To commemorate and celebrate the auspicious 50th anniversary of the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble’s founding, this venerable mainstay of L.A.’s live stage scene is presenting the “Circa ’69” season, with revivals “of significant and adventurous plays that premiered around the time of the Odyssey’s 1969 inception,” according to a press release. A Sam Shepard double-header is being mounted as part of this ambitious program.

First up is a sort of hors d’oeuvre, the 15 minute or so Killer’s Head, before the main dish, The Unseen Hand, is served. Alas, Killer’s isn’t killer drama and to be honest is quite an unappetizing appetizer. I was bored by the monologue in this one-man show. It wasn’t the actor’s fault - Steve Howey fully inhabited the part of Mazon and did a good job, considering the material he has to work with. (Howey is the first of eight actors scheduled to play Mazon, including Shepard veteran Dermot Mulroney who tackles the role Feb. 7-9 and Feb. 14-16). I just found the lines written for the character to be uninteresting and this reminded me that what may have seemed innovative in 1969 isn’t necessarily so half a century later.

Sunday, January 26, 2-4PM
82 E. 16th Ave.
We’re cooking to share a meal outside the downtown YMCA shelter again — bring whatever vegan(ish) food you can find, or just bring yourself to help prepare the meal, or just come over for conversation and company. New people are Always welcome! The address on the event is where the cooking itself will occur. (We're test-running a new cooking location that is a bit bigger, and is wheelchair accessible)

We'll gather our resources by 2pm and start prepping a meal to serve, Should be done cooking by 5pm and then go to the YMCA on W Long St & N Front St and then to set up (hopefully by 5.15-5.30pm) a community picnic for those in need (picnic usually lasts only an hour til we're out of food). Come help (learn) to cook, or come help with the serve ... just let us know you are actually coming :)
All are welcome to come with, and we should be able to find you a ride if needed.

“Joseph McCarthy is the only major politician in the country who can be labeled “liar” without fear of libel.”– Joseph Alsop

“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205 names that were made known to the Secretary of State (Dean Acheson)as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”  – Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy, February 9, 1950, Wheeling, West Virginia

“If somebody would only smuggle me aboard the Democratic campaign special with a baseball bat in my hand, I’d teach patriotism to ‘Little Adlai’.” – Joseph McCarthy, mocking 1952 Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson)

"I call Marco Rubio, 'Little Marco’. That frightened little puppy couldn't be elected dog-catcher in Florida." – Donald Trump

[From Noam Chomsky, Bill Fletcher, Barbara Ehrenreich, Kathy Kelly, Ron Daniels, Leslie Cagan, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters, and Michael Albert]

As the 2020 presidential election approaches the Green Party faces the challenge of settling on a platform, choosing a candidate for president, and deciding its campaign strategy. In that context, Howie Hawkins, a contender for Green Party presidential candidate, recently published a clear and cogent essay titled “The Green Party Is Not the Democrats’ Problem.” It represents a precedent Green Party stance which may guide Green campaign policy. We agree with much, but find some ideas very troubling.

“Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world…” – Henry Kissinger

Friends, this year the WEF is celebrating its 50th Anniversary. Forty-nine (49) of the insanely pompous – and every year more – WEF events took place in Davos, Switzerland. Just one, in 2002, after 9/11, was moved to New York City, paradoxically for ‘security reasons’ they said – the logic of such a move was as ludicrous as the WEF itself.