Finn Cunningham said:
Hello,
Here are some posters that I’ve made that folks are welcome to print and use (some of them use the word Occupy which i know is problematic and also recognizable.) If there are any specific posters you’d like created, or certain quotes or phrases illustrated let me know. I injured myself in a fall last week so I have a lot of time right now to draw in bed. Also, if anyone wants to collaborate on larger works or be wheat pasting buddies feel free to email me.
Thanks!
You might think from my lack of posting that not much has been going on. On the contrary, so much has been going on, and there’s so much I want to write, but I have been utterly busy in this extraordinary historical moment. This is a revolutionary time. What seems possible changes almost day-to-day. Politics are quite literally unpredictable.
I recently read a great account of a timid liberal’s changes through participation in Occupy Oakland. A homeless man below tells how Occupy Atlanta has saved him from crack addiction.
The Occupy movement has changed me, too. At first, I took an observer’s stance. A couple of weeks in, I joined the October 5th march around the city – a march that was extremely positive and open, without any feelings of fear or aggression. The police behaved well, blocking traffic to help the march (which I believe was unpermitted).
Robert Reich spoke at Occupy SF on Wednesday, October 19th, 2011. He presents a left-liberal point of view, setting out the premise that progressives can save capitalism. I disagree with much of that, but am impressed to see a liberal icon out on the streets with a megaphone, expounding on economics and the moral nature of the Occupy movement to ordinary people.
There’s quite a bit at this article at the Daily Kos, but I’ve transcribed a section of question and answer below.
This extraordinary – the doubling of defense spending after 9/11, and what is that being done to the economy? Well, I’ll tell you, what it means is, we don’t have the money for schools, we don’t have the money to fix our roads and bridges and public transportation, we don’t have the money for healthcare, we can’t do what we need to do in this country. And if I were asked, you know, what would one of my planks be in terms of change, I’d say, at least, at least, cut in half the defense budget.
This email was sent out to the Wikileaks Support Announcement list.
As I’ve said before, I believe that the most important task related to defending Wikileaks is to defend Bradley Manning. His pre-trial hearing (after more than 500 days in jail) will be announced any day now. We would love to have a large and immediate response to send a message to the powers-that-be.
We were able to improve Bradley’s conditions in jail through our activism. A large turnout will help Bradley get a public, instead of a closed, trial, which in turn tremendously improves his chances of going free or getting a shorter sentence.
Well, this is just a wonderful confluence. Slavoj Žižek spoke at Occupy Wall Street on Sunday, October 9th, 2011, at noon. Here is the YouTube video of it in two parts. The human amplification makes for slow going. Thanks to 600euros for transcribing, which I cleaned up below. Thanks also to visitordesign for posting the videos.
Daniel Everett went to Brazil as a missionary to convert the Pirahã, a tiny (<400 members) Amazonian tribe. Instead, the tribe effectively converted him into an atheist. He then became a professional linguist and anthropologist, and has continued to study the tribe.
Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes is fascinating for its description of the Pirahã culture/language, which is so dramatically different from ours as to radically challenge our notions of language and even what it means to be human. They lack numbers, words for colors, Gods, and creation myths. They don’t have words for “right” or “left” – instead, they might refer to your “upriver” leg. Their tonal language has three vowels and eight consonants (seven for women), although they can whistle and hum the language, useful for hunting and talking while your mouth is full, respectively.
Their language has no recursion, which makes Noam Chomsky cry. One can only legitimately talk about things one has directly experienced, or things that someone who directly experienced them told one. This made Everett’s proselytizing very difficult, since he had never met anyone who had seen Jesus. Because they don’t have numbers, they can’t do arithmetic. At all. They have the simplest kinship system known, no war, and like many hunter-gatherers, no system of private property.
The book also includes some very lively anecdotes about river traders, malaria, etc., but for me the overwhelming value was as an ethnography that made me marvel at the diversity of human culture.
It’s over. The long national nightmare of navel-gazing, self-pity, self-indulgence, and excuse-making has at last come to an end.
This is your official notice: effectively immediately, the phrase “post-9/11 world” is obsolete. It has been permanently retired.
It had a good run. A full decade. I have even given you an extra day or so of leeway. But “post-9/11” must now go. For to keep it around, whether out of laziness, convenience, or just force of habit, would be to cheapen and debase it (further). We don’t refer to a “post-Berlin Wall” world, do we? Or “post-JFK”? History is too far advanced for us to still be “post-Civil War” or even “post-World War Two”.
Should you find someone still using the phrase “post-9/11 world”, please remind them: We are now officially in a “post-post-9/11 world”. The use of the phrase “post-9/11” is no longer acceptable.
Hello, my name is Martin MacKerel. I spoke at the special BART Board meeting about the phone service cutoff on August 11th.
First of all, I want to thank you for listening. A few times I have spoken at public meetings of other bodies, and usually the public participation seems just for show. Your meeting seemed genuine.
I have a couple of responses to statements at the meeting. I agree strongly with Edward Hasbrouck’s point that it is not appropriate for BART staff or the Board to have the sole power to temporarily shut off service; instead, the staff should get an injunction from a judge. This is in keeping with the long-standing American idea of checks and balances.
I spoke at a special BART Board meeting this morning about their cutting of cellphone service during a protest. I thought that the board actually seemed open and interested in public input, in contrast to most public hearings I’ve been to. The President of the Board, Bob Franklin, actually came up to me briefly afterwards and thanked me for my attitude – I had said in my comment that I was taking the Board at their word and meeting in this “appropriate” forum for dialogue before engaging in protest. The meeting did, actually, feel like part of a dialogue.
I came out strongly against the action and in favor of free speech, and pointed out that it took a riot in January 2009 to get Mehserle arrested. One might blame the immaturity of the rioters, but it would be more instructive to consider the deafness of the power structure.
Continue reading “Special BART Board Meeting on Mobile Phone Service Interruption of August 11th”
Both my experience reading this book and my experience writing this review were quite interesting. I loved both Where Good Ideas Come From and The Invention of Air, also by Steven Johnson, and read each in a short period of time. I expected the same from this book, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software.
‘Twas not to be, however. I read about halfway through the book, got fed up, and left it for a few weeks before finishing it. It took me a couple weeks to start writing the book review. I wrote most of one, then threw it out. Now, several weeks later, I am starting over.
Fish Rock Road 