Last Monday, a group pf poets, peace activists and myself presented poems by Guantanamo detainees. What next? Below is an update on recent developments as well as ways YOU can help close the book on torture.
INDICT BUSH says: Bush Six Likely to Be Indicted
 Publicizing the indictment movement requires placing newspaper ads, organizing national call-in days to pressure Congressional representatives, intensive media work, teach-ins and educational forums. Please consider taking a moment right now to make a donation to this new movement for the indictment of Bush. |
“Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo,” according to Scott Horton, law professor and writer for Harper’s Magazine and The American Lawyer.
“We are expecting a decision this week,” the Spanish prosecutor’s office told the Associated Press on April 14.
In an extraordinary conclusion to a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross that was just released, the Red Cross recommended that:
“the US authorities investigate all allegations of ill-treatment and take steps to punish the perpetrators, where appropriate, and to prevent such abuses from happening again.”
The Red Cross report outlines the capture and interrogation and torture of “high value” detainees at CIA “black sites.'” The report evidences criminal conduct carried out by the Bush Administration.
Coming from the Red Cross, this presents a major obstacle to those who would seek to block prosecution or suggest that the conduct carried out by Bush officials and the CIA could be considered lawful by any means.
This report presents direct evidence of the brutality and illegality of the Bush/Cheney Administration’s torture regime. Read more…
Earth Day/Earth Month: Good Days to Celebrate Love & Life!
I am writing from Room 16 of the historic Cliff House Inn located on the water in Mussels Shoals, just a few miles south of the famous Rincon surf site where the Big Monkey and I celebrated Earth Day Read more…
“Because scarcity is a myth constructed to keep us at the mercy of the economy!” LA Free Market April 19, 2009
Earth Day Network emailed me with a reminder on where, why and how to get involved in Earth Day in your community, no matter where you live! Want to know more about what to do to help save the earth? Below you’ll find links for a free e-Book and info on a book for Green Teens! So here we go–Earth Day 2009!
Earth Day Eco Festival
Sponsored by the Ventura Charter School
Saturday, April 18th
11am to 7pm
Promenade Park – Ventura
(Next to the Ventura Fair Grounds)
Come visit VCCool’s booth at this year’s Eco-Fest Earth Day festival. Join our new Ventura Bicyclists Union and get an original bike-art TShirt, get personally involved with Public Transit, learn about the Green Urban Design pod, and more! There will also be many other booths, workshops, music, food, kids events all day! More Info. At 3:00 VCCool will be part of the Green Panel: VCCool, Kids vs. Global Warming, Ventura City Council member, CAUSE, and Ventura Surfrider Foundation. The Ventura Botanical Garden is also offering a local garden tour.
Earth Day Green Home and Garden Tour and Expo
Sponsored by the Midtown Ventura Community Council
Sunday, April 19th
11am – 4pm
1290 E. Thompson Blvd., Ventura
The VCCoolers will also have a booth at the Green Home and Garden Tour and Expo. This Earth Day event also includes the California Native Plants sale, and self-guided tours of Mid-Town’s greenest homes and gardens. (Tours $10)
LA’s Really Really Free Market and Picnic
“Because scarcity is a myth constructed to keep us at the mercy of the economy!”
No money. No Barter. No trade. Everything is Free.
If you like freecycle, you’ll LOVE this!
LA’s Really Really Free Market and Picnic
When: Saturday April 18th, 2009
Where: 1-5PM @ Mac Arthur Park (Corner of 7th and Parkview)
Please bring usable items, food, skills and talents to give for the sake of giving.
Vegan Potluck + Free lunch provided by Food not Bombs
Public Transit: Red Line: Exit Westlake Mac Arthur Park or Wilshire Bus #18 or 720 Rapid
Earth Day is next Wednesday April 22nd! Get involved in your community!
Locally, Ventura College is having an Earth Day and Campus clean-up April 22; check back for more details.
Here are some ways you can get involved:
- Volunteer and participate in events in your city! Join Planet Green, Earth Day Network, non-profit organizations and city parks across the U.S. this weekend, April 17-19. Click here to sign up!
- Send an Earth Day E-Card, and check out the Earth Day Take-Home Kit.
- GenGreenLife has launched a Facebook application called Every Day is Earth Day. Every day leading up to April 22nd, the app will suggest a way that you can decrease your environmental impact. The goal is to offset at least 100,000 lbs of CO2 which equals an estimated 20,000 Facebook users! Grab the application here.
Be part of the solution!
Just in time for Earth Day, Grist.org is giving away free downloads of their environmentally focused book, “Wake Up and Smell the Planet: The Nonpompous, Nonpreachy Grist Guide to Greening Your Day!” This is a great call to action to not just be eco-conscious one day each year, but to be earth-friendly every day! Get the ebook here.
Do you have a Green Teen or do you want to cultivate one? Read more…
Springsteen’s fans: the nicest people
You meet the nicest people at a Bruce Springsteen show. Really. It could be Bruce, his music, his philosophy. It could just be that the music makes you feel good and smile more and be friendly. Maybe it’s a shared bond, the communal experience, like being in church with an incredible choir. I’m sure there’s plenty of blog posts out there on the subject so I’m not going to belabor the point.
Last night we hung out with some really cool people. Sitting next to us Read more…
“We’re here with a mighty purpose in mind! We’re gonna rock the house! But we’re not only going to rock the house, we’re going to build a house. We’re going to take fear and build a house of love; we’re going to take sadness and build a house of joy; we’re going to take doubt and build a house of faith; we’re going to take despair and build a house of hope.” Bruce Springsteen April 15, 2009
“Gonna build a house, got all the tunes we need to build a stage, gonna build a house out of music!” Bruce Springsteen, April 16, 2009
Tonight, after the Bruce Springsteen Working on a Dream show at the LA Sports Arena, we hung out by the exit waiting for Bruce and the band to come out, sign autographs, and talk.
And I am happy to report, that finally, after 22 years of trying, tonight The Big Monkey finally got Bruce Springsteen to sign an enlarged photograph of them together which was taken here at the Sports Arena in 1987.
But I’m jumping ahead of myself! Let me tell you about the show first. It was great of course, and Mike Ness of Social Distortion showed up and they wailed on the guitars showing no mercy whatsoever (more about that–and that photo is from a previous gig–we’ll see later if I find any or if mine came out!) and then the Big Monkey got his picture signed! (Yes it’s a really big BIG deal! He is beside himself with joy!)
Tonight was the one year anniversary of Danny Federici’s death, the organ player who had been friends with and played with Bruce the longest. They went to high school together and started playing together in the late 60s. According to WIkipedia, Federici died on April 17, 2008 in New York having suffered for three years with melanoma.[7][8] Springsteen’s newest album, Working on a Dream, is dedicated to him. There’s a tribute to Danny on Sunday at the Troubadour in LA with Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello who dropped by and played last night. Danny’s son, Jason, who plays accordion will be there as well as other guests.
It seemed like those memories were weighing heavy on Bruce and the band tonight, but possibly inspiring them also Read more…
LA #1: Fallen Angels in the Darkness Seeking Light
by Guest Blogger Ron Wells
Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost,
I’ll be there on time and I’ll pay the cost,
“I’ll be on that hill with everything I got,
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town.”
Bruce Springsteen
“Watch out now, take care…..beware of darkness.”
George Harrison
The Los Angeles Sports Arena, which opened in 1959, stands weathered, beaten and bloodied like one of the boxers who used to fight here in its glory days. It stands down the street from brightly lit, commercialized and hyped Staples center and the Nokia Theater, where the beautiful people go and “rattle their jewelry” rather than applaud, as John Lennon would say. This small, forgotten and neglected little arena stands not far from Hollywood where George Harrison finally got his star on the Walk of Fame this week, but it also stands on the darkness on the edge of all the glittering lights of LA, a city that is, more often than not, nothing more than a somber refuge and a last resting place for the fallen angels who came here seeking light and glory, and found only darkness and despair.
And this is the place that Bruce Springsteen has chosen to play his concert.
For it is here where memories reside along lost treasures: where he played Halloween shows after rising, smiling, from a coffin; where he led everyone in singing happy birthday to Roy Orbison; and where he brought the wounded and noble Vietnam Vets on stage to remind us of the true cost of war.
It is here then, with nary a luxury box to seen, that Bruce Springsteen proclaims, “This is the joint that don’t disappoint.” Read more…
Instead of agonizing over our taxes tonight, The Big Monkey headed down to the LA Sports Arena to hear Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band where he was thrilled once again by Tom Morello joining Bruce on stage for “Ghost of Tom Joad” (photo from last year’s show from http://www.tdpri.com; go here to read about last year’s show with Morello: Seeing Springsteen after the Show & Anaheim Night 1 in Top Ten of 100 shows). Tomorrow night we’ll both go down; who knows what Bruce has in store for us?
Right now, the Big Monkey’s hanging around back stage with old friends, fellow followers of Bruce, waiting for the Boss to come out for a few handshakes. Of course he has that photograph of him and Bruce from their younger years which he hopes Bruce will sign.
So while I wait to hear more details about the show from him, here’s the set list from Bruce Springsteen’s “Working on a Dream” tour April 15, 2009 LA Sports Arena: Read more…
No Room for Do Lab’s Lightning in the Bottle in 2009
What’s up for the Do Lab and Lucent Dosier after Coachella 2009?
Last year, we joined the throngs under the oaks in the hills behind Santa Barbara over a drizzly, slippery Memorial Day Weekend for the Do Lab’s Lightning in a Bottle. But this year, there’s no room to be found for the event, according to an email we received a few weeks ago. Why? we wondered. Guess we weren’t the only ones wondering:
It has come to our attention, based on the feedback from our last email, that we need to clarify our situation Read more…
Getting ready for Coachella 2009? Better practice this dance which the Do Lab’s Lucent Dossier will be performing with YOU!
IF YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO PERFORM AT COACHELLA BUT JUST WEREN’T SURE HOW TO DO IT, NOW YOU CAN DO THIS DANCE ALONG WITH LUCENT DOSSIER WHILE THEY DO THE SHIMMY SHAKE IN THE 2009 COACHELLA WATER SHOW! THEY WILL BE PERFORMING 3 TIMES A DAY FRI., SAT., AND SUN! SO CATCH THEM WHILE YOU CAN! COME BACK OVER AND OVER TO PLAY ALONG WITH THEM!
Getting ready for the May Day Bike Prom and Prom Ride to the Promenade? Wouldn’t it be fun to do this dance in our Prom regalia at some of our stops?? A little flash dance to entertain the masses? You know I’m gonna learn it!!
Tax Time April 15, 2009: for whom the bell tolls?
Today is April 15, Tax Day. By now most people in the United States probably have their 2009 taxes done since they are due at midight tonight. (In case you had any doubts, I am not “most people;” I’ll get around to my taxes when I’m good and ready! Besides, I know I’m getting some of my taxes back!)
In 2002, I wrote Taxes–3:15 Exp 2002 (post 4/14/08; ARTLIFE 4/03; between sleeps 2006) text here; this means it was a poem from the 3:15 experiment; the “Taxes” broadside was published in ArtLife (pictured at left) and the “Taxes” poem was published in Between Sleeps: the 315 Experiment from 1993-2005 (En Theos Press 2006).
Even though I’m getting some tax money back, I am still paying into the system, a system that I want to believe is fair, and where we all share the burden to provide public services which we all need like education, fire and public safety and which we enjoy and appreciate like parks and recreation, cultural affairs, museums, and events in our communities.
But US corps don’t pay what I think is their fair share of taxes. And some people make obscene amounts–from our tax money! You can imagine my frustration and outrage when I read this email from my union:
In 2008, CEOs and other executives responsible for our current financial crisis pocketed millions of dollars from bonuses and golden parachutes, while our government spent billions of our dollars bailing out their companies.
Vikram S. Pandit, CEO of Citigroup Inc., received more than $38 million in total compensation in 2008, the same year his company took $50 billion in U.S. taxpayer money.
To shed light on executive pay, Read more…
art predator 