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Supreme Court Update
You can follow the efforts to derail the "inevitable" appointment of Samuel Alito, the religious right's man, on this Kos thread. [Update: more recent developments here, but the first link has phone numbers, etc.] Please take a minute to look at the list and see where your Senators stand on this and who might be wavering and in need of a supportive call (the key words are "vote no on cloture"). Clinton and Schumer will vote "no"--meaning they want the nomination to stay open to debate. Menendez is wavering. His staff got an earful from me this morning. 202-224-4744. Keep hitting redial and you'll get through.
Update: A Kos commenter counts 67 for cloture and 22 against. Estimates on the ultimate vote (Alito's appointment as opposed to closing the debate) are 59 for Alito to 41 against, and since a simple majority carries it, that means we get an angry God Squadder on the Supreme Court. I think it's worth expressing your opinion right up until last minute, but that's just me, obviously.
Final tally on the cloture vote.
Just saw the Senate confirmed that pig. Knew it was coming but my stomach flipped over, slightly, at the news. Does anyone reading this blog give a shit? I know a lot of my progressive friends went all soft and cynical after the 2004 election.
Some Georgetown Law students turning their backs on Alberto "Torture and Surveillance" Gonzales, US Attorney General, at his recent appearance at their school:
If you're in the North Texas vicinity, please go check out my show with Saskia Jorda at And/Or Gallery, opening tonight. Below is the preview from the Dallas Observer:
Oompa Loompas--but which version?Local visionaries inaugurate their own gallery
By Sam Machkovech
If you have ever found yourself bored with Dallas arts, then you've obviously never seen the work of local musicians and artists Paul Slocum and Lauren Gray. Whether turning ancient computers and videogame systems into musical instruments while performing as the band Tree Wave or helming the print(f) digital arts series, this hometown duo has little trouble turning its fascination with technology and the archaic into compelling, artistic statements about society. Truly, this fascination is far-reaching—so much so that Slocum and Gray have opened their own art space, the And/Or Gallery, 4221 Bryan St., Suite B. Thankfully, the duo knows better than to glorify its own material in the space, instead choosing to spotlight two out-of-town artists for the gallery's debut exhibit. New York's Tom Moody, a former local who was once involved with the MAC, will present bizarre print media creations that look like the DNA of Oompa Loompas, and former Southside on Lamar resident artist Saskia Jorda will have minimalist found-item sculptures on display. In addition, video jockey Jeremy Johnson will be on hand to pump out pixelated software art on the And/Or walls. The gallery opens at 6 p.m. Entry is free. Call 214-824-2442. Saturdays. Continues through Feb. 28
And/Or Gallery, 4221 Bryan St, Suite B , Dallas
Are you going to let those creepy religious right-wingers dictate the direction of this country? Samuel Alito is their boy, and they want him on the Supreme Court. We have netroots now, we can stop this thing, by pressuring weak Senators to change their votes. I copied this from Steve Gilliard's page. I hate those e-petitions but I signed Kerry's supporting an Alito filibuster. I called my senators last week and will call them again on Monday. Let's keep up the pressure, make a Republican cry next week.
WE CAN STOP ALITO THIS WEEKEND
http://www.democrats.com/we
-can-stop-alito The last two days have been amazing.
Early Thursday afternoon, we broke the news that Senator John Kerry would lead a filibuster against Judge Sam Alito if he could get 41 Senators to sustain the filibuster. Three hours later, CNN confirmed our story.
Naturally, the White House freaked out and told Senator Bill Frist to schedule a cloture vote as quickly as possible - Monday at 4:30 p.m. - to prevent Democrats from uniting behind Kerry.
Then the White House called its media whores at the NY Times (David Kirkpatrick), AP (Jesse Holland), Pentagon Post (Charles Babington), CNN (Miles O'Brien), and MSNBC (Chris Matthews) and told them to trash John Kerry for daring to challenge the will of Emperor Bush, and to repeat over and over that Democrats did not have enough votes to stop Alito.
But even as Karl Rove was doing his dirty work, progressive activists like you were calling your Senators urging them to support John Kerry's filibuster.
And one by one, Democratic Senators began to turn around.
At the start of the day, only Dick Durbin and Debbie Stabenow supported Kerry and Kennedy. Just before noon, Hillary Clinton's office called to say she supported us. Then Harry Reid came on board, along with Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Ron Wyden, Chris Dodd, and (I think) Chuck Schumer.
Most importantly, we even picked up Dianne Feinstein, who just yesterday said she opposed a filibuster.
That's 12 votes for a filibuster - and exactly 12 more votes than we had two days ago!
I believe we really can stop Alito by Monday at 4:30 p.m. - but here's what we must do.
1. Ignore the media whores. Karl Rove is feeding them lies as he always does, and they are swallowing those lies as they always do. The only media that matters is the media we are creating right here by calling each Senator and getting a YES or NO statement from them.
2. Wake up the sleeping bloggers. Where are the biggest blogs, including DailyKos.com, TalkingPointsMemo.com, CrooksandLiars.com, and AmericaBlog.com? (Complaining about how Democrats played last week won't cut it -we're in the Super Bowl and we can win this damn game if we get Democrats to play their best game on Monday - and hopefully the rest of this coming week.) Thanks to Agonist, BobGeiger, The Democratic Daily, DemocraticUnderground, Eschaton, Firedoglake, MakeThemAccountable, Mark Crispin Miller, PoliticalWire, Vichy Democrats and everyone else who's plugging this.
3. Keep calling the Senators who are undecided or opposed to a filibuster. You can call their DC office all weekend and leave polite but firm voicemails urging the Senators to support Kerry's filibuster. When offices open on Monday 9 a.m. ET, make another round of calls. Let's shut down the Capitol switchboard on Monday!
4. Call the DNC (202-863-8000) and the DSCC (202-224-2447) and tell them your 2006 contributions will depend on the success of the Alito filibuster. Tell them they need to get every Democratic Senator on board.
5. Call talk shows like Air America, C-SPAN, etc. and talk about what we're doing on this blog and how we're killing ourselves to stop Alito - and how we can win if everyone who cares about the future of our Democracy joins us.
6. Keep hope alive - because American Democracy is worth it!!!
Saturday, Jan. 28 is the last day of "Breaking and Entering: Art and the Videogame" at PaceWildenstein. Planning to go later today; have held off for two reasons: (1) really more interested in videogames for the music and the visual shortcuts than thinking about them as an art movement; and (2) For blue chip PaceWildenstein, final resting place for nearly-dead canonical artists, to jump on this particular bandwagon is a bit like watching your pot-bellied, combed-over high school chemistry teacher "krumping."
But I want to see the Cory Arcangel installation above: that image looks drop dead gorgeous to me, and I can't believe the artnet reviewer's mildly sniping take on this.
The normally dynamic Cory Arcangel offers a large, static projection of a video game fighter jet and clouds to complement a primitive "found video game" displayed on a small portable laptop. Titled Bomb Iraq, the game depicts a crudely drawn bomb that the user can bring nearer to an outline of Iraq by pressing the arrow keys. Its inclusion is fine as a document of America’s meat-headed relation to the Middle East, but does nothing interesting with it -- except to prove that video games can be used as found objects just like everything else."A static projection of a video and clouds"? Hello, mural painting? James Rosenquist's F-111, maybe? And would it be worth mentioning that the laptop game, originally found on a Mac in a garage sale (see GIF below for a taste), dates to the first Gulf War? That's fifteen years of meat-headedness! Arcangel's pretty post-found object, I'd say. Is this bit of brain-damaged DIY propaganda really in the same category as the arch, Francophone disquisition of say, a Duchamp snow shovel? Perhaps, considered with the wall mural, it's actually a straight-up political statement, reportage from the frontiers of TV-addled suburbia. Maybe when I see the work I won't wonder about any of this. If I'm wrong I'll fess up.
The artnet article by Ben Davis, about current tech art, is otherwise good: it covers Dorkbot and the Superlowrez show at vertexList, in addition to "Breaking and Entering." I like what he said about the inclusive, curious spirit of Dorkbot as opposed to the regular art world's closed-mouth competitiveness (my phrasing). More about that in a later post.
Update: Just saw the show and the Arcangel piece is definitely not "static": the clouds scroll and the jet engines shoot bitchin' flames (that move). One good thing about nearly-dead canonical artists is they generate lots of cash to throw at artist projects. Paper Rad's hyperkinetic video was especially effective in a museum-scale installation. And Jon Haddock's real-world tragedy Sims illustrations looked much better in a huge wall-sized grid than the scattering that were in the Whitney's "BitStreams" show. I was feeling kind of bad about the comb-over reference till I got to the gallery and was met at the door by a big security guard, who lurked not so discreetly while I was looking at the show. Stuffy atmosphere or what?
Update 2: Changed "rich, near-dead white guys" to "nearly-dead canonical artists" since this whole videogame art trend, at least as represented at Pace, while arguably youthful, is very white. I'm keeping the krumping reference because it captures the scene-killing absurdity of what Pace tried to do here.
I have low hopes for V for Vendetta, since Alan Moore comic adaptations to film haven't been good so far, and he's disowned this one. The Wachowsis have some balls, though--this is about a terrorist blowing up buildings in a near-futuristic but Thatcher-like England. It's a really unsettling comic.
Some information about stopping the appointment of Samuel "Mr. White Male Resentment" Alito to the highest court in the land here. The info is already pretty dated but you can use the site to look up your Senators' Capital Hill phone numbers, so you can call them and urge them to filibuster the bastard. That would keep the vote open, possibly shame some Republican "moderates" into voting "no," and at the very least express of the will of, um, the majority of Americans. Remind the Senators that Bush's poll numbers are really, really low now, which means that they don't have to be fwightened of him any more. Offer a spinal transplant to those weak moFos.
"The toroids are exhibiting sexual behavior! Everyone thought they were inanimate! Better get over here quick and look; the images are starting to break up." (Channeling Michael Crichton. Math GIF via Jim and Eyebeam.)