People Need To Know Who We Are

My latest article is up on Pambazuka News; an interview with Tom Gitaa, founder of Mshale, African community newspaper published out of Minneapolis.

Tom also interviewed me for Talking Drum, his current affairs talk show on ABN-America, the Africa Broadcast Network satellite TV channel. It will air on July 20th - see full details on my calendar.

two songs keep me going this weekend

as I plough through 12-hour workdays before I hit the road again. Try to open without paralysis to new reports of the Israeli invasion of Gaza, US soldiers raping and killing Iraqi civilians.

I got back from the UK on Tuesday, my body is still on European time, and it makes sense to keep it that way since I leave for Rome on Monday. So I start yawning at 6pm, crash at around 8pm, am wide awake at 2am. Heart pounding with a litany of fears - about touring, production, budgets, survival, skills I don't have, the future, undone tasks.

So I put on a CD someone made for me as a gift a couple of weeks ago. It brings the flow back into my body, reminds me of what's real. I play and replay:

Love and Hope, by Ozomatli (Live At the Fillmore - 2005)

Just raise your head up and stand up, no fear in your eyes.
Tell me love and hope never die.
So raise your head up and stand up, no reason to cry.
'Cause your heart and soul will survive.

Joyful Girl, by Soulive (Next, 2002) - a cover of a song by the fabulous Ani di Franco.

i do it for the joy it brings
because i'm a joyful girl
because the world owes me nothing
and we owe each other the world
i do it because it's the least i can do
i do it because i learned it from you
i do it just because i want to
because I want to

everything i do is judged
and they mostly get it wrong
but oh well
'cuz the bathroom mirror has not budged
and the woman who lives there can tell
the truth from the stuff that they say
and she looks me in the eye
and says would you prefer the easy way?
no, well o.k. then
don't cry

and i wonder if everything i do
i do instead
of something i want to do more
the question fills my head
i know that there's no grand plan here
this is just the way it goes
and when everything else seems unclear
i guess at least i know

i do it for the joy it brings...

Copyright Ani di Franco

Courage to resist

On June 22, U.S. Army First Lieutenant Ehren K. Watada became the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse deployment to the unlawful Iraq War and occupation. Please support him and other war resisters!

Israel Punches Into Gaza

said the headlines yesterday. Like a prizefighter. Like a sport.

Not: Israeli Military in Terrorist Attack on Civilians in Gaza.

Not: Israel Wreaks Death and Destruction on Palestinians in Gaza.

One Israeli soldier is captured and all Palestinians must die, if necessary, to get him back. Ignore the fact that there are over 15,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails. Many of them minors. Most of them denied any right to legal representation or trial. All of them subject to the torture that is legal under the Israeli constitution.

Collective punishment of civilian populations is contrary to every tenet of human rights and international law. Israel has long claimed that its presence in Palestine is a war, not a military occupation. Well, in war, soldiers get captured. They get killed. It's a hazard of the job.

Apparently in this war, though, only Palestinians - unarmed civilians, pregnant women, children, the elderly - are supposed to suffer and die. God forbid a single Israeli soldier, armed to the teeth with the most sophisticated murderous weaponry US tax dollars can buy, should go missing.

I've been a delinquent blogger

too much to write about when I'm on the road. So when I try to blog, it sounds like a self-important travelogue; a tedious list of I went there, I did this, I saw that , which I curl my lip at and delete.