I have been living in, and writing about, Oaxaca and Mexico for over 10 years. My partner, the photographer Diana Ricci, whose photos are as essential as my screed to our "Oaxaca / Mexico Newsletter", are readers of, and contributors to, the Narco News site, and the School of Authentic Journalism. We attended the first school, in Merida, Mexico, as instructors - but we really became students, happy when our temporary (but really confining) ill health allowed us to attend workshops by such luminaries as Jules Siegel, Gary Webb, Mario Menendez and Al Giordano, to name only a few; and to rub shoulders with Luís and Dan and the rest of the crew.
Aside from all the good work the JornoSchool initiates and sustains, it's also great fun and a wonderful chance for the young and the young at heart to find each other in a way that makes for an ever expanding network of friendship and collaboration on what is often a difficult and dangerous road of speaking truth to power.
We contribute small amounts of money when we can, which is not as often as we'd like. But there is one contribution we can make that is both unique and not costly: we can donate our labor.
From the time this is posted, the first 50 people who contribute at least $50 a year to the Fund will be eligible to receive a free one year subscription to our Newsletter, a $30 value.
The Newsletter is published twenty times a year, and available to subscribers only. It works very simply: when a new edition is published on a password-protected area of our website, we send out an announcement via email with the codes and the web link. We archive all past issues, so subscribers also have nine years of past Newsletters available to peruse at leisure.
A lot, but far from all, the news we share is political. We mainly cover Oaxaca and southern Mexico, with some coverage of national issues (such as the ascendancy of Andres Manuel López Obrador and the machinations of some of the other major political figures and parties). Travel and tourism are also topics we cover, among others. Pretty much, each issue is unique and dedicated to whatever is on our minds (and in our camera) at the time.
If you don't care to receive the Newsletter, just make sure to note that on your check or in the "notes" section of your PayPal payment. [You can, of course, opt out at any time.] Otherwise, welcome. And thanks for your generous support of an extremely worthy cause: your own (and our) survival.
Stan Gotlieb
Diana Ricci
http://www.realoaxaca.com
"I always look forward to receiving each month's edition of Stan Gotlieb and Diana Ricci's Oaxaca-Mexico Newsletter. The Mexican State of Oaxaca, next door to Chiapas, is the only majority indigenous state in the Republic but its cultures and social movements don't often get the international attention they merit in the Commercial Media.
"Stan and Diane fill in the blanks with good writing and reporting on diverse themes from political conflicts (especially hot right now is the controversy over the destruction of centenarian trees on the city Zocalo: the town square that has been immortalized in the literature of Octavio Paz, Italo Calvino, Neil Baldwin, Carlos Castaneda, Andres Henestrosa, and D.H. Lawrence, among many others) to glimpses at life in small villages around the state to musings on ex-pat life in Mexico.
"For anybody who daydreams of living in a place like Oaxaca, or visiting there, Stan and Diane's newsletter is indispensable. It is a model publication for the Authentic Journalism renaissance. There really is no other newsletter like it. But there ought to be."
- Al Giordano
Founder, Narco News
Make your donation now, online, at:
http://www.authenticjournalism.org
Or send a check to:
The Fund for Authentic Journalism
P.O. Box 241
Natick, MA 01760
