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Thorne Dreyer :
METRO PODCAST | Austin legend Eddie Wilson of Armadillo World HQ & Threadgill’s fame

Posted on July 29, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Concert promoter and restaurateur Wilson talks Austin cultural history in a colorful and informative interview on Rag Radio.

Eddie Wilson, left, with Rag Radio host Thorne Dreyer in the KOOP studios in Austin, Friday, July 11, 2014. Photos by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Interview by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | July 29, 2014

Legendary Austin concert promoter and restaurateur Eddie Wilson was our guest on Rag Radio, Friday, July 11, 2014. The discussion is infused with rich oral history — peppered with unique and often very funny anecdotes — about a special time in the cultural history of Austin and the nation.

Wilson, who was co-founder and owner of Austin’s iconic music venue, Armadillo World Headquarters (1970-1980), managed pioneering Austin psychedelic/country/blues group Shivas Headband, started the Raw Deal in 1976, and in 1981 bought Threadgill’s — where Janis Joplin got her start — from country singer Kenneth Threadgill. Wilson added Threadgill’s South in 1996 and has run the two restaurants/music venues ever since.
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged Armadillo World Headquarters, Austin History, Austin Music, Eddie Wilson, Interview, Metro, Music Promoters, Music Venues, Podcast, Rag Bloggers, Rag Radio, Restaurants, Thorne Dreyer, Threadgill's | Leave a comment

Jack A. Smith :
Obama is wrong about natural gas

Posted on July 29, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

A new scientific study argues that both shale gas and conventional natural gas have larger greenhouse gas footprints than do coal or oil.

Natural gas: a bridge too far? Image from Salon.

By Jack A. Smith | The Rag Blog | July 29, 2014

Natural gas is falsely promoted by the Obama Administration and energy corporations as a “bridge fuel” that will allow American society to continue to use fossil energy over the coming decades while emitting fewer greenhouse gases than from using other fossil fuels such as coal and oil.

On this basis, President Obama is providing total support to a massive expansion of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for natural gas within the U.S. He seeks sufficient quantities to last for many decades, allowing the U.S. to export liquefied natural gas and oil throughout the world.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Climate Change, Fossil Fuels, Fracking, Global Warming, Greenhouse Gasses, Jack A. Smith, Methane Pollution, Natural Gas, Rag Bloggers | 3 Comments

Posted on July 29, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

METRO PODCAST | Rag Radio’s Thorne Dreyer interviews Eddie Wilson of Armadillo World HQ & Threadgill’s fame.

Posted in RagBlurb | Leave a comment

Kate Braun :
Rejoice in Mother Earth’s bounty during Lammas

Posted on July 28, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Give thanks for the harvest, symbolized by the bread you serve your guests.

Indian corn necklace. Image from 365 do-overs.

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

“’Harvest moon’ / a change in the weather / I love this time of year”

Thursday, July 31, Friday, August 1, and Saturday, August 2, are all days you may choose to use to celebrate Lammas, a fire festival also known as First Harvest, Harvest Home, and Lughnasadh. This is a time to rejoice in the bounty of Mother Earth and celebrate her fruitfulness with good food and good friends.

Choose among the colors red, gold, orange, yellow, bronze, citrine, gray, and green for your decorations and dress. Decorate your table and/or altar with depictions of sickles, scythes, fresh veggies & fruits, corn dollies, bread, and/or sun-wheels. Honor Freya, Demeter, Ceres, other goddesses of fruitfulness, and the formation of the seasons.
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Posted in Rag Bloggers | Tagged Astrology, Ceremony, Kate Braun, Lammas, Metaphysics, Rag Bloggers, Ritual, Spirituality | Leave a comment

Mariann G. Wizard :
BOOKS | Trudy Stern’s lovely poetry reveals a finely-honed precision of expression

Posted on July 28, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Trudy, who helped us start ‘The Rag’ in ’60s Austin, was a warm and generous friend. Somewhere along the way, she became a wonderful poet.

Trudy’s two collections reveal much of the same sensitivity friends saw in her years ago.

By Mariann G. Wizard | The Rag Blog |July 28, 2014

[Taurus in Lake Erie by Trudy Stern (2013: Saddle Road Press, Hilo, Hawai’i, Forty-Three North Chapbook Series); Ghost Dreams by Trudy Stern (2013, Local Color Editions, Buffalo, New York.]

If you are lucky, as I have been, sooner or later you will have the pleasure of seeing a dear friend from years past and feeling that, whatever profound intervening experiences you then may share, you’re picking up right where you left off. Love and loss, creation and destruction, youth and age; change is ceaseless but in some people there is an essential core that you feel you would know even in another life.

In another life, in a town that was nothing like the Austin of today, I knew Trudy Stern by her then-married name, Trudy Minkoff. She and her grad student husband, Bobby, and my husband George Vizard and I, came to know each other as peace and free speech activists around the University of Texas campus.
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Posted in Rag Bloggers, RagBlog | Tagged Austin History, Books, Ghost Dreams, Mariann G. Wizard, Poetry, Rag Bloggers, Sixties, Taurus in Lake Erie, The Rag, Trudy Stern, Verse | 3 Comments

Marilyn Katz :
Netanyahu’s Gaza game plan

Posted on July 25, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Armed conflict will only lead to mounting numbers of dead on both sides.

In 1946, The New York Times called Yitzak Rabin, David ben Gurion, and others terrorists for their assassinations of British officers and civilians and the bombing of the King David Hotel. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

By Marilyn Katz | The Rag Blog | July 25, 2014

Unlike the finite death toll in the Malaysian jet downing, the numbers of dead in Gaza and Israel keep changing and mounting. As of this writing, the count is as follows: In Israel, 29 deaths, among them two civilians. In Gaza, nearly 700 killed, including 500 civilians and 100 children; 4,120 have been wounded. An additional 50,000 Gazans have been left homeless as a result of nearly two weeks of aerial bombings and an accompanying ground invasion.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Hamas, Israel-Gaza Conflict, Israeli Society, Marilyn Katz, Middle East History, Palestinian Occupation, Rag Bloggers, Terrorism, Zionism | 6 Comments

Murray Polner :
MEDIA | A very very loud silence

Posted on July 22, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

How is it that for 11 long days of the Gaza War, the New York Times editorial board chose to remain voiceless?

The mighty New York Times: Where was their voice?

By Murray Polner | The Rag Blog | July 23, 2014

Respect them or not, it is undeniable that The New York Times remains preeminent among its competitors and over the many decades has displayed courage in publishing the Pentagon Papers and in the high quality of its many investigative reports. No issue, however controversial, seemed untouchable.

So I ask: How is it that for 11 long days, its editorial board chose to remain voiceless during the Gaza War, with its pitiless air war, soaring rockets, a growing army of refugees, and ever-increasing civilian deaths? You can name virtually every conflict since the end of WWII and be absolutely certain that the Times’ editorial writers were on the job, advising, cajoling, criticizing, and commending — even apologizing after its initial support for the Iraq War.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Hamas, Israel-Gaza Conflict, Mainstream Media, Media Criticism, Murray Polner, New York Times, Print Media, Rag Bloggers, Zionism | Leave a comment

Alan Waldman :
Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry are hysterical in P.G. Wodehouse’s droll ‘Jeeves and Wooster’

Posted on July 22, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

A sagacious butler helps his rich twit master Bertie and his nincompoop pals out of all kinds of ridiculous jams.

Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry are Jeeves & Wooster.

By Alan Waldman | The Rag Blog | July 22, 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.]

Some of the funniest and most brilliant writing and acting in decades were seen on the Jeeves and Wooster series, broadcast on PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre and available on DVD and Netflix. It consists of four priceless seasons (1990-1993) and 23 episodes, all written by Clive Exton and adapted from 19 P.G. Wodehouse novels and stories (published from 1919 to 1974). You Tube has many free episodes, including this one.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Alan Waldman, British Television, Criticism, Hugh Laurie, Jeeves and Wooster, Rag Bloggers, Stephen Fry, Vintage Television | 1 Comment

METRO EVENT | Beverly Baker Moore: Thorne’s 69th Birthday Bash to be social event of the year!

Posted on July 20, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

So let’s raise a margarita to the old guy… and
party like it’s 1969!

Party like you did in 1969 (the Year of the Contortionist!). Poster by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.

By Beverly Baker Moore | The Rag Blog | July 20, 2014

Event: Thorne’s 69th Birthday Bash
Place: Maria’s Taco Xpress
Address: 2529 S. Lamar Blvd.
When: Friday, August 1, 2014
Hours: 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m.

AUSTIN — On Friday, August 1, our way-overworked Rag Blog editor and Rag Radio host, Mr. Thorne Webb Dreyer, will have made it around the sun 69 times. Whether you knew Thorne then, know him now, or know him not… come party with us Armadillo-tribe style.

Thorne Dreyer has been overworked (and dizzy!) since 1966 when he helped found Austin’s original Rag, a trailblazer of the ’60s underground press uprising. Forty years later, in 2006, The Rag rose again — like a reanimated zombie — and The Rag Blog now has followers all over the world. Dreyer also hosts and produces the syndicated Rag Radio, which has aired over 200 original episodes since 2009.
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged Beverly Baker Moore, Leeann Atherton, Maria's Taco Xpress, Metro, New Journalism Project, Rag Bloggers, Rag Radio, The Rag Blog, Thorne Dreyer, Thorne's 69th Birthday Bash | 1 Comment

David McReynolds :
In opposition to Israeli actions, and to anti-Semitism

Posted on July 19, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

It is a grave error to attack Jews anywhere based on the actions of the Israeli government.

Protest in Lyon, France, July 16, 2014, against Israel’s bombing of Gaza. Demonstrations in Europe, especially in France, are becoming increasingly anti-Semitic. Photo by AFT.

By David McReynolds | The Rag Blog | July 20, 2014

In recent days there has been a flurry of anti-Semitic outbursts in France and elsewhere, clearly triggered by Israel’s military actions against the Palestinians in Gaza. I’m depressed enough about the whole situation that I have not yet written my own views on the tragedy of Gaza, but it is crucial that no one, anywhere in the world, should take out on a local Jewish community center or synagogue their justified anger against the Israeli regime.

Many Jews outside of Israel do support the Israeli actions, and many have openly opposed those actions. Indeed, some of the leading and sharpest critics of Israel have come from the Jewish community.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Anti-Semitism, David McReynolds, Israel-Gaza Conflict, Middle East, Peace Movement, Rag Bloggers, U.S. Foreign Policy, Zionism | 6 Comments

Posted on July 19, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

METRO EVENT | Beverly Baker Moore says ‘party like it’s 1969’ at Thorne’s 69th Birthday Bash, Aug. 1, at Maria’s in Austin.

Posted in RagBlurb | Leave a comment

Harry Targ :
The Central American refugees are 21st century descendants of imperialism

Posted on July 19, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The popular narratives about the horrific migration ignore the history of U.S.-inspired violence in the region and the economic devastation caused by neoliberal economic policies.

TO GO WITH AFP STORY: MEXICO-MIGRATION -

A Guatemalan family crossing the border from Mexico. Photo by Omar Torres / AFP / Getty Images.

By Harry Targ | The Rag Blog | July 20, 2014

A military coup in Honduras

On Sunday, June 28, 2009, the Honduran military carried out a coup, ousting duly elected President Manuel Zelaya from power. Almost immediately leaders of Western Hemisphere nations condemned the actions taken in Tegucigalpa, the capital city. For example, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula) asserted that the days of military coups as a mechanism of the transfer of power were over in Latin America.

President Obama said on the following day that “it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections…. The region has made enormous progress over the last 20 years in establishing democratic traditions in Central America and Latin America. We don’t want to go back to a dark past.”
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Border Crisis, Central America, Global South, Harry Targ, Honduras, Immigration Crisis, Manuel Zelaya, Neoliberal Economics, Rag Bloggers, Refugees, U.S. Imperialism, Western Hemisphere | 1 Comment

Concert promoter and restaurateur Wilson talks Austin cultural history in a colorful and informative interview on Rag Radio.

A new scientific study argues that both shale gas and conventional natural gas have larger greenhouse gas footprints than do coal or oil.

Give thanks for the harvest, symbolized by the bread you serve your guests.

Trudy, who helped us start ‘The Rag’ in ’60s Austin, was a warm and generous friend. Somewhere along the way, she became a wonderful poet.

Armed conflict will only lead to mounting numbers of dead on both sides.

How is it that for 11 long days of the Gaza War, the New York Times editorial board chose to remain voiceless?

A sagacious butler helps his rich twit master Bertie and his nincompoop pals out of all kinds of ridiculous jams.

So let’s raise a margarita to the old guy… and party like it’s 1969!

It is a grave error to attack Jews anywhere based on the actions of the Israeli government.

The popular narratives about the horrific migration ignore the history of U.S.-inspired violence in the region and the economic devastation caused by neoliberal economic policies.

A military coup in Honduras

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So let’s raise a margarita to the old guy… and
party like it’s 1969!