Banishment of Garfield

Banishment of Garfield (2006)

Something new. It might be a long time between lasagnas...

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Tags: photoblog-posts

Blue Fly

Blue Fly (2001)

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;
They kill us for their sport.
--Shakespeare, King Lear

What's the buzz? Well, the sad insect in today's image won't be lonely...

From ABC News:

The U.S. Army has plans to keep the current level of soldiers in Iraq through 2010, the top Army officer said Wednesday, a later date than Bush administration or Pentagon officials have mentioned thus far.

Woodchipper

Woodchipper (2004)

Cannon fodder...

From The Independent:

The human cost of the war in Iraq could be far higher than previously thought. A new survey says more than 650,000 Iraqis have lost their lives as a consequence of the invasion by the United States and Britain, with an estimated 200,000 violent deaths directly attributable to Allied forces.

The new figure is much larger than all previous estimates -- more than 20 times higher than President George Bush claimed 11 months ago -- and will add considerable weight to the calls of those seeking a withdrawal of troops.

The 654,965 deaths estimated to have resulted from the invasion represent about 2.5 per cent of the Iraqi population. It means people have been dying at a rate of about 560 a day, equivalent to one death every three minutes, or less.

For what?

For what?

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Tags: photoblog-posts

No Lifeguard

No Lifeguard (2000)

Why should I care about North Korea?
--George W. Bush, quoted in Bob Woodward's State of Denial

Till human voices wake us and we drown.
T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

As the Foley scandal continues to expand like the Big Bang, let us not forget that the pervasive BushCo incompetance continues treading at full throttle.

North Korea may have tested a nuclear weapon. The bomb may have been a bomb -- but the real fizzle blows up right in the face of another failed BushCo policy. From AmericaBlog:

Let’s call North Korea what it is: a part of President Bush's Axis of Failure. Since he bizarrely linked North Korea, Iran, and Iraq nearly a half-decade ago, North Korea has acquired nuclear capabilities, Iran has become more militant and more powerful, and we've turned Iraq into a terrorist-producing failed state. Axis of Failure. North Korea is the product of miserably failed policy, and now we’re seeing the results of the incoherent and ineffective Bush doctrine.

The National Security Network agrees:

President Bush claimed he would not tolerate a nuclear North Korea, but he has done worse than that: he ignored the threat of North Korea as it expanded its nuclear arsenal.

And perhaps The Decider should have listened more to Poppy than that other whispering "Higher Father." Shrub might have been thrown a life raft from Donald Gregg, his Dad's former National Security Advisor and past ambassador to South Korea who recently said the following (seen in the Washington Post):

Why won't the Bush administration talk bilaterally and substantively with NK, as the Brits (and eventually the US) did with Libya? Because the Bush administration sees diplomacy as something to be engaged in with another country as a reward for that country's good behavior. They seem not to see diplomacy as a tool to be used with antagonistic countries or parties, that might bring about an improvement in the behaviour of such entities, and a resolution to the issues that trouble us. Thus we do not talk to Iran, Syria, Hizballah or North Korea. We only talk to our friends -- a huge mistake.

Everything is sinking under the waterline of the Iraq quagmire and the GOP congressional protect-our-power cesspool. Our government -- and international image -- desperately need artificial respiration...and the only unbribed, uncorrupted lifeguards on call to rescue democracy are the voters.

How long can we dogpaddle and listen to human voices Rovian spin that it's someone else's fault if we drown?

Scorpion of Light

Scorpion of Light (2006)

Light stings when vermin crawl out from under the hypocrisies trash.

Ellen Goodman says:

If I had my druthers, this election would have turned on the war in Iraq. I hoped that when the voters finally got it, "it" would have been the disaster that's turned this war zone into a recruiting ground for terrorists.

Instead we have the self-described party of family values caught enabling or at least ignoring a sick puppy of a congressman, Mark Foley, who was sex-talking electronically to teenage pages. Instead we have Speaker Dennis Hastert dismissing such an exchange as merely "over-friendly" and White House press secretary Tony Snow describing the messages as "naughty." We even have right-wing Webmaster Matt Drudge blaming the teenagers themselves as "16- and 17-year-old beasts."

This scandal is what has registered on the political Richter scale. This is what voters are asking their representatives about. Well, I wouldn't have chosen to play on this field, but I will take it.

[...]

The Republicans have been all-too-successful in getting a hold on the language and politics of values. There isn't a parent in this country who doesn't wince at and worry about the sexualization of children all over the culture from the clothing racks to the Internet. But the right has grabbed onto the free-floating anxiety and attached it to everything on their agenda from abstinence-only education to the dismissal of a Texas teacher for taking her kids to a museum that had nude statues.

Now we are beginning to get "it." The self-proclaimed party of moral values can't keep its own House in order. The Republicans in charge of too much for too long have one value they now hold above all others: staying in power. Got it? Well, that's a start.

Yeah, sex sells -- even if torture and war and lies and a Constitution reduced to cinders and countless other Republican atrocities won't wake a Big Brotherized, Rovian fear-mongered electorate.

Whatever it takes. If you can't put Capone away for murder and racketeering -- then tax evasion will accomplish the same end.

It doesn't much matter how and where you're stung...

On the Rocks

On the Rocks (2002)

Let's review, class.

In just the last week, it's now clear to even former BushCo cheerleaders like Bob Woodward that Shrub and the Deciderettes lie us into offensive wars, gut the Geneva Convention, abolish habeas corpus, openly advocate torture, set up gulags, spy on anyone anytime, can declare anyone anywhere an "enemy combatant," and use the Constitution for toilet paper...

...yet a sex scandal might bring about a power shift in Congress to finally reanimate the corpse of American checks and balances to reign in the reign of our king dictator czar poobah sheik judgejuryandexecutioner omnipotentbeing president.

I'm down with that.

Whatever it takes.

Somewhere, Bill Clinton must be laughing so hard he really is unable to inhale.

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Something happened yesterday that I never dreamed in my worst Dante's Inferno scenario would occur.

I actually agreed with Bay Buchanan.

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Belly laugh of the week courtesy of Newt G. explaining why the on-the-rocks GOP brass did not make Mark Foley's pedophile proclivities more widely known:

Well, you could have second thoughts about it, but I think had they overly aggressively reacted to the initial round, they would have also been accused of gay bashing. I mean, the original notes had no sexual innuendo and the parents did not want any action taken.

Oh, of course. Those family-valued, sensitivity-trained Republicans. They'd never place children at the mercy of a sexual stalker by covering up obvious abuses in order to cravenly maintain their own political power. Gosh, no -- as Rummy would say. They would do anything -- anything -- rather than have to resort to the unjust unseemliness of gay bashing. So, by golly, you betcha they'd certainly never ever ever turn a blind eye to anything as tawdry as this

Hastert: Don't ask because we won't tell...

[Image seen on Crooks and Liars]

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Tags: photoblog-posts

Big Beet

Big Beet (2000)

Eat your E. coli laced veggies...

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I know I haven't been blogging much. I've been both too busy and too depressed. Work has been kicking my butt...and I've been trying squeeze out time for some writing and for making new images. And the recent Congressional vote to give The Decider the green light to torture and deny habeas corpus to anyone he decides to declare an "enemy combatant" has put me in a blue funk. I will actively work against my DINO senator, Mark Pryor, who voted for this bring-on-the-fascism legislation. No quarter and no excuses on this vote. Like Morpheus in The Matrix Reloaded, I had a dream (of America), but now my dream is gone.

But the blues will pass once my workload eases, and the resolve for the good fight will reboot. In the meantime, I'll at least try to put up some images for you to enjoy.

Tiffany Lamp Gone Bad

Tiffany Lamp Gone Bad (2001)

May West liked good salmon.
Her bedroom had dark panelling

and lava lamps. Over her tables hung
racks of critics behind the bar

where bad service is largely blamed
on Texas. Her rental limo

was toothless and made me think of
camp. Such dim jerky tastes

survivalist or maybe all the songs
about trendy green plots gas up

through hanging smoke. Her hip
inquisitor makes a great square

room addition. I hear her voice
calling me claw-footed.

Her old man gives off a soft glow
low and sexless. Victorian.

Well cut by Jack like shards
of sour cream on a white plate.

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This is a "Google" poem -- a found text pieced together by search hit syntax snatches from a Google search of the phrase tiffany lamp gone bad.

The Texas Fractal Massacre

The Texas Fractal Massacre (1999)

"You have one choice, boy: sex or the fractal. Sex is, well, nobody knows. But the fractal, the fractal is family."

Anticipating Autumn

Anticipating Autumn (1999)

A melancholy mood settles like dreary morning fog. Summer's gone. Winter's pumped.

And where's the harvest? Debates in Congress and discussions in the media over whether the United States should honor the provisions of the Geneva Convention.

The fields are fallow. The farmers are insane.

I want the land that I love back -- green and fertile.

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UPDATE:

Here's Paul Krugman going to motive:

So why is the Bush administration so determined to torture people?

To show that it can.

The central drive of the Bush administration -- more fundamental than any particular policy -- has been the effort to eliminate all limits on the president’s power. Torture, I believe, appeals to the president and the vice president precisely because it’s a violation of both law and tradition. By making an illegal and immoral practice a key element of U.S. policy, they’re asserting their right to do whatever they claim is necessary.