Aboard the Plucky 'Plastiki'

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From NYT > Science:

On March 20, the Plastiki, a 60-foot vessel made from recycled plastic bottles, set sail from San Francisco Bay on an 11,000-mile voyage to Sydney, Australia. The goal of the voyage, masterminded and financed by a banking heir, David de Rothschild, is to call at

More Stories From Inside Area 51

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From Boing Boing:

Last month, I posted about Roadrunners Internationale, a small group of Area 51 vets who were now able to speak about their experiences at Area 51, the shadowy military base in southern Nevada that's a hotbed for black budget aircraft activity, conspiracy theorist

Oil and Coal are Bad Energy Policy

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Oil and coal are deadly,  as we have witnessed in recent fossil fuel energy accidents.  The Massey Coal mine disaster in April killed 29 miners who thought they had a “good job”.  They were people who trusted their employer, but their employer was risking their lives to make themselves millions of dollars.   It’s the same with the oil industry.  So far in 2010, BP has made about  $ 5.6 billion in profits. “The energy giant reported profits of $5.6bn (£3.6bn) in the first three months of 2010, up from $2.4bn a year ago. “ The oil rig leak is proving to be an unimaginable environmental catastrophe, even if they can get it capped very soon, and if the cap stays on.  We may be witnessing the death of the Gulf of Mexico. More on that from Climate Progress/Wonk Room.

“Gulf Coast marine scientists agree that the unfolding oil disaster could mean devastation beyond human comprehension.  Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has the story in this repost.

In an exclusive interview with the Wonk Room, a team of scientists from the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs, MS, discussed the ecological impacts of a three-month blowout from the BP-Halliburton Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig, described as the expected timeline for “ultimate relief” of the leak by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. None of the scientists even wanted to attempt to imagine the coming devastation, because, as ichthyologist Jeff Hoffmayer said, “oil is bad for everything” that lives in the ocean. If the leak continues for three months, about 100 million gallons of oil will have flooded into the Gulf during the peak spawning season of the region and the start of the hurricane season. Dr. Bill Hawkins, director of the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, summarized the scenario starkly:

“All bets are off.”

“Guys burning … like a warzone.” The scene aboard the BP oil rig as it exploded and burned is emerging, even though the media is having a tough time finding and interviewing the oil rig workers who survived.   There was also a demand by BP lawyers that the survivors sign waivers and statements.   From NPR:

“Lawyers for the oil rig’s owner, Transocean, requested that workers who had survived the blast sign the form in the wake of the April 20 blowout on the Deepwater Horizon. This was hours before the workers had been allowed to see their families.

Now some of those survivors say they were coerced and that the forms are being used against them as they file lawsuits seeking compensation for psychiatric problems and other injuries from the blast.

“The form that they made them sign had, ‘I was here when it happened, I didn’t see anything.’ Or ‘I [...]

Depero Exhibit in Hungary

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Depero (1892 – 1960), the Futurist

June 4 – August 22, 2010
The Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest
Curated by Gabriella Belli, Director of MART and Mariann Gergely, chief curator of the Hungarian National Gallery
Organized by the  Italian Embassy in Budapest and the Italian Institute of Culture

More info (in Hungarian!)

A joint exhibition of the Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto and the Hungarian National Gallery with the sponsorship and cooperation of the Italian Embassy in Hungary and the Italian Cultural Institute in Budapest.

The year 2009 marked the 100th anniversary of Futurism, with a number of Futurist exhibitions held in various countries. Over the past twenty years there has been growing interest in the art of versatile Futurist painter Fortunato Depero (1892-1960), an ardent follower of Marinetti’s aesthetics. The over 100 works displayed at the Budapest show are on loan from the Museo Fortunato Depero, Rovereto, an integral part of MART, where the collection of works left by the artist to the town is housed. Living in Austrian-controlled Rovereto until 1918, Depero was in fact raised in a Central European milieu. His artistic development was influenced by Symbolism and Expressionism, and also by the schools of Jugendstil and Wiener Werkstätte. During his trip to Rome he established contact with important Futurist painters such as Boccioni, Balla, Prampolini and Marinetti. His Futurist principles were summarized in the manifesto Ricostruzione futurista dell’universo (Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe), co-authored with Giacomo Balla in 1915, proclaiming the re-creation of the universe and the extension of art to all areas of life. Through his Futurist formal experiments he envisaged mobile sculptured constructions utilising the combined impact of movement and sound effects

In Rome, after making the acquaintance of Sergei Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes, Depero designed costumes and stage sets for Igor Stravinsky’s Le Chant du Rossignol (The Song of the Nightingale) and for Balli Plastici (Plastic Dances), a picto-plastic drama co-authored with Gilbert Clavel. Between 1916 and 1919, he left off his abstract art experimentations and went on to work towards a new iconography arising from the world of magic and fantasy. Populating his metaphysical and surreal visions with unique shapes brought to life in his pictures, Depero created a kind of meta-reality.

In the autumn of 1919 he opened his studio-workshop called Casa d’Arte Futurista Depero in Rovereto, where, based on his designs, particularly impressive, decorative tapestries, textiles, furniture, toys and graphic design works were produced. In 1929 he founded another Futurist House in New York where he continued his career as a designer. He undertook significant design commissions for the Italian company Campary, the magazines Vanity Fair and Vogue, and Roxy Theater (advertisement and stage sets). He returned to Italy in October 1930. The paintings he did in that period were inpsired by his American experience, featuring urban motifs, skyscrapers, subways, and mechanical parts as visual elements. After the war he lived in the United States for a while again, but received no more commissions. In 1959 he designed and built the first museum of Italian Futurism, the Museo Fortunato Depero which, completely refurbished as one of MART’s venues, was reopened to celebrate the centenary of Futurism. Depero died in 1960. He left all his works to the town of Rovereto.

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