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December 28, 2006
Happy Holidays All!
Some logoknit stockings on view at Three Walls for one more week.
Posted by cat at 02:24 PM
Look Back at Trade Issues in the Election
Public Citizen did this report - Nationwide candidates win by fighting for new trade policies, opposing NAFTA model. "Trade Helped Put Democrats Over Top, Emerges as National Electoral Issue with More Than 25 Paid Ads and 115 Races Using Trade as Differentiator, Major Public Citizen Report Shows; Exit Polls Show Voters' Economic Anxiety a Top Concern"
Posted by cat at 02:10 PM
Jim's Interkosmos makes Best Shoestring Sci-Fi of 2006
You can get this now from Thrill Jockey
Less deep but more far out, Interkosmos also uses faux documentary techniques to tell its space-exploration story. The style is thrift-store vintage, with a sprinkling of communist good cheer in a tale about a Soviet-era program. Writer-director-star Jim Finn wrote the script after he finished filming, less interested in building a narrative arc than in creating the proper tone. Interkosmos includes newsreel footage of cosmonauts in training, cheap and charming animation and several musical interludes, including one of a field hockey team smacking balls for Marx and Lenin. The film's central story thread features Falcon and Seagull, cosmonaut lovers flying separate spacecraft in parallel orbits. Their conversations, spiked with pregnant pauses, are far more banal than anything you'd overhear in a high-school cafeteria. Falcon sings to Seagull ("Clang clang clang went the trolley/Ding ding ding went the bell"). She tells him it sounds like capitalist trash. At times, Interkosmos' hip, deadpan style threatens to grow tiresome, but then Finn injects something unexpected to liven it up. By the end, Interkosmos has coalesced into a colorful portrait of an imagined time where movies and space travel were happy, bubbly things. via Wired
(Thanks Eliel)
Posted by cat at 01:56 PM
December 20, 2006
Ripple Pattern
Row 1 (RS) *[K2tog] 3 times, [k1, yo] 6 times, [k2tog] 3 times; rep from * to end.
Rows 2 and 3 Knit.
Row 4 Purl.
Rep rows 1-4.
Via Lion Brand
Posted by cat at 06:28 PM
December 19, 2006
Reports from the different Clean Clothes Campaigns
see Clean Clothes Campaign link
for international projects July - November 2006
Austria - Clean Clothes-Kampagne
Belgium North - Schone Kleren Campagne
Belgium South - Campagne Vêtements Propres
Germany - Kampagne für 'Saubere' Kleidung
International secretariat - Clean Clothes Campaign
The Netherlands - Schone Kleren Kampagne
Norway - Kampanjen Rene Klær
Spain - Campaña Ropa Limpia
Sweden - Rena Kläder
United Kingdom - Labour Behind the Label
Posted by cat at 09:00 PM
Why They Hate. US
WhyTheyHate.Us is a participatory web photo project using images submitted to Flickr, a popular photo hosting site. The site is an open forum and images displayed are not curated, edited, or censored. Anyone can contribute any image to the dialog. Eventually every image will be shown in the random display...
Posted by cat at 06:17 PM
December 13, 2006
Nobel Peace Prize - microcredit loans to the poor
Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on Sunday for his pioneering program of giving microcredit loans to the poor. Yunus is the first Nobel winner from Bangladesh. The prize committee said the award also was intended to build bridges between the West and Islamic countries. We plan excerpt of his acceptance speech in Oslo. [includes rush transcript] via democracynow!
Posted by cat at 06:59 PM
December 12, 2006
Drop off a Letter to Wal-Mart This Week
The International Labor Rights Fund, United Students Against Sweatshops and Clean Clothes Campaign call on all those who support workers' rights to deliver a letter to the nearest Wal-Mart store indicating concern for the workers at Chong Won and Wal-Mart's lack of swift action. Wednesday Dec 13 - Sunday Dec 17 consumers around the world will deliver letters to Wal-Mart stores demanding that Wal-Mart take responsibility and ACTION to protect the rights of the Chong Won workers.
Continue reading "Drop off a Letter to Wal-Mart This Week"
Posted by cat at 11:57 AM
December 10, 2006
Home Sewing!
i heart appropriation! (thanks otto)
Posted by cat at 05:39 PM
December 07, 2006
Another Reason to Love Living in Troy, New York!
Troy Dorkbot!
Posted by cat at 02:06 PM
Make Trade Fair
A new campaign was recently started by Oxfam Hong Kong: Let's turn the garment industry inside out - we have the right to know!
In a new research "Transparency Report: How Hong Kong Garment Companies Can Improve Public Reporting of their Labour Standards", Oxfam Hong Kong assesses how well Hong Kong top apparel companies* are reporting to the public on labour standards and practices in their supply chain ,
and finds that all these companies are not providing the public sufficient information.
The 16 garment companies included in the research are: Esprit, Giordano , PMTD Limited, Moiselle, Texwinca, Bossini, Heroic Rendezvous, Youth Grace International Limited, I.TLimited, Veeko, LaiSun, Goldlion, G2000, Chickeeduck, U-Right, F.C.K.
Oxfam Hong Kong urges these garment companies to demonstrate a commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility through:
1. Providing consumers with sufficient information on labour
practices in their supply chains;
2. Committing to ethical labour standards in the supply chain at the
highest level of corporate management and ensuring labour standards are
integrated throughout the company;
3. Protecting and promoting labour rights, and thereby contributing
to poverty reduction.
Continue reading "Make Trade Fair"
Posted by cat at 12:11 PM
Turnstyle
A transnational, interactive installation by Zulma Aguiar
December 14, 2006 - February 2, 2007
Opening Reception: Thursday, December 14, 6:00PM - 8:30PM
Artist Talk: Thursday, January 4, 2007 at 6:30PM
Recreating the experience of crossing the U.S. - Mexico border is by its very nature controversial and new media artist Zulma Aguiar plunges waist deep into the fray with her interactive video installation Turnstyle. As any tourist, day laborer, businessman, or immigrant (legal and illegal) will attest, these border crossings run North and South. Turnstyle cleverly delivers the style of each side through the persona of its border agents who are portrayed by the Mexican American artist herself. According to the Aguiar, "One is Mar'a and the other is Maria. The Mexican guard's name has an accent over the 'i..' When I play the American border agent, I am portraying my American self. When I play the Mexican one, I am steeped in my Mexican identity. The same white-gloved hand waves people through and keeps them from entering."
Posted by cat at 12:04 PM
HOW TO - Use "Furoshiki" (cloth gift wrapping)
The Ministry of the Environment Government of Japan has a guide (PDF) on using cloth as opposed to paper for wrapping gifts to cut down on the wasted paper usually used in gift wrap, great idea - Link.
Originally from MAKE Magazine, ReBlogged by cat on Dec 7, 2006 at 11:19 AM
December 04, 2006
AFL-CIO Adds Blue Man Productions to Don't Buy List
"This production bills itself as 'cutting edge' as an entertainment concept, but it is a throwback to the dark ages in labor relations," declared AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka. "Blue Man Productions is about to learn a harsh lesson in labor solidarity, an experience they could have avoided by simply acknowledging the right of their workers to bargain collectively."
Continue reading "AFL-CIO Adds Blue Man Productions to Don't Buy List"
Posted by cat at 04:55 PM
Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century.
Got this beautiful book from World Changing this month. 96-97
Check these awesome websites: Neighbourhood Satellites
"What if mobile technology could reconnect us to our surroundings by observing environmental data directly, data that had been obscured to us before?" 
and Location Ortiented Critical Arts "Imagine that you are walking down the street when you hear a beep from your phone. You see a message reading: "You were in a flower shop and spent 30 minutes in the park; are you in love?"
Posted by cat at 01:37 PM
Subsidiaries Philip-Morris inc.
This Ice cream/ Jell-O cake was made entirely from Philip-Morris Inc. subsidiary food products. Some of the subsidiaries included were: Altoids, Honey Maid, Teddy Grahms, Chips Ahoy!, Oreo, Nilla, Newtons, Snack Well's, Nutter Butter, Barnum's Animals, Lorna Doone, Alpha-Bits, Cool Whip, Bryer's Mint Chip ice cream, Jell-O, Trolli, Life Savers, Baker's coconut, and Toblerone.
Posted by cat at 01:34 PM