Global
I plead with the readers of this column to click on the following links and read about the Vale Mining Corporation’s warning of an impending dissolution of yet another Brazilian mine tailings dam. Here is the link to the developing story.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48391767
The most important part of the report is the accompanying video which should be required viewing for every Minnesotan, every politician and every lover of drinkable water, the St Louis River, Lake Superior, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) and Canada’s Quetico Provincial Park.
Seventy-five years ago playwright Mary Chase’s Harvey started hip-hopping across the stage for four and a half years, as this whimsical classic about a great white rabbit went on to have one of the longest theatrical runs in Great White Way history. Chase’s three act play rather famously depicted well-to-do Ellwood P. Dowd, owner of a posh home somewhere in the Far West, also inhabited by his sister Veta Louise Simmons, his 20-ish niece Myrtle Mae and - much to the chagrin of the mother and daughter - the titular six-foot, three-and-one-half-inch, invisible rabbit. Ellwood regards Harvey to be his best friend, but his sister and niece consider the hare’s purported existence to be apocryphal and a source of embarrassment. Hilarity ensues.
Joe Biden’s glaring absence from the California Democratic Party convention has thrown a national spotlight on his eagerness to detour around the party’s progressive base. While dodging an overt clash for now, Biden is on a collision course with grassroots Democrats across the country who are learning more about his actual record and don’t like it.
Inside the statewide convention in San Francisco over the weekend, I spoke with hundreds of delegates about Biden while leafletting with information on his record. I was struck by the frequent intensity of distrust and even animosity; within seconds, after glancing at his name and photo at the top of the flyer, many delegates launched into some form of denunciation.
Are you a fan of The Grateful Dead? Bluegrass and funk? A variety of art performance and talent all packed together over a three-day weekend event? I think it’s time you prepare for next year’s Dark Star Jubilee festival, where you can expect all of this and also making friends with a family of people who all share the same passions for these things in life.
Pride season is a monumental one this year, considering that 2019 is the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. This revolutionary uprising, led largely by queer and trans people of color (QTPOC) against oppressive police forces raiding the Stonewall Inn, ignited the modern movement for LGBTQIA+ rights.
Their uprising in New York was very much in the footsteps of the LGBTQIA+ folks who rose up against violent, transphobic police officers three years prior at the Compton Cafeteria Riots in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. Though white homonormativity soon began to dominate the general narrative around LGBTQIA+ experiences, there were militant trans women of color, like Miss Major, Marsha P Johnson, and Sylvia Rivera who rejected assimilation and instead fiercely advocated for the true liberation of the most marginalized. They consistently uplifted low-income trans women of color, houseless queer and trans youth, and sex workers in their communities until their dying days.
The U.S. government protects itself, not democracy. That’s what is most apparent about its 18-count indictment of Julian Assange, not to mention the ongoing imprisonment of Chelsea Manning, for the leaking and release of State Department and military documents and videos a decade ago.
The current reporting on the indictment is mostly about Assange himself: his expulsion from the Ecuadoran embassy in London after he’d been holed up there for seven years; the sexual assault charges against him in Sweden; and, of course, his role as a “tool” of the Russians, along with his flip-flopping appeal to both the political left and right (depending on the nature of the controversy WikiLeaks is stirring up). What a story!