The Return of Occupy: Beaten, but Not Down
You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming. ~Pablo Neruda My head hurts. Three months after my arrest during an Occupy Wall Street protest on #D17, and two days away from my meeting with the Assistant DA about said arrest, I got beaten just outside of Zuccotti Park. I wasn’t the only one, and I have no doubt I won’t be the last. The NYPD has complete authority in this town. I hate using the term “police state,” but when I saw a girl thrown from a bus and tossed to the ground, in handcuffs, having…
Help, Help! There’s an Elephant in My Uterus!
Alaska has become the latest state to fall victim to the Republican War on Women. It’s difficult to imagine today that Alaska was once at the forefront of women’s rights, and reproductive choice, but in 1913, the Alaska Territorial Legislature gave women the right to vote as its first official act. In 1970, a successful state-wide grassroots movement to reform Alaska’s abortion law, made Alaska the third state in the country to make abortion legal and safe, three years before Roe v. Wade. Alaska has a proud history of individual choice, privacy, and non-governmental interference in its citizens’ personal lives….
Read in China, but Banned in Tucson?
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” Think of the symbols of patriotism used, and overused in politics – most notably the stars and stripes, bald eagles, and of course the Statue of Liberty who proudly claims the quote above. There are seven rays emanating from her crown – one for each continent. Technically, Lady Liberty is so all-embracing she’d welcome native Antarcticans… if there were any. I grew up close to…
Sean Parnell Attends a Class in Propaganda 101
~Frank Luntz, GOP Minister of Propaganda By Shannyn Moore While most Alaskans were suffering through another cold, dark week, Gov. Sean Parnell was hard at work — on another junket, this time to the Republican Governor’s Association meeting in Florida. Odd — no palm tree beach shots on the state website. In fact, no official mention of the trip at all — just one picture on his Facebook page saying the governor participated in a “panel discussion on energy issues.” One of the presenters at the governors’ conference was Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist whose specialty is “testing…
Thanksgiving at Occupy Wall Street
Once again our intrepid New York Bureau Chief Zach Roberts was on the scene in Zuccotti Park, but this trip was far more peaceful than the last one, where hundreds were driven out of the park by police, and violence ensued. The spirit was more festive on Thanksgiving, where thousands of free turkey dinners were distributed to hungry protesters and anyone who wanted one. The People’s Library was back in business after thousands of books were thrown into dumpsters by police last week. One man who was hired as a private security guard to keep protesters from reestablishing their tent…
Rep. Don Young Loses it in House Resources Committee Meeting (Video)
Apparently someone put something in Don Young’s oatmeal this week. OK, yes… he’s got something in his oatmeal every week, but this week he got an extra helping. Or perhaps he jus needs a bran muffin instead. Or perhaps the propeller beanie he wore to the Resources hearing a few days ago was a liiiitle too tight. Whatever the reason, our “Congressman for All Alaska” was busily at his favorite hobby of seeing how many Alaskans he can get to put bags over their heads. This time, his display came when speaking with Dr. Douglas Brinkley, an “ivory tower elite,”…
The Cleansing of Zuccotti Park
By Zach Roberts F**k. My lens is busted – a cop hit it with a night stick. Then he hit me. Then he shoved me – I nearly fell backward into the crowd, tripping over the edge of the sidewalk. I would have been trampled. That’s when it got a bit scary. He was yelling “GET BACK!!! GET BACK!!!” Well, there was the road, and moving traffic behind us, but he didn’t seem to care. So, the choice was to keep walking backward and filming, possibly backing into moving traffic, or dart between the taxis. I made the decision to…