What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Recent Posts
- Day 14: Louisiana Senator Approvingly Compares Trump to Stalin
- Day 13: Elon Musk Flexes His Muscles
- Day 12: While Elon Musk Takes Over, We Podcast With Driftglass and Blue Gal
- Day 11: Harm of Fascist Regime’s Foreign Aid Freeze Comes Into View
- Day 10: The Fascist Regime Blames a Plane Crash on Nonwhite People
to the Art Museum Steps in Philly: Seattle PI
Despite complaints that the statue is piece of kitsch undeserving of display near Renoirs and Monets, the city Art Commission voted 6-2 Wednesday to move the 2,000-pound bronze out of storage and put it on a street-level pedestal near the museum steps.
Kitsch or art? What do you think?
…They should have left the statue at the sports complex. It’s a freakin’ movie prop, for cryin’ out loud. At least it’s not at the top of the Art Museum steps, blocking one of the most iconic vistas of the city skyline.
…But then I come from parents that compared this downtown sculpture by Jacques Lipschitz to “a pile of dog poop” and were not particularly fond of this or this sculpture either, so maybe it’s in the genes…
But at least I like Chihuly, LOL! (That Chihuly is at the Clinton presidential library, BTW.)
Now a Chihuly on the Parkway is something I would LOVE to see; Rocky, eh, not so much. Guess I’ll have to settle for seeing some Chihuly in New York sometime in the next few weeks.
I’d suggest instead a depiction of dogs playing poker. (on velvet of course.) If they do come to their senses, I know a good source where they can get some very fine paintings, and at very reasonable prices.
So, you’re willing to cut them a deal and save them from the Rocky statue? 🙂
Maybe they can hang the dogs playing poker in the art museum above Marcel Duchamps “Fountain” (yes, that’s a urinal).
In Philly, we can’t tell the difference…
from Iraq. NOT: ABC News
It turns out the official toll of violent deaths in August was just revised upwards to 1535 from 550, tripling the total. Now, we’re depressingly used to hearing about deaths here, so much so that the numbers can be numbing. But this means that a much-publicized drop-off in violence in August – heralded by both the Iraqi government and the US military as a sign that a new security effort in Baghdad was working — apparently didn’t exist.
You mean to tell me somebody lied about how things are going in Iraq? What a surprise, ABC.
Nuclear sub fire kills two
Study highlights perils of Afghan service
Health of Burma tribes ‘worst in world’
All environmental news today; a mix of gloom and hope…
A new study has found that as the permafrost melts in North Siberia due to climate change, carbon sequestered and buried there since the Pleistocene era is bubbling up to the surface of Siberian thaw lakes and into the atmosphere as methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
Oh, to have a government that took public health and the environment this seriously (sigh)…The entire government of Ivory Coast resigned late on Wednesday following a toxic waste scandal in which at least three people died, including two children, and 1,500 others were poisoned, a source close to Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny said. President Laurent Gbagbo accepted the resignation and asked Banny to form a new government, the source said.
Meanwhile, back in the kind of world we live in, more than 2,000 villagers in northwest China are feared to have lead poisoning caused by a polluting smelting plant, officials and state media said Wednesday. More than 300 children were among those affected, all residents of Hui county in destitute Gansu province, the China News Service (CNS) reported.
…Closer to home, Texas – which spews more greenhouse gases than Canada or the U.K. – is set to massively increase its emissions of greenhouse gases by approving construction of 16 new coal-fired power plants. Not the fancy new “clean coal” kind, either — the old-school dirty kind, which would add an estimated 117 million tons of carbon dioxide a year to the atmosphere, more than the individual emissions of 33 states and 177 countries. Texas has no formal global-warming strategy or plans to reduce CO2, having decided to leave global-warming mitigation in the capable hands of the feds. Cuts in greenhouse gases, says Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) press secretary, could “dramatically harm our economy.” The mayors of Dallas, Houston, and 15 other cities, representing nearly one-third of the state’s population, disagree. They plan to mess with Texas, vowing to take legal action to fight the plants.
…Thus Governor Perry demonstrates again that Republicans are anti-family: Pregnant women who are exposed to low levels of air pollution seem to have an increased risk of giving birth before term, Australian researchers report. Exposure to PM10 (particulate pollution) during the first trimester was associated with a 15 percent increased risk of pre-term birth. Exposure to ozone was linked to a 26 percent increased risk.
Speaking of Australia, Sydney Harbor’s seaweeds may be having a deadly effect on the small animals that eat them because they “bio-accumulate” (concentrate) the toxic heavy metals that pollute the harbor’s waters, a new study finds.
Soil polluted by organic toxins can be blasted clean with ultrasound, researchers say. The method may prove to be more effective at cleaning up contamination from oil refineries, power stations and aluminum factories than existing methods. The new clean-up method was inspired by the mining industry, which uses ultrasound to process some minerals. Researchers at CSIRO Industrial Physics have shown it can also destroy the toxic or carcinogenic persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that commonly contaminate industrial land. POPs include PCBs and DDT, and can spread in water and air and accumulate in the food chain.
The European Commission on Wednesday proposed a strategy to clean up the Mediterranean and halt pollution from industry, shipping and households by 2020. It said the major oil spill off Lebanon during the recent Israel-Hezbollah war highlighted the vulnerability of the Mediterranean where pollution threatens the health of the 143 million people living on the sea’s shores and the long-term development of such key sectors as fishing and tourism.
A disaster to take everyone’s breath away
After an extended drought, the forest probably becomes “patchy” like a threadbare blanket. Nature can only fill in the holes so fast by regrowing the forest. If the effects of global warming and human activity are creating holes faster than nature can fill them, eventually the forest patchily fades away over a century or more.
Forests once extended from the east coast of the US in a virtually unbroken blanket to Kansas City or so. The farmlands of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa – all forested. “Now, not so much” (as they say).
The August issue of Symmetry magazine is devoted to the Large Hadron Collider, which is scheduled to be started up in 2007.
Interesting facts about the LHC:
Link
Instilling a sense of fear in the American people isn’t just for Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush anymore. The government’s 2006 “fear itself” campaign is now coming to a local newspaper or TV newscast for you, courtesy of the supposed apolitical “pros” of the FBI.
Yesterday, there was an unusual terrorism-related event right here in Philadelphia. That unusual event was a federal agency — the FBI, which usually is about as transparent as a moonless night — voluntarily giving out information to the local media. In fact, they actually invited anyone with a camera or notebook to drop by.
Their message: The big 9/11 anniversary is coming. And don’t ever forget to be afraid, not for one moment:[snip]
“The greatest danger to America today is complacency,” Weis said. “This is a call to arms for every concerned citizen.”
The word “complacency” was the Tell, the sign that the Philly news conference was not an isolated event, but part of a coordinated Bush-driven PR campaign. Because — as this report just yesterday on CNN revealed — “complacency” is now the Rovian buzzword to remind voters that the only proper state for entering a voting booth on Nov. 5 is one of abject terror.
They’re going to take this dog and pony fear show on the road in a hundred different forms. We should be prepared for the local onslaught. This is the tenderizer to soften up the electorate for some sort of huge October fear fest a la Barnum and Bailey.
Link
Two Pennsylvania Republicans — Reps. Don Sherwood and Jim Gerlach — face an uphill climb to retain their U.S. House seats, a new poll shows.
The poll, which reached about 1,000 voters in each of 30 of the most hotly contested races in the country, found Sherwood, R-10th District, trailing Democrat Chris Carney by 7 percentage points, and Gerlach, R-6th District, trailing Democrat Lois Murphy by 5.[snip]
Sherwood’s deficit was the first indication that the four-term incumbent may be trailing. He was embroiled in a sex scandal last year, and pollster Thomas Riehle attributed the result to ”older men abandoning Don Sherwood because of his behavior.”[snip]
Sherwood was forced to disclose a five-year extramarital affair last year after his mistress accused him of choking her. The two settled before a lawsuit went to court.
The poll was an automated poll, and has it’s detractors, but Sherwood is one scumbag that needs to go down. As soon as Sherwood gat the bad news, he called in the chief slimeball, Dick Cheney, who will soon be in NE Pa for some fundraising. (and perhaps a bit of fear mongering)
Gerlach’s going down, and I can’t wait.
Who’s your congresscritter, Nag?
Sherwood, and I can’t wait to see him go. I’m beginning to see more and more Carney signs. Every time I drive by Sherwood chevrolet in Tunkhannock (his hometown), I growl under my breath. Booman is also very confident that Gerlach is going down. Here’s hoping that we’ll be celebrating like crazy people in November. I think that with so many local battles, it will be more difficult for the GOP to outright steal enough elections to keep the house. But they’re gonna try, so we’d better be ready.