Birds Before The Storm

And maybe a little bit scary.

From Infoshop News:

As if the state of South Carolina didn’t have enough of a reputation, recent legislation now requires subversive groups to register with the government. A registration fee of $5 and the necessary paper work is now required for all groups seeking to overthrow the government. The law states that “every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States … shall register with the Secretary of State.”

here’s a bit of the law:

Every subversive organization and organization subject to foreign control shall register with the Secretary of State on forms prescribed by him within thirty days after coming into existence in this State.
…
Every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, of this State or of any political subdivision thereof by force or violence or other unlawful means, who resides, transacts any business or attempts to influence political action in this State, shall register with the Secretary of State on the forms and at the times prescribed by him.

where

(1) “Subversive organization” means every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, of this State or of any political subdivision thereof by force or violence or other unlawful means;

Download the form and register today!

Steal From Work Day - April 15th from Steal From Work Day on Vimeo.

I appreciate the sentiment, and the video is hilarious. I’m imagining what I’ll be stealing from Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness, or just from myself, and I’m having a hard time coming up with something.

At the risk of sounding like a mutualist (I’m not, no offense to em), I’m pretty pro people setting up worker’s cooperatives and/or working for themselves… finding ways to step aside from at least some of the absolute bullshit that people put up with in the capitalist system. I’ve never been fully convinced by the “wage slavery is still slavery” argument. Ah well. Solidarity to my comrades, I’ll still endorse SFWD: This April 15th, Steal Something From Work!.

(image from Toothpaste For Dinner).

Sometimes people make fun of anarchists in ways that I kind of just agree with. Not saying I’m anti-people or anything, but I’ve been a bit obsessed with Antarctica ever since I read the book of that name by Kim Stanley Robinson. Also, it’s a whole continent that isn’t actually run by a government. How neat! Just science, snow, and abominable snowmen. And airships, if you ask Stan.

(graphic design of flyer by Libby Bulloff, photo by me of a chicken named The Childlike Empress).

On Thursday, Feb 4th, Seattle’s Starfish Studios will be hosting myself and jeweler Noah Beasley as featured artists for their monthly artwalk show. It’s at 619 Western Ave, Fourth Floor South, from 6-10. It’s a one-day show, so please come out! I’ll be displaying work I haven’t yet put on the internets, but I’m really proud of it: I think it is some of my darkest work I’ve done, exploring what it means to open someone you love with a knife and fill them with cotton.

I’ve been looking forward to meeting my friend Gabriel Kuhn of Alpine Anarchist Productions in person at the SF anarchist bookfair in March. Unfortunately, I won’t get the chance, because his twenty-two state US and Canada tour was canceled by the US government who decided he was on the no-fly list and denied him entry. Thanks for keeping us safe, The Man.

If there’s a “radical history 101,” it is of course The People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. Zinn died on Wednesday, after fighting for radical social change for most of the twentieth century.

He also self-identified as an anarchist. There’s a bunch of arguing back and forth about this on the internets, but I think that Chuck0, the admin of infoshop news, put it best:

Anarchists need to get over the tiresome game of who is and isn’t an anarchist. That’s something for a place like WIkipedia where they argue about that endlessly. My “big tent” approach has always been to include more people in the circle of anarchism. Anarchism is not some kind of exclusive club. If an intellectual like Zinn, who had eveything to lose by idenitifying as an anarchist, called himself an anarchist and celebrated anarchists in his writing and speeches, then that makes him an anarchist in my book.

I hadn’t the chance to meet Howard Zinn, but the world is a poorer place without him.

And, fuck purity.

Ursula K. Le Guin and Margaret Killjoy - Mythmakers & Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers On Fiction from pdxjustice Media Productions on Vimeo.

there’s also a video of the more complete presentation (as done in Los Angeles) that I’ll be posting a bit later when I’ve got better internet.

So France is set to ban the burka. So… in the name of protecting women, they are going to harass and fine women. Yay. First of all, where does a country get off thinking they can ban various forms of dress? And how can anyone, remotely attached to ideas of liberalism or whatever, support this? I mean, I know how liberals can (and do, apparently) support this: they think that they can, by force of law, require women to abandon something that they think is oppressing them.

Now, I’m no fan of Islamic law. Or monotheism in general. But seriously. wtf.

Tour continues! I have a chance to stay in Portland and breathe a little bit, which is exciting.

The event at Modern Times was good, and it was exciting to meet more of the folks behind AK Press. And to eat the largest falafel I’ve even imagined to exist.

The next day, I spoke at a packed Long Haul infoshop in Berkeley. It went wonderfully, in no small part because of the hilarious readings by Tomas of Rad Dad and Artnoose of Ker-Bloom!.

Then Artnoose and I headed up to Portland, and on Monday I shared the stage with Ursula K Le Guin, who is absolutely amazing. She read from The Dispossessed and Always Coming Home, then I did my presentation, and we spent most of the hour or so answering questions. There was only one person who was all “nurrr why do you anarchists always ruin everything?” (which was funny because I’d just told the anecdote of someone asking Kurt Vonnegut “Mr. Vonnegut, why are you ruining the youth of America?”). But the room was absolutely packed, with over 300 people, and an amazingly diverse and attentive crowd. Certainly one of the highlights of at least the last year or so of my life.

Tomorrow I’m speaking at The Red and Black Cafe at Portland, then up to Seattle, down to Olympia, and then… no idea after that.

What’s amazing how this distills the irrational hatred that lives inside of people. I’m only able to realize this because they use “comic sans” instead of “papyrus.” I’m a bit soft on comic sans, at least in contrast to my all-consuming hatred of the font papyrus.