In early October of 2009, Malcolm McLaren was nearing death but didn’t know it yet.

Last night, two American icons lent support to the Occupy Wall Street movement, speaking at a protest held outside of Lincoln Center in New York City.  After a performance of Satyagraha at the Met, Philip Glass spoke to demonstrators.

Occupy Wall Street and the global Occupy Movement have inspired some striking artwork. Graphic artists from around the world (including Shepard Fairey mentioned here earlier today) have contributed their talents to the movement.

Shepard Fairey’s famous 2008 Obama “Hope” poster has been the source of countless imitations and parodies. Last week Fairey released his own parody for Occupy Wall Street, replacing Obama’s head with a hooded figure in a Guy Fawkes mask, along with the words, “Mister President, We HOPE You’re On Our Side.

Los Angeles has long been known as the street mural capital of the world. But in the past few years the city has painted over more than 300 murals, according to the Los Angeles Times, enforcing a decade-old ordinance that makes it a crime to create murals on most private properties.

Pepper spray students in the face on Friday, and you wake up the face of evil on Saturday. Then, the brunt of some clever jokes on Monday. Look! There’s Lieutenant John Pike popping into the famous painting, The Spirit of ’76, and macing a wounded soldier while he’s down. That’s low.

It’s becoming a trend. Around the country, policemen are pepper spraying peaceful protestors. It started in NYC when Tony Bologna, one of New York’s finest, pepper sprayed a group of young women already cordoned off by a police barrier. Next they managed to get an 84 year old woman in Seattle.

Werner Herzog doesn’t work under any illusions. In this Studio Q interview, the filmmaker tells Jian Ghomeshi that “movies don’t change things.” “Even influential documentaries like Inside Job “do not really change the course of our lives.

Back in 2008, Annie Leonard produced The Story of Stuff (see below), a 20-minute animated film that explores the way our consumerist habits take a toll on the environment and sustainability. The video racked up millions of views on YouTube, and now Leonard returns with the second video in a longer series.

A quick fyi: To mark Remembrance Day, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has made Claude Guilmain’s documentary The Van Doos in Afghanistan available online for a limited time. You can watch it free until Monday.