Bailey Alexander

Back @ the Aqua Dome in the Austrian Alps...

There are spas and then there's Aqua Dome. 

Time is best spent roaming outdoor thermals, from sulfur to salt to sprudel (lots of bubbles) floating in the circular pools until you can't handle admiring the Alps any more...

The other half of the spa is sauna central, no textiles allowed; a al nu, nacht, naked which takes time for this american prude to get used to, but I do, soon, gently eager to engage in every single item offered on the menu. 

Watching Europe in crisis...

...is like watching life in slow motion. Or this song.

Compelling and amusing in an existential sort of way. In that emphatically didactic Brechtian Kurt Wheil Threepenny Opera Mack The Knife kinda way.

And. Contrary to all the conspiracy theories, the anglo press, ecetera, ecetera, ecetera, Europeans have little issue with Germany running the money, in fact, they're all bending over backwards to follow their model.  

"That's friendly France for ya..."

A recent trip to Brittany reminds me of Grace Kelly's line in To Catch A Thief. Kelly's gently sparring with uber elegant Cary Grant, not quite buying the less than jazzy line he's just a friendly timber businessman from Portland Oregon. Grace suspects what we already know, he's the notorious jewel thief, John Robie, nicknamed "The Cat." 

The French. They are friendly and warm, you just need to step inside their protocol. Why just look at the local butcher, eyeing my petite mignon. I offer Colette for a sec before snatching her back...he is the local butcher after all... 

Maestro Daniel Barenboim in Berlin

It was as meaningful, emotional and surreal as it could have been, to see the man in motion, the maestro I met by chance over a decade ago. Back when Berlin was but a city of cranes and Potsdamer Platz was under way. Before I'd moved here, when I was young, so blissfully naive and surprisingly unaware of the world. 

Never, ever could I have imagined how deeply Barenboim's ideas would become embedded and continue to loom large in my mind and life across the pond. His genius in music is without dispute but wonderfully enough, it's also available in written form. He has the most fascinating exchange with the elegant Christian Arab, Edward Said in Parallels and Paradoxes. To read this piece is to know how little you will ever know how to experience music as they do, did...how artists strive to solve life's conundrums through their art

9/11 was a call to adventure.

9/11 meant different things to different people. Personally, it was a call to adventure. On the surface, after years of hard work, the rewards arrived, I was happily married, in good health, experiencing the American Dream.  I was lucky.

However, just beneath the surface, above the sub-conscious, where reality lurks and mischief begins, my country and my identity were amiss, incorrect; I heard the clarion call to adventure, answered and decided to leave. 

I felt deep shock, as did everyone, however, we didn't equally experience the paranoia and fear. 

Detour in Rouen; paid my respects to Joan of Arc

The past two weekends we've driven 10 hours each way, from Amsterdam to France and back again.

Dinner parties@Chez Bay; a play in three acts.

\ Each play is different and yet the process is often the same.

I love the entire exercise from front to finish. And yes it tis an exercise. And yet is lacks any sense of being rehearsed as the players prove to be nothing less than the sum of their own unique lives. 

It takes effort on my part to coordinate, to cook but it is a passion. I love nothing more than to share my home, my opinions, my life. It's lovely when mio marito is around; this isn't always the case.

It is also an exercise for my guests, especially the best ones, for they know in which key, precisely, how to sing for their supper. This does not happen often, but when it does, the melody is nothing short of divine.

Alas, it is an exercise for they must arrive and partake, they must communicate and exercise their curiosity if only to collide adroitly with the other guests.  If they don't, and some just won't, this is but the chance I take and one I seem intent on taking over and over again.

Prior to their arrival I pick the flowers, feel the creativity and then prepare.  I love the entire process, in particular the bit in be tween when they arrive and coincide and best yet when they wish to argue their side with zest.I love this bit.

When they take their exit, full and grateful, so kind with their own time I can then begin the third act; the final scene. This routine exists within its own pattern and it's almost almost always executed in exactly the same way...

...and yet the memories, the reflections, the ability to re-live it twice while putting everything back in its place; every piece, each plate, one glass at a time; this space feels vastly different every single time.

This makes the entire exercise worth the effort; this is joy.  

 

So Salzburg...

 

Dined@the oldest restaurant in the world, wienerschnitzel was wunderbar, took a stroll...simply one of the loveliest cities in the world...

 

 

Venice to Verona to Riva del Garda...

Back at the flat, Godot visits his 'friend' the hissing swan... 

Sun that is distinctly Italian.

 

Our final hike to the fortress  half way up the mountain.

Sun blasting off its side for most of the day.

Not sure to pack the bike, how can I possibly ask her to compete with those large handle bars directing such big black agressive bikes to and fro over Amsterdam's multiple canals.

They practically channel the wicked witch of the north, here, the rythm's so gentle. But I would have Colette and Godot, I suppose.  

Time moves softly into the new year...

Just minutes from our flat, life unfolds slowly, softly into the new year. Most of the older Italian women in fur, a dozen I've counted so far along the path that takes me from home to town center and back again.

I've yet to see or meet an Italian wife post ww2 who doesn't own a mink.  Forget peta, the pc police, no one cares, she's earned the right to own her own fur coat. 

 

The rhythm's lovely, everyone holding hands, happy to be rid of stress and expectations...

just decorations and a few days off to enjoy the time as it unfolds softly, slowly.

 

 

 

 

And now for something completely different: Amsterdam

It's as if Italy insists on kissing me arrivederci, weather's been spectacular this week.
We'll miss this view from the flat, but time to get back to civilization. Godot gets in a last run

From the Italian Alps to one of the flattest places on the planet, arrrrrrrrrivederci Italy
Amsterdam, here we come...; )

MAD MEN: Arrivederci Signore e Signori...for now.

Mad Men's season, like Riva del Garda's, has ended, just like that.  Another absolutely fantastic season 'numero quatro'. I'm so sad but feeling just a wee smug after anticipating the ascendancy of Megan's starry eyes in Don's galaxy. Just watching Megan channel Eve Harrington in last weeks' episode put me on the alert and anyway, Dr. Faye was just too clinical, she had to look up EVERYTHING, nothing was innate, au natural. I liked her, but spontaneous joy is a must, at least once.

Klimt, Schiele and the fearless Ms. Frida Kahlo

Vienna means music and history to many, but to me, I hear only whispers of Klimt and Schiele, Klimt and Schiele. These two masters moved me so deeply the first time, Vienna always sounds like Klimt and Schiele...

Gustav Klimt, the teacher, the senior, puts me in a trance, wrapping his goddesses in symbolic divinity, decorative costume, celebrating everything that is nurturing and compassionate and powerful about women.

While Schiele shocks with nudity, Klimt calms the viewer down with clothes made of silver and gold, metal so soft, almost a balm, a loving maternal figure, offering secrets into our universe.  Amazing how one can do that with paint and placement...Klimt proves it can be done, so beautifully, naturally.

And then there's Egon Schiele, he and his women, both stripped down to expose bones, their fragile ribs, bare and vulnerable, a  delicate elegance. Schiele, a protege of Klimt, a shocking boy wonder who's presence could not be denied yet recognition received late in their artistic roulette.  There is this wall in the Albertina Museum, with 5 Schiele's, all small, sensual perfection, lined up quietly underneath a very grand chandelier... this wall put me under its spell over a dozen years ago, though its Klimt that makes me sit for long spaces of time, falling into 20 ft high scenes of tranquility depicting women so uniquely with death lurking, often, as it does in life....The Kiss is the most famous but by no means my favorite, so sweet to be kissed like that and to be able to paint a kiss that feels like that... The Albertina introduced a section of Klimt with Freudian text, maybe to emphasize the dream like elements, elaborate the earthly fantasy and intense sense of contentment. Klimt lives so well in Vienna, like seeing Degas @ Musée d'Orsay, Klimt and Schiele thrive in Vienna, the present married forever to its past, quiet, refined, civilized yet explosive in its own self-contained way.  Austria...

And what a perfect time to be here, Vienna boasts a fantastic exhibit of Picasso at his most political, Michelangelo at his most natural, strolling around all those sketches, having grown up with copies drawn by artistic siblings in our home in Seattle, reminding me of times long ago when life was simple, death hadn't arrived to take away a brother, my beloved mother, there was enough love to go around, when it was just the 7 of us, a middle class clan, a benign tribe, loving parents, 5 pretty easy going kids who smiled easily in their photos because they felt like it, so long ago, when America was like that, when my America was like that...

Allora, must come back to the present, to Vienna, to the piece di resistance, Signora Frida Kahlo.

This woman kinda blows my mind; all passion and sadness, fears and desires painted in primary colors mostly, again, symbolic, expressive.  Those challenging eyes and brow, that beautiful hairline, tutoring herself to embrace her own innate talent, becoming a master among few. I was surprised by how moved I became, overwhelmed by her ability to project multiple cultures, industry after simplicity, moving from Mexico to N. America.

Those photographs of Frida, so fierce, unrelenting, insisting she be exactly who she could be, master of her own world, wanting her men to stay and not stray, so much wanting in that women, I'm grateful Frida wanted so much, she moved me as much as Klimt and Schiele, maybe even more... 

Yes, definitely Vienna...

Quick trip to Vienna...

...took longer than expected, major accident near Innsbruck meant 2 hour delay but the day was so lovely, didn't matter. 

Tina Brown and Arianna Huffington, two impressive political animals...

...who happen to be women and extraordinarily successful at mixing high and lowbrow culture with nobrow politics.  They both deftly outline how quickly the lines blur,  taboos disappear, subcultures swim into mainstream, showing how politicos and celebrity have become fungible in modern media....both platforms are deceptively light yet they always manage to find the zeitgeist.

Editrix showdown is a response to The Guardian reporting a bitch fest was brewing between the two, alas, on the contrary, Tina and Arianna are quite fond of one another...the piece isn't funny, who cares, neither women are known for their humor, however, Huffpo and The Daily Beast, show how adept these two editors are at the helm.

Persephone rising in a clever "Little Book"

What a wonderful read, "The Little Book" by Selden Edwards. Finished it last night, apparently it took Edwards 3 decades to get it published and finish it properly but wow, well worth the wait. 

So much stuff to digest; beautiful English Jewish pacifist Flora Zimmerman falls in love with old Bostonian WWII veteran Frank Burden, dozens of conversations with Sigmund Freud, sexual scenarios with Gustav Mahler, Hitler as a youth, then evil incarnate, the Jung Wien, anti-semitism Vienna style, all visited randomly within vast voyages of time travel from 1897 Vienna to San Francisco in 1988.

He weaves quite an epic family tale of concentric circles through high historical drama, an intense journey covering so much time in such dramatic settings, and yet he finds a way to keep it deceptively light at times.

Jumping from Fin de Siecle Vienna to post Haight Ashbury San Francisco becomes almost too intense a time warp twice too often; just writing about it seems confusing, but it's really lovely stuff and it works.  Women's sexuality has come an awful long way, explored through talk therapy, Freudian analysis and Greek mythology, all playing a role. 

And listen, anytime a writer includes Persephone and feminine rising can only be construed as a good thing, all the female characters are easy to fall in love with, especially the pacifist, they provide the strength.

It's good to be in a foreign country, searching for a novel written in English, even if the selection proves painfully small. Good to stray away from the usual suspects and "The Little Book" is anything but a usual suspect. Glad I found Selden Edwards, happy he found a publisher, it was certainly worth the wait.

"To put it mildly, its a mess."

 

So said New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Schack. What a heroic figure.

This scenario resembles Italy. You can navigate the labyrinth of bureaucracy on a regional level but nationally, not so easy.

Our ability to elevate local and national concerns onto the global economic structure complicates the art of the deal, big time. Within the foreclosure crisis we've allowed the system little transparency. Who's the investor, the trustee of the securitization?  They don't even know who owns the loan.

This most honorable judge insists America be a country of laws rather than a country of men.  Imagine. (Italy created laws, btw).

This judge insists the "lender" provide three documents:

1) a mortgage

2) proof they own the mortgage on day the case commences

3) a default by the borrower

Not so easy. Too many foreclosures are signed by "Robosigners", employees hired to speed up the process and put as many families on the street as possible, ASAP.  It's not that this judge isn't sensitive to Banks, he understands they aren't in the biz of real estate, they just want their money, ASAP.  Unfortunately, the issue remains; it's illegal to have someone sign a legal document that has no personal knowledge of said document. (btw, Italy invented Banks too.)

Basically, it's fraud, its graft, its deceit and the judge is kinda implying that those that have suffered foreclosures illegally may want to investigate whether or not a Robosigner was involved. Even the Robosigners admit, "I had no idea what I was doing...".  This is insane. Class action, millions and billions of litigious drama, who knows...

 

 

Bizarro; gay chinese waiter has nipple tweaked in michelin star joint in London

Mio marito sent me this link re his favorite restaurant in London, I must have missed this drama last time.  Yauatcha, in Soho, has a gay chinese waiter who has lost weight due to stress, workload, diabetes, etc, causing his tight uniform to hang loosely, thus exposing nipples, one of which was tweaked by customer, he insists sexual harassment and complained but less than sympathetic manager simply asked, "Did you like it?".

Boing Boing: What Internet Activism looks like

Anil Dash  hits one so far out of the park it attains orbit in this response to a silly Malcolm Gladwell column that decried Internet activism as incapable of achieving meaningful change. It's all must-read stuff, but here's the bit that made me want to stand up and salute:

Robin De Vick, you were loved.

I'm so sorry her talent's gone elsewhere.  Robin De Vick, a friend from the distant past, artistic, kind, extraordinarily talented, has recently passed, so young.  Why, one always asks, why....

A unique esprit, a prickly creature at times. Her face, pretty, open, often make-up free, when painted, looked identical to Marilyn Monroe.

Lauren Bacall...

Recent Humphrey Bogart bio/gossip rings too Walter Winchell meets Matt Drudge medley for me, barely worth a glance but Bacall's allure...now that's worthy of a blessay.

In fact, I remember my mother talking about her, as an artist would, her long lines, her new look, unique, captivating, how she arrived on the scene, suddenly, stunning, independent and sophisticated, sensual yet almost asexual and all the more beautiful because of it...fun to watch How To Marry A Millionaire, Grable; the pin up girl, MM; the gorgeous girl that eats up the screen and tall Bacall, so interesting to see on screen, she seethes, she breathes and smokes those cigarettes so..... 

Lignano's season shuts down...

We park our boat in Lignano, next to Venice, and this sweet man often holds my bike when I run into get veggies along the boardwalk just meters away from the beach, but unlike Venezia, that otherly city, as alive and surreal as ever, Lignano's closing down. 

Off to Venice...

as a liveaboard, for a day, two, three or more..must check on MADI and make sure all is fine...weather's supposed to be gorgeous...

Michelle Obama just can't win...

As First Lady, the obstacles for Ms. Obama are so obvious, the role so difficult, that Carla Bruni's lack of protocol can't be helping matters...

Sarközi vs Sarkozy, globalization's tricky, isn't it.

Sarko is the son of Hungarian immigrants. Historically, Hungary and Romania have had 'issues'. The Roma debate and Sarko's highly controversial and aggressive role in it, is worth following, its alarming, with major racial overtones. 

Camille Paglia; Madonna's 'authentic' but Gaga's a manufactured misfit?

Camille Paglia's at it again, entertaining but so sensitive about her Madonna. The nerve! Lady Gaga, another pint sized fame seeker, aggressively displaying counter sexuality, conveying 'ironic moments', wearing meat, head to toe, purse to chapeau, elevating underground zeitgeist above ground.  How dare she!!! Everybody knows clever marketing Madonna/Whore owns irony!!!

Sophia Loren@75; must be something in the water...

...wish I could have been drinking it in my formative years.

Just look at this woman, what did someone once utter, "after Loren, bone structure is just boring"...she simply defies time.

Congrats to the winner but shame about the tattoo...all the young, lovely, european women seem to love their tattoos...

Joyce Carol Oates; Blonde and Black Girl White Girl.

 

Dawn Powell wrote all the time, Joyce Carol Oates writes even more, in fact, she must be the most prolific writer of today.  So abusive, so violent, she lacerates, she whips with her words, you feel yourself falling off a cliff, it's terrifying at times.  You'd think she'd gift you with a reprieve, but she won't.  So don't prey for that parachute, that rope will never appear, it will not end well, why? Because Joyce Carol Oates is a truth teller, that's why.  

Her milieu is dark, I know dark but violence is foreign to me. Abuse, torture porn, I'm not normally drawn to this world, but when she creates a period of time, a slice of drama, I'm fascinated and find myself willing to go anywhere she's willing to take me, knowing it will all end in tears.

 Such is the stunning effect of this writer.  When you're reading Black Girl White Girl you might assume it's all about the relationship between two young women, one white, one black who happen to be room mates in an exclusive liberal arts college, if only because she writes about that relationship in the most devastating way, but its not.  It's really about a white girl and her relationship with her radical Dad. Her Dad and his extreme left-wing activism, his attitudes about money, class, politics, the deceptive left-right paradigm that began to unfold in America circa 1970.  Oates gets to highlight reverse racism, hypocrisy and liberal guilt in post-Vietnam America as only she can do.....

God she's brilliant, so brutal and honest. Her high literature style collides with informal, staccato, internal thought.  In this book, it feels reminiscent of falling back into the blissed out, bonkered, wonderful, horrible life that was Marilyn Monroe in Blonde.  I've blogged before but I'll blog it again, any women that wants to read about their own sex, their own fear, control, love, knowledge or lack thereof regarding their own sex, read Blonde, I dare you. That book is fierce. 

Sunday in the Park with Joyce Carol Oates

Colette found a flautist, no easy feat, then she found a place to picnic

bummer, but it's binary...

whether it's a flag, bible or currency.  If you don't exercise your right, you lose it.  It is non-negotiable; irrespective of your opinion, generation, experience and rationale, it's simply a binary issue, it's called free speech. You not only have the right, but in many ways, an obligation. Fascinating scenario, but let's review the suspects.  At the epicenter we have a crackpot preacher from Florida, a guy with a 2nd rate theology degree from some state college, some guy that's been fined and expelled from playing Elmer Gantry for a couple decades in Cologne, ripping off the German state, inspiring Germans to speak in tongue and give up their beloved state rights and health care, ok, so a bunch of vulnerable Germans fell for his act, but in America, that's his right, it's that crackpots' right, one of the many ways that America great....my only concern is how some guy with a flock of 50 gets all the attention.

Vote Libertarian, why not?

I've been a life long democrat, but without a whiff of difference between the parties, I'm thinkin' Libertarian. Every single damn day, some fresh hell arrives, like this:

Today the Sunlight Foundation launched analysis that reveals more than $1.3 trillion in federal reporting data from 2009 is broken. These data inaccuracies account for 70 percent of the total $1.9 trillion in government spending data reported last year. Clearspending offers a critique on the reliability of data from USASpending.gov, across three metrics--consistency, completeness and timeliness--and covers spending from 2007, 2008 and 2009.

I'm thinking Ron Paul.  Unlike the rest, he's been consistent.  For 25 years, re Foreign Policy, Fiscal matters, perfectly consistent, every single vote aligns with the manifesto.  Odds against he won't whiffle once he gets in. Not the most photogenic perhaps but he is the real leader of the Tea Party movement , so he actually does have a chance.

Best bit; he wants to audit the Fed. Not a soul who understands the Fed could possibly argue against such sound policy. Anyone wishing to afford a cup of coffee let alone a car in the next decade would concur, very, sound policy.

That little man Ron Paul is starting to grow on me, and good thing cuz Sister Sarah, otherwise known as Esther, is waiting in the wings and Barry's blowing it at every turn...why not, indeed.

 

An Englishman's journey in America

From Summer to September, finally...

Summer was fun, perpetual sun provided color to mio picollo giardino

But so thankful September's finally arrived. Flower becoming bashful, less boastful, quiet even as the basil still feeds.  Time for serious months to parade their way into my life, my mind can then respond and thrive in kind.

I must say, this Seattlelite can't handle such light, this Italian sun, wish it would feel shy, just a bit of shame, at least make me miss it for awhile.  Almost jarring, I crave cloud cover, I really do.

Channeling Dawn Powell, circa '54, she, typical new yorker transplant from mid west, went to Hollywood to pay off bills that brilliant novels couldn't, her diaries rarely complain, but she does about southern cal, says "this place really lifts you up and then throws you flat down, just like that"...

Could say the same about Italy, it's desire to be sunny, so often, then there's this rather large matter of the mountain, the 'rocketta', like a beast, dominant, looming, stubborn, intimidating, reminiscent of counter productive person.  Or so said a guest last night.

Well, must focuse insect like determination on the work at hand, in spite of it all....

transition time...

Riva's clearing out.  The elderly English exit by bus while the young German and Austrian family's pack their beemers and mercs and head back home...life is becoming quiet again, cycling along the lake it feels like its just me, c n g. 

Riva del Garda and nearby towns looks similar with red and pink accents everywhere, surrounded by volumes and volumes of deep green, buttressed beautifully against the mountains. 
 
Finally, the fireworks and music festivals no longer occupy our ears in the evening...the sun sets, our environs shift to bliss...by the time early morn arrives the mountains loom large, as if they'd like to enter the bedroom, surreal, like one dimensional cutouts, up close, immense yet so stagnate, the white bits become florescent, hypnotic....

Perpetual war for perpetual peace...

"Harry S. (for nothing) Truman created the National Security State,  institutionalized the Cold War, placed us on a permanent wartime footing and started that vast hemorrhage of debt which now is $4 trillion and growing by $1 billion each day." 

So said Gore Vidal circa '92, our biographer, our last gasp of consistent, comprehensive thought, the man who was at the crucible.

Obama; pure politician, illogical and cynical.

As a pacifist I find Obama's continuation of Bush's policies horrific, I find his 'perpetual war for perpetual peace' concept utter bullshit.  The world doesn't need a US military base in every corner of the planet, even if it protects the Royal Saudis, and allows Israel to dictate the discourse in the Middle East. 

Iceland, the IMF and all implications in between.

Whether you're libertarian, capitalist, socialist, communist or just curious, this article is kinda mindblowing. It highlights radical experiments in governance and why not?  Titled, "ICELAND, AFTER THE FALL", it discusses several issues; pyramid scheming bankers, huge Libertarian failure, the public skepticism of huge institutional behemoths like the IMF and EU, and whether of not the IMF is savior or satan...

Miss Caroline, the other half of the sky.

In what feels a previous life, for 5 years I sat on the Board for New Beginnings. Having never experienced domestic violence my learning curve was long but I learned allot and as many victims know, the facts are tragic.

Goin to the Chapel of Love...

Husband skids back in from Geneva via Venice, covering business and boat particulars and I suggest he take a hike. He replies, "not without you oh light of my life" so we took one together, high up the rocky mountain, the kind of trip you feel the next day, up to the charming little Chapel called Santa Barbara. 

 


Signed the visitors book, enjoying the environs, feeling calmly euphoric, the exercise of writing, hiking and just being at a Chapel named the same as my beloved Muv, whose birthday was just the day before, gave the entire day a way to feel extra special and well spent.  Riva del Garda is simply stunning.

It's a sad, sad, sad, sad world...

Israel and the neocons wish to manufacture another war. With what money, army, supported by whom, Russia, China, Germany?

Russia's delivering Uranium because of sanctions, sanctions agreed upon by all, albeit reluctantly. Iran's power plant will go live, finishing a decade long project. No secrets, all aspects known.  Sure they have oil but they need the plant.  Iran is a signatory of the NP, they have the right. 

Israel has lost the plot and America won't benefit by further manipulation, even Harvard divested all holdings in Israeli companies...

 

Research, facts, DUST, anyone?!!!

With no evidence against Iran, the MSM are simply stenographers, Balloon Juice has comments worth reading, perhaps...

Germany's earned their vaca...

While staying at a family flat near Verona, we see as many Germans as Italians, especially now; August is German surround sound. It's easy to spot them around Lake Garda, fully strapped in leather from head to foot while they motorcycling along the Dolomites, enjoying their Gelato while wearing black socks and uber shorts and sensible shoes, the only ones silly enough to rollerblade in Italy, randomly, running into everyone...sure the Germans are competent but when on vaca, they're oblivious, otherly. 

Dragon mythology, part deux.

Google computer and Western media report China outage, actual humans in China beg to differ/Xeni Jardin

Rebecca MacKinnon reports: "Numerous major American and European news outlets are reporting that Google is blocked in China, based on the information appearing on Google's Mainland China service availability page. However no journalist has actually confirmed with a human being at Google that this information is correct. What's more, I've heard from several dozen people all over China who say that Google isn't blocked for them when they access it on their Internet connections from Beijing to Shanghai to Sichuan to Hunan."

The Dragon's embrace and why the US should stop seeing Sigmund Freud.

Julian Assange talks war logs, crushing the bastards.

The Guardian is live blogging the release and Der Spiegel is one of 4 major outlets exposing the truth. Julian explains away why he believes people who wage war are more dangerous than him and why he likes to crush bastards. 

"This material shines light on the everyday brutality and squalor of war. The archive will change public opinion and it will change the opinion of people in positions of political and diplomatic influence."

Let's hope he's not expecting too much, just enough to stop one war...

Top Secret America: know fear, know infowar.

Another Caravaggio! The thought alone...

The artist who created light on canvas, the man who could paint blood and drama like no other, signing one of his masterpieces in blood...just the thought another Caravaggio could lay waiting to be discovered while roaming the unbelievably stagnate, historically gorgeous, luxurious environs of Roma is enough to make my day.

I had such joy searching for Sig. Caravaggio while living in the eternal city, masterpieces living within churches, behind forums, outside piazzas in public places, private abodes... Who cares whether it's true or not! The timing suspect, who cares! The thought alone, uttered by art historian Lydia Salviucci Insolera, "What is certain is that we're dealing with a stylistically impeccable, beautiful painting...Particularly notable is the light that leaps from the areas of darkness to reveal the surface volume in sudden flashes."

Iran Sanctions vs Common Sense

NYT: WASHINGTON — The Educational Testing Service has announced that it is temporarily suspending registration for its tests in Iran, including the popular Test of English as a Foreign Language, in what may be one of the first tangible effects of the new sanctions levied against the country by the international community.

Experts and Iranian expatriates were appalled, saying that if the sanctions prohibited Iranians from studying abroad, they would hurt precisely the kind of outward-looking young Iranians the West would like to help.