Wednesday, February 29, 2012

To the Apologists of Corruption - Granny D


Speech delivered by Doris Haddock at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, September 7, 1999

We are on hallowed ground. The petty affairs of the day fade away at this place, where the courage and pain of a righteous life suddenly transcended to the eternal. And with that transcendence, the light from above that shows us the way to justice and love became, for all time, one soul brighter. Did King die here? The part of him we love, his soul, will never die. And so his voice still rings in our ears and he still implores us to make brotherhood, love and self-sacrifice our only tools for change. We hear you, Dr. King.

In this place, it is easy to remember that our brothers and sisters of every color have sacrificed their lives to advance our shared dream of a land of equality and plenty. We have NOT made these sacrifices in order to separate our people into rich and poor, privileged and oppressed. Dr. King was in this very place because he believed that equal economic opportunity is the partner of political equality.


Our people are more economically divided now than they were when King walked this way. The tax and labor and business laws of this nation drive that division, and those policies are held hostage by a corrupt Congress and its system of campaign finance bribery and billion-dollar political favors. These favors are paid at the expense of programs that could make our society more fair and less troubled.


Whole parts of our society, stripped of other opportunities, have fallen into illegal markets to survive. A young generation of urban poor is in jail or in the justice system. Our families are working too many jobs and too many hours to be able to raise their families properly.


It is the duty of leaders to shape society so that the great masses of its people can work to provide decently for their families and their futures. Our leaders, distracted by the corruption of the campaign finance system, are failing that duty.


They pass laws that destroy the jobs and lower the protections for workers, that segregate the people into rich communities and ghettos of despair, and that provide jails instead of education, shelters instead of decent housing, toxic pollution instead of healthy environments for our children. They do it to favor the wealthy elite who buy campaigns to keep them in power.


We must replace this bribery with the full public financing of our elections, so that candidates may speak as freely to the community as they did in the days of the Fourth of July candidate's picnic in the park. We must get big money out of politics before it destroys us utterly.


Americans are disheartened, but we reformers must not despair. We must help bring on the day when ordinary people can speak as equals at the table of power to decide the affairs of our government.


Our democracy is sacred ground. It is red with the sacrifices of our people. We are here today to honor those sacrifices, not with our words, but with our deeds.


To the apologists of corruption in Congress, like Mr. McConnell of Kentucky, understand, sir, that, just like those who stood atop the school steps to block the historic arrival of desegregation, you cannot stand forever atop the Capitol steps, your arms folded against the American people's longing for a democracy worthy of our national sacrifices.


I thank Mr. Dick Gregory, Rev. Billie Kyles, and the Memphis sanitation workers who have walked here with me today. I hope you will walk with me again in January in Washington. By then I might need a hand up the Capitol steps, and I hope that we, as American brothers and sisters, might go into that great temple of freedom together, with Dr. King beside us and in our hearts.


Thank you.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

February Reviews


AWARD NEWS
Denman Ross and American Design Theory by Marie Frank ($39.95 Paperback, 978-1-61168-025-6, $37.99 Ebook, 978-1-61168-012-6, UPNE) is winner of the Victorian Society’s Hitchcock Award.

The Weir Family, 1820–1920: Expanding the Traditions of American Art edited by Marian Wardle ($49.95 Hardcover, 978-1-61168-021-8) is winner of the Victorian Society’s Fischelis Award.


ON THE AIR
John Bessler, author of Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders’ Eighth Amendment ($39.95 Hardcover, 978-1-55553-716-6
$27.99 Ebook, 978-1-55553-717-3, NUP), will be a guest on Maryland Public Radio’s ‘Midday’ on March 6 and Minnesota’s ‘The Kolars Conversation’ on KTOE on March 12.

 REVIEW
In Search of Sacco and Vanzetti: Double Lives, Troubled Times, and the Massachusetts Murder Case That Shook the World
Susan Tejada
$27.95 Hardcover, 978-1-55553-730-2, $18.99 Ebook, 978-1-55553-778-4, NUP
“This is a terrific reexamination of the Sacco and Vanzetti case by journalist Tejada, whose lively writing and reporter’s eye offer a fresh, invigorating perspective on otherwise familiar characters and historical episodes. She brings the suspense and engagement of a good thriller to the events surrounding the April 1920 murders of a Massachusetts paymaster and security guard. This now relatively obscure incident
precipitated a years-long legal battle that became a cause célèbre and set off a governmental response to radicalism not unlike that seen in recent times to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. When they were arrested, neither Sacco nor Vanzetti was even questioned about the murders; they were picked up as “suspicious characters” and asked if they were communists or anarchists, who they knew, and what societies they belonged to. As Tejada demonstrates, the fact that bothfelt compelled to lie in response—and that they were both armed—helped to make the case against them. Her examination of the case and her “alternative theory” of their guilt or innocence are both compelling. Tejada set out to write “a double biography,” one that attempts to “decouple Sacco from Vanzetti,” to get a look at who they were as individuals. In the process, she has also written a very entertaining and perceptive history of early twentieth-century radicalism, anarchism, the Wobblies, and the American Labor Movement.” –Booklist (starred review)


Granny D’s American Century
Doris Haddock, Dennis Michael Burke
$27.95 Hardcover, 978-1-61168-234-2, $18.99 Ebook, 978-1-61168-235-9, UNH
“Haddock’s early experiences shaped her innate sense of fairness and freedom and infused her with an intrepid belief in both herself and her country. Written with an unfetteredease (and help from her longtime coauthor Burke) that belied her 100 years,Haddock’s reflections on a life lived to the fullest is a galvanizing and gratifying portrait of a true public servant.” --Booklist

Strikingly nonjudgmental . . . but also a vital life force, Haddock contrasts the 1920s with the early 2000s through anecdotes, as she surrounds herself with colorful artists, reformers, and struggling families in both eras even as she meets with TV’s Matt Lauer and calls Jimmy Carter for a favor. Her amusing exploits in a sputtering van during a political junket highlight her faith in government’s potential to help the misfits, immigrants, and the underserved. . . .  [An] entertaining historical and political memoir.”  --Publishers Weekly


The Men’s Section: Orthodox Jewish Men in an Egalitarian World
Elana Maryles Sztokman
HBI Series on Jewish Women
$29.95 Paperback, 978-1-61168-079-9, $27.99 Ebook, 978-1-61168-080-5, Brandeis
"The author describes the little-discussed subject of life on the men’s side of the divider."  --Jerusalem Post

"It’s a story about tension, identity and dialogue. About living on the borders of a culture, yet still navigating within them. About negotiating, pushing back, and yes, acceptance. It’s tale is particular, yet so universal that scholars and laymen all over the world are picking up Elana Sztokman’s new work." --Times of Israel

"Sztokman's book made me realize that we may both be suffering from the same ambivalence between justice for women and the needs of men as Orthodox Jews do, although the ambivalence takes different forms within the two groups. At any rate, keep your eye out for anything that she writes because Sztokman has much to teach us about the natures of both women and men in this fast changing world." --South Florida Sun-Sentinel


Moses Mendelssohn: Writings on Judaism, Christianity, and the Bible
Michah Gottlieb, ed.
Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry and The Brandeis Library of Modern Jewish Thought
$26.00 Paperback, 978-1-58465-685-2, $19.99 Ebook, 978-1-61168-214-4, Brandeis
"Gottlieb has chosen outstanding texts to include in this volume, which are certain to be of interest to anyone with even a passing interest in Mendelssohn or the Enlightenment. Indeed, I suspect this work will become the new standard volume for those teaching Mendelssohn. He provides helpful introductions and annotations to the works in question, making even Mendelssohn's more technical works on Jewish exegesis accessible to philosophers with no training in Jewish Studies. . . . A volume such as this is long overdue, and hopefully a new appreciation of Mendelssohn will follow in its wake." --Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Sweet Water and Bitter: The Ships That Stopped the Slave Trade
Siân Rees
$27.95 Hardcover, 978-1-58465-980-8, $14.99 Ebook, 978-1-61168-017-1, UNH
"The good news is that trafficking in persons today is probably less profitable than slavery was in the 19th century or drugs are in the 21st. . . . We can reasonably hope to see modern-day slavery dramatically diminished in our lifetime, but we need the sobriety that Sweet Water and Bitter provides."--Books and Culture

Equality with a Vengeance: Men's Rights Groups, Battered Women, and Antifeminist Backlash
Molly Dragiewicz
Northeastern Series on Gender, Crime, and Law
$26.00 Paperback, 978-1-55553-739-5, $19.99 Ebook, 978-1-55553-756-2, NUP
"The Victimization of Women aims to dissect what happened when a grassroots feminist movement was transformed into a federally funded, service-provision system. . . . It remains to be seen whether this book will in fact be read by the policy makers to whom it is addressed. . . . Still, even if it only reaches the eyes of students looking for an introduction to a social-policy and criminal-justice conundrum, it will still make an important mark." --Women's Review of Books

African Americans in Global Affairs: Contemporary Perspectives
Michael L. Clemons, ed.
$35.00 Paperback, 978-1-55553-722-7, $27.99 Ebook, 978-1-55553-731-9, NUP
"[African Americans in Global Affairs] offers a collection of essays primarily by political scientists, which reflect the more theoretical interests of that discipline as well as the inevitably varied quality of twelve different scholarly pieces." --The Historian

Young Tel Aviv: A Tale of Two Cities
Anat Helman; Haim Watzman, trans.
Schusterman Series in Israel Studies
$55.00 Hardcover, 978-1-58465-893-1, $29.99 Ebook, 978-1-58465-890-0, Brandeis
"Young Tel Aviv is undoubtedly one of the most important works published in this field and has already paved the way for further studies on the manifold manifestations of urban life and culture in Tel Aviv and other cities during the British Mandate period. . . . The publication of Helman's book in English will undoubtedly serve the ever-growing interest in Israel Studies in North America, and now also in Britain, and the constant need for worthy publications in English for students and scholars alike." -- Journal of Israeli History Book Reviews

Parks and People: Managing Outdoor Recreation at Acadia National Park
Robert E. Manning, ed.
$49.95 Paperback, 978-1-58465-791-0, $39.99 Ebook, 978-1-58465-881-8, UVM
"Parks & People is a well-organized and clearly presented compendium of many years research into the social science aspect of park management at Arcadia National Park. The depth of the research topics prove how crucial management of visitors is to a park as heavily used as this one." --Natural Areas Journal Book Reviews

Evangelicals at a Crossroads:Revivalism and Social Reform in Boston, 1860–1910
Benjamin L. Hartley
Revisiting New England
$39.95 Paperback, 978-1-58465-929-7, $37.99 Ebook, 978-1-58465-941-9, UNH
“Hartley's book provides a welcome addition to the previously unexplored role of New England Methodists in the holiness movement and their strong anti-Catholic stance at the end of the nineteenth century as well as an expansion of the social reform efforts of such persons as Henry Helms, Eben Tourjee, Amanda Clark and others, including the role of both students and professors at Boston University School of Theology. Evangelicals at the Crossroads is well researched and well documented, yet is written in language than can easily be grasped by all readers. It is an important book both for those interested in the history of evangelicals as well as those interested in New England Methodism.”--Methodist History

Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography
Ada Cohen, ed.; Steven E. Kangas, ed.
$40.00 Paperback, 978-1-58465-817-7, UPNE
“This volume will reward the careful reader with a lively ongoing debate about the significance and meaning of the figures and motifs featured in these more “static” Assyrian reliefs. The New England reliefs, and the repeated sacred figures in general, have heretofore been neglected in favor of those illustrating active narratives such as hunts and warfare, and this volume helps to remedy this omission. The general reader will be rewarded with an interesting and up-to-date account of how Assyrian motifs have figured in the visual, historical, and religious life of the United States, from New England all the way to the Los Angeles malls.” --American Journal of Archaeology

Glorious, Accursed Europe
Jehuda Reinharz, Yaacov Shavit
Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry
$39.95 Hardcover, 978-1-58465-843-6,$24.99 Ebook, 978-1-58465-913-6, Brandeis
“[A]s a kind of encyclopedia of responses [to Jewish thinkers], [Glorious, Accursed Europe] is an extremely useful bibliography of primary and secondary sources, and it is unsurpassed. When readers have finished, they will have moved beyond old generalities to a finely detailed portrait of Jewish intellectuals wrestling with European culture, their own Western heritage (such as it was), and the moral implications of it all. This is a fully satisfying work, and belongs on the bookshelf of every scholar of the modern European Jewish experience.” –H-JUDAIC

Continuing Medical Education
Looking Back, Planning Ahead

Dennis K. Wentz, MD, ed.
$99.00 Hardcover, 978-1-58465-988-4, $99.00 Ebook, 978-1-61168-020-1, Dartmouth
"Given the current rapid evaluation of continuing medical education, this book is a must-read for anyone with responsibility for, or a keen interest in, continuing medical education." --JAMA

German City, Jewish Memory The Story of Worms Nils Roemer
Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry
$35.00 Paperback, 978-1-58465-922-8, $34.99 Ebook, 978-1-58465-947-1, Brandeis
"The millennium of an iconic Jewish community German City, Jewish Memory tells is thus one of preservation, restoration and innovation. One of the great additional services of the book is that it shows how these three processes characterize the negotiation of the Jewish legacy of Worms even after the otherwise unbridgeable break of the Holocaust." --European Review of History

An American Body | Politic
A Deleuzian Approach

Bernd Herzogenrath
Re-Mapping the Transnational: A Dartmouth Series in American Studies
$39.95 Paperback, 978-1-58465-933-4, $37.99 Ebook, 978-1-58465-942-6, Dartmouth
"The strength of this book lies in its theoretical contributions, which are illuminating, invigorating and highly suggestive. An American Body/Politic is a profound and important work that is recommended heartily." --Journal of American Studies

Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and Musicals
Scott Miller
$24.95 Paperback, 978-1-55553-743-2, $19.99 Ebook, 978-1-55553-761-6, NUP
"Ferocious theatrical intelligence" --American Theatre

Excavating the Sutlers’ House
Artifacts of the British Armies in Fort Edward and Lake George

David R. Starbuck
$24.95 Paperback, 978-1-58465-818-4, UPNE            
'Excavating the Sutlers' House' is a well-written volume and should appeal to professional and vocational archaeologists, re-enactors, military historians, and indeed anyone hoping to learn more about British military artifacts of the 18th century. Starbuck's interpretations are sound and the photography is superb. This book will be an important addition to the libraries of historical archaeologists throughout the Northeast."





 

Monday, February 20, 2012

Reviews, Reviews and More Reviews

Continuing Medical Education
Looking Back, Planning Ahead
Dennis K. Wentz, MD, ed.
$99.00 Hardcover, 978-1-58465-988-4, $99.00 Ebook, 978-1-61168-020-1, Dartmouth
"Given the current rapid evaluation of continuing medical education, this book is a must-read for anyone with responsibility for, or a keen interest in, continuing medical education." --JAMA

German City, Jewish Memory The Story of Worms
Nils Roemer
Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry
$35.00 Paperback, 978-1-58465-922-8, $34.99 Ebook, 978-1-58465-947-1, Brandeis
"The millennium of an iconic Jewish community German City, Jewish Memory tells is thus one of preservation, restoration and innovation. One of the great additional services of the book is that it shows how these three processes characterise the negotiation of the Jewish legacy of Worms even after the otherwise unbridgeable break of the Holocaust." --European Review of History

An American Body | Politic
A Deleuzian Approach
Bernd Herzogenrath
Re-Mapping the Transnational: A Dartmouth Series in American Studies
$39.95 Paperback, 978-1-58465-933-4, $37.99 Ebook, 978-1-58465-942-6, Dartmouth
"The strength of this book lies in its theoretical contributions, which are illuminating, invigorating and highly suggestive. An American Body/Politic is a profound and important work that is recommended heartily." --Journal of American Studies

Sex, Drugs,Rock & Roll, and Musicals
Scott Miller
$24.95 Paperback, 978-1-55553-743-2, $19.99 Ebook, 978-1-55553-761-6, NUP
"Ferocious theatrical intelligence" --American Theatre

Excavating the Sutlers’ House

Artifacts of the British Armies in Fort Edward and Lake George
David R. Starbuck
$24.95 Paperback, 978-1-58465-818-4, UPNE            
'Excavating the Sutlers' House' is a well-written volume and should appeal to professional and avocational archaeologists, re-enactors, military historians, and indeed anyone hoping to learn more about British military artifacts of the 18th century. Starbuck's interpretations are sound and the photography is superb. This book will be an important addition to the libraries of historical archaeologists throughout the Northeast." --Northeast Historical Archaeology

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Granny D's Intuition was right about how money would flood politics

Available mid-March 2012 
University of New Hampshire Press

Re-posted from Sentinel Source
February 3, 2012 12:15 pm


 
Granny D had it right about how money would flood politics

A little more than two years ago, Doris Haddock, a 100-year-old resident of Dublin, had this to say about a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance: “The Supreme Court now opens the floodgates to usher in a new tsunami of corporate money into politics.”

Haddock, who was familiarly known as “Granny D”, died less than two months later, distressed that her unusual advocacy for limits on private campaign donations — at age 89, she walked the breadth of the county to spread her cause — had been stomped on by the court.
 In a 5-4 majority ruling in a case known as Citizens United, the court said that private interests (including corporations, labor unions and other parties) could spend as many dollars as they wanted on political campaigns, so long as they didn’t formally link themselves to particular candidates.

The ruling gave birth to what are called Super PACS — political action committees — that are essentially surrogate campaign groups, some of whose donors can remain shielded from the public eye. The outrage of it, then, is two-fold: Not only can rich interests funnel unlimited sums of money into politics — literally enriching their quid-pro-quo influence in the process — but many can do so shrouded in anonymity, leaving the public in the dark.

Financial reports this week have revealed the breathtaking dimension of the exercise, as Super PACS from both the left and the right reported gathering a great many tens of millions of dollars to influence the 2012 presidential election. A measure of the absurdity of it all is that a Super PAC put together last year by Steven Colbert, the political satirist, raised $1 million.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee and the co-author of now- invalidated campaign finance limitations, said of Super PACS on a talk show last Sunday, “I condemn them on all sides.”

His condemnation is, to turn a phrase, on the money. The flood of so many dollars from wealthy interests into politics is more than a shame; it is a crime against American democracy, and, coming at a time of widespread economic distress in so many American families, it is a crime against the senses. It is startling that both of the likely candidates in the fall — Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney — are apparently unbothered.

Granny D fought against such polluting excess, and she lost. John McCain fought against it, and he lost, too. As for the rest of us who did not actually fight, we are in the camp of losers, too, as is the nation.

Granny D's American Century Doris Haddock, Dennis Michael Burke ed. available March 2012 University of New Hampshire Press



Reading this book has become almost a meditation for me

Blog re-post from Boston Writers by Shala Howell
Feb 2, 2012


In Season: A Natural History of the New England Year
Field Illustrations and Notes by Nona Bell Estrin
Essays by Charles W. Johnson
University Press of New England, 2002
Age Range: Illustrated Field Notes-All Ages, Essays-Adults

Growing up in a big city, like I did, you can easily feel disconnected from nature. Turns out growing up in small town Massachusetts, like The Four-Year-Old, is not that much better. The world around us still feels pretty well-groomed and not terribly wild. Even if we do have a rabbit living under the shed in our backyard.

I’m attempting to counter the domestication of nature to some degree with regular visits to places like the Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary. But let’s face it, when your fear of ticks and the Lyme Disease that they carry is as well-developed as mine is, teaching your Four-Year-Old to feel a deep connection with nature is no easy task.

That’s where this book comes in. I first picked it up as a way to help myself see the hundreds of subtle changes that happen every day as the calendar progresses. If I could see them, the theory went, I could point them out to The Four-Year-Old and help her become an active observer (and hopefully appreciator) of nature.

Half illustrated field notes, half essay reflections on nature’s survival strategies from month to month, In Season is all about reconnecting with the environment around us. Estrin’s field notes chronicle the thousands of small events that make the seasons. A sudden proliferation of grouse, porcupine, coyote, fisher cat, and fox tracks in the snow as all the animals come out to stock up on food in advance of a big winter storm. The cacophony of crows as they gather for roosting at the end of the day. The many types of snow.

Read more