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BLF: To Serve Man

BLF: To Serve Man
Reason #74 why San Francisco rules. On the 50th anniversary of the existence of McDonald’s, the Billboard Liberation Front unwrapped a little birthday present across the street from a franchise in the Haight. A billboard graphic was revealed of a pudgy Ronald and slovenly alien created by Ron English whose work was featured in the brilliant movie Super Size Me. Soon after the unveiling of the billboard and accompanying mechanized Ronald McDonald feeding a Big Mac into a grotesque figure, a couple dozen clowns dressed as Ronald as well as a few Hamburglers showed up to pay their respects to the piece. The phrase To Serve Man comes from a disturbing Twilight Zone episode. You just don’t see this kinda shit in Tulsa, and that’s a shame cause Tulsa really needs it. Laughing Squid and SFist has a complete rundown of the craziness.

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Webzine 2005 is on!

Webzine 2005

It’s offficial. Webzine 2005 is back! After four years, I’ve become reinspired. It was clinched at SXSW this year after running into about a dozen Webzine alumni telling me about how their lives found new purpose after Webzine. New love, new fortunes, new reasons to live all thanks to Webzine. Michael Moore ranted to a room of 50 zinesters in 2001 and now look at him!? OK, so maybe that’s going a bit far, though there’s generally no doubt that previous years’ events left people really happy that the web wasn’t simply a shopping mall.

This year, Webzine will happen over a weekend, September 24 and 25 at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco. 2 days of inspiring panelists, creative workshops and shmoozy opportunities will guarantee that everyone will walk away armed to answer their personal call to action. Webzine is a collaborative effort between interested independent publishers, activisits, artists and slackers with too much time. If this describes YOU, help us out dammit!

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Swim, Peddle, Run Tim!

Tim in trainingMy good friend Tim has embarked upon a life changing event to well, help save lives after a family friend of his passed away from Lymphoma. He’s running a triathalon this weekend, just like every weekend. To him that’s like going for a stroll, doing the backstroke and peddling a few times. Actually, it’s INSANE. He’s been training for the past 6 months, it’s a major life achievement. Most people never do a uniathalon much less a triathalon. And I can’t think of a more appropriately nice, caring, giving and INSANE person to do it. That’s my way of saying I’m too much of a loser to take on such insanity, which is my burden. In all seriousness, what Tim is doing is incredible and he deserves big ups and support. He’s still looking to close the fundraising gap, 73% of the way there as of now. If you can give, any amount would help. All the details are right here.

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Marla Showed Us Another World is Possible

Marla RuzickaI never knew Marla Ruzicka. Reading about the incredible things she’s accomplished in her short 28 years on this planet has to move even the most jaded anti-warrior and war supporter alike. Marla committed her life to bringing some semblance of justice to those civilian causalities (“collateral damage”) caught in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq. Doing the job our government refuses to, she went to Iraq going door-to-door to count, take names and hear people’s stories of loss. Armed with this information, she went to Washington and lobbied for repatriations for those civilians. It’s with sad irony that Marla was killed yesterday by a suicide bomb on the road out of Baghdad. She’s a NorCal native and grew her social justice skills at Global Exchange here in San Francisco. From the things I’ve read, her selflessness is rivaled only by her compassion and commitment to making life a little better for others. The organization she birthed, Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), will no doubt continue Marla’s miracle mission of realizing another world is possible.

The Imperial Nature of Western Civility

The Imperial Nature of Western Civility
I admit it. I’ve been slacking lately, letting myself go. I only gargle after every OTHER meal and well, you don’t wanna know what happens when I can’t find the latrine. Lucky for me, I can now print out this full size poster to remind myself how to honor my individual cleanliness. As seen on the bathroom wall of the Rickshaw Stop during a recent League of Pissed Off Voters fundraiser party.

Videos contradict cops at RNC

There’s a piece in today’s NY Times [reg required] that describes how amateur video helped get a few people off who were falsely charged during the RNC protests last year. The real story is how the cops, in at least two cases, completely lied and fabricated evidence.

“We picked him up and we carried him while he squirmed and screamed,” the officer, Matthew Wohl, testified in December. “I had one of his legs because he was kicking and refusing to walk on his own.”

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During a recess, the defense had brought new information to the prosecutor. A videotape shot by a documentary filmmaker showed Mr. Kyne agitated but plainly walking under his own power down the library steps, contradicting the vivid account of Officer Wohl, who was nowhere to be seen in the pictures. Nor was the officer seen taking part in the arrests of four other people at the library against whom he signed complaints.

The last bit about the officer not being present to make the arrest doesn’t surprise me. When I was arrested, I was basically assigned an officer to make my arrest. There were so many of us corralled together on the sidewalk, they just peeled us off five at a time and delivered us to the next available officer for processing. For most of us, our arresting officers could not have witnessed (and therefore truthfully testify) about anything that we may or may have not done as they weren’t even present during the alleged infractions. Yay for cheap video cameras and people who aren’t afraid to use them.

Gmapping History & Future



Washington, DC 20050
Originally uploaded by ekai.

The latest example of cool emergent technology is Google Maps rendered with satellite imagery annotated with Flickr notes. Geeks and the geekly inclined are zooming in on neighborhoods where they once lived and are tagging those screen capture images with notes describing historical moments in the geography. Flickr has a group called Memory Maps dedicated to this.

Since I grew up in the DC area, I decided to look around some internationally known locations to see what they look like from the sky. Interesting to note that the White House and the neighboring Old Executive Office Building and Department of Treasury buildings are “sanitized” from the top, for national security reasons I’m sure. Their roofs are represented as blank continuous dull colors with none of the detail you’ll find on other buildings. Some areas, such as the courtyards in the Old Executive, are grossly pixelated. On the other hand, the Pentagon, looks complete with detail. This begs the question, what does it take to get a piece of property obscured from Google’s database? Can I fill out a form and demand that my house be gzapped so no one knows that the grass hasn’t been cut in 3 years or that my meth lab exploded?

As if that wasn’t enough cool, this brilliant individual figured out how to remix Craig’s List housing ads with Google Maps. This is the kind of thing that some bubbleheaded VC would have sunk $30 million into 5 years ago. And now it’s done emergent style with an idea and a little duct tape. Imagine what can happen when there is an open API for all this.

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Recent photos



Pitching Machine has a face
Originally uploaded by ekai.

Finally put my photos up from LA. They’re mostly pre and post show as I was otherwise occupied trying not to get fried in the frenzy.

Also, some pix from Tuesday night’s protest of the Shar-Pei skinned Governator‘s plan to privatize pensions for nurses, firefighters, police and teachers. Not your average San Francisco protest. Lots of middle age nurses, firefighters police and teachers turned out. And Frank Chu of course. Coincidentally, Ah-nawld today chose to drop the privatizing idea, at least for the time being.

Damn that was hot!



Eddie & Courtney
Originally uploaded by Laughing Squid.

I’m back from LA and finally getting a few moments to compose my thoughts about the experience that was the SRL show in LA 2005. What an amazing fucking time! For serious. Spending endless hours with old friends and new to create one of the most intense experiences in my life is umm, well, a good way to spend a few days. From the early morning rise n shine of Kimric as alarm clark testing the Boeing jet engine to the intense heat of the trojan horse as it combusted a couple feet away from me, I most definitely felt the love. I operated the Air Launcher with fellow SRL’r Courtney sending numerous rounds of Asian drink cans filled with sand and paint into the trojan horse, sneaky soldiers and whatever else happened to cross our path. I can happily report that many sneaky soldiers showed signs of air launcher penetration due to our diligence at the controls, or more likely just shear luck.

There were many people about armed with camera and video and the love is just starting to pour in. I like this short video montage that Naked Dancing Gnomes put together. Laughing Squid Scott Beale’s got tons of awesome hi quality pix of before, during and after the show. Fellow SRL’r Violet Blue has some thoughts as does rockstar science fiction author and SRL fanboy Bruce Sterling who knows not to lick the unexploded air launcher round he picked up. More stories and links later as I find the good shit.