Collared Dove, click for full size.
© C. Ford.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Collared Dove, click for full size.
© C. Ford.
John Hurt.
Actor John Hurt, who gave us all so many great and iconic characters, has walked on at age 77. He has long been one of my most favourite actors, his name in a film would be all I needed to see it.
Born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, UK, Hurt was the son of an actress and a vicar, and, after training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), made his film debut in 1966’s A Man for All Seasons. With his pained British voice and poignant stare, the actor would make an indelible impact on cinema, earning his first Academy Award nomination as Max, a heroin addict trapped in a Turkish prison, in Midnight Express, before performing one of film’s most memorable death scenes in Ridley Scott’s Alien. His next two films, as the severely deformed and chastised John Merrick in The Elephant Man (Oscar-nominated for Best Actor) and Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, cemented his status as one of the greats, and marks a stellar 4-film run.
Goodbye, Mr. Hurt, and thank you. I’d watch V for Vendetta again, but right now, it hits too close to home.
Via Daily Beast.
CREDIT: Images via Twitter.
There’s a good alt on the rise!
…If anyone should know that it is, as a practical matter, impossible to force a willful individual to stop tweeting, it’s President Donald J. Trump. So perhaps he was least shocked of all to see that, on Tuesday night, a new handle popped up on Twitter: @AltNatParkSer.
By way of introduction, the anonymous founders tweeted: “Hello, we are the Alternative National Park Service Twitter Account activated in time of war and censorship to ensure fact-based education.”
The account is less than a week old. It has issued over 300 tweets — on the Trump White House, on climate change, on the importance of peer-reviewed and factually-accurate science — and racked up 1.24 million followers in the process.
Within days, at least a dozen Twitters claiming to be the rogue employees of the government agencies for which they work appeared, describing themselves as the “unofficial resistance”: @RogueNASA, which already has 628,000 followers; @altUSEPA whose bio reads “Environmental conditions may vary from alternative facts” already has 184,000 followers; @RoguePOTUSStaff, allegedly tweeting from “inside the White House,” has a follower count of nearly 60,000. The National Weather Service, the State Department, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Education, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Agriculture, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services,: all have alternative accounts with thousands of followers a pop.
The tone is tongue-in-cheek, but the messaging is clear: Climate change is real. Facts are facts. The public has the right to know the truth. Science should not be dictated by politics. Attempts to silence official means of communication will only spark alternative means of communication. It’s a fitting act of rebellion under a president so taken with Russia: Resistance to Trump, via samizdat-com.
There’s also something satisfying about seeing the word “alternative” used against Trump and not for him, seeing as it was recently adopted by Kellyanne Conway as a modifier for “facts” (her way of defending White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s blatant falsehoods about, of all things, the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration) and co-opted by neo-Nazis as half of their more media-friendly, less-obviously-fascist title of choice, “alt-right.” The alt-NPS Twitter teams give “alternative” back to the public, for its correct use.
[…]
Trump and his ilk, like Breitbart-alum-turned-chief-strategist Steve Bannon, stoke distrust in the mainstream media like an abusive boyfriend insisting that no one else in your life really wants what’s best for you like he does. When the president is a pathological liar who does everything within his power to prevent government agencies from arming the public with accurate information, something as simple as telling the truth becomes a radical act.
The Trump administration’s efforts to deny readily apparent truths is, as Masha Gessen writes, a means of “assert[ing] power over truth itself.” But these rogue Twitter accounts are a means of asserting truth over power itself. They are a way of announcing to the president — who is surely paying attention, considering how much time he spends on Twitter — that facts will not quietly be dethroned by fiction.
VIVE LA RESISTANCE!
Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, arriving at Trump Tower in January to meet with Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump’s team is wary of Mr. Schmidt, who has been allied with Democrats and advised the Obama White House. Credit Kevin Hagen for The New York Times.
WASHINGTON — Few companies have been as intimately tied to the Democratic Party in recent years as Google. So now that Donald J. Trump is president, the giant company, in Silicon Valley parlance, is having to pivot.
The shift was evident a day after Congress began its new session this month. That evening, about 70 lawmakers, a majority of them Republicans, were feted at the stately Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, where they clinked champagne and bourbon glasses and posed for selfies with the 600 guests assembled in their honor.
The event’s main host was not from the Republican establishment. Instead, the party was primarily financed and anchored by Google.
“We’ve partnered with Google on events before, but nothing like this party,” said Alex Skatell, a founder of The Independent Journal Review, a news start-up with a right-leaning millennial audience, which also helped host the event. “I’ve never heard of an event as big.”
The event was emblematic of an about-face by Google. Over the last eight years, the company was closely associated with former President Barack Obama. Google employees overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama’s presidential campaigns and some later took roles in his administration. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, advised the Obama White House. And last year, Google employees gave $1.3 million to Hillary Clinton’s campaign to succeed Mr. Obama, compared with $26,000 to the Trump campaign, according to federal filings.
Now, the tech giant is scrambling to forge ties with Mr. Trump’s new administration and to strengthen its relationship with a Republican-dominated Congress. Most important, Google is trying to change the perception that it is a Democratic stronghold.
So terribly reassuring to see everyone rush to suck up. CNN has the full story.
Rick Wiles.
Rick Wiles has been orgasmic over Trump, and that psychopathic god of his, ecstatically going on about ooze and glory spouts. It’s kinda disturbing. I don’t care what Wiles does in private, but I don’t need to hear about it, either. In this latest outing, Wiles is comparing Trump to Samson, which I find quite amusing, because El Shaddai didn’t do well by Samson.
“Friends, listen to me,” he said. “God’s favor is on us. Please, please, please comprehend what is happening. It’s more than a political revolution. This is a spiritual revolution. God’s favor is shining on us. I can’t get out of my mind what Mario Murillo said Monday, ‘Grace is oozing out of Heaven.’ It’s just oozing towards us right now. I’m basking in it. I’m rolling around in it. I’m enjoying it.”
That’s nice. I’ll stay ooze free if you don’t mind.
I keep getting this picture that Donald Trump is like this Samson, who has been raised up by God to fight the Philistines and all the Philistines have now turned their attention away from the church, turned their attention away from attacking Christianity, and all of the Philistines are running to Washington to attack Samson. But Samson is strong enough for them. He’s been called. He’s been equipped for this battle. That is his job. That is his assignment. He’s going to beat them down. They will not be able to overtake him. He’s Samson. He was designed by God. He was created for this hour to fight these Philistines.
The story of Samson is an interesting one. Warped, seriously fucked up, but interesting. Once again, I highly recommend Drunk With Blood: God’s Killings in the Bible, by Steve Wells. If you don’t have the book, but would like the insightful commentary, head over to SAB, and note the commentary on the right side. Samson wasn’t a terribly smart guy, and you couldn’t give him any points at all for astuteness, even though his mum was knocked up by an angel while her husband was gone. Tsk. Samson is wandering about one day, sees a Philistine woman he likes the look of, and demands his parents procure her. They do, he’s pleased. Apparently at some point, they marry, there’s a week long party, an inexplicable riddle, Samson gets pissed, kills 30 people and steals their clothes so he doesn’t have to pay his buddies, then gives his wife to a companion and leaves. Some hero.
Then there’s a raft of super-nonsense. Samson decides he wants to go back and have sex with his wife (the one he gave away). Now the story is that her father gave her to someone else (women rarely have names in the bible), and offers her younger sister to Samson. He doesn’t want the sister, so he has a cunning plan to get sex with his wife: he’s gonna set the Philistines grain fields on fire. This wouldn’t be a problem for most people. Samson figures the best way to do this is to catch 300 foxes, tie their tails together, light them on fire, and set them loose in the grain fields. Genius! How in the fuck can people not be embarrassed by this shit? Anyway, the cunning plan didn’t work, Samson’s wife and father were burned to death by the pissed off Philistines. Golly, there’s just so much love and light in this How To Be A Psychopath book. Samson then slaughtered a bunch of Philistines. Then that glory spout thing happened, y’know, the spirit of the lord came upon him, and he grabbed that conveniently placed jawbone of an ass and killed 1,000 men. Yeah. As Steve Wells notes, it’s easier to believe stories like this if you don’t know they exist.
Then Samson goes to Gaza, has sex with a prostitute, ripped out the doors and gate posts of the city, carried them up a hill, and fell in love with Delilah. Delilah was paid to find out the magical source of Samson’s strength, y’know, find his wand or whatever. There’s a long, idiotic story about these attempts. Delilah finally gets it right, and cuts his hair. The Philistines nab Samson and gouge out his eyes. They also chained him up, and put him in a prison house. Then someone gets the bright idea to bring Samson out to entertain them. Naturally, Samson prayed to El Shaddai:
Now the house was full of…about three thousand men and women…And Samson called unto the LORD, and said, O Lord God…strengthen me…that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes…and he house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at this death were more than they which he slew in his life. Judges 16.27-30.
As Steve Wells notes, this was the first suicide terrorist act. It resulted in the deaths of 3,000 civilian men and women. God approved it, and gave Samson the strength to do it. Why in the hell christians still parade this idiotic story around, I don’t know. Samson was something of a dumbfuck, mostly interested in sex and getting out of paying his bets. He was a murderer and a thief. He wasn’t too kind to animals, either. Point being, there was no reason at all to hold him above the Philistines, who couldn’t really be any worse; at best they were pretty much the same. El Shaddai didn’t love Samson enough to enhance his thinking ability, or to magically give him his eyes back, or find a way for Samson to avenge himself without having to commit suicide. Somehow this awful story never manages to make the point that the situation Samson found himself in was his own doing. It has always baffled me that christians are so damn impressed with this story. It’s awful, and just one more story highlighting the fact that Jehovah is a bloodthirsty, stupid, psychopath.
If Trump is Samson of a latter day…yeah. Maybe the folks in charge of the Doomsday Clock should shave off that 30 seconds.
Wiles added that God is also blessing his radio ministry and that God’s glory has been flowing: “I didn’t get home until after 8 last night and I had some visitors in the house, they were waiting and everybody had already finished dinner and I came in and I was floating, I just said, ‘I’ve been sitting under the glory spout all day.’ That’s what I felt like. I sat under the glory spout and it just was coming out all day long on me.”
Eeuuw. If you happen to be one of those people blessing Wiles’s ministry, I beg of you, please, think. Give me five fucking minutes: think.
Via RRW.
Dan Savage (MSNBC).
Savage announced that he’s launching Impeachthemotherfuckeralready.com, where like-minded people can buy merchandise to display their campaign shorthand.
“I didn’t think I’d see a worse president than George W. Bush in my lifetime,” Savage wrote. “But here we are. So I’m bringing back ITMFA buttons and adding T-shirts and, yes, red hats to the ITMFA collection.”
He also added that the money raised will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, and the International Refugee Assistance Project.
“We’re in for a long and ugly four years, readers,” he continued. “Let’s raise some money for groups fighting Trump, let’s bring ITMFA back into our everyday vocabulary, and let’s remember that we—people who voted against Trump, people who want to see him out of office as quickly as possible, people who are appalled by this and this and this and this—are the majority.”
Utterly stunning works by Claude-Olivier Guay – just two here. While I’m busy putting my jaw back together, you can see and read more about this amazing artist at The Creator’s Project.
A raft of baby Chinch photos, more than enough to start your day with a thawed heart. (Our vet is a Chinch person, has three of them!)
All the Light Pillar photography a person could want, from all over the world, here’s a few:
MORE CLAY LESS PLASTIC was born in 2014 as an open group on Facebook with the intent of creating a network between ceramicists and the public.
THE MESSAGE The message we want to put through is very simple: more clay less plastic.
PLASTIC POLLUTION Plastic pollution has reached dramatic levels. Reducing the use of plastic is a fundamental and urgent step to save the environment and improve the life quality of every living creature.
INVOLUTION AS A FORM OF EVOLUTION The aim is to highlight respect for the environment by inviting people to rethink their daily habits, for example by avoiding disposable plastic. Colanders, cups, plates, bowls … once made of clay and then substituted with plastic, can be made of clay again.
PEOPLE Today MORE CLAY LESS PLASTIC is coming out of the web to meet people, promoting the reduction of plastic usage at cultural events, workshops and exhibitions.
ARTISANS MORE CLAY LESS PLASTIC believes in craft as a means of going back to a more human dimension, in artcrafts which are not just “things” since they carry stories and ancient knowledge within. By replacing a plastic utensil with a ceramic one we can all be part of a big revolution.
I’m all in favour. When I was young, plastic wasn’t ubiquitous yet. It was getting there, but you still saw much more glass, ceramic, and wood than you did plastic. Go on over and have a visit.
From rq, click for full size.
© rq, all rights reserved.
Blue Jay, click for full size.
© C. Ford.
For the first time in the 70-year history of the Doomsday Clock, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board has moved the hands of the iconic clock 30 seconds closer to midnight.
In the 2017 Doomsday Clock Statement, the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board notes that world leaders have failed to come to grips with humanity’s most pressing existential threats: nuclear weapons and climate change. Disturbing comments about the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons made by Donald Trump, as well as the expressed disbelief in the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change by both Trump and several of his cabinet appointees, affected the Board’s decision, as did the emergence of strident nationalism worldwide.
http://thebulletin.org/press-release/board-moves-clock-ahead10433
Trump administration chief strategist Steve Bannon (Screen cap).
Might as well start with the worst. One those ever so savvy business moves of Trump’s seems to be based on a very old office adage: always look busy. Because the most important thing is appearances, of course. It seems Donny wants to give the impression that he’s hard at work, right away. Unfortunately, he’s not doing anything, and he’s leaving the impression of busy work to others, who like Donny, don’t have the slightest fucking idea of what they are doing. I don’t like Pence, not even one tiny bit, he’s an evil fucker, but he is an experienced politician, who is actually familiar with the actual work, so I have to wonder why he’s so conspicuously missing. It turns out, Donny’s little nazis are busy churning out the busy work.
Two of Donald Trump’s senior advisors — neither of whom has any previous government or legal experience — have reportedly been writing executive orders without any input from the agencies they would effect.
Aides told Politico that Steve Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, and Stephen Miller, the senior White House advisor for policy, have made almost no effort to consult with federal agency lawyers or lawmakers as they wrote executive orders.
Bannon, the former chairman of Breitbart, and Miller, a Republican political operative who’s written most of Trump’s major speeches, are writing many of the orders based on ideas that came from transition officials or “landing teams” who weren’t working in the White House.
The orders have come so quickly, and from seemingly out of nowhere, that aides sometimes aren’t even sure which actions Trump will sign until they cross his desk.
“He was determined to show people that he’s getting to work from Day One,” a source told Politico.
The quick pace gives the appearance of momentum as the Trump administration gets up and running, but legal experts are concerned the White House is issuing “flawed orders that might be unworkable, unenforceable or even illegal,” the website reported.
For example, the website reported the White House failed to ask State Department experts to review the memorandum on the Keystone XL pipeline, although the Canadian company vying for a permit to build the project is currently suing the U.S. for $15 billion.
A former State Department lawyer who worked on the Keystone proposal said Trump’s order was “more than unusual, that’s reckless.”
There’s much more here. I’d call this a clown show, but actual clown shows are well planned and timed. This…I don’t know what this is. Even clusterfuck doesn’t cover it. Whatever the case, ‘government’ has nothing to do with it. These idiots don’t understand government, they don’t know how to govern, they don’t understand procedures or laws, or anything. It’s just a frenzy of second rate fascists trying to ram anything and everything through.
Moving on…