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Undaunted, the pandemic can’t stop the Pan African Film Festival and in that immortal show biz tradition, the show must go on! Albeit virtually, as this year in order to stay cinematically safe, America’s largest and best yearly Black-themed filmfest since 1992 is moving online and starting later than usual, kicking off on the last day of Black History Month. 2021’s 29th annual Pan African Virtual Film + Arts Festival is taking place from Feb. 28 – March 14.

Director/co-writer Lazaro Ramos’ award winning Executive Order exemplifies what I love most about PAFF: This festival gives movie buffs the opportunity to see films – often from far-flung destinations around the globe – that we might otherwise never have the chance to watch. Often these are worthy, well-made productions that PAFF is also giving access and a foothold to at Los Angeles, arguably the world’s capital of cinema (although not necessarily the capital of “world cinema” per se).

A report advocating rocket propulsion by nuclear power for U.S. missions to Mars, written by a committee packed with individuals deeply involved in nuclear power, was issued last week by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

The 104-page report also lays out “synergies” in space nuclear activities between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. military, something not advanced explicitly since the founding of NASA as supposedly a civilian agency in 1958.

The report states: “Space nuclear propulsion and power systems have the potential to provide the United States with military advantages…NASA could benefit programmatically by working with a DoD [Department of Defense] program having national security objectives.”’

The report was produced “by contract” with NASA, it states.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NAS) describe

themselves as having been “created to advise the nation” with “independent, objective advice to inform policy.”

https://www.nationalacademies.org/about

Motivated by their justifiable aversion to former US President Donald Trump, many analysts have rashly painted a rosy picture of how Democrats could quickly erase the bleak trajectory of the previous Republican administration. This naivety is particularly pronounced in the current spin on the Palestinian-Israeli discourse, which is promoting, again, the illusion that Democrats will succeed where their political rivals have failed.

 There are obvious differences in the Democrats’ approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but only in semantics and political jingoism, not policy. This assertion can be justified if the Democratic administration’s official language on Palestine and Israel is examined, and such language considered within the context of practical policies on the ground. 

Pardon me while I break the fourth wall.

I’m in the human stew right now, you might say: drowning in politics, technology, the weather and my own crazy ego. I’m trying to write a column.

What makes this one different . . .well, I’ve been forced today to set aside my certainties, norms and expectations — virtually all of them. Certainty number one: that my computer will keep functioning as I write.

This morning — a dozen or so hours ago — I sat at my machine and it was working fine except for one thing: letters didn’t appear on my screen when I hit the keys. This is called writing. I’m an excellent writer, or so I tell myself, but my computer pointed out to me that if I can’t create letters and form them into words, then I can’t write. This was certainly an infuriating mystery, but I still had a few possibilities I could access to maintain situation normal. Well, I had one possibility. Call Geek Squad.

Undaunted, the pandemic can’t stop the Pan African Film Festival and in that immortal show biz tradition, the show must go on! Albeit virtually, as this year in order to stay cinematically safe, America’s largest and best annual Black-themed filmfest since 1992 is moving online and starting later than usual, kicking off on the last day of Black History Month. 2021’s Pan African Virtual Film + Arts Festival is taking place from Feb. 28 – March 14.

Undaunted, the pandemic can’t stop the Pan African Film Festival and in that immortal show biz tradition, the show must go on! Albeit virtually, as this year in order to stay cinematically safe, America’s largest and best annual Black-themed filmfest since 1992 is moving online and starting later than usual, kicking off on the last day of Black History Month. 2021’s Pan African Virtual Film + Arts Festival is taking place from Feb. 28 – March 14.

Abby Ginzberg’s Truth to Power: Barbara Lee Speaks for Me is a star-studded nonfiction biopic about the title character, who was the only member of Congress to have the courage and foresight to vote against the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force bill granting Pres. George W. Bush and all future presidents what Lee criticized as war-making powers that were “too broad… crazy.”

The United States of America was redefined on January 5th and 6th, 2021. Never underestimate the pivotal power of these two dates in our nation’s history. And do not believe that a likely Senate failure to convict Donald Trump will change any of it.

On January 5th, the voters of Georgia chose a black preacher and a Jewish filmmaker to successfully flip the empowered majority of the United States Senate. No one died. But the vote merged an epic demographic shift with a massive grassroots election protection movement to remake our nation.

The next day, Donald Trump incited an armed, violent mob to invade the US Capitol and kill his Republican Vice President, Mike Pence, before Pence could certify the nation’s choice for a new president. Five people died. The mission failed.

And it left intact nationwide what we had won in Georgia the day before … a demographically remade America, the real enemy of the Trump mob.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Myanmar's coup leader may be lucky his Southeast Asian country is wedged among authoritarian regimes which are interested in making money by accessing its natural resources and strategic geography, instead of condemning the destruction of its fledgling democracy.

Nearby key investors, including China and Thailand, muted their responses to the coup in Myanmar, a France-sized nation also known as Burma.

But the U.S., Europe, Australia and several other more distant lands denounced Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung's bloodless coup at dawn on February 1.

"We call upon the military to immediately end the State of Emergency, restore power to the democratically-elected government, to release all those unjustly detained, and to respect human rights and the rule of law," the Group of Seven major economic powers said after the coup.

The G7 comprises the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.K.

In contrast, China did not support a UN Security Council's effort on February 2 to produce a joint statement condemning the putsch.

Imagine a “USA!” that has truly outgrown – transcended – racism. Would it still have a Republican Party?

One recent and shocking – but hardly surprising – piece of news is the huge scramble in legislatures, especially the Republican-controlled ones, all across the country to draft and pass legislation restricting the ability of Americans (some of them, anyway) to vote. It’s as though there’s a national effort going on to repeal the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and return to a happier time: Let’s make America great again!

Claims made by Democratic New York City mayoral candidate, Andrew Yang, in a recent op-ed in the Jewish weekly, ‘The Forward’, point to the prevailing ignorance that continues to dominate the US discourse on Palestine and Israel.