From 1864 to 1904, the Russian Empire tried to quelch the nationalism of Lithuanians by ordering all Lithuanian texts to be printed with Cyrillic characters instead of in the Latin-derived Lithuanian or Polish alphabets. But they didn't count on the Knygnešiai - the Booksmugglers. [more inside]
posted by mdonley on Jul 12, 2009 - 18 comments

The Tibetan Youth Congress has been described as an organization bent on terror wherein Young Tibetans ‘will resist China with blood’.
posted by twoleftfeet on Nov 30, 2008 - 30 comments

Bacteriophages ("phages" for short) were the only effective treatment against infectious diseases until antibiotics came along during WWII.

Phages are the most ubiquitous organism on Earth. They are naturally occurring viruses that infect bacteria and bacteria only. We live in a sea of phages. Our bodies are more phage than human. There approximately 10 to the 32 power of them around us. That's 10 with 32 zeros behind it.

Antibiotics cannot keep up with evolving infections, while phages naturally co-evolve with the bacteria.

Currently we are in a growing antibiotic crisis and phage therapy is getting a serious look again. Here's a fascinating discussion from National Public Radio.
posted by wsg on Apr 4, 2008 - 37 comments

The Feel Tank. "We are a feel tank, but this does not mean that we do not think. We are governed by outrage that the desires and demands for a less bad life and a better good life continue to go unrecognized."
posted by papakwanz on Feb 7, 2008 - 25 comments

A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust - an overview of the people and events of the Holocaust through photographs, documents, art, music, and literature. It is designed to prepare K-12 teachers to approach this sensitive topic. The content is presented from three perspectives: Timeline, People, and The Arts. Produced by the University of South Florida.
posted by netbros on Aug 29, 2007 - 7 comments

Rumors were circulating at the hospital that insurgents dosed their homemade bombs with the flesh of dead animals. ---multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter, and how we brought it to Iraq ourselves. "My colleagues and I have been looking for Acinetobacter baumannii in soil samples for years, and we haven't found it," she says. "These organisms are quite rare outside of hospitals." In other news, conditions in Iraqi hospitals are so bad due to lack of even the most basic supplies they're calling it a breach of the Geneva Conventions.
posted by amberglow on Jan 22, 2007 - 62 comments

The Tax Man Cometh:

"They believe, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that their citizen's understanding of the written law should, and in some Platonic sense does, trump the realities of dealing with the government. This makes them uniquely American rebels--more true, they maintain, to the nation's core values than those of us who follow the pragmatic advice . . . "You mess with that shit, you are going to jail."

Brian Doherty analyzes the tax resistance movement (from 2004). Meanwhile, another ugly confrontation is brewing in New Hampshire, and violence is in the air. Mr. Brown, of course, has his views.
posted by fourcheesemac on Jan 21, 2007 - 112 comments

A multimedia exhibit on the Nazi persecution of homosexuals, Wikipedia on gays under the Nazis, Paragraph 175 - a documentary profiling gay survivors of Nazi era policies, and memorials of the gay Holocaust. A few Nazi-era gay and lesbian figures of note:

- A Berlin intellectual and pioneer in sexuality research, and an early advocate for gay rights, (controversial in part for his early support of outing) Magnus Herschfeld died in exile after Nazis destroyed his Institute of Sexual Science.
- The butch orchestra conductor Frieda Belinfante and gay artist William Arondeus were part of the same resistance group that first falsified papers for Dutch Jews, and then when Nazi's began to compare these falsified papers with city records, set fire to the Amsterdam Registry building.
- Lily Wust, the wife of a German soldier, fell for a Jewish woman at the wrong time. Their story became the subject of a book and film.
posted by serazin on Dec 15, 2006 - 26 comments

This Saturday, an aid convoy of internationals and civilians plans to make a political statement by risking their own lives to deliver desperately needed aid from Beirut to the south of Lebanon in defiance of the Israeli military. Israeli threats to bomb any moving traffic have put a halt to aid convoys through traditional channels and curtailed the ability of journalists to cover the conflict. But the activists are hoping extensive media coverage of their "non-violent direct action" generates political pressure to protect them as they head for the "no-drive" zone without any guarantee of safety from the Israeli government.
posted by mano on Aug 10, 2006 - 54 comments

Operation Anthropoid. In 1942, a group of Czech and Slovak exiles parachuted into their Nazi-occupied homeland and assassinated (hi-res pictures, scroll down) SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich, one of the architects of the Final Solution, the "Butcher of Prague." For the first time since the end of the World War Two, a German museum is offering a close look at "Operation Anthropoid," the codename for the only successful assassination of a member of Adolf Hitler's inner circle.
posted by matteo on Jan 31, 2006 - 36 comments

"Justifying or glorifying terrorism anywhere" will become an offence in the UK under hastily-drafted new legislation. Will the police arrest historians who celebrate the French Resistance and the Warsaw Uprising, or Americans who claim that it's okay to bomb Cuban airliners? What form of words could you suggest for the legislation to use, that would define "terrorism" to include al-Qaeda and the pro-Aristide fighters in Haiti, but exclude the Miami-based ex-Cubans?
posted by cleardawn on Aug 6, 2005 - 117 comments

The Aesthetics of Resistance. The first part of Peter Weiss's 3-volume novel Die Ästhetik des Widerstands (1975-81) has, after many delays, finally been published in a Joachim Neugroschel’s English translation: a major, though largely-unheralded literary event. The book ‘stands as the most significant German novel published after The Tin Drum.’ [more inside]
posted by misteraitch on Jun 28, 2005 - 7 comments

Carlos Cortez, Rest in Peace. Carlos Cortez-- poet, woodcut artist, veteran wobbly, WWII conscientious objector, longtime contributor to The Industrial Worker newspaper, longtime board president of working-class publishing house Charles Kerr Publishers, passed away last week. In a time of dime-silly protests, we lost a great man (Chicago Tribune) who leaves behind a simple, powerful example of sustained resistance.
posted by juggernautco on Jan 24, 2005 - 8 comments

Who are today's Maccabees? Fundamentalists fighting a secular culture? Or as our president states in his Hanukkah message, our brave soldiers in Iraq? Or is it the Iraqis themselves, rebelling against an invading and occupying force? Or is it the white supremacists? The enduring power of a symbol of resistance and its many and incompatible uses--all in time for Hanukkah.
posted by amberglow on Dec 12, 2004 - 26 comments

The web won't topple tyranny. "The myth that the Internet will utterly transform capitalism has died. The myth that the Web will destroy tyranny should perish as well." [Via /.]
posted by homunculus on Mar 28, 2004 - 18 comments

The Battle of Algiers, Gillo Pontecorvo’s masterpiece from 1966, was studied closely by the Black Panthers as a training manual for violent uprising against a colonial overlord. Similarly, the Israeli government banned the film until 1975 for fear that the nascent Palestine Liberation Organization would use it as an inspiration for attacks on Israelis. Now, the Pentagon is sitting down with popcorn and notepads. While the film is difficult to find in the U.S., the script is online here. Can (or will) the Pentagon make use of the lessons it contains? Is it too late? What film of literary works would you recommend to teach people about resistance... or how to overcome it?
posted by stonerose on Sep 7, 2003 - 29 comments

Did America Walk Into A Trap? In stories reported by Newsweek and Fox News it appears possible that the armed resistance now being encountered by US/British forces was part of Saddam Hussein's plan all along. The documents that have been found essentially say that should Baghdad fall, the Baath party loyalists should fade into society and extract vengeance on the occupying soldiers bit by bit. The nightmare scenario before the war was urban combat, Mogadishu style. But now it appears that Hussein may have upped the ante with this "guerrilla-type campaign".
posted by owillis on Jul 16, 2003 - 65 comments

First vancomycin-resistant bacteria found in Detroit. This is worrisome, as vancomycin is usually the last antibiotic of choice when fighting a bacterial infection. Bacteria are both helpful and hurtful to the human body, but the little bugs seem to evolve much more quickly than humans own immune systems. Have we seen an end to antibiotics used in the fight against bacteria? What alternatives do we have?
posted by WolfDaddy on Nov 12, 2002 - 37 comments

We're back! [2] A new resistant strain of staph has been documented in a Michigan Man. Agricultural and medical abuse of antibiotics has quickly lead us to the point where only very expensive and rarely used antibiotics can treat some new antibiotic resistant strains of staph (and acne). On the bright side you can get your antibiotics by drinking some river water.
posted by srboisvert on Jul 21, 2002 - 11 comments