artkauffman.com
February 09
distance
"distance is a precarious thing,"
she says as she twists her blonde hair
carefully around her darkening mood.
if it feels like painting without light is
something like disappointing your mother,
then it's assured that the brush
will never leave the desperate clutch
of your fingers
and
the loneliness that fills your life with
its haunting flavor will force an entry
into the heart that's asking.
October 04
G20 Notes
This age of instant information has a lot of upsides, not the least being documentation. Lots of it.
During last week's G20 summit in Pittsburgh, recording what was happening wasn't limited to media pros and us independent journalists. Everyone was recording something, whether it was video, audio, notes or photos.
The big challenge is filtering the noise and finding quality footage and documentation among all the forms of media on the world wide web.
i'm beginning a page as an overview to the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh to link to some of the better quality documentation out there. i'll be updating this as new resources become available.
What got accomplished?
- ONE’S Analysis of the Outcomes of the G20 Pittsburgh Summit
- What happened at the Pittsburgh G20? (From Poverty to Power)
What happened to dissent?
What did it look like?
Cinema:
- UPitt Students Get Arrested (IndyMedia)
- G20 Documentary (RNC Report '08)
- Full footage of the arrests from arrestee on cathedral lawn on Friday
- Police Scanner Recordings During G-20 Released (KDKA)
- G20 - A Full Story (Pitt News)
- Interview with activist arrested for using Twitter during G20 (Democracy Now!)
Photographs:
September 02
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
Many readers of this blog are Mac users and i'm putting in a fast plug for Snow Leopard. i've been running developer builds for months and bought the full version last Friday. It's fast, nearly bug-free, and streamlines many parts of the OS including the Finder. It's only 25 bucks, so just buy it.
Get it from Amazon and kick me back a few cents.
August 19
The Healthcare Crisis (as if enough hasn't been said)
We're stuck in a shithole.
Even if i told you so, i still had just a bit of hope left-over from the 2008 campaign. Now that Obama has stopped pushing full steam ahead for the public option, causing somewhat of a revolt in The Party, good people like myself who really wanted to see Obama act on change are left wringing our hands.
Health-care reform without a public option is not only bad news for everyone whose income doesn't allow them to purchase health-insurance now, it's also bad news for those who want to see the big private insurance companies take responsibility for the health-care mess we're in now. When this health-care reform bill finally passes, in oh, say September or so (Obama would rather drop essential parts of the bill than take the chance on not delivering when he promised), all Americans will be forced to have health insurance.
Private health insurance. Heavily subsidized with public dollars. With little or no control over spending and medical costs.
Specter and a few other Democrats are already moving the talk to "co-ops". Co-ops are not a satisfactory replacement for the public option and never will be. Howard Dean correctly pointed out the example of Blue Cross Blue Shield co-op that exists now as little more than an establishment big-business corporation.
Dennis Kucinich notes that:
Removing the "public option" from a public bill paid for by public money is not in the public interest. What is left is a "private option" paid for with public money.
What we still have in front of us is the chance that seems to be slipping away. It's a chance to implement a single-payer healthcare system, with a well-regulated public agency financing healthcare. Bill HR676, the bill co-authored by Kucinich is still alive in the House, and has 87 sponsors. Where's the media when you need it? Even though the majority of the American public is for single-payer, we have been repeatedly told that that option is off the table. Bill HR676 would extend undeniably one of the best public insurance systems in the world, Medicare, to the entire population.
I realize not everyone reading this will agree with the politics of a single-payer system, but can we at least agree that more dialogue about healthcare needs to happen in the public square now? The American media has largely engaged in a sham debate over the "public option" which more and more appears unlikely to ever come to pass. We need to think constructively and creatively as a new generation of human beings and act boldly to prove that the day of oligarchies is over. For our civilization to have a future, we need an efficient and effective healthcare system that both prevents illness and heals us when we're sick. And that's everyone, not just the rich.
April 29
Democrats and Control
Yes we can! or business as usual? When Franken finally is seated in the Senate, the Democrats will have free roam to change all they want. Without a single Republican vote necessary.
i wish i could believe in the Democrats to do the right thing for us and for our children, but i can't. In six months or so, i'll run through this again, but right now is the golden opportunity to pass a healthcare system that works. Not health insurance that costs everyone more and only lines corporate coffers. In my opinion, single payer healthcare is the only solution to the 20,000+ people who die every year because of no health insurance and a healthcare system clearly on a greedy suicide track.
What'll it be, Democrats? A lasting legacy of change and progress, or more of the same? Single payer needs to be put back on the table and seriously looked at.
But if "fixing" the economy by buying up toxic assets instead of dissolving failed banks is any indication, the change will come with a temporary health insurance fix that doesn't do much besides increase taxes.
We shall see (if we can).
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