Distribution Automatique

Saturday, November 19

Poet- Bashing Police- poets Robert Hass (former poet laureate of the US) and Geoffrey O'Brien beaten by police in Berkeley (New York Times)

* * *

Somalia: famine still looms large
M/E/A/N/I/N/G Online 25th Anniversary Issue
"Our 25th anniversary comes at an unusual moment following upon a series of traumatic political events and a decade of war. It is a moment of global economic crisis, failure of capitalism and of progressive political movements, a moment of political impasse, and of generational shift. Methods of communication have changed since we began our project 25 years ago and concepts of privacy and individuality seem to be in a process of radical transformation.
We began planning this issue in the way we had planned other forums in the past: we discussed and tried to formulate our specific personal concerns and our sense of general contemporary concerns into questions and themes that we would invite a spectrum of artists to respond to. Our mutual and separate lines of thought and feeling merged into two themes:

Theme 1
How do public traumas like 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rise in income inequality in the U.S., and the current recession affect, or frame, the production of your art works and art criticism? What is the role of individual style or idiosyncrasy in these times and circumstances? What is the role of the art market/fashion/art history versus such public or individual/idiosyncratic motivations and frames?

Theme 2
How do artistic intuition, creativity, community, production, and distribution function for you in the age of digital corporate conglomerates and the web 2.0? What is the nature of privacy for the artist or critic working in the age of social networking and global spectacle?"
[from the introduction by Susan Bee and Mira Schor, editors]

* * *

Remember The Cream? Here is an interview with a poet who was their lyricist, Pete Brown
Somalia's famine sees some relief but thousands still face 'imminent starvation'"

* * *

Record surge of people flee Somalia for Ethiopia and Yemen

Wednesday, November 16

Tuesday, November 15

Kenya envoy seeks US help on Somalia

* * *

Somalia: Thousands cut off by impending conflict, rain
"According to the UN, 750,000 people in Somalia are at risk of dying if they do not receive urgent intervention".
The people's library is open!

* * *
Toni and I were at OWS for the grand re-opening. Free ponchos were being given out to those who planned to stay the night. I ran into Adam from Unnameable Books who plans to help restock the OWS library. Want to help? Go see Adam.

* * *

The People's Library
Somalia: terrorists fall back

* * *

UN monitoring group to recommend al-Shabab sanctions

Monday, November 14

Israel-Kenya deal to help fight Somalia's al-Shebab

* * *

Somali refugees flee to Ethiopia (PBS video)



* * *

Panelists propose solutions to conflict in Horn of Africa
"Kenneth Menkhaus, an expert on Somalia, began by discussing the famine, which he labeled as "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world."
"Somalia is facing the biggest famine in 20 years," Menkhaus said".