Attention California Voters: NO on 8 & YES on 2

My friend Jess at Roughstock Studios has made a lovely poster to remind California voters to vote NO on the anti-gay marriage Prop 8. Download a printable version on her site HERE.















And The Humane Society with Freerange Studios encourage California voters to vote YES on Prop 2 via this entertaining video...

Election Tasks

Several groups are asking you to do a bit more on election day...

The independent Video The Vote and YouTube/PBS's Video Your Vote both want to make sure that you have fair and equal access to voting in your community. To that end they're asking folks to document the process in video and then share it on their sites. Both sites currently contains a large number of videos about the run up to the election and is sure to be a good post-election resource. Take part HERE or HERE.

And The New York Times has partnered with the AIGA to encourage citizen journalism in their Polling Place Photo Project. Get involved on their site HERE.

Errol Morris's Obama Interviews

Documentarian Erol Morris created a series of People in The Middle for Obama shorts for People for the American Way...



Visit the People in the Middle for Obama site to all of see the individual interviews.

via Boing Boing

Lacy Guns

Love these filét crocheted guns by Inger Carina.

Spotted in NYC: Office Space

Saw this amazing chandelier made out of thousands of paperclips at Metropolitan Home's Showtime House. It's designed by Gary Ponzo and costs thousands of dollars, though with an excess of office supplies and a long weekend you could probably make your own DIY version for just a few bucks!

Vote Wassup '08

The popular commercial from 1999/2000 gets an excellent modern day update (by the original performers) with a political twist...



from 60 Frames
via Boing Boing

An Unreal Candidate

Hunter Branson wants your vote for the presidential election this year. Never heard of him? That's because he was the invention of students at the Creative Circus in Atlanta, Georgia. Led by teacher Berwyn Hung, the students hired a fellow student to play the part of Hunter Branson, a fictional candidate, for whom they then crafted a platform, party, website, merchandise, etc. The results (including rallies) were believable enough to get donations (to charities, rather than the campaign) and postitive feedback from people who discovered the website during the primaries earlier this year.

Hunter Branson 2008 website

Yes We Carve!

Yes We Carve is definitely one of the more entertaining side-effects of having our elections so close to Halloween. The group encourages folks to show their support by carving Obama themed pumpkins! They even have an appropriately modified "O" logo. The site features daily images as well as free stencils, contests, and more. This video shows a selection of the submissions...

Happy Days Are Here Again

Ron Howard (and friends) are willing to go to great lengths to get you to vote for Obama this year...



from Funny or Die!

via BoingBoing

Spotted in NYC: One man's trash...

The great thing about New York City is you can go around spray painting trash gold in the middle of the day and nobody will bother you. I actually spotted the two guys doing this, (carefully lifting up each piece, painting it over a piece of paper and then putting it back where it was), but left them alone to do their thing and then came back later to document. It was only for about half a block on 14th street and the trail seemed to emanate from a recently painted city works structure, that was a remarkably similar gold color. Preplanned public art or spur of the moment amusement? Either way I find it really satisfying.

Made in China

Not long ago, Sara Bongiorni wrote a book about trying to live without using anything manufactured in China called "A year without `Made in China'" not so much as an idealistic stance against fair-trade, job loss or trade deficits, but just to see if it could be done.

In this short film, independent filmmaker Prajna Core explores the same theme through a fast-paced collage of items Made in China found around Prajna's home.

Spotted in NYC: I'm glad I'm a vegetarian...

On my last trip to NYC I got to check out Banksy's latest installation: The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill. Open just until the end of October, this unassuming pet store contains a menagerie of animatronic "animals" including slithering hot dogs in buns, swimming fish sticks, a monkey watching monkey porn, a leopard that's not what it seems, an aged Tweety Bird, and more, all surrounded by pet toys and packaged meat products. While the idea of blurring the line between animals as pets/companions VS animals as food/clothing/entertainment is not particularly deep, the fact that the invitingly playful shop is not in a museum and free to the public, means it will most likely have a greater impact than many other attempts to do the same by sincere animal rights activists. It also helps that everything is impeccibly made and moves in an eerily realistic way. The pictures I took really don't do it justice so definitely check out the videos HERE. And be sure to see it in person if you are in the NYC area.

It's not my fault!

The folks at MoveOn.org have created a great little customizable parody news video to remind you that your vote is important this election. Here are a few screen shots from the one I got from them.

Make one for your friends HERE.

Donation Meter

Denver's Road Home's Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness features a clever means of raising awareness (and donations): The Donation Meter...




via Uncivil Society
image by msitarzewski

Haustalks: Richmond, VA

Folks in the Richmond, Virginia area should check out Haustalk, a series of free, monthly socially conscious design forms curated by John O'Neil of Thinkhaus Design at Gallery 5.

The upcoming schedule is as follows...

October 22
Living, Working, and Designing Green: Eco Friendly Consciousness, Part 2
Gallery 5, 7:00 PM

Featuring:
Jocelyn Tice, owner of Green Duck
Green Duck Biodegradables is a local company that makes plant-based packaging available to customers who strive to be Green.

Copeland Casati, President of Green Modern Kits
Green Modern Kits is a team of green architects, house kit fabricators, industrial designers, and furniture craftsmen who produce eco friendly affordable green housing and furniture plans.

Scott Kyle, Founder of Full Scale Architecture
Full Scale Architecture believes advanced green is better than good design. It’s great design. It’s not just about aesthetic appeal, but environmental harmony. And it’s not just sustainable, but regenerative.

November 19
Ethnic and Racial Stereotypes In Mass Media
Gallery 5, 7:00 PM

Featuring:
VCU Graphic Design Sophomore Students
A group of students from the VCU Graphic Design Department, School of the Arts, will be presenting their research on how ethnic and racial stereotypes are currently being used in advertising, brands, and other media outlets.

The Conciliation Project
The Conciliation Project is a social justice nonprofit theatre company in Richmond that develops and conducts theatre performances concerning the historical legacy of racism in America. The theatre performers will be discussing their plays and will provide an overview of the history of racism in America.

December 17
The Gift of Design: Design It Yourself (DIY)
Gallery 5, 7:00 PM

Gallery 5
200 W. Marshall St.
Richmond, Virginia 23220
Phone: 804 644-0005
gallery 5@gallery5arts.org

Beware of 9/11

A recent episode of Current's SuperNews reminds us of what we really have to fear...



Thanks Leah!

Naomi Klein on Colbert Report

Author Naomi Klein (No Logo) talks about her recent book The Shock Doctrine with Stephen Colbert...



Thanks Jeff!

Blog Action Day: Poverty

Today is Blog Action Day and this year's subject is poverty.

The July/August issue of Mother Jones featured an excellent series of articles on the state of the prison industry in the United States called "Slammed: The Coming Prison Meltdown".

The series starts off with the frightening statistic that 1 in 4 of worldwide prisoners is the US. And it's no wonder then that a large portion of those inmates come from the lower economic brackets.

The article Probation Profiteers, about the outsourcing of the justice system in Georgia and the disastrous effects it has on the poor (not unlike the payday loan industry), is particularly telling:

Lawrence Holt, a thin, 24-year-old African American man, is a supervisor at a mattress factory in Americus. He's held the job for three years, but lives in the projects and, like every member of his family before him, hits the bottle hard. He's been on probation since November, because of an arrest for driving under the influence a few days after his brother died of diabetes. By April, he had paid his original $600 fine, but had $645 to go to cover Middle Georgia's fees. He told me he wouldn't mind paying if his probation officer would only help him get treatment. "I throw up blood," he said. "I just can't stop drinking because I got so many problems in my head. I have asked, 'Can y'all find somebody to help me with my alcohol problem?' 'Sir, we can't do that. We don't do that.'".

A few statistics that accompany the article:

48 states prohibit prisoners from voting. 30 states also exclude felons on probation. In Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee, and Virginia, certain ex-felons lose their voting privileges for life.

13% of black men currently have no voting privileges.

5.3 million Americans will not have the right to vote this November due to felony convictions.

So what's to be done about it? The article "The Shawnee Redemption" shows how one county in Kansas has found a way to offer ex-cons a way out of the system by focusing on the concept of "reentry"...

Companies were encouraged to look to prisoner education as a source of skilled labor: Kansas convinced a snowplow manufacturer to relocate to the state by training prisoners to be welders. And when the state's Department of Wildlife and Parks heard that reentry prisoners were doing carpentry for a housing nonprofit, it recruited them to build lakeside cabins. The felons were then hired to fix up abandoned houses in Topeka. By 2006, there were 401 fewer people in prison in Kansas for violating parole than expected, saving $13.8 million in operating costs. The state used $7 million of that for community programs such as job training and drug treatment.

Even more importantly...

When Brown [a convict offered work-release after participating in a reentry program] sat down with her "release team" consisting of substance abuse and corrections counselors, police and parole officers, the reentry program director, mental health, housing, and job specialists, a business developer, a volunteer mentor, and Obregon [parole officer], she brought a notebook filled with her goals: regaining custody of her children, keeping a job, getting her driver's license, no more abusive relationships. When she finally walked out of prison in June 2007, she was greeted at the gates by four reentry staffers, who took her to her new apartment. A couple of parole officers helped her unpack. Obregon took her to a food bank, arranged a doctor's appointment, and helped her get an ID.

Read these articles and the other ones from the section in their entirely HERE.

30 More Resons

If you didn't already have enough reasons to vote for a change in the coming election, 30 Reasons is providing a daily additional one from October 7th to November 4th. Each day a new downloadable poster by a different graphic designer (many of them by familiar names like Milton Glaser and Chaz Maviyane-Davies) is posted. You can even sign up to be notified as new ones are added. Check them out HERE.

Thanks Mica!

At least it's not Freedom Fries...

If you needed confirmation of how the rest of the world perceives America, this cookie from France may help. My friend brought back these "international" treats from Paris that feature a series of stereotypical images for all of the countries included (samurai for Japan, ice fisherman for Greenland, etc.). So what's chosen to represent the good 'ol US of A? Some cracked out fast food of course!

Make your toilet into Art

The clever folks at Atypyk have taken Duchamp's classic subversion of modern art "Fountain" to the next logical level by making his signature into a sticker to add to your own toilet! I'm actually kinda surprised it's taken this long for it to happen.

Thanks for stopping by, and please check out the gift shop

America: the Giftshop is an art installation project that uses commerce as a mirror on foreign policy. A walk-through installation of memorabilia from the last eight years of our shared experience on this rock. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you think, and sadly, it will probably make you want to make a purchase somewhere along the line. For shame.

I Melt For No One?

Am I the only one that finds this deeply disturbing on many levels?