The Ministry of Reshelving is a collaborative political prank/game in which participants move copies of George Orwell’s 1984 to non-fiction sections, such as U.S. History or True Crime.
The entry for this on Creative Activist refers to actions in Laramie Wyoming, making us Last Worders wonder if this is some of Klintron's handiwork.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Student's tall tale revealed - The Boston Globe
Well looks like that student who claimed to be visited by the department of homeland security was just joshing us all along.
But yesterday, the student confessed that he had made it up after being confronted by the professor who had repeated the story to a Standard-Times reporter.
The professor, Brian Glyn Williams, said he went to his former student's house and asked about inconsistencies in his story. The 22-year-old student admitted it was a hoax, Williams said.
No reason was given for the hoax, but we here at Last Word think it might have been a version of "my dog ate my homework" for the war on terrorism era.
But yesterday, the student confessed that he had made it up after being confronted by the professor who had repeated the story to a Standard-Times reporter.
The professor, Brian Glyn Williams, said he went to his former student's house and asked about inconsistencies in his story. The 22-year-old student admitted it was a hoax, Williams said.
No reason was given for the hoax, but we here at Last Word think it might have been a version of "my dog ate my homework" for the war on terrorism era.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
jumping the border with a new pair of kicks
Declarations of emergency in US border states like Arizona and New Mexico have kicked the immigration debate into high gear.
Artist Judi Werthein has walked smack into the middle of this controversy.
She is hoping to leave her footprint with a special "crossing trainer" she has designed to help illegal immigrants negotiate the sometimes deadly terrain they encounter when crossing the border from Mexico to the US...
...They call the act of crossing the "brinco" - literally "jump" in Spanish. And that is the inspiration for Werthein's crossing shoes, called Brincos.
The trainers are adorned with unusual items.
"The shoe includes a compass, a flashlight because people cross at night, and inside is included also some Tylenol painkillers because many people get injured during crossing," Werthein says.
The trainers are equipped with a compass, light, map and painkillers
The artist was commissioned by a cross-border arts exhibition called inSite to develop a project that "intervened" in some aspect of border life.
While researching her project, the Argentine native became fascinated by illegal immigrants' primary mode of transportation - their feet.
"If they go through the sierra, they walk eight hours. Their feet get hurt. There's a lot of stones and there are snakes, tarantulas. So that's why it is a little boot," she says.
The Brinco is an ankle-high trainer which is green, red, black and yellow.
An Aztec eagle is embroidered on the heel. On the toe is the American eagle found on the US quarter, to represent the American dream the migrants are chasing.
A map - printed on the shoe's removable insole - shows the most popular illegal routes from Tijuana into San Diego...
Read More at the BBC... or at Infowars
Artist Judi Werthein has walked smack into the middle of this controversy.
She is hoping to leave her footprint with a special "crossing trainer" she has designed to help illegal immigrants negotiate the sometimes deadly terrain they encounter when crossing the border from Mexico to the US...
...They call the act of crossing the "brinco" - literally "jump" in Spanish. And that is the inspiration for Werthein's crossing shoes, called Brincos.
The trainers are adorned with unusual items.
"The shoe includes a compass, a flashlight because people cross at night, and inside is included also some Tylenol painkillers because many people get injured during crossing," Werthein says.
The trainers are equipped with a compass, light, map and painkillers
The artist was commissioned by a cross-border arts exhibition called inSite to develop a project that "intervened" in some aspect of border life.
While researching her project, the Argentine native became fascinated by illegal immigrants' primary mode of transportation - their feet.
"If they go through the sierra, they walk eight hours. Their feet get hurt. There's a lot of stones and there are snakes, tarantulas. So that's why it is a little boot," she says.
The Brinco is an ankle-high trainer which is green, red, black and yellow.
An Aztec eagle is embroidered on the heel. On the toe is the American eagle found on the US quarter, to represent the American dream the migrants are chasing.
A map - printed on the shoe's removable insole - shows the most popular illegal routes from Tijuana into San Diego...
Read More at the BBC... or at Infowars
Monday, December 19, 2005
The Price of Oil - New York Times
"Ecuador is another victim. After oil was discovered in its Oriente region in 1967, Texaco and a state-owned oil company operated an extraction program that, a quarter century later, had reduced parts of the Amazon to a deforested miasma of pollution and poverty. Chevron, which purchased Texaco, now faces a billion-dollar lawsuit accusing it of poisoning the land. Ecuador had a negligible foreign debt before oil was found but now owes $16 billion and, the greatest insult of all, more than 70 percent of the population now lives in poverty."
via Treehugger
via Treehugger
Agents' visit chills UMass Dartmouth senior: 12/ 17/ 2005
A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."
link via librarian.net
link via librarian.net
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Friday, December 16, 2005
fuck x-mas {dot} org
Oh man, fuck Christmas.
Seriously – are you kidding me with this “There’s a war on Christmas” bullshit? FOX News wasn’t raking in enough cash already from all the Christmas commercials for Kill ‘em All Barbie and Girls Gone Wild Brand Toddler Gear? They had to start publishing books about some bogus attack on Christianity? And who did they pick to lead this particular charge?
John fucking Gibson. This guy has wiener written all over him.
Bill O’Reilly gets all the credit as the biggest nutcase in FOXville, but Gibson really deserves his own special wing in the happy house. This motherfucker’s embedded assignment reads “Up Karl Rove’s ass.”
Read More...
Thanks to Dr. Gabbo for this hot tip!
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
pulp-pod cases all the rage
thanks to boingboing these hip old mass market paperback pulp novel ipod cases might actually make their innovative originators a buck or two. i just like 'em 'cause they have something to do with books in a world that does not have enough to do with books.
Monday, December 12, 2005
A Book to Change the World
Most excellent! A book from one of my favorite blogs. We should definitely stock this.
Worldchanging, the book will also include a lot more how-to information: hands-on guides for getting things done -- access to resources for making better decisions on everything from greening your home and transforming your community to investing your money responsibly and advocating effectively. We know that there's a huge need for better information on how we can each in our own lives have an impact (we know this in part because you keep telling us), information that transcends the trite formula of small steps (50 things you can do to save the planet; 10 things you can do to prevent asteroid impacts, etc...) to give us useful operating instructions for building our own responses to the problems the planet faces. This is something we've been wanting to do for a while, but have lacked the opportunity and resources to do well.
Worldchanging, the book will also include a lot more how-to information: hands-on guides for getting things done -- access to resources for making better decisions on everything from greening your home and transforming your community to investing your money responsibly and advocating effectively. We know that there's a huge need for better information on how we can each in our own lives have an impact (we know this in part because you keep telling us), information that transcends the trite formula of small steps (50 things you can do to save the planet; 10 things you can do to prevent asteroid impacts, etc...) to give us useful operating instructions for building our own responses to the problems the planet faces. This is something we've been wanting to do for a while, but have lacked the opportunity and resources to do well.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old: It is the rust we value, not the gold.
alexander pope
"Imitations of Horace"
1733–1738
from wikipedia
"considered one of the greatest English poets of the eighteenth century.
Born to a Roman Catholic family in 1688, Pope was educated mostly at home, in part due to laws in force at the time upholding the status of the established Church of England. From early childhood he suffered numerous health problems, including Pott's disease (a form of tuberculosis affecting the spine) which deformed his body and stunted his growth, no doubt helping to end his life at the relatively young age of 56 in 1744. He never grew beyond 1.37m (4ft 6in)."
Saturday, December 03, 2005
How News is Made
by Dale Dougherty - link courtesy of boingboing
There should be a book titled "How News Is Made," a book that could be for journalism what "The Jungle" was to the meatpacking industry. My version would offer no conspiracy theory, but I'd point out the preponderance of sloppiness and lazy thinking coupled with a herd mentality, most especially in business journalism. I found a great example to illustrate what I've been thinking about, tipped off by an article written by Carl Bialik in the Wall Street Journal.
First, most of what we call "news" today starts out as a press release, which then becomes a headline, a sound-bite, and eventually a story. In a parallel to the way government operates, in which special interest groups lobby to create or defeat legislation, most of our news stories come as a result of PR efforts paid for by special interest groups (businesses) who have a stake in what becomes "news."
Read More
There should be a book titled "How News Is Made," a book that could be for journalism what "The Jungle" was to the meatpacking industry. My version would offer no conspiracy theory, but I'd point out the preponderance of sloppiness and lazy thinking coupled with a herd mentality, most especially in business journalism. I found a great example to illustrate what I've been thinking about, tipped off by an article written by Carl Bialik in the Wall Street Journal.
First, most of what we call "news" today starts out as a press release, which then becomes a headline, a sound-bite, and eventually a story. In a parallel to the way government operates, in which special interest groups lobby to create or defeat legislation, most of our news stories come as a result of PR efforts paid for by special interest groups (businesses) who have a stake in what becomes "news."
Read More
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