On Monday, Democracy Now! devotes the hour to:
On the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac's "On theRoad," we spend the hour with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet, bookseller, bookpublisher, artist and activist, leading literary figure of the BeatGeneration.
From Jack Kerouac's On The Road:
Just about that time a strange thing began to haunt me. It was this: I had forgotten something. There was a decision that I was about to make before Dean showed up, and now it was driven clear out of my mind but still hung on the tip of my mind's tongue. I kept snapping my fingers, trying to remember it. I even mentioned it. And I couldn't even tell if it was a real decision or just a thought I had forgotten. It haunted and flabbergasted me, made me sad. It had to do somewhat with the Shrouded Traveler. Carlo Marx and I once sat down together, knee to knee, in two chairs, facing, and I told him a dream I had about a strange Arabian figure that was pursuing me across the desert; that I tried to avoid; that finally overtook me just before I reached the Protective City. "Who is this?" said Carlo. We pondered it. I proposed it was myself, wearing a shroud. That wasn't it. Something, someone, some spirit was pursuing all of us across the desert of life and was bound to catch us before we reached heaven. Naturally, now that I look back on it, this is only death: death will overtake us before heaven.
Titters 101 is a humor book by Anne Beatts, Judith Jacklin and Deanne Stillman. In it, they offer various takes on literature movements. Their fictional author Camille Cassidy Cassady (1933-1968 "Shortly afterwards, Camille Cassady was going downstairs to answer a phone call in the drugstore below her apartment when she slipped on loose carpeting and broke her neck. Her last words are said to have been, 'I'm dying. Don't accept the charges.' Unfortunately, it was too late: the druggist already had. Thus, by an ironic twist of fate, the literary world was the poorer, and the phone company the richer, for Camille Cassady's death.") contributes On the Rag:
I told her about the phone call, and asked her what she thought about Neal and Jack and their crazy madness. She told me that she'd thought there was something funny about them ever since the night the three of them took off their clothes and drove around naked until they ran out of gas.
"Jack couldn't keep his eyes off Neal's enormous dangle," Marylou said. "And I had the feeling he wanted to do more than just look."
"Do you think they ever did?" I asked.
"Oh, don't worry about it," Maggie said from the sink. "They're just maniacs. Nothing they say or do means anything."
Maggie had a beat way of putting things into perspective.
"I hope I'm not pregnant," Maggie went on. "But if I am, I hope it's a girl so she won't go on the road and run around knocking girls up."
I dug what she was saying, but I thought that if I was pregnant this time, I'd rather have a boy because they didn't have the sad, pleasure-destroying worry about getting knocked up.
PBS' NOW with David Brancaccio will extend to a one hour broadcast on the show that airs September 14th where it "follows up -- in Iraq -- on the soldiers we profiled deploying from Fort Stewart in our January 19 show 'Back to the Front'."
And from the Suffolk chapter of the Green Party:
PRESS RELEASE. For immediate release.
Press Contact:
Roger Snyder, Chair, Green Party of Suffolk
(631) 351-5763 rogersnyder@pobox.com
Kimberly Wilder, Press Secretary, Green Party of Suffolk
(631) 422-4702 votewilder@yahoo.com
Ahmad Ali Mitchel-El nominated by the Green Party for Suffolk County ExecutiveOn August 21, 2007, the Green Party filed signatures at the Suffolk Board of Elections to place its candidate, Ahmad Ali Mitchel-El on the ballot for County Executive. Election day is Tuesday, November 6th.Mitchel-El is a lifelong resident of Suffolk County, a professional musician, and a producer on progressive radio station WBAI 99.5 FM. Mitchel-El is also a peace and justice activist, who has performed at the PeaceSmiths Coffeehouse in Amityville. Mitchel-El's campaign has already received coverage in the media, including: "Noticias" newspaper; "In The Moment" on WBAI radio; and "'Tis Treason" on WUSB radio.
Mitchel-El says of his nomination:
"It is with great pride that I, an American descendant of a people marked 3/5ths a man by the preamble of the Constitution of this Republic, can have the opportunity to serve the public, and pursue this one of many American Dreams. Being a child of the Sixties, the Utopian Society of Martin Luther King, John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy had a real impact on me. I believed America would reach that Mountain top. We would build a better world. The political parties keep selling us the dream, and delivering nightmares: The economics of the Eighties, trade agreements of the Nineties, and the Bridge to the New Millennium, which is soaked with blood and debt. Meanwhile, here in Suffolk, the political party that is supposed to perpetuate the Kennedy vision of America is practicing the "Good Old Boy" style of politics. Inclusion and diversity are absent from Suffolk County’s vision. The older minority groups are being forced out economically, and the new ones aren’t welcome unless they are cheap, invisible labor. Their methods of survival offend us but we don’t want to pay them a fair wage and give them the humane conditions that labor unions have fought for. Suddenly, our concern for Justice and Fairness only applies to 'certain people'.
The opportunity to stand for Right in opposition to Might is what I have accepted. So, as David with a sling, I stand with Truth, Justice and the Zeal to build that Utopian Society for all Human Beings not just the privileged."
Ian Wilder, Secretary of the Green Party of Suffolk stated, "The Green Party is excited to have Ahmad Ali Mitchel-El carry our banner, because his thinking represents the values of our party."
The Green Party is an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans. Green Party candidates do not accept contributions from corporations. The four pillars of the Green Party are: Social and Economic Justice; Grassroots Democracy; Ecological Wisdom, and Non-violence.
More information on the Green Party and Ahmad Ali Mitchel-El may be found at www.gpsuffolk.org.
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Background:Photo posted on-line at:
Headshot posted at www.gpsuffolk.org
Group shot with Babylon Greens at photo
