JUNE 5, 2023
The landslide defeat of the self-declared ‘invincible’ Bharatiya Janata Party by the Congress, that was reportedly ‘sinking’, has stunned India. The entire country seemed to have had a stake in the Karnataka Assembly election. That stake continues, as the victorious Congress is still struggling to cut the Gordian knot of choosing a Chief Minister with two contenders remaining adamant. We do not know whether either of them, or their ardent Continue Reading...
The voice of a Palestinian child in Gaza, taken from this world by Israel — “the only democracy in the Middle East”. Note: This was written in 2014, a decade after Iman Darweesh Al Hams was murdered by an Israeli soldier in Gaza and after Israeli courts cleared the solider who killed her from any wrongdoing. Today, as I watch more Gazan children killed by the Israeli killing machine, I remembered Iman and this article. Sadly, this Continue Reading...
Lemme lay some history on you conservative motherfuckers now that you're losing your shit over Donald Trump's indictment on a shit-ton of felonies for financial chicanery. I mean, beyond the furious masturbatory screams of "election interference" and "unprecedented" and "partisan politics" and other things that simply aren't assertions of Trump's innocence, just about the stupidest fucking thing you're saying is that "If they can do it to Trump, Continue Reading...
Solar panels are like magic, turning sunshine into electricity. They are, however, relatively bulky. We own our own home and have 16 of them on our roof, but renters have often complained to me that it isn’t so easy in an apartment building. There is also a danger that they will compete for land with agriculture. So the turn of the Netherlands to solar power in a big way is instructive, since it is a small country a little larger than Continue Reading...
Two things can be true at once. We can believe that the people in East Palestine, Ohio, are a bunch of fucking idiots who vote against their own interests repeatedly, electing horrible motherfuckers who don't give a happy monkey fuck about their health or safety, but, man, they sure hate Black people and migrants, so they got your vote. And we can also believe that they should get all the help they desperately need to recover from the toxic Continue Reading...
Monday’s massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake in south-central Turkey, in which at least 20,000 have died — and probably tens of thousands more — has shocked that country and the world. It inescapably has political implications, with Turkish parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for mid-May. President Tayyip Recep Erdogan is facing widespread criticism for the slowness and inadequacy of the government response. Stung by the criticism, Continue Reading...
I can pretty much guarantee you a few things are going to happen in the near to not-too-distant future regarding abortion rights in the United States. I don't believe a national ban will happen unless the Supreme Court decides to force it. Instead, the insanity of our abortion policy in this country and the Christian extremism driving the legislatures of many states will lead to even more ludicrous and oppressive laws. For example, laws will Continue Reading...
Al-Hadath reports that 300 former Israeli soldiers have written a letter to their new government pleading with it not to inflict harm on the LGBTQ community. At the same time, two prominent rabbis close to the new government launched an attack on the Knesset members who voted in Amir Ohana, who is gay, as the speaker of parliament. Sama al-Akhbariyya says that the Jerusalem chief rabbi, Schlomo Amar, formerly the chief rabbi for all Continue Reading...
In the wake of Republicans winning the House of Representatives, even by a narrow margin, we got a preview this week of how much we're damned to hear about every detail of the business dealings and, no doubt, personal life of Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden. Conservatively, it'll be "a metric fuckton." More likely, it will be "Benghazi times Hillary's emails to the 10th degree." To the gibbering madpeople and the skeevy fucks who lie to Continue Reading...
President Joe Biden addressed the COP27 Climate in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt on Friday. He noted the ravages of the human-caused climate emergency on the African continent, including deadly drought in the Horn of Africa, floods that displaced over a million people in Nigeria, and the increasing potential for conflict between herders and farmers as herding routes are forced to change. Biden also touted his own administration’s Continue Reading...
Waiting for Lito: Is Love Ageless and Color Blind? At a time when superhero and other action flicks explode and careen across our screens, with its decidedly indie sensibility, Max Walker-Silverman’s little gem A Love Song goes against the blockbuster grain. It is as gentle as Marvel Universe flicks are violent. With its simple, naturalistic style tinged by sly humor, A Love Song is a motion picture paean to the human condition, filled with Continue Reading...
“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” ― T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets A heated argument is taking place about the morality, benefit, and value of traveling to Palestine to witness firsthand what Palestinians are facing in the context of prolonged Israeli military occupation. Assuming these travelers are well-intentioned and want to see Israel’s military occupation for what it is, what they get in the best case is a brief glimpse of the Continue Reading...
You know what's darkly hilarious or perhaps hilariously dark or maybe not hilarious at all and just plain dark? I'd bet that Lindsey Graham and Ron DeSantis thought what they did this week was fucking awesome and that they'd show those no-good liberals what fucking hypocrites they are. Except that reality ended up punching them both in the dick for acting like dicks, and, yeah, that's pretty fucking funny. First, South Carolina Sen. Graham, Continue Reading...
Impish: Still Dreaming of Genie My readers (Hiya Ma!) know I hate plot spoilers but the following is not only revealed within the first few minutes of Three Thousand Years of Longing, but is also the main premise of Australian director George Miller’s (the Mad Max franchise) new movie. In Longing, Alithea (British actress Tilda Swinton of The Beach, Snowpiercer, Doctor Strange) is a narratologist – a scholar who studies storytelling – Continue Reading...
Europe is in the throes of a once-in-500 years severe drought that is making its rivers into shallow streams and its lakes into vanishing puddles. The mighty Rhine in Germany is so low that it may soon not be navigable. The biggest lake in Italy is fast disappearing. These are catastrophic events that beggar the imagination. The drought is deepening and is expected to spread to nearly half of the continent. Europe has a long history and has Continue Reading...
