Former Washington Post managing editor Steve Coll gave an excellent talk at BookPeople in Austin about his book on ExxonMobil, “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power.” A video of that presentation is online. (Thanks to Jeff and Grace of ZGraphix.) As former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond said, “Presidents come and  go; Exxon doesn’t come and go.” […]

Alternet is running a series on innovative thinking in economics. The first piece was by Gar Alperovitz, “The Rise of the New Economy Movement.” As our political system sputters, a wave of innovative thinking and bold experimentation is quietly sweeping away outmoded economic models. In ‘New Economic Visions’, a special five-part AlterNet series edited by […]

As a public high school teacher and a parent I think often about the role of schools in our society and closely follow the current debate over school reform. Recently I read a concise, insightful letter to the New York Times that has stuck in my mind, almost haunted me, since — To the Editor: […]

While the Occupy phenomenon has helped put inequality on the political map, it’s important not to mistake it for a political movement. Of course, “Occupy” can mean different things in different places, but Matthew Noah Smith makes an important point in his essay “Reflections on Occupy’s May Day: All Play Doesn’t Work”: I do not […]

Noam Chomsky continues to help us focus on the key political questions in this new essay on TomDispatch.com, “A Rebellious World or a New Dark Age?” As is typical for Chomsky, he doesn’t back away from an honest account of what we face: We’re really regressing back to the dark ages. It’s not a joke.  […]

Thorne Dreyer interviewed theologian and social ethicist Gary Dorrien on Rag Radio on April 27 on Austin’s community radio station, KOOP, 91.7 FM. Dorrien, an Episcopal priest and professor at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University, was in Austin to speak at a conference on economic justice and theology. Dreyer also edits The Rag Blog. […]

Jim Rigby, a member of the Third Coast board and pastor at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, has been offering tips on “Self Defense from a Fundamentalist Attack” on his blog. Here’s the final installment: We come now to the end of our series on defending ourselves from fundamentalism. Today’s lesson is perhaps the most important, […]

Whether or not we are in a decisive historical moment, as Marina Sitrin and Dario Azzellini argue in an essay on ZNet, politics-as-usual in the United States and around the world is being challenged. Around the world people are marking this with May Day celebrations of International Workers’ Day. There are lots of articles that […]