The Embedding of America’s Poets

interventionmag: "The government, with a defense contractor, elicits work from poets to give voice to the war in Iraq, but which voices will be heard and which ones not heard?
By Kevin Bowen

In the midst of the Vietnam War, a small group of recently discharged American veterans sent out a call for poems and stories written by active duty personnel and veterans like themselves. The result was an avalanche of submissions, some supportive, many deeply critical of the war effort. Winning Hearts and Minds, an anthology of some of the submissions edited by Larry Rottmann, Jan Barry, and Basil T. Paquet was published in 1972, winning high praise from the nation's literary journals and spurring the Nixon White House to start investigations into who these writers were.

Winning Hearts and Minds was a grassroots effort, its gathering of poetry a powerful expression of the frustration, anger, and alienation soldiers and veterans felt at the conduct of the war in Vietnam. Now, as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq inch deeper and deeper into troubled territory, one wonders at the shape of this generation"

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At USDA, the Mouse Is in the House

(washingtonpost.com) : "Employees at the Department of Agriculture's main cafeteria were just sitting down to lunch on Friday when security guards ordered everyone in the huge eatery to leave. Al Qaeda? Bomb scare? No. Mouse droppings. The D.C. Department of Health closed the cafeteria for failing to pass inspection. Yes, the USDA, home to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the meat and poultry inspectors -- the agency that is part of the federal system for protecting the nation's food supply, was in violation of the D.C. Health Code. There were several citations, according to the inspection report, including: 'water leaking excessively' in the ceiling, employees not wearing hair restraints, and inadequate cleaning of the inside of ice machines, cabinets, surfaces and equipment. The biggest problem, however, seemed to be mouse droppings found everywhere -- in the dry storage room, by the salad bar, behind the ovens, near the serving line, ...

BW Online | March 1, 2004 | Software : "As Stephen and Deepa emerge this summer from graduate school -- one in Pittsburgh, the other in Bombay -- they'll find that their decisions of a half-decade ago placed their dreams on a collision course. The Internet links that were being pieced together at the turn of the century now provide broadband connections between multinational companies and brainy programmers the world over. For Deepa and tens of thousands of other Indian students, the globalization of technology offers the promise of power and riches in a blossoming local tech industry. But for Stephen and his classmates in the U.S., the sudden need to compete with workers across the world ushers in an era of uncertainty. Will good jobs be waiting for them when they graduate? 'I might have been better served getting an MBA,' Stephen says."

Artist turns animals into everyday objects

Ananova - A Chilean artist is making a name for herself with an exhibition in which stuffed animals are transformed into household objects. Artworks on display include a chick turned into a lamp, and 'sheep bag' - a lamb carcass fitted with handles. Artist Caterina Purdy says her exhibition at the Experimental Arts Centre in Santiago is intended to be humorous but also makes a serious point. She told Las Ultimas Noticias online: 'It is possible to see my work as something scary, but I find it beautiful. 'There is also irony and humour in my objects as well as a criticism of the way animals are treated by society.'"

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