The Latest from Boing Boing

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• The anti-government grammar of :David-Wynn: Miller
• Terre Thaemlitz on "All Things Considered"
• Great animation: why we can't walk straight
• Muslim and Christian, Egyptians stand together against violence
• Second person of interest sought in Arizona shooting
• Why the [shootings] Mean That We Must Support My Politics
• Fallows: "The Cloudy Logic of 'Political' Shootings"
• George Packer: "It doesn't matter why he did it."

The anti-government grammar of :David-Wynn: Miller Posted: 10 Jan 2011 03:24 AM PST OK, I just spent about three hours cleaning up the Wikipedia article on David Wynn Miller, the anti-government activist whose Time Cube-like views on grammar may have caught the fancy of Tucson shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner (see previous Boing Boing pieces on Loughner's social media presence by Sean and produced videos by Xeni). Miller travels the country advising people in the Sovereign Citizen anti-tax movement that they can fight in court by using a special grammar he created in 1988. It basically comes down to a belief that how one renders one's name with punctuation and how one uses grammar can alter one's legal status as a person. In other words, DAVID WYNN MILLER (as on his birth certificate) can be taxed, but :David-Wynn: Miller cannot, because that is not legally a person. In addition to unsuccessfully assisting people accused of tax evasion, Miller has also unsuccessfully assisted people convicted of abusing children, including a woman in Hawaii who broke the teeth out of her nieces' and nephews' mouths with a hammer. She claimed her conviction was invalid because her sovereignty group, Hawaiian Kingdom Government, said she did nothing wrong. Miller was spokesperson for the group and has claimed he is King of Hawaii. Miller says people don't need to pay taxes if they can "prove that money is a verb," and he offers seminars around the country on how to use his language to defend against criminal charges. Regardless of any connection with Loughner, these anti-government grammar people are, just... wow. I need to go lie down now.

Terre Thaemlitz on "All Things Considered" Posted: 09 Jan 2011 09:54 PM PST photo by Ruthi Singer-Decaipt My dear pal and bOING bOING contributor Terre Thaemlitz -- computer musician, transgender educator and activist -- is profiled today on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. Never one to disappoint, Terre puts on his (de)construction hat and hammers on gender identity, consumerism, and overly-optimistic "yes we can!" cultural criticism. From NPR (photo below by Bart Nagel): I'm standing in the middle of a large wooden dance floor at the U Street Music Hall in Washington, D.C., waiting for Terre Thaemlitz to take the stage. The crowd is electric, buzzing to hear what the headliner is going to bring. Thaemlitz, playing tonight under the alias DJ Sprinkles, emerges and asks, "Are you ready to rock?" The crowd answers with a resounding yes, to which he replies, "Then go to the 9:30 Club, because this is a house show." Thaemlitz grew up in Springfield, Missouri. When he was 18 years old, he moved to New York City to study fine arts. It was the late 1980s, and deep house was taking hold of the city's underground queer and transgender nightclubs. Thaemlitz became disillusioned with his studies and eventually started DJing in these underground clubs for a living... Thaemlitz doesn't always make dance music. In fact, many of his works are elecro-acoustic and ambient. But in 2009 he released Midtown 120 Blues, a dance record. Thaemlitz says that word for the album traveled through channels closer than usual to the mainstream. Resident Advisor, an authority in the electronic music community, picked it as their 2009 album of the year, calling it an "emotionally and intellectually deep album." For Thaemlitz it was a re-contextualization of house music. "For me the roots of deep house music owe a lot to the queer African American and Latina communities. But in the last couple of years there's been a house revival," says Thaemlitz. "With the context of how this music is produced as well as played, there's been a real de-sexualization and re-territorialization of where the music was coming from and how it functioned. So I wanted to do an album that not only looks critically at how current marketing of the house scene relies on a fiction of what the past of house music was, but also something that is resistant to dominant marketing ploys and dominant culture." "Terre Thaemlitz: Deconstructing Gender Politics In Dance Music" Terre Thaemlitz's (DJ Sprinkles) deep house album Terre Thaemlitz: a complete musical archive Terre Thaemlitz on MAD's Dave Berg, Roger Kaputnik, and Post-Modernity

Great animation: why we can't walk straight Posted: 09 Jan 2011 01:36 PM PST NPR's always interesting Robert Krulwich posted a great report on why people can't walk in a straight line from point A to point B without visual cues. Usually gimlets are involved in my case, but even sober, it's likely you will end up going in ever-tighter loops. Benjamin Arthur's beautiful animation alone is worth checking out. Important viewing if you're searching for the Blair Witch or planning to walk to the neighbor's during a blinding blizzard. Video link. A Mystery: Why Can't We Walk Straight?

Muslim and Christian, Egyptians stand together against violence Posted: 09 Jan 2011 12:23 PM PST Think of this as your Unicorn Chaser for the collective human soul. On New Year's Eve, a Christian church in Alexandria, Egypt was attacked by suicide bombers. For those Coptic Christians, the bombing came with a lot of added tension. Their Christmas, like that of several other Christian sects outside the Western Catholic/Protestant divide, falls after the New Year. Many expected further bombings on that holiday. Here's what happened, instead ... Egypt's majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside. From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as "human shields" for last night's mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife. "We either live together, or we die together," was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the "human shield" idea. "This is not about us and them," said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly. "We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together." How's that for "wonderful things"? Ahram Online: Egypt's Muslims Attend Coptic Christmas Mass, Serving as "Human Shields"

Second person of interest sought in Arizona shooting Posted: 09 Jan 2011 09:52 AM PST Image, from a grocery store surveillance camera: "A Caucasian male, approximately 40-50 years old, dark hair, last seen wearing blue jeans and a dark blue jacket," sought by the Pima County Sheriff's Dept. in Arizona in connection with yesterday's shooting. PDF Link. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot in Arizona YouTube videos of Arizona shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner Jared Lee Loughner: social media footprints

Why the [shootings] Mean That We Must Support My Politics Posted: 09 Jan 2011 05:26 PM PST The day after 9/11 here on Boing Boing, Cory pointed to this essay: "Why the Bombings Mean That We Must Support My Politics: a bang-on mock-editorial about the forthcoming tide of self-serving chest-thumping over the Current Events." The essay really is timeless. When the pundit frenzy erupted yesterday, I thought of it again. You may want to bookmark it for the next big news tragedy—whatever it is, someone will surely use it to further their own tangentially related political agenda. Many people will use this terrible tragedy as an excuse to put through a political agenda other than my own. This tawdry abuse of human suffering for political gain sickens me to the core of my being. Those people who have different political views from me ought to be ashamed of themselves for thinking of cheap partisan point-scoring at a time like this. In any case, what this tragedy really shows us is that, so far from putting into practice political views other than my own, it is precisely my political agenda which ought to be advanced. Not only are my political views vindicated by this terrible tragedy, but also the status of my profession. Furthermore, it is only in the context of a national and international tragedy like this that we are reminded of the very special status of my hobby, and its particular claim to legislative protection. My religious and spiritual views also have much to teach us about the appropriate reaction to these truly terrible events. Countries which I like seem to never suffer such tragedies, while countries which, for one reason or another, I dislike, suffer them all the time. The one common factor which seems to explain this has to do with my political views, and it suggests that my political views should be implemented as a matter of urgency, even though they are, as a matter of fact, not implemented in the countries which I like. Of course the World Trade Center attacks are a uniquely tragic event, and it is vital that we never lose sight of the human tragedy involved. But we must also not lose sight of the fact that I am right on every significant moral and political issue, and everybody ought to agree with me. Please, I ask you as fellow human beings, vote for the political party which I support, and ask your legislators to support policies endorsed by me, as a matter of urgency. By "jsm," on adequacy.org. (If someone knows a real name behind that handle, I'll update) Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot in Arizona YouTube videos of Arizona shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner Jared Lee Loughner: social media footprints

Fallows: "The Cloudy Logic of 'Political' Shootings" Posted: 09 Jan 2011 08:57 AM PST James Fallows in The Atlantic: "Shootings of political figures are by definition 'political.' That's how the target came to public notice; it is why we say 'assassination' rather than plain murder. But it is striking how rarely the 'politics' of an assassination (or attempt) match up cleanly with the main issues for which a public figure has stood." Read the rest.

George Packer: "It doesn't matter why he did it." Posted: 09 Jan 2011 08:52 AM PST "The massacre in Tucson is, in a sense, irrelevant to the important point. Whatever drove Jared Lee Loughner, America's political frequencies are full of violent static."— George Packer, in the New Yorker.

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