This photo makes me sad beyond words. Sometimes I just can’t believe what people are doing to this planet. (And I know, this is hardly the worst evidence of what we’ve done.)

From DotEarth: There is little to say about the scope of the unfolding Gulf of Mexico petro-calamity that the photography of James Duncan Davidson doesn’t say better (play the Deep Purple’s “ Smoke on the Water” while you’re exploring the gallery below). Here’s a  high-resolution version of the photograph above.

Davidson is part of  a team of photographers and videographers in the region now compiling imagery to present on June 28 in Washington at a gathering called  TEDxOilSpill, devoted to exploring new ideas for America’s energy future and mitigating the mess in the gulf.

Burning the oil at sea is seen as progress?  Yes, let’s add lots of black smoke filled with toxins and poisons and CO2 to the atmosphere to get rid of the oil we’ve dumped into the ocean.  Now that’s a solution. <sarcasm>  Sure, it’s a way to get the oil out of the water — some of it — but then it’s adding another very dangerous type of pollution to the air.  This will add to the greenhouse gases contributing to climate change. There must be another way to remove this oil. Burning can’t remove the emulsified oil either. That’s the oil mixed in fine particles with the water. That will eventually rot and sink to the bottom or make it to the shores of the U.S., killing everything on the way there.

 Below is a video explaining the burning process.

Notice the first scene in this video, which is from BP, and you can see how “apocalyptic” it looks.

This is why the drilling moratorium is important.  This could happen again. There are deeper wells than this one in the Gulf, and possibly even larger oil fields that could be unleashed into our oceans. It’s not worth the cost. We can’t afford another spill like this — hell, we can’t even afford just this one.

An oil sheen covers the surface of Bay Jimmy near Port Sulpher, Louisiana June 20, 2010. The BP oil spill has been called one of the largest environmental disasters in American history. Photo: Sean Gardner

A judge on Tuesday blocked the Obama administration’s ban on deepwater drilling, complicating its efforts to improve the safety of offshore oil operations after the worst spill in U.S. history.

The White House said it would immediately appeal the judge’s ruling, issued in New Orleans. Oil companies involved in offshore drilling operations had challenged the government’s six-month moratorium. — AP

Why not just tell it like it is. The Judge who blocked the offshore drilling moratorium ruled that President Obama had supposedly overstepped his authority when he put a six-month moratorium on new offshore drilling.   (Given all that GW Bush did while King, most of it damaging rather than protecting, it seems like an insane ruling by comparison.

The White House is going to immediately appeal the ruling, as it should. Let’s describe the judge the way Republicans in Congress would describe him if he displeased them: An activist, environment-hating judge who is interested only in his own profits from his oil investments.  He’s man who cares more about his personal investments than about the damage BP’s deep water drilling is doing to our country.

In granting a request by more than a dozen oil services companies for the ban to be overturned, Judge Martin Feldman challenged its “immense scope.” . . . . The court’s decision was a victory for offshore energy producers like BP, Chevron Corp and Royal Dutch Shell. They have been hamstrung by the ban, and are eyeing relocating their giant rigs to other basins like Brazil.

It’s every President’s job to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, but it’s also the President’s job to defend the country itself. The United States is being attacked  by a deluge of BP Oil. There is no disputing that. This is an environmental war to fight for our coastlines, which are part of the sovereign state of the U.S.A. I wish this was the only war we were fighting right now because it’s the most important. Yet an activist judge decided the President of the United States had gone too far. Excuse me, but if protecting our shores and the people who live there isn’t the President’s job, then what the hell is?

It makes no sense, until you understand this Judge’s motives. He owns stock in 17 energy-oil corporations, such as Halliburton, and Transocean.  Eureka.   See some of these below, in information obtained by Think Progress and MSNBC.

Judge Feldman's Income 2008

See all of the oil and BP-related companies that he invests in here.  It’s a long list.  How is that NOT a conflict of interest?  This is a prime example of Big Oil Greed.

And [...]

FUTURISMO: La rivolta dell’avanguardia / Die revolte der avantgarde
by Giovanni Lista

Silvana Editoriale, 2008
p. 752
ISBN 9788836611034
Italiano/ Tedesco

Primo movimento d’avanguardia del XX secolo, il futurismo viene fondato nel gennaio del 1909, a Milano, dallo scrittore Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Non si tratta di una scuola di pittura o di letteratura, ma di un movimento rivoluzionario che si prefigge d’instaurare una nuova sensibilità e un nuovo approccio al mondo in generale e all’arte in particolare. Così, nel suo manifesto inaugurale, Marinetti si adopera a definire l’atteggiamento che l’uomo e l’arte devono adottare di fronte alle forze del progresso. Proclamando il rifiuto del passato, Marinetti vuole essere cantore di un avvento incondizionato della modernità, l’apostolo di una fede positiva nel rinnovamento costante dello spazio sociale e delle condizioni esistenziali della sfera umana.

Il futurismo equivale quindi a un progetto antropologico: ripensare l’uomo nel suo raffronto con il mondo delle macchine, della velocità e della tecnologia.

Al movimento futurista è dedicato questo volume della Fondazione VAF, in cui l’autore indaga ogni aspetto ad esso correlato, in numerosi capitoli suddivisi in cinque macrosezioni: “Un’ideologia del rinnovamento”, “un’arte del dinamismo”, “La macchina come modello o gli anni venti”, “Il mito del volo o gli anni trenta”, “L’eredità futurista”.

Il volume, dal ricco apparato iconografico, è completato da una bibliografia.

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Costruire con i suoni e nuova enciclopedia del Futurismo Musicale

June 23, 2010
Milano, Villa Reale, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, via Palestro – 6:30pm

Marco de Michelis and Angelo Foletto in discussion with the authors of:

COSTRUIRE CON I SUONI di Ricciarda Belgiojoso (Franco Angeli Edizioni)

NUOVA ENCICLOPEDIA DEL FUTURISMO MUSICALE di Daniele Lombardi (Mudima Edizioni)

more info

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Could it rain oil? The EPA says it has no data or evidence that the oil and dispersant have entered the water cycle, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Read more about this here. It certainly looks like it’s raining water that has oil in it, based on what is on the ground.

Oil in the ocean does evaporate, unlike most oil we are used to seeing on land. The other bad news concerning the oil well today is that the remains of the blowout preventor are leaning over very badly and looks like they might break off, reportedly, and the ROV bumped the cap and it was removed. So for many hours, the  oil was gushing like a geyser, completely unrestrained.  Now, BP says the cap is back on.   BP then announced it would capture a huge amount of the oil starting soon, but at this point I think they are just saying that in order to stave off the threats they are receiving.

BP is also, according to several reports, burning sea turtles alive. This is according to CREDO, and the bonus of going to that link is that you can sign a petition asking them to stop. There is also a story about it on Raw Story.    BP employees are not allowing the people who are there to save the turtles to do their jobs.

“A rare and endangered species of sea turtle is being burned alive in BP’s controlled burns of the oil swirling around the Gulf of Mexico, and a boat captain tasked with saving them says the company has blocked rescue efforts.

Mike Ellis, a boat captain involved in a three-week effort to rescue as many sea turtles from unfolding disaster as possible, says BP effectively shut down the operation by preventing boats from coming out to rescue the turtles.

“They ran us out of there and then they shut us down, they would not let us get back in there,” Ellis said in an interview with conservation biologist Catherine Craig.

Part of BP’s efforts to contain the oil spill are controlled burns. Fire-resistant booms are used to corral an area of oil, then the area within the boom is lit on fire, burning off the oil and whatever marine life may have been inside.

“Once the turtles get in there they can’t get out,” Ellis said.”

Most of the turtles being trapped like this and dying from the oil so far are Kemps Ridleys turtles, the rarest turtles in the area, and an endangered species. This is an interview with boat captain Mike Ellis who was trying to save some of the turtles.

More to read, get sad, below — and then your Congress people and tell them to stop this oil madness.  This cannot ever happen again.

1 BP ‘burning sea [...]

A video of Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has made the rounds recently as proof that she is off the mark on climate change. Instead, it proves she is perfectly on the mark, at least in the national security — climate change connection. This is the longer version of the video that people are writing about.

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said on June 10, 2010: “Our national security experts tell us that carbon pollution leading to climate change will be, over the next 20 years, the leading cause of conflict, putting our troops in harm’s way.”

What she is referring to are the Pentagon and military reports that say the same thing.

Naturally, the deniers are out in force denigrating  her statement, calling her a “kook” and worse.  Boxer is only a kook if the Pentagon and the military leaders who are saying the same things are “kooks”.    Media Matters has much more on the right-wing uninformed*  reaction to her statements.  Maybe the entire armed forces is full of kooks? Because they know what the deniers don’t know. Climate change will be one of the biggest sources, if not the biggest source, of conflict in future decades. No one knows exactly when this will happen, but we’re not currently doing anything to stop it. It won’t be long before wars are being fought over oil (well, that’s already happened a few times) and natural gas, and pipelines (already happening) and water (also has happened) and food, and then we’ll have big migration issues as people will have to move from hotter countries to more temperate ones (like the United States).  Also, people will have to move from flood plains and coastal cities that are under sea level.  Any of these things might cause wars or conflicts,  related to energy and climate.  They can probably be mostly prevented if only Congress would act on an energy and climate bill this year.

This is from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, on the 2009 military report on climate change and conflict.

“U.S. military missions and operations

Climate change will influence where, when, why, and how the U.S. military operates. First, military facilities and personnel will be directly impacted: Sea level rise and taller storm surges will encroach on important coastal installations around the world. Increasing land area under drought will affect how and where U.S. forces acquire and transport water to support operations. Weather conditions will become more extreme in places where the local climate already presents serious operational challenges.

Second, climate change portends a rise in the frequency of natural disasters. U.S. Navy ships provided critical logistical assistance in the aftermaths of Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 Indonesian tsunami, and calls for such assistance are likely to increase, both at home and abroad. Third, climate change will create new theaters of operation. For instance, the opening of the Arctic, which is rapidly losing sea ice, will force the U.S. military [...]

Una Bellezza Nuova
Studi e ricerche nel Centenario del Manifesto di Fondazione del Futurismo di Filippo Tommaso Marinetti a cura di Gianni Eugenio Viola

and

numero de L’Illuminista “Futurismo e Letteratura”

June 24, 2010 | 5:30pm
Sala Convegni Santa Marta, Rome
Coordina Gino Agnese

- Interverranno Sandro Bondi, Marina Panetta, Walter Pedullà, Gianni Eugenio Viola.

link

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Dal futurismo al futuribile

Friday, June 25, 2010 | 7pm
Showroom di Roche Bobois, Naples
Organized by Cinzia Mirabella

more info

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Oil, you done me wrong.

“President Obama said that the U.S. could “potentially preserve” the Gulf Coast estuaries and marshes “so that, three years from now, things have come back,” a panel of ocean specialists strongly disputed that time frame, calling the 36-month prediction “wildly optimistic.”  Obama made the statement in an interview with Matt Lauer on The Today Show.

–From the FiscalTimes

How bad is the environmental damage to the Gulf?  It’s bad all over, in the marshes and in the water.  I recently read an AP story that reported dolphins and sharks and other larger marine life are now congregating near the shores,  in surprisingly shallow waters off the Gulf coast states.  At least one whale has been found dead, and around 41 dolphins have been found dead.  It is speculated that many of the animals are dying and sinking to the bottom of the Gulf farther out.  Greenpeace reported that dozens of dolphins were seen swimming and playing in oil-sheened water near Grand Isle.

When dolphins move closer in to shore it means that their habitat is extremely polluted, and they are fleeing fouled water in search of a livable environment.  A big danger of oil and dispersant-polluted water in the Gulf is that it may deplete the oxygen, causing mass die-offs of all sizes and kinds of marine life.  It may also make these “dead zones” more or less permanent.

In the following interview, scientist Thomas Shirley describes the damage to the Gulf of Mexico ecosystems.  He’s optimistic the Gulf will recover, though he thinks the damage will be long-term.  After an excerpt of the interview, which is taken from Yale e360, you’ll find a short paper he wrote in May 2010 on the biodiversity of the Gulf.

Interview: The Spill’s Growing Toll On Marine Life in the Gulf of Mexico

Tom Shirley says that, despite the Gulf’s warm waters and indigenous population of oil-eating microbes, the impacts of this oil spill are likely to be felt for a long, long time — especially if a hurricane blows the oil deep into Gulf Coast wetlands. “If this oil spill ends up back in the marsh areas that are nurseries for a lot of these species, we will see very long-term effects,” says Shirley, who also studied the impacts of another famous oil spill — the Exxon Valdez off the coast of Alaska. “Twenty-one years later we still see effects [of the Exxon Valdez]. I predict long-term effects here.”

Yale Environment 360: Given your recent survey of the marine biology of almost the entire Gulf, what’s your assessment of the damage to date?

Thomas Shirley: Well, I really don’t have hard data on damage. The only thing we have so far are body counts of the oiled birds, questionable data about the causes of deaths of many marine turtles and a few marine mammals. But, no doubt with [...]

Alien sky? No, just cloud boobs: A variation of mammatus clouds after recent Minnesota tornadoes, from the Star Tribune.

Today is the summer solstice!   This means summer is finally here, and no one loves summer like people who live in the north, since we endure so many months of brutally cold weather every winter.  True, that brutally cold weather isn’t quite so brutal anymore, and it doesn’t seem to last as long, and summers seem cooler and wetter than they used to be.  This fits the predictions of global warming.  You would think that a person who lives in the north and endures the winter up here would not worry about global warming, and might even welcome it.  That is the prevailing thought among many people here who do not know what unchecked climate change will bring. And sure, it’s true that I wish it was warmer here.  Unfortunately, climate change is going to make things much more difficult for everyone no matter where they live.  Water shortages and storms will make life a challenge for everyone eventually, including people in the north.

So far, we had a hot spring in Minnesota that cooled down recently, and then we got a rollercoaster of wild weather, with nearly two weeks of rain (odd for June) and then BANG — 34 tornadoes in a single day on June 17th.   This outbreak  of killer tornadoes included at least three F4 tornadoes.   As a local weatherman here wrote in his newspaper column today:

“How could this happen here?  We live in tornado cul de sac, not tornado alley.  How could we experience an entire YEAR’S worth of tornadoes in one day?  As the climate warms and weather patterns shift north we’re seeing more large, violent tornadoes hitting the North Woods.  That seems to be a trend.”

That observation was from Paul Douglas.

People have died all across the country due to major severe weather outbreaks; flash floods, flash rains and tornadoes.  And it’s not just in the US — it’s happening in parts of Europe, Central America, and in China.  Giant sinkholes are appearing all over the world too as the earth just seems to be eroding and collapsing. What’s going on?

It’s likely that our weird and often severe weather is the result of climate change.  Global warming warms not just the atmosphere but also the oceans.  The oceans act like a temperature regulator and right now the oceans are putting warmer-than-ever moisture into the air. It’s fueling storms and seems to be affecting the whole planet’s weather.

The Little Missouri River in Southwest Arkansas experienced a flash flood June 11, with waters that rose over 20 feet in just 5 hours, killing at least 20 people.  And in China, nearly 150 people have died recently from flash floods.

“Floods and landslides triggered by the summer deluge have caused the evacuations of more than 800,000 people, state-run television said.  Earlier media reports said more than 1.4 million people living on [...]

The imaginings of what may come of the BP oil leak get more and more inventive and dramatic.  The following article about the absolute worst-case scenario from the oil leak in the Gulf was read on one of my favorite radio shows Friday night.    After the host of the show read the story, he read a calmer email from a friend of his that he claimed provides him with “realistic sounding” scientific advice on a regular basis. His friend assured him that this scenario won’t happen and can’t happen.  But since I don’t know his advice giver at all, I can’t vouch for that advice.   Maybe this is something to worry about,  but that’s left up to you.   Just in case you live in Florida or on an island, you might want to consider this possibility.

The basics of this story: There is a massive methane bubble under the sea floor, and  the Deepwater Horizon drilling operation poked a hole in this methane pocket as it was getting to the oil.  Seven times more methane than normal is coming up with this oil, and it’s very volatile, so it could explode with a roar. If it blows, which is likely (or impossible, depending on who you believe) it will unleash a “supersonic tsunami” that will cover Florida and much of the Gulf coast.

Of course,  this is science fiction. Of course it is. But just for your own amusement, you can read the article anyway.   This is a take on the original story from Helium.com and another by the AP,  and presented by David Degraw.

“I was sent an article yesterday that presented a worst case scenario in the BP Gulf oil spill which described a possibility that sounded too horrifying to be true. The report said the BP drill site is directly over a massive underground reservoir of methane that could result in a huge explosion that would create “a supersonic tsunami” that “would literally sweep away everything from Miami to the panhandle in a matter of minutes. Loss of human life would be virtually instantaneous and measured in the millions.”

Sounded like exaggerated fear mongering to me, until I saw this report from AP today:

Gulf oil full of methane, adding new concerns

It is an overlooked danger in oil spill crisis: The crude gushing from the well contains vast amounts of natural gas that could pose a serious threat to the Gulf of Mexico’s fragile ecosystem.

The oil emanating from the seafloor contains about 40 percent methane, compared with about 5 percent found in typical oil deposits, said John Kessler, a Texas A&M University oceanographer who is studying the impact of methane from the spill.

That means huge quantities of methane have entered the Gulf, scientists say, potentially suffocating marine life and creating “dead zones” where oxygen is so depleted that [...]

MATTHEW HINTON / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE Dolphins swim in oil sheen near East Grand Terre Island Sunday June 20, 2010.

The BP oil disaster might be the start of a political war within the United States.  Never before in my lifetime do I recall a group of politicians being so against something that would protect and assist regular working Americans and eventually humans everywhere.  Some Republican members of Congress seem to have chained themselves together in solidarity to support the oil industry and oppose efforts by President Obama to clean up the Gulf, make sure oil spills don’t happen again, and hold BP financially responsible for their own Oil Volcano under the sea.   There seems to be no rhyme or reason to this opposition other than purely political.  Is that how this minority group of politicians want to go down in history — as being in opposition to preserving and protecting the U.S. mainland from an onslaught of oil from a foreign oil company?

That is not the path most Americans would choose.  British Petroleum is not a popular corporation in the United States anymore, and neither is the coal industry, or most of the oil industry, as they are correctly seen as incredibly greedy and driven by nothing but profits.  But certain members of Congress seem completely unaware of this public perception and continue to defend these corporate fossil fuel interests over those of the American people.  It’s astounding.

The people in the Gulf region of the United States are hurting very badly right now.  Right-wing politicians want to remedy BP’s crime by forcing those people, whose businesses have been destroyed by oil, to go through a long, expensive court battle to get their rightful compensation from the corporation that destroyed their lives.  Instead, Obama, mindful that distribution of damages and wages, etc., were not being distributed in a timely manner, set up an escrow account that BP willingly put $20 billion dollars into for those damaged by their oil.  Why would anyone have a problem with that?  Oh, but they do.  See Representative Michele Bachmann (C for Crazy — MN) as she complains about the “pot of money” Obama has created, in her mind, to dole out as he pleases. She makes it sound like his personal bank account.  Obviously, there are some delusions going around about this escrow account.  The following is from Think Progress:  It’s full of links, but you don’t have to follow them all to get the gist of the story.

THE GULF COAST VS. BIG OIL:

The Obama administration, concerned that BP may try to avoid giving full, prompt compensation to all the people its oil disaster hurt, negotiated a $20 billion escrow fund that the company will set up to compensate Gulf Coast residents. Yet instead of supporting the administration’s efforts to hold BP accountable, Barton, the top Republican on the Energy Committee, apologized to Hayward during the CEO’s testimony, saying, “I’m ashamed [...]

Nahanni Johnstone and her 8-year old daughter Chloe, both covered with oil during a Global Day of Action demonstration in Toronto June 17, 2010. Organized by the At the Table Coalition.

The use of fossil fuels is destroying our home (Earth) in more ways than one.  Maybe it would help if more people thought of the Earth as their home, instead of thinking of it as a giant, endless planet.

Astronauts know the Earth is small and finite, compared to the vastness of space, and even compared to giant planets like Jupiter.  Yet soon the Earth will have to support 9 billion people, many of them people who think nothing of using up whatever they can, as fast as they can.

I heard a talk by Senator Bill Nelson of Florida on EarthBeat Radio this week.  His topic was offshore oil drilling,  and he is against most offshore drilling.  He has a unique perspective because not only is he a law maker but he was once an astronaut,  and has been up on shuttle missions.  He talked about viewing the earth from the space shuttle and seeing the whole earth  as “home”.

From his perspective, there are many reasons for being against offshore drilling, off the coast of Florida.  One of them is that you can’t have drilling platforms out in the waters of the Atlantic, when it’s our biggest military training ground, where things fall from the sky and blow up on a regular basis.  I’m not in favor of the ocean being used as a dumping ground for NASA and the U.S. military, but he has a point.  Nelson is also someone who thinks we need to act on climate change, and get off oil as a source of fuel as soon as we can.   You can hear his talk in the EarthBeat show here, in the second half of their podcast.

Here is the statement Nelson has on his website on the climate bill (I presume he’s referring to the big, official  one written by Kerry and Lieberman):

WASHINGTON – Following are Nelson’s comments about the new climate bill:

“Florida’s vulnerable to rising sea levels, so we’ve got to do something about climate change.  We don’t, however, need to be drilling for oil right off of Florida’s beaches.  I’m glad the climate bill includes my proposal for a moratorium on any new drilling, until we know what happened aboard the Deepwater Horizon.  Also, they had their eye on expanding drilling into new areas of the Gulf of Mexico near Florida, and I told them to stay out of it.  And I’m glad they listened.  If you remember, we passed a law in 2006 that keeps drilling well offshore in the Gulf.  And the climate change bill doesn’t touch that.  But we still need to do something to protect the Atlantic coast.  We’ve got the Kennedy [...]

As everyone heard in the President’s speech last night (see post below) and probably knew before that speech, we have to end our dependence on foreign oil.  There was  a well-timed event on Monday announcing a new proposal  to get us off gasoline use in our cars,  with a massive EV deployment.  Now all we need is Oprah to give away the cars to everyone, because electric cars will not be affordable for most people without big tax incentives, rebates, or some type of program like “Cash for Clunkers”.   I’m all for that.  See the presentation video at the Center for American Progress website.

I’m so glad BP cares about America enough to ignore safety violations for years and years while trying to maximize their profits as much as possible, even outside the law.   More about this video below.

First, about the proposal to buy everyone an electric car.   Or maybe not.  “The United States could “feasibly” cut its foreign oil imports to zero by 2030, Sen. Jeff Merkley said Monday in presenting a new proposal to solve the nation’s energy crisis.

“Senator Merkley detailed a plan where deployment of electric vehicles and increased fuel efficiency for heavy trucks would eliminate the country’s need to import oil from overseas (all imports except those from Canada and Mexico) by 2030. Nearly 70 percent of American oil imports come from overseas, weakening national security. His plan would also reduce environmental damage from the country’s oil consumption, helping to protect the climate and avoid disasters such as the one currently unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.”

“During a packed forum (see the video above) at the non-profit Center for American Progress, Merkley (D-Ore.) said the U.S. can get off of overseas oil completely through massive electric vehicle deployment, fuel efficiency measures for trucks, a push toward natural gas- and biofuel-powered cars and a green building boost.

With unprecedented amounts of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico and mid-term elections around the corner, an optimistic Merkley said his 14-page proposal is “absolutely” politically realistic.

“Show me a member of Congress who would campaign for office saying we need to increase our dependence on Middle East oil … [and] increase our oil addiction? I don’t think you would find very many such candidates who would be successful,” Merkley said.

According to the senator, overseas oil imports are projected to reach about 7 million barrels per day in 20 years. His plan would save the nation 8.3 million barrels each day, with electric vehicles making up nearly 40 percent of that daily impact at 3.2 million barrels.

Read more at SolveClimate and the Center for American Progress. How much do electric cars cost?  More than most people can afford.  So Merkley’s plan will fail unless the government buys everyone an EV,  which isn’t a bad idea.

Obama met with BP executives today and got them to agree [...]

FUTURISMO: La rivolta dell’avanguardia / Die revolte der avantgarde
by Giovanni Lista

Silvana Editoriale, 2008
p. 752
ISBN 9788836611034
Italiano/ Tedesco

Primo movimento d’avanguardia del XX secolo, il futurismo viene fondato nel gennaio del 1909, a Milano, dallo scrittore Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Non si tratta di una scuola di pittura o di letteratura, ma di un movimento rivoluzionario che si prefigge d’instaurare una nuova sensibilità e un nuovo approccio al mondo in generale e all’arte in particolare. Così, nel suo manifesto inaugurale, Marinetti si adopera a definire l’atteggiamento che l’uomo e l’arte devono adottare di fronte alle forze del progresso. Proclamando il rifiuto del passato, Marinetti vuole essere cantore di un avvento incondizionato della modernità, l’apostolo di una fede positiva nel rinnovamento costante dello spazio sociale e delle condizioni esistenziali della sfera umana.

Il futurismo equivale quindi a un progetto antropologico: ripensare l’uomo nel suo raffronto con il mondo delle macchine, della velocità e della tecnologia.

Al movimento futurista è dedicato questo volume della Fondazione VAF, in cui l’autore indaga ogni aspetto ad esso correlato, in numerosi capitoli suddivisi in cinque macrosezioni: “Un’ideologia del rinnovamento”, “un’arte del dinamismo”, “La macchina come modello o gli anni venti”, “Il mito del volo o gli anni trenta”, “L’eredità futurista”.

Il volume, dal ricco apparato iconografico, è completato da una bibliografia.

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Bagheria verso un polo futurista

June 18, 2010, 6pm
Villa Aragona Cutò (Bagheria – PA)

FEATURING:

- Presentations by scholars Tommaso Romano and Anna Maria Ruta

- Viewing of the  DVD  “Anticonferenza Futurista”

- performance by actor Gigi Borruso

- Raimondo Giammanco, president of Proloco; Civello Maria, daughter of the futurist poet Bagheria Castense Civello and the commissioner Filippo Maria Tripoli will be present

more info

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From The Oil Drum, where they found something good to say about BP:

With the tragic Gulf of Mexico oil spill now focusing President Obama’s and the American people’s minds on where their energy comes from, and what some of the collateral costs might be, its an opportune moment to look at how renewable energy may help supply our future energy needs.    Somewhat ironically, it is BP that provides the energy world with a priceless service through their annual review of world energy that was published last week (with little fanfare) which this year, for the first time, includes data on renewable energy.

Exponential growth in wind energy over the past 15 years has boosted energy from renewables to near 50 million tonnes oil equivalent per annum.

At least BP is good for something.   If they know so much about renewables, why aren’t they investing more in them?  Oh well, it’s all academic for them at this point, because they might not be around much longer.  It’s nice they can put out a report like this as they are destroying the ocean south of the United States, east of Mexico and north of South America.  Unfortunately this Gulf of Mexico water  is connected to other oceans and the currents will carry the oil into the Atlantic. Maybe even up to England.

Every American needs to know how serious the leak in the Gulf might be, (and probably is).  It’s doubtful that BP as a  corporation will survive this disaster and the U.S. economy might not, either.  The damage done to the seafloor at the site of the BP oil leak might be irreversible and unstoppable  by conventional means.

About a week ago, a post appeared, by Doug R at The Oil Drum. You can read it here. Essentially what his very long, detailed article there says is that this is a massive oil field, and there may be no stopping this oil leak at all because of the damage that has occurred to the well, and that damage is getting worse as time goes on.   I don’t know if his article is correct or accurate,  but it seems to be plausible, and it’s vouched for by many people in the comment section there, and it’s been widely re-published by a lot of publications with good  reputations, including Mother Jones.

We also know that BP will lie about this oil leak and how the “cleanup” is going until they turn purple.  It could very well be the case that there is no way to stop this leak, which is now many leaks, but BP would never admit that.  See the video a couple of posts down from this one; the video from one of the BP cameras showing that the sea floor itself is leaking oil at a large rate.  Oil is not just seeping from the sea floor as happens naturally, but puffing out bursts of oil that obscure the [...]

Raping the Planet: Strip mining at Fort McMurray. Greenpeace / Colin O'Connor

President Obama will address the nation on Tuesday night, June 15, after a two-day trip to the Gulf, and tell us whose ass he has decided deserves kicking over the oil leak.  BP was told by the Coast Guard to come up with a plan to better deal with the leaking oil.  The deadline was Sunday night.  From the New York Times:

The order came in a letter sent to the company on Friday by Rear Adm. James A. Watson, who is the federal government’s on-scene coordinator for the cleanup effort. The letter, which was released to the media on Saturday, was sent to Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer.

“I am concerned that your current plans do not provide for maximum mobilization of resources to provide the needed collection capacity consistent with the revised flow estimates,” Admiral Watson wrote. “Recognizing the complexity of the challenge, every effort must be expended to speed up the process.”

Below is a link to a very interesting talk  that puts our use of oil in perspective.  This is a  presentation by author Michael Klare on the follies and dangers of our unwavering ursuit of extreme energy. Klare’s latest book is Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet.  Oil is now actually “extreme energy”  and unconventional rather than normal,  because we are now getting it out of shale, from under miles of ocean water,  and from tar sands in Canada, for example.  We have passed peak oil, so oil is no longer readily available except by these extreme measures of extraction that push the very edges of what is possible.  And while they are pushing those edges, some of the very nastiest environmental degradation and pollution is taking place.  As a result, the Gulf of Mexico may have a permanent “dead zone” far bigger than anything imagined in the past.   Is this really what we want to do to our planet for a bit of energy that we will burn tomorrow and then it’s gone forever?

Michael Klare’s entire talk can be heard and downloaded here.  Watch, if you want to see the slides, from here.

Klare also wrote the following which was cross-posted on TomDispatch and Huffpo:

The Relentless Pursuit of Extreme Energy
A New Oil Rush Endangers the Gulf of Mexico and the Planet
By Michael T. Klare

Yes, the oil spewing up from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico in staggering quantities could prove one of the great ecological disasters of human history.  Think of it, though, as just the prelude to the Age of Tough Oil, a time of ever increasing reliance on problematic, hard-to-reach energy sources.  Make no mistake: we’re entering the danger zone.  And brace yourself, the fate of the planet could be at stake.

It may never be possible to pin down [...]

Il Vorticismo – Londra 1912-1915. L’avanguardia inglese antagonista del Futurismo

By Raffaella Picello
De Luca Editori d’Arte, Roma 2010
p. 160

Negli anni che precedettero lo scoppio della prima guerra mondiale i termini ‘ribellione’ e ‘rivoluzione’esercitarono un forte impatto sul panorama artistico europeo. Se, da questo punto di vista, in Italia i futuristi si fecero portabandiera di tale fermento di rivolta, gli artisti inglesi diedero vita a un movimento d’avanguardia, il Vorticismo, i cui presupposti non trovavano alcun termine di confronto nella storia dell’arte britannica. Il termine ‘Vorticismo’, coniato dal poeta americano Ezra Pound e dal pittore Wyndham Lewis, divenne l’imperativo categorico delle ricerche condotte da questi e da numerosi altri artisti presso il Rebel Art Centre di Londra tra il 1913 e il 1915, poi divulgate sulla rivista BLAST.

Nel mantenere una relazione evidente con la avanguardie cubista e futurista, il Vorticismo ne scardina alcuni presupposti annoverando precocemente degli sviluppi controproducenti insiti nel progresso tecnologico.

Attraverso l’opera di Wyndham Lewis, Edward Wadsworth, William Roberts, Jessica Dismorr, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, il Vorticismo elabora di fatto un inedito linguaggio espressivo, fondato sulla rivoluzione formale introdotta in seguito all’avvento della macchina e destinato, attraverso gli ideali del primitivismo e del rigore geometrico, a segnare una tappa significativa nel cammino verso l’astrazione.

Raffaella Picello è storica dell’arte e si è specializzata in arte contemporanea presso l’Università di Udine. Fra i suoi settori di interesse si segnalano il vorticismo, il futurismo, l’arte inglese e il ruolo delle donne artiste nell’arte europea. Oltre ad aver collaborato a varie riviste del settore, ha curato diverse pubblicazioni e traduzioni, tra cui Schifanoia Cantiere Aperto, Donne e Arte. La conquista di una identità dal Cinquecento al terzo millennio, L’anello mancante. Un’avanguardia d’oltremanica: il Vorticismo, English Through Art.

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President Obama gave his first oval office speech tonight on the Gulf Oil disaster.  It seemed a little too cheerful, a little disconnected to me, over practiced, or maybe over-thought, and highly edited.    I could just picture the speechwriters and aides convening to discuss the speech and tell him to leave things out, edit things a certain way for maximum political effect, and how best to reassure people. As a result it wasn’t all that effective.  In part that’s because I keep expecting great, bold things from Obama even though I should know better by now.  I’m not the only one that keeps expecting bold things from Obama. Keith Olbermann, on MSNBC, was so harshly critical after the speech that I had to change channels. He obviously expected a lot more. Other people didn’t seem to think it went far enough, and I’d have to agree with that. It was also an incredibly short speech to discuss a disaster of this magnitude and its ramifications.   Below is the video of it and what I thought were the best parts.

The transcript is here. Below are what I consider the best parts:

As a result of these efforts, we’ve directed BP to mobilize additional equipment and technology.  And in the coming weeks and days, these efforts should capture up to 90 percent of the oil leaking out of the well.  This is until the company finishes drilling a relief well later in the summer that’s expected to stop the leak completely.

If only that were actually going to happen! It doesn’t seem likely, with BP constantly breaking its promises and not being honest with anyone.

Already, I’ve issued a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling.  I know this creates difficulty for the people who work on these rigs, but for the sake of their safety, and for the sake of the entire region, we need to know the facts before we allow deepwater drilling to continue.

It’s good he’s holding on to the moratorium and not being swayed by those who want it lifted.  The moratorium should actually morph into a ban on offshore drilling.  Oil companies have no business drilling off our shores for dirty fossil fuel energy that impacts our shores when it leaks — and it always leaks.

For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered.

He recognizes peak oil and knows that we need to move towards replacements. That’s good, but that’s a low bar to meet.  He knew that during his campaign. Still, it was good to hear this and then his talk about renewable energy.

As we recover from this recession, the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs -– but only if we accelerate that transition.  Only if we seize the moment.  And only if we rally together and [...]