POPULAR CULTURE:
COMIX ARTIST HARVEY PEKAR DIES AT 70:




A blast from the past today. One of the icons of American comix, Harvey Pekar, died today. Now it's been perhaps too many years since I was a great comics fans and collector, but Pekar's work on American Splendor sticks out in my memory. Pekar had the unique talent to make the seemingly trivial events of everyday life shine with luminous meaning. His style was, of course, not for everyone, but his concerns and subject matter were universal (or at least pertinent to the 99% of us who are neither rich, famous nor members of a cult, either religious or political). He'll be sorely missed.



I sold my first comic collection almost a quarter century ago, and have been only peripherally a fan since then. Turns out I've missed a lot, at least in terms of Pekar. Here's one of the many tributes to the man, this one from the Care2 site.
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Harvey Pekar, the Mark Twain of Comics, Dies at 70
His work has been compared to Mark Twain and Anton Chekov. Harvey Pekar, the "genius of the mundane," a neurotic, obsessive, erudite comic book writer and cultural historian died early Monday morning in Cleveland. It's a great loss to American arts and letters.

A pioneer in underground comics, Pekar brought the voices and lives of everyday people to the forefront of his work. While cranky and irascible, Pekar wrote of class concerns with empathy and clarity. His work was an equalizing force kin to Studs Terkels' oral histories (which makes it unsurprising that his last full-length work was a graphic adaptation of Terkel's Working.) As Joanna Connors of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote:

"Unlike the superheroes who ordinarily inhabit the pages of comic books, Pekar could neither leap tall buildings in a single bound, nor move faster than a speeding bullet. Yet his comics suggested a different sort of heroism: The working-class, everyman heroics of simply making it through another day, with soul -- if not dignity -- intact."

From off the streets of Cleveland...
Pekar is perhaps best known for his biographical comic American Splendor, which elegantly catalogued the unexpected pleasures and frustrations of life in Cleveland, Ohio. Pekar was a file clerk at a VA hospital by day, but wrote prolifically about jazz and literature in his off hours.

Pekar's work broke open comics as a medium that served a greater purpose sans the superheroics. They elevated daily life to something beyond humdrum--in Pekar's hands, finding the right pair of shoes for a song at the thrift store was a meditation on style and passing trends. He paved the way for future generations of independent comic artists dedicated to replicating the unsung morsels of daily life.

Top Ten
Pekar was politically outspoken, particularly about the undue influences of corporations. In the late 1980s, Pekar was a recurring guest on Late Night with David Letterman, until he became critical of General Electric on the air (GE owned NBC at the time).

Pekar worked with peace activist Heather Roberson on the book Macedonia, ultimately producing a case study about a country that, despite heavy political pressures, has never descended into war like its neighbor Kosovo. Other works include histories of the Beat poets and Students for a Democratic society.

Pekar's work merged the personal and the political in a highly accessible way. It embodies a core democratic sentiment: That all people should have access to art and politics--and that even the most unexpected sources have something to contribute to the conversation. To see some of his last works, visit The Pekar Project.


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I have already admitted that I missed a lot of Pekar's later work which if you were to judge from the above made was what originally the more or less implicit political content of his work into something quite explicit. I think that his early work, set as it was in the depressing city of Cleveland ( probably even worse than Winnipeg )and dealing only with the events of everyday life was a much needed corrective to the tendency of all opponents of the way things are to drift into a fantasy world of spectacle. There is a direct line between this concern for the ordinary person and his later efforts. Anyways, here's his obit as published in the British newspaper The Guardian.

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Harvey Pekar obituary

Harvey Pekar, who has died aged 70, was the writer of American Splendor, an autobiographical comic in which he wrote about the everyday, often mundane, aspects of his life. Pekar experimented with the narrative form and used a shifting roster of artists on his comics, but it was the sheer ordinariness of the stories that slowly earned him a strong following, critical acclaim and comparisons with Chekhov and Dostoevsky.

Set in the rundown neighbourhoods of Cleveland, Ohio, American Splendor's world was revealed without exaggeration or self-aggrandisement. Pekar, opinionated and curmudgeonly, was often the most frustrating and aggravating character to appear in his books. The writer became a regular guest on the talkshow Late Night With David Letterman, but his confrontational style led to him being banned from it.

In 1990, Pekar was diagnosed with lymphoma and underwent chemotherapy. Heavy medication led to hallucinations and occasional paralysis, but the cancer went into remission. His wife, Joyce Brabner, kept detailed notes during this period and collaborated with him on Our Cancer Year (1994), an unflinching account of their relationship, illustrated by Frank Stack.

Our Cancer Year was central to the 2003 movie American Splendor, directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, and starring Paul Giamatti as Pekar and Hope Davis as Brabner. Pekar and Brabner also appeared as themselves in the film, which won major prizes at the Sundance and Cannes festivals.

When asked in an interview whether he thought the film was an accurate account of his life, Pekar replied: "I don't know what's normal because I don't see too many movies ... but yeah, it felt right. It felt true." Not surprisingly, he gave his own account of the film-making process in his 2004 collection, American Splendor: Our Movie Year.

Born in Cleveland, he was the eldest son of Saul and Dora Pekar, Polish Jews who had recently moved to the US from Białystok. Pekar grew up in a working-class neighbourhood, where his father ran a grocery store. After graduating from Shaker Heights high school in 1957, he held down a series of short-lived jobs, including stints as a janitor and an elevator operator.

He attended Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland but dropped out after a year. He was also briefly in the navy – as he later recounted in his 2005 comic, The Quitter, drawn by Dean Haspiel. In 1965 he settled into a dull but stable job as a clerk at a Veterans Affairs medical centre in Cleveland, where he remained until his retirement in 2001.

Pekar had read comic books from the age of six but lost interest in them after a few years because he found the stories cliched and repetitive. In 1959 he began writing jazz reviews for magazines. His interest in comics was rekindled in 1962 when he met the 19-year-old artist Robert Crumb.

Crumb was already involved in the nascent "comix" scene of artists who were creating underground, counterculture strips. Pekar, although impressed by the freedom of expression offered by this new movement, felt that they concentrated on a bohemian lifestyle which he – as a wage slave – did not share.

Pekar enjoyed the directness of writers such as Henry Miller and felt that even his workaday life had its moments of humour and drama. In the early 1970s he began writing stories, using stick figures and laying out the scripts as storyboards. He showed these to Crumb, who offered to illustrate some of the stories. Their collaboration appeared in Crumb's The People's Comics in 1972 and Pekar's autobiographical tales were featured in other underground titles, including Bizarre Sex, Flaming Baloney, Snarf and Flamed-out Funnies.

In 1975 he conceived the idea of self-publishing so that he could write longer, more involved stories. Although he lost money on the first issue of American Splendor, published in 1976, later annual issues – which ran to around 60 pages – slowly found an audience. By the early 90s, American Splendor had a print run of 10,000 copies per issue.

Pekar continued to review books and records and write essays, often for the alternative press. From 1992 to 1996, he also penned a series of comic strips about jazz, drawn by Joe Sacco, for the Village Voice newspaper. Doubleday published the collection American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar in 2006. A sequel, More American Splendor, came out the following year.

American Splendor was published by Dark Horse Comics from 1994 to 2002 and Vertigo (DC Comics) from 2006 to 2008, giving Pekar the financial stability to work on other projects, including Unsung Hero (illustrated by David Collier, 2003), about the experiences in Vietnam of an African-American colleague at the VA hospital where Pekar worked.

Pekar wrote Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History (drawn by Gary Dumm, 2008) and Studs Terkel's Working: A Graphic Adaptation (drawn by various artists, 2009). He also contributed to The Beats: A Graphic History (various artists, 2009).

He divorced twice before marrying Joyce in 1983. The couple adopted a daughter, Danielle, in 1998. They survive him, along with his younger brother, Allen.

• Harvey Lawrence Pekar, comics writer, born 8 October 1939; died 12 July 2010
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And here is my favourite Harvey Pekar quote, taken from an interview which he gave to Walrus Comix.
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"NO… ACTUALLY, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO SELL OUT!! I mean if I KNEW how to sell out... I mean I haven’t given in to commercialism because I DON’T KNOW HOW TO give in to commercialism... If I DID, I might have done it a long time ago!! "

No doubt Harvey will find lots to grumble about in heaven. RIP.

INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-ITALY:

ITALIAN POLICE OFFICERS EXONERATED IN ATTACK DURING GENOA G8:

There's justice delayed, and then there's justice denied. Seven years after the events in the Italian city of Genova where police brutally assaulted many protesters and even murdered one- Carlo Guiliani- the officers involved the officers involved are being cleared of charges that were laid against them. Here's a report from the British newspaper The Guardian about the case of two British citizens who were brutalized. The fundamental thing to note is that even though several members of the police were convicted none will have to serve any jail time- courtesy of a statute of limitations. Very generous that.

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No justice in Genoa:
The G8 protesters were brutalised, yet the Foreign Office showed complete indifference
Matt Foot
The Guardian, Saturday November 15 2008

Rich Moth and Nicola Doherty had waited a long time for the verdict. But, seven years on, they have been sorely disappointed. On Thursday night, some of Italy's highest-ranking police officers, accused of masterminding a savage attack on peaceful G8 protesters, including Moth and Doherty, in 2001, were cleared of the charges against them.

More than 60 people were taken to hospital after the raid, several in comas. Yet none of the officers who carried out the beatings was even a defendant in the trial. All were masked, and none wore names or numbers during the raid. Only one has ever been identified.

In July 2001, Moth and Doherty travelled to Genoa to join 300,000 protesters in the huge anti-globalisation demonstration against the G8 meeting taking place there. On the Saturday night they decided to stay at the Diaz school, which the local council had given over to people travelling from out of town. But, as they were zipping up their sleeping bags, riot police battered down the front door and streamed in, lashing out indiscriminately.

The pair fled upstairs but there was no escape. As a riot squad walked down the dark corridor, methodically beating those cowering there, Rich lay on top of Nicola to protect her. Officers took it in turns to hit them with batons and kick them, leaving Rich covered with bruises and with a serious gash to the head, while Nicola sustained a fractured wrist.

But this week, after four years of legal wrangling, justice has not been done, The three judges handed out sentences of up to four years to some of the operational commanders, but none of them will have to go to jail, because their offences will expire under a statute of limitations early next year. So what was the verdict on this appalling episode of police brutality?

The five Britons injured in the attack, including Mark Covell, who was almost killed, Dan McQuillan and Norman Blair have tried to move on with their lives, but this decision leaves them without closure. The British government harps on about victims' rights but at the same time shows complete indifference to the plight of these people. Foreign ministers have ignored their letters and the current incumbent has refused to meet them. Presumably these are not the right sort of victim.

Back in July 2001, from the luxury of the yacht where the G8 summit took place, the then foreign secretary Jack Straw reminded us of the need to uphold the rule of law and insisted that he was certain the Italian judicial system would see justice done. These have proved hollow pronouncements.

During the byzantine trial process, the victims of this astonishing episode of police brutality have three times had to brace themselves to recount in court their dreadful experiences - each time the evidence given through tears. They even had the ignominy of facing serious charges that they themselves had been involved in violent disorder, allegations which were later found to be trumped up. The court has made a political decision which reflects more Silvio Berlusconi's return to office than the truth.

Anyone who spends two seconds looking at the video of the police riot at the Diaz school can see that it must have been ordered from on high. It is inconceivable that separate police squads from different parts of the country poured into Diaz school at the same moment and starting beating people without prior briefing and orders.

Rich Moth described the scene in the school that night with bleeding bodies strewn around as like the Crimean war. The sadness and travesty of this latest decision can only confirm the trusted phrase - no justice no peace.
• Matt Foot is the solicitor for both Richard Moth and Nicola Doherty

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Here's another earlier take on the matter from Italy Magazine.

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Genoa G8 verdict sparks row:
A long-awaited verdict on brutality against anti-globalisation demonstrators during the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa has drawn protests from leftwing MPs and victims.

' 'It is an absurd and disgraceful sentence, contrary to all the evidence and unworthy of a civilised country,'' said Communist party member Pino Sgobio after the Monday night verdict that acquitted 30 of 45 state officials.

Green party member Paolo Cento said the verdict ''supplies only a half truth and leaves wholly unpunished the political responsibilities for the handling of the G8 summit''.

He renewed calls for a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the events in Genoa and called for the crime of torture to be introduced into Italy's penal code, ''as Amnesty International has requested on several occasions''.

''If that crime had been on the books before 2001 the highly serious events at (the) Bolzaneto (detention centre) would certainly have been judged differently''.

The left-leaning La Repubblica daily spoke of ''a virtual whitewash,'' noting that requested jail terms were also cut by a third, to a total of 24 years, and that no one will serve time because of the statute of limitations.

Corriere della Sera quoted one of the victims, a 25-year-old at the time of her experience at Bolzaneto, as saying ''these are ridiculous sentences''.

''That day changed my life,'' she was quoted as saying.

But Fabrizio Cicchitto, Lower House whip for Premier Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party, praised the sentence as ''objective and balanced''.

Berlusconi, who last spring swept back to power for the third time, was in the first year of his second term in office when the Genoa summit was organised.

Cicchitto said the sentence proved there was ''no systematic operation of repression or torture but mistakes by some members of the police force''.

This was the line taken immediately after the sentence by Interior Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano, also of the PDL, who said ''the action of individuals was assessed and the concept of collective guilt was abandoned''.

Of the 15 convictions, the longest term, five years, was given to Bolzaneto head Antonio Biagio Gugliotta, found guilty of forcing detainees to stand for hours in stress positions.

Instead of torture - which is not on the Italian criminal books - the other defendants were found guilty of ''abuse of authority''.

Deputy police chief Alessandro Perugini, caught on film as he kicked a teenager in the face, was given two years and four months; Giacomo Toccafondi, a doctor accused of scores of invasive and humiliating examinations, got 14 months; and Massimo Piggozzi, a policeman who splayed a protester's fingers to breaking point, received a term of three years and two months.

The trial judges ruled that 30 of the 45 defendants either ''did not commit the crime'' or, in their case, ''the crime did not exist''.

Italy's justice and interior ministries were ordered to pay two million euros in compensation - compared to the 15 million the victims had been seeking.

The trial of the 45 state officials opened in October 2005.

The defendants were charged with abuse, fraud, criminal coercion and inhuman and degrading treatment.

In total, 252 demonstrators said they were spat at, verbally and physically humiliated and threatened with rape while being held at the Bolzaneto detention centre.

The prosecution, which wrapped up its case in March, requested jail terms totalling 76 years for police officers, prison guards and doctors working at the centre.

Of the 252 demonstrators who claimed abuse, strong evidence emerged in at least 209 cases considered during the trial.

More than 300,000 demonstrators converged on Genoa for the G8 summit in July 2001.

During two days of mayhem, a 23-year-old protester was shot dead while attacking a policeman, shops and businesses were ransacked and hundreds of people were injured in clashes between police and demonstrators.
BOLZANETO ONE OF THREE TRIALS.
The Bolzaneto proceedings are one of three major trials to emerge from violence at the event.
In one case, 29 top-ranking police officials are being tried over a raid on a school used as sleeping quarters by protesters during the event. The charges include grievous bodily harm, planting evidence and wrongful arrest.

Most of the 93 demonstrators arrested during the operation were beaten, some seriously, and 63 had to be taken to hospital. Three people were left comatose(NB-Molly).

In December last year, another court convicted 24 Italians for their involvement in rioting at the summit.

This was the only trial against demonstrators in connection with the event. Although police arrested dozens of people at the time, all other proceedings collapsed for lack of evidence or were dismissed by judges during preliminary hearings.

A 2001 parliamentary inquiry exonerated the police of having used excessive force but stressed that magistrates were entitled to investigate any individual instances of alleged brutality.

Critics at the time accused Berlusconi's centre-right government of a whitewash.

A second enquiry was proposed last year after a top policeman changed his earlier testimony and said he had seen officers commit ''carnage'' during the night raid.

However, the proposal was dropped after two centrist parties joined the centre-right coalition in voting against it(Berlusconi dodges one thing after another-Molly).

SHOCK ECONOMICS:

Naomi Klein's new book 'The Shock Doctrine:The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" is well on its way to becoming a best seller. Klein is now on a book promotion tour that will carry her throughout the USA, Canada and many countries of Europe through the next few months. Even the ideological 'National Post' is paying her the compliment of printing excerpts of her book, albeit with equally long attacks on each of the pieces printed side by side on their pages. For more on Naomi Klein see the obligatory Wikipedia article on her as well as her own webpage http://www.naomiklein.org . The Canadian online magazine Straight Goods has recently republished an article by her entitled 'Shock Economics: 9/11 Gave the Bush Administration an Excuse to Privatize Everything'. The original and longer article is online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2165922,00.html . Here are some excerpts from the article online at Straight Goods....

"As George Bush and his cabinet took up their posts in January 2001, the need for new sources of growth for US corporations was an urgent matter. With the tech bubble now officially popped and the Dow Jones tumbling 824 points in their first two and a half months in office, they found themselves staring in the face of a serious economic downturn. John Maynard Keynes had argued that governments should spend their way out of recessions, providing economic stimulus with public works. Bush's solution was for the government to deconstruct itself- hacking off great chunks of public wealth and feeding them to corporate America in the form of tax cuts on the one hand and lucrative contracts on the other....

"Then came 9/11, and all of a sudden having a government whose central mission was self-immolation did not seem like a very good idea. With a frightened population wanting protection from a strong, solid government, the attacks could well have put an end to Bush's project of hollowing out government just as it was beginning. For awhile that even seemed to be the case....

"But far from shaking their determination to weaken the public sphere, the security failures of 9/11 reaffirmed in Bush and his inner circle their deepest ideological (and self-interested) beliefs- that only private firms possessed the intelligence and innovation to meet the new security challenge. Although it was true that the White House was on the verge of spending huge amounts of taxpayer money to launch a new deal, it would be exclusively with corporate America, a straight-up transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars into private hands...."

READ THE FULL ARTICLE at the Straight Goods site or go to the original at the Guardian newspaper (see link above)

POISONED PET FOOD AND TAINTED TOOTHPASTE TOO:

More news from the toothpaste front. The Baltimore Sun reports today that the Dollar Power store in Silver Springs Maryland was one of the stores found to have been selling counterfeit Colgate toothpaste. Twenty two out of 144 tubes present in the store had already been sold. The distributor of the counterfeit was MS USA of North Bergen NJ. Meanwhile the Houston Chronicle reports that health officials in New Zealand has advised consumers yesterday to avoid toothpastes imported from China. One brand, Excel, was found to contain diethylene glycol, but there is concern that other brands may be affected as well. Excel was being sold in the South Island Just $2 chain of discount stores. Health officials are contacting nineteen other companies importing toothpaste from China to help determine th extent of the problem.

Meanwhile a report from the Reuters' News Agency says that Shanghai White Cat Shareholding Co. Ltd, the makers of Maxam toothpaste, claim that they stopped using diethylene glycol in their product as of May 21st. Maybe yes. Maybe no. Also, according to a report from the British newspaper, The Guardian, Chinese authorities are urging that Hong Kong lift its ban on three mainland brands of toothpaste- Maxam, Sanqi and Tianqi. Though it is now part of China Hong Kong retains many of its legal rights and can thus ban products not yet banned on the mainland. This article also gives some more details about previous Chinese "research" on the addition of anti-freeze to toothpaste. According to the article a 2000 study by "Chinese experts" (whoever they are-Molly) "proved" that toothpaste containing less than 15.6% diethylene glycol was "harmless" for humans, according to a post on the website of the General Administration of Quality Supervision in China. The experimental cohort(if it existed-Molly) was apparently 1,695 people. One wonders how they got the number to the first decimal place. Who were the "volunteers" ? How long were they instructed to brush their teeth with antifreeze ? Could they spit or should they swallow ? Were they provided with water to rinse ? Etc.,etc.,etc..

This article concludes with a report of an investigation by the above named governmental organization into rice dumplings being made in China for the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival. Ten percent of 133 producers inspected nationally failed because "they contained excessive amounts of food additives". The dumplings contained huge amounts of copper sulfate or copper chloride to make the bamboo leaves in which the dumplings are wrapped bright green.

Finally, if you are interested, the Chinese Xinhau news agency has an article on food inspection problems in China. The article admits the difficulties involved even while trumpeting their "triumphs", and the article is best read with an eye as to how it contradicts itself.

Coming soon: poisoned pet food, tainted toothpaste and toxic toys and additional adventures in alliteration...Molly