SRBissette.com

A Luddite Scanner, Dim, But Finally Functional…

I’ve spent the afternoon crash-coursing on scanning art and photos, and will finally be joining the 1990s in my ability to load art online. So, a major breakthrough from a dinosaur who has resisted the technology thus far. The site is coming together, and I promise much eye candy — old and new, long unseen and never-before-seen — by Halloween!
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Finished re-burning to disc the final draft of my new book Blur, Volume One this afternoon. This is the first of four volumes, collecting my complete weekly Video Views newspaper column from 1999-2001, including various articles and film-related writings from that period that appeared in other venues (e.g., Video Watchdog, VMag, etc.). Off it goes to my Black Coat Press publishing partner Jean-Marc Lofficier tomorrow, with more books to follow. News on their release dates will be posted here, once Jean-Marc receives everything and we’re set to go…
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Want to check out the real high-stakes players and connections that keep democracy in check? Pop on over to http://www.theyrule.net and play connect-the-dots. You will need Flash Player 7 to function on the site:

“A Brief Explanation
They Rule allows you to create maps of the interlocking directories of the top companies in the US in 2004. The data was collected from their websites and SEC filings in early 2004, so it may not be completely accurate – companies merge and disappear and directors shift boards.”

Site creator Josh On has constructed a pretty stunning analysis of the lay of the corporate landscape, identifying its key players and the umbilical cords they share. Josh writes, “They Rule aims to provide a glimpse of some of the relationships of the US ruling class. It takes as its focus the boards of some of the most powerful U.S. companies, which share many of the same directors. Some individuals sit on 5, 6 or 7 of the top 500 companies. It allows users to browse through these interlocking directories and run searches on the boards and companies. A user can save a map of connections complete with their annotations and email links to these maps to others. They Rule is a starting point for research about these powerful individuals and corporations.”

The illusion of a functional democracy is vital to the ongoing power the current Administration wields over the American populace; most of the world, of course, harbors no such illusions about our country. Maintaining the invisibility of this power network while sustaining the illusion of self-governance is vital; thus, our plutocracy functions with the apparent sanction of the citizens, though we have been effectively reduced to a consumer class with few real freedoms or powers left in our reach. Josh writes, “A few companies control much of the economy and oligopolies exert control in nearly every sector of the economy. The people who head up these companies swap on and off the boards from one company to another, and in and out of government committees and positions. These people run the most powerful institutions on the planet, and we have almost no say in who they are. This is not a conspiracy. They are proud to rule. And yet these connections of power are not always visible to the public eye.” The prominent players in this ruling class “stand against each other in the competitive struggle for the continued accumulation of their capital, but they stand together as a family supporting their interests in perpetuating the profit system as whole. Protecting this system can require the cover of a ‘legitimate’ force – and this is the role that is played by the state. An understanding of this system can not be gleaned from looking at the inter-personal relations of this class alone, but rather how they stand in relation to other classes in society.”

Note that They Rule is not a current, live database of board members and companies — the players and their roles are mutable and constantly changing. Josh reportedly updates the site annually, so it remains merely an eye-opening springboard to further research and analysis, but as such it is invaluable. Amazing site, check it out, and understand where we all fit in the foodchain…

A Week of Wonders

This week has been peppered with moments-that-make-life-worth-living.

The intimate stuff you needn’t know, though it’s been a good week (aside from the stomach flu), but suffice to say it’s been a hoot to savor Tom DeLay indicted at last (we’ll see if it sticks; these fuckers seem to be made of Teflon!), the filming of a live giant squid 5000+ feet under in the North Pacific (the cephalopod fought with the camera equipment for a full four hours, leaving a still-writhing 18-foot tentacle entangled in the equipment when it at last departed!), and the reading of Mike Mignola‘s second (and final) chapter of the revelatory Hellboy “The Island,” wherein we finally learn the origin of Hellboy’s massive appendage (his HAND, I’m referring to his hand!). Well done, Mike; you’re one of the few who have kept me reading comics.

Yesterday morning NY Times journalist Judith Miller was released from prison. Miller having to testify in the ongoing investigation of the outing of CIA-operative Valerie Plame is a troubling issue for a number of reasons, but Miller‘s almost three months in jail is historic. The NY Times cites Vice President Dick Cheney‘s chief of staff I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby as Miller’s source; can it be that Karl Rove, ‘Scooter’ Libby and even Dick Cheney will be forced to see through this traitorous dance in a truly public arena? When will columnist Robert Novak serve his time behind bars?

It has to be clear now to the most devoted that President Bush has done, and will do, nothing to discipline either Rove or Libby, putting lie to his own characteristic bluster and swagger after Novak revealed that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson‘s wife Plame was a CIA operative. This puts Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in a vital position, and he’s now more essential to the survival of our democracy more than ever before; I truly hope he’s going to take the core issues and players in the most confrontational manner possible, when the time is right. Thus far, Fitzgerald has played his cards close.

The utter moral bankruptcy of those in power is more obvious by the moment. It’s a form of Federalism, working in conjunction with unprecedented and largely unchecked corporate lobbying interests and entrenched representatives (most of whom now sit in control of the very agencies intended to regulate corporate interests and thus protect ‘the public good’), that has sold us all so far down the river that it’s nigh on impossible to assess just how truly fucked we are. Add the increasingly overt theocracy elevating itself (note even scoundrels like DeLay are reportedly devout Christians who have nothing but disdain for the separation of church and state) in a truly bizarre fusion of Bible-thumping and corporation-sanctioned sociopathic behavior, and it’s difficult to even sound rational in any discussion of the path we as a people, country, and culture are now on. The utter shamelessness of the government officials involved has ceased to amaze: ‘Brownie’ stood before the Republican-led initial investigation of the failure to respond to Hurricane Katrina and maintained a red-faced show of indignity and arrogance that has become utterly archetypal of this current Administration and its cronies. They are incapable of shame, and pathologically avoid responsibility or culpability on any level — this is truly, truly sociopathic behavior, all the more terrifying when it characterizes men and women who have gravitated so ruthlessly to the highest seats of power (e.g., every component of the Bush Administration). Hmmm, this doesn’t jive with any version or reading of the Ten Commandments I was ever exposed to.

Consider the big-business interests that pushed through mortifying bankruptcy laws that are coming into effect in the wake of devastating natural disasters, the monstrous corporate welfare doled to petroleum and energy industries in the recently-passed “energy bill” that does nothing to help a single citizen or face our country’s true energy needs and issues (much less address global warming, the truth of which we are living), the opportunistic Republican predation of Hurricane Katrina and Rita’s wake to further ravage the very social infrastructures that were already fleeced to the detriment of all who suffered or survived those storms (and once again attack bugaboos like Amtrack and public broadcasting!), the ongoing disastrous health care and pharmaceutical circle-jerk that has (among other astounding brokering abuses) willingly removed the government’s power to secure the best prices possible for drugs, the utter failure of leadership and strategy in the criminally “pre-emptive” Iraq War — even the most fragmentary accounting is utterly mind-boggling. Any attempt to grasp its enormity and scope inevitably comes off as ranting and rambling. After the last two US Presidential elections, can we even pretend — in the era we’re now in of electronic voting technology, unaccountable and uncountable, managed by CEOs transparently espousing which parties and candidates they actively support — that any shred of a viable national democracy or possibility of truly fair elections survives?

Still, last week’s indictment of DeLay and the latest developments in the Plame investigation give one hope. Keep an eye on Fitzgerald’s activities. The growing evidence of widespread and blatant corruption amid Bush’s circles of power — Rove, Libby, Cheney, Frist, DeLay, etc. — dwarfs the Watergate scandal on a daily basis. Perhaps Fitzgerald is up to the task. Here’s hoping.

It’ll be interesting to see what cronyism shapes Bush’s Presidential pardons on his way out the door.
___

So, being human, one seeks succor where and when one can.

Some things are worth waiting for. Sweetest of all this week’s treasures, though, has been the time I’ve been able to steal to drink in the enormity and emaculate artistry of Winsor McCay: Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays! edited by Peter Maresca (2005, Sunday Press). Maresca’s selection of McCay color 1905-1910 Sunday pages is stunning; his editorial decisions are a delight, the text pieces punctuating the selections are worthwhile, and the color reproduction makes full use of the state-of-the-art technology available to provide the richest, closest-to-the-source reproduction of the chosen Sunday pages imaginable. But the almost overwhelming power of this new collection is due primarily due to the key decision to reproduce the Sunday pages in their full dimensions — that’s right, this tome measures over 21″ x 16″. It’s a monster book, a thing of beauty, and an absolutely essential addition to any devoted comics library.

This first printing numbers only 5,000 copies, so despite the cost (it ain’t cheap) I urge you to save, beg, borrow, or steal whatever you need to get your hands on a copy pronto. It’s one of those difficult-to-shelf books, too… I mean, between my reading of the book and the rain and humidity of this week, the covers are already warping a bit, but who cares?
McCay.
Nemo.
In full color.
Full size.
Bliss.

A Week of Wonders

This week has been peppered with moments-that-make-life-worth-living.

The intimate stuff you needn’t know, though it’s been a good week (aside from the stomach flu), but suffice to say it’s been a hoot to savor Tom DeLay indicted at last (we’ll see if it sticks; these fuckers seem to be made of Teflon!), the filming of a live giant squid 5000+ feet under in the North Pacific (the cephalopod fought with the camera equipment for a full four hours, leaving a still-writhing 18-foot tentacle entangled in the equipment when it at last departed!), and the reading of Mike Mignola‘s second (and final) chapter of the revelatory Hellboy “The Island,” wherein we finally learn the origin of Hellboy’s massive appendage (his HAND, I’m referring to his hand!). Well done, Mike; you’re one of the few who have kept me reading comics.

Yesterday morning NY Times journalist Judith Miller was released from prison. Miller having to testify in the ongoing investigation of the outing of CIA-operative Valerie Plame is a troubling issue for a number of reasons, but Miller‘s almost three months in jail is historic. The NY Times cites Vice President Dick Cheney‘s chief of staff I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby as Miller’s source; can it be that Karl Rove, ‘Scooter’ Libby and even Dick Cheney will be forced to see through this traitorous dance in a truly public arena? When will columnist Robert Novak serve his time behind bars?

It has to be clear now to the most devoted that President Bush has done, and will do, nothing to discipline either Rove or Libby, putting lie to his own characteristic bluster and swagger after Novak revealed that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson‘s wife Plame was a CIA operative. This puts Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in a vital position, and he’s now more essential to the survival of our democracy more than ever before; I truly hope he’s going to take the core issues and players in the most confrontational manner possible, when the time is right. Thus far, Fitzgerald has played his cards close.

The utter moral bankruptcy of those in power is more obvious by the moment. It’s a form of Federalism, working in conjunction with unprecedented and largely unchecked corporate lobbying interests and entrenched representatives (most of whom now sit in control of the very agencies intended to regulate corporate interests and thus protect ‘the public good’), that has sold us all so far down the river that it’s nigh on impossible to assess just how truly fucked we are. Add the increasingly overt theocracy elevating itself (note even scoundrels like DeLay are reportedly devout Christians who have nothing but disdain for the separation of church and state) in a truly bizarre fusion of Bible-thumping and corporation-sanctioned sociopathic behavior, and it’s difficult to even sound rational in any discussion of the path we as a people, country, and culture are now on. The utter shamelessness of the government officials involved has ceased to amaze: ‘Brownie’ stood before the Republican-led initial investigation of the failure to respond to Hurricane Katrina and maintained a red-faced show of indignity and arrogance that has become utterly archetypal of this current Administration and its cronies. They are incapable of shame, and pathologically avoid responsibility or culpability on any level — this is truly, truly sociopathic behavior, all the more terrifying when it characterizes men and women who have gravitated so ruthlessly to the highest seats of power (e.g., every component of the Bush Administration). Hmmm, this doesn’t jive with any version or reading of the Ten Commandments I was ever exposed to.

Consider the big-business interests that pushed through mortifying bankruptcy laws that are coming into effect in the wake of devastating natural disasters, the monstrous corporate welfare doled to petroleum and energy industries in the recently-passed “energy bill” that does nothing to help a single citizen or face our country’s true energy needs and issues (much less address global warming, the truth of which we are living), the opportunistic Republican predation of Hurricane Katrina and Rita’s wake to further ravage the very social infrastructures that were already fleeced to the detriment of all who suffered or survived those storms (and once again attack bugaboos like Amtrack and public broadcasting!), the ongoing disastrous health care and pharmaceutical circle-jerk that has (among other astounding brokering abuses) willingly removed the government’s power to secure the best prices possible for drugs, the utter failure of leadership and strategy in the criminally “pre-emptive” Iraq War — even the most fragmentary accounting is utterly mind-boggling. Any attempt to grasp its enormity and scope inevitably comes off as ranting and rambling. After the last two US Presidential elections, can we even pretend — in the era we’re now in of electronic voting technology, unaccountable and uncountable, managed by CEOs transparently espousing which parties and candidates they actively support — that any shred of a viable national democracy or possibility of truly fair elections survives?

Still, last week’s indictment of DeLay and the latest developments in the Plame investigation give one hope. Keep an eye on Fitzgerald’s activities. The growing evidence of widespread and blatant corruption amid Bush’s circles of power — Rove, Libby, Cheney, Frist, DeLay, etc. — dwarfs the Watergate scandal on a daily basis. Perhaps Fitzgerald is up to the task. Here’s hoping.

It’ll be interesting to see what cronyism shapes Bush’s Presidential pardons on his way out the door.
___

So, being human, one seeks succor where and when one can.

Some things are worth waiting for. Sweetest of all this week’s treasures, though, has been the time I’ve been able to steal to drink in the enormity and emaculate artistry of Winsor McCay: Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays! edited by Peter Maresca (2005, Sunday Press). Maresca’s selection of McCay color 1905-1910 Sunday pages is stunning; his editorial decisions are a delight, the text pieces punctuating the selections are worthwhile, and the color reproduction makes full use of the state-of-the-art technology available to provide the richest, closest-to-the-source reproduction of the chosen Sunday pages imaginable. But the almost overwhelming power of this new collection is due primarily due to the key decision to reproduce the Sunday pages in their full dimensions — that’s right, this tome measures over 21″ x 16″. It’s a monster book, a thing of beauty, and an absolutely essential addition to any devoted comics library.

This first printing numbers only 5,000 copies, so despite the cost (it ain’t cheap) I urge you to save, beg, borrow, or steal whatever you need to get your hands on a copy pronto. It’s one of those difficult-to-shelf books, too… I mean, between my reading of the book and the rain and humidity of this week, the covers are already warping a bit, but who cares?
McCay.
Nemo.
In full color.
Full size.
Bliss.

Going into a wild weekend — my parents are visiting, a reunion of sorts coming Monday with the arrival of Gerhard and Rose (we’re planning a BBQ with Rick and Cindy Veitch and my folks to savor that evening), and much computer work to do between now and Tuesday as Jane Wilde teaches me the ins and outs of scanning, etc.. The latter is to upgrade my CCS presentations and get over the final huge hump of scanning tons of art for the new website, which I hope we’ll launch later this week!

So, erratic posts for you this weekend, but I’ll be here with something worthy of a read later this morn. Soon –

Going into a wild weekend — my parents are visiting, a reunion of sorts coming Monday with the arrival of Gerhard and Rose (we’re planning a BBQ with Rick and Cindy Veitch and my folks to savor that evening), and much computer work to do between now and Tuesday as Jane Wilde teaches me the ins and outs of scanning, etc.. The latter is to upgrade my CCS presentations and get over the final huge hump of scanning tons of art for the new website, which I hope we’ll launch later this week!

So, erratic posts for you this weekend, but I’ll be here with something worthy of a read later this morn. Soon –