Alice Embree :
METRO EVENT | Michael Milligan brings one-man ‘Mercy Killers’ to Texas audiences

Posted on April 25, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

‘Mercy Killers’ is merciless is in its very personal indictment of the American health care system.

michael milligan mercy killers

In Mercy Killers, Michael Milligan is a man struggling with our dysfunctional health care system as his wife is dying of cancer. Photo by Nicholas Betito.

By Alice Embree | The Rag Blog | April 26, 2015

Event: Mercy Killers
Date: Tue-Wed, May 12-13, 2015
Time: 8 p.m.
Where: The Vortex
Address: 2307 Manor Rd., Austin, TX 78722
General Admission: $20
Artist/Student/Senior: $10
Box Office: 512-478-5282
Buy online: Mercy Killers tickets at the Vortex
[Unlike with health care, no one will be turned away for lack
of funds.]

AUSTIN — The award-winning drama, Mercy Killers, written and performed by Michael Milligan, is coming to Austin and other Texas venues in May.

Mercy Killers has played Off-Broadway and in regional theaters,  medical schools, and community centers throughout the country. Now Health Care for All – Texas is bringing the play to audiences in San Antonio, Fort Worth, Houston, and Austin. Go here for information on all Texas performances.
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Thorne Dreyer :
RAG RADIO PODCAST | An exclusive interview with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

‘This country is moving very fast toward an oligarchic form of society where a small number of people have incredible wealth and incredible economic power.’

bernie peace sign pogue 2 sm

Give peace a chance: Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks to an overflow crowd at an Austin union hall, March 31, 2015. Photo by Alan Pogue / The Rag Blog.

Interview by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | April 21, 2015

UPDATE: On Thursday, April 30, after weeks of speculation, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) officially announced his candidacy for president of the United States. Sanders is the first candidate to challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

Sanders told the Associated Press: “People should not underestimate me. I’ve run outside of the two-party system, defeating Democrats and Republicans, taking on big-money candidates and, you know, I think the message that has resonated in Vermont is a message that can resonate all over this country.”

AUSTIN — This special Rag Radio podcast features an exclusive 30-minute interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a leading progressive voice in the U.S. Senate who discusses with us his potential presidential candidacy and what he calls the “grotesque level of income and wealth inequality” in this country.

The second part of the show is a discussion with Rag Radio political analyst Glenn W. Smith, a progressive Democratic strategist and director of Progress Texas PAC.

Download the podcast of our March 27, 2015, Rag Radio interviews with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and political analyst Glenn W. Smith here — or listen to the show using this player:

Rag Radio is a syndicated weekly radio show, hosted by Thorne Dreyer, that originates on Austin’s cooperatively-run KOOP 91.7-FM.

Bernie Sanders joined us by telephone from Washington, D.C., in advance of his recent Austin visit which was highlighted by a March 31 “Bernie Sanders Town Meeting” that was by all accounts a rousing success.
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Elaine J. Cohen :
METRO | Drawing attention to immigrant family detention at Karnes City, Texas

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

When Sra. X came out with her littlest guy (who had just turned three in December), his eyes widened and he ran straight into my arms.

detention drawing 5 crp

Drawings by a child incarcerated at the Karnes County Detention Center.

By Elaine J. Cohen | The Rag Blog | April 9, 2015

This piece is dedicated to the Memory of Judith Rosenberg, who taught me that stories are more important than statistics.

AUSTIN — A recent Friday in March was marked by the Vernal Equinox and a New Moon. I spent most of it in a car, between Austin and Karnes City, Texas. It was my fourth visit to the Karnes County Family Detention Center — and while each visit was memorable, it was the last visit that compels me to write this.

I feel that it is the culmination of all these impressions that forms an arc in my growing understanding of the complexities of immigration detention. In Spanish, one of the words for spectrum is abanico — which also can be a fan. My goal is to offer you an abanico of my experiences visiting family detention.
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Jean Trounstine :
Taking my students to prison

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

A man smiled widely and pressed his face against
the slit.’That’s my brother,’ Sofia said, her eyes
filling with tears.

Trounstine students 1

Students look behind the bars at Billerica House of Correction.

By Jean Trounstine | The Rag Blog | April 9, 2015

Every semester my students from Voices Behind Bars, a class I teach at Middlesex Community College in Massachusetts, go to prison. They used to visit state institutions but now that the Massachusetts state prisons do not offer tours (perhaps because it is a hassle to have outsiders trooping through them and criticizing what they see), the students take a tour of Billerica House of Correction, where they experience confinement to some degree and listen for an hour to an incarcerated man talk about his life and what it is like to be behind bars.

Originally, the Middlesex House of Correction, which was built in 1929, housed 300 men. Now it has more than 1,100, after a $37 million dollar expansion which prison officials say was to accommodate the closing of the Cambridge Jail — not without objection from activists and community members who opposed more prison building (actually costing $43 million per The Lowell Sun.)
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Alan Waldman :
TELEVISION | ‘Vicious’ is hilarious British sitcom starring two of world’s greatest actors

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi play two aging gay men who have roomed together and humorously sniped at each other for 48 years.

vicious poster

Sir Ian McKellen, left, and Sir Derek Jacobi star in ‘Vicious.’

By Alan Waldman | The Rag Blog | March 31, 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.]

In the wonderful 2014-2015 British sitcom, Vicious, Freddie (Sir Ian McKellen) and Stuart (Sir Derek Jacobi) are an old gay couple who have lived together for 48 years in their Covent Garden flat. Their lives now revolve around frequently entertaining quirky guests, hurling caustic insults at each other at every opportunity, and making sure that their aged dog Balthazar is still breathing.

Although they hold onto petty slights for decades, we can still see that beneath all their vicious codependent fighting they maintain a deep love for each other.
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Harry Targ :
The cost-cutting approach to higher education

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Though some reform ideas have merit, the real problem is lack of funding from the government.

mitch daniels commencement

Reform advocate: Purdue University President Mitch Daniels at commencement exercises for Purdue North Central, 2014. Image
from nwi.com.

By Harry Targ | The Rag Blog | March 25, 2015

WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana — Purdue University President Mitch Daniels testified March 17, 2015, before a subcommittee of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Workforce on what he calls higher education reform. He also spoke during that week to the American Council on Education and the Brookings Institute.

A centerpiece of his recommendations was “income share agreements” whereby students partner with investors, particularly alumni, who would provide funds for their education in exchange “for a small share of the student’s future income.”
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Alice Embree :
METRO | Remembering Oscar Romero with a ‘Day of Action’

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Demonstrators mark the anniversary of Archbishop Romero’s assassination with calls for an end
to refugee detention.

alice romero signs 2

Demonstrators at the J.J. Pickle Federal Building in Austin, Texas. Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.

By Alice Embree | The Rag Blog | March 25, 2015

AUSTIN — On March 24, the anniversary of Archbishop Oscar Romero’s assassination in El Salvador in 1980, immigration rights activists commemorated his life with a National Day of Action. In cities across the country, demonstrators called for freedom for refugee families at immigration detention centers at Karnes City and Dilley, Texas.

alice romero portillo crp

Esther Portillo.

Romero, a liberation theologian who spoke out against poverty and social injustice, was the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador. On February 3 of this year, Pope Francis declared him a martyr.

Vigils and demonstrations took place in New York, Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Austin, and Los Angeles. Grassroots Leadership and the Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition organized the demonstration in front of the J. J. Pickle Federal Building in downtown Austin.
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Shepherd Bliss :
Glass half full? Sour Grapes in ‘Wine Country’

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Overexpansion of vineyards in California’s Sonoma County threatens the environment and rural residents’ quality of life.

bliss - winery site

Aerial shot of the proposed site in the vulnerable Laguna de Santa Rosa in Sonoma County. Photo courtesy Bimpix.com.

By Shepherd Bliss | The Rag Blog | March 25, 2015

SEBASTOPOL, California — Sonoma County’s premium wine industry in the San Francisco North Bay has become a magnet that attracts developers from around the country, across oceans, and nearby. They move heavy industrial operations into rural areas and expand them to become event centers and commercial bottling operations.

Under the pretense that they are merely agriculture, rather than alcohol-producing factories, large wineries seek to avoid Environmental Impact Reports (EIR) and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

Such wineries overuse precious, limited resources — such as water, air, and land — which threatens the environment and the quality of life in our semi-rural region. The contiguous Napa, Lake, and Mendocino Counties have also recently experienced overexpansion of wineries and vineyards, as well as growing efforts by residents to reign them in. In Napa, large wineries are already trucking in water and trucking out wastewater.
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Thorne Dreyer :
RAG RADIO PODCASTS | Hall of Fame singer Maryann Price; Ellen Sweets, author of ‘Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins’

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Maryann Price sang with Dan Hicks, The Kinks, and Asleep at the Wheel; Ellen Sweets is a prize-winning journalist recently returned from Cuba.

maryann price four crp sm

Maryann Price, front left, with Christy Palumbo Foster and, in back, Rag Radio’s Tracey Schulz, left, and Thorne Dreyer in the studios of KOOP-FM in Austin, Texas, March 20, 2015. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Interviews by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | March 23, 2015

Recent guests on Rag Radio are Austin singer and recording artist Maryann Price, a member of the Western Swing Hall of Fame and the Texas Music Hall of Fame, and award-winning journalist Ellen Sweets, author of Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins.

Listen to the podcasts of these shows below.

Rag Radio is a weekly hour-long syndicated radio program produced and hosted by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer. The show is produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas, and is first broadcast and streamed live on KOOP every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CDT).

Maryann Price

Maryann Price was the voice behind iconic bands Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, The Kinks, and Asleep at the Wheel. She is also known for leading her own jazz trio and as one half of the eclectic duo Ethyl’n Methyl, along with Asleep at the Wheel alumnus Chris O’Connell. She and Christy Palumbo Foster, who backs her up on guitar and vocals, also perform four songs live on the show.
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The Rag Blog :
METRO EVENT | Town Meeting with Sen. Bernie Sanders in Austin on March 31

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

bernie sanders town meeting

Event: Town Meeting with Senator Bernie Sanders
When: Tuesday, March 31, 2015, 7:00 p.m.
Presented by: Friends of Bernie Sanders
Where: IBEW Local Union 520
Address: 4818 E. Ben White Boulevard, Austin, TX 78760
Price: $25 suggested contribution; no one turned away

AUSTIN — Vermont’s feisty Independent senior U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders will be in Austin to talk about the fight for economic justice. Texas populist pundit and radio commentator Jim Hightower will be introducing him. Other local leaders will be there as well to welcome Sanders to Austin.

Senator Sanders will focus on an agenda familiar to anyone who has been following him:
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The Rag Blog :
METRO EVENT | ‘Bringing It Home: A Night With Hemp,’ at the Alamo South Lamar

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

bringing it home with hemp

Event: Bringing It Home: A Night with Hemp
When: Tuesday, March 31, 2015, 6:30-9:30 p.m.
Presented by: The Texas Hemp Industries Association
Featuring: Screening of documentary film, Bringing It Home
Where: Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar
Address: 1000 South Lamar Blvd., Austin, TX 78704
Price: $35 advance; $40 at door

The Texas Hemp Industries Association is presenting “Bringing It Home: A Night with Hemp” at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar, 1000 South Lamar Blvd., Austin, on March 31, 6:30-9:30 p.m.

There will be a screening of Bringing It Home: Industrial hemp, healthy houses and a greener future for America, an award-winning documentary film by Linda Booker and Blaire Johnson, followed by guest speakers, a question and answer session, and networking with other hemp supporters. Tickets are $35 in advance, $40 at the door, and include dinner and a drink.
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Alyce Guynn :
VERSE | One White Crow

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

white crow flying

By Alyce Guynn | The Rag Blog | March 23, 2015

In a snow storm of silence, quiet wraps itself around her
a smothering blanket taming ghostly shadows that claim the night

So as not to drown in the chill of the soundless shore
she stuffs the suffocating Silence into a bottle
corks it, hurls it out to sea hoping to reach a willing soul

As soon as she set the bottle free, watched it
bobbing on the emancipating white capped waves
a lightning volt infuses her spine
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