- 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.… …
- What Campaign Finance Reform? (6/12/2005) - I received a constituent mailing from my City Council representative Melinda Katz, or, rather, from "Speaker Gifford Miller and Council Member Melinda Katz...Working to Make Our City Cleaner and Safer." Voters have long been accustomed to incumbents using taxpayer-financed constituent mailings to trumpet their dubious "accomplishments" during campaign season, but...using a constituent mailing as a blatant campaign advertisement for a totally different candidate and race? Shouldn't this sort of thing be illegal? Come to think… …
- Music City’s Always Been Good To Him, But Irving Plaza’s a Bitch (6/12/2005) - I saw Bobby Bare Jr. and a sampling of the Young Criminals Starvation League open for the Old 97's last Thursday. Bobby didn't fare too well with the crowd (Who would have? That audience wanted the Old 97's, and they wanted them right away). The way the songs were reworked for a trio - excising those wonderful Stax horns - made it sound, at times, like generic "hard country," and Bobby's vocals were too low… …
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- Requiem for a Communist (6/11/2005) - Yesterday was Si Gerson's memorial at the Tamiment Institute. There were many wonderful stories, memories and tributes from friends, family and comrades. It was good to meet Si's daughter, Deborah, who invited me to speak, and his two grand-daughters, Timi and Frieda. I was asked if I would post my comments on this website, which I shall in order to correct a few factual errors in my earlier post (which was written from memory, and… …
- Mysterious Skin (6/8/2005) - Though I've long been intrigued by trailers and reviews, I've failed to see any of Gregg Araki's movies until "Mysterious Skin." What I've missed in the past is not likely to be as remarkable and utterly affecting as "Skin," which is easily the best movie I've seen so far this year. Centered around troubled Kansas teens Brian and Neil, who shared a life-changing experience in the summer of 1981, the film leads inevitably towards their… …
- Archives in the Digital Age (6/5/2005) - I've been asked to speak at Si Gerson's memorial on Friday. In order to dig a little deeper into the Stanley Isaacs controversy and the Cacchione succession fight, I paid a visit to the Tamiment Library at NYU in order to look through Si's personal files. The library has not yet had the opportunity to catalogue and file the 15 boxes of files that were donated this Spring, a few months after Si's passing. Amazingly,… …
- Extra! Extra! Torch Summer Edition! Free to Download! (6/1/2005) - The complete Summer edition of the Torch (Issue #42) is now available online in pdf format. Please download it and enjoy. If you like what you read and you happen to be a young socialist, join the Young People's Socialist League. …
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