liz pelly dot com

(Source: madness-and-gods, via chrissieabbott)

The Media: In your Monday piece [on the Marathon bombings], you wrote, “The state agents who I’ve slammed for years – they’re suddenly all heroes.” How do you deal with folks who you know have done terrible things in the past suddenly being treated like heroes, without coming off as totally insensitive in these situations?

Chris Faraone: When it comes to the Boston police, the last thing I’m worried about is being insensitive. Because if we’re going to talk about insensitivity, they should be the first ones we bring up: long-running institutional bigotry, racist hiring practices, the beating and killing of minorities, you name it. There’s a case to be made that they’re the city’s biggest gang – that they’re bigger terrorists than the Tsarnaevs ever were. The same goes for District Attorney Dan Conley who, despite having nothing to do with prosecuting these cases, had his mug up on the podium every chance he got during press conferences. By and large, they’re not heroes. They’re a collective menace to Boston, and to society.

And the feds too. I’m not sure if an informant pushed the shithead brothers into doing this – I’m sure we’ll know soon enough – but it’s a common practice, as we saw with Brandon Darby at the Republican National Convention, and with the set-up at Occupy Cleveland. Anyone who’s not familiar with those situations should read about them. It will get you thinking about who our heroes are and aren’t.  

My heroes don’t wear badges, or carry guns. If there were heroes here, they were the medics and civilians who helped people on the scene, and the people who have donated money so that those who were injured but don’t have health insurance won’t get assaulted again – the second time by hospital bills. That reminds me – I can’t wait and see how much medical crooks will make off of the bombings. Makes me want to puke. 

From my interview with former Boston Phoenix staff writer Chris Faraone, who covered the Boston Marathon bombings comprehensively, providing a critical, alternative, local voice amidst all the corporate national mainstream media who descended on Boston that week. 

Read the entire interview here alongside two beautiful illustrations by Faye Orlove.

—This is 2NIGHT—

(Source: resilientbastarrd)

The Media’s calendar for May 2013

“There is no database, no CMS, no comments.  The calendar is a JPG of a hand-drawn calendar.  One upshot of this: it is not searchable.  It is a return to the time when once you threw out last week’s copy of the altweekly, it became impossible (or at least extremely time-consuming) to find that article again; the only memory was your own memory.   That can be a kind of commentary about what’s important: and what’s important is what’s in front of you right now.”
—Lisa Williams on “Data for Radicals” yesterday (so kool) 

This is live now // click to read my intro piece

this is a new project

Faye Orlove & I have been working on it for the past month or so

it launches tonight around midnight

we are very excited 

if you want to know why it’s called “The Media” i will talk your ear off about it sometime 

how about @ our launch party? it’s this Friday @ Lorem Ipsum Books in Cambridge