-
-
14:05
»
Marian's Blog
Wishing every woman of colour a wonderful International Women of Colour Day, today and for the days, months and years ahead.
-
13:52
»
Marian's Blog
Wishing every woman of coulour a wonderful International Women of Colour Day, today and for the days, months and years ahead.
-
-
15:11
»
Marian's Blog
The other evening, the first time ever (and NOT in New York) we came across a street demo by a group of black-hatted, bearded Hasidic Jewish men, complete with hand-drawn campaign placards "against Zionism".Something has happened, shifted, perhaps even cracked - since never before in my life have I seen anything like this. We see the same rebirth & strengthening in the re-emergence of a small yet striking work of independent (& prescient) thinking in an edited volume now online: The Other Israel: The Radical Case Against Zionism.
-
-
14:23
»
Marian's Blog
GAZA: Operation Cast Lead. It's the first anniversary of Israel's unbelievably horrific "Operation Cast Lead" military assault on Gaza. You have to wonder if Ms. Zipporah "Zippi" Livni (in particular), who seems fairly brags about it, ever will get it......
-
-
13:33
»
Marian's Blog
Ciao all! We're here; been focusing on life offline and such things as "microblogging". We're also quite attached to something called LibraryThing (social book cataloguing). And also sharing this link:
[beforetheydiemovie.com] , and preparing for May 31-June 1st, the 89th...
-
-
17:56
»
Marian's Blog
We'd like to recommend a book for those interested: Simon Schama's Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution. Here's a video - Schama discussing this huge, terribly obscured chapter of Black American & U.S. history, with staff of...
-
-
18:37
»
Marian's Blog
Being from Detroit, don't you think entertainer Madonna Ciccone would do well to help her Afrodescendant friends and neighbours of her home region, rather than attempt to adopt more children away from the African continent?? Thanks to my friend MTC...
-
-
2:12
»
Marian's Blog
Jonathan Weil's 27 Apr 2009 Bloomberg.com column is "One Nation, Under Banks w/ Justice for No One." Here's a short url: http://ow.ly/4lg8. I'd wager that Mr. Weil, like most Americans (and almost everyone else), may be unaware of Atlanta Legal...
-
-
20:16
»
Marian's Blog
Wow. I hope everyone's well! So much is going on, folks. (I don't have to tell you that.) Plenty to write about and just as much to do. I can't believe how TINY Typepad's interface is becoming. I don't know...
-
-
6:47
»
Marian's Blog
Enough already. As a Black woman whose U.S. family was enslaved in the USA, hearing solely people interviewed over and over, in every medium, talk about someone as though he were one of us, a slavery descendant -- as if...
-
-
8:29
»
Marian's Blog
U.S. capital city Washington DC is the only place on the U.S. mainland that does not have representation in the U.S. Senate and House just like all other U.S. mainland citizens. Is it because we're mostly Black American and related...
-
-
23:15
»
Marian's Blog
I remember a conversation last summer with a woman who told me she grew up in Czechoslovakia. It is now two countries: the Czech and Slovak republics. She grew up in Czechoslovakia before the end of the Communist system. She...
-
-
11:43
»
Marian's Blog
Some readers of Marian's Blog may be aware that I'm a former journalist (and press secretary, etc.) myself. And yet, being briefly outside the United States, I am experiencing culture shock. In this case the shock is good, due to...
-
-
7:24
»
Marian's Blog
Plans seem to be afoot, perhaps via Illinois' attorney general and state supreme court, to push defiant governor Rod Blagojevich from that state's administrative and political bus. Two other observations come to mind. I compare them to an elephant -...
-
-
6:33
»
Marian's Blog
We just want to quickly alert readers and volunteers to Malik Rahim's campaign and the Vote Malik website. Please go there and contribute a bit of your time, talent and, for eligible donors, some cash! Every little bit helps. After...
-
-
5:58
»
Marian's Blog
The election may be over yet BBC has forever altered my perception of it as a relatively balanced source of international news. I was watching BBC TV News last Monday evening, Nov 3, as the announcer chirpily announced there actually...
-
-
13:42
»
Marian's Blog
This will be one of my last blog posts before Tuesday's U.S. presidential election. Borrowing from our sisters over at Document the Silence blog (on violence against women of colour), I feel the need to quote my Caribbean-American lesbian sister,...
-
-
9:02
»
Marian's Blog
With less than a month to go, I'd really like to know whether or not my former colleagues of the OSCE - Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe - have a plan in place (on invitation of the U.S....
-
-
14:38
»
Marian's Blog
Do Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher now get the last laugh? Chancellor Angela Merkel says her government will not let Germany's vast Hypo Real Estate become the latest European enterprise to dissolve into financial oblivion. Almost simultaneously, via France24 News,...
-
10:45
»
Marian's Blog
Barely a week ago the Taliban took credit for murdering Afghanistan's top woman police officer, Lieutenant Colonel Malalai Kakar, head of the police department's crimes against women division in the city of Kandahar. Now a Reuters article quotes a British...
-
-
7:19
»
Marian's Blog
"... I don't think we've invested well... in the last few years..." - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (daughter of late mayor of Baltimore, Maryland; multimillionaire; Democratic congresswoman, 8th Congressional district, California - San Francisco) on the current state of U.S....
-
-
3:00
»
Marian's Blog
We're reading Sean O'Grady's article in today's Independent: "... no amount of taxpayer money, no vote in Congress or the Commons and no speech by a president or prime minister can now fully restore the confidence that has been drained...
-
-
6:28
»
Marian's Blog
With assistance from Australia-based COHRE, Afrobrazilians being evicted from their ancestral lands are taking their case to the International Labour Organisation (ILO). More later...
-
-
6:09
»
Marian's Blog
Politics may make "strange bedfellows," as the saying goes, but there have to be limits, and every now and then I reach one of mine. In this case, for me, it's around the 2008 U.S. presidential election. As Peter Finch's...
-
-
17:52
»
Marian's Blog
Thanks to my sister for sharing news of veteran U.S. legal aid attorney William Brennan and his testimony in Congress on 24 May 2000. So Congress had first-hand knowledge of what was going on from an attorney helping elderly, often...
-
-
16:34
»
Marian's Blog
All of Indian society, India's diaspora (particularly in the West), the national government and its diplomats in Washington and elsewhere, and anyone anywhere in the world who professes to admire or emulate India really must take action to stop the...
-
-
21:18
»
Marian's Blog
Below, in sharp relief, are details of the constant, intimate and deeply disturbing interaction of U.S. "business" and "commerce" with Black American genealogy and history, and our ongoing attempts to save, locate, help and protect ourselves and each other (including...
-
-
5:34
»
Marian's Blog
We're tracking Hurricane Gustav which many say could be worse than Hurricane Katrina almost exactly three years ago. New Orleans is now under a mandatory evacuation order, this time around providing bus transport for its residents without cars. Gustav has...
-
-
14:49
»
Marian's Blog
Katrina Information Network has a list of 29 things you can do right now to assist the displaced and victimised citizens of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region. They have some beautiful New Orleans local music on their site....
-
-
16:27
»
Marian's Blog
Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney's running mate Rosa Clemente did a very informative interview earlier today with Kojo Nnamdi of WAMU-fm (part of American University). Great interview, Rosa. You can hear it online here. It seemed a bit strange...
-
-
5:19
»
Marian's Blog
By email, James Zogby's polling firm sent me their latest survey asking about my 2008 election intentions. The survey asked whether I plan to vote, for whom I've voted in the past, and for whom I may vote in the...
-
-
6:29
»
Marian's Blog
I will never forget that August 7, 1998 was a Friday. In Croatia I finished a report for work. My colleague-friend Melinda and I had taken a day of leave and arrived on Croatia's beautiful, rocky, pine-scented Dalmatian coast to...
-
-
23:54
»
Marian's Blog
Have you heard about Gidon Eschel and Pamela Martin's report on meat-eating and global warming? It's online here as a PDF file. Happy reading!
-
-
5:33
»
Marian's Blog
"... I'm not claiming to know the story behind the picture of Obama and his father at the airport, but I suspect that joint custody between Hawaii, Indonesia, Massachusetts, Kansas, New York, Illinois and Africa would have been tough. ..."...
-
-
19:30
»
Marian's Blog
The Green Party of the United States has voted former Georgia Member of Congress Cynthia McKinney as its 2008 and first woman and woman of colour presidential nominee. McKinney carried her historic political quest to the next level, asking New...
-
-
8:55
»
Marian's Blog
Reuters is reporting the International Criminal Court, or ICC, could soon issue arrest warrants for Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir and other senior Sudan government officials. Doesn't the Arab League have a central role to play in all this? The...
-
-
6:46
»
Marian's Blog
When I think of Ralph Bunche I remember the first time I saw the small sculpted bust of him in the U.N. conference center in Geneva. I also remember meeting his beautiful daughter, Joan, twelve years ago during the dedication...
-
-
14:41
»
Marian's Blog
French and U.S. media report the military rescue of Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt along with three persons identified as U.S. State Department military contractors, and several Colombian military. Betancourt and her campaign manager, Clara Rojas (released several months ago), were...
-
14:25
»
Marian's Blog
More than 40 NYC subway cars have been retired, submerged and 're-purposed' as a unique refuge for aquatic life off Virginia's coast:
-
-
15:04
»
Marian's Blog
"Even if we vote for the opposition, Mugabe still wins." - Woman refugee from Zim (Zimbabwe) Hard on the heels of January's tragedy passing as Kenya's 'presidential elections', it is equally as nauseating to observe the speed and trajectory of...
-
6:05
»
Marian's Blog
I applauded when Discovery Channel's "Discovery Home" recently evolved into Planet Green TV - planetgreen.com - specialising in sustainable, ecological living. But the line's been crossed with Planet Green repeatedly airing promos that insidiously stereotype Black people and disappear and...
-
-
4:45
»
Marian's Blog
I do believe we just saw James Harding on The Daily Show. Meanwhile, Newsweek's Tony Dokoupil interviewed the (British) author of Alpha Dogs of London in the 26 May '08 issue: "In "Alpha Dogs," London Times editor James Harding investigates...
-
-
6:52
»
Marian's Blog
From the U.S. Gulf Coast post-Katrina to Somalia, Iraq, Darfur, Zimbabwe, and South Sudan, today is Juneteenth, folks. Black Americans still have our eyes on freedom, and nowadays, all over the world, many more people do, too. Today, 19 June,...
-
-
5:00
»
Marian's Blog
Time for our annual Black American commemoration of Juneteenth. June 19, 1865 is celebrated by Black Americans as the date when our ancestors in the deep South and West (Texas) finally got word of the Emancipation Proclamation. On paper it...
-
-
3:52
»
Marian's Blog
My cab driver, transplanted from Ethiopia, told me first. That was weeks ago. But I couldn't believe it till I read the headline of today's Independent (London): "Price of oil will double." Folks, we have now reached 'put up or...
-
-
4:38
»
Marian's Blog
We're now halfway through the year marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the United States' direct slave trade from the African continent and still no official statement about that history, no national reflection, no nothing. Interestingly enough and...
-
3:22
»
Marian's Blog
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/6169006.stm
-
-
12:28
»
Marian's Blog
This week high-level UN staffer Doudou Diene completes his whirlwind three-week visit to the United States. Apparently he's been here following up on pesky reports of racism, racial discrimination and the like. One only hopes white supremacy and its activities...
-
10:22
»
Marian's Blog
Over the past several months I've talked with about sixty journalists about the issues of ethnicity (which is neither colour or "race"), representation and the lack of it, and history - particularly the history of the USA and every other...
-
-
14:12
»
Marian's Blog
We're off the regular computer for a few days; thank goodness for handheld blogging! Saturday (yesterday) witnessed the local "state" Democratic Party conference. I qualify the word *state* since the citizens of capital city, including numbers of the people who...