A singer, dancer and bandleader, Cab led one of the most popular African American big bands during the jazz and swing eras of the 1930s-40s, with Harlem’s famous Cotton Club as his home stage. Continue reading Cab Calloway: A musical and visual inspiration | Sketches: The Documentary | PBS
The Clinton-Greenspan connection| The case against dynasties on Blog#42
I was reminded, as I was reading Paul Krugman’s recent blog post on Alan Greenspan (see below,) that he is wedded to Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC. I was also reminded that Greenspan was Chairman of the Fed during… the Clinton years. Continue reading The Clinton-Greenspan connection| The case against dynasties on Blog#42
“Excited delirium” as a cause of death is bunk! | #NatashaMcKenna | #BlackWomensLivesMatter #BlackLivesMatter
A mentally-ill person in crisis shouldn’t end up in jail. It isn’t the appropriate placement for someone in such a condition. That Natasha McKenna ended up in jail was bad enough. Continue reading “Excited delirium” as a cause of death is bunk! | #NatashaMcKenna | #BlackWomensLivesMatter #BlackLivesMatter
Dispatch from the post-Great Recession #economy | #Housing on Blog#42
In my blog post, Living the Great Recession: Notes from our new digs, I described the living conditions in the apartment next door and many of the units in the complex we had just moved into. Continue reading Dispatch from the post-Great Recession #economy | #Housing on Blog#42
#Baltimore and Race-based Residential #Segregation | Jared Bernstein | #Economy on Blog#42
While the protests and riots in Baltimore in recent days were critically triggered by yet another death of a young black man interacting with the police, there are of course many other forces at work.
Mike Fletcher, a journalist at the Washington Post, has made important contributions to the poverty/economics beat in recent years. But Fletcher has also lived in Baltimore for decades, and his perspective on recent events is particularly germane.
William Jefferson Clinton was not our first Black president, Hillary won’t be the second
To set the mood for the subject of this piece, the things we think we hear versus the things that are actually said Continue reading William Jefferson Clinton was not our first Black president, Hillary won’t be the second
The incredible offensiveness of “#thug” | #BaltimoreUprising #BlackLivesMatter
As the aggrieved part of Baltimore rises, so do the moralizing voices of local authority in their characterizations of “thug” about those they are supposed to serve. Continue reading The incredible offensiveness of “#thug” | #BaltimoreUprising #BlackLivesMatter
Open Letter to Senator @RandPaul | #BaltimoreUprising on Blog#42
Dear Senator Paul,
I heard your comments on the Baltimore protests this morning and decided that, since I’m still thinking about them, I should put some of my thoughts down in writing. Continue reading Open Letter to Senator @RandPaul | #BaltimoreUprising on Blog#42
The TPP: what everyone should know | Economics on Blog#42
The Trans-Pacific Partnernship Agreement, the fancy name for the current trade agreement in front of Congress, has been negotiated by the Obama administration and a group of countries for the past couple of years. Every president for some decades now has negotiated his version of such a pact and has been lobbied by this or that interest for some benefit on the behalf of some industry or group. Nothing unusual there. That there is some level of secrecy to negotiations is also not unusual. Continue reading The TPP: what everyone should know | Economics on Blog#42
Kalief Browder, a “desaparecido” in Jim Crow’s jails | #BlackLivesMatter on Blog#42
While I don’t think America’s cruel prison-industrial complex has gotten to the point where prisoners are mass-murdered and buried in mass graves, we have gotten to the point where we urgently need to be openly engaged in a conversation about how children and adults of both sexes, particularly African Americans, are whisked off the streets and “disappeared” into jails like Rikers for years at a time, without a trial, for no good reason, left to the whims of a system that is capricious in the way it metes out justice to those who don’t have the means to put up a legal defense. Continue reading Kalief Browder, a “desaparecido” in Jim Crow’s jails | #BlackLivesMatter on Blog#42