Opinion
On October 26 I saw Tom Stoppard interviewed on PBS’ Amanpour & Company and the British playwright stated that “theater is a storytelling art form.” While I hold the bard who wrote 1966’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in high esteem (see my review of A Noise Within’s 2016 production of Arcadia: “Arcadia”: Tom Stoppard’s complex Byronic drama to the manor born – People's World (peoplesworld.org)), there are some intrepid souls in the realm of the stage who’d beg to differ with Stoppard’s definition/description of theater.
As Tannhäuser’s lovely, rolling overture is unveiled, the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion becomes visible, as if being revealed in a cinematic fade in. The set is bathed in ethereal scarlet and blue lights designed by Connecticut’s Marcus Doshi, as about six dancers cavort onstage in what composer and librettist Richard Wagner described as “the whirlings of a fearsomely voluptuous dance.” A bacchanalian orgy is taking place, with nymphs performing Kama Sutra-like positions and moves choreographed by Canadian Aszure Barton. In Opera 101 author Fred Plotkin notes “some modern productions have included nude dancers” in Tannhäuser’s stunning curtain lifter, but although nudity has appeared in other LA Opera offerings, alas, this less adventurous show’s sexy sprites are appareled in flimsy androgynous outfits.
On Columbus City Council
I’ve chosen not to follow the mini-election next week very closely. On the one hand, none of the candidates are compelling to me. None are on the level of the present leading councilors like Shayla Favor and Elizabeth Brown, for example.
But, on the other hand, I try not to follow such “elections” because of the fundamentally undemocratic foundations of Columbus’ City Council and the disorganization and opaqueness of Columbus’ city government in general. A full explanation would require a lengthy essay in itself.
For reasons that remain unclear and undiscussed, Columbus retains an at-large, openly elected City Council. This denies all citizens of their democratic and constitutional right to direct representation. The recent shift to one councilor in a specified geographic district is manifestly negated by the maintenance of at large elections. It is little more than a shell-game.
The Pentagon’s offer of “condolence money” to the relatives of the ten people (seven of them children) who were killed in the final U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan — originally declared righteous and necessary — bears a troubling connection to the government’s ongoing efforts to get its hands on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and punish him for exposing the inconvenient truth of war.
You know, the “classified” stuff — like Apache helicopter crewmen laughing after they killed a bunch of men on a street in Baghdad in 2007 (“Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards”) and then smirked some more after killing the ones who started picking up the bodies, in the process also injuring several children who were in the van they just blasted. This is not stuff the American public needs to know about!
Expectedly, the accusations centered on the standard smearing used by Israel and its supporters against anyone who dares criticize Israel and exhibits solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people.
Rooney’s laudable action was not in the least ‘racist’ or ‘antisemitic’. On the contrary, it was taken as a show of support for the Palestine Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), whose advocacy is situated within anti-colonial and anti-racist political discourses.
Rooney, herself, has made it clear that her decision not to publish with Modan Publishing House, which works closely with the Israeli government, is motivated by ethical values.
At a Walmart on Columbus’ far westside there are 200 job openings, according to frontline workers there.
On a recent Friday afternoon at an eastside Kroger, only three unautomated checkout lines were open, and its state-controlled liquor store shut its doors at 3:30 pm for lack of an employee to staff it.
Giant Eagle, which gobbled up Big Bear with hardly an afterthought for its long-time employees, is now begging for workers – yet still offering only $11-an-hour (so much for being “essential”).
Central Ohio’s fast-food workers, surviving on unlivable wages and treated poorly by demanding suburban soccer moms, might be sporting the biggest of Cheshire Cat smiles. Columbus’s own White Castle, on street placards, is screaming they’re paying $14-an-hour, letting everyone know fast-food workers are in huge demand, as franchise owners sweat bullets over whether they can afford that second or even third country club membership.
The overworked, the underpaid, and those who face the greatest risk from COVID-19 may finally get the pay and respect they deserve. Indeed, Walmarts in Columbus have boosted pay to nearly $15-an-hour.
In the wake of WMD-liar Curveball’s videotaped confession, Colin Powell is demanding to know why nobody warned him about Curveball’s unreliability. The trouble is, they did.
Can you imagine having an opportunity to address the United Nations Security Council about a matter of great global importance, with all the world’s media watching, and using it to… well, to make shit up – to lie with a straight face, and with a CIA director propped up behind you, I mean to spew one world-class, for-the-record-books stream of bull, to utter nary a breath without a couple of whoppers in it, and to look like you really mean it all? What gall. What an insult to the entire world that would be.
Colin Powell doesn’t have to imagine such a thing. He has to live with it. He did it on February 5, 2003. It’s on videotape.
Sept. 7, 2021 Interview with Dr. Fitrakis from The Pink Pill, Joan Jones and Marilyn Howard
Audio MP3: https://fitrakis.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/PinkPill090721HistoryofHate.mp3
https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814258002.html
30% off and free shipping with “HISTORY” upper case promo code
“In this extensively researched and meticulously documented book, Brooks and Fitrakis effectively trace the origins of racism and nativism that have punctuated Ohio’s history, including the ‘everyday white supremacy’ that is present to this day.” —Barry Balleck, author of Allegiance to Liberty: The Changing Face of Patriots, Militias, and Political Violence in America
I’ve just read through three of the most boring but potentially most important documents around. One is the War Powers Resolution of 1973 which you can print on 6 pages and is what’s referred to as existing law even though it’s violated as routinely as air is breathed. Another is a war powers reform bill that has been introduced in the Senate and seems very likely to go nowhere (it’s 47 pages), and the third is a war powers reform bill in the House (73 pages) that seems virtually certain to go nowhere.
We have to set aside a couple of major concerns, beyond the unlikelihood of Congressional “leadership” allowing such bills to pass, before taking these things seriously.
It’s too easy, right? Too simple — shoving Christopher Columbus off the historical honor roll, pulling down his statues, yanking his “day” away from him and renaming it in honor of the people he murdered, kidnapped, turned into property?
Or is Indigenous Peoples Day seen by the world as simply a starting point, a launching of the transpatriarchal change in collective humanity we so desperately need but do not understand? I certainly put myself in that category: clueless. I both oppose and participate in environmental devastation, consuming my share of fossil fuels, plastic, etc., etc., even as I join those demanding change and pushing back against political-corporate interests. Yeah, Indigenous Peoples Day, that should do it . . . even as the Amazon burns, the tar-sands oil flows, militarism rules and moneyed interests continue getting what they want.