Buying and the Bastardization of Christmas

"This year's Christmas 'defenders' are not just tolerating commercialization - they're insisting on it," writes Adam Cohen in today's New York Times. Of those (mainly Bill O'Reilly and others on Fox) who claim there's a war on Christmas, he feels there's "something perverse, when Christians are being jailed for discussing the Bible in Saudi Arabia and slaughtered in Sudan, about spending so much energy on stores that sell 'holiday trees.'" But these activists aren't just bastardizing the message of Christ, they're rewriting the history of the holiday: finding no mention of December 25 in the bible, Puritans thought Christmas was un-Christian, and by the start of the Civil War, only 18 states recognized it as a holiday. Read his fascinating American history of the holiday.

[Image via Norwegianity.]

Subliminal messages

Amended to include quotes by George Bush Sr and Benjamin Franklin, a series of Baskin Robbins billboards have been repurposed to comment on the state of freedom these days. More at Wooster Collective.

Soundtrack to the DL Lifestyle?

A brilliant mashup pairs Queen and 50 Cent: Q-Unit. Even if you're not into the music, the photoshopped image of 50 Cent with a Freddie Mercury moustache is worth the click.

(Via Agenda Inc.)

People-powered media

A new web community and magazine run by Canada's National Film Board aims to integrate "written, audio and visual media and provides a space where filmmakers and citizens can share knowledge, be entertained and most importantly debate social issues." From Treehugger:

Currently, they are featuring a project called, Diversidad, a film (still in production) following 15 young activists calling themselves The Deconstructing Dinner Caravan left Vancouver on their bikes, headed for Cancun, Mexico and The World Trade Organization's 5th Ministerial Meeting.

Along the way, they learned about sustainability, food security and the plight of farmers whose way of life is threatened in a global agricultural economy overseen by the WTO. While the future of food production is in question, the film celebrates grassroots activism and the courage of individuals who are working for positive change.

Go to CitizenShift.

Fat

Via Wooster Collective, another good McDonald's billboard alteration.

Amerikkkan Art?

The lineup for the 2006 Whitney Biennial, Day for Night was announced yesterday, and already rightwingers are having conniptions. Curated by the Walker's chief curator Philippe Vergne and the Whitney's Chrissie Iles, the exhibition generated this response from the weblog at The New Criterion:

The Whitney Museum of Amerikkkan Art has unveiled its lineup for its 2006 biennial exhibition. And if you thought "political art" was oh-so-thirteen years ago, guess again. Politics as usual is back at the Whitney. And by politics, of course we mean the same left wing politics defined in such a way as to produce the maximum amount of smugness in the "creative community." Think you'd ever see something like the (actually creative) right wing guerilla theatre of say, the editors of The Dartmouth Review in the 1980s? Think again...

But let's not kid ourselves--when the official art world gets involved in politics, official political art, or 'subversion,' or whatever, is what you get.

The biennial is noteworthy for a few reasons, chiefly because it's the first curated by two foreign-born curators: Iles is British, Vergne is French. Also it's the first titled biennial. The subhead Day for Night is derived from Francois Truffaut’s La Nuit américaine, a 1973 film that featured nighttime scenes shot during the day using special filters (it's also the title of a Peter Doig painting, above, featured in the show). This false light seems to be the guiding one for the Bushes, Berlusconis, Putins, and maybe even Saddams out there. Iles says the show “explores the artifice of American culture in what could be described as a pre-Enlightenment moment, in which culture is preoccupied with the irrational, the religious, the dark, the erotic, and the violent, filtered through a sense of flawed beauty. This reflective, restless mood is not unique to the United States; its presence across both America and Europe suggests a shift in the accepted values that have formed the basis of 20th-century Western culture."

Earlier: An interview with Philippe Vergne

(Via Sivacracy, blog of copyright wunderkind and biennial catalogue contributor Siva Vaidhyanathan.)

High(tech) Five

The prosthetic Cyberhand aims to be the world's first to provide senses for its user and to be "controlled using the efferent neural signals coming from the central nervous system." That means it'll be hardwired into the nervous system so the brain can prompt use of the limb. As Physorg.com reports, it includes six motors for movement, an opposable thumb, and "sensors for tension, force, joint angle, end stroke and contact." Right now, Cyberhand is just a prototype but clinical validation will begin in '06.

Face plant

Back in February 2003, I linked to a story about a girl getting the first ever face transplant. Now the BBC reports of another first face transplant (maybe the first one didn't, er, stick?). A French woman who lost her nose, lips, and chin in a dog attack will get the skin, fat, and blood vessels from a recently deceased donor grafted to her lower face. Medical risks aside, it presents new ethical conundrums. Iain Hutchison of Saving Faces - the Facial Surgery Research Foundation, says, "The transplant would have to come from a beating heart donor. So, say your sister was in intensive care, you would have to agree to allow their face to be removed before the ventilator was switched off. And there is the possibility that the donor would then carry on breathing."

Thanks for the links

And welcome readers from Digg (12/4), Kottke.org, Robot Wisdom, Modern Art Notes, things magazine, and A Welsh View.

Guerrilla Guernica

John T. Unger proposes a simple open-source street art project, American Guernica. He urges people across the country to put up billboard-sized reproductions of Picasso's famous interpretation of the decimation of an ancient Basque city, sans text or other identifying information. "[I]f the painting is all that's seen, it forces the viewer to make an interpretation instead of being told what to think. Being told what to think is exactly what got Americans in trouble in the first place, no?"

It's a great idea, albeit expensive. Since he made his initial post on it in October, I wonder if anyone has installed guerilla pieces anywhere...

(Via Collision Detection via reBlog.)

Headlines

You get better news this way: "As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq," reports The Los Angeles Times.

None too soon: Two years and none months into it and 2110 dead military personnel later, the White House announces its "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" this morning. Just a few days ago, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, Col Lawrence Wilkerson, called the White House's post-invasion planning "as inept and incompetent as perhaps any planning anyone has ever done."

UK abets CIA terror flights? The Times Online reports on "potentially devastating allegations" that the British government participated in the US' practice of flying suspected terrorists to "black site" prisons in countries where torture is not prohibited. According to the human rights group Liberty, which threatens legal action if investigations into the practice aren't begun in earnest, "[f]light records show that at least 210 private jets carrying detainees apparently leased by shell companies attached to the CIA have stopped over in the UK since September 2001." The EU is already seeking answers from the Bush administration about the alleged use of such sites in eastern Europe.

Changing the Subject: With a bungled war, a GOP that's fast losing favor, and corruption throughout the party, you might think that the highest ranking House Republican would have something better to focus on than to work at renaming the Capitol "Holiday Tree" the "Capitol Christmas Tree." All these war-on-Christmas zealots seem to forget that the conifer used in celebrations of Christ's birth was actually nicked (pun intended) from pagan tradition.

"Censorship" in Poland

From NewsDesigner.com:

Poland's two largest newspapers, Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita, joined an Amnesty International protest against repression in neighboring Belarus on Wednesday and blacked out much of their front pages. An Amnesty ad on the bottom read "This is what freedom of speech looks like in Belarus." The uncensored front pages ran on page 3 [...] with news and commentary on humans rights abuses in Belarus.

(Via Norwegianity.)

CPR for dummies.

The American Heart Association has radically modified its CPR instructions, reports USA TODAY:

Call for help. Push the chest. Don't stop.

Two rescue breaths can be given after every 30 compressions, but mouth-to-mouth is optional.

"Some CPR is better than no CPR," says Robert O'Connor of Christiana Care Health System in Newark, another guideline author. Until emergency medical responders arrive, chest compressions alone can often be just as effective in saving a life, he says.

Philly Street Art

Via Wooster Collective

Spoofing officialdom.

A spoof sign, from the book Signs of Life by Dave Askwith and Alex Normanton. Askwith installed official looking signs in the UK, some of which stayed up for weeks at a time. More from the BBC and The Sun.

Eye Level

As I wrote at Off Center the Smithsonian Museum of American Art has started a blog, with Grammar.police's Kriston Capps at the helm. The more the merrier!

The Right, so wrong.

A woman's son is killed serving the US in Iraq, and this is what the pro-war right has to say about it. This is Jay D. Dyson's A Crawford Thanksgiving. As Peek reports, a sign bearing this image was held by a 12-year old at a pro-Bush rally outside the family ranch where Cindy Sheehan is again protesting.

Welcome mat

When the prez arrives in Denver for his visit with Republican Marilyn Musgrave tomorrow, this is what'll welcome him. Designed by Denver native Adam Mordecai, the smart billboard is the winner of Progress Now Action's Bush-Musgrave Billboard Contest. Peek has more.

Virtual air guitar

The "No Stairway" rule oughta still apply: students at the Helsinki University of Technology have created a way for air-guitar virtuosos to make music without taking a lesson:

Using a computer to monitor the hand movements of a "player", the system adds riffs and licks to match frantic mid-air finger work. By responding instantly to a wide variety of gestures it promises to turn even the least musically gifted air guitarist to a virtual fret board virtuoso.

More from New Scientist.

Advice from Charles Beard

My coworker Adrienne forwards yesterday's edition of the Writer's Almanac (listen here; scroll down to November 27). Of particular interest is this historical fact:

It's the birthday of the historian Charles Beard, born near Knightstown, Indiana (1874). He was one of the most controversial historians of his day, in part because he refused to accept the myths passed down about the nobility of the founding fathers. In one of his first important books, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, (1913) he uncovered the records of personal holdings of government securities by the framers of the constitution, and he found that they all got rich when the constitution was adopted.

His most ambitious book was The Rise of American Civilization (1927).

Charles Beard said, "One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."

[Image: Beard on the cover of LIFE in January of 1944.]