Comrades!
We begin this
missive with some analysis. The Mixed Emotions of the Turtle over
the past two months can, helpfully, be split up into their two component
parts. The Turtle mourns - the world is less than it was with the
loss of Johnny Cash and Edward Said. We also bewail the election of
Arnold Schwarzenegger to the governorship of California, which seems
to us to be a very bad idea indeed.
But the Turtle
is also happy. We're pleased that New Labour got a good kicking in
the Brent East by-election, and even more pleased that Dave Renton
has written an article about it. We're pleased that the WTO's Cancun
talks fell through, and that Alicia Swords and Soren Ambrose, newcomers
to the Turtle both, have written up their experiences for our readers'
instruction and interest. We're heartened to have hosted an online
spat between Dave Renton and Peter Waterman, the latter of whom shares
his latest thoughts on labour internationalism with us as well as
putting the boot into George Monbiot's latest. For these, and for
all his contributions over the last year or so, we're delighted to
crown him Stakhanovite of the Month for October 2003.
We've also received
a compare and contrast exercise by Brendan Larvor, who looks at the
similarities between Tony Blair and George W. Bush, an unasking of
the question of trade and peace by Macdonald Stainsby, an ironic commendation
of neoconservatism by Joe Bord, a discussion of the South African
Treatment Actions Campaigns from Peter Dwyer, and Dave Renton appears
in our annals again with a geography of Australian power in the Solomon
Islands. The most energetic recent Turtle debutant is Nick Turse,
who has hit the ground running with an article on the exploitation
of the image of Che Guevara, some opinions about contemporary music,
and a couple of fine poems, one of which is already informing struggles
in South Africa.
The Poetry section
also plays host to poems by Manuel Yang, another New Turtle Poet,
as well as Turtle regular Trevor Landers; and Turtle Music Maestro
Linnie Rawlinson explains what she's been listening to over the long
Northern Summer in our Music pages, which are spluttering back into
action.
So there's quite
a lot going on on the site. And while you're in the sending mood,
plesae enclose your thoughts, wisdom, poems, wit, and, yes, bile,
and we'll pass it through our democratically centralised Turtle-O-Matic,
and do your editing for you.
Avanti!
The Editors of
the Turtle
