Michael James :
Parachute opens, sunflowers & stolen bikes, New Age networks, thinking about the champs, 1983

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Thorne Dreyer

The big open field suddenly rushed closer and I hit the ground with a grateful, relieved, welcome thump and tumble.

James 28 - 1983 Summer, bike rack, sunflower, HC 2

Bike rack and sunflower at the Heartland Cafe. Photos by Michael James from his forthcoming book, Michael Gaylord James’ Pictures from the Long Haul.

By Michael James | The Rag Blog | March 2, 2016

[In this series, Michael James is sharing images from his rich past, accompanied by reflections about — and inspired by — those images. These photos will be included in his forthcoming book, Michael Gaylord James’ Pictures from the Long Haul.]

During the late summer of 1983, I took my first and probably last leap out of an airplane. My friend Kim Cole initiated the adventure; it started with a drive to a small airstrip surrounded by cornfields near Bristol, Wisconsin. We joined a score of others donning white coveralls and paid very close attention to the instructor, Bud, as he introduced us to the details of our pending jumps from a small plane.
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Harry Targ :
Hillary Clinton and the declining
American empire

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Thorne Dreyer

The war against the Qaddafi regime that destroyed Libya’s social fabric was enthusiastically endorsed by Secretary of State Clinton.

Hillary Clinton London conf on Libya

Clinton at London meeting to discuss NATO military intervention in Libya, March 29, 2011. Image from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office / Open Government License / Wikimedia Commons.

By Harry Targ | The Rag Blog | March 1, 2016

“I think President Obama made the right decision at the time. And the Libyan people had a free election the first time since 1951. And you know what, they voted for moderates, they voted with the hope of democracy. Because of the Arab Spring, because of a lot of things, there was turmoil to follow.” — Hillary Clinton quoted in Conor Freidersdorf, “Hillary Defends Her Failed War in Libya,” The Atlantic, October 14, 2015

“Nearly three and a half years after Libyan rebels and a NATO air campaign overthrew Muammar al-Qaddafi, the cohesive political entity known as Libya doesn’t exist.”  — Frederic Wehrey quoted in Conor Friedersdorf

 
Building an empire

In a recent book by distinguished diplomatic historian Lloyd Gardner (Three Kings: The Rise of an American Empire in the Middle East After World War II, The New Press, 2009), the author describes the last day of the historic Yalta Conference just before the end of World War II in which the leaders of the allied powers met: President Franklin Roosevelt, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
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Ivan Koop Kuper :
METRO | Operation Texas: LBJ’s secret rescue mission on the eve of the Holocaust

Posted on February 24, 2016 by Thorne Dreyer

One Texas scholar insisted that Johnson’s strong spiritual conviction and moral obligation fueled this alleged clandestine undertaking.

Ivan - LBJ at Agudas Achim1 sm

LBJ speaks at Agudas Achim synagogue in Austin, Dec. 30, 1963.

By Ivan Koop Kuper | The Rag Blog | February 24, 2016

HOUSTON — On the evening of December 30, 1963, a little more than one month after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the newly sworn-in 36th President of the United States kept a promise he made to the congregants of a small Jewish Conservative synagogue in Austin, Texas.

At the personal request of his good friend Jim Novy, a political ally and a central Texas Democratic Party fundraiser, Lyndon Baines Johnson addressed the members of Congregation Agudas Achim at a dinner dedicating their new sanctuary, then located on Bull Creek Road. The dedication was originally scheduled for the evening of November 24, but the events that transpired two days before in Dallas, beginning with a motorcade through Dealey Plaza, prevented Johnson from fulfilling his original promise.
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Cecilia Colomé :
Welcome to the century of gravitational
wave astronomy!

Posted on February 24, 2016 by Thorne Dreyer

LIGOS’ detection is the most precise measurement ever made in human history and marks five milestones for physics.

The sound of two black holes colliding. Image from ligo.caltech.edu.

By Cecilia Colomé | The Rag Blog | February 24, 2016

Leer este artículo en español

On February 11, 2016, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the detection of gravitational waves by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a pair of ground-based observatories, one in Livingston, Louisiana, and the other in Hanford, Washington.

It was a landmark historic event which is leading astronomers to call this “the century of gravitational wave astronomy.”

LIGOS’ detection is the most precise measurement ever made in human history and marks five milestones for physics as the first direct detection of:

  • gravitational waves,
  • a black hole,
  • a binary system of black holes,
  • the merger of black holes, and
  • a spinning black hole.

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Ken Wachsberger :
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 60’s underground press, Part III: The ‘countercultural’ underground papers

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Thorne Dreyer

The underground press was everywhere you looked: on campus and off, in urban, suburban, rural, ghetto, barrio, in every state of the Union.

joint issue double

The author, Ken Wachsberger, worked with Joint Issue in Lansing, Michigan.

By Ken Wachsberger | The Rag Blog | February 23, 2016

[This is the third of a three-part series written for The Rag Blog by underground press historian Ken Wachsberger. Part I was about the 50th reunion of the Berkeley Barb and Part II  featured a similar event honoring Detroit’s Fifth Estate.]

What was the countercultural underground press?

In the first two parts of this series I have referred to the “countercultural” underground press as opposed to just the more commonly known “underground press.” The term isn’t meant to disparage the storyline that begins with Art Kunkin founding the Los Angeles Free Press in 1964, followed by the East Village Other, the Berkeley Barb, The Paper, and the Fifth Estate in 1965; The Rag, the San Francisco Oracle, Illustrated Paper, and Underground Press Syndicate in 1966; and then the explosion.
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Thorne Dreyer :
RAG RADIO PODCASTS | Political Guru Glenn W. Smith, Environmentalist & Poet Taylor Brorby, Texas State Rep. Elliott Naishtat

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Thorne Dreyer

Smith tries to decipher the weird world of presidential politics; Brorby discusses his book on the literature of fracking; Naishtat, a Texas progressive icon, talks about his exit from politics.

Glenn Smith Rag Radio 2-19-16 sm crp 2

Glenn W. Smith on Rag Radio Friday, February 19, 2016. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Interviews by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | February 24, 2016

The following podcasts are from recent Rag Radio shows. The syndicated Rag Radio program, produced in the studios of Austin’s cooperatively-run KOOP-FM, has an international audience and has become an influential platform for interviews with leading figures in politics, current events, literature, and cutting-edge culture.

♦ The Weird World of Presidential Politics with Political Guru Glenn W. Smith

Glenn Smith Rag Radio 2-19-16 4 crpTrump vs. the Pope. Bernie vs. Hillary. The Republicans vs. Sanity! Progress Texas PAC director and Rag Radio political analyst Glenn W. Smith joins Thorne Dreyer in a discussion of — YES! — the weird world of presidential politics. Glenn Smith writes a weekly column for Quorum Report, is a former political reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Post, and managed Ann Richards’ winning Texas gubernatorial campaign.

Read the full show description and download the podcast of our February 19, 2016 Rag Radio interview with Glenn Smith, here — or listen to it here:


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Steve Russell :
METRO | Scalia Files: The truth is out there

Posted on February 21, 2016 by Thorne Dreyer

Too bad Agatha Christie was not a fellow guest, because there has to be foul play.

Tin Foil Hat

The truth is out there. Photo by Suzanne Tucker / shutterstock.

By Steve Russell | The Rag Blog | February 21, 2016

AUSTIN — An obese 79-year-old man in a sedentary occupation goes to bed early because, he says, he is not feeling well. The next morning, he does not show up for breakfast and, after giving him a reasonable amount of time, the proprietor of the luxury resort enters and finds his guest deceased.

Too bad Agatha Christie was not a fellow guest, because there has to be foul play. The deceased was Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, darling of the political right and probably the best writer among the nine justices in terms of reaching non-lawyers.
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Kate Braun :
Energy of Waxing Gibbous Moon points
towards future

Posted on February 17, 2016 by Thorne Dreyer

Moon Musings: The Second Quarter or Waxing Gibbous Moon falls on February 19-21, 2016.

Waxing Gibbous moon and plane

Waxing Gibbous Moon has a visitor, 2013. Photo by Sebastien Lebrigand / Wikimedia Commons.

By Kate Braun | The Rag Blog | February 17, 2016

Lord Sun is in Aquarius, manifesting energies that prompt us to think of the future, of the “next thing” that will be our focus. On Friday, February 19, 2016, Lady Moon is in Cancer, manifesting energies that prompt us to look into our hearts and examine our feelings; on Saturday and Sunday, February 20 and 21, she is in Leo, whose energies are more forceful and outer-directed. Keep these influences in mind as you make your plans to honor this moon-phase.

As Lady Moon progresses toward fullness on February 22, we continue to see evidence of growth and advancement of plans already formulated. This is a good time to make whatever adjustments we deem necessary to ensure the fulfillment of these plans.
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Alan Waldman :
TELEVISION | ‘Peaky Blinders’ is excellent English historical series

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Thorne Dreyer

Irish, Italian, and Jewish gangster armies contend in Birmingham and London in the 1920s.

Peaky Blinders

Cast members of Peaky Blinders.

By Alan Waldman | The Rag Blog | February 17, 2016

[In his Rag Blog column, Alan Waldman reviews some of his favorite films and TV series that readers may have missed, including TV dramas, mysteries, and comedies from Canada, England, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Scotland. Most are available on DVD, Netflix and/or Netflix Instant Streaming, and some episodes are on YouTube.]

Peaky Blinders is an historically-based, fictional crime drama television series starring Cillian Murphy as the boss of the Peaky Blinders gang, operating in Birmingham, England, during the aftermath of World War I. The series was created by Steven Knight (Oscar-nominated for writing the powerful film Dirty Pretty Things) who wrote all the episodes.
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Lamar W. Hankins :
Superdelegates and the undemocratic
Democratic Party

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Thorne Dreyer

It is as though the Democratic Party has declared that the rabble who vote are not to be trusted with the fate of the party.

voting at ballot box

Image from Common Sense.

By Lamar W. Hankins | The Rag Blog | Feb. 17, 2016

SAN MARCOS, Texas — I’ve never liked the idea of superdelegates, those elected officials and other VIPs (usually former politicians and party officials) who automatically become delegates to the Democratic National Convention to select the presidential nominee. It always struck me as undemocratic to give such people, who already have enormous power, the right to boost their power through this scheme.

To be clear, I considered myself a member of the Democratic Party (there is no Democrat Party — that’s an invention of the Republicans) until the primary in 1992, when Bill Clinton was selected as the nominee. What turned me off to Clinton and the party was his use of the race card and the pro-death penalty issue during that primary campaign. He took a couple of days off the campaign trail to return to Arkansas so he could be there for the execution of the black and mentally defective killer Ricky Ray Rector, who was unable to understand the meaning of execution.
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Alice Embree :
LIBROS | ‘Haydée Santamaría,
Revolucionaria cubana’

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Cecilia Colome

Margaret Randall, integrando la voz de una poetiza en su obra, le da dimensiones humanas a los héroes de la revolución cubana.

haydee santamaria 2

Por Alice Embree | The Rag Blog | 1 de septiembre, 2015

Traducido del inglés por Cecilia Colomé

Leer este artículo en inglés

853px-Rag_radio2Escuche nuestra difusión en internet de Rag Radio con Margaret Randall y el anfitrión del programa Thorne Dreyer hablando sobre los temas en este artículo. También participa Alice Embree del Rag Blog abordando acontecimientos de Centroamérica y Cuba. El programa fue difundido originalmente el viernes 1 de septiembre, 2–3 p.m.,en KOOP 91.7-FM en Austin. La entrevista es en inglés.

[Haydée Santamarîa, Cuban Revolutionary: She Led by Transgression, (August 2015: Duke University Press); Paperback; 248 pp; $23.95; Hardcover; 248 pp; $84.95]

El libro más reciente de Margaret Randall es un homenaje a la revolucionaria cubana Haydée Santamaría. Es la historia de una mujer con educación del sexto grado de primaria que creció en un ingenio azucarero en una provincia de Cuba. Haydée desafió los papeles de género tradicionales en su juventud a principios de los años cincuenta y participó en cada aspecto de la lucha cubana.
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Jim Simons :
The passing of Scalia: A requiem for Caesar

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Thorne Dreyer

There is no escaping the fact that Justice Scalia did more to harm this country than any other Supreme Court judge in history.

Antonin Scalia 2

Antonin Scalia. Photo by Stephen Masker / Creative Commons.

By Jim Simons | The Rag Blog | February 16, 2016

“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” —William Shakespeare

One of my favorite Warren Burnett (legendary Texas trial lawyer, deceased) stories goes like this: Another lawyer approached him in the courthouse and said, “ I was surprised to see you at the funeral of Judge Guinn.” This judge was notorious for being a racist, hard-ass federal judge, utterly lacking in compassion.

The lawyer went on to say, “In fact, I saw you go down front right up to the casket and bend close. I thought you hated him.” Burnett replied, “I was trying to make damn sure the SOB was dead!”
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