"Surfin' U.S.A."

For those of you who are newly-energized politically, and, impatient, frustrated and disgusted with the starvation rations of the commercial U.S. media, looking around for some really healthy fare, here are a very few online, radio and print suggestions, delivered in no particular order.

Of course each of these will also be useful beyond just the story of this week's events in New York. No more an 80 or 95-lb weakling, even with a little investment of your time, you'll find your friends will come to you for information or counsel (clearly much more enlightened than the competition, you'll also find yourself scoring better than ever in more intimate society; knowledge is sexy).

Democracy Now (national, daily, independent news program - Amy Goodman is terrific!)

Pacifica Radio (historic, self-sustaining educational radio network)

WBAI (even WNYC is useless or worse; go to this New York Pacifica outlook)

The Village Voice (really developing their website lately, but they're still available in print)

Indymedia (sort of problematic, since anyone can post just about anything they want, and there is no editing, but hard to ignore)

a-noise (fabulous, totally hot "participatory webstream," for news as it's happening delivered by the participants and other groovy sorts)

The Nation (weekly, printing since 1865, "will not be the organ of any party, sect, or body," now also online and with email updates)

Common Dreams (enormously wide-ranging progressive news wire)

Atrios/Eschaton (absolutely essential, smart, fecund political blog)

Daily Kos (ditto)

truthout (progressive site with text, audio and video reports of RNC week)

Happy surfing!

[image from Drexel University, Library News; sound from the Beach Boys]

We're home!

Since we only had a dial-up connection in the hotel room, I didn't try to post everything I wanted to while we were in Los Angeles. This item, and perhaps a few others to follow, will make up for some of this blog's relative "silence" of the past week.

We wanted to get out of the man-made environment for a day and get into the desert, so we left Wilshire Boulevard and drove northeast, eventually passing through the current greater-L.A. frontier around its fabled Victorville, soon after making a pit stop in the newly-created settlement of Summit Heights (where the mall was complete even if the tract homes were not). Beyond this new asphalt camp the (unpeopled) wilderness began. Going through open country baking in 105-degree heat (convertible top up, AC cranked), we turned back after Barstow, but well before approaching Needles, and drove back across the top of Edwards Air Force Base.

We had seen real and re-created ghost towns, but the two images below are descriptions of a special case, the community of Boron, which Barry called a "Sam Shepard town." We both thought it was pretty cool, if a bit of a commute from Manhattan. A special touch was provided by the excellent 80's rock coming from the white-painted repair garage with the "...troom" sign (the chamber indicated was of course the reason we had ended up there for this serendipity).

Historical note: The 20 Mule Team Rd. marker refers to the fact that this street was once the route, established in the 1880's, of the 20 mule teams which hauled borax from the borax Works in Death Valley and Amargosa to the railhead at Mojave (30 miles west of Boron).

Overheard outside the stall in the avant/cool men's room on the ground floor of the downtown L.A. Standard Hotel this evening: "Oh, he just left it there so his wife wouldn't find it," which was immediately followed by the addendum (from another voice), "Or his boyfriend!"