April 1, 2010 Yesterday, I posted a followup to my Talk of the Town story in this week’s issue about the literary hoaxes perpetrated by Tommaso Debenedetti, a freelance journalist based in Rome who fabricated interviews with Philip Roth and John Grisham. I had uncovered a third fabrication—a fake interview with Gore Vidal.
Visiting A Modern Day Slave Plantation --An Interview With Nancy A. Heitzeg (tags)
My interest in Angola is as both a paradigm of the Southern transformation of plantations into prisons and as a prototype for what we now call the prison industrial complex. Many old plantations in the South became prisons after the Civil War. Angela Y. Davis traces the initial rise of the penitentiary system to the abolition of slavery, writing: “in the immediate aftermath of slavery, the southern states hastened to develop a criminal justice system that could legally restrict the possibilities of freedom for the newly released slaves.”
“Future Without War” Author Discusses Women Nobel Laureates (tags)
Of the 789 people who have won the Nobel Prize, just 35 of them have been women. But among them are individuals with truly remarkable stories, Dr. Judith Hand told the Humanist Fellowship of San Diego at a program September 20 at the San Diego Public Library. They range from pioneering scientists Marie Curie and Barbara McClintock to writers Pearl S. Buck, Nadine Gordimer, Toni Morrison and Doris Lessing and peace activists Betty Williams, Mairead Corrigan, Aung San Suu Kyi, Rigoberta Menchú, Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi and Wangari Matthai. Dr. Hand shared some of these women's stories in the context of her own belief that more involvement of women in the public affairs of the world can lead to a future without war.
ACTION to Ensure Fairness For Mumia Abu-Jamal on NBC's The Today Show (tags)
On Dec. 6, NBC's The Today Show intends to air a show about Michael Smerconish and Maureen Faulkner's new book "Murdered By Mumia." According to the announcement on Michael Smerconish's website, the show is planning to feature both Smerconish and Faulkner as guests. The International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal (FreeMumia.com), Journalists for Mumia (Abu-Jamal-News.com), and Educators for Mumia (EmajOnline.com) have initiated a media-activist campaign urging people to write The Today Show at today@msnbc.com asking them to fairly present both sides of the Mumia Abu-Jamal / Daniel Faulkner case, by also featuring as guests, Linn Washington, Jr. (Philadelphia Tribune columnist and Associate Professor of Journalism at Temple University) and Dr. Suzanne Ross (Clinical Psychologist and Co-Chair of the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC).
Women's Art Exhibit and Writer Series (tags)
"Le Deuxieme Sexe?" Women's Art Exhibit and Writer Series at Carlotta's Passion Fine Art in Eagle Rock Chicano Studies, Women Studies, and Mexican Art History. Reina Prado's link to Calaca Press: http://www.calacapress.com/reinaaprado.html Judith Terzi Shiny Things Make Things Come Back (2002) was Ms. Terzi's first chapbook, a collection inspired, in part, by her mother's five-year long, see-saw adventure with severe vascular dementia. In her second collection, Lightning Bugs Don't Travel Westward (2004), while a few pieces relate to this illness, most are reflections on nature, transitions, institutions, or on the general political and social dementia of our times. Ms. Terzi's work has appeared in various print and online publications, including The Teacher's Voice (2005), the anthology, An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind: Poets on 9/11, Moondance (Moondance.org) . Ms. Terzi says, "While most of my poetry is in English, I do enjoy writing in French and Spanish as well. My CD, Wings of the Andes, is a blend of old and new poems. I hold an M.A. in French Literature and am a career teacher, having taught many different subject matters at every level of instruction. The highlights of my career have been teaching English and French at an American School in Algiers, Algeria; writing at California State University, Los Angeles; and French language and literature at Polytechnic School in Pasadena, California." Reviewer Comment "Judy has been quick in sensing the rhythm or beat of a poem. She can tell when a line has lost the rhythm. She has been showing a keen interest in correct usage of English language...When she recites poetry, her posture could be improved, however; she drops her head forward, and a bit to one side. She seems to enjoy creative work. - G. Metzner, Ms. Terzi's third grade teacher Kathleen Tyler Kathleen Tyler's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals including Runes, Solo, Margie, Coe Review, Visions International, Diner, and Poetry Motel. She currently teaches English at a public school in Los Angeles. Some poets who she especially likes are Marsha de la O, Larissa Szporluk, Yusef Komunyakaa, H.D., and Garcia Lorca. Kathleen's first book of poetry, The Secret Box, is forthcoming in September. Reviewer Comments The Secret Box is full of gorgeous and dangerous poems; poems with the flickering intensity of film noir; poems in which violence or tenderness -- or both -- might erupt at any moment, and do. I admire Kathleen Tyler's craft and her courage. These poems are gutsy and lyrical, risky and magical; they speak of, and to, a dark and beautiful world. - Cecilia Woloch Negotiating terrain that is both provocative and revealing, these poems leave the senses singed with formidable hope and startling clarity. - Jawanza Dumisani
E. SAN JUAN's NEW BOOK ON CLASS STRUGGLE IN THE GLOBAL CULTURAL FRONT (tags)
E. SAN JUAN's new book of essays, Working Through the Contradictions: From Cultural Theory to Critical Practice (Bucknell University Press), engages with, among other things, the problem of cultural revolution in the Philippines and the plight of the Filipino Overseas Contract Workers, the 10 million Filipino diaspora, around the world. Without revolutionary theory, as Lenin said, there cannot be any revolutionary praxis. This is a small contribution to the formation of that theory in practice.
More Than 17 Years Later, Mumia Abu-Jamal Still Guilty (tags)
Somebody aked for a bit of the overwhelming evidence aginst Cooke. Here's just a very small bit of the Mountain of it.