
Just thought this was worth sharing!
"3. Fat is the new black. There's something fabulous and incredibly sexy about it." - Isaac Mizrahi

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Thanks to Robert over at The Marmot's Hole who pointed out this piece from the International Herald Tribune. The article is about Sun Mu, a North Korean artist who left the DPRK* in 1998 and arrived in South Korea in 2001, and how his art speaks to the Korean condition. While I found the article somewhat interesting, what really wowed me was Sun Mu's art. My tastes in art tend to run towards the more commercial art; movie posters, illustrations, and the like. This includes propaganda posters. I LOVE me some propaganda posters! One day I hope to have the scratch to pick up some vintage Soviet or WWII propaganda posters. This brings us back to Sun Mu. When he was in North Korea, his artistic training was specifically so he could paint murals and other propaganda pieces for the government and, unsurprisingly, this shows through in his work, some of which you can view at his blog.
Initially I had something else picked out for this edition of Random Panels, however as I was catching up on my comics reading this week I stumbled across this bit of brilliance from Wonder Woman #27. While I am not as big a fan of sound effects as some, I absolutely LOVE it when they are incorporated into the art in interesting or innovative ways and this certainly qualifies.
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I know! Sheesh! Personally I blame the Wachowski's, Mistah J!



We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldus Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain.
In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.