Arts
Feminism has a crucial role to play in modern life, but I sometimes wish it would leave our fairy tales alone. The results of its revisionist meddling are too often unconvincing and unsatisfying.
Remember last year’s Maleficent? It turned an age-old story on its head by revealing that the fairy (Angelina Jolie) who turned a princess into a “Sleeping Beauty” was not evil at all. No, she was merely wronged and misunderstood. Worst of all, we learned that the somnambulant princess could not be awakened by a kiss from the handsome prince, but only by a motherly peck from that same fairy.
How heartwarming. And how utterly unromantic.
Thank goodness Disney’s new live-action version of Cinderella doesn’t wear its feminism on its sleeve. It has nods to modern sensibilities, to be sure, but they’re handled with a lighter touch.
This article first appeared online here.
PBS has just launched Black and Jewish America, a four-week miniseries that examines the political and historical ties between African Americans and Jewish Americans.
For those who want to examine the topic further, a new documentary directed by Ilana Trachtman is a good place to start. Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round tells the fascinating story of a 1960 protest that unexpectedly created cross-cultural ties.
The protest centered on Glen Echo Amusement Park, which once served as a recreation destination for families in the Washington, D.C. area. Offering rides, snacks and a giant pool, it had everything parents needed to keep their kids entertained on hot summer days.
The only problem: You had to be White to enter. Children from local Black neighborhoods could only watch the fun from outside the gates.
After sold-out screenings across the country and multiple festival awards, the documentary Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round will screen at Columbus’ Gateway Film Center on Sunday, February 15. The latest film by Emmy-award winning filmmaker Ilana Trachtman (Praying with Lior, Mariachi High, Black in Latin America, etc.) recounts a watershed moment in American history: the first time Black student activists were joined by an organized white community to protest segregation. Together, they demonstrated against Washington, D.C.’s whites-only Glen Echo Amusement Park in 1960, provoking the first counter protests by the American Nazi Party, luring civil rights giants A. Phillip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Adam Clayton Powell to the picket line, and addressing the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the trailer for All That’s Left of You, there is a brief image of orange trees and heavy machinery. For many, it may pass unnoticed. For me, it opened a wound that has never fully closed.
My great-grandfather Ahmad Sulieman Qutiefan owned an orange grove in Beit Nabala (Bayt Nabala), a Palestinian village just nine miles from Yaffa. Those oranges were not inherited wealth. He planted them himself, beginning as a child, after his own father passed away. Knowing his family depended on him, he stepped into responsibility early, planting tree after tree, tending the land with care and pride. The grove became his life’s work. He nurtured it daily, believing it would one day sustain his children and his children’s children.
He never imagined that it could simply be taken.
I looked into Tariq Ali because the Rolling Stones wrote Street Fighting Man about Tariq. I felt intrigued why a legendary Rock’n’Roll band wrote a song about a revered Pakistani British Intellectual who opposes Colonialist genocide. I wrote about You Can’t Please All, and The Extreme Center because Tariq Ali’s politics and knowledge seemed Democratic Solicialist/ Palestine and the current fascism relevant.
For this column: I accomplished a New Years ambition. I read Verso Books Tariq Ali’s Street Fighting Years, An Autobiography of the Sixties. The Hip Hop music journalist found an intersection of Rock’n’Roll and Hip Hop.
Did Rock’n’Roll history exist because Tariq Ali and Malcolm X sat together as Malcolm X debated some bloke in England? In Tariq Ali’s time with Malcolm while Malcolm left the Nation of Islam after Malcolm expanded his worldview, Tariq Ali didn’t know his exact opinion about Malcolm X until Ali built with Malcolm.
Hundreds gathered on Saturday, January 10 at the Ohio Statehouse to protest ICE in Columbus and everywhere, and to protest the murder of Renee Good by ICE in Minneapolis.
For the most part, 2025 was a very good year for me. I took a trip to Chicago, and I saw the Cubs. I spent a couple of weeks with good friends in Southern California and got to see pelicans and sea lions. I went to Boston and attended the convention for the National Cartoonists Society for the very first time in my life, where I got to see old friends and make a lot of new ones. I spent a few days in New York City. And at the convention for the Association of American Cartoonists, I won the Rex Bab Memorial Award.
And then I had a stroke. And maybe this is partly why my doctors and nurses thought I had a very positive attitude throughout the process, because I don't think the stroke ruined my year. That's why I wouldn’t call it a setback. If nothing else, I learned from the stroke that a shit ton of people love me.
And the stroke did not stop me from cartooning. If anything, it caused a slight pause. When I asked readers on Facebook to pick their favorites of mine from the year, they collected cartoons before and after the stroke.
Friday, December 26, 8:30pm
Natalie's, 945 King Ave, Columbus, OH, United States, Ohio 43212
Comedian, filmmaker and Columbus native Travis Irvine comes home for the holidays to present his annual Christmas comedy show featuring an eclectic cast of comedians, characters, carols and more!
Food & Bar: Our full food and drink menu will be available before and during the show.
Save Ohio Parks volunteers across Ohio are distributing literature outside theatres and museums to educate Ohioans that pristine state parks featured in a new docu IMAX film are at risk of being despoiled if Ohio public lands continue to be fracked for natural gas.
The nonprofit has already hand-distributed brochures to hundreds of people across the state, including to many planning to view the new Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) docu film, “Wild at Heart.” The film promotes Ohio’s state parks and includes scenes from these state parks: Hocking Hills; Kelley’s Island; Magee Marsh; John Bryan; Mohican; Punderson; and Shawnee.
“We love our Ohio state parks,” said Anne Sparks, board member at Save Ohio Parks. “That’s why we need to protect them. Fracking pollutes our air and increases the risk for cancer and other illnesses. It depletes and contaminates our fresh water; destroys biodiversity; and heats the planet.”