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Subverting institutionalized education with free classes and radical organizing / by Chris Lee
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What’s wrong with higher education today? First off, it’s expensive. Second, it’s not very fun. Lastly, it’s expensive, like wildly expensive, like reality-tv-prize-money expensive.
The average cost of four years tuition at a private college is about $125,000, which, to put things into perspective, is
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$25,000 more than what you would get for winning RuPaul’s Drag Race (minus the sickening supply of ColoRevolution cosmetics).
Most people living in Boston have likely faced the reality of higher education being more than just an apparatus for teaching and learning . . .
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Corruption in the government does not occur in isolated events -- it’s systematic
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Over the past month, the mainstream media industry has grown obsessed with covering a series of three “scandals” – one involving the IRS targeting tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status, one regarding the White House response to an attack on American diplomats in Benghazi, and the most troubling concerning the Department of Justice seizure of the phone records of almost 100 Associated Press
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journalists.
In many of the conversations surrounding these “scandals,” critics are failing to acknowledge what is inherently problematic about the political ramifications of “scandals” -- a scandal suggests that corruption in the government occurs in isolated events, when in reality a multitude of corruptions continuously plague the government . . .
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An interview with Jes Aurelius of Ascetic House / by Jenn Pelly
Noise cassettes, psychedelic chapbooks, and philosophical pamphlets-- these are Ascetic House's prayers for the minds of the imprisoned.
Since 2011 this intriguing Tempe, Arizona-based artists circle has catalogued local as well as global underground sound and art of an especially exciting strain. It has released experimental music tapes from the likes of Pigeon Religion, Marshstepper, and Foreplay; photocopied collections of prose and poetry baring such titles as "Towards Madness", "Mystical States", and "Desire"; hosted performance events and punk shows; and channeled a general aesthetic of cerebral occultish elegance.
Ascetic House have likened themselves to the radical 1960s Panic Movement or Sonic Arts Union. Even their webpage has got a silent, analog feel; there is no mail order. Its discography listing repurposes a biblical passage as art aphorism, making the grand divine suggestion that these offerings from the desert are sacred.
This month Ascetic House has launched its Prisoner Outreach Program, wherein they will send any release to any incarcerated person in the United States for free. The tapes will be made with prison-approved cassette materials-- screwless, and clear-- and their publications will be sent unfolded, without staples. This is a commendable project that not only emphasizes the necessity of free culture but fills a void most don't even see. The prison-conscious market for New Music is essentially nonexistent save for Top 40 rap (not a bad thing, but surely tiresome at a point).
As Ascetic House eloquently writes on its website:
The United States leads the world in the rare of incarcerating its own citizens. We imprison more of our own people than any other country on earth, including China, which has four times our population. Over two million people are currently locked up in the immense network of U.S. prisons and jails. Mass incarceration is the corrupt system’s best solution to the vast array of social problems that burden the poor, the disenfranchised and the marginalized among us. It is also the corrupt system’s best method of perpetuating itself, with the main focus of state policy being social control.
Jes Aurelius is a recent graduate of Arizona State University with degrees in Justice and Religious Studies. He is also a guitarist in the noirish desert punk five-piece Destruction Unit; member of electronic provocateurs Marshstepper; and a prolific participant in Ascetic House, having left a mark on at least 30 of its releases.
Please elaborate on what motivated the Prisoner Outreach . . .
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WEEKLIES
Lost in Bostonby Mike Caulo
...Again.
by Tim Manns
Everyday, all day.
Friends First,Band Second
Surprise interview with Slutever after a surprise show.
by Peter Kadzis
Notes on the scandals.
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