Here's the newest issue of the zine, ATI. Activist Times, Intentional. If you want to get it formatted more accurately: goto: http://www.etext.org/Zines/ and search for issue 518 or any other backissues you wish to grab. cheers, e&p.
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"What should be the length of the compressionist short story? For the purist, somewhere around 1,000 words. Of course, this is only a suggestion. But an image-driven story will always be able to say more, and more importantly to imply more than a non-compressionist story of similar wordage. We are not talking poetry here. We are talking about a prose that reaches beyond poetry, a prose that with luck reaches a third and fourth and even a fifth dimension.
"What should be the ultimate goal of Compressionism? To produce work that revitalizes the language; to have the works of compressionist writers read by the many and studied in our halls of higher learning; to ultimately have the very short story take its rightful place alongside the poem, short story and novel as one of the great artistic forms of literature."
Live, from some cave in the middle of the city in the middle of the town inside of the county where the state and the government squeeze it in, It's ATI!
I was asked to comment about the Mascot issue recently and figured I'd share the same thing with you here.
[copy; paste]
the mascot is at the very roots of our racism. it is the iconic representation of the very words that get embedded into our thoughts as we belittle fellow human beings who will share the planet with us for a short time.
I get really hurt when I hear someone saying it's not a very big thing.
Maybe because I've struggled so diligently to recognize and remove sexism and racism from my own language.
It's not just the words themselves. It's the logic and actions behind and supporting them.
I wish I had an easier way to articulate this.
I've removed words like "rule of thumb" and "paddy wagon."
the thumb was a unit of measurement of where abuse began in early american home husbandry. If you beat your wife nearly to death with a switch that was narrower than your own thumb, it was not abuse. But if you even tapped her lightly with one that was THICKER than your thumb, that was major abuse and you could do jailtime.
The Paddy Wagon was the transport vehicle that racist cops used to use when raiding an Irish Pub and they would throw all the "Pattie's" into it no matter whether they were drunk and disorderly or not. Pile up Irishpeople the way you might fill a slaveship across the middle passage.
Most people think these words don't mean very much anymore. The worst thing about it linguistically is that if I say the cops beat me up and put me in a paddywagon, and I don't even know the etymology of it, and neither do you, you know exactly what I mean in plain english but once again, we've both put out that racist energy underneath our words for all the world to perpetuate.
If a college professor teaches me macro economics and he suddenly says "general rule of thumb," thinking he only means the current "definition one," of it, and I don't call him on it, again, neither of us know the roots of it, or anything, we both just transfer that first meaning to each other, but we're putting out that underlying root of racism parallel to what we're saying there.
Chief Wafrigginhoo or Illinoyance or whatever at a ballgame does the same friggin thing.
And I often feel so alone tackling it because so many people think it's not that crucial.
Even Lou Diamond Phillips who claimes to have been adopted by Dine families AND Lakota families told a TV audience "sometimes people take things too far" when asked about the mascot issue.
Michelle Shocked was the musical guest that nite, and rather than come out and talk she sang one song and left. She mentioned that it was because he pissed her off so much she was afraid that she had only bad words and would need time to get good ones or else she couldn't talk publickly or she would shame not just him but herself, her people and the rest of all of us.
Good on her, and poopoo on Lou Diamond Phillips.
Again, mascots are at the very root of our racism. We're swimming in it so we don't even recognize how deep it is.
[/copy; paste]
OK.
So Pope Ratzinger personally apologized to five Ameri can victims of his sexual holo-cost.
That gets much mileage toward understanding and truth.
Perhaps.
But two things must still be reckoned with before there will EVER be real reconciliation.
And I don't want to go too hard on Ratzinger because not all of it happened on his watch; but they are in order:
Columbus; Hitler.
-30-
& LETTUCE
=========================== = info following brought = = on by a need for more = = real information =) = ===========================
Actors Strike Coming In July Maybe. Yay!!! There's an actors' strike coming up.
Might start to ruin this fall's season, etc.
Um. Ruin what... bullcrap that doesn't come anywhere near to the drama comedies and sitcoms and stuff from the 60s, 70s, 80s, etc?
Ruin that bullcrap???
Bring it on!
Maybe one of the "American" networks will get permission to rebroadcast Canada's great sitcom "Little Mosque On The Prairie."
Maybe they'll bring back some shows they'd killed off ONLY for money reasons and not because the content or the acting sucked or anything.
Maybe when they give the Actors what they ask for and THEN come back on with a better contract in both directions, we'll see better acting, better writing and better directing.
Now wouldn't that be a hoot.
A reason to turn on television again?
Nah, doubt it, but there's your challenge.
Give us something besides horse shit to watch and maybe we'll um, er; um...
watch.
Short Film Link
A few years back i did a show in vancouver and my friend spencer estabrooks came over from victoria and hung out...after the show i had a couple days off so i changed my flight and took the ferry over to vancouver island...while we were crossing the strait i asked spencer if we could shoot 'something' because i thought it could be fun...so we woke up the next morning and this story unfolded...
paste this link from youtube...it was 14 mins but he cut it down to 7 mins...just an interesting story...davey rocks dude... he's an angel...
No reds or blues seen There aren't any outside the poet's window now.
Wanna see my favorite Interview Question of this millenium so far?
Q: If you were stranded on a desert island (let's first hope you have adequate food, water and shelter) and had the ability to listen to just 5 albums, what would you pick?
YTW: The Bastard Fairies - Memento Mori (of course). Then I would make my own best of compliations of the following artists Tom Waits Nick Cave Charles Bukowski And a copy of Ashlee Simpson's album just to remind me that if this is acceptable listening to civilization then I am probably better off being stranded on my own little island away from all that crap.
-30-
And another ATI Rhetorical Question. You ready?
Answering to what u wanna b when u grow up.
1) Motorpool supply Sergeant 2) 3rd shift convenience store clerk 3) Frycook 4) Lesbian Kiss cameraman for Playboy channel 5) Cult member 6) Cleanup crew leader at festival grounds 7) Air Force One PMCS mechanic 8) Similac salesman 9) Wash dumpsters for rerental 10)Manufacture Soy Lecithin and High Fructose for Nabisco
1)to be completely enamored with someone/something. 2) the flighty exciting feeling you get when you think about/see the object of your affection. 3) romantically excited (i.e.: aroused) 4) the ever increasing acceleration of heartbeat and body temperature as a result of being engulfed amidst the exhilaration and joy of being/having a romantic entity in someone's life.
When he smiled at her, the rush of warm, fuzzy, excited sensations that filled her made her realize she was completely twitterpated with this man.
| /|.. -- - -- ..|/ |
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And now, let's play a short game of "WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS SPAM." You ready?
Because you have to many wrong attemps on your Citibank online banking, we had to put your account on hold.
Account Status: Temporary Blocked
We ask you to complete as soon as possible our security steps which will reactivate your online banking. To do this please follow the link bellow :
[LINK]
After this steps are complete you will be contacted by phone in 3 days by a citibank representative.
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Did you see it right away?
The to=too typo might've gotten by an official mass email by a company like Citibank but not the this=these one, piled on top of the first one, and the overly awkward sentence of "We ask you to complete..."
Those are most definitely English-As-A-Second-Language issues that were NOT brushed up with spellcheck and NOT brushed up with second, third or thinktank eyes.
And for extra credit:
The recipient of this spam has not had an account with Citi since the 1980s.
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Today's WOW, Word Of The Week is molybdenum.
Here's lyrics to a song I'm absolutely wild about lately
I've got to save the world, liberate Eat the food that's on my plate Recycling is really great Whatever I can do To get in bed with you
I'll be a Marxist, a Communist A pacifict, an anarchist, a Democrat Red, white, green or blue Whatever I can do To get in bed with you
I never knew I gave a damn Until you told me who I am And what to do Whatever I can do To get in bed with you
'Cause I know war is bad and love is really good Taking a stand starts in your neighbourhood I do the best I can just like you say I should The ones who make a difference are few So what can I do To get in bed with you
I'd love to hear your world peace plan Why don't you tell me in my van We can discuss Camus Whatever I can do To get in bed with you
I've got to change my mind, masticate Use condoms when I fornicate Until I hyperventilate Whatever I can do Your balls are turning blue
I've got to save the world, liberate Eat the food that's on my plate Recycling is really great Whatever I can do To get in bed with you
What I can do To get in bed with you What I can do To get in bed with you
It's been a tasking job enforcing the peace here. The insurgents are buoyed by help from Iran & Syria to undermine what we have achieved here. I have interesting piece of news which will really blow your mind.
My platoon were deployed here near Tikrit Saturday @ 1900hrs as a call had come about insurgent activity 20miles south on the outskirts of Tikrit. Intel from insiders in Tikrit had it that they were taking a delivery of arms from Iran.
We had to intercept, engage & control the situation. We could call in air support if the need arose. We sighted and engaged @ 2200hrs in a village SW of Tikrit. On perceiving our presence, they first opened fire on us. We had to engage fully. It took a while (30mins) but we outgunned them massively. Finally, we brought the situation under control and some of them fled, 6 were killed and we were able to arrest 11 of them alive.
On the way back to our base in Tikrit, another call that required urgent attention needed that we should block some groups insurgents destroying lives and properties very far way in Nasariya. We got there & rained peace within the city and community after several hours of battle against the insurgents.
As the fight was going on, I had to take cover and shield in a very thick forest. It was here I saw a trunk box and quickly used my sword to make hole in the ground and buried the box. The next day was Sunday and after devotional service, I went there on a disguised to check the content in the box and fortunately the box contained stash of $100 bills which I counted them and it all amounted $4.3M. Right now I am still surprised how this box of money got there and who must have kept it in the forest.
In fact I could sense it might be a fellow soldier who must have hid the box in that forest because before I was deployed here last year, I heard and read in the news there were some soldiers who discovered lot of funds in Baghdad in the 2003. Even five soldiers were questioned for some missing funds.
I had to start my research to confirm the news of the discovered money in Iraq, I now became convinced through the proof of the under listed websites that actually so many funds were discovered here in April 2003.
I believed my fellow airborne might be responsible for the box in the forest probably after doing that he died in the war because so many of us have lost their lives to the Iraqi insurgent. You can verify that from this links;
One passionate appeal I will make is you must not discuss this matter with anybody, if you have any reason to reject this offer, please destroy this message as any leakage of this information will be too bad for a U.S soldier here in Iraq.
I do not know how long we will remain here, and I have been shot, wounded and survived two suicide bomb attacks by the special grace of God that survived me.
This was quite an illegal thing to do, but I tell you what? No compensation can make up for the risk we have taken with our lives in this hell hole. You can imagine my brother in-law was killed by a road side bomb few days back.
My questions now are;
1. Can you handle this project? 2. Can I give you the trust? 3. Can you keep this business very confidential? 4. If you can finance this project, is 30% acceptable by you, as your commission?
If you are interested in carrying out this deal with me, reply so that we can plan the means to move out the funds out from here.
Regards, Sgt. Richard L. Zeppieri, U.S Army
--------------------------------- ACTIVIST issue 518 wowza TIMES 518 have we INC got this far??? ---------------------------------
Here's a poem:
Another New London
by Marco Frucht
The fo[u]rth time I left Konetiuk I just knew I will (re)visit/(re)turn yet again.
No schooner had I, brought me back When no train would bri[n]g me home.
'Twas PDX to PVD via Southwest
Turned my whole life around back to the rusty Thames to the Sound to the old shopworn potato[e] fields to the sea and to my own heart
Moosup - (April 2008)
-30-
nonlinear thought of the millenium.
u.s. tells mexico prez calderon all "illegals" are free to come into the u.s. as long as they carry 1 barrel of oil with them.
...Give me a quick, dark and ancient death. Cold obsidian with no K-Y jelly, slid roughly into the heart like rabid Israeli bulldozers snarling unto Palestine. Sand Creek plagiarized and mechanized.
from Adrian C Louis' poem "Witch Wind" in his book "Evil Corn."
"If I were pushing one particular candidate, I would say 'yes we can.'"
-- Rev. Jeremiah Wright 27apr08
Remembering Leonard Peltier.
Wow, thanks Vicky. I remember that evening far too well. Leonard Peltier was confirmed to be on Clinton's short list of people he was in fact going to pardon.
It was about 5pm.
I was working my normal volunteer job at Indymedia that takes every extra hour I have in my life the past 9 years or so.
CNN reported on their TV channel and on their webpage that Peltier was on the pardon list.
Then they removed it from TV but it was still on the webpage. I called CNN and was connected with the woman who was handling that story. I've forgotten her name but have it written down somewhere I know. She said they could not confirm that he was on that list. I asked her how come then they had run with it as an official CNN story.
She insisted it wasn't on the webpage OR the TV's sidescroll. I told her it was removed from the TV but still on their website.
She said if it ever WAS on the website OR tv that it was gone now and that no one in their entire agency ever reported that he was ever on that list. I told her she was wrong and asked her why people above her were lying to the American people. She told me our conversation was over, and firmly but politely hung up the phone.
I went back to the website and it was gone.
A couple hours later Clinton gave his list and Peltier was not on it.
Earlier that day, or the day before about 300 members of the FBI had marched on the White House and were allowed in for a "personal" private meeting with him. They were bragging on the freerepublic websites that they were demanding Peltier be removed from that short list.
I remember that moment like it was yesterday.
We end this edition with a Michelle St. John poem.
It became the ending song to "Business Of Fancydancing."
Who are you when you turn your back? Where do you go when you leave here? You can't hide from your truth Can't run from where you belong
Some things you can't choose Sometimes you can't have it all I know your dreams remind you Where you belong
Memories hold you tight When there's no comfort in white arms Loneliness will bring you back Where you belong
--Michelle St. John
send all contribs, distros and returns to ati@etext.org
This is insane, and if you look at Bush's speech coming up in a few minutes reporting that marijuana leads to brain damage and liberalism, as well as the press eating up all this newly "dusted off" Reefer Madness bullshit, you can see what's happening here.
No I'm not going to call it a conspiracy. It's an orchestrated spin campaign right out of the White House war room and the corporate media is just doing whatever they're told.
It's ugly and demonic and wrong.
Free Tommy Chong the occasional marijuana user and jail George W. Bush who has a flattened nose from all the cocaine he's clearly still using!
How about Hillary and Barak each pick unidentifyable nicknames and join a forum with about 20 of us from around the country doing likewise.
We rock and roll and spew the typical ad hominems and bullsh|t at each other that we all seem to do in forums, along with the higher issue-tackling which seems to come along within it as well.
Then at the end of some allotted time period we all "unmask" ourselves by linking nickname back up with real name and we then allow the pundits to go absolutely crazy on the "he said" "she said" bulldada that they're best known for.
Then we'll really get to the deep down and dirty of it all, won't we?
Feb. 25th, 2008 03:05 pm VISTA: 10 Things I Hate About You
Vistannoyances by marco
1) Startup takes forever.
2) Shutdown, even right from a startup gives a "general fault" type error.
3) RECLAIM FILETYPES - freeamp/zinf mp3player needs you to put "reclaim filetypes every single time you open it up. The built-in Windows MediaPlayer overrides it and makes itself the default no matter what. Every time. EVEN AFTER telling it it's NOT the default.
4) FREEZE-UPS - ctrl alt del takes about as long to get to as every other program during a freeze-up
5) Just opening Firefox with 2 tabs, Opera with 5 and checking email at the same time uses all 2G RAM???
6) If you inadvertantly leave a music disc in your CDRW/DVDRW don't even think about opening a few different applications.
7) I don't need 301 fonts built-in totalling 160+ MB.
8) In the end I didn't really like prefetch. What made them think I'm going to like Superfetch??
9) I bet I'm going to hate the newest version of indexed searching too. I don't even want to look.
10) Why does search NOT default to showing you the filesizes? And I just tried to add FILESIZE as a button and now I'm frozen up on that, notepad, opera, and two directories opened.
(In fact I'm retyping this in notepad on my xppro laptop right now while reading it off my PC's LCD screen beause VISTA's locked-up "hourglassing" before I had a chance to save the last 6 items I "hate." How surreal and postmodern is that???)
This is NOT the top 10 personal problems. It is literally the first 10 I found a few days out of the box. I have a factory installed version of Vista on a machine that can handle it. Don't get me started on the things I found the next few days while trying to put XP on this thing with their "easy to use" partition shrinking application before deciding to just keep Vista in its current state on the harddrive which I'll just tuckaway for a while and then install a new SATA drive for a clean XP Pro install.
I'm typing this in notepad.exe and even THAT is fighting with my global search of 1627 factory installed .GIFs
But wait, there's more.
The OS takes up 14+ GB memory on the harddrive, plus a 9G partition for restoring since they don't trust the end user with serial # and install disks anymore!
Ummm. what if there's one little bad sector in the OS with another in the restore??? Or worse yet, a complete harddrive hardware failure?
And why is the first 300MB of my 2G RAM seemingly nonexistant? No, I don't mean already used up in taskmanager, it's hidden from view!!!
It took me 3 weeks to hunt down drivers for an XP "downgrade" on this machine. But I finally did it. I'm running XPPro SP2 on one harddrive and Ubuntu 7.10 on the other. Each is about 10 times faster than the Vista factory install, boots up in about a minute and a half, and lets you power down without any Fatal Errors or anything.
I'll stop here. I could go on for decades. I think Vista needs to get back to me at Service Pack 3 or so, because I'm not even in the mood to try SP1, ok? This was a nightmare, of epic proportions, let me tell you. So let me just say, I didn't like VISTA when it first got discussed, as Longhorn, etc., and I wasn't planning on running it ever, but I did this on a brand new machine just to see "up front and personal" what everyone's complaining about. And boyeeee were they right.
I'm watching Kimya not guesting on the Conan show.
What a profound sacrifice to deny yourself that opportunity. I really want to believe I too would refuse to cross a picket line even if someone like Conan said "hey come on my show..."
The last time I watched an entire Conan was when my friend Stubhy's band had just been signed to Elektra. It was a huge shot in the arm for them.
The only other time I watched a whole Conan was when he and Michael Moore had that argument out the window when the studio had banned Moore.
I half expected Conan to try and go outside and film Kimya singing to the strikers with a cheap Nikon Coolpix or something.
I think years ago he woulda risked that. Instead he's telling cheap jabs about the Golden Globes and otherwise not touching the writers' strike topically at all.
Aug. 5th, 2007 09:55 pm michelle madigan outed at defcon 15 hackercon
Michelle Madigan was outed at Defcon 15 trying to use a pinhole camera "to catch a hacker."
Shame on NBC, Shame on the Corporate Media.
I wonder if this story would've run on both NBC and MSNBC for the next 5 years as if it's brand new, the same way "crack addicted teen mothers from Portland" or some of the others are running.
Apr. 24th, 2007 09:57 pm My Analogy For What General David Petraeus Faces
When I first arrived at Fort Carson Colorado with the Signal Corps, the mountain we were guarding was in great turmoil.
A team of IT specialists had just told the Pentagon that there was no way they were going to be able to network all of the various rooms of computers deep inside NORAD mountain as they sat.
Their recommendation after 3 years research was that they farm down all the different kinds of PCs to the National Guard groups; then install all of any one kind of computer and then network them.
It was going to involve about one hour of downtime, or perhaps two half hour outages each for half the mountain.
The Pentagon paid them their most recent paycheck and SUMMARILY FIRED THE ENTIRE TEAM.
A new team of IT specialists had just arrived and were given two years to look over the earlier group's three years work and make a recommendation.
I overheard two of these geeks discussing how they were going to find a way to say the exact same thing the first group said, but say it in a way that they won't get fired.
So how does this relate to the 4 1/2 star General?
Petraeus is new to heading up the warring on Iraq.
Half a dozen Generals before him have each told Bush privately that the war cannot be won militarily.
THEY GOT FIRED LIKE SO MANY OTHER PEOPLE WORKING "AT THE PLEASURE," EACH OF THEM.
Petraeus now faces the prospect of figuring out how the hell he's going to tell Mr. Bush, "this war cannot be won militarily," without getting fired.
Apr. 19th, 2007 08:55 am Opinion: So Many Have Botched This School Shooting
I think the press has been handling the Virginia Tech school shooting even worse than the school administration did.
But it's difficult to tell at this point how much isn't the press AND the admin intertwined trying (and not succeeding) to control things and thereby covering up here and there.
That is unfortunate.
Lastly, I feel that when NBC received this package they should've found a way to get every single word (TEXT ONLY RATHER THAN FOTOS AND VIDEOS)[*] of the manifesto to the american people without sensationalizing things. Most especially because he mentions Columbine in it. Tomorrow is Hitler's birthday.
I feel that law enforcement, media and school administration have further endangered all of us in the united states by their attempts to manage this. ___________________________________
[*] CLARIFICATION:
I wasn't clear enough [need coffee!] in that I wish TEXT of the manifesto would have been released to the full open source community. We could've been left out of the loop on video and images for days if not longer even. Let law enforcement glean what they can out of all that additional crap. We need the words. WE NEED TO KNOW IF THERE'S A SECOND SHOOTER WANDERING AROUND PLANNING OTHER STUFF. WE NEED TO KNOW RIGHT AWAY AND FIGURE OUT ON OUR OWN maybe that this creep isn't in the Trench Coat Mafia or the Hammerskins or anything. We need to know that other schools and towns, are safe if they are. Etc.
NBC dropped the ball on this, so did admin and so did law enforcement.
Apr. 7th, 2007 08:50 am Why The *&^% Am I Defending Don Imus???
"Are you naked?" was Imus in the Morning's favorite prank to pull during the WNBC radio days in the 70s. He would call a random housewife in the tri-state area and interview her about all kinds of things. Some mundane, some exciting, and then "blammo!" He'd ask her what she's wearing.
Now you see why I think Howard Stern is very unoriginal.
I was a big fan of Imus back then. I was a teenager and a monthly purchaser of Playboy magazine with my allowance, etc. It took many years to figure out that he was rather sexist, a tiny bit racist and a WHOLE FRIGGIN LOT CLASSIST.
I think it dawned on me when Fairfield County Connecticut appointed him harbourmaster, which seems like a silly post but apparently it carries a lot of local power.
It was some kind of back room deal in talking him out of running for mayor of something like Bridgeport or Stamford or something. I think it had to do with rumors that he was pro-Klan or attended a racist fraternity in college or something. But anyhow. NBC fired him so often, it became part of his ratings game plan so fans never knew what he was going to say to get him fired again. He played that for what it was worth until it didn't seem to mean much anymore.
So now the Chicago Tribune, the NAACP and a whole bunch of other prominent people want MSNBC to fire him, but the network is going to try to ignore all requests. They claim they'll monitor his show more.
Now, here's my opinion. And I'm reserving full judgement til I've heard the entire thing in full context. So far I'm aware that Imus used two controversial words. (I've seen part of the footage in a narrow context spun by the corporate media on my television)
He called members of a girls basketball team "nappy headed" and he called them "hos."
That's idiotic but it's not racist. I've had to tolerate a LOT of black friends for using those expressions against women I know and women I don't know. I've spoken up and gotten my head bitten off. I'd be willing to tell Don Imus to his face he's a first class jerk for calling these women that, but I'm not going to try and over extend the defition of hate or racism to include what he said. It's an unfinished dialog what white people can say and what black people can say, etc. Til Sean Puffy Combover is willing to stop using words like "nappy head" and "ho" I'm not going to make Imus stop saying it. What's next, forbidding white people from asking each other or anyone else "what's up?"
Now one of his cohosts on the other hand, said the word "jigaboo." That's beyond racist. I don't know where to begin I'm so pissed off.
Anyhow. That's who should be fired. And Imus should be verbally assaulted for NOT verbally assaulting the openly racist guy's remarks right there on our televisions.
OK, strike the words "verbal" and "assault" and put reprimanded or something.
So why on earth am I defending Imus? I'm still a fan, I still don't like him personally (yes I've met him) but I do like his work. Sticky point I know. Anyhew, I'll get to the point and close this saying, I think Imus is probably racist deep down inside, because it seems to seep out his pores, and I've heard some "coded language," that comes close, but I've yet to hear him actually say something racist directly.
That's my 23 and a half cents or so.
Oh, in answer to my "why am I def..."
Well, gosh, I don't know. Somebody's gotta do it, I guess.
Nov. 28th, 2006 01:19 am 15th Day In Oaxaca - An Anonymous Report
As always, I am here as a witness of the events here in Oaxaca. The real struggle, the real risks, and the real revolution is with the people of Oaxaca.
Monday, November 27
So overnight I woke up every few hours to listen to the livestream of Radio Universidad, and it continued to transmit. Just before 6 am I woke up to hear the last few bars of "Venceremos" then the Radio stopped transmitting, and there was only the background interminable march music that is broadcasted by Radio enemies to interfere with the signal. I freaked, thinking that the attack had happened, they had played one last song, and it was over. Then I realized they were taking the required several hour break from radio transmissions. Phew.
In the morning people gathered for the march from the University to the Santo Domingo plaza. We weren't able to go because it seemed unsafe to travel there. Police were traveling around the University neighborhood, searching people, checking their ID, and detaining some. At about 10 am a message came through the radio that 300 people had gathered, and they needed more Oaxaquenos for the march. We hoped to meet the march part-way on their route, and continue on to Santo Domingo. Then we heard that the PFPs had taken over the Santo Domingo plaza, to prevent APPO and other organizations from re-establishing their encampment there, and that there were military and police at the nearby Juarez park, possibly blocking people from creating another planton there. The march was suspended, I suspect for security reasons.
We walked towards Santo Domingo, to see what was going on there.There were PFPs stationed at each of the entrances. The entire plaza had been scoured and cleaned. On the night of November 25, after hours of street battle, the police gathered and burned all the tarps and materials left by movement people in the Santo Domingo planton. Then on the 26th all the garbage was picked up, and all the graffiti painted over. It was as if there never was an emcampment there, which I would guess was the idea.
Throughout the day we heard about more police aggressions and detentions. A truck near the airport was stopped, and the driver shot. Police are taking people from their houses and taking them away. There are persistent rumors of mass graves outside of Oaxaca City, though no one has definite proof.
We also get updates on November 25. According to the latest information there have been 6 confirmed deaths, though we also have heard that PFPs were bragging that they had killed at least 13 and disappeared the bodies. There was a shooting late at night at the Facultad de Medicine (the medical school) where many people had sought refuge. As they left URO-supporters opened fire, killing at least 3 and wounding many.
The situation is very tense. Danger seems to be everywhere -- from the federal police, from the AFI (Mexican's Federal Investigators), from paramilitaries (who may be police in civilian clothes, or PRI party supporters), from the outspoken PRI party supporters. The PRI-istas have a radio station, and they have broadcasted the addresses of movement supporters, most likely to guide their night-time squads. As we sit here, we hear occasional gunshots in the distance.
And tonight there is word that the university attack is again imminent. One US friend who was there was told directly to leave, because it would be too dangerous. This is in direct contrast to other nights, when the barricadistas wanted us to stay.
It is almost impossible for me to hear the Radio Universidad over the internet. The interference is too strong.
In this time, while trying to listen to the radio, I would like to share some of my experiences at the Radio Universidad encampment. And if there are any urgent updates from the radio, as far as I can hear, I will, of course, mention them.
My dear, dear friends at the Radio Universidad. Although I have only known them for 2 weeks, they are in my heart. Quite honestly, I feel unworthy of their esteem and affection. When I saw them on the street late on the night of November 25, after hours of street battlees, they called out "Doctora Elena! Como estas? Donde has estado? Venga con nosotros a la universidad!" (Doctor Elena! How are you? Where have you been? Come with us to the university!).
I wonder, why do they want to fight? For an ideal? A political or social vision? The image of themselves as revolutionaries? For the valor? For the battle scars and stories they could share with friends in the future, if they survive? Because in this society they have nothing else to live for? (reminds me of young people in poor neighborhoods of the US who chose to sell drugs or join gangs because they see no other viable alternative, and because they see no other positive future) Impossible to know, of course, though I suspect in many it is a messy mix of these, and other factors.
While at Radio Universidad I talked a lot with a man I will call Che, who seemed to be one of the most reliable and responsible of the barricadistas there. He is also a self-styled revolutionary fighter. He is enormously charismatic, dependable and a bit crazy. He states, unequivocally, that he is willing to die for this struggle. Is it worth it? Can I stand to see his vibrant, powerful life snuffed out for this struggle? And who the hell am I to ask? He knows what may come, and he continues to organize, and to fight.
I have worked a lot with Che. If you ask him to get something done, from my experience, it gets done. One day one of the first aid station workers asked him to bring more water, because the first aid station was almost out of drinkable water. None appeared for a long time, and I thought he had forgotten. But it turned out there was no drinkable water in the Radio Universidad compound. Che told people at the first aid station, "As soon as there is water, I will bring you some." They made a call over the Radio for more water from the community, and a bit later there were 10+ large (5 gallon) bottles, and many smaller bottles filled with filtered water. A bit later Che appeared, carrying a 80 pound bottle of water on his shoulder, and within hours there were many more gallons of water at the first aid station.
Che is a complicated mix of self-promotion and genuine commitment. He loves to have photos taken of him, in a face mask, with a bazooka, in front of the graffiti saying "Hasta la victoria siempre" upon his insistence. He wears all black, with a bullet proof vest at times. He strides around the encampment, checking in with different people, and talking about the most recent developments. He seems to have the genuine respect of the other barricadistas at Radio Universidad. How much of this is cult of personality, and how essential is charisma to revolutionary "leaders" (because I think he would disavow the label of leader, if asked)?
I write at length about Che, because he is one of the most obvious organizers at the Radio.
It is impossible not to feel utterly trite and overly romantic about the people in this movement. We tend to romanticize revolutionary workers. But there is some truth in this hyperbole. Many people in the Oaxaca movement have moved beyond their own day-to-day concerns, and fight tirelessly for a greater cause.
La Doctora Berta, for example. She is a grand personality, with one part absolute commitment, one part political insight, one part calm determination, one part intense focus on the struggle at hand, and one part self-abnegation and humor. She has worked tirelessly for this movement, continuing to attend strategy meetings and negotiations, announce in her calm and witty style over the radio, and attend to patients in the first aid station, despite total exhaustion, sickness (a very bad cough after being tear-gassed in the ambulance during the march on November 20, "But it cured my sinusitis!" she said.) and threats to burn her house and kill her and her family.
One day, while I was in the first aid station and she was resting after becoming quite sick from the tear gas. I had just begged her to take more time to rest, to take care of herself. We were listening to the radio. "What are they doing, playing music?" she said. "We must talk about the situation. We must rally the people." and she jumped from her bed, and went to the radio, to announce for the next hour.
She can also be quite severe, and as a result has alienated some of the barricadistas at the Radio Universidad. How much of her intensity and, at times, authoritarianism, is a result of 6 months of fighting, and how much intrinsic to her personality? I will never know, because I am only here now. But she is one of the absolute essential elements of this movement. She calls the people, and they respond. She is calm in the face of crisis, and helps all of us face whatever is coming (and I must mention that I face literally no danger or repression in comparison to Oaxacan and Mexican citizens) with "a burning heart and a cold mind."
Right now the radio continues to transmit. We just heard what sounds like a tear gas explosion in the distance.
For now, I will sign off. Please keep the people of Oaxaca, and all those struggling for justice, in your hearts.
my friend brenda complained to her bosses at ICT (Indian Country Today) about censorship and now their response was to terminate her position. yuck.
You'll remember Brenda Norrell for her research about Black Mesa Arizona, Chiapas, and all kinds of other really important issues. Well because of her bosses, often times we've only gotten about half the story and sometimes none of the story!
She complained each time she got censored, and tried to blog as much as she could at places like the UN Observer, other indigenous oriented newspapers, and even at her own blog.
Censorship, the other genocide, killing of the spirit
Hello, I was just terminated by Indian Country Today. Since I began this effort as a news reporter in Indian country 23 years ago in pursuit of justice and truth, I feel I owe the readers an apology for allowing ICT to censor the truth in articles I have written. I did protest the censorship, but no retractions were published. Officially, my position is being eliminated on Friday. This comes after I repeatedly complained of censorship at the newspaper. During the past month these issues were censored: --Censored: After all reporters were told to write about the bird flu, I wrote about how Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is profiteering by millions from the sale of the drug Tamiflu, receiving profits from a company where he holds shares. The article included information on the earlier attempts of companies to profiteer from the sale of ribavirin during the Navajo hantavirus outbreak. My article was censored in ICT and turned into an advertisement for the medication Tamiflu. --Raytheon Missiles on Navajo farm (NAPI) in the recent NAPI/Cuban contract story; I was told not to include in the article the fact that Raytheon is located on the Navajo farm and is responsible for spills leading to cancer in South Tucson, where Chicanos and Indians live. Raytheon produces missiles for the Department of Defense. --Tohono O'odham teen ran over by Border Patrol, recent visit to the site of Bennett Patricio Jr.'s death with Amnesty International; we were followed by undercover agents on tribal land Also, these are some of the articles censored since 2004: --The fact that Ben "Nighthorse" Campbell is Portuguese and grew up in California. His mother is full-blooded Portuguese and his story changed about his father through the years. One Northern Cheyenne medicine man asked ICT who Campbell is. Campbell first claimed to have some Apache blood and later changed it Northern Cheyenne. The Denver Post reported that Campbell is at least 7/8th non-Indian. Campbell did not respond for a request to comment. --Louise Benally of Big Mountain, comments comparing the Long Walk and imprisonment in Bosque Redondo to the atrocities in Iraq (this deleted from a published article) --Denial of prison rights to Leonard Peltier in an article on Indian prison rights --The Montana governor's criticisms of the war in Iraq during his formal address at NCAI's annual convention in 2005 --The handcuffing of Tohono O'odham Ofelia Rivas and attempts to silence her by a non-Indian police officer of the Tohono O'odham Nation --Comments by Bahe Katenay of Big Mountain on how the Navajo sacred place of Creation in Dinetah, near Bloomfield, NM, in the Four Corners area, is inundated with oil and gas wells and pollution from the power plants on tribal land. The ongoing censorship is a violation of the public trust. This is the second time I've been terminated at ICT since the newspaper was purchased by the Oneida Nation. I was already in bankruptcy because of the first time they terminated me in 2001 (for refusing to relocate, even though no male reporters were required to relocate.) To my knowledge, all female reporters who have not resigned have been terminated. To my knowledge, none of the male reporters have ever been terminated since the Oneida Nation purchased the newspaper. However, the bigger issue is censorship. The censoring of vital issues reflects what news reporters are enduring all over America. They are forced into silence because of the necessity of work. However, since ICT/Oneida Nation has already forced me into bankruptcy, I can share a little of the truth. One of those truths is that Indian gaming, at times, offers the illusion of wealth. There are two Indian editors that deserve a great deal of praise for what they have done over the past decades, Navajo Times managing editor Duane Beyal and Indian Country Today founder, Lakota Tim Giago. During the many years I worked for these two editors, I was never censored. When other publications refused to publish voices of Indian people opposing the war in Iraq, the Navajo Times published those. When other publications censored an article on Indians targeted by police in South Dakota, Lakota Journal published it. Those are just two examples. Both Beyal and Giago have championed the pursuit of truth and never attempted to censor Indian peoples' voices. I hope all Indian people will put pressure on Indian Country Today concerning the censorship. There is a select agenda being published in the name of "Indian Country," which does more to advance the interests of the Oneida Nation and Indian gaming. At ICT, I was repeatedly told to halt writing articles about "grassroots people and the genocide of American Indians," by one of the non-Indian managing editors. Also, I hope people will question ICT hiring non-Indian managing editors with no prior experience in Indian issues or Indian country, and little experience in journalism. The managing editors are the ones actually in the New York ICT office, chosing content and putting the paper out. For years there has been a series of non-Indian managing editors with no prior experience in Indian country. The censorship and errors have increased. It is easy to look at ICT and see what the agenda is and what is being censored. There's certainly no articles on Leonard Peltier or how Arizona Indian tribal members are living in poverty while the casino gaming management makes a fortune. (One Tohono O'odham casino manager made $800,000, according to a recent mainstream news article.) Of course, I will continue to write for other Indian media, provide information to radio stations and write for the UN Observer and International Report at the Hague. It is sad that at such a crucial time, while so many reporters are being censored by corporations and the Bush administration, that Indian Country Today has taken all of these extreme acts of censorship. This censorship of Indian voices constitutes another form of genocide, a killing of the spirit of the people.
Here's my rant about last nite's Emmy ceremony. But first this short bit of autobiographical crap:
It's not a war on terrorism, it's a war on journalism.
Greetings, and salutations. It's Sunday afternoon, the 27th of August. 2006 is just flying by, ennit? It's pretty rainy too. I rode bike while it was just cloudy, chilly and a tiny bit windy. Then it turned. I'm ducked inside a Tim Horton's coffeeshop taking cover before my final half mile or so home. I wouldn't mind this, but I took my laptop along with me in my Bihn bag, so I'll worry about wetness the whole time. Just how waterproof IS this bag, it's pretty new to me (I bought it from Firefox! And it sure is a looker.) and I'm not confident so I have a big white plastic trashbag tucked inside that I can wrap up the box with, eh? So check it out. I'm typing to you on winXp right now, but some of this zine's going to be composed using the Breezy Badger build of Ubuntu LinUx. Neat! Thanks go out to my mentor, Mr. Cygnus for that. He's going to help me surpass the usual sound card and wifi problems that still haunt most *nix installs still to this day. I think the only complete installs I've ever been able to do on my own so far have been Caldera 2.3, 2.4 and Redhats 5.1 and 6.0 Yuck. Two builds I don't like very much. I almost made it all the way with a SUSE 9.0 on a 400mhz machine but alas, soundcard trubs again. oh well. That's news from the underground, er, the underwhere? Underwear. Underthere. Notes from the underwater. Yeah, that's it.
OK, here's my rant about last nite's Emmy Award Ceremony.
TO TIVO OR NOT TO TIVO: That Is The Television by marco
"...podcasting and other new..."
AND NOW LIVE FROM IN FRONT OF THE TELEVISION IT'S YOUR PRIMEANARCHIST GUIDE TO THE EMMY AWARd CEREMONIES.
So, House tells the 40 Year Old Virgin that Chloe is a teen schoolgirl who can help Keifer get Conan a gig on the Emmys just as long as he doesn't say a word about South Park.
I think that about covers all of it.
"...and Mel Gibson has a new series on Al Jazeera."
Nice. Real nice. Sweet joke Conan. There's something really endearing about Conan. The first time I ever saw him on late nite I must tell you I thought he was a major nazi. It's those Aryan cheekbones, and that blonde shock of Reaganite hairstuffs up top. Boyee was I wrong. I gave him a second thought when my friend Staci (formerly of Green Bay area) told me she had a wicked crush on him and thought he was the greatest. Something tells me he's a good guy. My apologies for first impressions, eh?
Taxes on gift baskets. Yup. Hand me something and it's income.
"unlike the good old days when they just got up and left the room. Ay yay yay. Yikes." Go Conan, go Conan go Conan go.
Desperately Seeking Megan Mulally. Yup, Will, Grace and the Housewife from hell.
Am I the only one who thinks 24 has been the only television three years running that's worth NOT setting your TIVO to skip??
Target. Expect more, but keep your boxes, receipts, and bags around somewhere so you can return the more defective ones you bought. Yeah, their tag line really should be "Expect less, return more." Or TARGET: Product More; Quality Control Less.
I really wish the Emmys would replay the Sprint Crime Deterrent commercial from the Superbowl, don't you?
Your Wireless connection is most important, that's why you should pay up to break your 2 year contract with Verizon and try Cingular for a while. Oops, did I say that?
I
Did.
Yup.
And now, here's Martin and Charlie Sheen for that wet look and the stiff upper lip. Where's Emilio when you're missin' family!
Insert the name of a TV show here: [ ] that stinks so bad even some Febreze.com won't save it.
The Segway podium was a nice touch. I think Conan's going to pull this off. This is a fun ceremony. Now, Laborday's coming soon. So get out there and Shop, SHOP, S H O P ! ! !
No offense, Barry Cantelope, I mean, Manilow; but I think about when you start singing I might have to TIVO you until Heidi Klum comes on. I've already seen your stuff on about 5 talk shows the past few months and it's like following a bad comedian around for a few weeks in a row. Or even a good comedian. Yup. you drink extra and you hope to hear that one different joke s/he decided to add and replace with that one other one.
Ah, the doublestuff oreo. A Black and white cookie being eaten in a black and white squad car, by black and white cops. How come the film didn't roll in just black and white. I guess color is just too important in commercials, huh?
Deal,
or
no
deal.
Oh Conan, making fun of Telemundo. Nice. Oh Neat, Daily Show and Colbert Report through a 40G ipod. Neat, neat, neat. Ooh, and the Palm Treo 700. Talk about your product placement. But I digress. Jon Stewart. Yippie!!!
Snakes
On
A
Plane.
Aaron Spieling (sp.)
Never mind, I think I'll TIVO Simon Coward and turn it on after Barry Cantelope's done right?
If you think getting a full dose of fruits is amazing, don't just taste it, savor it. Savor cingular's all over network has the fewest drops of vanilla in their lattes.
Or
Something
Like
That.
Earl is the name of my office.
Did Simon Cowell get booed or what? Um, did he pay people to boo him maybe? I wouldn't put it past that frogger. I mean flogger, I mean buckeroo, er, uh, I mean Bugger.
We're hear in 43rd street, right in the heart of hooker heaven. Oops, I mean Times Square.
Wow, Dick Clark looks and sounds bad, but at the same time he looks and sounds great. Do you know what I mean? If you know what he's been going through with stroke and all, trying to relearn English and motorskills, etc., you can tell by watching him, (if you're patient enough) that he really IS alert and with it. Yup. I don't like him, but I kind of do like him. Know what I mean? Yeah, something like that.
Chocolate.
Everybody
Loves
Chocolate.
And Raymond, and MacDonalds, huh? I spelled it wrong, didn't I? Good. Won't show up on ask.com or google if I can pull of not saying it anywhere else too. hehehehe
Excuse me, that ATM just ate my card, and I have to be at Chrysler's German headquarters in 35 minutes, could you go behind the machine and do that thing you do again?
And now, here's Prime Anarchist with Alliterative Headline Of The Hour.
CRONKITE TO CROWN COURIC QUEEN OF CBS NEWS. Couric. Is she any relation to Times Courier? Roman? ASCII.
Yeah.
That's
The
Ticket.
Is Barry Manilow a perfect excuse to use the word Yutz or what?
And what's with pretending to Torture Bob Newhart in the isolation booth thingie? Was that Alan Dershowitz idea or something?
So is paradigm the word of the week or what? I guess better that than meme, eh? or Podcast. Did I say that? Yeah. Did.
Bradley Whitford, Didn't he sing for Aerosmith? Or play bassoon or something? Or was that Halford? Judas KISS? Buffoon. Yeah, that's it. I was right. Sorta. Yeah.
By the way, did I ever tell you why I never buy Arrow Shirts, Van Heusens?
So Labour Day is coming soon. Get out there and Start your shopping. Shop shop shop!!!
Ladies and Gentlemen, here's Howie Mandel and a woman with cleavage all the way down her cleavage for the all new subtle-porn-oriented weekly show entitled "Feel Or No Feel."
"Peppered? Mr. Whittington, seasoned to an inch of his life." -- Jon Stewart
Ladies and Gendarmes, the 58th primetime battle of wits with unarmed opponents. NBC's NFL with NVideo nUnit and dividing by 'n' when you can't divide by '0.' Ah, making n, n - n. Now there's a quickfix.
Neat.
But I digress.
Can you say obfuscating the emmies?
Well you can on a 7 second delay that's for sure.
So, what do you get when you nUnit test your FSCK on an Apt/Get while compiling a kernel? Yup. Corporate media.
At this time I would like to thank the RIAA and the MPAA for royally screwing up all things creative in the first place. Can you say suppress? Suppressant, Repression, Suppression. Yeah, that's that. I'll stop right there.
Yes, "Little Miss Sunshine" ads on the Emmys. That's wicked cool. What a movie that one was. Get to it, or GET it as soon as you can. Worth the admission at any price, in my NOT SO HUMBLE opinion.
So, did Heather Locklear ever do Aaron Spelling? OK, just pretend I never asked that. How old was she?
Watching life through Aaron Spelling's eyes is kind of like watching Clerks II.
"I'm disgusted and repulsed and I can't look away." Becky played by Rosario Dawson watching a man do it with a male donkey named Kelly. Or was the man named Kelly?
Now THAT'S television.
Ooh la la.
I don't think I've eaten oreo cookies (fresh OR stale) in a couple years. I must do that soon. And yes, my favorite way to eat them is still as stale is you can get them.
How's Bob Newhart doing? I haven't seen him in quite a while. Is he ok? I worry about him. Jon Stewart said he was going to kill him.
"It warps the minds of our children and weakens the resolve of our allies." -- Stephen Colbert
Use tools, feel human. Photoshop everything you can't TIVO. Yeah, that's the ticket. Ready, set, lick. The victim has been cut in half.
I'm serious. Is Bob Newhart OK? I really wanna know. I think the TV spinoff of Snakes On a Plane really should be Tarantulas On A Train. Yeah, I'll produce it. OK?
Aaron Spelling couldn't be here tonite so we accept this award on Carrie Goldwyn and her psycho mom. Ooops. Did I say that? Sure I, knew I could.
You were warned never to push Jessica Biel to the limits. Now you must face the evil consequences. FBI, IRS, John Gotti and Paris Hilton.
Yeah, growing up Motolla. Hey, did Jessica ever...
Calista Flockhart announced she almost went "ass over tits." Harsh morbid joke alert: Maybe she started out on the wrong runway!
"Jessica, for the next two years, I own you." -- Aaron the slavedriver.
So am I the only one out there who has a crush on Stockart Channing? I doubt it.
Julia Dreyfus, is she related to... did she ever do...
Never mind.
This is the first Emmy win, and 9th nomination for some obscure guy who worked his ass off for many years and seldom got a break because his opinion was so outspoken.
Target: Love The Skin You're In. Don't stop livin' in the red. Just 8 shopping days til Laborday. So steal your dad's debit card if you gotta, and get out there and shop, shop shop!!!
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yakmilk's journal
crushed
contemplative
annoyed