Posts tagged with "Activism"

Helping Myanmar

By Ari | May 9, 08 12:35 PM

Looking for an effective way to help the people of Myanmar deal with the recent cyclone devastation? Their military government is blocking and intercepting aid, and as we know from 2004's Indian Ocean tsunami debacle, some aid organizations are more effective than others. So how can we best help?

Our friends at freeDimensional report:

Jay Koh, who runs NICA (Networking & Initiatives for Culture & the Arts ) based in Yangoon (Rangoon), and I have been in close email contact this week. His organization is currently accepting donations to be distributed to local relief organizations within Myanmar, the first being the Health and Death Assistant Association, which is managed by a monastery in Yangoon.

I can vouch for Jay: his commitment to his community is incredible, but he is desperate for help right now. With the UN cutting off aid, this is one way to get funds to Myanmar almost instantly. NICA has a PayPal account set up (visit www.paypal.com; send to ifima-at-gmx-dot-net). Please consider making a donation.

Another friend knows someone who works at the Burma Project at Open Society Institute, who suggests folks who want to give aid do it through Avaaz.org, a global online movement with millions of members. Avaaz.org is concerned that the junta can easily delay, divert, or misuse aid. They are partnering with the International Burmese Monks Organization (IBMO) and other local organizations to aid people directly through local networks.

Stop 'N' Swap on Saturday - NYC

By Ari | May 8, 08 09:59 AM

Build It Green is having a Swap Fest Block Party this Saturday in Queens, 11am-4pm. Like a Really Really Free Market, this is a great opportunity to get rid of stuff you're not using anymore (and maybe pick up some stuff you need), in a really local/community-centered and environmentally-friendly way.

Build It Green is a very cool place to wander around any day. If you need any low-cost salvaged building materials (or even furniture), this is the perfect time to get to know these guys and to check out the warehouse. Good stuff!

March to Save Our Healthcare this Friday - NYC

By Ari | May 7, 08 05:01 PM

Every Teacher, Transit Worker, Librarian, and Public Worker will be impacted!
5/9 FRI, 4:30 pm - Protest: "March to Save Our Healthcare."

Join the fight to prevent GHI-HIP from converting to a for-profit company & jeopardizing the healthcare of 4 million policy holders, including 500,000 NYC workers (93% of the workforce) & retirees. Mainstream politicians & union leaders support the change, hoping to benefit from the nearly $3 billion windfall profits of such a sale. Help send a "no privatization" message to the NYS Sup't of Insurance & GHI-HIP. Bring friends & signs.

At Office of the NYS Superintendent of Insurance, 25 Beaver St
(4/5 to Bowling Green, J/M/Z to Broad St , R/W to Whitehall St,
1 to Rector St, 2/3 to Wall St, A/C to B'way-Nassau).

Info: (718) 869-2279, noprivatization-at-yahoo-dot-com (request flyer)
http://www.consumersunion.org/conv/
http://www.metrohealthcare.org/html/hcoa080116.html [video]
http://www.myspace.com/saveourhealthcare
http://going.com/saveourhealthcare
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/05/96895.html

Spread the word!

Day of Silence

By Ari | May 7, 08 02:23 PM

Check out GLSEN's new Day of Silence Blog, designed by Shirari Industries. This year's DOS fell on April 25th and drew record numbers of participants. Hundreds of thousands of students from more than 7,500 middle and high schools took a pledge of silence to bring attention to the bullying, name-calling, harassment and other violence that silences queer folks every day.

This year's DOS was held in remembrance of Lawrence King, a 15-year old California student who was shot and killed because of his sexuality and gender expression. We had the honor of designing a quick skin for Lawrence's MySpace page, another GLSEN project.

Save the date - the next DOS is on Friday, April 17, 2009. In the meantime, anyone can take action year-round to create safer schools and communities for queer youth. Visit GLSEN for information and ideas.

Travelling the land and opening the mind

By Ari | May 7, 08 12:49 PM

A friend of ours is traveling to a jungle in Peru to take ayahuasca and is getting ready for the trip in his usual thoughtful style:

What helps us plug in, and stay plugged in, to stories of reality that disempower us? Certainly all forms of media, including advertisements and billboards. But I'm guessing that on a deeper level the very structures of our lives, the very things I'm supposed to miss such as electricity and toilets, keep us plugged in to a "modern American" reality that is simply our story, a story not shared by everyone on the planet.

I really identify with this idea. I found that the trip Shira and I took to India was eye-opening in ways I never expected. There's something about flushing your toilet with a bucket, taking cold showers, and being sold handmade items in bags made out of recycled newspaper instead of plastic, that makes Western environmental activism and "conservation" look woefully inadequate. It was that trip that made Shira and I get into low impact living, waste reduction, and drastically reduced consumption with more depth and enthusiasm and understanding than we ever had before. Today these practices are a huge part of our lives, but it was traveling and seeing different ways of living firsthand that turned everything around for us.

Combine a trip like that with ayahuasca and I imagine the effects must be even more profound. Keep an eye on Bunnykitteh's blog for updates.

Voices: Queer Palestinian women

By Ari | May 7, 08 12:15 PM

My friends at freeDimensional have introduced me to ASWAT, an organization of Palestinian gay women based in Haifa. ASWAT (Arabic for "voices") provides a range of services and opportunities for interaction and support to queer Palestinian women, while raising public awareness and fostering tolerance in the greater community. They're online at aswatgroup.org.

Their words remind me of the awkward (but perhaps essential) position of Bayard Rustin, whose efforts in the American Civil Rights movement have been largely marginalized and/or "forgotten" because he was also a gay rights activist. ASWAT's working statement reads in part: "As long as we women participate in the struggle for national liberation, we are welcomed and our efforts are appreciated. The moment women want to focus their energies in establishing independence from the male occupation and structure, we are transformed instantly into enemies."

For yet more voices of feminist women, this time from Muslim women worldwide, many of them from Palestine, check out Sarah Husain's Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith, and Sexuality. And stay tuned to our blog here for more on Israel-Palestine - Shira and I are just back from a trip that included about 10 days in Haifa, and thanks to many Big Discussions there, have a much better understanding of the politics in question, which I hope we'll have time to comment on in a future blog post or two.

Vermont Commons: The Decay of Capitalism

By Ari | May 6, 08 11:05 AM

Richard Davis's short opinion piece, The Decay of Capitalism, sums up how I've been feeling about the state of world affairs for a long time. Back when I read (parts of) Marx's Capital in school, I remember this graph showing capitalism's inevitable crash - there are only so many workers and resources to exploit before you run out of room for profit and the whole thing has to come tumbling down. I think this article does a good job of tying it all together, from fuel prices to the mortgage crisis to the healthcare industry's problems: "How did we get to the point where we replaced ethical principles and a sense of common good with profits at any cost? It is the natural evolution of the capitalist system in societies without a soul."

Lest this post sound too depressing: let's not forget that people are (and have been for some time) constructing socialist alternatives all over the world. Read Zapatista Encuentro: Documents from the Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism, La Realidad, Mexico for just one glimpse of the new worlds being forged to take the place of the old.

Hawai'i Needs You: An open letter to the US left from the Hawaiian sovereignty movement

By Ari | Apr 13, 08 08:47 PM

The Nation has published an open letter from the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, addressed to us in the U.S. left: Hawai'i Needs You. We're with you, Hawai'i! Via Jesse Lokahi Heiwa of the Hawai'i Solidarity Committee.

For more info, meet some of the folks in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement:

My Feminist Review: Transgender Voices: Beyond Women and Men

By Ari | Apr 12, 08 01:13 PM

My review of Lori B. Girshick's Transgender Voices: Beyond Women and Men is up at Feminist Review. This was a really good one! I'm genderqueer and have read quite a bit on this subject, but I learned a lot. I loved reading the words of the people Lori interviewed for the book, and seeing their photos - I found it really made me care for all of them, identify with them, want to be in unity with them, to change things so we all have a safer, happier world to live in. Any book that can do that is a good book, I think.

Our Eutopic Vision at Forbes.com

By Shira | Apr 11, 08 06:08 PM

Ari's rendering of our eutopia

When Ari and I posted our vision of a Radical Solidarity Ecovillage to the Intentional Communities Directory, we really didn't know what to expect. So far, we've gotten a couple of email inquiries from potential members who we're going to connect with in Ithaca, and we're eagerly awaiting more interest.

One thing we certainly didn't expect was to be contacted by Forbes.com. After Elisabeth Eaves interviewed us for her article Ecotopia we were kind of nervous. She had never heard of Community Supported Agriculture, not to mention Freeganism or an assortment of other strategies that we discussed. Considering that Forbes is entrenched in capitalism, we worried that maybe our earnest ramblings might be used against us.

Luckily that was not the case! In fact, we're right up at the top of the article, and we don't sound (too) crazy:

After six years in the city, Shira Golding and Ari Moore want to try something new. The two 27-year-old artists came to New York after college, but now yearn for less urban and more affordable living. Rather than retreat to suburbia, the two are trying to recruit like-minded souls to join them in an artistic, vegan commune, which they plan to form in upstate New York.

"The number of people doesn't matter so much as shared values," says Golding, who then elaborates on a philosophy of animal rights, ecological sustainability and "freeganism," in which "you abstain from capitalism by getting things for free or [by] barter[ing]."

Golding and Moore's utopian vision is in its infancy, but they aren't alone in their desire to build their own self-contained community.

If we're going to be picky, freeganism doesn't really include "bartering," as much as giving and taking freely, and we prefer "intentional community" over "commune." But what really matters is that the mainstream media is paying attention to alternative visions for sustainable living. If Forbes.com, whose tagline is "Home Page for the World's Business Leaders," is doing a whole feature on utopias, who knows what's next!

Which brings me to the word "utopia." As our friend and wordsmith Orion pointed out at our Peace and Justice Passover Seder last year, “utopia” comes from the Greek for “no place” or “nowhere.” In other words a "utopia" is a better society that does not and cannot exist. That's not very optimistic. Orion suggested "eutopia" as an alternative spelling, meaning a "good, happy place." The article Visions of Utopia or Eutopia? at CommonDreams.org, puts it this way: "Eutopia is a vision of a preferable place - but one with a bridge that gets us from here to there. Visions of a better society don't attract a critical mass of people. Only future visions with a visible, viable bridge can do that - a lesson many progressives have yet to learn." Let's start building those bridges!

The Shirari Update: Recent Work

By Ari | Apr 11, 08 08:00 AM

So we're gearing up for this trip, and churning out a LOT of work before we go. In the past couple of months we've done quite a bit, much of which we've already written about. But here are some projects we haven't blogged about yet:

I worked with GLSEN to design a new look for StudentOrganizing.org and put fresh skins on their Day of Silence and Remembering Lawrence King MySpace sites.
We co-created a brand and launched a placeholder page for the new documentary Lioness, currently making the rounds at festivals. Posters and a full site are on the way... follow this film, it's a good one.
I made posters and other collateral for the freeDimensional / Casa Frela production OFF THE WALL.
Shira designed the DVD for the doc Innocent Until Proven Guilty, soon to be available for purchase at Arts Engine.
I handled the International Women's Day and May Day issues of The Socialist, the magazine of the Socialist Party USA. The May Day issue inaugurated our brand spankin' new redesign.
We designed a new film distribution brochure for Scenarios USA and rebranded (and re-designed and re-authored) their DVD collection. We also handled the collateral for their 2008 REAL DEAL Awards and Gala. (I made their site, too - though that was a few years back!)
I did a launch postcard for The Plant Republic's new site.
Shira's been a pre-screener and has been coordinating the jury process for Pangea Day, a project of TED Conferences.
I designed a guide to US citizenship and naturalization for South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) and a fresh cover for the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA), through the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL).
I made invitations, posters, programs, and a million other things for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center's Broadway Backwards 3 and Center Dinner 25th Anniversary Celebration.

I'm sure I'm missing a million things, so if we worked on your project and haven't mentioned it, apologies! We really love all of our work, though it can be hard (I got up at 7am and am currently running on empty...), and we've been very lucky in that we can choose to work only on projects we really want to stand behind politically and ethically. It's a good life, this. Thanks to all of our clients and friends who continue to bring these amazing projects to us.

E-waste recycling event at Tekserve Mac shop - NYC

By Ari | Apr 10, 08 03:55 PM

Our favorite Mac shop and my one-time employer Tekserve, who recently sold us our new and amazing video editing system (THANKS!), is having their second annual Electronics Recycling Event, together with the Lower East Side Ecology Center. These sorts of environmentally-friendly shenanigans are just what I'd expect from Tekserve, home of "Fair Weights and Square Dealings." The event will be April 26th-27th, right here in NYC.

More tips on recycling things you just don't know where to recycle:
GrassRoots Recycling Network
EcoCycle
GreenDisk

Uncle Samantha

By Ari | Apr 10, 08 03:25 PM

I've been working for New York's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center for a while now, and a little job I did for them has recently gotten some new life, being put into use by Burgundy Crescent Volunteers in the DC area. Here she is! Uncle Samantha (or Aunt Sam) was meant to be a drag queen but is frequently mis-identified as a hot lesbian. Either way, she seems to be a crowd-pleaser. I originally drew her for the Gay Center's Volunteer Program and she appeared on the cover of the Center's newsletter, Center Happenings. Now the folks at Burgundy Crescent are using her to recruit new volunteers for DC Pride events. You can even get her on a shirt or mug!

Anyway, had to post this - I'm so happy to see Sam getting out there and hopefully bringing in some new recruits for the Gay Agenda. If you're queer and looking for something fun to do, I highly recommend volunteering with a local organization like the Center or BCV. They can always use people with skillz and are, I've found, generally full of really awesome people doing great work for people who really need it.

My Feminist Review: Bipedal, By Pedal!

By Ari | Apr 5, 08 11:47 AM

My review of the great critical mass zine "Bipedal, By Pedal!" is up at Feminist Review. Anyone out there done a critical mass bike ride? I'm embarrassed to say I haven't yet gone on one - I'm afraid of cars when on a bike. But this zine made me want to join up...

Earth Hour, Blackout Sabbath, and other symbols of sustainability

By Ari | Mar 29, 08 10:37 AM

Today I was happy to see Google blacked out in support of Earth Hour, tonight's hour of energy awareness (8pm - 9pm). Turn out your lights to participate, if you're into it.

However, reading about Earth Hour, I couldn't help but think Rufus Wainwright's Blackout Sabbath - 12 hours of no energy use at all, on the summer solstice, June 21, along with setting personal goals for sustainability - is a lot more hardcore. The World Wildlife Fund, who's behind Earth Hour, should have talked to Rufus and set their sights a little higher, pushed people a little harder!

On Rufus' short sample list of actions one can take for the environment, he even includes going vegan (my fingers are SO crossed right now that he'll join our vegan ranks... c'mon Rufus, you can do it...). Veganism is such an obvious step toward sustainability that it gets a little infuriating when I see Treehugger and WorldChanging and the like continually ignoring it as an option and suggesting people find "sustainable fisheries" and "happy meat", as if that solves much else besides making people feel a little better about oppressing animals.

I don't think I'm going to participate in Earth Hour, but I do think I'll do Blackout Sabbath. I loved the blackout too, and I think it could be magic to spend that time making art about the earth and the future, or writing by (vegan!) candlelight about the times to come and how we can make it beautiful. I like setting goals for myself, and I like participating in consciousness-raising events like fasts and the like, because I like, well, raising my consciousness. These events are symbols, but important ones: They're fissures in the wall of separation we put up between our energy-consuming, self-centered, here-and-now lives - and the future, our children's future, the future of the earth. We don't like to look over there, to see what we're actually setting up for ourselves. If it takes an hour (or 12 hours) of reflection and awareness to really take a good look at what we're doing and how we can change, then that symbolic act is a very useful one.

But in the end, we need more than just temporary observances and symbolic acts, right? If you're out of a room for over two minutes, there shouldn't be a light on in there. If you've got appliances with power indicator lights on them that are plugged in all day, they're just sitting there sucking up energy, and should be unplugged until they're needed. If your home just doesn't stay cool in the summer or warm in the winter, maybe you need to fix your insulation so all of that energy doesn't just fly our the window. In every situation we have the power to make decisions that add to the problem, or that make the world a better place. There are easy little things we can all do every day, all day, to go beyond symbols and toward true sustainability. What do you do? And do symbols help, or distract from this larger, deeper movement?

Shirari's Peace and Love Podcast... #1?

By shirari | Mar 25, 08 06:32 PM

We've been talking about doing a podcast for a really long time and today we actually recorded one! Well, call it an experiment - if people are interested we'll record more. In the meantime, it's just a link to an MP3 file that you can download and play. Whee.

We talk about how we got into activism back in college, and how our veganism and anti-capitalism and sustainability activism are all related. Also features trash talk and an interruption by a kitten. Basically it's about living in line with our ethics, and having a very good time doing it. We've really loved learning from others' podcasts and hope someone will find something here that's worth listening to.

Shirari's Peace and Love Podcast #1: Who we are and what this is all about
March 25, 2008 - 17 minutes - 20.3MB

R.I.P.

By Shira | Mar 25, 08 01:55 PM

rip - 3.08.08.jpg

When people die around the same time, are their souls somehow interconnected? I'm not sure that I believe that we have a "soul" and I'm pretty certain that there is no after-life, other than a slow reunion with mama earth, and yet when people pass away in close succession, I can't help but searching for common threads. (Remember when James Brown, Robert Altman, Saddam Hussein and Gerald Ford died in November/December 2006?)

So what do filmmaker Anthony Minghella, author Arthur C. Clarke and musician Israel "Cachao" López have in common? They were all creative visionaries.

Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley is a beautiful film that captures the conflict between external and internal identities in a way that I have never seen before or since. It also shows how totally destructive homophobia, especially the internalized variety, can be.

Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey was written concurrently with the production of Kubrick's film and published after its release. The film, the book, the whole of Arthur C. Clarke's work, is an example of the best of what science-fiction has to offer the world - a glimpse into the future that shows us what we need to do today.

I actually hadn't heard of Israel López until a few days ago, when his death was announced. On NPR he was described as the "inventor of Mambo music." While I'm sure that, as with any artistic movement, López had many collaborators and co-inventors along the way, it's still pretty amazing to be known as the creator of anything. It's time to listen to the Buena Vista Social Club Soundtrack again (López composed a number of the songs).

So rest in peace Anthony, Arthur and Israel. If there is a heaven, I hope you're all up there working on a mambo/sci-fi/cinematic mash-up.

OFF THE WALL - Opening tonight in NYC

By Ari | Mar 21, 08 02:13 PM

I've had the privilege to work with freeDimensional on an event called OFF THE WALL: Celebrating Arts and Human Rights, opening tonight at Casa Frela Gallery in Harlem. Click here for more info and be sure to check out freeDimensional. They're a growing non-profit that's doing some very important work for artists in need of asylum, all over the world.

Vegan Treasures from My Mom

By Ari | Mar 17, 08 06:05 PM

My mom runs an online business selling vintage women's clothing: Vintage Lucy. I wanted to help her make the leap from eBay to her own shop, and I thought I could make her a PayPal shop using Movable Type - but I don't usually do jobs that involve animal exploitation, and Mom's amazing collection happens to contain some wool, leather, and feathers. I did end up making the site, and am now helping her do some outreach.

I have to admit that I'm really glad that I compromised my ideals to work with her on this site! 100% vegan though it may not be, it can help my mom make a living. And it so happens that Mom has become increasingly open to animal rights ideas over the years. She dabbles in vegetarianism and veganism and is constantly educating herself and changing; she cares for and loves many animals, and recently has done a little animal rights activism. She added a new category of items to her site called Vegan Treasures - as she points out, "wearing vintage & pre-worn is recycling, saving precious animals & the Earth." Check it out - there's some very beautiful stuff in there (all of the photos above are from this category): Vintage Lucy Vegan Treasures (No animal products used in these beauties.) Who knows, maybe this is only the tip of the vegan iceberg for my mom...

"Conscious consumerism"

By Ari | Mar 16, 08 03:05 PM

A little while ago, Brooklyn activist/art collective Change You Want to See / Not an Alternative banned Raw Revolution products from their gallery space, issuing a kind of anti-greenwashing/consumerist manifesto along with the announcement: The Real (Raw) Revolution:

A line is here drawn against alternative capitalist products. Revolution is not a candy bar or an energy drink. Don't get us wrong, we recognize good intentions, but good intentions alone are no solution for avoiding the road to hell. All products that represent themselves as "sustainable solutions" are hereby banned from The Change You Want to See Gallery. Creating an economy where fairly traded, organic, vegan, healthy, (and even free) products are the norm rather than an anomaly is something we encourage. We believe however that to achieve this, a stand has to be taken against any commodity that is packaged as the embodiment of an alternative or a revolution. Consuming "Raw Revolution" will never be a meal replacement for actual revolution. Please... continue to invent, build, create, fight, force the limits of the capitalist system. Bring the results of your work to the Gallery, we want to and will continue to help you promote your work. However we will no longer provide a cover for a guerilla marketing campaign. If "false revolutionary", "fake alternative" "politically correct" "do-gooder" products are brought to the Gallery their packaging will be removed at the door.

(Via Stop Shopping Monitor)

Here's the video version:

I really dig the sentiment behind this move. We've been trying to figure out what we can possibly put in our own shop that would pass our ethical muster. We don't like using new materials or toxic art supplies. We don't want to ship things all over the place, requiring shipping suppplies and fuel as well as causing pollution. And we don't really like having money relationships with people anymore, either - though that's hard to avoid when you live in a capitalist society and sell your skills for a living. All of this rather limits what one can sell in a shop, if one decides to keep the shop at all.

There's such a fuzzy line between people working for social change and trying to make a living at the same time - and people who are more in it for the money, but who may do some good along the way. Where do you cross the line into exploitation, or are you always there, so long as you're participating in capitalism?

On the other side of this equation is consumerism of different sorts. In our ongoing efforts to reduce our impact we've found that there are certain things we've needed to buy that require shipping. You can find used books on alternative energy at a local bookstore, for example, but what about that washable shower curtain that requires no plastic liner (or other hard-to-find but highly efficient replacements for conventional housewares)? You'd think in our massive city we'd find it (and yes, if we were craftier, we'd make it), but no luck. But buying online from a company like Simple Family Living Homegoods or Gaiam has a broad impact (supporting capitalism; using packaging material; and polluting the air, using up fuel and clogging up a highway, during shipping). At what point does it make more sense to just buy a damn curtain that requires a liner, imperfect a solution though it might be?

I know we can't be perfect, but we can do our best to do the right thing for the planet and our neighbors. In the society we've set up for ourselves though, it can be hard to know what the "right" decision is.

UPDATE, 3.26.08
Lest I sound too negative about Simple Family Living Homegoods and Gaiam, I wanted to put in that these two companies - and Simple Family Living Homegoods in particular, which is much more indie than Gaiam - are both really great places to get things that will help you move toward a lower-impact life. Reusable, washable mesh produce bags will help you avoid using plastic ones, reusable cloth gift bags and handkerchiefs will help you avoid the use of wrapping supplies, soap nuts and a collapsible drying rack will help you avoid detergents and use less power when doing laundry, and so on. If you can't - or won't - make these things yourself, and if you can't find them locally (which is all too often the case, hence this post), these are indeed very good places to find them.

Vegans feeding people

By Ari | Mar 2, 08 04:05 PM

I was just doing some research into overlaps between veganism and mutual aid, and was a little shocked at how few programs for hungry folk are run by vegans. It's too bad, it seems like a really good idea! It's safer to prepare and handle than animal-based food, and can be cheaper, too - and giving cruelty-free food to people who need it seems like a natural extension of the vegan ideal of ahimsa (most good / least harm).

Here are a few organizations that are vegan or vegetarian - anyone know of any others?

Food Not Bombs - freegan, anarchist free vegan food movement
Vegfam sustainable, vegan agriculture projects aimed at reducing hunger and providing disaster relief
Food for Life Hare Krishna-run lacto-vegetarian food aid and disaster relief program
The People's Potato worker-owned vegetarian soup kitchen
Freegan.info freegan feasts, trash tours and community meals

Fight Military Recruitment in Schools

By Shira | Mar 1, 08 07:21 PM

The New York Coalition of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) have recently released a curriculum that helps teachers educate their students about military recruiting tactics. The goal is to empower students with concrete information and to make sure they know about alternative ways to access education and career-building tools after high-school.

Ari and I had the pleasure of designing the cover for Camouflaged: Investigating How the U.S. Military Affects You and Your Community, which you can preview and buy online through Lulu.com.

If you're a teacher who want to get involved, you should come to the meeting this week...

NYCoRE's Counter Recruitment Project Meeting
Thursday, March 6, 5:30-7:30
CUNY Graduate Center 34th St. & 5th Ave., Room 5489
Please bring ID

Topics of discussion include:

Bringing teachers together to develop a workshop for other teachers around unpacking military recruitment in New York City Schools and across the country
Outreach to bring teachers and administrators from Upper Manhattan neighborhoods to the workshop
Strategizing ways to share the ideas developed by New York City teachers in NYCoRE's recently released curricular guide Camouflaged
Developing ways to be a voice in the events acknowledging the anniversary of the war in Iraq

If you are interested in attending or getting involved, email Edwin at NYCoRE.

And here are some great videos about recruiting and the impact of war on veterans from Media That Matters: No Child, All That I Can Be and Night Visions

Radical Solidarity Ecovillage

By Ari | Mar 1, 08 03:57 PM

Hey, any activisty, creative vegans out there interested in cohousing, intentional community, or ecovillage life? Shira and I just posted a listing for a forming community, Radical Solidarity Ecovillage, in the Online Communities Directory.

We're relocating to Ithaca, New York, at the end of this coming summer, and are talking about buying a house, seeking freedom from rent - but do we really want to lock ourselves into a 30-year mortgage on a conventionally built house, is that freedom? We're very attracted to intentional community, co-housing, ecovillages, and other alternatives, but no matter how cool they are, we just can't stomach the idea of putting our labor and money into animal exploitation. (Unfortunately most communities incorporate some form of "animal husbandry".) So we thought we'd put a listing out there, see if we can find some kindred spirits. Check it out and let us know if you or anyone you know would be interested in something like it.

For a great overview of a family's experience building their own earth-friendly, mortgage-free house, check out A Low-Impact Woodland Home.

And for a glimpse at what ecovillage life can look like, check out The Farm's Ecovillage Tour:

If Only All Capitalists Were Ed Begley, Jr.

By Shira | Feb 20, 08 05:29 PM

Go, Ed Begley, go!

Loving mama earth, one day at a time

By Ari | Feb 16, 08 02:00 PM

There have been a lot of locavore for a year / vegan for a week / freegan for a month projects going on lately, usually resulting in a book or article. I worry that rather than inspiring lasting change, these sorts of projects frame these actions as extreme (and temporary, limited) experiments by extraordinary people. As Vegan Freak Radio says again and again, there's nothing extreme about living ethically and with compassion. Our individual actions do affect the future of our planet, and each of us has the power to reduce our negative impact and even make our impact a positive one.

I think the secret is to make changes at a pace that's sustainable. If you rush it and try to go vegan or zero-waste overnight, odds are, your plan will backfire. But if you can identify an area in which you want to improve your actions, make a change and see positive results, that change is more likely to be a lasting one - and you'll be more likely to go on to work on another thing you want to improve.

For example, by making small changes over a period of over a year, Shira and I have gone from throwing out a big bag of trash at least once a week, to throwing out a tiny bag of trash every two weeks or so. Where did all that trash go? Well, it wasn't "trash" in the first place - it was compost, recyclables, and reusables. And in many cases, because we've been working on reducing our consumerism and choosing items with less packaging, it no longer comes into our apartment in the first place. And this wasn't a temporary experiment - it's just what we're doing because we love our earth and want our future children to be able to enjoy it, too.

Want more perspective on why sorting your trash is worth the effort? Long before The Story of Stuff came Jorge Furtado's Ilha das Flores, a Brazilian documentary short that shows how one person's trash becomes another person's food. Here it is with English subtitles.

Here are some resources and groups working toward a zero-waste / low-impact future:

The art for this post is from a Shell ad that was pulled because it was deemed misleading - since Shell is, after all, an oil corporation and not an envrionmental activist organization. But damn did they make a pretty image - and they're right, don't throw anything away - there is no away!

The Why Cheap Art? Manifesto

By Ari | Feb 10, 08 01:42 PM

I'd somehow never seen this before, and had to share it. You can get it here. Bread and Puppet made it. Find out more.

Via Green Mountain Collective's Catamount Tavern News, reachable at greencollective(at)chek(dot)com or via snail at CT News, PO Box 76, Montpelier, VT 05601.

Vote Gogol Bordello

By Ari | Feb 7, 08 09:45 AM

One of my favorite bands, Gogol Bordello, has been nominated for Best Punk Album and Best Live Show in the 2008 Plug Independent Music Awards. Voting is open until February 15th, so if you're into them too, vote now!

If you don't know them, check them out. Gogol Bordello is an international punk-dub-gypsy party. When we saw them live a while back, the audience was so excited before the show that spontaneous hora mosh pits broke out when a Fanfare Ciocarlia song came on. And during the show... let's just say there was drag, wine, an accordion, and some premium dancing. Most endearingly, GB's multilingual lyrics criticize US immigration policy, capitalism, globalization and organized religion, tell the stories of the oppressed, and point at a future in which we all recognize each other as family instead of competition. Good stuff.

I am a foreigner and I'm walking
Through new streets
But before I want to I see the same deeds
Inherited by few a power machine
That crushes you and strangles you
Right in your sleep
But be it me, or it's you, the leisure class
I think we all know:
That be it punk, hip-hop, be it a reggae sound
It is all connected through
The gypsy part of town..
Let's go!
It's the underdog world strike!

(Via Gogol Bordello Mailing List)

The Indypendent Printed My Illustration for "Revolutions: Read All About ’Em"

By Shira | Feb 3, 08 06:22 PM

I had fun working on this piece to accompany Chris Anderson's review of the new "Revolutions" series from Verso Books.

I'm really looking forward to checking out the series. I'm especially excited about Slavoj Žižek's intro to Mao's "On Practice and Contradiction."

Simulated stupidity

By Ari | Feb 3, 08 02:05 PM

Recently I saw a big ad for EA's "Sim City Societies" that shows three (fake) people and the societies they've built, one of which is obviously meant to be an earthy crunchy green city and another that's insanely capitalist. Curious what options the game would actually give you (can you make a sustainable anarchist community, for example?), I checked out their site.

The game does seem flexible, poking fun at both capitalists and utopians and hinting at the idea of creating a balance. ("Mix and match societal values — productivity, prosperity, creativity, spirituality, authority, and knowledge — to determine the core attributes of your city... Witness the evolution of your city as its appearance and sounds adapt to reflect these values.") But right up at the top of the home page is a prominent "Learn more about alternative energy" link that leads to a BP-branded site explaining that this game is the result of a partnership between the oil company and EA.

While I appreciate that BP is apparently doing a lot of work in green energy development, and that this game will allow users to experiment with wind farms and other green technologies, this looks like a massive greenwashing campaign to me. BP paints itself here as a green energy company, with nary a whisper of its record as one of the ten worst corporations in the world.

With BP so intimately involved in this game's development, my guess is that folks who want to set up oil-guzzling societies will be conveniently prevented from causing the oil spills and oil refinery explosions that characterize oil's real-world impact... which sort of negates the whole point of a game that supposedly serves as a mini experimental laboratory for various energy options, doesn't it?

Related: Games for Change: Serious Fun

Craft Magazine really wants you to buy things

By Ari | Feb 1, 08 06:49 PM

Craft Magazine rejected an article written by one of their regular contributors, Jean Railla. The piece, called “What Would Jesus Sell?”, asks some questions about crafting and consumerism that Craft apparently decided were too dangerous to publish. Fortunately, Murketing and MediaBistro have both taken up the slack and republished the piece themselves. Yay, you can read it! It's good:

Isn’t shopping, no matter how wonderfully crafty and politically correct still, well, shopping? Can you escape the so-called sin of consumerism by buying handmade? Isn’t the whole point of modern crafting Do It Yourself - not Buy from Someone Who is Doing It Themselves?

(Via Stop Shopping Monitor)

Here Comes Everybody

By Ari | Jan 30, 08 08:56 PM

Why User-generated Content Mostly Isn't by Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody:

The internet is in a way the first thing that really deserves the label 'media'. It is a truly general-purpose mediating layer, one that can hold multiple types of content, created and distributed for a huge variety of reasons and in a huge variety of ways, ways that can't be fit into the old mode of "content", where one group creates and another merely consumes.

(via unmediated)

Al Gore for Gay Marriage Equality

By Shira | Jan 30, 08 02:47 PM

Oh Al, thanks for this one!

Vegan Ice Cream Tasting!

By Shira | Jan 29, 08 03:43 PM

wheeler's black label vegan ice cream tasting
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

A couple of weekends ago Ari and I went to a free tasting of Wheeler's Black Label Vegan Ice Cream at a tiny gallery in the East Village called Little Cakes. The two flavors we tried were peanut butter chocolate chip and espresso, and they were both delicious.

The company is based in Boston, but they're planning on expanding their distribution. To get the word out, they're throwing free tasting parties around the country, and anyone can volunteer to be a host.

While I have mixed feelings about vegan facsimiles of animal products -- they usually are highly-processed and not nearly as healthy as whole foods -- I still "need" an occasional fix, and am looking forward to the day that Wheeler's is in my grocer's freezer. Once you taste some, I'm sure you'll agree, even if you eat dairy.

No more Alba Hawaiian lip balm for me

By Ari | Jan 29, 08 10:19 AM

Alba Pisses Me Off!!
Originally uploaded by Flower~

Alba's amazing vegan lip balm is about to become not vegan. They're adding beeswax! It's such a shame. I will miss the pineapple coconut deliciousness. If you too are an unhappy vegan, write them a letter.

Fortunately, there are a lot of other cruelty-free options available. (Merry Hempsters, Literati, Pussy Pucker Pots, Eco Lips, DIY...)

If you're not boycotting bee products yet, please read Why Honey is Not Vegan. For a glimpse into the world of industrial beekeeping, visit Honey Bee Insemination Service.

Crafting Protest

By Ari | Jan 27, 08 08:15 PM

knitting nation jumpsuit
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

Yesterday Shira and I hit a panel at the New School called "Crafting Protest", the result of a collaboration between women working around the intersection of crafting and activism. Liz Collins, Sabrina Gschwandtner, Cat Mazza and Allison Smith showed us presentations on their amazing projects, and dropped some science.

Shira's Flickr photoset Crafting Protest at the New School - January 26, 2008 includes links to the panelists websites and such. And these are my drawings made while at the event:

Another Reason to Love Canada

By Ari | Jan 27, 08 04:46 PM

Stop Idling!
Originally uploaded by Vegan_Butterfly

Can you imagine the U.S. government distributing a flier called "Idling is Killing Our Environment"? I can't.

Angela Davis Tells It

By Shira | Jan 25, 08 03:33 PM

Earlier this week, on Martin Luther King Day, I happened upon an amazing speech that Angela Davis gave at Duke University in 2005. In an hour she manages to cover racism, homophobia, the war in Iraq, the prison industrial complex, media conglomeration and more (including some prescient shout-outs for Dennis Kucinich and Barack Obama).

Most importantly, Davis calls attention to the worldwide movement for social change, a network of people from around the globe, united in the belief that "Another World Is Possible." It turns out the World Social Forum, the largest annual convening of this movement of movements, is taking place right now, all around the world (in the past, it's been held in particular locations like Porte Alegre, Mumbai and Nairobe). The WSF site hosts an interactive Google map that you can search for actions in your area.

I found the Angela Davis speech on iTunes U, a pretty awesome section of the iTunes store where you can download free audio from various universities, including full courses. To find the speech, open iTunes, click on the store, click on "iTunes U" on the upper left side, then click on "Duke" in the universities list on the left, then on "Campus" in the topics list on the left, and then on "Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration" under Offices and Programs on the bottom. (Yes, it's really annoying that you can't bookmark or hyperlink things in iTunes,unless you know you don't mind installing AppleScripts.)

Does anyone out there know the deal on Shola Lynch's documentary Free Angela & All Political Prisoners? All I can find online is this video interview Shola did for AOL Black Voices about the project. I really want to see it, but I can't find any distribution info.

Ari and I are also working our way through the UC Berkeley class "Introduction to Nonviolence" with professor Michael Nagler. Just go to iTunes and do a search to find it. College without homework - woohoo!

Hotelling, coworking, and other evolutions of work

By Ari | Jan 23, 08 10:57 AM

zora's tummy
Originally uploaded by arimoore

I just read Treehugger's post on "Hotelling". Apparently this is an old practice that's come back in vogue, whereby businesses keep a lot of their workforce mobile, rather than providing office space and expecting people to stay there all the time. Honestly, I don't see how it's very different from telecommuting. Except that the name is cuter. Anyway, this earth-friendly practice (as Treehugger points out, it results in "few people commuting, [and] less space being built, heated and cooled") got me thinking about connections between work, play, and learning.

I'm a fan of unschooling (self-education without the institution, or even the structure). The educators who advocate for unschooling point out that kids learn naturally while playing, all the time. And studies have shown that if you let kids learn on their own, they'll learn the material better than if you force it on them.

Work seems to be similar: People actually like working. Nothing like the satisfaction of a job well done, right? (Read Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano if you don't agree.) But if you make people work, and force them to do it under circumstances over which they have no control, it becomes less attractive. Take away the desk, let people roam (or better yet, make the business a worker-owened cooperative), and you've got a recipe for increased happiness, and efficiency.

This isn't a too-good-to-be-true pipe dream, either: Hotelling, telecommuting, freelancing, coworking and other alternative forms of fitting work into one's life are all in active use all over the world.

For an application of similar ideas to a conference/ meeting/ retreat setting, see Opening Space for Communication and Collaboration with Open Space Technology. (Link via Josh A.)

Feminist Review: Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina

By Ari | Jan 21, 08 11:12 AM

My review of Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina is up at Feminist Review:

Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina is not an oral history, but a small part of a story that is still being told. Something incredible happened in Argentina on December 19th and 20th, 2001. The government had frozen the people’s bank accounts so they could use the money to pay off an IMF loan in order to get yet another one, dragging the country’s economy even further than it had already sunk. Business owners had fled, leaving thousands jobless, struggling to feed their families while their workplaces stood empty... (read more)

I can't recommend this book highly enough for progressive activists and others interested in social change. The folks in this book are doing some really incredible things we can all learn from. Published by AK Press.

Shirari Industries