Diane Lefer, co-author of The Blessing Next to the Wound, writes about Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, Hector Aristizábal performing in Colombia, and why nonviolent mass movements pose a threat in LA Progressive.

Hector Aristizábal lay on a table in Medellín, Colombia, his head covered with a black cloth. Twenty-eight years had passed since he was taken from his home by the US-trained military, secretly detained and tortured. Now he had returned to his birthplace after years in exile in the US to spend a month working with peace and justice groups and this night he was not in custody but onstage.

Diane Lefer, co-author of The Blessing Next to the Wound, writes about Hector Aristizábal's recent trip to Colombia to teach non-violence, and what he found there, in Latino LA.

Lantern has published two books that do well when things in the world are going badly: No Easy Answers and Bird Flu.

The Bird Flu phenomenon is self-explanatory. Every time a flock is culled or the flu transmits to a human, people's interest in the subject tends to grow. And every time there is a school shooting, people want to read about the Columbine killings in No Easy Answers. In the office we talk about this response, and cringe a little. But the reality is that people need this book. They need to understand what can turn angst into murder. When unfathomable events happen, it is natural to want to dissect them, to study them, and to take steps to avoid the disaster happening again. The book doesn't let anyone off easy, instead calling for people to examine their own behavior, and the behavior that they endorse or excuse.

One Political Science professor at Virginia Tech took preventative measures, and 300 students read No Easy Answers in their introductory course. When this sort of non-violence education is made formal (especially in wounded atmospheres like VA Tech), we feel quite good about it. No cringing this time.

Finally, another book that's a kind of antidote. Violence can take other forms—the kind that's meted out upon you when you resist violence and the kind you see every day on television and on dinner plates. That's why Aftershock is an excellent, even necessary, book for those contemplating direct action to stop violence.

The subject of Hector Aristizábal's book, The Blessing Next to the Wound, is the dangerous life he lived and escaped from in Medellín, Colombia.

Hector was back in Medellín this month to perform his play, Nightwind, and in Colombia Reports offers some insight about the changes the city has seen since he left.

The article is written by Diane Lefer, Aristizábal's co-author.

If you haven't already read The Blessing Next to the Wound written by Hector Aristizábal and Diane Lefer, you can understand a bit more as to why it's a worthy read from Lois Holzman, author and director of East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy in New York City. Lois read and reviewed the book and uses words including "engaging and unusually honest" to describe her experience. To read her entire review, click here: Lois Holzman.

Clifton Flynn, editor of the [literally] weighty volume, Social Creatures, was previously named a Fellow by the Centre for Animal Ethics at Oxford, and now recently also named a Fellow of the Institute for Human–Animal Connection at the Graduate School of Social Work, University of Denver.

Congratulations, Clif!

In Muzzling a Movement lawyer Dara Lovitz presents an in-depth and tightly argued analysis of the case of the SHAC-7. She reveals the history behind the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, examines the tendentious and speculative government case against the SHAC activists, and in so doing shows how the U.S. government has deeply compromised the freedom of speech and protest enshrined in the Constitution.


Check out The Vegan Police review here.

Lantern books is involved with prisoners in various ways: we have an author behind bars, have published books about prison, we have friends and fellow activists behind bars, and we try to send books and support to political prisoners. Because of this, we have gotten on some lists provided to people in prison of companies and organizations that are interested in their rights, and supporting them.

We often get letters asking for things we can't provide: zombie novels, comic books, publishing services for murder mysteries. Sometimes people even ask for financial or legal help, as if we have any money or legal expertise! But today I got a letter from someone in prison in Pennsylvania who has written a book, had it published, and would like our help getting the word out about it.

So, with the disclaimer that I haven't read this book and know pretty much nothing about it, you may be interested in:

Prison Humor
A Compilation of over 380 Jokes from Inmates in the State Department of Corrections
by Walter Allen [who my letter is from]

Released just this month and available from Amazon.

I'm here to tell you that book promotion is hard on a good day, so I can only imagine the challenges presented when one lives in captivity. If the book is awful, forgive me—just doing my part!

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has been much in the news recently, as veterans returning from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan receive treatment for a condition that had been rarely acknowledged post-battle (except perhaps as "shellshock" in World War One). PTSD, however, manifests itself on battlefields closer to home: in domestic violence; when police officers experience and witness violent events; suicide, nightmares, insomnia, and depression; and even within individuals who are themselves violent.

Since its inception, Lantern has concerned itself with trying to understand the roots of trauma and the violence that is its cause and effect—not only toward other animals or the earth, but to and between people. pattrice jones explores the issue of trauma among activists for animal rights in Aftershock. Rob Merritt and Brooks Brown examine the culture of violence, intimidation, and bullying that existed in Columbine High School before the killings of 1999 in No Easy Answers.

Will Tuttle's #1 Amazon Bestseller, The World Peace Diet, is reviewed and excerpted in the May/June issue of Macrobiotics Today.

Read an interview with Will Tuttle, and check out Will's event schedule.

On April 20, 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, two seniors at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, walked into their school and shot to death twelve students and one teacher, and wounded many others.

It was the worst single act of murder at a school in U.S. history. Few people knew Dylan Klebold or Eric Harris better than Brooks Brown. Brown and Klebold were best friends in grade school, and years later, at Columbine, Brown was privy to some of Harris and Klebold’s darkest fantasies and most troubling revelations. After the shootings, Brown was even accused by the police of having been in on the massacre, simply because he had been friends with the killers.

In No Easy Answers, Brooks Brown and journalist Rob Merritt describe the warning signs that were missed or ignored, what life was like at Columbine High School before the shootings, and the evidence that was kept hidden from the public after the murders. Shocking as well as inspirational, No Easy Answers is an authentic wake-up call for all psychologists, authorities, parents, and anyone wanting to learn the unvarnished facts about growing up as an alienated teenager in America today.

Here's an interview from 2002, conducted by CNN's Connie Chung, with the authors.

Read the introduction from Hector Aristizábal's story of surviving torture in Columbia, and how he's dedicated his life to helping others heal. This intro makes me hold my breath!

The Blessing Next to the Wound is at the printers now, and will be available before you know it.

A Practical Peacemaker Ponders . . .

A friend who will graduate this spring with a fine arts degree plans to devote his energy to his creative passion, supporting himself as a waiter to make his artist's life possible. His parents have struggled over the years to be able to afford his education, and they ask: we spent thousands of dollars on his degree, and now he's going to work as a waiter?

I'd look at it from a different viewpoint. Those who put their artistic endeavors first in their lives, even though it may require entry level service jobs and financial austerity, do something valuable for themselves and society. This value exists independently of the beauty of the visual or performance art they bring forth, although that is significant in itself. The lifestyle of the "starving artist"—including not only visual and performance artists, but writers, composers, anyone whose life is dedicated to the creation of beauty and/or inspiration—benefits society in at least three ways:

As if there aren't already enough difficult problems in the world, suddenly climate change activists are themselves divided over the right way to deal with climate change. The hot issue now is "cap and trade."

Oh wonderful, you're probably saying to yourself. How much do we need to know about climate change — do we need to worry about all this? Yes.

Will renewables like wind and solar power help get us to a renewable energy economy? At the recent ASPO-USA conference, Jeff Vail, a regular at TheOilDrum.com and a former Air Force intelligence officer, presented a thought-provoking paper on "the renewables gap" which threw this whole idea into question. Vail’s point was not that wind power wasn’t a good idea, or that it wasn’t technically feasible, but that it wasn’t politically feasible, because of the need for up-front investment.

The estimated EROEI ("energy return on energy invested") for wind turbines varies widely, all the way from 4:1 (pessimistic) to 24:1 (optimistic) — comparable to other forms of energy generation with fossil fuels. But unlike generating electricity from coal or natural gas, for wind almost all of the energy investment is up front, namely, in the manufacture and set-up of the wind turbine. This up-front investment will have to be huge and will take a big chunk out of the rest of the economy. This chunk is the "renewables gap."