Before the premiere of Sophocles’ Oedipus, most of the outdoor tables at the Getty Villa’s café were filled, and while dining I spied from afar a longtime friend of mine, fellow reviewer Myron Meisel, tray in hand, looking for a place to eat, and I waved him over to our table. Joining us, Myron and I were pleased to see we had both survived the you-know-what. As Myron had co-made the 1993 documentary It’s All True, about Orson Welles’ unfinished South America film made during the 1940s, I told Myron that Voodoo Macbeth – a feature about the legendary Welles-directed all-Black 1936 production of the Scottish play reset in Haiti – had been shot, which was news to the astute Myron. I had received a press release about Voodoo Macbeth, which is to be theatrically released October 21, just a couple of days earlier.

Welcome to Riotsville – a fictional town built by the U.S. military. Using footage shot by the media and the government, the film explores the militarization of the police and the reaction of a nation to the uprisings of the late '60s, creating a counter-narrative to a critical moment in the country's history.

Riotsville, USA, a point in American history when the nation’s rulers, politicians, bureaucrats, and police were faced with the mounting militancy of the late 1960s, and did everything possible to win the war in the streets. Using training footage of Army-built model towns called “Riotsville” where military and police were trained to respond to civil disorder, in addition to nationally broadcast news media, the documentary connects the stagecraft of law and order to the real violence of state practice. Recovering an obscured history whose effects have shaped the present in ways both insidious and explosive, "Riotsville, USA" is a poetic reflection on the rebellions of the 1960s, and the machine that worked to destroy them.

As the Israeli military bombed homes, clinics, and schools in Gaza and threatened to push Palestinian families from their homes in Jerusalem May 2021, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud executives signed a $1.22 billion contract to provide cloud technology to the Israeli government and military. By doing business with Israeli apartheid, Amazon and Google will make it easier for the Israeli government to surveil Palestinians and force them off their land.  

It’s hard to qualify the events of the last two weeks, so I’ll try to recount the first as best as possible and hopefully someone who reads this can decipher their actual meaning. I’m not ready for the most recent week yet:

Two Sundays ago—August 28th, 2022—a group of protestors were arrested at the homes of two Columbus City officials for protesting the proposed September 14th clearing of Camp Shameless. (You might have read about that in my last column, but bear with me here.)

Everyone who’d been detained from that action was released by early morning Monday with no bail set. Court dates for the two arrested at the Council President’s house (who’s since been dubbed Shannon “Get off my Lawn!” Hardin in some circles,) was set for Thursday, the 1st, which was the original date of eviction for the camp. One of the Mayor’s staff attempted to dismiss the action as “political theater.” I don’t think he and I have met yet.

One of my favorite blogs is that of Caitlin Johnstone. Why have I never written about how great it is? I’m not sure. I am too busy to write about most things. I have invited her on my radio show and had no reply. I do know that one of my favorite things to do is also one of hers: correct the mistakes of others. I like to correct my own mistakes too, of course, but it’s not as much fun, and only seems useful to write about when my mistake is shared by millions. I think Ms. Johnstone has now made, in her own talented way, a mistake shared by millions in a post called “In This Disaster We Are All, Ultimately, Innocent,” and I think it’s possibly a horribly dangerous one.