Indivisible Indivisible
The unit of measure united in the particulars inevitably leads to divisions; part of medium is to be indivisible, so divines the medium. He says, "I am neutral. I am neutrino & pass through objects to stay objective. I limit myself to experiments involving infinity—that is, unlimited license to be licentious: does it matter to murder matter? And is it murder to dissect what matters—how will I discover what is murder or what is matter? As a matter of fact, the uptilt creates a steep plane interrupting the plain, a stratum revealed as part of many strata united and thus dividable. As a stratospheric shower, particles aggregate into one granite unit. Is wave action just another wave to that which is indivisible?"
Jul 14, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Marcella Durand
Shelf Life Shelf Life
The Letters of Sylvia Beach; Günter Eich's Angina Days: Selected Poems
Jul 14, 2010 / Books & the Arts / John Palattella
Restless Confederates Restless Confederates
Two new books argue that the South's slaveholding republic faced a crisis of legitimacy from the outset.
Jul 14, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Eric Foner
A Forest of Fathers A Forest of Fathers
Did liberal principles or sectarian impulses mobilize Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution" to protest against the Syrian regime?
Jul 14, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Elias Muhanna
Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor
Bird Over Jerusalem Salisbury, Md. I thoroughly agree with Kai Bird's "Next Week in Jerusalem?" [June 28]. I stand in both camps, with a son-in-law who is Jewish; a father who was probably Jewish, although he denied it; and a longstanding friend who is a Palestinian Arab with relatives in Palestine. I would go beyond what Bird says and ask the Israelis to release Marwan Barghouti from prison. It strikes me that he could engineer peace talks. I compare him to Nelson Mandela, imprisoned by South African whites and accused of being a communist and a terrorist. Before the second intifada, I heard a Palestinian leader say, "We didn't engage in terrorism for six years, and it got us nowhere." I was encouraged to hear recently that the Saudis have announced a fatwa against terrorists. BETTY L. WHITMORE Drummed in Your Dear Little Ear... Waverly, Va. In "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" [June 28] Melissa Harris-Lacewell presents us with her hope that people like Arizona and Texas policy-makers "may find that the world has already moved beyond their fearful grasp." I hope she is right. But this optimistic view misses a larger point that calls for pessimism. The civil rights movement of the '60s was primarily a political struggle for justice. Somewhere along the way it turned into a cultural struggle for tolerance. The political struggle disappeared, absorbed by the system and converted into something less threatening. There is no denying the enormous progress of the cultural struggle. But there is also no denying the regress in the fight for justice. The Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama era has been one of ever increasing inequity by way of deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to vital social services, corporate bailouts and increased militarization. We should be grateful for the progress in the "decades-long culture war." But we also need to acknowledge the toll this shift of focus has taken on the political struggle. Cultural progress without political progress is superficial, and it distracts us from the more fundamental problem of injustice. We've been carefully taught indeed. STEPHEN WARREN Divesting From Israel Brooklyn, N.Y. Many thanks to Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss for their thorough June 28 article "The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Movement." BDS is rapidly becoming one of the defining civil society movements of our time, and the increasing discussion of its tactics and goals, still largely suppressed in most US media, is critically important. Just since the article was published, Jewish Voice for Peace (jvp.org) has announced a campaign to get pension giant TIAA-CREF to divest from the occupation. This takes divestment nationwide. The campaign debuted with a petition from more than 250 people, including Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, Michael Ratner, Nadia Hijab, Richard Falk and a dozen rabbis. We secured more than 4,000 signatures in the first thirty-six hours. Clearly, people deeply concerned about Israel's actions are looking for a way to do something, and the BDS movement provides it. REBECCA VILKOMERSON Executive director, Jewish Voice for Peace Washington, D.C. Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss tell a very selective tale about those who support and those who oppose the so-called BDS movement. They speak of a "nod toward the movement" by the Palestinian Authority in terms of the campaign to boycott goods made in settlements. That nod, however, was very much qualified. The article ignored the PA leadership's unequivocal stance that this boycott must not apply to goods made in Israel proper. "We are not boycotting Israel," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the boycott's organizers in Ramallah in May. "We have relations, and we import" products from the Jewish state, he added. The authors mischaracterize Americans for Peace Now's views on boycotting Israel. APN won't endorse a systematic boycott of everything that is Israel. But we have said that it is not illegitimate for the Palestinians to launch a campaign focused on settlements. That is consistent with our position that boycott and divestment efforts shift their focus from Israel to the occupation and the settlements. APN has never called BDS anti-Semitic. We have lamented that anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments may be cloaked in criticism of Israel. At the same time, we have repudiated the tactic of Israel's knee-jerk defenders of jumping to discredit critics of Israeli government policies before taking an honest look at them. DEBRA DeLEE, president and CEO Americans for Peace Now Amherst, Mass. I write to clarify two details in Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss's article, as far as they concern the official role of Hampshire College. In February 2009 Hampshire's trustees most definitely did not vote "to divest from six military companies involved in the occupation." Moreover, the college had had for many years a socially responsible investment policy. The board's investment committee merely reported to the full board on its decision to deploy a different third-party screen more in line with our values, a screen that at the time tagged some of the six companies but not all, and voted to suspend the policy until it could be updated. In November Hampshire's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine did host a BDS conference, but with the clear and stated understanding that SJP, not the college, was hosting the event. RALPH HEXTER President, Hampshire College Emily's 'Epilepsy'—More 'Potted Theory' London James Longenbach in "Ardor and the Abyss" [July 5] properly questions the need for a tidy diagnosis of epilepsy to explain Emily Dickinson's reclusion. In fact, Dickinson's latest biographer, Lyndall Gordon (Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family Feuds), made the diagnosis based on a complete misunderstanding of nineteenth-century pharmacotherapy (a field I am well versed in). From an 1874 formula for epilepsy containing chloral hydrate, glycerine and peppermint, Gordon assumed glycerine—which Dickinson took in 1851-54—was the active ingredient. In fact, it was the bitter medicine chloral hydrate, first noted as an anticonvulsant in 1870. To anyone's knowledge Dickinson never took chloral hydrate. Glycerine was a sweet carbohydrate used to disguise the taste of bitter drugs, and as a supposed nutrient for consumption (tuberculosis), which Dickinson's physician may have suspected. In no medical text or pharmacopeia of the time was glycerine ever suggested as an anticonvulsant. Dickinson even recommended the drug to her brother for his cough. There have been too many potted theories to "explain" Dickinson's magnificent poetry and mysterious persona, which trivialize the poet; this is but the latest. NORBERT HIRSCHHORN, MD
Jul 14, 2010 / Our Readers
Sarah Palin, Paper Grizzly Sarah Palin, Paper Grizzly
Even after all the "lamestream media" coverage, new data shows Sarah Palin's "Mama Grizzlies" video was largely ignored by her supporters and watched mostly by ...
Jul 14, 2010 / Ari Melber
Charges in Police Killings Just a Start Charges in Police Killings Just a Start
If a federal investigation's good enough for New Orleans, how about Oakland too?
Jul 14, 2010 / Laura Flanders
Puzzle No. 1595 Puzzle No. 1595
This puzzle originally appeared in the August 16, 1975, issue.
Jul 14, 2010 / Frank W. Lewis
Back Talk: Karen Cooper Back Talk: Karen Cooper
The director of Film Forum reflects on forty years of programming new releases, The Solitude of Prime Numbers and the rewards of being an autodidact.
Jul 14, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Christine Smallwood
Key Prosecution Witness Missing in Alex Sanchez Case Key Prosecution Witness Missing in Alex Sanchez Case
Federal prosecutors will soon be forced to admit that their star witness in the gang conspiracy case against Alex Sanchez is a fugitive still on a crime spree somewhere in Central ...
Jul 14, 2010 / Tom Hayden