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World Cup of Soccer 2018 + West Coast TV Schedule

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The World at Play and the US isn’t there. Ah, gee..

Saudi Arabia and Russia are kicking it off, opening the games, June 14.  How humorously ironic, our arch-« enemies » from the past-present, not that anyone in the US cares, because we are building The Wall and we aren’t in The Games.  I bet that Russia wins the opening match.  I’ll be watching. It is decidedly agreed by the soccer powers that the hosting country (Russia 2018) will make it to the semi-finals, at least.  That’s the least one can do for the hosting country, n’est-ce pas?

Like we boycotted the Russian Olympic Games of 197whatever…because they were warring with Afganistan, god bless them, the English tried it and failed, we tried it and failed…too bad Afganistan doesn’t develop their soccer league, they would champion! And even though the Russians are hacking our computers and influencing our politics, according to the press who are quoting The Initials (NSA, CIA, FBI..), we still, or perhaps because of, didn’t make the playoffs.

Is that the fault of Trump? I thought they liked him? well, God bless America, my home sweet home. Better luck in four years.   [Read more…]

Where Were You in 1968? San Diego Free Press Invites Your Thoughts on the 50th Anniversary

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Who were you in 1968?

A few months ago at a San Diego Free Press contributor meeting a group of us shared stories about where we were, what we were thinking and what we were doing in 1968, a watershed year for many of us. It was fifty years ago that so many baby boomers came of age against the backdrop of first Martin Luther King’s assassination, then Bobby Kennedy’s. It was a year of civil rights protests, school walk outs, university sit-ins and broad civil unrest.

At the summer Olympics in Mexico City, American medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in protest of racial discrimination. That same year Cesar Chavez announced that he would begin a fast to promote nonviolence within the ranks of the United Farm Workers.

The Tet Offensive occurred in 1968. There were 549,500 American troops in Viet Nam at the time. (The draft would be imposed a year later in 1969). This would be the next to the last year of LBJ’s presidency. North Korea seized the USS Pueblo, heightening Cold War tensions.

These are just a few of the events that rocked our world in 1968. There was substantial interest among us at the contributor meeting to recognize the significance of that year.   [Read more…]

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Students Perform At The 2018 Tony Awards | Video Worth Watching

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From the CBS YouTube site:

Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, perform Rent’s “Seasons Of Love” in honor of their theatre teacher, Melody Herzfeld, who was named the recipient of the 2018 Excellence in Theatre Education Award, presented by Carnegie Mellon.

  [Read more…]

The More Things Change: Tulsa’s Race Massacre History Books Turned Into A Race “Riot”

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By Abby Zimet / Common Dreams

Lessons from the past: Last week marked the 97th anniversary of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s 1921 Race Massacre, wherein mobs of white vigilantes, abetted by complicit government and law enforcement officials, looted, burned, bombed from the air and virtually destroyed the black, thriving, middle-class Greenwood community widely known as Negro Wall Street, in the process killing at least 300 of its 10,000 black residents, and likely many more.

Then perhaps America’s most preeminent, albeit segregated, black community, Greenwood was created by post-World-War-One blacks fleeing the Deep South; divided by railroad tracks from white Tulsa, they built scores of black-owned businesses, hotels, restaurants and law offices, as well as a library and hospital even as racial hostilities, lynchings and the ranks of Klan members grew — in Tulsa, to over 3,200.   [Read more…]

Optimism – a Poem, Paper-Cut Animation and Cello | Video Worth Watching

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A brief little work featuring poetry by Jane Hirshfield, animation by Kelli Anderson and music by Zoë Keating. It’s a selection from The Universe in Verse 2018, curated and hosted by Maria Popova as part of her BrainPickings project.   [Read more…]

Wake Up (Rage Against the Machine Cover) | Video Worth Watching

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For anyone out there who while listening to Rage Against the Machine’s Wake Up has wondered “What would this sound like with heavy brass?”— this is for you. This cover by Brass Against the Machine features Sophia Urista as vocalist.   [Read more…]

Anthony Bourdain—’As Honest and Fearless in His Words as He Was in His Travels’

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By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams

Celebrated chef, television host, and writer Anthony Bourdain—whose global travels brought an American audience perspectives on the food and political climates of Laos, Africa, the occupied Gaza Strip, and other distant cultures that are rarely depicted on major television networks—has died of apparent suicide at the age of 61.

“It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague, Anthony Bourdain,” CNN, which has aired Bourdain’s show “Parts Unknown” since 2013, said in a statement Friday morning. “His love of great adventure, new friends, fine food and drink, and the remarkable stories of the world made him a unique storyteller. His talents never ceased to amaze us and we will miss him very much.”

While Bourdain’s shows and writings were ostensibly centered on his experience of strange, exotic, and extraordinary food across the globe, he frequently offered incisive and deeply humane political commentary that laid waste to conventional narratives and held the powerful to account for their crimes.   [Read more…]

Harvest | Geo-Poetic Spaces

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A clap of thunder
And unripened lemons drop
From orchards of clouds   [Read more…]

The Del Mar Fair: A Photographic Look

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By Michael-Leonard Creditor / Flexible Fotography

It’s officially called the San Diego County Fair. Folks around here, however, mostly just call it The Fair.  At least during the month of June.

For three years in the 1990s I was the on-site photographer-of-record for The Fair. It was one of the most arduous photo jobs I ever had: 21 days straight (back then The Fair ran continuously without closing) of being there, on-site and on-call, all day, and sometimes part of the night, to photograph anything and everything that went on at The Fair.

But it was also lots of fun. For one thing, I had access to places that are off-limits to the public, and at times when the fairgrounds was still closed to the public. So, while I fulfilled all the duties I had to as Fair Photographer (that’s photographer for The Fair, not just a fair photographer) I also was able to make quite a few images for myself that I knew weren’t particularly useful to the client. Since we are right in the midst of The Fair, here are some of those photos you will see nowhere else.   [Read more…]

Moxie Theatre’s ’The Madres’: The Women’s “Performance” during the Dirty War

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The Moxie Theatre production (National New Play Network, Rolling World Premiere) of The Madres, written by Stephanie Alison Walker and co-directed by Maria Patrice Amon and Jennifer Eve Thorn, presents a “slice of life” of those affected by the Dirty War (1976-1983)—a seven-year campaign by the Argentine government which led to the kidnapping and murder of over 30,000 people under the direction of General Jorge Rafael Videla.

During the Dirty War demonstrations began on April 30, 1977 in Buenos Aires when fourteen mothers assembled in the Plaza de Mayo (a square built to celebrate the beginning of the Argentine republic on 25 May 1810) to petition for information on the fate of their “disappeared” children. These demonstrations—which some historians call political “performance”—grew during the Videla regime and drew international attention.

All of the demonstrators wore white shawls embroidered with the names of the disappeared. Their demonstration became more choreographed over time as the participants increased in number. Today the Mothers continue marching in the Plaza de Mayo every Thursday.   [Read more…]

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