EDITOR'S NOTE
Rothschild, Matthew
EDITOR'S NOTE Matthew Rothschild Gag Order Martin Espada is one of my favorite poets. He writes with a fine eye for the everyday injustices that people suffer—at the hands of landlords, employers,...
...His trial was a joke: The prosecution withheld evidence that favored him, including statements by eyewitnesses who said that the actual shooter fled the scene...
...So NPR yanked Es-pada's microphone away...
...But I'm sure you'll find your own favorites...
...Nor is h for "a level playing field," which, he say) "can be produced only by a governmet resembling a rampaging bulldozer...
...In his Washington Post column of Ma) 18 entitled Death and Taxes, Withoui the Taxes, Will finally outdid himself Faced with a defection among the conservative ranks over the issue of inheritance taxes, Will rose to the defense of inequal ity...
...When I got a call from him in April, I assumed it was about another poet he wanted us to approach...
...Others appeared in The New York Times Magazine, where Claudia now works...
...I have a little problem I'd like to talk to you about, and maybe a proposal for the magazine," he said...
...In 1994, NPR had agreed to broadcast some commentaries by Abu-Jamal, but in a convulsion of cowardice, it bowed to the pressure of police groups and victims-rights organizations and canceled the broadcasts...
...The problem he referred to was this: National Public Radio had censored him...
...I was particularly impressed with her interviews of Toni Morrison and of the Dalai Lama...
...I must say it's nice, finally, t»haW signed confession...
...It's called, simply, Interview And that's what Claudia does best: The Q&A is her art form...
...Mumia Abu-Jamal is still on death row, and he still deserves a new trial...
...That couldn't have been Abu-Jamal, who was lying on the ground from a gunshot wound...
...Or, as Stelzer put it, af ter Shakespeare, "it gilds the lily of birth...
...Faced with the choice between equali' of opportunity and plutocracy, Wi chooses plutocracy...
...Espada proposed that The Progressive publish the poem, along with his account of the muzzling at NPR...
...In November 1995, we published one of his poems, "Sleeping on the Bus...
...I can only conclude that NPR has lost its mind—and its soul—over Mumia Abu-Jamal...
...Claudia Dreifus, one of our con-tributing writers, has a new book out...
...And it introduced prejudicial evidence during sentencing...
...But you wouldn't know anything about this if you listen only to NPR...
...The book costs $24.95, and is published by Seven Stories Press, 632 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10012...
...The defector was Irwin M. Stelzer who dared to write in The Weekly Stan dard (the conservative hangout of Mur doch, Kristol, and Barnes) that inheritec wealth gives "unfair advantage in life...
...Now it will not allow even a poet's verse to disturb the silence...
...He chose to write a poem about Mumia Abu-Jamal...
...That is, the posteril of the rich...
...Some of the interviews in this engaging book—the ones with Nadine Strossen, Richard Dreyfuss, and John Sayles—first appeared in The Progressive...
...In this issue, the great historian Howard Zinn says we need to go beyond talking about equality of opportunity and starl talking about genuine equality...
...His able attorney, Leonard Weinglass, is doing all he can to see that Mumia gets one...
...Will thinks inheritance taxes should b abolished to promote "an ennobling co1 cern for posterity...
...At last, a conservative who takes seri ously the pious rhetoric about equality o opportunity—a little too seriously fo George Will...
...She's a zealot about preparation: When she turns her tape recorder on, she knows more about her subject than Saint Peter This enables her to get the most out of hei quarry: She charms, she razzes, she asks trick questions, and she asks obvious questions that often yield fascinating answers...
...I was mistaken...
...Abu-Jamal is the African American journalist who was convicted of killing a police officer in 1981...
...He writes with a fine eye for the everyday injustices that people suffer—at the hands of landlords, employers, immigration officers, judges...
...Espada also helped us invite other poets to send their work to us, so for all his assistance, I asked him to join our Editorial Advisory Board last year...
...It inaugurated our monthly poetry selection, which is one of the more enjoyable tasks we have around here...
...race for success...
...And though it had assigned Espada to write a poem of his choosing, he made the wrong choice...
...The prosecution also intimidated witnesses into changing their stories to implicate Abu-Jamal...
...Equality of opportunity," he writes, i an "unsatisfactory aspiration...
...But foi George Will, even equality of opportunity is too much to swallow...
...Evidently NPR has issued a gag order on the subject of Mumia Abu-Jamal...
...We took him up on it...
...It denied Abu-Jamal the right to self-representation...
Vol. 61 • July 1997 • No. 7
