What Is This, Extra Nightmare Day?

Oprah Winfrey. Shutterstock.

Oprah Winfrey. Shutterstock.

One of the world’s most powerful billionaires, Oprah Winfrey, said in a recent interview that she is considering a run for the White House especially after President Donald Trump’s victory in the November 2016 election. Winfrey would be the nation’s first black woman president and first woman president if she won.

Winfrey, 63, spoke with financier David Rubenstein in December in an episode of Bloomberg’s “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations,” that premiered Wednesday. When Rubenstein asked the legendary TV host about whether she’d run for president Winfrey said, “I actually never thought that was — I never considered the question, even a possibility, I just thought ‘Oh, oh.’” Rubenstein responded, “Right, because it’s clear that you don’t need government experience to be elected president of the United States, right?”

NO. FUCK NO. THIS HAS TO STOP.

Allowing no experience whatsoever people, regardless of their celeb status to think they are somehow magically fucking qualified to be president. Can we get some godsdamn standards up in here? Please? Also, 63 years old. In four years, 67 years old. I have nothing against that age, I’m close enough myself at 59, but hey, here’s a radical fucking idea: how about if someone actually qualified and at least 20 years younger steps up and runs? Also, how about someone who isn’t a fucking billionaire? Y’know, someone who at least knows what reality is, and doesn’t have billions of cushions against it.

The PRESIDENCY is not supposed to be a popularity contest (I know, I know), nor is it supposed to be a hobby for celebs. Jesus.

I’m going to go paint, before I fucking explode in an overarching blend of outrage and frustration with the utter idiocy that is the united states of stupidity.

Via Raw Story.

She Didn’t Want to Stand Up.

Joint Chiefs of Staff attend President Donald Trump's speech to Congress (Fox News/Twitter/@WhileInTheWild).

Joint Chiefs of Staff attend President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress (Fox News/Twitter/@WhileInTheWild).

Former NSA analyst and columnist John Schindler reacted in horror on Tuesday after seeing Trump “exploit” Carryn Owens, the wife of slain Chief Petty Officer William (Ryan) Owens.

Mr. Schindler had a great deal to say about it on Twitter.

Has Stockholm Syndrome overtaken the whole country? That’s an excellent question. I’m starting to think so, because every day I fail to understand why people refuse to wake the fuck up.

You can see all the tweets here.

A “Normal” Moment.

Trump humps flag. Twitter.

Trump humps flag. Twitter.

It seems that a good deal of media and regular folks are falling all over themselves about how reasonable Trump’s speech was, it was all so gosh darn normal, oh my yes! Except it wasn’t. It was the same old shit, wrapped up in the flag and exceptional Americanism, with a white nationalist filling. Raw Story has a brief article about this, noting the White House surprise at how media pundits were won over by this speech.

President Donald Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday night got glowing reviews from some pundits on cable news — and it turns out even the White House is surprised by how easily they were won over.

Washington Post reporter Robert Costa tweeted on Wednesday morning that some sources he’s talked with in the White House are “frankly surprised at how pundits are warming to the speech.”

This is particularly surprising to them, Costa writes, because “Trump has not changed” and there is “no big shift in policy coming.”

Think Progress has a longer piece about this piece of bullshit which too many people are swallowing whole. Interestingly, the white supremacist scum are thrilled about it, because instead of paying attention to the bits of trapping, they focused on actual content, which is a gift to Nazis everywhere.

Speaking to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, President Donald Trump portrayed the United States as an island of civilization under siege from immigrant cartels and terrorists posing as refugees.

Trump touted a new Department of Homeland Security office that will target “criminal aliens.” He lied about immigration’s effect on the U.S. economy, boasted about sharp rollbacks to the regulatory state, renewed his call for eradicating the Affordable Care Act, hinted at further efforts to privatize the American education system, and offered a strident defense of his administration’s Muslim ban. At no point did he deviate from the “nationalist-populist” ideology his administration has adopted under top strategist Steve Bannon, former chairman of the white-nationalist website Breitbart.

On the other hand, Trump also read off a teleprompter, tossed off a cursory denunciation of “hate,” and wrapped up the speech with some pablum about how Americans should believe in themselves.

Those minor grace points were enough to earn Trump rapturous applause from the usual pundit gaggle, which is evidently willing to embrace a white-nationalist policy agenda if the presentation includes a few Hallmark aphorisms and leaves out any overt racial slurs.

CNN’s Van Jones said Trump “became President of the United States” when he acknowledged the widow of a fallen Navy SEAL, who was sitting in the audience.

Oh FFS, really? Trump acts like a normal person for 10 fucking seconds, and people are tripping over their tongues at how great he is? Jesus Fucking Christ, it’s not enough, it’s just not enough to say we are in trouble here. We are past trouble. There aren’t even words. We’re up to our neck in fascism, but it’s okay, because someone managed to get Trump to read some nice words from a teleprompter. Why didn’t anyone bother to note that Ms. Owens wouldn’t have been a grieving widow if it weren’t for Trump’s ego and need to play war? That Trump doesn’t want to go along with the investigation requested by Owen’s father? No, he’s so very presidential because he addressed a widow.

The vile Nazi scum were elated, but for reasons grounded in reality:

David Duke @DrDavidDuke

Hail to the Chief – No change on policy to deport illegals and on track to CUT major legal immigration necessary to take our country back!

Richard ? Spencer ✔ @RichardBSpencer

After the PC bullshit is out of the way, Trump is making a Trump speech.#trumpaddress

So, what’s it going to take for all the non-Nazi scum to see what’s actually being said and what’s actually going on?

Via Think Progress.

Also see:

Trump lied. Right-wing extremists — not foreigners — commit more terror attacks in the U.S.

Trump’s address to Congress was riddled with falsehoods about the energy industry.

Trump was so busy attacking immigrants he barely acknowledged hate crimes.

Trump draws a fake conclusion from a study that actually finds immigration is good for the economy.

Word Wednesday.

Pernicious.

Adjective.

  1. highly injurious or destructive.

  2. archaic: wicked.

– perniciously, adverb.

– perniciousness, noun.

Pernicious implies irreparable harm done through evil or insidious corrupting or undermining.

[Origin: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin perniciosus, from pernicies destruction, from per – + nec -, nex violent death.] 15th Century.

“I found this fellow at the bottom of the chest under a lot of other stuff. Fortunately our pernicious vicar hadn’t quite got to it before his collapse.” The Ghosts of Sleath, James Herbert.

Noether’s Theorem: Visualized Music.

This is one of the coolest things ever. The Creators Project has an in-depth story, and stills from the video.

Noether’s Theorem concerns itself with symmetry in physical systems. “Symmetry is the idea that one aspect of a system can change while another remains constant,” Cooper explains in the video’s description. “The idea of natural laws themselves rely on the forms of symmetry that mean the same forces will apply to you as they do to me, independently of our position in space or time… The principle is also responsible for music, in that our enjoyment of tonality, melody, harmony and rhythm comes from our subconscious appreciation of different types of patterns (i.e. symmetries) in sound waves.”

McLoughlin, whose experimental films have showed us what a Googol looks like, an extra-dimensional portrait of his dad, and sleep deprivation distilled into visual style, applies the mathematical theorem to a spiraling universe of flat circles. “The law of symmetry struck a chord with me in a huge way,” McLoughlin tells Creators. “There’s just something so divine about that law, it’s just so primal and insanely complicated. Almost like the soul of everything. It just feels spiritual to me.”

If you’re into math stuff, learn more about Noether’s Theorem here. If you’re rather feel it than read about it, watch Kevin McLoughlin’s video for Max Cooper’s “Symmetry”.

Commercial Break.

Meriem Bennani, Your Year by Fardaous Funjab, 2015, Courtesy of Jayson Wyche and Public Art Fund, New York.

Meriem Bennani, Your Year by Fardaous Funjab, 2015, Courtesy of Jayson Wyche and Public Art Fund, New York.

If you find yourself in Times Square, downtown Brooklyn, or at Westfield World Trade Center in New York City, you may be surprised to see those spaces’ ubiquitous ads for soft drinks, fast fashion, and electronics swapped for poignant and gorgeous video art. The switch, part of a citywide exhibition called Commercial Break, kicks off Public Art Fund‘s 40th anniversary season with disruptive, artful advertisements taking over the city’s largest and most technologically advanced screens. Curated by Associate Curators Emma Enderby and Daniel S. Palmer, Commercial Break features 23 artists whose work can be seen on billboards in Times Square, the 360-degree “Oculus” screen outside Barclays Center, 19 digital screens at Westfield World Trade Center, hundreds of LinkNYC kiosks all over the city, and embedded as pop-up “ads” on PublicArtFund.org.

The idea for Commercial Break sprang from Public Art Fund’s formative exhibition series Messages to the Public , which ran on an 800-square-foot animated Spectacolor screen in Times Square from 1982 to 1990. Every month, one of 70 different artists, including Jenny Holzer, Guerilla Girls, and Alfredo Jaar, presented a 30-second animation within a 20-minute loop of commercials. The intent of the project was similar to that of Commercial Break: fighting propaganda by means of propaganda. The artists this time around had to confront time limits and embrace brevity. Their challenge is cutting through a litany of information surrounding outdoor advertising by relying solely on visual language.

[…]

Commercial Break is on view through March 5. For a full rundown of Public Art Fund’s 40th anniversary programming, visit their website.

You can read much more, and see more about this fantastic art project at The Creators Project.

Conservation Lab: Glass Preservation.

Glass

Glass1

Pitcher from the Roman Empire, before and after restoration.

The small city of Corning, New York, population 11,068, counts more works of art than people. The world’s largest collection of glass art is harbored here, at the Corning Museum of Glass, which cares for over 50,000 objects spanning 3,500 years of history. Across the Chemung River, a short walk away, lie the headquarters of Corning Incorporated—the glass and ceramics manufacturing giant responsible for the creation of brands like CorningWare and Pyrex. The company founded the museum in 1951, as a “gift to the world” to mark its 100th anniversary. The museum’s facilities have grown tremendously since then: In addition to gallery spaces, they include a research library, glassmaking studios, and an amphitheater for live demonstrations.

Fragile Legacy: The Marine Invertebrate Glass Models of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka.

There’s much more to read and see at The Creators Project. For more information about conservation at the Corning Museum of Glass, go here. Videos of the conservation team at work are available here.