I should clarify a few things regarding my post yesterday about Peter Hort’s campain for Congress.

1. I do not have a problem with anyone running against Jerrold Nadler. I would love to have a ballot with many possible candidates for each position when I vote.
2. I deplore the way the Democratic and Republican parties in New York State have created a complex election law system designed to keep qualified candidates off the ballot unless they are part of the machine. I have seen legal challenges kick many people off the ballot who deserved to be there
3. I still have a problem with Mr. Hort’s campaign literature not stating that he is a Republican. I also believe that anyone running as a Republican these days in a place like New York City needs to explain why a vote for them is not a vote to keep Dennis Hastert and Tom DeLay in power. I think it is the hurdle any Republican running for the House has to get over before they can be considered a candidate that any proponent of gay rights, abortion rights, or the health of urban centers like New York can support.

I probably should have used a kinder tone in my previous post, but I am outraged by what the GOP is doing to my city, to my country, and to the rest of the world. I fail to see how why any reasonable person is willing to begin a political career in that party.

I have been meaning to write about this subject for several weeks, but today’s Newsday article on Peter Hort reminded me to do it. Peter Hort is running for Congress against Jerrold Nadler, the incumbent. Nadler is one of the most liberal members of Congress, and I rarely bother to contact him on any issue, because I agree with his position on nearly everything. The only disagreement is that I think he is a bit too ready to give Israel’s government the benefit of the doubt when it comes to its behavior vis-a-vis the Occupied Territories.

Peter Hort is running as a stealth Republican. His campaign literature doesn’t mention it, and barely appears on his web site unless you read fine print like the mention of his appearance on WNYC. He pretends to be an “independent.” New Yorkers need to realize what happens when they vote for a Republican. I don’t care if he marches in the annual gay pride parade. A vote for a Republican in the House is a vote for the House leadership, unless the candidate is promising to work to defeat the current leadership. That leadership includes:

• Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House
• Tom DeLay, Majority Leader

Mr. Hort’s parents are contemporary art collectors, whose taste I respect, and who support very edgy artists, including ones that make sexually explicit art. How their son can be a member of a party that thinks those people should be in jail, if not worse, is beyond me. I have written to Mr. Hort’s campaign to ask his position on the current GOP House leadership team.

Thanks to reBlog, I found an interview from November 2003 with brilliant geek artist John F. Simon, Jr. We have one of his pen plotter drawings, titled Bug, hanging in our entrance hallway.

I hadn’t realized he sold works called Souvenirs for $50 and under from his website.

Florentine “arts and crafts” in lower Manhattan. Before that phrase sends you running away, I’ll point out that it includes an exhibit of Medici portraits from the Uffizi at the Federal Hall National Monument.

Here are a Newsday article and the official web site.

I can’t find much about this other than this page from firstop. Doesn’t anyone bother to update web pages anymore?

Saturday October 2nd and Sunday October 3rd , 2004
12 to 8 PM

The third annual open-studios and exhibitions event reveals what’s happening in design in this thriving Brooklyn neighborhood. Featuring the latest in fashion, architecture, graphics, interior, furniture and industrial design, the event reflects the current state of Williamsburg: its lifestyle, industrial past and new creative talent.

Maps listing participants and locations will be available during the days of the event at the Bedford Ave L stop or come back to our website for full listing, detailed event information and directions.

We saw a card for this when we walked by some graffiti artists working on big murals at a space just off Bedford on Grand Street, with a sign that said Bauplatz.

Ellie Covan, founder of Dixon Place at her apartment (which is also the home of Dixon Place)

Dixon Place is a great example of why so many of us moved to New York. It is “an artistic laboratory with an audience,” a place where performing artists of all kinds try out work in progress before an audience. From the very beginning, Dixon Place has also made a commitment to pay the performers who appear there. For a space in NYC that hosts works in progress, that’s pretty rare.

It is all the creation of Ellie Covan, one of the saints of the art world. I have been going to Dixon Place since it moved to the current (and past) loft on the Bowery. James has been going since it was in Ellie’s apartment in the East Village. During that time, people were told to start singing Happy Birthday if the police arrived, as it was a rather irregular situation.

The New York Times Real Estate section has an article in its Habitats section on Ellie and Dixon Place. It also talks about Dixon Place’s new space on Chrystie Street, which is currently being constructed. They are still raising money for it, and I can think of few organizations more worthy of your money, if you have any to spare. None of you who go out and buy $10 drinks every weekend can plead complete poverty!

[photo by Diane Bondareff for The New York Times

I mentioned earlier that Donald Rumsfeld said “At some point the Iraqis will get tired of getting killed.” The Detroit Free Press reports that our military is killing more Iraqis than the insurgents, with many of those being civilians.

Operations by U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis — most of them civilians — as attacks by insurgents are, according to statistics compiled by the Iraqi Ministry of Health.

According to the ministry, which provided the Free Press with the figures Friday, the interim Iraqi government recorded 3,487 Iraqi deaths in 15 of the country’s 18 provinces from April 5 — when the ministry began compiling the data — until Sept. 19. Of those, 328 were women and children. Another 13,720 Iraqis were injured, the ministry said.

While most of the dead are believed to be civilians, the data include an unknown number of police and Iraqi national guardsmen. Many Iraqi deaths, especially of insurgents, are never reported, so the actual number of Iraqis killed in fighting could be higher.

During the same period, 432 U.S. soldiers were killed.

Iraqi officials said the statistics proved that U.S. air strikes targeting insurgents also were killing large numbers of civilians. Some of the officials say these casualties are undermining popular acceptance of the U.S.-backed interim government.

…

The Health Ministry is the only organization that attempts to track deaths through government agencies. The U.S. military said it kept estimates, but refused to release them.

HARRY CALLAHAN
Collage, Chicago, 1957
gelatin silver print
signed in stylus (in the margin); signed and annotated ‘same as one’ in ink (on the verso)
7 5/8 × 9 5/8in. (19.3 × 24.4cm.)

We have one photograph by Harry Callahan (of trees). I was browsing Christie’s web site to see if they had any works similar to ours when I came across this beautiful collage photograph. There’s not much text, but I suspect it was made of cut-up film.

Feel free to buy it for me. It is one of the lots from Elton John’s art collection being auctioned by them. He has some good stuff.

[Image from Christie’s web site.]

A few days ago, I wrote about Sue Niederer, the mother of a young soldier killed in Iraq, who interrupted a speech by Laura Bush. The New York Times has a feature on her today. It’s written by Chris Hedges, author of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and who was booed off the stage when he tried to give an anti-war speech at a college graduation in May 2003.

As Mrs. Bush was lauding her husband’s war on terror, Mrs. Niederer slipped on the shirt, which bore a photo of the lieutenant and the words “President Bush killed my son.” Standing at the back of the crowd, she interrupted Mrs. Bush, shouting that if the war was warranted, “Why don’t your children serve?”

“She did not answer,” Mrs. Niederer said. “She looked stunned.”

Suddenly, Mrs. Niederer recalled, she was surrounded by “men in dark suits with little earpieces” as well as angry Bush supporters. She was escorted from the hall, and as she tried to speak with reporters outside, she was arrested, handcuffed, taken to the Hamilton police station and charged with trespassing. She was released soon afterward, and prosecutors later dropped the charge.

…

“He had no training in bomb detection or in defusing bombs,” she said. “He did not have proper equipment. When I complained in public about the inadequate training and lack of equipment, the Army changed the story. They told me he was not trying to defuse a bomb. I still don’t know how he died. They won’t let me speak to or contact members of his platoon.”

Asked about her accusations, Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for the 10th Mountain Division and Fort Drum, said in a statement yesterday that Lieutenant Dvorin “was well trained and fully integrated into his unit,” and that he “died leading his soldiers in combat.”

Outside her office, Mrs. Niederer sat, swinging from anger to tears and back again, as low storm clouds cast a pall over the parking lot. “My goal is to bring the troops home as quickly as possible,” she said. “This was Seth’s wish. I can’t save my son, but I can save someone else’s son. Seth’s mission is mine.”

Number 41 is out.