I had not heard of Julian Assange or WikiLeaks until I read the quite lengthy article in the June 7th issue of The New Yorker. I was fascinated by one man's ability to create a system, supposedly un-hackable, that gives the world such an amazing information clearinghouse.

Today, not two months later, everyone (who reads and/or watches the news) knows WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. Leak a few thousand classified documents on the intrawebs and, jeez, people perk up.

I'm not a fan of our presence in Afghanistan. I wish no harm to those serving there but we really to need to come home. 1000 years and foolish tears have clouded our brains and we know there's something in there that's driving us insane when you think of all the foolish things your mother said were lies and you just don't feel like keepin' house for her until she dies well it's true what can you do...thanks to Lane Tiegten for those cogent words.

Want more? Read the Q&A in Time Magazine from this week.

I've amassed a fairly large collection of bric-a-brac and such over the years to feed my desire to re-arrange it all in some sort of aesthetic order. Yet, with all the crap I have, I manage to move freely and gingerly around my somewhat obsessively ordered world-o-stuff.

These folks, however, have a different sort of problem. Normally I would burn with longing to view most "hoarder" households, to marvel at the peculiar collections certain people have felt compelled to compile.

But this one takes it to a whole new level...sorry 'bout the commercial at the beginning.

My wife told me about this video...Janelle Monåe rocks!

As many of you know, Arizona is chock full of crazy public officials with the top contenders being McCain, Kyl and everyone's favorite whacked out sheriff Joe Arpaio. Jeez, I didn't even mention our illustrious guv'nor Jan Brewer. I could go on.

If you live here in the dry lands, there are few candidates that warrant a better, and more visible, look than John Dougherty. John's been an investigative journalist for over two decades. You can read his bio here. Just imagine (insert moody dream sequence music) electing a candidate in Arizona who doesn't even register on the smarmy meter. I know, I'm a dreamer. So sue me. Now, getcher grass roots asses out there and spread the word about this guy.

We watched an amazing documentary called Manufactured Landscapes a few nights ago that features the photography of Edward Burtynsky. I'll go out on a limb to venture that this man is one of the greatest living artists on the planet. He is one of the few artists I know that has managed to make beautiful the horrific and yet enrages every fiber of your being portraying the havoc that humankind has and is currently wreaking across the globe. And yet, we may come to realize that we are all implicit as what we are being shown is something none of us really wants to see; the underbelly of the creation and the remains of modern consumer culture on a worldwide scale.

Jennifer Baichwal filmed Burtynsky at work in southern Asia where he shot in factories, quarries, recycling dumps and a beach front of abandoned oil tankers. He also was on hand during the building of the infamous Three Gorges Dam, one of the worlds largest man-made structures. He goes further by taking us to the ruins of several cities that had to be dismantled brick by brick to be rebuilt on higher ground due to the impending flooding.

Check out the trailer below. You can buy the DVD from the Zeitgeist web site.