How Can You Mend A Broken Heart

Tired Of Being Alone

Call Me (Come Back Home)

For The Good Times

Now accepting submissions for a special feature on Americana!

Dioramas, time capsules, ticket stubs, bingo halls, old motels, station wagons, miniature villages,
carousels, reenactments, corn dogs, corn liquor, drive-thru trees, ice cream trucks, cigarette
machines, alien sightings, hobo names, mermaid parades, rotary phones, theater marquee,
lawn parties, circus towns, hog prizes, RVs, no vacancy, sideshows, rodeos, Appalachian,
Big Bear, Broken Top, Blue Ridge, Mount Bachelor, Grand Teton, Camel’s Hump, Devil’s
Thumb, Horsetooth, Half Dome, US 1, Route 66, I-95, Going-to-the-Sun, Sky Island,
Overseas, Mississippi, Journey Through Hallowed Land, Rio Grande, Gowanus Canal,
Niagara Falls, Chattahoochee, Great Lakes, Tug Fork, Allegheny, Elk Neck, Grand Staircase,
Death Valley, Heart of Dixie, Tex Mex, Westward Ho, Rust Belt, Dust Bowl, Dude Ranch,
Old South, Mother Lode, crossroads, Honey Lands, bluegrass, burlesque, alt country,
old timey, Americana.

We are looking for the essays, stories and poems that articulate the sateen heart beating in
stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. We want to publish work that takes on the enchanted
and rhinestoned, the love canals, tourist traps and old manufacturing towns—wherever you find
the embroidery and the embellishments that make up the borders and roadside attractions of
our wild Americana map.

We’re currently accepting submissions for a special feature about Americana to be published in
the Spring 2011 issue. Please send your previously unpublished poems, stories, and essays
by October 1, 2010.

The Southern Review Americana Feature
Attn. Jen McClanaghan
Old President’s House
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803

 

 

 

 

ISSUE THEME and CONTEST: Food
postmark deadline September 3, 2010

For an upcoming issue, we're seeking true stories that incorporate or involve food.

Essays must be vivid and dramatic; they should combine a strong and compelling narrative with a significant element of research or information, and reach for some universal or deeper meaning in personal experiences. We’re looking for well-written prose, rich with detail and a distinctive voice.

Creative Nonfiction editors will award $1000 for Best Essay and $500 for runner-up.

Guidelines: Essays must be: unpublished, 5,000 words or less, postmarked by September 3, 2010, and clearly marked “Food” on both the essay and the outside of the envelope. There is a $20 reading fee (or send a reading fee of $25 to include a 4-issue CNF subscription); multiple entries are welcome ($20/essay) as are entries from outside the U.S. (though subscription shipping costs do apply). Please send manuscript, accompanied by a cover letter with complete contact information (address, phone, and email), word count, SASE and payment to:

Creative Nonfiction
Attn: Food
5501 Walnut Street, Suite 202
Pittsburgh, PA 15232

 

BOOK PROJECT: Immortality
postmark deadline September 17, 2010

For a new book project, entitled "Immortality," we're seeking new essays from a variety of perspectives on immortality in all its manifestations--biological and medical longevity, as well as the "eternal life" of art and literature, athletes, technology, religion, and genetics. We're looking for essays by writers, physicians, scientists, philosophers, clergy--anyone with an imagination, a vision of the future, an understanding of the past, and a dream (or fear) of what it means to live forever.

Essays must be vivid and dramatic; they should combine a strong and compelling narrative with a significant element of research or information, and reach for some universal or deeper meaning in personal experiences. We’re looking for well-written prose, rich with detail and a distinctive voice.

For examples, see Creative Nonfiction #38 (Spring 2010).

Guidelines: Essays must be: unpublished, 5,000 words or less, postmarked by September 17, 2010, and clearly marked “Immortality” on both the essay and the outside of the envelope. Please send manuscript, accompanied by a cover letter with complete contact information (address, phone, and email), word count, and SASE to:

Creative Nonfiction
Attn: Immortality
5501 Walnut Street, Suite 202
Pittsburgh, PA 15232

 

10th Annual Jamaica Independence Essay Competition

Entries are now being accepted for the 10th annual Independence Essay Competition of the Jamaica Information Service (JIS) in Miami.  The competition forms part of the celebrations observing Jamaica’s 48th anniversary of Independence and Emancipation across the Florida communities.


The contest is open to all Jamaican children, first and second generation, and residing in Florida State, The deadline for participating entries is Friday, July 23, 2010.  The winner in each category will be awarded with a plaque from the Jamaica Consulate General, and a monetary gift presentation from the Partners for Youth Foundation of South Florida.


The merit to the annual Essay competition is to advance community awareness while exposing our youth to their Jamaican culture and heritage.  As they research and prepare the compositions, applicants are given the opportunity to reflect on the nation’s history and culture; look at the impact of their Jamaican roots on their upbringing; and the positive events that have catapulted Jamaica and its Diaspora in the global arena. 


Children in the Diaspora are being encouraged to take interest in the annual Essay Competition realizing that the occasion would inspire young Jamaicans to consider more seriously learning about the island of their origin.


Essay topics are as follows:

1.         Talk about your experience in Jamaica as a tourist.  Briefly share your adventure about one of the favorite places visited – for example a place of recreation, a historic landmark or even time spent with a Jamaican family.


2.         How do you think Jamaican youth in the Diaspora can best contribute to Jamaica’s economic development?


3.         Do you know of a Jamaican group or Jamaican individual who has made an outstanding contribution to their community or attained an outstanding achievement? If so, write about their contribution or achievement and its impact on the community in which he or she resides.


4.         What is your opinion of reggae music today, and explain the role that this genre of music has played in Jamaica’s social, cultural and economic development.


5.         Explain how the process of “Brand Jamaica” can be promoted through the export of our cultural heritage including art, music, folk culture, entertainment, food, etc.


6.         Briefly describe the significance of Jamaica’s six national symbols.


7.         There are several prominent Jamaican landmarks (e.g. Port Royal, Devon House, Rose Hall Great House, Spanish Town, National Heroes’ Park, etc.). Choose any Jamaican landmark that you know and explain briefly its context to Jamaica’s rich cultural heritage.

*      *      *      

Each entrant must choose only one topic. The response must NOT exceed two pages and should be double-spaced.

Essays can be emailed to jismiami@bellsouth.net or mailed to the Jamaica Information Service, 25 SE Second Avenue – Ste 609, Miami, FLA 33131.  

The contestant’s name, address, telephone number and age must accompany each entry.  There are three age categories for entrants: five to eight (5-8); nine to twelve (9-12); thirteen to eighteen (13-18).  The deadline for entries is Friday, July 23, 2010.


Cheryl Wynter (305-374-8384)

***

Linda A. Newson, Susie Minchin. From Capture to Sale: The Portuguese Slave Trade to Spanish South America in the Early Seventeenth Century. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007. xiv + 378 pp. $148.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-90-04-15679-1.

Reviewed by Tobias O. Green (University of Birmingham)
Published on H-Luso-Africa (May, 2010)
Commissioned by Philip J. Havik

Rethinking the Atlantic Slave Trade from the "Guinea of Cape Verde"

At first sight, the material of this major contribution to the study of the transatlantic slave trade seems as though it should be more familiar than it is. The trade began, after all, through the Iberian Atlantic, and many of the practices which later slavers and plantation owners developed in the Atlantic world derived from these early interactions. One need only look at the history of Barbados and South Carolina for the proof of this. Techniques of sugar cultivation and processing were introduced to Barbados from Brazil in the 1640s, and it was with this input that Barbadian planters switched from indentured British labor to enslaved African labor. Subsequently, many of the first settlers of South Carolina originated from Barbados. One may therefore draw a direct line between production techniques and racial attitudes developed in the Lusophone world to those which subsequently emerged in the low country of the United States.

Such factors make the study of this early Iberian trade fundamental to understanding how the history of slavery in the Atlantic world developed. And yet, as the authors note in their introduction, there have been relatively few studies of the Portuguese slave trade to Spanish America, and in general the transatlantic slave trade of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is notably underrepresented in the literature on Atlantic slavery. Indeed there remains no monograph of the birth of the transatlantic slave trade in the sixteenth century, though this is something that the author of this review will shortly resolve.

The importance of Newson and Minchin’s work is twofold. In the first place, they have uncovered precious new documentation in the Archivo General de la Nación in Lima which gives perhaps the most detailed record we have for the entire proceedings of a slave-trading enterprise from the 1610s. The slaver in question, Manuel Bautista Pérez, was much later arrested, tried, and put to death by the Inquisition in Lima, which is why the records were preserved.[1] In the second place, they have pieced together perhaps the most detailed account we have of the lives of slaves in this Iberian trade during every aspect of their transatlantic migration, from capture to sale, as their title suggests.

The focus of the book is particularly on slave health, diet, conditions, and medicinal treatments at every juncture of the voyage. This apparently quite confined narrative focus is in fact a window onto the experience of slaves in the trade, as the emphasis on diet reveals the conditions of slaves during their migration and the type of physical experience they had. Such an emphasis is quite rare in a literature that has been beset by the issue of quantification ever since the annalistes got their hands on it, and which still struggles to slough off this unhelpful legacy.

Members of this list will find the earlier chapters of most interest to their own research. Here, the authors deal with the ways in which slave voyages were fitted out and develop a detailed picture of how slaves were procured on the coast of Upper Guinea in the Cacheu region (present-day Guinea-Bissau), the conditions in which slaves were kept on the coast, and the nature of the Middle Passage during the journey to Cartagena in the Nuevo Reino de Granada (present-day Colombia). Although the authors’ prime focus in their African chapters is on the Guinea-Bissau region, some useful details emerge in their comparison of the diseases that slaves from Upper Guinea and Angola had on their arrival in the Americas. These details allow them to draw important conclusions relating to agricultural production, diets, and health in these parts of Africa in the early seventeenth century, which is an important contribution to our understanding of precolonial everyday life in these regions of such interest to this list.

The Upper Guinea focus also acts as a useful corrective to some of the recent literature which has suggested that after the late sixteenth century the transatlantic slave trade had an almost exclusively West Central African make-up.[2] Such ideas are certainly incompatible with the findings of this book, which observes the following percentages of slaves from the Upper Guinea region among those sold in Cartagena between 1626 and 1633: 1626--33.3 percent; 1627--70.5 percent; 1628--70.2 percent; 1629--83 percent; 1630--53.3 percent; 1631--31.7 percent; 1632--11.5 percent; and 1633--54.5 percent (p. 153).

This is a book which scholars need to consider with care and detailed attention. One suspects--and indeed the authors themselves admit--that their use of the Lima material is just one aspect of the many new interpretations which the documents may support. And the sign of an original work is one which, like this book, provokes as many questions as it answers.

Notes

[1]. For other detailed studies of Bautista Pérez, see in particular Susie Minchin, “‘May You Always Care for Those of Your Patria’: Manuel Bautista Pérez and the Portuguese New Christian Community of Viceregal Peru: Slave Trade, Commerce and the Inquisition, 1617-1639” (Ph.D. diss., University of Cambrudge, 1998); Nathan Wachtel, La Foi du Souvenir: Labyrinthes Marranes (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2001); and Tobias Green, “Masters of Difference: Creolziation and the Jewish Presence in Cabo Verde, 1497-1672” (Ph.D. diss., University of Birmingham, 2007).

[2]. See Linda Heywood and John Thornton, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585-1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Reception and Exhibition Honoring the Life of New Orleans Poet, Playwright, and Oral Historian Tom Dent

The Amistad Research Center will host a reception celebrating the opening of the Tom Dent Papers and a related exhibition on the life and careers of one of New Orleans' most treasured poets, playwrights, and oral historians.

DATE:

Thursday, July 29, 6:00 pm

LOCATION:

Tilton Hall, Tulane University

The brief program will feature conversations about Tom Dent by John O'Neal, Artistic Director of Junebug Productions, and New Orleans poets Kalamu ya Salaam and Quo Vadis Breaux. The audience of friends and colleagues will be encouraged to participate in an "open mic" forum to share their personal reflections on Dent. More information about his life and work can be found here.

The exhibition, entitled Tom Dent: A Heavy Trip Through the South, will run through September 30, 2010, in the exhibition gallery of the Amistad Research Center. Taken largely from Dent's collection of personal papers housed at Amistad, materials on display relate Dent's early interest in writing, his departure and return to New Orleans, and the many theatrical, literary, and oral history projects he engaged in throughout his life.

In reviewing Dent's poetry, fellow poet and friend David Henderson said, "Magnolia Street is a heavy trip through New Orleans." Tom Dent's papers are indeed a heavy trip through the culture, history, and literature of the South during the late 20th century.

Posted by Christopher Harter

If you can't measure it - how can you fine us?

Just how many barrels of oil are gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon spill is a billion dollar question with implications that go beyond the environment. It could also help determine how much BP and others end up paying for the disaster.

The little-known, seldom applied clause in the Clean Water Act was added in 1990 after the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, and was intended to beef up the arsenal of penalties the government can apply to oil spillers to deter future disasters.

"These civil penalties could be staggeringly high, possibly running into the billions," said Professor David Uhlmann, director of the Environmental Law program at University of Michigan.

Total liability -- including civil fines as well as the cost of clean-up, economic damages and potential criminal liability -- "will run into the billions and may be in the tens of billions," Uhlmann said.

Under the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency can seek in federal court to fine any party whose negligence results in an oil spill in U.S. federal waters.

(BP is certainly going to be proven to be negligent – this is no accident)

Initially BP told us that about 5000 barrels per day were spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon Disaster. This figure has been disputed by many, now finally it has been proven to be a blatant and deliberate lie.

Consider the facts that since BP have been able to partially cap the gusher and retrieve ‘some of the oil’ - more than 5000 barrels per day have been collected!

Company officials said Wednesday that an untested collection method that would supplement current efforts could draw 10,000 more barrels of oil a day to the surface, in addition to the 15,000 barrels a day it's capturing now.

Of course this ‘tally’ does not include the oil that is still being spewed into the surrounding waters, to be dispersed with VILE and NOXIOUS toxic chemical dispersants. Remember those undersea PLUMES...... all thanks to BP and their use of COREXIT.

As I understand it, for every barrel of oil spewed out – lost – poured out in a disaster, a fine will be imposed. It would seem that this knowledge has been behind the reason BP initially downplayed the estimate of oil at 5000 barrels per day. Now that a tally can be kept of what is being piped aboard the other rig and boats that will store, for processing, this oil, a better estimate of the fines accruing can be made.

This will not of course include all the millions of barrels of oil BP has dispersed – via the use of toxic chemicals – into the waters of the gulf, and possibly worldwide!

I mean if you can’t see it, you can’t count it – so therefore it isn’t there coz YOU can’t prove it!

Why would anyone in their right mind use a lethal cocktail of chemicals to disperse an oil gusher? The oil when in its original state can be sucked up – processed – sold on etc! But to do that, an accounting would have to be made..... an accurate accounting of the amount of oil, and then – O M Gosh – a fine can be levied per barrel! Disperse it and who can accurately tell how much was in the water in the first place.

That sounds bad doesn’t it? I mean who would do a thing like that? Surely not BP!

But wait there is more:

In an article released today on Dr. Mercola’s website, a damning expose of the reality of this TOXIC Chemical and the implications for life on land and in the oceans has been made available for all to see and read.

There are two video’s from 60 Minutes to watch: What really happened to cause the devastating oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico? And what is BP doing to fix the problem?

For an answer to the first question, watch the 60 Minutes story. As for the answer to the second question, read Dr. Mercola’s special report on the devastating choices made by BP to "clean up" the mess -- choices that could WORSEN the environmental impact of the spill, rather than improve it. See ****

This is something that needs to be viewed and read – far and wide, ESPECIALLY by those who are going to be in charge of seeing to it that Justice will be done! – Send this to the newspapers and your politicians and government officials….. ensure it is seen far and wide and acted upon please.

REFERENCES used in writing this BLOG

Civil fine in Gulf spill could be $4,300 barrel


BP likely to collect more oil than it can process


GULF OIL DISPERSANT COREXIT IS 11 TIMES MORE LETHAL THAN OIL


EPA reveals toxic Corexit ingredients


**** Cover-up that is far more deadly than the BP oil spill.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Afro-German week: Actor Tyron Ricketts in "AfroDeutsch"

AfroDeutsch (AfroGerman) is an intriguing short film (2002) by actor and musician Tyron Ricketts. It’s the movie title song for Afro-Germans.

The film describes what it’s like growing up in Germany as Afro-German, with all its facets. Ricketts (1973) was born in Austria to a Jamaican father and an Austrian mother. He now lives in Germany.

To put the film into context. The film was made after the racist killing of the black German Adrinio in 2000 by Neo Nazis. In the same period the Afro-German anti-racism group Brothers Keepers was formed of which Tyron Ricketts is a member.

The big news is that the film is subtitled in English just recently.

SRI LANKA A Former Woman Combatant Struggles to Pick Up the Pieces By IPS Correspondents Forced to join the Tamil Tigers to protect her family, Ranjani, 32, yearns for better days ahead. Credit:IPS Correspondents/IPS BATTICALOA, Sri Lanka, June 30, 2010 (IPS) - As a young woman, Ranjani (not her real name), a 32-year-old Tamil from Sri Lanka’s eastern Batticaloa district, only had bright hopes for tomorrow. Then her dreams were dashed in an instant. In 1990 a group of secessionist Tamil fighters came knocking on their door, looking for additional warm bodies to beef up their forces. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tigers, as the combatants were also known, was then fighting a bloody protracted war against the government for a separate state for the minority Tamils. And they wanted one member from each family in areas they controlled to join their ranks. If Ranjani did not go with them, they would take someone else, most likely her brother, 10 years her junior, she thought to herself. Born to a poor family, Ranjani, being the eldest daughter, was forced to make a choice between pursuing her dream of obtaining a university education and protecting her family by joining the LTTE. "I had to take that decision – there was no choice, I had to go," she says with a barely audible voice of her painful choice. Fighting a war she never wanted to be a part of, Ranjani abandoned all thoughts of her family, friends, and even herself. On joining the Tigers, her shoulder-length hair was crudely cropped short. For the next eight years, while she was a cadre, she never allowed her hair to grow less than a quarter of an inch, never used a comb or checked her look in the mirror. "It was a different world, a different time," she recalls. If she had any illusions of saving her family from danger by joining the Tigers, they ended when her father was killed and her brother injured in the leg when their house was hit by shellfire. Her brother, who now walks with a limp, is incapacitated for work due to the lingering pain in his leg, says Ranjani. The death of her father and her brother’s injury forced her to flee the LTTE. She returned to her family, vowing to take care of them. Her leaders in the LTTE pursued her relentlessly, but they never found her. By mid-2007, the Tigers were forced out of the eastern part of Sri Lanka by government forces. Two years later, in May 2009, the LTTE was completely wiped out by military troops. Today Ranjani is trying to put whatever is left of her life back together. "We have lost everything. I lost my youth, my father and my future," she says, tears welling up in her eyes as she wipes them with her handkerchief. Her narrative is interspersed with long silences, staring aimlessly into space, her hand twitching and clutching the blue cloth. Her voice cracks each time she speaks. Although peace has descended on Sri Lanka’s war-torn northern region, life for her family is a constant struggle for survival, with barely enough to tide them over to the next meal. "We make string hoppers (a Sri Lankan variety of rice cakes) to sell to the neighbours. We also sell meat and eggs from the chickens at home," she says. On a good day, the family makes 200 to 300 Sri Lankan rupees (1.50 to 2.75 U.S. dollars), and none whatsoever on bad days. She says she cannot leave the house to look for a job, because she needs to look after her brother and aging mother. Ranjani consoles herself with the thought that her younger sister has been able to secure a job at a regional university. "I feel she is grateful for the sacrifice I made," she says with a faint smile on her face. At the moment, she has no lofty plans. Her main concern is to provide for her family’s daily needs and save what little she could in the hope of setting up a small boutique at home. Marriage is not an option. "I don’t even want to think about marriage," she says. Even if she does, the prospects of finding someone will likely be nil. Villagers shun her completely while others keep their distance from her. "My past precedes me," she says, adding that many like her are faced with the same predicament. Yet the future does not look entirely bleak to her. On Jun. 13, during a mass wedding for former LTTE cadres in the northern town of Vavuniya, the government announced that over 8,000 former Tigers were housed at rehabilitation centres while over 3,000 had been sent back home. A few had jobs. Such an announcement gave her another reason to hope – that getting a steady income was not so farfetched after all. The small mercies that come her way every day give her one more reason to hope. "It is different now – we can live together," she says of Sri Lanka’s war- ravaged communities. As she speaks, her eyes dart toward the horizon as though signalling her resolve to move on from the ravages of war and all the pains that it has inflicted on her and her family. "I will never hold a gun again. I will never do that again," she says, her voice trailing off into a whisper while tears begin to flow from her eyes, her hand clutching her blue handkerchief tight. *This story was originally published by IPS TerraViva with the support of UNIFEM and the Dutch MDG3 Fund (END)

From Ecuador to Nigeria to the Gulf of Mexico

Posted by Ahni on July 14, 2010 at 9:01pm 2 comments  147 views

 

 

Oil industry sycophants, with their dollar store logic, are quick to tell us that oil spills are one of those 'unfortunate facts of life', like taxes in a market economy or Geraldo Rivera becoming a journalist.

They're tragedies that we're just supposed to live with, they tell us. After all, 'We're only human. We all mistakes'.

Maybe it's enough to explain a couple oil spills---like the one by that guy who 'accidentally' dropped his bucket into an open sewer---But, of course, we're talking about far more than one or two.

In the United States alone, roughly 20,000 oil spills were recorded between 2000-2008, totalling some 4 million gallons.

If we widen the scope a bit, we also find Texaco's oil adventures in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Over the course of 30 years, until 1990, the company permitted more than 19 billion gallons of toxic oil wastewater and 17 million gallons of crude oil to leach into the environment. It's by far the largest oil disaster in the world.

Indigenous Peoples in the region have been literally devastated by the oil. According to the campaign group ChevronToxico , they now suffer from an "exploding public health crisis" that includes skin rashes, breathing problems, spontaneous abortions, birth defects and several different types of cancer. All of this was unheard of before the company arrived in 1964.

Since then, notes the Amazon Defense coalition, "more than 1,400 people have died of cancer."

A number of studies have been published that confirm the health impacts; however, the company, which is now owned by Chevron, has routinely claimed that it's all in their heads. They simply say that “[the] operations have not had a negative impact on human health.”

We can find similar claims and statistics in the oil-rich region of the the Niger Delta, where Shell and other companies have operated with impunity for decades.

On top of the human rights abuses, Shell has an appalling environmental record in the Niger Delta. According to one 2006 report by the World Conservation Union, WWF UK, and representatives from the Nigerian federal government and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, reports the Guardian, they have contributed to as much as "1.5m tons of oil – 50 times the pollution unleashed in the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in Alaska – has been spilled in the delta over the past half century." About 40 percent of the oil that actually gets out of the delta, goes directly to the United States.

 

And that brings us to British Petroleum's (BP) systemic negligence; which perfectly mirrors that of Chevron in Ecuador and Shell in Nigeria.

The Latest estimates suggest as much as 182 million gallons of oil have been released in to the Gulf, but the grand total could be far, far greater.

It will be some time before we see the full impact in the Gulf; although, Amazon Watch and the Rainforest Action Network recently helped us get a small taste of what lies ahead. Two weeks ago, they helped organize a solidarity exchange between indigenous people from Ecuador and the United Houma Nation which lives along the marshland of southeastern Louisiana.

During their stay, the delegation from Ecuador toured the affected region along the coast and sat down with the Houma Nation to offer some advice and their support.

 

Whether we're talking about Exxon in Alaska, Shell in Nigeria, Chevron in Ecuador, or BP in the Gulf of Mexico, it's safe to say that oil spills are indeed one of those 'unfortunate facts of life'.

But we're not talking about your life or mine. Rather, it's the life of industry and the culture behind it that encourages companies to disregard real life and do absolutely anything so long as they can keep a smile on the shareholders' face.

Anything else is an infringement, an obstacle, a petty nuisance. A pool of waste.