Global

We live in contentious, troubled times when Americans are increasingly divided along political, ethnic, sexual lines – consider the fact that a recent box office hit is a movie about a near-future embattled USA entitled, literally, Civil War. Now along comes playwright Christian St. Croix’s Monsters of the American Cinema, which instead poses in stark contrast the unity of two polar opposites. Remy (portrayed by Kevin Daniels, an actor so large that he played Magic Johnson in the 2012 Broadway production of Magic/ Bird) is a Black gay man, who operates a drive-in movie theater at Santee, San Diego County. As Remy’s former husband has died, he has stepped up to the plate to raise his late partner’s son, Pup (Logan Leonardo Arditty), a white straight teenager of average height.

Almost 40 years ago, I attended The Ohio State University. I was so proud that when I was presented with different options for my graduate studies, I chose OSU and prayed to be admitted. My prayers were answered. Ever since, Columbus has been my home. My children are Buckeyes.  That was a no-brainer in our family. So proud that while working overseas, myself and other Buckeyes formed an OSU Alumni Club with many activities. We even created social media groups for those of us who attended OSU. In other words, I am a Buckeye to the bone as well as my entire family. At one point, my daughter Jana, while my wife was at work, asked that we remodel her room with an OSU theme. Sure enough, we went to Sears, bought scarlet and gray paint and painted her room and furniture with OSU colors. The Lantern has articles with our names, mine and my children, being cited on so many issues, domestic and international. OSU St John Arena was selected for the “Town Meeting” planned by President Clinton where he sent his national security team —National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Defense Secretary William Cohen and Secretary of State Madeline Albright, when he planned to bomb Iraq.

The TCM Classic Film Festival, which turned 15 this year, annually presents primo pictures from yesteryear along with panels and talents linked to those movies at venues in Hollywood. TCM’s 2024 film fete included personal appearances by John Travolta, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Tim Robbins and even highlighted Jodie Foster “cementing” her place in Tinseltown history with a hand and footprint ceremony in the hallowed courtyard of what previously was Grauman’s Chinese Theater (now TCL Chinese Theatre Max, where Silence of the Lambs, Pulp Fiction, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Shawshank Redemption and Hitchcock’s North By Northwest were screened during the Festival). Enhancing the Festival’s heady ambiance is the great motion picture bonhomie among the film fans attending this movie-palooza, which also includes parties in Club TCM at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. 

The day before she turned 75, the Great White Way’s songstress supreme gave Angelenos a bravura birthday present on April 21, as Patti LuPone presented her musical memoir A Life in Notes at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The three-time Tony Award winner may be noted for outspokenly insisting upon thee-a-tuh etiquette in regards to audience members’ use of cellphones, face masks, etc., but the second LuPone took the stage L.A. ticket buyers erupted with a spontaneous ovation. Throughout her one-woman show, the mezzo-soprano was cascaded with admiration, ebullient but always respectable, by a near-sold out crowd filled with affection for the two-time Grammy Award winner.

The outcome of the Palestine vote and the American veto at the United Nations Security Council on April 18 was predictable. Though European countries are becoming increasingly supportive of a Palestinian state, the United States is not yet ready for this commitment. 

 These are some of the reasons that the US deputy envoy to the UN, Robert Wood, vetoed the resolution.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”--The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified Dec., 15, 1791.

An open assault on the First Amendment is occurring across America, as college students who are peacefully exercising their Constitutional right to freedom of speech, challenging government policies, are being arrested in droves.

The self-appointed Congressional Overseers of Higher Education, who hauled politically naïve university presidents into their star chambers and publicly castigated the savants for not admonishing their students to be sufficiently sympathetic to genocide, essentially demanded loyalty, not to America, but to the deadly agenda of a country not our own. 

Leading government officials have expressed dismay at the furor which has erupted on campuses and have encouraged the use of repressive tactics. 

If you were wondering why or how the mainstream media coverage of what is taking place in Gaza is so slanted as to make it look like a real war between two well-armed and competitive adversaries instead of a massacre of civilians, wonder no longer! A leak has exposed a New York Times internal document that provides editorial guidance about words that should not be used in any article relating to Gaza or to Palestine. They include “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” “occupied territory,” and even “Palestine” itself.