PUDDING

PARTY IN THE USA

2009-11-15T18:21:00.001-08:00

Text Comments (223,001) Options

aznelmonerd (20 seconds ago)

you hooka

AdriannairdAIF... *sigh* not jealous and Im not looking at this video because it fails at everything real music stands for.

AdriannairdAIF (59 seconds ago)

your dumb

Comment(s) marked as spam Show

jgcampbell66 (1 minute ago)

fuck you sloth style im just speakin the truth

MrNawlidg (1 minute ago)

disney should cancel hannah montana. my 5 yr old loves that show. watching this... mileys acting like a little whore. fuckin disgusting! fuckin billy control your daughter!

l3oink (2 minutes ago)

shes a FUCKEN country girl why she gotta act like shes an AMERICAN girl...damn!!!!

JoshIzSik (2 minutes ago)

Shes so hot id fuck her so hard. First in her tight little clit then id cum all over her face and cute lil tities

AdriannairdAIF (2 minutes ago)

why does everyone hate miley, she hasn't done anything to anyone.
You guys are just jealous, and plus if you don't like her, than why are looking at this video

thereasonistreason (2 minutes ago)

Ooh the big debate continues! Take your thoughts some place else.

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Randi

Gallup interpets the drastic fluctuation in 1995 as a response to the O.J. Simpson trial.

2009-10-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

via The Hill

Poll: President Obama has had only a minimal impact on race relations

By Eric Zimmermann - 10/29/09 02:29 PM ET

Barack Obama's presidency hasn't notably changed views on race relations in America, according to the results of a new Gallup poll.

Fifty-six percent of Americans believe that a solution to America's race problems will eventually be worked out. That's roughly the same result that Gallup found in the years leading up to 2008.

In short, despite a brief and notable bump after Obama won the election, optimism (or lack thereof) about U.S. race relations is back to its previous level.

lemme c ur O face

2009-10-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

sorry ya'll. now let's get back to important things:

The budget that was passed by the General Assembly and signed by the Governor on July 14 provides approximately $194 million for the Monetary Award Program, which is half of what the state used for MAP grants last year. If the General Assembly and Governor Quinn do not act to restore $200 million in MAP funds by the end of October, as many as 138,000 students will be unable to return to college for the Spring semester.

Please ask our Illinois Legislators to fully fund the MAP grant, for my sake and yours

2009-09-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

ANNUAL MEMBERS' SHOW

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

6:00-9:00 PM

832 W Superior St. #204

Chicago, IL 60622

www.arcgallery.org

Please join me and the rest of the ladies for their annual exhibition.

Rules for Radicals

2009-09-20T17:15:00.000-07:00

via Politico

Conservatives are coming for the Democrats on their blind side — the left.

The evidence is everywhere.

At tea parties and town halls, conservative demonstrators oppose health care reform with signs bearing the abortion-rights slogan “Keep your laws off my body” or the line “Obama lies, Grandma dies” — an echo of the “Bush lied, they died” T-shirts worn to protest the Iraq war.

Conservative activists are yelling “Nazi!” and “Big Brother!” where they used to shout “Nanny state!” and “Big Government!”

And the 1971 agitator’s handbook “Rules for Radicals” — written by Saul Alinsky, the Chicago community organizer who was the subject of Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis, and whose teachings helped shape Barack Obama’s work on Chicago’s South Side — has been among Amazon’s top 100 sellers for the past month, put there in part by people who “also bought” books by Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck,and South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint.

Yes, the same folks who brought you Obama the socialist have been appropriating the words and ways of leftists past — and generally letting their freak flags fly.

The left-wing rhetoric and symbolism are so thick on the right, in fact, that some conservatives have been taken aback by it: The logo for the Sept. 12 protest in Washington, which organizers called the “March on Washington,” featured an image that looked so much like those associated with the labor, communist and black power movements that some participants objected to it — until they found out that’s what the designers were shooting for.

“As an organization, we have been very closely studying what the left has been doing,” explains FreedomWorks press secretary Adam Brandon, who says he was given a copy of “Rules for Radicals” when he took his current job . Brandon describes the Sept. 12 rally in D.C. as the “culmination of four years worth of work” and says that organizers were “incredibly conscious” of the symbols they chose.

With the logo, he explains, they were “trying to evoke the imagery of the counterrevolutionary protests of the 1960s that captured the imagination of the world.” And as for the phrase “March on Washington,” Brandon says, “this is something people said in the office. If we had been alive back in the 1960s, we would have been on the freedom bus rides. It was an issue of individual liberty. We’re trying to borrow some from the civil rights movement.”

From the outside, at least, it doesn't look like an obvious fit.

Dick Armey did not, in fact, participate in the freedom rides of the 1960s. Brandon said the former House majority leader was an undergrad in Jamestown, N.D., at the time, working his way through school putting up electric poles, and “wasn’t politically active at the time.”

And while they’re handing out Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” at FreedomWorks, Armey himself told the Financial Times last month: “What I think of Alinsky is that he was very good at what he did but what he did was not good.”

But if the tactics of the left helped end segregation and the Vietnam War in the last century, conservatives say there’s no reason those same tactics can’t be used to keep liberals in check now.

James O’Keefe, the activist and filmmaker who posed as a pimp for an expose of several ACORN offices in the Northeast, told the New York Post earlier this week] that he, too, had been inspired by “Rules for Radicals,” which includes such tactical lessons as “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon” and “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.”

He's no Teddy, but

2009-09-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

The Scott Brown (Republican up for Kennedy's seat) nudey pic is causing more traction in the news than the fact that he voted YES on the sales tax.

No college institution will ever be able to teach just how ass backwards politics is. Tanks for tryin Emmy-C.

Still waitin for the Menino nudes,

Everything Can Be Explained

2009-09-03T15:03:00.000-07:00

by picking up a classic

"The heart of the matter - to borrow a distinction made by Max Weber about politics - is that the professional man lives off ideas, not for them. His professional role, his professional skills, do not make him an intellectual. He is a mental worker, a technician. He may happen to be an intellectual as well, but if he is, it is because he brings to his profession a distinctive feeling about ideas which is not required by his job. As a professional, he has acquired a stock of mental skills that are for sale. The skills are highly developed, but we do not think of him as being an intellectual if certain qualities are missing from his work - disinterested intelligence, generalizing power, free speculation, fresh observation, creative novelty, radical criticism.

At home he may happen to be an intellectual, but at his job he is a hired mental technician who uses his mind for the pursuit of externally determined ends.

It is this element - the fact that ends are set from some interest or vantage point outside the intellectual process itself - which characterizes both the zealot, who lives obsessively for a single idea, and the mental technician, whose mind is used not for fee speculation but for a salable end.

The difference is not in the character of the ideas with which he works but in his attitude toward them. I have suggested that in some sense he lives for ideas - which means that he has a sense of dedication to the life of them in which is very much like a religious commitment.

This is not suprising, for in a very important way the role of the intellectual is inherited from the office of the cleric: it implies a special sense of the ultimate value in existence of the act of comprehension. Socrates, when he said that the unexamined life is not worth living, struck the essence of it.

The noblest thing, and the closest possible to divinity, is thus the act of knowing.

If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to some special and constricting idea."

This one's for you P,

Randi

where campaign work leads me

2009-09-01T16:39:00.001-07:00

Google Search: "Massachusetts Colleges+Political Organizations"

Gay Witches of Massachusetts

Gay Witches of Massachusetts

Age Range/Type: College
Located in: Worcester, Massachusetts
Key Contact: Tom Dalton

Spiritual Path: Gay Witches of all Paths
Status: Group Forming
Community Support: Open Circles... Legal Clergy... Teaching Available

Group Overview: At this point I am actively seeking gay men who wish to become more active in the gayity of the witch life style. There are many of us that have yet to participate in the craft as a gay male.

Sky Clad Rituals are of a top priority, and the energy from the Male is most impressive.

This is a group of men that are gay that will get together and discuss traditional magick in the gay witch community, and well as other general things that affect the gay community. This group does not have a description written in stone at this point, but will as we form.

I am in the Process of Electing a Vice President
a Treasure and more

Please email me for more information

Thanks

To view ALL of our listings: Click HERE

Contact Us Via Email...

Email Invites Note: Yes! We have opted to receive invites to Pagan events, groups, and commercial sales

i'm so fucking tired

2009-08-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

Randi

2009-08-16T14:26:00.000-07:00

Ear candles are long, hollow tubes made of wrapped muslin. They are used for ear wax removal and other problems to do with ears and even the sinus area. They are believed by some people to help with ear infection and other problems such as blocked ears, sinus headaches and lack of hearing.

Using ear candles is called ear candling. It is generally more comfortable and less expensive than conventional ear cleaning where water is forced into the ear canal. Ear candles, sometimes called ear cones, are considered a folk medicine. The practice of ear candling is said to be an ancient art from many other countries such as China, Czechoslovakia, Mexico and Italy.

Many people use ear candles once a year or less, but others with chronic ear infection or ear or sinus problems seem to benefit with much more frequent treatments. I am one of those people! When using ear candles, the small end of the cone is put into an ear and the other end is lit. As the candle burns, the smoke travels into the ear canal, warming the ear wax and creating a gentle vacuum. (Does the smoke do more than that? No one has yet come up with the hundreds of thousands that are required for a scientific study.)

This can dislodge the wax or foreign debris and pull it into the ear cone, thus causing ear wax removal. Many report this as being a rather pleasant sensation. Some people have questioned whether the smoke does something to microorganisms as well. Occasionally, an improvement in hearing is reported after using ear candles. Ears should not get water in them or be exposed to very loud noises for 24 hours after treatment.

again?

2009-08-12T21:28:00.000-07:00

A Danish gallery has decided to exhibit a caricature of Muhammad that unleashed a wave of protests in the Muslim world against Denmark in 2006. Citing an article in magazine Sappho, Agence France-Presse reports that the controversial caricature will be part of a larger exhibition dedicated to the watercolor works of the artist-caricaturist Kurt Westergaard at the Galleri Draupner in Skanderborg. The caricature—one of twelve satiric drawings published in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten—represents Muhammad wearing a turban in the shape of a bomb with a lit fuse. Muslims found the drawing, which confounds the prophet with terrorism, offensive. The seventy-four-year-old Westergaard had words of praise for the gallery director, Erik Guldager. “[He] is the first to dare to exhibit my works, even if my watercolors are not political.” In May 2008, Westergaard received the Sappho Prize from the Society for the Protection of the Freedom of Expression of the Press and the Right to Criticize Religion. Westergaard had originally hoped to show his watercolors in an unnamed gallery in Hoejbjerg near Aarhus. But his participation was canceled when an unnamed Swedish artist invited to participate in the same exhibition threatened to pull out if Westergaard showed his works. The exhibition at Galleri Draupner begins August 29.

via ArtForum.com

seriously? someone just buy it and burn it
p

2009-08-02T10:38:00.000-07:00

When the sun shines, we’ll shine together
Told you I’ll be here forever
Said I’ll always be your friend
Took an oath I’ma stick it out till the end
Now it’s raining more than ever
But we’ll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh eh eh eh)

Translation

When you shine from your success, we both profit from it
I will always be part of you
I will always be on your side
I promised you I would protect you and I will do it as long as necessary
Now the financial crisis is afflicting the world
But I’m still here with you
You can be under my protection
You can be under my protection

What’s up with the Ella Ella eh’s? It sounds catchy doesn’t it? The repetitive and hypnotic rhythm of this chant makes it very reminiscent of magical spells, conjurations or summons. It invokes the god Ba’el (the Master) an important figure in mythology. According to famous occultist Francis Barrett, Ba’el has the power to make those who invoke him invisible and he can make people wise. Does “Ella” backwards sound a little like Ba’el?

Randi

whooooopsies

2009-07-25T13:21:00.000-07:00

am i riiiight?

but i lurv him

2009-07-14T18:13:00.000-07:00

The Undiagnosed Problem: The Twilight “Saga”

by Esté Yarmosh

Harmless fantasy-romance? Or influential prototype of a controlling lover? The author asks her (somewhat) younger sister-readers to take a deeper look at the popular series.

June 30, 2009

Some make excuses for the immensely popular Twilight book series by saying, “well, at least kids are reading now.” I, too, think that it’s great if kids and teenagers are starting to read again, especially after the National Endowment for the Arts sobering report on reading rates in 2007, which found, for example, that less than one-third of 13-year-olds are daily readers, a 14 percent decline from 20 years earlier.

Yet it is the message in Twilight that is disturbing. Young readers encounter women, embodied in narrator Bella Swan, shoved back into traditional gender stereotypes that have taken years of effort to overcome. And millions of young girls (not to mention adult women) are devouring these books.

I worry about the girls who seem, with quite a bit of personal conviction, to put one of the main characters of the Twilight “saga,” the vampire Edward Cullen, on such a high pedestal that they think he is the ultimate ideal of a boyfriend. That he is not. These girls need a wake-up call: Edward Cullen is a caricature of an emotionally, psychologically and physically abusive boyfriend—and one with supernatural powers no less. It can’t be healthy to have an attachment to a fictional character with those qualities, much less a real person.

Apart from the vampires who attack Bella at the end of the first book (Twilight), Edward is the source of most of her abuse. He is dangerously possessive. In the third book (Eclipse), for example, the vampire boyfriend removes the engine from Bella’s car because she wants to go visit her friend Jacob Black. Edward stalks her, constantly asks where she is going and what she is doing and plays hot and cold in their love affair. He neglects her emotionally in some passages; in others, he tells her he loves her and wants to be with her forever.

A phrase in the series is used to sum up the relationship between Edward and Bella: “and so the lion fell in love with the lamb.” A symbolic, romantic concept perhaps, but it only reinforces traditional gender stereotypes of males being strong and dominant, and females being meek, demure and passive. Feminists have fought for decades to eradicate this trope and to stretch the boundaries of how females are viewed by the dominant society.

The phrase “and so the lion fell in love with the lamb” attempts to evoke a space where the strong and weak can co-exist peacefully. Is it also meant to suggest that the rapist/sexual assaulter can have tender feelings for his victim? With all its associations, the phrase is a prominent feature of Twilight-inspired jewelry and tee shirts populating the Internet. Its problematic quality is reinforced by Twilight series dialogue in which Bella often refers to herself as a “stupid lamb” and Edward calls himself a “sick, masochistic lion.” They may recognize their personality disorders but the books never deal with the damage. Instead, Twilight glorifies the “masochism,” making it a fetish that burrows into the minds of young readers. One website featured a Christmas ornament with the phrase “Property of Edward Cullen—Forks, WA.” The product description read, “You belong to sexy sparkly vampire Edward Cullen now.”

One work of literature cannot undermine all the significant milestones and strides feminists have made in the last several decades. Nonetheless, young girls are very impressionable. Twilight books and movies are reportedly targeted to a junior-high and high-school audience, but one photo caption I saw in a newspaper article on the popularity of the series identified the reader pictured curled up with one of the books as nine years old. I couldn’t help worrying about what she is picking up from its pages.

“To put it simply, dear reader, I was horrified,” says Kellen Rice of Blast Magazine. “Not just by the sickeningly purple prose or the lack of general writing quality, but the books themselves are insulting on every level—as a woman, as a teenager, as a literature student, and as a graduate of the Harry Potter craze. What’s worse is that so few seem to realize it.”

via The Women's Media Center

Robot Recession

2009-07-12T23:01:00.000-07:00

At a large Yaskawa Electric factory on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, where robots once churned out more robots, a lone robotic worker with steely arms twisted and turned, testing its motors for the day new orders return. Its immobile co-workers stood silent in rows, many with arms frozen in midair.

2009-07-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

Randi

2009-06-29T21:22:00.000-07:00

why didn't i think of this??

this guy

2009-06-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.mir-hosseinmousavi.com

P.R.ide

2009-06-18T22:15:00.000-07:00

In accordance with the festivities happening in Humboldt Park this week to honor Puerto Ricans, it seemed fitting to mention Pepon Osorio- a Puerto Rican contemporary artist, whose large scale installations and sculptures address issues of identity and experience in the Latin American community. Though highly specific, I think that everyone can understand his work or at least recognize their relationship to it. For instance, No Crying Allowed in the Barber Shop stems from Osorio's personal experience of his first hair cut, and how this was a transitional moment into becoming a "little man" in true machismo fashion. While this experience remains uniquely his own, it resonates with many Latin Americans, and transcends into larger topics like tradition, family, community, expectations, and memory. The explicit and implicit influences of each may vary from individual to individual, but everyone can acknowledge their impact and this remains the common tie.

No Crying Allowed in the Barber Shop (1994)

100% Boriqua (1991)

La Bicicleta (1985)

chill out on those horns, tho

THIS TIME LAST YEAR

2009-06-15T14:18:00.000-07:00

2 YEARS

3 YEARS

2009-06-14T17:56:00.000-07:00

Politics and parody take center stage Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare with the Second City’s rollicking musical parody of the rise and fall of ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich. Following a sold out run at Second City e.t.c., the limited engagement on Navy Pier will feature new music and frequent updates—incorporating Blagojevich’s brother, his $100,000 book deal and Roland Burris’s son—as the Illinois political saga continues to unfold. After each performance, the cast will improvise a 20-minute political comedy set based on audience suggestions.

via Chicago Shakespeare and Chicagoist

Paulina

my mother coulda told you this

2009-06-05T17:32:00.000-07:00

via DCist.com

D.C. Tops in Cocaine Use?

We were definitely just as surprised as City Desk to hear that D.C. is at the top of the country (by a pretty big margin) in cocaine use. Having lived in Los Angeles for about the same amount of time that I've now lived here, it certainly doesn't seem like there's nearly as much cocaine around as in that city, let alone as say, New York. D.C.'s full of square federal employees with security clearances to worry over, isn't it? But take a closer look at the full study. First of all, it's another one of those ones that compares D.C., an entirely urban district, with states, which are made up of both cities and large swaths of suburban and rural areas. Second, there's no separate category in this survey for crack (or any other illicit drug besides marijuana, for that matter), so it appears that is included under the "cocaine" banner. My bet is that strict cocaine use in D.C. is nowhere near as rampant as this study makes it out to be when compared to other large metropolitan areas.

No DCist you're wrong wrong wrong wrong. Have you truly kept your eyes open in Adams Morgan on a good (bad) Saturday night? Obvi not because I've never met so many interesting(ed) people in such a shitty place in my entire life. and GEORGETOWN more like blowtown not to mention the kiddies doing key bumps in line for the youth ball, get a grip DC loves it some yay.

RRR

Donovan With Unknown Bass-Player in the 60s

2009-06-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

Randi

Donovan Singing a Rare Tune to Make You Cry

2009-06-02T14:01:00.001-07:00

Randi

Disney's FIrst Black Princess

2009-06-01T04:55:00.000-07:00

Paulina

From the Bronx to the High Court

2009-05-26T11:37:00.000-07:00

“The life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience.” It is vitally important that a justice know “how the world works, and how ordinary people live,” the president said.

you're next ray ray

-p

2009-05-25T19:04:00.003-07:00

Lux and Ivy's Favorites

2009-05-25T01:39:00.000-07:00

11 VOLUMES FOR THE PRICE OF NONE

just chillin

2009-05-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

2009-05-10T00:01:00.001-07:00

Always Wear Sunscreen

2009-05-09T03:07:00.000-07:00

by Paulina Samborska

Dearest Graduate and bff, Randi Heylek, here are my tips for what they're worth:

Enjoy yourself

via Politico

2009-04-27T17:47:00.000-07:00

April 27, 2009
Categories: Protests

Five reps arrested in Darfur protest UPDATED
Five reps — including legendary civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) — were led away in handcuffs from the Sudanese Embassy during a protest over that regime's human rights record in Darfur.

The five were taken into custody after crossing a police line, according to reps from the Save Darfur Coalition, which told reporters to expect civil disobedience.

UPDATE: The five are being held on misdemeanor trespassing charges and are expected to be released in time for afternoon votes, a spokespeople for the members said.

Their statement:

Members of Congress — including Representatives Jim McGovern (D-Mass), John Lewis (D-Ga.), Donna Edwards (D-Md.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) — and Darfur activist leaders were today arrested for civil disobedience outside of the Sudanese Embassy while protesting the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Participants called on the international community to impose clear costs on the Sudanese government if it continues its use of starvation as a weapon of war. Additionally, advocates urged President Obama to be firm in responding to the impending humanitarian crisis, promoting international justice and working toward a viable long-term peace that includes Darfur and a reinvigorated Comprehensive Peace Agreement for the south.
It's not clear what they have been charged with or when they'll be released.

randi

2009-04-26T06:24:00.001-07:00

one of the best scenes... though james is a pussy
pp

2009-04-19T16:10:00.000-07:00

Why Isn't The Brain Green?

A few years ago, a Columbia psychology professor named David H. Krantz teamed up with Elke Weber — who holds a chair at Columbia’s business school as well as an appointment in the school’s psychology department — to assemble an interdisciplinary group of economists, psychologists and anthropologists from around the world who would examine decision-making related to environmental issues. Aided by a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation, CRED [Center for Research on Environmental Decisions] has the primary objective of studying how perceptions of risk and uncertainty shape our responses to climate change and other weather phenomena like hurricanes and droughts.

You might ask the decision scientists, as I eventually did, if they aren’t overcomplicating matters. Doesn’t a low-carbon world really just mean phasing out coal and other fossil fuels in favor of clean-energy technologies, domestic regulations and international treaties? None of them disagreed. Some smiled patiently. But all of them wondered if I had underestimated the countless group and individual decisions that must precede any widespread support for such technologies or policies. “Let’s start with the fact that climate change is anthropogenic,” Weber told me one morning in her Columbia office. “More or less, people have agreed on that. That means it’s caused by human behavior. That’s not to say that engineering solutions aren’t important. But if it’s caused by human behavior, then the solution probably also lies in changing human behavior.”

This is the type of research that I am fully in support of because individuals compose the mass, and in order to have any type of global change we must first examine human behavior and subjective reasoning to target the root of the problem.

Paulina

I Got Played

2009-04-18T02:48:00.000-07:00

and its my fault. I take the responisbility for putting myself on the chopping block, and knowing who I was dealing with. My question is.. what do I do now? Would it make a difference if I called over and over just to show that I am not okay with being ignored? If I don't call & don't answer the phone does that say I am okay with being treated this way? Do I let him ignore me forever, do NC even though I know he probably won't care, but I will probably feel bad. I have low self esteem; I admit it; I'm working on it. Partly because of my looks, sometimes I feel good about them sometimes I don't. When I don't that's when I let myself do stupid things. I'm trying to stop though, but its a day by day thing. Needless to say I am not dating or seeing anyone else.

But basically how do I save face when I do stupid things and sleep with someone who has had a history of dogging me out , and sleeping with me and dissapearing. I guess I was stupid to think it would be different this time...but I digress. Any suggestions?

ladies, ladies, ladies... it's always the same old song.

Museum of Media History - Epic 2014 & Epic 2015

2009-04-13T19:35:00.000-07:00

watch dis shit get lifted

NOW

Epic 2014 is the original flash online movie made by Robin Sloan for the Museum of Media History

Set in 2014 it charts the history of the Internet, the evolving mediascape and the way news and newspapers were affected by the growth in online news.

It coined the word "Googlezon" from a future merger of Google and Amazon to form the Google grid, and speaks of news wars with the Times becoming a print only paper for the elite culminating in EPIC Evolving Personalised Information Construct

As a flash animation, this film is extraordinary, not just for it's use of technology but for it's fantastic perception looking forward.

Epic 2015 is a new updated vision of the future set in 2015.

Randi

GET IN A CAR AND GO TO THE MASS MoCA

2009-04-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

While the Sol LeWitt retrospective is a 'must-see' too many wall drawings can make a little girl go crazy.

Simon Starling's The Nanjing Particles were pretty killer too since he connects his art to that whole labor movement thing that went down at the MoCA before it was the MoCA.

Then there was this exhibit

These Days: Elegies for Modern Times

Apr 4, 2009–Feb 28, 2010

Building 4, Second floor

Featuring: George Bolster, Chris Doyle, Micah Silver, Robert Taplin, Sam Taylor-Wood and Pawel Wojtasik

In 1967 Jackson Browne penned the lyric: "These days I seem to think about/ How all the changes came about my ways/ And I wonder if I'll see another highway." As the world shifts around us in ways that are profoundly disorienting, Browne's song resonates. Bringing together six artists whose work is infused with that lyric's sense of wonderment, and with the poetic and musical tradition of the elegy, These Days: Elegies for Modern Times responds to today's changing world with installations, photographs, painting, sculpture and video. The exhibition is at once an extended lamentation, but also full of a revelatory sense of possibility and hope. Opening Saturday, April 4, 2009 the exhibition features work by George Bolster, Chris Doyle, Micah Silver, Robert Taplin, Sam Taylor-Wood, and Pawel Wojtasik. Two of the artists will exhibit works from the past year while the other four have created new installations specifically for the exhibition including two room-size works: a 12' tall, 36' diameter video panorama and a full-size chapel-like environment.

and Robert Taplin stole that motherfuckin creepy ass show with his installation

Robert Taplin's Everything Real Is Imagined (After Dante) consists of nine sculptures, each referencing scenes from Dante's Inferno as modern allegories of political strife. Taplin's story begins as Dante's does with the uncertain sense of whether or not we are in a dream or reality. Thus My Soul Which Was Still In Flight (The Dark Wood) depicts Dante, as a modern-day everyman, rising from bed to start his journey. As Talpin's story unfolds, things become more complicated. The third canto of Dante's Inferno brings Dante and Virgil to the River Acheron in order to cross into the First Circle of Hell. In Across The Dark Waters (The River Acheron), Taplin takes this iconic scene and turns it into a metaphor for the refuge crisis, representing people trying to cross waters, unknowing, just like Dante, of what awaits them upon their arrival. Taplin's cycle ends with Dante mourning the fall of civilization -- in We Went In Without a Fight (Through The Gates of Dis), Dante stands witness to a city destroyed, mourning both life on earth and what may await down below.

happy easter paulina

2009-04-12T10:15:00.000-07:00

miss you love rr, heidi, and spen baby

2009-04-08T09:17:00.001-07:00

50 Cent's Bob Dylan covers album. Finaaaaaaallllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyy

R

Intifada.com

2009-04-01T18:28:00.000-07:00

Paulina Samborska

2009-03-28T11:17:00.000-07:00

Yuri Stone

2009-03-27T18:00:00.001-07:00

xoxo
R

This Constitutes Breaking News in Poland

2009-03-25T17:06:00.000-07:00

at least the kind you find on Yahoo! while checking your e-mail lolz
p

QTz

2009-03-25T07:45:00.000-07:00

Congress isn't feeling much heat from Obama's 'army'

2009-03-23T18:35:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's army of canvassers fanned out across the nation over the weekend to drum up support for his $3.55 trillion budget, but they had no noticeable impact on members of Congress, who on Monday said they were largely unaware of the effort.
"News to me," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, a House Budget Committee member, of the canvassing. Later, his staff said that his office had heard from about 100 voters.

The president's lieutenants tried to open a new front in the "Obama revolution," the grassroots mobilization that propelled the once little-known Illinois senator to the White House last year. David Plouffe, who ran Obama's campaign, now runs "Organizing for America" out of the Democratic National Committee. It uses the same Web-based tactics that won the presidency to mobilize public opinion behind Obama's initiatives in a bid to redefine "business as usual" in Washington.

via McClatchy

Randi

Future Boyfriends, Don't Be Alarmed

2009-03-22T08:06:00.000-07:00

My father doesn't always guard the house, shirtless.

Thanks Google Street View.

-Paulina

2009-03-21T05:40:00.000-07:00

"Is he on, like, Gossip Girl or something?"

-President Obama reacting to the boisterous applause mysteriously awarded to one questioner at a town hall in Los Angeles today (03/19/09)

Bad Paintings of Barack Obama

2009-03-16T20:42:00.000-07:00

MORE MORE MORE
http://www.badpaintingsofbarackobama.com/

randi

Brando Oscar Win

2009-03-16T20:23:00.000-07:00

MickeyLove01 (17 hours ago) 0 Reply
yeah she really looks like a native american...

fiafia1979 (18 hours ago) 0 Reply
That was awesome! The people who booed are probably racist and should be scalped! I believe there is a movie/television skit where Bob Hope is shooting Indians and they 'comically' fall on top of each other into a big pile. Making light the death of anyone who isn't 'white'.

SouthernOregonOrgani (22 hours ago) 0 Reply
BOOOH!!! U suck little feather! And What the fuck was Brando thinking? U can give me all the thumbs down in the world, i dont care, Take the Oscar u Twat!! Its a fucking Oscar, the most prestigious award in the film industry! Most film makers can only Dream of receiving an Oscar! What a pretentious ass hole.Would u turn down receiving the Nobel Peace prize just because u think a certain obscure race of people are being mistreated by others?

2009-03-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

via The Christian Science Monitor
The coming evangelical collapse
An anti-Christian chapter in Western history is about to begin. But out of the ruins, a new vitality and integrity will rise.
By Michael Spencer
from the March 10, 2009 edition

Oneida, Ky. - We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.
Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.
This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.
Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.
Why is this going to happen?

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.
The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.

What will be left?
•Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. Emphasis will shift from doctrine to relevance, motivation, and personal success – resulting in churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.

•Two of the beneficiaries will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue, with more efforts aimed at the "conversion" of Evangelicals to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.

•A small band will work hard to rescue the movement from its demise through theological renewal. This is an attractive, innovative, and tireless community with outstanding media, publishing, and leadership development. Nonetheless, I believe the coming evangelical collapse will not result in a second reformation, though it may result in benefits for many churches and the beginnings of new churches.

•The emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision.
•Aggressively evangelistic fundamentalist churches will begin to disappear.

•Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism. Can this community withstand heresy, relativism, and confusion? To do so, it must make a priority of biblical authority, responsible leadership, and a reemergence of orthodoxy.

•Evangelicalism needs a "rescue mission" from the world Christian community. It is time for missionaries to come to America from Asia and Africa. Will they come? Will they be able to bring to our culture a more vital form of Christianity?

•Expect a fragmented response to the culture war. Some Evangelicals will work to create their own countercultures, rather than try to change the culture at large. Some will continue to see conservatism and Christianity through one lens and will engage the culture war much as before – a status quo the media will be all too happy to perpetuate. A significant number, however, may give up political engagement for a discipleship of deeper impact.
Is all of this a bad thing?

Evangelicalism doesn't need a bailout. Much of it needs a funeral. But what about what remains?
Is it a good thing that denominations are going to become largely irrelevant? Only if the networks that replace them are able to marshal resources, training, and vision to the mission field and into the planting and equipping of churches.

Is it a good thing that many marginal believers will depart? Possibly, if churches begin and continue the work of renewing serious church membership. We must change the conversation from the maintenance of traditional churches to developing new and culturally appropriate ones.
The ascendency of Charismatic-Pentecostal-influenced worship around the world can be a major positive for the evangelical movement if reformation can reach those churches and if it is joined with the calling, training, and mentoring of leaders. If American churches come under more of the influence of the movement of the Holy Spirit in Africa and Asia, this will be a good thing.
Will the evangelicalizing of Catholic and Orthodox communions be a good development? One can hope for greater unity and appreciation, but the history of these developments seems to be much more about a renewed vigor to "evangelize" Protestantism in the name of unity.
Will the coming collapse get Evangelicals past the pragmatism and shallowness that has brought about the loss of substance and power? Probably not. The purveyors of the evangelical circus will be in fine form, selling their wares as the promised solution to every church's problems. I expect the landscape of megachurch vacuity to be around for a very long time.
Will it shake lose the prosperity Gospel from its parasitical place on the evangelical body of Christ? Evidence from similar periods is not encouraging. American Christians seldom seem to be able to separate their theology from an overall idea of personal affluence and success.
The loss of their political clout may impel many Evangelicals to reconsider the wisdom of trying to create a "godly society." That doesn't mean they'll focus solely on saving souls, but the increasing concern will be how to keep secularism out of church, not stop it altogether. The integrity of the church as a countercultural movement with a message of "empire subversion" will increasingly replace a message of cultural and political entitlement.

Despite all of these challenges, it is impossible not to be hopeful. As one commenter has already said, "Christianity loves a crumbling empire."

We can rejoice that in the ruins, new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement. This cannot help but be good for an evangelicalism that has made buildings, numbers, and paid staff its drugs for half a century.
We need new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being His people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture.

I'm not a prophet. My view of evangelicalism is not authoritative or infallible. I am certainly wrong in some of these predictions. But is there anyone who is observing evangelicalism in these times who does not sense that the future of our movement holds many dangers and much potential?

Ja! Ja!

2009-03-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

Five design proposals for Slussen, Stockholm- which is currently a "lock" of bridges, ramps, underpasses, and traffic (from cars, boats, and people) that connects the two parts of the city, Soderlam and Gamla stan. A re-evaluation of this 1930s Modernist mess through innovative design shows the Swedish government's willingness to ratify past urban planning blunders, while looking to the future.

The rest of the world is soon to follow.

Jean Nouvel's is the best.

Paulina

PUDDING

2009-03-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

IS OVER A YEAR OLD I CANT BELIEVE WE FORGOT OUR OWN BIRTHDAY.

from an old post, but this is funnier now that bamy's the prezzy.

Edwin Heaven

2009-03-11T22:42:00.000-07:00

Edwin Heaven writes like hell. The adman, inventor, screenwriter, and North Beach figure was a favorite of Herb Caen's. A Caen story about Heaven and Francis Ford Coppola exchanging bon mots over shrimp cakes and Chinese beer at House of Nanking hangs over a table by the door there. (Heaven once told Caen, "Marin County is that place where they shove all kinds of stuff up their nose, but give you dirty looks for putting sugar in your coffee.") A true renaissance man in the San Francisco tradition, Heaven's credits are diverse and many. His ad work was named "Best of the West" 17 times by the American Advertising Federation. Heaven's billboard, "Rite Aid, Wrong Place," helped keep the drugstore chain out of North Beach. Another outdoor ad raised eyebrows on Broadway when Heaven tried to save Little City in the late 1990s. His film short "The Organist" was a festival hit in 1996. During his rock period, Heaven created posters and produced festivals and concerts, working with bands such as The Tubes and The Nuns. He co-authored one of Steve Silver's Beach Blanket Babylon shows, and also wrote for Jonathan Winters and Rich Little. As if that weren't enough, it was Heaven who named the Giants' mascot Lou Seal. Heaven's latest invention is THROX - socks sold in threes - a solution to sock eating dryers, a menace far worse than kite eating trees! (Now, if he could only invent a car horn that makes a traffic light change faster he'd really have something.) "But what I'm most proud of," Heaven of North Beach tells Mister SF, "is being the father of beautiful movie actress Audrey Heaven."

Randi

Another #1

2009-03-11T22:30:00.000-07:00

I have not lain with beauty all my life
telling over to myself
its most rife charms
I have not lain with beauty all my life
and lied with it as well
telling over to myself
how beauty never dies
but lies apart
among the aborigines
of art
and far above the battlefields
of love

It is above all that
oh yes
It sits upon the choicest of
Church seats
up there where art directors meet
to choose the things for immortality

And they have lain with beauty
all their lives
And they have fed on honeydew
and drunk the wines of Paradise
so that they know exactly how
a thing of beauty is a joy
forever and forever
and how it never never
quite can fade
into a money-losing nothingness

Oh no I have not lain
on Beauty Rests like this
afraid to rise at night
for fear that I might somehow miss
some movement beauty might have made
Yet I have slept with beauty
in my own weird way
and I have made a hungry scene or two
with beauty in my bed
and so spilled out another poem or two
and so spilled out another poem or two
upon the Bosch-like world

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

R

Je Ne Sais Pas??

2009-03-08T16:24:00.000-07:00

paris is so beautiful. even the eiffel tower deserves the hype.

captured using the "fireworks feature" on kathryn's camera :P

cute

despite the wonder and fun, i felt like a straight up fool attempting to order crepes and barter with street merchants with my broke ass francais. that's why i would like to take this opportunity to remind my dear friends that learning a second, or in my case third, language will only fare you well.

bon noit!

i hate comics but love america

2009-03-05T19:03:00.000-08:00

fuck sarah palin still doh

randi

Thirsty Thursday Suggestion

2009-03-05T18:56:00.000-08:00

a bit behind, but yes of course I cried

RR

ALTERMODERN

2009-03-05T03:12:00.000-08:00

Paulina's Picks:

IN FO PIC TURES

1. Simon Starling

Simon Starling is fascinated by the means through which man-made objects come into being. Often taking examples of early modernist design as his starting point, Starling puts them through a process of transformation, relocation or manipulation, drawing out convoluted narratives about their fabrication and the network of relationships they embody. His projects are characterised by a poetic, yet futile, circularity and a large investment of labour.

Three White Desks 2008-09 takes as its starting point a desk designed by Francis Bacon for Australian writer, Patrick White, during a stint working as a furniture designer in the early 1930s. Returning without it to Australia in 1947, White commissioned a joiner in Sydney to recreate it from a photograph but was never satisfied with the result.

In a process akin to Chinese whispers, Starling commissioned three cabinet makers in three cities relevant to the story to build replicas of the desk, working with only a single image. A high resolution scan of a vintage black-and-white photograph of the original desk was first given to a Berlin-based cabinet maker, a city in which Bacon first came into contact with avant-garde design. On completion of the desk, it was photographed and the image sent to a cabinet maker in Sydney, the process repeated and an image returned to London where it was recreated a third time.

By using a story of nostalgia, longing and dispersal, Starling investigates the relationship between contemporary modes of image transmission and issues of technology, craft, translation and the assimilation of the avant-garde into the mainstream.

2.Walead Beshty

3. Marcus Coates

Marcus Coates asks what it is to be human by experimenting with 'being’ an animal. Through his interests in ornithology, zoology and anthropology, Coates has developed skills to bypass his own humanness in order to experience the world through the mind and body of an animal. He often adopts a shamanic role to access a nether world populated by birds and animals. By communicating with their spirits, he attempts to gain insight into difficult problems on behalf of the public.

In The Plover’s Wing 2008, Coates seeks to find solutions for an Israeli mayor who is concerned about the future of the local youth in the face of the continuing violence in the region. The mayor and his interpreter look on as the artist calls out incantations, asking for guidance from a series of animal spirits. By exploring what it is to ‘be’ one of these animals, the artist draws on a complex imaginary world to find empathy with his human subjects and their dilemmas. He translates the behaviour of a bird he sees - a plover - in much the same way as the interpreter decodes the conversation between the artist and the mayor. In so doing, Coates is ultimately seeking to reveal the role of the artist as a translatory force in society through his power to become someone or something else.

Happy Sunday

2009-03-01T20:47:00.000-08:00

Frank Rich for the New York Times:
If you’re baffled why the G.O.P. would thrust Jindal into prime time, the answer is desperation. Eager to update its image without changing its antediluvian (or antebellum) substance, the party is trying to lock down its white country-club blowhards. The only other nonwhite face on tap, alas, is the unguided missile Michael Steele, its new national chairman. Steele has of late been busy promising to revive his party with an “off-the-hook” hip-hop P.R. campaign, presumably with the perennially tan House leader John Boehner leading the posse.

Steele: GOP Needs 'Hip-Hop' Makeover via the Washington Times
Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele plans an “off the hook” public relations offensive to attract younger voters, especially blacks and Hispanics, by applying the party's principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”

The RNC's first black chairman will “surprise everyone” when updating the party's image using the Internet and advertisements on radio, on television and in print, he told The Washington Times.

Randi

2009-02-26T01:33:00.000-08:00

1. Kiełbasa myśliwska (keow-BAH-sah mish-LEEV-skah) Kiełbasa is the general term for sausage, and mysliwska means “hunter,” a reference to the idea that smoked and dried sausages such as this one (which is all pork, with a touch of juniper) are perfect travel companions for hunters because their lack of moisture keeps them from spoiling and they can be eaten at room temp.

2. Surowo-wędzona (soo-RO-voh ven-ZO-nah) Surowo means “fresh” or “raw,” and wędzona means “smoked.” The name is somewhat confusing, because technically it’s not a fresh sausage; it’s been cold-smoked, meaning smoked at a lower temperature, yielding a moister texture closer to raw meat but safe to eat as is. Still, most people will heat these through then eat them warm.

3. Krupniok (KRROP-nee-ahk) This Silesian term for blood sausage is interchangeable with kiszka, although locally, kiszka tends to have a higher barley-to-pork-blood ratio while krupniok is noticeably darker, with more blood than barley. Both are traditionally sliced and pan-fried.

4. Kiełbasa surowa (keow-BAH-sah soo-RO-voh) Unlike the surowo-wedzona, this sausage earns its surowa designation honestly and it is indeed raw. The traditional preparation is to boil it whole (the natural casings are edible) either alone or in a soup to finish off the cooking process just before eating.

5. Kabanosy drobiowe z Kury (kah-bah-NO-see dro-bee-YO-veh zee KOO-ree) Kabonasy is the general term for stick sausage snacks (think Slim Jims but better), drobiowe means “chicken” and z Kury means “from Kury,” which is a village in Poland. In a nutshell, this is a chicken stick sausage made according to a recipe from someone native to Kury.

6. Kabanosy (kah-bah-NO-see) Stick sausage snack made of pork, which is seasoned with salt, garlic and a touch of caraway then smoked and dried for a somewhat hard consistency.

7. Kabanosy pikantne (kah-bah-NO-see peh-KAHNT-nay) Stick sausage snack with a bit of extra crushed pepper to make it “spicy,” i.e., pikante

8. Parówki cielęce (pah-ROOV-key che-LEN-tsay) Parowki are the frankfurters, or hot dogs, of the Polish-sausage world: They’re comprised of finely pureed bits and pieces, they’re not smoked, and they should be boiled (without their plastic casings, of course) just before eating. Cielęce means “veal,” which is generally only seen in sausages of this form.

9. Kiełbasa weselna (keow-BAH-sah vuh-SELL-neh) Weselna means “wedding,” and some say this style of double-smoked pork sausage used to be the preferred choice to serve at weddings. These days, it’s simply a signifier of intense smokiness and a touch of garlic flavor.

10. Parówki wieprzowe (pah-ROOV-key vee-up-SHOW-veh) Wieprzowe means “pork,” so these are simply pork hot dogs, which should be boiled but typically aren’t eaten on buns.

11. Krakowska parzona (krah-KOVE-skah pah-ZHO-nah) Krakowsa is a reference to Krakow, the former capital of Poland (which really has nothing to do with the flavor) and parzona means that this sausage is primarily steam cooked then lightly smoked, making it less smoky and more hamlike, ideal for slicing and eating with bread and mustard as an open-faced sandwich.

12. Jałowcowa (jah-wuv-SO-vah) This smoked and dried pork sausage’s name refers to “juniper,” which is crushed and added to the pork mixture before it’s encased and is also tossed into the smoker during the smoking process, lending a subtle piney flavor.

13. Wiejska (vee-AY-skah) The closest translation of the name means “a rural one,” in other words, country-style. This smoked pork sausage packs more of a garlicky flavor than others.

taken from Time Out

"There are no two finer words in the English language than 'encased meats,' my friend."

-(Hot) Doug

1,2,3, our next republican president

2009-02-25T18:03:00.000-08:00

The campaign slogan will be Bobby Jindal, Duh!

Rhetoric of Social Movements

2009-02-25T14:32:00.000-08:00

POST 1967 conditions within Palestinian social movements led to the symbol of the Feday ('one who sacrifices himself'). Sacrificing himself in the battle against Zionism, he was portrayed with his head wrapped in the distinctive checked Palestinian kafiya, gripping a Kalishnokov. The image drew on memories of those who had manned the rebel groups from 1936 to 1939 and on idealized portraits of peasants as salt of the earth (from The Palestinian People, Zimmerlang & Midgal).

she my baby lil peasant salt of the earth punk wock pwinceth doesnt even know girlies weren't allowed to fight boo hoo :(

Randi

Too Tired To Come Home

2009-02-24T08:27:00.000-08:00

The Greatest Weight

2009-02-23T07:03:00.000-08:00

What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This Life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everthing unutterable small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence- even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, 'Do you desire this once more and inumberable times more?' would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?

[The Gay Science (Section 341) Friedrich Nietzsche]

If it's not a social movement then what is it? :( :(

2009-02-12T19:26:00.000-08:00

William Kornhauser on the Politics of Mass Society

Social atomization engenders strong feelings of alienation and anxiety, and therefore the disposition to engage in extreme behavior to escape from these tensions. In a mass society there is heightened readiness to form hyper-attachement to symbols and leaders. Such loyalty can be expected only from the completely isolated human being who, without any other socialites...derives his sense of having a place in the world only from his belonging to a movement.

a. the focus of attention is remote from personal experience and daily life

b. the mode of response to remote objects is direct

c. mass behavior also tends to be highly unstable, readily shifting its focus of attention and intensity of response

Randi

Happy Birthday Charlie

2009-02-12T00:18:00.000-08:00

Today we celebrate 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin. If I was in the States, I might have read something about it in the NYTs and went on with my day, but here in the UK it is a BIG DEAL.

Darwin 200 has compiled a list of over 300 activities taking place throughout the year in the UK, and though that seems a bit excessive, I plan on visiting the Natural History Museum for Darwin- Big Idea Big Exhibition. But like, the biggest news I think, is that "The Vatican has admitted that Charles Darwin was on the right track when he claimed that Man descended from apes." Thank God (literally).

Paulina

BEST PSA EVER

2009-02-10T18:37:00.000-08:00

Randi

2009-02-10T14:37:00.000-08:00

Nowa Ksiazka (New Book)

Zbigniew "Zbig" Rybczynski

I could only find this on Asian video sites...

Would you call this rhizomatic? Predating the internet and obviously new media, Nowa Ksiazka still makes the viewer a participant by presenting nine episodes of narrative simultaneously and letting us choose which to focus on and create our own rendering of the story. Independently each narrative moves in a linear manner, but when together the path is multicursal. You can watch a minute of the first screen, two of the fifth, and seven of the fourth. You can watch the seventh for nine minutes, and switch to the eighth, second, eighth. etc. etc. etc.

Though the possibilities are limited, we can go back to this thousands of times and each occasion would be unique. There is a high sense of tmetic anxiety- did I miss something? should I have watched screen three at 6 minutes 15? which character am I to follow? In the end, it's really all subjective and though there is a climax and a final scene of closure, the route that we take is the interesting part.

I just put this up cuz dude's Polish.

Paulina

In Opposition to the Closing of the Rose Art Museum

2009-02-03T04:36:00.000-08:00

Target: The Brandeis University Board of Trustees and Administration
Sponsored by: Concerned Alumni of Brandeis University

The Brandeis University Board of Trustees in a closed meeting and without any community input decided to sell off the University's unique collection of modern art in order to meet a budget shortfall. But there are other ways to do this. The Rose Art Museum must be preserved.
We find unacceptable both the decision to close the Rose Art Museum and the manner in which the process was conducted. While we understand the dire circumstances the University is facing during this economic crisis, we deplore this utter lack of transparency and the auctioning off of Brandeis' cultural heritage. If the purpose of this sale is to position the University to exit the crisis stronger, we fear that the loss of prestige and morale it entails will have the opposite effect. Frequent, informative communication builds constituent confidence, and there has been too little of both since the economic downturn began. Giving up the largest collection of modern art in New England belies the fact that the Brandeis community does indeed value the arts. It betrays the University's very mission and our collective responsibility to preserve this treasure.As alumni, we cannot in good conscience support an institution that does not trust its constituents enough to keep them informed of such painful undertakings. An e-mail, no matter how regretful in tone, sent after the decision has already been made does little to alleviate our confusion, hurt, and resentment. As your actions in regards to the Rose demonstrate, your concern for the short-term trumps the long. Therefore, the undersigned pledge to withhold our support of Brandeis University until our concerns are addressed and the decision to shut the Rose Art Museum is reversed.

:( :( :(

To be honest, I do not know how much can come out of a petition of this nature, but I do believe it is important to voice your support as a symbol of encouragement.

Paulina

CC: MELISSA AQUINO

2009-02-02T16:58:00.000-08:00

SPWING BWEAK 2009

America Still Loves You

2009-02-01T15:20:00.000-08:00

I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment. I'm 23 years old and despite the successes I've had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again.

How much weed do you think Michael Phelps needs to get high?

We're all really hurting

2009-01-29T18:18:00.000-08:00

They shared their sad stories the other night at an informal gathering of Dating a Banker Anonymous, a support group founded in November to help women cope with the inevitable relationship fallout from, say, the collapse of Lehman Brothers or the Dow’s shedding 777 points in a single day, as it did on Sept. 29.

In addition to meeting once or twice weekly for brunch or drinks at a bar or restaurant, the group has a blog, billed as “free from the scrutiny of feminists,” that invites women to join “if your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life.”

via The New York Times

Randi

Upon Entering My Last Semester of College

2009-01-27T20:25:00.000-08:00

looks like we made it

Randi

Upon Thinking About Ex Boyfriends

2009-01-27T20:16:00.000-08:00

Thanks J B-Man

Randi

Because Matt Taibbi Is Almost Always Right

2009-01-26T20:35:00.000-08:00

Blago's Revenge by Matt Taibbi via RollingStone.com

image via Chicagoist

It was hard not to see the evil humor in Blagojevich's move. Burris is a hilariously unsuitable candidate even by the extremely low standards of humanity observed in today's Senate: Not only had he been chosen for office by the most shameless American political crook since Edwin Edwards, he is an over-the-top eccentric who refers to himself in the third person ("If there hadn't been a Roland Burris, there would not have been a Barack Obama") and who has already built for himself a mausoleum inscribed with the words TRAIL BLAZER.

(no joke)

Burris, moreover, pulled an Alexander Haig after his appointment, showing up in Washington on January 6th and brashly claiming office ("I am the junior senator according to every lawbook in the nation") even as Reid and Durbin barred him from entering the Senate chambers.

Americans were thus treated to the spectacle of two white Democrats physically refusing to open the Senate doors for what would have been the body's only black senator. To make matters worse, the Democratic leadership hung its entire case for barring Burris from office on a technicality: His appointment, they insisted, had not been certified by the Illinois secretary of state. When the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the Burris appointment was, in fact, legal, Reid and Durbin were left with a face full of omelet just weeks before Obama's inauguration.

But instead of sticking to their position that the appointment was "tainted," the Reid-Durbin axis, in typical Democratic Party fashion, blinked. On January 12th, Reid and Durbin announced that Burris was officially the senator-designate from Illinois and would be "accorded all the rights and privileges of a senator-elect." In the space of just six days, Reid and Durbin managed to fracture a party that had been united in both its excitement over Obama's inauguration and its disgust toward Blagojevich. In the process, they invited accusations of racism while handing a whopping political victory to a man who is just a few months away from spending the rest of his life playing basketball in the yard at Joliet. And they confirmed that in a fierce political fight, they can be counted on to run in five different directions at the first sign of trouble. All before Barack Obama had spent so much as a day in office.

To allow a craven scum eater like Rod Blagojevich to worm his way into the national political arena at precisely the moment when Barack Obama was supposed to begin restoring the great-power credibility America lost during the Bush years would be an almost unforgivable mistake. But that's exactly what happened. Because Obama or no Obama, the Democrats are still the Democrats, and there still isn't any political fight, it would seem, that they can't find a way to lose.

Randi

Chicago, I Love You

2009-01-26T20:29:00.000-08:00

Out of about 200 years of newspaper archives exhibited at the Newseum in Washington D.C. this the only one I wanted to remember.

Randi

The New Tim Gunn?

2009-01-25T14:42:00.000-08:00

Saatchi's Best of British

I think everyone will be on this shit come September.

Paulina

1/20/09

2009-01-23T11:16:00.000-08:00

Randi

2009-01-22T20:52:00.000-08:00

BOYS ARE ALL I THINK ABOUT

Randi

while in DC

2009-01-18T23:11:00.001-08:00

nothin' bigger/nothin to say (really)

see ya'll soon

R

TONIGHT in CHICAGO

2009-01-16T04:07:00.000-08:00

plina

ps. london ROOLZ

2 drunk 2 update

2009-01-07T18:13:00.000-08:00

I am off to Boston this weekend, then to NYC, and finally to D.C.

Hope to see everyone along the way. Bye Paulina and Kat. Bye fwends.

Randi