David Both

A friend of mine sent me a URL for an amazing photographic artist, Chris Jordan. His web site has four collections of his art. All of them have incredible visual and visceral impact, but the one that affected me the most is Running the Numbers; An American Self-Portrait.

The artist’s objective is to help us visualize many of the statistics we encounter each day. The photographs are huge, often-times multi-paneled images of everyday objects such as oil drums, Barbie dolls, toothpicks, even cigarette cartons — but with a statistical twist. For example, one huge panel of 60″x120″ is of two million (2,000,000) plastic beverage bottles — the number of which are used in only five minutes in the United States.

These statistical images range from the number of barrels of oil consumed in the U.S. every two minutes (28,000) to the number of breast augmentation surgeries performed in the US each month (32,000), each of which is represented by a Barbie doll. Individually each of these images has a tremendous capacity to change how we perceive many of the huge numbers we are presented with each day in the news. Taken together, and with his other collections, they form a visual indictment of American conspicuous consumption and its ecological and social impact.

The URL for the home page of Mr. Jordan’s site is below. All of the collections are amazing, but Running the Numbers; An American Self-Portrait is stunning. You will never view common items like your cell phone, Barbie dolls, plastic cups, or a light bulb in the same way again. Which is, of course the artists intent.

http://www.chrisjordan.com/

I would be interested in your reactions to this art. Please leave comments below.

Alice and I, along with Vickie, our Barack Obama Change Crew Seven Leader, and her three girls worked on cleaning up the greenway near our house today as a service project for Martin Luther King day. We collected four large bags of trash in about ninety minutes, and due to the fact that there were only a few of us and so much trash we barely scratched the surface.

If you walk the greenway it will look a bit better because we managed to get much, but not all, of the trash close to the pedestrian walkway. Further away from the walkway we did not have enough people to do so, and we were unable to wade in the water to get much of the trash that was in the stream beds.

The Worst

Most of the trash we collected was near Durant Road Middle School. That area was a mess. Clearly the students are dumping trash and “other stuff” there between classes and during sporting events on the fields behind the school. The greenway runs behind the school on the far side of the athletic fields.

We found clothing, plastic bottles and aluminum cans, glass beer bottles, beer cans, cans and bottles which had been used as spittoons for chewing tobacco, used condoms, a bright red snow sled (which we commandeered to haul the trash away), plastic and foil bags, complete home packed lunches — lunch boxes included, newspapers, magazines, and much other assorted trash.

Perhaps a discussion with school authorities is in order and some sort of regular cleanup day would help the students understand that they need to be ecologically responsible. My brother and I suggested this when we were going to elementary school and it became a yearly event.

More Disgusting Stuff

Many dog walkers try to clean up after their animals and, as we walk the greenway most days, many of the people we see are carrying plastic bags with the dog poop that they have cleaned up. However some owners don’t clean up or even worse, collect the poop in bags and then throw the bags into the brush and the streams. The latter is the worst possible thing you can do!

If you are one of the morons that does this, please stop now!!! The plastic bags hurt the environment all by themselves, and they prevent the poop from being broken down and reused by nature. At least if your dog poops and you leave it, the poop will degrade and return to nature in a short period of time.

Tomorrow, Monday, January 19th, at 10:00am, Alice and I will be doing some cleanup along the greenway in Durant Trails and between Cub, near Gray’s house, and Hiking Trail, near the pool. If anyone else would like to join us tomorrow, please let me know by 5PM today so I can put together a little more of a plan. My email is david at both dot org.

Also, I know I do not have the email addresses of all the folks in Obama Change Crew 7, so if you would, please forward this on to anyone you may know that I have missed. Whether you are a member of the Obama Change Crew or not, you are welcome to join us.

Thanks!

Alice and I are preparing to collect food for the “Yes We Cans” food drive with a number of other people here locally and many more around the country. This is part of the Obama philosophy that “we are the change we seek.” It is also in celebration of Martin Luther King Day, which is Monday the 19th.

The temperature is about 20°F this morning so we are dressing warmly. BRRRR!

Watch for more news from Obama’s Change Crew 7 here in North Raleigh.

The Wake County, NC “Yes we Cans!!” food drive is today, Saturday, January 10th from 8am-12pm. I do not think it will take all four hours, but you never know. We plan on hanging grocery bags in two neighborhoods with a letter explaining how the food drive will work. First, we will stuff the bags with the letters followed by distribution in the neighborhoods.

Then, next weekend on Saturday, January 17th from 10-12 we will be picking up the items. We are hoping to have an exciting ‘give away’ to the home that donates the most items for the food bank.

This is an extension of the campaign organization that Barack Obama put together for the election. We will be doing much more during the next weeks and months to be the change. Community Organizers rock!

“We are the change we seek.” – Barack Obama

With all of the discussion about Obama and his Blackberry I have to add my 2 cents worth.

One reason I voted for Barack Obama is because he is in touch with reality. He sees his Blackberry as a connection to that reality which circumvents the normally insular buffering of the Oval Office.

If our leaders lose touch with the real people and the reality of the United States we get what we have had for the last eight years – and imperial dynasty that assumes it knows best because nobody can get through the layers of protection to tell it that it does not. And what a freaking mess it has been.

Obama is starting from a more populist viewpoint to begin with but we, the people, cannot afford to let any president and his administration fail to hear our voices.

Let the man keep his Blackberry!