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.

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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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Michael Klonsky :
An insurgent movement wins in Chicago

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

An alliance of union activists, teachers, and community-based organizations took Rahm and his machine candidates to the woodshed.

Mayoral candidate Jesus "Chuy" Garcia

Jesus “Chuy” Garcia: A big smile. Photo from the Chicago Tribune.

By Michael Klonsky | Special to The Rag Blog | March 2, 2015

“We are sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
— Chuy Garcia quotes Fanny Lou Hamer in his election-night speech

CHICAGO — We used to have party primaries in Chicago. But after Harold Washington defeated Jane Byrne and Rich Daley in the 1983 Democratic primary, and went on to become the city’s first black mayor, they changed the rules. No longer would it be possible for a black or Latino candidate to split the white vote in a primary and win a three-way primary with less than 50% of the vote.

As a result, Chicago’s Democratic Party machine candidates have dominated the electoral scene with mayors like Rich Daley and Rahm Emanuel, with millions in their pockets, locking up City Hall and bringing in with them a gaggle of eager yes-men into the City Council. But change is in the air and it’s coming fast.
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Jeff Shero Nightbyrd :
My heart attack and some lessons I learned

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

My recent experience with triple bypass open heart surgery taught me a lot about how to stay healthy.

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Post-op Jeff in May 2014. Photo by Laura Rose Tannous Nichols.

By Jeff Shero Nightbyrd | The Rag Blog | February 25, 2015

Rag Radio logo smallJeff Nightbyrd will be Thorne Dreyer’s guest on Rag Radio, Friday, Feb. 27, 2015, 2-3 p.m. (CST), on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin and streamed live. Jeff will discuss issues related to this article.

UPDATE: Listen to or download the podcast of our Rag Radio interview with Jeff Nightbyrd here:

Last year I had open heart, triple bypass surgery. Kind of takes the wind out of your sails. But I am recovering remarkably well so the prognosis is another 20 years of normal energetic life instead of sudden death. Because this surgery is becoming common — there will be more than 150,000 such procedures in the U.S. this year — some of you or your loved ones will be facing this scary reality. So I thought I would share some helpful lessons I learned the hard way.
 

Your heart

Your heart will beat about 42 million times this year. That’s a stunning amount of work. An average person can fill up 12 swimming pools with blood in a year. OK, I just made up that statistic but you get the idea. In the time you took to read this far your heart has pumped about a gallon of blood.
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Thorne Dreyer :
RAG RADIO PODCAST | Bob McChesney on our media crisis – and on ‘post-capitalist democracy’

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

In his important new book, the influential media critic is ‘Blowing the Roof Off the Twenty-First Century.’

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Bob McChesney was Thorne Dreyer’s guest on Rag Radio, Friday, February 20, 2015.

Interview by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | January 24, 2015

Our guest on Rag Radio is Robert W. McChesney, one of the most widely read and honored communication scholars in the world today. On the show we discuss issues related to McChesney’s important new book, Blowing the Roof Off the Twenty-First Century: Media, Politics, and the Struggle for Post-Capitalist Democracy.

Download the podcast of our hour-long January 20, 2015, Rag Radio interview with Bob McChesney 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).

blowing the roof offAmong topics discussed on the show are the significance and likely fate of net neutrality, the commercialization of the Internet, and the future of our endangered print media and, for that matter, of serious journalism itself; the crippling effect of income inequality and the importance of grassroots activism in countering organized wealth in our society; the continuing encroachment of for-profit corporations into the public sector; and what a “post-capitalist democracy” might look like.
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The Rag Blog :
METRO EVENT | Second chance to see landmark film about the American media monopoly

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

‘Shadows of Liberty’ asks why we have let a handful of powerful corporations write and manipulate the news.

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Panel at the 2013 U.S. premiere of Shadows of Liberty: from left, Jean-Philippe Tremblay, Amy Goodman, Norman Solomon, and recent Rag Radio guest Robert McChesney.

Event: Screening of ‘Shadows of Liberty’
What: Documentary film about failures of corporate journalism
When: Thursday, March 5, 2015, 6-7:45 p.m.
Presented by: Texas State Employees Union
Where: TSEU Hall
Address: 1700 South First, Austin
Price: Free & open to the public

AUSTIN — A second free screening of Jean-Philippe Tremblay’s internationally acclaimed documentary film, Shadows of Liberty, is being presented by the Texas State Employees Union at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 5, 2015, at the TSEU Hall in Austin.

(In an earlier story, The Rag Blog announced a January 27 screening that took place January 27 on the UT-Austin campus.)
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