Recently in Politics Category

Like probably everybody else, I have been following what is going on in Iran, and this cartoon by Steve Bell, which I found here, might well be the most fitting visual commentary I've seen so far.

A post by Rob Haggart pointed me to an issue of the jury of this years's PDN Photography Annual being all white (find another take on this here, plus there is the original post that raised the issue here). With a jury of 24 people a complete lack of diversity does indeed look suspicious. I did not want to write something without having spoken with the party in question, PDN, so I emailed them yesterday. PDN told me this morning that they have looked at the comments and discussions following Rob's post; should they decide to comment, they will do so on their PDNPulse blog.

(Updated below)

"I disagree with Phillip Gourevitch about whether the Obama Administration should release what remain of the unseen photos from Abu Ghraib, but he has written this thoughtful Op-Ed in The New York Times today." - Jim Johnson

"Maybe we could do without even the best art about childhood. Maybe we could ask ourselves the questions art asks on our own. But child pornography law does something worse than chill artistic thought. It allows us to ignore what actually abuses children all the time. Strangely, every single one of the scandals about child pornography in art galleries has involved photographs of healthy and affluent white children. Protection of the most vulnerable children, apparently, is not what concerns advocates of child pornography law. Rational protection of real children against actual abuse is not the highest priority of those who demand censorship of pictures. I almost wonder if it is the contrary. Is a strident demand for censorship of images a decoy? Does it deflect the facts of child abuse, the fact, for instance, that the overwhelming majority of cases of child abuse occur in the home and are inflicted by fathers, step-fathers or boyfriends?" - Anne Higonnet, in a very smart article with a lot of examples (via)

Sorry for this politics only post, but this is a major event in US politics: Arlen Specter Switches Parties.

The other day, Mark Danner published a piece entitled US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites, which makes for a depressing and infuriating read. If you don't have the time (or stomach) for it, there's a shorter version, published as Op-Ed in the New York Times.

"An attempt by Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to eliminate all arts and museum funding from the [stimulus] bill was defeated. Ironically, Sen. Coburn is the father of the outstanding young soprano Sarah Coburn, who has appeared many times at opera houses supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. Last year the younger Coburn went home to Oklahoma to sing in Lakmé at the Tulsa Opera - a production made possible in part by a $15,000 grant from the NEA." - Alex Ross

A casino or other gambling establishment, an aquarium, a zoo, a golf course, a swimming pool, a stadium, a community park, a museum, a theater, an arts center, or a highway-beautification project. Any ideas? Tough one, isn't it? Not if you're a politician! Have a look.

New York City certainly knows about its priorities: With the city plastered with advertizements - they even project ads onto the walls of the subway tunnels so you can watch an ad while you're trying not to look at the ads inside the trains - somebody who physically cuts up ad posters to turn them into something else certainly is not welcome: "Last night before a benefit he was scheduled to participate in at a loft in Soho, the street artist known as Poster Boy was arrested by an undercover cop." (story)

"Rocked by a budget crisis, Brandeis University will close its Rose Art Museum and sell off a 6,000-object collection that includes work by such contemporary masters as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Nam June Paik." (story)