The Bush piece remains in place. He painted over the president’s likeness in yellow and penciled in a swastika on the chest. The knife still pierces the forehead, running through a recently added sign that says, “Anonymous.”
McDonald, 55, said he has been placing art in his front yard for 13 years. He rotates the pieces monthly.
“They said, ‘You’ve got a knife sitting in the head of the president of the United States,”’ McDonald told The Oakland Tribune. “I said, ‘No, I got a knife in a piece of cardboard.”’
McDonald said the federal agents asked if he interpreted his work as a threat against the country’s chief executive. He said he didn’t.
The cutout also shows painted blood running over the president’s eyes and down the bridge of his nose.
Michael McDonald said he was grilled for about 90 minutes by two agents who asked about his personal history and his political views. They also asked him to allow access to his medical records, he said.
Secret Service agents have questioned an Alameda man about a display in his front yard featuring a cardboard cutout of President Bush with a knife through his head.
Posted on March 7th, 2007 at 16:50 by John Sinteur in category:
A visit to the Gurdwara in Kluang, Johore (Malaya) where I was born was always the highlight of the week for me when I was a little boy. My father was president and that meant I got to help my maternal grandfather ( a former president and co-founder of the gurdwara). The langar was always open to everyone, even me. Unlike some gurdwaras, we sat at tables (University of Cambridge style) to eat even during the 50s. Every Malayan who came was welcome. No one asked about race, religion religion, etc.There was and I believe is equality for all in the gurdwara. My father was very proud that our sister earned her postgraduate qualifications in Singapore before any of us boys.
Every Sikh temple throughout the world has a Langar (Punjabi for “free kitchen”). This is not a soup kitchen. It’s not exclusively for the poor, nor exclusively for the Sikh community. Volunteering in the cooking, serving and cleaning process is a form of active spiritual practice for devotees, but the service they provide asks no religious affiliation of its recipients. Our guide’s chorus was, “Man, woman, color, caste, community,” meaning you will be fed here regardless of how you fit into any of those classifications. This spirit of inclusion and equality is reinforced by the kitchen’s adherence to vegetarianism, not because Sikhs are vegetarian, but because others who visit may be, and by serving no meat, they exclude nobody.
This week, Alex and I are at the Doors of Perception conference in India, where the theme is “Food and Juice.” It’s an exploration of food systems worldwide, and the energy required to make them go. On the first full day of the conference, the fifty-odd attendees split into small groups to go exploring the city of Delhi through its food culture. A number of groups focused on the prolific street vendor network, several looked at Delhi’s water, and my group of nine went to Gurdwara Bangla Sahib to see how they achieve the daunting task of feeding thousands of people in single a day. As Debra Solomon told us when introducing the excursion the previous evening: “They do the most exquisite dishwashing ritual you’ll ever see.” But actually, the Sikh guide who escorted us through the temple grounds told us in no uncertain terms that the kitchen activities are absolutely without ritual. “Cooking food is cooking food,” he said, “No ritual. Just cooking.” But if it can’t be called a ritual, it can surely be called a dance — a rhythmic, continuous choreography with mounds of dough, cauldrons of lentils, dozens of hands, and an endless stream of hungry visitors.
Free-for-all is a term generally used to describe chaos. And chaos is a word one could use to describe much of Delhi. But at the Gurdwara Bangla Sahib kitchen, a Sikh temple which serves meals to around 10,000 people every single day, there’s not a trace of chaos. And the food is free. For all.
Posted on March 7th, 2007 at 17:25 by John Sinteur in category:
Brilliant. Admirable penmanship and very funny. Five stars, Charlie!
In this example he sets new heights, and cleverly manages to hit two targets with the same tirade.
Charlie Brooker is the author of some very well crafted rants.
is what the competition is looking like for an iPhone.
Posted on March 7th, 2007 at 17:32 by John Sinteur in category:
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