The Rag Blog | The Latest in News and Views from the Progressive Front

Swathi Narayanan :
METRO | Missing in action but not forgotten

Posted on January 2, 2016 by Thorne Dreyer

A daughter continues her quest to find her father and other lost soldiers.

Karoni and her dad.

By Swathi Narayanan | The Rag Blog | January 2, 2016

AUSTIN — Karoni Forrester’s earliest memory of her childhood is sneaking into her grandfather’s study to call her father. She would keep dialing to see if she could reach him. “I got into trouble because of the very weird phone bills,” she said. But her father never answered the phone.

Forrester was two when her father, Captain Ron Forrester, a Marine pilot, was officially declared Missing In Action (MIA) in Vietnam. He was co-piloting a Grumman A6 Intruder attack plane on December 7, 1972, under orders to take down a bridge in North Vietnam.
Continue reading →

Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged Karoni Forrester, Metro, Missing in Action, POW/MIA, Rag Bloggers, Swathi Narayanan, U.S. Military, Veterans, Vietnam War | Leave a comment

Kate Braun :
Here’s how to have a cool Yule!

Posted on December 20, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

At Winter Solstice we will be looking forward to much new energy pouring into us.

Yule log. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

By Kate Braun | The Rag Blog | December 20, 2015

Leer este artículo en español

Monday, December 21, 2015 is Yule, which you may also call Winter Solstice or Midwinter. This is when we experience the shortest day and longest night of the year. Lady Moon is in her second quarter, leading us to the Full Moon, also called a Wishing Moon, on Christmas, December 25.

Not only will we be looking forward to a new season beginning, we will also be looking forward to much new energy pouring into us. It would not be inappropriate to use the Christmas Wishing Moon to wish for the wisdom and spiritual guidance to help guide us into this newness so that we may benefit from it.
Continue reading →

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Astrology, Celebration, Kate Braun, Metaphysics, Rag Bloggers, Ritual, Winter Solstice, Yule | Leave a comment

Roy Casagranda :
Hey, ISIL! Here’s some unsolicited advice

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Women and children among Syrian refugees striking at the platform of Budapest Keleti railway station. Refugee crisis. Budapest, Hungary, Central Europe, 4 September 2015.

Syrian refugees, September 2015. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

By Roy Casagranda | The Rag Blog | December 16, 2015

Leer este artículo en español

My advice to all the pro-ISIL forces in the United States:

Keep bombing Iraq and Syria. This is how ISIL came into being in the first place. It makes sense that you would keep doing that.
Refuse to work with the Russians and Iranians. They have the best chance of defeating ISIL.
Avoid humanitarian aid at all costs.
Encourage Israel to keep bombing Hezbollah forces in Syria. Hezbollah is fighting ISIL and Jebhat al Nusra (al Qaeda).
Block entry to Syrian refugees. This will really hurt the Arabs as a people and put tremendous pressure on Europe. Whatever you do, don’t help your allies or the people who hate ISIL so much that they are risking death of their children to escape them. You can drive those people back into ISIL’s hands.
Keep all the anti-Islam rhetoric at a shrill scream. It confirms to the world that the U.S. is really at war with Islam. That is why foreigners join ISIL. If you, for even a second, hint that you won’t be a bigot, that would really hurt their supply of foreign fighters.
Keep flooding the oil markets to drive down oil prices. Iran, Russia, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia are desperately reliant on oil sales for revenue. If you can break those four states, most of the resistance to ISIL will evaporate.
Keep encouraging Turkey to shoot down Russian fighter jets. WWIII is a great way to give ISIL more power.
For sure elect Trump or Cruz to be president. That will really help number 6.
Track Muslims, make them wear armbands, and refuse their entry, reentry. In fact why not intern them like you did with the Japanese and the Native Americans? I think again that would really help number 6. Remember number 6 is very important.
Overreact with anti-Islamic rhetoric and laws the next time that ISIL attacks. They are probably planning to attack as many times as they can before November 2016. Keep reacting exactly as they want; after all, they believe that they are creating the Apocalypse. A lot of you have been working for the very same goal.

Continue reading →

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Iraq Intervention, ISIL, ISIS, Middle East, Rag Bloggers, Roy Casagranda, Syria | Leave a comment

Harry Targ :
We must respond to 21st century violence with radical structural change based on community

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

In addressing the reality of killing in this century, history and context become profoundly important.

CC0 Public Domain image.

By Harry Targ | The Rag Blog | December 15, 2015

“When we humans see instances of violence, we are often quick to respond, sometimes with efforts to assist the victims, often with efforts to punish the perpetrators. It is important that we are able to feel the pain of each individual case. It is equally important to find out why there are so many cases. For this to take place it is important to examine what common underlying levers are causing the human family to engage in such protracted and recurrent violence.”

— Marc Pilisuk and Jennifer Achord Rountree, The Hidden Structure of Violence: Who Benefits from Global Violence and War

Peace research, education, and activism have been animated by concern about violence. For centuries, scholars, theologians, philosophers, and activists have studied the meaning and causes of violence in human affairs, primarily motivated by a desire to reduce or eliminate it.

Some have pointed out that, for the most part, human beings have engaged in cooperative forms of behavior. The vast majority of human interactions are designed to sustain life, maintain communities, and support individual development. But, it is true that the dark side of history manifests massive slaughter, starvation, enslavement, and destruction of natural environments.
Continue reading →

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged 21st Century Violence, American History, Community, Cultural Violence, Harry Targ, Rag Bloggers, Social Change, Structural Violence | 1 Comment

The Rag Blog :
METRO EVENT | It’s a Rag Blog/Rag Radio HO-HO-HAPPY HOUR!

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Rag holiday gathering Friday, Dec. 18, at Maria’s Taco Xpress, with featured guest Jonah Raskin.

AUSTIN — The Rag Blog and Rag Radio are inviting their community, friends, and followers to celebrate the holiday season at a “Ho-Ho-Happy Hour” — an informal gathering on Friday, December 18, from 4:30-7:30 p.m., at Maria’s Taco Xpress in South Austin.

Event: Rag Blog/Rag Radio ‘Ho-Ho-Happy Hour’
Date: Friday, Dec. 18, 2015
Time: 4:30-7:30 p.m.
Where: Maria’s Taco Xpress
Address: 2529 S. Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78704
Food & Drink: Cash bar and Tex-Mex
Music: Leeann Atherton on patio at 7 p.m.
Admission: Free, and everyone is welcome!

Jonah at Maria’s in 2011.

Special guest at the event is Jonah Raskin, a California-based activist, poet, critic, and educator, and the author of a dozen books including biographies of Allen Ginsberg, Abbie Hoffman, and Jack London. Jonah, who is a contributing editor to The Rag Blog, is the former Minister of Information for the Youth International Party (Yippies).

Jonah Raskin will also be Thorne Dreyer’s guest on Rag Radio earlier that afternoon — Friday, December 18 — from 2-3 p.m. (CST) on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin. Stream it live here.

Also joining us at the holiday festivities will be Middle East expert and overall good guy Roy Casagranda, who was our guest on Rag Radio, December 4 and 11, talking about Syria, Iraq, and the role of U.S. foreign policy in “setting the table” for ISIL.
Continue reading →

Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged Jonah Raskin, Maria's Taco Xpress, Metro, Rag Blog Happy Hour | Leave a comment

Ed Felien :
Santa Claus is an Islamic communist plot

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Dutch sailors saw men in beards and long coats giving gifts and candy to children and food and shelter to the poor.

Sinterklaas by Bram van der Vlugt / Wikimedia Commons. The Dutch sailors probably thought they saw the spirit of St. Nicolas.

By Ed Felien | The Rag Blog | December 10, 2015

The person we know as Saint Nicolas was born around 280 in Patara, Turkey, and died about 50 miles away in Myra in 343. He was a rich noble in a prosperous seaport, and he was known for helping the poor. He was made bishop in the new Roman Catholic Church. The Emperor Constantine established the Holy Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Nicea in 325 and there were opportunities for advancement for friends of the Emperor. Nearby Antioch was one of the five centers of the early Christian faith at that time.

Muslim Turks seized the town in 1084. The Crusaders’ Siege of Antioch conquered the city in 1098. But it finally fell to the Muslims in 1268.
Continue reading →

Posted in Rag Bloggers | Tagged Ed Felien, Eid al Fitr, Rag Bloggers, Saint Nicolas, Sinterklass | 1 Comment

Alan Waldman :
TELEVISION | ‘The High Life’ is a zany Scottish airline comedy featuring a young Alan Cumming

Posted on December 9, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Cumming co-wrote and co-starred in this clever sitcom full of bitchy quips, elements of surrealism, and some theatrical song-and-dance numbers.

By Alan Waldman | The Rag Blog | December 9, 2015

[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.]

All seven episodes of Scottish airline comedy The High Life aired in the UK in Winter 1994-95, but it did not have a second season, because of co-star/co-screenwriter Alan Cumming’s burgeoning film career (Circle of Friends, GoldenEye, Emma, Romy, and Michele’s High School Reunion). Too obscure for Netflix, the complete daffy series is available on YouTube, including this episode.
Continue reading →

Posted in Rag Bloggers | Tagged Alan Cumming, Alan Waldman, Criticism, Rag Bloggers, Scottish Television, The High Life, Vintage Television | Leave a comment

Ken Wachsberger :
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the ’60s underground press. Part II: The Fifth Estate

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

The paper, which quickly became Detroit’s cutting-edge news source, is the longest-running underground newspaper from the Vietnam era.

Former Fifth Estate staffers, supporters, and reunion organizers. In the back with raised fist is Peter Werbe; to his left is Leni Sinclair and to his right, Laura Grimshaw; and seated, in blue sweater, is the paper’s founder, Harvey Ovshinsky.

By Ken Wachsberger | The Rag Blog | December 8, 2015

[This is the second 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.]

The Fifth Estate was founded by Detroit-area high school graduate and now award-winning filmmaker Harvey Ovshinsky after an inspirational summer work adventure with the Los Angeles Free Press.

It didn’t take long for the paper to become Detroit’s cutting-edge news source on issues surrounding the local antiwar and Civil Rights movements, feminist and LGBT issues, the emerging youth counterculture, and dissident GIs, all issues that the mainstream press was ignoring or relegating to insignificant locations of back pages.
Continue reading →

Posted in Rag Bloggers, RagBlog | Tagged Alternative Media, Anarchist Publications, Counterculture, Fifth Estate, Ken Wachsberger, Rag Bloggers, Sixties, Underground Press, Underground Press Series | Leave a comment

Qiling Wang :
METRO | Nicols the psychic found his future

Posted on November 25, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Austin’s Nicols says he grew up with the ability to find information hidden from the normal senses.

Nicols the psychic. Photo by Qiling Wang / The Rag Blog.

By Qiling Wang | The Rag Blog | November 25, 2015

AUSTIN — Three tungsten lamps light a back room in the Austin home of Joe Nicols. With the windy, cold weather outside, the room exudes coziness and warmth. A wood shelf with a dazzling array of folk art stands at the left of the door. Some were collected from India, some from China.

Next to the shelf is Nicols’ desk — where he carries out his palm reading and psychic consultations.

“You used to get tight in your throat when you had to talk back to authority when you were a kid,” Nicols says to Vivian Chen.
Continue reading →

Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged Joe Nicols, Metro, Psychics, Qilig Wang, Rag Bloggers | Leave a comment

David P. Hamilton :
What is to be done in the Middle East (as soon
as pigs fly)

Posted on November 24, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Creating an actual anti-Islamic State alliance would require thinking entirely outside the currently existing conceptual boxes.

David’s flying pig. Image designated for noncommercial reuse.

By David P. Hamilton | The Rag Blog | November 25, 2015

“In the name of realism, men are quite mad, and precisely what they call utopian is now the condition of human survival.” — C. Wright Mills

The United States has successfully created a hotbed of instability and dysfunction in the Middle East. There are now wars in Iraq, Syria, Israel/Palestine, Turkey/Kurdistan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. Weapons are now hemorrhaging across the Sahara from Libya into Chad, Mali, and Nigeria, areas of Africa where the U.S. is busy establishing new military bases. There is a welter of conflicting alliances with diverse and contradictory goals, especially in Syria, the current epicenter of conflict.

This conceptual chaos is typified by the U.S. being the member of a coalition to fight the “Islamic State” [ISIS], which includes the principal parties who provided ISIS with its motivating ideology, Wahhabism, and which created, funded and provided weapons to this same Islamic State since its inception, (i.e., the Gulf Sunni dictators in Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, and especially Saudi Arabia).
Continue reading →

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Bashar al-Assad, David P. Hamilton, Islamic State, Middle East, Rag Bloggers, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy | 8 Comments

Ann Lucas :
UT-Austin confab addresses Eurozone austerity

Posted on November 24, 2015 by Alice Embree

Participants warned of dire economic, social, and political consequences from austerity policies.

By Ann Lucas | The Rag Blog | November 24, 2015

The LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin hosted a two-day conference, November 2-3, on “The Eurozone and the Americas: Debt and Democracy” that brought in an array of noted global policy experts.

The conference followed up on questions posed in 2013 at a similar conference, “Can the Eurozone be Saved?” Guests included current and former elected officials, labor leaders, experts in financial policy, and leaders of prominent anti-austerity forces from Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Ecuador. Learn more about the conference and the participants, here.

Dr. James K. Galbraith, Professor and Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government and Business Relations, The University of Texas at Austin, was the primary organizer of the conference; he also gave opening remarks, and chaired a panel on “What is the Future of Europe?”
Continue reading →

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Ann Lucas, Economic Austerity, Eurozone and the Americas, James Galbraith, Rag Bloggers, UT-Austin | Leave a comment

Thorne Dreyer :
RAG RADIO PODCASTS | María Martin, Michael Hoinski & Ben Sargent, Carl Davidson, James K. Galbraith

Posted on November 24, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

We visit with a pioneer of public radio; discuss the fine printing of O. Henry’s lost manuscript; get some help understanding all the political madness; and visit with one of the world’s leading economists.

Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Ben Sargent on Rag Radio, November 20, 2015 . Photo by Greg Ciotti / KOOP Radio.

Interviews by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | November 24, 2015

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.

♦ Public Radio Legend María Martin, Founder of Latino USA

Read the show description and download the podcast of our November 27, 2015 Rag Radio interview with María Martin, joined by Mercedes de Uriarte, here — or listen to it here:

♦ Michael Hoinski & Ben Sargent on the Publishing of O. Henry’s Lost Manuscript

Read the show description and download the podcast of our November 20, 2015 Rag Radio interview with Michael Hoinski and Ben Sargent here — or listen to it here:

♦ Leading Leftist Thinker Carl Davidson Helps Us Make Some Sense of the Political Madness

Read the show description and download the podcast of our November 6, 2015 Rag Radio show with Carl Davidson here — or listen to it here:

♦ World-Renowned Economist James K. Galbraith on Greece, the Austerity Movement, and ‘The End of Normal’

Read the show description and download the podcast of our October 30, 2015 Rag Radio interview with Margaret Randall here — or listen to it here: