McCain Palin Campaign Ad

Maverick? Or complete Jackass? Campaign Poster of the Year. Blog it, print it, e mail it. Spread it around.

See below for the Obama poster.

SEE MORE WORK BY THE ARTIST: Collage by Matthew Rose.

MOTHERHOOD

A dash of Audubon and a dose of Poussin (Massacre of the Innocents), from the series A PERFECT FRIEND.

Sarah Palin, Baby!

Sarah Palin. Our next Vice President? Not pregnant here, that's for sure. She's going to be a grandmother? Holy wow! Talk about Store Front Windows! As it turns out, this photo is a fake. See here for the inside story on fake Sarah Palin photos (there's a fake one of her posing in a bikini and holding a rifle).

HEY KIDS! NOW that you're here, CLICK HERE to enjoy my music video (for drilling for dollars, babe, Sarah Palin).

iPhone Girl

"The iPhone Girl, a factory worker at Foxconn in Taiwan putting together Apple iPhones, had her photograph embedded on a new iPhone that was discovered by a UK-iPhone owner who upon loading up iTunes on the new phone, found the girl smiling back at him from the factory. She seems happy enough. Her identity remained a mystery for a week, after the UK user posted it on a MacForum list. Slowly interest in the cute Chinese girl spread across the net and has launched a new career for the mystery girl.
She has just signed a contract with Steven Spielberg for a feature-length film about her life making iPhones. In addition to the multi-million dollar contract, proposals for marriage have poured in to the Foxconn Factory, with suitors from as far as Sante Fe, New Mexico, have lined up with flowers and candy. While asked to be John McCain's running mate, iPhone Girl declined. Last week she was seen partying with Obama Girl in Denver, site of the DNC Convention.. AP story here.

OBAMA CAMPAIGN POSTER

[CLICK TO ENLARGE & PRINT]
MORE ART CLICK: MATTHEW ROSE

This pretty much says it all, don't you think? Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic also posted this poster.

Feel free to send it to a friend, blog it, post it, print out a few hundred copies at your local photocopy place (especially if you're in Denver or Minneapolis.

Guilty Pleasures: James Startt

"Je parle donc je suis," exposition de photographe James Startt, et livre publié par l'artiste et notre affilié, Polyflash/Paris, fait connaissance de la puissance de message et mode. Le livre, une edition limitée est offert for 20 euros. Contactez Startt direct pour une copie signée. [English readers, click here for a review in The Paris Voice.]

Le photographe, connu pour ses livres sur Le Tour de France et son dernier "Uniforms," explique sa demarche et l'historique de l'expo chez Agathe Gaillard:

Après plus de huit ans et demi, je me suis trouvé dans une impasse (comme le film d’un certain réalisateur italien). Après être resté tout ce temps focalisé sur un premier travail documentaire «Uniforme(s)» (les Editions du Seuil 2002 et l’expo photo de même année pendant le mois de la photo chez Agathe Gaillard) sans penser au lendemain, je me suis trouvé au bord d'un vide créatif effrayant, mais à la juste mesure, après tout, des efforts laissés derrière moi.

Que faire? Je n'en savais absolument rien, il ne me restait qu'un mot en perspective: recommencer. Regarder, viser (ou pas), déclencher, libre et sans but, en quelque sorte. Sans planning et sans cahier des charges. Plus encore: sans thème directeur.

Je photographiais alors tout ce que j'aimais de façon pulsionnelle et sans discrimination d'aucune sorte. Le matériel lui-même était, sinon indifférent, du moins improvisé - je prenais ce qui me tombait alors sous la main au gré des circonstances. Je dois dire que j'ai longtemps poursuivi la pureté des grands formats (spécialement du 6x6): j'ai donc mis un certain temps à accepter que ces formats n'était pas conciliables avec ma façon impromptue et flashée d’attaquer la photographie.

Pendant des mois j'ai expérimenté le montage d'un flash sur mon vieux Mamiya, avant de voir pousser les fruits de ce travail. C'était au soir d'un week-end londonien, où j'avais vu une fille "néo-gothique" superbement affublée d'un tee-shirt "Save the planet, Kill Yourself", que le déclic m'est venu. Visionnant le résultat de mes planches, j'était sur que j'avais trouvé mon prochain sujet.

J'avais beaucoup usé du format rectangulaire, en cherchant toujours à remplir le cadre, quitte à incliner le boîtier. Le format carré me semblait alors restrictif.

Ce projet m'a réconcilié avec le déconcertant équilibre du format carré, le plus apte à centrer l'attention sur les messages arborés par les porteurs de tee-shirts, à concentrer mon regard sur les leurs, sur leur messages ironiques, tour à tour hédoniste ou absent, mais toujours plein de sens, d'humeur au sens le plus physique et donc le plus littéral du terme.

Sur l'exposition, critique d'art, Christophe Donner, a écrit:

Lorsque James Startt le rencontre, son sujet a fait la moitié du chemin qui mène à la photo. Il a jailli de la masse, il s’en est détaché pour se présenter à celui qui le guettait, mais avant ça, depuis ce matin il est là dans sa tête à se demander ce qu’il va mettre, ce qu’il va dire. La journée du manifestant sera perdue s’il ne rencontre pas le regard de l’autorité, celle qui a fait l’autre moitié du chemin vers l’instant photographique. Ce désir d’être pris, de s’offrir, là, dans la rue, il est cousin de l’excitation de dire, plus que de la nécessité. Dire est une affaire sensuelle, tactile, la parole n’est plus rien sans le support, le tissu a influencé la revendication qui ne tiendrait pas sur une pancarte et qui ne sera jamais crié, et surtout : jamais reprise par quelqu’un d’autre. En donnant à la phrase la possibilité de mouler d’énormes nichons, de dévoiler grossesses et grosseurs, le coton s’impose comme une stèle littéraire d’un genre nouveau.
Fashion writing, mais pas que ça. Body art, mais au soleil, car James Startt en appelle toujours à cette forme particulière de lumière qui vient frapper le sujet et l’objectif, un peu, plus ou moins selon la violence qu’il retient de l’instant. C’est toujours le reflet du soleil qui unit le photographe à ses modèles, il joue de son inopportunité comme avec un feu qui pourrait tout brûler. Il prend le risque et donne à voir ce risque comme l’essence du mouvement. Chez les cyclistes, ce qu’il attrape, c’est l’éclat solaire de la souffrance, et là, dans ce débraillé social, le long de la paresse urbaine des marcheurs endimanchés, c’est aussi l’éclat d’intelligence au milieu du désastre en liesse. Quand on pense aux modèles de William Klein, en voyant ceux de Startt, on est frappé par l’inconscience des premiers, et la sapience des autres : l’écriture a tout changé. Les premiers criaient, ceux-ci sont muets, comme si, entre temps, on avait abandonné au tissu, à la matière, à la manufacture et à l’actualité, abandonné l’oralité de nos plaintes. Reste cependant, chez nos anciens comme chez nous, le même bonheur d’être reconnu dans la foule.

Le livre, 80+ pages, en couleur, est disponible direct du photographe (et signé): Contactez Startt direct pour votre copie.

London Store Front

Photo by Anna Livia Lowendahl-Atomic.

Goa, India

Store Front Window, Goa, India by artist Caroline Burke.

5000 Years of Chairs in 5 Minutes

Nick Currie, NY Times Berlin Design Correspondent on Chairs.

Ad Reinhardt : 1955

Ad Reinhardt in his New York studio in 1955.

The show, "Imageless," at the Guggenheim Museum starts with a story about a gift to the museum of one of Reinhardt’s “Black Paintings.” The black paintings are delicate: the mere touch of a finger leaves a permanent imprint. Their fragility contributed to them being perceived, and valued, as pure things in a corrupted world. From an article by Holland Cotter in the New York Times.

Photo: Photograph by Walter Rosenblum. Thomas Hess papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

The Beatles Arrive in New York 1964

Hey hey it's The Beatles! John, Paul, George and Ringo arrive in JFK Airport in New York, in 1964, the first stop in their US tour. Photo: The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.

Mittwoch, Haushalten & Whirlaway - 3 New Prints By Matthew Rose For Keep Calm Gallery

Lalande Digital Press is happy to be working with Keep Calm Gallery, the hip-online gallery for fine art prints in the UK. The newest works from Matthew Rose are from his A KICK IN THE KUNST series, exhibited at Galerie Rossella Junck Berlin.

Mittwoch, 2007, is German for "Wednesday," (literally middle of the week) and artist Matthew Rose's puppet-master/puppet collage. First exhibited in Berlin at Galerie Rossella Junck, Mittwoch (Limited signed and numbered edition of 21) plays with both silhouette and shadow, each exhibiting a presence but Mittwoch is oddly absent an actual protagonist. The artist says this is something of a self-portrait, and he is somewhere in the gap of here and there.

Haushalten is German for "keeping house," and in this piece, the house is not what it seems to be: constructed of 1950s advertising, the woman of the house shows off her newest gadget, a giant thingamajig, or if you like, a...dohickey, gizmo, gismo, or a thingamabob – on an ancient Roman pedestal. The surreal qualities of this good housekeeping moment – the blue sky blows through the gadget – points to terribly sunny days ahead from America's recent past. Haushalten, was produced in an edition of 19, is signed and number; it is also part of the A Kick in the Kunst series exhibited in Berlin at Galerie Rossella Junck.

Whirlaway, 2007, is one of the more complex of Matthew Rose's collage works from the A Kick in the Kunst series. The name, a feature from a mid-century Oldsmobile, purports a strange and perhaps violent future as a man hacks away at a tree. In the panel opposite, a girl and her shadow climb in a nether-space, a plate of prunes and cereal functioning as her head. The artist, who grew up in the American suburbs, reiterates the hidden and bizarre drama of the American middle-class dream. Whirlaway is produced in a limited edition of 12, each signed and numbered on high quality cotton paper.

Interested in these prints? Get in contact with Haley and Lucas at Keep Calm Gallery. Interested in making your own prints? Get in touch with Burning Boy Press Paris. 

Berlin Wall

Peter Leibing is a German photographer known for his 1961 photographs of escaping East German border guard, Conrad Schumann jumping a barbed wire fence during construction of the Berlin Wall.

On 15 August 1961 Leibing, working for the Hamburg picture agency Contiepress, had been tipped by police that an East German border guard might escape the Berlin Wall, then in its third day of construction.[1] At that stage of construction, the Berlin Wall was only a low barbed-wire fence. As people on the Western side shouted Komm rüber! ("come over"), Leibing captured a photograph of Schumann jumping a barbed wire fence and making his escape. The photo became a well-known image of the Cold War and won the Overseas Press Club Best Photograph award for 1961.[2]

The Berlin Wall

Matthew Rose, Installation View, A KICK IN THE KUNST, Galerie Rossella Junck, Augustrasse 28 Berlin. Through 5 September 2008.

Oliver Zabel: Objetmacher

OLIVER ZABEL

Berliner Pool

"Berlinerpool is an international information and communication platform on art, dedicated to the needs of artists."

Paris: 1953

MISTER ROSE'S ABC: LIVE!

MISTER ROSE reads MISTER ROSE'S ABC BOOK: A LITTLE BOOK FOR LITTLE PEOPLE. Get your own copy, only 10 euros, plus postage. READ THE INSIDE STORY OF MISTER ROSE'S ABC BOOK.

TO PURCHASE A SIGNED COPY OF MISTER ROSE'S ABC, or heck, several copies, E-MAIL : MISTER ROSE'S ABC. [If mail link is not working, e-mail : mistahrose at yahoo dot com].

La Coupole Paris

An early photograph of LA COUPOLE at 102, Boulevard Montparnasse, Paris. Thanks to Trussel.com.

Anonyme Zeichner

Blütenweiss is an association headed by the wonderful Berlin artist, Anke Becker. Several times a year, Anke puts on one of the most popular and interesting exhibitions to be held anywhere in Europe, Anonyme Zeichner, or Anonymous Drawings. The concept is simple: Artists send in drawings that are roughly A3-sized, unsigned (except on the back) and then offered for sale for 150 euros. The Anonymous Drawings exhibitions have been wildly successful with nearly 1000 entries and thousands of visitors and sales.

The next Anonyme Zeichner exhibition takes place this weekend, 4 July - 6 July at Galerie in der Stadtscheune, Sackstrasse 4, 21762 Otterndorf in Germany. Opening: July 4th, 2008 / 7pm. Hours: Saturday & Sunday, 11am - 8pm. The works are from the archive and selected by Anke.

Further information about the show and previous exhibitions click here.

See the Otterndorf Hadler Haus site, here.

Lalande Digital Press Paris loves art...of all flavors, and we're happy to have Anke Becker and Blütenweiss as friends. Interested in hosting an Anonymous Drawing exhibition in your city? Paris? London? Barcelona? Get in touch.

Berlin: A KICK IN THE KUNST

Matthew Rose, Installation view, A KICK IN THE KUNST, Galerie Rossella Junck, Augustrasse 28 Berlin. Exhibition runs through the end of August 2008.

Paris By Night

Like Paris by night? Well, Paris by night looks much better in this astonishing 360 degree full screen panorama: PARIS BY NIGHT. See more of Arnaud Frich's amazing photography.

Where The Hell Is Matt? Dancing!

Quite amazing little round the world tour of Matt...dancing. If we could only dance our way out of this world like Matt, we'd find our way a little more a part of it. Bravo!

Soviet Bus Stops

From Christopher Herwig Photography: "For the most part Soviet architecture and design is remembered for its heavy block buildings and functionally Spartan designs. Its overpowering desire for conformity left little room for individual creative freedom. A notable exceptions to this is in the transportation sector. One can admire this creativity in the Metro stations of cities like Moscow and Tashkent where the coldness and sterility of typical soviet urban architecture is abandoned and costs are not spared as creative freedom is unleashed. While many of us are aware of the elaborate splendor of the Moscow underground, it is easy to overlook the phenomenon of the common roadside bus stop as an example of soviet art and design letting loose and becoming a little weird and crazy.

"The roadside bus stop serves a simple purpose – to show where the bus will stop and to provide some comfort and shelter for waiting passengers. One would think that the Soviets would have come up with one universal design for this community structure – simple, functional and cheap to mass produce. However, in many instances this was not the case, much time, effort and imagination went into many roadside bus stops. The sky was the limit with different shapes and design– blocks, domes, columns, towers, A-frames and archways, even ones shaped like birds, yurts and hats. If the bus stop was less bold and daring with its architectural design then the creators would often attract attention with decorating the structure with murals or mosaics. The themes that these decorated bus stops took usually varied depending on the region, often reflecting the local culture, history, or industries. See all of Christopher's Soviet Bus Stops Here.

"Sadly, with the breakup of the Soviet Union many of the bus stops are quickly deteriorating from their original glory. That being said some local communities have recognized the local treasures as worthy of preserving and have maintained and repainted them. They will appear in the most unlikely places – sometimes in the middle of the desert, steppe or countryside, sometimes with no homes in sight. They will make you wonder why and they will make you smile. The following collection of images was taken during 2002 and 2006, starting with a cycling trip through the Baltic countries to St. Petersburg and followed by several road trips around Central Asia."

Spelling With Scissors

Matthew Rose opening at Capsule Gallery, November 2006, Denver Colorado. Film by Mark Sink.

Dogs In Art

From Dog Art Today.

Keith Haring Mural NYC, NY

Keith Haring on the Bowery, New York City, NY.

 Nice article by John Perreault about Haring (1958-1990), walls and the artists who are up against them.

I HAVE A CAR - LE FILM

Science For Sale At Christie's

Have a hankering for scientific volumes that changed the world?  Then get your molecules over to Christie's New York next Tuesday and break out your bankbook.  First editions of the Origin of Species, a 1543 volume by Copernicus (estimate: $900,000 to $1.2 million), Galileo as well as works by Descartes, Newton, Freud, Kepler, Tycho Brahe, Malthus and even Karl Marx all from the collection of physician and amateur astronomer Robert Green.

And yes, you can also pick up the first telephone directory.  

Americans Today

"A household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9 percent of all income."

– David Brooks, New York Times, 10 June 2008.

Francis Bacon On Painting

The artist talks about his methods, Muybridge, and motion from the particular madness that is his London studio. (Thank you, Timothy Buckwalter).

Oil War Gas Station

Artists knit a tea-cosy for a New York Gas Station in the 2008 collaborative work- Oil War. International Fiber Collaborative, put together this amazing art work – a serious Store Front Window – and St. Louis, MO artist Keith A. Buchholz brought it to my attention. He says, "The panel just left of the telephone pole – to the left of the pink one – is mine - theres a close up of it in the album." (see below, right). The idea that artists can change the landscape of the global oil economy is not exactly new, but it is ever renewable (unlike the global energy policy of sucking out every last drop of oil from the earth). In 1000 years the very idea of a "gas" station will be as strange as folks paying for phone calls (well, some people still pay for phone calls now) with quarters. Oil is, in the end, a finite resource. And now, of course, a political tool that is used to crush people who have become dependent on the black stuff to get where they want to go. My grandfather built Sunoco stations in Brooklyn. He grew up riding a horse. It's a strange war we're fighting.

Comments, anyone?

Gas Prices

My karma ran over my dogma.

I HAVE A CAR

Want a great song to drive to, yes, in spite of rising gas prices. Matthew Rose's I HAVE A CAR will do the trick. This version is performed by Hens Breet (MONOSPACE). Perhaps Hannah Montana will do a cover as well for Ford, Toyota, Mercedes or BMW. YouTube video coming soon.


DOWNLOAD "I HAVE A CAR," FREE MP3.

A KICK IN THE KUNST: 6 JUNE BERLIN

MATTHEW ROSE – A KICK IN THE KUNST
COLLAGES, WORKS ON PAPER & OTHER MAUVAISES IDEES

6. Juni – 26. Juli 2008

BERLIN – Matthew Rose ist ein Lügner. Und er ist ein wirklich guter: Er lügt mit Papier, Farbe, Leim, Schere und allem, womit er schreiben, kritzeln oder kratzen kann. Seine aktuelle Ausstellung "A KICK IN THE KUNST" in der Galerie Rossella Junck ist seine obsessive Ode an die Kunst. Ob Gestrampel, Geschrei, Sex, Lügen, emotionale Rätsel und Dramen, alles findet sich in einer ansehnlichen Reihe von Collagen, Zeichnungen, Flaschen und Gegenständen wieder.

Seine jüngsten Ausstellungen, "The Whole Truth" (Gallery in the Field, Brandon, Vermont) und "Spelling with Scissors" (Capsule Gallery, Denver, Colorado) zeigen gewissermaßen Mini-Retrospektiven seiner Arbeit. Sie umfassen mehr als 1000 Collagen, Zeichnungen, Gemälde, Drucke sowie gefundene und wieder neu zusammengebaute Objekte. Für diese Ausstellungen füllte der Künstler die Galerien vom Fußboden bis zur Decke. Er selbst nennt dies "My Theory of Everything".
Der aus New York stammende und seit 1992 in Paris lebende Künstler schuf in den vergangen Jahrzehnten eine monumentale, irrwitzige Menagerie, die auf den Betrachter wirkt wie die Auflösung des Bewusstseins selbst – endlos, surreal, ernst, sich verausgabend und schließlich selbsttrügerisch. In "A KICK IN THE KUNST" spitzt er seine Botschaften zu, indem er Wörter und Bilder verzerrt, Bedeutungen verbirgt und wieder neu zusammensetzt. "Es ist mein Handbuch für das 21. Jahrhundert", sagt Matthew Rose.

Fuer die Galerie Rossella Junck hat Matthew Rose eine erschöpfende Ausstellung konzipiert, die beinahe alle Aengste und Lueste des modernen, kultivierten Menschen streift: Es geht um Sex, Wissenschaft, Identität, Sprache, Geschichte, Krieg, Liebe, Vorstadtneurosen, Schreiben oder Tod. Visuell fordernd und grafisch fesselnd, teils makaber, teils zynisch oder politisch inkorrekt, häufig urkomisch und dabei immer charmant fuehrt uns Matthew Rose mit seinem speziellen „Handbuch“ durch unser eigenes Leben. Er vermischt klassische, wissenschaftliche, illustrierende und fotografische Bilder aus der Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts mit französischen, deutschen, spanischen, englischen und sogar hebräischen Texten. "A KICK IN THE KUNST" verspricht somit eine Art Übersetzungsoffenbarung zu sein, nah an Dada und dabei topaktuell.

"The Whole Truth ist die meisterhafte Präsentation von den ästhetischen Idealen der DADA-Kunst, indem sie den Sinn des Originals mitteilt, ohne es sklavisch zu kopieren, und es nahtlos in den zeitgenössischen Kontext überträgt", schrieb Richard Brown, Kunsthistoriker und Kritiker im Rutland-Herald ueber Roses Ausstellung in Vermont.

Der Künstler graduierte 1981 an der Brown University in Providence mit dem BA in Semiotik und Linguistik. Seine Arbeiten werden seitdem in öffentlichen und privaten Sammlungen in den USA und Europa ausgestellt. Seine Textserie „Paintings“ wurde vom Boca Raton Museum of Art’s für die ständige Sammlung erworben. Derzeit entsteht unter der Leitung der Regisseurin Jennifer Giovanni ein Dokumentarfilm „Collage by Matthew Rose“ über sein Leben, seine Arbeit und seine ungehemmte Art, die Welt zu sehen.

Öffnungszeiten: Dienstag bis Samstag 13.00 – 19.00 Uhr u.n.V.  Eröffnung: Freitag, 6. Juni, 19.00 Uhr

GALERIE ROSSELLA JUNCK | Auguststr. 28 | 10117 Berlin Tel/Fax +49 (0)30 94 88 38 98 | oliver@rossellajunck.com | www.rossellajunck.com

Contact More Info: MATTHEW ROSE

Motels, Hotels & Neon

The amazing world of Jericl Cat. See way more of his work on his Flickr site. There's downtown LA, Wilshire Boulevard, Paper Ephemera and a zillion other things that will blow your mind. (Thanks for this great design find from Coudal.com)

Andy Warhol Soup Can Window

Cyclone: 22,000 Missing & Killed in Myanmar

Endless troubles in Burma. Now the cyclone.

Here, (right) monks struggle in an attempt to wade out of Yangon (Photo: AFP/Matt Davis). Aerial shots show a coast that is completed flooded. Most of the news images are of supplies being offloaded from planes. It is surprising to see any images at all with the tight control the Myanmar military junta has on the country. Maybe such devastation will change the way the country talks to the world.

I Have A Car

Listen to the 1988 hit (acoustic version) I HAVE A CAR by singer song writer, Matthew Rose.

The Mind: Beautiful

Target

A Zen moment? Or a Target Store extension?

Hemingway at Les Deux Magots Paris

Thanks to Ionarts for this image of Ernest Hemingway and Janet Flanner at the Café Deux Magots in Paris. Talk about setting the table.

Keep Calm and Carry On: Wahsoh

Keep Calm and Carry On: A new print, Wahsoh (2008) by Matthew Rose for KEEP CALM GALLERY is now available exclusively through the web site.

The edition is signed, dated and numbered, edition of 50, A2-sized (18" x 25") full-color print on fine acid-free paper, printed by Lalande Digital Art Press Paris. Price: 55 UK Pounds. This print is typical of Matthew Rose's increasingly mad world. Originally a 50 x 50 cm collage exhibited in "Herzschmerz" in 2006 Berlin at Gallery Tristesse Deluxe, the piece was destroyed (and has subsequently been remade). Here, obsessive worlds of sex and language collide in a miasma of metaphor and mistaken identity. The artist takes his collage technique to not only reading and spelling, but seeing and hearing, with this unique "all-over" piece.

Click on the image above to enlarge Wahsoh.

Two exhibitions by Matthew Rose are planned for May and June. In May, The David Turner Gallery, in Atlanta, Georgia will present more than 30 large-format prints from the A Perfect Friend series as well as a series of drawings and collages for the gallery's inaugural exhibition. In June, Galerie Rosella Junck, Augustrasse 28, Berlin will feature new collage works, drawings and objects in a show entitled "A KICK IN THE KUNST."

E-mail Keep Calm's Lucas or Hayley to purchase by clicking here : KEEP CALM.

Rice Riots 1918

Suzuki Shoten in Kobe, burned during the Rice Riots of August 11 1918

With Walmart now rationing rice in the US, and food riots and rationing in place in Haiti, Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries, it might make sense to take a look at what happened 90 years ago.

From the Wikipedia: The Rice Riots of 1918 (米騒動 kome sōdō?) were a series of popular disturbances that erupted throughout Japan from July to September 1918, which brought about the collapse of the Terauchi Masatake administration.

A precipitous rise in the price of rice caused extreme economic hardship, particularly in rural areas where rice was the main staple of life. Farmers, when comparing the low prices they were receiving due to government regulation, with the high market prices, had tremendous hostility against rice merchants and government officials who had allowed the consumer price to spiral out of control. The rice price increase came at the peak of a post-war (World War I) inflationary spiral that also affected most consumer goods and rents, and thus urban dwellers also had considerable scope for grievances. However, the Siberian Intervention further inflamed the situation, with the government buying up existing rice stocks to support the troops overseas, which further drove rice prices higher. The government failed to intervene in economic affairs, and rural protests spread to the towns and cities

Climate Porn

© Greenpeace/Lombardi

From the Greenpeace weblog: "Well, with all this talk of "climate porn", some of our activists in Amsterdam have gone one better - they've set up a "Green Light District" in the heart of Amsterdam's Red Light District by replacing the red light bulbs with green, energy efficient ones, and taking over a few of the windows - dressed normally, of course!

It's all part of a Dutch campaign for to get 1 million extra energy efficient lightbulbs installed in the Netherlands.

Broken Window Theory

The Broken Window Theory, interesting reading.

Last Buddah Standing : Sri Lanka

From Barnaby's Blog (and something I found after a visit to Sri Lanka this week). Not exactly the last Buddah standing, but one that is after the tsunami hit in December 2004.

500 Years of Women in Art

By Philip Scott Johnson : 500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art. Music: Bach's Sarabande from Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007 performed by Yo-Yo Ma. For a complete list of artists and paintings visit here.