Via Glenn Greenwald on Twitter, an illustrative comparison of the front of this week’s issue of Time Magazine in different markets. Does this say something about the U.S. media, the U.S. populace, or both? Either way, I’m not buying that stress is good for you.
Flag of Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Now that Western countries such as Germany, the UK and US are increasingly breeding so-called “homegrown” Islamic terrorists, it’s at least marginally comforting that most of them are so incompetent that their explosive devices seldom detonate. Perhaps with this in mind, Al-Qaeda has launched an online magazine in English, instructing would-be jihadists on topics such as “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom,” as reported by AP:
Al-Qaida launched its first online propaganda magazine in English on Tuesday, a move that could help the terror group recruit inside the U.S. and Europe.
The magazine, called Inspire, is being run by al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen, which has been linked to the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt of a U.S.-bound airliner.
The launch suggests that, as al-Qaida’s core has been weakened by CIA drone airstrikes, the group hopes to broaden its reach inside the U.S., where officials have seen a spate of homegrown terrorists.
The legendary editor behind Mondo 2000 magazine reveals how LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, and a high school underground newspaper all fermented into High Frontiers, Reality Hackers and eventually his famous cyberculture publication as part of the new “Mondo 2000 History Project”.
R.U. Sirius shares the introduction, where he remembers an avante-garde newspaper in college. (“We all have a roaring great time interviewing Timothy Leary… We’re all dazzled, feeling like the host of Planet Earth’s party had lifted the velvet rope and let us in.”) But he also describes how he came to edit the first “cyber culture” magazines (predating Wired) from 1984-1998, and announces a new “open source history project” – a collaboratively-edited electronic document with stories and perceptions from “All those who touched directly upon the history of the scene/magazine”.
At the age of 31, Sirius moves to Marin County with a California to-do list: “Start the Neopsychedelic Wave. Start a Neopsychedelic band.… Read the rest
Ashley Crawford is the editor of the recently revived cyberculture magazine 21C (Richard Metzger called it “probably the best magazine of the ‘90s”) Via Mediapunk:
In 1994 I was approached by a Swiss-based international company, Gordon & Breach, who wanted to start an international art magazine – World Art. I accepted but didn’t really want to let go of 21C and so organized a take-over of the magazine. Accordingly I ended up editing and publishing a revised version of the title from 1994 to 1999. Given we were suddenly international in scope I made the most of it and approached folk I’d been a fan of for some time, amongst them such people as J.G. Ballard, William Gibson, Kathy Acker, Bruce Sterling, Rudy Rucker, John Shirley, Mark Dery, Andrew Ross, R.U. Sirius, Claudia Springer, McKenzie Wark, Darren Tofts, Michael Moorcock, Thurston Moore, Erik Davis and others. To my utter amazement they all responded enthusiastically.
