James Ensor (1860 - 1949)

The New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) has an exhibition of paintings by James Ensor now through the middle of September. James Ensor was a Belgium artist whose work has been described as avant garde, and "weird." His parents had curio shops, and they sold masks at religious fairs. Many of his paintings show masks, people dead or dying, and a profoundly disturbed world view at odds with the parks, flowers, picnics and holidays of the Impressionism of many of his contemporaries.

"Many critics and viewers, including his artist friends, enamored of Seurat’s ideas and methods, found Ensor’s religious subject matter and murky drawings “fatally retrograde.” (The criticism set him off; he referred to “bizarre Pointillists operating behind the scenes,” of being “surrounded by hostility” and “mean vile attacks.” He condemned Impressionists as “superficial daubers suffused with traditional recipes.”)" http://nymag.com/arts/art/reviews/57723/ "Teeing Up the Twentieth Century - In Belgium 120 years ago, James Ensor let his freak flag fly" (Jerry Saltz, 7/2/09)

"A visual hysteric and geographer of fin de siècle pathologies, Ensor gives us kings defecating on citizens, himself urinating on a wall that reads ensor est un fou (“Ensor is a nut”), skeletons fighting over a pickled herring, waiters serving human heads on platters, flesh-eating ghouls, vomiting comics, and cavorting demons. Even if you find his visions flaky, he’s the advance man for practically everything twentieth-century, including Expressionism and Surrealism. He presages artists as diverse as Miró, Florine Stettheimer, Henry Darger, Cy Twombly, and Verne Dawson." http://nymag.com/arts/art/reviews/57723/




http://www.moma.org/explore/exhibitions

The "C" Words: Clintons, Corruption, Cons, Corporations, and Coups

As I've discussed on former posts, the democratically-elected President of Honduras was kidnapped from his home, beaten, flown out of his country and ordered to stay away, all carried out by an American-trained (and probably owned) military armed by the School of Americas in Georgia and beholden and obedient to the U.S. government.

While nations around the world immediately condemned the coup and called for President Zelaya to be returned to the head of the government, the United States government hemmed and hawed, said maybe it wasn't really a coup (just a spat, a tift, a minor disagreement) and has done nothing to sanction the military dictatorship that has taken control of that country.

It is apparent that the coup was directed by the U.S. and designed to send a warning to nations across Central and South America that their continued declarations of independence from the U.S. corporations will lead to their overthrow or perhaps murder. This coup has been relatively bloodless (although some protesting citizens have been shot) but the next one won't be.

So who comes onto the scene immediately to stand up in the U.S. to speak on behalf of the military dictatorship? Lanny Davis, an F-ing Lawyer. (I have a friend going through a divorce who made a comment to me the other day about his "F-ing Lawyer," then he said "excuse me" when he remembered I was an F-ing Lawyer too. I reassured him that F-ing Lawyer is now the official term, having replaced both "Counselor" and "Esquire" in common parlance, at least according to the Dictionary of Common American Phrases).

Lanny Davis who has never seen a dollar so deep in the gutter, so sticky with dog sh*t that he would not pick it up with his lips, Lanny Davis apologist for all things Clinton no matter how horrendous they are.

Lanny Davis, attorney to Bill Clinton, Clintonista-branded on his forehead, Clintonista loyalist. Corporate whore, F-ing Lawyer.

Lanny Davis is now representing the military dictatorship of Honduras, or at least the corporate sponsors of the military dictatorship.

And who is our Secretary of State? Oh that's right. It's Hillary F-ing Clinton.

So Lanny Davis, Bill Clinton's attorney, will talk to Bill's wife Hillary, and they'll agree that the military dictatorship really is good for Bill's trust fund into which he collects donations and bribes and kick-backs from the world -- I believe now approaching a billion dollars. Lucky Bill. Bill the Billion-Dollar Man. All he had to do to get the money was to sell out every single person in his own country.

Wouldn't you think that there would come a time when these F-ing Clintons would stop whoring for dollars, stop sucking the toes of military dictators. Why can't we get rid of these people. By which I mean politically-speaking only. Why don't they go back to Little Rock and bother their own people, leave the rest of us alone.

Look at this bullshit con-job Lanny Davis just gave in statements before Congress. Here's the essence of his position about the military coup, the overthrowing of a democratically-elected government, the kidnapping of the president and forcibly removing him from his country, the shutting down of the TV and news to prevent the public from knowing what was going on, the assault and murder on citizens who protested this coup: Well, we should let bygones be bygones.

Just like the Obama excuse for failing to enforce the law against the thieves and murderers of the Busy-Cheney regime and the Wall Street Criminals, we now have a new international Obama policy which is that whatever happened yesterday should be ignored. Can't we just all get along (said Rodney King after the cops beat the sh*t out of him). I wish I'd robbed a bank yesterday, then if they came to arrest me I would say: Oh, let's not dwell on the past. Call my friends Lanny and Barack, they'll explain.

Of course a minor problem with this don't-look-back theory is that all criminal law enforcement is backward looking: we prosecute people for what they did in the past, not what they might do in the future. If we're going to excuse all crimes done in "the past," then we can shut down all law enforcement in this country.

LANNY DAVIS: "My clients believe that, looking back with the wisdom of hindsight, it could have been done differently that night that the army decided to whisk him out of the country. And I’m not afraid to say that, with the wisdom of hindsight, it probably should have been done differently. As long as those of you—and I know Congressman Delahunt shares that view — are also willing to share the distaste for a president that regarded himself as above the law—in every institution in Honduran society, from the Church to civil organizations, to business organizations, to the Liberal Party, to the National Party, to the Supreme Court and the Congress, every institution found this president as putting himself above the law — if those facts are stated by my friends on the Democratic side, where I am affiliated, and my friends on the Republican side, we can then look forward, as President Obama and Secretary Clinton want us to do, and not argue about past history. Whatever the solution—cannot be imposed by the OAS, the United States, by my friends who are Democrats and my friends who are Republicans—it has to be a Honduran — "

One of the people Amy Goodman interviews on this topic at Democracy Now (link below) is Ken Silverstein, editor of Harpers, who had the following, in part, to say about what is really going on:

KEN SILVERSTEIN: "Well, just quickly, about Lanny Davis, as I had said previously, there’s very little he won’t say or do for money. ...

But look, the military—you know, I love—he says, “Oh, it might have been done differently. Oh, in retrospect, maybe it could have been done differently.” You had an elected president who was whisked out of office. He was overthrown by a military coup. He was taken away in his pajamas and put into exile. This is—you know, when you talk about who is behaving badly, who is behaving illegally, it’s the military in Honduras. So let’s be very clear on that. Davis is just lying in order to further the interest of his clients.

In terms of the other gentleman you mentioned, Ratcliff, he is another—he’s close to Davis. He also has very, very close ties to the Clinton administration. And apparently, during the negotiations in Costa Rica, he has basically scripted everything on behalf of the coup government, so that they don’t do anything without him. I mean, all their answers are canned and written by this guy, along with the help of Lanny Davis.

I think it’s also important to note, if I can just quickly, that when Davis talks about, you know, the unconstitutional behavior, the people who are at the head of this coup are a group of military and business elites who have run Honduras forever. It’s a very, very poor country. It’s as bad as it gets in Latin America. These are the people who want to get rid of the president, who have gotten rid of the president so far. And, you know, you’ve got people around the new government who are—have death squad histories. [CHENEY'S FRIENDS?] You have very, very repressive figures of historic importance in Honduras who are involved in the new government.

And I would also add here that the coup was backed by the apparel industry. [HERE COME THE CORPORATIONS -- U.S. CORPORATIONS ARE BEHIND THE COUP. PREDICTABLY.] And Davis is working on behalf of some Honduran business groups, including the apparel industry, and there are American businesses active in Honduras, like Russell, Fruit of the Loom and Hanes, who are members of the apparel trade group that are backing the coup. So it’s also important to note that you have American companies, and they say, “Oh, we can’t—we don’t want to get involved in this. We’re not political.” So they won’t take a stand on the coup. They have taken a stand. They’re supporting the coup government. And they need to be held accountable for it, as well as people like Lanny Davis."

Of course Obama could stop all of this simply by a phone call to the military dictatorship telling them to step aside and allow President Zelaya to return in peace. But Obama has not done that. Not a word from Obama, the man who apparently loves military dictatorships just as much as Bush and Cheney did.

Dictators Si, Democracia No. Maybe Obama can use that in his next election.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/15/honduras

Stupid White Men Ridicule, Demean And Humiliate Wise Latina

The white men of the Republican party are out in force today, with their white sheets and pointy hats, weapons loaded and pointing at a middle-aged, middle-class, former prosecutor who put lots of people in prison, politically moderate woman, committed to at least ridiculing, demeaning and humiliating her if they can't completely destroy her. Sotomayor must be ridiculed as an object lesson to everyone else in this society, all the minorities, all the women, the poor, the excluded, everyone who is not a rich white powerful man.

Here's their message to the rest of us: Don't ever say out loud that you have accomplished anything, that you are smart, that you are worthy or entitled to your position, or suggest you are the equal of white men.

That's all that's going on with this whole obsession on the "Wise Latina" comment made by Sotomayor. At some point in what apparently was a speech she gave in many places, she made the comment that as a "Wise Latina" she had a certain perspective on the world which is meritorious. The white men, the Republicans, have gone mad at her arrogance. How dare she. Not only is she female, she's not even white. (Don't ever try to tell Republicans that Hispanics are white -- they get crazed when they hear that).

She'll be confirmed. But the outcome of this hearing will be that women and minorities will be unlikely to say anything good about themselves or their accomplishments in public for fear of being ridiculed by the white men who run things. Can't you just see some Mexican-American woman standing up for herself at work, telling her boss that she's not going to be pushed around just because she's a woman, or just because she's a Hispanic woman, and her boss will come back dripping with sarcasm: "Oh, I suppose you're a "Wise Latina." Is that it?

Stupid white men. Sotomayor won't say it. But the rest of us can. And maybe they are terrified stupid white men, terrified because in their world view a Hispanic or woman should never be nominated for anything. Terrified because our president is not white. Terrified because their share of the bribes has slipped, and they need to turn that around so it will be worthwhile for them to continue to sell their votes. Terrified men often commit horrendous acts in an effort to keep what they have, destroy who they perceive as their "enemy." Which in this case would probably be most of us. Most of us are the enemies of these Stupid White Men.

One more thing: gender and race obviously affect how people view the world and will affect how they interpret and apply the law. That is why it is so devastating that our courts are packed with right-wing white men as judges, and women and minorities continue to be largely excluded from those positions. We need a fairer representation in the courts to ensure a fair application of the law to all. The way things are now, the upper-class white male judges tend to believe other upper class white males and to discredit the testimony of working class and poor people, women and minorities. That's why so many courts consistently rule in favor of corporations in allowing them to loot and destroy our country, and rule against the working people who are the immediate victims of corporate crime.

Other than that, this whole thing is a circus. Let's get Medicare for all and end the wars, shut down the death squads being run by the government, create immediate jobs programs, and prosecute all the criminals from the Bush administration and from Wall Street. If anybody up there was really wise, and not corrupt, that's what we would be doing. Instead of this circus. Peeeea-nuts, Pop-coooorn.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/us/politics/15confirm.html?_r=1&hp

Death-Squads-R-Us

Jeremy Scahill has an article over at Common Dreams (link below) talking about the recently-discovered secret death squads being run by the CIA, Bush and Cheney. His question is whether Obama is doing the same thing, and whether we can believe anything anybody says about this given how Obama is covering up for Bush-Cheney. Excerpts below.

"The New York Times is reporting that this secret program that had 'been hidden from lawmakers' by Cheney was a plan 'to dispatch small teams overseas to kill senior Qaeda terrorists.' The Wall Street Journal, which originally reported on the plan, reported that the paramilitary teams were to implement a "2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts." [NOTE: see how they always create names to hide the truth. They're saying they had "paramilitary teams." In fact they were running death squads out of the white house.]

Congress is now going to have investigations. They are angry that they were kept in the dark. Now you know how the rest of us feel. The public, the citizens, who Obama and the Democrats keep in the dark about everything. Why is it that when Congress is "kept in the dark," they immediately launch an investigation, but when the public has been deceived and lied to, the Democrats say "No Investigations, No Prosecutions?" Why do they think we, the public, have no right to know anything?

"The House Intelligence Committee is now reportedly preparing an investigation into this program and the Senate may follow suit. 'We were kept in the dark. That's something that should never, ever happen again,' said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein. Withholding this information from Congress 'is a big problem, because the law is very clear.'"

"[T]he program sounds very similar to what Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sy Hersh described in March as an "executive assassination ring" run by Dick Cheney that operated throughout the Bush years: 'Congress has no oversight of it. It's an executive assassination ring essentially, and it's been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths. Under President Bush's authority, they've been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That's been going on, in the name of all of us.'" [P.S.: It's also murder.]

"But another pressing issue for the Congress is investigating the Obama administration's adoption of this secret program's central components. .... The Obama administration has not only continued the Bush policy of using drones to carry out targeted assassinations, but has also continued the use of prisons where people are held indefinitely without charge or access to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Under Obama, Bagram air base in Afghanistan is expanding and, at present, hundreds of prisoners are held there without charges. In essence, the Obama administration is doing exactly what this secret CIA program sought to do, albeit out in the open."

Scahill points out that Executive Order 11905, issued in 1976, makes it illegal for any person in the U.S. government to engage in political assassinations. And, to the extent the government would claim that dropping bombs/drones from the air is part of war, the fact is that they are using these weapons against people in Pakistan, and Congress has not declared war against Pakistan nor can they or should they, since Pakistan has not threatened or attacked the U.S. And god only knows who all they've been killing. If a general who was a willing participant in running secret death squads finally called a halt to it because too many innocent people were being slaughtered, then there must have been an awful lot of dead innocent people. We need to find out who was killed, and then arrest and prosecute everyone involved for murder.

We need to stop our arrogant, murderous federal politicians who are running private death squads to knock off their enemies, and apparently think they are entitled to do so. No, people, getting elected to office is not supposed to mean that you have a License to Kill. That's the James Bond line, not the U.S. Constitution.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/14-6

Was Cheney Running A Secret Death Squad Out Of The White House?

Why has Cheney been all over the media since he left office, spreading his story that the U.S. needed to torture and murder people to keep us safe, trying to justify criminal behavior. Is there something more, Dick, that maybe you haven't told us about yet?

Well, apparently that would be a big yes. The CIA has been running a "secret" program, apparently under the direction of Dick Cheney, which Cheney instructed the CIA to "keep a secret" from Congress. His own secret goon squad he was running out of the white house with the water-boarding brigade of assassins who work at the CIA. In fact, when Leon Panetta took over as head of the CIA, the secret goon squad apparently even kept it a secret from him.

Except Panetta finally found out about the secret. And when he found out, whatever this "secret" Cheney-controlled CIA program was, Panetta immediately ordered it shut down. So what exactly was the "secret" program being run by Cheney through the CIA, and kept a secret from Congress? Now come on, this is not about a few phone taps on citizens. This sounds like a murder ring. Just like Seymour Hirsch vaguely referenced a few months ago, then pulled it back and said he would not speak about any such thing at that time. Cheney's hit squad, Murder For Hire.

A death squad being run out of the white house by that psychopath Cheney? There is already a report that it was a death squad, and they are trying to soft-pedal it by saying it was a group to murder only al Queda big-shots.

But a decision by Bush or Cheney or by the CIA to run a secret death squad out of the white house, assuming that's what went on, would be illegal. In fact, anyone involved would be guilty of murder. Cheney has no legal authority to run death squads, secretly order that others be murdered. There are strict laws in place to prevent the white house from running death squads -- laws put in place during other times when it was revealed that the white house had been doing just that, such as by multiple efforts to murder Fidel Castro. So the white house and the CIA knew these death squads were illegal, but did it anyway. Did they kill anyone? According to them, even though the program has been in place for 8 years, no, never got anyone. Bull.

"[T]he New York Times reported over the weekend that former Vice President Dick Cheney had ordered that the [secret] program be kept from Congress's oversight committees. Apparently, CIA Director Leon Panetta was told of the program's existence on June 23, four months after he took over the agency. Within 24 hours, he had canceled it and briefed the congressional oversight committees of its existence. Amid the uproar over how and why the agency kept Congress in the dark, one question that has escaped attention is, Why didn't CIA officials tell Panetta sooner?"

"The details and specific target of the program have yet to be made public. Some media reports, citing unnamed officials, say it was a plan to find and kill al-Qaeda leaders abroad. Two former CIA officials tell TIME there's another, somewhat less dramatic, possibility: a plan to conduct domestic surveillance."

Yeah, sure, that's why Cheney's so nervous -- a domestic wiretap. Come on, how stupid do they think we are? Of course it doesn't matter what the truth is, because the Democrats will once again cover it up, and vote to keep the public from finding out.

Once again, we need to remember the obvious: when a government refuses to enforce the laws against the rich and powerful, and instead fills the prisons with petty criminals and drug offenders, then this is not a democracy. It is a police state run for the benefit of the wealthy. A police state in which the rich and powerful can get away with anything -- even murder.

What do we want? Cheney in Attica.
When do we want it? Now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/us/14intel.html?_r=1&hp

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090713/us_time/08599191017900

Sh*t!! Swearing Is Good!

Don't you just love scientists? Where do they come up with this stuff? Somebody decided to do research on swearing. They found out it was good. It helps us to bear pain. No wonder everybody in our country is so f-ing foul-mouthed: we're all in pain. All pain all the time. So people who don't swear must have pain-free lives. For the rest of us, we choose not to suffer in silence.

"That muttered curse word that reflexively comes out when you stub your toe could actually make it easier to bear the throbbing pain, a new study suggests."

"Swearing is a common response to pain, but no previous research has connected the uttering of an expletive to the actual physical experience of pain."

"'Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon,' said Richard Stephens of Keele University in England and one of the authors of the new study. 'It taps into emotional brain centers and appears to arise in the right brain, whereas most language production occurs in the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain.' Stephens and his fellow Keele researchers John Atkins and Andrew Kingston sought to test how swearing would affect an individual's tolerance to pain. Because swearing often has an exaggerating effect that can overstate the severity of pain, the team thought that swearing would lessen a person's tolerance."

"As it turned out, the opposite seems to be true."

"The researchers enlisted 64 undergraduate volunteers and had them submerge their hand in a tub of ice water for as long as possible while repeating a swear word of their choice. The experiment was then repeated with the volunteer repeating a more common word that they would use to describe a table."

"Contrary to what the researcher expected, the volunteers kept their hands submerged longer while repeating the swear word."

The results of the study are detailed in the Aug. 5 issue of the journal NeuroReport.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/swearingmakespainmoretolerable

August Is International Gay And Lesbian Kiss-A-Mormon Month

Here's a link to a story about two gay men who were walking across a plaza in Salt Lake City. The plaza is owned by the Mormons. I thought everything in Salt Lake City was owned by the Mormons.

Actually, I thought the entire state of Utah was owned by the Mormons.

In any event, two gay men were walking home, cut across the plaza, and, while standing on "Mormon" ground, hugged, held hands, or kissed, and were immediately detained and hand-cuffed by a Mormon goon-squad who demanded that the homosexuals -- not be homosexual while on Mormon land. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/11/gay-couple-detained-after_n_230016.html Don't ask, don't tell, don't hug, don't kiss.

The article did not say whether the Mormon goons wore swastikas on their uniforms. Or just little embroidered shirts with temples and snakes on them.

Anyway, I got a terrific idea. How hard can it be to get two homosexuals, gay or lesbian, or mixed, one with a cell-phone with picture-taking capabilities, start stalking the Mormons, then catch them when they least suspect it and kiss them. Then the one who isn't doing the kissing takes the photo. Snap. Caught-ya.

How about a web-site: International Gay And Lesbian Kiss-A-Mormon.com?