Marian's Blog

Shop Green: Earth Day 365 days/year

If you're in the U.S. or nearby, when you need to shop start using this site - Co-op America's National Green Pages.

Burma's Saffron Revolution: Violent crackdown on day 10

The violent crackdown everyone dreaded is on in Burma. International press are reporting one Japanese man is dead after being shot today by soldiers. This now brings Japan (also a Buddhist country) into the picture. The military controls Internet service within Myanmar and are blocking access to certain blogs, but word is getting out anyway. Several deaths have now been reported. Are the attacks on Buddhist monks, nuns and civilians the beginning of the end of Burma military rule? Where is India's voice? In a muted response China is now telling Burmese authorities to show "restraint". Thailand claims nothing unusual is going on. What about Europe, and Germany in particular? India and Germany both are said to have commercial ties to the Myanmar regime. U.S.-based Chronicle of Higher Ed links to New Mandala academic group blog which has lots of info and in turn links to Burmese site Kachin News Group in English and Burmese. There's also the link to Awzar Thi's Rule of Lords blog with compelling photos of what's now called the Saffron Revolution. Representatives of the people's movement say their non-violent protests are no fluke and the people will not give up. 

"Granulated slavery" - Michael Burke in the Jamaica Observer

It's August. This is a month to remember and commemorate Britain's end of its slave trade, from London to Guyana and the Caribbean and its "basin", and beyond. This also encompasses "local Washington, DC" since a sizeable number of Caribbean folk live and work in the DC-Maryland-Virginia area. More Caribbean and Caribbean Basin folk are scattered across Canada and various parts of Europe. August also marks national independence of Britain's post-slavery Caribbean colonies, more than a hundred years after chattel slavery ended. So we're checking Michael Burke's fascinating column, Granulated slavery, Saturday, 5 August, in the Jamaica Observer. Burke pulls together related issues: economic enslavement, jobs and their absence, 1970s' Roman Catholic liberation theology throughout the Americas (conveniently abandoned by some), the virus of today's artificially induced mass consumption as well as the local and global co-operative movement and its underused ability to put a dent in poverty. Thanks for the overview, Michael.

New York's Chris Owens for Congress on 12 September 2006

Let me draw your attention to blogdiva Liza Sabater's recently posted pro-Chris Owens' take on Sept 12th's key race for the successor to my former boss, U.S. Congressman Major Owens. Major, "the first professional librarian elected to Congress", is retiring after about 12 productive terms in Congress over 24 years. He was elected in 1982 in the district where in 1968 the late Hon. Shirley Chisolm became the first Black and Caribbean American woman elected to Congress. Today there are 4 candidates in this majority Black/Brown district. "Majority colored" as Liza calls Central Brooklyn's 11th Congressional District. The people are mostly English-speaking U.S. Black American, mostly English and Kreyol/Haitian-speaking Caribbean, and Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican who, by the way, are Caribbean. The candidates: Chris Owens, Carl Andrews, Yvette Clarke, and David Yassky. Why did I believe I'd heard ages ago that Yassky had pulled out of the race? Folks say he hopes to split the colored majority vote. If it's true that's a highly cynical strategy in a district like this for a candidate who happens to be a white, Jewish male. I really hope vote-splitting does not occur. Sabater elaborates on each candidate in her Daily Gotham blog. My view is that Chris Owens happens to be the most qualified, transparent and the most effective progressive in the race. Frankly, he knows more about how Congress works than do his three opponents, combined. He also happens to be a son of Major Owens, but don't make the mistake of thinking he's trying to take a "free ride". No. Chris Owens has his own merits that make him the candidate of choice to succeed his dad - and to provide important political continuity in Washington at a time when Democrats are coming back from behind. This year's election is a referendum on the future of Brooklyn and her colored majority population. Hopefully this future will be decided in favour of the people of Brooklyn, by the clear-thinking will of eligible 11th District Brooklyn voters who take the time and cast their respective ballots, Tuesday, 12 September 2006.

War and Collateral Civilians: Ethiopian women trafficked and trapped in Lebanon

The Blogher 2006 conference is happening in about a week. Meanwhile over at Blogher.org I posted my concerns about the least visible of the "collateral civilians" caught in the bombing of Lebanon and Hezbollah. Look here under "Race & Ethnicity."

World Cup and Der Spiegel Online: German incident in an Italian hotel, 2004

None of us knows exactly how today's Italy-Germany match will go. Some folks are pulling even harder for Italia ever since Achim Achilles' "why bother" comments were published in his infamous (and now removed) column on Der Spiegel Online (DSO). (The last link is to a BBC story about the column.) I say "why bother" because, well, why bother writing and publishing such nonsense?? From what I read, the column wasn't witty and definitely was not funny. I won't say Achilles' comments came from all Germans because obviously they did not. Not to mention, as others have pointed out elsewhere, the name Achim Achilles isn't exactly culturally German itself. At the same time it seems his remarks aren't as isolated as most of us would wish. It's interesting to consider and discuss how such aggressively stereotypical thinking fits into "problem-making" versus the efforts at "problem-solving" that are going on simultaneously today across the globe, including in Italia and Germany. In his June 28 post titled "Heil Spiegel" Italian humorist/comedian Beppe Grillo ("GREEL-lo") writes about the Der Spiegel episode via his blog. To Der Spiegel Online's credit, two days after Grillo's post someone called "Roberto Longo" added DSO's apology - in 3 languages - on Grillo's site as a response to the "Heil Speigel" entry.

This forces me to recall the Italian press reports of the incident two summers ago (2004) in an Italian hotel (Il Tritone in Abano Terme, Padova) where German tourists actually demanded the hotel management remove from her job a young woman on a 1-month student internship working Tritone Hotel's front desk. If you read Italian, see Costantino Muscau's 24 May 2004 article in Corriere della Sera: "E nera, non puo stare alla reception". Translation: She's Black, she can't be [work] at the reception [desk]. The 18-year-old student worker was African and, for some reason, this particular group of foreign (German) tourists organised to get her fired; not because of anything incorrect in her work but because of who she was. Later the story came out of how her parents settled in Italy years earlier, her father, Ekoli Mahnge Zulu, being a former IBF welterweight world boxing champion. Unfortunately the Tritone hotel's management did cave-in to this crazy, racist pressure (from a group of German tourists no less), which justly brought lots of coverage and an outcry in the Italian media. This led to the young woman (Marlene Zulu, Zairoise by birth) being offered and accepting another "stage" at the "more appropriate" Rossini Hotel, also in Italy, in Pesaro. Daily injustices like this anywhere in the world and including Europe, Germany, Italy and elsewhere, should have such courageous outcomes far more often.

June: Caribbean American Heritage Month 2006

Props to our Caribbean cousins/sisters/brothers for Caribbean American Heritage Month 2006. Jasmyn Cannick has a good link on her site where she writes about Oakland, California Congresswoman Barbara Lee's 2005 proclamation, with a list of a few US folks of (recent) Caribbean descent/origin, like California's Mervyn Dymally, "the first foreign born member of the United States Congress, Marcus Garvey, Sidney Poitier, Colin Powell, Cicely Tyson, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and Shirley Chisolm." The folks are even going to show us how to play cricket on the National Mall in DC. Do they plan to let women join in? More events and details at CaribbeanAmericanMonth.org site.

Iraq: Civil war and Nir Rosen's Green Bird; long live Zarqawi?

Thursday, 8 June 2006. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi no longer walks the earth and CNN has interviewed a 'less well-known' (to some of us) freelance journalist called Nir Rosen. Today Rosen became the first person I've heard in the mainstream media (MSM) to speak openly, and like he were making sense, about Iraq being in a state of civil war. Digest that. Most other media folk are still using that "sectarian violence" euphemism. This includes Wolf Blitzer who thankfully, unlike many of his CNN colleagues, I am not forced to endure or imagine discussing "Brangelina" with a straight face. Besides Nir Rosen has anyone in US mainstream media officially called the current state of Iraq a civil war? Rosen specifically says it's been a civil war since 2005. He is also author of a book I'd never heard of before today - In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq - briefly reviewed here. The book's subtitle seems appropriate on this day when some in "the West" are cheering and instant-replaying news of al-Zarqawi's death. May he, like all of us, have an opportunity to talk to G*d about who he was and the acts he committed in this life.

Hope somewhere in our humanity: Hermann Hesse to Teilhard de Chardin

We're off to an outdoor concert of jazz - "Black classical music" (my term since my 1975 Penn State radio show). In the midst of what I witness and write about in this blog, each day I'm on my own search for 'what helps us' - me especially - to become more fully human. Among the people, thinkers, writers, etc. I admire, whose actions, utterances and writings have influenced me, is the late French writer - Teilhard de Chardin. I came across an archived article at WIRED (Jennifer Cobb Kreisberg, June 1995) on de Chardin and development of a "Net-based" global consciousness and how even 51 years after his death in 1955 de Chardin's thoughts connect to and continue to develop with this consciousness that's making itself real, as we Black Americans might say.

Kenya Bloggers Day, aka Madaraka Day

Today is June 1st - both Madaraka Day and Kenya Bloggers Day. Uaridi (Swahili for 'rose') has done a lively Madaraka Day post at her blog so I've linked it here. Unlike Uaridi I'd probably trade a Tuskers and nyama choma (barbecued or roast meat) for a glass of water (probably Keringet or something) or chilled vino bianco, with a nice green salad fresh from my Muthaiga garden (which I dearly miss). Madaraka Day took place June 1st, 1963, 18 months before Kenya's full independence from Britain on 12 December 1964. In the early 60s I was a little Black American girl who had never yet been outside her home country, but I vividly remember collecting the set of luncheon placemats each with a nice map and description of an African nation that recently had re-gained its independence. Even as a kid thousands of miles away - to the west across Africa and the Atlantic - I understood vicariously what African independence meant. It made me feel hopeful and proud. I also still hope that soon Africa will remember and be proud of us.

National Archives: Congressional records on slavery and the international slave trade

Interesting reading here; a link to the National Archives' holdings of US Congress records on American slavery and the international slave trade. If you want to know what the Continental Congress thought about enslaving Black people, or what congressmen said - on the record - about Haiti's fight for independence (doing just what the US already did), it's here.

Marian's Blog does Open Source Radio, tonight

If you can, please join us tonight by tuning in to "Hidden Histories of Slavery" on Open Source Radio. Join us via the Internet. TIME: 19:00 to 20:00 (7-8pm) US East Coast time. "Marian's Blog", so to speak, will be one of OSR's guests, with host Christopher Lydon and the incomparable Dr. Simon Schama of the BBC series, A History of Britain and also Columbia Univ., and Dr. Jill LePore from Harvard. We'll be talking slavery in the USA: the history, the research; the social and political cluelessness and amnesia... which has got to be either a massive collective defense mechanism or else some kind of weird secret weapon. Schama and LePore both have recent books on enslavement. I believe I'm the only guest who's actually spent the past 30 years searching for my own enslaved and free ancestors: those who were enslaved and later freed, the free, the enslavers, and my American Indian ancestors. What a mix - 100% American, I might add. What a conversation. What fun! We're sooo looking forward... Join us!

From France to Britain: Black ancestors in the American revolution

I love history. Following France's first national commemoration of its role in the slave trade there's also room to remember our Brits. What follows is about giving credit where credit is due and about depictions of history being planned and others not being planned for next year's 2007 British and American anniversary of 400 years of the Jamestown settlement and Virginia. Virginia is just one of the several (slaveholding) English New World colonies that transformed into (slaveholding) US states. Facts from the period before the Revolutionary War - the American Revolution - strongly suggest that many, many Black Americans, including my family, most likely are descended from Blacks who fought in or otherwise supplied the American Revolution. Likewise other African British Americans of the time fought for their freedom from enslavement alongside the British. But in large measure Black American veterans of the Revolutionary War and their descendants have not yet been widely recognised whether by the US or any other country. As I figure it, almost 300 years later - and 40-plus years after the height of the Civil Rights Movement - these descendants are still waiting to be fairly documented. Their numbers are still nowhere near being reflected in the membership (or even attitudes) of the DAR (Daughters...) and the Sons of the American Revolution. Exactly how many years have the DAR and SAR even had members of colour - whether Black or Native American or another background? This fascinating note is from the work of historian Robert Selig - The Revolution's Black Soldiers. It's posted in its entirety at American Revolution.org. I added most of the emphases myself:

"The early 1770s were a period of slave unrest in Virginia, prompting the city of Williamsburg to establish a night watch in July 1772 to apprehend "disorderly People, Slaves as well as others." Slave restiveness increased when news of the [Virginia-based] Somersett case reached the colonies in September 1772. James Somersett, a slave taken to England by his master Charles Steuart, had run away. Recaptured and in chains in the hull of a ship bound for Jamaica, he sued for his freedom. In June 1772, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, held that slavery "is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law." As "the law of England" neither "allowed" nor "approved" of slavery, Mansfield ruled that "the black must be discharged." Mansfield's decision outlawed slavery only in England; it did not apply to British colonies. But that was immaterial to American slaves. In January 1773, the General Court in Boston received the first of three petitions in which slaves pleaded their freedom with the argument that Mansfield's decision should indeed apply to the colonies, where they were "held in a state of Slavery within a free and christian Country." By September 1773, the first of Virginia's 250,000 slaves were also trying to get "out of the Colony, particularly to Britain" -..." (cont'd)

Word: Rove's (reportedly) been indicted - hasta la vista, bambino?

Word is (from truthout.org) allegedly Karl Rove has been indicted. If this is accurate... and unless Mr. Bush suddenly decides he can make up some new rule - I think this means that Rove is supposed to resign? Since Mr. Bush came to town so much of the political furniture has been moved till who knows anymore. And if true then truthout has scooped. We'll see one way or the other, should confirmed reports surface. Eventually...

Think DARFUR-Divest SUDAN*- Pension funds remove their cash

THINK DARFUR. Do you know of a pension or other public fund that invests in companies sending income to Sudan's government & military? Sudan Divestment Campaign's site features a state-by-state list of US public pensions with holdings in companies investing in Sudan. Alaska's state pension investment board has more than USD$545 million invested in 25 companies doing business with Sudan. These and other companies are based outside the US since in 1997 the Clinton administration embargoed US companies from doing business in Sudan. Click below to see the whole list.

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Retirement System (selected)	Amount invested in companies that do business with Sudan	No. of companies invested in that do business with Sudan
Alaska State Pension Investment Board (ASPIB)	$545,421,969.90	25
Arizona Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (APSPRS	$164,904,304.80	4
Arkansas State Teachers Retirement System (ASTRS)	$495,826,407.85	38
California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS)	$7,528,282,236.59	44

Hi tech?! Enough already

Cheese and crackers! Between one thing and another we've been offline... how long? Bummer. Darn cookies and computers... Anyway, we're back. It's Easter weekend already. Good Friday. Passover began yesterday and continues till Thurs the 20th. Rummie is still US defense secretary (for the moment); Euro Social Forum kicks off in Athens in May - including Women's Assembly. Sudan's DC embassy proclaims its displeasure over an annoying (to them) yet growing snowball of divestment. Chad just cut dip. relations with Khartoum while CNN's US domestic service says nothing about most of this instead reporting the disturbing news of a New York shopkeeper whose cat may be trapped forever inside a wall. I kid you not. Plus ca change plus c'est toujours news American style. The more things change the more it's still news American style! Peace.

State of Black Union look at Katrina & Bush- Poppy won't be pleased; 2007 in Old Virginny

Barely a month ago George Bush pere (the daddy) told all of us how badly he felt for his boy George as Rev. Joseph Lowery and former president Jimmy Carter took W to task at Mrs. Coretta Scott King's funeral. Well, Daddy definitely will not be pleased with, and he and Barbara may not want to see, CSPAN's video of the 2006 Sobu conference. Al Sharpton, Harry Belafonte and Louis Farrakhan each takes a turn putting Bush act II's name in his mouth, and repeatedly including his role in the devastating federal response to Hurricane Katrina. All this was in Saturday's SOBU State of the Black Union conference. Um-um-um. I almost felt sorry for Bush. Again. But this time thank heaven he wasn't there applauding and wondering how to act. And all this was on his "home territory." No, not Connecticut. Houston. In Texas. No matter who or where you are, if you consider yourself a thinking human being please read and consider supporting SOBU's Covenant with Black America. In remembrance of the early British North American presence - the root of the UK-US 'special relationship', and of course not excluding Britain's role in the slave trade - SOBU organiser Tavis Smiley announced in Houston that next year's conference will convene in good olde Jamestown, Va. Throughout 2007 Virginia will remember the last four hundred years since American Indians saved the bacon of English settlers at a place that came to be known as Jamestown. So many Black Americans have ancestors and family from Virginia. Incidentally, we wonder how the quadricentennial planners intend to accurately incorporate the fact that until 1792 Kentucky was part of Virginia.

"What About the People Who Can't Eat?"- The Injustice Index, Drum Major Institute for Public Policy

"With all due respect to gay rights or abortion - What about the people who can't eat??!" - Kristina Borjesson, Feb 3rd, 2006, speaking to a small, live audience at New York Open Center, broadcast on CSPAN2 Book TV. Editor of Feet to the Fire - The Media After 9/11: Top Journalists Speak Out.

Injustice Index US domestic stats from Drum Major Institute for Public Policy:

*pounds lost by George W. Bush in first 7 months of 2005: 8

*growth in number of hungry US households since 1999: 43%

*income at which a US family of 3 qualifies for food stamps: $20,376

*average yearly wage of "sales associates" at Wal-Mart: $14,787

*number of Wal-Mart employees in USA: 1.2 million

*net worth of five (5) Walton family heirs to Wal-Mart fortune: $77.9 billion

Chris Owens for Congress - New York 11th district

(Another lost blog entry thanks to one small typing glitch.) 2006 election season is on y'all. There's a major Chris Owens for Congress fundraiser, Tuesday, 21 Feb at Magnetic Field - 97 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, between Henry and Hicks streets. Bring your checkbook and a friend. And if you can't make that event you can still send Chris a little somethin' somethin'. The FEC (Federal Elections Commission) ID is H6NY11109, and his campaign office is 328 Flatbush Ave #333, Brooklyn 11238. Details on Tuesday's fundraiser are on DailyGotham, which I found via Liza Sabater's terribly hiply fabulously informational CultureKitchen. Grazie Liza! More on all this later. Same channel.

European Journalism Centre gets new director

The Maastricht, Netherlands-based European Journalism Centre - the EJC - will get a new director from March 1st. Previous director Raymonde Griswold will be succeeded by a chap called Wilfried Rütten. Check other interesting info on their site.

A 'french style revolution' in the USA??

After reading my earlier blog entry which poses the question, "Does Schwarzenegger even know?" (re a campaign to close a California "youth correctional facility" [prison] known as "Chad"), reader Randy in the UK shared his thoughts, stating, "Schwarzenegger IS a bully who is succesful [sic], this is proof the world is wrong, and that we need a french style revolution, in america." Thanks, Randy, for the feedback. It's just that I'd love to know exactly what a "french style revolution" in the US would be like. The last time France had a revolution was the 18th century. That's been awhile. The world's changed quite a bit since then though from the evidence I'd wager most men's "approach" to 'social change' - fighting - has not.

Iraq deaths by dehydration: Women soldiers die avoiding rape by other soldiers?

Did US Lieutenant Gen. Ricardo Sanchez really bury cause of death info for some soldiers who've died in Iraq? Are women soldiers getting voicemail when they try to report sexual assault to their superiors? Lawyer Marjorie Cohn's t r u t h o u t.org article, "Military Hides Cause of Women Soldiers' Deaths" describes Colonel Janis Karpinski (Abu Ghraib prison ex-commander who took the weight for torture and abuse conducted there) testifying to a judges' panel at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration that some women soldiers "died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women's latrine after dark." It gets worse. Cohn says in a public presentation in 2005 Karpinski charged women soldiers were given an '800' phone number to report sexual assaults but that none of the soldiers had phones. Even worse - no one even answered the 800 number, based thousands of miles and several time zones away from Iraq in the U.S. Cohn adds: "Even after more than 83 incidents were reported during a six-month period in Iraq and Kuwait, the 24-hour rape hot line was still answered by a machine that told callers to leave a message." The article notes latrine facilities were far from the women's barracks, and were not even lit - hello?! "There were no lights near any of their facilities, so women were doubly easy targets in the dark of the night" according to Karpinski in a 2004 interview with retired US Army Col. David Hackworth. The women went without liquids after 3 or 4pm in the afternoon in fierce desert heat to protect themselves from sexual assault while going to the bathroom. Karpinski also claims women  soldiers basically have no voice. "Even as a general I didn't have a voice with [Lt. Gen.] Sanchez, so I know what the soldiers were facing. Sanchez did not want to hear about female soldier requirements and/or issues." US military sexual assault is so bad that the Army has set up a "sexual assault web site." In April 2004 the government issued a 99-page report that said, among many other things, "... low sociocultural power (i.e., age, education, race/ethnicity, marital status) and low organizational power (i.e., pay grade and years of active duty service) were associated with an increased likelihood of both sexual assault and sexual harassment." An expert interviewed in this piece adds, "People who report assaults still face command disbelief, illegal efforts to protect the assaulters, informal harassment from assaulters, their friends or the command itself." Read all of it @ t r u t h o u t.org.

Does Schwarzenegger even know? Campaign to close California "Chad" youth "correctional" facility

This is the text of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights' letter asking the State of California to close the N.A. Chaderjian youth correctional facility. You can support the Books Not Bars programme, and sign their letter online here.

"TO:
Chief Deputy Secretary Bernard Warner
Division of Juvenile Justice
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
1515 S. Street, Suite 502
Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Chief Warner,

Thank you for your recent decision to halt new intakes of youth to the N.A. Chaderjian ("Chad") Youth Correctional Facility. It is exciting to finally see someone take action to protect youth from Chad’s brutal conditions. We urge you to close Chad immediately.

Chad is the worst of California’s eight youth prisons. Last year, two youth died in Chad. Chad guards were caught on tape beating two other youth. Expert reports revealed youth in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day. This year, Chad’s high school lost its accreditation. The superintendent – the ninth Chad superintendent in five years – was just fired for using excessive force.

Chad completely fails in its mission to rehabilitate youth and protect the public. 75 percent of youth are re-arrested within 3 years of their release. And this failure costs California more than $ 25 million dollars per year to operate.

There is another way – by closing Chad, you can invest in effective regional rehabilitation centers and community programs. This works in other states. It can work here too.

There is no place for a facility like Chad in our juvenile justice system. It harms the youth inside and their families, the staff, the state budget, and public safety. You must close Chad immediately." [list of CA officials to be copied below]

About those Diebold machines... A FL county elections head thinks votes were manipulated

Blogger and investigative reporter Brad Friedman writes that the elections director of the Florida county that includes the state capital, Tallahassee (that would be Leon County), says he believes there was "electronic manipulation" of votes in the state's year 2000 US presidential election results. More specifically, he alleges manipulation of some "certain" votes cast in Volusia County, Florida. How many more knowledgeable folk need to come forward on all this?? Friedman's own Brad Blog documents his detailed account of the ongoing struggle over votes, politics and democracy in the United States of America.

US, UK, and Iraq's Oil

Common Dreams has posted Philip Thornton's article, Iraq's Oil: The Spoils of War. In the mainstream media (MSM) who is reporting about something called 'production sharing agreements' - or PSAs - currently being negotiated over Iraqi oil? Thornton claims PSAs were "proposed by the US State Department before the invasion and adopted [post-invasion] by the Coalition Provisional Authority. ... The current government is fast-tracking the process." (Emphasis added.) From the top of the article: "Iraqis face the dire prospect of losing up to $200bn (£116bn) of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year. A report produced by American and British pressure groups warns Iraq will be caught in an "old colonial trap" if it allows foreign companies to take a share of its vast energy reserves. The report is certain to reawaken fears that the real purpose of the 2003 war on Iraq was to ensure its oil came under Western control. ..." The article goes on to say tha