Kate Braun :
Celebrating Beltane lets you see beyond the veil

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

It is a fire festival and marks the return of vitality and passion to Mother Earth.

beltane girl maypole

Decorate the area with May poles.

By Kate Braun | The Rag Blog | April 28, 2014

“Have you walked around your parks and towns
so knife-edged orderly?
While the fires are burned on the hills upturned
in far-off wild country?
Come a Beltane. Come a Beltane.”

Whether you choose April 30 or May 1, you will be celebrating Beltane, a cross-quarter celebration that, like Samhain, provides an opportunity to see beyond the veil that separates the mundane world from the spiritual realm. Beltane honors the union of God and Goddess. It is a fire festival, the last of the three spring fertility festivals. It marks the return of vitality and passion to Mother Earth. It is a time to celebrate Life.
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Harry Targ :
Workers’ Memorial Day: What is needed?

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Remembering those who died on the job and continuing the fight for a safer workplace.

workers day

This year’s events will highlight demands to address contemporary issues of concern.

By Harry Targ | The Rag Blog | April 28, 2014

The stench is vomit-making as never before. The fat and plucks, the bladders and kidneys and bungs and guts, gone soft and spongy in the heat, perversely resist being trimmed, separated, deslimed; demand closer concentration than ever, more speed. A helpless, hysterical laughter starts up. Indeed, they are in hell; indeed they are the damned. Steamed, boiled, broiled, fried, cooked. Geared, meshed.

In the hog room, 108 degrees. Kerchiefs, bound around their foreheads to keep the sweat from running down into eyes and blinding, become saturated; each works in a rain of stinging sweat. Almost the steam from the vats seems cloud-cool, pure, by contrast. Marsalek falls. A heart attack. (Is carried away, docked, charged for the company ambulance.) Other hearts pound near to bursting. Relentless, the conveyor paces on.

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Bob Feldman :
People’s History of Egypt, Part 23, 2006-2011

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

With 30 percent unemployment and 44 percent of its people in poverty, Egypt saw an eruption of strikes and other protests.

egyptian strikes 2006

A wave of worker protests rolled through Egypt. Image from libcom.org.

By Bob Feldman | The Rag Blog | April 28, 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.]

According to James Gelvin’s The Arab Uprising: What Everyone Needs To Know, “in Egypt…about 40 percent of the population lives on less than two dollars a day,” and as recently as 2008 The Economist magazine noted that under Mubarak’s regime “44 percent of Egyptians still” counted “as poor or extremely poor, with some 2.6 million people so destitute that their entire income cannot cover basic food needs” and “the average wage” was “less than $100 a month.”
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Alan Waldman :
‘Cold Feet’ was engaging British dramedy about the triumphs and tribulations of three couples

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

In only five seasons the show garnered numerous awards and nominations, and the cast went on to many other fine TV achievements.

cold feet

By Alan Waldman | The Rag Blog | April 28, 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.]

Cold Feet is a well-written, -directed, -produced, and -acted comedy-drama that significantly changed the topics British entertainment programs could deal with, although it engendered a lot of angry mail while doing so.
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Joshua Brown :
POLITICAL CARTOON | Commencement speeches we wish we’d hear

Posted on April 27, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

life during wartime 4-27-14

Cartoon by Joshua Brown | The Rag Blog | April 27, 2014

[Joshua Brown is the executive director of the Center for Media and Learning/American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, and is a professor of history at CUNY. Find more of his work on The Rag Blog here and his archives here.]

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Bobby Bridger :
My relationship with Rod Kennedy in four acts

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Kerrville was a great vision that all of us involved in Texas music shared, but — ironically — one that only someone of Rod’s unique talents as an impresario could actualize.

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Rod Kennedy. Photo by Merri Lu Park / Kerrville Folk Festival Staff Photographer.

By Bobby Bridger | The Rag Blog | April 24, 2014

Rod Kennedy, 84, died Monday, April 14, in hospice care in Kerrville, Texas. Kennedy founded the Kerrville Folk Festival in 1972 and, as the Austin Chronicle wrote, “managed to grow his tiny festival into one of the behemoths of the industry, an annual 18-day event that predates most modern music festivals…” Renowned singer/songwriter, author, actor, and playwright Bobby Bridger was with Kennedy from the beginning and performed at Kerrville for 26 straight years.

HOUSTON — In early March 2014, Dr. Kathleen Hudson of Schreiner University in Kerrville sent me a photo of my old friend Rod Kennedy on Facebook. I contacted her immediately and told her I thought Rod looked like the years were finally catching up with him. She agreed and suggested I try to see him as soon as possible. Kathleen was kind enough to arrange a lecture in her creative writing class for me so that I could have an excuse to be in town and “drop in” on Rod rather than have it appear I was rushing to his deathbed for a final visit.
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Posted on April 23, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer
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METRO | Exclusive Bruce Melton report on critical sea level rise at Padre Island leading to significant beach loss.
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METRO REPORT | Bruce Melton : Critical sea level rise on Padre Island

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Sea level rise is accelerating. At some point, our barrier islands will cross a disintegration threshold and begin to disappear. Because every mile of every beach is created differently, we will see some beaches begin to suffer sooner than others.

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October 19, 2013, Padre Island National Seashore, low tide, Mile Marker 55 (50 miles beyond the four-wheel drive only sign). The seaweed drift marks the highest extent of the most recent high tide. The beach is basically impassible during high tide. This was the greatest erosion observed on the National Seashore this day. Photos (c) Bruce Melton / The Rag Blog.

By Bruce Melton | The Rag Blog | April 23, 2014

PADRE ISLAND — For over 30 years I have been visiting Padre Island National Seashore, mostly as an official beach bum. My favorite thing to do on this narrow barrier island that protects the lower third of Texas’ coast is drive the four-wheel drive only beach. This place truly is a wilderness, or at least as close to one as we can get in Texas.

By about 2003 it became painfully obvious that sea level rise was causing the beach to shrink; this wasn’t just another natural cycle. In 2007 I began film work for my first sea level rise documentary that included Greenland, and Matagorda and Padre Islands (Matagorda Island is on the Middle Texas Coast and it too is a barrier island). The film is called The Ice and the Sea and can be seen here.
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Ed Felien :
Rap Brown said it: ‘Violence is as American as cherry pie’

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The right to armed self-defense of civil rights workers in the 1960s has been parodied by white right-wing racists defending themselves against the ‘tyranny’ of a federal government run by a black man.

rap brown

H. Rap Brown: “Americans taught the black people to be violent.”

By Ed Felien | The Rag Blog | April 23, 2014

What H. Rap Brown actually said in that speech in Washington D.C. in 1967 was: “I say violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America’s culture. It is as American as cherry pie. Americans taught the black people to be violent. We will use that violence to rid ourselves of oppression if necessary. We will be free, by any means necessary.”

He was talking about a strategy of self-defense for American blacks. Brown was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s, and during a short-lived alliance between SNCC and the Black Panther Party, he served as their Minister of Justice.
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Posted on April 23, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer
rod kennedy
FRONT PAGE | Bobby Bridger remembers Rod Kennedy, founder and director of the Kerrville Folk Festival.
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Posted on April 23, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer
gentleman in monocle
METRO EVENT | Rag Blog Highbrow Happy Hour with writers Gregg Barrios and Tom Zigal, Friday, April 25, 5-8 p.m., at El Mercado South in Austin.
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Michael James :
To love we must fight: Serving the people mind, body, and soul, 1969-’76

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Through Rising Up Angry, our message, influence, and notoriety ricocheted from kid to kid in neighborhoods across the city and beyond.

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Educate to liberate: Selling Rising Up Angry, Chicago, 1974. Photos by Michael James from his forthcoming book, Michael Gaylord James’ Pictures from the Long Haul.

By Michael James | The Rag Blog | April 23, 2014

[In this series, Michael James is sharing images from his rich past, accompanied by reflections about — and inspired by — those images. These photos will be included in his forthcoming book, Michael Gaylord James’ Pictures from the Long Haul.]

I spent from 1966 to 1975 working as a radical community organizer. In 1969 I co-founded Rising Up Angry, a newspaper designed to build an organization. And what an organization it built — Rising Up Angry came on the scene with a burst of energy and enthusiasm, with a style that captured imaginations.
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