On the Fifth Anniversary of Katrina, Displacement Continues

Poet Sunni Patterson is one of New Orleans' most beloved artists. She has performed in nearly every venue in the city, toured the US, and frequently appears on television and radio, from Democracy Now to Def Poetry Jam. When she performs her poems in local venues, half the crowd recites the words along with her. But, like many who grew up here, she was forced to move away from the city she loves. Read more »

From the IndyBlog

GRITtv: The Good Example

Video Courtesy GRITtv with Laura Flanders

National

• Ideas Are Our Weapons
  By Arun Gupta, in the Jul 28, 2010 issue
  Ideas don’t just die. They have to be challenged with other ideas, and the forces sustaining them must be defeated. Take neoliberalism, ushered in by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher 30 years ago. Neoliberalism promotes privatization, deregulation, trade and capital liberalization and the ideology of personal responsibility. These are just the means, however. The goal has always been to reverse New Deal-style redistribution by reconstituting upper-class power and wealth. (5 comments)
• Dispersing Disaster in the Gulf
  By Dahr Jamail, in the Jul 28, 2010 issue
  In mid-July we visited the town of Barataria, located about an hour’s drive south of New Orleans. The community of fishermen is swimming in oil. Within minutes of arriving, our eyes start to burn and we begin to feel dizzy from airborne chemicals from the oil and dispersant. (0 comments)
• Violence is the Health of the State
  By Elise Thorburn, in the Jul 28, 2010 issue
  If it is true, as Karl Marx once observed, that the powers that be summon all their strength and violence just before their final agony of death, then the city of Toronto — indeed, all of Canada – was dying a month ago. (0 comments)
• The Gulf Disaster: No End in Sight
  By Brian Marks, in the Jun 23, 2010 issue
  The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill has again focused the nation on southern Louisiana. For the second time in less than five years, we are on the front pages of U.S. newspapers. And again, this region is terribly misunderstood. (5 comments)
• The Gulf Disaster: By the Numbers
  By Brian Marks, in the Jun 23, 2010 issue
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• Cultural Extinction: Fear of No Recovery in the Gulf
  By Jordan Flaherty, in the Jun 23, 2010 issue
  As BP’s deepwater well continues to discharge oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the economic and public health effects are already being felt across coastal communities. But it is likely this is only the beginning. (0 comments)
• EXCLUSIVE: Illustrating the Crash: New book shows how we got into the Great Recession … and how we can get out of it.
  By Seth Tobocman, Eric Laursen and Jessica Wehrle, in the Jun 2, 2010 issue
  When the end of the housing bubble sent Wall Street into a nosedive, it created a disastrous economic downturn that the rest of us are still struggling to survive. Two years later, Congress is trying — and failing — to pass a financial reform to stop the lending practices that led to the bubble and put the banking behemoths that speculated on it on a tight leash. (0 comments)
• ANALYSIS: Finance Bill Misses the Mark: We need to restructure Wall Street, not just regulate it
  By Robert Reich, in the Jun 2, 2010 issue
  The most important thing to know about the 1,500-page financial reform bill passed by the U.S. Senate on May 20 — now on the way to being reconciled with the House bill — is that it is regulatory. It does nothing to change the structure of Wall Street. (1 comment)
• Arizona Heats Up National Immigration Debate
  By Randall Amster, in the May 12, 2010 issue
  If you’re reading this from outside Arizona, you may be wondering what the heck is going on here. The political process in the desert has gone completely haywire, resulting in the adoption of openly racist laws, dehumanizing police practices and legalized harassment of marginalized groups, all in the name of deterring undocumented immigration. (16 comments)

Local

• CUNY at a Crossroads: Gov’s Bid to Overhaul Tuition Ties Up Albany
  By John Tarleton and Sakura Kelley, in the Jul 28, 2010 issue
  Students at New York’s public universities could face steady tuition increases for years to come depending on the outcome of a high-stakes budget battle in Albany. (0 comments)
• Pro-Tenant Bills Languish in State Senate
  By Steven Wishnia, in the Jul 28, 2010 issue
  Thirteen housing activists were arrested July 12 in a sit-in protesting New York State Senate Democrats’ failure to pass pro-tenant legislation. (1 comment)
• Buried Alive: The Re-Sentencing of Lynne Stewart
  By Michael Steven Smith, in the Jul 28, 2010 issue
  I was in the courtroom with my wife Debby for Lynne Stewart’s re-sentencing on July 15 when Judge John Koetl buried her alive. (0 comments)
• ‘First Line of Defense’
  By Mary Annaise Heglar, in the Jul 28, 2010 issue
  More than 100 transit workers and straphangers attended the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s public hearing at Hostos Community College in the Bronx on July 14. (0 comments)
• Community Calendar
  By The Indypendent, in the Jul 28, 2010 issue
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• Reader Comments
  By Indypendent Staff, in the Jul 28, 2010 issue
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• Students Win Last Chance for Diploma
  By Jaisal Noor, in the Jun 23, 2010 issue
  Samuel J. Tilden High School, one of the last schools in Brooklyn to offer bilingual instruction in Haitian Creole and English, will close its doors this summer despite more than three years of struggle by a coalition of community advocates against the city’s Department of Education. (0 comments)
• Flotilla Attack Fuels Movement Targeting Israel
  By Alex Kane, in the Jun 23, 2010 issue
  As Israel continues to deal with the international condemnation of its May 31 raid on an aid flotilla trying to break the Gaza blockade, Palestine solidarity groups in New York City have mobilized thousands of people to participate in protests... (1 comment)
• INTERVIEW: Getting Real on Food with Jen Griffith
  By Elizabeth Gyori, in the Jun 23, 2010 issue
  As local greenmarkets are bursting with fresh food from farms in the tri-state area, The Indypendent’s Elizabeth Gyori caught up with Jen Griffith, the farm network coordinator for Just Food, an organization that helps connect New York City residents to our local farmers. (0 comments)

International

• Curse of the Black Gold
  By Michael Watts, in the Jul 28, 2010 issue
  One of the largest oil producers in the world, Nigeria exports 1.1 million barrels of petroleum a day to the United States. The continuing BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has refocused attention on the vast Niger Delta, home to thousands of oil and gas installations and an array of militant groups waging armed struggle against Western oil companies, a kleptocratic state and ruthless military forces. (0 comments)
• Haiti’s Future on Hold
  By Isabel MacDonald, in the Jul 28, 2010 issue
  After the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti, Western leaders announced bold plans for building a “New Haiti.” The reconstruction, they emphasized, would be “Haitian-led,” based firmly on the principle of respect for “Haitian sovereignty” and carried out through “full and continued participation” by Haitians, “consistent with the vision of the Haitian people and government.” (0 comments)
• Honduras on the March
  By Chris Thomas, in the Jun 23, 2010 issue
  TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras—On June 28 of last year, soldiers burst into the Honduran presidential palace in the middle of the night, put Manuel Zelaya, the country’s leftleaning, democratically elected president, on an airplane and exiled him to Costa Rica. (0 comments)
• ANALYSIS: The Victim that is Israel
  By Arun Gupta, in the Jun 23, 2010 issue
  Amid the continuing fallout over the deadly confrontation on the Gaza aid ship, the Mavi Marmara, there is a critical historical lesson: There is only one real victim, and that is Israel. (8 comments)
• ‘Soldiers Were Opening Fire’: An Account of the Flotilla Attack
  By Indypendent Staff, in the Jun 2, 2010 issue
  On May 30, Israeli commandos stormed an unarmed flotilla of a half-dozen ships bringing humanitarian supplies to the people of the Gaza Strip. At least nine activists are reported to have been killed and dozens more injured when Israeli troops opened fire on the passengers of one of the six ships. (1 comment)
• Showdown in the Himalayas
  By Jed Brandt, in the May 12, 2010 issue
  A nation of 28 million people, Nepal is in the middle of a tense standoff between a revolutionary movement and a weakened regime — and the moment of truth is fast approaching. Two power structures are at loggerheads in Nepal. One just finished filling the streets of the capital city with a massive civil uprising marked by both discipline and revelry. The other is backed by the rifles of the Nepalese Army and the heavy weight of feudal tradition. (7 comments)
• The Climate Justice Groundswell From Copenhagen to Cochabamba to Cancun
  By Karah Woodward, in the May 12, 2010 issue
  TIQUIPAYA, Bolivia — Bolivian President Evo Morales spoke for many developing nations last December when he rejected the United Nation’s Copenhagen Accord as “an agreement reached between the world’s biggest polluters that is based on the exclusion of the very countries, communities and peoples who will suffer most from the consequences of climate change.” (6 comments)
• The Dusty Road to a Socialist State
  By Alex van Schaick, in the May 12, 2010 issue
  TOTORCAHUA, Bolivia—Ten minutes down a dusty dirt road from the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change, Don Cristobal points to a plot of wilted corn on the same land his grandparents tended. (1 comment)
• Meltdown Greek Style
  By Costas Panayotakis, in the Apr 21, 2010 issue
  As a Greek teaching at the City University of New York, I can’t help but notice the parallels between brutal budget cuts in Greece and the impact of the economic crisis in the United States. Economic and political leaders around the world are bent on resolving the latest capitalist crisis by shifting the burden onto those least responsible for its eruption. One of the most recent examples is on display in Greece, where cutbacks amid an economic meltdown have met widespread resistance. (0 comments)

Culture

• Detroit Assembled
  By Irina Ivanova, in the Jul 28, 2010 issue
  Detroit is a place that demands experience, not observation. The powerful forces that converged there — the state, industry, and unions; of capital and labor — give it near-mythical status in the American imagination. (0 comments)
• Two Brainiac Oddballs and One Mean Bastard
  By Steven Wishnia, in the Jul 28, 2010 issue
  I first wished George Steinbrenner dead around 1998, during the American League playoffs. The Yankees owner would have been collateral damage. He was sharing his box seats with Rupert Murdoch and Rudolph Giuliani. (1 comment)
• A ‘Lost Cause’ Worth Reviving
  By Scott Borchert, in the Jul 28, 2010 issue
  In the decades following the U.S. Civil War there was a rash of monument building. Plaques were sunk into ground still littered with shards of weaponry and human beings. (0 comments)
• Take Back the Summer: The Indypendent’s Summer Culture Guide
  By Kate Perkins, in the Jun 23, 2010 issue
  The nonprofit urban environmentalist organization Shorewalkers has been instrumental in preserving and promoting New York and New Jersey’s public parks, shorelines and riverfronts. (1 comment)
• Take Back the Summer: Summer Lit Picks
  By Indypendent Staff, in the Jun 23, 2010 issue
  It’s hard to come by a political optimism that isn’t served up with winking campaign propaganda or tone-deaf idealism, but two recently published books that survey the dark developments of our time through the eyes of preeminent intellectuals read like affirming challenges to forge a better world. (0 comments)
• Take Back the Summer: Stage, Screen and Rooftop: Film and Comedy
  By Indypendent Staff, in the Jun 23, 2010 issue
  For city dwellers in summertime, movie theaters are the ultimate indoor oasis. Dark and cool, they save us from New York’s humidity, noise and crowds — and there are plenty of non-blockbuster movie venues to counter the worst effects of summer. These are highlights from their summer programming. (0 comments)
• INTERVIEW with ‘Green Gone Wrong’ Author Heather Rogers
  By Irina Ivanova, in the Jun 2, 2010 issue
  If you’ve ever taken comfort in buying “certified fair trade” instead of just organic, or optimistic about driving a fully electric vehicle within the next five years, you’ll have to think again. (0 comments)
• ‘Undercurrents’ Makes an Ecological Museum of New York City
  By Mike Newton, in the Jun 2, 2010 issue
  Poor George. Lonesome George, the subject of a video installation by Rachel Berwick: he’s a 90-year-old tortoise from the Galápagos Islands who, thanks to some overeager biologists, is now the last surviving member of his subspecies. That’s how it is to think about ecosystems in 2010 — you have to consider The End. (0 comments)
• ESSAY: A Look at Art and Public Pedagogy in New York City
  By Mimi Luse, in the Jun 2, 2010 issue
  In the late 1990s, an art movement called relational aesthetics undertook, according to theoretician Nicholas Bourriaud, to put art to work. The idea was that art-making would be a socially progressive act, repairing the social gaps identified by Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone: the fragmenting of community, the demise of collaboration and so on. (3 comments)