Alan Waldman :
‘Dirty, Pretty Things’ with Oscar nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor is a movie you should see

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Drama, exposé, thriller, and more, this is a powerful film that grabs and holds you from beginning to surprise ending.

dirty pretty things poster

Chiwetel Ejiofor stars in Dirty Pretty Things.

By Alan Waldman | The Rag Blog | April 14, 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, and Scotland. Most are available on DVD and/or Netflix, and some episodes are on YouTube.]

Dirty, Pretty Things is a powerful 2002 British film, available on DVD, Netflix, and Netflix Instant streaming, about the harrowing challenges facing two undocumented immigrants who work at a posh London hotel and live in constant fear of deportation.
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METRO | Robust UT-Austin campus coalition fights corporatized ‘shared services’ plan

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer
Event: Stop Shared Services Rally
Sponsor: UT Save Our Community Coalition
Date: Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Time: Noon
Place: South Mall, University of Texas at Austin

By Alice Embree | The Rag Blog | April 14, 2014

ut save community crop

UT students protest “shared services.” Image from UT SSOC / Facebook.

AUSTIN — A robust coalition has emerged in opposition to a University of Texas plan for “shared services.” The plan, drafted for UT by Accenture, a global consulting corporation, would centralize administrative services, create call centers, and eliminate 500 jobs.

The UT Save Our Community Coalition  (SSOC) has gathered more than 1,000 signatures on a petition opposing the University plan and will present them to the administration on April 23, the day of the rally.
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Posted on April 14, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer
jayme and dreyer
FRONT PAGE | Rag Radio interview with Austin’s Hall of Fame singer-songwriter Eliza Gilkyson, with live performance.
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James McEnteer :
Wahoo! It’s Indian Summer

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

As Washington Redskin fans debate the political correctness of their team name, Indians fans and detractors grapple with the propriety of the grinning visage of Chief Wahoo.

chief wahoo at bat

The grinning visage of Chief Wahoo. Image from Cleveland Frowns.

By James McEnteer | The Rag Blog | April 10, 2014

It’s crazy time again in Cleveland. Lake Erie has thawed. The snow has finally melted. Baseball season is underway. Once again the perennial argument over the Cleveland Indians team logo is heating up.

As Washington Redskin fans debate the political correctness of their team name, Indians fans and detractors grapple with the propriety of the grinning visage of Chief Wahoo, official face of the Indians.
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Thorne Dreyer :
PODCAST | Hall of Fame singer-songwriter Eliza Gilkyson on Rag Radio

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The delightful and talented Eliza Gilkyson performs on Rag Radio and discusses her approach to songwriting and her new album, ‘Nocturne Diaries.’

eliza and dreyer small

Eliza Gilkyson with Rag Radio’s Thorne Dreyer in the KOOP studios in Austin, March 21, 2014. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Interview by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | April 9, 2014

Hall of Fame singer-songwriter Eliza Gilkyson joined us in interview and live performance on Rag Radio, Friday, March 21, 2014. Listen to the podcast below.

Rag Radio is a weekly hour-long syndicated radio program produced and hosted by long-time alternative journalist and Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer. The show is recorded at the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas. It is broadcast live on KOOP every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CST) and streamed live on the web.
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Jonah Raskin :
BOOKS | ‘Weed Land’ author Peter Hecht’s no gonzo journalist

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

In Hecht’s book, the Feds are always heavy, the growers usually naïve, and it’s almost always bad news.

weed land

Hecht’s Weed Land doesn’t describe the everyday world of weed.

By Jonah Raskin | The Rag Blog | April 9, 2014

[Weed Land: Inside America’s Marijuana Epicenter and How Pot Went Legit by Peter Hecht (2014: University of California Press); Paperback; $24.95; 264 pp.]

ROHNERT PARK, California — Joe Blow (not his real name) cultivated 13 marijuana plants. Sheriffs’ deputies arrived, arrested him and took him to jail. He went to court, the district attorney depicted him as an evil man and the judge sentenced him to a prison term.

That’s the gist of Peter Hecht’s new book Weed Land: Inside America’s Epicenter and How Pot Went Legit. There’s always a raid, a crackdown, and a referendum, too, to legalize or decriminalize. The Feds are always heavy, the growers usually naïve. It’s almost always bad news.
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METRO | Tom Zigal’s gripping post-Katrina novel wins state’s top literary award

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

By Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | April 9, 2014

AUSTIN — Austin novelist Thomas Zigal has won the prestigious Jesse Jones award for fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters for his highly-acclaimed novel about post-Katrina New Orleans, Many Rivers to Cross, published in November 2013 by TCU Press.

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Tom Zigal on Rag Radio. Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.

Past winners of the Jesse Jones Award include Larry McMurtry, Katerine Anne Porter, and Cormac McCarthy.

Many Rivers to Cross is set in August 2005, during the first three days after the monstrous Hurricane Katrina smashed into Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. The finely-crafted narrative follows several interrelated characters stranded in the flooded city as they struggle to survive.
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METRO EVENT | ‘Beloved Community’ sets May Day fest in Austin

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer
Event: Celebration of International Workers Day / Día del Trabajo
Occasion: Launch of Austin Beloved Community website
Date: Thursday, May 1, 2014
Time: 5:30-10 p.m.
Place: Resistencia Books
Address: 4926 East César Chávez St., Austin TX

may day imageThe Austin Beloved Community is inviting all working class poets, musicians, artists, organizers, activists, and friends to join together on May 1 for a May Day pot-luck party at Resistencia Books’ new location in East Austin. The event will celebrate International Workers Day and officially launch Austin Beloved Community – a website for Austin social justice organizations, artists, and activists to share collective memory and community organizing.

See Alice Embree’s Rag Blog article about Austin Beloved Community, here.

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Harry Targ :
Do we all need a Moral Monday movement?

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The burgeoning Moral Monday ‘fusion movement,’ with roots in North Carolina, has spread throughout the South, and states like Indiana may be next in line.

moral monday march

An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people gathered outside the North Carolina State Capitol in Februaty for a Moral Monday march in Raleigh. Image from fireflyfans.net.

By Harry Targ | The Rag Blog | April 9, 2014

The emergence of Moral Mondays in the South

WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana — “Moral Monday” refers to a burgeoning mass movement that had its roots in efforts to defend voter rights in North Carolina. Thousands of activists have been mobilizing across the South over the last year inspired by Moral Mondays.

They are fighting back against draconian efforts to destroy the right of people to vote, workers’ and women’s rights, and for progressive policies in general. Paradoxically, many progressives in the South and elsewhere have not heard of this budding movement.
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Lamar W. Hankins :
Aslan’s portrayal of Jesus as revolutionary zealot is fanciful history / 2

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Aslan provides embellishments that make for an interesting read but many of his assumptions, according to Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman, lack historical accuracy.

jesus mosaic

Searching for the real Jesus. Public domain image.

By Lamar W. Hankins | The Rag Blog | April 8, 2014

Part two of two.

In Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, Reza Aslan portrays Jesus as a revolutionary zealot intent on overthrowing the Romans and driving them from Israel — land promised to the Jews by God. Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman analyzed the book and found numerous historical inaccuracies, some of which I described in Part 1 of this series.

But other Aslan mistakes about the New Testament accounts of Jesus provide even more evidence that Aslan simply doesn’t have the necessary background to write about the period and Jesus’s place in it.
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Bob Feldman :
A People’s History of Egypt, Part 21, Section 1, 1992-2000

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The Mubarak government responds to Islamist violence with heavy-handed repression; the Muslim Brotherhood splinters; Egyptian poverty increases.

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Mubarak after assassination attempt in Ethiopia, June 26, 1995. Photo from AFP.

By Bob Feldman | The Rag Blog | April 8, 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.]

As Jason Thompson’s A History of Egypt recalled, the Mubarak regime mostly tolerated the Muslim Brotherhood between 1981 and 1991, but in 1993 it “launched a major assault on the organization, denouncing it as “illegal,” and accusing it of having “ties to extremist groups” responsible for violently opposing the Mubarak regime; and “hundreds of suspects” were then “jailed and tried in military courts after successive rounds of arrests.”
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METRO | Rag Blog columnist Lamar Hankins proves too much for San Marcos Mercury

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

By Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | April 8, 2014

lamar hankinsSAN MARCOS — Former San Marcos City Attorney Lamar W. Hankins has published his provocative, hard-hitting column in The Rag Blog since June 2010.  A version of his column has also appeared at the mainstream online San Marcos Mercury even longer, since 2008.

Until last week, that is, when Mercury editor/publisher Brad Rollins decided to pull the plug. Rollins’ odd reasoning for this move was that, try as he might, he couldn’t find writers to “balance” Hankins’ combative but consistently well-reasoned progressive politics.
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