Gettin' Mugged Suuhhhhhhkz

Ok, watch this video from Gothamist.
This is EXACTLY how it went down when I was mugged, as far as how they had me and the duration of time. Plus the punch to the head at the end. The only thing I was missing were all the kicks and the head-stomp finishing move.

I'm sorry, but when I see this video, my humanitarian feelings of opposition to the death penalty are severely compromised and I become engorged with passion and I fantasize about filling these criminal's mouths with my hands and ripping their jaws off of their faces with all of my concentrated rage. Lots of rage. I feel no compassion, I no longer feel sorry for them, I only wish to even the scores, and perhaps tip the scales in my favor to reward me for not being the original perpetrator.
Perhaps it was the veil of being glad to be alive and healthy after my attack that graced me with feelings of pity for my attackers. I don't know, it's tough. It's a very primitive, retarded feeling... very testosterone-driven.

Something I'm still tossin' around in my head, i guess. Age-old issue, age-old questions, no clear answers. Is there not enough love in the world to go around to get to everyone?

China censors Obama

{via NYT}
How childish and afraid are communists?
check out 0:09 when obama mentions "communists"
by 0:21 the censors have cut to some banal political commentary, MID-SPEECH, to cover up the part of the speech where he references the dreaded and long-expired dogmas of fascism and communism. the reporter is caught completely off guard!
How silly is it for a ruling party to display such childish, fearful tactics and expect respect from its citizens? Who, besides the silly Chinese communist party would worry so much about shielding its people from information for fear it might be taken seriously (see previous post)? Who has such little faith in her people (see previous post)?!!

no one is buying this!

Art Legal

The Contract Monitor
I ran into this website while researching artist's contracts.
Since I have begun negotiating contracts of my own, I find this website to be really interesting and helpful.
It's also quite disheartening, as a short investigation will reveal how vile most companies are in terms of fucking you over and trying to give you the least amount of compensation and credit as possible.
In most cases, they fancy more power than they need, just to see if they can get away with it. This includes contracts with illustrators to renown publications such as the New Yorker and Los Angeles Times!
As if it weren't tough enough to be an artist or illustrator without having to battle with your professional clients and conduits for BASIC rights to original work.
Click here to read a contract that "illustrates" how the New Yorker, an illustration-driven publication famous for it's commissioned artwork, has changed it's standard contract over the years to deal with web rights and everything that follows in a way that backs the artist into new corners.
The attitude of these contracts is gross.
you gotta fight for your right to party.

Sarah Palin is a Wolf-Killing Viking

and Alaska sues the U.S. Government to stop the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species!

→→→Forward →→→

I would like to forward this poignant warning just in from Mrs. L Babcock :

"A critical - and radical - component of the bailout package proposed by the Bush administration has thus far failed to garner the serious attention of anyone in the press. Section 8 (which ironically reminds one of the popular name of the portion of the 1937 Housing Act that paved the way for subsidized affordable housing ) of this legislation is just a single sentence of thirty-two words, but it represents a significant consolidation of power and an abdication of oversight authority that's so flat-out astounding that it ought to set one's hair on fire. It reads, in its entirety:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

In short, the so-called "mother of all bailouts," which will transfer $700 billion taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed financial institutions, will be conducted in a manner unchallengeable by courts and ungovernable by the People's duly sworn representatives. All decision-making power will be consolidated into the Executive Branch - who, we remind you, will have the incentive to act upon this privilege as quickly as possible, before they leave office. The measure will run up the budget deficit by a significant amount, with no guarantee of recouping the outlay, and no fundamental means of holding those who fail to do so accountable.

Is this starting to sound familiar? Robert Kuttner cuts through much of the gloss in an article in today's American Prospect:

The deal proposed by Paulson is nothing short of outrageous. It includes no oversight of his own closed-door operations. It merely gives congressional blessing and funding to what he has already been doing, ad hoc. He plans to retain Wall Street firms as advisors to decide just how to cut deals to value and mop up Wall Street's dubious paper. There are to be no limits on executive compensation for the firms that get relief, and no equity share for the government in exchange for this massive infusion of capital. Both Obama and McCain have opposed the provision denying any judicial review of decisions made by Paulson -- a provision that evokes the Bush administration's suspension of normal constitutional safeguards in its conduct of foreign policy and national security. [...]


The differences between this proposed bailout and the three closest historical equivalents are immense. When the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of the 1930s pumped a total of $35 billion into U.S. corporations and financial institutions, there was close government supervision and quid pro quos at every step of the way. Much of the time, the RFC became a preferred shareholder, and often appointed board members. The Home Owners Loan Corporation, which eventually refinanced one in five mortgage loans, did not operate to bail out banks but to save homeowners. And the Resolution Trust Corporation of the 1980s, created to mop up the damage of the first speculative mortgage meltdown, the S&L collapse, did not pump in money to rescue bad investments; it sorted out good assets from bad after the fact, and made sure to purge bad executives as well as bad loans. And all three of these historic cases of public recapitalization were done without suspending judicial review.

Kuttner's opposition here is perhaps the strongest language I've seen used, pushing back on this piece of legislation, in any publication of repute, and even here, Section 8 is not cited by name or by content. McClatchy Newspapers also alludes to Section 8 with concern, citing the "unfettered authority" that Paulson would be granted, and noting that the "law also would preclude court review of steps Paulson might take, something Joshua Rosner, managing director of economic researcher Graham Fisher & Co. in New York, said could be used to mask previous illegal activity." Jack Balkin also gives the matter the sort of attention it deserves on his blog, Balkinization.

But elsewhere, the conversation is muted. The debate over whether Congress is going to pass the Paulson bailout package, or pass the Paulson bailout package really hard seems to have boiled down to a discussion of time and concessions. The White House has made it clear that they want this package passed yesterday. Congressional Democrats seem to be of different minds on the matter, with some pushing back hard, and others content to demand a small dollop of turd polish to make the package seem more aesthetically pleasing, at which point, they'll likely roll over and pass the bill. Neither candidate, John McCain or Barack Obama, seem all that amenable toward the bailout, but neither have either demonstrated that they are willing to risk their candidacies to do much more than exploit the issue for electoral purposes.

Sunday morning came and went, with Paulson traipsing dutifully from studio to studio, facing nary a question on Section 8. Front page articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal detail the wranglings, but make no mention of this section of the legislation. On TV, cable news networks are stuck in the fog of the ongoing presidential campaign.

Throughout the coverage, one catches a whiff of what seems like substantive pushback on this power grab, but it largely amounts to a facsimile of journalistic diligence. Most note, in general terms, that the bailout represents a set of "broad powers" that will be granted to the Department of the Treasury. Yet the coverage offsets these concerns through the constant hyping of the White House's overall message of "urgency."

But one cannot overstate this: Section 8 is a singularly transformative sentence of economic policy. It transfers a significant amount of power to the Executive Branch, while walling off any avenue for oversight, and offering no guarantees in return. And if the Democrats end up content with winning a few slight concessions, they risk not putting a stop-payment on the real "blank check" - the one in which they allow the erosion of their own powers.

Over in the Senate, Christopher Dodd has proposed a bailout legislation of his own, which critically calls for "an oversight board that not only includes the chairman of the Federal Reserve and the SEC, but congressionally appointed, non-governmental officials" and would require the President to appoint an "independent inspector general to investigate the Treasury asset program." In Dodd's legislation, Section 8 is effectively stripped from the bill.

Nevertheless, the fact that Section 8 of the Paulson plan seems to strike few as a de facto dealbreaker can and should astound. The failure of Congress to hold the line on this point would be truly embarrassing. But if we make it through this week with nobody in the press specifically informing the public about the implications of this single sentence - in the middle of a complicated bill, in the middle of a complicated time - then right there, you have the single largest media failure of this year."

The Bush Administration is going out in a blaze of glory, eh?

Republicans - "Freedom of Choice is Different than Pro-Choice"

Republicans are up in arms defending Sarah Palin & family against Democrat's attacks on her private family business, namely her daughter, daughter's daughter daughter-daughter and ditter dotter.
Their line of defense is to argue in favor of choice, while making additional remarks to the tune of ♪♫ the government & others have no business telling a woman what they can/should be doing with her own life.
Sounds familiar, you foolz!!!!

I also get a kick out of why interviewees think Sarah is qualified!
"she's beautiful"
"she hunts"
"she makes americans feel like anyone can be president"

...what?! are you fucking serious!?
She likes this idea because she can feel more "on par" with the prez. Like, one of her friends got in therr. Like how Bush was a good ol' boy and didn't seem so "stuffy and inta-lekshul". It is this VERY distance, darlin', the distance between you and those who you deem "stuffy" and "over your head", that qualifies not only leadership, but the necessity for a feeble brain such as your own to be led. You're lucky I am not your president, or else I'd lead you and all of your friends right off a cliff. I am personally not a big leader person, and my politics are quite loopy and anarchistic. But I also fancy a good game, and in the game of contemporary politics,
I do not wish to share a nation with dimly lit brains who either wish to be president or like the idea of anyone being able to take office.

Our leaders were once talented, creative, noble and exceptional human beings. Scientists, Composers, Artists, Scholars, & Humanitarians once graced these halls (said in rambling old-man voice). Since when did being a filthy rich businessman, focused primarily on monetary self-expansion, replace attributes that really contribute to the magic and love that defines what it is to be human when considering our "leaders"?

I offer this explanation : Rednecks and Idiots reproduce very rapidly, because they are inferior and unintelligent. Thus, they have created a population that dominates the television viewing audience. Naturally, the broadcasting companies, in a fit of greed, respond by filling their broadcasts with rot to feed the hungry beasts. This further unifies the Rednecks and Idiots by giving them a national identity and common ground, which further perpetuates their growth. Now, they are a voting body, gullible and easily swayed by another breed of monster who is both more intelligent and evil - the political Right. Now cowboys, wealthy coke heads, and beauty pagent winners can be president.
= the American Dream
The Right, which in reality despises the Redneck/Idiot (Rediot) contingient and would sooner pop them off like cans at a firing range if they didn't require voters to empower them, easily takes advantage of our darlin's by feeding them propoganda such as :
"The earth is our oyster, our everlasting oyster"
"polar bears are not a currently threatened species"
"God is on our side"
"U-S-A, U-S-A"
"The Rich are on our side (give them tax breaks and privatize the world, better that we own air and sell it to you than to let it just float away)"
"the World community needs U-S-A! as a sort-of global police force. See, you can live the ultimate redneck fantasy and shoot big guns at evil-doers in the name of our great nation (actually, this is all just to further private business ventures and to squash any foreign nation's attempt at giving Right-Wing privateers a choke hold.... oh, never-you-mind! it's a gaiiiiime!!!)"
etc,etc.
i have to go, i'm busy.

bleh

from the washington post:
Another great idea from Bush

How long are the idiots of the world going to twist the word of the late great Jesus Christ (I am not Christian, but have always admired his story) and insist on moronic ideas such as an embryo's right to life in order to increase the human population on this planet? God! I wish the world would just stop having fucking babies and stop buying cars for just ONE YEAR!!
AHHH!!!

Humans FUCKING SUCK!! WEAK SAUCE!!!
EPIC FAIL!!!!!!!

From Gothamist - NYPD officer Patrick Pogan bodychecks critical mass bike rider Christopher Long during the July '08 ride.



Another worthless piece of shit in a uniform. Among the most memorable and exhilarating experiences in my entire life is the Critical Mass bike ride in NYC... not because I felt i was breaking the law, but because everything about it fucking rocks. Everything except the fucking Police, who are ordered to crush us for RIDING OUR BIKES.
May drivers sit and wait, and may cops lose their badges while cyclists win lawsuits against the city and eat cupcakes.

Pork Soda

Seauxe… any fans of the television series “House” will appreciate this medical mystery. According to the New York Times, a mysterious neurological illness has been noted amongst workers in a pork processing plant in Minnesota. Specific targets include the workers whose job requires them to take a compressed air hose and blow the brains out of pig heads, causing the brains to vaporize. The Pig brain vapor is subsequently splattered on the exposed skin of workers, and also inhaled. Experts believe that the illness is a result of something in the pig brains that the human immune system violently reacts to – something that is similar enough to human nerve tissue to cause the immune system to attack it’s host, the pig brain blower.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05pork.html?pagewanted=1&ref=health

Whew. Ok, where do we start? These jobs are for real, yo. Reading stuff like this confirms my belief that the human carnivore is a carnivore by way of blissful ignorance alone. The longer I survive on this planet, the more disgusted I am by the idea of eating land animals. It could be because I am an air sign, and I prefer the flesh of things that ‘fly’ through the ocean. Flesh that is imposed upon by uniform pressure, not gravity. Flesh that comes from that mystical dreamy sea. When I look at a pig, I don’t see a meal.

Here’s where I’m going with this: if you can’t look the raw source of your meals in the living eye and lick your lips, best to stay away. That’s how it used to be! If you wanted pork for dinner, you’d find a boar in the woods, or walk outside to the pig pen with an axe and a grin.

Let’s see a show of hands: who’s hungry?

And now, the personal meat of this blog: my detailed explanation of my eating habits and how I justify the simultaneity of my love & fascination for all things aquatic and my fancy for their flesh in my mouth (marine mammals excluded, of course). I was a sushi chef for two years in Florida. In essence, a fish butcher. But I digress…

I was raised on Papy’s Bayou near Riviera Bay. By New York City standards, I was practically born in the everglades swamp, the midwife an alligator, the nurse a dolphin (the bay is a brackish mixture of salt and fresh water). My brother and father were inshore fishermen, experts at extracting the elusive inshore species of gamefish from the mazes of mangrove roots and salt flats. I fished too, but I was always more interested in seeing the creatures once they were landed – and often released to live again. Where my fellow fisherman sought the chase and the fight, I wanted the facts. I wanted to see the fish, handle it, watch it swim, swim among them. Not exactly knowing how to indulge my fishy desires, I just kept fishing, since it brought me closer to my goal.

I moved away from the swamp to go to school, and eventually disassociated myself from the fishing industry. I drew fish in my sketchbooks, I painted them on canvass… I was introduced to a cosmopolitan delicacy at a small restaurant in Gainesville – Sushi. Years later I found myself in front of a cutting board in the back of one such restaurant, learning the art of carving raw fish flesh and presenting it in a clean, aesthetically pleasing manor. I loved it, and excelled. I earned myself the honor of receiving the salmon whole from the distributor and making the first cuts from the fish, removing the head and skin and tails and fins. I felt no remorse, as the fish were already dead, and I’d witness many a cruel death of these beautiful creatures as a child of a fisherman. Raw salmon flesh is free of blood, vibrant in color, and interlaced with wonderful lines of off-white fat. I thought it a most delightful texture and color, a marvel of nature. And I loved eating it. When I ate sashimi, I meditated on every calorie, previously hunted and cultivated by a sharp toothed, free-swimming silver-blue speckled spirit or ghost of cold running waters (unfortunately I had not yet researched salmon farming and how potentially disgusting and environmentally disruptive it can be if practiced negligently, as it is of the coasts of Chile, Norway, UK, Canada).

I would often save the decapitated heads of these salmon and take them home to my roommates, extract the remaining meat and make delicious sautéed dishes. I would set the heads up on a wooden plank and photograph them. I would take the sheets of skin with the silvery blue black speckled shine and hold it, wondering what it would be like to glide through the water with this layer of aquadynamic armor covering me.

Ok, ok, I’m elaborating a bit… i don’t want this to sound like Silence of the Sealambs. But everyone who knows me is aware of my strange and complicated love of fish. But couple this with a childhood routine of such ghastly feats as pushing a hook through the eyes of a poor little whitebait to catch a larger fish and you get someone who can look a fish in the eye and lick his lips. Perhaps it’s the Gemini in me who simultaneously feels a deep love for this same fish and her ecosystem. I don’t see any discrepancy…

But show me a cow, or a pig, or a chicken, hand me an axe and call me hungry, and all I want is eggs n’ cheese on rye toast, please. We are so far removed from the processes that make our food what it is. I mean, even vegetarian delicacies like tofu and soy-meat products… I’m not particularly suspect of the safety of these processes, but who amongst the regular consumers of said food products knows how to prepare them from scratch? I always loved the simplicity of being able to eat raw fish, and felt especially lucky to be the one preparing my raw fish day after day for as long as I did. When I worked at these restaurants, I ate sushi / fish prepared by myself five nights a week... never tired of it.

I never used a compressed air hose, either. I am repulsed when I think of assembly line workers blowing pig brains all over themselves and their buddies for hours every day. The sushi “butchering” process was an art, very clean, and when executed at my own hands, not without respect.