Royal Naval College

 

Greenwich

 

A night when the Oscars almost mattered

 

 

"I am a grump when it comes to all things Oscars. As I have written before, it’s not just the empty speeches, the fashion fixation, the dull box office discourse. It’s that the very idea of competition feels to me like a hammer to the art of appreciating films.

This year, some of the winners openly agreed with me. But as I watched, there was a strange sensation too. Was it a bit of hope?"

read review by John Bleasdale  

A night when the Oscars almost mattered - by John Bleasdale

Calling All Angels !

 

 JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brightly gleams
When everyman is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
When silence drowns the screams?
Confusion will be my epitaph

– Peter Sinfield, King Crimson, “Epitaph”

+ Let’s review the shifting rationales (all fallacious) for Trump/Netanyahu’s criminal attack on Iran that has quickly engulfed much of the Middle East: Israel was going to attack Iran and Iran would respond by attacking the US; Iran was going to launch a pre-emptive attack on Israel; Iran was going to launch a preemptive attack on the US; Iran was close to having a nuclear weapon; Iran was close to having intercontinental missiles capable of striking the US; Iran was governed by lunatics. Netanyahu talked Trump into doing it. MBS convinced Trump to do it. Trump convinced Netanyahu to do it. Let confusion be their epitaph. (It will almost certainly be ours.)

+ Marco Rubio: “The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked [by Israel], that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit, sit there and absorb a blow before we responded.”

CNN Reporter: Yesterday, you told us Israel was going to strike Iran and that’s why we needed to get involved. But today the president said Iran–

Rubio: No. Were you there yesterday?

CNN Reporter: Yes. I asked the question.

+ The “preventative war” rationale, whichever of the shifting versions you choose, is preposterous. A preemptive strike on US targets by Iran would have done minimal damage to the US arsenal in the region and ensured the massive counter-attack the Iranians were seeking to prevent. And, even the Pentagon knows it wasn’t true…

Reporter: Thousands of Americans are stranded. Why wasn’t there an evacuation plan?

Trump: Well, because it happened all very quickly, we thought, and I thought maybe more so than most. I could ask Marco, but I thought we were going to have a situation where we were going to be attacked. They were getting ready to attack Israel. They were getting ready to attack….If anything, I forced Israel’s hand.”

+ Sen. Mark Warner: “There was no imminent threat to the United States by the Iranians. There was a threat to Israel. If we equate a threat to Israel as the equivalent of an imminent threat to the US, then we are in uncharted territory.”

+ Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons. Iran has none. If Iran were really planning a preemptive strike on Israel, that would pretty much invalidate the notion of nuclear deterrence. Let’s get rid of them all! On the other hand, would Trump and Israel have risked launching a preemptive attack on Iran if the Islamic Republic possessed its own nuclear arsenal? Unlikely. (It’s more likely Trump would have written love letters to the Ayatollah, ala his endearing correspondence with Kim Jong-Un.) I think it’s safe to conclude that Iran had no plans to preemptively attack Israel or the US.

+ Rafael Grossi, Director General of the IAEA, told the nuclear inspection agency’s board on March 2 that inspectors found no structured effort by Iran to build nuclear weapons, despite ongoing strikes on sites like Natanz. The U.S. and Israel launched operations Roaring Lion and Epic Fury on February 28, damaging above-ground structures but sparing underground centrifuges and causing no radiation leaks. While leaders like Trump and Netanyahu cited imminent threats, U.S. intelligence sources and Russia disputed the urgency, and Grossi called for diplomacy to prevent escalation.

Reporter: “So, why did the US attack?”

Rubio:  “Iran is run by lunatics.”

+ Speaking of lunatics, Paul White, the spiritual advisor to Trump and head of the White House Faith Office, spoke in tongues to call down angels from Africa and South America to strike Iran…

COUNTERPUNCH 

 

 

 

Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine - Country Joe & The Fish

 

She hides in an attic concealed on a shelf
Behind volumes of literature based on herself
And runs across the pages like some tiny elf
Knowing that it's hard to find
Stuff way back in her mind,
Winds up spending all of her time
Trying to memorize every line,
Sweet Lorriane, ah, Sweet Lorraine.

CCBB

 

National Maritime Museum

 

Roscoe Robinson - That's Enough (in memoriam)

 

I don′t want security

I just want you to save your love for me

And that's enough

That′s enough, baby, that's enough

Vida de cachorro

 

Discurso contra fim da 6 x 1 ecoa a resisencia ao 13o salário e a Lei Aurea

 

 

LEONARDO SAKAMOTO

Toda vez que uma proposta para aumento nos direitos de trabalhadores ganha corpo no Brasil, uma trombeta ecoa: a do apocalipse econômico. O curioso é que ela apita de forma semelhante há mais de um século, mudando apenas o contexto histórico. Vão-se os rótulos, ficam as garrafas.

Da assinatura da Lei Áurea no Império passando pelo debate sobre o 13º salário no governo João Goulart até a recente mobilização pelo fim da escala 6x1 sob a gestão Lula, o roteiro vai sendo plagiado. O país vai quebrar. O desemprego vai disparar. A inflação vai devorar tudo. E, no fim, o trabalhador sairá pior do que entrou.

O debate sobre os prós e contras da redução da escala e da jornada semanal é importante e precisa ser promovido, mas o discurso do medo tem sido, mais uma vez, o argumento central de muita gente.

Em 1888, quando a libertação (formal) dos escravizados se caminhava para virar lei, parte da elite tratou a abolição como sentença de morte da economia. A lavoura iria à ruína, não haveria braços, as fazendas afundariam em dívidas. E a liberdade concedida, assim, de repente, produziria caos social. A impossibilidade do Brasil sem mão de obra cativa apareceu como argumento técnico, racional, jurídico. O medo foi embalado como caridade, afinal, os próprios escravizados seriam prejudicados por não terem quem deles cuidasse.

Décadas depois, quando se discutia a criação da gratificação natalina que se tornaria o 13º salário, o discurso preservou o mesmo espírito. Editorialistas advertiam que um holerite extra levaria à quebradeira generalizada. Patrões anunciavam demissões em massa como consequência inevitável. A inflação seria galopante. O benefício, ironicamente, prejudicaria quem pretendia proteger. O trabalhador, mais uma vez, foi usado como argumento contra o próprio interesse.

Agora, no debate sobre o fim da escala 6x1, a trilha sonora retorna com arranjos contemporâneos. Fala-se na inviabilidade para comércio e serviços, na matemática impossível das pequenas empresas (detalhe: o Sebrae fez uma pesquisa apontando que a maioria dos pequenos negócios não vê impacto negativo), no repasse automático aos preços. Ressurge o fantasma da informalidade: se encarecer o emprego formal, a solução será pejotizar — como se o avanço da pejotização já não estivesse em curso no julgamento do Tema 1389 no STF. A precarização viria como efeito colateral inevitável da tentativa de civilizar a escala.

UOL 

 

  

John Hammond - Mean Old Frisco (1963)

 

IN MEMORIAM

Well, that mean old dirty Frisco

And that low down Santa Fe

Mean old Frisco and that low down Santa Fe

You know they take my girl away

Lord, and they blow back out on me

(Muddy Waters_)

Rua do Carmo

 

Chomsky and Epstein

 

Jeffrey St. Clair >

 
+ I started getting press calls about Chomsky and Epstein, before I’d looked at the new revelations and saw just how deep the relationship was. (“Why is the press calling the press,” I said, “if I have anything to say, I’ll write myself,” refusing any comment.)

The latest batch is very ugly and, I think, indefensible. It’s especially disgusting that Noam saw it necessary to shame the victims as hysterics. When it was first revealed that Chomsky had some kind of relationship with Epstein, I was surprised, but not terribly shocked. I assumed he was trying to pick Epstein’s very deep pockets for money for his MIT projects. Hell, Noam had taken money from the Pentagon, DIA and other unsavory sources in the past. There’s no such thing as clean money. But still…

It’s also very hard to understand how he could have maintained such close ties to someone who was a hardcore Zionist and, if not an Israeli agent himself, certainly an asset whom Israeli intelligence used frequently. It’s baffling. A couple of years ago, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and wrote off his dismissal of Epstein’s predatory sexual behavior as similar to Nader’s stubborn refusal to endorse gay rights during the 2000 campaign, when there were several gay marriage/rights initiatives on state ballots, by saying, “I don’t do gonadal politics.” But this is much more appalling and inexplicable.

What was it about Epstein that could cloud Chomsky’s judgment? If it wasn’t the money and wasn’t the opportunity to rape young women? Look at Epstein’s writing: it’s scarcely literate. The sex-trafficker masquerading as a financial genius and consciousness guru was just not that smart and you’d think Noam, of all people, would be immune to intellectual seduction and flattery.

The last time I talked to Noam was a couple of years ago to beg for a blurb for our book An Orgy of Thieves, which he graciously delivered almost immediately. He still seemed to have all of his faculties, which, as we know, are more faculties than almost anyone else on the planet has ever had. So I don’t think you can blame it on dementia–maybe the new wife (always the first reaction when your hero stumbles)? But Valeria apparently only wanted Epstein to put them up in NYC and Noam said, “I fantasize about the Caribbean.” Read that how you will, but I prefer to believe Noam was thinking about Cuba.

The right, of course, is, as Doug Henwood pointed out, scurrilously trying to link this perplexing friendship to Chomsky’s politics, which is absurd. In fact, the relationship is a contradiction of nearly everything Chomsky has stood for over the last 60 years, which is why the revelations have proved so confounding for so many of us.

+ Several people have asked what Cockburn would have thought about Chomsky’s unsettling relationship with Epstein. It’s impossible to say, really. Alex and Noam were friends and Alex was intensely loyal to his friends. Given Cockburn’s writings on sex panics, I’d guess that he would have been more unnerved about Epstein’s role as a Zionist hardliner (and probable Israeli agent) than Noam’s bizarre dismissal of Epstein’s, by then widely-known, predilection for sex-trafficking and pedophilia. At the very least, Noam’s ties to Epstein were evidence of seriously bad judgment, intellectual and moral, from someone who usually made such considered and thoroughly reasoned decisions. At least that’s how it appears on this misty morning in the Oregon country….

COUNTERPUNCH 

Jupiter Maçã - AJ5

 

National Maritime Museum

 

Ainda está quente

FERNANDES 

 

 

 

MIGUEL PAIVA 

 

 

QUINHO

 

 

 

The Fish Cheer / I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To Die Rag - Country Joe and the Fish (in memoriam)

 And it's 1, 2, 3

What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn
Next stop is Vietnam
And it's 5, 6, 7
Open up the pearly gates
Ah, ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee!
We're all gonna die

Blue Rondo a La Turk - Klacto Vee Sedstein

 

I wake and wonder what it means
Klacto vee sedstein

National Maritime Museum

 

National Maritime Museum

 

The Brazilian Director Who’s Up for Multiple Oscars

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "Probably the strongest feeling of time travel that I have ever felt is making films and working with archives. Because time travel, as far as I know, doesn’t really exist. There is no DeLorean, no time machine. But, when you’re holding a cassette tape, it’s the actual cassette tape that was recorded in 1977 or 1974. I felt that a number of times when I went to cinematheques. You go into the restoration department, see the big scanner and the negative, and you go, “That’s the camera negative that was on the set in 1951.” It’s a historical artifact."

READ INTERVIEW WITH KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHA
conducted by  Stephania Taladrid

 

.

 

George Porter Trio - Things Ain't What They Used to Be

 

National Maritime Museum

 

John Hammond - Walking Blues (Robert Johnson) IN MEMORIAM

 

Kristi Noem is just the first to fall

 

 "This is the Republican Party heading into the midterms. A president who doesn’t care if Americans die. A fired Cabinet secretary being shuffled into a made-up diplomatic title. A Congress that just voted to give one man the unilateral power to wage war. A sitting congressman whose subordinate set herself on fire. And pardoned insurrectionists molesting children. This is not a party in power. This is a party in moral collapse. And voters are watching."

read stack by Heather Delaney Reese

Kristi Noem is just the first to fall

CASTRO ROCHA e a cultura milenar do Iran

 

National Maritime Museum

 

O outro lado da matança de inocentes

GENILDO

 

 

 

Alaide Costa - Tatuado

 

Se a dor do amor deixasse o corpo da gente marcado Ahhh eu tinha o corpo inteiro tatuado

3 x Paquetá

 

A Tribute to Leonard Cohen - Famous Blue Raincoat - Nathaniel Rateliff

Messing with the Mullahs - FRESH HELL Tina Brown's Diary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The rules of hubris usually dictate that you should quit while you’re ahead. After the slam dunk of O

 

peration Midnight Hammer’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites and the piping hot Maduro snatch, the White House was very unlikely to be three times lucky with a dangerous foreign intervention. This was the moment for Trump to cash in the Maduro winnings and turn to the subject that bores him to tears: America’s domestic problems. Is that what Chief of Staff Susie Wiles was saying to him in that picture in the Mar-a-Lago war room, where she wears the intense, beseeching look of an aide tasked with steering a president to consider political issues closer to home?"

 

read stack by TINA BROWN

  

Messing with the Mullahs - FRESH HELL Tina Brown's Diary

Impasse

 

Área de risco, Risco na área

ROMULO  GARCIAS 

 

 

JBOSCO

 

 

LUTE 

 

 

 

Willie Colon & Ruben Blades - Pedro Navaja

 

Un carro pasa muy despacito por la avenida
No tiene marcas, pero to' saben que es policia, hum
Pedro Navaja, las manos siempre dentro 'el gabán
Mira y sonríe, y el diente de oro vuelve a brillar

ARWA

 

 

EU opens up funding to guarantee abortion rights across bloc

Women in EU member states with near-total abortion bans, such as Poland, will be given help to access legal and safe abortions elsewhere, it was announced on Thursday. This is being hailed as a “victory for women” and was the result of the My Voice, My Choice citizens’ initiative. Nice to see democracy working properly for a change!

Tennessee Republicans try to introduce the death penalty for abortions

A number of Republican state lawmakers, including representative Monty Fritts, who is also running for governor, recently introduced an amendment to the criminal code which would classify abortion as “homicide of an unborn child”, punishable by life imprisonment or death by lethal injection. It looks like this bill will stall indefinitely, but the fact that it was even introduced shows just how far right the Overton window has shifted.

Palestinian journalists raped in Israeli prisons, report alleges

Almost 60 Palestinian journalists detained in Israeli prisons have been beaten, starved and subjected to sexual violence, including rape, a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) alleges. Another CPJ report, released on Wednesday, found Israel is responsible for two-thirds of a record 129 press killings in 2025 and to blame for 81% of “intentionally targeted” journalist killings.

 

Israel continues to kill Palestinians daily during the Gaza ‘ceasefire’

“At least 425 Palestinians have been killed and over 1,200 wounded over the past three months of the ‘ceasefire’ – a rate of nearly five Palestinians killed every day,” Drop Site News reports. The fact the media persists in causing the horror show in Gaza a “ceasefire” shows how little Palestinian lives matter. Do you think it would be called a ceasefire if nearly five Israelis were being killed daily?

 

Mike Pompeo wants “to make sure history books don’t write about the victims of Gaza”

The former US Secretary of State received rapturous applause at a pro-Israel conference on Tuesday after saying that “we need to make sure that the story [of October 7] is told properly so that when the history books write this, they don’t write about the victims of Gaza, right?” The good news for Pompeo is that journalism is supposed to be the first draft of history, and there is precious little journalism coming out of Gaza – by design. The international press still isn’t freely allowed to report from Gaza, where babies are continuing to freeze to death.

 

 

 

 

 

Why in the world is Melania Trump leading a UN security council meeting?

 

 

"while DEI may be dead, WTF hiring is very much alive. Being Wealthy, Trumpy, and/or Fox News-famous seem to be the only qualifications you need for success in Trump’s USA. See, for example, the entire Trump administration: a horrifying hodgepodge of unqualified sycophants. See also, hot off the press, Melania Trump’s new gig at the United Nations. It’s been announced that the first lady will lead a session of the United Nations security council on Monday titled Children, Technology, and Education in Conflict.

It can’t be stressed enough that this is highly unusual. As the White House noted in a statement: “Mrs Trump’s leadership will mark the first time a sitting US first lady presides over the security council.” Back in precedented times, you see, you generally needed a qualification or two to lead the security council. Now, however, we’re squarely in the WTF economy: Melania is a Trump, ergo automatically qualified to do anything her little heart desires."

read column by ARWA MAHDAWI  

Why in the world is Melania Trump leading a UN security council meeting? | Arwa Mahdawi | The Guardian

Building London | Construindo Londres

 

Big Change Seems Certain in Iran. What Kind Is the Question.

 

 Experts say that Iran’s clerical rulers may be too deeply entrenched for Iranians to topple them, and that the U.S. and Israeli strikes risk setting off deeper radicalization or violence. 

 Could Iranian protesters topple their government?

Could Iran’s current regime survive?

Could Iran descend into chaos?

READ ANALYSIS BY ERIKA SOLOMON 

 

Iran’s Regime May Survive, but the Middle East Will Be Changed

 

 A badly weakened Iran will no longer intimidate or threaten its neighbors in the same way. The regional impact could be comparable to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"It is unclear if even a more moderate government would make new concessions over its nuclear program under the pressure of war. It is also unclear if any Iranian leader would feel able to trust President Trump, who tore up President Obama’s nuclear deal in 2018, and now has bombed Iran twice in the middle of ongoing negotiations. Would Tehran deem it necessary to give in on the nuclear issue to survive? Or if a hard-line, more security-dominated government emerges, will it try to race toward a nuclear weapon, more convinced than ever of its need?" 

READ REPORT BY STEVEN ERLANGER

4 Imagens

 

Desculpe a demora

THIAGO LUCAS

 

Trump wants to distract Americans from scandals at home with a diversionary war

 

 

 "Trump’s foreign policy is not guided by a coherent theory of order, deterrence or alliance management. It is driven instead by the demonstration of dominance, the creation of spectacle and the command of the news cycle. Military force, in this framework, is not a tool subordinated to strategy. It is the strategy."

read analysis by Christopher Chivvis

Trump wants to distract Americans from scandals at home with a diversionary war | Christopher S Chivvis | The Guardian

There was no need for this |

 

 

"Now, as in the past, the predictable result of today’s renewed, expanded and apparently open-ended US-Israeli aggression against Iran will be instant, spreading chaos. Civilians will be killed, children orphaned, families torn apart. Regional turmoil and international oil-price panic will follow the Iranian retaliation that has already begun, and which may be backed by Tehran’s Hezbollah and Houthi allies. New hatreds will be seeded, terrorist vendettas sown. The west’s foes will rejoice. And almost nothing of enduring value will be achieved. That was the bitter outcome of the failed US-led interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, it’s Tehran’s turn to reap the whirlwind."

 READ COLUMN BY SIMON TISDALL  

A world on edge as Trump bombs Iran and triggers war in the Middle East. There was no need for this | Simon Tisdall | The Guardian

Antonio Vivaldi, Concerto for Strings A-major, Trevor Pinnock