I just read this great interview with the author of a book about agriculture and how it screwed up civilization. Lots of ideas that are very compatible with Daniel Quinn's, whose work is really really important, and one of the most inspiring writers i've ever read.

Mankind screwed up when we started farming, and we're starting to really suffer 11 thousand years later. That's the basic idea.

This is exciting. I just received the new video that Indymedia Bolivia just finished, "Aunque se caiga el cielo" ("Even if the sky falls"). They have been showing it around Bolivia, but I think we might have the North American premiere here in Portland. We have our big Bolivia video screening next Tuesday.

I'm afraid that we don't really have time to transcribe, translate, and subtitle the film in just a week's time. But we could do it with a live interpreter or something. It's exciting that we have something new to show, in addition to the 4 older pieces. I'm excited to be able to help spread it far and wide here in the States, too.

I'm going to run down to the studio and start capturing it to hard disk in a few minutes...

Techdirt reports that Venezuela is going to use untested electronic voting machines in the August 15 recall vote. Sounds familiar...

Article about liquefied natural gas import schemes to the U.S. West Coast. Very intersesting in light of what's been going on in Bolivia. There we have people fighting over the right to benefit from natural gas exports, and a huge market for that may not even exist. I'm sure there are other markets that Bolivia could sell to, but the plan back in October was specifically to ship to California....

The lastest in the saga of the FBI's bungling case against Critical Art Ensemble member Steven Kurtz is here.

Absolutely ridiculous that this is still going on. One could look at it as similar to other larger bungles by the Bush executive branch, like Iraq. Here is something the government wants to do, and so it keeps making up different claims to try to justify it. Doesn't matter what it is, just keep making up more and more excuses, as one fails to pan out, make up another one.

It's the word I kept thinking. "cowboy". First I would think "yee-ha," as I rode around through Portland, on my way home from my fourth BBQ/Party of the day, as blasts of firecrackers, bottlerockets, and roman candles punctuated my journey, my otherwise silent and swift ride though the dark streets. Little pockets of boys playing with fire served as gauntlets for me to pass, and as I passed I would quietly shout "yee-ha!" as the rockets red-glare drowned out the LEDs of my blinking bike lights, and right after saying that I would think "cowboy," and murmer it to myself, emulating the voice in the old Ministry song that I can't really remember, I don't know which one it was, or maybe it was some other Al Jorgensen related industrial music project, but all I remember is the voice in the sample they used saying the single word, "cowboy" calmly and deadpan. Read more>>>

Excellent article from the New York Times Magazine called Poor Man's Burden.

A few minutes ago, John Kerry gave me a call. Read more>>>

I just found out that Chumbawamba gave 50 grand to Indymedia a couple of years ago, money they received for licensing a song for a Pontiac commerical. Right on.

They are so damn cool. They've been one of my favorite bands, because of their music, of course, and their committed politics, for roughly 12 years now, long before 'Tubthumping' made them famous and loved or hated by many who didn't know any better or anything else. This just renews my love for them.

I guess they have a new album coming out soon, also. Yay.

This article from the Miami Herald entitled "Bolivia an example of a nation that needs lots of help to survive" has a few interesting bits of information I hadn't heard before about Bolivia's former president, Goni, and pre-october crisis events... but the most striking thing about the article is its implicit, base-level assumption that the U.S. is this world policeman, and that it has no responsibility for the underlying forces that cause "failed states" to fail, but all the responsiblitity for fixing them up. It's as if some mysterious force is just randomly messing up these countries and we are the just, altruistic representative of order and goodness that needs to swoop in like Superman and save them.

How about an alternative policy, Uncle Sam: don't fuck these countries over in the first place, and then maybe you won't have to "rescue" them when your exploitation goes sour...