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Upstate Renegade Productions/Sensitize © Equipment Wishlist:

CANON XH-A1 HDV Camcorder or advanced device x 3

28" Hanns-G HG281DP Widescreen Monitor

Edirol R-09 High Resolution Digital Voice Recorder 24-bit WAVE/MP3 x4

preferred device

Edirol R-4 Field Recorder x 4

Right click here and select Open in a New Window to listen to the new EP CD single Empty Space by our dear friends and resident band - 3rd Rock Revolution as you read

Right click here and select Open in a New Window to listen to the new EP CD single Put On Ya Boots by our dear friends and resident band - 3rd Rock Revolution as you read

Upstate Renegade Productions/Sensitize © Equipment Wishlist (continued):

Olympus ME-51S Stereo Microphone x 12

MANFROTTO KIT TWO -055XDB,804RC2
Weight 2.85 Kg
Maximun Capacity: 4.9 Kg
Closed length: 73 cm
Max Height: 190 cm
Min Height: 60 cm x3

studio lights x6

Sennheiser HD215 Closed Back Headphone x 8

AMD Slipstream Dual Core x32

£25,000.00 seed money for script-in-hand shoots pre-production - new works

The Legalise Cannabis Alliance have given sponsorship-in-kind to Healing Herbs (a medical cannabis information film) by publishing updates about the show on their forum.

Upstate Renegade Productions produced the animated banner for the Mark Thomas Info website to say thanks for their assistance with the post production of Healing Herbs. Please note that by clicking or double-clicking the first banner above, you will be taken to the Mark Thomas Info website.

Please note that by clicking or double-clicking the banner up above you will be taken to the bluegreenearth.com domain and homepage which is facilitated by Tim Barton and colleagues. Why not bookmark us in your favourites folder and visit us again?

Upstate Renegade Productions adapted the above animated banner from an original by Tim Barton for Bluegreenearth (BGE). This was to say thanks for their assistance with the post production research of Healing Herbs. This is also to say thanks to Tim for taking time out of his heavy schedule to be interviewed for the Sensitize e-magazine.

Thank you.

Welcome to: UPSTATE RENEGADE PRODUCTIONS © Edition One - October/December 2008. Editor - Louis P. Burns aka Lugh © All rights reserved.

YOU WILL NEED TO DOWNLOAD THE LATEST VERSION OF FLASH PLAYER
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Defining Censorship
By Louis P. Burns aka Lugh © 2008. All rights reserved.

I would be very interested in members of Sensitize © participating in this discussion or possibly debate with an aim to clearly defining censorship and all that it is or represents. So, if any of you have ever felt yourselves silenced by a larger group because you hold or believe in a different view on any topic you care to mention, this may be the very thread for you to direct any opinions or thoughts you may have on the matter. The aim of this thread on Sensitize © is to explore all that censorship is in a friendly and productive way so try and keep insults to a minimum. That does not mean you cannot argue or express anger at continuing censorship if it frustrates you or if you have been on the recieving end of censorship. The point here being that you may have a valid point that you are addressing. It is worth stating that this does not mean you can make threats of violence towards other people posting to here without my asking you to clarify what you mean.

Censorship can take many forms. You may be an artist, filmaker or writer who rather than gaining support and recognition for your craft, skills and work have been told it is too controversial therefore won't be getting displayed, published or reviewed. You could have been a political prisoner living under a military regime or in a government state of oppression and jailed for nothing more than asking why there are oppressive measures in place. You might have been a combattant against such military regimes and been imprisoned for nothing more than self-defence. Perhaps you are a female who has been treated differently or denied access to equality because the males around you have decided that no matter how individual or talented you are, you are still a woman and must behave in a way they believe women should. You may be a bisexual, gay, lesbian or transgendered person who has been shunned in society for simply expressing yourself or your love for your partner. You might have questioned or spoken out against a religious doctrine and been silenced for it under the crazy notion that your 'god' might be offended. You might be someone from an ethnic group or race who has been turned down for employment because the manager believes your working in their environment may annoy or infuriate the rest of the workforce. I'm almost certain that as this thread develops and censorship is discussed other examples will come into view.

Currently there are massive campaigns against the wars with Afghanistan and Iraq. People have been kidnapped from these countries and flown, under a system known as 'extraordinary rendition', to American detention centres and prisons like Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. They have been battered, beaten, denied access to legal representation, force-fed, murdered, shackled in chains and tortured by intelligence officers and soldiers because they have become the suspects of religious extremism or fanaticism against the British and U.S. administration and governments since the 9/11 attacks in New York. It may be a fair comment at this point to say that neither Afghanistan or Iraq had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks, but George W. Bush made a mess of his first 4 years that he had to start all over. Afghans and Iraqis, indeed Muslims from several lands became a convenient target in his campaign to be re-elected and his contempt for anything non-American. He more or less used these detainees through rendition flights to boost his 'popularity'. He truly is the figurehead of censorship and neo/new fascism in the world and an exceedingly dangerous dictator. Interestingly enough, he too uses censorship to darken the names of anyone opposed to him and one clear example that springs immediately to mind is or was the former leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. Another would be Osama Bin Laden. Now in the dying days of his disgusting regime and just before Barack Obama takes control, we have the genocide of Palestinians at the hands of an American/British armed Israel in Gaza and all news reports are heavily censored prior to broadcast...

Censorship is nothing new. The British under the Conservative government led by the war criminal Margaret Thatcher in the latter part of the 20th century enforced a media blackout on anyone identifying as or representing Irish Republicans. In effect her government silenced over one third of Northern Ireland's population and perhaps all of the Irish Republic's population simply because she thought they were a danger to all things 'British.' So censorship is a tool used by those 'in power' to maintain their power. In tandem with heavy-handed military thugs (armies/police personnel) a government can silence whole populations through the powers of arrest, intimidation and murder, while lying to the rest of the world through the media and claiming they are winning hearts and minds.

Tony Blair and now Gordon Brown as leaders of New Labour have perfected the 'art of censorship' as part of their leadership and one has to look very closely to see they're still worthless lying scum. Every now and then however the real truth gets through as was the case recently when News of the World reporters caught this footage of British soldiers kicking the crap out of children in Basra, Iraq. This one really annoyed me. Not only is the footage brutal but check out the enthusiasm and zeal of the reporters (British) who sound like they are revelling in seeing these kids battered:-

^ British Army Animals..!

Before this series of webpages develops fully I would like to acknowledge an activist, civil and human rights campaigner, comedian and author. His name is Mark Thomas and he has worked tirelessly to address and overthrow many of the liberties censorship has destroyed or set about ruining.

Up until the summer of last year I was an active member of his online forum sited here; http://www.markthomasinfo.com/forum/login.asp?target=default.asp and topics like censorship were discussed by several members, myself included. Whether Mark has any control over the content on the forum or the members' posting to it isn't as yet clear to me but the administrator, a man called Jeff Jenkins aka Plucker kicked me out for daring to insinuate that another member was behaving like a representative of the English nationalist, fascist and racist British political party known as the BNP. The BNP are affiliated to Combat 18 and the National Front both of whom are terrorist groups who have been involved in several hate crimes against anyone non-British. I'm not going to deny that I did say a member on the forum was behaving like a member of the BNP, but it was after that same member implied that I was a terrorist simply because I spoke out against the above footage and drew similarities with what they did in that footage and what they did for years here in Northern Ireland. I'm sure anyone from Ireland, especially Northern Ireland where I come from, who lived under the brutal military regime of Margaret Thatcher will know that being called a terrorist is perhaps the most offensive thing that could be said about them. The anger in me about all of this spilled over onto the Mark Thomas mailing list or the 'List', and I was further subjected to more of the same censorship and by several other people, some of whom may have been members of the forum, many of whom had no reason to attack me.

It is however highly important to point out at this stage that Mark Thomas and his crew are activists with a very unique approach to and brand of campaigning. They carry out publicity stunts and use the media to highlight injustices like censorship while ridiculing authoritarian doctrines or dictatorships. They are also well aware that I am a trained performer and community arts activist, and possibly thought I would run with them in a campaign to address the entire nature of censorship. At least, I sincerely hope this is the case and I was not really on the recieving end of censorship, fascism or racism, because that would mean my having to make it all public knowledge, including the email exchanges, and very possibly ruin every good deed Mark Thomas and his crew have ever done.

So Mark, if you ever get to read this or wish to comment, can you please clarify that what happened to me was one of you and your crew's pranks / stunts and that none of it was meant to do harm but was an exercise and exploration in defining censorship? Thanks...

under occupation
By Louis P. Burns aka Lugh © 2008. All rights reserved.

sometimes i still wonder about it all
the news reports on the television
poor souls shot dead while resisting arrest
or escaping the menacing clutch of police
who all too frequently discharged weapons
rather than calm or pacify people
a suspect device found by kids at play
defused or made safe, whatever that meant
doors booted in by british soldiers at night
folk we knew dragged away for questioning
some jailed for years or never seen again
tears rolling down the faces of their mothers

hunger strikes, blanket protests, shit on walls
media blackouts, censorship, chaos, death...

Defining Censorship - An Unfortunate Update (Mark Thomas Info website)

Sensitize © E-Magazine Edition One Main Menu
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Louis P. Burns aka Lugh (the owner of this wonderful website catering to artists, filmakers and writers) drinks loads of coffee, stays up 22 hours a day providing this service and believes in reinventing the art of busking for the digital age. Buy the poor soul a coffee and if you're feeling extra generous, a doughnut. Go on. You know it makes sense.

Thanks :)

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