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Communist Party USA Gives Its History to N.Y.U.
By PATRICIA COHEN, The New York Times, March 20, 2007
The songwriter, labor organizer and folk hero Joe Hill has been the subject of poems, songs, an opera, books and movies. His will, written in verse the night before a Utah firing squad executed him in 1915 and later put to music, became part of the labor movement’s soundtrack. Now the original copy of that penciled will is among the unexpected historical gems unearthed from a vast collection of papers and photographs never before seen publicly that the Communist Party USA has donated to New York University.
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Diamonds Move From Blood to Sweat and Tears
By LYDIA POLGREEN, The New York Times, March 25, 2007
KOIDU, Sierra Leone — The tiny stone settled into the calloused grooves of Tambaki Kamanda’s palm, its dull yellow glint almost indiscernible even in the noontime glare.
It was the first stone he had found in days, and he expected to get little more than a dollar for it. It hardly seemed worth it, he said — after days spent up to his haunches in mud, digging, washing, searching the gravel for diamonds.
But farming had brought no money for clothes or schoolbooks for his two wives and five children. He could find no work as a mason.
“I don’t have choice,” Mr. Kamanda said, standing calf-deep in brown muddy water here at the Bondobush mine, where he works every day. “This is my only hope, really.”
Diamond mining in Sierra Leone is no longer the bloody affair made infamous by the nation’s decade-long civil war, in which diamonds played a starring role.
The conflict — begun by rebels who claimed to be ridding the mines of foreign control — killed 50,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes, destroyed the country’s economy and shocked the world with its images of amputated limbs and drug-addled boy soldiers.
An international regulatory system created after the war has prevented diamonds from fueling conflicts and financing terrorist networks. Even so, diamond mining in Sierra Leone remains a grim business that brings the government far too little revenue to right the devastated country, yet feeds off the desperation of some of the world’s poorest people. “The process is more to sanitize the industry from the market side rather than the supply side,” said John Kanu, a policy adviser to the Integrated Diamond Management Program, a United States-backed effort to improve the government’s handling of diamond money. “To make it so people could go to buy a diamond ring and to say, ‘Yes, because of this system, there are no longer any blood diamonds. So my love, and my conscience, can sleep easily.’
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Jamestown aims for prominence on anniversary
By Steve Szkotak, Associated Press, USA TODAY
JAMESTOWN, Va. — The first permanent English settlement in North America has more personality than many historic attractions.
Capt. John Smith, the pint-sized adventurer, left a breathless narrative of his exploits.
Commerce took root here, and so did tobacco and slavery.
Then there was the cannibalism.
Still, as the nation prepares to commemorate Jamestown's 400th anniversary in May, many say this swampy outpost on the James River pales in comparison to the Pilgrims' arrival at Plymouth Rock, though fans of the buckled shoe will have to wait until 2020 to mark Plymouth's fourth century.
New Englanders easily tick off why the Massachusetts settlement trumps Jamestown — the Thanksgiving feast, the Pilgrims' pure pursuit of religious freedom, and the Mayflower.
Jamestown, on the other hand, "is the creation story from hell," writes historian Karen Ordahl Kupperman in a new book on the settlement, The Jamestown Project. Conflict, disease, horrific killings and starvation — including a man dining on his pregnant wife — are all part of the back story of Jamestown, founded in 1607 as a business venture.
( Read More )
By PATRICIA COHEN, The New York Times, March 20, 2007
The songwriter, labor organizer and folk hero Joe Hill has been the subject of poems, songs, an opera, books and movies. His will, written in verse the night before a Utah firing squad executed him in 1915 and later put to music, became part of the labor movement’s soundtrack. Now the original copy of that penciled will is among the unexpected historical gems unearthed from a vast collection of papers and photographs never before seen publicly that the Communist Party USA has donated to New York University.
( Read More )Diamonds Move From Blood to Sweat and Tears
By LYDIA POLGREEN, The New York Times, March 25, 2007
KOIDU, Sierra Leone — The tiny stone settled into the calloused grooves of Tambaki Kamanda’s palm, its dull yellow glint almost indiscernible even in the noontime glare.
It was the first stone he had found in days, and he expected to get little more than a dollar for it. It hardly seemed worth it, he said — after days spent up to his haunches in mud, digging, washing, searching the gravel for diamonds.
But farming had brought no money for clothes or schoolbooks for his two wives and five children. He could find no work as a mason.
“I don’t have choice,” Mr. Kamanda said, standing calf-deep in brown muddy water here at the Bondobush mine, where he works every day. “This is my only hope, really.”
Diamond mining in Sierra Leone is no longer the bloody affair made infamous by the nation’s decade-long civil war, in which diamonds played a starring role.
The conflict — begun by rebels who claimed to be ridding the mines of foreign control — killed 50,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes, destroyed the country’s economy and shocked the world with its images of amputated limbs and drug-addled boy soldiers.
An international regulatory system created after the war has prevented diamonds from fueling conflicts and financing terrorist networks. Even so, diamond mining in Sierra Leone remains a grim business that brings the government far too little revenue to right the devastated country, yet feeds off the desperation of some of the world’s poorest people. “The process is more to sanitize the industry from the market side rather than the supply side,” said John Kanu, a policy adviser to the Integrated Diamond Management Program, a United States-backed effort to improve the government’s handling of diamond money. “To make it so people could go to buy a diamond ring and to say, ‘Yes, because of this system, there are no longer any blood diamonds. So my love, and my conscience, can sleep easily.’
( Read More )Jamestown aims for prominence on anniversary
By Steve Szkotak, Associated Press, USA TODAY
JAMESTOWN, Va. — The first permanent English settlement in North America has more personality than many historic attractions.
Capt. John Smith, the pint-sized adventurer, left a breathless narrative of his exploits.
Commerce took root here, and so did tobacco and slavery.
Then there was the cannibalism.
Still, as the nation prepares to commemorate Jamestown's 400th anniversary in May, many say this swampy outpost on the James River pales in comparison to the Pilgrims' arrival at Plymouth Rock, though fans of the buckled shoe will have to wait until 2020 to mark Plymouth's fourth century.
New Englanders easily tick off why the Massachusetts settlement trumps Jamestown — the Thanksgiving feast, the Pilgrims' pure pursuit of religious freedom, and the Mayflower.
Jamestown, on the other hand, "is the creation story from hell," writes historian Karen Ordahl Kupperman in a new book on the settlement, The Jamestown Project. Conflict, disease, horrific killings and starvation — including a man dining on his pregnant wife — are all part of the back story of Jamestown, founded in 1607 as a business venture.
( Read More )
