tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290720232683603072024-02-18T22:42:18.308-08:00PowersPerspectiveLife is random. Blogs should be too.Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.comBlogger156125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-52947242068822822332014-01-05T18:05:00.000-08:002014-01-05T18:05:06.697-08:00Peace, Love, and Pepper Spray <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Having spent quality time at Occupations in Los Angeles, New York, London and Chicago, about a year ago I received a phone call from my friend – Emmy Award winning former CNN journalist <a href="http://amberlyonlive.com/">Amber Lyon</a> – asking for help with a book on contemporary protest she was working on.
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“Come over for a day and write a few captions,” she said. I didn’t see the light of day for nearly a week. The result of the time served at “Camp Lyon” – as me and my fellow detainee/ PL&PS contributor <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/authors/dell-cameron/">Dell Cameron</a> jokingly called it – is the just-released coffee table book, <em>Peace, Love, and Pepper Spray</em>.
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With a Forward by David Lifton on the history of protest, the book chronicles the rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the new wave of protest it inspired. It also vividly shows the state’s all too often brutal response to it, and the increasing militarization of our nation’s police.
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Over the course of 12 chapters and 200+ pages, through images and commentary, the book highlights key events, such as the Occupy National Gathering in Philadelphia and the alternative “No Nato” Summit in Chicago, and actions like those conducted to halt the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The work of groups such as the Overpass Light Brigade, Code Pink, and Anonymous is also explored.
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In addition, the book features shocking first hand accounts from the frontlines from Lyon (in the Introduction) and journalist John Knefel (My State-Sponsored Assault Courtesy of the NYPD), and an essay on online protest by academic and author Gabriella Coleman (The Ethics of Digital Direct Action).
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“One thing’s for sure, protest in America will never be the same,” writes Lyon. “I only hope that the threat of pepper spray will never prevail over the voice of the American people.”
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<em>For more information on the book and where to purchase it visit: <a href="http://peaceloveandpepperspray.com/">peaceloveandpepperspray.com/</a>.</em>
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<strong>**UPDATE**</strong>
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<a href="http://tradiov.com/la/videos/suicide-girls-11-14-13/">Watch Amber Lyon talk <em>Peace, Love and Pepper Spray</em> on SG Radio</a> with host Nicole Powers, popular blogger and radio personality Brad Friedman, SG political correspondent David Seaman, and Strike Debt's Alexis Goldstein.
</p>Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-37925081394740495812014-01-05T17:59:00.000-08:002014-01-05T17:59:00.451-08:00Alex Gibney: The Armstrong Lie<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<blockquote><center>"The beautiful lie was much more profitable than the ugly truth."
~ Alex Gibney</center> </blockquote>
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Lance Armstrong was a man with an incredible and inspiring narrative. He beat testicular cancer and fought his way back to health and to victory in a record breaking seven successive Tour de France races (1998-2005). “It’s just this mythic, perfect story, and it wasn’t true,” Armstrong confessed to Oprah Winfrey in a televised mea culpa first broadcast in January, 2013.
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Armstrong had not only dodged rumors and accusations of doping throughout his racing career, he’d viciously attacked those whose stories didn’t lineup with his own. Following the 2005 Tour de France, in which he’d set the fastest pace in the history of the challenging and mountainous race, he announced his retirement. It’s likely he now wishes he’d quit for good while he was ahead.
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However, in 2009 he returned to the sport for what he hoped would be a victory lap. As he was preparing for his big comeback, Armstrong invited Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney along for the ride. However, the story Gibney’s cameras would ultimately capture was far different from the one that anyone concerned had anticipated.
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Armstrong failed to win his comeback Tour, though he placed a respectable third. Despite, or maybe because of his inability to recapture his former glory, the doping allegations intensified. Following a second ill-fated comeback attempt in 2010, Armstrong announced his retirement in 2011, but the charges of cheating didn’t end with his pro-cycling career. In August 2012, the <a href="http://www.usada.org/media/sanction-armstrong8242012">United States Anti-Doping Agency</a> announced that Armstrong had chosen not to contest a litany of evidence compiled against him. The agency stripped him of his seven Tour de France titles and banned him from the sport for life.
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Over the course of three years, Armstrong’s story had gone from too good to be true to that of one massive and highly orchestrated lie. Instead of capturing the truth on film, as might normally be the goal of a documentarian, Gibney had watched a lie remarkable in its scope and brazenness unfold.
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Gibney was forced to shelve his original film, but was able to revisit the project after Armstrong agreed to a final interview in which he promised to come clean. The resulting documentary is a winning piece of action filmmaking and a compelling example of storytelling. In it we see the fascinating anatomy of a lie, and witness Armstrong frame and re-frame his truth.
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We spoke with Gibney – whose previous credits include <em>Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room</em>, <em>Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer</em>, and <em>Taxi to the Dark Side</em> – about his film, which might not chronicle a Tour de France triumph but is nevertheless a tour de force.
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<strong>Nicole Powers:</strong> I have to say, I thought this was a really strong documentary. The way that you paced the race scenes, even though I knew who’s going to win, you still had me on the edge of my seat in the way I might be if it were a fictional movie.
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<strong>Alex Gibney:</strong> I appreciate that. Honestly, we tried really hard. We did have some resources in this film. When we shot the Tour, we had 10 cameras, so we were able to shoot it like an action movie – and I feel like we delivered on that.
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<strong>NP:</strong> You absolutely did. The whole circumstances surrounding this movie are so bizarre. I understand that originally Lance had approached you to produce a movie about his comeback. Why do you think he chose you, because you’re not the kind of person that’s going to make a puff piece on him?
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<strong>AG:</strong> Well, it’s not quite accurate to say that he approached me. My producers Frank Marshall and Matthew Tolmach – Tolmach at the time, when we started way back when, was an executive at Sony – they had been thinking about doing a fiction film based on Lance Armstrong’s book, <em>It’s Not About the Bike</em>, for some time. They had Matt Damon, who I believe was going to star, and they kept writing scripts but they couldn’t get satisfied with the scripts. So when Lance told them that he was going to be doing his comeback in 2008, they went to him and said, we’d like to shoot it, and Lance agreed. Then they went looking for a director and found me…I asked them the same question that you asked, which is, look guys, I just did <em>Taxi to the Dark Side</em>, why do you want me for this? They said, well, we think you’re a good storyteller, but are you interested in this story? I said, yes. I said I was interested in will – his will. Both the best part of it, this inspirational idea that someone on the edge of death can come back and be better than they were before; but also the darker side of it, the idea that winning at any cost is okay so long as you win.
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<strong>NP:</strong> Subsequent to you shooting the first round of material for this film, the big lie came out. Where you were in production on the original film when things started to unravel?
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<strong>AG:</strong> We were finished. We had mixed the film. Matt Damon had narrated it. We were done. Basically things started to come out and we started to add a few cards at the end of the movie. But the first movie was not absent of doping. From the very beginning, I asked Matt and Frank if I could deal with this issue – because I thought it might have been one of the reasons that Lance decided to come back, to put all those questions to rest. So the first film did have an element of it. It was a rather small element, but it was there. But then we kept putting cards at the end of the film. At some point we realized we were going to have to have about 20 pages of cards at the end of the film and we’re probably going to have to go back in and redo it. So we just put the film aside until some of the bigger storylines played themselves out like the federal investigation.
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<strong>NP:</strong> As an interviewer, one of my jobs is always to try and sense when someone’s telling a lie and challenge them on it. When you were chatting to Lance the first time around, how much did you think that he was bullshitting you? Or was he looking at you so straight in the eye that you were sold on his lie?
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<strong>AG:</strong> I would say it was a combo platter. There were times when he did fool me and there were times when I knew that he was bullshitting me. One of them I put into the film. My style often is not to challenge somebody directly when they’re telling me a lie, but maybe to redirect or ask again. Because I want them to tell it to me the way they want it to be, and then when I get into the cutting room, let’s just say I can add perspective. So the lie that I put into the film that was the easiest and simplest example was one where I was in the car when he hatched his wacky plan to have [his former teammate and rival] Frankie Andreu be the one who had to come interview in the tour. He was howling with laughter as he hatched that plan. Then, of course, I asked him on camera, “Was there any mischief involved in this decision?” He said, “Oh absolutely not.” Like a politician. Like Bill Clinton might have said, “I did not have sex with that woman.” It was evidently a lie. At the time, I didn’t stamp my feet and say, this is outrageous, you’re lying to me. I just moved on.
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<strong>NP:</strong> How much do you think this was about Lance being a pathological liar and how much do you think he was lying for his job like James Clapper?
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<strong>AG:</strong> I think it’s a little bit of both. Lance would say, look, I had no choice but to lie. But, what that leaves out is — first of all, that’s not true. Lance could’ve said every step along the way, I’ve never tested positive, which actually would’ve had the virtue of being true. But instead he said, how dare you say that I as a cancer survivor would ever use performance enhancing drugs. He made his lie enormous, which is something he didn’t have to do, but I think, over time, he felt he had the license to do. So that was more than keeping his job. That was a way of him burnishing his myth in a way that ultimately became very profitable for him. Then, when people challenged that enormous lie, he went after them, and went after them rather viciously for actually trying to tell the truth, which is the thing I think that most people don’t forgive. The job part is almost understandable. That is to say, he lived in a world in which almost everybody was doping. What is not so easy to forgive in fact is this idea that he made the lie so enormous and made so many people complicit in that lie, and then the way he attacked people that tried to tell the truth.
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<strong>NP:</strong> I know that you investigated the sport’s governing body. How complicit and corrupt do you feel they were?
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<strong>AG:</strong> I think they were complicit and corrupt…Sometimes in ways that may have been organic almost. They were never able, at least in my reporting, to go in and order people to destroy positive samples. That’s never how it worked. It was always much more of a wink and a nod. As Lance says in the film, they would say, geez, you’re getting a little close to the sun here. You’re pretty close to testing positive. Which is a way of saying, we know you’re cheating, but just don’t cheat too much. Of course the whole aspect of the Vrijman Report is really an interesting example of how they were so deeply invested in the cover up. Lance was so important to cycling from a financial perspective that it was greatly in cycling’s interest to try to make sure that any report done on possible doping would be positive to Lance. So, yeah, I think the UCI [Union Cycliste Internationale] was deeply complicit. I think sponsors were complicit. Nobody really wanted to know the truth about what was going on, even though there were a lot of allegations early on about Lance doping. But did anybody ask the tough questions? No, because the beautiful lie was much more profitable than the ugly truth.
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<strong>NP:</strong> In this age, do you think it’s even practical to try and get drugs out of sports? Do you think that’s an attainable goal? Should there be more pragmatic rules governing sport?
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<strong>AG:</strong> Well, let me put it to you a different way, do we think that investment banks are ever going to stop cheating? No. Do we think that we should abandon any attempt to regulate those banks? I would argue, no. You have to try even though you know the cheating is going to continue. Even though you know that, because they’re smart and being paid a lot of money, they’re liable to be one step ahead of the regulators. I think we have an investment in sport to see that it’s not all pro-wrestling. You don’t want the winner or the loser of every sport to be determined by the size of your pocketbook and the quality of the drugs that you can provide. You want to believe that a lot of it is talent and hard work.
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<strong>NP:</strong> Do you think that’s the beautiful lie though? That all you need is talent and hard work.
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<strong>AG:</strong> No, clearly we know that we have to be smarter than that. Our eyes have to be open. We can’t pretend that doping doesn’t go on in sports. But I also don’t think that that means we should just say, well, since we’re going to have doping anyway, bring it on. Do whatever you need to do and that will be the contest. I just don’t think that’s what we want. Because ultimately that takes us down a slope that’s too slippery and too possibly dangerous…I mean, you’re right, it’s a beautiful lie. I agree with you. I think it is a beautiful lie to think that you can eradicate doping from sports. But I think that you can do a better job of keeping that doping in check and also changing the culture to some extent so that winning at any cost isn’t the paramount ethic.
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<strong>NP:</strong> Sports should be about sportsmanship.
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<strong>AG:</strong> Yeah…It’s not a level playing field. After all, some people are taller than others, people are faster than others, there are natural advantages. That’s always going to be present in sport. But it’s about reckoning on the rules of the road so you can agree. Even war has rules, right? And you think in some ways, well, why should war have rules? The idea is to win. But…I thought about it in the context of a film I was doing about torture. I thought, you hire solders to kill other people, that’s what you hire them to do. So why should there be rules about interrogations once a soldier has been captured? What sense does that make? Just beat the shit out of them and leave it at that. But two things happen: First of all, you don’t get very good information. And second of all, there’s something very powerful and appealing about the idea that when you get a solider under your control, and you have ultimate power over that person, it’s very important that you institute what is the military equivalent of the golden rule. To say, you and I are both human beings, and do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Because there is a peculiar kind of moral persuasion that takes place in that kind of context. So much so with doping. If Lance Armstrong can feel, look, I’m delivering a feel-good myth to people and – not only that – I’m raising lots of money for cancer, I should be able to dope as much as I want. Fuck them. I don’t find it a compelling rationale. I guess I don’t believe in laissez-faire in either capitalism or sports. I think rules are good.
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<strong>NP:</strong> So you eventually circled back around to the film and got the last big interview from Lance. How did that come about? And how much persuasion did it take for him to sit down again with you?
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<strong>AG:</strong> It took a lot of persuasion to get his lawyers onside. That took more persuasion than Lance. Lance said he would do it and he ultimately made good on his word. I think he realized that he had screwed us up big time and he owed us an explanation. And ultimately, he delivered on that, but it was a bitter pill to swallow. Both when he came out and finally told the truth, even though he had been lying to us forthrightly for a long time, but then also, at one time, he promised us the opportunity to have the interview where he would come clean. He didn’t make good on that promise either. So he owed us and I think he also he wanted to be able to influence his story.
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<strong>NP:</strong> In his “come clean” interview, was there anything that you didn’t buy?
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<strong>AG:</strong> Well, I think you see it in the film. I find the idea that he was clean in 2009 extremely hard to believe. I gave Lance the opportunity to give his rationale, but I find it hard to believe.
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<strong>NP:</strong> Was there anything that we don’t see on camera, any questions that you asked that he evaded?
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<strong>AG:</strong> The one question that I never could get him to answer straight was: what and when was the first time you doped? He was always vague on that issue and that always disappointed me. I wanted to know the very first time he took a performance enhancing drug. The truth is, there may be some mystery there and I still want to know the answer. But it’s also possible that the moment I was looking for, which was a kind of Rubicon that was crossed, the idea that, oh, gosh, I’m going to have to take drugs now. But I think Lance is actually being pretty honest when, in response to a question I asked him about why he took drugs, he said, I didn’t lose much sleep over it. In other words, for him, it was very practical.
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<strong>NP:</strong> When you put it in the context of someone who’s been through chemotherapy and taken lots of drugs that are extremely harmful to the body, that line has to be a lot softer because he’s already someone that wouldn’t be on the planet but for drugs.
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<strong>AG:</strong> Correct. I think also in the sport of cycling, particularly in Europe, there’s a very macho culture and Lance was a very macho guy. There was a very macho culture which embraced the use, and sometimes overuse, of drugs. It was just part of the manning up that you needed to do in order to be able to get across the finish line.
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<strong>NP:</strong> Watching the film, that’s the one question that’s in the back of your mind the whole time that you never get answered. I wonder if that’s because he’s protecting someone?
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<strong>AG:</strong> That’s the question. I don’t know. Is he protecting somebody? That’s why it was galling to me that he would never come clean on the hospital room. Is it because he’s protecting somebody or he just can’t stand to lose to Betsy Andreu…I don’t know which one it is.
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<strong>NP:</strong> The hospital room thing, I’m conflicted on. Because you have a right to privacy with regards to what happens between you and your doctors. I’m actually appalled that his former friends would make public what was said under such circumstances. If that had been something that had come out outside of that room in the corridor, all well and good, but not in a consulting room with a doctor.
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<strong>AG:</strong> You’re right. I take your point. On the other hand, that information first came out under subpoena, not by somebody going to the press and saying, hey do I have a scoop for you. It was in a legal context under subpoena that that information first came out. But, what I’m more interested in, is that, as a practical matter, Lance admitted on <a href="http://www.oprah.com/own_tv/onc/lance-armstrong-one.html">Oprah</a> and also in the interview with me, that he was using drugs as early as ’94 – that is to say, well before the hospital room, right? So, if we already know he’s using drugs as early as ’94, what difference does the hospital room make? And that’s what leads you to wonder, what is that about? Is it about protecting somebody else? Did doctors lie for him? Or can he just not stand after all these years to lose.
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<strong>NP:</strong> I guess that goes back to the question of how much is pathological lying, how much is lying for pride’s sake, and how much is lying to protect other people.
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<strong>AG:</strong> Correct. And I think all these things got jumbled together in Lance’s mind. I think there’s a moral force sometimes that he’s able to exhibit when he’s lying, which is scary, but I think a lot of good liars do that. They exhibit what the police call “<a href="http://www.patc.com/weeklyarticles/print/noble-cause-corruption.pdf">noble cause corruption</a>.”
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<strong>NP:</strong> It reminds me of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20026910">Jimmy Savile</a> and the child molesting case in the UK. No one wanted to poke around too much because Jimmy raised lots of money for Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
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<strong>AG:</strong> I just did a film on childhood sex abuse in the Catholic Church and it reminded me of exactly the same thing. The church always used to come out and say, why do you keep attacking us on this? We do so much good. And people would back off. How dare you say it’s a priest? A priest! Impossible.
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<strong>NP:</strong> What do you think is in Armstrong’s future? This is something that’s hard to move past. Can you see him coming back to public life in an Eliot Spitzer kind of way?
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<strong>AG:</strong> It’s hard to know. In the short term, no. In the long term, it will depend. The problem is, he’s caught between a kind of Scylla and Charybdis of the legal courts and the courts of public opinion. If he ever comes completely clean, he’ll finally satisfy the court of public opinion, but he’ll put himself at huge legal jeopardy. And if he plays the legal game, he’ll never make anybody satisfied because they all want to hear the whole truth and nothing but the truth at this point. So until the legal cases are over…Also Lance’s own psychology, now that he’s in fighting mode he’s in no mood or he’s incapable of reckoning with what it is that he did off the bike. So in the short term, I don’t see a future. In the long term, we’ll have to see.
</P><p>
<strong>NP:</strong> What’s in your future? I know you’re probably already on to your next documentary, if not your next three. What have you got in the works?
</P><p>
<strong>AG:</strong> A couple of investigative things, which I probably won’t talk about, and I’m just finishing up a music documentary about the African musician Fela Kuti.
</P><p>
<strong>NP:</strong> That’s a change of pace for you.
</P><p>
<strong>AG:</strong> Yeah, it will be good. It will be fun.
</P><p>
<strong>NP:</strong> Well, thank you so much. It’s an absolute pleasure to chat with you. I loved the movie. Like you say, it played like a feature film. Even though I knew he was a liar, I wanted him to win. I guess that’s again part of the beautiful lie; Even watching this movie, I knew he was a liar and a cheat, but I sat on the edge of my seat wanting him to win.
</P><p>
<strong>AG:</strong> Hoping he would win. I agree. That’s ultimately why I decided to be complicit in the story and to put myself at the heart of it, as if to say, this is how it works.
</P><p>
<em>The Armstrong Lie opens in Los Angeles and New York on Friday, November 8.</em>
</P><p>
<strong>Related Posts:</strong>
</P><p>
SG Interview: <a href="https://suicidegirls.com/girls/nicole_powers/blog/2680238/alex-gibney-casino-jack-and-the-united-states-of-money/">Alex Gibney – Casino Jack and the United States of Money</a>
</p>Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-78437945340847542602013-11-11T17:48:00.000-08:002014-01-05T18:58:18.776-08:00Julia O'Dwyer – Hacking Politics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<em>The following interview was conducted in November 2012 for the book <a href="http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/hacking-politics-2/">Hacking Politics: How Geeks, Progressives, The Tea Party, Gamers, Anarchists and Suits Teamed up to Defeat SOPA and Save the Internet</a>. Compiled by <a href="http://www.demandprogress.org/book/">Demand Progress</a>, Hacking Politics is a firsthand account of how a ragtag band of activists and technologists overcame a $90 million lobbying machine to defeat the most serious threat to Internet freedom in memory. It features contributions from Aaron Swartz, Lawrence Lessig, Cory Doctorow, Ron Paul, Kim Dotcom, and many more, and is available now via <a href="http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/hacking-politics-2/">Tor Books</a>.</em>
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<iframe width="550" height="413" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/qikQjh-Vtv0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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Anyone who’s ever posted a link online without thoroughly investigating its providence should be concerned about the fate of a British student who is facing extradition and a ten year prison sentence in America – despite the fact that the crimes US prosecutors allege he is guilty of were not committed on US soil or servers and are not considered by experts to be against the law in the UK.
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Richard O'Dwyer, a 24-year old from Chesterfield, England, founded TVShack.net in December 2007 while studying for a degree in computer science at Sheffield Hallam University. The site, which O'Dwyer started as a hobby, was essentially a boutique, entertainment-orientated search engine, which provided users with links to streaming movies, TV shows, documentaries, anime and music. TVShack.net hosted no content on its servers, it merely pointed users in the direction of third party sites that did.
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Without warning, on June 30, 2010, the TVShack.net domain was seized by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] and a boilerplate copyright notice was posted on the site. Since Richard wasn’t operating from within the US, he wasn’t alarmed by this setback. Unperturbed, he switched over to TVShack.cc – a Top Level Domain based in the Cocos Islands (an Australian territory) – and soon had the website back up and running.
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Richard continued to run TVShack.cc unimpeded, until one day when he got a rather unexpected knock at the door. The very long arm of the law, in the form of two American ICE officers, had come a calling at his university accommodation in the North of England, accompanied by an escort of Her Majesty’s boys in blue. Richard was arrested, but the investigation in the UK was subsequently dropped.
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However, the Southern District Court in New York is attempting to prosecute Richard on one count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and one count of criminal infringement of copyright. The application of existing intellectual property law in this way stretches it far beyond the boundaries – and borders – that lawmakers could possibly have originally envisioned. Furthermore, the US Government’s determination to prosecute this test case – at the MPAA's behest – is chilling when you consider how it may affect the very fabric of the web.
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Even though Richard has committed no crimes that the British legal system is remotely interested in prosecuting, on January 13, 2012, a UK magistrate ruled that Richard could be extradited to America to face charges there. The judge was acting under the auspices of the highly contentious Extradition Act of 2003, a lopsided piece of legislation that was drafted in the wake of 9/11 and was sold to the public as an anti-terrorism measure.
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Richard, and his mother Julia, a National Health Service nurse, are currently in the process of appealing this autocratic extradition ruling. As the legal process sluggishly moves towards a seemingly inevitable conclusion – since very few extradition requests from the US are declined – Richard is attempting to keep his head focused on his studies and his e-books. I therefore spoke with Julia, who has been spearheading the fight to keep Richard in the UK, about her son’s situation and the implications it could have for all webmasters and denizens of the net.
</P><P>
<strong>Nicole Powers:</strong> Were you aware at the time that Richard was doing this website?
</P><P>
<strong>Julia O'Dwyer:</strong> Well I knew he had a website, but he was at university. He wasn't actually living at home all the time, so I wouldn't be seeing him working on it that often because he wasn't here. He would come home every few weeks or at the end of the university term. I knew he'd got a website. I didn't really know the details of it…He did the website as a hobby. That's all it was. One of his mates made a suggestion to him and he said, “Alright, I'll do that.” So he did it.
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<strong>NP:</strong> Had your son ever been in trouble before?
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> No, no, never.
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<strong>NP:</strong> When did you first realize something was wrong?
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<strong>JD:</strong> I think it was in the summer of 2010. He was actually at home because it was the college holidays. I remember him saying, “Somebody's taken down my website.” He was here in the room with me and he was like muttering away [saying], “Well, I'll fix that.” America had put on this big red banner that is still on the website onto his original domain name, so he just fixed it and got it up and running on a new domain name. I can remember him saying, “America has nothing to do with me.” That was the end of it. He had it fixed and up and running again within a day or two.
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<strong>NP:</strong> I've seen the banner. It just looks like one of those standard notices that you see and ignore at the start of a DVD. Aside from that, at the time, did anyone from the US government contact him?
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<strong>JD:</strong> Nobody had contacted him at all. He'd said he’d had a couple of take down requests, which were not correctly formatted, so that meant he couldn't find the links that they were trying to refer to. He had a take down request to remove a link from a British film company, and he complied with that request. But apart from those, there was no correspondence or communication from anybody in America to Richard about his website. All his mail would come to this address. When he's at university, because he changes accommodation every year on the course, he always gives his home address as his mailing address. I know that nothing came here because I always open the mail in case there's anything urgent…So I can safely say that no correspondence came to this address, and they did have this address because his domain was registered in his name with his home address. After they took down his first domain name in July we never heard anything from anybody until the police arrived in November wanting to question him about his website…That very same day he closed down the domain name and any of his email addresses that were associated with that website
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<strong>NP:</strong> So before the police knocked on his door, he had no way of really knowing what he'd done wrong.
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> I think he just thought, well I'm not in America; I'm not subject to the laws of America. That's how he would think. That's why he said, “They're nothing to do with me, so I'll fix it.” Which he did. Then they didn't like that so they came after him.
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<strong>NP:</strong> Where was he when the police arrived?
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> He was in Sheffield at his student accommodation. It was early in the morning. He was just getting ready to go to classes and some police knocked on his door…There was police from the City of London, and two American agents. We assume it was ICE agents. They weren't present when Richard was being questioned. I don't know why they were there, but they didn't come in on any of the questioning.
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<strong>NP:</strong> So they took him down to the police station.
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<strong>JD:</strong> In Sheffield, yes.
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<strong>NP:</strong> I was watching an interview that Richard did with The Guardian in which he talked about how he asked if he should have a solicitor present and they brushed him off by saying it’d take too long.
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<strong>JD:</strong> Yeah…They said to him it's going to take a few hours to get one here. Because they said that, and because he had no previous dealings with the police, he didn’t ask for a solicitor. And he wanted to get to his classes. He didn't want to be late.
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<strong>NP:</strong> What's your understanding of what was said during the questioning?
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<strong>JD:</strong> Well I have the transcript of the police interview...It wasn't a long interview. It was about 40 minutes…[They said] they were arresting him under copyright, designs and patents offenses. They said the website is streaming films and TV, and that's infringing copyright legislation, so therefore the money you're making is effectively money laundering; it’s the proceeds of your criminal activity.That's why you're being arrested. They asked him about the website, when he made it. They asked him did anybody else help him with the website. They asked him about how he managed the website, and if he generated an income from it. They asked him how it technically worked. It was just links on the website, there was no copyrighted content…They asked him how people would go on it, select a link, would be directed to Youtube or some other video sites. They asked him about how it gained popularity…They asked him more technical stuff about the website, where the servers were. No servers were in America. He told them it was all his own work, nobody helped him. He did it as a hobby. That's about it really…He was actually in tears for most of the interview. I didn't find that out until I got this transcript. I was a bit annoyed about that.
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<strong>NP:</strong> How old was he at this time?
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<strong>JD:</strong> He was questioned in 2010, so he was 22…The police were also here at my house at the same time questioning me. They probably had this address down for Richard as well you see.
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<strong>NP:</strong> So simultaneously to the police knocking on Richard's door at his digs they're knocking on your door?
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<strong>JD:</strong> Yes…Same time, early in the morning. I wasn't going to work that day because we had the joiners here. They were taking out the staircase and putting new stairs in. They came and I was really worried and thought Richard had been in an accident. That's the first thing I thought when I saw these police. It was about half 6 or 7 in the morning. It was dark. Anyway, they said they wanted to speak to me about a website that Richard had.
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<strong>NP:</strong> Under what circumstances did Richard finally get released?
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> When they finished questioning me I just sent him a text telling him to come home or he texted me and said he was coming home, and so he did. Nobody mentioned extradition at this point. That wasn't even something that entered our minds. So I just said, “Don't worry about it, Richard. We'll get a solicitor, we'll sort it all out.” He was told that he was on bail and that he would have to go back to the City of London Police Station, which is where those police came from, six months later, which he did. We both went there.
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<strong>NP:</strong> What happened when you went down to London six months later in May of 2011?
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<strong>JD:</strong> It was just to go to the police station to answer to the bail. Richard by now had got a solicitor who also knew nothing about extradition. He got us somebody to meet Richard at the police station…He went in with Richard, and then quickly came out and said the criminal investigation in the UK had been dropped. I felt an immediate sigh of relief, but then in the next sentence he said, but we've got this extradition warrant instead, and we have to go straight to the courts. That happened quickly. Richard was put straight into a police car and taken to the court. I had to go and find my way to the court, and that's the first we heard about the mention of extradition.
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<strong>NP:</strong> So with no warning, all of a sudden you're in a UK court fighting extradition.
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<strong>JD:</strong> Yes. Richard was put straight into a cell at the police station. He was locked up. I had to make my way there and the lawyer said that a barrister would meet me there…I had to be there for 2 and I don't think the barrister came ‘til about 4. Richard was locked up all this time so I couldn't have any contact with him.
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<strong>NP:</strong> I’m guessing your lawyer would have had to scrabble around to find a barrister because he didn't even know he was going to need one.
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<strong>JD:</strong> Exactly, yes. While Richard was locked up and I was waiting to go to into this court, loads of people were there waiting for the same purpose, not to go America but to Europe…I went into the court to wait Richard's turn. They just keep coming in, one after the other…they were all just being processed through…And I was just thinking, oh my God, this is going to happen to Richard next. We didn't get any information. Nobody gave us a leaflet about what happens if you're given an extradition warrant. I only knew what I could see going on there. The fact was everybody was getting their extradition requests rubber-stamped.
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When Richard came into the court there was a prosecutor there for America and this barrister that we had. Of course, she knew nothing either. Nobody knew about the case because we didn't know there was a case. The prosecutors wanted Richard to be kept in prison, so they were arguing for that. It was really terrifying because they were so nasty. Because Richard had got exams the following week, and we’d told all this to the barrister woman. She managed to get bail for Richard, but he had to go in prison overnight because they wanted his passport. We didn't go to London with a passport, it was here at home, and they wanted some cash as well. Then it was 5 o’clock, and the court was closing. We couldn't physically get the money and get the passport by 5 o’ clock when we didn't even go into the court until 4, so Richard had to go to Wandsworth Prison. Luckily my sister lives in London so I was able to give her a call. I went to her house and then the next day we got the money and I phoned home and got my partner to get the passport. None of it was straightforward.
</P><P>
<strong>NP:</strong> I can imagine; Chesterfield’s 150 miles away from London.
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> You have to take the passport to a local police station, and they have to contact the prison. But the trouble is I was trying to do this at 5 o’ clock after Richard had gone off to Wandsworth Prison. They make them sit in a van for hours outside, they take hours to process them into the prison, and until they're actually processed into the prison and moved onto their computer system, they wouldn't accept the passport. My partner…he was in Worksop [a town 16 miles from Chesterfield] at the time, and the police were like, “We don't know how to do this. We can't take your passport.” It was just hopeless, the whole thing. But by the next day, we got that sorted, and he was able to come out in the afternoon.
</P><P>
The other thing was they didn't know what bail conditions to impose on him. The judge was like, “We've got the money, we've got the passport, what else can we do to him?” The barrister said we could say that he mustn't access the internet, but then the judge was saying he's got exams the next week, he's at university, so we can't do that, can we? And how could we police that anyway, he could just go in an internet café. So Richard had to tap on the glass, because he was behind this glass wall in the court, to get somebody to come over so that he could make suggestions to them about his bail. He just said, “You could tell me not to access the TV Shack website” – which he'd already taken down anyway – and “You could tell me not to buy any new domain names.” So he chose his own bail restrictions because they didn't know what to do. It was funny. Well it would have been funny if it hadn't been so frightening.
</P><P>
<strong>NP:</strong> So now he's back studying at university and you're fighting extradition, which is just a ridiculous thing because he's not committed any crime that anyone’s interested in prosecuting him for in the UK, and it’s arguable that he’s committed no crime at all.
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<strong>JD:</strong> Yes, that's right. He never went to America. America is claiming jurisdiction over somebody who has never set foot in their country. They don't allow it to happen to their own citizens. We can't do it to them. I have a freedom of information request which shows that not one American has ever been extradited to the UK for something that they'd done in America. And the UK has never asked for an extradition of an American for something that they've done in America. So it's mad.
</P><P>
<strong>NP:</strong> What's the process to fight the extradition? And where are you at with it right now?
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> Well we’ve just received a date for the appeal in December…The main argument is that Richard's website operated in the same way as the TV Links website…and the TV Links case was thrown out of court. It was dismissed…It was thrown out because they said that linking to any content is not a crime basically.
</P><P>
<strong>NP:</strong> As I understand it, they were claiming the difference with Richard's case was that he was curating content?
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> No, they didn't say that actually. In fact it was quite a cock up at the court…We had a few hearings where we presented the arguments through October and November of 2011…In order to be extradited the alleged crime must be a crime in both countries. We were trying to prove that it is not a crime in the UK. If we had won that argument, then Richard couldn't be extradited. At that court hearing the judge was saying yes, you've got a good, strong argument. And so was the prosecutor. We had another hearing booked, because there's other arguments that you put forward like human rights…
</P><P>
The next court appearance, the night before we were going to London we got a late submission from the other side. When you get a document through, you have to read it and you're meant to rebut it, provide a response. But it came to us at something like 7 o’ clock at night; we were going to get on a train at 5 in the morning. Normally we would look at these documents for a week or so and with the solicitor write a response. I was really cross about this…I just sent a bit of a ranty email saying, “Why are we getting this crap? It's full of inaccuracies. The prosecution clearly don't have the technical knowledge to understand what it's all about.”
</P><P>
The next morning, we got to London, I was still mad about this, because we had to do a very quick response to it. The barrister came and he said, “Oh, I've sent your email to the prosecution barrister, and he's decided not to submit that document.” It was rubbish anyway. We weren't afraid for him to submit it, just annoyed that it was sent so late. But he'd decided not to [submit it]. Because of that, the barrister said let's leave it now as we left it last time, which is when the judge said we've got a good strong argument. We still had some other material to send in, but he said let's leave it. I didn't want to leave it. I wanted to carry on because I wanted it done good and proper, so that they wouldn't be able to come back. But because he felt that the judge and the prosecutor were agreeing that we had a good argument, he thought we would win it, so we didn't then submit this extra stuff…But then it all changed. Six weeks later the judge changed his mind. So we have to appeal against that decision, and this is the date that we're waiting for, the appeal.
</P><P>
<strong>NP:</strong> I presume this is all costing an incredible amount of time and money…
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> Well Richard has legal aid, because he's a student, so we don't have to pay legal costs. We've had to pay for a couple of things, like we had a video made to explain to the judge how linking works. Because you get judges who are not technically literate…There's been the costs associated with traveling up and down to London quite a lot. That's expensive.
</P><P>
<strong>NP:</strong> And I understand that you had to temporarily give up work.
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> Yes, I was off work for about six months as soon as this started happening.
</P><P>
<strong>NP:</strong> This is so chilling, because what Richard's done, putting links on a website, if America is successful in this case, the way it could be extrapolated will mean that virtually anyone that's ever put a website up could be extradited and/or subject to similar prosecution.
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> I've checked the American Department of Justice website, I've checked ICE's website, I've checked the British Home Office website, they all have links on, and what do they say? We are not responsible for any content on any third party links…which is what Richard said on his website. Because when you go to a link on somebody's website, you leave that website and go to elsewhere – don't you? You don't stay on that website. The content that you link to isn't on your website. It's like if you have an email that somebody sends you with a link on, if you click on the link, you get sent somewhere else. It's not lodging on your email is it? So yes, it's worrying, isn't it, certainly?
</P><P>
<strong>NP:</strong> Do you have a sense that what you’re fighting isn't just for Richard? It's for thousands of people just like Richard, and also for sanity to reign on the internet.
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> I've had to educate myself more about the internet and about extradition law as well. In the course of that I found out all about SOPA and PIPA and all that. So, yes, it is a very important issue isn't it? And I think you're right by saying if this is allowed to happen, then there are implications for many others worldwide, and for the internet. So yeah, it's very important, but obviously I do have to put Richard first. He's only a little fish really. I'm sure they've got bigger fish to fry than a little lad from Derbyshire.
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<strong>NP:</strong> The US Government has virtually unlimited resources, so to drag a 22-year student through the courts like this, it feels like they’re choosing a test case that they thought would be easy pickings.
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> Well this happened when they were doing this big clamp down called “Operation in our Sites” in America. I only know this now, afterwards…They seized several domain names on that same day, the 29th of November, 2010. After this had all happened, after the police came here, we received through the post documents about the domain name seizure. It wasn't just a document about Richard's website, it was a big document where all these other websites were listed as well. It was like a group thing, and it showed the addresses of the owners of all the websites. Richard's was the only one that had his name and address at the side of it. All of the others had post office box numbers. So in that group, he was easy because they had his name and address, whereas the others, they didn't. Because Richard did it as a hobby, he wasn't thinking he needed to conceal anything….If it was criminal, he wouldn't put his name and address on it would he?
</P><P>
<strong>NP:</strong> It’s also chilling that the website was seized first and questions were asked later. It was seized and shut down without any due process. They wouldn’t do that to a terrestrial business.
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> Well he wasn't running it as a business. It was a hobby. He did make money out of it, but he didn't set out to make money from it. The ad companies approached him. He didn't go looking to make money. When the advertising companies, who by the way were American, approached him, he just thought, “Yeah, that will be all right. It will pay for my servers and stuff.” He didn't think it was going to grow into this massively popular website – that just happened by the fact of how the Internet works and how things spread. He never set out to make money from it at all. So yes, they did, they seized the domain with no due process.
</P><P>
<strong>NP:</strong> Basically it would be the equivalent of seizing a shop and all its contents and closing it down without so much as a court hearing, or even a formal mailed warning.
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> No warning, no take down notice. I mean when these documents came…eventually, we got one saying if you want to show any interest in this domain name you'll have to come over here. He just signed to say he wasn't interested in it because we obviously didn't want to go over there. But yes, no warnings, no takedown, just that banner slapped on his domain…No correspondence, no communication about takedowns or anything.
</P><P>
<strong>NP:</strong> Again, this is worrying for anyone who run a website anywhere in the world. If you apply the precedent America is attempting to set, other countries could start doing the same with the various other national domains, and any online business that falls in the sights of a government agency can just be taken down without any due process and people's livelihoods ruined.
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> Yes, I mean they have been doing that, haven't they? I know they have. I've been watching. There have been lots of domain seizures and I've seen people having to go to court to get their domains back.
</P><P>
<strong>NP:</strong> How let down do you feel by the UK government? Because they don't seem to be standing by their own citizen – which is unconscionable when you consider Richard hasn't done any crime that any English court is remotely interested in prosecuting.
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> Very let down. But I'm not the only one in that position. They're just following the law that the previous government created. That's what I'm doing as well, campaigning for that law to be changed…I thought extradition was for fugitives, people who had gone to America, committed a crime, and then ran away. That's what a fugitive is. Not to go and get somebody who's never set foot in America, which is what they’re doing. America can do that because the British side of the extradition law allows them to. They protect their own citizens in America; the UK does not. If an American was to be requested to be extradited to this country, they would have the right to a proper hearing and bit of a trial beforehand…The government, they've done nothing…There's a few good MP's who are fighting for reform, and they have been very good. But, historically, nobody wins this fight because the British government and the judiciary have got an obligation to stand by their extradition arrangements with America.
</P><P>
<strong>NP:</strong> Which are one-sided.
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> Which are lopsided, yes.
</P><P>
<strong>NP:</strong> How can people help Richard?
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> Well we've really had loads of support. Richard keeps out of the way mostly. I just wanted him to make sure that he continued his university courses and that that wasn't going to be disrupted. He is doing that; he's on his final year now.
</P><P>
There's a few other people in the same position, and people that have been extradited and come back. We're all working together lobbying the MP's and getting plenty of stories into the media. A friend has launched a fighting fund recently, we're just trying to get some money together...I have had lots of offers through Twitter from American lawyers who have said don’t worry, there's loads of people here who would take this case for free. I'm not worried about that, but I am worried about other costs that might appear if we have to go there.
</P><P>
If you get extradited, you are put straight into a Federal prison in America, because they consider that you're a flight risk – even though they take your passport. You are taken straight to a Federal prison and you have to fight then to get bail. And if you haven't got an address in America, somewhere to live, then you're not going to get bail. And if you don't get bail, they leave you there to stew in until they are ready for a trial. Part of the rationale for doing that…Well firstly, they're not ready for a trial, and secondly, they leave you in prison until you get so fed up and want to go home that you agree to a plea bargain. That's how they resolve 97 percent of their cases in America. Also, if they did grant him bail, they'd want a load of money. So it's going to be costly enough going to America, because if Richard goes to America I'm going to be going there…I'm just trying to anticipate and plan ahead really…If you fail your appeal, they don't give you long before they take you. You can be gone within two weeks.
</P><P>
<strong>NP:</strong> I cannot imagine what you've been through and how much of a shock this must be.
</P><P>
<strong>JD:</strong> It was terrifying at the beginning…I've got a bit used to it now because I've spent the last six months of my life on the internet finding out more, finding out about copyright law in America, about copyright law in the UK, finding out about the extradition law.
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<strong>NP:</strong> It’s just staggering, the fact that lobbying by bodies such as the RIAA and MPAA have turned something that would otherwise be a civil matter into a criminal one.
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<strong>JD:</strong> Yes. They buy what they want, don't they, from the government, from the law enforcement agencies by lobbying and stuff. It's legalized bribery, isn't it? And they have got people working for them that used to work for the Department of Justice and vice-versa. It's all a bit incestuous that relationship between America's law enforcement agencies and the MPAA. I'm not saying that people should commit copyright infringement, but that organization, those industries need to move with the times…Richard in one of his Guardian interviews said there's nothing better than watching a movie at the cinema. He has always been a big cinemagoer. He still is. He was there yesterday. He goes there as often as he can. He loves movies. Yes, he'll watch movies on his computer, but if he wants to see a movie proper, he'll go out to cinema like everybody else does.
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<strong>NP:</strong> People may think that this is never going to affect them, that this is some arcane copyright infringement case. But if they can go after Richard. they can go after anyone with a Wordpress blog. No one is safe.
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<strong>JD:</strong> That's right. I mean, what is Richard to them? He's just a little nobody in England. He's nothing really. Why pick on him? He's small fry…It's not even clear that Richard has broken a law in America. It's questionable whether he's broken one in the UK. But you see you just get shipped over there and you have to fight that in a court.
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<strong>NP:</strong> In effect, it's guilty until proven innocent.
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<strong>JD:</strong> That's the way he's being treated. Because extradition is another punishment, which is given to you before you've even had a chance to go into a court to defend yourself. Putting you and your family through this whole process, and then taking you to America and putting you in jail when you haven't even been found guilty of anything…And just for something like this. He's not a murderer or a rapist or terrorist or anything.
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<center>***</center>
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<em>A month after this interview was conducted, in December 2012, Richard O'Dwyer’s ordeal came to an end when a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/dec/06/richard-o-dwyer-avoids-us-extradition">settlement deal</a> was reached. O'Dwyer traveled to the U.S. voluntarily to appear in a New York court and signed a deferred prosecution agreement. Under its <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-20636626">terms</a>, he agreed not to break any U.S. laws and was ordered to pay a £20,000 fine. As long as he complies with this agreement, the extradition request will be dropped.</em></P>Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-8963192005220343962013-10-30T18:28:00.000-07:002014-01-05T18:58:55.816-08:00Chester Bennington of Linkin Park and Stone Temple Pilots<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioFN4kgK8Z1JWgpC7kG2RcFTtc1q8Yu_gwzWCDqLhlWUDxy6e02_r7ScPHHm1E188XBONGjo9Y8vGByUxuiqMcvLn7p5ZeT7Ie9D2eYz3p5rj0AEdoG3jbVC1Fs_fq70dzBYJ2E-7QiSQ/s1600/Chester.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioFN4kgK8Z1JWgpC7kG2RcFTtc1q8Yu_gwzWCDqLhlWUDxy6e02_r7ScPHHm1E188XBONGjo9Y8vGByUxuiqMcvLn7p5ZeT7Ie9D2eYz3p5rj0AEdoG3jbVC1Fs_fq70dzBYJ2E-7QiSQ/s320/Chester.jpg" /></a></div>
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On October 8th, Stone Temple Pilots released the five-song <a href="http://stonetemplepilots.com/news/2013/10/high-rise-ep-available-now/"><em>High Rise EP</em></a>, which featured the band's first post-Scott Weiland recordings. With Linkin Park's Chester Bennington now fronting STP, the remaining original members, Eric Kretz and brothers Dean and Robert DeLeo, hope to breathe new life into the band.
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I caught up with Bennington (whose other band Linkin Park have just released their <a href="http://www.linkinpark.com/profiles/blogs/recharged-album-cover-tracklist"><em>Recharged</em></a> album) to talk about the epic collaboration, and the music that's more than worthy of STP's legacy that it's already spawned.
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Read my exclusive <a href="https://suicidegirls.com/members/nicole_powers/blog/2687513/chester-bennington-stone-temple-pilots/">interview with Chester Bennington on SuicideGIrls.com</a>
</P>Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-88555149060378492732013-10-25T18:22:00.000-07:002014-01-05T18:59:16.139-08:00Clive Barker: Hellraiser and Artful Weaver of Worlds<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's impossible to pin down <a href="http://www.clivebarker.info/">Clive Barker</a>, the man who created the iconic Pinhead character. The multi-faceted and irrepressible filmmaker, video game designer, artist, and author travels through different mediums and genres with the kind of ease that a shapeshifter might exchange forms. Take, for example, his current diverse slate of creative output. He's recently released anniversary editions of two of his most popular novels: <em>Weaveworld</em> and <em>Cabal</em>, which respectively reside towards opposite ends of the fantasy/horror spectrum (something that Barker envisions as a boundaryless continuum). Meanwhile he's writing his <a href="http://www.clivebarker.info/bookswip.html">next adult novel</a> and applying paint to canvas for two more installments of his popular <a href="http://www.clivebarker.info/youngabarat.html"><em>Abarat</em></a> all ages adventure, which is told in words and pictures. A new comic series, <em>New Testament</em>, came out earlier this year, which Barker produced with <a href="http://www.markalanmiller.com/">Mark Miller</a>, who also serves as his editor and the Vice President of his production company, <a href="http://www.seraphiminc.com">Seraphim</a>. And Barker is currently presenting an art exhibition at Culver City's <a href="http://centuryguild.net/pages/events">Century Guild</a> in association with the gallery's founder and owner <a href="http://www.thomasnegovan.com/">Thomas Negovan</a>. Entitled <a href="http://www.clivebarker.info/artindex.html">Grand-Guignol</a>, the group show will feature Barker's paintings alongside other works he's curated with Negovan. In addition, on Saturday the Beyond Fest will present a special screening at Hollywood's Egyptian Theater of the <a href="http://www.occupymidian.com/"><em>Cabal Cut of Night Breed</em></a>, which sees Barker's cult classic film restored to a form that more closely resembles his original vision and the book upon which it was based.
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On a recent edition of SuicideGirls Radio, the British born and internationally acclaimed master of multiple light and dark arts joined us by phone from his Beverly Hills home to talk about the varied proverbial irons he's keeping warm with his creative fire.
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Read the transcript of our 30 minute <a href="https://suicidegirls.com/members/nicole_powers/blog/2683466/clive-barker-hellraiser-and-artful-weaver-of-worlds/">conversation with Clive Barker on SuicideGirls.com</a>.
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[Miller and Negovan also joined us in-studio - you can view the full two-hour show <a href="http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/39502479">here</a>.]
<p>Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-57774125954004840202013-10-20T18:35:00.000-07:002014-01-05T18:59:49.021-08:00Capital Cities' Sebu Simonian: In a Tidal Wave of Mystery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtxwrdpoD88PMyce9NAahBaK4bRu3i70wOgMJEujM-2ovOcQTvUuquRdEVwh5HCBEt5yCRw2-E1ZlqWwEsqSZD8frUN6UuVv9KU7FTZ1L2TDKQVihitvOOVUx90ndOubT17s1BL4LqdfQ/s1600/736_Capital+Cities.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtxwrdpoD88PMyce9NAahBaK4bRu3i70wOgMJEujM-2ovOcQTvUuquRdEVwh5HCBEt5yCRw2-E1ZlqWwEsqSZD8frUN6UuVv9KU7FTZ1L2TDKQVihitvOOVUx90ndOubT17s1BL4LqdfQ/s320/736_Capital+Cities.jpg" /></a></div>
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Like National Public Radio, Back to the Future 2, Daniel Day Lewis, Sunsets, and Farrah Fawcett Hair, Capital Cities' debut album <a href="http://www.amazon.com/In-Tidal-Wave-Of-Mystery/dp/B00CU0UE0E"><em>In A Tidal Wave of Mystery</em></a>, which was released in June of this year, is good shit. The funky and fun band was formed after founding members Ryan Merchant and Sebu Simonian were united via a Craigslist ad back in 2008. The duo had a successful career composing jingles before releasing their first tunes under the Capital Cities moniker in 2011.
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The self-titled <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Capital+Cities/Capital+Cities+EP">five-song EP</a> came out via indie label Lazy Hooks. It featured the quirky yet highly infectious track "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47dtFZ8CFo8">Safe and Sound</a>" which did the rounds on the interwebs before being picked up by the likes of Vodafone, Smart Car, Microsoft, and HBO. Following the viral success of the song, Capital Cities acquired additional members (bassist Manny Quintero, trumpeter Spencer Ludwig, guitarist Nick Merwin, and drummer Channing Holmes) and hit the road, building an avid following of fans, who, to complete the feedback loop, were invited to contribute voicemailed vocals about their favorite things for the song "<a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/capitalcities/farrahfawcetthair.html">Farrah Fawcett Hair</a>."</em>
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I caught up with Sebu Simonian to talk about the album and the band's <a href="http://capitalcitiesmusic.com/tour">upcoming tour</a>.
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Read my exclusive <a href="https://suicidegirls.com/members/nicole_powers/blog/2684638/capital-cities-sebu-simonian-in-a-tidal-wave-of-mystery/">interview with Sebu Simonian of Capital Cities on SuicideGirls.com</a>.
</P>Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-42578972948962534632013-10-18T14:11:00.001-07:002014-01-05T18:14:15.044-08:00Diablo Cody: Paradise<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<em>Paradise</em> is Diablo Cody's fourth full-length feature film, but her first as both a writer and director, and is perhaps her most gloriously entertaining endeavor to date.
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The film tells the story of Lamb Mannerheim (played by Julianne Hough), a young girl from a highly religious small town in Montana who has a crisis of faith after she loses her fiancé and is badly burned in a horrific plane crash. Scarred inside and out, she denounces her belief in God in the most spectacular of ways - in front of her parents (Holly Hunter and Nick Offerman), family, friends, neighbors, and entire community - from the pulpit of her local church during a sermon in which she was supposed to announce a substantial gift from her multi-million dollar settlement check. Instead, she takes herself and her windfall off to the Devil's playground, otherwise known as Las Vegas.
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On a mission to seek out the worldly pleasures she's missed out on, she befriends a lascivious and licentious barman named William (Russell Brand) and his cohort, a nightclub singer named Loray (Octavia Spencer). Though running away from God and the narrow-minded morals of her hometown, Lamb's spiritual journey through Paradise, Nevada (where the Las Vegas Strip technically resides) ultimately helps her find herself.
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This is no heavy-handed morality/immorality tale however. Thanks to Cody's wonderfully witty script, intelligent observations, and sharp direction, and the comedic talents of her incredible cast, Paradise is enlightening in more ways than one. I caught up with Cody recently to talk about the film.
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Read my exclusive <a href="https://suicidegirls.com/members/nicole_powers/blog/2684068/diablo-cody-paradise/">interview with Diablo Cody on SuicideGirls.com</a>.
</P>Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-45422221944263881742013-09-21T16:04:00.001-07:002014-01-05T18:15:39.124-08:00Little Boots: Satellite<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC871n-Dz19IrC4ciO9k_8XVyb8Mumm8ZnFLm3N9wE5vUwjf9QIYXQ2uZFAmLXa0FZ9K7q8HzBsTryO1QkWU0UNoi2DbD3Ke6Zvg_TIsLo40RAeFMy6oNRbo4Js8420B8e-NB2I-hPLa0/s1600/Large_Little+Boots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC871n-Dz19IrC4ciO9k_8XVyb8Mumm8ZnFLm3N9wE5vUwjf9QIYXQ2uZFAmLXa0FZ9K7q8HzBsTryO1QkWU0UNoi2DbD3Ke6Zvg_TIsLo40RAeFMy6oNRbo4Js8420B8e-NB2I-hPLa0/s320/Large_Little+Boots.jpg" /></a></div>
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“I’m a pop junkie,” says Victoria Hesketh a.k.a. Little Boots, whose stated goal is to write the perfect pop song. It could be argued that the British singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist has already done that with the 2009 single “New In Town” from her debut album <em>Hands</em>, but Hesketh modestly insists she has yet to attain that songwriting holy grail.
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The word “pop” when describing any artistic medium is often considered to be synonymous with shallow and disposable, but the music Hesketh makes is most definitely not of that ilk. Unlike many who seek popular music success, Hesketh has put in the work and refused to sacrifice her individuality. She’s learnt her craft, paid her dues, and stayed true to her somewhat geeky self, and in doing so has created a DIY electro-pop aesthetic all of her own. Rejecting over-polished pop, Hesketh incorporates lo-fi sounds from offbeat gadgets such as the Stylophone and Tenori-on into her well-crafted songs.
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It’s this down to earth, quirky, and honest approach that resonates with fans, who appreciate that she’s never conformed to the pop princess mold – though conversely it’s something that no doubt frustrated her first major label Warner Music Group home. Creative differences led to an amicable split after the release of her first album, and now Little Boots is doing her own thing her own way.
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Her second album, <em>Nocturnes</em>, which was produced by Mo' Wax co-founder Tim Goldsworthy (now of disco-punk label DFA records), was released via Hesketh’s On Repeat Records imprint earlier this year, and a video for the song “Satellite,” which she directed, debuted this month.
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We caught up with Hesketh by phone as she was preparing for her upcoming US tour, which kicks off in Santa Ana, California this weekend.
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Read my <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2932/Little-Boots-Satellite/">interview with Little Boots on SuicideGirls.com</a>.
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<em>Little Boots album Nocturnes, featuring the single “Satellite”, is out now. Her US tour kicks of at the Constellation Room in Santa Ana, CA on Sunday, September 22nd, 2013. For more info visit <a href="http://littlebootsmusic.co.uk/">littlebootsmusic.co.uk/</a>.</em>
</p>Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-31120921296647106342013-09-21T16:02:00.001-07:002014-01-05T18:16:34.940-08:00Skye Edwards of Morcheeba: Head Up High<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoboEKqs12dp3HqddYPK8slAQQbNmYtOJ1-YUlPiu1EgUcPXOoenCDULF2tA4pfsL90vKL6Zy9_1lOFp1a87-eul6HpwBl1ozHiEmv6LpU-WOmcMP1jpc8Mn1x8Yy5U13jec7fGHteCFI/s1600/MoreSkye.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoboEKqs12dp3HqddYPK8slAQQbNmYtOJ1-YUlPiu1EgUcPXOoenCDULF2tA4pfsL90vKL6Zy9_1lOFp1a87-eul6HpwBl1ozHiEmv6LpU-WOmcMP1jpc8Mn1x8Yy5U13jec7fGHteCFI/s320/MoreSkye.jpg" /></a></div>
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Morcheeba’s lush sound – which is topped off by singer Skye Edwards’ velvety soft, soothing and sensual voice – is like a warm bath. It’s something you should surrender and sink into.
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Coming to the fore in the mid-nineties alongside such artists as Portishead, Tricky and Massive Attack, Morcheeba helped define the trip hop genre with the mellow vibes and downtempo grooves of their seminal 1996 debut, <em>Who Can You Trust</em>. They’ve always refused to be confined by the tenets of trip hop however, and in the intervening years the UK trio – which is comprised of Edwards and brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey – have transcended the genre they helped create.
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Though Morcheeba’s music is often supremely relaxing, it’s never tired, and their forthcoming studio album, the band’s eigth, is no exception. While retaining their unique warm and mellow sound, and delving back into their hip hop roots, the new release, <em>Head Up High</em>, has a subtle yet invigorating upbeat kick – something the band refer to as “Morcheeba with a pulse.”
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On the eve of a string of North American and European dates, we caught up with Edwards to talk about the new album, which hits stores on October 14th.
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Read my <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2931/Skye-Edwards-of-Morcheeba-Head-Up-High/">interview with Skye Edwards of Morcheeba on SuicideGirls.com</a>.
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<em>Morcheeba are playing the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, CA on Friday, September 20th and the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, CA on Saturday, September 21st. For more info visit <a href="http://Morcheeba.co.uk/">Morcheeba.co.uk/</a>.</em>
</p>Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-62854881691130826042013-07-09T12:53:00.001-07:002014-01-05T18:18:06.770-08:00Adam Ant: Adam Ant is The Blueblack Hussar in Marrying The Gunner’s Daughter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5-MgNeWI3-7mmbpwgkXLcvakbWP1GexG2SqBEgZY9Am_8FObrOG_XYHCnHTvLWF3eBnG2_vqc6DOy8Uayb-k3nneeklVqjz2Uz0OyGCfxH7H9xEHmsZn3AS65rQAqZj3qTJCMOayR3nA/s1600/600_Blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5-MgNeWI3-7mmbpwgkXLcvakbWP1GexG2SqBEgZY9Am_8FObrOG_XYHCnHTvLWF3eBnG2_vqc6DOy8Uayb-k3nneeklVqjz2Uz0OyGCfxH7H9xEHmsZn3AS65rQAqZj3qTJCMOayR3nA/s320/600_Blog.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQMdjJ1GHdcdx2YFaxuVqt_Ic5IItSpIx2LHmms93Ohz7UGqnippId80SMDYn90rVatXMzAlYP-JWT2W1lfDLxlAX_s7PYxKHPKOTLNj6sDAlBuaC372ev_sqObmGBPUFNnqZKN7Q1A8s/s1600/Feature.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQMdjJ1GHdcdx2YFaxuVqt_Ic5IItSpIx2LHmms93Ohz7UGqnippId80SMDYn90rVatXMzAlYP-JWT2W1lfDLxlAX_s7PYxKHPKOTLNj6sDAlBuaC372ev_sqObmGBPUFNnqZKN7Q1A8s/s320/Feature.jpg" /></a></div>
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<center><blockquote>“There’s only one thing worse in society than the poor house and that’s the mad house.” ~ Adman Ant</blockquote></center>
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Back in the early '80s, Adam Ant was the king of the wild post-punk frontier. Mentored by former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren and his fashion designer partner Vivienne Westwood, the London born art school dropout created a visually vivid world of pirates and dandies which brought color back to the palate of a culturally monotone and economically depressed UK.
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Having amassed an avid US fanbase with his music, and after starring in a critically acclaimed West End production of the Joe Orton play E<em>ntertaining Mr. Sloane</em>, Ant moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. However the price of fame took its toll. Alongside film and TV roles, he also aquired a stalker, which severely impacted his already fragile peace of mind.
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Taking a break from the public eye, Ant moved to Tennessee before returning to London, where an altercation outside a pub thrust him back into the headlines again. Following the incident, Ant pled guilty to a single count of causing an affray. Having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 21, Ant received a suspended sentence and court ordered psychiatric care. Unfortunately, due to the relentless nature of the British press, he was forced to pull his life back together under the tabloid glare.
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Though his recovery was very public and far from linear – with every setback being exacerbated by its salacious documentation by the less savory contingent of the UK press – Ant is clearly in a much better place these days. He completed a string of dates in the US and Europe in 2012, before releasing his first studio album in 17 years. The intriguingly titled <em>Adam Ant Is The Blueblack Hussar in Marrying The Gunner's Daughter</em> was released on both side of the Atlantic in January of this year.
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I caught up with Ant by phone after a rehearsal with his new band The Good, The Mad & The Lovely Posse to talk about his new album and his upcoming US tour, which kicks off in San Diego on July 17th.
</P><p>
Read my <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2924/Adam-Ant-Adam-Ant-is-The-Blueblack-Hussar-in-Marrying-The-Gunners-Daughter--/">interview with Adam Ant on SuicideGirls.com</a>.
</p>Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-13379018653602115922013-05-09T04:02:00.000-07:002013-05-09T04:02:39.733-07:00Pierce Brosnan – Love Is All You Need<iframe width="550" height="309" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bnqdafBzQQI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>
“I know something of the life that this man lives in this film,” says Pierce Brosnan, when asked what attracted him to <em>Love Is All You Need</em>. It’s without doubt his most personal role to date. He plays a character very different from the cool, calm and collected men of action that dominate his résumé, which includes the title role in the TV series <em>Remington Steele</em>, and leads in movies such as <em>Dante's Peak</em>, <em>The Thomas Crown Affair</em> and <em>The Tailor of Panama</em>, as well as a four-film stint as James Bond, in <em>Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough</em>, and <em>Die Another Day</em>.
</p><p>
Though still suave and sophisticated, in <em>Love Is All You Need</em>, Brosnan’s character Philip is also very vulnerable beneath his expensive suits and default crabby demeanor. Philip is an English businessman isolated by geography in Denmark, and cut off from love due to the untimely and sudden death of his wife. As a coping mechanism, he divorces himself from his emotions and thrusts himself into his work running an international fruit and vegetable import/export empire. However, on the way to his son’s wedding at a picturesque but neglected Italian villa, surrounded by orange and lemon groves, that he once shared with his late wife, love literally and metaphorically crashes into Philip's life.
</p><p>
The somewhat chaotic Ida, played with extreme candor and subtlety by Danish actress Tinre Dyrholm, is the last thing Philip wants in his well-ordered and controlled world. But she is everything he needs. They bump into each other when Ida reverses her beat up car into Philip’s pristine one in an airport parking lot. As they exchange information, to their mutual horror and embarrassment, they realize they are both en route to the same wedding since Ida is the mother of the bride.
</p><p>
Ida’s vulnerabilities are far less well concealed than Philip’s. Indeed her wig is knocked off when her car airbag inflates, revealing a scalp left hairless due to the rigors of chemotherapy. But her hair – and a breast – are not the only losses Ida’s recently endured. Her husband has also just walked out on her, and into the arms of a younger woman. As a result, Ida is barely able to keep it together as she suffers the weight of Philip’s frustration and scorn. But her kindness, dignity, and cheerful spirit in the face of adversity prevail, and ultimately chip away at the stone that surrounds Philip’s heart.
</p><p>
Though dealing with the grim realities of breast cancer in an unusually honest way, the film –– which was directed by Academy Award-winning Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier and produced by Vibeke Windeløv, who has worked extensively with Dogme director Lars von Trier –– is very much a celebration of life and love. The two central characters ultimately come to terms with their respective losses, and find a way to move past them, and it’s this aspect that resonates deeply with Brosnan’s own experience.
</p><p>
The Irish born actor lost his first wife, Cassandra Harris, after a four-year battle with ovarian cancer in 1991. She was just 43. Like Philip, Brosnan eventually allowed himself to love again, and married journalist Keely Shaye Smith after a 7 year courtship in 2001. The couple have now been together for over 19 years and tirelessly campaign to raise awareness and money for <a href="http://www.piercebrosnan.com/menu.php?mm=4&sm=1&pn=1">environmental causes and women’s healthcare issues</a>.
</p><p>
I recently met up with Brosnan at the Regent Beverly Wilshire hotel to talk about <em>Love Is All You Need</em>, which is in theaters now.
</p><p>
<strong>Nicole Powers:</strong> You must have been at this all day.
</p><p>
<strong>Pierce Brosnan:</strong> I have actually. All day, all yesterday, all week, but it’s good, because the film is a beautiful film.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> I was just going to say how beautiful it was. It’s a very unusual love story too, because it’s not just about the transformative power of love, it’s about the transformative power of a little honesty and a lot of kindness.
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> It is. You’re absolutely right in that regard. It is about kindness, it is about affairs of the heart, it’s about the humanity of people’s lives who are mangled by love or by their own infidelities. It’s also about a woman who’s dealing with the rigors and the stress of breast cancer and trying to cleave her way through the healing of that, and a man, like myself, who is dormant within his own widowdom. That’s the power and the glory of Susanne Bier, she’s a really fantastic writer, a fantastic director.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> I love the brave choices she made. I mean, there’s the traditional Hollywood portrayal of cancer, but she chose not to take that route. There’s a particularly powerful bathing scene where you actually see…
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> Her breast.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> And her wound. And that was important, to see that and have that honesty in the portrayal.
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> Yes. I think it’s one of the most gorgeous scenes in the movie. I think it’s probably the epicenter of the movie. You see the vulnerability of this magnificent woman played by Trine Dyrholm. You see the joy away from the pain of cancer [as she’s] just bathing in these gorgeous waters – naked and abandoned to life. Then he thinks she’s drowning, it’s very tender and really beautifully done. It was an amazing setting to play the scene out in, and to see Trine do it with such courage and be naked. It’s not easy to be naked and have a camera on your as well.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> I also think it was a very courageous film for you to take on, because it must have brought back some painful memories from your past.
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> It was come the day for the memories to go there, to go back to the loss of a wife that you loved, to go back and touch into that space and time and heart. But one does that in many different ways in your work. That’s what the job and the art of acting is, to go back to places that you don’t necessarily want to go back to and to bring them alive. That’s the challenge. And if you have a piece like this that is so supportive for those memories, and you have a director like Susanne Bier, who’s directing you through the piece, then you can surrender to it. And you have actors like Trine before you who make you real.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> Yes, she’s incredible. When you first saw the script what attracted you to it?
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> Because I could identify with the emblems that were in this character’s life. Losing a wife, being a single parent, being a widower, being, not necessarily a workaholic – because I do like to do work. I love working, I love acting, and it’s what I do.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> And finding love again?
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> And finding love again, I knew about that. I’ve got a great girl, a great woman who’s my North Star, nineteen years together going down the road. So, you know, I know something of the life that this man lives in this film. It’s about faith, new beginnings, all in the celebration of a wedding. Everyone can identify with a wedding. It’s the bringing together of two families, it’s a bringing together of a man and a woman, a boy and a girl, their love in the eyes of god, so there’s all of that ceremony that is timeless, generation after generation. And then the crazy, madcap world within that when they clash and the alcohol flows and the music flows and the resentments come out and people really begin to show themselves.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> The whole thing with family is that you have to love them despite their flaws.
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> Yeah, you do. Because we’re all cracked and fractured, that’s love and only love really. It’s the essence of being human, being kind with whatever you do – writing, painting, being a dentist or being an accountant or whatever – I think it’s to be kind, to be loving.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> How long did you get to spend in Italy? The location was stunning.
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> We spent just over a month there. It was amazing. It was just fabulous. Sorrento is a gorgeous part of the Italian coastline.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> I went on vacation there. It was the best trip I’ve ever had in my entire life. And seeing that villa set amongst the orange and lemon groves made me want smell-o-vision, because it must have smelt good.
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> Oh, it was mighty, it was really, really unbelievable. I had the time of my life. It’s a film that I will carry in my heart forever and a day, because of the nature of it. Then that it’s there on film, that Morten [Søborg], the DP, captured it in such glorious color. And to wake up every day and go to work and Vibeke [Windeløv], one of the producers on the film, who’s a very charismatic lady. She found a villa for me, so I lived in the Villa Tritone, which was down the back streets. Do you remember when you were there, you could go down the back streets of Sorrento, down to the little village, the little bay? Well, as you go down that avenue, just before you get to the Saracens’ Gate, if you remember that, where the Saracens came through all those centuries ago, on the right there were green gates, and there was the Villa Tritone. So I stayed in this villa. Vibeke made a deal with the lovely owners, I stayed there, and then consequently all the cast and crew could come in – because they wanted to have James Bond in their house. [laughs] God love ‘em! God bless ‘em! [Puts on thick Irish accent] I’m just an actor. There you go, let’s party guys!
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> This movie, and <em>Mamma Mia</em>, which is also set in a Mediterranean surrounding and centered around a wedding, made me realize that Europeans know how to eat, drink, and be merry, in a way that…
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> Americans do, Americans do as well.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> But the lushness of the land, and the connection of it to the wine and the produce on the table…
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG>: Well, there is that old worldliness to it – that’s what’s so beguiling and captivating. These films are like bookends, <em>Mamma Mia</em> and this one. They sit there like bookends on the shelf. Because both are surrounded by the epicenter of a wedding.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> Did the locals enjoy the fact that James Bond was staying in their town? Were there any particularly funny moments with the locals while you were in Sorrento?
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> Erm…Yes, but I can’t really talk about the one that comes to mind. [laughs] It involves…Oh no, I couldn’t. You’ll have to read the memoirs for that one. [laughs]
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> [laughs] Damn, that’s a tease!
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> It’s a tease, isn’t it? No, not really, I wondered around and, you know, the locals…I’d get out and about and I’d go to church Sundays, because the churches are everywhere, on every corner, and they’re so magnificent and such a celebration of faith. And the food was fantastic. I met a family who had a boat, so some days I’d just go around the coast and down the coast of the Amalfi.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> Ah, the Amalfi Coast.
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> It was just around the corner, literally.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> Yeah, I took a bus trip along the coastal cliff road, and the bus was so long and the corners were so sharp it felt like we were going to plunge over the edge at times.
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> Yeah, best not to look too closely. That opening scene with us in the car, that was all along the Amalfi Coast. I don't know how the hell we managed to do it but we did…But it was an embarrassment of riches.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> Well your career’s almost been an embarrassment of riches. I mean you got a big break early on when Tennessee Williams handpicked you to be in the UK premiere of his play [<em>The Red Devil Battery Sign</em>], and then you’ve work with Roman Polanski on <em>The Ghost Writer</em> – is there anyone you feel that you’ve yet to work with?
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> Oh, so many, so many.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> Who? Put their names out into the universe and see what comes back.
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> I’d love to work with Ang Lee and David O. Russell, I’d love to work with Robert De Niro, Quentin Tarantino – he wanted to do James Bond.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> Yeah?
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> Yeah.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> I could see that actually.
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> We got so, so polluted one night, he and I. Just absolutely in our cups at the Four Seasons.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> That’s a nice euphemism. What were you getting “polluted” on?
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> Apple Martinis.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> They’re lethal.
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> Ah, lethal.
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> Because they’re so fruity.
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> Ah, fruity, we were being very fruity that night, the two of us.
</p><p>
<STRONG>Publicist: </STRONG> [walks through the door and interrupts our conversation to bring the interview to a close] On that fruity note…So sorry
</p><p>
<STRONG>PB:</STRONG> On that fruity note…there we go…
</p><p>
<STRONG>NP:</STRONG> Nooo! Just as I’m getting the story of the night Pierce Brosnan gets drunk on Apple Martinis with Quentin Tarantino – Argh!!!!
</p>
Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-41163713739228391292013-04-01T18:54:00.000-07:002014-01-05T18:56:47.433-08:00Rob Zombie – The Lords of Salem<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<P>
<blockquote><center>“It’s a weird movie, which is good.”
- Rob Zombie</center></blockquote>
</P><P>
<em>The Lords of Salem</em> is one hell of a rockin’ horror flick. Written and directed by Rob Zombie – whose feature credits include <em>House of 1000 Corpses</em>, <em>The Devil’s Rejects</em>, and <em>Halloween I</em> and <em>II</em> – the masterfully textured and paced film puts a timeless new spin on the mythology surrounding the Salem witch trials. It stars Rob’s wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, who plays Heidi Hawthorne, a local radio station DJ. The spirits of Salem start to stir when Heidi gives airplay to a sheet of vinyl she receives in a mysterious wooden crate, which comes with a cryptic note that merely says it’s “a gift from the Lords.”
</P><P>
After spooking ourselves silly watching a preview, during which we literally jumped out of our seat and squealed on several occasions, we met up with Rob, who'd just returned from Austin where he'd screened the film during SXSW. We spoke in depth about <em><a href="http://www.LordsofSalem.com/">The Lords of Salem</a></em> and also got the skinny on his new album, <em><a href="http://robzombie.com/tag/venomous-rat-regeneration-vendor/">Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor</a></em>, which comes out four days after the film’s April 19th theatrical release.
</P><P>
Read my <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2910/Rob-Zombie-The-Lords-of-Salem/">interview with Rob Zombie on SuicideGirls.com</a>.
</P>Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-41662298540239931602013-03-11T18:50:00.000-07:002014-01-05T18:53:37.414-08:00Jules Stewart – K-11<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<P>
<blockquote><center>“How could this have been here since the ‘50s and nobody know?”
- Jules Stewart</center></blockquote>
</P><P>
Jules Stewart is the mother of a certain <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2692/Kristen-Stewart-Twilight/">Twilight star</a>, but to even mention that almost does a disservice to her latest project, which is an edgy and challenging example of independent filmmaking at its finest. Having spent three decades working in Hollywood as a script supervisor, with a résumé that spans 30 films and over 50 TV shows, Stewart knows a thing or two about what makes a good story and how to avoid the grind of tired and traditional screenwriting formulas. Consequently, <em>K-11</em>, which she co-wrote with Jared Kurt, is a compelling and very unique take on the prison drama. The highly accomplished film, which features an extraordinary ensemble cast, also marks Stewart’s directorial debut.
</P><P>
Read my <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2907/Jules-Stewart-K-11/">interview with Jules Stewart on SuicideGirls.com</a>.
</P>Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-37649091245966509002013-02-03T23:22:00.002-08:002013-02-03T23:24:50.331-08:00Cory Doctorow: Homeland –– Part 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<p>
<blockquote><center>“I’m not cynical about clicktivism.”
- Cory Doctorow</center></blockquote>
</p><p>
I was recently fortunate enough to spend some quality time with Cory Doctorow discussing topics related to the plot of <em>Homeland</em>, the thrilling follow up to his contemporary classic novel <em><a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2851/Cory-Doctorow-On-Little-And-Big-Brother/">Little Brother</a></em> (which serves as a primer on civil rights in the digital age). Our conversation spanned 90 minutes and ran into excess of 17,000 words, so the need for brevity dictated that I had to edit our interview heavily. However, Doctorow has an avid following, and rightly so. Hence I figured those of you that enjoyed <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2902/Cory-Doctorow-Homeland/">the first installment of our interview</a> might appreciate <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2905/Cory-Doctorow-Homeland-Part-2/">this second bite at the apple</a>.
</p><p>
In the first part, we discussed Burning Man, which is where the action in <em>Homeland</em> kicks off, and the student debt bubble, which serves as a backdrop to the book. In part two, our conversation delves further into the post-Occupy politics of <em>Homeland</em>. In Doctorow’s book, our hacktivist hero Marcus Yallow, having been forced out of the education system due to financial pressures, gains a position as a tech guru for an independent political candidate. Our discussion therefore naturally turns to the limitations of two party systems, the potential social media has to transform the political landscape, the pros and cons of clicktivism, and the perils of online activism, which is especially poignant given that Aaron Swartz contributed an afterward to the book.
</p><p>
<a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2905/Cory-Doctorow-Homeland-Part-2/">Read part two of my interview with Cory Doctorow on SuicideGirls.com/</a>.
</p><p>
Cory will be embarking on a multi-city US book tour starting on Tuesday, February 5th, which also happens to be the release date for <em>Homeland</em>. See below for a full list of dates:
</p><p>
<strong>Cory Doctorow - 2013 <em>Homeland</em> Book Tour</strong></p><p>
Tuesday, February 05 - Seattle Public Library Central Branch, Seattle, WA</p><p>
Wednesday, February 06 - Powell's Books, Beaverton, OR</p><p>
Thursday, February 07 - Booksmith, San Francisco, CA</p><p>
Friday, February 08 - Borderlands Books, San Francisco, CA</p><p>
Saturday, February 09 - The Leonardo, Salt Lake City, UT</p><p>
Sunday, February 10 - Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, AZ</p><p>
Tuesday, February 12 - Times Square Marriott Marquis, New York, NY</p><p>
Thursday, February 14 - Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Cincinnati, OH</p><p>
Friday, February 15 - Books & Books, Coral Gables, FL</p><p>
Saturday, February 16 - Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC</p><p>
Sunday, February 17 - Dekalb County Public Library, Decatur, GA</p><p>
Monday, February 18 - Square Books, Oxford, MS</p><p>
Tuesday, February 19 - Booksellers at Laurelwood, Memphis, TN</p><p>
Wednesday, February 20 - Octavia Books, New Orleans, LA</p><p>
Thursday, February 21 - Brazos Bookstore, Houston, TX</p><p>
Friday, February 22 - Book People, Austin, TX</p><p>
Saturday, February 23 - Crowne Plaza Hotel, Nashua, NH</p><p>
Saturday, February 23 - RiverRun Bookstore, Portsmouth, NH</p><p>
Sunday, February 24 - Gibson's Bookstore, Concord, NH</p><p>
Monday, February 25 - Busboys and Poets, Washington DC</p><p>
Tuesday, February 26 - Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, MA</p><p>
Wednesday, February 27 - South Broadway Cultural Center, Albuquerque, NM</p><p>
</p><p>
Full details can be found <a href="http://us.macmillan.com/Tour.aspx?id=1238">here</a>.
</p>
Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-63189310765879369502013-01-10T09:19:00.002-08:002013-01-10T09:20:15.505-08:00Cory Doctorow: Homeland<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<p>
<blockquote><center>“Scholarship is inherently not a market activity.”
- Cory Doctorow</center></blockquote>
</p><p>
Cory Doctorow has made me wait almost a year to read <em>Homeland</em>, the much-anticipated sequel to <em>Little Brother</em>, his opus on civil rights and protest in the digital age. With not one but two Doctorow novels, <em>Pirate Cinema</em> and <em>Rapture of the Nerds</em> (which was co-authored with Charles Stross), already on the release schedule for 2012, Homeland has had to loiter in the wings for a 2013 publication date. But the wait has been well worth it. Homeland is a beyond worthy successor to <em>Little Brother</em>.
</p><p>
The highly prophetic novel, which was first published in 2007, is now regarded as a contemporary classic. As such, <em>Little Brother</em> is required reading in many of our more progressive schools, and has even been turned into a “<a href="http://io9.com/5876730/cory-doctorows-little-brother-becomes-a-must+see-stage-play">must see</a>” stage play –– hence <em>Homeland</em> has quite a legacy to live up to.
</p><p>
When I last sat down with Doctorow –– for <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2851/Cory-Doctorow-On-Little-And-Big-Brother/">an interview specifically about <em>Little Brother</em></a> –– on January 4th, 2012, Obama had just signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012 into law. With the stroke of our President’s pen, yet another of the central themes of <em>Little Brother</em> –– unlimited military detention without trial –– had become fact rather than fiction.
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In <em>Homeland</em> (which Doctorow had finished writing a few days prior to our first meeting), we return to the <em>Little Brother</em> universe a year and a half after the last novel left off. In the intervening months, austerity has choked the life and soul out of America, and our hacktivist hero Marcus Yallow has quit his studies, having been forced out of university by financial pressures and burgeoning student debt.
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The action kicks off at Burning Man, where Marcus has an unexpected encounter with his sometime ally Masha, and their nemesis Carrie Johnstone. Masha, who is on the run from just about every law enforcement agency you can name (and a few that you can’t), hands Marcus an insurance policy in the form of a key to an encrypted torrent file which contains a treasure drove of highly sensitive data. Her subsequent disappearance prompts Marcus to set up a WikiLeaks-like site, an endeavor which is made all the more complicated by conflicts of interests that arise from his new job as a tech guru for an independent political candidate.
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Meanwhile Johnstone has given up her position in the military for a lucrative job in the private sector with a Halliburton type entity that has tentacles embedded in the government, military, and the increasingly lucrative (and corrupt) student loan market. It’s therefore no surprise that Johnstone and her corporation, Zyz, are the subject of much of Masha’s leaked data, and a cat & mouse game ensues involving lawful interception, rootkits, and drones. It’s not all doom and gloom though, and at one point during the breakneck-paced plot, Marcus (and Doctorow vicariously through him) gets to sit down and have a Mini Dungeon adventure with Electronic Frontier Foundation founders John Perry Barlow, John Gilmore and Mitch Kapor, with uber geek <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2862/Wil-Wheaton-TableTop/">Wil Wheaton</a> acting as Dungeon Master.
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Having read an advance copy of <em>Homeland</em>, I met up with Doctorow at his North London workspace to question him about it. As I make myself comfortable on his couch and set up my digital recorder on the coffee table next to his well-thumbed copy of the RAND Corporation’s 1955 book <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Million_Random_Digits_with_100,000_Normal_Deviates">A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates</a></em>, the Canadian-born writer and <a href="http://boingboing.net/author/cory_doctorow_1">Boing Boing</a> editor does something quintessentially English by offering me a cup of tea. Normally this would be more than acceptable, but having been tempted by the delights of cold-brew coffee –– Marcus’ hi-octane beverage of choice which fuels much of <em>Homeland</em> –– I can’t help feeling a little disappointed that Doctorow didn’t have a batch on the go…
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Read my <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2902/Cory-Doctorow-Homeland/">interview with Cory Doctorow on SuicideGirls.com</a>.
</p>
Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-67123213056398092832013-01-06T07:26:00.001-08:002013-01-06T07:26:47.016-08:00Kalle Lasn - Meme Wars: The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics<img src="http://s95218.gridserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/550_Capitalism.jpg" alt="" />
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<blockquote>"I believe that we are at the brink of a 1,000 year Dark Age and unless we stand up viscerally and powerfully and with civil disobedience and everything we've got, if we don't start fighting for a different kind of future, then we're not going to have a future."
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~ Kalle Lasn, Adbusters</blockquote>
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<em>Adbusters</em> co-founder and Occupy Wall Street protagonist Kalle Lasn is hoping his new book, <em>Meme Wars</em>, will ultimately facilitate the occupation of the world's financial institutions, corporations, and governments from within. It's a lofty goal and a long game, but as Lasn so eloquently puts it: "If we don't start fighting for a different kind of future then we're not going to have a future."
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Over the course of <em>Meme War</em>'s 400+ pages, Lasn challenges students in the economics departments of learning institutions around the globe to rise up, reeducate their professors, and demand they cast aside the failed tenets of orthodox economics. He also sets forth a more holistic curriculum which takes into account the psychological and environmental costs of doing business and redefines the concept of wealth to include mental and ecological health.
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I spoke with Lasn, who was born in Estonia but is based in Vancouver, by phone.
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Read my <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2900/Kalle-Lasn--Meme-Wars-The-Creative-Destruction-of-Neoclassical-Economics/">interview with Kalle Lasn on SuicideGirls.com</a>.
</p?
Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-60342995834166137732013-01-06T07:18:00.000-08:002013-01-06T07:18:19.685-08:00We Are Weev<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmG8iyJNq-J3GS7_NPAzBnsLBwSEoSSCYdHBMPatSILaTvvX3S8g6KXUbt8kG0LShGPQ7mBzf_2zASpnMEhS77u0se8LcfGhsx0AagFAfPO6rN2lbpdq_9KlnBotl4HL84hXu_57M3H1U/s1600/Weev.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="131" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmG8iyJNq-J3GS7_NPAzBnsLBwSEoSSCYdHBMPatSILaTvvX3S8g6KXUbt8kG0LShGPQ7mBzf_2zASpnMEhS77u0se8LcfGhsx0AagFAfPO6rN2lbpdq_9KlnBotl4HL84hXu_57M3H1U/s400/Weev.jpg" /></a></div>
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by <a href="http://suicidegirlsblog.com/xx-2/nicole-powers/">Nicole Powers</a>
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These days, it's kinda like your computer illiterate granddad is laying down the law on the internet. Only worse. Cause your computer illiterate granddad doesn't have the power to send your ass to jail for longer than most rapists for the crime of clicking on the wrong http link. Which is something the US government is trying to do. Fo' realz. Yep. That.
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Case in point. Andrew Alan Escher Auernheimer, a.k.a. @rabite, a.k.a. Weev. He's just been found guilty on one count of not actually hacking anything and one count of having a list of email addresses, even though no one bothered to prove he ever actually had 'em, tho everyone agrees his mate did. Confusing right? You can totally imagine Gramps throwing his hands in the air at this point and saying to hell with this good-for-nothing with two too many silly-ass names - which is pretty much what the US government is doing.
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Part of the problem is that the laws Andrew Alan Escher Auernheimer, fuck it, let's just call him Weev, has been found guilty of violating - which came into being under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) - predate Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the first documented version of which, V0.9, was codified in 1991. In light of the fact that we've yet to come up with a fully functioning flux capacitor, as you can imagine, the application of the CFAA on today's internet works about as well as Doc Brown's DeLorean time machine.
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<center>***</center>
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"Couldn't it be argued that Weev actually did something good and beneficial for society?"
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Wait? Wut? If that's the case, remind me why Grampa Government is trying to throw his ass in jail?
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I'm chatting with Jay Leiderman, a chap who knows a thing or three about the law and the internet. He's an elite California State Bar Certified Criminal Law Specialist-grade lawyer who's defended several high profile hacktivist types, including Raynaldo Rivera of LulzSec and Commander X of the Peoples Liberation Front. He also happens to be a Twitter ninja, which is how I got to know him. A quick perusal of his @LeidermanDevine twitter feed will tell you Jay's a rare legit legal animal who clearly gets today's wobbly whirly web, which is why I called him up to discuss Weev's wobbly whirly situation, which is as follows...
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On November 20, 2012, in a Newark, NJ court, Weev was convicted of <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1028">USC 1028</a>, "identity theft" (as in "stealing" a list of email addresses) and <a href="http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/47/1030">USC 1030</a> "conspiracy to access a computer device without authorization" -- which, according to Jay, is something we technically all do multiple times every day. Given that Weev was singled out of the entirety of America's online population for prosecution, in real terms, it's safe to say what he's actually more guilty of is <a href="http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/11/att-ipad-hacker-when-embarassment-becomes-a-crime/">embarrassing the fuck out of a Fortune 500 company</a>...and the government no likey that.
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Let me explain: Back in 2010 when the iPad first came out, Weev's mate figured out that AT&T was doing a sloppy ass job with autofill on an app, and in the course of achieving this great technological feat had publicly published the e-mail addresses and ICC-IDs (the identifiers that match a person to their SIM card in a mobile device) of its entire iPad customer base on the web - with no password, no firewall, no fuck off or die warning, no nothing to protect them. Yep. Really. They were that dumb.
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"There's an AT&T web app that had a URL on it with a number at the end, and if you added one to the number you would see the next email address," explains Weev by phone after I tracked his ass down via teh twitters. Obviously there's quicker ways to get kicks online than adding a digit to a URL and hitting return (have you tried Googling Goatse?), so Weeve's ever resourceful mate, Daniel Spitler, created an app called the "iPad 3G Account Slurper" which sucked up well over 100,000 addresses. "My friend just wrote a script to irate though and add one to the number again and again and again," Weeve tells me. "It's not fucking rocket science. It's basic arithmetic. It could have been done manually on any iPad."
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So that explains how they "stole" the list of publicly published email addresses, but why might be a better question to ask. "Comment and criticism against large companies which go unchecked in our country," replies Weev, when I ask him. "And making a public spectacle and ridiculing them, which I think frankly makes me the best fucking American in the room. We used to be a country that valued criticism of the powerful, and we haven't really been in the past three decades."
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To add context, at the time, Weev and his mate (who <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20105097-245/at-t-ipad-site-hacker-to-fight-on-in-court-exclusive/">copped a plea bargain</a>) were working under the banner of Goatse Security, and as such, their mission in life was to explore gaping holes (I told you to Google Goatse!). AT&T's might not have been the sexiest of holes, but it was gaping and it could be argued that it was in the public interest that Goatse Security rummage around in it.
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Among the private email addresses that AT&T were publicly publishing were ones belonging to politicians (New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel), <a href="http://www.ellsworth.af.mil/library/biographies/bio.asp?id=12557">members of the military</a> and multiple government agencies (DARPA, DHS, NSA, FAA and FCC), and high profile media types (Diane Sawyer and New York Times CEO Janet Robinson). Goatse Security could have had much lulz with the list and/or sold it for mucho dinero, an option which the duo allegedly <a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/att-hack/">discussed in IRC chats</a> but put aside. Instead, they decided to go to the press to speak truth to power, which was really when the trouble began.
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Weev served as Goatse's spokesperson and spin master. It was his job to liaise with the media and present stories in a way that might titillate us lazy-ass scribes. "Hey, look, I just found a list of email addresses on a bunch publicly accessible web pages" might have been accurate, but it wasn't the kind of story that would make copy even on the slowest of news days, so Weev sexed it up a bit. In a press release sent to several news outlets he wrote, "I stole your email," and, like a magician offering to explain a trick, followed it up with, "Let me explain the method of theft."
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Because of this hyperbole, Weev essentially convicted himself on the first count of "identity theft." The prosecution spent much of their time with Weeve on the stand discussing his use of the words "stole" and "theft" during cross-examination. I mean, I know it's said that sarcasm is the lowest form of humor, but I didn't know it was illegal! And speaking of the law's humor bind spot, the prosecution also referred to <a href="https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Weev">Weev's Encyclopedia Dramatica</a> entry and used that against him, which, given the spoof nature of the site, is tantamount to using a <em>Saturday Night Live</em> skit as legitimate and damning character evidence. <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/522213-auren.html">I. Kid. You. Not.</a>
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<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/hacker-faces-prison-not-hacking-ipad-182843211.html">At no time did Goatse ever make the list publicly available</a> - AT&T were the only ones doing that. The prosecution never really attempted to prove that Weev possessed the full list of email addresses. What neither side disputes is that Weev tapped the list for a handful of press email contacts (something he would have likely got by calling the media outlets direct anyways), then merely passed on a link to it to a journalist for verification. The journalist in question was <a href="http://gawker.com/5559346/apples-worst-security-breach-114000-ipad-owners-exposed ">Ryan Tate of Gawker</a>. His story ran on June 9th, 2010, and it was because of this that the shit hit the proverbial fan.
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"This access would have gone unnoticed if I hadn't gone to the press. If I hadn't informed AT&T's customers," says Weev. "They're not really pissed about the access, they're pissed about the speech attached to the access. God forbid corporations be subject to fair comment and criticism."
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Talking of access, the second count Weev was convicted of - "conspiracy to access a computer device without authorization" - is something that should be cause for concern for anyone that has ever clicked on anything on the web. The way this law - which predates all of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJO3ROT-A4E">One Direction</a> and the hyperlinked internet as we know it - is interpreted means that accessing a "protected computer" could get your ass slung in jail. But what is a "protected computer" and how the fuck are you supposed to know when you're accessing one? This is where the law gets interesting. And by interesting, I mean really fucking stupid.
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"The definition of protected computer comes from comes from the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, and in 1986 http hadn't been invented yet," says Weev. "This was a long time ago when servers were things that were only accessible by dial-up that every single one universally had a password for. There wasn't the concept of a public network. At the time, if you were accessing a remote server, and you didn't have permission to be there it's clear that it wasn't public data. But now it's the age of the internet. We click links every day. You've never gotten Google's permission to go to Google, you've never gotten any website's permission that you've visited. It's the universally understood aspect of the web that you can visit a public http server without pre-written authorization. It's a ridiculous notion that you need it. And the prosecutor is using an ancient antiquated definition of a protected system, which is <a href="http://mashable.com/2012/11/20/att-ipad-hacker-trial/">any system that engages in interstate commerce</a>. So essentially, every cell phone, every computer, every public web server is a protected system, and the minute you do something that a website operator doesn't like - if they're rich enough of course, if they're a Fortune 500 company - then they can have you."
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That might sound rather dramatic, but Jay, my favorite <a href="https://twitter.com/LeidermanDevine/status/271865992513220608">SG-lovin' lawyer</a> agrees. "Based upon this case, the government's new position is that you are required to be clairvoyant in terms of determining what a protected computer is and what a non protected one is," he tells me. "From now on you have to be a psychic...because if it isn't password protected but it's a 'protected computer' you're potentially going to be found guilty like Weev was."
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Thank god there's free <a href="https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=tittysprinkles&src=typd">tittysprinkles</a> on the internet, because otherwise the risks of clicking on something you shouldn't wouldn't be worth price. As Weev puts it, "The law says every time that you click a link, if the person at the other end has enough money and connections, and they just don't like you, they can have you arbitrarily thrown in jail by declaring your access - after the fact - unauthorized."
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But how did we get from "something good and beneficial for society" to "free tittysprinkles"? Well, some might see a very obvious linear connection, but those that don't should consider this; There's a cat and mouse game that goes on between big business and the internet security community, but it's a symbiotic relationship nevertheless. And as consumers who are clueless when it comes to code, we should be grateful to those that are scanning for flaws, and pressuring big corporations to sort their shit out on our behalf.
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"Perhaps the greatest lesson of Weev's case is that not only is there no reward for helping these companies patch their holes and fix themselves, indeed now you're going to be facing ten or fifteen years of prison if you do," says Jay. "What's the incentive to make these companies more secure? I mean, you're better off just hacking them now. You're better off just hacking these companies and not telling them. If you get caught essentially you're facing about the same punishment anyway so what's the difference?"
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<center>***</center>
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Weev is currently in the process of appealing his conviction. You can donate to help with his legal costs <a href="http://freeweev.info/">here</a>.
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And tell Grampa Government to get <a href="https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8750">off our lawn</a> and <a href="https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8225">out of our emails</a>.
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Isn't it time we upgraded our legal operating system?
</P>Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-67798225038845029442012-06-14T14:04:00.003-07:002012-06-15T12:50:48.456-07:00George Parker – Confessions of a Mad Man<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbEpMUsm5LV8gXToCwYz63gSG0yUzAyJb2f0u9K44qgcH7yGGGM8ZAOHo2YYyIrAetDHPUm1tkcNBLNBU64a1EWW9dWNOvrClfOn3oPGEN1ZUzcDKOxA-TuC48MhyphenhyphenEi-RIruKSbztPexE/s1600/large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="118" width="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbEpMUsm5LV8gXToCwYz63gSG0yUzAyJb2f0u9K44qgcH7yGGGM8ZAOHo2YYyIrAetDHPUm1tkcNBLNBU64a1EWW9dWNOvrClfOn3oPGEN1ZUzcDKOxA-TuC48MhyphenhyphenEi-RIruKSbztPexE/s400/large.jpg" /></a>
<blockquote><center>“The problem is, from what I understand of Occupy, that because it’s so democratic, so many people have a say in what should go, that your messaging is just getting too beat to shit. The messaging has to be produced basically by one person or a very small group of people, no more than three or four, otherwise it just gets watered down.”
- George Parker on Occupy and marketing by committee</center></blockquote>
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George Parker is a man who loves profanity almost as much as he hates the corporate fucktards and douchenozzles that stifle creativity in the advertising industry (Parker’s preferred pronominal profanities, not <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/members/nicole_powers/2695846/">my own</a>). In his popular “piss and vinegar” blog <a href="http://www.adscam.typepad.com/">AdScam</a> and his three books –<em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Madscam-George-Parker/dp/1599180421">Madscam</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Ubiquitous-Persuaders-George-Parker/dp/1439226822/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b">The Ubiquitous Persuaders</a></em>, and his latest, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Mad-Man-ebook/dp/B005DHYPZQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339365729&sr=1-1&keywords=George+Parker%3A+Confessions+of+a+Mad+Man">Confessions of a Mad Man</a></em> – the renowned British-born adman rails against the Big Dumb Agencies (BDAs) and the shareholder-serving corporations that consolidated, own, and suck the life out of them.
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Self-described as “the last surviving Mad Man,” Parker landed at Cunard’s Pier 96 in New York to pursue his Madison Avenue dreams in an era when the cheapest way to cross the Atlantic was still by steamship. Having spent five debaucherous days of “non-stop drinking and shagging” aboard the Queen Mary, he arrived armed with a degree from the Manchester School of Art, a postgraduate scholarship from London’s Royal College of Art, a masters in bullshit from the University of Life, and a few hundred bucks. In the ensuing five decades, he rose through the ranks and has worked on countless major accounts both as a freelancer and in-house for some of the most prestigious agencies in the world including Ogilvy & Mather, Young & Rubicam, Chiat Day, and J. Walter Thompson.
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As the recipient of Lions, CLIOs, EFFIES, and the David Ogilvy Award, and with a career that spans five decades and multiple continents, Parker has more perspective than most when it comes to what’s wrong in today’s ad world. He’s repelled by the kind of suits that use jargon like “resonate” instead of “appeal” and who “interface” instead of “meet.” But, according to Parker, their crimes against humanity only begin with their choice of vocabulary. He hates the way they treat the American public like it has a collective IQ somewhere south of Jessica Simpson's and their clients with the kind of contempt that should be reserved for the likes of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove.
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Talking of which, Parker also takes issue with the kind of one percenters who think it’s OK to treat themselves to Russian MiG 15 fighters (Larry Ellison of Oracle) and Boeing 767s (Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin) at their shareholders’ expense. To say Parker is moderately left wing is an understatement, since he never does anything – including Boddingtons – by halves. As such, he’s a rare beast in the advertising world, one that has lived life to the full yet has sense of decency, and a conscience.
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Having been kind enough to call SuicideGirls “one of the best examples of a community based social networking site” in his excellent 2006 state-of-the-industry bible <em>The Ubiquitous Persuaders</em> (a book that serves as an update to Vance Packard’s 1957 classic The Hidden Persuaders), we were long overdue for a quality conversation with Parker. With the freshly minted <em>Confessions of a Mad Man</em> – a literary (and often times literal) romp through the industry as experienced by Parker – serving as an excuse, we called him up for a chat over drinks. In the interests of verisimilitude, ours was a glass of Sauvignon Blanc (cause we’re lightweights) and Parker’s was "a case of Pinot Noir" (because he’s not). During the course of our lengthy chinwag we discussed the decay of the American Dream, the not uncoincidental rise of political advertising, and how Occupy might best market itself and its efforts to stop the rot.
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Read my exclusive <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2876/George-Parker-Confessions-of-a-Mad-Man/">interview with George Parker on SuicideGirls.com</a>.Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-42787866139976484092012-02-23T07:19:00.000-08:002012-02-23T07:21:57.544-08:00Cory Doctorow – On Little And Big Brother<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv1dClyQImkG7Ahb1yXVck1YIINxE9HAiEC3Jqid4o6h2VTPxdL2xn6tDZwzDXSS6GGaoMDhmM-Av2-Zg40P9Ib6E-Dbuc-sE3rSqEUeHnXj77guaNSfs2xGOHoI4lw13jRU2d3TLvVjc/s1600/Large.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 365px; height: 118px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv1dClyQImkG7Ahb1yXVck1YIINxE9HAiEC3Jqid4o6h2VTPxdL2xn6tDZwzDXSS6GGaoMDhmM-Av2-Zg40P9Ib6E-Dbuc-sE3rSqEUeHnXj77guaNSfs2xGOHoI4lw13jRU2d3TLvVjc/s400/Large.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5712351286993543266" /></a><br /><br /><center><blockquote>“It's a race to the bottom all around the world right now. Canada, Germany, the US, and the UK, as well as the rest of the EU, are basically locked in a race to see who can implement 1984 the fastest.” <br />- Cory Doctorow</blockquote></center><br /><br />"Omfgomfgomfgomfgomfg you have no idea how amazing you are!!!!!" was the exact turn of phrase used by my Twitter friend <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/EisMC2">@EisMC2</a> when I told her I'd just interviewed <em>Little Brother</em> author Cory Doctorow and had returned with a <a href="http://twitpic.com/834nol">signed copy of the book</a> for her. Indeed it was @EisMC2 and her fiancé <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/JackalAnon">@JackalAnon</a> who first turned me on to Doctorow's epic updated spin on George Orwell's Big Brother vision, which was first published in 2007. Uncannily prophetic, the novel serves as a veritable playbook for the Occupy movement, and with online pranksters turned hacktivists as its heroic protagonists, it is also an inspirational work for many Anons (hence the need for at least five omfgs). Combining an action packed and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16968689">V-relevant</a> plot with a solid historical perspective on activism, in retrospect, <em>Little Brother</em> may be considered one of the great civil liberties texts of our time. <br /><br />The math, science, and sociopolitical commentary spun into the prose of <em>Little Brother</em> is pure genius, while the story makes for a gripping reading experience. As @EisMC2 puts it, Doctorow has a knack "for distributing the #Truth in a manner everyone can understand." For example, during an expository paragraph regarding a key plot point, Doctorow also manages to simply and concisely explain how Bayesian mathematics (which puts the spam in your filter) is being deployed in an unscientific way to find "statistically abnormal" people to put under the security microscope – irrespective of whether they're actually likely to have done anything wrong. Even if advanced probability theory isn't your thing, by the time you've finished <em>Little Brother</em>, you'll have a deep understanding of how this kind of statistical analysis – which government agencies routinely rely on to make policy and find targets in the war of terror – can be misinterpreted and manipulated with chilling effect. <br /><br />Though set in an unspecified near future, much of the fictional dystopian world Doctorow depicted when he wrote <em>Little Brother</em> five years ago is now a reality (such as the indefinite detention of US citizens without trial or due process). It's a tale of terrorism, society's overreation to it, the psychology of fear, and the erosion of our constitutional rights. It also contains many elements occupiers will be all too familiar with: protests, out of control cops, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4">pepper spray</a>, tear gas, smoke bombs, police brutality, and a biased and lazy media "reporting" on it all. <br /><br />At the start of the year, having spent some quality time at <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/members/nicole_powers/albums/site/28483/">OccupyLSX</a>, I met up with Doctorow at his North London workspace. Surrounded by <a href="http://twitpic.com/834r0w">cool gadgets</a>, toys, and all manner of geek memorabilia (such as <a href="http://twitpic.com/834qbb">an original 1973 set of D&D boxed game instructions</a>), I chatted at length with the author, digital rights champion, and <a href="http://boingboing.net/">Boing Boing</a> co-editor about <em>Little Brother</em>, its forthcoming sequel <em>Homeland</em>, the realities of Big Brother, and <a href="http://www.cyberguerrilla.info/?p=3322">how to stay under the radar</a> when living in a <a href="http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2011_1227da_cautioned_over_twitter_subpoenas_advocate_warns_prosecutors_to_tread_carefully_in_bpd_email_hacking_probe">surveillance state</a>.<br /><br />Read my <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2851/Cory-Doctorow-On-Little-And-Big-Brother/">interview with Cory Doctorow on SuicideGirls.com</a>.<br /><br />For more on Cory Doctorow visit <a href="http://craphound.com/?p=3893">craphound.com/</a>. A free copy of <em>Little Brother</em> can be downloaded under a Creative Commons license <a href="http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/">here</a>.<br /><br />A staged version of <em>Little Brother</em> by The Custom Made Theatre Co. is currently playing through February 25 in San Francisco. Visit <a href="http://www.custommade.org/little-brother/">Custommade.org</a> for full details.Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-23847648766599875172012-02-22T10:01:00.000-08:002012-02-22T10:05:13.921-08:00Robert F Kennedy Jr – The Last Mountain<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEEdVeQPBqNnD4VgRc5HTvm6tbXy3jYaa9GK9-ucYtiisX4bkME51Kztnj9aLHPcRmM9B-Q0tzHepzyeBNi-WRDbJT5RBi7UtiOWrZ0ksuvX0TXROt4IFF5FlyXy3cqCFQo8W3AB13QSw/s1600/Kennedy_large.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 365px; height: 118px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEEdVeQPBqNnD4VgRc5HTvm6tbXy3jYaa9GK9-ucYtiisX4bkME51Kztnj9aLHPcRmM9B-Q0tzHepzyeBNi-WRDbJT5RBi7UtiOWrZ0ksuvX0TXROt4IFF5FlyXy3cqCFQo8W3AB13QSw/s400/Kennedy_large.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5712022126078511586" /></a><br /><br /><center><blockquote>“It's not democracy anymore.” <br />- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.</blockquote></center><br /><br />On the surface, <em>The Last Mountain</em> is a documentary about the dirty business of coal, the highly destructive and toxic practice of mountaintop removal mining, and one community's fight to preserve their homes, their livelihoods, their health, and the last great mountain in the region. However, the story of Coal River Mountain in West Virginia is allegorical of much that is wrong with America, which is why during our roundtable conversation with the film's champion, renowned environmental lawyer and activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., he barely mentions the four-letter word that is coal. Instead, Kennedy focuses on the underlying history and climate that has allowed corporations to rape and pillage our environment, and poison and kill our citizenry with impunity.<br /><br />In <em>The Last Mountain</em>, Don Blankenship, the former CEO of Massey Energy (he retired at the end of December 2010), is typecast in the role of modern day robber baron. As the largest coal producer in Central Appalachia, his company is only able to function on the scale it does by subjugating democracy. Mountaintop removal mining is cheaper and less labor intensive than traditional underground coal extraction methods, but it causes such an affront to the landscape, water and air, that it can only be done when the authorities charged with protecting the public interest are willing and able to look the other way. <br /><br />Between 2000 and 2006 Massey chalked up a staggering 60,000 EPA infractions, but has suffered little in consequences beyond much belated and pitifully low fines that serve the government's need to be seen to be doing something while maintaining the status quo. Of course, Massey is not the only corporation and coal is far from the only industry that is using and abusing our severely compromised shell of a democracy. In light of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling allowing corporate campaign donations (and a subsequent one that makes direct-to-candidate payments permissible), our government couldn't be for more up for sale if it were posted on eBay. <br /><br />Though there will inevitably be dark days ahead for our democracy, it's not all doom and gloom thanks to a groundswell of grassroots activism as witnessed in Coal River Valley and documented in <em>The Last Mountain</em>. As for the environment, Kennedy points out towards the end of this interview that there's an (LED) light at the end of the tunnel, and ironically it's capitalism in its cleanest and purest form that may end up saving the day.<br /><br />Read our <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/The+Last+Mountain%3A+Robert+F+Kennedy+Jr/"><strong>interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on SuicideGirls.com</strong></a>.Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-38147323694649001712012-02-18T00:31:00.000-08:002012-02-18T00:36:38.218-08:00Bill Haney - The Last Mountain<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6XZMnC0_iNnujMSR3UKi2a4BuHLZACanOoD1fclSN4_5xbhV4SH3KHQKQrwk_wKsIDYNu0ilMNUjPDNX0tiTNSvi-1JNp6pWSERnSh9x0BJEqDTU1WySXMDyzPku5xKT8qndNZoq3DiM/s1600/blog.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 121px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6XZMnC0_iNnujMSR3UKi2a4BuHLZACanOoD1fclSN4_5xbhV4SH3KHQKQrwk_wKsIDYNu0ilMNUjPDNX0tiTNSvi-1JNp6pWSERnSh9x0BJEqDTU1WySXMDyzPku5xKT8qndNZoq3DiM/s400/blog.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5710390843927137218" /></a><br /><br /><br /><center><blockquote>“I think that the tide against mountaintop mining's free ride is turning.” <br />- Bill Haney</blockquote></center><br /><br />There's nothing pretty about coal mining at the best of times, but mountaintop removal mining is downright obscene. The process is ugly in every sense of the word, but is less labor intensive, and therefore cheaper and more desirable for the big energy corporations who do it. However the hidden expense in terms of the environment, public health, employment, and subsidies mean that it's something that the American public is paying dearly for. The cost of mountaintop removal mining is something that is literally and metaphorically killing us.<br /><br />The sordid details involve deforestation to prepare the site. The 'overburden' - in this case a euphemism for the top 250 to 500 feet of a mountain - is then removed using dynamite to reveal the underlying coal seam. The rubble created as the mountaintop is blown away is generally pushed down the mountainside, covering flora and fauna, rivers and streams, and anything else in its wake. Once the coal has been removed the mining companies are supposed to restore the site, but this requirement is at best broadly interpreted, and at worse blatantly flouted with few repercussions.<br /><br />Fifty percent of the electricity produced in the US comes from coal-powered plants, and thirty percent of the coal used comes from Appalachia. As a result, 500 majestic Appalachian mountains have been destroyed. The biggest perpetrator of this destruction is Massey Energy, who proudly proclaim on their website that their 'vision' is 'to be the premier supplier of quality coal from Central Appalachia to worldwide markets.'<br /><br />The physical removal of coal however, is only the first stage in a highly toxic chain of events. The coal then has to be prepared, a procedure that uses vast amounts of water to wash off the soil and rock. The byproduct of this is a filthy sludge, which contains all manner of heavy metals and other such carcinogens, that is stored in vast impoundments. These sludge ponds are generally lazily constructed using dirt that is blasted off the mountaintop to damn a valley below. For the most part, there's no concrete or steel reinforcement as would befit dams built on such a scale. Because of this, many of these impoundments are leaking, and, furthermore, because these structures are not lined, the pollutants even in the sound dams leak into the surrounding water table.<br /><br />The environmental impact of such mining practices is supposed to be mitigated by the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, which in turn are supposed to be enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and, to some extent, the Army Corps of Engineers. But a Bush-era single word change to the Clean Water Act arrested its ability to control pollution, much to the delight of the polluters. Known as the Fill Rule, the definition of allowable fill material that could be dumped into lakes, rivers, and streams was essentially broadened to include all manner of waste. Thus, the Clean Water Act now serves as a license for big business to pollute.<br /><br />Because of the intrinsically dirty nature of coal mining and the cozy relationship the industrialists have with those in power (George Bush famously called his election to office 'a coal-fired victory' because of the extent of the industry's contributions to his cause), pollution is an inevitable part of the process and polluters are rarely brought to task. For example, according to Environmental Protection Agency records, Massey Energy committed over 60,000 violations between 2000 and 2006, but has paid a pittance in fines, which when compared to the company's profits barely even register as a tickle on the wrist, never mind the slap they're supposed to be.<br /><br />In the lieu of the government acting in the interests of the people it's supposed to represent, the battle for clean air and water, and sustainable energy and jobs is being fought on the ground by those Big Coal directly adversely effects. The struggle of one such community in West Virginia's Coal River Valley, whose homes, land, health, and employment prospects have been blighted by Massey's mountaintop removal mining operations, is documented in a new film, <em>The Last Mountain</em>.<br /><br />A collaboration between filmmaker Bill Haney (whose previous credits include the Academy Award-shortlisted <em>Price of Sugar</em>) and renowned environmental lawyer and activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., <em>The Last Mountain</em> should be mandatory viewing for anyone who's ever switched on a light. The film not only tells the inspiring story of the grassroots fight against the Goliath that is Massey, but also underlines our implicit culpability, which can be summed up by one simple yet staggering statistic: <em>sixteen pounds of coal is burned each day for every man woman and child in the US</em>. <br /><br />SuicideGirls participated in roundtables with Haney and Kennedy. The following is excerpted from the interview with Haney (<a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/The%20Last%20Mountain%3A%20Robert%20F%20Kennedy%20Jr/">our conversation with Kennedy is posted here</a>).<br /><br />Read our <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/The+Last+Mountain%3A++Bill+Haney/"><strong>interview with Bill Haney on SuicideGirls.com</strong></a>.Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-70573213865372809742012-01-31T09:45:00.001-08:002012-01-31T09:46:23.383-08:00Greg Palast - Vultures’ Picnic<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRc_wt9inAxxsEkn0GnXu6cZzRqXYJv4LtTjXP6OneHb9YoFZDt9jTCMxWjG_yWbQHaJCKPgBLbk-nrvtTHtDuAZo1THof0cpjOI4mv2z3p3rhIiaYUy4tWU23DoUqi7wx2rF3EvdsUOs/s1600/large.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 365px; height: 118px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRc_wt9inAxxsEkn0GnXu6cZzRqXYJv4LtTjXP6OneHb9YoFZDt9jTCMxWjG_yWbQHaJCKPgBLbk-nrvtTHtDuAZo1THof0cpjOI4mv2z3p3rhIiaYUy4tWU23DoUqi7wx2rF3EvdsUOs/s400/large.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5703853858560750178" /></a><br /><br />By <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2847/Greg-Palast-Vultures-Picnic/">Nicole Powers</a><br /><br /><center><blockquote>“They lied to Congress, they perjured themselves, they concealed the fact they had a major blowout from offshore drilling.” <br />- Greg Palast</blockquote></center><br /><br />In his latest book, <em>Vultures’ Picnic</em>, investigative reporter Greg Palast jumps ass deep into the one percent’s favorite combustible lubricant. Armed with a miniature recording device, condoms, mosquito repellant, K-Y Jelly, a 3.4-ounce flask of Felipe II, and his trademark fedora hat, Palast travels from Alaska to the Amazon, and from Louisiana to Liberia to expose the dirty business of crude oil, and those who make indecent fortunes from it. <br /><br />During the course of his investigations, Palast uncovers the incestuous relationships between the petroleum corporations and the governments they control, and how human and environmental carnage, corruption, coup d'états, and cover-ups are ultimately considered a cost of doing business by these toxic bedfellows. <br /><br />[Caution: You may feel violated after reading this interview -- but at least you'll know a few of the names of the motherfuckers that are screwing you.]<br /><br />Read my exclusive <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2847/Greg-Palast-Vultures-Picnic/">interview with Greg Palast on SuicideGirls.com</a>.Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-25516073811191591722011-12-20T22:54:00.000-08:002011-12-20T22:55:44.277-08:00Diablo Cody - Young Adult<iframe width="550" height="309" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/okfAW8OztkI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><P><br /><center><blockquote>“I wanted to keep this movie grounded in reality.” <br />- Diablo Cody</blockquote></center><br /><P><br />Screenwriter Diablo Cody’s greatest achievement with her latest project, <em>Young Adult</em>, is to bring her audience to a point where they sympathize and empathize with the film’s in many ways distinctly unlikable central character. Mavis Gary (played by Charlize Theron) is the seemingly successful author of a series of young adult novels, who on the page has everything going for her. Yet, despite being blessed in both the looks and career department, happiness eludes her. <br /><P><br />When an invitation arrives in her inbox to the christening of the daughter of her high school sweetheart, Buddy (Patrick Wilson), Mavis decides to return to her hometown to reclaim her former glory – and her former boyfriend. Blinded by her own narcissism, Mavis chooses to ignore the fact that Buddy is now happily married as she obsessively engages in the shameless pursuit of her unavailable ex.<br /><P><br />A chance meeting with a former classmate she barely remembers, Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt), provides Mavis with a drinking buddy, and a voice of reason. However, despite forming an unlikely bond with Matt, who in the wake of a high school beating is left as physically challenged as she is mentally, Mavis is unwilling and unable to retreat from the comfort of her self-delusions to see her world as it really is.<br /><P><br />As with Cody’s Academy Award-winning screenplay for <em>Juno</em>, <em>Young Adult</em> combines subtle storytelling with unconventional choices. An exercise in nuance and tone, which sees Cody reunited with her <em>Juno</em> cohort, director <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2623/Jason-Reitman-Up-In-The-Air/">Jason Reitman</a> (<em>Up In The Air</em>), the film features award-worthy performances from both Theron and Oswalt that – as with the script – are remarkable for their realness. <br /><P><br />I sat down with Cody in New York to talk about the film.<br /><P><br />Read my exclusive <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/2839/Diablo-Cody-Young-Adult/"><strong>interview with Diablo Cody on SuicideGirls.com</strong></a>.Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-17919030563669015972011-12-06T12:54:00.000-08:002011-12-06T13:04:05.076-08:00Why We're Re-Occupying Our Homes Today: A Story Of Foreclosure From OccupyLA<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCvoBmF8624vjRFtpZevrW7Ga3pXQcdgrJk6uNimyxkCpbWmh-SuTL2zVxwVt35nPesWfTI243oNCKmQ4LfqqWGCey7cQsrRYHDTo4SNYznDBUjkbeI_JljBRDGnSI-yYQWcwgNqNRK24/s1600/WELLFARGO.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCvoBmF8624vjRFtpZevrW7Ga3pXQcdgrJk6uNimyxkCpbWmh-SuTL2zVxwVt35nPesWfTI243oNCKmQ4LfqqWGCey7cQsrRYHDTo4SNYznDBUjkbeI_JljBRDGnSI-yYQWcwgNqNRK24/s400/WELLFARGO.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683122109577055826" /></a><br /><P><br />Let me introduce you to a lovely lady I met on <a href="http://suicidegirls.com/members/nicole_powers/albums/site/26618/">October 7th at #OccupyLA</a>. She was there simply to tell her story. Like many people in this economy, she had been finding it difficult to make ends meet, so when Obama's Loan Modification program began it seemed like a godsend. Little did she know, it would be the start rather than the end of her problems.<br /><P><br />She duly completed all the paperwork her bank, Wells Fargo, asked her to, and was told what her reduced payments would be. She continued to pay her mortgage, but at the adjusted rate, as she'd been instructed to by Wells Fargo. She never missed a payment, and was not in arrears.<br /><P><br />However, months later, out of the blue, she found out her application, for whatever reason, had been rejected. At this point, Wells Fargo treated her like she had been in arrears, because she'd been paying reduced payments on a mortgage that had failed to be modified. To add insult to injury, Wells Fargo then slapped her with a slew of interest charges and fees, because they in effect <em>retroactively</em> considered her account to be in default because of the Loan Modification decision.<br /><P><br />Her bank then suggested she reapply, which she did - twice. Two more times, exactly the same thing happened. Following the third failed application, Wells Fargo began proceedings to repossess her home, even though she had made all her mortgage payments in exactly the way the bank had prescribed.<br /><P><br />Turns out, the Loan Modification process is notoriously flawed and has been accused numerous times of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-gaudreau/are-loan-modifications-ca_b_688963.html">causing foreclosures</a>, as was the case here. Richard Gaudreau, an attorney, explains in an essay for <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-gaudreau/are-loan-modifications-ca_b_688963.html">Huffington Post</a> exactly why the Loan Modification process fails to help troubled homeowners while lining the pockets of banks (surprise, surprise!):<br /><P><br /><blockquote>The government pays mortgage servicers $1,000 for each "loan mod" application. Studies have shown though that mortgage servicers stand to make far more in fees from a foreclosure than they ever will from a loan modification request.</blockquote><br /><P><br />Obviously this kind of behavior is unconscionable. It's hard to comprehend that a "trusted name" like Wells Fargo would want to force a loyal customer and her family out onto the street in order to make a quick buck on a few fees. But this is happening to untold numbers of people all across our nation at the hands of nearly all the major banks. <br /><P><br />My #OccupyLA friend had done everything required of her to meet her obligations, but somehow that wasn't enough -- is that remotely fair? But these days we don't seem to require fairness, never mind empathy and understanding, from the financial institutions in which we entrust our wealth, our security, and our futures. Clearly this was not an institution worthy of the trust this lady had been placed in it. Is it worthy of yours?<br /><P><br />Take the power away from the big banks and move your money to a community institution or credit union. To find a credit union in your area visit: <a href="http://moveyourmoneyproject.org/find-bankcredit-union">moveyourmoneyproject.org</a><br /><P><br /><strong>Related Posts</strong><br /><a href="http://suicidegirlsblog.com/blog/freedom-of-the-press-the-biggest-casualty-of-last-nights-occupyla-raid/">Freedom Of The Press Is The Biggest Casualty Of Last Night’s #OccupyLA Raid</a><br /><a href="http://suicidegirlsblog.com/blog/occupyla-images-of-the-morning-after-the-raid/">#OccupyLA – Images Of The Morning After The Raid</a><br /><a href="http://suicidegirls.com/members/nicole_powers/2605668/">#OccupyLA -- A Remarkably Civilized Society</a><br /><a href="http://suicidegirls.com/members/nicole_powers/2602940/">#Occupy You Must</a><br /><a href="http://suicidegirls.com/members/nicole_powers/2600044/">The Start of OccupyLA</a><br /><a href="http://suicidegirls.com/members/nicole_powers/2595754/">Why Aren't We Seeing More Prominent People Coming Out In Support of #OCUPPYWALLSTREET? </a>Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1929072023268360307.post-68335800194634927412011-12-05T22:12:00.000-08:002011-12-05T22:14:14.884-08:00Freedom Of The Press Is The Biggest Casualty Of Last Night's #OccupyLA Raid<img src="http://s95218.gridserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/550_Nicole-Powers-DSC_0944.jpg" alt="" /><br /><center>[<em>Above: The heroes of last night's raid - citizen journalists and Livestreamers <a href="https://twitter.com/oakfosho">Oakfosho</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/occupyfreedomLA">OccupyFreedomLA</a></em>]</center><br /><P><br />Though thankfully there's no reports of anyone being seriously hurt during <a href="http://suicidegirlsblog.com/blog/occupyla-images-of-the-morning-after-the-raid/">last night's police action</a>, perhaps the biggest casualty was the First Amendment and freedom of the press. <a href="http://pages.citebite.com/g1t2d6c4i7yad">The LAPD pre-selected a group of a dozen handpicked mainstream media representatives</a>, and denied access to the City Hall grounds to all other journalists while the eviction was taking place. (During the actual raid, <a href="http://seanbonner.tumblr.com/post/13560189151/lapd-warns-press-to-leave-occupyla-scene">any media already present were warned that they may face arrest or serious injury</a> if they ignored the dispersal order and remained on the South Lawn.) Predictably, no independent or alternative outlets - and no bloggers or Livestreamers - were among the LAPD's chosen few. <br /><P><br />At one point in the evening, citizen-journalist-turned-Livestream-celebrity <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/OakFoSho/status/141898712568967168">OakFoSho was threatened by an officer who pointed the business end of a weapon at him</a> - with his finger on the trigger. This incident was witnessed by the surrounding crowd who chanted "guns down" repeatedly in response and the approximately 15,000 viewers who were watching OakFoSho's stream. The officer's name was duly noted and shared by numerous tweeters (including friend of SG <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/wilw/status/141795582992855040">Wil Wheaton</a>). <br /><P><br /><iframe width="550" height="309" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/o8UTuRcC--c" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><P><br />Just as troubling was the fact that the pool of approved media had serious restrictions placed upon them. They were not allowed to tweet or call-in stories live from inside the park until after the eviction, and had to funnel all pool reports via a city news wire service. Additionally, KCAL9 revealed they had "made an agreement with the LAPD to not give away their tactics," and, according to BoingBoing's <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/xeni/status/141926610038296576">Xeni Jardin</a>, "CBS LA blacked out shots so as to 'not interfere with integrity of police action.'" Many other bloggers and tweeters also <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/seanbonner/status/141950780352638976">noted their disappointment at the easy compliance of so-called journalists and traditional media outlets</a>, whom they felt should have put up more resistance to the obvious attempt to <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/dakotacdsmith/status/141848050304942081">restrict</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/dakotacdsmith/status/141848409983299586">suppress</a> information.<br /><P><br />The underlying serious First Amendment issue at play here is the principle that the police shouldn't be the ones to decide who is and who isn't deemed press - since the function of a free press in a democracy is to provide a check and balance for those in authority. Furthermore, even those members of the media granted pre-designated access can't cover any action freely if they're worried about having the credentials they need for such coverage rescinded (as was the case in New York during the Zuccotti Park eviction). Given the gravity of this issue, we expect this story to develop over the next few days and weeks, and understand the ACLU is already in the process of taking action.Nicole Powershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16418335003442156545noreply@blogger.com0