Art thief, is the coffee shop liable too?

I was in a Coffee shop on Friday and noticed this artist was selling pictures of artists; Adele, The Clash, Prince, Rhianna, Eminem, and others. They were all clearly images made by others that he had manipulated slightly in a photo editing program, had printed on canvas or some other material, and was offering for sale from the coffee shop's walls. As an artist who creates all my own work and struggles to find a market I was taken aback at this obvious theft. First, of the original image maker's work and secondly of the artist depicted. If the AP-v-Shepard Fairey case taught us anything it is that stealing like this for profit is illegal. I don't think this guy will sell very many of his "paintings" but, even one sale is a theft.

What do you think?

A common good: The gift of sharing.

I've been writing about patience & waiting in the days before December. I've also been listening to our national debate over health care. The debate is coming to an end w/the Senate floor action. During this discussion many ideas flop around, assertions made, facts determined, and opinions expressed.

The Headline: Sunday, November 29, 2009,
New York Times:

Food Stamp Use Soars Across US, Stigma Fades

The Maps:

1) Growth of Food Stamp use from June 2007- June 2009.

Front page map shows high growth in food stamp in FL, home of the head "Ditto-Head" and in ID, WY, UT, NV, & GA. (These six states have ten GOP Senators.)

2) Percentage people in each county who receive food stamps, June 2009.

Jump page map show use highest across the south from AZ thru NM, TX, OK, MO, AR, LA, MS, AL, KY, TN, NC, GA, SC WV, & FL. (These 16 states have twenty-two GOP Senators.)

I feel really good about sharing the wealth of our nation with anyone who needs. Using the Department of Agriculture Food Stamp Program should be stigma free and available to any citizen who is hungry. Even if they are Republican. I ask are these the same places where people are organizing against a right to affordable health care insurance under the label of the Tea Party Patriots? I didn't do a scientific study but looking at the lists of links by state at the Tea Party Patriots Web site and at the Wikipedia page it seems like a large number of these states are the same places. Citizens in good conscience rail against "socialist health care" yet while use the roads, libraries, fire departments, public gathering places and our shared wealth in the form of food stamps. Where are Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the like most popular? I looked around and it looks like they are popular all over. I guess the masters of misinformation drive the discussion on this point and they'll certainly ignore this story.

In many cases these are the same people who think nothing spending millions of dollars for three days of intensive care for a malformed premature infant whose prognosis at birth, or even before birth, is for three to six months of life. Life, they say, is sacred. Often the same folks who would force a pregnant woman to seek illegal care to control the outcome of her pregnancy, on the notion that God endows life and life begins when sperm meets egg & genes are intertwined. A poor definition of life in my book. Life is a line, not series of dots, lined up. People exist along the line we don't start & end, we participate. Each moment of consciousness is a decision to continue participating. Life began 3.X billion years ago on Earth and now it is in every crevice and nook.

We can disagree about policies and programs a government should promote. We can disagree about what unseen, or unknown things to believe in. We can teach our children what we choose even if it is a lie like the Easter Bunny exists or Santa comes down the chimney on Christmas morning to celebrate the birth on earth of God made man. But we need each other. We need all of humanity to continue our life on this planet. We even need people who believe such wild stories as are being told in the ultra-conservative, "taxes are only for poor" mainstream media like Fox. We need to share our world if we are to live on it long enough for our species to survive. Self-awareness should allow us to plan the next step in human culture but only if we can move as one.

Health is key to life so it should be a basic right. We need our neighbors to be healthy or we will get infected by them. Our children deserve to be taught how to be healthy. Our government is a great place to mediate & govern the vast and complex issues that make up the public, individual health care universe. A doctor is only a small part of the healthcare system. Patients have responsibility to monitor their own health, instead we've become a nation of fools paying more for less and believing we're getting the best. It's as if we have are the Emperor in the story of the Emperor Has No Clothes. I mourn for our democracy if the loud voices who led us with the failed policies of the past 3 decades can win this debate just by lying to their fans.

One final note on the health care debate: Our nation deserves to have healthy citizens, we need healthy citizens so we can once again lead the world in: innovation; creativity; social, cultural, economic, & artistic ideas; sports; technology; and medicine. We can afford to have the best if we stand up and demand reason prevail over faith, lies, and superstition. We can not afford to continue the byzantine system of healthcare delivery we have now, it bankrupts individuals, small & large businesses across the country. We need the Senate and the House to finish their work and deliver a bill to President Obama for signature.

Gifts: Giving w/o spending.

For years the frenzy of holiday purchasing ramped up. More each year. Last year retailers sold less than in 2007. Now, predictions for national retailers is another drop for 2009. But, small, independent, locals seem to be growing. There is another aspect of this change that can't be measured by retail sale. The new gift paradigm. Gifts of ideas, gifts of technology -not gadgets, processes or techniques- and the gifts of understanding; these uplift the soul, enhance the culture, and degrade the toxic effects of compulsive consumption.

When I started to write about patience about 10 days ago I was not completely sure where the topic would go. Now, as the holiday season from Thanksgiving to Christmas (a season we called Advent when I was young) starts w/ the ghastly named Black Friday, I realize patience is just another intangible gift that can be recycled and repurposed and regifted. You can teach yourself and others to be patient. Simple techniques like breathing thru your nose or sipping rather than gulping when you thirst can build your ability delay gratification of your desires.

Gifts of intention, reflection, will-power, integrity, passion, respect, and commitment are often more appreciated than you would think when you present them with dignity and understanding.

• Try a new gift paradigm today!
• Share your ideas with me and other who read my blog.

The Wisdom of Santa

Wait for Sex: More than just a moral thing.

The ecstasy of orgasm can be a powerful attraction. Many people, mostly men, crave the feeling. When we learn to wait, we learn the value of delayed gratification. We show our self-control.

Many folks imagine the suggestion we wait only works in conjunction with a religious message: we can only argue our teens should wait when we cite the Koran, the Bible, or the Torah. This is not true. We can talk openly about sex. Waiting can mean; put more time into foreplay. It can mean; come close to sex without actually consummating your passion. There is power in physical interaction even without sex.

• Waiting for sex could mean, more cuddling first.

Patience: the gift of delayed gratification

At my household we celebrate the mid-winter holiday from December 20 or 21, 'til about January 13. In America today we are already weeks into a consumer frenzy called Xmas. The third Walmart Holiday ad came in the Sunday paper this weekend. Santas across the globe are talking about their gigs starting. I take deep breaths & hope to stay calm during the next several weeks. I'm rehearsing to sing in the choir with Open Eye Figure Theatre's Holiday Pageant.

When we learned to wait, to be patient, we built several strong, new connections in our brains that serve us today in ways we are only beginning to understand. Patience is ultimately the basis of economy. A look at the word economy reveals the notion of managing a household: in other words food, shelter, & offspring or dependents. If a strong economy means the ability to eat well, live & sleep well, and bring great kids into the world then patience gives us real advantages.

Over the next few weeks I expect to write about how our ability to wait: for delicious food; the ecstasy of sex; the comfort of home; the exhilaration of games well played, art well made, songs well sung, dances well danced; or the transcendence of preforming a physical feat, has helped our brains to become better at guiding & planning fulfilling lives.

• Patience, a real gift for the holiday.

Nuance: It's not deception. Clarity: It's not truth

nu•ance (noo'äns, nyoo'-, noo äns', nyoo -) n. 1. A subtle or slight degree of difference, as in meaning; a gradation. 2. Expression or appreciation of nuances: a performance full of nuance. [Fr <>nuer, to shade, cloud < nue, cloud <>nuba Lat. nubes.] – nu•anced' adj.

When I heard Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele proclaim loudly that he was not using nuance but rather was being very clear, I started to think about our understanding of subtlety. A while back, I wrote about the corpus callosum and the links between the hemispheres of our brains. It is easy to get into thought patterns that lead us to believe that ideas, policies and positions are very clearly this or that; black, or white; Right, or Left. In reality this is never the case. There is always degree of nuance.

Look at some of the great debates of the past several hundred years. Aquinas "proved" the existence of God with five proofs. The fifth, a teleological argument that since the universe appears designed to support people, god must have designed it. Like the existence of a watch proves the existence of the watch-maker. 400 years ago last month Galileo popularized the telescope and suggested that the Earth revolved around the sun, not - as the church said - the other way around. He was right. Folks believed the Earth was flat. It is in fact an oblate spheroid.

200 years ago, a boy was born who, in is 50th year would publish a theory so beautiful in its simplicity and insightfulness as to render all of botany, biology, geology, archeology, anthropology, and others in a completely new light! Charles Darwin was right.

150 years ago a couple of beer drinking young Europeans developed a political philosophy based on cooperation instead of cooperation. Recent research is showing that Marx and his benefactor Engles were right. Survival of the fittest doesn't mean "dog eat dog," it means the most able to cooperate will be the species that survives over the one who fights among itself all the time.

Time and time again, religious leaders tell us that something is true only to be proved wrong by the science. As a matter of fact, even facts are suspect. Humans are notoriously poor observers. The notion that there is an objective truth is false. We can't even be sure that anyone else is even conscious.

So back to Mr. Steele:

When he declared that he wasn't being nuanced - as if to say "no nuance here" he did so in a way that made it seem as if nuance was somehow a bad thing. He was being "Clear" as if simply stating his position was better than trying to explain the subtleties of it's implications. In this case he was talking about the health care debate and explaining that he and the GOP were against Government run health care. He went on in the next breath to say that Medicare should be expanded and secured for the future! The interviewer suggested there might be some nuance in the juxtaposition of these two positions. Steele jumped on the interviewer! No, there is no nuance in my position. I'm being very clear! Please, please remember that clarity is not truth or correctness. Nuance often conveys more than clarity. Here's to a complex understanding of our complex problems. Here's to an end of simple but, wrong political positions.

(Begun 9/3/09)

A Gift of Trains: 30+ Santas Visit Bud's Playground.

Sometimes the words have to give way for the pictures! Thanks Bud.

Performance: A gift from friends

My friends gave this great performance today at Kings Fair! What a treat! Thanks Josie, Thanks Mary Laurel!

Shared life: When we began to change our social gifts

Our culture changed fundamentally when we started to mate for life. I haven't read any dating of this but, I'll guess mating for life started around the time of art, spirituality, language and larger groups (150-200 adult individuals or more) cooperating. I'll also guess that the true shared life is only possible when, to paraphrase Rilke, "we become the guardian of each other's solitude." 

To put this period in perspective, I'll guess it started to emerge from the large brained creature living between 200, 000 and 70,000  years ago. I think mimicry had had its effect on our brains. I think the corpus collosum was sufficiently developed and sexually dimorphous that our social needs met our phenotype needs to push us to mate-for-life scenarios. (it would be interesting to study brains of other mate-for-life creatures and compare them to us alongside our fidelity rates could make a really interesting graphic.) In short, I believe that we learned to live with another for life over an evolutionarily brief period starting about 200,000 years ago lasting to about 70,000 years ago.

I believe we learned our amazing ability to "see the world thru others eyes" during this critical period. Two solid ice ages put us in the mood to mate for life. And, why not? It's an easy way to make and care for offspring that you're "sure or pretty sure are yours." This is also the beginning of our top notch empathy skills (I wrote about empathy in May) Our shared life is our interconnected life. We become dependent and humans are no longer solely individuals. We cannot really be evaluated or judged without consideration for our place in society. 

Sharing life with others is truly a gift we must always give and give well!

What about talking? Gifts in story.

I talked in my St Pat's Day post about Language. Now I've been learning some things about communications that lead me to think the gift of story goes back further. 

Primates of many types understand and respond to language in amazing ways. Many mammals can learn to respond to aural stimuli but some chimps gather the meaning of numerous words and are able to understand them even when they're put together in unique, new ways! Watching a chimp carry a TV out of the enclosure to the prompt, "Can you bring the TV outside?" was instructional. We know that birds understand words and learn to create unique sequences. We know that recent experiments have placed the gene for language into mice. We know that most mammals experience emotions, some as complex as human emotions. So, when are we going to let them vote?

People turned this ability for language into an entirely new thing. I can relate a story or idea to you in a few words and if you grasp the concepts behind the story, you can repeat the story without remembering or even using any of my words. If you know more than one language you most likely can translate my story. This is how human culture has created a new life form on earth. Society. Human society exists as a living organism separate from the individuals that make it up. We've created a monster be allowing a new replicator -like genes- to participate in our culture. The meme builds languages to allow for easier replication of these conceptual life forms.

Wow, we've really got it good don't we?

Music: A gift to move and soothe us

Heard a short piece today on the Science Pod from the AAAS. Music seems to have an evolutionary component and may not be "auditory cheesecake" as Stephen Pinker described. Music might be ingrained in our psyche to provide group benefit of some sort. 

Three different pieces of music were played to the Maffa people from Cameron. They were able to distinguish "happy" or "sad" music despite never having been exposed to outside music forms or influences. The researchers concluded an evolutionary component to musical understanding.

Music is a gift that can soothe our nerves, move our tushes an inform our needs. Early music may have been used to alert or describe. It may have helped tell a story or build rapport with new friends. We all make music whenever we open our mouths. You may not find your child's requests or demands for attention melodious but you're hearing music of human interaction. 

I suspect that after hundreds of thousands of years we've really refined our sense and ear for music. Listen to rap, hip hop, rock, soul, ragtime, R&B, juju, reggae, tango, waltz, rondo, no, butoh, raga, folk, calypso, or any of hundreds of other forms of music, now mixed, remixed and mashed. You will quickly hear similarities and differences. Structure, time signature, scale construction, instrumentation, rhythm and language all participate in our sharing of music.

As our species spread across the planet we turned most materials we found into food, toys, tools, garments, and musical instruments. We've learned a variety of systems to record music to share with others and to teach it to our young.

I expect to have more to say about music in the future. I had to write about it today because, after hearing the new evidence from Science, I'm sure music is vital to our brains' growth and balance.

Ancient gifts. Art: Those magic symbols.

Continuing my thoughts on gifts from the distant past. 

Art: Magic symbols that represented the animals or plants we sought for food. Or, music that recreated the sounds of the forest with special emphasis on dangerous or useful animals. Stories, told with gesture became dance. As with language, a gift that really continues to give benefits to the present day.

When cave painting are discovered in France or ocher in the Great Rift Valley of Africa we confront the symbolic use of materials from peoples who lived tens of thousands of years ago. I'm sure that all the earliest artistic urges left no permanent mark since they were most likely drawn in the sand or ashes, or marked out with rocks, twigs, branches, or leaves. 

The earliest art (by which I mean visual, musical, movement, culinary, agricultural, architectural, or wearable) is probably all lost to scholarship. But, we can surmise that growing brains of people led us to great leaps of creativity. By taking a chance on a crazy idea our ancestors dreamed, thought, or created a new way of living. Gone were the days when we could not imagine the world through the eyes of the others. This ability to see the world as if through the eyes of another put us on the path to hot fashions, really great food, the best and worst TV programs, and a diamond crusted skull from Damien Hirst.