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Amazons with a Cause

Jasmina Tesanovic — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:41:55 +0000

Why are women first to pay for every crisis? In every society, capitalist, socialist, or transition? It's because the bodies of women are expendable.

I always noticed how women over eighty in Turin looked incredibly well, beautiful and loved and taken care of: desirable, because old and valuable. I connected this to Italy's long-established and sophisticated health care system. Italian hospitals were famous for methods which preserved the dignity of the patients, in tumor cures, especially breast cancer: the "invisible mastectomy" was invented in Milan. Rather than simply intervening in crisis, they were good at illness prevention and attentive follow-ups.

The economic crisis and financial harassment of Italy has reached this safe haven of health and dignity. In Turin, one of the best clinics for cure and prevention of breast cancer is about to be closed. The patients are on the streets, their appointments cannot be scheduled, they are paying for their urgent operations because their doctors cannot help them. The doctors are on the streets too.

Public health care in Italy was guaranteed as one of the basic human rights: without class race of gender discrimination. We are all equal in front of death.

The Valdesian hospital was founded by Italy's Protestant minority; it was about spirituality and charity rather than the global health market. However, the church passed the hospital to the state some years ago. They naturally assumed that it was in good hands, but as this tiny church is to the state, the state is to the market.

Although "Italy is not a brothel," as they said during the Berlusconi scandals, the flesh of women is negotiable by other means.

Protests, sit-ins and negotiations have failed to save the hospital. So last weekend, Turinese women decided to take action. They organized a public booth to photograph their breasts anonymously.

They plan to release an affresco of hundreds of their depersonalized female bodies, as a warning.

They are merely doing publicly what the hospital did less visibly.

Next step is the big demo planned for December first, to be followed by a sit-in for December 7th. On that day, the police are scheduled to shut physically the hospital.

It was a place of solace where women felt like respected human beings, and the attack on it has made them into Amazons with a cause.

The Likes of Me: a dispatch from Jasmina Tesanovic

Jasmina Tesanovic — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:24:14 +0000

"Lunchtime at Rosa House, a woman-run shelter in Zagreb, Croatia. Photo by Center for Women War Victims. From "The Suitcase: Refugee Voices from Bosnia and Croatia."

A couple of days ago, the two former members of the Croatian military won a "not guilty" sentence in the Hague international war crime tribunal.

I was not present in the general headquarters of the Croatian army while they were deciding on their "Operation Storm" action of 1995. I don't know if the telephone rang there. I also don't know if President Bill Clinton personally told them to go ahead with the largest land offensive since World War II, because the CIA would help. That is what certain Serbian newspapers published recently.

I have a remarkable lack of knowledge about world paramilitary conspiracies, secret chambers in the Vatican, mysterious double-agents doing their jobs badly. Generally, the things I know are in the public domain, because people said these things publicly and I took notes, or because I was just personally standing there.

Consider those days in August 1995, when that "Operation Storm" took place. I stood at the border between Croatia and Serbia, watching the endless caravan of people fleeing on truckbeds, in their cars, on foot, in nightgowns, in torn Serbian uniforms, with guns and babies. I talked to those people. I took photos: I personally saw newborn refugees carried in shoe boxes, babies who were born during the exodus of ethnic Serbs fleeing the Croatian army.

"Dreams of home in a gymnasium of strangers." Photo: Lisa Kahane, 1995. From "The Suitcase: Refugee Voices from Bosnia and Croatia."

I saw angry Serbian soldiers tearing off their military insignia because they were given orders by their military to abandon the region without fighting. I also saw people being given food and shelter by the local Serbian population. I heard the refugee stumbling towards an unknown destiny, since they had lost everything.

Operation Storm put a swift and sudden end in to four years of fighting for Serbian autonomy inside Croatia. The plans for a Greater Serbia torn from the fabric of Yugoslavia had been crushed by 150,000 Croatian Army troops. I heard the fleeing Serbs saying how rich and happy they had been in their rural homes. They had Croatian accents -- if you ask me, that is, a woman with a Belgrade accent. They'd been born in Croatia of a people established there for centuries, but they were keenly aware of being Serbian Orthodox non-Catholic non-Croats.

They rejected a Croatian identity and passport, preferring their own rules and ideas. Their most important aspiration was to live within the Greater Serbia promised to them by Milosevic and his generals. Some were kissing the Serbian flag and the picture of Milosevic. Most of them were tearing the flag and swearing at the broken promises and the reeling military defeat of their beloved leader.

Later, I saw the endless caravan of Krajina refugees being routed by the Serbian police outside Belgrade. Only those Serbs who had relatives in the capital were allowed enter the city. Naturally scarcely any of them could prove that. People within Belgrade did not see or hear the refugees, except for what the official Milosevic tv or radio allowed. Of course that was a thoroughly censored version of events.

I don't know where those people ended up. Their exact number is vague, it varies in the telling, from two hundred thousand to half a million displaced ethnic refugees.

Later I lived as a neighbor and friend to a family of four from Krajina. They had managed to arrive that day in Belgrade, and their entire worldly goods consisted of one suitcase and their car. The family was a man, his wife and their two teenaged sons. They were silent and bitter, never commenting on politics or speaking about their loss.

The father and the boys found work immediately, humble physical jobs. They rented two rooms in my courtyard house. All day the wife washed long shirts and sheets, so that they would stay clean and decent. Rada was a beautiful woman who once had a nice job in the municipality of Knin. I would talk to Rada privately and she would tell me how upset she was by her fate. She blamed the Serbian government for gambling with their lives.

Rada hadn't blamed Serbia before, but now they were actually living in Serbia and knew what it was like. It was a lesser Serbia rather than a greater one, and the state offered them no help: no legal papers, no money, no real jobs. When interviewed publicly, though, Rada would quickly change her story. She grew eloquent with the patriotic male version of endless anti-Croatian lament and Serbian victimhood.

I asked her why, she answered: because I told you a secret. It's the Serbs who brought us misery and not the Croats, but don't tell anybody.

"First night under a roof for refugees from Krajina." Photo: Lisa Kahane, 1995. From "The Suitcase: Refugee Voices from Bosnia and Croatia."

Things haven't changed so much since 1995, for the Serbian refugees from Croatia. No jobs no money and no papers in Serbia: no jobs no papers and no houses in Croatia. Hardly any went back to ethnically cleansed Krajina. When they did, they found that their homes and lands had been settled by other refugees, commonly Croatian ethnics thrown out of Bosnia or Serbia. Some of these new arrivals were not dramatic refugees, just everyday squatters and looters. In a war, everybody becomes uprooted. If you don't already know who the victim is, then the victim is you.

War crimes were committed on all sides, as people in Serbia are keen to point out. The Hague tribunal promised to prosecute all such crimes without fear or favor. That the Serbian army and government were especially bloodthirsty is a common knowledge in the world. But the world is the world.

But it's surprising how forgiving the world can be. Serbia was in fact acquitted of the Srebrenica genocide some years ago; Serbia is not a "genocidal regime," it's just another small regional state. A few days ago, it was further decided that "Operation Storm" and the pogroms that followed were not war crimes, just a Balkan military operation. Serbia then, and Croatia now are celebrating their public innocence. Of course the graves are still there. One has to wonder how many of the survivors believe these findings of innocence. About themselves, or the Other.

During the shelling of Sarajevo, I asked my cousin from Sarajevo about the situation. She was a Serb, so she answered me confidentially: it our own people shelling my city. But, don't tell anybody.

Somehow, she really believed she could keep that fact a secret. She also had a strange faith that sniper bullets fired downtown would hit only the Muslim enemy within her streets.

Two years ago, I happened to meet a veteran Croatian soldier from Operation Storm. Like a lot of demobilized soldiers, he was still fond of military gear, and he was wearing a "boonie hat" from an American pal who had served in Afghanistan. We began talking, and who told me how he had "liberated" an eighty year old woman in Krajina. He'd saved her from captivity among her two adult sons, who were Serbs fighting the Croatian Army. He was sure he had saved her life, and he really believed every word he said. > He too had a family, and he'd saved a captive mother from the clutches of her Serbian outlaws.

I wrote these stories down, I took photos, because I wanted to bear witness, and not to forget. I also want other people not to forget these tragedies, even though we must have the courage to go on as if the world has found us innocent. We must live our lives in peace henceforth, as if this atrocities were not committed, and although most of them will stay forever unpunished.

The courage to forgive should not mean to forget: I will never forget those three days on the Croatian border in early August 1995, writing my book "The Suitcase." The contradictions and bitter disenchantment of those betrayed people is especially memorable. But I am becoming old-fashioned, and my stories of bloody regional mayhem are frankly boring. The world is a big place, with other, newer regions of slaughter, and Balkan tales are not global bestseller material. They don't respect the time-honored James Bond canon of sex, snobbery and sadistic thrills, and even the weirdest Balkan conspiracy theories can't match up to a Dan Brown plot.

Still, somebody has to do the dirty work. Commonly, it is the women who collect the historical rubble. So, let it be the likes of me.

My night with the International Space Orchestra: Jasmina Tesanovic

Jasmina Tesanovic — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 18:49:27 +0000

The International Space Orchestra in front of Vacuum Chambers, NASA Ames Research Center. Photo: Neil Berrett.

I never dreamed I would be in a NASA base in California, singing and playing music.

The Ground Control Opera performance by Nelly Ben Hayoun, presented the International Space Orchestra, 50 local technicians and scientists, playing in the city of San Jose at the Zero1 Biennial 2012. The opera reenacts the first minutes of Neil Armstrong's landing on the Moon. It's dedicated to the memory of the recently gone cosmonauts and astronauts, and the endeavors of scientists at ground-control stations, still trying to make our 20th century dreams of spaceflight come true.

My daughter asked me when she mis-heard that I was singing for "NASA": Mom why are you singing to "NATO?" NATO bombed us in Serbia in 1999! I said my dear this is NASA, not NATO, they have planes and rockets but not bombers and missiles! They are searching for habitable planets with the Kepler space probe! Maybe there are other space controllers somewhere out there!

We've never yet settled alien planets, but maybe Silicon Valley will do. Tthe topic of this years art and science biennial is "Seeking Silicon Valley." The show was curated by five women from Korea, Brazil, Germany, Canada, and California.

The Zero1 event brought in thirty pieces of art/installations: Cell phones were methodically smashed in one installation, toasters made out of stone appeared in another, books made of internet addresses in yet another one. You could be hugged breathless by a smart chair, have your face virtually eaten by a mushroom while imagining your grave… You could play with an enormous inflated bubble which would cover you with charcoal smears -- pleasant to interact with, like a giant pet.

This art event connected to local happenings on the ground in sprawling San Jose, the self proclaimed "Capital of Silicon Valley." Silicon Valley, by its nature, is hyper realistic, inflated, shiny, soulless and somewhat scary. Unlike cities elsewhere, a perfect but lonely machine. The morning after the show and party, the Sunday sun was scorching the homeless derelicts in the emptied streets of San Jose... nobody else to be seen there.

In the conceptual essay of Gisela Domschke, one of the curators of the show, we were asked to express our ideas and feelings about the Silicon Valley.

Alessandro Ludovico: a place whose virtual importance transcend its real presence. Marcus Bastos: the counterculture ethos which shaped work environments in todays major corporations. Bruce Sterling: when will Californians realize that their gold rushes always finish ugly? Marisa Olson: I remember a picture in black and white: a handsome young visionary sitting lotus-like alone on the floor of what appears to be a large home: empty save for what appears to be a lamp!

Yes, Steve Jobs is gone now but the iPhone 5 is about to show up, here in the capital of Silicon Valley. People are already queuing to pay and play; like some mystical 13th nomadic tribe of unknown ethnic origin. The virtuals are here, like a horde of a million astronauts -- what souls do they have, what dreams?

Titanic Tales: The Costa Concordia

Jasmina Tesanovic — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:57:51 +0000

Photo: An oil removal ship is seen next to the Costa Concordia cruise ship as it ran aground off the west coast of Italy at Giglio island, January 16, 2012. Over-reliance on electronic navigation systems and a failure of judgement by the captain are seen as possible reasons for one of the worst cruise liner disasters of all time, maritime specialists say. (REUTERS/ Max Rossi)

When I read hastily the headlines on Jan 14—a shipwreck in Italy, seventy missing, three known dead—I immediately thought: it must be the Africans again. The refugees, the clandestine, the invisible, the nameless, the unwanted… Those "less-than-human" people coming from all over the world to the Italian coast, looking for a safe haven from dictatorships, from hunger.

My Somali Italian friend Suad, who works with her community In Italy now, urges her people in Somalia NOT to take that dangerous ride: even if you survive the trip, what waits for you in Italy can be fatal. Italy is in deep economic crisis today, on the verge of bankruptcy and social disorder. The new government struggling to remain a G8 power while the euro and United Europe are at stake. Italy also struggles to overcome a big moral value crisis after twenty years of Berlusconi's reign of sexism, racism, indolence and corruption.

But I was wrong about the Africans. It was a fancy cruise ship full of wealthy foreigners that wrecked unexpectedly near the island of Giglio.

The splendid Costa Concordia was 290 meters long, and had thirteen decks. The ship featured thirteen bars, five restaurants, four swimming pools and five hundred balconied staterooms.

One woman survivor testified: "It was horrible! The foreign crew was screaming in their language in panic. We broke the glass and then we fought each other to get the lifejackets."

"While we were eating dinner, the first course, the plates started to flow, the glasses all of a sudden to run and then the lights went off. Then we fell on top of each other. People were stampeding while the ship was turning upside down. Now I am trying to find a friend I lost. Her cell phone is ringing but she is not answering."

A young Serbian girl who worked in the ship's gift shop recalled:

"We had to unleash the lifeboats ourselves: the instructors who had taught us how to do that jumped into the boats. There were no signs of ship officers to calm the passengers. Eighty-year-old people in a panic were shoving children, and mothers with babies in arms, in order to save themselves..."

When passing the isle of Giglio, cruise ships often greet the inhabitants of the island with a honk of the ship's horn. They say the habit dates back to an old Italian ship captain who was from Giglio and was bidding his home goodbye. From the land, the illuminated ship looks beautiful, and from the ship it's romantic to see the dark shape of an island speckled with lights. But for the Costa Concordia, everything went wrong.

Every tragedy becomes romantic if it's the last day of your life. All ships that sink carry the aura of the Titanic. All big disasters reveal the good and bad in people tested by adversity: people transform into heroes or cowards, and you never know who lurks within your own self at that ghastly hour.

A son of two elderly parents on the ship -- they had never left their home since their honeymoon years before -- personally came with his whole family to rescue them. He managed to save his mother, but for his father, it was too late.

A quiet Korean honeymoon couple was found alive after two days of fear, hunger and cold.

An Italian actress, also a survivor, said: "I was like an idiot, completely lost! When this ship tipped over on its side I tried to stop it with my feet!" In a further irony, this actress had once starred in a film about the famous sinking of the Andrea Doria.

There were four thousand people on that cruise ship: mostly Italian and French, but also tourists from many other nations. Students on a training course, hairdressers who had won a competition excursion worth 100 000 euros, many retired people, handicapped people and children. A floating Babel of different languages and cultures: a ghost nation.

Once the Costa Concordia showed her bad karma, of course it was recalled that on the day of her launch, the bottle of champagne smashed against her bow did not break.

A bad omen.

The captain of the ship was arrested and accused of manslaughter. He was charged with abandoning his position of command by cravenly saving himself, reaching the coast where he was found on a rock while his passengers fought for their lives.

The captain, in his distress, claims that his maps did not show the "Ghost Rock" on which his ship foundered: but his crew tells a different story. A deliberate decision to cruise far too close to the coast, to the bella isola di Giglio...to whistle a fond goodbye!

Naturally the Italian social networks spread their wisecracks: That's what happens when you hit the rock of Italy, the sinking country!

Other tourist cities in Italy like Venice are changing the security rules for cruise ships. A potential ecological disaster lingers: the fuel tanks in the carcass of the Costa Concordia might rupture.

My dear friend, Maja Mitic, an actress and activist from Belgrade, was aboard the Costa Concordia. She was there on her honeymoon, and to celebrate Serbian New Years. She wrote this on her Facebook profile:

"Dear friends, Ljuba and I are finally home.... after cruising seven days on Costa Concordia where we spend our last night, Friday the 13th of January, like on the movie Titanic... thank you all for your messages... What does not kill you, make you stronger!"

Response to Boing Boing post on "Police Pad" gadgets in Georgia, from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia

Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:57:23 +0000

Editor's Note: In response to an anonymously-sourced wisecrack we published about police corruption in former Soviet states, the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs has responded with a statement, which we are more than happy to publish in full.

Georgian Police: Model for Successful Transformation

The article published on [Boing Boing on] January 12, 2012, about the initiative by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia to introduce new portable field computers (so called “Police Pads”) ends with an anonymous quote declaring that "100% guaranteed those crooked, fat, lazy cops will be using these devices primarily for porn and Russian gambling services."

Stereotypes like this are easy to toss out—but are quite simply incorrect. This quote does not reflect the productivity, effectiveness, transparency, and reliability of the police force in Georgia today, but rather the bygone era of the 1990s, a reality that has drastically changed thanks to an ambitious and successful reform process.

The reform process in Georgia began immediately after the 2003 Rose Revolution. The new government inherited a completely corrupt and bloated law-enforcement system. The systemic corruption and the high level of crime throughout the country resulted in a very low level of public trust: fewer than 10% of Georgians had confidence in the police, according to 2003 polls. And the very low average policeman's salary (approximately $68 per month) made the soliciting of bribes routine.

Georgia has since made the creation of an efficient and modern police force a national priority, undertaking a series of reforms that sought to rebuild the national police force literally from the ground up. The entire national police force was fired, and a new force hired, trained and deployed with the aim of meeting the highest international standards of professionalism.

These reforms are widely regarded as an unqualified success. Having reduced corruption and bribe taking to levels comparable to those in Europe, the police in Georgia have earned the trust and respect of the public they serve:

•According to Transparency International’s latest Global Corruption Barometer, in terms of public perception Georgia has the world’s 5th least-corrupt police force, placing it ahead of Germany or even the United States;

•According to the survey conducted by the International Republican Institute (IRI) in November 2011, 87% of population have confidence in Police;

•According to a survey funded by the EU and conducted by GORBI Institute in 2011, Georgia has one of the lowest "victimization coefficients," a measure that reflects public perceptions of crime and individual security.

On the subject of the so-called "Police Pads," reforms have transformed what was once an antiquated backlog of paper files for car imports, registries, and customs. They have been replaced with new, cutting-edge technology capable of streamlining requests and filing paperwork in record time.

Georgia has much work to do in shaking off the vestiges of nearly a century of Soviet occupation, but the transformation of our police force into a modern and professional service is an achievement that Georgians are deeply proud of, and a symbol of our commitment to retake our rightful place in the European community.

January 16, 2012
Press Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia

Photo: An employee demonstrates a "Police Pad" at the Algorithm factory in Tbilisi, Georgia, on January 11, 2012. Five thousand police officers will receive portable field computers, equipped with features that will assist them with their work, assembled at this factory, according to local media.

Rome Burns

Jasmina Tesanovic — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:13:04 +0000

Photo: La Repubblica, Italy

That is the graffiti in one of the destroyed streets in this Saturday's "indignati" demonstration. It ended in violence against the police, city security, and last but not least the pacifist organizers of the manifestation, in tune with the world wide movements OCCUPY.

The graffiti sounds like some epic motto of ancient Rome when power struggles burned palaces, libraries, and streets.

Roman life may not be too different after all, except that 2000 years later, we somehow believe that those conflicts should be resolved without arson. Maybe we are wrong. Maybe the fact that people are organized using web networks does not free them from timeless forms of treachery and palace intrigue, or the manipulation and destruction of good political intent.

Anyway, after the mayhem, the search was on for the hooded arsonists, organized through the Internet and through private video shots by participants.

Italy remembers very well the violent "Years of Lead" (late 60's to early 80's), when red and black terrorists planted bombs in public places, blasting innocent citizens in the name of their distorted concept of supreme justice. For years they rampaged beyond the reach of police, courts and other institutions.

Even today, after many years, some cases of public terrorism have not been resolved. Books have been written by important authors to explain the supposedly important difference between a red and a black bomb detonated in public. The Nobel prize authors Dario Fo wrote a play where he showed how easily the police could frame anarchists for terrorism, killing them by legal means. There was a famous question about crime: a chi giova, who profits from it?

Today decades political violence is less sophisticated and ideological. Rome on fire Oct 16 2011 could have been Belgrade Feb 18 2008, when nationalist hooligans, upset about Kosovo, burned foreign embassies.

This is how Italian press reported:

"Black bloc, the day after.

Rome woke up after the nightmare of violence. Devastated, injured, the city counts the wounds. In the streets cars are burned, roads left without precious sanpietrini stones used as bullets, the facades of banks hotels and shops destroyed, black from smoke: at least one million of euros is the damage.

135 injured people, luckily no dead. 500 violent intruders destroyed a protest of 300 000 pacific protesters: the battle lasted for 5 hours in Rome downtown: a boy has lost one eye, one men has lost two fingers and a policeman suffered a heart attack.

International day of anger, Roman version"

"You can recognize them immediately by they clothes: pants, hoodies, helmets, masks, backpacks. All in black. Sometimes they even hold a banner in front of them: we are not asking for the future we are taking the present. They individuate the target, make a cross, take off they backpack , take out their hammers and other tools and hit. They started with the cars…"

Eugenio Scalfari , in La Reppublica editorial commented:

And who are the indignitati? They are neither right or left winged., in the traditional sense of those words. They are however not conservative, they have concrete objectives: they want public goods for everybody, they have no faith in private property including the state administrated property by political and power elites.People should possess and rule the goods they have where they live as water food forests, communication networks, houses, factories hospitals. And banks should stop to exist except for elementary transactions based on use and exchange value."

It' s a sad end of an attempt in Rome of the globalized protest starting from Madrid through Occupy Wall street in NY and other 80 cities which managed a peaceful protest.

It all happened while the usual protestors where on the streets; in somewhat a bigger number: plus a feminist , an angry teacher, a perky granny, a guy who lost his job hand in hand with an extracomunitario and finally a indignado youngster. Then black bloc stormed in and all hell broke loose: the spectre of bloody Genova riots between the protestors and the police ten years ago, anni di piombo of public terrorism and police mafia 40 years ago and Rome in flames 2000 ago.

A chi giova, who profits from all this? Premiere Berlusconi has been confirmed in power again after months of public sex and corruption scandals as if nothing happened. As if indignity did not exist or protest. The Italians seem not to need a foreign enemy: they bring it all alone on themselves.

La Repubblica: "Outraged, burned the flags of Italy and the European Union"; "The broken windows"

Outfest 2011: Preview of "Boingier" fare at the world's greatest LGBT film festival

Andrea James — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 02:40:20 +0000

In July, Outfest has a slew of remarkable screenings and live events in LA. that Boing Boing readers should know about (disclosure: I'm proud to serve on the festival's board of directors).

The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye / Thee Majesty concert (July 9, 7pm. REDCAT)

Boing Boing fave and pioneering cult artists Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV) and beloved Other Half Lady Jaye (who passed away at 39 years old in 2007) are the subject of The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye. Director Marie Losier documents the loving relationship of the two soul mates and collaborators, focusing on their Pandrogyne project. As an expression of their love, the pair received simultaneous surgical procedures to merge into a third pandrogynous being. Update from Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: "It's really a love, LOVE letter to Jaye and all the casualties of the pain of bigotry and bias too many of us experience." [apologies for the inaccurate earlier description! -AJ]

Following the film, Thee Majesty will play a full set of their ambient soundscapes and spoken word, led by Genesis. This rare performance will blend poetry, performance with music improvisation, hypnotic loops and blistering noise. Sounds like a Boing Boing lullaby!

This is part of Outfest's special Platinum series 10th anniversary celebration of experimental film and performance. Save your ticket stub for cheap entry to Night Moves: The Platinum 10th Anniversary Party (July 16, 9:30pm, Alexandria Hotel) A blowout night of underground performance, art and music.

Opening night Gala (July 7, 8pm Orpheum Theatre)

We're screening Gun Hill Road, a Sundance hit about an ex-con returning home to find his teenage child is transitioning. Plus RuPaul is presenting the Outfest Achievement Award to World of Wonder's Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato, the producers of Party Monster, RuPaul's Drag Race, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Becoming Chaz, and a kajillion unscripted shows about sex and gender minorities.

Hit So Hard: The Life & Near Death Story of Patty Schemel (July 14, 8:30pm, Ford Amphitheatre)

This documentary about Hole drummer Patty Schemel gives a behind-the scenes look at the Seattle music culture of the 1990s and her collaborations and friendships with Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, and other notable Seattle musicians. Much of the film is crafted from Patty's home video and photographs, documenting the intense highs and lows of these relationships, which were often shaped by drug use that consumed her life and almost killed her.

Patty and friends will be performing after the film. Many amazing unannounced guests have shown up at other screenings to play along. This is a great outdoor venue where you can bring your own refreshments and make a night of it.

Just a few more highlights:

She Monkeys ('Mean Girls' meets Swedish lesbian equestrians)
Circumstance (Atafeh's lesbian relationship is threatened when her brother joins Iran's Morality Police)
Shut Up Little Man! (Documentary on recorded arguments between two middle-aged alcoholics, one gay, the other a homophobe, a viral hit of the audiocassette era)
25th Anniversary Teddy Awards screenings (some classic LGBT winners from the Berlin Film Festival)
Becoming Chaz (Doc on Sonny and Cher's child's transition to male; he'll appear in person)

Browse all the films and order online, and please say hi when you see me around!

Richard Dawkins on vivisection: "But can they suffer?"

Richard Dawkins — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 07:08:29 +0000

The great moral philosopher Jeremy Bentham, founder of utilitarianism, famously said,'The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?" Most people get the point, but they treat human pain as especially worrying because they vaguely think it sort of obvious that a species' ability to suffer must be positively correlated with its intellectual capacity. Plants cannot think, and you'd have to be pretty eccentric to believe they can suffer. Plausibly the same might be true of earthworms. But what about cows?

What about dogs? I find it almost impossible to believe that René Descartes, not known as a monster, carried his philosophical belief that only humans have minds to such a confident extreme that he would blithely spreadeagle a live mammal on a board and dissect it. You'd think that, in spite of his philosophical reasoning, he might have given the animal the benefit of the doubt. But he stood in a long tradition of vivisectionists including Galen and Vesalius, and he was followed by William Harvey and many others (See from which this picture is taken).

How could they bear to do it: tie a struggling, screaming mammal down with ropes and dissect its living heart, for example? Presumably they believed what came to be articulated by Descartes: that non-human animals have no soul and feel no pain.

Most of us nowadays believe that dogs and other non-human mammals can feel pain, and no reputable scientist today would follow Descartes' and Harvey's horrific example and dissect a living mammal without anaesthetic. British law, among others, would severely punish them if they did (although invertebrates are not so well protected, not even large-brained octopuses). Nevertheless, most of us seem to assume, without question, that the capacity to feel pain is positively correlated with mental dexterity - with the ability to reason, think, reflect and so on. My purpose here is to question that assumption. I see no reason at all why there should be a positive correlation. Pain feels primal, like the ability to see colour or hear sounds. It feels like the sort of sensation you don't need intellect to experience. Feelings carry no weight in science but, at the very least, shouldn't we give the animals the benefit of the doubt?

Without going into the interesting literature on Animal Suffering (see, for instance, Marian Stamp Dawkins's excellent book of that title, and her forthcoming Rethinking Animals), I can see a Darwinian reason why there might even be be a negative correlation between intellect and susceptibility to pain. I approach this by asking what, in the Darwinian sense, pain is for. It is a warning not to repeat actions that tend to cause bodily harm. Don't stub your toe again, don't tease a snake or sit on a hornet, don't pick up embers however prettily they glow, be careful not to bite your tongue. Plants have no nervous system capable of learning not to repeat damaging actions, which is why we cut live lettuces without compunction.

It is an interesting question, incidentally, why pain has to be so damned painful. Why not equip the brain with the equivalent of a little red flag, painlessly raised to warn, "Don't do that again"? In The Greatest Show on Earth
, I suggested that the brain might be torn between conflicting urges and tempted to 'rebel', perhaps hedonistically, against pursuing the best interests of the individual's genetic fitness, in which case it might need to be whipped agonizingly into line. I'll let that pass and return to my primary question for today: would you expect a positive or a negative correlation between mental ability and ability to feel pain? Most people unthinkingly assume a positive correlation, but why?

Isn't it plausible that a clever species such as our own might need less pain, precisely because we are capable of intelligently working out what is good for us, and what damaging events we should avoid? Isn't it plausible that an unintelligent species might need a massive wallop of pain, to drive home a lesson that we can learn with less powerful inducement?

At very least, I conclude that we have no general reason to think that non-human animals feel pain less acutely than we do, and we should in any case give them the benefit of the doubt. Practices such as branding cattle, castration without anaesthetic, and bullfighting should be treated as morally equivalent to doing the same thing to human beings.

Richard Dawkins: web, Twitter, Amazon link to recently-published works.

Europride and Gaga in Rome

Jasmina Tesanovic — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 06:31:36 +0000

(Lady Gaga performs during a gay pride concert in downtown Rome. Stefano Rellandini / Reuters)

The gay icon Lady Gaga was there wearing her green wig, together with up to one million people marching chanting singing in a carnival gay pride march.

Rome is the capital of Vatican too, the place where Pope lives and preaches from his balcony every Sunday morning about how people should live and love. Lady Gaga's motto this Sunday was the power of love. She recalled her Italian origin and name ( La Germanotta) and, in a passionate speech, demanded immediate equal rights for the gays, meaning the right to get married, have children etc. While singing her new song Born This Way, an anthem to diversity...

But only few days ago, the Pope announced his firm opposition to equalize even straight informal marriages, that is, unions not sanctioned by God in a marriage sacrament. Where the Catholic church is concerned, gay marriages are not only a taboo topic but even a place of severe demonization and homophobia.

[Video Link]

The Italian state has fought a long and heavy battle against the Catholic church, which reached a certain status quo with the "Concordato" in 1929, signed when Mussolini was in power. With this arrangement canonic law became the civil law too, regulating marriages, prohibiting divorce, freedom of choice, sexual diversity...Only in the seventies did civil society activism manage to pass Italian law that made divorce and abortion possible, as well as non legalized marriages.

However gay rights never became a focus in Italian society. Civilian gays have been battered, criminalized and persecuted, notwithstanding the huge sex pedophilia scandals running among Catholic priests who have been getting away quite easily all these years with their criminal abuse of power. Italy today is still a macho society mirrored publicly by its premiere Silvio Berlusconi who very often justifies his sex scandals with minors and prostitutes with the words, at least I am not gay.

By contrast, a gay politician of Rome caught with a transvestite prostitute had to resign because of his public image being ruined.

This parade yesterday in Rome was extremely well organized by the LGBT community even though many antipope offensive banners were flying together with the drag queens, masques of famous icons, wigs, rainbow flags; Pope Ratzinger was renamed Natzinger.

Gay politicians from the Italian parliament gave speeches pointing out that Italy is ranking at level 0 in the European community regarding minority rights. The Cinderella of Europe, as Italy is called as of today, would not be accepted to join the European community nowadays. Yet Italy remains a G8 powers and a founder of united Europe.

Italian double standards baffle other European countries as well as the progressive italian citizens. Only a couple of months ago, the right winged regional government in Piemonte northern Italy, tried to impose a new measure on abortion. Women who have the national constitutional right to abortion, would have to face a restrictive treatment with the pro life volunteers manning hospitals.

The right winged elected politician, immediately after his victory, announced his antiabortion and anti gays policy. Somehow women and gays are always the primary target of conservatives and the civil rights of gays and women should also be the first test for the real level of democracy in a country. Democracy must include all citizens, notwithstanding their diversity.

Yesterday Italy also voted against nuclear power after Germany said a definite no, after Japan suffered the tsunami catastrophe with numerous leaks, 25 years after Chernobyl, in the midst of global warming tragedies, and religious antiDarwinist denials.

Looking at the parade in Rome, with the association of parents of gay children proudly marching for the rights of their posterity, I wondered what kind of world is coming, and how responsible and guilty are we today for making it worse rather than better.

Blog: jasminatesanovic.wordpress.com

Ratko Mladic, "God of Genocide," arrested

Jasmina Tesanovic — Thu, 26 May 2011 09:19:11 +0000

(PHOTOS / REUTERS. At left, in 1993: Bosnian Serb army Commander General Ratko Mladic (L) salutes.)

The self-proclaimed "God of genocide" in Srebrenica, the Serbian ethnic general Ratko Mladic was arrested today in a small village eighty kilometers from Belgrade.

Mladic sheltered there with a relative, and lived under a false name. For years on end he hid like a house-mouse, and was arrested with a similar meekness.

Old, docile, with one hand crippled, the formerly ferocious warlord lived peaceably and invisibly in a house that had been searched repeatedly by the Serbian police. This long-wanted war criminal and exceedingly successful fugitive from justice had a 10 million euro award on his head.

And yet, recent polls say that, despite the suffering and ignominy he brought them, 51 percent of Serbian citizens would not have given him up to the international war tribunal in the Hague. No, not for any money. Serbian stubbornness has gone beyond the period of Mladic's bloodstained hero-worship. Nowadays the Serbs have grown indifferent to Mladic while actively resenting the European Union, whose economic disorders have made Serbian life miserable.

And yet it appears that somebody did betray Mladic for the reward: someone among his circle of close friends. Some years ago, an entire group of people, who were all accused of actively sheltering Mladic, were released from a Serbian court through lack of evidence.

(Above, Mladic (C) arrives at special court in Belgrad, May 26, 2011. Bosnian Serb wartime general Mladic was arrested in Lazarevo in the early hours on Thursday after years on the run from international genocide charges.)

After his arrest, only a few drunken people gathered before his hideout, and also in downtown Belgrade: the usual hooligan nationalist bands. Mladic was taken to the special court of war crimes in Belgrade to be interrogated. But this effort was interrupted because of the former general's "difficult psychological and physical condition."

Mladic seems to have been babbling, but he managed to say, according to his lawyer, that he does not recognize the war tribunal in Hague, and will not plead guilty or innocent. He was armed with two pistols when he was arrested, but he gave himself peacefully.

Who will pick up the 10 million euro reward? How much prosperity did Ratko Mladic cost Serbia over these 16 years? These money issues are the big questions in Serbian press. Although the police said they will not take a penny, they did their regular job.

As a further financial twist, the state still owes the general his regular pension, which he never received (as a fugitive). Handsome lump-sums have paid by and to the other citizens of the state -- mainly, blood money for his victims.

And what about the dead? Do they have a price? Gone without a name, many of them still without graves since their bodies, dismembered and scattered all over the territory are still being sought. The silence of the ghosts is loud as ever in this moment of joy and victory.

More recently, European pressure has intensified from the Hague tribunal; on June 6 the Serbian government faced a grim report from Serbia by Serge Brammertz, citing them for non-cooperation with the United Nations. Europe is experiencing many difficulties, but Serbia, like a tin can tied to a cat's tail, suffers them even more so.

The primary obstacle to Serbia's European harmonization is and was, of course, the genocidal war criminal Ratko Mladic.

We citizens of Serbia all knew that Mladic was hiding among us in Serbia; don't ask me why, but we never believed the many tales spread about his death or his exile. Given his modest rural circumstances, he was concealed more discreetly than the Pakistanis hid Osama bin Laden -- but the parallels there are obvious. Mladic had his protectors in the covert wing of the government, and the Serbian government is traditionally an enterprise in which everything is covert, and yet everybody knows. Ask them not why they turned him in, but why they delayed until today.

A couple of years ago, Radovan Karadzic, the mastermind of the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, was arrested in downtown Belgrade. Dr. Karadzic had been hiding under a long beard as a New Age quack guru. Witnessing this travesty on television, my aged father said: Ratko Mkadic is a soldier! He will never do a thing like that! He will rather commit suicide than humiliate himself in that manner or get arrested by police! Mladic will never go to The Hague!

The same myth of fearless valor was running for the late president of Serbia, Milosevic who actually was arrested and died in The Hague. Milosevic was a close collaborator with the Bosnian Serb warlords, Karadzic and Mladic, in surpressing the Muslim population of Bosnia.

This demon dream team of Balkan genocide: Milosevic, Mladic and Karadzic, were all destined for The Hague. They were playing chess with one another in the anteroom of justice, waiting for a sentence longer than their lives. Only death could bring them peace and liberation. Radovan Karadzic sent immediately from the Hague a message to arrested Mladic: I am sorry this happened, but I will help you out, we will work together for the truth!

Some years ago I wrote a book on genocide in Srebrenica, the largest single war crime in Europe after World War II. My first question, after analyzing the design of crime was: how did they manage to exterminate eight thousand people in a couple of days? How could they hide thousands of bodies from the international community, from the people present there, from the bereaved families?

After the recent capture of Osama Bin Laden, Ratko Mladic was the fugitive number one in the world. The US president Obama said he was happy Serbia perfomed its duty. The world press is giving all the credits to the pro-European government of president Boris Tadic, and his determined policy to pull Serbia away from the criminal past.

Today in Serbia even the radical right wing opposition is officially pro-European. No one in or near power aspires to dirty their hands with the Balkan wars; that brings no benefit. Modern Serbia has a cult of tennis stars rather than warlords. These Millennial adults have won some credibility, since they impress the outside world, without any taint of the distant 1990s.

The mothers of Srebrenica victims declared themselves contented with this turn of events. They expected it many years ago; but better later than never. These women have learned to be deeply suspicious of the tribunal in The Hague; the international lawyers there declared their prize mementos and personal evidence to be bulky and useless; unfit for a modern court proceeding. So much for their cherished mementos of their dead, their hoarded proofs that the vanished dead had really lived, that they were murdered.

A moment of justice is commonly liberating for the offended as well as the criminals. But the moment of truth even more so. There is no justice without truth. The arrest of Ratko Mladic and his adamant transfer to the Hague tribunal will be a litmus test for this universal and ancient motto. And for our globalized world of crime and punishment.

Jasmina Tesanovic: blog, Twitter.

All Your Pics Are Belong to Us: at image hosting services, Terms and Conditions always apply

Glenn Fleishman — Thu, 12 May 2011 08:00:09 +0000

Smartphone apps make it trivial to snap a photo, upload it to a host, and post a link to Twitter, sometimes in a single step. But by storing a photo on a hosting service to display via Twitter and beyond, you're assigning some subset of your copyright to that sharing site. Since the 1970s, copyright is inherent in the act of creation, no matter whether it's a snapshot or your life's work. There's a conflict when you present some license for your work to parties which you have only a slender thread of a relationship.

This came to a head last week and this due to changes made at the popular TwitPic service. On May 4th, TwitPic updated its terms of use. Before May 4th, the statement about copyright read:

All images uploaded are copyright © their respective owners.

This was modified to include a lengthy section on copyright that raised hackles because it seemed to give TwitPic an enormous grant of rights, even while assuring users that they owned their work. The motivation was likely to clarify policies after Agence France-Presse (AFP) used Haitian photographer Daniel Morel's images of the aftermath of the earthquake without permission. Morel uploaded images to TwitPic, which were then duplicated by another person, and AFP distributed them. A lawsuit is long underway. TwitPic's copyright information shown at that time was more ambiguous about who owned what.

Nonetheless, the new copyright terms raise more questions than they bury. One point of contention was a sloppy paragraph that said once you'd uploaded a picture to TwitPic you couldn't license it to the media, agencies, or other parties and have those groups retrieve it (with your permission) from TwitPic. On May 10th, the terms were revised again and that graf removed.But other troubling rights assignments remain. While TwitPic still says, "You retain all ownership rights to Content uploaded to TwitPic," it also receives a free worldwide non-exclusive license to reproduce your works. Ostensibly, that's to cover its ass in duplicating your images to its servers, pushing them to smartphone apps, and covering other future uses. But it's awfully broad. With those rights, TwitPic could publish books, license your photos, and otherwise reap financial rewards without additional permission or any compensation. (The full copyright terms excerpt is below.)

And a deal announced with World Entertainment News Network (WENN) shows at least one worst-case scenario. WENN, which has a deal with Plixi as well, will act as a licensing agency for TwitPic. WENN's CEO told Amateur Photography in January in relation to the Plixi deal that he "did not rule out selling on other types of Twitter images to the wider media, such as pictures of a breaking news story, if it were brought to its attention, whether featuring a celebrity or not."

Ostensibly, the celebrities will be participants in such licensing and cut in on deals for their photos. But there's no discussion of that in either article, and it may explain the rise of WhoSay, an invitation-only photo-hosting site designed specifically for the famous (and their publicists) to manage and distribute photos for social media and handle associated rights.

Now, I am not a lawyer, although I've been reading copyright agreements for decades and have amassed non-systematic knowledge of the subject. I called Carolyn E. Wright, who goes by the moniker Photo Attorney. Wright, an accomplished nature photographer, publishes regular free advice for shooters on her site, and works closely on rights licenses with her clients. She's highly concerned about TwitPic's terms and similar terms from other organizations.

"I've been trying to warn my blog readers for a long time, you need to read the terms of service, you have to be sure they're not getting too broad a license," she says. She doesn't impute that TwitPic has ulterior motives. "Sometimes I think that this is just poor writing on the terms of service. Or, it's an aggressive lawyer, and it's just the safest thing to do." But the way the current revised terms are written, she says to photographers, "don't use that service."

Wright cites Mobypicture as an example of a copyright statement that she feels protects photographers' rights. That site's terms note, "All rights of uploaded content by our users remain the property of our users and those rights can in no means be sold or used in a commercial way by Mobypicture or affiliated third party partners without consent from the user."

Wright says that while professionals may have the most to lose, casual photographers could be equally exploited.

TwitPic didn't respond to a request for comment for this article.

The question at stake here isn't whether we trust TwitPic or other services or not to explain their intent. The intent is in the contract we agree to when we upload our images. If push comes to shove, that's where those firms' lawyers point, and that's where we lose. I've always said in negotiating contracts, "I trust you, or I wouldn't sign a contract with you. But I'm also signing a contract with the person who replaces you in your job, or the company that buys you. It's them I'm worried about."

I've taken a set of scissors to collect the copyright section of the terms of service for many popular services below to compare. Many have quite similar language to TwitPic; others foreswear all rights.

TwitPic

All content uploaded to TwitPic is copyright the respective owners. The owners retain full rights to distribute their own work without prior consent from TwitPic. It is not acceptable to copy or save another user's content from TwitPic and upload to other sites for redistribution and dissemination.
By uploading content to TwitPic you give TwitPic permission to use or distribute your content on TwitPic.com or affiliated sites.
To publish another TwitPic user's content for any commercial purpose or for distribution beyond the acceptable Twitter "retweet" which links back to the original user's content page on TwitPic, whether online, in print publication, television, or any other format, you are required to obtain permission from TwitPic in advance of said usage and attribute credit to TwitPic as the source where you have obtained the content.
You retain all ownership rights to Content uploaded to TwitPic. However, by submitting Content to TwitPic, you hereby grant TwitPic a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and TwitPic's (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.
You also hereby grant each user of the Service a non-exclusive license to access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such Content as permitted through the functionality of the Service and under these Terms of Service. The above licenses granted by you in media Content you submit to the Service terminate within a commercially reasonable time after you remove or delete your media from the Service provided that any sub-license by TwitPic to use, reproduce or distribute the Content prior to such termination may be perpetual and irrevocable.
You understand and agree, however, that TwitPic may retain, but not display, distribute, or perform, server copies of your media that have been removed or deleted. The above licenses granted by you in user comments you submit are perpetual and irrevocable. Deleted images are only accessed in the event of a legal issue.

Flickr

Yahoo! does not claim ownership of Content you submit or make available for inclusion on the Yahoo! Services. However, with respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Yahoo! Services, you grant Yahoo! the following worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license(s), as applicable:
...With respect to Content other than photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Yahoo! Services other than Yahoo! Groups, the perpetual, irrevocable and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

img.ly

The images shared on img.ly are belongings of their respective owners.

Instagram

Instagram does NOT claim ANY ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, applications, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") that you post on or through the Instagram Services. By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the Instagram Services, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content, including without limitation distributing part or all of the Site in any media formats through any media channels, except Content not shared publicly ("private") will not be distributed outside the Instagram Services.

Mlkshk

We do not claim ownership of the materials you post on, upload to or otherwise place on the Site. However, by posting, uploading or placing such material, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use material. This license ends when you delete the material or your account unless the material has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.

Mobypicture

All rights of uploaded content by our users remain the property of our users and those rights can in no means be sold or used in a commercial way by Mobypicture or affiliated third party partners without consent from the user.

Posterous

You shall retain all of your ownership rights in your submissions; however, by submitting material to Posterous you grant Posterous fully transferable rights to use, reproduce, distribute, modify, transmit, prepare derivative works of, display and produce the material in connection with Posterous and Posterous's business, but solely in accordance with these Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.

Yfrog (ImageShack)

By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the ImageShack Services, you hereby grant to ImageShack and other users a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content, including without limitation distributing part or all of the Site in any media formats through any media channels, except Content marked "private" will not be distributed outside the ImageShack Services. ImageShack and/or other Users may copy, print or display publicly available Content outside of the ImageShack Services, including without limitation, via the Site or third party websites or applications (for example, services allowing Users to order prints of Content or t-shirts and similar items containing Content). After you remove your Content from the ImageShack Website we will cease distribution as soon as practicable, and at such time when distribution ceases, the license to such Content will terminate. If after we have distributed your Content outside the ImageShack Website you change the Content's privacy setting to "private," we will cease any further distribution of such "private" Content outside the ImageShack Website as soon as practicable.

Whither Wi-Fi in Warm Weather?

Glenn Fleishman — Tue, 10 May 2011 05:30:26 +0000

Caroline Spelman. PHOTO: Reuters/Ueslei Marcelino One would think from reports today that the UK's secretary of state for the environment and rural affairs, MP Caroline Spelman, had lost her bleeding mind. Spelman has been widely quoted about a new report from her agency, Defra, about the threat to infrastructure from global climate change. It covers the extremes of temperature and the routine occurrence of heat above a normal range for the UK, and more storms and severe weather that could ravage Great Britain. The report is an analysis on what changes need be made to keep bridges from buckling in heat or cracking in cold, and nuclear and fossil-fuel plants from suffering damage from previously unthinkable conditions, as well as quotidian issues like floods polluting water supplies and spreading sewage. It's a ripping read, and, please recall, originates from the Tories, the majority conservative part of a coalition government that completely acknowledges the reality of a range of risk potential from climate change. The Conservatives are no Republicans, no matter what else you may say about them. Nonetheless the report's broader issues were overlooked because of a focus on an exceedingly tiny statement buried in it that Spelman highlighted in a speech unveiling the work. Her prepared remarks have her saying:

Our economy is built on effective transport and communications networks and reliable energy and water supplies. But the economy cannot grow if there are repeated power failures, or goods cannot be transported because roads are flooded and railways have buckled, or if intense rainfall or high temperatures disrupt Wi-Fi signals.

The Daily Telegraph paraphrased her as saying in her speech, "The signal from wi-fi cannot travel as far when temperatures increase. Heavy downfalls of rain also affect the ability of the device to capture a signal." The Guardian is more sensible, summarizing her statement as "higher temperatures can reduce the range of wireless communications, rainstorms can impact the reliability of the signal, and drier summers and wetter winters may cause greater subsidence, damaging masts and underground cables." I was puzzled about this, and consulting the report helped a little. First off, the agency isn't talking about Wi-Fi in particular. As is typical, Wi-Fi is used incorrectly as a catchall phrase when "wireless communications" is meant. The report itself says "wireless," and the focus is on large-scale cellular infrastructure using towers (or "masts" as they're called in the UK). Second, the issue of weather affecting signals seems to be tremendously overemphasized in the cabinet secretary's remarks and, naturally, in the coverage. Remember the terrible study and subsequent reporting that alleged Wi-Fi was killing trees all over Europe? So Wi-Fi plus climate change equals headlines. Extreme heat and heavy precipitation may have some affect on signal propagation, but it's likely to be rather small according to a number of geeks I consulted on the topic. The report asserts, "Location/density of wireless masts may become sub-optimal as wireless transmission is dependent on temperature," but I can't find any citations to support that. Rather, the greater risk appears to be from continuously high temperatures causing tower equipment to function more poorly, reducing signal strength, or to be damaged by the heat. Extreme weather could knock out communications by cutting power and backhaul to poles and towers, or toppling them. That's all quite reasonable, and could result in revised standards for how this sort of equipment is deployed, and potentially regulators could change certification standards for telecom gear based on the anticipation of prolonged extreme temperatures. So MP Spelman hasn't gone crazy. But she might get additional consultation before sounding like part of the tin-hat brigade.

Going up

Bill Barol — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:11:43 +0000

Photo by Ged Carroll. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
A recent article in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology makes a case that height makes right. That is, it cites four separate studies showing that people who were physically elevated (up on a raised platform, for example) behaved in a more humane and altruistic fashion than those below. As Scientific American notes today, "height is often used as a metaphor for virtue: moral high ground, God on high, looking up to good people, etc." The journal article, by Larry Sanna and associates at the University of North Carolina, suggests that height's value may be more than symbolic. What if, as one of the studies posits, escalators actually elevate good intentions: "Twice as many mall shoppers who had just ridden an up escalator contributed to the Salvation Army than shoppers who had just ridden the down escalator."

That said, escalators aren't all good.

Back issues of COILHOUSE now available digitally

Sean Bonner — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 04:22:33 +0000

The fine folks at COILHOUSE magazine (mentioned many a time here in the past, and who featured Xeni and Boing Boing Video in issue 3 have just put made available for the first time all five back issues as DRM-free PDF downloads. Issues are $5 each or $20 for all five, with promises that the funds from this will go directly into the production of issue number 6. The COILHOUSE team are some of my favorite people; if you missed picking up the printed versions when they were available, now is your chance to catch up.

iPhone app store of "Color" may be best app store review ever

Sean Bonner — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 04:17:16 +0000

The photo sharing/social network app Color launched last week, and much fuss was made for a variety of reasons: massive media hype, massive funding, and a complete lack of documentation about how people should actually use the app. Mike 3K found this brilliant iPhone app store review of Color, which makes the whole affair worthwhile. Read the whole thing here.

"The Wire" as a Dickens serial

Bill Barol — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 04:03:26 +0000

It's one of those ideas that sounds less nuts the more you think about it: "The Wire" imagined as a 19th-century serialized novel. After all, David Simon's great multi-season drama had all the muckraking moral outrage of Charles Dickens (Google the reviews and try to count the number of times you see the word "Dickensian"), and its shifting viewpoint over five seasons gave it a similar historical sweep and reportorial authority. The real kick of "When It's Not Your Turn," though, is its obsessive attention to detail. You have to admire the dedication of creators Joy Delyria and Sean Michael Robinson, who seemingly cram every arcane bit of the show's rich mythology into a fake lit-crit essay. The illustrations, ostensibly by Baxter "Bubz" Black, just add to the goofy verisimilitude of the thing. It's a fabulous fraud.

Time lapse video of woman with HIV/AIDS

David Ng — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:30:54 +0000

Just noticed this powerful advertisement from the Topsy Foundation. It was one of the winners at TED's "Ad's Worth Spreading" contest, which is generally worth checking out. This particular video does a great job (with a lovely twist at the end) at showing the effectiveness of HIV antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). There's also a followup video you can view that checks in on the woman (Selinah) as well as chatting with the folks behind the video. Although I realize that the ARVs have been made possible by the work done in the pharmaceutical industry, and that there is a chance that Topsy's programs are facilitated by kind donations from the same industry, it's still a pity that there isn't a more sustainable system for the provision of such drugs to developing countries. Pity that these sorts of medicines are usually priced way too high for individuals like Selinah, which is why so many go untreated and so many die. Pity also that laws like Bill C-393 (which aim to explore different ways to create that sustainable market and lower that price) are being deliberately stalled in government so as to guarantee not being passed. That kind of unfortunate reality deserves a megafacepalm.

Pole dancing for Jesus

Bill Barol — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 05:25:53 +0000

It's hard to to top the phrase "pole dancing for Jesus" -- I dare you to even try -- because it satisfies so many absolutely awful contemporary needs in just four words. It's the perfect bogus local-news trend story. (I first saw it on Wonkette, but it was picked up from the Fox affiliate in Houston.) It's an SEO bonanza. And it's an awesome name for the next band you never heard of that's suddenly appearing on "Saturday Night Live" for some reason. The fact that it's an actual thing -- there's a class in it at a dance studio in Spring, TX, a northern suburb of Houston, and the newsbabe somberly assures the anchordude that "you have to bring your church program with you in order to get into the class' -- only makes it better. Or worse. Or something. "Tune in," newsbabe tells anchordude, promising him in this teaser segment that she herself will take a few twirls for Jesus in the nine o'clock hour. "We will," anchordude replies, a glittery mix of prurience and ratings-lust in his eyes. Or is that just good old-fashioned religious fervor? it's getting so hard to tell.

Killing Bill C-393 equals killing period. A visual aid for Canadian politicians.

David Ng — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 11:52:03 +0000

For the interest of discussion, I've made the above visual aid for members of Canada's Senate, since this is the week that they have a chance to pass a Bill that "aims to make it easier for Canada to export affordable, life-saving, generic medicines to developing countries." I wrote about this Bill C-393 earlier, stating how the right choice (passing the bill and not killing the bill) is obvious. But then it occurred to me that if the decision was so obvious, then why is there so much "push back" from the pharmaceutical industry (as well as the Harper government). It turns out the reason appears to be about Bill C-393 representing a trend that "could potentially" lead to a loss of control over the status quo. This being the status quo that provides the pharmaceutical industry with an inordinate amount of lobbying power to set prices; a business model that values huge profits above innovation; and something that they are so focused on protecting that even the smallest of losses must be avoided no matter the consequences. Which is simply reprehensible - because with this Bill, the consequences are not just about patent control: it's about the livelihood of millions of people, where the decision to "kill" or "not kill" the Bill could literally be a matter of life or death. Please send an email to the Harper government by using this Avaaz link.

Pakistani Actress Veena Malik schools a mullah about Islam

Sean Bonner — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 11:50:24 +0000

[Video Link] Veena Malik is a Pakistani actress who appeared on the very popular Indian TV show Bigg Boss (the Indian version of Big Brother). In the clip above, a mullah tells her she brought shame on Pakistan with her behavior on the show, and that 100% of Pakistanis agree with him. The mullah also admits he didn't watch the show himself, but knows all of this to be true.

Veena responds by pretty much mopping up the floor with him. She points out out how her religion backs up her actions, where he's in violation of the same rules he's taking her to task for. She also says if he wishes to defend Islam, there are countless targets more deserving of close inspection, but here he is instead wasting his time complaining about an actress.

It's fantastic. The world needs to see more of this. Go Veena!

(via soupsoup)

Tsunami vs Japanese Harbor

Sean Bonner — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 09:27:52 +0000

[video link] This eyewitness video of the March 11 tsunami striking Japan shows how, in under 10 minutes, a harbor in Oirase Town, Aomori Prefecture goes from business as usual to, well, gone. While other videos have shown massive destruction or endless floods, this one shows a huge dry area that completely fills with water, making it easy to see just how much water was being pushed around. It's so hard to believe this actually happened. The guy filming it must have been scared to death.

AnonyMiss, the yin to the Anonymous yang

Oxblood Ruffin — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 07:00:00 +0000

Anonymous - the global, low-orbiting, hackalicious Internet phenomenon - has been DDoSing perceived enemies of Wikileaks and more recently taking on a supportive role in the Arabist uprising. Anonymous seems to be everywhere. But percolating below the surface is an inchoate group of women working under the Anonymous banner: They're called AnonyMiss.

Although anyone can join Anonymous there was a public perception that the group was a little too testosteronic. A call was made for women to get involved, and AnonyMiss came into being. The entry point is the AnonyMiss IRC channel. From there, newer participants can be exposed to various Anonymous ops, get technical advice, and make their choices about how to get involved. Some chose to hang around the AnonyMiss channel and develop their own flavor of change.

Emma_A is involved with Anonymous and is helping to develop AnonyMiss. She spoke with about the recently formed group, and our conversation follows below.

(A disclosure: the more I learned about AnonyMiss, the more I felt inspired to personally support their work; it would be fair to say that I am now more of a supporter than a neutral observer.)

Oxblood: AnonyMiss was announced by Anonymous here. The notice was interesting in itself but even more interesting, at least for me, were the comments. There doesn't appear to be any particular consensus. Some think it's a good idea; others think it's unnecessary; still others want to see boobs. What is your reaction to the feedback?

Emma_A: I don't take it very seriously. Some are for and some are against. One has to expect that in any new movement. I sense some hostility. Some people think that women should shut up and let the men do the talking. That ain't gonna happen, boys. We're determined to make our voices heard and we want you with us. That's my goal, to make this a joint effort with men and women working together for the freedom of women. AnonyMiss is a fledgling entity learning to fly, and we will.

Oxblood: When did you become involved with Anonymous and why?

Emma_A: I first heard about Anonymous via my friend Barrett Brown. He's a staunch supporter of freedom of speech and believes that Anonymous can be a force for good, to effect cultural change and also material change. Meaning that the ordinary person will realize he/she does not have to sit back and take it, that we have power in our own hands. People are bigger than our so called leaders. We need to organize and we can change laws via peaceful protest. If you've ever watched the news and thought, WTF, and felt helpless to do anything, then Anonymous is for you.

The mainstream media tries to portray the movement as having nefarious motives, of being dangerous and out of control, and of course we are dangerous. But we are not terrorists. We seek the truth and that's what is dangerous. We want transparency and integrity in government. Imagine people knowing what their government is really up to. My God, that is dangerous. Hence you get the authorities running scared and desperately looking for scapegoats with their favorite media in tow. They attack people like Bradley Manning and Julian Assange. It's absurd.

We do not want state controlled media. We don't want spin, manipulation or government propaganda. But the state media machine is geared to that. It's in their interest to denigrate any speech they don't agree with. Mavericks, people outside what society deems acceptable and safe. Those people are freethinkers and individuals. They are the people we want.

We are dangerous in a way that has never been seen before. We can reach enormous numbers of people via the Internet. We can coordinate and motivate. We can effect change via consensus and we don't need the rich and powerful to help us. That's what interests me.

Oxblood: There is a strain of misogyny in Anonymous although my guess is that it comes mostly from younger participants. Does this bother you or is it something where you just hold your nose and look the other way.

Emma_A: Its always tricky trying to become accepted within a traditionally male dominated group. But having said that I haven't experienced it personally although I'm aware of it. I believe that the more women become involved, the easier it will be to concentrate on what is important and what we want to highlight. I can honestly say I have had nothing but amazing help and support, not to mention kindness from every Anon I've been in contact with.

Oxblood: Would you describe yourself, for lack of a better term, as a feminist?

Emma_A: I'd describe myself as a woman. I want to see women as a class lifted up, empowered, educated, brought out of poverty, trained and enabled to work, given autonomy over their own bodies, given full access to reproductive rights, and given respect. I want women to be loved and recognized as half of the human race, as sentient beings, which is of course what we are.

Oxblood: What issues are most important to you as a woman? Emma_A: First and foremost, education. In many countries girls do not go to school, are married at a very young age, have many children, and that's it. This is not just detrimental to the child and its mother but also to the world. Our population growth is out of control. Stop girls being forced to have so many children; lift them out of that cycle of being just a womb. It sickens me that a 10 year old child can be married to a 50 year old man in some cultures. Blame religion, blame tradition, whatever it is. I want to see that challenged.

Second, invest in women and girls. Many studies have proven that when a community invests in education and training for its female members the whole community benefits. Look at UNwomen.org or read Half the Sky by Kristof and WuDunn.

Third, reproductive rights. Women everywhere need to be able to control their own fertility. We need access to contraception. We don't need some old guy in a Pope hat telling us we must have 15 children because its some other old guy in the sky's wish. Fuck that. Give women all over the world the freedom to decide when and how many children they want. Firstly educate women. Educated women have fewer children and have them later in life. Also lets re-frame abortion. Lets get away from the conservative lies that abortion is killing a baby. It's a cluster of cells. The fact is that those cells are within a living breathing being, a woman. For fuck's sake, give her the dignity to decide herself whether to proceed with a pregnancy or not. Hands off our wombs guys. They belong to us, not you.

Oxblood: How would you describe AnonyMiss?

Emma_A: I see it as the genesis of a women's movement which seeks to include both women and men; to work towards the freeing of the female underclass in all societies. For instance, here in the West there is a huge war on women by the Republican party in America. The latest absurdity is by Representative Bobby Franklin trying to criminalize miscarriage. If you miscarry then you could get the death penalty. I have no words to describe the absurdity of that. How did that bill even get written? But lets turn that around. Can you imagine a female politician writing an equivalent bill for men? How the press would categorize her? Yet we've hardly heard a word about this nutcase Bobby Franklin. And people say Anonymous is dangerous! Give me a fucking break. When you have men abusing positions of power like that, who exactly is more dangerous? It's that hypocrisy that sticks in my gut. We need to highlight these issues, and plenty of men could help us with that.

Oxblood: Do you see a time when AnonyMiss will spearhead its own ops or media campaigns? If so what kinds of actions would you like to see take place?

Emma_A: I'd love to see that happen. I'd support campaigns against backward thinkers like Representative Franklin, for instance. My God, there's ditch full of sewer rats like Franklin whose misogynist views should be challenged and held up to scrutiny.

Oxblood: Just as there are women in Anonymous, how do you feel about men being involved with AnonyMiss? Any pluses or negatives?

Emma_A: I think I've answered that previously. I'd love for men to support us. In fact for AnonyMiss to truly succeed we need to make this inclusive, to make men feel welcome too. We can support each other. Isn't that the best way?

Link: AnonyMiss press release, March 2011.

Does the pharmaceutical industry exaggerate their R&D costs?

David Ng — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 06:10:00 +0000

One of the principle claims for allowing pharmaceutical companies to continue their hold on current patent practices, is that research and development (or R&D) is very expensive. It just keeps coming up, and seems to be all the rage when arguing against things like the passing of Bill C-393 (which you can learn more about in this recent Boingboing post). Although the fact that there are high costs is obviously true, a recent paper published in Biosocieties would suggest that the oft cited statistics, the ones always used to support this assertion for lobbying or public relations purposes, may in fact be over inflated.

Here, the authors, Donald W. Light and Rebecca Warburton look closely at where these numbers come from:

"The most widely cited figures (by government officials and the industry's trade association for its global news network) for the cost to discover and bring a new drug (defined as a 'new chemical entity' or 'new molecular entity'; not a reformulation or recombination of existing drugs) to market are US$802 million in 2000. This has been updated by 64 per cent to $1.32 billion in 2006."

From this paper, we basically learn that the primary source of these figures come from one particular study published in 2003 and done by Joseph DiMasi, Ronald Hansen, and Henry Grabowski at the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development in Boston, Massachusetts. In general, there are issues of bias in how such figures were calculated, and the Light and Warburton paper systematically looks at a number of variables that would suggest that the $802 million number, as well as subsequent numbers which extrapolate from this figure, are a gross over-estimate.

The paper is definitely worth a read, having a number of points that would suggest strong mistrust for these industry figures. Examples include:

1. High potential for bias in the data that was used in the 2003 study: this includes issues related to exclusivity of access to the data (i.e. we have numbers, but it's not clear what the numbers represent exactly since only the Tuft authors know), or to the sample set itself. i.e. the pharmaceutical industry appeared to have primary control over whether they would participate as well as what data was provided to the Tufts Center.

2. The figures do not include a number of special and substantial tax provisions for R&D work. i.e. Just because such tax measures help in our R&D costs, industry feels that it should not be included in these final figures.

3. About 50% of this $802 million figure is actually due to "profits foregone." In other words, as Light and Warburton succinctly describe, this equates to a 'You owe us for all our R&D costs, plus what we would have made had we not undertaken the project in the first place.' Although this is obviously a factor for businesses to take into account, the authors ask whether this is really an appropriate way to calculate figures used to lobby for government protected pricing? Nevermind the fact, that one could argue that R&D costs are a necessity when innovation is key element for an industry.

4. That trial costs as well as time estimates are inflated. For trial costs, a number of different discrepancies occur. For example, how much exactly does it cost for human test subjects during clinical trials:

The DiMasi team refers rather opaquely to a complicated set of steps taken to arrive at the mean cost per trial and per subject. The resulting figure of $23 572 per subject is six times the average cost per subject of $3861 reported by the National Institutes of Health for 1993, at the costly (later) end of the DiMasi period (1983 to 1994)

Related to this, is the estimate of how long does the R&D process take, since longer time spans obviously equate to higher costs. Again, these estimates appear to be greatly exaggerated:

The $802 million estimate is based on 52 months for preclinical research, 72 months for trials and 18 months for regulatory review, a total of 142 months or 11.8 years (DiMasi et al, 2003a, pp. 164-166). Maximizing the length of time not only dramatizes how long and hard companies work to discover and develop a new medicine, but also maximizes the multiplication of profits foregone. Long development times are a major reason given for needing high prices. These figures, however, do not square with the lengths for trials actually reported by companies to the US FDA in the Federal Register. Trial length declined from almost 8 years for trials started in 1985 to less than 3 years for trials started in 1995 (Keyhani et al, 2006). Regulatory review times dropped from 2! years to less than a year. Thus, for medicines that started testing in 1995, total trial and review time was down to less than 4 years in the United States and even less in Europe.

Anyway, it's causing quite a stir, and the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development have already issued a terse press release in rebuttal. In any event, it's good reason to be more informed in such matters, because it has implications in the wider scheme of things - such as how your health dollars are spent, and also how to make policy more effective when dealing with global health issues.

LINK: Demythologizing the high costs of pharmaceutical research, BioSocieties (2011) 6, p34-50 (Note that there is full text access to this article for the month of March 2011, or you can find the article by typing "Demythologizing the high costs" into a search engine).

Will the Harper government receive a #MEGAFACEPALM for C-393?

David Ng — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 18:21:11 +0000

(FOR BILL C-393 STALLING UPDATES SEE BOTTOM OF POST: LAST UPDATE ON FRI, MARCH 25th) A few weeks ago, I was lecturing during a global issues course (ASIC200), when it became immediately clear that on some occasions, a solitary single facepalm is simply not enough. In fact, there seemed to be many things and events in this world that would merit many many simultaneous facepalms, or as we've been calling it in class, a MEGAFACEPALM! Anyway, when I looked it up on the internet, there didn't seem to be any pictures of large groups of people doing the facepalm, and so I thought, why not make our own? And so after a few clicks on my camera, and a handy "Make your own motivational poster" website, here is how it turned out: Of course, then the big question was for what occasion should we bestow this honour - this first unaltered photographic MEGAFACEPALM image? Well, I had a chat with the class the other day, and it seemed that the issue of Bill C-393 seemed like a worthy cause. Now, if you're late to the game and need a primer on this Bill C-393, then read this boingboing post and then come back here for the MEGAFACEPALM lowdown.

Hereby: I would like to declare that this MEGAFACEPALM will be awarded to the Harper government should: 1. Their members of Senate kill Bill C-393 by voting not to pass it. and/or 2. They indirectly kill the Bill C-393 by "ignoring/postponing" the Bill: especially if it has anything to do with some false nonsense about election calls. Yes, we know that maybe there will be an election call, but that is neither here nor there since this Bill should not be subject to such sneaky political maneuvering. All to say that, Prime Minister Harper: the outcome is in your hands... p.s - I realize that technically, we shouldn't call it a MEGAFACEPALM, since the name would infer the presence of a million (=mega) people doing it - but oh well, I figured this was a still good start. Besides, you can also consider this a challenge for others to create even bigger MEGAFACEPALM pictures.

- - - UPDATE - TUES, MARCH 22nd, 1:33pm PST GOVERNMENT STALLING BILL C-393 IN SENATE - URGENT ACTION CALL

We now have reliable information that the Conservative Government is unwilling to let Bill C-393, which would fix Canada's Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR), proceed further in the Senate. We are working to uncover further details.

This position shows contempt for Parliament -- if nothing else, the Senate must study the bills that come to it with majority support in the House of Commons, not simply stall them. (Bill C-393 passed in the House of Commons recently with a vote of 172 MPs in favour and 111 against, with support drawn from all parties.)

Given this latest news, we must therefore redouble our efforts, which had an amazing impact in the House of Commons. This is the final hurdle and one that, as predicted, will take time. But it is doable. The Senate must fulfill their obligation to allow this to come to a timely vote so that Bill C-393 does not die on the Order Paper (again).
From the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network

UPDATE - TUES, MARCH 22nd, 9:56pm PST DAY 2 FOR BILL C-393 IN THE SENATE

Bill C-393 was up for further debate in the Senate this afternoon, after word was received this morning that the Conservative leadership is still refusing to let the bill proceed to a second reading vote.

Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth rose to speak first. She reminded the chamber that this bill enjoys widespread support, including 26 MPs from her own party in the House of Commons. She noted that the virtually identical Bill S-232 had previously been studied at length with no less than 6 days of hearings from witnesses. She highlighted how Bill C-393 could, at no cost to taxpayers, make Canada's aid help more people, describing it as a concrete example of "aid effectiveness" and "value for money". She noted in particular how this bill would complement the Harper government's initiative on maternal and child health. She urged Senators to pass the bill without delay, as it makes good business sense and good public health sense.

Liberal Senator Roméo Dallaire then rose to speak in support, referring to the devastation of AIDS he himself has witnessed in countries such as Rwanda. He noted again that only one use of CAMR has been seen to date and it is unlikely to be used again in its current form -- he wondered how anyone could claim this is a success, and remarked of the brand-name pharmaceutical companies' claim to this effect, "what planet are they on?". He noted the critical importance of access to paediatric formulations of fixed-dose combinations and that Apotex had committed to producing these. He ended with an eloquent plea to the Conservative government: "Are their children less human than ours? Do they not deserve the same humanity?"

Finally, Liberal Senate leader James Cowan rose to plead with the Conservative government that it allow the bill to move forward without delay. He underscored that, while it was not the obligation of the Senate to pass bills from the House of Commons, it is the chamber's obligation to consider them in a timely fashion. He noted specifically that Senators had received hundreds and hundreds of emails and telephone calls, and he could think of not a single one expressing any opposition to the bill. He urged Senators to consider this overwhelming public support, and to move this bill on to the Banking Committee so that it could quickly study it and return it to the Senate so that it might be addressed before a possible election.

However, Conservative Senator Stephen Greene then moved to adjourn further debate, consistent with the expected approach of the Conservative leadership. The motion was carried, on a recorded division. The bill will therefore appear again on the Order Paper tomorrow, Wed March 23. At this time, indications are that the Conservative leadership in the Senate will continue to stall the bill.
~Richard Elliot, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network

UPDATE - WED, MARCH 23rd, 4:44pm PST RE C-393: CONSERVATIVES STALLING FURTHER!

After a speech by Cons. Senator Stephen Greene opposing Bill C-393 (full of the same old mistruths that we've heard ad nauseum, directly contrary to what his legislative assistant told me earlier today), and a moving speech by Lib. Senator Mobina Jaffer in support of the bill, Cons. Senator Carignan stood up to say that Cons. Senator Larry Smith, who was absent from the chamber, wished to speak to the bill and therefore he was moving to further adjourn debate. (Smith was present earlier in the chamber.)

Liberal Senators demanded a recorded vote and bells are now ringing for vote to happen at 8:05 p.m. Supporters are now urgently calling Conservative senators thought or known to be supportive of Bill C-393 to urge them to join in voting against this adjournment.

If any of you know a Conservative Senator whom you know or think is supportive, please email and phone them and urge them to vote down the adjournment.
~Richard Elliot, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network

UPDATE - WED, MARCH 23rd, 5:20pm PST C-393 ADJOURNED BY CONSERVATIVES, BY VOTE OF 44-36 UPDATE - THURS, MARCH 24th, 9:44am PST NOTE THE FOLLOWING EMAIL SENT BY TONY CLEMENT (ON BEHALF OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY) TO ALL CONSERVATIVE SENATORS

From: Fowlow, Patti-Lou
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2011 11:17 AM
To: - SEN C
Subject:

Dear Conservative Senate Staff & Senators,

Senator Larry Smith had the opportunity to meet with pharmaceutical industry leaders in the Montreal area, all are against bill C-393 as it is extremely damaging to our ability to motivate companies to patent new drugs in Canada. Many jobs in Canada's research and development sector, stand to be lost as a result of this bill. I have attached the documents prepared by Mr. Tony Clement.

Sincerely,
Nichole A. Beck

+++++++++

Vote Rationale C-393 CAMR
Under the current CAMR system, the process includes the following important steps:
• The product must be identified as safe and effective for human consumption
• The target country/population must be clearly defined and the request must come from the target government itself
• A tracking system must be in place to monitor the drugs flow from Canada to the target country/population to ensure consumption by intended group
• That under CAMR, only THAT drug identified for export can be sent to the intended country/population
Stephen Lewis and his friends have said that these checks are the 'problem' and need to be removed. In fact, these steps are vital. If they are removed, the following consequences can result:
• Instead of one shipment of a particular drug, an advocate can be granted permission to break patents of multiple drugs and ship them to multiple locations, potentially for commercial purposes.
• Drugs that are not certified by Health Canada as being safe and effective could be shipped to unsuspecting populations, to their detriment.
• Drugs shipped under CAMR could be redirected to the black market with proceeds going to non-humanitarian causes such as weapons.
• If drugs are shipped without the consent of the home government, the drugs could run against their domestic laws and traditions.
• If C-393 is passed, Canada's CAMR will be out of step with our international trade obligations. And if current patents are threatened, the patent holders will leave Canada seeking shelter in countries which value patent protection. The loss to Canadian R & D will be significant.
Most importantly, Canadian Generics are some of the most expensive in the world. With C-393 or not, NGOs in the developing world will direct their precious resources to cheaper drugs coming from places like India and Asia. Testimony was clear - This is an irrelevant measure to address the problem of a lack of drugs in Africa.
Committee was clear that the solution to this problem is multifaceted and to that end, the Government of Canada has:

1. Launched the Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative
2. Made several contributions to organizations such as Health Partners International Canada (Jake Epp's group) who in turn have sent millions of doses of free drugs from Canadian pharmaceutical companies to the developing world
3. Supported the Global Fund, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and the Clinton Foundation, to name a few. Please contact Minister Oda's office for more details. In all, close to $2.1 billion in International Aid flows to the developing world each year from Canada.
The bottom line is that C-393 lessens Canadian Patent Protection and vital health, safety, and verification of non-commercial purpose checks. Worst of all, it won't solve the problem. As such, Government members should oppose C-393.

Tony Clement

To which a rebuttal has just been sent out:

Dear Senators:

Yesterday was another missed opportunity for the Senate to move forward on Bill C-393 and finally fulfill Parliament's pledge to the developing world to help increase access to affordable medicines via Canada's Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR). For a third day in a row, this bill has been stalled, deliberately and unnecessarily, and another 5000 people died of AIDS alone in low- and middle-income countries.

It was also a day where recycled falsehoods cast an unfortunate pall over your deliberations. Senator Stephen Greene's comments repeated yet again the same discredited claims by big pharma that have been shown again and again to be inaccurate and overblown. Please take a moment to look at the text of Bill C-393, and you will quickly and easily verify the falsity of the objections being repeated like a mantra. Specifically:

· Bill C-393 does NOT remove the requirement that Health Canada approve drugs exported under CAMR. (See section 21.04(3) of the Patent Act.)

· Bill C-393 does NOT remove or weaken the existing safeguards against the diversion of medicines. The bill leaves unchanged all requirements for differentiating the generic product exported under CAMR from the brand-name product and for special markings, packaging and labelling, as well as a tracking system to monitor the flow of drugs to recipient countries. (See sections 21.06 and 21.07.)

· Bill C-393 does NOT change the list of countries eligible to receive medicines under CAMR -- which was already agreed upon by all countries, including Canada, at the WTO in 2003 and was already approved unanimously by Parliament in 2004. (It combines them into a single, simplified list; it does not change eligibility.)

· Bill C-393 does NOT allow for medicines to be used in an eligible developing country contrary to its domestic law. Those countries' laws regarding the registration of a drug as meeting necessary standards are unaffected by this bill.

· Bill C-393 does NOT run counter to Canada's WTO obligations. With the exception of big pharma's paid lawyer, every legal expert who has testified before Parliamentary committees has affirmed that Bill C-393 is consistent with WTO requirements, as did an international expert consultation convened by the UN Development Programme to study the bill.

· Bill C-393 does NOT threaten jobs or investments in R&D in Canada. This unbelievable claim is made by big pharma based on no evidence and has been debunked by economist experts in submissions to parliamentary committees. CAMR does not allow exports to the high-income countries where brand-name companies make the vast majority of their profits, which are what determine their R&D decisions. Furthermore, it requires generics to pay royalties to brand-name companies on any sales to eligible countries.

Finally, consider the nonsensical argument that CAMR should not be fixed because generic drug prices are too high in Canada. The price of a good in the Canadian market is entirely irrelevant -- what is relevant are the prices that Canadian generic manufacturers are able to offer to developing countries. What generic manufacturer would think it could land any contract with any developing country, whose purchasing power is much less than Canada's, by offering a price comparable to what it charges in Canada? Why would any developing country buy generics from a Canadian manufacturer unless they were of good quality and sold at a competitive price? Recall that in the one use of CAMR to date, the Canadian manufacturer landed the bid to supply Rwanda with a Health Canada-approved product at the same price as two Indian generic manufacturers (19.5 cents per tablet, a dramatic reduction from the price of the brand-name options.)

Why would Canadian parliamentarians block a bill that makes it easier for Canadian companies to compete globally in supplying urgently needed medicines?

The worst is that while you were sitting through yet another recitation of these falsehoods, more children in desperate need of life-saving medicines lay dying. This is not just, nor is it the will of Canadians -- as expressed through the vote in the House of Commons, an opinion poll that shows 80% of the public supports Bill C-393 or in the tens of thousands of e-mails and phone calls that have been coming into the offices of you and your colleagues. Nor is it necessary. The Senate could still pass this bill into law before an election.

As a chamber of sober second thought, we urge you to listen to the clear weight of the evidence and to think critically about the self-interested and unsubstantiated claims by big pharma, which claims in public to care about access to medicines but has done everything it can to kill a bill that is an important part of an overall response.

How is it that children in Canada should have access to medicines but those in developing countries should not? When will common decency and common sense prevail over falsehoods, obfuscation and inaction? We ask you to move forward on Bill C-393 now.

Sincerely,

Richard Elliott
Executive Director
Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network

UPDATE - THURS, MARCH 24th, 3:59pm PST MORE STALLING . . .

C-393 came up.

Senator Dallaire asked Senator Carignon whether he was prepared to speak on the issue.

Carignon said Senator Larry Smith wants to speak - but (again) wasn't in the Chamber.

The Conservatives moved adjournment. Liberals refused and insisted on a standing vote.

We await the news of that vote, but the likely outcome is that the item will again be adjourned.

Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network

UPDATE - THURS, MARCH 24th, 4:20pm PST C-393 ADJOURNED BY CONSERVATIVES (AGAIN - THAT'S 4 TIMES), BY VOTE OF 38-25 Note that Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Senator Marjory LeBreton, and Senator Gerald Comeau are the primary targets for public pressure. You can send all three an email by using this Avaaz link, which will also provide information on phone numbers should you wish to make personal calls. Also, please retweet this post and urge others to do the same! UPDATE: FRI, MARCH 25th, 10:58am LOOKS LIKE IT'S DEAD. STAY TUNED FOR A PROPER MEGAFACEPALM SENDOFF. OTHER LINKS: Tony Clement urges senators to block generic-drug legislation Rush is on to pass legislation before election Canadian Access to Medicines Bill Under Threat Access to Medicines bill stalling in Senate Dear senators: Pass Bill C-393 now and save lives Battling AIDS: Approve drug bill now A reform to save lives left to Canadian Senate Killing Bill C-393 would be a facepalm of the highest order

Strangely hypnotic mashups of ambient and live police radio

Andrea James — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 15:16:35 +0000

BB Submitterator idontlikewords mentioned the youarelistening.to websites last week, a soothing mix of police radio chatter and ambient music. Choose from Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, or my personal recommendation, Montréal. French police chat really blends into the music nicely. You may need to adjust the balance of each stream a bit to find the right mix.

youarelistening.to

Image: Mount Royal Montreal Lookout by Diliff via Wikimedia Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

XKCD's radiation dose chart

Sean Bonner — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 12:02:59 +0000

[click chart to embiggen] There has been much talk of radiation exposure levels in the news, and here on Boing Boing, this past week. But it can be hard to wrap your head around what those measurements mean, and how they compare to things you may have already experienced in life. Well, it was, until XKCD created this exceptionally helpful chart showing exactly how much radiation exposure you might encounter by doing something like flying from LA to NYC, getting a chest x-ray, hanging out at Chernobyl, living near the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, or sleeping next to another human being. This rules.

RDTN.org: crowdsourcing and mapping radiation levels

Sean Bonner — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 11:36:06 +0000

One issue that has emerged during the nuclear crisis in Japan is that there isn't always a reliable source for radiation levels from specific areas. RDTN.org has just launched, an experiment to help address that need. The site allows people to submit their own reads, and maps them out next to data from official sources and measurement dates. This way, anyone can quickly get an idea of what is happening on the ground, first-hand. The site is brand new but should be very useful going forward.

Also worth noting and specific to what is going on in Japan right now, JapanStatus.org is "a dashboard of accurate, sourced information on the situation in Japan following the March 2011 disaster."

As Japan nuclear fears spread, so does crowdsourced radiation tracking

If Meat Loaf had a son who did Rebecca Black covers...

Andrea James — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 10:51:28 +0000

...It would be a lot like the Matt Mulholland version of the execrable "Friday." Whenever that song goes back in my head, Matt's version pulls me back from the brink of insanity. Thank you Matt, for proving turd-polishing is not a lost art. Video link. (PS: Sorry for breaking the BB press blackout on she who must not be named.)

Ten Sexy Ladies

Bill Barol — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 10:52:45 +0000

You might know Joshua Allen from the Twitter, where he posts hilariously (and not often enough) under the handle Fireland. Allen is one of the three or four people who make it seem possible that Twitter can spawn something like art. (Others? Tim Siedell, Adam Lisagor and Christian A. Dumais, the guy behind Drunk Hulk. That's my list. I'm sure you have yours.) Now, just to rub it in, he has a new project: Ten Sexy Ladies, in which he rates "everything ever, on a scale from one to ten sexy ladies." And when Allen says "everything ever," you better believe that's exactly what he means. Here he is on "This Thing of ChapStick":

Come closer, mon petit chou. I have generously applied deodorant that smells like a lumberjack fresh out of a clear mountain stream. I have swished mouthwash until it burned my gums like a sexual fire. I didn't floss because come on, really? But I did shave. Everywhere. And I got in there real good with a Q-tip. I am ready to receive your makeouts. (Rating: Two sexy ladies.)

Allen, who in real life is a writer living in Denver, is so prolifically funny that he makes me feel a little ashamed. The only comfort I can take is that sometimes his ratings are, like, way off. I mean, a mere "One sexy ladies" for pennies, which are so fantastically useful as to stagger the mind, as Allen himself admits?

Got chewed out by the boss? On your way out throw some pennies in the recycling bin. He'll be impressed with your lackadaisical approach to finance. This kid knows something I don't, he'll think later that night as he pays a woman to take a straight razor to his neck hair, slowly, so slowly, the only time he ever really feels anything.

Yeah. That's a Six Sexy Ladies right there. Four, minimum. Certainly no fewer than three.

The Silver Lake Badminton And Adventurers Club

Sean Bonner — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 06:00:06 +0000

Click to play

[Video Link] - I've just stumbled across the pilot episode of The Silver Lake Badminton And Adventurers Club. I found it very amusing, and not just because I live in Silver Lake (a neighborhood in Los Angeles). From their brief history:

Founded in San Francisco in 1947 by Remi BoncÅ“ur, Sal Paradise, and Dean Moriarty, the organization that would become the Silver Lake Badminton and Adventurers Club was originally intended to foster team building and leadership skills amongst intrepid young adventurers through the ancient sport of Badminton.
Headquartered in the Mission, the club boasted amongst its members, Brick Bradford, known for his long toss, shorthand, and jetpack. From the Deep South came the tag team of brute strength and graceful agility, Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. Finally, there was legendary Tom Joad, who it was reputed, could handle a shuttlecock with more finesse than any player in the greater United States. Badminton appealed to the sporting mentalities of these founding members, but the exclusivity of shuttlecocks did not quench their thirst for the true bones of America. The answer came in the form of a murder, a murder that the adventurers followed down the coast.

The club is on twitter as well, where hopefully they'll announce more episodes soon! [Thanks Tara]