Category Archives: RagBlog

BRUCE MELTON : CLIMATE | The Texice disaster, Valentine’s week, 2021

Stories of climate change survival, our current emergency, and new solutions to this existential crisis. By Bruce Melton | The Rag Blog | February 10, 2022 AUSTIN — The Texas winter storm disaster was caused by both climate change and … Continue reading

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THORNE DREYER : DOCUMENTARY FILM | Documentary about LNS wins prestigious national award

Film with Austin ties wins NETA award for Best Cultural Documentary. Watch the film here. By Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | February 4, 2022 Under the Ground: The Story of Liberation News Service, an 80-minute documentary film produced … Continue reading

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Lamar W. Hankins :
CRIMINAL JUSTICE | Can’t see past the blue

How prosecutors and judges let cops get away with murder, or at least with criminally negligent homicide. By Lamar W. Hankins | The Rag Blog | January 31, 2022 The two or three nationwide instances that we have seen recently … Continue reading

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JONAH RASKIN :
INTERVIEW | Why do men keep making war?: An interview
with scholar Michael Klare

Michael Klare has had war on his mind for the past 60 years. By Jonah Raskin | The Rag Blog | January 20, 2022 Michael Klare has had war in all its many ignominious manifestations on his mind for the … Continue reading

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Robert C. Cottrell :
BOOKS | ‘Making History Making Blintzes’

A memoir by New Left veterans Mickey Flacks and Dick Flacks. By Robert C. Cottrell | The Rag Blog | January 20, 2022 As a historian who has concentrated extensively on American radicalism, I attempt to keep abreast of newly … Continue reading

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JONAH RASKIN :
BOOKS | Alice Walker’s ‘Gathering Blossoms Under Fire’:
Journals as autobiography

The book reads like a peremptory strike meant to deter future biographers. By Jonah Raskin | The Rag Blog | January 13, 2022 Before the advent of Black Lives Matter, Me Too, and the most recent generation of Black writers, … Continue reading

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Alice Embree :
THE VOTE | Voting by mail in Texas

Voting rights and voting access are fundamental to democracy. By Alice Embree | The Rag Blog |January 13, 2022 It’s time. If you are eligible to vote by mail in Texas, send in your application, mark “annual,” and be aware … Continue reading

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JONAH RASKIN :
FILM | ‘Don’t Look Up’: Apocalypse, again

‘Don’t Look Up’ is apocalyptic science fiction, but it’s also biting satire. By Jonah Raskin | The Rag Blog | January 6, 2022 I had heard about Don’t Look Up (Netflix, 2 h 18 m) the new apocalyptic science fiction … Continue reading

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Larry Piltz :
VERSE | The Christmas Keys, a True Carol in Limericks

The Christmas Keys, a True Carol in Limericks On Christmas Eve I lost my keys then dreamt of a very high bridge that spans a river fast and wide that flows below a ridge and on that ridge a town … Continue reading

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Patricia Vaccarino :
BOOK REVIEW | Nick Licata: ‘Student Power, Democracy and Revolution in the Sixties’

In Licata’s book, social unrest percolated on multiple levels. By Patricia Vaccarino | The Rag Blog | December 19, 2021 Listen to Thorne Dreyer’s Rag Radio interview with Nick Licata, Friday, Dec. 24, 2-3 p.m. (CST) on KOOP-91.7 FM in … Continue reading

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Robert C. Cottrell :
POLITICAL VIOLENCE | The politics of assassination: An initial thought

Throughout the early postwar era and emphatically during the 1960s, the politics of assassination came into play. By Robert C. Cottrell | The Rag Blog | December 18, 2021 I’m writing this on the morning of December 4, 2021, the … Continue reading

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JONAH RASKIN :
DOCUMENTARY FILM | The widowmaker: Betty and Kenneth Rodgers’
doc, ‘I Married the War’

That’s what war does: demonizes the Other. By Jonah Raskin | The Rag Blog | December 2, 2021 Almost all women whose husbands go to war inevitably become widows. Even those with husbands who come home from war alive. They … Continue reading

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