Guy Fawkes mask on Flickr.

A couple of days ago my Greenpeace colleagues in Hong Kong told me of a local Occupy movement, out at the HSBC headquarters. “But there are more Filipino maids ‘occupying’ the park then there are protesters,” they joked.

Despite the small numbers, I was pretty excited to head to my first Occupy site.

More photos and text at my other blog.

"But, in the end, the point of Occupy Wall Street is not its platform so much as its form: people sit down and hash things out instead of passing their complaints on to Washington. “We are our demands,” as the slogan goes. And horizontalism seems made for this moment. It relies on people forming loose connections quickly—something that modern technology excels at."

The origins and future of Occupy Wall Street by Mattathias Schwartz in the New Yorker.

A friend of mine recently asked if it mattered whether people who signed up to our Winter B-icicle Challenge actually bothered riding their bike every day. Wasn’t it more important that they simply signed up and showed their support? After all, did it matter if people who did the 40 Hour Famine cheated or not? They still raised money.

I said it did, because in carrying out our challenge (riding to work or school everyday throughout winter) you were actually fulfilling our purpose - which is to advocate bike riding and get more bikes on the road. Every challenger on the road, on each day, would be a riding advertisement for biking.

We are our demands.

The Black Millionaires Of Occupy Wall Street

Nietzsche warns us that it’s painful to discover you’ve become the monster you thought you were battling. But what certainly hurts worse is when, having become a monster, the other monsters won’t even let you into their dark and secret hideouts. As wealthy and powerful as Simmons has become while playing by America’s rules, there are still golf clubs where he can’t be a member, and still prominent white politicians who wouldn’t think twice about calling him “brotha” or telling him “you be da man.” There are even still many people who would be upset if their daughter brought him home. There’s a notorious and easily modified black joke that goes, “What do you call a black billionaire (or lawyer or doctor)?” The answer: “A nigger.” That one’s always been particularly ugly to me for its honesty.

Another great piece from Cord Jefferson.

(Source: cordjefferson)