visualresistance.org
redraw democracy
Visual ResistanceVisual Resistance is a collective of artists and activists based in New York City that uses art as a tool for social change. In 2007, we merged with the radical art distro JustSeeds to form a national printmakers’ cooperative. JustSeeds.org features an online store featuring radical prints, books, zines, and posters. It [...]
Visit our new digs?
I want to let you know, again, that we are much more active over at the new Justseeds Visual Resistance Artist Cooperative site. Justseeds/Visual Resistance Artists’ Cooperative is a decentralized community of artists who have banded together to both sell their work online in a central location and to collaborate with and support each other [...]
Happy Halloween
This is why I love graffiti. From my favorite writers in NYC, spreading some festive cheer to my life, and now yours. Happy Halloween!
DeAshiBarai!
DeAshiBarai! Cultural Resistance
Boring Italian Elections End With a Resurgence of Fascist AgendaThe elections ended this time not with a coin toss and declarations of fraud like last time. Most people, left, right, and center, are breathing an apathetic sigh of relief that the commercial break is finally over and Italy can finally continue with the tragi-comedy that is Italian Politics. The news that Berlusconi won was, for most, not news. He was favored ever since the last government fell. The big news, of course, was how he won. His right wing party, the Popolo della Liberta' (almost comically translated into english as "Freedom Folk" which doesn't quite capture the populist tendency Berluska was trying to create out of thin air) did only slightly better than last time around when his party Forza Italia (likewise comically translated as "Forward Italy" as in "fast forward") scored 4% less than this time. The extreme right wing (La Destra, Forza Nuova, MSI) who consistently fashion themselves moderates did quite poorly with only 1-2% of the vote. The center-left party, like Berlusconi, didn't gain or lose a significant number of votes. It only gained around 6%. What determined the election was the amazingly poor showing of the Left. Called the Rainbow Left (not so bad translation here) takes it's cue from the Rainbow flag that signifies peace here, not having anything to do with sexual orientation (although they did have a transvestite in parliament (major props to her). Anyway, they lost Big-Time. They lost so bad they are out of parliament. Actually, this is a good place for any self-respecting leftist in Italy, but they're pretty upset about not being part of the party. While the Italian parliament continues to be contaminated by all sorts of suspicious-acting criminal elements (worrying by itself), this election marked a major win for Umberto Bossi's Northern Alliance (oops, sorry, Northern League) who was able to receive 8% of the national vote. But looks should be a little deceiving. They were not even on the ballot in the south. A crafty strategy that was a condition of the Berluska-Bossi alliance this time. The south, as you might imagine, is not a natural ally of Bossi's susessionist Lega Nord. They scored 18-20% in the north, which is important since the north is basically where are of Italy's industry (and decisions) resides. The north also had a higher turnout for the election. So, basically with the big loss of the left party and the great leap forward for the anti-immigrant (or pro-italian, depending if you're an with them or not) program of the Lega Nord, Italy finds itself with Berlusconi as Prime Minister. One headline even mocked "Bossi and Berlusconi win the election" just to underscore who actually did the winning. The events surrounding this interesting change of direction is the switching of the airline from Milan to Rome with it's contemporary buyout either by Air France or by Italy's one-and-only-capitalist, Berlusconi & Sons. The other obvious situation is the Trash in Naples, which is a 14 year disaster that reared it's ulgy head recently, making world news and calling the European Union into action. A disaster, no doubt, helped by the Mafia of Campania, the Camorra, northern Industry that use Campania as an unreported and uncontrolled toxic waste dump, and the politicians that help get things rollin' for both of them. Where are we. The Northern League didn't exactly mount an impressive campaign. Their posters that linked American Indians and Northern Italians who, as the thinking goes, will end up living on the reservations once the immigrants gain a foothold, are so ignorant as to inspire laughter, if only it wasn't so convincing to 18% of Italians living in the north. It's important to remember, and as much as the Right would like to deny it, the Vote for Lega Nord is one of the last valid "protest votes" that still exist here. With a narrowing political spectrum (talk freely here about Licio Gelli's massonic Propaganda 2 (P2) club, Berlusconi's involvement therein, and their "Plan for Democratic Rebirth" which is almost a documentary of the last 10 years of politics), to vote for the Lega is to send a clear message to both Veltroni (center left) and Berlusconi (center right) that their politics suck and that things need to change. Even former center-left voters might be tempted to vote for them just to lodge their complaint. Be that as it may, the anti-immigration policies that both Bossi and his friends on the extreme Right want implemented (another synonym for this policy is "security" from the poor people who rob or from nomadic villages that spring up to eek out an existence) might have a chance in Berlusconi's government. A fascist party won in a fascist-leaning Italy, and for Berluska to deny policies to the person who handed him the election would be tantamount to political suicide; a long, slow, and torturous suicide to be sure (some people give them a year and a half to go belly-up), but a suicide none the less. On the bright side, the International Monetary Fund came for a month-long vacation in Italy and walked away with 1 percent of the Gross National Product, which stands now at 0.3. With an economy like this, it's hard-going for any government. Time to break out the champagne.
Method
I was worrying about my method today, or was it my lack of any conception of what my method might be? At this point, I could be Bruce Lee or the next idiot you meet on the sidewalk. You might not know the difference, neither do I. I started reading the Tao Te Ching, for the nth time (some lessons you never learn enough). Luckily there's always something new. **note to self: deep books like the Tao Te Ching don't do well on a commuter train! I got to the line which basically says what's important in work, and what's really at the root of it, is skill. Of course you can gain skill in something you generally wouldn't be doing in the best of all possible worlds, but anyway, attention to method/skill is important and can determine your joy/suck-cess in any job. I probably need to spend some time thinking about ways to make the lessons more effective..or maybe not. I have been preparing some sheets to explain the rudiments of basic grammar concepts...with drawings.
The Great English Teaching Scam
Let me explain how teaching english in foreign businesses works. Confession time, and calling out time. It's basically amounts to The Great English Swindle. There are essentially four actors in this crime. The HR Department: They need to justify their existence as well as unloading their huge budget on employee training. The "School" Only happy to take as much of that HR budget as they can, they try to do as much work as they can with an ever-dwindling staff (caused no doubt by the wonderful working conditions) The Student The student is happy that their company is finally giving them something for free, and it lets them out of work for a few hours for a little conversation, some exercises, and whatnot. They might have other horizons like changing jobs and gaining experience at someone else's expense, starting their own businesses (b+b's are popular dreams to follow here) or for taking trips for which some amount of survival english is required. The Teacher Fundamentally, the teacher just wants that crust of bread at the end of the month and is willing to participate in the swindle as long as the paycheck remains within an acceptable range. Now, this is not to say that genuine teaching and learning doesn't take place. I've done my fair share of poor lessons, but I've also taught and learned a lot in the process. For students, and teachers, it really depends who you have in front of you...
indybay arts newswire
Indybay Arts + Action Newswire
FRSC: David Rovics LiveIn studio Interview and performance with David Rovics Interviewed by Miss Em of Guess Who's Comming To Dinner on Aug 14. 2008
Film screening/vegan potluck--The Fountain
c.a.f.e. infoshop at 935 f street in downtown fresno
8/19 Groovy Judy rocks Loin
Boedekker Park, Eddy at Jones (Tenderloin district), San Francisco
WOMBLES - Culture
Info on upcoming cultural events, exhibitions, parties and benefit gigs.
Street Blitz: London, 1 - 15 May 2008from email, 18 March 2008: London again becomes a canvas for your bleeding 'art as the 2 week open-festival of street art and creative subversion returns to the capital. Start preparing your artwork now because the organisers are planning for this to be the one that really kicks it off! The basic premise is that you install your art on the streets and then marks its location on the map on the Street Blitz website. more
London Zine Symposium 2008, 27 April
from email, 24 April 2008: This year the Zine Symposium has moved to a bigger location with more stalls, workshops and events happening during the day. There's over 35 stalls, spread across two large rooms, selling a wide variety of zines, comix, small press creations, and revolutionary literature. more
TAA: Location for Temporary Autonomous Art Brighton announced + events list
from email 3 April,2008: We are in the building, come on down to 105 Wellington Road, Portslade. THS building on the corner of Church Road and Seafront Road: bring your artwork early to grab a space. more
deletetheborder.org - Art in Resistance
Culture War
"Opening" Night at Arse Electronica"Who wants to get fucked by a robot?"
I'm in SF this weekend going to Arse Electronica. If you're interested in the intersection of art, technology and sex you should definitely drop by the conference.
Last night was the first event and it was really amazing. Even though it was rather disorganized, with lots of improvisation and not so hot scheduling, there were two great performances. The Electronic Orifice Orchestra demonstrated their kegel instruments, which are inserted into orifices and played by varying pressure on your kegel muscles. Their costumes were awesome.
Definitely the highlight of the evening, though, was the Kink.com demo of Fucking Machines...
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I'm going to Arse Electronica this weekend!
I'm so excited about Arse Electronica, which I'm going to tomorrow, driving up to sf. But, I had a long day, so I'll just give you a link to read more...
http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/
I'll be passing out "coming soon" flyers for SharingIsSexy.org, read more here...
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We Are Everywhere! Rebel Clowns and the Queer Bloc at the SPP protest in Cana...
rebel clowns at the SPP protest in canada!
http://photos.cmaq.net/v/montebello-a20/IMG_1871.jpg.html
more photos including a hilarious and awesome queer bloc here:
http://photos.cmaq.net/v/montebello-a20/
updates on the spp here:
http://ottawa.indymedia.org/
read more
Beehive Design Collective
Cross-Pollinating the Grassroots! radical arts meets radical activism
Third Annual Blackfly Ball - August 16, 2008It's that time again! Dig out your most outlandish costume and put on your dancin' shoes - YOU are invited to attend the Third Annual Blackfly Ball- a dress up dance party for all! Beginning at 6pm on Saturday, August 16th, we will dance the night away at the Machias Valley Grange Hall, during the 33rd Annual Machias Wild Blueberry Festival.
Crash the G8 Bash- a new graphic
We Bees are excited to announce a new poster to help inspire worldwide solidarity actions during the G8 counter summit in Hokkaido, Japan! It's for you to use and circulate from wherever you are!
A new Beehive graphics campaign
It is with great enthusiasm that we announce the latest Beehive Collective graphics campaign! Since the end of March, workerbees have been travelling throughout Appalachia to inform our latest Beehive Collective graphics campaign. Through listening and dialogue with community members, activists, and organizations, we aim to create an intricate drawing illuminating the complexities associated with the extraction and usage of the single largest source of energy generation worldwide: COAL. Visit our site and new campaign blog for more information.
David Grenier's Blog
SuckerI absolutely hate reality televisions, but I’m still going to watch this, even though I know its probably going to suck. My guess is that it will be way too much about the people and their petty drama, and not enough about the dogs and their awesomeness.
The John McCain computer thing
The problem with the intersection of politics and the blogosphere is that - like the 24 hour news channels - there’s too much time to fill and not enough real news or insight to fill it. So bloggers jump on whatever tiny piece of nothing is floating around and try to pump it up into [...]
I?ll just say it
George Carlin wasn’t that funny. At least not in my teenage or adult lifetime. I mean, the guy’s been trading on routines he did when I was an infant for decades, but I never saw those. All I ever saw what a bitter, hateful, unfunny man who was not a little bit misogynistic. I also felt [...]
Fragments, or:
Hacking TimeSo, anyway, the continuing growth of the internal sense of clock-time shifts with (and also drives) a broader social sense of time. With “flexible” accumulation, or the sort of capitalist organization that David Harvey claims is really behind globalization and neoliberalism, there’s a shift from the view that working 9-5 and 40 a week is [...]
Postmodern Time
So the clock, and the related social practices that were enabled by it and furthered its penetration into society, shifted the way we perceive time and how we relate ourselves to it. From the ‘naturally’ dictated patterns of social behavior, structuring the productive processes of a society around the rhythms of the sea, the seasons, [...]
Modern Time
One of the things that seems most overbearing about Gotham is the sense of misplaced urgency that glowers in the faces of its residents. People are always in a hurry to get from nowhere to somewhere, and become very agitated if they feel someone in front of them is in their way, moving too slowly, [...]