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Today's
Stories
July 17-19, 2009
Nikolas Kozloff
Chiquita in Latin America: From Arbenz to Zelaya
July 16, 2009
Paul Craig Roberts
What Economy?
Afshin Rattansi Iranian Planes and the Hidden Toll of Economic Sanctions
Gregory V. Button
The Search for Environmental Justice in Perry County, Alabama
Evan Knappenberger
Profile of a Deserter
Michelle Bollinger
Why is Leonard Peltier Still in Prison?
Russell Mokhiber
White House to ABC News:
No Obama Single-Payer Doc
Belén Fernández
Iranian Penetration, Oh My!
Alice Walker
What is Torture Like? A Letter to Obama
Nicholas Dearden
Paying the Climate Debt: the G-8's Troubling Model
Albert Osueke
Sotomayor and the Identity Mountain
Website of the Day
Sotomayor for the Prosecution
July 15, 2009
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Assassination Bureau
Vijay Prashad
A Political Recession
Dean Baker
Stimulus Arithmetic
Ray McGovern
Cheney Sweating Bullets
Jonathan Cook
Jenin's Model of "Economic Peace"
David Rosen
Shouts From the Gallery: the Sotomayor Hearings and the Culture Wars
Eric Walberg
Uighurs vs. Afghans: a Study in Contrast
Greg Moses
Three Dimensions of a Complete Stimulus Plan
Sousan Hammad
Decolonizing Israel
Binoy Kampmark
The Trial of Charles Taylor
Tracy McLellan
The Story of My Arrest
Website of the Day
11 Days in Saudi Gitmo
July 14, 2009
Eamonn McCann
The Emperors of Bombast: Bono, U2 and the Crisis of World Capitalism
Joanne Mariner
Obama's New Euphemism
Franklin Spinney
The Taliban Rope-a-Dope
Steve Heilig
Walking Mount Tam: an Interview with Gary Snyder
Ali Abunimah
Hamas' Choice
Dave Lindorff
The End of "Nice" Health Care Reform
Nikolas Kozloff
The Politics of Destabilization: McCain and Honduras
Ellen Brown
From Golden State to Subprime State
Alice Slater
How US Missile Defense Plans Sabotaged Nuclear Disarmament Talks With Russia
Ron Jacobs
Protest U.S. Aggression
Joe Allen
The Fight to Save James Hickman in Jim Crow-Style Chicago
Website of the Day
Mel Brooks Does the French Revolution
July 13, 2009
Uri Avnery
The Essence of the Regime
Mike Whitney
The Deflating Economy
P. Sainath
How the World Depression Hits Orissa
Gareth Porter
A US / Iraq Conflict on Iran
Paul Moore
Rap in the Streets, Rap in the Suites
Tim Wise
Off the Deep End: Private Clubs, Public Prejudice
Andy Worthington Former Insider Shatters Credibility of Military Commissions
David Macaray
Cartoon Voices:
Serf's Up in Hollywood
Cal Winslow
The Healthcare Worker War
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Spring in the Time of Obama
Website of the Day
Washington's Deep Game with China
July 10-12, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Biden Problem
José Pertierra
The Cuban Five: a Cold War Case in a Post-Cold War World
John Ross
After the Honduran Coup
Conn Hallinan
The Settlements and the Quartet
Nikolas Kozloff
C Street Band: Sex Scandals, Moral Hypocrisy and the Far Right Agenda in Latin America
Clifton Ross /
Marcy Rein
U.S. and Honduras:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Good Neighbor
Carl Ginsburg
Summers' Clouded Crystal Ball
Michael Neumann
Say It Loud, Say It Proud: There is No God!
Gilad Atzmon
The Left and Islam:
Thinking Outside of the Secular Box
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Parable of the Golden Parachute
Ellen Hodgson Brown
California Dreamin': How the State Can Beat Its Budget Woes
Jim Goodman
Rural America Needs More Than Listening Sessions
Christopher Bickerton
Europe's New Politics of Hard Times
Wendell Potter
Health Care Industry Adopts Tobacco Lobby's Tactics
Dave Lindorff
CIA Lies: Why Isn't Congress in Open Revolt?
David Ker Thomson
Switchbacking Toward Bastille Day
Anthony DiMaggio
The Michael Jackson Feeding Frenzy
Raymond Lawrence
Michael Jackson as Sexual Pervert: the Calumnies of Peter King
Walid El Houri
Neda and Marwa: a Tale of Two Murdered Women
Stephanie Westbrook
Yes, We Camp
Roger Gaess
The Shades of Highgate Cemetery
David Yearsley
Tara, America's Dream House
Kim Nicolini
Caution: Men at Work, Robbing Banks
Poets' Basement
Five Poems From the Japanese
Website of the Weekend
Free Tiga and Hugh!
July 9, 2009
Ronnie Cummings
How Industry Giants are Undermining the Organic Foods Movement
Jonathan Cook
Two-State Solution, Israeli-Style
Nikolas Kozloff
Honduran Destablization, Inc.: Otto Reich and the International Republican Institute
James Bovard
McNamara's Other Body Count
Norman Solomon Afghanistan: the Escalation Scam
Allan Nairn
Indonesia Gets to Pick Its Killer
Andy Worthington
Revamping the Military Commissions
Tomas Borge
The Sadsack Soldiers of Honduras
Nadia Hijab
Palestinian Titanic
Paul Krassner
How Jeff Goldblum Didn't Die
Website of the Day
Dave Lindorff Wants Your Money--Will Give Good Reports
July 8, 2009
Saul Landau
In Amazonia
Dean Baker
The Green Shoots are Dead: Why the Economy Needs a Third Stimulus
Winslow T. Wheeler
Gates, Congress and the F-22
Eric Walberg
Obama in Russia
Ray McGovern
Is Texas Harboring a Torture Decider?
David Rosen
When Sadism Goes Systematic: Prison Rape as Policy
Dr. Mona El Farra
Gaza From a Distance
Ron Jacobs
McNamara and the Post: When Idiocy and Hubris Merge
Benjamin Dangl
High Stakes in Honduras
Alan Farago
How I Almost Pitched McNamara Into the Sea
Website of the Day
Ayatollah So
July 7, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
McNamara: From the Tokyo Firestorm to the World Bank
Uri Avnery
Israeli Court Rebukes Military
Brian M. Downing
Crossing the Helmand
Gary Leupp
Biden, Israel and Iran
Gregory A. Burris
My Brush With Homeland Security
David Macaray
When in Doubt, Blame a Labor Union
Laura Flanders
Obama Hushes Health Care Advocates
Alan Farago
Princple Over Principal
Greg Moses
Texas Patels Take Over Dallas Bank
Dan Bacher
Three Big Lies About the Peripheral Canal
Website of the Day
Tragedy at Toncontin
July 6, 2009
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Hussein's FBI Interviews
Diana Johnstone
Zionist Fanatics Practice Serial Vandalism in Paris
Nikolas Kozloff
Honduran Coup to Venezuelan Coup: Same Old Globalizers and Torture School Grads
Gary Leupp
Operation Khanjar Begins
Jonathan Cook
Israel Calls on Ultra-Orthodox Jews to Stop "Arab Takeover"
Tim Wise
Of Fireworks and False Memories
Franklin Lamb
Cynthia McKinney and the Kidnapping of the Spirit of Humanity
Charles R. Larson
Sarah Palin, Plain and Tall
Carlos Benemann
California's Bingo Bondage: Getting Paid in IOUs
Shepherd Bliss
The Soulless Machine: Caught in the Cellphone Snare
Jerry Kroth
Stuart Levey and World War III
Karyn Strickler
A Fell-Swoop Moment Missed
Website of the Day
The Rise in Military-Backed Public Schools
July 3-5, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Gob Smacked
Eamonn Fingleton
Detroit's Collapse: the Untold Story
Jeffrey St. Clair
Is the Bald Eagle Really Back?
Mike Whitney
Running on Empty
Pam Martens
The Parable of Michael Jackson's Debts
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Counter-Revolution Will Not be Tweeted
Paul Craig Roberts
The Big Whorehouse on the Potomac
Patrick Cockburn
The Haggling Over Iraqi Oil
Anthony DiMaggio
A Perilous Path: Iraq and the Language of De-Escalation
Roger Burbach
Honduran Coup: Target Left?
John Ross
Left's Grip on Mexico City Slips
Nikolas Kozloff
Meet Jim Demint: Coup Apologist
Gareth Porter
The Iran Canard
Andy Worthington
Finally, a Trial Date in the African Embassy Bombings Case
Saul Landau
Bad Times, Worse Habits
David Macaray
How We Spend Our Money
Adam Federman
The Recovery That Wasn't
Jane Slaughter Labor's Vague Rally for Health Care
Russell Mokhiber Black Caucus Muzzled on Israeli Kidnapping of McKinney
Robert Jensen
Beyond Independence
Robert Bryce
Hey, Paul Krugman, Here are 2.4 Billion More Climate Traitors
Belén Fernandez
The Situation in Honduras
Missy Comley Beattie
Would Jesus Pack Heat?
C. G. Estabrook
La Cina e Vicina
Stephen Martin
The Fog of Economic War
Charles R. Larson
Adichie on Her Own
Lorenzo Wolff
A Voice Like a Newsreel: the Soul of James Carr and the Civil Rights Movement
Kim Nicolini
The System That Hijacked New York
Poets' Basement
Farrelly, Kazak and Stadler
Website of the Weekend
Paul Krassner v. Larry King
July 2, 2009
Andrew Cockburn
The Wall Street White House
Nikolas Kozloff
Spinning the Honduran Coup
Wendell Potter
Obama's False Friends of Health Care Reform
Ellen Hodgson Brown
California's Empty Wallet
Christian Christensen Iran: Networked Dissent?
Patrick Irelan
Lost in Patagonia
Binoy Kampmark Returning Iraq
Nicola Nasser
Ethnic Cleansing as State Policy
Brian Tokar
Climate Bill:
Cap(italize) and Trade(Off)
Dan Bacher
Panama Canal North?
Website of the Day
Scheuer on Immigration: "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States."
July 1, 2009
Vijay Prashad
Iran and Us
Alberto Vallente Thorensen
Why Zelaya's Actions Were Legal
Paul Craig Roberts
Pirates of the Mediterranean
Robert Weissman
150 Years
Manuel García, Jr.
The New Crisis in Aviation
Victor Figueroa-Clark / Pablo Navarrete
Honduras, a Coup With No Future
Norman Solomon
The NYT and Troop Deaths:
Abstract Quality Journalism
Franklin Lamb
Remembering Amnon Kapeliouk
Martha Rosenberg
When Doctors Boo
Diane Rejman
Mothers and Military Lies
Website of the Day
The Color of the Race Problem is White
June 30, 2009
Michael Hudson
Debt Deflation Arrives
Esam Al-Amin
Iran and Washington's Hidden Hand
Benjamin Dangl
Showdown in Honduras
Jonathan Cook
Israeli Doctors Collude in Torture
Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah After the Elections
George Wuerthner
Beetle Hysteria ... Again: the Truth About Bugs, Fires and Ecosystems
Todd Gordon
Acceptable Versus Unacceptable Repression
Ron Jacobs
Mark Sanford, Sexual Liberation and LGBT Equality
Kenneth Libby
Conditions for Citizenship
Julian Vigo
Feeling Michael Jackson
Website of the Day
Inside the Mega-Churches
June 29, 2009
Ishmael Reed
The Persecution of Michael Jackson
Nikolas Kozloff
The Coup in Honduras: Obama's Real Message to Latin America?
Clifton Ross
Coups and Constitutions: From Bolivia to Honduras
Patrick Cockburn
Why Iraq is Now the Most Corrupt Country on the Planet
Uri Avnery
Between Tel Aviv and Tehran
Conn Hallinan
Dealing With North Korea: Why Threats and Sanctions Will Backfire
James G. Abourezk
Where the Money Isn't Going
Ralph Nader
The Holes in Obama's Financial Regulation Plan
Carol Miller
Why Fiscal Conservatives Should Love Medicare-for-All
Greg Moses
Jobs First
Website of the Day
Key Leaders of Honduran Coup Trained in the US
June 26-28, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
The Hate Crimes Bill: How Not to Remember Matthew Shepard
Jeffrey St. Clair
Meet the Retreads: Obama's Used Green Team
Doug Peacock
Elk River: History and the Yellowstone
Daniel Wolff
The Night Before:
a Glimpse of the Lenape
Mike Whitney
What the Big Banks Have Won
John Ross
The New York Times and Stolen Elections
David Rosen
Cry, Hypocrite, Cry: the Tradition of Sex Scandals and American Politicians
Emily Ratner
Thoughts on Manhood From the Rafah Tunnel
Gareth Porter
Airstrike Report Belies "Blame Taliban" Line
Farid Marjai
Green, But Not Velvet
Nadia Hijab
The Rift in Iran: Memo to the "Do Something" Brigade
Paul Craig Roberts
Gun Control: What's the Agenda?
Fred Gardner
FDR's Real Defining Moment: Ending Prohibition
Carl Ginsburg
Obama's Father's Day
Paul Watson
Fear and Loathing in Madeira
David Ker Thomson
Nothing
Farzana Versey
The Man in the Mirror: Michael Jackson as Tramp
Geoff Berne
Obama and Charter Schools: The Showdown at Schottenstein
Todd Alan Price
Ohio: Birthplace of Charter Education ... and Opposition to It
Ramzy Baroud
People for Sale in a Hungry World
Jeff Sher
Health Care Showdown
Dr. Carol Paris Despite My Arrest by Max Baucus, I Will Continue to Advocate for Quality Health Care for All
Walter Brasch Adultery as Family Value?
Glen Johnson
The Village and the Wall
Charlotte Laws
Hold the MSG!
Charles R. Larson
Dickens in Morocco, Sort Of
Kim Nicolini
The Erasure of Art
David Yearsley
Yankee Prof Takes on Dallas
Lorenzo Wolff
When the Songs Remain the Same
Poets' Basement
Larson, Davies, McLellan and Gardner
Website of the Weekend
Kayakers vs. Shell Oil
June 25, 2009
Kathy Kelly
Now We See You, Now We Don't
Jack Bratich
You Provide the Tweets, We'll Provide the Info War: the Media and the Iranian Protests
Wendell Potter
The Health Insurance Industry v. Health Care Reform: a Former Insurance Industry Insider Tells All
Charles R. Larson
Don't Cry for Him, Argentina! GOP Sex Scandal of the Week
Alan Farago
The Tears of Mark Sanford
Jonathan Cook
Israeli Firms Accused of Profiting Off Holocaust
Gareth Porter
Khobar Bombings:
Telltale Signs of Saudi Fraud
Bitta Mostofi /
Bill Quigley
"You Will Not Get Past Us"
David Macaray
Six Ways to Reinvigorate Labor
Mark Schuller
Haiti's Elections: "Beat the Dog Too Hard"
Website of the Day
Worst Slide Story
June 24, 2009
Andrew Cockburn
How the U.S. Has Secretly Backed Pakistan's Nuclear Program From Day One
Dean Baker
Making Financial Regulation Work
Andy Worthington
The Story of Abdul Rahim al-Ginco
James Bovard
Obama and the Torturers
Diana Gibson /
Ray McGovern
Torture Eats the Soul
P. Sainath
The Age of the Everyday Billionaire
Gareth Porter
Investigating the Khobar Tower Bombing: Why Was Al Qaeda Excluded From the Suspects List?
Robert Alvarez
The Department of Energy's Nuclear Albatross
Dave Lindorff
Medicare for All
Steven Colatrella Remembering Giovanni Arrighi
Website of the Day
Protest as Terrorism
June 23, 2009
David Price
Obama's Classroom Spies
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Reels Toward a New Era
James Ridgeway /
Jean Casella
Bi-Partisan Bull on Health Care: Three Ex-Senators Get It Up for the Health Care Industry
Dave Lindorff
Using the Economic Crisis to Attack Workers
Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
Puerto Rico: Biotech Island
Gary Leupp
Dennis Ross Moves to the White House
Brian M. Downing
The Erosion of the Mullahs' Monolith
Robert Bryce
Are Theocracies Doomed?
Nicholas Dearden
The G8 is Dead
Yousef Munayyer
Seeing Through Israeli Delay Tactics
Website of the Day
The Great White Father of America
June 22, 2009
Michael Hudson
Obama's (Latest) Surrender to Wall Street
Esam Al-Amin
What Actually Happened in the Iranian Presidential Election? A Hard Look at the Numbers
Chris Floyd
Dexter's Legions in Afghanistan
Jack Z. Bratich
The Fog Machine: Iran, Social Networks and Genetically Modified Grassroots Organizations
Atash Yaghmaian
We Children of the Revolution
Laura Carlsen
Victory in the Amazon
Paul Craig Roberts
The U.S. Regime-Change Recipe for Iran
Vijay Prashad
Gun v. Butter: Now You are Only Poor
Fred Gardner
Charles Lynch Gets a Year and a Day (No Thanks to Eric Holder)
Andy Thayer
The Blank Check: How We Got the Obama-DOMA Debacle
David Macaray
Unions and the Newspaper Crisis
Website of the Day
The Most Spied Upon Town in America?
June 19 - 21, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
I Become an American
Jeffrey St. Clair
Firebrand: Rod Coronado's Flame War
Patrick Cockburn
Who Will Control Iraq's Oil?
Al Giordano
What the Left Should be Learning From Iran
Henry A. Giroux
The Iranian Uprisings and the Challenge of the New Media
Anthony DiMaggio
The Electoral Façade
Paul Craig Roberts
Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated "Color Revolution?"
John Ross
46 Dead Mexican Toddlers: Sacrificed on the Altar of Neoliberalism
Gareth Porter
Spinning Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan
Carl Ginsburg
Obama's Bix Fix: Placating the Bankers, Again
Tommi Avicolli Mecca
40 Years After Stonewall:
From Smash the Church to Going to the Chapel
Joe Bageant
Workers' Rights: No Balls, No Gains
Serge Halimi
Protectionism: We've Been Here Before
P. Sainath
Price of Rice, Price of Power in India
Jim Goodman
The Claim Deniers: Why the Health Insurance Industry Doesn't Deserve Our Trust
Dave Lindorff
Obama's Health Care Waterloo
Rannie Amiri
Bush Jumps Over Maine, Carter Lands in Gaza
Robert Fantina
Iran, Obama and McCain
Harvey Wasserman
Big Nuke's Radioactive Hoax in Impoverished Ohio
Walter Brasch
They Got Away With Murder: 12 Angry White People
David Ker Thomson
This Moment's Bill of Rights
Charles R. Larson
No Voice: Telling Her Mother's Story
David Yearsley
Escape From the Torture Chamber
Kim Nicolini
When the Closet is the Culprit
Ben Sonnenberg
Rossellini and the Art of Ambiguity
Poets' Basement
Beatty and Kowitt
Website of the Weekend
Grown in Yellowstone, Slaughtered in Montana
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Weekend Edition
July 17-19, 2009
Ashes and Diamonds
Sembène's Faat Kiné
By BEN SONNENBERG
Summer’s the perfect season for Ousmane Sembène’s Faat Kiné, just released in DVD by California Newsreel. It’s an exuberant movie, full of laughter, wit and sexual high-jinks, by the “father of African cinema.” Faat Kiné is Sembène’s next-to-last film (his career began in 1963 and ended in 2004), 3 years before his death.
Set in an idealized Dakar where at first only the cripples and beggars seem real, Faat Kiné is, at every level, a celebration of women. And what glorious women they are. Even the lowliest of them, with a plastic bucket of food on her head, stride regally through the market place; while the more prosperous, with her elaborate turban and luxuriant gown, looks as though she belongs at the court of an 18th century monarch.
The title character (Venus Seye) runs a Total petrol station in the middle of the city. A voluptuous, fun-loving woman in her early 40s, Kiné is the proud mother of a daughter and son who’ve just gotten their baccalaureate degrees. Both children are illegitimate; their histories are given swiftly in a couple of fluent flashbacks. It’s a delight to watch Kiné at work. She measures the density of a diesel fuel delivery with the concentration of Madame Curie and from behind her desk outwits a snobby woman with counterfeit bills with the breathtaking savvy of a character played by Joan Blondell in the 1930s. Her back-talk shows she’s a woman not to be messed with.
Kiné comes home full of joy and pride. Both daughter and son have passed their baccalaureate exams, her son with highest honor. Happy but exhausted, she sits down in a rocking chair opposite her mother (Mame Ndoumbé Diop). This formidable woman looks like a figure carved of wood and moves with the deliberation of an idol in a procession. Kiné supports her mother and stepfather in a spacious suburban house, decorated with oil paintings of Julius Nyere, Kwame Nkrumah, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael and other heroes of négritude. In front of a portrait of Nelson Mandela, Mammy reminds Kiné how she saved her and her daughter’s lives. “When you got pregnant out of wedlock the first time… Your father was so furious, he wanted burn you alive.” Mammy stood between her and her father (the wonderful Samba Wane, seen only in two flashbacks) and she goes on to praise Kiné not only for giving her children everything she didn’t have as a child, but also for giving her mother a home and finding a husband for her. “Now, I am your daughter,” she says, “I praise you.”
Sembène’s paean to the women of Senegal, its “pillars of society,” culminates in the long final scene. Kiné gives a bash for her children at which, uninvited, their fathers turn up. The event feels like the end of a novel by Victor Hugo where the virtuous are triumphant and the wicked are defeated, but the director foregoes none of his usual irony. There’s a suggestion of hope in Djip (Ndiagne Dia), Kiné’s 17 year-old son, toasted enthusiastically as a ”future president of Senegal,” except that in his good looks and impeccable French, he reminds us of Sidiki Bakaba who played the tragic hero in Sembène’s 1987 Camp de Thiaroye. Sembène’s view of the future of Senegal is anything but rosy.
Fortunately – happy enders rejoice! – for Kiné herself the movie wraps, deservedly, in bliss.
Details:
1 Disc; California Newsreel price $24.95
Senegal; 2001; in French and Wolof with English subtitles; 121 minutes; Color
Ben Sonnenberg is the author of Lost Property: Memoirs & Confessions of a Bad Boy, and the founder/editor of the original Grand Street. He can be reached at harapos@panix.com.
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