Some are strange, some are funny, some are disturbing, all art. I bring you some of this work, click the link to get at some more.
Mark Jenkins: Street Installations.













"The law challenged here supplies none of the safeguards that the Constitution demands. It permits the government to monitor the communications of U.S. Citizens and residents without identifying the people to be surveilled; without specifying the facilities, places, premises, or property to be monitored; without observing meaningful limitations on the retention, analysis, and dissemination of acquired information; without obtaining individualized warrants based on criminal or foreign intelligence probable cause; and, indeed, without even making prior administrative determinations that the targets of surveillance are foreign agents or connected in any way, however tenuously, to terrorism."
In their pleas, Endsley and Clark admitted that by their actions and their words they sought to drive J.L., an African-American juvenile, from the community of Waterville and Blue Rapids, Kan., because of his race...I've written about racial injustices and racial hatred before here, here, here, here, here, but it seems that these issues never end and there is no limit to the locations of what I will call the criminals.
According to the plea agreement, on May 19, 2007, Endsley and his parents hosted a large high school graduation party at their residence in Waterville, Kan., which is part of the Waterville/Blue Rapids community. Most of the people at the party, including the defendants and the victim, consumed alcohol.
About 2 a.m., the defendants found J.L. asleep on the ground and put him in a lawn chair.
Endsley said that he was going to "tie the n****r up." While the victim was tied, the defendants directed racial slurs at him and urinated on him. They used a can of spray paint to paint the victim's arms and legs white. They told the victim he should "go back home" and go back where he came from before he moved to the Waterville and Blue Rapids area.
"This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn." And he asked them, "Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?"
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.Two pieces from Langston Hughes, the first from 1938:
Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free.This poem was written by Hughes in 1925:
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-- Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-- And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-- Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers! I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, That even yet its mighty daring sings In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That's made America the land it has become. O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home-- For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore, And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa's strand I came To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay? For all the dreams we've dreamed And all the songs we've sung And all the hopes we've held And all the flags we've hung, The millions who have nothing for our pay-- Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again-- The land that never has been yet-- And yet must be--the land where every man is free. The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-- Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-- The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America!
O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath-- America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain-- All, all the stretch of these great green states-- And make America again!
I, Too, Sing AmericaBe careful with the fireworks and explosive devises -- don't blow your hands off. Have a sober driver. Don't eat so much that you have to undo the button on your pants.
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed --
I, too, am America.
Civilian Deaths Drop.U.S. Troop Deaths Up In June, Civilian Deaths Drop
The number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq rose in June, but the civilian death toll fell slightly, reports showed.
The statistics come at a time when the U.S. military is close to completing a drawdown of more than 20,000 combat troops sent to Iraq in early 2007 to control sectarian violence.
U.S. troop deaths in Iraq rose to 29 in June from 19 in May, according to the independent Web site icasualties.org, which tracks American casualty figures. The May number was the lowest since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. In June 2007, 101 U.S. troops were killed.
Iraq's Health Ministry released statistics showing that 448 civilians were killed in violence in June, down from 505 the month before.
That's despite several deadly attacks, including a truck bomb that killed 63 people in Baghdad on June 17. Several recent high-profile attacks have targeted local council meetings where Americans were present.
Despite the overall drop in violence, U.S. officials warn that the country is still vulnerable to terrorist attacks.