Last year around this time, we posted Sergey Chernov’s interview with filmmaker John Cameron Mitchell when he was a guest at the Side by Side International LGBT Film Festival in Saint Petersburg. The focus of their conversation was the vigorous attempt on the part of the local authorities to close the festival down. Yesterday we received [...]
Entries from October 2009
October 28, 2009
“Unsere Uni!”: University of Vienna Occupied
More info on the occupation (including a live video stream from the main lecture hall and updates from other Austrian universities) here (mostly in German).
The following communiqué was posted on Indybay.Org:
We, students from all disciplines at the University of Vienna, independent from political groups or parties and spontaneously gathered in face [...]
October 26, 2009
“Strange Culture” (Berlin)
Art Laboratory Berlin in cooperation with the Arsenal – Institute for Film und Video Art e.V. presents:
The film Strange Culture documents the Kafkaesque case of the well-known artist and art professor Steve Kurtz (Critical Art Ensemble).
When Kurtz called 911, following the unexpected death of his wife, emergency workers responding to the call found his artwork [...]
October 25, 2009
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Occupied!
On Tuesday, October 20, 2009, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna was squatted. Here is the statement and the demands of the occupants:
The Bologna process aims at an extensive convergence of European universities with the Anglo-American education system. The aim is to enter competition in the global education market in order to strengthen universities’ economic position [...]
October 24, 2009
Afghanistan: The Arrogance of Liberalism
Simon Jenkins:
Western leaders seem unable to resist the seduction of military power. They think that, because they could defeat communism and fly to the moon, they can get any poverty-stricken, tin-pot country to do what the west decides is best for it. They grasp at nation-building, that make-work scheme of internationalism against which any people, [...]
October 24, 2009
Stop the Criminal Prosecution of Arkhangelsk Historians and Archivists
The following text is a translation of a petition appeal made on behalf of Mikhail Suprun and Alexander Dudarev, a university historian and an Interior Ministry archivist who face criminal charges for their work documenting Germans who were deported to or imprisoned in the Arkhangelsk Region during the Stalinist period. You can read more about [...]
October 23, 2009
Stop Police Violence against Migrants and Activists in Greece
Twitter petition
Sign here.
To: The Greek Minister of Citizen Protection
Following the December revolts in Greece, police violence against migrants and activists in Greece is becoming more and more intense. The xenophobic turn of the mainstream media combined with the electoral rise of the extreme right wing party LAOS have played a vital role in legitimizing police violence against both [...]
October 21, 2009
“Медный освободительный оркестр” делает Whole Foods
The Brass Liberation Orchestra Does Whole Foods. (Thanks to Stuffed and Starved.)
Operation Hey Mackey: Flashmob Protests Whole Foods’ CEO in Oakland Branch
Feeling conservatives had “usurped” the limelight in the debate over healthcare reform through a series of high profile stunts and remarks, advocates of reform staged a goofy counter-attack, forming a [...]
October 21, 2009
Babi Badalov: A Voice from the Asylum Jungle
We’ve posted here a couple of times about the travails and triumphs of our good friend the gay Azeri artist and activist Babi Badalov. Babi is now alive and well and seeking asylum in France. The other day he sent us the first two parts of a long poem that he’s writing about what he [...]
