Josef Sudek
Month: September 2012
José Guadalupe Posada (February 2, 1852 â January 20, 1913) was a Mexican cartoonist illustrator and artist whose work has influenced many Latin American artists and cartoonists because of its satirical acuteness and political engagement.
Posada’s best known works are his calaveras, which often assume various costumes, such as the Calavera de la Catrina, the “Calavera of the Female Dandy”, which was meant to satirize the life of the upper classes during the reign of Porfirio DÃaz. Most of his imagery was meant to make a religious or satirical point. Since his death, however, his images have become associated with the Mexican holiday DÃa de los Muertos, the “Day of the Dead”.
Largely forgotten by the end of his life, Posada’s engravings were brought to a wider audience in the 1920s by the French artist Jean Charlot, who encountered them while visiting Diego Rivera. While Posada died in poverty, his images are well known today as examples of folk art. The muralist José Clemente Orozco knew Posada when he was young, and credited Posada’s work as an influence on his own. (read more)
- Labels: art
A federal program called Fast and Furious allowed weapons to be sold to gun smugglers in the U.S. so they could be traced to drug cartels in Mexico. However, they quickly lost track of the weapons and some of them turned up in the fatal shooting of a Border Patrol Agent near Tucson in December 2010. Since then, an ongoing investigation has looked into the possibility that it was a gun-running operation headed by the Department of Justice.
The investigation into the Fast and Furious program concluded yesterday saying âAtty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. had no knowledge of the problems surrounding Fast and Furious before the slaying of a U.S. Border Patrol agent brought them to light.â The Attorney General was quick to point out that this proves he âhad neither knowledge of ..nor did he condone any such operationâ [ link ]. Now, Iâm not making a political statement here. ..but I am making a linguistic observation when I say that this proves nothing of the sort. Finding he had â..no knowledge of the problemsâ associated with the program does not necessarily mean that he didnât know ..or wasnât involved.
This makes me suspicious because it sounds like a non-denial of a non-denial. Makes me wonder what the Feds are covering up, which leads me to conclude that they really were supplying guns to drug cartels. This doesnât surprise me. Itâs in their interest to keep smuggling operations alive and well. Not only does it keep the Justice Department in business ..but it provides a much-needed stream of revenue for the Federal Government when times get lean and Congress shuts down funding for other such operations.
This makes me suspicious because it sounds like a non-denial of a non-denial. Makes me wonder what the Feds are covering up, which leads me to conclude that they really were supplying guns to drug cartels. This doesnât surprise me. Itâs in their interest to keep smuggling operations alive and well. Not only does it keep the Justice Department in business ..but it provides a much-needed stream of revenue for the Federal Government when times get lean and Congress shuts down funding for other such operations.
- Labels: bill, deception, government
Hackers are sending messages over the Internet that bypass the usual centers for linguistic processing. They travel along the optic or auditory nerve and go directly into the deep structures of the brain ..those areas responsible for carrying-out parsing operations native to all languages. These messages arrive in their native state ..just out of the reach of the predicates of logic. Like a Trojan horse ..they deliver instructions that basically shred conditioned passageways in the brain, which causes the recipient to start raving incoherently. Like a virus .. anyone hearing the ravings of this lunatic will also be infected ..experience a similar disruption of linguistic pathways and start raving and spreading the virus to others. This isnât new. 12th century practitioners of the Kabbalah realized the hypnotic power of messages that were composed of symbols taken from sacred texts. I have the Book of the Names on my shelf. It frightens me to take it down because when I do ..I lose hours, even days out of my life and I never know where Iâll end up. Click below and see.
J. R. “Bob” Dobbs is the figurehead of the Church of the SubGenius. His image is derived from a piece of 1950s clip art. According to SubGenius dogma, “Bob” was a drilling equipment salesman who, in 1953, saw a vision of God (JHVH-1 according to Church scriptures) on a television set he had built himself. The vision inspired him to write the “PreScriptures” (as described in the Book of the SubGenius) and found the Church. The theology holds that “Bob” is the greatest salesman who ever lived, and has cheated death a number of times. He is also revered for his great follies and believed to be a savior of “slack”. He was assassinated in San Francisco in 1984, though the Church states that he has come back from the dead several times since then.
The quotation marks in “Bob’s” name are always included when spelling his name, according to the Church. According to Revelation X; The “Bob” Apocryphon, “Bob” was born in Dallas, Texas, to Xinucha-Chi-Xan M. Dobbs (a pharmacist) and Jane McBride Dobbs. At an early age he possessed a talent for making large amounts of money by playing the stock market over the telephone. He married his wife Connie in Las Vegas in 1955 and worked as a photographer’s model while inventing and patenting novelty gag items. In 1957 he worked weekends doing Evangelical Christian preaching “strictly for the money”. (read more)
- Labels: art, fantasy, humour, imagination, religion
“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 [O.S. 7 September] â 13 December 1784), often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory, and has been described as “arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history”. He is also the subject of “the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature”: James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson.
In 1774 he printed The Patriot, a critique of what he viewed as false patriotism. On the evening of 7 April 1775, he made the famous statement, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” This line was not, as widely believed, about patriotism in general, but the false use of the term “patriotism” by John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (the patriot-minister) and his supporters; Johnson opposed “self-professed Patriots” in general, but valued what he considered “true” self-professed patriotism. (read more)
- Labels: arms trade, corporations, corruption, greed, lies, war
On June 11, 2012, 1324 people from Fukushima Prefecture filed a criminal complaint against Tokyo Electric Power Co. Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and 32 others, accusing them of professional negligence resulting in death and injury, arguing they were responsible for causing the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant and the exposure of the plaintiffs to radiation.
In the written complaint filed with the Fukushima District Public Prosecutors Office, the complainants said the 33 neglected to take disaster countermeasures, despite the frequency of earthquakes in Japan and indications by experts of the possibility of tsunami. They also argued that the officials failed to release evacuation information appropriately, which led to residents’ exposure to radiation.
The 33 include TEPCO Chairman Katsumata, former TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu, 13 other TEPCO officials, Nuclear Safety Commission Chief Haruki Madarame, and 3 Radiation Health Risk Management Advisors of the prefecture including Shunichi Yamashita, Vice President of Fukushima Medical University.
“By holding them accountable, we will carry out our responsibility to the next generation,” says Ms. Ruiko Muto, leader of the complainant organization. “I hope our action will lead to reuniting our bonds disrupted by the disaster.”
They plan to file the second complaint where people outside Fukushima Prefecture can join the complainant. The dedline for joining is the end of September 2012.
In the written complaint filed with the Fukushima District Public Prosecutors Office, the complainants said the 33 neglected to take disaster countermeasures, despite the frequency of earthquakes in Japan and indications by experts of the possibility of tsunami. They also argued that the officials failed to release evacuation information appropriately, which led to residents’ exposure to radiation.
The 33 include TEPCO Chairman Katsumata, former TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu, 13 other TEPCO officials, Nuclear Safety Commission Chief Haruki Madarame, and 3 Radiation Health Risk Management Advisors of the prefecture including Shunichi Yamashita, Vice President of Fukushima Medical University.
“By holding them accountable, we will carry out our responsibility to the next generation,” says Ms. Ruiko Muto, leader of the complainant organization. “I hope our action will lead to reuniting our bonds disrupted by the disaster.”
They plan to file the second complaint where people outside Fukushima Prefecture can join the complainant. The dedline for joining is the end of September 2012.
La maja desnuda (known in English as The Nude Maja or sometimes The Naked Maja) is an oil on canvas painting by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya (1746â1828), portraying a nude woman reclining on a bed of pillows. It was executed some time between 1797 and 1800, and is among the first clear depictions of female pubic hair in a large Western painting. The painting has been in the Museo del Prado in Madrid since 1910.
The Clothed Maja (Spanish: La maja vestida) is a painting by the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya between 1798 and 1805. It is a clothed version of La maja desnuda and is exhibited next to it in the same room at the Prado Museum in Madrid. The painting, which was first owned by Prime Minister Manuel de Godoy, who was known as an avid womanizer, was originally hung in his home in front of the naked maja in a way that the naked maja could be revealed at any time with the help of a pulley mechanism. It was held twice at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, and is now held in the Museo del Prado, since 1901.