One Nation Under Wal-Mart
Written on September 20th, 2005In his irreverent new book, journalist John Dicker reveals the super-high social costs of Wal-Mart’s super-low prices.
The Atticus Finch of Hobart Elementary
Written on September 6th, 2005A documentary about Rafe Esquith, fifth-grade teacher a large inner-city school, inspires his students to lead extraordinary lives, despite language barriers and poverty.
September 6, 2005 | Documentaries today may be giving us what we hunger for. The film March of the Penguins, which reveals the birds’ harsh and glorious Antarctic mating season, has become the second highest grossing documentary in history, behind only Fahrenheit 9/11. Another documentary, Mad Hot Ballroom, takes us inside a ballroom dancing competition for New York City’s fifth graders. A third film, The Hobart Shakespeareans (premiering on PBS Tuesday, Sept. 6), made by filmmaker Mel Stuart, follows Rafe Esquith’s fifth-grade class in inner-city Los Angeles as they learn to perform a full-text Hamlet by the end of their school year.
Whether it’s penguins or fifth graders, all these documentaries are about goodness, dedication and purpose, as well as respect and treating others well. There’s something joyful and painfully touching when we see the life force in action with purpose.
Rafe Esquith leads his fifth graders through an uncompromising curriculum of English, mathematics, geography and literature. His classroom mottos are “Be nice. Work hard,” and “There are no shortcuts.” Every student performs in a full-length Shakespeare play. Despite language barriers and poverty, many of these Hobart Shakespeareans move on to attend outstanding colleges.
Esquith, who grew up in Los Angeles and attended the city’s public schools, has taught fifth grade at Hobart Boulevard Elementary for over 20 years. “I don’t want my students to be ordinary,” he says. “I want them to be extraordinary because I know that they are. If a 10-year-old, who doesn’t speak English at home, can step in front of you and do a scene from Shakespeare, then there is nothing that he cannot accomplish.”
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Easter Island, C’est Moi
Written on July 11th, 2005
Excerpt: Interview with Van Jones
Written on April 20th, 2005An excerpt from the Start Making Sense section Understanding the Election.
JONES: This was a very different election than 2000, where you had Democrats versus Republicans while many of the progressives supported [Ralph] Nader, either in their hearts or actively. In 2004 you had the Kerry campaign doing what it was doing, you had the Democratic Party doing what it was doing, and then you had this magnificent outpouring of decentralized disaggregated efforts — America Coming Together, National Voice, Count Every Vote, the League of Independent Voters, the Hip Hop Political Convention. You had this huge flowering from the grass roots of opposition to the Bush regime that was not a part of the Kerry campaign, not coordinated by the Democratic Party. It was alongside, under, and over all of that.
Muslim Refusenik
Written on April 8th, 2005Irshad Manji, author of ‘The Trouble with Islam Today,’ discusses the closemindedness and literalism of present-day Islam and her path to free thinking.
April 8, 2005 | This interview originally aired on Free Forum with Terrence McNally on Los Angeles’ KPFK radio.
At a moment when America is at war in a Muslim country due in part to the electoral muscle of the Christian Right, I agree with those who speak of a clash of civilizations. But I don’t see Jews and Christians versus Muslims. I see fundamentalist, pre-scientific, pre-enlightenment Jews, Christians and Muslims versus Jews, Christians, Muslims and non-believers who, in their search for meaning, ask questions and question answers.
In her controversial best-seller, The Trouble with Islam Today, Irshad Manji, a spike-haired, lesbian Canadian who looks younger than her 36 years, challenges fellow Muslims to revive a lost tradition of free inquiry within Islam. The book has been published internationally, including in Pakistan, and Urdu and Arabic translations can be downloaded free of charge from her web site (www.muslim-refusenik.com.
Her earlier book, Risking Utopia: On the Edge of a New Democracy, called on young people to re-define democracy through new technologies and social networks. Manji produced and hosted “Queer Television” on Toronto’s Citytv, the first program on commercial airwaves to explore the lives of gay and lesbian people. She currently hosts “Big Ideas” in Toronto, featuring innovative thinkers from around the world.
Oprah Winfrey recently honored Irshad with the first annual Chutzpah Award for “audacity, nerve, boldness and conviction.” Ms. magazine has selected her as a “Feminist for the 21st Century.” Maclean’s, Canada’s national news magazine, named her one of ten “Canadians Who Make a Difference,” and in June, she received the Simon Wiesenthal Award of Valor.
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