"Sometimes there's a video camera around."

Check out this story!!

Check out Cop Watch LA!

Che said, "Silence is argument carried out by other means."

There are many ways to understand Che's words, aren't there? I am thinking today of those whose suicides are silent arguments, those who stop talking because their words cannot be heard, and those who are silenced so that their words will not be heard.

Ward Churchill is definitely not a silent guy. The effort to fire him from the Univ. of Colorado is in its final weeks. The CU president has recommended that Ward Churchill be dismissed, and the precedent this sets worries me a great deal. The value of tenure, as I see it, is to afford a scholar who has demonstrated the abilities to produce quality work and teach effectively the intellectual freedom to pursue research and instructional projects that might otherwise seem risky, for political or other reasons. Many young academics are afraid to touch certain tough topics until they have the job security tenure affords. I am sympathetic to the concerns of those who criticize the tenure system for protecting professors who abandon their students or run on "autopilot" after tenure. I worry whether the tenure system will reward and protect only the quiet and not those whose work advances positions that might be seen by those in power as offensive or seditious.

A while back, my senior colleague Peggy Mills shared with me some moving words by the late Ken Cmiel, professor of history and Director of UI's Center for Human Rights. Cmiel, who passed away in February of 2006 from an undetected brain tumor, gave the following advice to academics:

"Teach classes that are meaningful to you and that engage that portion of your students that are reachable... Only write what you want to write. Once you have job security (which I know is a huge barrier) don't write if you don't want to. Write for media directed at non-historians, whether that be the local newspaper or fancy national magazines. Write for other academic disciplines...Ignoring what the profession rewards might very well be a mark of sanity at the close of the twentieth century."

That quote comes from the 2005-2006 Annual Progress Report of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies. I am not waiting for job security though, because it seems to me that our lives are too short and tomorrow, as Mos Def reminds us, may never come. Plus, when it really comes down to it, I'm an awful lot happier when I care about what I'm doing. Aren't you?

Speaking of Mos Def, here's a brief musical interlude dedicated to Earlesha, who also loves this song.
Isn't that great?

It seems to me that the struggle to speak out and our struggles for collective survival are inextricably linked. Our sisters and brothers who are sequestered away and silenced, out of view and forgotten, abandoned and reviled face enormous obstacles when it comes to reaching us with their pleas, their protests, and their cries of desperation. How little we do, really, to hear them... how seldom, really, we extend ourselves...

I read this story about the Guantanamo prisoner whom we are told killed himself. We know they are there. And we have heard this sort of thing before. It was around this time last year when I wrote about 17 yr. old Yasser al-Zahrani, who was one of the captives at Guantanamo who reportedly committed suicide. The spin at the time, which was articulated by the prison commander and which defined these deaths as acts of "asymmetric warfare," remains stunning to me.

I am thinking a lot about the connections between police, prisons, and military lately. We had an Abu Ghraib abuser who'd worked at SCI Green (where Mumia Abu Jamal is held), we have the private firm Blackwater's operations, of course, and we have a carceral regime that extends far beyond the scope of the little data box you see to the right near the top of my blog. 2,276,778 may be in U.S. prisons right now, but does that include the immigrants held in Hutto, the folks in U.S. prisons in Guantanamo and Iraq, and the unknown held in unknown facilities?

Some folks engage in more direct critiques of these connections, such as the suicide bomber who killed 25 people in an attack of a police recruiting facility in Fallujah today.

And the blowback is felt far and wide, such as when cops, prison guards, and soldiers kill family members or commit suicide.

Stacy Bannerman writes:

Emotional isolation is one of the hallmarks of post-combat mental health problems. The National Guard didn't conduct follow-up mental health screening or evaluations of the men in my husband's company until they had been home for almost eight months. Nearly a year later, in August of 2006, my husband was informed of his results: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It was obvious that he was suffering, but when I brought it up, he parroted what the military told him: "Give it time."

Time wasn't a panacea for Jeffrey Lucey, Doug Barber, or the dozens of other Guard members and Reservists who have committed suicide after serving in Iraq. Time hasn't helped the hundreds of homeless Iraq War veterans wandering lost in the streets of what military families are assured is a deeply grateful nation. Time is most definitely not on our side.

My husband has served his time with the Guard. He's got more than twenty-three years of actual service, and almost twenty years of "good time" that qualifies him for retirement benefits.

But then he learned about a few loopholes. Now, if he serves as a member in good standing for 364 days in a year, instead of 365, that year isn't credited as time served toward his retirement. If he's deemed irreplaceable-he's one of a handful of mortar platoon sergeants who've seen combat-the Guard can retain him for several more years after his contract expires.

He is surprised by this, but I'm not. I no longer expect that the Department of Defense will keep its promises to the soldiers or their families. I don't pretend that the Pentagon will adhere to its policies. And I know from experience that "support the troops" is a slogan, and not a practice.

we are the ones we have been waiting for

Click here to read the full text of the commencement address Angela Davis gave at Grinnell, which I wrote about the other day.

Here is another excerpt:

Slavery as we know was legally abolished, but executive proclamations and constitutional amendments do not eliminate the ideological structures and cultural assumptions. We live today with the vestiges of slavery. How else can we explain that here, in the state of Iowa, where the population, as I understand it, is about 2.3 % black, is that right, - the population in prison is 22% black. I have never been able to think about domestic racism as a phenomenon that is separate from the drive for empire in the global south. So will you remember, and this I find absolutely amazing, that the entire four years you pursued your undergraduate studies, there was a war raging in Iraq? What if your children ask you what it was like being in school studying sociology or chemistry or philosophy or art during the Iraq war? What will you tell them when they ask you about Abu Ghraib?

Angela Davis returned to Santa Cruz to speak out in support of a Alette Kendrick, and you can read about UCSC's plan to suspend Kendrick for her political speech and work on Indybay.

You can support Alette too. To learn more, visit this website.

On this day in 1972 ...

three members of the Japanese Red Army attacked Lod (now Ben Gurion) Airport near Tel Aviv. Two of the JRA members involved killed themselves after killing 24 people. Okamoto Kozo (pictured here with Shigenobu Fusako) survived and was jailed in Israel until 1985, when he was released in a prisoner exchange.

"about 12"

Diet lowers incarceration age to 'about 12'

By MASAMI ITO

Staff writer

The Diet enacted a package of new juvenile crime laws on Friday that lowers the minimum age at which a child can be sent to a reformatory to "about 12."

According to Justice Minister Jinen Nagase, the ambiguous phrase "about 12" means that it will even be possible for a child of 11 to be sent to a reformatory.

The new legislation, which will take effect within six months, also allows police to conduct searches and seizures in the course of investigating juvenile crimes. Before the revision, police were only allowed to question delinquents.

Ikuzo Maeno, a professor of criminology at Osaka University of Economics and Law, called the changes a "backward step."

"Up until now, the Juvenile Law was (to help) delinquents through public support and education," said Maeno, who specializes in Juvenile Law. "But (the revisions) will degrade the public support system and take us in the direction of harsher punishment."

The law originally had set 14 as the minimum age for incarceration in a reformatory. Children under 14 were sent to the facilities to help them become more independent.

"Reformatories are places where (delinquents) do drills," Maeno said. "On the other hand, facilities fostering independence in children are substitute family homes, where children have another chance at growing up."

The government initially submitted a bill in 2005 that scrapped the minimum age altogether. Opposition parties and legal experts strongly opposed it, so the ruling bloc of the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito changed the age to "about 12."

"These (children) are still growing," Maeno said. The system "should be flexible and supportive, and put into practice while it is still effective on delinquents."

Yuri Kawamura, a lawyer who handles juvenile crime cases, said severe punishment does not prevent juvenile crime.

Many of these kids "are children whose human rights have been violated during their growing period and are sending out SOS signals from their wounded souls," Kawamura said. "The crime itself is an SOS and it's not something that a minor can stop at will."

According to the National Police Agency, 123,715 minors aged 14 and older were arrested in 2005, down 8.3 percent from the previous year. During the five-year period to 2005, the figure fluctuated between 123,000 and 144,000.

Kawamura said one major reason the government was attempting to increase legal penalties was due to public pressure created by excessive media coverage of heinous crimes committed by minors, citing one case in 2004 when a girl was murdered by her elementary school classmate in Nagasaki Prefecture.

"Bizarre murders occur sometimes in any age and civilization," Kawamura said.

But Ruriko Take, who heads the Osaka-based Association for Victims of Juvenile Crimes, said the legal changes were a matter of course.

"There were a lot of holes (in the Juvenile Law). I'm glad that, little by little, these holes are being filled," she said.

Take's 16-year-old son was beaten to death by a high school freshman in 1996. The attacker was sent to a juvenile reformatory but was released only after 10 months, she said.

Take said her group did not want harsher penalties but a proper investigation and a sentence that matched the crime.

The courts and police "focus on the future of the delinquent, on how (the child) can return to society instead of putting weight on the finding of the facts of the crime and ensuring (the perpetrator) faces the crime," Take said.

The boy who killed Take went to family court, which protects the identity of the minor and prohibits the victim or the victim's family from being present.

Because Take was not given any information about the investigation, she filed a civil lawsuit in the Osaka District Court, where she was finally able to face her son's murderer for the first time.

The court ruled in her favor in 2002, stating that the teen had "unilaterally assaulted the unresisting victim." The teen pleaded that the two boys had been fighting.

"To this day, neither the attacker nor his family have apologized," Take said. "The only emotion I have is that I can never forgive him, but for the sake of society, I hope he never commits a crime again."

The Japan Times
Saturday, May 26, 2007

Marvin X enters the blogosphere!

"Between our treatment in the 2000 election and Katrina, what else do we need to know about American democracy? What part of no don't you understand?" -Marvin X

I opened my email this morning to find a welcome and unexpected message from California poet, playwright, essayist, and agitator Marvin X. I'm thrilled to announce that you can now see "the best of Marvin X" by clicking here!

(And can I just say, I love this post!)

If you don't know the work of Marvin X, please check out the blog and also the following, two of my favorites.

Here is his beautiful tribute to the late Shani Baraka, taken from this world far too soon.

I know Vernon Jackson will appreciate Tom Feelings.


Marvin X is one of the founders of the Black House in Oakland, the Black Education Theater of the Tenderloin, and the Black Arts/West Theatre in San Francisco. He is a longtime comrade of Amiri Baraka. And he is an artist-agitator of the first order!

Oba Minako passed away today.

Chiaki Sakai, my colleague in the library, wrote to tell me that Oba Minako died today. As I read her message, heavy rain started to fall, and thunder and lightening filled the sky over Iowa City, where Oba herself once stayed. I am not a "spiritual person," and as a good anarchist, I don't invest much thought in the "transcendent," but it sure seems like Iowa is weeping.

15 years ago, I spent just about all my free time reading the works of Oba Minako, who died today at the age of 76. In my early 20s, Oba's works really spoke to me and provided me with ways to think about my own feelings and experiences. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that my personal development as a young woman was shaped by my reading of Oba's fiction. I teach her stories now, and my students, many of whom are young women, invariably respond to her writing with great interest and enthusiasm. Her fiction is expansive and full of interesting characters – as was her life. She has been on my mind again a lot lately because she is one of the featured writers in an upcoming exhibit of East Asian writers who have come to UI's International Writing Program. Chiaki and I have been putting together exhibit materials for the Japanese writers this past week. We have a beautiful handwritten letter Oba sent (written in gorgeous English), and we've been re-reading many of her works. One passage stands out to me, as it did several years ago:

When I think about it, it seems that every work I’ve written since “Three Crabs” has been the result of the power of people I’ve encountered along the way as opposed to my own power, and I do not know from whence it comes – whether or not it is a mysterious power cast on me – but it is with such a power that I have come to write. (Shôwa bungaku zenshû, vol. 19, 1987)

There is, I think, a powerful and genuine concern for the subjectivity of others in Oba's writing. While she might describe her process as possibly magical, mysterious, or supernatural, the recognition that her relationships and encounters with others affected her deeply seems, to me, illustrative of her refusal (or maybe admirable inability) to limit herself to her own inner life, proclivities, and interests. The magical in Oba's work, to me, is material, the stuff of very real life. She wrote about relationships – not in the limited, traditional, institutional, or prescriptive sense, but in daily life, fantasy, hopes, and struggles. She challenged conventional representations of marriage and the nuclear family, for example, by writing about relationships that didn't conform to fiercely prescribed models of middle class normalcy.

Her own life might be seen as extraordinary in many ways. When she was 14, she was sent to Hiroshima as part of the wartime student mobilization project. On August 6, she and her fellow students witnessed the bombing from where they were stationed in Nishijô. I often wonder what it was like for her and the other students who were then sent into the city to attend to the victims in the aftermath. When four survivors of the bombing visited UI last fall and shared their stories, and when my students and I read material about the bombings this past semester, I wondered what a girl of 14 would have felt as she looked around at all the devastation, the people whose skin had melted away, and the shadows etched in the ground. I wonder still today what carried over from that moment into her writing – what remained and worked its way into the worlds she created, places we as her readers can go and linger for a while.

In 1959, because of her husband’s work, she left Japan to live in Sitka, Alaska, and she spent the next 11 years in the U.S. She came to the UI's International Writing Program too. In so many places, in so many years, she must have developed so many relationships that I can only begin to imagine as I read her works today. And some of the friendships she created in fiction are truly unforgettable for me. The immigrant friends Marya and Aya in "The Junk Museum," the two (or are they really 2?) women in "By the Pier," and, of course, the friendship that develops in memory in "Candle Fish," which was expertly translated by Yukiko Tanaka in Unmapped Territories: New Women's Fiction from Japan.

I teach literature, so it should come as no surprise that I feel connected to writers. There are certainly many writers I have loved. Some writers touch us so deeply that their work becomes part of us, layered into our personal memories and lives. Although I never met Oba, she will always feel like someone I knew, someone with whom I spent a critical period of my life – like a beloved and smart aunt who showed me the ropes and told me stories that gave me hope and greater understanding. When Chiaki and I looked at pictures of her, we described her that way – looking like an "auntie" more than whatever stereotypes we have of artists and writers. (What does a writer look like, anyway?) I think that even her look had an intimacy and immediacy to it. She wasn't glamorous or flashy. She was real, beautiful, and approachable.

Oba suffered a stroke in 1996.

Here's the Asahi obituary:

作家の大庭みな子さんが死去

2007年05月24日13時37分

　「三匹の蟹」「寂兮寥兮（かたちもなく）」などで知られる、作家で日本芸術院会員の大庭みな子（おおば・みなこ、本名・美奈子）さんが２４日午前９時１４分、腎不全で死去した。７６歳だった。葬儀は近親者で行う。喪主は夫利雄さん。

　３０年、東京生まれ。津田塾大卒。結婚後、夫の勤務の関係で５９年から米国に住み、ウィスコンシン大などで学ぶ。米国に暮らす日本人夫婦を中心に現代人の孤独を描いた「三匹の蟹」で６８年、群像新人文学賞と芥川賞を受賞。

　７０年に帰国。とらえどころのない官能や心のうつろい、人間の関係性を、しなやかな感性の文章で表現しようとした小説、エッセーが多い。

　他の作品に「啼（な）く鳥の」など。

　９６年に脳梗塞（こうそく）で倒れ、リハビリのかたわら、「浦安うた日記」などを口述でまとめた。

Laila Mohamed: The 1st UI Delegate to the One World Foundation!

Click here to read the following top UI news story of the day on the UI website!

University of Iowa News Release

May 24, 2007

UI Student To Participate In One World Foundation's Young Leaders Program

University of Iowa undergraduate student Laila Mohamed, a Japanese and linguistics major in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) from Coralville, is the first UI delegate to the One World Foundation's Summer Young Leaders Program.

The One World Foundation's summer programs take students of color from across the United States on service learning volunteer projects in developing countries. This is the program's first year, and the UI has joined Yale University and Lincoln University as the first university sponsors of scholarships for students to participate in summer programs in Cambodia and Mali. The UI Center for Diversity and Enrichment and UI International Programs are sponsoring the $3,500 scholarship to cover Mohamed's travel and accommodation expenses in the program.

During the summer program, Mohamed will work in Cambodia for Cambodian Living Arts, an organization that supports the revival of Cambodian traditional art forms and inspires contemporary artistic expression. The One World Foundation's mission is to encourage young people of color to become actively engaged in the human rights and development arenas, particularly as they affect indigenous and minority rights.

"Laila is the perfect person to represent the UI in this inaugural partnership," said Adrienne Hurley, assistant professor of modern Japanese literature in CLAS and coordinator of UI's partnership with the One World Foundation. "She has a keen sense of social justice, a sincere desire to make a positive difference in the world, and a seemingly endless supply of energy."

Mohamed was born in Sudan. When she was four years old, her family moved to Egypt, where they lived for five years. She also lived in Russia, New York and Texas before her family relocated to Iowa, where she has lived since seventh grade.

"I'm extremely honored to be selected for this," Mohamed said. "I think an opportunity to do something for another human being is one of the best things one can do with one's life."

Mohamed will fly to New York on May 30 for an orientation before her group departs for Cambodia on June 1. She will return on August 1 and will share her experiences in several on-campus presentations.

For more information about the One World Foundation, visit www.theoneworldfoundation.org.

The Center for Diversity and Enrichment, a program run from within the Office of the Associate Provost for Diversity, provides the primary leadership and coordination for outreach and service to under-represented minority communities, for pre-college student development and recruitment, and for developing and sustaining programs and activities that support the academic success and graduation of under-represented minority students. This includes working collaboratively with such offices as Admissions, Equal Opportunity and Diversity, the Graduate College, Orientation, Student Financial Aid, Undergraduate Advising, and Support Service Programs in a university-wide effort to facilitate recruitment and retention efforts, and creating and maintaining a welcoming and inclusive environment.

University of Iowa International Programs enables UI students, faculty, staff and the public to learn from and about the world. Its offices, degree programs and events provide life-changing opportunities on campus and abroad, heighten intellectual and cultural diversity and give all university constituents access to vital international knowledge. For more information, visit http://intl-programs.uiowa.edu/ or call 319-353-2700. International Programs is part of the UI Office of the Provost.

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa News Services, 300 Plaza Centre One, Suite 371, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-2500.

CONTACTS: Media: Kelli Andresen, 319-335-2026, kelli-andresen@uiowa.edu; Program: Adrienne Hurley, 319-335-2155, adrienne-hurley@uiowa.edu

Right on, Carl Noldon!!!

Check out this post on Carla's blog!

The Patch

I've mentioned Nate George a lot on my blog lately. I want everyone to see the important documentary exposé he made on PharmChem's sweat patch used for drug testing. The Patch was a project for Nate's film class with Leighton Pierce.

To learn more about the case of Mark Lou Meyer, whom you will see in the film, see the US Court of Appeals (PDF file) and The Sioux City Journal.

There are two ways you can watch the film.

1. Go to www.kruiradio.org/insurgencyhour/, right click and choose 'download linked file' (if you are using Safari). It's formatted to be playable in iTunes and on iPods.

2. Subscribe to the "Insurgency Hour Podcast" using iTunes.
Open iTunes
Select "Advanced" in the menubar
Choose Subscribe to Podcast
Enter "feed://www.kruiradio.org/insurgencyhour/InsurgencyHour.xml" into the URL box.

Watch the film and then act!

Tell PharmChem what you think!
PharmChem Inc.
2411 E. Loop 820
N. Fort Worth, TX
76118
Fax: 817-590-4304

And share your thoughts on Mark Meyer's case with:
Chief Judge Linda R. Reade
Northern District of Iowa
Phone: 319-286-2330
email: Linda_Reade@iand.uscourts.gov

Please share this information with as many people as possible! And watch for more from Nate George (pictured below)!

Allergy Report

I would like to have my sinuses surgically removed. Apparently, this is not an option.

Brief overview

1. First 17 years of life: Allergic reaction to cottonwood trees made approximately two weeks out of each year unpleasant. A severe allergy to cats could be managed by restricting contact.

2. Ages 18-36: No significant allergies other than ongoing cat problem.

3. Age 37-almost 39 (present): Moved to Iowa and seasonal allergies last all year except during the winter months. They are so severe that when tree pollen levels are high, I can't stop sneezing. Last spring, my sinuses were so inflamed that they gave me what I can only describe as "black eyes." A few months ago, I had a severe allergy attack while teaching and needed to get an inhaler for a while. Zyrtec is not enough to manage the reaction on days like yesterday and today.

My only options appear to be sucking it up when the levels are too high even for Zyrtec or to stay indoors most of the year when the weather is the nicest. I'm not satisfied with these options. Luckily, the pollen level is supposed to be lower tomorrow. I think I need to get a Q Mask to wear whenever I go outside.

Giving Lie to the Upside Down World

"The upside-down world rewards in reverse: it scorns honesty, punishes work, prizes lack of scruples, and feeds cannibalism."

"The worst violators of nature and human rights never go to jail. They hold the keys."

"Those who kill the most people in the shortest time win immunity and praise, as do those who destroy the most nature at the lowest cost."

Of all the books I've taught, Eduardo Galeano's Upside Down World: a Primer for the Looking-Glass World (Picador, 2000) probably means the most. I think if someone were to ask me for only one book recommendation, that would have to be the one. I am reminded of it almost every day. I'm not exaggerating when I tell my students that each sentence matters. I also feel like it provides us with a framework to which we can add, continually, as we strive to better understand our communities and our world and imagine better possibilities.

One sentence that has been on my mind a lot lately is the following:

"Even when the government tries to dress up like some kindly mother, it has only the strength to exercise vigilance and mete out punishment."

I think of the prison industrial complex, the assaults on community autonomy, and the hypervigilant surveillance that surround us.

The world's biggest super power endorses attacks on refugees because, in the Upside Down World, you have to bomb the people you purport to protect in your campaign against undemocratic militants and terrorists.

A Chinese American student is removed from school because, in the Upside Down World, there is always something wrong with the child (especially the child who is of color and/or poor) and not something wrong with society.

I thought of Galeano's book yesterday when Martha, Joshua, and I crashed the commencement ceremony at Grinnell College so we could hear Angela Davis speak. She, more than anyone else who comes to mind, sees through and speaks out against the Upside Down World. She began by telling the crowd she could not speak only in hopeful, positive platitudes about the worlds awaiting them, because the times in which we live are increasingly scary. She asked the graduating seniors to think of their own personal historical memory in relation to the larger contexts of their college years. She began by reflecting on what the Cuban Missile Crisis meant during her own college years. She reminded the students that their own college years had taken place while wars were waged on Afghanistan and Iraq. She suggested that instead of Horace Greeley's admonition to "go West, young man," she would say, "Don't go to Iraq, young woman." She also talked about the disproportionate incarceration of Black people in Iowa, where this North American pattern of racist mass imprisonment is perhaps most egregious. And she invoked Grinnell's radical history by discussing the abolitionist work of its founder, Josiah Grinnell, who was an ardent supporter of John Brown, who believed in insurgency and the need for armed, militant resistance against slavery and was, predictably, seen by the establishment as a "terrorist." She asked the students to reflect on these histories and current events, because, as she said, "If you don't figure out how to do this work for yourselves, it may be done for you." I've heard many interesting graduate addresses, but never one that called on young people to resist state oppression and commit themselves to social justice. And, I suppose I also have to say, she is more and more beautiful with each passing year.

And yes, there are other nice things.

Happy Birthday to Yuri Kochiyama!

Today is Yuri Kochiyama's 86th birthday! Happy Birthday, Yuri!!



She shares this birthday with Malcolm X, with whom she shared a special friendship, Ho Chi Minh, and (this last one is for Carla) Grace Jones.

Among the many articles about and interviews with Yuri you can find online is this one by Tamara (Kil Ja Kim) Nopper for AWOL magazine.

That's a preview for Freedom Fighters, a documentary about Yuri Kochiyama and Kiilu Nyasha.

You can also listen to Tavis Smiley's interview with Yuri Kochiyama and learn more about her by visiting the following sites too.

Learn to Question
Revolutionary Worker interview with Yuri Kochiyama
Melissa Hung's article on Yuri Kochiyama
Yuri Kochiyama nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
Yuri Kochiyama bio at Discover Nikkei

Two of my students, Jacob Boss and Shiori Yamazaki spent the better part of a year working on a scrapbook birthday gift for Yuri, which we sent to her. Jacob and Shiori made the lovely collage pieces and got some of their friends and classmates to contribute messages and artwork. Here are some of the scanned pages from that scrapbook project entitled "Yuri said..."
































To view larger versions of any of the pages above, please click on the image.

US Occupied Japan

Click here if you read Japanese to see what Hoshino Tomoyuki has to say about the relocation of the US Marine base in Futenma to Henoko in northern Okinawa.

Congratulations, Nate!!!

Click on the images above to see larger versions.

indescribably good news that fills me with joy!

I just now learned that Ms. E. Tanille Butler, a student whose steadfast commitment to the truth and social justice always inspires me, will have some of the outstanding articles she wrote for her MA thesis published in my very favorite newspaper!! I had no hand in this. She contacted the paper herself, and the ever insightful editor, Mary Ratcliff, recognized how important these articles are and agreed to publish them. Oh, I am just too happy for words! This is one of those moments in life that is too delightful to put into words.

Keep your eyes on the San Francisco Bay View newspaper and watch for E. Tanille Butler's pieces!!

Whoa! Third World Solidarity Redux?

I saw this on Owen's LiveJournal. Here's what he writes there:

what do we make of this? al Zawahri asks all people of color not to fight and praises Malcolm X!

"Al-Qaida is not merely for the benefit of Muslims," he said. "That's why I want blacks in America, people of color, American Indians, Hispanics, and all the weak and oppressed in North and South America, in Africa and Asia, and all over the world, to know that when we wage Jihad in Allah’s path, we aren’t waging Jihad to lift oppression from the Muslims only, we are waging Jihad to lift oppression from all of mankind, because Allah has ordered us never to accept oppression, whatever it may be.”

Diane Feinstein's 18 USC § 842(p)(2)(A) is back!!

I will write much more about this soon, but this is foul news that should alarm us all, so I wanted to get the basics out right away. The thought-crime law that landed Sherman Austin in federal prison is now being invoked against Rod Coronado (pictured here - kind of older picture). White people violate this law every day in this country, but the feds only use it when they want to go after a person of color, it seems.

You can read these two articles on the latest case against Coronado:

NY Times

Los Angeles CityBeat

SF Bay View was hacked, but now it's back!!!

The San Francisco Bay View, my favorite newspaper, is back online!!! This is a happy day!!!

Big love and thanks to webmaster Terone Ward, web designer Tony Perrault, and Micheas Herman!

I have been waiting for this day for so long!!