February 2012

The compelling photographs of Miwa Yanagi explore themes depicting the role of women in the context of Japanese society, yet reflect the archetypal concerns of many women across cultures. Mixing both the imaginary and the real, Yanagi conjures compelling visions using theatrical set-ups and mesmerizing color. Elevator Girls, started in 1993, first gained international attention for the artist, and My Grandmothers, begun in 1999, is based directly on conversations with the women who apply to be her models. The most recent Fairy Tale series, mainly shot in black and white, further examine female roles as they are mythologized in fairy tales specifically by the ancient Greeks, Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. She is currently on exhibition at the Chelsea Art Museum.

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It makes about as much sense as the actual war…

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“Let’s get one thing straight. You are behind the counter because you have to work for minimum wage. I’m on this side asking to see the good jewelry because I make considerably more.”

- Condoleeza Rice to a jewelry store employee

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Rut-roh, Wesley Clark spilled the beans on the white House’s effort to ‘mold’ the Middle East:

About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.” And he said, “I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”

Who doesn’t love this Bush administration? Everyday it gets zanier and crazier!

In the world of figuring out who is the dumbest, a significant percentage of Americans don’t read books, care about the world, or are engaged in either local or national politics (and they wonder why Ms. Teen South Carolina thinks Iraq and South Africa are in the US).

Other things worth checking out:

Jon Stewart’s monologue after 9/11

This is why companies require you to agree to use arbitration: You always lose.

Chickenhawk Bush Has the Gall to Lecture Americans on Vietnam

If we had used the money spent on the Iraq war to build wind turbines instead we could have a third of our nations power from wind by now.

Blogger Pwns the hacker who filled his blog with search engine spam

The Five Absolute Worst Foods You Can Eat

The World’s First Skyscraper City

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Wow!! Lucky number 706559! Were you that person? Anyway, to celebrate such a feat, here are the top 5 popular posts at PBH:

1. Happy Memorial Day
2. Why I Hate Capitalism
3. Donkey Love
4. Ask A Shiite: Perceptions of America
5. The First Thing I Saw On The Way To Work
6. Inster Fashion
7. Civilian Death Statistics in Iraq & Afghanistan
8. Patrick Leahy Bitchslaps for America
9. Rudy Giuliani or Vampire Ghouliani?
10. Loose Post 9-11 Lips

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A Timeline of Republican Indiscretions

1982 – Several Congressional pages allege drug use and homosexual relations are occurring between the male interns and members of Congress. Among the accused is Republican Senator Larry Craig. (PBH)

1998 – House Republican Majority Leader Newt Gingrich, while leading the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton for his extra-marital affair, serves divorce papers to his wife the day she undergoes surgery for cancer. His second divorce, Gingrich had also be engaging in an affair with a female intern while his wife underwent cancer treatment. (CBS News)

2004 – Republican State Senator Ed Schrock from Virginia aborts his 2004 election campaign abruptly. Representing one of the most conservative areas in Virginia, including Pat Robertsons Regent University (who was also a personal fan of Schrock), Shrock championed several anti-gay bills in the State Congress, including the Marriage Protection Act. He would be forced to resign a few weeks before the general election when it was discovered he had left several messages on a gay phone dating service asking for casual sex. (NNDB)

2006 – A gay activist alleged he had spoken with men who had sexual encounters with [Senator Larry] Craig, including an anonymous man in the restrooms at Union Station in Washington. (SFGate)

September 2006 – Mark Foley, Republican Congressman from Florida, is forced to resign after transcripts are revealed of sexually explicit emails and instant messages from him to teenage boys serving as Congressional pages. With a history of inappropriate conduct by Foley dating back at least 10 years, he had been warned about the matter in 2005 by another House Republican and the House Clerk. (ABC News, USA Today, ABC Blotter)

November 2006 – Ted Haggard, leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, resigns after a male prostitute, Mike Jones, goes public about a three year relationship between Jones and Haggard. The affair included Haggard paying Jones for sex and the purchasing and use of crystal meth. Formerly, Haggard’s group championed a platform in 2004 entitled For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility that asked evangelicals to engage in a culture war over homosexuality, and personally professed, “we don’t have to debate about what we should think about homosexual activity. It’s written in the Bible.” (NYTimes, Rocky Mountain News)

August 2007 – Florida State Rep. Bob Allen (R), a co-chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign in Florida, is arrested for offering to pay to perform oral sex on a police officer in a public park. When Allen was questioned after his arrest, he explained, “This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park,” said Allen… Allen went on to say he was afraid of becoming a “statistic.” (Crooks and Liars)

August 2007 – Glenn Murphy, Jr., the recently elected chairman of the Young Republican National Federation (also the Republican National Committee Chair for Clark County, Indiana and formerly the YRNF Secretary, was accused of sexual assault on another Young Republican member. This was the second time Murphy had been accused of performing unsolicited oral sex on other males, as indicated by this 1998 police report on a previous sexual assault charge: (America Blog)

August 2007 – Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) is arrested for soliciting sex in a men’s bathroom in a Minnesota airport. Craig has one of the lowest rankings from the ACLU for Gay Civil Rights and was one of the primary leaders during Bill Clinton’s impeachment. (AP, Crooks and Liars)

Know of other indiscretions that were missed? Add a comment and a link, and I’ll include it on this post.

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