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Welcome to Swans Commentary http://www.swans.com/ May 3, 2010 *** Many thanks to Michael DeLang & Phyllis Feigenbaum, and Frances Greenspan for their *very* generous donations. *** Note from the Editors: "Our products and services contribute to a better quality of life. They provide the freedom to move, to heat and to see." So reads the company description on BP's Web site, while one of their products spews from the ocean floor and drifts dangerously toward the US Gulf Coast in what could prove to be a veritable ecologic and economic disaster in a region whose quality of life is already suffering. One man who's no doubt glad to see the spotlight turn from his company to BP is Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, who along with several colleagues was pilloried by the US Senate last week in a made-for-television show trial. In case you missed it, Gilles d'Aymery watched all 10 hours and sums up the winners and losers of the hypocrisy-laden spectacle, complete with John Ensign's moral outrage! It's no surprise, then, that Michael Doliner is so piqued as he considers Blanche Lincoln's proposed derivative legislation that is designed to fail -- a charade given relevance by one of CounterPunch's Cockburns. Equally inept was Julia Whitty's recent Mother Jones article that repackaged imperial myths on population; Michael Barker sets the record straight since that "progressive" publication cannot dare criticize imperialism. Is there an alternative to this destructive system? Our Editor-in-Chief thinks so, but it's definitely not the Tea Party... Shifting to Africa, Michael Barker examines capitalist "humanitarians" and Human Rights Watch's neoliberal advisors, while our brother in Ghana, Femi Akomolafe, explains why every day is April Fools' Day in Nigeria. Two brothers in the brotherhood of the word were Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, whose correspondence helped to forge the Beat Generation -- Jonah Raskin reviews a new collection of their letters. And turning insanity into humor as only he can, Art Shay invokes "Waiting for Godot" while trapped in the computerized customer service maze of PayPal, something we hope you'll never experience when trying to submit a donation to Swans... Our Arts & Culture corner is oozing with the likes of Peter Byrne on the play "Chronicles of Long Kesh" and Charles Marowitz on silent-screen actor John Gilbert. Francesca Saieva describes the "fragments of intertextuality" of Eliot's "The Waste Land," and Maxwell Clark pokes fun at Swans in a creative and amusing poem. We close with your letters on progressive publications and Michael Barker's critique of Mother Jones, Art Shay's admonition of the abuse that starts with the priest and leads to the pope, with a unique solution, and more. # # # # # All the articles and the Letters to the Editor can be freely accessed from Swans front page. Please go to: http://www.swans.com/ You can also access our past issues at: http://www.swans.com/library/past_issues/past_issues.html And you have access to exactly 14 years -- Swans was launched on May 1, 1996 -- of archives by date, author, and subject at: http://www.swans.com/library/archives.html Remember, what's free to you is not to us! To help our work financially please visit http://www.swans.com/about/donate.html # # # # # Swans (aka Swans Commentary), ISSN: 1554-4915, is a bi-weekly non- commercial ad-free Web-only magazine which provides original content to its readers. We encourage pulp publications to republish Swans Work in print format. Please contact the publisher at <aymery AT ix.netcom.com>. Please, do not repost Swans Work on the Web and other mailing lists: "Hypertext" links to any pages of Swans.com are authorized; however, republication of any part of this site, inlining, mirroring, and framing are expressly prohibited. (You are receiving this E-mail notification for you have expressed your interest in Swans and the work of its team. If you wish not to receive these short notifications, simply reply to this E-mail (delete the content) and enter the word REMOVE in the subject line.) Cordially, Gilles d'Aymery -- Swans "Hungry man, reach for the book: It is a weapon." B. Brecht ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
