First Parish Cambridge, which has supported labor at Harvard since the sit-in of Mass Hall in 2001¹, had a Labor in the Pulpit Service this morning. Workers and staffers from SEIU local 615 testified.

Marie-Elena [center] has to clean 140 offices 3 kitchens and 10 conference rooms in 5 hours. It is equivalent to 15 family homes. She is an employee of Unicco working at Microsoft.

Bread and Puppet Theater appeared on Cambridge Common at 3:00 PM today.

The Circus of the Possibilitarians is a satirical horse and butterfly circus, addressing pertinent national and international issues in a clownish fashion, including rotten ideas, a wild dancing horse and some mellow lions, a solemn salute to the world’s casualties and much more! The Dire Circumstance Jubilation Ensemble provides a little bit of brass and a lot of noise. Please take note that if some of the circus acts are politically puzzling to adults, accompanying children can usually explain them.

If you missed them today, they will be in Lawrence tomorrow from 4:00 – 5:00p.

Monday Sept 3: Two Bread and Roses Celebrations

Lawrence: 10:30 AM @ Polartec on 46 Stafford St.

It’s a full day starting with a march.

Boston: 11:00 AM @ Boston Common

The Harvard Student Labor Action Movement will be meeting at the Harvard Square T stop (near the info kiosk) at 10:45AM to head over!

Lawrence will undoubtedly be cooler, but harder to get to. [Anybody going that way? Look for me on the round [not the pit]  in Harvard Square.]

¹I’m following the dictum, “Write only what you know.” If somebody from First Parish sees this and gets upset, they are invited to take me aside and undeceive me. In particular, what stance did they take in 1912?

A thousand folks gathered to demand a statewide ban on the use of hydraulic fracturing to produce oil and gas from otherwise uneconomic wells and deposits. The status quo analysis, of course, does not include environmental and health costs which are not “factored in” to the market.

I’ve got her back.

More after I finish my mountain top removal mine at the Puppeteers Cooperative.

Dustin Steele of Radical Acton for Mountain People’s Survival [Photo: RAMPS]

First the good news:  some high quality blogging came out of OB and continues.  My favorite blog of the moment is from the Climate Action, Sustainability, and Economic Justce working group of OB.  Dustin Steele,  one of the 20 protestors arrested at the Hobet 45 mountain top removal mine in Lincoln County West Virgina was released on bond. An e-mail from Craig Altemose  [hugging the truck],  says that OB CASEJer Dorian Williams [Brandeis 2013] is still in jail pending trial on Tuesday Aug. 7.  CASEJ is one of a significant number of OB working groups going good work, but getting very little media attention.  Most of OB understands the desperate need for social change, but fails to realize that climate change is an overarching constraint on human economic activity.  The danger that, in the future, the earth will be able to support far fewer humans that in now does is very real.¹

OB has marched in solidarity with lots of Occupy’s around the country. I hope that OB will come out for jail solidarity with our own Dorian.  I met her and her bunch out at Brandeis. They seemed enthusiatic, but I wondered how much they could do. Dan Chavez [Brandeis 2010] pointed out that they are a small isolated community which makes it hard.  CASEJ has met regularly at the Democracy Center in Cambridge, so they have not been highly visible within OB. Kathryn did address at least one GA but she’s too much of a lady to grab people’s attention. I’m glad to see her active on the blog.

A note on climate language.

The bad news, and there is a lot of it, requires much more time to tell.  A REAL “alternative media” strategy for OB would be a horizontal democracy of social media rather than a small scale imitation of mainstream media aggregation. It’s starting to look like this should be a separate post.

bbiab

¹Koch-Funded Study: Global Warming Is ‘Real’ And ‘Almost Entirely’ Manmade ;  Game Over for the Climate

Encuentro Cinco was there when we needed them.

There is a place in Chinatown,
they call Encuentro Cinco.
It’s a meeting place on fifth floor,
of the building owned by the union UNITE-HERE.

It has been a refuge for many a poor soul,
and god i know i’m one.

Early in our stay at Dewey Square, the e5 collective let us know that we were welcome to use their facility free of charge – computers, rest rooms, library, meeting spaces. There was an open door policy.

As time went on the relationship became more formal. The media working group became a tenant – contributing financially to e5. Many OB’ers¹ regard this as an unqualified good thing. The relationship between e5 and OB changed dramatically after the eviction of the Dewey Square camp. What came with much heavier use of e5 by us was many problems similar to those that had occurred at Dewey Square. Ultimately the trust that owns the building on behalf of UNITE-HERE delivered a Notice to Quit to e5.

This story is not finished yet. I’ll come back when e5 has found a new home.

¹Some folks in Occupy Boston refer to themselves as Occupiers. On October 10, 2011, known to some as Columbus Day^a, Occupy Boston expanded it’s encampment from the Dewey Square Park to the Fort Point Channel Park of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway. Shortly after !AM the following morning, Boston Police Department Special Operations personnel in riot gear raided the camp beating a number of people, arresting 147, and throwing all the camping equipment into garbage trucks brought in specifically for that purpose. The next day, we received a communique from an Indigenous People’s organization pointing out that the use of the word ‘Occupation’ is offensive to the many peoples of the world that have been subjugated by colonial powers. A proposal to be “sensitive” to the issue was passed by the General Assembly. Remarkably little has been done in that regard. As part of unfinished business I propose to revisit the issue starting with the language we use.  “OB’ers” is not the solution, but it somewhat acknowledges that there is a problem.

^aIn the U.S., some folks feel that Indigenous People’s Day is better. Rev. Clyde of the OB Decolonize to Liberate working group prefers Invasion Day.  International Day of the World’s Indigenous People was deliberately scheduled on a different date – August 9 –  to avoid controversy.  Why Nagasaki Day is the date of choice is unclear to me. It may be the recognition that empires always benefit the few and are paid for by the suffering of the many.

Reports of our demise are greatly exaggerated.

With our eviction from Dewey Square on December 10, 2011,  a lot of folks and, of course, the dreaded MSM¹ pronounced us dead. Recent events, however, would indicate – otherwise.

¹That’s mainstream media for old world types who believe in complete sentences, grammar, linear thought and other annoyances.

Denver ReOccupies. A bit of history of Women in Occupy Denver.

Berkeley was served an eviction notice yesterday. Occupy Oakland Live is livestreaming at Occupy Berkeley as of this writing. On the stream,  occupiers said that the Mayor of Berkeley had announced on TV that there would not be a raid tonight, but the police would go through and cite people. This is expected at midnight.

Update: The police came at 1:10 AM. It looked like a raid to me.

Folks from the Jewish Labor Committee met at Dewey Square.  The light rain did not dampen spirits. Nor did it dampen the lights on the Menorah – electric.  Looming behind is the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

I’ve met these folks before.  The U Miami hunger strikers ended their fast on the last day of Passover with them.

Being hideously monolingual [unless you count computer languages], I didn’t do at all well with the squiggly print, but I did join in on “Light One Candle.”

I don’t want a huge bloody revolution. I mean who does. The system’s gotta change and frankly you know there’s talk about the anarchists, and the socialists, and the communists, all these ists and the isms and all this stuff and frankly I don’t give a rats ass if it’s the Keebler f*cking elves that comes up with the solution to  the problem.

To: Chaser
From: the Guy by the Door
Subj: OB Caucuses

Thought you’d like this video. Went with the Socialist Caucus from Gummint Center back to Dewey. It was a pretty good action. Joe consensus checked us out of confrontation with the police on a fairly deserted part of Beacon toward Charles. Quick sit down in Downtown Crossing. Superintendent Evans was at Dewey. Last thing before going over to the Fed, Lady Dr. F jumped in the circle and mentioned the LRAD and the police claim that it “wasn’t supposed to be there”. Evans confirmed to me that it “wasn’t supposed to be there.”

tgbtd “You mean someone in your command is out of control?’

Evans: “No it was just a miscommunication.”

He looked pretty cowed.  Kinda enjoyed myself.

Was ok at the Fed.  The guy from the Thursday night tent arrest¹ was one of three people very in the face of the police.  Looked to my like they were a little carried away with themselves. What can I tell ya? I’m old.

The Greek from SC wasn’t there.  I saw him later at H. Said there was a lot of dissension in SC. AC too. Sorry to hear.  Good to hear you at G.A. After you left a guy from I.W.W. said he understood your comment but felt he could go along with SC anyway.

I tried to get to your meeting at the bandstand, but with the free clothing store gone,  I couldn’t pass up a pretty classy London Fog and some rain overalls at the Fountain.

I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you more at camp. I found the bandana a little bit of  a put off. My bad. But I noticed your contribution to the day to day running of the camp – dishes, garbage, safety. Thanks.

How about getting the band back together.? Tell ’em you’re on a mission from Bakunin or somebody.  I’d know who you like if I’d talked to you. 🙁 I said some good things  to Bloomberg News. Say hey to Nat.

Hope to see you around the propertyless Occupy Boston.  Well the less property OB anyway.

Gotta go. Meeting up with CLVU bunch in the North End. Will be at Open House tonight.

randy

¹ I don’t know anybody who thought that was a good move. Do you? I mean does “quit with a win” mean anything in DA?

It started at noon today. Andrew Katz from Columbia School of Journalism twitpicd from about 4:30 PM on.

[l]Scene at 6th Avenue and Canal St. [c]Detained protestors who rushed the space at Sixth and Canal [r]NYPD are currently taking photos of detained protestors

Arrests in many parts of lower Manhattan. These are in Herald Sq.

There was also an attempt to occupy Juan Pablo Duarte Park which is owned by Trinity Church a bit north west of Zucotti Park.

Archive of Livestream footage of other action from The Other 999

A protester named Austin was arrested in Times Square about 6:50 PM. I believe it was Austin Guest ’05.

A report from AP about the day.

An exercise in journalism: A mic check announced that police officers were covering their badges with electrical tape. Livestream Tim [The Other 99 above] observed that badge names and numbers were clearly visible.  Officers are wearing black ribbons on their badges to mourn an officer who fell two days ago. Good job Tim.

Boston Mayor Tom Menino had a problem from the beginning of Occupy Boston. We, unelected,  gave a clearer voice to Boston’s 99% than the manufactured consent that dubs him as  “elected”.  His first attempt to discredit us, was to claim that the movement had been hijacked by anarchists. There were, off course, skirmishes on all levels. A working group, is in and of itself an aggregation of some amount of power. But it is the thoughtful anarchists who understand that there are methods of organization that can limit aggregation.  Power is fraught with peril.  Leadership is an aggregation of power, but if it is moderate in magnitude and transitory, the unfortunate effects can be avoided. Occupy Boston is leaderless in the sense that no-one has a permanent tenure in any position. But it does have a class structure, clicques, and other imperfections.  We have challenged a corrupt system riddled with contradictions. We occupied the 1/3 acre Dewey Square Park, we had nowhere near the resources to establish an entirely independent society. Medical acknowledged this is some important ways from the beginning. Serious conditions led to a call to EMT’s.  Because of these limitations,  it was abundantly likely¹ that we would have a complex relationship with capitalist society.  It was abundantly likely¹ that we would have our own contradictions.  I would hope to deal with all of these issues in the future, but for now I’ll confine myself to the conspicuous failures of both capitalist society and our attempt to do better.

Tom Menino abandoned the “hijacked by anarchists rhetoric”.  Instead he said that we had an “element” in the camp. By the time he said it, it was commonly held within the camp that we had a number of people who’s challenged lives were a threat to the well being of the entire camp.  Discussion about the “element” included homelessness, malingering, and substance abuse. Of these, substance abuse is by far the most damaging. I know because I am a homeless  alcoholic. I am not a malingerer because I have not had a drink in 26 years. I have been very busy in those 26 years. Since the Occupation, I have been even busier.

A number of people believed that a more supportive environment would help the “element” to heal. When healing occurs in capitalist society support is a big part of the story. Our mistake was  a serious underestimate of  the amount of support needed for the large number of seriously challenged people we had. We also had a serious overestimate of the magnitude and efficacy of the tools at hand. When I announced the 12 Step Substance abuse Working Group at a GA, I asked to talk with people who, like myself, are in recovery. Standard practice for a 12th step call on a single alcoholic is to have two people in recovery. There were 4 people who told me they were in recovery. One offered to help. None of them were living in the camp. I decided on the equivalent of calling the EMT’s.  We would go off site. The one other member of the working group made a map of the nearby AA meetings. We did get one notorious person to an AA meeting. I suspect he thought it would prevent him from being thrown out of camp. Fine. Capitalist courts require people to go to AA. It is a challenge for the Fellowship, because it disavows alignment with the state.  Individual members follow their conscience in signing court slips. When we encamp again, do we want to have an agreement between us and a person or persons we know to have been a problem due to substance abuse. Will we insist upon an action plan of recovery for them to stay with us?

[There’s more, but it’s time for GA]

¹One of the traps that ideological left groups fall into is the idea of historical inevitability. Revolutions do happen but they are very hard to predict. They often frustrate people’s messianic urges. I too would be God, but if i understand my Hindu friends even remotely, we are all part of the godhead. The problem is not so much that i think myself to be god, but that i think that you are not – i have forgotten our unity with each other and the universe that gave birth to us.

A mirror of the OccupyBoston.org Eviction liveblog for the period 5:01 AM – 7:41 AM of December 10, 2010:

7:14 am: Traffic resumed on Atlantic and Constitution Aves. Small group or protestors still outside South Station. Dewey Square still barricaded and surrounded by police officers. Front-loader clearing remaining tents from square.

6:35 am: Intersection of Atlantic Ave and Constitution Ave shut down by Boston Police Department. Occupy Boston protestors amassing outside South Station.

6:34 am: All male prisoners are being taken to B4. All female prisoners being taken to C6.

6:20 am: Confirmed: Long Range Audio Device (LRAD) in back of Boston Police Department truck at Occupy Boston raid now.

6:15 am: Dewey Square completely barricaded. All protestors cleared and arrested. Bulldozers moving in to clear tents.

5:57 am: Boston Police Department are shining flashlights into video cameras to prevent them from filming.

5:55 am: Livestreamer just arrested. That leave stream has ended. Another liverstreamer is on site, further from GA area.

5:50 am: Occupiers singing “Solidarity Forever” while waiting for their arrest.

5:48 am: Veteran about to be arrested at Occupy Boston: “I took an oath to defend the constitution and here I am.”

5:01 am: Occupy Boston is being evicted RIGHT NOW.

A mirror of pertinent twitter handles and a link to the main feed [I cannot tell/predict when it is/will be live]:

We continue to livestream on our main feed.

On Twitter, follow @Occupy_Boston, @DeweyGA, @caulkthewagon, @Fara1, #OccupyBoston, and #OBRaid for live tweets throughout the day.

We will hold a General Assembly tonight at 7  pm at the Band Stand on Boston Common.

Here is our main feed:

I had to go green to keep my not terribly rewarding job at Harvard.  Kathy Hoffman told me at Non-Violent Direct Action training that we might well feel survivors guilt. I do.

Mayor Menino’s plans to evict Occupy Boston at midnight last night ended in a standoff.  WHDH estimated the assembled crowd of supporters at 1000.  Pat Scanlon of the Smedley Butler Brigade estimated 5000¹. Superintendent William B. Evans who commands the Special Operations Unit of the Boston Police Department took a nap in the pre-midnight hours. The expected announcement to leave the park or be arrested did not occur. A band was playing in the Dewey Square proper just outside the camp. Crowds of supporters lined both sides of of Atlantic Avenue which bounds the park on the south. Among them Quakers in silent support and a large contingent of protest chaplains in choral support.  There were drummers drumming. And of course, there was a very substantial presence of Occupy Students many of them willing to risk arrest². Young people in black lifted the fork-lift palettes that had been Main Street and moved them to the periphery of the park to form barricades. There was debate between the YPiB³ and people with a more conservative notion of non-violence. But,  I did overhear one YPiB argue that putting up barricades is non-violent.⁴

The crowd moved off the sidewalks into the street. The half  block near the congress street end of Atlantic Avenue was solid with people.  Superintendent Evans pushed his way through the crowd.  After a couple of round trips of the site, he released a statement that there would be raid that night. The question then for the demonstrators, “Should we believe him?”  The chanting, the singing, and the drumming continued with no diminution.  After about an hour my affinity group, homefuls of about my age, decided to leave. The block party continued slowly dwindling in numbers.

I slept under the stars⁵. I awoke to see Steve Anderson of the Greenway surveying the site. A few police were around, but not a lot. They were fairly solicitous to us.  I’ll tell you about the preparations before the standoff and the reconfiguration of the camp in the wee hours. But it will have to wait. I have to get back to my peeps.

¹ I don’t have pictures to show you or get a better count. I had stashed my camera to avoid confiscation during a possible arrest. A word picture will have to do.

²My thanks to Occupy Students organizer Bea for lifting my spirits. When I returned from a day long Non-Violent Direct Action training, I found that half the tents were down it didn’t seem worth defending. Bea and senior anthropology major Dr. Fail convinced me otherwise.

³YPiB is admittedly an imprecise characterization. In the terms of the tabloid media, they are Generation Z. Black is the usual color of anarchists. I was told that the older anarchists, those between 25 and 30, were somewhat concerned about some of these folks because nobody knows who they are. Some are always wearing masks, appear only for actions and are not seen around camp at other times. There are others who have a relationship with encamped anarchist groups.

⁴One of the benefits of non-violence training, of which there are many flavors,  is the understanding of the intrinsic ambiguity in the notion of violence.  I highly recommend such training to everyone, whether you intend to be in an action or not.

⁵It was an overcast New England sky.  Literary license – work with me.

The decision forwarded by Kade Crockford of the Mass ACLU.  [You’re the best.]

¹
This came on an @Occupy_DC tweet, but the folks are blocking K Street in Washington DC. This is the lobbyist district of DC. At the height of the protest, occupiers shut down 4 blocks of the street. Ryan [OccupyBosRyan] and Acacia livestreamed it. There is archive footage of the first 82 minuteswhich includes the 4 block shutdown. The archive footage of the second 74 minutes includes arrests of the protestors holding the final 1 block.

¹Twitpic has a fairly nice feature for hotlinking which normally includes a thumbnail for the source end. The html is there but the thumbs are not available at the moment. Hopefully this will be fixed.

Occupy Boston would not now exist if it were not for the support of a large number of often unnamed benefactors.  We also benefit from relationships with supporting institutions and supporting groups at rather unsupportive instituitons. I’l mention the latter after discussing with them their exposure. Strong among the supporting institutions is Encuentro 5. They have given us a place to meet, get warm, dry off, and blog. So as not to over tax their resources, our media group has become a tenant. They have a desk.

I’m forming a relationship with Tecschange: Technology for Social Change. People at Occupy Boston certainly know about it, but I don’t know if they know what TecsChange can actually provide. One occupier had her laptop stolen and asked TecsChange to get her a new one. TecsChange usually gets donations of used equipment and most of them are desktops. But at least one occupier has benefitted from having a relationship with them. I could have done a real repair on my laptop’s AC adaptor if I had been able to find their soldering iron. But my pliers¹ disappeared along with my SLR². So with Charlie’s pliers I could improve greatly on the wire and tape repairs I’ve been making.

¹It was actually a multipurpose tool – an imitation of the famous Leatherman. it cost $30 and has much lower resale price, but it was worth much more in allowing my to repair my sleep gear. Being homeless has put me into a strange relationship with property. I don’t have a TV and don’t miss it, but if someone nabs my sleep gear on a cold night, I could die.

²It was a Canon Digital Rebel XTi. I had some hope it would help me become homeful. I also lost 3 Sigma lenses. The f/1.4 allowed me to do low light photography – i.e. police raids in the wee hours of the morning. It’s a thing, but I miss it.

It was November 17. A number of us from Occupy Boston responded to the call from Occupy Wall Street. My affinity group arrived at Liberty[ Zuccotti] Park at 5:30 AM. The park had been mostly cleared. There were no tents. There were more police and sanitation workers than occupiers.  We were able to get in at one very small opening lined by police. We didn’t stay in the park very long.

As the early morning light filtered between the buildings, we joined the crowd gathering across the street on the east side of the park.  Within minutes I was separated from my affinity group. After several circuits of the crowd. I crossed to the north side of the Park. I ran into a friend from the Mass Hall Occupation of 2001. She invited me to join her affinity group. I thought it was OK to use her name, but I see that another member of our affinity group Keith Gesson, kept her name out of his article in the New Yorker.  And probably because he could not reach me for comment,   he didn’t use my name either. I met Mark Rudd and didn’t know it.

Have to get to Dewey for GA. Will have pictures, honest.

-r

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68367048@N06/6360170281/

The Older button will step you through  a few pics. bbl

Occupy Boston was in court this morning seeking a Temporary Restraining Order against action by the City of Boston with respect to removing the tents and effects of Occupy Boston. Judge Francis McIntyre expressed concern about exactly who she could bind if she gave an order. The decision was widely regarded as a victory for Occupy Boston. I am waiting for the results of the General Assembly this evening.  My concern – “Do we really understand how this will change our relationship with the state?” I want to hear from the ideological left and particularly the Anarchist Caucus.

Will we be confined to being a tepid reform movement?

The release from Massachusetts ACLU.

Zuccotti Park was cleared early this morning by NYPD. New York Civil Liberties Union filed for a got a Temporary Restraining Order against the city. The City has filed to overturn. The hearing has been held. Judge Stallman    has rendered a decision. Temporary restraining order is denied. No tents.

City Hall claims that protestor possessions including the library were not destroyed, but have been moved to the 57th st sanitation garage.

@nyclu [Twitter] Reported an hour ago that protestors who had gathered in Duarte Park have returned to Zucotti Park and are circling, awaiting the decision. No report yet of how they have responded to the decision.

@Occupy_Boston is due to step off on a solidarity march in a few minutes.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/djdigdoug#utm_campaign=t.co&utm_source=1060513&utm_medium=social

Occupy Oakland was raided by police this morning.

Occupy Boston marched in solidarity.

Tom Moroney from Bloomberg News came to camp yesterday. He didn’t understand why I giggled. Being camped at the Federal Reserve of Boston and Wall Street in NYC,  just maybe the folks have issues with the financial service sector. I think he got it. But then again Bloomberg is news – a bit different. So I regaled him with how Reuters got started. They hired people to row out to incoming sailing ships to get the news before the ships landed.  They understood that this edge in the stock market was worth money.  Akerloff,  Spence, and Stiglitz refer to it as asymmetic information. I’ve even heard N. Gregory Mankiw acknowledge that it exists.  The ideal classical market assumes perfect information and guarantees maximal efficiency.  Asymmetric information awards “unfair gains” to some at the expense of others. Tom kind of looked away for a bit. After all, I had impeached the character of his entire business. “That doesn’t mean I won’t talk to you.” He rebounded quickly and the interview was on.

I’m on Bloomberg News!!!

After my interview, of which you only see a part, I gave Tom a quick tour of the camp and connected him with two other occupiers Nat Jackson from the Anarchist Caucus and John Niles of Veterans for Peace. And again, you only see a portion of what Tom shot.

Tom and I spoke a bit about history.  I have to assume that his remarks were off the record since I had not identified myself as a “citizen journalist” at the time. I infer from his remarks that he was responding to my use of the word anarchist. I think the conversation would be well served if we make this public and extend it. How ’bout it Tom? I’ll give y’all a hint of what I’m thinking. I was trained as a physicist, I’ve followed the work of many of the “best in the business.” Yet my own thinking leads me back to remarks made by Danny Greenberger at City College years ago. The regularities we think we find in nNature are often more than well worth betting on, but they are never really guaranteed.  We were sure space had three dimensions and time one. If we decide on 10+1 will that be the end of it?

¹I want to get Noam into this but I have to get back to camp. I shall return.

My education is almost entirely about creations of African-European-Americans². Occupy Boston has been almost entirely AEA’s. There have been a handful of African American Population II. I thought I heard Rene say that he is in fact African American Population I, but he didn’t say it that way. He said, “Native American”. There is so much happening that I can only give you vignettes. I may have lost my good camera. I struggle to figure out which of the myriad tasks presented I should do. I remember my days in Harlem and I know. I cannot go to Jason’s alternative media. It will be educated, middle-classish, and white. I have no ‘qualification’ to represent Occupy Boston to anyone, let alone to Roxbury. I have no special insight. I don’t know where the Next Great Wonder Woman will be. But I must go. What happens to a dream deferred?

It took place at 6:00 PM near Dudley Station with feeder marches from Dudley Common and other places around Roxbury and Dorchester. It was well attended.

More in a bit…..

¹ I have used the language of regular expressions in the title. Regular expressions are a part of the Chomsky Hierarchy – Class 3 according to Wikipedia. I had used them thirty years. In all that time, I never heard Chomsky’s name connected with them even though I heard his name at anti-war rallies all the time. The dot is the symbol for any single character in the alphabet of the language. The asterisk indicates “zero or more occurences”. Combined, they match any number of anythings i.e. all possible sentences of the language. Occupy is growing.

²I’m still beating the drum about the human genome originating in Africa. AEA’s are more commonly known as ‘white people’. I’m still looking for language that is less cumbersome. Help me out if you care. Help me out if you dare.

Like the society around it, Occupy Boston has problems sharing resources. Like the society around it, Occupy Boston has opened a library to have a domain of shared resources. But in this it is not the largess of a robber baron that made it possible. It is the radical reference librarians. They have a page on the Occupy Boston Wikispace.

This is the first post I’ve been able to make from Occupy Boston. I will discuss the logistics and political economy of OB in a later post. But this post is made possible by the shared resource domain of Occupy Boston Library. I thank the people who made that possible. Like many things at OB this post is more symbolic than anything else. But as Ghandi standing at the entrance to the camp says, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” And as Captain Picard says, “Make it, so.”

My mother was a librarian. She often took me to work with her. I went to college and graduate school. I’ve guarded Harvard’s libraries for 20 years. I’ve spent too much of my life in the library.