Garling Gauge

Presidential First Dogs

TIME photo gallery of U.S. Presidents and their adorable pooches.  Guess who also had raccoons, and a bobcat.

Obama Rockstar Portrait

GOP Wants Its Little Logo Back

Hey!  You can’t use our logo to promote our political party.  How dare you!  - The GOP idiocy continues.

GOP Presidential Logo Hubris

If you thought Obama’s faux-presidential seal was snobby, the Republicans have him beat times three.

Obama’s Font Suspiciously Similar to Danish Underwear

Change You Can Go to Bed In

Perhaps all art is imitation, even branding design for presidential campaigns.  On a recent trip to Denmark, one observant person makes a startling connection between Sen. Barack Obama’s chosen font and theme, and that of a Denmark underwear company.  From Robert Kelley A.Theorizer:

“A few weeks ago the lovely and beautiful Louise V. Nielsen came to visit from Denmark, and upon the night of her arrival I of course took her to a Barack Obama victory party.  While Obama was saying all the sorts of things that seem so refreshing to many Americans and so obviously common-sensical to Europeans, Louise noticed that the “Change You Can Believe In” sign looked awfully familiar to her.  After thinking about it for a few seconds, she said that Change is the name of a Danish underwear brand, and that their logo looks exactly like it does in Obama’s signage.

And it kind of does, as you can see above.  Obama’s change is on top, and the font, as has been widely discussed in the Times among other places, is Gotham (designed by Tobias Frere-Jones - yes, Sasha’s brother).  The Danish underwear’s change does not seem to be Gotham, but it’s awfully close - the ends of the “C” are vertical, the inside hook of the “G” is slightly smaller, and the tips of the “E” are of different lengths.  That said, you really do have to line the two up side-by-side to be convinced that Obama didn’t just rip off the design of this Scandinavian swimwear and lingerie company (but if you’re going to rip off design, that’s a good part of the world to pick from).

Danish design is hot these days, with brands like Munthe plus Simonsen and Dyrberg/Kern getting more and more international exposure.  Alas, Louise assures me that Change is not an elite brand but a mass-market, functionality-oriented line.  Which, if he’s going to be associated with European underwear, is probably a lot better for Obama.

I’ll leave you with a fun application of the Change logo.”

http://robertkelleya.wordpress.com/

Great Seal of ObamaLand

I’m surprised at how well this symbol has been accepted, cause it is incredibly cheesy and smug-looking.

Art: Defaced Presidents Collection

Child Brides: UNICEF 2007 Photo of the Year

Groom, 40. Bride, 11, “forever denied a self-determined life”

From UNICEF:

The American photographer Stephanie Sinclair is the winner of the international photo competition “UNICEF Photo of the Year”. Her photo shows a wedding couple in Afghanistan who could not be more opposite. The groom, Mohammed, looks much older than his 40 years. The bride, Ghulam, is still a child; she just turned 11. “The UNICEF Photo of the Year 2007 raises awareness about a worldwide problem. Millions of girls are married while they are still under age. Most of these child brides are forever denied a self-determined life”, says UNICEF Patroness Eva Luise Köhler at the award ceremony in Berlin. According to UNICEF, there are about 60 million young women worldwide who were married before they came of age, half of them in South Asia.

–

1st Prize for Stephanie Sinclair

Child brides

He’s forty, she’s eleven. And they are a couple – the Afghan man Mohammed F.* and the child Ghulam H.*. “We needed the money”, Ghulam’s parents said. Faiz claims he is going to send her to school. But the women of Damarda village in Afghanistan’s Ghor province know better: “Our men don’t want educated women.” They predict that Ghulam will be married within a few weeks after her engagement in 2006, so as to bear children for Faiz.

During her stay in Afghanistan, it consistently struck American photographer Stephanie Sinclair how many young girls are married to much older men. She decided to raise awareness about this topic with her pictures. Particularly as the official minimum age for brides in Afghanistan is sixteen and it is therefore illegal to marry children.

Early marriages are not only a problem in Afghanistan: worldwide there are about 51 million girls aged between 15 and 19 years who are forced into marriage. The youngest brides live in the Indian state of Rajasthan, where 15% of all wives are not even 10 years old when they are married. Child marriages are a reaction to extreme poverty and mainly take place in Asian and African regions where poor families see their daughters as a burden and as second-class citizens. Already in their younger years, girls are given into the “care” of a husband, a tradition that often leads to exploitation. Many girls become victims of domestic violence. In an Egyptian survey, about one-third of the interviewed child brides stated that they were beaten by their husbands. The young brides are under pressure to prove their fertility as soon as possible. But the risk for girls between the ages of 10 and 14 not to survive pregnancy is five times higher than for adult women. Every year, about 150,000 pregnant teenagers die due to complications – in particular due to a lack of medical care, let alone sex education.

Read the rest here.

Congratulations Stephanie Sinclair, and thank you for highlighting the issue of child marriage. ‘Child brides are forever denied a self-determined life’ indeed.

*

• UNICEF.org
• More Art, Culture

Halloween Ode to George Washington

Happy Halloween from the Garling Gauge!

Plant A Tree

The Apology by Mark Ryden

Seed up

If it has been a while since you’ve planted a tree, now is a good time.

According to Don Janssen, Extension Educator of the University of Nebrask-Lincoln,

Landscape plants installed in March, April, and May benefit from generous rains and the long growing season that stretches ahead. But more often than not, we receive too much precipitation that makes planting difficult, especially on poorly drained sites. Furthermore, the sudden onset of hot, dry weather that typically displaces an often too-short spring, can injure tender new plantings.

Because of these difficulties, increasing attention has been given to fall planting. During the period from mid-August to mid-October, moderate and relatively stable air temperatures prevail, and soil temperatures and moisture levels are usually in a range that promote rapid root development. But if the fall planting season is extended into November and December, or if slow-to-establish species are chosen, root growth may be poor and planting failures can occur.

Trees outside the White House

Logging Truck by Mark Ryden

Grow one!

For more information, please visit the National Arbor Day Foundation.

* supporting Blog Action Day

Category: art

• Meat Head: Raw Photography of Julia Kissina
• Suicide Bombing as Western Art
• ‘Women in Art’ Tops Viral Video Chart
• Lego Artist Makes It Big

http://z.about.com/d/godc/1/0/o/9/Hwh.jpg,
http://compassionatecouncil.blogspot.com/2007/08/relationship-reveals-who-you-believe.html