We got the cops called on us twice this time…
3 minute read
November 15, 2009, 8:36 PM
Anonymous DC’s November raid, protesting the abusive practices of the Church of Scientology, was a small one over at the Ideal Org. I think we had around ten people in attendance. It’s understandable, though – we crashed their Ideal Org opening party only two weeks prior, and so a lot of folks probably needed time to recharge their batteries and such. But it’s okay – the place was absolutely dead, with only a few staff around, and I think we still managed to outnumber them, even with our small numbers. This raid also returned us to the four-hour raid length (we did eight-hour raids in October), and we also returned to our cooler-weather timeframe of 1-5 PM (we push the timeframe back a few hours in the peak of summer to avoid the worst of the heat in our masks).
This was pretty much standard fare for us, but we did have a few highlights. First of all, we had the cops called on us twice. First time was not long after I arrived:
Continue reading…Categories: Project Chanology
I’ll bet no one realized that the headstone image was not randomly chosen…
3 minute read
November 13, 2009, 11:11 PM
“Ben Schumin wishes that grocery shopping involved just buying a fifty-pound bag of single people chow.”
2 minute read
November 9, 2009, 7:17 PM
The above was a Facebook status that I posted on Sunday, and it really got a lot of attention, with seven “likes” and a lot of comment, including comments from some of my married friends that a fifty-pound bag of single people chow would be a good idea.
See, I have to go grocery shopping tonight, and let’s admit it – grocery shopping is a pain. First I have to drive to the store. Then I have to kind of wander the aisles and pick out all the grub I’m planning to get. Then I have to pay for it. Then I have to load it up in the car and drive back home. Then I have to schlep it all up the stairs. Then I have to put it away.
That’s why I started fantasizing a little. After all, I’m single, and I live alone. And grocery shopping is a bother. Life would be so much simpler if I could just go to Shoppers, haul a fifty-pound bag of single people chow into the cart, pay for that, and be set for a month. And I figure it should cost around $45 for the name brand, and $30 for the generic. Still, I could be in and out of Shoppers in less than fifteen minutes. Just go right to the single aisle, and I’m all set.
What surprised me most, however, was one comment, which indicated that Costco actually sells a product that consists of 275 servings of various types of vegetarian food. Take a look:
Categories: Food and drink
And Anonymous did its best to make the Ideal Org opening anything but ideal…
7 minute read
November 7, 2009, 5:37 PM
On October 31 (halloween!), the Church of Scientology opened their new Washington DC “Ideal Org” at the corner of 16th and P Streets NW – coincidentally, right next door to the building where I work. And as is the case with any big Scientology event these days, Anonymous was there. Particularly so when Scientology CEO David Miscavige was expected to be present. For this occasion, Anons from Boston and New York also came and joined our raid.
The raid was planned to last eight hours. We started at the Ideal Org, and planned to raid there from 12 noon to 5:00. Then the plan was to move to the Founding Org until 8 PM.
I arrived on scene around 12:30. Nothing, however, prepared me for the scene that would greet me when I arrived. The entire 1600 block of P Street was swarming with activity, and large white tarps blocked the view of 16th Street from the public. The cops were out in force, too, to attempt to maintain order throughout the whole affair.
I met the Anons right in front of the entrance to my office building, 1616 P Street NW. I also met up with MPDC Commander James Crane, whom I’ve encountered at other non-Anon protests. Now it was time to size up the situation and determine what was going on. In speaking with Crane, we soon learned that we would not be allowed in the closed section of 16th Street at all, including on the sidewalk in front of the Carnegie Institution. Additionally, we were not permitted to demonstrate on the same side of P Street as the tarps. We also had to be quiet, so as not to disturb the “religious service”, and if we made a lot of noise, we would be pushed back a block. However, when one questions whether the target of the demonstration is even a religion at all (and more aptly described as a for-profit enterprise), that last part came off as almost amusing. Lastly, Crane offered to assist us across the street, momentarily stopping traffic so that we could cross.
Categories: Project Chanology
Once again, my coworkers showed how festive halloween can be…
2 minute read
October 30, 2009, 10:04 PM
We definitely had some interesting costumes this time around at our office halloween party. Check it out:
Categories: Halloween, Project Chanology, Tea Party
Finally, a caption…
< 1 minute read
October 29, 2009, 9:30 PM
Finally, I figured out a caption for this photo:
This is a photo of my friend Katie’s cat Peabo. As you can see, he’s gotten himself into a case of beer. And it only took Katie and I a month and a half to come up with this caption. When she first sent this to me in mid-September, I immediately saw Lolcat potential for it, but couldn’t figure out a caption. I at first thought of “I can haz beer?” for it, but that’s too much like the oft-used “I can haz cheezburger?” line. Katie and I even did a little brainstorming on the phone last night and came up empty.
Then today, Katie sent the perfect caption: “Where’s the beer? I can’t find it, it’s not here!” I ran it through the Lolcat translator, and got, “Wherez teh ber? I cant find it, iz not her!” Then I dropped the second part of it, and put it in the proper Impact font, and on the image. And one lolcat image. Pretty clever, no?
Categories: Katie, Netculture
You know what I’d love to do to some of these people that send me junk mail?
3 minute read
October 28, 2009, 7:06 PM
You know what I’d just love to do to some of these people that send me junk mail? Send them a cinderblock. One of these:
One has to wonder how many trees had to die for all of this…
2 minute read
October 23, 2009, 10:11 PM
Scientology is certainly gearing up for their Ideal Org opening in a week. This afternoon, one of my coworkers, cognizant of my interest in Scientology’s work on the building next door to our office, alerted me to pallets upon pallets of printed material out on the sidewalk. So I took a minute and checked it out. Take a look…
Pallet of Scientology printed materials along P Street.
Categories: Project Chanology
So I figured out what I’m going to be for halloween this year…
< 1 minute read
October 22, 2009, 10:46 PM
Bye bye, beard…
2 minute read
October 18, 2009, 3:14 PM
So here’s the final beard.
2 minute read
October 18, 2009, 2:25 PM
Categories: Myself
New Photography set format! What do you think?
2 minute read
October 16, 2009, 8:58 PM
Okay… the way-too-long-anticipated Urban Demolition II photo set is now available in Photography. This photo set is like “part two” in Photography’s quest to reinvent itself, to become distinct from both Life and Times and the Journal.
The first attempt at a format change was Operation Sea Arrrgh. While it moved away from the old format, it didn’t go as far as I should have taken it, and looks kind of like a bunch of photos just thrown together – despite that it took a while to put it all together in a way that I liked. The one thing I liked about the Sea Arrrgh set from a design standpoint is that it places the photo captions on the full-size page, and not on the photo set page itself, which allows me to be a little more creative with the layout, because I don’t have to allow for potentially wordy captions when doing layout.
Now with Urban Demolition II, I’ve laid it out more like a gallery, with the same click-for-the-full-size-images procedure as always. The images on the set page are smaller, and there are more of them on a page. I like this layout because it tells a little story, and then lays out the images that go with that part of a story in a grid format.
So now I need to know if you like it or not. If you like it, let me know. Use the contact link and drop me a note. More importantly, though, if you don’t like it, I want to know what you don’t like, and why you don’t like it. I am looking for constructive criticism here. I want to know if you like it, and why you like it, and also if you don’t like it and why.
Categories: Schumin Web meta
On Sunday, the LGBT community and their allies took to the streets…
7 minute read
October 13, 2009, 8:19 PM
On Sunday, thousands came out into the streets to demonstrate in support of civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people. I’ve always considered this to be a bit of a no-brainer. What part of “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” in the Fourteenth Amendment do some people not understand? Obviously, to some, all people are created equal, but some are more equal than others.
Thus we had the National Equality March. We marched for civil rights for the LGBT community in all fifty states. I’m not gay, but equal protection under the laws for LGBT individuals, including the right to marry whomever they wish, is something I feel very strongly about. After all, marriage in a legal sense has nothing to do with any alleged supreme being, or even anything to do with love. The minister on Spaceballs had it right when he said, “I am trying to conduct a wedding here, which has nothing to do with love.” While love certainly makes a marriage last, marriage ultimately is a contract between two people. And as a contract, it falls under the law, which according to the US Constitution, must apply equally to all.
Ahead of the march, much of DC’s radical community was deciding how it was going to handle the march. Of course, we support the underlying concept, but some of our views differ from the mainstream. Calls for pink-and-black blocs were put out, and ultimately there were two locations tossed about. One was for a pink-and-black bloc meeting on the Ellipse at 10 AM on Sunday. Another called for a pink-and-black bloc to meet at Dupont Circle at 11:00. As I considered the Ellipse location a little far-flung as far as Metro accessibility went, and a little bit early, I chose the Dupont Circle location. Thus I took Metro from Wheaton to Dupont Circle and arrived a bit early – around 10:30. I was early, but better to be early and waiting at the appointed location than to be waiting on the train hoping to make it on time, or to be late and potentially miss what I was going for in the first place.
Categories: Activism, Black bloc
The raid of the Ideal Org was ideal in so many ways…
5 minute read
October 12, 2009, 6:44 PM
We had our first “real” raid at Scientology’s new Ideal Org at 1424 16th Street NW on Saturday. On our permit application, we listed a start time as 12:00 noon, and an end time of 8:00 PM, and I think we were at our peak around 6:00 in the evening. Very few stayed the entire eight hours, but all in all, it wasn’t too shabby, if you ask me, as this was a bigger crowd than some of the more recent “global” raids we’ve had in DC.
I showed up a little after 3:00. We had about five people at the Ideal Org, and as I would soon learn, a bunch of people at the Founding Org.
The Ideal Org was pretty quiet when I first arrived. Scientology spokesmodel Sylvia Stanard was there, Sadie was there, as well as a gentleman who smoked a lot.
Categories: Project Chanology
So this is the beard as of Saturday…
< 1 minute read
October 12, 2009, 5:39 PM
Categories: Myself