action figures sold separately

Counterpunch has an illuminating piece on the 5 Palestinian kids who were killed by an israeli bomb. they’ve also got a 9-11 complete coverage page with lots of info. check it.

Human Rights Watch, besides having really good coverage of the evolving crisis in afghanistan, including massive killings of non-combatants by the u.s., recently published this detailed report: Hatred in the Hallways (on violence and discrimination against LGBT students in u.s. schools).

two good newsbits from rc3.org:

Spain will not extradite the eight men it has charged with complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks unless the United States agrees that they would be tried by a civilian court and not by the military tribunals envisioned by President Bush, Spanish officials said today.

Europe is asking, “why the hell does the u.s. still use state killing in its criminal justice system?” | article at ny times

At least one antivirus software company, McAfee Corp., contacted the FBI on Wednesday to ensure its software wouldn’t inadvertently detect the bureau’s snooping software and alert a criminal suspect.

washpost article on the fbi’s new tools - which, for the record, are NOT about protecting us “good” people from those “bad” people. let’s not forget what they’re there for.

breakfast cereal! and more breakfast cereal! (reviews at brunching shuttlecocks, who brought us the cyborger below)

20 new links today. checkit.

stuff the kettles!

seguin, are you there? the cyborger pegs you as:

S.E.G.U.I.N.: Synthetic Entity Generated for Ultimate Infiltration and Nullification

(and i knew you’d love it…)

yours,
E.L.I.H.U.: Electronic Lifeform Intended for Hazardous Utility

check it - big oil pollutes biggest and cares least for humans. As part of their oil campaign, Project Underground has a very well done new fact sheet: ChevronTexaco- Polluting You and the Planet.

buy nothing day!

Moran said he understands Pacifica’s financial condition is “very dire” following the expenditure by the present Pacifica majority of an estimated two million dollars in legal, security, and public relations fees.

Pacifica Radio: the beginning of the end or the beginning of a brave new network? Here’s the latest.

Peter Montague:

For the past 20 years, the mainstream groups have found themselves unable to influence national policy in any lasting way because tweaking regulations and lobbying to amend laws — a strategy of “whispering in the king’s ear”– doesn’t put any lasting pressure on the king. The king may arbitrarily grant your wishes, but just as quickly such favors can be reversed because there’s no organized constituency across the country holding the king’s feet to the fire.

i’ve had this off-and-on dialogue with my sisters and my brothers-in-law about the state of the environmental movement, radicalism, and what’s needed now. Rachel’s this week is shedding some needed light on the subject.

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s latest column, on the u.s. response to 9-11.

	I’m no anime aficionado, but Cowboy Bebop is just too cool.
	brag-n-blog: after amanda sutured a guy’s busted lip at the emergency room today (her current rotation), the head nurse asked her, “Are you the plastic surgery resident? NO? You mean you’re a med student!!?? You sewed that up like a pro seamstress!” Go a!

While heavy on flash/shockwave and not too much content yet, anotherdeepdesign is a brand new promotional site for artists and entertainers of color.

There is a grotesque irony, as firefighters dig through the rubble, that economic recovery is defined in Congress as tax breaks for wealthy people and corporations. We must beware of large corporations that wrap themselves in the flag to advance their narrow interests. They are the modern version of “war profiteers.”

…
Since the mid-1960s, the “pay ratio,” or difference between the highest and lowest paid workers in an average company, has widened from 44:1 to today’s high of 209:1.3 Even Business Week, in its 1997 annual pay round-up, declared that “executive compensation is out of control.”

Chuck Collins’ new commentary is featured at Recovery Watchdog, a new project of United for a Fair Economy. The stats above and much more can also be found on their National Campaign to Close the Wage Gap page.

a few more helpful news and background info links, as we try to make sense of senselessness…

• A news release from IPA on WTO and war

• Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
• the National Radio Project has launched a new weekly radio program called “Beyond Headlines”
• the warlog has tons of info

following up on my comments at randomWalks on the racist frat boys in alabama, here’s a few anti-racist education resources:

• anti-racist education bibliography

• challenging white supremacy workshop
• anti-racism books for children
• resources for anti-racist education

38 new links made today.

there’s always more categorization to do, but hopefully folks are finding the links section to be useful, entertaining, inspiring, or just kinda cool. note that certain sites may not be in the categories where you would expect them, or might have looked for them. for example, the Arundhati Roy link is in “Activism A to Z,” ‘cuz she’s done such biting social commentary. But of course since she’s a novelist, it could also be in “Art and Music.” In some cases where there’s a clear need, there’s duplicate listings, but if you ever really need to find something, try the search feature. way cool.

oh, and ya’ll can now discuss our posts with us and the world. just hit the “discuss/comments” link at the end of the blog. let the wild rumpus begin!

an Amandablog (a monsterblog)

Before I start here I have to rave a bit about last night’s Musical Buffy. It was completely amazing. Buffy and Spike’s sexual tension makes me feel kind of like I think I felt about Luke and Leia (before we found out they were related) after “Star Wars” when I was four and then later the yumminess of Leia and Han. But with this wonderful delicious dark twist- like Luke and Han combined with Christopher Huckleberry Frumkes, my sweet bad boy high school first love.

But yes, no more internalized suit tyranny! I channeled all of my nervous energy around interviewing into what I was going to wear. I spent three hours at the mall on a SATURDAY (like taking too much of the worst most awful drug) and went back to the shoe store twice trying (and failing) to find the perfect shoes! It seemed so incredibly important- like I wasn’t going to match my top residency if I wore the wrong colored shoes with my blue suit. Eli passed the rolling sticky dog-hair collector thing all over my suit like some twisted curandera herbal sweeping cure as I stood on Potrero in San Francisco in the morning light at 8:00 AM. Nice folks walked by on their way to their work day wearing sensible things such as overalls. I had perspired as much as most people would on the day of an interview that helps shape where they will be spending the busiest three years of their life. My semi-fabulous (and expensive) bold red color block silk shirt bled and ran into the white borders between the blocks making my underarm a bleary smudge. I was so angry and upset- the clothes that they make are supposed to be worn by a wealthy person with a perfect body who doesn’t even sweat? YARG. I’ve talked to a few folks about this since- I think its the feeling my mom gets when she shoe shops and nothing fits her beautiful wide feet or how another friend felt (before the breast reduction) when she went bra shopping and was tired of stuffing her boobs into dowdy Teflon or tried on dresses that fit up top but ballooned out over her slim hips and legs. Its when a certain kind of sexism is very tangible- you literally don’t fit into something that billions of dollars of advertising tell you that you should or else you’re not attractive, not beautiful, not okay. My friend has this tattooed on her inner wrist so that she can see it all the time- UNLEARN.

So, I show up to my interview and my sweet and charming co-interviewee is looking fabulous in a nice skirt and comfy snuggly sweater and a hint of glitter eye shadow. The residents are wearing jeans, some with piercing and visible tatts. And I was reminded- “OH YEAH! This is the WHOLE POINT of why I’m going into Family Practice- its a place in medicine where I can BE MYSELF!” So, today I rode my swift and sleek surly cross check over to the mall and handed the nice lady my smeary underarm shirt and said “no thanks”- I don’t want to own a shirt that melts when I perspire. I was greatly inspired by Kate Kirtz who is AMAZING- she has made some rad films including one about underground abortion provision pre- Roe v. Wade called Jane: An Abortion Service. She wrote a gorgeous piece on Get Crafty about thrift shopping and how we can wear clothes for the revolution- AS the revolution and how dressing and relating to clothes as a woman can be a delicious and wonderful mix of feelings and intentions (kinda like Spike and Buffy). I aspire to approach clothing the way that she does. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I end up at the Mall.

Democracy Now (in exile) has a piece today on Turkish police raiding the homes of hunger strikers, killing four and wounding at least 12. But after fasting for 200 days or more, the fasters can’t sit up by themselves or even drink water without assistance. A european representative for the Turkish hunger strikers was the show’s guest. I found these informative pieces on the u.s. role in supporting this kind of facsist thuggery in Turkey:

• Turkey’s Terrorists: A CIA Legacy Lives On, by Lucy Komisar

• a Reuters clip, US Team Hails Turkey as Special Friend in Mideast

both come from Ozgurluk: Uncensored News About the Peoples Liberation Struggle in Turkey.

on a completely different note: we just inherted from friends a barely used XP-220, so that when we are squirting zelda to remind her to stop her frantic shnarking or remind django that the delivery person is not, in fact, satan, we are participating in the NEXT WAVE OF SOAKAGE. (so where can all the marketing madness go after everything is “extreme”?)

like lots of bestsellers, the god of small things didn’t really hit my radar. i’ll check it out now, though: Arundhati Roy’s slamming commentary in the UK Guardian and elsewhere is worth a read.

and a couple i know you want to see, dear a:

	With experiments, humour, art and interactivity, You Grow Girl sets itself apart from the traditional bumper crop of flat, impersonal commercial gardening websites.
	everything from custom action figures to punk feng shui and all sorts of other ways to make art out of everyday life can be found at GetCrafty.