“The Deer Hunter is a 1978 American epicwardrama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Russian-American steelworkers whose lives were changed forever after fighting in the Vietnam War. The three soldiers are played by Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage, with John Cazale (in his final role), Meryl Streep, and George Dzundza playing supporting roles. The story takes place in Clairton, Pennsylvania, a working-class town on the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh, and in Vietnam. …”
W – The Deer Hunter, YouTube: The Deer Hunter Official Trailer #1

“Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 wardrama film that was directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Herr and Gustav Hasford. … The storyline follows a platoon of U.S. Marines through their boot camp

Plant the Habit of Loving
by Ranney Campbell

During all the time we continue to exist in this particular universe we will bathe in the far too cold for our eyes to see glow leftover from the Big Bang that was accidentally discovered by radio astronomers in the dark spaces between stars and galaxies in 1965 that was perhaps the black I saw and cold I felt when I floated away off that gurney in a San Bernardino emergency room in 1983 after suffering a by all evidence of medical science fatal head injury after the missed hairpin turn somewhere above Crestline and all these years later when I put some plastic into my trash can I try to remember this happening even if the thought just hovers vaguely omnipresent like the microwave background remains of our primeval fireball with no point of origin occurring everywhere at once rather than…

“Sylvère Lotringer (15 October 1938 – 8 November 2021) was a French born literary critic and cultural theorist. Initially based in New York City, he later lived in Los Angeles and Baja California, Mexico. He is best known for synthesizing French theorywith American literary, cultural and architectural avant-garde movements as founder of the journal Semiotext(e) and for his interpretations of theory in a 21st-century context. He is regarded as an influential interpreter of Jean Baudrillard’s theories, among others. … In 1964, he entered the École Pratique des Hautes Études, VIe section (Sociology) writing a doctoral dissertation on Virginia Woolf’s novels under the supervision of Roland Barthes and Lucien Goldmann. His work was aided by his friendship with Leonard Woolf and his acquaintance with T.S. Eliot and Vita Sackville-West, with whom he conducted interviews published in Louis Aragon‘s journal Les Lettres Francaises during…

“Surf’s Up is the 17th studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys, released August 30, 1971 on Brother/Reprise. It received largely favorable reviews and reached number 29 on the US record charts, becoming their highest-charting LP of new music in the US since 1967. In the UK, Surf’s Up peaked at number 15, continuing a string of top 40 records that had not abated since 1965. The album’s title and cover artwork (a painting based on the early 20th-century sculpture ‘End of the Trail‘) are an ironic, self-aware nod to the band’s early surfing image. Originally titled Landlocked, the album took its name from the closing track ‘Surf’s Up‘, a song originally intended for the group’s unfinished album Smile. … In contrast to the previous LP Sunflower, Brian Wilson was not especially active in the…

“Meredith Curly Hunter, Jr. (October 24, 1951 – December 6, 1969) was an audience member who was killed at the 1969 Altamont Free Concert. During the performance by The Rolling Stones, Hunter approached the stage, and was violently driven off by members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club who had agreed to serve as security guards. He subsequently returned to the stage area, drew a revolver, and was stabbed and beaten to death by Hells Angel Alan Passaro. The incident was caught on camera and became a central scene in the Maysles Brothers documentary Gimme Shelter. Passaro was charged with murder and tried in 1971. Following 17 days of testimony, an eight-man, four-woman jury deliberated for 12 and a half hours before Passaro was acquitted on grounds of self-defense. Hunter was an 18-year-old from Berkeley, California, nicknamed ‘Murdock’ and described by friends as…

Jan Resseger, one of our best informed bloggers and social justice advocates, lauds President Biden’s Build Back Better program for its benefits for children. It would end decades of policies that punish poor children. Our nation has dramatically reduced poverty among the elderly, but neglected our children.

She writes:

The U.S. House of Representatives finally passed President Biden’s infrastructure plan last Friday. The Senate passed it a while ago, and the bill is headed to Biden’s desk for signature.  At the same time, Democrats in the U. S. House of Representatives pledged that if the Congressional Budget Office confirms cost estimates for the Build Back Better Bill, Democrats in the House will pass the current version of the plan and send it on to the Senate for consideration. For months, Congress has been debating the programs that are part of this plan, and even if Congress passes it, it won’t…