Executive Order Termination of Emergency
“I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that the situation that gave rise to the declaration of a national emergency in Executive Order 13129 of July 4, 1999, with respect to the Taliban, in allowing territory under its control in Afghanistan to be used as a safe haven and base of operations for Usama bin Ladin and the Al-Qaida organization, has been significantly altered given the success of the military campaign in Afghanistan, and hereby revoke that order and terminate the national emergency declared in that order with respect to the Taliban.”
Author: Charles
The More Things Change, The More they Remain the Same
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Masters of American Photography Postage Stamps
I was pleased to see the new US Postage Stamps issue commemorating great American Photographers. I was particularly pleased to see an image by one of my favorite photographers, Gertrude Kasebier.
However, I was particularly displeased when I decided to look up the original image and discovered it was cropped severely. Kasebier would not approve of this alteration. Photographers of this era used to debate endlessly about whether images should ever be cropped.
Kasebier was born in Des Moines, Iowa and traveled to Paris to learn photography and painting. Unfortunately, women artists of this period were relegated to the fringes of the art world. Many people compare her photography to lesser French Impressionists like Marie Cassat, since they both produced many woman-and-child portraits. This is an unfair comparison, Cassat’s work is second rate, while Kasebier’s work was amongst the best of the Photo Secession. Cassat had little influence on her peers, while Kasebier was extremely influential.
Kasebier is particularly important to me because she worked in media like Platinography and Gum Bichromate. Of course in those days, these were the standard methods for producing fine art photography. Today, these methods are mostly a lost art and are considered an “alternate process.” I work with these same processes, precisely because I see the same pictorial advantages of those processes that Kasebier saw.
I remember seeing an original Kasebier print at the huge “150 years of Photography” exhibit at the LA County Museum of Art. These prints are so rich that no reproduction could possibly capture them. Since then, I have sought to produce photographs that must be seen firsthand. I owe much to Kasebier’s work, so it irritates me to see her work altered so severely at the same time it finds a wider audience than it ever has.
Rolex Domino’s Pizza Special Edition
Yes, it’s a real official Rolex product, an Oyster Perpetual with the Domino’s Pizza logo. Scanned from a Japanese design magazine.
SUVs and The Tragedy of the Commons
Sport Utility Vehicles are a classic example of the basic paradigm of environmental destruction, The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin. This is a complex theory, so I shall attempt to explain it as simply as possible.
There are many shared resources in our society, for example, the air and water. Hardin uses the example of a grazing field, a “Commons” as was frequently used in the early days of Pre-Revolutionary America. Farmers would each have a small amount of livestock, and shared the Commons to graze them. The Commons served the public equally, and all were entitled to take from it equally.
Let us hypothesize ten farmers, each has 10 sheep. Each farmer benefits equally from grazing their sheep on the Commons. Each makes a profit from shearing the sheep at the end of the year, let’s call it 10 bales of wool.
So one day, a greedy farmer decides he could make more profit from adding another sheep. Now he has 11 sheep and all the other farmers have 10. At the end of the year, he has 11 bales of wool, a 10% increase in profit over all the other farmers. The increased environmental impact of 101 sheep grazing is negligible as opposed to 100 sheep. Yet the Commons is a finite resource, and has a limit to how many sheep it can support without collapsing from overgrazing. For the sake of argument, let’s set it at 150 sheep.
Now it’s next year, and the other farmers see the new wealth created by the 11th sheep. So they all go out and buy another sheep for themselves. Now there are 110 sheep on the Commons. This is still well within the capacity of the Commons, with more capacity remaining. Nobody knows they are set on the path to destruction, they all believe they are on the path to riches.
Over the next 4 years, each farmer adds another sheep to their flock each year. The Commons system gives each farmer an economic incentive to add more sheep. But now there are 150 sheep. The field is overgrazed, and during the heat of the summer, the grass withers and provides insufficient food for the sheep. The Commons has collapsed, and all the sheep die of starvation. This is the Tragedy of the Commons. Any unregulated shared resource carries a built-in economic incentive to drive it to destruction.
Let’s analyze the SUV’s impact in the light of the Commons paradigm. One of the main reasons people buy SUVs is that they offer improved safety to their passengers in a crash. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released statistics clearly showing that SUVs are a greater threat to other drivers than passenger vehicles.
NHTSA crash statistics demonstrate that, in side impact crashes, LTVs are more injurious as a striking vehicle than are passenger cars. For example, when LTVs strike passenger cars on the left side, the risk of death to the car driver can be 30 times higher than the risk to the LTV occupant. This compares to a driver fatality ratio of 6.6 to 1 in car-to-car left side impact crashes.
In this example, Highway Safety is the Commons, our shared resource. The SUV owner has increased his safety, by increasing the risk to other drivers. The incremental cost, the increase of safety risks to all drivers from one SUV is negligible. But normal automobile drivers see the SUV, and they realize they are less safe when driving next to SUVs. Now they must buy an SUV to keep the same level of safety as before, when everyone was driving smaller vehicles. Soon the highway is filled with SUVs, normal passenger cars are no longer safe to drive. Our common resource, safety, has collapsed.
SUVs are a curse upon society, a symbol of greed and selfishness. There was no more classic example than what I encountered today. I was rushing to the local pharmacy to pick up some medicine before they closed, the only parking spot was blocked by an SUV that took up two spots. I could not find another parking spot. I waited for the driver to return. She leisurely strapped her kids into the car, taking her time before departing. The pharmacy closed before she left and I was able to park. Such selfishness. This is what I call “Yuppie Syndrome.” People somehow believe that their time is more valuable than anyone elses, and that they have the right to do whatever they goddam well please, despite any inconveniences they cause to others. Excuse me, this is America, where all people are equal, and my need for that parking spot is equal to yours. You have no right to more than your fair share of our common resources. And you sure as hell don’t have any right to deprive other people of resources in the process of taking more than your fair share.
Important Announcement for World Cup Journalists
Disinfotainment offers this important piece of news to international journalists and media outlets covering the World Cup: it’s over. Brazil won. Nobody cares anymore. There is no need to continue coverage of the games, there are no more games. There are no more victory rallies. There is nothing to report. Of course, this has not stopped the media (particularly the Japanese media) from continuing to report on the World Cup. I regret to inform these “journalists” that nothing they write will have any relevance to the the games. They were over two days ago. So get over it. The world is full of important news, a two-day-old game is not news.
Stupidest College Athlete Ever
College athletes are notorious for their lack of brains, but University of Iowa athlete Derreck Robinson wins the prize for complete and utter stupidity, resulting in his arrest. Robinson drove into a local convenience store at 4AM, the store had a police car parked in front, with the police officer standing in plain sight inside the store. This should have been the first sign of danger for Robinson, he was previously arrested for underage drinking and his license was suspended. He walked right past the cop, and proceeded to smoke a joint in the public bathroom of the store. Robinson was arrested and charged with marijuana posession and driving on a suspended license.
Incident at Lace Gallery
I was reminiscing about LACE Gallery in my last post, and I started thinking about an incident that happened at LACE many years ago. I used to stop in the LACE store often, they carried all the expensive art magazines I couldn’t afford, and most of the magazines I had to have. I spent a fair amount of money there, considering I was a starving artist, living in a decrepit loft that cost every penny I earned.
So one day Susie and I are shopping in the store, they had a huge bowl up on the counter full of buttons. I love to collect buttons, and I have some particularly fine old buttons with punk band names, slogans, etc. No self-respecting punk rocker would be caught without a nice button on their jacket. So we rooted through the bowl, looking for some amusing buttons. I didn’t find anything I liked so I went over and looked at magazines while Susie kept searching. As I was reading an article, Susie came over and gave me a button. I read it and laughed aloud, I thought she’d bought it for a quarter and given it to me. So I put it in my shirt pocket. I returned to reading and completely forgot I even had the button.
A few minutes later, as I finished selecting some magazines to purchase, the guy running the cash register came up to me and started yelling at me that he saw what I did. I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. He yelled at me about shoplifting. I said I intended to purchase these magazines. Without any explanation, he grabbed at me, so I pulled back and put up my fists. I told him that if he wanted to lay a hand on me, he better be prepared to put up a fight. The scrawny kid looked at me, a 6’2″ 225lb punk rocker in a leather jacket, and decided against it. He yelled that he was going to call the cops, so I told him he better do it NOW, because I was leaving and I was not going to purchase these $25 of magazines either. The kid did not call the cops, so I stomped out of the gallery and got in the car to go back to my loft (yeah, I only lived 2 blocks away but nobody walks in LA, especially near Skid Row).
As soon as Susie got into the car, she burst out laughing. She told me what had happened. She merely intended to show me the button, and I pocketed it without realizing that she hadn’t paid for it. She started the whole incident, and said nothing while it went down. Of course I was pretty mad, but mostly because I didn’t get to buy my favorite art magazines. I still have the button:
Gerhard Richter at the Art Institute of Chicago, Liz Larner at MCA
I just returned from the Gerhard Richter show at the Art Institute of Chicago, I haven’t seen such a fine exhibit in many years. I was astonished to learn The Lannan Foundation donated their entire collection of Richter paintings to the Art Institute. I caught several Richter showings at The Lannan Museum in Los Angeles, including the Baader-Meinhof exhibition. It has been a long time since I saw these paintings, and now they are collected and displayed with the most significant pieces of Richter’s entire history. I will definitely have more to say about this exhibit, and I will definitely be returning to see it again.
I was also rather pleased to see a large Liz Larner sculpture at the Museum of Contemporary Art. I had heard that her retrospective would be at MCA but I was disappointed to find that it was not, only the one piece was on display outside the museum. Liz was part of the LACE Gallery scene in the LA Loft district where I lived. I especially loved her kinetic sculpture displayed at LACE, it was titled “Corner Basher” but I always called it the “LACE Bashing Machine.”
It was a long vertical pole with a heavy chain and a steel ball attached at the end, it looked like a tetherball made from solid metal. A motor would spin the pole, you could control the speed of the motor with a big knob. At slow speeds the ball would arc lazily through the air, but at higher speeds, the ball would hurl around at terrifying speeds, the chain would rise, and the ball would slam against the walls of the museum. You could easily knock huge chunks of drywall and wood out of the museum walls, and in fact, you were invited to do so. The whole museum would shake with a reverberating BOOM whenever the ball hit the walls, and it hit repeatedly, with a repetitive thunderous noise about two times a second. I could tell the LACE staff was absolutely frazzled from the noise. I lived near LACE so I loved to drop in and bash it around, and see how far the damage had progressed. I think that was Liz’s last show at LACE.
Moveable Type Moves Forward
Moveable Type weblog software has just been updated, and the upgrade I desired most has been implemented, MySQL. MT ran with the BerkeleyDB database package running under Perl, MySQL is much faster and more robust. This should also allow MT users to insert their own PHP/MySQL code into their MT templates that runs alongside the MT/MySQL content.