[Currents headergraphic]

April 6, 1998

Making the News

A San Jose Mercury News book critic sang the praises of Angela Davis's new book, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. The critic noted that, "[Davis has] turned her considerable analytic skills to the blues--specifically, the three African-American women who pushed American music to new heights in the post-slavery period."

It may feel like it at times but, no, the sky is not falling. However, geologist Gary Griggs informed the San Francisco Examiner recently, the coast is crumbling. The normal erosion expected of coastal bluffs is exacerbated not only by El Nino but by development, Griggs told the reporter. The San Jose Mercury News sought Griggs's insight for a story on the same subject.

Anthropology professor Diane Gifford-Gonzalez is quoted in the April issue of Earth Magazine in an article by Steve Mirsky, titled "I Shall Return," on how to successfully achieve fossilization.

Is force justified in the face of Iraq's resistance to UN weapons inspections? That was the question posed by the Mercury News who turned to philosopher Richard Wasserstrom for some perspective. Military force is justified, Wasserstrom believes, "when the use of deadly force against you is imminent and you don't have any other way to avoid it." Wasserstrom also observed that many Americans fail to distinguish between Saddam and the Iraqi nation as a whole, depersonalizing those who would bear the brunt of a military assault.


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