Digital art display service which focuses on presenting works of local artists in local spaces:
By using new technology, Daylighted transforms places such as hotels and restaurants into digital art galleries and offer them an opportunity to easily display and sell an exclusive collection of art from worldwide and local artists.
Data installation by Polygon Future presents info on drone strikes with toy gunshots and details printed in receipt paper:
Artificial Killing Machine is an autonomous interactive mechanical installation. This time based work accesses a public database on U.S. military drone strikes. When a drone strike occurs, the machine activates, and fires a children’s toy cap gun for every death that results. The raw information used by the installation is then printed. The materialized data is allowed to accumulate in perpetuity or until the life cycle of either the database or machine ends. A single chair is placed beneath the installation inviting the viewers to sit in the chair and experience the imagined existential risk.
Most of you already know about the awesome event of this morning, when an activist by the name of Bree Newsome climbed up the flagpole outside the South Carolina capitol building and took down the Confederate flag hanging there. This fantastic episode of direct action ramps up the pressure on South Carolina to get rid of the flag and continues placing the anti-flag movement in the public eye where it has been since the attack on the Charleston church last week. Newsome and her companion James Dyson were arrested for–wait for it–defacing a public monument. That’s the best possible charge she could face since it then invites discussion over whether the American swastika is really a public monument that should have legal defense. Not to mention whether simply taking down the flag is actually defacing anything.
What’s also interesting about this to me is the outsized role single activists can sometimes have in moving conversations forward, setting off new movements, and exposing the power structure that oppresses people. Most of us are simply not going to climb that flag pole. But we probably should. In Out of Sight, I discuss a woman named Liz Parker, who took it upon herself to go to a store of the British department chain Matalan with a signboard shaped like a coffin that read “Matalan Pay Up! Long Overdue for Rana Plaza Victims.” Local newspapers reported her protest, providing a bit on insight for readers on the horrors of global production.
Again, any of us can do this kind of thing. Sure we might be escorted off the property at our nearest Walmart, but it will take at least a few minutes before the police arrive. We might even be charged with trespassing, which is why it certainly helps to have a group of supporters rather than be a lone wolf. In other words, it’s more useful to be Rosa Parks and have an organized movement behind you than be James Meredith and just start a new action like the March Against Fear. But even Meredith, in no small part of course because of the role he played in desegregating the University of Mississippi and because he was subsequently shot, could force a movement to move in a particular direction through his actions.
The point is that we do have it in all of us to take an action that creates a positive change in society. The psychology in not doing those things is perhaps less interesting than in those who actually do them since that is so much rare. We are social animals, fearful, worried about how it will affect us in the future, lazy, whatever. I’m no better at this than the average person. But what Bree Newsome did today was once again show that the individual can do fantastic things to make the world a better place.
I could go for a massive inheritance tax, as long as provisions were made for marriage (we made this money together) and disabled children. Republicans would happily go along with it, right?
The former Uber driver who won a potentially landmark employment ruling against the ride-hailing company told Reuters on Wednesday she relied on her years of running a phone sex company to take on Uber, one of Silicon Valley’s biggest private companies.
Barbara Ann Berwick represented herself, without an attorney, before the California Labor Commission, which found earlier this month that she had been an Uber employee, not an independent contractor, and thus was entitled to be reimbursed for expenses.
The ruling made waves in the tech world on Wednesday as it could impact the way many sharing-economy companies operate. Uber said the decision did not apply to other workers and has appealed it to San Francisco Superior Court.
Now a financial consultant, Berwick said she learned the nuances of contractor law when she owned a phone sex business — “Linda’s Lip Service.” The company employed some workers but the “fantasy artists” who spoke to customers were all independent contractors.
“I had to make sure I did everything right,” she told Reuters in an interview shortly after the decision was published.
Under California law, workers are deemed employees if the company exerts a certain degree of control over how they do their jobs. The commission wrote in Berwick’s ruling that Uber is “involved in every aspect of the operation.”
Classifying Uber drivers as employees could open the company up to considerably higher costs, including Social Security, workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance.
Analysts say that such a change could affect Uber’s valuation, currently above $40 billion, and the valuation of other companies that rely on large networks of individuals to provide rides, clean houses and other services.
Uber had argued that its drivers are independent contractors, not employees, and that it is “nothing more than a neutral technology platform.”
At a March hearing on her claim, Berwick faced two company attorneys and cross-examined an Uber product manager. Although she took on Uber by herself, Berwick will likely have a friend who is an attorney represent her now that the case is in court.
A Texas native and over 6 feet tall, Berwick moved to San Francisco in the 1960s and in many ways exemplifies the city’s colorful political fabric. She now works out of her home in the Anza Vista neighborhood with sparkling views of San Francisco’s iconic Sutro tower.
She is transsexual, polyamorous but in a longtime domestic partnership with a woman, and unsuccessfully ran for local office in 2010. One of her campaign planks was to offer a reward for information leading to the prosecution of anyone dealing in date rape drugs.
Berwick was a driver for Uber for nearly two months last year before she quit, saying the money was not what she expected and management was uncommunicative.
With a net income of more than $1 billion Elsevier is one of the largest academic publishers in the world.
The company has the rights to many academic publications where scientists publish their latest breakthroughs. Most of these journals are locked behind paywalls, which makes it impossible for less fortunate researchers to access them.
Sci-Hub.org is one of the main sites that circumvents this artificial barrier. Founded by Alexandra Elbakyan, a researcher born and graduated in Kazakhstan, its main goal is to provide the less privileged with access to science and knowledge.
The service is nothing like the average pirate site. It wasn’t started to share the latest Hollywood blockbusters, but to gain access to critical knowledge that researchers require to do their work.
“When I was working on my research project, I found out that all research papers I needed for work were paywalled. I was a student in Kazakhstan at the time and our university was not subscribed to anything,” Alexandra tells TF.
After Googling for a while Alexandra stumbled upon various tools and services to bypass the paywalls. With her newly gained knowledge, she then started participating in online forums where other researchers requested papers.
When she noticed how grateful others were for the papers she shared, Alexandra decided to automate the process by developing software that could allow anyone to search for and access papers. That’s when Sci-Hub was born, back in 2011.
“The software immediately became popular among Russian researchers. There was no big idea behind the project, like ‘make all information free’ or something like that. We just needed to read all these papers to do our research,” Alexandra.
“Now, the goal is to collect all research papers ever published, and make them free,” she adds.
Of course Alexandra knew that the website could lead to legal trouble. In that regard, the lawsuit filed by Elsevier doesn’t come as a surprise. However, she is more than willing to fight for the right to access knowledge, as others did before her.
“Thanks to Elsevier’s lawsuit, I got past the point of no return. At this time I either have to prove we have the full right to do this or risk being executed like other ‘pirates’,” she says, naming Aaron Swartz as an example.
“If Elsevier manages to shut down our projects or force them into the darknet, that will demonstrate an important idea: that the public does not have the right to knowledge. We have to win over Elsevier and other publishers and show that what these commercial companies are doing is fundamentally wrong.”
The idea that a commercial outfit can exploit the work of researchers, who themselves are often not paid for their contributions, and hide it from large parts of the academic world, is something she does not accept.
“Everyone should have access to knowledge regardless of their income or affiliation. And that’s absolutely legal. Also the idea that knowledge can be a private property of some commercial company sounds absolutely weird to me.”
Most research institutions in Russia, in developing countries and even in the U.S. and Europe can’t afford expensive subscriptions. This means that they can’t access crucial research, including biomedical research such as cancer studies.
Elsevier’s ScienceDirect paywall
So aside from the public at large, Sci-Hub is also an essential tool for academics. In fact, some researchers use the site to access their own publications, because these are also locked behind a paywall.
“The funniest thing I was told multiple times by researchers is that they have to download their own published articles from Sci-Hub. Even authors do not have access to their own work,” Alexandra says.
Instead of seeing herself as the offender, Alexandra believes that the major academic publishers are the ones who are wrong.
“I think Elsevier’s business model is itself illegal,” she says, pointing to article 27 of the UN declaration on human rights which reads that “everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.”
The paywalls of Elsevier and other publishers violate this right, she believes. The same article 27 also allows authors to protect their works, but the publishers are not the ‘authors,’ they merely exploit the copyrights.
Alexandra insists that her website is legal and hopes that future changes in copyright law will reflect this. As for the Elsevier lawsuit, she’s not afraid to fight for her rights and already offers a public confession right here.
“I developed the Sci-Hub.org website where anyone can download paywalled research papers by request. Also I uploaded at least half of more than 41 million paywalled papers to the LibGen database and worked actively to create mirrors of it.
“I am not afraid to say this, because when you do the right thing, why should you hide it?” she concludes.
—
Note: Sci-Hub is temporarily using the sci-hub.club domain name. The .org will be operational again next week.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and the best VPN services.
My Elevator Call-Button Moves
I've got a feature article up on Eros Media today. This one is about basic income as the way of getting at the heart of human exploitation.
Excerpt:
This is the face of economic vulnerability and it lies at the very heart of a great deal of systemic issues. Think for a moment about what a difference it would make in your own life, to be guaranteed $1,000 would always appear in your bank account, at the end of every month, for the rest of your life, no matter what you did. How would that money change your life? How would it affect the decisions you face every day? How would it affect your relationships with others from your boss to your spouse? How would it affect your choices? Consider that word: “choice.” What is choice, really? When it comes to any real choice in life, what it all boils down to is the ability to simply say “No.” Without that ability, nothing is truly voluntary. All work isn’t voluntary. All relationships aren’t voluntary. All exchanges aren’t voluntary. The choices we make that we think are choices aren’t truly voluntary whenever the option to say “No” is off the table. Therein lies the full potential of the idea of a universal basic income and lays bare the lack of power many of us are under the illusion of having. Having a basic income creates the ability to look someone in the eye who holds more power than you, and firmly say “No. Not today. Not until things change. These are my terms. Take them or leave them.”
Artwork depicting Angelina Jolie by prison escapee Richard Matt (image via @AlexDunbarNews/Twitter)
Art may calm disturbed minds, but Richard Matt’s knack for drawing didn’t keep him from snapping his 72-year-old boss’s neck in 1997. It did, however, help him bust out of prison.
According to the New York Times, prison guard Gene Palmer gave Matt and his fellow jailbird David Sweat a screwdriver and pliers, among other favors, in exchange for a dozen amateurish drawings and paintings Palmer later described as being “elaborate.” The two inmates used the screwdriver and pliers (along with other tools) to escape from the Clinton Correctional Facility in northern New York on June 6.
Though images of the artwork have not been released — and reports suggest that Palmer subsequently burned and buried them — a friend who owns several of Matt’s creations allowed CNYCentral to photograph them. They reveal a talent for cheesy, fan-boy drawings and paintings of the kind you find at Central Park, with everyone from Julia Roberts to Hillary Clinton rendered in painstakingly blended pencils and charcoal.
They’re hardly the type of pictures you’d expect a convicted murderer to create, and they feel strangely melancholic in light of Matt’s capture and death. One picture of Oprah Winfrey includes gushing, cursive text that reads, “She changed so many lives.” Another shows President Barack Obama shadowed by Martin Luther King Jr. — an apparent homage to the civil rights movement and a glimmer of the humanity Matt so sadly squandered.
Artwork depicting Julia Roberts by prison escapee Richard Matt (Image via @AlexDunbarNews/Twitter)
A drawing of Julia Roberts by prison escapee Richard Matt (Image via @AlexDunbarNews/Twitter)
A drawing of Marilyn Monroe by prison escapee Richard Matt (Image via @AlexDunbarNews/Twitter)
Drawings of Bill Clinton and Martin Luther King Jr. by prison escapee Richard Matt (Image via @AlexDunbarNews/Twitter)
A drawing of Oprah by prison escapee Richard Matt (Image via @AlexDunbarNews/Twitter)
A drawing of Hillary Clinton by prison escapee Richard Matt (Image via @AlexDunbarNews/Twitter)
A drawing of President Barack Obama by prison escapee Richard Matt (Image via @AlexDunbarNews/Twitter)
First Mother and Her Littlest One | Ceridwen Alison Troy
By my friend and super talented artist, Ceridwen :3 This is so beautiful
Tired and needing sleep, and my only significant thought is just how nice it would be to have a Mommy to pet my hair and shush and tut and coo and fuck me to sleep as she came inside me…
Comfort. It’s quite often all I really want.
(Enough about you, let’s talk about life for a while! Can you handle this?)
The most important part of Scalia’s dissent is when he defines California as not part of the West. Because San Francisco and Hollywood no doubt.
This is like an even dumber version of the inevitable graduate seminar in US West history argument over what is and is not the American West.
Sophianotloren#SkyNetWatch
Visual portfolio reel of various projects related to self-assembly robotics which could apply to architecture - a good primer on current ideas in the field:
Research from the AADRL Spyropoulos Design Lab exploring an architecture that is self-aware, self-structured and self-assembles. The research explores high population of mobility agents that evolve an architecture that moves beyond the fixed and finite towards a behavioural model of interactive human and machine ecologies.
You can find out more about the AA DRL program at their website here
The Stonewall Inn in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village neighborhood was just granted landmark status. (photo by InSapphoWeTrust, via Wikimedia Commons)
Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world.
Just days before Friday’s Supreme Court of the United States decision making same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states, New York City’s Preservation Commission granted landmark status to the Stonewall Inn, ground zero for the city’s gay rights movement. The Commission will hold a series of public hearings in the fall as part of a bid to clear its backlog of landmark applications.
Amid the ongoing destruction of antiquities in Syria and Iraq, the UK’s culture secretary, Jon Whittingdale, stated that the Conservative government is committed to ratifying the Hague Convention on cultural property. The UK failed to ratify the convention in 1954 after arguing that it would be ineffective.
Abu Dhabi’s Tourism and Development Investment Company confirmed that the outpost of the Louvre museum currently under construction on Saadiyat Island will be delayed once more. Though it was most recently expected to open in late 2015, the opening has been pushed back to late 2016.
A video posted by MoMA The Museum of Modern Art (@themuseumofmodernart) on
The Museum of Modern Art installed artist Gilbert Baker’s iconic Rainbow Flag — which it recently acquired — in its contemporary design galleries in observance of today’s same-sex marriage decision by the US Supreme Court.
ISIS militants reportedly planted land mines and explosives around the perimeter of the ancient city of Palmyra. The group destroyed two of the city’s mausoleums on Monday. Read Hyperallergic’s coverage here.
British film-maker Mike Slee used a helicopter to film undocumented rock art in unexplored sections of Chiribiquete national park, Colombia. Professor Fernando Urbina, a rock art specialist from the National University of Colombia, told the Guardian that the paintings “could be up to 20,000 years old.”
Scottish artist Dominic Currie claims he found a painting by Pablo Picasso rolled up in a suitcase in his attic.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service destroyed over a ton of confiscated ivory in Times Square.
David Shrigley’s new mascot for the Partick Thistle football club (via @davidshrigley/Twitter)
David Shrigley designed a new mascot for Partick Thistle Football Club named “Kingsley.”
A New York judge ruled against a group of Orange County residents who opposed the demolition and reconstruction of the Orange County Government Center, a celebrated Brutalist structure.
Following the leads of several major museums, Disney has decided to ban selfie sticks at all its theme parks.
A number of architects — including Renzo Piano, Zaha Hadid, and Frank Gehry — wrote letters to the UK’s heritage minister Tracey Crouch to make the case that Robin Hood Gardens (aka Poplar housing estate) should be given listed status.
British culture minister Ed Vaizey placed a temporary export ban on Paul Cézanne’s “Vue sur L’Estaque et le Chateau d’If” (1883–85). It is hoped that a UK buyer will match the £13.5 million (~$21.2 million) asking price for the work.
Archaeologists from the University of Victoria in Canada discovered human footprints on Calvert Island believed to be 13,200 years old, which would make them the oldest ever found in North America.
A court in Rotterdam ruled that Danh Vō must honor a prior agreement to create an artwork for collector Bert Kreuk. The collector filed a lawsuit against Vō last September after claiming that the artist failed to create an artwork for Transforming the Known, an exhibition of Kreuk’s collection at the Gemeentemuseum. The court ruled that Vō and his gallerist Isabella Bortolozzi will be jointly fined €10,000 (~$11,100) a day for late delivery of the work (with a the maximum penalty set at €200,000, or about $223,000). The artist stated that he intends to appeal the ruling.
A public sculpture of a truck by Erwin Wurm was given a parking ticket in Karlsruhe, Germany.
(via Twitter/@colossal)
Jonathan Green, director of the Richard Green Gallery in London, discovered a Claude Monet pastel drawing taped to the back of a work by the artist that he had purchased at auction.
Anna Rhodes, a Masters student at the University of Manchester, re-identified the subject matter of a 15th-century Renaissance painting. The work, which depicts Saint Catherine of Alexandria, had been incorrectly described as “The Virgin Mary Releasing a Soul from Purgatory at the Intercession of King David” for over 100 years.
The Vatican requested tattoo removal equipment in order to remove dirt particles from the sculptures in its collection.
Miami hedge fund manager and art collector Bruce Berkowitz has abandoned plans to build a new 10-story building in the city’s Edgwater district to house his company, his foundation, and large-scale installations by James Turrell and Richard Serra, blaming municipal indecision.
The £6-billion (~$9.4 billion) project to redevelop London’s enormous Battersea Power Station will include the creation of a new arts venue, to be developed by the Battersea Arts Centre. The power station’s redevelopment is due to be complete in 2025.
Herzog & de Meuron were hired to redevelop the Kunsthaus Tacheles in Berlin. The warehouse was occupied by artists following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
The non-profit + Pool launched a “feasibility” study as part of its mission to establish a floating, water filtering swimming pool in New York City.
Edgar Degas, “Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans” (1922), bronze with muslin skirt and satin hair ribbon on a wooden base, height (including base) 39 7/8 inches (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Sotheby’s) (click to enlarge)
A bronze cast of Edgar Degas’ “Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans (Little Dancer of Fourteen Years)” (1922) sold at Sotheby’s for £15.8 million (~$24.9 million), a record for a sculpture by the artist. None of the Degas’ wax sculptures were cast during his lifetime (1834–1917).
Painter Matthew Offenbacher used his $25,000 prize from the Neddy at Cornish Awards to purchase and donate seven works of art to the Seattle Art Museum. Offenbacher and his partner Jennifer Nemhauser conceived of their donation as an artwork, which they titled “Deed of Gift.”
A postcard featuring a drawing by Pablo Picasso sold at auction for €166,000 (~$188,000), a record for a postcard at auction. Picasso sent the card to Guillaume Apollinaire from Paris sometime on, or just before, September 5, 1918. The postcard never arrived since the artist wrote the address in Spanish.
A collection of watercolors and drawings by Adolf Hitler sold at auction for £286,000 (~$448,000).
Eugenio Valdés Figueroa was appointed director and chief curator of the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) in Miami.
The Independent Art Fair will relocate from the former Dia Art Foundation in Chelsea — which is slated to be demolished and replaced with condos — to Spring Studios in Tribeca. The fair is also planning to devote its November 2016 edition, Independent Projects, exclusively to women artists.
Lauren Cornell was promoted to curator and associate director [of] technology initiatives at the New Museum.
An interior shot of the newly renovated Museum of the City of New York (courtesy MCNY) (click to enlarge)
The Museum of the City of New York completed its $97-million renovation.
The Morgan Library and Museum made a number of appointments. Roger S. Wieck will lead the department for Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, William M. Voelkle was appointed senior research curator, and Joshua O’Driscoll was appointed assistant curator.
Michelle Puetz was appointed curator of media arts at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University.
Steven D. Lavine, the president of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), will step down in May of 2017.
Paris architecture firm Moreau Kusunoki Architectes won the competition to design the proposed Guggenheim Helsinki Museum.
The Kresge Foundation announced the recipients of the 2015 Kresge Artist Fellowships. Writer and Hyperallergic contributor Sarah Rose Sharp received an award in the arts criticism category.
The Getty Foundation revealed the winners of the 2015 Keeping It Modern grants, which support projects devoted to preserving modern architecture.
Miriam Schapiro, “Anonymous Was a Woman” (1976), acrylic and collage on paper, 30 x 22 in. (Brooklyn Museum. © Miriam Schapiro) (click to enlarge)
Albert Evans (1968–2015), former principal dancer for the New York City Ballet.
Don Featherstone (1936–2015), sculptor. Inventor of the pink plastic flamingo.
James Gowan (1923–2015), architect. Co-designed the Engineering Building at the University of Leicester, which is often cited as Britain’s first postmodernist building.
James Horner (1953–2015), Oscar-winning composer.
Miriam Schapiro (1923–2015), artist. Feminist art pioneer.
One has to wonder how deep into Whole Foods corporate culture ripping off consumers goes:
Sticker shock has always been part of the shopping experience at the city’s Whole Paycheck luxury stores, but now it turns out some of these prices may be illegal. An investigation by the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs has uncovered some shady price tags at our fleet of Whole Foods stores that show customers have been overcharged for their already pricey pre-packaged goods. “DCA tested packages of 80 different types of pre-packaged products and found all of the products had packages with mislabeled weights,” according to a DCA press release. And we were just starting to trust you, Whole Foods.
The investigation looked at products that are weighed and labeled and found a “systematic problem” whereby customers were routinely overcharged for things like nuts, snack foods, poultry and other grocery products. Eight packages of chicken tenders—priced at $9.99 per pound—were inaccurately priced and labeled to the tune of a $4.13 overcharge to the customer per package, a store profit of $33.04 for the set. DCA says one package was overpriced as much as $4.85. “Additionally, 89 percent of the packages tested did not meet the federal standard for the maximum amount that an individual package can deviate from the actual weight, which is set by the U.S. Department of Commerce.”
A current Whole Foods employee, who spoke to us on condition of anonymity, says the issue is incompetence. He says the company was aware of the labeling issue but actually eliminated the job position responsible for checking price tags, sales signs and tare weights in a bid to save money.
…
This isn’t the first time the chain has been accused of and cited for overcharging customers. Last year, the company was fined nearly $800,000 in California for not deducting tare weight, selling less than the weight on products sold by the pound and other violations. Not to be outdone by our neighbors to the West, “our inspectors tell me this is the worst case of mislabeling they have seen in their careers, which DCA and New Yorkers will not tolerate,” according to DCA Commissioner Julie Menin.
One might chalk this up to a bad employee or two at a distribution center, but given the extreme nature of the overcharging, the corporate indifference to it, and the California case, corporate culture seems to hold significant responsibility here.
Visual system from the University of Southern California [uscict] lets users see video playback from any horizontal perspective, recording or projecting video from 30 surrounding angles, without the need for additional wearable tech:
Automultiscopic 3D displays allow a large number of viewers to experience 3D content simultaneously without the hassle of special glasses or head gear. This display uses a dense array of 216 video projectors to generate images with high angular density over a wide field of view. As users move around the display, their eyes smoothly transition from one view to the next. The display is ideal for displaying life-size human subjects, as it allows for natural personal interactions with 3D cues such as eye-gaze and spatial hand gestures.
I discuss the differences, which are more significant than the similarities.
Remarkably, a majority of Americans, and a huge majority of white Americans, continued to say they were opposed interracial marriage until the late 1990s, 30 years after Loving v. Virginia. (I suspect the number of people willing to say they’re opposed is actually a good deal smaller than the number who are actually opposed). The situation with gay marriage is quite different:
First, contrary to claims of cultural conservatives, the Supreme Court’s ruling today can’t be characterized as the imposition of elite political preferences on the nation as a whole. The solid majority of the nation as a whole supports gay marriage, and it seems likely that within a very few years, opposition to the institution will be as marginal a position as (at least open) opposition to interracial marriage is today.
Second, the history of opposition to interracial marriage indicates that a Supreme Court decision by itself will often do little or nothing to sway public opinion in regard to this sort of issue. In 1967, the Supreme Court of the day threw down a legal gauntlet to one of the most powerful – and, as it would develop – intractable symbols of institutionalized racism in America. That decision seems to have had almost no effect on public opinion, which changed very slowly, and largely if not wholly for other reasons.
By contrast, today the Supreme Court is merely putting its stamp of approval on a political movement that was already winning the battle in the court of public opinion. And that stamp will probably have little effect on the cultural processes that determine how quickly gay marriage receives something closer to universal public acceptance
The much-anticipated documentary of soul genius Nina Simone is available from Netflix starting today, with its rare archival footage and new interviews with family and colleagues, including the artist’s daughter, Lisa Simone Kelly, and music director, Al Schackman. As the date has approached, tracks have been popping up from RCA Record’s upcoming album Nina Revisited: A Tribute to Nina Simone, such as covers by Ms. Lauryn Hill of Simone’s “Feeling Good” and “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.” The album, out July 10th, will also include tracks by Mary J. Blige, Common, Usher, Gregory Porter, Jazmine Sullivan, Alice Smith, and Lalah Hathaway. Watch the film’s trailer and listen to Ms. Hill’s cover of “Feeling Good” after the jump.
https://youtu.be/QEHzbv7Xe20
Today is a really happy day in the U.S., and especially here in my hometown San Francisco. People are literally going happy-crazy in the streets — and we expect this to last all weekend long. It’s beyond amazing!
There’s something I want you to read, however, which is LGBT related and is something that I’m trying to raise awareness about. It’s my newest investigative piece for Engadget, Women, LGBT least safe on Facebook, despite ‘real name’ policy.
If you, or anyone you know, has been asked to submit ID to Facebook, please read this. It’s also the first report to show that Facebook is the number one hot spot online for stalking, harassment and abuse — despite its “real names” policy.
For those of us who watched Google evolve during the #Nymwars it’s both terrifying and validating.
The report is from NNEDV, and those at extreme risk (at least 23 million Facebook users) are victims of domestic violence, victims of sexual assault, women, and LGBTQ people.
In it, I interviewed people who have submitted legal ID to Facebook to unlock their accounts after being “flagged” for allegedly using a fake name — and the company used their ID to change their account names without their consent, and locked the account function so they cannot change the name back.
Here’s an excerpt:
Despite Facebook’s insistence that its “real names” policy keeps its users safe, a new report reveals that Facebook is the least safe place for women online. And things are turning more explosive, as stories emerge that Facebook has been changing its users’ names without their consent — and the company isn’t allowing them to remove their real names from their accounts. Meanwhile, a furious LGBT coalition has rallied around the safety threats posed to its communities by the policy. Though, it was unsuccessful in blocking the company from marching in America’s largest gay pride parade.
… The Safety Net Project (at the National Network to End Domestic Violence, NNEDV) recently released a report based on results from victim service providers called A Glimpse From the Field: How Abusers Are Misusing Technology.
The report found that nearly all (99 percent) the responding programs reported that Facebook is the most misused social media platform by abusers.
… When reached for comment about the How Abusers Are Misusing Technology report, a Facebook spokesperson referred us to this Facebook post explaining how the company’s “authentic name” policy “creates a safer community for everyone.”
@MissLoreleiLee @courtneytrouble @violetblue my childhood abuser found me on fb, 2 months ago my fb was suspended as I won't use real name
— m a g g i e (@angrymaggie) June 26, 2015
… However, Facebook didn’t have anything to say to us about reports that the company is changing its users’ names without their consent.
Read more in Women, LGBT least safe on Facebook, despite ‘real name’ policy
The post Don’t give Facebook your ID, and a report showing it as ground zero for abuse appeared first on Violet Blue ® :: Open Source Sex - Journalist and author Violet Blue's site for sex and tech culture, accurate sex information, erotica and more..
From Chief Justice Roberts’ decision (pdf):
In a democracy, the power to make the law rests with those chosen by the people. Our role is more confined—”to say what the law is.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803). That is easier in some cases than in others. But in every case we must respect the role of the Legislature, and take care not to undo what it has done. A fair reading of legislation demands a fair understanding of the legislative plan.
Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter. Section 36B can fairly be read consistent with what we see as Congress’s plan, and that is the reading we adopt.
And a bit more:
If the statutory language is plain, we must enforce it according to its terms. Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., 560 U. S. 242, 251 (2010). But oftentimes the “meaning—or ambiguity—of certain words or phrases may only become evident when placed in context.” Brown & Williamson, 529 U. S., at 132. So when deciding whether the language is plain, we must read the words “in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.” Id., at 133 (internal quotation marks omitted). Our duty, after all, is “to construe statutes, not isolated provisions.” Graham County Soil and Water Conservation Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson, 559 U. S. 280, 290 (2010). […]
If we give the phrase “the State that established the Exchange” its most natural meaning, there would be no “qualified individuals” on Federal Exchanges. But the Act clearly contemplates that there will be qualified individuals on every Exchange.
As we just mentioned, the Act requires all Exchanges to “make available qualified health plans to qualified individuals”—something an Exchange could not do if there were no such individuals. §18031(d)(2)(A). And the Act tells the Exchange, in deciding which health plans to offer, to consider “the interests of qualified individuals . . . in the State or States in which such Exchange operates”—again, something the Exchange could not do if qualified individuals did not exist. §18031(e)(1)(B). This problem arises repeatedly throughout the Act. See, e.g., §18031(b)(2) (allowing a State to create “one Exchange . . . for providing . . . services to both qualified individuals and qualified small employers,” rather than creating separate Exchanges for those two groups).
These provisions suggest that the Act may not always use the phrase “established by the State” in its most natural sense. Thus, the meaning of that phrase may not be as clear as it appears when read out of context.
Scalia, in a notably snarky dissent (the other two dissenters were Alito and Thomas, as you’d expect), said that Obamacare should from now on be called “SCOTUScare.”
Rick Hasen comments:
This means of interpretation is important for a number of reasons. First, it means that a new administration with a new IRS Commissioner cannot reinterpret the law to take away subsidies. Second, it puts more power into the hands of Congress over administrative agencies (and therefore the executive), at least on issues at the core of congressional legislation. Third, and most important as a general principle, it rehabilitates a focus on the law’s purpose as a touchstone to interpretation, over a rigid and formalistic textualism that ignores real-world consequences. If followed through consistently, this principle would greatly improve our statutory interpretation.
Now that this genuinely ridiculous challenge to the law has been shot down, the only viable route for Republicans who want to destroy Obamacare is to win enough elections to do it, either by electing enough Republicans in Congress to overcome a veto, or by electing a Republican president who can allow a lot of leeway for Republican-controlled states to bend Obamacare, or both.
An anti-TTIP mural in Malmö, Sweden (photo by Johan Jönsson, via Wikimedia Commons)
We all know about NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, but TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership currently being brokered between the United States and European Union, has received some attention in Europe and remarkably little in the US. The Partnership, which has been under development since 2013 and isn’t expected to be in place until next year, is aimed at facilitating trade between the two unions. It would streamline national and international regulations and make it easier for companies from one region to do business in the other. Measures up for inclusion in TTIP, which is being hashed out in closed-door meetings from which the press and watchdog organizations have been barred, would discourage governments from introducing any legislation that might negatively affect companies’ profits — even laws intended to ensure the safety of consumers and the environment — and would enable corporations to sue governments that did pass such measures. But what does TTIP have to do with art?
“TTIP certainly does not mean the end of creativity,” jazz musician Angelika Niescier told the Goethe Institut earlier this year. “However, the situation of non-mainstream art is difficult enough and will get worse. A very important part of culture risks being marginalized, which could affect the vitality of niche genres. ”
The Partnership has come under criticism from many in the European cultural sector not only for its wholesale privileging of corporate over social and environmental interests, but also for the potential threat it poses to the various cultural funding models of the participating countries, however fraught they may already be. Specifically, European artists are concerned that a model like the one that exists in the US — with artists catering to the market, taking second jobs, and relying on grants from private foundations — could become the standard across all TTIP countries, while the inverse transmission of cultural funding models — with the US adopting a more European system and increasing the level of public funding to the arts — seems utterly improbable.
“Small arts organizations in the US place an emphasis on individual donations and private foundation support, which is perhaps a by-product of the lack of substantial government support,” Ryan Muncy, a New York-based saxophone player, told the Goethe Institut. “Adopting a publicly funded approach for the arts in the United States would require a significant shift in societal thinking — not just concerning art, but attitudes toward taxation and a general discussion of the government’s responsibility to support or provide critical services.”
In addition to voicing their fears over how TTIP may undermine public funding for the arts, artists in Europe have been trying to draw any attention they can to the enormous but relatively under-the-radar trade agreement. The group Artists Against TTIP was formed by British theater director Carrie Cracknell and includes actor Mark Rylance, designer Vivienne Westwood, and musician Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens), and author Natasha Walter. The group recently released a video explaining its opposition to the Partnership.
A petition to “Stop TTIP” that is circulating among citizens of the European Union has thus far garnered over 2.2 million signatures, underlining that opposition to the Partnership is coming from all sectors, not just the arts.
“There is absolutely no reason to believe that TTIP will make it possible for the starving and uneducated in developing countries to have better opportunities in life,” Olaf Zimmermann, the Director of the German Council for Cultural Affairs, said in a statement last month. “Globalizing the markets does not free the poor from their misery. On the contrary, globalized markets simply make the rich even richer. And for this reason, the fight against TTIP isn’t just about keeping fixed prices for books, about being able to use public funding to secure the welfare of cultural institutions in the future, about the continued existence of public broadcasting, or about the multitude of small businesses in the cultural sector in Germany, who can do very little to counter unbridled competitive pressure from large American multinational media companies. It’s about so much more!”
Newspapers around the world gave front-page space on Sunday to the racist manifesto believed to be from Dylann Roof, who police say killed nine people at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina.
But not the front page of the Post and Courier, Charleston's newspaper, which made a powerful statement by focusing on the nine victims who lost their lives:
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(Post and Courier)
It's a stark and lovely memorial to nine people whose deaths have often been overshadowed by the focus on the man accused of their murder.
(h/t Front Page of the Day)
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