Ghosts of DC: McCain and the Absence of Memory

Execution Day: July 7, 1865
The four condemned Lincoln assassination conspirators (Mrs. Surratt, Payne, Herold, Atzerodt) with officers and others on the scaffold at Fort McNair. July 7, 1865

The Republican candidate for President, John McCain, and his Vice Presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, have run a campaign of bluster, neglect, and obfuscation. In a sense, the two are taking a political party forged in the conflicts of a civil war and in their actions are conspiring to erase its memory as a party of liberty and justice. It is fitting that Rolling Stone magazine has just published an article, Make-Believe Maverick, that finds a post-Vietnam McCain attempting to find his way at Fort McNair in Washington DC. For it was here that condemned Lincoln assassination conspirators were hung on the scaffold on July 7, 1865.

Make-Believe Maverick
A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty
By Tim Dickinson
From Rolling Stone:

At Fort McNair, an army base located along the Potomac River in the nation's capital, a chance reunion takes place one day between two former POWs. It's the spring of 1974, and Navy commander John Sidney McCain III has returned home from the experience in Hanoi that, according to legend, transformed him from a callow and reckless youth into a serious man of patriotism and purpose. Walking along the grounds at Fort McNair, McCain runs into John Dramesi, an Air Force lieutenant colonel who was also imprisoned and tortured in Vietnam.

McCain is studying at the National War College, a prestigious graduate program he had to pull strings with the Secretary of the Navy to get into. Dramesi is enrolled, on his own merit, at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in the building next door.

There's a distance between the two men that belies their shared experience in North Vietnam — call it an honor gap. Like many American POWs, McCain broke down under torture and offered a "confession" to his North Vietnamese captors. Dramesi, in contrast, attempted two daring escapes. For the second he was brutalized for a month with daily torture sessions that nearly killed him. His partner in the escape, Lt. Col. Ed Atterberry, didn't survive the mistreatment. But Dramesi never said a disloyal word, and for his heroism was awarded two Air Force Crosses, one of the service's highest distinctions. McCain would later hail him as "one of the toughest guys I've ever met."

On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the scion of four-star admirals and the son of a prizefighter turns to their academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the globe.

"I'm going to the Middle East," Dramesi says. "Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran."

"Why are you going to the Middle East?" McCain asks, dismissively.

"It's a place we're probably going to have some problems," Dramesi says.

"Why? Where are you going to, John?"

"Oh, I'm going to Rio."

"What the hell are you going to Rio for?"

McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.

"I got a better chance of getting laid."

Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. "McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man," Dramesi says today. "But he's still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in."

Full article continues at: Make-Believe Maverick

"We want Our America Back": Springsteen's Impassioned Speech for Change

Full text below of Bruce Springsteen's impassioned speech in support of Obama:

"Hello Philly,

"I am glad to be here today for this voter registration drive and for Barack Obama, the next President of the United States.

"I've spent 35 years writing about America, its people, and the meaning of the American Promise. The Promise that was handed down to us, right here in this city from our founding fathers, with one instruction: Do your best to make these things real. Opportunity, equality, social and economic justice, a fair shake for all of our citizens, the American idea, as a positive influence, around the world for a more just and peaceful existence. These are the things that give our lives hope, shape, and meaning. They are the ties that bind us together and give us faith in our contract with one another.

"I've spent most of my creative life measuring the distance between that American promise and American reality. For many Americans, who are today losing their jobs, their homes, seeing their retirement funds disappear, who have no healthcare, or who have been abandoned in our inner cities. The distance between that promise and that reality has never been greater or more painful.

"I believe Senator Obama has taken the measure of that distance in his own life and in his work. I believe he understands, in his heart, the cost of that distance, in blood and suffering, in the lives of everyday Americans. I believe as president, he would work to restore that promise to so many of our fellow citizens who have justifiably lost faith in its meaning. After the disastrous administration of the past 8 years, we need someone to lead us in an American reclamation project. In my job, I travel the world, and occasionally play big stadiums, just like Senator Obama. I've continued to find, wherever I go, America remains a repository of people's hopes, possibilities, and desires, and that despite the terrible erosion to our standing around the world, accomplished by our recent administration, we remain, for many, a house of dreams. One thousand George Bushes and one thousand Dick Cheneys will never be able to tear that house down.

"They will, however, be leaving office, dropping the national tragedies of Katrina, Iraq, and our financial crisis in our laps. Our sacred house of dreams has been abused, looted, and left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs care; it needs saving, it needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power or a quick buck. It needs strong arms, hearts, and minds. It needs someone with Senator Obama's understanding, temperateness, deliberativeness, maturity, compassion, toughness, and faith, to help us rebuild our house once again. But most importantly, it needs us. You and me. To build that house with the generosity that is at the heart of the American spirit. A house that is truer and big enough to contain the hopes and dreams of all of our fellow citizens. That is where our future lies. We will rise or fall as a people by our ability to accomplish this task. Now I don't know about you, but I want that dream back, I want my America back, I want my country back.

"So now is the time to stand with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, roll up our sleeves, and come on up for the rising."

-Bruce Springsteen, October 4, 2008, Vote for Change Rally, Philadelphia
(official transcript from brucespringsteen.net)

The VP Debate from Saturday Night Live

"I believe marriage is meant to be a sacred institution between two unwilling teenagers."
-Sarah Palin (as played by Tina Fey)

"These are the times that bind us together." Springsteen for Obama in Philly

Palin Does Not Care About Rape Victims

Palin is anti-choice for victims of rape and incest.
What if this was your daughter, granddaughter or sister?

The New Yorker Endorses Obama

In 4,214 words the editors at The New Yorker have endorsed Obama for President. The endorsement itself is not surprising but I am heartened by the ferociousness with which they go after Bush ("the Presidency of George W. Bush is the worst since Reconstruction"), McCain ("John McCain, played the part of a vaudeville illusionist, asking to be regarded as an apostle of change after years of embracing the essentials of the Bush agenda with ever-increasing ardor"), and Palin ("Palin has no business being the backup to a President of any age, much less to one who is seventy-two and in imperfect health. In choosing her, McCain committed an act of breathtaking heedlessness and irresponsibility").

In a piece entitled The Choice the editors begin,

"Never in living memory has an election been more critical than the one fast approaching—that’s the quadrennial cliché, as expected as the balloons and the bombast. And yet when has it ever felt so urgently true? When have so many Americans had so clear a sense that a Presidency has—at the levels of competence, vision, and integrity—undermined the country and its ideals?"

The editorial continues with a list of Bush and the Republican's failed economic policies:

"The Republican disaster begins at home. Even before taking into account whatever fantastically expensive plan eventually emerges to help rescue the financial system from Wall Street’s long-running pyramid schemes, the economic and fiscal picture is bleak. During the Bush Administration, the national debt, now approaching ten trillion dollars, has nearly doubled. Next year’s federal budget is projected to run a half-trillion-dollar deficit, a precipitous fall from the seven-hundred-billion-dollar surplus that was projected when Bill Clinton left office. Private-sector job creation has been a sixth of what it was under President Clinton. Five million people have fallen into poverty. The number of Americans without health insurance has grown by seven million, while average premiums have nearly doubled. Meanwhile, the principal domestic achievement of the Bush Administration has been to shift the relative burden of taxation from the rich to the rest. For the top one per cent of us, the Bush tax cuts are worth, on average, about a thousand dollars a week; for the bottom fifth, about a dollar and a half. The unfairness will only increase if the painful, yet necessary, effort to rescue the credit markets ends up preventing the rescue of our health-care system, our environment, and our physical, educational, and industrial infrastructure."

And of course there is the debacle of the pointless war in Iraq:

"there is no longer the slightest doubt that the Bush Administration manipulated, bullied, and lied the American public into this war and then mismanaged its prosecution in nearly every aspect. The direct costs, besides an expenditure of more than six hundred billion dollars, have included the loss of more than four thousand Americans, the wounding of thirty thousand, the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and the displacement of four and a half million men, women, and children. Only now, after American forces have been fighting for a year longer than they did in the Second World War, is there a glimmer of hope that the conflict in Iraq has entered a stage of fragile stability."

The editors continue:

"The torture of prisoners, authorized at the highest level, has been an ethical and a public-diplomacy catastrophe."

The editors are severely disappointed in McCain:

"Since the 2004 election, however, McCain has moved remorselessly rightward in his quest for the Republican nomination. He paid obeisance to Jerry Falwell and preachers of his ilk. He abandoned immigration reform, eventually coming out against his own bill. Most shocking, McCain, who had repeatedly denounced torture under all circumstances, voted in February against a ban on the very techniques of “enhanced interrogation” that he himself once endured in Vietnam—as long as the torturers were civilians employed by the C.I.A." "McCain, who has never evinced much interest in, or knowledge of, economic questions, has had little of substance to say about the crisis. His most notable gesture of concern—a melodramatic call last month to suspend his campaign and postpone the first Presidential debate until the government bailout plan was ready—soon revealed itself as an empty diversionary tactic."

The editors find much to approve of in Obama's intelligence, gravitas, ideas and leadership:

"By contrast, Obama has made a serious study of the mechanics and the history of this economic disaster and of the possibilities of stimulating a recovery. Last March, in New York, in a speech notable for its depth, balance, and foresight, he said, 'A complete disdain for pay-as-you-go budgeting, coupled with a generally scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement, allowed far too many to put short-term gain ahead of long-term consequences.' Obama is committed to reforms that value not only the restoration of stability but also the protection of the vast majority of the population, which did not partake of the fruits of the binge years. He has called for greater and more programmatic regulation of the financial system; the creation of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank, which would help reverse the decay of our roads, bridges, and mass-transit systems, and create millions of jobs; and a major investment in the green-energy sector."

Obama's "proposals represent the most coherent and far-sighted strategy ever offered by a Presidential candidate for reducing the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels.There was once reason to hope that McCain and Obama would have a sensible debate about energy and climate policy. McCain was one of the first Republicans in the Senate to support federal limits on carbon dioxide, and he has touted his own support for a less ambitious cap-and-trade program as evidence of his independence from the White House. But, as polls showed Americans growing jittery about gasoline prices, McCain apparently found it expedient in this area, too, to shift course. He took a dubious idea—lifting the federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling—and placed it at the very center of his campaign. Opening up America’s coastal waters to drilling would have no impact on gasoline prices in the short term, and, even over the long term, the effect, according to a recent analysis by the Department of Energy, would be “insignificant.” Such inconvenient facts, however, are waved away by a campaign that finally found its voice with the slogan “Drill, baby, drill!”

And the New Yorker provides a dire analysis of the Supreme Court's future if McCain were to win:

"The contrast between the candidates is even sharper with respect to the third branch of government. A tense equipoise currently prevails among the Justices of the Supreme Court, where four hard-core conservatives face off against four moderate liberals. Anthony M. Kennedy is the swing vote, determining the outcome of case after case.
McCain cites Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, two reliable conservatives, as models for his own prospective appointments. If McCain means what he says, and if he replaces even one moderate on the current Supreme Court, then Roe v. Wade will be reversed, and states will again be allowed to impose absolute bans on abortion. McCain’s views have hardened on this issue. In 1999, he said he opposed overturning Roe; by 2006, he was saying that its demise “wouldn’t bother me any”; by 2008, he no longer supported adding rape and incest as exceptions to his party’s platform opposing abortion."

The warning grows fiercer:

" Given the ideological agenda that the existing conservative bloc has pursued, it’s safe to predict that affirmative action of all kinds would likely be outlawed by a McCain Court. Efforts to expand executive power, which, in recent years, certain Justices have nobly tried to resist, would likely increase. Barriers between church and state would fall; executions would soar; legal checks on corporate power would wither."

"Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, voted against confirming not only Roberts and Alito but also several unqualified lower-court nominees. As an Illinois state senator, he won the support of prosecutors and police organizations for new protections against convicting the innocent in capital cases. While McCain voted to continue to deny habeas-corpus rights to detainees, perpetuating the Bush Administration’s regime of state-sponsored extra-legal detention, Obama took the opposite side, pushing to restore the right of all U.S.-held prisoners to a hearing. The judicial future would be safe in his care."

What of the future?:

"The years ahead will demand not only determination but also diplomacy, flexibility, patience, judiciousness, and intellectual engagement. These are no more McCain’s strong suit than the current President’s. Obama, for his part, seems to know that more will be required than willpower and force to extract some advantage from the wreckage of the Bush years."

And McCain's character?:

"Echoing Obama, McCain has made “change” one of his campaign mantras. But the change he has actually provided has been in himself, and it is not just a matter of altering his positions. A willingness to pander and even lie has come to define his Presidential campaign and its televised advertisements. A contemptuous duplicity, a meanness, has entered his talk on the stump McCain "is impulsive, impatient, self-dramatizing, erratic, and a compulsive risk-taker. These qualities may have contributed to his usefulness as a “maverick” senator. But in a President they would be a menace."

Obama's character:

"By contrast, Obama’s transformative message is accompanied by a sense of pragmatic calm ... Yet it is Obama’s temperament—and not McCain’s—that seems appropriate for the office both men seek and for the volatile and dangerous era in which we live. Those who dismiss his centeredness as self-centeredness or his composure as indifference are as wrong as those who mistook Eisenhower’s stolidity for denseness or Lincoln’s humor for lack of seriousness."

Obama's literary merit:

"Almost every politician who thinks about running for President arranges to become an author. Obama’s books are different: he wrote them. “The Audacity of Hope” (2006) is a set of policy disquisitions loosely structured around an account of his freshman year in the United States Senate. Though a campaign manifesto of sorts, it is superior to that genre’s usual blowsy pastiche of ghostwritten speeches. But it is Obama’s first book, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” (1995), that offers an unprecedented glimpse into the mind and heart of a potential President. Obama began writing it in his early thirties, before he was a candidate for anything. Not since Theodore Roosevelt has an American politician this close to the pinnacle of power produced such a sustained, highly personal work of literary merit before being definitively swept up by the tides of political ambition."

"A Presidential election is not the awarding of a Pulitzer Prize: we elect a politician and, we hope, a statesman, not an author. But Obama’s first book is valuable in the way that it reveals his fundamental attitudes of mind and spirit. “Dreams from My Father” is an illuminating memoir not only in the substance of Obama’s own peculiarly American story but also in the qualities he brings to the telling: a formidable intelligence, emotional empathy, self-reflection, balance, and a remarkable ability to see life and the world through the eyes of people very different from himself. In common with nearly all other senators and governors of his generation, Obama does not count military service as part of his biography. But his life has been full of tests—personal, spiritual, racial, political—that bear on his preparation for great responsibility."

Obama's eloquence:

" Although his opponents have tried to attack him as a man of “mere” words, Obama has returned eloquence to its essential place in American politics. The choice between experience and eloquence is a false one––something that Lincoln, out of office after a single term in Congress, proved in his own campaign of political and national renewal. Obama’s “mere” speeches on everything from the economy and foreign affairs to race have been at the center of his campaign and its success; if he wins, his eloquence will be central to his ability to govern."

A President for the 21st Century:

"The election of Obama—a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of twenty-first-century America—would, at a stroke, reverse our country’s image abroad and refresh its spirit at home. His ascendance to the Presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting-rights acts of the nineteen-sixties and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks. At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama."

Complete editorial at: The New Yorker Chooses Obama

You Are Invited

At the Santa Monica Art Studios
Studio #15
3026 Airport Avenue
Santa Monica, California 90405

As well as the new work there will also be a selection of out takes, rarities, B-sides and covers for purchase.

Gregg Chadwick's Homepage
cell 415 533 1165
greggchadwick@earthlink.net

Gregg Chadwick
American Rain (Thunderhead) 48”x36” oil on linen 2008

October 4th in Philly ~ October 5th in Ohio ~ October 6th in Michigan: Springsteen Live for Obama

“Obama speaks to the America I’ve envisioned in my music…a country that’s interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit.”
- Bruce Springsteen

CHANGE ROCKS
A Very Special Acoustic Appearance By
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Saturday October 4th, 2008
Benjamin Franklin Parkway between 20th and 22nd Streets
Philadelphia, PA

Gates open: 2:00 p.m.
Program starts: 3:30 p.m.

CHANGE ROCKS

Also: Bruce is scheduled to play for free in Ohio on Sunday, October 5th.
Springsteen will appear in the Main Oval at Ohio State University. Tickets for the 4:30 p.m. performance are free and can be picked up starting tomorrow at Obama campaign offices in central Ohio. The list of those offices will be available later today on the campaign's Ohio website:
Ohio for Obama

And More:
Springsteen will play a free acoustic set at Oestrike Stadium at Eastern Michigan University on Monday, October 6th.
Gates are expected to open at 3 p.m. and the program is expected to begin at 4:30 p.m.
On the final day to register to vote in Michigan, Bruce Springsteen will hold a rally in Ypsilanti in support of Barack Obama. Springsteen will perform an acoustic set and urge those in attendance to get involved in this historic election.

“Senator Obama is a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen and is honored to have his support. This will be a great opportunity to gather thousands of our supporters together in one place as we cap off our voter registration drive and bring new voters and volunteers into this campaign for change,” said Brent Colburn, Michigan spokesman for the Obama-Biden campaign.

Gates open at 3:00 pm and the program will begin at 4:30 pm.
Check back for details at:
Michigan for Obama

Palin's Worldview Out Her Window

New Yorker Cover, October 6, 2008

Stockton Record Endorses Obama: First Democrat in 72 Years

"Obama can inspire, and our nation desperately needs an inspirational leader. And he does not carry the deep scars of Vietnam, as do many of McCain's generation.

He offers hope. A new way of doing business. And a belief that our system of government can be made to work.

He's the clear choice."
-The Stockton Record

For the first time in 72 years, the Stockton Record has endorsed a Democratic Candidate for President. Not since Franklin Delano Roosevelt's second term, right after John McCain was born, has the Stockton Record endorsed a Democrat. Until now. And it was a unanimous decision by the editorial board.

Choice is clear: Obama for president

Uncommitted Voters: Obama Won the Debate

Uncommitted voters: Obama won the debate

American Rain

Gregg Chadwick
American Rain (Thunderhead)
48"x36" oil on linen 2008

Chris Rock: "It's simple, vote for the guy with one house."

Chris Rock interviewed on the Presidential Election by Larry King-

Chris Rock: " I think Obama would be great. I mean, just look the big thing right now is the economy. And people are going broke. And here: The choice isn't Republican or Democrat. The choice is you got a guy that's worth $150 million with 12 houses against a guy who's worth a million dollars with one house."

Larry King: "Well --"

Chris Rock: "The guy with one house really cares about losing a house, because he is homeless. The other guy can lose five houses and still got a bunch of houses. Does this make any sense? Am I the only one that sees this?"

Larry King: "It's unique way of ..."

Chris Rock: "I'm just saying, John McCain could lose half his houses ..."

Larry King: "You got a point."

Chris Rock:" - And sleep well."

~

Chris Rock: " You know, I hope Obama wins just because, you know, the country needs it. The country needs a change. We kind of seen what this whole McCain thing is. And I'll go with the guy with one house. The guy with one house is scared about losing his house."

Larry King: "I never thought of it that way."

Chris Rock: "It is that simple."

Full interview at:
Vote for the guy with one house

La Cucina At The La Femme Film Festival

Update: December 11, 2009 - La Cucina on Showtime and available on Blu-Ray and Dvd
Details at: Art and Film

The film La Cucina is gathering praise and awards as it makes its way along the film festival circuit. La Cucina won Best Picture at the Beloit International Film Festival and the Backlot Film Festival. We are fortunate to be able to catch the film in Beverly Hills on Sunday, October 19th at noon. A number of my paintings were used in the film to provide silent visual insights into the character's lives and actions. The cinematography by Alan Caudillo is simply stunning. The film is rich in color and light and presence. Each shot is composed as if it were a painting.

On a sidenote: Alan Caudillo has been busy. He was the cinematographer and associate producer on the upcoming comedy, Waiting for Ophelia, which stars Yeardley Smith who is known for her work as the voice of Lisa Simpson on the Simpsons.
Alan was also the cinematographer on Henry Jaglom's, Hollywood Dreams, which is now available on iTunes. I am providing a link to Alan Caudillo's film reel so you can catch a glimpse of his artistry:
Alan Caudillo's Film Reel
And check out Alan's blog: The Caudillo Blog





Joaquim de Almeida Christina Hendricks


Rachel Hunter Leisha Hailey


La Femme Film Festival Screening: Sunday, October 19th -12noon

Location/Parking: Fine Arts Theater 8556 Wilshire Blvd. Beverly Hills, CA 90211
(310) 360-0455 The Theater is Just West of La Cienega on Wilshire. Street Parking is available and there are lots in the surrounding office buildings with available parking.

Tickets: Tickets are available at the door.

For More About The La Femme Film Festival Visit www.lafemme.org


Christina Hendricks (Mad Men), Joaquim de Almeida (Clear and Present Danger), Leisha Hailey (The ‘L’ Word), Rachel Hunter (Rodeo Girl), Oz Perkins (Legally Blonde), Clare Carey (Jericho), Kala Savage (That 70’s Show), Michael Cornacchia (The Bernie Mac Show).

Directors: Allison Hebble & Zed B. Starkovich
Writer: A.W. Gryphon
Producers: Starlotte Dawn Smith, Jackie Olson, Zack Kahn, Allison Wilke
Cinematography: Alan Caudillo


La Femme Film Festival – Official Selection
Beloit International Film Festival - Best Picture
Backlot Film Festival Los Angeles - Best Picture
Hollywood International Film Festival - Official Selection
Bragacine Film Festival, Braga, Portugal - Special Screening
The Cinema Festival – Special Screening



La Cucina. The Kitchen. The Heart of The House.

On one warm summer evening, four very important meals are being made.

Thirty year old Lily Ireland (Christina Hendricks) is making a Insalata Caprese for the new and much older man in her life; a photo journalist, born and raised in Spain named Michael (Joaquim de Almeida), who she couldn’t be more excited about.

In the apartment just across the courtyard, a very pregnant Shelly Hynd (Leisha Hailey) is making her best attempt at Lasagna, while her husband Chris (Oz Perkins) looks on, knowing he is moments away from ordering a Pizza… and when he does, the highly hormonal Shelly is out the door and straight up the stairs to her friend Jude’s (Rachel Hunter) house for some comfort.

Shelly finds her friend lost in her passion, and just beginning an elaborate Italian meal for she and her lover, Celia (Clare Carey), whom they both know won’t make it home in time.

And finally, there is the culinary extravaganza being prepared in front of Celia, who works on a movie set, where on that particular day, they are shooting a couple cooking, while the crew devours pizza on the side-line.

Over the course of the evening, all of the cooks and the guests of the kitchen, truly experience why it is called “The heart of the house.” The discussions organically flow to a place where they are all about relationships, and they are all about truth, and desire, and no one is allowed off the hook about all that they are not saying amidst their words.

Lily and Michael dance around what they want in life as they dance around the kitchen in a seductive and emotional game, that never even allows them to make it to the dining table.

As Shelly unloads all of her fears of motherhood and the future of her marriage, Jude’s acceptance and knowledge of Celia’s infidelity rises to the surface without a word being said between the bruschetta and the cannoli.

All the while, Chris has settled into an evening of Pizza and Adult Entertainment on DVD, and Celia has decided to reel in a young actress (Kala Savage) curious about lesbians, just for sport.

…And in the end, there is no resolution, but there is hope, and there is love, and there is life, unveiled and unapologetic in La Cucina.

Israelis for Obama

This is a beautiful video. It is well produced, heartfelt and continues the positive message that Obama is sending across the globe. This spot was put together by Israelis and Israeli-Americans who believe Barack Obama will be good for America and good for Israel. They explain their hope that the world in such dramatic times needs an American leader who is able to employ intelligent diplomacy hand in hand with a strong defense. These characteristics are embodied by Obama and are crucial to our shared global future.

This Doesn't Smell Right: David Letterman Reacts to John McCain Suspending Campaign

McCain Says He Needs a Time Out. Obama says, "Play Ball!"

Despite John McCain's desperate and cynical call for a political "time out", Barack Obama reflected the public's need to hear the candidates debate the issues in a difficult moment: “This is exactly the time when people need to hear from the candidates,” Senator Obama said. Barack finished strongly, “Part of the president’s job is to deal with more than one thing at once. In my mind it’s more important than ever.”

The Commission on Presidential Debates said the debate will go on Friday despite McCain's request:

"The plans for this forum have been underway for more than a year and a half," the commission said. "The CPD's mission is to provide a forum in which the American public has an opportunity to hear the leading candidates for the president of the United States debate the critical issues facing the nation. We believe the public will be well-served by having all of the debates go forward as scheduled."

"Indeed, both campaigns, without public controversy, with quiet cooperation and with minor revisions, have agreed to The Commission on Presidential Debates' (CPD) proposal that each debate will be divided into issue segments allowing time for each candidate to comment on that issue followed by a free-flow conversation/ discussion between the candidates including the possibility of direct exchange between the candidates."

"These formats are an historic breakthrough in the history of televised debates. Televised debates have been hampered by restrictive time limits resulting in scripted, poll-tested, bumper sticker responses. In 2008, when stakes are higher than ever, issues more complex than ever, voter interest more intense than ever, voter education calls for a more expansive discussion between the leading candidates for president and vice president of the United States on the issues confronting America. The Commission commends Senators Obama and McCain for their understanding and acceptance of this need."
-Paul G. Kirk, Jr. and Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr., the co-chairmen of The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD)

“Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama."
-George Will

More on the debates at:
The Commission on Presidential Debates

Thanks Bono!

"John McCain and Sarah Palin’s meeting with Bono was canceled Wednesday due to scheduling reasons, according to the McCain campaign. Instead, McCain and Palin will chat with Bono by phone this afternoon about the ONE Campaign, the U2 front man’s initiative to raise awareness of AIDS and global poverty."


U2
Bullet the Blue Sky
Live - Los Angeles - During the Joshua Tree Tour


U2
Bullet the Blue Sky
Live - Chicago - 2005

An open letter to Bono the night before his meeting with Governor Palin

Bono and Barack

An open letter to Bono the night before his meeting with Governor Palin:

Bono,

I hope that you hold dear to your comment that the meetings this week at the Millennium Development Goals summit will be "judo in a suit." I know you are a cagey and intelligent man. But don't be fooled by Governor Palin's crocodile tears and false down-home banter. The McCain campaign wants nothing more than a photo op and the chance to fool voters in the USA into thinking that you and your band have endorsed the McCain/Palin ticket. Bono, you are walking a tightrope here and the majority of the voters in the United States want to put an end to the Bush years and the Bush legacy. McCain is nothing more than George III. Please remember what America means. Please remember your inspiration to write and perform "Bullet the Blue Sky" as you watched the Reagan administration's support of Salvadoran death squads and Nicaraguan contras. America is not torture, Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. America is the promise of hope and liberty. Barack Obama is the promise of hope and liberty. As you well know, Senator Obama will lead the American people back into the world community. Be sharp tomorrow. Godspeed!

Freddie Mac paid $15,000 a month to McCain's Campaign Manager's Company

"The disclosure contradicts a statement by Senator McCain that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, right, had no involvement with the company for the last several years."

Breaking News from the New York Times:

"WASHINGTON-- By JACKIE CALMES and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager from the end of 2005 through last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement. The disclosure contradicts a statement Sunday night by Mr. McCain that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had no involvement with the company for the last several years. Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the people said.

"They said they did not recall Mr. Davis doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than speak to a political action committee composed of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the coming midterm congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis & Manafort, was kept on the payroll because of Mr. Davis’s close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who was widely expected by 2006 to run again for the White House."

More at:
McCain Aide’s Firm Was Paid by Freddie Mac

Obama Apple

(Flickr user aar0n5150 has a really nice looking Obama image which mashes up the Obama and Apple logos released under a Creative Commons license…)

Obama Apple

Van Gogh's Night Poet

Vincent Van Gogh
Eugène Boch (the Poet)
23 5/8 x 17 11/16" oil on canvas 1888
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Bequest of Eugène Boch through the
Société des Amis du Louvre, 1941
Photo: Musée d'Orsay, Paris, Reunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource

"It often seems to me that the night is much more alive and richly coloured than the day."
-Vincent van Gogh
Arles September 8, 1888

In his letters Van Gogh describes the genesis of his portrait of the poet:

"I should like to paint the portrait of an artist friend, a man who dreams great dreams.... I paint him as he is, as faithfully as I can to begin with.

"But the picture is not yet finished. To finish it, I am now going to be the arbitrary colorist. I exaggerate the fairness of the hair, I even get to orange tones and pale citron yellow. Behind the head, instead of painting the ordinary wall of the mean room, I paint infinity, a plain background of the richest, intensest blue that I can contrive, and by this simple combination of the bright head against the rich blue background, I get a mysterious effect, like a star in the depths of an azure sky."
- Vincent Van Gogh, 11 August 1888, Letters 3:6.

Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night is featured in an online exhibition at the MOMA site: Van Gogh's Night Paintings at MOMA

Obama Field Office In Santa Monica Needs Volunteers

The Obama campaign has opened a new field office in Santa Monica and needs your help. The office is looking for volunteers to phone bank and do data entry in the office whenever you are available but especially 2:00P.M. to 8:30P.M. M-F & Saturday and Sunday from 10:00A.M. to 8:00P.M. The office is located at 900 Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica (the corner of Wlshire & 9th on the south side of the street).

Lars Thorn is the volunteer coordinator. Please shoot him an email at larsthorn@hotmail.com and let him know what area you can help out with. Also, feel free to just drop in and the campaign will put you to work.

The Santa Monica Obama office invites you to, "Please come in and HELP US HELP BARACK!"

Obama: Bailout Plan Must Address "The Crisis On Main Street And Around Kitchen Tables Across America"

News agencies are reporting that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Sunday that the government should resist including households in its bailout plan despite calls from Democrats to do so: continue reading

Who made Secretary Paulson emperor? His plan is nothing more than an Economic "Patriot Act" which would give power and money back to the same people who are destroying our economy. I stand with Obama when he says, that any financial bailout plan for Wall Street must address "the crisis on main street and around kitchen tables across America." Contact the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate now. Let them know that we the people will not stand for Paulson's ill-conceived buyout plan.

Contact your Senators and Congresspersons now by using the contact info below:
Members of the United States Senate
Members of the United States House of Representatives

Obama Statement on Treasury Proposal
Full text of Barack Obama's statement of principles for the Treasury proposal:

"The era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington has led to a financial crisis as profound as any we have faced since the Great Depression.

"But regardless of how we got here, the circumstances we face require decisive action because the jobs, savings, and economic security of millions of Americans are now at risk.

"We must work quickly in a bipartisan fashion to resolve this crisis and restore our financial sector so capital is flowing again and we can avert an even broader economic catastrophe. We also should recognize that economic recovery requires that we act, not just to address the crisis on Wall Street, but also the crisis on Main Street and around kitchen tables across America.

"But thus far, the Administration has only offered a concept with a staggering price tag, not a plan.

"Even if the Treasury recovers some or most of its investment over time, this initial outlay of up to $700 billion is sobering. And in return for their support, the American people must be assured that the deal reflects some basic principles.

No blank check. If we grant the Treasury broad authority to address the immediate crisis, we must insist on independent accountability and oversight. Given the breach of trust we have seen and the magnitude of the taxpayer money involved, there can be no blank check.
Rescue requires mutual responsibility. As taxpayers are asked to take extraordinary steps to protect our financial system, it is only appropriate to expect those institutions that benefit to help protect American homeowners and the American economy. We cannot underwrite continued irresponsibility, where CEOs cash in and our regulators look the other way. We cannot abet and reward the unconscionable practices that triggered this crisis. We have to end them.
Taxpayers should be protected. This should not be a handout to Wall Street. It should be structured in a way that maximizes the ability of taxpayers to recoup their investment. Going forward, we need to make sure that the institutions that benefit from financial insurance also bear the cost of that insurance.
Help homeowners stay in their homes. This crisis started with homeowners and they bear the brunt of the nearly unprecedented collapse in housing prices. We cannot have a plan for Wall Street banks that does not help homeowners stay in their homes and help distressed communities.
A global response. As I said on Friday, this is a global financial crisis and it requires a global solution. The United States must lead, but we must also insist that other nations, who have a huge stake in the outcome, join us in helping to secure the financial markets.
Main Street, not just Wall Street. The American people need to know that we feel as great a sense of urgency about the emergency on Main Street as we do the emergency on Wall Street. That is why I call on Senator McCain, President Bush, Republicans and Democrats to join me in supporting an emergency economic plan for working families - a plan that would help folks cope with rising gas and food prices, save one million jobs through rebuilding our schools and roads, help states and cities avoid painful budget cuts and tax increases, help homeowners stay in their homes, and provide retooling assistance to help ensure that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built in America.
Build a regulatory structure for the 21st Century. While there is not time in a week to remake our regulatory structure to prevent abuses in the future, we should commit ourselves to the kind of reforms I have been advocating for several years. We need new rules of the road for the 21st Century economy, together with the means and willingness to enforce them.
"The bottom line is that we must change the economic policies that led us down this dangerous path in the first place. For the last eight years, we've had an "on your own-anything goes" philosophy in Washington and on Wall Street that lavished tax cuts on the wealthy and big corporations; that viewed even common-sense regulation and oversight as unwise and unnecessary; and that shredded consumer protections and loosened the rules of the road. Ordinary Americans are now paying the price. The events of this week have rendered a final verdict on that failed philosophy, and it is a philosophy I will end as President of the United States."
- Barack Obama

Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night

Opening this weekend at the Museum of Modern Art in New York is an exhibition of Vincent Van Gogh's night paintings.
The immense tactical appeal of Van Gogh's swirling brushstrokes never fails to draw me into his world. I am reminded of the scene in Akira Kurosawa's film Dreams in which the camera brings you into the vibrant landscape of Van Gogh's mind. Vincent Van Gogh has given our world much to dream about.


Vincent Van Gogh
The Starry Night Over the Rhône
oil on canvas 1889
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

" This work was made toward the beginning of the 12-day, or 12-night, stint of painting outdoors after dark that culminated in the hallucinatory fireworks of “Starry Night,” wheeling freely, splintering the velvety blue."
-Roberta Smith in the New York Times



Crows from Akira Kurosawa's Dreams


Vincent Van Gogh
The Starry Night
oil on canvas 1889

"Van Gogh discovered new colors everywhere, and especially at night. Peripatetically, briefly yet fulsomely, this little show explores his special relationship with darkness. It provides a view of the tenderness, urgency and brilliance at the core of his art, as well as the openness to nature that set it aflame."
-Roberta Smith in the New York Times


Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night continues through Jan. 5 at the Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, Manhattan, (212) 708-9400, moma.org (Please note: Gallery occupancy is limited and timed entry is necessary to visit this exhibition. Your regular Museum admission will permit you to all other Museum galleries, exhibitions, and films, but access to Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night will require a separate, timed-entry ticket (at no additional charge), available at the exhibition entrance on the second floor. The next available entry time will be noted on this ticket. Timed-entry tickets are first come, first served, so it is possible that no tickets to Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night will be available at the time of your visit.

Members and accompanying guests are not required to obtain timed tickets. Simply present your membership card and/or member guest admission ticket at exhibition entrance.)

More at:
-Van Gogh at moma.org
-Roberta Smith in the New York Times

Thank John McCain

Remembering the Missing in Action

McCain and the POW Cover-up:
The "war hero" candidate buried information about POWs left behind in Vietnam
(Research support provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute. This is a link to the expanded version, with primary documents attached, of a story that appears in the October 6, 2008 issue of The Nation.)
By Sydney H. Schanberg

The third Friday in September is set aside to remember the members of the United States Armed Forces who were imprisoned during war or went missing in action on battlefields across the globe. Take it upon yourself to read all of Sydney Schanberg's article, McCain and the POW Cover-up, which is linked above. The Nation Magazine describes Sydney Schanberg's career and dedication to honest journalism:

Sydney H. Schanberg, a journalist for nearly 50 years, has written extensively on foreign affairs--particularly Asia--and on domestic issues such as ethics, racial problems, government secrecy, corporate excesses and the weaknesses of the national media.

Most of his journalism career has been spent on newspapers but his award-winning work has also appeared widely in other publications and media. The 1984 movie, The Killing Fields, which won several Academy Awards, was based on his book The Death and Life of Dith Pran - a memoir of his experiences covering the war in Cambodia for the New York Times and of his relationship with his Cambodian colleague, Dith Pran.

For his accounts of the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge in 1975, Schanberg was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting "at great risk." He is also the recipient of many other awards - including two George Polk awards, two Overseas Press Club awards and the Sigma Delta Chi prize for distinguished journalism.

Sydney Schanberg is not a conspiracy theorist and he has been meticulous in his research. The article begins:

"John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn't return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero who people would logically imagine as a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books.

Almost as striking is the manner in which the mainstream press has shied from reporting the POW story and McCain's role in it, even as the Republican Party has made McCain's military service the focus of his presidential campaign. Reporters who had covered the Vietnam War turned their heads and walked in other directions. McCain doesn't talk about the missing men, and the press never asks him about them.

The sum of the secrets McCain has sought to hide is not small. There exists a telling mass of official documents, radio intercepts, witness depositions, satellite photos of rescue symbols that pilots were trained to use, electronic messages from the ground containing the individual code numbers given to airmen, a rescue mission by a special forces unit that was aborted twice by Washington—and even sworn testimony by two Defense secretaries that "men were left behind." This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number—the documents indicate probably hundreds—of the US prisoners held by Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain."...

Continue Reading McCain and the POW Cover-up

Obama's Plans to Help the American Economy

Obama on the Economy:

You Can Still Register to Vote for Change

Thought I would pass along this email from Barack Obama. Take a moment to register to vote or check your voter registration status. And make sure that you pass this information along. We need to get the vote out for Obama on November 4th!

Register to Vote Now

You'd be surprised by how many people you know who aren't registered to vote.

Registration deadlines are coming up soon, and we need every single vote we can get to win this election.

Tell your friends, family, and neighbors to check out our new one-stop voter registration website: Register to Vote for Change Now

VoteforChange.com
makes it easier than ever to register. Instead of tracking down the right forms, all you need to do is answer a few basic questions and you'll be ready to vote. You can also:
Confirm your existing registration
Apply to vote absentee
Find your polling place

If you don't know your own registration status or you'd like to learn more, take a minute to visit the site right now.

This race is too close and too important to stay home on Election Day.

If you take the time to register and vote -- and make sure everyone you know is registered as well -- we'll be able to turn the tide of the past eight years.

It's people just like you who will transform this nation.

Thanks,

Barack

FOX News Analyst Push Polling for McCain?

Chris Wilson - founder and chief executive of Wilson Research Strategies which is actively push polling Jewish voters to garner support for McCain

It seems that a Fox News political analyst, Chris Wilson, as founder and CEO of Wilson Research Strategies is allowing and perhaps backing his companies ongoing push polling efforts toward Jewish voters.
The Huffington Post and Politico are reporting that a Republican oriented organization: "Research Strategies" which is Wilson Research Strategies, a company which, according to their web site, is an "opinion research firm serving Republican candidates, conservative organizations, public affairs campaigns, and major corporations." is currently conducting push polling towards Jewish voters in Pennsylvania and Florida. This is an egregious affront that needs prompt attention. When members of the mainstream media are actively involved in manipulative, covert scare tactics on behalf of a conservative candidate we know that the McCain campaign and its supporters have moved towards Nixonian hubris and Orwellian thought control. Fox News should be held accountable for these grave events. Push polling was described by Kathy Francovic of CBS News as "political telemarketing masquerading as a poll. No one is really collecting information. No one will analyze the data. You can tell a push poll because it is very short, even too short. (It has to be very short to reach tens of thousands of potential voters, one by one). It will not include any demographic questions. The"interviewer" will sometimes ask to speak to a specific voter by name. And, of course, a push poll will contain negative information - sometimes truthful, sometimes not - about the opponent. "

The Huffington Report via Politico writes "Jewish voters are complaining of a poll that, after confirming their religion, asks a series of questions that appear aimed at alarming Jewish voters, including linking Barack Obama to Palestinian terrorist groups. Debbie Minden of Pittsburgh described receiving the call from "Research Strategies" late yesterday afternoon. And a Key West woman, Joelna Marcus, reportedly received a similar-sounding call from the same group, according reports from the Obama-backing organization JewsVote.org and from a local blog.
Minden, a psychologist who lives in the Jewish neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, said the poll -- which came from an identified number -- began with relatively innocuous questions about what organizations she belongs to, whether she prefers CNN or Fox News, and how Obama and McCain compare on a range of issues, from national security to the economy to education."

Politico reports that: "The caller also asked whether she was Jewish."

"It sounded like a real poll," Minden, 56, said.

Then the caller asked, as she recalled: "Would it change your mind about Obama if you knew that his church was anti-Israel? Would it change you rmind if you knew that the leaders Hamas had endorsed Obama? Would it change your mind if you knew he had met with the leaders of Hamas?"

She also said one question asked whether it would change her mind if she learned he were a Muslim, though she didn't recall the precise wording."

Full story at: push polling

Honor

"Following a weekend of scathing media reports and editorials on John McCains unprecedented campaign of dishonor and dishonesty, the Obama campaign today released a new 30 second TV ad called Honor."

The sequel is always worse than the original- George III

"We've seen this movie before. And we know, the sequel is always worse than the original. If you're ready for four more years of George Bush, then John McCain is your guy. McCain could easily become known as 'Bush 44' (a reference to Bush being the 43rd U.S. president)"
-Senator Biden



Political spot produced by cartwrightdale, a former Republican who voted for Bush twice. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina opened his eyes as to what the current Republican party stands for so he quit the GOP in disgust and is channeling all his efforts into electing Barack Obama as President.

More at:
truthandhope.org

What is truthandhope.org?
"The recent GOP convention culminated in John McCain’s acceptance of his party’s nomination at the end of a four day effort to convince the American public that his Presidency would be something other than a third Bush term and that he is still the maverick many of us believed in when he ran for President in 2000. However, the facts simply do not bear this out. Senator McCain’s voting record, the clearest indicator of his support of the Bush Administration’s policies regarding the economy, the Iraq war, personal privacy, healthcare and the other issues facing our nation, has only increased in the past 8 years to 95% in 2007 & 100% in 2008 while the American public’s support and approval of President Bush and his Administration’s policies has dwindled to record levels in that time."

"Clearly, Senator McCain is out of step with mainstream America, for as the nation as with increasing strength has cried out for change voicing disapproval of the Bush administration in ever increasing numbers, McCain has taken the opposite path in supporting President Bush to a greater degree each passing year. The recent GOP convention took great pains to turn the focus of the American public away from John McCain’s voting record of support for the unpopular Bush administration, and instead use slight of hand tactics to turn voter’s attention to his life story. Our primary focus this election cycle is to reach individuals who already oppose Bush, but believe McCain would be "different".

Out of Touch McCain

From the New York Times:
''Today is the first day of the rest of the campaign,'' Obama campaign manager David Plouffe says in a campaign strategy memo. ''We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain's attacks and we will take the fight to him, but we will do it on the big issues that matter to the American people.''

The newest ad showcasing their hard line includes unflattering footage of McCain at a hearing in the early '80s, wearing giant glasses and an out-of-style suit, interspersed with shots of a disco ball, a clunky phone, an outdated computer and a Rubik's Cube.

''1982, John McCain goes to Washington,'' an announcer says over chirpy elevator music. ''Things have changed in the last 26 years, but McCain hasn't.

''He admits he still doesn't know how to use a computer, can't send an e-mail, still doesn't understand the economy, and favors two hundred billion in new tax cuts for corporations, but almost nothing for the middle class,'' it says. It shows video of McCain getting out of a golf cart with former President George H.W. Bush and closes with a photo of him standing with the current President Bush at the White House. ''After one president who was out of touch, we just can't afford more of the same.''

What America Means: Badlands Live ~ Richmond 8-18-08

"Poor man want to be rich, rich man want to be king, king ain't satisfied 'til he rules everything."

Listen and remember Springsteen's impassioned version of this song played in 1980 the night after Ronald Reagan was first elected. VA nurse and music writer, John Ford , explains that evening " Bruce Springsteen opened his show with an especially roaring, impassioned performance of Badlands. He saw it coming: the rape and pillage that would be the Reagan years. Springsteen's still at it, though with a new group of pillagers to confront. His defense against the Reactionary tide in America has long been to shout about where we are going wrong, but also to present an alternative view of what "America" means. It's not support of Salvadoran death squads and Nicaraguan contras, nor Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and torture."

Bruce Springsteen supports Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The stakes are just as high as they were in 1980. Remember what America means. America is not torture, Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. America is the promise of hope and liberty. Barack Obama is the promise of hope and liberty. I donated to the Obama campaign again today. We all need to pitch in and get our country back!

Donate to the Obama Campaign

The Space of Memory

Gregg Chadwick
Speed of Life
65"x49" oil on linen
private collection San Francisco

Just months before his death, I saw the painter RB Kitaj after a UCLA sponsored presentation he gave at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Kitaj saw a card gripped in my hand of my painting, A Walk with Ganesh, and he started our brief conversation saying, “Is that for me? I would like to have that.” I handed him the card and watched him examine the image of the painting in his hands, and then my face as we talked. Moved by our discussion, I went home and painted Kitaj as he appeared that evening; white beard, roaring voice, stern focus, like a prophet calling figurative artists, in particular, to “paint their worlds.”

My world today is a fusion of the present moment, tempered by the memory of the past, and thrust into the future by the motion of time. Travels since childhood have taken me from the U.S. to Asia to Australia to Europe and back, again and again. These wanderings provide a series of spaces that appear within my paintings.

My painting process is grounded in traditional materials. I start with primed linen canvas made in Belgium, as it has been done for centuries. For each painting I grind some of my pigments into linseed oil to make oil colors. As I use these methods, I am physically engaged in the now, pulling moments from our flux of time and space. The figures in my paintings express what it means to be alive in the mixing and crossing of the 21st century, here in the U.S. and across the globe.

After I finished my Master’s Degree in Fine Art at NYU, I moved for a time to London to seek out the spaces of RB Kitaj’s paintings and the light of JMW Turner. In a small studio at the Royal College of Art I painted in a space in which Kitaj also had painted. The window beside my easel opened to a vast Turnerian sky. Past, present and future fused into the now. Inspiration was made current by the very space in which I stood in that moment, with such awareness and clarity. Today in my studio in Santa Monica, as I press into the future, that moment echoes and beckons and urges me on.

Gregg Chadwick
September 2008

Dream of the East

Gregg Chadwick
48"x38" oil on linen
private collection San Francisco

Palin's Failure

"it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is "a task from God." The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme."
-Joe Klein, Time

"Wall Street Journal columnist and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan and former John McCain adviser, Time columnist, and MSNBC contributor Mike Murphy were caught on tape disparaging John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate:

"It's over," Noonan said.

When Chuck Todd asked her if this was the most qualified woman the Republicans could nominate, Noonan responded, "The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives. Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and that's not what they're good at, they blow it."

Murphy characterized the choices as "cynical" and "gimmicky."

More at:
Swampland
Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy

Leading Art Historian Michael Baxandall Dies at 74

“A 15th-century painting is the deposit of a social relationship.”
-Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in 15th-Century Italy, 1972

According to William Grimes in the New York Times, Baxandall in his ground breaking work of art history,Painting and Experience in 15th-Century Italy , " laid bare not only the patron-client transactions that influenced the making of an artwork, but also something he called the period eye: the act of perception determined by social circumstances. In a famous example, he showed how Italians knew how to appraise the volume of a barrel by sight, and how artists played to this carefully cultivated skill."

“Baxandall provided the tools we needed to take works of art out of the frame and off the pedestal to see how they really worked,” said Thomas Crow, a professor of modern art history at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. “Baxandall made it possible to see, through the art, how societies organized themselves and, conversely, how individuals perceived their own experiences and inner lives.”

More at:
New York Times on Baxandall

Bless New Orleans

Matthew Hinton/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A storefront, boarded-up to protect against the coming storm, awaits Hurricane Gustav in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

As Hurricane Gustav speeds towards New Orleans, our thoughts and emotions turn to this historic city and its residents, again, and, yes, again. On this Sunday morning, we all are citizens of New Orleans. Over the last three years, as organizations and individuals have collaborated in the slow, complex rebuilding of this amazing city a couple organizations stand out to me. Habitat for Humanity and Music Rising are two noteworthy groups. It is astonishing to contemplate how much will be needed after Gustav moves through beginning Monday morning. It will call upon all of us to turn our concern into action. Lets all start now.


Gregg Chadwick
Ghost of New Orleans
48"x36" oil on linen 2006
Julie Nester Gallery
featured in the film La Cucina


Follow the storm at:
National Weather Service, Hurricane Gustav
Remember to help the victims of Katrina at:
Music Rising
Habitat for Humanity