Well, the Zine’s virtual “live” 100TPC Master of Ceremonies, Michael Dickel (Meta/ Phor(e) /Play), is doing the event from the Midwestern U.S. this year, not Israel, and I’m here in Northern California as back-up.
We have just a few hours to go before we begin The BeZine 100,000 Poets (and friends) for Change, 2017 (100TPC), our biggest event of The BeZine year. Do join us and bring your reading glasses and your work suggestive of peace, sustainability and social justice. Michael will get us started and I’ll be on hand to help put a wrap on things. We’ll run at least 24 hours to make it convenient for you to participate no matter where in the world you live.
You may have missed some of these posts that will clarify what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and how you can participate. Here are two posts that you’ll find helpful:
There are many fine poetry sites but Poetry Translation Centre (PTC) deserves special note. It’s a good place to stop and spend time among poets from Africa, Asia and Latin America. The world-wide poetry community is certainly diverse but we in the West tend to miss a big chunk of it.
At PTC there are poet biographies and photographs along with a sampling of poems in the poet’s first language, literal translations into English, and final translations.
PTC hosts a shop where you are able to purchase the poetry collections of your favorite featured poets. These are books you’re unlikely to see on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, or in your local independent bookshop. There are also some very excellent feature articles.
“The Poetry Translation Centre was established by the poet Sarah Maguire in 2004, to introduce new audiences to leading poets from around the world, as well as better understand and celebrate the diverse communities who have made their home in the UK. We focus on poetry from Africa, Asia and Latin America, working collaboratively with poets and translators to bring new work to English-speaking audiences in the UK. International poets we have worked with include Coral Bracho, Mohan Rana and Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi.” MORE
A visit to PTC is definitely recommended. You may find to your delight a whole new world opening up to you, a world of strange and beautiful poesy.
“What if you slept
And what if
In your sleep
You dreamed
And what if
In your dream
You went to heaven
And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
And what if
When you awoke
You had that flower in you hand
Ah, what then?”
We invite you to share your most passionate works expressing kindness and human connection and the ways that together we might heal the degradation and devastation of wars and genocides; the heartbreak of refugees living in limbo; the desolation of hunger and famine and environmental catastrophes; the insanity of extrajudicial murders; and the disappointing growth in the West of racial and religious tensions and efforts by various administrations to chill dissent.
Please take this opportunity to join hands and hearts in peace and love: TEAM WITH US for The BeZine100TPC online “live” event this September 30th (our 6th year) to address peace, sustainability, and social justice through poetry, music (videos), art and anything artistic that can be posted online and accessed through a url link or by responding in the comments section of the event post. The BeZine 100TPC is one of hundreds of events that will be held around the world on September 30 under the rubric of Global 100TPC founded by poets Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion.
WE ACKNOWLEDGE that there are enormous theological differences and historical resentments that carve wedges among and within the traditions and ethnic or national groups, but we believe that ultimately self-preservation, common sense, and human solidarity will empower connections and collaboration and overcome division and disorder.
100TPC is just one effort that illustrates the higher possibilities of the human heart.
Let us ply our art, meditations, and prayer toward that tipping point when compromise – an admittedly imperfect peace – will overcome war and respect for life will topple resentments and greed. That may not happen in our time, but it has to start somewhere and sometime. Together let this be our modest contribution toward an end for which diverse people the world over are working and praying.
HOW THE BeZINE “VIRTUAL” 100TPC WORKS … It’s easy and will be intuitively obvious, though we will provide instruction. A blog post will go up at The BeZine blog on September 30 with some introductory material and directions. As with any other blog post, you can respond by putting your poem or other work in the comments section. There will also be “Mister Linky” … a way to put in a link to relevant work on your site. It’s easy to use but if you don’t like it, you can just put your link in the comments section. That works!
American-Isreali Poet, Michael Dickel
American-Israeli poet,Michael Dickel (Meta/ Phore(e)/ Play), is an extraordinary – and at this point very experienced – Master of Ceremonies. He’ll maintain a rolling commentary in the comments section. I’ll be online to fill in for Michael when he takes a break and also to extend the length of the event.We’re in different time zones, though this year not half-a-day apart since he will be in the States. The idea is convenience and inclusively.
All types of artists and friends can participate no matter where they live in the world even if there is no event going on in their neighborhood and even if like me they are pretty much or completely home bound (which was the inspiration for the virtual event). You can participate in our virtual event even if you are at an off-line event. You can do both. We hope that you will not only share your artistry but also enjoy the artistry of others, which is what makes it like a live event. See you then … 🙂 We also hope that you’ll visit The BeZine to read our September edition, a prequel to the 100TPC event.
On behalf of The Bardo Group Beguines (publishers of The BeZine) and in the spirit of love (respect) and community, Jamie Dedes
Founding and Managing Editor The BeZine
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Scene at the Signing of the United States Constitution by (1940) American artist and illustrator, Howard Chandler Christy (1872-1952)
“The DreamHost warrant in particular is likely to chill the exercise of First Amendment rights—including the right to receive information, to speak anonymously, and to associate with like-minded individuals free from the threat of government unmasking.” American Civil Liberties Union
Constitution of the United States of America
“Reports that the Justice Department served a warrant on an internet company, demanding it turn over records that could be used to identify more than a million visitors to a Trump protest website, raise serious concerns about the current administration targeting critics and attempting to chill dissent,” reports PEN America along with various other legal and rights-watch organizations and news outlets. This is again an issue that goes far beyond which side of the great divide you stand. It’s about the protections of freedom of speech and other civil rights and points to the potential for human rights abuses.
The company, Dreamhost, maintains disruptJ20, which was used to organize protests for January’s presidential inauguration. The Justice Department, which handles local prosecutions in the District of Columbia, issued the warrant to Dreamhost in mid-August, according to Dreamhost, which required the company to produce “all files” in connection with disruptJ20. This would include logs for each visitor to the site.
The logs include detailed information: the time and date of the visit, the internet address of the user and the pages each visitor viewed. Combined with other easily obtainable information, police could then trace the specific computers of the more than 1.3 million visitors for which Dreamhost has logs. As of August, local D.C. police have arrested more than 200 protesters en masse, including a number of journalists, and have charged them with felony rioting. This could result in decades-long jail sentences.
“I am one of the more than a million people who visited this website, and who will be swept up by this obscenely broad search warrant—all because it’s my job to follow these things,” said Gabe Rottman, PEN America’s Washington director. “How many other journalists, academics, lawyers, peaceful protesters, and even Trump supporters visited this website? They will all be under a microscope if the court lets this dragnet stand.”
Dreamhost is currently challenging the warrant under both free speech and privacy grounds. Among other things, the company is arguing that the warrant would sweep in completely innocent, and constitutionally protected, communications without any indication that the communications are in any way relevant to wrongdoing. Those affected would include journalists, writers, academics and students just handling their assigned responsibilities.
Brett Max Kaufman, a staff attorney with the ACLU Center for Democracy, writes that this action is a “clear threat to the Constitution.”
“One of the core principles enshrined in the Fourth Amendment is a prohibition on general searches — meaning, the government cannot simply go fishing for a wide range of information in the hope that some kind of useful evidence will turn up. But that’s exactly what the government appears to be doing with a newly revealed search warrant seeking reams of digital records about an Inauguration Day protest website that could implicate more than 1 million users.” More HERE.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is working with Dreamhost to fight this:
“[This is] just one example of the staggering overbreadth of the search warrant, it would require DreamHost to turn over the IP logs of all visitors to the site. Millions of visitors—activists, reporters, or you (if you clicked on the link)—would have records of their visits turned over to the government. The warrant also sought production of all emails associated with the account and unpublished content, like draft blog posts and photos.” More HERE.
Both illustrations are in the public domain. This feature is primarily courtesy of the following organizations:
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.
DREAMHOST is a Los Angeles-based web hosting provider and domain name registrar. It is the web hosting and cloud computing business owned by New Dream Network, LLC, founded in 1996 by Dallas Bethune, Josh Jones, Michael Rodriguez and Sage Weil, undergraduate students at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, and registered in 1997 by Michael Rodriguez. DreamHost began hosting customers’ sites in 1997.
The ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. EFF provides funds for legal defense in court, presents amicus curiae briefs, defends individuals and new technologies from what it considers abusive legal threats, works to expose government malfeasance, provides guidance to the government and courts, organizes political action and mass mailings, supports some new technologies which it believes preserve personal freedoms and online civil liberties, maintains a database and web sites of related news and information, monitors and challenges potential legislation that it believes would infringe on personal liberties and fair use, and solicits a list of what it considers abusive patents with intentions to defeat those that it considers without merit.
ACLU CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY, under the direction of Cecillia Wang, works to strengthen American democratic institutions and values, promote human rights, ensure government accountability, and protect the rights of immigrants in our national community. The Center for Democracy includes the National Security Project, the Human Rights Program, the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, the Voting Rights Project, and the Immigrants’ Rights Project.
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Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 