BREAKING NEWS RIGHT NOW
POLICE MURDER STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE, NOW IN TULSA
An installment from Common Dreams that contains the litany of demands–‘bring criminal charges against police who now murder with impunity’–and woeful outrage at yet another instance of police violence and homicide against innocent civilians, in Tulsa once again a Black citizen who had had the ill fortune to break down, according to Think Progress, on the side of the road and call authorities for help only to have them shoot him down as if he were some sort of rabid beast on the highway of life, a horrific situation in which any media outlet with integrity, a la Portside Labor, would also shout out for investigation and imprisonment of murdering police, a grotesque travesty of ‘liberty and justice for all’ in which any media outlet with integrity, a la Salon would look at “hard truths” in this case and force any reader with the stomach to read to confront citizen-culpability in such a situation’s continual unfolding, in the event a set of necessary items to ponder on the part of scrappy scribes and stalwart citizens that The Guardian places in stark contrast right this minute as riotous protest is erupting in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the lee of a sixth shooting, this morning, of its citizens of color so far this year.
This Day in History
In anticipation of tomorrow’s Equinox, Argentina celebrates Spring Day, Brazil Arbor Day, and Bolivia Students Day, and around the globe this twenty-four hour period is an International Day of Peace; in ancient Rome, more or less two thousand thirty-five years ago, the iconic poet and scribe Virgil breathed his last; in an early phase of European maneuvering in regard to how rule would work as Rome’s empire came closer to dissolution, almost but not quite four and three quarter centuries later, in 455, upper-class Senator, Avitus, entered Rome at the head of a Gallic army to consolidate a cosmopolitan imperial approach for a brief period; seven centuries and fifteen years subsequently, in 1170, English and Irish nobility led their forces successfully against the Norse-Gaelic rulers who had been occupying and administering the Emerald Isle from Dublin; MORE HERE
A Thought for the Day
The truism is nonetheless worthy of note for all its obvious incarnation that processes evolve according to their beginnings, at least until some radical shift—some in the social sphere would insist on the wording, ‘revolutionary change’–diverts matters down a different pathway, so that one need only recall that plus or minus twelve hundred years ago, when Norse ‘adventurers’ went “a viking” they were proceeding forth on trading ventures in which they would find either markets to ply or marks to plunder, eventualities that flowed irresistibly from the lessons that they’d learned from the Romans, and since all of ‘free enterprise’ and ‘liberated human potential’ and other euphemisms for capital’s, and empire’s, centuries-long imprimatur started in just such predatory fashion, one would need to be either an ignorant fool or a smooth dissimulator in order to contend that anything other than brutal depredation and eventual extinction could possible result from the untrammeled continuation of the erstwhile ‘free markets’ and ‘libertarian efficiency’ of the modern bourgeoisie.
capitalism OR "free enterprise" OR bourgeoisie history OR origins OR predecessors OR precedent OR evolution piracy OR viking OR conquest OR plunder empire OR imperialism colonies OR "colonial relations" "class war" OR "class conflict" = 129,000 Elements.
TODAY’S HEART, SOUL, & AWARENESS VIDEO
A LIKELY ‘HOPELESS,’ & YET INESCAPABLY NECESSARY, CAMPAIGN
EVENTS
The Museum Day Live! ticket provides free admission for two people.
Museum Day Live! is an annual celebration of boundless curiosity hosted by Smithsonian magazine. Participating museums and cultural institutions across the country provide entry to anyone presenting a Museum Day Live! ticket.
Where will your curiosity lead you on Museum Day Live!?
Let us know @MuseumDay #BoundlessCuriosity #MuseumDayLive
OPPS/SUBS/CONTESTS
Hi! We’re interested in anything to do with the publishing industry or digital media. We’re also interested in book reviews and eclectic essays on any topic, as long as they are of high literary quality and are a good fit for our audience of writers, artists, and publishers. Nothing generic-sounding, please. We want to hear your own unique, authentic voice. $50 per post
A Public Space welcomes submissions of fiction, essay, poetry, as well as multigenre work. For additional information, please see an interview with the editors on our Duotrope page; an article on Bette Howland, a recent contributor, here; and an archive of the magazine’s previous issues here.
JOBS
Experienced journalists can apply for this full-time job in Cairo.
Thomson Reuters is looking for a bureau chief for Egypt, Sudan and North Africa.
The successful candidate will lead a hectic news file and manage a large team of correspondents covering Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.
Journalists with interest and experience in news writing, social media and audience building can apply for a fellowship.
The Trace, a nonprofit digital magazine focusing on guns in America, is looking for a digital news fellow to join its newsroom in New York. The fellowship will run from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31.
Strategic Bigotry as Propaganda
A Who What Why review of the groundbreaking work of a courageous scholar who analyses both the substance and the implications of the unfavourable stereotypes developed by White European culture for the sole purpose of plunder: “Below is an excerpt from the book, “The Hearts of Darkness: How White Writers Created the Racist Image of Africa,” by African scholar Milton Allimadi. The author has documented — often in gut-wrenching detail — the ways in which the western media have for centuries distorted the image of Africans. And always for the same reasons: to enable the exploitation of Africa’s people, its natural resources, and its strategic location.”
A Millions look at established and iconic writers’ approach to undertaking the epic writing form: “There is a long-standing debate about a critical aspect of the novel-writing process. Currently and colloquially in some annexes of the writing community it’s been playfully termed the “pantsing vs. plotting/outlining/planning” debate. Pantsers fly by the seats of their pants: they write and see where it takes them. Planners, well, plan before they write.
Precedent and vehement feeling may be marshaled in favor of both approaches.”
Diversity in Children’s Literature
A Medium piece that introduces readers to some great examples of children’s works that are actually culturally and ethnically diverse: “Here’s the thing about “diverse” children’s books: some of them… not so great. You know, the books about Native Americans that lump them together, idealize them, put everybody in teepees, get the history wrong, and more. Books about Asian Americans in which everyone’s an alike-looking, broken-English-speaking foreigner. And the huge disproportion of books about black and Latino families in which everyone’s poor and life’s a never-ending struggle! Many are good, quite good. But the near single-storying of black and brown people also feeds harmful stereotypes and denies the diversity of our experiences and the fullness of our humanity.”
A World Socialist Web Site look at the words and motivations of the creator of the recent Snowden biopic in the context of pervasive vigilance and spying on citizens: “The Oscar-winning director was speaking at the Toronto film festival as his new film Snowden, about the controversial NSA informant Edward Snowden, received its world premiere. The drama, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the lead role, tells of the former CIA employee’s discovery that the agency had constructed a system to spy on the public.”
A Vice report that discusses the various ideas, ouvres, and artworks inspired by tragedies, and how these intersect with the social media sharing structure of our society at large: “These easily created and intrinsically shareable responses raise some important questions: Is this art created for social media? Is it created so quickly that its quality suffers? Is there something disingenuous about art-making under such forced and mediated circumstances?”