It is not just the amount of overall rise that is of concern. Storm surges will increase dramatically in strength if baseline sea level is higher. Hurricanes and typhoons have already increased significantly in strength and duration, an effect scientists attribute to climate change, and this is expected to continue. More than 10,000 people have been killed in storm surges in the Bay of Bengal alone in the last 300 years, and such surges could increase exponentially in the coming years. This means that the watery ends of Miami, Tokyo, New York, Mumbai, Shanghai, Jakarta, and Dhaka are not just possible, but actually likely.

Their ends might come from the sea, something like this:

…or from the sky, like this:

(The already disappearing island of Kiribati is, of course, already f–ked.)

Even if we stabilize carbon emissions immediately—an impossible task given global political and economic forces—we will still see significant or even catastrophic sea-level rise for centuries to come.

Many people still consider the anthropogenic aspects of climate change to be merely theoretical, and regard dire climate change forecasts like those limned in this pithy blog post as alarmist, worst-case scenario scaremongering. (Among this group, you most likely can find a good number of people who believe in things like “intelligent” design and Norse origin mythology, too…)

But consider that all modern coastal development and industrialization have taken place under a period of temporary sea level stability, which would not likely have been maintained long term even without the anthropogenic effects of climate change accelerating sea level rise. During the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago, sea level was about 120 meters lower than today—and the average temperature then was only four to seven degrees Celsius colder! In the Pliocene era three million years ago (at least 2.5 millions years before homo sapiens even appeared) sea level was forty meters higher than today.

We, you see, are only blips in the deep-time soup of the planet.

Or maybe it would be better to say deep-time slime. Why? Because climate change—largely inevitable and natural, but quickened by human industrial activity—is not only making oceans higher and warmer, but also more acidic, a trend which could have sweeping ramifications. As the pH of the ocean drops, the calcium carbonate creatures that range from zooplankton to shellfish have a harder and harder time making their shells.

(If you’ve never considered the considerable beauty of zooplankton, click below to see a slideshow of images by Ernst Haeckel, many of which depict zooplankton called radiolaria):

There have already been significant reductions or changes in calcium carbonate creatures because of acidification, with effects resonating up the food chain. If this continues, scientists envision the oceans becoming more and more populated with jellyfish, algae and slimy, more genetically basic creatures—it has been called “the rise of slime.”

So taking these trends to their most extreme long-term conclusion, we can envision our terrestrial world being swallowed up by epic storms and the slow-motion apocalyptic rise of ocean waters filled with primordial slime…as humans retreat and fight each other over increasingly scarce food and fresh water.

Kill your horror. After all, it’s only natural and very likely inevitable. Besides, as the always forward-thinking writer, William S. Burroughs once wrote, contemplating human mortality, mutation from that which we call human, and the possibility of space exploration: “We’re all here to go.”

—with reporting by Kari Lydersen

Birds, who once were dinosaurs, could take over the world (again) if they wanted to. And not just in the movies, a la Hitchcock’s 1963 terror, The Birds. (If you haven’t seen the movie, check out this well-edited one-and-a-half-minute version of it.)

In Kagoshima, a city on the southern island of Kyushu, in Japan, crows have just recently been on the attack: destroying power lines and fiber optic cable, stealing candy and bloodying children’s faces, and outwitting human “crow patrols” by building decoy nests. It was also reported recently that crows had been caught on film making tools, a behavior previously thought restricted to humans and some primates.

You see, birds are smart: They make tools, have sentries, navigate by magnetism, sense impending geophysical events and, of course, they can fly.

The whole birds-were-once-dinosaurs thing is one of those boggling things that just seems so obvious once you think about it or, really, just look at birds for a bit.

“Rahonavis is a primitive bird from 80 million-year-old rocks of Madagascar. Despite being more bird-like than Archaeopteryx, raven-sized Rahonavis retains some distinctive theropod features, including the distinctive slashing claw used to murderous effect by Velociraptor in the film Jurassic Park. Velociraptor is thought to be about as close as a dinosaur gets to being a bird without actually being one.”

It’s interesting. I was talking to my mother about birds a while back, and when I mentioned their ability to navigate by magnetism and, I’d heard, listening to underground rivers, she said: “Yeah, with their lodestone.” I’d heard the word “lodestone” before, but never knew what it meant. When I asked, she said it was like a magnet in their heads that let them find their way.

My mom sometimes shares wisdom that I’m fairly certain I should not believe. For example, that if buttercups turn your chin yellow you like butter, that Santa Claus actually exists, or that the world began just a few thousand years ago, just like the Bible says.

But anyway: Lodestones. Mom spoke of it as a kind of known thing, but I went looking online, and science, as so often seems to be the case, only recently caught up with known things.

The discovery in 2004 of tiny deposits of a mineral called magnetite (lodestone) in the beaks of pigeons and bobolink (a North American songbird) biased the debate [about how birds navigate] towards the hypothesis that birds can read Earth’s magnetic field (image).

* * *

So, do the math; birds can fly, solve problems, make and use tools, organize, and navigate by magnetism. Why do they put up with us? Against all reason, birds must like us. Despite modern industrial chicken “farming,” despite our erecting cell phone towers that disorient them, wind farms that sometimes clobber them, or mountains–continents!– of trash that poison them, they must just like us anyway, you know, the way you might love that guy who sometimes gets mad and beats the crap out of you. Like that.

It wouldn’t be because they’re meek or physically incapable of carnage, either. Check out just one type of one species, the golden eagle: flying down and killing a deer :: or strategically hunting goats by knocking them off of cliffs.

That’s the only possible explanation for why they haven’t already devoured us, pecked us underground, or made pinnipeds of us. They must enjoy watching humans. Who knows? Maybe the second most popular leisure activity among birds is peoplewatching. I suppose a few — buzzards in particular — must also possess a gustatory appreciation for people and our reputedly pork-like flavor.

Their feelings toward us must be very complex. After all, in addition to lodestones, they possess specialized limbic systems in their brains, necessary for true emotional behavior. Outside of birds, this system only exists in the higher vertebrate species. So things like rage, fear, and curiosity are not merely anthropomorphic projections when it comes to birds. They really do have distinct personalities. They also have gender-bending, “promiscuity” and sometimes engage in illogical risky behaviors.

I wonder what finally set the crows of Kagoshima over the edge?

POSTSCRIPT: Cosmos Online also just reported on findings of the fossils of previously unknown species of giant feathered tyrannosaur–Yutyrannus huali–in the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Liaoning Province, in China.

by Brian Awehali

Hans Moravec is a leader in robotics research, founder of the robotics program at Carnegie Mellon University, and the author of several books, including Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence and Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind.

Moravec is in firm belief that machines will acquire human levels of intelligence by the year 2040, and that by the middle part of this century, they will be our intellectual superiors.

Generally speaking, what is a robot?

Well, there are some industry definitions that are descriptive of existing things but really, for those of us who are less passionate, it’s a machine that does what living things do.

And what was the first real robot?

If you were born before the 20th century, you’d probably want to point to clockwork mechanisms and even industrial machinery. At least those things were animate, which is a very big distinction from things that just sit there.

So the progression from simple tools to complex machines?

To a self-powered machinery—whether it’s powered by springs or water or steam. But in the 20th century something new was added, namely, a sensory detector—sensors, basically, which allowed the machine to respond to things going on outside of it in a non-trivial way. I guess with mechanical machinery you have levers and things that could sense large forces. But once there was electronics, you could have things that could respond to light or to sound or to pressure.

So the ability for these machines to take in data on the environment?

Right. So I think it’s perfectly fair to call electronically actuated industrial machinery “robots.”

And what was the original meaning of the word “robot”?

Well, “very hard work,” or basically “work,” sort of bordering on slave labor.

To switch gears a bit, why is it so difficult for computer programmers to mimic common sense, or what could be called true artificial intelligence?

Well, I know there are a lot of theories. One glaring reason is simply a matter of scale—basically, to make something like a human brain you require a million times more computing [power] than we have today; at least, for those of us who don’t work at the national labs.

At a hundred trillion calculations per second I’d say that’s almost enough computer power. And if people were doing artificial intelligence on those machines, then the criticism “it’s not working” would be valid, but actually people are not doing artificial intelligence. They’re doing physical simulation.

And in order to do artificial intelligence in robotics, I think, you need a lot of trial and error.

So I think we just have to be a little more patient and wait for the computers to come along. But meanwhile we now have computers that are powerful enough to do the job of at least small nervous systems. So my [Macintosh] G4 can do about as much computer power on my retinal scale as a guppy. So we should be able to get a sort of guppy-like performance out of our robots right now.

So when do you think we might see the first robot possessing artificial intelligence?

Well, computers are doubling in power approximately every year now, so [I think] the answer is about 30 years.

Won’t that require an exhaustive amount of human programming?

Indeed, it is a major effort to create [such a] database. The most comparable thing to date has been the building of the CYC common sense reasoning system.

And what was that?

One of the meanings is the “cyc” in sounding the word “encyclopedia.” You know that word, don’t you? [this interview was conducted for the online magazine of Encyclopaedia Britannica]

But also, you know, it sounds like psychology. And this was a project begun, I think now, 15 years ago. It was to be a 10-year project. It was started by Doug Lenat, who was a Stanford graduate, who earlier in his career had written some mathematical reasoning programs.

Later, he wrote a more abstract thing that taught about meta-concepts called HEURISCO. It figured out heuristics for reasoning programs. Then there was [the CYC] project. He was working at the MCC, a consortium of companies for computer research, including some artificial intelligence research.

That’s interesting. A particularly curious point in your book is when you talk about robots being imbued with human values and human feelings. Is this where that comes into play? Because in order for this to work effectively, we have to find a way to give them the ability to understand psychological models, human values, human feelings.

That’s right. To a first approximation, this isn’t that hard. There are in fact…all of these things that I’m talking about have all been done to various extents by generations of students, you know, in our…robotics. So there are toy versions of all of these things that I’ve been talking about. Only now, by the time of such robots they have to be done really well, and much more completely, and on a much larger scale. But in fact, you know, having a logical system that reasons about psychological variables isn’t as hard.

So there are certain cues that you read and then you incorporate them in a model—[to see] if it’s going to hit or if it’s going to give me a banana. And as you make the details richer, you get more nuances and subtleties, and that aspect of the simulation will have to be tuned up just like the physical aspect and again, there are at least toy versions of systems that interact psychologically now.

Actually, there was a system built here—the program was called “Oz.” The creatures living in Oz were called “woggles.” They were rendered on a screen as sort of egg-shaped things with big eyes, and they could interact with each other in the three-dimensional world, and there would, in fact, be attractions and dislikes, and those would register in the way the eyes moved—the way they looked, and you know—the way the pupils changed. And then the woggles would respond to each other. So if this one woggle gave another woggle a dirty look, then there would be variables corresponding to fear and anger and the like, and all of those things which would adjust according to some formulas. And then, depending on the state of the woggle, it would then react and send out vibes. So you could have two that would suddenly hate each other or like each other.

So CYC was going to provide common sense for expert systems. A medical diagnosis system, you know, given the symptoms of a rusty bicycle prescribed an antibiotic. And that’s because it doesn’t know what a bicycle is or a person or rust or anything. It doesn’t know what it’s talking about. Well, what if it had facts about that…knew that bicycles don’t get, you know, skin infections and humans don’t rust, and antibiotics are only appropriate for living things and so on. Then it could just add that into its reasoning. And, in fact, would eliminate, you know, a solution like the simple expert system can come up with. So the way you start to do that, according to Lenat, is you take statements in an encyclopedia and then you break them down.

So, you know, Napoleon was imprisoned on Elba. Well, what’s a Napoleon?

Napoleon is a man.

What’s a man?

A man, you know, is a living thing, and a man has two arms and a head.

Eventually you can work it down to very primitive concepts. Like when you put an object on top of another object, then the first object is underneath the second object. And they figured it would be several million assertions—several million logical sentences when they were done. And they had a team of half a dozen knowledge engineers working day after day.

Is that work still happening?

Well, sort of…it wasn’t as successful as they hoped it would be. But it was still a decent first try.

What was unsuccessful about it or less successful than they would have liked?

Well, the idea was that eventually there would be enough knowledge in the system that the thing could interpret statements without having humans package [things] for it. So it would basically be able to read books, you know, and extend its knowledge, and it certainly never reached that state. And even its basic understanding of anything is so limited that you can play with versions of the system and it can still make really stupid mistakes unless you follow the script.

You’ve gotten some strong reactions to the book and especially to the more futuristic aspects of it. And the part that scares a lot of people is the idea of robots becoming able to think for themselves and outsmart us, and be physically more adaptable than us. In your book, you see them first automating human tasks, and then sort of a period of prosperity where many things are mechanized and perhaps people are more free to pursue their own pleasure or self-actualization, to put it in psychological terms. Then, you basically predict that down the road what this would lead to is, we would give way as a species to robots and that they would essentially be our progeny. Not in the way…similar, but different, in that they would be children of our minds.

Yes, you summarized it quite well.

Okay. And it seems like while reading your book one has an immediate, visceral reaction like: “Oh, well…no! Why would we want that?“

But you seem to have a very different take in terms of it being a natural or even desirable progression.

Well, I was thinking about it [for a] really long [time], and the earlier stage in the evolution of that position was in my previous book where I had…

…that was in Mind Children?

Yeah. I had that outcome, but I also had a whole chapter sort of entitled “Grandfather Clause” devoted to the idea…well, we can’t beat them, but we can probably join them, so there’s the proposal that we can augment ourselves to become as smart as they are, to keep up with how smart they’re becoming.

You call that “Xs,” [ex-humans] right, in this book?

Well, here they’re…the Xs, frankly, are mostly just robots. I mean, there may be a few human beings that sort of tag along as junior partners.

But in the first book it was sort of…it had a bigger role for converted people. But now…I really think that that’s not going to do much and that’s not going to work. It’s like taking an oxcart, and replacing the wooden wheels with rubber tires, and the ox with a motor, and the tiller with a steering wheel—and building a car. You’re still going to have a pretty lousy car because of the legacy of the oxcart that you kind of carry with you when you make these incremental changes. You’re much better off going to a drawing board and designing a car that’s a car from the ground up. Even though you want to retain the most important parts of the oxcart, like the ability to move along flat ground, but you only retain the parts that are really worth retaining. So, I think it’s like that.

You see it as a basic evolutionary transition.

Our offspring…we should design them like any product—to be as good as possible and not try to retain things from the past simply for reasons of nostalgia.

People suck, and that’s my contention.
We’re a virus with shoes.
—Bill Hicks

I actually like quite a lot of people, but there’s much to recommend Hicks’ notion that people are viruses with shoes. It’s a fact that well over 40% of the human DNA chain is viral in origin, as Michael Specter writes in a fascinating New Yorker article, “Darwin’s Surprise”:

Nothing—not even the Plague—has posed a more persistent threat to humanity than viral diseases: yellow fever, measles, and smallpox have been causing epidemics for thousands of years. At the end of the First World War, fifty million people died of the Spanish flu; smallpox may have killed half a billion during the twentieth century alone…

Scientists have long suspected that if a retrovirus happens to infect a human sperm cell or egg, which is rare, and if that embryo survives—which is rarer still—the retrovirus could take its place in the blueprint of our species, passed from mother to child, and from one generation to the next, much like a gene for eye color or asthma.

One scientist interviewed for the New Yorker article, Thierry Hiedmann, contends that the mapping of the human genome project and recent findings about “endogenous retroviruses” show that genes and viruses are not, in fact, distinct entities, and that the concept of virus and humanity as enemies or combatants, rather than as co-evolutionary forces, is in error. Heidmann and others have even suggested that without viral influence, mammals might never have developed a placenta, which protects the fetus and gives it time to mature and led to live birth. “These viruses made those changes possible, [and] It is quite possible that, without them, human beings would still be laying eggs.”

So the stuff of us, the meat of our matter, is partially viral in origin. What of our language, and our culture?

Well. That partially depends on whether or not you believe language shapes thought or vice-versa. Lots of smart people disagree on this particular point. On one side are those like, oh, Noam Chomsky, who say cognition and certain brain structures give rise to infinitely varying, yet universal, linguistic impulses.

On the other side there are linguistic relativists, like the curious Benjamin Lee Whorf, an amateur linguist (Darwin was an amateur biologist) and evolutionary biologist, botanist, theologian, and physicist, who in addition to linguistics, wrote about gravitation, “being,” trees, color theory, evolution, large stemmed plants, electromagnetism, dreams, and even wrote a Hopi-English dictionary.

Whorf grew to prominence and influence through his work, exploring how languages shape the habit and thought of their users.

Presume, as many linguists do, that there’s a middle ground between these two positions, and admit the possibility that language acts on people much as people act on or through language.

“A virus operates autonomously, without human intervention. It attaches itself to a host and feeds off of it, growing and spreading from host to host. Language infects us; its power derives not from its straightforward ability to communicate or persuade but rather from this infectious nature, this power of bits of language to graft itself onto other bits of language, spreading and reproducing, using human beings as hosts. The notion of the meme—coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins to illustrate the field of memetics—crystallizes this view of the communication process.

Georges Bataille similarly argued that communication was best understood from the perspective of contagion.

In Bataille any human being is no more than a conduit for communicative process, a channel for ideas which pass through him/her.”If, as it appears to me, a book is communication, then the author is only a link among many readings.” The author is simply a node on a network, through which ideas pass…

Subjectivity is an illusion, one that allows us to operate comfortably in this plane of existence, but which nonetheless masks true reality, in which there is no division between subject and object: “There is no longer subject-object, but a ‘yawning gap’ between the one and the other and, in the gap, the subject, the object are dissolved; there is passage, communication, but not from one to the other: the one and the other have lost their separate existence”

—Bernardo Attias, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at California State University

The complicated relationship between language and its host was a major theme in the work of William S. Burroughs. When pondering the all-encompassing constancy of flux, and the role of human beings and viruses as co-evolutionary partners, and when wondering at the viral properties of language and culture, it’s worth considering the thoughts of a visionary like Burroughs, who identified as a Manichean, and who believed he was writing mythology for the space age:

“I am advancing the theory that we were not designed to remain in our present state, any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole forever,” wrote Burroughs, suggesting that what human evolution requires is actually a biological mutation away from that which one knows as human.

Burroughs always did have a way of making profane things like “Get over yourself, changeling,” and “extinction is inevitable” sound somehow like an already familiar pulp novel.

by Brian Awehali

Newly available as part of the online release of Tipping the Sacred Cow – The Best of LiP: Informed Revolt, edited by Brian Awehali (AK Press) [PDF]. From the “Constructively Negative” Sacred Cows issue.

As legends go, San Francisco is the place for sexual debauchery, gender transgression and political deviance (not to mention sexual deviance, gender debauchery and political transgression). The reality is that while San Francisco still shelters outsider queer cultures unimaginable in most other cities, these cultures of resistance have been ravaged by AIDS, drug addiction and gentrification. Direct on-the-street violence by rampaging straights remains rare in comparison to other queer destination cities like New York, Chicago or New Orleans, but a newer threat has emerged. San Francisco, more than any other US city, is the place where a privileged gay (and lesbian) elite has actually succeeded at its goal of becoming part of the power structure. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), members of the gaysbian elite use their newfound influence to oppress less privileged queers in order to secure their status within the status quo. This pattern occurs nationwide, but San Francisco is the place where the violence of this assimilation is most palpable.

DOWNLOAD [PDF]

Newly available as part of the online release of Tipping the Sacred Cow – The Best of LiP: Informed Revolt, edited by Brian Awehali (AK Press) [PDF]

FEATURES | ESSAYS | INTERVIEWS| LiP: INFORMED REVOLT

FEATURES

» After the Twister – A Day in the Ruins of Joplin
“I was born in Joplin, but I am not a local. Since my parents divorced and left when I was three, I’ve lived in Tulsa, the Hague, Immokalee (Florida), Albuquerque, New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Santa Fe, Asheville, Oakland, and China. My worldview is not like the Joplinites. I’ve long since renounced any belief in theism or supernatural determinism, and don’t believe that tornadoes or anything else for that matter are acts of God, unless you mean it metaphorically…”
:: The Brooklyn Rail :: July 2011

» Drift to Live: Words with China’s People’s Historian, Liao Yiwu
“Why should the government fear me?” says Liao smiling, the first day we meet, along with an interpreter and several of his writer friends, at a riverside teahouse outside of Chengdu, in Sichuan province. “I’m just a guy who tells stories…”
:: Counterpunch :: April 2011

» China’s Underground Historian
Liao Yiwu may be the most censored writer in China. His work has been translated into several languages and has enjoyed international critical acclaim, yet in his hometown of Chengdu, where his books are banned, he’s virtually unknown.
:: The Progressive :: April 2011

» Mongolia’s Wilderness Threatened by Mining Boom
Multinational mining companies eye Mongolia’s earthy fortunes
:: Earth Island Journal / Guardian (UK) / Third World Resurgence (Malaysia)/ Ger (Denmark) :: 2010-11

» Native Energy Futures
Renewable Energy, Actual Sovereignty & the New Rush on Indian Lands
:: LiP :: 2006 :: Project Censored award winner :: PDF version

» Trust Us, We’re the Government
How to Make $137 Billion of Indian Money Disappear
:: Alternet :: 2002 :: Project Censored award winner

» The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ $100-Billion Shell Game
:: Z Magazine (cover) :: April 2002 :: with Silja Talvi

» Broken Promises
Government malfeasance continues in landmark Indian Trust case
:: ColorsNW :: 2003 :: Society of Professional Journalists award-winner :: with Silja Talvi

» New World Disorder
How U.S. arms dealers and their Cabinet-level cronies profit from the war on terror
:: LiP / Alternet :: 2002

» Monitoring Your Every Move – A Guide to Biometric Technologies
What are the facts about biometrics? Predictably, industry leaders and critics paint wildly different pictures. Here, however, are a few brief looks at today’s leading biometric technologies, which may be a much bigger part of your life than you’d expect, in a considerably shorter time than you’d imagine.
:: High Times :: 2002

» Profit, Control, and the Myth of Security
The advance of Total Surveillance Society, aka Total Security, promises a world free of danger and uncertainty, yet the arguments for a comprehensive surveillance society comprise a fear-addled litany of threats and fantastic promises of security that are grossly exaggerated by the very corporate and government serial offenders who pose the greatest threat to our health and safety.
:: LiP :: 2006 :: with Ariane Conrad

» Life After Corporate Death Care
As traditional religious death rituals have given way to more secular alternatives, a consumer revolt against the high cost of dying in America is well underway.
:: Alternet :: 2004

» David and Goliath in Indian Country
The feds are on the losing side of the largest class action lawsuit ever filed against the U.S. government. This time, the Indians may actually beat the cavalry.
:: Alternet :: 2005

» Propaganda, Public Relations, and the Not-So-New Dark Age
Edward L. Bernays birthed the public relations industry in the United States. His clients included General Motors, United Fruit, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, the U.S. Department of State, Health, and Commerce, Samuel Goldwyn, Eleanor Roosevelt, the American Tobacco Company, and Proctor & Gamble. He directed public relations campaigns for every president from Calvin Coolidge in 1925, to Dwight Eisenhower in the late 1950s. He was, in the estimation of cultural historian Ann Douglas, the man “who orchestrated the commercialization of a culture.”
:: with Stephen Bender :: LiP :: 2006

» Challenging the War on Drugs
A landmark conference on drug policy in Los Angeles convened nearly 600 attendees from across the U.S. and Europe.
:: Santa Fe New Mexican / Alternet :: 2002

» Nike Come Home, All is Forgiven
Oregon invites shoe giant to consider the economic advantages of domestic prison labor.
:: LiP :: 1998

ESSAYS

» Inventing Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day provides an ideal opportunity to consider the formation of national identity and the concept of a civil religion. It’s also a living metaphor of the prevailing American model for immigrant assimilation and the ways in which history can be reinterpreted, and indeed wholly reinvented, to serve competing ethnic, patriotic, religious and commercial ends.
:: Britannica.com :: 2002

» Where Fools Rush In – Custer’s Last Stand
July 25, 1876 ― The U.S. Army today suffered its worst defeat ever in Plains Indian warfare, as more than 260 soldiers in the 7th Cavalry were killed along the banks of the Little Bighorn River in the disputed Montana Territory. The bloodbath ensued after an evidently ill-conceived charge under the command of Gen. George Armstrong Custer.
:: Britannica.com :: 2000

INTERVIEWS

» Madness and Mass Society
Pharmaceuticals, Psychiatry, and the Rebellion of True Community
:: an interview with Dr. Bruce Levine :: LiP :: 2006

» Torture Taxi – Anatomy of a CIA Front Company
Anatomy of a CIA Front Company
:: an interview with A.C Thompson and Trevor Paglen :: LiP :: 2007

» Remote Control Hip Hop
Culture, power and youth…
:: an interview with Jeff Chang :: LiP :: 2005

» Who’s White?
Race, Humor and the New Black/Non-Black Breakdown
:: an interview with damali ayo and Tim Wise :: LooseLiP podcast :: 2007

» Bad Vibes – Poison Pleasure Products?
Words with Jessica Giordano, co-founder of the Smitten Kitten and the Coalition Against Toxic Toys (CATT).
:: with Lisa Jervis :: LiP :: 2006

» Conveying Correctness
The Prefabrication of Political Speech
:: an interview with Chip Berlet :: LiP :: 2005

» Designing Our Demise
One respected Cornell robotics expert is in firm belief that machines will acquire human levels of intelligence by the year 2040, and that by the middle part of this century, they will be our intellectual superiors.
:: an interview with Hans Moravec :: Britannica.com :: 2000

» Membership Has Its Disadvantages
Whiteness and the Social Entropy of Privilege
:: an interview with Tim Wise :: LiP :: 2005

» Notes On a National Disorder
A look at the growing problem of excessive concentration in the U.S. culture industries, and the oligopolistic sway of just a few giant players over television news, book publishing, popular music and cable TV. Also, how the hell Bush II happened.
:: an interview with Mark Crispin Miller :: LiP :: 2005

» Addicted to Waste
Harm Reduction, Disposability and the Myth of Activist Purity
:: an interview with Julia Butterfly Hill :: Tikkun :: 2005

» On Irony
A pointed Q&A with author Rebecca Solnit
:: LiP :: 2006

LiP: Informed Revolt

In 1996, I started a zine called LiP in Chicago, learned a lot from it, took a break for several years to do other things, then relaunched it as a full-fledged North American periodical in 2004. The magazine, always printed on 100% recycled PCW paper, using non-petroleum-based inks, and with either worker-owned or union printers, explored radical (root/fundamental) aspects of the world and its power relations in a way we hoped could reach beyond the choir and be compelling for a wide readership. We did surprisingly well with our all-volunteer staff, 600+ contributors and no appetite for running an actual business, garnering awards from Project Censored, Utne Reader, East Bay Express, South by Southwest and Clamor during our run. Below are links to one complete issue of the magazine, and to various items related to the publication of the LiP anthology, Tipping the Sacred Cow (AK Press).

LiP No. 5:
The Relentlessly Persuasive Propaganda Issue [PDF]

Featuring: Eduardo Galeano, Vandana Shiva, Dr. Bruce Levine, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Jeff Conant, Antonia Juhasz, Timothy Kreider and Hugh D’Andrade, among many others. 

“‘Making the world safe for democracy,’ that was the big slogan.” – Edward Bernays, on his work for the first US government propaganda ministry, the 1917 Committee on Public Information

“In really hard times the rules of the game are altered.” – Journalist and social theorist Walter Lippmann, speaking of both elite manipulations of society and history’s mass cataclysms.

Tipping the Sacred Cow
The Best of LiP: Informed Revolt (AK Press)

“Tipping the Sacred Cow is a savvy and well-curated collection of the comics, illustrations, articles and interviews featured in LiP’s myriad print and online incarnations from 1996-2007. Capturing the magazine’s cheeky nature, it reads like a super-special edition of LiP—complete with illustrations by cartoonist Eric Drooker, a “theft ethics” quiz, a glossary of culture-jamming lingo and other useful appendices—including some exclusive, behind-the-scenes, previously unpublished material…. Tipping the Sacred Cow serves as a worthy headstone for a publication that died before its time.”

– “R.I.P. LiP” - In These Times, 11/2007

“Every single article in this anthology forced me to shift my thinking about issues near and dear to my heart (feminism, the teachings of Martin Luther King, Jr., eco-friendly policies—even the fine art of using the toilet).”

– Feminist Review, 11/2007

“[There's a] paradox that’s becoming increasingly difficult for independent publishers–especially progressive, environmentally conscious ones–to resolve. ‘Being values-driven,’ says Awehali, ‘I think we’re fundamentally and structurally at odds with the systems we use to print, to distribute, and so on. It’s really no surprise that [LiP] found it difficult to survive and thrive in a hypercapitalist periodicals marketplace.’”

– “Shelf Life,” Utne Reader, 11/2007

• new as of May 2011: Download Tipping the Sacred Cow [PDF, 9.3M]
• ZNet author Q&A: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz interviews Brian Awehali about the publication of Tipping the Sacred Cow. (2007)
• Wikipedia page for LiP: Informed Revolt