If Not Art, What?

Haitian Invasion

Like the early days of Little Havana in the 70's, Little Haiti is a weird place in transition. Old habits slowly erode when assimilation and gentrification take hold of a people. Some of the most inspiring artistic expressions pop up in the most unexpected places.



Old Urbanism

This building of my childhood has remained unchanged, i often wonder what has gone on inside. It is a gem on NE second avenue... a main north/south thruway street that is yet to have a curb or any other sign of tax benefit in terms of progress. That is not a bad thing; where other neighborhoods are plagued with endless roadwork, (sidewalks torn out n replaced w same), Little Haiti has been in a doldrum, free of FDOT... until soon.



Britto Perversions

Several intrepid graduates from New World School of the Arts in downtown Miami recently installed their works for an end of year one night only exhibit of .... well their stuff.



Concept and Craft

Art is many things today, but one thing that it is not is your grandmother's watercolors.
With little prospects of sales, young artist just do whatever they want. Another good thing.




18, 19, twentys, thirtysomethings and foggies

From Sarasota to South Miami artist types are scrambling to find a balance between aspirations and realism. There will always be a creative force that brings like-minded people together; artist, writers, performers, our collective effort is indomitable.



Memorial Day Breakfast Time in the Swamp



Temporary Space Available

A short ride up Miami Avenue there is a commercial district that abound with empty real estate due to the dollar in the dump. This is not the time to talk of markets crashed n greedy developers, it is a time to make good and seize on the opportunities that lay just beneath the surface slurry of a global economic meltdown. Artist and property owners are forming allegiance to ride out the slump.






Like Swiss Cheese

We are punching holes in the veneer of mass culture market driven conspicuous consumption and conventions, we are making do without, artist are good at that.

*

a compendium of ill willers

"A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah."

— Ronald Reagan




Dumbing Download Complete

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/florida-mosque-bombed-fbi-calls-help-nation

On May 10th, a middle-aged man carried a can of gasoline and a pipe bomb into the Jacksonville Islamic Center of Northeast Florida during evening prayers and detonated it. Fortunately, there were no injuries to people, though the bomb did damage property.





FlagWrap

... when you scratch the surface of their "small government" message, what you usually find is someone who doesn't like government because it is the institution which enforces the rights guaranteed under the constitution for people they despise.




by deviding it ? #$^&@

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10157270.stm

A teacher in the US state of Georgia has been suspended after allowing students to dress in mock Ku Klux Klan robes for a project.




MDX Success

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/25/no-latinos-no-tacos-flash_n_589258.html

Reactions to the "No Latinos no tacos" sign have been mixed.




photo credit: janet reno

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2010/04/none-dare-call-it-sedition.html

This is sedition in slow motion, a gradual corrosive undermining of the government's authority and capacity to run the country. And it's been at the core of their politics going all the way back to Goldwater.

This long assault has gone into overdrive since Obama's inauguration, as the rhetoric has ratcheted up from overheated to perfervid. We've reached the point where you can't go a week without hearing some prominent right wing leader calling for outright sedition -- an immediate and defiant populist uprising against some legitimate form of government authority.




armsagetsome

... values, identity and tribalism are necessary organizing principles and that means the right wing should be treated with the only respect you should grant anyone who sees you as their enemy: you take them seriously and do not underestimate their hostility toward you or their strength and commitment to their cause.




Ooops.

Seems the (crist) campaign forgot a little thing called “copyright”

http://lafiga.firedoglake.com/2010/05/24/david-byrne-sues-charlie-crist-for-1-million/

1985 Talking Heads’ hit “Road to Nowhere” in a video posted on the Crist’s website


*

DASHion Show Classic 2010

It was an estrogenic night of glamor and style, a prelude to the ladies and gentlemen of tomorrow.



















The kids are all right... and DASH is the best Arts school in the nation.


UPDATE: miami herald goes behind the curtain...
*

Endless War Memorial

Memorial Day 2010



Peacetime Perils

Once the shuttle program ends, the United States will rely on Russian Soyuz rockets to carry its astronauts to the space station until a commercial US launcher can be developed. That is scheduled for 2015.




Tomb on the Known Politician

Paul Wellstone was a contender... what happened?



I'm with Cindy

The 1,000 U.S. military death occurred in a roadside bombing Friday – just before the Memorial Day weekend when America honors the dead in all its wars.

*

quote worth 25 million euros

"If there is something to steal, I steal it!."
Pablo Picasso

a Modigliani worth 5 million

PARIS — A thief stole five paintings possibly worth hundreds of millions of euros, including major works by Picasso and Matisse, in a brazen overnight heist at a Paris modern art museum, police and prosecutors said Thursday.



a Leger worth 5 million

The paintings disappeared early Thursday from the Paris Museum of Modern Art, across the Seine River from the Eiffel Tower in one of the French capital's most chic and tourist-frequented neighborhoods.



a Matisse w0rth 5 million

The intruder entered by cutting a padlock on a gate and breaking a museum window, the Paris prosecutor's office said.



a Picasso worth 5 million

French Art Police spotted a suspicious truck parked just blocks from the museum.
Upon inspection they noticed the stolen paintings and apprehended the driver.
When asked why did he do it, the lone art thief spoke with a heavy accent,

" I had no Manet, to pay for Degas, to make the Van Gogh!"

english translation: i had no money, to pay for the gas, to make the van go.


*

kill baby kill

Say Hello to my Little Friend

This time of year swampthing goes in the ocean everyday, the water is perfectly clear, calm and warm. I swam into Mr. Manatee who said he is very concerned about the British Petroleum Oil Spill.




BP Bites

Mr. Manatee also said his friend Mr. Shark is also really very worried and understandably pissed off.



Fury from the Fathoms

I wish all the creatures of the deep and shallows of Louisiana, Mississippi, Mexico and soon Florida could come out of the water and bite of the heads of the people who caused this horrendous oil spill, the worst environmental disaster in US history currently getting worse.



Won't You Please Give

Take a look at this adorable creature. It is too late so save her and the underwater world we are destroying for the convenience of living an unsustainable lifestyle spoon-fed to us by elected officials and multinational corporations.

Take a look at yourself and ask, how could this happen? Well, it happened because all of us get behind those with the money... and those with the most are the worst offenders.

*

Smile, you're on Red Light Camera

Uncle Samuel Wants Your Wallet

Thanks to a new law in Arizona, people that look like mexicans or any other illegal immigrant stereotype can now be hassled in public, hauled of for further humiliation. Folks across the nation are weighing in on both sides of a complex issue, of finding a balance between tough policy and civil liberties. With the tsunami of people lured to america with the prospect of more stuff, folks have some legitimate concerns.



What in Tarnation@#$%&*!

Here in the swamp and in cities nationwide, there is a growing threat of a new kind of illegal alien trickling into our neighborhoods in an oily slick of dirty tricks.

Red-Light Cameras are invading our byways and highways.




Tic, Tax, Tons of Cake

Thanks to a shoddy new law secretly crafted by your state reps and signed by govnr Cripst, town officials across the Florida can now use foreign cameras and private technologies to further trap and snarl the motoring public. Some places like Aventura and North Bay Village already have the robust surveillance gadgets installed, they did not wait for the law that sanctions this insidious invasion of privacy and the illegitimate issuance of excessive fines. Our elected officials in Tallahassee got up to speed and have given the green-light. They are now complicit in the extorting of the public to create an obscene revenue stream that evaporates into pockets quicker than they can collect it. People pay but the real cost of this new shakedown that is being played out across the nation is a diminished quality of life for the majority.




Get the Red Out

Little is heard or read on the MSM of this impending doom. No one is concerned until it is them on the receiving end of this new schtick. Big Brother knows the motoring public has no unified voice.

You may have guessed by now that I got a "ticket" in the mail.
So I did a little surfing and found some glaring inconsistencies in the logic that attempt to justify the use Red Light Cameras.



Cross-hairs On the Crossroads

A review of preliminary collision data supplied by the city of Corpus Christi, Texas shows that the installation of red light cameras has done nothing to improve safety. Overall, the accident situation worsened at photo-enforced intersections at a time when decreased traffic levels have brought accident rates nationwide to an all-time low. The total number of accidents in Corpus Christi increased 14 percent, from 310 incidents to 353, at nine locations where automated ticketing machines were stationed. Contrary to the claim that red light cameras reduce the severity of collisions, the number of accidents involving injuries increased 28 percent from 140 to 179. Rear end collisions also increased by nearly a third from 160 to 208.



Need for Greed

...But calculations show that the cameras would bring $39.3 million into the revenue stream in the first year and up to $160.5 million by 2013-14. "I believe this is nothing more than a revenue grab," Rep. Robert Schenck, R-Springhill, said on the House floor. "The government has an insatiable appetite for our people's hard-earned money. This is the biggest, biggest intrusion of government into our lives. What's next?" The bill would put an end to municipalities splitting the fines with camera vendors. It also would require cities and counties to post signs at intersections with cameras, notifying drivers that they could be nabbed via camera for running a red light. The bill also ensures that drivers who turn right on red "in a careful and prudent manner" could not be ticketed.



What Do They Take Us For...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Red light cameras will be fully legal in Florida on July 1. Gov. Charlie Crist on Thursday signed a new law authorizing the cameras as enforcement devices despite opposition from AAA. Lawmakers for several years had rejected the legislation. Opponents argued the cameras would violate privacy rights and individual liberties as well as being a "revenue grab." The bill includes a $158 fine that would be assessed against owners of vehicles caught on camera running red lights. Of that amount, $75 would go to local governments. The rest would go to the state, which must use $10 for health care and give $3 to the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis for brain and spinal cord research. AAA contended that too little of the money will go to health care and too much to general government spending. The state is expected to receive $29 million in the first year, jumping to nearly $95 million in 2013-14. Local governments would net $10 million the first year and nearly $66 million in 2013-14, according to state economists.




Right Of Way

Florida Court Rules Red Light Cameras Illegal

A Miami-Dade County Circuit Court judge has ruled that red light cameras may not be legally used to issue traffic citations in the state of Florida. Judge Gerald Bagley yesterday dismissed charges against motorist Richard Masone who had received a red light camera ticket in the mail from American Traffic Solutions (ATS). The company operates the program on behalf of the city of Aventura...



What's Next for Red Light Cameras... your bedroom perhaps?


This problem has nothing to do with traffic safety and everything to do with robbing the public.
I say keep the blasted cameras to catch the real light runners, not to make a mint by ticketing the drivers making harmless right turns with caution.
To save lives at intersections simply program the lights so the amber is timed to cause a pause of traffic from both directions.


*