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Pretty Pictures There is a new blog in town — Spitting Image. It's put together by James Luckett of consumptive.org
to take up some of the slack and focus things a little, i've started a new blog in collaboration with my co-conspirator Mr. Cieciel - Spitting Image: all images all the time - the latest news, thoughts, anecdotes, and imagery of note - plus copious links to archives of vernacular, scientific and artistic interest. hope you like it. Which segues to my comments about Katinka Matson's Flowers. I felt that much ado had been made about nothing. Her images are very pretty but the use of the technology, which was made out to be right up there with the second coming of Christ, was nothing new. James and I exchanged some e-mails on this matter and James mentioned it in his entry Scantastic. I saw a wonderful show at George Eastman House in 1979. (George is the guy who started a little photography company he called Kodak.) They had a show called Electroworks, which was all electro copier art. Artists placing things on the glass and copying them — just like Katinka. Here are some images from the catalog. Two from Connie Fox...
  One by Joan Lyons...
 It was an exciting show. A good part of the excitement was the lack of pre-concieved notions the artists brought to this new form of photography. They were, in the early days, working alone unaware that others were using this new camera too. They played with some of its new capabilites not trying to copy forms used with the traditional lensed camera. In other words — they had fun. Scanner photographers should have fun too!
 1,000 pixel high version — 144kb 2,000 pixel high version — 393kb By the way, I like James' definition of photography: Photography is an image made with light reflected off of the subject - how you go about obtaining that light doesn't change what it is.
Music
File sharing: Innocent until proven guilty
In the paper, Liebowitz argues persuasively that record industry experts failed to prove their assertion that Napster was gutting industry revenues. But he also argues that eventually, digital downloading will be a serious threat to those revenues. Both topics will be part of his upcoming book, "Rethinking the Networked Economy," due to be published in August. But the specifics of those arguments may be somewhat altered from their form in the Cato paper, because when Salon caught up with Liebowitz, he was reexamining his data and wondering, Why isn't the record industry hurting more, already? thanks to reenhead.com
Bush's Assault on the World US invasion proposal shocks MPs
he Dutch parliament was shocked by a US legislative proposal giving an official green light to a US invasion of the Netherlands should it be deemed necessary to free US citizens from the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
The government of President George W Bush and the US Congress is fiercely opposed to the court, claiming it violates US sovereignty. thanks to reenhead.com This country must be scaring the shit out of the reast of the world. Bush feel's that he can invade any country he wants to, any time he wants to, but trying a U.S. soldier violates US soveriengty? What about everyone else's soveriegnty? There is only one rogue nation. --------
'We Were Better Off Under the Russians'
The Afghan commander laughed at the way the Americans were going about their work. U.S. troops, he said, were obsessed with finding caches of Taliban documents to help track down their fugitive enemies. The commander's friend explained the mirth by pulling out his own identification card: a small passport-like book made by the Taliban and authorized with a Taliban stamp. It was issued April 16, long after the fall of that regime. It's a legitimate document, and the man isn't an enemy—the local government doesn't have money for stationery, so decrees and papers are still being printed on leftover Taliban stock. thanks to reenhead.com
Bush's Assault on America
"You can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." How much will the American people stand for? How far will the Bush administration go with its attempts to totally restructure American way of life? Does the average American even care?
What follows is a list that is a must read. thanks to BookNotes
Israel/Palestine Bush Set to Offer Plan for Palestinian State President Bush indicated today in a meeting with the Saudi foreign minister that he had made up his mind to announce a plan to support the creation of a Palestinian state in order to give some immediate hope to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, officials familiar with the talks said. The proposal is designed to help quell violence and hold Palestinian leaders to a high standard of accountability for building institutions that can enforce peace and security for Israel and the new Palestinian state, the officials said. Mr. Bush signaled his intention to lay out a proposal for Palestinian statehood, which he will probably do in a speech next week, during private talks at the White House with Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal.
What are the odds that he screws this up too? I can only hope he gets it right enough. He does seem to be one of those who always believes that last book he's read (if only he could read.) Mubarek visits and me makes positive Arab noises. Sharon visits and he makes positive Israeli noises. Saud al-Faisal visits and it's back to positive Arab noises. ----------
Long-term sieges The far-reaching significance of Israel's siege policy and the institutionalization of the pass system for travel through the West Bank is in direct contradiction to the minimal - if any - interest shown in Israel about the phenomenon. The siege policy is perceived as a legitimate means to prevent attacks on Israelis inside Israel, and on soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since September 2000, the sieges on all the Palestinian cities and villages has been increasingly tightened and at the same time, motivation has risen among young Palestinians to kill themselves in suicide attacks on Israelis. The Palestinians understand that urge as a reaction to the concrete suffocation that the siege creates, as well as a metaphor for their utter lack of hope for a chance for free lives. On the Israeli side, the majority is convinced that there is no connection between the two and that if not for the sieges, the number of attacks would greatly increase.
So, there's no point in wasting words on Israelis on the immorality of effectively locking up 3 million people in enclaves, between barbed wire and frightening army checkpoints. What the Palestinians perceive as ruthless collective punishment, the Israelis perceive as a necessary evil: It may cause "discomfort" to the innocent, but it is the system that puts limits on the use of lethal means in the hands of the army. ---------- Some of the "solutions" to terrorism are reaching new lows of barbarity. The first of a two piece debate:
What if Israel and the United States announced that henceforth the perpetrators of all suicide attacks would be treated as if they had brought their parents and brothers and sisters with them to the site of the explosion? Suicide killers should know that they will take the lives of not only themselves and the many people they don't know (but nonetheless hate) in the crowd that surrounds them when they squeeze the button that detonates their bomb, but also the lives of their parents, brothers, and sisters. The nation whose civilians are killed or maimed should, by "targeted assassinations" or other means, be free promptly to execute the immediate relatives of the suicide bombers. This consequence would, I believe, deter most suicide killers - many of whom now anticipate that not only will they be rewarded in a world-to-come, but that their immediate families will be honored and granted lavish benefits on this earth. ---------- The second piece... Suicide bombings must be stopped. This will not happen through obscene suggestions that we stoop to their level, executing the parents and siblings of perpetrators. Such a horrid policy would only call forth new troops of suicide bombers, recruited throughout the Muslim world. Suicide bombings will be stopped when we address the root cause of such desperate actions: the degradation and humiliation of the Palestinian people. Israeli society has failed terribly at respecting the Arabs who are destined to forever be its neighbors. This is true both within the country and in the occupied territories. Military policy, especially in its local application, is often needlessly violent and degrading. Endless checkpoint delays, bulldozing of homes, uprooting of trees, disrespecting of elders, and lots more have been the daily lot of Palestinians for thirty-five years. These constant humiliations are the immediate source of the rage that motivates suicide bombers, most of whom come from the very respect-based culture of traditional Arab villages.
On the larger scale, we need to restore hope. No wonder Palestinians have no faith in the peace process. We continue to build settlements, expropriate land, and deny them the right to build homes on their own land while we build whole towns for newcomers. How can we expect them not to be frustrated and angry? If we want to end suicide bombings, we need to demonstrate clearly (by our actions, not just by words, as we keep saying to Arafat) that we are willing to end the occupation. Yes, a two- state solution is a gamble. But it's the only one we've got.
It was a hot time on the old town tonight Not summer but simmer as record highs set It hit 94 degrees in Seattle today. Now, someone like Garret, in Santa Fe, might respond with a resounding "Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy!" and he'd be absolutely right. The last time it exceeded the 90 degree mark around here was July 28, 1998 when it hit 97. Air conditioners are rare in the Northwet. So, when it got into the mid 80s inside my house, my computer started to overheat and shut down. I sat out on my back porch this evening, waiting for it to cool down inside, reading a book and watching Venus come out below a crescent moon. I hoped to see Jupiter but it had gone down below the tree line before it got dark enough. But, enough of that, the computer is back on.
REMAINING U.S. CEOs MAKE A BREAK FOR IT Unwilling to wait for their eventual indictments, the 10,000 remaining CEOs of public U.S. companies made a break for it yesterday, heading for the Mexican border, plundering towns and villages along the way, and writing the entire rampage off as a marketing expense. "They came into my home, made me pay for my own TV, then double-booked the revenues," said Rachel Sanchez of Las Cruces, just north of El Paso. "Right in front of my daughters." Calling themselves the CEOnistas, the chief executives were first spotted last night along the Rio Grande River near Quemado, where they bought each of the town's 320 residents by borrowing against pension fund gains. By late this morning, the CEOnistas had arbitrarily inflated Quemado's population to 960, and declared a 200 percent profit for the fiscal second quarter.
 Stewart Omnimedia) was one of the few executives captured. Her mask is made from recycled Christmas paper wrapping.
Astronomy A Partial Eclipse Over the Golden Gate Bridge
 thanks to Robot Wisdom
Israel/Palestine An excellent analysis of the Israel Palestine conflict. On the General Nature of the Conflict
thanks to Shou?
Tax cuts
How much does the White House stand to save from Bush's tax cut? The chart shows the income and assets of top Administration officials before they took office, as reported in forms filed with the Office of Government Ethics (most are reported in ranges; Bush and Cheney made their exact 2000 incomes public by releasing their tax returns). Estimated tax cuts were then calculated by Citizens for Tax Justice, assuming the full implementation of the tax cut that Congress approved in May. thanks to BookNotes
War Against Some Terrorists Rumor over at JOHO the blog I have heard a rumor through a friend of a friend who is shipping out to Afghanistan that we are in the middle of a the largest call up since Vietnam and are massing soldiers and supplies along the border in Afghanistan preparatory to the invasion of Iraq (through or over Iran?). Surely if this is true, we would know about the size of the call-up. I don't. Do you? Is there any truth to this rumor?
Israel/Palestine There are some signs that there may be some structural changes coming in Israel. A new party, Israel Akheret (A Different Israel), is focusing on how the government works. Israel's dysfunctional "democracy" is in bad need of overhaul. The war with the Palestinians is only one of the many problems besetting Israel. Too many minority groups that can blackmail the government for their support — such as the settlers. And it's Israeli youth that are doing it. Maybe there is hope for Israel's future.
Life for the Party The movement's mere existence is surprising in an apathetic student population dedicated to "passive protest," a nice euphemism for whining. "We have always been accused of caring only about ourselves," said Danny Frishman, a 24-year-old student in Jerusalem and one of the party's first members. "Now you see hundreds of people coming and saying they are willing to work for change. Everywhere people tell us, 'We've been waiting for something like this to happen.'
"We all share the feeling that something is going terribly wrong in this country," he said. "Not just the situation between us and the Palestinians. The problems within our own society are much bigger, but the government only worries about Arafat. --------- But the old way of Israeli thinking is getting uglier and uglier. At Checkpoint in Gaza, Travelers Wait and Wait In the West Bank, some Palestinian cities and towns have become isolated enclaves, surrounded by troops and tanks. But the restrictions are nowhere felt more sharply than by the 1.3 million people of the Gaza Strip, which has been effectively cut in half and sometimes into thirds by checkpoints set up in large part to safeguard the travel of Gaza's 7,100 Jewish settlers. "This is a way for them to demonstrate hour by hour that they are masters over our lives," said a leading human rights advocate in Gaza, Raji Sourani. "People think of Gaza as liberated. But the Israelis can make our lives as miserable as ever." To spend a hot, dusty day at the Abu Houli checkpoint is to hear of endless problems it has brought — families divided and jobs lost, sick people kept from their doctors and fish rotting on its way to market.
It is also to witness how the demands of Israeli settlers, concerns for Israeli security and a sense of humiliation among Palestinians feed the Middle East conflict day by day.
Cats
DOMESTICATION
Around 4000 BCE, cattle breeders, plant gatherers, and seasonal cultivators began to settle and become farmers on the high ground at the foot of the desert plateau and on "turtle backs," or sandy ridges, in the Nile Delta, where the river breaks into tributaries before flowing into the Mediterranean. There, man's relationship with the cat in Egypt began. thanks to Travellers Diagram
Lost but now found William H. Calvin is a most interesting writer on the human brain and evolution. I hadn't been to his site in a long time. Thanks to abuddhas memes for bringing him back to my attention.
William H. Calvin He also has started a blog.
Bible Sex-Free Bible Spurs Controversy After working with several church pastors for the better part of two years, James Montrose, principal of Landover Elementary School, announced last week that an abridged KJV Bible, omitting all references to illicit and deviant sex acts, has been finalized for use at the school next year. Montrose formally proposed to the Board of Deacons that the new Bible, roughly the size of a theater program, be required reading in all classes in place of the salacious unabridged version. “It is beyond question that the Holy Bible, in unedited form, is simply not appropriate for children,” observed Montrose in testimony to the Board. The unabridged Bible is loaded with passages describing in detail such disgusting topics as premature ejaculation (Leviticus 15:2-15; 22:3-5), wet dreams (Leviticus 15:16- 18, 32), voyeurism (Leviticus 18:6-20); damaged testicles (Leviticus 21:20; Deuteronomy 23:1); people taking a dump in the middle of camp (Deuteronomy 23:12-14); hemorrhoids (1 Samuel 5:9; 6:4-5), people urinating on a wall (1 Samuel 25:22; 26:34; 1 Kings 14:10; 16:11; 21:22; 2 Kings 9:8), people eating their own feces and drinking their urine (2 Kings 18:27; Isaiah 36:12; Ezekiel 4:12, 15), menstruation (just about all of Leviticus), etc., etc., etc. And those are just from a few books I reviewed this morning. Some of these topics are too prurient even for an S&M club. In fact, many parts of the Good Book are so tawdry that the Bible would be the first book hurled into the flames at our weekly book burnings - were it not inspired by God, of course.”
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Insanity Mike Sanders is disturbed over a recent poll that shows the majority of Palestinians favor the elimination of Israel, as well he should be. He should also be disturbed by another poll published in Ha'aretz that I posted March 13. More Israeli Jews favor transfer of Palestinians, Israeli Arabs - poll finds
Some 46 percent of Israel's Jewish citizens favor transferring Palestinians out of the territories, while 31 percent favor transferring Israeli Arabs out of the country, according to the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies' annual national security public opinion poll. There has always been a extreme element in Israel that has worked towards the total expulsion, by whatever means, of Palestinians from Greater Israel. The current actions of Sharon and the IDF are implementing those policies. The Israelis call it transfer. Others call it ethnic cleansing and genocide. Don't forget that the Nazi's were calling for the "transfer" of Jews in 1938. My efforts in this blog are not to show that one side is worse than the other so that the other's actions are "justified". The concept of "justification" is irrelevent. It is terrible that the Palestinians want the destruction of Israel. But, if the Palestinian's bad attitude is caused the humiliations and brutality of the Israeli occupation, more humiliations and brutality aren't going to improve that attitude. Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result, is insanity. We all want the terrorism to stop. Applying more of the tactics that created the terrorism isn't going to work. Mike Sanders reported the following:
The Palestinians need to abandon terrorism before we can move forward. Any appeasement or rewarding of terrorism will neither serve our goals or theirs. They are clearly not hearing this message as it was recently reported that Mike, I would like to suggest that maybe you are not clearly hearing the message. You, and the Jerusalem Post, see it has the all-powerful and evil Arafat sending his hoards of matyrs to destroy more innocent civilians. There is another way of looking at what Arafat is saying. Perhaps he is trying to warn the world that the Arab street is going to rise up if the destruction of the Palestinians continues. This has the potential to be a popular uprising, not controled by anyone, that can bring down the entire Middle East. That would not be a good thing.
Blogging on a blogservation Joe Duemer had some nice things to say about my my commentary on his blogservation with Mike Sanders. Also some good words on why he is not a warblogger, which I subscribe to enthusiastically. Mike thanked me for writing and refuting his every statement and promised to spare us both the pain of his refuting my email point by point. Thank you, Mike. Mike also added the following: "However, I am disturbed by your implicit (and sometimes explicit) defense of terrorism and suicide bombings. I am not sure how you find peace and these types of activities compatible. Peace to me, means life. Suicide bombings means deaths of innocents and I think we have to be very careful not to condone this activity." My efforts have been to first understand what is going on in Israel/Palestine and then to understand why. If there is one thing that I could point people to that would give them a visceral feel for what it means to live under Israeli occupation it would be Drinking the Sea at Gaza : Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege by Amira Haas. Also understand that it is much worse now. It's easy for a comfortable American to say "Peace to me, means life." The Palestinians have no peace and no life. And, if Sharon and his Likud and settler buddies have their way, they *never* will. I can't say what I would do if I had to live under those conditions. I like to think, if there was only myself to think about, that I could survive. But I have children and grandchildren and to think that they had no hope of ever escaping the hell of Israeli occupation would be more that I would ever want to bear. I can't say what I would do. If I'm not sure what I would do under those conditions then I'm not one to judge those that are. Trying to explain why someone would be a suicide bomber is not condoning it. It is merely explaining it. It is pointing out cause and effect. If you want to solve a problem you had best be dealing with the root cause. If you only want to deal with the symptoms, you will have to deal with them over and over and over again. We are watching the Palestinian people fighting a war for liberation. They aren't going to stop. The only way to win against a war for liberation is to kill every man, woman, and child, which is something Israel seems prepared to do. As to your veiled threat "I think we have to be very careful not to condone this activity" — fuck you, Mike. Be disturbed.
The regularly scheduled blogging will resume shortly.
Israel/Palestine I ended up going to the other side (island term for going to the United States of America...er, the mainland) Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Mostly family stuff, which is good, but it sure does take up time, which meant less blogging. Then, Saturday night, I read an exchange of opinions and facts on Israel/Palestine that sent me off the deep end. Joe Duemer, at reading & writing, had a blogservation with Mike Sanders at keep trying. I had to reply. I sort of threw everything in an e-mail to the both of them which I put on a page at: Blogservation with Joe and Mike.
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