Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 1000
September 14, 2015
Young Brooklyn artist redefines the selfie in her new show: “It is not about vanity.”
RAFiA SANTANA, PAiNT ME PUKiNG (2014)[/caption] [caption id="attachment_14072313" align="aligncenter" width="225"]
RAFiA SANTANA, PAiNT ME PUKiNG (2014)[/caption] [caption id="attachment_14072314" align="aligncenter" width="225"]
RAFiA SANTANA, RAFiA (Above), 2014[/caption] SELFiE is on view in the window gallery of the MoCADA on South Portland Avenue in Fort Greene, Brooklyn until September 27, 2015.Multimedia artist Rafia Santana, 25, has given new meaning to the "selfie." Webster dictionary will tell you that a "selfie" is simply an image taken of one's self, but Santana's SELFiE exhibition on display at Brooklyn's Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) shows that it is much more. Watch the up-and-coming artist redefine the meaning of selfie: [jwplayer file="http://media.salon.com/2015/09/RafiaS..." image="http://media.salon.com/2015/09/Screen...] Santana has combined images of herself with graphically created backgrounds and soundscapes to take viewers on a "journey of her self-care methods." Each image is accompanied by one of Santana's original songs because as she says, "visuals and music speak to eachother." The images reflect the exploration of her blackness, feminity and mental health, Santana said. Suffering from anxiety and depression as a result of being a young black woman, she uses art as her outlet. "Anybody who thinks selfies are only vain wants to reduce the importance of a human being. I am not sure where the judgment comes from,"she said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "We should all be reflective of ourselves whether we are in a good place or bad place." "Selfies help to bring us out of a bad place to uplift ourselves and connect with others." [caption id="attachment_14072310" align="aligncenter" width="225"]
RAFiA SANTANA, PAiNT ME PUKiNG (2014)[/caption] [caption id="attachment_14072313" align="aligncenter" width="225"]
RAFiA SANTANA, PAiNT ME PUKiNG (2014)[/caption] [caption id="attachment_14072314" align="aligncenter" width="225"]
RAFiA SANTANA, RAFiA (Above), 2014[/caption] SELFiE is on view in the window gallery of the MoCADA on South Portland Avenue in Fort Greene, Brooklyn until September 27, 2015.
Irrelevant Scott Walker hits new low: Why his latest assault on workers won’t save his sinking campaign
Fresh off a 10th place finish in the most recent Quinnipiac Iowa poll, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker thinks it’s time to return to the policies that launched his national political career. On Monday he’ll announce a brutal assault on labor rights that would strip away worker protections earned as far back as the New Deal. The flailing Walker has previewed a policy agenda that includes eliminating unions for federal employees, making all workplaces “right-to-work” unless states opt out, and eliminating the National Labor Relations Board. "This will not be easy," Walker told the Associated Press. "Many — including the union bosses and the politicians they puppet — have long benefited from Washington rules that put the needs of special interests before needs of middle-class families." The time and place of Walker’s announcement ought to prove to America once and for all that he’s dumb as a box of rocks. Walker is rolling out his anti-union agenda in Las Vegas, one of the most heavily unionized cities in America. Ninety percent of the jobs in Vegas hotels are union jobs, and almost half of all non-supervisor positions in the hotel, restaurant and gaming industries are unionized, compared to 19 percent of such jobs nationwide. Meanwhile, in the last few days analysts have drilled to the core of Donald Trump’s base to identify his most fervent supporters: working class white men. That once-loyal Democratic voting bloc has been steadily trending Republican since the days of Richard Nixon. Now they see their savior in a bloviating billionaire who brags about how he’s going to improve their lives but never quite says how. So does Walker think he’s got a plan to win these men back from Trump? I’m pretty sure they aren’t sitting around the tavern grousing, “That damn NLRB! That’s the reason I haven’t gotten a raise in 15 years!” But Walker is a master of the politics of resentment, turning Wisconsin into an ideological war zone and pitting the good white people of the state against the cities, particularly heavily African American Milwaukee. In his crusade against public sector unions, Walker counted on the ire of private sector workers who’ve watched their own wages and benefits decline, at paying for a public sector where employees have it better than they do. In that prank phone call he received from “David Koch” in 2011 – it was actually Buffalo disc jockey Ian Kennedy -- Walker boasted of a story in which “every stereotypical blue-collar worker type” supported his moves against public sector unions. (Actually, falling for the Koch prank was an early sign that Walker isn’t too bright, but the local and national media dismissed it and moved on.) Still, it’s hard to believe that Walker will cut into Trump’s lead with a bold play to crush unions. It will be interesting to see how Trump responds. He may even take a populist approach and frame Walker’s move as a sop to his plutocratic paymasters like the Kochs. One thing is clear: Walker’s been trying to reboot his campaign with tough talk about how he’s going to “wreak havoc” on Washington. I’m not sure he understands the term, but it’s evident he’s already wreaked havoc on his own campaign. Polling 10th in Iowa, with 3 percent, is a disaster for a guy who staked his entire campaign on his appeal in the nearby state. Instead, he’s closer to joining Rick Perry on the list of former 2016 candidates than to winning the crucial first caucus state. Fresh off a 10th place finish in the most recent Quinnipiac Iowa poll, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker thinks it’s time to return to the policies that launched his national political career. On Monday he’ll announce a brutal assault on labor rights that would strip away worker protections earned as far back as the New Deal. The flailing Walker has previewed a policy agenda that includes eliminating unions for federal employees, making all workplaces “right-to-work” unless states opt out, and eliminating the National Labor Relations Board. "This will not be easy," Walker told the Associated Press. "Many — including the union bosses and the politicians they puppet — have long benefited from Washington rules that put the needs of special interests before needs of middle-class families." The time and place of Walker’s announcement ought to prove to America once and for all that he’s dumb as a box of rocks. Walker is rolling out his anti-union agenda in Las Vegas, one of the most heavily unionized cities in America. Ninety percent of the jobs in Vegas hotels are union jobs, and almost half of all non-supervisor positions in the hotel, restaurant and gaming industries are unionized, compared to 19 percent of such jobs nationwide. Meanwhile, in the last few days analysts have drilled to the core of Donald Trump’s base to identify his most fervent supporters: working class white men. That once-loyal Democratic voting bloc has been steadily trending Republican since the days of Richard Nixon. Now they see their savior in a bloviating billionaire who brags about how he’s going to improve their lives but never quite says how. So does Walker think he’s got a plan to win these men back from Trump? I’m pretty sure they aren’t sitting around the tavern grousing, “That damn NLRB! That’s the reason I haven’t gotten a raise in 15 years!” But Walker is a master of the politics of resentment, turning Wisconsin into an ideological war zone and pitting the good white people of the state against the cities, particularly heavily African American Milwaukee. In his crusade against public sector unions, Walker counted on the ire of private sector workers who’ve watched their own wages and benefits decline, at paying for a public sector where employees have it better than they do. In that prank phone call he received from “David Koch” in 2011 – it was actually Buffalo disc jockey Ian Kennedy -- Walker boasted of a story in which “every stereotypical blue-collar worker type” supported his moves against public sector unions. (Actually, falling for the Koch prank was an early sign that Walker isn’t too bright, but the local and national media dismissed it and moved on.) Still, it’s hard to believe that Walker will cut into Trump’s lead with a bold play to crush unions. It will be interesting to see how Trump responds. He may even take a populist approach and frame Walker’s move as a sop to his plutocratic paymasters like the Kochs. One thing is clear: Walker’s been trying to reboot his campaign with tough talk about how he’s going to “wreak havoc” on Washington. I’m not sure he understands the term, but it’s evident he’s already wreaked havoc on his own campaign. Polling 10th in Iowa, with 3 percent, is a disaster for a guy who staked his entire campaign on his appeal in the nearby state. Instead, he’s closer to joining Rick Perry on the list of former 2016 candidates than to winning the crucial first caucus state. 
A staggering number of Republicans believe President Obama is a Muslim
A new CNN/ORC poll has found that nearly 30 percent of all Americans do not believe the president is a Christian, including 43 percent of Republicans who say he is a Muslim, while 20 percent of all adults believe he was born outside the United States. In 2012, when Gallup asked "do you happen to know the religious faith of Barack Obama?" 47 percent of Republicans claimed to have no idea. 43 percent are now certain he is a Muslim, up from the 34 percent of Republicans who told Pew in 2010 that they believed he was a Muslim. While Republicans' views on President Obama's religion seem to be entrenched in fallacy, their views on his citizenship have become more reasonable. Despite the nation's most prominent birther dominating the Republican presidential field, the poll also finds that most Republicans have accepted that President Obama was born in Hawaii, not Kenya. CNN reports that 71 percent of all Republican and Republican-leaning voters were satisfied by Obama's 2011 release of his long-form birth certificate after Donald Trump sent a team of investigators to Hawaii to uncover "one of the greatest cons in the history of politics and beyond." "I don’t know why he wouldn’t release his records," Trump told CNN's Anderson Cooper in July, refusing to backdown from his perch as king of the birthers. According to this latest poll however, 61 percent of Trump's supporters think President Obama was born in the United States. Still, 20 percent of all Americans believe Obama was born outside the United States, with nine percent bizarrely claiming to have solid evidence to prove it. On that last point, CNN's poll seems to be in stark contrast with a recent PPP poll that found that 61 percent of Trump supporters believed that Obama was born outside of the United States, with 66 percent falsely believing he is a Muslim. 
August 28, 2015
Stafford, Bortles shine as Lions beat Jaguars 22-17
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Matthew Stafford completed 11 of 15 passes for 173 yards and two touchdowns, helping the Detroit Lions beat the Jacksonville Jaguars 22-17 in a preseason game Friday night.
The Lions (2-1) trailed most of the night, but rookie Zach Zenner’s 3-yard touchdown run with 1:41 remaining was the winner.
Detroit played without star receiver Calvin Johnson for the third consecutive game, but Stafford carved up Jacksonville’s secondary in a half of work. Stafford threw a perfect deep ball to Golden Tate for a 62-yarder in the second quarter and then hooked up with Corey Fuller for a 4-yard score.
Zenner had a 41-yard scamper that set up Fuller’s score. He finished with 85 yards on eight carries.
Blake Bortles was the story again for Jacksonville (1-2). He completed 20 of 29 passes for 245 yards and a touchdown. He also ran for 38 yards, including two third-down scrambles that kept scoring drives alive.
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AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL
Vin Scully to return for record 67th year with Dodgers
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Vin Scully will return for a record 67th season in the broadcast booth for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The news was revealed in the second inning of Friday night’s game against the Chicago Cubs.
Late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel appeared on the Dodger Stadium video board and told the crowd via cue cards without uttering a sound.
His last card read: “God bless us everyone.”
The 87-year-old Scully stood up and waved from his booth as the crowd cheered.
The Hall of Fame announcer continues to enjoy describing the action on the field. His consecutive years of service make him the longest-tenured broadcaster with one team in sports history.
Redskins say QB Griffin to miss Ravens game
ASHBURN, Va. (AP) — The Washington Redskins say quarterback Robert Griffin III will miss Saturday’s exhibition game at the Baltimore Ravens because of a concussion, reversing an earlier decision to let him play.
In a statement released Friday by the Redskins, NFL independent neurologist Robert Kurtzke is quoted as saying that Griffin “should be held from gameplay this weekend and be retested in one (to) two weeks before a firm conclusion to return to gameplay can be made.”
Griffin left last week’s exhibition game against Detroit with what Redskins coach Jay Gruden said afterward was a concussion. The Redskins announced Thursday that Griffin had been cleared to play this weekend.
Despite volatility, on-air rampage difficult to predict
ROANOKE, Va. (AP) — Living alone in a world of perceived slights, Vester Lee Flanagan II festered and fumed. His hair-trigger temper directed at a random collection of people he encountered never seemed to stray into the type of violent behavior that would have put him on the radar of police or mental health professionals.
By not crossing that line, he avoided doing anything that would have made it illegal for him to purchase the gun he used to kill two former co-workers on live TV in Virginia.
Flanagan, 41, had never been arrested for a felony and had no criminal record. There are no records indicating he was ever committed for psychiatric care or had been the subject of a restraining order. Hop-scotching around the country for work, he rarely stayed anywhere longer than a year and didn’t appear to socialize much. The people on the receiving end of his anger shifted from day to day.
Instead, he left lasting impressions of a man who lashed out at others for imagined offenses. He lived alone in an apartment near the TV station that had fired him two years ago, across the country from his family and California hometown.
How can anyone stop a massacre when no one seems to be close enough to notice hints of looming violence?
“We all wish we could predict human behavior accurately all the time,” said Clint Van Zandt, a former FBI behavioral profiler. “The behavior doesn’t cross the line until he shows he presents a realistic, immediate threat to himself and others.”
Flanagan fatally shot himself while fleeing police and can’t explain why he killed WDBJ-TV reporter Alison Parker, 24, and 27-year-old cameraman Adam Ward. In a fax to ABC News, Flanagan wrote that he had been mistreated for being black and gay, and the “tipping point” was the shooting that killed nine black people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June.
In his last hours before shooting himself to death, Flanagan — using his on-air name, Bryce Williams — posted a grisly video of himself killing Parker and Wade and sent a series of tweets complaining about the two, who often worked together on the station’s morning show. Of Parker, an intern when he was at the station ahead of his February 2013 firing, he complained she had made racist comments; of Ward, he claimed the cameraman went to the station’s HR department after working with him just a single time.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spokesman Thomas Faison said Flanagan legally purchased the gun used in the slaying that also wounded a local economic development official, something that couldn’t have happened if he had prior felony convictions or a history of mental health commitments.
It’s unclear whether Flanagan had ever been treated for psychiatric problems. The people he encountered described him as unstable and with a hair-trigger temper, but no one has said he made threatening remarks.
Justin McLeod, who worked as reporter at WDBJ for a time with Flanagan, described him as having a “Jekyll and Hyde” personality. He was a volatile man who had trouble making friends and would get angry at the slightest perceived insult, McLeod said.
“It was something that was truly scary,” McLeod said.
He stayed in Roanoke after being fired and would occasionally be seen around town. Video obtained by NBC News shows a sparsely decorated apartment and a refrigerator plastered with photos of himself, including old class pictures and modeling shots that he also posted on social media.
Police were called to escort Flanagan from the station when he was fired because he refused to leave, but he was never charged with a crime. Flanagan, who was black, yelled a racial epithet and threw a cap as he exited. He pressed a wooden cross into his news director’s hand, telling him: “You’ll need this.” Roanoke police said in a statement Friday that Flanagan sat in his personal car until he received paperwork about his dismissal, then left without problems.
Mark Sichel, a New York-based psychotherapist and author, said Flanagan was a classic “injustice collector,” a person whose fragile ego leads to paranoid behavior, such as overreacting to perceived slights and creating enemy lists, as a protective mechanism.
It usually doesn’t lead to physical violence, but as the list grows, so does the person’s rage and sense of moral superiority, Sichel said. Intervention rarely works, as such a person scoffs at therapy and rejects offers of help. These people tend to alienate people they know, but their behavior tends to be dismissed unless they threaten or harm someone.
“They could call the police and say this person is a danger to others, but I’m not sure the police could do anything,” Sichel said.
Sichel said Adam Lanza, who killed 27 people, including 20 students at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newton, Connecticut, in 2012, fit the profile. The phrase “injustice collector” also appears in an FBI report on threat assessments prepared in response to the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado, perpetrated by teenage gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
Others crossed Flanagan in seemingly mundane incidents after his firing. In one instance, he wrote a rambling letter to a restaurant, complaining that staff told him “have a nice day” instead of “thank you.” In another, a co-worker at a health insurance company’s call center, Michelle Kibodeaux, 46, said he tried to grab her after she made an innocuous remark about him being unusually quiet one day.
“He said, ‘Don’t you walk away from me. Don’t you turn your back on me,'” she recalled.
“I said, ‘This is not going to happen’. And he said, ‘Don’t you ever speak to me again,” Kibodeaux said.
His history of workplace disagreements kept him from getting at least one job. Adam Henning, news director at WAFF-TV in Huntsville, Alabama, said he declined to hire Flanagan in 2011 after checking with people Henning knew at least one other station where Flanagan had worked. Henning said he never spoke to Flanagan personally.
Companies often want to know the chances an employee will react violently after being fired, but there is no easy answer because it can take years for anger to reach a boiling point, said Van Zandt, who now works as a consultant.
Chris Hurst, a WDBJ-TV anchor who was Parker’s boyfriend, said he and his colleagues wondered in hindsight if there wasn’t more they could have done for Flanagan “to extend him love.”
“But he needed, at the time, to be pushed away, because he was not someone who was helping our station and helping our newsroom,” Hurst said. “But I wonder if I had said the right combination of words to him whether that might have tried to light a spark of change.”
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Reeves reported from Birmingham, Alabama. Associated Press writers Larry O’Dell in Richmond, Virginia; Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Mississippi; and Allen Breed in Roanoke contributed to this report.
Rachel Maddow eviscerates the Bush administration’s incompetent Katrina response: “A natural disaster became a manmade disaster”
Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, President Barack Obama addressed a crowd in New Orleans, noting the ways the city has recovered. In his speech he referred to the tragic events that unfolded as a “manmade disaster” that should have never happened.
“Is governmental failure at that time being put into proper prospective?,” Rachel Maddow asked former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial on her show last night.
Morial replied that we must continue to remind people of the “ineptitude and incompetence at every level of government” as well as of the way that New Orleans citizens suffered.
“Only by continuing to remind people will we recognize and understand how important it is for the nation, the states and cities to have their emergency response act better together today than it was ten years ago,” he said.
Watch the conversation below:
Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, President Barack Obama addressed a crowd in New Orleans, noting the ways the city has recovered. In his speech he referred to the tragic events that unfolded as a “manmade disaster” that should have never happened.
“Is governmental failure at that time being put into proper prospective?,” Rachel Maddow asked former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial on her show last night.
Morial replied that we must continue to remind people of the “ineptitude and incompetence at every level of government” as well as of the way that New Orleans citizens suffered.
“Only by continuing to remind people will we recognize and understand how important it is for the nation, the states and cities to have their emergency response act better together today than it was ten years ago,” he said.
Watch the conversation below:
Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, President Barack Obama addressed a crowd in New Orleans, noting the ways the city has recovered. In his speech he referred to the tragic events that unfolded as a “manmade disaster” that should have never happened.
“Is governmental failure at that time being put into proper prospective?,” Rachel Maddow asked former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial on her show last night.
Morial replied that we must continue to remind people of the “ineptitude and incompetence at every level of government” as well as of the way that New Orleans citizens suffered.
“Only by continuing to remind people will we recognize and understand how important it is for the nation, the states and cities to have their emergency response act better together today than it was ten years ago,” he said.
Watch the conversation below:
Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, President Barack Obama addressed a crowd in New Orleans, noting the ways the city has recovered. In his speech he referred to the tragic events that unfolded as a “manmade disaster” that should have never happened.
“Is governmental failure at that time being put into proper prospective?,” Rachel Maddow asked former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial on her show last night.
Morial replied that we must continue to remind people of the “ineptitude and incompetence at every level of government” as well as of the way that New Orleans citizens suffered.
“Only by continuing to remind people will we recognize and understand how important it is for the nation, the states and cities to have their emergency response act better together today than it was ten years ago,” he said.
Watch the conversation below:
Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, President Barack Obama addressed a crowd in New Orleans, noting the ways the city has recovered. In his speech he referred to the tragic events that unfolded as a “manmade disaster” that should have never happened.
“Is governmental failure at that time being put into proper prospective?,” Rachel Maddow asked former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial on her show last night.
Morial replied that we must continue to remind people of the “ineptitude and incompetence at every level of government” as well as of the way that New Orleans citizens suffered.
“Only by continuing to remind people will we recognize and understand how important it is for the nation, the states and cities to have their emergency response act better together today than it was ten years ago,” he said.
Watch the conversation below:
Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, President Barack Obama addressed a crowd in New Orleans, noting the ways the city has recovered. In his speech he referred to the tragic events that unfolded as a “manmade disaster” that should have never happened.
“Is governmental failure at that time being put into proper prospective?,” Rachel Maddow asked former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial on her show last night.
Morial replied that we must continue to remind people of the “ineptitude and incompetence at every level of government” as well as of the way that New Orleans citizens suffered.
“Only by continuing to remind people will we recognize and understand how important it is for the nation, the states and cities to have their emergency response act better together today than it was ten years ago,” he said.
Watch the conversation below:
Amy Schumer and Jennifer Lawrence danced on top of Billy Joel’s piano so you don’t have to
It all began with an “I’m in love with you” fan letter. Then, it escalated to a boating trip to The Hamptons and a screenplay collaboration. Yesterday, the budding friendship between Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Schumer solidified itself in “Squad Goal” history books everywhere (sorry) when the two appeared at a Billy Joel show in Chicago, unannounced, barefoot on his piano for “Uptown Girl.”
The grand orchestration was well-documented by Schumer’s friend and “Inside Amy Schumer” writer-comedian Kyle Dunnigan and her sister, Kim Caramele, producer of “Trainwreck.”
Watch the surprise — but not at all surprising — appearance from the newly-minted BFFs, below. There is feet-kissing.
