FRONT PAGE PODCAST | Thorne Dreyer interviews acclaimed Austin novelist Sarah Bird, author, ‘Above the East China Sea.’
Thorne Webb Dreyer, Editor
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PODCAST | Nationally-acclaimed novelist Sarah Bird joins us on Rag Radio
Sarah Bird, member of the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, discusses her powerful and critically-praised new work, ‘Above the East China Sea.’
Novelist Sarah Bird on Rag Radio. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.
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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Tagged Above the East China Sea, American Writers, Austin Authors, Humorists, Interview, Novelists, Podcast, Rag Bloggers, Rag Radio, Sarah Bird, Thorne Dreyer
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METRO | Beverly Baker Moore reports that for Austin’s SouthPop it’s ten colorful years and counting.
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Fighting back against public officials who promote religion
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.
Heavens looking down on Supreme Court building, Washington, D.C. Photo by Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images.
“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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What’s left of liberals
Contrary to the popular American usage, ‘liberal’ is qualitatively different from ‘left.’ It is a centrist position meant to preserve the status quo.
Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren: Liberals pushing the envelope? Photos by Larry Downing and Joshua Roberts / Reuters.
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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Tagged American Politics, Leftists, Liberalism, Political Labels, Political Spectrum, Rag Bloggers, Reformers, Revolutionaries, Terry Dyke
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VISUAL ARTS | ‘The Left Front: Radical Art in the Red Decade’
Radical art is an act of uncompromising passionate resistance.
Carl Hoeckner, “The Yes Machine,” c. 1935 (Lithograph: Courtesy of Mary and Leigh Block Museum, Northwestern University). Image from Truthout.
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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BOOKS | Anand Gopal’s ‘No Good Men Among the Living’
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.
Journalist Anand Gopal, author of No Good Men Among the Living, has reported from Afghanistan since 2001.
[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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Tagged Afghanistan Occupation, Afghanistan War, Anand Gopal, Books, Nonfiction, Rag Bloggers, Ron Jacobs, Taliban, U.S. Foreign Policy
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People’s History of Egypt, Conclusion, Section 1, February 12, 2011-2013
The Egyptian military exercised special influence and after Mubarek’s removal became the sole authority, responsible for extensive human rights abuses.
The Egyptian military routinely responded to peaceful protests with excessive force. Photo (c) Mahmud Hams / AFP.
[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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Angela Davis featured at National Forum on Police Crimes at University of Chicago
Police repression and ideological mystification are the glues that maintain structural violence.
Angela Davis speaks at rally. Image from NAARPR.org / Third Coast Blog.
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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‘Crossing Lines’ is an exciting global crime series
Donald Sutherland and William Fichtner lead a fine ensemble in dramatic American-written, Franco-German series, shot mostly in the Czech Republic.
Crossing Lines is action-packed global drama.
[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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Tagged Alan Waldman, Crime Drama, Criticism, Crossing Lines, Donald Sutherland, Rag Bloggers, Television, William Fichtner
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The conservative fear of ‘losing America’
Obama is the first president to acknowledge, without quite saying so, that we live in a multipolar world and can no longer dictate our desired outcomes.
Neocon Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland feeds cookies to protesters in Kiev as she pushes for regime change behind the scenes. Image from Compliance Campaign.
The national security pundits are all over President Barack Obama for apparently failing to preserve American military preeminence in the world. Maureen Dowd complains that he’s “whining,” “disconnected,” “adrift,” and that he should be like the NBA commissioner who, “in his first big encounter with a crazed tyrant, managed to make the job of NBA commissioner seem more powerful than that of the president of the United States.”
What? Though sometimes insightful, Dowd leads the pack in confusing Washington with Hollywood. Her evaluations of “Barry,” as she calls the president, should appear in the entertainment pages. But it’s not only Dowd, the gossip queen. The Sunday New York Times thought it necessary to devote three editorial pages defending him — sort of — from widespread criticism of his leadership. Republicans never cease, for example, to condemn his policy of “leading from behind” on Libya.
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METRO PODCAST | Thorne Dreyer holds forth with Central Texas environmental activists Robbins, Cortez & Baker.
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