Original six members of the Black Panther Party (November, 1966) Top left to right: Elbert “Big Man” Howard; Huey P. Newton (Defense Minister), Sherman Forte, Bobby Seale (Chairman). Bottom: Reggie Forte and Little Bobby Hutton (Treasurer).

“The Ten-Point Program or The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense Ten-Point Platform and Program is a party platform written by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966 for the Black Panther Party. The Ten-Point Program is a set of guidelines to the Black Panther Party and states their ideals and ways of operation, a ‘combination of the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.’ The document was created in 1966 by the founders of the Black Panther Party, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, whose political thoughts lay within the realm of Marxism and Black Nationalism. Each one of the statements were put in place for all of the Black…

The Koch brothers funded the Republican takeover of Wisconsin in 2010 and the election of Scott Walker as governor. Walker quickly cracked down on unions and stripped them of their rights. He pushed vouchers. He attacked Wisconsin’s great public university system. Meanwhile, the Republican legislature gerrymandered the state to guarantee control of the legislature. The state is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, but Republicans control both houses of the legislature.

That is why many observers considered the election of a new State Supreme Court to be the most important election in the nation. After the retirement of a Republican justice, the Court was split 3-3.

A liberal—Janet Protasiewicz—ran against a conservative—Dan Kelly. The liberal won. This means that the Court will have a Democratic majority.

The two biggest issues likely to be resolved by the Court are abortion rights and gerrymandering. The new Court now has the votes to…

“L.A. Woman is the sixth studio album by the American rock band the Doors, released on April 19, 1971, by Elektra Records. It is the last to feature lead singer Jim Morrison during his lifetime due to his death three months after the album’s release, though he would posthumously appear on the 1978 album An American Prayer. Even more so than its predecessors, the album is heavily influenced by blues. It was recorded without record producerPaul A. Rothchild after he fell out with the group over the perceived lack of quality of their studio performances. Subsequently, the band co-produced the album with longtime sound engineerBruce Botnick. … The Doors had achieved commercial and critical success by 1969, but for much of that year they were blacklisted from radio playlists and their concert bookings dwindled after singer Jim Morrison had been charged with…

ubuclassics [PDF] “… 2.DREAM HOUSE. A continuous frequency environment in sound and light with singing from time to time. … The environment in sound and light at Galerie Heiner Friedrich will be continuous during the hours 10 to 18 and later on some days, Monday through Saturday. Visitors who wish to hear us sing with the continuous frequency environment may telephone the gallery to find out if we are or expect to be singing on that particular day and during which hours. By 1962 La Monte had formulated the concept of a Dream House in which a work would be played continuously and ultimately exist in time as a ‘living organism with a life and tradition of its own..’ Much of our work has focused on the relationship of the media to time, or on time directly. Time is so important to the experiencing and understanding…

Good Morning!

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Welcome to The Coffee Shop, just for you early risers
on Monday mornings. This is an Open Thread forum,
so if you have an off-topic opinion burning a hole in
your brainpan, feel free to add a comment.

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“Keep the world safe for poetry…
If the world is safe for poetry, it
can be safe for many other things.”
– Anne Waldman

“poems fall … from the richly pollinated boughs
of an ordinary life, buzzing, as lives do, with
clamor and glory. They are easy to miss but
everywhere: poetry just is, whether we revere it
or try to put it in prison. It is elementary grace,
communicated from one soul to another.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonder

You’ll often hear that academic writing is entering a conversation. A journal article for example is an entry into an asynchronous conversation that has already been going on in the journal – or perhaps ought to have been going on – about a particular topic. Articles take turns in discussing the topic, each one referring back to  other papers to make sure that the reader understands the ongoing and cumulative nature of the discussion.

It’s helpful to think that a paper or chapter or book is also entering a conversation in its own right. And that’s a conversation with the reader. And just as in the paper by paper conversation, the writer has to make connections with what has gone before. (Apologies to all of the conversation analysts out there reading this – I am about to simplify and gloss over complexities.)

People who study conversations understand them as social –…

Ten years ago, before I started this blog, I wrote a piece about characters who are “fish out of water.” Time to revisit that “fishional”…um…fictional topic by discussing some novels I’ve read since 2013 that are relevant to this theme.

As I noted back then, there’s often lots of drama and/or comedy when authors transport protagonists to a much different place. Those characters may initially “flounder” and have embarrassing moments — which is not good for them but interesting to read about. Then they might eventually get their bearings, experience new things, meet new people, and gain more confidence — which is good for them and also interesting to read about. Even if characters don’t adapt to new locales, there’s drama in that, too.

And readers — many of whom have been “fish out of water” themselves during vacations or after moving to new places — can compare their own…

“‘All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace’ is a poem by Richard Brautigan first published in his 1967 collection of the same name, his fifth book of poetry. It presents an enthusiastic description of a technological utopia in which machines improve and protect the lives of humans. The poem has counterculture and hippie themes, influenced by Cold War-era technology. It has been interpreted both as utopian and as an ironic critique of the utopia it describes. It is Brautigan’s most frequently reprinted poem. Brautigan wrote the poem and eponymous collection between January 17–26, 1967, while a poet-in-residence at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. The poem is 99 words in 3 stanzas, and describes a technological utopia in which humans and technology work together for the greater good. Brautigan writes about ‘mammals and computers liv[ing] together in mutually programming harmony’, with…

“From the inauguration of IRT subway services in 1904 until the unified system of 1948 (including predecessor BMT and IND subway services), the fare for a ride on the subway of any length was 5 cents ($.05 in 1904 equivalent to $1.51 in 2021; $.05 in 1948 equivalent to $0.56 in 2021). … For the most part, token models were changed periodically as prices changed, but not always. The first token change occurred in 1953, but this change did not to reflect a change in fare cost. The NYCTA’s original design as proposed on July 25, 1953, for the 15 cent fare raise was the 16mm ‘Small Y Cutout’ token. However, due to the time the NYCTA actually received approval for a fare hike on June 14, it left them short of time ordering the tokens. … Due to the pressing need to get a token into service, the NYCTA…