Posts

Showing posts from September 16, 2012

Savannah Talks Troy Anthony Davis No. 17: 1st Anniversary of the Execution - by Aberjhani

Image
Poster commemorating 1st anniversary of execution of Troy Anthony Davis . (courtesy of NAACP) From the time he was first placed on trial for the murder of Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989 until his death by execution one year ago, September 21, 2011, more questions than answers have tended to accumulate where the case of Troy Anthony Davis was and is concerned. As far as any observers––including such trained onlooker as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Amnesty International, and Color of Change–– have been able to tell, Davis was not executed because he was proven guilty.  He was executed because technicalities of applied legal practice and questionable choices in regard to his defense failed to confirm his innocence. For the average person, such a distinction is murky at best. For Troy Anthony Davis––and for an as yet undetermined number of individuals––it literally meant the difference between life and death. The

Novelist Philip Roth's Dilemma and Every Author's Challenge - Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Image
                                  Author Philip Roth in New York City . (Reuters file photograph) In his September 7, 2012, “Open Letter to Wikipedia,” acclaimed author Philip Roth made an appeal to the editors of Wikipedia. Posted in his blog for The New Yorker , he asked them to correct a statement he identified as misleading in the site’s article on his novel, The Human Stain . Roth––whose literary honors include a Pulitzer Prize, American Book Award, and Man Booker International Prize––stated the following: “ The entry contains a serious misstatement that I would like to ask to have removed. This item entered Wikipedia not from the world of truthfulness but from the babble of literary gossip—there is no truth in it at all.” He noted further that he had attempted through an official interlocutor to address the issue but was informed that site administrators required “secondary sources” to verify the proposed corrections. “ Thus was created the occasion for this open