Tag Archives: NSA

Consuming 20 feet of meat is apparently newsworthy… Seattle and San Francisco take notice of the Wurst Challenge

By Mark | March 10, 2014

Earlier today, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden appeared on a video screen before a large group of individuals gathered at South by Southwest (SXSW) to discuss civil rights in an era of rampant domestic spying. My intention had been to watch the ACLU’s video of the event this evening, after putting the kids to bed, and […]

Posted in Food, Local Business, Special Projects, Uncategorized, Ypsilanti | Also tagged 20 feet of meat, animal rights, Associated Press, domestic spying, Eastern Michigan University, eating challenges, Edward Snowden, EMU, FLY Children's Art Center, FLY Creativity Lab, Jesse Kranyak, meat, Paul Schreiber, philanthropy, sausage, Susan Martin, SXSW, vegetarianism, Wurst Bar, Wurst Challenge | 44 Comments

My big birthday revelation

By Mark | February 11, 2014

[A big thank you to my friends Scott and Sarah who commissioned this drawing of me for my birthday, even if it did allow me to slip out of my blogging responsibilities on the national day of protest against government surveillance.]

Posted in Mark's Life, Uncategorized | Also tagged drawings of Mark, Mark's birthday, portraits, portraiture, Sarah Boonstoppel, Scott Huffines, surveillance, The Simpsons | 7 Comments

Everything is pointing toward a Bernie Sanders presidential campaign… And only Elizabeth Warren can stop it

By Mark | December 17, 2013

For the past several weeks, one of my favorite people, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, has been publicly floating the idea that, if no other strong progressives, like Elizabeth Warren, come forward to announce a run for the presidency in 2016, he’d consider doing it himself. Someone, according to Sanders, needs to address the collapse of […]

Posted in Civil Liberties, Politics, Uncategorized | Also tagged 2016, Barbara Boxer, Bernie Sanders, campaign finance reform, carbon tax, Citizens United, cooperatives, Edward Snowden, Elizabeth Warren, energy efficiency, financial reform, global climate change, Global Warming, health care reform, income inequality, Koch brothers, money as free speech, Noam Chomsky, participatory democracy, Patriot Act, poverty, privacy, progressive taxation, public funding of elections, Sheldon Adelson, single-payer system, social security, Socialism, tax reform, taxing the rich, Ted Deutch, the growing gap between rich and poor, threats to Democracy, Vermont, wealth inequality, worker ownership | 12 Comments

Will self-interested corporations succeed where privacy advocates have failed, and force a roll back of online government spying?

By Mark | December 10, 2013

On Monday morning, the world’s leading online technology companies – Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Twitter and AOL – launched a coordinated campaign against online government spying. Saying that it’s, “time for the world’s governments to address the practices and laws regulating government surveillance of individuals and access to their information,” the CEOs of […]

Posted in Civil Liberties | Also tagged AOL, Apple, big data, Edward Snowden, Facebook, Google, internet, internet business, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Mozilla, privacy, ReformGovernmentSurveillance.com, surveillance, surveillance culture, Surveillance State, Twitter, Yahoo | 8 Comments

Restore the Fourth… Let’s start by holding Levin and Stabenow accountable

By Mark | June 30, 2013

On the Fourth of July, people around the country will be joining together to protest the illegal domestic spying activities of the American government at what are being called “Restore the Fourth” rallies… The reference, of course, is to Amendment IV of the Bill of Rights, which guarantees “the right of the people to be […]