randomWalks

A match is approaching the American flag.

The Pitch (Kansas City), May 23, 2002: Guards tell Krishna devotees to keep off the Plaza’s private parts.

They must have said go to jail a hundred times. They said we couldn’t be on their private property. They told us that all the fountains, all the benches, all the courtyards and all the trash cans belong to Highwoods.

I said, Well, everything does belong to God, Swami continues. Then a female officer told me, Not here. Here, Highwoods is God.

Despite the threat of jail time, the Hare Krishnas have no plans to stop their twice-weekly chants on the Plaza. Swami still holds out some hope that the security officer who declared that “Highwoods is God” will one day be less caught up in the temporary identity of being a security guard.

The Washington Post profiles Amy Goodman:

When former senator Bob Kerrey called a news conference to defend himself against charges he committed a war crime while a soldier in Vietnam, Goodman asked if perhaps a war crimes tribunal should be set up to examine the guilt of the war's architects, such as Henry Kissinger.

Kerrey's halting demurral made a few television broadcasts. But Goodman's question displeased some establishment media worthies. That Sunday, NPR reporter Mara Liason went on "Fox Special Report With Brit Hume" and complained that Goodman was not really a journalist and that no one would have asked such a question in Washington.

They are counting on the combination of battlefield omniscience, smart bombs and new weapons like microwave pulses and nausea gases to drive Baghdadis out of their homes and bunkers. The use of "nonlethal" (sic) weapons against civilian populations, especially in light of the horror of what happened during the Moscow hostage crisis last October, is a war crime waiting to happen.

originally posted by xowie

DC indymedia reports on the high-profile Code Pink arrests.

Experimental peace wiki.

originally posted by xowie

Rolling Stone: Phish Resurface

We had these jam sessions, Anastasio says one night after practice, where we drank hot chocolate with mushrooms and just played, trying to get in tune with each other, for eight hours. One of those jams, he points out, is on a record: “Union Federal,” a bonus track on the CD reissue of Phish’s 1989 independent cassette release, Junta. We used to rehearse like demons, Anastasio, 38, says excitedly, a big smile busting through his ginger forest of beard. A lot of it was mind games, challenging each other. We’d change roles: I’m always the natural leader. Page, you be that person now. We’d make Fish set up his drums left-handed instead of right: Use your mind to play, not your hands. Or we’d just play one note for an hour – weird stuff.
The weirdness bloomed in concert: in clubs such as Nectar’s on Main Street in Burlington, where Phish first played in December 1984 and honed their writing and jamming chops through 1989; then in theaters and, finally, arenas. Fishman, who turns thirty-eight on February 19th, played most gigs during Phish’s first two years flying on LSD. I still play with the feeling I got from those experiences, trying to generate wind and water, he claims quite earnestly.

When one of the protest leaders, Jodie Evans of Venice, Calif., tore off her full-length pink slip and presented it to Mrs. Clinton, the senator walked out.
"I am the senator from New York," she said, "and I will not put people's security at risk."
"But you are," the demonstrators shouted at her as she exited.

originally posted by xowie

Occasionally he would stare blankly into space during lengthy pauses between statements -- pauses that once or twice threatened to be endless. There were times when it seemed every sentence Bush spoke was of the same duration and delivered in the same dour monotone, giving his comments a numbing, soporific aura. Watching him was like counting sheep.

originally posted by xowie

Yesterday's activities kicked off early, with a combination news conference/vigil outside the White House. With temperatures in the low twenties, the event was for those who didn't need persuading -- though they did win some rather unlikely converts, with a sign that read "No Peace, No [Unprintable]" pinned strategically over one Lysistratan.

"Yeaaaaaaaaaaaah!" crowed a gaggle of high school boys passing through on a school field trip. "That's the best slogan I've ever heard in my life."

originally posted by xowie

MetaFilter in the Ruins

The problems reached a crescendo on August 9, 1995: the day Jerry Garcia died. "Everybody turned to 'NEW," St. John recalls. "They came to share the pain of losing Jerry, as they did when John Lennon died." But instead of a Garcia tribute, WNEW stayed in its format-of-the-moment: a mix of classic and alternative rock. Instead of "Casey Jones" or "Touch of Grey," listeners heard the Smashing Pumpkins.

originally posted by xowie

AP: Guantanamo Detainees Moved to New Prison

But as U.S. officials have privately acknowledged, many of these people are totally innocent.

Mrs. Xowie is on TSG today (via Drudge Report).

originally posted by xowie

What do Blume and Bower expect will come from that attention? ‘We’re generally not gifted with the knowledge of the results of our actions,’ says Blume. ‘But you know what the Buddhists tell us: No act is small. I refuse to believe this war is inevitable.’

originally posted by daiichi

He says he couldn't do anything with the Israelis and the Palestinians "because I'm against everybody and I can't take a side". Nor can the man who found so many snappy couplets and delightful tunes in impending nuclear doom see any toe-tapping inspiration in September 11, the invasion of Iraq, or the thing he seems most keen to talk about the Columbia space shuttle explosion. "They are calling it a disaster instead of a screw-up, which is all it was. They're calling these people heroes. The Columbia isn't a disaster. The disaster is that they're continuing this stupid program."

originally posted by daiichi

Kimya Dawson rocked the 930 Club last night. Don’t miss her MP3s – “this one is about Pee Wee Herman and Michael Jackson.”

McLean, famous for his hits American Pie and Vincent (Starry, Starry Night), said he was "proud of George Michael for standing up for life and sanity". "I am delighted that he chose a song of mine to express these feelings," he said in a statement. "We must remember that the Wizard is really a cowardly old man hiding behind a curtain with a loud microphone."

originally posted by daiichi

LAT photo essay on the DMZ.

originally posted by daiichi

The Lysistrata Project was conceived just six weeks ago by New York actors Kathryn Blume and Sharron Bower. "Before we started Lysistrata Project, we could do nothing but sit and watch in horror as the Bush Administration drove us toward a unilateral attack on Iraq," says cofounder Blume. "So we emailed all our friends and put up a web site. The response has been enormous." Co-founder Bower adds, "Many people have emailed us to say they now feel empowered to do something, and foster dialogue in their own communities about the dangers of this war."

originally posted by xowie

I put this on as a modest riposte to men with flags in their lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks, or argue that sacrifice is good as long as they don't have to make it, or approve of bribing governments to join the coalition of the willing (after they first stash the cash.) I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what Bin Laden did to us. The flag belongs to the country, not to the government. And it reminds me that it's not un-American to think that war — except in self-defense — is a failure of moral imagination, political nerve, and diplomacy.

originally posted by xowie

Guy Dauncey’s 101 Ways to Stop the War in Iraq.

originally posted by xowie

If you had known about Hiroshima in advance, what would you have done to stop it? Today’s war-makers are telling us what they plan to do, including the possible use of nuclear weapons. This war will visit unspeakable terror and suffering on the people of Iraq, in the name of ‘liberating’ them. It will put people all over the planet at risk, in the name of protecting them. It will, no doubt, be accompanied by even more severe repression within the U.S. against immigrants and against resisters.

originally posted by xowie

There is a basic weakness in governments, however massive their armies, however wealthy they are, however they control the information given to the public, because their power depends on the obedience of citizens, of soldiers, of civil servants, of journalists and writers and teachers and artists. When these people begin to suspect they have been deceived, and withdraw their support, the government loses its legitimacy, and its power.

originally posted by xowie

BLOOD. America’s blood supply, already at such a seriously low level that some parts of the country have less than a one-day supply, may be stretched to dangerous levels if a war in Iraq proves to be bloody. A Red Cross official explains that many American service personnel are ineligible to donate blood because they may have been exposed to Mad Cow disease while stationed in Western Europe. With a reduced pool of military donors, the Red Cross may have to ask civilians for more blood, blood they haven’t been providing over the past few months.

originally posted by xowie