THE REVOLUTION WILL BE TELEVISED

YEMEN- 2/17/2O11




IRAN- 2/14/2O11



BAHRAIN



LIBYA- 2/16/2011


MOROCCO- 2/2O/2O11
Morocco has planned it's own protests for February 20. You can watch a touching video of Moroccans explaning their reasons for taking to the streets


ALGIERS- 2/16/2011
According to the AP:
ALGIERS, Algeria – Algeria's prime minister says a state of emergency in place for 19 years will be lifted by the end of this month.
The government has insisted so far that the state of emergency was a necessary tool in the fight against terrorism, but critics charge that recently it has been used to muzzle the political opposition by banning marches.

Ahmed Ouyahia said Wednesday Algeria "cannot ignore events taking place in Arab and Islamic countries," referring to uprisings in neighboring Tunisia and in Egypt that ended ousted those countries' autocratic leaders.

EYGPT- 2/16/2011


OHIO- 2/17/2011


WISCONSIN- 2/17/2011

8 YEARS TOO LATE

151,000 iraq civilian deaths 4,404 american solider deaths and a cost of $774,861, 500 and counting...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

THE NEO- ANTEBELLUM ERA

"AMERICA IS IN THE NEXT ERA OF ANTEBELLUM"


THIS IS A REPOST-
Wisconsin Democrats on Thursday fled the statehouse in an effort to prevent legislators from reaching a quorum and passing a bill put forth by Gov. Scott Walker (R), which would cripple the collective bargaining rights of public unions.

The move produced a frantic political drama, as state troopers were reportedly sent out to find the fleeing lawmakers and Walker hinted that the National Guard would be called in to fill the void left by protesting union workers.

One Democratic senator told the Milwaukee-WIsconsin Journal Sentinel that most of the members of his caucus had already crossed state lines.

Their flight further heightened the drama that has surrounded the Wisconsin statehouse this week. On Wednesday there were an estimated 30,000 peacefully rallying in front of the state capitol building, and on Thursday that number is expected to be even higher.

Madison public schools are closed for the second day running, as teachers call in sick and students walk out.

Wisconsin is a stronghold of the labor movement -- the birthplace of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, one of the nation's largest labor unions -- with a long history of successful battles for workers' rights. This is part of the reason the pushback to Walker's bill has been so strong. It's also why, if the bill does pass, the precedent it sets for other conservative governors looking to go after collective bargaining rights is so powerful.
READ MORE-



"The average Wisconsin state employee gets $24,500 a year. That’s not a very big pension. The state pension plan, 15% of the money going into it each year is being paid out to Wall Street to manage the money. That’s a really huge high percentage to pay out to Wall Street to manage the money."- DYLAN RATIGAN
READ MORE-

CLASSIC GAY

The Boxer (1932 - 1933) by Russian painter- Konstantin Andreyevich Somov

November 30, 1869 — May 6, 1939) was a Russian artist associated with the Mir iskusstva.
Born into a family of a major art historian and Hermitage Museum curator, he became interested in the 18th century art and music at an early age.
Somov studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts under Ilya Repin from 1888 to 1897. While at the Academy, he befriended Alexandre Benois, who would introduce him to Sergei Diaghilev and Leon Bakst. When the three founded the World of Art, Somov liberally contributed to its periodicals. Somov was homosexual, like many of the World of Art members.
Inspired by Watteau and Fragonard, he preferred to work with watercolours and gouache.

Following the Russian Revolution, he emigrated to the United States, but found the country "absolutely alien to his art" and moved to Paris. He was buried at the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Cemetery.

PIN UP

photo courtesy- Mustafa Sabbagh

PORTFOLIO FOR THE DAY

photos courtesy- Mustafa Sabbagh

THE NEW GOLEM

In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being, created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material in Psalms and medieval writing.

The word golem is used in the Bible to refer to an embryonic or incomplete substance. Psalm 139:16 uses the word גלמי, meaning my unshaped form, which then passed into Yiddish as goylem. In modern Hebrew the word golem means "dumb" or "helpless". The Mishnah uses the term for an uncultivated person: "Seven characteristics are in an uncultivated person, and seven in a learned one", Pirkei Avos 5:9 in the Hebrew text (English translations vary). Similarly, golems are often used today as a metaphor for brainless lunks or entities who serve man under controlled conditions, but are hostile to him in others. Similarly, it is a Yiddish slang insult for someone who is clumsy or slow.


The earliest stories of golems date to early Judaism. In the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b), Adam was initially created as a golem when his dust was "kneaded into a shapeless husk". Like Adam, all golems are created from mud. They were a creation of those who were very holy and close to God. A very holy person was one who strove to approach God, and in that pursuit would gain some of God's wisdom and power. One of these powers was the creation of life. However, no matter how holy a person became, a being created by that person would be but a shadow of one created by God.
Early on, it was noted, that the main disability of the golem was its inability to speak. Sanhedrin 65b describes Rava creating a man (gavra). He sent the man to Rav Zeira. Rav Zeira spoke to him, but he did not answer. Rav Zeira said, "You were created by the magicians; return to your dust."



During the middle ages passages from the Book of Creation, Sefer Yetzirah, were studied as a means to attain the mystical ability to create and animate a golem, although there is little in the writings of Jewish mysticism that supports this belief. It was believed that golems could be activated by an ecstatic experience induced by the ritualistic use of various letters of the Hebrew Alphabet.
Legend and folklore suggest that golems could be activated by writing a specific series of letters on parchment and placing the paper in a golem's mouth.


Watch The Golem: How He Came into the World in Entertainment  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

MODEL OF THE MONTH

Jürgen Hartl

photo courtesy- Rick Day



photos courtesy- Richard Gerst






photos courtesy- Joseph Sinclair



photos courtesy- rohn meijer



photos courtesy- Rick Day

THIERRY MUGLER- BACK IN THE DAY

now these bitches can walk!


the master @ work

THE GORGON

In Greek mythology, the Gorgon was a terrifying female creature. It derives from the Greek word gorgós, which means "dreadful."
Gorgons were a popular image of Greek mythology, appearing in the earliest of written records of Ancient Greek religious beliefs such as those of Homer. Because of their legendary gaze, images of the Gorgons were put upon objects and buildings for protection.

The concept of the Gorgon is at least as old in mythology as Perseus and Zeus.
Author Marija Gimbutas (Language of the Goddess) believed she saw the prototype of the Gorgoneion in Neolithic art motifs, especially in anthropomorphic vases and terracotta masks inlaid with gold.
The large eyes, as well as Athena's "flashing" eyes, are symbols termed "the divine eyes" by Gimbutas (who did not originate the perception), appearing also in Athena's bird, the owl. They can be represented by spirals, wheels, concentric circles, swastikas, firewheels, and other images.
The fangs of the Gorgons are those of snakes and are likely derived from the guardians closely associated with early Greek religious concepts at the centers of oracles.


THE GORGON will be screening @ THE AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE on february 18th- 7:30pm
6712 hollywood boulevard
hollywood, ca 90028
americancinematheque.com

ARIZONA'S NEW IMMIGRATION POLICY

this is a respost-
An Arizona anti-illegal immigration activist was convicted on Monday of killing two Latinos during a 2009 raid: nine-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father, Raul Flores. The killer, Shawna Forde, is a member of the Minutemen, which patrols the southern border vigilante-style to detect illegal entry into the country.

Although the shootings were never classified as a hate crime, Latino groups argue the murders reflect growing anti-immigrant sentiment within the United States. The details are chilling: Forde and two others entered the Flores home, allegedly looking for a million-dollar drug stash that never materialized, and shot both of Brisenia Flores' parents before turning the gun on the child.

As her mother played dead, Brisenia Flores said, "Please don't shoot me," before being shot twice in the head.

A jury convicted Forde of planning and executing the raid that led to the deaths of Raul and Brisenia Flores, and of the attempted murder of Gina Gonzales, the child's mother (she survived the attack). Forde was also convicted on two counts of aggravated assault and counts of burglary, armed robbery and aggravated robbery.


The jury will announce Forde's sentence on Thursday; her alleged accomplices, Albert Robert Gaxiola and Jason Eugene Bush, still await trial.

Joaquin Guerra, campaign director for Latino activism group Presente.org, told HuffPost the conviction is "justice for a little girl whose death was ignored by the mainstream media." The case largely escaped the notice of major news outlets until a few weeks ago, when a number of national news sources covered Forde's trial.

Few politicians spoke out against the murders, which occurred in a state that later passed the hotly-contested SB1070 immigration law and is now considering a bill that would deny citizenship to children born to undocumented immigrants.

Latinos organized to bring attention to the Flores killings, including a campaign by Presente.org to shed light on the case.

"What we have shown is that Latinos are watching, and if people and parties want the Latino vote, they will have to speak out against things like this," Guerra said. "We hope her death wasn't in vain and that it serves as an example of what can happen when the types of conditions that are in Arizona are allowed to go unchecked and are legitimated as serious policy issues."
READ MORE-

LEAVE IT TO THE JAPANESE

to do lady gaga the way it comes off- lame

RICK CASTRO @ MOWTOWN

here i am in front of HITSVILLE USA, where it all happened.....
classic american music was created here-



"Hitsville U.S.A." is the nickname given to Motown Records' first headquarters.
Located at 2648 West Grand Blvd. in Detroit, Michigan Hitsville U.S.A., formerly a photographers' studio, was purchased by Motown founder Berry Gordy in 1959, and converted into both the record label's administrative building and recording studio, which was open 22 hours a day (closing from 8 to 10 AM for maintenance). Following mainstream success in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Gordy moved the label to Los Angeles and established the Hitsville West studio in Los Angeles, as a part of his main focus on film production.

Gordy located Motown Records company in Los Angeles in 1972. The original Hitsville studios, which had produced a long string of worldwide hits, is now the Motown Historical Museum. The following year, he reorganized the company into Motown Industries, an entertainment conglomerate that would include record, movie, television and publishing divisions. Many Motown fans believed the company's heart and soul were lost following the move and that its golden age of creativity ended after its 13 years in Detroit. Because Berry Gordy's sister Esther Gordy Edwards refused to move to California, she was put in charge of what was left of Motown's Detroit office in the Hitsville building.

DETROIT I MISS YOU ALREADY

my last day in detroit...... awww.... went swimming in a 2ft pool with Jerry, was too cold... then a nice little scenic tour..





all photos courtesy- RICK CASTRO

all in all i had a great time.. deroit is the city of the future..
(since it's past is so bleak!) i will be back soon...

RICK CASTRO INTERVIEW- BETWEEN THE LINES

Rick Castro: A Dirty Debut

He gave up hustlers to be 'sweeter,' but the fetish photographer still turns heads By Chris Azzopardi
(Originally printed 2/10/2010 (Issue 1906 - Between The Lines News)

"The next time you watch a Lady Gaga video, remember where it started," is how Jerry Vile, the Dirty Show founder, describes the influence of famed photographer Rick Castro. As an artist who spent decades exploring the fetish and fringes of sex culture, Castro - famous for doing wardrobe styling for Annie Leibovitz and Herb Ritts before going "underground" in the mid '80s - has been on Vile's must-nab-now list forever.

"We have been trying to land Rick Castro for years - just his work," Vile says. "And to get him and his work makes it worth the wait. Castro is a legend, one of the most influential and important photographers there is. He pioneered fetish. The Dirty Show wouldn't be the same."

Recently, Castro spoke to BTL about his Dirty pieces, giving up hustlers and the evolution of erotic art.

What kind of reaction do you want to elicit from admirers of the work that's in this show?

I have no preconceived expectations; any kind of reaction would be great. And if viewers are so moved to purchase the photos, that's always a plus.

How have people's views of erotic art evolved since you began your career in it?

I hope it's becoming more accepting. I think it is. When I first presented my photos to the public, the response was hostile. I was too erotic for the art world and too arty for the erotic world. The lines have blurred a great deal since then. I think fetish is actually mainstream now; gay is most definitely mainstream.

I remember when I was in New York City back in the late '80s a friend of a friend hooked me up with editor Annie Flanders, the founder of Details magazine. She viewed my portfolio in complete silence, closed it and said to her secretary, "Must I be subjected to this?"

Ten years later, Flaunt magazine contacted me and asked me to photograph Dior men.

What about hustlers intrigued you enough to pursue them as a career muse?

I liked how they brazenly promoted themselves as sex objects during mid-day commutes, but if you weren't hip to it, you would have no idea. I also found hustlers to be better models than mainstream models from agencies. They would do anything.

I saw street hustling as the last American frontier. A young man with no means could come to Hollywood and sell the only thing he had: his body. Keep in mind this was then; I have no interest in photographing hustlers now. The scene is over. The end of an era.

When you look back at your older work, what's different about that work - either historically or artistically - compared to what you're doing currently?

I do want to emphasize the historical context. I specifically chose this collection to show fetish has an artistic history and how much times have indeed changed. The work has a very stationary, claustrophobic feel to it - like a dark dream, but it's real. Currently my work is sweeter, and in color.

It's been 15 years since the film was released. How do people respond to it differently now than they did when it was first released? And how do you see the film now?

(tony ward as montgomery ward in hustler white)

I'm very proud of "Hustler White." It has dated well. I love the look of the film and the way Hollywood looked back then. It is definitely a period piece. It will become a classic. In the future I think it will be recognized as an American work of art. It was already declared a work of art by the French minister of culture, Jack Lang, way back in 1998. The film was listed in the Los Angeles Times' 100 Best Independent Films of All Time, and is now archived at UCLA's Legacy Project. It is also archived at the Alfred Kinsey Institute of Sexuality.

What do you remember most about the shoot?

That I did a lot of work in a very short amount of time. It was a very concentrated 10 days.

Would you do another movie?

If someone finances it, sure. I did direct a documentary in 2001 called "Plushies & Furries." It aired on MTV and scored No. 2 in the ratings.

I was surprised to read that you run the only fetish gallery in the world. Why do you think there aren't any more?

There will be many more soon. For now, though, Rick Castro brings fetish to the mainstream.

Photog shares dirt on Dirty Show work-

Caligula's House Party (1988)
Shot during a Mr. Drummer contest in San Francisco. All the slaves were ordered to do a unison roll-over. For me this image embodies the golden era of the leather man.


Carravaggio on Santa Monica Blvd (1989)
This is a signature piece, a portrait of a street hustler off Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. He's just waking up, or he's high, or both. The lighting is morning sun from the window. I think it's romantic and classic, also combined with a hard, modern reality.


The Goddess Bunny (1990)
A pre-op transsexual quadriplegic, "she" was an unusual fixture in the Hollywood scene. At the time of this shoot she was living with a friend of mine who did her hair and makeup. I purchased her lingerie at Playmates in Hollywood for $1! She was in Marilyn Manson's "Dope Show" video, and danced for him live at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards. She was supposed to go on tour with Marilyn, but he couldn't deal with her high maintenance and changed his mind.


Left-Handed (1994)
When I originally asked my amputee friend, Greg, to model nude he was taken aback and said no. He eventually changed his mind and decided it would be a challenge. I did the hair; Greg did his own makeup. At the time, he was a window dresser for the Gap; he's now a very successful makeup artist in NYC. When he saw the finished image he burst out in tears. "What's the matter?" I asked. "Don't you like it?" "I don't have an arm," he responded. "I didn't know it was so obvious."

The Dirty Show
featuring Rick Castro
Feb. 11-19

Bert's Warehouse Theater
2739 Russell St., Detroit

www.dirtyshow.org
www.rickcastro.com