Images from last Saturday's protest

Thanks to Kim DeFranco on Facebook!









Article from the Twin Cities Daily Planet:

Foreclosed home auction draws protesters, bargain-hunters

BY MADELEINE BARAN, TC DAILY PLANET. March 29, 2009

Local activists protested the auction of hundreds of foreclosed homes at the Minneapolis Convention Center on March 28.

The Minnesota Coalition for a People’s Bailout organized the protest to demand that the state impose a two-year moratorium on all foreclosures, including rental properties.

About thirty protesters gathered on the sidewalk outside the convention center, chanting, “Banks got bailed out! People got thrown out! Stop foreclosures now!” The group, organized by the Minnesota Coalition for a People’s Bailout, held signs and gave short speeches in the cold, sunny weather.

“All of these homes that are being auctioned off today represent families who have been evicted and might be facing homelessness,” protester Steff Yorek said. “People’s lives are being auctioned off in there.”

The sale, held by the Real Estate Disposition Corporation (REDC), had an element of spectacle, as one foreclosed home after another went up for bid in a crowded convention room. An auctioneer stood in the front of the room, rapidly barking out prices. Most homes were sold in less than two minutes. The bidding for a three-bedroom St. Paul home previously valued at $65,000 started at just $500. Less than a minute later, it was sold for $32,500.

“You open your mouth, you might get it,” bidder Calvin Boquist said. “If you don’t you won’t.” Boquist, 53, came to the auction to buy a home for his twenty-year-old son Brandon. They hope to spend less than $35,000 on a small foreclosed home in Avon, Minnesota, close to St. John’s University where Brandon attends college.

Bidders walked past the protest quickly, but many drivers honked their horns to show support. “I understand why people see this as an opportunity,” coalition member Alan Dale said. The banks and the government, not the individual buyers, are the source of the problem, he said.

The proposed two-year foreclosure moratorium is part of a larger “People’s Bailout” bill introduced at the state legislature in January. The bill, which also includes job creation programs and a temporary halt to the five-year limit on receiving welfare benefits, has struggled to make it out of committee. But portions of the bill may pass as parts of other bills, supporters said.

Protesters said that the current economic crisis could prove worse than the Great Depression. And, as many were quick to point out, Minnesota’s Governor Floyd Olson issued an executive order temporarily halting foreclosures in 1933.

Madeleine Baran is a freelance journalist, specializing in labor and poverty issues. Her articles have appeared in The New York Daily News, Dollars & Sense, Clamor, The New Standard, and other publications.

Soulless employment

This past week, I heard a young man explain to a group of 75 community members that his job, stocking shelves with food at a local grocery store, was soul-numbing in the extreme.

And I had a huge disconnect. Because when he said that his job was stocking shelves at a local grocery store, I thought to myself, "Wow, he's doing something concrete that makes a difference in the lives of working class people." And I thought to myself, "That must be awesome, to know that the job one does contributes to one's fellow human being."

To hear this young man say that providing food to another human being is the epitome of soul depletion: well, you know, slap my up one side of the head and down another.

I live in a world that chooses to not respect individuals who contribute to the lives of other workers.

I live in a world where a man who provide the basics of live can tell himself he is doing nothing important.

Damn. That's fucked up.

Work Party

Tonight a bunch of us got together at Mayday Books to put together the posters we will pass out at tomorrow's protest against the foreclosure auction. I received the highest of praise in leftyland when Mickey told me my signs looked even better than Worker's World signs. Wow!

We re-engineered about 50 old signs from the anti-RNC rallies and stapled out new signs onto them. I sarcastically stated that with 56 signs, we probably would have twice as many signs as protesters tomorrow. I hope I am proved wrong on that.

Signs for Saturday's protest

Please feel free to steal these graphics and add your own group's name to fight against this abomination!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

And another new flyer

Another new flyer I made

All Hail Jon Stewart

see more Political Pictures

Clean Coal

75 Years



This is one of my favorite flyers. I made it to support an awesome point in US history.

Five years a group of local activists, including myself, put on a street festival celebrating 70 years since the 1934 Truckers Strike that made Minneapolis a union town and crushed the "Minneapolis Citizens Alliance". Today, six veterans of that struggle met again to see if we could do another festival this year. I think it might actually happen. I certainly hope so. More info to come.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

I have been a member of a women's reading group for over 20 years now. We are not the typical reading group. For one thing, we are diverse in our tastes and have NEVER found a book that we all agreed upon as good reading. We tried, at first, to all read the same book. But we also agreed that nobody should feel pressured to read a book she doesn't like. The result? You guessed it. We have never all read the same book.

However, one of our members was especially impressed by Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. So much so that she gave each of us a copy of the book for Xmas/Hannukah. So I finally got around to reading it this past month.

First, the writing is truly awesome. I felt immersed in the place and time of the book. I felt moved by the women who form the basis of this book.

Also, I was confused by the structure. The book begins telling the story of Miriam, a bastard child who lives alone in a secluded "kolba" with weekly visits from her father. Then, abruptly, the book shifts to concentrate on Laila, Miriam's neighbor. Which is weird and confusing.

I suppose authors must have to trust their readers to let them take these abrupt turns. If the characters are of interest, we will accept the change and trust that all will be resolved. But, dammit, it takes a really long time for that to happen. But, what a miracle, I was patient.

This book throttles you with the reality of war and abuse. It isn't pretty. There are no miraculous escapes. The choices are few and brutal. We have hope for these women, but we also know how foolish that hope is.

Aha! Found it!

I stumbled on this list while scrolling through all the Racefail09 comments and then could NOT find it again. Today, I have once again found it and copy it here. Plans are underway to get these into our bookstore. Links to follow when I have time.

Big List of Awesome Authors, Poets, Playwrights and Scholars

The latest edition of the POC Author list.

The Face of Another by Kobo Abé
The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abé
The Box Man by Kobo Abé
Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abé
The Ruined Map by Kobo Abé
The Ark Sakura by Kobo Abé
Kangaroo Notebook by Kobo Abé
Live From Deathrow by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Happy Hour at Casa Dracula by Marta Acosta
For Love of Biafra by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Changes: A Love Story by Ama Ata Aidoo

The Dilemma of a Ghost by Ama Ata Aidoo
Our Sister Killjoy by Ama Ata Aidoo
No Sweetness Here and Other Stories by Ama Ata Aidoo
10 Little Indians by Sherman Alexie
Adventures of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
The Business of Fancydancing by Sherman Alexie

First Indian on the Moon by Sherman Alexie
Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
Old Shirts and New Skins by Sherman Alexie
One Stick Song by Sherman Alexie
Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

Smoke Signals by Sherman Alexie
Summer of Black Widows by Sherman Alexie

The Woman Who Owned the Shadows by Paula Gunn Allen
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Tales of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
A Cafecito Story by Julia Alvarez
Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez

The Best Gift of All by Julia Alvarez

Finding Miracles by Julia Alvarez
The Gift of Gracias: The Legend of Altagracia by Julia Alvarez

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
In The Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
Once Upon A Quinceañera by Julia Alvarez

Return to Sender by Julia Alvarez
The Secret Footprints by Julia Alvarez
Something to Declare by Julia Alvarez

The Woman I Kept to Myself by Julia Alvarez

Bless Me Ultima by Rudolpho Anaya
Being on the Moon by Annharte

La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa
Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Experiences, 1879-2000 by Margaret L. Archuleta
The Conference of the Birds by Ibn Attar
Tahuri by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku
Selu: Seeking the Corn Mother's Wisdom by Marilou Awiakta

Gorilla, My Love by Toni Cade Bambara
The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara
Those Bones Are Not My Child Toni Cade Bambara

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
The Prisoner's Wife by Asha Bandele
Lion's Blood by Steven Barnes
Not Far Away: The Real-life Adventures of Ima Pipiig by Lois Beardslee
The Women's Warrior Society Ima Pipiig by Lois Beardslee
From the Belly of My Beauty by Esther G. Belin
Full Moon on the Reservation by Gloria Bird

For Nights Like This One: Stories of Loving Women by Becky Birtha
Lover's Choice by Becky Birtha
Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman
Revise the World by Brenda Clough
Elderberry Flute Song: Contemporary Coyote Tales by Peter Blue Cloud

What We All Long For by Dionne Brand
Food and Spirits by Beth Brant
I'll sing 'til the day I die: Conversations with Tyendinaga Elders by Beth Brant

Ryddim Ravings by Jean Binta Breeze
The Fifth Figure by Jean Binta Breeze
Children of the Longhouse by Joseph Bruchac
Wabi by Joseph Bruchac
The Sun Came Down: The History of the World as My Blackfeet Elders Told It by Percy Bullchild

The Threshing Floor by Barbara Burford
Chocolate Park by Chesya Burke

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler
Blood Child by Octavia E. Butler
Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler
Popo and Fifina by Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes
Your Blues Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell
Native Creative Process: A Collaborative Discourse between Douglas Cardinal and Jeannette Armstrong by Douglas Cardinal and Jeannette Armstrong

Black Ice by Lorene Carey
Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier
So Far from God by Ana Castillo
The Mixquiahuala Letters by Ana Castillo
Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families 1900-1940 by Brenda J. Childs

What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day by Pearle Cleage
Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver
Free Enterprise: A novel of Mary Ellen Pleasant by Michelle Cliff
Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyng Cha
Chronique des sept misères (Chronicles of the Seven Sorrows) by Patrick Chamoiseau
School Days by Patrick Chamoiseau
Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau
Devdas by Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
The Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. Chesnutt
The House Behind the Cedars by Charles W. Chesnutt
The Conjure Women and The Conjure Tales by Charles W. Chesnutt
Donald Duk by Frank Chin
Chickencoop Chinaman and The Year of the Dragon by Frank Chin
Dream On by Chrystos

In Her I Am by Chrystos

Not Vanishing by Chrystos
Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 by Lucille Clifton
The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins
Segu by Maryse Condé
The Children of Segu by Maryse Condé
I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé
Desirada by Maryse Condé
The Hanging of Angelique by Afua Cooper
April Raintree by Beatrice Culleton

Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Breath Eyes Memory by Edwidge Danticat
Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat
Eu Nasci Uma Mulher Negra (I Was Born a Black Woman) by Benedita da Silva
Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
Hogg by Samuel R. Delany
Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany
Indians in Unexpected Places by Philip J. Deloria
Playing Indian

American Indians, American Justice by Vine Deloria Jr

Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties by Vine Deloria Jr

Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto by Vine Deloria Jr

Evolution, Creationism, and Other Modern Myths by Vine Deloria Jr

God is Red by Vine Deloria Jr
Power and Place by Vine Deloria Jr

Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact by Vine Deloria Jr

Spirit & Reason by Vine Deloria Jr

We Talk, You Listen: New Tribes, New Turf by Vine Deloria, Jr

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Drown by Junot Diaz

A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris
Guests by Michael Dorris
Morning Girl by Michael Dorris
The Crown of Columbus by Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich
At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America by Philip Dray
Souls of Blackfolk by W.E.B Dubois
The Between by Tananarive Due
My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due
The Living Blood by Tananarive Due
The Count of Monte Christo by Alexandre Dumas
The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
The Tower of Nesle (La Tour de Nesle) by Alexandre Dumas

The Sun, The Sea, A Touch of Wind by Rosa Guy Dutton
The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison
The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta
The Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich
Towelhead by Alicia Erian
Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Blonde Roots by Bernadine Evaristo
Mrs. Spring Fragrance by Sui Sin Far (Edith Maude Eaton)
The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad by Minister Faust
From the Notebooks of Doctor Brain by Minister Faust
The Colour of Resistance: A Contemporary Collection of Writing by Aboriginal Women ed by Connie Fife
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Saipan: Suicide Island by Guy Gabaldon
A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest Gaines
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest Gaines
The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh
Don't Take Your Love to Town by Ruby Langford Ginibi
Ego-Trippin' and Other Poems for Young People by Nikki Giovanni
Racism 101 by Nikki Giovanni
Pushing the Bear by Diane Glancy
Kalpa Imperial by Angelica Gorodischer
Introducing... Sister NoBlues by Hattie Gossett
Potiki by Patricia Grace
Nigger by Dick Gregory
Up from Nigger by Dick Gregory
Callus on My Soul by Dick Gregory
The Epic of Sundiata by Mandika Griots
Measuring Time by Helon Habila
Waiting for An Angel by Helon Habila

Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn
Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley
Mama Flora's Family by Alex Haley
Born Black, Born Palestinian by Suheir Hammad
Justice and Her Brothers by Virginia Hamilton
First Indian on the Moon by Joy Harjo

In Mad Love and War by Joy Harjo
Reinventing the Enemy’s Language: Contemporary Native Women’s Writings of North America ed by Joy Harjo and Gloria Bird

Palace of the Peacock by Wilson Harris
The Full Matilda by David Haynes
Dog Road Woman by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke
Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer: A Story of Survival by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

Who Am I?: The Diary of Mary Talance by Anita Heiss
Locas by Jaime Hernandez
The Mambo Kings Sing Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
The Book of Medicines by Linda Hogan

Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan
Power by Linda Hogan

Where We Stand: Class Matters by bell hooks
Brown Girl in The Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson

1000 Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Miko Kings by LeAnne Howe
Shell Shaker by LeAnne Howe
The Best of Simple by Langston Hughes

The Ways of White Folk by Langston Hughes
The Bone People by Keri Hulme
Paradise of the Blind by Duong Thu Huong
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
A Zuni Artist Looks at Frank Hamilton Cushing by Phil Hughte

Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston
Seth and Samona by Joanne Hyppolite
Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera
Tangi by Witi Ihimaera
Woman Far Walking by Witi Ihimaera
Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Rain God by Arturo Islas
Behind Closed Doors: Stories from the Kamloops Indian Residential School by Agness Jack

The Black Jacobins by CLR James
A Free Life: A Novel by Ha Jin

In the Pond by Ha Jin

Waiting by Ha Jin
War Trash by Ha Jin

Mi Revalueshanary Fren by Linton Kwesi Johnson
Ojibway Tales by Basil Johnstone
All Aunt Hagar's Children by Edward P. Jones

Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones
The Known World by Edward P. Jones

Poem About My Rights by June Jordan
Dusk by F. Sionil Josè
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

The Cotillion by John Oliver Killens
Same Difference and Other Stories by Derek Kirk Kim
Girl by Jamaica Kincaid
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid
Medicine River by Thomas King
Truth and Bright Water by Thomas King
Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King
Medicine River by Thomas King
The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative by Thomas King

China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston
Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book by Maxine Hong Kingston
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston
Comment faire l'amour avec un nègre sans se fatiguer by Dany Laferrière
Dining with The Dictator by Dany Laferrière and David Homel

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
When Fox Is a Thousand by Larissa Lai
The Tao Teh King by Lao-Tse
Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap
Quicksand by Nella Larsen
Passing by Nella Larsen
Native Speaker by Changrae Lee
A Gesture Life by Changrae Lee
Aloft by Changrae Lee
Natif-natal by Félix Morriseau-Leroy
Plénitudes by Félix Morriseau-Leroy
Do Not Go Gently by Judith Smith Levin
Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen by Lili'uokalani
Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord
Zami by Audre Lorde
Twilight in Jakarta by Mochtar Lubis
The Color of Water by James McBride
The First Century after Beatrice by Amain Maalouf
Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya
Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall
Praisesong for the Widow by Paule Marshall
Mother Tongue by Demitria Martinez
Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel García Márquez
Memories of My Meloncholy Whores by Gabriel García Márquez
All I Asking for Is My Body by Milton Maruyama
Raj by Gita Mehta
The Pillar of Salt by Albert Memmi
Wild Ginger by Anchee Minn
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Monkey King by Timothy Mo
Sour Sweet by Timothy Mo
House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
The Ancient Child by N. Scott Momaday
The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday
In the Bear's House by N. Scott Momaday
The Man Made of Words by N. Scott Momaday
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color ed by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua

Loving in the War Years by Cherríe Moraga
Richard trajo su flauta y otros argumentos by Nancy Morejon
My Place by Sally Morgan
Love by Toni Morrison
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Easy Rawlings series (Devil in a Blue Dress, A Red Death, Black Betty, White Butterfly) by Walter Mosley
Walkin' the Dog by Walter Mosley
Always Outnumbered by Walter Moseley
Desirable Daughters by Bharati Mukherjee
Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee

Turning Japanese by David Mura
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
Train Whistle Guitar by Albert Murray
The Conquest, by Yxta Maya Murray
Dis Poem by Mutabaruka
Child of Dandelions by Shenaaz Nanji
Mama Day by Gloria Naylor
The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
Arrows of Rain by Okey Ndibe

Blanche Cleans UP by Barbara Nealy
A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe
A Quiet Life by Kenzaburo Oe
Hiroshima Notes by Kenzaburo Oe
A Squatter's Tale by Ike Oguine
Zarah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu

The Famished Road by Ben Okri
Incidents at the Shrine by Ben Okri
Stars of the New Curfew by Ben Okri
My Year of Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
Gulf Dreams by Emma Perez
Geographies of Home by Loida Maritza Pérez

Fresh Girl by Jaira Placide
Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington and Nugi Garimara
The Grass Dancer by Susan Power
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
The Negro of Peter the Great by Alexander Pushkin
The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall
Catechism of D Neoamerican HooDoo Church by Ishmael Reed

Conjure: Selected Poems

Flight to Canada by Ishmael Reed
The Free-Lance Pallbearers by Ishmael Reed

Japanese by Spring by Ishmael Reed
Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed
Reckless Eyeballing by Ishmael Reed

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Defending the Spirit - Randall Robinson
The Debt - Randall Robinson

The Reckoning - Randall Robinson
The Sano Ichiro Mysteries series by Laura Joh Rowland
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Midnight’s Children by Sir Salman Rushdie
The Rose Garden by Saadi
The Revolutionary Imagination in the Americas and the Age of Development by Maria Josefina Saldana-Portillo's
Push by Sapphire
America's Dream by Esmeralda Santiago
When I was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago
Almost A Woman by Esmeralda Santiago
The Turkish Lover by Esmeralda Santiago
Betsy Brown by Ntozake Shange
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai
A Suitablle Boy by Vikram Seth
Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
Coffee Will Make You Black by April Sinclair
Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
If I Can Cook You Know God Can by Ntozake Shange

Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter by Ntozake Shange
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikobu
The Black and White of It by Ann Allen Shockley
Loving Her by Ann Allen Shockley
Say Jesus and Come to Me by Ann Allen Shockley
Conquest by Andrea Smith
Eternal by Cynthia Leitich Smith
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Aké: The Years of Childhood by Wole Soyinka
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore
The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore
The Crescent Moon by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora by Rabindranath Tagore
Relationships by Rabindranth Tagore
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan
The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
Let the Circle Be Unbroken Mildred D. Taylor
The Night Wanderer by Drew Hayden Taylor
Faultline by Sheila Ortiz Taylor
Petals of Blood by Ngugi Wa Thiong`o
Devil on a Cross by Ngugi Wa Thiong`o
The Buru Quartet (This Earth of Mankind, Child of all Nations, Footsteps, House of Glass) by Pramoedya Ananta Toe
Raise the Red Lantern by Su Tong
Rice by Su Tong

Living Pidgin by Lee Tonouchi
Swerve: Reckless Observation of a Post-Modern Girl by Aisha Tyler
Naked Ladies by Alma Luz Villanueva
Under the Feet of Jesus by Helena Viramontes
Waiting for Saskatchewan by Fred Wah
Age Ain't Nothing but a Number: Black Women Explore
Midlife by Alice Walker
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart by Alice Walker
The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker
The Third
Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker
We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness by Alice Walker
Up from Slavery by Booker T Washington
A Japanese Nightingale by Onoto Watanna (Winnifred Eaton)
Me, A Book of Remembrance by Onoto Watanna
Miss Numè of Japan by Onoto Watanna
Miss Spring Morning by Onoto Watanna

The Old Jinkrikisha by Onoto Watanna
Tama by Onoto Watanna (Winnifred Eaton)

The Kadaitcha Sung by Sam Watson
Sons for the Return Home by Al Wendt
The Wedding by Dorothy West
Blues Dancing by Diane McKinney Whetstone
The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead

Poems of Phillis Wheatley by Phillis Wheatley
Religious and Moral Poems by Phillis Wheatley
Native Son by Richard Wright
Black Boy by Richard Wright
The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter G Woodson
America, through the Spectacles of a Diplomat by Ting-fang Wu
Na Han (Battle Cry) by Lu Xun
Selected Stories of Lu Hsun by Lu Xun
Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers by Lois-Ann Yamanaka
Blu's Hanging by Lois-Ann Yamanaka
Heads By Harry by Lois-Ann Yamanaka
Name Me Nobody by Lois-Ann Yamanaka
Red Sorghum by Mo Yan
The Dahomean by Frank Yerby
The Girl From Storeyville by Frank Yerby
The Foxes of Harrow by Frank Yerby
Asleep by Banana Yoshimoto

Amrita by Banana Yoshimoto
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Lizard by Banana Yoshimoto


NP by Banana Yoshimoto
Oklahoma's Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft, Exploitation of the Five Civilized Tribes, Legalized Robbery by Zitkala-Sa

SPEAK! Women of Color Media Collective



Check out the new website for SPEAK! Women of Color Media Collective! I met some of these awesome women at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit last year. Here's the details from their front page:

BUY THE CD! YOU'LL LOVE IT!

Speak! is a women of color-led media collective. In the summer months of 2008, they created a CD compilation of spoken word, poetry, and song. After months of hard work, they are excited to finally share their first self-named album with the world!

With artists and poets from all over the country, the Speak! CD is a testament of struggle, hope, and love. Many of the contributors are in the Radical Women of Color blogosphere and will be familiar names to you. Instead of just reading their work, you’ll be able to hear their voices.

Proceeds of this album will go toward funding mothers and/or financially restricted activists wanting to attend the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, MI this July. This is our own grassroots organizing at its finest with financial assistance from the AMC. Here it is, ready for your purchasing!

More about working class consciousness

This is just a filler post. I really need to find the time to talk about working class consciousness and why it's not just about the money.

If you are lucky enough to be a member of the twue wurkn klas, you need to sign on to a couple of ideas that are not the stuff of popular culture.

You need to decide that the real heroes of this world are not the Donald Trump type, but the people whose names you never know who go deep into the bowels of this planet and carve out the coal that makes this blog posssible. You need to look at the folks who build the furniture, mold the steel and pave the roads that make our day to day lives livable.

You need to decide that all this glorification of rich people and professionals and academics would be NOTHING if there weren't people who go down into the mines, who line up at the factories, who step up to the registers and do all the various and mundane things that make our lives possible.

Why does our literature fail to acknowledge the power that is created when everyday people clock into every jobs? Is there anything more glorious than this?

I have met one or two writers who truly tap into that reality and they are precious to me.

It's not about the money

What does it mean to be working class and to consciously adopt that title for oneself? Here's a hint:

Class consciousness: ”The awareness of individuals in a particular social class that they share common interests and a common social situation. Class consciousness is associated with the development of a ‘class-for-itself’ where individuals within the class unite to pursue their shared interests.”. Online Dictionary of Social Sciences

Who are you gonna choose to fight beside if it comes to that?

Who are you gonna defend?

Which side are you on?

BBC Book

Part of the "I spend a lot of time reading" series. Also, one of these days I need to try reading Dickens and Austen again. I've failed miserably in the past.

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

Instructions:
1) Bold those you have read.
2) *Star the ones you loved.
3) Italicise those you plan on reading.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
*3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations
*11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
*40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
*41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (hated it)
*43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
*48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
*59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
*60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
*61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt (absolutely loathed it)
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
*65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
*73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
*87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
*91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Revolutionary LOLcat

Kittens inspired by Kittens

Nadya Suleman, Octomom!



I must say, I am fascinated by our media and personal responses to the recent news that a single mother gave birth to eight premature babies. The Suleman Octuplets are a medical miracle and are already the longest lived octuplets living today.

Now, I have to admit right up front that I am often fascinated by stories that catch on like this one. We receive snippets of information, but not the whole story. We hear a variety of self-righteous and outraged opinions even when the facts are not there. We have a zillion assumptions about the mother, her lifestyle, the sperm donor, the doctors, the future of the children. The conclusions are often dire and melodramatic.

A few feminist bloggers I'm aware of have highlighted Suleman's right to choose to have children. Here are some that impressed me:

Rene from Womanist Musings writes an article entitled Nadya Suleman and the Choice We Never Respect

She was not forced to carry these babies to term; it was an active decision on her part. If, as feminists, we can argue that women have the right to choose to have an abortion, then the right to choose motherhood should be equally validated; furthermore the right to privacy extends to Ms. Suleman’s decision as well.

MZBitka at What a Crazy Random Happenstance writes Have babies, but only the right way

This is just another example that no matter what women chose to do with their bodies, if it’s viewed as the correct way, people will be there to criticize and shame them for it.

Ouyang Dan at Random Babble writes Ms. Suleman's Uterus and Our Perceived Right to Decide for Her.

A woman’s right to choose is exactly that, and it doesn’t matter how squicky you feel about it. The only fucking thing that matters is that woman and what she wants w/ her body. This woman has a plan, based on her own interview, and we may not like it, we may not all agree w/ the way she is doing it, but tough. It’s Not. Our. Call. Her right to become a mother is just as sacred as any woman’s right not to. That is worth defending.

I want to add my voice to these three women and say that, regardless of our personal feelings on the matter, we defend Suleman's right to make her own reproductive choices. She wants to have a lot of children, she believes she can be a good mother, I'm not going to make the assumption that she cannot do so.

So how did things turn so nasty toward Nadya and her decisions? Here's a good take from Brendon O'Neill at Spiked Online called And Act of Extreme Fecundity

When Nadya Suleman gave birth to six boys and two girls in five minutes on 26 January, it was greeted as a ‘midwinter miracle’, a story that ‘cheered recession-hit America’, a ‘welcome relief from bailouts and bankruptcies’. Now, with the eight babes barely one week old, it has become a shrill parable about overpopulation, resource depletion, the dangers of fertility treatment and the problem of ‘poor mothers’. The story has shapeshifted from a ‘ray of sunshine for a nation in the grip of economic meltdown’ to a ‘tale of seedy self-indulgence’

Yeah, this is what really hits me. Why is it that everything turned around so fast? Is it because Suleman is single? Is it because we are suspicious of the fertility industry? Are we really going to forget the horrors of population control and pretend we are concerned with her family's carbon footprint?

Nope. Not really buying that shit. Leave the woman and her family alone. Go pick on somebody your own size or bigger. Take one tax loophole away from an oil company and you'd have funds to feed all the children of the world, including the Suleman's.

The way these stories distract us from doing good activist work and making a difference in the world today is truly sad.

Left on my computer at work

Rain Taxi reading

Tonight I went to a reading by Dan Beachy-Quick sponsored by Rain Taxi at Open Book.

It was an interesting experience. There were about 50 people in attendance and I actually knew three people. Which is quite a lot, considering.

Beachy-Quick's book is about Moby Dick. Sort of. And it was interesting, despite my reluctance to follow poetry.

Honestly, I don't understand a lot of this fascination with dead literature and poets. But hanging out at a place that honors printing and typography is nice.

The Flight from the Enchanter by Iris Murdoch

I Just finished reading this book last week. I've only read one other book by Murdoch, The Bell, which I enjoyed quite a lot. This is an early novel, Murdoch's second, and it's damned funny. Quite a combination of characters, all connected to each other in ways that are hard to figure out in the beginning. Each character is bounced from one event to the other, seemingly unaware and out of control most of the time. Which is kind of like life.

The part that had me laughing, long-time activist I am, is the meeting of the old ladies to discuss the sale of "The Artemis", a magazine they founded in the radicalism of youth, maintain "shares" in but haven't bothered to read or consider for years. Now, however, there is a proposal to sell the publication and, of course, everyone has an opinion and feels honor bound to expound upon it. Except for one woman with a hearing aid who can understand nothing and keeps lamenting the fact loudly. Unfortunately, with my bad hearing, that seems to be my role these days.

"Order, order!" said Mrs. Carrington-Morris.

"Oh, get on with it!" sazid Mrs. Wingfiled.

"Look here," said the lady in the mantilla, "do I rightly understand that it is proposed that the Artemis be sold?"

"That is the proposal," said Hunter.

"I don't think we can allow that, you know," said the woman with the grey fringe who had the air of one who believed herself to be the only person present who really understood what was going on.

.....A veiled lady who had not spoken so far leaned forward, rumbling like a clock before she gave utterance. "Mmmm - do I understand you to say that it is proposed to sell the Artemis to - a man?"

Hunter gestured hopelessly. "I've been running the thing for two years now," he said, "and after all I'm a man!"

A stiff silence followed this shameless declaration.

Yup. Familiar. Heh.

1,000 books?

You've got to be kidding me. 1,000 books? You MUST read?

OK. Confession time. Way back when I was a struggling English major at the University of Minnesota, I stumbled upon a book called something like "Books for the college bound" and I decided I had to collect them all. I haunted used bookstores and many of the local ones, most notably Biermaiers Books, made quite a lot of money off my efforts to collect all of the listed books. I read and I read and I tried to become a self-taught literature snob. I wrote long hand-written reviews in the college-ruled notebooks I favored at the time.

Rather than savoring the reading, I racked up the reading like points on a basketball scoreboard. So I missed quite a lot, of course.

And still, the lure of the "XXX best books" list still has its appeal. I want to be one of those cultured people who has read the books and understands the cultural references. Also, I want the pleasure of a damn good book.

But these lists, they are so arbitrary. This latest one by the Guardian newspaper in the UK is beyond ridiculous. How many of us have the time to read 1,000 books? Isn't that cheating? Shouldn't we demand the list be chopped down to 10 or thereabouts?

Because, seriously, just read Beloved a few hundred times and you will have learned more than you could possibly know about life and the power of words.

Matrix cat

At the mercy of Agent Smiths

Protest Deployment

A flyer I did for an upcoming protest:

Author Visit at Mayday Books

Another flyer I did for the bookstore:

New Family Member

I present to you the marvelous, beautiful Jinx! Adopted from the St. Paul Animal Humane Society on Saturday, January 10, 2009.

Update of leaflet

Had to update the leaflet. When it was handed out, people thought it had to do with a rally, not an author visit. LOL! So now the event is a bit clearer. Duh!

Lumpy Cat is at the vet

Sox is a 16-year-old calico shorthair by youngest daughter picked out from a rescue group. She's a talkative cat, always wanting to say hello and good morning and pet me now.

Thursday, I noticed she had a small bump underneath her skin behind her right ear. It was about the size of a pea. In addition, she was going through one of her periodic bouts of being able to pass food. Painful constipation, basically.

My last two cats died from cancerous tumors on the heads, so this lump is ominous. Yes, I do live in one of the most densely populated area for SuperFund Cleanup. Why do you ask?

Took Sox to the vet this morning and the doctor's initial prognosis was cyst or protein. A glance under the microscope indicated nothing suspicious. For full test results, I'll have to wait a week or so. Sox had vacated her urinary tract before arriving at the vet, so I had to leave her there while they pumped fluids into her until they got a sample. Silly cat doesn't understand she needs to hold it until the blood and urine test. Hell, I can even do that.

So wish my old lady cat good health and give your own cat a hug from me, Raven, the worried human owned by her cat.

Rails & Ties

Watched this movie, Rails & Ties on cable today. It's about a woman who drives her car onto the railroad tracks to commit suicide with her adolescent son in the passenger seat. He survives, she does not. But what sets this film apart is that we get swept up into the world of the train engineer, played by Kevin Bacon, who has to decide whether to hit the emergency brake, thus endangering his passengers, or to slow, but keep going, thus killing the people in the car.

So, right, bummer of a movie concept. Tear-jerker, no doubt.

But what surprised me is that the engineer, a working-class man who is proud of his skills, becomes a focus of this story.

When does this happen in pop culture? When does a working person become integral to the plot? When does his life become important, valuable and respected?

Although the movie is implausible and tugs at the heart-strings, there is some honest portrayal of people who love, but are hurting. There is honesty in the pretense of family when none actually exists, followed by the true sense of family that doesn't follow modern stereotypes.

I know some people will not like this movie. I think the opportunity to see loving people trying, and sometimes failing, to show their love for one another is fascinating and worth seeing.

Run by Ann Patchett

I read the novel Run by Ann Patchett last week and cried relentlessly at the happy ending. Patchett has an awesome way with words in which nothing is wasted. The pages fly by and I kept wanting to learn more, know more, find out the secrets, get to know the characters more.

I first encountered Patchett when I read Bel Canto a few years ago. That was an awesome experience. I loved so much about it and my book group passed the novel among us, each enjoying it for different reasons.

Run takes place in Boston and centers around a political family not unlike the Kennedys. Bernard Doyle, the former mayor of Boston, white an Catholic, dreams that one of his three sons will follow in his footsteps. Unsurprisingly, none of the boys are headed on that path. The oldest son, Sullivan, is the outcast, having caused a scandal that brought his father's political career to an end. The two younger sons, African-American boys adopted a year apart, have other career goals. Tip is fascinated by fish and studies ichthyology, Teddy considers the seminary.

The book begins with a car crash. The younger boys have reluctantly joined their father at a speech by Jesse Jackson. As they argue about whether to attend a reception, Tip turns away in anger and is saved from being hit by a car by a complete stranger, an African American woman, who pushes him out of the way and takes the full blow of the oncoming truck.

It turns out that the "stranger" is, in fact, the birth mother of Teddy and Tip and the rest of the book takes up the unraveling of secret upon secret.

I highly recommend this book. Being part of an adoptive family, I'm sure I reacted to this book more strongly than most people. Like I said. Cried. Uncontrollably. For a good while.

The Day The Earth Stood Still

Went to see this movie yesterday. It was probably worth it to see the cool spherical objects on the movie screen. But the movie really fell flat for reasons I cannot explain. I left the theater feeling that everything was too "clean" and I don't even know what I mean by that.

There is one lovely scene in which Jennifer Connelly's character tells the alien that he hasn't spoken to the planet's "real" leaders. Instead of taking him to a politician, she takes him to meet a nobel-prize winning scientist. Played by John Cleeze. Too cute for words.

Something is way off about this film. Or too simple. Or entirely predictable and therefore boring.

Good thing we got in for free. :)

Another flyer

Highlighting the need to gtf out of Iraq:

Workers win!

How long has it been since you've read those two words, eh?

The UE workers at Republic Windows got their demands met:

The settlement totals $1.75 million. It will provide the workers with:
Eight weeks of pay they are owed under the federal WARN Act,
Two months of continued health coverage and,
Pay for all accrued and unused vacation.
JPMorgan Chase will provide $400,000 of the settlement, with the balance coming from Bank of America.

Communist Christmas

Enjoy!

Holiday antiwar event

Help Winona LaDuke

On November 9, 2008, Winona LaDuke, political activist and former vice-presidential nominee, lost her home to a fire. Her family is safe, but she has lost much. Read here to see how you can help Winona and her family.

Workers Take Over!

Please take a moment and lend your support to the workers at a factory in Chicago who were given two days notice of their plant closing. In order to prevent the owners from selling off inventory and equipment without paying the workers, the workers have taken over the plant. Even Obama is backing them:

The Sun-Times quotes Obama as saying, “When it comes to the situation here in Chicago with the workers who are asking for their benefits and payments they have earned, I think they are absolutely right ...what's happening to them is reflective of what’s happening across this economy."

What you can do:

Read more and send a donation via paypal:

http://www.ueunion.org/ue_republic.html

Send a message of support:

http://www.ueunion.org/republic_main.html

Petition Bank of America

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/bankofamerica

Prop 8, the musical

Not posting anything but links and fun lately. Too busy. So enjoy!

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Too much type!

Had to slam a lot of type into one flyer. Meh. Not too bad!

I heart Wanda

Rachmaninov had big hands

In my thirties I, with my big hands, used to play this for fun. Not as fast as this guy, but with as much passion. Here's what you do when your hands are not so big:

Review of My Toddler's Pretend Restaurant

Via reddit. Very cute post.

Service: You can wait for your food for hours -- sometimes until after nap time.

more music charts

LOLdogs

Trying out the builder thingy:


moar funny pictures

First time?

The other day, one of my bosses stopped by my cube to ask me what I was up to. "Just kerning type and watching puppies!" I said. He assured me that was probably the first time that phrase had been spoken in the English language.

If you haven't caught on to the latest internet sensation, The Guardian talks about it here. A quote:

Well, finally someone has discovered a use for life-casting technology, filming their six baby Shiba Inu puppies all day, every day for the past month.

Much like Big Brother (but without the annoying people), the pups don't really do anything much apart from sleep, but there's always enough chewing, fighting, tickling, scratching and frolicking to keep viewers entertained.

Puppy cam has notched up 2,464,939 views as I write this. But enjoy it while it lasts because Autumn, Ayumi, Amaya, Aki, Akoni and Ando reached their five-week birthday on Tuesday - and that means there's only three weeks before the puppies leave the nest.

Join with me and watch the puppies here.

Rally against hate and Prop 8!

Almost 1,000 people showed up on five days notice for a rally in Minneapolis in support of the rights for gay people to marry each other. Here's some wonderful photos from Facebook friends:


Kim DeFranco


Timothy Redkitten

It's what I suspected all along

Perspective

From Pros before Hos:

Obama is not socialist

Articles by David Roediger

Roediger will be in town this weekend. These are just place holders for articles he's written that I want to check out.

The Retreat from Race and Class in Monthly Review July-August 2006

Interview on Stuff White People Do

An Interview with David Roediger Working Toward Whiteness

Gook: the short history of an Americanism

What Effect Would Obama's Election Have on Race Relations?

Race Will Survive the Obama Phenomenon

Understanding Racism Today: an Interview with David Roediger

That irritating Wassup! commercial has been reborn!

It looks as if they got the original actors to do this. Amazing job.

Funny

Awesome cartoon

More sillyness

Quiz stolen from Daisy

Another flyer

Trying to capture a bit of the graphics of the Spanish Revolution:

Great Book, Great Author Visit

Here's my flyer for David Roediger's visit to Mayday Books:

Quick Test

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz...

You Are a Katharine!

You are a Katharine -- "I am happy and open to new things"

Katharines are energetic, lively, and optimistic. They want to contribute to the world.

How to Get Along with Me

• * Give me companionship, affection, and freedom.


• * Engage with me in stimulating conversation and laughter.


• * Appreciate my grand visions and listen to my stories.


• * Don't try to change my style. Accept me the way I am.


• * Be responsible for youself. I dislike clingy or needy people.


• * Don't tell me what to do.

What I Like About Being a Katharine

• * being optimistic and not letting life's troubles get me down


• * being spontaneous and free-spirited


• * being outspoken and outrageous. It's part of the fun.


• * being generous and trying to make the world a better place


• * having the guts to take risks and to try exciting adventures


• * having such varied interests and abilities

What's Hard About Being a Katharine

• * not having enough time to do all the things I want


• * not completing things I start


• * not being able to profit from the benefits that come from specializing; not making a commitment to a career


• * having a tendency to be ungrounded; getting lost in plans or fantasies


• * feeling confined when I'm in a one-to-one relationship

Katharines as Children Often

• * are action oriented and adventuresome


• * drum up excitement


• * prefer being with other children to being alone


• * finesse their way around adults


• * dream of the freedom they'll have when they grow up

Katharines as Parents

• * are often enthusiastic and generous


• * want their children to be exposed to many adventures in life


• * may be too busy with their own activities to be attentive

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

Barbara Smith interview in Colorlines

One of the most inspiring people I have ever met is Barbara Smith, black lesbian activist and one of the co-authors of the The Combahee River Collective Statement. She is interviewed this month here in Colorlines magazine.

She is currently serving as an elected official in Albany, New York. I love her forthright attitude:

It’s fascinating being in the council. It’s frustrating because it can be very slow, but it’s also very concrete…It’s not revolutionary, but it is gratifying.

Overcoming Zionism

The local group, Coalition for Palestinian Rights hosted author Joel Kovel this weekend and I was able to attend a Friday night talk. When I learned last week that Kovel would be speaking, I bought and read his book, Overcoming Zionism. The book is great in the way it shows how modern Zionism and western imperialism worked hand in glove to create the racist state of Israel. It also highlights all the many steps along the way that provided opportunities to avoid creating a racist state and how these opportunities were sabotaged or ignored.

What struck me most about Kovel's book was the great respect he gave to other writers and thinkers and they way he encouraged the reader toward ways to learn more about the many opinions about Zionism and the state of Israel. This is so outside the norm for books by political thinkers. In fact, it is much more in line with people who work as on-the-ground activists, supporting each other in our different struggles. It was pretty damn awesome, actually.

Nice Mayday Books pictures!

Long-time Mayday Books volunteer Corey Mattson moved to Illinois this year. We threw a party for him and he posted pictures on his facebook page. The pictures do a great of showing the store, that I stole them and posted them here for posterity. You can get large images by clicking on the images and going to Buzznet, if you are curious about book titles. I have a fascination with determining the titles of books I see in pictures!


Corey in front of the Anarchist rows.


Health, Politics and Media section


Bulletin Board and signboard creating by local sign painter Phil Vandervoort


Craig behind the counter


Health and Environment sections


The Red Rack with Latin America, magazines and newspapers in the background


From behind the counter

Banner for Saturday's March

Just in case you thought one of those wars was the "good" war.

Cute advertisement


BraveFont from ilovetypography.com on Vimeo.

Font Conference from College Humor

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Progress?

Stolen from The Jaded Hippy. See more of Matt Bors work at his website.

440 Workers Stay Home

Don't mess with mine workers!

Blacksville #2 Mine Idle After 440 Workers Stay Home

Posted Monday, September 29, 2008 ; 06:20 PM
Updated Monday, September 29, 2008 ; 07:07 PM

BLACKSVILLE -- Coal production at a mine in Monongalia County came to a halt today when every union miner stayed home, as part of a political protest.

It was an idle day Monday at the Blacksville #2 Mine.

More than 440 workers who are members of the United Mine Workers of America took what's called a Memorial Day instead of going to work.

Union officials say they took the day to protest after a film crew from the National Rifle Assocation showed up at the Consol mine last week to interview union workers.

They say the crew tried to get union coal miners to speak out against Barak Obama.

The UMWA has endorsed the democratic presidential nominee.

"This was a surprise visit," explained VP Local 1702, Safety Chairman Eric Greathouse, "and a lot of the miners felt this was a direct slap in the face of the union because they were trying to coerce our people into saying things against Barck Obama."

"Consol doesn't let anybody on their property - never," said Safety Committee Member Mark Dorsey, "And for them to let the NRA come on the property and solicit our membership was totally uncalled for. We made our endorsement to our political process and we didn't bother them and they shouldn't be harassing our membership over this."

The workers will return to work at 12:01 Tuesday morning.

A spokesperson for Consol said the company is not issuing any comment on the day.

!

Happy Punctuation Day!

My favorite candidate was on a malt shop in St. Paul many years ago:

KIDS EAT
FREE BALLOONS
TUESDAY

Sound Familiar?

From The Seminal:

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

Henry Merritt “Hank” Paulson Jr. is the United States Treasury Secretary and member of the International Monetary Fund Board of Governors. He previously served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs.

Latest fliers

RIP Peter Camejo

I met Peter Camejo while sitting in a coffeehouse in Berkeley the one year I spent living in Sunnyvale. I introduced myself and we chatted for a while. I remember nothing of the conversation. What I do remember is that people who knew him in his prime were mesmerized by his speeches and motivated by his activism. That is an important legacy to be emulated.

For more:

The Angry Arab writes about him.

Two speeches he gave while participating in the Berkeley, California, Free Speech Movement.

Counterpunch obituary.

Edited to add more tributes:

The City Project: Camejo wrote a book during this period about the civil war and was keenly interested in rooting left politics in the “American experience” in the same way that the FSLN did through Sandino in Nicaragua, the FMLN through Farabundo Marti in El Salvador, and Hugo Chavez through Simon Bolivar in Venezuela.

American Leftist: "Having worked for Merrill Lynch and, later, as an independent investment advisor, he was able to strongly advocate for universal health care, the living wage and farmworker rights within the framework of his financial expertise."

Louis Proyect: The Unpretant Marxist: " considered Peter to be a very good friend. More importantly, he was the one person who helped me understand a revolution could be made in the U.S. notwithstanding American Trotskyism’s tendency to create all sorts of obstacles in the way to that understanding."

Links including two articles by Camejo: "How to Make a Revolution in the United States" and Liberalism, Ultraleftism or Mass Action.

Ha Ha Ha!

This image was posted on reddit, apparently because it is hilarious:



I suppose it is funny in a self-referential way. Generally, I love self-reference. Here is one of my favorite self-referential limericks (from Scientific American magazine years ago):

There was a young man from Japan,
Whose limericks never would scan.
When someone asked why,
He said with a sigh,
"It's because I always try to get as many words into the last line as I possibly can."

Ba dum bum.

So, this silly little image got me thinking. The vast majority of workers deal with inanimate machines every day. The only folks who think they may some day have a career that does not involve dealing with one inanimate machine or another, are those folks who plan to become bosses, capitalist, exploiters, etc. The rest of us are going to be slogging away at one thing or another, facing idiotic machines and unreasonable requests and doing the best that we can to get by.

Recently, I got involved in a heated discussion in which I called someone out on their classism. The person I called out said she couldn't possibly be classist because she had no money. She completely missed the point. Classism is the idea that your work life would involve doing something other than working with inanimate machines. Classism is when you tell somebody that everybody else understands and agrees on something and that if you don't, you are fundamentally flawed. Classism is when you can seriously look someone in the face and say that being smart is more important than getting a degree or degrees from a university.

Classism is a lot of other things, too. Which I've written about before. To pretend that classism is solely about how many digits are in your bank account is ignorant. I am happy that we are learning more about how to respond when being called on our racism, our homophobia, our anti-trans assumptions, our anti-crip assumptions.

I am unhappy that this knowledge does not apply to classism. So back to the work of an activist. More on this to come.

Typography on TV

I managed to make it through only the first 15 minutes of the new TV show "Fringe." However, the typography was awesome. Take a look:

"Welcome" to the Twin Cities



You can also view on line the entire rally as covered by C-SPAN. There were wonderful speeches from a wide variety of activists who are doing everyday on the ground work to end this crazy war.

I begin with this picture. It's meant to show something important. There are hundreds if not thousands of people in this photo. They are marching through St. Paul expressing their anger and determination to end the war against Iraq. That is a huge number of people and they have something important to say. I got that image off flicker. Here's the image I got from my local newspaper, the StarTribune:



By Jim Gehrz, Star Tribune

Caption: Police officers, dressed in riot gear, gathered outside the Minnesota Children’s Museum in downtown St. Paul on Monday. St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman praised the officers’ overall performance.

Now tell me, which one of these is spectacle?

To follow events in the police state of Minnesota, please check often to the following websites:

Twin Cities Indymedia

The Uptake videographers

The Minnesota Independent

Cold Snap Legal

Lindsay Beyerstein is blogging the RNC.

Nezua from The Unapologetic Mexican is blogging the RNC.

And for some AWESOME! commentary of the acceptance of violence in our society, please check it this post and the comments from the always interesting Brownfemipower. She riffs off a post by Cara of The Curvature who comments on the video of Amy Goodman getting arrested and says the following:

...the simple fact is that she didn’t do anything to deserve arrest. And yet, at the RNC, arrested she was.

THAT right there is important. Over and over again in the last few days I have watched video after video showing indivudals who have done absolutely nothing wrong getting arrested. How does that happen? Well maybe it happens because of what the StarTribune photographer chose to see in that photo above. Maybe the glorification of police power leads to the over-application of police power.

Although I gotta admit I like the stripe of pink hanging below the female cop's jacket on the right. Is it a hidden message that she's actually a member of Code Pink?

Forum flyer

My flyer for tomorrow night's event on Georgia:

September 1 march



Highlight 4:10: "Yah! Ya betcha! We say no to war!"