This Sunday, May 1: March for Immigrant & Workers' Rights (tags)
May 1: International Workers' Day Join Marches & Rallies for Immigrant and Workers' Rights in Los Angeles & Around the Country
Jury Gives Mayor Sheila Dixon a “Go to Jail” Card! (tags)
Baltimore’s Mayor Sheila Dixon was convicted on Dec. 1, 2009, by a jury of her peers, of stealing gift cards, worth about $525, intended for the “poor and needy.” As a result, she will forfeit her office, lose her $83,000 a year pension, and could go to jail. Her crime paled in significance to the massive wrongdoings of the Wall Street Mob, but, the State Prosecutor underscored to the jury: The Mayor was stealing “from the children of Baltimore!”
Edgar Allan Poe: A Tragic, but Talented, American Original (tags)
Edgar Allan Poe, poet, novelist and literary critic, died in 1849, age 40, under mysterious circumstances, in Baltimore, MD. The British author, Peter Ackroyd, insightfully captures the trials and tribulations of this great man of letters in his latest tome, “Poe: A Life Cut Short.” Poe invented the modern detective story and his poem, “The Raven,” is a classic in the genre. Ackroyd reveals Poe’s battle with the bottle, and adds a wrinkle: his aversion to sex!
America: No Country for Old Men (tags)
Every once in a while, a movie comes along which captures, as a metaphor, the times that we are living through. That film is “No Country for Old Men.” It’s based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy. The flick is the creation of the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan. It is a gem of a movie--grim in effect and dark in vision. In it, the villain, a sociopath, (think “Bush-Cheney Gang”) is winning; and the good guy, the Sheriff, (read “The People”), is ready to call it quits!
Coal-gas: Another Fiasco in the Making? (tags)
I am sending you this because there is talk of a 2B dollar coal-gas plant in Oswego Co. NY, and there is no mention of what the byproducts are or what they are going to do with them. Here is what I had to say on these issues in the order that I published them:
James Howard Kunstler: “America, Think Downscale!” (tags)
America is headed for “a long emergence,” according to author, James H. Kunstler. He’s convinced that the days of the economy running on a cheap supply of fast-fading oil will soon be history. He spoke at Loyola College in Baltimore, MD, on Feb. 20, 2007. Kunstler said it’s time for the country to think: “Downscale!” He sees hard times ahead. Kunstler also doesn’t think much of how the U.S. looks either. He said much of it is a “piece of crap.”
Along Baltimore City’s Peace Path (tags)
On 09/11/05, demonstrators in Baltimore City turned out to protest rabid militarism and the Iraqi War. If this action also leads political hack, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD), to speak out against the Iraqi War and to stop funding it, it will be a huge success! Her priority has been to give tens of billions of taxpayers’ money to Israel, while the Chesapeake Bay is dying from “dead zones,” and the levees at N.O. were in desperate need of repairs.