View allAll Photos Tagged obfuscation
Washington DC, The National Mall, July 13, 2014. Over 2,000 climate justice activists assemble for a rally and march to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in opposition to the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The looming 4+ billion dollar expansion of the Dominion Resources facility in Calvert County is largely seen by environmentalists as a dirty and dangerous enabler of the accelerated overseas export of fracked gas from nearby states and a prelude to the approval of hydraulic fracturing in western Maryland. Several speakers at the rally skewered Maryland's cowardly centrist democrat politicians who see Cove Point as a 'done deal' and have almost completely avoided taking any meaningful action for their constituents on this vital issue. Opacity, obfuscation, ass covering and capitulation to some of the very worst corporate bullies is what we've come to expect from our spineless elected officials. The marchers braved 93 degree temperatures and typically heavy DC summertime humidity. When I finally left the march at Union Station even the strap on my camera bag was soaked with sweat. Here's Tim DeChristopher on the mic. Tim endured a rather underserved stretch in Federal prison for peacefully trying to prevent the further desecration of Utah wilderness by the resource extraction industry. Check out the movie "Bidder 70".
Washington DC, The National Mall, July 13, 2014. Over 2,000 climate justice activists assemble for a rally and march to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in opposition to the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The looming 4+ billion dollar expansion of the Dominion Resources facility in Calvert County is largely seen by environmentalists as a dirty and dangerous enabler of the accelerated overseas export of fracked gas from nearby states and a prelude to the approval of hydraulic fracturing in western Maryland. Several speakers at the rally skewered Maryland's cowardly centrist democrat politicians who see Cove Point as a 'done deal' and have almost completely avoided taking any meaningful action for their constituents on this vital issue. Opacity, obfuscation, ass covering and capitulation to some of the very worst corporate bullies is what we've come to expect from our spineless elected officials. The marchers braved 93 degree temperatures and typically heavy DC summertime humidity. When I finally left the march at Union Station even the strap on my camera bag was soaked with sweat.
Washington DC, The National Mall, July 13, 2014. Over 2,000 climate justice activists assemble for a rally and march to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in opposition to the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The looming 4+ billion dollar expansion of the Dominion Resources facility in Calvert County is largely seen by environmentalists as a dirty and dangerous enabler of the accelerated overseas export of fracked gas from nearby states and a prelude to the approval of hydraulic fracturing in western Maryland. Several speakers at the rally skewered Maryland's cowardly centrist democrat politicians who see Cove Point as a 'done deal' and have almost completely avoided taking any meaningful action for their constituents on this vital issue. Opacity, obfuscation, ass covering and capitulation to some of the very worst corporate bullies is what we've come to expect from our spineless elected officials. The marchers braved 93 degree temperatures and typically heavy DC summertime humidity. When I finally left the march at Union Station even the strap on my camera bag was soaked with sweat.
Washington DC, The National Mall, July 13, 2014. Over 2,000 climate justice activists assemble for a rally and march to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in opposition to the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The looming 4+ billion dollar expansion of the Dominion Resources facility in Calvert County is largely seen by environmentalists as a dirty and dangerous enabler of the accelerated overseas export of fracked gas from nearby states and a prelude to the approval of hydraulic fracturing in western Maryland. Several speakers at the rally skewered Maryland's cowardly centrist democrat politicians who see Cove Point as a 'done deal' and have almost completely avoided taking any meaningful action for their constituents on this vital issue. Opacity, obfuscation, ass covering and capitulation to some of the very worst corporate bullies is what we've come to expect from our spineless elected officials. The marchers braved 93 degree temperatures and typically heavy DC summertime humidity. When I finally left the march at Union Station even the strap on my camera bag was soaked with sweat.
Facial Weaponization Suite (2011-14)
Facial Weaponization Suite protests against biometric facial recognition–and the inequalities these technologies propagate–by making “collective masks” in community-based workshops that are modeled from the aggregated facial data of participants, resulting in amorphous masks that cannot be detected by biometric facial recognition technologies. The masks are used for public interventions and performances. One mask, the Fag Face Mask, generated from the biometric facial data of many queer men’s faces, is a response to scientific studies that link determining sexual orientation through rapid facial recognition techniques. Another mask explores a tripartite conception of blackness, divided between biometric racism (the inability of biometric technologies to detect dark skin), the favoring of black in militant aesthetics, and black as that which informatically obfuscates. A third mask engages feminism’s relations to concealment and imperceptibility, taking recent veil legislation in France as a troubling site that turns visibility into an oppressive logic of control. A fourth mask takes up biometrics’ deployment as a border security technology at the Mexico-US border and the resulting violence and nationalism it instigates. These masks intersect with social movements’ use of masking as an opaque tool of collective transformation that refuses dominant forms of political representation.
21 May 2013. I watched a Haringey traffic warden
(Civil Enforcement Officer*) ticket a car showing
a "blue badge" - meaning the driver was disabled.
I asked him why. He explained that the car was parked in a bay which was "suspended" while Thames Water did some works. There was no exemption for blue badge holders.
The Plain English Campaign began in 1979 when its founder Chrissie Maher publicly shredded hundreds of official documents in Parliament Square, London.
For many years it seemed to be gradually winning the battle against bureaucratic jargon and vagueness. But some deeply old-fashioned organisations are still fighting a rearguard action against clarity and transparency.
So please be aware that Thames Water Will endeavour to obfuscate information in a timely manner so as to cause the maximum doubt and confusion. Thank you for your undue incomprehension in this matter.
___________________________________
§ * Or as I prefer to think of them: Haringey Charm Ambassadors.
First of all, can I offer my most profound thanks to sheriffmitchell ... what an awesome frood for inviting me to anything. Just to reiterate, I'm available for groups, sets, international parties and soirees, you tag me, I'm there. So without further ado, my sixteen things.
1. The chicken came first, clearly.
2. I once bought a macbook pro with Nick's credit card, I convinced him he'd won it in a competition.
3. My favourite quote is by Ogden Nash ... "The cow is of the bovine ilk; one end is moo, the other milk." Nick wanted me to say it was "Do not allow your children to mix drinks. It is unseemly and they use too much vermouth" by Fran Lebowitz, well swivel Nick, this is my sixteen get your own.
4. I like to sleep at least 12 hours a day, don't tell the guys because I've been invoicing 9 hour days since 2006.
5. When I grow up I want to be a designer like Nick and Jeff so I can just mess around on the internet all day, uploading pictures and playing computer games. Failing that I'd like to be an astronaut, food critic or travel writer ... anything that means a lot of jollies for not much work.
6. I'm allergic to fruit, vegetables, and salad.
7. Whilst I like to tread my own flickry path, I'm not without colleagues, associates, rapscallions and ne'erdowells. Aside from the guys I've also been known to associate with a shabby band of characters. A forgiving cow named Marvin (there was an altercation involving an art project and a hacksaw) a sheep ... Sheepy, Oink (a frankly weakly conceived promotional item, but nevertheless a all-round salt-of-the-earth type) and an equally commercial addition, the John West bear.
8. Today I walked past David Walliams in Soho, he doesn't know, and frankly I don't care.
9. I'm a Londoner, culturally and socially, and don't get me wrong, a part of my heart is always going to belong to Devon and Cornwall. That said, my favourite holiday destination will always be the Canary Islands. The guys took me there once, they hated it, but everything from the tacky decor, to the inclusion of bacon in every single aspect of their diet (bacon cornflakes FTW) can't be beaten.
10. I'm a well travelled swine, I have visited France, Belgium, Belgium, Prague, Belgium, Devon (is that a country?) and Fuerteventura.
11. I'm afraid of finding myself in the charity clothes bin. Sure, rumours about these places pass from person to person, but you're never really sure how obfuscated the line between myth and reality really is. Let me tell you, the rumours are all true. Once you've been placed in the shute, there's no way out, you're on your way to becoming part of an Afghan cardigan, or some sort of rubber shoe destined for Bosnia. Don't get me wrong, people need cardigans ... but this pig ain't for repurposing.
12. I'm not fond of hard work, the pay tends to be appalling.
13. I'm nearly four years old, it was a pretty arduous few months getting here from China, and it took 3 months for Nick to rescue me from the polyethylene bag, but its been an amazing few years since.
14. I have a nemesis, his name is Kipper.
15. I'm all about the cheese. Lets be clear, we're not talking nostalgia, kitsch, or anything tacky-but-expensive. I mean cheese in the purest milk, curds, slicing, packaging, crackers, yum sense. I'm a crude pig and enjoy simple base cheesey pleasures. I also favour the oatmeal cracker.
16. I'm too lovable to be a copyright infringement.
Having downloaded the recent House Intelligence Committee Report on Russian Active Measures, I wanted to see if I could read the redacted sections. On the pdf document, it looked like a black marker had been used over the redacted text, thus giving me hope of peering through the marker to see underlying text. However, as you see from this picture, it seems the redaction is a more complex process, and is reasonably thorough in obfuscating the text.
Washington DC, The National Mall, July 13, 2014. Over 2,000 climate justice activists assemble for a rally and march to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in opposition to the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The looming 4+ billion dollar expansion of the Dominion Resources facility in Calvert County is largely seen by environmentalists as a dirty and dangerous enabler of the accelerated overseas export of fracked gas from nearby states and a prelude to the approval of hydraulic fracturing in western Maryland. Several speakers at the rally skewered Maryland's cowardly centrist democrat politicians who see Cove Point as a 'done deal' and have almost completely avoided taking any meaningful action for their constituents on this vital issue. Opacity, obfuscation, ass covering and capitulation to some of the very worst corporate bullies is what we've come to expect from our spineless elected officials. The marchers braved 93 degree temperatures and typically heavy DC summertime humidity. When I finally left the march at Union Station even the strap on my camera bag was soaked with sweat. That's Tim DeChristopher on the far left, Reverend Lennox Yearwood second from left, Mike Tidwell of CCAN fourth from left and author Sandra Steingraber on the far right. Anybody out there who knows the names of the other three ladies holding up the banner?
Washington DC, The National Mall, July 13, 2014. Over 2,000 climate justice activists assemble for a rally and march to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in opposition to the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The looming 4+ billion dollar expansion of the Dominion Resources facility in Calvert County is largely seen by environmentalists as a dirty and dangerous enabler of the accelerated overseas export of fracked gas from nearby states and a prelude to the approval of hydraulic fracturing in western Maryland. Several speakers at the rally skewered Maryland's cowardly centrist democrat politicians who see Cove Point as a 'done deal' and have almost completely avoided taking any meaningful action for their constituents on this vital issue. Opacity, obfuscation, ass covering and capitulation to some of the very worst corporate bullies is what we've come to expect from our spineless elected officials. The marchers braved 93 degree temperatures and typically heavy DC summertime humidity. When I finally left the march at Union Station even the strap on my camera bag was soaked with sweat.
>>Like the haunting chants and prayers to which I've never listened
thou shalt no longer live in chains or ever be imprisoned.
Ease my always throbbing heart, I shall no longer falter
as pupae to imagines all images must alter.
Let thy glory shine on me, disperse my obfuscation,
hide thy essence in myself, I need assimilation.
Stream thyself into my soul and flood it with thy yearning,
pour thy soul into my shell, erase my restless burning.
I hear voices of a stranger.
I hear voices of a stranger.
I hear voices of a stranger.
I hear voices in my head, echoing. <<
(A prayer for sanctuary by ASP
if you want to listen: youtu.be/QkJaCjtkSHo )
Washington DC, The National Mall, July 13, 2014. Over 2,000 climate justice activists assemble for a rally and march to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in opposition to the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The looming 4+ billion dollar expansion of the Dominion Resources facility in Calvert County is largely seen by environmentalists as a dirty and dangerous enabler of the accelerated overseas export of fracked gas from nearby states and a prelude to the approval of hydraulic fracturing in western Maryland. Several speakers at the rally skewered Maryland's cowardly centrist democrat politicians who see Cove Point as a 'done deal' and have almost completely avoided taking any meaningful action for their constituents on this vital issue. Opacity, obfuscation, ass covering and capitulation to some of the very worst corporate bullies is what we've come to expect from our spineless elected officials. The marchers braved 93 degree temperatures and typically heavy DC summertime humidity. When I finally left the march at Union Station even the strap on my camera bag was soaked with sweat.
20150515 update: Government officials have requested this image to be taken down due to various security and/or safety related issues. I have updated it with a blurred version of the original (thanks, ImageMagick!).
I have obfuscated the KPN emergency phone number, I don't know if it's still active. If it is, I wouldn't want someone prank-calling it based on this photo.
I volunteered to help out the people of Alarmfase 026 (Stichting NCO Arnhem & Nationaal Noodnet) moving in some new historical artifacts for display and some spare parts salvaged from other bunkers. I couldn't resist taking some pictures as well.
The museum is located in the former PTT (PTT, Nederlands) NCO Arnhem communications atomic bunker, built under the "De Leuke Linde" playground during the Cold War (Koude Oorlog). After the Cold War ended, it was used as a high-secure relay station for the Nationaal Noodnet emergency communications network.
'There'll always be an England, while there's a country lane' or so the patriotic song made famous by Vera Lynn goes. Apparently it was written in the summer of 1939 and became hugely popular on the outbreak of World War II. Now whilst i'm not English I do live in London and have a certain affinity for England and, by extension, the English. It's heartening to know that all the brave British soldiers who laid down their lives to defend our green and pleasant land did so in order that their progeny could bring the country to a standstill by rioting in the street - all to get their hands on the latest 'free' stuff - trainers, computers, phones and the like. There's nothing like having a good cause to fight for...
Now whilst i'm not about to pretend that there aren't certain segments of the population who have a legitimate grievance over certain issues I'm pretty sure that rioting and looting is probably not the best way to get your voice heard in a democratic country. Maybe it was the voice of youth galvanised by the guerilla looting tactics employed by those who clearly only had financial gain in mind that led this to become a nationwide event. Or maybe the footsoldiers of capitalism were merely showing off their new found solidarity by rising up and showing The Man just how they run thing's round here. Either way it was an ugly episode and one worth examining.
For those unfamiliar with the song and to commemorate last year's youth rebellion I'd like to present Vera Lynn's version for your listening pleasure (complete with lyrics). I'm surprised the rioters weren't singing this en masse when they raised a people's army and tried to seize control of the state by storming the ancient seat of democracy. Oh wait a second, I'm getting confused again aren't I? They were just rioting for a laugh anad a new pair of Nike's. My mistake...
Vera Lynn - There'll Always Be An England
In order to maintain our membership of the urban artist elite we are legally obliged to do a couple of these 'social commentary with a cheeky twist' style pieces every year. My favourite touch is the tiny rioter conducting the burning of the local JD sports store. Keep your eyes peeled for the next one as it may have even more obfuscated meaning, sarcasm and hidden irony...
Cheers
id-iom
Washington DC, The National Mall, July 13, 2014. Over 2,000 climate justice activists assemble for a rally and march to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in opposition to the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The looming 4+ billion dollar expansion of the Dominion Resources facility in Calvert County is largely seen by environmentalists as a dirty and dangerous enabler of the accelerated overseas export of fracked gas from nearby states and a prelude to the approval of hydraulic fracturing in western Maryland. Several speakers at the rally skewered Maryland's cowardly centrist democrat politicians who see Cove Point as a 'done deal' and have almost completely avoided taking any meaningful action for their constituents on this vital issue. Opacity, obfuscation, ass covering and capitulation to some of the very worst corporate bullies is what we've come to expect from our spineless elected officials. The marchers braved 93 degree temperatures and typically heavy DC summertime humidity. When I finally left the march at Union Station even the strap on my camera bag was soaked with sweat.
Washington DC, The National Mall, July 13, 2014. Over 2,000 climate justice activists assemble for a rally and march to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in opposition to the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The looming 4+ billion dollar expansion of the Dominion Resources facility in Calvert County is largely seen by environmentalists as a dirty and dangerous enabler of the accelerated overseas export of fracked gas from nearby states and a prelude to the approval of hydraulic fracturing in western Maryland. Several speakers at the rally skewered Maryland's cowardly centrist democrat politicians who see Cove Point as a 'done deal' and have almost completely avoided taking any meaningful action for their constituents on this vital issue. Opacity, obfuscation, ass covering and capitulation to some of the very worst corporate bullies is what we've come to expect from our spineless elected officials. The marchers braved 93 degree temperatures and typically heavy DC summertime humidity. When I finally left the march at Union Station even the strap on my camera bag was soaked with sweat.
Washington DC, The National Mall, July 13, 2014. Over 2,000 climate justice activists assemble for a rally and march to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in opposition to the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The looming 4+ billion dollar expansion of the Dominion Resources facility in Calvert County is largely seen by environmentalists as a dirty and dangerous enabler of the accelerated overseas export of fracked gas from nearby states and a prelude to the approval of hydraulic fracturing in western Maryland. Several speakers at the rally skewered Maryland's cowardly centrist democrat politicians who see Cove Point as a 'done deal' and have almost completely avoided taking any meaningful action for their constituents on this vital issue. Opacity, obfuscation, ass covering and capitulation to some of the very worst corporate bullies is what we've come to expect from our spineless elected officials. The marchers braved 93 degree temperatures and typically heavy DC summertime humidity. When I finally left the march at Union Station even the strap on my camera bag was soaked with sweat.
In the blue and golden hours, the Mekong River up in Laos is an ethereal place. Never so more than when the farmers are slashing and burning fields.
In April I took a two-day slow boat trip from Huay Xai on the border of Thailand to Luang Prabang in Laos. We spent the first night in a Laotian village called Pak Beng which seems to exist primarily to serve the adventurers taking the same route. It's a great place to try Water Buffalo and Laos Whiskey if this is your first time in Laos.
The people in this part of the world survive mainly by farming. They burn fields into the dense jungle sloping the Mekong.
The thick smoke obfuscates the sun and thousands of charred embers float through the air. Silence except for the occasional bird squawking from its hiding place.
You feel like you are outside of time and at the end of the world.
Washington DC, The National Mall, July 13, 2014. Over 2,000 climate justice activists assemble for a rally and march to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in opposition to the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The looming 4+ billion dollar expansion of the Dominion Resources facility in Calvert County is largely seen by environmentalists as a dirty and dangerous enabler of the accelerated overseas export of fracked gas from nearby states and a prelude to the approval of hydraulic fracturing in western Maryland. Several speakers at the rally skewered Maryland's cowardly centrist democrat politicians who see Cove Point as a 'done deal' and have almost completely avoided taking any meaningful action for their constituents on this vital issue. Opacity, obfuscation, ass covering and capitulation to some of the very worst corporate bullies is what we've come to expect from our spineless elected officials. The marchers braved 93 degree temperatures and typically heavy DC summertime humidity. When I finally left the march at Union Station even the strap on my camera bag was soaked with sweat.
Washington DC, The National Mall, July 13, 2014. Over 2,000 climate justice activists assemble for a rally and march to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in opposition to the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The looming 4+ billion dollar expansion of the Dominion Resources facility in Calvert County is largely seen by environmentalists as a dirty and dangerous enabler of the accelerated overseas export of fracked gas from nearby states and a prelude to the approval of hydraulic fracturing in western Maryland. Several speakers at the rally skewered Maryland's cowardly centrist democrat politicians who see Cove Point as a 'done deal' and have almost completely avoided taking any meaningful action for their constituents on this vital issue. Opacity, obfuscation, ass covering and capitulation to some of the very worst corporate bullies is what we've come to expect from our spineless elected officials. The marchers braved 93 degree temperatures and typically heavy DC summertime humidity. When I finally left the march at Union Station even the strap on my camera bag was soaked with sweat.
Washington DC, The National Mall, July 13, 2014. Over 2,000 climate justice activists assemble for a rally and march to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in opposition to the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The looming 4+ billion dollar expansion of the Dominion Resources facility in Calvert County is largely seen by environmentalists as a dirty and dangerous enabler of the accelerated overseas export of fracked gas from nearby states and a prelude to the approval of hydraulic fracturing in western Maryland. Several speakers at the rally skewered Maryland's cowardly centrist democrat politicians who see Cove Point as a 'done deal' and have almost completely avoided taking any meaningful action for their constituents on this vital issue. Opacity, obfuscation, ass covering and capitulation to some of the very worst corporate bullies is what we've come to expect from our spineless elected officials. The marchers braved 93 degree temperatures and typically heavy DC summertime humidity. When I finally left the march at Union Station even the strap on my camera bag was soaked with sweat.
The Zhongshan suit, or Mao suit as it is more commonly known in the West, remains a powerful sartorial signifier of China, despite the fact that it began disappearing from the wardrobes of most Chinese men and women, aside from government officials, in the early 1990s. For many Western designers, the appeal of the Mao suit rests in its principled practicality and functionalism. Its uniformity implies an idealism and utopianism reflected in its seemingly liberating obfuscation of class and gender distinctions. During the late 1960s, a time of international political and cultural upheaval, the Mao suit in the West became a symbol of an anticapitalist proletariat. In Europe, it was embraced enthusiastically by the left-leaning intelligensia specifically for a countercultural and anti-establishment effect.
[Met Museum]
Taken in the 'China: Through the Looking Glass' exhibition (May-September 2015).
This exhibition explores the impact of Chinese aesthetics on Western fashion and how China has fueled the fashionable imagination for centuries. In this collaboration between The Costume Institute and the Department of Asian Art, high fashion is juxtaposed with Chinese costumes, paintings, porcelains, and other art, including films, to reveal enchanting reflections of Chinese imagery.
From the earliest period of European contact with China in the sixteenth century, the West has been enchanted with enigmatic objects and imagery from the East, providing inspiration for fashion designers from Paul Poiret to Yves Saint Laurent, whose fashions are infused at every turn with romance, nostalgia, and make-believe. Through the looking glass of fashion, designers conjoin disparate stylistic references into a pastiche of Chinese aesthetic and cultural traditions.
The exhibition features more than 140 examples of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear alongside Chinese art. Filmic representations of China are incorporated throughout to reveal how our visions of China are framed by narratives that draw upon popular culture, and also to recognize the importance of cinema as a medium through which to understand the richness of Chinese history.
[Exhibition description]
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 5th Avenue, New York
Washington DC, The National Mall, July 13, 2014. Over 2,000 climate justice activists assemble for a rally and march to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in opposition to the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The looming 4+ billion dollar expansion of the Dominion Resources facility in Calvert County is largely seen by environmentalists as a dirty and dangerous enabler of the accelerated overseas export of fracked gas from nearby states and a prelude to the approval of hydraulic fracturing in western Maryland. Several speakers at the rally skewered Maryland's cowardly centrist democrat politicians who see Cove Point as a 'done deal' and have almost completely avoided taking any meaningful action for their constituents on this vital issue. Opacity, obfuscation, ass covering and capitulation to some of the very worst corporate bullies is what we've come to expect from our spineless elected officials. The marchers braved 93 degree temperatures and typically heavy DC summertime humidity. When I finally left the march at Union Station even the strap on my camera bag was soaked with sweat.
Despite the tangible artifact the historical record is hazy. This regional market (that place you will never inhabit) is not for you. Who cares if it’s not up to your standards? It’s speaking in a tongue that you have yet to understand. It represents modernity at the very edge of the prescient global marketplace. Nevertheless, the foreigner can’t help but be attracted to the illustration’s aura, the cross-hatched sheen coming off the bespectacled popster’s noggin. (Huang Qing Yuen 黄清元 is a popular Malaysian Chinese singer from the 1960's).
The historical record (the world-wide-web) even alters the spelling of the subject’s name (Wong Ching Yian / Huang Qing Yuen) allowing for further obfuscation. The singer’s record label leaves no trace but an as-of-yet unheard oral and fading possibility (or the information settles on some dusty academic shelf). Yet, here and there we find a crack in the layers of document-worthy technology (books, websites), a fanatic with nothing but the product to establish their own production (something like this blog), someone willing to archive the obscurely important. Youtube embeds the sound of this 45 rpm which we translate as the song “Man Li”:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD09jRsJOio
(image behind 45 rpm is view from my flat in Dragon Centre, Wun Sha Street, Hong Kong)
Washington DC, The National Mall, July 13, 2014. Over 2,000 climate justice activists assemble for a rally and march to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in opposition to the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The looming 4+ billion dollar expansion of the Dominion Resources facility in Calvert County is largely seen by environmentalists as a dirty and dangerous enabler of the accelerated overseas export of fracked gas from nearby states and a prelude to the approval of hydraulic fracturing in western Maryland. Several speakers at the rally skewered Maryland's cowardly centrist democrat politicians who see Cove Point as a 'done deal' and have almost completely avoided taking any meaningful action for their constituents on this vital issue. Opacity, obfuscation, ass covering and capitulation to some of the very worst corporate bullies is what we've come to expect from our spineless elected officials. The marchers braved 93 degree temperatures and typically heavy DC summertime humidity. When I finally left the march at Union Station even the strap on my camera bag was soaked with sweat.