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call for papers

2009-11-03T15:10:00.000-05:00

Brett and Sarah and I are trying to put together a panel for the undergraduate research conference this spring. If you're enrolled as an undergrad and think you'll have a paper to present by April let us know.

Putting together a panel will allow us to create a more coherent and productive discussion following our presentations. No one will be tossed into a panel of unrelated papers, and folks who come to hear us speak will likely stay for all of our papers, instead of hopping up half-way through and not contributing to Q&A.

So. That said, our 'topic' is still rather broad. We're thematizing neoliberalism, public space, and development, especially as articulated through story-telling, feminist theory, and the urban landscape.

Abstracts are do 17 November. 250-350 words. Please contact one of us ASAP if you want to present. mcdougal-webber [dot] 1 [at] osu.edu

G20 Day 1 Wrap Up

2009-09-25T12:44:00.002-04:00

Some brave souls are protesting the G20 in Pittsburgh, as we speak. I'm sure you all know all of the problems that tends to precipitate from global economic planning (50,000 people dying every day of starvation, preventable diseases, global economic divide being nearly 72-to-1, over a billion people living on less than a dollar a day, etc etc).

And as you all know, capitalism came by force (Marx's chilling description in chapters 26 and 27 of Capital are classics: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch26.htm), it also remains only through force. When enough people show up to actually challenge business as usual, capital and the state respond with overwhelming force that is otherwise hidden in the millions of everyday compromises needed to survive.

The mass media portrayal has been highlighting the usual trench warfare between the anarchists and the cops. This is an old story, long-drawn out and much expected (and with serious consequences if it doesn't occur). But the secret story are those unexpected casualties.

Let me illustrate a few stories of the unexpected casualties.

Pitt students: caught up in the confusion, riot cops move in on Pitt students because they are scared of any crowd over 50 convening anywhere in the city during the G20. Students were trapped, gassed, beaten, and shot. Here are some videos:

This video wouldn't embed: http://indypgh.org/g20/#k-fbd79b0e2ce5faae

Houseless: in an attempt to find protesters looking for a cheap (read: free) place to stay, cops have run everyone out of the city. the houseless who have usually found temporary housing, whether it be in abandoned homes, places around downtown,

Additionally, the police have rolled out the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) sound cannons. Deployed in international contexts and in military conflicts, they have been brought to protests since Miami FTAA in 2001 but this is their first documented domestic use. These weapons cause extreme audio pain to anyone within 100 yards (football field), disorienting them in an attempt to make them flee. If people remain in the area or are too disoriented to leave, it can cause permanent damage if used for more than a few seconds. There are numerous examples of these weapons being used against regulation (for more than a few second bursts at a time).
proper use:

improper use:

here's a tv explanation of the device:

Here's international condemnation over OTHER states using similar "crowd control" techniques:

Columbus Metropolitan Library to Time-Travel to 1988

2009-07-31T15:41:00.002-04:00

Dear Supporter of Columbus Metropolitan Library,

Our Board of Trustees has authorized our plan to implement cuts in response to an $8.5 million reduction in state funding.

After exhaustive consideration, we believe we have charted a course that will allow CML to provide the best customer service possible under these difficult circumstances and that is fair and equitable to all.

Effective September 6, 2009

All 20 branches of CML will be closed on Sundays. Main Library downtown will remain open on Sunday.
Hours will be cut at all locations. This represents an 18% cutback of hours.

All branches and Main will be open:

Monday through Thursday: 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Friday and Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Sunday: 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. MAIN LIBRARY ONLY

Materials budget has been cut back to 1988 levels
Hours/pay cuts for staff

I want to personally thank all of you who have shown such incredible support over the last few weeks. More than 30,000 of our customers sent emails to legislators and we’ve seen a considerable spike in volunteers and donations. Without your help, we know our budget losses would have been even greater.

We know that this library is so much more than books. It is about helping people find jobs, helping kids with homework and getting them to read – and so – succeed in life. While these cuts are challenging for us, we have important work to do.

Thanks for your support.

Patrick Losinski
Executive Director

Iran Protest Update

2009-07-30T18:54:00.000-04:00

Kaboom.

White male privilege, the prison system, and Israel

2009-07-29T20:54:00.003-04:00

I don't think I could have somehow connected these three things--not even in a magical-realism short story.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Ohio watchdog criticizes prison purchases

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The former deputy director of Ohio's prison system wrongly steered a $120,000 contract to a college fraternity brother in a deal that cost the state an extra $40,000, according to an investigative report released Wednesday.

Michael Randle, now head of the Illinois prison system, referred an Israeli company that manufactures inmate-tracking devices to Ohio company KBK Enterprises, according to the report by the state inspector general's office.

KBK, a Columbus real estate development company, acted in this situation as the distributor of the devices to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Company President Keith Key was in a fraternity with Randle at Ohio State University in the late 1980s. The state purchased the equipment in 2004 for use by seven prison work crews.

The inspector general said Wednesday that the state could have purchased the equipment directly from the Israeli company, called Elmo-Tech, and avoided KBK's $40,000 markup.

The equipment wasn't popular with prison guards, Randle told investigators.

"The product worked," Randle said in a transcript of an interview with investigators reviewed by The Associated Press. "But in terms of implementation, I wasn't really ... comfortable with how our staff kind of took to the product."

The state no longer uses the devices.

"The equipment worked OK, but technology has greatly improved since then," prisons spokeswoman Andrea Carson told the AP. She noted the inspector general's report did not require the Ohio Department of Corrections to change any of its policies.

"As public servants we know our responsibility is to be good stewards and to continue to be transparent in our daily operations," Carson said.

The report also criticized Randle for referring Elmo-Tech to KBK and then failing to tell his superiors about his relationship with Key.

Key and Randle didn't immediately return telephone messages seeking comment.

"While there are no laws expressly prohibiting a state employee from doing this, provided the employee receives no personal benefit from the purchase, the referral and subsequent purchase clearly give the appearance of impropriety," the inspector general's report said.

The report did not find that Randle benefited financially from his actions, which would be illegal.

Andrew Cohen, a former Elmo-Tech representative, said Randle had no involvement in the product's purchase other than suggesting KBK as a distributor, according to a summary of Cohen's interview with state investigators reviewed by the AP.

40-day Memorial of the Death of Neda Agha-Soltan

2009-07-29T20:37:00.005-04:00

Y'all may remember the grisly video I posted 30-odd days ago showing the death of Neda Soltan in one of the protests in Iran. Nobody knew at that point what a symbol she would become for Iranians.

Her name means "voice," "calling," or "divine message." It was pretty easy to see why this would soon become meaningful. Her death, or martyrdom, has many more sociopolitical implications than we Americans might realize:

From Times Online:

More protests planned in Tehran to mark end of 40-day mourning

Defiant opposition supporters will return to the streets of Tehran today, emboldened by tales of prison abuse and an eruption of hostilities between President Ahmadinejad and his fellow hardliners.

The occasion is the passing of 40 days — the official end of the mourning period for Shia Muslims — since Iranian security forces killed Neda Soltan and protesters during a demonstration on June 20.

A mourning ceremony in the Grand Mosala prayer hall, which can hold 100,000 people, has been banned so the opposition is planning demonstrations in at least nine locations around the capital.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, the defeated presidential candidates, will visit the grave of Ms Soltan whose death, which was caught on video, made her a global symbol of the regime’s brutality.

The 40-day mark has particular resonance for Iranians: when protesters were killed during the 1978-79 revolution, the Shah’s opponents turned commemoration ceremonies into political demonstrations.

They were suppressed, more people were killed, bigger demonstrations were held — and so the cycle continued until the Shah was eventually ousted.

Thousands are expected to take to the streets this evening and the security forces are likely to disperse them forcibly, but the opposition has been heartened by the ruptures that have opened within the regime.

Mr Ahmadinejad has incurred the wrath of conservatives by choosing Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, the father of his daughter-in-law, to be Deputy Prime Minister, defying an order by Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, that he drop him.

Mr Ahmadinejad may have wanted to surround himself with friends to provide a buffer, or to show that he was not Ayatollah Khamenei’s puppet.

Some have speculated that he considered Mr Mashaei as his successor. Conservatives loathe Mr Mashaei, considering him soft on Israel and a liberal.

Several ministers protested at the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday last week. Mr Ahmadinejad relented but dismissed at least two of the ministers and appointed Mr Mashaei as Chief of Staff instead — an act of deliberate provocation that infuriated hardliners.

More than 200 of Iran’s 290 MPs have signed letters of protest over the President’s actions. The conservative newspaper Yalesarat yesterday demanded that Mr Ahmadinejad apologise to the people.

The Islamic Society of Engineers, an influential conservative body, demanded his “unconditional obedience to the Supreme Leader” and warned that he could be deposed.

The problems of the regime have been compounded by accounts of torture and death from the prisons where hundreds of opposition activists were taken after the disputed election.

The stories are redolent of the Shah’s era: one released man told how he was forced to lick a toilet bowl; another prisoner described how guards squashed inmates into a cell, smashed the lights and beat them in the darkness, during which at least four died; others said that they were tortured to make them sign false confessions.

Relatives have described being taken to an improvised mortuary packed with corpses and being ordered to say nothing about how their sons or husbands died.

The death toll is thought to be in excess of the 30 that the regime acknowledges, but the most damaging fatality was that of Mohsen Rouhalamini, 25, who was beaten during the two weeks that he spent in the Kahrizak detention centre.

Mr Rouhalamini was the son of a prominent conservative and his death has shocked even the political elite.

“The perpetrators must be identified and punished,” one hardline MP demanded. “Those who have turned this country into a police state ... have to be held accountable,” said another. “There’s absolute disbelief among many conservatives at what’s taken place,” a Tehran analyst said.

Mindful of the accusations against it, the regime is making some concessions. In the past two days the Government released 140 detainees, Ayatollah Khamenei ordered the closure of the Kahrizak prison and the head of the judiciary has promised that the cases of all detainees will be reviewed within a week.

Even Mr Ahmadinejad has asked that the detainees be shown mercy, but the state news agency said that about twenty prisoners accused of terrorist links and violence would stand trial on Saturday.

Mr Mousavi is expected to press home his advantage by beginning a political front — a coalition of groups seeking justice and democracy — before Mr Ahmadinejad’s inauguration on Wednesday.

Mr Ahmadinejad’s troubles may be only just starting. Ali Larijani, the Speaker of Parliament, has become one of his harshest critics and the President will struggle even to have his Cabinet confirmed.

Mr Ahmadinejad also faces severe economic problems. The funds that he lavished on favoured constituencies in his first term have dried up, ministries have been ordered to slash budgets and projects have been suspended. Oil no longer brings in the revenue that it did before the world economic crisis.

On top of that, a substantial proportion of the population, including many clerics and senior politicians, regard him as illegitimate. “He’s in trouble — not fatal trouble but he’s wounded. He’s damaged goods,” the analyst said.

Here's significantly more information about Neda on Wikipedia, if you're interested: Death of Neda Agha-Soltan

The History Machine Is Running on Full Steam

2009-07-22T18:36:00.005-04:00

Some cutting and some pasting in the collective memory of Arabs and Jews in Israel and occupied Palestine.

BBC News:

Israel's education ministry is to drop from an Arabic language textbook a term describing the creation of the state of Israel as "the catastrophe".
The Arabic word "nakba" has been used with Israeli-Arab pupils since 2007. It does not appear in Hebrew textbooks.
Education Minister Gideon Saar said no state could be expected to portray its own foundation as a catastrophe.
Israeli Arab MP Hana Sweid called the move an attack on Palestinian identity and collective memory.
The passage in question, which occurs in one textbook aimed at Arab children aged eight or nine, describes the 1948 war, which resulted in Israel's creation, in the following terms: "The Arabs call the war the Nakba - a war of catastrophe, loss and humiliation - and the Jews call it the Independence War."

Israel concern at UN use of Nakba

The sentence was introduced when Yuli Tamir of the centre-left Labour party was education minister.
Ms Tamir's successor in Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing administration, Mr Saar, said: "There is no reason that the official curriculum of the state of Israel should present the establishment of the state as a 'holocaust' or 'catastrophe'."
Mr Saar added that state education for children was not supposed entail the de-legitimising of that state.
"Including the term in the official curriculum of the Arab sector was a mistake, a mistake that will not repeat itself in the new curriculum, which is currently being revised," he concluded.
Correspondents say most Hebrew-language history books, especially when written for schoolchildren, focus on the heroism of Israeli forces in 1948 and gloss over the mass exile of Palestinians.
If it is mentioned at all it is attributed to a voluntary flight, rather than the deliberate expulsion which later revisionist historians claim to have uncovered from archive sources.
The term Nakba is usually applied to the loss suffered by millions of Palestinian refugees displaced by the 1948 war and subsequent conflicts; their fate remains a key factor in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Jafar Farrah, director of Israeli-Arab advocacy group Moussawa, told the BBC that removing the word Nakba from textbooks would not stop Arabs from using it, but it would complicate relations.
Far-right members of the Israeli government are pursuing legislation to make it illegal in Israel to commemorate the Nakba, as Palestinians and their supporters do every 15 May.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8163959.stm

The Washington Post:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has ordered its diplomats to use an old photograph of a former Palestinian religious leader meeting Adolf Hitler to counter world criticism of a Jewish building plan for East Jerusalem.

Israeli officials said on Wednesday Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israeli ambassadors to circulate the 1941 shot in Berlin of the Nazi leader seated next to Haj Amin al-Husseini, the late mufti or top Muslim religious leader in Jerusalem.

One official said Lieberman, an ultranationalist, hoped the photo would "embarrass" Western countries into ceasing to demand that Israel halt the project on land owned by the mufti's family in a predominantly Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem.

Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967, annexing it as part of its internationally unrecognized claim to Jerusalem as its capital.

Some diplomats opposed Lieberman's move, arguing it could earn Israel stiffer world criticism for seeming to sidestep the wider conflict it faces with the Palestinians who want East Jerusalem as capital of a future state, another official said.

Asked why Lieberman issued the order, a spokesman said: "because it's important for the world to know the facts" and would not elaborate.

The United States and Europe this week protested the plan by private Israeli developers to build 20 apartments on the land which Israel says was bought by an American-Jewish millionaire as well as Israel's threats to demolish Palestinian homes that could leave thousands homeless.

The controversy has complicated an Israeli rift with the U.S. over its refusal to meet President Barack Obama's demands to halt Jewish settlement building throughout the West Bank so that stalled peace talks may resume.

About half a million Israelis live in the settlements built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas that are home to some three million Palestinians.

An official in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's government accused Lieberman of "political bankruptcy" in ordering the distribution of the Husseini-Hitler photograph.

"It's an old story that has its own circumstances and doesn't apply to the present," Adnan al-Husseini, the Palestinian Authority-appointed governor of Jerusalem, and a relative of the late mufti, told Reuters.

Israel's Yad Vashem memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust said Husseini supported Nazi Germany to try to win backing for Arab nationalistic goals and that he lobbied for the extermination of Jews in North Africa and Palestine.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/22/AR2009072202500.html

What is Anarchy?

2009-07-18T15:30:00.002-04:00

My friend Joe Bertka is organizing this event. It'd be a good opportunity to sharpen up the old critical faculties that, at least in my case, have been dulled by the decadence of summer living.

Discussing Anarchism
July 29, 7:00 pm
Sporeprint Infoshop

Come take part in a group discussion of the ideas and practices of anarchism, whether you are highly familiar with the topic or are interested in finding out more. The goal is to have a free exchange of thoughts and perspectives. Some helpful background essays can be found at the following websites, though the discussion forum is not limited to these materials. See you there.

http://blackcrayon.com/

http://hermetic.com/bey/taz_cont.html

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/ANARCHIST_ARCHIVES/index.html

No Leaders

2009-07-07T11:26:00.002-04:00

Hunter Thompson Knew It Well: Robert McNamara's Vision for America Was Imperial and Elitist

By Joe Costello, AlterNet. Posted July 7, 2009.

The death of Robert McNamara is a time to remember how dangerous the idea of technocrats running Washington has been.

The announcement of Robert McNamara's death brought the good Doctor Hunter S. Thompson to mind. These two men were contemporaries on the public and political stage. While vastly different in so many ways, Thompson and McNamara were profoundly American and their stories offer some thoughts on where we are today.

McNamara entered public view first, while entering the public stage as Defense Secretary for JFK, Thompson was hitching a ride on a smuggling boat to disembark on the shores of Columbia with a few dollars in his pocket, spending a couple years in South America honing his skills as a journalist. Thompson, though younger in age by a couple decades, was a much older American. Nietzsche said true radicals were much older than their times, and this was true of Hunter. Thompson was a son of the old republic; high school graduate, relished his independence, considered the Bill of Rights sacred, became an outstanding member of the free press, and in his one attempt in electoral politics ran locally for Sheriff of Pitkin County Colorado.

McNamara on the other hand was very much of a younger age, a product of the 20th century, of the republic as it evolved from the twin challenges of the Depression and World War II. He had a degree from Harvard Business School and rose to be President of Ford Motor Company. Mr. McNamara defined the word technocrat. He had a fanatical faith in the omniscience of numbers and models, which as Defense Secretary, he would use monstrously on the people of South East Asia. "The Best and the Brightest," David Halberstam ironically labeled McNamara and his fellow cohorts who conducted the Vietnam War.

Today, Mr. McNamara's ilk remain very much in charge. Our political system is even more centralized than it was when he was at Defense. The idea that technocrats can run a large and unwieldy government is the true-faith of DC. While we are no longer bombing SE Asia, we kill with the same technical ferocity in the illegitimate wars of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. While our auto companies, no longer the shining star of global industry, still remain vital to the health of the US economy, or so we are told from DC. And behind the present financial fiasco, we find any number of well educated young men working in elaborate offices and manipulating numbers and formulas thinking they control the world. And yes, at the same time committing fraud after fraud, and lying through their teeth every step of the way.

Mr. McNamara's America is a fairly ugly place, it is in so many ways against the politics of this republic's founding. It is imperial, elitist, and predatory. Today, we are in desperate need of Dr. Thompson's sensibility to castrate power, to uphold the idea that anyone with great power, deserves even greater distrust. A revival of the truth that any system of self-government, needs no great power, no great leaders, it needs good citizens. We all need a little more of the strength of the old republic about us, not to avert our eyes from the belly of the beast, but to stare straight at it, and get involved to change it.

Doctor Thompson had scary accurate political instincts. He was a self-appointed Doctor of Journalism, whose beat he said was the death of the American dream. About a year before he left, he said the final half of the 20th century in America would look to history as a "party by a bunch of rich kids." That's quite an epithet for a couple of generations who were the wealthiest and most widely educated in world history. That, as the good Doctor would say, is heavy stuff Bubba.

festival football...

2009-07-03T16:18:00.001-04:00

antifa football club...!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_St._Pauli

Worst Day of Riots So Far

2009-06-20T15:59:00.002-04:00

At 19:05 June 20th
Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st.

A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim's chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes.
The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St.

Stay tuned for time and place of a protest in solidarity with Iranians being organized by local Iranian-Americans here in Columbus.

Protests Over the Presidential Election in Iran

2009-06-15T16:04:00.003-04:00

YAH's resident Persian has sent the following links for our consideration:

25khordad at Wordpress
Rayeman kojast? at Wordpress
tehranlive.org
Daneshgah Sanati Esfehan at blogspot

My limited Farsi knowledge tells me that these are all pretty much from university areas. Note that these are pictures and videos from Iranian bloggers and activists from the past couple of days in the wake of the re-election of Ahmadinejad, who is believed to have stolen the election from the reform candidate Mousavi due to the unprecedented number of young voters (think the past US presidential election except Obama loses by a landslide). It's pretty intense.

Smash the Suburbs!!!

2009-06-15T13:06:00.002-04:00

Intriguing Plan in Michael Moore's Home Town: Bulldoze the Ghost 'Burbs, Return Them to Nature

By Tom Leonard, The Telegraph (UK). Posted June 13, 2009.

Concept of razing post-industrial "rust belt" empty neighborhoods draws interest in Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore and other cities.

The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, Michigan, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.

Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 percent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/140629/intriguing_plan_in_michael_moore%27s_home_town%3A_bulldoze_the_ghost_%27burbs%2C_return_them_to_nature/

Redheads Protest Wendy's

2009-06-11T17:57:00.001-04:00

Redheads Protest Wendy's

Check Out This Site and Help End Poverty

2009-06-10T20:27:00.005-04:00

http://hoenir.himinbi.org/

I’ve always admired Hunter S. Thompson. I love his sense of a story from the edge of something. I also love the idea of duplicating him. Wouldn’t “crazed rambling drunk” be an awesome job? To Hunter S. I dedicate these two weeks of semi-coherent rambling.

(I can’t figure out how to get rid of that sidebar player atm, sorry.)

I’m not going to watch the video before posting it and most of it is a blur, but I know I said I had a plan to save the world.

I actually do have a plan to save the world. My goal for this little experiment is to sell people on an endearing mix of rambling and philosophy so they’ll follow me on Twitter. A week and a half from now I hope to be taping these videos on my way to Oprah’s show. I actually do have an idea that can fundamentally alter how our economy works. I just need fame since I’m too poor to pay people to do all the things I need done to move the plan forward.

The ending poverty idea is more entertaining than the Homage to Hunter S., a million Twitter followers and the siege on Oprah, so by all means stumble this post and stop by again. If enough people do, I’ll get my audience with the queen.

Free Artem Loskutov!

2009-06-08T13:34:00.006-04:00

When I was in Russia I spoke to a few people about their interactions with the KGB and it is FUCKING SCARY to know that post-Soviet interrogation practices are more-or-less the same.

On May 15, the young contemporary artist Artem Loskutov was arrested in his native Novisibirsk and charged with possession of a narcotic substance (marijuana) by the local branch of the Interior Ministry’s notorious Center for Extremism Prevention (Center “E”). Loskutov and his supporters claim that the police planted the marijuana in his bag in order to incriminate him. As one of the inspirations behind the annual “Monstration”—a flash-mob street party in which young people march with absurdist, non-political slogans—Loskutov had long been an object of the Center’s attentions. At a pre-trial custody hearing on May 20, it was revealed that the Center had been tapping the phones of Loskutov and his friends for the past six months. In April and on May Day itself, Loskutov had been summoned to the Center for “discussions”; his parents had also been called and told that their son was a member of a dangerous sect. The circumstances of the case and the way that he was arrested thus point to a campaign of intimidation directed both at Loskutov and his fellow free-thinking “monstrators” in Novosibirsk.

"Judge: This person is guilty!
Fighting for increased wages - guilty!
Not loving the police - guilty!
For the inclination towards critical thought - wanted!
Cosmopolite. Internationalist. Atheist. Extremist. Are there any such people among you? Are any of you extremists???"

http://www.metamute.org/en/free_artem_loskutov

FIELD TRIPS

2009-06-07T16:08:00.003-04:00

(YOU ARE HERE) FIELD TRIP TO THE DAYTON AIR SHOW JULY 18th or 19th
-confront the militarized spectacle!

http://www.usats.org/

more details soon...

_________________________

also im sure you have all heard-

G20 SUMMIT TO BE HELD IN PITTSBURGH SEPT 24th and 25th
-oh SHIT!

xo
brett

Post-Authentic Authenticity

2009-06-04T18:51:00.002-04:00

Brian Massumi's "Realer than Real" is a great rip on Baudrillard and all those other simulacrum hacks.

Didn't they know that it's the age of post-post-irony?

This cannot be done by whining. The work of Baudrillard is one long lament. Both linear and dialectical causality no longer function, therefore everything is indetermination. The center of meaning is empty, therefore we are satellites in lost orbit. We can no longer act like legislator-subjects or be passive like slaves, therefore we are sponges. Images are no longer anchored by representation, therefore they float weightless in hyperspace. Words are no longer univocal, therefore signifiers slip chaotically over each other. A circuit has been created between the real and the imaginary, therefore reality has imploded into the undecidable proximity of hyperreality. All of these statements make sense only if it is assumed that the only conceivable alternative to representative order is absolute indetermination, whereas indetermination as he speaks of it is in fact only the flipside of order, as necessary to it as the fake copy is to the model, and every bit as much a part of its system. Baudrillard's framework can only be the result of a nostalgia for the old reality so intense that it has difformed his vision of everything outside of it. He cannot clearly see that all the things he says have crumbled were simulacra all along: simulacra produced by analyzable procedures of simulation that were as real as real, or actually realer than real, because they carried the real back to its principle of production and in so doing prepared their own rebirth in a new regime of simulation. He cannot see becoming, of either variety. He cannot see that the simulacrum envelops a proliferating play of differences and galactic distances. What Deleuze and Guattari offer, particularly in A Thousand Plateaus, is a logic capable of grasping Baudrillard's failing world of representation as an effective illusion the demise of which opens a glimmer of possibility. Against cynicism, a thin but fabulous hope--of ourselves becoming realer than real in a monstrous contagion of our own making.

Know Your Memes, Ya'll

2009-06-04T18:47:00.002-04:00

The Rocketboom Institute for Internet Studies presents
"Know Your Memes"
Documenting Internet phenomena: viral videos, image macros, catchphrases, web celebs and more…

http://knowyourmeme.com/

Associated content:

Media Assemblages

2009-05-31T18:45:00.002-04:00

Sweet blog I just found.

Media Assemblages
"A media theory and history blog diagramming how media form assemblages of people, populations, technologies, meanings, and sensations. The evolution of these assemblages, their non-linear dynamics, their affects, and self-organizing capacities are what is explored in these postings."

--->
A tour de force of various post-structuralist thinkers as they relate to media ecologies. An amazing mix of cut-up, hyper-text, youtube, diagrams, pictorials, and the like. Definitely worth taking a look at.

Take a peak at "The Production of Habit: On Two Conceptions of Difference in Foucault’s Discipline and Punish"

or "On the Work of Art Today: Benjamin and the Machinic Phylum".

Tarnac Interview // New School (Non)Response

2009-05-31T16:13:00.001-04:00

Le Monde interview [translated by NOT BORED!].

For those of you following the continuing Tarnac 9 saga, this piece adds a rich layer to the already complicated Sarko tar-and-feathering of "anarcho-autonomists" via ever more expansive 'anti-terror' laws.

And for the rest of us, a rare and beautiful rendering of politics...

My comrades and I are only a variable in this adjustment. One suspects us like so many others, so many “youths,” so many “gangs,” of having no solidarity with a world that is collapsing. On this one point, one doesn’t lie. Fortunately, this heap of swindlers, impostors, industrialists, financiers and prostitutes; this entire Mazarin’s court full of neuroleptics, Disney versions of Louis Napoleon, and Sunday shows that grip the country for an hour lack an elementary sense of dialectics. Each step that they take towards total control brings them closer to their fear. Each new “victory” with which they flatter themselves spreads a little further the desire to see them defeated in their turn. Each maneuver that they figure comforts their power ends up rendering it detestable. In other words: the situation is excellent. This isn’t the moment to lose courage.

which also reminds me of the recent (non)response to New School's continued attempt to bring down disciplinary action on those who have participated in continued occupations.

the whole thing's a pleasure to read, but here are some snippets:

(c) At what point did the occupiers indicate that they would leave the building peacefully?

Clearly, the moment when the occupiers announced their peaceful intentions to leave the building was on the rooftop after they dropped the OCCUPY EVERYTHING banner but before they unfurled the APRIL FOOLS MOTHERFUCKER banner, as they waved black and red flags in masks and read the pamphlet “Anti-Capitalism at the New School” by New School Schwarz und Rot from a bullhorn to the crowd below, which started with a line from Walter Benjamin that said:
* *
The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency.

(e) What was the reaction of the occupiers?

Inside:
Occupier X: Hey, Y, are we occupying this building unlawfully, as he said?
Occupier Y: Yes.
Occupier X: Well, how come we didn’t get a permit first, and occupy it lawfully?
Occupier Y: Because you’re a fucking idiot, X.

ON BRICOLAGE

2009-05-30T17:43:00.002-04:00

ASSEMBLING CULTURE WITH WHATEVER COMES TO HAND
by Anne-Marie Boisvert, translated by Timothy Barnard

...Remix culture is a culture of quoting, and of the remake. But it is also a culture of intervention and reinvention whose goal is entertainment but also communion and liberation. The artist at the controls wittingly yields to chance (in the form of "glitches", among other things), and to the means at hand in his or her creative process - because, while the result matters, it matters less than the process, the performance, and the event. Remix culture borrows its sensorial saturation from post-industrial society, but reproduces this saturation in an aesthetic context that channels it. Remix "artworks" remain "open", bringing some sense to the world's cacophony (at least for a moment). Yet this is achieved via ephemeral bricolages and assemblages, which are always subject to transformation, and always susceptible to being reorganized in a new way....

Read The Rest Here

foraging wild edibles walk on Sunday, 11 am

2009-05-29T14:21:00.000-04:00

A message from Hugh:

I wanted to mention that Nancy and I are leading a foraging wild edibles walk on Sunday at 11 for the Free the Planet student group. Anyone from the CS group is welcome to come along if they're interested. We're meeting at the solar bike shelter on the bike path by the marsh at 11 and will make a loop around the marsh and through the woods along the river, pointing out a couple dozen or so wild edibles (and also poisonous plants) common in central Ohio.

Dance Party THURSDAY

2009-05-27T16:28:00.002-04:00

Though the poll (at the time of its deletion) was tied six and six, the Dance Party will have to be on Thursday on account of the Peach District Festival--and of course you're going, so you don't want it to be on Friday either.

Speaking of the Peach District Festival....

THE PEACH DISTRICT FESTIVAL!!!!

YAH will be there. Why wouldn't you be?

Dance Party

2009-05-26T15:09:00.003-04:00

However: Thursday or Friday? Vote for the day that works best for y'all on the poll to the right. Also comment on this post if you want to help out in some way (printing out literature, outreach, setting up, tearing down, playlist input, visual stimulation input, suggestions, etc.).

Here's some info from the last dance party that still applies:

Classrooms - pretty overdetermined spaces, right? Especially lecture halls. Partitioned off rows, a big whiteboard/screen with the professor ("he who knows") filling your mind like an empty vessel.

Well, now is your chance to challenge the hegemony of classroom space. We will be experiencing the various ways feelings, emotions, ideas, movement, and sound circulate within spaces that are built to repress, separate, quiet and isolate.

Please remember that OSU is alcohol and drug-free. This event is meant to be potentially trangressive but not illegal or against the student code of conduct.

This event will explore the intersection of the built environment, over-determined spaces, and the audio-visual affective circulation of techno music. The text we will use to inform our analysis is Michel Gaillot's "Techno: Multiple Meaning, An Artistic and Political Laboratory of the Present" [http://openlibrary.org/b/OL9010128M/Techno]

Location:
Hagerty Hall 180 -- might have to use the back doors near the loading dock.
Street:
1775 College Rd

This event is sponsored by the Comparative Studies Undergraduate Group on paper and You Are Here Columbus.

where we are

2009-05-26T11:32:00.002-04:00

'a disposable neighborhood'

Yooouuutuuube -- Fixie Tricks

2009-05-25T23:00:00.002-04:00

Sweet Bike Video!

Rethinking Topology and Topography

2009-05-25T21:51:00.003-04:00

Hidden Landscapes Image by Chris Thompson.

‘Geographical Methodology as Spatialization and Topology’ (Part of “Theorizing Place: Interdisciplinary Trajectories” A Panel Discussion at the Canadian Association of Geographers Meeting, Carleton University, May 27):

This presentation focuses on the virtuality of place, an object of study which resists specification in material or topographic terms. In effect, place exceeds the boundaries of topography. It cannot be adequately mapped. This raises a methodological conundrum for geography which has only be solved via interdisciplinary innovation, leading geographers into the study of social and cultural categorization, and statistical analysis of spatial data. What is a geographer to do? A relational approach to ‘place’ foregrounds the tissue of geographical space and the multiple flows and passages through it. Multiple passages suggests that geography explore a multiple, n-dimensional topology as a paradigmatic shift out of Cartesian space.

Maybe geographical information systems already work in n-space, but my sense is no, and geographers think of cartography as a 3d and 2d endeavour. Any thoughts? This is a step toward a paper on topology as method for social science in the 21st century, part of my belief that at university level we should teach methodology as something evolving, to think past mastering a particular program and ask ourselves what is it for? And, how do our chosen methods guide how and what we see in our studies?

via space and culture

next 5 YAH events

2009-05-25T16:58:00.001-04:00

1) bathroom show
2) another Dance Party [DP!]
3) anonymous dérive algorithms
4) TV smashing ritual
5) wizard party

what else? i'm forgetting some...

THE DADAMETER

2009-05-24T21:22:00.001-04:00

Global index of the decay of the aura of language

Read more...

Film-Philosophy

2009-05-22T00:55:00.006-04:00

Film-Philosophy
Volume 13, Issue No. 1, 2009

Articles

’Occupy without Counting’: Furtive Urbanism in the Films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (1-15)
R.D. Crano

Hegel and the Impossibility of the Future in Science Fiction Cinema (16-37)
Todd McGowan

Godfathers and Sons: Tripping Over the Unconscious (38-52)
Timothy O’Leary

Consumer Ethics in Thank You For Smoking (53-67)
Stacy Thompson

Meanings and authorships in Dune (68-89)
Tony Todd

via Continental Philosophy

Hiati

2009-05-21T17:14:00.002-04:00

So, dear readers.

Tucker Max, Take Back the Night, Anti-Racism Conference. Stuff has just been blowing up lately. Speaking of craziness, some activists (a.k.a. "suspects") have been tailed by the police, have had their pictures taken by the police, and had a car window smashed (police? maybe). Apparently some people hit a nerve?

Anyway, this has left us all pretty FSU-hungover. It's unfortunate but basically inevitable. Also some members have been working on masters theses and like "important" stuff. However, I am now declaring a war on nothing being written here. I won't stand for it. You're either with us or against us. If you tolerate this, your children will be next. Loose lips sink ships. Buy war bonds. DO IT!

I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride my bike.

2009-05-20T11:52:00.002-04:00

The Columbus Dispatch - Bike riders want share of streets

Announcements

2009-05-14T14:25:00.004-04:00

Make sure to check out:

Bits and Pieces: some rad feminist ladies in Columbus--personal friends and members of YAH. Check the blog link to the right for recent updates.

Take Back the Night: Organized by Womyn and Allies Rising in Resistance. TODAY. It is today. Go to the Wexner Center mall at 5pm.

Take Back The Night

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

An event to empower women and men to work toward ending violence against women.

Events at Take Back the Night

Clothesline Project: An opportunity for survivors of violence to create an expressive T-shirt. This project raises awareness of the extent and prevalence of sexual violence.

Speakers: Addressing issues involving sexual assault, violence against women, prevention, education and support for survivors and practical actions.

March: An opportunity for women to express their outrage and desire to feel safe from attack in their homes and on the streets.

Speak Out: An opportunity for people to speak out about the violence they have experienced in an open and welcoming environment (there will be counselors on site for those that wish to speak to one.)

Information: An opportunity to pick up information about the programs and organizations that assist women and men who have experienced violence along with prevention efforts.

Organize CBus Collective: Insanely awesome conference on racism happening this Saturday in Mendenhall on campus from 9am-7pm. Go go go! Blog link to the right gives the workshop schedule and information about ride-sharing and free childcare, etc. No excuses!

Confronting Racism: Building United Movements Ohio Conference

May 16th

Mendenhall Laboratory - Ohio State University

9am - 7pm

Introduction

Confronting Racism: Building United Movements will take place on Saturday, May 16th 2009 at The Ohio State University. We would like to thank Catalyst Project, LeftTurn Magazine, SOUL, Colors of Resistance, organizers at the BASTARD conference, and many others for providing us inspiration in both language and in concept for this conference.

Its our goal that Confronting Racism: Building United Movements will be an organizing space for students and community members throughout Ohio, especially women, people of color, queer, and working-class people, to develop the skills and the vision they need to struggle for a collective liberation against corporate power and institutional oppression. To these ends, Confronting Racism: Building United Movements will provide both structured workshops and more open-space-style discussion spaces that will develop participants’ basic organizing skills and deepen their political analysis and visions toward fundamental social change. The Open Space discussions’ goal is to provide a place for structured conversations on specific topics without requiring a talking head to lead the conversation.. We are excited to see what comes out of these free-form sessions!

The Theme

The theme for the Confronting Racism: Building United Movements conference will be “Connecting the dots: racism and issues of global capitalism.” We envision a conference with workshops and action-oriented discussions exposing the interconnectedness of racism with issues of global capitalism affecting us locally such as;
• affordable housing • employment justice
• access to healthcare • public transportation
• immigration • environmental and food justice
• police brutality and prison abolition • physical and sexual violence
• queer & trans liberation • indigenous solidarity
• militarism, and more.

This is an opportunity to examine our common ground within seemingly separate issues and develop a unified voice of resistance against global capitalism and imperialism as we continue building a collective liberation movement in Ohio. We are committed to building an anti-racist, anti-imperialist, multiracial, feminist, queer and trans liberationist, anti-authoritarian movement against global capitalism and promoting the understanding that there are multiple valid approaches to doing this work. Please come and let us hear your voice.

TO RSVP: send us an email at organizecbus@googlegroups.com

In addition, check out the write-up on the OUAB protest from Monday and Tuesday in The Other Paper: Maxed Out by Kitty McConnell

“Watch the american housing market spiral out of control.”

2009-05-14T12:02:00.000-04:00

subprime from beeple on Vimeo.

Mike “Beeple” Winkelmann -- link

Where there's smoke... Anarchism after the RNC

2009-05-13T02:44:00.003-04:00

Where there’s smoke….
Anarchism after the RNC

I.
We’ve got the numbers, they’ve got the guns..
Our chants reverberated under the St. Paul skyway. The 2008 RNC protests were underway, the culmination of two years of anarchist/anti-authoritarian organizing materializing before our eyes. For once, we were many, and they were few… or maybe not...

via UMN CSDS student Nate Holdren [holla!]'s What In the Hell...

PPLZ Who Make Your Clothes Go Berserk

2009-05-13T02:32:00.002-04:00

Sunday May 10, 2009: Wildcat strikes; over 15,000 Bangladeshi garment workers "go berserk" and attack factories over non-payment and low wages

via libcom

I FOUND THE PANOPTICON

2009-05-12T17:35:00.001-04:00

Schoenbaum Family Center at Weinland Park

Innovation in learning and living

At the Schoenbaum Family Center at Weinland Park, the education of young children is based on a combination of caring relationships and the best in early childhood research. Located in Columbus' Weinland Park neighborhood, the center opened to families in autumn 2007.

The Ohio State University collaborates with Columbus City Schools and with the Child Development Council of Franklin County Headstart/Early Head Start to serve a culturally and economically diverse community of children ages birth to five and their families. The unique A. Sophie Rogers Laboratory School, which is within the Schoenbaum Center, overlooks the park and is co-located with the Weinland Park Elementary School, providing opportunities for collaboration across programs as well as sites for teacher training and research.

Among the first in the nation

In 1924, Ohio State was one of the first universities in the country to establish an early childhood laboratory school. Now we're among the first again, perhaps the first to collaborate with public and private partners to build our university child development laboratory in a neighborhood of documented need. Through research, innovative approaches, and best practices, we address the special issues facing families in this and similar neighborhoods worldwide.

Our cutting-edge facility draws enthusiastic partners, faculty, and students

Everyone wins when involved with the best. The Schoenbaum Family Center is a magnet attracting high-achieving students, community professionals eager to learn, and distinguished faculty to our college. Scholars consider our child population of mixed socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, ideal for child development and education as well as for research.

Partners like you made it possible

Today, the 47,840 square foot, cutting-edge center serves 88 children and their families. The center is the cornerstone of the college's partnership with the neighborhood. Our goal is to enhance early childhood education and family well-being as a stimulant to community success. We're improving a community starting with the children.

The partnership approach has yielded many benefits, including a shared site with Columbus City Schools' Weinland Park Elementary School to ensure children's success from birth through grade five. More than 20 partners -- agencies and other Ohio State colleges -- provide support services for families.

In 2007, the university won the Magrath/Kellogg Foundation Award for Best Outreach Project in the North Central Region. The award recognizes the new model of public and private partners who are making rapid change to improve the lives of children and youth. The combined Weinland Park effort continues to gain national recognition.

Unique features of the innovative center

7 Multi-age classrooms, which include:
- 3 infant/toddler rooms - each with 8 children ages 6 weeks to 3 years old
- 4 preschool rooms - each with 16 children ages 3 to 5 years old
All classrooms have 2 co-lead teachers and an assistant teacher
Full-day, year round program open Monday through Friday 7 am to 6 pm
Graduate and undergraduate Ohio State students gaining experience in child development and education in the classrooms under the mentorship of the expert lead teachers
A nature courtyard at the heart of the center links to the outside via side courtyards that form a ribbon of green space through the building. The space allows children to interact and stay in touch with the natural environment and the community.
The Proctor and Gamble Town Square for school and community gatherings.
The Columbus Foundation Observation Gallery overlooks all classrooms and studio spaces so parents, university students, researchers, and visitors can unobtrusively view teachers and children engaged in model practices in early childhood education and care.
The Elmer's Art Studio offers opportunities for children to explore and represent their many ideas and thoughts using an array of materials, from art supplies to natural and recycled materials.
A commercial quality kitchen includes educational space where children and families are learning about healthy nutrition, food safety, and the health effects of nutritional choices. The kitchen staff prepares a fresh morning breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack each day.
Large spaces dedicated to OSU faculty pursuing research in early childhood education and related fields.
Family advocacy office providing assistance to families
The JP Morgan Chase library and part-time librarian from Columbus Metropolitan Libraries providing story times and book collections for the classrooms and teachers.
A registered nurse provided through Columbus City Schools and wellness suite on site.

Our Staff

The A. Sophie Rogers Laboratory for Child and Family Studies at the Schoenbaum Family Center staff is made up of highly trained personnel with graduate degrees in human development and family science and early childhood education. The Director of the program as well as several of the teachers have Master's degrees in early childhood education. In addition to daily curriculum planning and implementation plus child assessment and documentation, the teachers at the Schoenbaum Family Center provide trainings and presentations to other professionals and families in Ohio and across the country.

Howard Goldstein, Ph.D.
The Ohio State University
Research Director

Michele Sanderson, M.S.
The Ohio State University
Program Director

Anneliese Johnson, M.S.
The Ohio State University
Preschool Program Coordinator

For enrollment information, please contact our Family Advocate at 614-247-7007.

Licensing

The A. Sophie Rogers Laboratory for Child and Family Studies is licensed by the State of Ohio's Child Day Care Licensing Department. A copy of the licensing guidelines are available for your review.

General Contact Information

The Schoenbaum Family Center at Weinland Park
175 E. 7th Avenue
Columbus, Ohio 43201
614-247-7488

CALL NOW!

2009-05-12T13:32:00.001-04:00

WHAT: Call OUAB (Ohio Union Activities Board)
HOW: 292-3117

WHAT: Call the President's Office
HOW: 292-2424

The Message;
Why is there money to bring a speaker who celebrates and encourages sexual violence but not any money for sexual assault survivors?

Other action suggestions listed at bottom.

***INFORMATION***
Yesterday OUAB (Ohio Union Activities Board) sponsored a speaker, Tucker Max. Mr. Max has built his career on representing himself as a non-conformist - he not to practice law despite having a law degree from Duke because he has published a successful book. His writing career is just a celebration of male privilege and sexual violence, the 'usual college stories' of sex and drinking, but with enough hyperbole and exaggeration it's packaged as humor. Most of his stories use sex and sexuality to humiliate women and pushes the bounds on what might be considered consent - at the very least it promotes a culture of sexual violence. Why OUAB is convinced that being a misogynist is non-conformist is perplexing to me.

There was a sizable protest yesterday and it appears that OUAB didn't know how to adequately respond. There's been a lot of administrative backpedaling and some luke-warm attempts at inclusivism. [http://media.www.thelantern.com/media/storage/paper333/news/2009/05/12/Campus/Dozens.Of.Students.Protest.Tucker.Max-3740222.shtml]

Strangely enough, Mr Max's visit was advertised right after some feminists kicked off a campaign for OSU to establish a sexual violence victims fund.

Meg Zakany, an affiliate of Women and Allies Rising in Resistance, was featured in a recent OSU issue of the Lantern describing the fund. [http://www.thelantern.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=e4440492-955a-4a78-813c-436bdb654520]

The article states:"A group of Ohio State students is campaigning against the university and OSU Medical Center, asking OSU to pay for the medical bills of students who have been sexually assaulted on campus and who seek help from the medical center."

Zakany is quotes, saying "We know this type of fund can work because it's already had eight years of success at another Big Ten university, Penn State.""It's actually needs-based so there's no cap on the amount of funding. We're hoping we can do something similar to that here."

******
Other ideas:
1) Show up to Take Back the Night on Thursday! 5pm Wexner Center Plaza

2) Set up a meeting with OUAB. Find out how they work, how they represent different interests, and how they spend the student activity fee.

3) Propose an alternative event to OUAB. My idea is a sex fair (run by feminists, of course).

4) Start a feminist action group of your own. Look more into what you and your friends are good at and how to intervene within the patriarchal society we live in.

Shut it Down - No Rapist in Our Town

2009-05-12T01:55:00.003-04:00

NBC

The Lantern

ABC/FOX

Some Bro's Low-Quality Video on Youtube

It could have gone better. It could have gone worse. But we think OUAB got the message. Keep a lookout for anti-misogynist superstars Joseph Shaw, Stephanie Diebold, Brett Zehner, Martin Kellogg, Mary Griffith, and Aaron Rothey. The spectacularist media loves them. Nice work, y'all.

...And This Too

2009-05-11T13:15:00.001-04:00

Hard Times for Women Living on the Edge: Economic Anxieties Send Domestic-Abuse Rates Soaring

By Nick Turse, Tomdispatch.com. Posted May 11, 2009.

Even in good times, life for poor working women can be an obstacle-filled struggle to get by. In an economic crisis, it can be hell.

Even in good times, life for poor working women can be an obstacle-filled struggle to get by. In bad times, it can be hell.

Now, throw domestic violence into the mix and the hardships grow exponentially -- as I discovered recently when I talked with "Tyrie" while she was at her job at a child care center in one of New York City's outer boroughs.

"This economy is hitting everybody really hard," the fortysomething woman, originally from Trinidad, tells me. But it's hitting her harder than many. Tyrie is a domestic-violence survivor whose personal suffering has been compounded by the global economic crisis. And she isn't alone.

"Clients are coming in more severely battered with more serious injuries," reports Catherine Shugrue dos Santos of Sanctuary for Families, New York state's largest nonprofit organization exclusively dedicated to dealing with domestic-violence victims and their children. "This leads us to believe that the intensity of the violence may be escalating. It also means that people may be waiting until the violence has escalated before they leave."

"Difficult financial times do not cause domestic violence," says Brian Namey from the National Network to End Domestic Violence. "But they can exacerbate it. When there are tough financial times, couples can be under greater pressure, have higher stress levels."

In fact, a 2004 study by the National Institute of Justice reported that women whose male partners experienced two or more periods of unemployment over five years were three times more likely to be abused.

http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/139943/hard_times_for_women_living_on_the_edge%3A_economic_anxieties_send_domestic-abuse_rates_soaring_/

And Some More...

2009-05-11T12:50:00.001-04:00

'The Most Humiliating Experience I Have Ever Had' -- Why Is the Supreme Court So Callous About Privacy?

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted May 9, 2009.

A teenage girl is strip-searched and gets snickered at by old men in robes for challenging it -- what's so funny about the Fourth Amendment?

Savana Redding was a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Arizona's Safford Middle School when she was pulled out of class one day by her school's vice principal, Kerry Wilson, and told to bring her books with her.

Rumors had been swirling that a group of students were packing prescription ibuprofen pills -- "contraband" -- and were planning to pass them out at lunch. Redding had been falsely accused of carrying the illicit substance, and Wilson took her into his office for questioning.

She later said in a sworn affadavit:

"Once in his office Mr. Wilson started discussing the importance of telling the truth. I told him I would tell the truth. Mr. Wilson then asked me if I would mind if they searched my stuff. I knew that they would not find anything, so I agreed to the search."

Redding's backpack was searched and, indeed, nothing was found. But the vice principal was not convinced. He ordered her to go with a faculty member to the nurse's office.

"I went to the nurse's office. Mrs. Romero asked me to remove my jacket, socks and shoes. The school nurse, Mrs. Schwallier, was in the bathroom washing her hands. When Mrs. Schwalleir came out, they told me to remove my pants and shirt.
"I took off my clothes while they both watched. Mrs. Romero searched the pants and shirt and found nothing.
"Then they asked me to pull my bra out and to the side and shake it, exposing my breasts. They also told me to pull the underwear out at the crotch and shake it exposing my pelvic area.
"I was embarrassed and scared, but felt I would be in more trouble if I did not do what they asked. I held my head down so that they could not see that I was about to cry."

Redding called the strip search "the most humiliating experience I have ever had." Her mother, who did not find out about the search until her daughter came home from school, sued.

Redding's initial lawsuit was thrown out, but later the ACLU represented her before the San Francisco Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that her Fourth Amendment rights had been violated. This past January, the Supreme Court agreed to consider the decision. Oral arguments took place on April 21.

The Savana Redding case has outraged people across the political spectrum. But according to some who attended the oral arguments in Washington last month, when it came time to discuss it, the justices largely seemed not to get why.

"Editorialists and pundits have found much to hate in what happened to Savana Redding," wrote Slate senior editor Dahlia Lithwick in the hours following the oral arguments. "Yet the court today finds much to admire."

Never mind the amicus brief filed by the National Association of Social Workers, the National Association of School Psychologists and the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (among others), arguing that "a strip search of a 13-year-old student by school authorities is an extraordinarily intrusive search" and warning that "strip searches can cause severe emotional and psychological harm to children." (Savana Redding eventually dropped out of school.) By and large, the eight men on the bench kept returning to the same question -- with the exception of Justice Clarence Thomas, who has not asked a question since 2006 -- why is this such a big deal?

"I'm trying to work out why is this a major thing to say strip down to your underclothes, which children do when they change for gym, they do fairly frequently," mused Justice Antonin Scalia. "… How bad is this, underclothes?"

Meanwhile, Justice Stephen Breyer seemed to think that searching Redding's underwear was a pretty reasonable thing to do, since that's where any normal kid would hide prescription drugs.

"I mean, I hate to tell you, but it seems to me like a logical thing when an adolescent child has some pills or something, they know people are looking for them, they will stick them in their underwear. I'm not saying everyone would, but I mean, somebody who thinks that that's a fairly normal idea for some adolescent with some illegal drugs to think of, I don't think he's totally out to lunch, is he? "

("Do you have any studies on this?" Breyer asked lawyers for Redding, while adding "I doubt it.")

http://www.alternet.org/rights/139887/%27the_most_humiliating_experience_i_have_ever_had%27_--_why_is_the_supreme_court_so_callous_about_privacy/

Relevant Context for Today's OUAB Event

2009-05-11T12:44:00.002-04:00

Is Porn That Depicts the Subjugation of Hispanic Women Tied to the Rise of Hate Crimes Against Latinos?

By Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez's Blog. Posted May 9, 2009.

Lou Dobbs cheers on anti-Latino backlash, while pornography provides the context for the dangerous stereotypes.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation tells us there has been a steep rise in hate crimes against Latinos in the United States in the past six years.

Hate crimes against Latinos rose by nearly 35 percent from 2003 to 2006, a mind-numbing increase that shows no signs of slowing down.

Just last week, an all-white jury in rural Pennsylvania acquitted two white teens of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, third-degree murder and ethnic intimidation for the beating death of Luis Ramirez.

Experts attribute the rise in hate crimes against Latinos to the parallel rise in anti-immigrant diatribes put forth by ratings-starved nativist TV and radio talking heads like Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, the latter of whom was this week banned from visiting England because of his incitement of hate.

Even though immigrants come to the U.S. from more than 200 nations, and the majority of "illegal" immigrants in the U.S. are those who have come on educational or work visas and simply overstayed, the mainstream media and aforementioned pundits inexplicably continue to pretend all immigrants are Latinos who crawl like roaches across the border to steal jobs and spread disease.

They also pretend: all immigrants are Mexican, though only 43 percent of immigrants to the U.S. come from Mexico; all Latinos are Mexican, even though there are 30 nations in Latin America; all Mexicans are "illegal immigrants," even though millions of Mexican Americans have roots in the United States that predate the arrival of the Pilgrims to Plymouth Rock. All too often in the U.S. media, history is an inconvenience.

This steady drumbeat of hate, fueled by widespread misinformation and stereotypes, has led, predictably, to the mainstreaming of fear and loathing of Latinos in general, and Mexicans in particular.

This is nothing new. We have seen the same sort of rise in ethnic and racial hatred played out in many nations during times of economic crisis; scapegoating a powerless group (Jews by Hitler, East Indians by Uganda's Idi Amin, etc.) is a time-honored and desperate technique employed by the powerful when they have led their citizens to economic ruin and wish to sidestep the blame.

Internet Porn: The Invisible Perv(asive) Pundit

While Dobbs and other mainstream talking heads clearly have had a powerful influence on the nation's surging anti-Latino/immigrant backlash, there is one equally powerful, influential and profitable sector of the media that no one is talking about: Pornography.

While few users of the Internet will admit to using pornography, facts published by Familysafemedia.com suggest that nearly half of all Internet users seek pornography online.

There are 4.2 million porn sites on the Web, totaling more than 400 million Internet pages. An astounding 25 percent of all search engine requests are for pornography. Pornography profits each year exceed the profits of NBC, ABC and CBS combined.

And yet no one in the rising-Latino-hate debate has thought to look at this sector of the media for indications of violence and hatred toward Hispanics, and Hispanic women in particular. Except me. Because I'm practical like that, and I'm not afraid to go there. Or anywhere, really.

Rape of Latinas Popular on the Net

I've been keeping tabs on the popular free porn site Redtube.com, which is essentially the X-rated version of YouTube, and have found a very disturbing trend.

Day after day, week after week, month after month, videos claiming to depict the rape of Latina maids or Mexican women seeking green cards, etc., have appeared in the top five videos of the day, often in the No. 1 spot, with high ratings from the site's users.

Often, these videos depict women crying, begging for mercy and enduring unwanted anal sex. (The popularity of Latinas in these videos is all the more alarming when one considers that Latina actresses comprise less than half of 1 percent of all TV and movie roles in the United States.)

It is no coincidence that as hate toward Latinos and immigrants rises, Hispanic women are being presented in a very popular, profitable (and, we pretend, invisible) media outlet as the ideal rape victims.

The Redtube videos routinely show Hispanic women begging for money, for citizenship, trying to simply do their jobs of, say, cleaning toilets, but often "getting what's coming to them" instead. The punishing "what's coming to them" theme is rampant and popular. Someone, somewhere, is getting off on this. Lots of someones.

Direct Impact?

The link between pornography and violence against women is a subject of much debate. While researchers at the University of California, San Diego and University of California, Berkeley found that watching porn might reduce rape, researchers at Columbia have concluded that watching violent videos or video games increases violent behavior in the viewers.

The most recent statistics on rape and ethnicity published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics reflect the time period 1993 to 2000, meaning they would not represent the spike in hate against Latinos since 2003.

It will be very interesting to see if there has been a quantifiable increase in sexual violence against Hispanics for this most recent time period.

Why I Believe Sexual Violence is on the Rise Against Hispanic Women

While I've always been on the receiving end of "go back to Mexico"-type hate mail from the time I began working as a staff writer at the Boston Globe, I have noticed a change in the tone of my hate mail in recent years.

Now, they are apt to have sexual overtones along with the "go back to Mexico" message. They are also increasingly signed by people who say they are "angry white males."

One such person recently called a police department to tell them he planned to find me and cut my clitoris off with a fish knife. Thankfully, he has not found me yet.

Rape is considered a separate category from "hate crime," in most instances (not sure why, frankly), and I was unable to find any statistics about the rise in rapes of Hispanic women.

I suspect there has been an increase in this type of crime, and that it has paralleled the general rise in hate crimes against Latinos reported by the FBI. I also suspect that in the case of undocumented women, this crime is going entirely unreported.

With Arizona's Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio now asking armed civilian posses to go after "illegals," you can only imagine what sorts of men might sign up for the task and what they might do to women.

Good Girls Don't Talk About Porn

I know it is considered impolite to discuss pornography in the context of serious media. I know firsthand that the mere mention of pornography will illicit more lascivious chuckles than discussion in America's newsrooms, the vast majority of which are headed by men.

But I also know it is irresponsible not to pay attention to a medium with such broad reach and impact; when I was a reporter at the L.A. Times and discovered that the porn industry eclipsed Hollywood in sales, I suggested the paper add a porn beat. I was laughed at. The male editors (and they were all males) guffawed and snuffled in their bow ties. Good girls, and respectable news outlets, they informed me, did not pay attention to pornography.

But even good girls know, better than anyone, how powerfully pornography shapes the behavior of men -- in the bedroom and out.

I have little doubt that the increase in Internet pornography depicting the rapes of Hispanic women is playing a vital role in the rise of hate crimes against Hispanic women.

I suspect there is a reciprocal relationship, and that the rise in hatemongering and scapegoating of Latinos/immigrants on CNN and talk radio is actually leading to increased (undiscussed) demand for degrading and violent pornography depicting white males abusing Hispanic/immigrant females.

Can Porn Be Hate Speech?

I believe violent pornography targeting a specific racial, ethnic or religious group is hate speech. I am not alone.

Just as England chose to ban Michael Savage for inciting hatred, Canada ruled in 1992 to outlaw violent sexual material, ruling it a form of hate speech.

I do not know what effect this has had on the distribution of such material via Internet, but I do believe such a ruling in the U.S. would go a long way toward getting the media and hate-crime watch groups to pay attention to disturbing trends in porn, rather than laughing it off.

See more stories tagged with: hate crimes, porn, latinos, hate speech, hispanic women

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez is a recovering journalist and practicing author. Read more of her work at her blog.

NOTICE

2009-05-11T02:18:00.004-04:00

TO THE PUBLIC

Progressive groups and collectives all across Columbus are converging today, Monday 11 May, at 7:30PM at Hitchcock Hall (2070 Neil Avenue) to protest an OUAB-sponsored event featuring self-proclaimed misogynist Tucker Max (see Ohio Union Activies Board at OSU Sponsoring Misogynist for more details). Any and all who are against the celebration of sexual humiliation and violence are strongly encouraged to come stand in solidarity with others who are appalled that this event is taking place with the use of student activity funds.

NEW PRESIDENT OF THE PEACH DISTRICT

2009-05-11T01:36:00.002-04:00

to all the wonderful readers and residents of the peach district experiment-

i have exciting news

spontaneously ive relinquished my role as 'president'

i will maintain all of my current roles... such as ideology engine...idea spinner and general hype guy... poet and town cryer...partial organizer etc. etc.
however the functions of the presidency (which are truly symbolic and nothing more than anyone elses role in an obviously counter hegemonic space) will be taken
over by fariba massah... a young persian american woman who was born to govern an instinctually feminine space. more to come on this front... also can we please have an organized sit
down hang out drink it down meeting at on the fly about the festivus...

cheers
luck
and peachy keen

brett

FOR THOSE OF YOU NOT CURRENTLY IN THE LOOP ABOUT THE PEACH DISTRICT PLEASE FOLLOW LINK I ASSUME IS PROVIDED TO THE RIGHT...!

woo

2009-05-11T01:09:00.001-04:00

I PROPOSE A WAR ON TouRISM

walkscape osu

2009-05-10T18:05:00.001-04:00

http://walkscapeosu.blogspot.com/

Walkscape is inspired by a book of the same name by Francesco Careri (Barcelona, 2002). Writing as an architectural and urban theorist, Careri examined a series of moments in the history of 20C art when artists turned walking--bodily movement through space--into a critical and creative gesture. Dissatisfied with the conventional and institutional enclosures of art--the frame, the studio, the museum--they took to the streets, looking for new ways to see.

In a line that stretches (circuitously) from the Dadaist "excursions" through Surrealist "deambulation," Situationist "drifting," Richard Long's "A Line Made by Walking" (1967) and the work of OSU's Robert Ladislas Derr, the walking body turns into a means of both creating and resisting meaning: resisting prescribed itineraries, thwarting predictable outcomes, opening new points of access and surprising vistas. What emerges from these bipedal experiments, Careri suggests, are a range of alternative ways of evoking and inhabiting space: practices of pilgrimage, dreamscape, playscape, heterotopia.

*****
Join the campus-wide experiment in creative bipedalism by going for a walk. Visit new places, take new routes, look with a fresh eye: walk by yourself, in pairs, in small groups, en masse. Document your experience somehow and contribute to the Walkscape Scroll on the Oval from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday (5/20). Sponsored by One Creative University: A project of Arts Initiative and the Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities. Contact: mailto:Livingston.28@osu.edu. Read more: http://walkscapeosu.blogspot.com

psychogeographic project

2009-05-08T21:16:00.003-04:00

i've been inspired by the following youtube video (at the bottom) where a co-worker is given a simple algorithm to follow on a lunch-time dérive.

my proposal:
1) you are here identifies a group of people we want to dérive (CS grad students, in example)
2) we draft up a set of simple algorithms (in the video they had a a few directions on a 3x5 card: '2nd street right, 2nd right, 1st left, repeat') w/ a few instructions and contact info (if you feel you would like to break from the algorithm, please do).
3) anonymously deliver said instructions (mailboxes, &c.)

who's with me?

parkour

2009-05-08T18:25:00.001-04:00

Parkour

(sometimes also abbreviated to PK) or l'art du déplacement^[1] (English: the art of movement) is an activity with the aim of moving from one point to another as smoothly, efficiently and quickly as possible, using principally the abilities of the human body.^[2] It is meant to help one overcome obstacles, which can be anything in the surrounding environment—from branches and rocks to rails and concrete walls—and can be practiced in both rural and urban areas. Parkour practitioners are referred to as traceurs, or traceuses for females.^[3]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_iGordDDpw&feature=related

So Much Hubabaloo About the Swine Flu

2009-05-08T02:29:00.004-04:00

Guess what folks - not so worried about the swine flu. Not only is that shit under control but you're more likely to get killed by a car home on the way home tonight.

The explosion of images and thoughts triggered in the cultural imaginary has been amazing, however!

Here's one of my favorites -- a review of a few badass art projects that will blow you mind into a million tiny pieces, enjoy.

a house for pigs and people :: via metastable equilibrium

sneaks:

&

Sacre du Printemps, one that doesn't involve sacrificing virgins

2009-05-07T19:02:00.003-04:00

I think Robert Frost or somebody wrote a poem about how a derive in springtime is always a magical experience. Maybe it was Walt Whitman? Anyway, I would recommend it, if you have the opportunity. Walking through alleys in Clintonville would be my suggestion. Maybe balance that out with a stroll down the railroad tracks next to I-71. It's a snapshot in time, but the psychogeographic contours of the city seem much more inviting than other times of year.

Ohio Union Activities Board at OSU Sponsoring Misogynist

2009-05-07T18:49:00.002-04:00

Women’s Group (at OSU) Demands Cancellation of Rape-Promoter Tucker Max

Sexual Assault Awareness Month has barely come to a close, and already The Ohio State University is choosing to create a hostile environment for women, violating its own non-discrimination policy as well as state and federal law. On Monday, May 11th OSU will be sponsoring the rape-celebrating Tucker Max as a speaker, using OSU students’ dollars. [an example] From a Tucker Max story describing his several-week persistent coercion of a woman into anal sex, “I was going to **** her in the butt and film it without her consent.” Also, from his own website;

My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole. I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging
dickhead.

At the same time The Ohio State University is paying for Tucker Max to come to campus, university officials are telling students that there is "no money" to set up a fund for OSU students who are raped/sexually assaulted. The fund would help cover the high costs of seeking medical attention after such an attack, which can cost survivors hundreds and even thousands of dollars before it's all said and done... So there is money for rape-promoters but not for women?

ATTRACTIONS.JORDAN+CRANDALL.HOTEL.042209

2009-05-06T23:53:00.002-04:00

My hotel room is perched at the intersection of two freeways, and, with the window open to let in the hot summer air, I can hear the comforting hum of traffic. I have just gotten out of the shower and am staring at myself in the mirror, deciding whether or not to shave. I hear a knock on the door: it must be room service. With a towel around my waist, I open the door for the waiter, who wheels in my breakfast cart. At the opening of the door, the curtains billow and the warm breeze animates the room. The waiter nervously fusses with the plates and flatware. I sign the check and thank him. He opens the door to exit the room. But the breeze does not stop, and out of the corner of my eye, I notice that he is closing the door very slowly, in order that he can watch my reflection in the hallway mirror. The wind channel remains open. Momentarily, I catch a glimpse of his eye in the mirror and I sense the intensity of his attraction. Does his desire arise because of, or in spite of, the limits placed on it - by the social contract, and by his employer? Still in my towel, I take my breakfast plate from the cart and walk over to the chair. As I approach the seat, I realize that my towel has loosened. I am holding the plate with both hands and so I do not catch the towel. Rather, I let it fall. Standing, plate in hand, with my back to the door, I feel the gaze of the waiter upon me. I bask in the familiar glow of this look. Like the warm sunshine beaming in from the window, cast against my skin, it affords me a blanket of comfort. Yet at the same time it dispossesses me. Centeredness and dispersal, life and death, as part of the same circuit. I sense the struggle is which he is engaged - how long can he remain, peering through a gap in the door, before he is discovered, whether by me, another hotel guest, or his boss? Embodying the struggle, he monitors himself. A space of tension has opened up, a gap that only assumes its potency through the impending threat of its closure, and of its subject's exposure. Perhaps his body takes shape, as mine does, through the contouring properties of this space. It informs him, gives form to him. Like the billowing curtains, shaped by the morning breeze - arising only because of the wind channel established by the open window and the cracked door. Self-consciously, I stand there, and slowly begin to eat from my plate. The curtains undulate. The clacking of my fork beats time like a metronome, as the erotic energy - always compositional, rhythmic - circulates through the room with the hot summer air.

via version.org

experimental communities

2009-05-06T23:45:00.003-04:00

http://www.experimentalcommunities.net/blog/

This platform is open to all practitioners and theorists of ‘experimental communities.’ A core constituent of the collective are members of the interdisciplinary seminar with the same title taught by Pedro Lasch at Duke University, as well as various political and cultural networks including 16 Beaver Group (NY). Anyone can comment on posted materials. To post something, please email pl@experimentalcommunties.net

***Use the menu on the right hand side as an organization tool for this avalanche of awesomeness.

LIBS 'N GAYS!

2009-05-06T23:31:00.001-04:00

Add the YAH RSS Feed, suckas!

2009-05-06T23:26:00.002-04:00

Know what RSS is?

If YES, then
1) Add the YAH Post RSS feed
and maybe
2) Add the YAH Comment RSS feed

If NO, then

and now return top and continue...

a literary tracing of our collective social nightmare

2009-05-06T22:52:00.005-04:00

Steve Shaviro's tribute to recently deceased JG Ballard:

“The suburbs dream of violence” (opening line of Kingdom Come), of a vast convulsion which the imagine as a purgative or transformational Event. Ballard’s great subject, in his final four novels, is the hollowness of this dream, the emptiness and inevitable disappointment of any fidelity to the Event, every bit as much as of any loyalty to the ruling order....

The only (very slender) hope that his novels offer is a hope in the value in itself of a disillusioned and demystified clarity of regard...

via The Pinocchio Theory

the myth of the west

2009-05-06T22:47:00.003-04:00

A slideshow review of the following exhibit:

Into the Sunset: Photography’s Image of the American West

via However Fallible

yooouuutuuube

2009-05-06T22:39:00.000-04:00

http://www.yooouuutuuube.com/

example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAwR6w2TgxY --->

http://www.yooouuutuuube.com/v/?rows=18&cols=18&id=pAwR6w2TgxY&startZoom=1

Kirwan Institute Panel Discussion on the Death Penalty in Ohio

2009-05-06T00:12:00.004-04:00

Media Advisory from the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity:

April 27, 2009
Panel Discussion: Ohio author and journalist, defense attorney, and sentencing expert discuss death penalty. Race, politics and the geography of Ohio’s death penalty will be the topic of a panel discussion on Saturday, May 9, from 2–4 p.m. at the Moritz College of Law, Saxbe Auditorium, 55 W. 12th Ave., in Columbus. “Perspectives on Ohio’s Death Penalty,” which will examine this issue from various viewpoints, is hosted by The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University. The panel of speakers will include:

Andrew Welsh-Huggins, a reporter with the Associated Press in Columbus, Ohio, and author of No Winners Here Tonight: Race Politics, and Geography in One of the Country’s Busiest Death Penalty States (Ohio University Press, 2009). Welsh-Huggins’ book focuses on the history of the death penalty in Ohio, which is noted as having an active use of capital punishment. The book also explores the impact of race on Ohio court decisions.

Tim Young, Director of the Office of the Ohio Public Defender. Young was appointed as Ohio Public Defender in January 2008, after serving as a Deputy Director of the Montgomery County Public Defender’s Office. He is an alumnus of the University of Dayton School of Law.

Doug Berman, William B. Saxbe Designated Professor at Moritz College of Law. During the 1999-2000 school year, Professor Berman received The Ohio State University Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching. He is the author of the prominent Sentencing Law and Policy blog. He attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School.

Andrew Grant-Thomas, Deputy Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, will serve as moderator.

The death penalty continues to be one of the most contentious issues in the United States. Recently, New Mexico became the second state to abolish capital punishment since 2007 and the 15th state to abandon the practice, a decision that has resulted in strong reactions from proponents and opponents alike. The ongoing debate on this issue is especially relevant in Ohio, which has a long history with the death penalty and has carried out a total of 371 executions, 28 in the modern era. Ohio has exonerated five men from death row. “A system meant to be fair turned out, contrary to lawmakers’ expectations, to be subject to the same frailties as the rest of the criminal justice system – capricious, uneven, and dependent on the most nonjudicial of factors, human sentiment,” says Andrew Welsh-Huggins. “In the case of the death penalty, of course, there is no way to resolve those disagreements once the sentence has been carried out. Right or wrong, all decisions are final.” The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity was established in 2003 as a center for interdisciplinary research at The Ohio State University. The Kirwan Institute partners with people, communities, and institutions worldwide to think about, talk about, and act on race in ways that create and expand opportunity for all. For more information about the Kirwan Institute, go to: http://kirwaninstitute.org/.

Media Contact:
Kathy Baird, Kirwan Institute Communications
Office: (614) 292-8766
Cell: (614) 395-1067
baird.111@osu.edu

Urban Ghost Town

2009-05-05T18:25:00.003-04:00

Urban ghost town
The emptiest neighborhood in the United States sits just south of Westland Mall. . . .
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 3:13 AM
By Mark Ferenchik
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

View Larger Map

The area, anchored by the desolate Wingate Villages apartment complex, leads the nation in having the most vacant housing units in areas with at least 1,000 homes.

For the first quarter of the year, nearly 70 percent of the houses and apartments were vacant, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data.

Of Ohio's major metropolitan areas, Columbus usually is considered the most stable because the city and its suburbs continue to grow.

But there are holes. Many Columbus neighborhoods, racked by poverty, foreclosures, crime and blight, continue to empty. There are more than 5,300 vacant homes citywide, according to the most-recent numbers.

At Wingate Village, only one in five units -- 352 of 1,712 apartments -- is occupied. And that's up from last year's 12 percent occupancy rate, said Bert Hyman, a project manager for property owner Matrix Realty.

The Associated Press analyzed data from more than 65,000 neighborhoods, or census tracts, nationwide, including 2,963 in Ohio.

Franklin County has 39 census tracts in which at least 10 percent of the housing units are vacant according to first-quarter figures from 2009.

Most are concentrated in the central city, although some spread north to Morse Road and beyond, where there are vacant apartments.

None of the adjacent counties -- Delaware, Fairfield, Licking, Madison, Pickaway and Union -- had census tracts with double-digit vacancy rates in the first quarter of 2009.

Although much attention has been focused recently on foreclosures in middle-class neighborhoods, the Associated Press analysis, based on data collected by the U.S. Postal Service and the Housing and Urban Development Department, shows the emptiest neighborhoods are clustered in places hit hard during the recession of the 1980s -- cities such as Flint, Mich.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Indianapolis; and Columbus.

That doesn't surprise Don Haurin, professor of economics, finance and public policy at Ohio State University.

"There are easily two Columbuses. One is the core area, and it does have many of the problems other Rust Belt areas have," Haurin said.

The other, Haurin said, is the city's newer suburban area that has expanded the city to about 227 square miles.

"If that annexation hadn't occurred, we'd be losing population like other Rust Belt cities," he said.

At the same time, Haurin said smaller census tracts, such as those in the central city, can be skewed by a single, dominant apartment complex. That's where the 40-year-old Wingate Villages fits in.

The 135 apartment buildings actually sit inside Franklin Township, but reflect the slide of some of the city's older areas. Across from the complex on Georgesville Road is the idled Delphi plant. Westland Mall is mostly empty.

For years, the complex was plagued by homicides, robberies and other crimes. An arson fire there in 2004 killed 10 people. In the meantime, owners kicked out dozens of bad tenants and tried to lure new ones with special rates.

Marcus King, 30, moved in about a year ago. He drives a forklift at a nearby Big Lots warehouse and finds the complex safe. When he deals with neighbors, it's to "borrow some sugar," he said.

Hyman said Matrix has rented out 200 units in the past six months. He said it has spent $1.2 million to renovate the aging units, obtaining $4 million in financing to fix them up.

It's going to take a lot more than special rates to attract new life to some cities. That's why federal lawmakers have designated nearly $6 billion during the past year for local governments to buy foreclosed and abandoned homes to rehab or demolish.

The Associated Press analysis, however, shows the money, at most, will make a modest dent in the problem. As of March 31, there were about 4 million homes that have been empty for 90 days -- a slight increase over last year's figures and about 3 percent of all U.S. homes.

Columbus received $22.8 million. The city is spending $84,345 on a study to determine where the money should go.

Matrix had spoken with the Horn of Africa Community Center, a social-service group for Somali immigrants, about relocating families while offering on-site help for Somalis, who were interested in an ownership stake in the property.

But that idea fell through. Horn of Africa President Mussa Farah said his community did not have enough money to buy property.

Still, the Somali community is raising money to build a mosque at the northwest corner of Sullivant Avenue and Industrial Mile Drive in Prairie Township, next to Wingate Villages.

Farah said that could attract hundreds of Somali families to Wingate Villages, building a new community.

And then, that area might lose its distinction as the most vacant.

mferenchik@dispatch.com

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/05/05/VACANTHOODS.ART_ART_05-05-09_A1_RMDOR6K.html?sid=101

Constructed Situations

2009-05-05T13:11:00.001-04:00

Preliminary Problems in Constructing a Situation
http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display_printable/313

"We must thus envisage a sort of situationist-oriented psychoanalysis in which, in contrast to the goals pursued by the various currents stemming from Freudianism, each of the participants in this adventure would discover desires for specific ambiances in order to fulfill them. Each person must seek what he loves, what attracts him. (And here again, in contrast to certain endeavors of modern writing — Leiris, for example — what is important to us is neither our individual psychological structures nor the explanation of their formation, but their possible application in the construction of situations.) Through this method one can tabulate elements out of which situations can be constructed, along with projects to dynamize these elements."

Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency’s Conditions of Organization and Action
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/report.htm

"A revolutionary action within culture must aim to enlarge life, not merely to express or explain it. It must attack misery on every front. Revolution is not limited to determining the level of industrial production, or even to determining who is to be the master of such production. It must abolish not only the exploitation of humanity, but also the passions, compensations and habits which that exploitation has engendered. We have to define new desires in relation to present possibilities. In the thick of the battle between the present society and the forces that are going to destroy it, we have to find the first elements of a more advanced construction of the environment and new conditions of behavior — both as experiences in themselves and as material for propaganda. Everything else belongs to the past, and serves it."

You Are Here at Ground Zero

2009-05-04T22:38:00.002-04:00

Top 25 Vacant Neighborhoods

By The Associated Press Associated Press Writer

May 4th, 2009 |

A list of the 25 neighborhoods with the highest percentage of vacant homes, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data. The AP analysis included only census tracts with more than 1,000 housing units and less than 5 percent vacation homes, according to the 2000 census.

County State Tract Homes Empty Pct

Franklin Ohio 82.3 1711 1158 67.7

Hamilton Ohio 9 1212 773 63.8

Hamilton Ohio 16 1154 587 50.9

Berkeley S.C. 207.03 2030 874 43.1

Wayne N.C. 5 1812 779 43.0

El Paso Colo. 38 1363 579 42.5

Yuba Calif. 409.02 2058 866 42.1

Cook Ill. 5401 3215 1344 41.8

Montgomery Ohio 8.02 1739 705 40.5

Marion Ind. 3550 1268 511 40.3

Wayne Mich. 5004 1134 442 39.0

Baltimore city Md. 802 1184 455 38.4

Linn Iowa 22 1135 434 38.2

Jefferson Ala. 51.01 1349 504 37.4

Genesee Mich. 15 1199 440 36.7

Fulton Ga. 23 1388 503 36.2

St Louis city Mo. 1267 1187 413 34.8

Wayne Mich. 5332 1136 395 34.8

Delaware Ind. 2 1118 385 34.4

Marion Ind. 3526 2046 702 34.3

Wayne Mich. 5079 1607 551 34.3

Wayne Mich. 5538 1138 388 34.1

Montgomery Ala. 2 1006 342 34.0

St Louis city Mo. 1241 2553 867 34.0

Jefferson Ala. 30.02 1570 532 33.9

Wayne Mich. 5333 1199 406 33.9

------

Source: Housing and Urban Development Department, U.S. Postal Service

(This version CORRECTS that data involves less than 5 percent vacation homes, not vacant homes. This item moved previously as an advance and is now available for use.)

Salon provides breaking news articles from the Associated Press as a service to its readers, but does not edit the AP articles it publishes.

"Over There Is Over Here"

2009-05-04T22:37:00.001-04:00

Howard Zinn Two-Hit Punch in the Face!

2009-05-03T18:20:00.002-04:00

A People's History of American Empire by Howard Zinn

Readings From Howard Zinn’s “Voices of a People’s History of the United States”

To see the readings... http://www.peopleshistory.us/watch/videos

depression is political?

2009-05-01T13:40:00.002-04:00

Ann Cvetkovich

Public Feelings

South Atlantic Quarterly 106:3, Summer 2007

Begun in 2001, our investigation has coincided with and operated in

the shadow of September 11 and its ongoing consequences—war in Iraq, a

sentimental takeover of 9/11 to underwrite militarism, Bush’s reelection,

and the list goes on. Rather than analyzing the geopolitical underpinnings

of these developments, we’ve been more interested in their emotional

dynamics. What makes it possible for people to vote for Bush or to assent to

war, and how do these political decisions operate within the context of daily

lives that are pervaded by a combination of anxiety and numbness? How

can we, as intellectuals and activists, acknowledge our own political disap-

pointments and failures in a way that can be enabling? Where might hope

be possible? Those questions stem from our experience of what one of our

cells, Feel Tank Chicago, has called “political depression,” the sense that

customary forms of political response, including direct action and critical

analysis, are no longer working either to change the world or to make us

feel better. The concept of political depression is not, however, meant to be

wholly depressing; indeed, Feel Tank has operated with the camp humor

one might expect from a group of seasoned queer activists, organizing an

International Day of the Politically Depressed in which participants were

invited to show up in their bathrobes to indicate their fatigue with tradi-

tional forms of protest and distributing T-shirts and refrigerator magnets

carrying the slogan “Depressed? It Might Be Political!”1 The goal is to depa-

thologize negative affects so that they can be seen as a possible resource for

political action rather than as its antithesis. This is not, however, to suggest

that depression is thereby converted into a positive experience; it retains

its associations with inertia and despair, if not apathy and indifference, but

these affects become sites of publicity and community formation.

YAH Mindmap

2009-04-30T13:49:00.001-04:00

Gentrification In Columbus

2009-04-30T11:35:00.002-04:00

What is gentrification?

Where is it occurring?

What are some resources?

What is being done?

What can we do?

What should we do?

Txt Tree

2009-04-30T00:39:00.001-04:00

The You Are Here collective is in its nascent stages of organizing social, political, economic and cultural public events. Birthed from the deep recesses of our imaginations, our events are meant to resist, challenge and provoke dominant worldviews.

Look for our future encounters with music, new media, art and culture as they investigation relations of: the everyday and the spectacular, space and the built environment, capitalism and the state, and representation and appearance.

If you are interested in getting occasional updates about events to participate in, you can get information via text message alerts (we promise not to spam you, maybe 1 msg/2 wks?).

Txt #: 68398
Message: JOIN13874M

Dance Parties

2009-04-30T00:31:00.001-04:00

Here's the general description of the DP we held last week:

Classrooms - pretty overdetermined spaces, right? Especially lecture halls. Partitioned off rows, a big whiteboard/screen with the professor ("he who knows") filling your mind like an empty vessel (http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/assets/images/foucaultschool.jpeg).

Well, now is your chance to challenge the hegemony of classroom space. The Comparative Studies Undergraduate Group is hosting a dance party in a lecture hall! We will be experiencing the various ways feelings, emotions, ideas, movement, and sound circulate within spaces that are built to repress, separate, quiet and isolate.

This event will explore the intersections of the built environment, over-determined spaces, and the audio-visual affective circulation of techno music. The text we will use to inform our analysis is Michel Gaillot's "Techno: Multiple Meaning, An Artistic and Political Laboratory of the Present" [http://openlibrary.org/b/OL9010128M/Techno]