Over 50 years ago, the TV documentary Harvest of Shame brought a national spotlight on the town of Immokalee, Florida and the exploitation of migrant farm laborers across the U.S. In the years that followed, the work of Cesar Chávez and the United Farm Workers brought some incremental improvements, but agricultural laborers have still been “exempted” from most of the protections in the Fair Labor Standards Act.

In the past five years, the lives of Florida farmworkers and their families have taken a dramatic turn for the better, thanks to the Fair Food Program, an organizing strategy developed by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a group of Florida farmworkers who have been fighting for human rights in the tomato industry since 1993.

“Look, nuclear should be off the table. But would there be a time when it could be used? Possibly, possibly . . .”

This is — who else? — Donald Trump, flexing, you might say, his nuclear trigger finger in an interview with Chris Matthews, who responds in alarm:

“OK. The trouble is, when you said that, the whole world heard it. David Cameron in Britain heard it. The Japanese, where we bombed them in ’45, heard it. They’re hearing a guy running for president of the United States talking of maybe using nuclear weapons. Nobody wants to hear that about an American president.”

“Then why,” Trump shoots back in all his politically incorrect, rattle-the-establishment naïveté, “are we making them? Why do we make them?”

Uh . . .

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Free speech and pro-democracy activists, Thai
journalists and others are encrypting their telephone and message
conversations, shrinking their Facebook presence and finding other
ways to avoid the coup-installed military junta's Internet war against
political discussions, satire and demands for regime change.
   Two years after seizing power on May 22, 2014, the junta says it
must monitor and censor Internet to stop illegal online activity --
not just politics -- including thieves, counterfeiters, human
smugglers and black-marketeers dealing in weapons and drugs.
   National security and keeping peace in the streets are also
priorities for blocking online content, the junta says, pointing to
political clashes in Bangkok during 2010 and 2014 which left more than
120 people dead.
   China muzzles pro-democracy Internet activity with a so-called
Great Firewall, which is much more efficient than Thailand's blocks
against online news, opinions and other data.
   The U.S.-trained Thai military does not appear skilled enough to

From its opening words of dedication, Janet Phelan’s EXILE hooks the reader with her intuitive grasp of the work’s place in history as she warns those of us awake enough to question the American Dream:

“To the ones who came before, in gratitude And to the ones who will come after, so that you may know the magnitude.”

From this point on Phelan takes the reader on a terrifying early millennium roller-coaster ride through a series of bizarre, seemingly coordinated attacks in some five countries - a ride she barely manages to survive.

Went to our gloriously funky Columbus Symphony's Latin Fiesta (Homage To Tango) at the Southern Theatre, Saturday May 21, and man, was it muy tremendeso (please forgive my pidgen Argentinian language problems, I mean, they do speak Espanol down there, don't they or is it Portuguese; Doris, hon', google dat for me, wouldja, babe? Thanks so much!).

Back in my record store days, I never listened to tango all that much and when I did, I didn't listen to a lot of it. It was--if you can believe this--actually too moody for a guy like me. Which is nuts. Because even I know I'm musically at least one of the moodiest sonsabitches on the planet. Chuck Berry's got nothin' on me.