merrittleigh

just wasted time scanning through 10 different TEDxTalks on how poverty can be...

Fri, 03 May 2013 22:46:00 -0400

just wasted time scanning through 10 different TEDxTalks on how poverty can be eradicated….through existing capitalist structures. (and by studying the results of big data, because you know, its totally natural to categorize through #)

yep. that seems to be going well. get back to me on that one in 2048, the supposed year some guy(Hans Rosling) said we will all achieve “equality” and the 3rd world will “catch up” with the rest of us. That is, if two little things called “War” and “Climate Change” don’t get in the way. And I quote

Will the former rich countries really accept a completely changed world economy, and a shift of power away from where it has been the last 50 to 100 to 150 years, back to Asia? And will Asia be able to handle that new position of being in charge of being the most mighty, and the governors of the world? So, always avoid war, because that always pushes human beings backward. Now if these inequalities, climate and war can be avoided, get ready for a world in equity, because this is what seems to be happening.

Uhh yep. except the system you are advocating for promotes war and actually pushes humans “forward” if you’re looking at who is in charge. So let’s just hope that climate change and war can just be “avoided” then equality here we come!

Oh, and all of these speeches were all given by people who were never actually poor or hungry.

gross.

So now we return to your previously scheduled programming… Fragments of Anarchist Anthropology.

thepeoplesrecord: Richard Berman: if you see this man in...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:20:08 -0400

thepeoplesrecord:

Richard Berman: if you see this man in public, please spit on him. If you serve him food ever in any restaurant, please do the people of the world a favor and defecate in it.
April 29, 2013

Yesterday we reblogged something from HumaneWatch.org, which was criticizing (& representing straight-up lies) against the humane society. One reader was kind enough to inform us that HumaneWatch is one of the many misinformation projects of Richard Berman’s. All of the above organizations are various projects run by Berman and Company, paid for by the ruling class, intended to spread misinformation & lies for the benefit of the ruling class.

Richard Berman is a Washington, D.C.-based hired propagandist who uses front groups to defend his corporate clients against the public interest. Using his lobbying and consulting firm, Berman and Company, as a revenue vehicle for his activities, Berman runs at least 23 industry-funded projects, such as the Center for Union Facts, and holds 24 “positions” within these various entities.

Make a mental note of the above organizations and keep in mind these brands. Never reblog (like I did) Berman and Company’s propaganda.

It was suggested to me that Charity Navigator is an honest & useful tool for actually evaluating how charities are spending their money. Here’s their information on The Humane Society of the United States. They have a 4 star rating.

The information in that post against the humane society was wrong, but it got 800+ notes (and we contributed to that count in a big way). Please reblog this & do some more reading/post your own posts about the propaganda campaigns Richard Berman is running to combat the misinformation.

I’m sorry we posted the original post, but let’s not allow this opportunity to expose this terrible organization go to waste.

http://bermanexposed.org/

Terri Lyne is so on point. Her music pops up in my life when...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:02:08 -0400

Terri Lyne is so on point. Her music pops up in my life when I’m thinking about certain things. Like in 2011 when she released the all-female Mosaic Project album I had just finished writing a “mosaic” essay on women in jazz - an assemblage of my experience playing jazz as a chick, quotes from interviews with female jazz giants, and a reflection on the life of the transgendered saxophonist Billie Tipton.

Now, she’s done an interpretation of Money Jungle, the classic trio album by the heavyweight composers Ellington, Roach and Mingus. Her concept: “We need to be careful with our relationship with money, we need to be careful how much it controls our lives, how much it rules us. I think it’s a daily struggle no matter what level of money you have.” She’s paying tribute to to the music, but also to Roach’s activism with jazz during in the civil rights movement. Because in many ways, our generation’s battle will/could be against allowing the top 1% of Americans (actually, it’s less than that) that dominate our political system. (at least, it’s preventing us from gaining any headway on social and environmental issues that could also be a rallying point, See Lessig). And after reading a 500+ page book on the entire human history of debt, the chaos of money - not just what’s in our pocketbooks but its relation to the languages we speak, the relationships we form, the religions we found our morality and social structures upon — is basically all I can think about.

So props to Terri for being an inspiration and preventing me from becoming overly cynical and frustrated on these matters. Jazz conquers all through its purity of freedom of expression. (Poetry is only the next best form I can think of!) I’m excited to see where she continues to go with conceptual jazz.

"On Hearing the Airlines Will Use a Psychological Profile to Catch Potential Skyjackers They will..."

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 01:21:25 -0400

“

On Hearing the Airlines Will Use a Psychological Profile to Catch Potential Skyjackers

They will catch me
as sure as the check-out girls
in every Woolworths have caught me, the badge
of my imagined theft shining in their eyes.

I will be approaching the ticket counter
and knowing myself, myselves,
will effect the nonchalance of a baron.
This is what they’ll be looking for.

I’ll say “Certainly is nice that the
airlines are taking these precautions,”
and the man behind the counter
will press a secret button,

there’ll be a hand on my shoulder
(this will have happened before in a dream),
and in the back room they’ll ask me
“Why were you going to do it?”

I’ll say “you wouldn’t believe
I just wanted to get to Cleveland?”
“No,” they’ll say.
So I’ll tell them everything,

the plot to get the Pulitzer Prize
in exchange for the airplane,
the bomb in my pencil,
heroin in the heel of my boot.

Inevitably, it’ll be downtown for booking,
newsmen pumping me for deprivation
during childhood,
the essential cause.

“There is no one cause for any human act,”
I’ll tell them, thinking finally,
a chance to let the public in
on the themes of great literature.

And on and on, celebration myself, offering
no resistance, assuming what they assume,
knowing, in a sense, there is no such thing
as the wrong man.

”

- -Dunn, 1974

"To a Terrorist For the historical ache, the ache passed down which finds its circumstance and..."

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 01:19:00 -0400

“

To a Terrorist

For the historical ache, the ache passed down
which finds its circumstance and becomes
the present ache, I offer this poem

without hope, knowing there’s nothing
not even revenge, which alleviates
a life like yours. I offer it as one

might offer his father’s ashes
to the wind, a gesture
when there’s nothing else to do.

Still, I must say to you:
I hate your good reasons.
I hate the hatefulness that makes you fall

in love with death, your own included.
Perhaps you’re hating me now,
I who own my own house

and live in a country so muscular,
so smug, it thinks its terror is meant
only to mean well, and to protect.

Christ turned his singular cheek,
one man’s holiness another’s absurdity.
Like you, the rest of us obey the sting,

the surge. I’m just speaking out loud
to cancel my silence. Consider it an old impulse,
doomed to become mere words.

The first poet probably spoke to thunder
and, for a while, believed
thunder had an ear and a choice.

”

- Stephen Dunn, 1986

If I ever have doubt, I remember that John Coltrane existed. He...

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:12:45 -0400

If I ever have doubt, I remember that John Coltrane existed. He is one of the few people that keeps me believing in God on the worst of days (and observing the worst of people).

So how am I not surprised there is a “Church of St. Coltrane”?

thisargentinelife: Channeling my inner Margaret...

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:34:00 -0500

thisargentinelife:

Channeling my inner Margaret Thompson-Schroeder on Election Day.

moonteeth: CREATIVE NONFICTION ON THE RADIO! Listen to me...

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 13:40:00 -0400

moonteeth:

CREATIVE NONFICTION ON THE RADIO!

Listen to me read! Today! ( @ 5:30)

Photo

Mon, 21 May 2012 23:40:00 -0400

Just published a feature story on book banning in Arizona for...

Mon, 21 May 2012 23:14:31 -0400

Just published a feature story on book banning in Arizona for the cover of Sampsonia Way Mag!

sampsoniawaymag:

New Feature Story: An account of the Librotraficante caravan, a book smuggling mission carrying banned literature back into Arizona. Led by writer Tony Diaz, the caravan is a response to Tucson Unified School District’s decision to eliminate it’s Mexican-American Studies program and removal of key books from the schools. Among the banned writers: Sandra Cisneros, Junot Díaz, Shakespeare, Howard Zinn, Carmen Tafolla. Share!

This your brain on procrastination.

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 23:34:01 -0400

This your brain on procrastination.

Check out this new article I wrote for Sampsonia...

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:11:45 -0400

Check out this new article I wrote for Sampsonia Way.

sampsoniawaymag:

Today we look at countries with anti-terrorism laws where journalists and writers are in danger, or have been convicted of associating with alleged terrorist forces. Like the National Defense Authorization Act in the US, these laws outline provisions for indefinite and undisclosed detainment of citizens without trial, and in some cases for publishing information on “terrorist” groups.

Read the story at Sampsonia Way

Photo

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:54:32 -0400

Photo

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:46:39 -0400

thisargentinelife: Not many people can say they walk into a...

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 13:38:34 -0400

thisargentinelife:

Not many people can say they walk into a poem three days a week for work.

The most wonderful way to write poetry
Is to stand right on your head
With mind and body as one
And dab ink
On the ground!

sampsoniawaymag:

Today we’ll take a look at 408 Sampsonia Way, known as House Poem. Painted by Huang Xiang, City of Asylum/Pittsburgh’s first writer-in-residence. This house exhibits some of his poems helping to illustrate how Xiang has the right to write freely in the United States.

Huang Xiang was born in China’s Hunan Province in 1941, and has been writing poems since 1950.

House Poem is currently used as office space for Sampsonia Way Magazine.

Continue reading at Sampsonia Way

sampsoniawaymag: “If not for the media, I would have 80%...

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:41:13 -0500

sampsoniawaymag:

“If not for the media, I would have 80% popularity.” – Hugo Chávez

Venezuelan cartoonist Roberto Weil portrays President Hugo Chávez as a boot in response to a law which prohibits depictions of the likeness of the president and of patriotic symbols.

For more, read our piece “Under Chavez: Media Harassed with Online Hacking, Phone Tapping and Censorship.”

sampsoniawaymag: Take a look at OneChot’s banned video for...

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 16:41:52 -0500

sampsoniawaymag:

Take a look at OneChot’s banned video for “Rotten Town,” a song that decries the climate of violence that reigns over Venezuela’s capital Caracas. Read the article at Sampsonia Way

Currently reading Hemmingway’s short stories. And the...

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 23:37:40 -0500

Currently reading Hemmingway’s short stories. And the whole time I just have this voice/face in my head.

sampsoniawaymag: In commemoration of Black History Month, we...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:39:47 -0500

Yuseff Komunyakaa, Poet.

Terrance Hayes, Poet.

Cornelius Eady, Poet.

Claudia Rankine, Poet.

Amiri Baraka, Writer and Poet

Colleen McElroy, Poet.

Sapphire, Writer.

Toi Derricotte, Poet.

sampsoniawaymag:

In commemoration of Black History Month, we recognize the African-American authors who have contributed their transformative words to the magazine, including Sapphire, Yusef Komunyakaa, Terrance Hayes, Toi Derricotte, and Amiri Baraka. Read their works and interview… and share!

sampsoniawaymag: Arya Aramnejad, composer of Ali Barkhiz (Ali,...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:39:01 -0500

sampsoniawaymag:

Arya Aramnejad, composer of Ali Barkhiz (Ali, Rise Up), a song that became one of the anthems of Iran’s pro-democracy “Green Movement”, remains in custody three months after being arrested for “seditious activities.”

Learn more about Aramnejad’s case at Sampsonia Way