Feature Archives

On Saturday, September 9th, musician and filmmaker Michael Franti and his group Spearhead with Guerrilla Management presented the 8th Annual 911 Power to the Peaceful Festival at Speedway Meadows in Golden Gate Park. "Be Peace Now" was this year's theme. In addition to the main stage of live music, PTTP also featured a second stage, an open-air art gallery, a healing arts tent, a DJ tent, food booths, an eco village, kid's zone, valet bike parking, and tabling and forums by social, environmental and political organizations. The festival began at 9am with morning yoga, and lasted until 5pm. Audio of Blackalicious | Middle East Peace Solidarity Audio | Photos: 1 | 2 | Report An afterparty was scheduled for later in the evening, an on Sunday afternoon the "Be Peace Now Yoga Jam: A day of Yoga, Music and Activism" will be held in San Francisco.

The 6th annual Art in Action performance, Stop the Violence, took place in Santa Cruz on August 3rd. 25 youth artists, many from Oakland, performed hip hop, spoken word, original music, dance and theater. Original art and digital stories created during a 10 day Art in Action camp in Ben Lomond were also shared.

The People’s Revolutionary Organization (PRO), which is based in Petaluma, organized Pirates of Propaganda, a day of workshops about youth radio, stencil and graffiti art, and writing and self-publishing using Indybay. The group organized 30 days of action in July. By putting on events and workshops all month, the PRO wanted to show that activism is, “Essentially about doing stuff, and taking initiative... showing that single issue politics can be connected, even within a small group of people.” On July 23rd, about 15 people gathered at Free Mind Media Info Shop in Santa Rosa for workshops about making radio, stencil art and graffiti, and posting to Indybay. Report and photos

In October, Modern Times Bookstore, an independent, collectively owned and operated progressive bookstore in San Francisco's Mission District, will be celebrating its 35th anniversary. For a while, it had seemed as though the bookstore would suffer the fate of many other local bookstores that have closed recently, such as Changemakers in Oakland, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Books in SF, and Cody's on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley. A new collaboration with New College of California is one of the reasons for the store's security.

On July 3rd, fiesta mysteriosa hosted Santa Cruz's 2nd Annual Old Time American Flag Burn at Seabright Beach. The celebration was a B.Y.O.F. event. Before the burning and melting of more than a dozen American flags, people gathered around the fire pit to share their personal feelings and beliefs about burning American flags. It is legal to burn American flags, however the burning of US currency is illegal. Dollar bills, powerful symbols of global capitalism, were also burned, despite the illegality of the act.

Having been the target of numerous recent anti-war demonstrations, the Oakland Military Recruitment Center on Broadway at 21st Street met a different type of adversary on June 7th. The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA) invaded and occupied the military recruitment center in downtown Oakland for about 45 minutes until they were forced out by city police and the center shut down for the day.

Major Mischief reports: We went to see if us clowns could fly big planes and drive big cars too, but the army people were too serious and tried to kick us out. Once we played some games and explained consensus to them, they were a little happier with us. We decided their army was boring and set up our own recruiting table for the "Army of Fun" outside while the rest of us tried to get them to laugh.

Read More with Photos

Four inch figures representing "every person who has died in Iraq since we invaded" are on display in Watsonville as part of the Pajaro Valley Arts Council exhibit, Sculpture IS, which is showing June 2nd through July 30th. Thirty-nine regional artists are showing over seventy pieces of work ranging from installation and performance art to a variety of sculptures that are kinetic, functional, traditional and collaborative. "Counting Lives Lost, Making Tangible an Abstract Measure of Grief" was installed by a volunteer group of artists over Memorial Day weekend. Read more and view photos