White-breasted Nuthatch, click for full size.
© C. Ford.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
White-breasted Nuthatch, click for full size.
© C. Ford.
Marine Le Pen, leader of Front National, welcomed the result. Photograph: Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images.
Just in case you weren’t quite depressed enough, The Guardian has the reactions of all the white supremacist bigots from elsewhere in the world, who are just over the moon about Trump. They’re taking this as a sign to start burning everything, everyone, in their march towards global fascism. Fuck every single godsdamned person who voted for Trump – you voted for a xenophobic, homophobic bigot, a rapist, a sexual predator, a con man, an open fraud, a sociopath, an ignorant asspimple who will hasten the death of the very planet which gives you life. Fuck. every. single. one. of. you. You make me wish there was a hell, because if anyone deserves it, you do. Instead, you have unleashed hell on millions upon millions of people, and you have signed the death sentence on your own fucking planet, you fools.
See also: Far-right leader Le Pen says Trump win ‘good news for France’.
Lettered tiles spell out a cry for help (Shutterstock.com)
In the wake of the election of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, many Americans are — as former Obama administration official Van Jones noted — feeling shocked, alarmed and deeply afraid.
President-elect Trump spent his campaign stoking resentment and mainstreaming white nationalism. Many Muslims, immigrants, women, black and LGBT Americans all woke up on Wednesday wondering what the future has in store.
A lot of people are struggling, some may be contemplating taking drugs and alcohol to numb the despair or worse, contemplating self-harm or suicide.
David Ferguson at Raw Story has a very long list of help resources. You are not alone, there is support, and if you need it, please, please, reach out.
A Donald Trump supporter poses with a gun while attending a rally for Trump on the first day of the Republican National Convention in July (Photo: Getty Images).
I think it's time to wake up all of the neighbors with a few hundred gun shots into the air. #MakeAmericaGreatAgain
— Jim Chamberlin (@jchamberlin96) November 9, 2016
My granddad is so happy that Trump is winning he just went outside and shot his gun into the air. Merica
— KT (@katieanne711) November 9, 2016
If trump wins I will be blasting gun shots into the air
— parker snarski (@snarski_parker) November 9, 2016
Happy Native American Heritage Month #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/CTfxayT2tC
— Joe D. Horse Capture (@NativeCurator) November 7, 2016
Speaking of, Alysa Landry has an excellent article up at ICTMN, about spending the last forty-five weeks writing about all the U.S. presidents, and their impact on Indigenous peoples: Indians Are Invisible: What I Learned Researching US Presidents. Highly recommended reading. The whitewash goes deeper than anyone thought.
In a tiny bright spot, McCrory was defeated, and that means the rollback of HB2. Thanks to all those North Carolinians who voted their sense of right, and gave McCrory a very well deserved boot to the arse.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Democrat Roy Cooper was ahead by just a few thousand votes. Cooper has 2,280,398 votes compared to 2,276,059 for McCrory.
The Human Rights Campaign and Equality North Carolina issued a late-night news release elaborating on their win.
“We are confident that once the results are certified, Roy Cooper’s victory will be confirmed,” they wrote. “By electing Roy Cooper their next governor, North Carolinians have sent a powerful message across their state and this country that the days of anti-LGBTQ politicians targeting our community for political gain are over. While McCrory may have been surprised by the overwhelming opposition in this state and across the country to his discriminatory politics, the same will not be true for lawmakers who are considering doubling down on anti-LGBTQ extremism in the future. This is a wake-up call.”
Via The Advocate.
UPDATE: McCrory refuses to concede.
Welcome to the nightmare, writ large in the greasy crayons of greed, hate, ignorance, and fear. This is not my country, I stand without one. I don’t know what this place is anymore, outside of a place where terror resides and flourishes, a place where people are proud to be stupid and violent. I’ve felt broken many times in the past, but I don’t know that it’s ever bit quite as deep as this day does.
It took us an extra 32 years, but we finally reached 1984.
All images courtesy the artist.
When plastic material sits in our ocean for long enough it starts to degrade into nano plastics, a type of microplastic material that can traverse cell walls into fat and muscle tissue. This is a dynamic that Dutch designer Thijs Biersteker recently explored in his latest installation Plastic Reflectic, an interactive mirror that uses motion tracking technology to turn the spectator’s reflection into a silhouette made from hundreds pieces of real trash. “Turning us…slowly into plastic,” the artist explains.
Known for his psychedelic cloud installations and cancer punching bags, Biersteker constructed his new project on a horizontal pixel grid that houses 601 real pieces of plastic trash sourced from all over the world. Each piece of trash acts as a float and is pulled on and off the surface grid by 601 mini waterproof engines hidden under a pool of black biobased water.
Conservators working on Hanabusa Itchō’s ‘Death of Buddha.’ All photos courtesy of MFA Boston.
If you visit the Museum of Fine Arts Boston these days, you can witness conservation in action on an enormous Japanese hanging scroll, which is currently being remounted in the Asian paintings gallery. Hanabusa Itchō’s masterpiece The Death of the Historical Buddha was painted in 1713 and entered the MFA Boston’s collection in 1911. Though it was last on view in 1990, the scroll hadn’t been treated since 1850. “Usually these scrolls are remounted every 100 years or so, which is why the project was a priority,” Jacki Elgar, Head of Asian Conservation at the museum, tells The Creators Project.
As time goes on, scroll mounts can begin to fail or damage the painting, she explains—this is the most common reason for treatment. A painting might also become a candidate for remounting if the mount is inappropriate (for example, a 16th century painting that is mounted in a 20th century style), or if it was put inside a frame by a Western collector, in which case it can be returned to its original, hanging scroll format.
[…]
The conservation of Death of Buddha continues in the MFA Boston galleries until January 16, 2017. To learn more about the conservators—who have all completed extensive ten-year training programs in Japan—click here. The Creators Project has the full story, this would be fascinating to see. If you have the chance to go, do it!
From Giliell, click for full size. Absolutely *love* the last photo.
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
Sparrow, click for full size.
© C. Ford.
Police are responding to an active shooting in Azusa. (KTLA-TV Channel 5).
One person was killed and at least three others were wounded Tuesday in an active shooting near a polling place in Azusa.
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Capt. Jeff Scroggin said police were dealing with at least one suspect who was heavily armed.
At least one of the victims was headed to the polling station to vote, a law enforcement source told The Times.
Officers arrived about 2:02 p.m. in the 300 block of North Orange Avenue to find multiple shooting victims and a man with a rifle. The gunman immediately fired at least 20 shots at police, said the source.
Under a hail of gunfire, officers took cover and returned shots at the man, who retreated into a home in the 500 block of Fourth Street, said the source, who requested anonymity because the case was ongoing. No officers were injured in the shooting.
[…]
Azusa Union School District issued a lockdown for Slauson Middle and Mountain View Elementary schools about 2:15 p.m., officials said. A nearby daycare center and preschool was also locked down.
Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan said the shooting was affecting two polling stations at Memorial Park, a preschool, and Dalton Elementary school.
He urged voters to avoid the area and “if necessary, cast a ballot at an alternate polling location.”
Oh, this is so bad. So very bad. My heart to the victims, and the family and loved ones of the person who was killed, for no reason at all. The word at the moment is this person is still at large. If you are in the area, please, please, do whatever you need to do to be safe. This is a bloody nightmare, and we all know who we can thank for this one.
Full story at the LA Times.
Today, Americans will decide who will be the 45th President of the United States of America. An online exhibition considers the national and international consequences of this election. The group exhibition entitled, Pulling Down The Walls, organized by Galerie Number 8, examines some of the bigger issues—immigration, race, gender and equality—of the year. Featuring artists, Campbell Addy, Ivan Forde, Justin French, Nicolas Henry, Hector Mediavilla, Leonard Pongo, and David Uzochukwi, the pop-up show uses portrait, landscape, and reportage photography, to show what’s at stake in this presidential election. Read and see more at The Creators Project.
Justin French, Patriot, 2015, 20 x 30 inches. © Justin French.
Hector Mediavilla, Latingo Border #6, 2010, 48 x 60 inches. © Hector Mediavilla.