the washington post's big dick story

The Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prizer yesterday for exposing what everyone already knew. Vice-President Cheney is a Dick.











dick the dick cheney

ron paul signs enter the twilight zone

Shelter no.1 from the series: Things to do with Ron Paul signs left by the side of the road. Original dimensions 24' x 36'; current dimensions 24' x 5.5' x 14'. Acrylic on found object. m.o.i. 2008

The impetus for this remake of the Ron Paul sign was the Army Corps of Engineers logo. It seemed fitting for a number of reasons.

Both Paul and the Corps seem intractable. There's lots of talking around ideas, but once you bore down into them, they seem to be offering the same idea, over and over, just slightly repackaged. Insular. Myopic. Fearful of change. I got an email from some Corps dude recently and he described a meeting as an "opportunity to create situational awareness". More than a few 9th-Wardians wish the Corps had a little more situational awareness prior to Katrina.

You'll notice there are no doors and no drawbridge on either the Paul castle or the Corp castle logo. OK, I stand corrected. The Corps logo does have a door, it's just guarded by toy soldiers. If you're not already inside, you can't enter, and once you enter, there's no leaving. Perhaps I should rename the piece, Twilight Zone.

The original Pual sign was recovered from a ravine adjacent to a suburban McMansion development called The Wilderness, the name of which refers to what was in place before being replaced by lawns manufactured by ChemGrow. Battle stations honey -- the dandelions are advancing! and Survivor is on in 10 minutes.

elsewhere:
m.o.i.: belief change
m.o.i.: the caucus badge

chief clinton stategist departs

Hillary Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn, has been shown to the lifeboat. The captain remains steadfast in her firm intention to be the last to leave.

Mark Penn photo, LUIS MAGÁN

mcain offers simple strategy on iraq

This is the short version.

For a longer, more in-depth look @ how the Iraq conflict might play out with John McGruff the Crime Dog @ the helm, read Frank Rich's recent NYTimes op-ed piece.
never trust a dog that says he won't bite

everybody is an action figure

through the rain and chase the dust away,
Everybody wants to shine on a stage
'To the crowd that loves you proud.





















The first and only action figure with the power to transform a nation?


Let X+Rey take you through the intersection of expanding thought bubbles, injection-molded Jailbreak Toys, and a new dimension of fart jokes.

Friends of Lakeside Nature Center

Friends of Lakeside Nature Center gathered yesterday, for what was seemingly the first full day of spring in Kansas City, and the 18th Annual Project Blue River Rescue.






Among the sightings. Donut Boy, Daniel the Sailor Man, and Charleston Heston rowing a slave ship upstream against the current.

project blue river rescue

draw a line through it

Memories this week of the sanitation workers strike 40 years ago in Memphis has me thinking of how the struggling economy has been affecting the lives of folks. El Presidento Bush, the lamest duck, has been quacking in the wind for the last 7 years while Americans finish the only economic expansion in the history of the United States where real wages did not increase. To be followed by a deepening recession.

Quack on Mr. President. Quack onto your red carpet like a Peabody Hotel duck and into the elevator and take it to top floor were you are safe and sound from the likes of having to deal with the problems that Americans really fear. They fear unemployment. They fear inflation. They fear our loss of standing in the world. They fear the fall of the dollar. bin Laden. Just another nutball with a grudge. He doesn't live around the corner where the deepening recession lies.

Kansas City recently passed a budget for the 2009 fiscal year. They had to slash approximately 55 million dollars from the original budget offered to the council by the city manager because the city simply isn't taking in enough money to meet our needs.

How do cut you cut 55 million dollars from a budget? You draw a line through it. It seems simple, and it is. You draw a line through it. Just like at home when the money gets tight. Movies? Draw a line through them. Dinner date? Draw a line through it. New wardrobe? Line. New computer? Line. Depending upon the size of the cuts needed, and the fiscal difficulties you might be having, you just draw a line through it.

If things are real bad you have to draw a line through your mortgage payment. Hopefully, you've drawn lines through other things, of less importance than your housing, before you get to the mortgage payment. But what else could you, if forced to, draw a line through? Education? Recessions are the best time to be in school; as the job markets are usually dampened. Food? Let's hope not.

So what did the city draw a line through?

Overtime. Typically, in any budget that the first thing to go as salaries often constitute the largest component of any budget. And they should. If it's not about the people, then it's about something other than the people. What do you want to stand for?

The city also drew a line through the eternal flame on the top of Liberty Memorial. The flame is actually a light cast through a steam vent which results in the flickering nature seen at night. The flame was turned off the very next day after the city passed its budget. Turning off the flame was symbolic, as was the flame.

The Mayor's professed priorities for the budget were 4 things: streets, codes, cops and kids. If the Mayor has learned anything in 10 months, it's how to use a sound bite. That said, there were some budget items related to the aforementioned items that didn't get funded. Some kids summer programs didn't get funded. Some police officer positions didn't get filled. Streets? Well, if there's less money in the budget for street I don't see how they are going to improve.
This process could work the same way with our billion dollar monthly military budget for Iraq. Want it to go away? Draw a line through it.

Need a pen?

now is the time

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's assassination. King was in Memphis that week at the bequest of black sanitation workers who were on strike at the time. Among the things they were striking for was the right to be paid the same as white sanitation workers who did the same job.

Earlier in the year King had begun to intertwine his views on race, economic justice, and the Vietnam War into a Poor People's Campaign designed to rebuild American cities with jobs, equality, and peace. And the desperate need for the nation to comfort it's shortcomings.

Forty years later we stand in some ways at similar crossroads. The nation is going broke fighting a war that sounds oddly similar to King's appraisal of the Vietnam War, for which he was excoriated in the mainstream press and vilified by racists.

Now is the time.

King was one of the greatest orators that America has ever produced, if not the greatest. His words jolted a generation to stand for change and for that King won the Nobel Peace Prize, the youngest person ever to receive the award.

I remember reading King's Letter from Birmingham Jail in high school. It was standard reading in English texts on how to write a persuasive essay.

What is rarely remembered about King's letter is that it was from one member of the clergy to other members. King was responding to a group of white clergymen who'd written a letter suggesting that although the case of racial equality was a just one, it was really a matter for the courts to decide.

Christians have waited for thousands of years, the white clergy had written, you should be happy to wait for the outcome of the courts, chiding King as being too bold for organizing civil rights protests. King said no. To wait was immoral.

Now is the time.

Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

King argued quite forcefully and gracefully, including words of those who had informed the white clergy, the Apostle Paul, St. Thomas Aquinas, Jesus, and Martin Luther that everyone should, and must stand against injustice. Religious leaders must stand at the forefront and if they will not, others should push them aside and take the reigns. King took the clergymen to task asking:

"What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"

And King voiced words that sound all too familiar today.

Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust. Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world.

Now is the time.

Image: Martin Luther King and Malcolm X waiting for press conference, March 26, 1963, Marion S. Trikosko, Library of Congress collection.

elsewhere:
letter from birmingham jail

dems to bloggers, floor seats available

The Democratic National Convention Committee announced on Tuesday that bloggers will not be held behind bars as they try to cover what will likely be the most exciting convention since the Beijing Summer Olympics. No, they will be seating bloggers credentialed as part of the DemConvention State Blogger Corps with respective delegations during the 2008 convention.

From the DNCC press release:
"The Internet is the most significant tool for building democracy since the invention of the printing press," said Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. "New local, national and global communities are being formed which demand two-way communication between people and their leaders and the DemConvention State Blogger Corps will be on the frontlines at the 2008 convention to help facilitate this critical dialogue."

"Time and again, we talk about our commitment to bring down the walls of the Pepsi Center and engage more people in the Convention experience using new technology and other creative means," said Leah D. Daughtry, CEO of the DNCC. "Granting unprecedented access to our state bloggers shows we are serious about making this an inclusive, accessible event. When our nominee for President of the United States takes the stage, members of the DemConvention State Blogger Corps will witness this historic moment from the best seats in the house - and in turn, be able to offer their dedicated readers back home a first-hand account from the center of that state's action."

So let's hope the state blogger pool is truly an extension of the netroots community and not just another venue for traditional media wearing a blogger mask so they can get another seat at the table. Print media outlets are finding that many of their readers log onto their sites just for the blog content so they (BIG MEDIA) are pushing blogs like detergent ads at folks. NPR and PRX have numerous blogs and some are quite good but most don't offer anything new to the political discourse beyond what they offer elsewhere. Larger media outlets do have some fine extensions of content they mostly pass over in audio (or hard) copy. Carrie Brownstein's, formerly of Sleater-Kinney, has a fine blog (see below) on NPR with musical sensibilities that are hard to find elsewhere. Melena Ryzik's Urban Eye vlog/blog on the NYTimes also offers some great insight into culture, art, and happenings.

My point is, we don't need more of the same voices who dominate our airwaves, we need more diverse voices, with lots of opinions, and radical new ideas about what politics means in the country and how to make the public realize that they are the government. Do we really need more opinions from policy wonks dissecting housing market collapses or would we be better served hearing voices of those who live through the America dream and survive in spite of it? We certainly don't need more blogrolls that send folks spinning in an endless romp through cyberspace only to end up where they began - lost and confused - and staring at another detergent ad for the new and improved Vista Leopard Washing powder.

Image: Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, being carted off to jail in Alexandria, Egypt(Photo: STR/AFP)
more at:
blog credentialing process
2008 democratic convention
monitor mix

mike gavel's beatles reunion tour

After the karaoke bars close in Anchorage apparently Democratic Presidential hopeful Mike Gavel heads to the basement and makes YouTube videos utilizing his huge collection of archived footage from the 60's and lyrics from the Beatles' White Album. The only thing missing from this video is a Guitar Hero solo but Senator Gavel definitely knows how to wag the finger.

endeavor mission sts-123 launch

My friend, Phyllis, who believes there's a bit too much transparency in the world these days via the web, sent me this photo of the last shuttle launch, known as Endeavor Mission STS-123. I am now attempting to prove her point by publishing the photo on the blog.

Phyllis, and her mate Alan, were lucky enough to score a viewing box for this launch, which is fortunate, because the days of shuttle launches are few. The shuttle has the aerodynamics of a flying rock but is a lot more expensive - each mission costs approximately what it would take to buy, for instance, the State of North Dakota. Yes, I know science is expensive AND important; remember I have a day job? Mad scientist! Plus there's the whole problem with the ice falling and knocking holes in the exterior tiles and well...you know where that leads us -- caulk guns! In outer space. Everyone loves a caulk gun and outer space, so a caulk gun in outer space is twice the fun.

I'm somewhat jealous of Phyllis and Alan since the closest I've ever been to a launch is a launch patch and a stamp. Now if I can only remember where I put the stamp because it is somewhat special although worth more in sentiment than in dollars. The USPS, you know the folks in the blue suits, issued a commerative stamp that had a picture of the Challenger (correction: a challenged eagle?) on it. For the first day issue, they took some of these stamps into outerspace on a Challenger mission, and then once it landed SAFELY, they issued them as first editions. Of course this was before the Challenger blew up, which for those who are counting is STS-51-L.

One thing that scares me a little bit is that after viewing the launch, Phyllis now refers to all the launches by their proper number. We can no longer say the Endeavor launch, we must say Endeavor Mission STS-123. Discovery's STS-124 Mission is targeted for launch May 31. Spacesuits are EMUs, Extravehicular Mobility Units. And for some reason I can't quite comprehend, the robotic arm, is named after a serial-killing cop, DEXTRE.

It's easy to forgive someone for falling for the acronyms, but more disconcerning is that now her mate wants to move to Florida. That sounds like a surefire way to insure that golf carts are part of your future. And having golf carts in your future, my friends, is too much like having John McCain be the future president. You might get through 18 holes on a single charge, but after that, you'll likely end up in the rough with no viable exit strategy.

see also:
m.o.i.: nasa's march madness on demand

Photo credit: STS-123, March 11,2008; Phyllis Hasser

bush administration tortures us reputation

The Justice Department released a 2003 memo yesterday that detailed how the Bush administration viewed torture. Essentially, the administration felt as though they could do exactly what they wanted, that during a time of war (as yet undeclared) they could treat enemy combatants in any way they deemed fit, regardless of domestic and international laws that may have applied and regardless of the U.S. Constitution. This is why they removed combatants to places outside the U.S. So they could torture them.

read more:
washington post: torture memo released

hillary clinton and the cute tibetan puppy

Despite a growing of number of Democratic Party officials calling for her to concede the race, "for the betterment of the party", Hillary Rodham Clinton has vowed to fight on and even plans on releasing a new ad in the highly contested state of Pennsylvania that features a a rare,cute puppy from Tibet.

"Everyone loves a puppy" a Clinton campaign official was heard to say. "And by using a Rare West Tibetan Mountain Dog puppy in the ad, Clinton underscores her worldly experience. This could be just what the undecided voter needs to make up their mind."

congress tackles nfl long hairs

Senator John McCain is expected to call for hearings on the growing plethora of long hair among NFL players. Recalling the days of his youth, McCain insisted that the last time American males openly sported long hair in public, we lost another unpopular, un-winnable war.



Citing a moral imperative to keep the status quo from taking any more direct hits, McCain said, "my friends, we will not go down that path again. Americans will cut their hair. Just imagine, at two bits apiece, what hair cuts could do for the economy!"

fred thompson selected as vice-president

Fred Thompson has decided to remain in politics after all. Citing his vast public and political experience, it was announced today by McCain staffers that Thompson has been selected to be "the next Vice-President of the United States." Mr. Thompson is expected to assume these duties next January as season 8 of the tv drama 24 begins on a Fox network near you.

project blue river rescue

2008 Project Blue River Rescue, 18th annual. Bring an attitude. We'll supply the tools, gloves, t-shirts, and hot dogs.

Sign-up between 8-9am @ Lakeside Nature Center
4701 E Gregory Blvd. Kansas City, MO 64132

What's the plan? Remove trash, plant trees, and have a good time mixing with 750 other volunteers in the 18th Annual project Blue River Rescue. Annually sponsored by Missouri Stream Team 175, Friends of Lakeside Nature Center, and a host of other interested folks, including government and non-governmental agencies that work in the watershed.

This looks to be the year that this project removes it's 4 millionth pound of trash from the watershed. Without the work of Project Blue River Rescue, this trash would have otherwise polluted the Blue River and then the Big Muddy MO. The MO needs the mud, but not the trash.

Be there. For more information call 816-513-8960

elsewhere:
project blue river rescue
m.o.i.: blue river portraits
blue river watershed association

jules feiffer provides dna evidence

Just because Jules Feiffer has come to believe that there's little, if any hope, for change in the status quo doesn't mean you have to. Each of us has to choose our battles, and if you don't think you can win them, or believe that you can no longer affect the outcome, then perhaps there are different places better served with your energy. Like your family. Or your art.

Lot's of folks want to change the face of politics and sometimes it feels like it just might happen. Other times, it's more of a slog. And slogging about in the muck doesn't really improve the shape of the world. You just end up soiled.

Feiffer, who captured the attention of leftists and the powerful alike with 42 years of Village Voice cartoons and the Academy Award-winning Munro, decided at the millennium that there are more noble callings than throwing darts at the likes of George Bush and Dick "the Dick" Cheney. Especially since none of the poison pen ink seems to be able to tattoo thick Republican skins and many Americans seem more content with shopping at Nebraska Furniture Mart than marching against the war on any given Sunday.

As Twain(?) said, in order for satire to work, people have to be well read. Well, here's to reading.

So Feiffer has moved onto a calling at least as noble as that of a serious comix artist - that of writing and illustrating children's books. His daughter, Kate, also writes children's books and together they presented a Feifferian view of the world according to the infinite childhood.

The Feiffers, along with other Merry Pranksters, were in Kansas City for the Reading Reptile DNA Literature festival held again this year at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Community Christian Church. One of Feiffer's early collaborators in the absurd, Norton Jester ("it's Juster, Norton Juster you fool!"), was baffled, as have been many before him, by which of Wright's sensibilities, if any, went into the church's design. No one knew, thus Jester dropped his shoe on Wright and the architect was exposed as curmudgeon.

Juster, whose classic book The Phantom Tollbooth ,initially confounded critics, but delighted both children and parents (thus the critics were forced to follow suit), followed the Feiffer family with a stump speech that played like a stack of 3 x 5 Groucho Marx index cards. Juster stopped short of dancing a jig but the crowd hardly noticed; they were waiting for the magic word. When the duck finally dropped even Norton seemed surprised that the word was delight.

Jane Yolen, who's written more books (~300) than the President has read in a lifetime capped the festival with a finely crafted story about the process of re-writing what's already been written. Park would be happy to know that this post, having been rewritten as least 4 times, is still unfinished, but alas, time to move on to satire.

elsewhere:
smitten by mittens
the interrogation of junior
knocked out of the park
yolen along
the potter family
feiffer gives it up

things to do with ron paul signs left by the side of the road

More from the ubiquitous series: things to do with ron paul signs left by the side of the road

You've seen them everywhere--Ron Paul signs. One has to give Mr. Paul credit, he either had the largest sign budget of all the candidates or his supporters really love to use a stencil. One of most reproduced was a reworked image from a Crirque de Soleil logo for a Beatles tribute -- The Ron Paul Revo(Evo)lution. Unfortunate for Mr. Paul, once they moved past the medium, they arrived at the message.

But what happens to those signs after the primary, after the caucus, after Ron Paul has conceeded defeat?

Apparently, Ron Paul supporters have a lot more energy for making signs, than retrieving them. Plus they like to plant them in public spaces, which technically is against the law, but something easily overlooked in the fervor of a campaign. But there comes a time when the sign clutter gets a little out of hand and as one who works on litter clean-ups, there's enough trash, without political trash, laying around the planet.

So what to do?

One option is to make more signs! Of rival political candidates who are still in the race. Belief Change was made from a recycled Ron Paul Revolution sign, found in one of our public parks a month after the primary. It seemed appropriate to use this sign to mark another revolution of sort trying to make it's way across the country. For this sign, Obama's features have been blended with a youthful Muhammad Ali, because in many cases America seems to have a similar response to the two.

Back in the early 60's, when Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, was winning the Olympic Gold Medal as an American, and strutting around ring waving a tiny US flag, he became an instant hero. Not just at home, but around the world. Ali practically invented the wordy, self-hype that today has become the staple of athletes and politics everywhere. But when Clay, converted to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali, doubts began to spring up, especially when Ali decided it was in his, and the country's best interest, not to enter the army while thousands of brothers were being served up in Vietnam for an unjust, unwinnable war.

Ali, the black man with a voice and not afraid to use it, became the anti-Elvis for many people. Elvis, if you remember, served in the Army with all the panache of one of his B-movies, and it was while stationed in Germany that he met Priscilla and the rest, one might say, "is Vegas".

Ali, was stripped of his heavy-weight crown, remained famous, and eventually was able to mount a successful comeback once America came to it's senses about Vietam. But his vocal stylings took a toll on his career. By some accounts Ali is the most recognizable person in the world today, but his tendency to speak his mind, and to confront the politics of race, exposed the open wound of racism that is still evident in America. Just ask Hillary Clinton, John McCain, right-wing talk radio hosts, and perhaps your father.

In some ways, the Obama ascendancy has followed a similar arc - at least on the rise. People love to believe, but they don't necessary want to change. Change is a lot more difficult to effect, than belief, although one follows from the other. If Obama does succeed in winning the nomination and then the general election, he will become the most recognizable person on the planet.

Belief Change, acrylic and duct tape on found political sign, 31' x 39', 2008, m.o.i.

elsewhere:
moi: the caucus badge

ron paul liberty poster
i support ron paul poster
nytimes, ron paul graphics revolution

nasa's march madness on demand

The space shuttle Endeavor recently returned to earth after a 16-day stint, in which, among other things, astronauts used a caulk gun to fix holes in the sides of the flying rock. The holes were caused by micro-meteoroid orbiting debris, or MMOD, as the astronauts like to say.

Houston, we have a problem say NCAA officials. MMOD is a trademarked logo and stands for March Madness on Demand - the internet broadcasts of the tourney that the NCAA is hoping will lure more viewers.

This acrimonious approach to acronymns quickly forced NASA to develop a new lingo. Henceforth, holes in the shuttle skin will be called, a DING, dang infernal nugget of God.




Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

giuliani, out of control, endorses city bus tax

Rudy, with nothing else to do, has decided to endorse the 3/8 cent city sales tax for buses on next Tuesday's ballot.