| Mambo 4 Woofmoo |
[Jul. 9th, 2008|09:01 am] |
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http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/07/mambo-4-woofmoo.html  Artist Jim Flora probably never listened to WFMU. He was a fan of Bix and bebop (i.e., foot-tapping jazz) and the Budapest String Quartet, none of which garners heavy rotation on our "free-form" airwaves. Yet Flora unknowingly contributed to WFMU's visual identity several times in the past few years. His cartoonish figures have appeared on a station t-shirt, hoodie, bumper sticker, and Marathon mailer, as well as an oversized canvas banner displayed hither and yon.
Flora wasn't aware of these adaptations of his work because he passed away ten years ago today at age 84.
The images were used by WFMU designers thru arrangement with the Flora family, with whom I've worked for several years archiving and cataloging the artist's vast (and largely uncirculated) fine art collection. Flora's 1955 Mambo For Cats LP cover (re-purposed at left by co-archivist Barbara Economon) is one of his most iconic illustrations. Flora's hyperactive gremlins frolicked across dozens of quirky album covers for Columbia in the 1940s and RCA Victor in the 1950s. Today his work adorns new CDs.
Over a career that spanned from the early 1940s, when he was Art
Director of Columbia Records, to the 1980s, when he authored and
illustrated the last of his 17 popular kid-lit epics, Flora
practiced art in service of business. He was a highly sought commercial
illustrator who probably turned down more jobs than he accepted. In
retirement during the 1980s and '90s, his output of paintings, drawings,
and sketches increased. One of his final works was poignantly entitled "Taken Before His Time."
J.D. King, an admirer (and WFMU contributor), called Flora "a monster." You could say the same thing about Flora's hallucinatory spawn.
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| Media Heroes trading cards |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|11:16 pm] |
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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/330444455/media-heroes-trading.html Jeff sez,
Recently announced at the media reform conference in Minneapolis, the full color media heroes trading cards recognize the accomplishments of twenty-one praiseworthy journalists, media activists, and educators. The fun and informative cards are a fantastic teaching tool for students, or an exciting gift for friends, family or budding media activists.
The Media heroes being honored include historical figures such as legendary anti-lynching reporter Ida B. Wells, Newspaper Guild founder Heywood Broun, and Elias Boudinot, founder/editor of the first Native American newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix. Also recognized are contemporary media movers and shakers, including intrepid PBS producer Bill Moyers, Paper Tiger TV co-founder DeeDee Halleck, Puerto Rican community activist Richie Perez, and others. Organizations or collaborations singled out for hero status include news program Democracy Now!, media watch group FAIR, and the Children's Television Workshop, creators of Sesame Street.
Link
(Thanks, Jeff!)
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| Genetically Modified Seeds not Used in Iraq |
[Jul. 9th, 2008|04:15 am] |
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http://www.juancole.com/2008/07/genetically-modified-seeds-not-used-in.html A US observer with experience on the ground in Iraq writes with regard my link on Sunday to a piece about Monsanto and hooking Iraqi farmers on genetically modified seeds:
The small report about Bremer dictating that Iraqi farmers cannot use their seed from year to year is utter nonsense. It is not true. Iraqi farmers save seed for planting in the next year as they have done for many millenia and as farmers in other countries do.
This is a stupid rumor that has been circulating for about five years, nearly since the invasion. There are few if any GMOs [Genetically Modified Organisms] in Iraq, and [US officials] deliberately avoided bringing GMOs to Iraq because the GOI does not have a regulatory system to govern their use.
I have written to numerous organizations over the years to rebut this rumor. Defending Bremer, CPA and the US Government about their behavior in Iraq is not something I normally do, in fact I find little that they did right in Iraq. But the conspiracy to botch everything did not extend to the case of seeds. . .
The India story is believable especially in so far as village level agricultural authorities in India, those most likely to give advice to small scale farmers, are at best under-educated about the advantages and disadvantages of GMOs. It is thus easy to imagine that . . . predatory marketing practices could cause some real hardship.
The good news in Iraq is that the ag authorities are much more engaged with farmers and are more likely to tamp down Monsanto's or any other agribusiness' aggressive tactics. There is nothing wrong with using a patented seed provided the user is completely aware of what s/he is getting into. The other good news is that the crops most common in Iraq, wheat, barley, and rice are open pollinated crops and not subject to patent protection. These are saved from year to year, though it is customary to purchase new seed every five years or so. Hybrid maize is common in Iraq. The seed of hybrid maize cannot be grown in the following season, and all farmers are aware of that. And if an Iraqi farmer wants open pollinated maize, no problem, it is easy to find.
Order 81 was a mere rewrite and update of the existing Iraqi seed law. The editor was a guy named Paul Savello, a Food Scientist and lawyer, who worked for CPA and IRMO in "support" of the Ministries of Science and Technology and Agriculture. It provides patent protection, or what is known as "breeder's rights" to the scientists or companies that develop hybrids or GMOs. It is nothing special, and is common throughout the world. Egypt has a similar seed law, as does Jordan and other Middle Eastern countries. . .
The use of GMOs is governed by the Cartgena Protocol, which is separate from a normal seed law. The Cartegena Protocol establishes the regulations to prevent contamination of the food supply and protect the environment and human health. Iraq is not a signatory to this protocol, one of the reasons people are reluctant to introduce GMOs in that country.
On a related matter: All this talk about security improvements in Iraq distracts eveybody from the real and continuing dangers of living there. Friends of mine are still being killed, wounded and kidnapped, and living in fear remains the norm. Before the surge the violence was unimaginable, not it is only horrible. How we (and especially the media) can let McCain and Lieberman obfuscate and declare victory is shameful. |
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| Sir Clive Sinclair, UK home computer market pioneer (audio) |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|09:40 pm] |
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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/330379501/sir-clive-sinclair-u.html The BBC's Chris Vallance tells us,
We recorded a long interview with Sir Clive Sinclair, British personal computer pioneer (ZX80, ZX81, ZX spectrum) and we've just posted it, more or less unexpurgated, online. Many of your readers will have grown up playing games on one of Sir Clive's machines. In the interview he talks about everything from from flying electric cars to Eee PC's and and his thoughts on the modern computing industry.
Sir Clive Sinclair [ BBC iPM ]
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| Nearly every part of US gov is "involved in monitoring or surveillance." |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|09:35 pm] |
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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/330379502/nearly-every-branch.html As Congress prepares new guidelines for the NSA's domestic spying program, US lawmakers are leaving untouched a wide array of government programs which also perform surveillance on Americans:
These programs - most of them highly classified - are run by an alphabet soup of federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies. They sift, store and analyze the communications, spending habits and travel patterns of U.S. citizens, searching for suspicious activity.
The surveillance includes data-mining programs that allow the NSA and the FBI to sift through large databanks of e-mails, phone calls and other communications, not for selective information, but in search of suspicious patterns.
Other information, like routine bank transactions, is kept in databases similarly monitored by the Central Intelligence Agency.
"There's virtually no branch of the U.S. government that isn't in some way involved in monitoring or surveillance," said Matthew Aid, an intelligence historian and fellow at the National Security Archives at The George Washington University. "We're operating in a brave new world."
Domestic spying quietly goes on [Baltimore Sun]
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| 15 horror/gothic/weird fiction short stories |
[Jul. 9th, 2008|12:01 pm] |
15 horror/gothic/weird fiction short stories that I'm especially fond of. Feel free to list some of your own!
Algernon Blackwood, Ancient Sorceries
Harlan Ellison, Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes
Lafcadio Hearn, The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi
Shirley Jackson, The Summer People
Kathe Koja, The Disquieting Muse
Tanith Lee, Bite-Me-Not
Sheridan le Fanu, Green Tea
Fritz Leiber, The Girl With the Hungry Eyes
H. P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Arthur Machen, The White People
C. L. Moore, The Black God's Kiss
Clark Ashton Smith, The Last Hieroglyph
Lucy Taylor, Hungry Skin
Lisa Tuttle, From Another Country
Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Vera |
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| YouTube Tuesdays |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|08:32 pm] |
Someone in ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) film_stills just posted some caps from The Adventures of Mark Twain (also known as Comet Quest in the UK), and it reminded me of a video that I keep meaning to post. And I've been thinking about puking out some random media at you at times anyway, since it takes me forever to write up a post. I'm sure a lot of you have already seen this, as it has been floating out there for quite some time, but oh well. The claymation is slick (the same people that did The California Raisins, and the animation effects for Return to Oz). When I first saw it, I found myself-- like most people-- saying 'what...the...hell?!' Truly, some of the strangest five minutes of film intended for children in the last 15 years or so. For more on the basis for this clip, see The Mysterious Stranger.
Incomplete transcript:
SATAN: I find you Humans quite interesting, even though you are a worthless, greedy lot ... How annoying that sound is ... Fools. What fascinations there are on this Planet. Strange mortals with curious customs ... We'll have a storm now, and an earthquake if you'd like. You must stand aside, outta danger ... I can do no wrong, for I do not know what it is.
BOY: You murdered them!
SATAN: Nevermind them. People are of no value. We could make more sometime, if we need them ... Life itself is only a vision...a dream. Nothing exists save empty space and you. And you...are but a thought. |
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| in the mail today |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|08:07 pm] |
Shortly after I posted about T9G, by freak chance I was able to get an unopened Rangeas for less than retail. There are about 14 versions of Rangeas in different colors and this version is my favorite. Translucent blue vinyl with glow vinyl inside; blue, silver, white & red sprays. The layered vinyl really gives his "spines" & "beard" a textured look. These crappy photos don't do it justice but you get the idea. Totally bonkers. I love it!
The Rangeas database |
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[Jul. 8th, 2008|08:55 pm] |
Discussed with Naomi my failure to understand why people of the 1960s counterculture movement sold out & on a larger spectrum shifting political loyalty from one polar extreme to another. In the case of David Horowitz, one of those 'red diaper babies' who spent much of his younger years pledging his allegiance to the Marxist left & becoming allied with the Black Panther movement. Understandably, seeing the dark side of the leftist movement would result in a certain degree of distance [maybe moving more to the centre?], but yet it doesn't explain such a sharp move towards embracing neoconservatism [along with the usual neocon causes writes books claiming that certain American professors are 'indoctrinating' students]. The closest thing to a conclusion I could reach was that it's really a case of conformity, trading in one political extreme for another.
I found an episode of Charlie Rose from the late 90s, which features David Horowitz being interviewed in the third segment. Rose interviews all of the guests regarding the sociopolitical climate of the 1960s & is well worth watching if you can spare 50 minutes [the interview with Roger Rosenblatt is especially worth watching].
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| yikes |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|05:53 pm] |
it's supposed to hit 111 tomorrow. uh-oh. |
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