Ukrainian Actress Presents Antiwar Cinematic Stunner at SEEfest If it’s true, as General William Tecumseh Sherman reputedly observed during America’s Civil War, that “war is hell,” according to Kyiv-born Maryna Er Gorbach’s Klondike, the “hottest seat in hell” (to paraphrase Dante) seems reserved for those ensnared in the civil war in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. One of the grimmest films I’ve ever seen, Klondike is so bleak in its Continue Reading...
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Film Review: Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator
Oh! Kolkata: Yogi Bare, Boo-Boos and Bikram 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 Continue Reading...
Israeli Police Raid Sacred al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan, Wound 158 Palestinians
The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that at dawn prayers on Friday Israeli security forces mounted an assault on the worshipers at the holy al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in the Muslim religion, in the midst of the Muslim Lent or fasting month, Ramadan. They injured some 158 and arrested 500 Palestinians. The assault began with tear gas volleys, after which the Israeli forces assaulted the worshipers. The attack Continue Reading...
Democrats Should Go on the Offensive By Celebrating Accomplishments
A couple of things really stick in my craw from the last couple of years, and those are that we've been denied celebrating as a nation some pretty remarkable accomplishments. And while that denial is led by Republicans, quick to stomp any hints of optimism or hope like they're cockroaches, Democrats should have and still can embrace amazing things and turn it into a story that the nation is not failing. Rather the opposite. It offers a Continue Reading...
Film Review: The Pact
Melancholy Danes: A Scandinavian Sunset Blvd Academy Award-winning Danish director Bille August’s screen adaptation of Thorkild Bjørnvig’s (played by Simon Bennebjerg) memoir The Pact, about his experiences with the celebrated Out of Africa novelist Karen Blixen (who was portrayed by Meryl Streep in the 1985 Sydney Pollack-directed film of the same name, but is here played by the Copenhagen-born actress Birthe Neumann), is a movie meditation Continue Reading...
Check Yourself For Confirmation Bias
I think we should all be aware that confirmation bias is a real thing. The US has done terrible things. Bush’s invasion of Iraq was illegal aggressive warfare, with its “run up” of propaganda lies to justify what Bush did. Vietnam, wow … CIA overthrowing elected governments and installing horrific, murderous dictatorships. And what we did with Russia after the Soviet Union fell led to Putin and the oligarchs running things. So Continue Reading...
Incompetence or Accomplice?
The international community, coerced by America, never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity to bring peace to the Middle East. A logical explanation is that they are accomplices to Israeli crimes against humanity. This edition of the Palestine-Israel Journal presents a fascinating exchange—dare I term it a debate—between two acclaimed analysts, Dr Noam Chomsky and Dr Tony Klug. Dr Klug and I co-authored opinion Continue Reading...
Americans Shocked to See Ukrainians treated Like Iraqis even though they are White (Not the Onion)
Some European and American commentators on Russia’s war against Ukraine have covered themselves in shame by implying that because Ukrainians are “European” or “civilized” it is harder to see them hit by artillery and made refugees than it had been with regard to Iraqis or Syrians. While in 2015 Syrians and Afghans who came to Europe were called “migrants” and were seen as a dire problem, Ukrainians fleeing their country for European states have Continue Reading...