Writings, video, audio by David Swanson
“HOSTILE CLIMATE: Report on anti-gay activity, 1999 edition,” produced by People For the American Way
“HOSTILE CLIMATE: Report on anti-gay activity, 1999 edition,” produced by People For the American Way (http://www.pfaw.org) is an overwhelming document, a 250-page book briefly chronicling 292 incidents of discrimination against homosexuals in the United States during 1998.
Excluded from this list are hate
“A Very Long Engagement” by Sebastien Japrisot.
“A Very Long Engagement” by Sebastien Japrisot, translated from French by Linda Coverdale, is a wonderful little book, a best-seller and heart-wrenching tear-jerker in the best sense (and there is a good sense of those terms). A girl’s fiance’ is reported dead in World War One, but she has reason to doubt the report. She tracks down leads for years, with the sort of perseverance only such a motivation brings. In
“180 Ways to Walk the Recognition Talk”
Folks at the University of Virginia have been having some good – if sad – laughs over an almost unbelievably stupid and cruel book that was recently distributed to every department manager there. The state of Virginia is trying out a new pay plan on its underpaid university staff. The basic idea behind the plan seems to be avoiding pay raises. The basic idea behind the book seems to be moronic alternatives to pay intended to pacify
An Expendable Man by Margaret Edds
Feb. 25, 2004
“An Expendable Man” by Margaret Edds does a superb job of telling the story of how an innocent man, Earl Washington, was put on Virginia’s death row and ended up spending 18 years in prison. I know she does a superb job because some years ago, when Washington had still not been pardoned but when things were looking hopeful, I researched this case and wrote a series of articles about it in the Culpeper News, the small-town paper
Efficiency of Factionalism, Fatality of Discipline
July 7, 2004
There’s a common tendency, even among organizers and activists, to assume that in some sense George W. Bush is right when he says “A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier.” We all support democracy in our unions and in labor media, but not of course in order to make our unions more efficient, rather to keep our members happy even at the understood risk of slowing down the important business of organizing and
Fear and Bowling
Also published in Democratic Underground at http://www.democraticunderground.org and in BuzzFlash at http://www.buzzflash.com
“Bowling for Columbine” has some comical moments here and there, but Michael Moore was engaging in false advertising the other day on NPR when he called it a comedy. It’s a depressing film about a horrible situation, and it makes a very serious and compelling argument.
The question Moore asks is why the United States has a rate of murders
“METROPOLITICS: A regional agenda for community and stability” by Myron Orfield
October 2000
“METROPOLITICS: A regional agenda for community and stability” (1997) by Myron Orfield presents a convincing solution to a surprising array of problems. Americans hate sprawl, but they hate even more anything that they can find a way to label socialism. Orfield describes a system of regional government — tried and tested by himself and others in Minnesota — that promoters