February Events at Sedition

Hey everyone,

First off, just want to say thanks to everyone who came out for the Haiti Benefit last week. We made 98 bucks that we split between Partners in Health and the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund. In more news, Howard Zinn the militantly radical historian and author of numerous books, has died. Zinn was most famous for his amazing and transformative, People's History of the US (If you haven't read it come by the shop and read the copy we have--it will open your eyes even if you are already a raving anarchist!). Look for a commemorative screening of his recent documentary, The People Speak, later in the month.

February is a very short month and we are jam packing it with events. Book events, discussions, film screenings, nature walks you name it Sedition is doing it. Sometimes on our own, other times with allies in the community. If you or your group ever wants to host a meeting or an event at Sedition, just drop us a line and we'll squeeze you into the schedule.

Sedition has apparently entered the era of new media, that's right you can get up to the minute reminders about upcoming events by

Sedition Books is still located at 901 Richmond Avenue (That's one block East of Montrose) and you can call or check out our website for more info: 713.523.0807 or www.seditionbooks.org

As always. All events are free but we can always use your donations for the infoshop and the touring bands and speakers.

===================================
Tuesday, February 9th
7:30 PM
++++++++++++++++++
This film was borrowed from the Sedition Library and never returned. So...we may or may not be screening it this next Tuesday. Keep your fingers crossed or better yet call us before braving the cold
++++++++++++++++++
Movie Night:
An Anarchist's Story - Ethel MacDonald

This documentary-drama tells the story of Ethel MacDonald, a remarkable young woman whose name hit the world headlines during the Spanish Civil War. She was hailed as the 'Scarlet Pimpernel' of the workers' revolution but has since become something of a forgotten legend.
Ethel MacDonald, whose association with the anarchist movement began in her native Lanarkshire, set off for Barcelona after heeding a call for international support for the Republican movement which was under threat from a fascist military uprising led by General Franco.

A radio announcer at the headquarters of the workers' confederation, it was her voice that first broadcast to the world the accounts of the famous May Day riots in Barcelona and updates on the anarcho-syndicalist experiment in the region. Blacklisted by the Spanish authorities and under constant surveillance, she struggled to free her imprisoned comrades.

Dramatic reconstructions, contributions from veterans and academics and powerful archive footage bring to life a city and a time when ideologies clashed with horrific consequences. Ethel MacDonald's broadcasts and experiences provide an illuminating account of the anarchist revolution and a woman's courage and give voice to a version of events which has been seldom heard.

This event is free, donations appreciated.

====================================
Sunday, February 14th
1:00 PM

Merriwether presents: Edible Wild Plant Tour

Join us for a walk around the neighborhood to see what's to eat in Houston and how to responsibly harvest these tasty wild plants.

Dr. Mark "Merriwether" Vorderbruggen, research chemist by day, leads this tour and presentation based on his catalog of edible wild plants around Houston.

Wear walking shoes! If you don't catch him here, find him at some of the other locations he teaches at around the city. See more of Merriwether's work at http://houstonwildedibles.blogspot.com

====================================
Wednesday, February 17th
7:30 pm

El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City
A Book Reading/Signing with John Ross

John Ross—poet, journalist, and globetrotting troublemaker—has lived in Mexico City since the 1985 earthquake crushed out as many as 30,000 lives. Over the years, he has watched the city—El Monstruo—pick itself up, bury its dead, and come battling back. But he is filled with a gnawing unease that Mexico City's days as the most gargantuan, chaotic, crime-ridden, toxically contaminated urban stain in the Western world is doomed, that the monster he has grown to know and love through a quarter of a century of reporting on its foibles and tragedies and festering blight will be globalized into one more McCity.

Covering 4,000,000,000 years of history from the primal broth that first spewed out the monster to the Aztec-Mexica oblivion through centuries of rapine and revolution all the way to the Great Swine Flu Panic of 2009, El Monstruo is a phantasmagoric retelling of the story of Mexico City, with which Ross's own history has become hopelessly entwined.

John Ross is an author and journalist based in Mexico City for the last two decades. His reporting has appeared in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, The Nation, Texas Observer, and Counterpunch. He is the winner of an Upton Sinclair Award and an American Book Award. His books include Rebellion from the Roots, The Annexation of Mexico, Zapatistas, Murdered by Capitalism and the novel Tonatiuh's People.

=====================================
The following events are being organized and or sponsored by Sedition but hey will be held in other (read: larger, better heated, more chairs) spaces. Please be sure to come out and support Sedition and these other valuable community resources.
=====================================
Friday, February 19th
7:30 PM
S.H.A.P.E. Community Center

Ashanti Alston: Race, Resistance, Cross-Border Struggles and Anarchism

Ashanti Alston Omowali is a former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. He spent more than a decade in prison after he was captured and convicted of armed robbery. He has spent time in Chiapas, Mexico, studying the autonomous structure of Zapatista communities, and resides in New York, where he is the national co-chair of the Jericho Amnesty Movement (to release U.S. political prisoners), an active member of Estación Libre, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and Critical Resistance.

Ashanti is an activist, speaker and writer. He is a former Institute for Anarchist Studies board member, he publishes the zine Anarchist Panther and has been a guest lecturer at the Institute for Social Ecology in Vermont, speaking on the Panthers and the history of Black nationalist movements. His writings and interviews can be found on www.anarchistpanther.net

This event is sponsored by the Institute for Anarchist Studies, Houston Anti-Racist Action, Students for a Democratic Society-UH, Critical Resistance (Houston) and Sedition Collective.

======================================
Sunday, February 21st
7:30 PM
Houston Institute for Culture
708-B Telephone Road (Next door to Bohemeo's)

Anti-Authoritarian Popular Uprising in Honduras:
A Discussion with Adrienne Pine

While the Honduran military coup of June 28th, 2009 is not without historical precedent, the massive and ongoing Honduran resistance to it is. No one expected Hondurans to rise up as they have—daily and in the hundreds of thousands—in protest against a de facto government that can most accurately be described as fascist.

One of the most interesting elements of the Honduran resistance is its avidly non-hierarchical, anti-authoritarian character, this despite a near-complete absence of self-consciously anti-authoritarian organizing within Honduran prior to the coup. In this talk Adrienne Pine will discuss what we can learn from the Honduran experience and how we can act in solidarity with Hondurans, whose situation has only worsened with the institutionalization of the coup government through a U.S.-led fraudulent election.

Adrienne Pine is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at American University. A militant medical anthropologist, Dr. Pine has done fieldwork in Honduras, Mexico, Korea, the United States, and Egypt. Her book, Working Hard, Drinking Hard: On Violence and Survival in Honduras (UC Press 2008), examines the symbolic violence resulting from Hondurans’ embodied obsession with certain forms of "real" violence as a necessary condition for the acceptance of violent forms of modernity and capitalism. Prior to and following the June 2009 military coup in Honduras, she has collaborated with numerous organizations and individuals, both inside and outside the academy, to bring international attention to the Honduran struggle to halt state violence (in its multiple forms). She blogs at http://quotha.net

We will be starting the evening with the inspired rhymes of Dee!Colonize--so get there on time!

+++++++++++++++++
This event is not at Sedition Books
It will be held at
Houston Institute for Culture
708-B Telephone Road (Next door to Bohemeo's)