gchatz w/ john

which will now be known as "a hobo's meditation".



John: this song is pretty much what i would expect a child to think about income inequality

the 99% bat signal

Mark Read: It came up at an action coordination meeting. We were talking about what to do on the 17th, about the decentralized way the day would progress, attacking the exchange from different angles. We had a sense that the morning on Wall Street would be forceful and confrontational, and we wanted to not do the same kind of thing in the afternoon. Initial talks focused on having a thousand people taking the bridge in the afternoon, and continuing in a militant mode of activism. But we started thinking about creating a more unifying moment. A celebration of the birthday of Occupy Wall Street. Maybe taking the roadway and having lots of arrests might not be best thing. What if we took the pedestrian walkway, and gave out LED candles? We would give out 10,000 LED tea candles, a river of light streaming over the walkway.

And a guy named Hero, who has been central to a lot of facets of the occupation since the beginning, turns to me and says, "We need a bat signal. The 99%."

I said, I think I can do that. I know just enough about how the technology works that I think I can pull that off. And for the past two weeks, I've worked full time on figuring that out. (via)

good one, #ows

this is an amazing internet joke! i was just reading through some live updates, here's an excerpt:

10:53 am: police profiling protesters; checking IDs to access Broadway checkpoints around Wall Street. Video stream shows police selectively allowing some people to pass without ID based on appearance, while blocking other people who "look like protesters" from passing even with ID.
10:44 am: thousands occupying Liberty Square
10:39 am: reports of LRAD sound cannon used by NYPD to disperse protesters singing National Anthem near Pine St
10:37 am: Bloomberg responds to Wall Street shutdown
10:32 am: one march headed down william toward beaver stopped by police; people who "look like protesters" not allowed to pass, but "suits" allowed through
10:30 am: protesters chanting "her cuffs are too tight" in solidarity with 60 y/o woman who can't feel her arms after being arrested (via)

ctm!

good decision, B of A.

2 things:

1) i won't lie. i really like bank of america for my personal checking and savings and credit card needs. i've always received excellent customer service, and despite all the evidence that they might be among the most evil of corporations, i would call myself a loyal customer. so, i was pretty disappointed to hear about the institution of debit card fees. in recent days, several of B of A's competitors have announced that they will not follow suit. that, in combination with customer outrage, seems to have made an impression on the decision-makers, because, look!

Bank of America Corp. is dropping its plan to charge customers $5 a month for making purchases with their debit cards, a person familiar with the situation said.

The move is a dramatic retreat following decisions by several rivals in recent days to drop customer tests of the new fees. SunTrust Banks Inc. and Regions Financial Corp. also said Monday that they will stop charging customers for debit-card transactions.

Bank of America decided against the fees due to negative customer feedback on the plan and the moves by rivals, which left the Charlotte, N.C., lender as the only big bank planning to levy the fee on some customers next year.

Bank of America will formally announce the decision today, this person said. (via)

2) which leads me to my next point : the power of the internet. before this decision was "walked back", i had been wondering what B of A was thinking. in the past year, we have seen internet complaining undo the gap re-branding, the tropicana re-branding, and netflix's terrible re-structuring idea. i thought it was awful bold of B of A to hold firm in the face of widespread backlash. but, it looks like the power of the internet has won out again. so keep on bitching, everyone!