![Caltrans plans to widen the 91 Freeway [again], spending $1.3 Billion to improve commute speeds 1.5 miles per hour, while further destroying the only wildlife connection between the Santa Ana Mountains and the Puente-Chino Hills. Commuter trains, anyone?](https://www.wilderutopia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Jerry-Collamer-91-Freeway-Insane-Toon-115x115.jpg "Caltrans Driving Us to Freeway Insanity")
The Underworld, Rebirth and Renewal with Ceres and Proserpina
Cinematic Cultural Change in West Africa with Idrissa Ouédraogo
Mild Satire, Outrage and Hostility, with Philip Roth
Big Noise from Big Band Drummer Gene Krupa
Loose Nuts: Edison Reveals Huge Gap in Safety at San Onofre
The Underworld, Rebirth and Renewal with Ceres and ProserpinaIn ancient Roman religion, Ceres was a goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships. The following myth tells how her daughter Proserpina was abducted by the ruler of the underworld, forced to become his wife, but with Ceres' help, she watches over the springtime growth of crops and the cycle of life, death, and rebirth or renewal.
Read More Cinematic Cultural Change in West Africa with Idrissa OuédraogoIdrissa Ouédraogo, whose simple, carefully observed movies about cultural change in Burkina Faso and elsewhere in Africa, brought him international acclaim and a top award at the Cannes International Film Festival, recently died. We share his first film, Yam Daabo (The Choice) about a family facing famine in the Sahel.
Read More Mild Satire, Outrage and Hostility, with Philip RothHis alter-ego Zuckerman, unconsciously frightened of success and of failure, frightened of being admired and also despised, frightened of being frightened, he unconsciously suppressed his talent, frightened of what it might do next. On the passing of Philip Roth, we look into his often black comic chronicles of an imagined life, his taking down and reshaping the meaning of 'Jewish American', and his play at historic re-creating the zeitgeist within the form of the novel.
Read More Big Noise from Big Band Drummer Gene KrupaGene Krupa (1909 – 1973) pioneered orchestral jazz and Big Band from the flamboyant drum side, pounding tom-toms, high hats, and cymbals through the 30s, 40s, and 50s, as one of the most remarkable percussionists out there.
Read More Loose Nuts: Edison Reveals Huge Gap in Safety at San OnofreToonman Collamer opines: Work crews transferring radioactive spent fuel (nuclear waste) at the San Onofre nuclear plant from cooling pools into dry storage discovered a loose bolt inside one of the canisters, prompting Southern California Edison to temporarily halt the relocation effort. -- Los Angeles Times
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The US Shame of My Lai in VietnamOn the 50th anniversary of the My Lai massacre in the Vietnam War, we honor the efforts of Army helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson to stop the madness and endure the quest for truth, and share the Vietnamese-made documentary, 'The Sound of the Violin in My Lai'.
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The Lucrative and Violent Curse of Coltan Mining in CongoOne of Africa's most rare-minerals-rich countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo, has endured Belgian colonization, slavery, and continuing atrocities, where militant groups control the extraction of "conflict resources." The tech industry turns these extracted raw materials into components of mobile phones and computers. Yet the cost is deadly.
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Iannis Xenakis and the Notion of a Cosmic UtopiaIannis Xenakis, the Greek-French experimental composer and protege designer for the famous architect Le Corbusier, advanced theories of the vertical "Cosmic" city as the only sustainable way forward. Here, he wrote this essay in 1966, decrying decentralization (read: suburban sprawl) in favor of building up, up, up...5 million inhabitants to be housed in a single megastructure, a hyperbolic paraboloid of more than 3,000 meters high and 50 meters wide.
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Anthropocene Arrives, Climate Collapses, and No One CaresClive Hamilton writes on how governments, people, corporations, the world continues to plan for the future as if climate scientists don’t exist. The greatest shame is the absence of a sense of tragedy.
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Jean Jacques Dessalines and the Women Warriors who Liberated HaitiToday's attempts to malign Haiti stand as only the latest in a long line of hegemony and oppression against this Caribbean island nation. January 1, 1804 is Haitian Independence Day, and Haitian attorney Ezili Dantò honors and remembers Janjak Desalin (Jean Jacques Dessalines), Haiti's Liberator and founding father, as well as the indigenous army, and women who influenced him. Janjak's ideals and legacy lives on - Nou la!
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