B12 Solipsism

Earlier today…

Based on courtroom transcripts, Densmore works up a cautionary tale of the ugly collision of art and money. Densmore writes that the opposing legal team attacked his character and labeled him un-American and a communist for not taking the Cadillac deal. "They tried to convince the jury I was an eco-terrorist because I am involved with a handful of peaceful, credible environmental organizations," said Densmore, who was once arrested with Bonnie Raitt for protesting the cutting down of old-growth trees. "I couldn’t believe some of things I heard them say. I felt betrayed, hurt and very alone. . . Now, you can probably google my name and al Qaeda will come up. Great, let’s go to Abu Ghraib! It was really disturbing." During the trial, several musicians  –including Raitt, Neil Young, Eddie Vedder, Tom Petty, Tom Waits and Randy Newman – all showed support for Densmore.

Via:
The Doors’ John Densmore Talks About the Band’s Ugly Feud | Music News | Rolling Stone
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Photo By Seth Anderson Steppenwolf was founded in 1974 by Gary Sinise, Terry Kinney, and Jeff Perry in the basement of a church in Highland Park, Illinois. It relocated in 1980 to it’s current location and has become a Tony Award-winning theatre company. Modern plays with excellent local actors.

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Steppenwolf Theatre Company | In Chicago

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Photo By Seth Anderson “Blackbird is one of the finest restaurants in the country” – Chicago Tribune. Sophisticated, earthy food in a modern, sleek setting. Owner of a Michelin star.

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Blackbird In Chicago

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In 2012 we witnessed the retirement of the Space Shuttle as well as the near-death spiral of BlackBerry.  Obsolescence has occurred throughout time and will continue to occur.  Specifically in regards to software and technology, obsolescence is a serious issue that subconsciously motivates every product development cycle.  How does a company retain customers for their existing core competencies, while venturing into progressive product development for the years ahead? …Image: swanksalot/Flickr

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How to Combat Tech Obsolescence | Innovation Insights | Wired

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May Day protest at the Haymarket Riot Memorial, 1 May 2012. Credit: Seth Anderson

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Pictures – Labor College at the Mid-Ohio Workers Association – Columbus Unitarian Universalist | Examiner.com

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Daddy Hopes He Has Enough Rope in the Trunk

Earlier today…

CHICAGO — Police destroyed a million-dollar racket when they trapped a powerful gang of counterfeiters dealing in American Express Company’s travelers’ checks. Working on information received from a stoolpigeon in the underworld of Pittsburgh and aided by the double-crossing of several of the gang’s Eastern distributors, police arrested nine men, including the notorious George H. (“Bugs”) Moran, once claimant to the throne of Chicago’s gangdom. The counterfeiting gang was organized on the ruins of the mob which once ruled Chicago’s North Side under the iron leadership of Moran. The thugs who made up the old mob were killed or scattered in gang warfare with the henchmen of Scarface Al Capone, the South Side mobster who is now serving an eleven-year term in Alcatraz for income-tax evasion. A remnant of the old gang carried on until the repeal of prohibition broke its back. Police heard little of Moran until about six weeks ago. …

Via:
1938 Al Capone’s Arch Foe is Arrested
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It’s the Future

Earlier today…

The image recalls work that Mr. Sanders did for an even more famous screen project. In 1966 he was asked by Stanley Kubrick, who had seen some of his experimental, noncommercial collages, to spend months with unfettered access to the set of “2001: A Space Odyssey” and illustrate scenes from the filming. Most of the images remained unpublished for decades. (Kubrick, famously averse to set photographers, seemed to have been ambivalent even about drawings.) But the experience was a formative one for Mr. Sanders in honing an illustration style that balanced slightly trippy abstraction with a concrete feeling of reportage.

Via:
Brian Sanders Creates ‘Mad Men’ Poster for New Season
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Groves Tasteless Chill Tonic – Makes Children and Adults As Fat As Pigs.

Earlier today…

For the second time in history, federal regulators have accused an American state of securities fraud, finding that Illinois misled investors about the condition of its public pension system from 2005 to 2009. In announcing a settlement with the state on Monday, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Illinois of claiming that it had been properly funding public workers’ retirement plans when it had not. In particular, it cited the period from 2005 to 2009, when Illinois also issued $2.2 billion in bonds.

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S.E.C. Accuses Illinois of Securities Fraud
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banker

Earlier today…

As veteran critics of the post-crash financial industry well know, one thing that has allowed big banks to maintain their rosy outlook is a rule change from the Federal Accounting Standards Board that allows these entities — still flush with toxic assets — to avoid having to mark their assets “to market.” Instead, banks are allowed to essentially treat these assets as “marked to fantasy,” a hoped-for future value that is unlikely to ever be realized. The banks have fought, and beaten back, any attempt to return to a “mark to market” regime, and it’s easy to see why: Reality comes with a cost. Should they ever have to realize the true value of the assets on their balance sheets, their false façade will fall, and it will be revealed that they are more structurally insolvent than they prefer to let on.

Via:
Looking Forward In Angst: The Deficit Debate Needs More ‘Mark To Market’ Accountability
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Gustave Courbet

Earlier today…

You might ask why, in that case, much of Obamacare will run through private insurers. The answer is, raw political power. Letting the medical-industrial complex continue to get away with a lot of overcharging was, in effect, a price President Obama had to pay to get health reform passed. And since the reward was that tens of millions more Americans would gain insurance, it was a price worth paying.

But why would you insist on privatizing a health program that is already public, and that does a much better job than the private sector of controlling costs? The answer is pretty obvious: the flip side of higher taxpayer costs is higher medical-industry profits.

So ignore all the talk about too much government spending and too much aid to moochers who don’t deserve it. As long as the spending ends up lining the right pockets, and the undeserving beneficiaries of public largess are politically connected corporations, conservatives with actual power seem to like Big Government just fine.

Via:
Mooching Off Medicaid – NYTimes.com
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As whisky producer Maker’s Mark recently learned, when customers have strong opinions, they’ll make their complaints heard. It’s better for organizations to create feedback loops early in order to help avoid the sudden negative reaction that often follow poorly planned policy changes. …Maker’s Mark is not the only organization to learn about the importance of customer feedback loops. (Photo credit: swanksalot)

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Bangalore, Maker’s Mark, Rahm Emanuel and the Importance of Feedback Loops – Forbes

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Truth and Mister Rogers

Earlier today…

To quote the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (one of my favorite online resources): “Almost every major figure in the history of philosophy has proposed a theory, but after 2,500 years of discussion there has been little consensus about what constitutes humor.”…Considering what we know about MacFarlane’s politics – he’s a liberal, an Obama donor, a supporter of LGBT rights, etc. — it’s unlikely that he actually intended to come off as a sexist boor who was belittling women. Indeed, it’s possible he intended quite the opposite – but as any grad student in literary theory could tell you, artistic intention isn’t that important. His shtick was fundamentally confusing: What kind of comedy was the boob song – juvenile and sexist mockery, or institutional parody? Or both at once? And who was its intended target? Worst of all, the confusion evidently struck many viewers, especially women, as profoundly unfunny.

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I’ll tell you what’s funny (to me)
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President Barack Obama is photographed during a presidential portrait sitting for an official photo in the Oval Office, Dec. 6, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Earlier today…

This had led to a lot of Republicans fanning out to explain what the president should be offering if he was serious about making a deal. Then, when it turns out that the president did offer those items, there’s more furious hand-waving about how no, actually, this is what the president needs to offer to make a deal. Then, when it turns out he’s offered most of that, too, the hand-waving stops and the truth comes out: Republicans won’t make a deal that includes further taxes, they just want to get the White House to implement their agenda in return for nothing. Luckily for them, most of the time, the conversation doesn’t get that far, and the initial comments that the president needs to “get serious” on entitlements is met with sage nods.

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This is why Obama can’t make a deal with Republicans
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Young Dylan Entertains

Earlier today…

Blind Willie McTell is perhaps most famous nowadays for his song “Statesboro Blues,” most likely titled after the city he grew up in.  Although McTell was somewhat well-known on the blues circuit during the 1920s and 1930s, most folks who know this song today know it because of the Allman Brothers.  Their version is electric and extended.  McTell played a fluid twelve-string and the occasional slide.  He live for sixty years and played throughout the southern United States in a style of picking known as Piedmont—named after the region of the Carolinas it originated in.  While Bob Dylan was recording songs for the album eventually known as Infidels, he recorded his song “Blind Willie McTell.”  A masterpiece of a song from a man who has many such songs to his name, Dylan’s work is about much more than the blues singer Willie McTell.  It is an angry message transmitted via Dylan from an angry god.  Even more, it is about a people & a nation that continues to suffer what Abraham Lincoln…

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Bob Dylan’s Biography of American Racism » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
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As our government was making a fraudulent case to attack Iraq in 2002-2003, the MSNBC television network was doing everything it could to help, including booting Phil Donahue and Jeff Cohen off the air.  The Donahue Show was deemed likely to be insufficiently war-boosting and was thus removed 10 years ago next week, and 10 days after the largest antiwar (or anything else) demonstrations in the history of the world, as a preemptive strike against the voices of honest peaceful people. From there, MSNBC proceeded to support the war with mild critiques around the edges, and to white-out the idea of impeachment or accountability.

But now MSNBC has seen its way clear to airing a documentary about the fraudulent case it assisted in, a documentary titled Hubris. This short film (which aired between 9 and 10 p.m. ET Monday night, but with roughly half of those minutes occupied by commercials) pointed out the role of the New York Times in defrauding the public, but not MSNBC’s role.

click here to view: Hubris Isn’t the Half of It

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