You Appointed Who!?

It's been a while but I think it should be said that I was very disappointed by Obama’s appointment of Rick Warren to deliver his invocation during Obama’s inaugural address. Rick Warren is against gay marriage and reproductive rights, and he does not believe in evolution (maybe he offers himself as proof of lack of evolution). I still think Obama is the best choice for president, but I can’t condone Warren’s involvement in Obama’s inauguration, no matter how insignificant it is. I understand that Obama is trying to appeal to conservatives and evangelicals, but this move is symbolically a slap in the face to many people. Warren is not a uniter, but a divider… he is intolerant in many of his views. I think it is important to speak one’s mind, but also to not let the narcissism of petty differences sabotage our unity and progress.

Beautiful Losers

Paint a Deck with Ed Templeton from BlackLake on Vimeo.


Inspired by the DIY culture film, beautiful losers, the MAKE SOMETHING!!workshop is a series of workshops presented by NIKE sportswear.

Artists such as Ed Templeton, Aaron Rose, Tobin Yelland, Money Mark, Jesse Spears, Mike Mills, and more went to schools in New York and Los Angeles to lead workshops on everything to making zines or skate graphics to poster art or video editing.

The 9 webisodes feature artists from the film, their contemporaries, as well as the filmmakers teaching high school kids in NY and LA the DIY aspects of art-making

Aminals

No, I didn't misspell the title to my blog. Aminals is a website I stumbled onto when I was looking for a band that I like on google.

http://www.aminaldolls.com/

apparently they got kids to draw what ever they liked and made them into
soft puppets made from organic material. The idea was coined by the designers
at Dreaming Lion LLC. I thought is was pretty nice how they help kids interest
in art flourish from such an early stage, allowing them to be proud of something they made by just being themselves.


Oh, and they also seem pretty proud that their product is made from
organic material:


" There is a solution! Organic farms are free of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, keeping their soil and water protected and usable for many, many years to come. Before a farm may be certified organic, the fields must be free of synthetic chemicals for three years!

Organic farms rotate crops to replenish and maintain the soil’s fertility, and control pests and weeds naturally, using insect predators, traps, or botanical pesticides that are broken down quickly and simply with oxygen and sunlight. Growing cotton organically also benefits small-scale farmers who don’t have the funds to buy expensive, toxic pesticides. Organic cotton farming also uses significantly less water and electric power than conventional cotton farming techniques.

Not only is organic farming healthier and safer for our farmers, our fieldworkers, and our communities, organic cotton is free from synthetic poisons that are absorbed into our bloodstream through skin contact. Products manufactured from certified organic ingredients are the safest for your kids!

Only low impact and natural vegetable dyes can be used in certified organic cotton production, unlike the toxic, synthetic dyes used in conventional cotton manufacturing. "


-Aminals

SUPER SIZE ME

I had gotten home today and was watching That's 70 show like i always do after school. It seemed that every food commercial had to do with big food though. Big macs, Big man microwavable food, mega sized pizza at Pizza Hut, etc. What the hell ever happened to normal size? Actually, what about the quality of the food we buy? I know that you shouldn't ask for much when you're getting fast food, but come one, I'm not going to pay 10 dollars for something a dog wouldn't touch. I mean, I've heard Taco Bell's meat is only 10 percent away from being dog food, that's just disgusting. So when it comes to food, I prefer either my mom's home cooked meals or just some good sushi, that beats a cholesterol covered fast pass to health problems any day.

Our Word Is Our Weapon

A Question from Rowan on Vimeo.

" In the light of recent attacks in south Africa, WE respond to the questions, WE take to the streets...And like our brothers in the Zapatista National Liberation Army, We believe a word is a weapon. This war is not a statement, it is a question, which comes from a place in our hearts in where we believe that every person has a right to Equality, Freedom, and Life."



"Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefor extend their hand."is a piece done in Cape Town, South Africa deep inside the Hazendal community.

This graffiti message was written by FAITH47, an artist who resides in
South Africa and who is renowned for her political statements through her
pieces worldwide.



Eventually someone realizes that there is injustice in the world. Eventually someone is bound to wake up. But it is the by product of humanity when it is cornered that amazes me. We don't feel a need to express our selves unless emotionally awakened, a need to fight unless pissed off, and a need to speak of peace until there is hate.


So what happens when the ideal society is created? Will there not arise dissent in the perfect government? Is not the idea of "world peace" an impossible daydream we like to imagine to keep our destructive souls company? Instead of trying to change the world we should first change ourselves, then maybe things would mold themselves into something more livable.


I remember hearing in my philosophy class about an experiment were thousands of people meditated in front of the Washington Monument as part of research on the power of our minds. The crime rate in the state of Washington D.C. dropped 33% in the following year.


If you could just take a minute of your time to wish everyone well, to dream of inner peace and the welfare of your family and friends, then maybe you would reduce the grip of hate and animosity in the world. With a little more breathing space, maybe we would be able to think more clearly about how our actions affect every spec of dust around us.


It takes courage to tell others that you were wrong, it takes maturity to
understand what the best reaction should be before you go off on someone about how much of a jack ass they are. For all these things a person needs to have wisdom, something vital that seems to be missing from many politicians...maybe that's why there's so many wars and starving minds, maybe we've been picking our leaders based on a more fact based point of view? We pick men and women to lead us because of the school they went to and the laws they voted on, but never on their morals, no, political parties have taken the place of that. If you're conservative you love money if you're liberal you're a leftist, and that's the end of that.

Obama is going to be kicked out?

I just heard on a Hispanic news channel that because Obama is apparently not
an American since he was born in Indonesia, there has been investigations into
his origins. A tribune is being set up to decide if he should be allowed into the Presidency or not, because it seems as if he forged documents to make it appear as if he were American, when in reality he is of Indonesian nationality.

His birth mother mentioned this while she was being interviewed
which sparked the interest of those opposed to his political party.


Now I don't know much on this and would really appreciate to get comments
from people who have heard about it.

I can't believe that these people have decided to start looking at this kind of stuff just now, after his election by American voters.

Would we be forced to look for a new president?

would we have to go through elections once again?


or is this just a scheme from right wing conservatives who can't accomplish their corporate goals with such an open minded mine as the new leader of a free country?

If this does become a serious issue, I believe any attempt at dethrowning Obama and the people who chose him would cause discontent and maybe even rioting.

To change someone we have chosen to such a high political position on technical
idiocies seems to be a new bureaucratic low.

The Big Red

Communism:

An economic and social system envisioned by the nineteenth-century German scholar Karl Marx.


~In theory, under communism, all means of production are owned in common, rather than by individuals (see Marxism and Marxism-Leninism).


~In practice, a single authoritarian party controls both the political and economic systems. In the twentieth century, communism was associated with the economic and political systems of China and the Soviet Union and of the satellites of the Soviet Union.



I know that I might called out on this issue by some of you, but that's fine with me, and I would like to hear your interpretations of the issue. First off I would like to say that I'm not communist at all, to be honest I believe that any ideals, pertaining to politics and religion have lead to the deterioration of the human spirit and resulted in our base history of murder, drugs, and sex; blinding us from any real purpose in our lives.

So now on to the real reason why I wrote this blog. I remember when I was smaller, I would go out shopping with me mom and occasionally we would see people wearing the typical Che Guevara shirt, his stare off into the distance resembled a stone of sorts, strong and determined. I wanted a shirt with the face of this man who i realized I didn't know anything about, just because I believed him to be someone strong who probably did something pretty amazing to have so many young kids admiring him. I went up to my dad and asked who he was, and my dad told me he basically slaughtered people in Cuba in order to achieve his goals, and then became greedy alongside his close friend Castro, a simplified version for even a 12 year old to understand. Well I still wanted the shirt, so I tried my best my dad to let me get it, but he told me to do some investigating first. So i went on line and I found my self captivated by this man's thoughts on equality, but then followed the nasty history that preceded him. Death seemed to abound, as i learned on all the injustice that had been caused because of one man, I was angered by how stupid I had been.

But to this day I still believe that if it were not for people's selfish thirst for money and conflict, the theory of communism could work. I'm not looking at this from a financial aspect, but a personal one. People are grumpy because their house is smaller than their neighbors, well what if all the houses were the same? Why couldn't there be a section for people who want this house and a section for that house, and they all cost the same price? Why can't all the products that we make be of high class and stylish, why do we need to make crappy things that break and fall apart?


Isn't living in a common society, with common objects better than living in our present day, separatist culture. Individuality is pushed constantly, "I don't care about them, I want you to have a bright future", " It's my problem, not yours".

We are all the same species, yet because we're born under different nationalities, given different sounding names, brought up on different sides of that little line on the map that says you're in a different country or state, well then you become different. You begin to believe that because someone worships a different god or speaks a different language, then they must be from a completely different world.

I do not see social individuality, the pushing away of ourselves farther and farther from other people, as something good. I think that major companies have fed off of this idea to make us believe that the more different, the more apart from others, the better for them.

Mrs. Stocklosa spoke of sharism, the idea that we all should communicate in order to advance as a culture.

Well Capitalism is an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations

as a contrast to cooperatively.

Yes it has helped us grow, but into what? What has the American nation become?
Isolated from the world events and occurrences, i have only read on how the government did things to improve itself, but not the world. If we had tried to make things better for everyone, instead of a select elite that seems to have no limitations to what they can do and what beliefs they may impose, we would be better off, and of that I have no doubt.

Anarcho Punks...

As I shuffled around my brain on what to write for my blog tonight
I was listening to my iTunes and one of my favorite songs,
Those Anarcho Punks Are Mysterious by Against Me!,
started to play.






I personally think this song has a wonderful message. I think that it flat out spells out modern anarchistic thought and does it better than any book ever could. We, as anarchists, envision a society of, by, and for the citizens of the society. A world in which the governed are able to directly govern themselves. And most importantly a world where the people of the society are able to focus and work together towards a common goal with others of a like mind.
When people walk down the street and see an anarcho-punk teenager they see a kid who's angry at their parents and who will grow out of it. That teenager may have the right goal but no clue how to get there and may think that random vandolizations and angry actions work towards his goal. Any one who has a brick thrown through their window is going to harbor ill feelings towards whoever did it, regardless of intent or purpose. Not withstanding actually having possibly targeted an institution which is in dire need of an overthrow like a wal-mart or a starbucks.
The point is that throwing bricks accomplishes nothing but creating ill-will towards the movement. And the truly sad part is that the kid throwing the brick does it with all the best intentions in the world, but those kinds of people don't see how they're sabotaging themselves in the process. That's the song. It makes all the difference in the world how we conduct and present ourselves.
I can guarantee that I'm the best neighbor that the people who live around me have ever had. And because of it when the topic comes up in conversation and I express my dissatisfaction with the current social, economic, and political system in America they might actually listen. The may agree or not, but the fact is that without a little respect for them as individuals regardless of their willingness to buy into a system I personally hate.
Not to say that direct action isn't a necessary part of the anarchist movement. It is. And it works. There's a time and a place for direct action and I'm firmly of the opinion that it has to be a last resort if anarchists are to be taken seriously. And even then, it should only be used against the powers which are directly doing the oppressing and not on the people who would allies in the struggle.
Like all art, songs are subject to opinion. I hear this song and I hear what I want to hear. But I'm very comfortable with that and I think that as many people as possible should hear it and form their own opinions. And then use those opinions to have a discussion, because a discussion about our future is something that has been sorely missing from everyday conversation for a great many years.