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Archive - 2008
Oh Yeah! DNC Parrrtaaayy!!
Excerpt of an email I just received for the 3rd time from an... indymedia-related video person in Denver:
Become the Media!
Get your very own Colorado Indymedia press badge,
plus a shocking array of information on events,
maps to find actions, indymedia projects, workspaces, and parties.
oh yeah. dude. especially those parties.
sigh.
Yesterday's Tweets
- 10:51 watching a DIY Days panel video #
- 13:10 uploading new fotos from new mexico trip to flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/steev #
- 17:25 dealing with a cascade of afternoon emails! not spam, even! #
- 17:31 amazed how many people misspell the word "yay" - or are they really trying to say "yeah," and misspelling that? hmm. #
Animating War Funding
I've been working hard on Death and Taxes, including some stop-motion animation to help illustrate the connection between our money and war. Playing with toy soldiers, plastic tanks, stacks of dollar bills and piles of coins. The results so far are pretty cool. Tons of work to go though. Still trying to get the whole film done by early November, but we'll see.
White Noise (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)
author: Don DeLillo
name: Steev
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/08/17
shelves:
review:
The Complete Persepolis
author: Marjane Satrapi
name: Steev
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2008/08/17
shelves:
review:
A People's History of American Empire
author: Howard Zinn
name: Steev
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2008/08/17
date added: 2008/08/17
shelves: fun, politics
review:
basically a cartoon excerpting of Zinn's People's History of The United States. Very well done. Kind of along the lines of the excellent Addicted to War "graphic novel."
If I Die in Juárez (Camino Del Sol)
author: Stella Pope Duarte
name: Steev
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2008/08/01
date added: 2008/08/17
shelves: novels
The Art of Free Cooperation
author: Geert Lovink
name: Steev
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2008/08/10
date added: 2008/08/10
shelves: politics
review:
Some good ideas, but some of the ideas just get belabored for far too long. It's basically a new way to describe anarchism. (But don't tell anybody!)
On Whores
A cowardly troll from Phoenix took exception to my characterization of the Tucson Weekly on my blog post the other day, indicating that I was a whore because I've availed myself (or more accurately my causes) of publicity thanks to the Weekly and yet I complain about that same publication.
I'm pretty much done sparring with this jerk but he/she sparked an interesting train of thought that I want to follow for a moment. What exactly is a whore? Besides the literal, sex-work definition, I assume that what was meant is a signification like this one from Wiktionary: "A person who is unscrupulous, especially one who compromises their principles for gain."
Well, as I've often observed, pretty much nobody is pure. In this un-free society where everyone is locked in a web of greed and fear and necessity, constructed by capitalism and fascism, pretty much the only people not compromising their principles for gain are those that have none. For instance, by that definition,
These are just a few examples. I could go on and on. Everyone makes compromises. But, so, yes, I'm a whore. We pretty much all are. Suck it up. The person I know who comes closest to being free of all compromises lives alone in an abandoned town off the grid, drinks from a rainfed lake, grows and shoots his own food - but he still drives to town occasionally to buy more bullets and other supplies.
Besides this compromise issue, there is the issue of tactics. If it's a crime to critique something but to also tactically exploit it as a resource or tool, then I'm guilty as charged. Lock me up. But many others who work for a better world (not to mention those who don't really work for one but rant about how one is possible) do this every day. How many freegans rail against consumer society waste yet benefit regularly from it by the dumpster-load? Primitivists who type their essays and fly to gatherings (and wear glasses and use clocks and language, etc etc) is one of the other more extreme examples. I myself think computers are evil, but I use one every day to do the work I do - that is the best way I have right now for my skills to help better the world.
So, if, to promote a screening of a film about brutally raped and murdered women, I utilize a piece-of-shit newspaper like the Tucson Weekly which I hate, well, I see no problem with that. Corporate media is a tool to be used judiciously and tactically to accomplish valuable things. Sticking my head in the sand and refusing to exploit such tools in the name of some sort of ethical purity is counterproductive and stupid.
And so is heckling and name-calling a blogger from behind the shield of anonymity.
Why the Border Wall Is Bad
Though it's now about a month old, there's an excellent article in the New Republic about what's wrong with the border wall. For a right-of-center magazine, they do a good job of laying out all the important points, and conclude that "Most experts on all sides of the immigration debate agree that the border fence is a political band-aid for a larger policy problem." Another great quote at the end that they cite, from Cecilia Mu
the past
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