Location: E.B. Cape Center, 4501 Leeland, Houston, TX 77023
Time & Date: Tuesday January 24th, 7 - 9 pm

Chris Newport from City of Houston will be on hand to take questions concerning the revision to City of Houston Noise Ordinance passed October 12, 2011.

In October 2011 the City of Houston made changes to a law that made it difficult for music venues to stay in business. The most defining aspect of the changes is in enforcement. It allows a police officer to go to a venue and issue multiple noise citations to whomever he feels is at fault. This could be the venue, sound engineer, artist, even the front door security. Or he may choose to issue a citation to all of them. He can issue multiple citations such as loudest, bass, vibration, etc. Each citation is $1,000. He is also allowed to come back and do this each hour.

Not only does a police officer not have the proper training or expertise in sound engineering, he also is not required to use a dB sound meter to judge the levels of sound. At the same time, a dB meter is in question since proper measurement would be difficult given that the downtown ambient sound is generally already above the allowed limit, meaning that even with no music in play, the use of a dB meter already puts a venue in violation on their own property.

Mark your calendars for Sunday, June 5th and plan to be at the Houston Institute for Culture from 6pm to 8pm for this multi-disciplinary art show.
Other Loves: Celebrating Queer Artists Voices Breaking Boundaries final show for the 2011 East End Live Art season will focus on the lives of queer artists and activists. Problems facing the queer community, both abroad and locally, sometimes include bullying and suicide. Over the past year we saw increased media attention around such tragedies. Houston Indymedia reported on Lance Reyna, a Houstson Community College student who was heckled and brutally attacked last year. In September 2010, 8th grader Asher Brown committed suicide; his family said he was, "bullied to death." In response to the injustice of homophobia and its fatal consequences, national campaigns like It Gets Better and It Gets Better Because We Make It Better sprung up across the nation.

The evening will be packed with soulful delights including: an excerpt of Bindya Will Shine (Bindiya Chamkay Gi), a documentary by Pakistani film maker, Ragni Marea Kidvai, about Pakistan's Khwaja Sira or Hijra community; a short film by Stephanie Saint Sanchez called Vilut; a Burlesque style performance called We Are Each Other's Lovers in Training by Mister Overdone a.k.a. Jennifer Tyburczy and D.R.E.D. a.k.a. Mildred Gerestant; performances by Jonatan Lopez, Stalina Villarreal, and Rose Arii; visual art by Rob Baker. The show will be MC-ed by UH postdoctoral fellow Sima Shakhsari. Finally, there will be jewelry and art on sale by crafts-maker, Rene Rodriguez.

This one-day, family-friendly event celebrates the Do-It-Yourself spirit in our community with demonstrations in arts, crafts, engineering, music, science, and technology projects. At the UC Mini Maker Faire, the focus is on the process of making-not just the finished product. Unlike a typical sale or bazaar, Makers show how to create things instead of just selling their wares. Emerging from the national "maker movement" founded largely by MAKE Magazine, Make: Online, and CRAFT, Maker Faires have rapidly made a significant impact on American culture today. These regional events feature things people create themselves, from James Bond-worthy electronic gizmos to robotics and rockets, to crocheted food items and yarn bombs. Read More | makerfaire.com

Dec 5 Update: Protesters display censored art ("A Fire in My Belly" by David Wojnarowicz) inside the National Portrait Gallery; then get banned from the museum for life.

Documentation and Interviews with demonstrators organized by the Transformer Art Space in Washington, DC against the Smithsonian Institution decision to remove the video by David Wojnarowicz. The video imaged ants crawling over a reclining Jesus paired with homo-erotic images to represent the devastation of the AIDS epidemic on the body and on the Gay community. After a story appeared in the conservative Cybercast News (a project of the L. Brent Bozell III and the Media Research Center), the Catholic League complained that images were offensive to Catholics and other conservatives took up the crusade against the Video. In no time the National Portrait gallery removed the video.

The Transformer Gallery on P Street NW responded to the censorship with screening of "A Fire in My Belly". Video | transformergallery.org | DC Marches against censorship of National Portrait Gallery exhibit | Culture Wars: Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) and CSN News on “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” exhibit | Montana Woman Destroys Controversial Art by Enrique Chagoya | Chagoya defends his work

On Sunday November 7th, there will a benefit at 7pm in Santa Cruz for Dine (Navajo) indigenous resistance communities at Big Mountain / Black Mesa, AZ who are in their third decade of resisting the expansion of coal strip mining operations and forced relocation from their traditional homeland by the US government. This benefit is part of the 2010 Fall Caravan of Support. On November 20th, work crews from Santa Cruz and all across the country will converge in support of the indigenous resistance communities of Black Mesa / Big Mountain.

On November 2, 2010, the Public i held a workshop as part of its “Poetry for the People” series at Neighborhood Connections Center, Inc., Urbana’s new community center serving African American youth. The host for the workshop was Lisa Marie Rollins, Oakland-based poet, playwright, and performer. This was the first cultural program at the Center since its opening in January 2010. The “Poetry for the People” project is funded by a grant from Urbana’s Public Arts Commission.

The largest multi-genre emerging artist and new music festival in the country returns to Miami this November 11 – 14, 2010.

Before the main Colbert and Stewart rallies start, join the Washington Peace center, don your favorite costume and march through DC with The Abraxas, a 50 ft golden dragon, 10,000 watt sound system and rode by sixty samurai wielding nuclear weapons. Rumors are that electronic music icon MIA and/or Michael Franti will be performing on the dragon as it slowly drives towards the National Mall. You won't want to miss this Woodstock moment! Glenn Beck Top This! Video

On Thursday, October 28th at 7pm will be a screening at the United Presbyterian Church in Watsonville of Simon Sedillo's new documentary, The Demarest Factor: US Military Mapping of Indigenous Communities in Oaxaca, Mexico. This film and workshop presentation discusses a recent investigation into U.S. military mapping of communally owned indigenous land in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Unauthorized Art Invades the Art Museum during the the Get Art Off Our Backs event on Sunday, November 7th 2010! Come to the Art Museum for this unauthorized event - Bring along some wearable art and give it away or swap it with the other people who show up.

Today, Thursday, September 30th, is the last day of the “Experience Northern Ireland – Titanic and More” exhibit in Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central Station.

All through the month of August, Pakistan’s River Indus experienced heavy flooding causing more than 1,500 deaths and the displacement of nearly 20 million people along the 800 mile-long riverbank. Even once the water recedes, people in Pakistan will continue to struggle to deal with the heavy loss of lives, agriculture, infrastructure, and growing illnesses. To provide some relief to the community, VBB is collaborating with organizations around Houston to raise funds towards flood relief efforts in Pakistan. The fundraiser evening, aimed at raising awareness about the situation in Pakistan, features musical and informative videos directly from Pakistan, including video recordings by LAAL, a Pakistani band who just released a new song in honor of those affected by the floods, and audio recordings by Pakistani novelists Mohammed Hanif and Sorayya Khan. Journalists and artists from India, including Satyen K. Bordoloi and Sandeep Patey, will be sending footage. DJ A/V will spin the discs and videos, and the Pakistani Consul General will be available to answer questions.

Building off long-standing successes like the 16-year-old Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair, new anarchist bookfairs have appeared in cities worldwide in recent years. And this coming weekend, the Twin Cities hosts one of its very own at the Powderhorn Park Recreation Center.

On Saturday, September 11, featured speakers at the fair will include Cindy Milstein,  author of the new AK Press title Anarchism and its Aspirations, and Diana Block, prison abolitionist, feminist and author of the memoir Arm the Spirit—A Woman's Journey Underground and Back. Workshops will be led by groups including the Experimental College, Twin Cities Avengers and Twin Cities Indymedia, and participants are coming from as far away as the Beehive Design Collective in Maine, Oakland-based PM Press and Edmonton's ThoughtCrime Ink; regional groups like the Cream City Collectives and Wisconsin Books to Prisoners; and a slew of local organizations and individual mediamakers.

In the interview below, two Twin Cities Anarchist Bookfair organizers talk about the purpose of the fair, what anarchists and non-anarchists will find, and the state of anarchism in the Twin Cities.

read more

In a small, crowded theater in New York's West Village the night of August 8, a group of thirty indigenous women from central Mexico finally got a chance to perform their play before a U.S. audience.

According to [cast member Yolanda] Mendieta, 30 percent or more of the villagers have taken the dangerous journey to the north. But why do so many people leave?

Here comes Labor Day! Its our annual Labor Day Picnic and celebration brought to Southern Oregon by the Southern Oregon Central Labor Council.

These times of economic strife see Corporate America "sitting on" 8 Trillion dollars of accumulated wealth while hard working families are losing their jobs, their homes, and in way too many cases their belief in the future. We have a National Jobs Emergency!

This year's picnic celebrates the enormous contributions of the working class. The only real turnaround for this recession will come from America's internal engine, the people who do the work from sea to shining sea. Labor Day never meant more than it does in 2010.

Please join us this Labor Day Monday, September 6, 2010 for our annual picnic here in Southern Oregon-

* * * LABOR DAY PICNIC 2010 IN SOUTHERN OREGON * * *
*Starts at 11:00 a.m.
*Tou Velle State Park
8425 Table Rock Rd.
Central Point, Oregon