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Professor Louie: The Cockroach

The good Professor Louie of Brooklyn has a rap for us about why the cockroach is so successful, hoping we will take a hint before our short stay on this planet is over. Live at the People's Voice Cafe, NY, Jan 2012. Accompanied by Fast Eddie.
 

Moral Mondays Are Back in Business

The first Moral Monday since court struck down the North Carolina General Assembly's new rules — interpreted by many as measures designed to silence the Moral Monday Forward Together movement — singing, praying, chanting, and civil disobedience arrests looked a lot like what we saw from Moral Monday in 2013.

The Raleigh News and Observer reports:

Days after persuading a Superior Court judge to suspend some new rules for the N.C. Legislative Building, protesters were back on Monday, raising their voices by many decibels against a state budget and Republican-controlled agenda they describe as "extremist."

As the demonstrators tested the breadth of the order signed Monday by Judge Carl Fox about the overly broad definition of "disturbing behavior," General Assembly police checked with their attorneys on the depth of their authority to remove the noisemakers from the state building.

About 20 minutes after the N.C. Senate went into session, law enforcement officers began wrapping plastic cuffs around the wrists of 20 demonstrators who had continued singing, chanting and speechmaking after being asked to quietly leave the rotunda area outside the General Assembly chambers.

The scene was reminiscent of last summer, when more than 900 demonstrators were arrested for similar actions.

Read more here.

Prosecutor Is Closing in on Gov. Christie

Scott Raab and Lisa Brennan Esquire
Indictments against four cronies are near certain, sources say. Only question is if David Samson, Christie's longtime mentor, will flip.

'Freedom Summer' 2014

David Goodman USA Today
50 years after the murder of my brother, Andrew Goodman, voter rights still threatened.

Bush's Toxic Legacy in Iraq

Peter Bergen CNN
The Bush administration presided over the rise of precisely what it had said was one of the key goals of the Iraq War to destroy: a safe haven for al Qaeda in the heart of the Arab world.

Clearwater Music Festival Keeps Pete and Toshi Seeger's Legacy Alive

Jim Farber; Steven Jonas
This weekend's Clearwater Festival will be the first without Pete and Toshi Seegers, founders and mainstays of the Clearwater organization, started 49 years ago. Pete Seeger lived their lives as peoples' artists, fighting for peace, civil rights, nuclear disarmament, defense of the environment, and as a socialists.

The Rosenbergs were Executed 61 Years Ago Today - The Rosenbergs' Last Letter

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Rosenberg Fund for Children
On June 19, 1953, hours before their execution, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg wrote one final letter to their two young sons: Michael and Robby. Your lives must teach you, too, that good cannot really flourish in the midst of evil; that freedom and all the things that go to make up a truly satisfying and worthwhile life, must sometimes be purchased very dearly...civilization had not as yet progressed to the point where life did not have to be lost for the sake of life.

Tidbits - June 19, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - Iraq; Ruby Dee; Cecily McMillan and Wall Street; Ukraine; Detroit Shuts Off Water to Thousands; Working Families Party; Civil Rights Movement; Children's Literature and Diversity; Common Core; Testing; Support Philly Jewish school teachers; Gabriel Kolko; Hatriot Politics and Las Vegas Killers; Argentina and US Banks; The Presbyterian Church and Divestment; Net Neutrality; Historic Slave Cemetery Bulldozed In Houston; Freedom Summer 2014

Creating Community On Skid Row

David Bacon Equal Voice
Starting around 1999, public policies that spurred development in Los Angeles' Skid Row started. Buildings that were dubbed underused were transformed in the 50-block area. Well-heeled residents have moved in. In 2014, Skid Row's streets have a vibrancy of sorts - one in which families, the homeless, the hip, the elderly and even well-treated dogs coexist in an ever-changing place.