Global
September 28, 2018, marks 100 years since the stupidest parade I’ve ever heard of. And this is a world awash in stupid. Donald Trump wanted to hold an insane weapons parade in Washington this November. That was dumb. But so was, on a far lesser scale, the move by various peace groups to de-prioritize going ahead with a massive celebration of having helped get the parade cancelled. I suppose the thinking is that we have got just too many victories for peace to be bothered with inspiring people to join us.
Anyway, the French parade of death that inspired Trump was certainly moronic. So is the French plan to let Trump back into the country. Three cheers for the Irish, whom he won’t be visiting! But nothing matches for sheer idiocy the parade held in Philadelphia on September 28, 1918.
Broadway has the musical Hamilton and surfing has Bethany Hamilton. Aaron Lieber’s exquisitely shot Unstoppable is the second feature-length film about the 13-year-old Kauai girl whose arm was bit off by a tiger shark in 2003 while she was wave riding. Bethany was portrayed by AnnaSophia Robb in 2011’s Soul Surfer, co-starring Helen Hunt and Dennis Quaid as her parents and Branscombe Richmond as coach Ben Aipa. (According to Jenni Gold, director of the new documentary about the screen image of disabled people Cinemability, The Art of Inclusion, to be released on VOD Oct. 5, her interview with Hamilton “is on the DVD’s bonus features.”)
This is so much bigger than Brett Kavanaugh, or the outcome of his nomination.
Women are suddenly opening their secret wounds. Their trauma — often many decades old — is becoming, for the first time, public. So are their tears.
Enduring a sexual assault is only the beginning of the journey through hell.
This is the awareness that has accompanied the Kavanaugh nomination and the politically motivated dismissal of Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation against him, beginning with Donald Trump’s all-knowing tweet: “I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!”
It’s not easy being vulnerable!
But Trump’s callous ignorance has opened up the gates of grief and fury.
“I was watching CNN and I just broke down. I just lost it. I finally started experiencing the emotion.”
This is not true. Brett Kavanaugh has not always treated women with dignity and respect, unless you mean abusing his judicial authority in an attempt to prevent a woman from having the legal abortion she wants constitutes some form of “dignity and respect.”
In the one abortion case Brett Kavanaugh has ruled on as a federal judge, he treated a pregnant 17-year-old woman with no dignity and no respect, and he went out of his way to do it. The woman was a Jane Doe fleeing from family violence in Central America, where her parents had beaten her pregnant sister so badly she miscarried. Jane Doe was in US custody, she wanted an abortion, and the US refused. She sued and won the right to an abortion. The US appealed and the case reached the US District Court where Kavanaugh sat. The court ruled to allow Jane Doe (J.D. in the court’s opinion), then at least 15 weeks pregnant, to have her abortion. In an opinion concurring with the majority decision, Judge Patricia Ann Millett wrote:
Coming Saturday, October 6th
ONLINE CONFERENCE by donation
Was the 2016 Election Stolen?
Was Donald Trump actually elected president?
Did Bernie actually win the primaries over Hillary?
You can ask questions by email during the broadcast. The video stream will be instantly archived for 10 days. You can arrive late or watch it again. You can watch on your computer, iphone, android phone, ipad, etc.
LA Opera and the Grand Inquisitor are back on Grand Avenue, kicking off the 2018/19 season with a spectacular production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlo. This extravaganza is set during the 16th century court of King Philip II of Spain (Italian Ferruccio Furlanetto through Sept. 29, alternating with Russian Alexander Vinogradov Oct. 4-14), when Madrid was the world’s reigning superpower. Not only did the Spanish crown rule much of the “New World,” but parts of Europe, particularly the Low Countries.
Of course, conquest, colonialism and occupation often require brutal militarism, and Philip’s own son, the titular Don Carlo (Mexican Ramon Vargas) beseeches his father to end the vicious suppression of Spanish forces at Flanders (no, not Homer Simpson’s animated neighbor Ned, but the Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium). The Spanish Crown Prince’s anti-cruelty quest is backed by his true blue pal Rodrigo, Marquis of Posa (legendary Plácido Domingo, singing here as a baritone), and the “two amigos” sing a stellar duet affirming the bonds of their friendship.
On the 17th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that let loose so much international violence, the public has a right to ask what really happened on that day. Here are eight points to ponder.
1. Questioners of the official account of 9/11 are often dismissed as “conspiracy theorists,” but this makes no sense. A conspiracy is just a secret plan, by two or more people, to commit a criminal or immoral act. The 9/11 attacks obviously involved a conspiracy.
2. Some people think that the truth of the official account blaming al-Qaida is obvious to every sane person. Not true. Polls suggest that less than half the world’s population shares this confidence.
3. If Bin Laden was the criminal mastermind, why didn’t the FBI charge him with the crime? In 2006 an FBI spokesperson explained: the Bureau had no hard evidence connecting him to 9/11.
Watching it in IMAX I enjoyed much of The House with a Clock in Its Walls based on John Bellairs’ 1973 fantasy novel, although seeing and listening to it did give me a slight headache. Starring Jack Black as the warlock Jonathan Barnavelt and Cate Blanchett as his bewitching gal pal Florence Zimmerman, this 104-minute, special FX-powered big screen extravaganza full of spooky (and sometimes gross - I could have lived without the scatological sight gags tastelessly pandering to immature viewers) visuals and a plotline dealing with death, Walls seem more for young adults than children per se.
The original version of this now-revised column was published at: https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-painful-truth-about-last-years-failed-flu-vaccine/5636682
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” – Mark Twain
“…most ‘flu’ appears to have nothing to do with influenza. Every year, hundreds of thousands of respiratory specimens are tested across the US. Of those tested, on average 16% are found to be influenza positive.” – From the British Medical Journal editor, Peter Doshi, MD
French director Rémi Kessler’s heartwarming documentary The Advocates takes an insider look at a compelling crisis that seems to be mushrooming across Los Angeles far beyond the confines of Skid Row: Homelessness. The 86 minute nonfiction film focuses in on a trio of L.A. organizers for whom the political is personal, as they work primarily for private organizations to assist the ever-expanding number of people living on the street. Sometimes there is public-private cooperation and people like these three activists are derisively referred to as “do-gooders.”