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THiS WEEK: Prozac shows up in Britain's water supply; a look at the culture of 'sore winners'; Al Jazeera refuses to submit to censorship in Iraq; Bush gets laughed at for his take on "tribal sovereignty"; an epidemic of arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh is causing a higher divorce rate; John Kerry unveils his startlingly bold 'one-point' plan for a better America; Greg Palast asks if Venezuela is about the get the Florida Treatment; a new take on organic farming in California; an interview with Abu Rashid, one of those responsible for the hostage beheadings in Iraq; a newfound alliance between Iraqi workers and U.S. labor unions; and a look at how Indian 'call centers' are training young Indians to lose their accents and identities; a report on the NYC-RNC lockdown; and LiP's Race & Ethnicity editor, Tim Wise, has a new blog that's sure to provoke informed debate.

1. Stay Calm Everyone, There's Prozac in the Water
   Some depressing news: Prozac is now being taken in such large quantities in Britain that it can now be detected in drinking water.
   Mark Townsend | The Observer
   http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1278760,00.html
   
   
   
2. This American Strife
   John Power's new book, "Sore Winners," takes on not only George W. Bush but the entire culture - "Bush World" - that surrounds him. Powers talks about the increasing polarization of American culture and the worship of power.
   Lakshmi Chaudhry | AlterNet
   http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/19471/
   
   
   
3. Bush Trips Over Sovereignty
   At a recent UNITE! conference, Bush was asked about Native Americans and tribal sovereignty. His mediocre answer drew open laughter from the audience.
   Majority Radio
   http://www.majorityreportradio.com/weblog/archives/Bush%20-%20Tribal%20Sovereignty.mp3
   
   
   
4. Al Jazeera Vows to Defy Iraq Ban
   Following a criticism by Donald Rumsfeld that Al Jazeera was "harming the image of the US in the Arab world," the newly installed Iraqi government placed a ban on Al Jazeera activity in Iraq - but Al Jazeera doesn't plan to back down anytime soon.
   Al Jazeera
   http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9C888134-9481-485A-A675-DD3C50DA224D.htm
   
   
   
5. Venezuela Gets the Florida Treatment
   Hugo Chavez drives George Bush crazy. Maybe it's jealousy: Unlike Mr. Bush, Chavez, in Venezuela, won his Presidency by a majority of the vote. Or maybe it's the oil: Venezuela sits atop a reserve rivaling Iraq's. And Hugo thinks the US and British oil companies that pump the crude ought to pay more than a 16% royalty to his nation for the stuff. Hey, sixteen percent isn't even acceptable as a tip at a New York diner. .
   Greg Palast | CommonDreams.org
   http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0811-02.htm
   
   
   
6. Shame and "The Arab Mind"
   Iain Boal argues that viewing Arab and Muslim cultures as 'shame-based' is a throwback to classic Orientalism, and fuels the racist stereotype of a more 'primitive' Muslim culture.
   Iain A. Boal | Counterpunch
   http://counterpunch.org/boal08072004.html
   
   
   
7. Arsenic in Water Spurs Asian 'Divorces'
   The worst mass poisoning in human history is unfolding along the India-Bangladesh border - and is causing severe social consequences for afflicted women.
   Shaikh Azizur Rahman | The Washington Times
   http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040806-101702-9893r.htm
   
   
   
8. Kerry Unveils One-Point Plan For Better America
   Presidential hopeful John Kerry describes his one-point plan for a better America: removing George W. Bush from the White House.
   The Onion
   http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4032
   
   
   
9. AUDIO | Field of Dreams
   UC Santa Cruz professor Julie Guthman discusses organic farming in California, pointing out that organic farms - generally hailed as a progressive ideal for food production - are increasingly indistinguishable from their industrialized counterparts. An interview by Sasha Lilley.
   Sasha Lilley | Against the Grain
   http://www.againstthegrain.org
   
   
   
10. The Hostage Killers Speak
    A rare interview with members of the Tawid wal Djihad movement, the men responsible for the beheadings of hostages Nicholas Berg and Kim Sun-il, among others.
    Sara Daniel | Le Nouvel Observateur
    http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/080604H.shtml
    
    
    
11. Iraq's Labor Upsurge Wins Support from U.S. Unions
    Labor repression in Iraq is provoking U.S. unions into speaking out against the occupation and supporting Iraqi workers' struggles.
    David Bacon | Foreign Policy in Focus
    http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0407upsurge.html
    
    
    
12. Indian by Day, American by Night
    Call centers in India are training young Indians to lose their accents and names, to accomodate Western ears.
    Amitabh Pal | The Progressive
    http://www.progressive.org/august04/pal0804.html
    
    
    
13. New York Lockdown
    If you're a delegate attending the Republican national convention at Madison Square Garden later this month, Jamie Moran knows where you're staying. He knows where you're eating and what Broadway musical you plan on seeing. For the past nine months, Moran has been living off savings earned as an office manager at a nonprofit and working full-time to disrupt the RNC.
    Michelle Goldberg | The Guardian
    http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=1&ItemID=6028
    
    
    
14. BONUS LiP PICK | A Word From the Wise
    LiP's race and ethnicity editor, Tim Wise, who's been called one of the foremost anti-racist activists in the country, has a new blog, and it's a hard-hitting, always provocative and well-reasoned take on race, power and interpretation.
    Tim Wise | LiP Magazine
    http://www.lipmagazine.org/timwise
    

- Media Picks compiled and edited byErin Wiegand and Brian Awehali

Posted by brian at 04:17 PM | Comments (0)

August 08, 2004

Dispatch from Gaza

It was simultaneously a very good thing, and a very bad thing.

Neither Susan nor I expected to be allowed to enter Gaza in the first place. All of our Palestinian friends told us it was impossible and, at any rate, too dangerous these days....

But here we were, walking through the goddamn check point, with a two hundred pound suitcase full of acrylic paint and two dozen brushes. Pleasantly surprised to be entering the Gaza Strip, on a hot mid-east morning, our euphoria proved to be as short lived as water on desert sand.

Oh shit...we're entering Gaza.

The Israeli government has, for months now, held the Gaza Strip under tight, military lockdown, with daily shelling, targeted assassinations, house demolitions, and a generalized assault on the teeming local population. Practically no one is allowed to enter, or leave Gaza at this time. The checkpoint, which under "normal" circumstances is crowded with Palestinian laborers leaving for, and returning from work, is all but deserted. Susan and I were among the last grains of sand to fall through this concrete hourglass. (The check-point, actually, resembles a New York City Subway turnstile, but with lots and lots of barbed wire...and a soldier pointing a machine gun at your head.)

The entire Strip is a sprawling, densely populated, outdoor prison--one of the most crowded zones on the planet--with Apache helicopters and F-16s (all made in the USA) buzzing through the air like insane, metallic hornets.

We spent the first night with a family who live, with their four daughters, in a sixteen-story high rise in Gaza City. (Susan had become friends with them on a previous visit, years back.) The family's father, Nasser, arranged for us to stay with his seventy year old mother in the nearby village of Beit Hanoun, which has been under a particularly intensive siege for the past four weeks. A month ago, the military entered this lovely village of citrus groves and vineyards, and bulldozed every last orange tree, lemon tree, grapefruit tree and grape vine in site. Every last fucking one.

Sharing the room with us, for our next three nights in Beit Hanoun, was a young orange tree in a large ceramic pot. Was it being hidden in this second story room? Upon closer inspection, we noticed that it had a golden chain wrapped around its trunk, locking it, desperately, to the floor. For the following three nights, I slept with this young tree at my feet.

Earlier this month, the army also bombed and/or bulldozed forty some-odd wells in the village. (The region of Beit Hanoun has the most plentiful underground sources of water in Gaza...which is what the current military incursion is really all about: Water for Israel.)

No one is permitted to enter, or leave this village, this prison within a prison, encircled by soldiers with M-16s, tanks, bulldozers, and helicopters, around the clock.

At daybreak, we silently loaded our heavy-assed suitcase of paint and brushes onto a splintered wooden cart pulled by donkey, and quietly slipped, undetected into town.

I immediately noticed that the landscape was littered with corpses of trees, a most horrifying site. A war atrocity. Fruit withered on the vine...bright oranges turned dusty brown, under the white-hot sun. This village, which, for countless generations, has been a prosperous farming community, is now, suddenly, a desert. Quite literally overnight, Beit Hanoun, which, from time immemorial, was legendary for its sweet abundance, has been stripped naked.

Everybody we met, and stayed with for the next three days, was visibly heartbroken, bewildered...traumatized. Too full of grief to feel anger. Too full of sorrow to feel rage.

Yet.

* * *

We met with the director of the local youth center, who was a cousin of the family we'd stayed with in Gaza City. He was a handsome man, about my age, with lines of angst etched deep into his warm face. He was responsible, each day, for the hundreds of girls and boys who passed, barefoot, through the center.

Of course, there was nothing much that he, or anyone in the village could do, but worry, and wait. What would the Israeli army, (solidly backed by both Bush and Kerry) do next? Start bulldozing homes? Poison the last remaining wells? Shell an unpaved village of sandy dirt roads, uprooted trees, donkeys, and scattered herds of goats? Chain-smoking, he agreed to let us organize a mural project for youth center's front wall.

A make-shift scaffolding was quickly erected against the face of this three story, stucco building. I immediately began to sketch, in charcoal, the outline of an enormous tree, branches reaching up to the roof, roots reaching into the ground.

With the regular RATATATATATATATATAT!! of machine gun fire in the background, (heard every half hour or so, day and night...) Susan and I poured out a large bucket of Viridian Green, always a good color for foliage, and handed out brushes to an energetic crew of teenage boys--brothers and friends of those recently killed--and got right to work. I mixed up a can of Raw Umber, with a splash of Sienna, and painted the tree's thick trunk around the front doorway. Whenever anyone entered the building, they were entering the body of a large and ancient tree. Above me, Taleb, Samir, Mahmoud, and Susan were busy painting in the tree's leaves so furiously, that they quickly ran out of Viridian Green. Fuck...I knew I should have brought more Viridian!

I frantically mixed a quart of Cobalt Blue and Yellow Ochre together, yielding a curious Olive hue, and we were back in business, with enough green to finish painting all the leaves.

A running joke, which circulated up and down the scaffolding, and evoked wild laughter, was that when the soldiers see this giant tree, they would immediately uproot the entire building.

After we ate a brief meal on the floor, Mahmoud began thumping loudly on an hourglass-shaped hand drum, and suddenly we were all up and dancing, hysterically, to this odd, yet strangely familiar rhythm.

And then it was back to work. Special joy, and attention was given to painting the numerous, large, shiny oranges, which hung, plump and ripe, from every branch of the tree.

Eric Drooker
Occupied Gaza
August 5th, 2004

Posted by brian at 10:37 AM | Comments (0)

August 05, 2004

08.03.04 | Bush on the Ranch; Damsels in Distress; Unusual Protest in Manipur

Posted by erin at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)

	Aug 3, 2004 Edition
THiS WEEK: The media myth of "super pot"; John D'Agata on the art of the American essay; an unusual protest in Manipur, India; music & politics with Antibalas; how to make money with electric cars; Will Farrell, as George W. Bush, films a campaign commercial and gets chased by a horse; a new lawsuit charges that power companies' pollution makes them a "public nuisance"; Edwige Danticat on torture, secrecy, and the American immigrant experience; a reassessment of the legend of Che Guevara; and why it's good to be white, female, and attractive when getting abducted.
The "Potent Pot" Myth Repeated claims that newer types of marijuana are far more dangerous than pot of the past create more harm than good. Bruce Mirken, Mitch Earleywine | Alternet http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/19416/ AUDIO | The Next American Essay This remarkable anthology presents a picture of what the American essay is, and what, with any luck, it may become. John D'Agata, a virtuoso of the essay, knows more than anyone else about it. Inserted throughout the anthology, his own funny, meandering essay-in-pieces manages to create the autobiography of an art form. With a guest reading by contributor David Foster Wallace. KCRW http://kcrw.com/cgi-bin/ram_wrap.cgi?/bw/bw030508John_DAgata_editor The Body Remembers The rape and murder of a female separatist in Manipur, India has sparked fierce protests - including this remarkable case, in which twelve women stripped naked in front of an army station as an expression of "pure fury" at the military's history of human rights violations and molestation of women. An editorial on the use of the female body for organized public expression. The Telegraph | Calcutta http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040717/asp/opinion/story_3504611.asp AUDIO/VIDEO | Morning Becomes Eclectic: Antibalas Afro-beat influenced orchestra, Antibalas, bring their dancing melodies and, ahem, progressive politics to this superb college/community radio station morning show. REALAUDIO: http://kcrw.com/cgi-bin/ram_wrap.cgi?/mb/mb040729Antibalas WATCH VIDEO OF THE SHOW: http://kcrw.com/smil/mb040729Antibalas.ram Electric Cars That Pay A new 'vehicle-to-grid' system could enable electric car owners to sell their excess electricity back to a utility company. Mark Clayton | Christian Science Monitor http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0729/p17s02-stct.html VIDEO | White House West: Bush on the Ranch Will Ferrell, as George Bush, behind the scenes during the filming of a campaign commercial. Watch 'George' as he handles farm equipment, mends a fence, and demonstrates his familiarity with horses. IFILM [click on 56K or 256K link] http://www.ifilm.com/viralvideo Public Nuisance No. 1 A lawsuit by eight states against the country's largest power companies charges that their pollution makes them a "public nuisance." Some legal scholars think it's crazy, but it just may put the fear of global warming into shareholders. Amanda Griscom | Grist Magazine http://www.gristmagazine.com/muck/muck073004.asp AUDIO | The Dew Breaker: Interview With Edwidge Danticat What happens when a Haitian "dew breaker" (torturer) moves to America and conceals his identity? In this collection of interrelated stories, Edwidge Danticat explores the twin legacies of torture and secrecy­the past constantly usurping the present, the nightmare of oppression superimposing itself on the American immigrant experience. Michael Silverblatt | Bookworm [Listen] http://kcrw.com/cgi-bin/ram_wrap.cgi?/bw/bw040506Edwidge_Danticat Read an excerpt from the book: http://www.kcrw.com/dialabook/Dew_Breaker.htm Just a Pretty Face? For 40 years he has been a sex symbol, heroic victim and the ultimate poster boy of revolutionary chic. But behind the myth of Che Guevara lie darker truths. On the eve of a new film, it is time to reassess the Sixties' most enduring icon. Sean O'Hagan | The Guardian http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1258340,00.html Damsels in Distress When a missing person becomes a continuing news story, she is usually an attractive, middle- to upper-class white girl or young woman -- a Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson, JonBenet Ramsey or Elizabeth Smart. More than 800,000 missing persons cases are on file with the FBI; most are children who return within hours of having wandered off. Almost 29,000, however, are adults and juveniles "missing under circumstances indicating that the disappearance was not voluntary; i.e., abduction or kidnapping," according to the FBI. Despite those numbers, the media seldom focus on males or victims of color. Why? Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies believes these stories fit an outmoded view of what constitutes a "good" murder versus a bad one. Says Clark, "It's all about sex." Alex Johnson | MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5325808 Two New Heroes for the Stoner Generation The idea that kids across America will be quoting two Asian American guys, slapping Harold and Kumar stickers on their drug paraphernalia and watching this movie over and over makes me feel like "we" have really arrived. Neelanjana Banerjee | Alternet http://www.alternet.org/movies/19422/ - Media Picks compiled and edited by Brian Awehali and Erin Weigand