by Nicole Powers

After 50 hours on the road, and three days without a proper night’s sleep, tiredness was becoming a serious factor. Our ragtag group of activists, occupiers, and livestreamers had gathered in Pershing Square between 3 and 4 AM on the morning of Wednesday, May 16, and most, including us, had foregone sleep the night before in order to make last-minute preparations. The expected 4 AM departure of the three 99% Solidarity-organized and National Nurses United-funded Los Angeles occu-buses had been delayed for two hours while we awaited the arrival of the Bay Area Nine – a heroic group of Oakland and San Francisco occupiers who had traveled down via Greyhound after their direct ride to Chicago had been cancelled at short notice. It was therefore around 6 AM before we finally set off from Downtown LA.

Our journey time had been further extended by two separate cases of overheated-engine syndrome as we convoyed through the Nevada desert, and a minor medical emergency 100+ miles away from the Illinois state line. A few over-extended, but essential, pee and smoke breaks had also impacted our ETA. When we arrived at our final destination, a short walk away from Occupy Chicago’s Convergence Center at around 6 AM on Friday May 19, we were nearly half a day late. But despite the exhaustion, our spirits were for the most part high, boosted by the excitement of what was to come, and by the beauty of the city, which the majority of our group had never visited before.

As one of three designated bus captains, I hung around to make sure everyone was situated. Since the lateness of our arrival meant we’d mostly missed our accommodation opportunities for the night, some of our group decided to join other occupiers who were occupying Lake Michigan’s beach, some headed off to meet with friends, and the rest followed representatives from Occupy Chicago, who had kindly greeted us with an offer of breakfast, which would be served was soon as their Convergence Center opened at 8.30 AM.

With photos to edit and upload, and words such as these to file, I headed to a motel room which was serving as 99% Solidarity’s temporary base. Having been starved of a reliable internet connection for the past two days, there was much to catch up on, and very little time, since the march leading up to the NNU organized People’s G8 / Robin Hood Tax Rally was scheduled to star at 11 AM.

Following a shower, and a frenzy of emails, uploads, and social media posts, I grabbed a much-needed Starbucks, a liquid breakfast/boost being all I had time for. (Unfortunately, sometimes, corporate crack is unavoidable – and this was one of those occasions!) I met up with a core group of occupiers and activists at Michigan and Madison, and headed over to Daley Plaza with them.

As we made our way down East Washington, we admired the barricades which the Chicago Police Department had kindly laid out on either side of the street to make out of town occupiers feel right at home. Given the much-publicized increased police presence, which involved importing officers from several other states, the atmosphere was surprisingly relaxed. When a group of CPD officers wearing full-on riot helmets cycled past on bikes, at this juncture, quite frankly the sight was more ridiculous than threatening. But as we closed in on Daley Plaza, the police presence was far less frivolous.

It was heartening to see an impressively large crowd had turned out to support the nurses and their call for a Robin Hood Tax. This overworked and underpaid group are on the frontlines of the war against the working and middle class – the breakdown of the economy being particularly salient to those who staff our emergency rooms. There is therefore a natural affinity between the goals of Occupy and the nurses union, who were among the first of the traditional labor organizations to support the fledgling alternative grassroots activist movement.

Another stalwart supporter of the Occupy movement is Tom Morello, who performed at the rally once the talk was done. He gleefully taunted Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who had attempted to silence the Rage Against the Machine guitarist by pulling the NNU’s permit after they announced he was scheduled to perform. The resulting public outcry, and the tenacity of the nurses who were determined to exercise their right to free speech with or without a permit, having forced Emanuel to relent.

“I know damn well I’m welcome in Chicago” Morello said to the cheering and appreciative crowd. “The mayor’s office tried to shut this whole thing down…How ridiculous for the mayor’s office to think I would do anything to hurt Chicago? Chicago is my favorite city on the whole world.”

After Morello’s perfectly pitched mix of rhetoric and rebel songs, the rally dissipated. The nurses took to their buses, occupiers took to the streets, and, after another burst of essential online activity, this activist/journalist voted for sleep.

Visit our gallery at SuicideGirls.com for oodles more images from the event.

To keep tabs on the progress of the Chicago bus trip and actions, subscribe to the 99% Solidarity media Twitter list and check in with us via the following livestreams:

Full disclosure: Nicole Powers has been assisting with 99% Solidarity’s efforts and is in no way an impartial observer. She is proud of this fact.

Related Posts:

99Solidarity Occu-Bus: Day 1 Of Our Epic Coast-To-Coast Road Trip From Los Angeles To New York By Way Of Chicago
99Solidarity Occu-Bus: Day 2 Of Our Epic Coast-To-Coast Road Trip From Los Angeles To New York By Way Of Chicago

by Steven-Elliot Altman (SG Member: Steven_Altman)

Our Fiction Friday serialized novel, The Killswitch Review, is a futuristic murder mystery with killer sociopolitical commentary (and some of the best sex scenes we’ve ever read!). Written by bestselling sci-fi author Steven-Elliot Altman (with Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse), it offers a terrifying postmodern vision in the tradition of Blade Runner and Brave New World…

By the year 2156, stem cell therapy has triumphed over aging and disease, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. But only for those who have achieved Conscientious Citizen Status. To combat overpopulation, the U.S. has sealed its borders, instituted compulsory contraception and a strict one child per couple policy for those who are permitted to breed, and made technology-assisted suicide readily available. But in a world where the old can remain vital forever, America’s youth have little hope of prosperity.

Jason Haggerty is an investigator for Black Buttons Inc, the government agency responsible for dispensing personal handheld Kevorkian devices, which afford the only legal form of suicide. An armed “Killswitch” monitors and records a citizen’s final moments — up to the point where they press a button and peacefully die. Post-press review agents — “button collectors” — are dispatched to review and judge these final recordings to rule out foul play.

When three teens stage an illegal public suicide, Haggerty suspects their deaths may have been murders. Now his race is on to uncover proof and prevent a nationwide epidemic of copycat suicides. Trouble is, for the first time in history, an entire generation might just decide they’re better off dead.

(Catch up with the previous installments of Killswitch – see links below – then continue reading after the jump…)

[..]

by Damon Martin

As summer 2012 fast approaches, in the comic book world the hottest title going right now revolves around the major Marvel event pitting the Avengers against the X-Men. The two biggest powerhouse forces in the Marvel universe are currently battling it out in the pages of a 12-issue bi-weekly release that will run through much of this upcoming year.

Major comic book events are nothing new, and almost every year DC and Marvel put out their own storyline that somehow encompasses most or all of their titles, all touching on a central theme.

In the Marvel world they’ve bounced from the Avengers Disassembled to Civil War to Secret Invasion, and on and on, and DC has managed to have more than their fair share of world shattering events as well.

With Avengers vs. X-Men in full swing for the mega-event of 2012, let’s take a look at the five greatest comic book events of all-time:

5. Infinity Gauntlet

Cosmic badass Thanos (pay attention to those of you that saw The Avengers movie) has captured all of the infinity gems, which give him reign over each of their particular parts of the universe, and locked them onto one all powerful glove now called the Infinity Gauntlet.

With the power to control time, space, mind, soul, reality, and power, Thanos is by far the most powerful being in the universe and he also happens to be in love with a fellow sentient entity known as Death. To impress her he didn’t get her flowers or candies.

No, Thanos wipes out half of life throughout the universe to prove his love (take that John Cusack with your boom box over your head!), and in the process pisses off all of the remaining heroes left throughout the cosmos. They make it their personal goal to stop Thanos at any cost.

This major event, that kicked off in 1991, only lasted six issues, but spawned several titles in the Marvel universe and helped to launch the cosmic future of the comic book world. The biggest downside of this series was the golden skinned Adam Warlock, who was resurrected and helped to defeat Thanos in the long run, while his own comic life was something akin to that of Spider-Pig.

4. Secret Wars

Never has a publisher’s desire to sell toys ever turned out to be such a great comic book event, but that’s how 1984’s Secret Wars all came about.

With the growth of the children’s action figure industry, Marvel wanted the chance to launch their own characters into toy form, and Mattel was willing to make a new line on the premise of the comic giant creating a major storyline involving all of the heroes and villains in the universe to hopefully draw more kids into the books.

It worked like a charm.

Secret Wars was essentially the story of an other worldly character called The Beyonder who is interested in the dynamic of the heroes and villains that live on Earth. He decides to bring a group of both to a different dimension called ‘Battleworld’ where the two factions will battle it out once and for all.

Characters ranged from Captain America to Iron Man to the Fantastic Four to Dr. Doom to Dr. Octopus, and maybe most famously Spider-Man. The reason why he was so famous for this particular series is it was Secret Wars that introduced the new all black costume for the usually red and blue suited web-slinger.

Later it was discovered that the costume was actually alive and eventually became the maniacal Venom, but the origin for the all-black Spider-Man started with Secret Wars.

The book was a huge success through 12-issues, and is still one of the most talked about major events in comic book history.

3. House of M

The X-Men have been a major part of the Marvel universe for decades, and they have had more than their fair share of huge story arcs, but nothing served as a game changer more than 2005’s House of M.

The story revolved around the dangerous mutant called Scarlet Witch (daughter of mutant baddie Magneto), who warps reality to make mutants the dominant force in the world, far outnumbering the human population. This alternate reality features many characters in different roles and new situations, while the Scarlet Witch’s father Magneto rules with his ‘House of M’. In the long run, the Scarlet Witch’s madness brings her to the brink of insanity, and with three words she changed the Marvel universe forever:

“No more mutants.”

And like that, the millions of mutants that lived around the world vanished in an instant. Even in this year’s Avengers vs. X-Men series, the ultimate end of House of M continues to play out as the ‘homo-superiors’ still feel the wrath of the Scarlet Witch and her death sentence to the mutant population. Now only a few hundred mutants live on Earth, struggling to survive with numbers much smaller than before the Scarlet Witch ripped them from reality.

The ripple effect of House of M is still felt in the books ongoing today, something that a lot of past major events have failed to do.

2. The Blackest Night

Writer Geoff Johns did more to revive the failing Green Lantern franchise than any writer in the last 30 years, but it was his masterful work leading into Blackest Night that may be his greatest achievement yet.

Woven through a multitude of storylines starting with Johns’ re-telling of how Hal Jordan became a Green Lantern, all the way to the Sinestro Corps War, Blackest Night was literally an epic tale years in the making.

When it all came to pass, an evil overlord named Nekron brought all of the long gone heroes and villains back to life to help lead his army of the dead, as they attacked and spread their evil, all in hopes of finding the original source of life in the universe.

Nothing was more chilling than in the first issue as Hawkman and Hawkgirl are slaughtered by their good friends Elongated Man and Sue Dibny. Thus, an 8-issue tour de force kicked off that spanned all of the titles in the DC Universe, and featured numerous off-shoots as well.

The book brought back many good guys and bad guys long since gone, and in a great storytelling effort, Johns along with artist Ivan Reis, managed to tell one of the great tales in the history of comic books. While DC has now rebooted the entire line with their ‘New 52’ contingency, Blackest Night was one of the best major events the company as ever done.

1. Crisis on Infinite Earths

If Blackest Night was one of the greatest stories ever told in the DC Universe, then 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths was definitely the tops.

Throughout the history of the DC Universe, many characters had undergone a shift in back story or even current storylines due to different writers all having a different vision for how characters should be portrayed.

Eventually, it was decided that in reality there were a number of alternate realities where characters could have multiple copies of themselves, all living at once, but all with different back stories and current agendas.

That is until the evil Anti-Monitor decides he wants to destroy the multiverse, and everyone that inhabits the worlds. He’s almost successful too, despite the best efforts of heroes like Superman, Batman and others that try valiantly to stop him. Eventually, the Anti-Monitor is defeated, but not until he converges all of the worlds into one distinct reality.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was a great series because of the magnitude of the overall storyline, where beloved characters like Barry Allen (The Flash) and others died, and it reached every part of the DC Universe.

It’s widely recognized as one of the greatest series of books in comics’ history and was re-visited in the 2005 series Infinite Crisis. Heralded as a landmark series, Crisis on Infinite Earths still holds up today with great writing, fantastic art, and a tale that can be retold for generations to come.

So those are the five series I believe make up the greatest events in comic book history? Did I leave any out? Feel free to comment below!

by Ryker Suicide

I’m a huge fan of playing with grilled cheeses since there is really no limit as to what you can do with them. Most recently the man and I came up with our new favorite grilled cheese recipe. It’s great for a quick lunch and full of flavor 🙂
– Ryker Suicide

Ingredients (enough for two sandwiches):

• 1 avocado
• 1 hunk of brie cheese
• 2 tsp of brown sugar
• Sourdough sliced bread (or whatever bread is to your preference)
• 1/2 sweet onion
• butter

Directions:

1. Caramelize sliced sweet onions in butter slowly. Do not overcook! Let them cook slowly.

2. While they are cooking, butter outer sides of bread with soft butter and slice brie and avocado. On each inner side of the bread, layer brie and then avocado slices.

3. When onions are finished, add them on top of the avocado. Sprinkle with 1/2 – 1 tsp of brown sugar (to taste)

4. Grill sandwich in a buttered pan or press in a panini grill until cheese is creamy and melted.

Eat and enjoy!

[..]

by Steven Whitney

In Chinatown, private detective Jake Gittes puts those two questions to Noah Cross, perhaps the richest man in 1930s California. Those same queries, and others like them, resonant more than ever in today’s America.

How many cars can you drive? How many McMansions can you live in? How many diamonds and jewels and designer clothes can you wear? How many black Escalades filled with bodyguards does it take to make you feel important? Why do you need more when you already have so much more than enough? And most tellingly: how much do you fucking want?

The movie doesn’t provide answers – after all, who can explain rampant and uncontrolled greed? But it does offer a symbolic confrontation between the 99%, in the persona of Jake Gittes, and the 1%, represented by super-rich Noah Cross.

Jake is Everyman working hard to earn a decent living, perhaps with a dodge or two here and there, but living by a code in keeping with Raymond Chandler’s “hero” – a man who walks the mean streets who is not himself mean, a common man, a man of honor.

During a short stint with the police, Jake came to know Chinatown – a dark and dangerous place controlled by a few and impervious to change.

Why? Because he knew it was a game played with a stacked deck, one he couldn’t win…and he never knew if he was helping or hurting.

As the story begins, Jake is hired to expose a love nest that will ultimately determine control of the Los Angeles water supply. While the scandal is false, it leads to an apparent suicide. But Jake senses that he was unknowingly set-up and that the victim was murdered. So he unexpectedly wades deeper into the murky waters and runs straight-on into Noah Cross.

Cross has gotten rich as Croesus by not making any positive contributions to society. He doesn’t create anything – he just buys things, forces up their value (often by illegal means), and then sells them at an obscene profit. Sound familiar?

To make matters worse, he’s everyone’s Moriarty – an old man of gross and unchecked appetites. Indulging in land fraud, assorted swindles, mayhem, murder, and incest. He is both father and grandfather to the innocent girl he now lusts after. This, of course, makes him the worst kind of fucker – worse than a motherfucker and even worse than South Park’s notorious unclefucker (but probably still not as bad as Dick Cheney). By every measure, Noah Cross is an uber-villain.

Imbued with a sense of fairness, of right and wrong, and of common decency, Jake tries to rescue a woman and the daughter who is also her sister from this psycho-sociopath. Tough, smart, and relentless, if anyone can stop Cross, it’s Jake. And, against all odds, he seems at times almost on the verge of winning.

But he can’t win. He can never win because the game is rigged from the top, with scant trickle-down benefits. You can’t fight City Hall, especially if Noah Cross owns it. Jake gives it his best, but he’s a man alone, fighting phantoms he can feel but cannot see as Cross wages scorched-earth warfare. Too late, Jake realizes the only way he can win is to kill Cross. But Jake’s not a killer…so he winds up back in Chinatown, impotent, losing everything, and bone-tired of the whole damn mess.

Cross manipulates Jake (and everyone else) like Republicans maneuver their base – holding out the carrot of the American Dream only to snatch it away at the last second, keeping all the spoils of victory for themselves. Jake, like the rest of us, has been played for a sucker.

In 2012, it’s not morning in America. It’s fucking Chinatown.

Unlike Noah Cross and his ilk, we don’t want it all, we just want a level playing field…with more education, equal access to quality healthcare, and economic parity. We want the freedom to create and control our own lives.

But freedom comes at a high cost. It can neither be given nor bestowed, and it must be fought for and earned, now and forever. If we don’t get angry, if we don’t fight as hard and as relentlessly as the opposition, if we don’t learn to vote for our own interests, if we don’t deploy every weapon at our disposal, our lives will become mere ceremonies of loss in which our rights, our freedoms, and our opportunities are eroded, little by little, until the final whistle blows…and the American Dream is officially dead, stolen by Noah Cross and his brethren of the 1%.

And then we’ll all suffer Jake’s tragic fate – a purgatory of futility.

DARKNESS DESCENDS. MUSIC UP: A noir melody, light tinkling on a piano, backed by lush woodwinds, and then…a mournful trumpet solo, wailing a plaintive cry of helplessness.

[..]

by Blogbot

Every week we ask the ladies and gentlemen of the web to show us their finest ink in celebration of #TattooTuesday.

Our favorite submission from Twitter wins a free 3 month membership to SuicideGirls.com.

This week’s #TattooTuesday winner is Andrea Bellavigna a.k.a. @andreadele who tells us: “This is my flower shoulder piece, each flower represents my family and I.” Beautiful!

Enter this week’s competition by replying to this tweet with a pic of your fav tattoo and the #tattootuesday hashtag.

Good luck!

A few things to remember:

• You have to be 18 to qualify.
• The tattoo has to be yours…that means permanently etched on your body.
• On Twitter we search for your entries by looking up the hashtag #TattooTuesday, so make sure you include it in your tweet!

Check out the Tattoo Tuesday winners of weeks past!

by SG’s Team Agony feat. Smythe

Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.

Q: My boyfriend is great! We have an adventurous sex life. We’re open and young and love each other very much. We have a 3-month old son, but that hasn’t changed our sex life much. Recently though, my boyfriend’s been avoiding sex. It doesn’t matter if I play hard to get or if I’m throwing myself at him or anything in between, he’s just not into it. Why could this be?

A: There have been A LOT of changes in you and your boyfriend’s life. You were pregnant, and had a kid. Whoa. Huge deal. Is it possibly stress related? There’s a big shift in responsibility, both personal and financial. He could be freaking out a little.

You mentioned that you have an adventurous sex life with your boyfriend. Great! But, do you both feel that way? What might make things amazing for you in the sack, might not be what lights his fire.

The thing is, it could be almost anything under the sun causing him to have an aversion to sex. But no matter what you think it might be that is causing a lack of umph in bedroom, you’re never going to know until you talk to him. Sit him down and have an open and honest conversation, without judgment.

Smythe

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com