Jean Trounstine :
Juvenile life without parole? Don’t set back the clock

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

For those of you who think Massachusetts is that silly small liberal New England state, our criminal justice issues are no picnic.

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Barbara Kaban (left), Committee for Public Council Services (CPCS) and Tina Chery, Founder of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute in Boston.

By Jean Trounstine | The Rag Blog | May 23, 2014

BOSTON — This past March, the Dallas Observer reported that it took more than a year and two special sessions to do it, but last July, the Texas legislature finally provided a constitutional option for punishing teen murderers, stating that a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole is unconstitutional.

On Wednesday, May 14, while many in Massachusetts were preparing for hockey playoffs, or celebrating graduations from college, or merely enjoying the first breaths of spring, tragedy was front and center at the Massachusetts State House, circling around that same issue: how to handle juvenile life without parole in order to be in compliance with statutes, both federally and state-wide.
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METRO | Beverly Baker Moore : For Austin’s SouthPop it’s ten colorful years and counting

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The South Austin Popular Culture Center, dedicated to the history of our town’s music culture, celebrates with Wonder Wart-Hog, ‘Peyote Dream,’ ‘Woman with a Blue Guitar,’ and more…

southpop poster

By Beverly Baker Moore | The Rag Blog | April 22, 2014

AUSTIN — The South Austin Popular Culture Center (SouthPop) is well into its month-long 10th Anniversary celebration exhibit (it ends May 31). The center, originally called the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture, is located at 1516-B S. Lamar in, appropriately enough, South Austin. The anniversary celebration honors the first 10 years of the center’s history with a selection of items cherry-picked from SouthPop’s 5,000-plus piece collection.

Attendees to the exhibit find a specially selected sampling of historical concert posters, original cartoon panels from the likes of Wonder Wart-Hog, and individual artwork like Sam Yeates’ “Woman with a Blue Guitar” and the center’s very first acquisition, Ken Featherston’s mural, “Peyote Dream.” In between the exhibited pieces the staff has mounted plaques describing the center’s origin and growth in its first decade.
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Posted on May 22, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer
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FRONT PAGE PODCAST | Thorne Dreyer interviews acclaimed Austin novelist Sarah Bird, author, ‘Above the East China Sea.’
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Thorne Dreyer :
PODCAST | Nationally-acclaimed novelist Sarah Bird joins us on Rag Radio

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Sarah Bird, member of the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, discusses her powerful and critically-praised new work, ‘Above the East China Sea.’

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Novelist Sarah Bird on Rag Radio. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Interview by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | May 22, 2014

Our Rag Radio podcast features nationally-acclaimed novelist Sarah Bird, four-times chosen “Best Austin Author” in the Austin Chronicle‘s poll. Her latest book is Above the East China Sea.

Listen to or download the podcast of our May 16, 2014, Rag Radio interview with Sarah Bird here:
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Posted on May 22, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer
southpop
METRO | Beverly Baker Moore reports that for Austin’s SouthPop it’s ten colorful years and counting.
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Lamar W. Hankins :
Fighting back against public officials who promote religion

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The Greece case is a victory for all Christians who need the government to endorse their religion, who have too much faith in the government and not enough faith in their chosen religion.

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Heavens looking down on Supreme Court building, Washington, D.C. Photo by Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images.

By Lamar W. Hankins | The Rag Blog | May 22, 2014

“The separation of church and state has been a cornerstone of American democracy for over two hundred years,” said Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority. “Getting rid of it was long overdue.” — Satire by Andy Borowitz in The New Yorker

SAN MARCOS, Texas — The U.S. Supreme Court has now given public officials in the U.S. clear permission to promote and propagandize for the religion of their choice (mostly Christian), as well as religion in general, while performing their public duties. Five justices, all Catholic (one other Catholic opposed the decision) made up the majority in Town of Greece v. Galloway, decided on May 5, 2014. How this ruling can afford equal protection for everyone has not been explained.
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Terry Dyke :
What’s left of liberals

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Contrary to the popular American usage, ‘liberal’ is qualitatively different from ‘left.’ It is a centrist position meant to preserve the status quo.

Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren

Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren: Liberals pushing the envelope? Photos by Larry Downing and Joshua Roberts / Reuters.

By Terry Dyke | The Rag Blog | May 21, 2014

Ever since George Bush the Elder made his dismissive quip about “the L-word,” liberals have sought to rehabilitate the term and restore it to the connotation it enjoyed throughout its postwar heyday, when “western liberal democracies” were the embodiment of mankind’s progress up from the jungle, and to be liberal was to be evolved, humane, rational, grownup, and on the side of the future.

For a couple of decades, the political spectrum was essentially unipolar. Gradually, though, the “Conservative Revolution” picked up steam, and while it may not be the juggernaut now that it was in 1988 when Bush dropped his L-bomb, it definitely made the rightward end of the spectrum respectable in the public mind, or at least not as unspeakable as it was up until, say, the Carter administration.
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Mark Karlin :
VISUAL ARTS | ‘The Left Front: Radical Art in the Red Decade’

Posted on May 20, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Radical art is an act of uncompromising passionate resistance.

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Carl Hoeckner, “The Yes Machine,” c. 1935 (Lithograph: Courtesy of Mary and Leigh Block Museum, Northwestern University). Image from Truthout.

By Mark Karlin  | Truthout | May 20, 2014

Marxian playwright Bertolt Brecht declared of revolutionary art: “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” Brecht’s artistic career in Germany (except for his exile during the Nazi era, after which he returned to found the Berliner Ensemble Theater company in East Berlin) spanned from the Russian Revolution to his death in 1956 — and his work illustrated that revolutionary art must avoid the pitfalls of becoming co-opted by propaganda or commercialization.

Brecht believed that to be a radical and revolutionary artist is to be defiant of any imposition of form or content by any economic system, artistic academy, or political status quo.
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Ron Jacobs :
BOOKS | Anand Gopal’s ‘No Good Men Among the Living’

Posted on May 20, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Through the lives of three Afghans, Gopal creates a vivid history of  the U.S. occupation and exposes the lies and misunderstandings the war is based on.

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Journalist Anand Gopal, author of No Good Men Among the Living, has reported from Afghanistan since 2001.

By Ron Jacobs | The Rag Blog | April 20, 2014

[No Good Men Among the Living by Anand Gopal (2014: Metropolitan Books); Hardcover; 320 pp; $27.]

The war and occupation of Afghanistan by U.S.-led forces has gone on for almost 13 years. The current war was preceded by another 23 or so years of war; first between the Soviets and U.S.-funded mujahedin and then between the various mujahedin factions, with the final result of that episode of war being the triumph of the Taliban.

That brings us up to October 2001 when U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan for harboring Osama bin Laden. The Taliban were vanquished, with many being killed, many captured, and most of the rest going back to their previous lives while Washington put its chosen people in power in Kabul and made deals with those warlords and Afghan factions it had hired to defeat the Taliban.
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Bob Feldman :
People’s History of Egypt, Conclusion, Section 1, February 12, 2011-2013

Posted on May 19, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The Egyptian military exercised special influence and after Mubarek’s removal became the sole authority, responsible for extensive human rights abuses.

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The Egyptian military routinely responded to peaceful protests with excessive force. Photo (c) Mahmud Hams / AFP.

By Bob Feldman | The Rag Blog | May 19, 2014

[With all the dramatic activity in Egypt, Bob Feldman’s Rag Blog “people’s history” series, “The Movement to Democratize Egypt,” could not be more timely. Also see Feldman’s “Hidden History of Texas” series on The Rag Blog.]

Within Egyptian society, the U.S. government-funded Egyptian military has exercised a special economic and political influence for many years. As James Gelvin’s 2012 book, The Arab Uprising: What Everyone Needs To Know, recalled:
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Harry Targ :
Angela Davis featured at National Forum on Police Crimes at University of Chicago

Posted on May 19, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Police repression and ideological mystification are the glues that maintain structural violence.

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Angela Davis speaks at rally. Image from NAARPR.org / Third Coast Blog.

By Harry Targ | The Rag Blog | May 19, 2014

Stop Police Crimes!
End Mass Incarceration!
Free All Political Prisoners!

(Rally with Angela Davis, Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago, Illinois, May 17, 2014).

CHICAGO — It was inspiring and informative attending the rally with Angela Davis and the celebration of the lifelong political work of Charlene Mitchell, the founder of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR). The rally and award ceremony honoring Davis and Mitchell capped a two-day National Forum on Police Crimes at the University of Chicago.
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Alan Waldman :
‘Crossing Lines’ is an exciting global crime series

Posted on May 19, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Donald Sutherland and William Fichtner lead a fine ensemble in dramatic American-written, Franco-German series, shot mostly in the Czech Republic.

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Crossing Lines is action-packed global drama.

By Alan Waldman | The Rag Blog | May 19, 2014

[In his weekly 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, and Scotland. Most are available on DVD and/or Netflix, and some episodes are on YouTube.]

Crossing Lines is an English-language French/German international crime series shot in Czechoslovakia. In 2013, the first series of 10 episodes aired in Turkey, Croatia, India, Iceland, Poland, Japan, Sweden, Canada, Belgium, Italy, Hungary, UK, Germany, France, and in the U.S. as a Summer 2013 show on NBC. All episodes are on Netflix and Netflix Instant streaming. Here is one.
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