“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are...
Year: 2013
A Return to Literacy Tests? Take This.
How Many White Folks Does It Take to Pass a Jim Crow ‘Brain-Teaser’? With the Supreme Court’s June 25 decision in Shelby County v. Holder overturning Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and with Republican Jim Crow re-enactors “free at last” to get their electoral racism on, will the United States see a return […]
Supreme Conservatives Drag U.S. Ceaselessly into the (Jim Crow) Past
* “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” —Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissenting opinion, Shelby County v. Holder Re-Legalizing Electoral Racism; Red State Republicans ‘Free at Last’ June 25, 2013, will […]
Cool Digs! NYC’s 2nd Avenue Subway Tunnel in Progress
* Making Tracks on the Line That Time Forgot Talking Points Memo posts some ultra-kool photos of the excavation of the Second Avenue subway tunnel under the East Side of Manhattan that is due to open for business in December 2016—only about a century after the need for an additional East Side subway line was first […]
Here We Go Again
Once again, politicians demanding austerity for the American public are leading us—and other people’s children—into war “Just providing arms is not enough.” —John McCain * This should be the mother of all cakewalks. The Obama administration has announced that the U.S. will begin arming certain groups of Syrian rebels because the Bashar al-Assad regime has […]
In Honor of Medgar Evers and Res Publica
Conservatives’ rejection of all things “public” as “white flight” “The gifts of God . . . should be enjoyed by all citizens in Mississippi.” —Medgar Evers (1925–1963) * Fifty years ago today, Medgar Wylie Evers was killed in his driveway in Jackson, Mississippi, after returning from an NAACP meeting at a nearby church. Evers, a graduate […]
Easy Listenin’ to ‘The Eve of Destruction’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QslV5asj_yM * From “The Eve of Destruction” Lyrics by P. F. Sloan / Sung by Barry McGuire (recorded July 1965) The eastern world it is exploding Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’ You’re old enough to kill but not for votin’ You don’t believe in war but whats that gun you’re totin’? . . . . Think […]
Gambit’s Cotton among 19 Injured in Mother’s Day Shooting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEBl5luhRWs * Shot in a Mother’s Day second-line parade in Seventh Ward One of nineteen people injured by gunfire from three shooters in a Mother’s Day parade on Sunday was Gambit correspondent Deborah Cotton. Also injured were at least two small children. Three other people suffered more serious wounds, though no fatalities have been reported […]
Happy 295th Birthday, New Orleans!
* Bonne fête à La Nouvelle-Orléans! Un joyeux anniversaire! Now entering its 296th year, the city of New Orleans was founded by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, on May 7, 1718. The map above shows the city as it appeared about 1721, when the settlement of La Nouvelle-Orléans, on the high ground along the edge of […]
Syria Seen as a Backdoor to War with Iran
It’s a matter of public record that this war with Iraq is largely the brainchild of a group of neoconservative intellectuals, who view it as a pilot project. In August a British official close to the Bush team told Newsweek: “Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.” In February […]
From OMB to OMG: Waking Up to Obama’s FY14 Budget
Is This What We Voted for in 2008, 2012? We will have more to say in the coming days about the president’s 2014 budget—there’s so much to, uh, appreciate—but here’s a start. The graphics above and below, from the National Priorities Project, based upon the Office of Management and Budget, show the proportion of discretionary spending […]
‘Elysian Fields’ Weekend in New Orleans April 5–7
* After long workin’ in the fertile fields of Elysium, a fruitful harvest. The novel ELYSIAN FIELDS, published this month by Mid-City Books, will be officially launched in the city that gave it birth with a party at Mimi’s in the Marigny on Friday, April 5, from 6:00...
Workin’ in the Fertile Fields of Elysium
* Dear Readers of Levees Not War: We want to apologize to those of you who have checked in lately and wondered about the infrequency of new posts—and to those who may have had trouble accessing the site. The technical, server problems have been remedied. And, on a...