by Blogbot

SuicideGirls’ team of Bloggers and Agony Aunts share their suggestions on how you can give 2012 a kick-ass kick start.

1. There’s someone you haven’t spoken to in a long time. Too long. You fear by now you’ve procrastinated so long that it’s lame to reach out, so you’ve effectively paralyzed a valuable friendship that could easily re-blossom with a single call. You’re not paralyzed, it’s just a head trip. Guilt is useless. Make that call. Say Hi. Apologize. Laugh. Love. Life’s too short. Do it right now. “Happy New Year! I suck” is a great way to start a conversation! – Steve Altman

2. Cut off deadwood! Start by defriending, hiding or blocking the toxic individuals from your Facebook and Twitter feeds. – Dalila Suicide

3. Spend time with people that make you feel taller, brighter, and more capable than you did before. – Darrah de jour

4. Try dating someone you wouldn’t ordinarily date. Like, say, maybe an introverted writer-type that contributes to your favorite alt-beauty blog. Or an evangelical Christian. Those are your only two choices though: the writer or the evangelical. Choose wisely. – Matt Dunbar

5. Spend some time with a niece, nephew or cousin who are growing up and could use your advice. – Atlea Suicide

6. Talk to someone from your Facebook list face-to-face. – CoyoteMike

7. Come to terms with the fact that you mom has a Facebook. – Shotgun Suicide

8. Eating vegetarian style meals reduces the green house gas production. Try to incorporate this in to your lifestyle one day a week. It’s good for you and the earth. – Aadie Suicide

9. Eat lots and lots of cupcakes!!!! What? They’re epic and always put a smile on my face! – Kraven Suicide

10. Unfuck your habitat! There’s nothing like vastly improving your quality of life by having a clean, organized living space. Need tips and/or motivation? Visit unfuckyourhabitat.tumblr.com/, because “no matter what our situations are, we deserve better than to live in filth.” – Perdita Suicide

11. Clean your car and your house through and through. – Atlea Suicide

12. Rearrange a room to get a fresh perspective on life. – Rambo Suicide

13. Go through all your clothes and decide if someone could make better use of some of them. Drop the excess baggage off at a shelter or contributing organization in your area. – Atlea Suicide

14. Donate those holiday presents that you don’t like. – Shotgun Suicide

15. Shop local whenever possible. – Salome Suicide

16. Eat at your favorite mom & pop restaurant, before it goes bankrupt too. – Shotgun Suicide

17. Set up a computer backup plan. Be ready for World Backup Day. – Bob Suicide

18. Start and finish a project you’ve had in mind for a long time. Renovations, painting a vase, knitting, really anything. – Atlea Suicide

19. Set a stupid goal and accomplish it, to prove to yourself that you can. – Darrah de jour

20. Quit saying you will do something and actually do it. When tasks, errands, and commitments are followed through with you feel much more productive. – Kraven Suicide

21. Take a risk. – Darrah de jour

22. Spend an hour with a happy dog, scratching his or her ears. – CoyoteMike

23. Try to go outside each day. Go for a walk. Make sure you have at least 20 minutes of “me” time. This way you’re incorporating self-thought and exercise. It’s very important to get to know yourself. You could be pleasantly surprised. – Aadie Suicide

24. Learn a new skill: baking, crocheting, taxidermy, etc. – Rambo Suicide

25. Take a college class that you want to take, not one that you need. – Shotgun Suicide

26. Find a hobby you can dedicate some time to. Something you love and have passion for. It keeps us young at heart and sane when we can lose our selves in something. – Kraven Suicide

27. Splurge on some really fancy underwear. – Rambo Suicide

28. Add a little color to your life however you see fit. A colorful world is so much better than a black and white one. – Kraven Suicide

29. Make time for yourself. Seriously. Put it in your calendar. Whether it is daily, weekly or monthly, schedule some time and don’t cut out on it for anyone. You’re the only one looking out for you. – Smythe Suicide

30. Treat yourself to an energy renewal weekend, be it at the spa or simply just by unplugging the phone and reading a book. – Atlea Suicide

31. Set up an automatic transfer of money into a savings account each month. – Salome Suicide

32. Watch Fight Club. – Darrah de jour

33. Listen to Valleyheart by She Wants Revenge – Nicole Powers

34. Read Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (snag a free copy here) – EisMC2 and JackalAnon

35. See more live comedy and live music. – Squee Suicide

36. Support non-profit journalism – American Independent News Network, Truthout, GregPalast.com, BradBlog.com are all 501c3’s – donate to support the news that you read for free. Oh, and it’s tax deductible. – ZDRoberts

37. Protest the NDAA, unless you don’t care to plead the 5th. – Shotgun Suicide

38. Join the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) if you care about stopping SOPA. If you spend any time online, you should do. (For that matter, if you’re breathing, you should do!) – Nicole Powers

39. Protect your vote. The election is less than a year away, and you’ll need to start working now to make sure your vote actually counts. Find out why and how by downloading Steal Back Your Vote for free. SuicideGirls helped promote the project so you know it’s awesome and worth a read. – ZDRoberts

40. Get to know your presidential candidates. Look beyond the big social issues like abortion, and research their tax plans, health care ideas, and how they’ve voted in the past. You might find out they aren’t who you thought they were based on a few Facebook posts and Twitter campaigns. The election is coming soon. – Damon Martin

41. Stop by and say hi to your local Occupy. Shake someone’s hand and say “Thank you.” You’d be surprised how much it means to them. Oh, and give them a pair of mittens, it gets cold out there. – ZDRoberts

42. Write “Thank You” notes and post them to people who have helped you get through 2011. – Atlea Suicide

43. Send a letter to a friend, the kind with a stamp. – Shotgun Suicide

44. Create good karma. Treat others as you would want to be treated. In this day in age too many people are being hurtful towards one another in many forms. From anonymous hating via the internet, to being rude to a stranger just because your day didn’t go so well, to physical acts of hate out of spite, jealousy or lack of confidence. Think about how you can be a positive impact on others around you, from your family, friends, neighbors and strangers. Small gestures of kindness can go a long ways and karma will make its way back to you. – Dorsal Suicide

45. Pay for the next person in line at the coffee shop. – CoyoteMike

46. Find joy in the small things. It will help you appreciate the big things so much more. – Kraven Suicide

47. Make today count, because one day you will be nostalgic for it. – Shotgun Suicide

48. Spend more time living in the moment, and less time worrying about the past and the future. Neither of these exist – so live in the present! – Fabrizia Suicide

49. The past is over. Now move your ass. Welcome to 2012. – Darrah de jour

50. Have no regrets. It’s a New Year and that means progress. Do not look back, only forward to the happiness ahead! – Kraven Suicide

by Yashar Ali

Every election season, I ask myself the same question: Why aren’t more women running for public office?

Over the past ten years, I have been hopeful for the prospect and rise of women political candidates. While I never studied the numbers, I felt like we were heading in the right direction.

I couldn’t be more wrong.

Reporter Kate Linthicum’s brilliant Los Angeles Times article sheds light on the City of Los Angeles’ problem with proper female representation on the city council. The fifteen-member council, which had five female members eleven years ago, currently has just one, Jan Perry.

Current statistics about women holding federal office are equally dismal: women hold fewer than 20 percent of House and Senate seats. The House faced its first decline in 30 years with respect to women members.

Women hold fewer than 25 percent of seats in state legislatures. This sort of decline has not been seen in decades.

Why are we slipping back after so many years of slow but steady progress?

There exists real obstacles for prospective women politicians: media bias, lack of financial support, mediocre recruitment efforts, underfunded organizations built to help women run for public office.

I want to introduce a not-so-prominent problem: the serious deficiency of women in senior positions on political campaigns. With the exception of political fundraisers, you find very few women running campaigns or serving in top management spots.

The absence of women operating behind the scenes of political campaigns has been largely ignored. This is made clear by the complete absence of studies tracking the numbers of women working in politics. Open your newspaper and turn on your TV. You usually hear a senior-level male staffer speaking for candidates.

This isn’t just about my ideology. This is personal for me.

For the past two and half years, I worked for California Lieutenant Governor and former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. In my last position with him, I managed his 2010 race for Lieutenant Governor.

Lieutenant Governor Newsom and his wife, actress and documentary filmmaker, Jennifer Siebel Newsom (who made a brilliant documentary about women’s under-representation in positions of power and the limited and often disparaging portrayal of women in the media – see SG interview) expressed in this campaign their frustration and concern about the lack of women working on his campaigns.

Lieutenant Governor Newsom always asked, when we made hiring decisions, whether we could fill these posts with qualified women. This was not just a question for him. In his first year as mayor, he appointed San Francisco’s first female police chief and fire chief. He was also the first mayor to initiate gender analysis of budget cuts.

But I couldn’t find available and qualified women to take senior positions in his campaign. The few women I did know were already working on other campaigns.

Shawnda Westly, Executive Director of the California Democratic Party, saw a need to fix this problem in California. She, along with her colleague Robin Swanson, put their money where their mouth is, and launched a website called Political Women California.

Political Women California delivers a simple, but powerful mission: to give women working in politics a place to post their resumes so employers can find and hire them for campaigns, elections and political positions throughout California — and across the country.

Their site has been flooded with postings from women already working in politics in California. Even though I am not in the business of managing campaigns anymore, it helped me realize how many women are trying to work in politics.

Usually, people run for office after being exposed to a political campaign in one way or another. So the question is: how do we expect young women to motivate themselves to run for public office when all the people running campaigns are men?

This issue is not limited to Democrats. We need more women working on campaigns and in elective office across the political spectrum. Both parties should see the benefit of female leadership. But drawing from my personal experience, I want to speak to Democrats: There is no excuse. How can we demand equality for women in the workplace and fair wage laws, when we can’t manage to hire women for the campaigns professing these issues?

I spent the better part of two years working tirelessly for Hillary Clinton in her bid to be the 44th President of the United States. My passion for her candidacy was primarily based on my belief that she was the most qualified candidate for president. I felt her unique combination of experiences would serve our country incredibly well.

But there was another strong factor for my motivation. One I will not apologize for. I really wanted a woman president.

The dream I have for a woman president is not dead. However, if we don’t make conscious efforts to hire more women on political campaigns, we are not only limiting our talent pool, but we will also face an epidemic shortage of women running for office.

We must demand that candidates we support value diversity in their hiring practices. So, my message is for two people: the candidate and the campaign manager.

Next time you are walking through your campaign headquarters, take a look at the young woman who shows up everyday after her classes to volunteer. The same one who always pays her own way on public transportation to make phone calls and to help knock on doors. The same one that you are impressed by and think is better than half your paid staff. And probably the same one you take for granted. She could be president one day…if you give her a chance.

Yashar Ali is a Los Angeles-based columnist, commentator, and political veteran whose writings about women, gender inequality, political heroism, and society are showcased on his website, The Current Conscience. Please follow him on Twitter and join him on Facebook.

He will be soon releasing our first short e-book, entitled, A Message To Women From A Man: You Are Not Crazy — How We Teach Men That Women Are Crazy and How We Convince Women To Ignore Their Instincts. If you are interested and want to be notified when the book is released, please click here to sign-up.

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By Justin Beckner

The dawn of another brutal election year is upon us and the majority of the country has developed a feeling of distain for politics all together. Still, masses of protesters have flocked to the streets to speak out against corporate greed and corrupt government practices. Never has there been a better time for a band like Anti-Flag to make new record and gear up for another world tour.

Anti-Flag frontman, Justin Sane has relentlessly spoken out against injustice since he and his friends formed the band back in 1988. Sane has long been hailed as one of the most intelligent songwriters of our generation. While musically, Anti-Flag is a direct descendent of classic punk rock bands, lyrically they ring reminiscent of a Woody Guthrie or Billy Bragg. Anti-Flag had a few minor hits with songs like “Protest Song” and “Turncoat” which could be heard being played at almost any protest demonstration during the Bush Administration. It is rather common to find Anti-Flag playing shows at protests. They recently played at an Occupy Wall Street Demonstration. Sane draws a lot of his songwriting topics from his experiences playing at and marching in these kinds of events.

Aside from his rigorous touring schedule with Anti-Flag, Sane has also put out three solo records (one full length and two EPs) and is in the process of putting together another album. In these solo records, he has found a freedom to pursue different musical directions – often this means falling back into acoustic music and dabbling in different genres. The light-hearted solo albums are a glimpse at the other side of the charismatic frontman.

In the following interview, Sane and I discuss the roots of his love of music and activism, the causes and effects of the Occupy Wall Street Protests, and the new Anti-Flag album due out this spring.

Justin Beckner: It seems to me that there are a lot of ideological similarities between traditional Irish music and punk rock music. You came from an Irish household, is that where your passion for music and social justice came from?

Justin Sane: Yeah, it really did. My dad is from Ireland and both of my mother’s parents are from Ireland so I am 110% Irish. My parents were both really involved in activism as a result of their Catholic upbringing. In Catholicism, there’s something called “Liberation Theology” and that’s the kind of theology that Jesus preached – that you should help out in your community and work with the poor and stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves or give a voice to those who don’t have a voice in the world. With the British occupation of Ireland for hundreds and hundreds of years, there’s always been that drive in the Irish people to work for their own liberation. I think that the idea of fighting for people who are oppressed was carried along with those who left Ireland. Those ideas have been well documented in Irish folk music which is something I grew up listening to and playing. My parents had nine kids because Catholics don’t use birth control. I was the youngest of the nine and we all played instruments. It was like our own version of The Pogues or Flogging Molly within our own family. I’m not Catholic myself, I’m not really religious, but I think that I was influenced by that Liberation Theology that my parents were so profoundly influenced by. They fought for civil rights and fought to make the environment clean for their kids.

JB: Were there any non-political bands that you were influenced by on a more technical level?

JS: Yeah, I mean I’ve always loved KISS. I thought they were really cool. I’m sure there were others – I listened to Jackson Browne a lot. I listened to much of the same music my older brothers and sisters listened to and a lot of it wasn’t political. The Beatles were a band that was unanimously liked by everyone in my family and they had their political songs and their non-political songs. So there was a lot of non-political music that I drew influence from.

JB: You’ve spent a fair amount of time at the Occupy Wall Street Protests. Do you think the message that is being sent by the protesters is getting through to those who need to hear it?

JS: I think it’s definitely getting through because the protesters are being addressed quite often with brutal physical force by a police force that has traditionally been used to work for the elite. I think what we have now is a police force that is propping up a corporatocracy. Let’s look at it from this perspective – if there were protests in North Korea where protesters were trying to make a statement by occupying a square in North Korea and the police came in a brutally beat people up and pepper sprayed them and hit them with non-lethal weapons, the State Department here in the US would be on Fox news decrying the authoritarian rulers of North Korea. But we have that exact same thing happening right here in a democracy where we supposedly have the right to free speech. We have peaceful protesters making a peaceful statement and they’re being beat down by police. I think that says something about the state of our nation and it says something about the concern that those in power have about a message like that being freely spoken. If they didn’t think that message was dangerous, they wouldn’t be sending the police out there to shut those people up. There’s a very clear and directed initiative to suppress that speech and I think that’s really tragic. I’m really proud of the people who are out there making that statement because it obviously needs to be made. People are waking up and realizing that the rich in this country have been taking advantage of the poor for a very long time. So, they’re waking up and making the statement that things in this country are very out of balance – in that respect I think it’s very important that statement be made.

JB: That sense of injustice and imbalance has certainly been getting much harder for people to ignore in recent years. The top 1% of Americans control 42% of the country’s wealth and assets. That’s a pretty staggering figure.

JS: Yeah it is and I think in America there’s a sense of fairness – that everybody has an opportunity to get ahead and that’s based on an assumption that there’s a level playing field that we all start out on. Now people are looking around and seeing that there isn’t a level playing field, things are vastly out of balance, and people with a lot of money are actually breaking the law in many cases and doing things that should be illegal to make more money – all this while the rest of us are just trying to scrape by. I think Americans are pretty fair minded – most people are just saying that they want a level playing field and that’s why we see a lot of protests popping up recently.

JB: Over the past couple weeks I’ve noticed major news networks belittling the protesters on Wall Street. How do you feel when you hear people say that the Occupy Protesters don’t know what they want?

JS: I think a lot of people have a hard time verbalizing it, but in their gut they know there’s something out of whack. That’s where I think the media does a really great disservice by putting out things like, “There’s these occupiers out there but they don’t know what they want.” Because the reality is that if you spent five minutes at any of the Occupy events and walked around and talked to some of the protesters, you’d very quickly find out that there are incredibly articulate people who can tell you exactly what they think the problem is, what should change, and they’d give you statistics to back it up. They’d tell you that the corporations have bought and paid for our politicians to the point that they don’t represent us anymore, they represent corporations, and we want corporate money out of politics so we can have our politicians back. Those are the messages that we don’t see on Fox or CNN. When I go to Occupy Wall Street, as I have a number of times in several different cities, I talk to people who are really articulate, and then I turn on the news and they’re interviewing some guy who can hardly talk and doesn’t seem to know why he’s there. It makes me wonder why the hell aren’t they running interviews with the people I talked to when I was there. But those people at the top of the food chain at Fox news and places like that don’t want a clear message coming out of there. They’re doing their best to make people look stupid but the amount of knowledgeable people down at these protests is unbelievable. I just wonder why we’re not hearing those voices on the news.

JB: With the dawn of another election year upon us I’ve got to ask, how do you think these protests are going to influence the elections in 2012?

JS: One thing that was really clever about the way the Occupy movement was structured was that there is no figurehead leading the movement. That’s a good thing because leaders can be coopted, they can be bought, they can be bribed, they can be stroked in different ways. The Occupy movement is a true democratic process and a true movement of the people. I think that politicians today are just too corrupt to bring this country back to some degree or normalcy. However they will do what they need to do to get reelected and in that sense the Occupy movement is a message of what the people want. It’s not a message of what the corporations want. Ultimately politicians have to bow to the will of the people, and little by little, as a result of the Occupy movement, we see that happening. So it’s a step in the right direction. I think that what the Occupy movement is going to do is change things on a broad scale and politicians in turn will be pulled in and forced to think about what the people want if they want to get elected.

It’s going to take time and it’s going to happen as a result of attitudes and ideas changing. One of those ideas that has to change is that we can have corporate money in politics – we just can’t. There are huge payoffs for these politicians. Say I get elected to the senate and I vote with a chemical company in my area even though I know it’s really bad for my constituents. I know that even if I get voted out of office the next term, I’ll still have a cushy job at that chemical company where I can use the friends I made in Washington to benefit my company. This is what happens over and over again. Our former senator or Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum, who is running for president right now, is a poster child for this type of thing. Dick Cheney is another stellar example – he was with Halliburton, then in the Senate, went back to Halliburton, and then was vice president. That is how these corporations use their influence – what we have right now is not a democracy, it’s a corporatocracy and it needs to change. The Occupy movement gives me a lot of hope. I think people went to the ballot box expecting change from Barack Obama and they didn’t get it. They’re realizing that change isn’t going to come from the ballot box and they’re going to find a new way to move the country in a different direction – it’s really exciting and I feel optimistic for the first time in twelve years!

JB: Switching gears back to music, I’ve been told the new Anti-Flag album is in the mixing process right now. Do you have a title or a release date?

JS: Yeah we’re tentatively titling it The General Strike. A general strike is generally where a city or a country is shut down to make a point that progress will not move forward without the people’s labor. The UK had a massive general strike which wasn’t even mentioned in this country’s news. They shut the entire country down. The idea behind calling the new album The General Strike is that it’s a worldwide general strike and Anti-Flag is a band that is talking about unity between all people. I think there really is a group of people who have unified in this world around the idea of equality for all people – and that’s the concept that the title came from.

JB: A lot has happened in the world since your last album; is there any certain subject matter that you focused on with the writing of the new record?

JS: After going to a number of Occupy Wall Street Demonstrations and witnessing the recurring theme of police oppression and the masses of cops working as a tools for what I refer to as the corporate state, that was certainly on my mind when I was writing for the new album. Because I’ll tell you what, when you’ve had a billy club shoved in your face or been pepper sprayed or witnessed innocent people being beat down for absolutely no reason – the videos are on The Daily Show so you don’t have to look very hard to see it – it makes you angry. Especially when it happens to an old lady or people you know, and when you see this happening day after day to peaceful people who are just expressing their democratic right to free speech. So writing about police oppression was something that happened on this record as a result of that. I’ve been having a really hard time looking at police and feeling good about them. It’s really unfortunate because I have police officers in my family and when police do their job and serve their community and protect people, it’s really nice to see them. But we keep seeing over and over again police acting outside what their role is. It’s really enraging and it’s something I’ve been putting pen to paper about because that’s my way of dealing with it.

We’ve also been writing about the exciting events that have been happening around the world like the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the ousting of Moammar Gaddafi, and the changes happening in Saudi Arabia. And then we’ve got a song about skateboarding (laughs). There’s a general theme that the songs are about what’s going on in the world, but we like to have some fun too. It should be out sometime in the spring of 2012.

JB: There will be a tour ensuing the release of that album I’d imagine?

JS: Yeah, we’re looking at starting in Australia and then playing Indonesia for the first time which we’re pretty excited about. Then we’ll definitely be doing our dates in the states and the Europe. After that we’ll see what happens, were always looking forward to meeting new people, seeing new places, and experiencing new things.

JB: I also understand you’ve been writing some songs for a solo record. What do you get out of writing songs for a solo album that you don’t get from writing Anti-Flag songs?

JS: We had an idea when we started Anti-Flag that we wanted it to be a political punk rock band and when people started to follow the band that was the impression they got as well. When we stray from that formula people don’t accept it very well, some react pretty viscerally to it. On the record Bright Lights of America, which we released a few years back, we really tried to expand and go in some different directions and people either liked that about it or they hated it. [Instead of] trying to force people [to hear[ something that they don’t want from Anti-Flag, I write solo albums. With my solo albums, if I want to write about my cat or my girlfriend I can do that. With Anti-Flag I don’t feel free to write songs like that. Another thing is the ability to write different types of music. In my family we listened to so much music and it was so diverse that it almost makes more sense to come across me playing an acoustic guitar in an Irish pub than playing electric guitar in a punk rock band.

The solo albums give me a chance to do something else and that freedom is really exciting. It’s an opportunity for people to know the personal side of me. Sometimes in Anti-Flag people get to thinking that we’re just these serious political robots all the time – it’s kind of funny. Anyways, I’m hoping to get a solo album together in 2012.

by Blogbot

• INTO: Chocolate, playing with my mommy, and cats!
• NOT INTO: Carrots. I HATE carrots!
• MAKES ME HAPPY: When we go out and I stay on my mommy’s shoulder the whole time, looking around and seeing people shocked!
• MAKES ME SAD: When my mommy goes out without me.
• HOBBIES: I am a rat, so you know, rat stuff, like hiding from the world and playing the whole day with other ratties!
• 5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: Chocolate, hot blankets in winter, my toys, cuddles, my rat friends.
• VICES: I like to lay on my mom while she is watching a film.
• I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: Playing with my rat friends or my mom! It’s so hard living as a rat!

Get to know Chemio’s mistress, Ultima Suicide, over at SuicideGirls.com!

by Zach Roberts

My wrist hurts.

Really more that it possibly should. This is not good. I’m a writer, a photographer, I like to shake people’s hands. I need my wrist functioning.

And I’m not even arrested yet.

It’s 12 o’ clock and there’s maybe 100 people here…and that’s including the press. #D17 is not looking to be all it was cracked up to be, like an ‘N Sync reunion when Justin doesn’t show up. (It was intended to be a celebration of the 3 month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement and its encampment at Zuccotti Park, and was supposed to be marked by a reoccupation in New York at the nearby Duarte Square, a vacant plot of land owned by Trinity Wall Street, a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of NYC.)

It’s freezing, well, maybe not that bad, but I’m underdressed for the occasion, wearing a light jacket and no gloves or a hat. An hour and a half into standing around at Duarte Park in Lower Manhattan – I thought I’d be running after occupiers and dodging kettling nets.

I get the standard shots – the wide above the head shot (for crowd count), the protesters children (cute sells!), the old school occupiers (who knows AARP might run a piece on #OWS), the funny signs (always good for internet reach), and then the pretty portraits (30mm f1.4 Sigma, wide open, manual focus – shallow depth of field).

Ok. So now it’s 1:30 PM. Our sources inside the OWS movement tell us that since the organizers were pre-arrested** – one of which is some guy named Zach – they’re not sure anything is actually going down during the day, maybe not until 7 PM.

Fuck.

CS (still photog), Andrew (still photog), Brian (still photog), Rosie (Village Voice writer) and I (SuicideGirls photog) huddle in a group, trying to decide what to do. I hate to admit it, I’m the first one to say fuck it, let’s go home – warm up and recharge for the night.

Brian, a shooter says he’s staying, has to and recommends that we all stay. Even if he didn’t have to, we all know he would anyway. He’s done Egypt and Greece already, so we kind of look to him for guidance. He’s known within his agency to be the one that will go for days without sleep just to get the shot. During the cleansing of Zuccotti he went for about 2 days without sleep, going from assignment to assignment carrying other people’s shifts. Our motley crew decide to take Brian’s advice and stick around until 3:30, and if nothing happens run home and file.

3:30 PM EST.

CS and I are chatting, talking about brunch, warm coffee, French toast…suddenly Brian runs by – we immediately follow blindly.

The crowd suddenly starts to move. Where? We haven’t a f’n clue – but like the lemmings that photojournalists are – we follow (well, actually we run to the front of the crowd and walk briskly backwards while taking photos).

Immediately I get that something else is going on. The crowd isn’t going anywhere in particular and the turns it’s taking seem to be just to throw off the police that are on scooters.

And then I go around a corner to get a wide shot of the march and almost run straight into a man in purple robes. Oh, it’s a diversion. Bishops only move diagonally though. Where’s the rook?

I quietly say to myself, “I see what you did there.” Realizing that something is afoot with all these religious figures randomly hanging out watching a protest go by, I stay back for a moment allowing the protest to go by.

Like a ADD kid that hasn’t had his Ritalin, I very quickly get impatient and see a scuffle with a cop and a protester, I take one last look at the Holy figures I’m standing next to and run off chasing the pretty pictures.

Did I say fuck before? Because you see this time I really mean it. Like a crap Chess player going up against Bobby Fischer, I immediately lose the Bishop. Chasing after pretty pictures, ones I have hard drives filled with – I lose what will very quickly become the whole point of this charade.

Fuck it, I follow the protestors back toward Duarte Square, I know I screwed up, but maybe I didn’t waste the whole day.

Slowly we turn the corner to Grand Street and to my surprise (and quiet anger) I see several hundred protestors already there – some setting up a step ladder up against the fence that surrounds the other half of Duarte Square. A purple flash of cloth begins to ascend the wooden ladder that the protestors have propped against the fence, as if playing out some medieval storming of the castle. Except the castle is a park and the battlements are a standard wire fence.

The Bishop doesn’t wait for the other half of the stepladder – like a boss he runs to the top and then lets himself down the other side slowly. People quickly follow behind him, nearly falling on top of him. I’m stuck in the crowd about 20 feet away from the ladder – I look to the fence and judge correctly that there’s no way in hell I can scale it myself and then push toward the ladder – a path opens up and suddenly as I tell OWS organizers that I’m going over they’re all smiles and hands helping me and my gear over. Climbing over and taking blind shots from the top, I suddenly realize what a bad idea this is – fuck it, I’m over and now officially in “criminal trespass” territory.

About 75 people are over – including CS and about 5 other journo’s that I can point out as pro’s. The occupiers start pulling at the fence bringing it upward so that the rest of the crowd can rush in – there are very few takers. This very clearly worries the people on my side of the fence – and worries me – any moment now the police will be here and numbers are the only thing protecting us from batons, plastic cuffs and a night in the clink. I give up on waiting for the shot of the protestors going all Steve McQueen under the fence and start grabbing every possible angle of the scene I can think of. Through the fence, the wide shot, the closeup…Then suddenly there’s a very large officer from the NYPD in my face yelling “GET THE FUCK OUT NOW!”

Photojournalist’s understand that as “YOU HAVE ONLY FIVE MORE SHOTS TO TAKE AND YOU NEED TO START MOVING TOWARDS THE EXIT.”

CS flies by me yelling at me “TIME TO GO, NOW!” For once he’s being the careful one.

I begin to comply and start moving towards the stepladder, the only “exit” I know of from this fenced in park. I, of course, continue taking shots though moving towards my non-arrest, then I make it to the place where the stepladder used to be.

Oh, shit!

It’s not there.

Well, to be exact it’s on its side.

Again, oh shit!

Also, on the other side of the fence, where just moments before the protestors and other journos were pushing forward, now the police are pushing them back. I looked around and couldn’t place CS, Brian or any of the rest of my crew. I also noted, with growing dread, that I was the only person that wasn’t a member of the New York Police Department who wasn’t handcuffed face down in the gravel.

“SIT DOWN, NOW”

Shit.

“I’m press! I’m a freelance photojournalist.”

“DO YOU HAVE CREDENTIALS?”

By this, he doesn’t mean from my agency or from my paper, he means the official New York City Press Credentials issued by the New York City Police Department.

Yes, the NYPD, the boys in blue that are currently in the process of arresting me are the ones that decide whether I am a recognized member of the media. They will not of course take in account my years of work for The Guardian, the dozen or so pieces I’ve produced for BBC TV, or any number of other works of journalism that I have done.

I don’t have NYC NYPD Press credentials.

Shit.

So, I sat the fuck down. The officers went on to deal with other people – so, I continued to take photos, from my seated position. Once I had taken everything I could from this angle I called my boss (day job) Greg Palast.

Me: “Greg, I think I’m arrested, they told me to sit down, but they haven’t cuffed me yet. I won’t be making it into work later today.”

Greg: [Chuckles] “Ok Zach, we’ll get the word out Keep me updated.?

Realizing that this whole arrest and day would be for naught if something happened to my memory cards – I (slyly as I could) removed the card from my camera and shoved it in my wrist brace.

Blanking on anything else that could be done I just sat there for a moment somewhat dazed as an old Phil Och’s song starts to run through my head…

There’s nothing as cold as the freeze in your soul
At the moment when you are arrested.
There’s nothing as real as the iron and steel
On the handcuffs when you protested.

The zip cuffs weren’t that cold, and certainly weren’t made of out steel, just heavy duty plastic that would need to be cut using utility shears. The officer that put on my cuffs was nice enough to ask about my wrist brace and put them somewhat loosely around that wrist, but made up for it on the other. I got off easy. The kid sitting next to me didn’t; very quickly his cuffs started cutting off the circulation to his hands and the cold didn’t help much either. After being helped up from the ground by the police he begged for his hat and sunglasses that had been knocked off in his takedown by the officer. Sunglasses and snowcap pulled over his head he looked like a reject from a Cheech and Chong audition. His banner and prop mannequin arm was to be left behind (I didn’t ask).

Lining us up by the exit of the park, we were taken off in threes to our respective wagons. I was with Cheech and a bearded protestor from Canada who had a sad looking guitar case – he later confided with me that it wasn’t a guitar, but an axe (again, I didn’t ask).

It was now our turn to make the perp walk from the gated confines of the park to the paddy wagon.

Surrounded by about 40 police officers holding back protestors and photographers on both sides of us, we quickly walked to the awaiting wagon. I heard my name being yelled from both sides, on one Brian and on the other CS. Trying to give them both good shots I turned to one held a look for the moment and then to the other doing the same. I tried to look serious, but not angry – honestly I was just dazed and somewhat confused – still convinced at some point the police would wise up and release me, allowing me to get back to my job as a photographer.

That didn’t happen of course.

Have I ever told you the one where the Bishop, the pastor and the photographer get into a paddy wagon together?

Yeah, I think not.

Bishop Packard is a tall man, dressed in purple robes he commands attention just by his presence. Sitting aside him is a pastor, across him, luckily enough,is someone who worked out of her cuffs. Which is why we have this video. In it the Bishop breaks down why the Occupiers decided to take Duarte Square.

Even churches have a 1% and a 99%. The good Bishop is in the 99% – Trinity Church…well, I think you got it.

The ride to One Police Plaza is a long one and seemingly the bumpiest ride in all of Manhattan. But we’ve got the time – based on John Knefel’s reporting we have a long night ahead of us. The only problem is with each bump all of our cuffs get tighter and tighter. Cheech sitting next to me is in excruciating pain – the Bishop tries to see what we can do, but none of us can reach his cuffs to try to help.

When we finally make it to “The Yard,” as the police call it, it takes them another 40 mins to process us and remove the cuffs. Paul Bunyan, the guy with the axe and beard, seems to have it the worst – the officers can’t find a place to get the scissors between the cuffs and his skin.

Moving from the yard, finally inside I realize that they never took my cell phone – so I quickly tweet out a couple of photos before they notice.

Inside the cell I noticed that I’m one of the first in my wagon to be processed – though there is a priest, a minister of some kind, and about 12 other occupiers.

I decide to make an entrance by announcing loudly, “My goodness is that a Priest on the Group W bench!?!?!” (doing my best Arlo Guthrie voice). Everyone over 30 in the holding cell starts laughing. Then one of the younger priests starts…

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there.

Then with gusto – anyone who got the original joke starts singing…

You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant,
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant,
Walk right in it’s around the back,
Just a half a mile from the railroad track,
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.

I think Arlo would be proud. We went on to have a good old time swapping war stories. The Bishop joined us 20 mins later and we all cheered. About a dozen other guys followed over the next couple of hours as we learned about the night’s continued actions. We held stack, talked about the future of the movement – I held a small working group trying to explain how to get better media coverage, and prep people for questions and so on.

I wouldn’t say the time flew by, but it moved. My arresting officer processed me out in about 8 hours – no iris scan – just fingerprints. I was lucky – some of the protestors coming in had some battle wounds. One 19-year old kid had a shiner from what he said was getting punched in the face by a cop. Another, a main OWS organizer of #D17, was talking to us, reporting on the night’s activities and blood started streaming from under his winter hat. He calmly patted it with toilet paper and continued his report.

It’s surreal – 11 years I’ve been doing this shit. Years of anti-war protests, hanging with black bloc, shooting in Wasilla, Bed Stuy, and the reservations of the Southwest – and jumping over a ladder is the thing that gets me busted.

As I stepped out into the cold, a free man, the dry cheese sandwiches that they gave us to eat still festering in my stomach – I thought back to something that the Bishop had said. “There’s a reason we’re all here in this cell together; this is a moment and we need to keep is going.” I agree.

Fuck, this is beginning to sound like some odd redemption story – there’s no magical black man who can “acquire things” for me, and I’m not standing in the rain, covered in shit finally free…just the realization that none of us are safe – press, protestor or priest.

Welcome to Bloomberg’s New York.

**Yes, pre-arrested – we’re talking Minority Report shit here. The police arrested an #OWS organizer for crimes that they assumed that he was going to commit later in the day.

Zach Roberts is a freelance photojournalist currently based in New York. He works with Greg Palast as his lead producer, and has edited Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Greg Palast’s Steal Back York Vote illustrated book. If you’d like to support his work on the #OWS movement, cover his legal bills, or help replace the lens that got busted from a police baton during the cleansing of Zuccotti Park (see previous SG report) – you can donate to zdroberts@gmail.com via paypal.

For more info, visit his website, Facebook, and Twitter.

by Nicole Powers

The perfect presents for the #99Percenters that #Occupy a special place in your heart.

1. V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes Mask ($5.40)

Gotta start with the basics, and at this price it makes for a great stocking stuffer!

2. Israeli Civilian Gas Mask w/ Nato Filter ($20.25)
…And for the kids: Israeli Civilian Children’s Gas Mask w/ Nato Filter ($16.42)

For those situations when a Guy Fawkes mask won’t cut it. This anti-gas gear was issued to Israeli civilians to face off against Saddam Hussein and his BFF Chemical Ali, so should be up to the job if you find yourself in the vicinity of Pepper Spray Cop. They provide NBC (neuclear, biological, chemical) protection, have a water intake port (for hydration without tears), and come with one sealed filter.

3. OWS Bandana ($16.50)

A super stylish, multi-purpose, pocket-sized anonymizer / accessory that’s “perfect for protecting yourself from sudden dust storms and outbreaks of authoritarianism.”

4. Marmot Limelight 2P ($199.00)

Quick to set up and take down, this lightweight tent is ideal for those unexpected 3 AM evictions!

5. Get Out Of Jail Free Card ($0-$5,000.00+ depending on DA and/or judge)

Nothing says “I Love You” like bailing someone out of jail. Print this card out and give it to the person you’d like to take liberties with, or become a Secret Santa and donate to your local Occupy Bail Fund.

6. ReVIVE Series Solar ReStore External Battery Pack with Universal USB Charging Port ($27.99)

The only thing worse than being arrested is having your smartphone die while it’s happening. With this device, you can make sure you’re fully charged (while keeping it green), so you don’t miss capturing those special moments.

7. Parrot AR.Drone ($299.95)

Whose drone? Our drone! This quadricopter comes complete with an onboard video camera and can be controlled via iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, making it ideal for getting a bird’s eye view up on your Livestream. Though the price may be a little steep for most 99 percenters, it’s still a hell of a lot cheaper than the drone our military lost behind enemy lines recently – and at this price you won’t need to suffer the indignity of asking for it back!

8. Civil Unrest Lego Set

Occupying Lego Land is a great way for the 99% to express themselves this holiday season. Though Slate.com’s Legotti Park-inspired prototype “Civil Unrest” Lego sets haven’t quite hit stores yet, you can order the Mobile Police Unit and Earth Defense HQ as featured in their “Arab Spring” and “O.W.S. Riot Brigade” packages direct from Lego.com/.

9. Vultures’ Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates, and High-Finance Carnivores by Greg Palast ($17.79) and Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life by Neil Strauss ($11.55)

Vultures’ Picnic is an eye-opening crash course on why we #Occupy, while Emergency serves as a primer on how to keep yourself safe while doing it. And if the NDAA passes, and an unlimited stay in Guantanamo Bay or at your local FEMA camp doesn’t appeal, it also offers some great tips on how to break free from handcuffs and get out of dodge.

10. Tyranny Has a Witness by Shepard Fairey / Obey ($75.00)

Based on a photo taken by Yuri Kozyrev/ NOOR for Time Magaine, this powerful 18 x 24 inch screen print is signed and numbered (being a limited edition of 450). It’s also a gift that keeps on giving, since a portion of the proceeds will go to Human Rights Watch.

Thanks to JackalAnon, EisMC2, Colinism, OakFoSho and ZDRoberts for assisting with this list. XOX

[..]

by Damon Martin

“Atheists have always argued that this world is all that we have, and that our duty is to one another to make the very most and best of it.”
~ Christopher Hitchens

On Thursday, December 15, famed author and journalist Christopher Hitchens passed away after a long battle with cancer. He was 62 years old.

It almost seems insulting to try to put into words what Christopher Hitchens did so well whenever his fingers touched a keyboard or his pen hit paper. From his unrelenting passion whenever writing or discussing religion to his unapologetic nature when dealing with politicians or public figures, Hitchens truly was the conscience of a truth and information seeking society

In an October 2003 article for Slate, Hitchens looked to expose the saintly nature of Mother Teresa, yet had no issue with calling her a fraud and a fanatic. Also a staunch supporter of the invasion of Iraq, Hitchens time and time again stood up for his belief that the war was a just move against what he called “Islamofacism.”

He was never one to hold his tongue when speaking about any public figure, as shown in his critique of the 2008 Republican presidential candidates. He famously called Senator John McCain “senile” and denounced his running mate Sarah Palin as a “pathological liar” and a “national disgrace.”

In 2007, Hitchens published God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, in which he riled upon religion as a destructive, violent force in the world that he felt was simply supernatural chicanery used to control and manipulate people.

He helped coin the phrase “antitheist” in preference to referring to himself simply as an atheist. By way of explanation he said: “You could be an atheist and wish that the belief was true. You could; I know some people who do. An antitheist, a term I’m trying to get into circulation, is someone who’s very relieved that there’s no evidence for this proposition.”

Even after being diagnosed with cancer in 2010, just after the release of his memoir, Hitch-22, Hitchens continued to tour, debate, write, and speak out on all manner of subjects.

He debated former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Canada in 2010 about whether religion as a whole was a force for good or evil. It’s pretty clear which side Hitchens came down on, and he time and time again bested his foe with his arguments, even when he struggled to speak or stand for long periods of time.

During his illness, Hitchens spoke candidly about his beliefs or non-beliefs as they were, and said very clearly that he was comfortable knowing that there was no God or afterlife waiting for him when he expired. He also said openly that he wouldn’t take back any of the years of smoking or drinking because they led him to being the writer and person that he was.

Despite the fever of the religious masses that hoped for perhaps the ultimate deathbed conversion, he told CNN correspondent Anderson Cooper in an interview that he simply would not be one of them, no matter how bad things got towards the end.

“If that comes it will be when I’m very ill. When I’m half demented, either by drugs or by pain where I won’t have control over what I say,” Hitchens said. “I mention this in case you ever hear a rumor later on. Because these things happen and the faithful love to spread these rumors. I can’t say the entity by the end wouldn’t be me, wouldn’t do such a pathetic thing, but I can tell you not while I’m lucid, no, I can be quite sure of that.”

Hitchens leaves behind a huge catalog of essays, novels and assorted writings, but the fact that he is no longer around to develop new ideas and push the boundaries of religious debate is a great loss.

He’s not looking down on us from some higher plain, and he’s not in a better place.Christopher Hitchens is simply gone and if he were still alive he’d be the first one to tell everyone that.

The world truly has lost a beautiful, brilliant – and bright – mind.