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James Powderly of Graffiti Research Labs Detained In China
An anonymous reader writes "News from Free Tibet 2008 that internationally known artist, technologist and co-founder of the Graffiti Research Lab, James Powderly, was detained in Beijing early on August 19th while preparing to debut a new work and technology of protest, the L.A.S.E.R. Stencil. According to a Twitter message received yesterday by Students for a Free Tibet at approximately 5 pm Beijing Standard Time, Powderly had been detained by Chinese authorities at 3 am. His current whereabouts remain unknown. Powderly was the inventor of throwies." (Powderly's detention was also mentioned at Make Magazine's blog.)
He made the mistake of catching the wrong bus to the olympics.
Powderly was the inventor of throwies."
Was? You're writing him off already? Geez! And people say *I'm* a pessimist.
I've never heard of most of these "activists" before the Olympics and I've got a feeling we won't be hearing much from them afterwards. If people have been involved with pro-Tibet, pro-Darfur, pro-democracy, pro-whatever stuff all along, then good for them. But most of these loudmouths getting press recently seem to only be interested in complaining when their neighbors are taking pleasure in something China-related.
It reminds me of all those goofs who are so indignantly outraged every Thanksgiving, but never lift a finger to help American Indians on the other 364 days a year. Or even on Thanksgiving, for that matter.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I'm sure he knew what might happen when he decided to protest in China about Tibet. I commend him for that, it might get some attention to people around the world to his cause. I think he either had to have had some seriouse balls or have been a little nieve to think of what would happen if he was detained by athorities. I don't think hes a dumb man he knew what he was doing and he knew what would probably happen.
Hopefully they just ship him home after a couple days or weeks and this doesn't get too ugly for him.
On another note "I know hippies. I've hated them all my life. I've kept this town free of hippies on my own since I was five and a half. But I can't contain them on my own anymore. We have to do something, fast!" hehe China is Cartman
Powderly is not Tibetan, not a resident of China, a foreigner who traveled to China for the express purpose of making this protest, and achieved nothing in this protest. Powderly and his protest is nothing like Park's protest.
And I'M BadAnalogyGuy?!
Rosa Parks was given a speedy trial, fined $14, and on appeal wreaked havoc on the laws that were the foundation of racial segregation in the United States.
Since this guy is a US citizen, the Chinese government will probably let him live. A Chinese citizen probably wouldn't be so lucky.
Hopefully this event teaches him, and and others in his home country to appreciate the freedom that they have when they're spewing their typical "baby out with the bathwater" rants about how fascist the US government is.
Rosa Parks
Are you really going to compare graffiti -- a nuisance of a chosen action -- to a civil rights struggle? Based on the color of a person's skin?
People like Rosa Parks were heroes to all, especially to racists and passive people who needed to have their eyes open. I'm not sure who James Powderly thought he was representing but going to a foreign country and committing what is a crime in that country just makes a bunch of people uneasy.
Oh, and non-destructive graffiti is pretty damned cool.
Light is still a form of polution. Though non-destructive, it is most likely still annoying. While I agree with the cause this man was "fighting" for, I am indifferent to his ineffective methods. He would most likely be arrested in my country too.
His methods weren't opening people's eyes, they are alienating people like me who would rather see a message sent to the Chinese government that makes them think about their injustices.
My work here is dung.
That's pretty disingenuous. Writing propaganda these days? "Arrest people who make signs with simple blinking LEDs"? Interesting description. Would you have a problem if I ran up to your house and poured pig's blood all over your porch? Why not? It's easy to clean up! "many people in the USA have been arrested for pointing lasers skyward as well"? Oh, you mean the couple of people who were attempting to shine laser lights in the eyes of pilots of commercial aircraft, and readily admitted to it? If I shone a laser in your eye while you were driving, would that bother you? Do you think someone should be arrested for possibly f*cking up your vision for the rest of your life? How about when that process might end up killing you, and any number of your passengers? I've heard b.s. "we are so bad we shouldn't criticize anyone else" and "Nazi Imperialist U.S.A." before - but I have to say - good job! If this post were a joke, I'd be very impressed. It's unfortunate that you probably mean it. Have you ever noticed that lying for your cause doesn't actually help it in the long run? Let's fix problems honestly, shall we?
How do you know? Isn't it a tad/i hasty to be making assumptions? And hasn't he actually achieved at least something? When was the last time anything you did got mentioned on the front page of Slashdot?
What does the fact that he isn't Tibetan or a Chinese citizen have to do with anything? What I'm getting out of your post is, "people should mind their own business and not rock the boat." Is that the impression you meant to convey?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Going to foreign countries run by totalitarian governments to protest is a bit on the unwise side regardless of how just the cause.
The cake is a pie
That's pretty disingenuous. Writing propaganda these days? "Arrest people who make signs with simple blinking LEDs"? Interesting description.
Yeah, it is disingenuous. They didn't just arrest them - they then proceeded to charge them with terrorism.
Because, like, they might have been bombs or something.
Disrespecting the athletes by marring the games with these protests is no better than what happened in Munich in 1972.
His laser wasn't that powerful.
Amen! Don't you love the way capitalism lets you profit without worrying about the moral standards of the companies you invest in? I mean, I can invest in a company that will do awful things I would never do personally, and I never even have to hear about it, let alone lose sleep over it. And even if I do hear about it, well, I'm just a little investor, I didn't make that decision, it's not my fault! I love diffusion of responsibility.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
In NYC on Aug 10th, some protesters projected a film onto the Chinese Consulate in NYC.
Here's video on YouTube [Warning, there are some graphic scenes].
Not a laser, but interesting trick nonetheless.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I like to think that going over and killing twelve people is slightly worse than mildly pissing a few people off with an unsolicited light show, but then i'm a bit weird like that.
He's an American citizen being detained during the Olympic Games. He's not going to disappear. They'll question him for several hours, probably including sleep deprivation and a lot of yelling, and then kick him out of the country. There was another guy earlier on in the Olympics that got detained for trying to protest, and that's pretty much what happened to him.
The Chinese are trying to look good in front of the world, "disappearing" a foreign national, especially an American, during the Olympics would not be in line with that goal.
He went over there to get publicity for a cause, and he got publicity for a cause. You could argue he achieved less than he might have, but to say he achieved nothing is idiotic.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
From TFA:
The work, "The Green Chinese Lantern," uses a 400 milliwatt handheld green laser with micro-stencils to beam simple messages and images up to three stories high on surfaces such as billboards, buildings, and bridges. The Laser Stencil technology was developed in conjunction with Students for a Free Tibet.
[...] For more information and high-resolution photos of the work, please visit http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?p=161
What does this have to do with my online rights? Shouldn't this be filed under politics?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
"Hopefully this event teaches him, and and others in his home country to appreciate the freedom that they have when they're spewing their typical 'baby out with the bathwater' rants about how fascist the US government is."
By your logic, practically nobody in the world is in a position to complain about their situation, for you'll nearly always be able to find somebody who is worse off than you are. Keeping quiet about abuses at home because other, worse abuses are taking place elsewhere is hardly a reasonable thing to demand of another. Please keep your jingoism to yourself.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Actually, they were "were charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct and placing a hoax device in a way that causes panic" according to Boston.com, and the charges were later dropped. Which is still a stupid overreaction, but not the same as charging them with "terrorism".
Tibet has been part of China since 1792. Yes, for over two freaking centuries! You might not like it, but tough shit. And guess what, if a bunch of Chinese students came to the US and flung banners around Stanford demanding we give California back to Mexico, we'd probably tell them to get their butts back to China and mind their own business. Heck, we'd probably even detain a couple of them.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
It is not necessary for things to be as bad as they can possibly be before one has the right to complain about things that are wrong. The U.S. has in many ways grown greatly more totalitarian over the past eight years. Saying "It's not as bad as China, so the problems don't matter" is the height of idiocy. That's like saying "Linux doesn't crash as much as Windows, so it must be perfect.
Indeed, it is precisely because people do appreciate those freedoms that they rant about signs of growing fascism in the U.S. government. They who have never seen the light cannot know that they live in darkness, and so do not complain. Therefore, I would contend that the people who do not rant are the ones who do not fully appreciate those freedoms.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
These "technologists" without any actual techincal knowlege are only popular in the decaying United States as it strips off manutacturing assets and sells them off to China. What replaces technology in the US are MBAs on one side, and these "artists"/ "technologists" on the other (in reality, they are socialists, political activists). In China, these "technologists" go to jail. Technologists WORK, they do spread their peacock tails.
DDT isn't banned for Malaria control in Africa. It is banned outright in the US. And it is banned for agricultural uses worldwide under the Stockholm Convention, but there is no limitation on African nations using it for Malaria control. Also we didn't ban DDT because it got on our apples. We banned it because it killed off fish and bird populations. South Africa uses DDT although the environmental effects make it controversial.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
What does the fact that he isn't Tibetan or a Chinese citizen have to do with anything?
People of any country have an exclusive right to demand changes from their government. Only then they are free. This guy makes Chinese and Tibetans less free because he infringes on their rights, and on top of that his example justifies more oppression from the government.
As a bad analogy, you are free to move furniture in your house, and only your family's wishes may constrain you. However what will you say if I, a total stranger, set up demonstrations around your house demanding that a certain desk should be moved into a certain corner, and not where it is now?
So what? Are you suggesting that only those directly affected by human rights abuses can protest them, and everyone else should just mind their own business? In the Rosa Parks example given above, groups like the Congress of Racial Equality, which included white college students from northern states, took part in protests during the Montgomery bus boycott. Should they have just minded their own business?
That's debatable. The actions of any one person may be equivalent to "the movement of butterfly wings," as you stated below, but to quote Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
I don't care why you're posting AC
I understand that graffiti is often little more than vandalism today, but don't dismiss it completely. Graffiti is a tool for communication, and when other forms of communication are being censored or cut, it becomes very powerful. Graffiti is noticible, and can transmit a message to thousands of viewers, for very little cost. Take a look at the works of Banksy on the palestinian walls. This might sway you.
We are all free to express our desires to anyone. We are free to demonstrate and protest that which we find morally objectionable, and no arbitrary borders or citizenship should stop us. I find your stance morally reprehensible, as it seeks to divide people into arbitrary groups who are not allowed to support each other in seeking redress for wrongs. You advocate a particularly sick form of authoritarianism.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
..."PEE-POLE"...
But, I wonder about:
"Injections leave the whole body intact and require participation of doctors. Organs can "be extracted in a speedier and more effective way than if the prisoner is shot," says Mark Allison, East Asia researcher at Amnesty International in Hong Kong. "We have gathered strong evidence suggesting the involvement of (Chinese) police, courts and hospitals in the organ trade.""
Is the lethal cocktail an air injection? How do they remove the toxic lethal injection from any black market organs (of which they are accused of being in). Is the video showing the full event duration? I would imagine that IF there is organ harvesting going on, it might be better to sedate the condemned and dispatch them in a manner that doesn't pollute or derange the organs. Does an embolism by injection demolish the heart or a sedated person? Suffocating a conscious person might cause excessive adrenaline dumping.
And, if a monkey's organs are in demand, what about human former-prisoner magic extract powder? Could alter the meaning of "Tiger Balm Medicated Ointment".... Unless the sign of the condemned IS the Tiger.
But, as for hauling the condemned aboard the vehicle, it's probably more convenient to have a panicking, defecating dispatching occur on a ramp with a buttocks-located hole to avoid having to wash/decontaminate the Mobi-Cution Mobile. Plus, it's probably scary for the guards and staff to roam around in a $6 Million Dollar Man-like Death Probe containing the souls of the dispatched. Imagine 1700 souls a year: ~ 4 per day, and 4, in China and some other Asian locales is the same sound as "death", which is an unlucky number. Who'd want to roam the country in a tool symbolic of 4, execution, death? If executions rise, they might want to build a quantity not equal to nor divisible by nor a multiple of 4.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
and the political cartoonist: "It's not an execution chamber. It's a "Reincarnation ACCELERATION Chamber!"
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
We are all free to express our desires to anyone.
No, you are not free to tell me how I should conduct my business. If you try to tell me things on my own land you are trespassing, please leave.
We are free to demonstrate and protest that which we find morally objectionable,
Absolutely, as long as you do it on your own territory, or on a public land.
and no arbitrary borders or citizenship should stop us.
Sorry, the property line is here and you may not cross without my permission.
I find your stance morally reprehensible, as it seeks to divide people into arbitrary groups
Sorry, you are swinging your ax at the freedom of association. Any group of people is free to join for any common purpose it wishes.
who are not allowed to support each other in seeking redress for wrongs.
Allowed? No, there is no authority over nations (the UN is not even close.) Free people, grouped into a nation or just standing on a street corner, may choose to allow or disallow an input from outsiders. It's *their* decision, if they are free, of course.
You advocate a particularly sick form of authoritarianism
No, I advocate freedom. You, on the other hand, advocate interventionism, a policy that hurts the United States on the international arena. What right do you have to tell other nations how to live?
People like Rosa Parks were heroes to all, especially to racists and passive people who needed to have their eyes open.
People like Rosa Parks were carefully chosen by lawyers to become sympathetic test cases before the Judiciary and the court of public opinion.
You think Rosa Parks was the only black woman who got arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus? Even Rosa Parks wikipedia page can't help but mention a pregnant 15 yr old girl named Claudette Colvin.
Light is still a form of polution. Though non-destructive, it is most likely still annoying. While I agree with the cause this man was "fighting" for, I am indifferent to his ineffective methods.
It shouldn't really matter how James Powderly chose to protest, in much the same way that it shouldn't have mattered that Claudette Colvin was unwed and pregnant by a much older man.
I'm sure when the right kind of protestor gets arrested, you and others with your mindset will take notice.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Powderly regularly protests all kinds of oppression, both at home and abroad.
When he protests in the US, people say that there are much worse things going on elsewhere (usually citing China). When he protests in China, the same people say he should to mind his own business.
At least he's doing something, and his sudden disappearance for throwing up a banner with a few lights on it certainly highlights the oppression that we all know exists in China.
"The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
Tibet has been part of China since 1792. Yes, for over two freaking centuries! You might not like it, but tough shit
Tibetans don't think they've been part of China since 1792. They thought they were running Tibet. And they did, until they were invaded in 1959. You might not like it, but tough shit
And guess what, if a bunch of Chinese students came to the US and flung banners around Stanford demanding we give California back to Mexico, we'd probably tell them to get their butts back to China and mind their own business.
NONSENSE! We'd laugh. That's it. We'd laugh and laugh and laugh.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but here's my shot on it. He went to another country to speak out against something that everyone knows is happening, and just as well everyone is rather passive about. You can have millions of people in a movement, and the majority of 'activists' could be doing nothing. However rather than doing like others and saying 'yeah I support this, I'm pro-tibet', instead of sitting around he went to China to one of the most publicized events to do something he probably knew was a risk. When you do graffiti, you know very well the risks you take before the first spray of paint or the first flash of light. It's nothing new, they just have a different take on it.
Now pointing lasers in peoples' direction is a awfully rude thing to do. It is often detrimental to others' physical health, and is also plainly inpolite. What they do is take light and show it off on walls, usually office building where there aren't people working late in the evening, and display shows of light on the sides with artificial graffiti. Perhaps going there and showing off was just a retarded move, a wave in the air and nothing more. Perhaps at sacrifice of themselves it'll get the attention of more people, perhaps not.
Either way, all I know is I'm rather bitter about it. I look up to this guy.
Strictly speaking, if you're talking about continuity of government, the "Chinese Government" is a robust democracy in Taiwan - they are the heirs to the traditional Chinese government. The murderous thugs ruling mainland China don't have a pedigree going back past 1949.
I've always wondered if there would have been a war in 1997 if England had said, "Ok...our 100 year lease on Hong Kong is up. Time to give Hong Kong back to China...here you go, TAIWAN!"\
Powderly regularly protests all kinds of oppression, both at home and abroad.
Oh wait...
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
GWB goes over there and raises a stink about "human rights", now this clown, too. You're not going to change anyone's mind over there. They're doing this on purpose, economic freedoms are given to the Chinese people first, political will follow. Compared to 4 year cycle of US politics, they think in a span of 50 years or so - way too long an attention span for an average US politician to be able to muster.
It's not like there are no problems here at home, either. Infrastructure is crumbling, economy is in the toilet, military budget is astronomical, high schools put out idiots who need remedial courses to even be able to study further, space program is lagging behind, middle class is being raped with taxes, etc, etc.
It sure as heck is much easier to just bash foreign governments for their perceived shortcomings. Fixing problems here would actually require a brain and quite a bit of work.
It is indeed a bad analogy. If all you were doing was moving your furniture then you have a point. On the other hand if you like the desk being where it is because it's better for beating your spouse against there then people would have a reason to get involved.
The positioning of your deks hurts nobody. But if you turn your back on the suffering of another human being then it makes you complicit in their plight. We are a social species and part of a society is caring for those who are hurt - otherwise we are just another tribe of hairless apes screaming at the night. But hey, you choose your own life path just like we all do. Except for those who have that choice taken away from them.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
OK, first of all stop saying detained and call it by its name: arrested. Second, what the hell was this guy doing in China? He should've seen it coming.