Contest

Naugatuck River Review’s Third Annual NARRATIVE POETRY CONTEST will be judged by Patrick Donnelly!

First prize is $1000 and publication in NRR
Second prize $250 and publication in NRR
Third prize of  $100 and publication in NRR
All entrants will receive one issue of Naugatuck River Review.

Submit from July 1, 2011 – September 1, 2011

All poems will be considered for publication. Contest deadline is September 1st, 2011.

Three poems per submission.
Limited to 50 lines per poem.
Do not put your name anywhere on the file submitted. There is a place for all your information when you register with Submission Manager.
Please pay the contest fee of $20 first through PAYPAL or credit card, then go back to the submission manager.
Submission fee includes a copy of the journal.
Electronic submissions ONLY will be accepted through our Submission Manager program at the following link:
http://naugatuckriverreviewsubmissions.com/
Close friends and students (current or past) of Patrick Donnelly are ineligible.

Judge for 2011 Contest:  Patrick Donnelly:

Patrick Donnelly is the author of THE CHARGE (Ausable Press, 2003, since 2009 part of Copper Canyon Press) and NOCTURNES OF THE BROTHEL OF RUIN, forthcoming from Four Way Books. He is a current Associate Editor of POETRY INTERNATIONAL, a Contributing Editor of TRANS-PORTAL (www.transtudies.org), and a former Associate Editor (1999 – 2009) at Four Way Books. Donnelly is Director of the Advanced Seminar, one of three summer programs at The Frost Place, a poetry conference center at Robert Frost’s old homestead in Franconia, NH. He has taught creative writing and public speaking at Colby College and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He is currently an Interdisciplinary Advisor in Poetry for the Lesley University MFA in Creative Writing Program. His poems have been featured on Poetry Daily in 2002 and 2003, on Verse Daily in 2003, and have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Yale Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Slate, as well as anthologized in the Four Way Reader #2, The Book of Irish American Poetry from the 18th Century to the Present, and From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great.

Love to read great narrative poetry?
Please consider a SUBSCRIPTION to Naugatuck River Review. Only $20 brings you two beautiful and delightful issues of the journal, filled with great narrative poetry. Go to SUBSCRIBE on the button above and order through Paypal or send a check to our P.O. Box. We will also accept donations. Thanks so much to all our poets and readers!

This is a literary journal founded in order to publish and in doing so to honor good narrative poetry. Naugatuck River Review is dedicated to publishing narrative poetry in the tradition of great narrative poets such as Gerald Stern, Philip Levine or James Wright. We are open to many styles of poetry, looking for narrative that sings, which means the poem has a strong emotional core and the narrative is compressed.  We publish twice a year, Winter and Summer.

Winners will be published in the Winter 2011 Issue of Naugatuck River Review.
All entrants will receive one issue of Naugatuck River Review.

All poems will be considered for publication in the Winter 2011 Contest issue (Issue 5).

Naugatuck River Review subscribes to the principles laid out in the Contest Code of Ethics adopted by the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP):

CLMP’s community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to:

1. conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors;
2. to provide clear and specific contest guidelines—defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and
3. to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public.

This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.

Call for Submissions: Lagos Literary Journal (worldwide)

Lagos Literary Journal will publish your interview with writers, artists, poets, musicians, actors and any person in the creative fields anywhere in the world. Send transcripts to editor@lagosliteraryjournal.com

Include videos and pictures as links to Youtube anfd Flickr uploads. No charge for publishing but professional quality submission is required.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: editor@lagosliteraryjournal.com

For submissions: editor@lagosliteraryjournal.com

Website: http://www.lagosliteraryjournal.com/

 

Donald Barthelme The 2011 Barthelme Prize for Short Prose contest is now open for entries. The contest is limited to pieces of prose poetry, flash fiction and/or micro-essays of 500 words or fewer. Established in 2008, the contest awards its winner $1,000 and publication in the journal. Two runners-up will also appear in the issue, due out in April 2012.

Entries are due August 31, 2011.

Beginning this year, we are accepting entries only through our online submission manager. For entering, you will receive a one-year subscription to Gulf Coast. Each entry costs a $17 reading fee and may consist of up to three pieces. Just put all individual pieces into one Word, rtf, or pdf document and upload. When submitting, be sure to choose the genre "Barthelme Prize for Short Prose." As the contest is judged "blind," please do not put your name on the manuscript pages.

Last year's winning pieces are available on our website.

This year's judge is poet, essayist, and short story writer Sarah Manguso.

‘Contested Terrains’ at the Tate

August 9, 2011

by Neelika Jayawardane

Contested Terrains features four artists working in Africa who explore and subvert narratives about the past and present, each engaging “with ideas of history and identity that in Africa have long been shaped by the claims and disputes of conflicting ideological and economic interests. Drawing connections across time and space, their works examine the impact of imperialism, notions of historical truth, and the representations and mechanics of power.” While the trope of Africa as a ‘contested terrain’ is a bit hackneyed (isn’t every terrain contested?), the art and artists included are wonderful, as is the dialogue they establish across time, histories, and viewpoints of the audiences: this is not a show that showcases Afropessimism, nor one that blindly pays homage to an unrealistic present.

Apparently, there are some black artists from Africa who are worthy of landing up at the Tate, even if there are no black writers of note in Southern Africa worthy of making it to an anthology put together by PEN Africa.  Hooray.

Of special interest are Opara’s almost Victorian portraits in ‘Emissaries of an Iconic Religion’ , an energy he says he never intended to construct, but ended up emanating from the sepia tones and lush drapery of the diviners and deities he photographed. In other hands, these images would look dated and smack of exoticism; but Opara manages to give them a richer story, hinting at the communities and centuries that gave each person their depth, while portraying his subjects within the dignity of the present.

The four featured artists:
Kader Attia (b. 1970, Dugny, France. Lives and works in Berlin and Algiers)/
Sammy Baloji (b. 1978, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo. Lives and works in Lubumbashi)
Michael MacGarry (b. 1978, Durban, South Africa. Lives and works in Cape Town).
Adolphus Opara. (b. 1981, Imo State, Nigeria. Lives and works in Lagos);

“Orisa Egbe Deity of Destiny (Mrs Osun Yita) from ‘Emissaries of an Iconic Religion’  2009 (illustration above).

See Contested Terrians At the Tate, London.

Watch New Full Trailer For

“The Black Power

Mixtape 1967-1975” +

New Poster & Release Dates

If you see The Help and you don’t see this (assuming it plays in a theater near you), please don’t come to S&A and post comments about how limited Hollywood’s purview is when it comes to the representation of African Americans on screen, especially with regards to historical accounts like this.

Goran Hugo Olsson’s acclaimed documentary, The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival (where I first saw it), and was later acquired for distribution by Sundance Selects, now has an official poster and full trailer, both included within this post.

The feature film features a treasure trove of 30+ years of 16mm footage, *mixed* into a collage of images (still and moving), music, and narration chronicling the evolution of the Black Power movement. Included are candid interviews with some of the movement’s luminaries, like Angela Davis, Bobby Seale, Stokely Carmichael, and Kathleen Cleaver. Commentary from present-day voices including Erykah Badu, Harry Belafonte, Talib Kweli, and Melvin Van Peebles compliment.

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 is set to be released in theaters starting in New York on Friday, September 9 at the IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, and will be followed by a gradual nationwide rollout beginning in late September, depending on how it does early on.

I’m guessing the film will be up for some awards consideration once that season begins.

I’ve seen it twice already - first at Sundance, and later at the New Directors/New Films Festival here in NYC, a couple of months ago. I also reviewed it on the old S&A site. In short, I learned from and enjoyed it! You can read my review HERE.

Danny Glover is one of the film’s producers by the way.

Here’s the brand new trailer, and underneath you’ll find the full poster:

tambay posted

No One Is Free While Others

Are Oppressed ~

SlutWalk Philadelphia Speech

August 12, 2011

Aishah Shahidah Simmons

“What’s the Right Message?” asks Aishah Shahidah Simmons in her SlutWalk Philadelphia Speech”

“Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference – those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older – know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths.”

— Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider —

Black. Lesbian. Feminist. Mother. Warrior. Poet. Audre Lorde’s written words taught me that my silence will not protect me, and that silence is not golden.  I am a Black feminist lesbian who is a survivor of incest and rape.  When I was ten, my paternal (step)grandfather molested me over a period of two years; and when I was 12 the eldest son of a family friend fondled me. My rape happened when I was a soon to be 20 year old sophomore in college.  I was on a study abroad program and broke all of the university-enforced rules to go out, very late at night, with the man who would become my rapist. In spite of my having second thoughts about going out with this new acquaintance, I was both afraid to articulate them and to turn around because my friends were covering for me.  In the hotel room, for which I paid, I told my rapist “I don’t want to do this. Please stop.”  I didn’t “violently” fight back. I didn’t scream or yell to the top of my lungs” because I was afraid. I didn’t want to make a “scene.” I blamed myself for saying, “Yes”…for breaking the rules…for paying for the hotel room.

The morning following my rape, I went back to where the school housed us and lied to my friends. I didn’t tell them that I was forced to have sex against my will. In an effort to both deny what happened on the night of my rape and to be in control of my body, I had consensual sex with another man that evening.  When it was time to return home to the United States, I was pregnant and didn’t know which of the two men was the biological father. I was fortunate to have a safe and legal abortion at the Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center for Women in Philadelphia, PA.

And, before I continue, I want to be explicitly and unequivocally clear that I am NOT a lesbian because I was molested and raped. I am a lesbian because I’m attracted to and love women.  So, please do not walk away making the homophobic and heterosexist comment “Oh, that’s why Aishah is a lesbian. It’s because she was molested and raped.”

WRONG.

If molestation and rape made women and girls lesbians, then most of the girls and women in the world would be lesbians. Just check the global statistics on molestation and rape.

I share what some of you might view as personal, private—and perhaps—seemingly unnecessary because the personal is directly related not only to the political but also the professional in my life.

Now, I admit when Executive Organizer Hannah Altman invited me to be a speaker at SlutWalk Philadelphia, I was very, very apprehensive.  However, after quite a bit of thought and deliberation; and in spite of my many conflicting feelings as a Black feminist lesbian whose contemporary reality and ancestral lineage has been rooted in the legalized name calling/marginalizing/denigration of mind/body/spirit for centuries without too much recourse, I accepted the invitation to be a speaker.

I am here today because I want to see an end to the victim-blaming in my lifetime, and I’m 42-years old. No, victim-blaming is not going to stop because we are all here participating in SlutWalk Philadelphia. If only it were that easy. However, I believe it is important that the faces, voices, and perspectives of women of color (inclusive of all sexualities) and trans people of color are seen and heard. Documented herstory and contemporary reality has shown us that more often than not, it is our bodies that catch the most hell not only by the State but also by people in and out of our communities (however we define them). It is our bodies that have a demonstrated track record of being on the frontlines of the movements to end all forms of oppression.

I believe words are very, very powerful. At the same time, I really struggle with many who are hostile to the “SlutWalks” because they say it gives the wrong message. What is the right message? I think about Take Back the Night, which was founded in the early ’70s, when I was a toddler.  As strange as it may seem today, especially now that Take Back the Night has become an “acceptable” movement throughout this country and globally, I know there was resistance. I’m sure some, if not many people took the position, ‘What do you mean take back the night? You shouldn’t be out at night!’

Personally, I do not embrace the word Slut at all… And, at the same time, I will not say or subscribe to the patriarchal and misogynistic thinking that “we can’t do this or that type of behavior; or wear this or that type of clothing and not expect to get harassed, fondled, and/or raped.

There are some places in the world that would say that presently, I’m not properly covered in what I view as very modest attire (by most US standards). There are many in the United States; and throughout the world who believe I should be raped, assaulted, and/or harassed for the mere fact that I’m an unapologetically OUT Feminist Lesbian.

Where do we draw the lines of who can and can’t be rape, assaulted, harassed, and/or called vicious and vitriolic names? Why are we okay with RAPE being the penalty for ANY type of behavior (including heterosexual women having multiple sexual partners) or for wearing ANY type of attire of clothing (including thongs and bustier? ). This line of thinking is inhumane, egregious, wretched, and should be unacceptable.

Sexual violence is one of the only crimes where the victim behavior’s determines if a crime happened or not. I could be in a drug-infested neighborhood with a lot of money on my person and even bragging about my money and showing it off. If someone steals my money, they are a thief, plain and simple. Yes, one could say “Aishah, what were you doing with all that money in that neighborhood. Are you crazy?” And yet, at the same time, it would be clear that I was robbed.  If I left my macbook pro in Starbucks and someone stole it, we may think I was dumb for leaving it there, but that doesn’t take away the fact that someone stole my macbook pro.

How can we have more empathy for the loss of money or even the loss of a computer than the (hopefully, temporary) loss of one’s body for a few seconds, moments, hours, or even days? Why do we tend to be clear about the impact of the loss of material possessions in ways that we don’t want to be clear about the impact of the loss of the right to ones own body. For too many, rape has become a word, almost devoid of the horrifying experience from which too many of us never ever fully recover.

There is something very disturbing and painful that there is this widespread (as in global) notion that material possessions are worth more than a woman’s body… There is something wrong that too many of us believe that a woman doesn’t have the right to show or flaunt her body, if she desires… That a woman doesn’t have a right to agree to one form of sexual activity and not agree to another form of sexual activity. That she doesn’t have the right to say “yes,” and then have the courage or even the audacity to change her mind and say “no.”  Whose body is it anyway? Contrary to global belief, it’s not the perpetrators body. And yet, too many of us defend the perpetrators RIGHT to violate the body of another.

When will we stop treating boys and men as if they are wild beastly animals or innocent toddlers (not sure which one) who can’t control their words and/or actions? When will we put the blame on the perpetrators? When will we stop saying “Well, women have to take some responsibility?”  Take responsibility for what, men and boys being unable to control themselves resulting in them violating a woman or girl’s body because of what she said, wore, and/or did?

Really.?!

Again, I ask where do we draw the lines of who can and can’t be assaulted, harassed, and/or raped? As long as there is any group of people including but not limited to adolescent and teenage “fast” girls, women, trans people, queer people, and sex workers who are marginalized, then all of us are vulnerable both because it’s all subjective; and the lines of the margins shift all of the time. Who’s acceptable today may not be acceptable tomorrow.

We must stop subscribing to this notion that rape is the justifiable penalty for ANY type of behavior or attire of clothing that we may not like or even disapprove of.

We must centralize the margins of the margins of the margins of society so that ALL of us are free from assault, harassment, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. No One Is Free While Others Are Oppressed. NO ONE IS FREE WHILE OTHERS ARE OPPRESSED.

Aishah Shahidah Simmons is the producer/writer/director of NO! The Rape Documentary., the internationally acclaimed, award-winning feature length film, which examines the international atrocity of rape and other forms of sexual violence through the first person testimonies, scholarship, activism, and cultural work of African-Americans. You can follow her on twitter, connect with her on Facebook, and/or read her AfroLez®femcentric blog.

November 17, 2010

GO HERE TO VIEW PHOTOS IN PROPER DIMENSIONS

In Protest

Taking their desires to be heard to the streets, thousands of protesters and demonstrators around the world have recently been marching, shouting, praying, and engaging in both theater and violence to make their points. From quiet, prayerful requests for peace in Mexico to the violent takeover of an office building in London to student demonstrators in Chile and gay rights activists making a statement to the Pope in Spain, the past two weeks has been full of protest. Their reasons are many - anger with austerity measures, frustration with incumbent governments and globalization, frustration with policies in other countries - even protests against other protesters. Collected here is a view of protests and demonstrations around the world over the past two weeks. (50 photos total)

An activist from the women rights organization "Femen" shouts at an Interior Ministry officer as she takes part in a rally to support Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, by the Iranian embassy in Kiev, November 3, 2010. Ashtiani, whose sentence of execution by stoning for adultery provoked a worldwide outcry, will instead be hanged for the murder of her husband, a human rights group said. (REUTERS/Konstantin Chernichkin)

 

 

2

Students demonstrate on November 17, 2010 in the center of Rome against reforming universities and budget cuts decided by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right government. Altogether more than 100 rallies took place in Italy. Over the last two years, the Berlusconi government adopted several new bills, which cut the education budget by 9 billion euros and remove 130,000 jobs over the 2009-2013 period. (FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

3

Devotees pray during a multi-religious demonstration to ask for peace and stop to violence in downtown Monterrey, Mexico, Saturday Nov. 13, 2010. (AP Photo/Carlos Jasso) #

 

 

4

Polish anti-fascists, dressed as Nazi death camp prisoners, sit on a street to block far-right demonstrators during rallies held to mark the country's independence day in Warsaw, November 11, 2010. Fighting broke out when several thousand far-right demonstrators found their path blocked by a much larger gathering of anti-fascist organizations in the Polish capital. (WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

5

Indian police use a water cannon to try to disperse supporters of India's ruling Congress party as they protest outside the office of Hindu Nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in New Delhi, India on Friday, Nov. 12, 2010. The protest was against former RSS chief K. Sudershan who recently alleged that Congress party President Sonia Gandhi is a Central Intelligence Agency agent and is behind the murders of her husband Rajiv Gandhi and mother-in-law Indira Gandhi. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das) #

 

 

6

Members of the U.S. Park Police arrest a veteran and gay rights activist who had handcuffed himself to the fence of the White House during a protest November 15, 2010 in Washington, D.C. Activists staged the protest to call on the Obama Administration and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to keep their promises on repealing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which prevented gay people from serving openly, during the lame-duck session of the Congress. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) #

 

 

7

Protesters supporting Western Sahara are pushed by Spanish police while they shout slogans during a protest against the Moroccan government, outside of Madrid's Interior Ministry, Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2010. Moroccan authorities had earlier forcibly removed thousands of Saharawis from a protest camp, resulting in a number of deaths of both protesters and security forces. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza) #

 

 

8

A protester wears a Barack Obama mask while holding a mask of Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan during an anti-APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) demonstration near the APEC summit venue in Yokohama, Japan, Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010. The sign reads "Yes we can WAR". (AP Photo/Greg Baker) #

 

 

9

Several Chilean women are seen in a mine called "El Chiflon del Diablo" (The Devil's Draft) in Lola, some 500kms south of Santiago, Chile on November 16, 2010. Thirty-three women descended 500 m into the El Chiflon del Diablo mine - an unused carbon mine which now operates as a tourist attraction - in protest of the elimination of a labor program of which they belonged and have threatened starting a hunger-strike. (Camila Lasalle Ramirez/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

10

In Stockholm on November 14, 2010, Iraqi Christians hold pictures of some of the 53 people who were killed on October 31 in attack at the main Syriac Catholic cathedral in Baghdad, Iraq, as they demonstrate against attacks on churches. An estimated 800,000 Christians lived in Iraq before the US-led invasion of 2003, but that number has since shrunk to around 500,000 in the face of repeated attacks against their community and churches. (JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

11

Gymnasium owners, employees and sympathizers dance in front of the Portuguese parliament Friday, Nov. 12 2010, protesting the government's plan to increase taxes on sports activities. The tax hike is part of the government's package of measures to deal with the country's current financial crisis. (AP Photo/Armando Franca) #

 

 

12

Activists of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) argue with police outside the Dhaka cantonment in Dhaka, Bangladesh on November 13, 2010. Bangladeshi police battled with opposition activists who went on the rampage in the capital Dhaka protesting the alleged eviction of a former prime minister from her home. Officials said Khaleda Zia, leader of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and a two-time ex-prime minister, left her sprawling house in a military district of Dhaka "willingly" after a court deadline to vacate the home expired on Friday. (MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

13

In this image released by Spectral Q, people form the phrase "THE END?" on an island at the barrier reef off the coast of Belize City, Belize, Saturday Nov. 13, 2010. The demonstration was held on the final day of the Belize Reef Summit which urged global leaders to take strong action for the environment at the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico. (AP Photo/Spectral Q, Lou Dematteis) #

 

 

14

A supporter of Myanmar democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi demonstrates in Trafalgar Square, London November 13, 2010. Aung San Suu Kyi walked out of her home to cheers from thousands of supporters on Saturday after Myanmar's military rulers released her from seven years of house arrest. (REUTERS/Paul Hackett) #

 

 

15

A demonstrator is arrested by South Korean police during an anti-G20 protest on November 12, 2010 in Seoul, South Korea. World leaders converged on Seoul for the fifth meeting of the G20 group of nations to discuss the global financial system and world economy. South Korea is the first non G-8 country to host the G20 summit. (Lee Myung-Ik/Getty Images) #

 

 

16

Pakistani tribesmen gather next to burning oil tankers carrying fuel for NATO forces, in Chaman, southwest Pakistan on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010. Thousands of people protesting the killing of a tribal elder by unknown gunmen in Chaman district of southwest Pakistan attacked a NATO supply convoy, setting four oil tankers on fire, a police official said. (AP Photo/Shah Khalid) #

 

 

17

Protesters shout slogans at an anti-APEC rally in Yokohama, south of Tokyo November 14, 2010. (REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon) #

 

 

18

Vittoria Risi, a Venetian porn star, and members of "Venessia.com", a group of campaigners for the defense of the city of Venice, parade in gondolas during a protest called "Welcome to Veniceland" to ask local authorities to provide affordable housing for locals and to diversify Venice's economy away from tourism on November 14, 2010 in Venice, Italy. With 25 million tourists visiting each year compared to only 59,000 local residents, they claim that Venice is becoming "Veniceland", an amusement theme park. (ANDREA PATTARO/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

19

Bulgarian scientists hold candles during a silent rally in central Sofia, Tuesday Nov. 16. 2010. Hundreds of scientists from the Bulgarian Sciences Academy gathered to continue their protest against the severe budget cuts and the neglectful policy on science and education. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova) #

 

 

20

Demonstrators wave Saharawi flags and shout slogans during a pro-Saharawi protest in Madrid, Spain on November 13, 2010. Clashes between security forces and protesters in Western Sahara killed several people on Monday after Moroccan authorities stormed the site of the disputed territory's biggest anti-government protest in decades. (REUTERS/Andrea Comas) #

 

 

21

An image taken on November 8, 2010 and released by the Moroccan gendarmerie on November 15 shows an apparent vehicle of the Moroccan gendarmerie spraying water from a watergun towards alleged protesters near Laayoune. Moroccan forces dismantled a camp on November 8, housing thousands of refugees in the Western Sahara leaving four dead and scores injured, according to the rival sides. The security forces were ordered to empty a camp housing some 12,000 people set up four weeks ago outside Laayoune, the main town in the Western Sahara, in a protest against the deterioration of living standards. (HO/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

22

Activists of the transsexual, gay and lesbian community participate in a protest demanding for the right to choose a name according to their gender along a street in San Salvador on November 15, 2010. The slogans on the T-shirts read, "I choose to be called... Lucero/Pamela". (Jose CABEZAS/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

23

Thousands of Communist Party supporters wave flags during the protest rally in central Athens on November 15, 2010 against the IMF-EU troika visit in Athens and the expected new austerity package. Greece acknowledged it would breach conditions for a new installment of a 110-billion-euro bailout as the IMF and European Union began an audit of the country's austerity measures. (LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

24

A Bulgarian girl with a gas mask attends a rally against the upcoming visit of Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Sofia on November 13, 2010. Bulgaria's state energy holding BEH and Russian gas giant Gazprom will set up on Saturday a joint venture to build and operate the Bulgarian stretch of the South Stream gas pipeline from Russia to southern Europe. (DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

25

Students carry books on their heads during a protest in front of Sofia University in Bulgaria on November 16, 2010. Hundreds of university students and lecturers rallied in central Sofia on Tuesday to protest against the cuts in funding for universities and the lack of clear strategy for reforms of the Balkan country's education system. (REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov) #

 

 

26

A Palestinian protester holding his national flag confronts an Israeli soldier during a demonstration against Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank village of Maasarah near Bethlehem on November 12, 2010. (MUSA AL-SHAER/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

27

Protesters hold signs as they march to Southern Methodist University where a ground- breaking ceremony was being held for the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2010. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes) #

 

 

28

A high school student is detained by riot police during a protest outside the Chilean congress in Valparaiso city, about 121 km (75 miles) northwest of Santiago, Chile on November 16, 2010. Over 60 students protested on Tuesday at the parliament against changes to the public state education and are demanding the government to increase their budget to fund universities. (REUTERS/Eliseo Fernandez) #

 

 

29

Iranian security guards drag partially-dressed female protesters away from a hall during an Iranian cultural event in Kiev November 11, 2010. Activists from the women's rights organization "Femen" staged the protest in support of Iranian citizen Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, accused both of adultery and of being complicit in her husband's murder. (REUTERS/Gleb Garanich) #

 

 

30

Demonstrators struggle with riot police as they try to march during an anti-G20 protest in downtown Seoul, South Korea on November 11, 2010. (REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak) #

 

 

31

A body of a man killed by police lies on the ground in the Cosa neighborhood of Conakry, Guinea amid a violent protest against the electoral victory of opposition leader Alpha Conde on November 16, 2010. The post-election violence has left at least four dead since Monday, three of whom were killed by security forces, according to various sources. No official death toll has been released. (Cellou Diallo/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

32

Italian Policemen walk ahead of students demonstrating against government's education reforms in Rome, Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010. Students demonstrated Wednesday in many cities all over Italy against Education minister Mariastella Gelmini's policy on high school and higher education. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia) #

 

 

33

An Indian police vehicle burns after protesters set on fire after Eid prayers at Anantnag, some 55 kilometers (34 miles) south of Srinagar, India, Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010. Security forces fired warning shots and tear gas to quell protests in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir on Wednesday, after prayers marking a Muslim festival led to street demonstrations against Indian rule. (AP Photo) #

 

 

34

Vietnam War veterans form a line to block an anti-gay protest held by members of the Westboro Baptist Church (rear, hidden) at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on Veterans Day, November 11, 2010. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque) #

 

 

35

Police detain a student protester inside the besieged Millbank Tower home of the Conservative Party headquarters on November 10, 2010 in London, England. Student groups were protesting against the government's proposed funding cuts to education and an increase in tuition fees (Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images) #

 

 

36

Demonstrators protest on the roof of the Conservative Party headquarters building in central London November 10, 2010. A group of protesters against higher university tuition fees broke into the headquarters of Britain's governing Conservative party on Wednesday, smashing the glass reception area and streaming up onto the roof. (REUTERS/Paul Hackett) #

 

 

37

Police officers stand outside the Conservative Party headquarters building during a protest in central London November 10, 2010. (REUTERS/Paul Hackett) #

 

 

38

Farmers shout slogans at a rally against Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks in Tokyo November 10, 2010. Thousands of Japanese farmers rallied on Wednesday to demand their government steer clear of a U.S.-led free trade initiative which would open the heavily protected agricultural sector to fierce competition. (REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon) #

 

 

39

A man holds placards during a protest against U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Indonesia, in Jakarta November 9, 2010. (REUTERS/Dadang Tri) #

 

 

40

A general view of the Saharawi protest camp on the outskirts of Western Sahara's main city, Laayoune, November 6, 2010. Before it was recently leveled by Moroccan authorities, the thousands in this camp amounted to be the biggest protest in three decades in Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony annexed by Morocco in 1975 and now the subject of Africa's longest-running territorial dispute. Picture taken November 6, 2010. (REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal) #

 

 

41

Anti-nuclear protesters block train tracks near Harlingen, Germany in the early hours of the morning on November 8, 2010. After a weekend of heavy protests, which at times turned violent as police with truncheons charging demonstrators, protesters aimed to block a train carrying a cargo of nuclear waste from France to Germany to the underground storage facility in Gorleben in northern Germany. (JOCHEN LUEBKE/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

42

An anti-nuclear protester places a firecracker under a police vehicle near Leitstade, northern Germany, on Sunday, Nov. 7, 2010. The activists are protesting against a castor train transporting nuclear waste that is underway from French La Hague to the nuclear interim storage plant in nearby Gorleben. (AP Photo/dapd, Axel Heimken) #

 

 

43

An anti-nuclear activist with a radiation symbol embroidered on his hat, during a demonstration on a field near the embarking station in Dannenberg, Germany on November 6, 2010. German police and anti-nuclear groups expected about thirty thousand demonstrators to try to block the transportation of CASTOR rail containers of reprocessed German nuclear waste from the La Hague reprocessing plant in France to the Gorleben interim storage facility in Germany. (REUTERS/Christian Charisius) #

 

 

44

A woman holds a poster reading "Journalist Oleg Kashin has been beaten. I demand to find the persons who attacked him" during a picket at the headquarters of Moscow police department in Moscow on November 7, 2010. A leading Russian reporter was put into an induced coma after an attack in central Moscow, and remained in a serious condition in hospital, reports said. Kashin, who covers the sensitive issues of opposition protests and youth groups for the respected Kommersant daily, suffered fractures to his jaw, concussion and broken fingers in the attack early Saturday. (Alexey SAZONOV/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

45

A gay couple kisses in protest as Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Santiago de Compostela, Spain on November 6, 2010. (PEDRO ARMESTRE/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

46

Egyptian Muslim activist Mahitab Al Gilani lights a candle and holds flowers during a protest against Last week's al-Qaida militant attack in a Baghdad church that left 58 people dead, in front of the Iraqi embassy in Cairo Egypt on Monday, Nov. 8, 2010. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has assured the country's Coptic Christians the government will protect them in the face of al-Qaida threats. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil) #

 

 

47

A girl holds a sign reading "Obama's Bad" as U.S. Representative Mike Pence (R-IN) (left) and Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) (2nd left) address the group "Americans for Prosperity" as they hold a rally on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, November 15, 2010. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst) #

 

 

48

A Tibetan exile shouts slogans during a rally in New Delhi, India on November 15, 2010 to protest against the ongoing 16th Asian Games taking place in Guangzhou, China. (MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

49

Members of the media surround policewomen as they detain two members (obscured in middle of group) of the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) after they staged a "naked" protest outside the venue of the upcoming G20 summit in Seoul, South Korea on November 9, 2010. The naked "Mother Earth" protesters wanted to warn G20 members about hazards of meat production ahead of the November 11-12 summit. (HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/Getty Images) #

 

 

50

A policeman detains a man during a protest rally to defend article 31 of the Russian constitution in Moscow October 31, 2010. Opposition activists have been holding demonstrations on the 31st day of each month to mark the article, which guarantees the right of assembly. (REUTERS/Nikolay Korchekov) #

 

The People’s Republic of

Capitalism

Perhaps nothing crystallizes the theme of Ted Koppel’s excellent Discovery Channel series The People’s Republic of Capitalism like the production of Ethan Allen couches. Over four episodes, Koppel reveals increasing economic interdependence between the United States and China, and daily business for the American furniture maker is a case in point.

While couch bases are made in Chinese factories using cheap labor, those bases are then sent to the U.S. to be assembled with other components. The finished couches are then sent to China to be sold to a growing middle class with money to spare. Such is the cycle of globalization, pushing the U.S. and China into a necessary partnership that has an upside for some and a profound downside for others.

In order to understand that complexity, Koppel tells us, it’s important to grasp rapid changes in China, which has forsaken socialism—the very idea of a classless society—for a fervent embrace of new values and the goal of becoming an economic superpower.

Koppel shows viewers how China, on one hand, micro-manages people’s lives in very real ways, such as the country’s notorious one child policy for families, which is designed to lower the nation’s enormous population in time. On the other hand, Chinese are enjoying the freedom to pursue aspirations toward economic success and the (sometimes illicit) fruits of hard work.

But others don’t manage quite as well: Chinese factory workers who battle fatigue to make the equivalent of $20 per week, and the American workers who lost their jobs to their overseas counterparts. This eye-opening series is truly helpful toward understanding our complicated new world.

 

Watch the full documentary now (playlist – 3 hours)