Brad Will, 36, a documentary filmmaker and reporter for Indymedia in New York, Bolivia and Brazil, was shot 10/28 when pro-government attackers opened fire on a barricade Oaxaca, Mexico. He died with his video camera in his hands.
10/30 Update: Paramilitaries forcibly enter Oaxaca; many reports of protesters surrounded by armed government forces and police, activists worldwide plan protests at Mexican embassies.
IMC Global Story | IMC US Story | Mexico IMC | Portland IMC Call to Action | Infoshop News, (story URL) | E-blockade of Mexican Consulate (2nd link)

Jeff Suppan has become the latest American sports star to enter the political arena on the right-wing of the political spectrum. I will cheer for Jeff Suppan and my St. Louis Cardinals tonight, and I have to take my hat off to him because he has really came through during the playoffs for the Cardinals, but other than that I am angry with him …

Anuradha Mittal is the director of the Oakland Institute, a California-based research and education institution. She is an expert on trade, agriculture and development in India (her native country) and globally. Confluence had a chance to talk to her at the Reclaim the Commons events last April.

See Related: GM Cotton Disaster in India

On Saturday 9/30 an annual afternoon picnic for St. Louis-based national white supremacist group, Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), turned sour shortly after one o'clock in Affton's Mathilda Park. "We will rise again!" filtered through their PA just before dozens of anarchists suddenly emerged behind a large "FUCK Y'ALL! Social Liberation, Not Anti-Immigration" banner.

A St. Louis activist, "Anna," known to many of us, sent me the following accounts and photos of Occupied Palestine:

Yesterday I awoke to find a fellow ISMer shouting, "everyone wake up! Incursion in Askar!" … We rushed to a taxi and then into Askar refugee camp. The air was filled with smoke. We heard sporadic gunfire and suddenly the taxi driver stopped. He looked at us as if he was ashamed of his fear. He said he could go no further…

Anti-racist activists have reported to Media Mouse that the St. Louis, MO-based white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, a racist group with origins in the segregationist White Citizens’ Councils of the south and active recently in Grand Rapids, were effectively disrupted in Jackson, Michigan by the combined presence of a large number of anti-racists and rain. The Michigan Council of Conservative Citizens scheduled the first of two rallies it plans in the state in order to build support for the passage of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) 7/30/06 in Jackson. Anti-racist activists report that they showed up shortly before 2:00pm to the Council’s “Anti-Affirmative Action Rally” to find that the fifteen anti-racists essentially matched the small crowd of Council of Conservative Citizens members and their supporters and the group was consequently easily able to halt the scheduled proceedings of the rally.

Details experience of one St. Louis County voter as he uses the new ES&S; iVotronic election machine.

As clips of hurricane-strength winds uprooting trees across St. Louis in late July made national news, many commentators spoke of the awesome power of nature. But this storm was not an act of god. It was an act of Exxon-Mobile and its friends. And they are not gods, even if they are treated as such by the White House.
MORE: Local accounts after storm | Way of living unsustainable

In a direct act of protest against nuclear weapons on the morning of 20 June, Carl Kabat, a Roman Catholic Priest from St. Louis, and Gregory Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli, two Veterans, went to a Minuteman III silo in North Dakota and sabotaged the silo with hammers. They also put paint and their own blood on the missile lid.

More Info: Jonah House | "Democracy Now" coverage 6-21 | MP3 Interview with Kabat | Clowns convicted

During morning rush hour 6/2, a DJ for Bernie Miklasz Show on local "sports" station, AM 1380, said the proper place for bicycles is underneath cars. This comes barely 1year after local radio DJs suspended for prompting listeners to forceably disarm cops. Unclear whether the DJ advocating violence against bicyclists could receive similar treatment. For context, 12% of all roadway injuries in Missouri are on bike.
Update: Bernie issues apology for guest, and legal threat.

an account from one person who attended the counter-demonstration in Collinsville to the anti-illegal immigrant rally.

A guerrilla performance troupe descended upon Venus Envy in the St. Louis Center on 4-15-2006 to highlight the event organizers' lack of a fair transgender policy. The performers staged a tongue-in-cheek freak/fashion show, complete with barker wearing top-hat and tails, highlighting the gender ambiguity of each “freak.”