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"The West’s overlooked rainforests can address climate change" — CANOPY OF TITANS by Paul Koberstein and Jessica Applegate featured in High Country News

“Drawing on research and interviews with more than a hundred scientists and other experts, Koberstein and Applegate, who run the environmental outlet Cascadia Times, make a persuasive case that the region deserves an elevated profile and that logging and pollution are threatening the rainforest’s ability to stabilize rising greenhouse gases. And the solution to prevent further degradation, they maintain, is not to plant more trees — or “carbon-capturing machines” — but rather to protect the oldest among them and prevent unsustainable logging. To bolster their argument, the authors journey throughout the Pacific coastal region, building a detailed portrait of the forest and its constituent parts, its environmental value, and the various threats it faces. There are vivid accounts of California’s redwoods, Oregon’s wetlands, Washington’s colossal Douglas firs, British Columbia’s salmon runs, and Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest, which abuts Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. We learn, for example, that the Pacific rainforest houses three of the world’s seven species of trees that grow over 300 feet tall and that the roots of one of these, the coast redwood, may only reach 10 feet deep while its first branches can be 250 feet above them.”

"Chile’s Coup Shows that Fascism Is Still a Threat" — POETRY FOR THE MANY author Jeremy Corbyn interviewed in Tribune

“If you’re going to transform society, you’re not going to do it by bureaucratic manoeuvres; you’re going to do it by popular action and popular culture, which is why, through the Peace and Justice Project, we’re doing everything we can: ‘Music for the Many’, the union membership campaigns, and above all on culture: we’re doing a book on Poetry for the Many. It’s about mobilising popular culture for justice and equality and not allowing arrogant elitism to take over and run our movement.”

”The Rainforest in Our Backyard" — CANOPY OF TITANS by Paul Koberstein and Jessica Applegate reviewed in Undark

“When most people think of rainforests, they conjure up images of the Amazon, the Congo, and Southeast Asia — vast verdant expanses of densely packed forests, dripping with moisture and rich with tropical life. But in fact, there’s a huge rainforest in North America, unheralded and underappreciated: the sprawling forested region that stretches some 2,500 miles along the Pacific Coast, from just north of San Francisco to Kodiak Island, Alaska. Part of the problem, according to Oregon journalists Paul Koberstein and Jessica Applegate, is that the area has no popular name. As a result, we’re missing the forest for the trees, and U.S. and Canadian policymakers and scientists are neglecting a valuable opportunity to marshal resources in their backyard to hit wider climate change targets and improve conservation.”

"QAnon 2.0: "Sound of Freedom" and the rise of MAGA vigilantism” — OPERATION MINDFUCK author Robert Guffey featured in Salon

“I once met a former Scientologist at a backyard barbecue who explained to me how L. Ron Hubbard, the mediocre science fiction author who founded the Church of Scientology in the 1950s, got his retro-pulp novel "Battlefield Earth" on the bestseller lists in 1982. According to this fellow, the church compelled all its members to rush out and buy multiple copies for friends, family members and even non-Scientologists (sometimes derogatorily known as "wogs"). How many copies of that 1,050-page doorstop actually got read? There's no way to know, but "Battlefield Earth" spent eight weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.  Something similar happened earlier this summer with Alejandro Gómez Monteverde's film "Sound of Freedom," which occupied the No. 1 spot at the box office until it was mercifully overtaken by Greta Gerwig's "Barbie." Whatever the original intentions of the filmmakers may have been, "Sound of Freedom" arrived in theaters as a thinly disguised QAnon recruitment film whose star, Jim Caviezel, is an evangelical Christian who has said he believes in the central myth of that conspiracy theory: that innocent children are being kidnapped by Satanists, dragged into underground dungeons and tortured to manufacture a chemical called "Adrenochrome," whose consumption keeps the privileged elite forever youthful. This fantastical concept is ripped off from various sources, including Hunter S. Thompson's 1971 "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" as well as an array of grade-B horror movies. ”

"Gary Younge on Jacksonville Shooting & Why America’s Gun Problem Makes Its Racism More Lethal” — DISPATCHES FROM THE DIASPORA author Gary Younge featured on Democracy Now!

"On Saturday, a white supremacist gunman killed three Black people at a store in Jacksonville, Florida, in a racially motivated attack. Authorities say the 21-year-old white gunman initially tried to enter the historically Black college Edward Waters University, but he was turned away by a security guard before driving to a nearby Dollar General and opening fire with a legally purchased attack-style rifle. America’s gun problem “makes its racism more lethal,” says Gary Younge, author of Dispatches from the Diaspora: From Nelson Mandela to Black Lives Matter. “There’s been a significant increase in the number of hate crimes, particularly in anti-Black hate crimes, and one has to be able to connect that to the political situation that surrounds us,” says Younge, who says the shooter’s actions are reflective of the current attacks on Black history and represent a backlash to increased racial consciousness following the murder of George Floyd.”

"Children in ALL schools should have their creativity encouraged” — POETRY FOR THE MANY author Jeremy Corbyn featured in The Edinburgh Reporter

“We fail far too many children by only offering them music in nursery and the early years of primary school. Less than 20% of state schools have a music system or an orchestra. In the private sector that figure is 98%. Children in ALL schools should have their creativity encouraged.”

Excerpt from OPEN HOUSE by Robert Coover published in Literary Hub

“I don’ think I leave this place so big open wit’ so many kaboodle around,” says Cookie, pointing at the oil paintings on the walls, the crystal chandeliers, the heavy silverware. Cookie said it was his understanding there would be no locks on the doors, and there weren’t. The street door was open, no concierge, a sign at the elevator, pointing everybody up here to the penthouse, which was wide open. “Rich guys don’t care,” the woman says.

I DARE SAY author Gerald Horne featured on Activist News Network

“Luke O’Neil on Capitalism, Despair, and the End of the World” — A CREATURE WANTING FORM author Luke O’Neil interviewed in The London Magazine

"Community and collective action are the surest way to forestall despair. So while there is plenty to despair about – sorry I keep saying the word despair so many times – like the rise of fascism in this country in particular, there’s plenty to point to as reason for hope, like the rise of unions and worker solidarity, which is what it will take to solve any of these problems. We are nothing without each other. We can do nothing without each other. As far as personal despair goes, that comes with its own kind of stigma. We talk a lot about recognizing mental health issues now, and we love to tell people that help is available, but what kind of help and in what form exactly and from whom? And how much will it cost?”

“There will be something in this volume to touch everyone” — POETRY FOR THE MANY authors Jeremy Corbyn and Len McCluskey's appearance on Iain Dale’s ALL TALK reviewed by Broadway Baby

"In a forthcoming anthology, Corbyn and former Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey have collated a range of works from the well-trodden to the less known: and an enticing list of contributors include Melissa Benn, Rob Delaney, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Ken Loach, Francesca Martinez, Maxine Peake, Michael Rosen and Alexei Sayle. Corbyn himself being something of an aficionado of the poetic form is perhaps not wholly unexpected. But that ‘Red Len’, that veteran of the dockyards and serial battle talks, also turns out to be something of a literary old softie is a quite delicious revelation. In a voice cracking with emotion, McCluskey read some of the poems which have touched him personally, illustrating precisely why poetry must not be locked away in a gilded cage but be set free to fly into the imaginations of anyone who cares to engage with it. There will be something in this volume to touch everyone, regardless of their poetic pedigree: I was particularly interested in the story of the largely unknown Juana de la Cruz, whose seventeenth century poems have a strong resonance today.”

“How Your Car is Doubling as a Data Collection Device — And Who’s Profiting” — CARS AND JAILS featured in Streetsblog USA

"Ross and Livingston trace the rise of roadway "surveillance capitalism" — a term they borrow from scholar Shoshana Zuboff — as far back as the invention of the modern driver's license, which they say has gradually evolved into "a master key" to a vast trove of personal information well beyond what's printed on our IDs themselves. And they say law enforcement officers don't just draw on that trove when they pull over a driver suspected of a crime; federal agencies like the FBI and ICE also make "extensive use of their unmonitored access to DMV data," using facial recognition software to cross-match driver's license images with surveillance footage as they investigate crimes.

That software, though, is often prone to errors, particularly when trained on people with darker skin — as is the automated license plate reader software that many cities rely on to catch speeders and red light runners, which some studies show are wrong around 10 percent of the time. Because both kinds of technology, by their nature, are used to help search for perpetrators among of sea of innocent people, they end up cataloging vast reams of data on the movements of roadway users not suspected of any crime at all.”

“I want to see change in our society” — POETRY FOR THE MANY authors Jeremy Corbyn and Len McCluskey featured in The Independent

“Required reading” — WEAPONISING ANTI-SEMITISM reviewed in Morning Star

"Winstanley demonstrates how quickly and forcefully the state apparatus can be mobilised against a politician, even a popular one, who steps outside the bounds of what the establishment considers acceptable. Winstanley has created a historical document that shows how an emerging mass movement was defeated by a combination of the media, the establishment, self-serving Labour MPs, and lobby groups who worked in concert to subvert democracy.”

“Newburyport, MA” — A CREATURE WANTING FORM author Luke O’Neil featured in Protean Magazine

”They drove north and east to go look at the ocean and then along the road over the salt marshes passing by the dilapidated but still striking pink house. People are drawn to this house in part because of the story about its spiteful construction in the early 1900s. The tale goes that a rich man’s wife insisted he build them an exact replica of the home they were currently living in but this time nearer the water and so he did without explaining that it would be in the middle of nowhere and set her up there before divorcing her and cleaning his hands of the whole mess.”

“How Some Traffic Fines and Fees Can Make Our Roads More Dangerous” — CARS AND JAILS featured in Streetsblog USA

”In some ways, Livingston and Ross argue, extractive fines and extreme police harassment for even the most minor vehicle violations have been an integral part of motordom since its beginning, particularly for the people of color who shoulder an overwhelming majority of both burdens. The authors say that "revenue policing" really ballooned, though, following the tax revolts of the 1970s and '80s, when many progressive taxes were rescinded and governments were forced to take on massive bonds to provide basic public amenities. To service — and, eventually, collateralize — those debts, municipalities turned to criminalizing and fining the people on their roads instead, all while directing bond revenues towards autocentric infrastructure and away from public transit projects that give residents an alternative to driving and all the carceral costs that come with it."

“Luke O'Neil's Very Real Fiction” — A CREATURE WANTING FORM featured on Jason Diamond’s The Melt

”You get unflinching honesty when you read O’Neil’s stuff. The world is dark and full of terrifying people with horrible intentions, and O’Neil has made a place for himself by exploring all that in a way that’s engaging but also doesn’t make the reader feel like a dummy. Part of it is O’Neil is removed far from the media world of NYC or the Beltway drama of D.C. (well, he’s in Boston, so maybe not that far in terms of mileage) but I also think it’s because he’s got that punk/DIY training, so instead of feeling like you’re reading something handed down from a skyscraper in the middle of a big city, it’s more like being at a basement show and the band is telling you to crowd closer to them. There’s an intimacy about it, and the real emotion that comes through. O’Neil is a writer, journalist, commentator, editor, publisher, or whatever he wants to call himself. But he’s also a human, and the things he’s writing about, I have to believe, trouble him deeply.”

“How Auto Debt is Holding Millions of Americans In Custody — Sometimes Literally” — CARS AND JAILS featured in Streetsblog USA

”For their groundbreaking and essential new book Cars and Jails, New York University professors Julie Livingston and Andrew Ross worked with a team of formerly incarcerated peer researchers to examine what they call "the continuum between auto ownership and incarceration" in the United States. The book, though, could just as easily be called "Cars, Jails, and Money" for how inextricable our criminal justice systems are with our systems of consumer debt, corporate profit, and mass surveillance — and how impossible it will be to unravel one without confronting the others.”

“How Jeremy Corbyn was toppled by the Israel lobby” — WEAPONISING ANTI-SEMITISM reviewed by Mondoweiss

"Winstanley has written a political thriller and real page-turner titled Weaponizing Antisemitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn. It is an important book.   It has a lesson for those of us in the Palestinian solidarity movement working for social justice in the U.S. The Israel lobby lied, cynically manufacturing a fake crisis of antisemitism in the Labour Party where it didn’t exist, using fear to succeed. The lobby cannot be placated. They need to be called out and confronted. That is the main lesson of the book."

“The Persecution of Jeremy Corbyn” — WEAPONISING ANTI-SEMITISM author Asa Winstanley featured on The Chris Hedges Report

“The unholy alliance between Israel, the war industry, and the Corporatist raised the question of whether it is possible in Britain or the United States to reform the system from within... But the public truncheon that was used to bring [Jeremy] down was antisemitism. That’s what you do such a good job of chronicling in your book.”

“The United States of Conspiracy” — OPERATION MINDFUCK author Robert Guffey featured on WTF with Marc Maron

Conspiracy scholar Robert Guffey joins Marc to talk about the origins of modern conspiracy theories. What is the Illuminati? Why is Freemasonry central to so many conspiracies? How do cultural icons like Rudyard Kipling, John Huston and Steven Spielberg factor into the spread of conspiracy thinking? And how did Qanon grab hold of the fevered conspiratorial mind?