Items by Marian

Marian's Blog

• Chicago 2008: Men, media, politics, and bread, with butter

  Posted: December 15, 2008, 4:24 pm by Marian

  Plans seem to be afoot, perhaps via Illinois' attorney general and state supreme court, to push defiant governor Rod Blagojevich from that state's administrative and political bus. Two other observations come to mind. I compare them to an elephant -...

• \Malik Rahim's Dec 6 New Orleans congressional race!

  Posted: November 19, 2008, 3:33 pm by Marian

  We just want to quickly alert readers and volunteers to Malik Rahim's campaign and the Vote Malik website. Please go there and contribute a bit of your time, talent and, for eligible donors, some cash! Every little bit helps. After...

• BBC snubs Cynthia McKinney: U.S. third-party candidates

  Posted: November 12, 2008, 2:58 pm by Marian

  The election may be over yet BBC has forever altered my perception of it as a relatively balanced source of international news. I was watching BBC TV News last Monday evening, Nov 3, as the announcer chirpily announced there actually...

• Greens' McKinney and Clemente: Helping us learn to overcome

  Posted: November 2, 2008, 10:42 pm by Marian

  This will be one of my last blog posts before Tuesday's U.S. presidential election. Borrowing from our sisters over at Document the Silence blog (on violence against women of colour), I feel the need to quote my Caribbean-American lesbian sister,...

• Is OSCE (closely) monitoring the U.S. election?

  Posted: October 7, 2008, 6:02 pm by Marian

  With less than a month to go, I'd really like to know whether or not my former colleagues of the OSCE - Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe - have a plan in place (on invitation of the U.S....

• Euro view of U.S./global crisis from Jean-Michel Quatrepoint

  Posted: October 5, 2008, 11:38 pm by Marian

  Do Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher now get the last laugh? Chancellor Angela Merkel says her government will not let Germany's vast Hypo Real Estate become the latest European enterprise to dissolve into financial oblivion. Almost simultaneously, via France24 News,...

• Afghanistan: British commander says "we're not going to win" war against Taliban

  Posted: October 5, 2008, 7:45 pm by Marian

  Barely a week ago the Taliban took credit for murdering Afghanistan's top woman police officer, Lieutenant Colonel Malalai Kakar, head of the police department's crimes against women division in the city of Kandahar. Now a Reuters article quotes a British...

• Understatement by Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Reps

  Posted: October 3, 2008, 4:19 pm by Marian

  "... I don't think we've invested well... in the last few years..." - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (daughter of late mayor of Baltimore, Maryland; multimillionaire; Democratic congresswoman, 8th Congressional district, California - San Francisco) on the current state of U.S....

• Coping with public fear: "Bailouts only add to sense of panic," O'Grady, The Independent (London)

  Posted: September 30, 2008, 12:00 pm by Marian

  We're reading Sean O'Grady's article in today's Independent: "... no amount of taxpayer money, no vote in Congress or the Commons and no speech by a president or prime minister can now fully restore the confidence that has been drained...

• Brazil: Afrodescendant Land Claims go to ILO

  Posted: September 26, 2008, 3:28 pm by Marian

  With assistance from Australia-based COHRE, Afrobrazilians being evicted from their ancestral lands are taking their case to the International Labour Organisation (ILO). More later...

• One reason I won't vote Democrat in 2008 (voting Green instead)

  Posted: September 25, 2008, 3:09 pm by Marian

  Politics may make "strange bedfellows," as the saying goes, but there have to be limits, and every now and then I reach one of mine. In this case, for me, it's around the 2008 U.S. presidential election. As Peter Finch's...

• Global crisis: Congress was warned in 2000 of predatory loans

  Posted: September 22, 2008, 2:52 am by Marian

  Thanks to my sister for sharing news of veteran U.S. legal aid attorney William Brennan and his testimony in Congress on 24 May 2000. So Congress had first-hand knowledge of what was going on from an attorney helping elderly, often...

• India's Shame: Anti-minority atrocities in Orissa

  Posted: September 20, 2008, 1:34 am by Marian

  All of Indian society, India's diaspora (particularly in the West), the national government and its diplomats in Washington and elsewhere, and anyone anywhere in the world who professes to admire or emulate India really must take action to stop the...

• Black America Needs Political GPS; and Kevin Gray, on Obama, in Italian press

  Posted: September 4, 2008, 12:54 am by Marian

  Some weeks back during one of her national workshops, L.A.-based communications, public and 'authentic voice' speaking guru Norma Hollis asked me, "How should Black Americans relate to the rest of the African diaspora?" That's a heck of a good, hundred-dollar...

• Seeking Our Families in White folks' wills & slavery records

  Posted: September 3, 2008, 6:18 am by Marian

  Below, in sharp relief, are details of the constant, intimate and deeply disturbing interaction of U.S. "business" and "commerce" with Black American genealogy and history, and our ongoing attempts to save, locate, help and protect ourselves and each other (including...

• Hurricane Gustav: Evacuation Priority

  Posted: August 31, 2008, 2:34 pm by Marian

  We're tracking Hurricane Gustav which many say could be worse than Hurricane Katrina almost exactly three years ago. New Orleans is now under a mandatory evacuation order, this time around providing bus transport for its residents without cars. Gustav has...

• Katrina: 29 ways you can help @ katrinaaction.org

  Posted: August 29, 2008, 11:49 pm by Marian

  Katrina Information Network has a list of 29 things you can do right now to assist the displaced and victimised citizens of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region. They have some beautiful New Orleans local music on their site....

• Greens' Rosa Clemente on WAMU.org Radio, 26 Aug

  Posted: August 26, 2008, 1:27 am by Marian

  Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney's running mate Rosa Clemente did a very informative interview earlier today with Kojo Nnamdi of WAMU-fm (part of American University). Great interview, Rosa. You can hear it online here. It seemed a bit strange...

• To Mr. Zogby: Cynthia McKinney's a candidate, too

  Posted: August 18, 2008, 2:19 pm by Marian

  By email, James Zogby's polling firm sent me their latest survey asking about my 2008 election intentions. The survey asked whether I plan to vote, for whom I've voted in the past, and for whom I may vote in the...

• August 7, 1998: Julian Bartley and many other lives

  Posted: August 7, 2008, 3:29 pm by Marian

  I will never forget that August 7, 1998 was a Friday. In Croatia I finished a report for work. My colleague-friend Melinda and I had taken a day of leave and arrived on Croatia's beautiful, rocky, pine-scented Dalmatian coast to...

• Global warming and our collective meat-eating ways

  Posted: July 30, 2008, 8:54 am by Marian

  Have you heard about Gidon Eschel and Pamela Martin's report on meat-eating and global warming? It's online here as a PDF file. Happy reading!

• "Why does Barack Obama hate my family?", Counterpunch

  Posted: July 15, 2008, 2:33 pm by Marian

  "... I'm not claiming to know the story behind the picture of Obama and his father at the airport, but I suspect that joint custody between Hawaii, Indonesia, Massachusetts, Kansas, New York, Illinois and Africa would have been tough. ..."...

• McKinney and Clemente Chosen by U.S. Green Party

  Posted: July 14, 2008, 4:30 am by Marian

  The Green Party of the United States has voted former Georgia Member of Congress Cynthia McKinney as its 2008 and first woman and woman of colour presidential nominee. McKinney carried her historic political quest to the next level, asking New...

• Darfur: ICC Now Breathing down Sudan's neck

  Posted: July 11, 2008, 5:55 pm by Marian

  Reuters is reporting the International Criminal Court, or ICC, could soon issue arrest warrants for Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir and other senior Sudan government officials. Doesn't the Arab League have a central role to play in all this? The...

• Ralph Bunche, edited by Beverly Lindsay

  Posted: July 9, 2008, 3:46 pm by Marian

  When I think of Ralph Bunche I remember the first time I saw the small sculpted bust of him in the U.N. conference center in Geneva. I also remember meeting his beautiful daughter, Joan, twelve years ago during the dedication...

• Ingrid Betancourt Freed in Colombia

  Posted: July 2, 2008, 11:41 pm by Marian

  French and U.S. media report the military rescue of Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt along with three persons identified as U.S. State Department military contractors, and several Colombian military. Betancourt and her campaign manager, Clara Rojas (released several months ago), were...

• Habitat for fishies?

  Posted: July 2, 2008, 11:25 pm by Marian

  More than 40 NYC subway cars have been retired, submerged and 're-purposed' as a unique refuge for aquatic life off Virginia's coast:

• "... Mugabe still wins"?

  Posted: June 27, 2008, 12:04 am by Marian

  "Even if we vote for the opposition, Mugabe still wins." - Woman refugee from Zim (Zimbabwe) Hard on the heels of January's tragedy passing as Kenya's 'presidential elections', it is equally as nauseating to observe the speed and trajectory of...

• PlanetGreen needs clues on race & gender

  Posted: June 27, 2008, 3:05 pm by Marian

  I applauded when Discovery Channel's "Discovery Home" recently evolved into Planet Green TV - planetgreen.com - specialising in sustainable, ecological living. But the line's been crossed with Planet Green repeatedly airing promos that insidiously stereotype Black people and disappear and...

• Alpha Dogs: marketing candidates like snacks?

  Posted: June 25, 2008, 1:45 pm by Marian

  I do believe we just saw James Harding on The Daily Show. Meanwhile, Newsweek's Tony Dokoupil interviewed the (British) author of Alpha Dogs of London in the 26 May '08 issue: "In "Alpha Dogs," London Times editor James Harding investigates...

• New Orleans, DC, New York on Juneteenth 2008

  Posted: June 19, 2008, 3:52 pm by Marian

  From the U.S. Gulf Coast post-Katrina to Somalia, Iraq, Darfur, Zimbabwe, and South Sudan, today is Juneteenth, folks. Black Americans still have our eyes on freedom, and nowadays, all over the world, many more people do, too. Today, 19 June,...

• Juneteenth, and Eunice K. Waymon (Nina Simone)

  Posted: June 18, 2008, 2:00 pm by Marian

  Time for our annual Black American commemoration of Juneteenth. June 19, 1865 is celebrated by Black Americans as the date when our ancestors in the deep South and West (Texas) finally got word of the Emancipation Proclamation. On paper it...

• $200/barrel Oil? Choosing sustainability

  Posted: June 11, 2008, 12:52 pm by Marian

  My cab driver, transplanted from Ethiopia, told me first. That was weeks ago. But I couldn't believe it till I read the headline of today's Independent (London): "Price of oil will double." Folks, we have now reached 'put up or...

• 1808 to 2008: From Slavery to Oblivion??

  Posted: June 8, 2008, 1:38 pm by Marian

  We're now halfway through the year marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the United States' direct slave trade from the African continent and still no official statement about that history, no national reflection, no nothing. Interestingly enough and...

• Untitled

  Posted: June 8, 2008, 12:22 pm by Marian

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/6169006.stm

• U.N. examines racism in Washington, DC and USA

  Posted: June 4, 2008, 9:28 pm by Marian

  This week high-level UN staffer Doudou Diene completes his whirlwind three-week visit to the United States. Apparently he's been here following up on pesky reports of racism, racial discrimination and the like. One only hopes white supremacy and its activities...

• Election 2008: the meanings of "history"

  Posted: June 4, 2008, 7:22 pm by Marian

  Over the past several months I've talked with about sixty journalists about the issues of ethnicity (which is neither colour or "race"), representation and the lack of it, and history - particularly the history of the USA and every other...

• Wash, DC Democrats' conference, and backstop blogging

  Posted: May 4, 2008, 11:12 pm by Marian

  We're off the regular computer for a few days; thank goodness for handheld blogging! Saturday (yesterday) witnessed the local "state" Democratic Party conference. I qualify the word *state* since the citizens of capital city, including numbers of the people who...

• Hastings holds State of Black Europe hearing in Congress

  Posted: April 24, 2008, 4:36 pm by Marian

  In London in September or October 2004 this writer spoke on the panel, "Alliances We Need to Fight Racism" at the European Social Forum (Malmo, Sweden Sept. 2008). I participated as a member of the network Alliance of People of...

• Shop Green: Earth Day 365 days/year

  Posted: April 24, 2008, 3:14 am by Marian

  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.

• Zimbabwe Independence Day 2008: Where are the election results?

  Posted: April 18, 2008, 4:25 pm by Marian

  What is there to say about Zimbabwe? 18 April marks the 28th anniversary of Zimbabwe's freedom from colonialism and state-sponsored apartheid. Some of us, like me, marched and protested to help put an end to Rhodesia. Most people acknowledge something's...

• Aime Cesaire, 1913-2008 - Negritude, gender, diaspora

  Posted: April 17, 2008, 6:57 pm by Marian

  Aime Cesaire est mort aujourd'hui. Aime Cesaire has died today. We awoke to this news, 17 April 2008. He made it to age 94. The Martiniquan poet, novelist, playwright and former mayor of Fort de France and member of French...

• Italy can do better than deeply sexist Berlusconi

  Posted: April 13, 2008, 8:51 pm by Marian

  There are lots of things I admire and love about my other home, Italia. Overall though, the public status of women is not one of them. I haven't yet heard how the voting is going today and tomorrow but I...

• Italia back to the polls: it's Veltroni or the other guy, again

  Posted: April 13, 2008, 3:33 am by Marian

  Not being there, I feel I'm missing out as Italia prepares to vote - again - on tomorrow and Monday. (Can't the U.S. take the hint about weekend elections?) Italy's current election situation seems sooo eerily deja-vu, like we've been...

• Food: from fuel to riots as Reuters covers agflation

  Posted: April 10, 2008, 2:23 pm by Marian

  The current global food crisis makes me remember being in Jamaica in the last quarter of 1977. Michael Manley was prime minister. For some reason, the U.S. government did not consider Mr. Manley a friend. Somehow I sensed that perhaps...

• India-Africa Summit in Delhi: Hard questions?

  Posted: April 8, 2008, 3:38 pm by Marian

  April 8-9 mark the first-ever India-Africa Forum Summit. Might the Summit include any component addressing human trafficking and undocumented (i.e., illegal) immigration coming from the Asian subcontinent into East and Southern Africa?? India and the African Union each has its...

• Africa "Outside" History? President Sarkozy's infamous speech in Dakar, July 2007

  Posted: April 5, 2008, 11:16 pm by Marian

  Since his accession to the French presidency, I seem to have lost track of the times when to hear Nicolas Sarkozy speak is to re-affirm that truth indeed is stranger than fiction. It's likely that for most of his listeners...

• Washington's Slavery Emancipation, April 1862

  Posted: March 23, 2008, 7:54 pm by Marian

  Spring in Washington means more than cherry blossoms. Throughout April, Washington, DC -- or at least some of us -- will recognise the 146th anniversary of the abolition of Black enslavement in the District of Columbia which took place Wednesday,...

• March Madness? Bombing, from Belgrade to Baghdad

  Posted: March 21, 2008, 1:08 pm by Marian

  It's just days after the "Ides of March" - the date when the emperor Giulio Cesare was assassinated in Rome. In English we call him Julius Caesar. In English we also have a saying about March, that it "comes in...

• Genuine Progress Indicator? Measuring economies as if society mattered

  Posted: March 20, 2008, 2:16 pm by Marian

  As so many consumer and exchange economies teeter on the brink, here's a fascinating index that could prove more useful to more people. Many of us are in the same time familiar with, yet put off by, words and terms...

• Africa: Kenyan truce, and Chinese and Indian colonialism

  Posted: March 16, 2008, 4:14 pm by Marian

  Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga and putatively re-elected second-term president Mwai Kibaki finally reached an accomodation for the country's political divide and the death and violence it wrought. I was excited to see BBC live coverage of the opening of...

• My greatgrandfather, Thomas Gudger, who died in Chanute, Kansas, 1913

  Posted: March 13, 2008, 1:11 pm by Marian

  Today I am writing to remember and honour Thomas Gudger, father of my maternal grandmother and her three brothers. I never met any of my grandmother's brothers. Thomas Gudger died on this day in March 1913, in a place called...

• Spitzer official misconduct could make way for David Paterson?

  Posted: March 11, 2008, 2:00 pm by Marian

  I'm guessing that New York politico turned radio host Chris Owens has just had his story of the week - of the year - handed to him for his new show Black Politics w/ Chris Owens. And Eliot Spitzer effectively...

• Black Politics with Chris Owens, Saturdays, 11 a.m. eastern

  Posted: March 8, 2008, 6:55 pm by Marian

  Be sure to check today's radio show, Black Politics with Chris Owens. Starts 11AM U.S. Eastern time Saturdays. Executive Producers are Logan Nakyanzi Pollard and Stephen Davis. Chris composed the show's music. The show's produced in New York City. Listen...

• Voters pick Clinton in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island; McCain

  Posted: March 5, 2008, 10:13 am by Marian

  Hillary Clinton has won Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island Democratic primaries. And if folks want to talk about total numbers of delegates picked by the voters, why doesn't the will of Democratic voters in Florida and Michigan count? Granted Barack...

• Chocolate City, a film on Washington, DC and gentrification

  Posted: February 29, 2008, 5:12 pm by Marian

  In recognition of our colonised status, people around the world can help by taking a symbolic break from even uttering the words "Washington" and "Washington, DC." Leave our name out of conversation and put a blank space in print. Besides...

• Election 2008: help a grad student, take a survey

  Posted: February 28, 2008, 9:33 am by Marian

  Marian's Blog received a survey request from a PhD student at Stony Brook University in New York State. Chris Weber is conducting a survey on "people's reactions to the presidential candidates in the upcoming election." Logically this would be aimed...

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes