Bob Morris @ Oct 6th 2002 22:44 - Category: Unfiled ;
This will make Wall Street VERY cranky
Leftist Candidate Takes a Firm Lead in Brazil’s Election
Yes, a hardcore leftie is about the become President of Brazil. And it is expected he will not bow in fealty to the World Bank. The impudence!
Bob Morris @ Oct 6th 2002 22:37 - Category: Unfiled ;
Not in Our Name - Los Angeles protest
The L.A. Not in Our Name protest went better than expected! I was hoping for maybe 5,000 people and we got closer to 10,000. Ron Kovic, of Born on the Fourth of July fame was the keynote speaker. I remember him from the Vietnam Veterans Against the War days. When Viet vets in wheelchairs started protesting the war - that was when public opinion began to shift against the war. No way the public could call them cowards afraid to fight… I’m glad he’s still around and still fiery.
Kevin McKeown, Mayor pro tem of Santa Monica and a Green gave a rousing speech detailing the opposition of the National Green Party to an Iraq War and called on Democrats in the audience to bombard their congressmembers with phone calls voicing their opposition. He ended with a chant “We’re not yellow / We’re just Green / We aren’t part of your war machine”!
Other speakers, some drumming, performance artist / poet Linda Albertano, and others performed. Then a march and mini-rally at the ROTC center, and back for more music and speakers.
The first band, Fanbelt, was truly kicking it out when the power was killed. The authorities played many annoying games with permits and power, and this appeared to be one more example. Another thing. At every other demonstration I’ve been to at this location, you could generally see several media helicopters filming us. Not this time. Just one military chopper and no media at all in the air. Apparently they’d been banned from flying in the area. What are they so scared of?
Because we had another event to go to, we missed long time activists Ed Asner and Casey Kasem, plus Sonali Kolhatkar from KPFK (after they got the power turned back on, that is). And what event could take us from the protest? Well it was another like-minded event, this one at the famed leftie Midnight Special bookstore in Santa Monica.
Editors Danny Goldberg & Robert Greenwald, artist Robbie Conal, Steve Earle and the Director of the ACLU of Southern California Ramona Ripston discussed IT’s A FREE COUNTRY: Personal Freedom in America After September 11. ‘This book bears witness to a precious truth of American life after the ugly catastrophe of September 11, 2001: The spirit of freedom is still alive in the face of panic-driven government policies’. - Cornell West.
In truth, what the book discusses IS what we were marching about, with the panelists being serious leftie heavyweights.
All in all, a great day, with a real sense of community and of something being born - something I felt at both the protest, and at the book discussion. Something IS happening. A new movement is emerging.
The protests happened in 22 cities today, with 40,000 in Central Park. This was just the opening move. There will be more.
Bob Morris @ Oct 6th 2002 00:24 - Category: Unfiled ;
Bob Morris @ Oct 6th 2002 00:12 - Category: Unfiled ;
The blue skin people of Kentucky
By now you’ve probably seen the story of the Libertarian candidate in Montana with blue skin - he got it from taking colloidal supplements.
What you may not know is that there were some backwoods folks in Kentucky, the Fugates, who were born with blue skin.
A doctor figured out how to change their skin to the normal pink pigment.
Bob Morris @ Oct 6th 2002 00:11 - Category: Unfiled ;
Project Blinkenlights
Some office buildings in Paris have been transformed into gigantic computer screen / art displays by using windows as the light source.
In celebration of the Nuit Blanche art festival in Paris, Project Blinkenlights has transformed Tower T2 of the Bibliothèque nationale de France into what is claimed to be the world’s largest computer screen.
The 520 pixel display, called Arcade, consists of a matrix of 20 x 26 of the building’s windows — resulting in a giant computer screen having an area of 3370 square meters.
And, it’s interactive!
The system has been configured so that people can play games on the building by calling it up from their mobile phones. One popular game is sure to be the all-time favorite pixel puzzle game, Tetris, which can be played using nothing but a mobile phone!
You can watch these creative, fun displays in real time! (see links in article).
Bob Morris @ Oct 6th 2002 00:08 - Category: Unfiled ;
Global crash fears as German bank sinks
Stockbrokers around the world are braced for a potentially calamitous week as alarm mounts over a looming, Thirties-style global financial crisis. A leaked email about the credit-worthiness of Commerzbank, Germany’s third largest bank, yesterday increased fears of the international stock market malaise exploding into a fully-fledged banking crisis.
Commerzbank lost a quarter of its value last week, raising the spectre of Credit-anstalt, the Austrian bank that collapsed in 1931, sparking global depression.
Bob Morris @ Oct 6th 2002 00:07 - Category: Unfiled ;
Organizing the anti-war protest
The main phone number for Not In Our Name in L.A. is a cell phone. So are the other contact numbers.
No land lines here. Not mobile enough. A sign of the times.
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