August 29, 2001
# White Privilege

WhitePrivilege.com is up and running.

posted by dru in activism
August 28, 2001
# we are the city, we can shut it down. fool! what!

A year in the slammer couldn't keep her mouth shut

and J. Edgar Hoover couldn't move her from my heart

Hey!

Emma! Emma! Emma Goldman!

[another piggy tune, 2.7MB]

David Grenier, writer, bowler and domestic terrorist tries to Reclaim the Streets.

One kid stepped forward and the cops tackled him and slammed his face into the pavement. This is what the cops wanted. They could now call us "violent potesters" because we were protesters in a violent situation they had created.

...

The real shits and giggles part of all this is that there were two groups on the street that day. One group carried guns and clubs, used chemical agents on unarmed civilians, made up laws as they went along (you can’t share food in the park, for example), and used violence to advance their boss' political career and try to intimidate folks from exercising their freedoms if those freedoms conflict with commercial interests. The other group gave food out freely, tried to avoid conflict by staying on the sidewalk, and was armed only with puppets and costumes. Yet the cops are praised in the media by the politicians, while the FBI has labeled Reclaim the Streets a terrorist organization.

So what the media really means when they say "protesters clashed with police" is "police brutally beat and sprayed poisonous chemicals at protesters, who were committing serious crimes, such as jaywalking."

[for google]

posted by dru in activism
by Piggy lover

Darn! I really wanted that "Emma Goldman!" tune. Haven't been able to get it out of my head since I heard it 5 years ago in HFX.

Does anyone have another link to it?

by Paul Gailiunas

You can email me if you want a CD with that Piggy song; that was my old band!

by marian free hardcore incest pics

an a encoding only.

by father daughter insest

Linux be useful. need.

August 27, 2001
# enunciatory modality.

The Bad Writing Contest.

If, for a while, the ruse of desire is calculable for the uses of discipline soon the repetition of guilt, justification, pseudo-scientific theories, superstition, spurious authorities, and classifications can be seen as the desperate effort to "normalize" formally the disturbance of a discourse of splitting that violates the rational, enlightened claims of its enunciatory modality.

posted by dru in blog
August 26, 2001
# Corporate Rights Now!

"South Carolina is a strong right-to-work state and a citizen's right not to join a union is absolute and will be fully protected." Apparently.

posted by dru in activism
# If nothing is serious anymore, then there's nothing to satirize.

The Onion's interview with Berkeley Breathed is chock full of sharp commentary, of which the following excerpt is not really an example. Well worth reading.

I started as a news photographer at the University Of Texas' Daily Texan. They failed to see the marketing advantage in manipulating news photos (this is pre-digital, remember) to enhance the drama. I recall a dandy front-page photo of a community street preacher, in which I burned a halo floating above his head. I got fired and started writing stories for the campus magazine. I wrote about an unnamed student who secretly released hundreds of baby alligators into nearby Lake Travis, which would have been compelling if I hadn't made it up. Property values around the lake plummeted over $70,000,000 the next week, which brought federal game agents into town. I was arrested, eventually--you think I'm lying again, but I'm not, check the records--and then the death threats and getting kicked out of my apartment complex and I won't bore you with the rest, except to add that some wise sage finally suggested that the cartooning desk might be where I belonged, as I could let my little imagination soar wherever it wanted, and federal agents wouldn't be needed. So I started copying Doonesbury, and you know the rest.

posted by dru in culture
August 23, 2001
# IP freely?

Intellectual Property and the Organization of Information Production [100k, pdf] looks interesting.

...increased protection benefits commercial information producers that vertically integrate new production with management of large-scale owned inventories of existing information, and that have incentives systematically to misapply human capital to information resources. This benefit comes at the expense of alternative strategies, both commercial and noncommercial.

The Purpose of Copyright

As the Supreme Court has recognized: "The immediate effect of our copyright law is to secure a fair return for an 'author's' creative labor. But the ultimate aim is, by this incentive, to stimulate artistic creativity for the general public good."

...

Modern-day copyright harbors a dark side. The misunderstanding held by many who believe that the primary purpose of copyright law is to protect authors against those who would pilfer the author's work threatens to upset the delicate equilibrium in copyright law. ...this pervasive misconception is turning copyright into what our founding fathers tried to guard against - a tool for censorship and monopolistic oppression. This may sound extreme to some, but consider the beginnings of copyright in this country. The first Copyright Act in the United States granted only the exclusive right only to print, publish, and vend a copyrighted work, and it lasted for only fourteen years, with the possibility of a second fourteen-year term. No exclusive rights to perform the work or to create an adaptation of the work were granted, only the right to print, publish, and vend for, at most, twenty-eight years.

posted by dru in politicsoftech
# entertainment

Piggy was once a great radical Calypso band from Halifax, though their music lives on through compact disc... and now MP3. I've posted one song "Money is King" [2.4 MB].

I recently discovered Boondocks, and have been reading the archives obsessively. Some choice panels (in no particular order): 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

The Transformers Multiverse. Information about every Transformer. Through some combination of nostalgia and geekiness, this stuff still fascinates me. I can still remember the first time I got all the pieces of the Constructicon in one place and was able to assemble the whole thing. Wow, Hasbro got way too much of my money.

Some films I have recently seen (some for the second or third time), and think are quite worthwhile. So next time you feel the inclination to go see Planet of the Apes or similar worthless tripe, rent one of these instead. I command it.

Dang. There are more, but I can't remember at the moment. Have you seen any movies that are worth actually watching? Post below.

posted by dru in culture
by Bryan Murray

Try "The Big One" by Michael Moore

by Dru

Funny you should mention it. I was planning on watching that tommorrow night :>

by David Grenier

I watched A Bugs Life the other night. Same storyline as The Seven Samauri and a speech so dripping with class consciousness it would make Big Bill Haywood himself sit up and take notice.

by sybil fantasy rape edwin

C++, in Mac used,.

by sybil fantasy rape edwin

C++, in Mac used,.

August 21, 2001
# the local beat

Robert Fisk on working at regional newspapers.

And we wrote in clichés. Always clichés. When the police were seeking a hit-and-run driver, they either "spread their net" or "narrowed their search" or "stepped up their hunt". Company directors were "bosses", scientists were invariably "boffins", officials were always "chiefs", storm-battered ships inevitably "limped" into port. Suicides were always tragic, brides always beautiful, angry councillors were "hopping mad" and protesting villagers would always "take to the streets". Those who discovered bodies were, of course, "horror-struck" or "mystified"; the latter applied to the construction gang building a new Blyth bypass who excavated dozens of corpses – all in their Victorian Sunday best – and thought they'd discovered a mass murder before realising they were digging up an old cemetery. Needless to say, Tory election candidates always "lashed out" at the sitting Labour MP, Eddie Blythe.

I'm on a bit of a Chomsky kick.

Chomsky on Postmodernism:

...that ``plain language is not enough when the frame of reference is not available to the listener'' [is] correct and important. But the right reaction is not to resort to obscure and needlessly complex verbiage and posturing about non-existent ``theories.'' Rather, it is to ask the listener to question the frame of reference that he/she is accepting, and to suggest alternatives that might be considered, all in plain language. I've never found that a problem when I speak to people lacking much or sometimes any formal education, though it's true that it tends to become harder as you move up the educational ladder, so that indoctrination is much deeper, and the self-selection for obedience that is a good part of elite education has taken its toll. Johnb says that outside of circles like this forum, ``to the rest of the country, he's incomprehensible'' (``he'' being me). That's absolutely counter to my rather ample experience, with all sorts of audiences. Rather, my experience is what I just described. The incomprehensibility roughly corresponds to the educational level. Take, say, talk radio. I'm on a fair amount, and it's usually pretty easy to guess from accents, etc., what kind of audience it is. I've repeatedly found that when the audience is mostly poor and less educated, I can skip lots of the background and ``frame of reference'' issues because it's already obvious and taken for granted by everyone, and can proceed to matters that occupy all of us. With more educated audiences, that's much harder; it's necessary to disentangle lots of ideological constructions.

On Economic Experiments:

There have been quite a few experiments in economic development in the modern era, and though it is doubtless wise to be wary of sweeping generalizations, still they do exhibit some regularities that are hard to ignore. One is that the designers seem to come out quite well, though the experimental subjects, who rarely sign consent forms, quite often take a beating.

posted by dru in good_articles
August 19, 2001
# Apropo

More examples of Corporate appropriation of revolutionary imagery, accompanied by some rather clueless analysis.

Some interesting photos of the 1968 (?) World Fair.

posted by dru in culture
August 17, 2001
# Michael and Me

Hey, it's me, talking to Michael Moore at Webzine 2001 in NYC.

posted by dru in blog
August 16, 2001
# Palestine

Chomsky on Israel vs. Palestine:

The purpose of the terror, economic strangulation and daily humiliation is not obscure. It was articulated in the early years of the occupation by Moshe Dayan, one of the Israeli leaders most sympathetic to the Palestinian plight, who advised his Labor Party associates to tell the Palestinians that "you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave."

Is Linux ready for the corporate desktop?, By Miguel De Icaza.

posted by dru in us
by MATT

I JUST WANNA DO MY DAMN HW AND I CANT DO SHIT CAUSE THIS WEB SITE SUCKS ASS GOSH CNT U DO NE THNG OVER THERE JEZZ GET IT OVER WITH SO I DONT HAVE TO STUDY THIS DAMN STUFF GOSH

by horse sex

developed the you to.

by horse sex

developed the you to.

August 13, 2001
# Full Coverage for the People

Full Coverage for the People, a design for a transparent, collaborative, and somewhat more democratic way of organizing news coverage, loosely based on Yahoo's Full Coverage. Comments welcome and encouraged.

Which little boy will grow up to be President?

Nader on Online Voting Records. "New technology is beholden to old politics and power structures, just like the old technology." That's worth repeating.

Filegate.gov, an old Wired article about why Congress still doesn't put most of their documents online.

The Congressional Accountability Project is still working on it, apparently.

Capitalizing on the Anti-Capitalist Movement.

www.lightpollution.it

posted by dru in politicsoftech
by Kendall

Or as I put it recently:

Technology...reflects institutional and social structures far more

often than it changes them. Technology is only possible within the context of the social and political practices that create, maintain, and extend it. And the social and political practices that constitute social institutions are the limits within which technology can mean or be anything at all.

My take on online voting -- The Folly of Internet Voting, or Democracy and Disenfranchisement.

August 12, 2001
# anarchy

A story about Anarchism in the mainstream media. Who'd have thought it possible?

I've been using the term Left Wing Wacko to describe myself and my activities, especially when visiting folks back home. Now I know I was using it accurately.

Dave Grenier on Poetry Slams.

An interesting theory about Japanese culture.

posted by dru in activism
by jessamyn

I found this link worked better for accessing the anarchism article. It really is a novel approach for the mainstream media. "heya, here's no hype, just some FYI about why the ranting nonsense you hear from the standard media about anarchism is all wack."

August 09, 2001
# tra

whee.jpg

posted by dru in blog
by Fred Hubner

Is it upside down or is it just an illusion ?

by Dru

Good question.

August 08, 2001
# Your tax dollars at work.

Oh. God. The country I grew up in is intentionally killing children.

After a brief hiatus, the Daily Churn is back, with (potentially) better software guts.

posted by dru in blog
August 07, 2001
# fun ding

Who Pays for Content? Funding in Interactive Media.

The Deconstructed Journal: a new model for Academic Publishing.

posted by dru in politicsoftech
by David Grenier

Read that "who pays for content" piece. Pretty good but I think very outdated. The internet has changed so fast, the market has changed so much, and the demographic of users has expanded so rapidly in the past few years that 1996 predictions are worthless now.

August 06, 2001
# tenalp fo eht sepa

I saw planet of the apes. I'm really too disgusted to write about it at any length, so go read Dave Grenier's review, which I mostly agree with (Except for the suggestion that the plot has any redeeming qualities. It must be emphasized that it doesn't).

posted by dru in culture
August 02, 2001
# travelling

I'm travelling again. Go ahead and post interesting links by using the 'post a comment' feature. It doesn't matter if they have nothing to do with misnomer. I'm interested in what people who read this are interested in.

posted by dru in blog
by heidi

hey dru hope your travels are going well. looking forward to having you back in sackville soon. I check this site quite often for links, but i've also been using the internet to research for two special topics classes i'm working on. this is a cool site with lots o links on i'll use for my course on contemporary women philosophers/theororists http://artemis.simmons.edu/~namei/page3.html

i'm also going to study some of walter benjamin's arcades project and this site is really fun to explore

http://art.derby.ac.uk/~g.peaker/arcades/passagenwerk.html

cheers