Welcome

Wooster Collective visitors. And thanks for the link, Marc.

"A giant reading machine."

Typical of the internet age, I'm hearing about art down the street from an Italy-based Belgian, but, given how cool it is, I'm glad. Minneapolis' new Cesar Pelli-designed Central Library will include a digital artwork by multimedia artist Ben Rubin, Regine at we-make-money-not-art reports. The electronic light sculpture, tentatively dubbed Word Up, uses LED tubes to spell out the titles of books from the library's holdings, letter by letter, on two elevator shafts visible from outside the building. A metaphor for the flow of information libraries represent, the design seems "to evoke the idea that library patrons have become part of a giant reading machine: the LED signs will, says Rubin, 'scan as if they were text hanging in the air.'"

Cartoon bones inspire class project

Michael Paulus' drawings of the skeletal systems of cartoon characters (blogged here) inspired a middle school teacher in Oregon to assign the same task to her students. Paulus posts some of the results, plus letters from kids who participated.

Consumed by drawing: Kate Bingaman has been obsessively drawing credit card bills. Among her renderings of Target statements and bills from an Apple loan was a version of a half-price catalogue from our own Walker Art Center.

Cellphone-jamming paint.

Textually reports on a new "nano-enhanced wall paint" that'll passively block Radio Frequency traffic (i.e. cellphone use), but will work with wireless technology to selectively enable such traffic. My suggestion for NaturalNano's next product innovation: subwoofer-blocking wall paint!

Celestial DJ

Via Wooster Collective, a nice commercial for a brand of crossfaders.

So much going on,

and me so light-headed from hunger. So, the brief version:

Any port in a storm? New evidence suggests key agencies in the United Arab Emirates--yes, of US port fame--have been infiltrated by al-Qaeda, specifically "security, censorship, and monetary agencies."

Fox's dissociative disorder: Fox, a network that is pondering the "upside" to civil war in Iraq, also wonders if the whole thing was "made up by the media."

States agree, Bush broke law: There's not a single state in America where a majority of people believe Bush obeyed the law when OKing warrantless wiretapping of citizens.

Jeb's crony payback? Rep. Henry Waxman is asking Jeb Bush why Florida-based Carnival Cruise Lines received a $236 million federal contract to house Katrina victims without a competitive bidding process. A Carnival exec who suggested empty ships be used for housing also donated $65,000 to the Florida GOP in 2002 and $50,00 to the RNC in 2004.

Support our oops: According to a Zogby poll reported on by Stars & Stripes, 72 percent of US troops in Iraq think we should withdraw within the year.

Video: Bush ignored Katrina warnings

After Hurricane Katrina hit, George W. Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levies." In fact, as a new video recorded during briefings between Bush and FEMA on August 29 shows, Bush was alerted to exactly that scenario. During that meeting, FEMA head Michael Brown admitted that this was probably "the big one." Bush, patched into the meeting via videoconference from his ranch in Texas, assured that "We are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets at our disposal after the storm to help you deal with the loss of property." Bush asked no questions at that meeting. Seriously, this man should be impeached for incompetence.

Watch the Katrina video here.

Crab nebula

The crab nebula, as seen from the Hubble space telescope, "has never looked crabbier," writes Bruce Sterling. Click to see full-sized image.

Why is George Bush so awesome?

Rocketboom correspondents document America's response.

Speaking of boobs...

George W. Bush, on a tape released by Osama bin Laden the Friday before the 2004 election:

What does it mean? ...Anything that drops in at the end of a campaign that is not already decided creates all kinds of anxieties, because you're not sure of the effect. I thought it was going to help. I thought it would help remind people that if bin Laden doesn't want Bush to be the president, something must be right with Bush.

Found body art.

Yoko Ono's film Bottoms consisted entirely of footage of the undulating asses of her friends, up close and personal. Eadweard Muybridge's pioneering experiments with moving images used loincloth-clad soldiers and nude ditch-diggers. But when it comes to absurdist nude art, the Bounceometer is a found-art venture that has them both beat. Created to sell (apparently upscale) sports bras, the obviously NSFW site uses computer animation to simulate bouncing breasts in sizes ranging from A to FF to G, from various angles and with varying degrees of vigor.

How low will the MN GOP go?

Very. ThinkProgress:

A story by Minnesota Public Radio reveals a disturbing new way that a political party is secretly grabbing sensitive personal information about voters.

This week the Minnesota Republican Party is distributing a new CD about a proposed state marriage amendment. Along with flashy graphics, the CD asks people their views on controversial issues such as abortion, gun control, illegal immigration, and so on.

The problem – the CD sends your answers back to headquarters, filed by name, address, and political views. No mention of that in the terms of use. No privacy policy at all. The story concludes: “So if you run the CD in your personal computer, by the end of it, the Minnesota GOP will not only know what you think on particular issues, but also who you are.”

These practices fall way below the standard for today’s polling firms and web sites. The norm for polling firms is to anonymize the data and report only statistical totals. The norm for commercial web sites is to have a privacy policy, with Federal Trade Commission enforcement if the web site breaks its privacy promise.

Without a privacy policy, the state party can tell your views to anyone at all. If you give the “wrong” answers on abortion or other issues, they can tell your boss, members of your church, or anyone else. In fact, these answers could get distributed to campaigns in your town during get-out-the-vote efforts – precisely the place where “wrong” answers can be most damaging.

The right answer here is simple. If you are collecting data and keeping it in identified form, then you should tell people. If you are selling your lists or sending them to other groups, you should tell that as well. That goes for all political parties.

Bush by the numbers

34: Percentage of Americans who now approve of the president.

18: Percentage of Americans who view Dick Cheney favorably.

1300: Number of Iraqis killed last week in sectarian violence

400: Approximate number the military and media had previously reported were killed.

244: Number, in billions of dollars, the war in Iraq has cost so far.

50: Number, in billions of dollars, Donald Rumsfeld in 2003 said the war would cost.

72.4: Number of dollars, in billions, the Bush administration is requesting in additional "emergency supplemental funding" for the Iraq war.

39: Percentage of Americans today who think we're winning the war on terrorism.

44: Percentage of Americans in January who thought we were winning the war on terrorism.

60: Percentage of the 41,856 people around the world polled by BBC who think that the war in Iraq has "increased the likelihood of terrorist attacks worldwide."

14.5: Averange length of stay, in months, of the approximately 500 prisoners kept in wire cages at Bagram Air Base , without any legal representation or ability to challenge their detention, in conditions described as "more bleak" than Guantanamo.

50: Number of US governors who signed a letter to Bush saying his planned cuts to the National Guard would hurt states' preparedness.

28: Number of state governors who are Republicans.

2087: Number of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq since Bush challenged insurgents there, saying "Bring 'em on."

2294: Total number of US fatalities in Iraq.

60: Percentage of the 2004 vote that went to Bush in Wisconsin's conservative Walworth County, where Democrats are officially calling for the president's impeachment.

I'm not sure what I'm looking at here,

but I like it.

Tarp couture

After hurricane Katrina, the blue tarp has become ubiquitous in New Orleans: it covers woodpiles and serves as a makeshift roof; it shrouds pickup truck loads of debris and boxes in the garage. And now blue tarps are finding their way into fashion runways and Mardi Gras parades:

Some of the Mardi Gras parade clubs have used blue tarp symbolically in this year's floats. (The Krewe of Mid-City hemmed all its floats in it.) A wetlands-preservation benefit at Antoine's restaurant last week featured a blue tarp fashion show, with outfits made by local artists. According to the Times-Picayune, one model "took a turn in her own frock, swishing back and forth in the season's hottest look, a five-tiered tutu and matching corset in the fabric du jour: blue tarp.

The Washington Post has more.

Practice random acts of knitting.

There's something refreshing about street art that's no so aggressive or destructive, street art that says, "bundle up." Behold, Knitta, a "tag crew of knitters, bombing the inner city with vibrant, stitched works of art, wrapped around everything from beer bottles on easy nights to public monuments and utility poles on more ambitious outings."

Octavia passes.

Brilliant sci-fi writer, MacArthur "genius" grant winner, and one of science fiction's few African Americans, Octavia Butler died yesterday at age 58.

The death of environmentalism.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream speech" is famous because it put forward an inspiring, positive vision that carried a critique of the current moment within it. Imagine how history would have turned out had King given an "I have a nightmare" speech instead.

That's one of my favorite lines in "The Death of Environmentalism" [pdf/html], an essay by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, two of the founders of the Apollo Alliance, a "crash program for sustainable energy independence [that aims to] create three million good jobs, free the nation from imported oil, and promote a healthier environment." The gist of the must-read piece is that environmentalism, like most "liberal" causes, has long been seen as a "special interest," thanks in part to environmentalists themselves who define what they're about too narrowly. The essay argues for a more wholistic environmental focus, including labor, healthcare, ownership and taxation, and a slew of other issues beyond just those that directly affect natural habitat--all while framing the issues in an optimistic, values-based approach. I'm reading the essay in preparation for book I'm contributing to for the Royal Society of Art's Art & Ecology program. Closer to my interests, then, is this quote on how art--and religion and storytelling and...--can contribute:

Environmentalists need to tap into the creative worlds of myth-making, even religion, not to better sell narrow and technical policy proposals but rather to figure out who we are and who we need to be.

(Thanks, Max.)

Bushmath

You know those six American ports that United Arab Emirates-owned shipping company is set to take over operations at? They're really 21 ports, despite what Bush and the much of the media have reported, "ranging from Portland, Maine to Miami, Florida, and 10 on the Gulf Coast, from Gulfport, Miss., to Corpus Christi, Texas." I guess we shouldn't be surprised that a guy who can't wave and ride a bike at the same time should screw up basic math.

Feel-good story of the day

I'm heading out of town, but I wanted to leave you with a sweet story:

Senior Jason McElwain had been the manager of the varsity basketball team of Greece Athena High School in Rochester, N.Y.

McElwain, who's autistic, was added to the roster by coach Jim Johnson so he could be given a jersey and get to sit on the bench in the team's last game of the year.

Johnson hoped the situation would even enable him to get McElwain onto the floor a little playing time.

He got the chance, with Greece Athena up by double-digits with four minutes go to.

And, in his first action of the year, McElwain missed his first two shots, but then sank six three-pointers and another shot (video), for a total of 20 points in three minutes.

"My first shot was an air ball (missing the hoop), by a lot, then I missed a lay-up," McElwain recalls. "As the first shot went in, and then the second shot, as soon as that went in, I just started to catch fire."

"I've had a lot of thrills in coaching," Johnson says. "I've coached a lot of wonderful kids. But I've never experienced such a thrill."

The crowd went wild, and his teammates carried the excited McElwain off the court.

"I felt like a celebrity!" he beamed.

Read more.