• Dedicated to "the mutualists of the world" Shawn P. Wilbur, Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth (2010-05-17). Charles T. Sprading’s 1930 Mutual Service and Cooperation is available for download from Google Books. (Linked Wednesday 2010-05-26.)

• Watch Out, Facebook. Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-05-26). “The business press may be filled with rhetoric about ‘participatory media’ and ‘user-generated content,’ but the country’s most prominent Web 2.0 company treats its participants like a bunch of CompuServe subscribers circa 1994. …” (Linked Wednesday 2010-05-26.)

• Oh No! Sheldon Richman, Free Association (2010-05-23). Conservatives won’t want to hear it, but the libertarian alternative to antidiscrimination laws is: COMMUNITY ORGANIZING!Atom (Linked Wednesday 2010-05-26.)

• The Welfare State. Sheldon Richman, Free Association (2010-05-23). Despite what you may read at other libertarian sites, the welfare state is not the result of efforts by lazy poor people to enslave and live off the productive classes. Rather, it is the result of efforts by the political-social-corporate elite to subordinate and control the poor for a variety… (Linked Wednesday 2010-05-26.)

• Free George Donnelly Handbill. DarianW, DarianWorden.com (2010-05-24). Thanks to ALLy James Tuttle for creating a solid handout in support of George Donnelly. Download the .pdf at LibertyActivism.info. (Linked Wednesday 2010-05-26.)

• here's a sortof interesting piece of political/cultural. Captain Capitulation, eye of the storm (2010-05-13). here's a sortof interesting piece of political/cultural commentary by mark lilla. he frames the whole thing in terms of "radical individualism"="the libertarian mob," as against…well, what? obviously the basic contrast of individualism is to collectivism, but it's hard to sit there and squarely endorse that term: there are too many… (Linked Thursday 2010-05-27.)

• Arrivals Lounge. Dorothy, Cat and Girl (2010-05-27). (Linked Thursday 2010-05-27.)

• Gimme Your Best Just-World Play. cherylcline, der Blaustrumpf (2010-05-27). Come on.  I need it after reading this: Jiang Chun Geng is one of 15 elderly Chinese men and women whom Zhu is treating in his simple village clinic for what locals label "rotten leg disease." A definitive diagnosis is no longer possible so many decades after the initial exposure… (Linked Thursday 2010-05-27.)

So, hey, reader question. (Not the kind you ask me so I can show off my expertise on my blog. The kind of question I ask you, gentle reader. Why? Well, I’m not a big fan of open threads, but I am a fan of y’all, and I’ve been kind of inspired by the conversations we’ve been having by riffing on a simple, open-ended question down at Vegas Anarchist Cafe; makes me curious about how some of these things go in other communities I’m part of).

Anyway, what I’m wondering right now, is–If you think of yourself as an Anarchist, how did you become an Anarchist? (Take that as you will — how you came to accept the ideas, or how you came to call yourself an Anarchist, or ….)

Or, if you don’t think of yourself as an Anarchist, what do you think of yourself as? And how did you get to be that?

What do you think? Let’s talk in the comments.

Denial of the Day. Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-05-26):

The British Royal Navy “does not maintain any form of central repository of information purely devoted to sea monsters.”

Good to know.

• Without a Prayer. Daily Brickbats (2010-05-25). Established churches only, please. (Cont’d.) See also: GT 2009-05-27 (Linked Tuesday 2010-05-25.)

• Plato's Cave. Dorothy, Cat and Girl (2010-05-24). (Linked Tuesday 2010-05-25.)

• Maddow Bashes Anarchism. Roderick, Austro-Athenian Empire (2010-05-25). Just saw Rachel Maddow explaining that Republicans have a secret hankering for anarchism (if only!), and that the spurious appeal of statelessness can be refuted by considering the nightmarish conditions in Mogadishu, capital of stateless Somalia (interesting that she just happens to pick the area of Somalia with the highest… (Linked Tuesday 2010-05-25.)

• Rekers: A Sick Man in a Sick World. cherylcline, der Blaustrumpf (2010-05-25). When the news first broke about professional homophobe George Rekers hiring gay prostitutes with taxpayer money, I honestly didn't think too much about it, as I didn't know anything about his background (though it did reaffirm some of my stereotypes about men who sport !!!@@e2;20ac;2dc;staches.)  I did brace myself for… (Linked Tuesday 2010-05-25.)

One reason to be glad for YouTube is that it gives me a chance to keep up with some of the things from back home that I’d miss out here in Vegas if it weren’t for the Internet. It’s summer in Alabama now, and it’s an even-numbered year. Which means it doesn’t matter if you get the local TV or not — no matter where you may be, thanks to YouTube it’s the season for Alabama state politics — the greatest show on earth.

Here’s Fob’s boy Tim, offering a soft-lit and touching tribute to monolingualism and belligerent ignorance:

Meanwhile, Dale By-God! Peterson is going to kick the ass of the Republican nomination for Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries.

It’s a dime a dozen for cowboy-themed campaign commercials in Alabama state politics. But this is something special. Listen up: the moment when Dale Peterson, having just finished off a completely out-of-right-field tirade about migrant workers somehow hurting farming in Alabama (?) and a paranoid rant about Facebook bragging and the minions of his political opponents stealing his yard signs in the dead of night, then goes on to shout We’re Republicans! and hefts a rifle up over the fence — well, it may be one of the most wonderful unintentional Happenings that I have ever seen on television.

(Via Roderick Long and Tennyson McCalla)