Inspired by the call of Visual Resistance and John Unger, here’s an attempt at a few Guernica stencils:

Click on an image above for a printer-friendly PDF.

They could probably be simplified further, but here’s a first go.

Free to download and distrbute!

I’m late to the party on this, but as one of its co-founders notes in passing, the photo sharing site Flickr is fast becoming an easy way to find photos of major protest events in wired urban areas. See for instance, protests this week against the CPE in Paris or the election in Belarus. See also this December 2005 story on MoveOn’s use of Flickr or the 1,430 photos tagged “RNC.”

If Web 2.0 is made of people, an easy use is a kind of grassroots media. Though the corporate-owners of such Web frameworks are certainly willing to take down images that “may offend” or hand over the goods on users. (via)

Wow! Three weeks ago I posted a modest proposal for a guerilla wayfinding campaign, painting compass stencils at the exits of subway stations for disoriented commuters.

Today at the 8th Avenue L exit I found this:

Here’s a hi-res photo someone posted to Flickr of the same compass at the Bleeker 6 exit. I found more at Astor Place and Union Square. Is someone reading this blog? And will they go all city?

El Nuevo Diario reports that 1,420 Nicaraguan banana workers have died as a result of the illnesses caused by the pesticide Nemagon. 9,500 are seriously ill without access to adequate healthcare.

In their battle to collect on their compensation claim, the workers have seized an unexpected asset.

From the Nicaragua Network, 1/18/06:

Nemagon victims put lien on use of “Shell” trademark

“On January 13 the law firm Ojeda, Gutierrez, and Espinoza put a lien on the multinational Shell Oil Company against which the firm’s clients won a multimillion compensation claim in Nicaraguan courts.  The clients are 500 former banana workers from the Chinandega area whose health has been severely affected by their exposure to Nemagon.  Over a hundred of the former banana workers traveled to Managua to take part in the task of placing banners about the lien over the word ‘Shell’ at Shell gas stations in the capital.

Attorney Angel Espinoza explained that, since his clients won their claim for US$486 million compensation against four multinationals (Dole Food Company, Dow Chemical Company, Shell Chemical Company and Standard Food Company [Dole’s name in Central America]), they have not received a cent from any of the companies. ‘The companies’ failure to pay up has resulted in our decision to go ahead and place a lien on the use of the Shell trademark,’ says Espinoza. The law firm has already filed claims against Dole Food Company and Dow Chemical Company.

The gasoline and other products sold at Shell gas stations in Nicaragua are sold by the company Shell Nicaragua, S.A., which pays a monthly sum to Shell to rent out the trademark. The lien applied by the Chinandega farm workers and their lawyers does not affect Shell Nicaragua S.A.’s ability to continue selling its products, but the company can no longer do so under the trademark Shell unless company officials agree to start paying the Nemagon victims the monthly sum they have been paying to the Shell Oil Company.