Alex @ 29: They bring in about $140,000 a year "from corporate underwriting, on-site advertising (in the form of a Google sponsor bar), grants and individual donations" (and are perfectly up-front about that -- see http://www.freecycle.org/about/funds).
abi @ 17: Apparently the district court issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the defendant from "disparaging" the freecycle trademark (just as we're doing here), which is what got the attention of all those legal luminaries. Free speech trumps trademark law unless you're actually using the mark commercially.
My impression is that TFN has jumped through whatever hoops are necessary to trademark "Freecycle", though the defendants are also arguing that the word "freecycle" is generic and thus shouldn't be available for trademark.
Mycroft W @ 131: "And *everybody* would get out of the way of the poor young man in the wheelchair - until I parked it, got out, and started walking back. Oh, the looks I used to get!"
When I first knew Marsha, she could walk a city block -- but then she was done for. So she tootled all over the city in an Amigo three-wheeled scooter. There were no curb cuts to speak of in those days, so when she got to the end of a block she'd hop off the Amigo, ease it down over the curb, and hop back on. People got very indignant, sometimes.
albatross@522: Note how easy it is to come up with justifications for why God wants you to do just exactly what you really wanted to do anyway.
Well, She does want you to do just exactly what you really want to do. Gods are scary that way. (Sez my pan-poly-theism, which sees the universe itself as the God/ess, and various pieces of it as gods, including each of us. So at least one god wants you to do just exactly what you really want to do -- once you've pinned down a particular you out of the many possible ones, and decided what that you really really wants to do. Meanwhile, the Big What Is consists of/approves of/creates the whole kerfluffle.)
Wait, you mean that lemon juice doesn't make you invisible to security cameras?
Of course it does! I've never been able to figure out how to get it inside the cameras, though.
Nancy Lebovitz: Consider the war on drugs. A corporation wouldn't do such a project-- it's too obviously unprofitable.
The slave trade, on the other hand, was quite profitable.
where do you get your FICA percentage from? From my employer's web site. That is odd, isn't it?
Don't have my tax rates easily to hand, but I do have another observation.
My employer (a public university in the U.S.) costs out the fringe benefits for full-time employees at 32.5% -- that is, if your paystub says you're getting $1,000 per week before taxes, the university is paying out $1,325 per week. The breakdown:
07.07% FICA
10.99% Retirement
13.39% Health, disability, and life insurance
00.48% Unemployment and workers' compensation
00.57% Tuition reimbursement
Other than the tuition reimbursement, most large U.S. institutions with defined-benefit retirement plans probably look fairly similar. (Institutions with 401(k) plans instead of defined-benefit plans probably don't spend as much on retirement -- that's their motivation for moving to 401(k).)
He was allowed ice water, and the nurses were fine with bringing it to him in small cups and helping him drink it--when they had the time. However, the big cups they had were too heavy for him to drink on his own (septic shock left him extremely weak), and they didn't have any alternatives.
The inside plastic bag of a Camelbak is very useful here. The Camelbak is a backpack-looking gizmo that bicycle riders use to drink from. The bag inside has a long tube with a bite grip on the end -- clamp your teeth down on the grip and suck and you've got water, let go and the water stays in the bag.
In the last years of her life, my partner Marsha had some use of her left arm and hand -- enough to use a computer with various aids, but not enough to guide cup to lips without spilling. Nurses in a nursing home have even less time than nurses in a hospital, so it probably extended her life by some years.
If I recall correctly, we started using it at home, before the nursing home and while it was still possible for Marsha to use a cup, just for convenience's sake.
Wish he hadn't felt the need, in course of discussing nature, to take a swipe at my religion: "...it is contrary to authentic development to view nature as something more important than the human person. This position leads to attitudes of neo-paganism or a new pantheism..."
Ah well, Popes, witches, what can you expect?
(Quote pointed out by Jason Pitzi-Waters)
geek anachronism @ 182: I am very uncomfortable with the 'we shouldn't apply the law because they feel bad enough already'
I believe the point is different. The point is that they didn't in fact violate the law, because the law in question doesn't punish simple negligence, but neglience with "callous disregard for human life." (As Gene Weingarten said in the online discussion previously referenced.) The fact that these people were devastated by their lapse of memory is adduced as evidence that they are not callous, not as exculpatory in itself.
As to the drunk driving analogy (do you really think drink drivers shouldn't be charged because it was their passenger instead of a stranger who died? ) -- that level of negligence isn't at issue in the cases cited in the article. You choose to become drunk. You don't choose to forget your child.
Anticorium @154: In Canada, I can say with confidence, this guy would spend nine days in jail and pay a fifty-dollar fine.
On the other hand, there is the case of Jaggi Singh, who has been charged with such crimes as announcing the availability of medical help as riot police charged a crowd, constructing a teddy-bear catapult, and demonstrating in violation of bail conditions from previous arrests. He was held for 17 days on the teddy-bear charge, though later cleared of it, and at some point fined a thousand dollars for interrupting a Stephen Harper press conference to protest Canada's involvement in the war in Afghanistan.
So a pie in the face -- nine days and fifty dollars, at least when thrown by someone named Evan Brown. Teddy bears alleged to be catapulted by someone named Jaggi Singh, press conferences interrupted by someone named Jaggi Singh -- heavier penalties, even in Canada. Shoes thrown by someone named Muntadar Zaidi -- who knows?
Joel Polowin @ 68:
Partly tongue in cheek? He ends with a story about coming across a hypercube in a Chinese curio shop, deciding that $12 is too much to pay, being unable to find the shop later when he changes his mind, but continuing to search: "When I do, I shall certainly buy the thing and bring it to Washington. There I'll make an offering of it to Mrs. Clinton as a sort of seed or crystal around which American society, politics--and indeed life--can be reconstituted along four-dimensional lines, for a truly millennial millennium."
My guess is that he had to be treated for a perforated cheek after that, unless it was a sprained tongue.
I would guess this is the same Jim Holt who wrote an article in the Oct 2, 2006 New Yorker entitled "Unstrung: In string theory, beauty is truth, truth beauty. Is that really all we need to know?"
So Wyatt Mason of Harpers is "disturbingly attracted to" the first sentence of A Canticle for Leibowitz by "the purity of its awfulness... coupled with its naked, flailing whorish ambition to seduce."
The sentence is this: "Brother Francis Gerard of Utah might never have discovered the blessed documents, had it not been for the pilgrim with girded loins who appeared during that young novice’s Lenten fast in the desert."
Mason compares it unfavorably with the first sentence of Moll Flanders: "My true name is so well known in the records or registers at Newgate, and in the Old Bailey, and there are some things of such consequence still depending there, relating to my particular conduct, that it is not be expected I should set my name or the account of my family to this work; perhaps, after my death, it may be better known; at present it would not be proper, no not though a general pardon should be issued, even without exceptions and reserve of persons or crimes."
He prefers the flourishes of the latter to the "bald details" of the former, for reasons he doesn't think it necessary to give.
I like them both, myself. But then I like the actual opening sentence of The Dispossessed and Samuel Delaney's de-flourished version. I am baffled as to why Mason thinks the Canticle sentence is inarguably bad -- perhaps because A Canticle for Leibowitz is disreputable literature that hasn't aged the 250 years necessary to be appreciated by respectable folks? (Mason makes sure we know he didn't buy or borrow it, but found it on a gas pump as he was filling his tank. He doesn't tell us what effort, if any, he made to find the owner.)
Bruce Cohen, #206: making the march as surrealistic as possible
David Graeber has a wonderful article "On the Phenomenology of Giant Puppets: Broken Windows, Imaginary Jars of Urine, and the Cosmological Role of the Police in American Culture" about why police hate giant puppets, even though puppets and such are the closet thing that anarchist direct actions have to peacekeepers.
Puppets tend to be surrounded by a much larger "carnival bloc", replete with clowns, stilt-walkers, jugglers, fire-breathers, unicylists, Radical Cheerleaders, costumed kick-lines, ... [T]he critical thing is that every action will normally have its circus fringe, a collection of flying squads that circulate through the large street blockades to lift spirits, perform street theatre, and critically, to try to defuse moments of tension or potential conflict.
Graeber mentions a number of pre-emptive police strikes against giant puppets and their makers including the April 2000 IMF/World Bank protests in DC and the August 2000 RNC protests in Philadelphia (yes! before 9/11! which changed everything! or not!) and the Summit of the Americas in 2003.
He says that police hate puppets because unlike, say, marshals with armbands, there is no chain of command for puppetistas and clowns. They can't be co-opted by the police, and they not only don't follow the rules, they subvert them: "A situation that is sort of like nonviolent warfare becomes a situation that is sort of like a circus, or a theatrical performance, or a religious ritual, and might equally well slip back at any time. Of course, from the point of view of the police, this is simply cheating."
Here's a message from Jason. His email is reclaimingscarecrow@yahoo.com .
Hey all, I am on my way to recovering after a tough couple of days. I appreciate all the well wishes and energy that has been sent with the intention for safety, freedom, and health.
I was arrested in a peaceful and permited assembly on Tuesday at the rnc. I was shocked, beaten and terribly hurt before being held for 40 hours in prison with only minutes outside of my cell. with the nature of the attrocity against me, I am writing to request help with building a case against the state.
If you are searching the web or have any links for the rnc that involve any footage about my arrest at 5th and Waccouta at Mears Park at about
5pm on Tuesday, Sept 2, please send them to me to help me in building a case against the state and in defence of peace, justice and our rights to assemble and free speech.
Here is a link to some video footage that has been found on line.
http://www.kare11.com/video/player.aspx?aid=81605
Any assistance that can be offered is much appreciated.
jason/scarecrow
Update on Jason and Ryanna.
elizabeth writes:
i spoke with Jason on his phone call yesterday around 3. he said, "i'm great, happy -- my body feels better every minute" he does have multiple lacerations to his head, face, torso and black eye. and a 4 inch long cut on his ankle that he said has just begun to stop bleeding. he is still pulling copper out of his hip himself. he was given alcohol wipes & antibiotic cream. he was tasered with four handheld & three protrusion guns.
he is fairly grounded and is trying to connect with us all. he knows we're with him there, and he's feeling ok.
we have Ryanna with us -- she was released yesterday around 7 and is feeling alright -- mostly worried about Jason -- listen for her on democracynow!!
we love you all. thankyouthankyouthankyou. elizabeth
here is some footage of the snatch & arrest:
http://www.startribune.com/video/27795154.html
http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=523539&catid=14
http://www.startribune.com/photos/?c=y&img=4protest090308.jpg
I know Jason myself. He's part of the Pagan Cluster, as are the folks who were driving the Permaculture bus that was seized, Elliot Hughes (also badly beaten), and Riyanna.
I've been in actions with the Cluster on several occasions. We do non-violent direct action, which includes civil disobedience as well as the bioremediation in New Orleans that Ambar mentions
The police don't need excuses to "use tear gas and pepper spray and concussion grenades". Jason was tasered seven times while lying unresisting in the street, then beaten; Elliot was pulled from his bike, beaten in the street so badly he coughed blood all night, and then tasered and beaten again in jail.
The latest I've heard is this:
UPDATE: Hi folks--not so much action today, but lots of really bad stuff is happening in the jail.
We're asking people to continue to call three people:
Mayor Chris Coleman 651-266-8510
Sheriff Bob Fletcher 651-266-9333
Ramsey County Chief Judge Gearin 651-266-8266
Head of the Ramsey County Jail: Ryan O'Neill 651-266-9350
On the good side, some progress is being made toward getting the bus back. Update on all that later. Thanks for all the calls and support, Starhawk
tristero @7: "I wasn't angry at Neal."
Patrick didn't mention anger. He said "The practice of sneering at other people’s pleasures while claiming superior virtue for one’s own is no lovelier when liberals do it."
Think, oh William Buckley rather than Jerry Falwell. Still unlovely.
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