torture
January 28, 2009
January 5, 2009
- Barack Obama's decision to select Leon Panetta to be the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency was a stroke of brilliance. Panetta will not only add dignity, but moral decency to the position.Yes, Panetta is an "unconventional" choice, a word Caroline Kennedy used to describe herself, but consider the corruption inherent in the more conventional options. ...
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July 30, 2008
- The government is in the process of shoring up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the bloated, tottering colossi that between them guaranteed approximately half the nation's mortgages. As recently as two weeks ago it looked like this salvage operation might cost taxpayers as much as 5 trillion dollars. Try saying that figure to yourself: Five trillion. Or writing it, a five followed by 12 zeroes. Beside ...
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July 26, 2008
- This evening, on television (PBS) I heard the new Republican definition of "torture". What most all people view as torture (such as water-boarding, etc., etc.) is now referred to as: ENHANCED INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES!I've mentioned in the past that when I hear things that are beyond reason, it causes my mind to race. Well, this is one of those times. My first thought was of the movie ...
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July 7, 2008
- Are we soggy enough yet?There's the serious debate, discussion and outrage over water boarding (Is it torture that should be forbidden? "Just" mentally excruciating but not the same as cigarette burns, bamboo shoots under the nails or joints being crushed one by one?).Then there's the parade of journalists and assorted thrill-seekers, with varying degrees of reality costuming, ...
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June 30, 2008
- In previous posts, I have drawn attention to the significance of Edmund—he is the glue of the play. And I have stressed that—for me—Lear is indeed mad from the start. Now I want to write about Gloucester and his fate. Belle and I have already noted that Shakespeare often sling shots minor characters into the lime light and Gloucester is another powerful example.Let’s summarize what ...
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May 22, 2008
- Peace Billboards is a project of Seeing Peace: Artists Collaborate with the United Nations, an innovative public art installation project orchestrated by artist Richard Kamler. Seeing Peace is a visionary international initiative that seeks to bring the imagination of the artist to bear on the most pressing global issue of our time, peace. Peace Billboards brings the imagination of 10 visual ...
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April 20, 2008
- I have an exhibition opening this coming week at the Thorndyke Student Gallery at Southern Oregon University. The images being exhibited span my career as an artist. As I prepared for the show, I felt nauseated at how little things have changed in relation to the media and the ease with which we, as a society, move on without ever really resolving anything. The most atrocious violations of the ...
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January 8, 2008
- Paradox: Where it is easy to bury the past, that’s exactly where one shouldn’t.In the 2004 vice presidential debates, Dick Cheney stated that El Salvador is “a whale of a lot better” since the United States oversaw elections in the mid-1980s.But in the past year, four high-profile “disappearances” have reawakened echoes of that country’s ugly past, suggesting that improvements in ...
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