The shred has officially been reincarnated HERE.  New functionality and expanded means of sharing ideas and media are available and continuing to be developed.  Please send an email to Phil, Taka or Jason if you would like an invitation to the new playground.  Namaste

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Privilege Sucks!


Many of us talk about privilege but do we really think about what it is and the affect it has on our world?

Privilege is preferential treatment on the part of the system towards certain individuals based on identity traits such as the color of their skin, sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity or national origin, socio-economic status and other identity such traits. Privilege is generally invisible to the recipients yet starkly visible to those denied the same privileges. Privilege inherently means that some are offered these privileges while others are denied.

For privilege to sustain there much be some rational as to why the system of privilege functions in the way that it does. Generally these explanations are ubiquitous in all messages projected upon the populace. For example, the explanation of class privilege is that poor people could just pull themselves up by their boot straps, and therefore it is their fault and they are lazy, and thus wealthy people deserve to be on the top of the economic classes. One more example related to heterosexism privilege is that the bible states that homosexual relationships are immoral and thus it is acceptable to discriminate against such individuals.

As individuals who embody privilege, yet who acknowledge that the explanations are ludicrous and that the system of privilege leads to oppression and pain, we must speak out against the system and fight against the privilege that we are granted. The system of privilege certainly damages the lives of those who are denied privilege, but also wreaks havoc upon the lives of those who accept the privilege as well. An example of this is the concept of 'White guilt,' which is related to the long history of White privilege and has many negative effects including damaging the minds and souls of Whites, and strains relationships between Whites and People of Color.

The system of privilege is so ingrained in our thinking and in our lives that the privilege has infiltrated out laws and legislation for as long as laws and legislation have been around, at least in the USA. A current example of this is the fact that it is legal to discriminate against people who do not identify as heterosexual in housing and other realms of society. A more historic example is that we only valued Black citizens and African citizens two thirds of the value that we gave White citizens in the voting process. There were many more subtle forms of privilege related the voting process, but this was a clear and overt way to give White citizens more privilege than Black citizens.

Personally, I strive to fight privilege in my thinking, words and actions and despite my education and consideration of this issue, I still must work at it and don't always succeed at recognizing when am accepting privilege or when it is occurring in front of me. At other times, I recognize it, but due to the systemic qualities of the practices, I sometimes find it hard to fight. But I strongly believe that my actions make a difference in the world, and I am dedicated to use my times and energy to make a positive impact on the system and the world. I believe we must speak—no shout out—about the privilege that exists. We must fervently illuminate this oppressive system that damages our collective peoples, if that means not accepting the job promotion due to privilege, or if it means shouting about this important issue from the rooftops –we must not give up!

Friday, September 5, 2008

Mary J in Texas

My friend and I saw that car on the way to Austin from La Grange.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

new shred

everyone should be able to post on the new blog. i think that there are invites you recieved long ago. you need to create a free wordpress account and then check this page : here here here for tips.

the set up is similar to this one, so if you could figure how to navigate blogspot, wordpress will be no prob

if anyone needs a new invite, leave a comment here along with your email and me or taka will send you one.

i sent out a bunch more, but if i missed you, TELL me

come play at the new and improved domain

love to you

Monday, September 1, 2008

Untz Yo FACE


Get yoself ready for tatanka!


Camp Day 3
http://www.megauplaod.com/?d=t69xz1w7

email me if you'd like another 100 or so SBDs...already sent to tlt and supreme ruler of non-shred.

can't wait to see all you fine people at the end of the month..SEPTEMBER's already here!

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

manifestation celebration!!!

let's manifest and celebrate together!!!!

Friday, August 22, 2008

lets move together

the shred at wordpress is way sicker and has plenty of ways to keep customizing.

love you. see you there.

http://shredsomething.wordpress.com/

Friday, August 15, 2008

Rage

So this looks pretty cool...

http://tentstate.org/rage.htm

Question




I posted about a week ago the new blog formed, which has all of these posts (except the last 3 I think). It is on Wordpress, which is an open-source organization that gives the opportunity to create really beautiful spaces.

I am going to write my thesis this year on Open Source/Wikipedia/Second Life systems which provide users with the ability to be the co-creators of content. In a metaphysical way, many have been saying that we are the co-creators of our reality...It doesn't to me seem a coincidence that we could also be the co-creators of our the way we operate in our culture, which at this point and time, and probably for a nice long stretch of time - is mostly through computers.

If you haven't seen it yet, check it out.

I am not sure the if this is what everyone wants to do, but I am throwing it out there. My vision is to eventually creation a shredsomething.com which hosts blogs using the Wordpress software (because they allow you to do that for free). Then we could all create our own blogs, like the one I have created here, while simultaneously sharing the collected space. We could have feeds from the various blogs we create, along w/ news, and myriad multimedia.

Web 2.0/social networking software is still in its infant stages, but there is no doubt in my mind that this is the future. Watch how Facebook morphs. It is becoming increasingly easier to share information in clear and coherent ways.

I want to up the ante I suppose, keep it better organized, and open for more people out in the world to see. Through Wordpress, people can Tag surf...We can incorporate the widgets of Digg, StumbleUpon etc...and start really putting some good stuff together. This has been a blast for me, I hope it has been for you, and if you would like to know more about Open Source, I will be posting stuff on my blog as I go along to help facilitate my research process.

Thanks for your time!

Nice Beards


Is that karl marx? a bush? billy nershi? lookin foreward to the 18th

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Awesome!



Just a quick comparison... Joker most intriguing character since... Tyler Durden?

Monday, August 11, 2008

Peace out CO!






I thought this was Fing hilarious. Anyways, it was sweet to see everyone while I was home for the last week or two. Don't think I won't be in CO every chance I get to fully r@ge faces with all of you, it may just have to be that sector9 weekend mentioned below. I'm thinkin WSP for sure b/c 5 nights in NYC would be quite pricey...unless GPate could hook that condo up. but I'm chillin for the time being and will no doubt continue to stay in touch. Also, let me know if any of you swing thru chicago at any point, would love to kick it. peace kids.

RASTA BUS!!

Yo what up shredders? So me and the bison booked the rasta bus for the first night of sector 9 at red rocks. There are about 7/8 spots left and i was just seeing if anyone else wanted to get down. Its gonna pick us up in denver somewhere, bring us to red rocks, then to the after party at the ogden (shpongle/hallucinogen, pretty lights...) then back to where it picked us up. Its $30/person and includes a keg. I took this bus to phil last fall and it was fucking sick. So if anyone wants to get down, give me a call or just post on here and ill put you on the list. let me know...

ruda

Sunday, August 10, 2008

America: Freedom to Fascism by Aaron Russo

America: Freedom to Fascism is a compelling and troubling account of how the wealth of our nation was silently passed from its citizens to a handful of powerful bankers in 1913. That's the year the Federal Reserve Act and the 16th Amendment were introduced, giving a privately held corporation the means to control our finances while ensuring its interest payments through the strong arms of the newly-formed Internal Revenue Service.

Ever since then, Russo suggests, Americans have been gradually conditioned to accept fewer freedoms and a lower standard of living... all the while considering debt and servitude as distinctly American values.

Russo's first and most cogent point is simple: Americans are not required to pay a federal income tax. That's a bold statement to make, as few people believe that such a fraud could be perpetrated for so long. My father, himself an accountant, insists that the income tax is a very real thing. Russo takes that same belief to IRS employees and simply asks them to cite where it says an unapportioned income tax is required of us all. Guess what? They can't. In a telling segment Sheldon Cohen, former commissioner of the IRS, goes so far as to reject Supreme Court rulings and the Constitution as benchmarks over what is legal with regards to taxation. Russo also interviews members of the tax honesty movement as well as disenfranchised IRS agents who agree that no law on the books conjures up a requirement to send the government part of one's hard-earned paycheck.

Russo then showcases court cases where those accused of tax evasion have won precisely because the prosecution cannot provide evidence of a legal federal income tax law. It's shocking to have it hammered into your head over and over that you've thrown your money away for nothing, but repetition is good; it helps knock loose the deeply entrenched belief that we owe a portion of our livelihood to our government.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

The New Shred


There is a new shred out there.

"User-led content 'production' is build on iterative, evolutionary development models in which often very large communities of participants make a number of usually very small, incremental changes to the established knowledge base, thereby enabling a gradual improvement in quality which - under the right conditions - can nonetheless outpace the speed of product development in the conventional industrial model.

"Such modes of content creation - involving large communities of users, who act without an all-controling, coordinating hierarchy - operate along lines which are fluid, flexible, heterarchical, and organized as required by the ongoing process of development; they are more closely aligned with the emergent organizational principles in social communities than with the predetermined, supposedly optimized rigid structures of governance in the corporate sphere. User-led content creation in this new model harnesses the collected, collective intelligence of all participants, and manages - though in some cases better than in others - to direct their contributions to where they are best able to make a positive impact."

Axel Bruns - BLOGS, WIKIPEDIA, SECOND LIFE, AND BEYOND: From Production to Produsage.

Click here to learn more.