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“Protests were held in Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Turkey as the Israeli offensive entered its second week...In many cities people waved shoes — recalling the action of an Iraqi journalist who hurled footwear at U.S. President George W. Bush in Baghdad last month in a symbolic insult. British demonstrators threw dozens of shoes into the street as they passed the gated entrance to Downing Street, where Prime Minister Gordon Brown lives, and shouted angrily at a line of 40 police officers on guard there. ‘Come to get your shoes Gordon,’ one woman shouted as other marchers directed chants of ‘Shame on you’ at Brown.”
7 January 2009 | 
The results of a meeting held in Washington DC on November 30, 2008, this concise policy brief proposes a consolidated design policy that fosters “economic competitiveness & democratic governance.” The proposals are:
- Formalize an American Design Council to partner with the U.S. Government.
- Set guidelines for legibility, literacy, and accessibility for all government communications.
- Target 2030 for carbon neutral buildings.
- Create an Assistant Secretary for Design and Innovation position within the Department of Commerce to promote design.
- Expand national grants to support interdisciplinary community design assistance programs based on human-centered design principles.
- Commission a report to measure and document design’s contribution to the U.S. economy.
- Revive the Presidential Design Awards to be held every year and use triple bottom-line criteria (economic, social, and environmental benefit) for evaluation.
- Establish national grants for basic design research.
- Modify the patent process to reflect the types of intellectual property created by designers.
- Encourage direct government investment in design innovation.
The site is currently accepting comments on the proposals.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Consulate in New York yesterday held a “citizen’s press conference” on its new Twitter channel and blog, while the IDF’s new YouTube channel is going strong.
“In 1986, the anarchist band Chumbawamba released the album Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records, as well as an EP entitled "We Are the World", jointly recorded with US band A State of Mind, both of which were intended as anti-capitalist critiques of the Band Aid/Live Aid phenomenon. They argued that the record was primarily a cosmetic spectacle, designed to draw attention away from the real political causes of world hunger.”Use as Directed
December 9, 2008. AFP/Getty Images. Protestors in front of the Greek Parliament building.
Looking at some of the striking photos of the December protests in Athens, I noted a couple of images a week apart with this poster of a gun turned on its owner.
December 15, 2008. Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images. Students outside the police headquarters.
December 9, 2008. John Kolesidis / Reuters. Vigil in front of the Greek Parliament building.
It’s an iconic image, but I think it takes on a different meaning in an oppositional context vs a memorial. Regardless, while trying to find out more about its source I instead found this mixed collection of 41 posters by Greek designers in response to the riots.
Screw the Flash game, since a pair was hurled at President George W. Bush the Model 271 shoe is flying off the shelf. “Baydan Ayakkabicilik San. & Tic. has received orders for 300,000 pairs of the shoes since the attack, more than four times the number his company sold each year since the model was introduced in 1999.... ‘Model 271’ is exported to markets including Iraq, Iran, Syria and Egypt. Customers in Iraq ordered 120,000 pairs this week and some Iraqis offered to set up distribution companies for the shoe, Baydan said.” More on The NY Times.
Code is Wall
In the Concorde station of the Paris Métro, the tunnel for line 12 is decorated with tiles spelling out the text of the Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, a foundational document of the French Revolution. See more photos on Flickr or this panorama.
This works in so many ways: as a beautiful display of public typography; as a visualization of the correspondence between human rights and public transit, between policy and infrastructure, between theory, practice, and everyday life. In its deadpan presentation, there’s also something of a memorial to it which seems appropriate given its proximity to Place de la Concorde, previously Place de la Révolution, the site of the guillotine.
Not to mention a passing resemblance to The Matrix.
New York City Area
I’m sure I’ve heard this term in passing, but today in a meeting with a foundation that’s historically focused on grassroots groups in New York City it really hit home how gentrification is pushing people to further strata of the urban donut. In the selection of its cover graphic, the organization chose to zoom out, widen the map and refer not to “New York City,” but the “New York City Area.”
The org, it seems, is increasingly working with people who can’t afford to actually live in the City, but who still work or organize there — people living in northeastern New Jersey, north of the Bronx or east of Queens.
It sounds a bit like “Bay Area” vs “San Francisco.” Something larger than the property lines of the five boroughs but smaller than the tri-state region or New York metropolitan area.
Graphic artist, organizer and member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he popularized the image of the clenched-fist as a symbol for the New Left. He died Monday, November 24, 2008. More at Art for a Change, NY Times and The Rag Blog.
More? See November’s archives.
Or October’s.
