Re:positioning Fear :: an engagingly art/academic title  for work that transforms the courtyard façade of one of Europe’s largest military arsenals, the 350 year old Landeszeughaus in Austria. Re:Positioning Fear used a web site, webcam, 3D trackers, and customized projection technology to connect a very specific instance of Austrian history and architecture with remote and local participants. The piece was loosely based on the Cathedral’s fresco “the Scourges of God”, which depicts the three Medieval fears of the people of Graz: the locust plague (which destroyed the fields in 1477), the Black Death (an epidemic that fortunately never had a devastating outbreak in Graz), and the fall of the city to Turkish invaders (which never happened). The fresco, which shows the oldest view of the city, has been ruined by inclement weather and incompetent restoration attempts, but is survived by a reproduction which can be seen at the Landeszeughaus. Using the fresco as a departure point, “RE:Positioning Fear” related several historical transformations and displacements of Fear, particularly as parts of the world enter a post-industrial, post humanist era.

megachurches The first things I noticed were the teeth… anyone know Osteen? From Houston, Texas. This article confirms the absolute need to NOT dismiss megachurches and their faithfuls. I realise I have been inclined to make knee-jerk-band-wagon assessments of such ideologies. Pls check out the comments. There are some enlightened points (no pun intended of course!)

THE POLITICAL EQUATOR ll Tracing an imaginary line along the US / México Border and extending it directly across a map of the world, what emerges is a political equator that roughly corresponds with the revised geography of the post-9/11 world according to Thomas P. M. Barnett’s scheme for The Pentagon’s New Map, in which he effectively divides the globe into “Functioning Core,” or parts of the world where “globalization is thick with network connectivity, financial transactions, liberal media flows, and collective security,” and “Non-Integrating Gap,” “regions plagued by politically repressive regimes, widespread poverty and disease, routine mass murder, and … chronic conflicts that incubate the next generation of global terrorists.”

NAEEM MOHAIEMEN  Take me off your database a project on the investigation of what he refers to as ‘hysterical conditions’… the work has been developed by the group Visible Collective with Naeem Mohaiemen and collaborating artists, activists and lawyers. Since 2004, the project has traced hyphenated identities and ideas of loyalty in times of security panic. The majority of detained migrants in post-9/11 hysteria are from the invisible underclass – shadow citizens who drive our taxis, deliver our food, clean our tables, and sell fruit, coffee, and newspapers. The only time we “see” them is when we glance at the license in the taxi partition, or the ID card around their neck. When detained, they cease to exist in the consciousness. This impulse to create an insider-outsider dynamic with “loyalty” overtones has a long pedigree: WWI incarceration of German-Americans; 1919 detention of immigrants in the Anarchist bomb scare; WWII internment of Japanese-Americans; execution of the Rosenbergs; the HUAC “red scare”; harassment of Deacons For Defense; COINTELPROinfiltration of Black Panthers; and the rise of the Minutemen militia.[disappearedinamerica.org]

“It is better to remain quiet and to forget. That is the only thing we must do. We must forget. And that won’t happen if we continue opening up lawsuits, sending people to jail. FOR-GET: That’s the word. And for that to happen, both sides must forget and continue with their work.”(Former General Augusto Pinochet, September 13 1995, two days after the 22nd anniversary of the military coup) see derechos
In the years that have gone by since Chile began its “transition” to democracy, there has been a constant call for people to forget. The effort to erase the memory of a very specific part of the country’s history comes most especially from one sector of the society. Still, as made evident by regular, every-day events, the contradictions from the past continue to have their effect today.The past must be understood if we are to understand where we are today, who we are and how best to deal with the future.Australia as in Chile still has its own “taboo” subjects and open wounds – in our case it definitely the totally unresolved situation of our deep, dark past of our oppression of our indigenous population.Australia is a country that has managed to submerge this truth today.. and blame the these people for their own problems. We will never come to terms with our present and future unless we see our past clearly.

[Mark Lombardi] Compelling detailed accounts of the interrelationship between business, oil and politics.. compelling because of the visual narrative that emerges in the work… wanted to also note the stupidity of the CIAs tracking of this artist Mark Lombardi who has recently committed suicide.

Gelato bar killing  The murderer believed he was under 24-hour video surveillance (by his boss) at a gelato bar and was an “unwilling participant” in a reality television program at the time of the attack. paranoid … not him.

Booklet > The Middle East in Bible Prophecy > Introduction  and the middle eastern bible prophecy booklet tells it how it is….and the truth is in this video brought you by is “United Church of God” .. the preacher is an Australian. Need to check that out. Kind of a CNN look to it..

The essay “Political Paranoia as Cinematic Motif: Stone’s “JFK”” (Robert S. Robins : Professor of Political Science, Tulane University New Orleans) discusses cinema as a political instrument —-
In film the paranoid message is a means of fulfilling, an ‘artistic’ (read producers) need. The paranoid message is a dramatic one (adultery or murder). The script completes the story and fulfills the audience’s desire for understanding odf a previous event – 911 perhaps. People cling to this belief with remarkable tenacity. For example, Gerald Posner, who wrote the well-reviewed anti-conspiracist Case Closed, was the object of threatening telephone calls and picketing by demonstrators carrying signs saying “Case Not Closed.” Some conspiracists even advocated a day of national resistance to the book.

This author argues that the great strength of the paranoid message in ‘docudrama’ lies in its capacity to add an element that both explains an event and testifies to its importance – adding drama to a film – and more profitable. BUT is not simply entertainment. As it entertains, it persuades – if the audience is not persuaded it will lose interest. ( suspension of disbelief) The social harm that the film commits goes beyond the distortion of history – creating a broader intellectual pollution. Each paranoid film gives weight to a popular mentality of paranoid belief. If event after event is “shown to be” the product of a malign conspiracy, then the public will accept that that is how the world works.