Cartoons: finding truth and the sane alternative

Many of this week's cartoons are about Hillary and Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. And Jeb. One or two are about Star Wars: the Force Awakens, due out in December.

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Dana Summers, The Week

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Pat Bagley, The Week

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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Chan Lowe, The Week

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-- Marge

Medicine and the C-word

Isabel Bishop. Two Girls (1935), California Digital Library

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Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it seems to me that some information on the topic of breast cancer, published in Time Magazine, bears consideration. At base the article--Why Doctors Are Rethinking Breast-Cancer Treatment--presents evidence that DCIS, classified as Stage 0 of breast cancer, is often over-treated. The article also contains some compelling arguments and I recommend buying a hard-copy of the issue (October 12, 2015). Time online has 2 additional articles: Choosing to Wait: A New Approach to Breast Cancer at Its Earliest Stages and A Major Shift in Breast Cancer Understanding.

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There were a couple of points made about our perception of cancer and the resistance to change rooted in medicine's standard of care that particularly struck me.

One,

Cancer has a language problem–not just in the way we speak about it, as a war that drafts soldiers who never signed up for it, who do battle and win, or do battle and lose. There’s also the problem of the word itself. A 57-year-old woman with low-grade DCIS that will almost certainly never become invasive hears the same word as the 34-year-old woman who has metastatic malignancies that will kill her. That’s confusing to patients conditioned to treat every cancer diagnosis as an emergency, in a world that still reacts to cancer as though it’s the beginning of the end and in a culture where we don’t talk about death until we have to.

And two,

“I hear people say that medicine is so important that we can’t be too quick to change, and I would say the opposite: Because it’s so important, we need to innovate,” says Dr. Laura Esserman, a surgeon and the director of the Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center at UCSF. “If we were doing so well and no one was dying, I would agree we don’t need to change. But patients don’t like the treatment options, and physicians don’t like the outcomes.”
Esserman and Hwang, now chief of breast surgery at Duke University and Duke Cancer Institute in North Carolina, are leading a number of studies that they hope will fill in some of the knowledge gaps that make change such an uphill battle. DCIS now accounts for about 20% to 25% of breast cancers diagnosed through screening. Before routine screening, which went wide in the mid-1980s, it was 3%.

The treatment proposed is called "active surveillance," a term often used for prostate cancer.

Again, read the articles for a more complete picture.

-- Marge

Wrong hands

Recently my issues of Time Magazine have contained delightful cartoons by John Atkinson. Here's a sample.

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John Atkinson, Wrong Hands

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John Atkinson, Wrong Hands

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John Atkinson, Wrong Hands

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John Atkinson, Wrong Hands

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John Atkinson, Wrong Hands

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You can find more at his Wrong Hands site.

-- Marge

Cartoons: how about "politically enlightened"?

Just two topics this week: Playboy Magazine's departure from nudity and the question of who will be the next Speaker of the House.

As The American Spectator puts it, Playboy puts its clothes on. What, Guys, you weren't reading Playboy for the articles?

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Nate Beeler, The Week

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Dana Summers, The Week

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From the Wall Street Journal there's this--GOP Presses Paul Ryan as Republicans Search for Next House Speaker. He says he's not interested. The tea party group has its own agenda. Meanwhile, the GOP side of the House is leaderless and rudderless. Warning: this Jay Bookman article is strongly opinionated. However, there's a great video with Groucho Marx.

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Jack Ohman, The Week

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Steve Sack, The Week

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Tom Toles, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: Maintaining a Blogger blog

Stamp, France, 1937, Rene Descartes, postbit
"Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am)"

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It seems that posts over 3 years old deteriorate. Looking through posts published in 2012, I see that many have images and videos missing. What to do?

My solution is to back up the blog as it exists now by browsing to the dashboard and selecting settings/other/Blog Tools/Export blog. From there the usual download window appears (if you have 'ask' selected in your browser settings). Look through the downloaded .xml  file to see if you got the information you wanted. Be aware: the code is dense and difficult to parse. Mainly you want to know that you can find the images posted, or at least the references to their source, and what you wrote. This information is material for future posts. Google has a page about export or import your blog.

Next, once more at the dashboard, I selected Posts/Published and set all posts published in 2012 to "revert to draft." Once they're reverted, you can find them under Posts/All.

The image at the top refers to a question I ask myself fairly often: why blog? In part the answer is I'm driven by an inquiring mind. Also I dislike wasting anything, including research, and like to entertain in a subdued way. Sometimes the posts serve as notes for something I'm working on.

-- Marge

National bash Columbus Day

kaitlinrogers, Columbus Day, someecards

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The Columbus that we learned in school discovered America and is honored on Columbus Day has lost his standing among many.

You can find succinct comments on him in these memes: Columbus Day 2015: All the Memes You Need to See and someecards' Columbus Day collection. Of course, memes are meant to bash something.

Instead, More cities celebrate ‘Indigenous Peoples Day’ amid efforts to abolish Columbus Day. There's also a Native American' Day.

-- Marge

Cartoons: tension, strife, and unease

No comments or references from me today, just cartoons.

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Bob Gorrell, The Week

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David Fitzsimmons, The Week

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Mike Lukovich, The Week

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Mike Keefe, The Week

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Dana Summers, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: Halloween 2015

Trio of minion costumes, Instructables

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It's time again to troll the web for Halloween ideas. And there are some good ones. Group costumes appear to be big this year.

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Mario Kart (Image Imgur, ShadowmanJack), Mashable

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Here are links to 3 lists with images: 35 Fun Group Halloween Costumes for You and Your Friends; 20 Genius Halloween Costume Ideas You Can Whip Up Last Minute; and 11 Halloween Costumes No One Else Will Have. The slides in this last list also serve as comments on current social trends and perceptions; one of the slides--Unemployed Dov Charney--links to a background article about the former CEO of American Apparel.

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Costume: Unemployed Dov Charney, refinery29

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There 20,000 ideas at Coolest Homemade Costumes.

If the minions in Despicable Me have caught your fancy, here's how a number of people have adapted them to costumes: 21 DIY Minion Costumes from Despicable Me for Halloween. If you have the time and patience, this article will explain how to build a costume true to the original minion form: Trio of Minion Costumes (Despicable Me). The instructions are fairly complicated, but the description walks you through them well.

Instructables is sponsoring a Halloween Costume Contest (the minion costumes above are an entry). There are 33 days left to submit an entry and the prizes are described thus:

Ready your sewing machines, fire up the glue guns, and charge your battery packs, it's Halloween again! Enter your DIY masterpieces in the Halloween Costume Contest for a chance to win some awesome prizes including an iPad Mini, a Petcube Camera, a Leatherman multitool, Samsung digital camera, and more, provided by HalloweenCostumes.com and Petcube!

-- Marge

Fixing broken posts -- one at a time

Google Earth Pro being used for geology 

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I noticed the other day that some videos in previous posts don't work. Often they are reported as "private." So I'm beginning to review the older posts and replace the missing videos.

It may take a long time; there are 560 posts to check.

The first one fixed (published in June, 2012) is Spinning the Earth with your cursor... And the video replaced is about placing a building modeled in Sketchup into Google Earth and sharing it.

BTW, Google Earth Pro is now free! And Sketchup 2015 has been released.

-- Marge

Cartoons: have the bullies won?

Now the question is--how much sheer bedlam did Boehner keep down?

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David Horsey, The Week

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Will the GOP ever get itself under control?

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Drew Sheneman, The Week

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I love a good pun, even a near miss.

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John Deering, The Week

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Planned Parenthood got yelled at. This from Slate Magazine:

Watching Republicans repeatedly interrupt and yell at Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards on Tuesday, one might get the impression that there's some kind of national uprising against the existence of affordable women's health care. Republicans repeatedly excoriated the organization for focusing on contraception and Pap smears instead of on mammograms, which are typically done at radiology centers. ... Viewers got a laundry list of things that Republicans felt should be funded instead of low-cost birth control and STI treatment at Planned Parenthood. Rep. Glenn Grothman even argued (bewilderingly) that since there's medical care he can get "as a guy," then Planned Parenthood—and by implication, its gynecological services (?!?)—is unnecessary. The message was clear: Taxpayer-funded gynecological care is an illegitimate use of government funding.

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Mike Lukovich, The Week

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OK, OK, there is/was water on Mars.

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RJ Matson, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: Build your own tiny house

Sunset House, Tiny House Swoon

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According to Wikipedia's entry on the Small House Movement,

In the United States the average size of new single family homes grew from 1,780 square feet (165 m2) in 1978 to 2,479 square feet (230.3 m2) in 2007, and to 2,662 square feet (247.3 m2) in 2013, despite a decrease in the size of the average family. Reasons for this include increased material wealth and prestige.

The small house movement is a return to houses of less than 1,000 square feet (93 m2).

Sometimes there is a distinction made between small--less than 1000 sq.ft.--and tiny--less than 400 sq.ft. A resource for information on the tiny house is The Tiny Life, a site with a lot of information about living tiny. 11 Tiny Houses looks a number of different approaches to building a tiny house. Some of these builds remind me of living off the grid. Note that many tiny houses are built on wheels, making them sort of home-made RVs.

For more background on tiny houses, take a look at Time Magazine's Tiny Houses With Big Ambitions. Also, there's a documentary on Vimeo titled Living Small.

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The $8000 tiny house, Loving Tiny Life

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TinyHouseBuild reports on a tiny house you can build for $8000. One article worth note is The Incredible $8,000 Tiny House: Serious Saving Strategies While You Build. The builders of this house have a site, Loving Tiny Life, that talks about their experiences.

Two photo essays about small houses are These tiny homes are full of big ideas and 44 of the Most Impressive Tiny Houses You've Ever Seen.

Stock house plans can be found at sites like America's Best and Jacobsen Homes. But the prices can range from several hundreds to thousands of dollars. It's best to do some research at a site like Home Style Choices first.

If you're wondering what living in a tiny house might feel like, check out this video.

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-- Marge

Politics: Boehner and the Pope

John Boehner, Pope Francis(Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin/Craig Ruttle), Salon

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Wow! John Boehner resigned.

He simply decided to resign on Friday, says NPR (National Public Radio). News analysts at Business Insider say this action will likely avert a government shutdown. The military has been preparing for such a shutdown.

Robert Costa at the Washington Post tells how Boehner was affected by the Pope's presence in Congress in What John Boehner told me the night before he said he was quitting.

The New York Times has an analysis of Pope Francis' address to Congress. And Time has published a transcript of the Pope's speech.

For some perspective on why men of power change course, take a look at Meet Hillary Clinton’s Bulldog,

-- Marge

Cartoons: the Pope has landed

This week's mix looks at belief in its many forms.

The Pope has landed.

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Walt Handelsman, The Week

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Republicans are the new heretics.

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Drew Sheneman, The Week

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It looks like D. Trump's only God is himself.

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David Fitzsimmons, The Week

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VW disappoints. Wikipedia tells us that the Volkswagen, Beetle version, was originally "formulated by Adolf Hitler, leader of Nazi Germany, wishing for a cheap, simple car to be mass-produced for the new road network of his country." The simple, cheap part of his concept was discarded years ago. Did you know that Volkswagen installed "software known as "defeat devices" in many of its diesel cars to evade federal emission limits?"

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Bob Gorrell, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: a (smart) phone worth keeping

Dave Hakkens, Phonebloks, Wikipedia

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In 2013 Dave Hakkens' Phonebloks campaign began with a single video. Dutch designer Hakkens had presented his idea for an open-source modular smartphone at his graduation from Design Academy Eindhoven. Here's the video.

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Soon after Google/Motorola stepped up to partner with Phonebloks in developing the concept. This effort became Project ARA with a pilot release date of early 2015. Google's ATAP group is handling the effort; the team is headed by Paul Eremenko, formerly with DARPA. There's an ATAP channel on YouTube. Here's a video about the development effort.

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The Verge reported in May 2015

...the project is expected to begin a pilot test in Puerto Rico later this year where the public will presumably be able to try it out.

As an aside, another ATAP project of interest is a Spotlight Story titled "Duet" in Times Square; a making-of video is below.

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-- Marge

Art: Zaha Hadid's flowing architectural shapes

Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid is an architect known for remarkable buildings like this one: 

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Heydar Aliyev Centre (photo by Iwan Baan), zaha-hadid.com

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You can see more views of this gorgeous construct at Zaha Hadid's site under Heydar Aliyev Centre.

What I wondered is how such a structure is built. Luckily Buildipedia has an extensive article on the Aliyev Centre's construction. Here's a photo of the central structure without the "Glass fiber reinforced plastics (GFRP) and glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC) panel (Buildipedia)" façade.

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Heydar Aliyev Centre, Buildipedia

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To get an idea of what the Centre feels like inside, take a look at this photo of one of three auditoriums.

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An auditorium in Heydar Aliyev Centre, Buildipedia

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In July 2012, Architects' Journal reported a fire that damaged the roof. Apparently some controversy surrounded the design project. The building had opened in the preceding May.

E-architect reported in 2014:

Zaha Hadid’s Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan has won the Design Museum Design of the Year Award 2014. Hadid is the first ever woman to win the top prize in the competition, now in its seventh year.

-- Marge

Cartoons: sharp pencils

Today's mix includes comments on Donald Trump v. Carly Fiorina; the Pope v. Republicans; County Clerk Kim Davis v. all not in agreement; and Apple v. the common pencil.

In the second GOP presidential debate Trump met his match: Carly Fiorina.

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Steve Benson, The Week

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The Syrian refugees are posing intense problems for Europe and the U.S. is being asked to step up and help. Here's are some excuses the U.S. is presenting: Why the U.S. Can't Immediately Resettle Syrian Refugees. Pope Francis wants us to give them shelter.

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Steve Kelley, The Week

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Published in the Louisville Courier-Journal, Clergy weighs Kim Davis' legal, moral rights.

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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And last, but not least, Apple announces the Apple Pencil for iPad Pro.

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Nate Beeler, The Week

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-- Marge

LSD news

thisisvegas, This cat.., reddit 

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This is just in from the Alchemist Newsletter, a ChemWeb publication--Wondrous, tender music:

New research into the hallucinogenic drug, LSD, lysergic acid diethylamide, could help explain why music gives us the tingles and makes us emotional. There is renewed interest from medical science into the mode of action of LSD as well as its potential therapeutic effects. This coupled with its infamous use by musicians and other artists, especially during the 1950s and 1960s, led to a placebo-controlled study that looked at whether or not LSD enhances the emotional response to instrumental music. In a preliminary study with a small group of volunteers, LSD was found to boost emotions such as "wonder", "transcendence", "power" and "tenderness", according to a team from Imperial College London writing in the journal Psychopharmacology (Berl) in August this year. 

Reports on this study are in The Atlantic, Seeing Opportunity in Psychedelic Drugs, and The Guardian, Psychedelic drugs like LSD could be used to treat depression, study suggests. The team at Imperial College London reports New study discovers biological basis for magic mushroom 'mind expansion'.

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LSD illustration, Imperial College London

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For a more traditional view of LSD, check out the Wikipedia article, Lysergic acid diethylamide. LSD is a controlled substance in the U.S; HowStuffWorks explains what that means. The DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) has published a fact sheet on LSD (PDF format).

Disclaimer: Please don't take this post as an encouragement to experiment with LSD. This writer is simply offering information.

-- Marge

Exploring WikiArt

Every child is an artist.
The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

--Pablo Picasso

WikiArt, aka WikiPaintings, is one of the best references for learning about painters and their work I've found.  One of the most useful features is being able to see how an artist's work evolved. You can find a specific artist by name in the alphabetic list or search using the search box in the upper right corner.

Take, for example, Pablo Picasso. The page that loads when you select his name has 3 tabs: Artist; All Artworks Chronologically, and All Artworks by Alphabet. Below his self-portrait there is a slider with featured works arranged chronologically. Under the chronological tab all of his works are presented in a matrix and at the bottom of the page is a slider with all of this works by date. Picasso produced an amazing total 1127 works. Any work listed can be clicked for a slide show of larger images.

Also on the main page for Picasso is a list for access to works by style, period, series, genre, and technique. Each category opens to its own slider.

Perhaps the best known painting from Picasso's early years is his "Portrait of the Artist's Mother," painted in 1896.

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Picasso, Portrait of the artist's mother (1896), WikiArt

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In his Blue Period, he painted "The Old Blind Guitarist."

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Picasso, The old blind guitarist (1903), WikiArt

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Perhaps his best-known work of all is "The girls of Avignon," painted in 1907. It marked the beginning of his cubist period and a personal turning point. Camille Paglia in Glittering Images says that the 8 foot by 7.6 foot painting was considered "the most important painting of the twentieth century." Its original title is "The Demoiselles d'Avignon."

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Picasso, The girls of Avignon (1907), WikiArt

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This little introduction to WikiArt touches only the tip of the iceberg. According to Wikipedia:
"They claim to have reached 75,000 paintings, as of June, 2012." ... "The developers are based in Ukraine." The WikiArt Blog gives a Financial Report for 2013.

-- Marge