This is a banner week for South Seas Cinema, the film genre set in/shot at the Pacific Islands. It is being kicked off by writer/director Taika Waititi’s gem, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which was made on location in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This good-natured, well-made film is a sheer delight and absolute joy to behold (and although there is some off-color language and violence, is recommended viewing for most children and families).

In essence, Wilderpeople is about an urban Maori (the indigenous people of NZ) juvenile delinquent type, Ricky Baker (the droll, roly-poly Julian Dennison), who is placed in a foster home somewhere out in the bush. There, he is begrudgingly adopted by “Uncle” Hec, a Caucasian ex-con and “bush man” played by the great Sam Neill. (Did you know that in addition to co-starring as Dr. Alan Grant in 1993’s Jurassic Park and 2001’s Jurassic Park III, as well as in 1999’s Hawaii-set Molokai, Neill grew up in the South Island of New Zealand and co-directed/co-wrote an insightful documentary about that country’s movies called Cinema of Unease?)

I feel the finger on the trigger. I also feel it on the button.

“Dear President Obama,” the letter begins. It goes on to remind him of something he said in his 2008 presidential campaign: “Keeping nuclear weapons ready to launch on a moment’s notice is a dangerous relic of the Cold War. Such policies increase the risk of catastrophic accidents or miscalculation.”

The letter, from the Union of Concerned Scientists, is signed by 90 scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates. It continues: “After your election, you called for taking ‘our nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.’”

Presidential campaigns, mass killings, war . . . nuclear war. Washington, we have a problem.

Unitarian Universalists are engaged in the Black Lives Matter movement and are mobilizing in the broader movement for black liberation. At 5 p.m. on Thursday, June 23, the Unitarian Universalist Association is hosting an interfaith State of Emergence rally at the Ohio Statehouse in collaboration with the Ohio Student Association, the People’s Justice Project, UU Justice Ohio, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Union of Reform Judaism, and the United Church of Christ.

Most Unitarian Universalists are white, but they don’t see this as a reason to sit on the sidelines of the struggle for racial justice. The entire ministry team and several members of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus turned out for the June 15 Justice for Henry Green protest wearing yellow Standing on the Side of Love T-shirts.

In what's being called the worst mass killing by the United States in the past six months, numerous mentally disturbed individuals, with the extensive backing of a well-financed terrorist organization, and support from a growing circle of allied gang members, have gruesomely slaughtered 1,110 to 1,558 innocent men, women, and children.

This incident, which has left shocked and speechless a handful of people who've heard and thought about it, took place between December 1, 2015, and May 31, 2016, during which interval the killers got off 4,087 airstrikes, including 3,010 over Iraq and 1,077 over Syria.

Aiding and abetting the slaughter, and now also being sought by law enforcement, are France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, and Canada. In what is widely understood as an appeal for judicial mercy, Canada has expressed remorse. None of the other alleged perpetrators has done so. Several have openly acknowledged their participation, including by displaying the gang symbol of a U.S. flag tattooed on their glutei maximi.

By Center for Citizen Initiatives delegation currently visiting Russia