here. My favorite on this list is 88: Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford.

For more info go here: http://www.ala.org/bbooks

“[I]t’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.” — Judy Blume

Art or Crime?

I'm a big fan of Graffiti. I like Graffiti because when it's done well, it's really nice to look at. Great Graffiti is almost breathtaking. I personally would consider Graffiti Art. On my new commute from Pasadena to Culver City I see a lot of really good pieces. I also frequent websites like these to see even more pieces:

Wooster Collective, a great blog of Street Art, always has something new to look at, and better yet, very cool mp3 mixes to download or podcast:
http://www.woostercollective.com/index.html

Great on line magazines, with very interesting articles
http://www.bozacknation.com/index2.html

Documenting work before it is lost:
http://www.otherthings.com/grafarc/

A flickr search for Graffiti turns up interesting things, you can also rss this and you'll get 200 or more photos a day.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/graffiti/

Yes Graffiti has it's Gang roots, and it still does. But it has also moved on to another level. Unfortunately the Graffiti artists of the past were never given their due credit.

When I went to Art School I was surrounded by a lot of art majors. Almost all the art majors took night classes at the community collage down the street so that they would be able to find jobs once they graduated. All of them knew that they were chasing their passion but in the end still had to pay rent. Most of them got their Liquor license. They did this because they knew that it didn't really matter in the art world how good you were, you had to convince the gallerys to show your work. And with all things, it's not what you know but who. This makes it tough for them to get in. But Graffiti is different, the world is your Gallery.

Don't get me wrong, in the world of Graffiti it's not necessarily what you know but who. Your a toy until proven otherwise. Some Graffiti artists have apprenticed with other Graffiti artists until they find their own style. Personally I like this path. Others have found their own way.

But:
Q; Is it an art or a crime?
A: Yes.

If something is a crime, can it not be art? Can we legalize or worse, ill-legalize art? Yes, the artists who paint their work on the walls of our surroundings are committing a crime. Again it's the big issue that we hear over and over again. Ownership. The artist owns the material and the creation, but not the canvas. Maybe that's part of the appeal, the fact the artist is risking their freedom to create their work. All artists rysk something, jail is easer to comprehend. The work is often removed by the city. Sometimes quite quickly. So you try and see the work before that happens. And what does the City do? They slap cheep mismatched paint over it. This is an improvement?

Gangs and Graffiti. In Pasadena you see hundreds of pamphlets saying that you can not have one without the other. There's hundreds of plastic cups out asking for money to stop gangs by investing in mismatched paint. I don't believe in investing in mismatched paint. I don't know much about gangs but I suspect that gangs are made of people, if you teach people to paint they can find a passion for art. To surpress a passion like art doesn't exactly seem like it's solving anything. But again I don't know much about gangs.

I think the best move a city can make is to embrace their artists in residence. Graffiti is gaining popularity. You can even buy action figures. Like all sorts of popular art, Graffiti wil generate money. Embrace your artists. Every time Dan Witz puts up a new work, the city should say look we've got a new one by Dan Witz. The same with Los Angeles and Buffmonster, etc. (I won't pretend to actually know these people, I just like what I've seen). Think about what it did for New York and Keith Haring.

In the end you will have to come up with your own conclusions as to whether or not you support it, but either way it's here to stay.

Here's the current predicted path of the hurricane. And it sounds like it's a bigger one. Let's hope everyone is safe.

GOOD NEWS, Osama Bin Laden Found, War On Terrorism Over...

Or so you'd think.

On September 11th America was attacked, and man named Osama Bin Laden took the credit for those attacks. After reviewing the evidence, he was more then likely to be the man who organized those attacks. As of today Osama Bin Laden's whereabouts are unknown. Meanwhile the US Attorney General Gonzalez launches a new "Porn Squad!"

Yes that's right, the Bush administration has decided to attack a business that's been around longer then the written word. Now we're not talking about an organization that goes after something like "child porn" we're talking about porn that features consenting adults that is then purchased by consenting adults.

At first I thought this was good news, for three reasons:

• First of all it must mean we have won the War on Terror, because we have resources to spare.
• Second, it must also mean that the War on Drugs is going well, because if it worked once, try it again.
• Third, and last, I thought it would be a good idea, because the porn industry is full of corruption. There's a lot of physical, emotional, and financial abuse that goes on in the porn industry that the law often looks the other way from because it doesn't want to get involved. I thought that if the government was involved then it could go a long way to clean up the business of porn, and people could do their jobs and everyone would be happy. But that's not the case:

From the article:

But Gonzales endorses the rationale of predecessor Meese: that adult pornography is a threat to families and children. Christian conservatives, long skeptical of Gonzales, greeted the pornography initiative with what the Family Research Council called "a growing sense of confidence in our new attorney general."

Mr Gonzales, can I please have my tax dollars back. I personally don't want to fund your personal, campaign. Really, I'm not that interested in pornography, I've never even purchased a magazine of the stuff. But it's not like its going anywhere. The only thing you can possibly do is make the situation worse. Please focus on other more important things like consenting adults dying form terrorism and stuff.

Thanks to boingboing.

Arrr...this be tha day. This day does tha sneaking up on me every year. Sneaking up and yelling boo it does. No, I did not expect this day. But I should kuzz it be a very important day it does. Yarrr... It be talk like a pirate day. And a good day it is. Arrr.. So do some talking, and make sure it be no land lubber talk. Talk the PIRATE way you should. Arrr..

For more on this blessed day, dock your boat here, and I assure you they do a much better job then I:
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html

Humanity Critic's Timeline, Check it Out!

Take a look at this, the Humanity Critic has put together a timeline of Katrina and Bush's Incompetence to react to it. If you thought that sitting in an elementary school classroom was bad, take a look at this timeline. It becomes way to clear that he really had no idea what was going on.

http://nappydiatribe.blogspot.com/2005/09/timeline-of-bushs-incompetence.html


Honestly I don't think he cares. I think he has his own agenda and the things that happen to America and it's citizens don't concern him. He said something to this effect early in his first four years. Just look at 9/11. He used that to go to war with a different country then the one that attacked us. I'm sure if he could turn Katrina into a war with Iran he would.

Turn Protesters into Cash!

This is way too cool! Planned Parenthood has figured out how to turn protesters into cash:

http://www.ppsp.org/PledgePicket-index.asp

Every time protesters gather outside of our Locust Street health center, our patients face verbal attacks from them. They see graphic signs meant to confuse and intimidate. They are sometimes blocked from entering the building and occasionally they are videotaped. They are offered anti-choice propaganda and free rides to the closest “crisis pregnancy
center.”

Staff and volunteers are also seen as targets. We are all called murderers, are lectured to about committing sins, and are told we will pay the “ultimate price” for our actions.

You can stand with others in the community against these acts of intimidation and harassment.

Here’s how it works: You decide on the amount you would like to pledge for each
protester (minimum 10 cents). When protesters show up on our sidewalks, Planned
Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania will count and record their number each day from October 1 through November 30, 2005. We will place a sign outside the health center that tracks pledges and makes protesters fully aware that their actions are benefiting PPSP. At the end of the two-month campaign, we will send you an update on protest activities and a pledge reminder.

Example: If you pledge 30 cents per protester, and PPSP has 100 protesters in October and 160
protesters in November, your donation would be 78 dollars for the entire two-month campaign…

Tell everyone you know!
Thank you Warren Ellis for the link.

My Rant on "The Most Anticipated Natural Distaster"

I am so not joking around any more. It was hard for me to keep track of what was happening with Hurricane Katrina when it happened. I've been seeing plenty of amazing photos on Flickr. But this weekend Allison and I caught up to what's been going on in New Orleans.

One thing I can recomend is the latiist episode of This American Life called: After the Flood (Episode 296). It is one of the best. The thing that makes Ira Glass different from other reporters is he shows the personal side of things. He's done a number of episodes on the War in Iraq that have really made me understand what it's like to be in the location. After the Flood is really no different. In this episode Ira Glass interviews a bunch of people who where in the storm and the flood that followed Katrina. But what's more interesting then the Katrina is how people reacted when the relief effort failed to react in time. I highly recommend listing to it. You can listen to it on line Here:

http://www.thislife.org/

A more direct connecting will be here in about a week:

http://207.70.82.73/pages/descriptions/05/296.html

Allison and I also watched a timeline on the news. One on NBC that talked about what went wrong was really good. I don't want to sumarize anything, but I have two big reactions from it all that I wanted to post here:

1- We all know that there's plenty of racism in the south. It's one of those unspoken things. But when that thin blue line is broken that racism turns deadly. It really makes me sick. To the South I say: get fucking over the Civil War already and start treating others as your equals. It's not cute, it's not southern hospitality, take down those confederate flags and grow the fuck up! I had a false belief that we had learned from our mistakes as a country, that the words of Marten Luther had shaken people up. After hearing the storys of the relief efforts that is just not true.

2- I'm not joking around about GW Bush any more! Katrina is now known as the most anticipated natural disaster in history. This is the second time that the GW administration has been warned that a disaster was going to hit America. This is the second time that this administration has done nothing about it and thousands of people have died as a result. At this point I don't agree with Kanye West, I don't think that: "George Bush does not care about Black People," I believe that GW does not care about people at all. The only people he cares about is his "good old boys" the ones he finds jobs for then fires after they fuck up.
I think the Defective Yeti had it right. Bush and other conservatives efforts to slash social programs in order to fund corporate tax cuts. This is the results. I'm not saying that the conservatives brought on the storm, but they are responsible for most of the relief efforts slowness to react. Even FIMA is saying that their slowness to react is due to their connection with the Department of Home Land Security. When are Americans going to see that this administration has direct connections with people dieing.
I still think that GW using "9/11" as an excuse to attack another country is more despicable then his slowness to react to Katrina. But if this doesn't open peoples eyes to just how bad this administration is, I don't know what will.

I'm giving serous thoughts to joining one of the many websites that are calling for the Impeachment of GW. This is not because I don't like the guy and what he's been doing, it's because I think there are way too many people dying because of the actions and inactions of this administration!

Laptop Struggles

Boy oh boy. Never ever get your laptop repaired at Best Buy. You wouldn't believe the hassle we've had to deal with. We bought the laptop at Best Buy and sprung for the extended warranty. Now they don't actually repair laptops at Best Buy, they send them away. Each time they send them away to be repaired it takes 10 days for it to come back. Each time our laptop has come back they call us, we drive in to pick it up, and find that it still has the same problem. Then they have to fill out a new work order and send it back in again. Today it's goes back to the repair shop for it's fifth go around. So now we have to wait 10 days until we go in and look at our unrepaired laptop again.

It both sucks and blows!

The good news is, if it does come back unrepaired, (and the chances of that are good) we get to pick out a new laptop.

Robot Monkey Pirate Zombie Mummy Ninja Hobo Cowboy

Nice:

http://wigu.com/overcompensating/2005/09/ultimate-character.html

Ballmer 1 Chair 0

He he, check this out, it's like a cartoon:

http://news.com.com/Court+docs+Ballmer+vowed+to+kill+Google/2100-1014_3-5846243.html

So a Senior Enginere told Balmer he's leaving Microsoft...

"At some point in the conversation, Mr. Ballmer said: 'Just tell me it's not Google,'" Lucovosky said in his statement. Lucovosky replied that he was joining Google.

"At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office," Lucovosky recounted, adding that Ballmer then launched into a tirade about Google CEO Eric Schmidt. "I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google." Schmidt previously worked for Sun Microsystems and was the CEO of Novell.