Dean Kuipers

Books

Operation Bite Back: Rod Coronado's War to Save American Wilderness

Passions run high when it comes to environmentalism, yet few condone the extreme tactics of such groups as the Animal Liberation Front. Los Angeles Times editor Kuipers, author of the counterculture saga Burning Rainbow Farm (2006), focuses on eco warrior, some would say eco terrorist, Rod Coronado as a key to the incendiary side of green activism. A Californian of Yaqui descent, Coronado began demonstrating in support of animal rights while still in grade school. He joined Sea Shepherd, a direct action anti-whaling group, instead of going to college, thus launching a life of illegal protest that turned him into a saboteur, arsonist, and fugitive; landed him in jail; and embroiled him in an infamous legal case that fuses freedom-of-speech issues with ramped-up domestic-terrorist laws. Coronado's outlaw adventures for the cause are electrifying, from his covert videotaping of crimes against animals to his fiery destruction of fur farms and research labs, and his spiritual and moral struggles are equally compelling and genuinely instructive. As Kuipers meticulously tracks Coronado's intense commitment to animals and eventual rejection of violence, he illuminates the tenets of deep ecology and animal rights and provides an invaluable history of radical environmentalism, a force that may gain momentum as mainstream society fails to respond to looming crises.

 

Burning Rainbow Farm

  On the Labor Day weekend before September 11, 2001 a battle for American civil liberties was taking place in a small, blue-collar town in southwestern Michigan. BURNING RAINBOW FARM: How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke (Bloomsbury) tells the gripping true story of how a peaceful campground in rural Michigan became the setting for a five-day standoff with the FBI and a battle over the role of government in our daily lives.

In 1993, Tom Crosslin and his partner Rollie Rohm opened Rainbow Farm, a well-appointed campground and concert venue with a mission: to advocate the decriminalization of marijuana. Rainbow Farm festivals featured top entertainers like Tommy Chong and drew over 5000 blue-collar libertarians, hippie liberals, evangelicals, and even the occasional militiaman. Ambitious Tom, gentle Rollie, and their crew loved America but they didn't like its War on Drugs. The duo had never dealt pot; they made their money in real estate, but their pro-pot stance put them at odds with the local authorities. When Rainbow Farm festivals began drawing big crowds and helped launch a popular statewide ballot initiative to change marijuana laws, those authorities began an all-out campaign to get seize the farm as property used for "drug crime."

Finally, in May 2001, Tom and Rollie were arrested for growing marijuana in their home, and Rollie's 11-year-old son was placed in foster care. Their anger mounted, and on the Friday of Labor Day Weekend, Tom and Rollie didn't show up for a court date. They knew that if they were jailed, they'd lose the farm to the restrictive Drug War forfeiture laws. So the state's two best-known hippies holed up at Rainbow Farm and defiantly burned the deluxe property to the ground. County officials called the FBI, and within five days Tom and Rollie were dead. The FBI claims both men pointed their weapons first. Eyewitnesses say otherwise.

Dean Kuipers investigates exactly what happened during the years leading up to that explosive weekend. Through interviews with friends, family, law enforcement officials and farm employees, Kuipers tells their whole story for the first time, which was obscured by the events of September 11. Americans of all political stripes discuss the role of government and our personal freedoms; BURNING RAINBOW FARM is a celebration of a utopian dream and a sober warning for our times.

 

 

I Am A Bullet

  The title of this mélange of journalism, cultural critique, and pop art comes directly from the mouth of the only man who has ever traveled close to the speed of sound without a vehicle. In 1960, Captain Joseph Kittinger jumped from a helium balloon almost 20 miles up, with 99 percent of the earth's atmosphere beneath him. He plummeted at 614 mph, but strangely, felt nothing. Until his senses reoriented themselves, he thought he was floating.

Right now, according to the creators of this intriguing book, acceleration is the main event. It is "the prime physical, technological and even spiritual engine of this moment." The question the book tries to answer is, How do we experience speed? To find out, the author and photographer went on-site to document 10 subcultures that particularly embody the strategy of constant movement as an effort to get outside of time. Probing essays and photo collages examine public auctions, which feed on the increasing frenzy of consumerism, and the infamously speedy Japanese youth culture, where individualistic critique is emerging for the first time and identity is up for grabs. Truckers become a rolling metaphor for America as they constantly fail to escape from time. Demolition derby drivers look for raw catharsis. And in clock-free Las Vegas, "no time is good time and good time is lucky." Then there is the pandemic of gangs on the Sioux reservations in South Dakota, an idea introduced through media bombardment. This is not necessarily easy reading (the typeface itself is often tiny), but it does offer fascinating insight into the American mythological terrain of becoming (which requires perpetual motion) and the consequences of "constantly treading water at the surface of change." -- Lesley Reed, Amazon.com

 

 

Ray Gun: Out of Control

   Since the publication of its first issue in 1992, Ray Gun has set the perimeters of the cutting edge in publishing. Abandoning such conventions as headlines, columns, and even page numbers, the alternative rock-and-roll magazine created a chaotic, abstract style that broke all the rules, clearing the way for a slew of fringe magazines devoted as much to style as to substance. This self-consciously hip, unconventional approach soon emerged on album covers, concert posters, and MTV, signaling the birth of a bona fide movement. The same irreverent approach to production is applied to Ray Gun: Out of Control, forcing you to wade through a maze of random graphics and typefaces to unearth the articles and essays. The search is half the fun, though, as the pieces are enough to capture your interest, even against the backdrop of so much graphic noise. -- Amazon.com

 

In 1992, Ray Gun, an alternative rock-and-roll magazine, earned a reputation for radical graphic presentation that so challenged the conventions of legibility that its texts were reduced to textures.
Its raucous graphic design set the standard for a kind of hip style of typographic tomfoolery that soon became the rave with countless other alternative-culture publications and on posters, packages and music videos. The traditional type hierarchies -- headlines, subheads, body text and page numbers -- were rejected in favor of unrelenting
randomness. Text was allowed to bleed off the page in the middle of a paragraph, and in one issue an entire article was printed backward in an illegible typeface. Ray Gun's first art director, David Carson, and his small army of designers made pages that were more like Abstract Expressionist canvases than magazine layouts. Rather than communicate ideas, they created auras that gave an impression of expression. The magazine was the harbinger of visual codes for the post-baby-boom generation, and it remains the granddaddy of edgy
graphic magazines as well as a document of its time. But RAY GUN: Out of Control (Simon & Schuster, $45), a celebratory compendium of covers and pages from the magazine and its sister publications, Bikini, Blah Blah Blah, huH and Stick, is not the best way to document this trend. This book, edited by Dean Kuipers and Chris Ashworth, looks more like a collection of printers' errors than a book. And although the
graphics are punctuated by interesting essays on the magazine's brief history, they are lost amid the confusing morass of type and image. Now that the Ray Gun style has been adapted for mainstream television and print advertisements, this assemblage is more confusing than outrageous.-- Steven Heller, The New York Times Book Review

 

 

The Contenders

Laura Flanders, Richard Goldstein,
Dean Kuipers, James Ridgeway,
Eli Sanders, and Dan Savage

A provocative and unflinching look at 2008's Democratic Presidential contenders—who will win, lose, jockey for power, and call the shots from the sidelines.

Six forward-thinking commentators followed the candidates, attended fundraisers, sifted through the volumes of information and hype, and saw things no one else is seeing—or reporting. This surprising collection includes insights into Clinton's early Republican days, and how feminists really feel about her; an unusual perspective on Obama, contrasting his "soft" brand of masculinity with a machismo that dominated contemporary politics and popular culture (i.e. George W. Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eminem) just a few years ago; a voyage into the Al Gore media machinery and why he's so much more powerful on the sidelines; an unveiling of Edwards's real source of policy—and personal wealth accumulation; a retrospective view on Kucinich's ability to stand up to big business and political corruption; and an insider's look at the "also-rans"—Biden, Richardson, Dodd—who are jockeying for power in the next administration, and at Mike Gravel, the gadfly whom everyone is talking about, but no one will vote for.


LAURA FLANDERS (on Hillary Clinton), the host of RadioNation on Air America Radio, is the author of Blue Grit: Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians and Bushwomen: How They Won the White House for Their Man. RICHARD GOLDSTEIN (on Barack Obama), a veteran commentator on culture, politics, and sexuality, is the author of Homocons: The Rise of the Gay Right. DEAN KUIPERS (on Al Gore), an editor at the Los Angeles Times, is the author of Burning Rainbow Farm: How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke. JAMES RIDGEWAY (on Edwards, Biden, Dodd, Richardson and Gravel) is Mother Jones's Washington, DC, bureau chief and author of The Five Unanswered Questions about 9/11. DAN SAVAGE (on Dennis Kucinich with Eli Sanders) is the author of the internationally syndicated sex column "Savage Love" and the editor of The Stranger, Seattle 's weekly newspaper. ELI SANDERS is a senior staff writer for The Stranger.

 

 

Red State Rebels

A Red States rebellion is breaking out. It’s been going on for some time. The stakes are high and the odds are long. And the battles are waged over the essentials of life: water, food, wilderness, and human liberty.

Out here there are no fixed blueprints for resistance. No organizational flow charts for how to plot a rebellion. No focus groups or pulse polls or field-tested PR strategies or genteel formalities for grant applications. Marx would be confused. The human spirit is the best guide.

When Peabody Coal announces its intention to evict your grandmother, dynamite her hogan and strip-mine the family sheep pasture, you don’t have time to consult Weiden and Kennedy for how to spin it to your advantage or wait around for a year on the infinitesimal chance that Pew Charitable Trusts might drop you a few bucks. You must act. As a group if you can, unilaterally if necessary. Militantly if you must.

The resistance isn’t always about revolution; it’s about maintaining a semblance of dignity in a world where such a thing is in short supply.

This book offers just a few snapshots of the grassroots resistance taking place in the forgotten heartland of America. These are tales of rebellion and courage. Out here activism isn’t for the faint of heart. Be thankful someone is willing to do the dirty work.

To Learn More about the book please visit, RedStateRebels.org