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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Dick J. Reavis :
Former civil rights activist and political street vendor Charlie Saulsberry is dead at 70

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Charlie, who was well-known around the UT campus in late-’60s Austin, ‘was a lefty, but always a heretic.’

charlie saulsberry by Miriam Lizcano

Charlie Saulsberry. Drawing by Miriam Lizcano / The Rag Blog.

By Dick J. Reavis | The Rag Blog | March 22, 2015

Charlie Saulsberry, 70, a familiar figure on the UT-Austin campus during the late ‘60s, died Monday, March 16, in Alabama. Strokes and kidney failure brought about his death.

Saulsberry was known to thousands of UT students because every weekday on a Guadalupe Street sidewalk just steps outside the University Co-Op bookstore, he laid out a variety of books, pamphlets, and cause buttons, and spent the day selling them to passerby. His books and pamphlets included titles like How the United States Got Involved in Vietnam and Red Star Over China. His buttons carried slogans like “War Is a Drag!”

During the three semesters that he ran the makeshift stand, he jibed and conversed with hundreds of students who remember him if only because an impediment caused him to cut short the last syllables of words he spoke. To engage in a conversation with Charlie one had to lend an ear, but those who listened to him benefitted because he was a self-taught and unique commentator in a milieu of polarized and stylized opinion. He was a lefty, but always a heretic.
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Lamar W. Hankins :
FILM | Oscar-winning ‘Citizenfour’ documents one citizen’s sacrifice for our liberty

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Laura Pointras tells Snowden’s story in an engaging account that is both enlightening and unsettling.

citizenfour 3

By Lamar W. Hankins | The Rag Blog | March 22, 2015

Citizen Four is the name used by 29-year-old Edward Joseph Snowden when he first contacted Laura Poitras in January 2013. Poitras was making a film about post-9/11 surveillance when she began receiving encrypted emails from Snowden, though she didn’t know who was sending the messages at the time. In 2012, she had received a MacArthur Genius Fellowship and is a 2014 co-recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

Poitras has done a trilogy of films since 9/11. My Country, My Country focuses on the Iraq War and received an Academy Award nomination in 2007. The Oath, nominated for two Emmy awards, is about the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo. Citizenfour — Poitras’ latest documentary — tells the story of how Edward Snowden came to provide detailed information about our government’s secret surveillance program. It recently received an Oscar for Best Documentary, as well as over three dozen other film awards before the Oscar.
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Beverly Baker Moore :
METRO | Special Olympics, still alive and well… and in Austin!

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

The athletes came with an abundance of the original spirit of the Special Olympics movement: inclusion, courage, and fair play.

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Cyrus Moore, bronze medal bowler and Austin live music aficionado. Photo by Beverly Baker Moore / The Rag Blog.

By Beverly Baker Moore | The Rag Blog | March 18, 2015

AUSTIN — Last month, as they do every year, a few thousand Special Olympics athletes came to Austin for State Winter Games. For those unfamiliar, the “special” in Special Olympics refers to the one stipulation for participation: an official diagnosis of intellectual disability (obtained most often in early childhood through standardized literacy tests) and, oh yes, over the age of 10.

We found Special Olympics as hundreds of thousands of other parents and family members have, through the local games organized by teachers in our son’s elementary school. When we relocated to a community that had no Special Olympics program, we began one. That was 25 or so years ago and these days Cyrus is a year-round athlete and we are all still members of the large extended family that is Special Olympics.
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Kate Braun :
On Friday, March 20, we celebrate the
Vernal Equinox

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Day and night hours are equal and the focus is all about recognizing the various balances in your life.

Balancing act elephant

Balance your act on the Equinox.

By Kate Braun | The Rag Blog | March 17, 2015

Friday, March 20, 2015, is the Vernal Equinox. Day and night hours are equal on this day, and the focus is all about recognizing the various balances in your life as well as observing the balance of nighttime and daytime.

Decorate using the colors pink, yellow, and green. All pastel colors are good, but pink, yellow, and green are the more important. Prepare a menu that may include eggs and foods using eggs; hot cross buns; leafy green veggies; dairy foods; pumpkin and sunflower seeds; pine nuts, sprouts, cheeses, ham, and chocolate.
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Johnny Hazard :
Parents of missing Mexican students take action

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

A new report by an expert within the Mexican government casts further doubt on the credibility of the official story.

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Mother of one the 43 disappeared students at el Monumento a la Madre in Mexico City on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2015. Photo by Valeria González / The Rag Blog.

By Johnny Hazard | Special to The Rag Blog | March 17, 2015

Austin with Ayotzinapa: From March 18-20, a group representing the parents of the 43 students kidnapped in late September in Guerrero, Mexico, will be in Austin to speak about their children’s experiences and about the human rights violations occurring in Mexico. There will be a number of events at several venues. Find out more here.

MEXICO CITY — On Tuesday, March 10, parents and supporters of the 43 missing students blocked Avenida Chapultepec in front of the headquarters of Televisa, the dominant television network, and demanded air time to respond to what they call lies about their children.

A new report by Jorge Arturo Talavera, an expert from a government entity, the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) — but obviously working on his own time — casts further doubt on the credibility of the official story that the missing students were  detained by the police in Iguala and handed over to a drug gang which burned them to death.
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Thorne Dreyer :
RAG RADIO PODCAST | Jim Hightower on
‘the growing populist rebellion against our corporate plutocracy’

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

We also talk about the U.S. Postal Service and grassroots efforts by workers and supporters to fight back against privatization.

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Jim Hightower on Rag Radio, Friday, March 6, 2015. Photos by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Interview by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | March 12, 2015

Progressive populist writer and radio commentator Jim Hightower, for years a major force on the populist left, is our guest on Rag Radio. On the show we talk about our “authoritarian corporate plutocracy” and what Hightower sees as a growing “populist rebellion” in the United States.

We discuss issues raised in his recent article, published at the Hightower Lowdown, entitled, “What Occupy, the Climate March and #BlackLivesMatter have in common — and why that should inspire us all.” Jim talks about the rise of an authoritarian plutocracy in the United States — and what he sees as “diverse rebellions by those battling everything from poverty wages to police brutality, from fracking to bank fraud, [that] are fundamentally altering the nature, language, content, and context of America’s political dialogue and dynamics.”

And he believes those diverse rebellions are seeing common cause and are coming together into a larger grassroots populist movement.

We also talk about the unique importance of the U.S. Postal Service and grassroots efforts by the postal union and community groups to fight back against privatization.

Download the podcast of our March 6, 2015, Rag Radio interview with Jim Hightower here — or listen to it here:

 
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).

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Thorne Dreyer :
RAG RADIO PODCAST | Heart attack survivor Jeff Shero Nightbyrd on how not to have one!

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Jeff, who had triple bypass surgery, talks about heart health, holistic health, and our health care system.

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Jeff Nightbyrd on Rag Radio at the KOOP studios in Austin, February 27, 2015. Photos by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Interview by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | March 12, 2015

Jeff Shero Nightbyrd, who was a major figure in the ’60s New Left and underground press movements, is our guest on Rag Radio. Jeff, our long-time friend and colleague, had a serious heart attack in 2014, and underwent triple bypass open heart surgery, which he discussed in a widely-read Rag Blog article.

On the show Jeff discusses his personal experience and some lessons he learned about heart health that he hopes will help others who might have a heart attack or who would like to avoid having one.

Download the podcast of our February 27, 2015, Rag Radio interview with Jeff Shero Nightbyrd here — or listen to it here:

 
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).

Jeff provides an intimate picture of his personal experience — with his heart attack, surgery, and recovery — while also offering some extremely useful insight into heart health, holistic health, and, in a larger sense, the strengths and weaknesses of our health care system. Jeff, who travels widely, also talks about health care in other parts of the world, especially Ecuador, where he recently spent time, and Cuba.
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Mariann G. Wizard :
Richard Lee, 1940-2014: Farewell to an
enemy of the State

Posted on March 9, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

‘His life was tempered by his grasp of history, his sense of justice, and his refusal to conform.’

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Dick at Belle Isle Park, Michigan, 1987. Photo courtesy AmericanTribune.org.

By Mariann G. Wizard | The Rag Blog | March 10, 2015

In writing this remembrance, I had vital assistance from Robert Blurton, David P. Hamilton, Nick Medvecky, bashful members of the Rag community, and others who know who they are; many thanks for sharing your stories and photographs, and helping me recall the tales I’d heard more clearly. Where possible, I’ve relied on Richard Lee’s own writings. Misstatements and omissions are, however, entirely my own, and not all are accidental. – mgw

The e-mail from Richard Lee’s account on December 4, 2014, said what was needed:

Richard Lee, AKA Richard LeClair, AKA Dick Mother Fucker, died today in Boca Raton, Florida. He broke out of the VA Hospice in Detroit on 11/29/14, made a run for the sun and had at least one day of sunny skies and 80 degree weather. He was in one of his favorite hotels and eating food from one of his favorite delis. He began having chest pains… and was taken to the local hospital where he received good compassionate care but… slipped away suddenly.

After he declined treatment for his cancer a little over a year ago he took “a victory lap” across the south, west, northwest and northern United States, putting over 15,000 miles on his car. Over the summer he went east, to his birthplace in Maine, ate lobster, and visited with “my people.”

He was a man who mastered the art of being free. He did not let possessions own him. He belonged everywhere and was anchored to nowhere. He was a loyal and generous friend, a great story teller, and was grounded in humor but was nobody’s fool. He was a traveler, an adventurer, and a seeker of pleasure. His life was tempered by his grasp of history, his sense of justice, and his refusal to conform.

He wanted to let his friends know he had gone.

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Glenn Scott :
METRO | 1,000 march on Texas State Capitol to mark Austin’s ‘Day of the Fallen’

Posted on March 4, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Construction workers and supporters, many from fellow AFL-CIO unions, call for stronger safety and health protections in state with highest death rate.

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Day of the Fallen, Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas, Feb. 25, 2015. Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.

By Glenn Scott | The Rag Blog | March 4, 2015

AUSTIN — “Texas does not have to be the state with the highest death rate nor with the highest rate of injuries in construction. The legislature can turn this around by adopting our legislative agenda for better safety and health for the workers who build Texas. That is why we are here today,” Worker’s Defense Project Executive Director Cristina Tsintzun said at a rally on February 25, 2015.

One thousand construction workers and supporters marched to the Texas State Capitol on a cold, blustery day in late February to call for stronger safety and health protections. The march was sponsored by the Workers Defense Project to dramatize the high number of deaths and injuries suffered by construction workers in Texas. The Austin American-Statesman did not cover it at all. Telemundo gave the march and the rally professional coverage.
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Tom Hayden :
It’s time to act against escalation in Iraq and Iran

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

We must support diplomacy while pointing out there is no military solution.

us military trainers iraq

U.S. military trainers with Iraqi soldiers in January 2015. Photo by Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP.

By Tom Hayden | The Rag Blog | March 3, 2015

Peace and justice activists should — at the very least — send messages now to members of Congress and to 2016 candidates telling them that they will be held accountable if the new Iraq War turns into a quagmire and the diplomatic process with Iran breaks down.

First, Iraq. It would be a terrible mistake if any peace activists sit out the fight over whether Congress should authorize the next phase of the Iraq War. Currently many activists are insisting on a diplomatic resolution and are opposed to any congressional authorization for the use of military force.
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