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In an informal conversation following Topsy Turvy’s premiere during the reception in the backyard of The Actors’ Gang’s Culver City citadel of stage, Artistic Director Tim Robbins flashed that still boyish grin of his and confessed Dionysus was his favorite deity. “That’s my god!” the Oscar winner gushed. Dionysus, of course, is (among other things) the Greek god of theater, and one of Athens’ amphitheaters (near the Acropolis), as well as a 5th century B.C. theatrical Festival, were named after this artsy son of Zeus and a female mortal. 

Dionysus (portrayed by Gang veteran Scott Harris in a snazzy suit) makes a special guest appearance in Topsy Turvy, a one-act, 105-ish-minute-long play performed without intermission, written and directed by Robbins. It is among the first fictional stage or screen productions to dare to dramatize one of the thorniest phenomena of our times: The Covid-19 pandemic, which is here simply referred to as “the plague.” (In 2021, playwright Willard Manus adapted Daniel Defoe’s 1722 nonfiction account A Journal of the Plague Year at the Brickhouse Theatre in North Hollywood.)

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Community Festival (ComFest) is back in Goodale Park Friday, June 28 through Sunday, June 30, 2024. 

ComFest will feature over 150 musical performances, social activism and community-oriented programming over three days. In addition to the line-up of the city’s best live music spread over five stages, workshops, KiDSART, live comedy, poetry readings and other programming will be featured throughout the park. The much-loved Street Fair also returns with one-of-a-kind vendors, arts and crafts, local food and community organizations. 

New at ComFest this year will be a singer/songwriter/troubadour stage and a Silent Disco.

ComFest has partnered with Seventh Son Brewing Co. for a special ComFest brew that will be featured all weekend. A portion of the sales will benefit ComFest’s Community Grants Program. Also new for 2024 will be a non-alcoholic beer option.

ComFest is “Powered by Community” and volunteer opportunities are available. Give a shift and get chips for ComFest beverages and food and your very own volunteer T-shirt.

Our astoundingly dense GREEP Zoom #178 starts with VINNIE DESTEFANO giving us some rare but important good news on JULIAN ASSANGE & his ridiculous victimization by the US government.

In this case a British court has ruled that the US cannot guarantee him a fair trial, and that he therefore has the right to appeal against extradition. Hopefully he’ll soon be free!!!

We follow with the great peace activist DAVID SWANSON and his illustrious cohort DAVID HARTSOUGH.

David Swanson tells us about his magnificent BEYOND WAR campaigns against the senseless militarism that plagues our species.

David Hartsough narrates some of his fantastic stories of peace activism, including an amazing moment when seven saDORilors jumped off a warship rather than deliver weapons to destroy Vietnam.

DAVID SALTMAN informs us that AMAL CLOONEY has had a helping hand in issuing the indictments to Netanyahu and Sinwar.

MYLA RESON and TATANKA BRICCA join PAUL NEWMAN in raising important questions about the war in Ukraine.

Gaza bombing

Occupation and Resistance – the birth of one heralds the inevitable creation of the other. The existence of the first is the life blood which sustains the second, and the death of one signals the demise of the other. This symbiotic relationship between the two is innate and uncompromising.

This law of nature is written in stone. Humankind has known this self-evident truth from the beginning of time. It is also not new that man has forever failed to learn from his own experiences. What is ironic though is man”s ability to vacillate between the two, the Machiavellian capacity to adore or abhor as circumstances and self-interest dictate, regardless of universal moral and ethical values.   

Dear AG Dave Yost,

Ohio AG Dave Yost wants to criminalize free speech. Last week, he issued a "legal fatwa" where he threatened to invoke a 1953 law better known as "anti-KKK" against 41 brave OSU students and faculty who were arrested last April 25. Reason? The protesters were calling for their university to divest from Israel and an end to the Israeli genocide and starvation in Gaza. Simply put, he will charge OSU students & faculties fourth degree felony charge under his silly unheard-of law.
 

By cracking down on OSU students for protesting against genocide after 14,500+ slaughtered Palestinian children and billions in US aid, weapons, and political cover, that makes AG Yost as complicit.

Contrary to AG Yost "Yo Yost" TV campaign commercial in which he promised to protect Ohioans' religious freedom, AG Yost ordered his troops to attack students while they were praying and violate Muslim students' religious rights as they were exercising their First Amendment's rights at OSU campus. Furthermore, students and faculties who were arrested were subjected to illegal, inhumane, and degrading treatments such as: 

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