Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, was arrested in Saint Paul today covering street protests on the first day of the Republican National Convention. Audio of protesters demanding her release and an explanation by Anjali Kamat can be streamed here.

R.I.P. U. Utah Phillips (1935-2008)

Here is an entertainer whom I would love to have seen and never did. I did hear several excellent performances of his on NPR folk music programs, Mountain Stage. Utah, or "U. Utah" as he preferred to be called, traveled the country for years on the "folk" circuit. Although he was probably a musician from birth, he did not turn to that as a livelhihood until forced out of a job as a government archivist in Salt Lake City, Utah due to his political activities.

U. Utah Phillips had continued to perform in recent years despite problems with his heart which finally took him from this earth on Friday, May 23rd at 11:30 P.M. PDT. His home for many years had been Silver City, Nevada. His son, Duncan, carries on in his father's footsteps there and is making the funeral pland and keeping an active blog dedicated to his father's memory. Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman dedicated an entire hour-length program to airing an interview which she did with U. Utah Phillips back in 2004.

Both of my parents are actually older than he was, so this is a big wakeup call for me.

Sweet Crude director released by Nigeria

Sandi Cioffi, director of the documentary movie "Sweet Crude" about the Niger delta, was recently captured and interrogated by Nigerian authorities. She talked on Friday, May 10th to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now about her experience as a prisoner in the Nigerian system and the current political situation both in the delta and on the national scene in Nigeria.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/9/free_from_nigerian_military_custody_sweet

Bell's Palsy

I watch Democracy Now two or three times a week streaming on the internet. Sometime late last week I started noticing that Amy Goodman, the host of the program, was not moving one side of her face. Apparently, she has a temporary condition called Bell's Palsy which has something to do with the nerves and muscles of the face. One seemingly authoritative source, theherblady, states that it can be related to osteoporosis and mineral deficiencies, common in women her age. I hope that Amy is taking as good care of herself as she is of those of us who listen to her speak truth to power.

Horn of Africa

The American involvement in Somalia and other nations of the Horn of Africa has been cast in our media either in terms of national self-determination or, more recently, the global war on terror (GWOT). As recently noted by Brian of Black Star Journal, however, the Horn's natural resources may also be motivating recent U.S. military involvement. Brian refers his readers to a story by Carl Bloice posted May 10th at Pambazuka News - "Somalia: The Hidden War for Oil."

The primary source for Bloice's piece actually turns out to be an interview by Amy Goodman with Salim Lone, spokesperson for the UN mission in Iraq in 2003, now a columnist for The Daily Nation in Kenya. In the interview from the April 27th Democracy Now!, Mr. Lone observes that "Somalia itself and the region, the Horn of Africa, is newly oil-rich. Kenya has some oil. Oil is the key to domination for the United States -- global domination, I mean. But it is going about, you know, the wrong way to get that oil."

Interestingly enough, the prime minister backed by the United States has been trying to pass a new oil law to encourage foreign oil companies to return to Somalia. Major companies including Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron Corporation once had exploration contracts in Somalia but left the country in 1991. A compendium of technical analyses of the resources and their geological context was posted May 19th on Somalia Watch. All of these analyses are based on older studies from the 1990s and earlier. Although war may be motivated by resource abundance, it typically hinders both exploration and production.

Untapped on Democracy Now!

Currently, the United States imports more oil from Africa than from Saudi Arabia. John Ghazvinian, author of the book Untapped which I plugged in a previous post, discussed the African oil boom with hosts Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on today's Democracy Now!. You can read the transcript online or stream the broadcast if you have a broadband connection.