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Today we celebrate what would be the 71st birthday of the late Octavia Butler, a pioneer in the world of science fiction, with "The Book of Martha," a short story from Bloodchild.

In this story, Butler works through her lack of belief in the possibility of a universally appealing utopia with humor and careful consideration. God summons Martha Bes to effectively ameliorate the conditions of humanity. As a result of the exchange, Martha settles on an original plan to satisfy God's seemingly impossible challenge.

PS: Enter to win a free copy of Bloodchild here, and take 50% off Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents through Saturday June 23, 11:59 PM.

What supposedly thorny journalistic questions could be simply settled by honest, unbiased inquiry? Noam Chomsky asked that very question in 2002, in his speech "The Journalist from Mars," included in the second edition of Media Control: The Spectacular Achievments of Propaganda. Let's say an idealistic journalist came down from Mars, with none of the prejudices used by intellectual elites to buttress up power. What would that Martian make of global affairs and the way they're reported? How would our Martian friend report on terrorist acts in Nicaragua, Lebanon, the U.S., and elsewhere? Chomsky does his best Martian impression and informs us below.

"They are making bourgeois garbage and I have been making revolutionary garbage." Thus quoth Jean-Luc Godard, about his former friends, the "bourgeois" filmmakers Truffaut and Coutard, in this 1970 interview with the Evergreen Review's Kent Carroll. It's a fascinating text, in which Godard, along with Jean-Pierre Gorin, his partner in the class-conscious Dziga-Vertov Group, discuss American students, revolutionary struggle, and "what the Chinese call a bullet wrapped in sugar." We hope you enjoy!

"I grew up in the colonies and I may not have learned politically correct English, but I did learn that imperialism always comes bearing the best intentions. It kindly enlightens the benighted, as it offers to cure their frustrations. But to be cured, savages must first mime the idiocies of their conquerors: trade when they trade, pray where they pray."

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In this excerpt from The America Syndrome: Apocalypse, War, and Our Call to Greatness, new in paperback this autumn, Betsy Hartmann discusses what has come to be called "the greening of hate"—that is, the fusion of environmentalism with anti-immigrant bigotry, an ideology which was shared by both the Christchurch and El Paso gunmen. She also touches on modern eugenics in the U.S., and stresses the need to avoid simple dualities in discussing questions of population and environment. 

As the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots approaches, it is important to honor the stories of those in pursuit of justice and acceptance for the LGBT+ community. Originally translated and published in 2009, Seba al-Herz's pseudonymously written The Others is one such story, detailing a nameless woman's discovery of her own sexual orientation within a repressive community in Saudi Arabia. The following excerpt from the 2010 Stonewall Book Award nominee illustrates the powerful, yet tortuous intersection between love, faith, and identity.

In a sense we need to take the wind out of the sails of fake news and rhetorical hyperbole by charting a practical course toward social democratic/democratic socialist policies on health, education, immigration, environment, economy, labor, social justice and foreign policy.

The following excerpt, from Walter Mosley's Workin' on the Chain Gang is featured in Voices of a People's History of the United States, edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. 

by Derrick Jensen

When I find myself in times of trouble, I’m less interested in Mother Mary’s wisdom than I am in Joe Hill’s: Don’t mourn; organize.

There’s a sense in which Trump’s election is a surprise, similar to how we somehow seem to be continually surprised when easily predictable negative consequences of this way of life come to pass. So we’re surprised when bathing the world in insecticides somehow causes crashes in insect populations, when covering the world in endocrine disrupters somehow leads to the disruption of endocrine systems

"Today could be the last day of your life. Whether or not you’re thinking of killing yourself, you could die at any moment. Still here? Excellent! That’s called staying alive." Here is a playful and empowering piece on perseverance, transgression, and shifting identities from Kate Bornstein's Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws. That book, along with many others from our Pride Month Collection, are on sale at 50% through June 30, 11:59PM EST. Have a look!

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