Global
About 12,000 years ago, late stone age humans precipitated the neolithic (agricultural) revolution that marked the start of the steady rise to civilization. Coincidentally, this occurred at the same time as the beginning of what is now known as the Holocene Epoch, the geological epoch in which humans still live.
However, since the industrial revolution commencing in about 1750, just 270 years ago, humans have been destroying Earth’s biosphere with such tremendous ferocity that the Earth we inherited at the beginning of the Holocene Epoch is vanishing before our eyes. And life is vanishing with it.
While this catastrophe first gained significant public attention with the publication of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring in 1962, efforts in response to her effort to raise the alarm, credited with inspiring the modern environmental movement, have paled in comparison to the ongoing human effort to silence Spring.
You cannot promote the rule of law by loudly bragging about committing murder. You cannot end terrorism by committing terrorism. Here is a U.S. president openly proclaiming that he has committed murder in order to let people be afraid they’ll be next. If anything fits the definition of terrorism, that does. The U.S. public cannot see it because (1) whatever the U.S. does is good, (2) Trump’s fans support anything he does, (3) loyalists of the Democratic Party believe that any crimes Barack Obama committed can never be crimes even if Trump commits them. But this crime is not just accepted; it’s a point of pride — a way to feel superior to other countries that have not murdered any terrorists or even created any terrorists to murder.
Looking for a challenge? Looking for a hobby? Looking for a little recreational (yet manageable) frustration? Then look no more! You may be interested in a Raspberry Pi.
A Raspberry Pi is a very simple, very small computer. A basic model (the Raspberry Pi Zero) can cost as little as $5, and that may be an option for you as long as you already have a good number of computer parts laying around. More complex kits with more advanced Raspberry Pis cost somewhere in the range of $30-$120
When I say Pis are simple, I mean it. If the Amish were in the computer business, they would love the Raspberry Pi. When you buy a $35 Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, you get a motherboard with some chips stuck to it that you can plug stuff into; that’s it. No keyboard, no mouse, no monitor, no case.
Despite this intensely literal definition of “computer,” (it does compute, after all), a Pi is a pretty cool thing exactly because it is simple. This simplicity makes a Pi easy to understand for beginners, and because Pi operates on open source platforms, the software does not block modifications/hacks the way Microsoft, Apple, and the other corporate stooges do.
Ed Rampell is a Ukrainian-American L.A.-based freelance writer and author.
Her earliest memories were of endless wheat fields and the sweeping steppes. She also remembered being afraid of the police - and the bitter cold. My babushka advised me: “If your feet stay warm the rest of your body will, too.” Like Tevye, Fiddler on the Roof’s beloved dairyman who dreamed of being “a rich man,” my grandmother Dorothy Kwass was a Ukrainian Jew who migrated to America.
On my father’s paternal side, Samuel Alexander Rampell was born in Odessa. Shortly after Czar Alexander II’s 1881 assassination, vicious pogroms (race riots) were unleashed against Jews and little Samuel sailed to America with his mother.
The Kwasses, my dad’s maternal line, were innkeepers in Kiev’s shtetl (ghetto). Their name is derived from kvass, the fermented sweet drink served at their inn. When the menfolk were drafted around 1904 during the Russo-Japanese war they became draft dodgers and fled to the land of the free, with five-year-old Dorothy.
DTLA FILM FESTIVAL Film Reviews
By Ed Rampell
The 11th annual DTLA Film Festival is now underway. According to the Festival’s website: “Our programming reflects downtown L.A.’s vibrant new urbanism, the unique ethnic and cultural diversity of its neighborhoods, its burgeoning independent film community, its singular blend of late 19th and 20th century architecture, and the seminal role it played in the early days of American cinema (epitomized by the world’s largest group of vintage movie palaces located in the Broadway Theater District).”
DTLAFF is screening features, shorts, documentaries etc., at two primary locations: Regal L.A. LIVE 1000 West Olympic Blvd., L.A., CA 90015 while the Dome Series is at the Wisdome Immersive Art Park in DTLA’s Arts District, 1147 Palmetto St., L.A. or the Vortex Dome Theater at L.A. Center Studios. Panels, parties, etc., are being presented at various Downtown L.A. locations. For info on the DTLA Film Festival see: https://www.dtlaff.com/.
AMERICAN WOMAN Film Review
Citizen Hearst
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Hong Kong political activist Joshua Wong
predicted Thailand's young people will unleash an urban insurrection "
the same as Hong Kong youngsters did in the past four months" if
Thailand's Army Chief Gen. Apirat Kongsompong crushes Thai aspirations
for democracy and human rights.
The defiant Mr. Wong was responding to U.S.-trained Gen. Apirat's
harsh condemnation of protests in Hong Kong and his claim that Thais
could duped by Mr. Wong and "brainwashed" to protest in Bangkok.
"Hong Kong is suffering from the threat from Beijing," Mr. Wong said
in a 10-minute audio file emailed to Bangkok-based Prachatai.com news.
"And when the army chief asked Thai youth not to do the same, my only
response is if the government in Thai[land] do the same, the youth in
Thai[land] they will do the same as Hong Kong youngsters did in the
past four months. So it depends on the authorities instead of
depend[ing] on us."
Mr. Wong also proudly defended sharing similar political values and
talking with Thailand's popular opposition politician Thanathorn
KOREAN BELOW THE ENGLISH
By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, October 26, 2019
I’ve never heard of or even seen fantasized a society or a government that wasn’t deeply flawed. I know neither North nor South Korea is an exception. But the primary impediment to peace in Korea appears to be the United States: its government, its media, its billionaires, its people, and even the arm of the U.S. called the United Nations.
From the VC “masters of the universe” on Sand Hill Road and Y Combinator to the social media FAANG monopolists to the adolescent male libertarian bros with their internet startups — all share the fundamentalist faith in electricity.
Rarely did they question how their burgeoning digital economy disruptions were based largely on fossil and over-age nuclear powered electric utilities. Lately, many are seeing the solution to climate change and the foreseeable future of blackouts as installing solar panels on their buildings.
As Pacific Gas & Electric, reeling in bankruptcy due to fires it caused, prepares for another round of deliberate outages in California’s North Bay17 counties, Southern California Edison is planning more such precautionary blackouts in its service area.
The infamous gestapo-style assault on an Ohio anti-nuclear referendum is now headed to the Ohio Supreme Court.
The pro-nuke campaign has featured widespread physical attacks against peaceful canvassers, as well as phone threats, pibery, signature-buying, a fake pro-nuke petition, a massive lie-filled PR campaign invoking the Chinese Communists, and more.
The bitter battle has been sent by a federal judge to Ohio’s highest court, which is dominated by Republicans.
Here are the key points ( a full-hour discussion can be heard at : https://greenpowerwellnessshow.podbean.com/e/solartopia-green-power-and-wellness-hour-outright-nuclear-fascism-in-ohio…be-very-afraid/)
X In July, the gerrymandered Ohio Legislature passed HB6, a massive bailout to keep two dying nukes operating on Lake Erie.
X Akron-based FirstEnergy is bankrupt, and says it will shut both reactors without the $1 billion promised by the bailout;
An example from Georgia of something Charlottesville, Va., does not have.
James W. Loewen’s wonderful book Lies Across America has been published in a revised 20th anniversary edition, containing a chapter called “Public History After Charlottesville.” In this usage, “Charlottesville” is an event, not a place. Specifically, it’s a fascist rally that happened here in 2017.
Loewen chronicles the dramatic surge immediately after and ever since that event in the reworking of the public landscape by governments around the United States. Statues have been toppling like bowling pins. New monuments have been going up. Markers have been sprouting all over the place to explain existing monuments and what’s wrong with them.
Loewen documents a major shift in public attitudes about the U.S. Civil War, which he credits not only to “Charlottesville,” but also to a mass shooting in Charleston, S.C., in 2015, and to Black Lives Matter. I would add also some credit to the work of people like James Loewen.