Scientific Certainty

Borre Saethre - Untitled 1 [Powered by Zero: The End of Bambi Cycle] (2005)

Borre Saethre's Nordic installations exude the same unbridaled exuberance and clean, etherial aesthetic as Matthew Barney's dreamworld. The artists reflect each other through panes of contrasting solid color and using objectified, richly ornated animals as focal points of a sensory-encompassing methodology designed to overwhelm and reinvent the participants' experience in reality.

The surreal organismal abyss above is becoming exponentially more realistic, as the Bush adminsitration continues to ACTIVELY manipulate science to downplay the real environmental dangers of using fossil fuels. It seems the political policy is to muddy the science (exactly the tool used by the tobacco industy) to exaggerate everpresent scientific "uncertainty" while limiting efforts to secure answers... effectively damning the issue to a stale purgatory where corporate profits continue despite dwindling resources. James Hansen, head of NASA' s premiere Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has been outspoken about his politically-mandated limitation of communicating science to the public. But, this is just another consequence of the devastatingly ironic Bush infrastructure that previously appointed Phil Connoly, lobbyist (not scientist) for the American Petroleum Institute, as the chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Phil Connoly was in charge of editing James Hansen's press releases including the annual report to Congress on global warming "Our Changing Planet: The US Climate Change Program", making such integral atrocities (THAT ACTUALLY MADE IT INTO THE DOCUMENT) as changing "the earth IS undergoing a period of unusual environmental change" to "the earth MAY BE undergoing a period of unusual environmental change". And he is not a scientist, but a lawyer and lobbyist for the oil industry.

Anyway, I'm hoping to be appointed to the White House's Council for Abolishing Music (I suppose replacing Tipper Gore who must have more logically been appointed when the democrats, reason, and accountability inhabited the White House) so I can make some change happen. These would be some pieces of information I'd run pass Congress to articulate my thoughts on the aforementioned issue:

Hot Hot Heat - Bandages (mp3)

Max Min - Lie (mp3)

The Thermals - How We Know (mp3)

Shapes and Sizes - Wilderness (mp3)

The Futureheads - Worry About it Later" (mp3)

The Long Winters - Pushover (mp3)

Horse Stories - You Explained Everything Away (mp3)