Speed of Life

photo by Lance Cpl. Brandon L.Roach USMC The Medical Consequences Of The Iraq War: Health Challenges Beyond The Battlefield A Symposium To Present The Issues Behind the Headlines WHAT: Physicians for Social Responsibility, along with UCLA Extension and UCLA, School of Public Health, will hold a one-day symposium on the medical consequences of the war in Iraq. WHY: Health effects of the war have been grossly underreported. According to public health studies, three years of war has resulted in the deaths of over 200,000 Iraqi civilians. To date, 2,685 American soldiers have been killed with 19,945 soldiers wounded. US and Iraqi war soldiers are being diagnosed with mental disease in shockingly high numbers – portending an avalanche in veteran mental health needs in the coming years. Ten authoritative physicians and social scientists will present their findings and testimonies, including: Dahlia Wasfi, MD The War ...

From September 27th to October 1st at the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, the newly returned paintings "The Scream" and "Madonna" will be exhibited before restoration. Both paintings will be laid out flat in glass display cases like aenesthesized patients bearing scars from their saga of theft and return. More at: Munch Museum

Tai, a 38 year old Indian elephant gets painted for Banksy's exhibition in Los Angeles (Photo by Marissa Roth for The New York Times) Banksy, the mischievous, witty and at times sophomoric intervention artist, has picked a thirty-eight year old Indian elephant named Tai to intervene upon. At his current and very brief Los Angeles exhibition, it opened on Thursday and closes on Sunday, Banksy has created a literal depiction of the metaphor – “There is an elephant in the room and nobody talks about it.” It seems that moving from public spaces to private elephants has created a justified uproar in Los Angeles: "I think it sends a very wrong message that abusing animals is not only OK, it's an art form," said Ed Boks, general manager of Los Angeles Animal Services, to the Los Angeles Times. "We find it no longer acceptable to dye baby chicks at Easter, but it's OK to dye an elephant?" It seems only fitting that the anonymous Banksy out his identity in a ti...

My current paintings are filtered through my experience of September 11th, 2001. I was visiting my family in Thailand and had spent the morning in Chiang Mai following the saffron robed monks on their small morning pilgrimages. I hopped a flight for Bangkok and while waiting for a connecting flight to San Francisco I watched in horror as the planes hit the World Trade Center. On my return to the U.S. later that week I began to paint Buddhist monks, privately at first - as a form of meditation. Only later did I grasp the dharmic sense of responsibility inherit in this new body of work. I needed to paint these paintings. And I found that the audience I had developed over the years felt the need to see them also. They have given me their trust that I will create paintings that speak of our times but also provide clues to a future path away from the darkness. More from: Edward Winkleman Franklin Einspruch Moby and NY'ers tell GW to go home

Gregg Chadwick Screen Memories (Fin de Cinema) 60"x60" oil on linen 2002 A new poem by Kent Chadwick about the experience of leaving a theater after watching a film: Exiting the dream, the dark left behind, done sipping our coke, done suckling on the Big Nipple of Hollywood, christened so by Bertolucci at the Oscars, the credits rolling as the lights come up, stumbling from our shared, climactic dream, fantasy experienced in common, back to the foyer of reality, the cacophony of unscripted sound, shock of daylight after the matinee, the third act’s satisfaction rippling within us, but lessening so quickly that we try to prolong it conversing: What have we learned? What truth? What lies? We learn lies too: pseudo-ideas that bond with what we think we know but catalyze wrong conclusions. The lies in question here are facts refined beyond reality, simplified so as to produce more powerful pure emotion (while complexity fosters more nuanced and reflective thought). The troika of...