Posts tagged with "Media"

I wrote an article about how to organize a community swap/barter meet for Shareable

By Shira | Feb 4, 10 12:47 PM

Shareable, a website that "tells the story of sharing,” invited me to write a how-to article for their site and I seized the opportunity in the hopes of inspiring similar efforts in other communities.

Read the article: How to Throw a Community Swap Meet

Fresh off the Wordpress: Frac Attack

By Ari | Nov 28, 09 10:31 AM

$fracattackhome-launch.jpg$ I'm sure Shira will post something more detailed later, but I'm excited about a new Wordpress site we just set up yesterday, so I'll write about the tech for now!

Frac Attack: Dawn of the Watershed is up at fracattackthemovie.com. It's an evolving site (the About page hasn't been made yet, for example!), so keep checking it if you want to see it grow. We'll be adding production info, credits and thank-yous, press coverage, and, after our world premiere at Cinemapolis on Dec. 10, the film itself, so people can watch the whole thing online anytime. It is, after all, an advocacy video, and we believe in free culture. This whole project is about getting the word out about natural gas drilling so we can protect New York state!

We set the whole thing up yesterday. We've been doing more and more Wordpress sites for clients and I wanted to do one for us and see how long it would take to put up something attractive and functional. Here are the features of this little site, built in one day:

It makes use of a partnership with a local, related advocacy organization (Shaleshock; I update their website, among other things) to provide maintenance-free Take Action and background info links.
This site has AddThis social bookmarking and send-to-friend functionality, and is already collecting stats via Google Analytics. We're also using a Facebook fan page and event listings (which we link to liberally) to help people get the word out about the film on Facebook.
It's serving up a trailer hosted on social networking sites, saving us bandwidth and providing a range of online viewing options.
Graphics, and the template itself, have been designed to not need updating: The left sidebar auto-updates as authors blog and add links and pages. The right sidebar is designed to not need any updates while sending traffic exactly where it's needed, though its auto-updating Flickr badge showing photos from the production (and soon, our Premiere, and house screenings!), which keeps it feeling fresh.
Applying our ethics to our tech choices, we chose the free, open-source Wordpress, which I installed on our MayFirst hosting account. (MayFirst is an affordable membership-based tech organization that's a great hosting solution for progressive folks with a lot of websites.)
To save on labor time (and, if this were for a client, costs), we used a free Wordpress theme by Eric Crooks, slapped a header on it that echoes our poster design (thanks to Joe Fisher for the amazing photography!), changed up the colors and fonts a bit to work with the film's look and feel, and put most of our efforts into careful content creation, fleshing out the site with essential pages and carefully-chosen, useful sidebar links. A few hours later: Presto, a website. Hardly any coding to speak of. We ♥ Wordpress.

The world is changing: Gawker said something intelligent about animal rights

By Ari | Nov 16, 09 11:48 AM

I was just reading gossip over at Gawker (yes, yes I was), and I saw this:

Normally, whenever PETA opens their mouths, even if it's for a good cause, you're like OMGSTFU PETA, you guys are being crazy-obnoxious right now and a detriment to your cause. But I have to say, on this one, well played: they're asking US Marshals to donate Ruth Madoff's furs to the homeless to "highlight the difference between need and greed." Like, whoever made that PR play and got it in Page Six, smooth. Take the day off, PETAPerson.

Awesome observation, Gawker. It is very cool to see even a celebrity gossip blog publicly express frustration with PETA while making it clear that PETA and animal rights are not the same thing. Many of us animal lovers are getting tired of being lumped in with them, so seeing this kind of insightful response from someone outside of the animal rights arena is refreshing.

That said, I agree that PETA did right in this particular action. They're very good at getting media coverage and their hearts are in the right place, I just wish they could lay off offending people for a while.

Ari's Brother Was Car-Jacked...He's ok Now!

By Shira | Oct 21, 09 07:44 PM

For real!

Distractions from Wild Things

By Ari | Oct 2, 09 09:06 AM

I love how human and accessible Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze sound in this glimpse at the writing of the "Where the Wild Things Are" screenplay:

Eggers and Jonze also talked about the difficult process of turning a short storybook into a full length movie. Eggers had never worked on a screenplay before, and he didn't have any software. He and Jonze wrote the first draft in Microsoft Word, adding tabs and capitals themselves. Jonze kept getting easily distracted and wanting to go to the store or watch Youtube videos, so Eggers was more of a task-master, keeping him in focus.

I think of these guys as such pros, so it's nice to hear that even they get distracted by YouTube!

"A Recipe for Change: Documentaries on Food" - My Most Recent Article on MediaRights.org

By Shira | Sep 24, 09 04:15 PM

Check out my new article on food documentaries. It's kind of a survey/opinion piece and I'd love to know what you think!

Read the full article:
A Recipe for Change: Documentaries on Food

Here's an excerpt:

These days it seems like green is the new black. From designer grocery bags to eco-tourism, popular culture has finally embraced environmentalism and, for better or worse, begun coopting it with profit-driven campaigns. Regardless of how you feel about capitalism, the good news for mother earth is that changing your daily habits to lower your impact is no longer wholly dismissed as radical, hippy behavior, at least not by people in blue states. Core to this cultural paradigm shift is food. Americans are making the not-so-giant-leap in logic that what we eat affects our health and the health of our planet, and documentary films have played a significant role in getting us here.

In 1976 Americans were reeling from the Vietnam War and Watergate. The utopian visions of the sixties were fading memories and food was already firmly established in the collective psyche as a “product” – fast, cheap and out of control. It was in this context that filmmaker Frederick Wiseman released Meat, a cinema verité portrait of what was, at the time, one of the country’s largest slaughterhouses. Years before animal rights activists were capturing the disturbing conditions at factory farms with hidden camcorders, Wiseman invited Americans to meet their meat through his nuanced filmmaking. (Read more)

And, the article got a mention on Ithaca's Food Web, a new blog about local food - thanks Alison!

fD Outreach: Wasan Retreat 2009

By Ari | Aug 5, 09 04:15 PM

fD outreach: wasan retreat 2009
Originally uploaded by arimoore

Shira and I work for freeDimensional, an international network that fosters collaboration and resource-sharing between activists and art spaces. I recently became its Director of Communications. Fun! One of my first big projects has been helping to coordinate the follow-up documentation and outreach of our Wasan Retreat 2009.

We used Flickr and other social media including the Ning I set up for fD to record the happening, and to digest all we learned there so that it will be of use to a wider audience. Over time we'll be posting more and more videos and texts, but even now, you can see photos, videos, info on the amazing people who were there, and other coverage online. Check it out and join the Ning if you too care about free expression and the power of culture to change the world!

British Queer as Folk on Hulu

By Shira | Aug 5, 09 12:00 PM

Last week Hulu added a bunch of episodes of the original, British version of Queer as Folk to its streaming offerings. I was surprised to see that the main character was being played by Aidan Gillen a.k.a. Mayor Tommy Carcetti of The Wire. And his teenage boy toy was played by Charlie Hunnam of Judd Apatow's follow up to Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared. Who knows if Gillen or Hunnam are actually gay, but they certainly do a good job acting gay. The series originally aired in 1999 and helped pave the way for the American remake and a growing offering of queer television.

It's Vegetarian, It's Healthy, It's Beans

By Shira | Jul 14, 09 07:31 PM

We're going to see Bruno tonight!!!

Check Out My Article About Food, Inc. at Documentary.org

By Shira | Jun 11, 09 02:44 PM

I had a chance to see a preview copy of the new documentary Food, Inc. and interview the Director, Robert Kenner. This is my first article for the International Documentary Association's blog, and I'm psyched to get a chance to write about a topic so close to my heart:

Here's an excerpt and you can read the full article online:
Change: It's What's for Dinner: 'Food, Inc.' Takes on Agribusiness

In a world dominated by corporations, it is no surprise that the American food system has been hijacked by the relentless drive for profit. Under the pretexts of affordability and convenience, modern industrialized agriculture has consistently ignored the unintended consequences of their "efficient" practices on our health and livelihoods, the environment and other species.
Equally implicated is the United States government, which simultaneously subsidizes and fails to adequately regulate the agriculture industrial complex. This reality, explored by Frederick Wiseman in his 1976 cinema vérité documentary Meat and more recently by Nikolaus Geyrhalter in the unnarrated montage film Unser täglich Brot (Our Daily Bread; 2005), is more explicitly tackled in Robert Kenner's Food, Inc., which opens June 12 in New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and nationwide on June 19.

The issue of food and the many ways in which it affects our lives is an enormous one, and the film is a broad undertaking, exploring everything from the health impacts of ever ubiquitous high-fructose corn syrup (one out of three Americans born today is expected to develop early-onset diabetes), to water and air pollution caused by intensive factory farming, to human rights violations perpetrated against undocumented workers by mega corporations like Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer. Viewers are aided in processing all of this information by motion graphics created by Big Star NYC, which worked with Kenner to create an entertaining and helpful visual language for the film.

Ultimately, Food, Inc. is an examination of free market capitalism's disregard for anything other than the bottom line. "This is a film that's about more than food," says Kenner. "It's really about corporate consolidation and irresponsibility and about the relationship of these companies with government. It's not that different from what happened with the financial crisis. These companies have been totally irresponsible and at the end of the day, we're the ones who pay the price."

What is up, media?

By Ari | May 6, 09 09:33 AM

I think the more I read the news the more irritated I get with the media. I wish they were more critical. I wish they didn't just repeat each other endlessly. I wish they spent their time more wisely.

But then I remember that capitalism is probably the cause of these ills. If you're so focused on clicks or issues sold or your stock value, you'll do anything to get people to read you. Even that means you have to spend your time making slideshows like this one I just found while reading Google News, instead of covering, oh, I don't know, maternal health as impacted by economics, or US-led bombings in Afghanistan, or other issues of substance.

Imagine all the people

By Ari | Apr 19, 09 10:51 AM

I was just reading this article about tweens in love with the Obama girls, and I was glad to read that the Obamas are really trying to minimize media contact and coverage of their daughters - despite the awesome cuteness of so many kids obsessing over them like they're pop stars. I think people being in love with the Obamas is 100% great. I mean, yes, we should be critical and we should demand good policy and decision-making from Obama, but if tons of people love the First Family and want to be friends with them, I think that bodes well for our country. It sure is nicer than the atmosphere during the Bush presidency. Those were an uncomfortable eight years. I'd rather feel love than contempt for my elected leadership, personally.

However, love that finds its end in consumerism (the article suggests that concert tickets or DVDs are usually the outlet for kids' celebrity obsessions) or in oppression (the media spotlight and the paparazzi can be incredibly unhealthy) is not just love, it's become something else. I dream of a day when humans can love ourselves and other humans for who we all really are, without regard for artificial hierarchies and power structures. We put some people up on pedestals and obsess about them, lionize them or demonize them, over-analyze every gesture and purchase they make. Even if we love them dearly, we may be setting ourselves up for sorrow or for disappointment, depending on how their media image and their life (separate things!) pan out. Or we may subject them to such scrutiny they self-destruct (sorry Britney). This is why I don't believe in heroes.

Continue reading "Imagine all the people..." »

Going Green, One Film at a Time

By Shira | Apr 15, 09 08:56 PM

My interview with Larry Engel, Co-Author of the recently released Code of Best Practices for Sustainable Filmmaking, was just published on MediaRights.org and featured in their newsletter to over 20,500 members:
Going Green, One Film at a Time

Here's a choice excerpt:

Shira Golding: Do you think documentary filmmakers have a particular responsibility to be sustainable?

Larry Engel: Yes. Those of us from Filmmakers for Conservation and the Center for Environmental Filmmaking, are very much in the forefront of contact with the most exotic and fragile environments. We’re in the face of animals who are threatened and near extinction, and we make stories about them. It’s important to do that so that the public sees how beautiful and precious our world is, and exactly how fragile it is. Yet, for many many years, it didn’t matter how many Land Rovers you had – it didn’t quite matter what imprint you made on the land or the animals. And that didn’t make any sense.

This came to me many many years ago when I was working with a dear friend of mine and Co-Producer, Tom Lucas, out in Yellowstone. We had done an hour-long film for the National Wildlife Federation and PBS called Wildfire. We were tracking the ‘88 Yellowstone fires, and in the winter we went back to see how the park was doing, and we witnessed many many elks starving.

One of the researchers with whom we were working said, “You know, we’ve been doing studies about the caloric impact of human contact on animals from the back-country, and we learned that one contact can burn up hundreds of calories. Even if the animal doesn’t run or leave or do anything, just the stress and awareness, the adrenaline, consumes calories. In a marginal year, human contact could make the difference in the life and death of individual animals.”

At that point Tom and I looked at each other and we said, “Well you know what? We don’t really want to film anymore of these animals.” And she said, “You can keep filming them, but back off. Let’s make sure to use blinds and work in the trees so we minimize contact, instead of clomping around among hares and elks and buffalo. Let’s change our behavior.” Tanya really emphasizes that we have to change the behavior and sensitivity of the whole filmmaking world, from distributors, to programmers, the filmmakers, the manufacturers, all through the line.

Because if we can’t come around to figuring out how to create a sustainable lifestyle as filmmakers, then we’re doing a disservice to our subjects and therefore also to the audience.

Take a read and let me know what you think!

Flutter - Satire Is Fun!

By Shira | Apr 7, 09 01:24 PM

This really gets at the ridiculousness of Twitter, a website that I have thus far managed to steer clear of...

(And yes, I know that Twitter is great for all kinds of reasons, I just can't spend any more time online or I will explode.)

Health and wealth: The downfall of capitalism and the uplift of humanity

By Ari | Apr 4, 09 10:40 AM

Read this excerpt from Jobless rate bolts to 8.5 percent, 663K jobs lost (AP):

Orders placed with U.S. factories actually rose in February, ending a six straight months of declines, the government reported Thursday. Earlier in the week, there was better-than-expected reports on construction spending and pending home sales. And last week a report showed that consumer spending — an engine of the economy — rose in February for the second month in a row — after a half-year of declines.

Note that in this article, the authors and the economists they're quoting say that the following are indicators of health in an economy:

orders placed in factories
construction spending
home sales (presumably with mortgages attached)
consumer spending

All of these things involve people spending money. That is, the indicator of a healthy economy does not appear to be, "are people's needs being met?" but "are people spending enough?" But then, who knows, maybe spending a lot of money is somehow meeting people's needs. Is that so?

Continue reading "Health and wealth: The downfall of capitalism and the uplift of humanity..." »

Gay Rights at the Oscars

By Shira | Feb 23, 09 05:10 PM

Thanks Sean Penn!

Public Outrage

By Ari | Feb 11, 09 09:25 AM

I realized the other day that ever since Obama won the election I've stopped the frantic politics gossip blog reading I was doing for so long. And before that, I was more into following celebrities, which I'm also behind on. So, feeling a little out of the pop culture loop, I read a bunch of Huffington Post and Gawker and Defamer. Aaaaand then I felt glad I'd been avoiding it. People are weird.

These two stories really caught my eye: Caylee Anthony Doll Sparks Outrage and Octuplets' birth spawns outrage from public. Caylee was a little girl who was killed by her mother, her bizarre murder story followed closely by the media and the public. This story tells about some company that tried to capitalize on the story by selling a doll that looks like Caylee, which plays "You Are My Sunshine" when poked. Obviously many people thought this was in extremely bad taste, and the doll has been pulled. In the other story, we hear about the public's anger at Nadya, a woman who intentionally had eight new babies when she could barely care for the six children she already had. She used expensive fertility treatments to accomplish all of her pregnancies and is apparently racking up a huge public tab at her local hospital - and it appears that she wants to sell her story and photos of her babies to make money off of her story.

These two stories say so much about the strange breaking down of barriers between public and private life, between "ordinary people" and "celebrities" - and the role the media and capitalism play in these evolving relationships. I think we're seeing for the first time that, well, we're all people, we're all the same. If your story is something others are interested in, and if the media cares to discover your story and broadcast it to the world, presto, you're a "celebrity." And then, just like Britney Spears and Health Ledger, you have to deal with the consequences - suddenly you're not just talking to ten people via your blog or something, you're on center stage under bright lights, and the whole audience is ready to pelt you with rotten fruit if they don't like what they see.

Maybe the spotlight will illuminate selfishness or insanity or antisocial tendencies that turn the crowd against you - or maybe it will illuminate your pain with such clarity that others look away in embarrassment, complaining about the lighting - or about the ticket price they paid to see you. But we're all complicit in this show, we're all buying into it by treating each other like celebrities, by shining that bright light on people and pretending for a moment that they're not just like ourselves but are somehow superhuman, objects we can manipulate with our dollars and our attention.

Here are my takeaways from this lesson in media and money and their impact on kids:

Do not try to profit from murdered children. People will not appreciate this, and it's just creepy.
Do not make children for personal profit (or the hope thereof). The children will not appreciate this, and neither will anyone else who sees what you're doing.
Children are the future, and their interests are worthy of consideration - they're not just objects we can make and dispose of according to our whims.

Our Friends at The Dacha Project Are Awesome.

By Shira | Feb 1, 09 05:20 PM

Our friend Lea makes videos for About.com. She's also part of The Dacha Project, "An unlikely band of six, creating a more sustainable and autonomous existence somewhere in upstate New York." These awesome instructional videos were made on their sixteen acres...

On Gaza

By Shira | Jan 15, 09 01:34 PM

A good friend of mind asked me to explain the current crisis in Israel/Palestine. Here are my (unedited) ramblings...

israeli schizophrenia - "free tibet"/"we will win"
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

i think a lot of people are confused and torn about this issue, including me. the situation in israel/palestine is a cycle of violence in which the game of "who started it" is meaningless and counterproductive. the basic facts are that jews and muslims (and christians, and druze...) all have historical and religious ties to the land. the problem is that extremists within these populations believe that these rights are exclusive to their people and that they therefore have the right to kill anyone who threatens those rights.

enter modern warfare and politics. after the holocaust, the united nations, which should have stopped violence against european jews before world war II and earlier, was convinced that the jews deserved a homeland of their own. the british had control over palestine at the time, but it was mostly populated by arabs. there were also jews living there, including my father's mother's family, who have lived in jerusalem for generations. the proposition at the time was to create two states - one arab and one jewish, each autonomous. the arab population didn't want to give up what they felt was rightfully theirs. the jewish immigrants and the jews that had been coming to settle the land and established kibbutzim (agricultural communes) starting in the late 1800s were willing to fight. hence the "war of independence" as the israelis call it.

sabba and savta, my mother's parents
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

from the establishment of the state of israel in 1948, this cycle of violence has continued. (my mother was born there in 1949 after my grandparents survived the holocaust and met in cyprus, where they were imprisoned until the british let them in to the country). israel, surrounded by arab countries was attacked over and over again. these same countries did little to help the palestinian refugees that lived in camps in their borders. after the 1967 war, israel gained control over the west bank and the gaza strip, and continue to have complete control over the flow of people and resources in and out of these areas. at the same time the israeli government has actively encouraged jewish settlements within these regions. for the most part, jews who choose to live in the settlements are the most orthodox and extreme and see themselves as being on the frontlines. by the way, a lot of them are also american jews.

my mom in the israeli army
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

there are arabs who live in israel who don't identify as palestinians. they are second class citizens in many ways - their communities are generally underfunded and they rarely have high positions in the corporate sectors, but they are allowed to vote and have political parties. many of their palestinian brothers and sisters are economically dependent on israel for jobs, so they come into israel every day, crossing through checkpoints, with notoriously long lines and humiliating searches.

savta in a gas mask during the first gulf war
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

most palestinians feel that they are occupied and want freedom. they want their own country, and they are willing to fight for it using any means necessary. since there is no palestinian military, they use small cells and guerrilla tactics, and are embedded within the civilian population. they send rockets and suicide bombers into israel, targeting civilians. the israeli military fights back with many more resources, thanks largely to the alliance with america. hamas, both a political party and a militant movement, in turn is supplied with weapons by iran, which hates both the u.s. and israel.

disturbing postcard for sale in jerusalem
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

it is my belief that when violence is involved, neither side is right. israel has made some very meaningful attempts to create peace and even move towards a two-state solution, but extremist palestinians continue to use violence to call attention to their suffering. in the meantime, most israelis are living in a modern democratic state with all the amenities of western culture, while palestinians are living in much poorer conditions in the west bank and gaza. it's hard to tell an occupied population not to fight for their freedom, but israelis, at the same time, feel like they are defending their own freedom.

soldier playing the flute
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

there are amazing people on both sides working for peace. many of them are secular, but some are religious. personally, i think that nation states are inherently violent entities, and unless one side or the other is willing to give up, this conflict will continue for a very long time. as a jew, i feel a tie to the land of israel and its people and i do think that jewish people should be able to live there. but i don't think that we are any more entitled to a jewish state than the palestinians are entitled to return to their homes and sacred places. i think the best solution would be one, secular, nonviolent, democratic (or perhaps even socialist) state. will it happen? not anytime soon.

in my family's neighborhood in haifa
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

there is so much more to say, i could go on and on. my cousin amir just entered the israeli army, and i worry about him everyday. most of my family lives in northern israel so they are not in immediate danger, but there are of course, random suicide bombings that kill jews in haifa and jerusalem and elsewhere. one of my cousin tal's close friends was killed in a bus bombing in haifa, and she was scared to leave the house for months. if i were them, i wouldn't live in israel, and i think that maybe when they get older, they will leave. on the other hand, israel is the only home they've ever known and it's where their parents, grandparents and friends all live. maybe by the time they have kids, there will be some meaningful peace. we can hope.

hatikvah
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

there are some really good documentaries on the issue. i recommend promises and encounter point, both available on netflix. there's also a really good film about palestinian hip hop called slingshot hip hop. you should also check out the music of invincible a.k.a ilana weaver, a queer rapper from detroit who raps about social justice issues and does a lot of work with palestinians. her song "people not places" is amazing. you should also listen to mirah's song "jerusalem." for alternative news coverage of the current crisis, check out link tv and al jazeera.

i hope this is helpful. feel free to ask more questions. knowledge is power.

freeDimensional: Birthing a web 2.0 child

By Ari | Jan 12, 09 06:44 PM

I hope executive director Todd Lester of freeDimensional doesn't mind if I quote him with the title of my post here, but this is how he described the collaborative experience of launching fD's new site this weekend, and I think it's particularly apt: We all birthed a web 2.0 child. You can go meet it here: freeDimensional.org.

freeDimensional is an organically-growing, partnership-based organization that links activist culture workers (journalists, artists, writers, and the like) who are facing repression and censorship with support services, including safe haven placements in artist residency programs. The power of the organization is in its social networks around the globe. These programs, these services, these people, are all out there - the challenge is only to connect everyone so we can all engage more effectively in mutual aid.

I met Todd way back at the end of 2005, through Shira and their work around the Media That Matters Film Festival. He needed a site, and at the time, I remember seeing that they'd need something much more interactive in the future, but that for now, I could make a small, informational site to give them a web presence while they built their organization. For a long time I thought that in the future we'd hire some big web design firm to come in and create some perfect glittering website for them that would magically fulfill all of their many needs.

In the interim, I had a bit of an awakening about the internet, via my understanding of web 2.0 (collaborative, online) technologies. The internet can be an extension of our physical lives, a way for us to transcend space and time. Our blogs and Flickr photostreams and Tweets and Delicious links and Facebook updates are extensions of and aids to our imperfect human memories. Email and messaging and Skype and the like allow us to connect with each other across great distances, often instantly. We're all learning how to use the internet most effectively to meet these great needs, and in the process, I believe we're gradually realizing our commonality, and creating new solutions to age-old problems that formerly seemed unsolvable. (I have a theory about web 3.0. If anyone reads this and is interested, comment and I'll write about it!!)

So when fD finally outgrew their little site and was ready for something new and more useful, Shira and I were ready to craft a solution for them. It was time for them to clarify what they were all about, explain it well, and then provide an online platform for the incredible social networking that had been happening in the real world. fD was ready to go web 2.0.

Shira made a short video intro for them and helped them rework and refine their mission statement and other organizational copy. I helped them look at their many technology options and to select free services that will allow them to grow and extend their reach with minimal cash outlays. The site is built on the Ning custom social networking platform (the free version for now). We're transitioning the mailing list to Vertical Response and their lovely nearly-free non-profit program. Shira chose the beautifully high-res-capable video service Vimeo to host fD's intro video. We integrated Twitter, Flickr and YouTube feeds into the site. We'd settled on Network for Good to collect donations a while back. fD also has accounts on other social networking sites, which we've been using to meet and collaborate with even more people around the world.

These free and low-cost services have limitations - you're fitting your own complex self into a sometimes-imperfect template, and you don't have the same level of control over your content that you'd have if you were hosting the whole thing on your own server. However, they make an extraordinary array of sophisticated communications features accessible to organizations that don't have tens of thousands of dollars to drop on a new custom-crafted interactive site every few years. The internet is changing so fast that production cannot keep up with the technology if we follow old models of design and interaction. This solution can and will grow and evolve, flexibly adapting to and taking advantage of new technologies as they come.

This project would not have been possible if Shira and I, or fD, worked in a more mainstream and less openly collaborative way. Shira's and my cooperative approach to design problems and fD's trust and willingness to experiment made for a very organic design and production process that drew on the strengths and knowledge of everyone involved. This web 2.0 child we've birthed together reflects that process, and is stronger for it.
freeDimensional.org »

Taking names and remembering history: Poor little Mormons and the big gay menace

By Ari | Nov 15, 08 09:20 AM

The TIME article What Happens If You're on the Gay "Enemies List" reports that some queer folks have responded to people of color and Mormons who voted down marriage equality in California with some bigotry of their own. I don't know how wide-spread or real these acts of racism and religious intolerance are. I wish we queer folk could all commit to taking the higher ground and using only peaceful, respectful means to get equal rights. But it's not a perfect world, our country obviously has issues around identity politics, and some queer people are bigots, too. I'm not excusing these folks' behavior whatsoever, just pointing out that they're the exception, not the rule, when it comes to activism for queer equality.

This article also calls out queer folks for organizing efforts like Anti-Gay Blacklist, wherein the details of individual donors to the Yes on 8 campaign are posted on the internet so those who support marriage equality can boycott them and send mail to the companies they work for. Let's think about a few other times in which such lists of people have been used, which might point to whether this practice is acceptable. Right Wing Christians have posted lists of their own, which have made it easier for, say, Right Wing anti-choice activists to hunt down and murder doctors who give women abortions. The McCarthy-era blacklists destroyed people's lives. Some militant animal rights groups have used lists to target those who imprison and torture animals in labs for sidewalk demonstrations and harassment in front of these people's homes. None of these seem like good ideas to me. None of these strategies are respectful of people's space, privacy, and families. Some of these strategies are outright violent. Are the lists in California any better? Well, yes. They don't include home addresses and phone numbers, so far as I've seen. It seems their primary purpose is to facilitate boycotts, and to help people know where they can send letters. This is public accountability. This is putting faces on the oppressors. This isn't a call for violence, and this will not destroy people's lives. It might, however, mean they get less business and more mail from people they're oppressing. If that's uncomfortable for them that's too bad - they, after all, pulled together millions of dollars to oppress queer families, which I think is a little more egregious than encouraging letter-writing and economic boycotts. If they really had courage in their convictions, they'd welcome these lists put on the internet by gay people - after all, if they're on the moral high ground, why do they want to hide their faces?

Another article in the New York Times quotes Alan C. Ashton, the grandson of a former president of the Mormon Church, who donated one million dollars in support of the oppression of families like mine. He calls our protests (including, presumably, the vast majority of our protests, which are peaceful and not marred by bigotry) "off-putting." He says, “I think that shows colors... by their fruit, ye shall know them.” Mormons and other religious groups have been showing their colors for generations. What is the fruit of homophobia? Queer teens are committing suicide. Transgender people are being raped and murdered. People born intersexed are being surgically altered and given drugs that change who they are without consent, in their infancy and childhood. Queer folks are shouted at and hurt in the streets. So many queer people are so crippled by internalized homophobia, or so wounded by the homophobia of their families and communities, that they can never self-actualize and be honest about who they are. Ashton and his millionaire friends might try to paint themselves as the victims now that we queer folks are finally lifting ourselves out of the ashes of history, but I'm guessing they're more afraid of us gaining full personhood than they are of our "enemies lists" and boycotts.

UPDATE, 11.18.08

Editorial: Vandalism, coercion are counterproductive to fight for gay marriage mentions the vandalism of Mormon churches and says of other incidents, "One ugly case was the boisterous protest by dozens of gay marriage supporters outside a small Los Angeles restaurant where the owner's daughter had contributed $100 to Proposition 8. The loss of customers threatened the livelihoods of employees, some of whom were gay and opposed the initiative." This is such a shame. It might not be home harassment but it's still harassment, and I don't think it will make this restaurant owner's daughter any more sympathetic to the idea of gay marriage. We can't bully people into seeing us as their equals.

Recycling...The Least You Can Do

By Shira | Nov 13, 08 01:23 PM

Did you know that November 10-16 is International Recycling Week? Neither did I, until it showed up in one of my RSS feeds. Recycling is a good thing, but really, it's the least you can do. If there is a recycling system set up in your region, how could you not wash out your cans and bottles and put them curbside? In Ithaca, recycling actually saves you money because it's free, whereas you have to pay for garbage collection by weight. The problem is that so much public campaigning goes into promoting recycling, and very few people know that there are much more drastic ways to reduce your waste.

For the past month, I've been participating in the Ithaca freeskool reading group on permaculture. We're reading David Holmgren's Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. In Holmgren's chapter on waste, he outlines that in an ideal system there is no "waste" - only material that can be repurposed for food, fertilizer or some other utility.

Most people have heard "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" in which the first is preferable and recycling is only what you should do after you've exhausted use, but Holmgren adds a couple more key Rs to the list - Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle. To refuse is paramount, especially in the United States, which is disproportionately responsible for resource consumption and carbon emissions. To refuse is pretty easy when you start asking yourself "Do I really need this?" before purchasing new stuff.

Repair is another key step. Do you always get holes in your jeans in the same place - how many times have you patched your pants and kept wearing them? It might be easier to get a new DVD player when yours breaks but why not get it repaired - even if it takes a little more time and maybe even more money? The problem with our culture is that we're focused on convenience and money and have lost our understanding of true cost and true wealth.

Recycling is great and definitely something we should be doing as a society, but it is still very expensive and frustratingly limited. Even in a green oasis like Ithaca, there are only certain containers that can be recycled and the rest go to landfills. And don't even get me started on Tetra Paks.

So, while it's International Recycling Week, and I have your attention, why not think of some significant ways you could reduce your waste before recycling? Here are a few things we're doing:

Buying very little and whenever possible, getting stuff for free or stuff that's been owned and used by someone else first. We're planning on building our future home from mostly salvaged (and natural) materials.
Buying local to reduce the amount of resources and waste that go into transporting goods across the world.
Using tote bags instead of plastic/paper bags and buying food in bulk in reusable containers. The Greenstar coop has an awesome bulk food section, including shampoo and cooking oils!
Fixing stuff. Ari has a knack for sewing and has breathed new life into many pieces of clothing. When the cassette tape part of our stereo broke, we found a shop in Brooklyn that could fix it. Now we can keep listening to our cheesy tape collection from the 80s and 90s and there's one less piece of electronics in a landfill.
Composting. We're looking forward to having our own land and building a composting toilet. My dream is to convert methane gas produced by our poo into energy. In the meantime, we compost all of our organic material. We drop off our food compost at the coop, but in the spring, well put it into our garden.

So yes, recycling is good, but it's still a compromise when it comes to consumption and waste. Don't forget to first refuse, reduce, reuse and repair!

Previously:

Keith Oberman's Book of Love

By Shira | Nov 11, 08 04:51 PM

Keith asks us to spread happiness and protect the ember of love by defending the gay right to marriage...

Obama bringing out the love

By Ari | Nov 3, 08 10:40 PM

From Tears for Obama, a very touching slideshow of photos on Huffington Post, showing people crying at Obama rallies.

See also: O-Bama Faces, The Obamas' Greatest PDA Moments, Campaign Trail PDA: The Obama/Biden Edition, The Obamas' Greatest Family Moments, and the rest of the slideshows. They're all pretty heart-warmingly fantastic.

Thanks, Errol Morris

By Shira | Oct 31, 08 11:35 AM

Errol Morris has made a series of ads to promote Obama to "people in the middle." Take a look and pass it on to anyone you know who might be undecided.

Coincidentally, last night we watched Morris's documentary Standard Operating Procedure, about the torture and abuses in Abu Ghraib. Morris is definitely the king of the documentary interview. While I generally am annoyed at the overuse of "talking heads," there's something so intimate about his interviews that I could stare at the faces in his films all day and not get bored.

Al Gore says it's time for civil disobedience

By Ari | Sep 24, 08 10:04 PM

Gore urges civil disobedience to stop coal plants:

If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration... I believe for a carbon company to spend money convincing the stock-buying public that the risk from the global climate crisis is not that great represents a form of stock fraud because they are misrepresenting a material fact... I hope these state attorney generals around the country will take some action on that.

Biggest political rally in Canada's history: Alaska Women Reject Palin

By Ari | Sep 19, 08 06:03 PM

My friend Diana, an activist in NYC, sent me an amazing email about an anti-Palin protest in Alaska that drew record crowds on September 14th, but which is getting snubbed by the media.

A group of women organized the protest over coffee; they wanted to show the world that Sarah Palin does not stand for all Alaskans, and arranged a rally at their local library. Local right wing radio talk show host Eddie Burke gave out organizers' phone numbers on the air, making a public call for harassment that sure enough resulted in the women getting threatening phonecalls. He's been suspended a week for that, but his station has no problem with his calling the organizers "socialist, baby-killing maggots." The protesters persevered and the result was an incredible turnout - the biggest political rally in the history of the state of Alaska.

Here's a video. Keep in mind that Alaska doesn't have a lot of people - apparently a rally is deemed successful when 25 people show up. So this 1400 people is a big deal.

The story has hit some blogs, but hasn't gotten a lot of media coverage. Here's the Washington Post's campaign trail blog post about it, and a piece on gaywired.com. There's a brief mention in The Independent and some coverage on the Huffington Post. Please help spread the word - and ask your local media why you aren't hearing this story from them.

The same activist, known on her blog as AKMuckraker, also wrote it up as a blog post, but the email was a little longer and is probably better to use if you want to send emails about this to folks. (Also, the blog post seems to be getting a lot of traffic so it's loading very slowly. Do visit it though - she has lots of photos!) Read on for the full text of the email version.

Continue reading "Biggest political rally in Canada's history: Alaska Women Reject Palin..." »

"Bee-Boys" ask us to save the honey bees

By Shira | Aug 21, 08 08:25 PM

...but I have to ask, why does Haagen Dazs want to save the bees, but not the dairy cows? And where are they getting their honey?

Here are some original B-Boys and the woman who documented them when hip-hop was born:

how far we've come...

By Shira | Aug 18, 08 10:23 AM

And by the way, Ellen and Portia just got married and apparently the food was vegan!

Spike Jonze Captures the "Real Al Gore"

By Shira | Aug 12, 08 11:32 AM

The video below was made in January 2005 by Spike Jonze, director of Adaptation, Being John Malkovich and many awesome music and skateboarding videos. I just saw it a few days ago on Wholphin Issue #1, recently released on Netflix.

While Jonze was hired by Gore's campaign to make the film at the time, it was barely used and never broadcast on TV. Some people think that if it had been widely seen, it may have impacted the election. I think any candidate could benefit from being the subject of an intimate cinema verité portrait, assuming they're as nice as and functional as Gore comes off in this piece.

An Anti-Capitalist Blockbuster?

By Shira | Jul 30, 08 05:28 PM

"Sudan? Monkey riding a rhino"

By Shira | Jul 30, 08 04:08 PM

Sudan? Monkey riding a rhino
Originally uploaded by George Eastman House

I just discovered Flickr: The Commons.

humans are so...creepy

By Shira | Jul 16, 08 05:30 PM

considering euthanasia for wild horses
gps for tracking hunting dogs
celebrity chef suffocating chicks on TV
running cars on cow fat
sheep as dialysis bags

More on Click!

By Shira | Jul 15, 08 01:14 PM

My name on the wall of the Brooklyn Museum!
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

Ari and I went to check out the Click! show at the Brooklyn Museum. Seeing my name and photo on the gallery wall was a little anti-climactic, but thrilling nonetheless. While the methodology behind the project is very interesting, the gallery execution felt a little flat. It would have been awesome, for example, to see the results animated on flat-screen TVs, alongside snippets about crowd-sourcing, curation and the nature of photography.

The show is getting some press coverage...

From Proles vs. Pros: An Experiment In Curating by Robin Givhan:

This exhibit may have been particularly suited to crowd-based curating because photography is a medium that people experience every day, whether it is a particularly artful photo in the newspaper or an artsy black-and-white snapshot of their newborn they're e-mailing to relatives. There's a sense of ownership and accessibility with photography that doesn't exist with sculpture or painting. That connection is one of its pleasures; it doesn't seem so precious or elitist.

And 3,344 People May Not Know Art but Know What They Like By Ken Johnson:

How people arrive at consensus in the art world is worth studying. So is the tension between experts and nonexperts, which can extend to the highest reaches of the culture industry. So it is possible that Mr. Surowiecki’s ideas might yet prove fruitful for the business of art. But it will take a lot more persuasive reasoning to convince anyone with a serious interest in artistic quality that “crowd-curating” is a good idea. The best you can say for “Click!” is that it’s a good conversation starter.

Here's a podcastof the panel at Governor's Island. I ask a question at about 44min. 30 sec.:

And there's a book of the show available through Blurb:
Buy the book!
$3 off discount code

"Chickens are decent people." - George Carlin

By Shira | Jun 29, 08 07:06 PM

About four minutes into this amazing monologue about a woman's right to choose, Carlin asks, "How come when it's us, it's an abortion, and when it's a chicken, it's an omelette?" While Carlin was not a vegan (or vegetarian), he was an astute observer of American society, including its schizophrenic attitudes towards animals.

Carlin died just as I started reading Lenny Bruce's autobiography How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. Carlin has cited Bruce as an influence many times and was actually at the famous Lenny Bruce performance when Bruce was arrested for obscenity.

While America has a long way to go in the struggle for social justice, I've got to give props to these comedians for moving us forward in significant ways and paving the way for today's politically progressive comics. After all, could Stephen Colbert be named the 3rd most influential person of the year by TIME Magazine readers if Lenny hadn't pushed the envelope in the '50s and '60s? Nope.

My photo is in the "Click!" show at the Brooklyn Museum!

By Shira | Jun 26, 08 04:12 PM

This is the photo I submitted to the Brooklyn Museum's "crowd-curated" show, "Click!" and...it's going to be in the show!!! Can you tell I'm excited? You can explore the show online or come see it at the Brooklyn Museum, June 27–August 10.

There's also a panel this Saturday on Governor's Island as part of the Figment Festival:

Click! Panel Discussion
Saturday, June 28, 11 a.m.
Governors Island
Brooklyn Museum clicks with the crowd at FIGMENT 2008, a celebration of participatory art and creative culture held on Governors Island. A panel discussion about the process and outcome of Click! will be held on Saturday, June 28, at 11 a.m. Panelists include James Surowiecki, New Yorker financial columnist and author of The Wisdom of Crowds; Jeff Howe, contributing editor of Wired magazine, who coined the term “crowdsourcing”; Eugenie Tsai, Brooklyn Museum’s John and Barbara Vogelstein Curator of Contemporary Art; and Shelley Bernstein, Brooklyn Museum’s Manager of Information Systems and the organizer of Click! The panel will be moderated by Nicole Caruth, Brooklyn Museum’s Manager of Interpretive Materials and a freelance writer and curator based in Brooklyn. Please note: In order to make the panel you must take the 10 or 10:30 a.m. ferry, which depart from South Ferry and are free of charge. Specific travel instructions can be found on the Figment Web site. The panel will take place in Perkins Hall. Seating is limited.

We went to the Figment Festival last summer and it was awesome - hope to see you there!

Heinz UK Pulls Ad Showing Two Men Kissing

By Shira | Jun 25, 08 01:31 PM

I'm not sure what's more shocking - that this ad was pulled because of complaints or that it was aired in the first place. I can't imagine Heinz putting an ad this gay on U.S. television, Americans are way too homophobic. Further evidence that capitalism serves profit, not people, and definitely not the chickens whose eggs go into Heinz mayonnaise.

Now if Heinz is looking for new ideas for the American market, they need look no further:

The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder

By Ari | Jun 23, 08 11:13 AM

Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, who successfully prosecuted 21 convictions including Charles Manson without a single loss, author of Helter Skelter and Outrage, has penned a new volume, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. He argues that after he leaves office, Bush should be put on trial for the murder of the nearly 4,000 American soldiers who've died fighting the war in Iraq.

For a great interview with Bugliosi, read The Nation:

What similarities, if any, would you expect to encounter in preparation for the trial of President George Bush compared with someone like Charles Manson?

Well, with Manson we're talking about seven murders. With Bush it's hundreds of thousands.

Monkeys, Pigeons and Vegans Oh My!

By Shira | Jun 19, 08 03:34 PM

Doesn't this photo make you smile? It's of a monkey and pigeon who have become close friends at an animal sanctuary in China:

The 12-week-old macaque -- who was abandoned by his mother -- was close to death when [he] was rescued on Neilingding Island, in Goangdong Province. After being taken to an animal hospital his health began to improve but he seemed spiritless -- until he developed a friendship with a white pigeon. The blossoming relationship helped to revive the macaque who has developed a new lease of life, say staff at the sanctuary. From Mail Online

This story gives me a "new lease on life."

Also, check out this awesome clip on CNN about going vegan. It's one of the most positive non-dismissive segments about veganism that I've ever seen coming from the mainstream media:

Anti-capitalist / environmentalist / tech news mashup

By Ari | Jun 14, 08 03:33 PM

MySpace is redesigning and I am so not excited. Sorry, MySpace. You've been too ugly for too long. I'm just biding my time until the current internet evolves into a wonderful free-culture free-software filesharing hive mind. C'mon people. Drop the profit model. Let's abandon the waste of competition and move onto cooperation, see what we can come up with then. My prediction: Awesomeness.
Vinyl shower curtains are deadly and may be banned. We bought an organic cotton one a while back and have been using it with no liner. We throw it in the wash every month or so. Works like a charm, doesn't require regular replacement like a plastic one, and doesn't leach 100 toxic chemicals into our bathroom like PVC ones apparently do. Yaaay.
McCain has declared the ruling on Guantanamo "one of the worst" in US history, and in so-doing, I hope he's turned off millions of potential voters. That is, if Americans like justice. I like justice. But then, I've seen time and time again that the American people don't always vote in ways that make any kind of sense to me.
Here's further evidence of McCain's unsuitability for leadership: Dude is all about the exploitation. To stimulate the economy, he plans to "extend the Bush administration's tax cuts, eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax, and slash corporate taxes," which to me sounds like "make the rich richer and the poor poorer." What little tax we do pay goes toward fighting oil wars instead of taking care of basic necessities like healthcare and public transportation. Maybe with more cash to spend we can buy more DVDs and sneakers, but why pour our hard-earned wages back into the pockets of global capitalists exploiting animals, workers and our environment for their own profit?

Should Animals Be Doing More For The Animal Rights Movement?

By Shira | Jun 13, 08 04:11 PM

Should Animals Be Doing More For The Animal Rights Movement?

In other words, animals can't organize, so we humans have to speak up on their behalf. I love the Onion, especially when they make fun of PETA.

NPR Covers Gender Queer Kids

By Shira | May 8, 08 01:46 PM

On All Things Considered yesterday, there was a pretty in-depth piece about families dealing with gender queer kids. In typical NPR fashion there was an attempt at objectivity by interviewing two doctors with very different approaches - one who thinks kids should be forced to behave accordingly with their biological sex, another who focuses on the child's happiness and sense of comfort and security with their body and gender expression. It's nice to see these issues getting some mainstream media coverage.

Listen to Two Families Grapple with Sons' Gender Preferences

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!

Shirari Industries Bought by News Corp for 2.5 Million

By Shira | Apr 1, 08 12:22 PM

We were as surprised as I'm sure you are right now when Rupert Murdoch himself called us this morning to "make a deal." We know that News Corporation is on a mission to take over the world, one media entity at a time, but we're still not quite sure why he wants our little queer, vegan operation. He must be getting pretty close to owning the entire "long tail" and Shirari Industries is just another notch on the empire's belt.

Stay tuned for a dramatically redesigned site, starting with our tagline, which is now "let's be mean!" - it has a certain ring to it, don't you think?

...April Fools!!!

The Oscars Have Come and Gone and What Have We Learned?

By Shira | Mar 1, 08 02:02 PM

Unfortunately, this was one of the whitest, most male-dominated awards ceremonies in recent history, which makes me feel less sad that I missed it this year.

I recently illustrated Judith Mahoney Pasternak's great article about racism and sexism in the Oscars for The Indypendent. Check it out: The Oscar’s Minority Report

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)

American Cuisine at its Finest

By Ari | Feb 1, 08 10:37 AM

A.V. Club Taste Test Special: The Bowl At The Howling Rim Of Famous-Ity: Patton Oswalt's very funny review of "Famous Bowl", an apparently popular bowl-o-disgustingness available at KFC. (Via Amy's Robot)

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)

Shirari Industries

Posts tagged with "Media"

I wrote an article about how to organize a community swap/barter meet for Shareable

Fresh off the Wordpress: Frac Attack

The world is changing: Gawker said something intelligent about animal rights

Ari's Brother Was Car-Jacked...He's ok Now!

Distractions from Wild Things

"A Recipe for Change: Documentaries on Food" - My Most Recent Article on MediaRights.org

fD Outreach: Wasan Retreat 2009

British Queer as Folk on Hulu

It's Vegetarian, It's Healthy, It's Beans

Check Out My Article About Food, Inc. at Documentary.org

What is up, media?

Imagine all the people

Going Green, One Film at a Time

Flutter - Satire Is Fun!

Health and wealth: The downfall of capitalism and the uplift of humanity

Gay Rights at the Oscars

Public Outrage

Our Friends at The Dacha Project Are Awesome.

On Gaza

freeDimensional: Birthing a web 2.0 child

Taking names and remembering history: Poor little Mormons and the big gay menace

Recycling...The Least You Can Do

Keith Oberman's Book of Love

Obama bringing out the love

Thanks, Errol Morris

Al Gore says it's time for civil disobedience

Biggest political rally in Canada's history: Alaska Women Reject Palin

"Bee-Boys" ask us to save the honey bees

how far we've come...

Spike Jonze Captures the "Real Al Gore"

An Anti-Capitalist Blockbuster?

"Sudan? Monkey riding a rhino"

humans are so...creepy

More on Click!

"Chickens are decent people." - George Carlin

My photo is in the "Click!" show at the Brooklyn Museum!

Heinz UK Pulls Ad Showing Two Men Kissing

The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder

Monkeys, Pigeons and Vegans Oh My!

Anti-capitalist / environmentalist / tech news mashup

Should Animals Be Doing More For The Animal Rights Movement?

NPR Covers Gender Queer Kids

Our Eutopic Vision at Forbes.com

Shirari Industries Bought by News Corp for 2.5 Million

The Oscars Have Come and Gone and What Have We Learned?

Craft Magazine really wants you to buy things

American Cuisine at its Finest

Here Comes Everybody

Archives »

Shirari Industries