Category: Politics

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SN: Online Radio Panel at Pirate Cat

Andy Blue from the League of Pissed Off Voters called me up yesterday to see if I had any plans last night. None, really. So he told me to stop by Pirate Cat Radio/Cafe before 7pm to sit on a panel and discuss graffiti on the League’s weekly show. All worked out nicely, so I met up with Reyes, Cuba, Chris (who co-created the new local books with Steve Rotman), Eddie, and Eclairacuda to have a one-hour talk about what’s going on in SF with graffiti and street art. The talk mostly discussed spray graffiti, so it was great to hear Chris, Cuba, and Reyes talk about what’s going on in their world. Chris has great thoughts and concepts about what’s happening. Eddie and I got to throw in some angles too. And the writers, including the always entertaining Eclair, kept things real throughout.

You can hear the discussion here. Make sure you scroll half way through the two-hour show to get to the graffiti talk.

Thanks to Andy Blue, a fan and grey-area participant of the scene, for pulling us together in what may become an ongoing dialog about the City’s Zero Graffiti stance, and how absurd that goal truly is.

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The FaceBook Re(De)volution

Hitting the End of a Warhead with a Hammer

During my cold, winter travels in the heart and fringes of the European Union, an odd transformation happened to me and my travel mate Pod. We felt immersed in the transmigration of real to digi-real, and overwhelmed by the power of corporate, online social networking tools. Using a term that a philosopher gave me in Prague, Pod and I are digital immigrants, folks from the era of rotary dial phones, pre-1984 Apple, and rabbit ears for TV reception. We have seen the birth of the computer, the cell phone, and now Web 2.0. The latter development sparked Brendan Smith, et al. to surmise in their article Social Movements 2.0 that “the web is increasingly looking like the invention of the printing press, which radically changed the lives of even those who could not read, by spurring the Protestant reformation and scientific revolution.”

I began to realize that I am not that as comfortable with this transformation as the digital natives, those folks who only know a world of digital innovation and seem to celebrate every last bit of it as progress for humanity. Thinking a bit deeper, and noticing that many of my Facebook friends are my age, I realized that the digital immigrants seemed to not mind going online daily to click out status blurbs on sites like FaceBook, Twitter, and MySpace. But, like I mentioned in a mini-essay for Stencil Nation, technology has become easy to use, especially online via the Web 2.0 tools. So, even those who clunked around with floppy disks back in the day could easily create blogs, upload photographs, and type those brief Tweets.

But something still doesn’t feel right. Though the most important invention since the printing press is online and in process, I couldn’t help feel an unease about the rage to social network.
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Italy for Italians, A Lesson on Fascism

“That’s a fascist bar,” Herzog replied as we walked past a normal looking Italian eatery while stencil hunting in a chilly Vicenza. Being Sunday, not much was open, but this spot blared dance music and was ready for business. Just a few minutes before he made this comment, Herzog, who’s politics seem to lean towards leftist/radical, showed me the local headquarters for the Lega Nord, a group of Italians who he and his partner Elisa called separatists. The office had posters of a stereotypical Native American Chief on their windows. “You know what this says?” I was asked. Basically, keep letting the immigrants into Italy and the native Italians will end up on reservations!

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It’s [Not] An Election Frenzy Here In GOP Land

David Morley and K Ruby’s 2000 Puppet Corporate Democracy

David Morley and K Ruby’s 2000 Puppet “Corporate Democracy”, still relevant three elections later!

Cruise a Web site that has news on it and I bet you’ll see about two dozen headlines blasting last minute news about the Presidential Election. After 21 months (keep hearing these two words in reference to the USA’s vetting of Obama) of absolute craziness, this country will elect a new president. Well, we’re already electing him since thousands of voters are already voting all across the country. Here in Bush Country, GOP Land, USA (aka South Carolina) I’m [not] overwhelmed with the media-eating frenzy.
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Garden Club Uprising

Farming Consultant Jim Smith has a lot of ground to hoe here in Upstate South Carolina. Tonight, the tall, slender 60-something farming consultant, sat in front of about 15 upper middle class women and tried to explain to them the importance of making sustainable agriculture part of their conversations, if not their gardening habit. Smith has just opened the Upstate School of Sustainable Agriculture here in Greenville County, and when he asked these nice Southern women if they knew what slow food was, only a few raised their hand.

According to Smith, Upstate SC lags in growing local organic produce and livestock. He cited the Asheville, NC area as an example of how behind Greenville is. Smith stated that you don’t have to walk too far in Asheville to find one of the 45 farmer’s markets there to buy local food. Greenville has a paltry two farmers markets, but Smith told the Garden Club that they could change that. His winding conversational talk basically ended up in a pitch for the women of this chapter to step up to the sustainable lifestyle. How? His first two suggestions were to help create CSA’s in their area, or start to grow their own home gardens. His main plea was to take classes at the USSA and get training to help consult with gardeners who wish to go organic.

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