MF GALAXY

Check out Darryl James 's list for some straightforward reasoning. Thanks, Br. Darryl.

I've hesitated to report on the story until now, because previous internet discussion I'd seen was of questionable journalistic merit. But now, with the story appearing on the Books and Wisdom website, I’m more convinced that this story could be for real. Sophia Stewart, screenwriter, paralegal, science fiction enthusiast and Afrikan woman, says she wrote a tale called The Third Eye whose darkly glittering tapestry of technology, dystopia and race served as the basis for the enormously profitable Matrix and Terminator film series--but for which she received neither credits nor cash. Because I have an obvious interest in seeing a Sister get paid in full--not to mention getting accurate credit for launching two of the most significant SF film spectacles in the last 21 years--I held off on reporting this story to anyone because my own allegiance could have clouded my judgement. But it’s now clear that not only Pan-Afrikanists are interested in Stewart’s case. According to Bo...

Stanley Fish of Chicago writes in today's NYT: "We are at that time of year when millions of American college and high school students will stride across the stage, take diploma in hand and set out to the wider world, most of them utterly unable to write a clear and coherent English sentence" (emphasis added). How can the NYT print such an absurd accusation? Read it back to yourself: millions? "Utterly unable"? Bashing teachers and schools is far too easy, especially in the US where public education is all too commonly betrayed by political and economic elites. It doesn't help when the newspaper of record gets in on the act with over-the-top, unsupportable charges, which can only further undermine public desire to aid (not "reform," too often a synonym for "privatise") one of the few institutions capable of fulfilling the American republic's yearning for genuine democracy.

Hear or view Preventive Warriors , featuring Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Tariq Ali and others, on the Bush regime’s national insecurity strategy, on the Monday, May 31 edition of Democracy Now!

Did the BC Greens put the Liberals back into office? So asks the fine online daily The Tyee. Murray Dobbin of the Council of Canadians demonstrates that the federal Green Party , now led by a Blue Tory, is really a turquoise party. Believe them when they say they’re not left, but don’t buy that they’re not right. Dobbin writes that under the leadership of former Tory Jim Harris, “the Greens have become the quintessential small government, pro-market party. Their social analysis says virtually nothing about the structural causes of poverty, and their solutions borrow from both the former PCs and the Alliance. They talk about how a Green government would ‘enhance the existing network of... school nutrition... and food-bank programs...’ to eliminate hunger in Canada.” Joan Russow, the former leader of the Greens, wrote last year, “I left the Green Party because... [a]s its former leader, I have become increasingly disappointed with the development of the Green Party of Canada and ...

Brent Staples writes in Sunday's New York Times: "Bill Cosby spawned a cottage industry among opinion writers when he ascended a podium in Washington last year and harangued inner-city parents for doing too little to educate their children. He threw salt in the wound by saying those parents were spending too much on expensive sneakers and not enough on books. "Those brief remarks have continued to reverberate through the court of public opinion. Conservatives are hailing Mr. Cosby as the tough love truth teller of the moment. Liberals have come close to describing him as a race traitor, as Prof. Michael Eric Dyson of the University of Pennsylvania recently pointed out in his incendiary book, Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind? " Read the rest of Staples' article here. Hear Dr. Dyson on NPR discussing the topic , and read his comments on Z-Net . The Black Commentator argues that "we can't afford Bill Cosby anymore,"...

"The man is so brilliant in so many areas, it's creepy." That's what the delightful Mur Lafferty of North Carolina said of me (which is the most endearing compliment I've gotten all year) on her fine podcast Geek Fu Action Grip. Check it out and enjoy the ride, everyone. And thanks for all the nice words about The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad , Mur.