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COLUMN EIGHTY-EIGHT, APRIL 1, 2003
(Copyright © 2003 The Blacklisted Journalist)

Artists and Workers Form One World - Without Borders!

As millions of people demonstrated throughout the world on February 15, hundreds of Connecticut unionists marched in New York behind the banner, "Stop the War Against Workers at Home and Abroad!" The decision of labor activists to contribute this internationalist point of view to the new antiwar movement will have a profound impact on its development.

Our movement also promises to inspire a new generation of artists. Today, ever greater numbers of artists are rejecting the way that creative activity is channeled into either the spectacle of consumerism or the horror of pro-war propaganda. Thousands have signed statements pledging to resist the war and are searching for a way to use their talents in the service of something truly visionary.  ##

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Murals Build A Worldwide Cultural Movement

(Fairfield County Weekly)

Connecticut art professor Mike Alewitz had no permission to go to Iraq in 1998 to paint a mural in solidarity with the Iraqi people at the University of Baghdad. He traveled with a humanitarian group bringing medical supplies and food in defiance of U.S.-led sanctions, a delegation that included former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

"We couldn't fly into Baghdad directly," says Alewitz, "so we flew into Jordan and drove into Baghdad."

The mural depicts two figures holding hands over Baghdad, with bombs dropping behind and a small American Uncle Sam figure looking up in shock. Words in Arabic read, "Artists and Workers Form One World without Borders." The figure on the left, Alewitz's signature ambiguous-gender/ambiguous-race purple-colored person, wears a black cat on a T-shirt, the age-old Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World) "Sabo-Tabby" symbol, who sabotages capitalists.  ##

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Public Readings of Lysistrata in 43 Countries and All 50 US States Condemn Preemptive War

NEW YORK, NY -- On March 3, 2003, the Lysistrata Project will resent worldwide readings of Aristophanes´ bawdy ancient Greek anti-war comedy Lysistrata. To date, 782 play readings are scheduled in 43 countries and in all 50 U.S. states to voice opposition to the war on Iraq; those numbers increase hourly. Readings will raise money for charities working for peace and humanitarian aid in the Middle East.

Lysistrata tells the story of women from opposing states who unite to end a war by refusing to sleep with their men until they agree to lay down their swords. Powerless in their society, with too many of their sons and husbands being slaughtered in battle, the women take the only tactic available to them: a sex strike.  ##

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Professors Debate War Talk In Class

(Hartford Courant)

NEW BRITAIN -- Faculty members at Central Connecticut State University are fighting an academic battle over the right of professors to express their opinions of war in the classroom.  A panel discussion among opposing sides Thursday failed to resolve the thorny issue. The panel was organized following an anti-war resolution from the art department that was posted on the Internet to other faculty.  ##

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When College Professors Speak Out About War

(Hartford Courant)

When they disagree with a view I've expressed on this page, some readers, apparently believing they haven't thrown in enough insults, tell me how horrible it is to know that I am influencing impressionable young college students. My response is usually that I should be so lucky. The image of learning taking place as information travels from a professor's mouth to a student's tender ears is clearly not informed by any of the abundant research on how people learn.

Nonetheless, the question of whether college professors should discuss the impending war in their classrooms has made for lively exchanges at Central Connecticut State University, where I teach. The debate, much of which has taken place on an automated e-mail list read by faculty members, mirrors discussions around the country as academics and intellectuals debate the official U.S. response to events following Sept. 11, 2001. Why do academics hate America? has been the pretty shaky assumption that has framed the complaints of groups that think campuses are crawling with left-leaning, blame-America-first professors.  ##

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Dignified Demeanor Assumed by a Proctologist

The Washington Post publishes a yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for various words. The following were some of this year's winning entries:

1.. Coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon.

2.. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.

3.. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4.. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5.. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.

6.. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightie.

7.. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.

8.. Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavored mouthwash.

9.. Flatulence (n.), the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

10.. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

11.. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

12.. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a

proctologist immediately before he examines you.

13.. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.

14.. Circumvent (n.), the opening in the front of boxer shorts.

15.. Frisbeetarianism (n.), the belief that, when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck there.

16.. Pokemon (n.), a Jamaican proctologist. ##

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US Prepares to Use Chemical Weapons

(Independent.co.uk)

The US is preparing to use the toxic riot-control agents CS gas and pepper spray in Iraq in contravention of the Chemical Weapons Convention, provoking the first split in the Anglo-US alliance.

"Calmative" gases, similar to the one that killed 120 hostages in the Moscow theatre siege last year, could also be employed.

The convention bans the use of these toxic agents in battle, not least because they risk causing an escalation to full chemical warfare. This applies even though they can be used in civil disturbances at home: both CS gas and pepper spray are available for use by UK police forces. The US Marine Corps confirmed last week that both had already been shipped to the Gulf.  ##

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Military convoys face Italian anti-war blockade

Anti-war protesters are vowing to block all movement of US arms by rail between American bases in Italy, dubbing the convoys "trains of death".

Demonstrators have squatted on railway tracks and organisers are planning a full-scale assault on similar convoys this week.

Italy's Defence Ministry has given the US clearance to use military bases and ports in line with NATO commitments.

Local polls show 70 per cent of Italians oppose war even if sanctioned by the United Nations.  ##

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Texas Justice

(Austin American-Statesman)

In December, Texas murder defendant Leonard Rojas' time for appeals ran out, and he was executed. Sixty-eight days later, three members of the state's highest court for criminal cases explicitly concluded that Rojas' appointed lawyer was woefully incompetent and that the court's majority had ignored that incompetence while Rojas was still alive. The lawyer, David K. Chapman: had never handled a death-penalty case, failed to investigate Rojas' case, rarely met with Rojas, admitted he missed filing deadlines (one of which barred Rojas from any federal appeal), and had had his license suspended three times by the Texas Bar (once during the time he was representing Rojas).  ##

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The Bush-Saddam Connection

According to Britain's The Sun, both George Bush and Saddam Hussein recently ordered the same $975 handmade shoes from the Milan, Italy, shoemaker Vito Artioli (Bush in size 10, Saddam 9 1/2).  ##

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The Bush-Nazi Connection

There are so many websites satirizing and exposing the Bush family these days, it's hard to pick a favorite, but this one has to rank right up there...

http://www.takebackthemedia.com/bushnonazi.html

mmsc2002@prodigy.net.mx

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Thinking With Two Heads

After a woman gave birth to her baby, her doctor stood solemnly at her bedside, "I have something I must tell you about your baby."

"What's wrong?" the alarmed mother asked.

"Your baby is a hermaphrodite."

"What's that?"

"It means your baby has both male and female parts."

"Oh my God that's wonderful!" the woman exclaimed.  "You mean it has a penis and a brain?"  ##

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Thinking With Two Heads Too

Dick Cheney walks into the Oval Office and sees The President whooping and hollering.

"What's the matter, Mr. President?" The Vice President inquired.

"Nothing at all, boss. I just done finished a jigsaw puzzle in record time!" the President beamed.

"How long did it take you?"

"Well, the box said '3 to 5 Years' but I did it in a month!"

tonybook@att.net  ##

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MIKE ALEWITZ  

Department of Art
Central Connecticut State University
1615 Stanley Street
New Britain, Connecticut 06050

860.832.2359  ##

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