Welcome to Swans Commentary http://www.swans.com/ June 14, 2010
Note from the Editors: You have to wonder, in the opening days of the
quadrennial month of football frenzy in which teams from 32 countries
come together with a shared passion and play their hearts out before
hundreds of thousands of fans and hundreds of millions of television
viewers, why can't life be more like this joyous and respectful World
Cup competition? A regrettably naïve notion indeed, but to quote Rodney
King, "Can we all get along? ... I mean, we're all stuck here for a
while. Let's try to work it out." Outside the football stadiums and away
from the television spotlights numerous groups are expressing this very
sentiment, whether the Muslims under siege in France or the Untouchables
of India; the Mexican victims of the US recession and the Palestinians
held hostage in Gaza. Voicing their unique perspectives on these
cultural clashes are Christine Spadaccini, Peter Byrne, Bo Keeley, and
Femi Akomolafe, respectively. Meanwhile, Michael Barker sardonically
honors former military-industrial-complex member turned "peace activist"
Berel Rodal, and he also shares a pointed interview he conducted with
investigative journalist and former publisher and editor of Mother Jones
Mark Dowie, who supports the contention that we cannot count on
so-called liberal philanthropy to change the world.
Political action takes many forms -- satire being one, and Paul Buhle
considers a master at the art: American author, editor, and former
underground cartoonist Jay Kinney, who wrote a straight-laced history of
Freemasonry, which Buhle reviews. William Hathaway shares an excerpt of
his recently published novel on a new group of militant peace activists
who defy the Patriot Act and work underground in secret cells to
undermine the US military empire. And leave it to Charles Marowitz to
produce a Kafkaesque tale of his run-in with the British police,
reminding us that maintaining a healthy disrespect for the law is the
best way to ensure that justice will prevail. In the few remaining
moments of this edition, Michael Doliner considers the notion of time,
Guido Monte contemplates both beauty and horror mixed together in the
human vision of the world, and we close with your letters (or Peter
Byrne's letter, as it were) on Harold Bloom as the Grand Panjandrum of
literary criticism.
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Gilles d'Aymery
-- Swans
"Hungry man, reach for the book: It is a weapon." B. Brecht
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