Monday, May 31, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
COLOR PALETTES
The foundation of the color analysis is based on 4 vital factors:
Hue -- the name of the color (blue, green, red, etc).
Intensity -- whether the shade appears clear or muted.
Temperature -- depending on the undertone of a color can be percieved as cool, warm or neutral.
Yellow-based colors are perceived as warm, blue-based colors are perceived as cool. Pure colors are neutral—that is neither cool nor warm.
Value -- a color can be described as light, medium-light, medium, medium-dark, dark.
My palette is light summer, which is: the most delicate and understated of all the seasons. Summer is the serenity palette, so you should always avoid harsh contrasts by keeping the entire look calm and in complete harmony.
1. Light Summer
Eyes: Blue or green.Hair: Light to medium ash blonde or light ash brown.
Skin: Pale neutral beige or soft beige. Pink-toned.
Best colors for Light Summers:
Monday, May 3, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
IN LA
YESTERDAY I WAS WITH MY BROTHER DISCUSSING MEETING OUR DAD FOR DINNER AND WE SPENT WAY TOO LONG BRAINSTORMING DIFFERENT COMBINATIONS OF HIGHWAYS WITHIN IN DIFFERENT TIME FRAMES. 15 MINUTE DISTANCES CAN BECOME 2 HOUR DISTANCES AND THE HIGHWAY STREAMS ARE LIKE A PINBALL MACHINE, OR PERHAPS AN IKEA.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
OF WHOM WE ARE ALL HAUNTED
Thursday, February 25, 2010
CLEAN COAL
i thought liberals all saw 'an inconvenient truth' and listened to al gore, who noted that clean coal is like a healthy cigarette??!?!? how quickly the memory/critical thinking errodes!
Funny Commentary
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The Truth Deficit
Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals:
“As its power increases, a community ceases to take the individual’s transgressions so seriously, because they can no longer be considered as dangerous and destructive to the whole as they were formerly: the malefactor is no longer ’set beyond the pale of peace’ and thrust out; universal anger may not be vented upon him as unrestrainedly as before — on the contrary, the whole from now on carefully defends the malefactor against this anger, especially that of those he has directly harmed, and takes him under its protection. A compromise with the anger of those directly injured by the criminal; an effort to localize the affair and to prevent it from causing any further, let alone a general, disturbance; attempts to discover equivalents and to settle the whole matter (compositio); above all, the increasingly definite will to treat every crime as in some sense dischargeable, and thus at least to a certain extent to isolate the criminal and his deed from one another — these traits become more and more clearly visible as the penal law evolves. As the power and self-confidence of the community increase, the penal law always becomes more moderate; every weakening or imperiling of the former brings with it a restoration of the harsher forms of the latter. The ‘creditor’ always becomes more humane to the extent that he has grown richer; finally, how much injury can he endure without suffering from it becomes the actual measure of his wealth. It is not unthinkable that a society might attain such a consciousness of power that it could allow itself the noblest luxury possible to it — letting those who harm it go unpunished. ‘What are my parasites to me?’ it might say. ‘May they live and prosper: I am strong enough for that!’
Thursday, January 28, 2010
The Ideology of Post-Ideology
"It's time for something new. Let's try common sense."
Obama during his meeting with House Republicans, 1/30/2010
"...Mr. Obama’s coolness, even his seeming detachment, became a political virtue. The corollary to that belief is that he won because he was the anti-ideologue after eight years of an intensely ideological presidency."
New York Times, “Where Clinton Turned Right, Obama Plowed Ahead”
Every speech by President Obama begins with a discussion of great perils followed by pleas for post-partisan unity and an assurance of a saving power in the resiliency of Americans. Obama’s State of the Union Address tirelessly emphasized utilizing collaboration and post-partisan expert knowledge to fix our nation’s crises. This message also resounded in Obama's open discussion with House Republicans. Republicans repeatedly raised ambiguous cost-free governmental solutions to both the economy and health care. Though it was of some encouragement that a U.S. president could honor a series of baseless questions with articulate responses, Obama's invocation of the so-called 'neutral' and 'practical knowledge of experts' was deeply problematic.
Obama was rightly critical of the ineffectual proposals by Republicans for health care and the economy. The stubborn commitment to minimal government interference is an absurd position in the contexts of a severe economic crisis and corrupt health care system. While Obama ostensibly recognizes the need for a strong government, he falls short of offering solutions when he refers (or perhaps defers) to notions such as 'what works’ and ‘common sense.’ The current national crises necessitate an interrogation not just of ‘what works,’ but also of the measures and principles used for diagnosing a ‘healthy’ market and for determining a cost effective guarantee of health care.
The idea that we can all agree upon what works in isolation of any ideology is a myth steeped in neoliberal economics and imperialism. It is common parlance in the media and popular discourse to characterize ideology as a negative attribute associated with various forms of ‘extremism’ that plague our lovely democratic world. The eight-year reign of Bush is constantly portrayed as an era of ideology and ideologues, such as Paul Wolfowitz. Paul Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Bush had arguably detestable world-views premised on an aggressive notion of the United States as the world’s sovereign power. While their ideology was deeply flawed, it is not the case that ideology itself was the cause. Ideology is merely the set of principles used to interpret the world. Pretending to operate outside, beyond, or above ideology is arguably ideology's most pernicious form.
The pretension to post-ideology is a particularly juridical concept, so it is not a surprise that Obama would latch on to it. The concept of a law or power that operates without any force, as if directly transcribed from ‘nature’ or ‘God,’ is problematic on numerous levels. This idea is a type of theology that has no way of constituting itself or allowing for alteration. In legal theory, there is an ongoing debate over functions of negative and positive liberty. Negative liberty is the freedom from infringement upon one’s rights, whereas positive liberty is the freedom to a set of rights. There is a strong fear of positive liberty in advanced capitalist nations, particularly as it is seen as potentially tyrannical form of justice conducive to dictatorial policies. This fear is echoed in allegations that Justice Sotomayor is an activist judge, and her ultimate assurance to the public that the function of justice is not to make laws, but to enforce them. A social context of slavery, segregation, and the informal segregation of today, with banks red lining neighborhoods (such that whiteness has become synonymous with property upkeep) necessitates an appeal to positive liberty.
Historically, the ideology of 'post-ideology' is deeply entangled in an imperialism, which (mis)translates things like ‘U.S. interests’ as universal rights and world peace. It is an ideology which rationalizes the United States’s wars in the Middle East as merely peacekeeping missions. A close look at the actual promises Obama made in his State of the Union Address furnishes the following: tax cuts, earmark reform, (an eventual) spending freeze, off-shore drilling, and the notorious oxymoron ‘clean coal.’ These measures reflect not a pragmatic transcendence of ideology, but rather an affirmation of center-left neoliberalism. Aligning these policies with post-ideology, as if politics were an a-historical science, reduces political discourse to shallow buzzwords. The capacity for genuine debate in this context is diminished and overtaken by un-analyzed fictions of nature and common sense. This has the effect of obscuring the actual policies that constitute a given political position. Making one’s ideology visible is the only way for one’s position to be understood in context and for the reader or listener to be trusted as an active participant in the debate.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
The Attacks South Philadelphia High School: A Plea for School and Social Reform
The Nostalgia of Holiday Gifting
Saturday, November 21, 2009
David Lowenthal "Past Time, Present Place: Landscape and Memory"
Sunday, November 15, 2009
who's coming ???
For many families in the province of Québec, sugar time is like an annual pilgrimage. It is a time to revisit the foundations of our heritage and its values, to meet with family and friends eating, singing and dancing to songs and music transmitted from generation to generation. In a way it is a return to our roots reminding us of who we are and what we have been through. It is a cheerful period when on a Sunday afternoon you forget your troubles, appointments, deal signings and phone messages to return.