Observations on Art 10.24

I have been saying for years, in writing and in person, that it isn't just me, artists are just generally a weird breed. Finally I don't have to argue that point anymore because I now have video proof. We've watched this quite a few times and I can't stop laughing at the sheer 'what the hell' weirdness of it all. In a video just released today, Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, Gangnam Style ....

草泥马style

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Published on Oct 24, 2012 by 未未 艾
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10/25 update - Ai Weiwei offered a bit of explanation today for the video which is already banned from Chinese websites. "We feel that every person has the right to express themselves, and this right to expression is fundamentally linked to our happiness, and even our existence. When a society constantly demands that everyone should abandon that right, then the society becomes a society without creativity," Ai Weiwei said in an interview. Also the characters he replaced Gangnam with in the title mean "Grass Mud Horse" which in Mandarin supposedly sounds like something rude you might do to your mother. It was meant as a snub to censors and evidently had that effect.

Observations on the 2012 Election 10.24

With election just a couple weeks away now it's easy to concentrate on the presidential race at the expense of all the others. What gets lost doing that is the fact that this could end up being a truly historic election for multiple reasons. Gay marriage has been voted on 32 times since 1998 and lost all 32 times. This year it could pass in not one but three states; Maine, Washington, and Maryland.

But the subject of this brief post is that this year a record 141 women are running for Congress and another 18 for the Senate. In 1992 a total of 24 women were elected to Congress which was the most ever, hopefully that will pale next to this years total. It could also include Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin who would be the first openly gay member of the U.S. Senate.

In the 2012 United Nations' survey of women in parliaments around the world the United States came in with 16.8% or 78^th which ties it with Turkmenistan. In comparison, Afghanistan had 27.7% and
Pakistan 22.5% women in their respective parliaments.

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has been one of the forces behind the drive to have women run for office and take responsibility for issues important to women. In 2010 Gillibrand won a special election to fill Hillary Clinton's Senate seat and is running for re-election this year. On Mother's Day of last year she wrote; "Now more than ever, we must get more women engaged at every level of public life. Because if women don't get off the sidelines, there are decisions being made every day about every aspect of our lives and they might not like what they find."

Kirsten Gillibrand: Standing Up For Women

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Published on Oct 15, 2012 by GillibrandForSenate