June 23rd, 2006

Chris Keeley

Alice Austen

Alice Austen

http://www.aliceausten.org/alice/index.html





Alice Austin. "...Alice Austen was introduced to photography when she was 10 years old by her Uncle Oswald, who brought home an early-model dry plate camera from one of his many trips abroad. Alice showed immediate and natural ability. Through experimentation she taught herself how to operate the complex camera mechanism, judge exposure, develop the heavy glass plates, and make prints. By the time she was 18 in 1884, she was not only technically skilled but artistically accomplished as well."

Chris Keeley

Congo, Hunger and Disease

AVEBA, Congo — The first time the Congolese Army tried to take this village back from the militias that have fought for it since the civil war supposedly ended in 2002, the government soldiers cut and ran. That was January.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/world/africa/23congo.html?hp&ex=1151121600&en=ba2706ead59f4c47&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Photographs: A Perilous Road Ahead

Photographs: A Perilous Road Ahead 
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times


















In Geti, 10 miles east of Aveba, hundreds of people are arriving each day, searching for food and safety. Aid agencies are distributing food in Geti, but with the population swelling to almost 10,000, the food keeps running out.


Chris Keeley

it was clear her marriage to Scorsese was over, (Cameron discovered Minnelli's silk blouses in her c

Agonizing success of 'Artist's Way'

The creator of the bestseller never divulged her extreme struggles — until now.
By Gina Piccalo
Times Staff Writer

June 23, 2006

Julia Cameron's journey to guru-dom began, perhaps predictably, in Los Angeles in the 1970s after a failed celebrity marriage and a scotch-and-cocaine binge had brought her to rock bottom. Back then, she was best known as the lush whom Martin Scorsese left for Liza Minnelli, the hotshot writer who swore like a sailor and matched Hunter S. Thompson drink-for-drink.

This was before sobriety became Cameron's religion and her own recovery inspired her "creative unblocking" seminars, before her 1992 bestseller "The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity" sold more than 2 million copies, before the book spawned a movement, before strangers approached her in airports with home-recorded CDs, self-published poetry, handmade jewelry and the words, "You saved my life."

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Chris Keeley

My Name Is Rachel Corrie” will open at the Minetta Lane Theater in October.

My Name Is Rachel Corrie” will open at the Minetta Lane Theater in October.

“My Name Is Rachel Corrie” Finds New York Home
And a play based on the writings of the late peace activist Rachel Corrie has finally found a theatre in New York. “My Name Is Rachel Corrie” will open at the Minetta Lane Theater in October. Based on Corrie’s diaries, e-mails and letters, the play was originally supposed to open at the New York Theatre Workshop in March – just days after the three-year anniversary of Rachel Corrie’s death under an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza. But the workshop’s directors indefinitely postponed the production following concerns over its political content. 

AT&T’s New Privacy Policy Says It Owns Costumers’ Info
In privacy news, AT&T has introduced a new policy that says the company owns customers’ account information and can share it with government agencies. Under the new policy, AT&T will collect customers' user names, passwords, charges, payments, and online purchases. It will also track their activity while on sites that AT&T operates in a partnership with Yahoo. The changes come as AT&T is embroiled in a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation over the company’s involvement in the NSA spy program. 

Global Warming Accounts For Half of Hurricane-Inducing Water Warmth
Meanwhile, a new study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research has found global warming accounted for close to half of the extra warmth found in the tropical North Atlantic waters that fueled hurricanes last year. The study said natural cycles were only a minor factor, contradicting claims that natural cycles are responsible for the recent increase in Atlantic hurricane activity.

UN Warns ’06 Hurricanes Could Further Devastate Haiti
Meanwhile the UN is warning this year’s hurricane season could lead to another major disaster in Haiti. More than 1500 people were killed and thousands of homes were destroyed when Hurricane Jeanne struck Haiti in September of 2004.

  • Erdem Ergin of the UN Developmental Program: "Our main problem, I would say, is not the preparedness and response capacity of the country. It is the high state of vulnerability of the country. Haiti now has such a depletion of natural resources that we don't really need a major hurricane to wreak havoc, normal rain can cause a lot of damage. So this is the threshold for a disaster to happen, is very low in Haiti."

Study: Recent Climate Change Unprecedented
In environmental news, the National Academy of Sciences has released a study showing that the recent surges in global temperatures are unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia. Keeping in mind natural factors such as volcanic eruptions and solar radiation, the study nonetheless concludes that available evidence supports the argument that human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming. 

US Presses To Bar Venezuela From Security Council
At the United Nations, the Bush administration pressed on Thursday with its campaign to prevent Venezuela from securing an open seat on the Security Council. Under UN rules, Latin American governments are entitled to pick a country from the region to fill the rotating seat that comes open next year. Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay and several Caribbean nations have already backed Venezuela. The U.S. is lobbying for Guatemala to get the seat.

  • UN Ambassador John Bolton: "Our view is that Venezuela would not be a constructive member of the Security Council. We've made that clear in a number of diplomatic efforts and that that's our position which I think we've expressed quite strongly and quite clearly."

Senate Rejects Iraq Withdrawal
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, the Senate rejected two separate measures calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

  • Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist: "None of us know for sure exactly how the democratic reform in Iraq will turn out as we stay committed. But, we do know it will fail if it is abandoned prematurely by the United States. Withdrawal is not an option. Surrender is not a solution."

Both measures were proposed by Democrats. A proposal calling for a withdrawal without a firm deadline was defeated 60 to 39. Another measure calling for a troop withdrawal by July of next year was defeated by an even wider margin -- 89 to 13. The measure was introduced by Massachusets Senator John Kerry. Speaking on the Senate floor, Kerry argued that a firm timetable is necessary.

  • Senator John Kerry: "Why on earth would senators come to the floor and argue 'Let's just stay the course and do the same old thing' when our own generals have told us the same old thing is part of the part of the problem? The same old thing is attracting terrorists. The same old thing is losing us allies. The same old thing is costing us unbelievable sums of money and lives unnecessarily."
Chris Keeley

Wikipedia

Wikipedia
Wikipedia’s Papa’s Picks

he sites bookmarked on Jimmy Wales’s Internet browser range from virtually everything from A to Z, which is especially fitting considering that Wales is the founder of Wikipedia, the ever expanding online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Running Wikipedia, which has 3.8 million articles in more than 200 languages, requires Wales to spend a lot of time screen-bound—“It’s embarrassing to admit, but I’d say I spend 10 to 12 hours online per day,” he says. So where does Wikipedia’s godfather wander?

Wales gets his news from the BBC, and likes Flickr’s photo-sharing site. He’s constantly on the go, so he visits Frequent Flyer Wiki for tips on what to do in all those airports. Lessig Blog, written by Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig, is one of Wales’s must-clicks, and so is Leo, which offers a user-friendly English-to-German dictionary. “I spend lots of time on Leo because I’m trying to learn German,” he says.

Wales also admits to being a regular at Uncyclopedia, an encyclopedia of misinformation that parodies Wikipedia. Rounding out his bookmark collection is YouTube, the viral-video page, which has its very own Wikipedia entry, like almost all of Wales’s favorite sites (BBC,  Flickr,  Lawrence Lessig, and Leo). But then again, so does Jimmy Wales.

Chris Keeley

A portrait of the archduchess Marie-Antoinette of Austria at age 7, by Jean-Étienne Liotard.

A portrait of the archduchess Marie-Antoinette of Austria at age 7, by Jean-Étienne Liotard. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/arts/design/23liot.html

Bettina Jacot-Descombes/Frick Collection

A portrait of the archduchess Marie-Antoinette of Austria at age 7, 
by Jean-Étienne Liotard. More Photos » 


Private Collection

Turkish Woman with a Tambourine," 1738-43.


Chris Keeley

Clowns sabotage Minuteman III nuclear missile

a retired Catholic priest and two vets broke in to a military nuclear weapons facility and banged a Minuteman III missile silo cover with hammers, in an attempt to disable the weapon.



Defensetech blog reports that a retired Catholic priest and two vets broke in to a military nuclear weapons facility and banged a Minuteman III missile silo cover with hammers, in an attempt to disable the weapon. Oh yeah, they were dressed in clown suits while they did it.

The trio -- members of the Luck, Wisconsin group Nukewatch -- said the break-in was part of "a call for national repentance" for the Hiroshima and Nagaski A-bombings in 1945.

The activists used bolt-cutters to get into the E-9 Minuteman II facility, located just northwest of the White Shield, North Dakota. "Using a sledgehammer and household hammers, they disabled the lock on the personnel entry hatch that provides access to the warhead and they hammered on the silo lid that covers the 300 kiloton nuclear warhead," the group said in a statement. "The activists painted 'It's a sin to build a nuclear weapon' on the face of the 110-ton hardened silo cover and the peace activists poured their blood on the missile lid."

This was all done while wearing face paint, dunce caps, misfitting overalls, and bright yellow wigs.

 

Link. When they were finished, the three clowns piled into a teeny-weeny car with a talking seal in the trunk, and the bearded lady drove them all off into the sunset. What I love about this country is that these men were not shot on sight.

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Chris Keeley

The whole leather fetish look has been around since at least the 1920's

There was a time when people whose erotic rituals ran to whips and chains and latex and highly complex protocols of dominance and submission were confined to the cultural shadows. But that was before Madonna turned bondage into a concert party trick, before the Gap ran ads with a tongue-in-cheek S-M tagline ("Everybody in leather!"), before Altoids and Svedka vodka purloined imagery from "Venus in Furs" for their ad campaigns and well before Victoria's Secret mainstreamed the bondage pinup queen Bettie Page. 

Eric Johnson for The New York Times

The Folsom Street East street fair was a showcase for the leather fetish look.

Chris Keeley

Alphonse Mucha

Evolución de los robots humanoides de Honda hasta llegar

http://miraycalla.blogspot.com/

http://mucha.new21.org/zb41/zboard.php?&id=gallery

- Alphonse Mucha, el pintor checo de principios del siglo XX, fue uno de los principales representantes del 'art noveau' y dejó tras si una importante obra que ahora cuelga de muchas casas en forma de posters.

- Estos bestias se han construido un cañón para cazar venados. Pulsa donde pone 'Next see how we built' para seguir viendo el proceso.

- Y este otro bestia se ha hecho una hamburguesa con bacon y rebozada.

- Identifica en este juego a qué personaje pertenece la barba que te muestran.

- Maravilloso reportaje fotográfico sobre primates, nuestros parientes cercanos.

- Recopilación de portadas de la revista satírica francesa Hara Kiri. Aquí tienes más.
- Pierre et Gilles son dos fotográfos franceses que se han convertido en el referente de la éstetica gay, con sus fotografías de referencias religiosas y su imaginería 'kitsch'.

- Los pantalones de golf no son precisamente un modelo de elegancia y buen gusto, pero son divertidos un rato.

- LED's para iluminar clubs y discotecas que permiten interactuar con ellos. Puedes ver videos en la parte izquierda.

- Siéntete miembro de una banda de rock bovina y márcate un solo de batería.

- Evolución de los robots humanoides de Honda hasta llegar al ASIMO.