Little Brother
The rallying cry is a popular viral video clip of a General Claude Geist, a retired three-star general, being tackled by DHS officers on the sidewalk in front of City Hall.
Geist hasn't made a statement on the incident, but commentary from young people who are upset with their own treatment has been fast and furious.
"Most notable has been the global attention the movement has received.
Stills from the Geist video have appeared on the front pages of newspapers in Korea, Great Britain, Germany, Egypt and Japan, and broadcasters around the world have aired the clip on prime-time news.
The issue came to a head last night, when the British Broadcasting Corporation's National News Evening program ran a special report on the fact that no American broadcaster or news agency has covered this story.
Commenters on the BBC's website noted that BBC America's version of the news did not carry the report."
They brought on a couple of interviews: British media watchdogs, a Swedish Pirate Party kid who made jeering remarks about America's corrupt press, a retired American newscaster living in Tokyo, then they aired a short clip from Al-Jazeera, comparing the American press record and the record of the national news-media in Syria.
I felt like my parents were staring at me, that they knew what I was doing. But when I cleared away my dishes, I saw that they were looking at each other.
"They're trying to discredit us," Dad said finally. "They're trying to sabotage the efforts to keep us safe."
I opened my mouth, but my mom caught my eye and shook her head.
Instead I went up to my room and worked on my Kerouac paper. Once I'd heard the door slam twice, I fired up my Xbox and got online.
I'm a producer with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's news programme The National. We're doing a story on Xnet and have sent a reporter to San Francisco to cover it from there.
Would you be interested in doing an interview to discuss your group and its actions?
I stared at the screen. Jesus.
And it's not "my group." But thanks for doing the story!
A minute later, another email.
> We can mask you and ensure your anonymity.
You know that the Department of Homeland Security will be happy to provide their own spokesperson. I'm interested in getting your side.
HYwFxb <a href="http://zfniokjfonsu.com/">zfniokjfonsu</a>
For all I knew, he was the DHS.
I picked up more Kerouac. Another email came in.
Same request, different news-agency: KQED wanted to meet me and record a radio interview. A station in Brazil.
What say instead of just nptiicking we help CDW out, by pointing out problems or issues as we find them and trying to be constructively criticial.Good Friday: Prayer for the Church:2008:watch over the works of your mercy2010keep safe over the works of your mercy [Someone cut/pasted too fast]Prayer for the Jews2008listen favorably to the prayers of your Church2010hear graciously the prayers of your Church [went for the big improvement here, I guess. Momentous change: listen to hear and favorably to graciously. But graciously is one of those words that works best BEFORE the verb. I dunno why; gotta have an ear for this sorta thing]For those who do not believe in Christ2008Almighty everlasting God,grant to those who do not confess Christthat, as they walk before you with a sincere heart,they may find the truth . . . 2010Almighty ever-living God,grant that those who do not confess Christ,by walking before you with a sincere heart,may find the truth. [you might want to invert this line with the previous one to make it clear how they're supposed to find the truth. Kind of like the 2008 version made it clear]For those in public office2008look with favor on those in authority who govern us2010look with favor on those who govern with authority over us [huh?]Concluding Prayer2008we may live in unceasing devotion to you.2010we may have a life unceasingly devoted to you. [Is that like "Get a life"? Like "Deal with it" in Lenten Preface II?]Prayer over the People2008and everlasting redemption be made secure.2010and ever-living redemption be made secure. [If not everlasting, then maybe eternal? Sometimes that universal find/change thing on the computer just isn't a good idea. Need to do it manually by instance.]
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Deutsche Welle.
I didn't get much Kerouac read that day.
"Hold a press-conference," is what Ange said, as we sat in the cafe near her place that evening.
I wasn't keen on going out to her school anymore, getting stuck on a bus with Van again.
"What? Are you crazy?"
"Do it in Clockwork Plunder.
Just pick a trading post where there's no PvP allowed and name a time. You can login from here."
PvP is player-versus-player combat.
Parts of Clockwork Plunder were neutral ground, which meant that we could theoretically bring in a ton of noob reporters without worrying about gamers killing them in the middle of the press-conference.
using the Chaos Codex for Dark Mechanicum screams of power play elaecipsly when the idea of using a standard Space Marine Tech Marine is shoe horned in, I know Kill Team is all about doing something off the wall but creating a rules set to suit one (currently none existent) faction seems a tad beyond the remit of what we planned to do. Personally to avoid more power gaming slipping into the ethos I wouldn't be comfortable with a kill team being constructed from two pre-existing and balanced Codex's with the express intention of taking the best of both (double dipping is frowned upon). I on the other hand would have no problem with assisting in the attempt of reinvigorating the Eye of Terror Codex.
"I don't know anything about press conferences."
"Oh, just google it. I'm sure someone's written an article on holding a successful one.
- Awww this post makes me smile so much. While Phaneuf has never saved an actual drnniowg person, she does not like it when I go swimming, and she will come after me and try to bring me back to shore. One time she got so tired of swimming after me that when we got back to shore she started walking back to our cabin, as if to say It's obviously not safe here for you Let's go home. She's also not around kids often, but she LOVES kids and puppies when she does meet them. She's a newfie through and through!
I mean, if the President can manage it, I'm sure you can. He looks like he can barely tie his shoes without help."
We ordered more coffee.
"That too," I said.
Chapter 15
This chapter is dedicated to Chapters/Indigo, the national Canadian megachain.
I was working at Bakka, the independent science fiction bookstore, when Chapters opened its first store in Toronto and I knew that something big was going on right away, because two of our smartest, best-informed customers stopped in to tell me that they'd been hired to run the science fiction section.
From the start, Chapters raised the bar on what a big corporate bookstore could be, extending its hours, adding a friendly cafe and lots of seating, installing in-store self-service terminals and stocking the most amazing variety of titles.
cA222u <a href="http://tcdipwhnsvct.com/">tcdipwhnsvct</a>
Chapters/Indigo
I blogged the press-conference even before I'd sent out the invitations to the press. I could tell that all these writers wanted to make me into a leader or a general or a supreme guerrilla commandant, and I figured one way of solving that would be to have a bunch of Xnetters running around answering questions too.
Then I emailed the press. The responses ranged from puzzled to enthusiastic — only the Fox reporter was "outraged" that I had the gall to ask her to play a game in order to appear on her TV show.
The rest of them seemed to think that it would make a pretty cool story, though plenty of them wanted lots of tech support for signing onto the game
I picked 8PM, after dinner.
Mom had been bugging me about all the evenings I'd been spending out of the house until I finally spilled the beans about Ange, whereupon she came over all misty and kept looking at me like, my-little-boy's-growing-up.
She wanted to meet Ange, and I used that as leverage, promising to bring her over the next night if I could "go to the movies" with Ange tonight.
Ange's mom and sister were out again — they weren't real stay-at-homes — which left me and Ange alone in her room with her Xbox and mine.
I unplugged one of her bedside screens and attached my Xbox to it so that we could both login at once.
Both Xboxes were idle, logged into Clockwork Plunder.
She glanced at her screen. "Patcheye Pete's Market has 600 players in it now!" We'd picked Patcheye Pete's because it was the market closest to the village square where new players spawned.
If the reporters weren't already Clockwork Plunder players — ha! — then that's where they'd show up. In my blog post I'd asked people generally to hang out on the route between Patcheye Pete's and the spawn-gate and direct anyone who looked like a disoriented reporter over to Pete's.
"What the hell am I going to tell them?"
"You just answer their questions — and if you don't like a question, ignore it.
Reference was made to the idea that in a Christian/Catholic culture, we made time for going to Church. Indeed, it semeed that the Church, by setting multiple days of Obligation helped the population step outside their daily work-life and think about bigger things their relationship with God, their family and life. It was good.Now, we tip-toe around this word obligation because we understand that with Sunday trading (for example) we can't be talking about obligations and responsibilities in this new society, for fear of putting pressure on people.The key is to understand that we are now back in Roman times for the Catholic Church. We are now counter-cultural. It is understanding our obligations and responsibilities that will differentiate us from the main-stream culture that is currently suiciding. Obliged to go to mass? Oh, lets make it optional. Obliged to stay married? Oh, lets make it optional. Obliged to give birth to the life already created? Oh, let's make that optional. Obliged to have responsibilities? Oh, that might generate a sense of guilt!We practice the small things to help build the strength to take on the big things.I get this sense in a lot of discourse that we acknowledge our Christian heritage and note that it has put in place a lot of the cultural norms we enjoy today. But we have been riding the wave of history and not had to fight to build or establish anything special, even as we watch it crumble away. The sanctity of marriage is a joke given how easy and common divorce is, the importance of the traditional family is treated as almost an embarrassment, for fear of alienating the growing number of single parent families. We either join in the culture and then ultimately secularize and trivialize the Church, or we concentrate on the deeper theological values that attracted the pagans to eventually turn Christian. Because here we are again, folks.
Someone else can answer it. It'll be fine."
"This is insane."
"This is perfect, Marcus.
If you want to really screw the DHS, you have to embarrass them. It's not like you're going to be able to out-shoot them.
Your only weapon is your ability to make them look like morons."
I flopped on the bed and she pulled my head into her lap and stroked my hair. I'd been playing around with different haircuts before the bombing, dying it all kinds of funny colors, but since I'd gotten out of jail I couldn't be bothered.
It had gotten long and stupid and shaggy and I'd gone into the bathroom and grabbed my clippers and buzzed it down to half an inch all around, which took zero effort to take care of and helped me to be invisible when I was out jamming and cloning arphids.