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, but I’ve been carrying around a copy for months of the Anarchist’s Guide written by the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective, made available […]

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 in the campaign wasn’t sure that former Vice President Joe Biden had enough issues already to make his case, so they wanted […]

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 atavistic and anachronistic were simply out of step with modern times, the power of internet petitions, and the civil, on-our-knees begging and […]

New Orleans       Statues and memorials of various stripes are getting a good hard look after decades where they received a pass from the public and politicians no matter how obnoxious their content and symbolism.  Confederate memorials are in every nook and cranny in the South, and it will take a while to root them […]

Pearl River     Paying attention to President Trump’s tweets is a fool’s errand, best delegated to journalists paid for the practice.  These are “thought bombs” sometimes disguised as policy or personnel decisions.  They are “Mission Impossible” instructions that dissolve or explode in many cases almost as soon as they are written.  Little more than blustering masked […]

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 the same lines, while neither of them are lifting a finger to help finance what it is projected to take for school districts […]

New Orleans       The rule of law has been getting a rough ride during Trump time.  Now with Supreme Court decisions dropping like flies all around us with one mixed message after another, many are not sure where we stand.  Are they confirming the rule of law when it comes to the administration, or are […]

New Orleans        Third spaces received a fair amount of attention not so long ago.  These were the places between work and play where community could be built.   How will they survive the pandemic? Libraries are a good example.  In recent years their mission has adapted and evolved.  No longer simply a place for books […]

New Orleans      We can count the days until we pray that’s it is over, but until then the drumbeat of woe is bound to continue.  The gutted Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proved that it really might need a name change as it announced the shelving of Obama-era reforms to payday lending which will exploit […]

New Orleans      The Paycheck Protection Program, known as PPP, was a major part of the Congressionally approved stimulus program as part of the CARES Act.  After the Treasury Department and the Trump administration played button-button for a bit, both refusing to reveal recipients, and then having to walk back those claims, they finally have […]