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James Powderly of Graffiti Research Labs Detained In China
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Aug 20, 2008 02:43 PM
from the many-eyes-might-help dept.
from the many-eyes-might-help dept.
An anonymous reader writes "News from Free Tibet 2008 that internationally known artist, technologist and co-founder of the Graffiti Research Lab, James Powderly, was detained in Beijing early on August 19th while preparing to debut a new work and technology of protest, the L.A.S.E.R. Stencil. According to a Twitter message received yesterday by Students for a Free Tibet at approximately 5 pm Beijing Standard Time, Powderly had been detained by Chinese authorities at 3 am. His current whereabouts remain unknown. Powderly was the inventor of throwies." (Powderly's detention was also mentioned at Make Magazine's blog.)
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Firehose:James Powderly Detained by Anonymous Coward
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eldavojohn writes "If you like iTunes and you are one of the billion people residing in China, you may have noticed that you no longer have access to the eight million songs on it. An album, 'Songs for Tibet' was downloaded more than 40 times by Olympic athletes as a sign of solidarity for Tibet's cause. Ironically, this compilation had songs criticizing the 'Great Firewall of China,' and that is the very thing that prohibited these songs from reaching the Chinese public. Artists on the compilation include Alanis Morissette, Garbage, Imogen Heap, Moby, Sting, Suzanne Vega, Underworld and others."
Additional coverage is available at Computerworld. Earlier this year, China blocked Youtube and other video services for similar reasons. More recently, the Chinese government detained a technologist who planned a pro-Tibet demonstration.
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Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Whoops (Score:4, Insightful)
from that article:
The switch from gunshots to injections is a sign that China "promotes human rights now," says Kang Zhongwen, who designed the Jinguan Automobile death van...
So they're starting to look at how people die? Me - I would have thought looking at how people live would have been a more useful step in promoting human rights. But then what do I know - I don't control the lives of over a billion people...
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Re:Whoops (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow, Death Vans. That's creepy as hell. I mean, I know that there's been state-sanctioned capital punishment since the beginning of civilization but it just seems creepy when combined with the mobile approach. I'm used to seeing mobile clinics, mobile libraries, mobile law offices, not mobile death chambers. It reminds me of all the creepy art from the christian apocalypse stuff at my church when I was a kid. Once the UN ushered in the New World Order and the Antichrist became the General Secretary, all people now professing to be Christians post-rapture would be put to death, always by guillotine. This was absolutely agreed upon, just the same as the Antichrist working through the UN. Jack Chick had creepy little moto-guillotines in his drawings where smartly-uniformed motorcycle cops would drive up in an open-cab vehicle that looks like a landscaping utility tractor, the guillotine in the flatbed. They would then line up the Christians for the day's executions and lop off their heads. This part really freaked me out because the public works dept. of the city I lived in used tractors of exactly the same design. I was convinced that they had mounting brackets for the guillotines and were just waiting for the order to install them. Yeesh. Freddy Krueger never did anything for me but my religion scared the shit out of me.
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Was? (Score:5, Funny)
Powderly was the inventor of throwies."
Was? You're writing him off already? Geez! And people say *I'm* a pessimist.
You know... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never heard of most of these "activists" before the Olympics and I've got a feeling we won't be hearing much from them afterwards. If people have been involved with pro-Tibet, pro-Darfur, pro-democracy, pro-whatever stuff all along, then good for them. But most of these loudmouths getting press recently seem to only be interested in complaining when their neighbors are taking pleasure in something China-related.
It reminds me of all those goofs who are so indignantly outraged every Thanksgiving, but never lift a finger to help American Indians on the other 364 days a year. Or even on Thanksgiving, for that matter.
Re:You know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps this speaks more of the level of attention that the world pays to activists (during major events versus otherwise) than it does to the level of commitment of activists to causes.
Seriously, this guy been around a while. Your ignorance is not evidence that he's a mere opportunistic attention-grabber.
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Re:You know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Feel free to convince me otherwise. The Wikipedia page linked here certainly makes him sound like an opportunistic attention-grabber. As I said, I have all the respect in the world for serious activists on this front, but this guy sounds like a self-promoting jackass who assumes (correctly, probably) that his white skin and US passport are Get Out Of Jail Free cards.
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Is this a surprise? (Score:5, Insightful)
Going to foreign countries run by totalitarian governments to protest is a bit on the unwise side regardless of how just the cause.
Your rights online (Score:5, Interesting)
What does this have to do with my online rights? Shouldn't this be filed under politics?
Tibet rant, this needs to be said... (Score:5, Insightful)
Tibet has been part of China since 1792. Yes, for over two freaking centuries! You might not like it, but tough shit. And guess what, if a bunch of Chinese students came to the US and flung banners around Stanford demanding we give California back to Mexico, we'd probably tell them to get their butts back to China and mind their own business. Heck, we'd probably even detain a couple of them.
Re:Tibet rant, this needs to be said... (Score:5, Insightful)
If California wanted to go back to Mexico, what right would we have to stop them?
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You're funny. (Score:5, Insightful)
Tibetans don't think they've been part of China since 1792. They thought they were running Tibet. And they did, until they were invaded in 1959. You might not like it, but tough shit
And guess what, if a bunch of Chinese students came to the US and flung banners around Stanford demanding we give California back to Mexico, we'd probably tell them to get their butts back to China and mind their own business.
NONSENSE! We'd laugh. That's it. We'd laugh and laugh and laugh.
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What the hell is "China"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Strictly speaking, if you're talking about continuity of government, the "Chinese Government" is a robust democracy in Taiwan - they are the heirs to the traditional Chinese government. The murderous thugs ruling mainland China don't have a pedigree going back past 1949.
I've always wondered if there would have been a war in 1997 if England had said, "Ok...our 100 year lease on Hong Kong is up. Time to give Hong Kong back to China...here you go, TAIWAN!"\
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Re:idiot (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:idiot (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, they were "were charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct and placing a hoax device in a way that causes panic" according to Boston.com, and the charges were later dropped. Which is still a stupid overreaction, but not the same as charging them with "terrorism".
Parent
Re:Rosa Parks (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you know? Isn't it a tad/i hasty to be making assumptions? And hasn't he actually achieved at least something? When was the last time anything you did got mentioned on the front page of Slashdot?
What does the fact that he isn't Tibetan or a Chinese citizen have to do with anything? What I'm getting out of your post is, "people should mind their own business and not rock the boat." Is that the impression you meant to convey?
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Re:Rosa Parks (Score:5, Insightful)
He went over there to get publicity for a cause, and he got publicity for a cause. You could argue he achieved less than he might have, but to say he achieved nothing is idiotic.
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Re:Rosa Parks (Score:5, Insightful)
We are all free to express our desires to anyone. We are free to demonstrate and protest that which we find morally objectionable, and no arbitrary borders or citizenship should stop us. I find your stance morally reprehensible, as it seeks to divide people into arbitrary groups who are not allowed to support each other in seeking redress for wrongs. You advocate a particularly sick form of authoritarianism.
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One doesn't need to be a member of the oppressed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Rosa Parks (Score:5, Informative)
"Hopefully this event teaches him, and and others in his home country to appreciate the freedom that they have when they're spewing their typical 'baby out with the bathwater' rants about how fascist the US government is."
By your logic, practically nobody in the world is in a position to complain about their situation, for you'll nearly always be able to find somebody who is worse off than you are. Keeping quiet about abuses at home because other, worse abuses are taking place elsewhere is hardly a reasonable thing to demand of another. Please keep your jingoism to yourself.
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Re:Rosa Parks (Score:5, Interesting)
Powderly regularly protests all kinds of oppression, both at home and abroad.
When he protests in the US, people say that there are much worse things going on elsewhere (usually citing China). When he protests in China, the same people say he should to mind his own business.
At least he's doing something, and his sudden disappearance for throwing up a banner with a few lights on it certainly highlights the oppression that we all know exists in China.
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Re:Rosa Parks (Score:5, Insightful)
People like Rosa Parks were heroes to all, especially to racists and passive people who needed to have their eyes open.
People like Rosa Parks were carefully chosen by lawyers to become sympathetic test cases before the Judiciary and the court of public opinion.
You think Rosa Parks was the only black woman who got arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus? Even Rosa Parks wikipedia page can't help but mention a pregnant 15 yr old girl named Claudette Colvin [wikipedia.org].
Light is still a form of polution. Though non-destructive, it is most likely still annoying. While I agree with the cause this man was "fighting" for, I am indifferent to his ineffective methods.
It shouldn't really matter how James Powderly chose to protest, in much the same way that it shouldn't have mattered that Claudette Colvin was unwed and pregnant by a much older man.
I'm sure when the right kind of protestor gets arrested, you and others with your mindset will take notice.
Parent
Re:So many ways to make a point (Score:5, Funny)
Disrespecting the athletes by marring the games with these protests is no better than what happened in Munich in 1972.
His laser wasn't that powerful.
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Re:Current whereabouts? (Score:5, Informative)
He's an American citizen being detained during the Olympic Games. He's not going to disappear. They'll question him for several hours, probably including sleep deprivation and a lot of yelling, and then kick him out of the country. There was another guy earlier on in the Olympics that got detained for trying to protest, and that's pretty much what happened to him.
The Chinese are trying to look good in front of the world, "disappearing" a foreign national, especially an American, during the Olympics would not be in line with that goal.
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Re:What is a L.A.S.E.R Stencil?? (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA:
The work, "The Green Chinese Lantern," uses a 400 milliwatt handheld green laser with micro-stencils to beam simple messages and images up to three stories high on surfaces such as billboards, buildings, and bridges. The Laser Stencil technology was developed in conjunction with Students for a Free Tibet.
[...] For more information and high-resolution photos of the work, please visit http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?p=161 [graffitiresearchlab.com]
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