Archive for March 29th, 2006


Condi in Liverpool

From StopTheWar in the UK

War criminals not welcome here

“The most unwelcome visit to Liverpool since Oswald Mosley came here in the 1930s”, is how the mass circulation Liverpool Echo newspaper describes Condoleezza Rice’s visit to the city on Friday 31 March, organised for her by UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

Condeleezza Rice, George Bush’s Secretary of State, is one of the architects of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and directly implicated in the horrific levels of death and destruction inflicted on those countries.

Anti-war activists in Liverpool and in Blackburn are outraged by her visit and have organised demonstrations on 31 March and 1 April. Support for these demonstrations is being called from across the country.

Artists have already refused to perform for her at the Liverpool Philharmonic and the Blackburn mosque just cancelled Condi’s invite.

Looks like the demos will be miltant and large. Welcome to Liverpool, Ms. War Criminal.

Update:

Liverpool singer Jennifer John will sing John Lennon’s anti-war anthem, Imagine, at the concert in honour of Condoleezza Rice.

She said: “There was no way on earth that I was prepared to sing at this event purely for entertainment value. I felt it would have been immoral for me to not make a stand.

“After conversations with Simon Glinn from the Philharmonic we decidedthe only song I could and should sing was Imagine by John Lennon”

Meanwhile, the British government is spreading tales that protestors might pick up concrete slabs and throw them at Condi. You didn’t know we were that strong, did you?

1 Comment »

Podcast: L.A. Immigrant Rights March press conference

The press conference was held Friday 3/24/06, the day before the massive L.A. march.

Speakers include Piolin (DJ), Javier Rodriguez, Jessie Diaz, Juan Jose Gutierrez (Latino Movement USA), Angela Sambrano (CARECEN), Mike Garcia (SEIU), Preston Wood (ANSWER), Gloria LaRiva (Committee to Free the Five), and others equally important whose names I can’t make out in the podcast, my apologies.

If what happened Saturday turns into a civil rights movement, this mp3 will become a historical document.

(It was recorded on the internal mic of my MP3 player, so the sound is variable.)

MP3 (43:41, 14.9MB)

No Comments »

AFL-CIO opposes guest workers

The nation’s largest labor organization today criticized plans to expand guest worker programs for immigrants seeking to come to the United States, parting company with longtime Senate Democratic allies who pushed successfully to include them in broad-based immigration legislation.

“Guest worker programs are a bad idea and harm all workers,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a statement released the day after the Senate Judiciary Committee cleared an immigration bill. “They cast workers into a perennial second-class status, and unfairly put their fates into their employers’ hands.”

No Comments »

Ratbag Radio, and more

Dave Riley blogs at Life of Riley, and podcasts at Ratbag Radio and Leftcast.

Ratbag features his podcasts, while Leftcast aggregates other podcasts, including some from here.

He lives in Australia, is a longtime socialist and activist, and writes for Green Left Weekly.

Dave emails

I have plans to create a LatinAmerican podcast to go in tandem with all the Venezuelan plus reporting we do here through the pages of GLW and the local Venezuelan Solidarity Network.

GLW has correspondants stationed in Craracas and has linked up with the new network being established by the Bolivarian government — such as that which brings out Venezuelan Analysis.

They have plans to create a sort of Latino CNN but without the cpaitalistic attributes and none, definitely, of the imperialistic ones!

He’s got lots of stuff happening, check out his sites.

No Comments »

Men’s restroom mural

From Sandi:


“Edge Designs is an all women run company that designs interior office space. They had a recent opportunity to do an office project in NYC. The client allowed the women of this company a free hand in all design aspects. The client was a company that was also run by all women execs…. The result….”

Update: 07/08/07. The mural was done by Perron Developments. See comments and here.

Click to view full-sized

mural in men's room

4 Comments »