Image from Haitiaction.net.

I have a piece about Haiti in today’s Daily Texan. Check it out.

The Texan editors messed with my piece a little and I wanted to add a few things, so I’ve produced a podcast to accompany the piece. It runs just under 7 minutes. Enjoy the music!

Download the MP3 here. Transcript with links to sources below. Read More…

My short story on this for FSRN is here. Image from the Associated Press.

I spoke earlier today by phone to Dr. Eloisa Tamez, who owns a tract of property on the Texas-Mexico border and has been fighting the government’s attempt to construct a wall on it for over a year. She is a member of the Lipan Apache tribe and her family has owned the land for several centuries. Federal judge Andrew Hanen ruled in March that the Department of Homeland Security must negotiate with landowners before property can be seized, but yesterday he ordered Tamez to allow DHS to start construction on her land.

Dr. Tamez told me that she is disappointed with the ruling and will continue speaking out. She said she has seen nothing to indicate President Obama will change the border wall policy – especially since wall construction is providing jobs in the area. Tamez believes she can still appeal the ruling, but says Homeland Security contractors have already been trespassing on areas of her land.

Here’s a complete transcript of my interview with her (I’ve added emphasis in certain places). Read More…

I contributed a short headline report to Free Speech Radio News today on this story.  Listen here.

The Texas 13th Court of Appeals upheld a judgment today to award $42.5 million in damages to the family of a prisoner murdered a private prison  The man was beaten to death in 2001 at GEO Group’s (then called Wackenhut) Willacy County jail by two inmates as prison officials, including the warden, stood by and laughed.  Video evidence of the beating was either lost or destroyed.

I interviewed Bob Libal of Grassroots Leadership for the story.  He’s optimistic that this strongly-worded ruling, on top of increasingly frequent and well-documented abuses and scandals at private prisons around the state, will help push the Texas Legislature towards re-regulating corporate-run facilities in important ways.  Real justice, i.e. the abolition of private jails and detention centers in Texas, is probably still a ways off.  But this is progress.  (Image from texasprisionbidness.org.)

Image from sweejack on Flickr

Hundreds of Austinites, young and old, students and workers, gathered in front of the Capitol on Monday evening to demonstrate against the Israeli bombings in the Gaza strip. Here’s my report:

(Working on improving the audio quality, folks. Next time it’ll be better. Produced using a Zoom H2 and Audacity.)

Update: Here’s the transcript of the report, with links, below the jump. Read More…

It’s too bad I didn’t discover Blue Scholars earlier, say, in 2004 when I felt disillusioned and fed up with school during my freshmen year at the University of Washington. “Fuck class, get your education on the Ave,” the rallying cry of the song “The Ave,” was exactly what I wanted to do (video here). Finally listening to their debut EP got me hooked on underground hip-hop – that fiercely independent, worldwide, beat-infused CNN of the streets. This genre would become the soundtrack to my radio show. And whenever I miss home here in Austin, I play a Blue Scholars track. They are all about representing Seattle from the bottom up, from the Southside to the 2000 WTO riots to the daily ride on the Metro bus.

When I heard MC Geologic and producer Sabzi were coming to Austin for SXSW 2008, I arranged to skip work to interview them. I met them in their hotel room and had a wonderful chat with two of the most down-to-earth and inspiring “cultural workers” in the game right now. Tune in below the jump.

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I contributed a short headliner to Free Speech Radio News on the Justice Department’s devastating report on the state of Texas mental institutions last week (in short, they’re so underfunded and understaffed that the rights and well-being of the folks in the system are under constant threat). Listen at FSRN. (Also, Racialicious re-published my Quantum of Solace review today.)

James Bond, 007.  For decades the British super-spy’s name stood for deadly charisma, over-the-top international espionage, and fancy gadgets – until the series took a more realist approach two years ago when actor Daniel Craig took over the role from Pierce Brosnan.  The critics hailed Craig’s turn in “Casino Royale” for his icy cool and the physical presence he brought to new, grittier action sequences. This was finally a Bond for the new century, they said.

From an anti-kyriarchy point-of-view, I think Quantum of Solace better fits that description.   Casino Royale’s plot was based on Ian Fleming’s original Bond novel about a corrupt financial magnate.  The story took place mostly in Europe and turned on a high-stakes poker match played by ultra-rich elites.

With Solace, all the familiar elements are still there – the frenetic action, expensive cars, the constant tension between Bond and M, his boss at MI6, played by Judi Dench.  As in every other Bond movie, most women in the film look like supermodels and are used or controlled by men, whether by force or by Bond’s charm.  He sleeps with one of them in this movie, slightly down from absurd average of 2.5 women per film.

But James Bond fighting to protect the water supply for impoverished indigenous Bolivian villages?  From a wealthy villain who poses as the head of an eco-friendly company called “Greene Planet” and conspires with U.S. intelligence to overthrow a leftist president?    Now there’s something new and timely.

Read More…