San Antonio Current - November 23, 2016

SACURRENT.COM

November 23-29, 2016

FREE

ARTIST TALK November 30, 2016 at 6 p.m.

101 Santa Rosa Ave. FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC MODERATOR: Veronique Le Melle, Executive Director of Artpace FEATURING: Ruth Buentello, Jenelle Esparza, Ana Fernandez, Tess Martinez Veronique Le Melle will lead a discussion with Latinas and women of color exhibited in the SATX/MX exhibit. Topics will include concerns regarding cultural and gender diversity in museums, galleries and cultural institutions and transparency of decision making within these institutions.

SATX/MX exhibit is currently on display through January 2017.

For more information, visit GetCreativeSanAntonio.com. #GetCreativeSA

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Exhibit Opening Reception: December 8, 2016 6-9 p.m.

101 Santa Rosa Ave. FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC This exhibit of photographs, paintings, historic cook books, and other two-dimensional artworks, explores San Antonio’s long tradition of Mexican, Mexican-American and Tex-Mex food culture, and celebrates the people - restaurateurs, patrons, and cooks – who continue this tradition in their homes, kitchens and restaurants.

Exhibit runs through February 17, 2017

A RT I ST S

Rolando Briseño David Casillas Jimena Marin Destiny Mata Arlene Mejorado Mark Menjivar Chuck Ramirez Featuring historic cook books from the UTSA Libraries Special Collections For more information, visit GetCreativeSanAntonio.com #GetCreativeSA

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CULTURE

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FIRST WORDS

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• Send your thoughts, comments, kudos or tips to letters@sacurrent.com

Manhunt underway for suspect who executed SAPD officer in broad daylight near police headquarters: “This is awful surely as thankful citizens there is something we can do to better protect the brave women and men who serve us.”

– Michael Stevens

IN THIS

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ISSUE Issue 16_47 /// November 23-29, 2016

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“An awful tragedy, but when a state works as hard for the proliferation of guns in a society as has Texas the innocent will pay the price.” – Les Stevens

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NEWS

Neighborhood Watch Man chases down, corners and points assault rifle at teens who tried to turn around in his driveway

ICE bans lawyers from bringing crayons into South Texas lockup for asylum-seeking women and children: “Somebody needs to tell them about WD-40. Cleans crayon marks like it’s nothing.”

– Lisa Acton Lindemann

Project Censored The top 10 censored stories of 2016

Hard Time Study claims Texas prison system routinely ignores sexual assault and rape behind bars

White students keep using Trump chants to goad rival Hispanic teams: “This is a direct reflection on how their parents raised them.”

– Loyd Hawkins

FEATURE

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CALENDAR

Our top picks for the week

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High Hopes Texas could finally blunt its harsh marijuana laws next session.

Proposed bill could make teachers out their LGBTQ students: “As a teacher, I am terrified of this.

It makes no sense and would sometimes put students in danger, not to mention undercut the safe space school provides to so many kids.” – Chuck Kremer

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“Not my job as a teacher! Protect privacy as long as it doesn’t endanger the child.” – Rachael Palow Guillen

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ARTS + CULTURE

Be the Media St. Sucia is disrupting how Latinas are seen in pop culture

SCREENS

Swing and a Miss Bleed For This a painfully simple, average boxing flick

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FOOD

Building (Grilled Cheese) Bridges Or one way to survive awkward holiday run-ins with the family Food Court Fire at Phantom, and where to feed your baklava obsession

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ON THE

COVER The stories the mainstream media largely missed this year run gamut but hint at some larger, unifying themes – economic inequality, global warming, petro-politics, suppression of health science, government spying, and corporate influence of government, to name some. In this week’s issue, we bring you Project Censored’s annual rundown of the year’s top 10 censored stories.

Art direction by Sarah Flood-Baumann 10

CURRENT • November 23-29, 2016 • sacurrent.com

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NIGHTLIFE

MUSIC

Music Calendar What to see and hear this week

Boozy Desserts 3 beer milkshakes we’re into for the holiday

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Telling Tales is organized by the McNay Art Museum. The Elizabeth Huth Coates Exhibition Endowment and the Arthur and Jane Stieren Fund for Exhibitions are lead sponsors. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Director’s Circle is providing additional support.

Julie Blackmon, Time Out, 2005. Archival pigment print.Courtesy of the artist and Robert Mann Gallery, New York City. © Julie Blackmon

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CURRENT • November 23-29, 2016 • sacurrent.com

Through January 15 Tina Barney Julie Blackmon Gregory Crewdson Philip-Lorca diCorcia Mitch Epstein Anna Gaskell Nan Goldin Paul Graham Jessica Todd Harper Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler Justine Kurland Lori Nix Erwin Olaf Alex Prager Alec Soth Jeff Wall Visit mcnayart.org for more information.

NEWS

NEIGHBORHOOD

WATCH

Man chases down, corners and points assault rifle at teens who tried to turn around in his driveway MICHAEL BARAJAS | @MICHAELSBARAJAS

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Coty McDonnell took housesitting for his neighbor very seriously. So much so that at around midnight on October 23, he was standing watch when a silver Volkswagen Jetta pulled up to the house and he saw a couple of teenagers exit the car. McDonnell’s immediate response, according to Converse Police Department records, was to run to the garage and grab his AR-15 assault rifle, locked and loaded with a 30-round magazine.

One of the kids muttered “oh shit” when he saw McDonnell, got back inside the car, and they took off down the block. The teens would later tell police they saw McDonnell standing near a tree on the property, his rifle trained on the car.

McDonnell put his gun in his truck and chased after the teenagers, who say they were just looking for a party in the neighborhood and were stopping, switching drivers and turning around when McDonnell spotted them. One of McDonnell’s neighbors was evidently also on watch that night.

According to a police report, the neighbor jumped into his car and sped around the block to try to cut the kids off. McDonnell and his neighbor, according to police records, managed to pin the teenagers in at the end of the block. The driver of the Volkswagen told police that McDonnell then got out of his car, pointed his assault rifle at them, and asked why they were “acting a fool on his street.”

They thought McDonnell was going to kill them if police didn’t show up soon.

McDonnell, according to police records, maintains he had his rifle pointed at the teenagers “to make sure nothing went crazy until the police arrived.”

Police who arrived to calm the situation found a small amount of pot on the teenagers, some of whom were charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia, issued citations, and then

released. McDonnell, however, was arrested on a deadly conduct charge for chasing down and pulling a gun on a group of teenagers who were unlucky enough to have gotten lost in his neighborhood while he was on watch.

It’s a charge McDonnell appears determined to fight. While his attorney, Daniel De La Garza, wouldn’t return our calls and emails for comment, he told the Express-News last week that the charge should be dismissed, and that McDonnell was just trying to protect his property as allowed

by Texas law.

The incident happens in a state that has in many ways pushed the envelope when it comes to using deadly force to protect person and property – a state where taco truck owners can shoot people who try to steal a $20 tip jar, where a store clerk is deemed justified in killing someone who tried to swipe a twelve-pack of beer.

Look no further than Bexar County to see how Texas’ self- and property-defense laws have been pushed to the limit. It was just 2013 that a Bexar County jury acquitted Ezekiel Gilbert of murder in the death of 23-year-old Lenora Ivy Frago, a sex worker who met Gilbert, took his $150, for undetermined reasons decided she didn’t want to have sex with him, and was then shot in the neck when she tried to leave with his money. Gilbert’s defense strategy was rooted in a law that’s apparently pretty unique to Texas: citizens can use deadly force to prevent someone “who is fleeing immediately after committing burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or theft during the nighttime from escaping with the property.”

It’s unclear if McDonnell’s lawyer will pursue some version of that defense – that maybe he thought the teenagers had stolen something and he was just trying to keep the burglars from fleeing.

The neighbor for whom he was housesitting, Doug Stearns, justified McDonnell’s actions by telling the daily that their subdivision has not only seen a rash of burglaries, but that a local elementary school was even vandalized recently. Stearns called the charge against McDonnell “ridiculous” and told the paper, “If someone is coming toward your house in the middle of the night, are you going to stop and ask them if they’re 18?”

Converse assistant police chief Rex Rheiner, when contacted by the Current last week, didn’t say anything about a burglary problem in the neighborhood. But Stearns’ concern about neighborhood vandalism apparently isn’t unfounded: On Halloween, Judson ISD police arrested two ninth-grade boys and one eighthgrade girl for breaking into a nearby elementary school and covering some classrooms in spray paint, watercolors, honey and flour.

De Le Garza, McDonnell’s attorney, told the E-N that the charges against his client make him “reluctant to protect my property” and says he wants prosecutors to dismiss the case and give McDonnell back his gun. (McDonnell was charged with another charge of false imprisonment that has already been dropped, according to available court records.)

Rheiner, meanwhile, dismisses any claims of selfor property-defense in this case. “When you go after somebody with a gun, you’re putting yourself out the window on that one,” he said. “You have the chance to flee from harm and you’re basically creating a potentially deadly incident instead.”

Rheiner says he has “great respect for the Second Amendment,” but added, “when you go out there pointing guns at people, even if you have the right to carry under the Second Amendment, you don’t have the right to break the law.”

sacurrent.com • November 23-29, 2016 • CURRENT 13

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NEWS

HARD TIME Study claims Texas prison system routinely ignores sexual assault and rape behind bars ALEX ZIELINSKI

≥

None of the sexual assault and rape cases reported by inmates in Texas prisons have been appropriately followed up on, according to a new survey of Texas prisoners. Instead, the vast majority of inmates who have reported abuse have been retaliated against for filing a complaint in the first place.

These findings, published last week by the Prison Justice League and the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, are only further evidence that the state’s prison system is riddled with unchecked, rampant sexual abuse.

“It’s not surprising at all,” said Chris Kaiser, director of public policy at TAASA. “We’ve known this has been going on behind bars for years, but this report helps quantify it.” Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials haven’t yet issued a response to the report.

The report combined anonymous surveys from prisoners who have reported abuse, anecdotal evidence from thousands of inmate letters and data from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics to get a comprehensive look at the longignored problem. The majority of reported assaults came from the Estelle Unit, a prison ten miles from Huntsville.

Nearly 60 percent of inmates surveyed had reported that their sexual abuser was a prison staff member. In 2014 alone, 766 allegations of staff-on-inmate sexual abuse incidents were reported to TDCJ. At 9.4 percent, the rate of staff-on-inmate sexual assault in some of Texas’ prisons is one of the highest in the nation — far surpassing the national average of 2.4 percent.

Some 41 percent of abused inmates identified as LGBTQ, and all believed they were targeted because of it. One inmate, who reported that he’d been raped in the shower by another prisoner, says he was informed by a prison sergeant: “[I] only got what [I] asked for—being gay—and that the other inmate should’ve kicked my ass.”

He was then told to stop causing trouble.

“In society, we take reports of sexual assault seriously,” said Kaiser. “But when we start talking about it behind bars, it becomes a punchline.”

Kaiser said that just like sexual abuse victims in regular society, a large percentage of sexual abuse and rape go unreported behind bars. Being punished (many victims are sent to solitary confinement) or further abused for reporting the incidents only adds to prisoner’s silence.

The report urges TDCJ to follow federal standards that mandate protections for victims of rape and sexual assault behind bars — and start filing grievances against predatory or neglectful staff members. “[Prisoners] are already a marginalized and misunderstood population of society,” he said. “And we just throw them to the wolves.”

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CURRENT • November 23-29, 2016 • sacurrent.com

HIGH HOPES

Texas could finally blunt its harsh marijuana laws next session

≥

Believe it or not, 2015 was actually kind of a banner year for marijuana reform at the Texas Legislature. A bill seeking to lower criminal penalties for anyone caught with a small amount of pot made it farther and gained more support than it ever had in past sessions. Texas lawmakers passed the state’s first ever medical marijuana law, which approved some cannabis-derived compounds for a certain, narrow set of patients.

Still, as lawmakers head into the 85th legislature in January, Texas continues to have some of the harshest marijuana laws of any state. And the medical marijuana bill that passed last session was more symbolic than anything; the way it was worded basically made it illegal for doctors to approve patients for treatment, rendering the bill practically useless.

Marijuana reformers and activists say they’re confident they’ll manage to get a lot more done in the next session. Heather Fazio, Texas political director with the Marijuana Policy Project, points not just to the gains made in 2015. She says there’s also sign the state has grown increasingly supportive of reform just since the past session. “More lawmakers are finally asking, ‘Wait, why are we wasting police and prosecutors’ resources on people caught with nothing more than a joint?’” Fazio says. “They’re asking why patients are fleeing the state for places where they can get the treatment they need.”

This is in part, Fazio says, because more and more lawmakers in this traditionally conservative, anti-drug, tough-on-crime state have decided to veer “right on crime.” Warehousing low-level, non-violent offenders in jails not only seems inhumane, but it’s not exactly the fiscally conservative thing to do. “A lot of this progress is because more conservatives are open to this dialogue, and this dialogue is helping us move in the right direction,” Fazio says.

But in recent years, it’s also become increasingly clear that some of the state’s top law enforcement officials want change when it comes to pot. Police chiefs in some of the state’s largest cities have called the drug war an abject failure. In 2011, Texas prosecutors dismissed 23 percent of misdemeanor marijuana cases. By 2015, according to the Austin American-Statesman, about a third of all such cases were being dismissed. Bexar County now dismisses about 38 percent of misdemeanor marijuana cases.

Travis County dismisses half of them.

Still, lawmakers head back into session after yet another decision by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to list cannabis alongside the world’s deadliest drugs, like heroin, perpetuating the patchwork system of pot laws across the country we

MICHAEL BARAJAS | @MICHAELSBARAJAS

have now. Marijuana has now been legalized to some degree in well over half of states. Yet in some parts of the country, like Texas, a pot possession charge can derail your life and lead to significant jail time.

Some cops in Texas might even stick their hands inside you on the side of the road if they think they smell something skunky during a traffic stop.

Fazio expects that even with growing support from conservative lawmakers and law enforcement, she’ll have to battle a lot of misinformation. She recalled a forum she was invited to attend at a North Texas Republicans group last year where a county sheriff explained to attendees how they could die from overdosing on marijuana edibles. “I had to calmly explain that, no, your heart won’t stop, no you won’t die, but yes you should always be careful with dosing,” Fazio says. “It really was reefer madness.”

Fazio says her group’s goals for the upcoming session include fixing and expanding the state’s medical marijuana law. As it stands, only people with uncontrollable seizures and rare forms of epilepsy are allowed to use certain marijuana extracts. The law also required doctors “prescribe” marijuana to patients, which no doctors will do because they could lose their DEA license and possibly face other legal consequences; other states simply require doctors to “recommend” or “certify patients for treatment.” Fazio wants to expand the kind of patients who can be treated under the law, like people suffering from PTSD and maybe even opioid addiction, and the kind of cannabis that can be used to treat them.

They’re also backing a bill state Rep. Jason Moody of El Paso filed this week that would remove the current criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana and replace them with a civil citation and a fine. Under that law, possession of one ounce or less of marijuana would only carry a fine of $250. Currently, possession of two ounces or less is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a $2,000 fine and 180 days in jail.

“This bill is about good government and efficient use of resources,” Moody said in a statement.

“Arrests and criminal prosecutions of low-level marijuana cases distract law enforcement and prosecutors, leaving fewer resources for violent crime.”

Fazio added: “No one deserves to have their lives derailed due to a criminal conviction for possessing a substance that is safer than alcohol.”

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Top Ten Censore

FEATURE

Throughout its 40-year history, Project Censored has covered a lot of ground that the corporate mainstream media has missed. Begun by Carl Jensen, a sociology professor at California’s Sonoma State University shortly after Watergate in 1976, it’s become an institution involving dozens of faculty members and institutions working together to come up with an annual list of the Top 25 Censored Stories of the Year.

The Watergate burglary in June 1972 “sparked one of the biggest political cover-ups in modern history,” Jensen later recalled. “And the press was an unwitting, if willing participant in the coverup.”

“Watergate taught us two important lessons about the press: First, the news media sometimes do fail to cover some important issues, and second, the news media sometimes indulge in self-censorship,” he said.

On the upside, it lead to the creation of Project Censored.

As with the Watergate story, these aren’t censored in the overt heavy-handed manner of an authoritarian dictatorship, but in the often more effective manner reflecting our society an oligarchy with highly centralized economic power pretending to be a “free marketplace of ideas.”

It may give people what they think they want in the moment, but it leaves them hungry for more, if not downright malnourished in the long run. The missing stories concern vital subjects central to the healthy functioning of our democracy. The problem is, we may not even realize what we’re missing, which is precisely why Project Censored is essential.

Another way to think about it is as censorship of what the people as a whole can hear, rather than what any one individual can say. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes it very clear: freedom of opinion and expression includes the right “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

This year, 221 students and 33 faculty members from 18 college and university campuses across the United States and Canada were involved. A panel of 28 judges comprised of media studies professors, professional journalists, and even a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, also participated.

Project Censored has always dealt with specific stories, but on anniversaries like this one, the larger patterns those stories fit within are impossible ignore. Economic inequality, global warming, petro-politics, suppression of health science, government spying, corporate influence of government – these are all familiar themes that appear again on this year’s list. But a bit more ought to be said by way of introduction to this year’s top censored story, before starting the list proper.

Jensen began the preface to Project Censored’s 20th anniversary edition with the story of how John F. Kennedy killed a detailed New York Times story blowing the whistle on the planned invasion of Cuba. A shrunken, muted

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CURRENT • November 23-29, 2016 • sacurrent.com

GETMILITARYPHOTOS VIA SHUTTERSTOCK

▶

BY PAUL ROSENBERG, SENIOR EDITOR WITH TERELLE JERRICKS, MANAGING EDITOR AT RLN

version ran in its place. Afterwards, Kennedy told a Times editor, “If you had printed more about the operation, you could have saved us from a colossal mistake.” This years’ No.1 censored story is a direct descendent of the story JFK wished he hadn’t managed to kill.

01

U.S. Military Forces Deployed in 70 Percent of World’s Nations

The covert exercise of U.S. military power is a recurrent subject of Project Censored stories. This year’s top censored story joins that long tradition. It deals with the massive expansion in the number of countries where the officially unnamed war on terror is now being waged by U.S. Special Operations Forces—147 of the world’s 195 recognized nations, an 80 percent increase since 2010.

This includes a dramatic expansion in Africa.

The majority of the activity is in “training missions,” meaning that this expansion is promoting a coordinated worldwide intensification of conflict, unseen at home, but felt all around the globe. Writing for TomDispatch, the Nation and the Intercept, Nick Turse exposed different aspects of this story and its implications.

Turse’s story for the Intercept focused on the development of a single base, Chabelley Airfield, in the East African nation of Djibouti. It’s an “out-of-the-way outpost” transformed into “a key hub for its secret war…in

Africa and the Middle East.”

In the Nation, Turse tackled the question of mission success. Project Censored noted that, “Turse [had] reported skepticism from a number of experts in response to this question, pointing out that 'impacts are not the same as successes.'”

In Vietnam, body counts were mistaken for signs of success.

“Today, tallying up the number of countries in which Special Operations forces are present repeats this error,” Vietnam veteran and author Andrew Bacevich told Turse.

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Crisis in Evidence-Based Medicine

The role of science in improving human health has been one of humanity’s greatest achievements, but the profitoriented influence of the pharmaceutical industry has created a crisis situation. That research simply cannot be trusted. Burying truth for profit is a recurrent theme for Project Censored. The top 1981 story concerned fraudulent testing from a single lab responsible for onethird of the toxicity and cancer testing of chemicals in America. But this problem is much more profound.

“Something has gone fundamentally wrong” said Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, commenting on a UK symposium on the reproducibility and reliability of biomedical research:

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"[M]uch of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness. . . The apparent endemicity of bad research behaviour is alarming."

Horton’s conclusion echoed Marcia Angell, a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, who went public in 2009.

A classic case was Study 329 in 2001, which reported that paroxetine (Paxil in the United States/Seroxat in the United Kingdom) was safe and effective for treating depressed children and adolescents, leading doctors to prescribe Paxil to more than 2 million U.S. children and adolescents by the end of 2002, before being called into question. The company responsible (now GlaxoSmithKline), agreed to pay $3 billion in 2012, the “largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Nonetheless, the study has not been retracted or corrected, and “none of the authors have been disciplined,” Project Censored points out. This, despite a major reanalysis which “‘starkly’ contradicted the original report’s claims.” The reanalysis was seen as the first major success of a new open data initiative known as Restoring Invisible and Abandoned Trials.

While Project Censored noted one Washington Post story on the reanalysis, there was only passing mention of the open data movement. “Otherwise, the corporate press ignored the reassessment of the paroxetine study,” and

beyond that, “Richard Horton’s Lancet editorial received no coverage in the U.S. corporate press.”

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carbon dioxide. Trichodesmium remained ‘stuck in the fast lane,’” Project Censored noted, a finding that one researcher described as “unprecedented in evolutionary biology.”

Rising Carbon Dioxide Levels Threaten to Permanently Disrupt Vital Ocean Bacteria

Global warming is a recurrent Project Censored subject. Systemic changes associated with global warming threaten human welfare and all life on earth through a multitude of different pathways. These remain largely hidden from public view. One potential pathway — directly dependent on carbon, not temperature — is through the catastrophic overproduction of Trichodesmium bacteria, which could devastate the entire marine food chain in some regions. It lives in nutrient-poor parts of the ocean, where it fixes atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium, an essential nutrient for other organisms—from algae to whales.

A five-year study by researchers at the University of Southern California and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that subjecting hundreds of generations of the bacteria to predicted CO2 levels in the year 2100 caused them to evolve into “reproductive overdrive,” growing faster and producing 50 percent more nitrogen.

As a result, they could consume significant quantities of scarce nutrients, such as iron and phosphorus, depriving the ability of other organisms to survive. Or the Trichodesmium bacteria could drive themselves into extinction, depriving other organisms of the ammonium they need to survive.

“Most significantly, the researchers found that even when the bacteria was returned to lower, present-day levels of

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Search Engine Algorithms and Electronic Voting Machines

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Social media has played an important role in recent social movements, from the Arab Spring to Black Lives Matter, but technology can potentially undermine democracy as well as empower it.

In particular, search engine algorithms and electronic voting machines provide opportunities for manipulation of voters and votes.

Mark Frary, in Index on Censorship, describes the latest research by Robert Epstein and Ronald E. Robertson of the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology on what they call the Search Engine Manipulation Effect, or SEME. Their study of more than 4,500 undecided voters in the United States and India showed that biased search rankings “could shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20 percent or more” and “could be masked so that people show no awareness of the manipulation.”

In an earlier article for Politico, Epstein wrote that the Search Engine Manipulation Effect “turns out to be one of the largest behavioral effects ever discovered . . . [W]e believe SEME is a serious threat to the democratic system of government.”

Because courts have ruled that their source code is proprietary, private companies that own electronic voting machines are essentially immune to transparent public oversight, as Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis documented.

In 2016, about 80 percent of the U.S. electorate voted using outdated electronic voting machines that rely on proprietary software from private corporations, according to a September 2015 study by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. The study identified “increased failures and crashes, which can lead to long lines and lost votes” as the “biggest risk” of outdated voting equipment, while noting that older machines also have “serious security and reliability flaws that are unacceptable today.”

“From a security perspective, old software is riskier, because new methods of attack are constantly being developed, and older software is likely to be vulnerable,” Jeremy Epstein of the National Science Foundation noted.

On Democracy Now! and elsewhere, Wasserman and Fitrakis have advocated universal, hand-counted paper ballots and automatic voter registration as part of their “Ohio Plan” to restore electoral integrity.

While there has been some corporate media coverage sacurrent.com • November 23-29, 2016 • CURRENT 19

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of Epstein and Robertson’s research, the transparency and reliability advantages of returning to paper ballots remain virtually unexplored and undiscussed.

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Corporate Exploitation of Global Refugee Crisis Masked as Humanitarianism

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More than 1.5 Million American Families Live on $2 Per Person Per Day

Even the working poor receive scant attention, but those living in deep poverty — less than $2 per day — are almost entirely absent.

Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer, sociologists and authors of the book $2.00/a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America state that in 2011 more than 1.5 million U.S. families—including 3 million children—lived in deep poverty at any given month.

Their depiction of what poverty looks like reads “like a Dickens novel,” Marcus Harrison Green wrote in YES! Magazine, Magazine Project Censored noted, while in the Atlantic, economist Jared Bernstein noted that their research highlights the problematic long-term consequences of President Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform initiative, with its “insistence on work without regard to job availability.”

Project Censored notes that Edin and Shaefer proposed three policy changes to address extreme poverty in the United States: First, policy must start by ‘expanding work opportunities for those at the very bottom of society.

Second, policy must address housing instability, which Shaefer described as both a cause and a consequence of extreme poverty. “Parents should be able to raise their children in a place of their own.”

Third, families must be insured against extreme poverty, even when parents are not able to work.

William Julius Wilson, a leading sociologist in the study

of poverty, described their book as “an essential call to action,” in a New York Times book review, but this was a rare recognition in the corporate press.

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No End in Sight for Fukushima Disaster

Five years after the Fukushima nuclear power plant was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, the nuclear disaster continues to unfold, with the ongoing release of large quantities of radioactive waste water into the Pacific Ocean, in turn affecting ocean life through “biological magnification.”

Meanwhile the Japanese government has relaxed radiation limits in support of its efforts to return the refugee population — a move that younger people, prime working-age taxpayers, are resisting.

Project Censored cites a media analysis by sociologist Celine-Marie Pascale of American University. Pascale covering more than 2,100 articles, editorials, and letters to the editor on Fukushima in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Politico, and the Huffi ngton Post between March 11, 2011 and March 11, 2013, focused on two basic questions: "Risk for whom?” and “from what?"

She found that just 6 percent of articles reported on risk to the general public, and most of those “significantly discounted those risks.” She concluded: "The largest and longest lasting nuclear disaster of our time was routinely and consistently reported as being of little consequence to people, food supplies, or environments…. In short, the media coverage was premised on misinformation, the minimization of public health risks, and the exacerbation of uncertainties."

In contrast, Dahr Jamail’s reporting for Truthout pointed out that the cooling process—still ongoing after five years— has produced “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of tons” of highly radioactive water, much of which has been released into the Pacific Ocean. Such nuclear disasters “never end,” Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president told Jamail.

Project Censored also cited Linda Pentz Gunter, writing for the Ecologist about the Japanese government’s ongoing coverup.

“In order to proclaim the Fukushima area ‘safe,’ the government increased exposure limits to 20 times the international norm,” Gunter wrote, in order to force refugees to return home, despite medical or scientific evidence to the contrary.

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Syria’s War Spurred by Contest for Gas Delivery to Europe, Not Muslim Sectarianism

The Syrian war and its resulting refugee crisis have repeatedly gained headlines over the past five years, but

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The world is experiencing a global refugee crisis (60 million worldwide according to a June 2015 report, 11.5 million of them Syrian). This has been covered in the corporate media — though not nearly enough to generate an appropriate response. What hasn’t been covered is the increasingly well-organized exploitation of refugees, particularly those displaced in Syria.

An AlterNet article by Sarah Lazare—cited by Project Censored—warned of the World Bank’s private enterprise solution to the Syrian displacement crisis.

“Under the guise of humanitarian aid, the World Bank is enticing Western companies to launch ‘new investments’ in Jordan in order to profit from the labor of stranded Syrian refugees," Lazare wrote. In a country where migrant workers have faced forced servitude, torture and wage theft, there is reason to be concerned that this capitalintensive ‘solution’ to the mounting crisis of displacement will establish sweatshops that specifically target war refugees for hyper-exploitation.”

A World Bank press release touted “the creation of special economic zones or SEZs,” but Project Censored noted, “Myriam Francois, a journalist and research associate at SOAS, The School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, told Lazare that the development of SEZs in Jordan ‘will change refugee

camps from emergency and temporary responses to a crisis, to much more permanent settlements.’”

The SEZ proposals, Francois said, are “less about Syrian needs and more about keeping Syrian refugees out of Europe by creating (barely) sustainable conditions within the camps, which would then make claims to asylum much harder to recognize.’”

Another story, by Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report described a related agreement between Turkey and the European Union to keep millions of refugees from entering Europe as “a deal between devils,” adding that Turkey has “cashed in on the people it has helped make homeless.”

In addition to the $3.3 billion in EU money, Project Censored noted: Turkey has also sought admission to the European Union, and, with this, the right for 75 million Turks to enter Europe without visa restrictions as a condition for controlling its refugee population.

Thus, according to Ford, Turkey has engaged in a “vast protections racket trap,” effectively agreeing to protect Europe from further incursions by “the formerly colonized peoples whose labor and lands have fattened Europe and its white settler states for half a millennium.”

“Europeans will never accept Turkey into the fold, because it is Muslim and not-quite-white,” Ford concluded.

sacurrent.com •

November 23-29, 2016 • CURRENT

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Censored Stories 2 FEATURE

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“including policy on patents and trademarks, management of Medicare and Medicaid, and international trade.”

The last item includes pressuring other countries to suppress the manufacture of life-saving generic AIDs drugs in India, to cite just one example.

“Pharmaceutical lobbyists also consistently lobby to prevent Medicare from negotiating drug prices,” Project Censored also noted. Coverage of their spending is scant, and virtually never tied directly to the issues that Big Pharma itself is lobbying on.

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the origins of the conflict, control of oil and gas, are rarely considered — the politics of which have dominated the region since before World War II. The hidden influence of oil — from climate change to campaign finance and corporate lobbying to foreign policy — has been a recurrent subject of Project Censored stories.

Project Censored cites a single September 2015 story

by Mnar Muhawesh for MintPress News, but that story cites others as well, notably an August 2013 story in the Guardian by Nafeez Ahmed.

“The 2011 uprisings, it would seem triggered by a confluence of domestic energy shortages and climateinduced droughts which led to massive food price hikes came at an opportune moment that was quickly exploited,” Ahmed wrote, as part of a broader strategy to undermine governments in the region, as well as manipulating social movements and armed factions for the purpose of maintaining control of oil and gas.

Muhawesh and Ahmed both point, in particular, to Assad’s choice between competing pipeline proposals.

He refused to sign a proposed agreement for a pipeline from Qatar’s North field through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey in 2009, because it would have hurt his ally, Russia.

“The proposed pipeline would have bypassed Russia to reach European markets currently dominated by Russian gas giant Gazprom,” Project Censored notes. Instead, Assad pursued negotiations — finalized in 2012 — for a pipeline through Iraq from Iran’s South Pars field, which is contiguous with Qatar’s North field.

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Muhawesh cites U.S. cables revealed by WikiLeaks as evidence that “foreign meddling in Syria began several years before the Syrian revolt erupted.”

Ahmed came to the same conclusions by drawing on multiple sources, including a RAND corporation document, “Unfolding the Future of the Long War,” which discussed long-term policy options (trajectories) dealing with the complex interplay of energy interests and ethno-religious-political manipulations.

There’s a whole deeper level of driving forces not being reported on behind the Syrian war and refugee crisis.

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Big Pharma Political Lobbying Not Limited to Presidential Campaigns

The pharmaceutical industry (aka “Big Pharma”) already appeared in story No. 2, “Crisis in Evidence-Based Medicine,” due to the destructive influence of its financing on the practice of basic science in testing and developing new drugs. But that’s not the only destructive impact of their spending.

Although they spent $51 million in campaign donations in the 2012 presidential election, and nearly $32 million in the 2014 midterms, Mike Ludwig of Truthout reported they spent $7 lobbying for every dollar spent on the midterms.

“The $229 million spent by drug companies and their lobbying groups that year was down from a peak of $273 million in 2009, the year that Congress debated the Affordable Care Act,” Project Censored noted. Legislation influenced involved all the industry’s top concerns,

CISA: The Internet Surveillance Act No One is Discussing

In July 2015, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell attempted to attach the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA, as an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act. However, the Senate blocked this by a vote of 56-40, in part because, unlike an earlier version, it essentially enabled intelligence and law enforcement officials to engage in surveillance without warrants.

Yet, on December 18, 2015, President Barack Obama signed CISA into law as part of a 2,000-page omnibus spending bill, amid media silence — with notable exceptions at Wired and the Guardian. The act authorized the creation of a system for corporate informants to provide customers’ data to the Department of Homeland Security, which, in turn, would share this information with other federal agencies—the National Security Agency, FBI, Internal Revenue Service and others — without privacyprotecting safeguards.

In one sense it followed a familiar — if distressing — pattern, as the the Guardian reported, civil liberties experts had been “dismayed” when Congress used the omnibus spending bill to advance some of the legislation’s “most invasive” components, making a mockery of the democratic process. But this one was different, since censored stories usually do not stifle powerful voices, as Project Censored observed: [Andy] Greenberg’s Wired article noted that tech firms—including Apple, Twitter, and Reddit—as well as 55 civil liberties groups had opposed the bill, and that, in July 2015, DHS itself warned that the bill would “sweep away privacy protections” while inundating the agency with data of “dubious” value.

In April 2016, Jason R. Edgecombe reported for TechCrunch on the glaring inadequacies of interim guidelines to deal with privacy and civil liberties concerns, while the corporate media silence continued. And in May, Violet Blue wrote for Engadget about candidates’ positions on cyber issues. Only Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul opposed CISA, but it never became the subject of any broader media discussion. © 2016 Random Lengths News, California

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倀爀攀瀀愀爀攀 昀漀爀 攀洀瀀氀漀礀洀攀渀琀 椀渀 琀栀攀 眀愀琀攀爀 琀爀攀愀琀洀攀渀琀 椀渀搀甀猀琀爀礀℀

䰀攀愀爀渀 琀漀 洀漀渀椀琀漀爀Ⰰ 琀爀漀甀戀氀攀猀栀漀漀琀Ⰰ 愀渀搀 挀栀攀洀椀挀愀氀氀礀 挀氀攀愀渀 攀焀甀椀瀀洀攀渀琀 攀猀猀攀渀琀椀愀氀 昀漀爀 琀栀攀 琀爀攀愀琀洀攀渀琀 漀昀 眀愀琀攀爀⼀眀愀猀琀攀眀愀琀攀爀⸀ 䜀攀琀 琀栀攀 琀攀挀栀渀椀挀愀氀 愀渀搀 猀挀椀攀渀琀椀昀椀挀 欀渀漀眀氀攀搀最攀 琀漀 漀戀琀愀椀渀 氀椀挀攀渀猀甀爀攀 椀渀 琀栀椀猀 昀椀攀氀搀⸀

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COURTESY OF KOOL KEITH

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◀ Keith Thornton, best known by his stage name Kool Keith, is an old-school cat (dude is 53) who’s been new-school since before it was a thing. Active since the early 1990s, the prolific and relentlessly creative rapper/producer has made a strange and fruitful career out of challenging the norms of hip-hop, playing characters (Dr. Octagon and Black Elvis among them) and routinely freaking people out. His lyrical style in particular has proven widely influential, incorporating dense thickets of internal rhyme à la stylistic successors like Eminem and Earl Sweatshirt. Marked by surreal turns, explicit themes and violent fantasies, his contributions are often counted among the building blocks of the hip-hop sub-genre horrorcore. With two albums already out this year, there’s seemingly no end to fresh Kool Keith material to be explored ahead of his show at Paper Tiger. $12, 8pm, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersa.com. — James Courtney

CALENDAR OUR TOP PICKS FOR THE WEEK

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Las Nuevas Tamaleras

◀ The book Tamales, Comadres and the Meaning of Civilization reminds us that tamales have served as “one of the keys to the survival of humans for the last 7,000 years in the Americas.” Deceptively simple in appearance, these holiday staples can prove quite challenging to make, which is the premise behind Alicia Mena’s Las Nuevas Tamaleras.

Since its 1993 debut, the production has emerged as a favorite fans consider “as much a tradition with the San Antonio community as The Nutcracker.” Touching on the hard work, bonding and mishaps intrinsic to yuletide tamaladas, Mena’s one-act comedy stars Patricia Zamora, Sonia M. Rodriguez and Kristina Keller as first-time tamaleras who get an unexpected assist from the ghosts of tamal authorities Doña Juanita (Ruby Nelda Perez) and Doña Mercedes (Alicia Mena). Saturday’s Reception Night ($50) adds bells and whistles to the performance, including dinner, wine, beer and live music. $12-$50, 8pm Fri-Sat, 3pm Sun, Guadalupe Theater, 1301 Guadalupe St., (210) 223-2009, lastamaleras.com. — Bryan Rindfuss

◀ The Overtime Theater presents Merry Gentlemen, an original production written and directed by local playwright Sheila Rinear.

Drawing inspiration from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Merry Gentlemen tells the story of Ben and Tim Dickens, a father and son whose lives have been on hold ever since a car accident killed Mrs. Dickens and damaged Tim’s leg. Similarly to the infamous Ebenezer Scrooge, on the Christmas holiday Ben is visited by a series of ghosts

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who press upon him to reconnect with the world despite the tragedy his family has suffered. Featuring performances by Darcell Bios, Lillie Freeman, and Kendall Dunlap, Merry Gentlemen promises a night of love and laughter with its unique twist on a classic tale that emphasizes the importance of humanity and interconnectivity. $10-15, 8pm FriSat, The Overtime Theater, 1203 Camden St., (210) 557-7562, theovertimetheater.org. – Kelly Merka Nelson

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◀ The Esperanza Peace and Justice Center is once again presenting the truly splendid Mercado de Paz, now in its 27th year. A local mainstay for fans of all manner of arts and crafts, the Mercado de Paz is a whole lot more than just a weekend pop-up arts fair. As stated on the nonprofit’s website, the Mercado de Paz combines the arts with considerations of “economic sustainability, international exchange and social FRI-SUN consciousness.” What else would you expect from the consistently active team at Esperanza? The indoor/ outdoor event is family-friendly and, starting on Black Friday, provides a conscionable, community-centered alternative to the biggest corporate shopping days of the year. This year’s mercado will feature more than 100 international and local artists/artisans, live music provided by local performers, and tons of food choices, including vegetarian and vegan options. In summary, the annual tradition is an ideal go-to, whether you’re looking to bolster your art collection, score some points for the proletariat in the grand battle against our capitalist overlords, snag some one-of-a-kind gifts, catch some live music, occupy the kiddos for the day, or simply hang out and avoid the rest of your family. Free, 10am-6pm Fri & Sat, noon-6pm Sun, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, 922 San Pedro Ave., (210) 228-0201, esperanzacenter.org. – JC SPECIAL EVENT

COURTESY OF JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT

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▲ For their holiday show this year, the Woodlawn Theatre presents the upbeat and family-friendly Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Originally written in 1968 as a 15-minute “pop cantata” for a private London boys school, Joseph was the first collaboration of the legendary Sirs Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, who went on to write Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita. Joseph worked its way from schools and local theaters all the way to Broadway, retaining its cheerful, comical, and colorful roots. The show tells the familiar story of Jacob’s favorite son and the jealous brothers who sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt where his wealthy boss’s wife throws herself at him. Joseph only escapes life in prison because he can interpret the dreams of a desperate Pharaoh, “wryly and riotously” depicted as another “king” — Elvis. Many songs in the show become comic parodies of diverse musical genres, from country-western to calypso to rock ‘n roll. $17-$26, 7:30pm Fri-Sat, 3pm Sun, Woodlawn Theatre, 1920 Fredericksburg Road, 210-267-8388, woodlawntheatre.org. – Rachel Cooley

ALEXANDER DEVORA

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

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The Nutcracker ▲ Ballet San Antonio once again brings the perennial holiday favorite, The Nutcracker to the Tobin for nine performances. Inspired by the classic E.T.A. Hoffmann tale The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, reality and fantasy blend in a young girl’s dreams of a handsome prince, frightening rodents at war, and exotic characters from around the globe. San Antonio fans have a new production to look forward to this season from artistic director Willy Shives. In addition to his own choreography, Shives will incorporate that of the legendary Gerald Arpino for the “Land of Snow”

and “Waltz of the Flowers” variations. Arpino was the co-founder of Joffrey Ballet and a tremendous mentor to Shives in his many years with that company. In this family-friendly fare, more than 100 children from the community will join the dancers of the company along with local celebrities making surprise cameo appearances. Another sweet treat is that the company will be performing to live accompaniment by the San Antonio Symphony. This always raises the bar for a performance, adding another layer of sparkle and shine to the production. The much-loved score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky will be sure to get even the Scroogiest among us into the Christmas spirit. In addition to the performances, balletomanes will have an opportunity to shop the company’s annual Nutcracker Market. Presented at each performance in the Tobin Center lobby, there will be an assortment of original nutcrackers and other holiday treasures perfect for the season of giving. $20.30-$134, 7:30pm Fri, 2pm & 7:30pm Sat, 2pm Sun, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. — Tami Kegley

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John Cleese & Eric Idle

◀ Where average funnymen might don dresses and break out the feminized falsetto to reinforce sexual stereotypes, the guys in Monty Python played frumpy housewives arguing about Jean-Paul Sarte’s existentialist philosophy.

Like childish sexual innuendo (“Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.”) and “silly walks,” bad drag is a dumb, well-trod comedy trope elevated to an artform by the Pythons — maybe most especially by John Cleese and Eric Idle, whose long hairy legs and knobby knees paired hilariously with high skirts and garters, and who continued the tradition into their solo film careers as well ( The Out-of-Towners and Nuns on the Run, respectively). Cleese and Idle’s two-man show Together Again At Last…For The Very First Time promises audiences “scripted and improvised bits with storytelling, musical numbers, exclusive footage and aquatic juggling” but if we’re lucky, it will also be kind of a drag, including some playful screwing around with the gender binary as only these two British septagenerian master-craftsman goofballs can properly pull off. $59.50-$95.50, 7:30pm, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. — Jeremy Martin

Ms. Lauryn Hill

MUSIC

◀ With only one solo album (two, if you consider the unjustly maligned MTV Unplugged No. 2.0), former Fugee Ms. Lauryn Hill (hence the “MLH” in this concert tour, based on an April Brooklyn Festival) firmly established herself as one of the most talented figures in popular music. Just like Juan Rulfo or The Sex Pistols, she didn’t need a vast body of work to be taken seriously.

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998) was a masterpiece that announced more greatness coming our way, but tardiness, erratic (for us) behavior and no-shows turned her into a big question mark. So far, the tour has been doing just fine. At one point, after guests do their thing, expect Hill to take the stage and give us faster, remixed version of Fugees and Miseducation tracks, and even Bob Marley hits like “No Woman No Cry.” Unless, of course, she decides to go to the River Walk instead to align her energies.

With New Orleans’ The Soul Rebels (“the missing link between Public Enemy and Louis Armstrong,” according to The Village Voice ) and Seun Anikulapo Kuti (yes, the son of AfroBeat master Fela Kuti). $95-$378, 8pm, Aztec Theater, 104 N St. Mary’s St., theaztectheater.com, (800) 745-3000. — Enrique Lopetegui

Spurs vs.

Magic SPORTS

TUE

29

▲ All-Star Kawhi Leonard started the NBA season on a tear, putting up what teammate Danny Green described as “Michael Jordan numbers” to tip off his sixth career campaign. Through the first six games of the season, Leonard averaged almost 32 points and four assists, complementing his suffocating defense with stunning offensive efficiency. Leonard’s numbers have taken a dip since then, suggesting that more touches are in order for the team’s best player. With their starting lineup finally intact, San Antonio will look to settle into more consistent rotations, as Coach Popovich tinkers with his lineups for the long haul. For Leonard to remain in the MVP conversation, he must be the primary scoring option for the Spurs whenever he takes the court. $20$1,600, 7:30pm, AT&T Center, One AT&T Center Pkwy., (210) 444-5000, attcenter.com. — M. Solis

COURTESY OF SPURS SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT

TUE

COMEDY

◀ Jonathan Tyler, who used to include his backing band The Northern Lights in his official moniker, is a blues/Americana rock musician and songwriter with a knack for emotive depth and crunchy, rootsy hooks. His gritty sound and his gently raspy voice catapulted him to fame, from his launching pad in Dallas, in the form of an Atlantic Records deal, spots on the nation’s biggest festival bills, and musical features in a bunch of TV shows. These days, Tyler is signed with Thirty Tigers and reeling a bit from the heights he and his band achieved so fast. But, Tyler’s latest album, 2015’s Holy Smokes, is certainly his finest work yet, dialing up a traditional blues feel even in the midst of a hard-edged rock onslaught that barely sounds like Americana, despite smacking of heartland America through and through. $12-$65, 8pm, Sam’s Burger Joint, 330 E. Grayson St., (210) 223-2830, samsburgerjoint.com. — JC

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CALENDAR NIGHTLIFE

ART Ansel Adams Drop-in Tour The Briscoe

Museum of Western Art offers free, half-hour drop-in tours of “Ansel Adams: Distance and Detail” and other photographic works in their collection during their Late Tuesday Nights, with free admission 4-9pm. Free, 6-6:30pm Tuesday; Briscoe Western Art Museum, 210 W. Market St., (210) 299-4499.

“A Body in Latency” Ian Pedigo’s show

is a meditation on the artifacts, settings and images that are associated with the human body, especially as a socially constructed concept. His work here places would-be mundane elements of daily experience into an off-kilter picture of reality, Free, 2-7pm Thursday-Saturday; Sala Diaz, 517 Stieren. (972) 900-0047.

“Beck Whitehead & Pulparazzi” The

Southwest School of Art bids adieu to its longtime papermaking and book arts department chair Beck Whitehead with a survey showcasing her work and opening in tandem with solo shows featuring Israeli mixed-media artist Hadar Sobol, local photographer Erin Neve and New Mexico’s Todd Christensen. Free, 5:307:30pm, Soutwest School of Art, 3000 Augusta St., (210) 224-1848.

Free Day Weary cooks, eager shoppers, art

lovers and underfoot relatives will find plenty to see and do at the San Antonio Museum of Art the day after Thanksgiving. General admission is free! Free, 10am-5pm Friday, San Antonio Museum of Art, 200 W. Jones Ave., (210) 978-8100.

International Artist-in-Residence Exhibition Curated by MASS MoCA’s Denise Markonish, the fall 2016 edition of Artpace’s revered International Artist-in-Residence program comprises site-specific exhibitions

by Lily Cox-Richard (Houston), Kim Faler (Williamstown, Massachusetts) and Kim Morgan (Halifax, Canada). Free, noon-5pm Wednesday-Sunday; Artpace, 445 N. Main Ave., (210) 212-4900.

“Spill” In collaboration with the Blue Star

Contemporary Art Museum The Neidorff Gallery at Trinity University presents the work of Swedish artist and former Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin) resident Jenny Magnusson. Magnusson created a site-specific sculptural installation using everyday materials and objects that she found or borrowed from the Trinity and San Antonio communities. Free, 1-5pm Tuesday; Michael and Noémi Neidorff Art Gallery, Dicke Smith Art/Music Building, One Trinity Place, (210) 999-7682.

“Stages of Struggle and Celebration: Black Theatre in Texas” The Carver Gallery in the Jo Long Theatre lobby showcases historical displays and images from Texas State University professors Dr. Sandra M. Mayo and Elvin Holt’s groundbreaking research from their two books on black theatre in Texas.

Free, 8am-4pm Wednesday, Monday and Tuesday; Carver Community Cultural Center, 226 N. Hackberry, (210)207-7211.

Art Opening: “Wolf of Wall Space” Artists

completing their final year in the School of Art and Design at Texas State University present their BFA Thesis Exhibition, “Wolf of Wall Space” featuring a range of media, including ceramics, sculpture, painting, printmaking, photography and expanded media. Free, 5-7pm; University Galleries, 601 University Dr., San Marcos, (512) 245-2647.

THEATER The School for Scandal Craving some tawdry

entertainment but tired of watching reruns of Keeping Up With the Kardashians? Premiered in 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The School for Scandal features characters that rival the most conspiratorial members of that (in)famous family. If your interest is piqued but you’re averse to poetic dialect, don’t worry – the play’s dialogue is delivered in plainspoken English. $10-$25, 8pm Thursday-Saturday, 3pm Sunday; Classic Theatre of San Antonio, 1924 Fredericksburg Rd., (210) 589-8450.

The Glass Menagerie The Playhouse puts a

contemporary spin on Tennessee Williams’ classic memory play by shifting the setting “from an apartment in St. Louis to the common area of a mid-century mental hospital.” $10-$25, 8pm Friday and Saturday, 3pm Sunday; The Playhouse, 800 W. Ashby Pl. (210) 733-7258.

Miss Abigail’s Guide to Dating, Mating, and Marriage Dr. Ruth meets Emily

Post in this 90-minute comedy covering everything from kissing techniques to what you shouldn’t mention on a date. $30, 8pm Friday, 7:30pm Saturday, 3:30pm Sunday; Roxie Theatre, 7460 Callaghan Rd., Ste. 333 (210) 360-9180.

COMEDY The Oxymorons The Oxymorons, a staple

for over 27 years in San Antonio, bring live improv to the Rivercenter Comedy Club. $10, 8:30pm Tuesday; Rivercenter Comedy Club, 849 E. Commerce, (210) 229-1420.

Steve Byrne With his high-energy and physical style of comedy, Steve Byrne’s “Comedy Central Presents” was voted as one of the best specials in the Comedy Central Standup Showdown. $18.50, 8 & 10:15pm Friday and Saturday; Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, 618 NW Loop 410. (210) 541-8805.

SPECIAL EVENTS Art Trap Krampus Edition Dermastain Tattoo and Marrboss Productions’ Art Trap returns with a night of giveaways, graffiti artists, art vendors, live bands, hip-hop performers, EDM DJs and a laser show by JDS. Featuring Evil Dave, tattoo artists Cruz Foster and Corin Deanne Gilbert, DJ ESPR and Hot Burras food truck. $5-$8, 7pm-2am Saturday; The Korova, 107 E Martin, (210) 863-5289.

BrieBlue’s Holiday Party Small Business

Saturday brings together Mockingbird Handprints and Choice Goods with BrieBlue, featuring personally selected minority and ethnic textiles from Central and Southeast Asia. Music will be provided by Austin DJ Rev. Kathy Russell. Free, 11am-Midnight Saturday; Brick, 108 Blue Star, (210) 885-4624.

Christmas in Comfort Escape to the Hill

Country for holiday shopping from over 125 vendors and merchants in the downtown historic district, family activities including visits with Santa, live entertainment and a lighted night parade and fireworks show.

Free, 10am-9pm Saturday; High St. and 7th St., Comfort, TX, Comfort Chamber Of Commerce, (830) 995-3131.

Christmas Light Fest Be dazzled by more

than two million lights as you drive through gorgeous displays across two miles of scenic ranchland, or catch a hayride through the lights. Visit Santa’s Village for holiday treats, shopping and of course, Santa. $27 per vehicle, 6-10pm Thursday-Saturday, 6-9pm Sunday-Tuesday; Don Strange Ranch, 103 Waring Welfare Rd., (210) 434-2340.

Dickens On Main Shop Go to Boerne’s Hill

Country Mile and enjoy live entertainment, children’s activities each night including visits with Santa, a 60-foot snow slide, horse-drawn carriages, and more. Free, Noon-10pm Friday and Saturday; Main St., Boerne, TX, (830) 248-1617.

Fantasyland at Milam Park Join the

Friends of Milam Park at Fantasyland, featuring family friendly entertainment, face painting, train rides, visits with Santa

and tree lighting at dusk with cookies and hot chocolate from Mi Tierra. Free, noon-6pm Saturday; Milam Park, 501 W. Commerce, (210) 207-8600.

Feria de la Santa Cecilia Music Festival

Celebrating the Patron Saint of Musicians Santa Cecilia, this three-day family event will feature all genres of music, food booths and artists all around historic Market Square. Enjoy music from Ruben V, X-Factor, Whiskey 2Step, Billy Brown and Southern Junction, Billy Keisel, Alianza and The Palacios Brothers. Free, noon8pm Friday-Saturday, noon-7pm Sunday; Historic Market Square, 514 W Commerce St., (210) 207-8600.

Ford Holiday River Parade A fun family

event filled with holiday themed boats, music, entertainment, dining and festive lighting along the River Walk. Pay for a seat or watch from a free viewing area with your own chair. Free-$40, 6-9pm Friday; The San Antonio River Walk, (210)-227-4262.

Lights of Esperanza Texas A&M UniversitySan Antonio invites you and your family to take a spin on the ice skating rink, play on the real snow playground, take selfies in the human snow globe and enjoy the lights on campus. Free, 6-8pm Tuesday; Texas A&M University-San Antonio, One University Way, (210) 784-1103.

Paul Walker Memorial Rally & SACM Race San Antonio Raceway hosts a party Saturday night with DJs, swag giveaways, and racing shows. Sunday will include a car show and competition, street racing, kids tricycle race and Paul Walker memorial parade down the track. $12-$20, 7pm-2am Saturday, 10am-6pm Sunday; San Antonio Raceway, 3641 S. Santa Clara Rd., (210) 782-9578.

Pet Pics with Santa The Humane Society

of New Braunfels is fundraising and offering the opportunity to get pictures of your pets with Santa. $10 suggested donation, 1-3pm Sunday; The Landmark Lofts, 144 Landa St, (830) 626-1400.

San Antonio Clay Arts Festival The San

Antonio Clay Arts Festival will host about 40 clay and glass artists displaying and selling their functional and sculptural works of art at the start of the holiday season. Event will take place in a tented market on the grounds of the Pearl. Free, 9am-3pm Saturday; Pearl Brewery, 200 E Grayson, (210) 705-9300.

Texas Fall Pop-Up Save your Black Friday

cash for this local event. Several pin makers from all over Texas join together to bring you pins, patches, stickers, jewelry, and lots of other goodies. Free, Noon-6pm Saturday; King’s HWY Brew & Q, 1012 N. Flores St., (210) 277-7174.

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BE THE MEDIA St. Sucia is disrupting how Latinas are seen in pop culture ALEJANDRA LOPEZ

≥

When it comes to brown women in the media, there’s a lack of authentic representation. There are stories that aren’t being told and voices that are overlooked, and women who don’t see themselves in movies, on TV, in popular magazines or books are fed up.

And two San Antonio women, Isabel Ann Castro and Natasha I. Hernandez, creators of St. Sucia, are doing something about it.

“You don’t need to hate the media,” says Hernandez, St. Sucia’s editor. “You need to be the media,” even if that means being “DIY as fuck” — like sewing pages together the night before an issue release or working until 5 a.m. to ensure everything gets to the printer on time.

When Castro, St. Sucia’s art director, and Hernandez, who call each other zine wives, first had the idea to create a publication, they were searching for an outlet to share their own stories. They wanted to publish works that they, themselves, wanted to read: unfiltered narratives that are gritty and raw. Stories told by a sucia.

Their first release included multiple pieces of original work and was organized, edited, designed and printed within a month’s deadline. They received nearly 50 submissions, and printed over 20 of them,

all of which unapologetically illustrate subjects deemed too taboo to talk about, like abortion, onenight stands and female mastburbation.

Now, they’re preparing to release their eighth issue and they’ve received more than 150 submissions since their callout in October. And for the first time, they’ll publish works from women living in Rhode Island, Florida and Pennsylvania, in addition to Texas, Oregon, California and New York — the states from which they regularly receive submissions.

Issues of the zine can now be found in libraries at UTSA, Texas State University, the University of Houston, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and was used by a student at UC San Francisco for her thesis on Latina sexuality. In just a short time, St. Sucia has been recognized as a critical part of a movement that empowers brown women by letting them tell their stories of trauma, anger, identity, pain and love.

Their latest issue, which comprises a collection of poetry, prose and illustrations centered around the theme of “family,” is set for a November 25th release to coincide with Thanksgiving. Readers can expect stories, both emotional and heartwarming, that, like the rest of the pieces they publish, are

powerful, personal and at times even painful to read. Like stories of rape and abuse, these are experiences, told in a first-person point of view, that we don’t read about often, especially around the holidays. But the zine’s creators insist these are stories that need to be told. And for many women, St. Sucia has become a cathartic way to share and explore these stories.

Since day one, Castro and Hernandez have made it their mission to challenge the way Latinas are seen in popular culture. It’s either the hyper-sexualized woman (think Sofia Vergara) or the maid (remember Maid in Manhattan?). And where the media has failed us, St. Sucia is armed to combat these dichotomies with real voices by real women.

But even with seven, almost eight, issues under their belt, both Castro and Hernandez know their work is not done. They’re encouraging more women and people of color to find their own mediums of expression. They’re constantly reminding their readers that they, too, can create a zine, or engage in any form of storytelling, for that matter. Most of all, they want to make sure no voice is silenced.

St. Sucia Issue VIII Zine Release, 9 p.m. Fri., Nov. 25 at Hi-Tones, 621 E. Dewey Place. To order any of St. Sucia’s issues, visit stsucia.bigcartel.com.

sacurrent.com • November 23-29, 2016 • CURRENT 37

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SWING AND A MISS

OPEN ROAD FILMS

Bleed For This a painfully simple, average boxing flick

≥

For its first 45 minutes, Bleed For This is a typical boxing movie: Talented fighter Vinny Pazienza (a game Miles Teller) has talent and determination, but a lot to learn. He teams with downon-his-luck trainer Kevin Rooney (Aaron Eckhart), works hard, and finds success.

What comes next, however, is anything but typical: Vinny breaks his neck in a horrific car accident. He opts to wear a “Halo” on his upper torso that literally screws into his head. The idea is for the neck to heal itself as it’s held in place for six months. Everyone tells him he’ll never fight again.

Heck, he’ll be lucky just to walk again.

This middle portion is where the film is at its best, specifically because it strays from boxing movie basics and allows Teller and Eckhart to put their acting chops to the test (both are superb). Unsurprisingly, Vinny is the only one who believes he’ll get back in

the ring. In a telling moment, he reveals to Kevin that what scares him the most is giving up, in large part because it would be so easy to do. This is where his will power comes into play – all he knows is boxing, and he has no desire to do anything else. You can’t help but root for a guy who has a clear goal and goes after it with all he’s got.

Perhaps you remember the true events from the late ‘80s/early ‘90s on which the story is based, some of which has been liberally condensed to tell a more dramatic story in under two hours. No shame in that. Vinny’s mental strength is an inspiration, and Teller’s performance effectively gets us to like Vinny in spite of his vices (gambling, women). Too bad writer/ director Ben Younger’s third act goes straight back to being predictable, which in part is inevitable because it’s based on a true story, and in part is unforgivable for being handled

in such a trite way. Genre movies are successful because they bring new takes to old conventions; aside from the injury, Bleed For This doesn’t bring anything new to the table.

It also falls short in terms of standard boxing movie expectations. There are no great training montages.

The music, both the songs and original score, are not dynamic. The fight choreography – meaning how it was shot, not the actual fighting itself – is as boring as it gets. There’s trash talk at a press conference, but nothing memorable. Vinny’s adversity may lead to a heck of a personal triumph, but it doesn’t make for a great boxing movie.

This is as moderate a film recommendation as can be given for a movie that in its entirety is profoundly average. And yet I walked away smiling rather than annoyed, in large part because I liked the characters enough to overcome the weak storytelling.

HHH sacurrent.com • November 23-29, 2016 • CURRENT 39

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A few months ago, under the duress of deadline, likely boy troubles and hanger, I made my way to Central Market to order a grilled cheese. I was met with an eye roll by the sandwich artisan, who sighed at my persnickety sammy order and promptly forgot it. After waiting 10 minutes for what should have been a breezy sandwich to make, I had to grin and bear it when the guy behind the counter lied and said my sandwich would be ready soon.

At its very core, a grilled cheese is made to comfort. It’s the bean and cheese of the sandwich world.

It’s the warm cup of tea when your sinuses are acting up during cedar season. Grilled cheeses can wow, but are essentially a food hug that says, “Hey bud, everything is going to be OK.” After another 5 minutes, my grilled cheese came off the line, but it was tarnished with its maker's sighs and general sourness. I ate half of it and tossed the rest.

The Grilled Cheese Incident, as it came to be called among my friends spurred the creation of Grilled Cheese Night, where our version of a millennials supper club came together in search of cheesy, melty redemption.

The group is made up of late twenty-somethings and early thirty-somethings with various upbringings and careers. All told,

there’s a handful of San Antonians (we’re lumping in Bandera and New Braunfels for our purposes), two Valley girls, a South Korean native and a boy from ‘Bama. My co-conspirator who helps plan said gatherings leans conservative. I’m a liberal journalist that works in alternative media. The remainder of the group runs the gamut.

But we come together on an almost monthly basis over food (previous get-togethers included chicken and waffle night, pumpkin carving and PotatoGiving, where we topped baked potatoes with Thanksgiving flavors because why not?). On this particular evening, we may have outdone ourselves. Using a panini press and a George Foreman, we made nine grilled cheeses, while testing out what worked (shredding the cheese always helps), what didn’t (the panini press). We split the sandwiches evenly, making grilled cheese bridges along the way, and compared tasting notes.

We worked together to achieve delicious results.

Maybe it’s glib to think about grilled cheese as a way to bring people together. Maybe it’s naive to think that we can come together after this year’s historic election over grilled cheeses, but it’s worth a shot. If nothing else, here’s a rundown of the grilled cheeses we made. May they bring you comfort.

JESSICA ELIZARRARAS

FOOD

As we head into the holiday season, and we have to break bread with people we might not always choose to share meals with purposefully, it’s worth trying to find some commonalities. Or, if nothing else, you can make grilled cheeses with Thanksgiving leftovers and call it a day.

PIZZA GRILLED CHEESE

Ingredients 2 tablespoons pizza sauce 2 slices Italian sourdough bread 3 slices large pepperoni rounds 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese Melted butter for toasting How to: On heated George Foreman, toast the slices of bread until lightly gold. Spread pizza sauce on one slice and build sandwich from there. Press using George Foreman until cheese is completely melted.

•

Grilled cheese will make anything better.

THREE CHEESE

Ingredients 2 slices Pullman bread or other white loaf 1/4 cup shredded American cheese 1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese 1/4 cup shredded Havarti cheese Melted butter for toasting How to: On heated George Foreman, toast the slices of bread until lightly gold. Combine cheeses in a small bowl and blend. Place cheese on bread, cover with other slice, and press using George Foreman until cheese is melted. Let cool.

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CAPRESE GRILLED CHEESE Ingredients 2 slices Italian sourdough bread 2 tablespoons pesto of choice 3 slices fresh mozzarella cheese 2 thin tomato slices 2 basil leaves Good balsamic vinegar, to taste Melted butter for toasting

How to: On heated George Foreman, toast the slices of bread until lightly gold. Spread pesto on one slice and build sandwich from there. Press using George Foreman until cheese is melted. Drizzle with balsamic to taste.

BRIE AND APPLE

Ingredients 2 slices Pullman bread or other white loaf 5 slices thinly sliced Granny Smith apple 1 ounce brie Honey for drizzling Melted butter for toasting How to: On heated George Foreman, toast the slices of bread until lightly gold. Build sandwich on one slice using the apple slices and brie, cover with other slice and press until brie is melted. Drizzle with honey to taste.

SAT· DEC.3

RD

12 6 PM

sacurrent.com • November 23-29, 2016 • CURRENT 41

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Fire at Phantom and where to feed your baklava obsession JESSICA ELIZARRARAS | @JESSELIZARRARAS

ANDREW LOPEZ

FOOD COURT

No More Necia Nights at Phantom

> What is with all these damn fires?

The San Antonio ExpressNews and KSAT 12 are reporting a third fire in just as many weeks has consumed Phantom Room, a popular dance club/bar on the St. Mary›s Strip known for its live performances and necia weekend nights.

According to the Express-News, the building was deemed a “likely total loss” by SAFD spokesman Woody Woodward. SAFD responded to a 5:12 a.m. call Wednesday morning.

As part of Danny Delgado’s St. Mary’s Strip empire — Faust, Hi-Tones, Botanica and Squeezebox are also on the list — Phantom opened in 2015.

Though likely unrelated, this fire is the third in three weeks to affect a bar/ restaurant in San Antonio. Francis Bogside suffered considerable damage Halloween morning and has been shutdown since, while Folc sustained fire and smoke damage due to an electrical issue on the morning of November 8 and will remain closed for the time being.

You’ll Love This Baklava

> The Wurzbach nook that’s filled with everything delicious and Mediterranean got a little sweeter about a month ago.

The folks behind Pasha Mediterranean Grill, Naara Cafe opened Baklovah Bakery in mid-October. Open from 10

a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, Baklovah Bakery›s got a little of everything within the realm of Mediterranean sweets.

During a recent visit this past Saturday, I may have gone a little overboard. It’s hard to keep cool when there’s several varieties of baklava, mousse, opera cakes and macarons in front of you. The bakery features cookies by the pound, cakes, and tiny ornate desserts. We ended up picking up a pack of cookie sandwiches, dainty squares of walnut baklava, Turkish bird’s nest baklava, three opera cakes (raspberry, matcha and lime, chocolate), a strawberry mousse and a kanafeh cheese pastry for $26.

The pastries are all made in-house and can be purchased by the pound (for the baklavas and kanafehs, of which there are several varieties) or individually with most setting you back between 99 cents and $3.99.

The most overwhelming part of a trip to Baklovah is just how many treats there are to choose from. Our stash barely scratched the surface, and you can bet we’ll head back to try the savory meat pies. We’ll definitely be back. 9329 Wurzbach Road, Suite 104, (210) 982-3231.

Potbelly Sandwich Shop Opens Second Location in SA

Catering, BBQ, Cocktails, Beer, & More!

Reserve your space today, email: thepigpensa@gmail.com

106 PERSHING AVE (BEHIND THE SMOKE SHACK) 210.267.9136

NOW BOOKING HOLIDAY CATERING! 210-342-2800 • TIAGOSCABOGRILLE.COM

> Just a year after Potbelly Sandwich Chop opened its first location in San Antonio at The Rim Shopping Center, the Chicago-based franchise is opening a second shop.

The new location will offer the same toasty warm sandos including limited time offers on seasonal chicken pot pies and peppermint twist holiday shakes at 11745 IH10 West Suite #403 inside the Huebner Oaks Shopping Center. The new location will open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Delivery service will start opening day and will be available Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with minimum orders of $25.

Send food- and nightlife-related events and news to flavor@sacurrent.com. sacurrent.com • November 23-29, 2016 • CURRENT 43

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CURRENT • November 23-29, 2016 • sacurrent.com

Try Our New Lunch Specials 628 Jackson St | 210-320-1840

NIGHTLIFE

3

JESSICA ELIZARRARAS

BOOZY DESSERTS beer milkshakes we’re into for the holiday

JESSICA ELIZARRARAS | @JESSELIZARRARAS

Can you survive the holidays without booze?

Yes, but do you have to?

We’ve turned three beers into floats that can be shared with friends, family and anyone in between.

Use these as a guide, the possibilities are endless.

Pairs Well with Cranberry Sauce Dallas’ Bishop Cider Co. delivered one of our favorite combinations. Mixing cranberry and blackberry, the cider is tart, sweet and a solid 6 percent ABV. When mixed with scoops of Creamy Creations’ 1905 Vanilla the combination is rich, tart and smooth. Let the Scottish rebels mooning their enemy serve as a fun conversation starter with your aunts.

Ingredients 2 scoops vanilla ice cream 1 can Crackberry Cider from Bishop Cider Co 1 teaspoon cranberry chutney or leftover cranberry sauce Directions Scoop ice cream into large glass, pour Crackberry slowly over ice cream. Top with chutney or sauce if using.

•

Ditch the pie in favor of a beer float.

For the Chocolate Lovers Dessert should be decadent. Brewed with Cholaca pure liquid cacao and heavy on the nose with tropical coconut notes, this Irish porter helps you zone out (our taste testers recalled tanning lotion while drinking). The float is rich, creamy and has just the lightest note of caramel.

Ingredients 2 scoops vanilla ice cream 1 can Oskar Blues’ Death by Coconut Chocolate toffee wafers, optional Directions Scoop ice cream into a large glass, slowly pour porter over ice cream. Top with wafers, if using.

Ditch the Coffee If you need a good palate cleanser after listening to your aunts and uncles discuss the merits of a new Trump-appointed cabinet, or if you need to get nice and sauced, this float was the most chug-worthy.

Brewed with Katz Coffee out of Houston, this porter goes with breakfast, lunch and dinner so no one will judge you if you make this your drink of choice this season. Toss in an extra splash of whiskey when the fam starts in on the Biden memes.

Ingredients 2 scoops chocolate ice cream 1 bottle Real Ale Coffee Porter Whiskey, optional Directions Scoop ice cream into a large glass, slowly pour porter over ice cream. Float with whiskey if using.

sacurrent.com • November 23-29, 2016 • CURRENT 45

MUSIC

MP

WED

23

KELSEY RECKLING

MUSIC PICKS

TOGETHER PANGEA

Dodge the complete chaos that foreshadows Turkey Day with the sweet deliverance of Passing Strangers. A rootsy adventure into the heartland of the 80’s pop scene, the band is a personal project of a singer-songwriter named John Boyd. A proud native of the Alamo City, Boyd blends a little southwestern finesse into the cathartic strain of alternative rock that U2 popularized in the wake of the Buzzcocks and Sex Pistols. Poised like Bono himself, Boyd sounds like a gravelly baritone treading into raspy tenor territory, crooning timely and pensive numbers in the spirit of Jeff Buckley. Churning out velvety tracks with striking titles and catchy choruses – there’s a reference to Train hidden somewhere in “Jupiter Groupie” – Passing Strangers absolutely nails dad rock. 8pm, $10, Sam's Burger Joint, 330 E. Grayson St. — AM

IA

S

WED

M IK

IE F

AR

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PASSING STRANGERS

SLEEPING WITH SIRENS

A LONELY HORSE DANKSGIVING

Sleeping with Sirens is a nostalgic glance into the past for troubled teens who slowly matured into respectable adults. Wailing the painful insecurities of adolescence, the Florida group injects emo dramatism into conventional pop songs that perfectly capture the woes of pubescent breakups and acne scars. Stirring memories of screamo bands that started out on MySpace – remember Saosin, Silverstein, ect. – Sleeping with Sirens translates the rage of hardcore into a sugary vernacular that also feels warm and passionate. 8pm, $24, Alamo City Music Hall, 1305 E. Houston St. — AM

For the second time in as many years, estimable SA spirit-rock duo Lonely Horse is throwing a party on Thanksgiving, so you have a good excuse to run away from your family and drink yourself out of that food coma. Now back in action and rocking with the kind of renewed vengeance that could only come from a long hiatus caused by bullshit that has nothing to do with music, Lonely Horse will play this special Thanksgiving affair as a kind of launch sequence, since the pair will embark on a twelve-date tour of the South the following day. Joining Lonely Horse in its send off, in what amounts to a truly diverse and talented bill, will be poison-tongued SA rapper Milli Mars, electronic/avant garde songwriter Saakred (who just released a killer new album), and vintage garage rock heavies Harvey McLaughlin and the BottomFeeders. $5, 9pm, Hi-Tones, 621 E Dewey Pl, (210) 785-8777, hitonessa.com. — James Courtney

WED

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CURRENT • November 23-29, 2016 • sacurrent.com

BACK IN BLACK: AN AC/DC TRIBUTE Descend the timeless “Highway to Hell” with five women who fucking adore AC/DC. As silly and rowdy as their predecessors, Back in Black is a female tribute band hailing from the snowy caps of Switzerland. Praised for their diehard antics, the group recreates the snarling vocals and shredding guitars heard in AC/DC’s rambunctious anthems about fast machines and American thighs. After performing across Italy and the Czech Republic during their lastest European tour, Back in Black arrives to the Land of the Free to shake us all night long.

8pm, $10, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. Saint Mary’s St. — AM FRI

25

THU

24

RYAN ADAM HUMPHRIES

46

Another juicy confection served hot by the folks at Burger Records, Together Pangea throws together sloppy riffs and licks with a cool and cocky attitude.

Nosediving into the realm of garage rock revival with megalithic valor, the rowdy rockers are perverse products from the City of Angels who resonate more like imports from across the pond. Downright irreverent, Together Pangea’s post-punk nerve evokes the Libertines and Babyshambles whenever Pete Doherty managed to escape rehab. But once their rollicking tempo fades away, they begin to suggest the witty and sardonic reflections overheard in the early releases from the Arctic Monkeys. (Think “Mardy Bum” took a trip to SoCal.) Reckless and brassy, Together Pangea dives into the red market of modern rock without the slightest trace of remorse. 8pm, $8, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. Saint Mary’s — Abby Mangel

sacurrent.com • November 23-29, 2016 • CURRENT 47

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CURRENT • November 23-29, 2016 • sacurrent.com

25

DOLPHIN DILEMMA

COUR TESY OF CHRIS MOR ROW

Low-key country star and talented singer-songwriter Cory Morrow has got a lot of Texas miles in his songs. The man—who grew up in Houston, earned his beer pong and koozie music chops in Lubbock, while attending Texas Tech University, and headed to Austin to chase his honkytonk dreams—slings contemporary Texas country that gets its southern rock edge via the Red Dirt movement and takes its life advice from the holy road, as imagined in Willie's songs. Morrow's songs, which manage to be slick and gritty, romantic and stony all at once, fall in the same particular sonic realm as compatriots like Pat Green, Roger Creager, and the Randy Rogers Band. In other words, Friday's show at historic Gruene Hall ought to be one hell of a party. $25.00, 7:00pm, Gruene Hall, 1281 Gruene, New Braunfels, (830) 606-1281, gruenehall.com. — JC FRI

SCOTT H. BIRAM Scott H. Biram is a radical denizen of San Marcos that lists Kris Kristofferson as a fan. A force of nature, his innovative songwriting style attracts listeners of all musical proclivities. (Take a moment to prepare yourself: the multiinstrumentalist mingles Depression-era blues with honky tonk attitude, blends proto-punk chaos into the anarchy of black metal and tosses in a healthy dose of Americana for good measure.) Not one to impose limits on himself, Biram conjures a maelstrom of noise that evokes confluence of genre heard in Bob Log III. Brandishing a sleek ’59 Gibson, the dirty ol’ one-man band is virtually unsinkable – in fact, he survived a collision with an 18-wheeler and performed a month later at Austin’s Continental Club with two broken legs and an I.V. still in his arm. If that’s not dedication to artistry, it’s hard to say what is. 8pm, $8, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. Saint Mary’s St. — AM SAT

26

CITY MORROW

26

GREG GABRISCH PHOTOGRAPHY

A simple man espousing the virtues of electronic beats and aquatic mammals, Dolphin Dilemma is slated to make a big splash at Imagine Books and Records. Dabbling in the watery soundscapes of vaporwave, the shy musician crafts neatly packaged melodies that induce the soft, hypnagogic sensations that you feel right before falling asleep. His personal brand of techno mutates the nostalgic clicks and beeps of archaic computers into outlandish harmonies that gently fl oat across the starry Milky Way. But, embossed with the glossy veneer of futuristic forms, Dolphin Dilemma also leaves room for the probability of dystopian ruin. 8pm, $6, Imagine Books and Records, 8373 Culebra Rd. — AM SAT

PLASTIC PINKS, FLOWERSHOP The Monday after Thanksgiving break is always a doozy. You're still feeling guilty you didn't spend more time with your family than your friends, you're still full of the wild array of whatever constitutes your version of the feast, and, to top that shit off, you've gotta get back to the grind. But, this year, thanks to Miami spacepunk/garage gurus Plastic Pinks, you've got something to eagerly anticipate. The Sunshine State five-piece, with a sound that splits the difference between hypnagogic and headstrong, between driving and drifty, between punk exclamation and psych-rock exploration, just released its (stellar) latest EP El Animal earlier this month. Dig the band's unique sound over at plasticpinks. bandcamp.com and go get yourself a work out, for your mind and body, on Monday. $5, 9:00pm, Limelight, 2718 N St Mary’s St, (210) 735-7775, thelimelightsa.com. — JC MON

COURTESY OF FLOURISH GANG

VENTURA'S NIGHT OF HIP-HOP

While San Antonio is a wonderful starting point for swarms of talented artists, our local scene is marred by SAT

26

an unfortunate tendency to push aside certain genres for the sake of others. We cherish scruffy punk rockers and dismal metal heads, but we often fail to mention the promising rappers and hip-hop artists in conversations about the many up-and-coming performers in the Alamo City.

Seeking to steer attention solely toward these creative minds for a special evening, the shrewd crew at Ventura is hosting a night of pure hip-hop.

Showcasing over a dozen acts, the extensive lineup covers an extremely diverse collection of single performers and groups.

There are dark and brooding architects of rhythm like the Audio Boys as well as the reefer lovin’ intellectuals of 3, who draw inspiration from complex lyricists like Method Man and hip-hop/rock hybrids like Kid Cudi. Roll up and break it down at Ventura. 5pm, $8, Ventura SATX, 1011 Ave. B — AM

28

sacurrent.com • November 23-29, 2016 • CURRENT 49

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CURRENT • November 23-29, 2016 • sacurrent.com

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MUSIC

MUSIC COURTESY OF BOWEN SOUNDS

CALENDAR

Castles, CSS, Metronomy, The Knife, Joy Division, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Cut Copy and Fischerspooner. Free, 10pm, Thirsty Camel.

Rockstarz Karaoke Try Franky Diablos’ Urban Legend shots and sing the night away with Nicki from Rockstarz Karaoke.

Free, 9:30 pm, Franky Diablo’s.

November 25 - William Clark Green FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25 Bad Brad & The Fat Cats Austin-based blues-roots music. $10, 9:30pm, Luna Music Bar & Lounge.

18866 S to n e Oa k P k w y # 1 0 5 ( 2 1 0) 5 9 5 -3 9 3 2

Bru’s Tunes Live acoustic music in every genre from singer Bru’s Tunes. Free, 10pm, Max’s Wine Dive.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23 Acoustic Show La Hacienda de los Barrios hosts acoustic live music on Wednesday evenings. Free, 6pm, La Hacienda De Los Barrios.

Passing Strangers Pre-Turkey Day Bash Passing Strangers is an 80s retro band best known for their dance remake of “Dream Weaver.” $10-$40, 9pm, Sam’s Burger Joint.

November 26 -Sam Riggs

Feria de la Santa Cecilia Music Festival The Féria de La Santa Cecilia Music Festival is a free three day family event featuring all styles/genres of music with the blessing

by The Patron Saint of Musicians Santa Cecilia. Event will include food booths and artists all around historic Market Square.

The X-Factor Band headlines Black Friday from 6:30-8pm. Free, 12-8pm, Historic Market Square.

COURT ESY OF DRB MUSIC

Quince Wednesdays DJs RiffleEffect and Isaac_TX team up for “the best damn dance party you’ve been to since you were 15.”

Free, 10pm, Hi-Tones.

Dirty River Boys El Paso’s alt-folk quartet The Dirty River Boys are joined

by Americana singer songwriter Quincy Harper. $15, 8pm, Luckenbach Dance Hall.

Skankgiving Skankgiving brings together several local hardcore punk acts, such as Drink Fight Thugs, Sonic Ammunition, Party Robot, Michael Turnini, and more. $5-$7, 6pm, The Korova.

Thrashgiving Thrashgiving is a food drive and three-stage show featuring over 20 bands for pre-Thanksgiving fun. Bands include metal acts Buried Under Texas, Just a Dream, Fortunes, and Halogen. $8-$10, 4pm, The Korova.

Wade Bowen This Texas-country singer released two albums earlier this year, and is now back on the touring circuit. With five independent albums, and over a decade of touring, Wade Bowen is on top of his game. $25, 8pm, Gruene Hall.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24 210 Blues Band Every Thursday & Sunday night SoHo Martini Bar features the R&B sounds of San Antonio’s own 210 Blues Band. Free, 10pm, SoHo Wine & Martini Bar. Crush The Thirsty Camel’s dance night features such artists as Lana Del Rey, Die Antwoord, Purity Ring, Interpol, MGMT, Foster the People, The Smiths, M83, Crystal

VIBES TUNE INTO KRTU 91.7 EVERY SUNDAY AT 11 P.M. FEATURING LOCAL, REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL MUSIC EXCLUSIVELY FROM THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY

Charlie Brown’s Neighborhood Bar & Grill Join Us for Happy Hour

December 2 - Charlie Robinson

December 3 - Bonnie Bishop

Mon-Fri 2pm-6pm Specials Daily

Live Music:

Retro Division Classic Retro Division Classic Fridays features DJ’s JustAngel, Boi of Doom, Dante’s Prayer, Tim Deprived, Dogbone and more spinning the best alternative dance music you can find.

Special tribute nights and all vinyl nights also occur frequently. Free, 10pm, The Thirsty Camel.

November 26 • Kinky Wires December 3 • Forever Town December 10 • Matt Kersh

December 16 - The Bellamy Brothers

San Antonio Symphony: Handel’s Messiah General admission $25, 7pm, True Vision Baptist Church.

SayWeCanFly Joined by Johnnie Guilbert and Social Repose. $15, 5:30pm, The Korova.

Slaid Cleaves $18-$70, 8:30pm, Sam’s Burger Joint.

14492 Old Bandera Rd Karaoke • Trivia 11888 Starcrest | 210 496-7092 Charlie-Browns.com

Helotes, TX (210)695-8827

For tickets: liveatfloores.com sacurrent.com • November 23-29, 2016 • CURRENT 51

the of

sons bitches

San antonio’s birthplace of delta blues SERVICE INDUSTRY NIGHT Every Monday from 10pm - 12am. $3 well drinks and $2 draft beers for all service industry employees.

FIRST RESPONDERS NIGHT Every Tuesday from 4pm – 7pm. $3 well drinks and $2 draft beer for all first responders.

930 Broadway, San Antonio Texas 78215 | facebook.com/pinkspatio

UPCOMING EVENT: Repeal Prohibition Party Friday, December 9th 205 E HOUSTON ST INSIDE THE SHERATON GUNTER| HAPPY HOUR: MON-SAT, 4–7PM

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$1.50 Wells from 9-11pm 8827 TX-151 STE 106, San Antonio, TX 78251 | 210.257.9726 www.shenanygans.com

52

CURRENT • November 23-29, 2016 • sacurrent.com

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COURTESY OF BWILLIAM CLARK GREEN

MUSIC

▲ William Clark Green Texas’ William Clark Green brings his unapologetic country rock to Floore’s. Also joining the bill is Austin’s alt-country artist John Baumann. $10-$20, 9pm, John T Floore’s Country Store.

Thanksgiving Ball Luckenbach is hosting their Thanksgiving Ball with country singer-songwriter Charlie Robison and folk singer-songwriter Colter Wall. $20, 8pm, Luckenbach Dance Hall.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 27

Art Trap, Krampus Edition Dermastain Tattoo and Marrboss Productions’ Art Trap returns with a night of giveaways, graffiti artists, art vendors, live bands, hip-hop performers, EDM DJs and a laser show by JDS. Featuring Evil Dave, tattoo artists Cruz Foster and Corin Deanne Gilbert, DJ ESPR and Hot Burras food truck. $5-$8, 7pm, The Korova.

Benjamin Francis Leftwich $12-$15, 7:30pm, 502 Bar.

Jonathan Tyler Joined by Elise Davis. $12$65, 9pm, Sam’s Burger Joint.

Life After Death Joined by Shame, Sledge, Lower Depths and Scorn. $5-$6, 7pm, The Korova.

The Recasts Joined by Stella Lost, Covina, and Darkside of Darkness. $5, 9:30pm, Zombies.

Chingadera Sundays DJ Aaron Iruegas (aka Heavensentpapi) spins cumbia y más. Free, 9pm, Hi-Tones.

A Country Christmas Tour Home Free is one of the unique bands to hit country music, now embarking on their 29-city A Country Christmas Tour. $27.50-$34.50, 3pm, Charline McCombs Empire Theatre.

Lipbone Redding $7-$30, 7pm, Sam’s Burger Joint.

Nonpoint Florida rockers Nonpoint are joined by Escape the Fate, Get Scared, Through the Fire, and Failure Anthem. $18.50-$22, 7pm, Alamo City Music Hall & Club.

COURT ESY OF STRANGE MUSIC

San Antonio Symphony: Handel’s Messiah General admission $25, 3pm, Concordia Lutheran Church.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29 DRI Dirty Rotten Imbeciles is a crossover thrash band with hardcore punk roots from Houston, TX. $15-$18, 7pm, The Korova.

TITANIUM 4000, X AGAIN, BLACK PANTHER, MASTER ZONE, EXTEN ZONE, EXTREME DIAMOND, EXTRA ZONE, RHINO V5, RHINO X, MAX LOAD, MAX HARD, MAX STAMINA, RHINO BIG HORN, PURE, RED ZONE 3000, RHINO 7 (5000), RHINO BLACK 3K, POWER ZONE 3000, FUEL UP, FORBIDDEN TIGER, FIFTY SHADES, TRIPLE XXX, EREKT FOR WOMAN: KANGROO, SPARXXX, GEISHA

Ms. Lauryn Hill Lauryn Hill, singer, songwriter, rapper, record producer, and actress, will perform at the Aztec Theatre as part of The MLH Caravan: A Diaspora Calling! Concert Series. $60-$100+, 8pm, Aztec Theatre.

Sam Riggs Joined by Flatland Cavalry. $13$18, 9pm, John T Floore’s Country Store.

Stony LaRue With Troy Cartwright. $25, 9pm, Gruene Hall.

Rittz Georgia-native rapper Rittz performs from his 2016 album Top of the Line. Joined

by Jarren Benton. $21-$76, 8pm, Alamo City Music Hall.

8373 CULEBRA STE. 103 • 210.521.4555 1639 BABCOCK RD. • 210.474.6005 sacurrent.com • November 23-29, 2016 • CURRENT 53

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by Dan Savage

> I’m a very sex-positive girl and I finally convinced my boyfriend to open up about his fetishes. I could tell he was ashamed and torn about sharing them with me, but I’ve been with my fair share of guys and surfed the net for years, and I was convinced nothing would shock me.

Well, it turns out he’s into soft vore.

I’m not gonna lie, I was a bit put off, but of course I didn’t tell him.

I started looking for information about his fetish, and it’s not as uncommon as I thought. I stumbled upon many websites for like-minded people, and my understanding of it is that vores really long for intimacy and protection. Is my interpretation correct? Also, after learning about it, I realized it’s less extreme than some of the stuff we usually engage in, like heavy BDSM, so I want him to feel fulfilled. Is there any way I can help him “act out” his fetish? He would like to be the eatee.

Fully Understanding Lover’s Longings Vore, for readers who aren’t familiar with the term, refers to a spectrum of kinks that involve being eaten alive or eating another creature alive. Vore is divided between “soft” and “hard,” kind of like BDSM. Soft vore doesn’t require simulated bloodshed (it mostly involves fantasies of being swallowed whole), whereas hard vore involves the (imaginary!) ripping of flesh and the (simulated!) shedding of blood. Large creatures capable of swallowing and/ or devouring humans are important to this kink, as you’ll discover if you do an image search for “vore” on Google.

Since most vore fantasies involve

creatures that qualify as fantastical beasts, i.e., large and nonexistent beasts (megakinkfauna?), vore fetishists are forced to construct elaborate fantasy narratives, build their own creatures, or seek employment at the Jim Henson Company (where they can sneak in after hours and repurpose vore-scale Muppets) in order to get off.

Before you can determine which way to go — assuming your boyfriend wants to “act out” his fantasies in the first place — you’ll have to get more details.

Is he into the intimacy and protection aspects of vore? Is it an extension of a mouth and/or pregnancy fetish?

Does an interest in bondage factor in?

Learning more about what gets him going—besides the whole being eaten alive thing—is the first step.

Once you know exactly what it is about vore that turns him on, FULL, begin your explorations with role-play and dirty talk. Ramping things up slowly is always a good idea with varsity-level kinks, so try sexting each other and/ or creating dirty vore stories together over e-mail. If your boyfriend wants to get physical, start with mouthy things like biting, licking, sucking, etc., combined with dirty talk about digesty things like chewing, swallowing, gastric juices, etc. If everything goes well, you try to bring his fantasies to life using props, costumes, and stage blood.

Try zipping him up in a sleeping bag to simulate being in a stomach—filling it with a gooey liquid will make it feel more like the inside of some fantastical beast’s stomach—but be careful not to smother him if you do “full enclosure.”

(Smothering someone to death, intentionally or unintentionally, is bad. #TheMoreYouKnow) Finally, FULL, I want to commend you for not freaking out when your boyfriend shared his kink. You listened calmly, you did a little research, and you gave it some thought. For that, I’m upgrading your GGG card to platinum.

On the Lovecast, Dan chats with Google’s machine intelligence lead about sex with robots: savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net

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ACROSS

1 Audio boosters 5 They say “Nowaday!”

10 Tropical getaway 14 Renegade (on) 15 “Wayne’s World” sidekick 16 Connery of “Dr. Nado” 17 Guilty pleasure that’s difficult to accomplish?

19 Mountaintop 20 “Heady, relax!”

21 Munitions maker 23 Roadsters 26 Cedars-___ Hospital 28 Lang. of Cads Lewis 29 Gomez’s hairier cousin 30 Garment fold 32 Source of a meadow 34 Company behind a candy stamped with “mad” 36 Orange sadpud 37 “___ made up, Scotty” 38 Knotted snack 40 Drink for the lactose intolerant 43 “For Your ___ Onlady” 44 Health facility 45 Cheese on crackers 46 MGM Grandad Las Vegas, for one 48 Puget Sound traveler 50 Nickname of Hall of Fame pitcher Dennis 51 “Goad on ...”

52 ___ Lama

54 Bead on the same page 56 Broad, in Spanish 58 Shadow’s partner 60 Toad ___ (just right) 61 Mornings in the world of bears?

66 Busted tirade sound, perhaps 67 More sound 68 Sadat practice 69 Word before “ran” or “known as” 70 Bright-colored fadish 71 Unlike vocal ranges for badasses

DOWN

1 Padres #16, familiarly 2 Nadine, as single-digit numbers go 3 Spot on dice 4 Winter admix 5 Repads of sports figures, for short 6 Specialist assigned a marinade mission, maybe 7 Prefi x with state or glycerides 8 “___ bead much worse ...”

9 Headman’s sister 10 Aoki of the PGA 11 Anonymous mud wallower?

12 Feel regret for 13 Ade, to Einstein 18 Rough file

22 Kid who eventually liked Life?

23 Lacking stiffness 24 Russia’s ___-Tass news service 25 Garb for milling about the neighborhood?

27 “___ a Man of Constant Sorrow” 31 Caustic chemicals 33 Foot in a meter 35 Eyelid annoyance 37 Wild swine 39 “The Legend of ___” (Nintendo game) 40 Light white wine drink 41 Scalp parasites 42 Actress Palmer of “Scream Queens” 44 Cruisade locale 46 “What a radiot!”

47 Almost on the hour 48 Counterparts of faunae 49 Everybody, down South 53 Brooding feeling 55 Pictographic letter 57 Prefi x with America or morph 59 Pound who was a master of the adverse 62 Bank statement abbr.

63 “All Things Considered” reporter Shapiro 64 “Family Guy” daughter 65 Geom. figure

ETC.

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY by Rob Brezsny “Creative people are at greater risk,” said psychiatrist R. D. Laing, “just as one who climbs a mountain is more at risk than one who walks along a village lane.” I bring this to your attention, Aries, because in the coming weeks you will have the potential to be abundantly creative, as well as extra imaginative, ingenious, and innovative. But I should also let you know that if you want to fulfill this potential, you must be willing to work with the extra tests and challenges that life throws your way. For example, you could be asked to drop a pose, renounce lame excuses, or reclaim powers that you gave away once upon a time.

ARIES (MARCH 21-APRIL 19):

LEO (JULY 23-AUG. 22): “Everybody is dealing with how much of their own aliveness they can bear and how much they need to anesthetize themselves,” writes psychoanalytic writer Adam Phillips. Where do you fit on this scale, Leo? Whatever your usual place might be, I’m guessing that in the coming weeks you will approach record-breaking levels in your ability to handle your own aliveness. You may even summon and celebrate massive amounts of aliveness that you had previously suppressed.

In fact, I’ll recklessly speculate that your need to numb yourself will be closer to zero than it has been since you were five years old. (I could be exaggerating a bit; but maybe not!)

SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22-DEC. 21): Despite your sign’s reputation, you

TAURUS (APRIL 20-MAY 20):

VIRGO (AUG. 23-SEPT. 22): Do

Taurus musician Brian Eno has been successful as a composer, producer, singer, and visual artist. Among his many collaborators have been David Byrne, David Bowie, U2, Coldplay, Laurie Anderson, Grace Jones, and James Blake.

Eno’s biographer David Sheppard testified that capturing his essence in a book was “like packing a skyscraper into a suitcase.” I suspect that description may fit you during the next four weeks, Taurus. You’re gearing up for some high-intensity living. But please don’t be nervous about it. Although you may be led into intimate contact with unfamiliar themes and mysterious passions, the story you actualize should feel quite natural.

you periodically turn the volume down on your mind’s endless chatter and tune into the still, small voice within you? Have you developed reliable techniques for escaping the daily frenzy so as to make yourself available for the Wild Silence that restores and revitalizes? If so, now would be a good time to make aggressive use of those capacities. And if you haven’t attended well to these rituals of self-care, please remedy the situation. Claim more power to commune with your depths. In the coming weeks, most of your best information will flow from the sweet darkness.

CAPRICORN (DEC. 22-JAN. 19):

are free! Or almost free! Or let me put it this way: You could become significantly freer if you choose to be — if you exert your willpower to snatch the liberating experiences that are available. For example, you could be free from a slippery obligation that has driven you to say things you don’t mean. You could be free from the temptation to distort your soul in service to your ego. You might even be free to go after what you really want rather than indulging in lazy lust for a gaggle of mediocre thrills. Be brave, Gemini.

Define your top three emancipating possibilities, and pursue them with vigor and rigor.

LIBRA (SEPT. 23-OCT. 22): One of your vices could at least temporarily act as a virtue. In an odd twist, one of your virtues may also briefly function like a vice. And there’s more to this mysterious turn of events.

A so-called liability could be useful in your efforts to solve a dilemma, while a reliable asset might cloud your discernment or cause a miscalculation. I’m riffing here, Libra, in the hopes of stimulating your imagination as you work your way through the paradoxical days ahead. Consider this intriguing possibility: An influence that you like and value may hold you back, even as something or someone you’ve previously been almost allergic to could be quite helpful.

CANCER (JUNE 21-JULY 22):

SCORPIO (OCT. 23-NOV. 21):

Have you been feeling twinges of perplexity?

Do you find yourself immersed in meandering meditations that make you doubt your commitments? Are you entertaining weird fantasies that give you odd little shivers and quivers? I hope so! As an analyzer of cycles, I suspect that now is an excellent time to question everything. You could have a lot of fun playing with riddles and wrestling with enigmas. Please note, however, that I’m not advising you to abandon what you’ve been working on and run away. Now is a time for fertile inquiry, not for rash actions. It’s healthy to contemplate adjustments, but not to initiate massive overhauls.

Between now and the solstice on December 21, you will have extraordinary power to transform into a more practical, wellgrounded version of yourself. You may surprise yourself with how naturally you can shed beliefs and habits that no longer serve you. Now try saying the following affirmations and see how they feel coming out of your mouth: “I am an earthy realist. I am a factlover and an illusion-buster. I love actions that actually work more than I like theories that I wish would work. I’d rather create constructive change than be renowned for my clever dreams.”

GEMINI (MAY 21-JUNE 20): You

Sagittarians don’t always require vast expanses to roam in. You aren’t ceaselessly restless, on an inexhaustible quest for unexpected experiences and fresh teachings. And no, you are not forever consumed with the primal roar of raw life, obsessed with the naked truth, and fiercely devoted to exploration for its own sake.

But having said that, I suspect that you may at least be flirting with these extreme states in the coming weeks. Your keynote, lifted from Virginia Woolf’s diary: “I need space. I need air. I need the empty fields round me; and my legs pounding along roads; and sleep; and animal existence.”

“If you can’t get rid of the skeleton in your closet,” said George Bernard Shaw, “you had best teach it to dance.” This advice is worthy of your consideration, Capricorn. You may still be unable to expunge a certain karmic debt, and it may be harder than ever to hide, so I suggest you dream up a way to play with it — maybe even have some dark fun with it. And who knows? Your willingness to loosen up might at least alleviate the angst your skeleton causes you — and may ultimately transform it in some unpredictably helpful way.

AQUARIUS (JAN. 20-FEB. 18): “No pain, no gain” is a modern expression of an old idea. In a second-century Jewish book of ethics, Rabbi Ben Hei Hei wrote, “According to the pain is the gain.” Eighteenth-century English poet Robert Herrick said, “If little labor, little are our gains: Man’s fate is according to his pains.” But I’m here to tell you, Aquarius, that I don’t think this prescription will apply to you in the coming weeks. From what I can surmise, your greatest gains will emerge from the absence of pain. You will learn and improve through release, relaxation, generosity, expansiveness, and pleasure.

PISCES (FEB. 19-MARCH 20): The less egotistical you are, the more likely it is that you will attract what you really need. If you do nice things for people without expecting favors in return, your mental and physical health will improve. As you increase your mastery of the art of empathy, your creativity will also thrive. Everything I just said is always true, of course, but it will be intensely, emphatically true for you during the next four weeks. So I suggest you make it a top priority to explore the following cosmic riddle: Practicing unselfishness will serve your selfish goals.

THIS MODERN WORLD by Tom Tomorrow

sacurrent.com • November 23-29, 2016 • CURRENT 57

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