Speed of Life

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 state...

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 fulsomel...

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 weaknes...

Obama on the Economy:

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 ...

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...

"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."

"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...

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 co...

"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...

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 o...

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

"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. Eve...

“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, conversel...

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 Rem...

- As Carl Pope of the Sierra Club says, “No one is closer to the oil industry than Governor Palin.” Biologists who have studied polar bear populations have concluded that Sarah Palin's assertion that polar bear populations are on the rise is mere fiction and a politically motivated misreading of the facts: Ian Stirling's, an emeritus scientist with Canada's Department of the Environment and a professor at the University of Alberta, peer-reviewed research conducted with other scientists for the US Geological Survey clearly shows that "polar bear populations have not been increasing for the past 30 years, and that's a well-known fact." Stirling has studied polar bears for 37 years which puts him at the top of his field. "In fact, the polar bear population has actually declined by 20 percent in Alaska's Southern Beaufort Sea since the mid-1980s," Stirling said. "The research reports with this information have been available to Palin for more ...

" I saw Obama's speech tonight at the Democratic Convention in Denver as a political masterpiece. As I had a chance to say on CNN a few moments ago, it was in many ways less a speech than a symphony. I also sensed that we saw tonight an Obama who is growing into a new, more mature leader — stronger, tougher, harder-hitting." -David Gergen Full Video: Barack Obama's Acceptance Speech at Democratic Convention August 28, 2008 Full Text: Barack Obama's Acceptance Speech at Democratic Convention August 28, 2008 To Chairman Dean and my great friend Dick Durbin; and to all my fellow citizens of this great nation; With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States. Let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates who accompanied me on this journey, and especially the one who traveled the farthest – a champion for working Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and to yours -- Hillary Rodham Clinton...

Full Text: “I Have A Dream” by Martin Luther King Jr. August 28, 1963, Washington DC I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his ...

Sunset at the Esalen Institute This past week I was honored to lead a workshop on creativity with writer Phil Cousineau and writer/musician RB Morris. The Esalen Institute is a non-profit organization founded in 1962 by Stanford alums Michael Murphy and Richard Price as an alternative educational center devoted to the exploration of what Aldous Huxley called the "human potential." This world of unrealized human capacities that lies beyond the imagination has brought to Esalen a steady influx of philosophers, psychologists, artists, and religious thinkers. Late afternoon at Esalen in Big Sur. Taken during a workshop on creativity by Phil Cousineau , RB Morris , and Gregg Chadwick. Recently Phil Cousineau's new book "Stoking the Creative Fires" has hit the shelves. It is an impassioned volume on creativity that combines myth, story and personal pilgrimages in a primer on the creative life. My painting "Fire Dream" graces the cover. We used this book as...

As the Democratic Convention in Denver begins, Drew Westen in the Huffington Post describes how Obama can effectively attack John McCain by explaining that: "a vote for McCain is a vote for continuing the failed policies of George W. Bush, policies that have weakened us economically and threatened our national security in a world whose greatest dangers lie in international terrorism (which require coordination with other nations, not condescension toward our allies, refusal to speak to our enemies, and saber rattling when we have no sabers left to rattle.)" Secondly, "McCain is not the straight-talking maverick who many admired in 2000 but a man whose ambition has gotten the best of him, who learned the wrong lessons from watching himself swift-boated by George W. Bush and Karl Rove--a man who is so desperate to be President that he will say whatever he has to say to convince conservatives he is one of them, say whatever he has to say to convince moderates that he isn...