In light of MIA’s recent redhead persecution video, which was a bit of an overpriced joke, I thought I’d share a music video that is chock full of “controversial” imagery, most of it real and current. The first 40 seconds or so are quite strong. Nicked this from the most excellent Pampelmoose…
Last week the Supreme Court ruled five to four that “suspects must explicitly tell police they want to be silent to invoke Miranda protections during criminal interrogations,” according to the Associated Press. In other words, you do have the right to remain silent and to a lawyer, but only if you know any better and remember to announce your silence aloud. But maybe you haven’t heard that yet another of your civil liberties has been stripped away from you. Because after all this has gone virtually unreported by the “news”.
New Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor disagreed with the absurdity of the ruling, noting in her dissent, “Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent—which counterintuitively, requires them to speak.”
Sadly, according to The Los Angeles Times, the “ruling is in line with the position taken by the Obama administration and Supreme Court nominee U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan. In December, she filed a brief on the side of Michigan prosecutors and argued that ‘the government need not prove that a suspect expressly waived his rights.’”
It makes you wonder about Obama a bit, or maybe the presidency in general. Maybe in today’s world the personality behind the desk isn’t as important anymore. You definitely got a sense there was difference between the motivations and philosophies of the Bush and Clinton administrations, but other than the lack of born-again Christian crusading fervor that drove the Bush administration there hasn’t been much change on the civil liberties front.
A magazine I always heard about but could never find much info on over the years, particularly when it comes to imagery of it’s covers and pages, is Ramparts. I admired it mostly based on its legend rather than any actual first-hand knowledge.
It was revolutionary magazine that lived from 1964-1970 and was deeply committed to the civil rights and antiwar movements, its contributors included Noam Chomsky, César Chávez, Seymour Hersh, Angela Davis, Christopher Hitchens, and Susan Sontag. It was in its pages that Che Guevara’s diaries and the prison diaries of Eldridge Cleaver (which became Soul on Ice) first appeared. It also takes claim many other firsts: it published the first conspiracy theory about JFK’s assassination, it was the first to reveal that the CIA had backed the National Student Association during the Cold War, and its article about the use of napalm on Vietnamese children (another first) caused Martin Luther King Jr. to speak out against the war for the first time.
Ramparts left an important journalistic legacy, but it also visually changed the image of what political magazines could be by being neither stodgy like its East Coast counterparts or gritty like its underground ones. Ramparts combined big stories on serious topics with a kind of whimsy or irony that audiences found compelling. And the magazine was visually cleaner and more sophisticated than other magazines of the era, using Times Roman exclusively for every bit of text from cover to cover.
Here are selection of some of the magazines most notable covers.
Yes the chair is iconic, and so is the manufacturer, Emeco. The original Navy chair is a beaut, rich in trendy-lore and admired by the DWR set. Such a shame then that they partnered with such a lowly company (in every aspect) as Coca-Cola. It’s beyond rich that Coke is suddenly, after years of being a force for wasteful packaging, not to mention crappy tooth rotting drinks, now jumping on the do-good Eco® bandwagon. Clearly this a PR stunt (check the amount of launch parties) that will help them, and do very, very little to actual impact the huge negative effects of them being, well, Coke.
Nuclear Power isn’t safe. When it goes tits up, we end up with ghost towns, death and illness for thousands of people (and for many generations), contaminated land and wildlife… a massive toll in every way. Truly not worth the risk -however small proponents say it is. Chernobyl, twenty four years on. There is a mad rush (and big pressure) to build more of these plants, but we need to keep saying no to them. It’s just not worth it.
Bill Moyers is sadly now off the air. What a huge loss for journalism.
Check out his final show here. It’s a very enlightening episode, highlighting citizen activists in Iowa, and recent protests on Wall Street. Encouraging stuff. We need more of this, not less.
What an awesome big fuck you to Fortune-types. Lovely. Sad that a magazine of this stature can’t stand a little heat, or rather, truth. I wonder if Chris was hoping his cover art would be rejected. See his beautiful artwork here.
When the whole financial system tanked I was in support of propping up the “too big to fail” players. My only reason was to keep the economy from collapsing. I believe the bailouts worked, but its been a harsh and bitter pill, and it’s become obvious that the everyman has been completely screwed over in this process. Reading an article such as “Looting Main Street” makes me sort of wish we had let all the banks and wall street firms collapse and fucking burn. Of course doing that would put some hurt on them, but we’d probably be in a depression by now, and average people would be suffering far more than the traders and Execs. But still, reading about how badly they’ve done over people makes me furious, and cutting off ones nose to spite “them”… well, it becomes actually thinkable. By compensating for their actions with few strings attached, and demanding little in terms of rule changes to our unfair and corrupt financial systems, we just encourage more irresponsibility, more callousness. It’s mind boggling really.
A quote from this Rolling Stone article:
“The destruction of Jefferson County reveals the basic battle plan of these modern barbarians, the way that banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have systematically set out to pillage towns and cities from Pittsburgh to Athens. These guys aren’t number-crunching whizzes making smart investments; what they do is find suckers in some municipal-finance department, corner them in complex lose-lose deals and flay them alive.”
I first heard about Murray Hill Inc. on NPR (listen to it here). What they are doing is just hilarious… clever, biting humour targeting a very serious problem facing this country. Hats off to the guys at MHI for dreaming this up.
I love this talk by Dan Barber. Especially the last bit, where he really cuts through the bullshit laid on us by big Agribiz and the Bill Gates’ etc. In my opinion he is speaking the truth and getting at the core of it with his closing words- seen below.
(note: when he says “chicken to fish”, he’s talking about feeding fish pellets made of chicken bits…)
What we need now is a radically new conception of agriculture, one in which the food actually tastes good. But for a lot people, that’s a bit too radical. We’re not realists, us foodies. We’re lovers. We love farmers’ markets. We love small family farms. We talk about local food. We eat organic. And when you suggest these are the things that will insure the future of good food, someone somewhere stands up and says, “Hey guy, I love pink flamingos, but how are you going to feed the world? How are you going to feed the world?”
Can I be honest? I don’t love that question. No, not because we already produce enough calories to more than feed the world. One billion people will go hungry today. One billion — that’s more than ever before — because of gross inequalities in distribution, not tonnage. Now, I don’t love this question because it’s determined the logic of our food system for the last 50 years.
Feed grain to herbivores, pesticides to monocultures, chemicals to soil, chicken to fish, and all along agribusiness has simply asked, “If we’re feeding more people more cheaply, how terrible could that be?” That’s been the motivation. It’s been the justification. It’s been the business plan of American agriculture. We should call it what it is, a business in liquidation, a business that’s quickly eroding ecological capital that makes that very production possible. That’s not a business, and it isn’t agriculture.
Our bread basket is threatened today, not because of diminishing supply, but because of diminishing resources, not by the latest combine and tractor invention, but by fertile land, not by pumps, but by fresh water, not by chainsaws, but by forests, and not by fishing boats and nets, but by fish in the sea.
Want to feed the world? Let’s start by asking: How are we going to feed ourselves? Or better, How can we create conditions that enable every community to feed itself? To do that, don’t look at the agribusiness model for the future. It’s really old, and it’s tired. It’s high on capital, chemistry, and machines, and it’s never produced anything really good to eat. Instead, let’s look to the ecological model. That’s the one that relies on two billion years of on-the-job experience.
Look to Miguel, farmers like Miguel, farms that aren’t worlds unto themselves, farms that restore instead of deplete, farms that farm extensively instead of just intensively, farmers that are not just producers, but experts in relationships, because they’re the ones that are experts in flavor too. And if I’m going to be really honest, they’re a better chef than I’ll ever be. You know, I’m okay with that, because if that’s the future of good food, it’s going to be delicious.
An impressive video created by a German design student named Alexander Lehmann. This same film could be created for any number of countries - including the UK and USA. The most depressing part is that this kind of thing is no longer shocking (enough).
I need to see this film. Actually people in general need to see this film. This sort of awful behaviour by corporations, and the fact that they largely get away with it, is in part why there is a growing resentment against the US. Things like this shouldn’t be happening, especially by a country that prides itself on espousing good values.
I’d rather not go into a retrospective of the year but in the just over 3 years NewDandyism has been on the web a lot of things have changed - with us and the world - and I can’t begin to pretend to tell you I know exactly where things are headed. But what I wanted to do as the year winds down was address a few topics and answer few questions we have been hearing a lot from you, our readers.
Many of you have asked if we have lost some of our politically fire since Obama was elected president.
That’s a difficult one. Yes, it has been too long (2 months) since our last truly politically driven post. And there are a few reasons. The first reason is simple, sometimes we get so engulfed in what we actually do for a living, design, that we ourselves aren’t staying as informed as we’d like on all issues. And we are not ones to spout off without knowledge of a topic.
The second and most important reason is that although we are coming up quick on a full year of Obama in office, we wanted to give the administration of change a chance to actually do some changing before we begin to publicly judge. Up to this point we have been more than frustrated with Obama’s first year but still have a ton of hope he will soon escape the political mud.
But being involved in the process is not just about talk but action as well. And although we have not been as vocal here, we have been doing our part, however small, to better the world we live in by donating time and money to the causes we believe in. There are a ton of ways we can all be involved and we’re going to try to do a better job of keeping you aware the options out there.
Lately we have been hearing a lot of questions about our evolving style on the site - what’s up with that?
Yes, what is up with that? I’ve alluded to this a few times over the last few months within posts but let me collect all my thoughts here on the subject - well, it’s pretty simple, everyone’s style evolves, even if ever so subtly. We are designers after all and we are in a constant internal struggle with pushing the boundaries and what the end user is willing to accept. Through this process we are continually exposing ourselves to new ideas, experiences, and inspiration. It is inevitable that our lives will shape our style. We are no trend whores but to think that how we dress today will be how we dress forever is unrealistic no matter how “trad” we think we are. We have always pushed for investment shopping not just out of our on style philosophy about buying clothing and objects that will stand the test of time but also, and most importantly, because we are eco conscience people and hate the thought of more product being manufactured that is inevitably headed to the landfill.
All that being said, we do have a proven track record of understanding what will be trending and you can see some of those influences in our content. But sorry to all you industry folk that visit us regularly, we will not be giving any free trend reports here. However, we will continue to bring you our perspective on the things we love and find interesting.
Who are you guys?
Another good question. We forget sometimes that not everyone is in our industry that visits ND and that many of you are not truly sure who is writing all this opinionated dribble. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions but I will promise you that we will get our shit together and finally fill in the blank that is our “who” page.
For those of you that have not discovered our email address on that “who” page, you can email us with all your thoughts, questions, or feedback at contact@newdandyism.com.
So cheers to 2009, and wishing all of you a prosperous and adventurous New Year.
I love this trailer. So different from the ones they do now, where the entire movie is shown in “best-of” snippets. Welles was a bloody genius. From the series of doc segments (after the jump) you can see how he started to unravel. So it seems most everyone has to deal with a failure in leadership, or management armed with grand myopia… I’m not sure if I take comfort in this realization, or if its a sad comment on the world.
I went to see the new Yes Men film last night at Coolidge corner. It turned out to be an inspiring film.
It was funny, sometimes hilarious, other times shocking and saddening. All in all it gave me some hope that something can be done to better the world. A few of us are trying to do just that. Some are having some impact, though mostly on public opinion I’m afraid. Many corporate polluters, etc. just seem to keep on going, despite the facts, criticism or ridicule from films like this one.
Anyhow, the main stars of The Yes Men were present for a Q&A and also for a photoshoot to help support an upcoming planned protest. I wanted to walk over and thank them but they were pretty busy answering questions and posing for photos. Instead I grabbed a couple of their “recent” NYT issues they had created and scampered off. I was supposed to leave a donation but instead I’ll contribute to one of their future escapades.
Today, after re-reading the fantastic article “Faustian economics: Hell hath no limits” I also read an excellent interview in the Sun magazine with Wendell Berry. He is a hero of mine, and his words rand true, but I ended up feeling quite beleaguered and discouraged. As Alvin Toffler once said, and I paraphrase, modern man seems to be living two lives. He can co-exist with both, even though they are seemingly contradictory. For example a person could work at a factory manufacturing chemical warfare weapons, yet return home and be a loving parent with strong Christian values and have no qualms about it.
I feel movies such as “Yes men fix the world” can fill people with outrage but the actual actions needed to change things are lacking. We know what the right thing to do is, but seem largely incapable of doing anything. Are we beaten down by years of television-fed pap? Or is there a general sense of powerlessness from a culture of too much choice? I’m sure its not a simple answer. But still I wonder why…
Oh- wait, no, that was the YES Men standing in for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce when they stated they would be reversing their stance on climate legislation! Also here is the fake site they set up.
This is old news by now, but I must take this opportunity to say I appreciate this group is out there taking on these issues. My hat goes off to the Yes Men for yet another ballsy and funny attempt at bringing some truth (and gasp! honesty!) to this matter. I’m interested to see if they can be charged with anything. Was it a parody? A bit of media-fueled fun? Eric Wohlschlegel apparently didn’t think so, and I’m sure many others won’t either. Since then, the plot has thickened, with the Chamber now seemingly circling the wagons in what it views as an attack on American business.
“They’re attacking us for having the audacity to oppose legislation that would be harmful to American employers and cost vital American jobs.”
Way to drum up support. Make a populist appeal, and make it sound like a bunch of tree huggers are out to destroy American jobs. Yeesh.
Oh, and if you are interested, check out more commentary from the folks at HuffyTP from October 20th.
Cynics: the HD trailer for the film they are currently promoting can be viewed/downloaded here.
To quote my earlier words on the man…”As someone who grew up in the 80′ and 90’s I don’t think I ever really got the full impact of who Teddy Kennedy was as a politician and the kind of drive it took to push through the tragedies of his life (some self-imposed) to continue to be a very influential voice for liberals within the Senate. I’ve read a lot of his stubbornness which explains his hard time letting go of some of his hard-living bad habits, notably his drinking. But I have not read enough about his role in getting civil rights legislation passed as well as his long battle trying to bring healthcare to everyone.
Kennedy served in the Senate for almost 47 years, more than a fifth of the life of the Constitution. He arrived in 1962, before passage of the important civil rights laws, and before the more humane sensibilities that those laws helped to shape. For most of his career he served with the only two senators whose tenures were longer than his - South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond and West Virginia’s Robert Byrd, still serving at 91. The latter was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The former was an unyielding segregationist until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - which a larger percentage of Republican than of Democratic senators voted for - began changing Southern electoral arithmetic. Ted Kennedy participated in unmaking the society that made them. - George F. Will, Washington Post Writers Group
Fate toyed with Teddy Kennedy. He was rich. He was famous. He was powerful. Yet he controlled so little. He drank too much, ate too much, risked too much, and did not have the imagination to ever question a liberalism that desperately needed updating. … Ultimate success eluded him; tragedy and failure enriched him - a life’s journey that took him from being his father’s youngest son to his very own man. He was born a Kennedy, but he died just one of us. - Richard Cohen, Washington Post Writers Group
As a senator, as the de facto leader of liberal Democrats for decades, even as a failed presidential candidate, Ted Kennedy was always the same, pursuing his goals no matter the odds. - David Broder, Washington Post Writers Group
Kennedy’s passion for helping average Americans - his liberal impulse guided by a deft, and often bipartisan, legislative hand - would shape what this nation became. - Marie Cocco, Washington Post Writers Group
When Kennedy came to the Senate as the youngest brother, he was told by an older senator, “you measure accomplishments not by climbing mountains, but by climbing molehills.” As an insider for more than four decades, he climbed molehills. As “a Kennedy” he bore the loss and burnished the legacy. As his own man he never lost sight of the mountains. - Ellen Goodman, Washington Post Writers Group
In 1975, James Stevenson, of the New Yorker, followed Kennedy for a few weeks, presenting him as both both a hard-working wonk and the keeper of the Kennedy flame:
He says there is no field other than politics that appeals to him. It takes years to learn the way the Senate works…. But his pace is dictated now by the number of things he feels must be done, as well as by concerns of his late brothers—issues that must be carried on. He wonders how many groups (like the A.M.A., the gun people, the anti-busing people, the insurance companies) he can antagonize and still retain a base of support that will enable him to be effective…. He doesn’t particularly mind being booed. “Many more things have happened to me that are much more painful,” he says.
Kennedy survived the Gingrich revolution, and helped Bill Clinton win a second term. In 1997, Elsa Walsh reported on Kennedy’s behind-the-scenes assist to Clinton’s campaign, and portrayed a man increasingly comfortable with his legacy:
In one of our last interviews, I asked Kennedy whether he ever thought about making another run for the Presidency.He laughed. “I love the Senate and think of myself as a Senate person, and that’s where my ambition lies,” he replied. He was in Hyannis Port, and we were talking by phone. “If one’s reach does not exceed one’s grasp then what is heaven for?” he asked, more or less quoting Robert Browning.
T. Boone Pickens continues to try and convince us to go with wind and solar power… a clip from Fox (below), also a short interview with ABC News. His adverts spit out some pretty impressive facts, I’m not sure of the accuracy but the general info makes a strong case for a radical change in direction. Its tough though when so many are deeply invested in oil, and convinced we can solve everything by just drilling more here in the US. For another spin on Energy have a look at “Wobble Time.”
I caught Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech on HBO earlier this week and I highly recommend everyone sit down and watch it. I can’t say it was the absolute best documentary ever made, but it was full of very valuable information and stories every American, and world citizen for that matter, should know about.
It offered a fascinating perspective on the evolution of the concept of free speech throughout the nation’s history, and examined how civil liberties have been trampled on in the name of national security in a post-9/11 world. The filmmaker is the daughter of noted First Amendment attorney, Martin Garbus. The documentary looks into his own experiences as a First Amendment lawyer, including the Pentagon Papers case and insights as a Jewish lawyer who once defended a neo-Nazi group’s right to protest.
The film also sheds light on all of those who were arrested and detained along with other protesters during a nonviolent demonstration at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. In the process of their defense, lawyers unearthed evidence that their organization and other peaceful groups had been subject to extensive surveillance by the NYC Police Dept.
See upcoming airings on HBO here, and for those of you without it, get on Netflix here.