Is Westboro Baptist losing its edge? Raw Story reports that while the infamous anti-homosexual protest organization (or, as Westboro likes to call itself, “church”) did not actually attend singer Whitney Houston’s Newark, New Jersey funeral on Saturday, Westboro minister Margie J. Phelps did post an apparently fake photo of church members gathered near the event: Read More
Greece was torn by violence Sunday in response to parliament’s passage of a new austerity bill. Over 100,000 protesters, many masked and clad in black, set fire to businesses in Athens–including movie theaters, banks and coffee shops. Looters hit well over 100 establishments. Reuters reports rioters torched 34 buildings. Read More
Protestors took to the East Village on Sunday afternoon to beat on the walls of the empty Charas Community Center, on 9th Street and Avenue B to demand its reinstatement to the people. In what could have passed for OWS looking for a residence, demonstrators held a traditional rally with a human microphone, music and of course, the drum circle. This time however, they bought their own batons in the hope of ”turning the wall into a drum”, which unfortunately for the neighbors they achieved. Read More
A worrisome trend has surfaced for writers who make their meager livings from sporadic literary prizes and public alms: two British poets, Alice Oswald and John Kinsella (update: oops, John Kinsella is Australian), have dropped out of consideration for the T.S. Eliot Prize in poetry because for the first year the prize is sponsored by a hedge fund, Aurum Funds. Unfortunately for the Poetry Book Society, which organizes the prize, it lost its public funding in austerity cuts this year and negotiated its replacement from what Mr. Kinsella refers to as the “very pointy end of capitalism.” Read More
“Rupert Murdoch is a scandal! Out with Fox! Out with Fox!” cried Kitty Worchester. Urging her fellow protesters to join the chant, she waved her sign at Murdoch’s empty Fifth Avenue apartment. “Louder, they can’t hear us,” she chided. Read More
City residents and elected officials are coming together this Sunday to rally against a flashing neon sign at an Upper West Side Duane Reade.
The flashing billboard, affixed to the second story of a Duane Reade at 72nd and Broadway, has generated complaints from neighborhood residents who say that the sign is disruptively bright. The Read More
On Monday afternoon, across the street from Serafina on East 61st Street, a coffin sat on a black metal platform-the latest attention-grabbing prop adopted by union members now that Scabbie the inflatable rat has become more a beloved urban mascot than a shocking symbol of corporate malfeasance.
The mostly plastic casket was black with faux Read More
Artists generally like to have their works displayed in major museums. So when 130 artists, curators and academics signed a letter last month asking that their works not be shown by the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi until conditions improved for workers building the facility, it drew widespread attention to the cause.
But the protesters may be Read More
With Fashion Week just days away New York has to prepare for not only an onslaught of fab descending upon Lincoln Center, but also its inevitable byproduct: protests. PETA, everyone’s favorite vegan crusaders, certainly isn’t going to let the week go by as designers continue harming animals for their fur and skin.
Donna Karan, it Read More
