Opinion

Chair SUSAN YOUNG of the Pacifica Radio National Board pitches your participation in the current national delegate election and the need for impartial observers to guarantee a fair outcome.

We then hear from activists NINA KELLER and HEDY TRIPP about a great victory won by grassroots campaigning against a proposal battery storage facility once slated for western Massachusetts.

RAY MCCLENDON reports from Georgia on the terrifying campaign being waged to strip the voter rolls and block certification of the legitimate outcome in the November 5 election.

WENDI LEDERMAN & JAMIE FRIEND raise issues about the vote counts and ballot integrity in Georgia, Florida and elsewhere.

We then hear from LYNN FEINERMAN, MYLA RESON, ELISSA MATROSS & SLUGGO WASSERMAN remember the amazing perils & passions of the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention.

GEORGE CROCKER introduces his new book About Power & tells us about the birth of the renewable energy industry in Minnesota in the 1980s & 1990s.

Californian PAUL GIPE, a major pioneer in the wind industry, fills in the blanks from his office in Bakersfield.  

When you’re hiking through nature, you miss a lot if you’re not paying attention. The same holds true when you’re viewing Good One, the story of a teenage girl’s hike through the Adirondacks with her dad and his best friend.

Seen mostly through the eyes of 17-year-old Sam (Lily Collias), the flick is full of telling moments, but few of them hit you over the head. Instead, writer/director India Donaldson expects you to watch and listen for clues about what Sam is going through.

Fortunately, Collias’s face registers the girl’s most fleeting thoughts, and cinematographer Wilson Cameron’s lens is right there to capture them.  

Taking place over three days, the film follows along as Sam goes on what seems to be a family tradition: an extended hike with her dad, Chris (James Le Gros). They were supposed to be accompanied by both Chris’s friend Matt (Danny McCarthy) and his teenage son, but the son bails out following a last-minute family argument.

This leaves Sam alone with two divorced, middle-aged men whose egos and life experiences sometimes make them difficult traveling companions.

Promises of "absolute victory" in Gaza are nothing but "gibberish", according to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Gallant's comments were not meant to be public, but somehow were leaked and published by Israeli media on August 12. 

 The explanation of why Netanyahu is pursuing a losing war in Gaza has been largely confined to the prime minister's personal interests: avoiding the outcome of his corruption trials, preserving his extremist government coalition and avoiding early elections. 

The Democratic National Convention was happening here in Chicago — my city — and I sat frozen at my desk, staring at my computer. Earlier in my life, yeah, I’d have gone down to the United Center, linked arms with the sane and outraged, joined the cry: Stop funding genocide!

Instead, here I was, gawking at the event’s opening ceremony of day two: A pastor delivers a public prayer, at one point saying we should treat all humans “as sacred creations of the Almighty.” Huh? Is he serious? Does he really mean this? The word “sacredness” has been let loose; joined by “God.” Someone sings the National Anthem. The delegates recite the good ol’ Pledge of Allegiance, their hands ceremoniously pressed against their hearts. Then “God bless America” fills the hall.

The message I hear, quietly hovering behind the words, is this: Democrats are as patriotic as Republicans! Democrats are as religious as Republicans! We can put on a good show too — our clichés are fantastic.

I stepped out. I jumped on the 1. My 62 dollar, 31 day-pass expired.

I paid 5 for a day pass. Five dollars is  still cheaper than paying for parking. I would visit Kroger soon for my 62 dollar Month COTA pass.

GZA from the Wu-Tang Clan’s concert existed within a short jaunt from my residence. At first discovery of the Wu, if people asked who my favorite Wu-Tang Clan member. I would say, GZA or RZA. In an online quiz, those would be the intellectual Wu members. I don’t have a Wu Favorite anymore. I like everyone in Wu-Tang Clan.

GZA was opening for Sublime with Rome. I’d looked at Sublime’s setlist. Sublime wasn’t playing the only Sublime song I know, KRS-1. During KRS-1,  Sublime details Boogie Down Bronx’s KRS-1 teaching them about Elijah Muhammad, and our countries’ economic disparities.  I hadn’t heard this song until last year. Sublime’s KRS-1 was an epiphany for me.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- A Bangkok to Beijing train journey became one clickity-clack link closer with the completion by Thailand and Laos of a Mekong River railway bridge and tracks last month, enabling cross-border rail transport with Laos for the first time and only several dozen miles remaining as the last trackless gap to reach China.

With the Thai-Lao railway's new opening, a 12-hour-long train trip now runs from Bangkok's main Krung Thep Aphiwat Station to Khamsavath Station in Vientiane, the capital of Laos.

Vientiane's small Khamsavath Station, about six miles outside of the capital, is the final stop for the new Thai-Lao railway's carriages.

To reach China, passengers and cargo arriving by train from Bangkok still need to cross Vientiane's streets via taxis, vans, and other vehicles to traverse the several dozen miles from Khamsavath Station to Vientiane Railway Station, until that last rail link is constructed.

Some officials indicated those final tracks could be laid by 2028.

An observation from George Orwell -- “those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future” -- is acutely relevant to how President Biden talked about Gaza during his speech at the Democratic convention Monday night. His words fit into a messaging template now in its eleventh month, depicting the U.S. government as tirelessly seeking peace, while supplying the weapons and bombs that have enabled Israel’s continual slaughter of civilians.

The story of nuclear weapons begins in the United States. The U.S. government
under the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the greenlight for the project to
build a bomb to commence, the first atomic bombs were then created and tested,
and, under dubious assumptions, the bombs were subsequently used to blow up
two Japanese cities, causing massive destruction, death, and lasting radiation
illnesses. The testing and development of nuclear bombs continued, as did the
costs to people and the environment. Sadly, the U.S. and other nuclear-armed
countries are now in the process of “modernizing” their nuclear arsenals. This is
despite the fact that the majority of countries in the U.N. General Assembly have
voted to ban nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the U.S. unfortunately maintains a
“first use” policy with respect to nuclear weapons and Trump will have the power
to launch nuclear weapons if he becomes president.