Welcome to Swans Commentary http://www.swans.com/ February 14, 2011
Note from the Editors: Who needs faux-reality television shows when one
can spend a spellbinding week watching real reality unfold on the
streets of Cairo, complete with tension, suspense, hopes,
disappointments, and finally, euphoria? Of course, what comes next will
be the subject of a long-running series and, as always, there's more to
the plot than the mainstream media reveals. Gilles d'Aymery digs beneath
the surface, and you'll be surprised at what he deems are the biggest
challenges Egyptians will face in the foreseeable future. Also digging
beneath the surface, Michael Barker reveals the faux reality of Spirit
of America, an aid organization packaged as spreading "freedom and
democracy" while working in collaboration with the US war machine in
Iraq and Afghanistan to improve the efficiency of their
counterinsurgency operations. "Only in America," as they say...and with
all due respect to its sports fans, Jan Baughman illustrates her secret
hope: that a snowed-out Super Bowl or drought-canceled World Series will
wake Americans from their climate-change slumber and they'll get off the
couch and do something. And returning to Africa, Femi Akomolafe takes on
the Nigerian National Assembly's shady financial practices and obscene
salaries.
Turning to cultural content, Roy Blount Jr.'s new book on the Marx
Brothers' "Duck Soup" challenges critic Charles Marowitz's objectivity
over what he considers a sentimental comedic masterpiece. Peter Byrne
reviews Granta's 2010 edition, "The Best of Young Spanish Language
Novelists" -- twenty-two gifted writers in a veritable bumper-car
session with no end to changes of pace. In the academic corner, Marie
Rennard shares her teaching methods, which may be unconventional, but
they work for the young students she tutors in English; Francesca Saieva
describes her vision on the archetypal meanings of the literary journey
to the beyond in the search of truths in relation to common demands of
social life; and Maxwell Clark presents four theses on Marx's method of
political economy. We close with another poetic work of art by Guido
Monte, along with your letters and our assurances that Swans has not
become a mouthpiece for Murdoch.
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Cordially,
Gilles d'Aymery
-- Swans
"Hungry man, reach for the book: It is a weapon." B. Brecht
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