Painted In Blood & Irony

During the morning of Tuesday, September 29, 2015 a street artist, identified by friends as Antonio Ramos, in Oakland, CA was gunned down and killed while working on a community art project, the Oakland Superheroes Mural Project which is a project sponsored by Oakland’s Attitudinal Healing Connection.

Straight Outta Oakland
Straight Outta Oakland – Painted In Blood & Irony

Yes, this is sad. Indeed, it approaches the level of tragedy. It should, however, have been an expected outcome. It’s not rational to believe that one can to empower individuals to be self-aware and inspired through arts, creativity and education, making positive choices to break the cycle of violence for themselves and their communities in the ghettos and barrios. Crime and depravity are too entrenched for such efforts to work at any meaningful level and too many of the population of those zones will actively work against such efforts.

At best, such civic minded entertainments should await comprehensive law enforcement purges of the ghettos and barrios before being attempted. Otherwise, the street art ends up, as in Mr. Ramos’ sad case, painted in blood and irony.

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Does Art Presage Life?

Oscar Wilde once wrote, “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life,” and this sentiment has been oft repeated since then. But, as a corollary to that, does Art presage Life?

Obama Headshot Graffiti
Does Art Presage Life?

Judging by this bit of graffiti I found, I’m will to bet that Obama sure as Hell hopes that doesn’t. Especially because graffiti – Oh! Excuse me – Street Art – is created by his core constituency and by constituencies that often side with him and the Democrats in general.

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