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Arts & Culture
"No Innocent Bystanders," by Mickey Z
Published by CWG Press, Sept. 2008
Well, I told my wife the other day, a book has to be perfect, or I won't read it.
Ruth looked at me and her eyes said, I knew you were a piece of garbage the day I met you, you, you arrogant neo-Nebraska a-hole ... the last twenty-six, seven, eight years have been wasted.
She said, "What?"
I said, you know, I have to like it. So do you. That's what everybody does.
Well, Mickey Z's book is not perfect, but I like it.
I think you will too.
It is organized sort of like a Michael Moore book.
Part of the organization are lists of species we have lost, along with chapters on various musings, like Mickey has dumped his pockets of all the notes he made while spending the day on the subway, walking around the city sitting in the park with pigeons on his knees, watching, making notes.
Mickey Zezima harbors deep observations of Americans and America. It is our luck that he chooses to share them.
They go to the root, perhaps like Ted Rall, maybe Dorothy Day.
Published by CWG Press, Sept. 2008
Well, I told my wife the other day, a book has to be perfect, or I won't read it.
Ruth looked at me and her eyes said, I knew you were a piece of garbage the day I met you, you, you arrogant neo-Nebraska a-hole ... the last twenty-six, seven, eight years have been wasted.
She said, "What?"
I said, you know, I have to like it. So do you. That's what everybody does.
Well, Mickey Z's book is not perfect, but I like it.
I think you will too.
It is organized sort of like a Michael Moore book.
Part of the organization are lists of species we have lost, along with chapters on various musings, like Mickey has dumped his pockets of all the notes he made while spending the day on the subway, walking around the city sitting in the park with pigeons on his knees, watching, making notes.
Mickey Zezima harbors deep observations of Americans and America. It is our luck that he chooses to share them.
They go to the root, perhaps like Ted Rall, maybe Dorothy Day.
Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated 40 years ago this month at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Sirhan B. Sirhan, a 24 year old immigrant, is the alleged lone gunman and is presently serving a life sentence.
In a new book, An Open and Shut Case, Dr. Robert Joling and Philip Van Praag have joined a growing list of people who don't believe that Sirhan acted alone.
Joling and Van Praag, both forensic scientists, claim that after analyzing audio recordings of the assassination they have concluded that at least 13 shots were fired. The handgun Sirhan used only had the capacity to fire eight shots. They believe that there were two guns and that the fatal shot came from behind Robert Kennedy, while witnesses claim that Sirhan was in front of Kennedy. According to a March 27, 2008 ABC report by Pierre Thomas, Joling claims, "It can be established conclusively that Sirhan did not shoot Senator Kennedy. And in fact not only did he not do it, he could not have done it."
In a new book, An Open and Shut Case, Dr. Robert Joling and Philip Van Praag have joined a growing list of people who don't believe that Sirhan acted alone.
Joling and Van Praag, both forensic scientists, claim that after analyzing audio recordings of the assassination they have concluded that at least 13 shots were fired. The handgun Sirhan used only had the capacity to fire eight shots. They believe that there were two guns and that the fatal shot came from behind Robert Kennedy, while witnesses claim that Sirhan was in front of Kennedy. According to a March 27, 2008 ABC report by Pierre Thomas, Joling claims, "It can be established conclusively that Sirhan did not shoot Senator Kennedy. And in fact not only did he not do it, he could not have done it."
We can't just think we voted and hope we voted. We have to know we voted. And, under present circumstances, most people have no clue as to whether they voted or not. –Journalist Lynn Landes, in STEALING AMERICA
The most difficult part of making a quilt takes place inside the creator's imagination, before she ever picks up her scissors. Every step is meticulously planned; each thread, scrap, color, design, and texture has a specific role to play in the overall scheme. The skill of the quilter emerges in how well the overall design holds together, and how it connects the disparate elements into a unique and aesthetic whole.
STEALING AMERICA is just such a quilt and Dorothy Fadiman is the master artisan. She pieces together an incredible number of details to give us a stunning new perspective on what has been happening to our elections. What we might have originally thought were random events are, in fact, critical parts of an almost invisible but comprehensive plan to subvert democracy by systematically disenfranchising millions of us voters.
The most difficult part of making a quilt takes place inside the creator's imagination, before she ever picks up her scissors. Every step is meticulously planned; each thread, scrap, color, design, and texture has a specific role to play in the overall scheme. The skill of the quilter emerges in how well the overall design holds together, and how it connects the disparate elements into a unique and aesthetic whole.
STEALING AMERICA is just such a quilt and Dorothy Fadiman is the master artisan. She pieces together an incredible number of details to give us a stunning new perspective on what has been happening to our elections. What we might have originally thought were random events are, in fact, critical parts of an almost invisible but comprehensive plan to subvert democracy by systematically disenfranchising millions of us voters.
Descent Into Chaos – The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Ahmed Rashid. Viking (Penguin) New York, 2008.
Count my vote – a citizen's guide to voting by Steven Rosenfeld
Forewarned is Forearmed
AlterNet has been around for the last ten years, bringing its millions of monthly readers the latest in award-winning, independent, investigative journalism and doing the job the traditional media abdicated long ago. This spring, they branched out and AlterNet Books was born. Count My Vote – a Citizen's Guide To Voting is one of their first offerings, written and compiled by Steven Rosenfeld, an AlterNet Senior Fellow who specializes in democracy and elections. He co-authored several books on the 2004 election including What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election (New Press) and Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election? (Columbus Institute of Contemporary Journalism). As a result of Rosenfeld's extensive research into what went wrong in 2004, there are few people in a better position to write the voter education guide, Count My Vote, which will hit the bookstores later this month. This is a combination sneak preview and interview with its author.
Why did you write Count My Vote?
Forewarned is Forearmed
AlterNet has been around for the last ten years, bringing its millions of monthly readers the latest in award-winning, independent, investigative journalism and doing the job the traditional media abdicated long ago. This spring, they branched out and AlterNet Books was born. Count My Vote – a Citizen's Guide To Voting is one of their first offerings, written and compiled by Steven Rosenfeld, an AlterNet Senior Fellow who specializes in democracy and elections. He co-authored several books on the 2004 election including What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election (New Press) and Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election? (Columbus Institute of Contemporary Journalism). As a result of Rosenfeld's extensive research into what went wrong in 2004, there are few people in a better position to write the voter education guide, Count My Vote, which will hit the bookstores later this month. This is a combination sneak preview and interview with its author.
Why did you write Count My Vote?
To the credit of producers Guy Jacobson and Adi Ezroni, “Holly” is not “Pretty Baby.” Although it’s a movie about child prostitution, there’s no nudity, sex, or violence or Hollywood glitz. The gritty and realistic feel of the movie and the sordid world of child sexual trafficking results from the fact that it was shot on location in Camodia, with many scenes filmed in actual brothels.
The story itself concerns Patrick (Ron Livingston), a ne’er-do-well low-grade card shark who works on the side in stolen artifacts, until he meets the 12-year-old Holly (Thuy Nguyen). Holly’s been sold by her impoverished Vietnamese peasant family and smuggled into Cambodia. Her initial market value is tied directly to negotiating the price of her virginity a la “Pretty Baby,” but that’s where the similarities end.
The story itself concerns Patrick (Ron Livingston), a ne’er-do-well low-grade card shark who works on the side in stolen artifacts, until he meets the 12-year-old Holly (Thuy Nguyen). Holly’s been sold by her impoverished Vietnamese peasant family and smuggled into Cambodia. Her initial market value is tied directly to negotiating the price of her virginity a la “Pretty Baby,” but that’s where the similarities end.
I’m not sure I can remember exactly where I first met Ann Feeney. Suffix it to be that Annie is the epitome of Preacher Casey in Steinbach’s great novel, “Salt of the Earth.” I know I saw her at Ravenswood, at Camp Solidarity in western Virginia, at the big steelworker rally at the WCI strike in Youngstown and at the Newport News strike. I could go on and on, but it really is true; wherever worker’s struggle for justice, it’s there you’ll find Ann Feeney!
As much as Ann’s singing for justice for working folks is a labor of love, she recently pointed out that it’s also a family tradition. At a recent show in Cleveland, Annie stated that she’d gotten a grant from the Pennsylvania Labor History Society to study, collect information on her grandfather, a hellraising Irish immigrant union leader and an associate of the great William Z. Foster. As she pointed out, what could be better than fighting for justice, singing along and getting paid to study your granddaddy?
As much as Ann’s singing for justice for working folks is a labor of love, she recently pointed out that it’s also a family tradition. At a recent show in Cleveland, Annie stated that she’d gotten a grant from the Pennsylvania Labor History Society to study, collect information on her grandfather, a hellraising Irish immigrant union leader and an associate of the great William Z. Foster. As she pointed out, what could be better than fighting for justice, singing along and getting paid to study your granddaddy?
The Three Trillion Dollar War – The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict.
Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes.
W.W. Norton & Company, N.Y. 2008.
Following on their previous pronouncement that war costs could amount to as much as 1 trillion to 2 trillion dollars, ten times more than even then previously thought [1], Stiglitz and Bilmes have furthered their research into the cost of the war with their new title The Three Trillion Dollar War. But it isn’t – three trillion dollars that is. More than likely it will be much higher, as this "realistic-moderate" appraisal is continually described as conservative, with comments about always using the conservative numbers and even discounting certain costs as they could not be properly quantified. The "full tally" indicates "the numbers that we believe (conservatively) best captures the costs of the Iraq venture, even without counting interest – the total for Iraq alone is more then $4 trillion; including Afghanistan, it increases to $5 trillion."
Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes.
W.W. Norton & Company, N.Y. 2008.
Following on their previous pronouncement that war costs could amount to as much as 1 trillion to 2 trillion dollars, ten times more than even then previously thought [1], Stiglitz and Bilmes have furthered their research into the cost of the war with their new title The Three Trillion Dollar War. But it isn’t – three trillion dollars that is. More than likely it will be much higher, as this "realistic-moderate" appraisal is continually described as conservative, with comments about always using the conservative numbers and even discounting certain costs as they could not be properly quantified. The "full tally" indicates "the numbers that we believe (conservatively) best captures the costs of the Iraq venture, even without counting interest – the total for Iraq alone is more then $4 trillion; including Afghanistan, it increases to $5 trillion."
The new imperialists – Ideologies of Empire
Ed. Colin Mooers.
Oneworld Publications, Oxford, England. 2006.
Ed. Colin Mooers.
Oneworld Publications, Oxford, England. 2006.
There Will Be Blood
Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
There Will Be Blood, the latest from director Paul Thomas Anderson and adapted from Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel, Oil!, concerns the rise and descent of ruthless oil baron, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis). It is, on one hand, a visually stark look at the machinations of American capitalism, as represented by the misanthropic Plainview. On the other hand, its failure is rooted in the lack of historical exposition that gives insight of how a miserable, scheming tycoon came to be. The film resorts to the ultimately simplistic notion of "innate evil" or "human nature" instead of attempting to examine social or economic relations explored in Sinclair's novel.
Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
There Will Be Blood, the latest from director Paul Thomas Anderson and adapted from Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel, Oil!, concerns the rise and descent of ruthless oil baron, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis). It is, on one hand, a visually stark look at the machinations of American capitalism, as represented by the misanthropic Plainview. On the other hand, its failure is rooted in the lack of historical exposition that gives insight of how a miserable, scheming tycoon came to be. The film resorts to the ultimately simplistic notion of "innate evil" or "human nature" instead of attempting to examine social or economic relations explored in Sinclair's novel.