Adrian McCarthy's Blog

This year I added one major project, the “Head” Stone, to my Halloween cemetery. In the last few days, I realized that I’d not made use of one of the new projectors I’d bought, so I also put together a video loop to project onto a portion of the house. Sorry that the video quality isn’t as good as usual.

A Trip to the Porch 2014 from Adrian on Vimeo.

It’s been one year since we started to learn the extent to which our government is surveilling us with massive, dragnet programs. There were hints before, but the government and the mainstream press actively suppressed the whistle-blowers who tried to warn us. Each revelation was met with denials and deflections, but each new revelation has been more damning than the last. And the revelations still continue a year after the story finally broke.

I believe these programs to be illegal, unconstit...

The government’s widespread surveillance of its own people is illegal, unconstitutional, dangerous to democracy, and bad for the economy. Let your representatives know that they’ve gone too far. Demand laws to curtail these unconscionable programs. Remind your reps that they swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America.

This year’s Halloween graveyard was a success, especially the new tombstone and monument—watch closely. It’s nice to see our neighborhood getting more and more trick-or-treaters. It was also fun to see so many chaperoning parents enjoy the cemetery ambiance.

A Trip to the Porch (2013) from Adrian on Vimeo.

I’ve started a whitehouse.gov petition to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Joseph Nacchio, the CEO of Qwest Communications, who was the only telecom CEO to say no to the warrantless wiretapping program back in 2001. Instead of being recognized for his bravery to stand up to the government’s illegal requests, his company was penalized by the loss of key government contracts.

An interesting thing to note is that Nacchio was approached about joining the illegal program in February, 2001...

And funny. And true. Check it out and add your name to the petition.

Dear J.J. Abrams

One of my pet peeves is backwards apostrophes, so you could imagine my discomfort when I walked into a store with these signs posted all over. I had to leave the store.

How does a big national chain make an error like this on such a grand scale? You’d think an error like that would jump out at the graphic artist who made the signs. Presumably a big marketing campaign has an approval chain. Did nobody spot the error?

Of course, the real problem is the so-called “smart” quotes feature of most wor...

Inspired by this story on boingboing.net, I’ve started my first whitehouse.gov petition.

One challenge of trying to set my stories in real settings is the fact that the real world keeps changing. Today, an East Bay landmark was demolished.

WarrenHallFall from Adrian on Vimeo.

I support the efforts of EFF and the Internet Defense League to stop massive government surveillance of us. I encourage you to sign the petitions and call your representatives (dial 1-STOP-323-NSA for tips on what to say, and then get connected to your representatives).

Independence Day is an excellent time to exercise your freedom and to Restore the 4th.