general

We are told that the introduction of industry-focused top level domains such as .car, .beef, and .skank are going to change the face of the internet as we know it today. The art world mailing list service-cum-publication e-Flux believes this strongly and has raised the $185,000 not to buy, but just to bid for the .art domain, assuring all artists that if e-Flux wins, the domain will only be used as a force for good.
So, if e-Flux wins, you need to start thinking of a cheeky URL a la del.icio.us or Art.sy so that you can be a player in the .art world. Ryz and I already have dibs on Golfc.art. Using an online Scrabble helper, andrej offers the list below of potential .art words. Start thinking about reserving yours now. Don't get left behind!

supersm.art
upperp.art
underp.art
redst.art
pushc.art
overt.art
outst.art
outsm.art
forep.art
brass.art
upst.art
unsm.art
trip.art
teac.art
subp.art
rest.art
rech.art
ramp.art
oxhe.art
misp.art
dogc.art
disp.art
comp.art
upd.art
thw.art
oxc.art
non.art
imp.art
dep.art
sw.art
st.art
sm.art
sc.art
qu.art
pe.art
ly.art
he.art
ch.art
bo.art
ap.art
w.art
t.art
p.art
m.art
k.art
h.art
f.art (Michael Manning floated this one in a Rhizome comment but I can think of websites that actually deserve it.)
d.art
c.art

No one else seems too interested in the issue of the new "top level domains" being peddled by ICANN as the next hot Internet thing, in particular the .art domain being sought by various would-be hosts for big bucks, but I appreciate getting to have a discussion of this issue with Orit Gat and Michael Connor over at Rhizome.
Gat's article covers more than just .art -- I didn't know prior to reading it that the virtual art fair website Art.sy actually had a Syrian domain or that obnoxious URL-shortener Bit.ly was based in the land of Qhaddafy. (I don't think about either site that much.) Well, those do seem like supremely stupid and fucked-up choices for where to host your internet. (Art.sy seemed not to know that Syria was a repressive dictatorship.)
In response to my complaint that Rhizome wasn't taking any stand on e-Flux's attempt to snatch the .art domain, editor Michael Connor said:

I am interested in Orit's article not as a stance for or against e-flux's application (an issue you and Paddy have already offered excellent analysis of). The interesting thing is that whatever happens, participation in .art will imply an alliance with the domain manager, whether the wingnuts or with e-flux, in the same way that participation in .sy unfortunately implies an alliance with Syria - URLs map onto political relationships, inside and outside of the "art world."

Whether or not intended, I'll take that as a subtle jab at e-Flux, which my fellow art types (including Paddy Johnson) seem to trust to handle the .art domain responsibly. Am not having any of that personally. As I said to Gat on Rhizome:

If, as you suggest, Deviantart.com wins [the .art domain], this whole problem goes away.
e-Flux, by actively soliciting art and e-world support, is in effect asking us to gamble on whether .art will be a Socialist utopia (a la the Timebank) or a Communist hell (a la Facebook).
"Let's have the revolution and fix the bugs later" is not preferable to a "weird democratic taxonomy" that works reasonably well.

I posted this comment in response to Rhizome.org's article Internet Real Estate, Art and Power: The cases of Artsy and .art, which downplays the amount of fear and loathing there has been on the subject of the ".art" domain:

Are "new speculative opportunities as dizzying as those of Zola’s 19th-century Paris" a good thing? Bad? Pure hype? Orit Gat's article takes no position on e-Flux's attempt to corner the ".art" domain. An organization taking its name from a diffuse, rhizomatic conception of the Web might just say "whoa, wait a minute" to plans to have a single organization acting as gatekeeper for all of art. If this goes through will Rhizome move to Rhizome.art? What happens to all the artists on Facebook and their "like" economy? Isn't deviantart.com actually more of a democratic conception of art than e-Flux's insider-y mailing list?

Some of these topics were discussed on Paddy Johnson's and my blogs a year ago. See links below. In reply to being called out as a would-be gatekeeper, e-Flux's Anton Vidokle replied "we are not planning to curate the art domain." Is a gatekeeper the same as a curator? All one has to do is say "yes you are art" or "no you aren't art." I wouldn't call that curating but I'd call it gatekeeping.

Also, how about a little skepticism regarding ICANN's claims that the new top level domains will change the face of the internet? Vidokle thinks they will. Others have called TLDs a Mafia-like shakedown of nervous web businesses. Vidokle is paying $185,000 just to bid for the domain. That should make any art-lover nervous. "Trust the Party - we have the best of intentions for your art."

See:

http://www.artfagcity.com/2012/06/21/e-flux-could-increase-future-funding-for-the-arts-through-art/

http://www.artfagcity.com/2012/06/25/e-flux-co-founder-anton-vidokle-says-art-will-not-be-curated/

http://www.tommoody.us/archives/2012/06/22/which-will-be-the-future-of-art-deviantart-e-flux-donuts-co/

Update: Apologies to Orit Gat for misspelling her name in the (uneditable) Rhizome comment.

"It seems your anger is escalating on the blog lately. I'm afraid you're going to kill 200-300 people."

This is really helpful feedback -- you seem to have a handle on the true nature of art and critical writing.

" -- Your blog could be next"

You're kidding, of course.

"Pepsi? Who is this nut?"

Someone who also thinks Jif peanut butter is an essential programmer food.

Pres. Obama has nominated limousine liberal hawk Samantha Power to be UN Ambassador. You might remember her as the person who called Hillary Clinton a "monster" and had to resign from Obama's '08 campaign. She now deeply regrets that stumble on her rise to prominence, er, rather, slur against a great personage. Mark Ames, writing cruelly but humorously on the icky policy wonk love triangle among Power, U. of Chicago prof. Martha Nussbaum, and former Obama "regulation Czar" Cass Sunstein, described Power's politics thusly:

[...] Samantha wrote a “landmark” book, a book that really bowled over Team Obama, about genocides in the 20th century. Because genocides are really bad, she wants us to know. Not all genocides, mind you -- just the genocides she chooses to focus on. She didn’t include in her book the genocides that might muddy up her Dubya-brained moralizing about genocide -- anyway, it’s sexist to criticize her for omitting American-led genocides in the 20th century that led to millions of deaths in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Central America, and elsewhere; or Britain’s genocide-guilt in about 2/3 of the globe. Those aren’t officially “genocides” in Samantha’s classification, because that’s not playing by the rules. The rules say very clearly that these are genocides and those aren’t -- so for example, when America financed and armed the genocide in East Timor, Samantha writes that America “looked away.” Well, you get the point here.

We have the liberal hawks and their precedent of the "good" Balkan bombing to thank for Iraq and Afghanistan. The "kill for peace" pundits provided Democratic cover for the Bush and Cheney invasion plans. Saddam gassed his own people, the Taliban are sexist monsters, so, as caring folk, we needed to invade. It wasn't just about oil or misplaced revenge for 9/11, see.

Ames:

Samantha... had a “defining moment” in her biography. That defining moment was Bosnia—the tragedy that attracted hordes of defining-moment-tourists from the West’s top academic and struggling-journalist institutions. Every Orwell-swooning middlebrow secretly cursed under their breath that they’d never be able to duplicate his moral outrage and moral courage without a perfectly defined cause like his—so when Bosnia presented its tragedy on a bloodied platter, Samantha, along with all the David Rieffs and Peter Maas’s and you-name-‘em-if-they-read-Orwell-they-were-in-Sarajevo’s all entered the “watch me being morally outraged on behalf of humanity” competition in Bosnia, then took the “lesson” that “defined” them there, and came away with this: in the future, if America sees slaughter going on in some part of the world we don’t understand, we should bomb the bad guys and save the good guys.