Northwest Coal Feeling The Heat

Things are getting hot in the Northwest. This past weekend, youth and radical activists took to the streets in what will become an increasing escalation of actions to stop western coal port expansion and exports. In Missoula, MT, Olympia, WA and Eugene and Portland, OR, activists associated with the Cascade Climate Network and Rising Tide [...]

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How To Make Wheatpaste

Ever wanted a cheap, nontoxic adhesive? Lucky for you, everything you need is probably sitting in your cupboard. You can use your wheatpaste as a functional adhesive both indoors and outdoors. It’s easy, cheap, nontoxic, and quick to make. Plus, a little goes a long way. Time to get your paste on! Ingredients Note: scale [...]

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Coal River Tree-sitter Sentenced To 7 Days In Jail

Direct action is not as glamorous as many would have you believe. Days, weeks, or years in jail or prison is not easy. But fighting to save precious land and communities is damned motivating. Coal River Mountain tree-sitter Catherine-Ann has just been sentenced to seven days in a West Virginia regional jail. Her crime? She [...]

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Why Did Chevron Pay Its “Dirty Tricks Guy” $2.2 Million?

Diego Borja is Chevron’s “dirty tricks guy” — that’s not an allegation, that’s how he once described himself. Recent court documents reveal that Chevron has paid Borja $2.2 million for his work. You have to wonder: What exactly is Chevron paying Borja to do? Ostensibly, that $2.2 million is for retainer fees, living expenses, income taxes [...]

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L.A.’s Dark Secret

In the 1974 classic Roman Polanski neo-noir film Chinatown, private detective Jake Gittes (played by Jack Nicholson) discovers one of LA’s dirty secrets: Wealthy developers are legally stealing precious water from poor struggling farmers in California’s central valley to hydrate the posh homes of Beverly Hills and a rapidly growing Los Angeles. It’s a sordid [...]

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Benefit Corporations Show California What Good Business Looks Like

RAN applauds those businesses that have formalized their commitment to social and environmental sustainability by becoming California’s first benefit corporations. With the enactment of California Assembly Bill AB 361 on January 1st, California became the seventh state to legalize this new corporate framework enabling businesses to take social and environmental impacts into consideration in their [...]

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100 Years Of “Bread and Roses”

“One may live without bread, but not without roses…” - Jean Richepin, 19th century French Poet One hundred years ago this week, 25,000 textile mill workers, many of them women and young girls, walked away from their looms and out of the Dickensian sweatshops of Lawrence, Massachusetts in protest of brutal working conditions and pay [...]

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Great Moments In Stupid Chevron PR

Now that Chevron has been found guilty — again — for intentionally dumping a massive amount of toxic oil waste in the Ecuadorean Amazon, the company has become increasingly desperate to explain its refusal to take responsibility. But then, Chevron’s spokespeople have never been afraid to make absurd excuses for why their company puts profits [...]

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Occupy Design And Occupy The Dancefloor, Or: What I Do After A Full Work Day At RAN

For the last month I haven’t really had any free time. And I am okay with that. It was my choice. I was looking for a way to plug into the Occupy Together Movement in a way that made sense for me. I chose to volunteer my free time because I agree 100% that our [...]

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Remember, Remember The 5th Of November

Remember, remember the 5th of November — because this Saturday is “Bank Transfer Day.” BTD is a highly popular Facebook event (over 70,000 are attending) initiated by Kristen Christian, a young woman from California who decided she’d had enough of corporate greed. Her feelings resonated with tens of thousands of others, and the big banks [...]

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