Archive for October, 2011
Occupying Wall Street and Now Publishing Too
Colin Moynihan writes in the NY Times:
Just before noon, Chelsea Potter stood on the corner of Broadway and Liberty Street holding a sheaf of newspapers and offering them to passers-by.
“Excuse me,” she said to a man in a tan raincoat. “Would you like a copy of the Occupied Wall Street Journal?”
The man accepted the paper without breaking stride then looked at it as he continued walking. Over the last two weeks, as people participating in a protest called Occupy Wall Street have called attention to what they say are inequities in the economic system, the ways in which news organizations have covered the protests have been a subject of hot debate.
Some protesters have wished aloud for reporting more in line with their own conception of themselves. Now, they have their own newspaper. It debuted on Saturday with a print run of 50,000, after two independent journalists in New York started…
Because In Essence, I Already Am
Photo: _PaulS_ (CC)
Natalie W writes at Capricious Yet Constant:
My heart beats again, for the first time ever on that Wall Street, I am staying warm with shared spoken dreams of wresting control from corporate personhoods. In energy form across 800 miles, I am building new relationships while dissembling the hyper0consumerist hegemony. My face aches from my exhausted grin-muscles, locking blue eyes with the cute anarchist boy over our bandanas-turned-outlawed-face-masks. Beside us, all of the disillusioned, the downtrodden, and the poor, we who make up these huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of this debt-teemed inland shores, all tempest-tossed, all block -lettering our found-cardboard signs.
I know other protests are coming, that this Native American summer’s chill is our Arab Spring. There is too much unrest in our bones: too many with too little crushed by too many with too much.
This human electricity cackles along my nerves like the…
The Mythology of Business Part 2: The Dark Side
This is Part 2 of an excerpted series for Reality Sandwich from the anthology The Immanence of Myth published by Weaponized. Read Part 1 here.
Despite the exciting creative possibilities posed by new media in regard to myth, they do not come without a price. The danger presented by the presence of myth in modern media is paramount, and must be considered outside the mythic framework of industry, for instance, which reduces the material world to a matrix of profit and risk.
Though the propaganda of fascist mythologies such as those of Nazis or the USSR serve as the clearest example of these dangers, they exist in only slightly more subtle forms in the media produced by modern capitalist states. (Subtlety in this case not being an indicator of benevolence, necessarily.) After all, it was Mussolini who declared fascism to be the merger of state and corporate power.
Though media is ostensibly the watchdog of the government, both…
Teens Largely Unbothered by Vulgar Slurs Online, New Study Finds
Greg Howard writes in Slate:
If someone called us these names to our faces, or even if we overheard them, how would we react? Ask them to stop? Throw a punch? Walk away? All of the above, and in that order? Now what would we do if those words popped up on our Facebook wall, Twitter feed or cell phone? Would we … laugh?
According to a recent national Associated Press-MTV poll of young people between 14 and 24, most teens and young 20-somethings think it’s alright to use slurs among friends or when joking around in cyberspace. Seventy-one percent say that people are more likely to use slurs online, and 51 percent encounter discriminatory words and images on social networking sites. Only half of those surveyed said they would probably ask someone using such language online to stop.
Most say they feel more comfortable with slurs online because people are just trying to…
You Can No Longer (Legally) Have Sex with Animals in Florida
Matthew Hendley writes in the Broward-Palm Beach New Times:
… Senate Bill 344, which bans “sexual contact” and “sexual conduct” with animals, goes into effect on Saturday [October 1].
Unfortunately for animal sexers, several people have faced charges in Florida after being caught fornicating with fauna; however, we couldn’t find a case of anyone being convicted. Police say Eugene Hickman, a 54-year-old DeFuniak Springs resident, was arrested in June after his grandson walked into a bedroom and saw him naked on top of the family bulldog, attempting to have sex with it.
According to the Walton County Clerk, Hickman is scheduled to go to trial in November on an animal cruelty charge as well as a charge of lewd and lascivious exhibition charge for allegedly doing the deed in front of the kid … Still, State Sen. Nan Rich’s bill banning sex with animals didn’t pass until her third attempt because legislators were…
Inside A Fluoride Treatment Facility
An Infowars Nightly News special report shows never-before-seen undercover footage shot at the Austin Water Treatment Facility demonstrates the process of adding the corrosive and highly toxic chemical to the water supply:
The 2001 Anthrax Mystery: Case Not Closed
CNN’s Joe Johns reports for a documentary investigation into the anthrax letter attacks of 2001. As well documented by authors Eric Nadler and Bob Coen, just because the FBI says they found the perpetrator, the case is far from closed.
Death by Mail: The Anthrax Letters Debuts Sunday, October 2 at 8:00p.m. and 11:00p.m. ET & PT.
“Shadow Land”: Memoir of a Medium
Elizabeth d’Espérance, one of the star mediums of the Victorian era, penned a fascinating memoir filled with rich descriptions of altered states and otherworldly visitations. An often-overlooked, first-person account of the 19th century seance from the perspective of the medium herself, Shadow Land is the subject of a recent review at VictorianGothic.org:
Elizabeth d’Espérance grew up in a tired old house on the East End of London, filled with dark, oak-paneled halls and desolate, forbidden rooms that compelled her to explore. “I was very fond of wandering about from one empty room to another,” she wrote,
“and of sitting with my dolls on the broad low window seats, whence I would be fetched with an exclamation of horror and wonder by our servant, who considered my liking for the haunted rooms as “uncanny” and unnatural, threatening me with the ghosts and their vengeance if I persisted in invading their domains by myself.
“I could never quite understand…
Free Speech! How Should It Work?
Cooperation is the foundation of any and all societies. A high level of cooperation leads to a higher standard of living and a greater degree of prosperity. A low level of cooperation leads to a breaking down of society as seen so many times in man’s history. When we agree to cooperate in an effort to make and maintain a society we agree to respect each others rights whether we acknowledge this openly or not.
Our rights are the guidelines of our freedoms. If one man’s freedom becomes another man’s slavery that is not freedom but an abuse of freedom. It is a blatant act of disrespect and a severe lack of cooperation, thus counterproductive to society. People that willfully disrespect the rights of others in a society are an enemy to society no matter how their religion or personal beliefs may justify such actions.
Speech is a very important freedom that…
Jim Henson Was America’s Greatest Surrealist (Video)
Alex Pasternack writes on MotherBoard:
In 1979, Henson showed “Limbo (The Organized Mind),” on Johnny Carson’s show, bringing the Muppets into his bizarre equation. The music was scored by Scott.
Read the entire article on MotherBoard
