Tom Barry, Truthout: US
Customs and Border Protection has launched its drone program without
undertaking a cost-benefit strategy that includes a specific role for
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. The agency continues to buy drones without
planning for their support, maintenance or strategic value.
E-NOTES: WHEN THE NEWS IS NOT ENOUGH. THE BLOG OF E. ETHELBERT MILLER
Thursday, January 31, 2013
IN SEARCH OF MR. MILLER
Notice in the picture - on the desk. A hat -a calling card like Lester Young.
http://libguides.howard.edu/africanamericianresourcecenter
http://libguides.howard.edu/africanamericianresourcecenter
THE SCHOLARS
Things are going well with my new television show - The Scholars. Yesterday I interviewed the librarian Adia Coleman. Coleman is an information and patent specialist at Howard University.
Look for The Scholars to be on the air in March.
Look for The Scholars to be on the air in March.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
 |
| ROBERT HAYDEN |
ANOTHER ANGLE OF ASCENT
must be more
careful item learn to use okay
their pass word okay
I met Robert Hayden when he served as the poetry consultant
at the Library of Congress in the late seventies. I recall sitting next to him
once while he read a poem. I was attracted by his thick glasses and how he
placed his face so close to the page in order to read. It was as if he needed
to kiss each word. I came late to the arguments between the Black Nationalists
and Hayden. His work was cerebral and I first encountered it among the series
of chapbooks Paul Breman published – A
Ballad of Remembrance. My mentor Dr.
Stephen Henderson loved Hayden’s work, as did Michael Harper. Next to them I
place May Miller Sullivan and Delores Kendrick –a choir of Hayden supporters. I
never viewed Robert Hayden as being a writer slipping into obscurity. I
disagree with Arnold Rampersad’s comments in the afterword of the newly
released Collected Poems of Robert Hayden
edited by Frederick Glaysher.
Thanks to organizations like Cave Canem and a new generation
of African American poets and teachers, Hayden’s work might be more popular
today than ever before.
This best explains why the writer Reginald Dwayne Betts has
written the introduction to the new Hayden release. Betts at times reminds me
of a combination of Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X. His own narrative and
memoir (A Question of Freedom) has
received wide recognition and praise. When he talks about what Robert Hayden’s
poems mean to him it’s no less than a man given light after the release from a
dark cell.
But Betts would have us look to the poems more than the man
while Rampersad writes like a referee checking the scoreboard and counting how
often Hayden writes about race.
Future scholars might have to explore how Hayden’s personal
“trama” might be responsible for the presence of violence in his poetry. This
is hinted at when Rampersad
mentions issues of sexuality in Hayden’s life. How an artist
might “cope” with trama
can be veiled by how they wrestle with key emotional aspects
of their childhood. One learns from a poet’s life as well as their poetry.
Neither should stand alone.
I think Hayden was a visionary writer. He looked backwards
first and then forward. His best work is rooted in African American history.
The poems “Middle Passage,” “Runagate Runagate,” and “The Ballad of Nat Turner”
are the ones that kept calling out to Betts when he was in prison. “American Journal” points us in the direction
of hope. It’s one of my favorite poems. There will always be something very
black and American, about Robert Hayden. The work he left behind is for us to
chew and digest. It’s also work that is instructional for all who wish to know
how to live and be free.
COLLECTED POEMS OF ROBERT HAYDEN
Introduction by Reginald Dwayne Betts
Edited by Frederick Glaysher
Afterword by Arnold
Rampersad
Liveright Paperback
A Division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
$18.95 paperback
Quote of the Day
I broke my favorite coffee mug this morning. While I was washing it in the sink, it slipped from my hands and shattered. How could I have been so careless? O that lovely mug! Here one minute, lying in broken pieces the next. No long, lingering illness. No warning signs that something was awry. No chance to prepare for the day I'd no longer be able to reach for it, cup my hand around it, bring it to my lips. This is that day.
- Sy Safransky
- Sy Safransky
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
THE E MAG
Treve de blues
- Leon Damas
Compassion is my art
- Grace A. Ali
God makes stars. It's up to producers to find them
- Samuel Goldwyn
TODAY'S INTERVIEW IS WITH DR. LOUIS CHUDE-SOKEI, SENOIR EDITOR OF THE BLACK SCHOLAR.
E: What type of restructuring is taking place at The Black Scholar? What can readers look forward to?
We’ve undertaken a complete restructuring but with the intention
of maintaining as much as possible the iconic imagery and the consciousness of
being in tune with generational transformation that made the journal so
significant for so long. This being such
a different generation—one made possible by what TBS and its generation achieved—our
challenge is to be as relevant now as the journal always strove to be. The advisory board has therefore been changed
to include a greater variety of writers, scholars, artists and activists who
have risen to prominence in the last couple decades and we have updated the
active board to include folks who are currently making an impact in their
respective fields. Though the journal
has always had a global focus, the multiple types of globality at work right
now mean that what we once considered to be “pan-African” or “Diasporic” has to
engage even contentious intra-racial differences and cross-cultural debate and
operate without the guiding ideological frameworks of previous generations; the
same goes for issues of race, sexuality and gender. Our restructuring intends to thematize this
radical diversity of cultural, geographic, political and intellectual practice
and make the journal/magazine a forum for it.
But also, we have undertaken a physical revamp: fewer annual issues but
more content, more reviews, an entirely different format and size and a sharper
visual presence. We are also now
officially peer-reviewed.
E: Across the country newspapers and magazines are either folding or are ending their print publications. How will The Black Scholar survive in this changing world?
The most amazing thing about TBS as an economic entity
is the fact that it stayed solvent throughout the difficulties facing print
publications over the years. In fact even as the journal faced its own
internal complexities and its presence wavered, it managed to stay afloat, or
if not always fully buoyant, it stayed alive. This was due to the passion
of its founders and the publisher’s commitment to the journal as an iconic
brand. However, much of the credit for that has to go to the enormous
support for the journal maintained by its long-time subscribers and to the vast
amounts of good will and respect it had generated since its founding. TBS
continues to have one of the highest subscription rates of any black studies
journal. Few journals actually have this
history and present behind them, and so for us the new editors it's an honor
but also a buffer as we undertake reinvention. But like most if not all
print journals out there today, we have begun to vamp up our web presence as
well as to make use of our considerable archive. As a black journal,
though, it’s clear that there is a great need for/interest in more spaces for
black expression and ideas—black in its most radical plurality, I must always
add. In business terms, there is a market far larger now for this
material than there are outlets. If you think about it, there still are
precious few zones/spaces for the publication of rigorous black thought,
unconventional yet disciplined black arguments and the exploration of
ideological shifts, trends and cultural forms. The world of black ideas
has continued a two decades long explosion, yet there have been very few
notable spaces available to attempt coverage. Not only does TBS have the
name and the infrastructure to do so, it has the support.
E: What are some of the new trends within black scholarship?
Due to the diversity of what “black scholarship” could be said to
signify—and radical diversification is not only a new trend but a permanent
necessity—its difficult to answer this without the suggestion of a listing of
priorities. So it should be clear that
we are open not only to the various new trends but to even trends-to-be and
would like to be the space where novelty is generated. But clearly issues of sex/gender continue to
be fruitful in the multiply black worlds of contemporary thought—queer
discourses as well as new modes of feminist thought as well as black
masculinity; popular culture, technology, music and media; new African/black
immigrant work as well as materials reflecting shifts and changes throughout
the black world but rendered without the sometimes implicit prioritizing of
African-American views and perspectives; the now established structures of
black/African-American/African visual arts; Afro-Europe and black Latin America;
critical political economy but also materials engaged with how market forces
creatively work…not to mention the very foundational questions as to what
constitutes “black” and “scholarship.” I
do want to stress, though, that TBS is, has been and must be a space of
rigorous thinking but rendered accessibly, inter-disciplinarily and shared with
those who are not necessarily institutionalized academics and scholars.
E: Who are the black intellectuals living today one might do a special issue on?
Ok now you are asking me to dream publicly! Special issues could be on public figures, literary/art/music
figures, media personages as well (we, for example, have an exciting issue on
Michelle Obama under development); but academic intellectuals
that immediately come to mind include Hortense Spillers, Edouard Glissant, Sylvia
Wynter, Stuart Hall, Orlando Patterson, Samuel R. Delany…but as you can
imagine, the list could go on and on given how many important black
intellectual and cultural figures here and abroad need to be identified as
significant. We aim to be the kind of
organ that helps confer significance as well as reflect it.
E: Will your publication explore the "making" of the black scholar? Will it examine the politics behind the awarding of fellowships and research grants?
If by the “making” of the black scholar you mean how black scholars
are produced--especially now that such a thing as a “black scholar” does exist
as an institutional product, and therefore subject to the problems of
institutionalization--keep in mind that our definition of “scholar” is a broad
one. It includes what used to be called
(and I say that only slightly in jest) “public intellectuals” as well as
cultural, social and political figures.
The presence of so many visible black figures in mainstream politics is
as important to TBS as are so-called “oppositional” figures (though we do
intend to explore the changing nature and value of “the oppositional”) as are
those who are becoming influential in ways and spaces that might not
conventionally be recognized by formal scholarship. This includes activists and artists of all
stripes, and so the process of their making will vary. But this is definitely a worthy topic and we
are open to it—in fact, we plan to feature more special issues on such topics
since special issues are going to now be a cornerstone of our annual publication
schedule. So we invite and welcome
proposals and suggestions as well as the appropriate contributors.
E: Will scholars of other ethnic and cultural backgrounds, who are writing on issues of race, find a home for their work at The Black Scholar?
Though TBS will consider good work by reviewers and contributors
regardless of their background, the fact is that despite the great variety of
cultural, intellectual, scholarly and political journals out there, a still
precious few are a) run by blacks and b) prioritize black content, certainly at
this level. Also, the fact that so much
valuable, important and engaging work on race isn’t necessarily being done by
blacks is generating a worrying by-product.
That by-product is this: work by black thinkers, writers and critics
often gets marginalized due to that great variety of other work on race being done by non-black writers. We see a version of this operating in terms
of academic hiring and tenure: an easy way to marginalize blacks is to
emphasize how much work on race is being done by non-blacks! So we do aim to privilege black content but
are without question open to quality content no matter where it comes from.
Tricycle Daily Dharma January 29, 2013 | |||
Understanding and Respect
- Scott Hunt, “Scott
Hunt’s Seaworthy Dream In Two
Parts”
|
GRACELAND
In 1953, Harper's Magazine published James Baldwin's essay "Stranger In The Village." Baldwin begins by writing:
From all available evidence no black man had ever set foot in this tiny Swiss village before I came. I was told before arriving that I would probably be a "sight" for the village; I took this to mean that people of my complexion were rarely seen in Switzerland, and also that city people are always something of a "sight" outside of the city. It did not occur to me - possibly because I am an American- that there could be people anywhere who had never seen a Negro.
Yesterday my beloved friend Grace A. Ali sent me a picture (see below) of her that had been taken at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It's obvious that Grace is not a stranger in the village. In fact in the photo Grace's elegance suggests ownership of the facilities seen behind her.
In many ways this picture tells the story of Baldwin's children. They continue to move, live and work beyond Harlem. Once again blackness must be defined as international. Grace's participation at the World Economic Forum is just another example of how she continue to be a person of note in a changing world. Connect with her at: www.ofnotemagazine.org
From all available evidence no black man had ever set foot in this tiny Swiss village before I came. I was told before arriving that I would probably be a "sight" for the village; I took this to mean that people of my complexion were rarely seen in Switzerland, and also that city people are always something of a "sight" outside of the city. It did not occur to me - possibly because I am an American- that there could be people anywhere who had never seen a Negro.
Yesterday my beloved friend Grace A. Ali sent me a picture (see below) of her that had been taken at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It's obvious that Grace is not a stranger in the village. In fact in the photo Grace's elegance suggests ownership of the facilities seen behind her.
In many ways this picture tells the story of Baldwin's children. They continue to move, live and work beyond Harlem. Once again blackness must be defined as international. Grace's participation at the World Economic Forum is just another example of how she continue to be a person of note in a changing world. Connect with her at: www.ofnotemagazine.org
Monday, January 28, 2013
National News Alert |
 |
 |
| ||||||||
 | |||||||||
Report: Treasury approved excessive pay for executives at bailed-out AIG, GM and Ally
A watchdog says the U.S. Treasury Department disregarded its own guidelines and allowed large pay increases for executives at three firms that had received taxpayer-funded bailouts during the financial crisis.Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/report-treasury-approved-excessive-pay-for-executives-at-bailed-out-aig-gm-and-ally/2013/01/28/7e9f52ba-697d-11e2-9a0b-db931670f35d_story.html
A NOTE FROM DAPHNE WYSHAM AT IPS
It’s been a while since we’ve checked in with you about our climate and energy work here at the Institute for Policy Studies. With President Obama back on the job for another four years, we thought it would be an opportune time to share the exciting work going on here.
President Obama promised in his inauguration speech that climate change will be a priority in his second term. This pledge couldn’t come a moment too soon. Science tells us we have just a few short years left to halt emissions if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change. A recent report issued by the U.S. Government showed that we’re on track for a 9-15 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperatures by 2100 – unless we act swiftly and aggressively.
We know Obama has been dealing with a difficult Congress. But there are other measures he could take as president that would have real impacts on our country’s greenhouse gas emissions. And we’re pushing him to do so.
We are following the money for climate change adaptation and mitigation, knowing that who gets the money and how it’s spent matters in terms of lives saved and lives lost. My colleague, Janet Redman, is working with U.S. and global allies in the climate justice movement to call on developed countries to enact a financial transaction tax and commit a significant part of the revenue to the new Green Climate Fund. Eleven European nations just passed the tiny tax on Fat Cat bankers, and we think with a strong movement behind us, we can have it in the U.S., too.
I’m also eager to finish up some unfinished work I started back in 1996: Get the World Bank (and all development banks and export credit agencies) out of fossil fuels. With a new report released by the World Bank that found that a 4 degree Celsius rise in temperatures would mean all of their work on poverty alleviation and development would be undermined, I've written and spoken out about the need to get the World Bank out of fossil fuel lending entirely. I’m now working with an array of allies—from religious groups to developing country allies—in calling on World Bank President Kim to get the World Bank to end all fossil fuel lending.
We would love to engage you in this process and get your ideas on how to make these and other victories possible this year. Send me an email with your thoughts.
Sincerely,
Daphne Wysham
Fellow, Institute for Policy Studies
IMPORTANT E-NOTE
Obama's Inaugural Address 'One Of The Hardest Speeches I've Written,' Jon Favreau Says
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/24/obamas-inaugural-address-jon-favreau_n_2545236.html
Sadness at the edge of January...
The father of my friend and poet Hind Shoufani recently died.
Sending prayers and love...
Sending prayers and love...
 |
| Ethelbert & Hind. Photo by Hind Shoufani |
Sunday, January 27, 2013
A BUHLE BOOK REVIEW
Ethelbert Miller's Fifth Inning
Swans
This is real E. Ethelbert Miller and a little book to treasure. Note: Paul Buhle threw a no-hitter at age 12, in 1956. It was his last season.
 |
| PAUL BUHLE |
Saturday, January 26, 2013
A ONE QUESTION INTERVIEW WITH GLENN MARCUS
THE QUESTION: Why are you doing a documentary film about World War I?
Glenn Marcus:
The lessons, conflicts and questions provoked by World War I are as relevant today as they were 100 years ago. What is America’s role in the world? What are justifiable reasons for going to war? What responsibility does the country have to the men and women who fight the battles? What are the responsibilities of those who remain at home? To what degree should civil rights and freedom of speech be compromised for the sake of security? How disproportionately does war favor the powerful and wealthy over the weak and the poor? With the coming of the war’s Centennial, it is time to remember and reevaluate this truly cataclysmic event in world and American history.
America’s WWI experience was
unique from that of the other combatants because the country’s security was not
directly threatened by the bloody conflict in Europe. For this reason, most Americans opposed
entering the conflict, but a potent public relations effort was mounted to frame
the war in high-minded ideas: a great
crusade to save western civilization, to make the world safe for democracy. But it was also a war in which most Americans
hoped there was something to be gained.
Women
hoped to earn the right to vote by unquestioningly contributing their labor,
and their husbands and their sons. Social
reformers used it as a platform to address some of the country’s intractable
problems: a restless immigrant
population, alcoholism and vice, child labor, and redistribution of excessive
wealth. Groups such as African Americans
and Native Americans hoped to show their loyalty to the country and thereby
gain the full rights of citizenship. As
a result, the homeland became a battleground between forces for social
stability and forces for greater social justice and a more inclusive society.
These battles continued after the war in many manifestations, the "Red
Summer" of 1919, and the Palmer Raids, and Tulsa 1921 are three of the
most dramatic examples.
And
finally, the expansion of government power during the war dwarfed
anything before, and set the stage for all that followed hence. And the
failure of the US to work its will at Versailles, and to join the
League of Nations, virtually guaranteed that another world war would
follow.
Bio Note:
Glenn Marcus is a documentary film producer and an Adjunct Professor, Advanced Academic Programs at John Hopkins University.
Tricycle Daily Dharma January 26, 2013 | |||
Helping Each Other Through
- Allen Ginsberg,
“‘Letter to the Wall Street Journal,’
1966”
|
Friday, January 25, 2013
EAR-UP! WITH JOHN PARKS
Teodross Avery: Blowing Jazz Into The Future
Jazz! It didn’t begin with Louis Armstrong’s innovative
style of improvisation nor did it end with Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew (1970). This seems to be the conscious among some
music writers. The state of jazz is in flux and it always has been. If it
hadn’t then every style of jazz and offspring from it after Jellyroll Morton
wouldn’t have happened. The tendency to typecast jazz musicians and then rebuff
them for playing anything but jazz may only be, if we look the other way, a
recurring human flaw instead of the inability to express knowledgeably what the
artist is doing and the evolutionary linkages between jazz and other music
genres. Some writers have either forgotten the direction of Miles Davis’
musical output in the last decades of his life, i.e. Tutu (1986), Amandla
(1989) and Doo Bop (1992) or they
have no knowledge of it. And Miles was a major link in that evolutionary
process.
Many jazz musicians have cut their own directions on the
path that Miles helped open up. Teodross (pronounced with long “o” s) Avery, a
highly gifted 39 year old tenor/soprano player, can be registered in that
category as well. For the last ten years he has been blowing on the R&B/hip
hop scene mostly as a collaborator. His last three albums The Diva’s Choice (2013), Bridging
the Gap (2008), and New Day New Groove
(2000) combine the rhythms and beats of jazz, hip hop, R&B, house and
Brazilian music. But Amery’s musical roots are grounded in the jazz idiom, but
not constrained by it as his 1994 debut album In Other Words and his second release My Generation two years later might suggest.
Avery was born to Ethiopian parents in Oakland, California
in 1973. At an early age his father encouraged his musical curiosity. For a while
he studied classical guitar, but then switched to tenor after listening to John
Coltrane’s Giant Steps (1959).
Coltrane imprinted in indelible influence on Avery’s approach to the saxophone.
Giant Steps represented a pivotal
point in Coltrane’s development as a jazz musician especially the approach to
melodic and harmonic structure he learned from Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk.
In Giant Steps Coltrane made a
definitive statement about what jazz had become up to that point and also
suggested where it could go accompanied by a subtle understatement of bluesy
spirituality. Avery has taken Coltrane’s suggested path and reinterpreted it in
tandem with the music he grew up with; r&b, rock, reggae, funk, and hip
hop.
While attending Berklee School of Music Avery was discovered
by GRP/Impulse A&R executive Carl Griffin through the National Foundation
for The Advancement of The Arts which led to his first two albums, critical
acclaim and wide exposure. Avery’s musical gifts and expressively fluid
lyricism put an instant demand on his talents by musicians from every musical
genre he grew up with leading to collaborations with: Queen of Soul Aretha
Franklin, jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis, jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater,
trumpeter Roy Hargrove, soul vocalists Leela James and Jos Stone, jazz/r&b
vibraphonist Roy Ayers, hip hop rappers Mos Def, Allen Anthony and Talib Kweli,
the late jazz vocalist Betty Carter, hip hop rapper/vocalist Lauryn Hill, the
late r&b/pop vocalist Amy Winehouse, hip hop artists, G-Unit All Stars,
singer/performer Shakira and the rock group Matchbox Twenty.
Given the powerful statements of his first two albums, to
borrow Herbie Hancock’s phrase, “the jazz police” would lament Avery’s wide
ranging collaborative work and his last three albums because they are outside
the imaginary confines of the jazz conservatory. But deconstructing jazz, reconfiguring
it, rebuilding it and deconstructing it again is the essence of its evolution
so that the thread of musical ideas extends even farther. Avery’s latest
projects should remind us of that. They are an extension many ideas not the
least of which are influenced by John Coltrane, but are also represented in
James Brown’s “Super Bad” where Brown urges his tenor player, Robert McCollugh;
“Come on! Come on, Robert! Come on, brother! Blow it, Robert! Blow me some
Trane, brother!” And Miles’ into to the title cut of his final studio and first
hip hop album Blow, “This is Easy Mo
Bee and Miles Davis, we’re gonna blow.”
It’s because of Avery’s jazz roots that he has been asked to
collaborate in other areas rather than the other way around. When listening to In Other Words it isn’t difficult to
understand why. Avery blows jazz into the future.
From Teodross Avery’s 1994 debut album In Other Words
Teodross Avery, tenor & soprano sax
Roy Hargrove, trumpet & flugelhorn (on High Hopes, Edda
and Positive Role Models respectively)
Charles Craig, piano (except on The Possibilities Are
Endless)
Ruben Rogers, bass
Mark Simmons, drums
High Hopes
Our True Friends
One to Love
An Ancient Civilization
Edda
The Possibilities Are Endless
What’s New
Urban Survival
Positive Role Models
In Other Words
Our Struggle