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Thursday, December 22, 2011

Budapest: Attila József Picnic

In autumn 2011 the Hungarian government decided to continue its struggle against the remaining of communism or things that may remind about it. After numerous renaming of the streets in Budapest and an attempt to remove the statue of liberty build during the communist times, the government decided to continue the fight with statues. This time its choice was made for the statue of a revolutionary proletariat poet of the 20th century, Attila József , who was a member of a communist party for a short time somewhere far away from the lawn near the Parliament building where it is now.

There were a couple of symbolic mainstream events against removal of the statue where people were holding speeches and listening for concert. We decided to make our own action - a picnic to commemorate Attila Jozséf. We like him because his life and worldview is unique and revolutionary. His poetry writing manner is full of provocation and grotesqueness, and his worldview is rebellious and anarchist.

On November 20 we took the food (mostly dumpster dived at the market on Saturday) we were cooking over the weekend and the FreeShop to the lawn with Attila Jozséf statue. There were some people there already, and during our stay there more people came. We were just hanging out, eating and sharing food, and also talking to the interested people who were passing by.

"I am paying attention that your lifestyle is just sitting here in the street on the stone..!"

chapatis: before frying

friends helping to cook

slow frying

chapati connection!!!

pesto from dumpstered leaves

the FreeShop in blue bags

pesto and hummus in jars

the soup

the soup for everyone

a Spanish dog

tourist came to visit the statue

yes, there was more soup left

some people got really interested in the picnic

Brokenness is beautiful

Broken Things by Livia Marin:

The Chilean artist explores brokenness and recovery in her work, displayed in London at the House of Propellors Gallery.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Why yes, Virginia, there IS a reason to be concerned when the defense contractors who pimp our so-called 'government' start developing suffocating sound-guns for dispersing protestors.

A creepy article (creepiness for content) from my lovely friend, Severina Why yes, Virginia, there IS a reason to be concerned when the defense contractors who pimp our so-called 'government' start developing suffocating sound-guns for dispersing protestors.:

via google.com

Raytheon's recent patent application for a new choking sound-cannon has gotten a bit of attention since Gizmodo picked up the story from New Scientist.

http://gizmodo.com/5867984/future-riot-shields-will-suffocate-protestors-with...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228425.300-riot-shields-could-scatter...

My soon-to-be-patent-attorney friend has chided me not to worry, because this is "just a patent application." And here's an example of how a little bit of legal education, which strictly de-emphasizes context and the analysis of power dynamics, can be a dangerous thing. There is a substantive difference between a patent application by a random would-be inventor working out of her garage and a patent application by Raytheon.

Raytheon is one of the largest arms dealers in the world. Raytheon has billions of dollars of US government contracts. Raytheon has current contracts to develop crowd control weapons, and is testing them on American prisoners. Raytheon has already developed crowd-control weapons from battlefield technology and sold them to domestic prisons for use here in the States.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129630188

Raytheon is girding itself for shifts in US government defense spending, partly by selling more war-weapons to other countries...

http://www.defenseprocurementnews.com/2011/12/01/saudi-patriot-deal-receives-...

...but also by increasingly marketing to 'non-military customers.' Such as the Department of Homeland Security and prisons, public and private. These 'non-military' customers buy a lot of crowd-control weapons.

http://technorati.com/business/finance/article/raytheon-illustrates-diversifi...

Another sonic weapon, developed by LRAD, has already been deployed against first amendment-exercisers here in the States.

http://gizmodo.com/5860592/what-is-the-lrad-sound-cannon

It's really not a giant leap of logic to imagine that this particular patent application might be something nasty, deployed for nasty purposes.

Oh, BTW? Raytheon has been repeatedly sanctioned for illegal and unethical practice - it's the 5th-worst government contractor, according to the Project on Open Government's misconduct database. Competing, of course, with the OTHER four major defense contractors.

http://www.contractormisconduct.org/index.cfm/1,73,221,html?ContractorID=46&r...

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Your dad knew about irony before you did

The fatherly source of irony
Your dad knew about irony before you did and he had “Le...:

Your dad knew about irony before you did and he had “Le Car” to prove it. For $300 and a half roll of mint Lifesavers, he purchased rolling satire. His “chariot” cemented his place as “The Most Ironic Man in the World” because he bought a car that wasn’t a car, but called itself a car by writing car on the car. He was a visionary of irony that liked everything everyone else hated so once he made it popular he could hate on it and say he liked it before it was cool. He liked disco in the 60’s, hair metal in the 70’s, and wore Clarkston High School track shirts even though he’d never ran and didn’t go to that school. Everything he has ever done has been ironic, including loving you.

So hipsters, in 2012 when you’re claiming that you voted for Rick Perry after the elections and saying that it was cool because nobody else did it or growing a mustache and refusing to admit that it doesn’t look terrible, remember this…

Your dad is so ironic that after spending his entire youth rebelling against his father the most ironic thing he could do was become him by having you and being a dad himself (which is also the same track you’re currently on, and yet another example of something else he did before you).

Thanks to Jessica for today’s awesome submission via the Facebook fan page.