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"There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence."
~Robert G. Ingersoll

Ingersoll, a Civil War veteran and Illinois State attorney, never had his place in the political spotlight thanks to this belief. When others told him to run for office and conceal the fact that he was an agnostic he refused their pleas. Such a vigor for public truth is something that I wish to uphold in all my future publications. For now I am taking my own twist on the values that Ingersoll championed with an upcoming project entitled Folie à Deux. The presentation, named after a form of psychosis in which two people transfer delusions from one to the other, is my first of hopefully many magazines informing the public of current cultural and political issues that have multiple views to be looked at. Because I consider myself a member of the deluded public, I cannot formulate such strong opinions as Ingersoll, but I can supply a version of the truth for my fellow misinformed members of society and in the most comprehensible way possible. For my first booklet, if you will, I will be tackling the hard hitting topic of Health Care: Is ObamaCare right for US? With Congress currently on recess until early September there have been more than a few articles in the news for and against the plan that has been labelled as socialism. In my first edition of Folie à Deux I hope to conquer the following questions with as little bias and condescension as possible:

What exactly is ObamaCare?
What are the pros and cons of ObamaCare?
What is Socialism?
Is ObamaCare Socialism?
Is Socialism sustainable?

The layout for the project will be very simple in design and legibility will be a key factor in the entire printing process. The pages of the publication will not be flooded with words either, with only a few ideas on one page so as not to overwhelm the reader. The point is to get the truth out there in the simplest and most understandable way possible. In the end, it is the public's decision as to whether to support ObamaCare or not. Hopefully whatever "delusions" my audience experiences will be intelligent ones transferred to all of their acquaintances and the public may be properly and thoroughly informed without propaganda. It is a feat that may be near impossible, but I am willing to take a chance and withhold my opinion for a day until I have ALL the facts, and I hope my readers will, too.

When I rule the World I'm making Stephen Hawking my Manservant

With the amount of people living in our world today it's hard not to hate the race of life that technologies have created. Or, at least, I do. But as much as I would rather be sitting at a cafe in the French countryside writing some witty novella or a few poems, or maybe just contemplating how I managed to escape technology, I have finally caught on to the high-tech applications of my MacBook Pro. Not only have I learned how to upload a PDF and tinker (properly) with Adobe software all in the past week, but I've kind of gained an appreciation for the jerks that decided to make life that much more competitive.
While newer and stupider technologies sprout more than dandelions these days (cue the Segway), I do find that there are plenty of positives about innovations in science. For example, according to an article in Wired scientists are now one step closer to being able to create fake limbs that actually work with and for the brain, a fabulous invention for those poor victims of Shark Week. And then there's that kid in the UK who discovered how to decompose plastic in a SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT, a feat that once again proves the brilliance behind European school systems because in fifth grade I made a posterboard presentation about blood cells and used Microsoft Paint to put googly eyes on images of cells. But more impressive than the article itself is the source of the article: digg.com. Digg is a web community where people post worthy news articles and web junk and other members choose whether or not to "digg" them, a surfer dude way of saying "vote for". But Digg is not where these web communities end: let's not forget about FacebookLiveJournalMyspaceAOLMSNYahoo! and my favesies, Blogger. With all of these brilliant innovations in the web universe (revelation: I now know why it's called the "web", I'm not slow..) there is a LOAD of information being circulated to everyone everywhere. But not all of that information is valid, an awful truth that I realize every day. Another truth I face is that of the origins of these web communities: I hate to think that our Founding Fathers, and maybe even Martin Luther King, Jr., might in some way be responsible for such platforms as Facebook and Myspace. We have so many rights now that there is an excess of resources and, in turn, an excess of information. But instead of me typing even MORE information to flood the minds of the mindless, I suggest reading my pathetic looking article on today's communities and communications and how they correlate to such minds as Thomas Paine's. I hope that after reading my article you have more of a hunger for truth, because the truth is like a cupcake: it makes you feel all warm and satisfied on the inside! So Digg IN!

Move-in, Move-out; Dance-on, DANCE-OFF!

This weekend was crammed with things to do and people to see. Friday, my Parents came to town to help me move into my new place on Saturday and Sunday and then that night I was able to run off to the Printer's Ball at Columbia College with Miss Mattie. There, we arrived a little to late to catch any sober fools, but we did catch all the drunken dancers! Not only did we essentially vaccuum up all the free-be mags, but we also approached the dance floor for some extremely entertaining photo-ops and some great people watching. Here are photographs from our darling little adventure:

Chicago apparently does not have its own recycling program.. But we do the best we can without it!

The Candy Shop!

Chicago and Bikes go hand-in-hand, why NOT put it on a bag?

I am regarding Plaid as a color of its own from now on..

JAM ON.

After two days of Parental time and moving, I am finally able to post images of my archival book. I have yet to figure out how to distribute it (I know that the one that doesn't seem too wonky will make it's way to the Joan Flasch Book Collection if possible). This is probably my favorite endeavor from class, but mostly thanks to the craftsmanship I put in to the cover on the book. It's a red and green, hardcover book that measures about 3"x 4" and opens up to reveal a water color tree followed by pencil drawings of the cross sections of said tree. I like to think of the work as "visual poetry" because it sings the same sort of tune: gentle abstraction. This work has convinced me that a printing press or screen printing lessons would do me some good, but for now, the inside will remain penciled. Here are some images of the book unillustrated (illustrated versions will be updated later):

If the mattress being used as the background I would regard that as the Hand of God, but God probably would have cleaned his mattress more thoroughly before photographing...