Hard Crackers: If I understand correctly the argument you’ve made about the efficacy of riots, it’s that they impose, far more effectively than legal limits, that communities can place new limits on police brutality. That seems quite evident in what’s happening now at the official political/media level. They can’t seem to move fast enough to […]
In the Streets of Philadelphia
A lot can happen in a week. On Saturday, May 30, a beautiful sunny afternoon, we joined thousands of others at the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum to protest the murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police. This was the first major protest of Floyd’s death in Philadelphia, the poorest big city in […]
“Who the Hell is They?” On Two of the Sam Peckinpah Western Films
This is a film commentary (two films, in fact). What follows might be perceived as a distraction, but I don’t think so. I have been watching the now considered old Sam Peckinpah westerns in between copious news viewing and reading about the protests. I fortunately have a box set of them, a condition set by […]
“I don’t think Tyson’s gives two shits about their workers.”
It was the workers and their kids who shut down Tyson’s Waterloo, Iowa meatpacking plant on April 22, 2020. Not the governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, who seemed to show more concern for the hogs who weren’t being slaughtered than for the thousands of workers who were being daily exposed to COVID-19 by showing up […]
Bill de Blasio: The Most Decrepit Mayor in America
In the wake of days of intense protests against the murder of George Floyd on the streets of New York City, Bill de Blasio, a failed presidential candidate and now infamous bungler of the city’s response to the COVID 19 virus epidemic,[1] has joined the chorus, led by Donald Trump, that violence is the work […]
Doing Time in Trousdale is a Death Sentence! Tennesseans Speak Out
Trousdale Turner Correctional Facility is leading the nation in the number of positive COVID-19 cases, an estimated total of 1,393. Trousdale is a private prison for men in Hartsville, Tennessee, about an hour drive from Nashville. The prison opened in 2016 on the site of a nuclear power plant and it holds about 2,500 men. […]