In an effort to curb the rising tide of establishment anger at Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, more than 150 journalists from around the world have signed a public letter of support. Stating that Assange is being criticized for making public information “that should never have been withheld from the public” in the first place, the letter praises Wikileaks for providing “an outstanding contribution to transparency and accountability on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, subjects where transparency and accountability has been severely restricted by government secrecy and media control”.
Many of the journalists are prominent investigative reporters working in Europe, Latin America, Russia, Australia, and the Middle East. A full list of the signatories can be seen on the Global Investigative Journalism Network website.
The full text of their letter is reprinted below.
Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing organization Wikileaks, is being angrily criticized and threatened for his part in huge leaks of military documents on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (the “War Diaries ”). He is being accused of irresponsibly releasing confidential military information, of endangering lives of people named in the leaked military reports and even of espionage. Some media organizations have joined in this criticism.
Ok so, this isn’t exactly political, but I’m into it. Today is, apparently, Drop Everything and Read Day in British Columbia! At 11am put down whatever you’re doing, pick up a book or magazine or a newspaper and do some reading. Hopefully you’re here at Art Threat, reading one of the interesting things from our great writers!
In Secrets of Success, a Radiolab episode from this past July, Jad and Robert interview Malcolm Gladwell (of the Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers fame) who claims that “if one child learns to read at four, and one child learns to read at two and a half, so what? why does it matter? Are the things that are being read between two and four of such incalculable importance … reading is reading, once you can read, you’re done. It’s not like there’s an infinite scale, and someone can read better and better.”
The Seattle Police Department has opened an internal investigation into the shooting death of aboriginal artist John T Williams, aged 50, a woodcarver from the Nuu-Chah-Nulth First Nations on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
On August 30, Williams was shot four times while crossing a downtown street in Seattle. According to reports in the Seattle Times, a local police officer saw Williams with a knife from his patrol car. Audio recording from the police vehicle evidences the officer ordering Williams to drop the knife three times before firing four rounds. A recent autopsy confirmed that all four rounds entered Williams’ body from the side indicating that Williams was not facing the officer when he was shot. He was pronounced dead where he fell.
A bit of shock-agit-prop media was recently released by the 10:10 climate change campaign folks in the UK, only to be withdrawn later and replaced with apologies from organizers. The ad, embedded above, features various citizens being exploded in gushes of blood after failing to commit to the 10% reduction measures the campaign promotes. Warning: before watching or reading further, please put on a pair of safety goggles.
The battle to become the next mayor of Canada’s largest city heads to the the Art Gallery of Ontario tonight for a cultural showdown. The Toronto Mayoral Arts Debate kicks off at 6pm and will feature all the leading candidates.
A common thread throughout the electoral campaign is disagreement on what the city can afford as it recovers from recession — a question being asked in communities across North America. For many politicians, the arts fall near the bottom of the priority list, well below financing football stadiums and fighter jets.
I was going to make this week’s pick a selection from a “top ten” list from the very recently launched Netflix.ca, but the selection is so atrocious, so barren and bad, that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. So, this week’s selection, in a roundabout way, connects with other Canadian “news”: One of Canada’s leading arts, culture, politics and literature magazines, The Walrus, has recently taken to offering its advertising space to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) and the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) for the sole purpose of greenwashing.
CAPP and RBC, the principle investor in Canada’s eco-nightmare tar sands project, are publishing full-page ads in the magazine that amount to lies and rubbish. Since the Walrus-tar sands greenwashing campaign is all about the supposed efforts of Canadian finance and resource companies’ efforts to reforest the brutally scarred region of northern Alberta, and since the awesome doc about the tar sands—H2Oil—isn’t available for streaming, we bring you Forbidden Forest.
Did anyone catch the Polaris Music Prize award show on MuchMusic, Canada’s music television station? No? Of course you didn’t. Because despite the fact that was hosted by some of MuchMusic’s personalities, it was relegated to a live feed on the channel’s website.
Granted, the show will be aired on the main MuchMusic channel on Saturday, but its placement and rerun status suggests that it’s an afterthought. I guess they couldn’t find any space in a packed Monday night schedule of three Gossip Girl re-runs; two Degrassi episodes; a show called Pants On, Pants Off; and the painful Video On Trial. Groan.
In an effort to curb the rising tide of establishment anger at Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, more than 150 journalists from around the world have signed a public letter of support. Stating that Assange is being criticized for making public information “that should never have been withheld from the public” in the first place, the letter praises Wikileaks for providing “an outstanding contribution to transparency and accountability on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, subjects where transparency and accountability has been severely restricted by government secrecy and media control”.
