Gift ideas from Arthur Magazine No. 9: "The American Ruling Class"

Careful who you give this one to—it’s super-dark…

theamericanrulingclass

“The American Ruling Class is a morality tale set to music about two Yale students who seek their opportunities after graduation. Lewis Lapham, the renowned essayist, author and longtime Harper’s Magazine editor, conducts them through the corridors of power – Pentagon press briefings, the World Economic Forum, philanthropic foundations, Washington law firms, banks, the Council on Foreign Relations and New York society dinners. As they make their way, the real-life luminaries they meet become characters in a dramatic story about power, its responsibilities and abuses. The subject is our country’s most taboo topic: class, power and privilege in our nominally democratic republic. Part Monty Python, part Michael Moore, The American Ruling Class is an entertaining clarion call for all citizens to consider who has power, how they acquired it, and most importantly, how they keep it.”

Todays' Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – SA’ADIA MARCIANO


DECEMBER 21 — SA’ADIA MARCIANO
Moroccan-born founder of the Israeli Black Panthers.

DECEMBER 21, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
WINTER SOLSTICE, 17:51 UT.     Wiccan YULE.     Chinese FEAST OF WINTER
SOLSTICE. Most celebrated family festival of year. In old China prisoners
were allowed to go home for the day. At the feast, places are set for
deceased family members. Fruit trees are given offerings of rice.
England: ST. THOMAS’ DAY.A tradition of “Thomasing,” begging gifts,
door-to-door.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 21 IN HISTORY…
1620 — Forefathers’ day celebrates landing of Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock.
1858 — Anthropologist Franz Boaz born, Minden, Germany.
1911 — First use of get-away car in bank robbery, French Bonnot gang.
1916 — Pecan shellers strike leader Emma Tenayuca born, San Antonio, Texas.
1937 — Animated feature Snow White & Seven Dwarfs released, Disney Studios.
1940 — Mother of Invention Frank Zappa born, Baltimore, Maryland.
1941 — Black surrealist artist, musician Peetie Wheatstraw dies, East St. Louis, IL.
2007 — Israeli Black Panthers founder Sa’adia Marciano dies, Jerusalem, Israel.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective. The 2010 Autonomedia Calender is now available on the Autonomedia site.

"Earth: Too Big to Fail?" by Rebecca Solnit

From TomDispatch.com:

Terminator 2009
Judgment Days in Copenhagen
By Rebecca Solnit

For Isaac Francisco Solnit, born December 17, 2009

It’s clear now that, from her immovable titanium bangs to her chaotic approximation of human speech, Sarah Palin is a Terminator cyborg sent from the future to destroy something — but what? It could be the Republican Party she’ll ravage by herding the fundamentalists and extremists into a place where sane fiscal conservatives and swing voters can’t follow. Or maybe she was sent to destroy civilization at this crucial moment by preaching the gospel of climate-change denial, abetted by tools like the Washington Post, which ran a factually outrageous editorial by her on the subject earlier this month. No one (even her, undoubtedly) knows, but we do know that this month we all hover on the brink.

I’ve had the great Hollywood epic Terminator 2: Judgment Day on my mind ever since I watched it in a hotel room in New Orleans a few weeks ago with the Superdome visible out the window. In 1991, at the time of its release, T2 was supposedly about a terrible future; now, it seems situated in an oddly comfortable past…

Read on at TomDispatch.com

THE KNOWN UNIVERSE

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U
The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. The new film, created by the Museum, is part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan through May 2010.

'NURSE NURSE 4' by Katie Skelly (pt. 1/3)

Katie Skelly lives in New York City.  She works full time and is working on an art history M.A. so she does comics whenever she has spare time. Sparkplug distributes the Nurse Nurse series, and she hopes to have the fifth issue out very soon. Her website is calicocomics.com.  Arthur is pleased to present issue 4 of Nurse Nurse, which we’ll serialize in 3 parts.  Here’s pt. 2 and pt. 3!

Previously:  In issues 1-3, interplanetary nurse Gemma is sent to space to help heal atmosphere-poisoned colonists on Venus. She’s attacked by a butterfly farmer who experiments in aphrodisiacs and steals a top secret book, which gets her demoted to a mission on Mars. On the way to Mars, two space pirates, Bandit and Pandaface, hijack her ship and loot it for parts. Gemma discovers a way to escape the pirates but it lands her on a familiar adversary’s ship.

Continue reading →

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – MAUD GONNE


DECEMBER 20 — MAUD GONNE
Firebrand Irish hermeticist, feminist, revolutionist.

DECEMBER 20, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
UNDERDOG DAY. FAREWELL TO AUTUMN. CHAOS DAY. Eat wontons.
Hindu world: PONGOL OF THE COWS. Sacred animals are sprinkled with
water, saffron, flowers & leaves of sacred plants; their horns are
painted, garlands hung about their necks. With drums & cymbals they
are driven through town with much festivity.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 20 IN HISTORY…
1838 — Edwin Abott, author of Flatland, born.
1865 — Irish feminist, revolutionist Maud Gonne born, Aldershot, Hampshire, England.
1968 — American social activist writer John Steinbeck dies, New York City.
1989 — US troops invade Panama and oust Manuel Noriega, but don’t catch him.
1991 — C.I.A. classifies a task-force report on greater openness as “secret.”

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective. The 2010 Autonomedia Calender is now available on the Autonomedia site.

Today, 4-7pm, Hollywood: LA Ladies Choir leads free-admission benefit for Children of the Night at Space 15 twenty

treasures_invite-1

LA LADIES CHOIR
presents

TAKE MY TREASURES
all proceeds go to
Children of the Night

4-7pm Saturday December 19

Space15 twenty
1520 Cahuenga Blvd
90028

featuring
SILENT AUCTION: Donated treasures, from Flea’s bass guitar with his original drawings, Bauhaus, Tom Petty, Kevin Willis, Lauren Dukoss, Jess Holzworth, Kime Buzzelli, Alia Penner, Will Lemon III, Billy Idol, Lucky Dragons, original sketches from Where the Wild Things Are film and more to be announced

RAFFLE: Family Bookstore, Amoeba Music, Miranda July, Atherton Lin, Annakim, Dallas Clayton, Manimal Records, Elf Cafe, City Sip Wine Shop, Acupuncture by Leona Marrs, Bedford Falls, Miss KK, Warner Bros. boxsets and dresses from LA Ladies Choir

Plus Baked goods (by Mooi, Trails Cafe, Kevin and Daisy Mae) and a Polaroid Santa Booth!!!!

With DJ Will Lemon III and Ana Alderon

And the LA Ladies Choir performing Christmas Carols!

Poster by Alia Penner

Children of the Night is a private, non-profit, tax-exempt organization founded in 1979. They are dedicated to assisting children between the ages of 11 and 17 who are forced to prostitute on the streets for food to eat and a place to sleep. Since 1979 they have rescued girls and boys from prostitution and the domination of vicious pimps. And they provide all programs with the support of private donations.
More info here: childrenofthenight.org

Map For An Other LA

The Llano Del Rio working group’s “Map For An Other LA” (pictured above) is now available free.

The full-color, two-sided map sites and describes locations that support, dream, act and aid in the creation of an other Los Angeles. Beekeepers, greywater operators, hacker spaces, cooperatives, collectives, art spaces, radical places, gardens, swimming holes, cooking collectives, think tanks etc….

Two ways to get the map:

1) If you live in LA County simply email us your postal address and we’ll drop one in the mail for you free (till postage $ runs out)
Contact llanodelrio(at)gmail.com

2) Maps have been delivered to the following and ever-expanding distribution nodes. Pick up a copy or two at these locations around town:
Machine Project
Farmlab
TOW
Bicycle Kitchen
Bike Oven
Echo Park Film Center
Sea and Space
Materials and Applications
Barf Space

We’ll be expanding our distribution universe (to the valley and Westside especially) so keep an eye out.

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – PHIL OCHS


DECEMBER 19 — PHIL OCHS
Emblematic American protest folksinger of the Sixties.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5pgrKSwFJE&feature=related

DECEMBER 19, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Hindu FESTIVAL OF THE GODDESSS ANKRANT. The gods wake up after six
months of sleep. A day for exchanging gifts, feasting and visiting.

Guatemala: FIESTA OF SANTO TOMAS (Dec. 19-25). Celebrated by the
Chichicastenango Indians. Features the flying-pole ceremony: A pole
made from a tall pine is consecrated and erected in the village. Plat-
forms and ropes are attached, dancers climb to the very top and,
attached to ropes coiled around trees, they fly into the air in
ever-widening circles.

ALSO ON DECEMBER 19 IN HISTORY…
1848 — British novelist Emily Bronte dies, Haworth, Yorkshire, England.
1875 — Black educator, historian Carter G. Woodson born, New Canton, Virginia.
1910 — Criminal, gay author Jean Genet born, Paris, France.
1940 — American protest folksinger Phil Ochs born, El Paso, Texas.
1946 — Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh launches war against French.
1968 — Socialist politico Norman Thomas dies, Huntington, Long Island, New York.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective. The 2010 Autonomedia Calender is now available on the Autonomedia site.