“The Voice of Freedom: Civil Rights”

Words The Voice of Freedom Civil Rights

Sunday, November 24, 3-4pm
Streetlight Guild, 1367 E. Main St.
The Voice of Freedom: Civil Rights introduces audiences to the operatic art form by celebrating African-American cultural history through song. Universal in its emotional and musical appeal, this unique production will highlight gospel, jazz, and other works from the Civil Rights Movement. “The Voice of Freedom: Civil Rights” aims to share the African-American experience with audiences of all ages, races, and religions. This show is an abridged version of “The Journey: Civil Rights.” Concept + creation by Destiny Coleman, Director of Education + Artistic Administration for Opera Columbus.
Hosted by Opera Columbus and Streetlight Guild.

BIKRAM: YOGI, GURU, PREDATOR: FILM REVIEW

 

Academy Award winning Australian filmmaker Eva Orner’s well-made documentary Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator is an 86-minute creepfest perfect for the #MeToo Movement and moment. This no-punches-pulled nonfiction film purports to chronicle the career, life, lies, and sexual abuse of Bikram Choudhury, the main ballyhooer of Bikram or “Hot Yoga” in America and beyond. The ornery Orner goes after Choudhury with the same take-no-prisoners panache that Alex Gibney - with whom she shared (as producer) the Best Documentary Oscar for 2007’s Taxi to the Dark Side - took on another alleged cult in 2015’s Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief.

 

Do You Have a Sleep Disorder? Pharma Hopes So

If you think you are seeing a lot of ads for sleep-related drugs lately you are right. Pharma is rolling out a banquet of "sleep disorders" like Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder, Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder, Non-24-hour Sleep-Wake Disorder, Irregular Sleep Wake Rhythm, Jet Lag Disorder and Shift Work Sleep Disorder. These are on top of the predecessor conditions of Chronic, Acute, Transient, Initial and Middle-Of-The-Night Insomnia, Early-Morning Wakening Disorder and Non-Restful Sleep Disorder.

 

The conditions constitute Pharma's global circadian rhythm sleep disorder market which wasvalued at $1.31 billion two years ago.

 

MARRIAGE STORY: Film Review

 

Noah Baumbach assembled an outstanding cast for Marriage Story, which was a last minute replacement for the scheduled screening of The Banker (maybe it was pulled for going bankrupt?) at AFI Fest. He and the wonderful Laura Dern (who was so good in the pro-union HBO series Enlightened and the original Jurassic Park), appeared to present the Netflix production Marriage Story at the TCL Chinese Theatre where Baumbach remarked on how long he’s been looking forward to the occasion - exactly “29 and a half hours” since AFI Fest presumably scrambled to find a substitute for the Festival’s grand finale.

 

IVANA THE TERRIBLE: Film Review

Borderline: A Chip Off of Dusan Makavejev’s Cinematic Block

 

Serbian co-writer/director Ivana Mladenović’s Ivana the Terrible is many things, but one thing it most definitely is not is a sequel to Sergei Eisenstein’s 1940s Ivan the Terrible, Parts I and II. The cinematic style of this funny semi-autobiographical film is interesting in that Ivana plays a version of herself, as do her mother, father, grandmother and others in a mostly nonprofessional cast. Ms. Mladenović also relates that most of the events depicted onscreen actually happened to her. So Terrible is a hybrid movie, combining elements of documentary and fiction filmmaking.

 

Onscreen (and I guess offscreen) Ivana is from Kladovo, a small town on the Serbian-Romanian border. She moves to Bucharest, where she studies filmmaking and becomes an actress and director. In doing so Ivana turns into a local celebrity, the most famous living person from her hometown. But suffering from some unknown, undiagnosed ailment, when she returns to where she grew up Ivana finds out, like Thomas Wolfe before her, that “You Can’t Go Home Again.”

 

Pope Francis Sought Acceptance in Buddhist Thailand

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Pope Francis' visit to Buddhist-majority Thailand
focused attention on Catholic hill tribes and sexual abuse against
women amid improving relations between the two religions quietly
influenced by the army's failure to defeat southern Muslim
separatists.

During Francis' November 20-23 visit, he also emphasized the need for
Catholics to strengthen links with Buddhists.

"General public opinion holds that Thai Catholics are relatively
'quiet and peaceful'," said Katewadee Kulabkaew, a scholar of Thai
Buddhism's contemporary politics.

"However, those inclined to Buddhist chauvinism argue that Catholicism
may still be a threat to Thai Buddhism," she wrote in an analysis of
Francis' visit published on November 21 by New Mandala, a website
hosted by the Australian National University.

"Nevertheless, the focus of those determined to 'protect' Buddhism is
now centered on Islam. The escalation of violence in Thailand's Deep
South, where Muslim secessionists have previously killed Buddhist

THE MAGIC FLUTE OPERA REVIEW

In 1927 The Jazz Singer - the first feature length movie with a synchronized soundtrack - was released. The musical had a memorable spoken line when Al Jolson quipped: “Wait a minute, wait a minute I tell yer, you ain’t heard nothing yet.” Given the ensuing deluge of dialogue since talkies displaced silent films, truer words have rarely ever been spoken onscreen.

But “Jolie” couldn’t foresee that around 80 years later a theater company specializing in “merg[ing] animation and live performance” would name itself after that fateful year in cinematic history in the U.K. And in 2012, according to the company’s website, “1927 collaborated with Komische Opera Berlin, to conceive and create a reimagining of The Magic Flute” that combines not only animation but a silent cinema aesthetic with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s music. The mind blowing result can now be seen onstage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion LA Opera.

Ohio's Pro-Nuke Assault Threatens American Democracy with Violence & More

The nuclear industry's violent assault on democracy in Ohio has taken a surreal leap. It could seriously impact whether Donald Trump will carry this swing state—-and the nation—-in 2020.

Ohio's GOP secretary of state has now asked the Ohio Supreme Court NOT to provide a federal judge with answers about key procedural questions surrounding the state's referendum process.

The short-term issue is about a billion-dollar bailout for two nuke reactors and two coal burners.

Long-term it asks whether targeted violence perpetrated by paid thugs will now define our election process. And whether the public referendum will remain a workable part of our democracy.

The battle starts with House Bill 6, the now-infamous billion-dollar nuke bailout approved by the corrupt, gerrymandered Ohio legislature in late July.

HB6 forces all Ohio ratepayers to subsidize two crumbling nukes on Lake Erie, along with two decrepit coal burners, one of them in Indiana. It helps underwrite ten small solar farms, but undercuts much larger subsidies for other wind and solar facilities.

From the American Friends Service Committee. Tell Congress: Show up Nov. 20 for Palestinian children’s rights

Kid in blindfold between lots of military men

Ask your representative to join U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum and Christian faith leaders at a congressional briefing on Wednesday, Nov. 20, Universal Children's Day. The briefing will call attention to the need to protect the rights of Palestinian children who are detained, prosecuted, and incarcerated by the Israeli military in the occupied Palestinian territory. The session will also highlight the “Promoting Human Rights for Palestinian Children Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act” (H.R. 2407), which prohibits any U.S. taxpayer funds from contributing to the military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of children by any country, including Israel.  Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes between 500 and 700 children each year in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections. Children within the Israeli military detention system commonly report physical and verbal abuse from the moment of their arrest, and coercion and threats during interrogations.

Ohio's Pro-Nuke Assault Threatens American Democracy with Violence & More

Nuclear plant with smoke spewing out

The nuclear industry's violent assault on democracy in Ohio has taken a surreal leap. It could seriously impact whether Donald Trump will carry this swing state—-and the nation—-in 2020.

Ohio's GOP secretary of state has now asked the Ohio Supreme Court NOT to provide a federal judge with answers about key procedural questions surrounding the state's referendum process.

The short-term issue is about a billion-dollar bailout for two nuke reactors and two coal burners.

Long-term it asks whether targeted violence perpetrated by paid thugs will now define our election process. And whether the public referendum will remain a workable part of our democracy.

The battle starts with House Bill 6, the now-infamous billion-dollar nuke bailout approved by the corrupt, gerrymandered Ohio legislature in late July.

HB6 forces all Ohio ratepayers to subsidize two crumbling nukes on Lake Erie, along with two decrepit coal burners, one of them in Indiana. It helps underwrite ten small solar farms, but undercuts much larger subsidies for other wind and solar facilities.

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