Twenty-two years ago, Congress put sanity up for a vote. Sanity lost in the House, 420-1. It lost in the Senate, 98-0.

Barbara Lee’s lone vote for sanity — that is to say, her vote against the Authorization for the Use of Military Force resolution, allowing the president to make war against . . . uh, evil . . . without congressional approval — remains a tiny light of courageous hope flickering in a chaotic world, which is on the brink of self-annihilation.

Militarism keeps expanding, at least here in the USA. If there’s a problem out there, option one is to kill it quickly. Problem solved! This simplistic (and utterly false) mindset, which is always present — the companion of fear — may have a grip on American politics like never before, as demonstrated in the recent debt-ceiling standoff, in which President Biden came to an agreement with the Republicans that social spending will be slashed but “defense” spending must continue to expand.

There seems to be no political will to address the climate crisis with any meaningful measures. The science is crystal clear: human activity is the # 1 driving force of climate decline. We know this, it’s common knowledge. Yet the powers-that-be, the oil companies and their cohorts are determined to extract every last drop of oil, regardless of the impact on the planet.

We are seeing massive storms and tornados raging. The polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rate. This is a huge threat to the quality of life for future generations.

Scientists predict that by 2040-50, if things don’t change, the polar ice caps will have melted and coastal communities will be under water.

The famous psychic Edgar Casey predicted that the Ohio River valley would be coastal! Think of your favorite beach or island – gone forever. If we all don’t demand action now, that startling scenario will unfold. The melting is happening faster than expected, as we speak.

“Nuclear Renaissance (version 4.0)” is the centralized corporate power industry’s final grab at mega-sums of public money and total control of energy.

Facing a definitive tsunami of cheaper, cleaner, safer, faster-to-deploy renewables, it’s meant primarily to serve the nuclear weapons complex while insulating entrenched centralized power against distributed green social democracy.

The “Renaissance’s” prime medieval reality is the escalated likelihood of another Three Mile Island-Chernobyl-Fukushima disaster at one of America’s lingering 94 reactors.

Most US nukes were designed in the pre-digital 1960s and ‘70s. They are dangerously decayed, with an average age of around 40. They are structurally dubious, seriously under-maintained and inherently unsafe.

None have significant private accident insurance. But a major meltdown/explosion could threaten millions of lives and inflict apocalyptic health, ecological and economic harm.

As leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys are convicted of seditious conspiracy for their
roles in the failed Jan. 6 insurrection, LA Opera revives the production about the most malicious
traitor in the entire history of the stage and screen. Sure, Judas betrayed Jesus in The New
Testament and Jesus Christ Superstar, and Major General Benedict Arnold attempted to double-
cross George Washington (and the cause of American liberty) by plotting to turn West Point over
to the British, who he went on to fight for as a counterrevolutionary brigadier general.
But William Shakespeare’s conniving Iago (played to the hilt by Moscow tenor Igor
Golovatanko in Giuseppe Verdi’s operatic adaptation of the Bard’s tragedy) is in a class by
himself when it comes to treachery. For not only does he stab Otello (Miami tenor Russell
Thomas) in the back, he conspires and painstakingly manipulates Otello to be the unwitting
author of the Moor’s downfall, which is carefully choreographed by the scheming Iago every
step of the way. In this specific sense, Iago is more than a mere traitor, he is the puppeteer who