THE RAG BLOG HAS MOVED!!!

We're now at TheRagBlog.com

(And we're having a party!)

The Rag Blog has a new website!

We've moved to TheRagBlog.com and we're having a Launch Party this Friday in Austin! Please join us for The Underground Goes Overboard, with special guests Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, former leaders of SDS and the Weather Underground. Plus live music from the Melancholy Ramblers.

It's all happening at the 5604 Manor Community Center, 5604 Manor Drive in Austin, on Friday, January 17, 2014, from 7-10 p.m. There will be beer and snacks available. There's a $10 suggested donation that goes to support the New Journalism Project, the Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit that publishes The Rag Blog.

If you aren't in Austin and can't join us, you can still help us produce The Rag Blog and Rag Radio by donating here.

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EXTRA : Rag Blog Editor Dreyer Does it in Public this Friday!

Poster art by James Retherford / The Rag Blog. The banner, designed by famed comix artist Gilbert Shelton, is from the original Rag, Austin's legendary underground newspaper published from 1966-1977.

Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer 
just keeps getting older!

"Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional." -- Chili Davis, hitting coach, Oakland Athletics

From the Rag Blog Society Desk / July 31, 2013

AUSTIN, Texas -- In Austin? Or can you get here fast?

Rag Blog editor/Rag Radio host Thorne Dreyer is having another birthday, and he's doing it in public!

Please join us for Dreyer's 68th birthday party this Friday, August 2, 6-9 p.m., at Maria's Taco Xpress, 2529 South Lamar Blvd, Austin, Texas. Maria's has a full bar and Tex-Mex menu, and Leeann Atherton performs on the patio at 7. (Find the party on Facebook.)

(Dreyer's birthday is really August 1st, but cut the old guy some slack: he gets confused!)

No gifts, but a small donation to the New Journalism Project -- the Texas 501(c)3 nonprofit that publishes The Rag Blog -- would be welcome. If you can't come, here's the link to donate.

Baseball's Chili Davis famously said: "Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional."

Don't grow up! Come party with us Friday.

The Rag Blog

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The Rag Blog : Peace and Justice Activist Tom Hayden in Austin

Progressive activist and New Left pioneer:
Tom Hayden in Austin Saturday

The Rag Blog and Rag Radio are presenting progressive activist and New Left icon Tom Hayden at the 5604 Manor Community Center, 5604 Manor Rd. in Austin, on Saturday, August 25, at 5 p.m. Hayden will speak on "The Drug War, the Peace Movement, and the Legacy of Port Huron." There is a suggested donation of $5 which will benefit the New Journalism Project, publisher of The Rag Blog.

Hayden will be in Austin in conjunction with Mexican poet Javier Sicilia’s Caravan for Peace which is aimed at ending the U.S.-sponsored Drug War and which will rally on the steps of the Texas State Capitol from noon-3 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 25, 2012.

Tom Hayden was a founder of SDS and the primary author of the Port Huron Statement, the defining document of the New Left, which is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year with major observances around the country.

He was a Freedom Rider in the Deep South, a community organizer in Newark, N.J., and one of the most visible and articulate opponents of the War in Vietnam. He was one of the Chicago Seven, arrested during demonstrations at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention.

He later organized the grassroots Campaign for Economic Democracy in California and then spent 16 years in the California legislature -- where the Sacramento Bee called him the “conscience of the Senate” -- and is now an author, a teacher, and one of the country’s most eloquent advocates for peace and justice.

Tom has recently taught at Scripps College and Pitzer College, Occidental College, and Harvard University’s Institute of Politics; and is currently teaching a class at UCLA on protest movements from Port Huron to the present.

Hayden, who is the author or editor of 19 books and serves on the editorial board of The Nation, is a leading progressive activist and an outspoken critic of the Pentagon's “Long War.” He was an initiator of Progressives for Obama, a group that offered critical support for Barack Obama during his initial campaign for the presidency.

Hayden is director of the Peace and Justice Resource Center in Culver City, California, edits the Peace Exchange Bulletin, and organizes anti-war activities for the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA).

Nicholas Lemann wrote in The Atlantic that “Tom Hayden changed America.” Historian James Miller called the Port Huron Statement “one of the pivotal documents in post-war American history.” Historian Michael Kazin called Port Huron “the most eloquent manifesto in the history of the American Left.” Richard Goodwin, advisor to Kennedy and Johnson, said that Hayden “created the blueprint for the Great Society programs.”

Tom Hayden told Thorne Dreyer on Rag Radio: "It’s a little uncanny how the words of the Port Huron Statement echo today...”

Read "As Port Huron turns 50: An Interview with Peace and Justice Activist Tom Hayden," by Thorne Dreyer at The Rag Blog, and listen to Dreyer's two hour-long Rag Radio interviews with Hayden.

Read articles by Tom Hayden on The Rag Blog.

The Rag Blog

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INTERVIEW / Jonah Raskin : Mariann Wizard's Odyssey

Above, Mariann Wizard at Threadgills, Austin, Texas, 2012. Photo by Gloria Badilla-Hill. Inset below: Mariann with former cable television commissioners, Jack Hopper and Tommy Wyatt, at ribbon-cutting ceremony to launch Austin's public access TV. Mariann was the chair of the Commission. Photo by Stuart Heady.
A Rag Blog Interview:
Mariann Wizard's Odyssey

“I love my country, but not always my Nation. I am a child of Mother Earth and loyal to her alone.“ -- Mariann Wizard

By Jonah Raskin / The Rag Blog / June 22, 2012

Wizards really do work wonders and Mariann Garner Wizard -- an icon of Austin’s radical movements and countercultural institutions -- is no exception.

The feisty co-author of two popular books -- the legendary underground comic, The Adventures of Oat Willie, and a classic study about the Sixties-era G. I. movement, Turning The Guns Around -- Wizard was also a contributor to No Apologies: Texas Radicals Celebrate the '60s, and to Paul Buhle's Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History.

She has worked her wizardry all over Texas for most of her life, and especially in Austin ever since she moved from Fort Worth to attend UT.  These days she works that wizardry, more often than not, on the Internet -- as a professional science writer specializing in natural therapies, and as a contributing editor to The Rag Blog.

A writer for The Rag and later for The Daily Worker, she joined SDS in the 1960s, and later belonged to the Communist Party of the United States. Her activist life didn’t leave much room for studying and she left UT before she earned a degree. On July 23, 1967, her husband, George Vizard, was shot and killed in Austin, and, though 45 years have passed since then, she has never forgotten the murder that day or her own youthful self.

By the time that she went back to college, and graduated from Juarez-Lincoln University with a B. A. in communications, Texas wasn’t the same and the United States wasn’t, either. The War in Vietnam had ended, legal segregation was a thing of the past, and American women had liberated themselves from the narrow roles that had confined them in the 1950s. Wizard herself had been transformed by the waves of rebellion and resistance that broke all around her.

For her whole life, she has rarely if ever accepted any of the preordained roles that others might have tried to impose on her. Even as a child, she had a free, independent spirit. In the last half century, she has been the author of her own ongoing Odyssey, delivered her own irreverent lines, written and performed her own brand of satirical poetry, helped to give birth to Austin’s public access TV station, and served as a mainstay in a community that has sustained her for decades.

Loyal to friends and to family, she’s as much a part of Texas traditions as Molly Ivins, Ann Richards, and Marilyn Buck, a friend of 45 years until her death two years ago, in August 2010.

I met Wizard for the first time eight months ago, spent several days with her in Austin, where she introduced me to her son, Matthew, and her former partner, Michael Kleinman, one of the prime movers and shakers behind Seattle’s annual Hempfest.

We ate Mexican food, listened to homegrown music, and gazed at the stars at night. I think we may have had a margarita or two. Mostly we talked from early morning to late at night about Austin, burritos, cannabis, UT, the weather, the Yippies, and more. We’ve gone on talking ever since then. This is our first public conversation.

Mariann Wizard (left) with Marilyn Buck at Dublin FCI in 1996. Inset below, from top: Mariann Vizard in 1968; with husband George selling The Rag on the Drag in 1966; the artist as a young woman; Oat Willie comic; Mariann reads her poetry.
Jonah Raskin: Wizard sounds like an unusual last name. Where does it come from?

Mariann Wizard: After my first husband, George Vizard, died and after my divorce from my second husband, Larry Waterhouse, I adopted the nickname “Wizard” that Alice Embree had given me. I made it my legal last name. I probably took the name in part because of "Mr. Wizard" who was featured on a science program for kids on TV when I was growing up.

Your husband, George Vizard, was shot and killed on July 23,1967. That’s 45 years ago. How does that event touch you today?

On a very real level, I will be "the widow Vizard" until the day I die. I was 20 years old, and although I've given it the good old college try on several occasions, there has never been another man who made me feel so totally secure, or so immensely proud that of all the girls in Texas, he picked me to be his wife. He was really somethin' else! I would not be the person I am today had I not known him.

You were born in Fort Worth. What was it like growing up there after World War II?

It was a great town in part because as a little white girl I didn't get segregation. The city had and still has a great library system, parks, art and history museums, public transit, and a feeling of unlimited opportunity. We also had something called "winter" with snow days, snowmen, winter coats, and winter wardrobes.

Were you a child of the Cold War?

The whole red terror was a part of my childhood. In high school, they gave us cardboard discs to write our names and pin them on our shirts in case of nuclear attack. That was the beginning of the end of my confidence in authorities.

When do you think you woke up and began to see what was happening in America?

When I saw black kids on TV fire-hosed in Alabama for doing what I did every Saturday: sip a soda at Woolworth's. I thought it could be fixed if people would simply remember what they taught us in Sunday school about Jesus loving all the little children. I didn’t look deeper into the workings of our society until on TV I saw the bombing of Vietnam and the Vietnamese and made a connection between the war there and racial injustice at home. Thank goodness for TV!

Why did you join Students for a Democratic Society?

A very brilliant, now deceased Austin anarchist organizer, and Navy veteran known as Bob Speck -- whose real name was Bob Baker -- got me to staple booklets for a Vietnam teach-in when he found me drinking coffee in the Chuck Wagon, the UT Student Union hangout for beatniks, bikers, international and Negro students, civil rights workers, and assorted weirdos. A week or so later, I went to an SDS meeting and was blown away.

And why was that?

I’d been in girls' organizations all through high school and knew that girls and women could decide things as well as boys and men. I had also been in mixed-gender groups where girls sat back and let the boys do the talking and pontificating. At the SDS meeting, two beautiful women -- both of them hooked up with cute, smart, influential guys -- stood up, spoke up, and got their points across. Even their men folk were pleased. That was Alice Embree and Judy Schieffer, who had been a civil rights worker in Mississippi, weighed about 80 pounds dripping wet, and was fearless.

Did you think that SDS would go on and on, forever?

As I came to know SDS people and "to participate" with them, I had the sense that our relationships would last forever, based not on some casual propinquity, money, or the bonds of high school, but because we believed in things worth struggling to achieve, struggling without cease, and perhaps without even a glimpse of the promised land. We had to learn to be kind to each other, to accept each other as we were, to love for real, and to keep the faith. Bob Dylan was a big help. I reckon he still is.

Do you think Texas is more violent than any other place in the States?

Hell no!... Do you want to step outside and ask that question again, Mr. Raskin? We aren’t a violent people. We’re just emotional. I support the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I have a Goddess-given right to self-defense by any means necessary.

When you think about Texas, do you consider it a part of the United States, or is it its own separate country?

Greater Tejas -- say, the 1718 boundaries, when Mission San Antonio de Bexar was founded -- is a vital geopolitical part of Mesoamerica, ripped from Madre Mexico by Yankees. The hideous border fence is an insult to Nature as well as Humanity. Imagine the influence of Mexico today if Texas had remained part of its Republic! Viva Zapata! Viva Juarez! Y Viva la Reconcuesta de Paz that we now witness in our changing demographics! If you can't beat 'em, outbreed 'em. The most popular name for baby boys in 2011 in Texas, and several other current U.S. states, was Jose.

To many Americans in, say, New York or Berkeley, the idea that Texas has a counterculture and a radical movement seems implausible.

It's not just Texas that leftists on the effete coasts don't see, hear, or respect! They don't know what's going in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, or Arkansas, either! That's why SDS had to have a "Prairie Power" movement. Texas is the Heartland, but all y'all bi-coasters just fly over it or motor through it looking for hicks.

How has feminism unfolded in Texas in ways that would surprise East Coast and West Coast feminists?

Hmmmm... Roller Derby, maybe? With the Internet, Grrrrl Power is everywhere.

How do you define yourself politically these days?

I don't have a party; sometimes I think of myself as an unaffiliated working-class libertarian Marxist-Leninist, but I am more than that, too. I write satiric and outraged poetry, howling to the best of my ability at the moon of our discontent, trying to keep some sense of language alive wherein words have meaning beyond the convenience of the moment.

I hope that the generation coming into their prime now will embrace new paradigms of social and economic intercourse, redefine happiness as something that cannot be bought at a store, learn it's okay to live on beans and bread, and put into practice a lot of what my generation dreamed.

You've been involved in the movement to decriminalize and legalize cannabis. What ideas do you have now to further the cause?

The legalization movement has allowed itself to be stigmatized as a kind of Cheeto-munching-couch-potato-smart-ass-white-boy-jerk. The public face of the movement is all too often exactly that. NORML's new Women's Alliance is a welcome development and one that we’ve been advocating for years. Grown-ups smoke cannabis, too. Until users start supporting professional, well-planned public interest campaigns, we can all go on reveling in our image as "rebels."

You’ve been through several incarnations, if you can call them that, as a radical. Is there a cause or a movement that you belonged to and feel proudest about it?

I have always been an advocate and practitioner of the First Amendment. I’m a Free Speech and a Free-to-Assemble loyalist to the bottom of my soul. To speak and associate freely with people of like- and unlike minds is the essence of freedom. I’m a proud supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Texas Civil Liberties Union, and have a long and proud roster of free speech causes, publications, and occasions.

What are some of your Austin activities?

I spent a good 14 years involved on a daily basis as a volunteer with public access television in Austin, and at the state-of-the-art television studio that I and a small group of people demanded be built in East Austin. When visitors ask me for a tour of "my town" it’s the first place I show them. Every day people at the studio learn to deconstruct the mass media and construct their own media. Public access is free speech television!

What about your involvement with the Communist Party, U.S.A.?

I joined in 1966 in part because it was then illegal under Texas law to do so. I was not then and never was a secret member, but a proud and open one. The CPUSA taught me critical thinking to go with my own critical feelings.

When you’re away from Texas what do you miss most about it?

My family, the big sky, the back roads, Mexican comida y cultura, and my own pad.

When you leave Texas what is it that you most want to get away from?

Nothing. I am going toward something special when I leave, not running away!

If you look at the whole state, in what part of it can one see the most glaring inequalities in terms of wealth and poverty?

I think it’s pretty well spread out, though the Valley is the poorest. Houston, Dallas, and Austin have enclaves for the super-rich juxtaposed with hairy areas where people live hand-to-mouth. Rural areas and small towns also show deterioration in the quality of life, but at the same time new construction is bringing in new populations.

Texas went from LBJ to George Bush; was that a big step backward or just a change of names and party designations?

Damn, don't blame Texas! A lot of other states supported George I! And a lot of others supported LBJ, too! Texas liberals -- many of them very sweet people -- have a propensity for shooting themselves in the foot perhaps more than any other group. If there’s a way to lose, they’ll find it.

Even in Austin you’re aware of the border aren’t you?

Every town with a significant Hispanic population is a target for la Migra. We absolutely see it here. Austin was a sanctuary city, although the feds took that away from us. Many immigrants come to Austin because there are resources here. Barbara Hines, part of the Austin Rag community, is an internationally-known advocate for immigrant rights and we’re all really proud of her! Casa Marianella is a local group that helps people who are fleeing political and social persecution.

Austin is a cultural oasis, and an anomaly isn’t it. I guess that’s why you live there.

Well, it was, but not so much now, I don't think. There are lots of towns where people are cooking Asian-Latin fusion food, where people talk with soft Caribbean accents, and where you can hear reggae. Of course, cannabis is everywhere, and sometimes more available in Boonietown, Texas, than here in the big bad city. And that has made all the difference culturally!

What about cowboy culture?

We still have unregenerate rednecks, and that's their right and their freedom as much as yours or mine. I have conservative religious people in my family and we get along okay -- though we can sure disagree -- because we’re family first and commissars of political correctness much further down the line. I lived in a rural north central Texas county for seven years, between 1997-2004, and really enjoyed most everything about it.

You’ve known some famous Texas radicals including Marilyn Buck and Lee Otis Johnson, both of whom spent big time in prison. What do you remember most about them?

Buck was my friend for 44 years and I only now understand what a privilege that was and what an extraordinary person she was. I miss her very much. I longed for her freedom and hoped until the very end that we would meet again in this life; I wasn't allowed to visit her for the last 14 years of her life. However, I feel her spirit very strongly moving in the world now. She’s a revolutionary icon for me with the same power as Che and George Jackson, forever young and beautiful, an inspiration to more people than we will ever know.

And Johnson?

I knew Lee Otis only briefly before his long tragic incarceration and only briefly after his release. Before, he was gallant, charming, bold, and beautiful, an articulate student leader at a repressive black campus where the Uncle Toms of tomorrow were taught. Instead of shooting him, they busted him for passing a joint at a party and gave him 45 years in prison on a first offense. I was one of those who advocated for his release for many years. A local movement law firm secured his freedom and there was a huge, heartfelt party for him.

What happened after his release?

Years of imprisonment, torture, and isolation messed him up, and it wasn't long before he pulled the welcome mat right out from under himself. Today, we would understand, I hope, that he suffered from PTSD and had other serious medical issues. He got himself back in order, with the help of his family, before he passed away, but the prison system broke him, and we didn't know how to help him get it together again.

You have ties with prisoners and ex-prisoners, don’t you?

These days I'm really happy to have Robert King as a friend, a former prisoner in Louisiana's Angola State Prison and one of the "Angola 3." He’s the only one so far to be released. King is an asset to our progressive community; a wise man who spent 29 years in solitary confinement, he doesn't hate anyone, and continues to battle the system in a principled, disciplined way.

Are you the un-Texas Texan and the un-American American?

I love my country, but not always my Nation. I am a child of Mother Earth and loyal to her alone. Borders are drawn by men on maps, but they don't exist in nature. Nation-states are social formations that have arisen as civilization has (presumably) advanced, built on specific types of economic interactions.

But when you walk the paths of Tikal, or other ancient Mayan cities, or think about the civilizations that have risen and fallen in the Near East, it seems clear that borders are impermanent. Different economic patterns bring different sorts of social interaction, and no doubt will again, as the world turns. Maybe our descendants will be nomads, hunter-gatherers, or live in the kinds of space colonies that Ray Bradbury imagined in his science fiction.

Find articles and poems by Mariann Wizard on The Rag Blog.

[Jonah Raskin, a regular contributor to The Rag Blog, is the author of Marijuanaland: Dispatches from an American War, and Rock ‘n’ Roll Women: Portraits of a Generation. Read more articles by Jonah Raskin on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

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Shelley Seale : CultureMap Picks Austin's Top Political Bloggers

CultureMap Austin's top political bloggers: Above, The Rag Blog's Thorne Dreyer, photo by James Retherford. Inset, below, from the top: Rachel Farris, photo by Wildhouse Photography; Harold Cook, courtesy of Harold Cook; and Katherine Haenschen, courtesy of BOR. All photos appeared at CultureMap Austin.
Election 2012:
Keep up with Austin's top political bloggers

[The Rag Blog was honored to be featured in a CultureMap Austin article about Austin's top political bloggers, originally published on June 2, 2012. CultureMap -- a "daily digital magazine" designed to keep readers "plugged in, enlightened and entertained about culturally relevant news and information" -- has become an increasingly influential Internet community resource for the Austin area. We thought we'd share Shelley Seale's interesting piece with our readers.]

By Shelley Seale / CultureMap Austin / June 14, 2012

This month's installment of Austin's top bloggers highlights some of the best locals who dish on all things politics. After covering style, music, relationships, and food, this month I'm sharing my list of Austin's top political bloggers.

Thorne Dreyer: The Rag Blog

Thorne Dreyer and The Rag Blog both came of age in the tumultuous sixties. In 1966, Dreyer was the original editor of The Rag — one of the first underground papers in the country.

"At the time, Austin was becoming a center for the fast-growing Sixties counterculture and psychedelic music scenes — and there was a big student power and anti-war movement on and around the UT campus," says Dreyer, who currently edits the digital-age reincarnation, The Rag Blog. "The Rag pulled those groups together into a major political force."

Thorne Dreyer and The Rag Blog both came of age in the tumultuous sixties.

The Rag Blog was born in 2005, when dozens of old staffers and local activists came together in a wildly successful reunion and started working together again. "It started as an online discussion group," Dreyer says, "and many of the old underground press folks now write for us. We have a roster of prestigious contributors from all over the country and have developed an international following, and our writing is republished extensively on the internet."

The Rag Blog features commentary on contemporary politics and culture and has been an original internet source on subjects like Occupy Wall Street , the environmental and sustainability movements, and other issues of social activism. "Though the times are very different, there are some similarities between the Sixties underground press and today’s progressive blogosphere — and we try to publish The Rag Blog with some of that same Sixties spirit."

As far as the upcoming Presidential elections, Dreyer feels that people expected too much from Obama, and many are disillusioned with his leadership. "Obama was never really a progressive, and the political climate was such that he kept running into a (Republican) brick wall at every turn. But the Republicans are so scary that we have to support Obama’s reelection. All the pressure on Obama comes from the Right; we need to be more of a counterbalancing force."


Rachel Farris: Mean Rachel

Blogging helped Rachel Farris deal with her own political grievances. Her first blog post in 2005 was about her frustration with the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. Even so, she didn't blog much about politics in those first couple of years — not until 2007, when her then-boyfriend was redeployed to Iraq and Farris began blogging about her dissatisfaction with the Bush administration.

"While the relationship didn't work out, the blog definitely did. It helped me find my voice."

Farris's recent post on What a Rick Perry Presidency Would Look Like for Women got quite a bit of attention. "I think a lot of pundits were talking about what a Rick Perry presidency might look like for foreign policy or business, but no one had really addressed Perry's record with women," Farris says. And she is equal opportunity on the parties; she stirred up Democrats as well with The Crisis of Character in the Democratic Party , written right after the 2010 gubernatorial elections.

Farris is concerned about low voter turnout in the Presidential Race, and the way people are tired of the ineffectiveness of politics across party lines.

While many people vehemently disagreed with that post, a group of campaign staffers for Bill White asked her to read it at a backyard party.

"I thought their resilience was impressive and it gave me a lot of hope for the future of the Democratic Party in Texas. If they were willing to listen to some grumpy blogger yell at them, it meant that the next generation of political staffers care and they want to improve our state's Democratic ticket."

Farris is concerned about low voter turnout in the Presidential Race, and the way people are tired of the ineffectiveness of politics across party lines. She predicts a win for President Obama, and hopes it will help re-engage the electorate for 2016.

"With a name like Mean Rachel, I've found that people are more willing to listen once they've gotten to know me," Farris says. "The most common thing I hear is 'You're not so mean!'"


Harold Cook: Letters From Texas

Cook's blog came about simply because he was bored to tears. It was 2008 and he was on a business conference call. "While the call droned on and on, I just surfed over to blogger.com to see if I could get a blog going," Cook says. "I didn't tell anybody for a couple of weeks, because I didn't think it would last."

He wanted to do a political analysis blog because that's where his expertise was — but he also wanted to do political satire and parody. "I think many participants in the political process take themselves way too seriously." LettersFromTexas.com goes back and forth between serious and humorous pieces, something that Cook says might make the site seem a little schizophrenic to some. "They never know which writing they'll get when they check in, and I like that."

Plenty of his blog posts have generated a lot of controversy and commentary. "When Governor Perry first said he was thinking about running for President earlier this year, I wrote a piece highly critical of his candidacy which may well be the most-read piece over on the blog," Cook says. "It just kept going for months and months. I also wrote Source at Reliant Stadium in Houston which also bent the needle on blog traffic."

"I think many participants in the political process take themselves way too seriously."

The most controversial post ever was Rodeo Clowns, in which Cook published the names and contact information of several people who had sent racist emails surrounding a controversy with the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. "The squirming by racists in the comments section was certainly an eye-opener to a lot of my readers, to say the least, and I finally shut down the comments on the piece."

And what does Cook think about the upcoming Presidential election? "I think the struggles within the Republican Party between Tea Party activists and traditional establishment Republicans have taken Republicans so far to the right that it will be difficult for them to have a very good November election. Odds are at this point that Obama will be re-elected."


Katherine Haenschen: Burnt Orange Report

It was 2003, and a group of UT students needed an outlet to chronicle the political goings-on at the State Capitol and around Austin. Thus was born the Burnt Orange Report. In nearly 10 years the site has garnered more than six million visitors, broken major statewide and national news stories and played a key role in supporting progressive/Democratic messaging, through the work of dozens of staff writers.

In fact, BOR is one of the most widely-read progressive state blogs and was credentialed at the '06 and '08 Democratic National Conventions, as well as the 2009 inauguration of President Obama. The blog has also won six "Best of Austin " awards from Austin Chronicle readers.

In nearly 10 years the site has garnered more than six million visitors, broken major statewide and national news stories and played a key role in supporting progressive/Democratic messaging, through the work of dozens of staff writers.

"While we're unabashedly Democratic, our readers come from both sides of the aisle," says editor Katherine Haenschen. "We're very open about our partisanship and support for Democratic candidates, but we're also willing to criticize fellow members of our party too."

In 2006, BOR broke the story about Kinky Friedman's racist "comedy" routines, which became a big story in the 2006 Governor's race. Amusingly, Haenschen says the blog is also still getting a steady stream of visits from people Googling "Can Texas secede?" and landing on this post by Karl-Thomas Musselman." I guess we can thank Rick Perry for that one."

It is probably obvious that BOR supports Obama in the upcoming elections. "We're largely optimistic about our elections this year, since issues like public education funding, women's health, and economic inequality are key this year," says Haenschen. "Democrats have a more favorable — and let's be honest, sane — stance on these issues. Plus, it helps that the Republicans can't seem to stop arguing about the President's birth certificate while railing against birth control. They're doing a great job of showing why they shouldn't be in charge of a bake sale, let alone government."

[Shelley Seale is an Austin-based freelance journalist who writes about lifestyle, travel, health, education, business and nonprofit issues. She has written for National Geographic, USA Today, Andrew Harper Traveler Magazine, Yahoo, CNN, the Austin Business Journal, Austin Woman and many others.]

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RAG RADIO / Thorne Dreyer : Restoration Ecologist Bill Neiman on Saving our Texas Environment

Environmentalist Bill Neiman at the KOOP studios in Austin, Friday, April 13, 2012. Photo by Tracey Schulz / Rag Radio.
Rag Radio:
Restoration ecologist Bil Neiman
says we need a paradigm shift

By Rag Radio / The Rag Blog / April 18, 2012

Restoration ecologist Bill Neiman, a leader in the movement to conserve natural resources and to restore and maintain the health of the environment in Texas, was Thorne Dreyer's guest on Rag Radio, Friday, April 13, 2012, on Austin community radio station KOOP 91-7-FM, and streamed live on the Internet.

You can listen to the show here.


Bill Neiman is an environmental landscaper and his Native American Seed is the principal supplier of native wildflower and grass seeds in Texas, much of it used in the highway-beautification programs of the Texas Department of Transportation. The company also provides consulting services for prairie-restoration projects.

An advocate of the use of native species of vegetation, Neiman speaks regularly to school classes and adult groups in his ongoing effort to educate the public about ecologically-sensitive land management.

Neiman -- who believes we are at a serious environmental and land use crossroads -- points out that we "consume and convert rural land at the rate of 1,000 football fields per day... to sprawling new suburban homes and big box shopping malls." He says we are at a point were we must "make paradigm shifts in how we connect to outdoor living spaces."

On the show we discuss the nature of native or indigenous species and the value of using them in landscaping, and Neiman suggests adding "pocket prairie" ecosystems to urban landscapes to serve as wildlife refuges and seed banks. And he talks about the current epidemic invasion of the vegetation known as "bastard cabbage" which is actually native to the Mediterrean, and how to address the continuing problem of invasive species in Texas.

Neiman discusses the recent Texas drought and wildfires, and how we must seriously address water usage, the most critical resource in our lives. He suggests landscaping with native turf instead of St. Augustine and other non-indigenous grasses, and creating sustainable rainwater gardens and water harvesting sites.

And he tells the Rag Radio audience about community efforts in the Texas Hill Country to preserve the "night skies" by addressing light pollution with simple techniques to shield outdoor lighting.


Rag Radio, which has aired since September 2009 on KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas, features hour-long in-depth interviews and discussion about issues of progressive politics, culture, and history.

Hosted and produced by Rag Blog editor and long-time alternative journalist Thorne Dreyer, a pioneer of the Sixties underground press movement, Rag Radio is broadcast every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CST) on KOOP and streamed live on the web. Rag Radio is also rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (EST) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA.

Rag Radio is produced in the KOOP studios, in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. Tracey Schulz is the show's engineer and co-producer.

After broadcast, all episodes are posted as podcasts and can be downloaded at the Internet Archive.

The Rag Blog

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James Retherford : Old Skool Reunion!

Spencer Perskin of Shiva's Headband performs at the Rag Blog benefit. Photoillustration by James Retherford / The Rag Blog.
'Feed Your Head!'
Rag Blog benefit is boffo bash

Photography by James Retherford / The Rag Blog / April 5, 2012

“Feed Your Head,” The Rag Blog's “Old Skool” April Fool's benefit bash, held on Sunday night, April 1, at Jovita’s in Austin, was a rousing success. Featuring memorable performances by historic Texas musicians Shiva’s Headband, Greezy Wheels, and Jesse Sublett -- and with legendary surrealist graphic artist Jim Franklin signing his commemorative poster -- the show drew a packed crowd of nostalgic revelers who came out to support The Rag Blog and Rag Radio and to just plain have fun.

Rag Blog art director Jim Retherford's gallery of photos, below, captures the spirit of the night and the character of the, well, characters in attendance.


The musicians:
Susan Perskin and Spencer Perskin: Shiva's Headband.
Cleve Hattersley and Sweet Mary Hattersley: Greezy Wheels.
Jesse Sublett.

The artist:

Jim Franklin signs his poster.

The celebrants:

The new Rag Blog/Rag Radio t-shirt, designed by Jim Retherford, was premiered at the event.
The Rag Blog

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The Rag Blog : 'Old Skool' Will Be in Session on April Fool's Day

Famed Austin surrealist graphic artist Jim Franklin designed a special commemorative poster for the event.
‘Feed Your Head’ on April Fool’s Day:
Legendary Austin Bands at Rag Blog Bash

A Rag Blog Benefit Bash with
Shiva's Headband, Greezy Wheels & Jesse Sublett
Jovita's, 1619 S. First St., Austin
Sunday, April 1, 2012, 6-9 p.m.
$10 Suggested Donation

“Old Skool” will be in session on April Fool’s Day at Jovita’s in Austin, when The Rag Blog invites you to “Feed Your Head.” A big slice of Austin music and countercultural history will be on display at the event, which will feature performances by Shiva’s Headband, Greezy Wheels, and Jesse Sublett. Austin surrealist artist Jim Franklin will sign a commemorative poster he designed for the occasion.

The event, scheduled for 6-9 p.m., Sunday, April 1, at Jovita’s, 1619 S. First St. in Austin, will benefit The Rag Blog, an Austin-based progressive Internet news magazine published by the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.

The Rag Blog traces its roots to Austin’s legendary underground newspaper, The Rag, which was published from 1966-1977. Also with ties to the original Rag is Rag Radio, a weekly public affairs program broadcast on Austin’s KOOP 91.7-FM and hosted by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer.


The bands

Psychedelic rockers Shiva's Headband, founded in 1967 by Spencer Perskin, a classically trained violinist, served as the house band at Austin’s Vulcan Gas Company, and was the first group to perform at Austin’s iconic Armadillo World Headquarters. The Shiva’s Headband album, Take Me to the Mountains, was the first nationally released album by an Austin rock band.

Pioneers of the “progressive country” movement in the 1970s, Greezy Wheels was for years the unofficial house band at the Armadillo. Guitarist and writer Cleve Hattersley and “fiddler extraordinaire” Mary Hattersley, led the group that, according to the Austin Chronicle’s Margaret Moser, “owned Austin” in the mid-70s.

Bassist Jesse Sublett -- also an Austin-based mystery writer and visual artist -- founded the legendary alt-punk band, The Skunks, which debuted at Austin’s Raul’s in 1978, and Sublett continued to be a mainstay on the Austin music scene.


Jim Franklin's poster

Austin surrealist artist Jim Franklin has designed a limited edition poster which he will sign at the Rag Blog event. Franklin, as house artist at the Armadillo World Headquarters, helped turn the lowly armadillo into an internationally recognized symbol for the Texas counterculture. His artwork graced the landmark Shiva’s Headband album, Take Me to the Mountains, and his surrealist armadillos appeared on several covers of the original Rag.

Graphic designer James Retherford has designed a new Rag Blog t-shirt, which will also be unveiled at the Jovita's event.

Proceeds from "Feed Your Head" benefit the New Journalism Project, the nonprofit corporation that publishes The Rag Blog. Suggested donation is $10. Jovita’s has a full bar and food menu. There is a Facebook event page for the Rag Blog benefit.


The Rag and The Rag Blog

The Rag Blog, founded in 2006 after a lively reunion of staffers from the original Rag, features commentary on news, politics, and cultural affairs. The Rag Blog, which has developed a worldwide following and has become an influential force in the progressive blogosphere, has received a million and a half unique visits in its short lifetime. Many of The Rag Blog's contributors are veterans of The Rag and of the Sixties underground press.

Rag Radio features hour-long in-depth interviews with newsmakers, artists, and leading thinkers from Austin and around the country, and its archived podcasts are creating a significant oral history library -- much of it previously undocumented -- that includes unique profiles from Austin's countercultural history. Broadcast Fridays from 2-3 p.m. (CDT) on Austin's KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively run all-volunteer community radio station, Rag Radio also streams live to a widespread Internet audience, and is rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (Eastern) by WFTE-FM in Mt. Cobb and Scranton, PA.

Rag Blog editor and Rag Radio host Thorne Dreyer was a pioneering Sixties underground journalist and New Left activist who was a founding editor of The Rag in Austin and Space City! in Houston. Dreyer was also an editor at Liberation News Service (LNS) in New York, was general manager of KPFT, Houston's Pacifica radio station, and worked with the early Texas Monthly magazine.


Where it all started

The Rag, called "one of the few legendary undergrounds" by historian Laurence Leamer, first hit the streets in Austin on October 6, 1966. The Rag was one of the earliest of the Sixties underground papers, was the first underground paper in the South, and was a model for many papers that followed it.

According to author John McMillian, whose definitive work on the Sixties underground press, Smoking Typewriters, was published in 2011 by Oxford University Press, The Rag "was a spirited, quirky, and humorous paper, whose founders pushed the New Left's political agenda even as they embraced the counterculture's zeal for rock music, psychedelics, and personal liberation." According to historian McMillian, the underground tabloid was regarded by the Austin community as "a beautiful and precious thing."

Austin -- and especially the University of Texas campus -- played a major role in the development of the Sixties counterculture in the United States. Austin was a center for civil rights, anti-war, student power, and New Left activity, and was a major player in the early "psychedelic" music scene -- incubating talents like Janis Joplin and the Thirteenth Floor Elevators -- and in the underground comix and poster art movements -- with Franklin's armadillos and Gilbert Shelton's "Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers" gaining iconic status.

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Rag Blog : 'Feed Your Head' on April Fool's Day!

Art by Jim Franklin; poster by James Retherford / The Rag Blog.
‘Feed Your Head’ on April Fool’s Day:
Legendary Austin Bands at Rag Blog Bash

Go to the Facebook "Feed Your Head!" event page.

“Old Skool” will be in session on April Fool’s Day at Jovita’s in Austin, when The Rag Blog and Rag Radio invite you to “Feed Your Head.” A big slice of Austin music history will be on display at the event, which will feature performances by Shiva’s Headband, Greezy Wheels, and Jesse Sublett.

The event, scheduled for 6-9 p.m., April 1, at Jovita’s, 1619 S. First St. in Austin, will benefit The Rag Blog, an Austin-based progressive Internet news magazine, and Rag Radio, a weekly public affairs program broadcast on Austin’s KOOP 91.7-FM and hosted by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer. The Rag Blog and Rag Radio trace their roots to Austin’s legendary underground newspaper, The Rag, which was published from 1966-1977 with Dreyer as its original editor.

Psychedelic rockers Shiva's Headband, founded in 1967 by Spencer Perskin, a classically trained violinist, was the house band at Austin’s Vulcan Gas Company, and was the first group to perform at Austin’s iconic Armadillo World Headquarters. Their album, Take Me to the Mountains, was the first nationally released album by an Austin rock band.

Pioneers of the “progressive country” movement in the 1970s, Greezy Wheels was for years the unofficial house band at the Armadillo. Guitarist and writer Cleve Hattersley and “fiddler extraordinaire” Mary Hattersley, led the group that, according to the Austin Chronicle’s Margaret Moser, “owned Austin” in the mid-70s.

Bassist Jesse Sublett -– also a mystery writer and artist -- founded Austin’s legendary alt-punk band, The Skunks, which debuted at Austin’s Raul’s in 1978, and Sublett continued to be a mainstay on the Austin music scene.

A poster for the event, designed by James Retherford, features original art by Austin surrealist artist Jim Franklin, who, as house artist at the Armadillo World Headquarters, helped turn the lowly armadillo into an internationally recognized symbol for the Texas counterculture and whose artwork graced the landmark Shiva’s album, Take Me to the Mountains.

Proceeds from the event benefit the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that publishes The Rag Blog and produces Rag Radio. Suggested donation is $10. Limited edition Jim Franklin posters and special Rag Blog t-shirts will be available. Jovita’s has a full bar and food menu.

The Rag Blog, founded in 2006 after a reunion of staffers from the original Rag, has become a force in the progressive blogosphere and receives 50,000 unique visits a month. Rag Radio features hour-long in-depth interviews with newsmakers, artists, and leading thinkers. Broadcast Fridays from 2-3 p.m. (CDT) on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin, it is also rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (Eastern) by WFTE-FM in Mt. Cobb and Scranton, PA, and also streams live, with a widespread internet audience.

The Rag Blog

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The Rag Blog : Technical Difficulties!

After the apocalypse:
We're baaack!

By Editors / The Rag Blog / December 12, 2011

You may have noticed that there hasn’t been much activity on The Rag Blog for the last week or so. And, if you are a subscriber, you may have wondered what happened to last week’s Rag Blog Digest.

Well, we’ve had an onslaught of what are known in the trade as “technical difficulties.” We had a computer crash at our home base (editor Thorne Dreyer’s untrustworthy PC; he’s old school and isn’t the most proficient of techies), and lost a lot of data. (We won’t bore you with the details, but we will say this: Never. Ever. Rely on Dell Support. And, yeah, we know: Get a Mac...)

But -- onward thru the fog -- we’re back up and running.

We would like to take advantage of this opportunity to encourage everyone to become a part of the Rag Blog family. Please contact us at our new email address -- editor@theragblog.com -- if you would like to offer input about our work, contribute content to The Rag Blog, or be added to our mailing list. (We send out a weekly Rag Blog Digest and an email blast with information about each week’s radio show to an email list of more than 6,500.)

And you can subscribe to the Rag Blog feed here.

For those of you who are new to these parts, The Rag Blog is a noncommercial internet newsmagazine published by activist journalists committed to progressive social change. We are based in Austin, Texas, and are published by the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. The Rag Blog has a world-wide following and has become an influential force in the progressive blogosphere.

One more thing: It's the end of the year and The Rag Blog is an ever-needy (actually, now we're needier-than-ever!) cause. We take no advertising and we depend on your financial support for our continued efforts. To donate to The Rag Blog, and help us keep fighting the good fight, please go here.

We also have a weekly radio show, Rag Radio, produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM -- a cooperatively-run community radio station in Austin. Rag Radio is broadcast live on KOOP Fridays from 2-3 p.m. (CST) and is streamed live on the World Wide Web. Rag Radio is also rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (Eastern) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA. After broadcast, all episodes are posted as podcasts and can be downloaded at the Internet Archive.

The Rag Blog and Rag Radio are produced in the spirit of the Sixties underground press and represent a digital-age rebirth of Austin's legendary undergrounder, The Rag, one of the earliest and most influential of the Sixties underground newspapers. The Rag was published from 1966-1977 and Rag Blog editor and Rag Radio host Thorne Dreyer was the original “Funnel” of The Rag.

The Rag Blog

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Rag Radio : Suspense Novelist David Lindsey on the Private Intelligence Industry

Suspense novelist David Lindsey during broadcast of Rag Radio, Friday, Sept. 23, 2011, at the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin. Photo by Tracey Schulz / Rag Radio / The Rag Blog.

Suspense novelist David Lindsey on Rag Radio
with Thorne Dreyer. Listen to it here:

Novelist David Lindsey discussed his writing -- and the booming private intelligence industry, which is the subject of his latest work -- with Thorne Dreyer on Rag Radio, Friday, September 23, 2011.

Lindsey is an Austin-based author who has written 14 novels in the mystery, thriller, and suspense genres. He is a native Texan who was born in Starr County, near the Mexican border, and grew up in West Texas, in the oil fields and ranches of the Colorado River valley, north of San Angelo.

His first book, A Cold Mind, published in 1982, was the first of five novels featuring Houston homicide detective Stuart Haydon. Lindsey, who was active in a human rights organization that monitored political assassinations in Guatemala, set his fifth Haydon novel, Body of Truth (1992), in that Central American country. Body of Truth won Germany's Bochumer Krimi Archiv award for the best suspense novel of the year.

Mercy, released in 1990, was also set in Houston and featured a female Hispanic detective, Carmen Palma. The book was a New York Times bestseller, and was made into a motion picture starring Ellen Barkin. Mercy was a pioneer in the suspense sub-genre featuring serial killers, and Lindsey is one of the first to have dealt with the issue of criminal profiling in his work. Lindsey has also set his fiction in the international world of criminal intelligence and assassinations, and some of his more recent work has been set in Austin and Central Texas.

In 2007, David Lindsey, started researching the astonishing rise of government outsourcing of national intelligence. Privatized spying has become a multi-billion dollar industry and private contractors now command 70 percent of the national intelligence budget. According to Lindsey:

By outsourcing our national intelligence responsibilities to private, for-profit enterprises, the government has fundamentally altered the structure and behavior of the business of spying.

A two-year investigation on this subject by The Washington Post resulted in a blockbuster series called "Top Secret America." The Post said:

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it, or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

The private intelligence industry is the setting for David Lindsey’s latest novel, Pacific Heights. Written under the pseudonym Paul Harper, it is the first novel in the Marten Fane story cycle, a serial novel set in the hidden world of private sector intelligence contractors.

Rag Radio -- hosted and produced by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer -- is broadcast every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CDT) on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin, and streamed live on the web. KOOP is a cooperatively-run community radio station in Austin.

Rag Radio, which has been aired since September 2009, features hour-long in-depth interviews and discussion about issues of progressive politics, culture, and history. After broadcast, all episodes are posted as podcasts and can be downloaded at the Internet Archive. Tracey Schulz is the show's engineer and co-producer.

Rag Radio is also rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (Eastern) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA. Rag Radio is produced in the KOOP studios, in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.

The running time for this interview, with music and underwriting announcements removed, is 53:56.

Pacific Heights, written by David Lindsey under the pseudonym Paul Harper, is the first novel in the Marten Fane story cycle, a serial novel set in the hidden world of private sector intelligence contractors.
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