Jen and I produced and edited a field report for Rocketboom reacting to the recent NYTimes article on NYPD surveillance.
It was fun to collaborate on this project together and contribute to Rocketboom. Andrew Baron composed the music, which added a lot to the piece.
]]>I'm not sure how to react at the moment, and will try to compose a more thoughtful response soon.
]]>Thanks to everyone for their kind support throughout. It has meant so much.
]]>Thanks to everyone for your support.
]]>Thanks to everyone who has been supportive of me and Bikes Against Bush. I will post an update here as soon as I have more information.
If you are new to the site, check out this video to see what's going on.
]]>I'll talk about my ongoing experience with Bikes Against Bush, as well as other political projects I've done this year. I will also do my best to encourage the students to vote -- Maine is a battle ground state and all those electoral votes count.
If you're in the area, check it out. I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have about this and pther projects.
]]>
Though my equipment is still being held by the NYPD, I will exhibit a demo-version and video documentation of Bikes Against Bush in Spectropolis tomorrow at City Hall Park.
Spectropolis: Mobile Media, Art and the City is a three-day event (October 1-3, 2004) in Lower Manhattan that highlights the diverse ways artists, technical innovators and activists are using communication technologies to generate urban experiences and public voice. The increasing presence of mobile communication technologies is transforming the ways we live, construct and move through our built environment. The participants of Spectropolis make obvious or play with this shift, creating new urban perceptions and social interactions with cell phones, laptops, wireless internet, PDAs and radio. In addition to twelve projects presented in City Hall Park, there will be several free hands-on workshops and three panels available to the public.
Don't forget to bring your Wi-Fi enabled laptop or PDA!
]]>Bicycle Film Festival
Bikes Against Bush video shorts premiere
October 7, 2004, 7pm
Mighty (119 Utah St @ 15th)
Bicycle Film Festival is Wheelin' into San Francisco. A celebration of bicycles, and an environmentally friendly urban lifestyle through film, art, and performance.
After fun filled years of sold out shows in New York City the Fourth Annual Bicycle Film Festival (BFF) is coming to San Francisco. The BFF will present its selection of thirty passionate, hip and entertaining films from around the world October 7-9. These films embrace all aspects of bicycle culture, showcasing the lives of cyclists, BMX-ers, messengers, environmental advocates, fanatics, and all bike freaks.
BFF is designed to celebrate bike culture and promote environmental change. The festival was launched by Brendt Barbur, a Native Californian that was hit by a bus while riding his bike when he first moved to New York City from San Francisco. He wanted to create a positive outcome from a negative experience. Film programming will take place at the RED VIC MOVIE HOUSE (1727 Haight St. at Cole) and MIGHTY (119 Utah St. at 15th St.)
For more information or to arrange an interview with a festival spokesperson, please contact: Brendt Barbur (718) 926-1992, brendt@bicyclefilmfestival.com
]]>Thank you for those of you who have supported this project through donations and letters of support. Let's not give up! Let's keep fighting for free speech! Without that, America is surely lost.
]]>Gentlemen,
My fiancée and I visited Joshua Kinberg's website on the morning of August 30, 2004, after first becoming aware of its existence the previous week. We were ready to send our own message to him, with hopes it would appear on a New York sidewalk in water-soluble chalk:
"DEFLATE BUSH. EXPAND STEM CELL RESEARCH. KILL CANCER,
NOT PEOPLE. END SUFFERING - END THE BUSH REGIME."
Instead we found the video of his arrest, a truly disgusting display of unreasonable authority illustrating an arrogant willingness to deprive Mr. Kinberg of his Constitutional rights. The accusation was that he was engaged in graffiti -- but if such is the case, then why aren't 6-year-olds arrested when they play hopscotch?
I knew the Bush regime, with its Ashcroft-fueled movements towards a police state mentality, was ever-anxious to suppress the rights of certain Americans (at least the ones who disagree with them), but this latest demonstration of such is an embarrassment.
Not just to New York, Mr. Bloomberg, not only to your force, Mr. Kelly, not just to both you and your precinct, Captain Hurley.
No, I'm embarrassed personally. I'm ashamed. I hear the word "America" and I do not think of freedom. I hear the word "America" and I think of Joshua Kinberg being shoved into a police van for disagreeing with those in power, and opening his voice to say as much.
What's incredible is that you're unaware that you not only violated Mr. Kinberg's freedom of speech; you stomped all over mine, and that of others like me -- citizens who intended for Mr. Kinberg's brilliant invention to be the megaphone through which we would shout.
]]> I am 29 years old. I suffered a generalized seizure on December 19, 2003. My first memory of this event is paramedics carting me onto an ambulance, at which point I did not know my name, my accompanying fiancée's name, where I was, or anything about myself. It was easily the most frightening moment of my life -- the kind of raw, absolute, unbridled terror that only exists in the most horrific of nightmares.At the emergency room, it was discovered that I have an extremely sizable left brain tumor. The first doctor to see my CAT scans and MRIs informed my fiancée and parents that I might have just 6 months to live.
That was 8 months ago, and I have proven him wrong. With my new medical team and chemotherapy, I continue to battle this illness every day. But I am also realistic. I know courage and attitude alone cannot defeat nature, and that existing medicines might not be enough to save me.
What sickens me is that it isn't fantasy to hope for other chances and breakthroughs. We have opportunities at our fingertips if we remove blockades and expand stem cell research, but they're being stifled, despite what Mr. Bush and his wife declare.
I acknowledge that expanded stem cell research does not guarantee a cure for my disease, but I declare that the possibilities -- the chance it might save me and so many others worse off -- are more important than the conflicts one leader has with this because of his religion. (A leader whose country has roots in "the separation of Church and State").
I think of my late grandfather, a gentle saint of a man. I think of the diabetes that ravaged him to the point he could no longer walk. And then I think of his accompanying Alzheimer's which made him continually forget that he could no longer stand. In tandem, the two diseases made a man who once ran 5 miles a day become one who repeatedly tried to exit his wheelchair only to fall on his face, panicked and bewildered. The horrors of disease made him pitiful and turned the last years of his golden life into a nightmare the likes of which no human should ever be subjected to.
I was unable to come to New York to air these grievances and even larger ones (expanded stem cell research may be the issue that hits closest home for me, but is not remotely the issue I care most about).
Close friends in Manhattan raised their voices even louder to compensate for my absence, but I also looked forward to Mr. Kinberg's peaceful protest. I hoped my message would find its chalky water-soluble way to a New York sidewalk. I hoped it might be read by an undecided voter, a member of the media, a Republican delegate, or an elected leader.
...but then authority impeded to strip Mr. Kinberg of his right to speak and my right to speak through him. It stole his equipment from him like slicing the larynx straight from both his throat and mine.
Mr. Kinberg's case is likely to be dismissed, but that doesn't pacify my disgust, it doesn't quell my anger. It doesn't make America America.
It doesn't make New York New York.
Sincerely,
Matthew J. Reichl
Los Angeles, CA
matthewjreichl AT yahoo.com
]]>
I was interviewed by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Click to listen]]>
On Saturday, August 28, 2004, I was arrested while conducting an interview with Ron Reagan for MSNBC's Hardball. Following my release from the Tombs on Sunday, MSNBC aired their footage of my arrest, and I was interviewed live. Click to watch my interview on Hardball with Ron Reagan from Sunday August 29, 2004.]]>
Now, let's take a look at NY State's definition of graffiti:
TITLE I. OFFENSES INVOLVING DAMAGE TO AND INTRUSION UPON PROPERTY
ARTICLE 145. CRIMINAL MISCHIEF AND RELATED OFFENSES
NY CLS Penal § 145.60 (2004)§ 145.60. Making graffiti
1. For purposes of this section, the term "graffiti" shall mean the etching, painting, covering, drawing upon or otherwise placing of a mark upon public or private property with intent to damage such property.
Now let's look at NY State Law regarding "possession of graffiti instruments":
§ 145.65. Possession of graffiti instrumentsA person is guilty of possession of graffiti instruments when he possesses any tool, instrument, article, substance, solution or other compound designed or commonly used to etch, paint, cover, draw upon or otherwise place a mark upon a piece of property which that person has no permission or authority to etch, paint, cover, draw upon or otherwise mark, under circumstances evincing an intent to use same in order to damage such property.