The Rag Blog: This Is Your Friendly American Banker

14 June 2009

This Is Your Friendly American Banker

Thanks to Leslie Sklar / The Rag Blog

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Roger Baker : Oil Addiction Generates Denial -- By Roger Baker / The Rag Blog. "The major sin of the big oil companies," Roger tells us, "was to get their customers addicted, to set up lobbies to keep them addicted, and to deny the looming shortage problem, including the threat of global warming." Read Roger's latest, here.
Bruce Melton : The Climate Change Awareness Drought is Over / 1 -- By Bruce Melton / The Rag Blog. In the first of a three-parter, Bruce says there's an encouraging shift in public awareness about climate change issues -- and that it's likely to be permanent, "because the number of unprecedented weather events will very likely continue to increase." Read Bruce's revealing analysis.
Tony Platt : Justice for the Living Dead -- By Tony Platt / The Rag Blog. Over a period of 200 years, as many as a million Native American grave sites were dug up "in the name of science, recreation, and commerce." Tony reports that, "it's not only the unauthorized digging up of ancestors that haunts the memory of native peoples, it's also the blatant double standard that adds indignity to insult." Read the story here.
BOOKS / Ron Jacobs : David Harvey's 'Rebel Cities' -- By Ron Jacobs / The Rag Blog. "This is a radical book," Ron tells us. "Its discussion ranges from the workings of the monopoly rent system and the nature of neoliberal capitalism to a call to take back the city." Go here to read Ron's review.
BOOKS / Leslie Griffith : Dan Rather's 'Rather Outspoken' -- By Leslie Griffith / Reader Supported News. This memoir -- from one of broadcast journalism's elder statesmen -- reflects on his career and the state of the news business. And it's a cautionary tale: "Reporters had best be careful when they set about the business of digging up the news," or they might just get pushed "under the bus." Leslie's review is here.
IDEAS / Bill Meacham : How Evolution Works -- By Bill Meacham / The Rag Blog. From the Rag Blog's "philosophy desk" comes Bill's latest provocative essay. "Regardless of your opinion on the ultimate purpose of it all," says Meacham, "it is important to understand how evolution works because the theory reflects reality, and basing your actions on reality works out much better than not." Read it here.
Jonah Raskin : Protest 101 at Sonoma State -- By Jonah Raskin / The Rag Blog. In a "textbook case of campus unrest, 2012," students at Sonoma State in Northern California protested the awarding of an honorary degree to Wall Street billionaire -- and big-time university donor -- Sanford Weill. In his fascinating account, former Yippie Raskin says they were all just happy that nobody threw a pie in Weill's face.
Jay D. Jurie : Are We Colonized? A Response to Chris Hedges -- By Jay D. Jurie / The Rag Blog. Noted journalist and influential political commentator Chris Hedges wrote that corporations are playing "the same role in the U.S. today that British or French colonialism played in India or Indochina." Jurie profiles Hedges -- and challenges some of his basic assumptions, here.
Patrick Youngblood : 'Reform' and Squeezing 'Value' Out of Students -- By Patrick Youngblood / The Rag Blog. Austin school teacher, parent, and political activist Youngblood discusses the current debate over school reform. The problem isn't teacher performance, Pat says, but the fact that "schools ought to be rooted in, and accountable to, their communities." Read it here.
David P. Hamilton : U.S. Presidential Election Is Bought and Paid For -- By David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog. David reminds us that the Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision "opened the floodgates" for federal elections to be determined by finances. "The fix is in," David says, and the left should not "participate in a fraud perpetrated on the American people."
Harry Targ : NATO: From Fighting Socialism to Global Empire -- By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog. Professor Targ says that during World War II an "unnatural alliance" was created between the U.S., Great Britain, and the former Soviet Union, celebrating a post-war order in which they would work through the UN "to modulate conflict in the world." Read here how NATO's mission has changed dramatically.
Lamar W. Hankins : A Texas Funeral and the Failure of Regulation -- By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog. Rag Blog columnist Hankins is also a long-time advocate for families who have to deal with the funeral industry. Here Lamar reports on a classic "failure of regulation" involving an Odessa funeral home.
Rick Ayers and Bill Ayers : Really Show Teachers the Love -- By Rick Ayers and Bill Ayers / The Rag Blog. The Ayers brothers -- both teachers and education reform activists -- write, on the occasion of "Teacher Appreciation Week," that we need to acknowledge the real role of teachers in nurturing and challenging students. "Don't allow education," they say, "to be defined as an endless Social Darwinist competition."
RAG RADIO / Thorne Webb Dreyer : Chris Mooney Dissects the Republican Brain -- By Thorne Webb Dreyer / The Rag Blog. Author Chris Mooney surgically dissects "The Republican Brain" for the Rag Radio audience, tapping impressive new scientific research ranging from social psychology and cognitive neuroscience to genetics. Conservatives "view the world in black and white," Mooney said. "They think that there's only two sides, and that they're on the right side." Read the article and listen to the podcast, here.
BOOKS / Mariann G. Wizard : 'Inside/Out': The Poetry of Marilyn Buck -- By Mariann G. Wizard / The Rag Blog. Long-time political prisoner and Austin native Buck wrote this collection while "racing against uterine cancer until her death," and her friend and fellow poet Wizard says the serving of 63 poems "will give general poetry lovers their first real opportunity to savor her body of work." Read Mariann's review, and a sampling of Buck's verse, here.
MUSIC / Greg Moses : 'Grifter's Hymnal' is Ray Wylie Hubbard on the Cosmic Sly -- By Greg Moses / The Rag Blog. Greg reports on progressive country singer/songwriter Hubbard's new CD: "From the beats of the opening bar of the opening track you can tell that Ray Wylie is in a mood to groove right through this millennial year of long reputed doom." Read it all here.
Harvey Wasserman : Nuclear Industry Meltdown in Japan, France -- By Harvey Wasserman / The Rag Blog. Journalist and long-time anti-Nuke activist Wasserman reports that "This weekend's message from Japan and France could not be more clear: at nuclear power's historic core, the collapse has come." Read Harvey's analysis, here.
Danny Schechter : The Big Money That Is Sinking Democracy -- By Danny Schechter / The Rag Blog. Schechter, who has written extensively about the economy and the excesses of Wall Street, uses the Titanic metaphor in reporting that "the real story of this moment in our political lives... is the vast iceberg of money, stacked in the billions, that threatens to sink what's left of our democracy." Check it out here.
Lamar W. Hankins : Bogus Republican Values on Texas Primary Ballot -- By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog. A series of propositions being put before Republican primary voters in Texas reflect a skewed set of moral values and "insult people's intelligence." They "fit into the typical Republican mindset [and] tend to see things in black and white, without the ambiguities and complexities that exist in the real world. Read Lamar's analysis here.
BOOKS / Ron Jacobs : Rules are Rules: 'The Passion of Bradley Manning' -- By Ron Jacobs / The Rag Blog. In "The Passion of Bradley Manning," the actions of the man charged with treason for releasing to Wikileaks thousands of incriminating documents about U.S. foreign policy are presented as "a political act by a man who saw his duty to humanity to be greater than his order to protect the Pentagon and [the] politicians." Go here to read the review.
Harry Targ : The War on Afghanistan is Our Biggest Fantasy -- By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog. Political science professor Targ says that President Obama's recent announcement about our future plans in Afghanistan "sounded eerily like the policy of 'Vietnamization' which President Nixon put in place in 1969." Read Harry's revealing analysis, put in historical context, here.
BOOKS / Tom Hayden : Was LBJ More Lear Than Machiavelli? -- By Tom Hayden / The Rag Blog. Though Robert Caro's impressive bio of Lyndon Johnson -- winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award -- "seems beyond the reach of criticism," Hayden points out two major omissions concerning Johnson actions that "led to the polarizations that eventually destroyed LBJ and the potential of the Great Society." Go here to read Tom's take on Caro.
Bernardine Dhorn and Bill Ayers : Looking Back at Kent State and Jackson State -- By Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers / The Rag Blog. "Again and again we learn that war and empire abroad will find a way home. Looking back at the killings of students and Kent State and Jackson State in 1970, Dohrn and Ayers point out that "Nixon and the political class had denounced students as thugs and subversives for their resistance" to U.S. war crimes. Read it here.
BOOKS / Ken Wachsberger : 'Second Chances' is Pro-Choice Novel -- By Ken Wachsberger / The Rag Blog. Ken reviews a new novel, "Love Means Second Chances," by writer/activist Susan Elizabeth Davis -- "a self-consciously political novel complete with website and blog that she hopes will become a literary weapon in the pro-choice arsenal." Read it here.
Chris Mooney : The Republican Brain on the Republican Brain -- By Chris Mooney / Truthout. Mooney -- who will be Thorne Dreyer's guest on Rag Radio Friday (go to the post) -- is the author of the revealing and heavily-researched new book, "The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science -- and Reality." And conservatives -- who "are attacking it without reading it" -- seem more than eager to prove the book's thesis.
Ivan Koop Kuper : The Maharishi's Bad Houston Karma -- By Ivan Koop Kuper / The Rag Blog. In a fascinating intersection of history, real estate, and the legacy of a 1960s guru, Ivan tells the story of the Heaven on Earth Inn in downtown Houston. Founded by former Beatles spiritual guide, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, it eventually came to resemble -- and be called -- the "Beirut Hilton." Read Ivan's fascinating tale here.
RAG RADIO / Thorne Dreyer : Theologian and Social Ethicist Gary Dorrien -- Interview by Thorne Dreyer / Rag Radio. Thorne Dreyer's guest on Rag Radio last Friday was noted progressive theologian Gary Dorrien, described by Cornel West as "the preeminent social ethicist in North America today." The post includes a player so you can listen to the podcast.
Danny Schechter : Drones Don't Talk Back -- By Danny Schechter / The Rag Blog. Author and journalist Schechter discusses the expanding role of drone technology in the military arsenal, and its increasing presence on U.S. military bases. And a major overhaul of the FAA control system "is permitting the deployment of drones" into domestic airspace. Go here to read this eye-opening report.
BOOKS / Ron Jacobs : More Powerful Than Dynamite -- By Ron Jacobs / The Rag Blog. Ron reviews "More Powerful Than Dynamite: Radicals, Plutocrats, Progressives and New York's Year of Anarchy," by Thai Jones, who grew up in the Weather Underground. This remarkable account of historical events in 1914 New York is a "detailed, impeccably researched... [and] compellingly written tale of an incredibly interesting time." Read Ron's review here.
Lamar W. Hankins : Republican Mind is Terrible Thing to Waste -- By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog. "It would be hard to pick the most 'ideologically extreme' Republican today," but Lamar narrows it down to five. Like West Virginia Senate candidate John Rease who compares a "no-smoking" sign on a public building to Hitler's putting a Star of David "on everybody's lapel." Paul Ryan's there, and Florida Rep. Allen West, who says there are "78 to 81" commies in the Democratic Party. Read it here -- and weep!
Greg Moses : Occupy May Day: Life, Labor, and Liberty -- By Greg Moses / The Rag Blog. In his signature literary style, Greg provides fascinating history and context to May Day, "a calendar occasion for marking human celebrations of life, labor, and liberty," with roots that go back into "archaic traditions of human responses to springtime," as "people enact a sense of participation in the joys of natural renewal and growth won back from winter's death." See the story and some beautiful May Day posters here.
CARTOON / Joshua Brown : Life During Wartime: Things to Look Forward To -- Political cartoon by Joshua Brown / The Rag Blog. Artist/historian Brown depicts the Romney campaign's Robert Bork in his, shall we say, dogged determination to take a hefty bite out of our rights. See it here.

14 June 2009

This Is Your Friendly American Banker

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