Here’s an announcement / call to action from InterOccupy.net.^[1] They are helping to coordinate information about shelters, drop-offs, donations, food banks, communications & connectivity for folks affected by the Oklahoma tornados. From the post:

The absolutely devastating impact of the Tornados in Oklahoma has prompted a concentrated relief effort for those who have suffered in this region. There is no limit to who you can help or what you can do... but please do something. Many #AmeriSec members and other humanitarian groups will be on scene to help in anyway we can. This is an operation that all can assist with and if money, transportation or any issues that would hinder you from being able to help please, use social media, video and any other means to KEEP the word moving. As we have seen with #OccupySandy the impact of individuals helping with natural disaster has a tremendous impact... So Please assist in any way you can. WE ARE LEGION and WE have the ability to assist in the suffering on the ground so please help!

Please make video and pastebins with information that could assist independent relief workers and all others

–andrea @ InterOccupy.net (May 21, 2013). #OpOK Update: Oklahoma Relief

See the whole thing here, including lists of relief information and contact points.

There’s also a Community Action meeting gathering to-day (Tuesday, May 21) in Norman, Okla. From scott crow:

Today Tues May 21at 12 noon
Will be a meeting of decentralized coordination efforts: CSBI Building 1155 E Main Norman, OK 73071
Including: COBRA,^[2] Food Not Bombs ,Occupy, C4ss, IWW and Rainbow folks
Hopefully a place will be set up to send donations, for people to contact them and for volunteers to gather.

— scott crow @ Facebook (May 21, 2013)

Edit (12pm). And here’s some more from Zakk Flash:

Tornadoes touched down last night in Moore, Oklahoma, killing at least 51 people (20 children among them). We can't control the weather, but we can try to stop climate change before it gets worse, and we can definitely help build solidarity networks to respond to emergency situations.

Central Oklahoma Black/Red Alliance (COBRA) will be hosting a gathering of folks who are interested in the People’s response to the disaster. Folks are invited to come by my offices at Community Action (1155 E Main, Norman OK 73071) at noon today to discuss the current response from the Red Cross, organized labor, faith-based communities, and the like.

We’ll also be discussing decentralized relief and creative opportunities to help folks most affected by the storm. Not everyone is connected or comfortable working with NGOs and there are independent efforts that can make a huge difference. Look at Occupy Sandy as an example.

In the meantime, if you have any type of medical background/credentials and want to help relief efforts, get to the Warren Theater. If you don't have medical credentials but want to help, get to the Home Depot in Moore.

— Zakk Flash @ Facebook (May 21, 2013)

If you want to help people in the area affected by the tornados, strongly consider offering support wherever possible, and wherever they ask for it, from decentralized, grassroots mutual aid groups like these. (They need your help a lot more than well-funded, bureaucratically organized efforts like Red Cross or Salvation Army.) Ordinary people working together in solidarity can accomplish remarkable, life-saving things.

Also.

• New York Times (November 11, 2012): Where FEMA Fell Short, Occupy Sandy Was There

1. ^[1]This is a web project that I helped out with a bit last Fall; the same folks who provided the web coordination for Occupy Sandy in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.↩
2. ^[2][Central Oklahoma Black/Red Alliance. –CJ.]↩

So a couple months ago I put up a note about the emergency fundraising campaign for The Red & Black in Portland, Oregon:

If you’re not familiar, the Red & Black is a worker-owned co-operative restaurant in Portland, Oregon. The food’s all vegan; the ingredients are mostly organic, and either locally sourced or Fair Trade. The worker-owners are organized as an IWW shop, and directly manage their own workplace. It’s also an important hub for the anarchist community in Portland, providing a venue for regular talks, films, and other community events. I just sent $50; which is more than I can really afford right now, but the Red & Black, and places like it, matter. A lot. Any mutual aid you can send their way — or anyone you can tell about this situation — will really help.

As a follow-up, here is a note that the folks at Red & Black posted a few days ago to their website and to their Facebook page. I’d link directly, but it appears that the permalinking on their website is broken; so instead:

A little over a month ago we alerted our friends and allies that the Red & Black Cafe was in trouble. We had reached a crisis point, were unable to pay our mortgage, and we made the difficult decision to stop paying ourselves. We're happy to say, that there's light at the end of the tunnel. At this point we're treading water and are figuring out when we can pay ourselves again.

This is due to our own grit and determination to survive and because of the outpouring of support in the form of donations and increased business. But also in the form of help. Help with things like design work, cutting our ingredient costs, & setting up amazing events...

The Red & Black clearly matters to a lot of folks!

We're a quarter of the way to our goal of $20,000. So we're kicking up our fundraising drive and we need even more help to reach outside of our immediate communities. We also have some awesome project ideas and could use help getting them off the ground. If you've got some skills, and/or know of someone who can help us out, contact us! Spread the word.

Tell your friends, family, co-workers, and that person you just met why you think we're special!

Here are some suggestions but please do add your own:

• 100% vegan food & drink. We are a space that is unapologetically for animal liberation. We regularly host fundraisers, prisoner letter writing nights and animal lib speakers and workshops. We're also friendly to omnivores and, we hope, informative and not preachy on the subject.
• Safer space: We're committed to supporting survivors of sexual assault and relationship abuse. We are also committed to confronting and disrupting oppressive language and behavior in the cafe and we encourage the same from you or anyone else who sees it.
• The Red & Black is welcoming to folks who are houseless. Whether or not you have an address you are welcome to: use the bathroom w/o buying something first, have free wifi, charge your phone, use the free computer terminals, get hot water, come to events or meet your friend. We are working with Sisters of the Road to explore the possibility of accepting EBT (foodstamps/snap) from houseless folks, people over 60 and people on SSI! It's not a sure thing but we're making every effort to figure this out.
• Environmental stuff: We pick up coffee and supplies by massive, amazing bike trailer. Our produce is local, organic and bike delivered! We serve food from the lowest trophic level!
• Labor movement & co-op stuff: We're an Industrial Workers of the World closed shop (100% union members), we're worker owned, there's no boss and we're all paid the same wage for the same work. Every participates in the day to day restaurant work as well as the behind the scenes work. We act in solidarity with labor every chance we get. This includes buying authentically fair trade coffee from Equal Exchange, another worker owned co-op. We participate in regional and national worker co-op efforts through the USFederation of Worker Co-ops.

Thank you so much for your support! <3

Please donate if you can (anything helps), and share widely! If the "DONATE" button below does not take you directly to the Red & Black's PayPal page, please log in and enter "general@redandblackcafe.com" as the recipient.

Follow us on Twitter @redandblackcafe & !!!@@e2;20ac;2dc;Like' us on Facebook and get regular updates at facebook.com/redandblackcafe (please also hover over the !!!@@e2;20ac;2dc;Like' button on our page & check "show in news feed")

Stay tuned: we’re organizing a volunteer days to make major improvements to our space.

Book your event with us! This is huge; we need your awesome events! Keep in mind that we do music, film, workshops, fundraisers for cool groups, game nights, art openings etc. For selected events, we will stay open til Midnight! It's easy just go here: redandblackcafe.com/event-booking.

I just read this note from the Red & Black Cafe’s page on Facebook. If you’re not familiar, the Red & Black is a worker-owned co-operative restaurant in Portland, Oregon. The food’s all vegan; the ingredients are mostly organic, and either locally sourced or Fair Trade. The worker-owners are organized as an IWW shop, and directly manage their own workplace. It’s also an important hub for the anarchist community in Portland, providing a venue for regular talks, films, and other community events. I just sent $50; which is more than I can really afford right now, but the Red & Black, and places like it, matter. A lot. Any mutual aid you can send their way — or anyone you can tell about this situation — will really help. (The website doesn’t seem to have a post about the current situation yet; but you should be able to use the PayPal donation buttons in this post. I just attached a note to the donation asking them to put it to use wherever it would be most helpful.)

From the Red & Black collective, via Facebook:

The Red & Black is in trouble. Our finances have reached a crisis point. This situation has been brewing for many months as our cash flow slowly dried up. To be blunt: we are unable to make our mortgage payment on time and we've bounced checks to some of our vendors and staff. A couple of days ago at our collective meeting we contemplated shutting our doors for good.

So what happened? Like many other local restaurants after 4+ years of recession (depression?): we need more business. In this economy many people have less money to eat out. Our situation is compounded by the fact that we have never had anything near a comfortable amount of working capital. We attempted to raise sufficient capital during the fundraising drive we held when we decided to buy our building. While we did raise enough money to make our down payment, we were far from our goal. This left the collective financially vulnerable to the point that a slow month could bankrupt us. . . .

While there are several things we do that don't make a lot of business sense, financially, they are things we refuse to compromise on. We are welcoming to unhoused folks who often can't afford to spend money at the cafe. We make most of our food from scratch which is labor intensive and because our ingredients are (mostly) organic, they are more expensive.

We are also much more than just a restaurant. We are a community space; specifically we are a radical, queer-positive safer space; an important hub for many overlapping grassroots political projects, a cop-free zone, an amazing vegan restaurant, a music venue, a hangout and meeting space for Industrial Workers of the World union members, a low income collective household upstairs— the list goes on.

In order to meet this challenge head on we're making changes that we believe will not only avert catastrophe, but put us on a path of financial sustainability. The most dramatic and immediate change is that we've decided to work without pay until we can turn this situation around. This decision is both difficult and easy to make. Difficult because we, as individuals, can't afford it for long and because we are a closed union shop with the goal of paying ourselves a living wage. But the decision is also easy because the alternative is something none of us want: losing the Red and Black.

So we are fundraising $20,000 in donations, gift certificates and merchandise sales. This amount would not only cover our current obligations, it would mean having an adequate amount of working capital for the first time. We would be able to afford to go back to a paid wage, to purchase adequate equipment, fix the window, and keep the building. This is a crucial time for the Red and Black and we need your help! . . .

Please visit our website www.redandblackcafe.com to donate and Twitter @redandblackcafe for updates on our hours and menu. . . .

• Opportunities & Announcements... James Tuttle, On ALLiance (2010-11-02). Dear Friends, ALLies and Fellow Workers, Enrollment for C4SSdotorg!!!@@e2;20ac;26;#x2122;s Stateless University is open until November 8th.  I will be the ombudsman for Introduction to Anarchism, Bravo Section.  Check it out! If you are a member of Students for Liberty, then you have the opportunity to earn a Stateless U. scholarship. … (Linked Thursday 2010-11-04.)

• just one more time: people like ben bernanke and bill clinton. Captain Capitulation, eye of the storm (2010-11-04). just one more time: people like ben bernanke and bill clinton have no place as writers on an op-ed page. the first thing i'd ask fred hiatt or david shipley: are you satisfied that the person whose name is on the article actually wrote it? and second, if you want their point of view… (Linked Thursday 2010-11-04.)

• He ordered the torture. Marja Erwin (2010-11-04). He quibbles about whether the word applies, but brags about giving the order. All this shows that when the rulers commit atrocities, they have impunity.The ruling class is above the law.The scapegoat classes are below the law.The system creates corruption. It creates monsters. And it deflects anger away from itself… (Linked Thursday 2010-11-04.)

• Evictions or Occupations? lilprole, Modesto Anarcho (2010-10-13). People in Merced Protest eviction of homeless squatters.In Merced today, police and city workers began the eviction process of a homeless encampment that has existed for several years. Where will these people go? Many will simply go to other camps, or find shelters to go into. According to the City… (Linked Thursday 2010-11-04.)

• The Media Aren’t Liberal. Radley Balko, Radley Balko: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-11-01). For the last few months, my colleague Matt Welch has been tracking the positions of California's newspapers on Proposition 19, the ballot measure that would legalize marijuana for recreational use. At last count, 26 of the state!!!@@e2;20ac;26;#x2122;s 30 largest dailies (plus USA Today) had run editorials on the issue, and… (Linked Thursday 2010-11-04.)

• Comic Book !!!@@e2;20ac;2dc;Pirated!!!@@e2;20ac;26;#x2122; On 4Chan, Author Joins Discussion... Watches Sales Soar. Stephan Kinsella, Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (2010-11-01). A TechDirt post by Mike Masnick: Comic Book !!!@@e2;20ac;2dc;Pirated!!!@@e2;20ac;26;#x2122; On 4Chan, Author Joins Discussion... Watches Sales Soar from the connect-with-fans dept Paul Watson points us to yet another example of how engaging with fans of your work (even if, technically, they infringed on your copyrights) can lead to pretty happy… (Linked Thursday 2010-11-04.)

• Customs Officials Protect America from Wealthy Canadian Who Wanted to Spend Money Here. Radley Balko, Radley Balko: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-11-02). Canadian poker pro Terrence Chan has twice been turned away at the U.S. border by customs officials. He describes the first time, a week ago Thursday. After an hour of waiting, I made it to the front, where I was asked the usual questions. Where do I live? What do… (Linked Thursday 2010-11-04.)

• Sacramento Police Kill As More Information on Modesto Police Brutality Comes Forward. lilprole, Modesto Anarcho (2010-11-03). In a situation mimicking police murders in Stockton, Modesto, and Bakersfield, Sacramento police are coming under fire for the shooting death of a 28 year old man on October 28th. Officers stopped a man on parole, and when he “reached into his waist band,” officers claim he was reaching for… (Linked Thursday 2010-11-04.)

• Comment on Uoltajre! by Anna O. Morgenstern. Anna O. Morgenstern, Comments for Austro-Athenian Empire (2010-08-20). I'm glad you said "anarchronistic" because if you said "anachronistic" there was going to be an argument. Going back to the main topic, it seems more and more as I start to understand history and the state better, that religion has always been a bulwark for a state of some… (Linked Friday 2010-08-20.)

• Private buses make a comeback in NYC. rationalitate, Market Urbanism (2010-08-16). by Stephen Smith Transit activists have been bemoaning recent cuts in the MTA's bus routes throughout New York City, but the cuts may have a silver lining, in particular for market urbanists: they may usher in the return of private buses to the streets of New York City. Private buses… (Linked Friday 2010-08-20.)

• rabble: OH: “Ok. Te voy a let you saber si hay changes en the prioridades.” Ah spanglish. Twitter / rabble (2010-08-06). rabble: OH: “Ok. Te voy a let you saber si hay changes en the prioridades.” Ah spanglish. (Linked Friday 2010-08-20.)

• Introducing PIGPEN: Local Encounters with Police and Prisons. Modesto Anarcho!'s MySpace Blog (2010-08-07). ..Introducing PIGPEN: Local Encounters with Police and PrisonsHave you been brutalized, assulted, harassed, or abused by the Modesto or other local police departments? Modesto Anarcho Crew (MAC) is cu… (Linked Friday 2010-08-20.)

• IP in Cartoons. Peter G. Klein, Mises Economics Blog (2010-08-20). Thanks to Tim Castelle for the pointer to Nina Paley's great series of IP cartoons.Join the discussion and post a commentRelated posts:Iona College on IPThe Highway to Serfdom in CartoonsIP Comix (Linked Saturday 2010-08-21.)

• Street Slide. ignorethecode.net (2010-08-21). Usability research is awesome. (Linked Saturday 2010-08-21.)

• Diogenes' Barrel. James Tuttle, On ALLiance (2010-08-19). The always insightful and wonderful Broadsnark has asked an important question: So I guess what I'm wondering is:  Do you market anarchist types envision a world full of artisans trading labor with one another or actual employment relationships?  Do the majority of anarchists, who don't subscribe to capitalist or market… (Linked Sunday 2010-08-22.)