Global
It’s too easy, right? Too simple — shoving Christopher Columbus off the historical honor roll, pulling down his statues, yanking his “day” away from him and renaming it in honor of the people he murdered, kidnapped, turned into property?
Or is Indigenous Peoples Day seen by the world as simply a starting point, a launching of the transpatriarchal change in collective humanity we so desperately need but do not understand? I certainly put myself in that category: clueless. I both oppose and participate in environmental devastation, consuming my share of fossil fuels, plastic, etc., etc., even as I join those demanding change and pushing back against political-corporate interests. Yeah, Indigenous Peoples Day, that should do it . . . even as the Amazon burns, the tar-sands oil flows, militarism rules and moneyed interests continue getting what they want.
Over the last decade, 710 Indigenous people have been reported missing, with 466 of those reports coming from Wyoming, the same state in which Gabby Petito went missing.
Media coverage is essential for investigating a missing person because the public can help, and it is often used as a tool for recovering victims. But there is often a hierarchy of victims that get that attention. Those who are female, young or White receive the most help in being found, while Black, Indigenous or Latinx missing people often do not receive the same attention.
Criminologists have created two theories regarding media coverage for missing people. The rarity theory suggests that victims who are seen as ideal –– females, children, and the elderly, unusual stories, or stories that involve more than one victim are considered “newsworthy.” The devaluation theory proposes portrayals of victims of crime as White in the media feed into predicting perceptions of the fear of victimization for White people.
America’s long-term fascist coup may have begun on November 22, 1963 with the murder of John Kennedy.
But George W. Bush’s “Brooks Brothers Mob” took it to another level exactly 37 years later.
And the MAGA Monster’s attack on January 6, 2021, is far from over.
Like the 1865 murder of Abraham Lincoln, the elimination of JFK moved America toward the fascist totalitarianism we face today.
Debate still rages over who actually killed President Kennedy…and whether he would have pulled us out of Vietnam. But there’s no doubt that murder—combined with those of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy—-tore devastating holes in the fiber of American democracy. The movements for racial equality, social justice and an end to empire have yet to fully recover from those fascist hits.
On the 37th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, an outright fascist coup followed in lock step. With the 2000 Florida vote count in deep dispute, a violent “Brooks Brothers Mob” physically terrorized Miami-area poll workers recounting the ballots in the very tight race between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush.
“Unanswered Questions” looks at the events of 9/11 from the perspective of 9/11 families. The author follows the journey of the well known “Jersey Girls” as well as many groups or organizations that grew out of the frustration experienced by the families. Although I began to doubt the official story of 9/11 early on, I had not heard of the Family Steering Committee, Families of September 11, 9/11 Families for a Secure America, 9/11 Families to Bankrupt terrorism, Coalition of 9/11 families, Fix the Fund, Give Your Voice, LMDC Families Advisory Council, Skyscraper Safety Campaign, Tuesdays Children and several more. Intertwined with the experiences of the families is mention of the loved ones lost. Where were they on that morning, how did they die that morning? What was the final communication with family?
According to author Ray McGinnis, only 11% of the questions posted to the 9/11 commission were answered. Entire chapters are devoted to questions posed but not answered of NORAD, the FBI, Mayor Giuliani, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the Port Authority, Donald Rumsfeld, as well as the FAA, CIA, Security and Exchange Commission.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- After China's recent cryptocurrency crackdown,
impoverished Laos is now allowing Bitcoin mining, fueled by abundant
hydroelectric power from the Mekong River and shrugging off U.S.
warnings of disastrous environmental problems.
The surprise announcement on September 9 by the Prime Minister's
Office, allowing the creation of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other
blockchain-based currencies, makes Laos the only Southeast Asian
country to officially permit and participate in it.
China had allowed Bitcoin miners to feed on its cheap electricity for
several years -- mostly in the provinces of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang,
Sichuan and Yunnan -- but shut down their systems in May, by
tightening regulations.
Worried foreign investors struggled to export expensive, delicate,
massive computers out of China while scouring the world for fresh
places to set up.
China's central bank also banned on all cryptocurrency transactions,
in an effort to control the flow of money in and out of the country.
"China has shot itself in the foot by going after its Bitcoin miners,"
I use walking sticks when I walk nowadays, kind of like cross-country skiing in late summer, but I had no idea doing so would connect me with a guy named Joe and open a flow of aching love and the deep desire to matter.
“Can I give you a cane?” he asked.
This was in the alley two blocks from my house. I was pushing myself along — I love to walk in alleys for some reason, maybe because I never know what I’ll come upon — and I passed an older guy (around my age, that is) whose garage door was open. He was working at his bandsaw. As I walked past him, he turned and called out his cane offer to me.
I stopped, shrugged. In my 75 years on Planet Earth, no one had ever offered me a free cane before. We stood looking at each other. “Hi,” I said. We introduced ourselves. He stepped away from his bandsaw and I explained that I already had a cane., but thanked him. “This is what I do,” he said. “I make stuff. I give it away.”
Canada’s unpopular general election of September 20 is increasingly recognized as a mistake by the country’s leading political analysts. However, this mistake could potentially prove to be the very undoing of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party in future elections.
An urgent task is awaiting us: considering the progression of events, we must quickly liberate ourselves from the limits and confines placed on the Afghanistan discourse, which have been imposed by US-centered Western propaganda for over 20 years, and counting. A first step is that we must not allow the future political discourse pertaining to this very subject to remain hostage to American priorities - successes, failures and geostrategic interests.
The political division in Palestinian society is deep-rooted, and must not be reduced to convenient claims about the ‘Hamas-Fatah split’, elections, the Oslo accords and subsequent disagreements. The division is linked to events that preceded all of these, and not even the death or incapacitation of the octogenarian, Mahmoud Abbas, will advance Palestinian unity by an iota.
Like Gloria Swanson at the end of 1950’s Sunset Blvd., the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is finally ready for its close up. Years in the making, the Academy Museum’s world premiere is Sept. 30. According to Bill Kramer, President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – you know, those fine folks who give the annual Academy Awards – this cinematic sanctuary “is a new home for the art of film in Los Angeles, the world capital of moviemaking.”
At the same Sept. 21 press event Kramer addressed, architect Renzo Piano whimsically likened the edifice’s futuristic spheric design to “a soap bubble. Don’t call it the ‘Death Star.’ Call it a zeppelin or a spaceship.” This 250,000-plus square foot repository of cinema is adjacent to what had been the May Company (now the Saban) Building, famed for its gold-tiled cylindrical section that resembled a lipstick tube, located at the “Miracle Mile” in Mid-City L.A. Inside visitors can experience movie magic and see some of the screen’s most iconic artifacts.