Global

On May 15, 2023, the Palestinian Nakba will be 75 years old.

 Palestinians all over the world will commemorate the tragic occasion, known as the 'Catastrophe', when nearly 800,000 Palestinians were made refugees and nearly 500 towns and villages were ethnically cleansed of their inhabitants in historic Palestine between late 1947 and mid-1948.

Movies of the Duke, Hitch, Kurosawa, Brando, Bogie, Poitier, Bruce Lee, Bette Davis and other silver screen icons were presented April 13-16 at the 14th annual Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival. Living legends were on hand, live and in person, too. On opening night movie maestro Steven Spielberg discussed Howard Hawks’ 1959 Rio Bravo and more with co-star Angie Dickinson and helmer Paul Thomas Anderson at the Western’s screening in the TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX (that renowned movie palace formerly known as Grauman’s Chinese). 60 years after its premiere, Ann-Margret introduced her 1963 musical comedy Bye Bye Birdie on TCL’s big screen.

Can we form a circle big enough to fit 330 million Americans? Do we have enough folding chairs? I don’t know, but somehow we’ve got to launch a national conversation about . . . war, security, guns, fear and, oh God, the global future.

Ultimately we need to pull the whole planet into it — this is, after all, one planet, not 193 separate entities — but a circle of Americans, citizens of the most militarized and, perhaps, fearful nation on Earth, is a good place to start. We have to reach into our collective soul, folks!

This author is all in on Robert F Kennedy Jr for President. After my first four months of retirement, I decided to pay more attention to Bobby Kennedy Jr., Glen Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Catalyn Johnston, Scott Horton, Dennis Kucinich and others. Let me explain why I will support RFK Jr., while not discussing his candidacy for several paragraphs.

I still read the New York Times and Washington Post's official take on things, but mainstream media seems to be always moving in lockstep with the Oligarchy and the Military Industrial Complex. When I moved out of the country (to Thailand) I wanted to escape a dysfunctional country. Maybe America looks more dysfunctional from afar, but there are recent major stories to backup the view that America's descent into madness or fascism is accelerating.

Welcome. Tonight, we have a double bill of exciting World War II morale boosters. Both were written by members of the Hollywood Ten. Two-time Oscar-winner Ring Lardner, Jr. and two-
time Oscar nominee Albert Maltz co-wrote Cloak and Dagger. None Shall Escape was co-
written by Lester Cole, along with Alfred Neumann and Joseph Than. The latter were nominated
for a Best Writing, Original Story Oscar.

(Note: This is the edited text for the introduction to the April 13 screening of Tender Comrade and Sahara at the Academy Museum for this series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Hollywood Blacklist. The double feature included a discussion with screenwriter John Howard Lawson’s granddaughters Andrea Lawson and Nancy Lawson Carcione moderated by series co-presenter Ed Rampell.)

Friends, film fans, Angelenos – Comrades! Welcome, and thanks for joining us for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ film series, The Hollywood Ten at 75, which commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Hollywood Blacklist. Tonight, we launch the series with an appropriate double feature written by the first two members of the Hollywood Ten to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Our Green Emergency Election Protection Coalition Zoom #133 begins with ANDY MOORE of the National Association of Non-Partisan Reformers, a nationwide coalition of organizations working for election reform.

The great ANDREA MILLER of the Center for Common Ground fills us in on her great grassroots push in Virginia.

NORM STOCKWELL of Progressive.org then explains the aftermath of the progressive movement’s huge Supreme Court victory in Wisconsin, which will stretch deep into the 2024 presidential election.

We then hear from the great ANNA GYORGY about German’s monumental decision to shut down ALL its atomic reactors, which finally closed on April 15.

In tandem we hear about the world-changing ENERGIEWENDE, Germany’s incredibly rapid and effective shift toward a 100% green-powered energy supply in the world’s 4th-largest economy.  

Anna is joined by SCOTT DENMAN and by LINDA PENCE, both legendary long-term safe energy activists with great things to say about this European dawn of Solartopia.   

PART TWO:  SECOND HOUR…..please also put this on the air where you can…

As a film historian, when I heard a bioplay was being mounted about silver screen siren Ava Gardner at one of L.A.’s finest theaters, the Geffen Playhouse, it was “Westwood Ho!” for moi. I strapped on my running shoes and said: “Feets, don’t fail me now! Feets, do your thing!” to go see a play about The Barefoot Contessa. All the more so when I learned that Ava, The Secret Conversations was not only starring, but written by, Elizabeth McGovern.

One of the delights of L.A. theater is that our hamlet’s vast talent pool includes big and little screen talents, and what a treat to see McGovern – who was Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated for 1981’s Ragtime, plus Emmy and Golden Globe-nommed for Downton Abbey – tread the boards live and in the flesh. (At my last foray to the Geffen in 2022 I had the pleasure to see Bryan Cranston act in person in Power of Sail.)

When Israel launched a war against the Gaza Strip in August 2022, it declared that its target was the Islamic Jihad only. Indeed, neither Hamas nor the other Gaza-based groups engaged directly in the fighting. The war then raised more questions than answers. 

 Israel rarely distinguishes between one Palestinian group and another. For Tel Aviv, any kind of Palestinian Resistance is a form of terrorism or, at best, incitement. Targeting one group and excluding other supposedly ‘terrorist groups’ exposes a degree of Israeli fear in fighting all Palestinian factions in Gaza, all at once.