Reading the last installment of Milo Clark's series, Please Be Patient, one is forced to face with sadness humankind's lurking mean streak. Historians like John Lukacs chronicle it, sociologists and anthropologists explain it and we all suffer from it in our lives. Is it a never-quenched thirst for power that leads to domination through control and coercion? Reports confirm that the US military wants to appropriate space. The US media is owned by a tiny but all-too-powerful corporate minority. The handfull of relevant actors move back and forth between government, business, military and media. Talk about control and coercion! Jeff Lindemyer, a young student who's doing an internship with US Senator Paul Wellstone presents a case-study of this mean streak in Iraqi Silent Genocide. But, you see, it does not belong to the "official" line. So, Jeff like many others will simply be ignored.
...Simply be ignored. Actually, a disparaging e-mail from a main media journalist provides us with the opportunity to review a few techniques used by the main media, in Hey, Let's Shoot The Messenger! That same journalist inspired Alma Hromic to write about emotion and intellect in This is an Emotional Argument. If you've not read The New York Times lately you should have a look at Will The Demonization of The Serbs Ever Abate? You'll see what they are up to!
Jan Baughman fears, in Give Stem Cell Research a Chance, that stem cell research will be thwarted by the Bush II monarchy (with the Pope's blessing, of course). Our take is that, federal funding or not, research will proceed whether in the US or elsewhere. And, Pope or no Pope, if there's money in it, the US will be a part of it. You'll decide for yourselves.
Please enjoy this rendition and remember to form your own opinion.
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Jan Baughman: Give Stem Cell Research a Chance
George Bush II finds himself between a rock and a hard place (i.e., between the Pope and many of his conservative supporters, vs. 202 House members and over 60% of the American people) as he struggles to find a stance on funding embryonic stem cell research. Unfortunately, last week's Congressional ban on human cloning may give him an idea on where he'll stand. More...
Jan Baughman is a Biotech scientist and Swans' co-editor.
Jeff Lindemyer: Iraqi Silent Genocide
Inside a three walled room (the fourth long since gone), a mother coddles her two-year-old son snugly in her arms. The small child, emaciated and contorted, is suffering from malnutrition and meningitis. Both could have easily been prevented, had the supplies been allowed into the country. The woman slowly raises her head and looks through the window where a pane used to prevent the elements from seeping in. Her older son, lucky enough to reach the tender age of seven, is outside, leaping over a stream of sewage that flows through their barren yard. It didn't always used to be this way... More...
Jeff Lindemyer is a student at UC Berkeley, California, who is currently in Minnesota where he works as an intern for US Senator Paul Wellstone.
Gilles d'Aymery: Hey, Let's Shoot The Messenger!
On July 25, 2001, we received an e-mail from Ljubica Gojgic, the reporter for the Yugoslav magazine NIN (1)we referred to in our July 23 article, The Fabrication and Dissemination of Deception. Ms. Gojgic takes exception on the suggestion we made that she possibly was the author of the compendium of articles we were analyzing in our piece and, as we said, that she had quote possibly (unconfirmed) also written for Danas unquote. The disparaging tone of, and the contradictions encompassed in her e-mail are instructive. We are reproducing it below and add a few comments. More...
Gilles d'Aymery is Swans' publisher and co-editor.
Alma A. Hromic: This is an Emotional Argument
"The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death. When literature becomes too intellectual -- when it begins to ignore the passions, the motions - it becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance," wrote Isaac Bashevis Singer in 1978 in The New York Times Magazine. More...
Alma Hromic is an acclaimed novelist and a poet who was born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. She is the co-author with R. A. Deckert of Letters from the Fire
Gilles d'Aymery: Will The Demonization of The Serbs Ever Abate?
The New York Times Magazine of July 22, 2001 published a series of 24 pictures of gutted, roofless houses with a short commentary by Roger Cohen, entitled Slobo Was There - The landscape Milosevic left (page 38 - 39). More...
Gilles d'Aymery is Swans' publisher and co-editor.
Milo Clark: Please Be Patient V
Ralph Peters writes polymorphously. His many forms range from page-tuner, techno-thriller novels, eight and counting, to very serious essays reflecting his extraordinary experiences in military and government. Peters groks the myriad interactions of system, strategy and tactics. More...
Milo Clark is a Swans' founding member, advisor and columnist.
Sandy Lulay: SOMETIMES
Midnight
Love comes sometimes
Sweeter than my dreams.
That's scarce...
And if love comes,
I will say yes, let go, be free.
And when love leaves...
More...
An "Original Woodstock Girl," Sandy Lulay is also a "Swans kind of girl" who's been writing poetry since age 10.