The Artist Who Couldn’t Stop – Ettore “Ted” DeGrazia
Posted on | September 28, 2017 | 1 Comment
How did a grizzled, carousing, hard drinking Arizonan with the look of a seedy prospector manage to paint such winsome, frolicking, cherubic little children who seem to delight in life and have certainly delighted those who view them? I’m not what I seem, he said, and those who knew him agreed he was a bundle of contradictions. But there was no denying he was an artist of immense popularity who courted it by painting as much as possible on as many things as possible – more than 20 thousand canvases along with walls, bowls, plates, dresses and once, when challenged, a tortilla. Read more
Yemen Bombing Victim Buthaina
Posted on | September 5, 2017 | No Comments
One of incessant bombings of Yemen killed eight members of a family in the capital of Sanaa with only four-year-old Buthaina Muhammad Mansour surviving. She suffered a concussion and skull fractures but is expected to live. In the meantime, she is trying to open her badly swollen eyes. Her family is among thousands of Yemeni civilians killed by Saudi and U.S. bombs in a war that has no plausible explanation and is hardly in the U.S. national interest. The same is true of other current U.S. wars, which are barely reported (how many can you name?), but are no less real for that.
Wall Plans
Posted on | August 31, 2017 | No Comments
Got any ideas for President Trump’s wall? Go ahead and submit them. Seems like everybody else has. How about another Great Wall of China, a fortress on the Mexican border? Or one based on nuclear waste in a 100-foot deep trench? Maybe one that can withstand any kind of attack, even missiles? A wall of solar panels useful in the desert? A wall with art to make it not just an intrusion but a pleasure? Then there’s a utopian wall which is really no wall at all. That’s probably not in the running. Read more
Karl Marx Is Back
Posted on | August 25, 2017 | No Comments
Americans are more unequal than ever. One percent of the population has close to half the nation’s wealth, while ninety-nine percent makes do with the rest. How did this come about? Who is responsible? Why, Karl Marx, claims economist James Petras in a recent article in the Unz Review. Karl Marx! Promoter of revolution, communism and class struggle as “the motor force of history” that will ultimately bring the less fortunate to power! You’ve got to be kidding. Read more
Future in Arizona
Posted on | August 16, 2017 | 1 Comment
Among all the dreams of the future is Paolo Soleri’s Arcosanti, a stark, massive, multilevel concrete structure some 70 miles north of Phoenix, Arizona. It stands alone amid a serene setting of low lying mountains and desert. Read more
Example of Rome
Posted on | August 9, 2017 | No Comments
Is there anything to learn from an empire that collapsed over 1,500 years ago? Yes indeed, since it’s the Roman Empire that provided a longer period of peace and prosperity for a crucial part of the world than it had ever experienced before or has since. Here is Edward Gibbon in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Read more
Mexican Paradise
Posted on | August 1, 2017 | No Comments
Visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City must look up, way up to see the lofty exhibit from the cathedral in Puebla, Mexico. Three stories high is a spectacular painting of the Old and New Testaments – “Moses and the Brazen Serpent and the Transfiguration of Jesus”- completed by Mexican artist Cristobal de Villalpondo in 1683. Read more
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