The Power of One Asshole

It was an amazing, stellar night, the night of my first big opening in New York.  I had done my hair up in a spectacular, crazy fashion, with pom-poms and yarn creating a colorful crown and dressed in my finest, and my friends and plenty of strangers came to admire my work.  Afterwards, exhilarated, three friends and I had walked to a nearby French restaurant in the Meatpacking district and dined sumptuously, drinking celebratory champagne served, on the house, by a charming, sweet waiter who congratulated me for what he knew was a very big deal.  Walking to the 14^th street and 8^th avenue subway with my friend chatting about shoes, we witnessed a guy hanging out of a car, making a grotesque noise at a lone woman.  As we passed her, we asked, “what did he say?”  And she shrugged her shoulders and said, “something stupid, no doubt”, and then asked us where the subway was, confessing that she was a bit tipsy and not in her element.  We invited her to join us, and relieved, she fell into step, joking and laughing along as we made our way to the A train. 

            I needed the L to the Q, so I parted ways with the others and headed to my train, awash in the glow of a magical night and donning my headphones so I could bob my head to Janelle Monae’s Queen while I rode home.  Sitting on the wooden benches on the Q platform filled with girls on platforms and hipsters in trucker hats, a semi-drunk guy with dark hair and a plaid shirt sat next to me and said, in a friendly voice, “Mind if I smoke”?  “Well”, I said with a smile, “as long as you’re asking, yeah, kind of”, thinking to myself that surely, I had seen at one point in time “no smoking” signs on the subway platform anyway.  He looked surprised and said, “well, I appreciate your honesty.  Most people seem to have trouble expressing themselves”.  I laughed and lifted my eyes upwards towards my elaborate hairdo and said, “clearly, that’s not a problem for me”.  He squinted and said, “Yeah, because most people, you know, they’d let me smoke”.  A low rumble behind us indicated the train, and I said, “well, sorry”, and got up to wait at the edge of the platform.  His initial friendly demeanor had given way to a scowl, and I thought to myself, “well, you DID ask, after all”.  

            When I got on the train, I carefully chose a seat between two people as opposed to the long open seat closer to where I entered the train.  The drunk guy shuffled towards where I was sitting and hesitated, scanning the seating situation, and then asked the guy next to me if “he would scoot over so he could sit next to his friend”.   My seat neighbor shifted, and alarmed, I spoke up, “hey, he’s not my friend – a two second conversation doesn’t make us friends”, and hardly glancing up from his phone, I felt my seatmate’s weight shift back to resting.  The drunk looked confused, then decided to occupy the still open seat next to my neighbor, and began talking to him as though their maleness made them compadres.  I still had my headphones on, so I ignored what he was saying until I heard the word “bitch”, and then, still staring at my open book, I discretely removed the ear bud furthest from him to monitor the situation.   “Some chicks don’t know what’s good for them, am I right?  Fucking bitches think they can say whatever they want, man, know what I mean”?  My seatmate didn’t acknowledge his solicitation for agreement, continuing to stare at the game on his phone.  If he was afraid, he didn’t show it, but I doubt he was afraid, whereas I was growing increasingly alarmed. 

            The drunk shoved the cigarette between his lips and continued muttering.  “You’re allergic to smoke?  Yeah, well I’m allergic to bubblegum”, I guess referencing the carefully placed decorations in my hair.  He continued to loudly and aggressively speak to no one.  The full train continued to stare at their books, stare at their feet, stare anywhere but at the spectacle.  Every once in awhile he asked loudly, “so really, no one minds if I smoke?” staring at me in the window opposite of us to watch for a reaction.  I continued to read the same sentence of Edwidge Danticat’s prose repeatedly, without meaning, only glancing occasionally up to check if he was still glaring.  “Yeah, tough crowd – no one wants to talk, huh?”  His protestations grew louder, over the wine and squeak of the rattling cars.  “Fucking bitch, I’ll show you what kind of asshole I am.  Yeah, you’ll see.  I’m a five star asshole, you won’t forget it.”  I began to tick off the stops in my head.  At each station, I held my breath, hoping he’d get off as the train slowly emptied, stop-by-stop.  Still, no one said anything, and he continued to rant.  “I’m a man.  Pushing a broom ain’t no job for a man.  I’ll show these fucking bitches.  Yeah, got nothing to say now, do you?  Wanna express yourself now?”  I continued to pretend I could comprehend even a word of my book, continued to pretend that the ear bud closest to him, still pounding out a quiet beat, blocked the sound of his nasty voice.   I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of existing to me, didn’t want to let him have a taste of my fear.  And yet, I also was fighting within myself, fighting with every breath not to “express myself” and let him know that he had no fucking right at all, not one fucking bit, to intimidate a carful of people going home after a night out, and not even me.  I had not wronged him – he asked a question, I answered, in as friendly a way as possible.  My rage bubbled behind my lips but the icy clutch around my heart and my common sense stifled my tongue. 

            At Atlantic-Barclay, 4 stops from mine, I knew I needed to make my move before the train emptied even more, leaving only me and my tormentor.  Tightening my grip on my bags discreetly without looking like I was going to move, I waited for the doors to open and bolted, dashing to the next car up and jumping on.  I heard his sarcastic snarl yell out “goodnight miss”, but he didn’t follow me.  I could see him through the window of the car one over as the train leaned around a corner, continuing his hostile rant.  I kept nervously glancing through the shifting windows, but didn’t catch a glimpse again.

            Getting off at the Beverly stop, I looked behind me on the platform several times to make sure I was alone, not quite believing I’d dodged this psycho.  By the time I reached the house, my chest had stopped pounding, and my sweat had crystallized to a cold veneer on my skin. 

            What right does he have?  I thought, to take a piece of my perfect night and piss all over it?  Where does he get off?  What kind of privilege allows a man to feel so entitled to do what he wants that he can terrorize another person, simply for speaking their mind? 

            This is what street harassment looks like.  It isn’t always flirtation, it isn’t always the wolf whistle or the catcall; it’s the entitlement, the emotional blackmail, the casual intimidation.  It’s feeling you have the right to be an asshole, the rest of the world be damned.

Gavin Bryers: Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet

Written for Michelle Herman's Writing About Music Class, Winter 2012, The Ohio State University, about this song:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1lnSi7QWY8

Silence.  So much silence.  Then not, but so faint that you aren’t sure that what you’re hearing is sound, or rather, intentional sound.  What is there?  You doubt your hearing, check the volume.  There’s a croaking whisper, an old gramophone from beyond, replete with faint hiss.  An old man’s voice, draped in a cockney accent, fades into understandable, slowly, magnetically, singing, “Jesus’ blood never failed me yet, never failed me yet, Jesus' blood never failed me yet, there’s one thing I know for he loves me so…and repeats.  His voice grows stronger in volume, but you still hear the whistle on his inhale, the emphatic pause before “yet”, as though Jesus’ blood might still fail him, for faith and doubt exist like binary stars.  In the background, other men’s voices hover, unintelligible whispers, like static, just out of reach.  After so many repetitions, (Ten?  Twenty?  You’ve lost count, yet are mesmerized) the violin creeps in, in a leisurely, glacial pace, sneaking in alongside the other muffled voices, gently filling itself, liquid between notes, the C string pulling it’s lilt upward so slightly, dragging the other strings with it.  The verse repeats, endlessly, melancholic hopefulness.  Yet each iteration of the phrase, while identical to the one before, doesn’t feel like a repetition.  He stumbles slightly over “thing”, and slides coyly into “I know”, with the “w” on know wrapping around the end of the word like a soft blanket. 

Seven minutes in, a plucked string is a gentle shock, a pull to the forefront of the trance you’ve been lulled into.  A warm note followed by a sharper ping, a muffled twang.  The old man’s voice hasn’t stumbled, hasn’t changed, he drives his song forward with the faithfulness of each foot on a long road, one in front of the other, propelled by habit and memory.  Faintly – another voice?  No, the instruments are tricking you with their minimalism, melting together into a crest, a swell, lapping at the ragged edges of the old man’s voice.  He is as crisp and straightforward as a Walker Evans photo, as dusty as the back corner of an antique shop.  The strings are drowning him slowly, so slowly you and he faintly notice, like the proverbial frog in the pot.  But by twelve minutes, he and the instruments have traded places, the velvety surge of strings pushing to the foreground while he allows his voice to dip below the surface.  He doesn’t fight it, not when a bassoon gently, subtly honks, not when a trumpet sneaks in.  His meter never changes, his volume doesn’t fight for it’s place in the foreground but is content to repeat, again, and again, “Jesus blood never failed me yet”.  There’s one thing he knows, and we know it to, and we are comforted, whether we consider the invocation of Jesus a comfort or not.  His song is steady and reliable, and that faith does not fail us, not for a single measure. 

At fifteen minutes, a seventh chord creeps in, pulling the tone upward, lilting, hopeful.  The orchestra is full, blended into one voice that gently pushes the old man’s lament into itself, inside its belly.  The music is Jesus’ blood, and it is not failing him.  It is covering him, comforting him, enveloping him.  He is just out of reach, beyond the song, subterranean.  The chords are still filling themselves, brassier, more complex, tiny hints of dissonance suggested, then pulled away from like it’s too much to endure.  A melody plucks out, coming forward here and there as tendrils wrapping themselves around the body of the pregnant, dripping chords.  Heaving upward, the man’s voice peeking through in the silence between phrases, a tiny boat amongst the waves.  Plaintive, but never losing confidence.  Yearning.  But steady, ever steady, not lost, never losing hope.  For twenty-five minutes and fifty-seven seconds, he is with us, and we are with him.  And as quietly as the instruments crept in, they fade unhurriedly with the man’s voice, in the end, leaving him alone again, whispering, fading, disappearing, but staying in your head for hours.

Sugar Hill.

I had only recently discovered the power of music that I chose myself.  Not my parents’ John Denver and Neil Diamond records furtively slipped on the turntable when they weren’t home, and not the disco-heavy pop music and classic rock that permeated every invisible wave that could be captured with the bent antennae of my radio.  After I realized I could control what I heard and form my own tastes, I would sit in front of the radio on Sunday nights, cassette recorder in front of me and holding my breath so as not to pollute the background with excessive bodily noise, repeatedly pressing record and stop during the Top 40, trying to trim away the commercials and Dick Clark’s unnaturally upbeat and too-young voice from filling up even a precious millimeter of my 90 minute Memorex cassette tape.  This was my weekly ritual.  I would sit on my bed, recently swathed in a polyester comforter that my Mom let me pick out of the Sears catalog, with matching curtains.  It was my foray into adulthood, picking out the brown and orange graphic sunset and mountain range to replace the nauseatingly frilly pink that my Mom had tried to force on me for years, hoping to pull me back from the brink of tomboyhood.  Dick Clark’s picks only got 45 minutes on one side of the tape, for the other side was saved for Dr. Demento, who underwent the same laborious and largely inaccurate editing process.  For the rest of the week, that mix-tape was the soundtrack to my life, to be covered up by new selections in about a month, once I had cycled through my other hand-me-down tapes from my brother’s job at the Radio Shack.   

In the summer of 1979 I’d discovered two things that I felt heralded this coming adult-hood: kissing boys, and rap music.  Both had been discovered the same weekend, while staying at my friend Lynn’s house in Park Hill.  Park Hill was glamorously in the city, walking distance from City Park and the Museum, and miles away from our suburban townhouse nestled in the foothills of the Rockies.  Since the houses were older, Lynn lived in a modest bungalow next to what I considered a mansion, since it possessed three Victorian stories and a pool in the back. 

The pool came with two brothers, a short one, and a tall one.  The shorter one, whose name I don’t, but should remember, became my crush.  Which didn’t mean Lynn took the taller one – living next door to him, he lacked any appeal.  I had no clue how to act on this crush, though, so I kept it to myself, admiring his cannonballs off the roof of the garage into the pool and pretending that I didn’t care.  Later in the summer, he would miss, breaking his arm, but by that point my pretend lack of caring had become real, so his sympathetic cast gained him nothing but my signature in purple marker. 

Our Saturdays that summer consisted of roller-skating around the pool and listening to tapes – the brothers, of course, bought their tapes at the record store instead of relying on staticky homemade mix tapes.  One weekend, they played something none of us had heard before, something that made us stop our clumsy circling in tennis-shoe style skates and listen, rapt, for the full 15 minutes.  We spent the rest of the day rewinding and repeating the Sugarhill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight.  It was like nothing we’d ever heard before, and we were mesmerized. 

By the end of the day, we knew most of the words and would yell-sing along, most raucously during Wonder Mike’s part, which we would try to do without giggling:

have you ever went over a friends house to eat 
and the food just ain’t no good 
I mean the macaroni's soggy the peas are mushed 
and the chicken tastes like wood 
so you try to play it off like you think you can 
by sayin’ that you’re full 
but your friend says momma he's just being polite 
he ain’t finished at all that's bull 

This, of course, was the part of the song we could relate to.  After all, our knowledge of pimps, sperm, and bootie was limited in the seventh grade, and we were a couple of thousand miles from the Bronx. 

After a full day of rapping and roller-skating, we wound up on the third floor, far from any adult activity.  Like any hormonal pre-teens with nothing to do, there were but two options: Spin the Bottle, or Seven Minutes in Heaven.  And we didn’t have a bottle.

Lynn knew all about my crush on the short boy – we’ll call him Jack.  He was round-faced and one of the few boys around shorter than even me, with a bit of baby fat and sandy blond hair.  Before anyone else had a chance to say a word, she had picked us both out and wordlessly shoved us towards the closet.  We both protested weakly, but it was disingenuous at best.  My heart racing, we went in and closed the door with a click that seemed to echo with an unnatural loudness.

Surrounded by ghosts of coats and single mittens, he smelled moist and dirty, and faintly of Wonder Bread.   I towered over him, although I was used to being shorter than everyone else.  Without saying anything, he leaned up towards me, and stuck his tongue out, and I fought the urge to pull away.  I wondered if he had ever kissed a girl before, or if he could tell I hadn’t kissed a boy.  My friend Jackie and I had once kissed to practice, although for her I think it was less practice and more thrill, since she spent most of her time trying to concoct scenarios via which her female friends would have to disrobe.  But we drew the line at tongues, just too gross. 

Now, I was presented with Jack’s tongue, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do.  In the back of my head, I could hear “goin on n n on n on on n on the beat dont stop until the break of dawn” and I tried to mentally fast forward through the song, looking for a more appropriate-sounding lyric, maybe one that would remind me of what I was meant to do.  Our lips came together, and his salty breath steamed the bottom rim of my glasses.   His tongue, slimy, like a dead fish, lay there limply, unsure of what to do.  We pulled apart quickly, and then tried again, not much more successfully than the first try.  All I could think about was the snack his Mom had fixed us, worrying that it had lodged itself in my braces and that he was tasting it for the second time. 

When we emerged from the closet, red-faced and triumphant, our friends whooped loudly enough for the parental units two floors below to holler a stern warning regarding indoor voices.  It hadn’t been anything close to seven minutes, but no one seemed to notice.

According to what we’ve been told, that first kiss should have been the most important memory of that weekend, of that summer, of that year.  But its sweaty awkwardness could never live up to the rhythm of the boogie the beat.  Wonder Mike and Master Gee had captured my heart completely.  After all, their names, I still remember.

Saved by Cibo Mato

            I didn’t cry for my grandmother’s death.  Well, either of them, really.  Nor did I cry for my grandfather’s.  I managed to work out a sniffle when my Father died, as it seemed untoward not to, and I didn’t want to give my step-monster the forever longed-for proof that I, in fact, did not love my Father, as she had always suspected and passive-aggressively intimated.  I suppose the intimations grew less passive and more aggressive as his demise neared, resulting in vicious screaming from her at his deathbed and an icy demeanor at the funeral.   

            It’s not lack of love, though even I have to admit my relationship with my Father was trussed with tension and remorse.  It’s not even that I eschew public crying, although, to be honest, there is little I find more humiliating, even at appropriate and expected times.  It’s more that, with people I don’t see daily, the evidence of their absence needs to fester for it to become real.   I need to linger over the phone number absent-mindedly, go through a Christmas shopping list, before it becomes clear to me that they aren’t just living their own life while I live mine.

            It may have become real faster with my Dad, I suppose, if I had gone to see his body when he passed on the morning of my birthday.  The step-monster was there, however, and my feelings were freshly slapped from her most recent accusations that I had not visited enough.  (What constitutes enough when someone alternates between ignoring and forgetting about your presence?)  Besides, did I mention it was my birthday?   My Father had already ruined several of those in my lifetime, and fear mixed with resentment bolstered my resolve.  My brother pleaded with me to come, but I reasoned that he must not look much different than he did on his deathbed the night before, and I preferred to remember him breathing, even raspily.  My brother could, were he churlish enough to take it, claim his “I-told-you-so” regarding my regret.  Luckily for me, he’s not that sort; though were the tables turned I can’t promise he’d be as fortunate. 

            No, I save my crying for the cats.  The tears build up in a hard rock behind my broken thyroid and wait, through all the dying, through all the tsunamis, through all the romantic hurts and physical pain, and comes out in a raw, utter wail of sub-human sorrow when a cat dies.  For you see, the absence is real immediately.  The absence is real from their staring eyes and limp jaws and sudden realization that there is no one to wake you up with wet pushy purring tomorrow morning, no one galloping to meet you at the door tomorrow night.  The absence is real and keenly felt in a way it can’t be when a relationship has been reduced to unsatisfying phone calls filled with only good news and uncomfortable holiday visits.

            This is why I drove around Santa Fe New Mexico for a week, hitting “repeat” on the CD player.  Santa Fe’s lilac dust glittered through my tears, the soaring strains of Japanese-scented English smothering my wails behind the rolled-up car window.  Fritz, my big, orange tub of a tabby, was gone forever, and I was inconsolable, save for Yuko Honda and Miho Hatori’s soft harmonies and near-incomprehensible lyrics.

            It was the verse, really.  “I wish I can take it away to three thousand light years away”, I would croon with them, repeatedly, snot dribbling down my upper lip.  “Don’t be afraid, I’ll be next to you”.  I would imagine myself flying to a faraway planet, one arm stretched out before me a la Superman and Fritz cradled in the other, no dripping bag of fluids or pain, to a planet where kitty kidneys grew on trees and nine lives were literal.  Even now, the song can make my knees week.

That breathy, tentative first note, like a low test of the trumpet’s mouthpiece, is enough to push a tear to the brink of my eyelid on even the best day.  By the time it steps up to the crescendo and the brushes hit the snare, I am invariably a snuffling wreck, even in public.  “All I can do is sing for her and myself”.  All I can do is sing for him and myself.

Notes on Bravo's "Work of Art"

So many people are up in arms about a reality show featuring art, acting as if art is somehow RUINED by any kind of reflection in pop culture. People, get over it.

No pun intended, but take art off the effing pedestal already. It's ART. It's part of our lives, not some sacred cow that can't possibly stand to be sullied by the dirty medium of television. The inherent classism in the arguments against this show is exactly why art gets MOCKED relentlessly by popular culture. The art world does itself no favors by being mysterious and obtuse.

You know, the fashion world didn't shun designers from Project Runway. Chefs on Top Chef don't get mocked for "sullying" themselves -- on the contrary, Top Chef Masters features some of the best chefs in the country. The show exists. Deal with it. If you're so closed-minded that you can't even consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, it might not suck, and you won't ever watch it to see for yourself, then I truly pity you for the limits you place on yourself.

I actually CARE that people connect with art. I'm an artist; I don't make art for only one type of person and I don't care as much how it's seen as I do that it IS seen. I don't want to be a court jester to the wealthy; I want to make art for everyone, anyone who's interested. It hurts me that people don't care about art. I currently live in a state where there is not one grant for individual artists, a state with one of the lowest funding for the arts; yet, we have the fifth largest concentration of artists in the U.S. That's shameful, and it's because people don't see enough art to care. I've taught at rural schools where kids never see art, have no way to see art, and if one kid gets to NOT feel like a freak because suddenly he can see people like him on tv, then to me, it is a GOOD THING. If art is to have a future, then I'm sorry, but people have to give a shit.

I didn't audition for the show, not because I think it's bad, but because I'm already too busy with other opportunities, but I will confess I did consider it. I don't fault the artists who did -- hell, I think it would be a fun experience, if only for the chance to be challenged. In fact, I'd find it interesting to do the challenges without the television portion of it at all -- some friends and I have talked about doing the challenges at home, just for fun. I can't imagine living such a joyless, curmudgeonly existence that I couldn't allow art to be fun at times, too. Art reflects ALL of human experience -- the poignant, the trivial, the smart, the stupid, the sublime, the downright ridiculous. Should it only speak to a narrow band of concerns?

Grrrrr.....

I'm not disappointed in Obama, I'm disappointed in EVERYONE. Maybe I just wasn't as fervent a believer as others, but I truly expected him to get cock-blocked at every turn, which is exactly what has happened, even at the hands of his own party. Doesn't matter. For me, it is ENOUGH that he is not a madman, nor stupid, nor willfully ignorant, ... See Morenor aggressively religious. Have we forgotten where we just came from? Baby steps, people. We were teetering on the brink of insanity, there is a lot of damage to be undone. It can't all get undone in a year. Perspective.

That said, I truly believe we are talking about the moral failure of our entire culture, and nothing short of that. We have monetized human suffering, allowed wholesale greed against our own people. It is shameful. I am aghast at anyone who thinks health care should only be for the rich. I can't believe the stupidity of those who think this system WORKS.

I have never seen anything more worthy of going viral in my life. Please, take these words and spread them, repost them, and if you are a member of the media or good with technology, act on them. The people of Iran are showing immense courage and providing the kind of example the world needs. The American people should take note: there is nothing more important than protecting our voting rights, and demanding accountability from our government and media.

ANONYMOUS IRAN

WE BELIEVE THAT THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE HAS BEEN SUBVERTED... BUT NOT IN THE WAY THAT THE OFFICIAL SPIN HAS IT. FREE IRAN.

TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 2009

A Message to the International Community from Inside Iran

This was found in an undisclosed location. The text is as follows:

I apologise in advance for the tone and style of this letter to you. The people in Tehran of whom I speak on behalf are weak and tired. I hope you are able to clearly understand the message we are sending to you. This letter is a call to all people outside of Iran, both Persian expatriates and other people. At the present time this is very important for the fate of Iran. To quote Napolean: "There is but one step between victory and defeat." We in Iran are at the same critical step. Your help is of the most urgent importance.
Tonight I was just up on the roof. I was at home and began hearing the voice of a young girl crying out from her roof top, "Allahu Akbar!" I began to join in with her chant until I had no strength remaining to yell. "Allahu Akbar! We're all together!" For 30 minutes we cried out into the night together. Eventually I became a bit frustrated and nervous about being on the roof and came down. But the sound of the girl continued. She began chanting loudly, "Iranians join together! Support, Support!"

These words warmed the hearts of those of us within the range of her voice. The last few days I have been all around the city, demonstrating and chanting. This girls voice touched me most of all.
Here in Tehran people are scared. The rumors are swirling about people who are identifying demonstrators from pictures found online and then going to their homes at night and attacking their families. Yesterday CNN aired a video with a voice screaming from inside a house. The video showed darkness, but the sound of a woman begging Basiji to leave her home has galvanized us. People are scared!

Another video has also put fear into a lot of Iranian people. That is the video of the late Neda Agha-Soltan (the woman shot on the street who died). Neda's death has perplexed people. As foreign media has been removed from our televisions, we are dependent on Iranian State Television which is practising a severe psychological warfare with our minds. Now everywhere people go they are watching who is behind them. All over the streets of Tehran are clothes which have been left behind by those arrested by police and Basiji. Today I became downhearted when I saw only a few thousand at 7 June Square for Neda's memorial. God, we all have to get our spirits back! Right now, time is very critical! We have these immediate needs:

1. Please tell your governments that if they are seen as interfering or supporting our actions - then we have lost! I believe that if we can receive covert resources and support without prompting action by the regime, our enemy will be severely suppressed. Today we heard from sources outside of Iran that we can not win. Those who are saying this in the media please notice: You must also mention the success of the results thus far. For the sake of the spirit of our demonstrators, you must mention that we are making great strides. Your words have the power of giving energy to our cause. The actions against us will only escalate unless the legitimacy of this government is removed from popular opinion. We only have ourselves to depend on. Today the commander of the Tehran Police refused to implement the suppression orders sent down to him by the Government. This was a small success, however many were later arrested when the information became known to the Officials.
2. People are afraid to demonstrate without money or resources. Many are afraid that a general strike will drain bank accounts and thus cripple our efforts. Please be cautious when calling for demonstrators to remove money from banks, stop shopping and work. While it is effective for us to use these measures, please be cautious and regard that we are making necessary plans within our groups. Your information being sent en mass through public mediums is falling directly into the hands of our enemies.
3. Continue blocking Iran regime websites. We continue needing Firefox plug-ins, anonymous portals and IP devices. If you can find a way to provide those to us, it will be important in our efforts.
4. Iranian State Television is creating massive distorition of truths. Their reports are stirring fear and frustration in the people. They collect information from foreign media websites and report just the opposite, or design filtered propaganda to distress our efforts. The Iran television news is showing pictures that have been collected off websites of the demonstrators, and they are asking viewers to send in informative leads to who the face belongs to and where they live. Recently many have blanked out the face of the demonstrators before uploading our pictures. That is a great help to our cause.
5. The Regime is accusing foreign governments and Western media with unfounded charges. Their motive in doing so is to create chaos and diversion. They are provoking governments to take a position instead of well-thought passive defense. The State-Run News plays up the Western governments as imperfect and problematic - attempting to inspire people to stop these protests for fear of becoming like the Western nations. These allegations have been extremely critical of the USA and President Obama administration. What we feel is best would be the United Nations to call on Iran's regime to hold another election. We all have the courage to face this, so International Community, as your governments to pressure the UN to act on requesting a new election in Iran. Also continue to call on your governments in Europe and America to visibly appear neutral and do not show explicit support. The USA administration is doing that and it helps so much. President Ahmadinejad is very worried at this hour of the protests.
6. It is very likely that quite soon our leaders: Mousavi, Karroubi and Khatami will be arrested. It is also very likely many other political leaders will be detained. We call on the International Media to continue broadcasting fair information while remaining responsible.