Guest Author's blog

Guest Post by Susan Brown

Bring your lunch to the Carrboro Century Center this Thursday, April 13th, at 12:00 noon and hear award-winning poet Jaki Shelton Green read, enjoy coffee from the Open Eye Cafe, and celebrate National Poetry Month!

In 2003, Jaki Shelton Green received the North Carolina Award for Literature. Her poetry has appeared in publications such as The African-American Review, Ms. and Essence. She has performed her poetry and taught workshops in the United States, the Caribbean, Europe, and Brazil. Green also teaches creative writing to marginalized populations of our society such as the homeless, the newly literate, and the incarcerated. She collaborates with human service agencies and non-profit organizations whose focus is using writing as a tool of recovery and change. Her newest collection, Breath of the Song, Selected and New Poems, was released in August 2005.

Guest post by Steve Sherman

This week UNC and Internationalist Books play host to Bill Talen and Savitri Durkee, better known as Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping. Bill and Savitri hail from NYC, where their pentacostal anti-capitalism started with preaching against sweatshops in the Times Square Disney Store.

Since then, the Reverend has performed enough Starbucks exorcisms to get himself permanently banned, held services inside Wal-marts, and spread the gospel of community, justice and anti-capitalism through revivals across the country. He's been profiled in the New York Times Magazine (and the London Observer Magazine) and has a book, "What Should I Do if Reverend Billy Is in My Store?" just released by the New Press.

The Reverend will be giving talks about his work Tuesday at Ibooks and Wednesday on campus, and will lead a revival service Thursday night. For more information, visit www.revbilly.com

Guest Post by Alan McSurely

Since the press reported the massive unconstitutional domestic spying program of President Bush and Vice President Cheney 2 months ago, a spontaneous grass roots impeachment movement has taken off. One poll showed over 53% of the American people favored an impeachment investigation, over 90% of African Americans were for such an investigation, and over 24% Republicans. This belief that our two leaders have committed crimes is well grounded. The men lied to Congress to give them authority to invade a sovereign nation. Their intentional lies, mixed with their massive ignorance of the Iraqi nation and stumblebum incompetence in handling basic governmental functions has led to the murderous mayhem in Iraq that has destroyed the Nation's leaders, its culture, and tens of thousands of its children. This is a high crime.