Waging Life in a War Zone

Jen Marlowe Yes! Magazine
From Gaza's colorful neighborhood to its underground theater, resistance is an art. More than anyone else, artists must have hope and must create hope for the people. The aim of art is to deliver a message about societal improvement and evaluation. Music provides an escape from the pain of war, the injustice of occupation, and the isolation from living under the siege imposed by Israel, after Hamas wrested control of the coastal enclave. It's also how they fight back.

Tidbits - January 7, 2016 - New Threat to Voting Rights; Tonya Pinkins the Real Mother Courage; Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland and Oregon Thugs; Left Gains Ground, Can It Hold; Trump and Fascism; Reality Check, Socialism in the GDR; and much more...(long)

Portside
Reader Comments: New Threat to Voting Rights before Supreme Court; The Portrayal of African Americans on Stage and Screen - Tonya Pinkins the Real Mother Courage; Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland and Oregon Thugs; Left Gains Ground, Can It Hold; Trump and Fascism; Readers Respond to poem about Berlin Wall - The GDR, A Different Perspective; The Real Northern Student Movement; Shostakovich; Vivian Stromberg Presente.(Sorry for length, three weeks since Tidbits last appeared)

books

Joe Hill Again!

Paul Buhle Portside
The centennial celebration of Joe Hill's execution is being marked by concerts, symposiums, meetings and forums, and the publication of new books, or new editions. Labor historian Paul Buhle reviews two of these. Franklin Rosemont's Joe Hill: The IWW & the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture, with a new introduction by David Roediger; and Philip S. Foner's The Letters of Joe Hill, with new material by Alexis Buss and foreword by Tom Morello.

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The Black Cultural Front: Black Writers and Artists of the Depression Generation

John Woodford The Black Scholar, Vol. 43, Nbr. 3 - Fall 2013
Using original source material Brian Dolinar arrives at a different explanation of why the popular front of 30s and 40s broke up, than that of mainstream media of that time, and since. The key agents of disunity were not the Communists but the manifold assault by the rightwing establishment. The US ruling class used opinion-molding Red-scare and Red-baiting campaigns in the mass media and culture. A lesson for today with the re-growth of the radical right.

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Patti Smith: Her Private Papers

Geoffrey O'Brien The New York Review of Books
Legendary rock star Patti Smith's look back expresses supremely well the tentativeness of every movement forward, the sense of following a path so risky, so sketchily perceptible, that at any moment one might go astray and never be heard from again, never perhaps even hear from the deepest part of oneself again. For a book that ends in success, it is acutely sensitive to that abyss of failure that haunts the attempt to become any kind of artist.

The Art of Peggy Lipshutz

Evanston Legend
A retrospective, of the life's work of Peggy Lipshutz, an amazing artist, political activist and a truly incredible human being.

Tidbits - October 1, 2015 - Reader Comments: Sanders, Labor Endorsements, GOP Attacks Hillary; Slavery; Syrian Refugees; Unions, Contracts and NLRB; Public Education for Sale; and more...

Portside
Reader Comments: Sanders and African American support, Labor endorsements divides union ranks, GOP attacks on Hillary;; Slavery, a national institution; Syrian Refugees and growing movement to welcome refugees; Unions, Contracts and the NLRB; Public Education for Sale; Puerto Rico's new party; Support for UE resolution on BDS; Julian Bond honored; Announcements: The Art of Peggy Lipschutz; more...

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Fracking Dakota: Poems for a Wounded Land

Lee Rossi The Pedestal Magazine
Fracking Dakota: Poems for a Wounded Land, Peter Neil Carroll's new collection, takes us on a fascinating odyssey across an increasingly broken America. With a cast of characters as disparate as Billy the Kid, closet racists, grave robbers, ghosts along the Natchez Trace, blue collar workers and the short-sighted corporations that exploit them, these poems share an undercurrent of looming disaster, a deep knowing that things are about to turn bad. (Cultural Weekly)

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New Releases in African American Intellectual History

Chris Cameron African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS)
New books and research in African American history and culture. Recent or soon-to-be published books, which the African American Intellectual History Society feels would be of interest to readers. Regrettably the cost for some puts these out of reach of many - but there is always your public or school library. Suggest that these be ordered.

Culture Isn’t Free

Miranda Campbell Jacobin
Expecting artists to work for free hands the reins of cultural production to ruling elites.
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