Friday 31 October 2008

Fuzzy Glamour


Yes! Progress!

This is going to be an ad in the new comic!

Stay tooned for more developments.

I'm at the top of a very daunting hill, but I think it's mostly down hill from here.

Lets get stupid! Lets get nuts! Oh no, let's go!

To see the progress from the original... CLICK HERE!

Sunday 26 October 2008

My Neck, My Back, Lick my...


Back page of my sketchbook... let's swing an episode!

Friday 24 October 2008

Ahmed Zaid Zuhair's Hunger Strike in Guantanamo (ISN 669)

I've been thinking a lot about Guantanamo and how we can come to terms with our evil. Hopefully George W. Bush will be put on trial for it... but really, will it make that much of a difference? Probably not in the U.S., but possibly in the eyes of the world?

If we actually bring anyone to trial, it will be pointless because we've violated so many laws, the least of which is torture. Not to mention the fact that we've effectively bulldozed the findings of judges at Nuremberg.

Do we offer compensation?
Would that fuel more terrorism?
Would it really be enough for five years of being tortured?
Do we let everyone free?
Bring everyone to trial?

I think a short-term solution would be to stop the torture.

What follows is one man's struggle, using non-violence and being tortured for it.

From the AP via the NPR website:

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico October 24, 2008, 05:31 pm ET ·


Three years ago, the man known as Internment Serial Number 669 stopped eating. Ahmed Zaid Zuhair, a father of 10 children in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, had been held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002 without charges and decided to join a mass hunger strike in protest. The U.S. military was determined not to let him succeed.

Since then, according to court documents reviewed by The Associated Press, guards have struggled with him repeatedly, at least once using pepper spray, shackles and brute force to drag him to a restraint chair for his twice-daily dose of a liquid nutrition mix force-fed through his nose.

The documents, filed in federal court in Washington, are a rare look at the military tactics used on hunger strikers, which have sparked international condemnation but remained hidden from view, with officials refusing to even confirm the identity of the men taking part in the protest.

Zuhair's attorney, Yale Law School lecturer Ramzi Kassem, says the tactics described in the documents amount to "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment." The military says the only reason it uses such tactics is that Zuhair is violent and dangerous.

"ISN 669 has a very long history of disciplinary violations and noncompliant, resistant and combative behavior," according to Army Col. Bruce Vargo, commander of Guantanamo Bay's guards.

Zuhair's protest is the remnant of a mass hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay that began in the summer of 2005, with prisoners celebrating the 10 Irish Republican Army and Irish National Liberation Army militants who starved themselves to death in Britain's Maze prison in 1981 while demanding political-prisoner status.

At its peak, there were 131 prisoners refusing meals at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba. The U.S. began force-feeding prisoners, but some were regurgitating the liquid-nutrient mix. In January 2006, commanders adopted a practice borrowed from American civilian prisons of strapping detainees into a special restraint chair for the feedings, and the number of strikers quickly dropped off.

Eventually there were just two: Zuhair, 43, and another Saudi, Abdul Rahman Shalabi. The number has since fluctuated and 12 were participating on Friday.

A number of prisoners have alleged brutal treatment during the hunger strike, and lawyers and human rights groups have accused guards of using unnecessary force. Kassem and other attorneys say their clients have mostly complied with the force-feeding, and that the U.S. has used rough treatment in an effort to break the strike.

Physicians for Human Rights, the World Medical Association and the United Nations, among others, have condemned the use of restraint chairs and other tactics as a violation of U.S. law and basic human rights principles.

The U.S. military has denied any abuse, though it has offered few if any details about what happens between guards and prisoners behind the coiled-razor wire.

Navy Cmdr. Pauline Storum, a spokeswoman for the detention center, said Friday the military was required "under federal law and Department of Defense policy, to preserve the health and well-being of all detainees under our control."

"When a detainee refuses to comply with guard instructions to leave his cell in order to receive necessary medical care, we will use the minimum force necessary ... in order to preserve life," including by tube feeding, she said.

And while the U.S. considers the detainees "enemy combatants" for whom the Geneva Conventions do not apply, it maintains it treats them in a humane manner that in some ways exceeds international standards.

The court documents, affidavits and filings recently submitted as part of Zuhair's challenge of his confinement provide the first detailed picture of his struggles with guards.

On the evening of July 17, for example, two Navy sailors took Zuhair to be fed. When they finished, they say the 5-foot-5, 136-pound, Zuhair violently squirmed to avoid being taken back to his cell. He cursed at them and said his shackles were too tight.

They searched him for contraband and put him back in his cell, they said, and he responded with chilling words:

"Come in my cell, I will cut off your head," he said in English, according to their account. "You are scared. I can tell. Come in my cell. I will cut off your head."

Four weeks later, on Aug. 14, Zuhair refused to come out of his cell for a force-feeding in what his lawyer described as a protest against rough treatment of the hunger strikers.

Five guards strapped on body armor, helmets and face shields and went in for him. One guard shot pepper spray through a hole in the door, but Zuhair knocked away the can. The five men wrestled him to the ground.

"He fought briefly with the guards before five of them were able to place him on his stomach," an officer said. "It took an additional several minutes to shackle ISN 669."

The court documents describe other clashes involving Zuhair. One day in June, he "became aggressive and tried to break free" from guards, the military said.

Navy Capt. Bruce Meneley, the doctor in charge of prisoner care, said wounds on Zuhair's head and face were stitched up after "scuffles" with guards in April 2003 and January 2007.

Zuhair was captured in Pakistan and taken to Guantanamo in June 2002. He has not been charged with a crime, although the military says he trained with the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan and was a member of an Islamic fighting group in Bosnia in the mid-1990s that received money from Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The U.S. also claims he was involved in the November 1995 shooting death of an American U.N. employee, William Jefferson of Camden, N.J., in Bosnia.

Zuhair denies the allegations. In addition to seeking his release, his legal team has asked for his medical records, an examination by an independent doctor and surveillance video that might support his claims of mistreatment. The U.S. military has refused.

Lynda Barry Was Here


Wow, I found this huge plank in Bushwick near the weird arts center that simultaneously repulses and intrigues me.

If you're in the know, it is truly bizarre, but for those not in the know it is probably just a board with writing on it. If you WANT to know more... CLICK HERE!

Was Lynda here? Is this what it is? Where's the octopus? Bushwick NYC... that's in Brooklyn, yo.

Tuesday 21 October 2008

This Ain't the Summer of Love, Buddy

It's more like the fall of our discontent.

I've never done yoga, but the poses are really fun to draw (and challenging!) If you're bored with simple models, go for the contortionists.

Saturday 18 October 2008

Jared Diamond Lectures

One of my favorite non-fiction authors gives a lecture in San Francisco. It's about his latest book, Collapse, which I haven't read, but is on my list after I finish Guns, Germs and Steel and finish swimming through The Golden Bough. Yes, I'm nuts.

(Nerds,) ENJOY:

Friday 17 October 2008

McCain goes for the... Sweet Can???

Although I did Obama a huge disservice... this still was from that weird moment after the debate when McCain hopped around like a bridge troll with a billy goat cloppin' around upstairs while he was trying to shake the moderator's hand.

From the TV, I didn't see this really awkward slice of life. McCain looking like a lecherous chicken hawk wagging his tongue at Barack Obama. To view this and other hilarious and creepy moments in the presidential debate, please visit the HUFFINGTON POST and look for The Many Faces of John McCain at Wednesday Night's Debate.

I wish more presidential candidates would try and grab each other's asses. It would really make politics less *yawn* boring, ya' know?

Thursday 16 October 2008

What the Gay Gene Does

So this is totally off-topic. But really interesting none-the-less.

HERE'S THE ARTICLE: http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/080208_gaygene.htm


Although this report just focuses on men (WTF - no dykes in Samoa?) it's still a really interesting read, whether you agree with it or not. Basically this theory was floating around that gay people existed to help raise kids, rather than pop out kids like a tennis ball launcher.

Nobody could find any support for this argument... mostly because homophobia is so rampant that people distance themselves from them. But now there IS evidence of this in Samoa, outside of western culture.

The article also points out that being transgendered is still listed in the Psychiatric Association Handbook as "gen­der ident­ity dis­or­der." Can somebody please edit this typo? It's not the 19th century, in case you haven't noticed!

Although I don't know how useful this is, it is an interesting theory and I think should be used in adoption rights litigation. As times become more and more conservative, it's awesome that there's still people doing research like this.

http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/080208_gaygene.htm

Sunday 12 October 2008

Saturday 11 October 2008

Genesis P-Orridge Interview

Sometimes making art becomes so simultaneously unbearable and necessary that it spirals me in to a depression. I'm no expert, but I think there's a HUGE link between creativity and depression. It makes perfect sense to me. You are baring yourself in a way that most people hide from their entire lives. You are braving where others are scared. And you are wrestling with questions that can become larger than life.

When this happens, I look to a lot of people to inspire me. One of the most inspiring people on this planet is Genesis P-Orridge. If you have the time, please watch the videos (in 4 parts below). They are rapid-fire and the interview goes through a lot in a really short period. But for someone to live art is one of the most inspiring gifts and we can't take it for granted.

Please send love/energy/gifts etc. to Genesis right now. And don't let these gifts fall around you without holding them as long as you can!

Soft Focus: Genesis P-Orridge Part 1 of 4

Soft Focus: Genesis P-Orridge Part 2 of 4

Soft Focus: Genesis P-Orridge Part 3 of 4

Soft Focus: Genesis P-Orridge Part 4 of 4

Friday 10 October 2008

Neeerrrrrrrdddddssssss!!!!!!!!!


It's so hard to get away from anatomical correctness once you've begun. I want to do these spindly, anorexic characters with exaggerated limbs and weird androgynous features but I'm still stuck in the 7-8 heads tall model. HELP!!!

Until then I'll just draw NERDS! Nerrrrrdddssss! NNNNnnnnnnerrrrrrrrrddss!!!! Oh, yeah that brings me back!

Wednesday 8 October 2008

Striprrr

Austin Osman Spare Inspired


I've been really interested in the illustrator/artist/magician Austin Osman Spare. If you want to read more about him, click here for his wikipedia page. I won't go in to too many details, but he was the progeny of automatic drawing before, well, anybody.

So here's my attempt at it!

I used the right hand on the right side and the left hand on the left with two identical pens.

Saturday 4 October 2008

Rouyn-Noranda

Canada is very cold and everyone speaks French. The town of Rouyn-Noranda is like a small town in the US, but in bizarro world.

I'll be back with plenty of fun pictures in a few days!!!

Au revoir!!!

presspermanent@yahoo.com

Thanks for checking it out!

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