Yes
Man Igor Vamos, posing as a National Petroleum Council representative,
holds up a candle made of "Vivoleum," a fictitious sustainable oil
substitute made from human flesh. Photo courtesy of the Yes Men. More photos here.
ON THURSDAY, June 14, oil industry officials from around the world
gathered at the GO EXPO (Gas and Oil Expo '07) in Calgary, Alberta, and
heard a presentation
for an innovative, sustainable replacement for petroleum: a new
technology called "Vivoleum." The presenters represented themselves as
executives from ExxonMobil and the National Petroleum Council (an
industry organization) and were among the keynote speakers before 300
oil business leaders.
They proposed that the bodies of
climate change victims, who they said now number about 150,000 a year,
could be rendered into a burnable product, particularly as combustion
of fossil fuels speeded up ecological disasters. To demonstrate the
efficacy of this, they distributed candles throughout the audience,
which were allegedly made of the stuff. Candles were lit, and the oil
execs passed the flame from one to another.
A presenter named "Shepard Wolff," claiming to be an NPC
representative, told the audience that current US and Canadian energy
policies (notably the massive, carbon-intensive exploitation of
Alberta's oil sands, and the development of liquid coal), are
increasing the chances of huge global calamities. But he reassured the
audience that in the worst-case scenario, the industry could "keep fuel
flowing" by transforming the people who die into oil.
The "o" in the Vivoleum logo was a drop of blood.
"We need something like whales, but infinitely more abundant," said
"Wolff," before describing the technology used to render human flesh
into Vivoleum. Three-D animations of the process brought it to life.
The executives watched and listened attentively.
"Vivoleum works in perfect synergy with the continued expansion of
fossil fuel production," said "Florian Osenberg," claiming to be an
ExxonMobil representative. "With more fossil fuels comes a greater
chance of disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel
will continue to flow for those of us left."
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Oil
industry executive lights a candle made from "Vivoleum," a petroleum
substitute supposedly rendered from human flesh. Photo courtesy of the
Yes Men. More photos here. |
The two then
showed a video tribute
to an ExxonMobil janitor, "Reginald Spanglehart Watts," who had
purportedly died of toxic exposure after a chemical incident at a
company facility. Before passing away, the kindhearted worker had
donated his body to be made into one of the candles, so that he could
do some good and be useful to others after he died.
"Osenberg" lit the candle made of Watts' flesh and held it up.
The tear-jerking tribute to "Reggie Watts" (with "You Light Up My Life"
sung out of tune by Reggie as its theme song, as he mopped and swept)
finally pushed the presenters' credulity a shade too far. At that
point, realizing the presentation was a hoax, Simon Mellor, commercial
and business development director for the company putting on the event,
walked up and physically forced the two imposters from the podium. The
police were called, but the pair could only be charged with trespassing.
Meet the Yes Men
-- Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos -- most recently using the aliases
Andy Bichlbaum and Michael Bonnano. They specialize in messing with the
heads of capitalism and its leaders, often impersonating
representatives of the World Trade Organization or some multinational
company that it represents: McDonald's, Dow Chemical, Halliburton or
ExxonMobil.
In a world where you often need a
passport to rent a motel room and where some airports check your ticket
before you can purchase a bottle of wine in the duty-free shop, the Yes
Men exploit, indeed, they have discovered, a vast opening in reality:
if you claim to represent a company or industry organization, then that
must be true. It follows that no matter what you say, no matter how
cruel, absurd or lacking any semblance of humanity or political
correctness, most people (including the most educated) believe what
you're doing is real. "Suspension of disbelief" as it's called in
literature is facilitated by the profit motive. In other words, if
something makes money, it's not necessarily good; but it's most
definitely real.
In one presentation at SUNY Plattsburgh, the Yes Men impersonated
McDonald's and the WTO, and proposed the recycling of hamburgers into
what they called reBurgers. In particular, they proposed to a lecture
hall full of economics students that feces from Americans be rendered
into food for developing countries, based on the scientific fact that
people only absorb about 20% of their nutrition and excrete the rest.
They presented a 3-D animation of sewage being stamped into patties and
served in McDonald's to people wearing turbans and other non-Western
attire.
Some audience members objected to the concept, making intellectual
arguments against it or objecting on humanitarian grounds. After more
than an hour, some students started heckling the presenters. But for
the most part, the concept was received as authentic, if immoral.
One of the signatures of the Yes Men is that they experiment with
pushing absurdity as far as they can, revealing that the part of the
mind that questions reality has been anesthetized, even among students
and the most educated people in society. This is not necessarily a new
discovery; the Nazis discovered the same thing in the 1930s, but were
not as friendly.
The Yes Men got their start in 1999, posting a parody of the George W.
Bush website shortly before the "election" of 2000. When then-candidate
Bush attempted to block them through the Federal Elections Commission,
newspapers including
The New York Times picked up on the threats. They became big news, and earned an international reputation as political pranksters.
From that publicity, someone who owned the domain
GATT.org
contacted them, and asked that they do a parody of the WTO, which was
at the time becoming the focus of international activism. (GATT, or
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, is the predecessor of the World
Trade Organization.)
After the Yes Men posted a
convincing parody that supposedly focused on free trade issues,
people started to contact them through the website and invite them to
conferences
and events as speakers, even as the keynote speakers. Consistently,
conference organizers failed to read the webpage or to look into their
credentials or true identity, and ended up the unwitting targets of
elaborate hoaxes.
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Yes
Man Jacques Servin impersonates Dow Chemical Co. spokesman "Jude
Finisterra" on worldwide television, taking full responsibility for the
Bhopal chemical disaster. Screen shot courtesy of YouTube. |
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In their most famous stunt
to date, on Dec. 3, 2004, Yes Man Jacques Servin was invited onto BBC
World, the BBC's international edition, as "Jude Finisterra,"
purportedly as a spokesman for Dow Chemical Co. Dow had recently
acquired Union Carbide, whose pesticide plant malfunctioned in Bhopal,
India.
It was the 20th anniversary of the disaster,
where tens of thousands of people had been killed, sickened and blinded
by a massive toxic release -- and more or less left to suffer in pain
and poverty for the next two decades. The Yes Men had previously posted
a website called DowEthics.org and were contacted via email through the
site by journalists at BBC World to comment on the occasion of the 20th
anniversary of the disaster. Nobody checked to make sure they were for
real; they just put "Finisterra" on live television and gave him free
rein without interruption.
"Today is a great day for those of us at Dow, and for millions of
people around the world as well," "Finisterra" [his name means "end of
the world"] began, speaking above the words BREAKING NEWS in bright
red. "It's been twenty years since the disaster, and today, I am very,
very happy to announce that for the first time, Dow is accepting full
responsibility for the Bhopal catastrophe. We have a $12 billion plan
to finally at long last fully compensate the victims, including the
120,000 who may need medical care for the rest of their lives, and to
fully and swiftly remediate the Bhopal plant site."
For five and a half minutes on worldwide television, he presented a
litany of promises and apologies on behalf of Dow and Union Carbide,
the latter of which under the "plan" would be liquidated and the
proceeds given to the disaster victims. He also offered free access to
the safety records of any Dow product to "any interested researcher."
The hoax went off perfectly, without BBC reporters ever suspecting they
had been pranked.
Then Dow, learning of the broadcast, demanded equal time on BBC World
in order to retract "Finisterra's" many promises on behalf of the
company. This put Dow in the odd position of being forced to tell the
truth: they were not offering medical expenses for the many people they
had injured, they were not really taking responsibility for the deaths
and sickness, their files would not be opened, they were not going to
remediate the disaster site, and so on.
It's what the Yes Men call identity correction, a kind of corporate
identity theft in order to fix the public record or establish or reveal
the truth. "These things that are not presenting themselves honestly or
that hide something about their nature that's really scary, we want to
bring that out, we want to show that and demonstrate that," Yes Man
Igor Vamos explained in a documentary.
The two were also behind the Barbie Liberation Organization (BLO) prank
several years ago, wherein the digital voice boxes in Barbie dolls and
GI Joes were switched, and the dolls returned to store shelves right
before Christmas. Newly unwrapped GI Joes were talking about new
outfits and keeping house, and Barbie dolls were saying things like
"Dead men tell no lies." The prank made world news, raising
consciousness of gender issues, sexism and programming kids for
violence.
In one of their most graphically outrageous stunts, they got listed on
the bill at a WTO-sponsored textile manufacturers conference in
Finland, purportedly as WTO representatives. The presentation before a
room full of highly educated sweatshop owners proposed that the Civil
War had been unnecessary and that traditional slavery would have been
"sorted out by the market" and eventually modernized into something
more efficient than an "involuntarily imported workforce." Then Servin
(using the alias Unruh Hank Hardy) said he was going to demonstrate
technology that you could use to remotely supervise workers in your
factories around the world. This was a "managers' leisure suit," which
he wore beneath a breakaway business suit designed with Velcro
releases. (The ensemble took several months to design and create.)
His business suit was pulled off in a single tug, and he was suddenly
standing in a shiny gold leotard. A room full of textile manufacturers
did not miss the tribute to their industry. Then he pulled a rip cord
and an inflatable three-foot long phallus emerged from the suit, at the
end of which was a "video monitor" supposedly used to watch progress in
remote factories and stay in contact with one's business associates
around the world.
Some people laughed nervously -- but most of the audience watched in
earnest as he pranced around in front of the lecture hall in gold
tights explaining that he could observe his workers through a TV at the
end of a giant erect penis. They finished the presentation, they were
thanked, hands shaken, and (as there were no questions from the
audience) they left.
When we ask ourselves how it's possible that someone who cannot speak
coherently is president of the United States; how he got away with
rigging two elections with nary a peep from the public; how the world
fell for the fake WMDs in Iraq; how we have a vice president who
recently said his office is not part of the executive branch; why the
Democrats don't seem to get anything done; why people think it's a
brilliant idea that we invade Iran; or how for that matter Borat gets
away with it -- the Yes Men make it perfectly clear: hardly anyone is
paying attention.
Watch the full Yes Men movie on Google Video.
Flag, 1958, by Jasper Johns.
by Judith Gayle | Political Waves
I HAD an idyllic childhood in many respects. Arriving in the middle of
the last century, I was an only child born to young parents who both
worked toward their piece of the American dream, and tended by
great-grandparents who flavored my reality with hints of the century
prior. The war was over, the GI Bill was bringing a new sense of
prosperity to the nation, and times were good. It's no wonder that the
Fourth of July was a big deal in my multi-generational world. Let me
take you on a tour of the Fifties, through a child's eyes.
It was always hot by then, or as hot as it got in the San Francisco Bay
area in July -- the sidewalk under my bare feet made getting anywhere a
trot, not a stroll. I was usually shooed out of the grandparents'
home, along with my cousin Allen, older by two years, so as to not be
underfoot. We were armed with cowboy hats and cap guns, a fistful of
cookies shot through with cinnamon, and active imaginations -- plenty
to keep us occupied until it was time to take our positions for the
annual Fourth of July parade, forming in the business district, only a
long block away.
By early summer the air was thickly scented by Pop's flowers -- stalks,
geraniums, roses, pansies, snapdragons -- and from the plot along the
side of the garage, the slightly acrid and potent smell of tomatoes,
ready to pick. In the grape arbor, lushly dressed with massive green
leaves, ropes of fat purple Concords hung like bats in a cave, destined
to become jelly in the cooler months. The hydrangea bush dwarfed me,
its huge blooms both pink and blue, and provided fine cover in a game
of cowboys (those were the Hopalong Cassidy/Roy Rogers days and, in the
American tradition, justice wore a six-shooter), as did the rain
barrel by the garage door (the far side of the house where the chicory
for my great-grandma's coffee grew), and the carefully tended string of
shrubs that dotted the front of the big corner lot where the family
elders lived. The only enemies we knew in those innocent years, besides
the imaginary guys in the "black hats," were the huge translucent
spiders that spun their webs in the arbor and the yellow jackets that
chased us when we disturbed their territory. Oh, and occasionally
Skipper, Pop's cranky old half-blind cocker spaniel, who we avoided as
best we could.
Continued at this link...
A Self-Portrait at Robert Moses State Park Beach, Long Island. Photo by Priya Kale.
Birthday
reports are now published once per month covering all four weeks of the
Sun's transit through a sign. Gemini birthday reports are at this link and those for Cancer are at this link.
Prior to Gemini 2007, the reports are published weekly, generally on
Fridays, though this has switched from time to time and some were
published Mondays. An old archive of some birthday reports is here.
Thank you! |
Solstice Cluster: So Far So Good
Dear Friend and Reader:
A FEW weeks ago I published my report on
Spider medicine and the solstice cluster.
I've never mentioned this, but I'm someone who loves road signs. I am
always grateful to the people who put up those yellow diamond shaped
indicators of curves, deer crossing and slippery when wet and for that
matter Breakfast Ahead. I am sure that most people ignore them, but
they prevent accidents, and they work on the subconscious level even if
the thinking mind isn't paying attention.
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This
is a little how transits (astrological events) work. Some people use
the transits for prediction, which I try to avoid as much as possible.
There is a difference between saying that the road curves to the left
ahead, and saying that the road curves ahead and you're going to slam
into a tree. Why not do a good job on the first part and skip the
second part? The thing with transits is that they represent energy
points with creative potential, yet where there is paint, you always
have the potential to spill it. So transit reporting I think needs to
take the "handle with care" approach and say "this is what you can
create," rather than say what will happen.
(My
theory on how predictions work is that they are a creative act between
the astrology, the astrologer and the client or reader. They are
literally self-fulfilling prophecies, so we have to watch what we
predict and why we predict it. You know?)
What DID happen in world affairs was a terrorism scare in the UK on the
eve of the Full Moon (I did actually predict that, it was a no-brainer,
I did not think anybody would get hurt, and the UK seems to be going
into autopilot mode these days) -- and then Bush basically pardoned
Scooter Libby (which I have not dived into this week, Mercury is too
retrograde but there is good stuff at
Political Waves and this Tom Toles cartoon
says it all).
The remaining bit of the solstice cluster is Mercury stationing direct
this week. We are now in the Mercury storm phase, i.e., Mercury is slow
and about to change directions, which is a little world of its own.
This is the time not make dumb mistakes: don't leave your laptop in a
cab or your iPod in a hot car. Keep track of your wallet and keep
spending down to a dull roar. Wait a week to sign on the new addition
for your house. You don't need most stuff (I've been doing a little
study on how little of what I buy I actually need, particularly as I go
from city to city shipping stuff back to my father's house and leaving
other stuff behind to drop weight in my suitcase).
The Mercury station at 2 degrees, 28 minutes Cancer is overnight from
July 9 to 10 (Monday to Tuesday). Mercury itself is in pretty good
shape, in Cancer on the
Aries Point,
trine the nodes and about to trine Uranus and Pallas; if you have
something meaningful to say, when Mercury is slow and powerful is often
a good time to say it but be mindful that feelings are involved and
your story may change overnight. We probably will see some unusual news
early next week with the Aries Point involvement. Mercury stations have
for a long time had that feeling of the truth coming out, like they
shake it loose. Those early degrees of Cancer are all mixed up in the
9/11 scandals, so keep your antennae up.
Personally, to me the trip backwards through Cancer has been a long
essay in "how do I really feel?" and a touch of how did I really feel
and how do I feel now?
In an upcoming edition that theme will continue -- I'll cover the
soon-to-be retrograde of Venus and the slightly less soon-to-be but
still worth thinking about retrograde of Mars. Both of those sequences
are fairly significant themes in the
Spiral Door annual
write-ups for 2007 (everyone here has access -- just use your Planet
Waves Weekly log and pass) and they are covered in detail in the
Spiral Door almanac.
For now, hang loose, and it's good to be with you. Welcome to all the new arrivals.
Yours & truly,
Paris, enroute to Brussels (please note, this letter was NOT proofread by our editors)
PS, for everyone who wrote to me about helping with New Paltz, please
pardon my delay -- much air traffic in my inbox this week; I will catch
you over the weekend or early next week -- and thank you.
PPS, if you've had a lot of boyfriends/lovers and have studied their
astrology, and would like to help with a project we're doing on the
astrology of guys, please
drop me a note preserving the subject header of the email that pops up.
PPPS, we are still working on the Uranus conjunct Neptune project involving kids born in the 1980s.
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Weekly Horoscope for Friday, July 6, 2007, #670 - By ERIC FRANCIS
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Aries (March 20-April 19)
There are some things in this life that we must pursue, and others we
must become. It may be that what distinguishes the two is a sense of
lack; where that is present, we must become something within ourselves.
Where desire or ambition are at work, we may be able to pursue or
aspire outwardly with real success. Keep your inner focus over the
next few days, because you will need to make a meaningful distinction.
You may be inclined to chase after something that can only be attained
inside yourself, and at the core of that impulse is a feeling you need
to be aware of. Follow it in and see where you're led. You don't need
any "thing" -- you need to write the ending to an old story, and
resolve a feeling that has eluded you for a long time.
Taurus (April 19-May 20)
You are a different person than you were one week ago. You may be
wondering how such a profound change is possible in such a short time,
but we begin life with such a metaphor of squeezing ourselves from one
world to another. The series of rebirths that you are now going through
may indeed reveal something about the circumstances around your
physical birth and early childhood. Be on the lookout for feelings or
mental images bubbling up that give a clue to what you experienced, and
the impact it had on you. Whatever you discover will, among other
things, provoke you to be more attentive to the meaning of your
creative process, the meaning of love, and the beautiful place where
the two intersect deeply.
Gemini (May 20-June 21)
Mercury is about to wrap up its retrograde in your neighboring sign
Cancer, and this change signifies a deep awakening to a fact about
yourself that you have been missing. Mercury stations (that is, changes
in direction) often come with the truth morphing into existence. Yet
you can wonder how exactly you missed it. On one level, you will
discover something that shifts your relationship to money. Yet this is
fundamentally an emotional revelation, and it promises to ripple out in
many directions. What seems to be a change of opinion about yourself is
in truth releasing a very old feeling of lack that was in effect
choking your ability to feel like you're a person worthy of freedom.
Cancer (June 21-July 22)
You seem to be under some kind of stress regarding a decision. When
that feeling passes and the nature of the decision appears as clear and
sensible as it actually is, you'll wonder why you put yourself through
any unnecessary mental gyrations. The planets are quite literally with
you right now; can you feel them? Of course, for the moment, you need
to look and feel within for the most relevant information, which you
could say is the whole point of this phase of your life: cultivating a
new depth of introspection even for one born under the sign of the
crab. This may seem like generic advice; it is not. There is something
currently hidden, of profound importance, that you are poised to learn
about yourself, and with this information you will design a new
relationship to the world, your world, and the people in it.
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
Though you always seem to be entering new territory where a particular
personal growth process is concerned, the most difficult phase is over.
What you will be doing over the next couple of months amounts to a
review, yet the new data you encounter during the course of Venus
retrograde will help set several important new patterns in your life.
Let's put it this way. What was always important to you will become
even more meaningful. What you've always known was trivial but could
not bear to give up will seem too ridiculous to bother with. This is a
roundabout way of saying that if you've been stuck for a while, you are
coming unstuck. In the good way.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
You still seem to be making up your mind about a friend, though they
are a lot more certain about you. You can learn something about
yourself from their assurance, which in particular is to say that
analysis is not always the best way to determine your personal truth.
You like to play this little game, where you know something in your
gut; then you work the mathematics six ways from Christmas, then,
whatever your brain tells you, you go with your gut. You could do this
wasting a lot less energy, time and anxiety, and someone you love is
setting an excellent example right about now.
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
You've seen how important perception is: both your own and those of the
people who notice you. Commitment is not a matter of image, however.
Indeed, once all the projections are called in and everyone takes full
responsibility for what they see and how they feel, only then is
commitment possible. Seeing commitment occurs on a different level than
seeing what people show off. Recent events seem to have demonstrated
all of this, but more than anything I trust you're figuring out that
there are real benefits to persisting with something that is custom
tailored to your creative gifts and community vision. Follow those
clues. You have made an investment and have yet to experience the best
results.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
Opinions of certain individuals are clouded not only by their emotions
but by perceptions of the past that they are dragging around. The truth
will come out soon enough, and yet you may be concerned that when it
does, it will have a harsh or unforgiving quality. I suggest you trust
that others are close enough to their pain and learning enough about
their deepest personal needs that they'll bring some compassion to the
equation. You can do your part by seeing yourself in them and by
relating your own experiences that demonstrate you know where they're
coming from. You do -- but it may not be so obvious.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
Okay, your faith has been tested. It's not always so easy being the
fountain of optimism that endows your reputation; anyway, it's not
always true. However, you need to give someone credit for going to such
great lengths to understand their own feelings, and be honest about
them. The kinds of things that are now up for discussion typically get
very little airplay, or none at all. Drink this moment like the pure
water that it is. Allow all the feelings that are involved. There is
sometimes a price to pay for honesty, and there are rewards that can
only come from being upfront and allowing others the space to do so.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
You are not in such a tight spot after all. Nor are your practical
concerns stepping on the imagination of someone close to you. You are
in fact providing a combination of necessary structure, and
inspiration. You may not see the effects of your influences for a
little while, but one thing I can tell you is that someone close to you
is more concerned with their own situation than with yours; and they
appear ready to begin a new chapter of your story together. In one
sense, the relationship has gone as far as it could go in one
particular direction; you have seen all the differences that exist. Now
you get to explore the common ground, if you remember vividly that it's
there.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
Reassurance has not come in quite the form you expected, but it has
arrived and it's here to stay. There is more news to come, in both
personal and professional relationships, and the sometimes strange
territory where they meet. It's true that mixing personal involvement
with work, or daring to allow a relationship to take on a purpose, are
considered risky by many people, and often threaten to have sloppy
results if things go wrong. The actual problem is people having no real
sense of what others are thinking and feeling, and not bothering to
ask. I suggest you take this opportunity to reveal yourself, and to
make any long-overdue inquiries that could give you an excellent change
of perspective.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
You are finding out how much pressure you were under. Pressure is often
one of those invisible factors that you don't see or feel till it
starts to go away. So much of what you've been through the past couple
of years (of the Saturn-Neptune era) has been completely antithetical
to your nature, that is, something other than you. Yet we get to know
ourselves through encountering our opposites. Astrology is largely a
study in polarities. Though the Saturn-Neptune opposition is waving
away fast, what remains is Neptune in Aquarius. You can use what you
learned in these past two years of your life to be inventive,
rebellious, science-minded and most of all, as original as you really
are.
CREDITS: Managing Editor: Priya Kale. Webmaster: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Proofreader and Fact checker: Sara Churchville. Horoscope Editor: Jessica Keet.