The new issue of Trevor Blake’s OVO Magazine has many names familiar to Technoccult readers and/or Esozone attendees (and some not so familiar): Anonymous, Dmitry Babenko, Johnny Brainwash, Klint Finley, Witta Kelssling-Jensen, Vincent Al Ken, Ruggero Maggi, Mail Art Paul, Willi Melnikov, Thom Metzger, Emilio Morandi, No Institute, Wes Unruh, Carlos Valdez and Edward Wilson.

Download OVO 18: Money for no money.

In my article I explore the politics of alternative currencies, which is sadly more relevant now than I realized when I wrote it in October.

For those not in the know, OVO has been published by Trevor Blake since 1987. Trevor says of his work:

When I started publishing OVO I was just a self-important hayseed living in a small town making a dumb little zine among thousands of others. But OVO did accomplish a few things in the first fourteen issues. OVO was the first to publish several essays by Hakim Bey that later appeared in his book T.A.Z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone. OVO published work by Mike Diana long before his work drew the attention of State and Federal employees. Photographs of body piercing appeared in OVO two years before the Modern Primitives issue of Re/Search. The phrase ‘phone tag’ appears in print for the first time in the first issue of OVO. ‘Liberating Wednesday’ by PM, author of bolo’bolo, appears in OVO for the first (and only) time; this is nearly a decade before and fifty-two times more radical a suggestion than ‘Buy Nothing Day.’ Crop circles and the Men in Black are referenced at a time when they were still obscure. The first appearance of Ride Theory in print occurs in Ignatz Topolino’s contribution to OVO. And OVO was aware enough of the outer edges of scientific ethics to mention gene patents in the same year they first were granted.

I am honored to be a contributor to such a worthy publication.

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I wrote a blog entry over at Klintron’s Brain that went from being a couple hundred words to basically a full length article:

Two economic crises face the world today: the credit crunch resulting from the subprime mortgage crisis, and the food prices crisis precipitated by the demand for biofuels. Both are problems we should have identified and solved years ago, but didn’t. Why did we ignore the warning signs and allow ourselves to be hoodwinked into this mess? I believe they both relate to our tendency for wishful thinking.

Full Story: Klintron’s Brain.

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This really piqued my interest.

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Having spent the past few days reading drafts of the forthcoming book The Art of Memetics, by Edward Wilson & Wes Unruh, my spirit was elated this evening to come across this ad campaign for Pangea Day, 10 May. a) The Art of Memetics is a truly phenomenal treatment of how memes act to infect and how we can use this to personal advantage to survive and become strengthened in the coming Information Age. b) These videos are such a great idea: we’re so accustomed to hearing our national anthem sung by ourselves, it’s like the little voices in our heads. To have a nation we’re generally ignorant of or have little dealings with take it upon themselves to treat the anthem with such care and heart, makes for a poignant campaign in our coming post-national world.

I find that people tend to jump at the notion that memetics and marketing can be used for good. And I’d like to thank Edward Wilson & Wes Unruh, and the Pangea Day folk, and everyone else out there who understand that as long as everyone is educated, no one can well turn it against another. We can use these technologies and wisdoms to work for a better future.

Above is France sings America. And I’m not pointing fingers at anyone, but as a Canadian (anglais & français, as well as a whole swath of Asian and Middle Eastern dialects), I’ve always found it odd that the Americans would so inappropriately stereotype and ridicule the nation that gave America one of their greatest symbolic gifts: the Statue of Liberty. Regardless, it’s a beautiful sentiment.

See the other three and others on YouTube. I really like Japan sings Turkey and Kenya sings India.

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On a different note, this is something else I came across today worth sharing:

It’s not a relic of the past; it’s here and now and ensnaring more people than ever.

By E. Benjamin Skinner
March 23, 2008

Many people are surprised to learn that there are still slaves. Many imagined that slavery died along with the 360,000 Union soldiers whose blood fertilized the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment. Many thought that slavery was brought to an end around the world when most countries outlawed it in the 19th century.

But, in fact, there are more slaves today than at any point in history. Although a precise census is impossible, as most masters keep their slaves hidden, baseline estimates from United Nations and other international researchers range from 12 million to 27 million slaves worldwide. The U.S. State Department estimates that from 600,000 to 800,000 people — primarily women and children — are trafficked across national borders each year, and that doesn’t count the millions of slaves who are held in bondage within their own countries.

Read the whole article via the Los Angeles Times.

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“Born without legs, Kevin Connolly snaps photos of people staring at him — turning the watchers into the watched. When Kevin Connolly was ten years old his family took him to Disney World, but for some theme park visitors that day, it was Connolly who quickly became the main attraction.

“I remember distinctly being surrounded by Japanese tourists trying to take my photograph without talking to me or asking me,” he says from his apartment in Bozeman, Montana. “My dad was right behind me, and I remember him getting pretty frustrated with the whole process, because it was something that was happening every single day.” Born without legs, Connolly was already used to the stares of strangers — but that moment would help him start to understand that the lens could work in both directions.

On a solo trip to Europe, more than a decade later, he was riding his skateboard down a Vienna street when he felt a man staring at him. Connolly lifted his camera to his hip, pointed it toward the man and without even looking through the viewfinder, clicked off five or six shots. Connolly would repeat that action 32,000 more times during his travels, creating a diverse portfolio of individuals from a broad assortment of countries. He posted some of these images online, under the title “The Rolling Exhibition.”

(via Yahoo News)

(The Rolling Exhibition)

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“Our capacity for self control may be running on empty.
Every day, we pressure ourselves to control our impulses—to work harder rather than go home early, to avoid sugar, carbohydrates, and transfats; to save instead of spend; and to exercise courtesy rather than snap at the barista who flubbed our order. Meanwhile, we can’t ride the subway, turn on the TV, or open a magazine without finding an ad urging us to self-indulge. Balancing these two competing forces sometimes seems impossible. A new report from two Canadian researchers suggests why: Our capacity for self-control is far shallower than we realize.

“People have a limited amount of self-control, and tasks requiring controlled, willful action quickly deplete this central resource. Exerting self-control on one task impairs performance on subsequent tasks requiring the same resource,” write Michael Inzlicht and Jennifer N. Gutsell in their article in the journal Psychological Science. In their experiment, Inzlicht and Gutsell separated 40 individuals into two groups. In both groups, participants were fitted with EEG monitoring equipment and made to watch a disturbing wildlife documentary.

One group was asked not to display any reaction to the gruesome subject matter; the other group was instructed simply to watch the footage and not proscribed a reaction. Afterwards, both groups completed a rapid-fire color-matching test requiring a controlled response. The test showed that people who had suppressed their reaction to the documentary (measurable via the EEG readout) performed less well on the color-matching test.

According to the authors, the study “suggests a neuroscientifically informed account of how self-control is constrained by previous acts of control [and] that mental fatigue can occur relatively quickly and affect tasks unrelated to the depleting activity.” In other words, exercising control on one task makes it harder to exercise control on the task immediately following.”

(via The Futurist)

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“A word of warning to those who believe in lucky numbers, auspicious colors and star-crossed dates: Beware. The Ides of March are upon us. Only those familiar with history or William Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar” readily may recognize the reference to March 15, the day of Caesar’s assassination in 44 B.C. The Roman calendar designated monthly Ides, or midpoint, days that fell either on the 13th or 15th day, depending on the month.

After Caesar’s untimely exit, superstitious Romans well may have avoided launching a business, marriage or other important venture on a date so cloaked in doom it eventually entered the lexicon as a metaphor for impending catastrophe. Despite vast advances in knowledge and technology over the last 2,000 years, it turns out people today aren’t so different from the ancients when it comes to superstition and the way it affects decision-making and the economy, according to new research.”

(via The Chicago Tribune)

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“A 15-year-old boy kicked and stamped to death a woman because she was dressed as a Goth, a court heard. The drunk teenager was among a gang of five who “savagely and mercilessly” attacked Sophie Lancaster, 20, and her boyfriend, Preston Crown Court heard.

Miss Lancaster was begging the gang to stop beating Robert Maltby, 21, when they turned on her in Stubbylee Park in Bacup, Lancashire, the jury was told. The 15-year-old, who cannot be named because of his age, denies murder. At an earlier hearing a 16-year-old boy, who was aged 15 at the time of the attack, admitted Miss Lancaster’s murder and admitted attacking Mr Maltby.

The accused, and four other youths, two aged 17 and one 16, have already pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm to Mr Maltby. The court heard Miss Lancaster’s facial injuries were so severe, paramedics did not know what sex she was. Tests indicated she had been kicked and stamped to death, with the pattern of some footwear still on her head. Miss Lancaster, a gap-year student, died two weeks after the attack.”

(via Religion News Blog)

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“Researchers from EPFL and Caltech have made an important neurobiological discovery of how humans learn to predict risk. The research, appearing in the March 12 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, will shed light on why certain kinds of risk, notably financial risk, are often underestimated, and whether abnormal behavior such as addiction (e.g. to gambling or drugs) could be caused by an erroneous evaluation of risk.

Planning entails making predictions. In an uncertain environment, however, our predictions often don’t pan out. And erroneous prediction of risk often leads to unusual behaviour: euphoria or excessive gambling when risk is underestimated, and panic attacks or depression when we predict that things are riskier than they really are. To understand these anomalous reactions to uncertain situations, we need to look to the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie how we learn to predict risk. Surprisingly little research has been done in this topic, and we do not yet know precisely how the brain is involved in our estimation of risk.”

(via Medical New Today)

(Thanks Kaos829!)

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This is all over the Internet this morning. New photos from Abu Ghraib. I haven’t the words.

Video presentation by and Wired interview with Philip Zimbardo.

Photos.

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“A pilot project in social networking, which involves wirelessly monitoring people in a closed environment, will commence in March, 2008 at the University of Washington’s computer science building. The RFID Ecosystem project will provide long-term, in-depth research of user-centered RFID systems in relation to fields such as society and technology. Volunteers will wear electronic tags on their clothing and belongings, enabling RFID readers to monitor their whereabouts. One of the main questions this research faces is whether or not the utility aspect of this monitoring system outweighs the participants’ potential loss of privacy, and how can this loss of privacy be minimized?”

(via The Future of Things)

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“Hundreds of Moroccan heavy metal fans met on Saturday for their biggest festival in the north African country since a group of hard rock enthusiasts was jailed five years ago for “Satanism”. Braving the opprobrium of Islamists and heavy rain, young men in black jeans and jackets, goatee beards and dreadlocks trudged to a cavernous concert hall in Sidi Kacem, a market town in a farming region of northern Morocco.

As the first group Hammerhead began tuning up, a small Fiat drew up outside the hall and two police officers stepped out. “It’s OK,” said organizer Yassine Ould Abbou, 22. “They’re just here to check the security arrangements.” A clang of grinding guitar feedback signaled the start of the concert and prompted startled glances from veiled women and men on mopeds passing by. “Most people in this town have never seen an electric guitar,” said Yassine. “We had 500 people at our last concert in 2005 and this time we’re expecting about 1,000.”

(via Reuters)

(see also “Moroccan Heavy Metal Fans Jailed” via BBC News)

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I am too tired to get into anything too in-depth here. When work lets up I wanna write some more bla-bla. Anyhow, let’s get to the top three headlines of the weekend so I can close my browser window finally:

French paradox redux? US vs. French on being full
It’s the French paradox redux: Why don’t the French get as fat as Americans, considering all the baguettes, wine, cheese, pate and pastries they eat?

That is interesting, not because Americans are fat’tards, but cuz it implies a lack of subjective awareness. The implications of this research will be far-reaching over the next decade (if any educators or whoever decide to apply it somewhere useful).

Like ants, humans are easily led
When it comes to being misled, humans are no more sophisticated than ants or fish.

‘Nuff said. I’m just glad headlines like this are making it in larger metro centres like London. Next, I want this on the cover of North American papers. Mostly just so I don’t have to hear about Britney anymore.

Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

A popular video on YouTube shows Kellie Pickler, the adorable platinum blonde from “American Idol,” appearing on the Fox game show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” during celebrity week. Selected from a third-grade geography curriculum, the $25,000 question asked: “Budapest is the capital of what European country?”

Ms. Pickler threw up both hands and looked at the large blackboard perplexed. “I thought Europe was a country,” she said. Playing it safe, she chose to copy the answer offered by one of the genuine fifth graders: Hungary. “Hungry?” she said, eyes widening in disbelief. “That’s a country? I’ve heard of Turkey. But Hungry? I’ve never heard of it.”

Such, uh, lack of global awareness is the kind of thing that drives Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason,” up a wall. Ms. Jacoby is one of a number of writers with new books that bemoan the state of American culture.

Yup.

I love you all. I just wanna get that out there in case my current client drives me to hang myself. bbl

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“It seems a bit counter-intuitive; we are used to seeing Dutch floating projects, not buried ones. Architect Moshé Zwarts says “”There has always been a lack of space in the city, so what we are doing is building a city under the city by using a new construction technique, which will not interfere with street traffic.”- by draining and then building under the canals.And what does he propose filling it with? Parking, shopping and “leisure”.

The engineers say it is doable. “It is both feasible and sustainable, creating a city beneath the city is not futuristic, it is a necessity in this day and age.” Zwarts says the geology is great for this. “Amsterdam sits on a 30-metre layer of waterproof clay which will be used together with concrete and sand to make new walls. Once we have resealed the canal floor, we will be able to carry on working underneath while pouring water back into the canals. It’s an easy technique and it doesn’t create issues with drilling noises on the streets.”

(via Tree Hugger)

(Thanks Z11!)

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“The Last American Freakshow” is a movie (still in progress), that follows a traveling freakshow. Disabled film-maker Richard Butchins says in his own words: “I filmed the elephant man, the dwarf, a giant, a pair of lobster people, the half woman, a clown and a jumble of jug band musicians. On tour in a 20 year old school bus, travelling 2500 miles across America, the ‘freaks’ worked their way through the wild west. Laughing, crying and drinking – a carnival of the damned – searching for a home…”

Originally the British Academy of Film and Television Arts was going to show the film at their awards ceremony. After deciding that the film wasn’t “politically correct”, they backed out of the agreement, and chose to show “Lars and The Real Girl” instead. According to Butchins’ blog: “the kicker is this: BAFTA offered to show “Lars and the real girl” as an alternative to my film. For those of you that don’t know “Lars and the real girl” is a Hollywood comedy about an able bodied man who has a life sized doll as a girl friend. It’s a good film but hardly a film that prompts debate or challenges the societal view of disability, let alone highlighting the problems of being a disabled film-maker - talk about insensitive….So, they are trying to use their PR company to stop them looking like the prejudiced tyrants that they are. I really don’t know why they have taken against my film in this way, it sort of defies understanding. I suspect, though, that right now they are more concerned about not wanting to be portrayed in the National Press as anti-minority, than with my film.”

In another post he states: […] “Freak carries, in some peoples minds, a pejorative meaning it means something bad. But is it? To be out of the mainstream isn’t necessarily a bad thing and meanings change over time. At one point in history having a black skin made you a freak and we think of that as ridiculous now. These performers are trying to bring an awareness of their ‘normality’ to peoples attention through entertainment (it is, after all a ’show’) and that’s a valid and worthwhile, if sometimes, challenging thing to watch. They deserve support not denigration for what they are doing. This film documents this and as a result is funny, entertaining and sometimes difficult, it makes you feel uncomfortable on occasion and encourages you to examine your preconceptions about disability and that’s the point. These characters are young and put themselves in your face - mostly people get it - but some figures in the media establishment can’t take it. Do the ‘freaks’ have to be quiet little cripples and conform to stereotypical ideas of disabilty to be accepted. It would appear they do, that’s prejudice and prejudice always has a victim…”

They enjoy what they’re doing, and are paying their bills in the process. This should be celebrated. But, I suppose that those in the mainstream and the “politically correct” prefer them bagging our groceries and collecting carts. Or maybe they just expect them to stay out of sight all together. What a load of crap…

(via Cabinet Of Wonders)

(999 Eyes: Authentic Human Oddities Freakshow and their YouTube channel)

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“Perhaps a global political apocalypse has already arrived. Activists and dissidents should understand that evil forces and tyrannical governments have evolved. Just as human knowledge and science expand, so do the strategies and instruments used by rulers, elites and plutocrats. By learning from history and using new technology they have smarter tools of tyranny. The best ones prevent uprisings, revolutions and political reforms. Rather than violently destroy rebellious movements, they let them survive as marginalized and ineffective efforts that divert and sap the energy of nonconformist and rebellious thinkers. Real revolution remains an energy-draining dream, as evil forces thrive.

Most corrupt and legally sanctioned forms of tyranny hide in plain sight as democracies with free elections. The toughest lesson is that ALL elections are distractions. Nothing conceals tyranny better than elections. Few Americans accept that their government has become a two-party plutocracy run by a rich and powerful ruling class. The steady erosion of the rule of law is masked by everyday consumer freedoms. Because people want to be happy and hopeful, we have an epidemic of denial, especially in the present presidential campaign. But to believe that any change-selling politician or shift in party control will overturn the ruling class is the epitome of self-delusion and false hope. In the end, such wishful thinking perpetuates plutocracy. Proof is that plutocracy has flourished despite repeated change agents, promises of reform and partisan shifts.”

(via Global Politician)

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PS — I am busy helping Anon in Canada. BBL when things aren’t so busy with that and work.

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“Once a tagged item is associated with a particular individual, personally identifiable information can be obtained and then aggregated to develop a profile.” ~ U.S. Government Accountability Office report on RFID technology

A future full of traceable microchips is much closer than many would like to think. Already microchips are being found in computer printers, car tires, personal care products, clothing, library books and “contactless” payment cards. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, experts say.

[…] The Washington Post reports that this technology is already well developed and enables objects and people to be tagged and tracked wirelessly. Newer and potentially invasive uses are being patented, perfected and deployed daily to unsuspecting consumers. While the technology obviously presents a risk to privacy, many believe that these microchips are the way of the future. Like it or not, these potential tracking devices will soon be imbedded everywhere imaginable. Microchips with antennas will be hidden in virtually everything you buy, wear, drive and read, allowing retailers and law enforcement to track consumers wherever they go.”

(via The Daily Galaxy)

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“Scientists call it the naked photo test and it works like this:
Say a photo turns up, of you nakedly doing something that would shame you and your family for generations. Bestiality, whatever. Ask yourself how many people in your life you would trust with that photo. Studies show that for almost everybody, the number of people we really trust is shrinking. About a quarter of the people they talked to said they had NO ONE to confide in. Walk down the street, one out of four people you pass have nobody. Among the people who did have somebody, the average number of people in their circle of trust was two. And that includes spouses and parents. Yes, this is new. The numbers are down a whole bunch since just 1985. The world is becoming a colder and lonelier place. Here’s why.”

(via Pointless Waste Of Time)

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“She might be a witch, but Stephanie Conover says that’s no reason for officials at an upcoming Toronto beauty pageant to reject her as a potential judge. Conover, who was crowned winner of the Miss Canada Plus Pageant last year, said she was recently invited to be a judge at the Miss Toronto Tourism pageant on Feb. 2. “I said I’d definitely be there,” Conover told the Star yesterday.

“Then, last week, on Monday, they asked me for a biography. I told them everything I do, how I’m an entertainer and a singer and a dancer. I talked about my charity work and I said I also have hobbies, including songwriting, knitting, painting, yoga, reiki and tarot cards.” That’s where things got sticky. “We just got her bio a week ago and we don’t agree with it,” said Karen Murray, Miss Toronto Tourism pageant director. “We want someone down to earth, not someone into the dark side or the occult.”

“We need a judge who has an upright reputation and we would be proud to introduce to the audience,” noted a Jan. 24 letter to the Miss Canada Plus group from Murray and another official with the Miss Toronto Tourism pageant. “Our board of directors has eliminated her as a judge as tarot card reading and reiki are the occult and is not acceptable by God, Jews, Muslims or Christians. Tarot card reading is witchcraft and is used by witches, spiritists and mediums to consult the dark world.”

(via The Star)

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Trevor Blake says:

The Assault on Culture by Stewart Home (1987) is a book I have recommended to many people for many years. It is well-researched while clearly-written, brief while informative. The Assault on Culture describes ‘utopian currents from Lettrism to Class War.’ Some of the more familiar names in this current might include the Situationists, Fluxus, mail art and punk rock. Stewart Home went on to write Neoism, Plagiarism and Praxis, which includes descriptions of his performance art / magick attacks on agents of conformity in a psychogeographically mapped England. Not only does the character King Mob in Grant Morrison’s Invisibles act like Stewart Home, he looks like him. Read up on the real thing.

Full text of Assault on Culture.

(via Trevor).

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“Free enterprise has been good to Bill Gates. But today, the Microsoft Corp. chairman will call for a revision of capitalism. In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the software tycoon plans to call for a “creative capitalism” that uses market forces to address poor-country needs that he feels are being ignored. “We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well,” Mr. Gates will tell world leaders at the forum, according to a copy of the speech seen by The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Gates isn’t abandoning his belief in capitalism as the best economic system. But in an interview with the Journal last week at his Microsoft office in Redmond, Wash., Mr. Gates said that he has grown impatient with the shortcomings of capitalism. He said he has seen those failings first-hand on trips for Microsoft to places like the South African slum of Soweto, and discussed them with dozens of experts on disease and poverty. He has voraciously read about those failings in books that propose new approaches to narrowing the gap between rich and poor.”

(via WSJ)

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“They stare blankly into the lens, their lips tellingly pursed. All are the Norwegian subjects of a terrifying Nazi experiment. All were involved in one of the most shocking trials of eugenics the world has ever known. All are Lebensborn – the “spring of life”. And all are here to tell their stories for the first time.

The Lebensborn Society was born on 12 December 1935, the brainchild of Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s right-hand man and head of the SS. He had designed a project to promote an “Aryan future” for the Third Reich and turn around a declining birth rate in Germany. People were given incentives to have more children in the Fatherland as well as in occupied countries, most importantly in Scandinavia, where the Nordic gene – and its blond-haired, blue-eyed progeny – was considered classically Aryan.

But after the conflict had ended, many of the Norwegians born into the programme suffered. In an attempt to distance itself from the occupying forces, the Norwegian government publicly vilified the children born by Norwegian mothers and Nazi fathers. Many of those children subsequently experienced intense bullying, and in some cases, extreme mental and physical abuse. In recent years, a Lebensborn group in Norway has been fighting what it sees as the Norwegian government’s complicity in their horrific ordeal.”

(via The Independent)

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While this is an interesting and short read, worth its perusal, I found this little snippet quite interesting about possible solutions to help the U.S. out of its sinking situation. I’m interested in the first point, but like I said, the whole thing is worth reading:

We might possibly be saved, he explains, if the nation engages in massive, radical reform in three areas: 1) Eliminating the current income tax system and moving to a national retail sales tax of 33 percent. 2) Privatizing social security so that workers own their savings accounts and the federal government can no longer swipe funds from Social Security. 3) Launching a national health insurance program that covers everyone and relies on a system of government-issued vouchers that citizens can spend with health insurance companies.

Full article via NewsTarget, by Mike Adams

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