London's Melted Furnace--Britain in Flames

http://counterpunch.org/jacobs08122011.html

Empire of the Mind

Empire of the Mind

The G8 and Its Army Head to Chicago

http://counterpunch.org/jacobs07292011.html

Stopping the Train, Stopping the System

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/07/15/stopping-the-train-stopping-the-system/

Talking Politics, Books, Libraries, Budget Cuts and Counterpunch

http://archive.main-fm.org/systemic-20110626.mp3

Letting It Bleed

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/06/17/letting-it-bleed/

A Father's Day Baseball Memory

On May 1st, 1991, Nolan Ryan pitched his seventh career no-hitter and Rickey Henderson broke Lou Brock's record for stolen bases the same evening. I was ecstatic in a way only baseball makes me.

My son, then a towheaded seven year old who, to this day, is fascinated with statistics, whether they concern the height of mountains on Mars or the earned run average of the entire Red Sox pitching staff, asked me what the big deal was after listening to me extol the virtues of both feats that May Day. It was then that I decided to honor his month old request to buy a baseball glove. Then he could find out for himself. The next evening he, his mother (who lived across town and grew up in a Cape Cod household where the Red Sox were the only baseball team there was), and I, embarked on a mission. With twenty dollars he'd been given for his birthday, my son bought a fielder's mitt inscribed with Cal Ripken Jr.'s signature. The next day he played catch with his mom's male friend at the time (a Reds fan) and he began to understand. He told me on the telephone of all the catches he had made and how the ball hit his nose only once. Mom, he said, even played.

Sports in America, my angry young friends tell me, are just an extension of the corporate system of greed. How can you be interested in them, they ask. I don't know how to answer their charges directly, so instead, I ask if they've ever seen a magnificently executed catch. One where an outfielder pulls the ball from its sure path over the fence, slamming his body against the centerfield wall, falling to the ground from the shock of the impact, and rising triumphantly with the ball in his glove. Or, even better, I query, have you ever made a catch that seemed equally magnificent yourself? Of course, it's not really as spectacular to an onlooker, but to you it's like you're Willie Mays in the first game of the 1954 World Series. They look at me as if I am crazy. Of course, I am -- a little.

There is no magic left in the world, say their expressions. And if there is, it surely isn't in some stupid game.

A week later my son brought his glove and ball to my house on the other side of town. The day before I had purchased a well-worn mitt from Salvation Army just for such an occasion. After a couple of wild throws from his end of the yard, and one well aimed toss from mine (which he failed to catch, anyway), I tossed the ball gently towards his glove once again. The expression of doubt across his face changed to one of joy and surprise as his glove wrapped itself tightly around the ball.

It wasn't Willie Mays, but it could have been. At that moment, I knew the genuine power of the game. It wasn't on the TV, in the papers, or even in organized Little League. It was in a game of catch in the backyard.

Washington Chooses Its Battles

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/06/10/washington-chooses-its-battles/

Ron Jacobs: Ken Babbs Shoots Straight

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/06/06/ken-babbs-shoots-straight/

Ron Jacobs: Falsehoods on Freedom

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/05/27/falsehoods-on-freedom/

Ron Jacobs: These Tales of Constant Sorrow

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/05/20/these-tales-of-constant-sorrow/

Two New Books

http://issuu.com/coconspirator/docs/bookannouncement?viewMode=magazine

Ron Jacobs: Frozen Bank Accounts and Free Speech in the US

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/05/12/frozen-bank-accounts-and-free-speech-in-the-us/

CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Tripping Through the American Night Now Available in print

Previously only available as an ebook, my collection of essays and other musings titled Tripping Through the American Night is now available in print.  That's right--real paper and covers and everything.  You can order it here or at Amazon.com.  It will also be available soon at many other stores and through your local bookseller.  For the first couple of weeks, you can get it at a $4.00 discount if you order through the link that says "here" above.  Just type in the discount code NUJMWMG3 during checkout.

Ron Jacobs: Putting the Pentagon Out of Business

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/04/15/putting-the-pentagon-out-of-business/

Red-carding Capitalist Soccer

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/04/08/redcarding-capitalist-soccer/

Ron Jacobs: Getting Juiced with Ishmael Reed

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/04/01/getting-juiced-with-ishmael-reed/

The Co-Conspirator's Tale Now Available

http://www.fomitepress.com/FOMITE/Co-Conspirator.html

1979.  When Peter Somers fell in love with a girl named moonshadow on the Berkeley pier, little did he know that she was a member of a group of wannabe revolutionaries.  After an undercover cop is killed and another friend is falsely charged with the murder, the cell disappears.

2007.  Somers ends up back in Berkeley after receiving a letter describing the arrest of his friend on murder charges.  He joins forces with a lawyer and others in an attempt to clear his friend's name.  The authorities have something else in mind. 

There's a place where love and mistrust are never at peace; where duplicity and deceit are the universal currency. The Co-Conspirator's Tale takes place within this nebulous firmament. Crimes committed by the police in the name of justice. Excess in the name of revolution. The combination leaves death in its wake and the survivors struggling to find justice in a San Francisco Bay Area noir by the author of the underground classic The Way the Wind Blew:A History of the Weather Underground and the novel Short Order Frame Up.

There are no hero cops or private eyes in The Co-Conspirator's Tale, just a couple of folks who don't trust the world as it is to provide justice. The battlefields are the streets of the San Francisco Bay Area and the psyches of the accused, their accomplices and their accusers.

Ron Jacobs: Killing in the Name of Kindness

Ron Jacobs: Killing in the Name of Kindness