John Millerat US Uncut Protest; Jonathan Rowe

1. U.S. Uncut Teach-In John Miller, D&S collective member and columnist, participated in a recent US Uncut teach-in.  (Here is the article from The Nation that got people excited about starting a U.S. version of UK Uncut.)

2. Jonathan Rowe, RIP. We just found out (via D&S collective member Bryan Snyder) that Jonathan Rowe, the writer and former editor of the Washington Monthly who wrote one of my favorite D&S articles, The Growth Consensus Unravels, died unexpectedly on Sunday, March 20th.  (He also wrote Bad Company for D&S.)  Rowe's website has an archive of his writings, plus links to obituaries and remembrances, including this particularly nice one by David Bollier.

We include Rowe's critique of the growth consensus in our textbooks every year, but we also mentioned it in the editorial note to our May/June 2008 issue, in connection with a cover story we were running on consumerism. Rereading that note reminded me how broadly applicable Rowe's insights continue to be.  Here it is:

A recent email from a reader offers one explanation. Jackie Ovadia, a  clinical nutritionist and weight management educator from Southern  California, wrote to praise a D&S article from 1999, “The  Growth Consensus Unravels,” by Jonathan Rowe: “Great article and a lot  of insights on what is going on in our economy … I am including this  article in my reading list for the students attending my ‘weight loss  made simple’ class.”

Political economy for dieters? Seems odd, until you consider this passage from Rowe’s article:

—CS