Convention protesters try to arrest Condoleezza Rice
by Mike Schneider
Detroit Free Press
August 28, 2012

Tampa — Police in Tampa stopped a dozen anti-war protesters from entering an event attended by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice after the group said it intended to arrest her for war crimes.

The protesters from Code Pink carried handcuffs today and tried to enter a performing arts center. Rice was attending an event in conjunction with the Republican National Convention. They said they wanted to make a citizen’s arrest of Rice. She was George W. Bush’s National Security Adviser when the Iraq war started in 2003.

Officers told protesters to leave because they were on private property. They went back to the sidewalk and several lay down under sheets made to look like they were blood-splattered.

The group says it will try to arrest other members of the George W. Bush administration.

Submitted by Deborah: Marshall Reese and Nora Ligorano did this melting ice sculpture called “Middle Class” for the Republic Convention. On to Democratic Convention next.

Large ice sculptures of the words Middle Class will melt away on the first day of the Republican and Democratic Conventions, in nearby public parks in Tampa and Charlotte. The work is by artists Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese. The sculptures they will install weigh over 2,000 pounds and measure 15 feet wide. Individual letters are 4 feet tall.

The artists call these sculptures “temporary monuments.” After unveiling them, Ligorano and Reese let them melt away and film their disappearance, which can take anywhere from 6 to 24 hours. The dates for the conventions, “do not bode well,” Reese says, “for the sculptures’ survival.” “They may disappear,” Ligorano adds, “even faster than usual. It’s a tossup whether, that’s due to economic or climatic conditions.” (more…)

Why three members of Pussy Riot were arrested

Here’s the video of their protest in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow:

More on the subject:

image: Meeting Pussy Riot” target=”_blank”>Vice.com

Global activists gear up for Pussy Riot rallies
by Nataliya Vasilyeva
Associated Press
August 15, 2012

Moscow (AP) – The global campaign to free Pussy Riot is gaining speed: Supporters of the punk provocateur band are mobilizing this week in at least two dozen cities worldwide to hold simultaneous demonstrations an hour before a Russian court rules on whether its members will be sent to prison.

Friday’s rallies will ride a wave of support for the three women who have been in jail for more than five months because of an anti-Putin prank in Moscow’s main cathedral. Calls for them to be freed have come from a long list of celebrities such as Madonna and Bjork. Protests have been held in a number of Western capitals, including Berlin, where last week about 400 people joined Canadian electro-pop performance artist Peaches to support the band.

In one of the most extravagant displays, Reykjavik Mayor Jon Gnarr rode through the streets of the Icelandic capital in a Gay Pride parade this weekend dressed like a band member – wearing a bright pink dress and matching balaclava – while lip-synching to one of Pussy Riot’s songs.

Although the band members and their lawyers are convinced that the verdict depends entirely on the will of President Vladimir Putin, and prosecutors have asked for a three-year sentence, activists hope their pressure will ease punishment or even free the women. (more…)

Russian prosecutors ask for 3 years in punk case
by Nataliya Vasilyeva
August 7, 2012
Associated Press

Moscow (AP) – Prosecutors on Tuesday called for three-year sentences for the members of a feminist punk band who performed an anti-Vladimir Putin stunt in Moscow’s main cathedral, ignoring demands by human rights groups that the three women be set free.

Defense lawyers and an influential Russian Orthodox cleric warned that jail time for the women could backfire by severing trust between ordinary Russians and the country’s institutions.

Prosecutor Alexander Nikiforov portrayed his request as lenient, saying the recommendation takes into account the fact that two of the defendants are young mothers and that they have good character references.

The hooliganism charges the three women of the Pussy Riot band face can carry a sentence of up to 7 years in prison.

The three women – Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23; Maria Alekhina, 24; and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29 – have been in custody for five months following the February stunt, in which they took over a church pulpit in Christ the Savior cathedral for less than a minute, singing, high-kicking and dancing.

Their case is part of a widening government crackdown on dissent that followed Putin’s election in March and caused strong protests in Russia and abroad. Musicians including Madonna, the Who’s Pete Townshend and Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys have urged their release.

The verdict is expected this week. Read the rest of this article here.

Westboro Baptist loons run into protest wall—made of zombies?
by Howard Portnoy
Examiner.com
August 2, 2012

The Supreme Court may have greenlighted the hate-filled demonstrations by misguided adherents to the teachings of the Westboro Baptist Church, but the high court never said that counter-protests were not also covered by the First Amendment. Ever since the court handed down its controversial ruling, “human walls” have become commonplace at military funerals—gestures meant to neutralize the church group’s message of hate. In one widely reported example of the trend, the rock band Foo Fighters showed up in Kansas City in September of 2011 to “serenade” Westboro congregants.

Now one trend has meshed with another. KIRO-TV reports that last Friday, protesters assembling outside the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in DuPont, Wash., were met by—get ready for it—a wall of the living dead. (more…)

For Ai Weiwei, Politics And Arts Always Mix
by NPR Staff
July 25, 2012

Listen to this Story on All Things Considered [7 min 49 sec]

Last week, a Chinese court rejected artist Ai Weiwei’s lawsuit against the tax bureau that had imposed a massive fine on his company.

Ai was fined more than $2 million after being detained for three months last year.

This marks yet another political struggle for Ai, who is famous abroad for his art and has emerged as a leading Chinese dissident, a voice for individual freedom. A year after being released, Ai is still monitored heavily by officials, although he uses his Twitter feed to continue criticizing China’s government.

Filmmaker Alison Klayman was an intern on NPR’s All Things Considered before she left for China, where she wound up chronicling Ai on video. The result is a documentary — her first film — called Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, part of which chronicles Ai’s crusade to seek justice for an alleged police beating.

Movie trailer:

(more…)

From Miso: “Now THAT’S a well done hoax!”

Hoax, Lies and Videotape
by RefractiveIndex
July 6, 2012

The fifth in our series on this year’s group projects by Sci Com students – this week, it’s the turn of Stephen McGann, Emma Houghton-Brown and Haralambos Dayantis.

Do scientists see the world as objectively as they like to think?

[Watch this hoax video & then read on]

Arguments have raged for years between those who regard science as an entirely objective discipline, and certain social scholars that believe science is subject to the same cognitive biases as every other human enterprise. At times, these debates have become less than polite. (more…)

Steve Ben Israel, a Living Theater Performance Artist, Dies at 74
by Paul Vitello
The New York Times
June 16, 2012

The young Steve Ben Israel was a longhaired, card-carrying pacifist, anarchist, comedian and performance artist who toured during the 1960s and ’70s with the Living Theater, an avant-garde repertory group. He had leading roles in many of the company’s cheerfully seditious productions, including “Paradise Now,” in which the cast, naked, exhorted audience members to seize the theater, form anarchist cells and overthrow the government.

Making anarchist performance art was a hard way to earn a living even back then, when millions of young Americans were dabbling in revolutionary ideas. But Mr. Israel, who died of lung cancer on June 4 in Manhattan at 74, kept at it for the rest of his life, friends said — a one-man revolutionary cell delivering jokes, stories and poems aimed at undermining capitalist society. He did not advocate overthrowing the government much anymore. He was trying, he told people, to foment a mass uprising of compassion. (more…)

Artists are invited to prepare an artwork in response to this year’s competition theme “Where is the meaning? At the top or at the bottom?”

We use a billboard – the symbol of the modern age consumption – and change it into an object of consideration, reflection and a deep insight into ourselves and the surrounding reality. Our festival is organized by artists in close co-operation with other artists.

There is no entry fee. The Competition is open and all artists interested in billboard art are invited to take part. The works should be submitted by the 20th July, 2012 via electronic mail to the address: artmoves@tlen.pl (more…)

Ministry’s ‘secret’ employees turn to superheroes
by Yoav Zitun
Israel News
May 17, 2012

Defense Ministry employees in classified roles use actors in superhero disguises in order to protest against worsening in terms of their employment

Dozens of employees at a secret unit within the Defense Ministry chose an original way to protest in front of the Kirya base in Tel Aviv, using actors dressed up as Batman, Superman and other superheroes.

The employees could not protest in person due to the secrecy that is imposed on their role and identity. (more…)

Joey Skaggs will join the May Day Unity Rally at Union Square in NYC, Tuesday, May 1st at 4:00 p.m. with his Mobile Homeless Home and a pack of pissed-off muppets. Come visit and hold signs!

Photos from Skaggs’ Monday, April 23, 2012, action in front of Goldman Sachs in New York:

(more…)

From Joey Skaggs:

Some early photos from yesterday’s demonstration at Goldman Sachs in New York to protest greed and corruption in the financial sector.

photo: Deborah Thomas

Event Summary:

A police van filled with officers parked across the street from our staging area and waited for us to depart. As we did, officers on foot walked with us, but across the street. When construction caused us to change our route, I approached an officer and asked the best way to go. From that point on, they functioned as a police escort. When we hit West Street, which is a highway with heavy traffic, the police van, with lights flashing, stopped the traffic for us. We entered the bicycle lane and it was a clear shot down to the Goldman Sachs office at 200 West Street. The police van, with flashing lights, accompanied us the entire way. They were amazingly coordinated, without every having talked with us. (more…)

At 11:00 a.m., April 23, 2012, artist Joey Skaggs will lead a band of outraged costumed muppets down to the Goldman Sachs offices at 200 West Street in NYC. Skaggs will be peddling his Mobile Homeless Homes prototype — a low cost alternative living space for the millions of upside-down, underwater or foreclosed homeowners who have lost their houses due to the banking crisis that caused the real estate collapse.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Outraged Homeless Muppets to Converge on Goldman Sachs

“Homelessness is a great American tragedy. Our financial system and government have let us down and we, together, must take a stand to change the way the system works. With over 11 million homes underwater and millions in foreclosure, people are frightened, distressed and angry,” says Joey Skaggs.

Although not a cure, Mobile Homeless Homes (MHH) offers a temporary solution — low cost alternative living spaces for the millions of upside-down, underwater or foreclosed homeowners who have lost their houses due to the banking crisis that caused the real estate collapse. The MHH centerpiece is a camouflage, stealth, mobile home made from a series of connected plastic garbage cans, propelled by a tricycle, that will be undetectable by authorities. It blends into any urban environment. (more…)

From Joey Skaggs:

Mobile Homeless Homes