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29 July 2005 - This is like coming up from the deep end of the pool after a long dive. I'm not sure how you feel about it but I feel as though I've been gone a very long time. Ron, my housemate and host, says that I should think of my absence as my ''time in the wilderness.'' That can be taken both literally and figuratively, considering my circumstances.
Of all of the losses suffered when Victoria, the Apple memory machine upon which I have produced this journal during the last five years, departed (Pun intended), the most ironic loss is that of my own column, slated to have appeared when this edition of Your World's Magazine was updated on 13 June. Vickie left me only scant days before that scheduled publication date.
The cause of the delay in your World's Magazine returning in a new edition here on the Web was a combination of factors. My own denial (''She's always come back from near-death before. She'll make it back this time. It's probably only a $20 part.'' ''All of the software that I use to produce the magazine as close to how I envision it is already loaded on Vickie. I can't transition to another machine without losing more time than it's worth.) Ron balked and waited for me to come to my senses.
I was quite proud of the editorial I had written to appear in this space that week in June. I essayed a follow-up to my reporting on the cross-burning in nearby Durham, North Carolina, USA, a manifestation of the abiding racism that obtains here in the American South.
As I remember my words, I began by reporting that a number of prayer vigils and community meetings were being held in Durham to deplore the hateful cross-burnings, to make an attempt at ''healing'' and to get life in central North Carolina back to normal. Many white people in the area were telling newspaper reporters that they were surprised that blacks were not turning out to these community sessions. I was not surprised at all, I wrote. I jocularly commented that I would attempt in my editorial to explain why black people were not rushing out to take part in the healing and the nudging things back to normal.
Within a week of those cross-burnings, the trial brought by a group of black men, known as the ''DOT Seven,'' finally wound to its end in a federal court in Raleigh, North Carolina's state capital. The five black men were employees at the Department of Transportation (DOT) garage who had brought a lawsuit years ago because they alleged that the garage was a racially hostile work environment. This was the result of an incident that occurred a few years back. The black men testified that they came to work to find a noose hanging in the DOT garage. In their view, a clear reminder of the lynching that was endemic in the American South at the beginning of the last century, a way of saying that there were ways to keep black people in their place.
According to testimony in the trial, when the black employees complained they were told that the noose was a "tool." The noose remained hanging in the garage for weeks, despite the complaints to supervisors, before it was taken down. It was never used as a tool by any employee of the DOT, though all the white employees testified that they only believed it was a tool and not a statement of racial prejudice.
In the verdict that came down at the end of this trial, only days after the cross-burnings in Durham, only a few miles away and part of this ''Research Triangle'' of the state, the black employees won the day. The jury ruled that the noose did create a racially hostile work environment. But NO punitive damages were awarded. NO supervisor or employee of the department was found responsible for creating that hostile work environment. Black citizens are understandably outraged.
What's ''normal'' for most white citizens of this country is life in Hell for most blacks. Why would any black person want to contribute to take things back to ''normal'' in the American South?
I'm surprised that whites in Durham remain so inured to the hostile and demeaning situation that comprises the daily lives of their black neighbors that they would be surprised that blacks would resist and resent the idea of just going back to the ''normal'' practice of glossing over the racism that makes our lives so hurtful.
Opinions like these, expressed in my previous editorial, prompted a man in New Orleans to fire off an angry e-mail, which we'll share with you on the VOX POPULI page on Friday, along with my response.
I think I brought up other examples, from inside and outside of North Carolina, at the time of writing the editorial on Vickie, to drive home my thesis about our resistance toward what passes for normality in this country. But I, and you, shall never know.
A small, independent and outspoken magazine like this one can't reach you every week without the support and patronage of its readership. As our way of thanking those who have committed to keep your World's Magazine here on your desktop through their generous donations, we feature their names and cities here in our Roll of Honor.
SUSTAINING PATRONS
RON DIENER,
Wendell, NC, USADARHL STULTZ,
Largo, FL, USAMATT STOWELL,
New Orleans, LA, USATIMOTHY MEADOWS,
Anaheim, CA, USACHERYL HILL NATION,
West Fairlee, VT, USADRAGAN & DRAGANA VICANOVIC,
Belgrade, SERBIALESZEK MICHAELWICZ,
New Orleans, LA, USATERRY TERRIAN,
Sebastopol, CA, USA
Supporting PatronsBARBARA ATWELL,
Berkeley, CA, USA
BECKY ALTEMUS,
Houston, TX, USA
IAN CRYSTAL, Ph. D,
New Orleans, LA, USA
LARS KEFFERSTAN,
New York, NY, USA
MEREDITH TUPPER,
Tampa, FL, USA
NICK ALLEN,
New Orleans, LA, USA
RIC WILLIAMS,
Austin, TX, USA
ROBERT PURVIS,
Montclair, NJ, USA
STEVE VIVIAN,
New York, NY, USA
STUART ALTMAN, ESQ.,
New York, NY, USAWe encourage you to add your name to this Roll of Honor. GENERATOR 21 cannot continue and thrive without your support. Thanks in advance.
To support G21, please send checks or money orders to:
G21: The World's Magazine
Attn: Rod Amis
1116 Crestline Road
Wendell, NC 27591-9245
USATo donate by credit or debit card, please go to the Western Union website by following the highlighted link. Should you donate via Western Union, please notify us via e-mail.
Please make all remittances payable to Rod Amis. Again, thanks.
About this Issue
This is a brief edition because, in bringing the magazine back to ''life'' after our unscheduled hiatus, there are slated articles I'm working to re-collect as I type this to you, my loves, and have a responsibility to give the writers time to recover from the unscheduled disruption. In addition, because August is normally the month during which I begin our re-design for the close the year, I have lots of catching up to do. Thus, over the next week or two, you'll be witnessing a hurried effort at ''catch up'' and a simultaneous reorganization.As always, wish me luck.
The G21 READERSHIP POLL
As noted in our 2004 year-end Person of the Year poll, there are people making positive contributions to life on Earth. All-too-often, we focus far afield in those types of surveys rather than close to home. So this poll asks you to reverse that trend.THE POLL QUESTION: What five people in your personal life or community have had the greatest impact for good for you and/or your family and neighbors?
DEADLINE: 15 AUGUST, 2005. The responses and results will appear at the end of the month. Thanks in advance!
RUMINATIONS
After moving the ''palatial World Headquarters'' of GENERATOR 21 to North Carolina in early May and while plotting with the writers the course I believed we would take toward a summer transition, I thought a lot about the direction the magazine had taken this year. I thought especially about my former editor, Robin ''roblimo'' Miller (now of Slashdot fame) referring to me in a letter to the Gambit Weekly of New Orleans as a ''bookish'' person. I suppose I've always been a bookish writer - books were my refuge during my miserable childhood, my escape from the misery, and remain my refuge today. During these May and early June ruminations, I had to accept that I have also become a bookish editor.I had to admit to myself that all of the decisions I was making about the priorities of your World's Magazine for 2005 were based on the books I am reading, rather than newspapers, television or magazines. As my housemate and host, Ron, can attest, during June and July, I ingested an anthology of contemporaneous Arab writers about the Crusades; five books by principals of the Clinton Administration, including Hilary; Russell Means' autobiography and Howard Zinn's; I'm currently on a book by Chomsky, who I normally resist because it flags people as to what a dissident I actually am. I've always had the problem of devouring books. I don't apologize for this bibliophilia. I take it as a good thing.
You'll recall that I was referring to a book review I was asked to do of Knightfall wh en last we were together. I've decided that is not a book I should review. Since reviewing the Wallis book for Harper/Collins, I'm of the mind that book reviews are not a thing for the Web. Your responses to my own estimable reviews speak volumes.
During this same period, I reflected (ruminated) on Wolf DeVoon's comment that your World's Magazine is part of the ''dialogue of democracy.''
Frankly, I was to wonder, publishing as I do from the empire, if democracy is even the right term for the forms of government that are practiced in the contemporary world. I have assiduously avoided the other ''F'' word. But I see its aspects and characteristics marching forward in every ''Western democracy'' since the spread of the so-called ''war on terror'' giving justification to totalitarian regimes and dictators to wreak more havoc and state-sponsored terror upon their own people.
We asked for Augustus and have been given Caligula instead.
I have become seriously concerned about the prospects for the human species. Perhaps we have outlived our usefulness and the Earth is simply waiting for us to exterminate ourselves so that it can repair itself ä
NEWS TO ROD
ITEM ONE: With the exception of Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Institute, we find few willing to talk about the fact that the United States is a penurious nation dependent on the goodwill of our Japanese (#1) and Chinese (#2) creditors.I challenge the Wal-Mart shoppers among my readers to find a handful of products in that global retail giant's offerings not made in China. As one wag has observed, "China and Wal-Mart have been called the 'perfect commercial marriage.' The truth is that they are more like Siamese twins."
ITEM TWO: Yours Unruly has railed against the government of the United States for its neglect of the poisonous MBTE problem for years now, as Loyal Readers know. (See this link, my first mention, and this one.) Thus, you can imagine my outrage in late June to learn that the Republicans in the Congress mean to outlaw lawsuits from we, the people, against those oil companies who have created the problem. They are poisoning the very water we drink and we are given no means of redress.
In a world with any semblance of justice we would be able to take to the streets and pillory the corporate malefactors who are taking us to death.
I worry for the survival of the species ä
ITEM THREE: During the hiatus, thanks to being able to use Ron's machine to check e-mail from time to time, I was able to field this request from a broadcaster in Germany:
Date: Sun, 03 Jul 2005I was flattered that someone in Germany had noticed our little effort to foster discussion of African issues. (Matt commented, "You've always been popular in Europe than you are here, Dude.")Dear Editors,
I am a journalist working for a program called Zuenfunk German Public Radio and I am writing you with a request for cooperation. For our program next week we are planning a radio feature about the G8 summit in Scotland dealing with the problems of Africa.
In the western world Africa as a whole=A0is often regarded as the continent of crises, wars, sickness, hunger and catastrophies. In the welcome message for the G8 summit Tony Blair is writing:
Africa is a wonderful, diverse continent with an extraordinary, energetic and resilient people. But it is also plagued with problems so serious that no continent could tackle them on its own.It is our ambition now to learn what writers, artists, musicians, etc. ä think about the engagement of Tony Blair concerning debt cancellation and climate change and about Africa's image as a crisis-plagued continent in the Western world.I wanted to ask you now whether you want to write "a letter to Tony Blair", which we would read in our program ä
It would be great if you like the idea and want to take part in our little effort. ä
I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Best regards
see also: bronline.de/jugend/zuendfunk/This is what I sent them:
During the last twenty years, Africa has distinguished herself by becoming the region of the globe most ravaged by poverty and death -- because of both the ravages of war and being the heart of darkness of the AIDS pandemic -- and the recipient of malignant neglect from that continent's former colonizers. These first facts provide ample proof for the thinking citizens of the world that the prescriptions to aid Africa's nations used by the International Monetary Fund (IMF,) World Bank and governmental bureaucrats of the developed nations comprising the Group of Eight (G8) have been misguided and miserable failures.Endemic and widespread corruption, the chief characteristics of the governmental authorities and power elites of African nations, are equally to blame for the misery the people on the streets and byways of Africa who most need relief, food, medicines, educational facilities and clean water. Foreign aid and loans to their corrupt governmental apparatchiks never filter down to these people and probably never will.
Rather than follow the hopeful recommendations of the Jubilee 2000 limousine liberals or even the United Kingdom's recommendations for Africa relief being put forward at this week's G8 summit, The World's Magazine believes a more radical path should be taken. Our editorial stance is to recommend bypassing the untrustworthy and predatory governmental structures altogether. We propose that -- if the Western developed nations wish to relieve Africa -- rather than forgiving debt, give the equivalent billions in aid dollars directly to those nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that do serve the needs of Africa's sick, impoverished and hungry.
Thank you for coming back to your World's Magazine. It's appreciated. I'll talk to you again in a few days.
THINGS I PRAY FOR THIS WEEK
1 - A means of paying for Elizabeth, my new (used) Memory Machine companion.
2 - A job that I can enjoy and that enjoys me. Soon. As soon as possible.
3 - A girlfriend who enjoys your Butterfly Soul.
"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching ... "
Love,
Rod
Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He was a contributing writer for ACCESS Internet magazine, which appeared both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. Rod was the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, U K, reaching 3.5 million European readers, until May, 2001.
In 2002, he worked as Assistant to the General Manager of a Big Easy company that does restaurants and nightclubs. He did stints as the Resident Philosopher at three separate gin mills in that city in the French Quarter and the Marigny, earning his stripes during two successive Mardi Gras seasons. Oh yeah, Rod's had Day Jobs working construction. Mostly renovations of old New Orleans structures, houses and a bar. Sometimes he designs Web sites for other people so that he can get his creative juices flowing the way he can't at a staid publication like this one. And he's been the instructor in Editing for Internet Publications at the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Yugoslavia.
Our Resident Philosopher has exchanged his legend mobility for a means of keeping your World's Magazine. Now he must become earnest about gaining financial underpinning for this enterprise. (Read: Buy back his freedom.}.
In his spare time, he chases women in the manner that a fly pursues a spider. 
He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.
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