Propaganda III

Cam BsAs

San Francisco's Start Soma Gallery is the launchpoint for Start Propaganda, a traveling exhibition of political art by some 300 international artists. Sometimes outrageous (beware the poster showing the severed head of a suicide bomber), occasionally poetic, it's a rather wonderful trip through the diverse world of free speech. Once the multi-city tour ends, the posters will be donated to the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles. See the assembled artworks here.

Via Visual Resistance.

Pseudo Manitou

Art Spiegelman

Model T beats Hummer in hill climb

A Model T speedster from 1921 beat a 2003 Hummer H2 in a hill-climb smackdown in Indiana recently. The old Ford, modified to have a 100hp engine, topped the 475-foot hill faster than the 316hp Hummer. Why? The heavy-ass Hummer weighs twice as much per unit of power, reports Forbes.

And Consumerist writes that Honda has developed a non-hybrid Accord that gets over 62 miles per gallon. The cars, which use a new generation of diesel engines, should be available for purchase in the US by 2010.

Headline: "Guess Who Didn't Go to Iraq"

This image and headline ran on the front page of today's edition of The Times of India. Newseum, which catalogues daily covers from 580 international sources, confirms it's not Photoshopped. Here's the full-page view.

IronyWatch: Solar Parking Structure

There is a certain irony to a city trumpeting it's built America's first LEED-certified, solar-powered parking facility for 882 cars, and James Howard Kunstler is just the guy to point it out. Of Santa Monica's "sustainable" parking garage, he writes:

Apparently nobody informed these idiots that happy motoring is not a sustainable activity, and neither is the parking that necessarily attends it. This is apart from the sheer appalling monumental ugliness of the building. The official PR handout is a prime example of how America is blowing green smoke up its own ass.

The release says the solar panels will pay for themselves in 17 years. JHK's reply: "Ground control to Santa Monica: in 17 years the automobile age will be over."

They're back...

Over at the Walker we produced a new batch of our "Think about honking if you [heart] conceptual art" bumperstickers. Perfect for your beater pickup truck or bicycle. And we're giving a few away to commenters. Go here to see how you can get one.

Harptallica

Metallica's "Fade to Black," "The Unforgiven," "Master of Puppets," "...And Justice for All"... all performed on two harps.

The Making of Hirst's Skull

Greg Allen finds a surprisingly under-visited Flickr set showing the making of Damien Hirst's headline-grabbing, diamond-encrusted skull. The piece, For the Love of God (2007), is expected to sell for around $100 million -- but, so far, hasn't. For more images, see Supertouch.

Monbiot: Ethical Consumption is a new status symbol

George Monbiot, excerpted:

Last week the Telegraph told its readers not to abandon the fight to save the planet. "There is still hope, and the middle classes, with their composters and eco-gadgets, will be leading the way." It made some helpful suggestions, such as a "hydrogen-powered model racing car", which, for £74.99, comes with a solar panel, an electrolyser and a fuel cell. God knows what rare metals and energy-intensive processes were used to manufacture it. In the name of environmental consciousness, we have simply created new opportunities for surplus capital.

Ethical shopping is in danger of becoming another signifier of social status. I have met people who have bought solar panels and wind turbines before they have insulated their lofts, partly because they love gadgets but partly, I suspect, because everyone can then see how conscientious and how rich they are. We are often told that buying such products encourages us to think more widely about environmental challenges, but it is just as likely to be depoliticising. Green consumerism is another form of atomisation - a substitute for collective action. No political challenge can be met by shopping.

The middle classes rebrand their lives, congratulate themselves on going green, and carry on buying and flying as much as before. It is easy to picture a situation in which the whole world religiously buys green products and its carbon emissions continue to soar.

Bush, decoded.

In Charleston, South Carolina, today, George W. Bush gave a speech on the "War on Terror." This guy highlighted the important bits: only the mentions of Iraq, al-Qaeda, 9/11, and Osama bin Laden. Starting to see a pattern, are we?

Cyclist tasered for riding bike at MSP airport

The Minneapolis-St. Paul airport is accessible by train, which allow bikes, and from the Bloomington side via a bike route. But the main entry was built without bike lanes. Interesting how car-centric design is somehow seen as the fault of the cyclist (who may have acted like a jerk, as police contend):

New bicycle racks have been ordered for Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, but here's the catch:

It's illegal to ride your bike to or from the Lindbergh terminal.

Stephan Orsak, a professional violinist from Mahtomedi, found that out last September. The cyclist's confrontation with two airport police officers culminated with a Taser blast and propelled him into a jury trial that ended last week.

Orsak, 50, sees his arrest as an attack on his civil liberties.

Orsak faced six misdemeanor charges ranging from obstructing legal process to failing to obey a traffic control signal. The traffic signal count was dropped, and on Friday a jury acquitted him of all but one count of failing to obey a lawful order from an officer, according to court records.

[...]

Orsak had returned home to the Twin Cities from California, unfolded his 21-pound bicycle and was pedaling along an airport road when two officers told him to stop.

The criminal complaint describes Orsak as using foul language and says he ignored police instructions before he was zapped with the Taser. Orsak says the behavior that got him into trouble was asking questions of officers about the airport's rules about bikes... Allowing bikes on the terminal's roads would be unsafe because of traffic merging from both sides and drivers looking up to read signs, Hogan said. And the main road dumps traffic out onto a stretch of Hwy. 5 that's a freeway.

[...]

Hogan says the airport doesn't really have any plans to change its bike access. The airport is out of room, he said, and "we have not had demand" for bicycle facilities. He noted that the airport used to have bike racks years ago but took them out because of lack of use.

After airport security chopped up a bicycle that was left chained inside a terminal last year, the airport will install new bike racks next month. The one at the Lindbergh terminal will be placed at the transit center, where the light-rail entrance and bus stops are. Hogan encouraged bike riders to bike to the most convenient stop on the light-rail line and take the train the rest of the way.

The Humphrey terminal is accessible by city streets via Bloomington, so it can be reached on bike, and when the light-rail station at Humphrey reopens in September, bicyclists could ride from there to the Lindbergh terminal. Rail service between the two terminals is free.

Bicycling advocates would like to see a better connection.

"There are very few airports that are not bicycle-friendly, and this is one of them," says Steve Clark, who works for Transit for Livable Communities. "There's always a way" to give bikes access, he said -- a restriping of roadways, for example, to make inside lanes narrower and the curb lane wider.

In Denver, where the airport is 23 miles from downtown, bike lanes run along a freeway linking the city to the terminal, said Chuck Cannon, an airport spokesman...

YouTube back up in Thailand

Shut down since April 3, YouTube in Thailand is back up and running, according to Myo Kyaw Htun. Government censors blocked access after videos likening the revered Thai king to a monkey appeared, a crime under Thai law. Boingboing writes that "part of the reason for the 'unblocking' is that YouTube offered to help the government block access to specific video clips considered offensive to the nation's monarch, Bhumibol Adulyadej. This way, the logic goes, Thailand's internet censors would not be compelled to block the entire YouTube domain."

Bill Moyers interviews The Yes Men.

More on The Yes Men.

Gettywood

The images Bill Gates' Corbis doesn't own, oil-and-art magnate Getty probably does. This image posted by Joel Holmberg shows a possible future...

Poem for Kimiko Nezu

Thanks to Mark Gregory who wrote in to remind me about Kimiko Nezu, a Japanese school teacher who has been repeatedly punished through transfers and pay cuts for refusing to carry out the Tokyo School Board's 2003 edict that everyone must stand while the anthem "Kimagayo" is played. A pacifist, Nezu says she'll never show such respect for the song -- which became the national anthem in '99 and calls for the "eternal reign" of the emperor -- because it was played as the Imperial Army invaded Asia.

Since she came to the notice of the larger world in 2005 -- when she said she feared the "pacifists, the people who oppose nationalism in Japan [...] are gradually being silenced" -- I haven't heard of her. Does she still have a job? Is she still resisting?

One recent mention is a poem in her honor by Munihiko Ichino, translated by Tetsuro Tanaka, that's been added to the Union Song archives, excerpted here:

Order. Admonishment.
Threat. Sneer.
Blame. Ignore.

They fall in mountains on her.
But she's never frightened.
And she says "I'm a teacher.
I will never help destroy education even if they admonish me all they can"
You will remember a person standing in front of the gate
Facing the strongest power with a tender smile.

Mac Attack: Jobs fan rams NZ church in car

In New Zealand:

A 58-year-old woman is in an Auckland hospital with "life threatening" injuries after being hit by car as she left the city's Methodist Mission Church, 3 News reports.

The driver of the vehicle reportedly "deliberately drove" at the church after jumping several red lights at speed, narrowly missing several pedestrians. Witnesses report seeing the car approaching from a distance of half a kilometre on the wrong side of the road before accelerating towards its target.

[...]

The driver was "injured but conscious", and as police attempted to extricate him from his motor, he "clutched his laptop computer and screamed the name of Apple's CEO Steve Jobs". A fireman later told 3 News "he believed the man had a mental illness".

Catvac.

The story's actually kinda nice -- about this boy who's been volunteering at a veterinary clinic for four years -- but this award-winning shot of an anaesthetized cat by the Philadelphia Inquirer's La Shinda Clark is unnerving. Maybe because it's because the accompanying story was about spaying and neutering (note: that is not a neutering in progress).

A typeface does not a presidential candidate make

When Design Observer's Michael Bierut was asked by Newsweek to critique bumperstickers of presidential campaigns, everything was fine -- until Jesse Ventura seemed to jump into the race. Writer Laura Bans twice misheard Bierut's reference to the typeface Futura, but Bierut's description almost seems to fit The Body himself: "Rudy [Giuliani]'s logo is like a brick wall. It uses an extra bold sans serif font, Ventura, and the design is squared off perfectly."

While Jesse Ventura hasn't said anything about running, some of his fans have started a draft-Ventura petition. Voters 4 Ventura already has over 300 signatures.

So long, Sekou...

What if we were Life

Or Liberty

Or the Pursuit of something new?

Between the rocks below

and the stars above

What if we were composed by Love?



And what if we could show

that what we dream

is deeper than what we know?

Suppose if something does not live

in the world

that we long to see

then we make it ourselves

as we want it to be



What if we are Life

Or Liberty

and the Pursuit of something new?



And suppose the beautiful answer

asks the more beautiful question,



Why don't we get our hopes up too high?

What don't we get our hopes up to high?

High!

This passage is from the 51st dream state, a music-theater-spoken word performance by Sekou Sundiata, the poet, writer, and educator who passed away this morning from heart failure at age 58. I sat in on an interview with Sekou (and choreographer Bill T. Jones) for the premiere of his piece at the Walker and found myself inspired by his mix of political engagement, humor, aesthetic rigor, and love for the Enlightenment ideals -- seemingly threatened in times like these -- that have made America great. His death is a big loss for art, and I send blessings to his family.

Sekou was diagnosed with kidney disease in 1995 and had a successful transplant, about which he made the work blessing the boats. Appropriately, donations in memory of Sekou may be made to the National Kidney Foundation at 30 E. 33rd Street, Suite 1100, New York NY 10016

What Michael Moore should've said.

The dustup between Michael Moore and CNN's medical expert, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, included Gupta's critique about so-called "free" healthcare systems in places like France and Cuba. "To just say to someone who doesn't have a sophisticated understanding of exactly how health care works that it's free is simply not true," Gupta said. Moore stuck by his belief that, despite taxpayer funding, those systems are free.

What he should've said?

"Their healthcare is free the way our Iraq War is free."

Yes, we pay, but we're not constantly reminded we're paying.

In war, we should have a more direct connection to the realities of what we're underwriting. In healthcare, perhaps it's fine to just know it's there when we need it.

Uber Ducky

One of the works installed as part of the 2007 Loire Estuary exhibition of art along one of France's most esteemed rivers is this gigantic inflatable rubber ducky by Florentijn Hofman. Thirty artists, including Atelier van Lieshout, Minerva Cuevas, Anish Kapoor, Erwin Wurm and others, have installed works along a 40-mile stretch of the river. Via Wooster.