Unintentional Flag Burning

This accidental political statement is brought to you by iStockphoto.com.
When one of their images is downloaded an exceptional amount they place a flame at the top edge...

Spotted by Jason. Thanks!

The Meatrix II: Revolting

Our friends at Free Range Graphics have just released the next installment of their entertaining pro-organics Flash movie parody series: The Meatrix II: Revolting.

Magic Creative Commons Kingdom

Get your free Creative Commons licensed downloadable Disney inspired fonts before the Mouse roars about it.

Cavity Creeps!

Yet another green business goes big time corporate: Colgate to buy natural products company Tom's of Maine.

Hurricane Poster Project

Over 100 different lovely posters are for sale to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina (like the one from Hatch Show Print pictured at left) via the Hurricane Poster Project.


Don't know how I missed this til now!
via Social Design Notes AND SocialDesignZine

Charting the War (and more)

The Christian Science Monitor has published some great visual charts recently...

The most recent is an overview of the war in Iraq. The downloadble PDF and web viewable FlashPaper shows a wide range of data from casualties by province, to telephone subscribers in the area from 2003 to today. You can also read the accompanying article here.

Also worth checking out is the state of the world's water, published appropriately enough on World Water Day. PDF and Flash. Or just read the article here.

One of us!

The Graphic Alliance, a group dedicated to bringing together socially conscious design folks, is looking to expand its membership base (and develop a working board of directors). To that end ALR Design (as a member of the Transitional Directorship) agreed to create a promotional poster for the organization (kudos to our intern Jason Anthony Taylor for his excellent design/illustration work on this project). The poster is available as a print-ready PDF here.

Please consider pasting it up on a wall near you (and joining the GA if you haven't already)!

The State of Liberty goes green

The Statue of Liberty's torch will burn with a greener glow now that it and its neighbor Ellis Island will be powered entirely with wind generated electricity. From the Christian Science Monitor article:

By the end of this month, 100 percent of the electricity that powers the Old Lady in the Harbor and Ellis Island, where millions of Americans first set foot in America, will be "green power." Windmills in West Virginia and Pennsylvania will supply the electricity that powers up the floodlights that shine on Miss Liberty's torch and the air conditioning that keeps all those immigration records from mildewing...

The General Services Administration (GSA), which runs US government facilities, has been switching over to green power for some time. In the Northeast and Caribbean (Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands) regions of the country, 33 percent of the electricity usage, or about 75 million kilowatt hours, are now renewable energy. These include buildings such as the Peter Rodino Office Building in Newark, N.J., and New York's 26 Federal Plaza, which houses the GSA and the FBI. Until the latest contract was signed, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island received half their electricity from green sources.

The future of activism?

More and more folks are utilizing cell phones as a means of getting activist messages out. MobileActive.org gives a great overview of how the technology is being used.

Chopsticks Tax

China introduced a tax on chopsticks to help reduce the amount of destruction/waste created by the disposable utensils. From the BBC article:

The Chinese government is introducing a 5% tax on disposable wooden chopsticks in a bid to preserve its forests.

It produces about 45 billion pairs of chopsticks a year, consuming millions of trees and bamboo plants.

The move came as China said it would raise some consumption taxes next month in a bid to help the environment and narrow the gap between rich and poor.

Taxes on yachts, luxury watches, golf clubs, gas-guzzling cars and wooden floor panels are rising by 5-20%.

The latest corporate sponsorship opportunity: Moose

A small town in southern Norway is offering corporate naming rights to local moose to raise funds for research. From the AP article:

Township wildlife officials wanted to put radio tracking collars on 25 moose, so they could study their movements for two years. But the project was too expensive, at more than 400,000 kroner (about $68,000 Cdn).So they enlisted the moose themselves to do a little fundraising.
For a donation of 5,000 kroner ($845 Cdn), the team will name a moose after a sponsoring company, organization or individual.
...

So far, the sponsors have been companies, leaving the moose with names like Telenor, the Norwegian telecommunications group, and Interoptikk Brillehjoernet, an opticians' chain.

Wal-Mart goes Organic

So what happens when the world's largest retailer starts carrying organic products? We'll find out soon... From the AP article:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is throwing its weight behind organic products, a move that experts say could have the same lasting effect on environmental practices that Wal-Mart has had on prices by forcing suppliers and competitors to keep up.

Putting new items on the shelf this year, from organic cotton baby clothes to ocean fish caught in ways that don't harm the environment, is part of a broader green policy launched last year to meet consumer demand, cut costs for things like energy and packaging and burnish a battered reputation.

Organic products are one lure for the more affluent shoppers Wal-Mart is trying to woo away from rivals like Target Corp., said Alice Peterson, president of Chicago-based consultancy Syrus Global.

...

Some Wal-Mart critics call the effort just a public relations job. But others say Wal-Mart could make a real difference if the retailer brings a critical mass of organic products to market and pushes enough suppliers to adopt green practices.

Thanks Scott

The Oil Economy

OilStandard is a new plug-in for the Firefox browser that converts prices to their equivalent value in barels of oil. It's a free download here.

via BoingBoing

She fought the law, and the law won.

My friend, artist Barbara Nitke, fought an unfair obscenity law all the way to the supreme court only to have them refuse to act on it. From her letter:

I am deeply disappointed. I believe their decision was motivated by the current political climate, and not based on our constitution or the law. The good news is that we have proven that the current obscenity laws don't work and we've changed the way future obscenity cases will be judged . We have also brought public attention to our government's attempt at criminalizing free speech on the Internet.

--[some background]--

This law makes it a felony crime in the United States to put obscene material on the Internet, in effect criminalizing free speech. Material is obscene if it is found by a jury to appeal to the prurient interest in sex and be patently offensive according to local community standards, and if it does not have serious literary, artistic, political or scientific social value (usually called the SLAPS test). These standards for judging obscenity were established in the 1973 Supreme Court ruling, Miller v. California....

When I decided to create a website of my fine art photography work in early 2001, I asked John Wirenius and other lawyers what they thought would be legally permissible. I was told that my images of loving SM couples and people behind the scenes on porn sets might be acceptable in New York where I live, but obscene to people living in other areas. Therefore it was impossible to say what was safe for me to put on a website and be within the law.

Read the full details here
See Barbara Nitke's work here
Find out about NItke's co-plaintiff the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom here

Activist Artist Call for Entries

From Justseeds:

Each year the Bread and Roses Cultural Project of 1199SEIU produces a Social Justice calendar. The calendar includes quotes and images that relate to the experience of being a part of the Labor Movement. The calendar is a celebration of working class culture. We are looking for artists to include in the calendar and possibly in other Labor Movement projects. Artists included in the calendar receive $1200 for the reproduction rights of their work. The work will appear in the calendar and possibly in posters, note cards, and other products. The artist will be invited to include work in the calendar show at the Martin Luther King Jr. Labor Center in NYC. This show will include an opening and media attention.

• Bread and Roses is looking for work about immigration and the diversity of the new American workforce.

• Bread and Roses is looking for work that is inclusive and celebrates working class culture. Our aim is to build and support a wide-ranging Labor Movement.

• Bread and Roses is looking for work that is beautiful and not didactic.

• Each image in the calendar is matched with a quote. Some of the quotes used in the past have been:
“WE MAKE THE ROAD BY WALKING” – ANTONIO MACHADO
“GO WHERE THERE IS SILENCE AND SAY SOMETHING” –AMY GOODMAN
“IT STARTS WITH THE HEART AND RADIATES OUT” – CESAR CHAVEZ
“OUR COUNTRIES ARE LINKED TO ONE ANOTHER THROUGH OUR SHARED HUMANITY” –AUNG SAN SUU KYI
“IF YOU HAVE COME TO HELP ME, YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME. BUT IF YOU HAVE COME BECAUSE YOUR LIBERATION IS BOUND UP WITH MINE, LET US WALK TOGETHER.” –LILLA WATSON
“THE PEACE I AM THINKING OF IS THE DANCE OF AN OPEN MIND WHEN IT ENGAGES ANOTHER EQUALLY OPEN ONE” –TONI MORRISON

• Please send examples of work to Zoeann.Murph [at] gmail.com or mail examples to:
Zoeann Murphy
Troy Workforce Development Center
24 Fourth Street
Troy, NY 12180

The calendar is produced by The Bread and Roses Cultural Project of 1199SEIU and the SEIU Greenhouse Program. SEIU stands for the Service Employees International Union. These two non-profits have joined to create a national arts program because art plays a critical part in building a renewed and dynamic labor movement - one richly enhanced by the heart and soul that art provides. For more information about Bread and Roses check out www.bread-and-roses.com.

Wyclef Jean + Haiti + ALR Design

One of ALR Design's clients Yéle Haiti, a brainchild of former Fugees member Wyclef Jean, is featured in a recent Christian Science Monitor article:

Jean's Yéle Haiti organization - launched last year to find and fund groups working in education, healthcare, and the environment - is already making a difference in the neediest communities. And it is an increasingly visible - and audible - force for change across the country.

Jean's early success here, observers say, lies in his star power and reluctance to get involved in politics. This uniquely positions him to be a unifier in a stratified country, bringing together rich and poor, black and mulatto, and those in opposing political camps.

...Today, through Yéle, 20 schools have been rebuilt, more than 2,000 people who weren't regularly receiving basic food now are, 1,700 previously unemployed men and women of all ages are working to clean the streets, and 3,754 students are receiving scholarships. With ongoing support from ComCEL, Yéle has pledged to almost double the number of scholarships in 2006, and is rolling out program expansions in higher education, environmental awareness, sports, food distribution, and HIV prevention.

Read the entire story here.

Charge!

Is there such thing as a socially responsible credit card? Co-op America reviews the best and worst credit card companies and gives its two cents on how to avoid the evils of the mega-banks (and thus feel like you are doing your part to save the world as you sink deeper into debt).

Patriot Act: The Game!

The folks at Graphix4Change have created: Patriot Act, the Home Version. This free, downloadable parody of Monopoly is based on real stories of the Patriot Act affects our civil liberties. Have fun!

Link suggested by Sarah, thanks!

Habeas Schmabeas

This American Life, the hands-down best show on radio, had an incredible episode on the reality of Guantanamo Bay and the meaning of Habeas Corpus last week. If you know anyone who believes that the prison is filled with the worst-of-the-worst and is helping protect the world from terrorists should be coerced into listening to this amazing episode, an extended version of which can be listened to in streaming Real Audio here.

Music is Dead, Long Live Music

Bill Drummond of KLF/JAMS/Timelords fame is back with a new open-source Fluxus style music project: The 17.
The site contains series of downloadable Notices and Scores that explain how you can be a part of The 17. From their manifesto:

ALL KNOWN MUSIC HAS RUN ITS COURSE.
IT HAS ALL BEEN CONSUMED, TRADED, DOWNLOADED, UNDERSTOOD, HEARD BEFORE, SAMPLED, LEARNED, REVIVED, JUDGED AND FOUND WANTING.
DISPENSE WITH ALL PREVIOUS FORMS OF MUSIC AND MUSIC-MAKING AND START AGAIN.
YEAR ZERO NOW.

via WFMU

Sticking it to the Man, from the Inside

Tired of just protesting corporate evil from the outside? If you become a big enough share holder you can protest in the board room. Here's a great overview of the whys and hows of Shareholder Activism from Friends of The Earth.

Libre Graphics Today-Sunday in Lyon

If you're near Lyon, France you might want to check out the Libre Graphics Meeting this weekend:

The first Libre Graphics Meeting will be held on 17, 18 and 19 March 2006 in Lyon, France in the Ecole d'Ingénieurs CPE on the university campus at La Doua, Villeurbanne.

LGM will be a melting pot, with free software graphics developers and artists meeting each other, exchanging ideas and tips, and planning the future of free graphics. Graphics professionals interested in learning about the state of the art in free software are also welcome.


The conference will be all about participation. Artists and developers, feel free to bring your laptops and tablets, and show us what you can (and can't) do. Organise a BOF about your favourite project or feature. We're aiming for a bazaar.

The conference is free to attend, and open to all.

via Graphic Alliance mailing list

iTunes for fonts

If font book on the mac is not good enough but you are as cheap as I am (buy suitcase? yeah right) check out the new free font management tool from linotype. Why is it free? Well you aren't too cheap to buy that font right? Right?

Linotype Font Explorer

Mad as a Hatter

The Mad Hatter went crazy from mercury poisoning*, and you could too...if you eat enough fish containing the toxic metal. Find out how much you consume with the handy Mercury Calculator.

*He really did.

Swords Into Plowshares Updated

A musician in Bogota has fashioned guitars out of rifles in response to the violence he's witnessed in his country. From the Miami Herald article:

The escopetarra [gun + guitart in Spanish] landed in the hands of then Bogotá Mayor Antanas Mockus. Others went to Argentine rocker Fito Páez and to the United Nations. Colombian rocker Juanes recently auctioned off his for charity. López says other requests for the novel instruments have come from Colombian pop star Shakira and Brazilian musicians Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso.

''We're not trying to sell them or get someone to pay for them. We're just trying to get the word out,'' López told The Miami Herald.

The strategy seems to be working. In January, Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos promised López 12 AK-47 assault rifles, the first three from a 2-year-old peace process between the government and right-wing paramilitaries -- known by their acronym AUC -- that has led to the demobilization of about 24,000 fighters and the surrender of thousands of weapons.

The AUC has been fighting left-wing guerrillas here for 20 years. The rebels have been fighting the government for 40 years. The war leaves as many as 3,000 soldiers and civilians dead every year.

''We don't only want weapons from the AUC, but from all the groups, including the army,'' López said. "We want people to see that all the groups are turning in their weapons.''

via Boing Boing

Ruh-Roh!

Check out these clever/disturbing ads from the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) posted at Houtlust.

I told you so.

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) thumb their nose at pundits, who criticized pessimistic views of the Iraq war, by putting together a great collection of media quotes from the early days of the conflict. Here are just a few...

"Iraq Is All but Won; Now What?"
(Los Angeles Times headline, 4/10/03)


"Now that the combat phase of the war in Iraq is officially over, what begins is a debate throughout the entire U.S. government over America's unrivaled power and how best to use it."
(CBS reporter Joie Chen, 5/4/03)


"Congress returns to Washington this week to a world very different from the one members left two weeks ago. The war in Iraq is essentially over and domestic issues are regaining attention."
(NPR's Bob Edwards, 4/28/03)


"Tommy Franks and the coalition forces have demonstrated the old axiom that boldness on the battlefield produces swift and relatively bloodless victory. The three-week swing through Iraq has utterly shattered skeptics' complaints."
(Fox News Channel's Tony Snow, 4/27/03)


"The only people who think this wasn't a victory are Upper Westside liberals, and a few people here in Washington."
(Charles Krauthammer, Inside Washington, WUSA-TV, 4/19/03)


"We had controversial wars that divided the country. This war united the country and brought the military back."
(Newsweek's Howard Fineman--MSNBC, 5/7/03)


"We're all neo-cons now."
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)

Read the rest here.

AOHell

Well, if you didn't already think AOL was evil, perhaps their new E-mail Tax will push you over the edge. It might not affect individual users that much (at first), but groups like riseup.net that manage listservs for activist groups are rightly concerned that small activist organizations (with small budgets) may end up the most harmed. Read more and register your concern as an individual here or as a representative of your organization here.

High-density polyethyltastic!

Corny but true, Biota Spring Water has perfected a corn-plastic technology for it's Rocky Mountain spring Water, making it the first commercially compostable plastic bottle made from 100% corn. It's still in the prototype stage, but if you were lucky enough to find yourself wandering the red carpet at this year's Oscars, check out your goodie bag for a closer look.

Blue Vinyl

The documentary Blue Vinyl follows the adventures of a Long Island woman bent on understanding the roll polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plays in the renovation of her parents suburban home - wait, it's funny though. Cancer anyone?

Pigs save girls from slavery in Nepal

A program in Nepal keeps families from selling their daughters into indentured slavery by giving them piglets to raise. From the story in the Christian Science Monitor:

Since 2001, NYOF has been offering local fathers a piglet in exchange for a promise to keep their daughters at home and in school for the year. There is an economic advantage: A piglet fed on table scraps can net a family $100 at auction by year's end [A girl's average annual wage is $50]. Since the piglet program began, more than 1,600 girls have been spared from bonded labor, including 500 this year.

NYOF link

Treehugger TV

The inimitable Treehugger website has a nice new video podcast: Treehugger TV.
Each 3-minute or so episode features a mini-overview on a different green subject. There are only three episodes so far (Trike Taxi, Swaporamarama, and Farm to the Table), so it's easy to get caught up.

Socially Conscious Design Blogging

Having only recently started this blog, it's excited to discover how many other folks around the world are blogging on the same topic! I mentioned Houtlust from the Netherlands last week and here are three others I ran into recently while doing research, all worth checking out:

Creative Aid: Philippines
Social Design Zine: Italy
1+1=1: Germany

I'm sure there are tons more and hopefully I'll be discovering them soon!

Branding for Nonprofits

Allworth Press has just published Branding for Nonprofits. I haven't gotten a copy yet, but it was written by D.K. Holland, a regular writer for Communication Design on social design issues, so it should be a great resource.

via Social Design Notes

Social Marketing Gallery

The blog, Houtlust is a veritable conucopia of international social marketing campaigns. The site, which has only been around since September of 2005, is filled to the brim with both print and video of great work (like the example at left, on media censorship from the Polish Amnesty International) that normally you'd have to page through expensive annuals to discover . Definitely worth checking daily (I know I will be).

No War Fonts

The No War Fonts are 6 free downloadable dingbat fonts from German design firm Greige. They contain a variety of polical/millitary/activist images that are perfect for your next protest sign.

via 1+1=1

Pink Book

If you're doing socially responsible marketing you might want to take a peek at the Pink Book.
Originally developed by the National Cancer Institute to guide its health communications program, this handbook is now available online for everyone to take advantage of the research they've done on effective social marketing of health issues.

Environmental Film Festival in The Nation's Capital

14th Annual Environmental Film Festival in The Nation's Capital
Thursday March 16th - Sunday March 26th, 2006

Featuring 100 Documentary, Feature, Animated, Archival, Experimental and Children's Films. Most are free and include discussion.

"The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery – not over nature but of ourselves." —Rachel Carson, The Silent Spring

[Coinciding with the arrival of spring in the nation’s capital, the 2006 Environmental Film Festival celebrates the beauty and significance of our environment while promoting advocacy for its responsible stewardship. Whether we recognize it or not, environment is pervasive and plays a central role in our daily lives, health and future.]

http://www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org

File under "Duh!".

Big surprise here...the rest of the world believes that threat of terrorism is greater not lessened thanks to our war in Iraq. From the BBC article:

Some 60% of people in 35 countries surveyed believe this is the case, against just 12% who think terrorist attacks have become less likely.

In most countries, more people think removing Saddam Hussein was a mistake than think it was the right decision.

Why We Fight

Check out the trailer for the new documentary about the US Military Industrial Complex: Why We Fight

Playing with Evolution

Very cool game demonstration of a game where you design and evolve creatures in a 3d world. The system shares your design with other players to help create a complete eco-system. So sweet and yet so violent... Google Video

via Design Geeks

Walmart and the Blog

Look out! The future of the blog is upon us. If one ever had any doubt about the increasing importance of the blog and the internet it is gone now.

Read the Ny Times article.

via Huffington Post

Should we stay or should we go?

Stars & Stripes, the military newspaper, quotes a Zogby poll saying 72% of troops in Iraq think we should pull out within a year. From the article:

The survey of 944 troops, conducted in Iraq between Jan. 18 and Feb. 14, said that only 23 percent of servicemembers thought U.S. forces should stay “as long as they are needed.”

Of the 72 percent, 22 percent said troops should leave within the next six months, and 29 percent said they should withdraw “immediately.” Twenty-one percent said the U.S. military presence should end within a year; 5 percent weren’t sure.

Read the entire article here.

Political Videogames

From Italy comes subversive videogame company Molleindustria.
Their current titles include:
A virtual McDonalds
Queer Power: adventures in Queerland
TuboFlex: the future of human resources
Tamatipico: virtual Socialist worker!

Ready to play?

via boingboing

Intellectual Property™

The March/April 2006 issue of Mother Jones has a spread on the history/current state of Intellectual Property. It features such highlights as:

MICROSOFT UK held a contest for the best film on “intellectual property theft”; finalists had to sign away “all intellectual property rights” on “terms acceptable to Microsoft.”

NEARLY 20% of the 23,688 known human genes are patented in the United States. Private companies hold 63% of those patents.

FOR INCLUDING a 60-second piece of silence on their album, the Planets were threatened with a lawsuit by the estate of composer John Cage, which said they’d ripped off his silent work 4’33”. The Planets countered that the estate failed to specify which 60 of the 273 seconds in Cage’s piece had been pilfered.

Hello Rabbi!

The Japanese Niwano Peace Foundation will award its 2006 Peace Prize to Rabbis for Human Rights. The group promotes the Jewish tradition of human rights and applies it in the form of direct action for the needs Israelis and Palastinians alike.

Media Mashups Rule

Click to watch this excellent mashup video by Franklin Lopez.

Today in History

Today in History (Link) is a great daily dose of American History filled with neat archived material from the Library of Congress.
This is part if the Library's efforts to digitize its collections and make them widely available - 'American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity.'

Ask. Tell.

The Call To Duty Tour, now rolling through the Southern part of the US, challenges the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy from the inside. The tour, which goes to college campuses, features speakers who understand the policy firsthand: gay soldiers, most of whom were discharged or felt uncomfortable reenlisting due to their sexuality.