Fun with Ojai Valley Artists - this Friday!

In the Spring of this year, a group of enterprising Artists took over a run-down space in the heart of OJAI, California, and turned it into a bright and beautiful Gallery.

This Friday evening, 20th September, everyone in the area is invited to "Happy Hour at OVA arts, 108 N. Signal. Sept. 20th from 6-8:30 p.m. Save the date and put it in your calendar! Music by Marc Weber, food and wine. FREE!!!"

Here's a link to a nicely-made video about the making of OVA - 

Even the 1% Don't Like the Keystone XL Scam

This story was posted today at The Daily Kos.  I'm not entirely sure what to make of it....

"Unexpected environmental activism coming from the one percent: Billionaire investor Tom Steyer [founder of the hedge fund Farallon Capital Management LLC] said he is backing a four-part, $1 million advertising campaign aimed at convincing viewers the Keystone XL pipeline will hurt the economy and communities and should be blocked.

Here's his first ad:

As you'll see, Mr Billionaire doesn't seem to be concerned about the insanity of fracking for tarsands oil at all. He doesn't seem to worry about WHY oil should be transported by pipeline from Canada, all the way across the United States to the Gulf of Mexico, THEN refined, THEN shipped across the oceans to China and other markets. (Why not ship it from Vancouver?)

He doesn't even mention Pollution or Alternative Energy.

No, what bothers him, is that the energy dragged out of Alberta at such huge environmental cost (Fracking pollution is already proving a problem after the "Thousand-Year Storm" being experienced in Colorado right now.) will be used for the benefit of nations other than the USA.

There's more to this than meets the eye, Folks....

Austi's Phascinating Photography - See It Tonight in Ventura

Tonight from 6. to 9 pm, if you're anywhere near Ventura, CA, don't forget to check out First Friday, when local artists show off their stuff!

Leaflets are available around town, with details of the local venues which take part, and the information is in the local Press.

I wanted to show you some of our brilliant friend Austi V. Campbell's dramatic, psychological Photographs, but Google doesn't want to let me do it, so here's an image of a different kind:

You'll be able to see more - and chat with the Artist herself - at M. B. Hanrahan's studio at Bell Arts, the wonderful venue in the former mattress factory, 432, N. Ventura Avenue.

Very much worth the trip!

Looking for Campbell-ot

In the process of writing a post about my talented friend Austi Campbell, I came upon the attractive visage of Texas Freshman State Senator Donna Campbell -

This charming lady apparently "hasn’t wasted any time making her mark on the 83rd Legislative Session in Austin", according to her local Radio Station.

How has she worked her wonders for the people of the Idiot State of Texas? One of her great contributions to the march of progress is:

“Most notably, Campbell authored a bill that limits the amount of classroom hours a person would need to complete in order to obtain a concealed handgun license.  Currently state law requires at least 10-hours and up to 15-hours of classroom training before a handgun license is issued.  But Campbell’s bill, which isn’t getting a lot of opposition in Austin, would reduce the requirements to a minimum of 4 hours....”

Just in case you thought having untrained idiots running around schools with firearms might indicate a lack of concern for human well-being, this fine woman has other measures in hand:
“Campbell has been an outspoken proponent of a bill that she co-authored that requires abortion clinics in Texas to meet stricter clinical standards.  Specifically, the bill would impose the same standards on abortion clinics as those imposed on ambulatory surgical centers.  Campbell says women shouldn’t be exposed to a clinic with less standards than a clinic that performs a man’s colonoscopy.  Critics say the bill amounts to a backdoor ban on abortions since the new regulations would be so costly that an estimated 80% of clinics would be forced to close.”

The sooner these Frack-happy morons secede from the Union, the better.

A Bi' o' British Nostalgia

Jacqueline Winspear, the author of the Maisie Dobbs period-detective series of books, has a website (who doesn't, these days?) with information about her books and career, and so on.

The site also also contains some charming little essays. One, beautifully written, is about a nostalgic trip to the rural county of Kent, in South-East England, where Winspear grew up, and a ride on the lovingly-preserved Kent & East Sussex Railway, hailed by its supporters as "the country’s finest example of a rural light railway".

Here's an extract from Jacqueline Winspear's essay:

"He's seen me, he's seen me!" I'd squeal.

"I was no more than a toddler at the time, but I remember it clearly, remember the waft of smoky steam pressing up through the trees, the kerCHUFF-kerCHUFF of the engine, and the driver's smile as he leaned out to acknowledge me. And that whistle really was for me, because the drivers knew who was who along the branch line. We arrived at the station in Hartley late one day, my parents running to the platform only to see the back of the last carriage as it pulled out. But the driver had looked around at just the right moment and seen us, so drew his engine to a steaming halt and shunted the carriages back again so that we could climb aboard. That was in the days when a guard would walk ahead of the train to the first level crossing at Bishops Lane, to close the gates so that the train could pass safely. Not that there was much traffic on Bishop's Lane. The odd tractor, perhaps the farmer's old Morris, Fred Cooke delivering groceries, or the doctor on his rounds. And that was on a busy day.”

You can read the rest of the yarn, here.

Syria: An Important Point....

... graphically made, and forwarded to me by Paul Kaskiewicz -

And let's not forget which nation is the only one to have unleashed a nuclear weapon on a foreign population - twice.

"Closed Circuit": A Quick Review

The British political thriller "Closed Circuit", starring Eric Bana and splendidly British Rebecca Hall, is on wide US release this week, though it seems to have received little publicity and few reviews.

The film is exciting and suspenseful for its first half, but then loses its nerve and wanders around, throwing away many opportunities for drama, including "how would the New York Times react if its deputy London Bureau Chief was suspiciously killed while investigating a British Government terrorism cover-up?"

And it's careless, even amateurish, in small ways, such as not bothering to explain or explore that Bana, an excellent actor,  has a marked Australian accent.  I'm sure there are Aussie barristers practising in London, but nationality would play a role in how Bana's character came to be where he is, in this ominous political trial as well as in his troubled relationship with Hall's "proper lady". Instead the filmmakers just ignore the implications of their own casting.

Having muttered all that, the film is well worth seeing for those who like to explore alternate "War On Terror" realities.

So far, most of the big newspapers don't seem to have reviewed the movie, which may tell us something in itself.*

Here's a clip to whet your appetite:  http://humanoidmanipulator.com/closed-circuit-movie-clip-paranoid-2013-eric-bana-movie-hd/

Socialist David Walsh has written an excellent review, which analyses the political aspects of the film, and nails many of the salient points about the film's significance in our current tumultuous global political situation:


"If Closed Circuit is not as riveting as it ought to be by rights, considering its subject, that may have to do with the artistic limitations of its creators, but, in my view, inadequate social conceptions also come into play. The filmmakers still tend to take the “war on terror” and associated developments at face value, even as they strenuously criticize the authorities’ repressive and even homicidal over-reactions.
The hydra-headed military-intelligence apparatus, which soaks up enormous sums of money and employs enormous numbers of people in the US, the UK and elsewhere, has not emerged primarily to confront the danger represented by a few thousand Islamist fanatics. The terrorist threat from that region exists in the first place because the great powers have been plundering the resources of the Middle East, propping up hated, brutal dictators there and supporting repression of the Palestinian people for more than half a century.
The present social order, with its gaping social inequality, is incompatible with the old democratic norms. London is home to financial criminals in large numbers, while conditions for masses of people, especially young ones, worsen unrelentingly. The cameras and police and spies and military have arrived on the scene for that reason, to deal with the coming social explosion.
This is not something within the thinking of many artists at present. The drama here unfolds almost entirely apart from British conditions and British life, it doesn’t point toward them, it remains the province of two high-minded, isolated Good Samaritans—and that weakens the proceedings and their emotional impact.
In any event, artistically incomplete though it may be, Closed Circuit is a chilling, disturbing film. Its weaknesses have no doubt helped generate the generally lukewarm or negative reviews in the American media, but it is also a movie that makes the critics nervous, because it comes too close to what everyone knows is home. Broadbent, as the attorney general, gets to deliver one of the strongest lines in the film, whose implications Closed Circuit only hints at, when he tells Bana’s Rose: “There are powers at play that neither you nor I may even hope to control.”

You can read the full review here.


(*ADDED NOTE:  There's a review in the New York Times by the unimpressive Manohla Dargis, whose lacklustre writing used to "grace" the LA Weekly.  Don't waste your time reading it; she ignores the political significance of the movie, and hides behind a chuckling front of "oh-what-fun-to-be-so-paranoid-in-a-movie". Come to think of it, maybe that is how the NYT would react to a foreign Government murdering one of their own.)