Palin jokes about Biden's age as McCain says Venezuela is in the Middle East

There's a one in four chance that John McCain, if elected, wouldn't live long enough to fill out a second term, leaving Sarah Palin as president. Yet, Palin bizarrely suggests that it's McCain's junior, Joe Biden, who might be too old for the job. Still, I'd worry more about McCain, who today emphasized the importance of "ensuring that America is secure, and not dependent on oil from people like Hugo Chavez or other parts of the Middle East which is, we know, could be destabilized under certain sets of circumstances."

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Video fact-check on McCain's war positions

A speedy war, "massive" evidence of WMD in Iraq, greeted as liberators: The historical record is not being so kind to John McCain.

Military Muse: Does the "Solider's Face" project mimic Brancusi?

Artworks from Suzane Opton's "Soldier's Face" billboard project are now on view at LA's Stephen Cohen Gallery. The series was scheduled to appear in the Twin Cities to coincide with the Republican National Convention, but the local billboard company pulled the plug, fearing viewers might think the boards show dead soldiers (my colleague Chris Steller reports that one version was ultimately produced here). The LA Times' Christopher Knight offers an (ahem) dead-on explanation of the vulnerable, horizontal heads Opton features: They derive from Brancusi's emblematic "Sleeping Muse" sculptures. Beautifully, Knight writes that Opton's "vulnerable images depict the always shocking youth of soldiers who, like the Greek Titan who stole fire from the gods in Brancusi's title, have witnessed devastating power up close. They seem almost shell-shocked, caught between the fragile beauty of youth and the desperate gravity of adulthood."

From Centerpoints, the Walker blog feature I'm guest-writing for a few more weeks.

UPDATED: Chelsea museum pulls plug on terror show, curator resigns in protest

Paddy Johnson at the Brooklyn art blog Art Fag City reports that the Chelsea Art Museum has cancelled its November opening of The Aesthetics of Terror and its chief curator has resigned in protest. Museum president Dorothea Keeser reportedly felt the exhibition -- which was to include artists like Jenny Holzer, Harun Farocki, Martha Rosler and the Chapman brothers -- “glorified terrorism and showed disrespect for its victims," according to Josh Azzarella, one of the show's artists. CAM chief curator Manon Slome has, according to Johnson, left over the cancellation.

The museum has deleted mention of the exhibition, which was to run Nov. 21 though Jan. 31, but a cached version (with the title The Dialectics of Terror) is still available. I posted it in full at Off-Center.

Update: The Chelsea Museum of Art has released a statement, which contradicts the above. In part, the press release [pdf] reads: "Upon resigning, [chief curator Manon Slome] unilaterally decided to cancel the exhibition The Dialectics of Terror (formerly The Aesthetics of Terror) and informed all the participating artists without prior discussion with Dorothea Keeser, Chelsea Art Museum’s Founder and President, or any Museum personnel."

Reached by email on Friday, Keeser said that the exhibition will go on, but likely not at her museum. “As the show is ready to be installed and the catalogue is ready, it surely will be shown somewhere,”she said. “For the time being, we are too hurt to show it here after what happened and was said about us.”

Pictured:
Josh Azzarella. Untitled #23 (''Lynndied''), 2006
Cristi Pogacean. The Abduction from the Seraglio, 2006

Leaning...

Lowbrow Thomas Struth? Tourists at Pisa doing their thing.

New American currency

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Video: Hüsker Dü does daytime TV (1986)

Max forwards this amazing(ly odd) appearance by Hüsker Dü on a Twin Cities afternoon show -- KSTP's Good Company with Steve Edelman and Sharon Anderson, according to commenter Laurel Krahn (thanks!) -- in 1986. Like good Minnesotans, the women in the audience politely clap and smile (although I noted a few shifting eyes) after their scorching performance.

Letterman on McCain

David Letterman absolutely nails John McCain for the ruse of suspending his campaign to deal with a "cratering" economy. McCain canceled his Letterman appearance, just as he's aiming to cancel Friday's debate with Barack Obama. But is he jetting off to D.C.? Not quite: Letterman gets a live feed as McCain gets made up for his Katie Couric interview and asks: "Hey John, you need a ride to the airport?!" (The entire 9:11 clip is definitely worth watching.)


Andy Birkey has more.

A historic first: Army Combat Team assigned to domestic "civil unrest"

Starting in October, the US Army will station active-duty troops inside the US for the first time, Democracy Now reports. Here's what the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team may be up to:

The Army Times reports this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to Northern Command. The paper says the Army unit may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. The soldiers are learning to use so-called nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals and crowds.

Clarification: Never before has an active unit has been given “a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities,” the paper reports.

More on this from MnIndy.

GOP platform opposes bailouts

Taegan Goddard points out a salient nugget from the GOP's official platform, inked in sunny St. Paul just weeks ago. It states:

"We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself."

McCain's $5k American Idol makeover

Ha. John McCain's "celebrity" epithet against Obama never had much credibility, but this entirely sinks it:

According to FEC reports, he paid more than $5,500 to American Idol makeup artist Tifanie White for services rendered.

Intervention

By William Lamson. Via PlaceboKatz.

Free Wilco/Fleet Foxes cover of Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" in exchange for your promise to vote

Nice.

Ventian Gondoliers for Obama

I appreciate the sentiment, but... To the tune of "Volare"? Shudder.

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McCain on arts funding

I suppose this should come as no surprise:

"I have opposed federal funding for the National Endowment for the Arts because I believe it is not proper to use tax dollars for what many Americans feel are the obscene and inappropriate projects this organization has supported. I support providing federal block grants to the states for arts education and artistic endeavors pursued by state and local authorities, while assuring that federal tax dollars are not spent on obscene or offensive material."

—John McCain, 1999

Video: Natasha's Story

Rick Smolan tells a wonderful story about how, as a TIME photographer in the '70s, he met Insuk, an Amerasian girl (she has a Korean mother and an American GI father who didn't stay with the family), and helped arrange her adoption with an American family in Atlanta. From TED2007, it's really worth watching the whole thing: now named Natasha, she's married with children of her own -- and was in the audience as Smolan told of meeting her as a young girl in Korea.

Regular (non-élite, unblinking) gal Palin

Sarah the Hunter by Zina Saunders

The New Yorker's George Saunders on Sarah Palin:

...Where was I? Ah, yes: I hate Élites. Which is why, whenever I am having brain surgery, or eye surgery, which is sometimes necessary due to all my non-blinking, I always hire some random Regular guy, with shaking hands if possible, who is also a drunk, scared of the sight of blood, and harbors a secret dislike for me.

[...]

In summary: Because my candidate, unlike your winking/blinking Vice-Presidential candidate, who, though, yes, he did run as the running mate when the one asking him to run did ask him to run, which that I admire, one thing he did not do, with his bare hands or otherwise, is, did he ever kill a moose? No, but ours did. And I would. Please bring a moose to me, over by me, and down that moose will go, and, if I had a kid, I would take a picture of me showing my kid that dead moose, going, like, Uh, sweetie, no, he is not resting, he is dead, due to I shot him, and now I am going to eat him, and so are you, oh yes you are, which is responsible, as God put this moose here for us to shoot and eat and take a photo of, although I did not, at that time, know why God did, but in years to come, God’s will was revealed, which is: Hey, that is a cool photo for hunters about to vote to see, plus what an honor for that moose, to be on the Internet.

How does the moose feel about it? Who knows? Probably not great. But do you know what the difference is between a dead moose with lipstick on and a dead moose without lipstick?

Lipstick.

Think about it.

Moose are, truth be told, Élites. They are big and fast and sort of rule the forest. Sarah took that one down a notch. Who’s Élite now, Bullwinkle?

Not Sarah.

She’s just Regular as heck.

Thanks, Taylor.

Obama ad: On McCain's "Deception"

Youch. Finally an Obama ad with some bite.

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Church of England to Darwin: Uh, sorry about that.

This is actually kind of refreshing:

...Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still. We try to practice the old virtues of 'faith seeking understanding' and hope that makes some amends. But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests. Good religion needs to work constructively with good science – and I dare to suggest that the opposite may be true as well.

Comic presidential candidates

With the presidential campaign turning downright comic, TMZ's series of presidential lookalikes has one standout category: Cartoon characters who look like the candidates. Click to see Sarah Palin as the spitting image of Peggy Hill, Barack Obama as Panthro of the Thundercats, and John McCain as an array of cartoon geezers, from Elmer Fudd to Grandpa Simpson, and others.