A man ties a dog to a wall inside an art gallery. No, you heard me correctly – we're not talking about the night janitor who caught the starving animal littering the front steps of the gallery, which he considered high-maintenance, and decided to vent a lifetime of frustration by pulling off an act to the dog. We're talking about a man who calls himself an artist. His name is Guillermo Vargas Habacuc and the year is 2007. Guillermo is one of the artists taking part in an art exhibition that takes place at a Costa Rican gallery – pompously called "Centro Nacional de la Cultura”. He pays a bunch of kids to catch the street dog, which he cruelly baptizes "Natividad" (Spanish for "birth"). His aim is to make an artistic statement about the fragility and the misery in which all dogs – indeed, all human beings live, and he achieved just that by letting the dog starve to death tied to a wall, in plain view of the exhibition visitors, some of whom demanded futilely that the dog be released. The dog stayed there, tied to the wall with a rope, malnourished and dehydrated while visitors watched over the dog with their chili cheese hot dogs with jalapenos on the side and an extra large jug of the newest diet soda.
            It is present that our society may be a bit twisted, demeaned, and degraded to the point where other’s misery is the root cause of one’s self-satisfaction. Guillermo, however, portrayed the most complex yet simplistic message given to society than anything else could ever have. Moreover, although it may be controversial the way Guillermo presented this message may be unjustified; no other artist has given the depth Guillermo has shown with this ‘exhibition.’ It comes to a point where the artist, Guillermo Vargas, takes one of the most brilliant stances I have ever seen—brave and intelligent. You may think I’m crazy, but I’ll explain.

Frankly, the idea that people actually care about the well being of people or creatures outside of their personal sphere of acquaintances is a very shallow pretense. If we've never met them, odds are that we don't care about whether they live or die.
If it's such barbarism to let a dog die of neglect, then every single person who lets an idle moment go by is complicit in the deaths of those they could've been helping with that time. Anyone who expends more resources than are absolutely necessary to live is guilty of the same. This news story is now international. There aren't many people in the civilized world who don't know about this. One man ties a dog up and it starves, and everyone cares and congregates to sign a petition barring this man from presenting more of his art... Meanwhile thousands or millions of dogs die every year. We go about our everyday lives never thinking about them, but as soon as one guy lets one dog starve, it’s suddenly a sensational news story that spreads grander than ever, and everyone is infuriated. Technically, we're ALL allowing dogs to starve every day by failing to do anything. If we can gather by the thousands or millions to protest one man starving a single dog, why can't we do that for the millions of other dogs dying everyday? How about the hundreds of species in danger of extinction due to human interference? How about what’s left of our rain forests? The hundreds of impoverished children that perish everyday? This whole thing really does showcase how indifferent humans are until something is shoved right under our noses. Guillermo may have done something unspeakably cruel, but he’s succeeded in highlighting all our hypocrisy, and has shown that we continue to do things much more cruel without giving it a thought. There are children working fourteen hours a day in sweat shops all over the world, tying little tiny knots in the half-light, sewing your $200 sneakers… If everyone lived like you and me, we'd need five times the natural resources the earth presently has. If you want to save the children, or the starving dogs, or the rain forest, get ready to give up your mp3 player, your furnace, your computer, your designer jeans, and your wide screen television. Still want to save the children? Yeah, I didn't think so. Signing these petitions to block one artist’s work isn't changing squat, all it shows is that we care about the wrong things, and ignore the bigger picture according to what’s convenient to us.

Yale student, Aliza Shvarts’s senior art project, set to go on display next week, included video of her bleeding in her bathtub, as well as plastic sheeting layered with a mixture of Vaseline and post-abortion blood. She told classmates she had herself artificially inseminated as often as possible, then took legal herbal abortifacient drugs and filmed herself in her bathtub cramping and bleeding from the miscarriages. Just as similar as artist, Guillermo, Aliza wants to make a statement. The issue of abortions has been long-risen and long-standing. Aliza successfully portrays that when women are currently opposing the ideal of abortions and the correlation between the human body and the rights of one’s potential life, it is ultimately the women’s decision. Nobody even knew Aliza had artificially inseminated herself, nor did they know she was inducing her own abortions during the time. It comes to show how shallow people are to what ultimately, is one’s individual right. It is controversial once more, that a potentially born fetus has the right to live, however, the thing is, people are going to make their own decisions and we won’t achieve this utopian world where we get what we want. Nobody said life was fair and Aliza conveys this message in her art project. We are so caught up with telling and portraying what WE want as individuals, that we neglect the feelings of others, their rights, and the big picture.

These "artists" makes some hardened criminals come across as kind and considerate people. Some of you may shrug and say, "it's only a dog" or “it’s only a fetus” or “it’s a DOG” or “it’s a BABY”. The truly shocking part however is that Guillermo Vargas Habacuc has been selected to represent Costa Rica in the prestigious "Bienal Centroamericana Honduras 2008" and repeat his "experiment". Aliza Schwartz on the other hand, has been chosen to display her artwork which features hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting as the blood from Shvarts' self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting. Aliza Shvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathroom tub. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room. 

To make matters better in the end, the dog is released, fed, and survives. Aliza and Yale University have both been framed for the hoax of her actually artificially inseminating herself and carrying out such abortions. Both experiments and pieces of art were in some way a hoax, but we are offered such consolation.

The purpose and mission of art isn't to be pretty or to be liked but to make us think and feel. This “hideous” thing, as some would say, Shvarts has made won't go away because we don't like it or the “shallow” art Guillermo displayed won’t stop being news interntationally. If by making this speech changed one person’s mindset about the issue Guillermo presented or Aliza Shvart’s senior project, then the artist did their job.

Comments?

I'm not the kind of reporter who wants to "become" the story, or make the story about me. for one thing I'm not all that interesting. But a story of mine that airs Monday 5/19 is one of those rare instances in which we become part of the story. In my opinion it will be a  sad day for our Nation when the media no longer has the right to question elected officals who spend our tax money. my feeling has always been if you don't want reporters asking you questions then don't run for public office. if you get a chance check the story out and let me know what you think. thanks .

All I Have To Say Is I Was Once A Student Of This Man That Soo Many People Hate Or Dislike Because Of The Things He Has Been Accused Of Doing.I Have KNown This Man For 3 Years Now And Hes A Good Good Man And  A Great Teacher. I was one of the most stubborn students when it came to math and some how he broke through all of that and got me to like math.My brother too! My Older brother was in and out of jail for 2 years and mr.Gonzalez would always ask about him always cared for us. Just a couple of weeks we were talking about him and how we should go visit him and see hows he doing.There are only two  teachers who i can say i actually learned something from and hes one of them.I think that the charges and bond well EVERYTHING is a little too over the top.mind you this man is a teacher he doesnt make alot of money, and theres no way hell be able to bond himself out.thats why mr.gonzalez got a court appointed lawyer because he cannot afford one for himself! please believe me when i say that this man is a good man and if convicted of any charges, he out of all people deserves a second chance! DONT WE ALL??? If i didnt believe so myself i wouldnt be getting on to websites i normally dont get on just to speak my mind on a situation like this.Believe me if i read a story like this i would nt even care because it has nothing to do with me and i dont get into things like this but i believe with all my heart this man deserves a 2nd chance!....I never felt offended in any way around him and thats coming from me a rape victim...ever since that happened to me im very cautious around men even family but mr.gonzalez never had that type of energy he wouldnt hurt a soul...i wish everybody else could see what his students see in him...and thats a good man who i and many other students current and past believe deserves justice and maybe a second chance...please comment let me know wat all houston thinks of this too.

MelanieMtz

Gas prices are high and everyone is trying to get our money!  I went to Raceway Gas Station on FM 518, in Pearland, Texas.  I drive a 2006 Honda CRV with a 15.3 gallon tank.

When my car in on "E" it is time to fill the tank.  I know that there is about a gallon of fuel in the tank reserve at this point.  I purchased fuel at Raceway on May 8, 2008.  My display on pump #16 showed 16.058 gallons.  My tank has never  accepted more than 14 gallons, ever!  I felt that I was being robbed of 2 gallons of fuel which did not pump out and showed as such on my receipt. 

A Texas Agriculture Department representative, Sterling, told me yesterday (May 15, 2008), that my tank must have expanded due to the heat and allowed the TWO EXTRA GALLONS INTO MY TANK! Now you may ask, "Did you get additional miles from the two gallons of fuel?"  No! I got a few miles less!  Has anyone else experienced this maleable metal phenomenon? 

http://www.altfuelprices.com/

From the site: AltFuelPrices.com was originally started as CNGPrices.com when I purchased a CNG powered vehicle. There were plenty of sites out there that would tell you how much it costs to buy gas at different gas staions, but that information was lacking for alternative fuel stations, including my new CNG car. With the quickly increasing popularity of alternative fuel cars and trucks, and with a recent purchase of my own Honda Civic GX, I wanted to know CNG prices near me. So I whipped up this site to do just that. Hopefully it will also be a good resource to others who have or are looking to purchase an alternative vehicle.

I'm a former flight attendant with Compass Airlines, which is a regional company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Northwest Airlines.  Compass has made the news a few times since it's inception in July of 2007.  It's had a few emergency landings for reasons such as failure of the landing gear.  But the latest reason the company's in the news is really a scary thought.  A flight attendant has been charged with setting a fire aboard a civil aircraft, which carries a possible max. sentence of 20 yrs.  Seems that lil' Eder Rojas, 19 of Woodbury MN decided that he didn't like having to work the schedule of trips from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada very much.  He deliberately set a fire in the rear lav of the Embrear 175 on May 7th, 2008, forcing an emergency landing in  Fargo, ND because the cabin was filled with smoke.  He told authorities that he brought a cigarette lighter through security at the MSP airport and after setting the fire in the trash can of the rear lav, stowed the lighter in an overhead bin on the plane where it was later found. 

What I can't understand is why fool didn't just call in if he didn't want to work that route?!  Being that I've been trained on that particular aircraft by that company, I know the inner workings of the fire detector and extinguisher systems in the lavs.  I don't see how the fire could've gotten as bad as it's said to have been unless he found a way to by-pass the fixed halon extinguisher that is literally in the trash can itself.  But what's really crazy about it all is this isn't the 1st time he's had a "fire" in the lav on a flight that he was working.  The 1st incident was a little while ago, I won't say the exact timing of it because I'm unsure myself.  But a friend of mine who still works for the airline as a flight attendant says that he was on the same route when there was a fire in the rear lav of the plane, and they had to make an emergency landing, where I'm not sure, but he was made out to be a "hero" for putting it out so quickly.  I look at it like this:  From having an insider's view of the company and knowing more than the average jane, I can say that they really need to screen the applicants more thouroughly from the beginning.  I know for a fact that at least half of my training class should not have been there for many reasons.  The hiring age set by industry standards is typically 20 or 21 as a minimum, and at Compass you can get on at 18. This allows people who aren't yet mature enough, such as this lil BLEEP, to be hired.  Second, they just recently had a training class where several people were fired due to not knowing how to read and/or write!  Now how the HELL do you expect to save someone's life if you can't even read the sign on the handle that tells you how to open the door in case of an evacuation?!  AND, they've hired several people who are just flat-out mentally unstable.  I had a few of them in my training class, lol.  But at the same time, you get what you pay for.  When you start people at $15.00 per hour for the 1st 6 mos, then go to $17.00 per hour, and only give an additional $1.00 per hour raise each year, what do you expect?  I know this may seem like alot to the average person, but typically you only work, or rather only get paid for, 80 hours per month.  Traveling all the time costs money for food, clothing, and you have to keep your appearances up to standards, which can cost you a pretty penny each month as well, especially for a woman.  Panty hose alone could cost you more than $50 a month because I've never had a pair that I could wear more than once while working.  They get caught on everything and run all the time.  But I digress, lol.  It's the above reasons why this airline has had this issue to come about.  I think they're conducting open houses in mental wards across America and hiring every psych job in the US to be a flight attendant.  It's scary enough for passengers on commercial flights as it is.  Most still feel threatened by terroristic hi-jackings, planes colliding mid-air, and crashing in general.  Now they must be alert for the flight attendants, who are supposed to protect them, being upset about they're schedules for the month and setting fire to planes 30, 000 feet in the air!!!