Public Comment as Performance

Government meetings can become a key performance venue with some clever planning. The bar is already set so low that one can easily say their peace and do it with panache! Get inspired by these fun examples… There are situations where open public comment, response, or testimony is invited; shareholder meetings, city council, Q&As, and …

Nonprofit Fights Poverty With Poverty | The Onion

This is from 2006 but somehow stayed relevant. Our crack team of anti-poverty activists is totally devoted to marshalling every resource at our disposal,” Lindstrom said as she stood under a flickering light bulb in the office’s bathroom and added some water to an old toner cartridge to squeeze every last drop of usable ink …

Pie-ing Murdoch: Activism or Egoism?

An “activist” just tried to pie Rupert Murdoch and The New York Times Blog put it very simply: Unless the activist who charged at Mr. Murdoch wanted to help distract attention from his testimony — and that of Rebekah Brooks, who is now giving evidence to the Commons select committee — he seems to have …

Can Conservative Political Humor Be Funny?

“An Examination of The 1/2 Hour News Hour and An American Carol” on Splitsider today looks at why conservative political humor has failed. The crux of the argument is here: So where Surnow was wrong was in presuming that effective comedy tilts right or left, because the tilt of truly effective comedy, comedy that affects …

200 years ago The Luddites used humor, spectacle, narrative, and myth

From The Right To Be Lazy. Ned Ludd was a fictitious leader. Costumes, jokes, and more. Here’s an excerpt: “The Luddites, as they soon became known, were dead serious about their protests. … But they were also making fun, dispatching officious-sounding letters that began, ‘Whereas by the Charter’…and ended ‘Ned Lud’s Office, Sherwood Forest.’ Invoking …

Miami's Community Avengers

Have No Fear the Community Avengers are Here! As the right wing mob mobilizes to shut down democratic debate on health care reform; as Van Jones is forced from the White House through distortions of the truth and plays on racial and political fears; as the recession deepens – the masked marauders known as the …

Art Hoax Unites Europe in Displeasure

This is a beautiful example of how activist-pranksters can exploit bureaucracy’s Achilles heel. The artist commissioned for this work, David Cerny “is notorious for thumbing his nose at the establishment,” says the article. I mean, just look at his website. The man once painted a tank, part of a a soviet war memorial in the …