Category Archives for Uncategorized

Jim Henson's "The Cube"

“The Man in the Cube” was written and produced by Jim Henson, prior to his Muppets productions. It was broadcast on NBC’s “Experiments in Television” series in 1969.

Link courtesy Douglas Rushkoff, who writes:

“I saw this television program when I was six or seven years old. It was a Sunday morning thing – they did experimental and religious stuff on Sunday mornings. I saw it with my dad, who probably understood it better than I did at the time.

“But it always stayed with me. It was a really strange, haunting experience for a kid. My introduction to existentialism, I suppose. I didn’t remember that much of it – only that I had seen it, and felt it had changed me: that the person I had become was informed by this little television film.

“At Princeton, more than ten years later, I found out that two of my very best friends – Tom Burka and Walter Kirn – had been obsessed with this little television show, as well. They, too, felt the drama had somehow warped their entire perspective on life. That perhaps we had even been damaged by this little show – that it was responsible for a sadness and confusion we just couldn’t shake…”

The Future of America Has Been Stolen

The Future of America Has Been Stolen

By Jeff Diehl
May 24th, 2007

Investigative reporter Greg Palast says 4.5 million votes will be shoplifted in 2008, thanks largely to the “Rove-bots” that have been placed in the Justice Department following the U.S. Attorney firings. Being the guy who uncovered the voter “purge lists” of 2000 that disenfranchised black voters, he’s worth listening to, even if the mainstream press chooses not to.

This time around, he claims to have the 500 emails that the House subpoenaed and Karl Rove claims were deleted forever. They prove definitively, says Palast, that the Justice Department is infested with operatives taking orders from Rove to steal upcoming elections for Republicans and permanently alter the Department.

The “clownocracy” of Bush and Rove is criminal and even evil in its attempts to steal past and future elections, according to Palast, and can only be stopped if “Democrats…find their souls and find their balls.”

In an updated new version of his best-selling book, Armed Madhouse, Palast lays out the case for the future theft of the presidency, along with lots of other Executive malfeasance. I chatted with him about the role of the Justice Department in this scheme, and what it means for the viability of our “democracy.”

JEFF DIEHL: First off, the “lost” emails. I guess you’re confident those 500 emails aren’t themselves a hoax? Considering the source? [John Wooden, the man behind the spoof site, whitehouse.org, forwarded them on to Palast after someone accidentally sent them to Wooden’s georgewbush.org domain.]

GREG PALAST: Oddly, the GOP verified their authenticity to BBC. I almost fell over dead when they did that.

JD: How did they do that exactly?

GP: We asked them on camera. They did not deny they were the party’s internal emails — just disagreed what the “caging” lists were. Saying, for example, they were “donor” lists. Men in homeless shelters?

Remember, there’s no First Amendment in England. I’m wrong, I’m sued, I’m broke, I’m toast.

JD: Let’s move on to former Justice Department counsel (and Regent University graduate) Monica Goodling’s recent testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee, since it’s so fresh…

GP: The blondeling underling of the Police State. The lady was trying to tell us something important, but the dim bulbs of the U.S. press and the committee dolts wouldn’t listen. She began by accusing her bosses of perjury. The issue was her allegation that they knew all about “caging.” And no one asked her one damn question about it. Like what is “caging” and why would they commit perjury to cover it up?

JD: Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) asked, and Goodling said, “It has to do with direct mail.”

GP: And that was it. D’oh! It’s not about “direct mail.” Direct mail has to do with Victoria’s Secret and stuff like that. This was all about stealing the 2004 — and 2008 — elections. That’s why she wanted immunity. She was afraid it would all unravel, the caging game…but she had nothing to fear.

JD: Well, it is a direct mail term, but it’s also a voter supression term. Do no senators know that, not even Committee Chair John Conyers?

GP: Conyers knows — and he knows me. He’s keeping his powder dry. The others are clueless.

Caging works like this. Hundreds of thousands of Black and Hispanic voters were sent letters — do not forward. Letters returned as undeliverable (”caged”) were used as evidence the voter didn’t live at their registered address. The GOP goons challenged these voters’ right to cast ballots — and their votes were lost.

But whose letters were caged? Here’s where the game turns to deep evil. They targeted Black students on vacation, homeless men — and you’ll love this — Black soldiers sent overseas. They weren’t living at their home voting address because they were shivering under a Humvee in Falluja.

JD: As you put it in regard to election rigging, 2000 was about “purge lists,” 2004 was about “caging,” and 2008 will be about “verification.” Can you briefly explain the difference between these?

GP: Sure. In 2000, I cracked the computer disks (CD-ROMs then) from Katherine Harris’ office showing 56,000 names of voters “purged” from voter rolls as felons who aren’t allowed to vote. In fact, every one — every one — was an innocent voter, though most were guilty of VWB — Voting While Black. That was the 2000 “purge.”

In 2004, it was nearly identical. Except, instead of calling voters “felons,” they called them “suspect” voters, fraudulently using a false voting address. The effect was the same: the voter would lose their registration; or their vote on election day when they showed to vote; or, in the case of soldiers, their absentee ballot would be challenged and tossed.

JD: You claim the reason for Democrat inaction in election scandals is because of racism, that the white caucus is bigger than the black caucus. But don’t Democrats gain by making sure black people are enfranchised?

GP: Which Democrats? The huge purge and block of voters in Georgia [were done by] reptiles like Zell Miller in control of the Georgia Democratic Party. There’s an awful lot of Democrats who would not win primaries if dark-skinned citizens could just vote any time they pleased.

JD: My mind goes back to Conyers. What did you mean earlier by “keeping his powder dry?”

GP: We talk. ‘Nuff said.

JD: Fair enough. So you’re working also with former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico, David Iglesias, yes?

GP: Claro que si.

JD: I was watching Chris Matthews’ TV show — “Softball,” as you’ve called it — and he asked Iglesias what his long term plans were — if he was writing a book. Iglesias indicated that he was, and also, that he wanted a TV show similar to Matthews’ at some point, and seemed to be totally serious. Given that Iglesias has been willing to go “along with the game” in the past, are you concerned that his recent turn might be motivated by opportunism?

GP: I don’t care if he’s motivated by a love of Barbie dolls. He’s been pushed by the Rove-bots to expose the game. I’ll take it anyway I can get it — the facts, ma’am.

JD: Do you have a wide-angle view of the current Administration’s strategy with the Justice Department, and if so, give us the summary. Is it about election theft, or is it mostly about stocking the lake for future conservative judge appointments?

GP: Yes. First, it’s elections. They don’t want the voters making any foolish choices. Specifically, while the attention’s been focused 100% on the firings, no one is talking about the hirings. That’s what Goodling was trying to get across.

The key: at the Pearl Harbor Day massacre, they replaced one of the prosecutors with Rove-bots, a sleeper cell of anti-Constitutional saboteurs who will explode in 2008, led by the new prosecutor for Arkansas, Tim Griffin.

JD: Talk a little bit about the relevance of Tim Griffin — the perp who became prosecutor — and Arkansas in 2008.

GP: It was Griffin who directed the “caging” ops for the GOP. Caging, by the way, is illegal. Law Professor Bobby Kennedy pointed out it violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — and I’d add, as a former racketeering investigator, mail fraud statutes. So Griffin’s a felon — now U.S. Attorney.

JD: Is Kennedy still actively publicizing this?

GP: Yes. The incriminating email is reproduced right in Armed Madhouse. That’s why Griffin and Goodling were high-fiving over the fact that no one’s picked up the investigations of that “British reporter” Palast.

The key thing is, Griffin is not just “involved,” he is directing the scheme. His denial was confidential — had to be subpoenaed. Remember, as Goodling testified, the line of the Bushies is that Griffin had nothing to do with caging.

JD: So is Congress eventually going to get to all this? Is that the end game with the Justice Department investigation?

GP: No, Congress won’t do squat. Did anyone do anything about the felon purge? It went backwards: Bush signed the Help America Vote Act. God forbid.

Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom in Santa Barbara



“Tomorrow Belongs to Me”
Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom

April 28 – June 24, 2007

Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum – Bloom Room
653 Paseo Nuevo
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Free

“In their sculptures and installations, Gonzalez and Russom explore the forces of magic on earth via simple modular forms made in Formica. The sculptures are often arranged to suggest a range of images, from minimal sculpture to failed architectural experiments to vanity mirrors. The duo also embed analog synthesizers that play meditative, repetitive sound, based on the settings of knobs on controls panel built into each of the works.”

Work by GORDON TERRY

GORDON TERRY
The Conscious Reconciliation of Opposing Forces
April 27 – May 26, 2007

atm gallery
619 b west 27th street new york, ny 10001
tel: 212.375.0349 gallery hours: tues -sat 11pm to 6pm & by appointment


Mr. Iboga, Mysterious Crop Formations, and the Approach of 2012

Study for One Thousand Years of Lost History


Cross Sections of Higher Solids Intersecting Our Space


A SUPERNATURAL RIOT OF ASTROLOGY, MYSTERY CULTS AND STRANGE MACHINES

Thrift Store Movie Night III at the Hammer

Above: a still from Animal Charm’s “Moving Day”

Thrift Store Movie Night III
7 p.m., Wednesday May 23

UCLA Department of Art Event at
UCLA Hammer Museum, Gallery 6

FREE

“For the third year, the UCLA Hammer Museum and the UCLA Department of Art welcome L.A. Weekly art critic Doug Harvey and other archivists of found media for the presentation of films, videos and slides rescued from the obscurity of thrift stores, swap meets and dumpsters.

The evening includes excerpts from recent and upcoming programs by the Coalition for
Cinematic Conservation and Preservation at the Echo Park Film Center, possibly including
an educational filmstrip on the wonders of the banana, vintage Asian and Indian music
videos, the classic “ABC of S*x Education for Trainables,” and a selection from NY
artist Brian Bellott’s DVD collection of found photographs!

This year’s guest curators include Animal Charm, whose disturbing and hilarious video
jams bring Bruce Conner’s loopy aesthetics into the digital era with such mind boggling
deconstructions as “Slow Gin Soul Stallion,” “Pet Programming” and the amazing “Stuffing.” Animal Charm will debut several brand new works at this screening!

Also presenting will be Brooklyn’s Found Footage Festival, hosted by curators Geoff Haas,
Joe Pickett and/or Nick Prueher, who will provide their unique observations and
commentary on found video obscurities ranging from the world’s worst telemarketers
“John & Johnny” to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s scintillating take on Brazilian culture in
1983’s “Carnival in Rio.” FFF will also be presenting a new full length program at the M Bar – 1253 N. Vine Street (at Fountain Avenue) in West Hollywood on May 24, 25, & 26.