turning point weblog

Sunday, June 12, 2005

sorry!

this project has been stalled for a while. What you see before is some collected links, which I intend to keep collected, to Madison, to various sites that would help me learn more about the Madison bombing. But at this point I don't know what I'll be doing with it, and it could take years. Lately I've been preoccupied with other stuff...watching a new baby a lot, and the 3 1/2-yr.-old; this keeps me busy and makes it so all I can do is write haiku. I've almost finished reading Rads, my last major book about the bombing, but was disappointed to find out that the author just about did what I was hoping to set out to do...and maybe this calls for a change in plans...

in fact I'm not sure what to do with what I know about the bombing. So I think I'll let it sit for a spell...sorry, if that disappoints you!

Friday, March 11, 2005

poetry

somewhat unrelated, but very madison:

poetry links
and poetry site

leoburt.com

the most complete set of links to things related to the bombing, including a link to my play.

this from Greg Lane

"I read David Horowitz's "Radical Son" for something else. It had an interesting fact in it. The 1970 "May Day" demonstrations in the US supposedly drew more than one million young people. If I have my dates correct these contiued for a few days resulting in things like Kent State and Jackson State. The 1971 May Day demonstrations, by contrast, drew only 30,000 in the US. Obviously this was a huge decline in "the movement" in just a year. Basically the prostest numbers never went up untill the late 1999 "Battle of Seattle"."

e-mail, 11-13-04

Madison Bombing

The book "The Madison Bombing" is "First Edition 1988". ISBN 0 947002 30 8 Published by
RESEARCH HOUSE
BCM-Box 4667
London WCIN 3XX

"Printed in the Republic of South Africa by the
Chelsea Press (PTY) LTD,
WETTON, KAAP
C267

This from Greg Lang

As for where Leo burt is now that is of course a mystery. The armstrong brothers had a habit of "spill the beans" about thier fugitve status (as did the SLA's Micheal Borton) and I figure that was what caused Leo Burt' estrangement with them. Two years after the bombing Leo Burt sent a communique that it was said could have been the basis of the Unibomber Manifesto. I had to sort of "reverse engineer" since I haven't found the Burt one yet. I read much of the Unibomber manifesto. I read where the Burt piece cricised the "bureacracy" and "top down" nature of the (left?) movement. My guess is that Burt "lurked" in the movement for a couple of years without divulging his identity and became dissilutioned with it.

from an e-mail, 11-20-04

David Fine's court document

here.

I'll read it more carefully later...

radical rye

the interesting thing about this obituary of the radical rye is that it doesn't mention karl armstrong's obvious connection to madison history. it's almost that, by virtue of its value as a restaurant alone, the years he put in here helped clean the slate and change his public persona.

madison links

prolefeed studio links
here

rainbow bookstore links
here

organizing research

this is a personal place; though you're welcome to read it, it's here for me to lay out and find the connections related to my research on the 1970 bombing. As I've been very busy at work, and don't have much time for this project, I find hanging onto the information to be difficult, and thus feel I need a place to put my thoughts and my links. This is it. Anything to contribute? write me.

a place to organize research on the 1970 bombing of Sterling Hall, Univ. of Wisc.-Madison

: Name: tom; Location: galesburg, Illinois, United States

View my complete profile

Author's Notes

This weblog is a collection of information and links about the 1970 bombing of Sterling Hall at Univ. Wisc.-Madison. I'm considering a larger project. I started out with a play (2003) called Turning Point, which I now know has some incorrect facts and details, but which was in fact a very successful play, enjoyed by both participants and audience.

It was from this experience that I realized that this was a lively topic, an important one, and that this bombing represented something in the history of the midwest and the vietnam protest experience that was worth exploring. It's in this interest that I start this research.

My thesis is basically that the bombing played an important role in the change of the movement at that time, if only in Madison (it got very little press elsewhere, but seems to have been strongly noticed by Washington)...but rather than taking a strong stand on how important it was, I thought I'd just investigate exactly what its role was: how did it change people's view of the protests? In what ways was history altered permanently?

My interest is historical although I think it could make a gripping story, a book you wouldn't want to put down. I was deeply impressed by Michael Morris' book but don't want to cover exactly the same ground- he did a good job with most of the details, though. My own approach would be similar in one way though: I'd want to offer those who help me, and talk to me, the opportunity to read what I write before it's published. This I think gives the project an integrity that is worth exploring.

If you know anything about the Madison bombing and would like to share it, I'd love to talk to you. For this project, I consider myself a historian, neutral, interested in the truth from all perspectives. I would appreciate your sincere help and comments on the material. Please write me.

Thomas Leveett, Carbondale IL, Mar. 2005