Powers Perspective

by Nicole Powers

"Omfgomfgomfgomfgomfg you have no idea how amazing you are!!!!!" was the exact turn of phrase used by my Twitter friend @EisMC2 when I told her I'd just interviewed Little Brother author Cory Doctorow and had returned with a signed copy of the book for her. Indeed it was @EisMC2 and her fiancé @JackalAnon who first turned me on to Doctorow's epic updated spin on George Orwell's Big Brother vision, which was first published in 2007. Uncannily prophetic, the novel serves as a veritable playbook for the Occupy movement, and with online pranksters turned hacktivists as its heroic protagonists, it is also an inspirational work for many Anons (hence the need for at least five omfgs). Combining an action packed and V-relevant plot with a solid historical perspective on activism, in retrospect, Little Brother may be considered one of the great civil liberties texts of our time.

The math, science, and sociopolitical commentary spun into the prose of Little Brother is pure genius, while the story makes for a gripping reading experience. As @EisMC2 puts it, Doctorow has a knack "for distributing the #Truth in a manner everyone can understand." For example, during an expository paragraph regarding a key plot point, Doctorow also manages to simply and concisely explain how Bayesian mathematics (which puts the spam in your filter) is being deployed in an unscientific way to find "statistically abnormal" people to put under the security microscope - irrespective of whether they're actually likely to have done anything wrong. Even if advanced probability theory isn't your thing, by the time you've finished Little Brother, you'll have a deep understanding of how this kind of statistical analysis - which government agencies routinely rely on to make policy and find targets in the war of terror - can be misinterpreted and manipulated with chilling effect.

Though set in an unspecified near future, much of the fictional dystopian world Doctorow depicted when he wrote Little Brother five years ago is now a reality (such as the indefinite detention of US citizens without trial or due process). It's a tale of terrorism, society's overreation to it, the psychology of fear, and the erosion of our constitutional rights. It also contains many elements occupiers will be all too familiar with: protests, out of control cops, pepper spray, tear gas, smoke bombs, police brutality, and a biased and lazy media "reporting" on it all.

At the start of the year, having spent some quality time at OccupyLSX, I met up with Doctorow at his North London workspace. Surrounded by cool gadgets, toys, and all manner of geek memorabilia (such as an original 1973 set of D&D boxed game instructions), I chatted at length with the author, digital rights champion, and Boing Boing co-editor about Little Brother, its forthcoming sequel Homeland, the realities of Big Brother, and how to stay under the radar when living in a surveillance state.

Read our exclusive interview with Cory Doctorow on SuicideGirls.com.

For more on Cory Doctorow visit craphound.com/. A free copy of Little Brother can be downloaded under a Creative Commons license here.

A staged version of Little Brother by The Custom Made Theatre Co. is currently playing through February 25 in San Francisco. Visit Custommade.org for full details.

On the surface, The Last Mountain is a documentary about the dirty business of coal, the highly destructive and toxic practice of mountaintop removal mining, and one community's fight to preserve their homes, their livelihoods, their health, and the last great mountain in the region. However, the story of Coal River Mountain in West Virginia is allegorical of much that is wrong with America, which is why during our roundtable conversation with the film's champion, renowned environmental lawyer and activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., he barely mentions the four-letter word that is coal. Instead, Kennedy focuses on the underlying history and climate that has allowed corporations to rape and pillage our environment, and poison and kill our citizenry with impunity.

In The Last Mountain, Don Blankenship, the former CEO of Massey Energy (he retired at the end of December 2010), is typecast in the role of modern day robber baron. As the largest coal producer in Central Appalachia, his company is only able to function on the scale it does by subjugating democracy. Mountaintop removal mining is cheaper and less labor intensive than traditional underground coal extraction methods, but it causes such an affront to the landscape, water and air, that it can only be done when the authorities charged with protecting the public interest are willing and able to look the other way.

Between 2000 and 2006 Massey chalked up a staggering 60,000 EPA infractions, but has suffered little in consequences beyond much belated and pitifully low fines that serve the government's need to be seen to be doing something while maintaining the status quo. Of course, Massey is not the only corporation and coal is far from the only industry that is using and abusing our severely compromised shell of a democracy. In light of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling allowing corporate campaign donations (and a subsequent one that makes direct-to-candidate payments permissible), our government couldn't be for more up for sale if it were posted on eBay.

Though there will inevitably be dark days ahead for our democracy, it's not all doom and gloom thanks to a groundswell of grassroots activism as witnessed in Coal River Valley and documented in The Last Mountain. As for the environment, Kennedy points out towards the end of this interview that there's an (LED) light at the end of the tunnel, and ironically it's capitalism in its cleanest and purest form that may end up saving the day.

Read our interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on SuicideGirls.com.

"I think that the tide against mountaintop mining's free ride is turning." - Bill Haney

There's nothing pretty about coal mining at the best of times, but mountaintop removal mining is downright obscene. The process is ugly in every sense of the word, but is less labor intensive, and therefore cheaper and more desirable for the big energy corporations who do it. However the hidden expense in terms of the environment, public health, employment, and subsidies mean that it's something that the American public is paying dearly for. The cost of mountaintop removal mining is something that is literally and metaphorically killing us.

The sordid details involve deforestation to prepare the site. The 'overburden' - in this case a euphemism for the top 250 to 500 feet of a mountain - is then removed using dynamite to reveal the underlying coal seam. The rubble created as the mountaintop is blown away is generally pushed down the mountainside, covering flora and fauna, rivers and streams, and anything else in its wake. Once the coal has been removed the mining companies are supposed to restore the site, but this requirement is at best broadly interpreted, and at worse blatantly flouted with few repercussions.

Fifty percent of the electricity produced in the US comes from coal-powered plants, and thirty percent of the coal used comes from Appalachia. As a result, 500 majestic Appalachian mountains have been destroyed. The biggest perpetrator of this destruction is Massey Energy, who proudly proclaim on their website that their 'vision' is 'to be the premier supplier of quality coal from Central Appalachia to worldwide markets.'

The physical removal of coal however, is only the first stage in a highly toxic chain of events. The coal then has to be prepared, a procedure that uses vast amounts of water to wash off the soil and rock. The byproduct of this is a filthy sludge, which contains all manner of heavy metals and other such carcinogens, that is stored in vast impoundments. These sludge ponds are generally lazily constructed using dirt that is blasted off the mountaintop to damn a valley below. For the most part, there's no concrete or steel reinforcement as would befit dams built on such a scale. Because of this, many of these impoundments are leaking, and, furthermore, because these structures are not lined, the pollutants even in the sound dams leak into the surrounding water table.

The environmental impact of such mining practices is supposed to be mitigated by the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, which in turn are supposed to be enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and, to some extent, the Army Corps of Engineers. But a Bush-era single word change to the Clean Water Act arrested its ability to control pollution, much to the delight of the polluters. Known as the Fill Rule, the definition of allowable fill material that could be dumped into lakes, rivers, and streams was essentially broadened to include all manner of waste. Thus, the Clean Water Act now serves as a license for big business to pollute.

Because of the intrinsically dirty nature of coal mining and the cozy relationship the industrialists have with those in power (George Bush famously called his election to office 'a coal-fired victory' because of the extent of the industry's contributions to his cause), pollution is an inevitable part of the process and polluters are rarely brought to task. For example, according to Environmental Protection Agency records, Massey Energy committed over 60,000 violations between 2000 and 2006, but has paid a pittance in fines, which when compared to the company's profits barely even register as a tickle on the wrist, never mind the slap they're supposed to be.

In the lieu of the government acting in the interests of the people it's supposed to represent, the battle for clean air and water, and sustainable energy and jobs is being fought on the ground by those Big Coal directly adversely effects. The struggle of one such community in West Virginia's Coal River Valley, whose homes, land, health, and employment prospects have been blighted by Massey's mountaintop removal mining operations, is documented in a new film, The Last Mountain.

A collaboration between filmmaker Bill Haney (whose previous credits include the Academy Award-shortlisted Price of Sugar) and renowned environmental lawyer and activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., The Last Mountain should be mandatory viewing for anyone who's ever switched on a light. The film not only tells the inspiring story of the grassroots fight against the Goliath that is Massey, but also underlines our implicit culpability, which can be summed up by one simple yet staggering statistic: sixteen pounds of coal is burned each day for every man woman and child in the US.

SuicideGirls participated in roundtables with Haney and Kennedy. The following is excerpted from the interview with Haney (our conversation with Kennedy is posted here).

Read our interview with Bill Haney on SuicideGirls.com.

In his latest book, Vultures' Picnic, investigative reporter Greg Palast jumps ass deep into the one percent's favorite combustible lubricant. Armed with a miniature recording device, condoms, mosquito repellant, K-Y Jelly, a 3.4-ounce flask of Felipe II, and his trademark fedora hat, Palast travels from Alaska to the Amazon, and from Louisiana to Liberia to expose the dirty business of crude oil, and those who make indecent fortunes from it.

During the course of his investigations, Palast uncovers the incestuous relationships between the petroleum corporations and the governments they control, and how human and environmental carnage, corruption, coup d'états, and cover-ups are ultimately considered a cost of doing business by these toxic bedfellows.

[Caution: You may feel violated after reading this interview -- but at least you'll know a few of the names of the motherfuckers that are screwing you.]

Read my exclusive interview with Greg Palast on SuicideGirls.com.

Screenwriter Diablo Cody's greatest achievement with her latest project, Young Adult, is to bring her audience to a point where they sympathize and empathize with the film's in many ways distinctly unlikable central character. Mavis Gary (played by Charlize Theron) is the seemingly successful author of a series of young adult novels, who on the page has everything going for her. Yet, despite being blessed in both the looks and career department, happiness eludes her.

When an invitation arrives in her inbox to the christening of the daughter of her high school sweetheart, Buddy (Patrick Wilson), Mavis decides to return to her hometown to reclaim her former glory - and her former boyfriend. Blinded by her own narcissism, Mavis chooses to ignore the fact that Buddy is now happily married as she obsessively engages in the shameless pursuit of her unavailable ex.

A chance meeting with a former classmate she barely remembers, Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt), provides Mavis with a drinking buddy, and a voice of reason. However, despite forming an unlikely bond with Matt, who in the wake of a high school beating is left as physically challenged as she is mentally, Mavis is unwilling and unable to retreat from the comfort of her self-delusions to see her world as it really is.

As with Cody's Academy Award-winning screenplay for Juno, Young Adult combines subtle storytelling with unconventional choices. An exercise in nuance and tone, which sees Cody reunited with her Juno cohort, director Jason Reitman (Up In The Air), the film features award-worthy performances from both Theron and Oswalt that - as with the script - are remarkable for their realness.

I sat down with Cody in New York to talk about the film.

Read my exclusive interview with Diablo Cody on SuicideGirls.com.

Let me introduce you to a lovely lady I met on October 7th at #OccupyLA. She was there simply to tell her story. Like many people in this economy, she had been finding it difficult to make ends meet, so when Obama's Loan Modification program began it seemed like a godsend. Little did she know, it would be the start rather than the end of her problems.

She duly completed all the paperwork her bank, Wells Fargo, asked her to, and was told what her reduced payments would be. She continued to pay her mortgage, but at the adjusted rate, as she'd been instructed to by Wells Fargo. She never missed a payment, and was not in arrears.

However, months later, out of the blue, she found out her application, for whatever reason, had been rejected. At this point, Wells Fargo treated her like she had been in arrears, because she'd been paying reduced payments on a mortgage that had failed to be modified. To add insult to injury, Wells Fargo then slapped her with a slew of interest charges and fees, because they in effect retroactively considered her account to be in default because of the Loan Modification decision.

Her bank then suggested she reapply, which she did - twice. Two more times, exactly the same thing happened. Following the third failed application, Wells Fargo began proceedings to repossess her home, even though she had made all her mortgage payments in exactly the way the bank had prescribed.

Turns out, the Loan Modification process is notoriously flawed and has been accused numerous times of causing foreclosures, as was the case here. Richard Gaudreau, an attorney, explains in an essay for Huffington Post exactly why the Loan Modification process fails to help troubled homeowners while lining the pockets of banks (surprise, surprise!):

The government pays mortgage servicers $1,000 for each "loan mod" application. Studies have shown though that mortgage servicers stand to make far more in fees from a foreclosure than they ever will from a loan modification request.

Obviously this kind of behavior is unconscionable. It's hard to comprehend that a "trusted name" like Wells Fargo would want to force a loyal customer and her family out onto the street in order to make a quick buck on a few fees. But this is happening to untold numbers of people all across our nation at the hands of nearly all the major banks.

My #OccupyLA friend had done everything required of her to meet her obligations, but somehow that wasn't enough -- is that remotely fair? But these days we don't seem to require fairness, never mind empathy and understanding, from the financial institutions in which we entrust our wealth, our security, and our futures. Clearly this was not an institution worthy of the trust this lady had been placed in it. Is it worthy of yours?

Take the power away from the big banks and move your money to a community institution or credit union. To find a credit union in your area visit: moveyourmoneyproject.org

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In the late 1990s and early 2000s, General Motors' EV1s were the Apple Macs of cars. Ahead of their time, they were only driven by an enlightened "different" thinking few, but those that did felt passionately about their high tech machines.

A fully electric plug-in vehicle with a range of between 70 and 140 miles depending on model, the EV1 was first introduced into the marketplace in 1996. Available in limited test markets on a closed lease-only basis (whereby no actual purchase was allowed), it was developed by General Motors partly in response to the California Air Resources Board's requirement that the seven major auto companies in the US had to make at least 2% of their output zero-emission vehicles (ZEV) by 1998 in order to sell any cars within the state (with further graduated steps stipulated up to 10% in 2003).

Though grudgingly produced by General Motors, the vehicle was beloved by the few consumers lucky enough to rise to the top of the company's reportedly vast waiting list. But it was likely a car that was never intended to succeed. General Motors seemingly put more effort into fighting the CARB mandate in court than meeting existing demand for vehicles or marketing the EV1 to create even more. It was therefore not uncoincidental that the demise of the EV1 occurred in tandem with the gutting of CARB's ZEV rules. The EV1 program was officially cancelled in 2003, and a total recall was put in motion, with repossessed cars being not only compacted but shredded for good measure too.

A 2006 documentary, Who Killed The Electric Car, chronicled the crushing demise of this groundbreaking car. In it filmmaker Chris Paine highlighted the collusion of the auto industry, oil companies, and politicians, who all had a vested interest in seeing the electric vehicle die an untimely death alongside CARB's environmentally prudent directives. Catching the zeitgeist, Who Killed The Electric was the third highest grossing documentary that year (Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth being the first).

However, a decade after General Motors presided over the funeral of the EV1, the killing of the vehicle has proven to be a costly mistake. With gas prices rising, Toyota filled the rapidly increasing fuel-efficient void with their hybrid Prius, which went on sale in Japan in 1997. Following its worldwide debut in 2001, Toyota have sold over a million Prius cars in the US alone, and the rest of the auto industry has been scrabbling to catch up.

With revenge being served on a platter less than a decade on, Paine and his documentary team were compelled to reexamine the fortunes of the electric vehicle in a follow up film. The first had centered on activists working from outside the industry, with this film Paine chose to follow a diverse group of instigators working from within. Revenge Of The Electric Car therefore features four EV evangelists (some of whom were more recently converted than others) who are attempting to drive the future of the automobile into the present: Bob Lutz (General Motors' Vice Chairman up until May 2010), Elon Musk (Tesla Motors's CEO), Carlos Ghosn (Nissan's President and CEO), and Greg "Gadget" Abbot (a DIY electric engine retro-fitter).

SuicideGirls recently visited Paine at his ultra green home to talk about his cinematic "I told you so" and the electric awakening of a sluggish car industry that was in need of a shock. After checking out the 2008 Tesla Roadster parked in Paine's garage, the irony was not lost that we were conversing about, and anticipating the dominance of, the gas-free vehicle in the heart of LA's oil country amidst the pumpjack nodding donkeys of Baldwin Hills.

Read my exclusive interview with Chris Paine on SuicideGirls.com.

As Americans, we like to think of ourselves as advanced and sophisticated as a society. Yet, when it comes to issues of gender equality the numbers don't lie -- there's no escaping the fact that we're pretty damn backwards.

Women make up 51% of the US population, yet hold just 16.6% of the seats in Congress and 17% of those in the Senate. Indeed, we rank 90th in the world in terms of the proportion of women in national parliaments, below Afghanistan, Cuba, China, Ethiopia, Iraq, and the Sudan!

Furthermore, in America, just 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. Similarly only 3% of positions of clout in the telecommunications, entertainment, publishing, and advertising industries are held by the fairer sex (pun intended). And this may be part of the problem, since those that are ultimately responsible for the aspirational messages we receive on a daily basis are predominantly male.

That's not to say that the innate sexism that's partly responsible for this power imbalance is necessarily malevolent or even intentional; the root of much of it is simply a lack of consciousness on all our parts. And to an extent, the state of play appears to be self-perpetuating, since a mere 16% of those responsible for Hollywood's mass market dream machine (writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, and editors) are women, which in turn perhaps explains a similar lack of female protagonists/role models in feature films.

A much talked about new documentary, Miss Representation, which recently debuted on the OWN Network, does a very comprehensive job of exploring the underlying reasons for this vast leadership gender gap. The film features many prominent leading ladies including Nancy Pelosi, Condoleezza Rice, Dianne Feinstein, Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda, Geena Davis, Rachel Maddow, Lisa Ling, and Katie Couric, whose powerful voices add strength to the message -- which is that a woman's value is more than just the sum of her youth and beauty (as the mainstream media might have you believe).

SuicideGirls spoke with the driving force behind Miss Representation, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who wrote, directed, and produced the exceptional cinematic gender essay. As a Stanford graduate, environmental and gender activist, actress, and mother -- who also happens to be the wife of the former Mayor of San Francisco, and current Lieutenant Governor of California, Gavin Newsom -- she's had a front row seat watching what happens to women in power and how the media treats them, so perhaps has a greater understanding of the issues they face than most.

Read my exclusive interview with Jennifer Siebel Newsom on SuicideGirls.com.

During our previous conversation with Chuck Palahniuk, which occurred shortly before the publication of his Sunset Boulevard-inspired book, Tell All, he spoke about how the ultimate name to drop was God's. For this interview, we reconvene to discuss the domain of the G-man's nemesis -- Hell -- which serves as the setting for Palahniuk's wickedly inspired new novel, Damned.

According to Damned's canon, evolution is hokum and Charles Darwin is resigned to hellfire and damnation alongside Jimi Hendrix, Marilyn Monroe, and the entire Kennedy clan. Turns out you can end up there by committing all manner of trivial shit, such as dropping the f-bomb or honking your horn one too many times. Worshipping the wrong god will also land you in the hot spot, as will suffering the inconvenience of being a deposed one (thus the likes of Thor can also be found hanging out downstairs).

The topography of Palahniuk's netherworld features a greasy Dandruff Desert, Great Plains of Discarded Razor Blades, a Swamp of Partial-birth Abortions, a Lake of Tepid Bile, and the Great Ocean of Wasted Sperm (where in Hell, "porn is creating an effect equivalent to that of global warming on earth"). Those that find themselves there have two main career options: pornography or telemarketing.

The narrative of Damned follows Madison Spencer, the somewhat chubby, eternally optimistic13-year old progeny of a self-obsessed Hollywood star and a billionaire businessman. As a reflection of her mother's glamour, Madison is an abject failure, however, the upside of her troubled childhood is that after a lifetime (albeit a short one) of electrolysis and herbal high colonics, Hell holds little terror for her.

Having been resigned to Hell after inhaling marijuana, and eschewing an eternity being "ogled by millions of men with serious intimacy problems," Madison finds gainful employment in telemarketing, an occupation that she finds unexpectedly fulfilling. Ensconced in one of Hell's endless call centers, which has banks of phones that are programmed to auto-dial the earthbound specifically at dinnertime, Madison finds redemption. The question is, ultimately, will she want it?

Being in the business of asking people questions for a living, I felt a certain affinity with Madison. For the start of my conversation with Palahniuk, it therefore seemed only appropriate to borrow a little something from her telemarketing script...

Read my exclusive interview with Chuck Palahniuk on SuicideGirls.com.

The fiercely individual Madonna once observed that "life is a mystery" and "everyone must stand alone." But for some that is tragically not possible. Conjoined twins Evelyn and Evelyn Neville (a.k.a. Evelyn Evelyn) are two such people; their uninvited union - and the uniqueness of their in many ways non-individual state - being both a blessing and a curse.

To say Evelyn Evelyn have had a tough upbringing would be a gross understatement. The pair lost their mother 12 minutes after their traumatic birth, and their early life took a nosedive from there. The girls' father fell victim to an unlikely chainsaw accident shortly after their mother's untimely demise, and thus the orphaned twins were left with only each other to rely on as they made their way in this all too cruel world.

Extended stints trapped in a chicken coup and held hostage by a child pornography ring meant the girls were robbed of anything approaching a normal childhood -- if that was ever a possibility given their Siamese status. However, after joining a circus and meeting some similarly conjoined pachyderms, Evelyn Evelyn got an inkling that their bond -- far from being a burden -- was something truly beautiful and special.

Having experienced relentless teasing and taunts for much of their life, the Neville sisters' world was changed radically by the advent of social media. While in a dead end job filling out sweepstakes applications on behalf of an unappreciative motel proprietor, the duo practiced the songs they once performed with the circus and set up a profile on MySpace to showcase them. Unburdened by physical limitations and prejudices online, their music caught the attention of many, including singer, songwriter, and all round entertainer extraordinaire Amanda Palmer.

Inspired by their songs and by their struggle, Amanda recruited renowned folk musician Jason Webley to help with the project. Produced by Palmer and Webley, Evelyn Evelyn released their debut EP, "Elephant Elephant," in 2007. Their heartfelt rendition of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" -- which served as the B-side of the vinyl edition -- brought them initial success and critical acclaim. A self-titled album followed in 2010, as did numerous sold out live dates.

Having recently returned from a triumphant stint at the prestigious Edinburgh Festival -- and with respect having firmly replaced ridicule -- Evelyn Evelyn embark on the next chapter in their lives with the release of a graphic novel based on their story. Written by Palmer and Webley, and illustrated by Cynthia von Buhler, it's naturally being released in two parts (via Dark Horse Comics Inc.). Having not only redefined beauty, but what it means to be an individual, SuicideGirls caught up with Palmer to talk about Evelyn Evelyn.

For this interview SG's editor, Nicole Powers, recruited her own twin siblings, Brenda Day and Samantha May. Though not conjoined, Brenda and Samantha do everything together and feel as if emotionally they are. They are therefore especially excited that Palmer and Webley are unleashing the power of multiples though their production work, and are exploring what it means to be an individual when you're also one half of a whole. The following is a transcript of their online conversation...

Read our exclusive interview with Amanda Palmer on SuicideGirls.com.