Couch Potato Revolution

Same-Sex Marriage Legal in Vermont

noreply@blogger.com (Couch Potato Revolution) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:01:00 +0000

When states legalize same-sex marriage they legislate sexuality, create possessive legal contracts structuring love, and assimilate queer identity into the capitalist order.

That said, I'm happy to see Vermont used its legislature to legalize same-sex marriage.

Kyle's New Sex Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Couch Potato Revolution) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 05:23:00 +0000

Hey Ya'll!

If you haven't heard enough from CPR, it's cause I've been setting up my new radical queer sex blog at queerradical.com!

Check it out!

Sign Petition to Support Tamms Prisoners

noreply@blogger.com (Couch Potato Revolution) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:19:00 +0000

TAMMS Supermax Prisoners are screwed by Illinois. Sign this petition in support of them. For more info, read below from Julie Hamos, State Rep for the 18th District in Illinois :

End Human Rights Abuses at Tamms Supermax Prison Today

Prisoners at Tamms supermax prison are held in permanent solitary confinement. There is no communal activity, no contact visits, and no phone calls. Men never leave their cell except to shower or go to solitary exercise in a concrete pen.

Suicide attempts, self-mutilation, and severe mental illness are common at Tamms—this is an expected consequence of the harsh punishment of long-term isolation.

Incarceration at the supermax was approved by the Illinois legislature as a short-term “shock-treatment” program for men already in prison who cause harm to guards or other inmates. Instead, Tamms has become a warehouse and a human rights disaster:

- One-fourth of the population has lived in this extreme solitary confinement since the prison opened almost 11 years ago.
- There are no clear procedures for being transferred to Tamms and there is no way to earn your way out.
- Most prisoners in Tamms do not deserve to be there for this lengthy period. Many were not placed in Tamms for acts of violence, and have not had disciplinary problems at Tamms.
- Long-term isolation creates barriers for successful reentry to society, or to other prisons, where these prisoners will return.
- There is no correctional justification for placing seriously mentally ill men in a supermax for extra punishment.

Identical treatment at Guantanamo Bay has been judged by Attorney General Eric Holder to be too isolating for prisoner safety. All prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are now provided social interaction and phone calls, in compliance with the humane-treatment requirements of the Geneva Convention.

Shout Out to the Bank Robbers--Down With the Rich!

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:52:00 +0000

On page 25 of today's New York Times, Al Baker writes that bank robberies are on the rise in New York City! I'd like to send a shout out to these modern day heroes who are working with their masks and guns to liberate money wrongly given to banks by the federal government bailouts. According to the article, after suspects are arrested and go to Riker's Island, they trade secrets back and forth about how to perfect their skills as bank robbers. Prisons are educational institutions for America's liberators of ruling class wealth. All I have to say of these bank robbers, is please friends, make sure a good chunk of that money goes to good causes--liberation struggles, ecological defense, and the needs of people within your community.

The Rich Steal From the Government; The Government Defends the Rich

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:19:00 +0000

The violent conflict between rich as poor is as obvious as it is infuriating. According to today's New York Times, The American International Group, beneficiary of a $170 billion bail-out, is preparing to dole out $100 million in bonuses to executives as thousands around the country lose their homes to foreclosure, struggle with their first days, weeks, and months of homelessness, and fail to find gainful work. Our economy is crashing, families are struggling to live, and the rich continue to steal from the poor, the people, those who pay taxes.

We cannot rely on the government to get us out of the mess. The government continues to allow the rich to steal from the poor: our labor, our homes, our lives. We cannot rely on the benevolence of foundations controlled by the ruling class to provide funds for us to get at the root issues that are worsening poverty in the United States.

We need to take power into our hands, take the land, take the resources we need, take the spaces consolidated and privatized by the wealthy. Through privatization, the rich have gained control over land, water, and air. The time to liberate these resources is now.

The contradictions between those who have and those who have nothing have rarely been as apparent within the United States. After a decade of murdering Arabs, bailing out corrupt bankers, imprisoning black and brown people, and destroying public health, education, and welfare, the ruling class is making a mockery out of the courage of good people.

The time to defy the rich, the ruling class, the government has rarely been as ripe as it is now. If we want to survive the cataclysmic environmental and economic collapse the ruling class is bringing on, we must take the wealth they have stolen from humans and the earth and put it to sustainable, healthy, and egalitarian use. We cannot surrender everything to the rich.

Revolution in the Backyard

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:31:00 +0000

OK, so after a year of failed reform, an attempt to democratize a hierarchical organization, aid in the Republican and Democratic National Convention Protests, and work fairly critically and aggressively, I'm taking the revolution outside, to my back yard. Over the years I've had many friends argue that gardening is an important piece of their spiritual and political practice. Turning lawns into food sources, they claim, helps with issues as vast as climate change, finding alternatives to capitalism, and preparing for a likely ecological and imminent economic collapse. I want to see for myself.

So, outside I go, with a hoe in my hand, to join my roomie Jessi in her gardening efforts.

Jessi started our first backyard garden last year. It produced zucchini, squash, and tomatoes. This year, I want a bigger garden that can provide sustenance for the summer and perhaps some fodder to can for next winter.

My Mom and Grandma have always canned food in the summer and have amazing salsa's, pickles, and soups for the whole next year. Their tradition, coupled with backyard gardening, makes sense for me.

Oh, and as I bring this up, I want to remind Denver CPR readers that Ashara Ekundayo has organized the Soul'd Roots Conference, March 13-15th. This event looks amazing.

"Soul'd Roots" is a 3-day intensive, March 13-15, 2009 where invited educators and youth will engage in activities aimed at fostering health, solidarity and green sustainability in Denver's Black and Brown communities through multi-media workshops and panels focusing on food traditions and security, social networking, and arts activism. We are excited about our cross-generational opportunity to learn from each other through traditional and contemporary methods of struggle. Our goals include a desire to shift our thinking from capitalism and immediate gratification, to a slower way of developing social, psychological, physical and spiritual health through interaction with the land and each other as we live in community together. We are planting the seeds in the winter, and looking forward to our crop at our public conference, "Soul'd Roots, Pt. 2," slated for August 5-8, 2009.

A few of the events are public and you should check these out:

Events Open to the Public include; Friday, March 13 – 600pm – 830pm,
at 2895 W. 8th Ave, Denver, 80204 “Take Back the Land” Community Gathering on Immigrant Rights &
Land Justice w/ Max Rameau (Miami, FL) Wine & Cheese Fundraiser for Sister of Color United for Education –
Tix $20

Saturday, March 14 – 700pm – 10pm, at Solar Café & Community Space, 2615 Welton St. Denver 80205, Reception & Panel: “Protest, Brutality & Ink” – Jordan T. Garcia w/ Cheyenne Hughes, Favianna Rodriguez, Terrance Roberts, Jesus Barraza, and Melanie Cervantes + Booksigning w/ Author: Favianna Rodriguez, “Reproduce & Revolt” – Suggested Donation $5 (no one turned away for lack of funds)

Sunday, March 15 - 200pm – 500pm, at New Hope Baptist Church, 37th & Colorado Blvd. Denver, 80205, “Community Eat-In & Food Politics Talkback” with Eco-Chefs; Bryant Terry, Shannon Francis, Faatma Mehrmanesh, Dylan Moore, Marilyn Meginity, and Others. – Tix $7 - $10 (sliding scale) RSVP Required – 303.446.8800 SOCUE has been building, supporting and sustaining health and healing with hard-to-reach populations and communities for 20 years through their “Art in Motion” and Promotor@ programs in which community artists, organizers, and health advocates are encouraged to draw from their own cultural wisdom, innate strength and comprehensive training to teach families, neighbors and co-workers about health promotion, risk reduction and health care access around topics such as; human sexuality; STD’s and HIV/AIDS; domestic violence; substance abuse; harm reduction; client advocacy; curanderismo and other culturally relevant practices.

Three Kick-Ass Cultural Spaces + 1 Badass Smarty Pants Video Lecture Series: Philoctetes Society, Mess Hall, and 16 Beaver

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 01:15:00 +0000

For those of you who are getting bored with the same-old same-old half-assed, pseudosmart crap on PBS (how many fucking times can you watch Charlie Rose), you've got to check out the lecture series broadcast online by The Philoctetes Society. From rambles about jazz with Bela Fleck to discussions about biography with the likes of Simon Winchester (The Madman and the Professor) and Judith Therman (The New Yorker), you will not be disappointed with the intellectual breadth and rigor of the panel participants!

The Philocetetes Societ describes itself as follows:

The Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination was established to promote an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of creativity and the imaginative process.

The Center creates and supports projects, public forums, research and information gathering which foster cooperation and dialogue among diverse disciplines, while seeking to create public awareness of these efforts.

To achieve its mission the Center holds roundtable discussions with participants from various fields (neuroscience, psychology, mathematics, psychoanalysis, humanities and art, philosophy and theology), offers a forum for presentation of works in progress, and is developing a data base on imagination with the aim of becoming a clearing house for all available literature on the subject.

The Philoctetes Society reminds me of a high brow version of some of my other favorite cultural spaces in the U.S.

On Chicago's North-Side (Rogers Park), there is an incredible venue called Mess Hall, run by artists who bring in amazing folks to do lectures, performances, workshops, etc...

Mess Hall is an experimental cultural center. It is a place where visual art, radical politics, creative urban planning, applied ecological design and other things intersect and inform each other. We host exhibitions, discussions, film screenings, brunchlucks (brunch + potluck), workshops, concerts, campaigns, meetings (both closed and open) and more.

Another New York-based space I love is 16 Beaver.

16Beaver is the address of a space initiated/run by artists to create and maintain an ongoing platform for the presentation, production, and discussion of a variety of artistic/cultural/economic/political projects. It is the point of many departures/arrivals.

So many smart spaces in a country that prides itself on stupidity! I wish more of these spaces promoted their series via online video.

If you have an awesome cultural space near you, drop me a line!

Fist in the Mouth

noreply@blogger.com (Couch Potato Revolution) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:37:00 +0000

For those of you that don't know my friend Clayton, too bad for you. For those that do, you should check out Fist in the Mouth, his absolutely adorable blog. He has a great post Foods That Affect Your Pee.

Debt Collectors Ravage the Dead; Only Zombie Army Can Stop Them

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:51:00 +0000

Imagine, you just got put 6 feet under or scattered in the wind. Some Rabbi or Preacher just finished off your sermon and your loved ones celebrated that you'd finally rest in peace.

But not for long.

The New York Times reported today that getting payback from the relatives of corpses is the new frontier of debt collection. Not even the dead and grieving are safe from the greedy claws of money lenders.

So if your lover just killed himself cause he couldn't pay off those cards and thought everybody would be better off, guess what? Boy he was wrong. The phone starts ringing and the capitalist creeps start knocking on your door.

According to The NY Times:

Dozens of specially trained agents work on the third floor of DCM Services here, calling up the dear departed’s next of kin and kindly asking if they want to settle the balance on a credit card or bank loan, or perhaps make that final utility bill or cellphone payment.

Neither grief, morals, nor common sense stand in the way of collection agencies.

Only an army of zombies could stop these lenders from their necrophiliac collection mandates. Please bankers. Stop fucking the dead.

Denver's Best Sex Toy Shop!

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:43:00 +0000

OK, so since I'm a localist and just bragged about Good Vibrations, I figured I should also send a shout out to Denver's best women's-centered/queer friendly sex toy shop: Hysteria.

Whether you're looking for vibrators, butt plugs, lube, rubbers, strap-ons, or other resources, Hysteria's friendly staff has always been super helpful, kind, and welcoming to sex-toy novices and pros alike.

Not only that, they did some great work with The Colorado Anti-Violence Program's pancake breakfast last year!

Blushing and Giddy: Couch Potato Revolution Appears on Good Vibrations!

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:28:00 +0000

Hands down, Good Vibrations is my favorite online (and in person, when I'm in the Bay Area) place to buy sex toys, books, and safer-sex supplies. I blushed and turned giddy when I saw their online magazine featured a short article on my post How Men Can Get Off With a Woman's Vibrator!

Big thanks to Kuono for the story!

Non-Profits Destroy Social Movements

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:44:00 +0000

When the government came up with this whole 501C3 scam, they smartly figured out how to fuck up social movements my burning out awesome people by focusing their energy on running a business rather than revolt. Radicals should be opening squats, growing food, and burning down banks rather than filing foundation reports, massaging the fucked-up egos of spoiled board members, and licking ruling class ass.

Recently, I convinced myself to think you could change a fucked up system from the inside out. This is what doctrinaire anarchists refer to as "reformist" thinking. Stupidly, I've wasted years trying to "reform" so-called progressive organizations from oxymoronic, hierarchical tendencies in "democratic" organizations. You can't make a good omelet out of a bad egg. Non-profits can't be fixed. You can use their resources, pay the bills, and even do amazing projects within them, but when it comes to advancing progressive social change, real change, radical systemic change, you can't do that under any I.R.S. structure. Nope. You gotta take the hard road and do it yourself, with community, without a pay check, just like people have done it for centuries. Revolution is not a job.

Think about it. If a bunch of folks jobs feeding people depend on other folks starving, do you really think the comfortably employed will work to end hunger? They might lessen it, but they need people to go hungry to get a check.

I can't tell you how many people in the progressive non-profit sector feared a Democrat landslide in this last election because they were being bankrolled by anti-Bush sentiment. It felt like the non-profit "activists" needed a fascist president to justify our income fighting fascism.

It's sick.

The revolutionary flames that should be burning through this country are being snuffed out en masses by 501 C3s, professional "activists," greedy non-profit executives, and lackluster boards filled with ruling class creeps justifying their creepiness by "giving back."

I'd love to see a mass boycott of this whole system so we could have some real alternative economies and Democratic structures in the USA.

If folks need day jobs, fine, go work for Greenpeace, but in the evening, consider revolt.

In Colorado Another Politician Wants New Borns to Die From AIDS

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 07:03:00 +0000

My friend Bart just forwarded me this article from the Denver Post about dip-shit, Anti-Christ moralist David Schultheis, a Republican from Colorado Springs:
who voted against a bill requiring pregnant women to be tested for HIV because, he said, it would wrongly protect women and their unborn children from the consequences of "sexual promiscuity."

What? What? Are you telling me this Colorado Springs man, probably a Creepy Christian, wants kids to die because their mothers got laid or shot up some dope?

Why do men like Schultheis want people dead to prove their point? This fucker's probably from the denomination known as "The Church of Jesus Christ Should Have Shot Mary Magdalene in Her Whorish Crotch"

Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!

According to this article, just a few days before, Sen. Scott Renfroe from Greely argued:

homosexuality is an "abomination" and a sin comparable to murder in a debate over a bill extending health benefits to same-sex partners of state employees.

Fuckin-A Fascists! Why do you want people unlike you to die?

With Holy Roller penis-knockers like these running around, all I've got to say is, let's raise the corpse of Jesus in Colorado to set these dip-shits queer.

What a bunch of murderous thugs.

Bored in a Meeting? Tell Your Most Scandalous Story!

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 06:20:00 +0000

Late night over drinks, "What's your most scandalous story," is one of my favorite questions to ask and my favorite questions to answer. It cuts to the chase, it assumes friends have more dirt than they wear on their sleeves. In a culture where everyone's trying to cover their secrets up, it makes people just uncomfortable enough to make things interesting.

Whether it's Truth or Dare or Cliff or any other game that makes people reveal something new about themselves and how they relate to the world, it works to get everybody eager and excited.

This is what social movements need to do more of. We need to know more dirt on each other. How often do we sit in a never ending meeting, yacking about social movements, and unwilling to reveal the slightest details about ourselves, our addictions, our desires, our flaws.

People aren't interesting in their heroism, perfection, and smooth social graces. We're interesting in how we smell, where we break-down, and in the depths of our disabilities, perversions, and social failures.

Perhaps this is why folks love tragedy so much--they love to watch a hero fall.

So the next time a meeting is dragging on at your office, I suggest you play a coffee drinking game of I Never.

I never had sex with a co-worker on the conference room table.

Ok, guilty...You know who you are...Drink up.

Shout Out to Fire Witch Rising for Hillarious Commentary on the Closing of The Rocky Mountain News

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:41:00 +0000

Check out Fire Witch Rising's funny post about the closing of the Rocky Mountain News!

She's so good!

Roy and Silo: Powerful: Mary Tremont's Poster of Cute Gay Penguins!

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:32:00 +0000

Ok, so I guess I'm on a Just Seeds kick again! This poster collective puts out some of the best work of anyone working in print. Check out this friggin' adorable poster Mary Tremonte did of Roy and Silo, the gay penguins at the central park zoo.

Stealing from the Just Seeds Blog, Mary writes:

This is a reworking of a print I made in 2007, the first of a continuing series on queer animals. Roy and Silo are male chinstrap penguins in the Central Park zoo, who were sexual companions for over six years. Zookeepers noticed them sitting on egg-shaped rocks while other penguins were incubating, and they were given a fertilized egg. Roy and Silo patiently incubated it until it hatched. There are dozens of documented cases of same-sex penguin couples in captivity and the wild. After I first created this print, I found that Roy and Silo's story was made into a children's book And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell. This book has been banned at libraries in conservative areas throughout the United States.

All of this brings us to present political struggles over basic civil rights based on gender and sexuality, with Prop 8 and pending legislation in Allegheny County, where I live. Opponents of legal protection for same-sex couples and genderqueers often use the argument that it is 'not natural,' or a behavior rather than an inborn trait, such as race. These examples of biological exuberance counteract those views.

Speaking from the heart, I am always looking for new signifiers and icons, as General Idea did with poodles and baby seals in the 1980's. Respect your spirit! Love is powerful!

Rock on Mary!

Rumor has it one of those gay penguins started doing it with a woman. Now, I don't mean to disrupt just how awesome it is that there are gay penguins, but I think I'm more psyched that they're pansexual penguins too!

Hot Dog!

US Military Interventions Since WWII

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:27:00 +0000

Check out Josh MacPhee's poster, US Military Interventions Since WWII. Josh is an anarchist artist whose work decorates the houses of radicals, teachers, artists, and cultural workers alike. Check it out!

Bill Maher's Racist Remark on Afghanistan: "Maybe They're Not Ready For Freedom?"

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:47:00 +0000

On Real Time With Bill Maher, Maher just speculated that folks in Afghanistan are not ready for freedom. This wreaks of bizarre social Darwinism, racism, xenophobia, and cultural superiority. The idea that some people are better equipped for freedom, democracy, and human rights infuses so much of American Society. People here really think that the U.S. is superior. I'm disgusted by this attitude. With the U.S. rape rates exceedingly high, police violence rampant, the largest prison population in the world, a pathetic health care system, and a couple brutal wars (one on people in Afghanistan), the U.S. has clearly failed to be ready for Freedom.

But that's the government. That's the people in charge. People, every day folks, whether in Kandihar or Denver are longing to be free from the violence of the United States, imperialism, and brutality.

How Men Can Get Off With a Woman's Vibrator

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:35:00 +0000

I can't tell you how many women have told me that the Hitachi Magic Wand is their favorite sex toy. It's a humongous vibrator that looks like an egg beater. It's gigantic, much larger than the clitoris, and legions more ferocious than the hand.

But the Hitachi is not just for women. What I like most about the Hitachi is that if you stick a toy up your bum, say something like the Aneros or a medium sized butt-plug, men can actually use the Hitachi to press into the toy and get the most incredible orgasms via the P-Spot (prostate...the male g-spot). It's super fun and super hot.

Few acts can give a man such an erotic, heightened, ecstatic experience. Check it out, if you haven't.

My Top Six Words That Others Might Find "Kind of Offensive:"

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 07:46:00 +0000

My friend and I spent a couple hours on the trip back from Mississippi hashing out language--what's fucked up to say and what's not. I'm not much of a believer in the idea of "good" and "bad" language. We talked a ton about words like "lame," "sick," and "blind" and what fell into the category of ableist language and exactly how one should respond. I'm not sure we agreed on any conclusions other than the idea that being aware of the cultural/oppressive contexts of language matters.

Not long after the conversation, I received this comment from Brittany, an offended reader bothered by my post, How to Spot a Gay Man in Mississippi.

: thats kind of offensive..i dont use the word dyke.

At first I wondered why she was more offended by the word dyke than by the rash generalizations about Mississippians I made. Then I wondered what it was about that word that offended her...particularly from a queer person. I asked and have not heard back. I really wish she elaborated.

Additionally, I wondered what "kind of offensive" meant. Was it that she was not sure if it was tasteless? Did she want a conversation about degrees of offense or was she just being polite.

There are many words that I don't use and perhaps I find them "kind of" offensive when others find them quite normal.

In talking to my friend on the way back from Mississippi, she asked me what words I use that others might find politically offensive. So here it goes. I present:

My Top Five Words That Others Might Find Kind of Offensive:

1) Queer: I like this word, not only because it describes my own sexuality and many others that don't quite fit in, but because once upon a time it was a phrase used to oppress and now, us queers use the phrase to say, "fuck yeah, we're oddball, pervert, badasses, and if you wanna fuck with us, you better watch the fuck out."

2) Faggot: I got called faggot so much as a kid that I began to enjoy the term. Its more risky than queer, more flamboyant, and more in your face. When the gay and lesbian mainstream is all about marriage and property ownership, faggots are all about sexual revolution and wrecking convention. I'm a faggot baby, so give it like you mean it.

3) Cunt: I can't think of a word that describes the vagina, clit, clit legs, labia, cooch better. Well, hmmmm, maybe cooch, but cunt just sounds so hot. (If you don't like the word, of course, I'd refrain from saying it around you. Just let me know.)

4) Dyke: I love dykes. Amen. I love dykes for friends, lovers, and collaborators. Dykes are so much rougher, queerer, and funner than their polite co-queers from the island of Lesbos. Dyke is tough, like a motor-biker, a construction worker, or a muscular woman with a strap-on named Big Red rushing at me from across the room.

5) Slut: This word does a great job describing sex positivity, radical desire, the inherent economic relationship between fucking bodies, and a general loose sensibility I embrace.

drumroll...and for an extra one...

6) Bisexual: So many gay men refer to bisexuals as "fence-sitters," "unable to leave the closet," and "indecisive." Now that trans-politics have taken off, "bisexual" as a term has become unpopular in queer communities, replaced by words like "queer," pansexual," and ambisexual." I like the word because it's all that a lot of kids know to use for themselves, trying to come out in small towns.

Different Faces of Homelessness: Tonight's Homelessness Marathon Broadcast

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:24:00 +0000

Free Speech TV will be broadcasting LIVE from The Homelessness Marathon at 7pm Eastern Time, February 23rd, 2009.

Check it out at Dish 9415 and online at http://freespeech.org

Coming to Pass Christian, Mississippi to shoot for The Homelessness Marathon, we imagined taping loads of B-Roll of homeless folks to use in the broadcast. The funny thing about making television is that things don't always work out as expected. Homelessness looks really different in small towns than it does in big cities.

I think we all expected to see folks pushing shopping carts up the street, sleeping in cardboard boxes, passed out on grates, asking for change, and out in public holding signs that say "I'm Homeless. Help." Rather, what we've seen are the destroyed foundations of thousands of homes, many quite lavish, others poor. We've heard tales of rich people being the first to receive government assistance (sound familiar) and poor people still waiting to be evicted (familiar too).

We've seen the bright green, frightfully new MEMA Trailers sitting next to houses smashed up by the storm. Many folks may be pushed out of their houses in the next few months because the government is reclaiming the trailers (stealing homes). For people who've been waiting around for promised government grants to come through that never did, they're shit out of luck.

So what's going to happen to folks displaced by the storm? They'll be evicted, thrown out on the street, and joining millions of others left to die by a state that has more money to kill people in other countries than to help folks here.

So where are homeless folks? Tonight, during the live radio cast, I hope to get a better idea, to hear directly from the people most impacted by Katrina, those stranded outside with nothing left, broken and destroyed by the state. You can check out our broadcast at Free Speech TV.

As for iconic images of the homeless as seen above, they will be scarce in our broadcast. Rather than objectifying folks, we'll be providing a live, national platform for people to be heard. Hope you can check it out.

Five Reasons the Civil War Could Erupt Again

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:42:00 +0000

All these brainless white people chatter about how America is in a post-race era because Obama has taken charge of the country. Here are my top five reasons this country is spinning ass-backwards into a sinking pit of quick-sand poop, a Civil War reenactment of grotesque proportions where poor Southerners fight gay Northerners and nobody gets laid.

1) At the gas station last night, here in Mississippi, a creepy gas station attendant with prominent skinhead tattoos looked at me and whispered, "Oh great, another Colorado Bitch. Fuckin' Yankees."

2) Mississippi still has a Confederate Flag stuck slap dab in the middle of the state flag just to remind the rest of the Union that the South's gonna do it again.

3) GOP Governors, convinced that taking handouts is as bad as sodomy. have united in a front to refuse money from the Federal Bailout while folks in their states suffer.

4) Long Island assholes love to talk shit on the South--both the "racist rednecks" and the "dirty Mexicans." (Why do hurricane's never strike up there?)

5) Like Robin Hood on opposite day, the bankers just ripped off public funds and gave to the rich. Do they want to get spanked by the masses?

There's about to be a national prison riot and this Titanic of a nation is about to sink into the Arctic which is melting so fast it's pouring out of my spigot in Mississippi. Guess what ya'll. We're totally screwed and the whole mother is going down.

How to Spot a Gay Man in Mississippi?

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 02:10:00 +0000

They have guts, facial hair, and very masculine tattoos. I try to give them the eye and they smile and wave. So I'm dying to figure out how to spot a fellow-traveler, a big ole' homo, a hot and hairy big-bellied bear man in Mississippi. All these Southern men look like bears and all their wives look like dykes. I love this place, but somehow, I get the feeling that if I try to take a bear to bed (or for that matter his dyke wife), he might end up pulling out the bible, burning a cross, or kicking my ass from bed to a rope dangling from the nearest oak tree. So somebody tell me--which of this trade is fair trade and how do I tell the homos from the nonos.

Urgh, I want a big Southern Man

The Economy is Dead - Art Is Alive: Props to Dylan Miner

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 01:07:00 +0000

I just checked out Dylan Miner's new print: Arte está viva…La economía está muerte. I sure hope Miner's on-point with this one. While our economy is indeed dead, the proposition that art is alive slaps the face of decades of proclamations about its death. Good news that its alive and serving folks through Just Seeds. I just hope that the rest of the art establishment catches up and starts serving the dying, starving, sick, and oppressed--the vast majority of people in this wacky world trying to get by without getting screwed.

Kudos to Dylan and the Just Seeds folks for their ongoing art for social, economic, and environmental justice.

Lotsa love!

The South Won't Do It Again: Thoughts on the Confederate Flag

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Couch Potato) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:21:00 +0000

Hanging out during Mardis Gras in Pass Christian, Mississippi, a city draped in Confederate Flags, I get a gut feeling that a deep love of old Southern values has not died. Unlike Virginia and Tennessee, Rebel Flags do not accompany American Flags. Rather, they stand alone, proud symbols of a defeated cause, a depressing cause, a cause as pathetic as it is forgotten.

Nobody knows better than these Confederate Flag waving Rebels that the South cannot do it again, that Mississippi, one of the nation's poorest states, has been forgotten. From slavery, to lynchings, to a government that prefers to invest Katrina Relief money into ports rather than people, Mississippi cannot help but view itself as a dying phoenix, burnt to ashes, longing to rise again, clinging to its despicable past to distract itself from the violence of the present, a violence caused by Northern neglect.

The Confederate Flag often causes anger in Northern people who believe their regions excel in social justice. What these self-righteous folks forget is that the North has a history as bloody and violent, as racist and deadly as the South. From police violence in San Francisco and New York to fast-rising hate groups like World Church of the Creator in Chicago,no part of this occupied nation founded in genocide and slavery lacks a bloodbath history and a reprehensibly racist present.

The Confederate Flag symbolizes poor, broken white people's desires to live the lives of slave-owners again. Disturbing? Yes. Threatening. Not particularly.

M ore threatening to people of color are the criminal bankers siphoning the people's money, violent cops, pre-prison schools, and the prison industrial complex. The tawdry impotence of the Confederate Flag and the broke white folks who wave it have little to do with the racism, genocidal tendencies, and violence our system continues to fuel itself on. These Rebels are victims too.