Banked

 

From April through this past Monday, August 8, the Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art proffered "Art In the Streets", an exhibition about, yes, street art (not to necessarily be confused with and/or mistaken for graffiti). Banksy was a main attraction, and other artists featured included Shepard Fairey and Space Invader. The exhibit garnered the most traffic (201,352 visitors) of any of the museum's exhibits; the previous record was held by the Warhol exhibit (in 2002), proving that it's an era of a fresh 15 minutes in pop art. Monday attendances to the exhibit were free for anyone, sponsored by none other than Banksy himself, in the spirit that street art should not be commoditized; it is for the people (and, this blog dares, by the people). All in favor of an extra 15 for Banksy: We*!

*Blogs are commonly allocated a plural vote when it comes to matters of local import.

Life sometimes can be banked.

  banked: verb

to tip or incline laterally

Eighteen

Craigslist.org has gotten a lot negative press over the past several years.  There was the "Craigs List Killer" which certainly brightened the spotlight on Craig's dark side.  There are scams galore, mostly in the for sale section, not too unlike the penniless stranded emigrants who email you asking for bank account numbers.  So, in efforts to vet the thousands of postings that come through the Craigs platform on a daily basis, they've upped the anty on some of the requirements to do so.  For example, if you wish to post to the employment section, you may be charged a small fee.  Or, if you are seeking a roommate, your pre-version of the posting may have to jump through a text or phone call hoop before it's official.  You'll also have to agree to a nondiscrimination clause before proceeding with any posting.

Craig is based out of San Francisco which is neither here nor there (actually, it is there if you really want to split toothpicks), but it adds the right rainbow glow to the whole clause thing.  Immediately following the nondiscrimination clause, which holds the same standard equal rights details as any of its ilk, is the box where the user selects to be notified via phone call or text message of the approval code they will have to enter [on the final level of Angry Birds (talk about hoops)] in order to fulfill their posting. 

So below the nondiscrimination clause are two boxes.  You can check either for telephone call or text message--O.K.; beside this are two more options.  You can check to receive the communication form that you just selected in either English or French.  English stands to immediate reason.  The other begs the obvious question: Are there that many berets using Craigs?  And speaking of nondiscrimination, that seems like a bit of a catch, a catch-18, if you will (or as Heller settled on, catch-22).  Flabbergasting, the whole of it, the parts of it, and the sum of it.  How do you say arbitrary in French?



Life sometimes can be eighteen.

Eighteen: --noun

  the number immediately following seventeen and immediately preceding nineteen; otherwise meaningless

Surprising

Look who decided to pop up in Borneo.  If you're not familiar with this bad boy, you're not alone.  The rainbow toad has been MIA (i.e., thought to be extinct) for over 90 years.  Scientists at the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) discovered three of the "long legged" toads after having spent months scouring the surrounding forest area.  Previously, the aptly named amphibian had only been seen in drawings based on specimens collected in the 1920's by Europeans (who until just now must have looked like gumball popping liars).



The rainbow toad showed up for his fifteen minutes (and would make for a charming Warhol) after having topped Conservation International's "top 10 most wanted frogs" list in their Global Search for Lost Amphibians 2010.  Cue goldstars for the tenacious scientists who continue to be thrilled by the fact that "nature still holds precious secrets that we are still uncovering."

Life sometimes can be surprising.
Surprising: --adjective
  causing surprise, wonder or astonishment

Swedish

Sometimes even iTunes can't traverse the Atlantic, and this blog kinda digs that.  Sometimes, you still have to work a little harder than the insta-search/immediate-find virtual world typically leads us to believe.  Ok, so you can find Swedish pop artist, Erik Hassle on iTunes, but there's something satisfying about the fact that they don't have his latest single.  If you want to add this to your (more than likely Apple) mp3 device, you have to take a couple of steps to get there and be willing to convert currency out of Euros (gasp! (ok, PayPal does the convesion automatically)).  This blog loves the song, and the fact that the world is so not as flat as the internet has rethunk us into thinking was an inadverent boon.

Efficient



Alan Haberman passed away on June 22, 2011, at the age of 81.  Haberman was a supermarket executive who observed long lines and lots of groceries that needed to be rung up which was resulting in low efficiency.  He ended up being an integral participant in the creation of the now ubiquitous barcode.  Approximately 10 billion barcodes are scanned daily.  In fact, one can even create and/or scan their own barcodes with recent smartphone applications, like the one created above in Haberman's honor using "i-nigma".

Life sometimes can be efficient.

Efficient: --adjective

  performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of  time and effort

Relative

On May 26, NYC cops, Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata were acquitted of the rape charges against them, despite testimony and evidence that might have suggested otherwise.  New York state sexual assault law stipulates that someone is not capable of consent when they are "physically helpless" (e.g., "unconscious or for any other reason physically unable to communicate unwillingness to an act").  Apparently, the jurors on the M & M case didn't find the alleged victim to be physically helpless, as they were shown video footage of her walking without assistance into her apartment building.  Rewind to the reason the cops were at the "alleged victim's" apartment to begin with: They'd been called by the cab driver who dropped her off at home--she so inebriated that he was concerned she would need help getting into her building.

The charges were brought in the state of New York, so, of course, the case fell under New York state laws.  Yet, for comparative sake, which incontrovertibly makes Lady Justice a relative figure at best, consider California state laws which say that someone cannot consent to sexual intercourse if he/she is intoxicated (i.e., it is illegal for anyone to have sex with someone under the influence of drugs or alcohol).  In light of the "alleged victim's" state of inebriation, the charges might have fallen privy to an entirely different outcome had the event taken place in a different state.

At the risk of being flip, the case is a nascent example of the variations among state laws, and it appears, for the sake of these charges, ironic that the figure of Justice is a woman--albeit, one poised to wield a very phallic weapon.

Life sometimes can be relative.
Relative: --noun
  something dependent upon external conditions for its specific nature, size, etc.