Pink Elephants
Deforest, Wisconsin
According to a gentleman working in the gas station next to the sculpture, it had been a feature of the landscape for around thirty years.
Good and Bad
In précis, while I remember.
Left St. Paul last Wednesday around 3:30pm. Drove highway 94 to highway 90 to highway 39 in Wisconsin. Found Wisconsin quite cheesy. Stayed the night in Edgerton, Wisconsin—thought that was sort of odd given my recent interest in Harold Edgerton, who is from Aurora, Nebraska—not Wisconsin. Found out that there had been tornados near the Twin Cities the night we left.
Took highway 39 to highway 80. Considered going to Toledo, Ohio for the heck of it. Didn’t. Went to the Indiana Dunes instead; remembered my mom’s story of visiting the “beach” from Gary, Indiana around 1941. Decided later that this was probably the beach she was at. Abandoned highway 80 for highway 94, and ended up in New Buffalo, Michigan for dinner at a pub called “The Stray Dog.” Encountered an accident outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan—then forged on to Ann Arbor by evening. Found out that storms were dropping golf-ball sized hail on Edgerton, Wisconsin.
Arrived at the University of Michigan conference Originality Imitation Plagiarism: A Cross Disciplinary Conference on Writing. Listened to interesting papers by Maria Cochran from Iowa State, Michelle Cox from the University of New Hampshire, and Katheleen Keating from Greensboro College. Really enjoyed the exhibit of pop art in the museum across the street. Watched Lessig’s keynote, and kept wondering about the leap we make jumping from discussing creative products as property to discussing the dispersal of knowledge as property.
Travel
Uploading photographs takes nearly as much time as traveling. Although I'm now in Michigan, I've only managed to get the Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana photographs into flicker.
September 22, 2005 11:33 PM | Comments (1)
Yellowvator
Krista and I followed the yellow brick road to Mississippi River Locks and Dam #1
Elephants
It was an odd coincidence to see this image when I clicked on a link regarding the Nikon School. It seems a multi-purpose image which might address a variety of sentiments.
The arc of political action—especially the latest dismantling of the Roosevelt legacy, the suspension of the Davis-Bacon Act, does not bode well for getting the elephant off our necks any time soon. Each day brings more news that the “compassionate conservatives” are more than happy to keep the gulf between rich and poor widening each day. But the liberal response, as always, seems to tilt at another windmill. Mark Woods pointed at an article by Lakoff. In part, it proposes that:
September 10, 2005 12:37 PM | Comments (5)
Disgrace Signs
Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, June 1943, by John Vachon LC-USW3- 034389-E
I wrote at length in my Masters’ thesis about a group of photographs taken in Plaquemines Parish Louisiana. Somehow, the concept of “disgrace signs” has a different meaning now.
Tonight, CNN is claiming that Hardy Jackson is the "face of the disaster." I don’t think that the memory of this disaster will be quite that simple. There are a lot of Hardy Jacksons that have not been heard from yet. The wikipedia page on Jackson is supposedly going to be deleted or merged. The discussion behind it is interesting. I think it's worth noting a few of the reasons people offer:
- Delete. Perhaps when the Harvey Jackson Trust opens, but at the moment he's no more notable than any other named or photographed interviewee in a disaster report, i.e. he isn't notable. Besides, how do we know he isn't lying? -Ashley Pomeroy 04:57, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
- Delete. Maybe add later if still noteworthy. Jehochman 05:14, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
- Keep However macabre it might be he has been referenced on TV and has been reported by the BBC that alone makes him nontrivial--Machtzu 05:24, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
- Delete. Millions of people loose loved ones in tragic circumstances every day. The fact that a TV crew happen to stumble upon Mr. Jackson does not make him notable. Similarly, every day the news media reports on non-notable people whose lives are momentarily thrust into the spotlight. If Jackson gains notability, then we can add an article. Cnwb 06:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
- Delete, Wikipedia is not a memorial. Harvey Jackson is not notable. — JIP | Talk 06:51, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
- Delete. People die all the time. Coffee 07:25, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
The lone argument (in this sample) for keeping Hardy’s entry is that a mention in the media makes him significant. Most people don't look at it that way. It will be interesting to see how this plays out— Will Hardy Jackson cross the line into iconic or symbolic status? He seems a safer bet than the “disgrace signs” emerging from New Orleans.
Disappointing
I’m very disappointed with the University of Minnesota’s emergency admissions policy. When I read about it on Metroblogging New Orleans I thought to myself-- no way.
Way. Financial aid will be decided on a “case-by-case basis.” Even G.W. said that the financial loan system would be “flexible” regarding displaced students. Money is always a problem for students—what sort of “emergency” policy can possibly expect people to pony-up full out of state tuition? Minnesota’s apparently.
Spectacle
So long as the realm of necessity remains a social dream, dreaming will remain a social necessity. The spectacle is the bad dream of modern society in chains, expressing nothing more than its wish for sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of that sleep.
Debord, The Society of the Spectacle 21
One of the small counties I visited in Oklahoma, LeFlore county, raised around $320,000 just after Katrina hit. LeFlore county is an incredibly poor place, and I was shocked that they raised nearly as much as the efforts at the nearby Minnesota State Fair. Ft. Smith Arkansas took in around 9,000 refugees when the only resource they had was an old military base, Ft. Chaffee, with buildings that lacked the most basic amenities such as air conditioning. After the first wave of refugees, they stopped processing paperwork because the task was just so overwhelming. They had to stop accepting donations of clothing and materials because there was no way to process the generosity of the people in Western Arkansas/ Eastern Oklahoma. In the end, they could only ask for home-cooked meals to be delivered and bodies that could help serve them. They needed help, not words or pictures.
It’s hard to turn off the specular stream on TV. It was almost a week before I heard a single “historical recap” of the events because the events were happening so fast. CNN looped twenty-second clips over and over, but these clips had little staying power. Unlike the collapse of the WTC with its signature plumes of smoke, or the toppling of statues in Iraq, there were no singular images that could approach the impact of Katrina. This disaster lacks any real unity of image, and perhaps highlights the artificial nature of these manufactured “signature images.” It seems as if the public has been slapped with an actuality beyond image that defies any general sense of truth. It’s not a spectacle; it is truly a disaster.
The concept of spectacle brings together and explains a wide range of apparently disparate phenomena. Diversities and contrasts among such phenomena are the appearances of spectacle—the appearances of a social organization of appearances that needs to be grasped in its general truth. Understood on its own terms, the spectacle proclaims the dominance of appearances and asserts that all human life, which is to say all social life, is mere appearance. But any critique capable of apprehending the spectacle’s essential character must expose it as a visible negation of life—as a negation of life that has invented a visual form for itself.
Debord, The Society of the Spectacle 10
Unlike most of the man-made disasters of the last decade, this natural disaster has not succumbed to any invention of a visual form. Its actuality cannot be denied.
September 5, 2005 3:31 PM | Comments (2)
No more ruby slippers
I can’t seem to look away from the TV. The bizarre horror movie music that CNN chooses to use to punctuate the scene in New Orleans and the meaningless pauses which Wolf Blitzer inserts every few moments in his bombastic monologue grate on my nerves, but I can’t stop watching. The HHS secretary says that things must be “reconfigured.”
“I don’t have a number.”
“No one has a number.”
No matter how many politicians click their heels, the situation doesn’t get any better. I keep wondering why commentators keep saying that the people from FEMA and Homeland Security are speaking in “contradiction with the facts.”
What is the difference between “contradicting the facts” and lying? I’m hazy on that, but I think it may have something to do with intent. All the grand conspiriacy theories which I am sure will emerge soon will imply that these people know what they are doing. I don’t see how anyone can make that case. This country is being ruled by C students—and I don’t think they have enough ambition to lie— except to cover their asses.
