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

Vikki Bynum :
Racial violence, history, and the debate over
the Confederate flag

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

The Confederate flag symbolizes a sanitized and historically inaccurate version of the Civil War.

Dylann Roof: The Confederate flag was a favored symbol of racial hatred.

By Vikki Bynum | The Rag Blog | July 6, 2015

Listen to Thorne Dreyer’s July 3, 2015, Rag Radio interview with Victoria Bynum about issues raised in this essay, here:

As a historian, I have long regretted the widespread popularity of a flag that represents the cause of Southern secession during the American Civil War, and which was flown in defense of racial segregation during the Civil Rights Era.

In the wake of Dylann Roof’s massacre of nine African-American men and women while they worshiped in the historic Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, we have learned that the Confederate flag was a favored symbol of the racial hatred that burns within Roof’s heart. His horrifying crime, in turn, quickly reinvigorated the long debate over whether that flag should continue to fly over state buildings in South Carolina and other southern states.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Civil War, Confederate Flag, Dylann Roof, Racial Violence, Racism, Rag Bloggers, Slavery, Southern History, Victoria Bynum, Vikki Bynum | 2 Comments

Thorne Dreyer :
RAG RADIO PODCASTS | Interviews with Victoria Bynum, Richard Pells, Maria Svart, Patricia Vonne, and Ray Hill

Posted on July 5, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

We discuss little-known Southern history (& the Confederate flag); the ‘War Babies’ generation; Democratic Socialism; pioneering gay activism in Houston — and we listen to way cool live music!

Rocker and actress Patricia Vonne, from left, with musicians Robert La Roche and Rick Del Castillo, on Rag Radio, Friday, June 12, 2015. Photo by
Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Interviews by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | July 6, 2014

The following podcasts are from recent Rag Radio shows. The syndicated Rag Radio, 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.

∗ Historian Victoria Bynum on Southern History, Racial Violence & the Confederate Flag

Read the show description and download the podcast of our July 3, 2015 Rag Radio show with Vikki Bynum here — or listen to it here:

∗ Richard Pells, Author of ‘War Babies: The Generation That Changed America’

Read the show description and download the podcast of our June 26, 2015 Rag Radio interview with Richard Pells here — or listen to it here:

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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Interviews, KOOP Radio, Maria Svart, Patricia Vonne, Podcasts, Rag Bloggers, Rag Radio, Ray Hill, Richard Pells, Thorne Dreyer, Tracey Schulz, Victoria Bynum | Leave a comment

Beverly Baker Moore :
METRO | TRUE CRIME | Beverly’s great escape

Posted on July 2, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

I had gotten most of myself outside the window and was hanging onto the only thing I could, the drainpipe that ran up the side of the building.

“I was dangling at a dangerous angle, holding onto the falling pipe.” Drawings by Beverly Baker Moore / The Rag Blog.

By Beverly Baker Moore | The Rag Blog | July 2, 2015

It was an old-time Austin jailbreak.

It was a jailbreak marriage, actually. The term was one of many pop sociology/psychology terms batted around 50 years ago. “Jailbreak marriage” was an appropriate description for those times, though, because for most young women the only acceptable and/or available way out from under their father’s roof was to marry.

That same 50-plus years ago, my family moved to Bergstrom Air Force Base from somewhere or other up north. Inside the windows of my high school classroom across the highway from Bergstrom, Austin beckoned in the distance. I didn’t know very much about it. Just another town our family got transferred to… there had been so many. This time was just a bit different, though. This time I would turn 18 in six months. This time I might have a say in where I would live next. This time I was paying attention.
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged Austin History, Bergstrom Air Force Base, Beverly Baker Moore, Humor, Memoir, Metro, Rag Bloggers | Leave a comment

Johnny Hazard :
Marathon three-day protest at Bellas Artes
in Mexico City

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

‘Plantón’ at cultural center plaza remembers 43 disappeared education students.

Photo by Citlali Téllez / Somos.elmedio.org.

By Johnny Hazard | The Rag Blog | July 2, 2015

MEXICO CITY — Nine months after the forced disappearance of 43 education students, a three-mile march culminated in the “plantón” known as “43 x 43 por Ayotzinapa,” a three-day occupation of the plaza of Bellas Artes, the principal museum and cultural center in Mexico, which is adjacent to the Alameda Central.

This June 26-28 action began the day after the opening of a major exhibition of works by Michaelangelo and DaVinci. The cultural and political events took place before a captive audience of 10,000 gallery visitors on Saturday and many more on Sunday.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Bellas Artes, Disappeared Students, Johnny Hazard, Mexican Massacre, Mexican Student Movement, Mexico City, Rag Bloggers, Social Action | Leave a comment

Lamar W. Hankins :
METRO | Some questions for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Where do you draw the line on accommodating the religious beliefs of public officials?

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at February 18, 2015 press conference. Photo by Erich Schlegel / Getty Images.

By Lamar W. Hankins | The Rag Blog | June 30, 2015

SAN MARCOS — In his official opinion as the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton summarized his conclusions about the duty of certain public officials to issue same-sex marriage licenses if they have sincerely held religious beliefs against same-sex marriage:

County clerks and their employees retain religious freedoms that may provide accommodation of their religious objections to issuing same-sex marriage licenses. Justices of the peace and judges also may claim that the government forcing them to conduct same-sex wedding ceremonies over their religious objections, particularly when other authorized individuals have no objection to conducting such ceremonies, is not the least restrictive means of furthering any compelling governmental interest in ensuring that such ceremonies occur. Importantly, the strength of any particular religious-accommodation claim depends on the particular facts of each case.

These conclusions give rise to questions about the duties of various other government officials in Texas who may have religious objections to the behaviors of some Texans.
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged Constitutional Law, Gay Marriage, Ken Paxton, Lamar W. Hankins, Metro, Metro Bloggers, Rag Bloggers, Religious Freedom, Separation of Church and State, Texas Politics | Leave a comment

David P. Hamilton :
Mapping the Middle East mess

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

The artificial boundaries after the British and French carved up the region are increasingly irrelevant.

Sykes-Picot map of 1916: “A” goes to France, “B” to Britain. Image from the National Archives / Public Domain.

By David P. Hamilton | The Rag Blog | June 29, 2015

“One day during the [Versailles] Peace Conference [ending WWI], Arnold Toynbee, an adviser to the British delegation, had to deliver some papers to the prime minister. “Lloyd George had forgotten my presence and had begun to think aloud. ‘Mesopotamia, yes, oil, irrigation, we must have Mesopotamia; Palestine, yes, the Holy Land, Zionism, we must have Palestine; Syria, h’m, what is there in Syria? Let the French have that.’”
— Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan, p. 381

It took more than the musings of British Prime Minister Lloyd George to make it happen, but that’s more or less how the current countries of the Middle East were created. Their boundaries were essentially drawn by the British and French after WWI to suit their own interests.

The Ottoman Empire, having joined the wrong side in the war, was being dismembered by the victorious European colonialists. The British forces occupied Baghdad and controlled the valleys of the Tigres and Euphrates Rivers. Hence, they got the oil, which they knew to be there in abundance, plus Palestine for sentimental reasons. The French got the leftovers, primarily the coastal regions where the French-speaking Maronite Christians lived plus a bunch of desert to the east.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged David P. Hamilton, Imperialism, Middle East, Rag Bloggers, World History | Leave a comment

Elaine J. Cohen :
METRO | Casting Judith’s ashes into the big river

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Josefina gently poured Judith Rosenberg’s ashes from the bag in the carved wooden box from Mexico.

Julia Quiñones, left, and Josefina Castillo pour Judith Rosenberg’s ashes into the river. Photos by Sister Pam Buganski of the South Texas Human Rights Center (STHRC), Falfurrias, Texas. Special to The Rag Blog.

By Elaine J. Cohen | The Rag Blog | June 24, 2015

AUSTIN — The muses are, once again, tugging at my sleeve. Kleio, Kalliope, and Polyhymnia are jockeying for lead position. Recently I joined a small pilgrimage to Mexico with the ashes of our friend, Judith Rosenberg. We met activists from both sides of this border, on the banks of the Rio Bravo, to cast the last materia of Judith into the fast flowing river that separates Mexico from the USA.

Before we left Austin, I asked Josefina if it had been Judith’s explicit wish to have her ashes put into the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande. Josefina answered that Judith had simply asked that they be put into a river. Then she looked at me and we both shared an almost Gallic shrug as she said, “What other river could it be? There is only one river in our story. It is the river that is the border that shapes our work.”
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged Austin Tan Cerca, Deaths, Elaine J. Cohen, Josefina Castillo, Judith Rosenberg, Metro, Rag Bloggers | 5 Comments

Kate Braun :
Summer Solstice brings the longest day,
shortest night

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Light and dark are opposites that represent the balance we strive for in our daily lives.

Sun and moon wall sculpture. Image from Breathing Space.

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

Sunday, June 21, 2015, is the Summer Solstice. This is the longest day and the shortest night in the year. Lady Moon is in her first quarter in Leo, a fixed Sun sign; Lord Sun is in Cancer, a cardinal water sign. Balance is shifting!

Instead of seeing Lord Sun’s power manifesting more and more as each day brings more daylight time, from now until the Winter Solstice (December 21, 2015) we shall see less daylight each day. Remember that Light does not automatically represent Good, that Dark does not automatically represent Evil. Like the Yin-Yang sign ([), light and dark are the opposites that, in the proper proportions, give a visual representation of the balance we strive for in our daily lives.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Astrology, Celebration, Kate Braun, Metaphysics, Rag Bloggers, Ritual, Summer Solstice | Leave a comment

Beverly Baker Moore :
METRO | Music in the neighborhood:
The John Bush Band

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

This raucous family band offers a dose of variety and potluck every Sunday in South Austin.

The John Bush Band performs at the One-2-One Bar. Photo by Beverly Baker Moore / The Rag Blog.

By Beverly Baker Moore | The Rag Blog | June 16, 2015

AUSTIN — Patio music is great Austin music, for sure, but it will soon be hot — like it likes to get — and then outdoor music is not so enticing for some of us.

I have no plans to give up live music outside or inside, but I don’t go out every day and I don’t wander into venues just for grins. I need to pace myself, it seems, and so I want three things from my live music experiences these days: to be among friendlies, to be away from the hyped scene crowds, to be physically comfortable.
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged Austin Music, Beverly Baker Moore, John Bush Band, Metro, Music in the Neighborhood, One-2-One Bar, Rag Bloggers | 1 Comment

Alan Waldman :
TELEVISION | ‘Hustle’ is Brit series where lovable rascals con greedy, rich bastards

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

A fine cast, tricky plots, and snappy dialogue make this program a fun, compelling pleasure.

Hustle is a compelling pleasure.

By Alan Waldman | The Rag Blog | June 3, 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.]

Hustle is a lively British con-men-vs.-slimy-aristocrats series that ran for eight seasons and 48 episodes, from 2004 to 2014. Four series and 24 episodes air on Netflix, and many are free on YouTube, such as this one.

Hustle follows a group of con artists who specialize in “long cons” — extended deceptions which require greater commitment, but which return a higher reward than simple confidence tricks. First the “marks” think they are getting away with something, and then the tables are turned.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Alan Waldman, British Television, Criticism, Hustle, Rag Bloggers, Tony Jordan | Leave a comment

Steve Russell :
Use writing talent without losing it

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

The acid test of good writing is how it sounds when read aloud. When you write like an artist, people would pay to hear your words recited.

By Steve Russell | The Rag Blog | June 2, 2015

This goes out to young people who are articulate in the written form of English and therefore perhaps a dying breed. It was inspired when one of my editors hurled a really painful remark my way. He said I write like a lawyer.

A legal education will seriously bollix your writing. People think lawyers are trying to be too subtle, to make every word choice carry too much freight.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Creative Writing, English, Grammar, Rag Bloggers, Steve Russell, Writing Tips | 3 Comments