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Welcome to Swans Commentary http://www.swans.com/ May 31, 2010 Note from the Editors: Another edition is upon us and rather than abating, the BP oil spill has moved Beyond Pollution as efforts to stop the hemorrhage by injecting trash simply added more waste to the toxic mess. One can only hold one's breath and hope that the marshes, fishes, and humans in the poisoned Gulf Coast path are as resilient as JD Salinger, whose influence continues despite his recent burial -- at least, as Peter Byrne reports, according to Nobel Prize winner J.M.G. Le Clézio. Just as Salinger's characters touched a generation, so too did Brando and Dean influence disenchanted youth. Charles Marowitz considers social behavior, method acting, and how we all -- actors and non-actors alike -- act out. Cultural icons are also the subject of our book reviews, with Louis Proyect on the life and death of herpetologist and snake wrangler Joe Slowinski -- a legitimate scientist with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and Paul Buhle on Ronald Cohen's biography of the late Archie Green, folklorist and a mentor to a generation of scholars of political music. And reporting from the field, Steve Shay recently interviewed Bill Gates Sr., and was asked the predictable interview question. Shay relates the journalist's quagmire between on-the-record spin and off-the-record reality. Turning our attention to sociopolitical matters, Maxwell Clark reviews Harold Bloom's critique of the "new" anti-Semitism and Michael Doliner considers measurements and scientific rigor to dispel the myth of self-delusional comfort in which we are merely outside looking in. On the African front, Michael Barker examines George Soros and South Africa's elite transition from apartheid to polyarchy, while Femi Akomolafe bids adieu to Nigeria's president Yar'Adua, the most recent in a succession of self-serving elite who squandered the nation's oil wealth while leaving its people to scavenge for sustenance. Meanwhile, Gilles d'Aymery is working hard on rebuilding the rotten deck at Swans headquarters with his old friend Frank Wycoff as the master builder-in-chief, so we take this opportunity to bring three of Aymery's early, prescient articles on economic and social conditions in the USA, demonstrating that the Great Recession was indeed predictable by those willing to take a serious look. Finally, we close with the poetry of Marie Rennard, the linguistic blending of Viviana Fiorentino and Guido Monte, and your letters, including Steve Shay's correction to Jonah Raskin's otherwise enjoyable travelogue; Peter Byrne's follow- on to Charles Marowitz's H.L. Mencken; Christian Cottard and Marie Rennard getting it right; and some thoughts on ethics and how to revolutionize American thinking. # # # # # All the articles and the Letters to the Editor can be freely accessed from Swans front page. Please go to: http://www.swans.com/ You can also access our past issues at: http://www.swans.com/library/past_issues/past_issues.html And you have access to 14 years of archives by date, author, and subject at: http://www.swans.com/library/archives.html Remember, what's free to you is not to us! To help our work financially please visit http://www.swans.com/about/donate.html # # # # # Swans (aka Swans Commentary), ISSN: 1554-4915, is a bi-weekly non- commercial ad-free Web-only magazine which provides original content to its readers. We encourage pulp publications to republish Swans Work in print format. Please contact the publisher at <aymery AT ix.netcom.com>. Please, do not repost Swans Work on the Web and other mailing lists: "Hypertext" links to any pages of Swans.com are authorized; however, republication of any part of this site, inlining, mirroring, and framing are expressly prohibited. (You are receiving this E-mail notification for you have expressed your interest in Swans and the work of its team. If you wish not to receive these short notifications, simply reply to this E-mail (delete the content) and enter the word REMOVE in the subject line.) Cordially, Gilles d'Aymery -- Swans "Hungry man, reach for the book: It is a weapon." B. Brecht ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
