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16 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 "Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her detestable practices 3 and say, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says to Jerusalem: Your ancestry and birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. 4 On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. 5 No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.
6 "'Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, "Live!"[a] 7 I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew and developed and entered puberty. Your breasts had formed and your hair had grown, yet you were stark naked.
8 "'Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your naked body. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine.
9 "'I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. 10 I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put sandals of fine leather on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. 11 I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, 12 and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. 13 So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was honey, olive oil and the finest flour. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. 14 And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign Lord.
15 "'But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his. 16 You took some of your garments to make gaudy high places, where you carried on your prostitution. You went to him, and he possessed your beauty.[b] 17 You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them. 18 And you took your embroidered clothes to put on them, and you offered my oil and incense before them. 19 Also the food I provided for you—the flour, olive oil and honey I gave you to eat—you offered as fragrant incense before them. That is what happened, declares the Sovereign Lord.
20 "'And you took your sons and daughters whom you bore to me and sacrificed them as food to the idols. Was your prostitution not enough? 21 You slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the idols. 22 In all your detestable practices and your prostitution you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, kicking about in your blood.
23 "'Woe! Woe to you, declares the Sovereign Lord. In addition to all your other wickedness, 24 you built a mound for yourself and made a lofty shrine in every public square. 25 At every street corner you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty, spreading your legs with increasing promiscuity to anyone who passed by. 26 You engaged in prostitution with the Egyptians, your neighbors with large genitals, and aroused my anger with your increasing promiscuity. 27 So I stretched out my hand against you and reduced your territory; I gave you over to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were shocked by your lewd conduct. 28 You engaged in prostitution with the Assyrians too, because you were insatiable; and even after that, you still were not satisfied. 29 Then you increased your promiscuity to include Babylonia,[c] a land of merchants, but even with this you were not satisfied.
30 "'I am filled with fury against you,[d] declares the Sovereign Lord, when you do all these things, acting like a brazen prostitute! 31 When you built your mounds at every street corner and made your lofty shrines in every public square, you were unlike a prostitute, because you scorned payment.
32 "'You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband! 33 All prostitutes receive gifts, but you give gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors. 34 So in your prostitution you are the opposite of others; no one runs after you for your favors. You are the very opposite, for you give payment and none is given to you.
35 "'Therefore, you prostitute, hear the word of the Lord! 36 This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because you poured out your lust and exposed your naked body in your promiscuity with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because you gave them your children's blood, 37 therefore I am going to gather all your lovers, with whom you found pleasure, those you loved as well as those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and will strip you in front of them, and they will see you stark naked. 38 I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and who shed blood; I will bring on you the blood vengeance of my wrath and jealous anger. 39 Then I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers, and they will tear down your mounds and destroy your lofty shrines. They will strip you of your clothes and take your fine jewelry and leave you stark naked. 40 They will bring a mob against you, who will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords. 41 They will burn down your houses and inflict punishment on you in the sight of many women. I will put a stop to your prostitution, and you will no longer pay your lovers. 42 Then my wrath against you will subside and my jealous anger will turn away from you; I will be calm and no longer angry.
43 "'Because you did not remember the days of your youth but enraged me with all these things, I will surely bring down on your head what you have done, declares the Sovereign Lord. Did you not add lewdness to all your other detestable practices?
44 "'Everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb about you: "Like mother, like daughter." 45 You are a true daughter of your mother, who despised her husband and her children; and you are a true sister of your sisters, who despised their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. 46 Your older sister was Samaria, who lived to the north of you with her daughters; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you with her daughters, was Sodom. 47 You not only followed their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they. 48 As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done.
49 "'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. 51 Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have done more detestable things than they, and have made your sisters seem righteous by all these things you have done. 52 Bear your disgrace, for you have furnished some justification for your sisters. Because your sins were more vile than theirs, they appear more righteous than you. So then, be ashamed and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.
53 "'However, I will restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and of Samaria and her daughters, and your fortunes along with them, 54 so that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all you have done in giving them comfort. 55 And your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, will return to what they were before; and you and your daughters will return to what you were before. 56 You would not even mention your sister Sodom in the day of your pride, 57 before your wickedness was uncovered. Even so, you are now scorned by the daughters of Edom[e] and all her neighbors and the daughters of the Philistines—all those around you who despise you. 58 You will bear the consequences of your lewdness and your detestable practices, declares the Lord.
59 "'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will deal with you as you deserve, because you have despised my oath by breaking the covenant. 60 Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. 61 Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your sisters, both those who are older than you and those who are younger. I will give them to you as daughters, but not on the basis of my covenant with you. 62 So I will establish my covenant with you, and you will know that I am the Lord. 63 Then, when I make atonement for you for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your humiliation, declares the Sovereign Lord.'"
17 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 "Son of man, set forth an allegory and tell it to the Israelites as a parable. 3 Say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: A great eagle with powerful wings, long feathers and full plumage of varied colors came to Lebanon. Taking hold of the top of a cedar, 4 he broke off its topmost shoot and carried it away to a land of merchants, where he planted it in a city of traders.
5 "'He took one of the seedlings of the land and put it in fertile soil. He planted it like a willow by abundant water, 6 and it sprouted and became a low, spreading vine. Its branches turned toward him, but its roots remained under it. So it became a vine and produced branches and put out leafy boughs.
7 "'But there was another great eagle with powerful wings and full plumage. The vine now sent out its roots toward him from the plot where it was planted and stretched out its branches to him for water. 8 It had been planted in good soil by abundant water so that it would produce branches, bear fruit and become a splendid vine.'
9 "Say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Will it thrive? Will it not be uprooted and stripped of its fruit so that it withers? All its new growth will wither. It will not take a strong arm or many people to pull it up by the roots. 10 It has been planted, but will it thrive? Will it not wither completely when the east wind strikes it—wither away in the plot where it grew?'"
11 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 12 "Say to this rebellious people, 'Do you not know what these things mean?' Say to them: 'The king of Babylon went to Jerusalem and carried off her king and her nobles, bringing them back with him to Babylon. 13 Then he took a member of the royal family and made a treaty with him, putting him under oath. He also carried away the leading men of the land, 14 so that the kingdom would be brought low, unable to rise again, surviving only by keeping his treaty. 15 But the king rebelled against him by sending his envoys to Egypt to get horses and a large army. Will he succeed? Will he who does such things escape? Will he break the treaty and yet escape?
16 "'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, he shall die in Babylon, in the land of the king who put him on the throne, whose oath he despised and whose treaty he broke. 17 Pharaoh with his mighty army and great horde will be of no help to him in war, when ramps are built and siege works erected to destroy many lives. 18 He despised the oath by breaking the covenant. Because he had given his hand in pledge and yet did all these things, he shall not escape.
19 "'Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: As surely as I live, I will repay him for despising my oath and breaking my covenant. 20 I will spread my net for him, and he will be caught in my snare. I will bring him to Babylon and execute judgment on him there because he was unfaithful to me. 21 All his choice troops will fall by the sword, and the survivors will be scattered to the winds. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken.
22 "'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. 23 On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches. 24 All the trees of the forest will know that I the Lord bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish.
"'I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it.'"
3 Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.
3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4 Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God's likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15 Such "wisdom" does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.


text:
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Artopia: July 2008 Archives
Paul McCarthy: Bang Bang Room, 1992.
Paul McCarthy: Bang Bang Room, 1992.Collection Fondazione Sandreto Rebaudengo, Turin.
Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Hauser & Wirth
Photo: Sheldan Collins
Who is Paul McCarthy? Not having the good grace to simmer down like a few other once-sensational artists I will not deign to name, McCarthy has never gone away, never graduated to the curious art Valhalla comprising those who are still here but gone. Or, alternatively, those gone but still here.
In short, professor McCarthy, who has taught art at UCLA since 1982, continues to annoy, and in the process resists either art-rag or art-establishment packaging. A West Coast rather than an East Coast favorite, he is neither the last of the Destruction Artists nor the first of the shamans. "Paul McCarthy: Central Symmetrical Rotation Movement" at the Whitney until Oct. 12 offers up a disconcerting chunk of his sometimes clownish but almost always provocative/evocative anti-art displays. His 2001 New Museum extravaganza was nearly destroyed by faint praise. His most disconcerting works - e.g. a performance involving sticking a Barbie doll into his rectum or the 2007 Santa Clause with a Buttplug inflatable --- are nowhere to be seen. Someone is cleaning up his act.
Nevertheless, even Whitney curator Chrissie Isles when she tries to confront the pared down McCarthy can't quite pin him down. In her catalogue essay, she traces McCarthy's work to the influence of Destruction Artists such as Ralph Ortiz and Hermann Nitsch, but then connects him to everyone under the flag of darkness, from Francis Bacon to Vito Acconci. Isles does her best to weave all available references and citations together in a critical fiction that almost reaches coherence, yet still misses the convulsive nature of McCarthy's art. Convulsive art deserves a convulsive text. If it can still be said that there are Dionysian and Apollonian extremities of the art spectrum, McCarthy belongs with those of the Dionysian persuasion.
And, of course, he is uneven. We no longer like artists who are even, never venturing out of their brand look, never wavering. That was so '60s, so Donald Judd -- whose work was unbelievably elegant but ultimately corporate. Alas, sometimes corporate is best. Frank Stella, venturing from his pin-stripe paintings, took one giant step to the protractor paintings and then fell further and further off the map with every banal shaped canvas and every unspeakable sculpture he came up with.
But even in the tightly curated McCarthy selection now at the Whitney, there is too much. I would have eliminated Spinning Room (conceived 1979, created 2008) with all of its moving projections. It achieves a kind of dizzy spectacle, but does not have the visceral impact of the other two large pieces: Bang Bang Room (1992) and Mad Room (1999/2008).
Both are kinetic rooms, full scale. They are one-part amusement park and one-part Dante's Inferno brought up to date, an unstable mix not previously achieved by any artist I know.
Bang Bang Room is composed of four hinged walls forming a square, each wall pierced by a door at it center. When this machine is at rest, you are free to walk on the platform within. And then the motors start, the walls flap open, as do the doors -- which then bang shut with a sound like a rifle shot, again and again, or like a body falling out of an airplane and landing on a tin roof.
When I first walked into the big and partially mirrorized third floor space, I saw/heard the Bang Bang Room loudly banging, doors and walls opening and closing. The question to myself was not what the hell is this, but what hell is this?
As the mechanism came to a halt, coward that I am, I did not venture onto the platform. I certainly didn't want to be caught inside. Have viewers been caught, or do the guards shoo them away before the timer kicks in? Even watching from the outside, you get the feeling of being trapped by housing, by domesticity, by art.
Mad Room spins, but spins in a variety of ways. A chair that could be an electric chair or a chair used to subdue a maniac or a murder suspect or a caught spy/secret agent or a plague carrier spins inside ... a spinning room. Sometimes chair and room spinning at different speeds spin in opposite directions but all speeds and speed and direction changes coming far too fast and far too furiously for comfort so that you may have to check yourself check yourself to make sure you yourself are not spinning too and your head is spinning and then it spins off into space and you are strapped to the chair in some other universe that is beyond art where you are trapped until the damned diabolical machine turns off.
Nearby is a photo of the artist with his arms outstretched. That image stands for his 1979 performance called Spinning. It almost has as many semantic and expressive layers as another Doc Art piece nearby: The Veil (1970), identified as "photograph of a mirror through a veil." The artist took it of himself in a mirror, covered from his head almost to his knees with a large gauzy veil: portrait of the artist as ectoplasm.
Do you remember spinning around and around as a child until it seemed as if you had left your body? Wasn't there something sexual going on? Correct me if I am wrong. Looking at Mad Room and Bang Bang Room gave me a similar experience, except the propulsion comes with a big dose of horror. The loud noise of those walls and doors flapping open and banging shut is disturbing enough. I had the feeling that Bang Bang Room was exorcizing some hideous domestic demon; whereas Mad Room was summoning up a demon of an even more horrifying sort. This is not art; it's exorcism.
Paul McCarthy: Mad House, 1999/2008
Paul McCarthy: Mad House, 1999/2008
Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Hauser & Wirth
Photo: Seldan Collins
* * *
Eliasson Falls
Art is not a contest. Or is it?
No critic can write about everything and always has to pick and choose, so underneath each byline there are always winners and implied losers -- the latter overwhelmingly outnumbering the former. Or sometimes we spoilsports just have to go on record to contradict the hype.
When I finally saw some of Olafur Eliasson's East River waterfalls, I thought them more impressive than most of his work at MoMA and P.S. 1, which is not saying much (see: Artopia review).
Because of its site beneath the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, that particular incarnation of Eliasson's free-standing waterfall idea works best. It also has high visibility from the Lower Manhattan shoreline. You can see it beautifully from the tip of the South Street Seaport pier. It is a strange and unseemly (therefore poetic) presence. Now only if he had limited himself to this one peak moment. But, no. In the world of almosts, one spectacular artwork is never enough.
* * *
Bourgeois Fails
Then I turned my laserlike, razorlike gaze to the needlessly gargantuan Louise Bourgeois exhibition at the Guggenheim: hundreds of works up and down the spiral, adding up to ... ? Well, there are several good pieces: the totemic Personnages (1947-1951), the many-legged The Blind Leading the Blind (1947-49) and certainly the truly creepy Spider Couple of 2003. But otherwise, haven't we seen enough of her half-baked Surrealism to last the rest of our lives? She had a MoMA retrospective in 1982 and represented the U.S. in the Venice Biennale of 1993, with a large exhibition of work at the Brooklyn Museum ("The Locus of Memory") that same year. Add a few diamond necklaces, and the celebrated "nests" would be perfect Late Surrealist window displays.
FOR AUTOMATIC ARTOPIA ALERTS: firstname.lastname@example.com.
Debunking Uncle Bucky
Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) invented the geodesic dome, sort of. He was not the first to use the icosahedron for construction. Walter Bauersfield in 1922 in Jena, Germany built a planetarium that had suspiciously geodesic aspects.
Moral: Whatever it is, if you do not give it a name and publicize it, it is not yours.
Artist Kenneth Snelson, a student of Fuller's at Black Mountain College, made the first "tensegrity" structure, in which metal poles that did not touch are suspended by wires. Fuller thought up the term and took full credit for the innovation.
Moral: If you claim it and name it, it's yours.
* * *
In honor of "Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe" (Whitney Museum, through Sept. 21), here are some additional factettes:
Margaret Fuller, transcendentalist and early feminist, was Fuller's great aunt.
As a student, he was thrown out of Yale twice.
Our Uncle Bucky - everyone called him Bucky -- believed that meat was the best way for us earthlings to get good nutrition, and for long periods of time he ate only steak, prunes, Jell-O and strong tea three or four times a day.
He made a habit of napping for 30 minutes after every six hours of work, falling asleep instantly.
That Uncle Bucky managed to overturn his sleek, three-wheeled Dymaxion car is not noted in his 45-ton "chronofile" or in any public statements and writings. Nor was it ever revealed that, although parallel parking was a snap, moving out from the curb required backing up into traffic.
The 3,500 standing orders for Uncle Bucky's 1946 Dymaxion Dwelling Machine or Wichita House miraculously morphed in one of his interminable lectures into 35,000.
Vis-à-vis the DDM, he claimed the motorized accordion doors not only took up less space, but also "reduced the spread of germs by doorknob contact."
He often called architects "exterior decorators."
Our Uncle Bucky - beloved by John Cage and other luminaries - was not modest: "I have discovered the coordinates of Universe."
He also rewrote the Lord's Prayer, claiming that his version offered direct proof of God's existence and ... "constitutes a scientifically meticulous, direct-experience-based proof of God."
Oh god, our father -
our further
our evolutionary integrity unfolder
who art in heaven--
who are in he-even
who is in everyone
hallowed (halo-ed)
be thy name
(be thine identity)
But he also said: "The next most dangerous thing to the atomic bomb is organized religion."
Our Uncle Bucky believed that the decline of the traditional family and the apparent increase of homosexuality and bisexuality were merely the result of a reduction in the need for the species to reproduce.
On the other hand, Bucky, obviously not a Darwinian, believed humans "arrived from elsewhere in Universe as complete human beings." To clarify: "Man as prime organizing/ 'Principle' construct pattern integrity/ Was radiated here from the stars--Not as primal cell, but as/ A fully articulated high order being."
Pictures From a Lecture
Pictures From a Lecture
I was once persuaded to attend one of Uncle Bucky's marathon lectures. How could I not have been intrigued? I thought the Dymaxion Car and then the Geodesic Dome at Expo 67 in Montreal were swell, in a Popular Mechanics kind of way. Bouncing around the stage, as advised by his dancer daughter, Bucky seemed more Barnum than beatific, more gasbag than gallant. Blather by any other name is still blather. Baloney is baloney. He gave a new meaning to Wall-of-Sound. I stuck it out for two hours and, deciding it was double-talk, and headed home to Hegel.
I have nothing against free association (surprise!) but Bucky, in spite of his free-verse "poems," was not a poet. He merely broke up prose with poetrylike line breaks. Here is a quote at random from his Untitled Epic Poem on the History of Industrialization:
The post-graduate M. A.s - Ph.D.s, Engineers,
and Science Docs of all kinds
now outnumber two fold
the American Expeditionary Forces of 1917.
All three major strands
are now being braided into cables,
into fatigueless, non-crystallizing
infinitely flexible cables
of the invisible suspension bridge
of the mind
between man and his destiny
high over the waters of exploitable matter
save over the Hell Gate of political doubt.
What? Could you play that again?
Oh, yes. Now I get it. Artopia likes the braiding, but dislikes "the Hell Gate of political doubt," whatever that is.
But then again, Intuition, another book-length "poem," less full of filler, boasts a reproduction of a handwritten text from Ezra Pound on the frontispiece: To: Buckminster Fuller/friend of the universe/bringer of happiness /liberator./with affectionate admiration/ Ezra Pound/Spoleto/June 29th 1971.
And what exactly was Pound autographing? A copy of The Cantos? Or perhaps a soiled napkin?
Oracularmaniacal Neologistics?
A sure sign of the unhinged, along with unusual capitalization and hyphenating, is the invention of new terms and made-up words to cover data or meanings already adequately answered for by existing words and phrases.
Neologisms can make you see things in a different light, but they can also cloud the brain, puff-up the inventor, and gain credit where credit may not be due. Neologisms can make something not-so-new or not-so-complicated seem newly discovered and wonderfully complex.
I am not talking about puns or comic turns, as in Lewis Carroll or Gilbert and Sullivan. I do not mean witty portmanteau words, such as Carroll's snark. I am referring to what can only be called Fullerisms.
"Mind wind," dreamed up by Fuller, is supposed to mean the feeling of "imminentness" when an idea is in the air. Or does it really mean mental flatulence and/or hot air?
"Allspace Filling"? Here is Bucky's definition in Synergetics, a tome perpetuated in 1975. It not only illustrates the way his mind worked (or, I fear, did not work), but also his turgid way of writing and, alas, his public speaking, both of which could be characterized as persiflage or persiflogical:
"... The multiply [adverb] furnished but thought-integrated complex called space by humans occurs only as a consequence of the imaginatively recallable consideration of an insideness-and-outsideness-defining array of contiguously occurring and consciously experienced time-energy event."
But how can you hate someone who actually coined the word debunk (in 1927) and came up with "Obnoxico" as his very own imaginary multinational corporate nemesis?
I am not sure that allows us to forgive his grandest invented word synergetics, born of a forced marriage between "synergy" and "energetic." It means, according to Fuller, "the performance of the whole unpredicted by an examination of the parts or a subassembly of the parts." The word synergetics sounds meaningful, but the meaning doesn't. It would be a great name for an oil company.
Nor should we excuse him for the silliness of "ignore-ance." Or for using "ephemeralization" when he really meant "dematerialization" or perhaps -- in his own words, "not less is more, but more with less."
The helpful Whitney handout bravely offers definitions of Fullerisms such as "Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science," "Lightful" and "Octet Truss." But please note that the subtitle of the exhibition places the article "the" in front of "Universe," whereas Uncle Bucky always insisted upon "Universe," capitalized and article-free.
Buckminster Fuller, that geomanic geocentric, believed (1) that the tetrahedron could solve all problems and (2) that the earth really is the center of Universe. He was an industrialistic engineerist who was mathemaniacally geometristic.
He was ultimately globalistic, understanding that we are passengers on (his term!) Space Ship Earth, but blind to how to dispose of those doing the steering. He was the Pied Piper in a business suit. He was, in the name of the greatest good, an elf infected with predictomania and oracularitis. He was infected by neologorrhea, demonstrating that made-up words and new meanings forced upon old words can create another reality you might want to invest in, but not necessarily one you could trust.
* * *
Dome Mystic
So what on Earth are we to do with Buckminster Fuller? The exhibition at the Whitney made me rethink Fuller's place, his accomplishment, and his total nuttiness. Do we forgive him his eccentricities (perhaps insanities) because he came up with the geodesic dome, which has had some practical applications? Do his 20th-century proverbs compensate for the swill of his eight-hour lectures and his Synergistics tome?
What was disarming about Fuller was his optimism and his idealism, however misplaced. He really seemed to believe that technology, specifically his version of same, would save the world. Progress was not only possible, but inevitable. Toward that end, unlike the dropouts constructing geodesic "drop cities" out of recycled materials, he had no qualms about dealing with governments of all stripes or with any willing corporate bigwig. Progress, he believed, would be top-down. His notion of autonomous housing, each unit producing its own energy through wind-driven turbines, predicted ideal off-grid lifestyles -- still obtainable, alas, only by elite minorities. But his attempts at mass-produced housing show at least that his heart was in the right place, if not his brain.
The closest we have come to mass-produced housing nowadays is the MacMansion: too large and too costly, suggesting Mr. Blanding's Dream House on steroids, duplicated into infinity and arranged tightly packed to form gated "communities."
Fuller himself might have had more luck if he had pointed to the Airstream trailer rather than his own engineering.
Oh, no, he had to predict high-tech igloos delivered by military helicopters or revolving aluminum nests perched on poles. The problem with those kinds of "practical" housing is that they don't film very well. What movie star - and we all see ourselves as such - would want to live in a hut? Even one made of aluminum?
You can't film actors and actresses taking sponge baths in broom closets.
Fuller seems to have been looking a little too hard at airplanes. Although you can make a dramatic airplane exit by walking down those retractable steps onto the tarmac, you cannot make an entrance by entering one. There is no foyer, no nightclub platform from which to descend. There's no room inside for a camera crew. And where in any aluminum yurt is there privacy?
I am not qualified to judge if Fuller's geocalia is correct. For all I know, 60 degrees, as he claimed, and not 90 may be indeed the basic angle of Universe. In any case, in terms of geodesic domes, I imagine it is difficult to place paintings, mirrors, video monitors, or bookcases on a concave, faceted wall.
Most people don't want a space that's created by a leaky, echoic, floor-to-ceiling dome. If forced to give up flat walls, they'd rather camp out in a tent. Or a sleeping bag under the stars.
But at least our Bucky tried. Tried to see beyond the tried and true. Tried to seek out logical first principles. Tried to solve the problems generated by pseudo-scarcity, bad design, abuse of resources and bad faith. In some ways he was fearless. He was not afraid of appearing foolish. Perhaps he was so self-centered that any vision of his own foolishness never entered his head. Perhaps he was blessed...with naiveté. He was an Artopian ahead of his time.
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text: This post was written by Luis Rodriguez, Library Collections Technician The New York Stock Exchange holds a certain place of privilege in the iconography of American finance. The columns and pediment of its Broad Street front are immediately recognizable, even if the name of the architect behind the design is largely forgotten. While relatively few of his buildings…Read More


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The Office of Internal Auditing serves management as an integral part of the system of control. As such, the OIA staff must have full access to all records, documents and personnel at the University of North Florida. To maintain independence, the OIA should have no authority or responsibility for the activities it audits. The Office of Internal Auditing is also responsible for performing non-criminal investigations pursuant to the Whistle Blower Act, referrals from the State Comptroller's Get Lean Hotline and other complaints referred to them for resolution or as the OIA deems appropriate.
An audit is an examination and analysis of an organization, program, function or activity. OIA at The University of North Florida assists management in its effective discharge of managerial responsibilities by conducting audits of University functions in a professional, objective, and comprehensive manner. As part of the annual risk assessment process, the OIA ranks functions essential to the University's mission and objectives based on the inherent risk. Those units identified are included in the annual audit plan and may be subject to an audit, special investigation, etc.
After the completion of an audit, the follow-up phase begins. As audit reports are issued, the findings, along with the respective implementation date(s), are entered into a database. Based on the target implementation dates, these findings are periodically reviewed to determine the current status.
A fraud or special investigation can arise at any time. Usually, this type of project is initiated by someone who comes to management or the administration with a suspicion or concern. After receiving the initial complaint or concern, the Director of Internal Auditing will make a determination as to whether the fraud indications are sufficient to warrant an investigation. In making such a determination, the director may consult with the General Counsel and members of the UNF Police Department, when appropriate. All investigations which are deemed to be criminal in nature are immediately turned over to the University Police Department for investigation.
While generally less comprehensive than an audit, consulting projects look at specific aspects of a department, or activity and provide expertise, opinions, or suggested courses of action. Consulting projects can range from a couple of hours to several days or weeks, depending on the subject matter.


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We are the hip-hop generation. That's what they call us, at least. We're the ones for whom hip-hop was never a threat. To whom hip-hop never was anything but an inspiration, a shared language, a code of conduct, an infinite subject matter, an empowerment. We grew up through hip-hop, yes, but more importantly, we grew out through hip-hop.
We owe a lot of it to Run-DMC. We're the ones who heard "Peter Piper" and "Proud to Be Black" and thought, damn, that's way more raw than Richard Marx. Why are all the songs on the radio about love? I'm not in love, man. If anything, I'm in traction. A whole lot to say and no way to say it. "It's Tricky," now there's a song. Dudes just rap what's on their mind, straight up.
We'd spend hours transcribing their lyrics, those two dudes, and we'd argue about who we liked more. Run was easily excitable, prone to overload. DMC was a little raspier, a little wiser-sounding. "Son of Byford" told it all: he had a family, he had friends and he had rhymes—which, as we loved to repeat on the playground, were McDaniels' not McDonald's.
I was in the DMC camp. He seemed more real. I first learned about Jesse Owens and Malcolm X though DMC. I learned about everyday life on the other side of the country, and about brotherhood, and a lot of other things that Richard Marx wasn't talking about. So when Darryl McDaniels, the DMC in Run-DMC, called my house, I allowed myself to be a little anxious.
McDaniels is on a lecture tour that hits SSU on Feb. 23, talking about the history of hip-hop, and there may be no person aside from his band mate Run with better experience to draw upon. Even so, McDaniels was hesitant to do lectures until he talked to Chuck D from Public Enemy. "For the longest time I was like, 'No, no, no, no, no,'" McDaniels tells me from his home in New Jersey. "But then Chuck was like, 'Yo D, you need to go do lectures, man. You're sayin' something people need to hear.'"
McDaniels' story offers a look into hip-hop before the music industry seized it and promoted it coast to coast. He talks about meeting Run and Jam Master Jay on 205th Street and Hollis Avenue, hanging out and writing rhymes. He talks about setting up DJ equipment in 192 Park in Hollis and writing rhymes. He talks about getting kicked out of the hallways of his apartment building and retreating to the alley and writing rhymes.
"With or without the music business, before rap was on the record, it was already there," McDaniels says, adding that college kids born the year of Run-DMC's breakthrough album Raising Hell might not recognize the organic genesis of hip-hop. "They think it's all about Billboard Magazine, and havin' your record in high rotation on the radio and havin' a good label. It ain't nothin' like that. It's about havin' something to say in a creative way. So I'm thinkin', if these kids can hear, maybe hip-hop would get more creative, innovative, inspirational, motivational and educational."
Inspiration and motivation aren't exclusive to McDaniels' era of hip-hop, but he points out that they used to be ideals rather than accidental by-products. The world is filled with well-educated rappers fronting about drugs and violence; in hip-hop's early days in New York City, it was the other way around. "Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation was a street gang in New York, but they turned something bad into something good!" McDaniels emphasizes. "Most of the rappers that made positive records were drug dealers, stick-up kids and murderers, but when they stepped to the microphone, they would say, 'Don't do what I'm doin'! There's a better way for you! Go to school, read a book, learn about your history!'"
Run-DMC often gets credit along with producer Rick Rubin for breaking down the wall between rock and rap with guitar-driven tracks like "Rock Box" and the Aerosmith collaboration "Walk This Way." The idea wasn't just some marketing ploy, McDaniels says, but a natural cohesion with the "white rock kids" who were early fans. "I'm talkin' about kids that were listening to Lou Reed, the Ramones, Sid Vicious. We had those punk-rock kids in our shows before we even put a guitar on it, because rock and roll and hip-hop is brother and sister—controversial, innovative, creative, energetic.
"It's the same feelin'," McDaniels continues excitedly, "but different expression. These kids was lookin' at Run-DMC, and sayin', 'Yo, I know this! This is familiar to me! Thisis me!' 'Cause it wasn't a black and white thing. We was rappin' about everything—sneakers, chicken, collard greens. You know what I'm sayin'? We was rappin' about what everybody was livin'. When I do my lectures, I talk to the kids and say, 'This ain't a black and white thing, a rich or poor thing. Hip-hop, whether in Beverly Hills or in the ghetto—we're there together for those hours at the concert or listening to a rap record, we all on the same level. After it's over, we can look at each other and say, 'What's next?'"
What's next for Run-DMC is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, an inevitable honor (last year, Grandmaster Flash became the first hip-hop artist inducted). Though most honorees perform at the induction ceremony, Run-DMC has been disbanded since the fatal shooting of DJ Jam Master Jay in 2002, and McDaniels responds immediately and somberly to the idea that the two remaining members perform. "We can't," he says. "We can't do it without Jay. We can't be runnin' around without Jay. We was more people than just music."
McDaniels, who was diagnosed in the late '90s with a rare larynx disorder which gives him a high-pitched voice, has won a Congressional Award for his work in foster care and adoption services after finding out that he, too, was adopted. (He does not plan to change the lyrics to "Son of Byford.") Hip-hop remains his first love, although it's hard to gauge how avidly he follows the genre he helped create. He balks at the success of Lil' Wayne, and says the last new rapper he was impressed by was DMX, who began making albums over 10 years ago.
"Where do I see hip-hop heading?" McDaniels asks. "That's a good question. I have no idea where it's heading. I just know what we can do with it. 'Cause—put it like this—I don't want hip-hop to be like it was back in the day. I want it to be better than it was back in the day. 'Cause I know it can be."
Darryl McDaniels speaks on Monday, Feb. 23, at Sonoma State University's Person Theater, 1801 E. Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park. 7:30pm. $10; SSU students free. 707.664.2382.


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Financial Markets…The European stock index (the Stoxx 600) rose 0.6% to its highest level in 19 months following higher-than-expected German business confidence. The euro advanced to an 8-month high against the US dollar in early trading, appreciating to $1.3927. The 17-nation currency also strengthened to the highest level versus the yen since August 2011.
Standard & Poor's upgraded its sovereign credit rating for Greece to 'B-' from 'Selective Default (SD)' with a stable outlook. The rating agency cited Euro-zone countries' strong determination to support Greece's membership in the currency block and the Greek government's commitment to fiscal and structural reform for the upgrade. The country's rating was cut to 'SD' from 'CCC' on Dec.5 in the wake of a debt buyback.
Developing-country equities climbed, with the benchmark MSCI Emerging Markets Index rising 0.6% to the highest level since April 3, as an encouraging German business confidence report, optimism on a U.S. budget deal, and anticipation of further economic stimulus from Japan boosted investor sentiment.
High-income Economies…US new privately owned housing construction started ("housing starts") fell 3% (m/m) to a 861,000 annual rate from 888,000 annual pace in October. Despite the monthly decline, the average rate of housing starts from September through November was the strongest since the three months ended August 2008, and in the year to date is up 27.1% from the first 11 months of 2011. Building permits, a proxy for future construction, advanced to a four-year high.
German business confidence rose for the second month in a row in December, with the Ifo institute's business climate index climbing to 102.4 from 101.4 in November. Business confidence has continued to rise after dropping to a 2½ year low in October. Ifo's sub-index of the current situation, however, slipped to 107.1 from 108.1, while a sub-index of executives' expectations rose to 97.9, the highest since May, from 95.2 in November.
The Euro Area current account surplus rose to 3.9 billion euros in October from 2.4 billion euros in September, mainly reflecting a larger goods trade surplus, as imports declined at a faster pace than exports due to weak demand in the Eurozone.
Italian industrial orders were flat (m/m) in October, after falling 4% (m/m) in September. Domestic orders fell 1.3%, while foreign orders rose 2%.
Spanish industrial orders rose sharply by 6.6% (m/m) in October compared with September. On a year-on-year basis, industrial orders rose 5.5% (y/y) following a fall of 6.2% in September.
The Czech central bank kept its policy interest rate unchanged at 0.05% and said it would keep rates at this level over a longer horizon until inflation pressures increase significantly.
Polish industrial output fell 0.8% (y/y) in November after a 4.6% (y/y) increase in October.
Developing Economies…India's central bank kept its key interest repo rate unchanged at 8% and cash reserve ratio at 4.25% as sticky inflation did not allow easing policy in support of domestic demand.
Malaysia's 1.3% (y/y) consumer price inflation rate in November was unchanged from the pace recorded in October, as growth in prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages and selected services, including health care service, offset moderation of prices of durable goods, apparel and footwear and communication services.
Mexico's retail sales fell by 1.0% (m/m) in October compared with September. On an annual basis, sales rose by 3.5% (y/y) in October slowing down from a 3.8% growth pace achieved in September.
Nigeria's inflation rate rose to 12.3% (y/y) in November compared with 11.7% recorded in October, building on increased prices of food and core indices reflecting the impact of recent floods.
The Philippine balance of payment registered a surplus of $8.5 billion in the first 11 months. A $2.16 billion BOP surplus in November alone was 3.5 times higher than the surplus registered in October on accelerated capital inflows, including remittances.
Russia's retail-sales growth accelerated in November with consumer spending stimulated by growing wages and incomes. On the annual basis, sales rose 4.4% (y/y) faster than a 4% growth recorded in October. Real average wages increased 7.3% (y/y) in November; the fastest pace in four months and disposable incomes advanced 6.7%.
Prospects Daily: German business confidence rises, S&P upgrades Greece, Philippines balance of payments surplus grows
Financial Markets…The European stock index (the Stoxx 600) rose 0.6% to its highest level in 19 months following higher-than-expected German business confidence. The euro advanced to an 8-month high against the US dollar in early trading, appreciating to $1.3927. The 17-nation currency also strengthened to the highest level versus the yen since August 2011.


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Collection Items
Map[Rasquño de las provincias de la Nuevo Mexico
Photograph of Mapa del Nuevo Mexico / por el cosmografo Enrico Martinez Black and white photograph of manuscript map in the Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain. Shows the travel of Juan de Oñate through northern Mexico, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas between 1598 and 1602. Title from verso of original. Unpublished facsimile. Original version: 1602? 1 ms. map. Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain. Simancas. Descubrimientos. Nuevo Mexico. Descubrimientos, descripciones y poblaciones del Nuevo...
- Contributor: Martínez, Enrico
- Date: 1906
MapA map of part of the continent of North America : between the... Relief shown by shading. Covers western North America, from Lake Michigan and Lake Superior to the Pacific Ocean, including southern Canada and northern Mexico. Pen-and-ink and watercolor. Available also through the Library of Congress Web site as a raster image. Note from map folder: Map was copied from a sketch by William Clark, not one by Meriwether Lewis as indicated in the title. Copy...
- Contributor: Clark, William - King, N. (Nicholas) - Lewis, Meriwether
- Date: 1805


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What Does Manning Verdict Mean for Snowden?
The Bradley Manning verdict will have a chilling effect on future whistleblowers, says Brennan Center for Justice Liberty and National Security Program Co-Director Elizabeth Goitein on the News Hub. She is joined by Pentagon correspondent Julian Barnes.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... the ... they know three judge according private first class Bradley Manning of the most serious charge against him aiding the enemy ... will haf analysis right here right now on the New Saab good afternoon and welcome I'm Simon Constable ... joining me now on the vs day Pentagon correspondent Julian bonds and Elizabeth going ... all the cheesy co director of liberty and national security at the Brennan Center for Justice thank you both for joining us Rudy appreciate time ... Chile LME some with new new thing covering what's been going on here with that with Bradley Manning ... what was your ... take away a app ... from from hymnal being ... no being convicted of aiding the enemy ... well you are right to mix for ... the most serious charge aiding the enemy of there was a ... little I'm not to judge it set up a low bar prompted want people ... to think that there could be a conviction on that ... um but she she ... now ... she did convict him auto whole host of other charges ... and reading and likely facing ... decades in prison this is ... our ... duty and the most ... the biggest conviction of a large shoes leaker alum ... of ever meet ... um and and so while a mixed verdict of a lengthy sentence ahead from the attention when when we know this I'm saying is tomorrow will have live coverage of that ... on average on all has that comes out some Elizabeth ... Diq's and the government overreach with the obviating the enemy challenge that they've with there been better off not doing it because the optics of this up ... in some sense ... that the government last ... I think that's reading it the Government spelling out relevant this verdict for the reason you say the optics are I'm not good for the government ... of core is ... reading and will probably go to jail for a very very long time so I you know I don't think that the optics matter ... as much to him but he is the importance the acquittal is important because ... I'd conviction on the eating any charge would have really opened the door ... unto you add that frighteningly it's the end said ... the use of that lot at six am Alliance at posting things on the internet ... me ... and I know I was wet from the one about precedents for future ... trials future ... I it tends to convict I'm thinking Arafat would Snowden if he ever does get brought back to the US ... Sarah well in this is another case in a series of cases recently in which the judge has held ... that the government does not have to prove that fee on the part of the defendant ... in order to connect under the espionage Act ... and as recently as two thousandsix ... I there isn't really going the other way saying that that the government is happy to that fate ... so we are starting to see the case law ... giving depart from that and and increasingly judges are saying ... that a defendant's motive is irrelevant so that certainly has implications for Edward Snowden on it he cannot AEO Rees and the fact that his that he had no intent ... and to what extent do you think of that these these but it's an effective but it doesn't match that affects how people who see bad things happening ... in the millet re ... what what are they want to set of whistleblower one I if you'd like them I'm thinking of a few thing the meal I massacre back to the Vietnam War ... that fact came out so I'm what such things of what I've come out ... with some schools in the half ... of the wood in the meantime protections now ... absolutely it's going to have a chilling effect on people who see evidence of government misconduct in and what to do something about it if that evidence is classified if it's improperly classified ... until still feel that there really in a fine ... I'm actually not sure that the ruling will have that much of an effect on the people we once ... had to send a strong message you who are dead the actual size in the actual treaters ... because those are the people who have declared war against the United States and who ... I probably willing to risk ... at ... the of ... criminal prosecution ... so yes sadly I think it's really more likely to have an effect on the whistleblowers with Jillian bonds of The will Street gentle we thank you Brian much and ... Elizabeth going to you hope the Brennan Center we thank you very much to ...


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Facebook's Lower Stock Price Means Saverin Doubled Tax Bill By Leaving The Country
from the oops dept
Exhibit 1: Artist's rendering based upon Chuck Schumer's description
The argument was that Saverin had allowed this country to help make him rich and now, in an evil move that was completely legal, he was going to evade paying the full taxes of an American citizen by no longer being one. To combat this unholy act, Schumer and Casey unveiled the oh-so-cleverly named EX-PATRIOT Act, which would levy heavy taxes on Saverin and anyone else who thought they could escape the virtous clutches of the American tax system.
"This is a great American success story gone horribly wrong," Schumer told reporters Thursday. "Eduardo Saverin wants to defriend the United States of America just to avoid paying taxes. We aren't going to let him get away with it."But, as fate would have it, Facebook's stock price dropped faster than a Righthaven lawsuit. And the result, according to Forbes, may be that Saverin paid more in taxation than he would have had he stayed in The States.
A couple of things got missed in the furore. The first was that he had to pay tax on his Facebook stock as if he sold it on the day of his citizenship renunciation. The value then was some $2.4 billion, leading to a $365 million tax bill. That tax bill is fixed of course: now that he's no longer a citizen he doesn't get any tax breaks or credits on losses he might make. Which of course he has done. Since he crystallised that tax bill his stock (assuming he's still holding it and he would have been until just now because of the lock in around the IPO) has halved in value to about $1.2 billion. But he still owes that $365 million.
So, at least so far, the net effect of his renunciation has been to double his tax bill, not reduce it. Oh, and if he hasn't paid the tax as yet then he has to pay interest to the IRS on it.And there we have it. Schumer and Casey drafted legislation, which didn't pass, to combat a guy who did something legal because they insisted it was unfair that he escape full taxation by renouncing his citizenship. It turns out that Saverin's renunciation caused him to be overtaxed by a rather substantial rate. Any takers on whether Schumer and Casey would be open to Saverin claiming relief from this overtaxation?


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Rafah (Egypt): About 500 Egyptian activists have crossed into Gaza to deliver medical supplies and show support for Palestinians facing an Israeli offensive.
The visit indicates a new Egyptian policy toward Gaza following the ouster of longtime leader Hosni Mubarak and the rise to power of Islamists.
Mubarak, Israel`s longtime ally, had poor relations with Hamas and teamed up with Israel to blockade Gaza after the militant Hamas seized the territory in 2007.
The new Egyptian president, Mohammed Morsi, comes from the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent group of Hamas and has met with Hamas leaders in Cairo.
"We are telling the Palestinians that we are on their side," said activist Adam Mubarak. "Our visit is a message to Israel that we will not abandon the Palestinians in Gaza."


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Lindsay Lohan's Playboy cover is out, and now we're hearing a bit about what she's said in the accompanying article which will be out next week. It seems after the drama of the past few years, LiLo thinks she should have done things a bit differently:
Looking back, I probably would have listened to and taken more advice from the people whom I admire and would have followed through with it more. My stubbornness at 18 and 19-years-old got in the way. During the past five years, I've learned that time flies faster than you think, and because you only live once you have to learn from your mistakes, live your dreams and be accountable.
Maybe posing for Playboy will turn out to be part of living her dreams, but for the moment she says her choice to appear in the magazine has more to do with confidence.
Sex and sexuality are a part of nature and I go along with nature. I think Marilyn Monroe once said that. I certainly agree with her…Knowing yourself and your body is so important because it gives you confidence, and in life, women need confidence. It's a very male-dominated world to begin with, so knowing yourself and being comfortable with your body is an important thing for me as a woman. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but this is mine.
Ahh, yes, Playboy, always known for its commitment to showcasing women's bodies in a natural light and fighting against the male-dominated world...Still, it's nice to hear Lindsay's been doing some self-reflection.
Lindsay Lohan Says Has Learned From Mistakes [Reuters]


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The Impossible, Inevitable Redemption of Michael Vick
While we're plenty ecstatic about the safe return of the NFL, we're pretty sure no one's happier than Michael Vick. After his string of transcendent performances last season—including five TDs in one half on Monday Night Football—it's easy to forget that only two years ago, Vick was a third-stringer just out of federal prison. But in winning our forgiveness, has he really convinced us that he's a changed man? Or does it just not matter when you play football like Michael Vick?
"I stand before you a changed man," Michael Vick tells an auditorium packed with kids whose parents would very much like to see them change, too. "Use me as an example of an instrument of change."
It's early June, and Vick is at Philadelphia's Kimmel Center, addressing the graduates of the Camelot Schools of Pennsylvania. These students are primarily from low-income African-American families, and most wound up here after being kicked out of other schools. Vick has stumbled through parts of his speech but nails this bit. It's his second-biggest applause line—after an eleven-way tie between each time he says the word Eagles.
The students want him there; he won a popular vote. Their options were Vick, Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter, and school-district superintendent Arlene Ackerman. The Camelot Schools claim the vote was "close." I do not believe them. When Vick was selected and accepted the honor, Milton Alexander, Camelot's vice president of operations, waved off any potential criticism by saying, "One thing that we are constantly addressing with our students is if you make a mistake, if you make a bad decision, there is accountability involved, and just because this is your reality now, it doesn't have to be your reality forever. Vick's story is very relevant to their situation."
It's a scene that many couldn't have imagined last year at this time, when Michael Vick was out of prison but oddly irrelevant—neutered, almost. The man who'd not long before been the most controversial athlete on earth seemed forgotten and ignored, even by his own team. Vick had successfully navigated his way back to football after his infamous dogfighting scandal, but his problem was no longer picketing protesters or angry television commentators. It was the Eagles' depth chart. He—Michael Vick!—was a third-stringer behind aging Pro Bowler Donovan McNabb and Kevin Kolb, both considered NFL starters in their own right. There probably wasn't a professional quarterback farther from glory in all of football. And nobody knew it more than Vick.
"I think I can say this now, because it's not going to hurt anybody's feelings, and it's the truth," Vick tells me a few weeks after the commencement ceremony. "I didn't want to come to Philadelphia. Being the third-team quarterback is nothing to smile about. Cincinnati and Buffalo were better options." Those two teams wanted him and would've allowed him to start, but after meeting with commissioner Roger Goodell and other reps from the NFL, Vick was convinced—and granted league approval—to sign with Philly. "And I commend and thank them, because they put me in the right situation."
That they did. After attempting only thirteen passes in 2009, his first season back, Vick moved up to second string when the Eagles traded McNabb to the Washington Redskins. But when Kolb suffered a concussion in the season opener, Vick took the reins and was a revelation—leading the Eagles to an 8-3 record in games he started, throwing for twenty-one touchdowns while running for nine, and steering Philadelphia to an NFC East division title during a year in which they were supposed to be rebuilding.
This Michael Vick was not the Vick of old; this Michael Vick was a supercharged, utopian version of the player who'd quarterbacked the Atlanta Falcons through six frustrating seasons before his forced exile from football. The old Vick had been plagued by indecision, by a lack of work ethic ("I had none sometimes," he admits), by on-field impatience, by off- field distractions that were so numerous they almost turned football into a distraction, and by the unbearable weight of being Michael Vick, Preternatural Talent. In Atlanta, Vick flipped off fans, was suspected of bringing weed to the airport, and once used the fake name "Ron Mexico" with doctors to hide that he was receiving treatment for herpes. (This was not an effective strategy.)
In Philadelphia, coaches praised the New Vick as a diligent worker and perfect teammate, a quiet leader deserving of the team's Ed Block Courage Award for "emplifying commitment to the principles of sportsmanship and courage." His crowning moment—one of the most astonishing performances in the history of the NFL—was on Monday Night Football in mid-November. Vick accounted for five first-half touchdowns (three through the air, two on the ground) against the Redskins and generally made everyone else on the field look like cats darting after a laser pointer. "I was a little out of my mind there," he says. "Everything was just coming perfect."
Before Vick takes the stage to address the Camelot graduates, he meets with several teachers, nearly all of whom are extremely large and joke about applying to be one of his offensive linemen. Vick then fields questions from a handful of students in the greenroom. After a few softballs ("Are the Eagles going to win the Super Bowl next year?"), one student, taller than Vick and about twice as wide, gets right to the point: "Are you mad about what happened to you?"
Fifteen feet away, halfheartedly taking notes alongside a cluster of reporters, I snap to attention. What a strange question. Certainly to many, framing the past four years of Michael Vick's life in terms of something that happened to him suggests a gross misunderstanding of how he wound up behind bars. But this is not the way the Camelot students see it at all. The kid's question is met with head nods and shouts of "You better believe it!" and "That's right!"
Vick, who has barely changed his expression throughout the thirty-minute session with the students, smiles wide and looks over his left shoulder, directly toward the hallway of reporters. He glances left and right, cartoonishly grinning, all mock-conspiratorial. "Where the media at?" he says, and everyone laughs.
Since his release from prison in July 2009, Michael Vick has had a team of "at least seven" PR professionals working for him. He says they laid down a plan while he was still locked up, a plan "I try to follow to the letter." They have him working with the Humane Society, with whom he recently came out against an Android app called Dog Wars. ("It just sends the wrong message," he said in a press release.) Most recently, he appeared on Capitol Hill to back an anti-dogfighting bill: "During my time in prison, I told myself that I wanted to be a part of the solution and not the problem." He's made public appearances with beloved NFL figure Tony Dungy, who counseled Vick while in prison (but declined my repeated requests for an interview). Last year he produced The Michael Vick Project, a ten-part miniseries on BET meant to humanize himself. "These guys have been working for me for years now, trying to get my stuff back on track, and it has worked out great," Vick says. "Everybody works on one chord and understands that every decision is critical and has to be made collectively. I think [the success] is a credit to myself making sure that I have the right people around me."
In the Camelot commencement program, Vick's story is described as "rags to riches to rags to redemption." This is the company line, and Vick knows to ride it close. At the end of last season, Vick won the Associated Press's NFL Comeback Player of the Year award and played in his first Pro Bowl since 2005. The plan is working. Which is why Nike, the sponsor that did as much as anyone else to build the Michael Vick brand in the first place, re-signed Vick in early July to endorse the athletic garb it designed specifically for him. (Vick says Nike never lost touch with him, even while he was in prison.) This is quite the turnaround: When the investigation into Vick's dogfighting activities was in its early stages, Nike's suspension of a highly anticipated Vick shoe was the point at which many realized the scandal wasn't going to blow over. Now Nike's back on board, fully subscribed to a metanarrative that goes something like this:
Michael Vick was undisciplined, young, and too loyal to (and trusting of) the people he grew up with. He made mistakes, including but not limited to dogfighting, and eventually his malfeasances were uncovered. He realized the error of his ways and accepted his punishment. While in prison, he "got his mind right," discovered the perspective that eluded him as a free man, and vowed never to repeat the mistakes of his past. He took advantage of his second chance, becoming the quarterback he was always meant to be. His story is an inspiration to all. Particularly to those desiring the finest in athletic gear.
I'm not sure if it will strike you as a relief or an outrage that Michael Vick doesn't really believe all of this, but you should know: He doesn't.
As recently as last June, Vick was still terrified his NFL comeback could be derailed. Most of his anxiety likely stemmed from an incident at his thirtieth-birthday party. If you don't know the story, it's a wacky one: We came awfully close to missing out on this era of Vick's career because of pastry. In the heart of the 2010 off-season, when Vick was still riding the bench, his fiancée, Kijafa, in front of hundreds of partygoers at a restaurant in Virginia Beach, playfully rubbed cake in Vick's face, which he did not enjoy. Then Quanis Phillips, one of Vick's dogfighting co-defendants, rubbed more cake in Vick's face, which he enjoyed even less. They had a big public fight, and Vick, wary of getting in trouble again, left the party. Fifteen minutes later, Vick received a call and learned Phillips had been shot in the leg. (The shooter's identity remains a mystery, and charges were never filed.)
Vick was ultimately found faultless in the incident, but it scared him even more straight than he already was. For a long time thereafter, he played the humble, stoic good citizen. You will recognize this Vick from all those court appearances during the dogfighting trial—head down, chastened, all traces of his famously brash and arrogant personality smothered. Every facial expression came with an implied thought bubble: I am a remorseful man.
Suffce it to say, Michael Vick no longer looks sorry. That Vick swagger, the charisma that once made the famously individual-averse NFL promote him as if he were Michael Jordan (remember "The Michael Vick Experience" commercials?)—that Vick is back. It's this version of Vick that I encounter during a three-hour photo shoot, a few weeks after the commencement speech. I'd been so used to Vick looking forlorn during public appearances over the past three years that I didn't anticipate how bold he'd be in person. Many athletes are reluctant to take their shirts off for photographers, which has always struck me as odd. (If I looked like an athlete, I'd take my shirt off to go to the gas station.) But Vick is shirtless before the photographer even asks.
When Vick went to prison, the general consensus was that he would never be the same quarterback again. Here was a guy who'd nearly led Virginia Tech to a national championship and finished third in the Heisman voting as a freshman; who'd been the number one pick in the 2001 NFL draft at the age of 20; and whose first professional coach, Dan Reeves, had said Vick's talent "made you scratch your head and wonder what you just saw."
And yet he'd never lived up to his potential when he had every opportunity to succeed. How in the world would he train himself back to a workable level (let alone MVP caliber) while atrophying in prison for eighteen months? But damned if he didn't actually seem faster once he was out. How could prison—where he claims to have played a pickup game only once—have made him a better quarterback?
He says it didn't. He says he's just always been this good. "I have always been an outstanding football player, I have always had uncanny abilities, great arm strength, an immense ability to play the game from a quarterback standpoint," Vick says. "The problem was that I wasn't given the liberty to do certain things when I was young. The reason I became a better player was because I came to Philly."
So then it wasn't a change of mind-set in prison, as is so often claimed as a cornerstone of the Vick story? "No," he says. "I had changed my life long before then. I was just with the wrong team at the wrong time."
The way Vick tells it, he struggled in Atlanta not because of maturity issues but because the revolving door of coaches there kept trying to turn him into a player he was not. They were trying to make him a more conventional quarterback, a pocket passer, one who followed The System rather than His Instincts. In other words: Vick struggled at the end of his tenure in Atlanta not because his life was out of control but because they wouldn't Let Me Be Me.
When Falcons coach Bobby Petrino was brought aboard specifically to take advantage of Vick's talents, "his offense was designed to make me the quarterback that I wanted to be," Vick says. He adds that he had stopped going to so many parties and "buying so much jewelry" and was working mostly on a horse farm he'd built. "I was turning the corner. I was cutting my braids off. I was changing my life. I wanted to live the life where football and family were the only things that mattered. I was ready to do it. I felt like time was running out on my career. I needed focus."
And then he got caught doing some very bad things to dogs.
I ask Vick: If you'd never gone to prison, if no one had ever known that you'd been involved with dogfighting...would you still be an All-Pro today?
He smiles. "Only if I had gotten traded to the Philadelphia Eagles," he says. "They never tried to change me."
It doesn't matter how long ago it went down or how far back Vick has climbed: The dogfighting crimes for which he served 544 days—and he knows the exact number off the top of his head—will be in the first sentence of his obituary no matter how many Super Bowls he wins.
Not that Vick and his PR army haven't been trying to push the dogfighting down as many paragraphs as possible. Vick seems to think the only people who still care are reporters. "They are writing as if everyone feels that way and has the same opinions they do. But when I go out in public, it's all positive, so that's obviously not true." The media, Vick implies, still act as though he used to sneak into suburban yards, steal golden retrievers, and set them on fire. As if he were a lone actor, a single rampaging menace, a canine serial killer with no context, motivation, or backstory. As if he is the only person in America associated with dogfighting.
He isn't, of course. While nonprofit groups like the Humane Society attribute a decrease in dogfighting popularity over the past five years to the visibility of the Vick case, organizations such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals contend that crackdowns on cases like Vick's have actually made dogfighting more popular. Either way, it is still estimated that tens of thousands engage in dogfighting—which is notoriously more prevalent in urban areas, where it has been part of African-American culture for decades.
Vick, well versed in his talking points on this matter, hesitates to make this a race issue. And yet: "Yeah, you got the family dog and the white picket fence, and you just think that's all there is. Some of us had to grow up in poverty-stricken urban neighborhoods, and we just had to adapt to our environment. I know that it's wrong. But people act like it's some crazy thing they never heard of. They don't know."
I ask Vick if he feels that white people simply don't understand that aspect of black culture. "I think that's accurate," he says. "I mean, I was just one of the ones who got exposed, and because of the position I was in, where I was in my life, it went mainstream. A lot of people got out of it after my situation, not because I went to prison but because it was sad for them to see me go through something that was so pointless, that could have been avoided."
A refresher on the details of the incident that officially put Vick away: In April 2007, the other three men involved in Bad Newz Kennels, which Vick bankrolled, were "going through fighting sessions to determine which animals were good fighters," according to Vick's indictment. Vick, who had been taking great pains not to be seen at the kennels, "helped out" in the killing of seven dogs—the ones who had lost in the fighting sessions. He then assisted in burying the dogs, too. A week later, police raided the compound. Vick said at the time, "I'm never at the house.... I left the house with my family members and my cousin.... They just haven't been doing the right thing.... It's unfortunate I have to take the heat behind it. If I'm not there, I don't know what's going on." He tells me today: "I was walking away, just totally refocused on something else.... I just happened to get caught out in the yard trying to help out."
A quiet few have made the argument that Vick's punishment and banishment and ostracism from society was excessive. Vick ultimately served more time than the other owners of the Bad Newz Kennels and was given a harsher sentence than almost anyone else ever convicted of dogfighting. He was put in prison for a sadly common crime, something that thousands of people who grew up under his circumstances witness firsthand or even partake in every day. He was, arguably, just staying true to where he'd come from, among the very few people in Newport News, Virginia, he'd known forever—men he could trust, men who were not among the Johnny-come-lately sharks, men who understood. For this, he lost the prime of his career. He's coming into his own at 31, when there is very little time left.
I ask him if he buys this argument, if he believes he was treated unfairly. Most people convicted of dogfighting don't spend a year and a half in prison. They aren't forced to declare bankruptcy. I ask him if he was sent to prison for too long.
"One day in prison is too long," he says.
Yes, but I mean for this particular crime.
He sighs. I'm not the first person who's tried to lead him down this road. "For a while, it was all 'Scold Mike Vick, scold Mike Vick, just talk bad about him, like he's not a person,' " he says. "It's almost as if everyone wanted to hate me. But what have I done to anybody? It was something that happened, and it was people trying to make some money." He pauses and looks around. Time to step back from the edge. He's recovered so much ground that he's not about to lose it all again by taking things too far with some writer he just met. "But it's not fair. It's not fair to the animal. I know what to do now. I am strong as an individual, and I can handle anything."
It's damned good to be Michael Vick right now. In fact, you might say things couldn't get better. He's poised to potentially lead the Eagles to their first ever Super Bowl win. His jersey is one of the NFL's best-selling again. He's playing football at a level that few men have ever dreamed of. He's got his city, his fans, his sponsors; everyone's back on board. But there's one thing that's still bothering him:
"I miss dogs, man," he says. "I always had a family pet, always had a dog growing up. It was almost equivalent to the prison sentence, having something taken away from me for three years. I want a dog just for the sake of my kids, but also me. I miss my companions." Assuming he doesn't suddenly start another dogfighting ring, Vick is due to come off probation in July 2012. Afterward, he is expected to be able to legally own a dog.
Obviously, if he insists on it, there will be problems. Can you imagine the outcry from the Nancy Grace crowd? PETA co-founder Ingrid Newkirk—who likens Vick to "a psychopath"—lays it out pretty clearly: "I don't want him within half a football field of an animal. It's the only way that we could make sure that the animals are safe."
But Vick won't be worried about people like Newkirk if he keeps winning football games. The past twelve months have proved that. Like many athletes, Vick has used his extraordinary play as a tool to silence critics. "In the back of my mind, I just said, You know, I will prove all these people wrong. I will show them that I am bigger than everything that is going on right now."
This summer, in the relative calm of the lockout, Vick's average day involved getting up, working out, spending time with his family, and playing golf. He has settled into being Michael Vick again—successful, triumphant. He's going to think twice about putting that on the line. Which is why, when I speak to him on the phone a week after our first conversation, I'm not terribly surprised to find that he's back on message, parroting lines that remind me of the Camelot Schools commencement address. "Going to prison, I had a chance to clean a lot of things up," he says robotically. "I changed, people change, and you know, now it is like I have everything in order and my life is totally different, because I am able to deal with situations based on what is right and what is wrong." This is just days after he'd re-signed with Nike. I ask him his favorite website. "Nikeelite.com," he says.
Vick must constantly play this balancing act, reconciling a desire to say what he wants with what he knows he can't. In person, you can see these cracks in disposition; there's tension because part of him wants to open up. But over the phone, I can tell it's the fortified Vick. In order to stick to the PR plan, he must make himself as uninteresting as possible. It benefits Vick to be just like every other athlete again, full of braggadocio and bromides and advertisements for footwear and lime sports beverages. This is all Vick could have ever hoped for: to reclaim the normal, pampered, stupidly happy life of a professional athlete. And why shouldn't he? He served his time. We can be repulsed by his past, we can choose not to root for him, but we can't drown out the cheers from Eagles fans. In the $9 billion juggernaut of the NFL, Michael Vick's transgressions just don't matter anymore, and maybe they never did.
And yet there's certainly a desire to know how Michael Vick truly feels about what he's done, how he's been treated, and where he's going. But the rags-to-redemption hook was for your benefit; it has never mattered inside the lines. It sure doesn't matter to the defenders lying at Vick's feet as he scampers into the end zone. Or to Vick's teammates, who just want a Super Bowl ring. Or to any armchair owner who's picked up Vick for his fantasy-football team. And it probably matters least of all to those fans, the ones wearing his jersey and screaming his name. They just look at the scoreboard, and that's all the truth they need.
Will Leitch is a contributing editor at New York Magazine _and the founder of _Deadspin.


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Contest/Mini-event: Eclipse by Samantha Dragon
Hope you all feel the magic of today's rare Super/Blue/Blood Moon/Total Lunar Eclipse!!
Contest/Mini-event: Eclipse by Samantha Dragon
Hope you all feel the magic of today's rare Super/Blue/Blood Moon/Total Lunar Eclipse!!
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Mick Jagger: Artists Really Only Made Money Selling Music For About 25 Years
from the the-new-normal-is-the-old-normal dept
But I have a take on that - people only made money out of records for a very, very small time. When The Rolling Stones started out, we didn't make any money out of records because record companies wouldn't pay you! They didn't pay anyone!Now, I don't think that's entirely accurate on a few points. He's right that labels didn't pay artists, or often found creative accounting ways not to pay artists. But he's also wrong that "everyone made money" during those 25 years. Only a small percentage of artists actually made money during those years. There were a few that were heavily promoted by the labels and became rock stars, like Jagger. Other artists never made much at all.
Then, there was a small period from 1970 to 1997, where people did get paid, and they got paid very handsomely and everyone made money. But now that period has gone.
So if you look at the history of recorded music from 1900 to now, there was a 25 year period where artists did very well, but the rest of the time they didn't.


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What caused the great recession?
Theories abound. Some argue that poorly designed government policies and artificially low interest rates created a bubble, while others blame Wall Street's reckless lending practices.
Almost all, however, look to current or recent developments, not long-term historical trends. Yet the real story of the massive meltdown of 2008 starts not in the late 20th century but in the early 17th.
It was in the 1630s that the Puritan migration to America set the cornerstone for US economic prosperity – and it was our falling away from Puritan values in the 1970s that sowed the seeds of destruction.
This migration endowed the Bay Colony of Massachusetts with four core beliefs: (1) a conviction that the purpose of life, however vaguely conceived, was to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth; (2) an aptitude for the exercise of mechanical skills; (3) a moral outlook that subordinated the interests of the individual to the group; and (4) an ability to assemble and use financial, material, and human resources to a single purpose, on a massive or a lesser scale.
These four beliefs created a powerhouse. The genius of America's inherited "hands-on," "can-do," "up-the-ladder" managerial culture cannot be overstated. In the course of three centuries, it turned a handful of small colonies into the greatest economic and political power on earth.
The perversion of this culture – spurred by the rise of the "professional manager," often with an MBA degree – has hollowed out the US economy and undermined American thrift and self-reliance. Forty years ago, the net national savings rate was 10 percent. Last year, it reached minus 2.5 percent.
The Puritans loved to get their hands dirty
The Puritan journey to America was a masterpiece of organization. Two substantial earlier attempts had failed. Of the 144 people who had sailed for Virginia in 1606, only 38 remained alive by the end of 1607. Of the roughly 100 Pilgrims who had sailed on the Mayflower in 1620, barely half survived until March 1621.
By way of contrast, 200 ships brought 14,000 migrants to the Bay Colony of Massachusetts between 1630 and 1640 – and nearly all survived. Only one ship was lost at sea. This third attempt succeeded because its organizers had mastered the logistics of travel. In 10 short years, they also laid the social, legal, political, religious, and commercial foundations of the future United States.
The Puritans equated godliness with craftsmanship. From the outset, a willingness to become involved in menial tasks, to "get one's hands dirty," distinguished American society from older and more stratified European societies. Managers rose to senior positions only after demonstrating ability at lower levels. Puritanism is, essentially, an attitude of mind and an associated series of practices which, in the right circumstances, can be, and have been, transferred between races, tribes, nations, and even religions.
This way of doing things would evolve to reach a peak of ability in what we call the Golden Age of Management (1920-70). Milestones leading up to it included: the adoption of a federal constitution by the former colonies in 1787, creating a secure political framework within which society could prosper; the establishment by the 1830s of the Springfield Armory, which historian Daniel Wren has described as "the first mechanised manufacturing plant" in the country; the integration of geographic and functional divisions at the Pennsylvania Railroad in the late 1850s; and the relaunch by Pierre du Pont of his family company in the early 20th century, providing the model for an alphabet of "blue chip" companies – AT&T, Boeing, Chrysler, John Deere, Eastman Kodak, Ford, General Motors, Hewlett Packard, IBM, and so on.
America's great managerial inheritance would be successfully transplanted into Japan under the US occupation (1945-52).
Japan's internal communications systems had been destroyed by bombing and neglect. As a result, a Civil Communications Section was created within the Supreme Allied Command to re-create them. It was necessary first to teach local suppliers how to manufacture to US standards of quality.
Before World War II, "made in Japan" had meant "of poor quality"; increasingly after the war, it would imply the opposite. Japan's communications equipment manufacturers evolved rapidly into a world-beating consumer electronics industry; other industries, such as automobiles, followed suit.
Japan would teach the very same lessons that it had learned from its US occupiers to the future Asian "Tigers" – notably to Taiwan, which imparted them to mainland China in the 1990s, and to Vietnam a decade later. About 70 percent of China's electronic exports are said to originate today in mainland factories owned or managed by Taiwanese.
The rise of the professional manager
Sadly, under the influence of top-tier business schools, America would walk away from its inherited managerial culture after 1970. This lowered the quality of manufactured goods. And it contributed to disasters as diverse as the savings and loan crisis, the Enron debacle, and today's global credit crisis.
Before 1970, management was regarded as a craft to be learned "on the job" under the eye of an experienced executive. As a junior manager climbed the ladder, he would also acquire what General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt has called "domain knowledge." As a result, banks in the mid-20th century were run by people who knew a lot about banking, engineering companies by people who knew a lot about engineering, and so on.
Under the new dispensation, management was reclassified as a profession to be practiced by holders of a special academic degree (the MBA) – just like medicine or the law. It was no longer considered necessary for an executive to learn the craft of management or to acquire "domain knowledge." The holder of an MBA was deemed capable of exercising control over any kind of organization through the medium of its accounts department. "Financial engineering" replaced mechanical engineering. The effect on the quality of decisionmaking in both the public and the private sectors was catastrophic.
As we say in our book "The Puritan Gift," American factory managers have in large part reclaimed the secrets they taught the Japanese over half a century ago; the rest of American business and society must now follow suit.
Kenneth Hopper and William Hopper are the authors of "The Puritan Gift: Triumph, Collapse, and Revival of an American Dream." Follow them on Twitter.


text: Hello my name is BlackJavaCoder. And im here to learn java because i want to become an expert java programmer later. At the moment im 16 years old so have plenty of time to learn java before i need to use it in a job probarlly over 4-5 years. So i have time but that doesnt mean i gonna slowly start learning im going to learn java everyday by reading books watching videos reading tutorials here and otherplaces and of course making alot of programs i just bought a memory stick of 32Gb to store my programs on that the only thing wil get on it i also gonna take a log of my progress so can see with cih parts i struggled the most. I hope i can learn alot of you guys.