- The Great Blog Circle Jerk (7/10/2005) - I have updated my Links page to include some lefty blogs that I read. Tom-A-Thon.com is the website of my comrade in Staten Island, Tommy Miles. It's all Tom, all the time, with lots of space for socialism and futbol. Former Socialist Party Chairman, and eternal anti-spam crusader, Don Doumakes writes Another Socialist Blog, while New Jersey's Wayne Rossi presents minitrue, another good source for socialist information and commentary. The Great Plains heretic Jim Hurd… …
- Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy (7/8/2005) - My Socialist Party is hosting a forum next Monday in defense of Lynne Stewart, the famed civil rights attorney who is being sent up the river for "aiding 'terrorists' " by defending their constitutional rights in our modern witch-hunt times. Tom Good has organized a very interesting panel, and it looks like yours truly will be offering a few opening remarks and introducing the speakers. I strongly encourage you to attend if you are free… …
- Board of Education Layeth the Smacketh Down (7/7/2005) - Although they were generally good guys, I don't recall my high school history teachers making a big impression on me. Of course, they couldn't piledrive me into my desk. My old high school, Benjamin N. Cardozo, apparently corrected that shortcoming by hiring professional wrestler Matthew Kaye (a.k.a. Matt Striker, Matt Martel, Hydro, or Hot Stuff) to teach European history. Unfortunately, he has resigned after getting caught wrestling in Japan while calling in sick. After copping… …
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- School Days Mixtape (7/3/2005) - It's only a few more weeks until I go to school. I've started burning mix CDs for the road trip to Amherst. For a bit of fun, I've compiled some of the better school-themed songs. "Fuck School" by the Replacements. The Mats picked up the speed and dumbed down the jokes on their 1982 e.p. "Stink." Whereas a song like "Goddamn Job" has a certain pathos, "Fuck School" is impotent, class-dropping anger. "School" by Nirvana.… …
- Register for Selective Service Under Protest (7/2/2005) - With no end in sight to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and military recruitment on the decline, a resumption of the military draft looms as a frightening possibility for young people. While many activists have been turning their attention towards anti-recruitment work, resistance to Selective Service registration has taken a back seat. A cursory search on Google reveals advice that is ridiculously simple-minded. It is unreasonable to ask a young man not to register… …
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- Lawnguyland (6/28/2005) - Long Island is full of surprises. I've been doing house visits for a certain union on Long Island. I've been working in Lindenhurst, a town that is mostly known to me from those hypnotic station announcements on the Long Island Railroad ("Making station stops at...Wantaugh, Seaford, Massapequa, Massapequa Park, Amityville, Copiague, Lindenhurst and Babylon; Change at Babylon for the train to Montauk..."), which are stored in the same place in my brain as parts of… …
- He Ain’t Never Caught a Rabbit. (6/25/2005) - I think I'm over the dog thing. My parents are away this weekend, at a family reunion that I am boycotting, so I volunteered to dog-sit Alfred. I drove by my folks' place in the late afternoon to pay the neurotic pup a visit and then take him to my apartment. I took him for a quick run around the backyard in order in order to expend some of his pent up energy from being… …
- Jackie Robinson Park vs. Snapple Apple Stadium (6/21/2005) - The recent, long-awaited announcement of plans for a successor to the Mets' Shea Stadium opens the chilling possibility that New York City will be stuck with one of those stupid corporate-sponsorship name venues. From the Staples Center in Los Angeles to the MCI Arena in Washington, DC and, in between, those poor bastards in Houston who were stuck with Enron Field, corporate-sponsored naming rights have blighted our nation's sporting venues. This frustrating trend has reached… …
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- Ghosts of Mississippi Demand Action for Today (6/19/2005) - The wheels of civil rights justice sure do turn slowly in America. With a curious vigor, authorities are seeking convictions for two of the most famous lynchings of the mid-twentieth century, while the U.S. Senate has recently apologized for not reacting to all those lynchings in a timely matter. Better late than never? "You're still doing what you did in 1964," protests Rita Schwerner Bender. Back in that Freedom Summer, Schwerner Bender and her then-husband,… …
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- Change to Win (6/15/2005) - I just got an e-mail from Joe Hansen, International President of the United Food and Commercial Workers. Okay, it was a mass e-mail sent out over the union's "Union Voice" list. The meat of it is significant, but not surprising. UFCW's Executive Board has authorized Hansen to withdraw from the AFL-CIO. This makes UFCW the second union, after SEIU, to authorize its president to pull out of the AFL-CIO if the July convention proves dissatisfactory.… …