Little Brother is Watching. This billboard in Boston, is under attack for its political subject matter. littlebrotheriswatching.com challenges the Bush administration’s domestic wiretapping program. The Massachusetts state Outdoor Advertising Board officials sent the owner of the board, John Rosenthal, a letter stating, “You are directed to remove this billboard forthwith.” The Little Brother is Watching blog is open for comment. (via)
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Make your own commercial for the Chevy Tahoe. Chevy lets Web users make their own ads online. A few environmentally aware users have already made good ones skewering the SUV. (via)  ¶

Bring Them Home Stamps. Valid, anti-war postage. For instance, for mailing your taxes.
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Conveying Accountability through the Member’s Web Site. A short list of recommendations for members of Congress. The results of a survey (PDF) by the Congress Online Project, who also have advice on Transparency, Accountability and Grassroots Campaigns.  ¶

HauteGREEN. “HauteGREEN will showcase a collection of the best in sustainable contemporary design for the home. HauteGREEN will take place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn May 20-22, 2006, during the International Contemporary Furniture Fair.”

I was put off by the chicy angle (why does sustainability always seem to be a class privilege?) — but a member of o2, one of sponsoring organizations, explained that the initiative is intended to attract the interest of designers participating in and visiting the fair.  ¶

Coco Net. In 1995, Philippine inventor Justino Arboleda devised a method to turn coconut husks into useful fiber. In the Bicol region of the Philippines where he lived and worked, most farmers live below the poverty line and discarded coconut husks are the largest waste product. Arboleda set up a factory to mill the fibers and employed local workers to weave the fiber into netting. The nets replace plastic and steel one on slopes and riverbanks to prevent erosion. Arboleda even found a way to use the dust created by the milling process to create a fertile, soil-like “coco-peat.”

Coconets is the winner of the 2005 BBC World Challenge, which lists other interesting environmentally friendly inventions and business initiatives. (Sponsored by Shell Oil!)

Update 3/26: Evan responds:

“I know in India they have been turning coconut husks in to rope and other fibers for a few thousand years... It takes a Development Bank to take traditional products, ignore the history, and create them again as an amazing new revolutionary product!”

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ETA calls a ceasfire. Rockin the Basque Typography.
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Houtlust. A blog of images non-profit advertising and marketing. Lots of posters, advertisements, urban interventions, and an occasional video clip from around the world. Updated daily. Some of the images are quite strong — and it’s interesting to try to figure out why. The ones that hit me in the gut mostly involve the human body. Even, as in the example below, by implication.

(via)

Update: Houtlust is now Osocio.  ¶

Usability Exchange. Ask persons with disabilities to test and rate your Web site remotely. See this BBC piece. (via)  ¶

Call to prayer. Ahead of the March 28 general elections in Israel, a local cellphone operator announced that a small, right-wing, ultra-Orthodox party’s ringtone is the most requested download.  ¶

Libre Graphics Meeting. The first Libre Graphics Meeting will be held on 17, 18 and 19 March 2006 in Lyon, France in the Ecole d’Ingénieurs CPE on the university campus at La Doua, Villeurbanne. LGM will be a place for free software graphics developers and artists to meet each other, exchange ideas and tips, and plan the future of free graphics. Graphics professionals interested in learning about the state of the art in free software are also welcome. The conference is free to attend, and open to all.  ¶

Barriers for Disability at Work. “Most disabled people would tell you that the bigger concerns they have around the workplace are not around physical accessibility,” said Andrew Imparato, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities. “They’re more around attitudes. I think it’s easier to legislate and see change around bricks and mortar than it is around attitudes.” Half of the employers surveyed said workplace adjustments for accessibility came at no expense. 43 percent reported a one-time cost that averaged around $600.  ¶

The Bureau of Workplace Interruptions. “BWI is an ‘intimate bureaucracy’ created to challenge our relationship to time and efficiency. BWI uses interruptive technology such as email, snail mail, and the telephone, as well as in-person visits to create invisible theatre that steals time from the realm of work and capital.”  ¶

Numbers of Fruit. “Here in the US, fruit often comes with stickers on it, sometimes telling you where it’s from and/or what it is. There’s also a number, but I never paid attention to that. But on p. 72 [of April’s Food & Wine] I spotted this interesting bit of information:

‘[T]he sticker labels on fruit: The numbers tell you how the fruit was grown. Conventionally grown fruit has four digits; organically grown fruit has five and starts with a nine; genetically engineered has five numbers and starts with an eight.’”

(via)  ¶

How Islamic inventors changed the world. Brief summaries of 20 influential inventions. (via)  ¶

85% of U.S. troops in Iraq said the U.S. mission is mainly “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacks”. Says a survey of 944 military personnel in January and February 2006.  ¶

Progressive poster designers in Australia, 1960’s-80’s. A capsule summary of the political screen printing movement down under. Lots of organizations and names I’ve got to look into.  ¶

Squatter Skate Park Becomes Official. Searching for fast disappearing skateboard space in Seattle, two activists took matters into their own hands and created a fully functioning park before the city caught on. (via)  ¶

www.green.ca.gov. Gov. Arnold says: public buildings must be 20 percent more energy efficient by 2015. It’s all in the State of California’s Green Building Action Plan (33KB PDF).  ¶

Affordable by Design. Some examples of sustainable and affordable single-family homes. (via)  ¶

Women’s views are marginalized in the word’s news media. “Women constitute 52% of the world’s population yet make up only 21% of people featured in the news.... First conducted in 1995 and then again in 2000 and 2005, the Global Media Monitoring Project maps the representation of women and men in news media worldwide.... On 16th February 2005 hundreds of women and men in 76 countries around the world participated in the third ever GMMP. They monitored almost 13,000 news items on television, radio and in newspapers.” More at whomakesthenews.org  ¶

Build a Green Bakery. “When is a bakery not a bakery? When it’s a political statement, an architectural pioneer, and a bit of performance art, all wrapped in one — as is the case at a mysterious new East Village purveyor of cookies and croissants.... The walls are made from wheat and sunflower seed; the floor from a cork by-product. The paint is milk-based, and its pigment derived from beets. Tufts of denim insulation make a base for the bamboo counter, and the staff is clad in racy hemp-and-linen jackets.” The cookies are good, too.  ¶

Compendium on E-government Innovative Practices. (300KB PDF) A mixed, global survey by UNPAN, December 2005.  ¶

A brief history of the “clenched fist” image. “A persistent symbol of resistance and unity, the clenched fist (or raised fist) is part of the broader genre of ‘hand’ symbols that include the peace ‘V,’ the forward-thrust-fist, and the clasped hands. The clenched fist usually appears in full frontal display showing all fingers and is occasionally integrated with other images such as a peace symbol or tool.... Fists, in some form, were used in numerous political graphic genres, including the French and Soviet revolutions and the United States Communist Party. However, these all followed an iconographic convention. The fist was always part of something — holding a tool or other symbol, part of an arm or human figure, or shown in action (smashing, etc.). But graphic artists from the New Left changed that in 1968, with an entirely new treatment. This ‘new’ fist stood out with its stark simplicity, coupled with an popularly understood meaning of rebellion and militance.” (via)  ¶

Samedi Gras(s). Vivid poster from a worker movement in Italy promoting a carnaval event this Saturday in Milan. The event is in solidarity with the people of New Orleans and to protest the ‘eating’ of green areas by highway construction.
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What should my clothes be made of?. “Globally, cotton production accounts for the use of 22 per cent of all agricultural insecticides.... Nylon is reckoned to be responsible for 50 per cent of UK emissions of nitrous oxide (a poisonous greenhouse gas) and polyester is, of course, derived from petrochemicals.... Alternatives such as bamboo, organic linen, wool grown on ‘biodiverse’ ranches, hemp and innovative fibres such as Ingeo, derived from degradable corn starch, all look much more appealing.” (via) Cotton also requires a lot of water.  ¶

Cooperative Housing for and by the Aging. “Opting for old age on their own terms, they were starting a new chapter in their lives as residents of Glacier Circle, the country’s first self-planned housing development for the elderly — a community they had conceived and designed themselves, right down to its purple gutters. Over the past five years, the residents of Glacier Circle have found and bought land together, hired an architect together, ironed out insurance together, lobbied for a zoning change together and existentially probed togetherness together.” (via)  ¶

Counter-Recruitment Comics. “‘Mixed Signals’ is a counter-recruitment tool in comic book form — is now available for use in activism, outreach, counseling, education, starting conversations and saving lives.”
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A House for an Ecologist: A Design Ideas Competition. The AIA is sposoring a compeition to design a modest, sustainable house on the Potomac River. Entries will be judged on design excellence, celebration of place, respect for resources, and design process. (“How do innovative design methods promote great design? Collaborative and interdisciplinary teams are encouraged.”) Deadline for registration is March 17, 2006.  ¶

Sappi: Ideas That Matter. Papermaker Sappi again offers cash grants for designers working with non-profits. In their words: “Sappi invites graphic designers from Europe, North America and Southern Africa, to create printed communication campaigns for causes they want to support.” Apply here. See the 2004 winners. (via)  ¶

Brazil's sugar crop fuels nation's cars. “More than 80% of new cars now sold in Brazil are equipped to use ethanol as well as gasoline. Both fuels are available almost everywhere, and since ethanol can cost about a third less than petrol per litre at the moment (though the mileage is not quite as good), the home grown fuel is more popular than the foreign import.” It’s not just home grown, but distilled from a previously untapped waste product — what’s left after sugarcane is refined into sugar.  ¶