Photographs from Palestine taken by Emily Jacir were recently on display at SFMOMA as part of an exhibit about passages and memory called Passageworks (October 25, 2008 - January 19, 2009 ). The title of the photo display was “Where We Come From” and it's a representation of interviews the artist did with Palestinians in the Diaspora and Palestine. Jacir asked her interviewers to answer the question “if I could do anything for you, anywhere in Palestine, what would it be?” Jacir's works was acquired last year by SFMOMA and will likely be shown again in the near future.

The wishes are mixed and Jacir follows them and takes pictures of the objects of their desire. In one she is asked to water a tree in village that had been demolished in the Nakba of 1948. In another she is asked by a Palestinian refugee to light a candle in Haifa, the town from which the person’s family was exiled. Some requests do not stop at a symbolic act, and the subject asks Jacir to do basic things such as paying the gas bill or visiting a love one; things that are impossible for those living under the Israeli apartheid rule.

Emily Jacir is a Palestinian artist that uses different media to make her art. Since 1999 she has been involve in building the Ramallah's art scene and creating the Birzeit's Virtual Art Gallery. Emily has been active in fighting to end the Israeli occupation through art and writing, and has called for a boycott of all Israeli art institution. Read more

Ali La Pointe and Zena's words on the New York streets | A Tale of Two Sisters: Witnessing an Undercover Israeli Operation in Ramallah (2) | Photostory: Retracing bus no. 23 on the historic Jerusalem-Hebron Road | Palestinian Revolution Cinema Comes to NYC | "Material for a film": Retracing Wael Zuaiter (Part 1) | Acquisition: Emily Jacir at SFMOMA |

In what is rapidly becoming a homespun Santa Cruz New Year’s tradition, the Last Night DIY Parade and Street Party took over the streets on New Year’s for the forth continuous year. This year the do-it-yourself, grassroots celebration returned with a parade, street party, entertainment, and performers taking over downtown for an evening of DIY adventure and entertainment.

A manifesto published on the Last Night DIY website states, "Last Night is a completely organic event, organized and put on at a grassroots-level. No city-sponsorship. No corporate donors.” The celebration got started at 5:00pm near the Saturn Cafe parking lot on Pacific Avenue and Spruce Street. Read More | Video

Previous SC-IMC Coverage: 2005 / 06 || 2006 / 07 || 2007 / 08

From the open publishing newswire: "I received some unsettling news yesterday that Shakespeare Santa Cruz - the country's fifth largest Shakespeare festival - will close its door forever on December 22nd unless they raise $300,000. If this sounds last minute, it is because they themselves found out only a couple of days ago that UC Santa Cruz will take away their place on campus unless they can come up with those funds. SSC has been a part of the Santa Cruz and Theatre communities for 28 years during which time it has not only produced some magnificent work, but it has also helped to enrich the education of many of UC Santa Cruz's theatre students by casting them in their Holiday shows, their traveling shows called Shakes-To-Go (in which they take abridged plays into underfunded elementary and high schools), and by giving them a place in SSC's coveted summer season as one of twelve students from across the nation." Read More

SubRosa, the new community space and anarchist infoshop in Santa Cruz, will host a weekly open mic on Thursdays at 8:00pm. The event is an opportunity to connect with friends and showcase creative music, poetry, and performance. SubRosa - a community space is located at 703 Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz. Read More

On October 30th a gathering of Palin family look-alikes met under the rainbow flag on the Castro to the delight of tourists and locals alike. Most of the group had gotten to know each other at a Sarah Palin Look-Alike Contest held in mid-October, the brainchild of Lisa Geduldig of KungPao Kosher Comedy. They decided on an October 30 date for their reunion, one day before Halloween, in part because the Castro district of San Francisco has been shut off to outside visitors by the S.F. Police Department on Halloween to keep out "rowdy elements".

Mainstream media came out in force to photograph the group of men and women in Sarah Palin drag that dubbed themselves Palinistas. A non-plussed Bristol Palin impersonator, appearing very pregnant, joined the entourage, helping to lift the spirits of weary San Franciscans understandably nervous about November 4 outcomes.

The Palin look-alikes all said they support the *No on 8* campaign and took the opportunity to promote the cause of marriage equality as they vamped for the cameras. A moose character with a cut-out mask made an appearance, keeping to the sidelines, possibly worried about being shot by one of the Palins. A group of tourists from Alaska made the scene and reported they are happy to be taking home some San Francisco attitude with them.

Photos | Video | Look-Alike Contestants Tour the City

In the past few weeks, activists in the UC Berkeley area have engaged in correcting pro-Israel propaganda. The propaganda is currently in the form of AC Transit bus stop advertisements, produced by the San Francisco based public relations company. Neglecting Israeli occupation of Palestine, human rights abuses and institutionalized racism of the Jewish state, the PR propaganda does not advertise for a particular product or endorse a specific policy. It depicts Israel as a beacon of liberal democratic, anti-racist, anti-sexist and environmentally conscious values, while exploiting Palestinians, homosexuals, women, Ethiopians and Martin Luther King Jr in order to further the organizations political agenda.

One of the ads depicted Palestinian soccer player Suwan Abbas, with the description "Where in the Middle East do Jews and Arabs play together? Only in Israel." The corrections made by activists to the ads features stenciled statements, such as "Palestine will be free" and "where can one find an illegal occupation? Only in Israel." However, on the night of September 18, someone added an image of a Swastika, an equal sign and a Star of David, to an already stenciled ad that carried the massage "free Palestine". Human rights groups on and off-campus have condemned this graffiti as a hate crime, but local Zionists groups have seized the moment and used the graffiti for the political agenda of creating an atmosphere of fear, in order to silence critics of Apartheid and racism.

Members of Students for Justice in Palestine, a UC Berkeley Palestinian solidarity group, have been harassed in the weeks building up to and following the graffiti. They were followed, yelled at, and threatened. One of the forms of harassment was a large graffiti in one of the main lecture halls on campus that included Jewish nationalist slogans and the statement "SJP don't fuck with the Jews on campus ANYMORE!"

Additionally, local media outlets such as the Oakland Tribune, Berkeley Daily Planet, the Daily Cal, J Mag and others have reported on the hate speech graffiti and some have printed false accusations against SJP, despite the Berkeley City Police having no leads as to who wrote the hate speech. It appears the media outlets have contributed to a current campaign against Palestinian solidarity groups, which should be considered part of larger campaign of policing academics and student organizations that speak out against the Israeli occupation and human rights abuses of Palestinians. Read More

Racism is part of the problem in Israel-Palestine, not the solution | Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism, a letter to the Berkeley Daily Planet- IJAN | Bogus Campus Anti-Semitism | Kill Arabs, Cry Anti-Semitism, Norman Finkelstein

On October 1st, green mesh fencing was put up again in Santa Cruz's Parking Lot #4 next to the downtown Farmer's Market. The market began at 2:30pm and by 3:00pm, many people were disappointed by the fencing around the trees and the absence of the sounds of drumming in the air. But the drumming got started when a little kid, a regular at the drum circle, began playing his drum in the dirt near the sidewalk on Cedar Street. People eventually removed the fencing around the trees and a drum circle formed, playing music into the night.

Robert Norse comments, "The Drum Circle assembly isn't particularly newsworthy, except when Coonerty's Constables attempt to disrupt the public assembly there. No news is good news.

"Apparently, the police were told to resume their duties elsewhere--a sensible directive, and one wonders why it wasn't followed in late August and early September--avoiding a lot of public tension, anger, and hubbub. Could have something to do with Coonerty's reelection campaign, or some ambitious gentrification gents, or a new $43 million parking garage...or too many cops with too much time on their hands."

Only time will tell what will happen in Parking Lot #4 on Wednesday, October 8th and beyond. Will the green mesh fencing return? If so, will it come down again, one way or another? Will people be able to freely congregate, make music, and share food without surveillance and harassment by the police? Read More and View Photos

previous coverage of Parking Lot #4: September 10 || September 17 || September 24

Reviewers familiar with anti-globalization protests have both praise and criticism for the film. Among the latter are concerns about accurate portrayal of protesters, although director Stuart Townsend said he chose not to take sides and that the film is a work of fiction based on real events. Bay area activist and arts organizer David Solnit worked with the director to help recreate scenes from 1999. He and others who participated in the Seattle protests had limited influence on the script. Some activists also called on people to speak up and reclaim history and to not allow the movie to tell an untrue story of the WTO demonstrations.

On a positive note, the movie has been praised by some for covering the history of criminal activity performed by the WTO and for its depiction of the effect of the demonstrations on people’s lives. Characters in the movie change through the events of November 1999. A cop resigns from his job after his wife is beaten by the Seattle police and a corporate media reporter disobeys orders and films attacks on the demonstrators by the police. Unions are shown to have power that is seldom seen on the big screen.

While some praise Townsend for portraying protesters as sympathetic characters, others criticize his glamorization of a mainstream media fictional heroine. Ironically, WTO activists gave birth to indymedia in 1999 precisely because corporate media focuses on violence and confrontation and portrays protesters negatively. Read More

The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle l SF Activists Had Hand in Making of "Battle in Seattle" | New Movie “Battle in Seattle” | Real Battle In Seattle l An anarchist review of Battle in Seattle l "And What About Tomorrow?" - An Anarchist Response to "Battle in Seattle" l ‘Battle in Seattle’—Tell Hollywood to Keep It in the Movie Theaters l On the origin and context of the indymedia network l Battle in Seattle: With A-List Cast, New Film Re-Creates Historic Protest Against WTO

During protests at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota, performance artists from the San Francisco Bay Area rolled around in "Oily Dollars" symbolizing the dirty connection between Big Oil and elected officials. While many of the conventioneers tried to stifle laughs, activist-actors made political points with humorous street theater, getting daringly close to the delegates. They met the Texas Delegates for breakfast outside of their hotel with yellow "Support Our Oil Companies" ribbons. At a nearby venue, a San Francisco resident masked as Sarah Palin beat a polar bear with a bag overflowing with dollar bills while dancing to the Beatles' "Money, That's What I Want". "Sarah's" dance partners were frolicking oil executives with oversize heads, name tags, and company logos.

Not all convention attendees were amused, however. Ed Matthews, Republican candidate for Minnesota's 4th Congressional district, took after Jeff Grubler of the performance group Ronald Reagan Home for the Criminally Insane, grabbing Grubler's McCain mask. When Grubler tugged on Matthews' credentials, he was thrown to the ground by a uniformed officer who cuffed him while keeping his knee on the back of his neck. Grubler was then arrested and released after being detained for close to an hour. Matthews, meanwhile, was escorted into the safety of the convention building.

Grubler's San Francisco based group made many of the oversize cut-out masks used to portray McCain, Palin, and well-known oil executives in larger-than-life roles. Humorous signs included one that said, "Thank you Republican Party! Price Gouging, War Profiteering, Global Warming, Toxic Pollution."

Photos | Mugged at the RNC by a Republican Candidate for Congress | I took a swing at a Republican Candidate for Congress | Ed Matthews Goes Down!

More Indybay 2008 RNC Coverage