Congresss inability to actually represent the real-live human beings of America, combined with an economic system that rewards lack of empathy and an excess of greed, has brought us to a dark time when an oncoming tsunami of financial ruin, destitution and evictions towers over our heads, blocking out the sunlight.

The impending evictions may soonkick 28 million people/familiesout of their homes. To put that in perspective, only ten million people lost their homes during the 2008 economic crisis, and that was considered by anyone paying attention to be the craziest thing to ever happen.

What were facing now could be three times crazier, getting to Charlie Sheen levels. (I almost wrote Kanye West levels but everything he does is in hopes of being mentioned in the media, and Im not falling for it. Shit. This parenthetical has betrayed me!)

To talk about the impending homelessness tsunami, we have to first get past the fact that our government could totally bail people out and keep them in their homes. Not only have they already bailed out big banks and Wall Street to the tune of$4.25 trillionbut on top of that the Pentagon hasover $21Trillionof unaccounted-for adjustments on their books over the past 20 years. This is to say theres plenty of money.

Money is an idea, a concept, an imaginary metaphysical belief, and its high time we faced the fact that the U.S. government has an unlimited imagination. As philosopher Alan Watts once put it: Money is not a thing, its a measurement. Saying theres not enough money to do something is like a builder saying there are not enough inches to build a house. He has the wood, nails, and hammers. Hes just out of inches.

The U.S. government could easily give every American $2,000 a month for the foreseeable future, which would keep almost everybody in their homes and apartments. In fact, Canada has opted togive $2,000 a monthto those who lost work because of the pandemic.

But ignore the fact that theres enough money. Thats not what were here to discuss.

There are also enough empty homes.As of 2018, there were nearly 1.5 million vacant homes in the country. Compare that to the estimated553,742 people homelesson any given night. So even before the pandemic, there were three empty houses for every homeless person. Three. Thats not even accounting for empty apartments, yachts, sheds, extra bedrooms, garages, condos, cubbyholes, attic spaces, basements, barns, pool houses, and walk-in refrigerators.

If those vacant locations were used to house the houseless, those of us lucky enough to have our own abodes wouldnt hardly notice a difference except that homelessness would have vanished. It would be something we talk about in a remember when fashion like VHS tapes, game shows about grocery shopping, and dating that didnt involve blood tests and an Instagram audit.

No more people on the street, no more fear that a little bad luck would result in you or your family under a bridge giving a guy your underwear in exchange for a sandwich. All that utter madness would cease to exist.

And the impending number of evictions28 millionisnt even accounting for how many people stay in horrible relationships because they cant afford a place of their own, both horrible marriages and other living arrangements. (Like a 25-year-old who has to live with his mom who cleans her feet on the couch every night while watching Wheel of Fortune and eating soup that smells of rotting raccoon carcass. Call me crazy, but in our post-scarcity world, that 25-year-old should be given an apartment.)

But lets back up even further and question the brain parasites we were given from our social engineering. Why should someone be homeless just because they dont have enough money? Some would say indignantly, Because they didnt work hard enough, so they deserve to be homeless. Thats called work ethic and its what this countrys founded on! George Washington something something Ford Motor Company. Meh!

Okay, thats a great point exceptNo, its not. How hard someone works hardly matters in our society. Think for a moment about all the filthy rich trust-fund kids who sit around on their asses all day smoking weed out of the skull of an exotic lemur. Yet theyre still rich. How many trophy wives or trophy husbands lounge by the pool eternally caressing their junk in the sunshine? They dont work hard. How many superfluous board members get paid hundreds of thousands to sit on a board and attend one conference call a month?

Plus, consider people that actually do work for their fortuneslike a CEOdo you honestly believe they work athousand timesharder than a janitor or a dishwasher or a coal miner? Of course not. Whats the hardest job in the world? Probably ripping asbestos out of a dilapidated sewage treatment plant in Phoenix, Arizona in 110-degree heat with improper safety equipment.

Do you think those guys get paid the highest salary in the world because they work the hardest? No! Theyre lucky if they get dental. Theyre lucky if their lunch break is long enough for a sandwichanda piss.

America is not based on hard work. Get it out of your head that this society is at all set up to be fair. Fair would be everyone with a roof over their head. Fair would be every kid getting a solid education. Fair would be every person drinking delicious clean water. Fair is the opposite of whatever the hell were doing here.

But very little of this discussion exists in our culture. Instead, the banks and landlords are preparing to kick 28 million families out. And its not like the bank will resell all those homes during the impending depression lathered in a pandemic. Nope. Those homes will sit empty, just like the 10 million foreclosed homes during the 2008 Great Recession sat empty for months if not years. So the reason for kicking people out is simply to um make sure theyre homeless? How can that make sense?

If the goal is to have a good, functioning society, its completely illogical to kick people out of their shelters. The families will be devastated. The kids will be traumatized. Divorces will occur. Suicides. Addiction. Overdoses. None of that is good for society. None of that helps America even slightly. So the trulypatrioticthing to do is demand housing for all.

Whats good for society is to have people comfortable in their homes, able to get educated and grow as humans. Whatever happened to the pursuit of human growth for every individual?

Some may argue, We cant let people stay in their homes because we need to teach them personal responsibility. Thats the argument every vomit-brained Fox News guest spits out reflexively. Yet its impossible to be responsible for something no one saw coming. Did anyone see this pandemic coming? Did anyone including the government prepare for it?

No. In fact, weve bailed out whole industries, the airline industry for one. Billions of dollars just handed to them. How are the heads of the airlines any different from a homeowner who lost her job in the pandemic? Theres no difference. Shouldnt the airline CEOs be the ones evictedleft out on the street sleeping in a box?

On top of all thisand this point is really going to blow a hole through your pantsits cheaper to keep people in their homes. For example,according toTheWashington Post, Utah was spending on average $20,000 on each chronically homeless person. So, to in part cut those costs but also to save lives, the state started setting up each chronically homeless person with his or her own house.

It worked. By 2015, they cut homelessness by 91 percent and saved the state money. However, since then, homelessness has gone back up. Its tough to say why, but one director of aUtah food pantry said, The mistake we made was stopping [the program].

Yeah, thatmayhave been the reason. Utah lawmakers found out how to end homelessness. and then they stopped doing that! (Why in this country do we run screaming from every great idea like its a hive of angry bees that all want to talk to us about life insurance??)

So here, alas, are the solutions. Housing should be a human right. We have enough homes. We have enough materials. We have enough dollars and enough inches. It doesnt need to be a goddamn mansion, but everyone should have a roof over their heads and four good walls. Hell, Ill even compromisetwo and a half good walls.

Even if we didnt have enough homes, which we do, we can now3D print a housein a matter of hours. (Although it must suck when the printer jams. All those houses stuck together in the tray.)

Point is, dont tell me we dont have enough houses and apartments for everyone.Paris Hiltons dogshave a fucking $325,000 mansion! Im not kidding. Just for the dogs. Thats, shall we say, mildly upsetting. (Let me guess those dogs worked hard to get where they are.)

The next solution is to fight the impending evictions. Dont let the authorities kick your friends and neighbors onto the street. We have a strong (suppressed) history in this country of fighting against landlords and the cruelty of evictions, such as the greatRent Strike War of 1932in the Bronx, and theChicago Eviction Riots of 1931.

Fighting back is not just an option, its an obligation. If youre strong enough to resist the profit-centered social engineering we are fed every day of our lives, then you will soon realize housing should be a human right.

Feature photo | This Sept. 25, 2019 photo shows an eviction notice on the front door of Apartment 17, the home of Ed Buck in West Hollywood, Calif. Brian Melley | AP

Lee Camp is the host of the hit comedy news show Redacted Tonight. His new book Bullet Points and Punch Lines is available atLeeCampBook.comand his stand-up comedy special can be streamed for free atLeeCampAmerican.com.

This article was published with special permission from the author. It originally appeared atConsortium News.

Stories published in our Daily Digests section are chosen based on the interest of our readers. They are republished from a number of sources, and are not produced by MintPress News. The views expressed in these articles are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy.

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Lee Camp: A Dozen Reasons Now is the Time for Housing as a Human Right - Mintpress News

By Rose Vaughan

Student Intern, Davie

Cooperative Extension

The trend of the agricultural industry in Davie County is looking up.

Despite the threats of farmland loss, Davie farmland is growing. North Carolina ranks number two in the top 12 states at risk for loss of farmland due to urbanization.

Davie County is resisting that trend. Before 2012, the county was losing 12 percent of its farmland. Since then, there has been a 29 percent increase in the total amount of farmland. Farmers in Davie County are beginning to gain land back and they have used it to more than double the income of the industry.

Across all farms in the county, costs are decreasing and profits are increasing. In just five years the net profits for farmers increased by 270 percent. These improvements took place despite the fact that the number of farms declined by eight percent. Theres no doubt that the strength of agriculture in Davie County has grown.

Although data shows that Davie County agriculture is becoming stronger, it is evident that some things are changing. Some crop sales have decreased substantially. The production of tobacco has gone to zero dollars in sales, which was a significant decline since 2012 when the sales were nearly $1 million. On the other hand, the value of fruit, nut and berry products has gone up by 29 percent and the value of sod, greenhouse, nursery and floriculture products is up by 17 percent.

The amount of land used to harvest forage, corn, soybeans and wheat has grown.

Even more, modern and unique forms of agriculture like agritourism have taken off. In less than a decade, revenue from agritourism has increased by 121 percent. Therefore, many crops and other forms of agriculture have been in an upward trend in terms of production and profits. Its easy to think that the loss of one crop leads to a decline in agriculture as a whole based on those numbers, but the industry is making progress in other areas.

Being ranked No. 20 in the state, one of the strongest agricultural programs in Davie County is in the production of layer hens. Layers are the breed of chickens that are produced primarily for the purpose of laying eggs, hence the name layers. Whereas pullets are the chickens that are produced to replace the layers that die. The numbers of both the layers and the pullets have been increased to more than 318,000 chickens. On top of that, the county was able to raise the profits from egg production by $782,000 in a single year; thats a lot of eggs. The growth in layer hen and egg production has coincided with a 14 percent increase in the value of animal products since 2012.

What does that mean?

While the county is experiencing loss in some areas of agriculture, its making up for those losses by making progress in other areas of production. The shift from tobacco to grains and forages, for instance, may be more profitable for farmers because it allows them to focus their efforts on the more successful crops. On top of that, Davie County is resisting the threat for loss of farmland and even gaining more farmland back.

Ultimately, the changes in the industry seem to just be redirection. As George Bernard Shaw said, Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. The changes in Davie County agriculture has produced an overwhelmingly positive result which is evidence of progress, not decline.

Farmers are supported by consumers through local sales. They have grown their sales to consumers by 21 percent in five years. The Cooperative Extension Davie County Center has made an effort to increase the connection of farmers to consumers through local farmers markets and by giving consumers access to local farm information. You can support these farmers further by visiting our Web page at https://davie.ces.ncsu.edu/davie-local-farms/ for more information on how to reach local farms.

Link:
Agriculture alive and well in Davie County - Davie County Enterprise Record - Davie Enterprise Record

If one wishes to count in decades, the 1920s was surely the greatest single decade in Irish writing in English. What other one could equal it for the sustained quality of its artistry, the immediate and lasting impact of its major works, its conviction in the value of the written word?

There is scarcely a year in the decade in which something remarkable did not occur. In 1920, George Bernard Shaws Heartbreak House premiered in New York. In 1921, WB Yeats published Michael Robartes and the Dancer, the volume that contains Easter 1916, The Second Coming and A Prayer for My Daughter. Ulysses made 1922 a watershed in modern literary history. Yeats received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923.

The Abbey Theatre produced The Shadow of a Gunman, the first work in Sean OCaseys Dublin trilogy, that year, and Shaws Saint Joan, a play about political martyrdom, was premiered in New York. In 1924, OCaseys Juno and the Paycock was staged at the Abbey; Daniel Corkerys The Hidden Ireland, probably the most significant work of cultural criticism produced in Ireland that decade, appeared too. In 1925, Shaw received the Nobel Prize and Yeats published A Vision. This was the only the decades midpoint.

In 1926, OCaseys The Plough and the Stars was staged in the Abbey, prompting riots. The year 1927 was a quiet one, though Shakespeare and Company published Joyces Pomes Pennyeach in Paris. In 1928, The Tower, one of Yeatss finest volumes, was published. Anna Liva Plurabelle, extracted from Joyces Work in Progress, was also published by Faber & Faber and the Gate staged Oscar Wildes Salom for the first time in Ireland. Elizabeth Bowens The Last September was published in 1929.

In 1930, Yeatss Words Upon the Window Pane appeared and a 24-year old Samuel Beckett, making a beginning, published Whoroscope.

Across the Atlantic, Irish-American writers made a real mark in the 1920s. Eugene ONeills The Emperor Jones was staged in New York in 1920 and established ONeills reputation as an experimental playwright. F Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby was published in 1925. In 1927, ONeills All Gods Chillun Got Wings premiered with Paul Robeson starring in New York, and in 1928 ONeill won a Pulitzer Prize for Strange Interludes, premiered in New York that year.

They dont belong to Irish writing in any direct sense, but ONeills and Fitzgeralds works mark a moment when Irish-Americans left a permanent stamp on American literature. ONeills grandparents emigrated from Kilkenny in the wake of the Famine. His Irish-born father, James, grew up in a Buffalo slum, the family cared for by his mother Mary ONeill when her husband returned to Ireland. James made a considerable fortune in American touring theatre. In two generations, the family had moved well up the class system, though Eugene ONeill never forgot his fathers terror of the famine poorhouse or his familys Irish or class origins.

The collective contribution these writers Irish and Irish-American made to the arts of modern poetry, fiction and theatre in a single decade is immense. It is worth remembering, too, that many of them engaged, some occasionally, some consistently, with public political issues.

Roy Fosters biography of Yeats relates how on February 7th, 1921, the poet gave an address to the Oxford Irish Society, declaring to a young Irish republican student, James OReilly, that he would tell his audience their kings soldiers are murderous. As good as his word, he used his oration to praise Sinn Fin justice and denounce the Prussianism of the Black and Tans.

On November 8th, 1923, he defended Joyce in Trinity College against the charge of dullness. Ulysses, Yeats responded, might be as long as Johnsons dictionary and as foul as Rabelais, but Joyce was the only Irishman who had the intensity of the great novelist.

His 1925 Senate speech challenging the Cosgrave governments anti-divorce legislation is better remembered today than these earlier contributions. Knowing his side would lose, Yeats told his listeners on that occasion that There is no use quarrelling with icebergs in warm water and that while his opponents would now carry the day when the iceberg melts [Ireland] will become an exceedingly tolerant country.

OCaseys The Plough and the Stars prompted a riot at the Abbey which still possessed an audience passionate or excitable enough to make one. Norah Hoults short story collection Poor Women! (1928) portrayed the inner consciousness of women from varied class backgrounds struggling with religion and suggested that new constituencies were starting to find their own voices. Bowens first novel launched the career of a superb stylist.

Still, if the 1920s was a glorious literary decade, changes soon to come would irrevocably alter Irish writing and literary production generally. The first Pan-African Congress met in Paris in 1920 and the Harlem Renaissance was getting into its swing in New York. The Chinese Communist Party was founded in 1920 and in 1922 Gandhis Non-Cooperation Movement began in India.

ONeills The Emperor Jones, in its own way a critical commentary on the 1915 US occupation of Haiti, and a work that gave a leading role to an African-American character, now looks a decidedly dated play that deploys crass stereotypes of African-Americans and Caribbean peoples. The African-American actor Charles Gilpin, who played the lead role of Brutus Jones quarrelled continuously with ONeill and throughout the production changed the n-word in the dialogue to Negro or coloured to ONeills chagrin.

As the non-white colonies of Britain and the US asserted themselves in the decades ahead, the kind of casual racism to be found in most white writing in the 1920s would be called out more and more vigorously. And as Irish society settled into conservative state consolidation, and most Irish writers failed to connect with new struggles emerging across the British Empire, much Irish writing lapsed into its own version of a post-independence insularity and would not long remain to the fore in the annals of anti-colonial struggle.

In 1925, John Logie Baird transmitted the first television image and in 1928 made the first transatlantic TV transmission from London to Hartsdale, New York. In 1929, the Academy of Motion Pictures conferred its first awards, known as the Oscars, in Los Angeles. Though the full effects would take time to impinge on Ireland, when TV and cinema created new publics locally and globally, and shaped new kinds of attention and distraction, the literary authors authority, like an iceberg in hot water maybe, slowly declined.

In the familiar narratives of the 20th century, TV and cinema threw light on a darkened autarchic Ireland and created a more open society. This seems at best partially true. They also locked Ireland even more firmly into an Anglo-American transatlantic perspective, to the point that it could sometimes seem that anything happening beyond Great Britain or the United States scarcely mattered.

In any event, as the world became media-saturated over the course of the 20th century, in western-style liberal democracies especially, fewer and fewer writers would enjoy the immense public esteem once commanded by major 19th-century writers such as Victor Hugo or mile Zola in France, Charles Dickens or George Eliot in England, or Leo Tolstoy in Russia. Yeats in Ireland and Sartre in postwar France could inspire and provoke a nation in ways few writers in any contemporary liberal democracy can do today.

It is easy to criticise in retrospect, but the writers themselves may not always have helped matters. When Yeats rejected Sean OCaseys The Silver Tassie in 1928 and OCasey left in dudgeon for London, the fallout may have damaged both. The Abbey Theatre lost its only serious left-wing political writer; OCaseys experimental works in London never had the impact of his Dublin plays . The Abbey, Irish political drama and OCasey may all have been the long-term losers.

More generally, with the advent of what was already beginning to be called mass culture (FR Leaviss Mass Civilisation and Minority Culture was published in 1930), many of the greatest writers of the time tacked in the opposite direction towards avant-garde difficulty and specialist-audience obscurity.

Joyces Work in Progress, published as Finnegans Wake in 1939, is an astonishing feat with many admirers but few avid readers. Yeatss alienation from the new Ireland to which he had tied his fortunes led to works such as On the Boiler, published by the The Cuala Press in 1939; it was a fanatic rant seething with eugenicist disdain for the lower classes, mainly Catholic in Ireland. The strident anti-populist impulse that disfigures his later life especially set a pattern in Irish letters repeated later by others including Francis Stuart and Conor Cruise OBrien, the former drawn to Hitlers Germany, the latter indulging in late career belligerent Zionism and Islamophobia.

In an age of celebrity, Beckett would win celebrity by apparently eschewing celebrity. One way or another, the tango between writer, media and public remains even now tortuously difficult.

For those to whom it matters, the coming decade will be a time to look back, to celebrate, to think critically about Irish literary achievement. No commemorations or conferences in the 2020s, however, will return us to the 1920s. Nor will any amount of Booker Prizes or Tony Awards greatly change the situation of the contemporary writer either.

Today, accomplished poetry, literary drama and maybe even the literary novel are typically quiet niche pursuits closer to ballet or opera than to the novel and poetry a century ago. TV or cinema can make an occasional sensation of The Commitments, The Butcher Boy, Brooklyn or Normal People, but transmedia adaptability doesnt typically do much for the work of a Derek Mahon or Sinad Morrissey. Even when they do serve fiction writers, such as Colm Tibn with Brooklyn, they rarely serve as their more ambitious works, such as Tibns The Master.

The streaming companies that secure strong ratings on the back of works like Normal People rarely repay the favour to the literary world. Though a good novel with a neat story will always serve their purpose, it would be idle to look to Hulu or Netflix for serious critical programming on modern writing. Since writers contract to publishing corporations, and publishing corporations to distribution behemoths like Amazon, or to conglomerates like Disney or Time Warner, the writer, as much any other profession, lives in a world saturated in neoliberal capitalist hierarchy and values.

Looking back on Irish writing in the 1920s, two obvious things stand out: how male that world was and how Protestant. After the fall of Gaelic Ireland, the world of Irish writing and the Irish visual arts were a Protestant stronghold and Joyces exile and Daniel Corkerys crankiness need to be understood in that context.

Neither privileged masculinism nor Protestant patricianism inhibited work of quality. Yet, like ours now, the 1920s world was changing faster then than anyone could keep up with. Did Yeats in 1901 look farther into the future than he knew in Ireland and the Arts when he wrote: We who care deeply about the arts find ourselves the priesthood of any almost forgotten faith, and we must, I think, if we would win the people again, take upon ourselves the method and fervour of a priesthood. We must be half humble and half proud.

In a 21st-century Ireland where almost forgotten faiths are the norm, writers struggle, like priests or ministers, for real vocation and publics that care. Still, young writers continue to appear and even Trinity College, the early 20th-century heart of Irish dullness, continues to produce a few. The Irish generation that came of age after the 2008 financial crash has moved sharply leftwards and wants its own new Ireland. Its support for causes like that of the Palestinians or Black Lives Matter indicate that its views are more internationalist than narcissistically nationalist. The current pandemic and its fallout may push them further to the left.

Today, several youthful Irish writers, most prominently Sally Rooney and Oisn Fagan, announce themselves Marxists, resurrecting another almost forgotten faith, and are doing their best to create a new Irish political fiction capable of speaking to their own era. Their task will not be easy. For all the attention, nationally and internationally, lavished recently on Rooney, what her Marxism might mean for Irish writing today has generated little comment.

What does it mean to be a Marxist writer in the 21st century? Or to be an Irish one more particularly? How can it become something more than a marketing tag a distinguishing brand image? These are questions for critics even more than for writers like Rooney. However, for Irish critics to address such questions well, they will need to take capitalism, Marxism and literature all equally seriously, a rare enough occurrence in Irish studies.

The fact that Rooney and Fagan both attended Trinity reminds us, if reminder is needed, that the literary arts have always been, for better or worse, the preserve of elites. This has not changed greatly since the 1920s. No one can cut a leftist swathe in that world without difficulty. Still, the ambition is to be admired and bespeaks of the writers a faith in themselves and in literature, and a hope for a responsive public willing to consider the issues they raise seriously.

As we move into the centenary of the 1920s, we must wish these young starters well and hope that they, and their readers, can be half humble, half proud, and set our ambitions high. There is a literary tradition to inspire, much in it to emulate, much to avoid, much to renew.

Joe Cleary teaches English and Irish literature at Yale University. Cambridge University Press will publish his Modernism, Empire, World Literature next year.

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Golden decade: How Irish writing roared in the 1920s - The Irish Times

By Vejas Liulevicius, Ph.D., University of Tennessee, Knoxville The Haymarket Riot, May 4, 1886, Chicago. Beginning as a strike rally, an unknown person threw a dynamite bomb that killed eight police and a number of civilians.. (Image: Everett Historical/Shutterstock)

During the decades after the death of Karl Marx, the socialist movement expanded in many countries. Although there were fears among the Marxists that his ideology might grow faint or diverge from its initial principles, it continued to thrive, although with internal clashes between theory and practice. Also, there were many factions based on the interpretations of the principles in many countries.

Learn more about the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital.

In Austria-Hungary, under the rule of the Habsburg Empire, Marxists struggled to reconcile Marxs idea of fading nationalism with their ethnically diverse social structures. These Austro-Marxists came up with novel ideas and models such as federalism and autonomy to prevent the fading of ethnic identity. This was a problem that was persistent in the coming years and proved especially challenging to practice.

Another peculiar aspect of the Austro-Hungarian socialist movement was the immense mass power it had. This power was demonstrated through rallies in the streets. This was hugely impressive for a young man who had just arrived in the city in 1908. His name was Adolf Hitler. Although he was not attracted by the Social Democrats, the idea of mass politics was highly fascinating to him. In his book, Mein Kampf, he recalls how impressed he was with those masses selling to the proportions of a menacing army.

In the late 18th century, Poland was divided by Russian, German, and Austrian empires. Different regions of the country were ruled by these empires. As a result, the socialist parties were not able to form unified and long-lasting parties in this country. Different parties under different names were formed, including the Proletariat Party, a Polish Socialist Party, the Polish Social Democratic Party, and the radical party of SDKPiL (Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania). These were all underground parties that broke up in the early stages.

This is a transcript from the video series The Rise of Communism: From Marx to Lenin. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus.

In France, the socialist movement was revived after it was wiped out by the suppression of the Paris Commune. There was a wide range of movements including non-Marxist socialists, Anarchists, and Utopian Socialists. All of these revolutionary and non-revolutionary movements had their share of supporters.

The socialist movement in Britain was completely different from the rest. Although Marx had spent a good portion of his life in exile in Britain, his ideas were not as widely accepted there as in his home country, Germany.

British socialists had opposite ideas to the revolutionary Marxists. Instead of revolution and sudden upheaval, they believed in gradual reform. These ideas were adopted by British socialists from the principles of Fabianism. Some of the most noted members of the British socialist party include George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Fabianism also influenced the Labour Party. According to Harold Wilson, a Labour Prime Minister, the Methodist movement was a more influencing factor in the development of British socialism than Marx.

Learn more about World War I as a revolutionary opportunity.

Like Britain, America was different from the mainstream European socialism. The Americans perceived socialists as dangerous non-American foreigners who were not different from anarchists. This idea, known as the Red Scare, was the result of a historical event in 1886.

On May 4, a group of German anarchists were holding a protest in Haymarket Square, downtown Chicago. With police intervention to end the rally, things got out of hand after someone threw a bomb. The police opened fire and seven policemen and four civilians were killed. Some of the anarchists were found guilty and four of them were executed.

This tragic day still has its marks on American society. In most parts of the world, May 1 is celebrated as Labor Day, which was announced by the Second International to honor the Haymarket affair. But in America, the first Monday of September is Labor Day to separate it from the violent incident in Haymarket.

The incident has been known as one of the reasons why there is no mass socialism in America. But there are some other reasons which are more rooted in American culture and lifestyle. A number of scholars believe that capitalism is more imprinted in the minds of Americans than socialism. The high living standards in America are in contrast with socialist ideas of an absence of social class and private capital.

The Haymarket affair in America increased anti-radicalism and anti-anarchism sentiments. The Americans associated socialism with anarchism after this incident. This is one of the reasons why there is no mass socialism in America.

The Haymarket affair, which had great implications for the socialist movement in America, ended with the arrest of several anarchists. Four anarchists were hanged. Several policemen and civilians were also killed in the riot.

Socialism after the death of Marx continued to spread in Europe through trade unions and socialist parties. They vowed to improve working conditions for workers and create a better life. The Second International brought these parties together in periodic congresses.

Karl Marx, the German philosopher first put forth the ideas of social justice and equality. In his Communist Manifesto, together with Freidrich Engels, he laid the foundations of Communism. After his death, socialist movements spread in the world and created massive changes in history.

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Marxism after Marx in Europe and America - The Great Courses Daily News

Editors note:Dr. Shedingeris a Professor of Religion at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. He is the author of a recent book critiquing Darwinian triumphalism,The Mystery of Evolutionary Mechanisms.

Recently I acquired a copy of the fourth edition of Strickbergers Evolution (2008) from a retiring biology colleague. Edited and updated by Brian K. Hall and Benedikt Hallgrimsson, Strickbergers Evolution bills itself as the most broadly based textbook on evolution and a staple in undergraduate education in evolutionary biology.

But what will biology students actually learn from this textbook? On my reading, this textbook functions more as staple in indoctrination in Darwinian triumphalism than it does a staple in undergraduate education. In a series of posts, I hope to provide a critical review of many of the ways this textbook misleads students and fails to provide a foundation for real education, which must always present an accurate and nuanced picture of our current state of knowledge.

Here, I will point out several basic errors of fact to be found in Strickbergers Evolution. Any textbook must be rigorously fact-checked, lest the existence of clear errors undermine the credibility of all the information presented. Such a process seems not to have happened here. As one small example, Francis Galton is called Darwins first cousin in a discussion about eugenics. Of course, Galton was only Darwins half-cousin, having been born to a daughter of Erasmus Darwin who was a half-sister to Robert Darwin, Charless father.

Unlike many textbooks on evolution, Strickbergers Evolution includes a section called Belief, Religion, and Evolution. In it we read:

Until Copernicus and Galileo in the sixteenth century, no one had seriously challenged the idea of a powerful deity controlling the physical universe. In the new worldview they and others ushered in, however, God appeared as an initial creator rather than as an incessant manipulator of the universe. The advent of Darwinism posed further threats to Western religion by suggesting that biological relationships, including the origin of humans and of all species, could be explained by natural selection without the intervention of a god.

Here we see the often-repeated error viewing the Darwinian revolution as the fulfillment of the Copernican revolution, in which humans were systematically removed from the center of concern. But left out of the discussion is the inconvenient fact that Copernicus primary motivation for placing the sun at the center of the cosmos was religious. Copernicus had no empirical evidence compelling this move. The Ptolemaic system still worked and accounted for observations, though it had become aesthetically messy due to the addition of many ad hoc features.

Copernicus reasoned that the God he worshiped as the great Artisan would never have created such an aesthetically displeasing monstrosity. Placing the sun at the center created a simpler cosmos more in keeping with Copernicus theologically motivated aesthetic sensibilities, and this was his primary argument for why a heliocentric model must be correct.

A few pages later, this error is repeated:

The first significant cracks in the theological armor of continued divine intervention in nature were made in the discoveries of natural laws regulating the motion of the solar system, by Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler.

But, of course, the idea of divine intervention did not end with Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler, for Isaac Newton would come along and become the closest thing in the 17th century to an advocate of intelligent design!

Hall and Hallgrimsson are biologists, not historians of science, so perhaps these errors can be excused. But what should we make of their statement, Natural selection acts because of the differential survival of individual organisms with particular features? Even a novice would know that natural selection is a term to describe differential reproduction, not survival. Survival means nothing if organisms with particular features fail to out-reproduce organisms lacking these features. But Hall and Hallgrimsson seem to double down on this error when they write, Biological evolution tracks opportunistic pathways, and is blind to destinations other than survival. But natural selection cannot track anything, and even if it could, it would track reproduction, not survival. Darwin may have focused on survival, but the focus on differential reproduction has been at the center of evolutionary theory at least since the advent of population genetics in the 1930s. As Thomas Kuhn once pointed out, scientists are often woefully ignorant of the historical development of their own subjects.

This is not the only instance of faulty understanding of basic aspects of evolutionary theory and its history. In a section titled Randomness of Mutation, Hall and Hallgrimsson write:

Until the 1950s, the accepted view among bacteriologists was that bacteria had a unique plastic heredity in which appropriate mutations arise as an immediate response to the needs of the environment.

Actually, the randomness of mutation had already become an article of faith by 1943 due to the famous fluctuation test of Salvador Luria and Max Delbrck, whose seminal Genetics paper (Mutations of Bacteria from Virus Sensitivity to Virus Resistance) doesnt make it into the textbooks bibliography. The randomness of mutation was very much an accepted fact within the biological establishment long before the 1950s.

Eventually, this idea was challenged in 1988 when John Cairns and his colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health reworked Luria and Delbrcks fluctuation test and claimed to find evidence for directed mutation. This was followed in the early 1990s by two papers by Barry Hall purporting to demonstrate anticipatory mutagenesis. But these complicating challenges to the randomness of mutation, published in such respected journals as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature, and Genetics, are entirely ignored in the textbook.

Finally, in one grand statement of Darwinian triumphalism, Hall and Hallgrimsson write:

Darwins theory made it clear that species fixity was not natural. These radical ideas, which revolutionized biology, also affected sociology, anthropology, economics, politics, womens rights, fiction, poetry, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, Alfred Tennyson, George Eliot, George Bernard Shaw, Henri Bergson, and Sigmund Freud are just a few of those who incorporated evolution into their studies, writings, politics, and world views.

The oversimplification here is staggering (Darwin and womens rights?!) and would take an entire book to unpack. At the very least, the late 19th and early 20th century eclipse of Darwinism (to borrow Peter Bowlers term) is ignored here. Lamarckian and vitalistic theories continued to be popular until the development of the evolutionary synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s. George Bernard Shaw was a harsh critic of Darwin, and in coining the term lan vital, Henri Bergson was certainly no friend of Darwinism. I suppose such historical inaccuracies are a small price to pay in service to Darwinian indoctrination. But this makes a mockery of the educational process. Students deserve better.

In upcoming posts, I intend to discuss Strickbergers Evolution on issues such as its portrayal of Darwin, its presentation of some of what Jonathan Wells calls the icons of evolution, its discussion of coevolution and the initial stages of variation, the meaning of convergent evolution, and a few additional items like eye evolution and selection in pre-biotic chemistry. If Thomas Kuhn was correct that science textbooks constitute initiations into currently reigning scientific paradigms that bleach the blemishes of complicated histories, then Strickbergers Evolution could stand as Kuhns paradigmatic example.

Image: Charles Darwin, by Francis Darwin (Ed.) / Public domain, 1891.

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The Triumphalism of Strickberger's Evolution - Discovery Institute

Covid-19 has brought along tremendous changes in our daily lives. It has compelled us to adopt technology and digital tools in all areas of our lives. With so much of our time being spent online, an hour-long webinar with Mrs. Aditi Rindani, a media and communications specialist with more than 10+ years of experience probed me to write about the evolving digital world of education and communication.

The webinar began with the basics of communication and gave insights on the importance of non-verbal communication. 60-70% of human communication is inclusive of non-verbal communication and it is said that non-verbal cues strengthen a verbal conversation. The lack of personal connect and physical meetings have made it difficult to understand people and have paved the way for numerous assumptions and misunderstandings. Another disadvantage of online modes of communication is frequent distractions fueled by notifications, accessing other tabs and applications causing poor attention span of a person.

Various communication barriers like emotional barriers can be overcome by simply being empathetic and a good listener. Enquiring about their emotional status and well-being would go a long way in eliminating such hurdles. The communication barriers with respect to the ongoing Coronavirus need to be understood and dealt in a healthy way. At a time when inter-personal communication has gone for a toss, it is difficult to gauge non-verbal cues and build trust among people. Stress levels are high more than ever and deeming the need to be understood and showing empathy a priority.

The deeply affected education sector has now paved the way for using technology in education. Even with the boost of EdTech systems, there is an empathy deficit and a lack of human-centric feedback. Being confined to homes and screens has created a lot of anxiety and impatience among students. The responsibility of teachers has increased manifold as they have to create visual content to teach, keep track of students individually and conduct assessments simultaneously along with keeping a tab on the childrens well-being. The Delhi Government uses Interactive Voice Recording (IVR) under the umbrella of its Mission Buniyad. Parents and students can give a missed call to get an audio lesson every alternate day for more than 8 lac children enrolled across various public government schools. Such noteworthy initiatives ensure outreach of education to various communities of the society.

Professional communication for workplaces needs to be evolved and changed keeping in mind the dynamic circumstances. Respecting time and privacy, selecting the right mediums of communication, and keeping humans at the center rather than the task at hand would better help in maintaining a healthy relationship between employers and the employees. Setting group norms such as keeping color codes for various states of the mind (red for stress, green for happy and relaxed), having light conversations before meetings, or even group activities would provide more enthusiasm and provide a sense of belonging to the workforce. Previous responses and texts can be analyzed and improved to be more empathetic in the future. Importance must be given to proofreading emails and messages and using the right exclamations at the right time leaving no room for misunderstanding and hurt. Use appropriate sentences like these are good suggestions, let us discuss them tomorrow and give appropriate feedback whenever required.

Providing a sense of assurance to the people, be it employees or children must be done through constant communication. Conversing about things apart from work and conducting creative activities can prove much beneficial. Understand if they are coping with the changes, offer assistance, and inculcate kindness and empathy. Be a good listener and provide the benefit of doubt.

Battling challenging times like these, especially when it comes to education and communication, must be difficult at different levels and it is a leaders role to ensure the correct management of people. Understanding their perspectives and building a rapport with them can help to overcome the communication barriers.

As George Bernard Shaw rightly said, The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

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The Other Side Of Education And Communication In Covid-19 Times - Youth Incorporated

If economists were laid end on end, George Bernard Shaw once famously said, they would not reach a conclusion. Economists agree on many things, of course, but when their views clash, it attracts attention because economics, after all, revolves around the fundamental issues of peoples livelihoods and incomes. The fact that 100 economists recently asked parliament to roll back finance minister Tito Mbowenis supplementary budget appears to lend credence to Shaws view.

But the dire socioeconomic effect of Covid-19, both globally and in SA, calls for tough decisions about lives and livelihoods, buoyed by empirical evidence and a unity of purpose. The fact that the economists have asked parliament not to merely adjust but to reject Mbowenis supplementary budget must be taken seriously and answered.

What have the Treasury, the cabinet (which approved the revised budget strategy), the Reserve Bank, other economists and the markets overlooked in determining how the Covid-19 economy should be managed? The supplementary budgets warnings of a future sovereign risk debt crisis for SA are compelling, as are the economic policy steps needed to avert it. An old proverb says that heavenly vengeance pursues a crime slowly but nevertheless catches up with it in the end. In matters of debt the penalty is not halting; it pursues the culprit at a gallop.

But what is striking about the intervention by the 100 economists in the debate is the extent to which the Treasury has apparently had to fight this battle, at least so far, almost entirely on its own. Where are structures like the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC), the Financial and Fiscal Commission (FFC) and even the National Planning Commission (NPC) as the custodian of the National Development Plan and its offshoots, in this important fiscal decision-making process?

In particular, the absence of the PEAC in recent economic deliberations and developments is very noticeable. Though occasionally mentioned in dispatches, the PEAC has not, surprisingly, assumed prominence during a period generally described as SAs worst economic setback since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Difficult decisions have had to be taken about the Covid-19 lockdown process. If ever there was a time for the PEAC to be visible and offering sage advice, it is now.

It may be that structures such as the PEAC have indeed been consulted informally behind the scenes. Doing good by stealth has its merits, but it is inappropriate for these times. The PEAC was specifically created nearly a year ago to serve as a forum for in-depth and structured discussion on emerging global and domestic developments, economic and development policies ... and ensuring greater coherence and consistency in the implementation of economic policy. Transparency is needed to build confidence and support.

Yet given the unprecedented and rapid developments over the past few months, most of the economic debate has been left to others, with the PEAC not playing its assigned public role. That does not mean the PEAC, the FFC or the NPC would necessarily be unanimous in their views. But given their professional expertise and credibility, the research that has already been done, and these bodies mandate to give practical advice to decisionmakers, they would bring balance to the debate.

And with the margin for error in policymaking in SA now drastically reduced, the PEAC especially must bring its unquestionable insights to bear in determining what will and will not work in the present economic circumstances. The medium-term budget policy statement in October should now bear the imprint of its counsel. Ultimately, the PEAC is helping to run a country, not a seminar.

Public finance is one of those subjects that sits on the border between economics and politics even more so given SAs febrile socioeconomic climate, now aggravated by Covid-19. Political factionalism in the governing ANC complicates the task of finding practical solutions to pressing socioeconomic challenges. The danger of strongly ideologically driven economic policy is that it turns practical matters into issues of principle.

President Cyril Ramaphosa will find the PEACs advice either valuable or hampering, depending on the extent of political dissent within his own ranks. But if the PEAC now smartly sets about its task, it will nonetheless be in a position to encourage the good economics SA desperately needs for the hard times it is experiencing.

Moreover, the council must be seen to be proactive and not passive in shaping its agenda. It needs to acknowledge the big Covid-19 issues, think about them with a clear and steady mind, and be ready with the right advice at the right time.

Ramaphosa originally said he wanted the PEAC to provide him with frank and honest advice. If SA is to forge a successful, economic plan for after Covid-19, the time for such advice is now.

Parsons is a professor at the North-West University Business School

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RAYMOND PARSONS: Where are all the presidents councils? - Business Day

Amir Hossein Hosseinipour Freelance Journalist interviews Bijan Norouz about his scientific point of view on music.

Bijan Norouz explained that music provides an auditory imagery of the outer world, rather than providing visual images as we see in paintings and literature, from the outer world. Scientific music differs from the way of manifestation of the other arts, although, we can say that it doesnt differ from them, considering the fundamental nature of it, as an art which envisions the responses of human being to the outer world or the inner world.

Amir Hossein Hosseinipour:What is the true nature of scientific music and how do you regard it?

Bijan Norouz:The scientific music shows the inner life of man, using what can be called the human images or human faces. Moreover, scientific music is not be made just by a sound following another. Rather the music is made by a sequence of sounds which is perceived as a whole by our ears, for example a rhythmic expression or a pleasant melody creates music. These units are the same mentioned human faces because they evoke certain mental states in man.

Generally, scientific music joins the other arts, in creating social consciousness or individual awareness of the inner life which man has in common with his society and in revealing the inner history of the society. Not only the scientific music develops the sensitivity and freedom, but it affects the education of the present generation.

Amir Hossein Hosseinipour:What is the structure of scientific music?

Bijan Norouz:As in other arts, structure plays a significant role in scientific music which helps us in understanding the rationality or irrationality of the artists thought about represented issues in the created art. In creating each work, the artist more or less benefits from his personal and social experiences and what he obtains is not a contingency manner, but a set of mental concentrated manners that represents a particular attitude on life. Although scientific music occurs over time and creates structures which are not visual or tangible, it naturally creates something concrete which comes to existence in the outer world of the artist and the audience. It also deals with certain materials that are the same as invisible and weightless sound waves.

Amir Hossein Hosseinipour:Does music has any language?

Bijan Norouz: The language of music is created by the society and in my point of view Music is a Universal Language.

Amir Hossein Hosseinipour:As the founder of the institution of Future and Emerging Music Technologies FEMT, how do you evaluate new and scientific music in general?

Bijan Norouz:This is comprehensible in the new appearance of a music track. On a large scale every new and scientific music is produced from the existing music. The scientific and new music forms the familiar materials from new melodic frames to the great creations which are made from such frames. If languages werent created by societies, no one could create anything.However, real understanding and getting more pleasure out of scientific music is possible, with the participation of human in creating the music. This is a stage of mental evolution of the human and awareness of the existence of potentials and new issues in life, resulting from the changes and conflicts out of himself.

The Article is Translated by Sepideh Hematian

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Bijan Norouz's Thought and His Scientific Attitude of the Cosmic Music - Communal News

Alexander Albon says he has no regrets about the overtaking move he attempted on Lewis Hamilton in the Austrian Grand Prix which led to the two colliding.

We didnt speak afterwards, said Albon in todays FIA press conference. There wasnt too much for me to say, I think, it is what it is.

Im sure Lewis didnt intend to make contact. But not too much to say, really, were just focused straight away into race two.

Albon insisted he wasnt at fault for the collision. The way the corner is, the exit point of where you take that corner is not where it looks like, he said.

A certain camera angle, where I saw people saying theres a car length to go still, you dont exit at that point, the exit points a lot later into the corner just because turn four is quite long. So unless I kind of drove up to the edges of track and then turned again, thats the only real way to give myself more space.

The Red Bull driver said he wouldnt hesitate to attempt a similar move in the future. Id do the same thing again, he said. It has to be done.

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You cant wait around, especially when theyre at a tyre disadvantage. Theres no waiting to be done, really, because obviously we knew they had a pace advantage and it was just a matter of time until the front tyres warmed up. So theres no real regret to that.

Despite his penalty for the incident, Hamilton still finish the race in fourth place, while Albon dropped out of the points and later retired.

At the very beginning its a bit frustrating because youre the one to lose out in the situation, Albon added. But I think just to make it fair, the way its ruled is that they want all the penalties to apply the same way, so no matter what the crash or consequences. Im kind of happy that that is the situation.

Of course it just means that we lost out a bit more than we would have liked.

Albons team mate Max Verstappen also believes Hamilton didnt deliberately cause the collision.

It was just thats unfortunate that happened, said Verstappen. I think it was a great move for Alex you go around the outside there, I think not many people do that.

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Albon: I'd make the same move on Hamilton again RaceFans - RaceFans

With everyone sequestered and self-quarantining due to the coronavirus, weve asked our favorite artists to come up with playlists that keep you entertained. Here is Neurosis guitarist Steve Von Till:

Many of us let music into our lives in a way that can intentionally or unintentionally frame our experience. It can console, celebrate or validate that which has already happened, providing the soundtrack to our personal histories. Music can be the rhythm of the present moment altering the perception of our realities one way or another and inspiring action. Music can also guide our thoughts for the future, be they dystopian or full of hope. Music is power and the permission to feel all the feelings.

Longing for Connectedness to All Things

Luke Schneider Anteludium From his brand new debut album, Altar of Harmony, Luke Schneiders track is a perfect starting point on this journey. If you heard this track before I told you that he was a pedal steel player from Nashville, you might not believe me. This is deep and cosmic ambient music I have read being described as Sunn O))) versus Stars of the Lid. Sounds about right.

John Trudell The Magic Valley I know, this isnt music, but It seems like a perfect moment to hear some words of wisdom from a modern indigenous voice. John Trudell was a Native American author, poet, actor, musician, and political activist who passed away about five years ago. His poetry and spoken word recordings have spoken to me since I was about 19. He has the uncanny ability to bring clarity to what it means to be human. Go search the internet for his Tribal Voice album, its not readily available but its one you want to track down.

Trying to Make Sense of It All

Lungfish Love Is Love An incredibly underappreciated band. The dark horse of the Dischord Records catalog in many ways with a hypnotic mystical bent. More like a chant than a song, the lyrics encapsulate the emotional nature of our species when contemplating the bigger questions. Love is love, always reconciled Love is love, in wind and shade Love is love, alien and strange Love is love, in truth and falsehood

New Model Army End of Days Justin Sullivan has a way of writing moody but inspiring songs that somehow bring the overarching political and societal issues down to a personal emotional level without condescendingly telling you what to think. Revealing macrocosm as microcosm is a classic gift. It isnt just yet, we have to trample Over each other, to reach air We will mix and mend when we have to We will celebrate when we can

Raging Against Injustice

Bob Dylan Masters of War When it comes to wondering what the hell is the matter with some people, no one quite puts that in a song like Dylan. Who else could simultaneously call out the warmongers and racists and piss off the hippies and the folkies. Though Hurricane or Desolation Row might also be appropriate at this moment, Masters of War has that sound of biting disdain for those human beings behind the machinations of power, money, dehumanization and control who have clearly lost their souls in the process.

Discharge Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing Since first hearing this in the mid-80s it has been the quintessential album of rage against authority. If Dylan is like Whitman in his lengthy tirades, Discharge keeps it brief, like some sort of punk rock haiku and boils it all down to just a couple lines on top of music sonically akin to air raid sirens and nuclear explosions. Side note: THe 15-year-old punk rock me finds great pleasure in being able to sneak a Discharge song into Spin.

Bad Brains Big Takeover Bad Brains taught all the young punks how it was done. Their musicianship and intensity owned the scene and their lyrics spoke up against discrimination and for a positive mental attitude. We are forever in their debt.

Existential Questioning

Jhann Jhannsson and Yair Elazar Glotman A Minor Astronomical Event This is a recent obsession. I have loved Jhannssons work for a long time, but this posthumous release might be my favorite. Deeply contemplative, moody, and brooding. It is the soundtrack to his first film in which Tilda Swintons narration borrowed from a 1930s sci-fi novel that contemplates both the evolution and end of our species. And it sounds a bit like the carpenter ant infestation in one of our exterior walls right now.

Transforming Sorrow

Nick Cave Girl in Amber Anyone who has followed Nick Caves recent career has witnessed the incredible transformation of an already gifted artist into something greater. Being able to channel personal tragedy and sorrow into a vehicle for beauty, love, compassion, and understanding is one of the highest expressions of our collective humanity.

Overcoming despair

Joy Division New Dawn Fades A trusted go-to desert island track. I first heard Joy Division a decade after the death of Ian Curtis. The myth-making and urban legends had already taken hold and informed the way I heard it, but I know that making music is inherently a joyous activity especially when it can help you exorcise the demons of hopelessness.

Finding the Calm Within the Storm

Gavin Bryars The Sinking of the Titanic 7: Opening Part II One of the best musical gifts I have ever received. Inspired by the story that the band on the RMS Titanic continued to perform as the ship sank in 1912, it is truly a beautiful piece that never fails to bring a feeling of serenity amidst the chaos.

Following the Unbridled Joy of the Moment

The Budos Band Peak of Eternal Night What doesnt sound fun about psychedelic afro-soul meets Black Sabbath? Nothing! I bet it feels incredible to be in this band playing this song!

Creation Rebel Starship Africa Section 1 I heard someone say recently that we experience true joy when we are in a flow state doing what we are supposed to be doing, when we are in sync with our purpose for being here. Being a huge fan of Adrian Sherwoods dub mixes, I have always marveled at the concept of the mix being the active performance, where the studio becomes the instrument. His mixes bring to mind thoughts of being completely in the moment, tuned in, and dedicated to the flow of the sound emanating from the speakers, and that must be very joyous. Hope

Ramones I Believe in Miracles The Ramones were one of the proto-punk bands that brought hope to rock and roll in the age of untouchable bloated arena rock. Bless them and Joey Ramones voice.

The Overwhelming Desire to Rock

The Stooges Search and Destroy Soul radiation in the dead of night

Sonic Youth Kool Thing This just turned 30 years old! Thats how long I have been ripping off that guitar bend.

Black Flag Black Coffee How many folks in this age of quarantine are over-amped on their caffeine and just staring at the walls?

Melvins Honey Bucket True heroes, and true originals that bow to no one. We go back to a time when they taught the punks that our true love of slow Sabbath riffs was justified and should be celebrated. Thank you.

Grounding back to the Earth

Northern Cree Power to My People Coming full circle and back to connectedness. If you have ever been to a public pow-wow you have felt the power. I have always felt that the drum, in any culture or style of music, takes the other ethereal elements and roots them back to the ground, holding them all in place.

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Steve Von Tills Music Will Get Us Through Playlist - SPIN