Month: November 2004

“Sex is easy; love isn’t”: That’s the theme of the new film “EASY” . It opens in LA this weekend at Laemmle theaters. We’ll speak with writer-director Jane Weinstock.
Watch the trailer for “Easy”: www.apple.com/trailers/independent/easy.html

Death, love and liberty in the American ballad: GREIL MARCUS and SEAN WILENTZ have been listening to some classic American songs, and now they have put together a CD of the songs and book about them, both called “The Rose & the Briar.”
Listen to the CD: www.sonymusicstore.com/store/catalog/MerchandiseDetails.jsp?selectionId=092866

Hope in the Dark is the title of a great book by REBECCA SOLNIT. She wrote it before the Nov. 2 election, but we certainly need it now. She’s an activist and writer who won a Lannan Literary fellowship and the 2004 award for criticism from the National Book Critics Circle.

Web extras: Friday is Buy Nothing Day: check “9 theses against corporate rule” at
http://stopshoppingmonitor.journurl.com/index.cfm/mode/article/entry/888/

HOWARD ZINN says the argument that “Kerry won” is a diversion from the left’s real task: building the anti-war movement. His new book is Voices of a People’s History of the United States.
LISTEN TO HOWARD ZINN at the Radio Nation audioblog: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/audioblog?pid=2019

plus: the Mideast after Arafat: comment and analysis from AMY WILENTZ, former Jerusalem correspondent for the New Yorker. She also writes for The Nation, the LA Times Opinion section, and the New York Times op-ed page. She wrote the award-winning novel Martyr’s Crossing about Israelis and Palestinians.

and TERRY GROSS of NPR’s “Fresh Air” talks about what went wrong in her interviews with Hillary Clinton, Nancy Reagan, and Bill O’Reilly. Her new book is All I Did was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians and Artists.

Web Extra: Read Howard Zinn at Alternet.org on Voices of a People’s History.

Was the election stolen? Did something more foul than minor slip-ups and routine political chicanery occur? DAVID CORN of The Nation has been investigating: he concludes that those who say yes–at this point–are relying more on supposition than evidence. David Corn wrote the book The Lies of George W. Bush.

Plus: historian SEAN WILENTZ says the real electoral division isn’t between the coasts and the heartland. It’s between cities all over the United States and the rest of the country. Sean writes for the L.A. Times op-ed page; he is co-editor of The Rose and the Briar, a new book about American ballads.

And TORIE OSBORN of the Liberty Hill Foundation talks about what we lost — and what we can learn — from last Tuesday’s election.

And DAVID COLE comments on the resignation of John Ashcroft — who, as Cole wrote for The Nation, is “zero for 5,000” in prosecuting 9-11 terrorists. David’s book is Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism.

Web Extra: “SORRY EVERYBODY” http://www.sorryeverybody.com/ -or- http://72.3.131.10/gallery/1/: a wonderful new site where people post photos and messages apologizing to the world for Bush’s election — you gotta check this out, and flip through the hundreds of postings.

How did Bush win? comment and analysis on last night’s disaster from

ROBERT SCHEER of the L.A. Times — he co-authored The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us about Iraq;

HAROLD MEYERSON of the LA Weekly and the American Prosect;

JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation — he wroteDick: The Man who Is President ;

and TOM FRANK; his book What’s the Matter with Kansas? seems especially relevant; it’s about the fact that so many working class and poor voters in the middle of the country “insist on re-electing the very people who are screwing them.”