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Saturday, August 23, 2003 |
QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND
"Sacred cows make the best hamburger."
- - Abbie Hoffman
THIS WEEKEND IN HISTORY
August 23, 1968 -- The Yippies (Youth International Party), led by Abbie Hoffman & Jerry Rubin, sponsor a "Festival of Life" at the Democratic Convention & get national headlines by nominating Pigasus the Pig for President & threatening to spike the Chicago water supply with LSD. Classes are held in Lincoln Park on karate, snake dancing & other means of self-defense. Police litter the park, posting "11 p.m. curfew" signs in park trees. 10,000 unarmed Yippies are attacked by 23,000 armed soldiers, national guardsmen, & police..
August 24, 1967 -- Abbie & Jerry were at it a year earlier. They threw 300 one-dollar bills from balcony onto the floor of New York Stock Exchange, creating instant bedlam. Trading halts for only the 2nd time in history as brokers cheer, applaud, & scramble on the floor for 1's & 5's. Once the Yippies ran out of bills, they throw coins, but receive boos & catcalls.
WEB SITE OF THE WEEK: Powers of Ten
View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons. Very cool!
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/
BOOK PICK OF THE WEEK
Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time
Paul Rogat Loeb, St. Martin's Press, 1999, $15.95
Based on 30 years studying the psychology of social involvement, Paul Rogat Loeb describes how ordinary citizens can make their voices heard and their actions count in a time when we're often told neither matter. The book explores what leads some people to get involved in larger community issues while others feel overwhelmed or uncertain; what it takes to maintain commitment for the long haul; and how community involvement & citizen activism can give back a sense of connection & purpose.
http://www.soulofacitizen.org
RHINO HERE:
On Friday a federal judge tossed Fox News lawsuit against Al Franken refusing to stop sales of his new book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" referring to the likes of Bill O'Reilly, Fox and the rest of the usual lying suspects. The Judge said, "There are hard cases and there are easy cases. This is an easy case... wholly without merit." Satire (with lots of truth woven in) wins again.
Fox Loses Bid
Before Al Franken, National Lampoon or Spy magazine, before Doonesbury or Saturday Night Live, before Politically Incorrect or The Daily Show, there was The Realist. Today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is written by Realist founder & 60's cultural icon, Paul Krassner, in which he remembers (as well as a 60's icon can) the humble beginnings of the periodical he created in the Mad Magazine Building. Rhino recommends, "Slaughtering Cows and Popping Cherries" as a great weekend read. Published in the New York Press, next week Krassner debuts a biweekly column called, "Zen Bastard".
Slaughtering Cows and Popping Cherries
9:06:32 AM 
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Slaughtering Cows and Popping Cherries
by Paul Krassner, New York Press, 8/22/03
.. .I seemed to be following a pattern of participatory journalism. In 1962, when abortion was still illegal, I published an anonymous interview with Dr. Robert Spencer, a humane abortionist who was known as "The Saint." Patients came to his office in Ashland, PA, from around the country. He had been performing abortions for 40 years, started out charging $5, and never charged more than $100. Ashland was a small town, and Dr. Spencer's work was not merely tolerated-the community depended on it. The hotel, the restaurant, the dress shop all thrived on the extra business that came from his out-of-town patients. He built facilities at his clinic for Negro patients who weren't allowed to obtain overnight lodgings elsewhere in Ashland.
After the interview was published, I received phone calls from scared female voices-from teenagers to matrons. They were all in desperate search of a safe abortionist. Even a nurse couldn't find one. It was preposterous that they should have to seek out the editor of a satirical magazine, but their quest so far had been futile, and they simply didn't know where to turn. With Dr. Spencer's permission, I referred them to him. I had never intended to become an underground abortion referral service, but it wasn't going to stop just because in the next Realist there would be an interview with someone else.
A few years later, state police raided Dr. Spencer's clinic and arrested him. He remained out of jail only by the grace of political pressure from those he'd helped. He was finally forced to retire from his practice, but I continued mine, referring callers to other physicians he had recommended. Eventually, I was subpoenaed by district attorneys in two cities to appear before grand juries investigating criminal charges against abortionists. On both occasions, I refused to testify, and each time the D.A. tried to frighten me into cooperating with the threat of arrest....
READ IT ALL AT:
Slaughtering Cows
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6:54:55 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.
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