Catherine showed me around her old stomping grounds in London last week.  We walked around, ate surprisingly good food (despite the British stereotype), and hit the requisite tourist sites – Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Notting Hill, etc.  I also had the chance to meet up with Venu, and old friend from my Swedish class at Harvard, and Steph and Olie, a couple of British friends I met in Japan.

Eat! Above: Ploughman’s Lunch at The Spaniard’s Inn, Hampstead

Below: Fish & Chips.  Ok, these are from Giraffe, a chain in Heathrow before my flight back, but it was actually pretty good I had to get my mushy peas fix before leaving the UK

Drink! Below: Summer in England = Pimm’s, of course! @ the Scarsdale Tavern, Kensington

Above: Some photos from the Elephant Parade 2010

Elephant Parade is a conservation campaign that shines a multi-coloured spotlight on the urgent crisis faced by the endangered Asian elephant. Brought to you by www.elephantfamily.org, the event sees over 250 brightly painted life-size elephants located over central London this summer.

Stay: Travelodge Marylebone – inexpensive and centrally located

Panda Eyes at the Design Museum London

More London photos and video on Flickr.

Ni Hao You Doin’? – A new Hepnova shirt on Zazzle in collaboration with Joey G.

We were hanging out in Little Italy/Chinatown tonight and Joe came up with this brilliant bilingual pun that celebrates the confluence of cultures in a pizza/scallion pancake slice of Lower Manhattan with classic New York wit and attitude.  Here’s to pasta and to potstickers and to Sino-Italian-American friendship! Ni hao you doin’?

Buy the Ni Hao You Doin’ shirt on Zazzle

Ni Hao You Doin’? by Hepnova in collaboration with Joey G

My Thanksgiving photos on Flickr

Although the Cunningham living legacy plan aims to preserve its founder’s vision intact as custodian of his intellectual property, that does not mean the choreography will be frozen forever, like an artifact of the past. As a choreographer, Cunningham always welcomed new technology and pioneered countless innovations. Collaboration, chance, and change were the very cornerstones of his approach.

Although the sun has set on his career, a new dawn inspired by his achievement may follow. “Ideas,” as the artist Robert Rauschenberg, Cunningham’s collaborator, said, “are not real estate.”

Neither is intellectual property. It could be a site where past art is not just preserved but fertilizes future growth.

“Dancing is a process that never stops,” Cunningham said when announcing his living legacy plan, “and should not stop if it is to stay alive and fresh.”

There was a mention of Creative Commons in the article’s discussion of copyright issues.  Cunningham was one of the few major choreographers to have licensed his work under a Creative Commons license.  As an advocate of Creative Commons licenses, I applaud Cunningham’s generosity to our collective artistic heritage.  However, I should also note as a comparison that in most folk dancing traditions, sharing and open collaboration are the norms– the idea of ownership is fluid and oftentimes forms and techniques are owned and transmitted collectively.

<tangent>Another scenario to consider: Michael Jackson “owned” the moonwalk in the sense that it is a dance move popularly associated with him.  But what if he literally owned it as intellectual property?  Would the Jackson estate be going after the unauthorized moonwalkers in the Eternal Moonwalk tribute site? </tangent>

The CSM article did not mention Cunningham’s life partner and frequent artistic collaborator, composer John Cage.  The two men’s work similarly combined demanding detailed instructions with indeterminacy and chance operations such as the rolling of dice.  The Cage estate has recently gone after what it considered copyright infringements against Cage’s (in)famous 4’33″ (“The Silent Piece”).

The big Zen koan question then becomes, is randomness and silence copyrightable?

The score of 4’33″ instructs the performer(s) to not play their instruments for four minutes and thirty-three seconds.  But the piece is not really silent.  As I have previously written:

The piece is made up of the hum of the air-conditioning in the hall, the ruffle of programs, the coughing of an audience member; it is an invitation, an invocation, to listen to the ambient sounds all around us.  Cage rejects the distinction between musical and non-musical sounds, and embraces all sounds, regardless of the performers intent, to be potentially musical.  In doing so, Cage completes the break from the history of classical composition and offers up a new model for music in which the primary act of for the composer and for the performer is not to make music, but to listen.

When a critic told Cage that anybody could have written 4’33″, Cage responded with his usual charming wit, “but nobody else did.”  There is no doubt that the provocative and performative nature of 4’33″ is an act of creativity, if not genius.  At the same time, one could also argue that because the piece is about listening to the sounds that exist in the performance space even if no instruments are being played, then David Tudor’s “non-playing” of the piano at the premiere, as well as the noises generated by the audience members present, were all integral parts of the piece.  In that sense, the performer and the audience share a kind of authorship of the piece.  They all ‘performed’ 4’33″ and made it what it was.  By elevating the role of listeners, Cage was in effect bringing back a participatory, interactive element that had been lost in Western “classical” music.

Cage’s 4’33″ also represents a break from the idea of Romantic authorship, where “an author is perceived to be the source of original ideas, transforming the world around him through his own genius” (Authorship Collective).  Romantic authorship would claim that the roll of the composer is to create music out of silence. But Cage’s point is that silence does not exist.

One of the inspirations for 4’33″ was Cage’s experience in an anechoic chamber at Harvard University. An anechoic chamber is a soundproofed room designed in such a way that all the surfaces in the room will absorb all sounds made in the room, rather than bouncing them back as echoes.

Cage entered the chamber expecting to hear silence, but as he wrote later, he “heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation.” Cage had gone to a place where he expected there to be no sound, yet sound was nevertheless discernible. He stated “until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music.” (Wikipedia)

Composers cannot create music out of silence because silence does not exist. Even if it did, unless we are deaf, it is impossible to perceive it.  Cage’s 4’33″, like Duchamp’s ready-mades, is a kind of “found art,” comprised of environmental sounds that already exist.  We are all constantly surrounded by sounds, they are unavoidable elements of our environment.  The role of composers and musicians is to organize and present those sounds, which is exactly what  remix and mash-up artists do today when they create new music from the found sounds and cultural artifacts found in our environment.  In a way, the “found-sound” composition 4’33″ is an Ur-remix, a remix of (non)silence and of reality itself, and John Cage an avant la lettre master of the mash-up.

All of this has inspired my latest composition: 433 trees falling in the forest with nobody to hear the sound. (C) 2009 Lee-Sean Huang, published by Hepnova Multimedia LLC.  All Rights Reserved.

Tonight Creative Commons co-hosted a San Francisco screening of RIP: A Remix Manifest, a documentary about remix and copyright.  The movie features interviews with remix culture pioneers and opinion leaders like Girl Talk, Lawrence Lessig, Gilberto Gil, and Cory Doctorow.  RIP was on my summer viewing list.

I went to check out the screening with Michelle, another Creative Commons (and lurking reader of this blog).  Filmmaker Brett Gaylor did a Q&A after the screening.  He also introduced special guest Dan O’Neill of Air Pirates fame, who was profiled in the documentary.  You can download the film online under a pay-what-you-want model.

After the Q&A came the dance party. DJs Adrian and the Mysterious D and VJs Eclectic Method rocked the house with their mash-up madness.  I haven’t danced that hard in years. Awesome!

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.

My ITP classmate, Catherine White, has set up a community on Ning to discuss her ongoing project.  In her own words:

My research is primarily focused on how we work together in groups, particularly how to make collaboration more fruitful, and efficient (and less painful – because it sometimes is). Specifically, I am looking at groups we are part of online.

My thesis project came out of a midterm paper I wrote in March for Clay Shirky’s Social Facts class. I studied a forum online and discovered that there are some people who can be pretty disruptive in groups – even though they may not be violating the rules of the group. Its these people I’m interested in studying, to see how we can structure and govern groups to make collaboration enjoyable, not painful – and to ensure that group decisions reflect the group as a whole….

One small explanation about the term ‘Noisy Idiots’ – my main aim is to find ways to include people in debate and groups. The phrase came about in a playful manner due to sheer frustration at seeing some people dominate group discussion in a disruptive way. This paper tackles tricky issues such as balancing free speech and constructive conversation, but the aim is to get us all talking and listening to each other. I also understand the very important role that minority voices play in conversation – and am in no way suggesting that we shouldn’t listen to those with a view that is different to ours.

I’d be hugely grateful to hear your thoughts – and your ideas, thank you.

Read the the draft of Catherine’s paper and join the conversation at the Noisy Idiots Ning Community.

Here are my preliminary thoughts on the topic (Cross-posted on Ning):

Maybe you should put the paper online in wiki form and see what the crowd of angry idiots do to it

I understand that the choice to use the term “noisy idiots” is meant to be eye-catching and edgy, but what exactly do you mean by “extreme” viewpoints? If the Pirate Party or right-wing groups can elect MEPs to Brussels, than it represents in a way, that their views have been institutionalized or become more “mainstream” even if they are still minority viewpoints.

I guess what I have to more clearly distinguish between noisy/idiotic views and noisy/idiotic rhetorical styles (i.e. trolling). I have some far-from-mainstream political views, but I don’t usually go around harassing strangers on the street or online about them. You make this distinction on page 8, but I guess it would have been clearer if the definitions were made sooner.

You do clearly state that the paper is not about minority viewpoints, but about bad netiquette, however, I would argue that behaving outrageously is almost an essential tool for a minority group looking to make change in the world, whether their persecution if real or simply perceived.

If you look at history, many (most?) revolutionary changes have begun with a small group of noisy idiots, who keep it up until something in the socio-political climate tilts in their favor. While compromise and meeting “in the center” are crucial to the sustainability of a democratic system, the seemingly pathological rantings of the lunatic fringe can serve as important indicators of the health of the body politic. The question then becomes, how and why would someone come to believe that all Muslims should be deported in the first place? (substitute with any other “noisy idiot” belief)

Online fora are a place to blow off steam. In the fora you describe, it is doubtful that the people involved actually know each other in real life, or their identities are safely hidden behind pseudonyms. If I’m a noisy idiot, I know deep down that my online rantings are not going change anything. I’m either preaching to the choir or annoying people who disagree with me. Bottom line, trolling online makes me FEEL GOOD without having to take any risks, unlike trying to foment direct action in the name of my idiot cause on the streets. Posting on an online forum allows me to air my opinions that I wouldn’t otherwise hear in the mainstream media or political debate.

“Is there any other way.” It seems that the established solution is to raise the walls of homophily. After all, isn’t this why people live in gated communities, as to avoid the social friction of interacting with “the other”? Snark aside, the point is that the democratic process is messy, and not always civil and polite. YouTube Taiwanese politicians fighting to get an extreme case of what I mean. The more we scale up the size of a community, the more we have to break down into smaller units or sub-groups. That is why Congress has committees and the US is divided into states. We subdivide and compartmentalize in order to specialize and to better solve problems. The upside of homophily is reduced friction and increased group productivity and efficiency. The downside is that homophilous groups may get stale and eventually run out of new ideas. We do want Noisy Idiots sometimes to stir things up and “shock” us into new ways of doing things and inspire new ways forward. Noisy Idiots sometimes, but not too much. Find the balance and you save the princess and the Nobel Prize and World Peace are yours.

Also, related to your paper, you’ve seen this article, right?
NY Times: Ideas Online, Yes, but Some Not So Presidential
When the White House asked people to post ideas on open government on a new Web site, it heard about U.F.O.’s, marijuana and the president’s birth certificate.

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

Photo by Poppa-D’s Evil Alter Ego

Hepnova‘s Nicholas DiBiase mentioned in the Phoenix New Times for his Ignite talk on Food Security.

Video of Nicholas’ Ignite talk coming soon! Stay tuned at the Ignite Phoenix website.

Photo by azchrislee

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]

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.”

Michelle and I headed out to hitherto terra incognita Flushing, Queens today in search of some authentic Taiwanese and Chinese food.  Armed with a printout of a New York Times what-to-eat-map, we walked over from the last stop on the 7 train to the Flushing Mall.

Above: Michelle and Mouse.

When we walked into the Flushing Mall, it looked strangely deserted (and a little run down), but we followed our noses and finally found out that all the action was in the food court.

Above: We shared some Taiwanese favorites: oyster omelette (蚵仔煎) and steamed rice cake in a bowl with pork, mushrooms and shrimp (碗粿).  I had to go off the veggie wagon when dealing with the food from the homeland!

Below: A bowl of handmade beef noodle soup (手拉牛肉麵).  The noodles were thick and chewy and the beef extremely tender.  The broth was a little different from the typical Taiwanese-style beef noodle soup broth, which tends to be darker because it contains soy sauce and sometimes tomatoes.  This broth was light-gray and fragrant.  It reminded me of Vietnamese pho soup.

We also shared a scallion pancake (蔥油餅) and a cup of soy milk (not pictured).  The scallion pancake was amazingly crisp and light, but the soy milk had a strange off taste that happens when one burns the soybean pulp while making the soy milk.

I couldn’t help snapping this photo of the “Bland Houses” sign.  Funny, creepy, and definitely spot on.  Despite the savory food, Flushing was indeed very bland architecturally.

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.

Tonight, Catherine and I attended The Economist’s Art of Political Satire event, which featured improv comedy by The Second City and live, interactive cartooning by Kevin ‘Kal’ Kallaugher, The Economist’s resident cartoonist.  Kal did some live stand-up caricatures of politicians and gave the sketches to members of the audience.  He gave me the Sarah Palin caricature above.  That’s real lipstick on her lips!

Kal also taught us how to draw our very own George W. Bush caricatures.  Here are my two attempts below.  I think they came out looking like angry, constipated chimpanzees, but I’ll let you be the judge.

All fun and humor aside, I was very moved by Kal saying in his conclusion how lucky we are to live in a free country where cartoonists are allowed to criticize and make fun of our political leaders, unlike two-thirds of the rest of the world.  The Danish Cartoon Controversy highlights just how precious and fragile the rights to polical/artistic expression are.

The Sarah Palin dinosaur comic I did with Ruxy last month is a proud excercise of those rights and privileges.

Lest you think that PS1 has been totally taken over by the Scandinavians, I also highly recommend the NeoHooDoo exhibit for a defiantly New World perspective.

While I was a little burned out with working with physical materials after the struggle to build the Electric Chair Bear, my trip to PS1 has injected me with a bit more inspiration and a renewed desire to work with different materials and to create works on a large scale.

Yesterday, I attended a forum on democracy, politics and participation online hosted by OneWebDay at NYU Law School. The forum was part of Internet Week in New York. I have uploaded the entire panel discussion as a podcast for you to experience yourselves.

The Panelists:

Baratunde Thurston – Comedian, Pundit; Web Editor, The Onion

Andrew Rasiej – Founder, Personal Democracy Forum

Jay Rosen – Professor, NYU Department of Journalism; Founder, New Assignment.net

Moderator: Allison Fine – Author, Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age

Photos of the Forum on Flickr.

Today, Kris and I went to check out Playing The Building: An Installation by David Byrne at the Battery Maritime Building, an old abandoned ferry terminal in Lower Manhattan. The installation consists of an old organ wired to various parts of the building with wires. Pressing the organ keys “plays” the building by triggering various mechanisms that create sound. An eerily, almost haunted house sort of feel. Perhaps it’s just easier to listen for yourselves: here is an MP3 recording of Lee-Sean and Kris playing the building. Here are 3 more recordings of other visitors playing the building.

• Playing the Building 2
• Playing the Building 3
• Playing the Building 4

More photos of Playing the Building on Flickr

More photos of Playing the Building on Flickr

While we are on the topic of commitment and settling, don’t miss this past Sunday’s NY Times Magazine article on young married gays in MA.

For continued coverage and commentary on China, the Olympics and Human Rights, check out Human Rights Watch’s China Olympics website.

请不要出席29届奥运开幕式–致世界各民主国家首脑的公开信
作者:
中国社会民主党中央委员会

尊敬的先生们、女士们：
第29届夏季奥运会四个月后将在北京举行。我们获悉世界上的民主国家中，有的国家领导人拟定出席29届奥运会的开幕式，如美国布什总统等；有的拟定不出席，如加拿大哈珀总理等。我们谨敦促所有民主国家的领导人都不要出席29届奥运会的开幕式。
本来，作为中国人对奥运会能在中国的国土上举行是有着由衷的喜悦。可是我们又不能不看到举办奥运已被中国共产党政府高度政治化。它倾全国之力来举办奥运，仅为奥运改善北京空气一项就投入了150亿美元，这本身就是政治行为。中国共产党是想通过举办奥运来粉饰现实，来为它充满暴力、谎言、贪腐的政权涂脂抹粉，以欺骗世界舆论，延续其一党专政的政治结构。
虽然我们深刻地洞察这一点，但我们考虑到运动员们经过几年的刻苦训练都希望在运动会上显示自己的成绩；考虑到一些中国民众以在自己的国家举办奥运为荣；考虑到更多的中国民众将观看奥运比赛作为重要的娱乐项目，故此，我们不主张抵制奥运，我们愿意看到奥运如期举行。愿意看到中国运动员多获奖牌。
但是，你们作为国家领导人出席奥运开幕式就有着不一般的意义。开幕式不同于一般的比赛项目，高层政治人物云集的开幕式明显带有政治意味。你们出席开幕式可以诠译为对中共政权的认同、支持。作为民主国家的领导人去支持一个专制政权明显是不恰当的。我们诚恳地希望你们都不要去出席奥运开幕式。如果你们对某些体育运动项目确实爱好的话，你们可以专项地去观看那些比赛。
敬请你们能认真考虑我们的意见，并作出有利于中国民主事业的正确的抉择。
顺致崇高的敬意！

中国社会民主党中央委员会
2008年4月15日

Please Do Not Attend the Opening Ceremony of the 29th Olympic Games
—A letter to Leaders of Democratic Nations

Respected Ladies and Gentlemen:

The 29th Summer Olympic Games will be taking place in Beijing about four months from now. We learn that some leaders of Western democracies, such as the president of the United States, have planned to attend its opening ceremony; others, such as the premier of Canada, have decided not to. We, members of the Central Committee of the Social Democratic Party of China, urge all of you not to attend the opening ceremony.

As Chinese, we are sincerely happy to see the Olympic Games take place in China. However, we cannot ignore the fact that hosting the Olympic Games has been highly politicized by the communist government of China. On the one hand, the Chinese government makes an all out effort to host the Olympic Games and takes advantage of this opportunity to promote nationalism. On the other hand, it does not keep its promise to improve human rights in China. Its goal is to whitewash reality, to cover up the regime’s brutality, lies, and corruption, and to deceive the world community. Its real intention is the legitimization and continuation of the current political structure, the one party dictatorship. Therefore, its actions are highly political.

We do not advocate boycotting the 29th Summer Olympic Games even though we see through the Chinese government’s intention. We understand that all athletes want to show their accomplishments achieved after many, many years of hard practices. We understand that most Chinese feel honored to have the Olympic Games held the first time in their country. We understand that the Chinese view the Olympic Games as the most important sports event, and they want to see them in their own land. For all these reasons, we would like to see the Summer Olympic Games take place as scheduled, and we hope Chinese athletes will win a lot of medals.

Nonetheless, we want to point out that, unlike sports games, the opening ceremony featuring the presence of high ranking political leaders is a highly political event. As leaders of nations, your attendance will have political implications. The presence of leaders of democracies at the opening ceremony may be interpreted as approval and support for the Chinese communist regime. It is obviously inappropriate for democratic leaders to support an autocratic regime. We sincerely call on all of you not to attend the opening ceremony. You may certainly go and see your favorite items if you really like sports games, but please do not attend the opening ceremony.

We respectfully request all of you to consider this suggestion and make the right choice to support the cause of China’s democratization.

With best regards,

The Central Committee of the Social Democratic Party of China

2008.4.15

Show and prove your pride as an international citizen of Cake City. Thousands of people worldwide are casting off the chains of slackness and earning currency every day. Cake City isn’t just the new name for a certain metro area — it’s a state of mind, global village of the highly motivated.

Order your very own Cake City t-shirt, designed by Hepnova, today!

Fearing Crime, Japanese Wear the Hiding Place

Torin Boyd/Polaris, for The New York Times

Though street crime is relatively low in Japan, quirky camouflage designs like this vending-machine dress are being offered to an increasingly anxious public to hide from would-be assailants.

Published: October 20, 2007

TOKYO, Oct. 19 — On a narrow Tokyo street, near a beef bowl restaurant and a pachinko parlor, Aya Tsukioka demonstrated new clothing designs that she hopes will ease Japan’s growing fears of crime.

Read the full New York Times article here.

HEPNOVA now has a profile on Fuzz.com. Check it out, see band pics, listen to tracks, spread the word to your friends.