The week of Nobel Prize announcements has begun, and first up was medicine, which was awarded today. The winners: three researchers who have made key discoveries about the immune system. American Bruce Beutler, Luxembourg native Jules Hoffmann, and Canadian-born Ralph Steinman “have revolutionized our understanding of the immune system by…
Continue reading …Insurgents have stormed an Iraqi police station and taken police and officials—including the town’s mayor—hostage. Insurgents poured into the western town’s station disguised as police and opened fire; one insurgent detonated a suicide bomb, officials tell the AP . The officials taken hostage were working in offices on the…
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The artist displays objects from the museum alongside his own works in his exhibition The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman The first object you see on entering Grayson Perry’s exhibition at the British Museum , which opens on Thursday, is a large pot by him decorated with images of visitors to the show and their imagined reasons for coming. “I need to have my negative prejudices confirmed,” reads one speech bubble. “I just wanted to satisfy myself that I am more clever than this charlatan,” reads another. Perry, as he gave the Guardian a pre-opening tour of the exhibition , said: “I just thought it would be better to get all that stuff over with. I know what kind of shit goes down.” It is a typically knowing and cheeky intervention from the Turner prize winner, who persuaded the British Museum to let him create an exhibition by choosing objects from its stores alongside examples of his own work, which spans pottery, tapestry and, in the spectacular finale to the show, a vast cast-iron sculpture in the form of a ship, called The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman – which is also the title of the exhibition. The show is not an art-historical primer, or a didactic exhibition about the way Perry makes work or thinks. “Some of the labels are quite bold,” said Perry, “in their lack of information.” Rather, it is a tour into Perry’s imagination and intuition – even, perhaps, his subconscious. “Don’t look too hard for meaning,” he said. “We are all a bit mad, and this is me: it’s just I’m allowed to go mad in the British Museum.” The visitor, he said, will be “wandering around in my head”. If there is a unifying thread to the exhibition, it is perhaps about the power of objects – both that which is automatically conveyed by their being placed in a museum, but also their power as religious, ritual or fetishistic artefacts. Creepily, here is a gold earring, “origin and date unknown” as the label primly states, with a chunk of withered ear attached – snatched from a living person? Snapped off a mummified corpse? Nearby, Perry has placed another severed body part, if anything more disturbing than the ear: his own ponytail, which he cut off in 1985, and placed in a little ceramic coffin he fashioned. One of his favourite exhibits, he said, is a Boli figure, or power figure, from Mali: an almost formless, squat blob formed from clay, mud and, according to Perry, blood. “It is the sheer potency of the object: there’s something incredibly primal about it,” he said. “I knew as soon as I saw it that it had to be in the exhibition.” There are also shrines (“I love a good shrine”) and pilgrim souvenirs – from modern badges to medieval lead-alloy brooches, one depicting a woman riding a broomstick to which a large penis has been attached. The exhibition is an act of love to the museum – “most of my travelling has been done through this place,” said Perry – but it also subtly questions its authority; it seems to ask why the artist’s deeply intuitive way of organising objects is any less valid than the museum’s scholarly, supposedly objective systems of classification. How hubristic is it of Perry to place his own work alongside these hallowed artefacts? “Of course it’s hubristic,” he said. “I’m absolutely aware of the bitter irony of it being called The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman when it’s in fact a celebrity artist’s vanity project.” Grayson Perry Museums Charlotte Higgins guardian.co.uk
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More than 700 people were arrested in an Occupy Wall Street march across Brooklyn Bridge in New York on Saturday. Here, those who were arrested tell their story To the hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters hemmed in on Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday, it felt like a trap. Hundreds of people had streamed onto the bridge without impediment, only to find their path blocked, and their retreat prohibited. The NYPD, however, claims it gave “numerous warnings” to protesters not to take the road lanes and only arrested those who failed to heed the exhortations to stay off the road. So who’s right? On Sunday, we asked people who had been arrested on Brooklyn Bridge to get in touch . So far, we have received about 25 first-hand accounts from people who were arrested. They tell a similar story: of confusion at the division between the pedestrian walkway and the traffic lanes on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, of apparent police acquiescence to the march proceeding into the traffic lanes, of shock when it became clear the police intended to arrest everyone on the bridge, and then of hours of confusion in police precincts across the city as overworked police officers struggled to process a huge volume of arrests. I’m going to post extracts from these accounts today, starting with testimony from the point at which the marchers reached the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge. But first some context: protesters say this video shows police led them onto the traffic lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge. It shows a number of police officers apparently headed by one, wearing a long, orange-lined coat, leading protesters into the Brooklyn-bound traffic lane. On Sunday, the NYPD published video to YouTube which they say shows protesters were warned they would be arrested. The New York Police Department says it warned protesters not to go onto the bridge. Paul Browne, the NYPD chief spokesman, said: “Multiple warnings by police were given to protesters to stay on the pedestrian walkway and that if they took the roadway they would be arrested.” What’s clear from the first-hand accounts is that a small number of protesters, at the intersection of the road lanes and the pedestrian walkway, decided to “take the bridge”. As seen in the video, police warned they would be arrested, but then appeared to let the group though, and even led them onto the bridge. One protester, who asked not to be named, said: “A small group decided spontaneously to ‘take the bridge’ and invited other people to join. The police pretended to give warnings but didn’t act physically in order to stop the protesters.” Some have suggested these breakaway leaders may have been “agents provocateurs” . What is clear is that the march had now divided, and the hundreds of protesters bringing up the rear had no indication that walking onto the bridge would lead them to be arrested. Kate Shiebler, school teacher, Boston The original plan was to head over the Brooklyn Bridge via the pedestrian walkway. Some people decided to take the road instead, including us. We knew there was a risk, since we were near the front of the march. We were probably a few rows back from the front, and we heard a march organizer say that we should stick to the pedestrian walkway, but we never heard or saw any NYPD say this. Hundreds behind us didn’t hear anyone make any announcement, and assumed they were following the permitted march route. NYPD waving people forward and leading the march over the bridge furthered this assumption. MLE Davis, teacher, Harlem, New York When I got to the walkway/roadway split, I heard one of the organizers say that the walkway would be “safer”, so I headed up and looked over. When I saw a group of police officers seeming to lead protesters down the roadway, I figured that we had their consent, blessings, and protection, and climbed down to join those walking on the road. I never heard anyone say one word about it being against the wishes of the NYPD – honestly, I thought they were escorting us across. Jarrett Dougherty, Philadelphia Once we got to the bridge the march was entering the bridge from what appeared to be an entrance open to the march. We followed. There were blue shirt police around but not nearly in the same amounts as there were earlier in the march. Absolutely none of the officers leading up to the entrance informed us that we were actually entering the roadway! About 100 feet onto the roadway another protester up ahead turned around and fired back a message that everyone needed to turn around and get on the walking path to the left. If it was not for this individual we would have completely unknowingly, and without the least hinderance, walked onto the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge. David Scorca, New York The march moved along smoothly until we reached the mouth of the Brooklyn Bridge. Everything just suddenly jammed up and the march expanded out into a massive crowd. Everyone was chanting “Whose streets? Our streets” as a police officer with a megaphone read something inaudibly off of a piece of paper. Then he and the 8 other officers behind him turned and started walking up onto the bridge. The crowd followed as the police led the way and while some of them even walked beside us. And so the pressure from the jam was released onto the street portion of the bridge. As we continued, people began climbing the fence and jumping from what I then realized was the pedestrian path onto the street with the rest of the march. Carly Smith, PhD student, New York When we got to the Brooklyn Bridge, a line of police appeared and divided the crowd. Some went to the upper level pedestrian path, and others on the other side of the police line were funneled onto the lower roadway, in the left hand lane. We were part of the latter group. There was no clear way of going back once we were on the roadway, and at no time did any police make an announcement that we should not continue – the police walked next to us, and things remained peaceful. I assumed they were going to let us continue, as we would have moved along and crossed the bridge within the next 15 to 20 minutes. My wife Rebecca and I and one male friend found ourselves at the back of the march. Suddenly, towards the middle of the bridge, a huge number of police appeared behind us with cars and vans. Again, no announcements were made. Apparently the same thing happened on the other side, at the front of the crowd. We were quickly penned in with orange netting on all sides. No one was ever given a chance to turn around or to get out of the situation. I’ll update this post later, with details of the confusion at police precincts around New York City. Occupy Wall Street United States Matt Wells guardian.co.uk
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More than 700 people were arrested in an Occupy Wall Street march across Brooklyn Bridge in New York on Saturday. Here, those who were arrested tell their story To the hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters hemmed in on Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday, it felt like a trap. Hundreds of people had streamed onto the bridge without impediment, only to find their path blocked, and their retreat prohibited. The NYPD, however, claims it gave “numerous warnings” to protesters not to take the road lanes and only arrested those who failed to heed the exhortations to stay off the road. So who’s right? On Sunday, we asked people who had been arrested on Brooklyn Bridge to get in touch . So far, we have received about 25 first-hand accounts from people who were arrested. They tell a similar story: of confusion at the division between the pedestrian walkway and the traffic lanes on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, of apparent police acquiescence to the march proceeding into the traffic lanes, of shock when it became clear the police intended to arrest everyone on the bridge, and then of hours of confusion in police precincts across the city as overworked police officers struggled to process a huge volume of arrests. I’m going to post extracts from these accounts today, starting with testimony from the point at which the marchers reached the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge. But first some context: protesters say this video shows police led them onto the traffic lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge. It shows a number of police officers apparently headed by one, wearing a long, orange-lined coat, leading protesters into the Brooklyn-bound traffic lane. On Sunday, the NYPD published video to YouTube which they say shows protesters were warned they would be arrested. The New York Police Department says it warned protesters not to go onto the bridge. Paul Browne, the NYPD chief spokesman, said: “Multiple warnings by police were given to protesters to stay on the pedestrian walkway and that if they took the roadway they would be arrested.” What’s clear from the first-hand accounts is that a small number of protesters, at the intersection of the road lanes and the pedestrian walkway, decided to “take the bridge”. As seen in the video, police warned they would be arrested, but then appeared to let the group though, and even led them onto the bridge. One protester, who asked not to be named, said: “A small group decided spontaneously to ‘take the bridge’ and invited other people to join. The police pretended to give warnings but didn’t act physically in order to stop the protesters.” Some have suggested these breakaway leaders may have been “agents provocateurs” . What is clear is that the march had now divided, and the hundreds of protesters bringing up the rear had no indication that walking onto the bridge would lead them to be arrested. Kate Shiebler, school teacher, Boston The original plan was to head over the Brooklyn Bridge via the pedestrian walkway. Some people decided to take the road instead, including us. We knew there was a risk, since we were near the front of the march. We were probably a few rows back from the front, and we heard a march organizer say that we should stick to the pedestrian walkway, but we never heard or saw any NYPD say this. Hundreds behind us didn’t hear anyone make any announcement, and assumed they were following the permitted march route. NYPD waving people forward and leading the march over the bridge furthered this assumption. MLE Davis, teacher, Harlem, New York When I got to the walkway/roadway split, I heard one of the organizers say that the walkway would be “safer”, so I headed up and looked over. When I saw a group of police officers seeming to lead protesters down the roadway, I figured that we had their consent, blessings, and protection, and climbed down to join those walking on the road. I never heard anyone say one word about it being against the wishes of the NYPD – honestly, I thought they were escorting us across. Jarrett Dougherty, Philadelphia Once we got to the bridge the march was entering the bridge from what appeared to be an entrance open to the march. We followed. There were blue shirt police around but not nearly in the same amounts as there were earlier in the march. Absolutely none of the officers leading up to the entrance informed us that we were actually entering the roadway! About 100 feet onto the roadway another protester up ahead turned around and fired back a message that everyone needed to turn around and get on the walking path to the left. If it was not for this individual we would have completely unknowingly, and without the least hinderance, walked onto the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge. David Scorca, New York The march moved along smoothly until we reached the mouth of the Brooklyn Bridge. Everything just suddenly jammed up and the march expanded out into a massive crowd. Everyone was chanting “Whose streets? Our streets” as a police officer with a megaphone read something inaudibly off of a piece of paper. Then he and the 8 other officers behind him turned and started walking up onto the bridge. The crowd followed as the police led the way and while some of them even walked beside us. And so the pressure from the jam was released onto the street portion of the bridge. As we continued, people began climbing the fence and jumping from what I then realized was the pedestrian path onto the street with the rest of the march. Carly Smith, PhD student, New York When we got to the Brooklyn Bridge, a line of police appeared and divided the crowd. Some went to the upper level pedestrian path, and others on the other side of the police line were funneled onto the lower roadway, in the left hand lane. We were part of the latter group. There was no clear way of going back once we were on the roadway, and at no time did any police make an announcement that we should not continue – the police walked next to us, and things remained peaceful. I assumed they were going to let us continue, as we would have moved along and crossed the bridge within the next 15 to 20 minutes. My wife Rebecca and I and one male friend found ourselves at the back of the march. Suddenly, towards the middle of the bridge, a huge number of police appeared behind us with cars and vans. Again, no announcements were made. Apparently the same thing happened on the other side, at the front of the crowd. We were quickly penned in with orange netting on all sides. No one was ever given a chance to turn around or to get out of the situation. I’ll update this post later, with details of the confusion at police precincts around New York City. Occupy Wall Street United States Matt Wells guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The Nobel Prize Committee announced three winners of the coveted $1.5 million prize in medicine this morning. But one of them, unbeknownst to the committee, had died only three days earlier. The Nobel Committee decided that the deceased honoree, Ralph Steinman, will still receive the award, even though committee rules prohibit giving it out posthumously.
Continue reading …The Nobel Prize Committee announced three winners of the coveted $1.5 million prize in medicine this morning. But one of them, unbeknownst to the committee, had died only three days earlier. The Nobel Committee decided that the deceased honoree, Ralph Steinman, will still receive the award, even though committee rules prohibit giving it out posthumously.
Continue reading …Andy Rooney delivered his 1,097th and final 60 Minutes essay last night, ending a 33-year relationship with the TV newsmagazine. “Not many people in this world have been as lucky as I’ve been,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of complaining here, but of all the things I’ve complained…
Continue reading …Despite the many, many, many times he has said he’s not running, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spent the weekend considering whether he should. He discussed the logistics of a late entrance to the race with his aides as well as his family, sources tell the Wall Street Journal , and…
Continue reading …Anwar al-Awlaki was a “detestable person” and no one mourns his killing in Yemen last week. But that doesn’t change the fact that his killing was unconstitutional and “sets a dangerous new precedent,” writes Ron Paul in an editorial in the New York Daily News . “Under our Constitution, American citizens,…
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