Another Limited Rebellion: January 2006

Time to go.

The Project on Defense Alternatives has compiled a list of over 50 articles on Iraq exit strategies from analysts, experts, American political leaders, and more.

Can someone send W this link?

A new non-profit group, StopBadware.org aims to become the ultimate resource for ridding the world (and your computer) of spyware, malware, and deceptive adware (or as they've dubbed it: Badware). And with their credentials they just might make a dent. From the site.:

Q: What makes you different from all the other anti-spyware efforts?
A: Obviously, lots of other people and companies are working in this space. That is a good thing. We feel we're different for a number of reasons. Unlike many of the companies working in the space, our roots are in organizations (.orgs and .edus) with independent traditions, so we won't be afraid to call out badware creators of any size. We're not going to hand down solutions from on high - we want to work with both experts and the broader internet community to define and understand the problem. We'll work with that same community to create solutions that will protect the internet in the long term. Finally, since part of our goal is to become a central clearinghouse for data, we view ourselves as a complement to the best other efforts in the field. We believe that our unique take will act as a complement, as we all share data to better attack the same end goal.

Worse than licking an ashtray.

Yow, these anti-smoking ads at AshtrayMouth.com are way creepy...
but does this stuff actually work? Or will Goth kids just think it's cool?

via boing boing

FDA: You're eating crushed bug juice

After receiving consumer complaints about hyper-sensitivity to certain food-colourings, the FDA proposes to force food and cosmetic labels to list cochineal extract or carmine - a red colouring produced from the ground bodies of insects in order to comply with the wishes of vegetarians, kosher jews, and every other living american.

Banned in the USA

Nothing celebrates intollerance better than a three foot pile of albums and a can of unleaded gas. From Igor Stravinski to 2 Live Crew, HERE is a very cool presentation of ten albums that have at some point been banned or censored and set fire to. You can listen to the albums - the quality's not great, but that's what you get after you've been set alight and patted out by a steam roller.

These boots were made for fighting.

The new video for the song "Twenty" by Robert Cray features the Eyes Wide Open exhibition of boots representing the soldiers killed in Iraq. It also stars an Iraq war veteran who gained conscious objector status after serving at Abu Ghraib.

No Assembly Necessary

There's no IKEA store in India, but some of its wealthier citizens have rooms full of handcrafted imitations of the images found in the ubiquitous IKEA catalog.

From the story in the Christian Science Monitor:

When Ms. Bose built her Indian house 10 years ago, she cut pictures from an IKEA catalog and brought them to a carpenter, who furnished her entire two-bedroom bungalow with pieces modeled after them.
King-size beds provide extra storage with built-in drawers. A wall-sized wardrobe has closets, shelves, shoe racks, and a dressing table. A desk, bookshelves, tables, and other pieces of furniture were made with plywood and painted in Bose's favorite colors - red and black. "The design is IKEA, but this is all pure wood," she says, referring to IKEA's use of particle board.

The price was right - about $2,250 for everything. That would be an unimaginable cost for the 80 percent of Indians who live on $2 a day, but it's a fraction of what IKEA would sell all that furniture for in the West (even with its bargain prices), and it's affordable for most middle-class Indians.

IKEA has not taken action against the furniture pirates and have no plans for building an Indian IKEA in the near future.

It's now easier being green.

Find out if you can get a green energy supplier for your home/biusiness via this handy US map from the Department of Energy.

For The Kids

Major soft drink companies (including Coca-Cola and Cadbury Schweppes) announced a new plan to limit youth advertising, control sales in schools and improve nutritional labels...but only in the UK.
According to the BBC article:

Direct commercial activity will halt completely in primary schools "unless otherwise requested by school authorities"

via boing boing

Fight The Power

A recent article on the AIGA website gives a breif history of the clenched fist as a symbol of rebellion from French Romantic painting to Howard Stern advertising.

Better Read Than Dead

John Emerson recently made a call to the Graphic Alliance to collect a required reading list for the socially minded designer. In response I put together the list of books below, which I've used as resources for my socially conscious design class Design Rebels at Virginia Commonwealth University. I've provided links for the books at the independent bookstore Powells.com for further information (and in a few instances where no information was available I've provided a link to Half.com), but be sure to look for them at your local library or independent bookseller:

Design for the Real World by Victor Papanek
Design Issues edited by D.K. Holland
No Logo by Naomi Klein
Ways of Seeing by John Berger
Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
The Complete Guide to Eco-Friendly Design by Poppy Evans (this extremely useful book is sadly out of print)
Organizing for Social Change by Kim Bobo, Jackie Kendall & Steve Max
The Swastika: symbol beyond redemption? by Steven Heller
Culture Jam by Kalle Lasn
The Silent Takeover by Noreena Hertz
Deadly Persuasion by Jean Kilbourne
Looking Closer 4 edited by Michael Beirut, William Drenttel, and Steven Heller.
One Market Under God & Commodify Your Dissent by Thomas Frank
The Overspent American by Juliet Schor
Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
Conscientious Objectives by John Cranmer and Yolanba Zappaterra
The Design of Dissent by Milton glaser and Miro Ilic

(I'll try to post a list of articles referred to in the class sometime soon.)

How Green?

Be sure to check out the current issue of How magazine, for the article "Good Company". It focuses on 4 socially conscious design firms:
Egg
Tuerff-Davis Enviromedia
The Top Group
and
ALR Design (yep, that's my own company)

[end of somewhat shameless self-promotion]

Creative Pitch - don't throw away your chance to help

One man's expensive garbage is another man's expensive art supplies. Creative Pitch coordinates collecting disgarded arts materials from the Chicago design and marketing community and puts them in the hands of teachers and students who need them the most. Think of it as a Second Harvest program for young creative minds.

Reporters Without Borders

According to Reporters without Borders, an organization working to protect freedom of the press around the world, 77 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the start of fighting in March 2003. Two are still missing.

The US ranked 44th in their 2005 World Press Freedom Index. However, the US in Iraq ranked 137th, only 30 places higher than the lowest ranked North Korea.

Anti-Advergaming

The folks at Persuasive Games have made the antidote to corporate sponsored video games (a.k.a. advergames): Disaffected!, a free downloadable game for Mac or PC in which you get to experience the life draining existence of a Kinko's store employee (assuming you aren't one already).

via Boing Boing

Design Cares, it really does!

Design Cares has recently revamped their gallery of socially conscious design from around the world. The collection is still pretty small, but they are accepting submissions, so why not send yours today?

There's no business like no business.

According to a recent report from the Design Council 35% of 78 UK design colleges surveyed said that business skills weren't relevant at all for their students.

Only 27% said they are essential, with an additional 27% saying they were somewhat important.

The full reports can be read in this PDF.

(thanks Priya)

Pentagon to families: Go ahead, laugh

According to USA Today (January 13, 2006) the Pentagon has a strategy against war stress for military familys: learn to laugh. "We believe our program prevents hardening of the attitudes". They've even appointed a position for Chief Laughter Instructor.

No joke.

Sprawl for Your Wall

Ever seen the beauty in the sprawl we all live in? My friend Jason Brockert paints a strange mixture of love, beauty and creepiness that exists in the our sprawl driven environment.

After a few years of obsessing about malls he is now beginning to move to the ubiquitous parking lot. I am looking forward to the new series after getting this little taste.

http://www.jasonbrockert.com

Baby Bush - brain food for the average child

Face it: not every child grows up to be Einstein. An exciting range of products for the resoundingly average child. The Lil' Looming Disaster Pillow ensures your child never forgets that the world is full of bad people plotting evil deeds.

The midnight sky over Faluja

Bureau of Atomic Tourism

The Bureau of Atomic Tourism is dedicated to the promotion of tourist locations around the world that have either been the site of atomic explosions, display exhibits on the development of atomic devices, or contain vehicles that were designed to deliver atomic weapons. Bring lots and lots of sunblock. Lots of sunblock.

Bureau of Atomic Tourism

Tree Free

Need an easy guide to recycled papers and their contents? I did today, and look what I found.

Scanning Green

Spotted in Ode Magazine's Organic Top 40:

Hewlett-Packard offers the HP ScanJet 4070 Photosmart Scanner: no glue, no paint, and no embedded metal fasteners, and 100% post consumer recycled plastic.