Internet Stuff and Scraps

My friend HSW said something profound in reference to our political disaster of a government today. He said, "We're all just sitting here talking about how crazy the country has gotten but it's OUR country. We're doing it - we're allowing them to define torture and rendition and allowing this to happen."

Here are two people who didn't allow it...

Heroe: Sugihara

Heroine: Andrée Geulen-Herscovici

__________________________________________________________________

To my chagrin, and with no prior notice, I am on Youtube at the same time that a really bad piece of my art is being sold on ebay. I donated the Ebay piece to the American Cancer Society auction during the very early '80's. It is bad art coming back to bite me. But it originally went for $250 so that's good.

Fall is here and Chief Illiniwek is gone! I actually worked on this logo as an undergraduate. Oren Johnson produced this and he was/is a brilliant artist. I helped cut the large films that were turned into the smaller version (this was before Photoshop or any major computer design). He had a studio in a farmhouse beyond Champaign. I would ride ten miles every morning to get there. I'm sure it's all condo's now but his serigraphy studio in the basement was extraordinary. I was a little concerned with the Chief then but we were more intensely fighting South African apartheid on campus.


Then, I remember talking to a really talented American Indian woman who started the great fight to get rid of this crazy Chief dingbat. She was recruited to the department of art and design - to diversify the program. She said, "I arrived and the head of the painting department invited me and my children to a basketball game. We got there and this guy - this "Chief" comes out and does this dance and I looked over at my kids and their mouths are wide open. I said to the faculty member, 'This is not good.' and he says, laughing, 'Come on - are you kidding? You know your culture is dead'." She said she had spent a lot of time trying to get her kids to see the authentic spirit of her people. This was not good. She sat out in front of the stadium with cardboard signs for months until others joined her. She had death threats. She did a great thing.
I would call her a warrior.

Graceland Cemetery was closed because of a microburst storm in August that tore down Irving Park Road toward the lake. The weather is becoming more extreme. No doubt Versace helmets will be available for spring.

Jake's birthday cake. Oh for a mom like that that bakes the cake and knows what's important.

The worst could be over. This is not a staged photo but a moment of Rick Santorum's life and I kind of feel bad about putting it up. On the other hand, he had no problem with trading in his "family values".

Bring the boys home. These are family values. Bring them home.