This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
Maru must stay - Stop deportation of immigrants' rights leader
US Immigrants’ rights leader threatened!
MARU MUST STAY!
Hands off activists and protesters!
Stop separation of families!
No detention & deportations!
Maru Mora-Villalpando, a US based community organiser and mother is facing deportation. On 15 January, she received a deportation notice from the US government. The Trump administration as part of it attacks against immigrant communities has arrested and detained outspoken, undocumented campaigners – including from Haiti, Trinidad, Central and Latin America.
Maru leads the Northwest Detention Center Resistance (NWDCR), an organization co-founded when immigrants held at the Center went on hunger strike in 2014 protesting their inhumane treatment. Since then, Maru’s has led campaigning that has made the Detention Center a site of local resistance with weekly rallies and vigils outside its gates. She is also part of an international network of anti-deportation campaigners.
Maru is being targeted because of her vital work against Trump’s racist immigration policy which has seen deportations soar by nearly 50%. Many long-term residents, like Maru who has lived in the US for over 20 years, are being wrenched from their families and communities.
Millions worldwide are fleeing war, genocide and starvation caused by the policies of the US and other Western governments and corporations. The work of those of us from the Global South creates wealth for the Global North, We have a right to safety, to cross borders and to claim our rights.
We cannot allow organisers like Maru, who have stood up for others, to be targeted.
In defending Maru we defend ourselves.
International actions
International actions are being organized to stop Maru’s threat of deportation. So far:
·4 February: People’s Tribunal at the North West Detention Centre (12 – 3pm)
·5 February: Protest at the US embassy, London UK (5.30-6.30pm)
·Other actions are planned in Pennsylvania and California, in Mexico, Spain and other countries. Watch this space…
We invite you to
·Organize an action – protest, vigil, leafletting, letter writing, meeting…
A Kinder, Gentler
Super-hero Takes Up The Cudgels Against The Bad Guys- Michael Keaton’s “Batman
Returns” (1992)-A Film Review
DVD Review
By Greg Green
Batman Returns, Michael
Keaton, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, 1992
As I pointed out in a
recent film review, actually an anti-review of another film in the seemingly
never-ending Batman saga, I don’t, usually do film reviews ever since I became
site manager over at the on-line American Film Gazette many years ago although
I do preview all films before making assignments. (See archives, dated January
26, 2018 - Yeah, The Dark Night Alright
When The World Needed Super-heroes And Psychos To Bring Us Down In The Mud
–“The Dark Knight” aka Batman (2008)-An Anti-Film). I refused to assign
that The Dark Knight Batman episode
since whole thing reeked of over the top gratuitous violence with no apparent
reason to exist except for that craziness. I got blow-back on that decision,
although not from any readers, at least any that I know of. I got it from Sam
Lowell, who used to be under the old regime here the Senior Film Critic before
he went to emeritus status. He hit me on two, no, three counts. First why the
hell (his crusty old goat term) did I even bother to give any space to the film
just let it die after preview. Second why the hell (ditto) did I decide a while
back to “appeal” to a younger audience by posting film reviews about comic
super-heroes when they don’t read such reviews anyway but once they hear about
a new episode are ready to line up whatever the quality of the work, whatever
the plot-line. Third, and lastly, since I told him I was going to assign this
film Batman Returns to someone on the
staff why the hell (ditto, ditto) bother to waste some valuable time trying to
counterpoise the “regular” okay violence of this film which he had seen many
years ago and had rejected for review out of hand with the so-called gratuitous
violence of The Dark Knight.
That last point stung me
and so I am taking up my own cudgels again to point out the differences in the
films rather that have one of the writers do it. I might mention that no writer
was begging me to do this review nor did anybody “complain” that they hadn’t
been given The Dark Knight assignment.
Frankly they thought that with that last effort I had seen the light and would
stop assigning these super-hero balloons and go back to the old policies of
only assigning what one wag suggested were “socially redeeming” films that a
site devoted to history and its important nodal points should strive to review.
I have taken my fair share of heat on this but for now I still see this idea as
an important tip of the hat to mass culture which is after all part of that experience.
I mentioned in that
anti-review (see archival reference above) that many films critics had given
the film a positive go based on its kind of being a metaphor for what was going
on in the real war of gratuitous violence in the post-9/11 world. I dismissed that
as so much hokum and bile based on there being nothing else to defend about
such non-stop bam-bam action. With Batman
Returns done in kinder, gentler
post-Soviet demise world 1992 before the non-stop terrorism entered the daily
news cycle that still is a weak argument for a gruesome film but maybe the
times do have a say in what a film would impart to an audience, in both cases
young audiences in particular. The plot-line, the simple plot-line as in all
these super-hero sagas without fail is centered on here Batman, played by
Michael Keaton foiling the efforts of the bad guys here, obviously the Penguin,
played by humpty-dumpty Danny DeVito, and leading city figure Max Shrenck,
played by versatile Christopher Walken and being aided or hindered depending on
the scene by new ambiguous figure Cat Women, played by Michelle Pfeiffer.
The difference since
there is plenty of violence here as well was the saga was done a bit tongue in
cheek. No, make that an archness. Arch in as the bad guys cut some of the rough
edges off their badness by being rather ironic about the bad things they were
doing. Contrast that with the Joker in The Dark Knight who personified evil
with every breath. That might be a distinction without a difference but it
matters when the deal goes down. Maybe the age of super-heroes is over at least
in this space although I am not yet convinced we should avoid this aspect of
mass culture but I will have to wait and see how much guff I can take from the
wags around the water cooler about “pandering” to their kids, and grandkids.
The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Out In The Jukebox Saturday Night –Sweet Little Rock and Roller
Sketches From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Out In The Jukebox Saturday Night –Sweet Little Rock and Roller
Yeah, nine years old and sweet as she can be All dressed up like a downtown Christmas tree Dancin? And hummin? A rock抧抮oll melody She抯 the daughter of a well-respected man Who taught her to judge and understand Since she became a rock抧抮oll music fan
Sweet little rock'n'roller Sweet little rock'n'roller Her daddy don抰 have to scold her Her partner can抰 hardly hold her Her partner can抰 hardly hold her She never gets any older Sweet little rock抧抮oller
Should have seen her eyes when the band began to play And the famous singer sang and bowed away When the star performed she screamed and yelled "Hooray!"
Ten thousand eyes were watchin? Him leave the floor Five thousand tongues were screamin? 揗ore and More!? Br> And about fifteen hundred people waitin? Outside the door
Sweet little rock'n'roller Sweet little rock'n'roller Sweet little rock'n'roller Sweet little rock'n'roller Sweet little rock'n'roller Sweet little rock'n'roller Sweet little rock'n'roller
********* Recently Josh Breslin, my old travelling companion from the great yellow bus down the nirvana highways days out West in the late 1960s (the West is the best, get here and we will do the rest was the Jim Morrison-etched mantra driving us out there) told me, that he had, seemingly endlessly, gone back to his early musical roots, his coming of age in the 1950s golden age of rock (and mine too), now conceded even by him (me, I am agnostic on the question) to correctly carry the designation classic rock. Although Josh had his huff and puff sneaking out of the house at midnight heading via subway to Harvard Square to see if could be washed by the new breeze coming through the land folk music minute in the early 1960s that I can attest to when he later tried to foist the records off on me (you know the Village/Old Town/North Beach faded minute when all those guys and gals like Dylan/Baez/Collins/Odetta/Rush/Clancy Brothers/Van Ronk/Ochs/Paxton, Christ even old guard Pete Seeger and so on who had previously sung their hearts out for the basket in the up and coming coffeehouses and to move, or better if you believe the stories Dave Van Ronk tells, clear the beat poetry crowds to bring in a new crowd got their chance to front). Had his blues phase, you pick ‘em country or electric, after he saw Howlin’ Wolf practically eating his harmonica on How Many More Years. Had as well an outlaw country cowboy second with Waylon and Willie. And still later did a retro Duke/Count/Charlie/Dizzy retro jazz thing although he has always claimed that he was always a child of his times, a “child of rock ‘n’ roll.” I believe him if that helps. To show his adherence to that truth Josh had spent some time reviewing various compilations of a commercially produced classic rock series that went under the general title Rock ‘n’ Roll Will Never Die. That task was not as easy as it would seem since those commercial interests have tapped into their demographic pool and have caught our generation, the generation of ’68 in a nostalgic mood, or in a retro- buying mood. Ready to buy fifteen volume sets just to get maybe thirty gems (if they have not caught onto iTunes or YouTube, an iffy proposition for our generation just on the edge of needing to be computer literate). So there are many (although with a fair amount of overlap) compilations out there honing in on the “oldies but goodies” bug that has infiltrated the AARP-worthy set. He has noted that while time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes, you know novelty stuff like Purple People-Eaters or goof things like Who Wears Short Shorts, it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-58, really did form the musical jail break-out for our generation who had just started to tune into music. (We have talked a great deal about the various failures, one hit johnnies and janies, and the “never should haves,” although I hope not endlessly.) I had to laugh when Josh explained his take on the scene back then. We had our own little world, or as some hip sociologist trying to explain that Zeitgeist today might say, our own “sub-group cultural expression.” I, Josh too maybe since we are working to mine the same memoires lately, have already talked about the pre 7/11 mom and pop corner variety store hangout with the tee-shirted, engineered-booted, cigarette (unfiltered, of course Luckies preferred) hanging from the lips, Coke, big- sized glass Coke bottle at the side, pinball wizard guys thing. And about the pizza parlor jukebox coin devouring, playing some “hot” song for the nth time that night, “hold the onions I might get lucky tonight,” dreamy girl might come in the door thing. Of course, the soda fountain, and…ditto, dreamy girl coming through the door thing, merely to share a sundae, natch. And the same for the teen dance club, keep the kids off the streets even if we parents hate their damn rock music, the now eternal hope dreamy girl coming in the door, save the last dance for me thing. Needless to say you know more about middle school and high school dance stuff, including hot tip “inside” stuff about manly preparations for those civil wars out in the working- class neighborhood night, than you could ever possibly want to know, and, hell, you were there anyway (or at ones like them). Moreover, I clued you in, and keep this quiet, about sex, or rather I should say “doin’ the do” in case the kids are around, and about the local “custom” (for any anthropologists present) of ocean-waved Atlantic “watching the submarine races.” That is maybe enough memory lane stuff for a lifetime, especially for those with weak hearts. But, no, your intrepid messenger Josh felt the need to go back indoors again and take a little different look at that be-bop jukebox Saturday night scene as it unfolded in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The jukebox scene where we usually heard some sounds for the first time and we either worked out some deal to buy the record at Smitty’s Record Shop up in Adamsville Square or cadged nickels and dimes to endlessly play the tune until it got worn out (or we got worn out hearing it and therefore moved on). Hey, you could have found the old jukebox in lots of places in those days. Bowling alleys, drugstores (drugstores with soda fountains- why else would healthy, young, sex-charged high school students go to such an old-timer-got-to-get medicine-for-the-arthritis place. Why indeed, although there are secrets in such places that I will tell you about some other time when I’m not jazzed up to talk about Josh be-bop juke-boxing around the town), pizza parlors, drive-in restaurants, and so on. Basically any place where kids were hot for some special song and wanted to play it until the cows came home. And had the coins to satisfy their hunger. Josh said a lot of it was to kill time waiting for this or that, although the basic reason was these were all places where you could show off your stuff, and maybe, strike up a conversation with someone who attracted your attention as they came in the door. I agree with the latter point although the real killing time didn’t come until we hit the Army, and later. Here is where Josh showed me he was not kidding about his devotion to classic rock when one night at a local bar in Cambridge he showed me the cover artwork on one compilation showed dreamy girls waiting around the jukebox for their platters (records, okay) to work their way up the mechanism that took them from the stack and laid them out on the player. That said to me “There is your chance, boys, grab it,” like in the old days. See these were girls just hanging around the machine. Some cashmere-sweatered, beehive-haired (or bobbed, kind of), well-shaped brunette (or blond, but I favored brunettes in those days) chatting idly was worth at least a date if you moved fast or, more often, a telephone number to call. Not after nine at night though or before eight because that was when she was talking to her boyfriend. Lucky guy, maybe. But after looking at that artwork (worthy of Edward Hooper, for the clear visual message it sent, believe me) I reminded Josh where the real skill came in. That was when you were just hanging casually around the old box, especially on a no, or low, dough day waiting on a twist (slang for girl in our old working- class neighborhood) to come by and put her quarter in (giving three or five selections depending what kind of place the jukebox was located in) talking to her friends as she made those selections. Usually the first couple were easy, some now faded old boyfriend memory, or some wistful tryst remembrance, but then she got contemplative, or fidgety, over what to pick next. Then you made your move-“Have you heard Only You?” NO! “Well, you just have to hear that thing and it will cheer you right up.” Or some such line. Of course, you wanted to hear the damn thing. But see, a song like that (as opposed to Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Rock and Roller, let’s say) showed you were a sensitive guy, and maybe worth talking to … for just a minute, before the “I got to get back to my girlfriends, etc., etc.” line came at you. Oh, jukebox you baby. And guess what. On that self-same jukebox you were very, very likely to hear some of the songs on the compilation Josh showed me. Let me mention the stick outs (and a few that worked some of that “magic” mentioned above on tough nights). The other “has beens” you don’t have to waste your time on: Oh Julie, The Crescendos (a great one if you knew, or thought you knew, or wanted to believe that girl at the jukebox’s name was Julie); Lavender Blue, Sammy Turner (good talk song especially on the word silly dilly billy word play); Sweet Little Rock and Roller, Chuck Berry (discussed above, and worthy of consideration if your tastes ran to those heart-breaking little rock and rollers. I will tell you about the ONE time it came in handy for me sometime); You Were Mine, The Fireflies; Susie Darlin’, Robin Luke (ditto the Julie thing above); Only You, The Platters (keep this one a secret, okay, unless you really are a sensitive guy). So, yeah, Josh is a “child of rock ‘n’ roll” in good standing. How about you?
[You should know one thing about Josh, and it is as true of him today as it was in Big Sur or down in La Jolla when we were running the yellow brick road out West. Once he gets onto something he will see it through until the end. That is the case with his recent passion to remember his “child of rock ‘n’ roll” youth. I mentioned, I think, that he had just completed a review of the multi-volume Rock ‘n’ Roll Will Never Die series that he had shown me one compilation from, the one with the girls hanging around the jukebox waiting, waiting for something.
Well there are many compilations out there (and as Frank will gladly tell you there is a fair amount of overlap between competing sets) but what Frank is looking at now is the series titled The Golden Age of Rock. When he mentioned that one night when we were sitting on a couple of barstools at Rich’s, the “oldies but goodies” place in downtown Boston, having a drink he also added that he thought that I should assist him in future efforts since I was a member in good standing of that generation as well. It took all my persuasive powers to disabuse him of the notion that I needed to hear about two hundred, maybe three hundred songs, many which I did not like, in order to get that maybe thirty gems that I, we, died for back then. So I turned him down but when I got home I thought if the artwork was as good at jogging the memory as that jukebox scene, well, maybe…]
The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-The Time Of Her Time,Indeed-With Big Joe Turner’s Shake, Rattle And Roll In Mind
Sketches From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Get out from that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans Get out from that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans Well, roll my breakfast 'cause I'm a hungry man
[Chorus:] I said Shake, rattle and roll I said Shake, rattle and roll I said Shake, rattle and roll I said Shake, rattle and roll Well, you never do nothin' to save your doggone soul
Wearin' those dresses, your hair done up so nice Wearin' those dresses, your hair done up so nice You look so warm, but your heart is cold as ice
[Chorus]
I'm like a one-eyed cat, peepin' in a sea-food store I'm like a one-eyed cat, peepin' in a sea-food store I can look at you, tell you don't love me no more
I believe you're doin' me wrong and now I know I believe you're doin' me wrong and now I know The more I work, the faster my money goes
[Chorus]
Shake, Rattle And Roll
…she had been through it all before, six or seven times now at least, been through the part about what happened to her when she heard the new music, heard the music that was not some left-over parent music fit for mercifully sleeping through, maybe, on the radio, some called it rhythm and blues, music from the black ghettos of places like Chicago and Detroit from guys who had come up from the South in the great post-World War I migrations to shake one Mister James Crow off their backs, get the jobs in the bustling factories to make some damn money for once to buy Missy what she wanted, came up to get away from what she heard some say was Mister’s plantations sweat all day cotton boll work and his same Mister James Crow legal system (although she understood the sweat work part she didn’t understand that Jim Crow part at all, didn’t understand what it meant, didn’t understand that it affected every legal, social, economic, and political move they made) and turn that country blues of their fathers and other brothers, that down home Saturday night juke joint drinking Jimmy Jack’s homemade liquor on electric-less guitars, into sassy electrified blues for a more sophisticated urban audience ready to dust off their roots.
Working off the efforts of old preacher-warriors Son House (had heard or read she was not sure that he had warred against the devil against sin and warred against God with the bottle), Charley Patton, Skip James and the guy who made a pact with devil she heard down in some Mississippi sweat-hole highway, Robert Johnson. And they did work, worked the streets for pocket money first and then the little sassy clubs, all smoke, booze and smelling of blood. Guys like sainted Muddy and hell-fire Howlin’ Wolf, Magic Slim, a bunch of James’ first or last name, John Lee, and some others too. Sometimes she would hear the sounds the threading-twanging sounds and get, well, get a little jumpy thinking what it would like to be stage front when old Muddy or Howlin’ Wolf got it on, but she kept that to herself since her parents would have flipped out if she ever took step one in that direction.
Some called the new dispensation sound rockabilly with good-looking white farm and small town boys named Elvis, Carl, Jerry Lee, Warren, in sexy suits with nothing on their minds except good times, music, and sex who were tired of that Grand Ole Opry hokey stuff and wanted to breakout and dust off their roots too. She thought about being stage front when those guys played too and thought that she too would maybe throw her sweaty underwear up on that heathen stage like she had seen and heard that lots of girls, good girls too caught in the throughs of the moment, but she kept that to herself since her parents would have flipped out if she took step one in that direction. In any case some, more recently, had begun to call it rock and roll after some DJ, Freed she thought the name was from New York City or some big beat city, called it that and it was starting to catch on as the way to describe the beat, the dancing, and the feeling of freedom just being around the scene.
Her parents, her know-nothing parents, just called it the “devil’s music,” called it an abomination against God’s will but they called everything from the “red menace” from Russia, Uncle Joe’s an dhis minions menace, to fluoride in the water some kind of abomination against God’s will so she discounted what they had to say, what did they know anyway, what could they know about what she felt, what she felt in the certain private places of her body when the beat got strong. How could they know never having been young, never having had those feelings. She was not exactly sure why she felt that way if anybody had asked her to explain those feelings (and nobody would, or almost nobody, since they were as clueless about why they felt that way when the music came on as she was), why she felt warm in what all the girls in the before school “lav” called their “sweet spot” with a tittle whenever she heard the local radio station or the kids at Doc’s
Drugstore over on Atlantic Avenue on the juke-box endlessly playing Big Joe Turner’s Shake, Rattle, and Roll or Warren Smith on Rock and Roll Ruby but she did. (Some of the rougher girls whom she avoided, the girls who smoked, drank and did “it,” so they said, called it other things which she did not find out until later, much later, guys called those things too but she then still preferred the more modest “sweet spot.”) All she knew was that when the beat began to pick up she would start swaying, maybe dancing by herself, maybe with a girlfriend, and get that feeling like she was not in has been dusty Olde Saco but maybe in New York City getting checked out by all the cute boys there whose leers when she swayed would have told her they were interested in having some of her.
Someone, Betty, she thought, a girl that she had grown up and gone to school with, gone to Olde Saco High with, said it was just her coming into “her time,” although she did not know what to make of that idea since she had that same feeling before and after she came into her time. Got her “friend.” Betty, or whoever it was who had said it said she did not mean that, that thing every girl had to deal with, but the time when everything was confused and when a teenager did, or did not, know which way to jump. Betty said somebody on the news programs called it alienation, teen alienation, like it was a disease, an epidemic sweeping the nation that needed to be eradicated if we were to beat the Russkies or something like that, but she was not sure what that meant. All she knew was that the old songs on the jukebox or radio, the ones that she loved to listen to the previous year, Frank getting kicks on champagne, Bing crooning about going his way, Patti get all dreamy about ocean-filled Cape Cod making her forget about ocean-filled Olde Saco with its endless textile mills to break the mood, Rosemary telling everybody to come to her house and singing about wanderlust, did not make her feel that way anymore. Didn’t make her feel that she wanted to jump out of her skin.
Tommy from school she thought, thought fondly if anybody was asking although he had not shown a spark of interest until recently so she might not have told them she thought fondly of him if they had asked, might have had a better handle on it, have had a better sense of what turbulence was going on inside her when he told the whole Problems in Democracy class in Current Events that there were some new songs coming out of the radio, some stuff from down south, some negro sound from down in Memphis somewhere, some white hillbilly sound from around that same town, that he would listen to late at night on WJKA from Chicago when the air was just right. Sounds that made him want to jump right out of his skin. (She never dared to ask, ask even later when she got to know him better, whether it made him feel warm in his “sweet spot” since she didn’t know much then about whether boys had sweet spots, or got warm).
When Tommy had said that, said it was about the music, she knew that she was not alone, not alone in feeling that a fresh breeze was coming over the land, although she, confused as she was would not have articulated it that way (that would come later). And so she asked Tommy about it after class, asked him about what it felt like for him to jump out of his skin when he heard the beat beginning. He explained to her his feelings, feelings that she said she shared with him and he smiled. She agreed to let him walk her home after school and they had talked for a couple of hours on her front porch before he left. This went on most days for a while since neither one was assertive enough to ask for a date for a long time (Tommy as painfully shy as her except she was the first to notice that he looked over her way in class and gave a little smile, really a half smile before that day when they first talked after school).
Then both saw the big full page announcement in the newspaper, in the Friday edition Daily Gazette, for the next dance around town scheduled for a week from Saturday night and that night she called him to see if, ah, they might go to the event together. If she had waited about ten minutes Tommy later told her he would have called her (in her mind though she thought she was right to call since he was, except during Current Events, painfully shy and she was not going to miss a chance to grab him before some other girl did and then where would she be). And so they had their first date, first date to go to the Surf Ballroom down at Olde Saco Beach and listen to some guys, a band, play the new music that Tommy talked about some much. She wondered to herself (she could not speak of such things to Tommy) as she prepared for that night whether she would feel warm again in her sweet spot when they danced, she hoped so…
But let’s catch up with Tommy for a moment and see what he is thinking about (oh, besides her, since we already know a lot especially about that telltale half smile he kept throwing her way). … things were different now, different from a few months ago when he was all balled up and thought he was the only kid, guy or female, aged fifteen, who was confused, uncomprehending, misbegotten about how he felt, about his place in the universe and about how he felt so very sorry himself because he didn’t understand what was happening to him, and what spoke to him now that he was no longer a kid. He, Tommy Murphy, could hardly wait until the weekend, wait to hear the new sounds coming out of the south, rhythm and blues stuff, rockabilly stuff, that he kept hearing on his transistor radio up in his room on clear nights out of WJKA in Chicago, stuff that people were starting to call rock and roll because some hip DJ in New York City or some such place a lot of people were taking credit for the term called it that, was starting to catch on. Funny he thought how he could get Chicago on good nights, weekend nights, but not New York City to hear that DJ call out to all the cats to swing to the beat of rock and roll. Mister Gibbs, his science teacher explained it to him and the class one time but the explanation sounded like someone talking to the heathens about heaven. He couldn’t get WJKA clear every week, damn, but when it did come in Tommy would start snapping his fingers to the beat, the swinging beat that “spoke” to him somehow. He could not explain it but it made him feel good when he was down, was all confused about life, okay, okay, about girls, school, and that getting ahead in the world that his parents, his mother especially kept harping on. Made him think that maybe he would be a musician and play that stuff, play and make all the girls wet. Yeah, he knew all about that part about girls, about how this rock and roll music was making them get warm, warm in all the right places according to George his older brother who knew all about girls. Had them, girls, hanging off of him even though he wasn’t a musician but just a hep cat. Make that new girl of his, Susie, warm too. He hoped. Funny how he had met Susie, how they had met, or not really met but started out, started out in school of all places, in class. Jesus. He had noticed her before but before she was just part of that all balled up stuff he was feeling, although he had taken a few peeks at her and he thought she might have peeked back once but he was not sure. Then during Current Events in Problems in Democracy class one week it was his turn to make a presentation and he chose to talk about that radio station out in Chicago and about the sounds he heard that made him want to jump out of his skin. He couldn’t exactly explain why and blushed a bright red when the teacher, a cool guy, Mr. Merritt asked him point about why he felt that way except to say that it made him feel good, made him less angry, less confused. A couple of people in the class nodded and he thought Susie had too (although she later said “no” she hadn’t nodded she just was thinking how brave he was to talk like that about his reactions to the music and while looking at him found out something she had not noticed before, he was cute). After class Susie had come up to him and practically begged him to tell her more about his feelings, about how the music made him feel, because she said when she heard Big Joe Turner coming all snapping fingers on the radio on Shake, Rattle and Roll, she felt funny inside. Of course nobody, not even Tommy, who was keen on such knowledge knew that Big Joe was a Negro then, Christ his parents, good Roman Catholics who theoretically thought well of all mankind would have fits if they knew that he was listening to Negros under any conditions just like most RC parents in the neighborhood. Tommy knew what kind of funny Susie was talking about, her “sweet spot” funny but he knew, knew because George had told him, not to say that to girls. Not modest girls like Susie and maybe not any girl if you wanted to get past first base with them. That conversation had started their thing and she asked him to walk home with her so they could talk which they did until they got to her house and just stood there talking for a couple of hours before he left.
He had walked her home a few times and he found that she was easy to talk to but they both seemed to back off on talking about a first date. He knew that he was a little shy in that department and he guessed Susie was too. Then both of them saw an announcement in the newspaper for the next big dance around town and one night she had called him to see if, ah, they might go together. (He somewhat flabbergasted said “yes,” said yes knowing that if he did not some other guy would grab her and then where would he be.) And so they had their first date, first date to go to the Surf Ballroom down at Olde Saco Beach and listen to some guys, a band, the Ready Rollers, play the new music. Tommy didn’t know what would happen as he prepared that night to pick her up at her house but he hoped the music would calm him down and that he would get that funny feeling inside when they danced, and her too, he sure hoped so…
An Idea Whose Time Has Come-Divest From The Pentagon-Now!Build The Resistance!
Frank Jackman comment:
As I pointed out in the headline the idea of “divesting” from the dead weight of the Pentagon overlay on society’s resources is the beginning of wisdom. Hell, a nice idea until you figure out that the military-industrial complex that old-time President Eisenhower, a recipient of much military largess in his time, railed against is degrees of magnitude far greater than the “skimpy” role it played in society in his day. For leftist militants, for anti-imperialist fighters, heck, for just rational people the real beginning of wisdom is to not to “tweak” this or that aspect of the complex but to smash it, smash it utterly. There is no other way so when you thing about this slogan-think about what is behind it. The task. Think too that you will be about being a slayer of some very big monster-and there will be blowback. For now that is enough said.
An Idea Whose Time Has Come-Divest From The Pentagon-Now! -Build The Resistance!
In recognition of this fearsome and solemn moment in human experience, there will be a standout calling for nuclear disarmament on Friday, January 26 at 5:30-6:30 in Harvard Square, Cambridge by the T station. Hudson Valley Sally will join us to lead some sing-alongs as we protest!
Some reasons for the Doomsday Clock being moved forward are:
Nuclear:
All nuclear nations are updating arsenals, lowering threshold for use and are emphasizing nuclear capability
All Treaties are under fire and in trouble
US-Russian no negotiations underway and there will be no negotiations for foreseeable future
START treaty is not being extended
Landmark Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty on the rocks
Iran nuclear deal being undermined by Pres. Trump
Climate change:
Serious and increasing threat of warming is as dangerous as nuclear annihilation
Arctic winter ice cap smallest ever – 3 years in a row
U.S. withdrawal from Paris Agreement
We heed this warning from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. We call on world leaders to stop making nuclear threats, particularly the US President who tweets nuclear threats regularly against North Korea.
We call for:
Taking all nuclear weapons off high alert
All nuclear nations to sign onto the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty – This treaty, which opened for signature by nations on September 20, 2017 prohibits nations from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, possessing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, or allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed on their territory. It also prohibits them from assisting, encouraging or inducing anyone to engage in any of these activities.
Fulfilling of obligations under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in which Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.
Ending the more than trillion dollar modernization of nuclear weapons, currently underway that is spurring a new arms race and building “lower yield” nuclear weapons that are more likely to be used.
And we call on all people who live in nations with nuclear weapons to join in the streets in nonviolent protest, in the halls of Congress, and/or Parliaments, and demand an end to (nearly) 73 years of atomic/nuclear tyranny.
We will not get to decide whether nuclear weapons are used. These horrific weapons could be used in error, in a fit of pique, by tweet or for consolidating power, with deadly consequences.
--
"Not one step back"
Cole Harrison
Executive Director
Massachusetts Peace Action - the Commonwealth's largest grassroots peace organization
Leaked Nuclear Posture Review Lays Out Policy Changes That Would Increase Risk of Nuclear War
Statement by Lisbeth Gronlund, Senior Scientist, Co-director Global Security Program, Union of Concerned Scientists
WASHINGTON (January 12, 2018)—A draft of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review leaked to the Huffington Post indicates that the White House is planning changes to the U.S. nuclear arsenal and its nuclear-use policy that would increase the risk that nuclear weapons will be used.
Below is a statement by Lisbeth Gronlund, senior scientist and co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“The new policy laid out in this document is dangerous on multiple levels. It’s a shocking and explicit rejection of decades of bipartisan consensus to reduce the role and number of U.S. nuclear weapons, which led to large-scale reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles and reduced the risk of nuclear use.
“This new policy would make nuclear war more likely and undermine national security. It would expand the range of scenarios under which the president could decide to use nuclear weapons. It intentionally lowers the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons by calling for the development of several new types of more ‘usable’ nuclear weapons, including one that could be deployed on submarines in the near future. It also calls for tighter integration of U.S. nuclear and conventional forces, which deliberately blurs the line between them and eliminates a clear nuclear firewall.
“All of this comes on top of an existing plan to rebuild the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal at a cost of more than $1.2 trillion over the next 30 years. At a time when the majority of nations are calling for reducing the role of nuclear weapons, this plan justifies new weapons and uses for them and is a dramatic step backward.
“Every U.S. president since the end of the Cold War has explicitly reduced the role, the types and the number of U.S. nuclear weapons. This leaked draft lays out a policy that does exactly the opposite. It would increase the risk of nuclear use and reduce national security.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists puts rigorous, independent science to work to solve our planet's most pressing problems. Joining with people across the country, we combine technical analysis and effective advocacy to create innovative, practical solutions for a healthy, safe, and sustainable future.
