[VERSÃO EM PORTUGUÊS]

Hi, I’m Lee-Sean, and this is my first post. I’m going to tell you the story of the how we developed the Meu Rio logo and identity, but first I would like to confess something. Maybe it’s obvious, but I’m not from here. I’m neither a Carioca (native of Rio) nor a Brazilian. I was born in Taiwan, grew up in Arizona, and lived in various other places since: Boston, Barcelona, Nakatsu (Japan), New York. I consider myself a citizen of the world, and now an honorary Carioca.

I arrived in Rio for the first time in 2010 along with Alessandra, co-founder of Meu Rio, and our Purpose colleague Emmy. We came to do, among other things, the preliminary research for the development of the brand identity. Before coming here, I had already made an effort to better understand Brazilian and Carioca culture: I studied Portuguese, I read books and watched movies about Rio, I listen to Brazilian music, I play capoeira.

But as a gringo, I also had many stereotypical and touristic images of Rio in my head: the big Jesus statue, the Sugarloaf, the wave-patterned pavement designed by Burle Marx, the beach, Carnaval, Carmen Miranda, etc. I knew I had to avoid clichés and create an identity worthy of the Marvelous City. The challenge was to create a brand that respected and celebrated Rio’s cultural heritage.

The first phase of our research involved total immersion. We travelled all over the city. We interviewed many Cariocas. We conducted observations and took hundreds of photos. All of this might sound like sightseeing, but really it was tiring work. Rio is full of visual delights and a city of stark contrasts between mountains and ocean, urban grey and rainforest green, modern and old, “asphalt” and favela.

We found abundant sources of inspiration: the colors of tropical fruit and plants; urban street art with its rough aesthetic and perceptive social critique; the sensual curves of nature, modern architecture and the bodies of Cariocas at the beach; and the first meeting of Donald Duck and Zé Carioca.

After finishing the first phase of research, we began drawing. I made several sketches. See some examples below. I tried to capture the “ginga” (swing) of the Carioca lifestyle and express the popular spirit of DIY.

After deliberating, we ended up picking the current logo.

Our logo subtly evokes the form of a coconut. Coconuts hydrate and nourish Cariocas and serve as an icon of Meu Rio. The irregular shape and imperfection help encourage popular participation.

The “Folk” font we used for the logo was created by the Brazilian type designer Marcelo Magalhães and is licensed for reuse under Creative Commons..

By definition, a brand identity is a system of visual and stylistic rule, but at Meu Rio we aim to be more than just that. Our intention is to create a “living system” brand identity that is open to participation and remix, a brand that will grow and evolve over time, and that can easily live in online and offline contexts, in two and three dimensions. This post is about the history of the Meu Rio brand, but the story is not yet finished. We continue moving forward along with your participation.

What do you think of the Meu Rio brand?

Impact Is What You Can Get Away With
Brands and organizations looking to make real social impact should go beyond the app to “do good” or “give back.” Impact isn’t an app, it’s an uprising. It’s not just a meme, it’s a movement. Warhol and McLuhan both said, “Art is what you can get away with.” Riffing on this provocation, we challenge social innovators to get away with more. What can change makers learn from artists? How do you channel cultural power to achieve deep structural change? How do you stimulate promiscuous participation? How do you turn social innovations into social movements? This session is for makers, thinkers, and doers looking to level up their understanding of the art of mass mobilization and achieving transformative impact. We will present from our experiences building 21st century movements at Purpose and engage in dialogue with fellow “movement entrepreneurs.”

Vote for our panel proposal. Thanks!

My additions to Clay’s commentary:

“Coherence” as a concept has inherent class and cultural biases skewed in favor of those in with more power in the social and economic hierarchy.

Our socio-economic operating system doesn’t exactly making any f@#$ing sense to a many people in the 99% either.

#OWS is hardly radical. It is inherently a conservative response to the loss of a social contract from the 20th century. It seems like a call to return to the spirit of that post WWII-1980s social contract.

Mona Eltahawy Speaking on Revolutionary Women from lee-sean on Vimeo.

Mona Eltahawy speaking at Purpose on women in the Egyptian Revolution.
Video documentation sponsored by Hepnova Multimedia

HEPNOVA is dedicating our cover version of Green Island Serenade (綠島小夜曲) to jailed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. As a song that was popular in Taiwan, China, and across the Sinosphere, we think it is a poignant symbol of cross-strait solidarity. On the surface, the lyrics are a pop song about a man admiring a silent woman from afar, but it has also been interpreted by many to be a veiled protest against government censorship and oppression.

We hope you enjoy the song, learn it’s meaning, and pass it on.

You can also sign a petition by Change.org or Avaaz.org calling for Ai Weiwei’s release.

Hello Electric is a new global movement for electric cars, dedicated to bringing people together online to take meaningful action to get these clean, new cars onto our streets faster, ending our addiction to oil and the damage it causes to the environment.

I just joined Hello Electric in an urgent campaign. BP’s CEO Tony Hayward is about to resign over the oil spill that has devastated the Gulf of Mexico, so we decided to give him a gift that will help him lead the way “Beyond Petroleum” (and never, ever have to go to a gas station again).

If 25,000 people sign the goodbye card to Tony in the next few weeks, Hello Electric will GIVE him his own electric car and demand that he help us end our global addiction to oil. Tony is appearing before UK Parliament TODAY; together we can send a huge challenge to him and the media.

Will you sign Tony’s card and ask your friends and family to do the same? It only takes a moment and could make a huge difference:
http://www.helloelectric.org

cshirky: The New Yorker still runs cartoons of crazy people carrying placards. What do 25 y.o’s make of that? In their world, crazy people have blogs
8:07 AM Nov 15th

leesean: @cshirky 25ish y.o.’s like me make mashup/remixes of crazy people with placards and put them on YouTube http://bit.ly/x0BQV
10:28 AM Nov 15th

cshirky: RT @leesean: @cshirky 25ish y.o.’s like me make mashup/remixes of crazy people with placards and put them on YouTube http://bit.ly/x0BQV
1:14 PM Nov 15th

I created Jump (The Bailout Bash) with Elizabeth Fuller for a class at ITP last year (Communications Lab with Marianne Petit).

Our rights:

As a taxi rider, you have the right to:
Pay for your ride with credit/debit card;
Go to any destination in NYC, Westchester, Nassau, or Newark Airport;
Direct the route taken: The most direct route or one of your choice;
A safe and courteous driver who obeys all traffic laws;
A knowledgeable driver who speaks English and knows City geography;
Air conditioning or heat on request;
A noise free trip: no horn honking or radio;
Clean air. smoke and scent free air;
Working seatbelts for all passengers;
A clean taxicab: interior, exterior and partition;
Be accompanied by a service animal;
A driver who does not use a cell phone while driving (hand-held or hands free);
Decline to tip for poor service.

If you feel your rights were violated by a taxicab driver please Submit a Consumer Complaint.

Now for the details of what happened to me:

Incident 1: I was coming home last night from a party, and a friend and I decided to share a cab since we were on the far east side and it was raining. We first dropped off my friend in Chinatown then headed toward my place in Lower Manhattan. We arrived at my street, but the cab driver refused to actually cross the traffic light to drop me off in front of my building, even though it was pouring rain. I got out and ran across the street. I still tipped the driver a dollar for a 10 buck fare, but in retrospect (now that I know my rights, and in light of incident 2 below), I am now going on a tipping strike against bad service and violations against the NYC Taxicab Rider Bill of Rights.  In extreme cases, like in incident two, I will immediately document the driver’s information by taking a photo of their license info and report him to the city.

Incident 2:  I was with some friends tonight in Battery Park City, trying to get a cab in the pouring rain.  The five of us finally hailed a cab.  I got in first and asked the driver if it was ok for him to take five of us.  He said no, but some of my friends didn’t hear and got in anyway.  He then  repeated that he wouldn’t take five people.  Fair enough, I guess those are the rules.  So three of my friends got out to wait for another cab.  That would have been fine, but instead the cab driver started yelling at me about how he wouldn’t take the remaining two of us because we still got in despite him saying he wouldn’t take five people.  I said that my friends didn’t hear what he said to me at first, and that in any case, I don’t control what my friends do.  He raised his voice at me and refused to take us to our destination, despite the fact that there were only two of us left in the cab, which made me lose my temper, make a scene and storm out of the cab.  If this ever happens again, I would immediately document his license information and report him instead of getting angry.

Anyone at ITP want to help with making an NYC taxicab consumer complaint iPhone app? I think it would be a great consumer resource and would help in streamlining the submission of complaints.  Anybody else have NYC cab horror stories to share?

Eddie (friend from college) shared on Facebook today an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods, “The Whole Foods Alternative To ObamaCare”:

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America

Similarly in “Health Care, Why Call it a Right?” on the HuffPost, Duke University professor John David Lewis writes:

The reason is that advocates of government medicine are upholding health care as a moral right. The moral goal of a “right” to health care is blinding people to the cause and effect relationship between government actions and rising prices.

But the very idea that health care — or any good provided by others — is a “right” is a contradiction. The rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence were to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Each of these is a right to act, not a right to things. “To secure these rights governments are instituted,” which means to secure the rights of each person to exercise his or her liberty in pursuit of his or her own happiness.

They are wrong.  The United States has adopted the  Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR), which asserts in Article 25, Section 1:

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

While the UDHR is largely an aspirational document, many international lawyers argue that it is now legally binding under international customary law.  The US has also signed (but not yet ratified) the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which guarantees in article 12:

1. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.
2. The steps to be taken by the States Parties to the present Covenant to achieve the full realization of this right shall include those necessary for:

(a) The provision for the reduction of the stillbirth-rate and of infant mortality and for the healthy development of the child;
(b) The improvement of all aspects of environmental and industrial hygiene;
(c) The prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases;
(d) The creation of conditions which would assure to all medical service and medical attention in the event of sickness.

Whole Foods is leaving a bad taste in my mouth right now.  I have been a frequent shopper there, but now I have my doubts.  Boycott?

Mackey continues:

Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.

<sarcasm>Well, I’m glad I have the “right” to pay a premium at Whole Foods for my healthy food fix.</sarcasm>  DJ, another Facebook friend, puts things into perspective: “of course, good food (like good health care) should take all of your paycheck. that’s the whole paycheck way.”  Telling poor people to spend more money that they don’t have to eat healthy food they can’t afford so they don’t get sick and require health care they can’t pay for is just a sick sick way of asking “why don’t they eat cake?”  I know the attribution to Marie Antoinette is apocryphal, but you get my point.

Mackey tries to bring Canada and the UK into his argument:

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.

Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor’s Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.

Unlike the US, Canada and UK have ratified the ICESCR, so there is a legally binding right to health in those countries.  Healthcare rationing and long wait times are some of the typical talking points of those opposed to national health care in this country.  But let’s look at the real numbers.  A June 2009 Gallup Poll found that 16% of US adults over age 18 are without health insurance.  The US Census Bureau estimates that there are about 307 million people in the US.  So 16% of 307 million is about 49 million Americans without health insurance.  That’s more than the entire population of Canada. I wonder how long those 49 million Americans have to wait when they need health care.  How about forever?

At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund.

That’s great John Mackey, but how about this idea: “In the United States, we allow the people to vote on what health plan they most want the government to fund.” And by “the people”, I mean including those 49 million American adults without health insurance, not just CEOs who probably have very good health insurance for themselves spouting off about “what the people need” in an op-ed.

Textbooks have not gone the way of the scroll yet, but many educators say that it will not be long before they are replaced by digital versions — or supplanted altogether by lessons assembled from the wealth of free courseware, educational games, videos and projects on the Web.

[...]

In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this summer announced an initiative that would replace some high school science and math texts with free, “open source” digital versions.

With California in dire straits, the governor hopes free textbooks could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Among the article’s interviewees is Neeru Khosla, co-founder of the non-profit group CK-12 Foundation, which develops “flexbooks” that can be adapted to state educational standards.  (Khosla has also been featured on OpenEd and on the Creative Commons blog.) Khosla explains the virtues of the flexbooks:

You can use them online, you can download them onto a disk, you can print them, you can customize them, you can embed video. When people get over the mind-set issue, they’ll see that there’s no reason to pay $100 a pop for a textbook, when you can have the content you want free.

The article uses terms like “digital textbooks,” “free courseware,” “open source,” and “open-content,” but what exactly do these terms mean? While there is reference to the adaptability and customization digital texts, the article does not explicitly mention copyright.  While digital delivery of educational materials may solve some of the cost barriers of education, without an explicit understanding of terms like “open” and “free,” legal and social barriers remain.  As far as I am concerned, government-funded “digital textbooks” or “free courseware” should be as free as possible from copyright restrictions (licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution license, the least restrictive of CC licenses) or in the public domain.  Only then will they be truly available for sharing, collaboration and reuse.  The fact that they are simply “digital” or “available on the Internet” alone is not enough.

The road to a digital future for education is not without its bumps.  Lewin brings up the issue of a the digital divide: “Not every student has access to a computer, a Kindle electronic reader device or a smartphone, and few districts are wealthy enough to provide them. So digital textbooks could widen the gap between rich and poor.”

The increasing adoption of digital textbooks may save on some costs, but will also require additional investment in computer hardware.  But the real issue at stake is not just the economic costs of education, but instead the need to focus on increasing the accessibility of knowledge.  In order for learning resources to be truly accessible, the issue is not just online vs. offline, digital vs. print.  To reach their maximum social and educational potential, learning materials in the digital future  will need to free from excessive copyright constraints (with clear open licensing like CC-BY or public domain declaration) in order to allow teachers and students the maximum freedom to legally share, modify, and improve upon them.

Also check out Jane Park of ccLearn’s post from last September: “Back to School: Open Textbooks Gaining in Popularity.”

I am taking a pledge suggested by the film and now refraining from visiting aquariums and aquatic mammal shows.  I will also be sure to buy dolphin-safe seafood.  Here are some main points of the film:

• Over 23,000 dolphins are slaughtered in Taiji every year
• When the dolphins are caught, some are sold to aquariums and wildlife shows, while the rest are killed for meat
• Dolphin meat, as well as the meat of other whales, contains dangerous levels of mercury, but the mayor of Taiji has tried to give away the contaminated meat for school lunches
• Sometimes dolphin meat is deliberately mislabeled and sold as “cleaner” whale meat
• Mercury poisoning from eating contaminated seafood could result in symptoms similar to those of Minamata Disease

Towards the end of The Cove, former Flipper-trainer-turned-activist Ric O’Barry walks into an International Whaling Commission conference with a video monitor strapped to his chest playing graphic footage of the Taiji dolphin slaughter, exposing the international delegates to the horrors of whaling.  In another scene, O’Barry stands with the video monitor playing the same slaughter footage in the middle of Shibuya crossing, taking the message directly to the Japanese people.   But how can the filmmakers increase their impact among the Japanese public?

O’Barry’s SafeJapanDolphins.org is accepting donations to help with targeted media campaigns and screenings of the film in Japan, but I don’t think the movie is available in Japan yet.   I would suggest that the filmmakers release footage of the dolphin slaughter (or ideally, the entire film) under a Creative Commons or similar open license, that would allow the film to be freely shared on the internet, allowing people to see it even if it is not playing in their local cinema.  Certainly this would be a way to get around powerful government and business interests in Japan who do not want the film to be seen by the Japanese people.  Imagine of video of the slaugter “went viral” on the internet.  Imagine concerned Japanese people being able to view the footage on their cellphones and sharing the video with their family and friends.  That is when real change will begin.

I realize that documentary filmmaking is not cheap.  Indeed, I do believe that the heroic people who made the film possible should be financially supported for their work.  But we cannot let the complications of copyright stand in the way of promoting an important story and saving the dolphins.  Perhaps the film can be freely released online under a Creative Commons license after the theatrical run is completed, or when a donation threshold is reached.

Some have criticized The Cove’s filmmakers and the dolphin freedom activists for being racist or neo-colonialist against the Japanese.  Indeed, Japan is not the only country that hunts whales.  “White” countries like Iceland and Norway hunt whales too.  I think all countries should be held responsible.  I lived in Japan for three years, I love the country, but I disagree with the dolphin hunt, that hardly makes me a racist (in any case, I’m Asian too).  It is unfortunate though that the film did not give more of a voice to Japanese people opposed to the dolphin hunts.  They do interview a few Japanese people opposed to the slaughter, but these Japanese people are not the main protagonists in the film.

It is interesting to note that while whale hunting has been part of Japanese culture for hundreds of years, it was the Americans who occupied Japan after WWII who encouraged the resumption of whale hunting as a cheap source of protein to feed the war-torn country.  But today, Japan is a rich country and they don’t need to eat whale meat for protein any more.  In fact, most Japanese people do not eat whale meat, and do not consider dolphin to be food.  When filmmakers showed people on the streets of Tokyo and Osaka footage of the dolphin slaughter, they were surprised and horrified.  Hopefully, the film will be available in Japan soon to raise greater awareness.

Go see the movie and take action!

Links

• The Cove Official Site
• SaveJapanDolphins.org – Take Action
• TakePart.com/TheCove
• CNN – Dolphin slaughter brings charges from both sides
• YouTube – Dolphin Swim Programs & SLAUGHTER Linked!!!!
• YouTube – Dolphin Slaughter in Japan
• Petition – Help Save Japan’s Dolphins
• NY Magazine – The Cove’s Richard O’Barry on Secret Dolphin Slaughter — and Flipper’s Suicide
• NY Times – The Cove: From Flipper’s Trainer to Dolphin Defender
• CS Monitor – Review: ‘The Cove’
• Roger Ebert’s review of ‘The Cove’
• 日本でのイルカ保護にご協力ください
• Whale Love (日本語)

Panel discussion from the the Aspen Ideas Festival.  Thanks to the Breakaway Cook Eric Gower for the tip.

Billions to Be Served: Meeting the Needs of the People and the Planet

The United Nations has determined that, in the next 40 years, we must double crop production to feed, fuel and clothe nine billion people. How do we meet this challenge with converting every forest and savannah into agricultural land? What are the unexpected alliances that can lead the way forward?

My thoughts:

Panelist Jason Clay mentions that one of the ways to increase agricultural yields is to open up patents and other research information to foster innovation and increase equality of access of food production technologies.  Controversy over genetic engineering aside, I can agree in principle with that strategy.  He makes the unfortunate use of the words “intellectual property,” an overreaching and unhelpful term.  What is at stake here is patents specifically, as well as research data (scientific facts, whose protection as “intellectual property” under copyright is questionable).  Patents and copyrights are temporary monopolies designed to promote innovation.  “Intellectual property,” is a confusing and problematic umbrella term that conflates this kind of monopoly with actual physical property.  (See Richard Stallman’s article for more)

I find it troubling that the panel takes it as a given that the human population will continue to grow to reach 9.5 billion and that the trend of increasing income and increased demand for more energy-intensive foods (i.e. more meat) will continue.  Lots of things could happen to prevent the human population from reaching 9.5 billion.  The competition for diminishing resources could lead to large-scale geopolitical conflicts that result in millions of casualties.  But that’s a worst case scenario that I hope does not come true.  My real point is that we also need to look at ways to slow population growth and consumption patterns, not just increase yield to meet demand.  Increasing the educational and social status of women and family planning programs are examples of ways to decrease birth rates.  If a more holistic economic model that takes into account the REAL costs of factory farmed meat were taken into account, either through taxation or more effective environmental protection standards, then the price of meat would go up, and put a check on consumption.  Cheap food is not necessarily a good thing across the board.  Affordable grain yes, cheap meat, not so much.  Grain riots are real, filet mignon riots are not.

It’s not helpful to simply increase corn production if most of the corn is used to feed livestock or used for biofuels.  I’m not anti-meat, but is indisputable that it is less efficient to feed grain to cows to make beef than to feed the corn directly to people. We can’t just focus on increasing yields without reevaluating how those yields are distributed.  We can’t just blindly increase supply using our current business and production models without trying to respond to ways to modify demand.

Henrietta Holsman Fore frames agriculture and food production as a meta-issue that encompasses politics, economics, education, etc.  I agree, but I have a problem with her specific claim that farmers growing opium poppies in Afghanistan instead of “legitimate crops” is a political issue.  Actually, it’s an economic issue.  Even if drug prohibition laws are firmly enforced in Afghanistan as an extension of the US jihad on drugs, simple economics still govern behavior.  Prohibition simply keeps the price of opium and derivatives high, and farmers will still be willing to take the risk of growing opium if they can make more money than growing food crops.  There is also the demand side of things, which is an economic and public health issue in that we need to address the conditions of poverty and alienation that induce people to start using opiates in the first place.

Hugh Grant (CEO of Monsanto, not the actor): “When a farmer can’t feed herself, than something is broken…Farmers need help and training.”

I actually agree with the head of Monsanto on this one.  But that training should not necessarily impose US industrial food production practices on developing countries.  That training should not become a promotional tool for biotech businesses.  Farmers need training, but the people doing the training also need to be knowledgeable and respectful of traditional knowledge.  Farmers can’t feed themselves when they become dependent on growing monocultures of commodity crops.  Crop diversity is one of the keys.

Jason Clay: “Coca Cola’s operations where shut down in many areas of the world (during the food crisis) because they couldn’t buy sugar.”

Sorry, but it’s hard to shed tears over this one.  Just because the world’s billions need food does not mean that they all need to drink Coke.  The worlds farmers could be growing a diverse variety of food crops to feed themselves instead of large monocultures of corn and sugarcane to sell to Coca Cola.

The ad was made by Americans Against Food Taxes, an interest group that includes some big agro-businesses and industrial fast food producers who are opposed to a proposed tax on soft drinks and juice drinks, in other words, beverages that contain high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

Pardon the pun, but this ad, like HFCS found in soft drinks and juice drinks, is pretty corny stuff.  Let’s cut through the saccharine images of an All-American family and the folksy populist spin.  First, “juice drinks,” as defined by the USDA is different from “100% juice.”  Juice drinks only constitute a small percentage of actual fruit juice, and can contain added water, sugar/HFCS, coloring, and vitamins.  In these USDA health guidelines (PDF), the example juice drink only contains 5% juice.  The proposed tax is on soda and juice drinks, NOT on 100% juice or fresh fruit.  Last time I checked, soda and juice drinks were not essential foundations in the food pyramid.

I’m no fan of big agro-business lobbies or a Federal nanny state, but guaranteeing all Americans basic access to health care is an important issue that needs funding.  So where do we go from here? Well, if we follow the money (and the trail of corn kernels), we find that soft drinks and juice drinks are able to be sold relatively cheaply because of existing government intervention in the form of subsidies.  These government subsides—our taxpayer money— artificially lower the price of corn and corn derivatives like high fructose corn syrup.  When we buy a soda, we aren’t paying the REAL market price because the cost of producing corn syrup, a major ingredient, is subsidized by our tax dollars.  Hey, isn’t that soda socialism or something?

Now here’s the part where I might even get mistaken for a conservative:  Instead of levying taxes on soda and juice drinks to fund health care, why not just cut costs by reducing or even eliminating the corn subsidies, and use the savings to fund health care reform?  These subsidies are taxes that we have already paid that are a standing government bailout that props up an essentially non-market-based business model.

Insert folksy Fox News-worthy soundbite:  “Calm down about socialized medicine ’cause corn subsidies ain’t so capitalist either!”

The Environmental Working Group’s Farm Subsidy Database shows that there were $21.6 billion in corn subsidies in the four-year period from 2003-2006 (inclusive).  The Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University found that HFCS producers received an implicit $234 million dollar a year subsidy derived from overall corn subsidies.  Meanwhile, the WSJ reports that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that “adding a tax of three cents per 12-ounce serving to these types of sweetened drinks would generate $24 billion over the next four years.”  If the amount of money spent on four years of corn subsidies were redirected towards health care, we would already be 90% of the way to the potential $24 billion that could be raised by new taxes on soda and juice drinks.

Why bother with new taxes on struggling American families when the government can just stop using our taxpayer money to subsidize artificially-cheap corn, the staple of the industrial agro-businesses, and use it as a down payment on health care reform?

At the time of writing, all of the works are available for free (legal) viewing or download online except for Food Inc., which is now in theaters around the US – and a must see for EVERY American.  I know I have kind of geeky interests, and not everybody cares to read 300+ page books about copyright, but everybody eats, so go see Food Inc already!

Books

The Wealth of Networks
How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Yochai Benkler

Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace 2.0
Lawrence Lessig

Free Culture
How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity
Lawrence Lessig

Remix
Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy
Lawrence Lessig

The Pirates Dilemma
How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism
Matt Mason

The Public Domain
Enclosing the Commons of the Mind
James Boyle

Viral Spiral
How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own
David Bollier

The Future of the Internet And How to Stop It
Jonathan Zittrain

Music and It’s Reflection on Society
Catalan: La Música i el seu reflex en la societat
Spanish: La música y su reflejo en la sociedad
Edited by Indigestió
A collection of essays about the role of music in contemporary society. Only in Spanish and Catalan for now though.

Tales from the Public Domain: Bound By Law?
“Bound by Law translates law into plain English and abstract ideas into ‘visual metaphors.’ So the comic’s heroine, Akiko, brandishes a laser gun as she fends off a cyclopean ‘Rights Monster’ – all the while learning copyright law basics, including the line between fair use and copyright infringement.” -Brandt Goldstein, The Wall Street Journal online

Documentaries

Good Copy/Bad Copy
A Danish documentary about the current state of copyright and culture

Rip: A Remix Manifesto
A Canadian documentary film about copyright and remix culture.

The Future of Food
An in-depth look into the controversy over genetically modified foods.  Watch it online at Snagfilms.

Food, Inc.
Filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA.

The Legend of Leigh Bowery
The Legend of Leigh Bowery explores a life lived as if it was a performance. Leigh Bowery was a costume/clothing designer, nightclub impresario, performer, and musician whose vision influenced many of today’s most important artists. He later became known to the world at large as the muse and subject of preeminent British painter Lucian Freud.

///

Dear all,

My other email is down by the gov. hence I have been able to hack into this unsuspecting email account.

Things are turning very violent here for Iranians – last night at least 90 were killed and many hundreds others injured (as I write this reports are coming in that it is in fact more than 150 from yesterday alone killed – putting in the total in at least the many hundreds over the past nine days). As fate would have it, Neda, aged 22, was an employee at the travel agency who had booked our trip to Mashad for yesterday. We decided to forgo the trip for safety, and she was killed by basij yesterday. Today, without knowing it, when picking up refund for the trip, all of the employees were dressed in black as are many who take to the streets today to mourn her and the scores of others killed yesterday – certainly many will be killed today as well. There are vast first hand accounts of many of the stormtroopers et al being from other countries outside of Iran speaking Arabic – certainly some groups rely on the oil profits of Iranian for their own operations and even their security is at stake in this shake-up. There is information, misinformation, and disinformation so take what you will, but too many first hand reports usually add up to some sort of truth.

It is no joke that communication is down and that what goes in/out, is being tracked. I have been followed by secret service. I cannot post to blogs for fear of safety to others. Facebook and Twitter does not work within Iran – it has not for more than one week – all rally communication takes place via mobile and, more importantly, face to face. International telephone calls do not come in; mobiles are cut between 4-5PM each day until midnight; SMS are out; TV channels are sent parasites so that each night searching for a different satellite takes place to find channels (while I have written this, VOA has just been lost; we were able to find it last night after one week). Most of the journalists who are reporting are not here and seem to not be speaking to people who are experiencing these events (as I write this the BBC correspondant has been ordered to leave the country). The TV “experts” on the bbc, cnn and al jazeera are for the most part, completely out of touch, with the facts: this is way beyond ahmadi, the supreme leader and rafsanjani. Many of the Western press are just as out of touch: I recommend the Guardian from the UK if you must read something. This is about the IR and the people at this point.

I can still go to select areas of this vast city, but go in disguise. You may see the stormtroopers on bikes et al, but it is always the plains clothes basij who are to be feared – they are free to shoot to kill, free to beat to pulps with no reprisal from government. They are stationed on most street corners, even tens of kms away from the main rally avenue. This is a very serious issue and what amazes Iranians the most is that the UN is completely silent on this issue, with Western governments still speaking too diplomatically, although thankfully Merkel has come out the boldest as of now. At this point, the people who are going out – who are children, young adults and people in their 60s and 70s – are leaderless. It does not matter what Mousavi does at this point – it goes well beyond him and has since Friday. Although thousands and thousands went out yesterday, there is a very high percentage that one will be killed or gravely injured, it does not matter. These people are willing to die for the cause. I have never experienced such a movement in my life, beginning well before the election, to last week’s rallies, to Friday’s speech advocating for destruction, to yesterday and today. There simply are too few people from my country and too few people who look like myself for me to write more without causing potential harm, arrest and death so with this I end this letter. Rest assured that the rallies will continue until the change that they demand happens. There are too many millions to be killed for it not to stop.

Please post to NYPL, IMA, Facebook, listserves, forward, etc. – please do not include my name until I’ve returned, which should be on Saturday, unless the authorities ban air travel, which is a strong possibility: during the prior revolution, it was closed down for three years. All my other contacts are in my other email app hence this can only be sent to a select few people.

Yours,

***

Ignite Phoenix 4
16 June 2009 at the Tempe Center for the Arts

Let’s Grow Up! : Food Security in Urban Phoenix
Nicholas DiBiase (@hepnova on Twitter) is a producer for Hepnova.

Description: The upshot : Improve food and nutritional security for Phoenix through radically simplified urban agronomy. Let’s promote community health and self-reliance by giving folks the educational tools to escape dependence on the institution of inefficient (and often not very nutritious!) food supply chains. It’s time now to change the focus of urban food security thinking from rhetoric and politics to simple, doable, mainstream-friendly approaches that get fast results – a healthier, more independent Phoenix is a groovier more funky Phoenix!

Let’s Grow Up! on Blip.tv

From my colleague Enrique Piraces at Human Rights Watch:

I want to share with you our submission to the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center Mobile Challenge. 

The project is great and we have an opportunity to get some attention and further develop the idea. 

Voting will take place between March 23 and March 27, 2009 and will determine the Top Ten Finalists. 

I want to invite you to keep an eye on the project and to help us spread the word about it. And if you want to further improve your karma, please consider registering to vote for the project. [It is so easy. Just register, go to the project page, and give us a "star". After that you can also share any comments and criticisms in the same page] 

http://www.netsquared.org/projects/bug4good 

A couple weeks ago, photographer Jon Wasserman, who has also shot Murakami Takashi and Zach Condon of the band Beirut, came to ITP to shoot some portraits of our little geek-art-tech community.  Here are the pics he took of me.  It’s amazing what some good lighting and a good photographer can do.  Ok, so now I’m ready for my Vogue or Rolling Stone cover, any day now

Above: Meredith, Elizabeth, Lee-Sean & Kris

More photos on Flickr.

Recipes after the jump.

Arugula, Pear, Walnut, Blue Cheese Salad

1 shallot, minced
1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon of fig jam
Juice of half a lemon
2 splashes of olive oil
1 handful chopped parsley
Salt and pepper to taste

1 handful of Old Chatham Ewe’s milk blue cheese (Roquefort, or other mild blue cheese)
1 small pear
2 handfuls of toasted walnut halves
1 bunch of arugula

Mix the first 7 ingredients in a salad bowl to make the dressing.  Add the remaining ingredients, mix and serve immediately.

Cranberry Dried Fruit Compote

Juice of 2 oranges
1 cup of Port wine
1 cup of dried cherries
Half cup of dried apricots, halved
Half cup of dried figs, halved
One 9 oz can of pitted prunes, halved
1 inch piece of ginger, minced
1 cup of brown sugar
1 tablespoon of Sherry vinegar

Spice bag filled with:
5 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 whole vanilla bean
5 cardamom pods
1 star anise

12 oz bag of fresh cranberries, washed

Combine all ingredients except for cranberries in a sauce pan and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium low and cook for about 30 minutes or until dried fruit is swollen.  Add fresh cranberries until cook until berries just begin to pop, about 5 to 8 minutes more.  Make ahead and chill.  Serve cold or at room temperature.

Roasted Duck with Duck Sausage Stuffing and Port Wine Pomegranate Gravy

1 free range Long Island duck (~6.5 pounds), brought to room temperature, giblets and neck removed

Stock
2 liters of organic chicken stock
1 cup of dry white wine
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon of black peppercorns
2 stalks of celery
1 handful of parsley stalks
2 shallots, sliced
1 duck neck
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 teaspoon of herbes de Provence

Put all stock ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer while preparing the stuffing.

Stuffing
1 stick of butter
One 8.5 oz package of D’Artagnan duck sausage, chopped
Duck giblets, chopped

3 sticks of celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup shiitake, chopped
1 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika (pimentón)
1 teaspoon of herbes de Provence
Half loaf of whole wheat bread, crumbled
Stock (see above)
Salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a large pot.  Add sausage and giblets and sauté until meat begins to brown.  Add remaining ingredients except for the bread and sauté until softened.  Add the bread and enough stock to soften.  Stir to combine.  Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature and stuff into the cavity of the duck.  Transfer the remaining stuffing to a casserole dish to bake separately (20-30 minutes at 400 F or until the top browns).

Place the duck on a baking tray and roast for 2 to 2.5 hours at 400 degrees F or until skin is golden brown and juices run clear when a pairing knife is inserted into the leg.  Baste every 15 minutes with some of the stock.

When duck is done, remove from oven and transfer to a serving platter to rest.  Pour off the duck fat from the baking tray, reserve 2 tablespoons and save the rest for another use.

Deglaze baking tray with 1 cup of port wine, 1/2 cup of pomegranate juice, and juice of 1 orange.  Scrape solids free form the baking tray and transfer mixture into a saucepan and reduce.

In a separate saucepan, make a roux with the reserved 2 tablespoons of duck fat and 2 tablespoons of flour.  Add 1.5 cups of reduced stock from above and stir to combine.  Add stock and roux mixture to the mixture above.  Stir to combine and cook over medium heat until thickened.  Strain mixture into a serving container and serve with the duck and stuffing.

Miso Walnut Green Beans

6 shiitake, sliced
2 shallots, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup walnuts
2 tablespoons of white miso
2 teaspoons of mirin
2 pounds of green beans
Salt and pepper

Sauté the shiitake and shallots in olive oil until lightly browned.  Bash up the walnuts, miso and mirin with a mortar and pestle until well-incorporated.  Stir in the shiitake and shallot mixture.  Steam or blanch the green beans until al dente.  Mix the green beans with the sauce.  Season to taste.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

Maple Whiskey Butter Yams

2.5 lbs of yams (sweet potatoes)
1 stick of butter, softened at room temperature
2 tablespoons of pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons of Sortilège (Canadian whisky and maple syrup liqueur) or substitute Bourbon

Wash the yams and poke holes in the skins with a fork.  Wrap the yams in aluminum foil and roast in a 400 degree F oven for 45 minutes or until soft.  When yams are cool enough to handle but still warm, peel the skins off and mash in a bowl with a fork with the butter, maple syrup and Sortilège.

Sauerkraut-style Brussels Sprouts

2 pounds of Brussels sprouts, stem ends and outer leaves removed
1 onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon of caraway
Splash of olive oil
1 apple, cut into 1 inch chunks
1/2 cup sweet white wine (I used Riesling)
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
Salt and pepper

Sauté the Brussels sprouts, onion and caraway in olive oil until onions begin to soften but not brown.  Add the wine, broth and vinegar and braise until the Brussels sprouts are tender.  Add more liquid if necessary and season to taste.

Listen to my latest musical composition, NO2H8, based on audio I recorded of speeches at the Protest Against Prop 8 this Sunday and some organ and synth tracks of “deconstructed” Mendelsohn’s Wedding March.

[MP3] [AIFF]

See all my photos on Flickr.

Like John and Yoko said, “War is over, if you want it”:

November 12, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SPECIAL TIMES EDITION BLANKETS U.S. CITIES, PROCLAIMS END TO WAR

* PDF: http://www.nytimes-se.com/pdf
* For video updates: http://www.nytimes-se.com/video
* Contact: mailto:writers@nytimes-se.com

Early this morning, commuters nationwide were delighted to find out that while they were sleeping, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had come to an end.

If, that is, they happened to read a “special edition” of today’s New York Times.

In an elaborate operation six months in the planning, 1.2 million papers were printed at six different presses and driven to prearranged pickup locations, where thousands of volunteers stood ready to pass them out on the street.

Articles in the paper announce dozens of new initiatives including the establishment of national health care, the abolition of corporate lobbying, a maximum wage for C.E.O.s, and, of course, the end of the war.

The paper, an exact replica of The New York Times, includes International, National, New York, and Business sections, as well as editorials, corrections, and a number of advertisements, including a recall notice for all cars that run on gasoline. There is also a timeline describing the gains brought about by eight months of
progressive support and pressure, culminating in President Obama’s “Yes we REALLY can” speech. (The paper is post-dated July 4, 2009.)

“It’s all about how at this point, we need to push harder than ever,” said Bertha Suttner, one of the newspaper’s writers. “We’ve got to make sure Obama and all the other Democrats do what we elected them to do. After eight, or maybe twenty-eight years of hell, we need to start imagining heaven.”

Not all readers reacted favorably. “The thing I disagree with is how they did it,” said Stuart Carlyle, who received a paper in Grand Central Station while commuting to his Wall Street brokerage. “I’m all for freedom of speech, but they should have started their own paper.”

Joy Garnett painted the Molotov Man (above) based on a photograph that Susan Meiselas had taken (below) of Pablo Arauz, who was taken part in the Sandinista movement in Nicaragua.  When Garnett presented the work in an exhibition, she was hit with a potential lawsuit from Meiselas’ lawyer, although Meiselas says that she did not end up suing in the end.  Garnett believes that the Molotov Man had become a culture symbol, a part of the visual vocabulary and fair game for reappropriation, while Meiselas argues that specificity and context are everything.

The blogger nmazca poses the question, “Who owns the rights to this man’s struggle?”  Nobody asked Pablo Arauz whether or not his image could be reproduced.  His struggle belongs not just to him, but to a collective anyway.  The image of Pablo Arauz as the Molotov man is now an icon and not the same thing as the reality of Arauz the Sandinista, the family man, and the truck driver.  He is the symbol of a struggle that transcends his own personhood, much like Tank Man (AKA the Unknown Rebel) in Tiananmen Square.

The claiming of Arauz’s image as a form of exclusive intellectual property just seems ridiculous to me.  By threatening to sue Garnett, Meiselas was not so much protecting the context of Arauz’s of struggle in so much as protecting her own economic interests in the form of her claim to intellectual property.  Molotov Man, in becoming an icon, belongs to everyone and no one.  Like language itself, it is part of the Commons, and it is not something that should (or can) be privatized.

I believe images and symbols should be available for artists (and everybody else) to remix and mash-up, but the fact that two relatively privileged content creators in New York are debating ownership over the image of a Nicaraguan Sandinista strikes me as a phenomenon similar to what Lethem, in last week’s reading, called “imperial plagiarism.”  I’m glad Molotov Man inspired Meiselas to snap the photo and Garnett to paint, but reading the article I can’t help but to feel a like I want to shake them both and say, “IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU!” It’s not about your photography or your painting, but ultimately it is about Pablo Arauz – the person, not the icon – and his personal struggle.  Let it inspire you to tell stories, take pictures, and make, but don’t try to claim what has become part of the Commons.

Video: People celebrating Obama’s victory in New York City’s Union Square

Photos on Flickr

Last night I watched history in the making.  The American people elect Obama, embracing racial reconciliation, while the anti-gay sentiments behind the propositions that passed in Florida, Arizona, and California represent a punch in the stomach, a kick in the balls, and a knife in the back of another group of minorities seeking equality.

Until the philosophy,
Which holds one race AND ONE KIND OF LOVE superior
And another inferior,
Is finally and permanently
Discredited and abandoned,
Everywhere is war.

That until the basic human rights,
Are equally guaranteed to all,
Without regard to race, OR SEXUAL ORIENTATION
I’ll say “war”

Elizabeth and I teamed up again to work on our audio pieces for Comm Lab this week.  Although we did record audio from the streets of NY together for last week’s assignment, we decided not to use any of it and instead decided to choose a pressing socio-political theme of the current economic “crisis.”  I took photos and recorded audio from an anti-bailout protest on Wall Street last month.  We were particularly attracted to some snippets from a speech given by the charismatic looking gentleman pictured above.  We also used samples of other protesters chanting slogans, and put everything over a beat that I composed.  In some amazing coincidence, almost all of our samples fit over the beats at 109 BPM.  Only one sample of chanting protesters had to be slightly stretched in Audacity to fit the tempo.

Download the MP3 or the AIFF.

The danceable audio anger that resulted from our musical collaborations reminds me a little bit of the Muppets doing N.W.A. And for further musical explorations relating to pigs, I suggest NIN’s Piggy and March of the Pigs.

Elizabeth describes more of our process in her blog:

We used several applications to make the piece. We cut up the audio in Fission, a commercial software for simple cutting. It is really usable. The beats were composed in iDrum…. We used Audacity to change the length of some of the audio pieces so that they all had the same beat. Then we assembled the song in Garage Band.