Month: July 2008

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The LA Times laid off 150 people from the newsroom last week; the stand-alone book review was published for the last time last Sunday; this week the paper is the thinnest it’s ever been. The new owner, Sam Zell, seems to hold his employees in utter contempt. But what is his plan? How can he get more readers by offering them less? We’ll have comment from KEVIN RODERICK –he publishes the indispensable source on the Times, LAObserved — and from KIT RACHLIS, editor-in-chief of LA Magazine.
Thurs. Aug. 14, 7pm: “LA Without the LA Times?” panel with Kevin Roderick, Kit Rachlis and others: Downtown LA Public Library ALOUD series.

Plus: John McCain opposes contraception – have you heard about this from the mainstream media? KATHA POLLITT, columnist for The Nation, has been listening to McCain — she will explain. Also, Katha on the candidates’ wives, Michelle and Cindy.

Also: Bottlemania: Fiji Water comes from 5,000 miles away; they say that makes it better. Poland Spring is good American water, but the good people of Maine have been fighting Nestle to keep the multinational from taking all their groundwater and selling it to other people. Tap water should be better, but it has some problems too. Elizabeth Royte tackles the question, What is to be done? Her new book is BOTTLEMANIA: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It.
Lots more info at Elizabeth’s water links: here.

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In an effort to shore up his support among Jewish voters, many of whom voted for Hillary, Obama visits Israel Tuesday and Wednesday. His schedule includes trips to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial, and Sderot, the town that is the frequent target of Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza. AMY WILENTZ will comment – she was Jerusalem correspondent for The New Yorker. Her most recent piece, in New York magazine, discusses Jimmy Carter�s place in the current campaign: ‘a walking McCain talking point.’

Plus: Women in politics after Hillary: there’s a serious shortage of women in elected office. In the aftermath of Hillary�s campaign, HAROLD MEYERSON looks at the future of women in politics — and who is leading the next wave of female candidates. Hint: they aren’t from states where religious traditionalism is strong, or where old-line political organizations hold power. Harold is executive editor of The American Prospect and op-ed columnist for the Washington Post.
SEE the Vanity Fair McCain parody of the New Yorker‘s Obama cover.

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Young people in the Mideast are not all religious fundamentalists. MARK LeVINE found Morroccans who loves Black Sabbath, rappers in the Gaza Strip, and a young Lebanese singer who quotes Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption Song.’ — Heavy metal, punk, hip-hop, and reggae are each the music of protest — across North Africa and the Mideast, Mark says. Mark is a musician and historian at UC Irvine; his new book about the globalization of popular music is HEAVY METAL ISLAM: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam.

Also: UC Workers on strike: JACK MILES writes in the LATimes, “A single parent living in Riverside County or Orange County needs to earn $24.74 an hour to make ends meet. . . . But after 10 months of negotiation, $11.50 an hour is the last, best offer the 10-campus University of California has made to 8,500 gardeners, janitors, kitchen workers, parking attendants and the like. In response, their union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, called a five-day strike, which began Monday.” — continued here.

Plus: one Guantanamo story: Adel Hamad was a hospital adminsitrator from Sudan who was doing refugee relief work in Pakistan when he was taken from his apartment, hooded and shackled, and moved to Guantanamo Bay on charges of connections with al-Queda. He�s been there for four years. He has an attorney: STEVEN T. WAX, a federal public defender in Portland. Steve�s book is KAFKA COMES TO AMERICA: Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror — A Public Defender�-‘s Inside Account — he�ll be speaking in the ALOUD series at the downtown LA public library, 5th and Flower streets, Wed. at 700pm: reservations free but recommended: here.

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‘If a place is truly beautiful,’ BARBARA EHRENREICH says, ‘you can’t afford to be there.’ Barbara’s new book is THIS LAND IS THEIR LAND; she’ll be reading and signing at Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont, Thursday July 10, 7:30pm.
JOIN Barbara and the L.A. CLEAN Carwash campaign
WATCH Barbara on The Colbert Report— she tells Stephen, “I’m talking about the super-rich. I don’t think you qualify.”

Plus: LALO ALCARAZ of the Pocho Hour of Power talks about “Clash of the Pochos,” the July 27 KPFK benefit concert featuring Culture Clash.

Also: Obama in the center: TOM HAYDEN says Obama “could put his entire candidacy at risk if his audacity on the war in Iraq continues to shrivel.” Tom writes about Obama and the war in the new issue of The Nation. We’ll also talk about his life as a writer, and the relationship between writing and activism.
His new book, a collection of his writings over the last 40 years, is Writings for a Democratic Society: The Tom Hayden Reader.

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Ike was right about the Military-Industrial Complex — that’s what ROBERT SCHEER argues. The US military budget for 2008 was $647 billion, more than 25 percent larger, in real terms, than the one for 1968, at the height of the Vietnam war. The military-industrial complex today is more powerful, more wasteful, and more destructive than ever. Bob is editor in chief of Truthdig.com, co-host of ‘Left, Right and Center’ on KCRW; his new book is The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America.

Also: A Palestinian life: Sari Nusseibeh is a leading Palestinian intellectual and political figure, a long-time advocate of a two-state solution, and the PLO’s chief representative in Jerusalem in 2001 and 2002. His memoir Once Upon a Country is out now in paperback (originally broadcast May 2, 2007).

Plus: the ‘good news’ from Iraq, we are told, is that ‘the surge is working,’ violence is down. TOM ENGELHARDT says ‘don’t be fooled’: “Iraqis are still dying in prodigious numbers, and significant numbers of those dying are doing so at the hands of Americans.” Tom’s prediction: “This cannot end well. Not for Washington. Not for the U.S. military. Not for Americans. And, above all, not for Iraqis.” Tom edits the indispensable blog TomDispatch.com; his new book is The World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire.

Your Minnesota Moment: A state judge in Minneapolis ruled that Wal-Mart violated state laws on rest breaks and other wage matters more than 2 million times and as a result could face more than $2 billion in fines.