Sabin Howard: What happened with Frank Gehry on the Eisenhower Memorial
· · · ·

Sabin Howard: What happened with Frank Gehry on the Eisenhower Memorial

Posted on:

The Eisenhower Memorial is a public monument and so is held in public trust, which is being betrayed. This is an important story about how the public good can be sacrificed to individual egos.

My husband master sculptor Sabin Howard is telling it. He was caught up in what was quite probably an attempt to use him for his reputation as a renowned classical sculptor; he was unwittingly used as a ploy to temporarily appease those who are unhappy with Frank Gehry’s ill-conceived, ugly, and outrageously expensive plans for the Eisenhower memorial.

Here are Sabin’s words:

Sabin Howard Sculpture: What happened with Frank Gehry on the Eisenhower …:

I received an email asking me to phone Gehry Partners ASAP. I was…deeply moved. It could not be an accident that I received this call so soon after my experience with the Lincoln memorial. I felt that I was in sync with my purpose in life. The sculptures that I would make would not only represent Eisenhower as a man of tremendous achievement, but would also represent our country at its best. I felt that I had spent almost thirty years, and tens of thousands of hours in my studio, to reach this moment. I had never followed the fads of the art world, but instead worked to create an art that was connected to the rich tradition of classical art, but had the dynamic, expansive energy of America. My art has always been a statement about our highest potential as human beings—about rising to the occasion.

On August 10th, I was flown to L.A. to see the project plans for the Eisenhower Memorial and to meet with Frank Gehry.

When I saw the memorial models, my heart sank. The project was trying to reinvent the wheel with newness, and it was missing the point entirely. Components were stiff and compartmentalized like a natural history museum exhibit. There was no focal point, but a lot of elements that did not work together to deliver a unified visual message.

How could I tell the famed Gehry that the design and sculpture of this project had to lead our world and to direct us towards our potential? The sculpture must serve as a focal point in a sacred space that transforms the viewer, just as Eisenhower transformed the world through his actions as a leader. Perhaps Gehry was unaware of what could be.

My first question to Gehry partners was: Did you bring me in to be your in-house sculptor, or are you asking me for my creative opinion and 30 years experience as a figurative sculptor? They replied that they were basically unhappy with their current design and that they wanted to know what I thought.

I was thrilled. I thought of the Lincoln Memorial and the sacred space with its elevated energy.

After lunch, we began the meeting with Mr. Gehry himself. I shared my thoughts.

I spoke of the need for a sense of hierarchy within the sculptures of Eisenhower surrounded by his troops. The format should be changed to a relief, in which Eisenhower is the dramatic focal point, which is accomplished in several ways. In a relief, the use of perspective creates depth, and ultimately scale, within the composition. Eisenhower would be sculpted in the foreground in high relief, almost in the round. The troops would be situated farther away, smaller, and in lower relief.

I stated in the meeting that the design had to become sacred, because of Eisenhower’s historical importance. Making the blocks vertical would lead visitors to look up, giving them an expansive feeling. They would also be able to read the writing about Eisenhower with a sense of elevation, because of the heightened perspective….

I was instructed to submit a proposal with numbers to procure funds for my work. I was specifically instructed to make the numbers adequate for my needs, that is, to raise them from my initial ballpark figures. I did so and submitted a document. I was told that they wanted me to get started right away, and they would get GSA to release funds the following week. 

Several weeks passed. I waited with growing confusion, as I had been explicitly told that I was Mr. Gehry’s first choice. I submitted two more documents concerning pricing.

On November 16, I received a phone call from the team at Gehry Partners saying that, stylistically, I would not be selected for the project. I am puzzled.

Moreover, I am disappointed. I was inspired and excited to be able to use my talents to create a work to honor one of our greatest presidents. Needless to say, stylistically, my work would have been created in form and finish appropriate for a presidential memorial.

I was never given a chance to show my sculptural skills in an honest competition. Things were decided with the submission of paperwork, and perhaps, with behind-the-scenes political concerns in mind….

 

Sabin Howard, Eisenhower Memorial

 

· · · ·

Revelations

Posted on:

I love conspiracy theorists. They tell the best stories. Think about it. Here are my rules for writing novels:
1. Story is how your protagonist does NOT get what he or she wants.
2. Every story is an argument for a specific value.
3. Know the stakes.

Actually, I have a few other rules, too, but those are harder to explain.

So, conspiracy theorists. Why are they telling the best stories? Partly because “enlightened liberalism” has made people afraid to have any values at all. “Everything is ok and everyone is ok” is the hogwash they’re selling–and so many people have unabashedly drunk that kool-aid. “Enlightened liberalism,” egged on by the sanctimonious liberal media, has confused discernment with discrimination and the baby has been thrown out with the scummy bath water.

However, conspiracy theorists have values. One of them is: we have the right to know. Another value: we have the right to independent agency, to freely determine our own lives.

These are good values. These are juicy values.

So the stories conspiracy theorists tell are arguments for those values, and arguments against the secret government-within-a-government who high-handedly decide our lives for us.

We the people are the protagonists and we aren’t getting the freedom we want, to which we are entitled, because of the secret government-within-a-government, the hidden ultra-elite puppet-masters.

The stakes are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These are high stakes, indeed.

One of the most fascinating and tenacious theories has to do with UFO’s. With ET’s.

I am conflicted about this theory. In my mind, UFO’s and ET’s exist in the astral plane–which is real. It’s just a different layer of reality than ordinary physical reality.

But do UFO’s exist in the concrete physical world? I’m unsure. I was acquainted with the late, rather wonderful Budd Hopkins and I posed this very question to him.

“They’re real. They’re here,” he assured me, grimly.

Some part of me still needs a UFO to land in Central Park so I can kick a tire.

Another part of me knows they’re real and they’re here–in the astral plane, if no where else.

And here we have former Canadian Minister Paul Hellyer openly affirming extraterrestrial beings and their contact with human governments. He’s also openly discussing the government-within-a-government.

Worth thinking about.

·

NO DUMP AT E 91 in NYC! STOP SPEAKER QUINN FROM DESTROYING THE AREA!

Posted on:

STOP SPEAKER CHRISTINE QUINN FROM DESTROYING ASPHALT GREEN AND EAST-HARLEM-YORKVILLE! THE PROPOSED DUMP ON E 91 WILL HARM THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN, ELDERLY, AND AREA RESIDENTS AS WELL AS POLLUTE THE EAST RIVER! IT IS HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OVER-BUDGET!
http://sanetrash.org/

Garbage dumps don’t belong in residential neighborhoods

PLEASE email or call Speaker Christine Quinn today at 212 564 7757 and tell her that we are holding her, as city council speaker, directly responsible for this proposed atrocity, which is a substantial threat to the health and safety of thousands of children and area residents, and will significantly compromise the public’s use of asphalt green and our parklands.

Christine Quinn  (Speaker)
Staff: (212) 564-7757
Legislative office: 212 788 7210
speakerquinn@council.nyc.ny.us

NO OTHER TRANSFER STATION ANYWHERE IN New York City poses such a direct threat to the health and safety of thousands of children and area residents.

The proposed dump will cost the city over $554.3 million of taxpayer money– $335.4 million more than the current cost!

Residents for Sane Trash Solutions

Dump the Dump: No garbage facility in a residential area, NYC
· · ·

Dump the Dump: No garbage facility in a residential area, NYC

Posted on:

Dump the Dump

No giant garbage dump belongs in a residential community. Especially not one where over a hundred thousand children use the athletic facilities every week.

NYC has had its share of ambitious, cold-blooded politicians who, in their quest for power, care nothing when people get hurt. Speaker Christine Quinn is one of those politicians.
Speaker Quinn has openly boasted of her lust for higher office, and of her certainty that since she “has” Staten Island and the Bronx, she doesn’t need Manhattan. She’s certainly got it in for the Upper East Side–and the hundreds of thousands of children who attend school or participate in athletics there every single week.
Appropriating seductive ‘green’ terminology and the rhetoric of fairness–“Manhattan needs to do its fair share with trash”–Speaker Quinn has ardently supported a giant garbage processing facility at E. 91st street that will hurt East-Harlem and Yorkville. The euphemism being used for this 10 story plant, to which up to 500 garbage trucks will roll every day, is “marine transfer station.”
This garbage dump–let’s NOT use the political euphemism by which Speaker Quinn proposes to damage an entire neighborhood–will run 6 days a week, 24 hours per day. It will require a huge ramp to be built, and this ramp will literally bisect one the city’s most beloved, and most used, athletic facilities: Asphalt Green.
This neighborhood is home to dozens of schools, and the air pollution will rise by a minimum of 16%.

Noise levels, with hundreds of heavy garbage trucks rolling through every day, will rise beyond legal limits.
The East River estuary will be poisoned.
Shockingly enough, the City admits all of this in its reports!
Moreover, NO MONEY will be saved. Just the opposite, in fact. This abomination will require a new tax on New Yorkers–a garbage tax. At a time when money is already being cut from essential programs.
Worse, the Independent Budget Office prepared a report showing that the cost of this facility has skyrocketed beyond reason. The cost has risen from $55 million to more than $245 million. Many people expect it to reach $400 million.
From the website sanetrash.org:
There Are Sane Trash Solutions:
The City plans to dump garbage at the MTS and then ship that trash on barges to costly and environmentally unfriendly landfills that have not been identified yet. That multi-step, hugely expensive process, which will send “garbage barges to nowhere,” is not a sane solution. It is much more sensible to continue what the City is currently doing—transporting much of Manhattan’s residential trash in clean air vehicles directly to a “waste to energy” plant in New Jersey. The garbage is then converted to much-needed electrical energy.
That is a sane solution that preserves precious resources, and answers the City’s “borough equity” argument: other boroughs will not be absorbing Manhattan’s residential garbage that is disposed of in this way. It is not equitable to single out our residential neighborhood as the only one in the City with an industrial municipal waste facility.

PLEASE:

START CALLING SPEAKER QUINN’S OFFICE: 212 564 7757 OR 212 788 7210 and let her know:


TRASH DOES NOT BELONG IN A RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY JUST TO FURTHER YOUR POLITICAL AMBITION.


Moreover, the cost of building this plant has escalated wildly from $35mm to over $250 mm and 
The Health and Safety of East Harlem and Yorkville is in serious danger!


SAVE THE COMMUNITY WHICH EDUCATES AND OFFERS SPORTS TO HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN!

Note that garbage trucks have one of the highest pedestrian death accident rates!!

TOXIC YOGA MATS… When your practice isn’t as pure as you think
· · ·

TOXIC YOGA MATS… When your practice isn’t as pure as you think

Posted on:

TOXIC YOGA MATS

I discovered yoga ten years ago, when I was going through a difficult life passage. It was months of anguish. My then-boyfriend, now-husband finally said, “Time for you to fix yourself. I’m calling the ashtanga center downtown to send you a teacher.”
            My first yoga teacher Laura soon arrived. My first few lessons were an initiation into the humiliation of twisty pain. I got to meet myself: all the stuck muscles, organs, nerves, and joints where I wasn’t breathing, where I wasn’t conscious.
            But yoga did the trick. There was no place in adhomukha svanasana or ardha chandrasana for fixating on the ups-and-downs of my life. Yoga is a brilliant pattern interrupt, and within a few weeks, my outlook on life had improved.
            A few months later, another light bulb clicked on over my head. I was watching Laura demonstrate triangle pose, and the graceful consciousness with which she let her straight back leg pull her front body forward until she clasped her big toe spoke to me. I got it: there was a better way. A better way to move. A better way to feel. A better way to live. My practice of yoga was born in that moment.
Mine is a common story. People go to yoga to feel better, to breathe more fully, and, yes, to work toward that delicious, lithe, tricepy yoga body. We go to know ourselves more fully. We go to detox, both mentally and physically.
            So it was with great, unpleasant surprise that I recently discovered my yoga studio smearing industrial strength cleaner on yoga mats between classes.
            Pure Yoga, owned by Equinox gym, opened up on the upper West Side of Manhattan about a year before I wandered in. Again, I was trying to heal myself: I’d struggled through low thyroid function before a holistic doctor put me on Armour thyroid. I felt better and I wanted to lose the weight and get back in shape. I wanted my body to feel supple and agile again. I wanted the clean energy yoga instills.
            Pure Yoga offers a range of terrific classes, and most teachers are skilled, respectful, and thoughtful about the body. The facilities are gorgeous. Equinox, and the decorator, went to pains to design a yoga studio that emphasizes peace and calm and that evokes everything ‘sattvic’ or pure about yoga and meditation.
            When I joined, I was told, “You don’t need to bring your own mat. We provide them, and our mats are clean.” I took that at face value.
            That was my mistake. While Pure does regularly wash its mats in machines, sometimes the cleaning people just spray the mats. I happened to see them doing so on a busy Saturday, when there probably wasn’t time to take up the mats between classes.
            Curious, I wandered in and picked up one of the spray bottles. ‘Industrial Strength Cleaner’ read the label.
            “You’re spraying this toxic stuff on mats that people are going to be right on top of for an hour?” I asked, appalled. The guy shrugged and mumbled something.
            Class was about to start; I didn’t have time to peruse the ingredients. I took a rolled-up mat out of a wall bin and hoped it had actually gone through a washing machine. I also hoped there weren’t any pregnant women in the class. As a general principle of looking out for pregnant women (having had three children myself), I didn’t want them pressing their exposed flesh into the stew of chemicals that had been smeared around the mat’s surface. The flesh on the inside of the arms is particularly permeable, and poses like child’s pose and dolphin pose, among others, call for arms outstretched, pressing into the mat.
            I was right to be concerned. Dr. Linda Hillebrand, with a practice in Brentwood, California, who has studied and consulted regarding environmental toxicity, said:
  1.   Cleaning supplies are some of the most toxic products and certain chemicals can pose health and/or environmental risks. There are “less toxic” commercial cleaning products now available.  However, because manufacturers are not required to list all of their ingredients, unless they are active disinfectants or known to be potentially hazardous, it can be challenging to sort through all of these products.
  2.    Read the labels and avoid harmful ingredients whenever possible.  Some of these ingredients are: Nonyphenol ethoxylates (NPE’s) which, when released into the environment, break down into toxic substances that can act as hormone disrupters, potentially interfering with reproduction. Antibacterials in cleaners may cause local (skin and eye) irritation, and certain types, such as triclosan, may contribute to antibiotic resistant bacteria. Some studies also suggest that triclosan could form dioxin, a carcinogen in the presence of sunlight and chloroform, a probable human carcinogen, in the presence of chlorinated water.
  3.    Ammonia is poisonous when swallowed, extremely irritating to respiratory passages when inhaled, and can burn the skin on contact. Butyl cellosolve(butyl glycol, ethylene glycol, monobutyl) is a lung tissue irritant and is poisonous when swallowed. Chlorine Bleach (Sodium Hypochlorate) causes irritation to lungs and eyes. If chlorine and bleach are mixed, they can form a dangerous gas that can severely damage the lungs. D-limonene can cause skin irritation. Diethanolamine (DEA) and Triethanolamine (TEA) can produce carcinogenic compounds which can penetrate the skin when combined with nitrosomes (many times used as an undisclosed preservative).
  4.    The term ‘disinfectants’ includes a wide variety of ingredients (such as chlorine bleach, alcohol, quaternary compounds, pine oil, ethyl alcohol), some of which are regulated by the EPA as pesticides. Hydrochloric acid can severely burn skin and irritate the eyes and respiratory tract. Naptha can cause headache, nausea, central nervous system symptoms with overexposure. Petroleum based ingredients (surfactants), also includes formaldehyde, a carcinogen. Phosphatesare toxic to the environment.
  5.    Best advice is to research the products or better yet—make your own cleaning products.

 

            In fact, my first response was to ask to research the ‘Industrial Strength Cleaner’ so I would know exactly what Pure Yoga proposed that I lie on, inhale, and absorb. After class, I went to the desk to speak with the manager, to ask permission to take a photo of the bottle label so I could do the research.
            A desk attendant suggested that industrial strength cleaner wasn’t actually in the bottles labeled ‘Industrial Strength Cleaner.’ She said, “Maybe they just use those bottles, but that’s not what’s in them.” I suppose it is possible that the industrial strength cleaner, which is not free but must be purchased, was dumped out so that Pure Yoga could spray the mats with something non-toxic, something ‘pure.’
            Anything is possible.
            The manager finally emerged. Her immediate response was to stonewall and to cast me as an agitated client. I was polite and calm, but I did repeatedly ask for the opportunity to take a photo so I could research the ingredients. She refused, saying, “I’m just trying to work with you.”
            “If you’re trying to work with me,” I answered, “then you’ll permit me to photograph the bottle label so I can research the ingredients and see if they’re toxic.”
            But she was in full cover-up mode. No permission was forthcoming. I told her that I would blog about this episode. “Do you realize that pregnant women are lying on the chemicals in that cleaner, and possibly absorbing those chemicals through their skin into their bloodstream to pass on to their unborn children?”
            “Go ahead and blog,” she said scornfully.
            But there’s more than toxic chemicals at stake here. Dr. Debra Jaliman, a dermatologist with a busy practice and author of the popular book Skin Rules: Trade Secrets from a Top New York Dermatologist (St. Martin’s Press, March, 2012) said this about yoga mats: “In my practice I’ve seen a variety of infections from yoga mats. Bacterial infections are the most common, like impetigo and boils. I have even seen MRSA staph infections. I have also treated athlete’s foot, which is a fungal infection, plantar warts, and herpes. The best thing would be to bring your own mat, but if not, rubbing alcohol is a good way to sanitize a mat without toxic chemicals.”
            Perhaps regulations require yoga mats to be sanitized with certain chemicals. If so, it’s my feeling that an establishment that promotes itself as ‘pure’ must disclose those chemicals to their patrons. We deserve to know. Hiding the truth from well-intentioned yogis who go to yoga to detox is not ethical.

            But the bottom line is: bring your own yoga mat. Even a studio that takes pains to promote its purity may well be hiding something toxic.


 
· · · ·

I support Wikileaks

Posted on:

Noam Chomsky, re the suppression of information in the US regarding polls of Arab opinion: “What that reveals is the profound hatred for democracy on the part of our political leadership.” (Nov 30, 2010, on DEMOCRACY NOW, interviewed by Amy Goodman).

I wish Assange had withheld certain names. I wish he’d vetted the cables to protect operatives who work for us within lethal, poisonous organizations such as Al Qaeda.
I really wish he’d slipped a condom on before having sex with that woman in Sweden, and I wish he hadn’t taken the snores of the other woman to mean consent. Because these sex charges will detract from the crucial, even urgent work Assange is doing.
But we have a big problem in the United States, and many people aren’t noticing it because we have an African American president. They wrongly assume that the “regular people,” the grassroots who, according to the lies, I mean mythology, elected Obama, are being looked out for. Surely an African American president would remember his roots among the most regular of people, African Americans, and he would care about the individual. But that is not the case.
The problem: Big Corporations are screwing individuals. ‘Big Corporations’ includes: the insurance companies, Big Pharma, Big Agribusiness, Wall Street, the medical establishment as run by Big Pharma and the insurance companies, Biotech and chemical companies, and the United States Government, which is an example of a large, unwieldy, and thoroughly corrupt corporation.
So the US government conceals things from American citizens. Things like diplomatic spying and the results of polls in the Arab world.
How about this one: how many people in the US know that Obama showed up at the G20 summit in London in 2009 with a huge entourage? Specifically, Obama had 500 staff in tow, including the White House kitchen staff, 200 secret service agents, 6 doctors, 35 vehicles, 4 speechwriters, and 12 teleprompters. (See www.scrippsnews.com/node/42183) I guess they don’t have teleprompters in London? Or maybe the British are so penurious they wouldn’t lend a few to Obama?
This wasn’t widely reported in the US–but the Brits poked fun at Obama. It’s a little shocking to read about this kind of lavish spending, but it isn’t the only time. The Obamas have taken some vacations that are, well, Republican-worthy. Marie Antoinette is alive and well and reborn!!
Big Pharma deceives people by, for example, not telling them that CoQ10 will greatly reduce the side effects of statin drugs. Big food conglomerates lie to the American public by pretending that high fructose corn syrup and msg are non-toxic. The FDA has sold us all down the river to be poisoned, sickened, and fattened up by toxic chemical additives, pesticides, and preservatives. Let’s not even start with Genetically Modified food, which has NOT been tested. Just wait until the first Terminator plant genes start crossing the species barrier–it’s called genetic drift–and make human beings sterile.
Big Insurance gouges the American consumer. Our lousy health insurance went up 20% for 2011–WHY? Nothing else has gone up 20%–I’m not paying 20% more for milk, eggs, or clothing. So WHY HAS OBAMA PASSED A ROTTEN HEALTH INSURANCE ACT WHILE STILL ALLOWING BIG INSURANCE TO RAPE AMERICA?
 
WHY DOESN’T OBAMA ATTACK THIS PROBLEM AT ITS ROOT: THE GREED OF HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES?
 
Is it because Obama has taken too much money from those companies to even attempt to rein them in?
Are people aware of how Big Insurance won’t allow doctors to run tests or offer medical treatments that individuals need, because those tests or treatments are expensive? How it compensates doctors for NOT running necessary tests? All so HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES CAN EARN OBSCENE AMOUNTS OF MONEY?
All this goes to show, we need MORE Wikileaks–not less. The world is increasingly run by big corporations who show nothing more, and nothing less, than contempt for individual human beings. Our only hope of addressing this kind of self-serving corruption is through transparency.
Mr. Assange: I am rooting for you. I hope you get out of your legal troubles, and I hope you learn to be real careful about sex. Most of all, I am praying that you will turn your attention to the real villains, the true governors of our world: the big corporations. Let’s see some of their internal documents. Start with Oxford, AON Corporation, Aetna, Assurant, AMS, and Unicare. Move on to Monsanto, Merck, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Astrazenica. Then Kraft, Cargill, Pepsico, Bunge.
But I somehow think you will not get the chance to do this important muck-raking work. Because the billions of billions of dollars earned by these companies means that they are worrying that you will do exactly as I’ve asked. And you and Wikileaks are, for them, better off dead.