Novelist, 60s Icon Ken Kesey Dies

By Jeff Barnard, Associated Press Writer

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - Ken Kesey, whose LSD-fueled bus ride became a symbol of the psychedelic 1960s after he won fame as a novelist with ``http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/movie/*http://movi es.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&cf=info&id=1800103151>One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,'' died Saturday morning. He was 66.

Kesey died two weeks after cancer surgery at Sacred Heart Medical Center to remove 40 percent of his liver.

``We're all going to miss him,'' said Eileen Babbs, a family friend. ``He's gone too soon.''

Uncle Fluffy writes: "I just read this on kuro5hin.org: You've seen the War On Terrorism, now get the trading cards. Collect all ninety.

From the Topps trading company's page: 'This high-gloss 90-card set contains biographical information on the civilian and military leaders entrusted to guide us through this fight, statistical data and photos of military hardware.

Kids need to understand that the President (and his team) will keep them safe and that evil-doers will be punished. Our cards deliver the details in a medium with which they are familiar and comfortable.'"

Autonomedia writes: "Careful readers of our site may be interested to see this rather under-reported impressive new initiative on the part of a State long neglectful of "applied" arts. It's always nice to see that the Dubya's able to quote soul-mates like Wyndham Lewis, and to know he has a "first-hand grasp" of problems like cyber-addiction to pornographic violence. (If only his interest in pornographic violence was cyber-exclusive!)

US Department of Art & Technology
Washington, DC
http://www.usdept-arttech.net
press@usdept-arttech.net

A school that trains highschoolers how to open doors for customers, on the job etiquette... Ever thought that school was just boot camp to teach you how to work for rich people? At least other high schools try to hide their motive and at times you can find teachers who really care and want you to learn. But at the Marriott Hospitality Public Charter High School administrators try very hard to produce happy waitresses and doormen.

Full story is at:
http://www.abolishthebank.org/en/marriott.html

"Electronic lobotomies continue apace. The subject pool has expanded from a few dozen people to a couple of billion. The driving messages have become more sophisticated: cryptic, alluring, alarming. They are no longer called implants. They are called ads."

So says Bruce Grierson, of The Media Foundation, quoted in Jennifer Berdock's "Counter-Advertising and Its Effects on Cyber-Media." For more on the history and fruit of the CIA's MK-ULTRA and propaganda/psychology research, twitch on over to Berdock

hydrarchist writes:

" The following long essay was prepared by Negativland for the forthcoming conference organised by the Center for the Public Domain. The essay provides a detailed analysis of some of the issues raised by intellectual property, a legal category that has been unrelentingly expanded in the last decade. Criminal liability now attaches to uses made by individual consumers of cultural products,a nd works produced in our lifetime will never be avaliable for recombination before our deaths - unless the 'life scientists' manage to pull off the immortality thing...

A full report on the conference will be published after the event here at slash.autonomedia.org.

We make this text available as a HTML document - it was released only in PDF format- in homage to the first victim of the DMCA's war to disable users' rights through criminalising those that make the tools required to exert those rights.

Dimitry Sklyarov was arrested at Defcon during the summer for his part in creating tools which allow the circumnavigation of Adobe's e-book reader encryption program.

N© 10/14/2001 by Negativland;

Editor’s Note: See http://www.negativland.com for more
details.

TWO RELATIONSHIPS TO A CULTURAL PUBLIC DOMAIN

By Negativland

INTRODUCTION

It's been ten years since Negativland was sued by Island Records for the copyright
infringement, trademark infringement, defamation of character and consumer fraud
contained in our 1991 "U2" single. In the big wide world of idea ownership, a lot has
changed since then - the Internet and its worldwide empowerment of individuals through
personalized interconnection, the effects of globalization and how it bypasses both the
ideologies of local governments and the rule of their national laws, and the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act with which intellectual property owners are attempting to survive
all these rugs being pulled out from under them. There is a contemporary realization that,
on one hand, the fate of all content is now in the hands of its receiving audience more than
ever before, and on the other hand, that worldwide commerce is scrambling to forge all
kinds of new laws and regulations to maintain their traditional control over the fate of
“their” content.

hydrarchist writes: "

It has become a trivial remark, even a ridiculous one, indeed, it is being
made by all and sundry: in the aftermath of the demolition of the WTC and
the imperial war on Afghanistan, with the amount of "collateral damages"
increasing out of sight, we all have entered a new phase of social life and
conflict.
This phase is heavily affected by paranoia, war propaganda, will to
censorship, restriction of such civil rights as free speech, re-embellished
mcCarthysm and angry mobs demanding new *berufsverboten* in the sinister
light of the rhetoric on the "clash of civilizations".
Back to the home front. Another Cold War. The Empire asks for it.

However, the events of September 11th have "only" made more apparent and
explicit the fact that after Genoa we had entered a *catastrophic* realm
already.
By "catastrophe" I don't mean the end of the world, but a new topology, a
space created by an abrupt discontinuity.
The threshold was in via Tolemaide on July 20th. There we experienced a
sudden displacement. Less than two months later we experienced a second
one, like a "fold-in" and "cut-up" of public space. This forced us to
re-think our approach.
Such a discussion is still going on and there's no rabbit in our hats. All
I can say is that none of the phenomena I am going to describe exists
anymore, at least not in Italy and certainly not in its original
form.
As a matter of fact, the only white overalls one sees on TV or on the
papers these days are related to anthrax and biological warfare.
On the other hand, we are not starting over: there can be no doubt that the
multitudes of people who have challenged global capitalism all around the
planet are still willing to do it. On last sunday, more than 200,000
thousands people demonstrated in Perugia, Italy, against the US bombings of
Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of people did the same here in Germany. The
more "collateral damage" the Empire causes on Afghanistan, the less people
are willing to accept excuses.
I know, it is harder than ever, but only fools thought it would be easy.

Louis Lingg writes: "Pakistani site dawn.com has posted an essay by Kaiser Bengali: Understanding the Taliban.

An excerpt: 'Even by nineteenth century standards, the Taliban are an anachronism. It is, however, necessary to see where they have come from and how the
Taliban phenomenon has come about. The US decision to engage the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by mobilizing the Islamic clergy in
Afghanistan and Pakistan ordained death and destruction for millions of Afghans. Millions more streamed as refugees into neighbouring
countries. Amongst them were hundreds of thousands of orphans.

These orphans were collected in scores of madrassahs in Afghan refugee camps and in Pakistani cities run by the same clergy. These orphans
grew up through childhood, adolescence and youth in an environment completely devoid of women. They have never known the love and care
of mothers and elder sisters. They have never seen the benign smiles of grandmothers or aunts. They have never played with younger sisters
or female cousins.

These products of the madrassahs - the Taliban - are thus a unique breed of men. Their harshness towards women, towards their opponents
and, indeed, towards themselves should be seen in this context. They are the byproducts of the human destruction wreaked by the US-USSR
clash in Afghanistan. They are certainly not men who will be cowed down by the American display of its awesome firepower.'"

Louis Lingg writes: "An analysis of US government actions in terms of mythic narratives & an enduring icon of US popular culture can be found at http://home.eol.ca/~dord/."

Louis Lingg writes: "The role of our erstwhile ally Pakistan in breeding a ferocious Jehadi culture has been substantially discussed in mainstream U.S. media. The influence of pro-Taliban and Jehadi elements in the Pakistani military and intelligence agency (ISI) is also known.

Less obvious, and perhaps unknown, is the degree to which Jehadi culture asserts itself in other Pakistani institutions. Secular-Humanist website infidels.org has posted the story of Dr. Younis Shaikh, sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan.

Dr. Shaikh was found guilty of asserting "that
neither Prophet Mohammed nor his Parents could logically have been Muslims before
Islam was revealed to the Prophet."

More information on Dr. Shaikh and Pakistani blasphemy laws can be found at the Rationalist International website."