No where in the world is the underground art movement more alive and vibrant than New York City right now. This should not be surprising since this is the city of Keith Haring, and Andy Warhol. New York refuses to sleep on past glories and constantly the artists in this city are begging us to celebrate new mediums by taking it to the streets. Art must never be still and always must be accessible. Such 'underground art' is what makes this city magic. (continue following pictures):

Also this city, mostly because of "Law and Order" has become known as the home to Riker's prison. Thanks to a very zealous District Attorney cracking down on the underground art movement, one of the finest young street artists has just spent fourteen days in Riker's. Public art is never free; it comes with great sacrifice, great risk and great bravery.

Such is the story of Poster Boy, one the most exciting and dramatic in the fledgling street art movement. Using a single razor blade he has taken the best of corporate America's advertising appealing to our consumerism and turned them into powerful political pieces of guerilla art(see above). In a good year he can create and transform over two hundred such ads into true art with no copyright, no ownership and always a message. One of the reasons he loves to remain anonymous is so his work becomes the message and not the messenger. Often his works last only through photographs since MTA workers quickly tear them down.

While there is no question that his work is destruction of ads placed by corporate America, the transformation of those posters into art hardly seems like it will break corporate America's piggy bank. However making Poster Boy pay a price has become a mission with the District Attorney's office. Through a series of complex legal proceedings, the DA's office got to put Poster Boy into Rikers for fourteen days until he was bailed out by supporters.

His courage and talent has started a Poster Boy collective of people seeking to make political statements about ownership, war, greed and civil rights through street art. New York should be celebrating this brave young man as one of its most interesting young artists instead of putting him in Riker's Island.

You can buy a magnificent book of his art called "Poster Boy: The Art of War" from Amazon.com to help pay his legal expenses. In additional you can see more of his art by clicking here. Here is a video of Poster Boy in action.

According to his hometown newspaper, Mountain Echo, the grandparents of Tyler Roads received a knock on their door at 6:30AM. The military had come calling to inform them that their grandson had died in combat just three days before his 21st birthday. He had been shot and killed while serving in Afghanistan. The Burney, California marine was due to report home in just a few weeks. His friends described him as an artist who composed "beautiful lines of music!"

Eight American soldiers were killed in combat in Afghanistan in one day this week.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina powerfully and eloquently came out for marriage equality in Argentina. Guess what? After hours of debate last night, Argentina became the first Latin American nation to make marriage equality the law of the land!

Seems to me that it would be much tougher for President Kirchner politically in heavily Catholic Argentina than for President Obama in the United States.

The Argentina President pulls no punches. She deals with all aspects of the issue publicly and talks to her people why it is necessary. This is a must-watch video and be patient with the translation. I would strongly urge our organizations in Washington to make sure people in the White House see this video

Even heads of state wrung their hands when South Africa was first awarded the World Cup. Surely this African nation wouldn't be capable of handling one of the world's premiere sporting events. Sports writers wrote of crime and warned of the fortress cup where the games would have to be played with massive security. The doom and gloom predictions could not have been more wrong.

South Africa put to bed all the stereotypes, all the myths and shut up all the cynics by staging one of the most marvelous, uplifting World Cup series in history. The entire world picked up on the energy of the South African people which led the Cup to the highest television ratings in its history. Crime was no worse than most other venues. The people were literally joyful in welcoming the visitors. The infrastructure not only was completed on time but the stunning stadiums were the envy of the world.

Who will ever forget Nelson Mandela taking a victory lap around the stadium at Soccer City in Johannesburg? Or the image of elephants delaying some sporting teams? Or even those damn horns!

South Africa proved that the Southern Hemisphere is ready for its moment in the sun and the entire world benefited from these last weeks. On to Rio................!!!

Photographs from Boston.com's Big Picture. There are dozens more at the site.

Photographers here are Josep Lago (Getty) of the Crowd, Monirul Bhuijan (AP) of the stadium and Emilio Morenatti (AP) of the child.

For some silly reason, I was under the impression that Rap music had journeyed a long way in cleaning up the homophobia in its music. That clearly is not the case. Current Television's "That's Gay" with Bryan Safi has a video of excerpts from different rappers that is very disturbing. "That's Gay" has fun with the video while getting the message out but that doesn't change the situation.

Most bothersome for me was a line in the new hit by Rihanna and Jay Z called "Run This Town." These are major stars on major labels. Jay Z has a rap about "No Homo" on this video and it is going out to millions. Evidently the label 'no homo' has become common place in the rap community. Time to educate some folks in the recording industry and time to do it fast.

Caution: This video can be very explicit but I think it is important to listen to. Thanks to Rex Wockner for bringing it to my attention.