Currently at hofstra university in upstate new york (or maybe staten island?) trying to sneak into the live debate between mccain and obama. secret service agents everywhere, lots of motorcades and shitty internet access. Everyone’s calls are getting dropped.
I have no idea why I came here. The debates embody nearly everything I detest about politics, the meaningless soundbites, the trivial format that prevents any solid exposition of issues, the savagely inept media talking head moderators who let even the most blatant of lies slip through. I wouldn’t watch this on television but for some reason decided it would be worth it to see a bullshit trumpeting competition live. Let me also add that there is a triumphant bannerism suffused into every interaction. Indeed, the candidate who’s supporters wave the largest placard is ideologically superior!! sigh, this is a massive step back from even the bumpersticker politics which I so deplore.

However, I am seriously considering a sweet moment of media reform activism by slashing the tires on a poorly attended cnn media RV control center. if there’s no blogging for a few days, it’s because I’ve been arrested.

we only use 10% of our brains gets slapped.

:: via Dues ex Machine ::

This is from an okay article in salon (a surprisingly common occurence), I think it would be easier to just let the empire subside. I am at least reasonably happy that waterboarding is no longer considered reasonable. Long time readers of voodoo knickers will recall that I’ve been railing against that and strappado for years. although not like i can really claim “i told you so” props for hating on torture techniques….

I discovered Domestic Tension, a performance art piece about the psychology of violence, this morning. The artist, Wafaa Bilal, is spending a month living in a room in an art gallery that has a webcam mounted on a servo that users can control on the project’s website. The camera has a paintball gun attached to it that users can choose to shoot at their leisure. The artist has been shot tens of thousands of times and has sat, through it all, chatting with the users on his website as they decide whether to let the bullets fly. The psychology of it is fucked up. I couldn’t help cursing like crazy at an individual screaming in the chatroom about nuking baghdad and “push button wars” that kept trying to zero in for a shot. I ended up moving the camera to a far wall and emptying out some ammunition, harmlessly, against it to give Bilal a few more minutes of peace. I felt victorious, until my arch-nemesis in the chat began rambling about Dahmer and the Oklahoma city bomber loving to eat meat the color of Bilal. What the fuck is wrong with (some) people!

The artist, incidentally, eats only food given to him as a gift. I might have to send him some spirulina to help him heal after all those paintball hits.

Check it out: Domestic Tension