Ways of Defiance
Rothschild, Matthew
Editor's Note Matthew Rothschild Ways of Defiance I'm back from vacation: ten days in Costa Rica with my family. I had a terrific time. There's a country that really protects its natural...
...Managing Editor Amitabh Pal has a knack for interviewing Nobel Peace Prize laureates...
...He is sitting alone on a rock, but he's not meditating...
...Some of us simply can't afford them...
...The company must take responsibility," he said, "instead of reacting to these charges with sputtering indignation...
...I'm sure you've seen those commercials: the backpacker outside by a beautiful lake, the mountains in the background...
...The computer has become a treadmill...
...Espada renounced any association with the company, and he refused to pocket the money that Coca-Cola had ponied up for the event...
...He's telecommuting...
...Maathai impressed Amit greatly, both with her answers and with her down-to-earth demeanor, which I hope comes through...
...Vacations, for Americans, are becoming rarities...
...He tracked down Mikhail Gorbachev at a bar in Appleton, Wisconsin, for our December 2003 issue...
...Said Espada: "I am donating the entire amount of Coke's contribution to tonight's event-$1,200-to the National Food Workers Union in Colombia," the union that is organizing Coke workers...
...I salute Espada for this act of conscience...
...Some of us have bosses who don't allow them...
...The event was co-sponsored by Coca-Cola...
...I read a book just for pleasure on the Spix's Macaw, which is extinct but for a handful in captivity...
...Well, this hamster got out for a while...
...And we're the hamsters...
...And for this month's issue, he went to New York to meet with Maathai, the inspiring environmentalist from Kenya who makes us widen our definition of peace to encompass ecological sensitivity and the empowerment of women...
...What fun is that...
...And I relaxed, which not too many of us in this country get a chance to do these days...
...In 1992, when Amy Goodman and Allan Nairn accepted a Reebok Human Rights Award for a Timorese dissident, they used the stage to denounce Reebok's sweatshop policies around the world...
...At the reading, Espada denounced Coke's complicity in brutal trade union repression in Colombia...
...And it felt great...
...I saw scarlet-rumped tanagers, three-toed sloths, squirrel monkeys, anteaters, iguanas, and more hummingbirds than I could identify...
...And some of us are so strapped to our desk chairs, our egos chained to our jobs, that we can't get away...
...Books to read, projects to research, papers to write, a laptop at least to check e-mail...
...There's a country that really protects its natural wilderness areas...
...Or if we do, we bring work along with...
...Defiance comes in all kinds of ways...
...The poet Mart?n Espada, who is a member of our editorial advisory board, was invited to give a reading at the University of Kansas on March 10...
...When I returned, this issue of the magazine was almost done, and when I looked upon it with fresh eyes, I particularly enjoyed the interview with Wangari Maathai, which is our cover...
...At Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia, he said, there have been 179 major human rights violations, including nine murders...
...I was reminded of that the other day when I heard of a similar act of defiance...
...He met up with Shirin Ebadi at Syracuse University for the interview we ran last September...
Vol. 69 • May 2005 • No. 5
