Opinion

Europe’s identity crisis is not confined to the ceaseless squabbles by Europeans over the EU, Brexit or football. It goes much deeper, reaching sensitive and dangerous territory, including that of culture and religion. Once more, Muslims stand at the heart of the continent's identity debate.

 Of course, anti-Muslim sentiments are rarely framed to appear anti-Muslim. While Europe’s right-wing parties remain committed to the ridiculous notion that Muslims, immigrants and refugees pose a threat to Europe’s overall security and unique secular identities, the left is not entirely immune from such chauvinistic notions.

We crossed the Atlantic, encountered a bunch of savages, defeated them, claimed the continent. We won! This is the history I remember learning, as satisfying and stupid as a John Wayne movie.

The myth is crumbling and cracking, its certainty now as precarious as the statue of a Confederate general. Truth flows in through the holes, e.g.:

By the late 1830s, most of the native residents had been “removed” from a big chunk of the South — a few million acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida — so white men could start growing cotton there. In 1838, a final group of stubborn Cherokees were deported to Oklahoma Territory, as President Martin Van Buren sent 7,000 soldiers to do the job.

One year ago on July 21, 2020, I was in The Bahamas on what felt like the first vacation I’d been able to take since the global pandemic started, mainly because it was. It seemed like the world had made it to halftime with the coronavirus crisis and things were “kinda sorta” getting back to normal. After a day of swimming around the reefs off Andros Island, I returned to my cell phone in the afternoon to find what must have been dozens of texts from various political friends in Ohio. From a news cycle that had been constantly dominated by COVID-19 throughout most of 2020, a new combination of letters and numbers had emerged for Ohioans to understand –– HB 6.

On the heels of Pride Month and with National Sugar Cookie Day quickly approaching on July 9th, Drag Queen baker, cookie decorator, and owner of Plenty O’Cookies, Alex Copeland is making a comeback after the COVID-19 pandemic took a toll on his baking business, as it did on many other small businesses.

“With all the custom orders that were coming in, I was on track to have my best month before the pandemic hit. My business relies on baking for events, so as people were forced to cancel their events, they also cancelled their orders,” Copeland explains.

After being in operation since 2014, Copeland understood that Plenty O’Cookies needed to adapt in order to survive this global setback. He turned to social media and his website to advertise with Facebook Live and Instagram Live cookie decorating workshops as well as video collaborations with other bakers.

I dedicate this article to my late uncle, Percy Suarez, who would have turned 70 today.

Nina Turner is very scary -- to power brokers who’ve been spending big money and political capital to keep her out of Congress. With early voting underway, tensions are spiking as the decisive Democratic primary race in northeast Ohio nears its Aug. 3 finish. The winner will be virtually assured of filling the seat in the deep-blue district left vacant by Rep. Marcia Fudge when she became President Biden’s HUD secretary. What’s at stake in the special election is whether progressives will gain a dynamic champion in the House of Representatives.

For the Democratic Party establishment, the specter of “Congresswoman Nina Turner” is alarming. The former national co-chair of the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign has a proven capacity to stir fervent energy on the left around the country. Her ability to inspire at the grassroots is far beyond what mainstream party leaders can do.

Senators Murphy, Lee, and Sanders have introduced legislation to address Congressional and Presidential war powers. (See bill text, press release, one pager, video of press conference, op-ed, and Politico article).

Friends! Angelenos! Theatergoers! Send me your rears – to fill the seats at that Roman-style amphitheater known as Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum. After an interregnum due to the you-know-what, WGTB is back, launching its new season with a do-not-dare-miss Julius Caesar. William Shakespeare’s immortal drama about intrigue and political liquidation opened with impeccable timing, coming hard on the heels of the assassination of Haiti’s president and premiering on the precise anniversary of French DGSE saboteurs blowing up the Rainbow Warrior on July 10, 1985 at Auckland Harbor, in order to prevent Greenpeace’s ship from protesting nuclear testing near Tahiti.

When the Israeli Knesset (parliament) failed to renew what is commonly referred to as the Family Reunification Law, news reports and analyses misrepresented the story altogether. The even split of 59 MKs voting in favor of the law and 59 against it gave the erroneous impression that Israeli lawmakers are equally divided over the right of Palestinians to obtain permanent residency status or citizenship in Israel through marriage. Nothing could be further away from the truth. 

Let’s dance at the border!

One of these days, something will give — the rich, the powerful will suddenly look around cluelessly. What’s happening? Awareness will sweep across the planet: We are one, and life is sacred. This consciousness will even invade political life and what I call moral intelligence will find political traction.

This won’t mean that life suddenly becomes simple — anything but! The politics of today, nationally and internationally, is simple: somebody wins, somebody loses; war is inevitable, there are always several on the horizon, and the primary consequence of every war that is waged is that it spurs more wars, a fact that remains officially unnoticed; only some lives matter, those that don’t are collateral damage, illegal aliens or simply the enemy; nuclear weapons  (ours, only ours) are justified, necessary and must be continually upgraded; national borders, however arbitrary, are sacred (the only thing that’s sacred); if these norms are challenged, the best response is mockery and cynicism.