A 5,000 year-old pyramid has been completely levelled in Peru

  George Dvorsky 7/03/13 2:30pm

Just to refresh your memories, a construction crew demolished a 2,300 year-old Maya pyramid several months ago in Belize. They did so to extract crushed rock for a road project. The Ministry of Tourism and Culture calling the wrecking of the ceremonial center "callous, ignorant, and unforgivable."

Now a similar incident has happend in Peru, but this pyramid — the El Paraiso — was much older and far grander. It is — or rather IT WAS — one of the oldest structures constructed in the Americas, consisting of 12 pyramids covering over 64 hectares.

This is what it looked like prior to demolition:

Peru This Week reports:

Archaeologist Frederic Engel said in a report that El Paraiso could have held between 1500 and 3000 inhabitants and required over 100,000 tons of rock to construct, which was taken from the hills surrounding the structure, and was likely used for religious and ritual purposes. Evidence shows the culture living there was from the Late Pre-Ceramic Age (2000-3000 B.C.E).
Despite its obvious importance to Peruvian culture, this pyramid was knocked down and later burned by several clandestine groups that entered the site on Saturday.
Archaeologist Marco Guillén Hugo was in charge of the research and excavation of this site and reported to El Comercio that he had reason to believe two private building companies, Compañía y Promotora Provelanz E.I.R.L and Alisol S.A.C Ambas, were behind the destruction.

Guillén says it's not the first time they've tried to "take over this land." The Ministry of Culture says the land is under state control, despite the companies' efforts to claim the property.

Underground Pipeline Spills an Estimated 25,000 of Gasoline on Crow Reservation in Montana

By Matt Volz / AP


A Phillips 66 pipeline with a record of prior accidents spilled an estimated 25,000 gallons of gasoline in a remote area outside a small town on Montana’s Crow Indian Reservation, but no public health problems were anticipated, federal officials said Friday. A representative of the Houston-based oil refinery and chemical company said the amount of leaked gas likely was less than initially reported, although no alternate figure was offered. The initial estimate came from a report submitted by the company to the government’s National Response Center. Federal and tribal officials and the company worked Friday to determine what caused the break in the 8-inch underground line. It occurred about 15 miles southwest of Lodge Grass, a town of about 430 people near the Wyoming border. The same line has seen at least three spills over the past two decades.

 The latest spill was not expected to enter any surface water supplies, and no public health problems were anticipated, the company said. It was discovered late Tuesday by operators in the company’s Bartlesville, Okla., pipeline control centre, who noticed a pressure drop along the line, according to federal officials and Phillips 66 Co. spokesman Dennis Nuss. It’s uncertain how long the line had been leaking or whether any of the gasoline can be recovered. “We’re still assessing the area,” Nuss said. “The line has been excavated in order to be able to be repaired.” The closest residence is about 2 miles from the spill site, said Curtis Kimbel with the Environmental Protection Agency. He confirmed that no streams or lakes were in the immediate area but did not know if any underground aquifers were present. About 45 Phillips 66 workers were involved in the response and initial cleanup efforts, Nuss said.

Contaminated soil likely will be removed in coming days, although the cleanup plan will have to be approved by government agencies before it can be carried out. The Seminoe pipeline carries gasoline, diesel and other refined petroleum products from Phillips 66′s Billings refinery to Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. It has a maximum daily capacity of 46,000 barrels, equivalent to more than 1.9 million gallons. Nuss said the line was shut down within five minutes of the pressure drop. It was not reported to the federal response centre until Wednesday morning, after company workers reached the site and confirmed the spill, Nuss said. Gasoline is highly toxic. Unlike oil, it can evaporate, making the cleanup on the reservation potentially more straightforward as long as no water bodies are tainted by the fuel. “That’s not saying it won’t have an effect on the environment, but it’s not like oil which seeps into the ground and sticks around,” said Damon Hill, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. However, if water is involved, gasoline can be more damaging than oil, because it seeps through the ground more quickly and mixes in with water, making it harder to remove, said Carl Weimer executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, an advocacy group based in Washington state. Gasoline also gives off more dangerous fumes and can ignite more easily than crude oil, he said.

 The same pipeline broke twice in a week in 1997, spilling a combined 2,300 barrels of gasoline near Lodge Grass and Banner, Wyo. The spill near Lodge Grass was estimated at 1,612 barrels of gasoline, while 704 barrels of gasoline spilled near the Wyoming community. The line’s former owner, Conoco Pipe Line Co., reached a $465,000 settlement with federal prosecutors over Clean Water Act violations related to those spills and another pipeline break near Conrad, Mont., in 2001 that spilled 30 barrels of crude oil. The latest incident near Lodge Grass comes almost two years to the day after a major crude oil spill into Montana’s Yellowstone River. That 63,000-gallon spill from an Exxon Mobil line cost the company more than $135 million in cleanup and repair costs. Nuss said it was too early to come up with a cost estimate for the Seminoe spill, and it’s unclear when the pipeline could resume operations. “Obviously we want to make sure the line’s safe and there’s no further problems,” Nuss said.

Alan Watts on living in the present

Cool video on the Naga Fireballs

Two Tibetan cousins set themselves on fire in China Latest protest calling for Tibetan independence brings the number of self-immolations in China to seven in one week 
Associated Press in Beijing 

guardian.co.uk, Saturday 27 October 2012 22.25 EDT 

Two Tibetan cousins set fire to themselves in their village to protest Chinese rule, bringing the total number of self-immolations this week to seven, the highest since the protests began last year, a rights group said on Saturday. The London-based group Free Tibet said cousins Tsepo, 20, and Tenzin, 25, called for independence for Tibet as they set themselves on fire on Thursday in front of a government building in their village in Biru county north of Lhasa, Tibet's main city. Tsepo reportedly died and Tenzin's condition was unknown after he was taken away by authorities, Free Tibet said.

Dozens of ethnic Tibetans have set themselves on fire in heavily Tibetan regions since March 2011 to protest what activists say is Beijing's heavy-handed rule in the region. Many have called for the return of the Dalai Lama, their exiled spiritual leader. The protests have intensified as Beijing nears a once-a-decade power transfer in early November. On Friday, a 24-year-old Tibetan farmer, Lhamo Tseten, died from self-immolation near a military base and a government office in Amuquhu town in Xiahe county in western China's Gansu province, Free Tibet said. China's official Xinhua News Agency reported the self-immolation of a Tibetan man by the same name, though it gave slightly different details. Xinhua said Lhamo was a 23-year-old villager and that he set himself on fire near a hospital.

Later on Friday, Tsepag Kyab, 21, set fire to himself and died, also in Amuquhu town, the self-declared Tibetan government-in-exile said. Earlier reports said three other Tibetans died after setting themselves on fire in the past week in Xiahe county. Calls to local governments in the area rang unanswered Saturday. Xiahe is home to Labrang Monastery, one of the most important outside of Tibet and the site of numerous protests by monks following deadly ethnic violence in Tibet in 2008 that was the most sustained Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in decades. Police in the region are offering a reward of $7,700 (£4,700) for information about planned self-immolations in a bid to stem the protests.

Colombia's War

Zapatismos

We propose an outline in honor of the Ten Commandments and the Ten Point Program of our forbearers.

1. We want to empower the malnourished communities of America with the tools to cultivate intellectualism.

We believe that the human experience is only inhibited by its environment, we must develop a mind set of assisting those outside our family or church.  A community the strives for education for all, is a community moving towards enlightenment.

2. We want to challenge the economic status quo, ensuring total economic opportunity for all.

We believe that the social contract which is our federal government, has a duty to ensure that all its citizenry receive a fair share in our nation's economy.  Because this institution is written to be for the people and by the people, we shall take this as a writ of coram nobis to amend the socio-economic inequality with dominate our streets and neighborhoods.  Our primary focus will be the promotion of co-ops and work owned collectives.

3. We want to promote diversity within our communities and take joy in the rainbow of our existence.

We believe oppression is prevalent within every middle and lower class community within the United States.  We shall create a movement of solidarity amongst all people regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, to unite for an equal socio-economic existence for all citizens.

4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.

We believe that the community should turn poorly run housing and land into cooperatives so that the community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people.

5. We want education which does not attempt to rewrite history and promotes the Arts as much as STEM programs.

We believe the traditional cultural domination of English and Protestant American cultures is contrary to the historical origins of the United States.  We believe the teachings of W.E.B. DuBois who recovered the historical truth of a free black men, women and children in the New World prior to English colonialism; of black indentured servants working towards freedom during the early days of American colonial life; of black passages of freedom through the Frontier state of Florida before post-reconstruction Jim Crow began its stranglehold on the South.  Moreover, we advocate a strong liberal arts education rooted in philosophy, civics and the arts to accompany courses in science and economics.

6. We want the government to end aggressive military recruitment practices in low income neighborhoods.

We understand that senators and representatives rarely risk losing a son or daughter fighting in a foreign land.  We demand a writ of supersedeas, that the United States military cease and desist all marketing of violent professions towards our nation's youth.  This includes the active promotion of military style shooting games with recruitment advertisements. 

7. We want to end predatory search procedures and brutality from the police.

We believe the system of violence that plagues our culture, is promoted by a near criminal nature of municipal police forces throughout the nation.  We demand the federal government take the necessary steps to ensure that all civil rights are respected by our state and local police forces, in every instance.

8. We want freedom for all citizens in prison under marijuana and cocaine related charges.

We believe a complete amnesty must be placed on all minor drug convictions.  The government must take an active approach in regulating American vices through taxation.  Marijuana, cocaine, prostitution should be decriminalized at a federal level and regulated by state departments of Health.  The income from these billion dollar industries would fund universal education and healthcare in less than a year from the date of the Amendment to the constitution.

9. We want all black (Spanish and native American included) peoples when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their black communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.

    We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that black people will receive fair trials. The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the black community from which the black defendant came. We have been, and are being tried by all-white juries that have no understanding of the "average reasoning man" of the black community.

10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate for the purpose of determining the will of black people as to their national destiny.

    When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

    We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpation, pursuing invariable the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

sed ipse spiritus postulat pro nobis, gemitibus inenarrabilibus
But the same Spirit intercedes incessantly for us, with inexpressible groans
Romans 8:26

Seattle May Day 2012

May Day Athens 2012

calaverapharrell4

calaverapharrell3

"When something real is about to happen to you, you go toward it with a transparent surface parallel to your own front that hums and bisects both your ears, making eyes very alert. The light bends toward chalky blue. Your skin aches. At last: something real."

-- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

calaverapharrell2

calaverapharrell

Alleged ballot box stuffing filmed at Russian polling station

A web camera video appears to show several men feeding dozens of ballot papers into an electronic ballot box at a polling station in the Russian province of Dagestan amid claims of widespread election fraud in the country's presidential elections.

4:08PM GMT 05 Mar 2012 - The Telegraph.co.uk



Numerous videos of the incident taken from the official polling station web cam have been posted online.

The Russian Central Elections Commission said it had cancelled the results from the polling station in the Tarumov district but denied any electoral fraud, instead blaming officials of mistakes.

"This was not a case of ballot stuffing, it was a mistake, a fateful error of the district election officials," the country's Central Elections Commission Chairman, Vladimir Churov said.

Mr Churov explained that officals had added postal votes to the electronic ballot machines before the polling station had closed and counting had started.

Two Works by Katerina Gogou

Katerina Gogou: "May 25th"

One morning I will open the door

and I will go out in the streets

as I did yesterday.

And I won't be thinking about anything other than

just one piece of the father

and one piece of the sea

-those two pieces they didn't deprive me of-

and the city. The city which they transformed into a rotting corpse.

And our friends that are no more.

One morning I will open the door

straight into the fire

and I will enter as I did yesterday

shouting "fascists!!"

constructing barricades and throwing rocks

with a red banner

held high, shining in the sunbeams.

I will open the door

and it's time to tell you

-not that I am afraid-

but, see, I want to tell you that I didn't make it in time

and that you have to learn

not to be going out in the streets without weapons as I did

-because I didn't make it in time-

because then you will disappear as I disappeared

"like that" "in the void"

cracked into little pieces made

of sea, childhood years

and red banners.

One morning I will open the door

and I will be gone carrying the dream of the revolution

within the infinite loneliness of the paper-made barricades

bearing the label -do not believe them!-

"Provocator".



Translated by G.Chalkiadakis





I want us to talk together in a coffee house
one where the doors are open
where there's no seaonly unemployed men
silence and dust lit by sunlight
- the sunlight in the brandy -
and the dust and cigarettes in our lungs
and let's not take precautions today, my friend,over our health
and don't give advice
about how I'm tossing it back
and how I'm wasting myself
and let the make-up, snot and tears
on my face
run.
Just look calmly
at my nails, my hair and the years
which are dirtyand me
I don't give a damn about all that
They only care about the Party, for Christsake!
why the Party hasn't been fixed all these years
and you a friend. A real friend
just like Kazantzidis sings it
and the brandy's shit
and the contractor hasn't shown
there's a room above the coffee house
for those on the run
I'll let it all spill out at some point
I do that when I'm drunk - just to throw you -
to see you without your underpants, to see what you'll do
but you, you're not like the others
you'll get up and dance a request
...your hands took a birch rod and thrashed me . . .
and in your cupped hands you'll hold my brain
with love and care
it's ready to explode into a thousand pieces. It hurts.
And when
they come to tell you
that this is not
the time
or place
for such things
draw your stiletto and slash.
The Koemtzis brothers were right.

Translated From Greek by G.Chalkiadakis.

Vassilis Palaiokostas letter to the media
31/01/2010 rioter.info

Vassilis Palaiokostas is on the run, after his escape with a helicopter from Korydallos prison, on Feb. 22/2009, accused for robbing banks and kidnapping industrialists. It is worth to say, he has never harmed human life, not even cop lives to avoid an arrest.

“On the occasion of the upcoming jury on the kidnapping of the industrialist G. Mylonas, that begins on Tuesday February 2, I would like to clarify certain issues.

Through different periods of my life I have been a first line fugitive, nearly 12 years in total an escapee (I hope there’s more of that coming) and 8 years a prisoner.

All those years that I had been and even now that Iam still hunted by the official state, there wasn’t found even one snitch to deliver me to the hands of my prosecutors. Even though, during my first escape, in August 1991, there was also a large reward for that, from the -generous to snitches- Greek state. On the contrary, I met people with troth, honor in their words, and dignity. People that opened their door for me, provided cover and help, often without even minding the risk they took for themselves. People that helped me in hard times for me (as in a prison escape) endangering their own lives, people that prove that in this country there aren’t only resigned, submissive fellows, but also many (so many I am surprised) people that honor the traditions of honor and solidarity to the hunted. Pride people that despise snitching, servitude and the constable.

I publicly express my gratitude to all those remarkable persons for their valuable help and for giving me the joy of having met them.

Two of them are Vaggelis Chrisohoides and Polys Georgiades, each one of them stood by me in his own way, at the time I needed them, without expecting personal gains, but only acted upon their conscience.

Declaring my solidarity to this two young men, the state strangles everyday knowing their only “crime” was their solidarity to the hunted, I would expect to see for once the magnitude the Republic of Greece takes prides in. Because for its petiness, I consider myself more than competent to describe: It’s an Abyss.

I will say nothing more. I only adress to those that care to retain some pleas of justice and dignity. And everyone should do what his sense of honor and his conscience tells him to do.

On 4/14/09, afternoon around 20:00 while driving on the central coastal road of Alepohori, suddenly three cars blocked my way and another two stuck on the back of my own car. Among them was a black Audi A4, a Peugot Rally and an Opel Athens Taxi. Each one of them with three persons (15 in total), all in plain clothes. All of them got instantaneously out, pointing at me, the drivers with H&K MP5 sub-machine guns with double cartridge, nad the other with Glock and H&K U.S.P semi-automatic handguns. I instantly understood these armed mercenaries of the Greek state where on a prowl for blood.

This same moment on my right, through an invisible from the main road, alley, comes another car with the driver standing aghast and stopping on the crossroad with the main road. Without second though I turned the wheels right and let it rip. Slightly hitting the other car (given the alley could barely take my jeap), I got right in the alley without knowing where it gets to. From my initial speeding to getting 20-30 meters in the alley, bullets where dancing on my car’s cabin. Those guys opened fire with their machine guns and handguns aiming right at me (the only thing undamaged was my car’s tires).

From my μeasurable experience in intense conditions, I am more than certain that they shot more than 150 bullets in 15 seconds (the whole scene didn’t last any longer). Most probably, some of them also found the unwary civilian’s car, while he was inside it.

These unscrupulous, blind shooters of EL.AS [transl: the Greek police] where determined to carry out fully the order they had take from their natural and political leaders. Find and kill.

In this case, they can blame their bad luck, since luck is female and cares for the daring. [transl. see latin: "Fortuna Favet Fortubus"]

The reason I refer to this incident is to show the contemptible way the Mass Media report such cases. The car I was riding and left 100 meters from the scene, because the alley was a dead-end, was full of bullets. This fact was not reported and the car never appeared anywhere, it magically disappeared. Just like the other car (hit and possibly with bullet holes), together with its misfortunate owner, the only witness that actually took part in the scene, withous his will ofcourse, watching the whole thing from the begining to the end.

So, instead of inquiring all these important facts to show what exactly happened in that scene, the daring and ingenious reporters of the Greek Mass Media gathered inside the room I was living in, and in exclusive reporting were waving around my unwashed underpants, informing screaming of tension the weak, ignorant, speachless tv-viewer.

This fact reveals clearly the “journalist community’s” compliance to keep silent, essentialy consenting to the criminal activity of EL.AS’ desperados and their head responsibles, in full cooperation with them. “We will allow you to enter the house for an exclusive report, but you ‘ll keep your mouth shut about everything else”. Such was the filthy deal between the two sides. The media would get their money, since underpants worth more in their stockmarket of values than the life of their owner. As long as he is “notorious”. And finally, who cares about how the police acts? If the police and their leadership believe a man just because he is wanted is to be killed, why should we disagree? Whenever we [the Media] needed some information, the police’s head officer provided it -they actually brag about it-. While, the hunted man has no phone. And even if he has one, it will be turned off or without a signal.

This is the way our daring and independant journalists think.

My congratulations, the future belongs to you. May I suggest the two organizations, police and media, could even integrate in own, for functional reasons. It’s both innovative and carries many advantages. Then, it won’t be for nothing that you elected a police correspondent as president of ESIEA (journalists-editors union).

If these ingenious reporters, with the same eagerness the show on mine and not only, underpants, cared to carry a constant control, denouncing to the Greek citizens that:

* 13.000 humans are in a state of captivity (under the pretext of illegality), living a total exploitation of themselves and their families, from the official state. That after passing the symplegades [transl: mythical deadly clashing rock of the argonaut campain] of a corrupt police and an even worst justice system, end up with heavy penalties in medieval conditions, by which this rotten system strives to control and then annihilate whatever dares to make a mockery of it.

* The armed guardians of the Greek state killing in cold-blood citizens (preferably the young) in the middle of the street, in front of the citizen’s own eyes. Humiliating and torturing to death people in the police stations. Setting up wilfully indictments sending “guilty” humans in jail for years. Setting a whole network of criminal activities not controlled by anyone.

* If they really cared to exercise some control over the modern Pirates of the political system, that helped by the gimmickery of the election system and the blessings of the Mass Media take over the Parliament, turning it into the headquarters of full domination on their voters citizens. Into a nest of intertwining interests, dealing transactions, bribes. Into a “terrorist hideout” where the loots from pillaging are divided around. A loot every citizen dares to question, becoming an obstacle in their plans will feel upon him the brutal democratic violence of a blood-thirsty repressive organization. He will feel the revengefulness, the revanchism, and the deep hatred the Greek state has for all those that rejected the status of an obidient citizen that understand his personal liberty as a necessity to do what he’s told to, but remain human with free will and claim an opinion on what’s going on around them with their own actions.

* If they revealed the great responsibility of this criminal organization for the establishment of a police state in Greece, through which they exercise an unbearable psychological violence to the citizen with hundreds of road blocks with cops armed-to-the-teeth with “survivor”-style weaponry, and the same menacing, numb look they had back in the junta days. The thousands of policemen one faces wherever he turns the eye (not to count the undercover ones). The dozens of head-hunters that prowl the mountains acting on their own taste, reminding of the begining of the 20th century, though with a modern name.

* If they denounce these and innumerable other things that de facto cancel the “social state” and “justice state” notions, as their role supposes, then today’s regime, they eagerly guard and name democracy, would be incomparably more humain, qualitative, and certainly more just.

You ‘d now say I am not the most adequate person to give recommendations, even less for matters of the regime.

That’s correct. In the place democracy was born, they can do whatever with her, even burry her if they wish so. It’s a good thing to die where in the place you where born. But, they shouldn’t go hard to the kids when they throw stones to her. They see her old and rotten, it’s stones she’s gonna get.

These insticts are primitive, though inerrable.

Because the kids are more honest and upstanding than the grown-ups.

Nobody would want to grow up just to find a dead body in the closed his parents have been hiding there to eat of her pension. They desire something more than a body in formol, and be sure they ‘re gonna get it, no matter how many dreads you put in their street.

On what concerns me, it is my absolute belief and surely of thousands others conscious people, that the damage caused to the social body by one shiny tv-presenter in one and only news bulletin (preferably the 8 o’ clock one), I can’t make it, even if they give me 10 lives to spare.

What’s the damage my drop-fire gun [transl. use of an old term for light arm guns of the mountain thieves and left-wing insurgents in Greece]. I have never turned it to an other human, much less to an other human’s mind.

Now, why am I with this drop-fire the prosecuted one that risks his life by any enraged death-squad, and those with their lucrative superweapons degenerate and devitalise the spirit of a whole people, leading them to mental necrosis, become my judges and my hunters, is my question too.

On second thoughts maybe the law on weapons should change. Whoever holds a fire-drop gun should be prosecuted for a capital offence!!!

Now, since it’s the first time I intervene with a public statement, I wouldn’t want it to end in a dispiriting way. So, let me add an allegoric enigma-quiz, I find it won’t trouble you much to solve.

What is the name, of a deputy sheriff of some mountainous and remote village of Utah, USA, overjoyed to his award winning by the FBI, for heroically and always risking his life arrested and gave to justice some dangerous elements to the order of his village? Who, apart of that precious award, also fed the ambition to have his triumphous achievement turn into a big Hollywood move, with George Clooney acting as him, something that pissed off his american patrons so that they exiled him, reducing him to the ranks of minister of “Citizens Protection” of some independent Balkan state. Who, to my exclusive information keeps fantacising about and anxiously sweeping for new “troublemakers”!

To make it even easier for you, I can also add some of his favorite words: Democracy, Revolutionary Fund, Ghetto, Communicating Vessels, Destabilization, Zero Tolerance, Organized Crime, They will be arrested and prosevuted.

He is also a devoted fan of snitching and loves “rats” and his hobbies include setting prices for the heads of wanted.

Keeping in mind though, that one of his many qualities is revanchism, I come to clarify that any similarity to real person or events is totally unintended.

Every police reporter that solves the quiz, enters a lottary for an exclusive interview.

My militant regards to all those that don’t surrender the weapons the chose to fight with, for the life they dream of.

PS. Some oil guys, they do rust.”

Vassilis Palaiokostas

Three Pussy Riot members are currently imprisoned and awaiting trial on hooliganism charges, after they performed wearing bright-colored homemade ski masks, inside Moscow's historic Christ the Savior Cathedral in late February and belted out a protest song against church leaders' support for then candidate Vladimir Putin.


Pussy Riot : Statement in Response to Patriarch's Speech on 24/03/2012
26/03/2012

“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Your Holiness, Patriarch-

A fervent and sincere prayer can never be a mockery, no matter in what form it occurs, therefore it cannot be said that we jeered at, or mocked, the shrine.

We are plagued by the thought that the very shrine, which you consider so defiled, is inseparably linked to Putin, who in very words, brought it back to the Church. And because the of our prayer, asking our Holy Mother to drive out those who defile the brightest ideals of human life in Russia and all possible precepts of the Orthodox Faith, you are perceived as a mockery of the sacred.

In prayer it is evoked that , as millions of Christians were seriously grieved that you allowed the Church to become a weapon in a dirty campaign of dirty intrigues, urging the faithful to vote for a man whose crimes are infinitely far from God's Truth. We simply cannot believe the representative of the Heavenly Father if he acts contrary to the values for which Christ was crucified on the cross. As said by Pushkin, “ It is impossible to pray for King Herod; the Mother of God forbids it.”

You were endlessly wrong in saying in your sermon that we do not believe in the power of prayer. Without belief in the power of prayer and of words, we would never have offered our prayers so desperately and fervently, in anticipation of the serve persecution that could be dealt to us and our loved ones. The repressive powers that simply waited for the right moment to take revenge on our group for our tough Civic positions we have taken with our art. The power and truth of our prayer did not shame the Faithful, for surely the faith of a true believer, as the feelings of Christ, are too deep and universal -too filled with love- to be shamed. Our prayer shamed only Putin and his henchmen, and now three women have been thrown in prison, taken away from their young children, and now daily calls for arrests and punishments are issued forth from the higher bureaucracies. It It is Putin -not a believer- who, through domination and division, needs to keep the women in jail.

You say that we believe only in propaganda, the media, lies and slander, money and weapons, but we don't have faith in any of those things, as we have no faith in anything entity equal the brute powers of King Herod. You encouraged the Russian people to vote and pray for these powers, in whose name you have tried to link with prosperity of the Russian land.
First the pervasive and false propaganda on state television wrested from the people a victory for Putin. Now, through outright falsehood opposition and detractors at least is trying to assure the people that women with young children should be kept in the custody for "for violation of the laws of the Church.” On whose side are propaganda, media, lies and slander? On whose side is the belief in money? On which side are the performers of Pussy Riot, whose lives are close to the asceticism necessary for any creative thinking? Or is the belief in money on the side of those who invested the empty values of unprecedented governmental luxury in the code of conduct for any high-ranking man? Who has faith in weapons? Perhaps those who call for the killing in the name of religious feelings? On whose side were the dozens of armed men who, shouting and wielding their weapons, commanded a raid on March 3rd, having been sent to arrest two women suspected to have been in the temple- suspected of having asked Mother of God, loudly, get rid of Putin?

Pussy Riot




Pussy Riot, offshoot of Russian anarchist art group Voina, pisses off both church and state
--deathandtaxesmag.com--
By DJ Pangburn 4 days ago


Over the last few years, Voina, a Russian anarchist art collective, has been rather busy. They’ve painted a cock on a draw bridge; thrown cats inside a Moscow McDonald’s; had an un-simulated “fuck action” in a Russian museum; and overturned cop cars. Such is their reputation that the mysterious street artist Banksy himself bailed out members Oleg Vorotnikov and Leonid Nikolayev.

More recently, an all-female Riot Grrrl offshoot of Voina, Pussy Riot, has been playing impromptu, Dada-esque punk rock shows in various public locations: Red Square, subway stations, a ritzy boutique, amongst others. But it is Pussy Riot’s most recent stunt that is attracting the most attention for the feminist group, recalling the type of response that could only come from heathen-hating Christians.

The group played inside Moscow’s main Russian Orthodox cathedral, in an area usually reserved for priests, calling on the Virgin Mary to chase Vladimir Putin away. Deacon Andrei Kurayev, whose response to the group was at once enlightened and condescending, drew the wrath of the more radical, reactionary strains of Christendom, with one member of a Christian foundation calling for “those bitches” to burn in hell. Divine.

Pussy Riot’s response? They called the church “a tool in dirty electoral intrigues,” while member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova allegedly invited the Orthodox Church spokesman Vsyevolod Chaplin to visit her in jail to debate the group’s actions.

One, of course, has to situate Voina and Pussy Riot within the context of Russia’s so-called democracy. While many artists are politically-neutered or spade, so to speak, Voina and Pussy Riot put their lives on the line with their radical art and calls for liberty. Their work preceded both the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, and one could seriously argue they helped give birth to a new radical sentiment in Russia. It’s art at it’s finest: something worthy of early 20th century art movements like Dada, Surrealism and Futurism.

Meanwhile, the group’s supporters are protesting the detainment of and possible charges against two group members, Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, with signs emblazoned with the beautiful double-entendre, “Free Pussy Riot.”

For radical art and politics, the means of communication could not be any more sublime. And I’ll be damned if Pussy Riot isn’t the most interesting band in all the world. Not one American band would have the, well… ovaries to do this work.