San Francisco: Charles Gatewood photography show

Photographer Charles Gatewood, documentarian of underground culture, will show forty years of his work in a retrospective opening tomorrow, Friday, February 3, at San Francisco's Center For Sex & Culture. (Previous post about Gatewood here.) The doors open at 8pm. This photograph of Polywog is part of Charles's "Tattoo Pin-Ups" series. From Charles's announcement of the show:

I will show highlights from my career as "family photographer of America's erotic underground." The show will include 45 silver prints, several large silkscreen images, and recent collage work. Admission is free. There will be light refreshments, erotic readings and a ritual performance.

Link to Center for Sex & Culture, Link to Charles Gatewood's site (NSFW) (via Laughing Squid)

http://www.sexandculture.org/

http://www.darkecho.com/JohnShirley/

http://johnshirley.net/DesktopDefault.aspx

 

Islands around the world for sale

 

 

 

 

 

Start your own country by purchasing one of the many islands listed for sale here.
Link (thanks, John!)

"The End of the Internet?": analysis of telco war on open networks

Snip from "The End of the Internet?," an article by Jeff Chester in the current issue of The Nation:

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.

Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency.

According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.

Link

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/chester

posted by Xeni Jardin

 

Shadows and Light: Infusing the Inanimate With Life

By ROBERTA SMITH

John Szarkowski became part of the history of 20th-century photography by helping to define it, through his writing and a series of groundbreaking exhibitions that he organized during his 29-year tenure as director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art. The photographs he shot for much of his life don't have the same historical weight, partly because they haven't been exhibited much. But they have a similar decisive clarity and suggest a man who, whatever his involvement with the medium, has always been something of a natural.

 

( more on light and shadows )

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=517198059628627413

 

Old video of British soldiers dosed with LSD

 

 

 

 

Laugh at the video of funny soldiers tripping on government supplied LSD.

Link

State of Delusion

By PAUL KRUGMAN

So President Bush's plan to reduce imports of Middle East oil turns out to be no more substantial than his plan — floated two years ago, then flushed down the memory hole — to send humans to Mars.

 

( More on Bush Failure )

Spotting An Oil Addict: A Crude Guide

Thursday, February 2, 2006; C01

In light of President Bush's declaration in the State of the Union address that "America is addicted to oil," here's a list of warning signs that a loved one may have a problem:

· Keeps saying, "I can stop my SUV anytime I want."

· Characterizes habit as simply "social driving."

· Buys drugstore needles for "fuel injections."

· Wants to send daughter to Quaker State.

· Hidden inside teenage son's copy of Penthouse: a well-thumbed issue of Petroleum Digest.

· When they talked about a higher power at the 12-step meeting, thought they meant premium unleaded.

· Wakes up in a pool of own light sweet crude.

· Cans of 5W-40 hidden in underwear drawer.

· Can't kick the minivan habit even after the kids have left for college.

· There's a "Mr. OPEC" on the phone, saying he just scored some "really potent" black gold.

-- Mark Leibovich

PHOTO GALLERY: Dita's World

Greatest of Teese

Burlesque queen and fetishist has become fashion's "It" girl.

By Booth Moore
Times Staff Writer

February 3, 2006

It's Friday afternoon in the picket-fence suburb of Chatsworth. The sun is low as an iron gate parts to reveal a steep driveway leading to a classic, low-slung ranch house.

The front door opens and there is Dita Von Teese — a porcelain doll, not a raven hair out of place. Her scarlet fingernails are filed into pointy talons, her lipstick and beauty mark perfect.

( More on Dita )

Bush Mulled Using Spyplane Painted In UN Colors To Provoke Iraq
In other news, a newly disclosed pre-war memo shows President Bush considered painting a US spyplane in the colors of the UN and flying it into Iraqi territory to provoke Saddam Hussein into war. The idea was discussed at a meeting held with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House on January 31st 2003 – well over a month before the US and Britain invaded Iraq. The memo also adds further credence to accusations the President was set on war regardless of UN authorization and weapons inspections. According to the memo, Bush said "the US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would: 'twist arms' and 'even threaten'.” The memo continues: “But he had to say that if ultimately we failed, military action would follow anyway.'' The memo says Tony Blair agreed, but argued that "a second Security Council resolution would provide an insurance policy against the unexpected, and international cover, including with the Arabs." The memo was first revealed in the book “Lawless World”, written by leading British human rights lawyer Philippe Sands.

Cheney, Libby Were Told Of Niger Doubts Before Plame Outing
( More on White House destroying Evidence Emails )