Friday’s Weekly Round-Up 27

Some up-dates and commentary.
More Lew Welch – Passing quietly, a few days back, the anniversary of Lew Welch’s disappearance. Here’s a thoughtful piece from the local papers.
More Ira Cohen – Here’s Indra Tamang, Romy Ashby – (from their respective blogs – and Nina Zivancevic (on the website – Reality Sandwiches), on their friend, Ira.
Nina: “Ira had never liked Allen Ginsberg, whom I adored, because he acquired more fame than he (Ira) did, in many ways. Allen had fame but he had no children. The last time I saw the latter he said how much he envied Ira for having sons; I was on the verge of tears – I was expecting a baby”.
More Bob Dylan (ok, just a little bit more!) – Rundangerously, on his website, unearths an old AG Dylan fan poem
– elsewhere. (for the Encyclopedia Brittanca on Brittanica.com,) Sean Wilentz gets to address the Dylan-Ginsberg, Ginsberg-Dylan connection explicitly: “Ginsberg helped Dylan loosen his poetic breath and his imagery; Dylan helped bring Ginsberg into the 1960s and alert him anew to the possibility of tighter, lyrical poetic modes..”
More on William Burroughs censorship (see last week’s “Round-Up” for the original AP article) – Elik Shafak has further thoughts in The Guardian
Plutonian Poison (see this post). Fukushima (with all attendant nuclear horrors) seems to have dropped out of the news cycle of late – but, no, not really. Combine this story here and this story here, for example, and it’s hard not to feel.. sad? angry? shamed? – all three.
Greenpeace has some specific details of the local pollution here (in the light of less than forthright information coming from the authorities).  Switzerland’s historic decision, this past week, to phase out its nuclear program is clearly a step in the right direction, but, as James Kantor points out, in the New York Times, “The nuclear fuel meltdowns in Japan have prompted various reactions in other parts of Europe. France, which relies on nuclear power for about 80 percent of its electricity and is a major exporter of nuclear technology, has reaffirmed its commitment to the technology. Just across the border, however, the German government reversed a previous decision to extend the life of its nuclear plants and is working on a plan to accelerate the phase-out there”.

Ai Weiwei (see this earlier post) remains detained by the authorities, or, rather, is presently “under residential surveillance”, in anticipation of criminal prosecution – – 55 days (and still counting!) Visited by his wife Lu Qing for twenty minutes, a couple of weeks ago, but otherwise (still) hidden, intolerably hidden, from the world.

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