Por favor, lea Enemigos en La Puerta
September 2016
I spent all day last Saturday from ten o’clock in the morning to after ten o’clock at night (with a break for lunch, stretches, walks and a nap in my car) listening to a presentation by David Icke who is traveling the planet with his Phantom Self, World Wake Up Tour. He was extraordinary, as… Continue reading
photo of open door by MICHALIS PANAGIOTIDIS
SLIPSTREAM: A Daughter Remembers, by Rachel Manley, is a deeply thoughtful, exquisitely written book about the author’s relationship with her father, the handsome, dynamic and one feels (in private life: with his five marriages, love of gardening, and delight in roses) wildly sweet, Michael Manley, prime minister three times elected of Jamaica. It was because… Continue reading
In this time of sorrow, when so many are reeling from the pain of earth loss, of beauty’s destruction, of oppression and challenge of every sort, I have felt encouraged and spiritually supported by the music of Desert Rose, which I encountered in Cape Town, South Africa in 2011, when they appeared to lend their message of harmony and peace to the Russell… Continue reading
NOTES FROM THE FIELD: DOING TIME IN EDUCATION: The California Chapter
Much of Berkeley is turning out at Berkeley Repertory Theatre to witness and participate in this newest offering by the great Anna Deavere Smith who is known for making multi-faceted, multi-layered sense of America’s most distressing social problems. Her exploration here is of the causes and costs of the “School-to-prison-pipeline” that is as… Continue reading
Divine Raw Foods (DivineRawFoods.com)
Chef Billy Page, Fresh Food Evangelist
Out of Oakland Always Something New (as is rightly said, also, of Africa): In this case, the best raw food I have ever tasted! Here’s the story: a friend who is involved with black farmers and food growing cooperatives in Oakland experienced that lovely pat on the psyche the Universe bestows on… Continue reading
Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt
By Chris Hedges
I first read Chris Hedges in Truthdig and was moved by a column he wrote about teaching young male writers of color in prison who turned in powerful work.
From a single niece I have three great- nephews languishing in the prison system; bright, beautiful boys who grew up in a society that,… Continue reading
What Happened, Miss Simone? It is impossible to resist the truth of Nina Simone’s voice. It is just there, like a big tree, or something else in nature that you can’t imagine existing until you experience it. This film celebrates that voice, precious to so many, and also shows the price Simone paid for expressing what she felt, even… Continue reading
GRAND HOTEL/GRAN HOTEL
I began watching this historical drama to improve my Spanish. I learned in Mexico that Mexicans without access to an education in languages regularly learn English by watching American movies and soaps. The problem was that the Spanish in Gran Hotel is the Spanish of Spain and therefore difficult to follow. However the story is not. And it… Continue reading
I had not seen ANITA: Speaking Truth To Power, the film about Anita Hill. So intense! And her family shows up to sit behind her at her trial (really) for telling the truth to a panel of white men who have all done everything and more that Clarence Thomas had done! Precious! And to learn she was the last of 13… Continue reading
Ecological Wisdom From the Heart of Brazil (from the coming film)
What a miracle is presented here: more of the revelation of who the Africans were, and, if not destroyed completely by Western “culture,” still are. Which means, also, who humanity was, what it knew, what it believed, what was the obvious truth for it, before the clouding of consciousness caused by the… Continue reading