Tag: Rathke
Counting matters
by Wade Rathke New Orleans In yet another concern, with the US election looming ever closer, is a new report that Commerce Department officials and others around the White House are trying to speed up…
Driving through the Pandemic with Antifa
by Wade Rathke Decatur, Texas In the predawn, the three-week long veteran night clerk at the Motel 6 along Highway 287 in Decatur, Texas north of Dallas confirmed, “it’s rough out here.” Looking for a…
The Cimarron Cutoff and the BSA
by Wade Rathke Springer, New Mexico Breaking camp on the East Fork of the San Juan River, we dried out our gear and were off again. Chaco caught and released a small brown trout in…
Puerto Rican earthquakes
Ponce We hadn’t been to Puerto Rico over the last fifteen years. Tickets were too pricey to Mexico and Columbia, so why not see how they have come through the recovery from Hurricane Maria, touch base…
City amenities and the prices paid for them
Pagosa Springs In Durango, Colorado, we felt like we had struck gold, having hauled out bikes across Texas and New Mexico. We stumbled, almost literally, onto a bike trail that had seemingly been recently completed…
Rathke: Are single use plastics getting a bad rap?
New York City Once the breeze picks up between the canyons formed by New York City skyscrapers, the most common local bird that seems to be floating in the sky when you see something flutter…
The tragedy of the UAW: When boss culture replaces member culture
Ponce, Puerto Rico At the end of every year we are inundated with the best of this and the top ten of that in music, movies, books, sports, tech, politics, and, well, I guess, almost everywhere. …
Rathke: Have Doctors and Hospitals Joined Banks as Fraudsters?
New York City It’s the holiday season when old time movies used to give us hope that miracles might happen. Santa might climb down from the chimney, if you had a chimney anymore. There were…
Rathke: The transplant system is needlessly allowing patients to die
New Orleans There are no good ways to die, but emphysema is a tough way to go. I watched my grandfather die that way as a child. He was weak and housebound in his last…
Rathke: The Crisis and Crime of Lost Children
New York City As people look at the year gone by and a decade coming to an end there are a barrage of lists with of best movies, books, songs, plays, TV shows, and on…
Rathke: Five thousand blogs and what do you get
New Orleans When you do something every day, rain or shine, here or abroad, every once in a while, you need to take stock, and evaluate whether a disciplined practice is a trivial habit, an…
Rathke: New housing law in NY has impact on tenant evictions
New Orleans The Wall Street Journal and its reporters must get a special thrill when they can score an exclusive on the New York Times on New York’s own turf. I bet they didn’t even…
Rathke: In praise of door to door canvassing
New Orleans In modern politics obsessions run hot and heavy as election day looms ahead. One cycle it might be microtargeting with sophisticated databases categorizing voters and messages. Another cycle it’s small donors and social…
Cibola County in the crosshairs of pandemic and depression
by Wade Rathke Grants, New Mexico No camping allowed at Chaco Canyon or what is more formally known now as Chaco Culture National Historical Park, nor could we cross the Navajo Reservation to get there, given…
Texas is a mess
by Wade Rathke Wichita Falls For years signs along the Texas highways, bumper stickers, and just about everything else proudly declared, “Don’t Mess with Texas.” It was classic Texas. Designed to stop litter with a chest-thumping…
Coerced work
by Wade Rathke Dallas As Covid-19 sweeps through prisons creating hot spots all over the country because of the close and abysmal conditions, it’s a reminder of how many people are still incarcerated despite widespread claims…
Ronald Cameron, Arkansas Exploiter in the news
New Orleans Talking to Ernie Dumas, Little Rock’s premier senior journalist, author, and raconteur in the outside patio of his place after a late spring rain and at proper social distance, he mentioned a call…
Lorenzo Milam: ‘Father’ of community radio has died
by Wade Rathke Wednesday, July 22, 2020 New Orleans Lorenzo Milam has died. Long live Lorenzo Milam! Wikipedia calls Milam an author and activist, which is true as far as it goes, but in many circles,…
Super-sized unemployment benefits are essential in a Depression
by Wade Rathke New Orleans Congress is going back to work. High on the agenda with the clock ticking is the next stimulus bill. Some things are clear. Mainly that the US economy is on its…
The Federal Invasion of Portland, Oregon
[Cuccinelli] is no freedom fighter or protector of any American rights. A zealot with access to a type of police in a time when funding for the police and their military tactics is part of the…
The Anarchist’s Guide to surviving Coronavirus Covid-19
by Wade Rathke New Orleans How about some advice for handling the pandemic from a different source than the daily news, doomscrolling, or even the embattled Dr. Fauci? I forget how I stumbled onto this,…
The Pandemic case for the Affordable Care Act
by Wade Rathke New Orleans There’s no rhyme or reason to it, but bizarrely the Trump administration recently marched into court to once again challenge the legal standing of the Affordable Care Act. Perhaps someone…
Protest moves people, money, and votes
by Wade Rathke New Orleans Remember not so long ago when one self-proclaimed wizard after another, usually in power in some corporation, foundation, or governmental post, declared that “protest is passé.” Those of us so…
Hyper Education
by Wade Rathke Pearl River The President says, open the schools. Actually, he doesn’t have any power over opening the schools, so it’s more bully-boy posturing and threatening backed up by Betsey DeVos prattling along…
