all the world would take a cue from anything you do

currently

Sun, 03 May 2009 05:43:41 GMT

The "currently" post, primarily for Sasquatch, the dude behind soundbetter.net and the blog inspiration from the dude behind tiny little dots, is some music — mostly hip hop.

The first bunch of songs is all Def Jux, which for me is the best of the virtualy invisible labels. Vast Aire — for me — is the best and most slept-on rapper consistently making new musicthat I can find. Vast's delivery is never rushed and he makes simple rhymes and metaphors sophisticated. His raps are tough for me to explain, but are striking to me and listed first on purpose.

... STILL a work in progress ...

SPEC redesign concept: Business

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 07:13:40 GMT

Design reflects my thoughts — as of early March 2009 — on what the centerpiece on a newspaper's front page should look like. Business theme, all AP art.

SPEC redesign concept: Education

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 07:07:56 GMT

Design reflects my thoughts — as of early March 2009 — on what the centerpiece on a newspaper's front page should look like. Education theme, all AP art.

Cumberland Times-News, Page 1, Feb. 2

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 09:37:29 GMT

All headlines, subheads, cutlines and teasers; photo selection; graphic elements, including Pittsburgh Steelers design using AP art. Under deadline pressure.

Cumberland Times-News, Page 1, Jan. 21

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 09:23:27 GMT

All subheads and kickers; graphic elements using AP art. Under deadline pressure.

Cumberland Times-News, Page 1, Jan. 19

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:51:57 GMT

All headlines, subheads, kickers, cutlines and teasers; photo selection; graphic elements, including Barack Obama and Pittsburgh Steelers designs using AP art. Under deadline pressure.

me

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 04:29:42 GMT

SPEC Furious Hours logos

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:05:29 GMT

I designed these logos for the lead singer of Furious Hours. They were not adopted by the band, but check out their MySpace site here.

unpublished McCain Op-Ed

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:20:12 GMT

I read "Faith of My Fathers" by John McCain and Mark Salter before the 2008 presidential election to get a sense of what McCain went through as a POW during the Vietnam War. I thought it was a great book and wrote about it in the unpublished Op-Ed below.

masthead music

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:04:15 GMT

Vast Aire — Take Two

Cumberland Times-News, Page 1, Aug. 12

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 02:19:29 GMT

All headlines, subheads, kickers, cutlines and teasers; photo selection; graphic elements, including Vladmir Putin Russia/Georgia conflict skybox with AP art. Under deadline pressure.

Cumberland Times-News, Page 1, Aug. 2

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 02:11:33 GMT

All headlines, subheads, kickers, cutlines and teasers; photo selection; graphic elements, including Bruce Ivins anthrax investigation skybox with AP art. Under deadline pressure.

Cumberland Times-News, Page 1, Aug. 1

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:24:10 GMT

All headlines, subheads, kickers, cutlines and teasers; photo selection; graphic elements, including Exxon skybox with AP art. Under deadline pressure.

Cumberland Times-News, Page 1, July 31

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:07:35 GMT

All headlines, subheads, kickers, cutlines and teasers; photo selection; graphic elements. Under deadline pressure with late-breaking news.

masthead music

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:47:27 GMT

Red Hot Chili Peppers — Soul to Squeeze

masthead music — originals

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:28:56 GMT

Nirvana Unplugged — Plateau

Wu-Tang Clan — Weak Spot

Audioslave — Doesn't Remind Me

Atmosphere — Guarantees

Atmosphere — Wild Wild Horses

Saul Williams — List of Demands (Reparations)

RZA as Bobby Digital — Don't Be Afraid

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee passages

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:48:16 GMT

As it so happens, a Google search for “Dee Brown” results in numerous links to the professional basketball player — a standout who inspired his own “Pump” sneaker. Dorris Alexander (Dee) Brown, 1908-2002, was a librarian, but happens to share the moniker. The latter seems to show up below the proverbial radar like the people he championed in his book: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Below are passages I chose to lift out of the historic account of a culture nearly forgotten. (HBO forced the nonfiction story into a well-intentioned film that, for all the good it may or may not have done for the cause of native Americans, offered Hollywood justice to the plight of Indians.)

It was the white man’s way to punish all Indians for the crimes of one or a few …
•
1864—Legislator and historian Robert C. Winthrop says: “Professed patriotism may be made the cover for a multitude of sins.”
•
There from his brother Charlie he heard more details of the soldiers’ atrocities at Sand Creek—the horrible scalpings and mutilations, the butchery of children and infants. After a few days the brothers agreed that as half-breeds they wanted no part of the white man’s civilization. They renounced the blood of their father, and quietly left the ranch.
•
The white men around Yreka gave these visiting Indians new names, which the Modocs found amusing, and they often used these names among themselves. … Shacknasty Jim …
•
(Of the 3,700,000 buffalo destroyed from 1872 through 1874, only 150,000 were killed by Indians. When a group of concerned Texans asked General Sheridan if something should not be done to stop the white hunters’ wholesale slaughter, he replied: “Let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffalo is exterminated, as it is the only way to bring lasting peace and allow civilization to advance.”)
•
The great leaders were gone; the mighty power of the Kiowas and Comanches was broken; the buffalo they had tried to save had vanished. It had all happened in less than ten years.
•
“Why do you not want schools?” the commissioner asked.
“They will teach us to have churches,” Joseph answered.
“Do you not want churches?”
“No, we do not want churches.”
“Why do you not want churches?”
“They will teach us to quarrel about God,” Joseph said. “We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that.”
•
With Crook’s tacit agreement, Judge Dundy issued a writ of habeas corpus upon the general, requiring him to bring the Ponca prisoners into the court and show by what authority he held them. Crook obeyed the writ by presenting him his military orders from Washington, and the district attorney for the United States appeared before the judge to deny the Poncas’ right to the writ on the grounds that the Indians were “not persons within the meaning of the law.”
Thus began on April 18, 1879, the now almost forgotten civil-rights case of Standing Bear v. Crook. The Poncas’ lawyers, Webster and Poppleton, argued that an Indian was as much a “person” as any white man and could avail himself to the rights of freedom guaranteed by the Constitution. When the United States attorney stated that Standing Bear and his people were subject to the rules and regulations which the government had made for tribal Indians, Webster and Poppleton replied that Standing Bear and any other Indian had the right to separate themselves from their tribes and live under protection of United States laws like any other citizens.
The climax of the case came when Standing Bear was given permission to speak for his people: “I am now with the soldiers and officers. I want to go back to my old place north. I want to save myself and my tribe. My brothers, it seems to me as if I stood in front of a great prairie fire. I would take up my children and run to save their lives; or if I stood on the bank of an overflowing river, I would take my people and fly to higher ground. Oh, my brothers, the almighty looks down on me, and knows what I am, and hears my words. May the almighty send a good spirit to brood over you, my brothers, to move you to help me. If a white man had land, and someone should swindle him, that man would try to get it back, and you would not blame him. Look on me. Take pity on me, and help me to save the lives of the women and children. My brothers, a power, which I cannot resist, crowds me down to the ground. I need help. I have done.”
Judge Dundy ruled that an Indian was a “person” within the meaning of the habeas corpus act, that the right of expatriation was a natural, inherent, and inalienable right of the Indian as well as the white race, and that in time of peace no authority, civil or military, existed for transporting Indians from one section of the country to another without the consent of the Indians or to confine them to any particular reservation against their will.
•
As for Geronimo, they made a special demon of him, inventing atrocity stories by the dozens and calling on vigilantes to hang him if the government would not. Mickey Free, the Chiricahuas’ official interpreter, told Geronimo about these newspaper stories. “When a man tried to do right,” Geronimo commented, “such stories ought not to be put in the newspapers.”
…
Geronimo later explained it this way: “Sometime before I left, an Indian named Wadiskay had a talk with me. He said, ‘They are going to arrest you,’ but I paid no attention to him, knowing that I had done no wrong; and the wife of Mangas, Huera, told me that they were going to seize me and put me and Mangas in the guardhouse, and I learned from the American and Apache soldiers, from Chato, and Mickey Free, that the Americans were going to arrest me and hang me, and so I left.”
The flight of Geronimo’s party across Arizona was a signal for an outpouring of wild rumors. Newspapers featured big headlines: THE APACHES ARE OUT! The very word “Geronimo” became a cry for blood.
•
On September 8 (1883) Sitting Bull and the young Bluecoat arrived at Bismarck for the big celebration. They rode at the head of a parade and then sat on the speakers’ platform. When Sitting Bull was introduced, he arose and began delivering his speech in Sioux. The young officer listened in dismay. Sitting Bull had changed the flowery text of welcome. “I hate all white people,” he was saying. “You are thieves and liars. You have taken away our land and made us outcasts.” Knowing that only the Army officer could understand what he was saying, Sitting Bull paused occasionally for applause; he bowed, smiled, and then uttered a few more insults. At last he sat down, and the bewildered interpreter took his place. The officer had only a short translation written out, a few friendly phrases, but by adding several well-worn Indian metaphors, he brought the audience to its feet with a standing ovation for Sitting Bull. The Hunkpapa chief was so popular that the railroad officials took him to St. Paul for another ceremony.
•
By early autumn (1891) the official word was: Stop the Ghost Dancing.
“A more pernicious system of religion could not have been offered to a people who stood on the threshold of civilization,” White Hair McLaughlin said. Although he was a practicing Catholic, McLaughlin, like most other agents, failed to recognize the Ghost Dance as being entirely Christian. Except for a difference in rituals, its tenets were the same as those of any Christian church.
“You must not hurt anybody or do harm to anyone. You must not fight. Do right always,” the Messiah commanded. Preaching nonviolence and brotherly love, the doctrine called for no action by the Indians except to dance and sing. The Messiah would bring the resurrection.
But because the Indians were dancing, the agents became alarmed and notified the soldiers, and the soldiers began to march.

Support Bowery Street Pub SPEC ad

Sat, 31 May 2008 02:06:26 GMT

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Sat, 31 May 2008 02:00:38 GMT

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Sat, 31 May 2008 01:55:46 GMT

first published Op-Ed

Wed, 07 May 2008 07:26:50 GMT

The first Op-Ed (for lack of a better term because I'm not a columnist ... yet) I've ever had published is: here. But for reading-in-print purposes use the box below.

Live Your Passion in-line SPEC tee-shirt

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 08:09:34 GMT

Live Your Passion snowboard SPEC tee-shirt

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 08:00:15 GMT

need a recharge

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 10:43:04 GMT

Whoa — Michael Vick. Been too long. Must stay focused.

"Roughing... and obviously not happy about it"

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 03:31:46 GMT

I saw this cartoon by Gary Varvel a couple weeks ago in the Times-News and thought it was hilarious, and at the same time, powerful. Since then its impact has not been diminished. If one was to type "Michael Vick" on Google Image Search, one may find a gory picture of a dog (bloody from forced fighting) among the pictures of Vick's football glory with the Atlanta Falcons and at Virginia Tech. Being a man, I am dismayed to see my best friend bleeding in this brutalized condition. A Nike "swoosh" appears in this blog not only because they sponsored Vick, but also because I'm a hockey fan. I'm not a fan of many (if any) commercials, but I have always remembered the commercial by Nike where Michael Vick scores a goal for the Colorado Avalanche. Players out-of-their-element was kind of the theme in this advertisement, which is set to a slow, inspirational, piano melody. Besides Vick and Brian Urlacher playing hockey there is Lance Armstrong boxing, Andre Agassi playing short-stop for the Boston Red Sox, Marion Jones as a gymnast, Randy Johnson as a bowler and Serena Williams playing professional volleyball. It's not really as cool a commercial as it used to be.

All those dogs look pretty ticked off... but Astro, I think, looks the most disturbed and disgusted. Rightly so.