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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.

Ruby Dee, a Ringing Voice for Civil Rights, Onstage and Off, Dies at 91

Davis Family; Bruce Weber; Rep. Maxine Waters
Actor, author, activist Ruby Dee took her final bow at home in New Rochelle, New York on June 11, 2014. She was a gifted and talented woman who joined with her late husband, Ossie Davis, to produce and present some of the most enjoyable and inspirational stage productions and movies of the last half century.

Blacklisted by the `Jewish Community' over Israel, the Shondes Take their Stand

Elijah Oberman and Louisa Rachel Solomon Tikkun
On March 28 Brooklyn rock band The Shondes were disinvited from the Washington Jewish Music Festival, at which they were scheduled to perform on June 2, due to band members' views on Israel and Palestine. Jewish groups are now asking artists: "On behalf of the Jewish people, are you now or have you ever been a signatory to a boycott of Israel?" Shondes members, singer Louisa Rachel Solomon and violinist Elijah Oberman, wrote this open letter in response.

Tidbits - June 5, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - Edward Snowden, NSA and NBC; Police Crimes; U.S. Cuba Policy; Tiananmen Anniversary; Ralph Fasanella's Art; Prisons and Solidarity Confinement; Workers and Labor; Taxes and Economic Growth; Carbon Pollution; New Populism; Sexual Harassment; Sexual assault of women protestors in India; Les Orear - R.I.P.

Tidbits - May 22, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - Boko Haram; Portside articles on the Ukraine; Brown v. Board-what still needs to be done; Redistributing Income; NRA, Second Amendment; John Oliver; Jon Favreau - a correction; Whiteness of Liberal Media; Was the American Revolution Really Just A Counter-Revolution; THE REAL WORLD - a graduation address never given; Announcements - DIE LINKE, SYRIZA, Future of the European Left - New York - May 28; New Book -- Torture is still an urgent moral issue

The Power of Imagination

Chris Hedges Truthdig
Reason makes possible the calculations, science and technological advances of industrial civilization. But reason does not lift us upward to the heavens. It does not bring us into contact with the sacred. It does not permit us to curb our self-destructive urges. Herman Melville, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Emily Dickinson, Marcel Proust, William Faulkner, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Lorraine Hansberry and August Wilson mocked the myth of human progress and the folly of hubris.

Tidbits - May 1, 2014 - Happy May Day

Portside
Portside salutes May Day - rallies around the world; The Internationale in 40+ languages; May Day and labor history tools; Reader Comments -Cecily McMillian Trial Update -= Trial ends tomorrow; Net Neutrality; Chris Hani's political legacy; Ukraine; Israel and Palestine; Paul Robeson, Jr.; UPDATE - Northeastern University has backed down on the suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine; A Seeger Fest to Honor Pete and Toshi, and It's Free - July 17 - 21
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