from the 19th Peoples’ Art Show at CSU – foto by Smith

Here are some shots of art hanging at two of last night’s openings at CSU’s the 19th Peoples’ Art Show (in which Lady and I each have a piece) and the Wall Eye Gallery’s Skulls & Revolution show inspired by the peoples’ protests going on in Mexico.

This will be a final pleasant respite before I blog my collected political headlines from the past ten months over the next three days in anticipatory fear of this Tuesday’s election when the fundamentalist flat-earth Christians and the Tea Party anti-democracy thugs win three to five congressional seats (plus who knows how many seats lost to the Corporate house slaves known as Republicans) and begin to destroy even more of what little democracy we have left in this country. But now that I think on it, this is a good thing — our system is beyond broken, little more than a three-card Monte pyramid scheme crap shoot orchestrated by the corporations to fleece the world’s sheep, and the sooner the rich are seen as obviously in control of everything and destroy even more of our world and lives with their greed and thoughtless selfishness, the sooner moral, decent, intelligent folk will rise up against them and try to take back our planet and governmental systems — or what little’s left of them.

The foto of Christ with my face was taken by poet photographer ceramicist friend Jim Lang.

For potential prudes and censors, that is an actual plant root over the man’s groin, not genitalia (of course the question is moot considering the phallic two-guys-on-either-side-of-a-mirror bronze sculpture.

(Some folk are wondering if I’m trying to get kicked off MySpace by showing edgy art fotos – no I’m not, I’m just trying to remain true to my artistic ideals; but if I were to be banished from MySpace, it certainly wouldn’t be much of a loss for me — but in case they do deep-six me, come on over to Lady K’s and my main blog at WalkingThinIce.com which has 2,034 posts from June of 2006 posted in 10 countries on three continents, with around 5,000 fotos as well).

I apologize for not getting the artists’ names of these pieces — it is not right to post an artist’s work without crediting them, but my brain was slower than my ethical compass last night because the night went so fast with so much art and so many artists. . . you couldn’t spit without splattering some serious talent.

shots from 19th Peoples’ Art Show at CSU – fotos by Smith (except for the one Jim Lang)

shots from Skulls & Revolution at Wall Eye gallery – fotos by Smith

The City Record - foto by Smith

While unsuccessfully looking through the June 9 issue of The City Record Official Publication of the Council of the City of Cleveland for something to cut out for use in a collage, I discovered what I’d construe to be a bit of flim-flam two-step soft-shoe skullduggery: every single item discussed or approved by council was handled either as an “emergency ordinance” or an “emergency resolution.’

I believe (but do not know) this is because there are different rules involved when voting on emergency measures, since by definition “emergency” implies a lack of deliberating time. I suspect emergency rules allow for faster voting, fewer words, and less transparency — but that could be just the inner political cynic that life has turned me into talking.

There seem to be a lot of emergencies — we’re talking 37 large pages with three columns per page of small print in this report of at least 150 emergency measures. Since this is a weekly report, it means we’re talking 21 emergencies every day of every week. I knew city life was fraught with peril, but really.

But City Council only meets once a week, except during the summer when they meet but once a month. That means during their once a week sessions they have to process 150 items; and during their once a month meetings they have to get through 600 to 750 items. I don’t see time for a lot of discussion or analysis or depth involved here; perhaps that is where the ‘emergencies’ arise.

Curious, I checked these emergencies out – most deal with buying stuff and paying people off and giving the rich and corporations more of our tax money, while the remainder deal with such mundane emergencies as issuing a “permit to the Lion of Judah Church to stretch a banner on Lexington Avenue between East 70th & East 66th Street for the period from June 18, 2010 to July 18, 2010, inclusive, publicizing “Focus on the Family” and other kiss the babies and support our troops politicizing.

The financial emergency ordinances have some odd language in them, like the first one they took up — “An emergency ordinance authorizing the purchase by one or more requirement contracts of Microsoft licenses for the various divisions of City government, for a period up to three years, with three one-year options to renew, the first and third of which are exercised through additional legislative authority.” Hmmmm, they have to vote later on the 1st and 3rd renewal, but not the 2nd? Why would they stipulate skipping the second year?

Do people really talk and think in words like these? If they do, maybe that’s what’s wrong with the system, we’re letting the dunderhead obsessives run our city with their thick fingers, obfuscating wordings, and hive mind.

low rates no loitering – foto by Smith