Did you know that on December 9th thousands of inmates in at least six major prisons in Georgia simultaneously went on strike? Unless you receive news from progressive sources like Democracy Now!, the Center for Constitutional Rights or San Francisco Bay View, you’d be hard pressed to know that the largest prisoners’ strike in United States history took place for a week last month.

This week I am most grateful to a staunch RFC supporter, not only because she gave a most generous year-end contribution, but also because she gave it in honor of someone who embodies the RFC’s spirit. The contribution was given “in memory of Justina Ruiz de Conde,” someone, we at the RFC office had never heard of.

The donor offered the following information about the person this donation honors:

[NOTE: our Recent Press Coverage page has links to media coverage spawned by this blog, including Robert's interviews on Democracy Now!, KBOO Radio, and RTTV (Russian news).]
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Last weekend Elli and I had the privilege of seeing both parts of Tony Kushner’s brilliant play Angels in America in New York City. This is a marathon: two 3½ hour segments separated by a 2½ hour break. I was mesmerized by this revival of the original 1993 production, but I don’t intend to review the play in this blog. Instead I’ll focus on one small, but important, interaction that takes place late in its second part.

For me the end of the year is a time of assessment. What were the RFC's major achievements and challenges in 2010? 2009 was very difficult and 2010 wasn’t much easier, although by early this year we’d gotten used to rough times. We knew what we faced. Since we must raise the funds we give away, we knew we’d have to make an extraordinary effort even to match our 2009 level of awards, which was $50,000 lower than in 2008.