if you missed it, laura flanders had an amazing interview with lynne stewart. stewart's been on the show before so i'm not surprised that flanders gets it. (and i wouldn't listen to her if i wasn't impressed already. she's a smart cookie.) but i am trying to note who speaks out and who falls silent. and i want to note laura flanders who not only hosts her own show on air america, the laura flanders show, each saturday and sunday night, she also wrote bush women and edited the w effect which documents the bully boy's war against women.
i'm really happy with all the e-mail that's been coming in on stewart. i think we get it, even if the media doesn't. i saw a story on stewart in the new york times today and e-mailed c.i. to ask if they were planning to comment. c.i. said even if they were i could but that no 1 had brought it up and that c.i. had tossed out the paper already and missed the story so have at it.
the article is called 'regretting the bravado, a convicted lawyer examines her options' and it's written by julia preston. here's some of that article:
The verdict felt "like being in a massive car accident," Ms. Stewart said in an interview yesterday, her voice still unsteady. "It's instantaneous and it hits you so hard. You're dazed for a while." She sat surrounded by boxes and stacks of pictures in an office she has barely occupied since a nervous landlord evicted her from her longtime Broadway work space in June.
Ms. Stewart said she hoped to give most, if not all, of the half-dozen cases she was still working on to her son, Geoffrey S. Stewart, who shares her criminal defense practice. She will fill the time she would have spent practicing law helping to prepare a complex federal appeal: her own.
Besides the appeal, Ms. Stewart and her chief lawyer, Michael E. Tigar, plan to file post-trial motions by March 4 seeking to persuade Judge John G. Koeltl to overturn the jury's verdict, arguing that the jurors misinterpreted the terror conspiracy laws. It is a long shot, Ms. Stewart admits. They will also try to persuade the judge to be lenient when he sets her sentence on July 15. In a move that surprised her legal team, prosecutors working for United States Attorney David N. Kelley allowed Ms. Stewart to remain free on bail pending appeal. Ms. Stewart, who is 65, faces up to 30 years in jail.
this is a travesty and it becomes more of one as so many remain silent. i was asked to join c.i. in helping the third estate sunday review with their editorial on lynne stewart (which will post in a few hours or by tomorrow morning at the latest). i was very happy to help with that.
on the guys and gals at third estate i will note that they work very hard. i sit down and type up my screeds as they pop into my brain. when i was asked to help with the editorial i thought i'd be reading it and making a comment or two and that would be all. wrong. for the last 2 hours that editorial has gone back and forth among them, myself and c.i. until it was polished to the point that they were happy.
they don't look for spelling errors, they are concerned that the voice is strong and that it gets stronger. if you read 1 of the early drafts you would probably be surprised by how many qualifiers were in the editorial. i talked to ava of the third estate sunday review about that and she said 'to be an editorial, it needs to take a position, not hedge bets.'
the other big surprise is how mammoth the editorial starts out. then little by little sentences get condensed and the thing shrinks to this strong argument with a point. it was very interesting to see the process.
i mention the third estate sunday review not because they will also have an interview with me in tomorrow's edition but while i'm at it, i'll mention that as well.
that was set up after i posted about beth's attempt to bully me but with lynne stewart's case, i really wanted to address that because i do not think enough people are paying attention. i am aware that the majority of the readers who come here are also common ills community members but i know that i have some people who drop by that don't visit the common ills regularly. and i'm assuming that's the same with the third estate sunday review. and that many common ills members don't visit either of us.
that's because we are each telling our truths from our perspective. and the point is more voices being added to the mix. so hopefully that interview (and the editorial) will reach out to a few people who haven't visited my site or who aren't common ills members.
but we all need to do our part to make sure that people are aware of this issue. and thank god for amy goodman, juan gonzales and laura flanders.
lynne stewart's verdict is an injustice and i would hope that blog sphere would take up this issue and champion her. but i'm not the eternal optimist that c.i. is. that's not meant as a slam at c.i.
c.i. can pick up the new york times each morning and honestly believe that somehow today will be different. and each day the paper can disappoint but there's c.i. ever hopeful.
that's really a great trait but not 1 that i possess. which is why i responded to beth right away. i think i got side tracked in the interview with third estate so i'll comment here on what they wanted me to talk about. c.i., third estate and i both received e-mail from beth. third estate saw it as a joke and laughed at it. c.i. saw it as someone seriously concerned who'd misunderstood and c.i. invested so much time in attempting to explain and clarify to beth. i read it once and blogged on it. because i don't have a lot of patience for shit.
attitude is in the title of this blog and if you're a repeat visitor who's missed that point, i suggest you invest in new reading glasses.
i'll also note that 2 of you were concerned with my use of the word 'dyke.' you didn't trash me but just asked if i thought it was appropriate. i was quoting my friend's words. it didn't make sense to alter her even if she hadn't been a lesbian. i know dyke can be seen as a hurtful word.
i don't think of it as an insult. but i realize that others do and i will try to use it only when it's appropriate.
polly said in her e-mail that she hoped i wasn't angry and i wasn't. it was a point worth raising.
and polly and sarah were both so kind about it that it didn't bother me at all. but if any 1 was offended by the use of the term, i will state that i was quoting some 1, a very good friend, and that i saw no reason to change the quote.
i wrongly thought that dyke, like queer, had been reclaimed but that is apparently not the case for every 1. although 4 readers who are lesbian e-mailed that they loved the term popping up.
and that gets to the issue that we are all different people and we need more voices speaking not less. i hope you will all join me in speaking in defense of lynne stewart. we need to make a difference here.
and as stuart noted in his e-mail, the only things he saw online so far were things the common ills had linked to. i hope this just means that people are on their weekends and that they plan to weigh in come monday but, as i noted before, i'm not the great optimist that c.i. is so, like stuart, i'm starting to think we have already heard from the people who are going to speak out. prove me wrong, please.
