Los Angeles Times April 26, 2009, has as it’s lead front page story “Harsh Tactics Weren’t Analyzed.” What are “harsh tactics”? That’s doublespeak for torture. George Orwell defined doublespeak as language that lies in order to hide difficult truths. So why can’t the Los Angeles Times says “Tortures Weren’t Analyzed.” That’s too truthful and upsetting. Well, torture IS upsetting.
In paragraph eleven the newspaper article finally spells out what the torture victimes suffered: “depriving prisoners of sleep for up to seven days; throwing them up against walls, forcing them into tiny boxes and subjecting them to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding.” But even this description doesn’t fully describe the horror of the tortures used. Hemingway said after World War I the writer must avoid abstractions but write with exact names, colors, sizes. According to Brian Tamanaha, Professor of Law at St. John’s Univeristy, on the blog “Balkanization” on April 19, 2009, the tactics were
1) throwing a prisoner’s head and shoulders against a flexible wall “twenty or thirty times consecutively when the interrogator requires…”’;
2) dousing detainee in constant flow of cold water; 41 degrees for no more than 20 minutes, 50 degrees for no more than 40 minutes, and 59 degrees for no more than 60 minutes;
3) sleep deprivation “may continue to the 70 to 120 hour range, or possibly beyond for the hardest resisters, but in no case exceed the 180 hour time limit.” (The prisoners were kept awake by chaining them in a standing position so that, if they dozed off, they would be awakened by the sense of falling and by the jolt of the weight of their body against the chains.);
4) a maximum of two waterboarding sessions (strapped to the board) a day on a prisoner, each session lasting no longer than two hours; no more than 6 episodes of waterboarding per session; and no single continuous dose of water exceeding 40 seconds;
5) for cramped confinement, “confinement in the larger space [standing room] may last no more than 8 hours at a time for no more than 18 hours a day; for the smaller space [sitting room only], confinement may last no more than two hours."
How about the opening sentence of the Los Angeles Times front page story: “The CIA used an arsenal of severe interrogation techniques on imprisoned Al Qaeda suspects. “ What is “severe interrogation techniques” ? It is, of course, another form of doublespeak for torture: the torturer could throw the person against the wall 30 times at one sitting, douse the person in 41 degree cold water for 20 minutes, sleep deprive the person for eight days, confine them for two hours in a small space, and waterboard twice/day. So a more honest version would be the following: “an arsenal of torture techniques.” An “arsenal” of techniques sounds like metaphorical guns, bombs, weapons as if the writer finally was getting a little truthful in his metaphors.
Calling the victims “imprisoned Al Qaeda suspects” tries to justify that they deserved to be smashed against the walls 30 times. Dilawar, the taxi driver tortured to death at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, was innocent of all connection to Taliban or Al Qaeda. He arrived at Bagram prison on December 5, 2002, and was declared dead on December, 2002. The New York Times reported regarding the day Dilawar died,
On the day of his death, Dilawar had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days. A guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling. "Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying. Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned that most of the interrogators had in fact believed Mr. Dilawar to be an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.
We need more facts such as how many people were tortured to death?
Paragraph 5 of the Los Angeles Times article discuss how to experienced interrogator ‘ever took a rigorous systematic review of the various techniques—enhanced or otherwise….” Using “enhanced techniques’ to describe torture is rather like describing a enhanced toothbrush that gives us cleaner teeth. “Enhanced” sounds like its better or cleaner or improved like enhanced detergent that really cleans one’s dishes. I had a friend who was waterboarded.
In paragraph 13 the article says “interrogation approaches” as if throwing someone against a wall again and again is an “approach” as in a approach rather like an approach to dating.
In paragraph 17 the article says, “A U.S. intelligence official who defended CIA interrogation practices” so now torture is obscured by the word “practice’ as if talking about tennis practice or piano practice.
In paragraph 23 the article says “Bush said that ‘alternative’ interrogation methods have been crucial to getting Al Qaeda … to talk.” “Alternative” gives the impression of a softer way such as questions over tea.
In paragraph 21 the reader learns that the “alternative interrogation methods” was not chats over tea but waterboarding and that two Al Qaeda suspects were waterboarded 263 times. In paragraph 23 the article says “the report faulted how agency operatives applied the methods, dumping large quantities of water on prisoners’ faces ….” Now we finally learn what happened. 263 times water was dumped on two prisoners’ faces making them believe they were almost drowning.
So let’s think of exactly what happened in these torture sessions. Let us be upset. Let us not use doublespeak. Let us abandon the vocabulary of “enchanced techniques.” Let us remember Dilawar who had daughter who lost her father.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Los Angeles Times alleges huge fraud which isn't there
The lead article on the front page of the Los Angeles Times is an April 13, 2008, article "Fraud infects state in-home care." The article alleges fraud in the In-Home Supportive Services, a California program in which the state pays wages from $8.00-14.66/hour so that elderly and/or disabled can have in-home health care workers and stay in their homes, which is a lot cheaper than a nursing home. Nursing homes cost $7000-20,000/month, so the state paying $400 to home health care worker for an elderly for disabled people is much much cheaper for the state. That's what the state pays my brother's home health care worker--he's alloted ten hours/week or 40 hours/month at $10/hour or $400.
Despite all the allegations of prosecutors "alarmed by the ease with which people are taking advantage of the program," when you look at the figures, the program is budgeted at $5.42 billion. Sen Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), a member of the committee looking at the costs, said at a hearing recently that the state had recovered in prosecutions "one one-thousandth" of the overall spending, Leno says that since 'we seemed to have misplaced $50 billion in the rebuilding, it is an amazing low figure."
At the end of the news report the LA Times does have both prosecutors and a Sacramaento Grand Jury admit that only a small amount of fraud has been uncovered and "only a small number of cases accepted for prosecution" but still they say there's some huge problem for which they have absolutely no proof.
As for my brother, he has had Parkinson's for ten years and needs a walker to walk forthe past couple years. December, 2007, he had pneumonia and was in the hospital. August 6, 2008, he came down to with neuroeplitic trauma, had a temperature of 107.5 and pneumonia again. He's lucky to have survived such a high temperature. Pneumonia regularly kills Parkinson's patients. My brother did survive the pneumonia, and then went to rehab. He returned home and the In-home State Services alloted him a health care worker for ten hours/week. He has someone come in 5 days/week in the middle of the day who helps him with his food and drugs. He has to take numerous drugs 4 x/day like clockwork or he's paralyzed--can't move and can't walk.
Also my brother is often paralyzed a lot in the evening but the in-home worker has gone home. I think he needs more help from the state, and I hope he gets it. I'd like to help him but I spent all 2008 helping him and my mother who broke her hip, and then I got sick for most of November and December. Besides working my job, I have to take care of my health more my doctor told me, and doctor ordered me to exercise 7 days/week to help with the stress of two very ill relatives. i need to see my mother in her board and care, so I can't help my brother that much.
Also, my brother for the last two weeks has changed medications, always difficult for someone on Parkinson's. A friend who was a nurse in a neurological hospital in London told me that in England when Parkinson's patients change medication, they are hospitalized, but not here in the United States. Instead, my brother was paralyzed many days, and calling the overworked doctors who helped him a lot with his medications. My experience is exactly the opposite of the Los Angeles Times article; my brother has a legitimate claim for more help than he gets. Also, he has a 15-year old daughter, so the more he's helped, the more he can be there for his daughter.
I think that the prosecutors should have more evidence of fraud before they make allegations to the press. Also, the Los Angeles Times lacks the evidence for its headline and shouldn't print such headlines on such weak evidence.I don't want already very ill people to suffer more; if the state cuts this great program the ill and disabled will suffer more. Also IHSS saves the state tens of thousands of dollars, and has probably saved the state more than the fraud than was found. So overall the state has saved money through this program paying for in-home help for elderly and disabled people.
Despite all the allegations of prosecutors "alarmed by the ease with which people are taking advantage of the program," when you look at the figures, the program is budgeted at $5.42 billion. Sen Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), a member of the committee looking at the costs, said at a hearing recently that the state had recovered in prosecutions "one one-thousandth" of the overall spending, Leno says that since 'we seemed to have misplaced $50 billion in the rebuilding, it is an amazing low figure."
At the end of the news report the LA Times does have both prosecutors and a Sacramaento Grand Jury admit that only a small amount of fraud has been uncovered and "only a small number of cases accepted for prosecution" but still they say there's some huge problem for which they have absolutely no proof.
As for my brother, he has had Parkinson's for ten years and needs a walker to walk forthe past couple years. December, 2007, he had pneumonia and was in the hospital. August 6, 2008, he came down to with neuroeplitic trauma, had a temperature of 107.5 and pneumonia again. He's lucky to have survived such a high temperature. Pneumonia regularly kills Parkinson's patients. My brother did survive the pneumonia, and then went to rehab. He returned home and the In-home State Services alloted him a health care worker for ten hours/week. He has someone come in 5 days/week in the middle of the day who helps him with his food and drugs. He has to take numerous drugs 4 x/day like clockwork or he's paralyzed--can't move and can't walk.
Also my brother is often paralyzed a lot in the evening but the in-home worker has gone home. I think he needs more help from the state, and I hope he gets it. I'd like to help him but I spent all 2008 helping him and my mother who broke her hip, and then I got sick for most of November and December. Besides working my job, I have to take care of my health more my doctor told me, and doctor ordered me to exercise 7 days/week to help with the stress of two very ill relatives. i need to see my mother in her board and care, so I can't help my brother that much.
Also, my brother for the last two weeks has changed medications, always difficult for someone on Parkinson's. A friend who was a nurse in a neurological hospital in London told me that in England when Parkinson's patients change medication, they are hospitalized, but not here in the United States. Instead, my brother was paralyzed many days, and calling the overworked doctors who helped him a lot with his medications. My experience is exactly the opposite of the Los Angeles Times article; my brother has a legitimate claim for more help than he gets. Also, he has a 15-year old daughter, so the more he's helped, the more he can be there for his daughter.
I think that the prosecutors should have more evidence of fraud before they make allegations to the press. Also, the Los Angeles Times lacks the evidence for its headline and shouldn't print such headlines on such weak evidence.I don't want already very ill people to suffer more; if the state cuts this great program the ill and disabled will suffer more. Also IHSS saves the state tens of thousands of dollars, and has probably saved the state more than the fraud than was found. So overall the state has saved money through this program paying for in-home help for elderly and disabled people.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Afghan War Is Bad for Women and Children
Dear President Obama,
I’m writing you to stop the escalation of United States military forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This escalation will be a disaster most of all for the women and children of Afghanistan. What I’d like to address is how the increase in military spending would increase the already present disaster for the Afghan women and children. Your advisers are using as one rationale for this war is United States is helping Afghan women. Your advisers are ignorant. After seven years of United States ousting the Taliban and occupying Afghanistan, the United Nations Children’s Fund and Ministry of Public Health in Afghanistan reports that the country “is second only to Sierra Leone in terms of having the world’s worst maternal and infant mortality rates. Many young mothers and children die of malnutrition-related diseases ….”
According to News Archive of Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), reprint of a March 17, 2009, report a woman in Herat, Afghanistan, tried to kill herself by burning herself and burned 80% of her body, but survived. According to a RAWA news archive March 27 report many Afghan women try to kill themselves: at the “ Ibn-e Sina Emergency Hospital in Kabul more than 600 incidents of suicide attempts have been referred to this hospital during the past 12 months.“ Dr. Abdullah Fahim, spokesman for the Ministry, added, ”Famliy violence, poverty, mental ailment and weak religious beliefs provoke self-murder in Afghanistan .” Islam forbids suicide. After seven years of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, Afghan women are increasingly trying to kill themselves to escape their devastating circumstances. Afghan women suffer from malnutrition, high food prices, drought, lack of electricity, lack of safe water, lack of jobs, domestic violence, rape, and insecurity.
According to March 31, 2009, Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRNI), a news service which is part of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 550,000 Afghan women and children are malnourished and need food aid: “Some 24 percent of lactating women are malnourished, over 19 percent of pregnant women have a poor nutritional status …and about 54 percent of under-five children are stunted, according to a joint survey by UN agencies and the government.” Last July, 2008, a food appeal was made asking for $404 million from international food donors to help the malnourished women and children and 70% of the amount was donated. By March, 2009, the donated food still has not reached the hungry women and children and is scheduled to reach the hungry in May, 2009. The hungry women and children got through the difficult winter without any aid. Oxfam says March 29, 2009, over a ½ million pregnant and lactating women and ½ million children are still starving.
April 3, 2009, INRI reported eleven international non-government organizations in Afghanistan made a report to NATO: ”Much of the international aid to Afghanistan over the past seven years has been spent to achieve military and political objectives ….” OXFAM, one of the NGOs commented, “The agencies recommend a phase-out of militarised aid and a substantial increase in development and humanitarian funding for civilian institutions and organisations,…” In plain words seven years of United States dominating Afghanistan has laid to military aid but leaving the country’s women and children in devastated economic circumstances. For seven years the United States has not helped women and children.
On Democracy Now, a reporter in Afghanistan interviewed Afghans who do not want any U.S. or NATO military escalation. Instead they want economic aid, not more military violence:
http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2009/3/26
Increasing military aid to Afghan will only increase the suffering of Afghan women and children. So President do not send 17,000 more troops. Do not spend over $1 billion for hardened bases in Afghanistan (the annual budget of the Afghanistan government). Do not send in thousands of private security contractors.Instead spend $1 billion on non-military aid to help the Afghan people. As many have suggested, have a peace conference will all the forces within Afghanistan. A leading Taliban commander said after 30 years of war many Taliban are war-weary. Instead have a regional conference of neighboring states and make peace.
I’m writing you to stop the escalation of United States military forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This escalation will be a disaster most of all for the women and children of Afghanistan. What I’d like to address is how the increase in military spending would increase the already present disaster for the Afghan women and children. Your advisers are using as one rationale for this war is United States is helping Afghan women. Your advisers are ignorant. After seven years of United States ousting the Taliban and occupying Afghanistan, the United Nations Children’s Fund and Ministry of Public Health in Afghanistan reports that the country “is second only to Sierra Leone in terms of having the world’s worst maternal and infant mortality rates. Many young mothers and children die of malnutrition-related diseases ….”
According to News Archive of Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), reprint of a March 17, 2009, report a woman in Herat, Afghanistan, tried to kill herself by burning herself and burned 80% of her body, but survived. According to a RAWA news archive March 27 report many Afghan women try to kill themselves: at the “ Ibn-e Sina Emergency Hospital in Kabul more than 600 incidents of suicide attempts have been referred to this hospital during the past 12 months.“ Dr. Abdullah Fahim, spokesman for the Ministry, added, ”Famliy violence, poverty, mental ailment and weak religious beliefs provoke self-murder in Afghanistan .” Islam forbids suicide. After seven years of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, Afghan women are increasingly trying to kill themselves to escape their devastating circumstances. Afghan women suffer from malnutrition, high food prices, drought, lack of electricity, lack of safe water, lack of jobs, domestic violence, rape, and insecurity.
According to March 31, 2009, Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRNI), a news service which is part of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 550,000 Afghan women and children are malnourished and need food aid: “Some 24 percent of lactating women are malnourished, over 19 percent of pregnant women have a poor nutritional status …and about 54 percent of under-five children are stunted, according to a joint survey by UN agencies and the government.” Last July, 2008, a food appeal was made asking for $404 million from international food donors to help the malnourished women and children and 70% of the amount was donated. By March, 2009, the donated food still has not reached the hungry women and children and is scheduled to reach the hungry in May, 2009. The hungry women and children got through the difficult winter without any aid. Oxfam says March 29, 2009, over a ½ million pregnant and lactating women and ½ million children are still starving.
April 3, 2009, INRI reported eleven international non-government organizations in Afghanistan made a report to NATO: ”Much of the international aid to Afghanistan over the past seven years has been spent to achieve military and political objectives ….” OXFAM, one of the NGOs commented, “The agencies recommend a phase-out of militarised aid and a substantial increase in development and humanitarian funding for civilian institutions and organisations,…” In plain words seven years of United States dominating Afghanistan has laid to military aid but leaving the country’s women and children in devastated economic circumstances. For seven years the United States has not helped women and children.
On Democracy Now, a reporter in Afghanistan interviewed Afghans who do not want any U.S. or NATO military escalation. Instead they want economic aid, not more military violence:
http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2009/3/26
Increasing military aid to Afghan will only increase the suffering of Afghan women and children. So President do not send 17,000 more troops. Do not spend over $1 billion for hardened bases in Afghanistan (the annual budget of the Afghanistan government). Do not send in thousands of private security contractors.Instead spend $1 billion on non-military aid to help the Afghan people. As many have suggested, have a peace conference will all the forces within Afghanistan. A leading Taliban commander said after 30 years of war many Taliban are war-weary. Instead have a regional conference of neighboring states and make peace.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Put People First March Londoners Speak to G20 Leaders March 28, 2009
March 28, 2009, 6:03 pm
I'm very cheered to hear about 35,000 marchers in the Put People First March in London March 28, 2009, gathered together to tell G20 leaders meeting this week in the city that Jobs, Justice, and Climate should be the priority of the G20 meetings.
The march was organized by over 100 trade unions, church groups, charities, and environmental groups aimed at speaking to G20 leaders. The photos on the Guardian newspaper website for March 28, 2009, are stunning.
It's good to see English-speaking people use their free speech to articulate what is important to them and to tell G20 leaders the priorities of people on the streets. It was a very peaceful but huge march. The organizers had hoped for 10,000 but 35,000 came.
The London march comes just after this huge but peaceful general strikes in FRances, so both France and England are beacons of hope. Also, people in the French Carribean Island of Guadalupe had a 44-day general strike which they one to improve their wages, another hopeful sign. Amy Goodman had a good report on her show last night on the Guadalupe general strike.
I'm very cheered to hear about 35,000 marchers in the Put People First March in London March 28, 2009, gathered together to tell G20 leaders meeting this week in the city that Jobs, Justice, and Climate should be the priority of the G20 meetings.
The march was organized by over 100 trade unions, church groups, charities, and environmental groups aimed at speaking to G20 leaders. The photos on the Guardian newspaper website for March 28, 2009, are stunning.
It's good to see English-speaking people use their free speech to articulate what is important to them and to tell G20 leaders the priorities of people on the streets. It was a very peaceful but huge march. The organizers had hoped for 10,000 but 35,000 came.
The London march comes just after this huge but peaceful general strikes in FRances, so both France and England are beacons of hope. Also, people in the French Carribean Island of Guadalupe had a 44-day general strike which they one to improve their wages, another hopeful sign. Amy Goodman had a good report on her show last night on the Guadalupe general strike.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Obama's Policies Are Like Herbert Hoover's
In September, 2008, when Bush’s Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson proposed the first giveaway of $800 billion to the banks I started writing articles against the giveaway as 99 out of 100 U.S. citizens were against the giveaway. Unfortunately, Obama has supported the first giveaway to the banks of $800 billion and then given away TRILLIONS more to the banks and AIG.
Let’s look at figures showing how the U.S. people are doing in the last six months. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said that the overall unemployment rate has risen from 6.0% in the third quarter (May-July) 2008 to 8.1% in February 2009. For blacks, the unemployment rate has risen from 10.7% in May-June 2008 to 13.4% in February 2009. For Hispanics, from 7.8 % in May-June 2008 to 10.9%. In Los Angeles, California, where I live, the Los Angeles Times reported that the overall unemployment in February 2009 for California was 10.5% while in Los Angeles County it is 10.9%.These are the worse unemployment numbers for the U.S since 1982-3.
As for foreclosures, the U.S. Foreclosure Market Report reported in 2008 foreclosures in the United States were a 81% increase over foreclosures in 2007 and 225% increase over foreclosures in 2006. From January 2009 to February 2009 foreclosures increased 6%. The U.S foreclosure rate of February 2009 forclosures increased 30% over February 2008 rates.
Declining real estate prices cause declines in school budgets. In Florida, the huge decline in real estate prices have meant a 20% decline in school budgets, so teachers get laid off. That pattern is appearing nationwide as declining real estate prices mean less funds for school budgets meaning over 400,000% teachers nationwide have gotten layoff notices this spring.
February 17, 2009, Obama’s $787 stimulus package was passed. According to CNN Money February 17, 2009, “The official benchmark estimates from the White House: 3.5 million jobs will be created or saved over the next two years, and over 90% of them will be in the private sector.” So the White House plans the $787 billion stimulus package to generate the federal government hiring a mere 350,000 people over the next 3 years.
Economist such as Mark Zandi, chief economy at Moody’s, disagrees, with White House estimates: “Indeed I expect the economy to lose another 3 million jobs with stimulus but over 4 million without it." So the U.S. economy could shed another 3 million jobs in the next 2-3 years. Most of the Obama stimulus spending on jobs in transportation or construction or updating health records won’t take place until 2010. If Zandi is right, the economy twill shed 3 million jobs throughout 2009 and 2011 while the government hires 350,000 people. That’s s really bleak unemployment outlook.
Obama has not imitated FDR in his economic stimulus program but Herbert Hoover in letting the masses of U.S. citizens lose their jobs , their homes and teachers for their children. FDR, in contrast, ordered in 1933 Harry Hopkins to have the government hire 4 million people; by January, 1934 Hopkins had hired 4 million people on government programs. According to National Review online FDR reduced unemployment from 33% in 1933 to 7% in 1936 to 3% in 1940 to 0.5 % in 1942. Another economist James K. Galbraith says, “The Roosevelt administration reduced unemployment from 25 per cent in 1933 to 9 per cent in 1936.” The federal government from 1934-1940 was the largest employer in the country.
What did all these people working for the federal government do? James Galbraith said that the workers on federal projects “built or renovated 2,500 hospitals, 45,000 schools, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 7,800 bridges, 700,000 miles of roads, and a thousand airfields. And it employed 50,000 teachers, rebuilt the country's entire rural school system, and hired 3,000 writers, musicians, sculptors and painters, including Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock. Obama is not following FDR but in following Hoover in letting millions go unemployed along with a paltry stimulus with a tiny amount of jobs.
What we need now is a program like FDR’s that will hire 3 million people to do exactly what the WPA and CCC did in the 1930s: build bridges, roads, schools, parks, post offices etc. I’m looking for a demonstration to go to in Los Angeles to voice my opposition to Obama’s paltry stimulus and to ask for a jobs program to hire not 350,000 but 3 million in the next six months. Be like FDR! Hire 3 million people now!
Let’s look at figures showing how the U.S. people are doing in the last six months. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said that the overall unemployment rate has risen from 6.0% in the third quarter (May-July) 2008 to 8.1% in February 2009. For blacks, the unemployment rate has risen from 10.7% in May-June 2008 to 13.4% in February 2009. For Hispanics, from 7.8 % in May-June 2008 to 10.9%. In Los Angeles, California, where I live, the Los Angeles Times reported that the overall unemployment in February 2009 for California was 10.5% while in Los Angeles County it is 10.9%.These are the worse unemployment numbers for the U.S since 1982-3.
As for foreclosures, the U.S. Foreclosure Market Report reported in 2008 foreclosures in the United States were a 81% increase over foreclosures in 2007 and 225% increase over foreclosures in 2006. From January 2009 to February 2009 foreclosures increased 6%. The U.S foreclosure rate of February 2009 forclosures increased 30% over February 2008 rates.
Declining real estate prices cause declines in school budgets. In Florida, the huge decline in real estate prices have meant a 20% decline in school budgets, so teachers get laid off. That pattern is appearing nationwide as declining real estate prices mean less funds for school budgets meaning over 400,000% teachers nationwide have gotten layoff notices this spring.
February 17, 2009, Obama’s $787 stimulus package was passed. According to CNN Money February 17, 2009, “The official benchmark estimates from the White House: 3.5 million jobs will be created or saved over the next two years, and over 90% of them will be in the private sector.” So the White House plans the $787 billion stimulus package to generate the federal government hiring a mere 350,000 people over the next 3 years.
Economist such as Mark Zandi, chief economy at Moody’s, disagrees, with White House estimates: “Indeed I expect the economy to lose another 3 million jobs with stimulus but over 4 million without it." So the U.S. economy could shed another 3 million jobs in the next 2-3 years. Most of the Obama stimulus spending on jobs in transportation or construction or updating health records won’t take place until 2010. If Zandi is right, the economy twill shed 3 million jobs throughout 2009 and 2011 while the government hires 350,000 people. That’s s really bleak unemployment outlook.
Obama has not imitated FDR in his economic stimulus program but Herbert Hoover in letting the masses of U.S. citizens lose their jobs , their homes and teachers for their children. FDR, in contrast, ordered in 1933 Harry Hopkins to have the government hire 4 million people; by January, 1934 Hopkins had hired 4 million people on government programs. According to National Review online FDR reduced unemployment from 33% in 1933 to 7% in 1936 to 3% in 1940 to 0.5 % in 1942. Another economist James K. Galbraith says, “The Roosevelt administration reduced unemployment from 25 per cent in 1933 to 9 per cent in 1936.” The federal government from 1934-1940 was the largest employer in the country.
What did all these people working for the federal government do? James Galbraith said that the workers on federal projects “built or renovated 2,500 hospitals, 45,000 schools, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 7,800 bridges, 700,000 miles of roads, and a thousand airfields. And it employed 50,000 teachers, rebuilt the country's entire rural school system, and hired 3,000 writers, musicians, sculptors and painters, including Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock. Obama is not following FDR but in following Hoover in letting millions go unemployed along with a paltry stimulus with a tiny amount of jobs.
What we need now is a program like FDR’s that will hire 3 million people to do exactly what the WPA and CCC did in the 1930s: build bridges, roads, schools, parks, post offices etc. I’m looking for a demonstration to go to in Los Angeles to voice my opposition to Obama’s paltry stimulus and to ask for a jobs program to hire not 350,000 but 3 million in the next six months. Be like FDR! Hire 3 million people now!
Friday, March 20, 2009
Iraq War Started Six Years Ago
I was one of millions who was busy protesting the Iraq War six years ago before it started, so now thinking back all those memories came back. We started the protests in January, 2003, when the federal government rounded up thousands of Muslim men because of alleged violations of immigration rules. Immediately a protest was called at the West Los Angeles federal building the day it rained. The protest was held despite the heavy rain. When I got there hundreds were lined up on Wilshire Building holding up umbrellas, trying to shield each other from the pelting rain. It was an extremely friendly picket line as we all suffered in the rain, all tried to help one another keep dry.
People around Los Angeles neighborhoods were holding Friday evening picket lines, so I joined mine in Silverlake/Los Felix where Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards meet Virgil Avenue. When I got there around six about 50 people stood at the intersection holding up picket signs, and some of the bus drivers saluted as they drove by. I started photographing the anti-war movement that evening. A mother and father brought their two young children--about four and six--gave them picket signs, so all four lined up along Wilshire Boulevard. I returned again to picket the next week.
Then just before the war started millions marched against the Iraq War. Our big march in Los Angeles was through Hollywood, starting at the subway station at Hollywood and Vine. I went with a friend, and by the time we got to Hollywood and Vine we had to wind our way through a big crowd. My friend who spoke Spanish picked up a sign "No mas guerra" no more war. When this huge march of 30,000 started down Hollywood Boulevard it was just amazing as this was the largest march I had even been on and we took over the whole large boulevard for blocks on blocks. The hit of the march was the Butoh dance troup "Corpus delecti" all in white rags and white power who came at the end dancing the corpse or showing in their dance the sufferings of the dyinng in this war we hoped to stop. We believed for a moment with all those millions marching we really could stop the tide of war.
Bush kept on his juggernaut for war, so then with war only days way I participated in the candlelight vigils held around the world. Our candlelight vigil was at Echo Park Lake and about 200 showed up at 7:00 holding candles as we marched around the dark lake. Still I guess we hoped upon hope we could still despite all the evidence stop this war if kept marching if we kept marching. After we finished circling the small lake, we milled around . Pastor David Farley from the Echo Park Methodist Church was there with his flock. Some left their candles on the stop to burn through the night.
Bush started bombing on March 19, 2003, so I went with my camera to the West Los Angeles federal building for the protest . In big events it is inevitable that there will be a protest at the federal bulding. Sure enough, hundreds were there on all sides of the huge intersection holding up anti-war picket signs along with hundreds of police. I was on the northwest corner with my camera watching UCLA students march into the middle of the intersection and sit down against the war. I didn't have a telephoto lens, couldn't get a good shot in the dusk so I just watch the police march up to the sitting students and arrest them. US planes were bombing Iraq. We had failed to stop this war. All I had left was a lot of photos, a lot of memories, a lot of sadness.
People around Los Angeles neighborhoods were holding Friday evening picket lines, so I joined mine in Silverlake/Los Felix where Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards meet Virgil Avenue. When I got there around six about 50 people stood at the intersection holding up picket signs, and some of the bus drivers saluted as they drove by. I started photographing the anti-war movement that evening. A mother and father brought their two young children--about four and six--gave them picket signs, so all four lined up along Wilshire Boulevard. I returned again to picket the next week.
Then just before the war started millions marched against the Iraq War. Our big march in Los Angeles was through Hollywood, starting at the subway station at Hollywood and Vine. I went with a friend, and by the time we got to Hollywood and Vine we had to wind our way through a big crowd. My friend who spoke Spanish picked up a sign "No mas guerra" no more war. When this huge march of 30,000 started down Hollywood Boulevard it was just amazing as this was the largest march I had even been on and we took over the whole large boulevard for blocks on blocks. The hit of the march was the Butoh dance troup "Corpus delecti" all in white rags and white power who came at the end dancing the corpse or showing in their dance the sufferings of the dyinng in this war we hoped to stop. We believed for a moment with all those millions marching we really could stop the tide of war.
Bush kept on his juggernaut for war, so then with war only days way I participated in the candlelight vigils held around the world. Our candlelight vigil was at Echo Park Lake and about 200 showed up at 7:00 holding candles as we marched around the dark lake. Still I guess we hoped upon hope we could still despite all the evidence stop this war if kept marching if we kept marching. After we finished circling the small lake, we milled around . Pastor David Farley from the Echo Park Methodist Church was there with his flock. Some left their candles on the stop to burn through the night.
Bush started bombing on March 19, 2003, so I went with my camera to the West Los Angeles federal building for the protest . In big events it is inevitable that there will be a protest at the federal bulding. Sure enough, hundreds were there on all sides of the huge intersection holding up anti-war picket signs along with hundreds of police. I was on the northwest corner with my camera watching UCLA students march into the middle of the intersection and sit down against the war. I didn't have a telephoto lens, couldn't get a good shot in the dusk so I just watch the police march up to the sitting students and arrest them. US planes were bombing Iraq. We had failed to stop this war. All I had left was a lot of photos, a lot of memories, a lot of sadness.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
In Memory of Kalman Bloch
Thursday night I heard that my family's friend Kalman Bloch has just died. Kalman was partner of my mother's close friend Molly Zucker. Kalman is a classical clarinet player. Though over ninety, Kalman had been active playing his clarinet in public performances, social gatherings, and family gatherings. He was like a musical uncle to me.
My family is not musical and nobody plays an instrument. I grew up a rock 'n roller, listening only a little to classical music. Kalman once told me that musicians put all their emotions into playing classical music. I was stunned, thinking that classical music was just like rock 'n roll: emotions put into sounds. Another time Kalman played a Brahms dance. I had always thought Brahms the most boring of composers, but because it was Kalman, I actually listened to the lively dance music--Kalman helped me to enjoy Brahms for the first time.
I remember going about 10 years ago with my mother to hear Kalman play at the anniversary of Skylight bookstore. I, the rock 'n roller, listented with great joy to Kalman play in a clarinet quartet all these classical clarinet pieces. I didn't even know that the clarinet had all this music. Another time I went with my mother to Kalman's house for Thanksgiving. The dinner was excellent, but even better than the food was Kalman after dinner begin to play Hebraic melodies. Then his daughter Michele, who played in the Los Angeles Philarmonic, started spinning Gershwin out of her clarinet. I felt this was one of my greatest Thanksgivings listening to the two of them play. I invited Kalman to my garden birthday party once, and he played a Debussy piece which he dedicated to me. I was very touched because nobody had ever dedicated a music piece to me before.
I often tell my students what I call the Kalman Bloch story he told us once over dinner. In the depths of the Depression in 1936 he was studying clarinet in New York with Simeon Bellison, the first clarinetist of the New York Philarmonic. He was soon going to be needing a job, and thought it was impossible to get a job playing music, so he should start studying to be a dentist. Even in the Depression people needed dentists. His teacher told him to send out 100 resumes to orchestras all over the United States, which he did. He only heard back from one: the Los Angeles Philarmonic gave him an audition. Being poor he couldn't afford to travel to Los Angeles, but then he got lucky. His brother had gone to Los Angeles where he had gotten engaged to a young woman. Soon his brother would have a L.A. wedding, so his family decided to all go to the wedding. He wrote the Los Angeles Philarmonic to ask for his audition. In Los Angeles, he did the audition, was hired, and started in 1937.
He taught clarinet to many students including his daughter Michele who became co-principal clarinetist of the Los Angeles Philarmonic. So the Block family for 70 years has been working for this orchestra. I tell my students this because if there was a job for Kalman in 1937, there is a job for you now!
Kalman has enriched so many lives with his music. He will be missed.
Here is a snippet of Kalman playing Glick's "Circle Dance" and Hebraic melodies from Garageband;
http://www.garageband.com/artist/Musicians3/podcast/newsletter
My family is not musical and nobody plays an instrument. I grew up a rock 'n roller, listening only a little to classical music. Kalman once told me that musicians put all their emotions into playing classical music. I was stunned, thinking that classical music was just like rock 'n roll: emotions put into sounds. Another time Kalman played a Brahms dance. I had always thought Brahms the most boring of composers, but because it was Kalman, I actually listened to the lively dance music--Kalman helped me to enjoy Brahms for the first time.
I remember going about 10 years ago with my mother to hear Kalman play at the anniversary of Skylight bookstore. I, the rock 'n roller, listented with great joy to Kalman play in a clarinet quartet all these classical clarinet pieces. I didn't even know that the clarinet had all this music. Another time I went with my mother to Kalman's house for Thanksgiving. The dinner was excellent, but even better than the food was Kalman after dinner begin to play Hebraic melodies. Then his daughter Michele, who played in the Los Angeles Philarmonic, started spinning Gershwin out of her clarinet. I felt this was one of my greatest Thanksgivings listening to the two of them play. I invited Kalman to my garden birthday party once, and he played a Debussy piece which he dedicated to me. I was very touched because nobody had ever dedicated a music piece to me before.
I often tell my students what I call the Kalman Bloch story he told us once over dinner. In the depths of the Depression in 1936 he was studying clarinet in New York with Simeon Bellison, the first clarinetist of the New York Philarmonic. He was soon going to be needing a job, and thought it was impossible to get a job playing music, so he should start studying to be a dentist. Even in the Depression people needed dentists. His teacher told him to send out 100 resumes to orchestras all over the United States, which he did. He only heard back from one: the Los Angeles Philarmonic gave him an audition. Being poor he couldn't afford to travel to Los Angeles, but then he got lucky. His brother had gone to Los Angeles where he had gotten engaged to a young woman. Soon his brother would have a L.A. wedding, so his family decided to all go to the wedding. He wrote the Los Angeles Philarmonic to ask for his audition. In Los Angeles, he did the audition, was hired, and started in 1937.
He taught clarinet to many students including his daughter Michele who became co-principal clarinetist of the Los Angeles Philarmonic. So the Block family for 70 years has been working for this orchestra. I tell my students this because if there was a job for Kalman in 1937, there is a job for you now!
Kalman has enriched so many lives with his music. He will be missed.
Here is a snippet of Kalman playing Glick's "Circle Dance" and Hebraic melodies from Garageband;
http://www.garageband.com/artist/Musicians3/podcast/newsletter
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
UC Berkeley physical education classes cut
Last weekend in Berkeley I heard that that jobs of physical education instructors at UC Berkeley are under attack. The Daily Californian, the student newspaper, said, "next fall, the program is set to lose half of its courses and reduce most of its faculty to half-time, prompting backlash from instructors and students."
Students started a letter writing campaign to protest the cuts, are circulating a petition, and also have started a Facebook group. Also, an Associated Student's bill criticizing the cuts was introduced to the student government.
Sue Johannesen, a fitness instructor, said 4,300s students tried to sign up for physical education classes but were rejected "due to limited capacity of the classes." Dance instructor Jason Britton said "the cut will slash his classes-- and perhaps his income--in half may force him to look for outside work."
Mark Schlissel, Dean of the Division of Biological Sciences, heads the division overseeing physical education. After the administration imposed $250,000 cuts to the Division of Biological Sciences, Dean Schlissel chose to cut physical education because the chancellor "recommended that academic programs be spared." UC Berkeley has been cut this year "$65-75 million."
At the same time Chancellor Birgeneau is encouraging students to attend"Mind-Body Week" March 9-16 to participate in lectures, activities, and workshops that improve the mind and body. Surely, physical education classes are part of part of improving the mind and body that Chancellor Birgeneau thinks are so important.
When I went to UC Berkeley, I took Advanced Modern Dance all four years, and the classes were my salvation. I felt encouraged by these dance classes more than any other classes that I took, and started me on a lifetime of always exercising, so the dance classes had a lasting impact on my life. I think that the physical education classes are utterly necessary and shouldn't be cut and that all the instructors should work full-time.
Students started a letter writing campaign to protest the cuts, are circulating a petition, and also have started a Facebook group. Also, an Associated Student's bill criticizing the cuts was introduced to the student government.
Sue Johannesen, a fitness instructor, said 4,300s students tried to sign up for physical education classes but were rejected "due to limited capacity of the classes." Dance instructor Jason Britton said "the cut will slash his classes-- and perhaps his income--in half may force him to look for outside work."
Mark Schlissel, Dean of the Division of Biological Sciences, heads the division overseeing physical education. After the administration imposed $250,000 cuts to the Division of Biological Sciences, Dean Schlissel chose to cut physical education because the chancellor "recommended that academic programs be spared." UC Berkeley has been cut this year "$65-75 million."
At the same time Chancellor Birgeneau is encouraging students to attend"Mind-Body Week" March 9-16 to participate in lectures, activities, and workshops that improve the mind and body. Surely, physical education classes are part of part of improving the mind and body that Chancellor Birgeneau thinks are so important.
When I went to UC Berkeley, I took Advanced Modern Dance all four years, and the classes were my salvation. I felt encouraged by these dance classes more than any other classes that I took, and started me on a lifetime of always exercising, so the dance classes had a lasting impact on my life. I think that the physical education classes are utterly necessary and shouldn't be cut and that all the instructors should work full-time.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Los Angeles Bike Summit
Los Angeles is having a bike summit this weekend. It's hard biking in Los Angeles and bicyclers need more rights. Also, there are too many cars and the city has the worst traffic in the nation. Here's the information;
Los Angeles Bike Summit:
http://bikesummitla.wetpaint.com/?t=anon
Bike Summit LA Home - Bike Summit LAL.A. BIKE SUMMIT
Saturday March 7, 2009 from 9am to 4pm
Los Angeles Trade Tech College
FREE
Please Pre-Register by Monday February 23rd to reserve lunch
The Bike Summit says, "In Southern California, the growth and interest in bike riding and bike advocacy has increased to the point that the movement could significantly benefit from the formation of a common agenda. Bike organizations, including policy and grass roots groups, need to present a stronger, more unified front and a shared vision by combining communication, outreach, research and educational resources. This partnership will help to not only strengthen the presence of biking as an alternative to driving and a source of physical activity, but will help to create a more livable and sustainable region.
The Los Angeles Bike Summit is the next step to facilitate this discussion and collaboration of bike organizations, support groups, and advocates."
Los Angeles Bike Summit:
http://bikesummitla.wetpaint.com/?t=anon
Bike Summit LA Home - Bike Summit LAL.A. BIKE SUMMIT
Saturday March 7, 2009 from 9am to 4pm
Los Angeles Trade Tech College
FREE
Please Pre-Register by Monday February 23rd to reserve lunch
The Bike Summit says, "In Southern California, the growth and interest in bike riding and bike advocacy has increased to the point that the movement could significantly benefit from the formation of a common agenda. Bike organizations, including policy and grass roots groups, need to present a stronger, more unified front and a shared vision by combining communication, outreach, research and educational resources. This partnership will help to not only strengthen the presence of biking as an alternative to driving and a source of physical activity, but will help to create a more livable and sustainable region.
The Los Angeles Bike Summit is the next step to facilitate this discussion and collaboration of bike organizations, support groups, and advocates."
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Blues for Central Avenue
Last night I saw Will Manus's play Blues for Central Avenue, which celebrates Los Angeles's famous Central Avenue after World War II, at Write Act Repertory Theater, 6128 Yucca Ave, Hollywood. During the 1930s and early 1940s Los Angeles was a Jim Crow town, with severe housing segration written into housing convenants all over the city and with blacks confined to the Southcentral ghetto. African-Americans created on Central Avenue the hottest night life in Los Angeles with jazz clubs, restaurants, hotels that regularly hosted Duke Ellington, Count Basie, T-Bone Walker, and Lionel Hampton as well as birthed the next generation of jazz greats like Charlie Mingus. By the late 1930s and 1940s whites including Hollywood elite would go to the Central Avenue clubs just as some whites in 1920s New York went uptown to the Harlem clubs. The most original music out of Los Angeles has for decades come from Southcentral.
The playwright Willard Manus in the notes said he learned about Central Avenue listening to Johnny Otis's radio show in the early 1980s where Otis, himself a wonderful musician, had on his radio program "such Central Avenue stalwarts as artist Cal Bailey, sax player Buddy Collete, trumpeter Dootsie Williams, vocalist Caroline Harlson, and dancer Clarence 'Frenchy' Laundry talk about their experience" on Central Avenue. The play's director Ken Cosby also reminesces in the notes that after he graduated high school in 1989 he jammed with his idol Jimmy Knepper, who had been Charlie Mingus' s trombonist. The notes also has reproduction wonderful paintings by Rich Hyman of musicians playing in Central Avenue. African-American artists in Los Angeles through this play are paying homage to their past and to our past.
The play is not caught up nostalgia for the past but focuses on the crucial turning point for Central Avenue right after World War II. Then black servicemen returned to Central Avenue like the play's hero Lowell Swift, a wounded veteran, returns with the dream of founding a recording company to record new Central Avenue singers. Black woman like the heroine Roberta Youngblood had war jobs making good money but were laid off as she complains to Lowell so the jobs could go to returning veterans. Zoot suits are still in fashion, as the hero has to shed his army clothes for a zoot suit. Roberta enters the singing contest at Club Alabam and wows the audience, leading to Lowell making her first record as these characters rush for their dreams in post-war Los Angeles. Wallace Demaaria acts wonderfully as Lowell Swift showing his charm, his dreams, his persuasiveness, his love for Roberta, and his frustration that his record company has no distribution so he can't pay his singer anything. A Hollywood producer and his entourage come to the club, hear Roberta, and the producer convince her to leave Central Avenue to go uptown to be in the movies, leaving Lowell devasted.
The play's bittersweet climax is when one character rushes in saying the courts outlawed Jim Crow housing convenants allowing blacks for the first time the right to buy or rent any property anywhere in Southern California. The play's characters celebrate this great victory, now having even bigger dreams of going to live in rich white neighborhoods. Yet this moment of triumph is bittersweet as Lowell Swift says in a great monologue to the audience. In Central Avenue and Southcentral blacks had built their own clubs, hotels, restaurants, nightlife, newspapers, and insurance companies, but by 1955 Central Avenue would end as blacks moved out over the city. The whole nightlife scene would vanish. The play celebrates the Last Hurrah for Central Avenue in the last 1940s and early 1950s and illuminates why and how the Black Broadway of Los Angeles ended.
Blues for Central Avenue
Write Act Repertory Theater
6128 Yucca, Hollywood, 323-469-3113
Run through March 7.
The playwright Willard Manus in the notes said he learned about Central Avenue listening to Johnny Otis's radio show in the early 1980s where Otis, himself a wonderful musician, had on his radio program "such Central Avenue stalwarts as artist Cal Bailey, sax player Buddy Collete, trumpeter Dootsie Williams, vocalist Caroline Harlson, and dancer Clarence 'Frenchy' Laundry talk about their experience" on Central Avenue. The play's director Ken Cosby also reminesces in the notes that after he graduated high school in 1989 he jammed with his idol Jimmy Knepper, who had been Charlie Mingus' s trombonist. The notes also has reproduction wonderful paintings by Rich Hyman of musicians playing in Central Avenue. African-American artists in Los Angeles through this play are paying homage to their past and to our past.
The play is not caught up nostalgia for the past but focuses on the crucial turning point for Central Avenue right after World War II. Then black servicemen returned to Central Avenue like the play's hero Lowell Swift, a wounded veteran, returns with the dream of founding a recording company to record new Central Avenue singers. Black woman like the heroine Roberta Youngblood had war jobs making good money but were laid off as she complains to Lowell so the jobs could go to returning veterans. Zoot suits are still in fashion, as the hero has to shed his army clothes for a zoot suit. Roberta enters the singing contest at Club Alabam and wows the audience, leading to Lowell making her first record as these characters rush for their dreams in post-war Los Angeles. Wallace Demaaria acts wonderfully as Lowell Swift showing his charm, his dreams, his persuasiveness, his love for Roberta, and his frustration that his record company has no distribution so he can't pay his singer anything. A Hollywood producer and his entourage come to the club, hear Roberta, and the producer convince her to leave Central Avenue to go uptown to be in the movies, leaving Lowell devasted.
The play's bittersweet climax is when one character rushes in saying the courts outlawed Jim Crow housing convenants allowing blacks for the first time the right to buy or rent any property anywhere in Southern California. The play's characters celebrate this great victory, now having even bigger dreams of going to live in rich white neighborhoods. Yet this moment of triumph is bittersweet as Lowell Swift says in a great monologue to the audience. In Central Avenue and Southcentral blacks had built their own clubs, hotels, restaurants, nightlife, newspapers, and insurance companies, but by 1955 Central Avenue would end as blacks moved out over the city. The whole nightlife scene would vanish. The play celebrates the Last Hurrah for Central Avenue in the last 1940s and early 1950s and illuminates why and how the Black Broadway of Los Angeles ended.
Blues for Central Avenue
Write Act Repertory Theater
6128 Yucca, Hollywood, 323-469-3113
Run through March 7.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The War Economy, the MLA, and My Brother Who Has Parkinson’s
In the late 1970s I was involved in the anti-nuclear movement, wanting to work to reduce military budgets after the Vietnam War was over. I read Seymour Melman who predicted in that huge military budgets of what Melman called The Permanent War Economy would bankrupt the two Superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States. Melman predicted that the two Superpowers, putting most of their resources in military hardware, would have declining education and health services until they bankrupted themselves. Few people in the Superpowers were listening to Melman and his small groups of followers in 1980.
In the late 1980s the Soviet Union had declining health for its population, was bankrupt, and finally collapsed, with whole provinces spinning off into independent states. Melman’s prophecies about Superpower #1 going bankrupt was right.
In 1980 the United States began the 1980 Regan military buildup and has had ever increasing military budgets along with declining wages and declining health care. I’ve very concerned with health care since my brother got Parkinson’s in 1998. At that time the United States was at peace; Congress had allocated for the first time $100 million for research in Parkinson’s. Researchers told my brother with five-ten years there would be big breakthroughs in Parkinson’s treatment or even a cure. In 2003 the Iraq War stated. I knew immediately that the money wouldn’t be spent on research and that there would be no big breakthroughs in treatment in this disease.
December 2003 my brother, a dedicated father who lived ½ time with his 10-year old daughter, was given by a Safeway pharmacist a wrong medication, overdosed, and nearly died. First, he went to the hospital in rural California which misdiagnosed him twice. Locals make jokes that you go to this hospital to die. He survived because he was helicoptered 50 miles away to the nearest trauma center.
I flew up to visit him in the hospital, and then went to the MLA convention in San Diego. I am member of the Radical Caucus of the Modern Language Association, the largest association of professors in languages—English and other languages. Pat Keeton and I were going to present to the MLA Delegates Assembly our Radical Caucus resolution: the MLA should come out against the Iraq War and ask the money spent not on war but instead on health and education.
Before you present a resolution the MLA, you document it. Keeton and I presented 60 pp of documentation showing decline of public spending of higher education from 1980-2003 (13% decline in state spending on higher education; 1% decline in federal spending = 14% in spending). We also showed statistics on U.S. health as measured by infant mortality and how long men and women live comparing the U.S. versus other countries. In 2003 U.S. has worse health statistics than any other industrialized nation . We were about the same in our health statistics as Costa Rica.
I show up at the MLA to help argue for our resolution. The Delegates Assembly, the Congress of the MLA, approves our anti-war resolution. Hurrah. A few months later the Executive Committee of the MLA throws out the resolution. They say our documentation hadn’t proven that the Iraq War spending caused cuts in health and education spending. They said that such a resolution was not sanctioned by the MLA Constitution and was out of bounds.
My brothers out of the rehab hospital, gets out of a board and care and struggles on insufficient funds to take care of himself, but is never able to live again ½ time with his daughter. He gets pneumonia in winter 2007. He goes to the small rural hospital which was unable to diagnose pneumonia and is again saved because he was helicoptered out to the nearest city hospital. He gets pneumonia in summer 2008 and nearly dies. He makes it through both times. In fall 2008 Joseph Stiglitz, Noble Laureate economist, publishes a book The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict saying the spending on the Iraq War is ruining our economy, There have been no breakthroughs in Parkinson’s research—I was right about that. Many Parkinson’s patients die from pneumonia.
Now it’s not just some marginalized peaceniks saying this but a leading U.S. economist. Now 50 million U.S. citizens have no health insurance and another 50 million had such inadequate insurance that they forego getting treatment regularly. That’s 1 in 3 Americans lack health insurance and adequate health care. Most rural health care is pathetic. Melman was right in 1980! Oh yeah, Melman thinks deindustrialization of the United States along with our Permanent War Economy has helped bankrupt our country. Our Permanent War Economy has led the U.S. to bankruptcy and led to suffering from disease of our citizens and our death for many.
In the late 1980s the Soviet Union had declining health for its population, was bankrupt, and finally collapsed, with whole provinces spinning off into independent states. Melman’s prophecies about Superpower #1 going bankrupt was right.
In 1980 the United States began the 1980 Regan military buildup and has had ever increasing military budgets along with declining wages and declining health care. I’ve very concerned with health care since my brother got Parkinson’s in 1998. At that time the United States was at peace; Congress had allocated for the first time $100 million for research in Parkinson’s. Researchers told my brother with five-ten years there would be big breakthroughs in Parkinson’s treatment or even a cure. In 2003 the Iraq War stated. I knew immediately that the money wouldn’t be spent on research and that there would be no big breakthroughs in treatment in this disease.
December 2003 my brother, a dedicated father who lived ½ time with his 10-year old daughter, was given by a Safeway pharmacist a wrong medication, overdosed, and nearly died. First, he went to the hospital in rural California which misdiagnosed him twice. Locals make jokes that you go to this hospital to die. He survived because he was helicoptered 50 miles away to the nearest trauma center.
I flew up to visit him in the hospital, and then went to the MLA convention in San Diego. I am member of the Radical Caucus of the Modern Language Association, the largest association of professors in languages—English and other languages. Pat Keeton and I were going to present to the MLA Delegates Assembly our Radical Caucus resolution: the MLA should come out against the Iraq War and ask the money spent not on war but instead on health and education.
Before you present a resolution the MLA, you document it. Keeton and I presented 60 pp of documentation showing decline of public spending of higher education from 1980-2003 (13% decline in state spending on higher education; 1% decline in federal spending = 14% in spending). We also showed statistics on U.S. health as measured by infant mortality and how long men and women live comparing the U.S. versus other countries. In 2003 U.S. has worse health statistics than any other industrialized nation . We were about the same in our health statistics as Costa Rica.
I show up at the MLA to help argue for our resolution. The Delegates Assembly, the Congress of the MLA, approves our anti-war resolution. Hurrah. A few months later the Executive Committee of the MLA throws out the resolution. They say our documentation hadn’t proven that the Iraq War spending caused cuts in health and education spending. They said that such a resolution was not sanctioned by the MLA Constitution and was out of bounds.
My brothers out of the rehab hospital, gets out of a board and care and struggles on insufficient funds to take care of himself, but is never able to live again ½ time with his daughter. He gets pneumonia in winter 2007. He goes to the small rural hospital which was unable to diagnose pneumonia and is again saved because he was helicoptered out to the nearest city hospital. He gets pneumonia in summer 2008 and nearly dies. He makes it through both times. In fall 2008 Joseph Stiglitz, Noble Laureate economist, publishes a book The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict saying the spending on the Iraq War is ruining our economy, There have been no breakthroughs in Parkinson’s research—I was right about that. Many Parkinson’s patients die from pneumonia.
Now it’s not just some marginalized peaceniks saying this but a leading U.S. economist. Now 50 million U.S. citizens have no health insurance and another 50 million had such inadequate insurance that they forego getting treatment regularly. That’s 1 in 3 Americans lack health insurance and adequate health care. Most rural health care is pathetic. Melman was right in 1980! Oh yeah, Melman thinks deindustrialization of the United States along with our Permanent War Economy has helped bankrupt our country. Our Permanent War Economy has led the U.S. to bankruptcy and led to suffering from disease of our citizens and our death for many.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Laying Off Teachers/Throwing Away Students
Laying Off Teachers/Throwing Away Students
by Julia Stein
February 18, 2009, 9:40 am
Throughout the fall of 2007 and winter of 2008 I've been hearing stories of teachers being laid off in Orange County, Bay Area, Sacramento, Florida, and of small groups of trade unionists fighting to save teachers jobs. I teach at a junior college, and only now this spring have a small number of classes been cut at my junior college for the first time.
Still I wasn't aware of how many teachers were threatened with losing their jobs nationally until I read Nicholas D. Kristoff's editorial "Our Greatest National Shame" last Sunday, Feburary 15 in the New York Times who quotes a University of Washinton study that "the recession would lead to cuts of 574,000 school jobs without a stimulus." In the stimulus package just passed through Congress was $100 billion toward education, so this stimulus will save some of this 574,000 endangered jobs. Probably not all jobs will be saved. How many teachers jobs will be cut in 2008? I have no idea.
I've been teaching as an adjunct in higher education, and have survived layoffs in my job four times. Since I started teaching in 1990, I was just hired in time to face the layoffs in the recession of the early 1990s where the ESL program in a Southcentral Los Angeles junior college I was teaching in was threatened to be totally cut three times. Three times we instructors and students saved the program. I used these experiences to write a series of poems about teaching during cutbacks and layoffs in my last published book of poetry Walker Woman.
After the book was published, I got a better teaching job and sincerely hoped my period of fearing for my job was over. I didn't want the poems to be prophetic of teacher job cuts in the future. No way.
No such luck. In 2003 California had another budget emergency. Santa Monica College, where I now was teaching, had a president in spring 2003 who wanted to cut 400 teachers, staff, and downsize the college 6,000 students. The president also wanted to end the vocational programs like auto repair, tourism, fire safety for future firemen, or criminology for future policemen through which students got job in Santa Monica. The faculty and staff fought for months to save the jobs and save the vocational programs but we lost.
I was one of the lucky ones who kept my job but I had a friends who were laid off. The faculty and staff both had votes of no confidence in the president where we voted 8 to 1 no confidence. After the cutbacks I had discussions with students who said their friends who wanted to take vocational educational classes which had been cut were sitting at home looking for jobs or waiting until they were old enough to get jobs as policemen or firemen.
About a year and a half later our president voluntarily left and we got a much better president. I noticed that with the better president at my college and more amicable relations between faculty and administration we faculty turned our energy to developing new curriculum including a new class on California literature in our English Department--that's where we should be putting our energy. Again, I hoped never to see such layoffs again.
Nowe we face massive national layoffs of teachers. Yes, the federal stimulus package will help but still many teaching jobs have already be lost and more teachers will lose their jobs in 2008. We should have discussions on how to save teaching jobs. Of course. We should talk to our legislators. Of course.
We should remember the 1930s. Alfred Hayes published a wonderful poem in 1934 "In a Coffee Pot" about the young people who had no future at that time:
The bright boys, where are they now?
Fernando ... the school's big brain
He's a bus boy in the eat-quick joint
At seven per week twelve hours a day.
His eyes are filled with my own pain.
His life like mine is thrown away.
by Julia Stein
February 18, 2009, 9:40 am
Throughout the fall of 2007 and winter of 2008 I've been hearing stories of teachers being laid off in Orange County, Bay Area, Sacramento, Florida, and of small groups of trade unionists fighting to save teachers jobs. I teach at a junior college, and only now this spring have a small number of classes been cut at my junior college for the first time.
Still I wasn't aware of how many teachers were threatened with losing their jobs nationally until I read Nicholas D. Kristoff's editorial "Our Greatest National Shame" last Sunday, Feburary 15 in the New York Times who quotes a University of Washinton study that "the recession would lead to cuts of 574,000 school jobs without a stimulus." In the stimulus package just passed through Congress was $100 billion toward education, so this stimulus will save some of this 574,000 endangered jobs. Probably not all jobs will be saved. How many teachers jobs will be cut in 2008? I have no idea.
I've been teaching as an adjunct in higher education, and have survived layoffs in my job four times. Since I started teaching in 1990, I was just hired in time to face the layoffs in the recession of the early 1990s where the ESL program in a Southcentral Los Angeles junior college I was teaching in was threatened to be totally cut three times. Three times we instructors and students saved the program. I used these experiences to write a series of poems about teaching during cutbacks and layoffs in my last published book of poetry Walker Woman.
After the book was published, I got a better teaching job and sincerely hoped my period of fearing for my job was over. I didn't want the poems to be prophetic of teacher job cuts in the future. No way.
No such luck. In 2003 California had another budget emergency. Santa Monica College, where I now was teaching, had a president in spring 2003 who wanted to cut 400 teachers, staff, and downsize the college 6,000 students. The president also wanted to end the vocational programs like auto repair, tourism, fire safety for future firemen, or criminology for future policemen through which students got job in Santa Monica. The faculty and staff fought for months to save the jobs and save the vocational programs but we lost.
I was one of the lucky ones who kept my job but I had a friends who were laid off. The faculty and staff both had votes of no confidence in the president where we voted 8 to 1 no confidence. After the cutbacks I had discussions with students who said their friends who wanted to take vocational educational classes which had been cut were sitting at home looking for jobs or waiting until they were old enough to get jobs as policemen or firemen.
About a year and a half later our president voluntarily left and we got a much better president. I noticed that with the better president at my college and more amicable relations between faculty and administration we faculty turned our energy to developing new curriculum including a new class on California literature in our English Department--that's where we should be putting our energy. Again, I hoped never to see such layoffs again.
Nowe we face massive national layoffs of teachers. Yes, the federal stimulus package will help but still many teaching jobs have already be lost and more teachers will lose their jobs in 2008. We should have discussions on how to save teaching jobs. Of course. We should talk to our legislators. Of course.
We should remember the 1930s. Alfred Hayes published a wonderful poem in 1934 "In a Coffee Pot" about the young people who had no future at that time:
The bright boys, where are they now?
Fernando ... the school's big brain
He's a bus boy in the eat-quick joint
At seven per week twelve hours a day.
His eyes are filled with my own pain.
His life like mine is thrown away.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Reading 1930s Literature, Watching 1930s films, Looking at 1930s Photos
If one wanted to look at 1930s culture, a good way to start would be to watch two films:
1. Tim Robbins' The Cradle Will Rock is a fun account of the government's failed attempt to censor Mark Blitzstein's musical- everybody shows up in the film from Diego Rivera to Orson Wells to Rockerfeller
2. John Ford's Grapes of Wrath- Ford was a great American film director and this film is an excellent rendition of the novel.
As for poetry, Carey Nelson's wonderful Anthology of Modern American Poetry included such poets as Genevieve Taggard, Joseph Freeman, Lucia Trent, Sterling A. Brown, Kenneth Fearing, Langston Hughes, John Beecher, Kay boyle, Joseph Kalar, Richard Wright, Edwin Rolfe, Sol Funarof, Tillie Lerner Olsen, and Muriel Rukeyster. To me, the three most important 1930s poets are Langston Hughes, Muirel Rukeyser's US 1 with its great poem "Book of the Dead" about silicosis lung disease among West Virginia miners, and Kenneth Patchen.
Any look at 1930s culture should include photographers such as Dorthea Lange and Walker Evans, especially the photos from the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men written by James Agree.
For a good anthology , Paul Lauter's Heath Anthology of American Literature Modern Period 1910-1946 Volume D 6th edition has an excellention selection of poets and fiction. The book has "A Sheaf of Political Poetry in the Modern Period" including Joseph Kalar, Kenneth Fearing, Alfred Hayes, Tillier Lerner Olson, Kay Boyle Langston Hughes, Lola Ridge, Edwin Rolfe and Genevive Taggard. The fiction includes a selection from Michael Gold's Jews Without Money, John Dos Passos' USA, Albert Maltz's short story "The Happiest Man on Earth," and Meridel LeSueur's "Women on the Breadlines," an excerpt from Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, two Richard Wright short stories, and an excerpt from Pietro Di Donato's Christ in Concrete, one of the great works of Italian-American literature. The book also includes the 1930s most popular play Clifford Odet's "Waiting for Left," which was performed all over the country in union halls and community centers. Students can perform it in a classroom in about an hour and a half.
If one was interested in United States women writers of the 1930s, look at Charlotte Nekola and Paula Rabinowitz's excellent Writing Red: An Anthology of American Women Writers, 1930-1940. The book has three sections: fiction, poetry, and reportage, theory, and analysis. The book argues that the 1930s was a period of great growth for women's writings as women in the 1930s no longer just wrote about domestic issues. The female reporters like their male colleagues covered strikes, wars, revolutions. During the 1930s women made great strides as journalists, covering the world: Josephine Herbst reported from Cuba; Agnes Smedley from China; Tillie Olsen on the San FRancisco general strike; and Elaine Ellis on "Women of the Cotton Fields."
A hard-to-find but wonderful anthology is Jack Salzman's Years of Protest: A Collection of American Writings of the 1930s (1967, Bobbs-Merril Educational Publishers). The book includes a great range of 1930s poets, fiction writers and critics who included social or political issues in their writing in Part I: Alfred Hayes, Erskine Caldwell, Steinbeck, Woody Guthrie, James Agree, Dos Passos, Edmund Wilson, Clifford Odets, Hemingway, Auden and even Ezra pound. Part II titled the "Social Muse" includes argument by left, center, and right literary critics of the 1930s including Michael Gold, Archibeld MacLeish, John Crowe Ransom, James T. Farrel, and Malcolm Crowley. The last section "Blazing Sun" includes 1930s writers who avoided politics such as Henry Miller, Robins Jefferson, William Saroyan, Daniel Fuchs, Nathanel West, William Saroyan, and Henry Roth. Hopefully a publisher should reprint this excellent anthology.
For teaching an Introduction to Literature class, the anthology Understanding Literature edited by Walter Kalaidjian et al has a good selection "Critical Perspectives: A Casebook on Poetry and social Activism Between the Wars" including poets Kenneth Fearing, Langston Hughes, Alfred Hayes, Tillie Olsen, Genevieve Taggard, Edwin Rolfe, Mureil Rukeyser, and Joseph Kalar. The anthology also does a good introduction to postmodernist theories good for freshman students.
Two other films:
1. Scarface (1932) with Paul Muni starring, Howard Hawks direction, and screenplay by Ben Hecht-one of the very best on the 1930s gangster films
2. Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times (1936)- Chaplin's wonderful comedy about the assembly line
Reading 1930s literature and looking at 1930s film can remind ourselves that despire the Great Depresion American fiction writers, poets, playrights, critics, filmmakers, and photgraphers did brilliant innovative work. Life carried on.
Anybody else have any ideas about favorite 1930s writers? films? photogrpahers?
1. Tim Robbins' The Cradle Will Rock is a fun account of the government's failed attempt to censor Mark Blitzstein's musical- everybody shows up in the film from Diego Rivera to Orson Wells to Rockerfeller
2. John Ford's Grapes of Wrath- Ford was a great American film director and this film is an excellent rendition of the novel.
As for poetry, Carey Nelson's wonderful Anthology of Modern American Poetry included such poets as Genevieve Taggard, Joseph Freeman, Lucia Trent, Sterling A. Brown, Kenneth Fearing, Langston Hughes, John Beecher, Kay boyle, Joseph Kalar, Richard Wright, Edwin Rolfe, Sol Funarof, Tillie Lerner Olsen, and Muriel Rukeyster. To me, the three most important 1930s poets are Langston Hughes, Muirel Rukeyser's US 1 with its great poem "Book of the Dead" about silicosis lung disease among West Virginia miners, and Kenneth Patchen.
Any look at 1930s culture should include photographers such as Dorthea Lange and Walker Evans, especially the photos from the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men written by James Agree.
For a good anthology , Paul Lauter's Heath Anthology of American Literature Modern Period 1910-1946 Volume D 6th edition has an excellention selection of poets and fiction. The book has "A Sheaf of Political Poetry in the Modern Period" including Joseph Kalar, Kenneth Fearing, Alfred Hayes, Tillier Lerner Olson, Kay Boyle Langston Hughes, Lola Ridge, Edwin Rolfe and Genevive Taggard. The fiction includes a selection from Michael Gold's Jews Without Money, John Dos Passos' USA, Albert Maltz's short story "The Happiest Man on Earth," and Meridel LeSueur's "Women on the Breadlines," an excerpt from Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, two Richard Wright short stories, and an excerpt from Pietro Di Donato's Christ in Concrete, one of the great works of Italian-American literature. The book also includes the 1930s most popular play Clifford Odet's "Waiting for Left," which was performed all over the country in union halls and community centers. Students can perform it in a classroom in about an hour and a half.
If one was interested in United States women writers of the 1930s, look at Charlotte Nekola and Paula Rabinowitz's excellent Writing Red: An Anthology of American Women Writers, 1930-1940. The book has three sections: fiction, poetry, and reportage, theory, and analysis. The book argues that the 1930s was a period of great growth for women's writings as women in the 1930s no longer just wrote about domestic issues. The female reporters like their male colleagues covered strikes, wars, revolutions. During the 1930s women made great strides as journalists, covering the world: Josephine Herbst reported from Cuba; Agnes Smedley from China; Tillie Olsen on the San FRancisco general strike; and Elaine Ellis on "Women of the Cotton Fields."
A hard-to-find but wonderful anthology is Jack Salzman's Years of Protest: A Collection of American Writings of the 1930s (1967, Bobbs-Merril Educational Publishers). The book includes a great range of 1930s poets, fiction writers and critics who included social or political issues in their writing in Part I: Alfred Hayes, Erskine Caldwell, Steinbeck, Woody Guthrie, James Agree, Dos Passos, Edmund Wilson, Clifford Odets, Hemingway, Auden and even Ezra pound. Part II titled the "Social Muse" includes argument by left, center, and right literary critics of the 1930s including Michael Gold, Archibeld MacLeish, John Crowe Ransom, James T. Farrel, and Malcolm Crowley. The last section "Blazing Sun" includes 1930s writers who avoided politics such as Henry Miller, Robins Jefferson, William Saroyan, Daniel Fuchs, Nathanel West, William Saroyan, and Henry Roth. Hopefully a publisher should reprint this excellent anthology.
For teaching an Introduction to Literature class, the anthology Understanding Literature edited by Walter Kalaidjian et al has a good selection "Critical Perspectives: A Casebook on Poetry and social Activism Between the Wars" including poets Kenneth Fearing, Langston Hughes, Alfred Hayes, Tillie Olsen, Genevieve Taggard, Edwin Rolfe, Mureil Rukeyser, and Joseph Kalar. The anthology also does a good introduction to postmodernist theories good for freshman students.
Two other films:
1. Scarface (1932) with Paul Muni starring, Howard Hawks direction, and screenplay by Ben Hecht-one of the very best on the 1930s gangster films
2. Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times (1936)- Chaplin's wonderful comedy about the assembly line
Reading 1930s literature and looking at 1930s film can remind ourselves that despire the Great Depresion American fiction writers, poets, playrights, critics, filmmakers, and photgraphers did brilliant innovative work. Life carried on.
Anybody else have any ideas about favorite 1930s writers? films? photogrpahers?
Friday, February 13, 2009
I Was a Writer for the Government!
In 1980 I got a job as a writer on an oral history unit of CETA (Comprehensive Education Training Act). The Federal government during the really bad recession in the 1970s established CETA, which was a revival of the WPA of the 1930s. Both the WPA and CETA gave jobs in a variety of fields and job training including jobs for writers, artists, and performers. In the 1930s WPA was the biggest employer in the United States.
My oral history project was called American Profiles. We were housed in Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley and were part of American Dance Theater, which was a folk dance group in CETA directed by Joyce Aimee. We were supposed to interview senior citizens who had lived a long time in Los Angeles about their lives to gather information about Los Angeles history from 1900-1980. I was told that one could have the job for eighteen months, and the previous writers had done oral histories of Los Angeles seniors downtown and Culver City but not the San Fernando Valley, so we were supposed to find people to interview in the Valley.
Actually, this was a great job. At first we read histories of Los Angeles (though living in L.A. since I was a baby I didn't know Los Angeles had a history!). I read Carey McWilliams great history about the region "Southern California: An Island in the Sun." I read Robert Gottlieb's and Irene Wolt's "Thinking Big," a great history of the Los Angeles Times newspaper, which had dominated Los Angeles for nearly a 100 years. My whole view of my hometown was transformed! The only available histories of the San Fernando Valley were a couple short, superficial books, but I read those too.
In one of these books I saw a photograph of the Neggens family; the caption said that the Neggens were one of the first families to farm in Northridge circa 1910. After Los Angeles city fathers brought the water into Los Angeles first through the San Fernando Valley, the owners of large parcels of Valley property broke down the property into smaller parcels and sold off family farms. In the Neggens photo was a father, mother, and bunch of little kids. I figured one of the little kids was about 6 in 1910 he would be 76 in 1980. I looked in the phone book for Northridge, found a Menton Neggens, called. Yes, he had been a child in the photo. I interviewed him about growing up in a family farm 1910-1930, and then learned about his long career in the LAPD in the Valley.
I interviewed Abe Maymudes who had been an immigrant Jewish radical organizer in Boyle Heights in the 1930s-1940s and then a chicken farmer in Canoga Park in the 1950s. I interviewed Marion and Lucille Johnson whose grandparents, father, and uncle had homesteaded in the 1880s in the Big Tujunga canyon area of northeast Valley and who had grown up on a small farm in Big Tujunga canyon. I interviewed Robert Rowley, who father owned the first store in Sunland in the northeast Valley when Sunland was dirt farmers. I was the only one in my unit interviewing children of the farm families in the Valley. I was the only one I know about who interviewed these farmers in the Valley. By the 1940s developers were buying up the farmers, building suburban tract homes, and destroying all the farm life. I interviewed the last generation who remembered these small family farms which by 1980 had completely vanished.
As we were doing our research, interviews, and editing, President Regan was elected and one of his first acts was to end the CETA program. We were told instead of eighteen months we had been promised we would only have the job for 6 months, and had a month or two to finish up our interviews. I had published parts of my Maymudes interview in the "Big Valley" magazine. We could have published more if our program wasn't ended. Our director and editor made plans for all the oral histories to be housed in California State College Northridge archives and also in the Sunland-Tujunga library. As far as I know they are still there. We were pressed to finish editing down our interviews and our project of three writers, one editor, and a photographer produced a 249 page volume titled "Valley Portraits: The Living Past" which has ll interviews detailing history of all areas of the San Fernando Valley. Our publication was Volume III of our oral histories.
This job gave me a lasting fascination for history of Los Angeles. I kept on learning and read Los Angeles poetry and literature. I hiked through Los Angeles and learned the geology and botany of the area. When I begin teaching at Santa Monica College, I used my background in Southern Californian history to develop new English curriculum. I made out a list of 100 historical sites around Los Angeles and had my students research one site for a research paper as I was teaching the research paper. Some of my students did brilliant original research learning about buildings in their neighborhood for the first time. A couple years ago I was in the library and picked up a new history of San Fernando Valley, a much better history. Low and behold the author quoted my interview with Menton Neggens. I think it was important to interview the people we did and catch their history because they died.
The original WPA writers interview elderly people who had been slaves, and you can still read these interviews in the Library of Congress. Later historians took these WPA interviews and published books on African-American history. We in Los Angeles also interviewed elderly people capturing their history and helping later historians understand the history of Southern California. Without these two programs an important part of the history of the American people would be lost. The WPA Writers/artists Program should be revived as it made invaluable contributions to American culture.
My oral history project was called American Profiles. We were housed in Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley and were part of American Dance Theater, which was a folk dance group in CETA directed by Joyce Aimee. We were supposed to interview senior citizens who had lived a long time in Los Angeles about their lives to gather information about Los Angeles history from 1900-1980. I was told that one could have the job for eighteen months, and the previous writers had done oral histories of Los Angeles seniors downtown and Culver City but not the San Fernando Valley, so we were supposed to find people to interview in the Valley.
Actually, this was a great job. At first we read histories of Los Angeles (though living in L.A. since I was a baby I didn't know Los Angeles had a history!). I read Carey McWilliams great history about the region "Southern California: An Island in the Sun." I read Robert Gottlieb's and Irene Wolt's "Thinking Big," a great history of the Los Angeles Times newspaper, which had dominated Los Angeles for nearly a 100 years. My whole view of my hometown was transformed! The only available histories of the San Fernando Valley were a couple short, superficial books, but I read those too.
In one of these books I saw a photograph of the Neggens family; the caption said that the Neggens were one of the first families to farm in Northridge circa 1910. After Los Angeles city fathers brought the water into Los Angeles first through the San Fernando Valley, the owners of large parcels of Valley property broke down the property into smaller parcels and sold off family farms. In the Neggens photo was a father, mother, and bunch of little kids. I figured one of the little kids was about 6 in 1910 he would be 76 in 1980. I looked in the phone book for Northridge, found a Menton Neggens, called. Yes, he had been a child in the photo. I interviewed him about growing up in a family farm 1910-1930, and then learned about his long career in the LAPD in the Valley.
I interviewed Abe Maymudes who had been an immigrant Jewish radical organizer in Boyle Heights in the 1930s-1940s and then a chicken farmer in Canoga Park in the 1950s. I interviewed Marion and Lucille Johnson whose grandparents, father, and uncle had homesteaded in the 1880s in the Big Tujunga canyon area of northeast Valley and who had grown up on a small farm in Big Tujunga canyon. I interviewed Robert Rowley, who father owned the first store in Sunland in the northeast Valley when Sunland was dirt farmers. I was the only one in my unit interviewing children of the farm families in the Valley. I was the only one I know about who interviewed these farmers in the Valley. By the 1940s developers were buying up the farmers, building suburban tract homes, and destroying all the farm life. I interviewed the last generation who remembered these small family farms which by 1980 had completely vanished.
As we were doing our research, interviews, and editing, President Regan was elected and one of his first acts was to end the CETA program. We were told instead of eighteen months we had been promised we would only have the job for 6 months, and had a month or two to finish up our interviews. I had published parts of my Maymudes interview in the "Big Valley" magazine. We could have published more if our program wasn't ended. Our director and editor made plans for all the oral histories to be housed in California State College Northridge archives and also in the Sunland-Tujunga library. As far as I know they are still there. We were pressed to finish editing down our interviews and our project of three writers, one editor, and a photographer produced a 249 page volume titled "Valley Portraits: The Living Past" which has ll interviews detailing history of all areas of the San Fernando Valley. Our publication was Volume III of our oral histories.
This job gave me a lasting fascination for history of Los Angeles. I kept on learning and read Los Angeles poetry and literature. I hiked through Los Angeles and learned the geology and botany of the area. When I begin teaching at Santa Monica College, I used my background in Southern Californian history to develop new English curriculum. I made out a list of 100 historical sites around Los Angeles and had my students research one site for a research paper as I was teaching the research paper. Some of my students did brilliant original research learning about buildings in their neighborhood for the first time. A couple years ago I was in the library and picked up a new history of San Fernando Valley, a much better history. Low and behold the author quoted my interview with Menton Neggens. I think it was important to interview the people we did and catch their history because they died.
The original WPA writers interview elderly people who had been slaves, and you can still read these interviews in the Library of Congress. Later historians took these WPA interviews and published books on African-American history. We in Los Angeles also interviewed elderly people capturing their history and helping later historians understand the history of Southern California. Without these two programs an important part of the history of the American people would be lost. The WPA Writers/artists Program should be revived as it made invaluable contributions to American culture.
Shuttin' Detroit Down
Heard the song "Shuttin' Detroit Down" by John Rich on the radio while driving yesterday. Rich wrote the first great song of the the economic recession. On the tune the fiddle is really good, the band sounds good, and this is a tune you can dance to. Here's John Rich's web site where you can listen to him sing "Shuttin' Detroit Down."
http://www.johnrich.com/
Here's some of the song:
In the real word they're shuttin' Detroit down.
While the boss man takes his pay and jets out of down
DC's bailing out them bankers while they ground the farmer down.
While they're livng up on Wall Street in NY city town
here in the real world they're shuttin' Detroit down.
http://www.johnrich.com/
Here's some of the song:
In the real word they're shuttin' Detroit down.
While the boss man takes his pay and jets out of down
DC's bailing out them bankers while they ground the farmer down.
While they're livng up on Wall Street in NY city town
here in the real world they're shuttin' Detroit down.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Stimulus Plan Needs to Include Writers and Artists
from Institute for Policy Studies website
http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/974
Arts Stimulus Plan
Declaration by John Cavanagh, James Early, Barbara Ehrenreich, E. Ethelbert Miller, Marcus Raskin, Andy Shallal, Melissa Tuckey. Published December 18, 2008 12:00AM
Here’s a detailed call for the stimulus plan to include a program that will support artists and writers.
Programs that paid thousands of artists and writers comprised one of the most creative aspects of the New Deal. Thousands received relatively small outlays of funds for their work, and the nation’s artistic heritage was greatly enhanced. The same kind of initiative is needed today.
Congress needs to recommend that the government spend one percent of the stimulus plan on arts and culture (that would mean $6 billion if the final package is $600 billion), building on the New Deal’s Federal Art Project and the Federal Writers Project. Below, we offer 11 ideas on how the money could be spent. We also support ideas that link different parts of the stimulus package; for example, new murals and sculptures could adorn the new schools that will be built.
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was created in 1935 to bring jobs to those who had become unemployed or underemployed during the Great Depression. Since artists and writers were also hit by the economic hard times, two divisions of the WPA were assigned the task of creating suitable jobs for such people — jobs that would not only take advantage of these individuals' talents, but would also serve to enrich America's cultural heritage and embellish public spaces. The grouping of the largest of these programs is collectively known as the “Federal Project Number One.” Included in this collective were the Federal Writers’ Project, the Historical Records Survey, the Federal Theatre Project, the Federal Music Project, and the Federal Art Project. All of these programs were divisions of the Works Progress Administration. Out of the approximately $4.8 billion allocated to the Works Progress Administration, Congress permitted $27 million to fund the Federal Project Number One projects.
The Federal Art Project, along with several other WPA-backed programs, created well over 5,000 jobs for American artists. These artists created over 2,500 murals, over 17,700 sculptures, 108,000 paintings, and 240,000 prints. The project's legacy still lives on, since it supported artists like Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, and many other abstract expressionists whose work helped shift the most dynamic center of the art world to shift from its traditional location in Europe to where it now resides, in the largest cities of the United States.
The Federal Writers' Project created over 6,600 jobs for writers, editors, researchers, and many others who exemplified a given level of literary expertise. Established on July 27, 1935 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) operated under journalist and theatrical producer Henry Alsberg, and later John D. Newsome, compiling local histories, oral histories, ethnographies, children's books and other works. These writers created over 1,200 books and pamphlets, and they produced some of the first U.S. guides for states, major cities, and roadways. In addition, the FWP was responsible for recording folklore, oral histories, and, most notably, the 2,300 plus first-person accounts of slavery that now exist as a collection in the Library of Congress. As with the Federal Art Project, the FWP's contributions to American literature were both significant and long-lasting, giving authors like Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, John Steinbeck, Sterling Brown, and many others the opportunity to continue their work in a time of difficult economic circumstances.
Here are some of the ways the funds could be used:
1. National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH): Increase funding for the NEA and NEH. Increase the staff at both agencies. Maintain many of the new NEA projects started by Dana Gioia, for example: The Big Read and Operation Homecoming.
2. Archives: Support the preservation of literary archives across the country. Many collections need to interface with modern technology; staff needs to be hired at various institutions. We don't want to lose our past.
3. A Secretary-level post for Culture/Arts: We support the idea of Bill Ivey, former NEA Chair under President Bill Clinton, and head of the arts/culture Obama Transition Team for a Secretary level post for Culture/Arts. Indeed, the United States and Germany are the only wealthy nations without a Minister or Secretary of Culture. Ivey’s initiative involves the refocus and revitalization of the extant Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, which could be a better interim and/or long-term mechanism for new arts and culture policies.
4. Arts Education: Educational institutions, especially public school systems in low-income and underserved communities, would hire artists and writers. Funds would be made available for artist and writer-in-residence positions.
5. Arts in Public Spaces: Support for the arts in public places; especially parks, metro stations, airports, etc. Every major city and community should have access to concert series and readings in their major parks, especially in times of economic hardship.
6. Workplace: Funds to bring poets and writers into the workplace. Build literacy by enlivening the reading public. Contemporary writers would bring their work to the people. Readings could be held around noon at workplaces.
7. Document history: Document U.S. literary and cultural history on a city, state and national level. This would be similar to the old WPA program. Interview major writers and painters. It could be done by doing a series of films.
8. American Artists Overseas: Money should be set aside to send American artists overseas for three-six month periods, with an emphasis on countries where the United States has been at odds. They would serve as cultural ambassadors and give lectures and performances. They would also collaborate with artists of the host country to produce cultural events.
9. Fellowships/Scholarships awarded to working/low income individuals who wish to enroll in creative writing programs: Many older people wish to return to school to pursue careers in the arts but have no money for tuition.
10. Black colleges: Money should be set aside to develop creative writing programs at historically black colleges. No creative writing program exists at any black college. This would create teaching jobs for many African American authors.
11. Libraries: We should support library infrastructure and provide writer and artist-in-residence programs for our libraries, especially those in low-income communities. Our nation's libraries are public treasures and many have been closed in recent years. Money is needed to keep our libraries open and alive.
http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/974
Arts Stimulus Plan
Declaration by John Cavanagh, James Early, Barbara Ehrenreich, E. Ethelbert Miller, Marcus Raskin, Andy Shallal, Melissa Tuckey. Published December 18, 2008 12:00AM
Here’s a detailed call for the stimulus plan to include a program that will support artists and writers.
Programs that paid thousands of artists and writers comprised one of the most creative aspects of the New Deal. Thousands received relatively small outlays of funds for their work, and the nation’s artistic heritage was greatly enhanced. The same kind of initiative is needed today.
Congress needs to recommend that the government spend one percent of the stimulus plan on arts and culture (that would mean $6 billion if the final package is $600 billion), building on the New Deal’s Federal Art Project and the Federal Writers Project. Below, we offer 11 ideas on how the money could be spent. We also support ideas that link different parts of the stimulus package; for example, new murals and sculptures could adorn the new schools that will be built.
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was created in 1935 to bring jobs to those who had become unemployed or underemployed during the Great Depression. Since artists and writers were also hit by the economic hard times, two divisions of the WPA were assigned the task of creating suitable jobs for such people — jobs that would not only take advantage of these individuals' talents, but would also serve to enrich America's cultural heritage and embellish public spaces. The grouping of the largest of these programs is collectively known as the “Federal Project Number One.” Included in this collective were the Federal Writers’ Project, the Historical Records Survey, the Federal Theatre Project, the Federal Music Project, and the Federal Art Project. All of these programs were divisions of the Works Progress Administration. Out of the approximately $4.8 billion allocated to the Works Progress Administration, Congress permitted $27 million to fund the Federal Project Number One projects.
The Federal Art Project, along with several other WPA-backed programs, created well over 5,000 jobs for American artists. These artists created over 2,500 murals, over 17,700 sculptures, 108,000 paintings, and 240,000 prints. The project's legacy still lives on, since it supported artists like Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, and many other abstract expressionists whose work helped shift the most dynamic center of the art world to shift from its traditional location in Europe to where it now resides, in the largest cities of the United States.
The Federal Writers' Project created over 6,600 jobs for writers, editors, researchers, and many others who exemplified a given level of literary expertise. Established on July 27, 1935 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) operated under journalist and theatrical producer Henry Alsberg, and later John D. Newsome, compiling local histories, oral histories, ethnographies, children's books and other works. These writers created over 1,200 books and pamphlets, and they produced some of the first U.S. guides for states, major cities, and roadways. In addition, the FWP was responsible for recording folklore, oral histories, and, most notably, the 2,300 plus first-person accounts of slavery that now exist as a collection in the Library of Congress. As with the Federal Art Project, the FWP's contributions to American literature were both significant and long-lasting, giving authors like Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, John Steinbeck, Sterling Brown, and many others the opportunity to continue their work in a time of difficult economic circumstances.
Here are some of the ways the funds could be used:
1. National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH): Increase funding for the NEA and NEH. Increase the staff at both agencies. Maintain many of the new NEA projects started by Dana Gioia, for example: The Big Read and Operation Homecoming.
2. Archives: Support the preservation of literary archives across the country. Many collections need to interface with modern technology; staff needs to be hired at various institutions. We don't want to lose our past.
3. A Secretary-level post for Culture/Arts: We support the idea of Bill Ivey, former NEA Chair under President Bill Clinton, and head of the arts/culture Obama Transition Team for a Secretary level post for Culture/Arts. Indeed, the United States and Germany are the only wealthy nations without a Minister or Secretary of Culture. Ivey’s initiative involves the refocus and revitalization of the extant Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, which could be a better interim and/or long-term mechanism for new arts and culture policies.
4. Arts Education: Educational institutions, especially public school systems in low-income and underserved communities, would hire artists and writers. Funds would be made available for artist and writer-in-residence positions.
5. Arts in Public Spaces: Support for the arts in public places; especially parks, metro stations, airports, etc. Every major city and community should have access to concert series and readings in their major parks, especially in times of economic hardship.
6. Workplace: Funds to bring poets and writers into the workplace. Build literacy by enlivening the reading public. Contemporary writers would bring their work to the people. Readings could be held around noon at workplaces.
7. Document history: Document U.S. literary and cultural history on a city, state and national level. This would be similar to the old WPA program. Interview major writers and painters. It could be done by doing a series of films.
8. American Artists Overseas: Money should be set aside to send American artists overseas for three-six month periods, with an emphasis on countries where the United States has been at odds. They would serve as cultural ambassadors and give lectures and performances. They would also collaborate with artists of the host country to produce cultural events.
9. Fellowships/Scholarships awarded to working/low income individuals who wish to enroll in creative writing programs: Many older people wish to return to school to pursue careers in the arts but have no money for tuition.
10. Black colleges: Money should be set aside to develop creative writing programs at historically black colleges. No creative writing program exists at any black college. This would create teaching jobs for many African American authors.
11. Libraries: We should support library infrastructure and provide writer and artist-in-residence programs for our libraries, especially those in low-income communities. Our nation's libraries are public treasures and many have been closed in recent years. Money is needed to keep our libraries open and alive.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Interviews with artists of WPA artists program
Watch "Soul of a People: Raw Selects" which is interviews with two people who worked in the 1930s on the WPA artists program; Studs Turkel and Stetson Kennedy, who along with Zora Neale Hurston collected spirituals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2HGuIkJing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2HGuIkJing
Republicans cut arts out of stimulus package
>> Republicans With Support Of Feinstein & Feingold Eliminate Funding To Aquariums, zoos, golf courses, swimming pools, community parks, museums, theater, art centers and highway beautification
>>from Americans for the Arts
>> February 6, 2009
>>
>> Breaking News
>> This afternoon the U.S. Senate, during their consideration of the economic recovery bill, approved an egregious amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that stated “None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, art center, and highway beautification project.” Unfortunately, the amendment passed by a wide vote margin of 73-24, and surprisingly included support from many high profile Senators including Chuck Schumer of New York, Dianne Feinstein of California, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, and several other Democratic and Republican Senators.
>>
>> If the Coburn amendment language is included in the final conference version of this legislation, many arts groups will be prevented from receiving economic recovery funds from any portion of this specific stimulus bill. It is clear that there is still much work to be done in the Senate and in the media about the role that nonprofit arts organizations and artists play in the nation’s economy and workforce.
>>
>> Plan of Action
>> * Arts advocates need to quickly contact Senators who voted for the Coburn Amendment and express your extreme disappointment with their vote. We need these Senators to know that their vote would detrimentally impact nonprofit arts organizations and the jobs they support in their state.We have crafted a customized message for you to send to your Senators based on their vote on the Coburn Amendment. The correct letter, customized to each of your Senators will appear when you enter your zip code. If your Senator voted for this funding prohibition, you can send them a message expressing your disappointment and ask them to work to delete this language in the final conference bill with the House. If your Senator voted against the Coburn Amendment, you can thank them for their support of the arts.
>> * We need as many news articles as possible this coming week to publish stories about the economic impact of the nonprofit arts industry and how the recession is negatively affecting arts groups across the country. Pleaseclick here to customize an opinion editorial to your local media. We have provided you with easy-to-use talking points.
>> * Next week, Americans for the Arts will be sending you another action alert that targets the White House and the soon-to-be-named Senators and Representatives who will serve as conferees to the final economic recovery bill. Please be prepared to take action on this alert as well.
>> * Americans for the Arts itself is submitting op-eds to several national newspapers and online blogs. We are enlisting high profile leaders to co-sign these letters as well.
>> * Americans for the Arts is purchasingfull-page ads titled “The Arts = Jobs” in Washington’s top political newspapers in Roll Call, Politico and The Hill on Monday and Tuesday of next week. We encourage you to post the ad on your social network sites.
>>
>>
>>from Americans for the Arts
>> February 6, 2009
>>
>> Breaking News
>> This afternoon the U.S. Senate, during their consideration of the economic recovery bill, approved an egregious amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that stated “None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, art center, and highway beautification project.” Unfortunately, the amendment passed by a wide vote margin of 73-24, and surprisingly included support from many high profile Senators including Chuck Schumer of New York, Dianne Feinstein of California, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, and several other Democratic and Republican Senators.
>>
>> If the Coburn amendment language is included in the final conference version of this legislation, many arts groups will be prevented from receiving economic recovery funds from any portion of this specific stimulus bill. It is clear that there is still much work to be done in the Senate and in the media about the role that nonprofit arts organizations and artists play in the nation’s economy and workforce.
>>
>> Plan of Action
>> * Arts advocates need to quickly contact Senators who voted for the Coburn Amendment and express your extreme disappointment with their vote. We need these Senators to know that their vote would detrimentally impact nonprofit arts organizations and the jobs they support in their state.
>> * We need as many news articles as possible this coming week to publish stories about the economic impact of the nonprofit arts industry and how the recession is negatively affecting arts groups across the country. Please
>> * Next week, Americans for the Arts will be sending you another action alert that targets the White House and the soon-to-be-named Senators and Representatives who will serve as conferees to the final economic recovery bill. Please be prepared to take action on this alert as well.
>> * Americans for the Arts itself is submitting op-eds to several national newspapers and online blogs. We are enlisting high profile leaders to co-sign these letters as well.
>> * Americans for the Arts is purchasing
>>
>>
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Inventing the Future
Last night I went Los Angeles Eco Village to hear Chris Carlsson speak about his new book "Nowtopia: How Pirate Programmers, Outlaw Bicyclers, and Vacant lot Gardeners are Inventing the Future." Carlsson has long been a leading figure in the California underground/counter-culture.If you want to know about the California underground check out Carlsson's website and the book:
http://www.processedworld.com/carlsson/nowtopia_web/index.shtml
Carlsson and his merry friends put out in the 1990s an infamous magazine Processed World, which was the voice of San Francisco's unhappy bike messengers, disgruntled financial workers, and subversive computer workers. The magazine proudly called themselves the magazine with the bad attitude. Actually, Processed World, which also put out an anthology, is hilarious as if Charlie Chaplin were running amuck in information processing jobs. I was a fan.
Next, Chris Carlsson and merry friend started Critical Mass, the monthly bike rides in San Francisco where thousands ride en mass; last night he showed us slides on how Critical Masses' bike rides have spread around the world.
As he spoke to a rapt audience, he explained about the bike culture he helped to build with it's huge bike rides and its non-profit bike repair shops. Residents at LA Ecovillage, a large group living in an apartment house near downtown Los Angles, started Bicycle Kitchen which helped people for free make and repair bikes. The Bicycle Kitchen grew so successful it moved into a storefront near Los Angeles City Garden. God knows Los Angeles needs less cars and mass bicycling.
Carlsson told us about the revival of urban gardening happening across the United States as well as the past history of U.S. urban gardening. Los Angeles has had a huge struggle over Southcentral Farms, a large urban garden which was destroyed. Now a film about this struggle called "The Garden" is up for an Academy Award in the documentary section.
What was also fascinating was Carlsson's telling about ground-up science and popular interventions in scientific culture: perma-culture, a grassroots science about biology and agriculture; the 1970s women's health movement which was grassroots women starting clinics and improving women's reproductive health care; and the 1970s anti-nuclear movement which helped stop the building of U.S. nuclear power plants; the free software movement where programmers developed and then gave away free software. He tried to empower the crowd that we all can do science and make our voices known about science and technology that affects our lives.
Carlsson is talking about the non-consumer society and people regaining skills such as gardening, fixing bikes, etc that we once have. Now that the country is in a recession, these ideas are even more important.
http://www.processedworld.com/carlsson/nowtopia_web/index.shtml
Carlsson and his merry friends put out in the 1990s an infamous magazine Processed World, which was the voice of San Francisco's unhappy bike messengers, disgruntled financial workers, and subversive computer workers. The magazine proudly called themselves the magazine with the bad attitude. Actually, Processed World, which also put out an anthology, is hilarious as if Charlie Chaplin were running amuck in information processing jobs. I was a fan.
Next, Chris Carlsson and merry friend started Critical Mass, the monthly bike rides in San Francisco where thousands ride en mass; last night he showed us slides on how Critical Masses' bike rides have spread around the world.
As he spoke to a rapt audience, he explained about the bike culture he helped to build with it's huge bike rides and its non-profit bike repair shops. Residents at LA Ecovillage, a large group living in an apartment house near downtown Los Angles, started Bicycle Kitchen which helped people for free make and repair bikes. The Bicycle Kitchen grew so successful it moved into a storefront near Los Angeles City Garden. God knows Los Angeles needs less cars and mass bicycling.
Carlsson told us about the revival of urban gardening happening across the United States as well as the past history of U.S. urban gardening. Los Angeles has had a huge struggle over Southcentral Farms, a large urban garden which was destroyed. Now a film about this struggle called "The Garden" is up for an Academy Award in the documentary section.
What was also fascinating was Carlsson's telling about ground-up science and popular interventions in scientific culture: perma-culture, a grassroots science about biology and agriculture; the 1970s women's health movement which was grassroots women starting clinics and improving women's reproductive health care; and the 1970s anti-nuclear movement which helped stop the building of U.S. nuclear power plants; the free software movement where programmers developed and then gave away free software. He tried to empower the crowd that we all can do science and make our voices known about science and technology that affects our lives.
Carlsson is talking about the non-consumer society and people regaining skills such as gardening, fixing bikes, etc that we once have. Now that the country is in a recession, these ideas are even more important.
Friday, February 06, 2009
James Joyce a Feminist
James Joyce was never a favorite writer of mine. I had to push myself to read all of "Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man," which was assigned in college; Irish Catholicism was totally foreign to me, and I had little understanding of its strength. I was, however, deeply moved by the stories of trapped Irish lives in Joyce's short stories in "Dubliners." I always felt I should read "Ulysses," but could never do it.
Brenda Maddox's 1988 biography of Joyce's wife titled "Nora: A Biography of Nora Joyce" really changed my idea of Joyce and informed me about Nora, who was usually called not very intelligent and a bad cook. Maddox basically argues that Joyce was a feminist, was inspired by Nora to write strong portraits of Irishwomen which helped liberate downtrodden women in Ireland.
What I learned from Brenda Maddox's biography of Nora Joyce was how hard Nora and Joyce's lives were. They gave from impoverished families--the grinding poverty of 1900 Ireland-- and both had alcoholic fathers. Joyce did capture that desperate poverty and feelings of being trapped in Ireland in "Dubliners," but he and Nora courageously left the country to start a new life outside. I do admire both of their courage tremendously. Moreover, Nora ran away with him in 1904 and lived with him without marriage until he actually married her in 1931. For an Irishwoman woman to run away with a man and then live without the marriage ceremony was utterly scandalous.
Though living without a marriage license, Maddox shows they had an incredibly strong, loving marriage. Though seen as libertines, Nora and Joyce were always sexually faithful to each other. They simply insisted on choosing their life rather than following traditions they disagreed with.
They had two children. Brenda Maddox convincingly argues that Nora Joyce was the rock on which her family rested. They had tough times. They were terribly poor for years as a young married couple with two small children. Joyce needed many eye operations, but then went blind, and Nora survived cancer. I was horrified by what they suffered and amazed by their stoicism. Their daughter Lucia went mad, which was heartbreaking for both her parents. Her grandson Stephen says that Nora "was a rock. I would venture to say that he [Joyce] could have done it it, written not one of her books without her." Maddox convincingly shows that Nora was strong and Joyce was totally dependent on her strength.
Maddox says that Marxist scholars argues that in Finnegan's Wake 'Joyce wrests English from its colonial past ... by investing his own language" out of English. He took the language of the colonialists and transformed it. Also, Joyce was inspired by his wife Nora's voice to create powerful woman's voices in "Ulysses" and "Finnegan's Wake." In fact, Joyce barely knew Ireland outside of his hometown Dublin, so he learned about Ireland from Nora who was from Galway in the west, that part of Ireland where Gaelic customs were least stamped out by the English.
Maddox says that Nora is the Irish woman--feisty, original, humorous, strong, sexy--who inspired all Joyce's female characters, and influenced all of Irish literature and society: "That Joyce should raise Nora to the status of his personal goddess is not surprising. That the ordinary is extraordinary is the meaning of Joyce. Nora was ordinary. That is to say, she accepted life, with its madness, drunkenness, poverty; it music, it comedy, and its sexual imperatives."
Maddox quotes critic Colin McCabe, ""if young Joyce was to antipathetic to the national ideology... it was not so much to the specific claims of Gaelic .. but to their service of a notion of Irish purity ... to be more specific, the pure Irish woman ... '" Other writers like Yeats created ideologies of Irish nationalism that helped them gain independence, but "Joyce related the repression of women to male brutality in [Finnegan's] Wake." Ireland both has repressed its women and had a violent past.
Maddox argues that given the repression of women in Ireland, "Nora ... was more than Joyce's Ireland; she was Irish Woman as he thought she should be. Just as 'Finnegans Wake' creates on the page an Irish national that history has never allowed to exist. Nora combined a mixture of Irishness with female libido, two qualities that Irish society still strives to keep apart. Joyce chose her to be his companion .. because she embodied the idea of the headstrong Celtic woman who trusts her intuition and her passions ...." Maddox is convincing that on the surface Joyce never tackled politics, but his exalting ordinary people and his creation of literature about an Ireland that he wished to see with religious freedom and equality between the sexes is quite political. Maddox has written a book that revises how we look at Nora Joyce, James Joyce, and his writing.
Brenda Maddox's 1988 biography of Joyce's wife titled "Nora: A Biography of Nora Joyce" really changed my idea of Joyce and informed me about Nora, who was usually called not very intelligent and a bad cook. Maddox basically argues that Joyce was a feminist, was inspired by Nora to write strong portraits of Irishwomen which helped liberate downtrodden women in Ireland.
What I learned from Brenda Maddox's biography of Nora Joyce was how hard Nora and Joyce's lives were. They gave from impoverished families--the grinding poverty of 1900 Ireland-- and both had alcoholic fathers. Joyce did capture that desperate poverty and feelings of being trapped in Ireland in "Dubliners," but he and Nora courageously left the country to start a new life outside. I do admire both of their courage tremendously. Moreover, Nora ran away with him in 1904 and lived with him without marriage until he actually married her in 1931. For an Irishwoman woman to run away with a man and then live without the marriage ceremony was utterly scandalous.
Though living without a marriage license, Maddox shows they had an incredibly strong, loving marriage. Though seen as libertines, Nora and Joyce were always sexually faithful to each other. They simply insisted on choosing their life rather than following traditions they disagreed with.
They had two children. Brenda Maddox convincingly argues that Nora Joyce was the rock on which her family rested. They had tough times. They were terribly poor for years as a young married couple with two small children. Joyce needed many eye operations, but then went blind, and Nora survived cancer. I was horrified by what they suffered and amazed by their stoicism. Their daughter Lucia went mad, which was heartbreaking for both her parents. Her grandson Stephen says that Nora "was a rock. I would venture to say that he [Joyce] could have done it it, written not one of her books without her." Maddox convincingly shows that Nora was strong and Joyce was totally dependent on her strength.
Maddox says that Marxist scholars argues that in Finnegan's Wake 'Joyce wrests English from its colonial past ... by investing his own language" out of English. He took the language of the colonialists and transformed it. Also, Joyce was inspired by his wife Nora's voice to create powerful woman's voices in "Ulysses" and "Finnegan's Wake." In fact, Joyce barely knew Ireland outside of his hometown Dublin, so he learned about Ireland from Nora who was from Galway in the west, that part of Ireland where Gaelic customs were least stamped out by the English.
Maddox says that Nora is the Irish woman--feisty, original, humorous, strong, sexy--who inspired all Joyce's female characters, and influenced all of Irish literature and society: "That Joyce should raise Nora to the status of his personal goddess is not surprising. That the ordinary is extraordinary is the meaning of Joyce. Nora was ordinary. That is to say, she accepted life, with its madness, drunkenness, poverty; it music, it comedy, and its sexual imperatives."
Maddox quotes critic Colin McCabe, ""if young Joyce was to antipathetic to the national ideology... it was not so much to the specific claims of Gaelic .. but to their service of a notion of Irish purity ... to be more specific, the pure Irish woman ... '" Other writers like Yeats created ideologies of Irish nationalism that helped them gain independence, but "Joyce related the repression of women to male brutality in [Finnegan's] Wake." Ireland both has repressed its women and had a violent past.
Maddox argues that given the repression of women in Ireland, "Nora ... was more than Joyce's Ireland; she was Irish Woman as he thought she should be. Just as 'Finnegans Wake' creates on the page an Irish national that history has never allowed to exist. Nora combined a mixture of Irishness with female libido, two qualities that Irish society still strives to keep apart. Joyce chose her to be his companion .. because she embodied the idea of the headstrong Celtic woman who trusts her intuition and her passions ...." Maddox is convincing that on the surface Joyce never tackled politics, but his exalting ordinary people and his creation of literature about an Ireland that he wished to see with religious freedom and equality between the sexes is quite political. Maddox has written a book that revises how we look at Nora Joyce, James Joyce, and his writing.
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