9/30/09

WSJ reports on rare back-to-back undersea quakes

The Wall Street Journal reports that back-to-back quakes are rare and gives many details on today's sad events issuing from the underwater quakes in the Pacific and Indian Oceans Tuesday (their time, Wednesday ours.)

And here is The Guardian's update on rescue efforts as the death toll rises.

Astrologically, we might reasonably blame the ongoing Saturn (in Virgo - an earth sign, Saturn = planet of tectonic plates, and of loss) opposition to Uranus (Pisces, sign of the seas, Uranus = planet of sudden calamities.)

Also Mars continues his trek through Cancer, sign of crabs and oceans; Mars likes to trigger and instigate, and represents the action principle in a horoscope. The Moon rules the ocean's tides, as we know.

Sadly, Sumatra is on the same fault line as the upheaval that resulted in the nightmarish 2004 tsunami yet I hope and pray that current aftershocks end as soon as possible for the good people of Samoa, American Samoa, and Sumatra.

9/27/09

Dreamyfish Art now Zazzle Shop wall art posters!

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make custom gifts at Zazzle

Announcing my new Zazzle Shop of Dreamyfish Art images now available as Art Wall Posters and more! The Zazzle Panel you see here shows the images in the shop so far, and you're most welcome to click and investigate, if you wish.

Ever mindful of your design and lifestyle needs, dear reader, Zazzle's helpful Customize It! button is there, too, so you may order Breaksea cod, Yellow eye surgeonfish, or other marine denizens' images on any product you think the little fellows might look good on: mugs, SIGG Bottles, T-shirts, hoodies, mousepads, other poster sizes, and much more.

That's Zazzle for you.

So in effect, you become my design partner which makes this artist very happy to be working with your excellent self (you have a good eye, it is well known) so do check out my new Zazzle Shop when you get a free Art browsing moment.

Quite naturally, there will be more Dreamyfish Art and other-themed images added as time permits. Perhaps soon a Fairy, Cosmic, or Moon Art image or two may appear.

Well, now here's a shy little Clown surgeonfish who joins me in cordially inviting you to drop by my new Zazzle Shop of Wall Art Posters and such!



To tell him Hi!, click image to enlarge.

Artist Jonathan Harris on the soul of the Web - video link

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My question is: does the internet, the web, the 'interweb' as my favorite comedian Craig Fersuson has called it, have a soul? Hmmm...?

Follow the link to a 2007 video of artist Johnathan Harris speaking on the very subject!

Plus, a link is provided therein to his text and you may wish to note his mentions of Greek myths and archetypes such as Orion, Chronos, Pegasus, etc, which he sees as turning up as archetypal events (weddings and such) in the computer programs he has written and implemented on the web...with Feelings, Nothing More Than...Feelings.

9/26/09

White House/Arts 'scandal' revealed by FoxNews

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Since the actual report in question is publicly available there's not much of a lid to blow off, but Media Matters does it anyway on the current story behind Fox News' pot-stirring of a possible White House/artists/NEA scandal concerning the May 12 meeting with 60 artists and Obama administration officials next door to the White House, and a controversial conference call on August 11 which seems to have led to the subsequent resignation of NEA communications director Yosi Sargant.

Fox News rather scantily charges that the White House is 'politicizing the NEA' and wanting to use artists - rappers, writers, and others, which I assume include visual artists as well - to "push the president's domestic agenda." Later in its online expose, Fox relates info that counters its own claims.

Apparently a US president "pushing his domestic agenda" is unheard of over at the Fox News website! How ironic since with Bush-Cheney they never complained, they promoted. But according to Fox News, artists are not allowed to participate even when they agree with the president - the Fox News Rules of Artistic Decorum.

But for US artists, shouldn't it depend in large part on what the president's domestic agenda is?

Well, as a bit of an artist myself, I can say that if this agenda includes promoting life over violence and death, and decent principles of living over debased lifestyles, I'm all for it...push away, for the creative atmosphere in this country has been a world leader in lowering moral fiber and discourse for too long.

The destruction of society itself, I've read, has been an Illuminati goal for a couple of centuries now, and quotes to that effect are to be found online with little searching effort, if you wish. This goes back to its Bavarian founder, Adam Weishaupt, and his stated goals to undermine every level of civilization - and even earlier to Satan himself, if one prefers to look and consider what lies underneath the modern brou-ha-ha.

Actually, this Fox News kerfluffle attempts to 'politicize' the entire Arts issue especially since it was the artists themselves who asked for the W-H meeting! Guess they already agreed with the president's domestic agenda (to the extent that they know it in full under the maskings of the NWO - or perhaps the particular artists who attended the May meeting and participated in the August conference call agree with a NWO agenda. Shall we 'all join hands' and merge for global totalitarianism??)

Art in Modern Society

It took an artist friend of mine two years+ to convince me to set up Cosmic Persona Designs as an online gallery of Chiffonery Art and Boudoir Blossoms drawings and portraits that may be considered by a few people to be a little on the saucy side. The images are meant for a 17+ age group, so an Adult Content warning must be clicked through to reach the gallery, yet I still have qualms about its availability to a younger crowd...and it's only mild, though somewhat erotic, Art images!

Of course, this is where parents must monitor their kids online, for I certainly can't do it for every net surfer, and adults need content, too.

And when it comes to Hollywood's and other films and TV shows, I've always felt that it isn't so much their degraded content - violence, horror, sex, whatever - that presents problems in society, for you and I might choose to watch such things and never suffer an afterthought, much less an obsession issue with the dark side.

It's our impressionable youth, plus, the mentally challenged or emotionally stunted individuals - such as those who are thinking of committing psychopathic acts already - who in watching such content over and over and over again - are inspired by creative demon-drenched ideas (and possibly feeling themselves to be 'programmed') to commit what might have remained mere fantasies had not Hollywood given its hand or claw of inspiration.

And thus, society and its innocents pay the violent price while filmmakers, actors, and other industry workers and CEOs profit from the degradation of society. Yet if every audience member were healthy, watching such things wouldn't be nearly such a dicey proposition for the common good.

Hmm. Maybe I should apply to participate in a more uplifting presidential initiative on and yes, through, the Arts.

After all, don't we want better options for our children through their 'entertainment' choices rather than the sort of Arts that continue to only bring them 'down'?

~:~

Here's a mild example of a CPD image, a brand new drawing-in-progress of Philyra whose character portrait shan't end up too scanty for your tender eyes, promise!



Update Oct 8, 2009: you may wish to see a full frame of Philyra Farnsworthy on display at my Zazzle Art Store, but Philyra hasn't arrived there yet...she's running late.

Do meet her on Friday evening, for then you won't miss Philyra Farnsworthy's entrance into Zazzle and her portraiture debut there! Or, perhaps she'll pop over to Jude Cowell Art Shop at Cafe Press.

Well, I guess I'm not sure where precisely Philyra will turn up first. I do know that she'll turn up as an Art Poster, Greeting Card, or perhaps a Mousepad for your desk if you use one. A desk. Or a mousepad.

But maybe you two have met before...danced together on the terrace under the dappled moonlight while an orchestra played, Stardust...

9/24/09

Mercury out of the Shadow~Cafe Press Shop in the wings

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As you may know, Mercury is still retrograde and possibly interfering with such things as plans, new ideas, travel, commerce, contracts, and agendas.

The planet of thinking, communication, and trade, Trickster and Messenger Mercury will turn Direct on Sept 29, 2009, yet here are some good reasons to wait for implementation of new plans and ideas until Mercury leaves the Shadow degree range of its current retrogradation phase and enters new zodiacal territory, thus leaving behind its retrograde degrees.

When Mercury is Rx, it's a good time to reassess and work on plans and projects, so during Mercury's current Rx period, I have been attempting to set up a Jude Cowell Art shop at Cafe Press, but with disappointing results as far as transforming some of my Dreamyfish Art images of botanical fish drawings into 16" x 20" wall posters for your consideration.

Stewing in my non-techiness, I am finding the Cafe Press interface difficult to work with, and the site's instructions to be missing key points. So if you, dear and lone reader, have any tips on Cafe Press issues, please leave a comment here, or contact me at judecowell at gmail dot com - I'd muchly appreciate it since their forums have not helped me so far - but there's alway hope for a Eureka Moment, one of Mercury's favorite gifts to us which occurs when left and right brain creativity coincide integratively.

So I shall persevere with this art project when my schedule (also a province of Mercury) allows, and will mercurially announce the shop's official opening asap - probably, if my natal chart-ruler Mercury has a say in the matter, and it will - at or just after Mercury's leaving of the Shadow area of the zodiac @ 6Lib13...on or after Oct 14.

My reason for waiting to implement my botanical fish portraits/Cafe Press plans are noted in boldface in the above-linked article, if you are so inclined to check it out, and the chart image for October 14, 2009 @ 2:39 am edt in Washington DC (the first minute Mercury reaches Shadow degree and thus is 'free' to move forward) is included in the post in case you wish to use one of your mercurial senses, sight, to view it!

~:~~:~

9/21/09

Does McChrystal leak put Obama in a box?

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Well, I'm certain you've heard of what a bad and freakish Monday this has been for the White House after President Obama's remarks about sending more US troops to Afghanistan on Meet the Press yesterday have been characterized as 'wobbling' and undersecretary of defense Michelle Flournoy has had to defend the president's idea to put "strategy over resources."

This has the mainstream media and the blogosphere all afluffle with journalistic giddiness, while the GOP smells political blood in the White House. They can't smell the thousands of gallons of blood they've callously spilled in the Middle East, but they can smell Dem blood over the swampy stench of Washington.

So with what may be a method of applying pressure to the president, Stanley McChrystal - or his staff, as this report by Josh Rogin points out - 'leaked' a memo of McChrystal's assessment predicting failure of the whole Afghan venture if more troops were not forthcoming.

Or did McChrystal mean the whole venture of controlling oil and expansion of American imperialism in the entire Middle East including Iraq? Well, I didn't read the memo although you'll find it linked in Mr. Rogin's article. (I'm blogging in a rush against possible power failure here due to lightening and storm - Atlanta is pretty much flooded out - don't go there.)

Yet perhaps one of the more troubling things around here to come from McChrystal's 'leak' (if indeed such it was), is that a wayward rhyming muse alighted heavily upon my shoulder a while ago, and since current storms have neutralized my TV satellite (Tom Delay 'dancing' while seeing stars or not), I'm just bored enough to type it for you here.

So please pardon me in advance, if you can, and set your Groan Meter as low as it goes for...'Afghanistan':


Barack Obama in a box
Afghanistan is like a pox
upon his presidency new
he'd escalate but how and who?

McChrystal memo quite a dud
to land with such a dullish thud
on White House roof and in the hall
Obamaites are right to squall

Since change and hope he touted wide
we'd choose to have the peaceful side
but will the US ever see
an end to war economy?

Though pressure's on to send more troops
our US system has the droops
there are no jobs for every man
returning from Afghanistan.


Jude Cowell 9.21.09 8:49 pm edt

9/20/09

Here's a Jude Cowell Art Slideshow just for you!

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Your pictures and fotos in a slideshow on MySpace, eBay, Facebook or your website!view all pictures of this slideshow


Here's an Art Slideshow created at Image Loop with a variety of my drawing themes and styles, some from Cosmic Persona Designs, a smidge from Dreamyfish Art, plus a few Secret Moon Art images tossed in complimentary-like.

And if you haven't as yet, perhaps it's time you moseyed over to Image Loop and set up your own display for your Art or Photography. Just let me know when and where you embed it, okay? Because I lo-o-ove to view Art Slideshows!

Plus, as you probably know by now, I maintain a small Lulu Art Storefront for your downloading and self-printing needs with all images at very modest prices.

Support the Arts!

~::~

Shuttle Discovery exits California on a jet plane's back 9.20.09

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Today there are major storm systems and heavy clouds bedeviling the state of Georgia, but that's okay because my home state isn't on NASA's Look Up list anyway. I now turn you over to...

Space Weather News for Sept 20, 2009

BE ALERT FOR THE SPACE SHUTTLE: Space shuttle Discovery is flying across the United States today atop a specially modified NASA 747 airliner. The trip is necessary because at the end of its last mission Discovery landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California and must now be returned to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Sky watchers along the flight path (particularly in Texas, Louisiana and Florida) should be alert for the extraordinary sight of a spaceship flying through blue sky on top of an airplane.

Check SpaceWeather for details.

FARSIDE SUNSPOT: NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft is tracking an active region over the sun's eastern horizon that could be a large, new-cycle sunspot. We can't yet see it from Earth, but the sun's rotation is turning the region toward us, and it could pop into view as early as Sept 21. Readers with solar telescopes should monitor the sun's eastern limb for developments.

Images and updates may be found at SpaceWeather.com.

~:~:~