Handel's Messiah: A Random Act of Culture

The Opera Company of Philadelphia Chorus, together with singers from a cross section of community groups, infiltrate a department store as shoppers and burst into a pop-up rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's "Messiah," in one of 1,000 Random Acts of Culture. Watch the performers, delighted children, spontaneous videographers, and the entire public within earshot together "create culture."

"Café Society Swing" is Glorious Jazz and Troubling History

Lucy Komisar The Komisar Scoop
1948, the tenth birthday of Café Society, where great jazz and cabaret in a corner of Greenwich Village clashed with the worst know-nothings of the McCarthy era. But we're over that now, so come to this musical memoir to enjoy the delicious sounds of the 30s and 40s. And recall how evil the thought police of that era were...the vicious House Un-American Activities Committee (the ironically well-named HUAC) goes after the entertainers. Some get scared.(Closes Jan. 4)

It's a Wonderful Life, Comrade - Hollywood Movie Investigated by FBI, with Help from Ayn Rand

Michael Winship Bill Moyers and Company
Ayn Rand helped the FBI investigate whether `It's a Wonderful Life' was commie propaganda. When the movie first came out, it fell under suspicion from the FBI and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as Communist propaganda, part of the Red Scare that soon would lead to the blacklist and witch hunt that destroyed the careers of many talented screen and television writers, directors and actors.

Tidbits - December 25, 2014- Holiday edition

Portside
Reader Comments-Colbert Nation; Is It Band Enough Yet; Southern Jim Crow Murder; Cuba; How America's Relationship With Cuba Will Change; We express our condolences - Millions March NYC and Center for Constitutional Rights; Angela Davis on police violence; Youth Shall Lead in struggle against police violence; Political Athletes; "Negro-Jewish Unity" and IWO; torture; FBI; Panama invasion; New resources: On Torture; Staughton Lynd book; Stevie Wonder; theater review

A Letter to My Nephew

James Baldwin The Progressive
It is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.

Remembering Freedom

Ursula K. Le Guin parker higgins dot net
Books, you know, they’re not just commodities. The profit motive often is in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words.
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