33 years



Photo by Hubert Van Es for The New York Times.

Vane Es wrote about the image:

Thirty years ago I was fortunate enough to take a photograph that has become perhaps the most recognizable image of the fall of Saigon - you know it, the one that is always described as showing an American helicopter evacuating people from the roof of the United States Embassy. Well, like so many things about the Vietnam War, it's not exactly what it seems. In fact, the photo is not of the embassy at all; the helicopter was actually on the roof of an apartment building in downtown Saigon where senior Central Intelligence Agency employees were housed.

I was working at a university newspaper when this happened and that day has always been important to me.

At the bookstore, tonight, we showed Hearts and Minds, an Academy-award winning documentary about the war in Vietnam. I had not seen this film before, even though I had lots of chances. Today I watched it with several veterans of many U.S. wars (one from WW II, one from Korea, four from Vietnam, one from Gulf War 1). It still affects me. I have a life-long hatred of General Westmoreland who was famous for lines like this:

"The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient."

And important lesson to be learned: even with the draft and all those dead and wounded soldiers, even with the nightly news full of gruesome photos of death and devastation, a surprising number of U.S. citizens were blissfully unaware of the war and could carry on their lives without a clue as to what was going on half a world away. Sound familiar?

Cute!

Via reddit and from the website of Mr Rush who is into cute and silly animals.

Getting ready for the carnival

Alice Walker reading "Ain't I A Woman"?

Do you speak English?



This is a skit from the British show, "Big Train"

Youngme – Nowme

This is a fascinating gallery of people who find pictures of their younger selves and then pose in the same way for a picture of themselves today.

But it gets better! Check out this video below. Here's the description: May 5th, 2006. "Does Not Work Well With Others" - dance and media by Lauren Thompson. Premier of "The Showtime Project" - me dancing with my four year-old self.!




Via reddit

Let's hear from the real workers

I posted below about a bricklayer who was asked to place the first brick in the new U of Minn football stadium. It is so seldom that workers are listened to, much less held up as someone to honor. This unwillingness to focus on the worker or to listen to what workers say about their own lives, is rampant in the U.S. We're constantly talked to by so-called experts who have theories about what workers think, do, want and don't want. Which is just silly. Why not allow the workers to speak for themselves? Why not learn what their lives are like by listening to them and encouraging them to speak?

One worker who I've had the opportunity to listen to online in the last couple of years is Renegade Evolution (RE) a sex-worker and pornography actress. Now there's a point of view we don't hear very often. I've learned a lot from her. And I was pleased to find she had been invited to speak in a debate at William and Mary College. Two anti-porn speakers, two sex-worker advocate speakers in a public debate at a University. Cool, huh?

But wait! One of the invited debaters is trying to prevent RE from speaking as Ren talks about here. Apparently when Sam Berg heard that Ren had been invited, she contacted the organizers and asked to have Ren uninvited to the debate.

I've never understood this tactic. I have organized debates and discussions by people who disagree with each other for over 20 years. I am never impressed when one of the speakers tries to control who is allowed to speak for the opposing viewpoint.

This tactic makes Berg look stupid and weak. Is her point of view so easily destroyed if there are one or two sex workers in the room? This tactic makes Berg look arrogant. Does she expect event organizers to meet a series of her personal demands? This tactic makes Berg look less committed to her cause. Can she only fight for her political point of view in an environment that sees to her comfort? Should anyone rely on Berg as an ally if she can't even attend a public debate with someone she dislikes?

Mostly, This shows an incredible amount of disrespect for the organizers of the event. These people are usually not paid, have opened themselves up to risk and conflict by suggesting a controversial issue be addressed, and have neither the time nor the energy to deal with the personal problems of an invited speaker.

My sympathies go out to the college student who is trying to put this together. She does not deserve this carp.

My sympathies go out to Ren who doesn't deserve to have someone trying to undermine her before she gets a chance to make her point.

My sympathies go out to the people who saw Berg as a political ally, but cannot rely on her to fight for their point of view in an open, public debate.

If Berg cannot stand being in a public forum with Ren, then she should step aside and put forward someone else who can stand the heat and state her point of view.

Independent Publishers

This is a list of the independent publishers that our book store relies on for most of our book sales. These companies consistently publish good, reliable, left-wing materials that our customers love. Check them out. Buy books. Give them much love.

AK Press

Chelsea Green

City Lights

Haymarket Books

Insight Press

Interlink Books

Nation Books

New Press

Ocean Press

Olive Branch

Seven Stories Press

South End Press

Verso Books

Credit to the workers

I don't care much about the fact that the University of Minnesota is building a new football stadium about a mile from my home. But I was tickled by the man they chose to lay the first brick. Here's his picture, taken by Matt Mead of the Minnesota Daily:



And here's a bit of the story, with the first paragraphs reprinted below:

As a high school sophomore, Hilding Mortenson laid bricks at Memorial Stadium. On Monday, 84 years later, he laid the first brick at the TCF Bank Stadium construction site.

The event marked the laying of the first of more than 500,000 bricks to be used in the stadium's construction.

It was the first ceremonial bricklaying in the history of Mortenson Construction, the company heading up the new stadium.

Hilding Mortenson, who turned 100 years old on April 2, spread a brick with mortar and then placed it on a ledge.

Blame Daisy for this one

DIRECTIONS:

1. Go to http://www.photobucket.com/
2. Type in your answer to the question in the “search” box.
3. Use only the first page.
4. Insert the picture into your Blog.

1. What is your relationship status?



2. What is your current mood?



3. Who is your favorite band/artist?



4. What is your favorite movie?



5. What kind of pet do you have?



6. Where do you live?



7. Where do you work?



8. What do you look like?



9. What do you drive?



10. What did you do last night?



11. What is your favorite TV show?



12, Describe yourself:



13. What are you doing today?



14. What is your name?



15. What is your favorite candy?

Animal Crossbreeds

Worth 1000 Words challenges guests to create photoshop montages. I particularly admire Animal Crossbreeds. These artists had to get the proportions, textures and colors just right. Nice job folks!

Cabbit by CJ:



Walrot by Tedmus:



Squaguar by Tedmus:

They're everywhere!

Snagged this from The Underwire blog from Wired.

The Patriarchy: Like the Hotel California

Metafilter has taken up the subject of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival and its anti trans policies. It's interesting to hear how this topic plays outside of the feminist community.

Call for Papers – Feminism for Freaks

Fresh from Queen Emily is the call for papers for an anthology of people like me: feminists who don't fit the stereotype. Please consider contributing to this great project:

Call For Papers (please distribute widely)

Feminism For Freaks

At its best, feminism offers an emancipatory potential from gendered oppression, inequality, and violence. At its worst, however, feminism can work to simply affirm the rights of middle-class, heterosexual, white women, and exclude the voices of already-marginalised groups such as women of colour, trans* women, sex workers and so on.

Like Derrida's democracy, a truly liberatory feminism is mostly a feminism to come. Not un-coincidentally, those marginalised groups of women are often demonised by the dominant culture, rendered as monstrous, simultaneously invisible and hyper-visible, compelling and threatening, desirable and disgusting--and forever denied a voice of our own. The question of if and how monstrosity can be reclaimed or re-worked is a vexed one for feminists.

We therefore invite proposals that affirm the voices of socially excluded people, that seek to create new and exciting knowledge and address themselves to feminist theory and activism or the wider culture, on such topics including, but not limited to:

* Monstrous bodies and identities
* Social marginalisation and exclusions (for instance, borders, walls, and immigration laws, and the silencing of voices such as those of women of colour and transgendered people)
* Liberation/transformation/organisation
* sex work
* queer sexualities and genders
* BDSM
* Visible signs of difference (Muslim women wearing the veil, disabled bodies etc)
* religion and spirituality
* freaks in popular culture, body modification etc
* fat positivity

Academic, non-fiction and creative work will be considered--the call is broad, and we're willing to accommodate new and interesting work by freaks of all kinds. Please submit abstracts of up to 250 words and a short bio by May 31st to estrangedcognition@hotmail.com and suzanmanuel@gmail.com

*Note - Given that some contributors may not feel safe or comfortable telling their stories in the public sphere, submissions under pseudonyms will be accepted.

Pass it on!

I like this

A couple of years ago, the Minneapolis City Council tried to insist on licenses for panhandlers. A long-time activist fighting homelessness in the Cities, asked, "How much are we gonna charge Carl Pohlad (owner of the Minnesota Twins) or Target (large hometown retail corporation)?" Both are getting huge tax breaks. That sorta put things in perspective for me. And so does this video. Watch and enjoy "The Job" from www.screamingfrog.com:

Bi-zarre

I'm not inclined to like any Democratic candidate for president. But I really am amazed at Hillary Clinton's lies about a trip to Bosnia. It isn't just that she tried to portray herself as something more than she actual is. It's that she pretended, as many politicians do, that she was in harm's way when the military had to make damn certain she was not.

I remember scoffing at the idea that GW Bush was brave for traveling to Iraq for Thanksgiving in 2003. If there had been the slightest hint of danger, he would have been out of there and none of us would have heard about it.

These attempts to pretend that politicians face the same dangers as the ordinary American citizens who are sent off to war around the world is truly disgusting. Their visits are photo ops and grandstanding that in no way equates to what soldiers have to endure on any given day. The gall is beyond belief.

Getting some hits

My statcounter tells me that an old post of mine is getting hits lately. It all goes back to an interesting post by Maia at Touchingly Naive in which she describes her political journey on the subject of the transgender community.

Maia's posts got a lot of comments and she's closed the thread. In the comments, the question came up, that if you wanted to have women-only space, where do you draw the line?

Belledame commented:

And I’ve been in plenty of spaces where the line is perfectly well kept. People who live fulltime as women, surgery -not- required, and yes, it’s taken on the honor system, but you know, in my fairly extensive experience with trans-inclusive womens’-only spaces, generally, gawking fratboys who just want to see the wimmins’ commune and dress up in drag for a gag don’t exist outside of movies like “Sorority Boys.”

As for why they want to come: because they’re women, because they’re feminists, because they have things to offer the community, because they’re (sometimes, yeah) lesbian, for the same damn reasons everyone else wants to be there.

This thread is going to appropriate this issue for a different community altogether. My community is that of anti-imperialist activists. I've been doing this ever since October of 1983 when the U.S. invaded Grenada and pissed me off permanently. But, one thing we like to do as we plan our activities, is to get together with other groups who are specifically anti-imperialist and who agree on the issue. If this is not your issue, then go somewhere else and find someone else to play with, right?

However, the anti-imperialist movement has had to deal with spies in our midst. You can read about the FBI's harrassment of people working with the people of El Salvador here. Looks like their up their old tricks again. There's a long history of the Red Squads as well.

So any activist who wasn't born yesterday pretty much has to assume that there are people out there trying to invade our space, spy on us, disrupt our activities and generally be a pest. It's not paranoid, because it keeps happening. And it's also not particularly bothersome because the antiwar movement is strong and effective. We've learned their tricks and we refuse to fall for it. It will grow to be a bigger problem as the date approaches for the Republican National Convention this September.

In recent years, I've learned to identify the police spies fairly easily. At an anti-klan rally in St. Paul in 2001, the undercover cops were fairly ludicrously out of place in their tie-dyed bandanas and Birkenstocks as they tried to stir up violence within the anti-racist groups. But I never assume I'm right. One time I thought I had a fellow pegged, but when I talked to him I discovered he was a visitor from Germany with some kick-ass ideas about anti-war work.

I'm wondering why anyone who holds an event in which 7,000 or more people attend, the Michigan Women's Musical Festival, can think for even a second that their event is completely devoid of men or any other kind of "spy". Of course there will be spies trying to figure out what you are doing and if they can find some kind of secret information about what you do. They may be police spies, they may be conservative women who hate feminists, they may be men. And they will be there, one way or the other. It's something to be expected.

Look around the internet. Google "moon-bat" and "anti-war" and you'll see all kinds of anti anti-war activists who attend anti-war events just for the opportunity to call everyone they disagree with a commie, flag-burning moonbat.

I assume spying is going to happen. I want to learn how to react intelligently. How about we say, "Yeah, there may be one or two spies, but that in no way detracts from the value of what we do when we bring together people who want to change the world."

I just don't get why feminist think that our activities will somehow be devoid of all the crap every other activist group has endured for years. Read about Cointelpro. Read Agents of Oppression about the FBI's war on the American Indian Movement and the Black Panthers.

If you are at all effective, you have to assume that there will be spies out there.

-----

And just to make it clear, I absolutely object to the transhating that was going on in that thread and I acknowledge a bit of guilt for taking the discussion to riff off another issue entirely. To make up for this, I encourage you to read some awesome transgender voices, including:

Nexy

Questioning Transphobia

Little Light

Sexual Ambiguities

Nix Williams

Drakyn

I know I'm missing important bloggers here. Help me out and I will add to the list!

Another Quiz

Stealing from Renegade Evolution who stole it from Daisy. I am such a wuss! Personally, I believe my sloth is greatly underrated in this quiz.

Greed:	Very Low
Gluttony:	Low
Wrath:	Medium
Sloth:	Medium
Envy:	Very Low
Lust:	Low
Pride:	Very Low

The Seven Deadly Sins Quiz on 4degreez.com

The work week from Hell

I just had one of those crappy work weeks. And it ended badly. Very badly. I basically fled the place with my tail tucked between my legs. Crying.

And I hate that. Some day I'm going to write more about this. This will be just a start.

My job? Not such a bad thing. Parts of it are deeply satisfying. I like what I do. It requires skill and creativity. I produce a quality product.

A lot of people have worse jobs. A lot of people get paid less. A lot of people have to deal with more shit than I do. I'd say at least 90 percent of the world has it worse off than me when it comes to employment. Letting it get to me seems like the whining of the privileged. It's unseemly.

Most of the time, I forget about work once I've punched out. Most of the time I have more important things to think about.

But every now and then I get caught up in the hype. I start thinking that my contribution of time and effort to this endeavor is important. I buy that hype that what I can do personally makes a difference. That I need to focus and devote myself to finishing this task or that task. And I give it more attention than it deserves. I let other things slide.

I disappoint myself when this happens.

The thing is. On Monday it starts all over again. Who came up with this crappy system anyway?

1800 protest in Minneapolis

After several months of planning, the local antiwar protest was successful with over 1800 protesters marching through Minneapolis.

KSTP Channel 5, the ABC affiliate article.

StarTribune article

Anti-war marchers wind through Minneapolis

By TERRY COLLINS, Star Tribune
Last update: March 15, 2008 - 8:59 PM

Chanting "Off Iraqi soil, no blood for oil," scores of anti-war protesters rallied in Minneapolis Saturday demanding an end to the U.S. occupation of troops in Iraq.

With flags and banners waving amid various proclamations of peace, Meredith Aby, a member of the local Anti-War Committee, said a majority of American citizens want the war over.

"People need to get out in the streets and demand change. Just saying the war is unpopular is not enough," Aby said. "People should think more critically how this government beats the drums for war."

Instead, protesters banged their own drums as they marched and shouted phrases including, "(President) Bush lies, thousands die, troops home now," under overcast skies and a brisk chill from Uptown to Loring Park.

Traffic along Hennepin Avenue slowed occasionally as numerous passing vehicles honked in support. No arrests were made.

Similar anti-war rallies were held Saturday across the country to mark the war's fifth anniversary. More are scheduled through next week.

Many at Saturday's rally in Minneapolis clearly remember when U.S. missles bombed Baghdad on March 19, 2003 and President Bush warned, "We will accept no outcome but victory."

"I'm fed up with the rhetoric and the violence," said protester Kyle Anderson, 23, of Minneapolis. "I'm tired of our politicians running for office skirting around the issue, too. How much longer are we going to be over there?"

Holding a sign that read, "Either War is Obsolete or Are We?," Alesia Casanova, 18, of Eden Prairie, pondered the same question.

"It's really sad that it's gone on this long," Casanova said. "Our voices need to be heard. This has to stop. Now."

Attendee Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak said that "the real fight" is right here at home with climate change and the declining national economy.

"We must change the way we live," Rybak said.

Organizers said nearly 1,800 people participated in the two-hour event, while police estimate closer to 1,000. Either way, several marchers thought attendance was lower than in previous years.

"I wish more were here," said Tyrus Thompson, 18, of Minneapolis, a member of Youth Against Racism and War. "I wish they knew how much power we actually have."

As Dick Thompson of Minneapolis stood waving a U.S. flag upside down (a military sign for distress) and carrying a red sign that said, "Impeach," near a bridge at Loring Park, he, too, wanted a larger turnout.

"I'm in distress," Thompson, 74, said. "Because, clearly, the truth has not been told."

pictures and article.

For Plainsfeminist

If you enjoyed the last one, you'll love this: