I've been noticing for a while that I keep running into really cool nuns ( Read more... )

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/us/27arizona.html?_r=1&hpRead more... )

I just heard this single "The Great Defector" by Bell X1 on the radio. Had
never heard of them before, but I liked it enough to write it down and download
the album. Haven't listed to any other songs yet, but the single is another
welcome contribution to the David Byrne imitators club, file with Clap Your
Hands Say Yeah.

Click to view

A friend of a friend sends a dispatch from Iran, which will be included below. But first, some excerpts from a NYT column that he reccommends in his dispatch.

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/behind-the- ( Read more... )

So our band is practicing in one of our people's backyards. Except his house is a catholic worker-y house, and his back yard is a cemetary. So we're playing for the dead people, and marching around. And across the fence aways away there's 4 or 5  nine or ten year olds, and they're going wild for us, screaming and jumping up and down. So we go play ( Read more... )

The Indian state is mobilizing its forces to crush the just struggle of the tribal people of Lalgarh, West Bengal. In the last 24 hours, West Bengal’s state police and 11 companies of Central paramilitary forces have started to move towards Lalgarh.
In November 2008, the tribal people (adivasis) of Lalgarh rose up against decades of abuse by the ( Read more... )

http://www.losrepatriados.org/

The Story of Los Repatriados

We are descendants or relatives of  Repatriados, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans who, between the years 1929 and 1939 were forced or voluntarily went to Mexico at the behest of the United States government.  Most had been recruited ( Read more... )

1. Apparently I have lyme disease. I'm not actually too worried, apparently antibiotics should make it go away.

2. I got my boss to agree: a month unpaid leave in August, and when I return I'm going to go down to 4 days a week for 4/5ths salary. HOORAY.

Excerpts from: http://www.justseeds.org/blog/2009/06/illinois_torture_publicized_wi.html


Artists from Chicago and Milwaukee engaged in a non-destructive type of public messaging called “mud-stenciling.” More than 30 volunteers stenciled their message “End Torture in Illinois” in the afternoon on walls and sidewalks around the city offering fact- ( Read more... )

By virtue of its economy and proliferation, photography has been one of the most convenient weapons of the powerless even while it serves the powers that be. During the early 1960s, when French authorities required Algerians to have identity cards, a conscript in the French Army, Marc Garanger, was ordered to shoot their portraits. He photographed ( Read more... )