The U-Lock Action Fund

On 6-16-2011, Myself & another activist u-locked our necks to the gallery of the senate to force them to go into recess & try to prompt the Democratic senators to flee state again so they would not have a quorum present to pass the bill that has become synonymous with the uprising of Wisconsin.  

We were jailed and evnetually bailed out.  Yesterday we reached a settlement of a fine of $250 plus about $15 for filing cost & $60 application fee for using a public defender.  I'm currently looking to collect donations to help pay off the legal expenses as well as help out the other activist who participated in the action.

   

Any help you can give would help out a ton as most my personal funds have been directed to getting the Madison activist house off the ground. The donation button is to the left and whether it is just a $1 or maybe more, every little bit helps. Solidarity.

Activism & Mental Health

One aspect of activism that often gets over looked is personal well-being and mental health. Activist, by nature, are often sensitive individuals. They have yet to become desensitized to the world around them and as such often become involved to effect a change upon society and/or the world around them. In alot of ways, there is something therapeutic about the empowerment that comes from assuming a more assiduous role in ones own existence rather than that of depressive compliance. All to often people assume that their voice does not matter and they can not effect a change.

However rewarding activism is, no one can say it is a stress-free practice.  All to often activist devote themselves so much to the cause or those around them, that they neglect taking the time and energy to care for themselves as they should.  Compound this with a multitude of ever-changing stressful scenarios, relationship concerns, & often shaky financial situations.  This all stews together and suddenly issues can arise such as burn-out, anxiety based issues, & depression.  Left unchecked, these can progress into serious and life-long issues.

There are a number of helpful measures to take to ensure longevity as well as good stress managing skill for when difficult situations do arise.  

• Be sure to always stay abreast of your current mental affairs with introspective analysis from time to time.  Some activities to help facilitate this practice include yoga, meditation, and journaling.  
• Avoid the uses of addictive substances like tobacco & alcohol and opt for other methods of unwinding.  
• Pay attention to your nutritional concerns and make sure you are getting enough to eat but also not over-eating due to stress.  
• One of the best things you can do for yourself is to develop a good level of communication with a group of people or someone who is close to you.  Having a person who understands how to be a good listener is something to be thankful for.  

Of course, it is in good interest to suggest reaching out to a professorial when dealing with issues that start to effect your day to day life or if you are dealing with self-destructive tendencies or suicidal thoughts.

I'd strongly recommended individuals to take a look at these other resources and really take to heart how essential this topic is.

Activist Trauma .Net - A great site for information on activist mental health with a special focus in regards to post traumatic incidents.

What Sustains Us? What Stops Us? - A nice little zine on activist mental health 

Grassroots Gardening - Book-  It seems slightly off topic but I found this book to be super informative about more abstract aspects of issues that arise as an activist.

Turns Out Hilary Too Smexy For Der Tzitung

Turns out that ultra orthodox Jewish newspapers are none to fond of having females in their newspapers.  Der Tzitung actually photo-shopped Hilary Clinton (our now secretary of state) right out of history. The hasdic publication held concerns that the image of a female in the paper would would "excite" strict hasdic jews.

Hilary was not the only one photo-shopped out though.  Audrey Thomason, the counterterrorism analyst who can be seen to the right peering between two male colleges, was also edited out.

Rabbi Jason Miller raised a point of concern in the New York Jewish Week.

"Der Tzitung edited Hillary Clinton out of the photo, thereby changing history. To my mind, this act of censorship is actually a violation of the Jewish legal principle of g'neivat da'at (deceit)."

Besides raising eyebrows, there is also much concern over the disclaimer in which the photo was released:

"This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House."

My guess: Perhaps the publication may opt out of photos that have women in them in the first place rather than attempt to alter a widely circulated print. I'm doubtful this "changed history" as a whole. Then agian, maybe it did with a few devout readers of Der Tzitung.

Earth Day Documentaries

Got some time to spare?   Watch free documentaries online.  Happy Earth Day :-D

Addicted To Plastics -Addicted to Plastic is a documentary focusing on the worldwide production and environmental effects of plastic. The host takes a 2-year trip around the world to give us a better understanding of the life cycle of plastic.

A Farm For The Future - As the sky-rocketing fuel markets soar, it has a very strong impact on the farming community. As such, wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family’s farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key.

Fuel  - An in-depth personal journey of filmmaker and eco-evangelist Josh Tickell, who takes us on a fast-paced road trip into America’s dependence on foreign oil.

The Future Of Food - A must watch film that brought the issues concerning GMOs to the forefronts of American viewer's minds.

The Power Of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil -  How the Cuban people adapted and embraced principles of permaculture as a method of curbing oil dependence.

The Slow Poisoning Of India - India is one of the largest users of pesticide in Asia and also one of the largest manufactures. The toxins have entered into the food chain and into the Indian breakfast, lunch and dinner. But there is a growing resistance to the dilemma as farms start resisting the GMO companies.

Other recommendations include: Food Inc., Dirt!, Coal Country, On Coal River

Site I Like - XY Online

The one thing I despise about feminism is the sometimes overdone painting out of men to be heartless, misogynistic, overbearing dicks.  While women were busy trying to pave the way towards gender equality (some of us, trying to claim all out supremacy), we sometimes forgot to look at both the progress of males and also the hurdles they, themselves, are subjected too.  

From my perspective: It doesn't look easy to be a sensitive male in society and frankly I wish there was more support and resources for progressive, pro-gender equality masculinity.  Like an answer to this thought, a friend shared this site with me and just from what I've read, I can tell this is a great resource for issues surrounding men & gender politics. So good to see an embracing of masculinity that does not surcome to demonization of females nor the submission to the more militant aspects that have some times found there way into feminism.

http://www.xyonline.net/

PSA Domestic Violence Commercial

On average more than three women a day are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in the United States. In 2005, 1,181 women were murdered by an intimate partner. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/intimate/ipv.htm.

In 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published data collected in 2005 that finds that women experience two million injuries from intimate partner violence each year. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5705a1.htm.

Nearly one in four women in the United States reports experiencing violence by a current or former spouse or boyfriend at some point in her life. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5705a1.htm

- Don't become a statistic. -

Photos Of The Week 4-20-2011

BP Disaster Still Kills: Deepwater Horizon: a protest performance called Human Cost took place at Tate Britain in London on the first anniversary of the oil spill. 

Photograph: Jeff Blackler/Rex Features
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/20/deepwater-horizon-oil-spill-first-anniversary-bp

Madison Tea Party Rally

I was able to get my first experience with a large group of tea-partiers.  Granted the estimated 6,500 in attendance were no near as many as the counter protesters.  I made to flickr sets of photos from the rally.

I guess the guys in the orange "Teach Me How To Rally" t-shirts were pro tea party security. They mainly seemed to spend there time taunting and trying to look important.

"Unions Is Hitler" - This guy was *little* off his rocker. 

North Korea Behind Internet Attacks, Says South

Reposted From North Korea Tech 

South Korea’s National Police Agency says North Korea was behind cyber attacks that targeted 30 major websites between March 3 and 5, according to local news reports.
Websites such as the presidential office and Financial Services Commission were brought down by the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
A DDoS attack involves flooding a server with so many requests that it becomes clogged and cannot operate. This is typically done by harnessing a vast network of computers to send the traffic simultaneously and continuously.
Rather than buy and build the computers, hackers usually build this network by infecting PCs with illicit software. At the time of the attacks, local computer security firm AhnLab estimated around 50,000 PCs were involved.
A similar series of DDoS attacks targeted computers in South Korea in July 2009.

“After closely probing a number of Web sites that carried malicious codes, zombie computers and overseas servers that ordered the attacks, the strikes are identical to those of July 7, 2009, in ways of organizing the attack and designing the malicious codes,” an official at the Cyber Terror Response Center of the National Police Agency (NPA) said. –Yonhap News (via Korea Herald), April 6, 2011.

AhnLab agrees that March attack was carried out in a similar method to the 2009 attack. It has a fuller,more technical explanation of the attacks on its blog. But AhnLab doesn’t offer any suggestion as to the source of the attacks.

A DDoS attack, like any sophisticated computer hack, is typically difficult to pin down. The infected PCs that carried out the attack were probably located in many countries, but they would have been keeping contact with one or more servers that signaled them when to start attacking.

Why 30,000 People Are Fasting

For years the art of fasting has been used to combat political and social injustice.  An art, ghandi really perfected.  Solidarity.