The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Billie’s Break-Out Adventure-With Elvis’ Are You Lonesome Tonight In Mind

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Billie’s Break-Out Adventure-With Elvis’ Are You Lonesome Tonight In Mind   

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman 

Are you lonesome tonight,
Do you miss me tonight?
Are you sorry we drifted apart?
Does your memory stray to a brighter sunny day
When I kissed you and called you sweetheart?
Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare?
Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?
Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?
Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?

I wonder if you're lonesome tonight
You know someone said that the world's a stage
And each must play a part.
Fate had me playing in love you as my sweet heart.
Act one was when we met, I loved you at first glance
You read your line so cleverly and never missed a cue
Then came act two, you seemed to change and you acted strange
And why I'll never know.
Honey, you lied when you said you loved me
And I had no cause to doubt you.
But I'd rather go on hearing your lies
Than go on living without you.
Now the stage is bare and I'm standing there
With emptiness all around
And if you won't come back to me
Then make them bring the curtain down.

Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?
Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?

“I hate Elvis, I love Elvis,” Sam Lowell could still hear fifty years later the echo of his old from nowhere down and out low-rent public assistance  “the projects” corner boy, William James Bradley, also known as Billie. Not Billy like some billy-goat, like some damn animal, as he declaimed to all who would listen, mainly Sam toward the end before Sam had to move away from the neighborhood or get caught up in Billie’s then new found interest in small handle crime when the better angel of his nature fled in horror at his fresh-worn path after the umpteenth failure to get what he thought was his due legally. Billie from the hills, born out in some mad night, born out of some untamed passion in New Hampshire to newly-wed parents just before the shot-gun, some father’s shot-gun, called out in the wilds of Nashua up in live free country New Hampshire. Billie Bradley a mad demon of a kid and Sam’s best friend down in the Adamsville South Elementary school located smack in the middle of that from-nowhere-down-and-out-low-rent-the-projects of ill-fated memory. Sam and Billie grew apart after a while, after those Billie hurts grew too huge to be contained this side of the law, and we will learn why in a minute, but for a long time, a long kid time long, Billie, Billie of a hundred dreams, Billie of fifty (at least) screw-ups made Sam laugh and made his day when things were tough, like they almost always were at his beat down broke-down family house.

Sam thought and laughed thinking that, you know, fifty some years later Billie was right. We hated Elvis, we young boys, we what do they call them now, oh yes, those tween boys, those times before we know what was what in our new feelings, our funny feelings that no one, well, no parent would explain to us, knew what was what about those stick girls turning to shapes and adding fuel to the fire of  our funny feelings, oh what a time of lamenting, especially at that time when all the girls, the young girls got weak-kneed over Elvis  and he made the older girls (and women, some mothers even) sweat and left no room for ordinary mortal boys, “the projects boys” most of all, on their “dream” card. And most especially, hard as we tried, for brown-haired or tow-headed, blue-eyed ten, eleven and twelve year old boys who didn’t know how to dance. Dance like some Satan’s disciple as Elvis did in Jailhouse Rock every move calculated to make some furious female night sweats dreams.

Or when we had to give up in despair after failing to produce a facsimile of that Elvis sneer that sneer that only got them, the girls, more excited as they dreamed about taking that sneer off his face and making him, well, happy. We both, Billie and me, got pissed off at my brother, my older brother, Prescott, who already had half a stake in some desperate outlaw schemes and would later crumble under the weight of too many jail terms, because, he looked very much like Elvis and although he had no manners, and no time for girls, they were all following him around like he was the second coming. I don’t think he cared and he would certainly not listen to me about what I could do to get the girls. When Billie caught up with him later they were not worried about girls, or not principally about girls, but about small-bore armed robberies of penny-ante gas stations for six dollars and change. Christ there really is no justice in this wicked old world, either way.

And we loved Elvis too for giving us, us young impressionable boys at least as far as we knew then, our own music, our own "jump' and our own jail-break from the tired old stuff we heard on the radio and television that did not ‘”speak” to us. The stuff that our parents dreamed by if they dreamed, or had dreamed by when their worlds were fresh and young back before we were born, back in that endless Great Depression night and World War II slugfest that they were “protecting” us against such repetitions, and not succeeding. If they had had time for dreams what with trying to make ends meet and avoiding bill-collectors, dunners, and repo men by the score each and every day.  We loved Elvis for the songs that he left behind. Not the goofy Tin Pan Alley or something  like that inspired “happy” music that went along with his mostly maligned, and rightly so, films but the stuff from the Sun Records days, the stuff from when he was “from hunger”. That music, as we also “from hunger,” was like a siren call to break-out and then we caught his act on television, maybe the Ed Sullivan Show or something like that, and that was that. I probably walk “funny,” knees and hips out of whack, today from trying way back then to pour a third-rate imitation of his moves into my body to impress the girls.

But enough of Elvis’ place in the pre-teen and teen rock pantheon this is after all about Billie, and Elvis’ twisted spell on the poor boy. Now you know about Billie dreams, about his outlandish dreams to break-out of the projects by parlaying his good looks (and they were even then) and his musical abilities (good but the world was filled with Billies from hunger and on reflection he did not have that crooner’s voice that would make the girls weep and get wet) or you should, from another story, a story about Bo Diddley and how Billie wanted to, as a change of pace, break from the Elvis rut to create his own “style.” That was to emulate old Bo and his Afro-Carib beat. What Billie did not know, could not know since he had no television in the house (nor did my family so we always went to neighbors who did have one or watched in front of Raymond’s Department Store with their inviting televisions on in the display windows begging us to purchase them) and only knew rock and roll from his transistor radio was that the guy, that old Bo was black. Well, in hard, hard post-World War II Northern white Adamsville "the projects" filled to the brim with racial animosity poor unknowing Billie got blasted away one night at a talent show by one of the older, more knowing boys who taunted him mercilessly about why he wanted to emulate a n----r for his troubles.

That sent Billie, Billie from the hills, back to white bread Elvis pronto. See, Billie was desperate to impress the girls way before I was aware of them, or their charms. Half, on some days, three-quarters of our conversations (I won’t say monologues because I did get a word in edgewise every once in a while when Billie got on one of his rants) revolved around doing this or that, something legal, something not, to impress the girls. And that is where the “hate Elvis” part mentioned above comes in. Billie believed, and he may still believe it today wherever he is, that if only he could approximate Elvis’ looks, look, stance, and substance that all the girls would be flocking to him. And by flocking would create a buzz that would be heard around the world. Nice dream, Billie, nice my brother.  

Needless to say, such an endeavor required, requires money, dough, kale, cash, moola whatever you want to call it. And what twelve-year old project boys didn’t have, and didn’t have in abundance was any of that do-re-mi (that’s the age time of this story, about late 1957, early 1958) And no way to get it from missing parents, messed up parents, or just flat out poor parents. Billie’s and mine were the latter, poor as church mice. No, that‘s not right because church mice would not do (in the way that I am using it, and as we used it back then to signify the respectable poor who “touted” their Catholic pious poorness as a badge of honor in this weaseling wicked old world), would not think about, would not even breathe the same air of what we were about to embark on. A life of crime, kid stuff crime but I'll leave that to the reader’s judgment.

See, on one of Billie’s rants he got the idea in his head, and, maybe, it got planted there by something that he had read about Elvis (Christ, he read more about that guy that he did about anybody else once he became an acolyte), that if he had a bunch of rings on all his fingers the girls would give him a tumble. (A tumble in those days being a hard kiss on the lips for about twelve seconds or “copping” a little feel, and if I have to explain that last in more detail you had better just move on). But see, also Billie’s idea was that if he has all those rings, especially for a projects boy then it would make his story that he had set to tell easier. And the story was none other than that he had written to Elvis (possible) and spoke to him man to man about his situation (improbable) and Elvis, Elvis the king, Elvis from “nowhere Mississippi, some place like Tupelo, like we were from the nowhere Adamsville projects, Elvis bleeding heart, had sent him the rings to give him a start in life (outrageously impossible). Christ, I don’t believe old Billie came up with that story even now when I am a million years world-weary.

First you needed the rings and as the late honorable bank robber, Willie Sutton, said about robbing banks-that’s where the money is-old Billie, blessed, beatified Billie, figured out, and figured out all by himself, that if you want to be a ring-stealer then you better go to the jewelry store because that is where the rings were. The reader, and rightly so, now might ask where was his best buddy during this time and why was that best buddy not offering wise counsel about the pitfalls of crime and the virtues of honesty and incorruptibility. Well, when Billie went off on his rant you just waited to see what played out but the real reason was, hell, maybe I could get a ring for my ring-less fingers and be on my way to impress the girls too. I think they call it in the law books, or some zealous prosecuting attorney could call it, aiding and abetting.

But enough of that superficial moralizing. Let’s get to the jewelry store, the best one in the downtown of working-class Adamsville in the time before the ubiquitous malls. We walked a couple of miles to get there on the one road out of the peninsula where the projects were located, plotting all the way. As we entered the downtown area, Bingo, the Acme Jewelry Store (or some name like that) jumped up at us. Billie was as nervous as a colt and I was not far behind, although on this caper I was just the “stooge”, if that. I’m the one who was to wait outside to see if John Law came by. Once at my post I said- “Okay, Billie, good luck.”

And strangely enough his luck was good that day, and many days after, although those days after were not ring days (small grocery store robberies later turned to armed robberies and jail terms the last I heard). That day though his haul was five rings. Five shaky rings, shaky hands Billie, as we walked, then started running, away from the downtown area. When we got close to home we stopped near the beach where we lived to see up close what the rings looked like. Billie yelled, “Damn.” And why did he yell that word. Well, apparently in his terror (his word to me) at getting caught he just grabbed what was at hand. And what was at hand were five women’s rings. At that moment he practically cried out about how was he going to impress girls, ten, eleven or twelve- year old girls, even if they were as  naïve as us, and maybe more so, that Elvis, the King, was your bosom buddy and you were practically his only life-line adviser with five women’s rings? Damn, damn is right.

Will The Real James Bond Stand Up Part IV-Pierce Brosnan’s “The World Is Not Enough” (1999)-A Film Review

Will The Real James Bond Stand Up Part IV-Pierce Brosnan’s “The World Is Not Enough” (1999)-A Film Review 

DVD Review

By former Associate Film Critic Alden Riley

The World Is Not Enough, starring Pierce Brosnan, Sophie, Marceau, Robert Carlyle, Denise Richards, 1999

A curtain is beginning to descend on the American Left History blog that I have been associated with (had been an associate film critic before such titles were eliminated without discussion by the head of the new regime Greg Green and his hand-picked minions). No, not the famous, or infamous as the case may be, one signaled by old-time British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at Fulton, Missouri in 1947 for the start of my parents’ generation’s Cold War which ultimately defrosted with the demise of the Soviet Union about quarter century ago but sinister enough. (By the way this whole latter day Bond series starting with he-man in a tight spot Pierce Brosnan, John Le Carre, and Tom Clancy must be eternally weeping real tears since they don’t have that behemoth to beat up on anymore as much they try like in the film under review here The World Is Not Enough with one of the villains being an ex-KGB agent.)

Sinister enough for comment here before my review of yet another James Bond film in the seemingly never-ending “mock heroic” battle with former Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon over who the fuck is the real James Bond. (Apparently in audience land nobody cares since the revenue stream is measured in the hundreds of millions.) And before I can no longer make such comment under the agreement that Sam Lowell made with Greg Green and rubber-stamped by the Editorial Board that will soon prohibit mention of the just concluded internal struggle over direction and personnel changes. More importantly the ban on mentioning by name the previous site manager Allan Jackson, his accomplishments, or his short-comings.

So while the amnesty lasts which only extended to the ten or fifteen pieces that were in the pipeline before the agreement was reached I will express my displeasure. First at the elimination of titles which I have mentioned before and which still rankles since I put in some great effort to get to that status and have now been thrown on the Everyman, Every-person now that we have good women writers coming along , scrapheap like everybody else. Secondly at that ominous trend of making non-persons out of people who were critical to the success and development of this blog (and in its previous hard copy iterations which Sam Lowell, a key figure in all of this, is writing a history of to close the curtain down tight) and who taught me a lot about social media survival. This worry by the way from a person, from THE person, if one person can be said to have started the furor over the demise of Allan Jackson one of the founding members. Me. Rumor has it that Allan is out in exile, exile after purge as Sam Lowell put the matter inelegantly but correctly, hustling the Mormons for newspaper subscriptions.

The truth I don’t know but that sounds weird about a guy who has skewered well-known Mormon honcho and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney about his white underwear and about his unjust abandonment of his great-grandfather and his polygamous five wives. Another truth, a known truth is that I am standing by my remarks about the descending curtain despite the fact that I hated Allan Jackson, hated the way the blog was heading and fought tooth and nail with the “Young Turks” to purge the bastard. The immediate reason which is all I will detail now and let Sam do his business is the time in 2017 that he went crazy over commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the Summer of Love, 1967 and was assigning everybody who could walk, who could write, some silly assignment about that year.

My “mistake” is that he heard about my ignorance of Janis Joplin, a key rising blues singing star during that time, who made a big splash at the first Monterey Pops Festival that year which Sandy had written about and I had told him that I had never heard of her. Allan went wild and assigned me like some naughty schoolboy a biopic about her life. Yes, so no love lost here. But Allan was a larger than life personality and he should not be resigned to the dustbin of history like his buddy Leon Trotsky said about the old regime in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Trotsky, a guy, a larger than life personality, they, the Stalin supporters in the Soviet Union when there was a Soviet Union, tried might and main to make a non-person. It will not wash with me, it just will not.      

But now onto the real battle of today. The mismatch between one senile old goat Sandy Salmon, like Allan locked in a time capsule about 1965, hanging on to his lame excuse for a James Bond old fogy Sean Connery against me, against the king of the hill, and my favorite sporty handsome he-man full of prowess that Sean would buckle under, one Pierce Brosnan. For those following this life and death struggle the basic difference is that Pierce’s Bond, James Bond could run circles around the asthmatic Connery who should have been put in an old age home about that same 1965 that Sandy-and Allan- seems locked into.

Enough of that though. Let’s run the tale, let’s tell how many “kills” and “collateral damage” Pierce put on his scorecard while Sean was still walking down the garden path with some good-looking eye candy woman who last read a book about 1949. James is onto some craziness around the fate of that former KGB agent I mentioned earlier who has turned rogue, has made himself a big spot in the international terrorist hall of fame. The target a rich British oil man who is assassinated by that dastardly former KGB agent. A separate thread has this oil king’s daughter taking over the business after having been kidnapped and NOT released via ransom paid by but by stealth and sexual allure. That no ransom the very public stance of MI6 and of its leader M. It turned out that the terrorist and kidnap victim were murkily working together on a big caper. Drive the price of oil through the roof by “killing” the market. Killing the oil by blowing away oil sites and driving production low via some stolen high tech gizmos which wind up like the British Empite not working. Nice move.

Naturally James, an erstwhile agent of the British interests in cheap oil is the one the case. He has his suspicious about that oil man’s daughter although, as is always the case, when she does here come hither act on him he goes under the silky sheets just like any other guy. Along the way sweet baby James is helped by yet another secret agent perk, a shapely drop dead beautiful young women posing as a brainy oil doctor. Posing at the end after a zillion escapades which would have drained the life right out of pokey Sean Connery. Yeah sent those old guys out to pasture just like we did with Allan Jackson except maybe not Utah, maybe Siberia.                 

King on ’97 BIW tax credit: ‘No regrets’ Maine senator tours shipyard with Rhode Island colleague

GD feelings the pressure - calls in the Big Guns

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1/29/2018 12:55 PM

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http://www.timesrecord.com/news/2018-01-29/Front_Page/King_on_97_BIW_tax_credit_No_regrets.html

 

King on ’97 BIW tax credit: ‘No regrets’

Maine senator tours shipyard with Rhode Island colleague

 

BY NATHAN STROUT

Times Record Staff

 

 

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said that a $60 million tax credit for Bath Iron Works that he signed as governor in 1997 “was one of the best things I ever did” during a press conference at the shipyard on Friday.

 

“I can tell you to a certainty, look you straight in the eye, if we hadn’t done that Bath Iron Works would not be here,” said King. “Because that money was used to create the Land Level (Transfer) Facility and BIW would be unable to compete without that facility.”

 

The tax credit was spread over 20 years and required $200 million in investments in the shipyard facilities by the company. A recent report shows that the company has invested $480 million in the shipyard since then, much of which was spent to build the Land Level Transfer Facility, used to assemble ships and place them on a floating dry dock.

 

That $60 million tax credit expires this year, but a bill submitted by Rep. Jennifer DeChant, D-Bath, would effectively renew it for 20 years, requiring a $100 million investment instead. King did not take a position on that bill.

 

“I can’t speak to the current proposal. I’m not involved in it. It’s a state issue,” said King. “But I think people do need to take a hard look at what’s necessary to be competitive, to make our businesses competitive in this modern world. Believe me, shipbuilding is very competitive.

 

“Back in ’97, I knew what the right thing to do was,” he added, “and I have no regrets.”

 

There will be a public hearing on DeChant’s bill at 1 p.m. Tuesday at the State House.

 

King’s comments came during a visit to BIW with Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on which King also serves. The two senators met with front-line supervisors and toured the future USS Michael Monsoor.

 

“We’re here at Bath Iron Works today to spend some time on the DDG 1000 and also spend time with the men and women who are in the kind of middle management here, who work directly with those people who are on the ship,” said King. “The idea is to talk about what we’re doing in Washington, what they’re doing here.”

 

“I’m here because Sen. King asked me to come up and personally look at the very important work that’s being done at Bath Iron Works by General Dynamics, particularly DDG 1000,” said Reed. “It’s a critical ship necessary for the safety and security of the United States.”

Resist Deportations! No Dream, No Deal! No TPS, No Deal! No Ban, No Wall! No concessions! Don't throw family members under the bus! Permanent legal residence for all undocumented migrants! Thursday, February 8, 5:00 - 7PM Park Street T stop, Boston MA

Feb. 8 event page

Hi Folks,

Just put up an event page on Facebook. Below is the text. Please provide any ideas for edits. I think it reflects the ideas raised at our last meeting. Please follow this link to view the event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1611110795632689/  .

Adelante,

John

Resist Deportations!

No Dream, No Deal!
No TPS, No Deal!

No Ban, No Wall!

No concessions! Don't throw family members under the bus!
Permanent legal residence for all undocumented migrants!

Thursday, February 8, 5:00 - 7PM
Park Street T stop, Boston MA

The government in Washington is up to its old tricks. The strategy of divide and conquer. One thing is constant. Deportations are accelerating. Over 1 million migrants covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) and the Temporary Protective Status program (TPS) now face deportation.

Washington is leading a generalized assault on our lives, rights, and living conditions. The recent tax cut for the rich will be at our expense. They are coming after us! From attacks on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, to attacks on unions, women, oppressed nationalities, and LGBT folks, and from attacks on our environment and education, to perpetual debt and wars, working people are under fire. The leading edge of this assault is the criminalization and attacks on Migrants. Millions of youth and decent hard-working people are under attack! The powers in Washington have no solutions that benefit us as working people. Our only choice is to build a fighting movement. Enough is enough! An injury to one is an injury to all! Join us in demanding an end to the deportations. Jobs, healthcare, education, and human rights for all!.

NO funding for a border wall and increased border security.
NO funding for interior enforcement.
NO funding for more detention centers
NO mandatory E-Verify.

Protest the appearance of Illinois Senator Dick Durbin at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government!

Protest the appearance of Illinois Senator Dick Durbin at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government!

No Conciliation, No Capitulation, No Collaboration with a fascist program of genocidal ethnic cleansing.

The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! Not the Dreamers, Not their families, Not the Immigrants!

Thursday, February 1, 5:30 – 7:00 PM, Outside, 79 JFK Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA

Illinois Senator, Dick Durbin, second in command of the Democratic Senate, along with Chuck Schumer, has led the way in a program of conciliation, capitulation and appeasement to the Trump/Pence regime’s genocidal program for “Making America Great White Again” and are now on the verge of a monstrous betrayal of the Dreamers (those undocumented youth who stepped forward to enroll in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program) and their families and the larger immigrant community.

While the details of any potential “deal” between the White House and Congress are not known at this point, previous proposals endorsed by the Democrats (including the “DOA” Graham-Durban Bill) have included massive increases for funding to ICE and “border security”, severe restriction if not elimination of existing immigration programs and even funding for Trump’s notorious border wall.  And Durbin and the Democratic leadership have cynically demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice the Dreamers with their quick capitulation to end the government shutdown, despite mass support among progressive people for the shutdown, demanding Dreamer protection. Nothing good can come out of this current round of “negotiations.”

THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO GO DOWN! Stand Up Now for and with the Immigrants

Durbin, Schumer and the Democratic leadership shamefully and criminally have NOT made clear that they consider immigrants—all immigrants—to be fully human beings. They have NOT insisted that immigrants should NOT be insulted, demonized, spied on, lied about, hounded, harassed, arrested, abused, and have their families split up, simply because they were not born in the U.S. They have NOT spoken the truth: that the mass deportations already under way are sending thousands back to incredible hardship, violence and potential death.

No! Instead Schumer, Durbin and the Democratic have gone so far as to offer to fully fund Trump’s border wall, and increase funding for the U.S. military.   In return, they hoped to get some kind of deal granting legal status for the 800,000 Dreamers—while basically throwing 11 million undocumented immigrants and millions more legal immigrants under the bus—plus a few concessions on aid for Puerto Rico and on health care.

These are nothing less than calculated acts of conciliation and appeasement to a fascist regime that shows no signs of letting up its relentless assault of “ethnic cleansing” on immigrants especially Black and Brown people.  If and when a deal is struck, it will only serve as the new “base line” for the regime’s attacks. They must be exposed, opposed and defeated.  Join us in demonstrating our outrage at these actions and our resolve not to be the “Good Germans” in America 2018.

This Nightmare Must End! The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America!

Contact at: newengland@refusefascism.org (617) 955-3694

Stan Lawrence

617 309 0767

stanlawrence75@hotmail.com

In Boston- Venezuela: Updates from the Streets

Venezuela: Updates from the Streets

When: Saturday, February 3, 2018, 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm

Where: encuentro 5 • 9A Hamilton Place • Boston

VENEZUELA

Propaganda and revolution, imperial force and mass struggle, Venezuela is a contested nation. Cutting through sensational headlines, this community briefing features a first hand report, an update on an innovative agricultural solidarity program, and organizing for a Boston delegation to the elections later this year. Join us for this lively conversation!

• Chair - Padma Balasubramanian
• Update - Jorge Marin
• Seeds - Omar Sierra
• Delegation - Jose Aleman

SPONSORS: Boston Democratic Socialists of America, Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), Massachusetts Global Action, United for Justice with Peace, Venezuela Solidarity Committee.

Contact vensol2016@gmail.com and sandra@encuentro5.net for more information.

Upcoming Events: 

Newsletter: 

UJP Activist

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Simple Proposal In The Age Of Trump- NO BORDER WALL

https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/border_wall/

NO BORDER WALL

Joining the United States and Mexico, our borderlands to the south comprise one of the biggest ecosystem complexes in North America, with some of the least populated areas and the most important wildlife habitats remaining on the continent. This border region is host to a diverse array of threatened, endangered and rare species — including the Sonoran pronghorn, lesser long-nosed bat, Quino checkerspot butterfly, cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, and larger predators like jaguars, Mexican gray wolves and ocelots — and it contains millions of acres of public lands, such as Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Big Bend National Park, Coronado National Forest and Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.

Beyond jeopardizing wildlife, endangered species and public lands, the U.S.-Mexico border wall is part of a larger strategy of ongoing border militarization that damages human rights, civil liberties, native lands, local businesses and international relations. The border wall impedes the natural migrations of people and wildlife that are essential to healthy diversity.

Currently, there are about 650 miles of border barriers blocking about a third of the 1,950-mile southern border. About 300 miles of this is border wall, with the rest comprised of vehicle barriers, which are much more permeable to wildlife.

But five days after being sworn in as president, Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for a wall along the entire U.S.-Mexico border.

This is a looming tragedy for the area's diverse wildlife and people, as well as its rugged and spectacular landscapes. We're fighting in the courts, in Congress, and in our communities to stop Trump's cynical attack on our beautiful borderlands.

 

Sign our Pledge of Resistance against Trump today. 

 

OUR CAMPAIGN

With headquarters near the border in Tucson, Arizona, for our whole history the Center has worked to preserve and protect the borderlands' remote beauty and amazing biodiversity. We've been fighting against border militarization — including the border wall — since the late 1990s, using litigation to block unlawful border policy, grassroots lobbying to stop legislation that would exacerbate environmental damage in the border region, and creative-media and public-education campaigns to get out the truth about the real impacts of the hugely expensive, largely ineffective and environmentally devastating border wall.

We currently have three lawsuits in play on the border wall. In April 2017 the Center partnered with U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva in filing a lawsuit seeking a thorough programmatic environmental analysis of overall border security policy, including the border wall, under the National Environmental Policy Act. Another suit challenges Trump's plans for companies to build prototype walls in critical habitat for multiple endangered species in Southern California. And a third suit seeks to force the administration to release documents regarding its border plans it has thus far withheld from the public.

In May 2017 the Center partnered with the Tohono O'odham tribe in Mexico to file an endangerment petition for the Sierra El Pinacate and Gran Desierto Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, just south of the border in the northwestern corner of the state of Sonora. A wall in that area would block cross-border migration of endangered Sonoran pronghorn and restrict access for the Tohono O'odham people, who travel across the border regularly for traditional and ceremonial purposes.

In July 2107 the House of Representatives approved the Trump administration's $1.6 billion budget request to expand the U.S.-Mexico border wall, ignoring threats to protected wildlife refuges and border communities. Since then, the administration has been slowly moving forward with its plans — as when it waived environmental laws for the wall in New Mexico in January 2018.

 

No Border Wall Resolution Campaign

The Center has also launched a campaign to pass resolutions through states, cities and counties across the United States opposing the border wall. Some of these resolutions contain provisions for jurisdictions to divest from companies that do business on the border wall, such as the one that passed the Tucson City Council on June 6, 2017 (that day also saw the passing of a resolution against the wall by Southern Arizona's Pima County). If you're an elected official or representative of a community or organization who'd like to get involved in our campaign to pass No Border Wall resolutions across the country, please contact Laiken Jordahl.

BACKGROUND ON THE BORDERLANDS

In the mid-1990s the U.S. federal government launched a strategy of militarization in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands that continues to this day. First the areas around ports of entry in El Paso, San Diego, and other urban areas along the border were hardened and walls were erected using solid steel panels from Vietnam War–era landing mats. This had the predictable effect of forcing undocumented migrants out into more remote areas to cross the border, where many died in harsh conditions. More than 6,000 people have died crossing the border in the past 20 years. Documents show that migrant deaths were a foreseen consequence of a conscious strategy to increase the difficulty and dangers of crossing the border as a deterrent to migrants.

The strategy of pushing migrant traffic into wild areas did not work to stem the flow of undocumented immigration — but it did vastly increase the amount of environmental damage it was causing, as both the flow of migrants and the resulting border-law-enforcement activities impacted formerly untrammeled sites. Thousands of Border Patrol agents began driving around in remote areas, creating thousands of miles of new roads in wilderness areas and critical habitats for endangered species. In fact, as revealed in the Center's May 2017 report A Wall in the Wild, 93 threatened, endangered and candidate species would potentially be affected by construction of a wall and related infrastructure spanning the entirety of the border, including jaguars, Mexican gray wolves and Quino checkerspot butterflies.

In 2005 the U.S. Congress passed a clause in the REAL ID Act, which granted the Secretary of Homeland Security authority to waive all laws with regard to constructing walls along the border. More than three dozen environmental, American Indian and historical-protection laws were waived in the next few years under the Secure Fence Act, as hundreds of miles of additional border barriers were constructed with little or no environmental review.

Again, the results were predictable. Without the thorough analysis of environmental impacts normally required by law, the new border infrastructure was often constructed in ill-advised locations with poor engineering — resulting in massive flooding, erosion, and millions of dollars of damage to private property and public lands alike, as well as to facilities along the border. Of course this infrastructure also worsened the blockage of wildlife movement on a vast scale.

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On January 23, 2018 9:04 PM, Michael Vaglica <iravaglica@gmail.com> wrote:

https://environmentmassachusetts.org/home On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 9:03 PM, Michael Vaglica <iravaglica@gmail.com> wrote: Hello folks. I have been working with MassPIRG for quite a bit now and want to propose an endorsement (or even a bilateral endorsement) for one of their environmental campaigns,…

Will The Real James Bond Stand Up-Part II-Sean Connery’s “Thunderball” (1965 )-A Film Review

Will The Real James Bond Stand Up-Part II-Sean Connery’s “Thunderball” (1965 )-A Film Review

DVD Review

By former Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon    

[I personally do not like the new regime, under Greg Green’s steady guidance, policy of getting rid of titles which were the hallmark of the now safely departed and exiled Allan Jackson who used to run the show here. It took many years for me to get that Senior Film Critic title having come over from the American Film Gazette under the Jackson regime when former Associate Film Critic Alden Riley decided to come over on retiring Senior Film Critic Sam Lowell’s say so and I resent being thrown on the dung heap and placed with everybody else with just their names on the by-line line. For now I will use my old title in the past tense until we go back to titles or Greg make a big deal out of my moniker and tries to shut it down. Then I will go back to being an Everyman like Alden Riley and Si Lannon have mentioned elsewhere. Sandy Salmon]   

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Readers who have read Associate Film Critic Alden Riley’s recent review of Goldeneye posted on this site on December 5, 2017 (and on the on-line American Film Gazette the same day) the first of four films where well-known action actor Pierce Brosnan plays the legendary super-spy Ian Fleming-created Bond, James Bond know that he and I had a dispute over whether to review that film or not. I had insisted that he finish up the original James Bond part of the long running series starring Sean Connery started in the early 1960s of which I had reviewed the first three efforts. He balked saying that being significantly younger than I by a generation that he could not see Sean Connery as his idea of the Bond character and argued that he would prefer to do the Pierce Brosnan series which he felt epitomized the Bond role. Since this dispute underscored a storm which has been brewing among the writers on this site (and to a lesser extent at the on-line Progressive American and American Film Gazette respectively) I conceded the point and challenged him to a “duel” to argue in the public prints over who was the “real” James Bond-Connery or Brosnan. The other post-Connery Bonds like Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton interested neither of us so the chase was on.          

[Since this concession by me to a younger writer is of some importance to the future direction of this site I should explain my view about the real deal which has produced this continual tension (something Sam Lowell, the film critic emeritus on this site and all around gadfly who while surprisingly siding with the younger writers against his old regime site manager friend has called a “tempest in a tea pot” and maybe he was right). This site (and to a lesser extent Progressive American, American Film Gazette and the American Music Annals which all of the older writers have written for at some point) had been tilted as might be expected toward the coterie of writers who came up the ranks with Jackson, a coterie of men which is a separate issue, who were formed one way or another by the turbulent 1960s. Although I have only recently taken over Sam Lowell’s position as film critic, now senior film critic with the addition of Alden and a couple of other stringers I too am of that generation and the “dispute” over the Sean Connery James Bond series with Alden has reflected both my preferences and my sense of where we should put our collective energies.            

According to Sam, and the former site administrator, they saw nothing wrong with tilting toward the 1960s which they saw above all as a defining cultural, political and social moment which has been reflected even now in the long rear-guard actions to fight against what Jackson calls the night-takers. Then several years ago when Markin brought in younger writers like Alden, Zack James, Lance Lawrence, Brad Fox and a few other stringers he, and the older writers, expected somewhat rigidly and erroneously that they would “keep the ‘60s alive” for the next generation. Naturally those younger writers balked not so much about having to cover the 1960s history stuff which they knew was a key the site’s existence but that all subsequent nodal points which informed their lives were down-played if not dismissed.

It was in that content that the Connery-Brosnan fight represented a prime example of the “Old Guard” stifling (Zack James’ word) the “Young Turks.” Alden reminded me during this argument though that it had really come to a head when during an expansive, some said seemingly endless, commemoration of the 50^th anniversary of the Summer of Love, 1967 San Francisco-based explosion when Allan asked everybody to hone in on those events when taking up writing projects. I, and looking back on it, the other older writers took up the cause in a heartbeat. The younger writers with the exception of Zack James whose older brother Alex started the whole thing in 2017 and had been out there in 1967 balked for the most part.

The firestorm really came when I mentioned to Alden that I had done a review of a documentary about the first Monterey Pops Festival also in 1967 where Janis Joplin among others won their spurs in the rock pantheon and he told me that he did not know who Janis Joplin was. I let that pass but somehow Allan heard about it and in a fit of pique ordered over my head Alden to do a review of a bio-pic of Janis: Little Girl Blues. Alden did it but the past several months as I said have been a tug-of-war among those whose sensibilities were established during the 1960s and those whose sensibilities were essentially formed by the Reagan years. Two very different epochs. The net effect though is that now Alden can write about Brosnan’s James Bond and anything else he wants. Allan had decided to retire soon and had brought in Greg Green from American Film Gazette to act as administrator so a different focus should be expected.           

I would like to add since Lance Lawrence of the younger writer set snidely brought something of the dispute up in a round-about way when he was doing a light commentary, posted December 5, 2017 here (and on the 6^th on the on-line American Folk Gazette and Progressive American websites) on a recent book by a Harvard professor about 1960s folk king icon Bob Dylan arguing that he, Dylan, belong right up there in the Western Civilization literary pantheon with the classic lyric poet like Homer and Virgil. In his public take on this internal site storm Lance mentioned that Dylan was another one of the causes for the bad feelings among the staff since Allan had assigned him to do a review of Volume 12 of what even I consider never-ending the Dylan Bootleg series.

Lance balked after listening to the six CD set and accompanying booklets saying that it was just mishmash of bullshit and outtakes and not worthy of consideration. Allan flipped out and this too brought matters to a head. Allan after heated arguments about direction and emphasis on the site told the collective audience that he was bringing in Greg Green as acting administrator and that he planned to retire. Lance’s implication: Allan had been purged, “purged like his buddy Trotsky” is the way he put it. Yes, a vote of confidence was taken and Allan was on the short end of the stick when Sam Lowell unexpectedly considering they had grown up together sided with the “Young Turks” but he was not purged, was not in any way in put in Trotsky’s position of having to defend his place in the Russian Revolution, in the Bolshevik Party when Uncle Joe pulled the hammer down, and eventually laid down his head for his belief when all was said and done. Allan will have like Sam emeritus status and can write, or not write, whenever something interest him.]            

Alden is right that in the now 20 something Bond, James Bond, films whether directly inspired by Ian Fleming’s novels or merely on the developed character that a certain familiar formula has kept the series running through several Bonds. Everybody knows that there will be plenty of high tech gadgetry provided by the ever present and resourceful Q who really should retire if he has not already, plenty of physically over-the-top action and plenty of sexy women either chasing or being chased by any actor who plays Bond. Additionally something that Alden did not pick up since he was a baby during the heyday of the big Cold War rivalry between the West, America centrally and the now long gone Soviet Union, that in the fight against the bad guys by British intelligence although they are given names like SPECTRE and Janus they are really stand-ins for the opponent bad guy countries of the moment like Russia and China.

All of this goes with the territory even though this first Pierce Brosnan Bond vehicle was not created out of Fleming’s stockpile. It most clearly in present in the early Connery films as he is something of a dashing one man avenging angel for the good guy Western values that guys like Doctor No and Gold-finger threaten. Connery uses his handsomeness, not “pretty boy” demeanor as a way to make his work easier since there is a toughness that shows whether he is in stilted work suit or casual clothes.  Brosnan only brings a “pretty boy” charm and over the top, and at times unbelievable physical manifestation to the role against Connery’s dashingly handsome demeanor. Sean also plays the role with more cheek, more sense that this whole thing is just an arduous task to get through to keep the lights burning.

As to the actual plot-line of Thunderball here as Sam Lowell likes to say the short skinny since as has already been suggested about other parts of this long-running Bond series there is a certain set formula. The bastards at SPECTRE are at it again as they as per Number One are responsible for hijacking through the usual nefarious means two atomic weapons to be used as bargaining chips for a big payoff of $100 million a lot then but chicken feed now for not destroying a major city. The city turned out to be Miami which now has its own problems to confront with climate change but then was a mecca for the sun-drenched tourists and plenty of mobster and ex-pats from all over Latin America after being giving the boot from their home countries. Bond is put on the case first to find the hiding place of the two bombs and then shutting down as much of the SPECTRE operation as possible for a single avenging angel to do. Along the way he snags the inevitable beauty who turns up in his path, succumbs to his charms and helps get the bomb situation under control. I wish I could say that would be the end of the bad guys but the world and slew of future Bond movies including ‘Pretty Boy” Brosnan’s portion tell us otherwise.