Global
“Peace” clubs in U.S. schools are likely to teach that a local bully is afraid and in need of help. They are much less likely to teach that about entities involved in the actual subject of peace (meaning the absence of war), such as — to take the example momentarily most prominent in U.S. propaganda — North Korea.
“Ignorance about the Korean war,” writes Blaine Harden, “has . . . led to the cartoonish ahistorical understanding many Americans still have of contemporary North Korea. They know that a family of clownish-looking dictators named Kim has created a hermit state armed with nuclear weapons. They know that it is wildly belligerent toward the United States. But most do not know that the fears of North Korea’s isolated citizens are firmly rooted in history: they are afraid that Americans might once again raze their country. Thanks to the bombs and napalm dropped by the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, the Kim family is able to stoke anti-American hatred and perpetuate its rule, all while telling a terrifying, fact-based story that most Americans have never heard.”
Gordon Gekko may have articulated the Reagan era’s ethos when he proclaimed “Greed is good” in Oliver Stone’s 1987 Wall Street, but in terms of ethics Captain Greedy is not good - although when it comes to sheer showmanship and moral musings, The Actors’ Gang grabs the brass ring and hits a bull’s eye with Captain Greedy’s Carnival.
The first act of Captain Greedy’s Carnival, with its book and lyrics by Jack Pinter and music by Roger Eno, is an exceedingly clever concoction combining the free market philosophy of economists such as Smith, Hayek and Friedman with the format of a carnival. Capitalism is insightfully compared to a carnival’s games of chance. Through this circus-like atmosphere the co-creators, their cast of about 20 performers (The Gang’s all here!) plus a live band lampoon laissez faire economics with a humorous harpoon, its razor sharp tip dipped in acid.
For the first time in 12 years (or longer, if you’ve forgotten Enterprise existed), there’s a new Star Trek series. Set about a decade before the original series, Star Trek: Discovery follows a Black woman captain (angering people who have apparently never watched Star Trek and aren’t aware that it’s been about social justice since 1966) as she navigates the early days of the war between the Klingons and the Federation. It’s the first post-J.J. Abrams Trek show, and fans are excited to step away from the new movie universe and revisit the original series’ timeline.
But regardless of whether the show turns out to be the next The Next Generation or just another Enterprise, it’s already being hobbled by one huge problem: CBS is only making it available in the US through their “All Access” streaming service.
Well, our President in Twitter Chief, Donald Trump, has once again trumped his own self. This time he’s taking on the rights of athletes to protest the injustices inflicted on people of color in America during NFL games. Our Twitter Chief, President Trump, feels that it’s more important for him, as President of the United States, to tweet about the right for people to protest peacefully, than it is for him to tweet about the horrific plight of the people of Puerto Rico, who are in desperate need of drastic help to rebuild and survive after hurricane Maria.
As of September 27, our Twitter Chief had tweeted twenty-three plus times about his anger at the NFL players for not “standing and being respectful during the national anthem” and only six times about how he was going to help Puerto Rico, which by the way is a part of the United States since 1898, which makes the people of Puerto Rico AMERICAN citizens. But wait a minute, hold up, seems like we have been down this road before with the President of the United States being slow to help its “Brown” American citizens after a natural disaster.
This co-production launching a collaboration between the Fountain Theatre and Los Angeles City College’s Theatre Academy tells the story of real life dancer Freddy Herko (Marty Dew) largely through choreography (by Cate Caplin) and a recorded soundtrack of music ranging from Vivaldi and Mozart to sixties music by Blind Faith and Donovan plus other rock/pop musicians. Various stage effects are used, too, including a sort of mist that this hour-ish-long one acter opens with, perhaps symbolizing the mists of memory.
To be sure, in addition to this impressionistic collage, there is a storyline that threads this needle, as the older Shelley (professional actress Susan Wilder) goes back in time to relate her experiences with Freddy, when she was young and foolish. Devoted to dance, younger Shelley (professional actress Katie McConaughy) leaves her husband Pete (LACC sixth semester actor Lamont Oakley) to pursue the mercurial Freddy.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- A Supreme Court sentenced fugitive former Prime
Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to five years in prison on September 27
after ruling in absentia she was guilty of negligence for not stopping
alleged corruption costing billions of dollars during her failed rice
crop subsidies.
The military junta, which ousted Ms. Yingluck in a bloodless 2014
coup, is now using "spies" to track her after she missed a court
ruling on August 25 and reportedly smuggled herself out of Thailand
with the help of police, decoy cars and a black surgical face mask.
Ms. Yingluck, 50, has not been seen in public since.
"She has not yet applied for political asylum and I don't know
whether she will be able to get it," coup-installed Prime Minister
Prayuth Chan-ocha told reporters on September 26 amid speculation that
Ms. Yingluck was trying for asylum in England.
"I know [her whereabouts]...I have spies," said Mr. Prayuth who led
the 2014 coup when he was army chief.
Before disappearing, she insisted on her innocence and portrayed
he flag is a symbol, and there is no agreement as to what it actually symbolizes. By design, the flag’s thirteen stripes stand for the original 13 states, none of which would ban slavery. The 14th state, Vermont, was the first state to ban slavery, doing it weakly in its 1777 state constitution (not that the principle was enforced: in 1802 the Town of Windsor sued a State Supreme Court justice to get him to take care of an elderly, infirm slave he had dumped on town welfare; the town lost the case). The original flag had 13 stars for those same original 13 states, and it took over 70 years before all 36 stars in the 1865 flag represented states without slavery (but not states without racist Jim Crow laws and the freedom to lynch without consequence).
November 11 is Armistice Day / Remembrance Day. Ninety-nine years ago, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, fighting ceased in the “war to end all wars.” People went on killing and dying right up until the pre-designated moment, impacting nothing other than our understanding of the stupidity of war.
Thirty million soldiers had been killed or wounded and another seven million had been taken captive during World War I. Even more would die from a flu epidemic created by the war. Never before had people witnessed such industrialized slaughter, with tens of thousands falling in a day to machine guns and poison gas. After the war, more and more truth began to overtake the lies, but whether people still believed or now resented the pro-war propaganda, virtually every person in the United States wanted to see no more of war ever again. Posters of Jesus shooting at Germans were left behind as the churches along with everyone else now said that war was wrong. Al Jolson wrote in 1920 to President Harding:
“The weary world is waiting for
Peace forevermore
So take away the gun
From every mother’s son
And put an end to war.”