riseup.net has a great collection of tech activism listserves.

Highlights include:

nomesh-tech New Orleans Mesh Networking - Technical Support & Discussion

farma Renewable energy sources campaign for the Zapatista communities

leftistpython Leftist and combative object oriented programming

fpl-fbv Forum on the Patenting of Life - Forum sur le brevetage du vivant

vgranjeros List for the farmers who tend the fields of the vfarm

techne technology and democracy

Action by the Iraq Veterans Against the War

At the ANSWER march on the capitol Iraq war veteran Rev. Yearwood closed his remarks by saying: “The revolution may not be televised, but it will be uploaded!”

Rev. Yearwood asked the listeners to go to youtube and watch the following video of Captiol police tackling him when he tried to enter the General BetrayUs testimony along with other activists.

I had the great pleasure of reading Phil Dick’s Galactic Pot-Healer (1969) last week. I’m now about to finish The Unteleported Man (1966). Pot-Healer is an extraordinary story of a divine life form from another world (yes, it’s Dick, you probably could have assumed that much) who recruits artisans, scientists and engineers from all over universe to assist in the raising and reconstruction of an ancient temple now buried under the sea. I just can’t bring myself to spoil it for you, so - I’ll save the analysis for later and leave this post as is…go read it!

The New York Times reports that prison libraries are being purged of religious books and other materials. The Bureau of Prisons is banning material that might “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize.”

Of course this is absurd and I can’t even begin to imagine who is deciding what would “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize” and how to apply these criteria. Surely the entire Jewish and Christian Bible must be excluded - or is the Bureau of Prisons just assuming that there is no advocating or discriminatory content in the Bible. If so, they clearly haven’t read it. The Koran and the Bible both advocate violence in parts and peace in others. And so I can only conclude that this is an attempt to remove material that might inspire prisoners to rise up against the illegal and immoral system that has locked them up.

I wonder how much access to the internet prisoners have, if any. Could a case be made that access to cyberspace is a right for prisoners just as occasional access to the outdoors is?