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Hope for the future: The power of the positive

By Ari | Jul 2, 08 10:01 AM

I'm really happy a lot of the time. I'm also very hopeful about the future. Seriously, I sit around thinking and drawing and writing about all the wonderful things human beings are doing, how beautiful the future could be, and how glorious and resilient our environment is, all the time. Like for hours every day. This happiness and hope is what keeps me actively working for peace and justice - it's a huge motivator. It's also just really nice to feel happy and hopeful, which can be hard when you're educating yourself about injustice (which can be depressing).

I could focus on the horrors happening today and work against them or to stop them, and that's what I've done for years. This is a very negative, painful way of operating though, in my experience. It makes me worry if I'm even having an impact, and focusing on the bad stuff all the time can make me feel hopeless and helpless. It's also not a very attractive life, the tortured, self-sacrificing activist living a life of deprivation, with a burden of horrible knowledge - who wants to join in on that? "Join our struggle" doesn't sound like much fun.

So instead I look to successes, read about other activists and activist history. I begin to see how our action today is part of a long legacy of human movement toward peace and justice; I begin to see I'm not alone, that the world is full of folks who aren't only striving for a better world - they're building it right now, and we can all join in.

Here are just a few organizations and books and online communities who are working around these ideas of positivity and looking at the big picture. Every time I discover another group like this I feel another spark of hope and happiness, and I hope they do the same for you:

Anyone else out there into the power of the positive - or have other strategies for keeping motivated? How do you keep hopeful and happy in a changing world that still needs a lot of work?

Shirari's Peace and Love Podcast #3: Travel

By shirari | Jun 30, 08 06:26 PM

Get ready for an hour and twelve minutes of non-stop queer vegan rambling! Wait, that didn't sound particularly attractive. Rest assured it'll be worth a listen - in this third installment of Shirari's Peace and Love Podcast we talk about our recent trip to Israel, Amsterdam, and Iceland, and how we attempted to take best advantage of the fuel used to have a experience that was as low-impact and culture-rich as possible. You'll hear about a kibbutz that turns soda cans and other trash into eco-friendly buildings, bikes by the boatload, naked showers with Europeans, friendly ducks interrupting breakfast in a tent, a town where street art is loved and not hated, and delicious, delicious falafel.

Shira's voice is kinda quiet in this one, sorry about that! We're still working out the technical kinks here. If you're actually downloading and listening to these, please comment and tell us what you think! Thanks to those of you who've written to us or commented already, we're so happy folks are giving these a listen.

Shirari's Peace and Love Podcast #3: Travel »
June 30, 2008 - 72 minutes - 32.9MB

Show links:

Previously:

Watch Election Day on P.O.V. tomorrow night!

By Shira | Jun 30, 08 01:15 AM

From the folks at Arts Engine:

Our broadcast premiere is almost upon us! Election Day will air just in time for Independence Day on Tuesday, July 1, 2008 at 10 p.m. on PBS, during the 21st season of P.O.V. (Check local listings.) American television's longest-running independent documentary series, P.O.V. is public television's premier showcase for point-of-view, nonfiction films, and is a 2007 recipient of a Special News & Documentary Emmy Award for Excellence in Television Documentary Filmmaking.

And for those of you who may miss the broadcast and can't TiVo it, never fear. We are offering an early release of the Election Day DVD to alleviate just this kind of problem! Starting on July 1st, Election Day will be available for purchase at the Arts Engine store.

I had the pleasure of editing the trailer and designing the outreach materials and DVD for this awesome film. It's a great documentary and is just the kind of programming that needs to be seen as we approach the next presidential election. Watch it!

Columbia study on independent new media workers

By Ari | Jun 30, 08 01:10 AM

Any freelance web designers out there who want to help sociologists understand what's going on with our field? I spoke with Matthias at Columbia last week and had a great conversation about networking, relationships with other freelancers, quoting/estimating and fees, unionization questions, and other interesting facets of the freelance life. Here's info on the study if you'd like to participate:

You have been chosen as a participant for a study on employment conditions in contingent labor markets. This research is directed to gain a better understanding of this expanding form of labor markets and the exigencies it imposes upon workers in them.

Recent changes in organizational structure and employment relationships in the American work place have created an increasing amount of workers that work as singular self-employed. This study will scrutinize the actual demands that are exerted upon workers in this situation when the acquisition of future work becomes of major concern. For this purpose freelancers in the new media industry are a fitting target group, as their industry is characterized by a high percentage of freelancers, temp agents and independent contractors.

The study looks at how individuals adapt to the direct exposure to the labor market in terms of work load, skill development and life work arrangements and if and in which ways they use peers to delimit work load and secure continuous employment by leading guided interviews and collecting network as well as socioeconomic information. Of course all information gathered will be used confidentially and names will be anonymised.
Your cooperation might allow us to understand better the specifics of the new media labor market and to formulate policy recommendations to improve the situation for workers. Therefore, your participation would be highly appreciated.

If you agree to being interviewed, please email mt2430 -at- columbia -dot- edu or call the following number (646 552 2803) and we will set up an appointment according to your wishes

With our Best Wishes
Prof. Seymour Spilerman
(Principal Investigator Columbia University, Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Social Sciences)
Matthias Thiemann
Co-Investigator
(PhD-student Columbia\ Sociology Department)

Gogol Bordello and the oldest Roma settlement in the world, Sulukule

By Ari | Jun 30, 08 01:01 AM

Gypsy band Gogol Bordello supports Sulukule [Turkish Daily News, via Gogol Bordello Mailing List]:

Gogol Bordello's soloist Eugene Hutz, in the Sunday concert, said, "The incidents happening in Sulukule happen in many places around the world. Do people want more McDonalds' and hotel chains? Or is it more logical to protect a country's culture and historical structures? The choice is yours." (Read more)

Thanks to the NY Times, now I know that...

By Shira | Jun 29, 08 09:35 PM

Peter Sarsgaard likes the sound of rubbing his fingers together next to his ear, and Charlize Theron likes fried things. Thanks NY Times!

"Chickens are decent people." - George Carlin

By Shira | Jun 29, 08 07:06 PM

About four minutes into this amazing monologue about a woman's right to choose, Carlin asks, "How come when it's us, it's an abortion, and when it's a chicken, it's an omelette?" While Carlin was not a vegan (or vegetarian), he was an astute observer of American society, including its schizophrenic attitudes towards animals.

Carlin died just as I started reading Lenny Bruce's autobiography How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. Carlin has cited Bruce as an influence many times and was actually at the famous Lenny Bruce performance when Bruce was arrested for obscenity.

While America has a long way to go in the struggle for social justice, I've got to give props to these comedians for moving us forward in significant ways and paving the way for today's politically progressive comics. After all, could Stephen Colbert be named the 3rd most influential person of the year by TIME Magazine readers if Lenny hadn't pushed the envelope in the '50s and '60s? Nope.

Camp it up with Rude Mechanical Orchestra - Party tonight, NYC!

By Ari | Jun 27, 08 02:18 PM

Folly Day 2008 - RMO Horns Advance
Originally uploaded by LarimdaME

If you've never seen an activist marching band perform, and you're in NYC, tonight is the perfect opportunity to catch an amazing show. Our friends in the Rude Mechanical Orchestra are having a big benefit party, and we're bringing along some hand-drawn peace and love buttons and a poster in a hand-made frame for auction. We'll post photos of the stuff we made later on Flickr, or you can come see it in person tonight! For more info read on:

CAMP IT UP! with the RUDE MECHANICAL ORCHESTRA
Friday, June 27th at DCTV
87 Lafayette Street, NYC (just south of Canal)
$0-$20 suggested donation - $20 gets you a special gift!
Doors open at 7pm
Wear something CAMP-y!
HELP US GO PROTEST THE RNC! ***
Bike valet! Silent auction! S'mores! Stripes! Khaki shorts! Fun!
Buy a raffle ticket and win your chance to have the RMO perform at a personal event of your choosing! Yes, we're serious. 1 for $3, 2 for $5, 10 for $20. Available now until the party. Your event must take place after our tour and be in one of the five boroughs.
Also featuring:
Veveritse
Inner Princess
Melora auf Rasputina
Frank London
Jennifer Miller of Circus Amok!
DJ Dusty Walker
And, of course, the RMO
*** In August 2008, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra is taking our show on the road - in a low-impact, environmentally-friendly manner (no stretch SUV limo for us). We will be converting a school bus to run on waste veggie oil and traveling cross country for a two-week adventure -- to cross-pollinate with progressive grassroots organizations and other amazing movers and shakers, and to loudly register our dissent at the Republican National Convention. Along our journey, we plan to raise awareness about and support groups and individuals fighting against racism, sexism, homophobia, war and violence in all its forms. So come party with us and help one of the hardest-working bands in town send our rabble-rousing brassy selves to speak music to power!

Previously: Send the Rude Mechanical Orchestra to the RNC

Housing alternatives

By Ari | Jun 27, 08 10:48 AM

Ever since we read Mortgage-FREE! Radical Strategies for Home Ownership by Rob Roy, the transition from renting in NYC to... whatever it is we end up doing has gotten a lot more exciting. There are so many possibilities! Here are some ideas from Treehugger on better housing solutions.

My photo is in the "Click!" show at the Brooklyn Museum!

By Shira | Jun 26, 08 04:12 PM

This is the photo I submitted to the Brooklyn Museum's "crowd-curated" show, "Click!" and...it's going to be in the show!!! Can you tell I'm excited? You can explore the show online or come see it at the Brooklyn Museum, June 27–August 10.

There's also a panel this Saturday on Governor's Island as part of the Figment Festival:

Click! Panel Discussion
Saturday, June 28, 11 a.m.
Governors Island
Brooklyn Museum clicks with the crowd at FIGMENT 2008, a celebration of participatory art and creative culture held on Governors Island. A panel discussion about the process and outcome of Click! will be held on Saturday, June 28, at 11 a.m. Panelists include James Surowiecki, New Yorker financial columnist and author of The Wisdom of Crowds; Jeff Howe, contributing editor of Wired magazine, who coined the term “crowdsourcing”; Eugenie Tsai, Brooklyn Museum’s John and Barbara Vogelstein Curator of Contemporary Art; and Shelley Bernstein, Brooklyn Museum’s Manager of Information Systems and the organizer of Click! The panel will be moderated by Nicole Caruth, Brooklyn Museum’s Manager of Interpretive Materials and a freelance writer and curator based in Brooklyn. Please note: In order to make the panel you must take the 10 or 10:30 a.m. ferry, which depart from South Ferry and are free of charge. Specific travel instructions can be found on the Figment Web site. The panel will take place in Perkins Hall. Seating is limited.

We went to the Figment Festival last summer and it was awesome - hope to see you there!