(Quote by George Orwell | illustration by the inimitable Mr. Fish)

—Virginia Woolf

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“Weapons of Mass Creation” is a poster series by Justin Kamerer (aka Angryblue) that juxtaposes creative tools with destructive weapons (two posters from the series are shown here). The posters are for sale as limited edition screen prints…

(source)

—Joan Baez

Davis, California

On November 18th, 2011, a group of students at the University of California Davis gathered on campus for an Occupy protest, during which they formed a human chain by linking their arms together. When they refused to comply with the police request to leave, UC Davis Police officer Lieutenant John Pike and another officer walked along administering orange pepper spray straight down on the line of unmoving students.

What Lt. John Pike did not take into account, is how rapidly memes are now born and spread on our interconnected planet… in the days following, hundreds of “photoshopped” images were shared online, many of them placing Lieutenant Pike into various historical events and milestones in civil rights, ranging from the signing of the U.S. constitution to Picasso’s famous anti-war painting Guernica. It will be interesting to see how far this meme travels from here…

View a video of the incident and reports on the meme’s mutation here. View a hilarious “meme’s meme” showing Hitler’s reaction to the viral rise of ‘Pepper Spray Cop’ here. And for others who are inclined to follow in Lt. Pike’s heavy-handed, now-infamous footsteps, “you’ve been warned.”

(more of this ilk from Mr. Fish here)

Winnipeg, Canada

This day of remembrance, gratitude, and reflection also seems like a suitable time to (re)consider pacifism… following is an excerpt drawn from a useful and more in-depth online posting, here.

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Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes or gaining advantage. Pacifism covers a spectrum of views ranging from the belief that international disputes can and should be peacefully resolved; to calls for the abolition of the institutions of the military and war; to opposition to any organization of society through governmental force (anarchist or libertarian pacifism); to rejection of the use of physical violence to obtain political, economic or social goals; to the obliteration of force except in cases where it is absolutely necessary to advance the cause of peace; to opposition to violence under any circumstance, including defense of self and others.

Pacifism may be based on moral principles (a deontological view) or pragmatism (a consequentialist view). Principled pacifism holds that at some point along the spectrum from war to interpersonal physical violence, such violence becomes morally wrong. Pragmatic pacifism holds that the costs of war and inter-personal violence are so substantial that better ways of resolving disputes must be found…

—Tenzin Gyatsu, the 14th Dalai Lama

(almost everywhere you look)