a very small think tank.
My plans to return to the land that invented the portable egg are moving along swimmingly, if I do say so myself, with over $1500 raised from the small (and small-ish) individual donations over close to 30 amazing people.
But! I still need to raise about $3500! And I can’t do it without help. So please consider donating here, forwarding my funding proposal here, or picking up some stuff from my Etsy store *just for this occasion* here.
As predicted, and hot on the heels of this embarrassing letter in the New York Times, my wrap up on Duch’s trial was posted a few days ago. Here’s a snippet:
Cambodia this week saw closing arguments in the trial against Kaing Guek Eav, alias Comrade Duch, the 67-year-old former commandant of the infamous Khmer Rouge torture prison known as S-21. Although not a top leader in the Khmer Rouge’s Democratic Kampuchea (DK), Duch’s role as head of the secret police force that operated out of the former schoolhouse also called Tuol Sleng is seen as central to the regime’s operation. More than 12,000 people were killed at S-21. Twelve, total, survived.
Read the rest here. See also the latest on Hun Sen’s comments about the trial—”I hope it fails”—here.
Today, final closing arguments were delivered in the first trial of the Khmer Rouge Tribunals. Kaing Guek Eav, alias Comrade Duch, the 67-year-old former head of the Tuol Sleng prison (also known as S-21) asked the courts to be released, after several public declarations of his acceptance of responsibility for the facility where over 12,000 people were killed.
Below are photographs from my first visit to Tuol Sleng in 2007. The pictures hanging above each bed were taken when the prison was first discovered; the metal boxes acted as the prisoners’ toilets.
Expect my Truthout wrap-up of the trial to be published shortly.
Here is a short story I wrote in 1980, when I was just beginning the detective phase of my literary career, generally indicated in my several youthful journals with lists called “clues” and “things to report to police,” and short stories featuring no bathing beauties, or blood or gore, yet still called “The Case of the Bathing Beauty,” and “The Bloody Gory Mystery”. I presume now upon reading this that it was intended to be a dialogue, but what I find charming even now is that the reader never finds out who the Phantom Diamond Stealer is; the mystery remains intact, even now.
Hello, my name is Miss Wickwak. I am rich and I just had my diamonds stolon and I am nervas. Hey I just remembered I could call Detective Moore. Detective Moore? Yes? Good! I just had my diamonds stolon at 3:00 and I am nervas. OK. I’ll be right over. Ding Dong. Hello I am Detective Moore. Miss Wickwak I presume? Yes I am Miss Wickwak. OK tell me everything you did. OK. Well first I went to the grocery store and then I went into a bookstore and then I came home. I checked to see if my diamonds were gone and they were! I heard a thumping noise upstairs and locked all the doors and then I called you. That means he is still here! Thump Thump. OK hands up your under arrest. Yay! I got my diamonds back!
I keep meaning to write the incisive how-Chicago-defeated-the-Olympic-Bid essay, because that’s what I was looking for when I was planning stuff, and now one’s really written that from an insider’s perspective yet. But this sad and lonely dumpster, still plugging away down in Washington Park, kinda says it all.
Dream big, dumpster. The rest of us have work to do.
The most amazing story I’ve ever heard was told over a group dinner one night, when Jason—who I didn’t know at the time—confessed he and his friend Steve had been kidnapped by the FARC in Colombia. You can hear the story on Glynn Washington’s new Snap Judgment podcast—give it a listen and leave a comment if you like it!
I’m working on a long-form essay now, but you’re going to want to hear Jason’s own version in audio format first.
When, a year ago, I first proclaimed the Yes Men capitalists who sought to hijack culture for their own sake—and not, as they claimed, for the sake of culture—it was because I had laid solid groundwork for the argument in my 2007 book Unmarketable.
Comparing their antics to those of the local hardcore label HeWhoCorrupts, I wrote:
The label’s blatant money-grubbing, unabashed phallocentrism, and scorn for audience, however, aren’t exactly parody. They are also true. HeWhoCorrupts, Inc. is a struggling label in a rough environment, competing directly with companies like Sony for survival. Forced to compete, they are also forced to engage in and emulate the corporate model. . . . Read the rest of this entry »
I realized I’d meant to post a bunch of these months ago and forgot. Better late than never, some installation shots of Da War Mal Was on Bernauer Strasse in Berlin, in commemoration of the fall of the Wall. (For David, who commented over at the Groundswell blog):
The last image is from a different display, just a few yards away, but at the site where the outdoor comics exhibition is.
I’ve been invited to guest blog for the next few weeks over at the awesome Groundswell blog. Swing on by and check out what they’re doin’ there!
Remember this guy? He’s still there. My piece on tracking the Wall as a consumable object was published on Truthout yesterday, and here’s an excerpt:
When the Wall fell on this date 20 years ago—following, depending on who you ask, the success of David Hasselhoff’s hit single “I’ve Been Looking for Freedom” in Germany or Reagan’s equally catchy “Mr. Gorbechev, tear down this wall!” speech—some of the very first legal border crossers weren’t imaged in the massive swarms pictured on the evening news.
No, former resident Sarah Lewison, an artist, remembers. “The loosening of restrictions between west and east was scheduled to favor the entry of commodities. First Coca Cola, then visits to auntie.”
Read the full piece here.
