Aurora Robson, photo by Hrag Vartanian

• Hrag Vartanian braved the heat to visit many of the Bushwick Open Studios last weekend and put up a massive flickr set.

• The New York Yankees have decided that $940 million in (legally dicey) tax-exempt bonds they have been given already are insufficient and now want an additional $350 million. Nice priorities, public sector! $2 billion a year in public subsidies for sports team isn’t quite enough? Meanwhile, the New York City Housing Authority is raising rents and cutting back programs due to falling tax revenues.

• Happy Loving Day to everyone! quote: “Mrs. Loving stopped giving interviews, but last year issued a statement on the 40th anniversary of the announcement of the Supreme Court ruling, urging that gay men and lesbians be allowed to marry.”

I see that a huge email of posts from the last week or so went out tonight to those who subscribe to my email list. As you can see, I’ve relaunched this blog and James with a new layout and the latest version of Movable Type, and apparently this confused our email service.

• U.S. seeking 58 bases in Iraq, Shiite lawmakers say
  58 bases, total control of airspace, and immunity from prosecution – sounds imperial to me
  tags: usa iraq occupation war

• Andrews says he heard racist strategy from Clinton camp – The Star-Ledger – Today’s top news story – NJ.com
  He says he received a call from a top member of Clinton’s organization and that the caller explicitly discussed a strategy of winning over Jewish voters by exploiting tensions between Jews and African-Americans.
  tags: hillaryclinton politics racism

• Bruce Schneier: Are photographers really a threat? | Technology | The Guardian
  Given that real terrorists, and even wannabe terrorists, don’t seem to photograph anything, why is it such pervasive conventional wisdom that terrorists photograph their targets? Because it’s a common movie plot.
  tags: photography terrorism security civilliberties
• humble arts foundation | solo show | jesse burke
  online solo photography show by long-time bloggy favorite
  tags: photography jesseburke

• Triple Canopy
  Beautiful design for this new site that "presents writing, art, video, and other creative projects in forms that work with and against the Internet."
  tags: art zine magazine video culture politics criticism designwelike
• Stumper : Clinton’s Popular Vote Claim? Close—But Not Quite
  it’s not true that she won the popular vote with any math that makes sense
  tags: hillaryclinton politics

I’m so glad the primary season is over. Here are a couple of video highlights explaining why.

Last night (from AMERICAblog):

Newsweek’s Howard Fineman just said on MSNBC at 8:35pm Eastern that the Clinton campaign is demanding that Hillary be offered the VP position, which she will then decline, and then Fineman quotes the Clinton campaign as saying “don’t you dare offer it to another woman.” Isn’t that special. Apparently, Hillary was only planning on breaking her own personal glass ceiling. For the rest of you, you can break you own.

From HuffingtonPost in March, in which Hillary Clinton says McCain is more qualified to be President than Barack Obama.

I’m not really interested in hearing how the wife of the President who gave us the Defense of Marriage Act and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and who herself voted for both the Iraq War and the PATRIOT Act, is some kind of hero for women, liberals, or queers. She’s not even showing up for some pretty important Senate votes on abortion.

Plus, don’t even get me started on white women from privileged economic backgrounds talking about how they are second class citizens unlike black people.

I just found this great podcast via googling for Elliott Durko Lynch. The April 6 episode is amazing. The story about New Orleans by Rik Reppe (roughly 20 minutes in) made me cry.

Radio All Stars Podcast