Earlier this year, in a stunning verbal gaffe, South Carolina’s (soon to be former) Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer compared helping the poor to feeding stray animals, because they “breed”! Obviously a Republican, Bauer, a wealthy white man who flies small planes, later said he wasn’t saying those who receive government help “were animals or anything else.” (What were you trying to say, fuck wit?) Well, he lost his election bid yesterday, coming in DEAD LAST in a state where over 50% of all schoolchildren receive subsidized or free lunches from the government. Clearly his political instincts are shit. Just like his brains.

This is someone showing you the very stuff his black, immoral little soul is made of. From CBS News:

“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals,” Bauer said during a town hall meeting, as the Greenville News reported over the weekend. “You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.”

As the Greenville News notes, more than half of the students in South Carolina participate in a program that allows them to get their lunch for free, or at a reduced cost.

Bauer later said he wasn’t saying those who receive government help “were animals or anything else.”

What an utterly contemptible ass-clown this guy is. This is the kind of comment that haunts you forever, hanging around your neck like a big, dumb, dead albatross. Google Andre Bauer for the rest of his life, and there future employers, voters and anyone else who cares enough about this twat to type his name into a search field will find people like me telling this story. It serves him right, but the thing is, look at him. Do you think there is a chance in Hell that Andre Bauer has a self-reflexive bone in his body? Not a chance. If he did he wouldn’t think this way in the first place. He got what he deserved yesterday from the voters of his state: the bum’s rush. Karma’s a bitch, Andre!

And more in politics from the hilariously funny great state of South Carolina: A random unemployed guy who no one seems to know much of anything about (update) wins Democratic senate primary: The mysterious Alvin Greene has become “an inspiration for random unemployed dudes everywhere,” as Gawker tells it. The chairwoman of the S.C. Democratic party speculated to the AP that “people who didn’t know either candidate and voted alphabetically may help explain Greene’s win.”

Random Unemployed Dude Wins South Carolina Democratic Primary (Gawker)

South Carolina’s Mysterious Dem Senate Candidate Likes Showing Sexy Pics to College Ladies (Gawker)

 
In what seems like something out of J.G. Ballard, Scientology, and the final act of Roland Emmerich’s 2012, like, combined, a number of billionaires are taking to the high seas for their Plan B.  I can see their point.  You’ve ravaged the planet and trashed the economy, if that possibly results in pitchforks and flaming torches at your door, a thousand miles of ocean makes a better barrier than a gate or concierge.

Thus, Utopia, a floating, billion-dollar luxury liner now being built by Samsung of Korea (you can tour the ship below).  Its 200 or so cabins run anywhere from $4 million (that gets you a small condo), to $160 million (that secures you a home of 40,000 feet).  Prices aside, what kind of people would choose such a lifestyle?  A fascinating article in today’s Alternet provides the answer:

The floating castle is a longtime dream of libertarian oligarchs—a place where they can live their lives in peace free from the teeming masses of starving losers and indebted parasites and their tax demands.  Since they’ve grown so rich off of America, they have enough spare change to fund projects like the Seasteading Institute, run by Milton Friedman’s grandson, Patri Friedman, and financed by the bizarre right-wing PayPal founder, Peter Thiel.  It couldn’t have come a moment sooner for Milton Friedman’s grandson, who was best known until recently for running a grotesque advice blog for married swingers, PUA4LTR (Pick Up Advice For Long-Term Relationships).

Thiel is also the person who last year wrote, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”   Maybe it’s also not surprising that he does believe America’s decline started with women gaining the right to vote?  Unfortunately, Thiel and Friedman are the more benign tip of the iceberg here. 

The article continues by listing the far graver misdeeds of the other players in the flee-to-the-sea movement.  They include former Carlyle Chairman and Donald Rumsfeld crony, Frank Carlucci, as well as financier Danny Pang.

Pang, along with Carlucci, are founders of the Frontier Group (the backers of the Utopia).  Pang died, though, back in September under mysterious circumstances from possible suicide.  And perhaps not a moment too soon.  He’d recently been accused of the execution-style murder of his wife, as well as the embezzlement of hundreds of millions from his private equity firm, the PEMGroup.

 
The Really Creepy People Behind the Libertarian-Inspired Billionaire Sea Castles

 
Much like a TARDIS, a Borges short story, or Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg‘s 1970 film, Performance, is far bigger on the inside than its outside might indicate.  Starring Mick Jagger, James Fox and Anita Pallenberg, and with its primary action confined to that of a London flat, Performance manages to explore, in its uniquely heady and hypnotic way, such notions as gender, identity and madness as a function of creativity.

In fact, it feels at times like there’s so much going on within Performance‘s 105 minutes, in terms of philosophical scope and ambition, movies like The Matrix or 2001: A Space Odyssey seem almost puny in comparison.

And much like the London flat itself, Performance is a movie to lose yourself in.  Since my preteen exposure to it via the Z Channel, I must have watched it a good dozen times.  Nevertheless, the film continues to surprise me.  Disorient, too.

Part of this was due, no doubt, to the alchemical editing of co-writer/director Donald Cammell, who sadly, took his own life in ‘96.  Cammell’s ultimately tragic life and career is certainly deserving of its own post at some point, but, in the meantime, what follows is Part I of an absolutely worthwhile 3-part documentary on the making of Performance and the controversy that’s dogged the film ever since its release 30 years ago.  Links to the other parts follow below.

 
Performance in the making, Part II, III

 
Here’s one freakin’ GIF that’s driving me nuts. I nominate this as the most annoying GIF ever.
 
(via Today and Tomorrow)

Sidewalk wrought iron artisan James Mutahi works his homemade arc welder in Limuru, north of Nairobi, Kenya. Photo: Dominic Wanjihia. From Afrigadget.

Preparation for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa (which starts in a couple of days) has drawn the West’s attention to the continent as a premiere sports and entertainment venue. But let’s also recognize that African countries have been quietly building a new set of infrastructures based on mobile and web connectivity, grassroots-tech ingenuity and turbo-micro-entrepreneurship.

Kenyan-raised Erik Hersman’s White African and Afrigadget are just a couple of the many blogs raising awareness about Africa’s long-running tech revolution, as epitomized by events like Maker Faire Africa. The below, from JustGiving’s YouTube channel and featured in Afrigadget, teases out some of the more everyday implications:

As a side-note: You may have read about the survivalist trend in America that mostly involves stocking up a panic room with guns, gold and Twinkies. Many populations in Africa continue to survive and innovate through the kind of emergency situations—natural disasters, economic devastation, military dictatorships, etc.—that your friendly neighborhood doomsayer can’t comprehend.  

 
I make no bones about my appreciation for Trent Reznor’s work. There is nobody, I say nobody with so large an audience that is more consistently truly experimental in a sonic sense and in visual presentation, more willing to foist micro-tonal scales and layers of clashing dissonance upon a sea of ready and willing ears. I’m really enjoying his new project with his wife, named for the classic Coil record, How To Destroy Angels. Go download the spanking new EP for free, no questions asked. It’s a cool treat to hear soft female vocals in this context and I must say it reminds me more than a little bit of Curve, and yes, my old band at times. I always wished back in those days and still do that groups attempting a “shoe-gazey” type of sound would go further in this direction, away from the boring old rock band format, further into the realm of pure electronics where all sounds are truly possible. I also have to say that the cover art image hits me nicely in my fetishist of all things Los Angeles region. Below is the stunning and bloody first video from the project. Whoa ! That brilliant fucker has all bases covered. Always someone to watch.
 

 
How To Destroy Angels

 
Some early, surprisingly crisp New York Dolls clips just popped up on WatchLiveShows’ YouTube channel, and, for your pleasure, here’s a pair of ‘em.  Being in black-and-white, they definitely pack a certain grittiness absent from those glammier, Old Grey Whistle Test clips floating around online. 

An alarmingly lanky David Johansen‘s comment from the Max’s Kansas City stage that Trash just came out on 45 dates clip one to ‘73ish (but they weren’t, to my great sadness, ever on Wonderama).

In clip two, the Dolls shred through Human Being, the mighty closing track from their second studio album, Too Much Too Soon.  What these clips lack in sound quality is more than made up for in conviction!  See if you agree:

 
Attention California readers of Dangerous Minds: it’s primary day, so, like Deee-lite‘s Lady Kier says, vote, baby vote!  Especially you Republicans!  Only you can help put the brakes on the insanity that is Birther Queen, Orly Taitz, and her desire to clinch the GOP nomination for Secretary of State.  For those of you unfamiliar with this lawsuit-happy buddy of Michele Bachmann, here’s a snip from Salon:

Orly Taitz, who is a legitimately crazy person, is running for California secretary of state.  Taitz, a dentist and attorney, has dedicated her life to suing Barack Obama over and over again until he finally admits that he was secretly born in Kenya.  And she just might win the GOP nomination today.  Taitz’ opponent has apparently barely even campaigned, just relying on the fact that he’s running against a crazy person to win the nomination. (Taitz, meanwhile, has filed a number of suits against him, attempting to get him off the ballot because he was once a registered Democrat.)  But that might not be enough.

No, it “might” not.  As longtime GOP campaign strategist, Allan Hoffenblum, notes, “It will be a complete embarrassment if she wins, but these things can happen.”  Indeed, they can.  And as much as I’d love to witness the eruption of nuttiness that a Taitz win might trigger, that would pretty much sink the eventual GOP ticket (Republican Senate candidates Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore are doing whatever they can to flee her orbit), and, come November, California’s chances for political debate that somehow didn’t bring up, YET AGAIN, the notion of birth certificates.

So, regardless of your party of affiliation, if you’re a fan of democracy but a foe of idiocy, get thee to your local precinct (and if you Republicans are still on the fence, watch Taitz go batshit below)! 

Twenty-three years ago today, Fawn Hall became the most famous secretary in America. On June 8, 1987 Hall testified in the Iran-Contra hearings  to helping her boss Lt. Col. Oliver North shred documents having to do with the affair, in which senior Reagan administration officials facilitated arm sales to Iran in order to fund the Nicaraguan contras.

According to Hall’s unsubstantiated Wiki entry, that wasn’t her only lapse of judgment:

Fawn Hall dated Contras politician Arturo Cruz, Jr. In one mishap, she transposed the digits of a Swiss bank account number, resulting in a contribution from the Sultan of Brunei to the Contras being lost. On November 25, 1986, she smuggled confidential papers out of her employer’s office hidden inside her leather boots…

Life after the hearings proved just as interesting for the late-20s Hall, who predictably pursued a modeling career and eventually met and married former post-Morrison Doors manager and archetypal L.A. music business maven Danny Sugerman. The Inside Edition clip below—hosted by a then-second-tier Bill O’Reilly—provides a snapshot of mid-‘90s tabloidism as the sordid strands of politics, drugs and entertainment tangle together deliciously. Sugerman later died of lung cancer in 2005 at age 50.

John and Yoko - $1200

John Cage and Merce Cunningham - $800

Harold and Maude - Sold
 
Here’s a fantastic collection of wedding cake toppers by seattle based artist Mike Leavitt. It’s totally worth a look. From Mike Leavitt’s website:

No longer shall little random plastic people rule the top of your cake. Why suffer the cruelty of impersonal sculpture poisoning the cake frosting you lick from your fingers? Weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, retirement, online bingo… The cake topper figurines can be of any person in any style. Some ‘cake toppers’ aren’t even the bride and groom, just plain loved ones. The finished figures are protected and sealed from any frosting surface damage. For further protection, they aren’t posable with the multiple body part pieces like the action figures. These are finely crafted sculptures that will be enjoyed as long as the union of love that they honor.

(via The Jailbreak)