For the past several years—and with seemingly limitless access—American photographer Richard Ross has been making unsettling and thought-provoking pictures of architectural spaces that exert power over the individuals within them. These compelling, sometimes disturbing, images are brought together in Architecture of Authority, which is accompanied by a book of the same title published by Aperture.

Here’s an interview, Structures of Socialization, with Ross at the Aperture blog, . This looks fascinating to say the least.

I found this shot quite interesting as it’s out of character for the New York Times‘ typical visual portrayals of John McCain. Given the context of the article, “A Mixed Take by McCain Camp on Obama’s Trip to War Zones” it’s appears even more disjointed. Is that skepticism of Obama we read in McCain’s eyes or utter disregard to the citizenry reaching out for government to step in?

With all the images and references to boxing offered by the media, this image caught my attention. I was recently informed that McCain has played an active role in Boxing legislation so he’s no stranger to the sweet science. The symbolism here is too obvious but do notice the two men in the foreground with clinched fists cheering on McCain. With this photo the Times actively reinforces the message explicit in McCain’s visual props.

See the accompanying article here.

“Al Gore is so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct, he’s practically lactating” (June 16, 1999).

From 236.com. More at the link.

The volume presents four scholarly articles, and as indicated on the poster (make sure to enlarge it so that you can see the table of contents to begin with), it also offers readers a special treat in the form of unpublished texts by Federman. The book Federman Frenzy: the ‘cult’ in culture, the ‘me’ in memory, the ‘he’ in history - encounters with Raymond Federman is published as a web publication by Research News, Dept. of Language and Culture, Aalborg University.

Like most contemporary Conservative political narratives this is just hilarious until you reflect upon how this reflects the deeply undemocratic and truly regressive ideology of today’s Republican  party.

That’s the title to Devo’s best known track. Released in 1980, the video was one of those early MTV moments that forever left an impression on my barely still pre-digitized consciousness. After watching the video again, I couldn’t help thinking about the Bush Administration and its utterly pugilistic neoconservative foreign policy. When I did a little Wiking around I found the cover art to the Whip it single which I think confirms my suspicion. Oh, and does the cross-eyed Asian at 0:54 do a great impersonation of Michelle Malkin or what?

Jerry Casale, the basist for [Devo]lution sums it up in this interview.

Devolution happened. We don’t need to talk about anymore. It was an artsy joke and turned out to be true. Now we live in devolved world. Things we were talking about came and passed. We are in it now. We are fish in the water.

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Remember how we’ve always been told that free markets and free people go hand in hand? That was a lie. It turns out that the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state, fortressed with American “homeland security” technologies, pumped up with “war on terror” rhetoric. And the global corporations currently earning superprofits from this social experiment are unlikely to be content if the lucrative new market remains confined to cities such as Shenzhen. Like everything else assembled in China with American parts, Police State 2.0 is ready for export to a neighborhood near you.