Julia Stein's Blog
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Nov.12.2009
Dr. Nadir Atash's autobiography Turbulence is a book crucial to understanding Afghanistan. Dr. Atash has two parts to his autobiography. The first part describes growing up in 1960s Kabul full of hope for his country, but his hope ended when he found himself a refugee in 1979.The second part...
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Nov.10.2009
According to Fall 2009 Volume 11 issue of FACCCTS, the advocacy journal of community college faculty in California, in the recent cutbacks of 2009, 250,000 students were cut out of community colleges; 40,000 cut out of California State University. Thousands of public employees lost their jobs and...
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Nov.07.2009
Afghani feminist/activist Malalai Joya has been gaining world-wide fame for speaking out against the warlords in Afghanistan. I heard her speak at a Code Pink lunch in West Los Angeles and just read her autobiography A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Women Who Dared to...
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Nov.06.2009
My grandfather came from Galicia in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire like Isaac in the novel Isaac's Torah and also was also a soldier for the Austria-Hungarian Empire like Isaac but my grandfather Samuel Stein emigrated to New York before World War I while Isaac stayed in Eastern Europe rolled...
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Nov.05.2009
Rep. Grayson (D-Florida) on floor of House of Representatives gave speech saying according to Harvard study 44,000 Americans die from lack of health insurance every year or 120 die/day. He read the list of the number of projected dead for next year for every Republican Congressional district in...
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Oct.31.2009
P.D. James latest novel The Private Patient with the detective Adam Dagliesh and his team solving two murders set in a manor house in Dorset is quite wonderful. She wrote the novel when she was 87 and published it when she was 88 in 2008. James artfully combines the old England and the new England...
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Oct.30.2009
I want to be honest--there are things I do without happily, things I struggled to do without, and things I coud do without I have not yet started to struggle with. So here's the list:
What i Do Without:
1. Plastic water bottles--last year I got a metal water bottle, and use it 90% of the time. I'm...
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Oct.28.2009
I'm a member of the organization Green america, so I get their magazine. The No. 78 Fall 2009 issue is devoted to "Reclaiming the Streets" from the gasoline-driven autombile. I'm interested because most of the streets in Los Angeles are traffic sewers--just designed for automobiles but...
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Oct.27.2009
September 10, 2009, U.S. diplomat and Marine Captain Matthew Hoh sent in a letter of resignation resigning his foreign service position in Afghanistan in protest of the Afghan War. He is the first U.S. government official to resign in order to protest the war. Hoh had combat experience with the...
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Oct.25.2009
Last night I went to the tenth Day of the Dead Cemetery. When I first went eight years ago there was no admission charge, very small crowds, no line to get in, alters in honor of the dead created by Mexican and Anglo artists; and purple lights lighting up the palm trees down the center road bathing...
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Oct.23.2009
I endorse the call of Latinos, immigrants, and others that CNN has allowed Lou Dobbs to spew out hateful lies about Hispanic immigrants for too long, and now CNN should fire Lou Dobbs. As the editorial in El Diario La Prensa from New York says, "For years, almost on a daily basis, Dobbs...
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Oct.20.2009
UC Berkeley Students and Faculty To Hold Historic Public Discussion
With Elected Officials On UC, State Budget Crisis
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: October 19, 2009
CONTACTS:
Richard Walker, Professor of Geography, UC Berkeley, walker@berkeley.edu, (510) 525-1969, 295-3108
Shannon Steen,...
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Oct.18.2009
Well, today I took visiting poet Alice Rogoff from San Francisco over to Olvera Street where we ran into a huge fiesta beginning the Day of the Dead celebrations at Olvera Street which will go on through November 2. Olvera Street, the original street of Los Angeles, was packed with families and...
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Oct.17.2009
The Independent Shakespeare Company's production of The Changeling by Thomas Middleton and Wiliam Rowley had actors who gave strong, scary performance. The Independent Shakespeare Company has done wonderful Shakespeare in Barsndall Park in Hollywood during the summers, and are committed to do class...
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Oct.13.2009
Mark Twain is amusing as he criticizes his fellow Americans for their corn pone opinions: their conformity to prevailing public opinion. Jean Hanff Korelitz's novel Admission is full of such corn pone opinions but, unfortunately, is not amusing. The heroine Portia Nathan, an atheist Jew, spends...
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About Julia
Julia Stein is a poet, fiction writer, and critic.
Her books of poetry are
Under the Ladder to Heaven (West End Press)
Desert Soldiers (California Classics)
Shulamith (West End Press)
Walker Woman (West End Press)
Connections
Causes Julia Stein Supports
Amnesty International
Doctors Without Borders
ACLU
Workman's Circle
Julia’s Favorite Books
War and Peace, Brothers Karamazov, Moby Dick, Golden Notebook,
God of Small Things, Bleak House, Links by Nuruddin Farah