Minos

Minos (2007)

Hopefully, one day, Dick Cheney will have to stand before this dude...

From you could have written it yourself Wikipedia:

In Greek mythology, Minos...was a mythical king of the island of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. After his death, Minos became a judge of the dead in Hades. The Minoan civilization has been named after him.

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Minos reigned over Crete and the islands of the Aegean Sea three generations before the Trojan War. He lived at Knossos for periods of nine years, at the end of which he retired into a sacred cave, where he received instruction from Zeus in the legislation which he gave to the island. This included the establishment of pederasty as a means of population control on the island community: [They] “segregated the women and instituted sexual relations among the males so that women would not have children" (from Aristotle's Politics).He was the author of the Cretan constitution and the founder of its naval supremacy.

In Attic tradition and on the Athenian stage Minos is a cruel tyrant, the heartless exactor of the tribute of Athenian youths to feed the Minotaur. It seems possible that tribute children were actually exacted to take part in the gruesome shows of the Minoan bull-rings, of which we now have more than one illustration.

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In Dante's The Divine Comedy, Minos sits at the entrance to the second circle in the Inferno, which is the beginning of proper Hell. Here, he judges the sins of each soul and assigns it to its rightful punishment by indicating the circle to which it must descend. He does this by circling his tail around his body the appropriate number of times. He can also speak, to clarify the soul's location within the circle indicated by the wrapping of his tail.

Upper right corner detail of Minos

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Made with FraSZle. Post-processed until the image proclaimed me to be a heretic, wrapped its tail around itself six times, and sent me to my proper circle.

My art web site is still off line. Here's why.

Technorati Tags: photoblog, fractal, fractal art, digital art, computer art, minos

So-So Shepherd

So-So Shepherd (2007)

Best keep an eye out for those wolves in sheep's clothing.

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Made with Fractal Zplot. Post-processed until it got lost and could not find its way home again.

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Please note that the address for Rooms with a View has changed -- and that my art web site is presently off line at this time. I'm not sure when sections of the site will be operational again. Moreover, most of the click-to-open larger versions of my posted images on this blog will no longer work. I am sorry for any broken links or inconvenience.

Why is my web site suddenly down? Here's why.

Upper left corner detail of So-So Shepherd

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Technorati Tags: photoblog, fractal, fractal art, digital art, computer art, shepherd, wolves

Last Day as a Caterpillar

Last Day as a Caterpillar (2007)

Flicka Flicka beats my unhoping heart.
My chest harbors a pipe-laying assassin. Glue on heads
and wiggly legs. Pump my abdomen with poison.
I will never become a nervous chrysalis.

Face detail of Last Day as a Caterpillar

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Something newish. Made with Sterling-ware. Post-processed until it molted its skin and silk glands spun a cocoon. Poem from my larval brain refusing to transform into an adult.

Technorati Tags: photoblog, fractal, fractal art, digital art, poetry, caterpillar

Dick Cheney Ascends into Heaven

Dick Cheney Ascends into Heaven (2007)

There's no need to stand on the shoulders of giants when you see yourself as a living god beyond the constraints of puny humans.

From RJ Eskrow's "Cheney's Not in the Executive Branch? Sounds Good to Me!" on The Huffington Post:

By now you've heard about Dick Cheney's fascinating new legal argument that he's not in the executive branch, so he doesn't have to comply with executive secrecy rules. I'm not always Rahm Emanuel's biggest fan, but his plan to cut executive-branch funding for the VP's office is a very sensible response. On the other hand, let's not be hasty about this. After all, if Cheney's not in the Executive Branch he can't claim executive privilege.

"If he believes his legal case," Mr. Emanuel wrote in an email, "his office has no business being funded as part of the executive branch." But imagine how much light we can shed into the dark corners of Mr. Cheney's office if his argument holds.

Surely you remember that infamous energy task force, the one where Mr. Cheney let his oil industry pals and their lobbyists come in and literally write their own rules? Cheney argued that the public had no right to information about the workings of that task force - because of executive privilege.

How about those executive branch visitor logs we've all been dying to see? I'd love to know how much time Jack Abramoff spent in Cheney's offices, and who he visited there. And, of course, there's the matter of Scooter Libby. With executive privilege out of the way, we can finally figure out whether there was an "underlying crime" or not. (Extra! Othello exonerated for strangling Desdemona - there was "no underlying crime" of adultery.)

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In fact, here's an even better idea: Since he says he's fundamentally a member of the Senate, why not bring him up on Senatorial ethics charges? Let the investigations commence!

Say. If Darth Vicer refuses to comply with releasing classified materials (other than blowing the cover of our own covert agents for craven political ends) could Congress arrange to have him tortured until he talks or some organs nearly fail?

Now that spectacle of stress positions would make past Congressional hearings seem truly "quaint."

Lower right corner detail of Dick Cheney Ascends into Heaven

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Made with Sterling-ware. Post-processed until its last throes became a slam dunk.

Technorati Tags: photoblog, fractal, fractal art, digital art, dick cheney, executive branch, ascension

A New Leaf

A New Leaf (2007)

Burning out in Swedish foliage
improves fitness. A chaste boarding school
for problem girls shows abstinence, steady profits.

Biodiesel fuels box in solar florists.
I compute my rising investments on special
days. Pump up Exxon earnings with each used printer

cartridge. The slickest oil boutique
unstresses Fox News pundits. Our kids stay
doubly diagnosed: perpetually in debt, always treeless.

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Something new. Image made with Fractal Zplot. Post-processed until it turned different colors and blew away. Poem a hodge-podge of Google threads of a search of "new leaf" and my own blossoming brain.

Lower left corner detail of A New Leaf

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Technorati Tags: photoblog, fractal, fractal art, digital art, computer art, poetry, found poetry, new leaf

Inside Arkham

Inside Arkham (2007)

Something new. Made with Sterling-ware. Post-processed until the Joker jested, the Penguin pouted, and Mr. Freeze froze.

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From hey I could have written that Wikipedia:

The Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane is a fictional psychiatric hospital that appears in the DC Universe. It is located near Gotham City, and is where those of Batman's foes considered to be legally insane are incarcerated (other foes are incarcerated at Blackgate Penitentiary). Although it has had numerous administrators, its current head is Jeremiah Arkham. Inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, the asylum was created by Dennis O'Neil and first appeared in Batman #258 (October 1974); much of its back-story was created by Len Wein during the 1980s. In the foreward to the book The Dark Ages: Grim, Great, and Gimmicky Post-Modern Comics, Jack C. Harris clarifies that it was he who conceptualized the idea of Arkham Asylum, and any other such claims are false.

Arkham Asylum does not have a good record, at least with regard to the high profile cases; escapes are frequent (on at least one occasion, an obsessive-compulsive multiple murderer was signed out of Arkham into the care of an incontinent, alcoholic vagrant, on the grounds that he "looked like a responsible citizen"), and those who are 'cured' and released tend to re-offend. Furthermore, several staff members, including at least one director, have ended up as residents, notably Dr. Harleen Quinzel, Lyle Bolton and, in some incarnations, Drs. Jonathan Crane and Hugo Strange.

Face detail of Inside Arkham

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Technorati Tags: photoblog, fractal, fractal art, digital art, computer art, arkham, arkham asylum

Inkwell

Inkwell (2007)

I gave her my heart. She gave me a pen.
--John Cusak in Say Anything

From David Sirota on The Huffington Post:

The American people gave Democrats their heart in November 2006. In return, Democrats gave George Bush a blank check in May 2007. We gave them our heart, they gave him a blank check. That will make May 24, 2007 a dark day generations to come will look back on -- a day when Democrats in Washington not only continued a war they promised to end, but happily went on record declaring that they believe in their hearts that government's role is to ignore the will of the American people.

Why, indeed, did some of us work so hard to elect a Democratic majority last year if they'll just give away the farm to the robber barons?

Why did we send you in our places in this supposed representational democracy? To condone the immoral madness of the Iraq War in our names?

No. We sent you with the primary objective to do whatever is necessary to end the Bush/Neocon horrific war of lies that is killing and maiming our friends and families and draining our economy and national spirit.

And did you hold firm and stay true? Or did you (including my two spineless senators -- Lincoln and Pryor) hand over a blank check to George Bush and his associate cronies to continue his war crimes (let's not be afraid to call his lies and actions what they really are) with your blessing? Did you notice the inkwell was filled with the blood of our loved ones who have died and suffered?

And for what? Bush's stubborn ego? Halliburton profits? For the brazen lie, unquestioned by a compliant media, that standing firm translates into a lack of support for the troops?

Hasn't Congress been keeping up with current events? Visit here for a refresher course detailing how deeply heartfelt Bush's support for the troops is. Sadly, the list is incomplete.

George Orwell. Come on down. Ignorance Is Strength. Supporting the troops apparently means rolling belly up enabling BushCo to continue surging them into combat and systematically whittle away their pay and benefits while extending their deployments.

So, Dems, rationalize away as you sign blank checks in blood. At the end of the day, the "long war" endlessly reaps along. Oh, and there's another constant with such bargains. The Devil owns your soul.

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Keith Olbermann apparently also has a few issues with both Bush and the genuflecting Democrats:

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Tags: photoblog, fractal, fractal art, digital art, computer art, iraq, support the troops, democrats

The Last Bee

The Last Bee (2007)

Hang up and...Live!!

From The Independent, 4-15-07:

It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world -- the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon -- which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe -- was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

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The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left."

No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.

German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines.

Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr. Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.

Dr. George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."

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Something new. Made with FraSZle. Post-processed until I felt a good buzz.

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Technorati Tags: photoblog, fractal, fractal art, digital art, computer art, bees, cell phones, colony collapse disorder

Extended Tour of Duty

Extended Tour of Duty (2007)

Something new...

From Phillip Carter's "Broken Arrow" seen on Slate:

The combat-stress literature suggests there's a finite limit to the amount of time that men and women can withstand combat. British historian Richard Holmes pegged this figure at approximately 60 days of sustained combat. In Iraq, we often wondered what our finite limit was, given the stresses of our advisory mission and the frequent attacks on our compound in downtown Baqubah. You can drink only so much chai with Iraqi leaders, and hit so many improvised explosive devices, before you burn out and need to go home. The soldiers and Marines fighting high-intensity operations in Ramadi probably had a different limit than my team, as did the troops assigned to staff duty in the International Zone or on major forward-operating bases.

To a senior Pentagon official studying a set of PowerPoint slides in the Pentagon, the question may seem academic. But to men under fire, it is anything but. Keeping units in combat for longer than a 12-month tour may push many troops past their breaking point, endangering both their lives and the mission.

Today's Army and Marine Corps is more family-oriented than other forces fielded recently by the United States. My deployment affected my family far more than me. I knew when I was safe and when I was in harm's way; families can only guess, piecing together what they get from CNN and sporadic e-mails from their loved ones. Extending soldiers' tours crushes the hopes of their families, who pin so much on a fixed return date. Soldiers have always received "Dear John" letters, but it's different now, because so many troops have spouses and children—and because today's troops are getting "Dear John" e-mails and phone calls in real time. Extending these tours creates enormous strain for military families. And shortening these families' time together between deployments all but guarantees family issues on the next rotation. Problems at home quickly become problems in Iraq or Afghanistan, forcing combat leaders to take time away from their mission to advise soldiers about family matters.

And do you think The Commander Guy cares?

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Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I'm working on two time-consuming projects over the summer. Something's got to give, and I'm afraid I won't be updating here as much as I'd like. But I'll try to post when I can.

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Technorati Tags: photoblog, fractal, fractal art, digital art, computer art, tour of duty, extensions, iraq

Twisters

The Twister Forms (2000)

My dream starts to get strange
on The Plains. Blue balloons
drift over my town as rain mode begins
and gusts curve. In one fictive package
hot moves up when I swing my arms
demolishing clever word games.

Shuffled letters soon drown
and my notebook paper
returns
driven back into trees.

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It's that time of the year again here in Arkansas...

Twister (2001)

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Technorati Tags: photoblog, fractal, fractal art, digital art, art, tornado, twister