Tutu: Unleashed!

Archbishop Desmond Tutu decided to go continue being awesome, writing a Message of Solidarity for the Occupy Wall Street movement. (Meanwhile, American mainstream media is throwing down "Occupy Is Over" headlines, and Democracy Now! reporters are getting beaten up by the NYPD...sigh.)

Well, I've got some solidarity to send right back at the Archbishop. Earlier this year, HarperCollins put out TUTU: AUTHORIZED, inexplicably rejecting my cover design in the process. BEHOLD, ARCHBISHOP, WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN.

Theirs

TUTU!

OWS Barter Bazaar & Skill Share: Holiday Special!

OWS Sustainability Working Group and Evolver Present the
OWS Holiday Bazaar and Skill Share

When: Sunday, December 18th, 2011, 1-9PM
Where: City Life Wellness, 75 Frost St., Brooklyn (L train to Lorimer)

This is a FREE event! Why? OWS Sustainability and Evolver are committed to building alternative economies out of the shell of the old. Instead of relying on currency to determine value, we believe in a system that allows individuals to work together and assess value for themselves. People are encouraged to bring items or skills of their own so that they may interact with the vendors. The Holiday Bazaar will be packed with workshops and a live barter market, donation based body work, dinner and live music. Everyone is encouraged to bring an item, art, skill, or service to come and barter with. Folks are also free to accept donations as well.

The workshops included are below…and we are continuing to add more as the week goes on!!

• Guerrilla Gardening: Seed Bomb The City, Transform The Space (OWS Sustainability)
• Know Your Rights: Harm Reduction for Encounters with Police (Paula Segal, National Lawyers Guild)
• Q & A with "No Impact Man" Colin Beavan
• Introduction to Permaculture with Andrew Faust
• Food Fermentation Workshops (Food Justice and OWS Sustainability)
• A Presentation On Climate Science By Patrick Robbins (OWS Sustainability)
• The Alternative Economy Think Tank (Alternative Economy)
• How To Make Your Own Tea And Herbal Medicine (OWS Kitchen)
• Live Demonstrations: Pedal Power Energy Bikes (OWS Sustainability and Times UP!)
• How To Survive A Blackout: End Times Candle Making With Sarah (OWS Sustainability)
• Fortune Telling And Life Counseling (People of Color Caucus)
• Be Your Own Home Plumber: Rebecca Bone (Evolver)
• Composting with Dr. Susan Rubin
• How to Occupy A Hood (Occupy the Hood)
• Bodywork by Donation, Including Reiki, Massage, Energy Healing, Group Meditation
• Tarot By Donation
• Live Music
• Holiday Dinner (begins at 6:30pm)
• Live Screen Printing (OWS Screen Printers Guild)
• And more!

Can I Lead a Workshop? Can I set up a table? Can I be a vendor? YES!!!!!
Please email owssustainability@gmail.com and check out our Facebook event page to keep up to date

Can’t Wait to See You There!!!

Here's Mud in Your Eye, Mankiw

A recap of our stupendous and successful Super Fun Superfund Variety Show soon, but first: here's my very first letter-to-the-editor, written to the NYT in response to the tooth-gratingly frustrating op-ed piece "Know What You're Protesting," by Harvard econ professor Greg Mankiw (whose intro text I relied upon, and valued, in Econ100 at Oberlin). The NYT didn't publish the letter, so here it is in all its glory:

Professor Mankiw, you comment that "as with much of the Occupy movement across the country, their complaints seemed to me to be a grab bag of anti-establishment platitudes without much hard-headed analysis or clear policy prescriptions."

It’s hypocritical to malign your students for their lack of investigative acumen when your conclusions proceed from such lazy, uninformed reporting about the "complaints" of "much of the Occupy movement." Go sit in on a Facilitation meeting or GA, ask Sustainability or Trans-Equality groups, your local UAW, or someone recently foreclosed upon, why *they* Occupy. Right now your missive reads "Those Fools Rock the Boat Without Even Understanding the Physics Behind Sinking.” But the U.S.S. Status-Quo is undeniably sinking, into a future of defunded public services, engorged class disparities, and multifarious environmental catastrophes. Occupiers are trying to build an ark out of that broken ship’s spars; you’re telling them to ignore the water already reaching their necks.

Suck it, Mista Harvard! I emailed the man himself a slightly longer version of this letter, too, that included this post-script:

You are, clearly, a sensible, knowledgeable, perceptive economist, and I respect and admire your work. So: seek better data before putting out irresponsible writing like this. Investigate why your opinions look the way they do. Get to the bottom of the suppositions you use to underpin your conclusions--in this case, the opinions held by a massive, diverse group of motivated people, a movement--before you allow yourself to publish findings that proceed from those suppositions--in this case, the cursory lambasting of that movement. We have a world to save here, after all, and it's going to take a lot of us to do it. Your help would damn well help.

His response? "Thank you for your comments."

(For another "WTF, Mankiw?" point of view, this time from an actual economist, check out Chris Bertram's post on the Crooked Timber blog.)

He's MAGIC

Get ready for an incredible lineup at the first Super Fun Superfund Variety Show! Our latest performer showcase: the talented Magic Brian—one of exactly two magicians, of all the ones you see, who have ever made me think to myself, "well, maybe it's just magic." Check out his amazing promo video below, and get psyched to see him on December 10 at Film Biz Recycling!


Magic Brian Short Promo from Magic Brian on Vimeo.

Check out our Performer Roll Call tab above for more about our fabulous lineup, and RSVP with the Facebook link in the sidebar!