METRO EVENT | Dude. It’s Hemp History Week!

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Hemp History Week, June 3-9, 2014, promotes the re-legalization of industrial hemp in the U.S.

hemp history weekAUSTIN — Every day, more and more Americans discover the environmental and health-related benefits of hemp (Cannabis sativa). Hemp products now include foods, body care products, textiles, paper goods, clothing, auto parts, building materials, and more.

But despite hemp’s growing popularity, the outdated, misguided federal policy of cannabis prohibition still prevents U.S. farmers from growing this versatile, valuable crop. The prohibition of hemp, the non-psychoactive sister plant of “marijuana,” may in fact have been the real reason the war against marijuana was launched in the 1930s by industrialists who feared hemp’s potential.
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Posted on June 3, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer
hempseed food
FRONT PAGE | See Kate Braun’s review of Rag Blogger Mariann Garner-Wizard’s new book, ‘Hempseed Food.’
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METRO PODCAST | Thorne Dreyer : Aralyn Hughes, performance artist & ‘Queen of Austin Weird,’ on Rag Radio

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Noted Austin storyteller Hughes is the editor of ‘Kid Me Not: an anthology by child-free women of the ’60s now in their 60s.’

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Performance artist Aralyn Hughes, with Rag Radio’s Tracey Schulz, left, and host Thorne Dreyer, at the KOOP studios in Austin. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Interview by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | June 2, 2014

Our Rag Radio podcast features Austin performance artist, storyteller, and visual artist Aralyn Hughes, whose new book is Kid Me Not: an anthology by child-free women of the ’60s now in their 60s.

Listen to or download the podcast of our May 23, 2014, Rag Radio interview with Aralyn Hughes here:
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Bob Feldman :
People’s History of Egypt, Conclusion, Section 2, February 12, 2011-2013

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The Egyptian people continue their fight against domination by foreign governments, foreign-based transnational corporations, and foreign government-selected or promoted puppet rulers.

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Egyptian basins serving as hydrocarbon exploration centers for Houston’s Apache Corporation, the largest oil producer in Egypt.

By Bob Feldman | The Rag Blog | June 2, 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.]

In the view of James Gelvin, author of The Arab Uprising, “social media” had “certainly played a role” in the late January 2011 uprising in Egypt “but they did not cause” the  uprising because “only 20 percent of Egyptians have internet access.”
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Alan Waldman :
‘Luther’ is a dark, powerful English thriller series featuring a star turn by Idris Elba

Posted on May 27, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

This haunted detective, aided by a deranged former murderess, takes on the most treacherous London criminals.

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Luther is an innovative British psychological crime series.

By Alan Waldman | The Rag Blog | May 27, 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.]

Luther is an innovative British psychological crime drama television series which has aired three seasons and 14 episodes (2010-2013) so far in Britain (two here on BBC America) and has already won eight major awards and 20 nominations (including five for Emmys). Currently, 10 episodes from two seasons, including this one, are on Netflix and Netflix Instant streaming.
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Robert Sharlet :
Lament for the long forgotten war dead

Posted on May 24, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

For the fallen from Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, it’s home in a box, family and neighbors gather, a sad requiem, the flag folded, presented to the mother.

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High Peaks, Adirondacks, northern New York.

By Robert Sharlet | The Rag Blog | May 24, 2014

Nearly a half century ago this season of remembering the fallen — just after sunset on a hillside along the border of New York and Canada — the sad sounds of taps echoed through the hills and valleys. It was a warm evening summer of ’67 when hundreds of townspeople — nearly everyone living in Ausable Forks, a tiny hamlet of 500 or so souls — came out to pay last respects to a local boy, James Saltmarsh, killed a week earlier in Vietnam.

An honor guard had fired 21 rifle volleys as yet another son of the North Country of upper New York State was laid to rest. Finally, the elegiac lament of the bugle was heard, closing the burial ceremony in the breathtaking High Peaks region of the Adirondack Mountains.
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James McEnteer :
Good migrations…

Posted on May 24, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

How U.S. Customs helped me smuggle marijuana into the USA.

stuffed parrot

“Stuffed Parrot on Wood Perch” by Joan Miró. Photo © Aat Bender.

By James McEnteer | The Rag Blog | May 24, 2014

“The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.” — L.P. Hartley

When I first discovered Mexico in 1967, everything about it was a revelation. There was no danger then, as now, from getting killed in the cross fire of drug cartels.

Driving the wild empty highways of northern Mexico was dangerous for other reasons: the terrible conditions of the roads themselves, the potholes and crumbling pavement, the lack of any shoulders on the narrow two-lane main roads that disappeared across the desert into distant mountains, unmarked construction sites, the lack of speed limits or any law enforcement, the clutter of animals (cattle, sheep, burros, dogs, vultures) or humans or stalled vehicles.
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METRO | Sunshine Williams : Don’t keep Austin weird, puleeze!

Posted on May 24, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Upscale 168-room boutique hotel planned for the Domain to have ‘rustic Texas chic’ decor and ‘Keep Austin Weird’ theme. Hey, we’ll show you weird…

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Armadillo poster by Jim Franklin, 1976, signed by Jerry Jeff Walker. From the collection of Sunshine Williams.

By Sunshine Williams | The Rag Blog | May 24, 2014

AUSTIN — I can’t keep silent any longer. Quick, call the Vice Squad! Lodge Works Partners and Endeavor Real Estate Group are endeavoring to pimp and prostitute the Keep Austin Weird legend by keeping the “Keep Austin Weird theme central to our design” in the Archer Austin, a chic boutique hotel to be built between Neiman Mark-up and a new Nordstrom at the Domain in North Austin. (See the May 6, 2014, Austin American-Statesman.)

I submit that these tenderfoots(feet) have no idea of the origin of the KAW slogan. If they did, they wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot(feet) pole. In the first place, the “central theme” of the original KAW was essentially SEX, DRUGS, AND ROCK ‘N’ ROLL. I’ll explain.
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Posted on May 24, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer
armadillo poster
METRO | Flash! Upscale hotel plans ‘Keep Austin Weird’ theme! Read Sunshine Williams’ shocking report cum weird Austin history.
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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
sarah bird studio 2 edit crop
FRONT PAGE PODCAST | Thorne Dreyer interviews acclaimed Austin novelist Sarah Bird, author, ‘Above the East China Sea.’
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