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How We Look At Art
Almost nobody, over the course of that hour or two, paused before any object for as long as a full minute. Only a 17th-century wood sculpture of a copulating couple, from San Cristobal in the Solomon Islands, placed near an exit, caused several tourists to point, smile and snap a photo, but without really breaking stride.
Visiting museums has always been about self-improvement. Partly we seem to go to them to find something we already recognize, something that gives us our bearings: think of the scrum of tourists invariably gathered around the Mona Lisa. At one time a highly educated Westerner read perhaps 100 books, all of them closely. Today we read hundreds of books, or maybe none, but rarely any with the same intensity. Travelers who took the Grand Tour across Europe during the 18th century spent months and years learning languages, meeting politicians, philosophers and artists and bore sketchbooks in which to draw and paint — to record their memories and help them see better.
Cameras replaced sketching by the last century; convenience trumped engagement, the viewfinder afforded emotional distance and many people no longer felt the same urgency to look. It became possible to imagine that because a reproduction of an image was safely squirreled away in a camera or cell phone, or because it was eternally available on the Web, dawdling before an original was a waste of time, especially with so much ground to cover.
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Doctor:
What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.
Gentlewoman:
It is an accustom’d action with her, to seem thus
washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of
an hour.
Lady Macbeth:
Yet here’s a spot.
Doctor:
Hark, she speaks. I will set down what comes from her, to
satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
Lady Macbeth:
Out, damn’d spot! out, I say!—One; two: why, then
’tis time to do’t.—Hell is murky.—Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and
afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our
pow’r to accompt?—Yet who would have thought the old man to
have had so much blood in him?
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falling
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US Coup
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Criminal investigation into CIA treatment of detainees expected
U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. is poised to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate alleged CIA abuses committed during the interrogation of terrorism suspects, current and former U.S. government officials said.
A senior Justice Department official said that Holder envisioned an inquiry that would be narrow in scope, focusing on “whether people went beyond the techniques that were authorized” in Bush administration memos that liberally interpreted anti-torture laws.
Current and former CIA and Justice Department officials who have firsthand knowledge of the interrogation files contend that criminal convictions will be difficult to obtain because the quality of evidence is poor and the legal underpinnings have never been tested.
Some cases have not previously been disclosed, including an instance in which a CIA operative brought a gun into an interrogation booth to force a detainee to talk, officials said.
Other potentially criminal abuses have already come to light, including the waterboarding of prisoners in excess of Justice Department guidelines, and the deaths of detainees in CIA custody in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2002 and 2003.
Opening a criminal investigation is something Holder “has come reluctantly to consider,” the Justice Department official said, emphasizing that Holder had not reached a final decision but noting that, “as attorney general, he has the obligation to follow the law.” more
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Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder
A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.”
In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting “illegal” or “unlawful” weapons into the country on Prince’s private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety. Scahill
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US Still Paying Blackwater Millions
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Dear 
“Do unto others”
It’s a simple standard my mom taught me when I was a kid – yours probably taught it too. It isn’t always easy, but in business it’s a good guiding light if you don’t want your company to be evil. Reuters Staff
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yum!
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to lobby or not to lobby…
Lobbyists continue to be singled out as an example of what is wrong with Washington, as the White House extended the ban on lobbyists’ oral communications in relation to stimulus-funded projects to non-lobbyists as well.
An administration official was recently quoted as saying, “[W]e have focused attention on how lobbying undermines the public interest … ” Presumably that does not apply to lobbying for the adoption of administration policies.
Increasingly, many lobbyists are asking, “If registering in good faith under a statute that is designed to create transparency makes an otherwise honest person an object of ridicule, can I terminate my registration?”
And while there is no indication how many are considering “deregistering,” the question is being asked enough to prompt House and Senate officials to address the issue. In the most recent guidance issued in connection with the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA), lobbyists were informed that they may terminate their registration if they reasonably expect that they would not be making any lobbying contacts in the future.
that is the question…
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In the US The People Are Afraid of Their Government.
In France The Government is Afraid of The People.
think about it…
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The Plague
China disinfects town after three people died of pneumonic plague in remote farming village
Authorities killed rats and fleas on Tuesday as they disinfected a town sealed off after three people died of pneumonic plague in a remote farming town in northwestern China, according to the provincial health department.
Police set up checkpoints around Ziketan in Qinghai province after the outbreak was first detected last Thursday. The lung infection is highly contagious can kill a person in as few as 24 hours if left untreated.
Medical staff are disinfecting the area and killing rodents and insects that can be carriers for the bacteria, a notice on the provincial health department Web site said. Authorities are keeping close track of people who came into contact with those infected.
Authorities urged anyone who had visited the town — more than 300 miles (480 kilometers) west of Beijing — since mid-July and has developed a cough or fever to seek hospital treatment. Pneumonic plague is spread through the air and can be passed from person to person through coughing.
The latest victim was a 64-year-old man named Danzhi, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
He was a neighbor of a 32-year-old herdsman in Ziketan and a 37-year-old man who died earlier. A further nine people — mainly relatives of the herdsman — are infected and in a hospital, according to the local health bureau.
Of those, one is in an extremely serious condition and one other has developed symptoms of coughing and chest pain, but the rest are in stable condition and there have been no reports of new infections, Xinhua and the health department said.
Police checkpoints were set up in a 17-mile (28-kilometer) radius around Ziketan and people were not allowed to leave, a resident said. Many shops remained closed Tuesday, residents said, although more vehicles were out on the street.
Some people tried to leave the quarantined area on Monday evening after the third death was reported, mostly by foot, one resident reached by The Associated Press said Tuesday.
“A lot of people ran off last night when they heard that another person died of this plague. They are mostly from other provinces,” said a foodseller surnamed Han who runs a stall at the Crystal Alley Market. “They headed back home with food, mineral water and their donkeys.”
It was unclear if the people who headed out of the town made it past the police checkpoints. Officials at the local and provincial level were unavailable to comment.
According to the World Health Organization, pneumonic plague is one of the deadliest infectious diseases, capable of killing a person 24 hours after he or she gets the disease.
A 2006 WHO report from an international meeting on plague cited a Chinese government disease expert as saying that most cases of the plague in China’s northwest occur when hunters are contaminated while skinning infected animals.
Pneumonic plague is caused by the same bacteria that causes bubonic plague — the Black Death that killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe in the Middle Ages. However, bubonic plague is usually transmitted by flea bites and can be easily treated with antibiotics.
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Pick It Up
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how many teaspoons of sugar are there in a can of soda?
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Clickables
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"no doubt about it that nut's a genius" 