May 12, 2008
not my voice
After a night's sleep and especially after reading this morning what others who have read my post of yesterday are saying about the subject of artistic censorship and our relationship to the world, I realized that what I wrote just...
Posted by james at 12:13 PM | Full Post
May 11, 2008
Susan Dessel's "OUR BACKYARD" censored by gallery
this too is our backyard In the twenty-first century the entire world really has become our "backyard" and along with its beauty and energy, there is also much unnecessary misery and death everywhere in that yard. Provincial fears and...
Posted by james at 10:00 PM | Full Post
May 1, 2008
May Day!
What gives them the right? I heard the news of our latest murderous bombing strike in Somalia on Public Radio this morning, just after the network had reminded me today was May Day. Almost in the same breath which...
Posted by james at 11:59 AM | Full Post
April 17, 2008
to hell and back with Ratzinger
Goya Inquisition Scene (1816) oil on panel 18" x 28.75" [three notes: beginning in the Middle Ages the Church had prescribed the conical hat, generally yellow, as a distinguishing mark for Jews; Jewish conversos were the principal concern of...
Posted by james at 1:01 AM | Full Post
April 16, 2008
Al Qaeda has been running Washington
all Washington getting friendly with the boss Ted Rall saw only part of the story when he described the shoddy construction of our bases in Iraq, with its fatal consequences for our military personnel. In a cartoon dated 4/14...
Posted by james at 5:43 PM | Full Post
March 19, 2008
war is not over
five years and, unfortunately, still counting. The caption to this Reuters photograph reads: A protestor takes part in a demonstration marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq, in Washington, March 19, 2008. [image by Jim Young...
Posted by james at 7:42 PM | Full Post
March 10, 2008
play in your own yards, and leave Spitzer alone
William Hogarth Enthusiasm Delineated 1761 This is stupid, if not just evil. No, I'm not talking about Eliot Spitzer. Let him deal with his family; it's not our concern. People are screaming at the Governor about his marital infidelity...
Posted by james at 8:46 PM | Full Post
March 6, 2008
Times Square bomblet outperforms march of a million
In 2003 nearly a million people marched in the streets of New York against a war (to which the majority of the country was opposed even then) only days before it began and the U.S. press hardly mentioned they...
Posted by james at 10:52 AM | Full Post
March 4, 2008
no, not that "Armory show", and not Breuer's building
Drill Hall floor of the Armory Drill Hall vault of the Armory We were at the press preview for the Whitney Biennial this afternoon. This year the venue has been expanded to include the Seventh Regiment Armory, in whose...
Posted by james at 7:35 PM | Full Post
February 28, 2008
The Seventh Regiment Armory's "American Aesthetic"
Louis C. Tiffany window in the Library of the Armory I've been walking through the front doors of the Administration Building of the Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Avenue for decades, but until this past Monday I had never...
Posted by james at 3:54 PM | Full Post
February 24, 2008
Nader's candidacy: we should expect nothing less of him
Common Sense, so uncommon today The candidate is a brilliant man of the highest integrity. He is generous, dedicated public servant responsible for world-altering reforms which have saved, literally, countless lives. In the words of one of his published...
Posted by james at 9:59 PM | Full Post
February 13, 2008
"No, no! Sentence first - verdict afterwards"
Alice begins to doubt that justice really will be done. And still they don't get it. I'm having trouble enough sleeping at night, thinking about the horrors routinely executed in our name around the world, but this headline to...
Posted by james at 12:06 PM | Full Post
"They hate our freedoms"
the enemy is us "They hate our freedoms" [from Bush's 2002 State of the Union address] But just yesterday:WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill on Tuesday granting retroactive immunity from lawsuits to telecommunications companies that...
Posted by james at 10:55 AM | Full Post
February 8, 2008
yes, of course we torture
We do torture. The whole world knows it, and even in the land of the brave and the free and the righteous none of us needed to wait for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights or anyone anyone...
Posted by james at 11:07 PM | Full Post
February 7, 2008
Guantanamo: is there no limit to the obscenities?
a view of the camp we've known about for six years, not the secret one Really?!!! We learn tonight that the regime in Washington has been maintaining a separate concentrated concentration camp totally hidden inside the Guantanamo camp we...
Posted by james at 1:44 AM | Full Post
January 23, 2008
Israel's civilian blockade war crime creates panic in Gaza
desperate people Israel's blockade of Gaza is a war crime*, but the world will not say so. Desperate Gazans themselves spoke out today when they blew up the wall separating them from Egypt. Tens of thousands have crossed the...
Posted by james at 1:33 PM | Full Post
December 27, 2007
GUANTANAMO DELENDA EST!
Out of sight and out of mind. Our concentration camp in Guantanamo is still off the chart (literally); missing from the Democratic Congressional agenda; "not present" in presidential campaign rhetoric; and, most frighteningly and damningly of all, it still...
Posted by james at 11:47 PM | Full Post
December 25, 2007
the obscenity of organized hate under cover of religion
A girl, who was wounded in a bomb attack, receives treatment in a hospital in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, December 25, 2007. U.S. forces killed two gunmen and detained four others in operation near Baquba,...
Posted by james at 1:18 PM | Full Post
November 17, 2007
Reverend Billy free this time, but the assaults never stop
cover of a 1909 pamphlet created to protect the right of free speech at a time Emma Goldman was being prevented from speaking How often does the NYPD have to be reminded about the First Amendment? Two days ago...
Posted by james at 8:57 PM | Full Post
November 11, 2007
GUANTANAMO DELENDA EST!
This post is part of a series begun on May 21, 2007, which will continue until the U.S. concentration camps at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere around the world have been razed. Two things this time around: First, we haven't...
Posted by james at 12:44 PM | Full Post
October 17, 2007
not so strange: Dalai Lama and Bush very good bedfellows
I'm thinking a blood-red ink would be more appropriate about now Well of course he and Bush get along. Although he was presented the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 "for his consistent resistance to the use of violence," the...
Posted by james at 4:42 PM | Full Post
October 16, 2007
we Americans are 'good Germans'
war is never what we expect it to be: Dresden, stacked bodies after 1945 Allied firebombing We despair. Four and a half years ago Barry and I each decided that we were retiring from both direct and indirect political...
Posted by james at 3:00 AM | Full Post
October 15, 2007
Pro Publica arrives in town: expected to speak to power
In the middle of the Times city room in The Power of the Press (Columbia Pictures, 1928), the city editor (Robert Edison) congratulates cub reporter Clem Rogers (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) for getting his first page-one story as the more...
Posted by james at 12:57 PM | Full Post
October 13, 2007
my favorite Iraq war photo
a long way from Williamsburg I found this image searching Google while preparing my post about Ashley Gilbertson's book. It's from a photo-sharing site in an album maintained by a Marine photo journalist, Staff Sergeant Chad McMeen. This is...
Posted by james at 3:13 PM | Full Post
October 12, 2007
so President Gore it is
the once and future president I'm not arguing he should be nominated and elected this time because he won the Nobel Peace Prize, but because winning the Nobel Peace Prize can make it happen. Why Al Gore, and not...
Posted by james at 11:28 AM | Full Post
Ashley Gilbertson's "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"
The captured fighter claimed to be a student who had gotten stuck in Falluja. A marine responded. "Yeah, right, University of Jihad, motherfucker." What the fuck It's a hot title, only partially-disguised by the military alphabet code. Ashley Gilbertson's...
Posted by james at 12:18 AM | Full Post
October 4, 2007
GUANTANAMO DELENDA EST!
This post is part of a series begun on May 21, 2007, which will continue until the U.S. concentration camps at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere around the world have been razed. Many of us learned years ago that we...
Posted by james at 8:25 PM | Full Post
September 30, 2007
PWOP 2: last night's second "Parade Without A Permit"
drum corps section the vanguard past the Stonewall site the campaign theme not as bad as it looks the curious gather on the sidewalks We're saying the First Amendment isn't just for the homos. It was a fabulous party....
Posted by james at 9:46 PM | Full Post
September 27, 2007
RHA asks Speaker Quinn about 1st Amendment, police rules
the RHA visits Speaker Quinn at the Stonewall Democratic Club open meeting Yesterday the junta in Burma invoked a colonial-era section of the nation's criminal code under which the government can use police or military force against any group...
Posted by james at 8:52 PM | Full Post
September 23, 2007
RHA, allies "Parade Without a Permit" for right of assembly
The Radical Homosexual Agenda [RHA] logo incorporates the group's Regulation Pink Gasmask®, which has been donned by members since 2006 while they pursue their perilous mission fighting the American mainstream - an environment which they argue, and few would...
Posted by james at 7:29 PM | Full Post
September 13, 2007
Kissinger to be Grand Marshall of Steuben Day Parade
the Realpolitiker's very favorite Tracht UPDATE: For concerned citizens of the world who might find the information useful, I've learned that Kissinger is expected to speak at the Parade Gala Benefit Banquet scheduled for 7 o'clock tonight, Friday, at...
Posted by james at 9:06 PM | Full Post
September 12, 2007
NYTimes still mixing "editorial" with the news
I'm going to end up skimming the features and skipping the "news" pages altogether. Is anybody else noticing this stuff? It's looking like the NYTimes is out of control. This is the way one of the paper's teasers read...
Posted by james at 11:54 PM | Full Post
September 11, 2007
no roll call for our own victims, on 9/11 or any other day
GUANTANAMO DELENDA EST! It's the eleventh of September again. Yes, it happens once a year. But I'm not interested in adding to the revanchisme stoked by every mention of the terrible events which occurred in my city six years...
Posted by james at 1:38 PM | Full Post
September 7, 2007
well, not quite Einsatzgruppen, but kangaroo courts for sure
another site found to be invaluable as a ruin (the Reichstag burning, 1933) "U.S. builds for future at Guantanamo"GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - The U.S. military is building a mobile courtroom complex on an unused runway...
Posted by james at 3:25 PM | Full Post
August 30, 2007
"surge working" - surprise!
Antoine-Jean Gros "Battle of Abukir" 1806 but it never, ever looks like this "Petraeus says Iraq 'surge' working" (headline of lead Reuters story on Yahoo!) Do they think we have a hundred years to work on it? Do they...
Posted by james at 11:38 PM | Full Post
"war on terrorism" is new McCarthyism: Gibran victim
we have a history Except to most of the poor citizen infantry of every description and every station which it has been enlisting for six years, the so-called "war on terror" has always been fundamentally about controlling the powerless...
Posted by james at 2:00 PM | Full Post
August 26, 2007
GUANTANAMO DELENDA EST!
our shame and ignominy abstracted as a color which has become familiar to the entire world This post is part of a series begun on May 21, 2007, which will continue until the U.S. concentration camps at Guantanamo Bay...
Posted by james at 3:23 PM | Full Post
August 23, 2007
UPDATE on Deutsche Bank fire
It seems that the tangled story at which I could only hint in my Tuesday post, "Ayn Rand linked to Deutsche Bank skyscraper tragedy?", has caused some serious bustle around the city desk at the NYTimes. The lead story...
Posted by james at 12:01 PM | Full Post
August 21, 2007
"Purple Hearts" at Jen Bekman
Spc. Sam Ross 21 years old, 82nd Airborne, was wounded May 18, 2003 in Baghdad when a bomb blew up during a munitions disposal operation, leaving him blinded and an amputee. After many, surgeries, Ross was sent home to western...
Posted by james at 4:22 PM | Full Post
August 17, 2007
TEAR IT DOWN
Guantanamo. Again. But this time I'm encouraged by the appearance of a new site devoted specifically to the subject. Amnesty International has just gone public with a new site, tearitdown.org, dedicated to solely shutting down permanently the most notorious...
Posted by james at 4:52 PM | Full Post
of one-party governments, war crimes and collective guilt
Bloggy explains why he and so many of us have abandoned American electoral politics. My own take on it: A people which liked to describe its system as "democratic" has finally been occupied by what our last real "republican"...
Posted by james at 4:11 PM | Full Post
August 12, 2007
GUANTANAMO DELENDA EST!
GUANTANAMO MUST BE DESTROYED! This post is part of a series begun on May 21, 2007, which will continue until the U.S. concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay has been razed. [image, otherwise unattributed, via salvationinc]...
Posted by james at 10:25 AM | Full Post
August 4, 2007
Duke Riley: news from the [water] front
under arrest securing the Acorn This story had legs from the start, sea legs. Barry and I were watching it on line as it grew all day yesterday, and apparently it's still going. I would say that this late...
Posted by james at 10:40 AM | Full Post
August 2, 2007
GUANTANAMO DELENDA EST!
Cato the Elder didn't have a blog, but he was still able to repeatedly harangue his fellow citizens at every opportunity, even at cocktail parties, with the slogan, CARTHAGO DELENDA EST! [Carthage must be destroyed!] He continued at it...
Posted by james at 10:01 PM | Full Post
July 28, 2007
NY Union Square First Amendment rally July 27, 2007
BICYCLIST DOWNED BY THUG COP, ARRESTED, THEN UN-ARRESTED How much do you have to piss off a New York cop (unknowingly, in fact) before he assaults and arrests you? When Joe Nerolla rode his bike over a large piece of...
Posted by james at 12:55 AM | Full Post
July 26, 2007
Guantanamo still screams at the world - and at all of us
Even if it were shut down today (and that ain't happening), Guantanamo will remain our shame forever. [this post is part of a series of reminders begun on May 21, 2007, which will continue until the concentration camp at...
Posted by james at 3:33 PM | Full Post
tell Kelly, Quinn and Bloomberg we are still a free people
LA police un-permitting a march in MacArthur Park, May 1, 2007, demonstrating that more and more everything which is not permitted by law is forbidden Tomorrow evening, July 27, folks who want to fight for our right to assemble...
Posted by james at 3:01 PM | Full Post
July 10, 2007
Guantanamo languishes
There are no summer breaks inside the cages at Guantanamo, and no AC. [image, otherwise unattributed, via salvationinc]...
Posted by james at 5:46 PM | Full Post
July 9, 2007
"The Atrocity Exhibition" at Thiery Goldberg
Ahmed Alsoudani Opened Ground 2007 charcoal, pastels and acrylic on paper 80" x 105" [installation view] Ahmed Alsoudani Untitled 2007 charcoal, pastels and acrylic on paper 94" x 107" [installation view] [detail] After entering the gallery and exchanging greetings...
Posted by james at 4:29 PM | Full Post
June 29, 2007
police to regulate when we can use cameras in NYC
just another day on the street Last time it was the MTA, and now the Mayor of New York City wants to keep us from taking its picture. The Transit Authority eventually gave up on its proposed photography ban,...
Posted by james at 12:38 PM | Full Post
June 28, 2007
Shepard Fairey takes on U.S. rotten moral currency in print
I had almost forgotten that I had this image. It's been on my computer for a week. Once you get past its nightmare-come-alive reference, I think this Shepard Fairey* piece is very beautiful, not least for the color and...
Posted by james at 11:56 AM | Full Post
June 27, 2007
no word yet from the Democratic Party on Guantanamo
Still there, a monstrous abomination where not only its prisoners have been sent to rot, but its jailors as well, meaning every single one of us on the other side of the wire. [image, otherwise unattributed, via salvationinc]...
Posted by james at 11:02 AM | Full Post
June 15, 2007
Guantanamo remains
Are any of our grasping, dissembling politicians even thinking about it? [image, otherwise unattributed, via salvationinc]...
Posted by james at 12:04 PM | Full Post
June 7, 2007
Guantanamo and the other stuff
And waiting. [image, otherwise unattributed, via salvationinc]...
Posted by james at 5:21 PM | Full Post
May 31, 2007
Guantanamo, etc.
Still waiting. [image, otherwise unattributed, via salvationinc]...
Posted by james at 7:22 PM | Full Post
May 21, 2007
whither Guantanamo?
Where is the outrage over Guantanamo, seven months after the election? Why hasn't our political "detainment" camp in Cuba, our festering national disgrace, been shut down yet? And while I'm on the subject, where is my right to habeas...
Posted by james at 11:59 AM | Full Post
May 18, 2007
we're back, but it still looks pretty dreadful around here
like a bad penny I cannot hide it any longer: We arrived back from Spain Wednesday afternoon. Our luggage, having decided to extend the holiday for another day, arrived at our door 24 hours later, sadder but a little...
Posted by james at 10:06 AM | Full Post
May 6, 2007
Atocha Train Station Memorial
Barry and I went to Atocha early this afternoon, to see what the station looked like, but also to see the memorial to the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings which killed 191 people and injured some 1800. Especially...
Posted by james at 12:41 PM | Full Post
May 1, 2007
Gore Vidal in New York
Don Bachardy Gore Vidal 1963 pencil and ink wash "From George Washington to George Bush makes a monkey out of Darwin. [pause] I'm now a creationist." And so, punctuating himself with a mischievous smile and a composed chuckle, did...
Posted by james at 2:35 PM | Full Post
April 29, 2007
citizens demand impeachment, occupy Senate offices
A.R.T. (Activist Response Team) lowers banners inside the Hart Senate Office Building April 26 I was delighted, one day after my French Revolution post, to come across this story. It needs to be circulated to a much wider audience....
Posted by james at 1:47 PM | Full Post
April 27, 2007
no one will take Bush's head (although he'd never miss it)
I'm reading a history of the French Revolution, while still following the news of today, including headlines like this. Sometimes one could wish that history really does repeat itself. [image from CUNY]...
Posted by james at 6:19 PM | Full Post
April 22, 2007
raw NYPD brutality, spawned by Kelly, Bloomberg and Quinn
stills captured from video on NYCindymedia site On Thursday I wrote about a demonstration in which I had participated (put together by The Radical Homosexual Agenda [RHA], Assemble for Rights NYC, and other groups and individuals), which was directed...
Posted by james at 11:59 AM | Full Post
April 19, 2007
terrorist gets bail
detail of a temporary memorial to the 72 victims of Cubana de Aviación flight 455, erected outside the courthouse in El Paso in 2005 ADDENDUM: [April 21] "A Terrorist Goes Free" Terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, wanted in Cuba and...
Posted by james at 3:33 PM | Full Post
April 18, 2007
Radical Homosexual Agenda [RHA] "un-permitted parade"
"keeping control" (wire and flesh, inside a holding pen during the 2004 RNC) No, Chris, in America the police are not supposed to write the laws and "control" demonstrations. Yesterday morning on the Brian Lehrer show NY City Council...
Posted by james at 5:24 PM | Full Post
new cold wars
defense, like charity, used to begin at home We might have enjoyed a golden age, but instead we have been condemned by small, stupid, and evil minds to bear the burden of a new, unspecific [hot and] cold war...
Posted by james at 12:04 PM | Full Post
April 9, 2007
more on U.S. databasing, this time of U.S. visitors
now almost anyone can qualify for this screen test It's not the first story like this we've heard, it's not the most disturbing, and unfortunately it won't be the last, but it's worth a read. It's an account of...
Posted by james at 6:39 PM | Full Post
April 8, 2007
"we'll need your eyes" [a follow-up]
We'll just Need to Scan Your Eyes for Our Files Imad Salman Ichleef, 37, was questioned yesterday by American soldiers about insurgent activity in his neighborhood of Ghazaliya in baghdad. Using a biometric recording device, one of the soldiers...
Posted by james at 4:33 PM | Full Post
April 7, 2007
"we'll need your eyes" - U.S. building database of Iraqi males
FOLLOW-UP: see this post for the missing image, and more I can't find it anywhere on the NYTimes site or through Google News, but our print edition of the paper this morning carries an extremely important photograph on page A6...
Posted by james at 1:12 PM | Full Post
April 4, 2007
Josh Wolf is freed
Flanked by two prison officials, Josh Wolf (center) pushes a cart full of his belongings (mostly books and letters) outside the gates of the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin. Behind him is David Greene, one of his attorneys. Chronicle...
Posted by james at 4:24 PM | Full Post
March 31, 2007
ACT UP party tonight
This t-shirt was designed by the legendary activist artist collective Gran Fury 17 years ago. Today South Africa has national health care. A lot of people still think they can do something to help drag our own country into...
Posted by james at 10:47 AM | Full Post
March 30, 2007
ACT UP renewed, and transformed
across from the Stock Exchange yesterday If yesterday's ACT UP twentieth-anniversary action demonstrated anything, it was the coalition's own renewal, and its transformation from an AIDS activist group once largely made up of young middle-class queer white males into...
Posted by james at 2:21 PM | Full Post
March 28, 2007
ACT UP back to the Wall, this time for single-payer healthcare
going back for more, 20 years later Apparently as a nation we can accept throwing away something like half a trillion dollars (and counting), and very likely some 700,000 lives, on a remote elective war whose only accomplishment was...
Posted by james at 11:24 AM | Full Post
March 23, 2007
House votes on the war: do we say "whoopie"?
Sue Coe Wheel of War 2004 mixed media drawing on board 12.5" x 8.5" WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday defied President George W. Bush, voting to impose a September 1, 2008, deadline for withdrawing...
Posted by james at 2:10 PM | Full Post
March 12, 2007
pink pig Bush
(PIG BUSH, DEMOLISH THE BORDER WALL) reads the message on the side of the big pink pig aloft during the Roger Waters concert in Mexico City on March 6, two days before his Bush visit warm-up performance in Bogota...
Posted by james at 7:26 PM | Full Post
February 6, 2007
blogger journalist Josh Wolf still in prison!
once the man in the street I was wrong, or at least not updated. Josh Wolf is still in prison, and were it not for the remarkable fact that today he becomes the longest-incarcerated journalist in modern American history...
Posted by james at 2:33 PM | Full Post
February 5, 2007
time to leave: the emperor has been made a god
Reuters headline story:Senate votes not to debate Iraq proposal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan resolution repudiating President George W. Bush's decision to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq failed to advance in the U.S. Senate on Monday, dealing a serious...
Posted by james at 7:17 PM | Full Post
February 4, 2007
NBC Nightly News has puppies!
always good for ratings Sherry Mazzocchi, of Blog Chelsea, writes to us that she sees NBC has apparently taken for a constructive suggestion the example Barry had used to condemn the triviality of what the networks represent as news....
Posted by james at 5:36 PM | Full Post
February 1, 2007
Boston authorities crazy about LED street art
1/31 changed everything I'm so embarassed for my friends in Boston. No, wait: Maybe our good neighbors are all actually onto something really, really big (I'm not talking about the suits and uniforms - or an impressively stupid Boston...
Posted by james at 5:53 PM | Full Post
"blogger summit": WNBC wants in
MSM news During the station's introductory presentation last night at what was billed as New York's first Blogger Summit, the host, WNBC, reported that its own advance survey revealed that zero percent of their invited blog respondents thought that...
Posted by james at 12:38 PM | Full Post
January 30, 2007
thug cars for a thug America?
Chrysler 300 Hummer H2 Toyota FJ Cruiser Cadillac presidential tank Ford Synus concept* Brinks truck, thugmobile, or armored personnel carrier? The only accessory that seems to be missing from these and the many other examples (real or teaser) of...
Posted by james at 3:22 PM | Full Post
January 22, 2007
what we talk about when we talk about . . . war*
spoils of war Michael Rakowitz is a superb artist who just doesn't seem to be able to work without diving into the monumental issues which assault our smug comfort every day. We adore him for it. Bloggy has a...
Posted by james at 5:18 PM | Full Post
January 16, 2007
another look at "You Belong to Me: Death of Nations: Part V"
from Act III, Rory Sheridan (Tiger), Carrie Getman, Harold Kennedy German and Elizabeth Knauer, with Robert Saietta, Beau Allulli and Okwui Okpokwasili (bear) further upstage On Saturday, when I wrote about the PS 122 production of International WOW Comapany's...
Posted by james at 4:23 PM | Full Post
January 13, 2007
U.S. official intimidates, impugns loyalty of pro bono lawyers
[American Civil War pictoral envelope ca. 1860-1865] Don't they teach civics in school any more? A member of Bush's team and a lawyer himself, acting in his official capacity as head of "detainee" affairs, intimidates lawyers defending the most...
Posted by james at 1:09 PM | Full Post
January 12, 2007
the two Times Square demonstrations
hundreds of anti-war demonstrators on the north side two intrepid pro-war demonstrators on the south side New York activists were able to attract a couple of hundred demonstrators to the Times Square military recruiting station on Thursday night, responding...
Posted by james at 11:51 PM | Full Post
the special warrior king
Apparently there were anti-war protests in cities all over the country yesterday, but if you depend on the NYTimes for your news, you wouldn't know it. It seems that everyone in the kingdom had been asked recently what they...
Posted by james at 11:32 PM | Full Post
January 9, 2007
we've just found another war!
is this trip necessary? Does our singular bellicosity stem simply from our addiction to oil, or from our growing cult of christianism? Or is it simply the pathological expression of a frightened, isolated, ignorant, provincial and bored people? My...
Posted by james at 12:29 PM | Full Post
January 8, 2007
Brian Ulrich at Julie Saul
Brian Ulrich Gurnee, IL 2005 chromogenic print mounted on sintra with luster laminate 30" x 40” The sign reads "More Outdoors for Your Money Patriotic Chairs $9.99". The image is just one of the most resonant of the ten...
Posted by james at 1:43 PM | Full Post
December 21, 2006
Mary Mattingly at White Box
Mary Mattingly Fore Cast: An Environmental Disaster Opera 2006 installation and performance [an image from the performance of December 19] Because of the ambience (shadows, respectful movement and low buzz) of dozens of my fellow acolytes at the opening...
Posted by james at 4:32 PM | Full Post
December 1, 2006
Civil Defense is now Emergency Management, but . . .
[the 67 year-old on the left, the replacement on the right] Are they kidding? Did they have to dumb-down one of the neatest and most recognizable logos* ever created? Is it too much of a stretch to argue that...
Posted by james at 2:00 PM | Full Post
November 27, 2006
Iraq war now as long as WW II, but with no end in sight
American involvement in World War II lasted exactly three years, eight months and one week. As of today, the American war in Iraq has lasted exactly three years, eight months and one week. There is of course no other equivalence....
Posted by james at 4:18 PM | Full Post
November 8, 2006
the continued shame of an entire people
Regardless of whether the Democratic Party gains control of one or two houses in the Congress which convenes next January, the entire nation ought to be deeply ashamed tonight. After what the Republican majority has clearly done in the last...
Posted by james at 1:46 AM | Full Post
November 6, 2006
sentence first - verdict afterwards
"Let the jury consider their verdict," the King said, for about the twentieth time that day. "No, no!" said the Queen. "Sentence first -- verdict afterwards." "Stuff and nonsense!" said Alice loudly. "The idea of having the sentence first!"...
Posted by james at 11:25 AM | Full Post
October 31, 2006
come Tueday, Republican goblins gonna get us again, maybe
NOTE: After I had completed a political post last night I accidentally deleted it - irretrievably. I didn't think then that I would try to reconstruct it, but the subject keeps knawing on me and it definitely couldn't be much...
Posted by james at 6:24 PM | Full Post
October 25, 2006
if you see something, say something.
about terror far more real than that imagined by hysterical post-9/11 SubTalk warnings [altered poster sighted on the C train this afternoon]...
Posted by james at 5:46 PM | Full Post
October 11, 2006
Kim Jong-il a Republican?
North Korea threatens war against U.S. [AP] Oh great. It seems the Republicans have somehow managed to persuade Kim Jong-il to save their hold on Congress. Get ready to be whipped up over another war just weeks before the...
Posted by james at 9:35 AM | Full Post
October 5, 2006
only in America: of the government by age of consent
I find it absolutely incomprehensible that in the end, after all the horrors of the last twelve years of Republican Congresses, the last six with a totally disastrous Republican administration, we might see the Republican ascendancy overturned because my fellow...
Posted by james at 8:08 PM | Full Post
October 4, 2006
Adam McEwen at Nicole Klagsbrun
Adam McEwen Dresden (Phosphorbrandbombe) 2006 phosphorescent paint and chewing gum on canvas 90" x 70" [installation view] Adam McEwen Dresden 2006 acrylic and chewing gum on canvas 90" x 130" [installation view] [detail of above] I'm not even going...
Posted by james at 5:49 PM | Full Post
September 26, 2006
the American Airlines homo scare: even worse than reported
UPDATE ON THE AMERICAN AIRLINES INCIDENT: the airline's straights-only security rules don't fly I have now heard from our friend David Leisner, who was quoted in the The New Yorker story I wrote about on Thursday evening. David was one...
Posted by james at 12:15 AM | Full Post
September 11, 2006
the antidote to 9/11 24/7
I wasn't going to say anything more today about the fifth installment of our annual orgy of mourning and revenge, the anniversary of September 11. But things just got out of hand once we walked into Pierogi this evening and...
Posted by james at 9:37 PM | Full Post
August 2, 2006
feds throw blogger Josh Wolf into prison
Wolf at work "I feel a little bit responsible for this mess he's in right now, because he told me, 'Mom, you taught me to do what's right.'" Liz Wolf-Spada A Federal grand jury investigating the alleged vandalism of...
Posted by james at 11:38 AM | Full Post
July 25, 2006
what do you call it when a nation commits suicide?
Smoke rises from Khiam village after being hit by Israeli air strikes, in southern Lebanon, July 25, 2006 Israel has just killed four UN observers, apparently deliberately, and in doing so may have just dealt itself a fatal blow.An...
Posted by james at 7:26 PM | Full Post
the most dangerous war
Timothy Buckwalter [title not given] 2006 acrylic ink on paper 8.5" x 11" The destruction and invasion of Lebanon is very likely to spell disaster for New York, and for any other people or place rightly or wrongly perceived...
Posted by james at 1:29 PM | Full Post
July 23, 2006
"terrorist targets" in Beirut
Beirut residents protested the attacks on Lebanon on Saturday [caption and image from theangryarab, although the photograph originally appeared in the NYTimes crediting Bryan Denton]...
Posted by james at 11:51 AM | Full Post
what are the cartoonists and bloggers afraid of?
Isn't it strange that our last remaining guardians of truth, the political cartoonists and the two biggie bloggers, have been virtually silent on the biggest news story in the world today? See Juan Cole if you want enlightenment. [image...
Posted by james at 11:25 AM | Full Post
July 22, 2006
every one of us is in charge of the U.S. gulags
Benamar Benatta, in an undated Federal detention facility photograph This sort of thing will disgrace us all forever.NEW YORK - An Algerian man believed to be the last domestic* detainee still in custody from a national dragnet after Sept....
Posted by james at 11:48 AM | Full Post
July 19, 2006
they've lost the potato chip!*
[an image either Barry or I captured only days after September 11] Oops. The only remaining recognizable relic of the sacred World Trade Center buildings is missing, but I guess we're still more or less on target to spend...
Posted by james at 1:12 PM | Full Post
July 18, 2006
thoughts of Israel somehow always cancel thought
U.N. peacekeepers react at the sight of citizens who were killed when Israeli warplanes targeted their vehicles Saturday (July 15th) AP I've just read two disturbing pieces in today's NYTimes Metro section describing the reaction of New York's "leaders"...
Posted by james at 4:27 PM | Full Post
July 13, 2006
closer to Armageddon
Sue Coe War Street 2000 etching 9.5" x 12.5" Okay, for better or for worse, the U.S. is the only "superpower" (for now) so I don't think it's presumptuous to talk about the size of our footprint: Right now...
Posted by james at 12:12 PM | Full Post
July 8, 2006
Chris Moukarbel at Wallspace
Chris Moukarbel Untitled 2006 DVD projection [still from installation] Who owns 9/11? Even the question is scary, but most of us would answer in disgust, "George Bush". Nevertheless we would have to admit that this quick response ignores the...
Posted by james at 1:33 PM | Full Post
June 24, 2006
Oppenheimer would not be surprised
In the last hours these two stories have appeared in the NYTimes: "Cheney Assails Press on Report on Bank Data" and: "Court Bars Info Request on NSA Wiretapping" So, the engineer behind the systematic destruction of our liberties is...
Posted by james at 11:54 AM | Full Post
June 19, 2006
Bush absolutely did not visit Iraq or Baghdad last Tuesday
no hanging garden, this [a section of the Green Zone perimeter] I'm tired of the media's [continuing] misleading descriptions of last week's flight by Bush to Baghdad International Airport and the Green Zone. If I thought it was just...
Posted by james at 7:58 PM | Full Post
June 11, 2006
Guantanamo suicides a 'PR move'* [to draw attention]
no, unfortunately this image is very real, and not Trompe l'oeil [the Yahoo! News caption for the picture begins: Leg irons and hand cuffs hang on a board at Camp Delta at Guantanamo Naval Base in Guantanamo, Cuba, in...
Posted by james at 7:05 PM | Full Post
June 9, 2006
Abu Musab ab-Zarqawi, dead or dead
Now we're finding out he wasn't killed by the 500 lb bombs we dropped. He had to be dispatched afterwards, more or less manually. We sure wouldn't have wanted him to be able to talk. Somebody might actually have learned...
Posted by james at 11:22 AM | Full Post
May 16, 2006
Jenny Holzer at Cheim & Read and Yvon Lambert
Jenny Holzer WHITE 2006 Nichia white LED's mounted on PCB with aluminum housing 192.25" x 216.5" x 5.25" [capture from moving light of installation] Jenny Holzer HAND yellow white 2006 oil on linen in eight panels 33" x 25.5"...
Posted by james at 2:25 PM | Full Post
March 21, 2006
swimming in Iraq
swimming on our aircraft carrier in the desert Not many people will get to read my post or the original The Nation article available only in the print edition, but maybe a color image and the accompanying story from...
Posted by james at 1:34 PM | Full Post
March 18, 2006
'Permanent Bases' and Rachel Corrie, both in The Nation
There are few issues more important to our own survival and that of the entire world than the state of Israel and the war in Iraq. In two consecutive issues this month The Nation's contributors offer enlightenment in these areas...
Posted by james at 11:13 AM | Full Post
March 17, 2006
"Sophie Scholl-The Final Days"
Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who...
Posted by james at 5:12 PM | Full Post
February 22, 2006
nobody in charge
I think I can speak for a lot of people on the Left if I say that for a long time we've been in a state of despair because of our belief that the radical Right was pretty much...
Posted by james at 5:38 PM | Full Post
February 10, 2006
Plamegate updated and illustrated
Juan Cole cuts through all the mendacity this morning: He describes, in the clearest possible fashion [and richly illustrated] the crimes of Bush, Cheney, Libby and Rove as they relate to the Valerie Plame story. Cole's good, but it's really...
Posted by james at 11:59 AM | Full Post
February 8, 2006
the cartoon war, and Thomas Hirschhorn at Gladstone
Thomas Hirschhorn Superficial Engagement 2006 [detail of installation] Thomas Hirschhorn Superficial Engagement 2006 [detail of installation] Most of the commercial media has decided that Americans shouldn't be shown the drawings which seem to have made the world go crazy...
Posted by james at 9:38 PM | Full Post
"Mahomet débordé par les intégristes"
This cartoon appeared today in Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical weekly associated with the radical Left. The in-house drawing portrays the prophet of Islam next to a headline, "Mahomet overwhelmed by the fundamentalists." The distraught man cries, "It's hard...
Posted by james at 1:18 PM | Full Post
February 3, 2006
wacky Christians green with envy?
The U.S. and British governments criticized publication of the caricatures as offensive to Muslims, raising questions about whether the line between free speech and incitement had been crossed. [Associated Press] One more short thought on the subject of cartoons (although...
Posted by james at 6:44 PM | Full Post
February 2, 2006
we are all Danes today
This whole Mohammed image thing is almost perfectly ridiculous, but there is one perfect solution to the problem. Denmark simply must not be left hanging in the wind. There is a popular, although apparently apocryphal story concerning the Danish...
Posted by james at 11:20 PM | Full Post
February 1, 2006
more on Cindy Sheehan's dress code incident
I don't know what to make of all of this, but in the end I have to say I'm not losing interest in this story. See yesterday's post for the background. Thanks to Towleroad for alerting me to the latest...
Posted by james at 10:26 PM | Full Post
January 31, 2006
disorderly conduct before the emperor
House arrest If she just had the common decency to wear Old Navy or GAP, it would only have been American business as usual and there wouldn't have been any fuss. Even MSNBC can't make Cindy Sheehan look like...
Posted by james at 11:20 PM | Full Post
January 13, 2006
finally it's right here: a secret police with matching state*
Jane and Louise Wilson Stasi City 1997 video [still from installation] All this blithering about to execute or not to execute, for the death penalty or against - all rot, comrades. Execute! And, when necessary, without a court judgment."...
Posted by james at 5:57 PM | Full Post
December 16, 2005
how bankrupt is the journalism of the New York Times?
more and more just a punch line? I suppose that since I'm just a blogger I'm not expected to know much about a journalist's responsibilities, but I do think I can improve on what New York Times executive editor...
Posted by james at 9:30 PM | Full Post
December 8, 2005
Pinter reminds us that political truth still requires a poet
Sir Harold Nobel laureate Harold Pinter addressed the Swedish Academy yesterday. He began with a beautiful description of his own creative process, but very soon stepped up to the broader political pulpit which the prize so generously provides its...
Posted by james at 12:45 PM | Full Post
November 27, 2005
progressives are wrong if they're thinking Hillary Clinton
Steve Greenfield, upon his release from arrest during the 2004 Republican National Convention It's time more people realized who she really is, and rejected the impressive, carefully-managed hype which disguises the reality. You don't even have to consider yourself...
Posted by james at 3:50 PM | Full Post
November 18, 2005
Rumsfeld travels to Australia like a beleaguered emperor
Hyatt Regency is now Hyatt Imperial We learned from Paul Kidd this morning that the trappings and fears which go with our imperial presidency have now been extended to the president's cabinet, specifically to our bloody secretary of war....
Posted by james at 4:56 PM | Full Post
November 16, 2005
delicious: Watergate's Woodward may help bring down Bush
- this time apparently in spite of himself, since this shooting star reporter certainly hasn't been doing much investigating lately. Reuters reports that Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, has disclosed to the special prosecutor that the White House had told...
Posted by james at 5:34 PM | Full Post
November 14, 2005
Bush the Leader wraps himself in khaki again
I mean, what are they going to say? Has anybody not noticed that the man frequently described as the President of the United States addresses his constituents only inside military bases or, if anywhere else, only in the company...
Posted by james at 9:08 PM | Full Post
November 3, 2005
gotta love a boy with a little bicycle and a red scarf
especially if he's part of a "Drive Out the Bush Regime" demo marching up 8th Avenue this afternoon led by some of the youngest revolutionaries I've ever seen the youth in question looking particularly endearing stopped by a flat...
Posted by james at 12:05 AM | Full Post
October 30, 2005
Bertrand Russell* in Williamsburg
Further to the right on this North 10th Street wall is the exposition,FORGET PATRIOTISM SUPPORT HUMANISM * Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872-1970) Note: the colors in this image have absolutely not been manipulated....
Posted by james at 7:56 PM | Full Post
September 30, 2005
FREEDOM NIXED FOR SACRED SPACE - WAL-MART IN TALKS
and eventually, when interest in them flags, we can use the two big footprints for parking So, after watching four years of people fighting over the big hole, we're now to have nothing more than some dreary architecture sheltering...
Posted by james at 12:51 PM | Full Post
September 26, 2005
White House arrests Cindy Sheehan
dangerous woman Cindy Sheehan has been arrested for not moving from the sidewalk in front of the executive mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue. White House press secretary Scott McClellan:"it's the right of the American people to peacefully express their views....
Posted by james at 5:37 PM | Full Post
September 24, 2005
Bush has made beatings and torture very American
An Iraqi detainee at a jail in the outskirts of Baghdad, 2004. Troops from the army's elite 82nd Airborne Division routinely beat and mistreated Iraqi prisoners at a base near Fallujah in central Iraq with the approval of their...
Posted by james at 10:41 AM | Full Post
September 22, 2005
don't expect freedom of speech or assembly in New York
bedlam immediately followed the arrest of the organizer of Cindy Sheehan's appearance in Union Square [the guy in the yellow shirt is a plainclothes punk "kid" who tried to start trouble before the rally began, according to a witness,...
Posted by james at 5:13 PM | Full Post
September 14, 2005
was "mission accomplished" even in Afghanistan?
in Afghanistan the Taliban remain an enduring threat, freedom only clings to life, especially for women, and more Americans are dying than ever before Sixty-nine American service members have been killed in Afghanistan this year, the NYTimes reported today...
Posted by james at 12:55 PM | Full Post
September 9, 2005
the terrorists have won - again
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that U.S. President George W. Bush has the power to detain Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who has been held for more than three years as a suspected enemy...
Posted by james at 10:57 AM | Full Post
August 31, 2005
bring the National Guard and the money home now
I cry for New Orleans. And I don't want to see another photo with a caption screaming about folks "looting," when they are in the midst of an unprecedented disaster where there is no food, no water and no...
Posted by james at 11:18 AM | Full Post
August 23, 2005
Barenboim continues Said's dream
playing for peace In a project begun with the dream of his late friend Edward Said, Daniel Barenboim finally made it to Ramallah with his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra last night. Members of the orchestra, founded in 1998, come from...
Posted by james at 4:08 PM | Full Post
August 17, 2005
Chelsea's vigil for Cindy Sheehan, and the end of a war
It's finally beginning to look like we might be able to move on. These are images of the silent vigil held on 8th Avenue near 17th Street in Chelsea this evening, an echo of similar observances held all over...
Posted by james at 9:07 PM | Full Post
de Menezes in light jacket, walked casually, used transit card
British newspapers front pages, August 17, 2005 carry pictures of the body of Jean Charles... Jean Charles de Menezes walked at a normal pace into the subway station on July 22, used his card to pass through the turnstile,...
Posted by james at 12:16 PM | Full Post
August 15, 2005
finally, a VJ Day which liberates the queers too?
exactly 60 years later: the kiss watched 'round the world, its original models, and some contemporary enthusiasts Although there is at least one same-sex couple in the group* kissing in the image above, they didn't make it into the...
Posted by james at 4:21 PM | Full Post
August 2, 2005
reign of terror
[North 4th Street, Williamsburg, on Sunday]...
Posted by james at 12:19 AM | Full Post
August 1, 2005
so, what was the difference this time?
the signs on Fifth Avenue read "Witness To Israeli War Crimes," and that seems to have stuck in more than one important craw Steve Quester and his remaining four co-defendents in the trial of the M26 arrestees were sentenced...
Posted by james at 8:21 PM | Full Post
July 26, 2005
what to do if stopped for a subway search
not so simple now, even for white guys, but maybe it never was UPDATE: I received a very constructive comment on my last post, "bag the entrance searches, we need exits!", from Matt of the "Flex your Rights Foundation,"...
Posted by james at 3:32 PM | Full Post
July 25, 2005
bag the entrance searches, we need exits!
the wrong kind of crowd control It's a good thing it was Penn Station, because virtually none of New York's Transit system stations could be evacuated for either a real or a false alarm. Chief Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg's...
Posted by james at 1:40 PM | Full Post
terror
Jean Charles de Menezes The gang of men who accosted and chased a terrified young electrician into the tube where they shot five bullets into his head after he tripped and fell onto the floor of a car filled...
Posted by james at 10:20 AM | Full Post
July 21, 2005
darkness settles over the land, this time maybe permanently
the Madtown Liberty Players portray the Fourth Amendment under attack (two years ago) The House voted today to make the "Patriot Act" permanent. In what may be the least patriotic vote ever recorded in that chamber, our representatives effectively...
Posted by james at 11:44 PM | Full Post
July 19, 2005
just about as brutal and effective as our campaign in Iraq
a Palestinian man walks next to a section of a wall eight-meters high built by the Israeli government, arbitrarily separating Jerusalem (and some additional annexed lands) from the Palestinian suburb of Abu Dis We will not prevent terrorist acts...
Posted by james at 12:38 PM | Full Post
July 11, 2005
MTA: stadium treated as emergency, but security gets yawn
leaving it up to the riders Barry has just about covered the issue, with the help of Newsday's estimable Ray Sanchez, but a letter to the editor published in the NYTimes helps to illustrate the scale of the criminal...
Posted by james at 7:22 PM | Full Post
June 28, 2005
Tom Hurndall? - but "old news" is no news, we're told
[unless it helps the White House - or the NYTimes] Sophie Hurndall, Tom Hurndall's sister: ". . . but there are thousands of cases out there where people don't have the weight behind them that we have." UPDATE: In Britain...
Posted by james at 12:02 PM | Full Post
June 12, 2005
I want to wake up; when do I get pinched?
Lead paragraph of a Reuters story tonight:WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House is split over whether to close a U.S. jail in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a Republican lawmaker said on Sunday, as a magazine reported a top al Qaeda suspect...
Posted by james at 10:08 PM | Full Post
May 31, 2005
life after birth
respect A gentle letter to the editor in today's New York City Newsday ends with this terse critique of the Republicans' evil politics of stem-cell research: "After all, we may differ as to when human life begins, but it...
Posted by james at 1:33 PM | Full Post
May 26, 2005
bringing terror home, "Peace by Piece"
Damien Davis Bear and Cover 2004 paper bears, desk [installation view] How do we address the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki today, sixty years after the fact? The artist Hiroshi Sunairi, a native of Hiroshima, asked his students at...
Posted by james at 10:56 PM | Full Post
May 6, 2005
the World Trade Center site as a grand public plaza
Pietro Gualdi Grand Plaza of Mexico City, Following the American Occupation of September 14, 1847 1847 oil on canvas [one of my all-time favorite public squares, for the richness of its life - once we left] Over seventy years...
Posted by james at 12:11 PM | Full Post
April 26, 2005
roses arrive in Chechnya
after unpacking a suitcase in Grozny an installation on Friendship of Peoples Square "Give them bread, but give them roses too" [traditional socialist cry] I hate loose ends, so I'm following up on a post I did two months...
Posted by james at 2:24 PM | Full Post
April 13, 2005
NYC police are now proven liars, but nothing will change
Welcome citizens! (wire and flesh, inside the holding pen on Pier 57) AND THEY'LL DO IT AGAINThis is the political nightmare we fear the most. -- joseph KeifferSix letters in the NYTimes today discuss yesterday's news article about the...
Posted by james at 11:29 AM | Full Post
March 29, 2005
best in show - but it was no contest
untitled (1936 Lincoln Zephyr door handle) 2005 I saw no vehicle which pleased me more at the New York auto show than this seventy-year-old prop for the introduction of one manufacturer's 2006 model. I spent the entire afternoon at...
Posted by james at 12:45 AM | Full Post
March 25, 2005
it's clear we really want these leaders
Jor-El, father of Superman I haven't posted much of a true politcal nature lately. Frankly, I've felt that the game is over as far as this benighted nation is concerned. We've failed as a society and as a republic....
Posted by james at 9:02 PM | Full Post
March 23, 2005
getting one's priorities straight
This graffito was found inside the boy's room in one of the large Chelsea gallery/studio buildings today....
Posted by james at 12:08 AM | Full Post
February 22, 2005
in Chechnya, a biennale like never before - anywhere
drawing from a pre-school Chechynan child To Chechnya with art, with deep concern, and love too. A number of artists from around the world have organized what they are calling the "EMERGENCY BIENNALE in CHECHNYA." The extraordinary occasion, a...
Posted by james at 2:57 PM | Full Post
February 21, 2005
sweet reason from abroad
a girl holds a poster reading 'Seriously damages human rights' during an anti-Bush demonstration in front of the US Embassy in Brussels today Of course, like most people outside this country, William Pfaff knows that Bush doesn't really know...
Posted by james at 6:18 PM | Full Post
February 18, 2005
art and politics at The Gates
the "politicization" of the gates! Many thanks to Noah Lyon for giving me the opportunity of pulling together my last two posts about art and politics (and maybe a good many more of these blogs, going back almost three...
Posted by james at 10:46 PM | Full Post
February 13, 2005
"on the subject of WAR"
Nina Berman Cpl. Tyson Johnson III, 22, a mechanic with Military Intelligence The caption next to the photograph of Corporal Tyson reads: Cpl. Tyson Johnson 22 years old, 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, was wounded September 20, 2003 in a...
Posted by james at 9:02 PM | Full Post
February 11, 2005
"Defenders of the Unpopular Feel Less Popular"
This is not a good thing for America, regardless of the court arguments. Lynne Stewart, whom the NYTimes accurately describes as "an outspoken lawyer known for representing a long list of unpopular defendants," has been found guilty of all charges...
Posted by james at 12:16 AM | Full Post
February 2, 2005
torture? it's apparently no problem for US
The Democrats have decided they'll let Gonzales become the chief law-enforcement officer of the world's only superpower rogue state. If, after the November 2004 election, there might still have been any doubts around the world about how many Americans actually...
Posted by james at 3:03 PM | Full Post
January 29, 2005
the honest George
Juan Cole has written a speech George Bush could have actually delivered in the fall of 2002, but only to his real base (most interestingly, it's actually an outline of the administration's entire domestic agenda as much as it's about...
Posted by james at 11:24 AM | Full Post
January 21, 2005
WORST EVER
the president, his tank, his guards, his people Seems like we're just spitting in the wind now, as an activist friend said the day before the republic's formal obsequies. Still, it was good to see these noble souls lining...
Posted by james at 10:42 PM | Full Post
January 6, 2005
Alberto Gonzales
I AM NOT A TORTURER! Contact your senator now! We deserve a top law enforcement officer with a better resume. For those who have a senator on the Judiciary Committee itself, which began hearings on the nomination this morning,...
Posted by james at 11:29 AM | Full Post
January 1, 2005
the United States, tsunami relief no-show
Meulaboh, Sumatra, Indonesia, today I have no status in and no experience of emergency relief operations, planning or administration, but anyone could have foreseen that the immediate challenge in responding to the tsunami disaster would be the logistics of...
Posted by james at 4:07 PM | Full Post
December 28, 2004
Susan Sontag
Peter Hujar Susan Sontag [1974-1975] Susan Sontag died on Tuesday. Beginning almost twenty years ago I had included her as a part of the homeland I had just adopted and which she had acquired at birth. Because of my...
Posted by james at 11:16 PM | Full Post
December 22, 2004
I guess this explains a lot
A lot has changed in 65 years. The country which built this great skyscraper now seems to have decided it can do so much better without wisdom or knowledge; we're in for a very bumpy ride. I took the...
Posted by james at 12:10 PM | Full Post
December 21, 2004
today's "Europeans," civilization's imposters?
"To the whites, the lives of their black office boys or chauffeurs seem unimaginably separate and isolated from their own. . . . But to the urban Africans, the 'Europeans' are the ones who seem isolated, in their remote and...
Posted by james at 11:54 AM | Full Post
December 19, 2004
today's MTA photo ban protest
my own rather lame sign, as seen somewhere in the system this afternoon (the sign on the guy's left reads, "I'm here on a research grant from Al Queda") this sign became a moving beacon for today's odyssey (the...
Posted by james at 12:55 AM | Full Post
December 17, 2004
photographers' 'Flash Mob' subway ride
REMINDER: Don't miss being a part of the photographers' 'Flash Mob' subway ride protest against the MTA proposal to ban all cameras from the entire transit system. The organizers' plan is to meet tomorrow, Saturday, at 1 o'clock in the...
Posted by james at 10:49 PM | Full Post
December 16, 2004
still no evidence of a Kerik nanny
But at least they're finally looking around. The NYTimes may hope to redeem itself for sitting out the Bernard Kerik story in its first weeks. The paper's news and editorial departments had totally ignored the developing stories about Kerik's shady...
Posted by james at 11:43 AM | Full Post
December 14, 2004
Karl Rove gives it to us
Ward Sutton KARL ROVE SUMS IT UP FOR LIBERALS 2004 syndicated cartoon detail See the entire 16-box Ward Sutton cartoon on The Village Voice site. My personal favorite/horror has got to be, "WE USED 9/11 AND NEW YORK CITY...
Posted by james at 8:09 PM | Full Post
December 12, 2004
the Bernard Kerik complex and the missing nanny
but what kind of complex? Anyone who is familiar with the basics of his career knows that Bernard Kerik's nanny story is a red herring, but is there any evidence that there even was a nanny, or at least...
Posted by james at 12:37 PM | Full Post
December 7, 2004
fight the proposed MTA photo ban!
They're still trying! Trying, that is, to outlaw photography in the New York transit system. Last June I wrote about a fantastic zap I had participated in called by "The Photographers Rights campaign." That same group has called another...
Posted by james at 8:30 PM | Full Post
November 30, 2004
bad donut!
I just learned that the donuts I love to hate are more distasteful than I had thought. Krispy Kreme* contributed $90,260 to the Republican Party and only $1,842 to the Democratic Party during the 2003-2004 election cycle, according to data...
Posted by james at 1:40 PM | Full Post
November 16, 2004
M26 justice - developments
Sentencing of the four remaining M26 defendents, until now scheduled for November 18, this Thursday, has been stayed pending the New York State Court of Appeals decision on whether or not it will review the unsealing of their older dismissed...
Posted by james at 7:32 PM | Full Post
November 15, 2004
Colin Powell, may he not enjoy this retirement
He's gone. Colin Powell's finally gone, and under the most cowardly of circumstances, just slipping out the back door quietly to no good purpose, and not three years ago, not two years ago and ultimately not at any time before...
Posted by james at 12:26 PM | Full Post
November 11, 2004
Reno knows
We spotted this wonderful, much-used Toyota last night while walking to the E train Spring Street stop. I had already taken this shot before I walked around the side of the car and saw the door emblazoned with a...
Posted by james at 9:52 PM | Full Post
do you know how to get to Tiananmen Square?
Practice, practice, practice. this tank is one of two which circled the block and then parked in front of a modest anti-war demonstration in Los Angeles yesterday evening. This is on Wilshire Boulevard, in Westwood, people! I can't think of...
Posted by james at 10:53 AM | Full Post
November 7, 2004
slain on the altar of our national suicide
I don't know what to say about this story, but it has moved me more than I thought possible. November 6, 2004, 4:39 PM EST A 25-year-old university worker from Georgia shot and killed himself at ground zero Saturday morning,...
Posted by james at 1:52 PM | Full Post
November 6, 2004
actually, the Republicans stole the election again
Why were the exit polls so completely "wrong" in Ohio, Florida and certain other states this year? Was it because of massive election fraud? The administration didn't need an October surprise; they knew it was already wrapped up - by...
Posted by james at 11:23 AM | Full Post
November 5, 2004
showing Iraqis American freedoms up close
Why don't we just order everyone (except males under 45, meaning "the enemy") to leave Iraq altogether? We're going to level this city of 300,000 people (since a ground battle would mean too many casualties for the good guys, that...
Posted by james at 12:30 PM | Full Post
November 3, 2004
we've destroyed it, and we have no excuses
Can you sucker yourself? Maybe, if you're an incurable optimist. For a few days I actually had convinced myself that this country would redeem itself, and yesterday evening I was bursting with such confidence that I posted this almost giddy...
Posted by james at 11:55 AM | Full Post
November 2, 2004
Bush is history
The skys are blue again, all over the world. But the real work is only beginning. It's not going to be easy rebuilding a nation and removing the curse which has rested so heavily on the planet [the cultists...
Posted by james at 8:09 PM | Full Post
November 1, 2004
"undecided" about the "anyone"
Thomas Nast cartoon, featuring Boss Tweed ( referencing the 1876 disputed election) The caption: Boss. "You have the liberty of Voting for any one you please; but we have the Liberty of Counting in any one we please." "Do...
Posted by james at 11:46 AM | Full Post
October 30, 2004
fascism, but it's all-American
file photograph Fascism, it's so US. Are there still any doubters out there? The Bush campaign is now asking followers to swear allegiance to Bush, right hands extended. The pledge:"I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my...
Posted by james at 12:08 PM | Full Post
election night gatherings
"Sooo . . . What do you wear to a civil war anyway?" A week ago I wrote that I would probably post a list of progressive spaces which are encouraging visitors to hang out next Tuesday evening, on...
Posted by james at 1:16 AM | Full Post
October 23, 2004
American Fine Arts must not die
American Fine Arts [no website] opened a smashing new show, "Election," last night, but the legendary gallery founded by Colin de Land (and currently located in the last home of the equally fabulous gallery created by Pat Hearn) will close...
Posted by james at 12:19 AM | Full Post
October 21, 2004
Democracy is Fun?
This evening we stopped in at the opening reception for White Box's new group show, "Democracy is Fun?," the latest in a series of intense installations they've been mounting as a response to our republic's desperate cries for help. We...
Posted by james at 11:25 PM | Full Post
October 18, 2004
M26: justice has a conniption fit
Innocent until proven guilty? Not anymore. One of the most basic principals of our law has been trashed regularly and systematically by our courts since September 11th. While what is happening to four peace activists here in New York at...
Posted by james at 7:54 PM | Full Post
the House and Peter Hort
Benjamin Henry Latrobe Design Proposed for the Hall of Representatives, U.S., Section from North to South (1815) ink and watercolor on paper For weeks now Barry and I have both been dismayed by the strange candidacy which Peter Hort...
Posted by james at 1:03 PM | Full Post
October 8, 2004
"Arna's Children"
The powerful documentary, "Arna's Children," is now at the Quad Cinema here in Manhattan. I'd be much more excited if it were playing in every town in the U.S., but unfortunately it's not going to happen. If you want to...
Posted by james at 7:13 PM | Full Post
September 17, 2004
Bush lies, but the Times thinks it's all sport
Today's NYTimes has a front page article reporting that Kerry says Bush isn't telling the truth about Iraq. Only a close reading of the story (now buried inside the online edition) would reveal that the real news, more important even...
Posted by james at 2:11 PM | Full Post
September 15, 2004
fucknewyork
Ahhh. The Underground Railroad has the dope on the wonderful little video I posted one month ago. This is from the director, Matt Lenski:We're both native New Yorkers - I was born in Manhattan and lived on Eldridge and Houston...
Posted by james at 7:03 PM | Full Post
September 7, 2004
Nuha al-Radi
Nuha al-Radi, detail of a work in a 2002 exhibition in Amman Writing in "Baghdad Diaries," about the first gulf war and its aftermath, the Iraqi artist and writer, Nuha al-Radi lamented:The birds have taken the worst beating of...
Posted by james at 2:58 PM | Full Post
September 5, 2004
Bloomberg defends police sweeps, some speech
What's wrong with these statements, both of which were reported yesterday by Newsday (in an obscure article devoted to another subject altogether)?When a caller to his weekly radio show criticized the unusually wide arrest net cast by police, [the Mayor...
Posted by james at 2:14 PM | Full Post
September 4, 2004
Guantanamo-on-the-Hudson, two days later
It was pretty quiet this afternoon around Marine & Aviation Pier 57, where nearly 2000 people were arrested and detained this week while they were exercising freedoms they imagined might be protected by the American legal system, or, in...
Posted by james at 8:31 PM | Full Post
lackeys showing their masters that they're in full control
The nation which is being told that everything went smoothly in New York this week can't be shown enough evidence to the contrary. Another friend and indefatigable activist colleague of ours had a lot to say about on Gotham Gazette...
Posted by james at 2:29 PM | Full Post
we're all inside a police net now
Sandy Katz, a former ACT UP comrade who served as aide to Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messenger, has sent his friends this account of his own experience with our new domestic order. On Tuesday afternoon he accidently became caught up...
Posted by james at 12:09 PM | Full Post
September 3, 2004
memorializing internment on a pier
Welcome citizens! (wire and flesh, inside the holding pen on Pier 57) I'm sure we haven't heard the end of the story of Guantanamo-on-the-Hudson, but in the meantime here's a small footnote to the account of what thousands experienced...
Posted by james at 3:22 PM | Full Post
September 2, 2004
suppose we were serious about fighting terrorism
I haven't seen a more sensible and economical description of what is ultimately the only way we will be able to successfully oppose and minimize terrorism than that contained in these few paragraphs by sciminc which appeared yesterday as a...
Posted by james at 6:53 PM | Full Post
they've suspended habeas corpus . . .
protesters raise hands and shout cheers as police bus believed to be carrying arrested protesters leaves a temporary detention center yesterday, heading for another holding tank downtown They've suspended habeas corpus, so this must be war. I'm not just...
Posted by james at 12:44 PM | Full Post
September 1, 2004
unions reject Bush and RNC
union members on the barricades this afternoon Thousands of labor union members overwhelmed the "Free Speech Zone" below Madison Square Garden this afternoon, crowding into pens running down to 23rd Street. It was clear they wanted nothing to do...
Posted by james at 7:47 PM | Full Post
approaching martial law in Chelsea
just another evening in Chelsea this week The media has generally been reporting that, except for the immediate blocks abutting Madison Square Garden, the heavy security blanket covering New York in the last week or two rests lightly on...
Posted by james at 6:54 PM | Full Post
August 31, 2004
fortress on 8th Avenue
It was disturbingly quiet early this afternoon on 8th Avenue. It's Republican week in New York, and while the broad northbound artery is usually one of the busiest in the city, at least 11 blocks of it are totally closed...
Posted by james at 4:15 PM | Full Post
the media, whom do you trust?
"Surfin' U.S.A." For those of you who are newly-energized politically, and, impatient, frustrated and disgusted with the starvation rations of the commercial U.S. media, looking around for some really healthy fare, here are a very few online, radio and...
Posted by james at 1:06 PM | Full Post
August 30, 2004
who does the War Against Terror protect?
AS I WENT WALKING TODAY I was hoping for a leisurely stroll to the Greenmarket in Union Square this afternoon, but seconds after I left the front door of the building I realized this wasn't going to be the...
Posted by james at 11:10 PM | Full Post
yesterday was not about Kerry or the Democrats
Whatever it was, Sunday's massive protest (and even less so those which preceded it and those which are still to follow this week) was not a rally for John kerry or the Democratic Party Sure, come November 2nd these angry...
Posted by james at 3:21 AM | Full Post
August 29, 2004
August 29, 2004, marching for national sanity
escorting one of the coffins included in the "1000 Coffins Project" Barry and I were out on the streets for over six hours today, and I don't have the energy right now to do justice to a proper report....
Posted by james at 8:23 PM | Full Post
August 27, 2004
what it feels like to be in New York right now
This is the image which accompanies the lead story on the CNN site at this moment. The headline on the front page? "New York stands guard." I see it as, "Republican Guards hold up New York." We are an...
Posted by james at 9:03 PM | Full Post
I'm Gonna Kill the President"
One scene in the play we saw last night accounted for what I'll say was the scariest evening I've ever spent in a theatre. While I think it's generally billed as comedy (well maybe political satire) don't underestimate its seriousness....
Posted by james at 8:36 PM | Full Post
August 26, 2004
ACT UP, still beautiful after all these years
protesting in the altogether It's AIDS, stupid! ACT UP pulled off a classic action this afternoon across from Madison Square Garden, the site of the Republican National Convention, scheduled to open formally on Monday. In the spirit and the...
Posted by james at 3:04 PM | Full Post
Bill Dobbs
"life could be beautiful" I really like him. Those who know William K. Dobbs know that's not so easy to say, but now that he's become the subject a modest but delightful profile in the NYTimes, written by Michael...
Posted by james at 1:23 PM | Full Post
the police occupation of Chelsea
Area frozen! We arrived back at the apartment tonight at midnight after an evening in Williamsburg and the first thing we spotted as we exited our friend's car was this sign. How much of New York are the Republicans...
Posted by james at 12:20 AM | Full Post
August 25, 2004
the enemy is here, not in Iraq
The judge has just said no to the coalition, United for Peace and Justice, but no judge can tell individual free Americans and their friends to stay out of Central Park on a Sunday afternoon. It's still our park, not...
Posted by james at 6:26 PM | Full Post
talking back to the little man in the White House
Even when I try to just do a "culture" post these days I often find I have to add it to the "political" category as well. But it's a sign of our dangerous times, and if I have a complaint,...
Posted by james at 2:52 PM | Full Post
August 24, 2004
our own "Dolchstoßlegende"
but we won't let go of our own myth Thirty years on, the Viet Nam War still has the power to enrage both those who survived its battles and those who stayed at home, and it now seems that...
Posted by james at 5:07 PM | Full Post
August 23, 2004
but can we survive even a Kerry victory?
Tweedledumdee That's it! I'm not voting for Kerry. The man wants to be remembered as a hero, and with good reason, but he wants to hide the one part of his history which finally distinguished him as a truly...
Posted by james at 8:44 PM | Full Post
August 17, 2004
It's about RIGHTS, Mr. Bloomberg, not your privilege
"A REPUBLIC, IF YOU CAN KEEP IT" - Benjamin Franklin The Mayor is playing with fire. Michael Bloomberg has dug in his heels, insisting that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and their guests will not be given a safe...
Posted by james at 7:15 PM | Full Post
August 13, 2004
have mass demonstrations become irrelevant?
CRIE DE COEUR the future of political demonstration? I won't represent or recommend anything other than non-violence on August 29, but I can't help wondering how we could expect a peaceful (if we're very lucky) demonstration involving 250,000 people, or...
Posted by james at 6:24 PM | Full Post
now it's Goss's sexuality hitting the papers
HEADLINE OF THE DAY: Unfit for Bottom?Then Try the Top Of course it's Porter J. Goss the NYTimes is talking about, don't you know....
Posted by james at 1:39 PM | Full Post
August 12, 2004
Leon Golub
Leon Golub Disappear You acrylic on linen 77" x 165.9" An artist who created "heroic-scale figures," but also a man of heroic-scale human commitment, Leon Golub died on Sunday. Holland Cotter memorializes him in today's NYTimes.Leon Golub, an American...
Posted by james at 3:17 PM | Full Post
we already have a unity government: it's called FEAR
"They should just have a unity government and be honest about it," said Barry when I mentioned the news report this morning that Senate Democrats are saying that they won't oppose the Goss nomination. Read the NYTimes story and weep....
Posted by james at 12:56 PM | Full Post
August 10, 2004
Central Park IS the rally site
peace and goodness in the park before 9/11 - and after 8/29 I'm not going to any rally on the West Side Highway. I am not a car. After marching past Madison Square Garden I'll be in our great...
Posted by james at 7:15 PM | Full Post
Porter Goss would be disastrous
To head the most imprtant part of an intelligence community already disastrously overly-politicized, the President whose party already contols the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, has proposed, yes, a Republican politician. And Porter Goss is not just...
Posted by james at 6:30 PM | Full Post
Kerry says he'd vote for the war again
not thinking The man so many people hope will lead us back to sanity and save the Republic told us yesterday that he would have voted for the (current) war in Iraq even if he had known what he...
Posted by james at 12:42 PM | Full Post
August 4, 2004
Moon furnished N. Korea missile with subs a threat to U.S.
Yowza! That's showing some really faith-based initiative!It would seem that, a few years ago, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon purchased a small fleet of Russian ballistic missile submarines with the missile-launching hardware intact, then handed the subs over to North...
Posted by james at 10:32 PM | Full Post
July 21, 2004
Julia Scher's security check
detail from Julia Scher's video, "Guard" The third of White Box's planned nine weekly curated (RNC-oriented) shows opened tonight with a video and window installation by Julia Scher curated by Michael Rush. Everything is on the outside of the...
Posted by james at 9:35 PM | Full Post
July 12, 2004
no election
. . . until, whatever I wrote these three paragraphs as part of my ruminations on the eve of the last Congressional election, in 2002, prior to the monstrous Iraq War but just in time to see Hussein used...
Posted by james at 11:16 PM | Full Post
July 11, 2004
postpone the election?
Dictatorship will be the answer. Why of course we can't go on as a constitutional republic if a terrorist act occurs within our borders - or so the Administration would have us believe. Essentially it's what has already happened since...
Posted by james at 10:59 PM | Full Post
July 5, 2004
rigging another presidential election
where will your vote go when you leave the booth? We observed the 4th of July holiday yesterday by watching Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." [I just can't imagine how anything traditionally celebratory could be appropriate just now.] Because I...
Posted by james at 7:19 PM | Full Post
July 3, 2004
let's not make their nice
Herds of Republicans in New York? Can't wait for the excitement of the Republican Convention, still eight long weeks away? Start celebrating this coming Wednesday, and again on each of the next eight Wednesdays, with the people at White...
Posted by james at 8:48 PM | Full Post