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Comrades!
The Turtle has, this month, noticed a great deal of tough love in World Affairs. In Fiji, George Speight -- no relation to the Turtle's own venerable George Speight -- is currently holding the ethnic Indian community hostage, for the love of the people. Rudolph Guiliani, the Mayor of New York, would-be Republican Senator and philanderer, has decided that he won't be running after all, for the love of his family. And the love virus has caused millions of dollars of damage to users around the world foolish enough to be using Microsoft's Outlook email software.
The Love of the Turtle is altogether more benign, and for those who take shelter under its capacious wings, the benefits can be quite considerable. Recently, for instance, the Turtle was pleased to endorse the candidacy of Ken Livingstone in the London Mayoral elections, and the Turtle was therefore not surprised that he subsequently won. We were pleased with that result last month, and we are almost as pleased this month to give you Alex Grant's Pro-Dobbo Reflections on the Elections, and little short of ecstatic to welcome him back to the ranks of our contributing writers - so much so, indeed, that we've stuck a picture of Councillor Grant on the Front Page. The Turtle is also overjoyed to welcome Richard Adams back into the fold, who provides a slightly less flattering spin on Frank Dobson's Mayoral Disaster.
The Book Review Pages have lain fallow for a few months now, but our Stakhanovite Jonathan Wilson and our Co-Editor Raj Patel have both started to read books again and we're very glad to print their thoughts on J. M. Coetzee's recent and much acclaimed novel, Disgrace, and on Roland Bleiker's Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics. Look out for more Book Reviews next month, as several Comrades Turtle are rumoured to be grinding out fresh prose.
Two new pieces have been archived in the Library of the Turtle: the Statement of the G77 Nations after their conference in Havana, the object of last month's Salute, and the Charter for a New European Social Movement, an promising new initiative associated with the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. And our June Salute, perhaps slightly less enthusiastic than usual, hails the work done at the People's Global Action "Ni Hombres Ni Mujeres, Sino Todo Lo Contrario" conference held recently in Chiapas, Mexico.
But when the Superstructure remains relatively quiescent, it is a safe bet that a profound shift is underway in the Base of the Turtle, and this month is no exception. The most exciting development of the last month has been that the Turtle's politburo has doubled in size with the appointment of not one but two new functionaries. First, Josephine Crawley Quinn has agreed to take over responsibility for our Poetry Pages, becoming our Poetry Commissar, thus freeing the Editors of the Turtle from their pretence of having good literary judgment. This appointment will give a useful boost to the Poetry of the Turtle at what is already a very exciting time, as we're thrilled to announce that San Francisco beat poet Diane di Prima has given us permission to reprint a handful of her classic Revolutionary Letters in the Turtle's pages, and these will appear soon. We should have some more original poetry in the not-too-distant future, from our resident Sri Lankan versifiers, and -- with a bit of luck -- a continuing series from West London's P. J. McMahon.
Not content with our command over the heights of Poetry, the Turtle this month reinforces his\her/its assault on Culture with our second new appointment. For we have summoned Palash DavÚ to the Front to be the Turtle's Drama Commissar, with general responsibility for Theatre and Film, on which we hope to be publishing much more soon. Together, we hope that the Turtle's Cultural Commissars will widen the gait of the Turtle, and through their kind yet stern criticism, prove themselves to be truly the People's Tough Lovvies.
With all this love, the call to write for the People's Beast of Pleasure must surely become irresistible. And for those Comrades Turtle still in higher education of one kind or another, there is no better time than the end of the academic year to let of some steam and have your opinions find their way into cyberprint...
Avanti popolo!
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