The Hackenblog

So, I went to the LA County Museum of Art and I still love the permanent collection, but these curators: Terence Pepper, curator of photographs, National Portrait Gallery, and David Friend, editor of creative development, Vanity Fair. Curator at LACMA: Charlotte Cotton, photography, should be ashamed of themselves.

I don’t know what this was, but it wasn’t a photography show. For instance, the subject’s name was above the photographer’s name. Huh?

I will say this, though, having Irving Penn, Edward Steichen, and Man Ray (to name a few great photographers) in the same gallery with Annie Leibovitz and Helmut Newton makes Annie Leibovitz and Helmut Newton look really talent-free compared to those guys. If this show proves one thing to people who like photography, it’s that shock value is never going to replace art. And thank the good Lord for that.

Shame on you, LACMA. You suck up Burberry’s money to sponsor celebrity fetish objects and have the nerve to call it an art exhibit, but you can cough up $900,000.00 for Measure R to increase LA County’s sales tax. The Los Angeles County Museum is supported by tax dollars. Why in hell are they donating to a political campaign to raise the very county taxes from which they’re funded? And I’m not the only one wondering about this. And now LACMA wants $6,000.000.00 to close their budget hole. Maybe they should only get $5,100,000.00…if ANYTHING, after all this.

Oh, and does anyone know why they took Damien Hirst’s dead sheep (or lamb?) out of the new building? I wanted to show it to someone who didn’t believe such as thing could be in a museum, (and appears not to be any longer) but that entire floor is being reinstalled for a January 2009 show.

Also, LACMA, could you make admission stickers again? It was a huge drag having to show our tickets for every gallery we went into. Stickers are good. Really good.

I’m late with the temp stock clerk who was murdered at Walmart and other people injured in the stampede story. I read a woman miscarried due to her injuries, which is equally shocking. I doubt Walmart is doing anything to help his family bury the poor guy, so if there’s a fund to help out, I’ve got a few bucks for it. Or if there’s a fund to hire lawyers and sue the fuck out of Walmart for a wrongful death due to their negligence in crowd control, then put me down for that, too.

Incredible as it seems, maybe Walmart should hire the local police’s Riot Squad for next year. I understand the Riot Squad is usually underemployed on Black Friday.

I seem to recall some horrifying incident like this happening every year in our sales-crazed consumer frenzied society. If stores can’t manage their crowds, maybe it’s time for professional help. Ask local law for the Riot Squad. Blackwater ops even. No, I’m not kidding. I wish I was.

“Deal with those who hold power in Iran, namely Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.”
Iran: Is Productive Engagement Possible?, Karim Sadjadpour, Carnegie Endowment, Policy Brief No. 65 October 2008 (via)

I wonder how far that would get, but it’s certainly worth a try.

Also from this report:

“Around the same time the next U.S. president is inaugurated, the Iranian revolution will mark its thirtieth anniversary. Given three decades of compounded mistrust and ill will, the results of any process of engagement will not be quick; such antagonism will not melt away after one, two, or even many meetings. The initial pace will likely be painfully slow, as each side ascertains whether the other truly has good intentions. Furthermore, given the potentially enormous implications that a changed relationship with Washington would have for the Islamic Republic’s future, there are a variety of reasons why even a sincere, sustained American attempt at dialogue may not initially bear fruit.”

But even trying to have a diplomatic relationship with Iran has got to be better than the crazy situation we have now. Khamenei and his Revolutionary Guards have thrived on Iran’s isolation and fear; their hold on the Iranian government won’t lessen until Iran is brought back into the international community. Yes, Khamenei is nuts, but the Iranians are like most of the world’s citizens: they just want consumer goods, clean drinking water, better government, and more money. Oh, and to know the United States Air Force won’t be bombing their cities any time in the near future. The whole world saw what the U.S. did the Baghdad; they haven’t forgotten and they shouldn’t forget it. So the diplomacy is going to have to extra special on our side and it could take a while. Whether it’s Hillary or not, I dearly hope the next Secretary of State and State Department are up to the job (for a change).

Hope! Change! Rah! Rah! Rah!

“Pakistani intelligence sources report that Siddiqui was in Pakistani detention until the end of 2003 and that her son Suleman fell ill and died during that time. It is known that terrorism suspects often spend a period of time in the country before being turned over to the Americans. According to the Asian Human Rights Commission, there are 52 secret prisons in the country, into which thousands of Pakistanis are believed to have disappeared since the beginning of the war on terrorism.

“A number of other prisoners held at Bagram Air Base, the site of the most important US detainee camp in Afghanistan, say they heard a woman screaming. Some claim two women were there. The woman was nicknamed the ‘gray lady of Bagram.’

“Elaine Whitfield Sharp, an attorney who has represented the family since 2003, is convinced that Siddiqui was classified as a high-level prisoner and spent five years in a so-called ‘black site’ in Bagram — in one of these notorious black holes in the legal system.”
‘The Most Dangerous Woman in the World’, by Juliane von Mittelstaedt, Der Spiegel, November 27, 2008

If we’re still giving thanks for anything, we can include that we are not the gray lady of Bagram.

I’ll be thankful when Obama ends the war on terrorism and the U.S. stops kidnapping, torturing and raping in the name of truth, justice and the American way.

But right now I just feel sick enough to throw up.

“This year as President Bush pardoned two turkeys, who surprisingly had nothing to do with the Savings and Loan scandals of the 1980s, he remarked that it was his ‘last Thanksgiving as President.’ But it might be the last Thanksgiving any of us celebrate since there is a good chance that when Barack Obama takes over, he will abolish Thanksgiving along with other holidays liberals hate such as Columbus Day, Christmas and the Fourth of July.”

~snip~

“Thanksgiving celebrates the day that Pilgrims and Indians sat down to eat together before the gay secularist Indians divided this country and tried to foist their atheism and savage decadent culture on the God-fearing pilgrims. The pilgrims were rightly appalled by Native American culture where transgendered ‘two-spirit’ people or ‘berdache’ were accepted as normal members of the tribe. To Native Americans, who were ignorant of the Bible’s proscriptions against homosexuality and running around practically naked, there was nothing wrong with squaws marrying squaws and braves marrying braves. The pilgrims did not care what Indians did in the privacy of their own teepees, but they did not want their children exposed to this immorality. So the pilgrims were forced to defend themselves, just as Proposition 8 supporters, under assault from gay activists, must defend themselves now.

“The idea that pilgrims defending their way of life committed genocide is a gross distortion of history, as Mona Charen and Michael Medved point out. ‘In the clash of civilizations between European settlers and Native Americans, millions died,’ Charen writes. ‘But the overwhelming majority of those deaths were attributable to diseases carried involuntarily by Europeans and spread to natives who had no natural immunities to these pathogens. That is a tragedy, but not a crime.’ Medved’s new book The 10 Big Lies About America reveals the truth behind the ‘smears’ that slavery was such a big deal or that genocide was committed against the Indians, which has ruined Thanksgiving for so many people. For example, he points out that the idea that Europeans had anything to do with willfully spreading disease through small pox-infected blankets is a myth. ‘The endlessly recycled charges of biological warfare rest solely on controversial interpretations of two unconnected and inconclusive incidents 74 years apart,’ says the film critic, who screened hours of John Ford westerns to verify his findings. Sure, there may have been a few little massacres, such as the Trail of Tears, the Sand Creek Massacre and Wounded Knee but most Indians died of diseases whose spread was no doubt hastened by their decadence and promiscuity.”
Let Us Remember the True Meaning of Thanksgiving Before It’s Abolished, Jon Swift, November 27, 2008

Yeah, well, if you weren’t in with the Pilgrim In-Crowd you were pretty much dead in the water no matter what way-of-life(TM) you were practicing. Such as those unfortunate women and men who were hanged and imprisoned on trumped up witchcraft charges. Too bad for Charen and Medved that they can’t made the case for liberals as witches. But it is still the 21st century or was last time I noticed.

Only fifty-four more days of bush, oh thank you Lord, only fifty-four more days. And maybe we’ll get a Congress with the cajones to undo some of the bush horrors, too. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?

“Flame me all you want, but I saw Quantum of Solace over the weekend, and it was exactly what I was afraid of when they hired the stunt coordinator from Bourne: a bunch of blurry, shakey, incomprehensible action sequences. GARBAGE. This is THE WORST trend in movies out there right now. It doesn’t make it exciting to cut together a bunch of blurry whatsits like a hand shifting gears or a foot on the gas pedal. Action movies are in the details. If you just cut together a bunch of crazy closeups super fast and then end on a slow-mo of the good guy getting away or the bad guy dying, it’s insulting to the audience. It’s like telling us we’re on a need-to-know basis with the movie we’re watching. If you’re going to make it totally ambiguous as to how things happen, you might as well just cut to black and put up a title card that says ‘he got away.’ Also, it’s half-assed. F-cking choreograph that shit you lazy motherf-ckers.”
Oh Boy, More Bourne, Film Drunk, November 24, 2008

Yes. Bond: good. Action: bad.

“At 3:30 I attended The Hillary Panel! Actually it was called “Hillary ’08: Feminist Opportunities and Challenges.” The link for this is broken on the NCA website, which is a shame (I like to be thorough). This panel didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know about why Hillary’s campaign failed, but there was some interesting elaboration. There were many fine presenters, but I’ll only go into the ones that stand out in my weary mind. John M. Murphy talked about GWB’s disjunctive, disastrous, callous, and cruel presidency and how Hillary apparently didn’t realize that the country wanted “new” management, not “better” management. Susan Schultz Huxman played the Katie Couric clip where Katie discussed how negative coverage affected the Clinton campaign. Katie glossed over this, but Dr. Huxman read Couric’s incredibly stupid, sexist questions Hillary had to answer civilly in an interview when she was still a candidate. But poor Katie: she gets slammed for asking Hillary stupid questions and gets slammed for asking Sarah Palin intelligent softball questions. Ms. Couric just can’t catch a break, can she? Vanessa B. Beasley had examples from Hill’s speeches where Hill had to speak in tough masculine speech and then in the next paragraph speak in sensitive feminine speech. I’ve never enjoyed Hill’s speeches, but until yesterday I never realized the reason for that was I had a bad case of rhetorical whiplash from listening to her. (Sarah Palin, on the other hand, was allowed to use only masculine speech for her 15 minutes of fame. But we all know Hillary has always been held to a higher standard of everything. Often unreasonably so.) Justin L. Killian, one of Hillary’s Hellcats in Iowa (some book sez that Hillary wants to rule the world, emasculate all the men, and keep the population in line with her Hellcats [no, I don't get it either, but this kind of thing gets published a lot]) and he saw reasonable people go mad with Hillary Derangement Syndrome. He also said, and this had an impact on me, that the country is ready for a female president, it’s just not ready for what that woman as candidate would have to do to get elected. Running for president is not easy or lady-like, and is pretty scary to watch. Then the double standard of what’s acceptable behavior for men vs. acceptable behavior for women kicks in and the party is really over. But Hill’s failure will make it more possible and sooner for a woman to be POTUS, so history will thank her, if no one else ever does. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, and Bonnie J. Dow, and Shawn J. Parry-Giles said great things about misogyny, media bias, and just the stupid things Hill’s campaign did with whatever Hill’s message was at whatever stage in her campaign. What is odd now, here in Obama President-elect-land, is that the foreign policy experience Hillary was mocked for on the campaign trail is going to land her the top diplomat spot in Obama’s cabinet. As Diane S. Hope pointed out in her talk, we all might have hated the ringing telephone ad, but apparently it impressed Mr. Obama on some level. So, hooray for us! Oh, and by the way, if these panelists publish any of this stuff, I highly recommend you read it. I know I’ll be doing so. It was a fabulous hour and fifteen minutes of insightful, well presented thinking on Hillary’s campaign. It’s hard to do it all justice in a report like this.”
National Communication Association Convention 2008, by Ginger Mayerson, J LHLS, November 24, 2008

“The fiasco of medical care is certainly a product of connivance between greedy and heartless insurance companies, profit-driven hospitals, and avaricious drug-makers. But the public itself is responsible for its own suicidal diet of double cheez burritos and Dr. Pepper. How about a national health-care system with one basic requirement: to qualify, participants must be within ten pounds of their appropriate weight. Pretty harsh, huh? Maybe. But times are harsh too, and bound to get harsher. This system would have the great advantage of being absolutely clear. Let the United Way and other charities devote their resources to educating the recklessly obese about diet and exercise so they can eventually qualify.”
In the Reality Lounge, James Howard Kunstler, November 17, 2008

How about a national health-care system with one basic requirement: to qualify, participants must be within ten pounds of their appropriate weight.

Yes, harsh, but better than what we have now.

“Has there been a poll to see if the Sarah-ites are numbered among that baffling 26 percent of our population who, despite everything, still maintain that President George has done a heckuva job?

“A woman in one of Palin’s crowds praised her for being ‘a mom like me … who thinks the way I do’ and added, for ill measure, ‘That’s what I want in the White House.’ Fine, but in what capacity?

“Do this lady’s like-minded folk wonder how, say, Jefferson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, et al (add your own favorites) managed so well without being soccer moms? Without being whizzes in the kitchen, whipping up moose soufflés? Without executing and wounding wolves from the air and without promoting that sad, threadbare hoax — sexual abstinence — as the answer to the sizzling loins of the young?

“(In passing, has anyone observed that hunting animals with high-powered guns could only be defined as sport if both sides were equally armed?)

“I’d love to hear what you think has caused such an alarming number of our fellow Americans to fall into the Sarah Swoon.

“Could the willingness to crown one who seems to have no first language have anything to do with the oft-lamented fact that we seem to be alone among nations in having made the word ‘intellectual’ an insult? (And yet…and yet…we did elect Obama. Surely not despite his brains.)”
The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla, by Dick Cavett, NYT, November 14, 2008

(In passing, has anyone observed that hunting animals with high-powered guns could only be defined as sport if both sides were equally armed?)

Dick Cheney, take note.

26% are silly enough to still think bush is doing a good job running the country and parts of the world into the septic tank. If we could get the number of silly people down to 15 or 20%, the U.S. will be a much better country. How to do that, you ask? Head Start or universal kindergarten for everyone, better public schools, (lose this testing bullshit now and actually teach Civics and Economics again) and reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, which costs nothing in tax dollars but kept media sane for as long as we had it, for a start.

Update: Post your favorite anti-Obama quotes from bitter McCain-Palin supporters from the Something Awful Forum Goons. Maybe 20% silly population is too optimistic at this point in history. Maybe I should change silly to vicious and insane, too.

“A chilling series of fatal attacks on people living alongside the Great Kali River in the border area between India and Nepal have been reported over the past 20 years. In 2007, an 18-year-old boy was dragged down into the river by a creature described as resembling an elongated pig. As in previous cases no traces of him or his clothing were ever found, reinforcing the local view that his death was caused by a river monster.”
Killer Catfish Stalk Humans. Killer goonch catfish behind long-standing mystery, by David Alderton, The Fish Channel, October 24, 2008

For those of you who don’t read the Fish Channel. Or Café Kichijouji either.

One of the best manga series evah. Killer catfish, avoid. Café Kichijouji, get. (Sorry for the crummy scan.)

Nat K Cole

Joe Pass

Mmmmmm, I was craving this song tonight. God love YouTube; it’s become my online juke box.

RIAA, drop dead.

I’ve wondered about this, what is gay marriage to these people that brings out all this hate in them? K Oberman says everything that needs to be said about Prop 8′s shameful passage. Thank you, Keith.

We don’t even have to argue about it now.

(via)

Oooh, click on the map, it’s interactive!

“CHICAGO (Reuters) – Brain scans of teens with a history of aggressive bullying behavior suggest that they may actually get pleasure out of seeing someone else in pain, U.S. researchers said on Friday.

“While this may come as little surprise to those who have been victimized by bullies, it is not what the researchers expected, Benjamin Lahey of the University of Chicago, who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview.

“‘The reason we were surprised is the prevailing view is these kids are cold and unemotional in their aggression,’ said Lahey, whose study appears in the journal Biological Psychology.

“‘This is looking like maybe they care very much,’ said Lahey, who worked on the study with Jean Decety, also of the University of Chicago.”
Bullies may get kick out of seeing others in pain, by Julie Steenhuysen, Reuters, November 7, 2008

Not exactly news, but I’m glad to hear Science is on the job and using fMRI, too:

“They showed both groups video clips of someone inflicting pain on another person and tracked brain activity with a type of imaging called functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI.”

~snip~

“‘It is entirely possible their brains are lighting in the way they are because they experience seeing pain in others as exciting and fun and pleasurable,’ Lahey said.”

Does this freak anybody else out? Other than the guy in the slaughterhouse with the sledgehammer, what productive role in society is there for these people? This doesn’t sound like something one grows out of.

Schwarzenegger calls for sales tax hike, cuts in services.

Good news!
You’re bound to do me good
Come right here to me Good news!
Good news!
You’re what I’ve waited for
I wasn’t slated for blues!

Seems we’ve managed to vote the Bush tyrant out.

Ah, Democracy, how nice to see you again!

(Now we just need Prop 8 to lose in California so we can all get on with making a finer world.)

Update: Grrrrrr, we got too many haters that vote in California. Well, I don’t see how this discrimination can legally be written into our State constitution. If that were possible, women would be chattel, and slavery and polygamy would be legal in several states. Yeah, Mormons, I’m looking at you. But, as has been true for the Mormons as for other groups in our crazy country, I can’t say it better than Dr. King: The arc of history is long but it bends toward justice.

“Much of the real work of the next president will be guiding a transition out of obsolete habits, practices, and expectations that we must shed whether we like it or not. The painful downscaling of the financial sector, from a bloated 20+ percent of the US economy back to something more in the 5 percent range, is only the first of these agonies. The transition away from suburbia — our tragic misallocation of resources in an infrastructure for daily life with no future — will be even more harrowing because of the psychology of previous investment, which will provoke a misguided effort to sustain the unsustainable, and squander our dwindling resources in the process.

“I reject the label ‘gloom-and-doomer’ where these difficult transitions are concerned. There’s a lot about the way we live now that is disgusting, degrading, demoralizing, and socially toxic — from our suicidal diet of processed fat, salt, and corn syrup byproducts to the spiritually punishing everyday realm of the highway strip to the fantastic loneliness and alienation of a people made hostage to a TV-consumer nexus of corporate colonialism. Were done with that. We just don’t know it yet. Mr. Obama may not know it, either, but he is a trustworthy soul to hold our hands as we enter this unknown territory.”
A Nervous Nation, by James Howard Kunstler, November 3, 2008

Y’know, I think this is the cheerfullest thing I’ve ever read at Clusterfuck Nation. It makes me feel like…yes we can!

“LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Gay couples are not hiding any more and that has made all the difference, said health care administrator Linda Merkens before Tuesday’s vote in California that will decide the legality of same-sex marriage there.

“It’s one of several important ballot measures voters will face in states across the country on Election Day.

“‘A lot more gays are more open about their relationships, and a lot more people are willing to accept it,’ Merkens said in downtown Los Angeles recently.

“Other passersby disagreed. ‘Same sex marriage is a sin,’ said city planner Kim Chan.”
Gay marriage votes may show changing U.S., Reuters, November 2, 2008

I wouldn’t call Kim Chan‘s opinion a sin, but I do think it’s intolerant. Although I’m sure Ms. Chan has never suffered any kind of discrimination, this is the 21st Century after all, so I really think the same rights ought to apply to marriage minded gays as do to Ms. Chan.

Personally, I think all civil marriage should be abolished and co-habitation should just honestly be the contractual arrangement it really is. And for those who are so inclined to let the State sanction their relationship somehow, there are lots of lawyers and notary publics out there to for it. One could probably set up a dandy domestic partnership online. But that idea is considered more outrageous than gay marriage. Eh, go figure.

At least Bishop Andrus is on the side of the angels:

“Episcopal Bishop Marc Andrus supports gay marriage and said a ballot loss would slow the process — not stop it.”

Oh, Lordy, can’t we just get it over with on Tuesday? Legalize it in CA once and for all and forever more? Please?