Travel debacle

Tyler Brule, media and branding genius, and editor of Monocle magazine, gives a weekly column on the back page of the Arts section in the Weekend edition of The Financial Times called, "The Fast Lane." In it, he discusses his own travel experiences, suggestions for certain airlines or routes, cities, hotels and gives tips and suggestions for better service, style, and all around re-branding and updated ideas for an industry that is somehow, ironically, dying. With the latest gem now called, "the underwear bomber" to emerge over the holidays, there was a global sigh of "ughhhhh," now what hell awaits us at the airport. Rather rally or rebel, most of us sat back in passive acceptance at the inevitable further downward spiral of air travel, resigning ourselves (myself) to the truly unacceptable reality of body screening and whatever else the government decides to deem "safe." But Brule's column from this weekend woke me up to the fact that this situation goes beyond the humiliation in the face of strangers and underpaid airport staff, and more profoundly, rights to privacy, which we would all eventually get over, (what else could we do?). This is of course, a political issue, dems vs. republicans, what isn't these days? Obama must appear strong in the face of terrorism to avoid bad press, but this needs to be looked at as an economic issue as well, in this recession, business travellers will avoid the US and plan events in places like Canada or Mexico (Brule's idea for Mexico and I have to say, a good one to help that country), tourism will falter and the US airline industry will decline even more. I get it that there is a gross issue of security that needs to be addressed but the US needs to get their screening and communications in line before subjecting all of us to public strip searches and punishing those who just want to get from a to b.

Two cool projects worth knowing:

Contemporary art is viewed as an international field, but usually the reference is to the billions of biennials or art fairs around the globe, or the amount of travel an artist may do in one year getting to all these events. But reading in yesterday's nytimes.com about Ross Bleckner being nominated as the UN Goodwill ambassodor, following in the heals of Angelina Jolie and Mia Farrow among others, I was pleased about seeing a painter who could be said to define the 1980s art market gold rush tackling serious global crises. Bleckner traveled to Uganda and worked with children who have been victims of rape, war, disease, etc., giving them materials to paint and draw. The drawings will be auctioned at a benefit dinner in NYC to raise money to continue the project. I know Angelina did a lot to raise awareness to war crimes and poverty and one or two lucky kids now have Brad Pitt as a dad (pretty sweet for them), but this project seems really hands-on, perhaps providing a small source of therapy for these young kids.

Later in the day yesterday I read about an exhibition titled "Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing World," developed by The Contemporary Art Museum in San Diego and the UC Berkeley Art Musuem which invited contemporary artists to make a project in response to a World Heritage Site. www.artistsrespond.org Similar to the Bleckner project, Xu Bing, an important Chinese artist, visited the Mount Keyna National Park in Kenya, and decided to do a project about the fragile eco-system and asked the children from the area to create drawings about the trees and de-forestation that also incoporated the use of chinese lettering and symbols. He then created a website, www.forestproject.net, proceeds of which go back to the national park.

Mrs. Roboto

What was that song from the 1980s, Domoarigato mr.roboto? Sarah Palin's performance last night in the debates was so robotic and plastic, she looked like some backstreet boy or spice girls invention whereby they have been totally programmed and packaged. If I saw one more wink I think I would have puked on my computer screen.
Some of the reports coming in today state, "she won by not failing" or "Palin performance surprises by not being incoherent." Is this what politics has been dragged down to? That if you don't f--k up, then you succeed? And you really succeed if you say "shucks" and "darn?" Are we in some acid-fueled Leave-it-to-Beaver nightmare? Things have been so dumbed down, politicians apparently such crooks and shysters that Mccain had to reach into the depths of nowhere and reach a new low in politics. This is now the bar and I am pretty much expecting Brittney Spears to be elected Speaker of the House if these republican fools are elected.

VP choice

From Vanity Fair reporter Dee Dee Myers, www.vanityfair.com which sums up the blatant sexism of the Republican Party to think that women are as naive as to just blindly say OK to McCain because of this woman as VP choice. In a move to appeal to women they say Palin is a "feminist for life." this clearly makes republicans sexist for life in my opinion. It's unbelievably 1950s or something.

"Clearly, McCain thinks Palin will help him among women, particularly those disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters who are having so much trouble “getting over it.” It just shows how clueless the McCain camp actually is. Unlike Clinton and Ferraro, Palin hasn’t been a strong national voice on women’s issues. She hasn’t been at the barricades, fighting for women’s health, equal pay, economic security. And she certainly hasn’t had anything to say about the national-security issues that are also important to women across the political spectrum. Does the McCain camp really expect pro-choice Democratic and independent women to be swayed by a sleight-of-gender?"

Is there really any question?

I have to say, I was getting a little choked up watching Biden speak at the DNC with Obama joining him at the end, as well as the Clinton's give their speeches, post-facto, on a little video screen thanks to www.realclearpolitics.com. I am usually way turned off by the sappiness of it all, but I have to say, they look and sound really good. It's frankly incomprehensible that anyone who lived anywhere in the world over the last 8 years would want more of the same government from the United States. Debt, a weak dollar, war, increased prices in fuel and food, and on and on.... The integrity of America and Americans has been so weakend inside and outside the country, and we are finally, after the longest eight years in history it feels like, sitting on the verge of potential change and development and, As Bill said in his speech, "The choice is clear," So go Obama! Please.