IRON RAIL CLEANING PARTY SAT FEB 20

What is it to be clean? Cleanliness? What is it to cleanliness? What is to clean? What cleanliness?

When you think of the Rail, does your nose twitch? Do the hairs inside your nostrils curl as if burnt? Do you, upon thinking of the Rail, perform an adorable bunny-rabbit-esque maxillofacial shrug, an instinctive aversive mouth-encompassing wince, twisting your mardi-gras-chapped lips across your teeth, rolling your chin back into your neck?

When you think of the Rail, do you think of dirty linoleum? Do you think of dirty linoleum's waxy, woody, grassy close-up smell? The grittiness of it, felt even through your shoes, its age-stratified gneiss detaching in scraps, pilling like old sweatpants? When you think of the Rail, do you think of the sour stink of accumulated dust? Do you picture the immeasurable nose-choking motes of must, thick in the air as superkrewe confetti, spangling like doubloons where the sun angles through the Rail's windows? Do you smell displeasing smells when you think of the Rail? Do you smell the humid, cabbagey scent of grease-stiff hair? The mammalian, ovine, sour-stale acridity of jeans worn weeks without washing? Do you think of the vegetal, salty-yeast tang of urine? The almost medicinal pungency of sweated-out wine in armpits whose flora flourishes unregulated? Footsmell? Do you think of stickinesses on surfaces that ought be frictionless, irregular patches of unlooked-for adhesion marking spillage, seepage, or christ only knows?

We fitna change that, we gwine clean the Rail. Help us do This Saturday Feb 20th starting at noon. It's a CLEANING OF THE IRON RAIL.

We have some supplies; bring more supplies! We have some enthusiasm; add yours!
Bring food and drinks and a positive mental attitude! Help us make better the poor old Iron Rail. We're gonna totally sparklize

HONOR, AID, RESIST

It's a tragedy when people die, when anyone dies. It's a tragedy when people who lived genuinely anarchist lives and believed in resisting authority die, and sadder when and their death prompts allies to collaborate with police.

The police-- especially the NOPD-- are enemies of the people. This is not only true when you're wearing a "Stop Snitchin'" t-shirt, in ironic homage to black communities' silence in the face of oppression and interrogation; it's true when crime happens to you and "yours." It remains true when someone with your own complexion and economic background is killed. It remains true when kids steal the tip jar from the coffee shop you work at. It remains true when a New Orleanian without adequate mental health care flips out and is shouting at invisible stuff outside the house you rent.

The NOPD will never be part of a solution. Not short-term, not long-term.

Collaboration with the police sells out everything Brydrum LIVED for and fought so hard for. Let's celebrate her rich, bold, uncompromising LIFE, her optimism, and her rejection of authority, including violently repressive authority such as the NOPD. Let's work to eradicate the misogyny and social inequities that leads to tragedies such as her death. Let's not be hypocrites.

Earth Day/ Was the worst day / Now we sip ice tea when we thirs-tay

Did you purchase stupider, less useful types of lite bulbs? Did you drive in your car and buy them, and throw away the packaging? Fuck "Earth Day." Only Mary Worth is real. Seriously, the only positive impact an individual can have upon our environment is by direct attack on the industrial infrastructure itself.



The earth day sort of "change begins with my personal habits" shit is just self-congratulatory consumerist individualist nonsense. It's solipsistic. The bigger picture is global capitalism and techno-industrialization; the powers that be will SELL you a 'green' lifestyle the same way they'll sell you anything else. It's branding and marketing, no more.

Yellow ribbon magnets don't bring soldiers home, and absurd NEW IMPROVED ULTRA-ECO LIGHTBULBS don't do a thing for mother earth.

(Mary W)earth Day. No disrespect meant to Mary Worth; she's cool with me. I dig it when she peers out of the strip at us.

FEROCIOUSLY RECURRENT

The Iron Rail takes its commitments seriously.

We are here to provide the community with books, 'zines, and a pleasant anti-authoritarian environment.

We also carry an assortment of enticing oddments: cool reusable handmade menstrual pads, patches, earnest shirts, recordings of pop music where the singers sound wicked upset about stuff.

The Iron Rail will be open and brewing hot fragrant Santa's Blend coffee on Lundi and Mardi Gras, the same as we were on "Christmas" and "New Year's" and "during the martial law curfew post-Gustav."

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing in a way that isn't half-assed and/or based on one's own convenience.

Come by and be nice to us! We're in pain all the time.

SUPPORT GOVERNMENT-PERSECUTED LOCAL ARTIST: SUNDAY JAN 11

This is going to be quick, because I have to hurry help prepare for tonight's IRON RAIL HOLIDAY PARTY, which I neither think sounds fun nor plan to attend. If you are less of an asshole than I, contact an Iron Rail Collective member for details or swing by the Iron Rail itself before 7 p.m. I'm sure someone will give you the 411.

Moving on: SUNDAY, January the ELEVENTH, (postponed from the 10th) there is going to be a NoLa RiSiNg PaInT PaRtY in the 3000 block of St. Peter.

Why? To support Willow Schroeder, a local artist whose scumbag gentrifying neighbors moved in across the street and then decided they didn't like the house they'd moved in across the street from because it artistically commemorates Willow's son who got shot to death.

Willow's bullying, ugly persecutors, the Taylors, are as bad as it gets. They're working hand in hand with scumbag Robert Mendoza at City Hall to try to destroy Schroeder's life. Already Schroeder has been forced to make alterations and tear down some of her work... but villainous monsters like the Taylors cannot be appeased.

To learn about this ongoing anti-art, anti-artist outrage, visit http://davidshouse.wordpress.com/ or read this choice-quote-laden article from the Times-Pic.

We at the Iron Rail salute NoLa Rising for helping draw attention and publicity to Schroeder's persecution, and stand in solidarity with ALL artists against the oppression of the state and the conformist would-be-dominance of "people" like the Taylors.

This is not at all a direct action... it's more like a fund-raiser kind of thing... but please do come by JANUARY 11, SUNDAY at ONE PM to help out or at least get more acquainted with Schroeder's work and her struggle... who knows what kind of interesting ideas you might get?

Palestinian Solidarity, and Our War For Liberation Through Infoshopping

You can now buy sweet Palestinian-made Kaffiyehs at the Iron Rail. We support the end of Israeli apartheid and Palestinian liberation. Show your anti-colonialist sentiments by wearing this symbol of resistance. They are $14.
More on Palestine:
Anarchists Against the Wall
International Intifada

December Movie Nights
December 2nd, 8pm: "9-to-5" with Dolly Parton

New Magazines
We have the new issue of Left Turn and Fifth Estate magazines for sale. Both are edited in part by New Orleanian radicals.

Bookfair Spoils
We bought tons of new books at the NOLA Bookfair, which was a huge success, yet again! So come buy some of them! Thank you to everyone who helped make it so awesome!

2009 Slingshot Organizers
We have 2009 Slingshot Organizers! Large ($10) and Small ($6). With new glossy covers on the small ones that look tight.

T-Shirts
We have a whole bunch of Iron Rail t-shirts in stock right now. So come buy one (or two)! Everyone in your family would love an Iron Rail shirt as a Chrissmas present right? They are $5-15 sliding scale.

New Orleans Anarchist Email List
Organize, strategize and discuss with local anarchists via the listserve to create a new world. Use the list to let others know about local radical info and events, discuss news and views, and figure out how to best create the world we want to see. To join, send a blank email to nola-anarchists+subscribe@googlegroups.com