24 October 2020

Billboards in the News

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have threatened to sue the Lincoln Project, if the anti-Trump Republicans do not remove two huge billboards from Times Square in New York City, in which they accuse the senior White House advisers of showing “indifference” to Americans suffering and dying under Covid-19. The Lincoln Project is staffed by Republican operatives who are supporting Joe Biden. With its billboards in Times Square, a stone’s throw from Trump Tower, it seems the Lincoln Project may have succeeded in distracting the president’s daughter and son-in-law. Ivanka Trump'’s gesture on the billboard appears to be taken from a controversial picture, tweeted in July, in which she promoted Goya black beans.



Oprah Winfrey Commissions 26 Billboards Demanding Arrests In Breonna Taylor's Killing
O, The Oprah Magazine has commissioned 26 billboards calling for the arrest of the police officers involved in the killing of Breonna Taylor to be placed across Louisville, Ky. The billboard artwork uses the cover image of the September issue of O Magazine, which marks the first time in the publication's 20-year run that Oprah Winfrey has not been on the cover. Taylor was killed by Louisville Metro Police on March 13 when at around 1 a.m., officers executing a "no-knock" warrant stormed her apartment where she and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were sleeping. Walker, a licensed gun owner, believed the officers were intruders and fired at them, striking one officer in the leg. Police shot back, hitting Taylor eight times, killing her.


Billboard in San Francisco in Glen Park
In this now prolonged COVID environment, Debt is not being forgiven and interest on money is still ticking exponentially. The legal clauses of foreclosure, seizure, and eviction are real, and are used proactively as a God given Lender right. The Rule of Law favors Debt, even in the times of Jesus.



Ocasio-Cortez Hits Back After Times Square Billboard Blaming Her for Amazon
21 Feb 2019
After a right-wing lobby group unveiled a billboard in New York City's Time Square on Wednesday blaming Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez alone for the decision by retail and technology giant Amazon to "take its ball and go home" by pulling the plug on its planned HQ2 project in nearby Long Island City, it was pretty clear what was going to happen next. Ocasio-Cortez didn't demure. She shot back: “Few things effectively communicate the power we’ve built in fighting dark money & anti-worker policies like billionaire-funded groups blowing tons of cash on wack billboards (this one is funded by the Mercers). (PS fact that it’s in Times Sq tells you this isn’t for/by NYers.)”



The real-life Three Billboards stunts
01 March 2018
An American street artist has become the latest party to co-opt the signage featured in Oscar-nominated drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The artist - known as Sabo - covered three Los Angeles billboards with red tarpaulins accusing the entertainment industry of covering up child abuse. One billboard read: "And the Oscar for biggest p[a]edophile goes to...", while another claimed: "We all knew." The stunt is the latest in a number of protests inspired by the billboards featured in Martin McDonagh's award-winning film. In Miami, meanwhile, mobile billboards were deployed to urge Florida senator Marco Rubio to sanction gun reform in the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.





Anti-Trump billboard in Arizona prompts death threats against artist
20 Mar 2017
Karen Fiorito was commissioned by a company for the local arts in Phoenix to create the billboard. The Santa Monica-based artist earned a master’s degree in arts from Arizona State University. Since the Trump billboard went up Friday, the 25-year-old artist said she has received both positive and negative feedback, including a few death threats. The dollar swastikas, she said, represent “corporate power and greed and how our society has become all about money and corporatism.”




'Incredibly Creepy' Billboards to Track Behavior of Passers-By
29 Feb 2016
Billboards across the country will soon begin to spy on the behavior of passers-by and sell that data to advertisers. Clear Channel Outdoor Americas, which owns tens of thousands of billboards nationwide, is on Monday announcing plans to use people's cell phones to allow its billboards to track the behavior of everyone who walks or drives past the ads. The marketing behemoth is partnering with AT&T and other companies that track human behavior to collect data on viewers' activity, which advertisers could then use to create hyper-targeted ads—similar to how websites track visitors through their browsers and sell that data to online marketers. Facial-recognition technology is also increasingly used by advertisers to track behavior in public spaces. In Germany, the Astra beer brand recently created an automated billboard that noted when women walked past. The billboard approximated the women’s age, then played one of several prerecorded ads to match.

Giant ads for Verizon, Super Bowl are illegal, S.F. says
27 Jan 2016
Two large banners advertising Super Bowl 50 and Verizon Wireless recently installed on the Four Embarcadero building in San Francisco will shrink substantially following the threat of a lawsuit from the city attorney's office, officials said today. The banners, which cover most of the building on two sides, can be seen towering over the Super Bowl City fan village area now taking shape at Justin Herman Plaza. In a letter dated Jan. 25, City Attorney Dennis Herrera said his office has received complaints about the signs, which violate a city law passed by voters in 2002 that prohibits any new general advertising signs in San Francisco. The letter said the signs need to be removed by 5 p.m. on Thursday or the city would file a lawsuit and seek a temporary restraining order and fines.

Skyscraper Billboard SF


Targeting racist trolls by putting their comments on billboards
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-34945756
30 Nov 2015

Brazilians who post racist abuse online may see their words blown up and pasted onto billboards near their houses. The campaign is called "Virtual racism, real consequences" and it's backed by Criola, a civil rights organization run by Afro-Brazilian women. The group collects comments from Facebook or Twitter and uses geolocation tools to find out where the people who have posted them live. They then buy billboard space nearby and post the comments in huge letters, although names and photos are pixelated.





Billboard art show confronts Missouri drivers head-on
31 May 2015
SOMEWHERE ON INTERSTATE 70, Missouri — Those who spend a lot of time on I-70 can confirm that it’s easy to let your mind drift while driving this 250-mile stretch of Missouri. Missouri has five times the national average number of billboards: about 15,000 billboards. Cars, food, porn, Jesus — everything is advertised on the giant structures. Thus the “I-70 Sign Show” was born. Funded by the University of Missouri, the show displays critical art pieces on a billboards. The pieces are meant to challenge and critique the political, social and commercial noise that confronts drivers. The “I-70 Sign Show” piece that got the most feedback, New York artist Mel Bochner’s piece, simply reads, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”


Obscene image shown on hacked US billboard
21 May 2015
Hackers have managed to make a huge video billboard in Atlanta display an obscene image favored by internet pranksters. It prompted calls to police, and soon after, the billboard's owner cut off its power supply. The hack came after a security researcher warned the company, which runs thousands of the video billboards, that they were vulnerable to attack. The FBI and Homeland Security are now investigating the hack. The billboard is owned by US electric-sign giant Yesco, which runs thousands of similar billboards across America. Other signs in other states are also believed to have had their images changed at the same time. A group calling itself the Assange Shuffle Collective claimed responsibility for the attack, in a discussion on social news site Reddit.

Google rents world's biggest digital billboard in Times Square
19 Nov 2014
Google has become the first company to rent to the world's largest and most expensive digital billboard in Times Square, New York. The billboard is eight stories high and is estimated to cost $2.5m (£1.6m) to hire for four weeks. The screen, which is the size of a football field, is mounted on the side of the Marriot Marquis hotel. Around 300,000 pedestrians are estimated to pass by the billboard every day.


Dangling dummies shock Las Vegas commuters
08 Mar 2012
Mannequins hanging from nooses on two Las Vegas billboards Wednesday were part of an apparent publicity stunt that led to dozens of calls from drivers on their morning commute, the Nevada Highway Patrol said. The dummies were dressed in business suits and hung from signs reading "Dying for work" and "Hope you're happy Wall St." It wasn't immediately clear who was behind the stunt. Both highways are some of the most highly traveled roadways during commuter hours.



17 Jul 2012
The Brandalism project saw 25 artists from 8 countries coming together for the biggest subvertising campaign in UK history.  Over five days a team of guerilla installers travelled to Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol and London and put up artworks that seeks to confront the ad industry and take back our visual landscapes.

Gallery Page




2010 AZ Billboard
On the way to the Grand Canyon for a family vacation in summer of 2010, we passed through Kingman, Arizona on the old Route 66. Pictured is a billboard promoting the governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, “doing the job the feds won’t do” with the ‘o’ in ‘won’t’ depicting the Obama symbol. Using a popular WWII poster, a much younger Jan Brewer is pictured as Rosie the Riveter. “Doing the job the feds won’t do” is in reference to Arizona’s controversial immigration policy regarding the protection of its borders. Whether one agrees with Arizona’s immigration policy or not, Governor Jan Brewer's billboard demonstrates that billboards still play a key role in the promotion of a public opinion.











23 October 2020

Death Care Series


The aging baby boomers have been moving into retirement like a tsunami and have the potential to negatively impact economic growth, straining the economy. Certain sectors will boom, such as pharmaceuticals, caskets, and bingo games, but overall, old folks slow down. Perhaps this will be the boomers' final legacy, sending the economy into a tailspin by merely getting old. Now that's ironic. The Death Care industry is poised to grow with this tsunami of Baby Boomers; however, the last hurrah of the Baby Boomer generation could be to morph this pretentious and fragile industry by merely getting back to funeral basics. (Written pre-Covid)

The American Way of Death Revisited by Jessica Mitford, 1996, Excerpts, First Publication 1963

A brief look backwards establishes that there is no resemblance between the funeral practices of today and those of even seventy-five to one hundred years ago, and that there is nothing in the “history of Western civilization” to support the thesis of continuity and gradual development of funeral customs. On the contrary, the salient features of the contemporary American funeral [beautification of the corpse, metal casket and vault, banks of store-bought flowers, the ubiquitous offices of the “funeral director”] are all of very recent vintage in this country, and each has been methodically designed and tailored to extract maximum profit for the trade. Of all the changes in the funeral scene over the last decades, easily the most significant is the emergence of monopolies in what the trade is pleased to call the “death care” industry. Of the three publicly traded major players – Service Corporation International [SCI], the Loewen Group, and Stewart Enterprises – SCI, incorporated in 1984, is the undisputed giant.

10 May 2006, Form 10-Q
Over the long-term, we believe that our industry leadership, along with superior brand, reputation, financial strength and geographic reach, will result in expanded growth opportunities with the aging of the Baby Boom generation.




Embalming

Famous Preserved Bodies
19 August 2010
So much of travel is about coming face to face with history. And in some cases, that can be more literal than most. Here are six earlier humans who have been preserved – through accident or intent – for us to meet hundreds (and thousands) of years later.







First funeral held using ‘living coffin’ made of mushroom fibre
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/15/first-funeral-living-coffin-made-mushroom-fibre-netherlands?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
15 May 2020
After months of testing, the first funeral has taken place in the Netherlands using a fast-composting “living coffin” made of mycelium, the mat of fibers that forms the underground part of fungi. Mycelium is constantly looking for waste products – oil, plastic, metals, other pollutants – and converting them into nutrients for the environment. The process by which a human body in a traditional coffin becomes compost can often take a decade or more, slowed by the varnished wood and metals of the casket and synthetic clothing. A mycelium coffin will be absorbed back into the soil within a month or six weeks, actively contributing to the full decomposition of the body it contains and enriching the surrounding soil quality – all within a period of two to three years.

Washington state is first to allow human composting
21 May 2019
Governor Jay Inslee signed legislation Tuesday making Washington the first state to approve composting as an alternative to burying or cremating human remains. It allows licensed facilities to offer “natural organic reduction”, which turns a body, mixed with substances such as wood chips and straw, into about two wheelbarrows’ worth of soil in a span of several weeks. Loved ones are allowed to keep the soil to spread, just as they might spread the ashes of someone who has been cremated – or even use it to plant vegetables or a tree. Supporters say the method is an environmentally friendly alternative to cremation, which releases carbon dioxide and particulates into the air, and conventional burial, in which people are drained of their blood, pumped full of formaldehyde and other chemicals that can pollute groundwater, and placed in a nearly indestructible coffin, taking up land. https://www.recompose.life/

Washington could legalize composting of human remains
12 Mar 2019
Washington is now on the verge of becoming the first US state to legalize human composting, also known as “recomposition”. The legislation would allow facilities in the state to legally compost bodies in a licensed facility by breaking them down into nutrient-rich soil.  Like any animal body, humans contain a lot of protein and moisture. In order to help them quickly break down, they are placed in a vessel with oxygen and plant materials, such as wood chips, alfalfa, and straw. This combination also spurs microbial activity, which gets rid of any type of bacterium or virus on the body. The process typically takes about 30 days. Human composting would also be a much greener after-death option, as it uses one-eighth the energy of cremation, and for every person who picks it over cremation or burial, it will save over a metric ton of CO2.

The new death industry: funeral businesses that won’t exploit grief
08 Jan 2018
Death needn’t be as mysterious or expensive as it has become. That’s according to a new band of entrepreneurs who are aiming to challenge what they claim is the oppressive and sometimes exploitative industry that profits from our inevitable demise. Death, says Poppy Mardall, founder of Poppy’s Funerals, has “become a conveyor-belt experience”, with large funeral companies industrializing the process of caring for people’s bodies. What needs to change, she believes, “is the whole way a bereaved person is treated from the moment they get in touch”. It’s not so much about the industry modernizing, she says, “but reflecting on the levels of service an undertaker is able to offer, treating a person like an individual, trying to create an atmosphere that’s warm and comfortable, and without fear”. https://www.poppysfunerals.co.uk/

Wal-Mart starts selling coffins
30 Oct 2009
Prices range from a "Mom" or "Dad Remembered" steel coffin for $895 to a bronze model at $2,899. The retailer is allowing customers to plan ahead by paying for the caskets over 12 months for no interest. They can be dispatched within 48 hours. Catering for cradle-to-grave needs, Wal-Mart already sells everything from baby wear to engagement rings.






Artist: Paul Insect – Death by Consumerism


10 September 2020

The Lucifer Effect Series


The Lucifer Effect by Zimbardo, 2007, Excerpts

The Lucifer Effect examines the processes of transformation at work when good or ordinary people do bad or evil things. Evil consists in intentionally behaving in ways that harm, abuse, demean, dehumanize, or destroy innocent others – or using one’s authority and systematic power to encourage or permit others to do so on your behalf. Evil is knowing better but doing worse.

No person or state is incapable of evil. This behavior lies just under the surface of any of us. Each of us has the potential to be saint or sinner, altruistic or selfish, gentle or cruel, submissive or dominant, sane or mad, good or evil. We are born with a full range of capacities, each of which is activated and developed depending on the social and cultural circumstances that govern our lives. The potential for perversion is inherent in the very processes that make human beings do all the wonderful things we do.

Some of the world’s evil result from ordinary people operating in circumstances that selectively elicit bad behavior from their natures. They are so evil we couldn’t ever see ourselves doing the same thing. But if you consider the terrible pressure under which people were operating, then you automatically reassert their humanity – and that becomes alarming. You are forced to look at the situation and say, “What would I have done?” Sometimes the answer is not encouraging.

It is through understanding how such forces operate that we can resist, oppose, and prevent them from leading us into undesirable temptation. Such knowledge can liberate us from subjugation to the mighty grasp of conformity, compliance, persuasion, and other forms of social influence and coercion. Although evil can exist in any setting, we look most closely into its breeding ground in prisons and wars. They typically become crucibles, in which authority, power, and dominance are blended and, when covered over by secrecy, suspend our humanity, and rob us of the qualities we humans value most: caring, kindness, cooperation, and love.


 
 
 
 
 
Abu Ghraib Series – WIP
 
The Lucifer Effect by Zimbardo, 2007, Excerpts
Psychological analysis is not “excusiology.” Individuals and groups who behave immorally or illegally must still be held responsible for their complicity and crimes. However, the situational and systemic factors that caused their behavior must be taken into account.



 


07 September 2020

Wealth Gap Series


This series explores the widening Wealth Gap and its impact on class and race relations, excerpting heavily from Thomas Piketty, Professor at the Paris School of Economics, who has explored the structural cause of the wealth gap in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century published in 2014. He created quite a stir, getting both rave reviews and harsh critiques. He brought the issue of a widening wealth gap to the limelight and has shown how war mitigated extreme wealth gaps in the past. And without a discussion and resolution, war may again mitigate the current wealth gap extreme. And now, Covid-19 has made wealth inequality impossible to ignore. That is not just wealth inequality, but inequality of access to healthcare. 

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Professor Paris School of Economics, 2014, Excerpts
The central thesis of this book is that a small gap between the return on capital and the rate of income growth can in the long run have powerful and destabilizing effects on the structure and dynamics of social inequality.

The concentration of wealth and prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. The main driver of inequality – the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of income growth – generates extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values.

There is no fundamental reason why we should believe that growth is automatically balanced. We should put the question of inequality back at the center of economic analysis and begin asking questions first raised in the nineteenth century. For far too long, economists have neglected the distribution of wealth.






Thomas Piketty refuses to censor latest book for sale in China
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/aug/31/thomas-piketty-refuses-to-censor-latest-book-for-sale-in-china
31 Aug 2020
The latest book by the French economist Thomas Piketty appears unlikely to be sold in mainland China after he refused requests to censor it. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has expressed admiration for Piketty’s work, but Capital and Ideology, which was published last year, has not made it to the mainland China market due to sections on inequality in the country. “They basically wanted to cut almost all parts referring to contemporary China, and in particular to inequality and opacity in China,” he said.

Xi has previously referenced Piketty’s work, including his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. As recently as this month, Xi wrote in an essay that Piketty’s work on US inequality was “worthy of our consideration”. Piketty writes that China’s wealth distribution to the top 10% and bottom 50% is “only slightly less inegalitarian than the United States and significantly more so than Europe”.


The coronavirus crisis has exposed the ugly truth about celebrity culture and capitalism
31 Mar 2020
The rich and famous are desperate to prove we are all in this together – in fact, the outbreak has highlighted just how false that is. While this is a difficult time for everyone, it has been particularly tough on the famous. They have been upstaged by a virus. No one cares what they are wearing or who they are snogging anymore; the world’s attention has been diverted by a headline-hogging pandemic. It seems as if some celebrities are starting to grapple with the realization that they are not quite as important or beloved as they thought they were.

Gal Gadot was the first victim of the great celebrity backlash of 2020. “We’re all in this together,” the Wonder Woman star assured us in a video on Instagram a couple of weeks ago, before launching into a star-studded rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine. Can you imagine how little self-awareness you must have to enlist a bunch of multimillionaires to sing about a world with “no possessions” while huge numbers of people are losing their jobs?

Coronavirus has made inequality impossible to ignore. That is not just wealth inequality, but inequality of access to healthcare. A new famous person seems to test positive for coronavirus every day while exhibiting mild symptoms at best. Meanwhile, our friends and family can be coughing up their lungs and still not get access to a test or a hospital bed.

Celebrity culture and capitalism are inextricably entwined. Both elevate the individual over the collective good. They rely on the lie of “meritocracy”: work hard and you can achieve whatever you want. But it has become uncomfortably clear how little we value our hardest workers – the healthcare professionals, supermarket staff, bus drivers and delivery drivers who are keeping the world running while the rich run to their second homes. And it has never been so clear how little the people who earn the most contribute to society. “We’re all in this together,” the rich and famous keep telling us. Sorry, but it is obvious that we are not.

Ultra-rich protect wealth with spread of 'family offices'
16 Mar 2017
The ultra-rich in London are increasingly protecting their wealth through the use of "family offices", says research from the London School of Economics. These are teams of professionals - such as lawyers, financiers and psychologists - employed to ensure the "dynastic wealth" of the super-rich, they support a "bunkered" and "fortified" way of life of the "global super-rich". The growth of extreme wealth, alongside poverty and low-income families, means that there needs to be more analysis of how such wealth is perpetuated, the study suggests.

Obama’s Farewell Address, Excerpts
10 Jan 2017
Our democracy won’t work without a sense that everyone has economic opportunity. Our economy doesn’t work as well or grow as fast when a few prosper at the expense of a growing middle class, and ladders for folks who want to get into the middle class.

Stark inequality is corrosive to our democratic idea. While the top 1 percent has amassed a bigger share of wealth and income, too many of our families in inner cities and in rural counties have been left behind. Convinced that the game is fixed against them. That their government only serves the interest of the powerful. That’s a recipe for more cynicism and polarization in our politics.

If every economic issue is framed as a struggle between a hardworking white middle class and an undeserving minority, then workers of all shades are going to be left fighting for scraps while the wealthy withdraw further into their private enclaves.

Britain's inequality map - stark and growing
02 Dec 2016
Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's chief economist is not only worried about the inequality of those on the lowest incomes versus the very rich, but also with those regions which have fallen behind in the race for economic growth since the financial crisis. Most concerning for a government which has pledged to make the economy work "for all" - which presumably means across geographies as well as income bands - is that the issue is becoming more acute.

UK one of the most unequal countries, says Oxfam
13 Sep 2016
The richest 1% of the UK population owns more than 20 times the wealth of the poorest fifth, according to Oxfam. That made Britain one of the most unequal countries in the developed world and contributed to the vote for Brexit, the charity said. The report said many people in the UK felt locked out of politics and economic opportunity. Rachael Orr, head of Oxfam's UK Program, said: "Inequality is a massive barrier to tackling poverty and has created an economy that clearly isn't working for everyone."

Wealth Over Work
23 Mar 2014
It seems safe to say that “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” the magnum opus of the French economist Thomas Piketty, will be the most important economics book of the year — and maybe of the decade. Mr. Piketty, arguably the world’s leading expert on income and wealth inequality, does more than document the growing concentration of income in the hands of a small economic elite. He also makes a powerful case that we’re on the way back to “patrimonial capitalism,” in which the commanding heights of the economy are dominated not just by wealth, but also by inherited wealth, in which birth matters more than effort and talent.


Wikipedia: Wealth inequality in the United States
The rich are accumulating more assets while the middle and working classes are just getting by. Currently, the richest 1% hold about 38% of all privately held wealth in the United States while the bottom 90% held 73% of all debt. According to the New York Times, the "richest 1 percent in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent".

The distributive nature of tax policy has been suggested by some economists and politicians such as Emmanuel Saez, Thomas Piketty, and Barack Obama to perpetuate economic inequality in America by steering large sums of wealth into the hands of the wealthiest Americans. This claim has created much controversy and debate within the academic and political spheres.

Racial disparities: There are many causes, but inheritance might be the most important. Inheritance can directly link the disadvantaged economic position and prospects of today's blacks to the disadvantaged positions of their parents' and grandparents' generations.

In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French economist Thomas Piketty argues that "extremely high levels" of wealth inequality are "incompatible with the meritocratic values and principles of social justice fundamental to modern democratic societies" and that "the risk of a drift towards oligarchy is real and gives little reason for optimism about where the United States is headed.