Archive for the 'history' Category
The S.S. United States as a Giant Metaphor
Photo by Shaporama
I popped off a snotty, sarcastic piece about the SS United State, a once-luxurious ocean liner rotting on the piers in Philly:
The S.S. United States Casino: a unique metaphor for USA in the 21st century: where suckers go to lose all their money chasing after get rich schemes, never realizing that the [...]
9/11 Repost
Every year I like to repost one of my fondest memories of the World Trade Center, a piece about the time I saw the Fleshtones at Windows on the World, the self-proclaimed “Greatest Bar on Earth”, on the top floor of the now demolished buildings. It’s not the best writing I’ve ever done, but [...]
Read More..>>Lucy Parsons on Labor Day
Something to remember this labor day, when the party of working people is busy handing public wealth to the banks, sending our kids to die in unwinnable wars, and busily gutting their own promises to provide every American with quality health care so not one more person is denied services, is the work of Lucy [...]
Read More..>>Can’t (Won’t) Happen Here
Great stuff from Collateral News, Phawker, and Puddle power.
Read More..>>May Day: Lucy Parsons
Since neither newspaper in working-class Philadelphia recognized May Day this year, I will do my bit by quoting Lucy Parsons’ “TO TRAMPS, The Unemployed, the Disinherited, and Miserable” in full.
A word to the 35,000 now tramping the streets of this great city, with hands in pockets, gazing listlessly about you at the evidence of [...]
True Song
Poor Ellen Smith how she was found
Shot through the heart lying cold on the ground
Her clothers were all scattered and thrown on the ground
And blood marks the spot where poor Ellen was found
They picked up their rifles and hunted me down
And found me a-loafing in Mount Airy town
They picked up the body and carried it [...]
Vonnegut Quote
“About Stalin’s shuttered churches, and those in China today: Such suppression of religion was supposedly justified by Karl Marx’s statement that ‘religion is the opium of the people.’ Marx said that back in 1844, when opium and opium derivatives were the only effective painkillers anyone could take. Marx himself had taken them. He was [...]
Read More..>>Stabbed in the Back
Via Susie Madrak and Josh Marshall, we see the faint stirrings of the Battered Spouse Syndrome Corolary: Stabbed in the Back!
The U.S. is failing in Iraq. Bush’s policy was repudiated by the American people in the last election. And now America’s enemies and rivals are pressing their advantage, including Iran, Syria, [...]
McCain: Full of Shit, As Usual
“I would remind Senator (Hillary) Clinton and other Democrats critical of the Bush administration’s policies that the framework agreement her husband’s administration negotiated was a failure”
And McCain’s huggy-buddy’s policy of “Do Nothing And Hope China Does It For Us” has been a success? We have no military option at all as it stand for [...]
Bill Monroe: Remembering the Father of Bluegrass Music
Today would have been Bill Monroe’s 95th birthday.
For those of you who are not bluegrass freaks, Bill Monroe is widely seen as the Father of Bluegrass Music, which he presented to the Grand Ole Opry audience in the early 1940s.
Bluegrass music, contrary to popular belief, is not particularly old. True enough, Monroe based his [...]
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