Haha! Expect Us!

Michael Moore on Occupy Wall Street - "That's Where It Began"

I called the CNN hotline and gave them the tip - there's a protest at Zuccotti Park!  404-827-1500 #1

Mariel Moshiri Has Her Say

Comment left 9/22, at 10:56 pm, to an earlier post, at which Anon had claimed she probably deserved to be arrested:

This is Mariel Moshiri.

I literally stood there and got arrested for just being there. There are plenty of videos where you can see me just standing near the boy in purple (Eric) who was arrested with me.

The only reason I was accused of resisting arrest was because I put my left hand behind my back after my other hand started turning purple. I didn't wiggle it around.. The plastic cut off my circulation by itself. Fibromyalgia also causes blood circulatory problems and I told the police this.

This is what I said: "I will cooperate with anything you want me to do, I will go anywhere you want me to go, I will allow myself to be arrested..But please take this plastic cuff off because I have a blood circulatory problem and am losing feeling in my hand." I cooperated as much as possible and stayed calm at all times, except when I had uncontrollable panic attacks and was uncontrollably crying in my cell.

I was nowhere near the tarp, and the only reason the cops jumped on me was because I accidentally touched a cop who was in white.

I am in college and my professor understands about what happened to me. I am too smart to be in high school you fucking stupid anon. I left high school because I am more intelligent than 90% of the people my age.

The only reason Eric and I were held longer than the others who were arrested, was because we both had health issues and made complaints about being hurt, not being able to breathe, etc. If I had not complained of my medical condition, they may have let me go earlier.

I was taken to Belleview because at one of the prisons they saw cuts on my arms and one cop screamed "SHE'S SUICIDAL!" even though I repeatedly said I was not. They had to clear me at Belleview. I was admitted to that hospital, but was refused a bed.

They told my family that I had the opportunity to make a phone call at any time, which was not true. I was lied to and denied a phone call everywhere I went. My family had no idea where I was for many hours. I barely even knew where I was!

At the first presinct, I was denied food, water, and medicaiton. If I do not take my medication for that many hours, I could have a seizure. I went through withdrawal from my medication called Tramadol(Ultram) during my imprisonment. Withdrawal from that drug is similar to heroin withdrawal.

I DID cooperate back at the station you fucking asshole! I cooperated more than anyone else!

The important thing is, I am out and I am ready to sue for everything the NYPD has.


The conditions I was put in were disgusting. There was puke, rat poo, pee, mice, rats, etc. in the cells. The first cell I was in didn't even have a big enough bench for me to lay on without possibly falling off and getting hurt.


Thank you for the support and for writing this article about me. Spread the word that the NYPD lies and no matter how nice a cop seems, they will still lie to you. It is up to YOU as a prisoner to use your own instincts, cooperate with the police, and take everything they say with a grain of salt.

Thank you for reading this small part of what I went through. There is a lot more to my story. Also, I have PTSD and this whole experience has caused me much mental trauma.

I don't want to live in a world where people have that kind of authority over others. This was suppose to be a peaceful protest, but the only people that made it not so peaceful, were the cops.

More Like This Please

Blackout on Occupy Wall Street

Anyone who isn't entranced into a stupor by the Bread and Circus so ingeniously engineered by the corporatocracy must at least suspect that mainstream media - the newspapers, magazines and teevee - are nothing but propaganda.  That explains why none of them are telling the American public about the protest in New York against the banksters who have plundered our country.  Instead they are covering their collective eyes and ears and screaming Lalalalalalalalala!  Bravo then, to Keith Olbermann!



In the spirit of fun, let's not forget that a prime example of censorship of the news is the untold story of Sarah Palin's blatantly fake pregnancy, an insane deception abetted by the media, whose masters don't want American voters to know that idiots chose her to be the vice-presidential candidate for one of our major political parties.  For those paying attention to the grotesquely obvious lies she told back then, it's been a source of much amusement.  Now, finally, some authors who are willing to take the inevitable insults have taken on this monumentally mendacious episode - and now one has even exposed it on The View!

Update!  After some searching, Stephen Colbert finds a nihilistic performance artist at Occupy Wall Street!

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Wall Street Under Siege
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Earthquakes

I came across this deliberately alarming teevee news report about the under appreciated imminence of earthquakes around various locations in America.  Well, the powers that be want us to worry about things we can't control, to prevent us from challenging the things that we can.

Oddly enough (ha), instead of feeling terror about earthquakes, I found fresh evidence that we face a much wider and almost completely ignored threat.  The tree-killing rising levels of tropospheric ozone are not restricted, like an earthquake, to one location, unfortunately.  The precursors of reactive nitrogen from fuel emissions and other industrial activity travel vast distances in the atmosphere, and affect every form of life, no matter how remote.  I'm not certain that these first two screen captures are from current scenery, although they are presented that way.  They certainly depict dead trees.

 The first is from a lake, and the next is a city street.  How ugly!

The following shots though, DO reflect current conditions, because the first is the background for an interview.

This last is from the report live in Memphis.  The huge trees in the background have NO LEAVES.

It's only mid-September.  What could possibly be wrong with these trees, that their leaves are already gone??  Hmmm....read the Basic Premise, linked above, if you don't already know that our ecosystem - the one we depend upon for food and oxygen - is collapsing.

Shame

Between the sickening plan to execute Troy Davis tonight, and the outrageous police brutality against unarmed, peaceful protesters in New York these past few days, the "Proud to be an American" notion is more contemptibly hollow than ever.

Mariel is Found!

I just got a call from Mariel's mom, she is free.  She was deprived of her medication almost the entire time she was in police custody, and they had to return to the First Precinct to retrieve it, so "...she's not in the best of shape, but she's safe."

Apparently she has been interviewed by a number of journalists so hopefully more of her story will emerge soon.  Right now, she's on her way home to New Jersey.

Click here for an account of her ordeal.

Mariel is Missing

A 17 year old New Jersey Bergen Community College student, Mariel Moshiri, was arrested in Zuccotti Park yesterday at the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protest in Manhattan.  Her mother, Nicole Busch, has been unable to speak to her since the police took her into custody.  It is believed that she appears in the video embedded below, at 4 minutes in.

According to Lt. Speechley of the NYPD, the record indicates that she was charged for being disorderly, refusing to move, and resisting arrest.  He said that ordinarily prisoners would only go to a hospital in the event they were determined to be emotionally disturbed or injured.

In a phone conversation, Mrs. Busch said in spite of denials that Mariel is in custody and lies indicating she would be released yesterday, she has new information that her daughter was brought to Bellevue Hospital and handcuffed to a chair for 11 hours overnight; was then transferred to the 20th precinct at 6:30 this morning; and will be brought back to the 1st precinct for arraignment between noon and 1 pm this afternoon.  In addition to the rather obvious concern any mother would have in such circumstances, she added that Mariel suffers from severe Fibromyalgia.

Lt. Speechley said that after her arrest, Mariel would have been turned over to the Corrections Department, but the number he gave for them is constantly busy.  As I get further information I will update this post. [Update:  I tried a different number - for the press - and spoke to Sharman Stein.  She says the Department of Corrections has no record for Mariel Moshiri.]  Heh, if I just disappear, you'll know why:

NYPD Statement on Arrests at #OccupyWallStreet

as emailed to me by Lt. Martin Speechley:


...seven individuals were arrested in two separate incidents in Zuccotti Park today in connection with the Wall Street protest there, including one for the use of amplified sound (a bullhorn) without a permit this morning. Two others who refused a lawful order to disperse during the first arrest were issued summonses for disorderly conduct.


Later today,  an individual who tried to prevent police from removing a tarp that had been erected in violation of the Sanitation Code, fought with police and was arrested for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and obstruction of governmental administration. A cut to his leg was treated by EMS at the 1st Precinct.  Another individual was arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in connection with the same incident, and two others received summonses for disorderly conduct after refusing a lawful order to disperse.  One of the seven was also  arrested on an outstanding bench warrant.

Paul J. Browne

Deputy Commissioner

New York City Police Department

One Police Plaza

Call the Mayor and Complain! 212-341-2009

I Haz a Tragic

This illustration of the "Four Laws Ecology", which is really just a canon of evolution, can be found here:

1. Everything is Connected to Everything Else. There is one ecosphere for all living organisms and what affects one, affects all.

2. Everything Must Go Somewhere. There is no “waste” in nature and there is no “away” to which things can be thrown.

3. Nature Knows Best. Humankind has fashioned technology to improve upon nature, but such change in a natural system is, says Commoner, “likely to be detrimental to that system.”

4. There Is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. In nature, both sides of the equation must balance; for every gain there is a cost, and all debts are eventually paid.

All life on Earth is connected by carbon. The burning of carbon – carbon that has been sequestered over millennia by the accumulation of animal-based petroleum and plant-based coal – over the course of a few hundreds of years has proven not to be a “free lunch”. The relentless rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not going to stop and the relentless rise in temperature will continue. The only answer – which we resist, deny, refuse and are unwilling to accept – is that we must stop burning ALL fossil fuels. Not a reduction and not less. All. The Burning Age is over. And just as the Stone Age ended before they ran out of stones, so the Burning Age must end before we run out of fossil fuels.

Notice that in this manifesto

The Real Weapons of Mass Destruction: Methane, Propaganda & the Architects of Genocide

...a key excerpt is this quote from Dr. Gideon Polya:  "pollutants from gas leakage and gas burning pose a chemical risk to residents, agriculture and the environment."

It is reasonable to ask, what exactly the hell does that mean?  (Here is the answer - notice any of this occurring around you?  This encapsulates the essence of the Wit's End blog, as expounded in the Basic Premise at the top of the page, with the rather profound question - Do you think you can survive without trees and plants?):

Nitrogen oxides can seriously injure vegetation, bleaching or killing plant tissue, causing leaf fall and reducing growth rate. Ozone pollution damages photosynthesis by plants.   NOx air pollution contributes to acidifying nitrate deposition (with fish kills and reduction in plant growth), causes excess soil nitrification in ecosystems (with damage to vegetation, loss of biodiversity, increased GHG pollution) and is regarded not just as a threat to agriculture and forestry but also to as a major threat to national parks and wilderness areas.

#OccupyWallStreet

Yesterday I drove to Hoboken (*brave*) and then took the Path train to join the protest on the first day of Occupy Wall Street.  After walking several blocks in the wrong direction, with the help of the mounted police I finally found the gathering at Bowling Green.  Yes I wore my cupcake costume!

Lacy MacAuley, an activist with the Institute for Policy Studies, was speaking.  The acoustics weren't very good so it would be difficult to quote her exactly but she said something akin to: "...either we take this system down or Mother Nature will take it down!"...a sentiment with which I heartily agree.  You can follow her on twitter - she's quite a dynamo.

After that rally, the crowd began to march along the street, shouting out "Wall Street...Our Street!"

"They Got Bailed Out...We Got Sold Out!"

and the now-familiar "This is What Democracy Looks Like!"

Anonymous was there, as well as a Wikileaks truck patrolling the vicinity.  Oh - and lots of police.

Somehow the docile procession was herded into a privately owned plaza, Zuccotti Park, where in adherence to a prior commitment to a "horizontal decision making structure", the participants formed discussion circles.  They took turns speaking about whatever was on their minds, including how to get back to the days of pre-agriculture.  The air smelled of marijuana and patchouli oil, and young girls handed out bouquets of flowers.

In spite of the focus of wrath on the obscene financial hijacking perpetrated by the banksters, and the not-incidental, growing disparity of income and wealth in America, it was gratifying to see that in fact there seems to be a distinct and increasing overlap between that theme and the concerns of the climate change/environmental movements.  The issues are inextricably connected and if there is ever to be an effective challenge to overturn the dark forces that are controlling our downward spiral to financial and ecological doom, it will require a unified opposition.  I don't know if this young lady went to the Tar Sands Action, where people were advised to write the number for legal services on their arms in case of arrest, but certainly others I spoke with had been.

Members of Rain Forest Action scaled flagpoles to hoist a flag directing viewers to their "Dirty Money" website, which is really about coal...while veterans of the Tar Sands in Washington handed out fliers about the upcoming Moving Planet Rally on September 24.

It was refreshing that I was not the only person who wanted to have some fun while shaking a proverbial fist at the greedy, evil corporate plutocracy hell bent on destroying not only the economy but causing mass extinctions from coral to butterflies.

People were overwhelmingly complimentary...I lost count of how many told told me the cupcake is adorable, and wanted their picture taken with me (three who were having birthdays).  Roseanne Barr gave a feisty speech, proclaiming a new matriarchal society, and said she loved it - and so many people actually approached and asked for my handout for a change (and a few even seemed to be reading it) that I passed out all the leftovers from my ignominious expulsion from the Heartland Institute Conference last July.

 These are some of my fellows who were similarly theatrically inclined.

 This menacing suited fellow with a rope around his neck wore black gloves and carried a briefcase.

I left reluctantly at dusk.  Almost 300 hardy souls stayed the night, shivering no doubt in the wind.  Someone had donated a mountain of peanut butter jars.

Today, I've been watching the live streaming video, which broadcast a prolonged debate first thing this morning, about whether to remove signs at the request of the mysterious entity known as "the property owner".  At first I was appalled they would even consider capitulating to this pseudo-benevolence - wimps! - but then one young lady took the mike and said, think of the trees, the signs are tearing at the them - we can take them down, carefully, and hold them up with our hands.

Ack!  Someone else...speaking for the trees.  I shouted at my laptop screen, wishing fervently I were still there.  Take care of the trees!  They are dying from ozone pollution!

It's doubtful that much about this will be seen on US teevee, so here is a report from Russia Today.

Photo credits here, here and here.

Weekend Romance

These hysterically funny videos are linked to at PolluterWatch, a great resource from Greenpeace.  It's essential to learn the names of these cretinous assholes, and to follow the connections between corporate criminal executives, and their petty lobbyists and traitorous "experts", and their fawning minions in government - both elected and appointed - to understand how irreparably corrupt this country's economic and political system has become.  Especially at the top.  The components - banksters, polluting industries, and government - are inseparable.

In Praise of the Mutilated World

Michael DeYoung, photographer

On the way home to New Jersey from our visit to Wellfleet, my friend Catarina started to reminisce about her life growing up in Sweden. How I wish I had been able to grab my video camera and record her story in her own vivid words.  But I was driving, so here is my best recollection of what she described as we plummeted down Route 95.

Last month she went to a little antique show at local volunteer fire house, a charitable event which is held every year in our exclusive, pastoral, horse-country exurb of New York.  Perusing the display in a booth that specialized in old tools, she noticed a device designed for castrating cattle. She recognized its purpose because it reminded her of a summer long ago.  As a teenager she spent the season migrating with the Laplanders, in an exercise intended by her father to restore strength to the muscles of her ankle, broken in gym class, for competitive cross-country skiing.  He had obtained special permission from the village for her, an outsider, to be temporarily adopted by a family.

The Laplanders are a short, dark-haired people originally from Siberia, whose lives revolve around the vast herds of reindeer indigenous to the region...and fish. Each reindeer is the recipient of a particularly shaped mark - cut, like a brand, in one ear - denoting the family to which they and their offspring traditionally belong. Unattributed renegades who manage to escape the yearling roundup are eventually auctioned off, once caught.  Catarina caused some mirth when, caught up in the excitement of the annual tradition, she called out a bid...only Laps are legally permitted to own reindeer.

Anyway, she spent that summer trudging along with them on their march, following the reindeer, up, up the steep slopes into the mountainous range that divides the country from Norway. At the summits are lakes where they made camp for the summer, to labor chopping and gathering wood, cutting and drying grass for layering into boots.  Every night they laid fish nets to be hauled to shore in the morning.  Each day they spent cleaning their catch, which is almost exclusively their summer diet.  Surplus filets were layered in salt for transport to the lower altitudes, where the Laps overwinter in the shelter of the valleys. They also smoked the fish.  Fish, smoked and salted. And they were happy to eat it.  As fall neared they collected berries, wary of bears.

Every part of the reindeer they used.  At night they slept on their hides, in the day, they composed their clothing. The choicest portions of smoked meat, a delicacy, were sold as their main source of money. Everything else was used including the heart and the kidneys. The blood was drained and dried for use in sausage, or for a special treat, even dumplings. The women chewed the sinews to form sturdy ties and thread to sew, which over time wore their teeth down to stubs.

But what got the attention of the dubious dealer back at the antique show was Catarina's anecdote about the pincer used for castration. As she explained, the Laps must carry everything they need for the entire summer on their backs, so even the most minute contribution of weight to their packs must be essential and irreplaceable. So, rather than lug a metal tool night after night for a few hours of utility, the Laps preferred a time-honored method they had learned, to knock the young male reindeer onto their backs, and use their teeth to sever the connection between testicles and penis (because this makes the young males more docile...and plump.)

We had a merry conversation speculating on how or why or by whom this method of increasing the yield of poundage was first discovered...but I won't get into that!

Instead - Catarina continued, and told me more - about her grandparents, on whose farm in the southern part of Sweden she often stayed and worked. They had four cows, some sheep and chickens, and every year raised a pig. In the garden they grew potatoes, carrots, cabbage and rutabaga, which were stored overwinter in a root cellar.  After the harvest, her grandmother spent the winter weaving, knitting, and sewing, and of course caring for children and the animals.  Meanwhile, her grandfather went into the forest for a month at a time, taking with him a stash of simple food, so that from his shelter he could chop wood and then coax slowly burning, painstakingly arranged pyramids, twenty-four hours a day, into charcoal...to sell to far away factories for fuel.  That and extra milk, sold to a producer for shipment to the city, was their sole source of cash.

Catarina said that the food was simple, unadorned...and delicious.  When I hear an amazing story like hers, of people living so close to subsistence, I worry that the world of natural abundance has vanished, and the world of high-tech innovation based on cheap energy is taken for granted.  I have to wonder why we have prepared our children for video games and not self-sustenance - just when it will be most needed in the mutilated world they are inheriting.

Following are pictures from our rambles in Provincetown, but first, a poem written by Adam Zajewski.

Try to Praise the Mutilated World

Remember June's long days,

and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.

The nettles that methodically overgrow

the abandoned homesteads of exiles.

You must praise the mutilated world.

You watch the stylish yachts and ships;

one of them had a long trip ahead of it,

while salty oblivion awaited others.

You've seen the refugees heading nowhere,

you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.

You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the grey feather of a thrush lost,
and the gentle lights that strays and vanishes
and returns.

 - Adam Zagajewski
   (translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh)
  published in The New Yorker, 9/24/01

I mentioned in an earlier post that the trees in Wellfleet looked dreadful.  Last Saturday, we took a spin up to Provincetown to compare.

The leaves on the shrubs and trees were the same.  Brown, and falling.

The first person we asked about it said it happens early like this every autumn...no big deal.

She claimed that it would all return, just beautifully, in the spring.

I can only assume this is a case of shifting baselines, where each successive season is incrementally worse than the one prior.

People tend to compare today's current degradation with the recent past.  They forget years before when the world was truly verdant.

Some of them are just too young to realize that trees didn't used to look disgusting in early September, or that trees undergoing this apocalyptic desecration can't survive for long.

The next woman we asked said disgustedly that Hurricane Irene had killed all the leaves, with salt spray.

This is certainly not the first storm to be associated with such damage.

And in fact in some places, the damage looks consistent with exposure to salt-laden winds.

On the other had, there are so many unnatural threats to plantlife, it's difficult to tease out separate influences, let alone the synergistic effects between them.

It's quite likely, for instance, that since ozone is highly reactive, and is known to strip the protective waxy coating from the surface of foliage, that it becomes more sensitive to desiccation whether from drought or salt.

Ozone is known to cause even marble and limestone to decay, ruining historical buildings and statues...not to mention lungs that inhale it.

In any event, it was just bizarre to see the throngs of tourists wander the streets lined with such decay, seemingly oblivious.

Some of the trees were clearly dying well before Irene hit.

This lichen has spread dramatically since I was last on the Cape.

The staining of bark is comparable to what can be found the past couple of years in New Jersey, and certainly occurred over a season or more - not the two weeks since Irene came through.

The beaches also present a conflicting picture.  Clearly, the really dead trees have been so for more than two weeks...

...while there is green growth that somehow escaped the salt, if that is the source.

The scrubby tree below that has exposed, bleached wood is an oak.

The following pictures are from Monday, back in New Jersey.  Bark is falling off more and more.

Although the leaves aren't quite as uniformly shriveled as in Massachusetts, none of them are a healthy green.

It's not because they are turning autumn colors early, either.

When looked at individually, it's clear they are injured.

It's true no matter what species is examined.

By mid-October, when the hills should be brilliant gold, flaming orange and scarlet, they will instead be mostly bare, and brown.

Just watch the newscasters and tourist agencies blame it on too much rain.

I'm going to wrap up with what Richard Somerville of Scripps Oceanographic Institute says of climate change in the last few seconds of the youtube that follows:

"We can do something about it but that only works if we do something about it QUICKLY - if you RAPIDLY reduce the rate at which we put heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere...that's ABSOLUTELY MANDATORY."

I take him at his word - we don't have time to pander to the audience.  They - the Ignorers - need to be told we are facing an imminent existential threat - and massive sacrifices must be made.  Gardening and buying local are useless if we don't drastically reduce emissions.

I say, scare the WITS out of them.

I avoid the hoopla around 9/11.  This youtube was the only thing I saw worth watching if only because it demonstrates the absurdity of the official explanation; and Chris Hedges had the best column, "We are What We Loathe".