Like Pavlov's dog, the mainstream media slobbers platitudes every time North Korea launches another test missile. Listening to the blather one would think that once Kim Jong-un has a missile capable of reaching the US, he is going to use it in an unprovoked nuclear attack on the US mainland killing millions of Americans.

It started with the soft, mellifluous chords of an electric organ in the basement hall of the 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama two blocks north and east of the 4th Avenue headquarters where the African American organizers and the white suburban volunteers in the Doug Jones for U.S. Senate campaign are working shoulder to shoulder to turn the tide of recent history and elect a progressive, pro-choice Democrat in the Deepest Southern bastion of reactionary Republicanism.

One by one, other parishoners joined in on drums, then sax, then bass, then trumpet, until the two hour service in the historic church was rocking to hymns of joy and praise.

If Jones has a prayer of pulling off an upset victory in the December 12th special election for U.S. Senate in Alabama, it resides in the community halls of African American churches like this one, and in the barbershops that still line the blocks of the former black business district of Birmingham, where Jones' headquarters are located.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s narrative ballet The Nutcracker, based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s children’s story about magical mice, sugarplum fairies, toy soldiers and dolls that come to life, is a perennial holiday favorite. The Miami City Ballet version, with choreography by the renowned George Balanchine and the Russian composer’s melodic score performed by a live orchestra, remains ideal for the Christmas season for children of all ages.

As youngsters gathered around the Stahlbaums’ lavishly decorated Christmas tree for yuletide greetings in Scene 1, Act I, the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was filled with projections designed by Wendall K. Harrington. The graphics continued throughout Scene 2’s childlike dreamland of a fantastical battle between the gigantic Mouse King, a Nutcracker that comes alive and their minions. During the third scene’s lovely winter wonderland sequence it seemed like it was snowing onstage.

Sun Tzu, whose book, The Art of War, was written some 2,500 years ago during a period of constant war, and popularized in the West some 100 years ago (just in time for industrialized warfare), is the leading example of what’s wrong with digging up ancient platitudes as guides for action today in the areas of war and peace.

“That the impact of your army may be like a grindstone dashed against an egg — this is effected by the science of weak points and strong.”

This “wisdom” provides nothing to the modern warmonger on his own terms, and even less to the advocate for peace; yet it’s imagined to be relevant to both, to create common ground for both, and to embody deep timeless meaning.

“But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.”

Read that solemnly as if discovering amazing new insights. If you can, you are a better war artist than I.

Saturday, Dec. 9, 12noon
Ohio Statehouse
We will be rallying at the Statehouse and then marching to Senator Rob Portman’s office in Solidarity with the national March for Tax Justice:https://www.facebook.com/events/165405347395677/
Please join us to say no to the GOP tax scam and set out a vision for just tax reform that benefits students and workers, not big business and billionaires.