News that gets out stays out? I thought the title of my last post was clever, but since I hit "Publish" I have wondered if it is only partially true. I think, for example, of the urge to speak indicated by graffiti in any American city. In South Bend a huge gallery of art underneath one of the river bridges was painted over a couple of years ago, and as far as I can tell no record remains online. I was fond of one image particularly, a huge ant peeking over a wall almost exactly as the playfully drawn Kilroy did in World War II-era "Kilroy was here" graffiti.

My favorite South Bend street image probably lasted only a few days. It was a blue man with his mouth sealed by an X of tape above the slogan, "Where is your voice?" It looked like it was a stencil and spray paint job and it was centered on a really prime section of wall on the downtown river walk, almost exactly as a painting would be hung in the galleries immediately across the river in the South Bend Museum of Art. If it was a stencil job, then maybe it will appear again someday, who knows. The city painted over it very neatly--they don't always bother to make a reclaimed wall look good, by the way.

Here and on Twitter I'm very interested in voices that are heard or silenced, news that gets out, or not. Images that are seen or obscured. The structures of society that influence who is heard, and the impact of these inequalities on our democracy and our quality of life.