From the Stacks: February 24, 2006

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The newly formatted, perfect-bound spring 2006 Clamor magazine arrived this week, sporting a slightly changed subtitle ("Your DIY Guide to Everyday Revolution") and new elements, including a thematic reader-written section reminiscent of The Sun's "Readers Write." (This issue's theme mirrors the cover story, "Land & Geography," which includes a photo-essay on mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia.) With this edition Clamor moves from bimonthly to quarterly publication and expands to 96 pages. Included here are an interview with the initiator of an oral-history project documenting experiences of displaced New Orleans residents, an article on resistance to genetically modified crops in Africa, and profiles of four environmental justice groups. Kudos to Jen Angel and Jason Kucsma for persisting in publishing a political magazine that puts forth ideas, not (for the most part) gear and crap to buy. I wish they'd return authors' bylines to the table of contents page and rethink the full-page house ads with pictures of pretty young women. -- Chris Dodge

It has all the characteristics of a book you would read a five-year-old before bed. Illustrated cartoons, clever rhymes, and envelopes perfect for tiny fingers to pull out messages. It's even based on a children's classic, The Jolly Postman. But the bad guy isn't a wolf in grandma's nightgown. It's George W. Bush. The Jolly President: or Letters George W. Bush Never Read -- due out from Lunatic Press in April -- is Joey Green's satirical dig on America's political climate. With Osama Bin Laden, Dick Cheney, and John Ashcroft as the supporting cast, this is one fairy tale you'll want to keep out of small hands. -- Kristen Mueller

It's easy to sink your critical teeth into the Vietnam War -- a dash of "military-industrial complex," a pinch of "inept foreign policy," and you're pretty close to a coherent analysis. Ed Salven's new book The Soldier Factory: A Window eschews this recipe in favor of a more home-style, off-the-cuff approach. Trained at Fort Ord in California during the height of the Vietnam War, Salven decided to revisit the "soldier factory." These visits spawned the book -- an impressionistic salvo to both the scared and determined men who passed through the Ord and the fort itself -- which intersperses Salven's military memories with paintings of soldiers by university students hung in Ord's now-boarded-up windows. Out in June from George Braziller, Inc. -- Nick Rose

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