Make 'em Accountable!

One of the most heartening things that I have participated in lately is the money bomb for Accountability Now. From their website:

The AccountabilityNowPAC was originally formed ... as a fundraising vehicle to block a Congressional leadership “compromise” on the corrupt FISA reauthorization bill... The goal of AccountabilityNowPAC is to become a permanent entity on the Washington DC political landscape which will let our politicians know that civil liberties MATTER. Our message to politicians in Washington is loud and clear: uphold constitutional rights and we will support you; abridge freedom in America and we will not be on your side. Democrat or Republican—it makes no difference to us. This is our vehicle to enforce the sworn oath our political leaders take to preserve and defend the constitution.

This effort, spearheaded by Glen Greenwald and Jane Hamsher, has already created some highly visible ads aimed at changing the behavior of specific members of congress.



I believe that this is one of the best vehicles for progressive political action that exists today. I would encourage anyone interested in lessening the corporate influence on congress and the flagrant abuse of the constitution by the executive branch to please contribute today.

Let's Downsize!

Hello friendly readers,

Why is it so hard to find time to get involved in politics these days? It seems like congress is always passing new legislation, and no one has the time to go and read the bills they are considering, let alone write out a comprehensive criticism of the legislation. And it's not like they care what you say anyways, right? Well I think that view is wrong. They do care, but they care a lot more if you and a few thousand others share the same critical opinion.

I may have touched on this subject in the past, but I would like to take this opportunity to advise you, my loyal readers, to point your attention towards the easiest way for stepping into the legislative debate:

Downsize DC

whose credo is:

We believe the federal government has grown too centralized, too intrusive, and too expensive. We believe in constitutional limits, smaller government, civil liberties, federalism, and low taxes. We want to end laws and programs that don't work, cause harm, and violate the Constitution. We want to restore the full force of the 9th and 10th amendments, which reserve most social functions to the people and the states.

Here are a few fun graphics with links to their respective campaigns:

These worthy campaigns, and many more, are being spearheaded by Downsize DC. The best part is that they make it so easy for the public to participate. They have done all the work for you! All you need to do is fill out your contact info (mandatory for all pleas to your representatives anyways) and it will give you a pre-written letter ready to send off to your representatives. Of course they encourage you to add your own voice to the process and they leave a space for personal comments.

I think this system is an extremely effective one for producing significant change in the exceedingly less public oriented congress.

Now you might be asking yourself, "What's so bad about a large government?". Well Downsize DC doesn't attack the size of government for its own sake, they attack bloated, ineffective, wasteful legislation that is genuinely harmful to our public interests. I challenge anyone to visit their site and find one of their campaigns that they completely disagree with. Let me know in the comments if you can find one!

Final Project - Basic Video

Here is the final version of my project for Basic Video:

Onomatopocussion

Body-Breath-Mind-Soul

I just copied a handout a yoga teacher gave me for a friend and thought I would put it here for the world to enjoy. The original had tons of xerox noise on it so I made a new version in illustrator.

The aspect of the chart to pay the most attention to is the breath. This metaphor of the breath linking the mind and the body is a powerful way of looking at ourselves as organisms and it would do everyone some good to recognize how important the breath really is.

enjoy

Experimental Media v06

I ended up adding sound anyways, I love tones, what can I say?

It is a bit shorter than I would like and I might expand on this for a future project but I thought it turned out alright. I enjoyed messing around with the mirror filter a lot and did a little masking as well. I ended up creating quite a few draft effects and transitions before settling on this one and arranging it like this. The effect I like the most, the strobing at the end, was achieved just by copying and pasting the short clips over and over next to each other. A very effective technique.


here it is:LINK

Experimental Media v05

Well I have gotten into using the mirror effect in final cut and it is looking pretty abstract, I will post a screen shot soon as I am working on this a psychology paper at the same time! Nothing like procrastination to give the brain a good squeeze.

Experimental Media Project v03

This is starting to head into playing with some transitional effects, I will see how far I get with this avenue...

Experimental Media Project v03

I have started to craft my project and I thinking I will deviate a bit from my original approach of synchronized "notes" of color, instead concentrating more on strictly the colors and how I can manipulate them in a way that reflects the medium of video.

Experimental Media Project v02

I have been thinking more about this assignment and have decided that an effective way to achieve this effect would be some type of MIDI synchronization method. If I can assign clips of different colors in the test pattern to MIDI notes, then I could write out a simple melody in MIDI and translate that to a really cool looking color test pattern sequence. I am not sure how to do this.

Experimental Media Project

I am currently taking a survey class in experimental media and have been charged with creating a piece of media myself. This is to be an exploration of the media which I choose to create it on.

My idea so far is to explore the medium of video. My project will be centered on the color test pattern:

The color test also commonly occurs with a test tone with which folks calibrate their systems. I am thinking about possibly playing with a melody constructed of these tones while also manipulating the appearance, hue, saturation, brightness, etc. of the individual color bars.

Pluto

Pulp Fiction: F*cking Short Version

I found this through looking at typography videos for my new Dynamic Type class.

This is the video that linked to it which is also very good:

Examples of Republican hypocrisy on moral values

The Damning List

Despite this wonderfully depressing link above, I am still supporting Ron Paul as our next Republican President.

Giant anti-ad stencil project

THIS looks like a really fun weekend project!

Best 5 Second Video on the Interweb