Democracy & Civics

Guerrilla Girls Go Mainstream — Again

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Famous for wearing gorilla masks in fine-art settings, the arts-activism group Guerrilla Girls has decided to archive its work at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, reports The Independent. Forty boxes containing photos, fan (and hate) mail, sketches and other memorabilia will be kept at the decidedly mainstream Getty facility. The Guerrilla Girls got started in 1985, putting up vivid posters around New York City and elsewhere that charged mainstream art figures and institutions of racism and sexism. A decade later they began targeting politicians, sexual harassment and the religious right. Although their underground status has been parlayed into exhibitions in major art institutions, one anonymous Geurrilla Girl told the newspaper that “none of the organization’s members will directly profit from the sale of the archives.”

Nation

Pigs Used in Roadside Bomb Tests

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The Pentagon used live pigs and rats to test body armor used against roadside bomb attacks, reports USA Today. The tests included almost 200 blasts, and measured brain and body trauma. Animals that weren’t wearing body armor died in about two days; those with armor survived “significantly higher blasts,” according to a spokesperson for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Pentagon officials noted some similarities between pigs and humans, but critics said the two were not comparable, and called for an end to the testing. According to the newspaper, roadside bombs are “the top killer of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Environment

Mexico City's Water Woes

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Drought and leaky pipes are causing unusual water shortages in Mexico City, reports the Latin American Herald Tribune. A lack of planning, and poorly maintained pipelines that lose as much as 40 percent of the water they transport, have exacerbated unprecedented lows in the city’s reservoir system, causing millions of people to lose some or all of their water supplies over Easter weekend. Experts say that if droughts persist as expected, and despite planned repairs on pipelines, water shortages will only increase. –Brittany Owens/Newsdesk.org
Source:
“Depleted Reservoirs Threaten Mexico City’s Water Supply”
Latin American Herald Tribune, April 10, 2009

World

Tech-Savvy Targets for British Army Ads

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A new British Army ad campaign seeks to recruit tech savvy youth, reports The Independent. The Internet-based ads create an interactive environment in which participants can test their mettle in simulated online missions. Their hope is to reel in teenage boys who have grown up playing video games, and have valuable high-tech skills. The British Army is already stretched thin, and needs 16,000 new recruits per year. Yet their target audience is a hard sell.

Economy

Bartering Begets Business in Difficult Times

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From Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo to Chicago and Seattle, bartering and swap meets are back in style, as businesses and individuals look for new ways to get what they want in a cash-strapped world. In Argentina, bartering is a 14-year-old custom, an outgrowth of another time when the peso went bust, according to a report in Inter Press Service. Argentines have formed 500 barter clubs, where people go to exchange everything from home-cooked meals and home repairs to a medical or dental exam. Corporate giant Bayer AG is taking a different approach in neighboring Brazil, where it is accepting coffee, corn, cotton and soy from farmers in lieu of cash as payment for agrochemicals. A company spokesman told Reuters that Bayer considers bartering “a good way” of doing business in uncertain economic times.