Bjork, Cosmogony from Biophilia

Bjork | Cosmogony | Biophilia from Edeenarys Bjarkason on Vimeo.

Nov 17, the 99% "Bat Signal": Do Not Be Afraid

In the Batman stories, the people project a distress signal, the "Bat Signal," when they want their hero to rescue them On Nov. 17, these signals were projected on the facade of the Verizon Building, not to call for a hero, but as a "mic check" of the kinds of things that people have been chanting in their occupations across the nation. Do Not Be Afraid.
via Boing Boing, this footage of the "bat signal", the projections on the Verizon Building as thousands of people in New York peacefully demonstrated on the Brooklyn Bridge on November 17. The interview tells how the idea came about, how they found a place for their projector, how they created the projections.

Here is a remix with music by Hans Zimmer from the Batman movie. Note the hashtags in the title #N17 #Occupy, and the Anonymous iconography!

UC Davis: the crowd responds peacefully to police assault

All over the UC system, students and faculty have been organizing over the past few years in opposition to tuition hikes but also to the ways that the administration has been making decisions about its priorities in running this educational institution. So the most recent events on UC campuses, in the context of the Occupy movement, should be understood not as something new but as the next stage in this movement. But the acts of police brutality--a cliche, but there are no other words--against non-violent students and faculty, have resulted in serious injuries and shown clearly that the administration thinks that violence is an appropriate response to a non-violent display of opposition.

As could have been expected, these events have galvanized people--workers, teachers, and students--in the entire UC system. This web site, Reclaim UC, provides a useful round-up of news and responses.

As an alumna of the University of California at Berkeley (BA, MA, and PhD) who attended from 1974-1988, I am entirely unsurprised by this thuggery, as I knew of or witnessed similar incidents around other issues,  but it is important to remember that not everyone has these memories, and it is still essential that indignation and repulsion be expressed at these illegal, unconstitutional and inhumane uses of force to coerce people into shutting up and going away.  University of California campuses are "public" but, as I learned during jury duty on a trespassing case on the UC Berkeley campus, they legally are the "property" of the Regents of the UC system, a legal fiction that is used to justify removal of anyone (including an old man eating his lunch in Evans Hall on a Sunday) that a bored cop wants to push around.

This event, at UC Davis, shows both an act of gratuitous violence on the part of police, and an angry but peaceful and sane response by the crowd, which refuses the provocation and accomplishes their goal of taking back their space.
 Students sitting in the quad at UC Davis are pepper-sprayed like bugs by a cop. Watch all the way to the end to see what the crowd does.

This open letter to UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katebi by an untenured professor Nathan Brown explains what the event was about in the first place--protesting tuition hikes and previous examples of police brutality on UC campuses--and describes in more detail what was done to the students who were assaulted with chemical weapons:

What happened next?
Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

New York City Councilman arrested, beaten, detained without medical care

Ydanis Rodríguez is a New York City Council member who was violently assaulted by police, detained for 17 hours, bleeding from the head, without access to his lawyer. He was one of 200 arrested, along with 9 members of the media.

Dorli Raiiney interviewed about being pepper-sprayed in Seattle

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Keith Olbermann interviews the 84-year old woman who was pepper-sprayed yesterday. Dorli Rainey from Seattle, originally from Austria. She is a long-time activist, who stopped off to see what was happening. Listen to this smart, brave woman, who grew up under the Nazis, talking about her work of consciousness-raising.

Harry Potter and the Remix of Death

Watch them grow up before our eyes. I still haven't seen the last movie.

Kabocha

Kabocha squash is a favorite food of the Japanese. It's the kind of squash that turns up in your tempura. We have decided that it is best eaten plain: no need for salt, butter, sweet stuff, anything--it's so good! Of course, it would be great in any dish that calls for pumpkins, squash, or sweet potatoes. You could puree it with broth for a soup, roast slices with salt, pepper and olive oil, but the texture is light and fluffy, with a flavor that is reminiscent of chestnuts. I LOVE love love Kabocha.
Here is a recipe for a very simple Japanese dish with Kabocha.
Martha Stewart is all over it with Tadashi Ono's recipe for a hot pot  (shabu shabu) with Kabocha, from his book Japanese Hot Pots. You can cook it at the table with an electric skillet.

Tay Zonday breaks it down: "Mama Economy"

"And the stocks go up, but the jobs disappear..." Why is that?
-- MAMA ECONOMY SONG LYRICS -----

Are you confused about the economy? Well have no fear --

I'm going to explain the American economy right now

The dollar just think of it like
a promise from the government
But the value of the dollar
has to be there to be relevant

The value of the dollar comes from
China and Iran
When they put their cash reserves
in a U.S. dollar plan -

They buy treasury bonds from
The Federal Reserve
We say "we owe you extra money
cause you gave us some of yours"

That's a big part
of the National Debt
All the interest that we
haven't paid to China quite yet -

And a hundred other countries
Cause we're such a good investment
The whole world gives us money
We say "Hey we'll pay you interest!"

This is how money is created from air
Bank bailouts, federal budgets
Money isn't really there -

It's an I.O.U., remember dollars are a promise
When you borrow from a bank
It's not from other depositors

The money for your loan
Gets created on the spot
Then they put it in your name
Gamble on your life and body -

But if you lose your job
Then you were a bad bet
If a million lose their jobs
Then we have a recession

Here's the dirty secret
Your labor's too expensive
Wall Street wants you spending money
But they never want to pay you -

In your life cash and credit
They are very different things
But your credit's someone else's cash
Once it leaves your name

This is why money is debt
And your debt is good for
Wall Street prosperity -

And economic growth since the 1970s
Is consumers getting credit
Without wages increasing

So when they talk about the housing crisis
They never say we need to lower housing prices -

We need better devices
To afford high prices
Meaning higher debt lower interest
Cause you're underpaid to begin with

That's the cycle we're in
We don't understand so
All we can do is question

[Chorus]
Mama economy make me understand
All the numbers why Daddy's on a welfare plan
'Turnin thirty forty fifty gotta move in with my parents
And the stocks go up but the jobs disappear

Because wages barely grew for 40 years
When you buy stuff
They delay the cost of ownership

You can't afford it
so they make it to depend
On endless small transactions
Which is more like renting

You pay more for printer ink
Than you do for gold and
More for bottled water
Than you do for oil

Razor blades are made to
Oxidate
So you're forever in debt to them
Just to shave

It's a type of socialism
called market socialism
The best designed product
Meets a need and doesn't last

We subsidize waste
With landfills and holidays like
Earth Day teachin' kids:
Recycle please

Kids won't learn in school
we live one worldview
neoliberal economics
In all of our politics

They don't ask why corporations
are human citizens
Or why grandma pays more taxes
Cause she lacks stock dividends

Or why private bankers
Print the public money
Or why democracy is broken
Cause their leaders won't be cutting

Loopholes or subsidies
For constituent industries
Putting legislative bodies
In a deep freeze

So the Ph.Ds and the G.E.D.s
Cry with Ayn Rand down at the temp agency

Sayin' "we believed in
Meri-tocracy
But there's more to the story--
Someone answer me!

These go to 11, or, crank it up!

NPR posted a list of "songs best heard extra-loud" ("these go to 11" in honor of Spinal Tap). A lot of the comments on the post were all about heavy metal or guitar rock. I made my own little list, by no means complete,  of songs that always make me turn up the radio.

I totally agree with their first choice song,  "Roadrunner" by The Modern Lovers, but I much prefer this version to the one they posted; it's the one I had:


The first cut on the Los Angeles album by X also must be cranked:
 Which Eno-era Roxy Music song to include? "Love is the Drug", with that great bass line? "Virginia Plain"? or "Do the Strand"? or go directly to Eno's "Baby's On Fire" with the Robert Fripp solo? NPR included Eno's "His Third Uncle" which is more percussive, but I always turned this one way up:  "Here Come the Warm Jets" (1974):




How about Glady Knight and the Pips doing this kick-ass live version of Imagination? especially when those horns kick in at the end.


Home-town band Sly and the Family Stone, "Dance to the Music"

and the funk of my youth: "Atomic Dog" (why must I feel like that? why must I chase the cat?)


"Party Up"