Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in thearagorn's LiveJournal:

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Monday, March 9th, 2009
5:21 am	Announcing Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed #67 This is the new site for a little magazine that I help produce. It took a day out of my weekend to build it (the site) and weeks of my life to produce it (the magazine). I am really happy with this issue as I actually -like- my writing in this issue (rather than tolerate it) and continue to hope that it (the content of the magazine) finds a home in the minds of (future) friends. Check it out Anarchy:A Journal of Desire Armed (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
9:47 pm	At least they got the war right. You Scored as insurrectionist war-machine As they say "the phantom of liberty always comes with a knife between its teeth." Obviously the secret is to really begin. Find some friends and lets get this insurrection to come a little sooner. insurrectionist war-machine 70% irrelevant leftist 35% feral wolf child 35% wimpy liberal calling themselves an anarchist 25% (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008
4:03 am	Help wanted I have a couple new projects that I don't want to announce before they get off the ground but would like to get some help with. Asking for help has never been easy for me and trying to attract people to "spotlight" projects (like writing) has met with mixed success. I'm not sure if this method is public enough to reach all the people who might be interested or provides enough context to be appealing to who I'd like to reach but I will give it a try... http://anarchymag.org/blogs/aragorn.php?itemid=149 (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
2:55 am	Internet Privacy Document I know there aren't that many people reading this but I just want to share a new document that I have been working on. Please take a look and give me your feedback. http://security.angrynerds.com (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 21st, 2008
4:06 pm	Sometimes you just have to do a dumb personality test... My Personality Neuroticism 35 Extraversion 75 Openness to Experience 80 Agreeableness 5 Conscientiousness 46 You do not feel nervous in social situations, and have a good impression of what others think of you, however you feel enraged when things do not go your way. You are sensitive about being treated fairly and feel resentful and bitter if you think you are being cheated. You have a generally cheerful disposition. You tend not to express your emotions openly and are sometimes not even aware of your own feelings. You will help others if they are in need. If people ask for too much of your time you feel that they are imposing on you, however you believe that a certain amount of deception in social relationships is necessary. You are guarded in new relationships and less willing to openly reveal the whole truth about yourself. You have strong will-power and are able to overcome your reluctance to begin tasks. You are able to stay on track despite distractions. Take a Personality Test now or view the full Personality Report. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 15th, 2007
1:35 pm	What have I been up to lately? Not much... Oh, I guess a little. What is new with Little Black Cart - October 2007 Little Black Cart continues to be a project of anarchist distribution. We carry more than a few things anarchists and their friends should find interesting. Everything we carry we enjoy, most of it we agree with and the rest we disagree with gently. We continue to be inspired by the poetry of action and the energy of our friends to stay committed to the project of transforming the world even when hope no longer holds even ironic appeal. The past few months (since our last update) have been busy. We have picked up a few new anarchist publishers, have been to Canada, and are starting a few new projects. We Have Your Red Hot Slingshot Organizers We are now the most convenient way (besides moving next door) to get the pocket-sized or spiral-bound calendar that reminds you about birthdays, anniversaries, and when Emma Goldman was born. They come in crazy colors and have enough space to write in all the tasks in your busy days. http://littleblackcart.com/category/publisher/slingshot/ Our First Paper Catalog You can download it here. Check it out. http://littleblackcart.com/static/lbccatalog.pdf The Prisoner Literature Fund We want the project of putting anarchist literature into the world to be explicitly connected to the project of supporting -our- prisoners. Anarchist prisoners. As time is progressing there are more and more anarchist prisoners and we believe that it is imperative for anarchists to support each other. The LBC Prisoner Literature Fund is the first way we can do that. Help us help them. http://littleblackcart.com/category/donation/prisoners/ Abolishing the Borders from Below Did you know that there is an anarchist magazine that covers all of Eastern Europe, from Berlin to Moscow (and beyond)? It is called Abolishing the Borders from Below and we recommend you check it out. LBC is the North American distributor of ABB and we will help you get single issues, subscriptions or bulk copies of this important magazine. http://littleblackcart.com/category/publisher/abolishing-borders-below/ New publishers In addition to ABB we are now carrying publications from Kerbloom, Significant Failure, Mishap, and A Longing for Collapse Press. Kerbloom is a fantastic letterpress personal zine formerly from the East Bay (Oakland-Berkeley), Significant Failure produces the modern situationist pamphlet "Gasping from out the Shallows", Mishap was a long running, high quality, anarcho-punk zine (now moved to the Internet), and A Longing for Collapse is dedicated to spreading information about animal and earth liberation, thoughts on anti-industrial/anti-civilization, updates of political prisoners/prisoners of war, indigenous/native struggles around the world, and practical skills related to direct action, animal liberation, and wilderness living. Check out each of our publishers at http://littleblackcart.com/publishers/ LBC on the road We just returned from a successful trip to Canada and the Victoria Anarchist bookfair and will be visiting the Mid-Atlantic Radical Bookfair and the Reclaiming the Anarchist Tradition conference over the next few weeks. If your town is holding an event or is interested in having the Little Black Cart come to town drop us a line We want to work with your local Infoshop We now have discount rates for Infoshops and radical bookshops. Drop us a line for more information. Until next time. Little Black Cart (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 21st, 2007
11:25 pm	Announcing Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed #64 The Fall/Winter issue of Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed is here. Anarchists are engaged in juggling two incompatible concepts: one is a fundamental opposition to the world we live in, and the other is the need to actually live in, and we hope have an impact on, this world. We all have to find our own ways, with as much help and critical feedback as we can stand. Sometimes more. Editorial: Capitalism means never having to say you are sorry by Leona Benten Article: Proudhon’s Ghost by Lawrence Jarach Review: AK Press Catalog by Bob Black Issue 64 of Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed has as its theme that most pernicious of all enemies, Capitalism--in particular the relationship that anarchists have with capitalism; rhetorically opposed but practically ambivalent. Lawrence Jarach discusses the historical reality, and unreality, of petit-bourgeois anarchists in "Proudhon's Ghost: Petit-bourgeois anarchism, anarchist business, and the politics of effectiveness". Andy Robinson interrogates bricolage within capitalism in "Thinking from the Outside: Avoiding Recuperation". Finally, Aragorn! reflects on anarchists' reactionary attitudes about Capitalism in "To Dance with the Devil". Reviewers in this issues include Bob Black who, in his inimitable style, targets the AK Press 2007 Catalog. Lawrence Jarach reviews Terrorism: An Introduction and the CNT in the Spanish Revolution Vol. 2 (you didn't think we would have an entire issue without any mention of the SR did you?), new reviewer A. Burkin reviews Horizontalism by Marina Sitrin, Australopithecus afarensis reviews species being and other stories by frere dupont. Media reviews include 325, A Murder of Crows, Anarchist Studies, ASR, EF!, Fervent Whispers, FE, Freedom, MRR, NY RAT, NEA, OysterCatcher, Rolling Thunder, and Warrior. The current events section includes analysis of the Green Scare, 8 days of anarchy, and solidarity actions in Greece. The rest of this issue includes columns like "What Others Are Saying" excerpts from the anarchist press, "The Egoist Encyclopedia", "Bad Medicine" and "Liana Doctrines", letters and a quiz. The Anarchy website will soon have the contents of issue 62. We have grown the functionality of the aggregator of desire armed, Several AJODAists continue to update their blogs (Including Aragorn!, Leona, AAA, and Kriegspiel), and the AJODA forum continues to function. Please drop a line to webmaster@anarchymag.org if there are problems with the site. Subscriptions This issue will represent a break with the past. As we have mentioned, distribution for the magazine has been suffering along with the industry as a whole. Since the last issue the Post Office (USPS) has increased the rate of our shipping by nearly 20%. Several larger-than-us independent publications have completely stopped operations (including Punk Planet and Kitchen Sink) and we are looking at a major shift in our publication. We are committed to continuing to publish Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed but we need you to subscribe. Even if you hate us (and have only read this far to fuel the flames) you should subscribe so that you know exactly how much you hate us. In the age of the Internet it may seem out of date, or archaic, to subscribe to a print magazine but our survival demands it. We are offering a PDF version of the magazine for download. This will be a great way to check out the magazine if you are an overseas reader. This subscription will be $10 for 4 issues and will be delivered to your email box or downloadable from our website. Also check out Little Black Cart for purchasing single copies of the magazine. In particular here is the link for Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed #64 Our hardcopy subscriptions are still only $20 for 5 issues and we really need to grow our subscription numbers. If you read Anarchy there is not cheaper way to get the magazine delivered to your door than through a subscription. If you shoplift it, only read back issues, or just read the copy that sits in the bathroom see this as a plea to help out a financially strapped project. In order not to rely so heavily on mainstream distribution channels we need more subscribers. Please consider subscribing. Current Mood: tired (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 13th, 2007
11:34 pm	Kriegspiel Hey! If you don't pay attention to the Anarchy Magazine Blog Aggregator you may not have noticed that the Anarchy Magazine strategy gaming blog has been updated by a long time contributor to the magazine. If you are into board games you will want to check out Kriegspiel blog. Current Music: EliteXC (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 12th, 2007
11:19 pm	Anarchists on Capitalism on Anarchism I cnp my latest blog entry here but usually I blog at the Anarchy Magazine site (http://anarchymag.org/aragorn) We've sent AJODA 64 to the printer with an above average number of printing problems occurring in the process. The process of producing the magazine was actually a bit smoother (logistically), prior to getting it to the printer, than the past few issues. Producing the content, on the other hand, was considerably more difficult. I have found that I am comfortable juggling many tasks only if they are in a similar problem domain; for instance technical tasks. The transition of switching from one domain to another is incredibly challenging. Switching from my daily practice (which usually involves responding to emails that are logistical or technical) to writing takes at least twice, if not four times, more time than it should (given what I actually end up outputting). Maybe it's incorrect to blame the domain switching, and it's just an issue of how difficult writing is for me, but the process is brutal. This upcoming issue is on the theme of anarchism and business. Doing a theme issue is a pain in the ass. On the one hand you can take the scattershot approach and just print whatever comes down the pipe that is even tangentially related to the theme or you wait for the right content to tell a story. Add to this the pressure of doing this on a timeline when (seemingly) fewer and fewer anarchists appear to want to write anything at all (and who can blame them) and I'm beginning to think that theme issues have to follow the content we have on hand rather than our desire for a statement. This issue should be interesting since the theme lives somewhere in the space between an interest in anarchists and their relationship to capitalism in theory and practice AND the question about where there is anything reclaimable about talking economics, economic theory, or the logistics of mass society at all. Again we are confronted with the question of how to live with the implications of these beautiful ideas, how to do it successfully (defined here as sustainably and without putting yourself in financial ruin), and how to make a dent in the bullets heading in our direction. Speaking of... The Little Black Cart project is slowly becoming a success along the lines I was hoping for. A lot of publishers are connected to one another in a way that, I think, honors them. Now to start actually getting their stuff out there! One of the big pieces to the LBC project that we just launched (and something I am really happy about) is the Prisoner Literature Fund which is a way that people can donate money to support specific prisoners continuing their reading in anarchism. I look forward to this actually being a way that people can make sure some forgotten prisoners (like Eric McDavid) can be remembered. Current Music: The Decemberists - Her Majesty the... (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 2nd, 2007
12:53 am	what have I been doing the past few months? Usually I will not repost my blogs from http://anarchymag.org/aragorn but sometimes I will. If you haven't noticed I haven't been around much lately. When I started blogging a bit more regularly it was in the context of traveling and made a lot of sense in that context. I was doing interesting things that I wanted to share with my friends (and possible friends) and didn't want to have to tell the same story over and over again. The last two months have been filled with a lot of drudgery that I would hate to bore people with (as it usually bores me to tears) but there have been some exciting things too. Let's start over. For about the last 4-5 years the months of January to March are filled with preparations for "the big event" of the year (for anarchists) which usually happens in March. Because of some decisions made by the organizers of this event this year was pretty different than other years (for me). I, and the projects I'm involved with, decided not to explicitly table inside the event (we still set up our "Critical Carnival" outside of it). Instead I vigorously prepared for 8 days of events for the middle of March which took no small amount of effort. We also prepared an issue of Anarchy to be published in time for the 8 days period which brought its usual amount of grief. I finished the second part of my "Anarchist Mythologies" which I shared with quite a few friends. A few of us started a new anarchist publishing project that I will talk about more when our first book is delivered from the printer (which could be any day). ( more below ) (Comment on this)
Friday, March 2nd, 2007
3:43 am	Final Schedule for the Seventh Annual BASTARD Conference Join the Berkeley Anarchist Students of Theory And Research & Development for their seventh annual conference on Anarchist Theory on March 18th from 10 am - 6 pm at Dwinelle Hall in Berkeley CA. http://sfbay-anarchists.org/conference for late breaking details http://sfbay-anarchists.org/forum for questions and discussion http://8daysofanarchy.org This is day 6 of 8 days of anarchy Here is our final schedule Revolution as a Jam Session of Outlaws: All That is Guerrilla Melts into Air Ashanti Alston One of the fundamental characteristics of jazz is improvisation. Thinking of Black revolution as a jam session keeps the focus on flexibility, individuality, and spontaneity. Postmodernism has some ideas that are helpful in this-- rejection of the meta narrative emphasis on intersections (race, class etc) multiple lenses examples of revolutionary struggles, nationalist based, yet non-statist challenges to concepts of solidarity Fighting the system is a cat and mouse game. Tactics and strategies have to be creative and flexible to stay unco-opted. Our answers have to be temporary and we must fight on various levels, lawful, underground, as well as on multiple fronts. ( more workshops ) (Comment on this)
Monday, January 29th, 2007
12:39 am	Announcing 8 Days of Anarchy - 2007 edition What are 8 days of anarchy? They are a series of events coordinated around the BASTARD conference of anarchist theory in the San Francisco Bay Area in March. This year the events include: several discussions, an anarchist martial arts seminar, strategy gaming, a movie, a conference, and an all day derive (on Friday). On Saturday we are featuring the opportunity for people to spend time in a seminar with Jeff Monson. Anarchist Mixed Martial Arts fighter who has recently fought for the heavyweight title of the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). He will also be giving a presentation at the BASTARD conference on Sunday. Check out the site at http://8daysofanarchy.org for more information and look forward to seeing many of you there. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, January 5th, 2007
8:58 pm	A Call for Workshops - Seventh Annual BASTARD conference It is that time of the year again. The Berkeley Anarchist Students of Theory And Research and Development are holding their seventh annual conference. The conference will take place at the University of California, Berkeley campus on Sunday March 18th, 2007 from 10am to 6pm. This year there will not have a specific theme but there will be two keynote addresses that you are not going to want to miss! There will also be an anarchist trivia contest at the end of the day. This will be day six of 8 days of anarchy (http://8daysofanarchy.org) Submit your Proposal! We are now accepting proposals along any theoretical theme that anarchists might find interesting. The form is available at http://sfbay-anarchists.org/conference/ (bottom of the page) or you may email proposals to the conference email (conference@sfbay-anarchists.org), or send us your proposals and a little background info about yourself (and a SASE) to ASG c/o Long Haul 3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley CA 94705. Finally As always the goal of the BASTARD conference is to hear from the multiplicity of people who are working with anarchist theory. We recognize that there are many different ways to understand anarchism. Each of these approaches has valid points that are worth examining. Please share your approach at the conference. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 15th, 2006
2:00 am	I will continue to post ridiculous shit on this blog. Like this What Kind of Pirate are Ye? (*Pix*) </a> Cut Throat Pirate Aye Aye Captain! You have the attitude to rule the Seven Seas! You like to take charge in life and consider all of your Crew Members as brothers. Your dreams are as endless as the stars in the sky. You share your booty with the ones you trust...which may only be a few. But when it comes to living, you know how to do it right! Quizzes by myYearbook.com -- the World's Biggest Yearbook!</center> (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 22nd, 2006
11:25 pm	I am blogging on my trip (including pictures!) at the Anarchy Mag website. I have added an entry on the two days of the Montreal Bookfair. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 16th, 2006
3:26 am	I am not quite sure yet of how I am going to differentiate them but I am going to do most of my future blogging over at the Anarchy Magazine website. You are welcome to see my recent photo-blog of the Anarchy Magazine benefit that happened over the weekend. http://anarchymag.org/aragorn (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 4th, 2006
3:53 pm	Help me set up a speaking tour this summer (Anarchy on Tour!) I am one of the collective that puts out Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed. I am planning on coming out to the Midwest between late May (for the Our Lives Ahead conference) and (tentatively) early July (for the Mid-Atlantic Radical Bookfair). It is my plan to try to travel to Infoshops and anarchist communities throughout the region speaking and listening to what people are doing outside the West Coast. I am hoping that you can organize an event for me during the month of June in your town. I have written about and given presentations on Post-left anarchy, Second wave anarchy, Nihilism and Anarchy, Indigenous Anarchism, Non European Anarchism (and APOC), the future of Green Anarchy, Bolo Bolo, Anarchy and Strategy, /Anarchy/ magazine, Anarchy & community, the Situationists, Nietzsche, and Elise Reclus (an anarchist geologist contemporary of ..... whose work is relevant to today's green anarchy tendency). My writings are in widely-available pamphlets, /Anarchy/, and /Green Anarchy/. My presentations have mostly been at the conference that I help organize in the Bay Area (the BASTARD conference http://sfbay-anarchists.org/conference) but also at other anarchist events and conferences. I will also bring a variety of media if the venue is more appropriate for showing movies (mostly documentaries) that could inspire discussion (or if it makes sense for me to stay several days in the same town). I am originally from Michigan so I will plan on spending some time there during June but would like to hear from any of you that are interested as soon as possible so that I can finalize my itinerary. Motivation for this trip is to get the word out about the magazine, some interesting anarchist projects & to start or further dialogues with communities, to learn how our magazine can serve them better (given its pre-existing constraints). Ideally some (or many) of these events can cover the expense of driving around the Midwest but I will also bring our catalogue of magazines, pamphlets, and whatnot for display. Contact me at: aragorn@anarchymag.org Check out http://sfbay-anarchists.org http://anarchymag.org http://anarchistnews.org Cheers. Aragorn! (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 12th, 2006
8:52 pm	BSG Geekery As anyone who knows me personally knows, I am a very serious SF person. This is kind of self-evident given that I was born with the name that I was but at the age of 5 I started my own journey into SF. The first books I read (at age 5) were Isaac Asimov's 'Lucky Starr' series. I read a lot into my teen years and then I picked up the pace. I can say that for at least 5 years during my twenties I read approximately one book a day, almost entirely SF. This was assisted by the fact that I worked night shift at a hotel at the time but it would not be an exaggeration to say that I have read a lot of SF. I'd go further and say that I would not be an anarchist if it were not for SF. I am not a huge fan of a lot of 'political' SF (I have never really enjoyed UKL's Dispossessed for instance) but the idea of speculation on the scale of most SF still inspires my politics. Anyway, I have always been a fan of SF in print but never a real fan of it in visual media. I enjoy some of the big SF movies (Aliens, Starship Troopers, etc) but they aren't particularly SF, or even speculative, to my eyes. I have absolutely hated the major SF TV shows (Star Trek being a particular offense IMO) with the possible exception of Babylon 5. With trepidation I started d/l and watching the new and improved Battle Star Galactaca series. I never really like the first show, although was a bit young, and really only remember the Henson puppet vividly so the bar was set pretty low, particularly because the SciFi channel has been a pretty consistant pile of shit (with the tentative exception of their redoing of the Dune series). BattleStar Galactaca has far exceeded expectations and given another strong season or two will superceed B5 as the best SF series of all time (as far as I am concerned). I just finished watching the finale of 'season 3' (really season 2) and it was fucking great. The best thing about it... They were not shy about moving the narrative forward in time in service to the plot. Fucking great! Plus next season will be a combination of the best of V, B5 (with the internal conflicts w/i the Cyclon coming to fore) and BSG. Finally there are good times for the TV watching BSG fan (even if they just d/l it a week later...). (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 5th, 2006
8:38 am	Early Sunday Usually I go to sleep late and wake up super early. Not today. I've changed the oil on my mc by 8:30 am. I kind of wish I could do this all the time. I just put up a new poll on Anarchist News and one of the early favorites is 'Against Hierarchy' (the Q: Best definition of Anarchy?). I have always wondered about this definition of Anarchism since it seems to be the one most plagued with nitpicking (Isn't your skill at X, like, a kind of hierarchy?) and most ressentiment. I'll post more about this later into the poll but it fascinates me that people would define themselves by a political perspective and then define that perspective in such a way as to be downright toothless. What exactly is hierarchy? (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 1st, 2006
8:41 am	More information about 8 days... Many of the people who are subscribed to my blog find it because of anarchist shite so I'll give a few more thoughts about the '8 days of Anarchy' events some of us are organizing during the week of the bookfair... Last year I was fucking exhausted after organizing 4 big events during the so-called Unleft Anarchy Week and said to myself 'Never again'. As a result we have organized twice as many events this year... The big difference is that all of them (in particular the ones that I am the most concerned with) are really low key. Two reading groups, a movie, some board games, a couple days of meetings, a benefit show at Gilman and the conference. It actually sounds like a lot but it should be a lot less stressful than last year. That said I am also trying to finish an enormous pile of writing & prepare for a workshop for the conference... Blah. (3 Comments |Comment on this)