Jean Trounstine :
Taking my students to prison

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

A man smiled widely and pressed his face against
the slit.’That’s my brother,’ Sofia said, her eyes
filling with tears.

Trounstine students 1

Students look behind the bars at Billerica House of Correction.

By Jean Trounstine | The Rag Blog | April 9, 2015

Every semester my students from Voices Behind Bars, a class I teach at Middlesex Community College in Massachusetts, go to prison. They used to visit state institutions but now that the Massachusetts state prisons do not offer tours (perhaps because it is a hassle to have outsiders trooping through them and criticizing what they see), the students take a tour of Billerica House of Correction, where they experience confinement to some degree and listen for an hour to an incarcerated man talk about his life and what it is like to be behind bars.

Originally, the Middlesex House of Correction, which was built in 1929, housed 300 men. Now it has more than 1,100, after a $37 million dollar expansion which prison officials say was to accommodate the closing of the Cambridge Jail — not without objection from activists and community members who opposed more prison building (actually costing $43 million per The Lowell Sun.)
Continue reading →

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Alan Waldman :
TELEVISION | ‘Vicious’ is hilarious British sitcom starring two of world’s greatest actors

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi play two aging gay men who have roomed together and humorously sniped at each other for 48 years.

vicious poster

Sir Ian McKellen, left, and Sir Derek Jacobi star in ‘Vicious.’

By Alan Waldman | The Rag Blog | March 31, 2015

[In his Rag Blog 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, New Zealand and Scotland. Most are available on DVD, Netflix and/or Netflix Instant Streaming, and some episodes are on YouTube.]

In the wonderful 2014-2015 British sitcom, Vicious, Freddie (Sir Ian McKellen) and Stuart (Sir Derek Jacobi) are an old gay couple who have lived together for 48 years in their Covent Garden flat. Their lives now revolve around frequently entertaining quirky guests, hurling caustic insults at each other at every opportunity, and making sure that their aged dog Balthazar is still breathing.

Although they hold onto petty slights for decades, we can still see that beneath all their vicious codependent fighting they maintain a deep love for each other.
Continue reading →

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Harry Targ :
The cost-cutting approach to higher education

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Though some reform ideas have merit, the real problem is lack of funding from the government.

mitch daniels commencement

Reform advocate: Purdue University President Mitch Daniels at commencement exercises for Purdue North Central, 2014. Image
from nwi.com.

By Harry Targ | The Rag Blog | March 25, 2015

WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana — Purdue University President Mitch Daniels testified March 17, 2015, before a subcommittee of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Workforce on what he calls higher education reform. He also spoke during that week to the American Council on Education and the Brookings Institute.

A centerpiece of his recommendations was “income share agreements” whereby students partner with investors, particularly alumni, who would provide funds for their education in exchange “for a small share of the student’s future income.”
Continue reading →

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Alice Embree :
METRO | Remembering Oscar Romero with a ‘Day of Action’

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Demonstrators mark the anniversary of Archbishop Romero’s assassination with calls for an end
to refugee detention.

alice romero signs 2

Demonstrators at the J.J. Pickle Federal Building in Austin, Texas. Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.

By Alice Embree | The Rag Blog | March 25, 2015

AUSTIN — On March 24, the anniversary of Archbishop Oscar Romero’s assassination in El Salvador in 1980, immigration rights activists commemorated his life with a National Day of Action. In cities across the country, demonstrators called for freedom for refugee families at immigration detention centers at Karnes City and Dilley, Texas.

alice romero portillo crp

Esther Portillo.

Romero, a liberation theologian who spoke out against poverty and social injustice, was the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador. On February 3 of this year, Pope Francis declared him a martyr.

Vigils and demonstrations took place in New York, Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Austin, and Los Angeles. Grassroots Leadership and the Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition organized the demonstration in front of the J. J. Pickle Federal Building in downtown Austin.
Continue reading →

Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Shepherd Bliss :
Glass half full? Sour Grapes in ‘Wine Country’

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Overexpansion of vineyards in California’s Sonoma County threatens the environment and rural residents’ quality of life.

bliss - winery site

Aerial shot of the proposed site in the vulnerable Laguna de Santa Rosa in Sonoma County. Photo courtesy Bimpix.com.

By Shepherd Bliss | The Rag Blog | March 25, 2015

SEBASTOPOL, California — Sonoma County’s premium wine industry in the San Francisco North Bay has become a magnet that attracts developers from around the country, across oceans, and nearby. They move heavy industrial operations into rural areas and expand them to become event centers and commercial bottling operations.

Under the pretense that they are merely agriculture, rather than alcohol-producing factories, large wineries seek to avoid Environmental Impact Reports (EIR) and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

Such wineries overuse precious, limited resources — such as water, air, and land — which threatens the environment and the quality of life in our semi-rural region. The contiguous Napa, Lake, and Mendocino Counties have also recently experienced overexpansion of wineries and vineyards, as well as growing efforts by residents to reign them in. In Napa, large wineries are already trucking in water and trucking out wastewater.
Continue reading →

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Thorne Dreyer :
RAG RADIO PODCASTS | Hall of Fame singer Maryann Price; Ellen Sweets, author of ‘Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins’

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Maryann Price sang with Dan Hicks, The Kinks, and Asleep at the Wheel; Ellen Sweets is a prize-winning journalist recently returned from Cuba.

maryann price four crp sm

Maryann Price, front left, with Christy Palumbo Foster and, in back, Rag Radio’s Tracey Schulz, left, and Thorne Dreyer in the studios of KOOP-FM in Austin, Texas, March 20, 2015. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Interviews by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | March 23, 2015

Recent guests on Rag Radio are Austin singer and recording artist Maryann Price, a member of the Western Swing Hall of Fame and the Texas Music Hall of Fame, and award-winning journalist Ellen Sweets, author of Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins.

Listen to the podcasts of these shows below.

Rag Radio is a weekly hour-long syndicated radio program produced and hosted by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer. The show is produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas, and is first broadcast and streamed live on KOOP every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CDT).

Maryann Price

Maryann Price was the voice behind iconic bands Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, The Kinks, and Asleep at the Wheel. She is also known for leading her own jazz trio and as one half of the eclectic duo Ethyl’n Methyl, along with Asleep at the Wheel alumnus Chris O’Connell. She and Christy Palumbo Foster, who backs her up on guitar and vocals, also perform four songs live on the show.
Continue reading →

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Rag Blog :
METRO EVENT | Town Meeting with Sen. Bernie Sanders in Austin on March 31

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

bernie sanders town meeting

Event: Town Meeting with Senator Bernie Sanders
When: Tuesday, March 31, 2015, 7:00 p.m.
Presented by: Friends of Bernie Sanders
Where: IBEW Local Union 520
Address: 4818 E. Ben White Boulevard, Austin, TX 78760
Price: $25 suggested contribution; no one turned away

AUSTIN — Vermont’s feisty Independent senior U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders will be in Austin to talk about the fight for economic justice. Texas populist pundit and radio commentator Jim Hightower will be introducing him. Other local leaders will be there as well to welcome Sanders to Austin.

Senator Sanders will focus on an agenda familiar to anyone who has been following him:
Continue reading →

Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Rag Blog :
METRO EVENT | ‘Bringing It Home: A Night With Hemp,’ at the Alamo South Lamar

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

bringing it home with hemp

Event: Bringing It Home: A Night with Hemp
When: Tuesday, March 31, 2015, 6:30-9:30 p.m.
Presented by: The Texas Hemp Industries Association
Featuring: Screening of documentary film, Bringing It Home
Where: Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar
Address: 1000 South Lamar Blvd., Austin, TX 78704
Price: $35 advance; $40 at door

The Texas Hemp Industries Association is presenting “Bringing It Home: A Night with Hemp” at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar, 1000 South Lamar Blvd., Austin, on March 31, 6:30-9:30 p.m.

There will be a screening of Bringing It Home: Industrial hemp, healthy houses and a greener future for America, an award-winning documentary film by Linda Booker and Blaire Johnson, followed by guest speakers, a question and answer session, and networking with other hemp supporters. Tickets are $35 in advance, $40 at the door, and include dinner and a drink.
Continue reading →

Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Alyce Guynn :
VERSE | One White Crow

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

white crow flying

By Alyce Guynn | The Rag Blog | March 23, 2015

In a snow storm of silence, quiet wraps itself around her
a smothering blanket taming ghostly shadows that claim the night

So as not to drown in the chill of the soundless shore
she stuffs the suffocating Silence into a bottle
corks it, hurls it out to sea hoping to reach a willing soul

As soon as she set the bottle free, watched it
bobbing on the emancipating white capped waves
a lightning volt infuses her spine
Continue reading →

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Dick J. Reavis :
Former civil rights activist and political street vendor Charlie Saulsberry is dead at 70

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Charlie, who was well-known around the UT campus in late-’60s Austin, ‘was a lefty, but always a heretic.’

charlie saulsberry by Miriam Lizcano

Charlie Saulsberry. Drawing by Miriam Lizcano / The Rag Blog.

By Dick J. Reavis | The Rag Blog | March 22, 2015

Charlie Saulsberry, 70, a familiar figure on the UT-Austin campus during the late ‘60s, died Monday, March 16, in Alabama. Strokes and kidney failure brought about his death.

Saulsberry was known to thousands of UT students because every weekday on a Guadalupe Street sidewalk just steps outside the University Co-Op bookstore, he laid out a variety of books, pamphlets, and cause buttons, and spent the day selling them to passerby. His books and pamphlets included titles like How the United States Got Involved in Vietnam and Red Star Over China. His buttons carried slogans like “War Is a Drag!”

During the three semesters that he ran the makeshift stand, he jibed and conversed with hundreds of students who remember him if only because an impediment caused him to cut short the last syllables of words he spoke. To engage in a conversation with Charlie one had to lend an ear, but those who listened to him benefitted because he was a self-taught and unique commentator in a milieu of polarized and stylized opinion. He was a lefty, but always a heretic.
Continue reading →

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Lamar W. Hankins :
FILM | Oscar-winning ‘Citizenfour’ documents one citizen’s sacrifice for our liberty

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Laura Pointras tells Snowden’s story in an engaging account that is both enlightening and unsettling.

citizenfour 3

By Lamar W. Hankins | The Rag Blog | March 22, 2015

Citizen Four is the name used by 29-year-old Edward Joseph Snowden when he first contacted Laura Poitras in January 2013. Poitras was making a film about post-9/11 surveillance when she began receiving encrypted emails from Snowden, though she didn’t know who was sending the messages at the time. In 2012, she had received a MacArthur Genius Fellowship and is a 2014 co-recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

Poitras has done a trilogy of films since 9/11. My Country, My Country focuses on the Iraq War and received an Academy Award nomination in 2007. The Oath, nominated for two Emmy awards, is about the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo. Citizenfour — Poitras’ latest documentary — tells the story of how Edward Snowden came to provide detailed information about our government’s secret surveillance program. It recently received an Oscar for Best Documentary, as well as over three dozen other film awards before the Oscar.
Continue reading →

Posted in RagBlog | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Beverly Baker Moore :
METRO | Special Olympics, still alive and well… and in Austin!

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

The athletes came with an abundance of the original spirit of the Special Olympics movement: inclusion, courage, and fair play.

Bev spec olympics Cyrus crp 2

Cyrus Moore, bronze medal bowler and Austin live music aficionado. Photo by Beverly Baker Moore / The Rag Blog.

By Beverly Baker Moore | The Rag Blog | March 18, 2015

AUSTIN — Last month, as they do every year, a few thousand Special Olympics athletes came to Austin for State Winter Games. For those unfamiliar, the “special” in Special Olympics refers to the one stipulation for participation: an official diagnosis of intellectual disability (obtained most often in early childhood through standardized literacy tests) and, oh yes, over the age of 10.

We found Special Olympics as hundreds of thousands of other parents and family members have, through the local games organized by teachers in our son’s elementary school. When we relocated to a community that had no Special Olympics program, we began one. That was 25 or so years ago and these days Cyrus is a year-round athlete and we are all still members of the large extended family that is Special Olympics.
Continue reading →

Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments