(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on March 28, 2026)
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us
— from Henry V, by William Shakespeare
Five to one, baby, one in five:
OK-it wasn’t exactly the St. Crispin’s Day speech, but close enough.
On his MSNOW show this morning, Ali Velshi highlighted a fascinating bit of civil rights history, recounted in this PBS article:
Imagine climbing up 83 steps. Perhaps that doesn’t seem like such a big deal—but that’s likely because you’d be walking. What would you do, though, if you couldn’t?
That was the premise behind the Capitol Crawl, a now-iconic protest to demand the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA was a landmark civil rights bill aimed at providing basic amenities and protections to some 40 million mentally and physically disabled citizens. Today we take many of the ADA’s changes to society—curb cuts in sidewalks and closed captioning on entertainment, to name just two examples—for granted. But the act’s passage, in 1990, was anything but guaranteed.
By spring of that year, the ADA had been trapped in legislative limbo for months. Despite the strong support of then-President George H.W. Bush, the act was languishing in Congress, caught in the deliberations of House subcommittees. Many U.S. Representatives balked at the expense and complication posed by the ADA’s requirements.
Enter ADAPT—American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit—a grassroots disability rights organization that had been staging protests across the country even before its official founding in 1983. On March 12, 1990, ADAPT led a procession of more than 500 marchers, including other disability activists and lobbyists, from the White House to the west side of the U.S. Capitol. There, in the kind of guerrilla civic action for which the organization had become known, scores of marchers dropped to the ground and began the long journey up the hard marble stairs leading to the “People’s House.” They climbed backwards or on their hands and knees, step-by-painstaking-step. “As I’m seeing the people around me,” recalled Anita Cameron, one of the ADAPT activists who made her way up that day, “I’m like, ‘whoa, we are doing it. We are really doing it. We’re, like, crawling into history.’”
Rolled up in their pockets, protestors carried copies of the Declaration of Independence. Once they finally summitted the stairs, ADAPT reps delivered those scrolls to members of Congress as a reminder of the ADA’s importance. And while media coverage of the event wasn’t extensive, but the publicity that was garnered by the Crawl was impactful. “The pictures were striking,” said The New York Times several days later, “just as they were intended to be: Children paralyzed from the waist down crawling up the steps of the Capitol.” Six months later, following the bill’s now-remarkably swift passage through the House, President George H. W. Bush signed the ADA into law.
“We did it to show that we disabled people, as second class citizens, needed change. And the vehicle for how it was going to change was the ADA,” Cameron told American Experience, reflecting on the Capitol Crawl’s significance. “But I think a lot of people forget that the ADA was the floor. It was not the ceiling. So it was the beginning of rights for us, but it was not the end.”
One of the youngest participants in the Capitol Crawl was 8 year-old Jennifer Keelan:
(engage shame mode) For the life of me, I don’t remember hearing about this action at the time; Velshi’s retrospective today was my first awareness (and let me tell you-it certainly turned on the waterworks). How could I have missed it? It really bothered me; I turned it over in my mind. It wasn’t like I wasn’t aware of world events (I was working in radio…I announced news stories gathered off the AP wire as part of my weekday morning show, for god’s sake).
I contemplated further. In 1990, I was 34. Over the previous 2 years, I had shed 75 pounds, and had walked, jogged, biked and cross-country skied myself into the best physical shape of my adult life. So I wasn’t thinking twice about everyday physical activities like walking up and down stairs, stepping on or off curbs, or simply walking, for that matter. Consequently, like most able-bodied people, I didn’t stop and think about what it was like to be one of those folks who find such everyday physical activities a genuine challenge (if not insurmountable).
But nowadays, as I am “one of those folks” (stairs and curbs are a challenge, and I can’t walk far without some kind of assistive device)…I “get” it. Hence the waterworks when Ali Velshi ran the clip of Jennifer Keelan reaching that top step; I instantly grokked that it was thanks to the courage of activists like that little girl and her cohorts that I have the dedicated access to parking, transit and buildings that I take for granted as a (now) disabled person (pushing 70).
I also connected the dots between 88 year-old Jane Fonda and 8 year-old Jennifer Keelan:
They aren’t/weren’t too tired to keep pushing for change.
It’s in that spirit that I tip my hat to everyone hitting the streets today to exercise their First Amendment rights and (peacefully) push for change, and humbly offer this mixtape to perk them up should they feel…tired.
Bruce Springsteen – “Streets of Minneapolis”
Billy Bragg – “City of Heroes”
The Beatles – “Revolution“
Frank Zappa – “Trouble Every Day”
Elvis Costello – “Night Rally”
Green Day – “American Idiot”
The Clash – “Clampdown”
Woody Guthrie – “All You Fascists Bound to Lose”
Bob Marley & the Wailers – “Get Up, Stand Up”
The Doors – “Five to One”
Graham Nash – “Chicago“
The Style Council – “The Whole Point of No Return”
Tracy Chapman – “Talkin’ About a Revolution”
John Lennon – “Power to the People”
Sly & the Family Stone – “Stand!”
Heaven 17 – “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang”
Public Enemy – “Fight the Power”
Gil Scott-Heron – “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on March 21, 2026)
“The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.”
-J. Robert Oppenheimer
Well, this happened a few days ago:
Trump: "Some of this weaponry is unthinkable. You don't even want to know about it. Oh, you could end this thing in two seconds if you wanted to."
Now, I don’t mean to be alarmist, but I recently posted this on Bluesky:
I know, I know…there is enough happening right now to keep you up nights without adding that old chestnut to the mix. That said…there must be something in the air:
As Netflix hit “Adolescence” continues to make waves and potentially inspire policy, the team behind it has turned its attention to a new impactful project – a “Threads” reboot.
Warp Films has confirmed it will be turning the BBC’s pivotal TV film into a series. For those unfamiliar, “Threads” aired on BBC Two in 1984 and depicted the devastating effects of a fictional nuclear apocalypse.
Mark Herbert, founder and chief exec of Warp, said: “Threads was, and remains, an unflinchingly honest drama that imagines the devastating effects of nuclear conflict on ordinary people. This story aligns perfectly with our ethos of telling powerful, grounded narratives that deeply connect with audiences.
“Re-imagining this classic film as a TV drama gives us a unique opportunity to explore its modern relevance.”
Emily Feller, chief creative officer and exec producer, added: “This adaptation will allow us to uncover fresh interpretations in light of today’s world. We imagine highlighting how resilience and connection can offer hope even in the most challenging of times. […]
Not much else is known about the reboot at this stage, or which, if any, original cast members might make a return.
Threads debuted on the BBC in 1984, later airing in the U.S. on TBS. Director Mick Jackson delivers an uncompromising realism that makes The Day After (the 1983 U.S. TV drama that depicted the aftermath of nuclear war on an American city) look like a Teletubbies episode. It’s a speculative narrative that takes a medium sized city (Sheffield) and depicts what would likely happen to its populace during and after a nuclear strike, in graphic detail. The message is simple and direct-nothing good comes out of a nuclear conflict. It’s a living, breathing Hell for all concerned-and anyone “lucky” enough to survive will soon wish they were dead.
There was a proliferation of Cold War nuclear paranoia films in the 80s. In addition to the aforementioned made-for-TV movies Threads and The Day After, other notable releases included the funny-scary doc Atomic Cafe (1982), the riveting made-for-TV thriller Special Bulletin (1983), and the feature films War Games (1983), One Night Stand (Australia, 1984), TheManhattan Project (1986), the animated drama When the Wind Blows (UK, 1986) and Miracle Mile (1988).
There was definitely “something in the air” in the early 80s, vis-à-vis the looming specter of global thermonuclear annihilation. The 1980 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led to America’s withdrawal from the SALT II arms treaty (signed by President Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1979, the treaty had limited the total of both nations’ nuclear forces to 2,250 delivery vehicles). When President Reagan took office in 1981, he wasted no time ratcheting up anti-Red rhetoric and aggressive posturing toward the USSR (UK PM Margaret Thatcher added her twopence to the chiding, further fueling the unease).
1983 was a particularly dicey year on the nuclear front, beginning with Reagan’s infamous “evil empire” speech in March (he was addressing the National Association of Evangelicals). That was also the year that Reagan proposed his so-called “Star Wars” defense strategy (aka the Strategic Defense Initiative) which he envisioned as a space-based shield. Critics (and the Soviets, unsurprisingly) took the view that this would increase the threat of a nuclear war by giving the U.S. a more assured first-strike capability.
1983 also saw mobile, intermediate-range Pershing II ballistic missiles deployed by the U.S. Army at American bases in West Germany and aimed at targets in the western Soviet Union. And then there were two unnervingly close calls in the Fall of that year:
At the height of the Cold War, the Soviets designed an early-warning radar system meant to track fast-moving threats to increase the chance of reprisal. On September 26, 1983, however, the system, code-named Oko, malfunctioned. At around midnight, Oko’s alarms rang out, alerting the base of one incoming nuclear missile. The screen read, “LAUNCH,” which was not a warning, but an automatic order to prepare for retaliation.
Believing that a U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was incoming, the base went into a panic. However, some officers on duty were skeptical that the United States would choose to send only one ICBM, knowing that it could not affect the Soviets’ counter-strike capability. Stanislov Petrov, an officer that helped create the code for the early-warning software, also knew that Oko was prone to error. He reset the system, but the alarms persisted.
Rather than following protocol, which entailed alerting superiors up the chain of command, Petrov awaited corroborating evidence. No evidence came, and the alarms soon stopped. Petrov’s actions, or inaction, almost certainly averted a nuclear disaster.
Just 11 days later, NATO forces in Brussels took part in a joint military exercise that simulated a response to a hypothetical Soviet nuclear attack. The exercise was code-named Able Archer 83.
The primary purpose of the exercise was to test the command-and-control procedures for NATO’s nuclear forces in the event of a global crisis. Unlike previous wargames, however, Able Archer 83 featured new elements specifically meant to confuse and disorient the Soviets.
KGB observers alerted Moscow of the unusual activity, and paranoia set in. Working off dubious intelligence that a NATO offensive against the U.S.S.R. could be cloaked under the guise of a military exercise, the Soviets began preparations for a large-scale retaliation. Then Soviet leader Yuri Andropov mobilized entire military divisions, transported nuclear weapons to their launch sites, and scrambled a fleet of bombers carrying nuclear warheads. Military command handed Andropov the nuclear briefcase, known in Russia as the “cheget.”
Lenoard Perroots, a high-ranking intelligence officer for the U.S. Air Force stationed in Europe, observed that the Soviets were responding as though the exercise was real. In what the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board has called a “fortuitous, if ill informed” decision, Perroots did not reciprocate by raising western asset alert levels. Instead, he waited. The Soviets eventually realized that the exercise was not a surprise attack and aborted their planned response.
This was the shaky and unsettling political climate in November of 1983, which is when Testament, a modestly budgeted PBS Playhouse production, opened in theaters. The official PBS premiere wasn’t until a year later in November of 1984; the film had been so well-received in previews that Paramount Pictures gave it a theatrical release (while this has become standard practice for production/streaming studios like Amazon, Apple TV+ and Netflix, it was unusual for the time).
“They” say that history is, if anything, cyclical. As Fate would have it, not two days before the current occupant of the White House whimsically mused “Oh, you could end this thing in two seconds if you wanted to” within earshot of the prime minister of the only nation on earth to date that has experienced the horrific effects of nuclear war firsthand, Criterion has reissued Testament on Blu-ray.
Beautifully directed by Lynne Littman, Testament (with a screenplay adapted by John Sacred Young from a story by Carol Amen) takes a low key approach, but pulls no punches; I think this is what gives her film’s anti-nuke message more teeth and makes its scenario more relatable than Stanley Kramer’s similarly-framed but more sanitized and preachy 1959 drama On the Beach (or more contemporaneously, the relatively histrionic and sensationalistic 1983 TV movieThe Day After).
Jane Alexander (who received a well-deserved Best Actress nomination for her work here), her husband (William DeVane) and three kids (Roxana Zal, Ross Harris, Lukas Haas) live in sleepy Hamlin, California, where afternoon cartoons are interrupted by a news flash that nuclear explosions have occurred in New York. Then there is a flash of a different kind when nearby San Francisco (where DeVane has gone on a business trip) receives a direct strike.
There is no exposition on the political climate that precipitates the attacks; this is a wise decision, as it puts the focus on the humanistic message of the film. All of the post-nuke horrors ensue, but they are presented sans the melodrama that informs many entries in the genre. The fact that the nightmarish scenario unfolds so deliberately, and amidst such everyday suburban banality, is what makes it very difficult to shake off.
As the children (and adults) of Hamlin succumb to the inevitable scourge of radiation sickness and steadily “disappear”, like the children of the ‘fairy tale’ Hamlin, you are left haunted by the final line of the school production of “The Pied Piper” glimpsed earlier in the film… “Your children are not dead. They will return when the world deserves them.”
Criterion’s Blu-ray features a new, director-approved 4K digital restoration. The new print is gorgeous; a night and day upgrade from the 2004 Paramount DVD (which I will now happily retire). Criterion has ported over two of the extra features from the Paramount release, Testament at 20 (featuring a moving 2004 reunion of the director and principal cast) and Nuclear Thoughts (featuring nuclear science experts)
Other extras include an engaging new conversation between Sam Wasson and director Littman (she has had a fascinating career), two restored short documentaries by Littman (from 1976 and 1985), and an audio recording of Jane Alexander reading the short story “The Last Testament” (on which the film was based).
Highly recommended…watch it while you can. And don’t forget to say your prayers.
One more thing…
More 80s Cold War nostalgia- Siskel & Ebert’s Testament review:
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on January 31, 2026)
[after learning of the Doomsday Machine]
President Merkin Muffley: But this is absolute madness, Ambassador! Why should you *build* such a thing?
Ambassador de Sadesky: There were those of us who fought against it, but in the end we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. At the same time our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we had been spending on defense in a single year. The deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a doomsday gap.
President Merkin Muffley: This is preposterous. I’ve never approved of anything like that.
Ambassador de Sadesky: Our source was the New York Times.
— from Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb; screenplay by Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George
Venezuela’s defence minister has accused the United States of using the country as a “weapons laboratory” during the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on January 3.
Vladimir Padrino Lopez said last week that the US had used Venezuela as a testing ground for “advanced military technologies” that rely on artificial intelligence and weaponry never used before, according to the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal.
On Sunday, US President Donald Trump told the New York Post that US forces had indeed used a weapon he referred to as “the discombobulator”.
“I’m not allowed to talk about it,” he said, adding that the weapon “made equipment not work” during the operation.
Details of the US military mission to abduct Maduro have not been made public, but the US has been known to use weapons to disorient soldiers and guards or disable equipment and infrastructure in the past. […]
Days after Maduro’s abduction, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reposted comments that appeared to have been posted on X by a Venezuelan security guard. He wrote that the US had “launched something” during the operation that “was like a very intense sound wave”.
“Suddenly, I felt like my head was exploding from the inside,” the security guard wrote. “We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move.”
Al Jazeera has not been able to verify this account.
The “Discombobulator”. Fanciful term. Like …a “Doomsday Machine”?
A year ago, we warned that the world was perilously close to global disaster and that any delay in reversing course increased the probability of catastrophe. Rather than heed this warning, Russia, China, the United States, and other major countries have instead become increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic. Hard-won global understandings are collapsing, accelerating a winner-takes-all great power competition and undermining the international cooperation critical to reducing the risks of nuclear war, climate change, the misuse of biotechnology, the potential threat of artificial intelligence, and other apocalyptic dangers. Far too many leaders have grown complacent and indifferent, in many cases adopting rhetoric and policies that accelerate rather than mitigate these existential risks. Because of this failure of leadership, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board today sets the Doomsday Clock at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to catastrophe.
Could you be more …specific?
Last year started with a glimmer of hope in regard to nuclear risks, as incoming US President Donald Trump made efforts to halt the Russia-Ukraine war and even suggested that major powers pursue “denuclearization.” Over the course of 2025, however, negative trends—old and new—intensified, with three regional conflicts involving nuclear powers all threatening to escalate. The Russia–Ukraine war has featured novel and potentially destabilizing military tactics and Russian allusions to nuclear weapons use. Conflict between India and Pakistan erupted in May, leading to cross-border drone and missile attacks amid nuclear brinkmanship. In June, Israel and the United States launched aerial attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities suspected of supporting the country’s nuclear weapons ambitions. It remains unclear whether the attacks constrained those efforts—or if they instead persuaded the country to pursue nuclear weapons covertly.
Anyway, feel free to read the entire statement; it goes on to discuss additional factors like climate change, developments in artificial intelligence, the proliferation of autocratic regimes, and there’s something about a magic ring and the end of the world, yadda-yadda-yadda. Don’t panic. These science types tend to be alarmists; I doubt if we’re in any immediate danger.
President Trump’s “massive armada” of warships and fighter planes near Iran mirrors the military buildup of assets in the Caribbean as the president weighs greenlighting strikes against the Islamic Republic.
The military buildup, bolstered with the recent arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group in the U.S. Central Command (Centcom) area, has swelled with additional destroyers approaching Iran, expanding Trump’s attack and defensive options in the region.
The administration dispatched dozens of warships and stationed about 15,000 U.S. service members in the U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) area, which culminated in an early January operation in which Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife were snatched by U.S. Special Forces.
Similarly to Venezuela, the U.S. has at least 10 warships near Iran, and the administration has sent additional fighter jets, air defense systems and drones to the region.
Just like Maduro, Iranian officials are not acquiescing to Trump’s demands. He has called on Iran to halt the enrichment of uranium, place limits on its ballistic missile program and end ties with terror proxy groups. […]
Washington has also sent additional F-15s and cargo planes to the region, expanding the president’s strike options, according to flight-tracking data.
Trump said Friday that he gave Iran a deadline and reiterated that Tehran wants to strike a deal with the U.S. When asked by a reporter if the president has a timeline for potentially pulling back the U.S. presence near Iran, he said, “No, we’ll see how it all works out.”
“You know, they have to float someplace, so they might as well float near Iran. But it’s a rough situation going on,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
OK …I wasn’t saying that we wouldn’t get our hair mussed.
Again, I’m not trying to be Chicken Little here…but if you’ve never had a chance to see the aforementioned Dr. Strangelove, this might be a good time to check it off your bucket list.
Here’s a piece I wrote [checks notes] on the cusp of the first Trump regime:
Plus ca change: Criterion reissues Dr. Strangelove
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 16, 2016)
Now then, Dmitri, you know how we’ve always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Bomb…The *Bomb*, Dmitri… The *hydrogen* bomb!…Well now, what happened is… ahm…one of our base commanders, he had a sort of…well, he went a little funny in the head… you know…just a little…funny. And, ah…he went and did a silly thing…Well, I’ll tell you what he did. He ordered his planes…to attack your country…
–from Dr. Strangelove (1964)
That’s POTUS Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers), making “the call” to the Russian premier from the War Room, regarding an unfortunate chain of events that may very well signal the end of civilization as we know it. It’s a nightmare scenario, precipitated by a perfect storm of political paranoia, bureaucratic bungling and ideological demagoguery that enables the actions of a lone nutcase to trigger global thermonuclear war. Sound familiar?
“Mein fuehrer! I can walk!” Although we have yet (knock on wood) to experience the global thermonuclear annihilation that ensues following the wheelchair-bound Dr. Strangelove’s joyous (if short-lived) epiphany, so many other depictions in Stanley Kubrick’s seriocomic 1964 masterpiece about the tendency for people in power to eventually rise to their own level of incompetence have since come to pass, that you wonder why Kubrick and company bothered to make it all up.
In case you skipped the quote at the top of this piece, it’s the movie about an American military base commander who goes a little funny in the head (you know…”funny”) and sort of launches a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Hilarity (and oblivion) ensues.
You rarely see a cast like this: Peter Sellers (playing three characters), George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens, Keenan Wynn, James Earl Jones and Peter Bull (who can be seen breaking character as the Russian ambassador and cracking up as Strangelove’s prosthetic arm seems to take on a mind of its own).
There are so many great lines, that you might as well bracket the entire screenplay (by Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George) with quotation marks.
Vodka. That’s what they drink, isn’t it? Never water? On no account will a Commie ever drink water, and not without good reason. Water is the source of all life. Seven-tenths of this earth’s surface is water. Why, do you realize that 70 percent of you is water? And as human beings, you need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids. Are you beginning to understand? –Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), from Dr. Strangelove
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (its full title) did not necessarily spring from a, you know, “funny” place. Indeed, Red Alert, ex-RAF officer Peter George’s 1958 source novel, was anything but; and did not even include the character of Dr. Strangelove, the ex-Nazi scientist who emerges from the shadows of the war room just in time to contextualize all that inspired madness of the film’s third act. “He” was the invention of Kubrick and screenwriter Terry Southern.
In a 1994 Grand Street article called “Notes from the War Room”, Southern recounts Kubrick’s epiphany:
[Kubrick] told me he was going to make a film about “our failure to understand the dangers on nuclear war.” He said that he had thought of the story as a “straightforward melodrama” until this morning when he “woke up and realized that nuclear war was too outrageous, too fantastic to be treated in any conventional manner.” He said he could only see it now as “some kind of hideous joke.”
Kubrick had approached Southern as a collaborator on the basis of having read his social satire The MagicChristian (which was itself adapted for the screen in 1969). You have to keep in mind that while Kubrick’s film was in production, the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was still fresh in the minds of a nervous public.
This was the height of the Cold War; few people found nuclear annihilation to be, you, know, “funny”…least of all studio suits. When Sellers backed out of the role of Major Kong (to Kubrick’s chagrin), it was first offered to Bonanza star Dan Blocker. Southern recalls (from the same article):
[Kubrick] made arrangements for a script to be delivered to Blocker that afternoon, but a cabled response from Blocker’s agent arrived in quick order: “Thanks a lot, but the material is too pinko for Dan. Or anyone else we know, for that matter. Regards, Leibman, CMA.”
As I recall, this was the first hint that this sort of political interpretation of our work in progress might exist. Stanley seemed genuinely surprised and disappointed.
But it worked out in the end. Could you imagine anyone but Slim Pickens as Maj. Kong?
Survival kit contents check. In them you’ll find: one forty-five caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days’ concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; one hundred dollars in rubles; one hundred dollars in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair of nylon stockings. Shoot, a fella’ could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff. –Major Kong prepping his B-52 crew
It was in the interest of possible “political interpretation” that a critical revision had to be made to that memorable monolog in post-production. In an eerie bit of kismet, Kubrick had scheduled the first test screening of Dr. Strangelove for November 22, 1963…the day of JFK’s assassination; in view of that zeitgeist-shattering event, the film’s originally slated December premiere was postponed until late January of 1964.
But that wasn’t the spookiest part. Originally, the last line of the bit was: “Shoot, a fella’ could have a pretty good weekend in Dallas with all that stuff.” Pickens had to be recruited to re-loop the line as we now know it. If you listen carefully during the scene, you can pick up on the edit.
However it did manage to fall together is really moot; the final product stands the test of time as a satire that will never lose relevancy (one could say that about any Kubrick film, as each ultimately points to the absurdity of all these self-important hominids, scurrying about blissfully oblivious to their insignificance within a vast, randomly cruel cosmos).
Hell, Mr. President…I could do a 2,000 word dissertation on the Freudian subtext alone; from the opening montage of aircraft engaging in (decidedly coital) airborne re-fueling maneuvers, to General Ripper firing the .50 caliber machine gun from his crotch, not to mention his cigar and his monolog about why he denies women his “essence”, to the character’s names (Dr. Strangelove, President Muffley, Buck Turgidson, Mr. Staines), and of course all of that phallic weaponry, and montage of nuclear explosions at the end.
But I won’t.
“Oh…and uh, shug? Don’t forget to say your prayers!”
Fans of the film will be glad to hear that Dr. Strangelove has been given the Criterion treatment, with the release of their Blu-ray edition. The restored 4k transfer is gorgeous; the best print I’ve seen of the film on home video (this is the third digital version I’ve owned…it’s a sickness, I know).
They’ve really piled on the extras; there’s a plethora of archival interviews, as well as featurettes produced exclusively for this edition, like audio essays by film scholars and interviews with Kubrick collaborators and archivists. So fans can immerse themselves in the Strangelovian universe…if that doesn’t seem redundant.
Oh, when November rolls around…don’t forget to say your prayers.
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on January 28, 2026)
“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”
— Victor Hugo
On April 7, 1968-just 3 days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Nina Simone performed this song in New York:
Simone’s bassist Gene Taylor had composed it right after Dr. King was killed; the song (and Simone’s emotional performance) is all the more remarkable for being at once so timely, and timeless.
In 1968, music was our social media. Otis Spann was another artist who paid musical tribute to Dr. King, writing and performing two songs about the slain civil rights leader just days after his death. His “Blues for Martin Luther King” gives us the news and preaches the blues:
On May 4, 1970, 4 students at Ohio’s Kent State University died when National Guard troops opened fire on protestors. When Neil Young saw the photos of the incident in Life magazine soon afterwards, he was moved to write the now-iconic protest anthem “Ohio”, which was recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young just two weeks later and rush-released as a single one month to the day after the killings:
The following year, Bob Dylan felt similarly compelled to express outrage in song, after Black Panther leader/author/prison activist George Jackson was shot to death by guards during an escape attempt at San Quentin (there was contention over whether or not his killing was a set-up). Dylan’s single “George Jackson” was released just three months after the incident:
Flash forward to 2026. Folk singer Phil Ochs once said, “A protest song is a song that’s so specific that you cannot mistake it for bullshit.”
When they came for the immigrants
I got in their face
When they came for the refugees
I got in their face When they came for the five year olds
I got in their face…
You may be thinking: “Those lyrics could have been written this week!”
If that’s what you’re thinking…you’re right. They were written this week, by political song smith extraordinaire/activist Billy Bragg, who posted this song on YouTube yesterday:
And we got this memo from the Boss today, posted on BlueSky:
I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
Stay free.
You can’t mistake that for bullshit. It’s tough not to despair right now, but as Kris Kristofferson advised:“Don’t let the bastards get you down.”
For those of us of “a certain age”, that is to say, old enough to have actually witnessed the moon landing live on TV… the fact that “we” were even able to achieve this feat “by the end of the decade” (as President Kennedy projected in 1961) still feels like a pretty big deal to me.
Of course, there are still big unanswered questions out there about Life, the Universe, and Everything, but I’ll leave that to future generations. I feel that I’ve done my part…spending my formative years plunked in front of a B&W TV in my PJs eating Sugar Smacks and watching Walter Cronkite reporting live from the Cape.
Those particular memories resurfaced recently as I watched Richard Linklater’s charming 2022 animated memoir Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood, which I stumbled across on Netflix:
Of course, 10 year-old Linklater didn’t land on the moon and return safely to the Earth just ahead of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin; that’s the fantasy part of his tale. It was the earthbound elements of his narrative that triggered an emotional sense memory of being a kid again, living in suburbia in 1969 (and watching the moon landing on a boxy black and white television set). I guess what I’m trying to say is that I was imprinted at an early age by the comforting visage of Walter Cronkite delivering the nightly news, long before I could intellectualize what “journalistic integrity” meant-or how important it was.
While Cronkite’s name is synonymous with “CBS news”, he was just part of a pantheon that includes Edward R. Murrow, Douglas Edwards, Mike Wallace, Dan Rather, Eric Sevareid, Harry Reasoner, Katie Couric, Connie Chung, Morley Safer, Marlene Sanders, et. al. For decades, CBS News was held in the highest regard; a trusted and reliable source for both straight-up reporting and hard-hitting investigative journalism.
You may have noticed by now that I am speaking in the past tense:
As part of a promotional rollout ahead of taking up the legendary CBS Evening News anchor chair, Tony Dokoupil posted a video message this week where he claimed that legacy media has ignored the views of the “average American.”
Meanwhile, CBS News’ editor-in-chief Bari Weiss is scoping out a private jet and a troop of armed guards to facilitate her participation in a multi-million dollar tour of the country.
The co-host of CBS Mornings since 2019, Dokoupil was officially named the new face of CBS Evening News last month, replacing the short-lived co-anchor team of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois. His tenure is set to begin Monday. Dokoupil’s promotion came after Weiss failed to poach a big name from another network to headline the ratings-challenged nightly news program.
In an effort to make a splash and gain some publicity for his debut, the network is sending Dokoupil out on a 10-city “Live From America” cross-country kickoff tour during his first two weeks in the chair. Throughout his swing through the nation, CBS Evening News will broadcast from cities such as Miami, Dallas, Detroit, Cincinnati before wrapping things up in Pittsburgh.
According to three sources with knowledge of the matter, Weiss is planning on chartering a private plane to fly to each location for the “Live From America” tour this month. Besides taking Dokoupil and CBS Evening News executive producer Kim Harvey on the flights, Weiss’ personal security detail of five armed bodyguards will also be on board.
The increased involvement from Weiss on the CBS Evening News reboot in recent days has raised eyebrows over her desire to be on location for each telecast.
That potential additional expense comes after the news network laid off roughly 100 employees and is preparing for more crippling cost cuts from owner David Ellison and Paramount. It also seems to fly in the face of Dokoupil’s anti-elite mission statement for the show, according to sources who spoke to The Independent.
“Nothing says ‘meeting Americans where they are’ by flying around the country on a private jet costing millions of dollars,” one network staffer said. […]
This latest flareup within CBS News comes less than two weeks after Weiss came under fire for the 11th-hour spike of a 60 Minutes story that was critical of President Donald Trump’s administration, sparking a possible “revolt” among the show’s staff.
Since her arrival at the network three months ago, the self-described “radical centrist” – with minimal broadcast news experience – Weiss has drawn criticism from staff and media observers alike over many of her editorial decisions, which many have claimed is part of the new corporate ownership’s efforts to push CBS News in a “MAGA-friendly” direction.
Uncle Walter is spinning. Frankly, I’m glad he’s not here to see social media posts like this:
Or this…
Weasel words? I guess they’ll get back to us on that. There’s more:
…and finally [cue the fife and drum corps]…
Oh, I think I know where we are going here.
And that’s the way it is. All that in mind, I thought I would re-post this piece. Courage.
Breaking News: 10 Docs for World Press Freedom Day
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 3, 2025)
This just in: Today is World Press Freedom Day. Say what? (via the United Nations website)
World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 1993, following the recommendation of UNESCO’s General Conference. Since then, 3 May, the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek is celebrated worldwide as World Press Freedom Day.
After 30 years, the historic connection made between the freedom to seek, impart and receive information and the public good remains as relevant as it was at the time of its signing. Special commemorations of the 30th anniversary are planned to take place during World Press Freedom Day International Conference.
May 3 acts as a reminder to governments of the need to respect their commitment to press freedom. It is also a day of reflection among media professionals about issues of press freedom and professional ethics. It is an opportunity to:
celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom;
assess the state of press freedom throughout the world;
defend the media from attacks on their independence;
and pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
If you’re a regular reader around these parts, I’m sure you’d concur that it couldn’t come a day too soon. Via Amnesty International:
Around the world, journalists are being silenced, jailed, and disappeared—simply for doing their jobs. From Guatemala to Hong Kong, Russia to Tunisia, governments are increasingly weaponizing vague laws, judicial systems, and the use of force to suppress the truth.
These attacks on the press are not isolated incidents; they are deliberate strategies to dismantle the very foundations of human rights. The erosion of press freedom is a warning sign—one that signals a broader slide toward authoritarian practices, including in the United States, where attacks against the media grow more hostile by the day. […]
President Trump is attacking the freedom of the press, including hand-picking which outlets can cover the White House and demonizing reporters. Before becoming president, he sued media outlets CBS News and the Des Moines Register for publishing something he didn’t agree with. He’s barred the AP from covering events at the White House because he disagreed with an editorial decision to use “Gulf of Mexico” instead of “Gulf of America.” He’s called on outlets to fire specific reporters for coverage that doesn’t paint him in the light he wants and has quipped that he’d jail reporters opens in a new tab as retribution for unfavorable coverage. In addition to dismantling Voice of America, he’s supported slashing funding for outlets like NPR and PBS.
What’s more, while President Trump is attacking freedom of the press and journalistic integrity, social media companies, including Meta and Elon Musk’s X, have been granted unprecedented access to the White House, have dismantled fact-checking programs on their platforms, contributing to the spread of disinformation, especially with such a high percentage of Americans getting their news from social media platforms.
To scrutinize and ultimately hold political leaders accountable, the press must have the freedom to report independent news without being blocked from access, punished, or intimidated. The government must respect and protect free and independent media and maximize transparency and access to information.
We are only 100 days into the new administration…so please join me in raising a glass to intrepid journalists everywhere who continue to speak truth to power, and do what you can to support their work. And for your perusal, I’ve combed my review archives and selected 10 documentaries that embody the spirit of World Press Freedom Day:
#Chicago Girl: The Social Network Takes on a Dictator – Not long ago, the MSM relegated social media to kickers about flash mobs, or grandpa’s first tweet. Then, the Arab Spring happened, precipitating the rise of the citizen journalist. Case in point: 19 year-old Ala’a Basatneh, subject of Joe Piscatella’s doc. The Damascus-born Chicagoan is a key player in the Syrian revolution, as in “key stroke”. It’s not just about Ala’a, but her compatriots in Syria, some who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice. Timely and moving. (Available on Google Play)
Cartoonists: Foot Soldiers of Democracy? – French filmmaker Stephanie Valloatto’s globetrotting documentary profiles a dozen men and women who make their living drawing funny pictures about current events. I know what you’re thinking…beats digging ditches, right? Well, that depends. Some of these political cartoonists ply their trade under regimes that could be digging a “special” ditch, reserved just for them (if you know what I’m saying).
The film can be confusing; in her attempt to give all 12 subjects equal face time, Valloatto’s frequent cross-cutting can make you lose track of which country you’re in (it’s mostly interior shots). That aside, she gets to the heart of what democracy is all about: speaking truth to power. It’s also timely; in one scene, an interviewee says, “Like a schoolchild, I told myself: I shouldn’t draw Muhammad.” Then, holding up a sketch of you-know-who, he concludes: “Drawing is the correct answer to the forbidden.”
Forbidden Voices – Swiss director Barbara Miller’s excellent doc profiles three influential “cyber-feminists” who bravely soldier on in the blogosphere whilst running a daily gauntlet of intimidation from their respective governments, including (but not limited to) overt surveillance, petty legal harassment and even physical beatings. Despite the odds, Yoani Sanchez (Cuba), Farnez Seifi (Iran, currently exiled in Germany) and Zeng Jinyan (China) are affecting change (if only baby steps). (Available on kanopy)
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson – Director Alex Gibney takes an approach as scattershot and unpredictable as his subject; using a frenetic pastiche of talking heads, vintage home movies, film clips, animation, audio tapes and snippets of prose (voiced by Johnny Depp, who has become to Thompson what Hal Holbrook is to Mark Twain). This is not a hagiography; several ex-wives and associates make no bones about reminding us that the man could be a real asshole. On the other hand, examples of his genuine humanity and idealism are brought to the fore as well, making for an insightful and fairly balanced overview of this “Dr. Gonzo and Mr. Thompson” dichotomy. What the director does not forget is that, at the end of the day, HST was the most unique American political commentator/ social observer who ever sat down to peck at a bullet-riddled typewriter. (Full review) (Available on various streaming platforms)
Hacking Hate – Move over, Lisbeth Salandar…there’s a new hacker in town, and she’s stirring up a hornet’s nest of wingnuts. Simon Klose’s timely documentary follows award-winning Swedish journalist My Vingren as she meticulously constructs a fake online profile, posing as a male white supremacist. Her goal is to smoke out a possible key influencer and glean how he and others fit into right-wing extremist recruiting.
Vingren is like a one-woman Interpol; her investigation soon points her to U.S.-based extremist networks as well, leading her to consult with whistle-blower Anika Collier Navaroli (the former Twitter employee who was instrumental in getting Trump booted off the platform) and Imrab Ahmed (another one of Elon Musk’s least-favorite people, he was sued by the X CEO for exposing the rampant hate speech on the platform).
This isn’t a video game; considering the inherently belligerent nature of the extremist culture she is exposing, Vingren is taking considerable personal risk in this type of investigative journalism (she’s much braver than I am). Especially chilling is the shadowy figure at the center of her investigation, who is like a character taken straight out of a Frederick Forsyth novel.
Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist, and Rebel – Did you know Ray Bradbury was only paid $400 for the original serialized version of Fahrenheit 451 published in Playboy in 1954? That’s one of the interesting tidbits I picked up from this lengthy yet absorbing documentary about the iconoclastic founder and publisher of the magazine that I, personally, have always read strictly for the articles (of clothing that were conspicuously absent-no, I’m kidding). Seriously-there’s little of prurient interest here. In a manner of speaking, it’s mostly about “the articles”.
Brigitte Berman (director of the excellent 1985 documentary Artie Shaw: Time is All You’ve Got) interweaves well-selected archival footage and present day interviews with Hefner and friends (as well as some of his detractors) to paint a fascinating portrait. Whether you admire him or revile him, as you watch the film you come to realize that there is probably no other public figure of the past 50 years who has so cannily tapped in to or (perhaps arguably) so directly influenced the sexual, social, political and pop-cultural zeitgeist of liberated free-thinkers everywhere.
I Am Not Your Negro – The late writer and social observer James Baldwin once said that “Whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves.” Sadly, thanks to the emboldening of certain elements within American society that have been drawn from the shadows by the openly racist rhetoric spouted by the Current Occupant of the White House, truer words have never been spoken.
Indeed, anyone who watches Raoul Peck’s documentary will recognize not only the beauty of Baldwin’s prose, but the prescience of such observations. Both are on display in Peck’s timely treatise on race relations in America, in which he mixes archival news footage, movie clips, and excerpts from Baldwin’s TV appearances with narration by an uncharacteristically subdued Samuel L. Jackson, reading excerpts from Baldwin’s unfinished book, Remember This House. An excellent and enlightening film. (Full review) (Available on various streaming platforms)
Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres – Nothing against Ben Fong-Torres, but I approached this film with trepidation. “Please, god,” I thought to myself, “Don’t let ‘Fortunate Son’ be on the soundtrack.” Thankfully, there’s credence, but no Creedence in Suzanne Joe Kai’s documentary, which despite the implications of its title is not another wallow in the era when being on the cover of the Rolling Stone mattered, man.
OK, there is some of that; after all, journalist and author Ben Fong-Torres’ venerable career began when he first wrote for Rolling Stone in 1968. By the following year he was hired as the editor and wrote many of the cover stories. Fong-Torres quickly showed himself to be not only an excellent interviewer, but a gifted writer. His journalistic approach was the antithesis to the gonzo stylists like Lester Bangs and Hunter Thompson in that his pieces were never about him, yet still eminently personal and relatable.
Just like her subject, Kai’s portrait is multi-faceted, revealing aspects of Fong-Torres’ life outside of his profession I was not aware of (like his activism in the Asian-American community, and how it was borne of a heartbreaking family tragedy). (Available on Netflix and Prime Video)
Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins – Janice Engel profiles the late, great political columnist and liberal icon Molly Ivins, who suffered no fools gladly on either side of the aisle. Engel digs beneath Ivins’ bigger-than-life public personae, revealing an individual who grew up in red state Texas as a shy outsider.
Self-conscious about her physicality (towering over her classmates at 6 feet by age 12), she learned how to neutralize the inevitable teasing with her fierce intelligence and wit (I find interesting parallels with Janis Joplin’s formative Texas years). Her political awakening also came early (to the chagrin of her conservative oilman father).
The archival clips of Ivins imparting her incomparable wit and wisdom are gold; although I was left wishing Engel had included more (and I am dying to know what Ivins would say about you-know-who). (Available on various streaming platforms)
Rather – Few journalists have had such a long and storied career as Dan Rather; long enough for several generations to claim their own reference point. At the risk of eliciting an eye-rolling “OK Boomer” from some quarters, mine is “I think we’re dealing with a bunch of thugs here, Dan!” (others of “a certain age” will recall that as Walter Cronkite’s reaction to watching his colleague getting roughed up by security on live TV while reporting from the floor of the 1968 Democratic National Convention). For Gen Xers, he’s the inspiration for R.E.M.’s “What’s the Frequency Kenneth?”, which is what a pair of assailants repeatedly asked Rather during a 1986 attack in New York. To Millennials, he’s a wry and wise nonagenarian with over 2 million Twitter followers.
As evidenced in Frank Marshall’s documentary, the secret to Rather’s longevity may be his ability to take a punch (literally or figuratively) and get right up with integrity intact. All the career highlights are checked, from Rather’s early days as a reporter in Dallas (where he came to national prominence covering the JFK assassination) to overseas reporting for CBS from the mid-to-late 60s (most notably in Vietnam), to taking over the coveted CBS Evening News anchor chair vacated by Cronkite in 1981, and onward. An inspiring warts-and-all portrait of a dogged truth-teller who is truly a national treasure. (Available on Netflix and Prime Video)
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 15, 2025)
He may be rude, but he speaks for me:
As a young kid whose parents didn’t care what I watched, I loved All in the Family. And I didn’t see Rob Reiner’s Michael Stivic as Archie Bunker did, as “Meathead.” I was inspired by Michael’s passion and activism. I wanted to be like him because it pissed off the Archie Bunkers.
Not unlike the rude fella, I was first exposed to All in the Family at an impressionable age; I was 14 years old when it premiered in 1971. I may not have fully grasped all the sociopolitical undercurrents running through Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin’s groundbreaking sitcom (which went on to run for 9 seasons and achieve “classic” status) but I instinctively glomed onto Michael Stivic as my hero.
The funny thing about actors is, they act for a living. More often than not, the character you see on the screen doesn’t necessarily reflect the person portraying that character (“never meet your idols”, and all that). However, as it turned out, “Michael Stivic” was largely simpatico with the actor portraying him, Rob Reiner. I’m referring to the “passion and activism” mentioned at the top of my post:
In a world where fewer and fewer people concern themselves with the plight of others, the loss of Rob Reiner, who cared deeply about humanitarian causes, feels that much more devastating. RIP: 1947-1925.[Selfie: July 2022, NYC]
Two of Reiner’s biggest political contributions were his work in defending marriage equality and establishing critical child development programs.
Reiner co-founded the American Foundation for Equal Rights in 2008 to help fight against California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state.
Reiner helped spark the court challenge of Prop 8, leading to a 2010 trial that preceded the Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage at the federal level.
While speaking about the importance of his fight against Prop 8, Reiner invoked the civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education.
“We don’t believe in separate but equal in any other legal position except this,” Reiner said in 2011, referring to same-sex marriage. “We feel that this is the last piece of the civil rights puzzle being put into place.” […]
His work extended beyond LGBTQ+ rights; Reiner was also a fierce advocate for children. In 1998, Reiner led the campaign to pass California’s Proposition 10. The initiative formed First 5 California, a collection of childhood development services in the state funded by a tobacco tax. Reiner served as the organization’s first chair for seven years, from 1999 to 2006.
“Nobody did more to create universal preschool in California,” political consultant Roy Behr, who worked with Reiner on the campaign to pass Prop 10, told PEOPLE. “Literally tens of thousands (maybe even hundreds of thousands) of kids got access to preschool entirely because of him.”
Reiner also proposed California’s Proposition 82 in 2006, which would have raised taxes on the wealthiest residents in order to fund free preschool for all 4-year-olds in the state. The proposition failed to pass, though his suggestion to tax the rich as a means for expanding government services has became a popular element of the progressive platform in recent years.
Just another one of those Hollywood lefty busybodies.
His acting credits are numerous. Previous to All in the Family, his appearances include Enter Laughing (his 1967 acting debut, and father Carl’s directorial debut), and the 1970 cult comedy classic Where’s Poppa (another Carl Reiner film). He appeared (uncredited) in Steve Martin’s 1979 comedy The Jerk, and had memorable supporting roles in Throw Momma From the Train, Postcards From theEdge, Sleepless in Seattle, Bullets Over Broadway, and Primary Colors.
He also directed a film or two you may have heard of. He was on a roll in the 80s, delivering five exceptional films in a row: This is Spinal Tap, The Sure Thing, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally. His streak waned a bit in the 90s, nonetheless that decade yielded three more gems: Misery, A Few Good Men, and The American President.
Reiner co-founded Castle Rock Entertainment in 1987, an independent television and film production company. In addition to a number of Reiner’s own films, the company’s canon includes City Slickers, Year of the Comet, In the Line of Fire, Barcelona, The Shawshank Redemption, Before Sunrise, Lone Star, Waiting for Guffman, The Last Days of Disco, The Green Mile, Best in Show, Before Sunset, The Salton Sea (a 2002 neo-noir that needs more love) and Michael Clayton.
Glancing at his filmography, I have some catching up to do; with the exception of his wonderful 2023 documentary Albert Brooks: Defending My Life, I’ve somehow missed his entire output since 1996’s Ghosts of Mississippi. As fate would have it, his final directorial project, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues is currently sitting in my DVR, waiting to be watched (it just dropped on HBO/MAX this week).
Speaking of “the Tap”, my favorite Rob Reiner joint will forever and always be his 1984 directorial debut, This is Spinal Tap.
Reiner co-wrote this mockumentary with Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean, who play Spinal Tap founders Nigel Tufnel (lead guitar), Derek Smalls (bass) and David St. Hubbins (lead vocals and guitar), respectively (several actors portray the band’s revolving door of drummers, who tend to meet untimely ends such as spontaneous combustion, “a bizarre gardening accident”, and perhaps most famously, choking on “somebody else’s vomit”).
Reiner casts himself as “rockumentary” filmmaker Marty DiBergi (a goof on Martin Scorsese, who similarly interjected himself into The Last Waltz) who accompanies the hard rocking outfit on a tour of the states (“their first in six years”) to support the release of their new LP “Smell the Glove” (DiBergi has been a fan since first catching them at the “Electric Banana” in Greenwich Village in 1966).
By the time the film’s 84 minutes have expired, no one (and I mean, no one) involved in the business of rock ’n’ roll has been spared the knife-musicians, roadies, girlfriends, groupies, fans, band managers, rock journalists, concert promoters, record company execs, A & R reps, record store clerks…all are bagged and tagged.
Nearly every scene has become iconic in muso circles; ditto the plethora of quotable lines: “These go to eleven.” “I mean, it’s not your job to be as confused as Nigel.” “You can’t really dust for vomit.” “It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.” “No…we’re NOT gonna fucking do ‘Stonehenge’!” “We’ve got armadillos in our trousers-it’s really quite frightening.”
The great supporting cast includes Tony Hendra (who steals all his scenes as the band’s prickly manager, clearly modeled after Led Zeppelin’s infamously fearsome handler Peter Grant), Bruno Kirby, Ed Begley, Jr., Fran Drescher, Parick Macnee, June Chadwick, Billy Crystal (“C’mon…mime is money!”), Howard Hesseman, Paul Shaffer, and Fred Williard.
So if you are looking for one Rob Reiner film to watch tonight in memoriam, I say go for the sights, the sounds…and the smells of this joyous romp. And as for your off-screen time…follow the advice someone offered on BlueSky today:
In a world full of Archie Bunkers, be a Meathead.R.I.P. Rob Reiner
(Orginally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 15, 2025)
Better late than never, I suppose. I was happy to learn that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame finally got around to acknowledging keyboard legend Nicky Hopkins in last week’s induction ceremonies. One could argue that Hopkins (who died in 1994 at age 50 from surgical complications ) was more a “legend” to peers and musos than to the public at large.
That said, his distinctive flourishes added essential color to classics like “Revolution” by The Beatles, “The Song is Over” and “Getting in Tune” by The Who, “She’s a Rainbow”, “Street Fighting Man”, and “Angie” by The Rolling Stones, “You Are So Beautiful” by Joe Cocker, “Imagine” by John Lennon, and “Wooden Ships” by The Jefferson Airplane, to name a few.
Hopkins also did session work on albums by George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, The Kinks, Cat Stevens, Donovan, Martha Reeves, Peter Frampton, Art Garfunkel, Harry Nilsson, Jennifer Warnes, Graham Parker, et. al., appearing on over 250 albums, all told.
Despite such a busy schedule, he managed to shoehorn in a few official band memberships, most notably with The Jeff Beck Group and The Quicksilver Messenger Service, as well as more short-lived stints with The Jefferson Airplane (performing with them at Woodstock), The Steve Miller Band, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and the one-off supergroup Sweet Thursday (which also featured future Mark-Almond Band vocalist Jon Mark). He also released 3 solo albums; his excellent 1973 effort The Tin Man Was a Dreamer is ripe for rediscovery.
And now Hopkins has received an additional “better late than never” nod, courtesy of Mike Treen’s documentary portrait The Session Man: The story of Nicky Hopkins (opening in UK cinemas November 21, and available now in the U.S. as a pay-per-view watch on various streaming platforms including Amazon Prime, Google Play, VUDU, and Apple TV).
Treen takes a fairly by-the-numbers approach in this low-budget but affable affair, narrated by longtime, dulcet-voiced BBC presenter “Whispering” Bob Harris (a bit of a legend himself). Interviewees include Bill Wyman, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Dave Davies, Pete Townshend, Jorma Kaukonen, Terry Reid, Peter Frampton, Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench, Graham Parker, and Harry Shearer (yes-Hopkins even played on a Spinal Tap album!).
Hopkins’ widow Moira speaks quite movingly of his bouts with substance addiction (which he eventually beat) and lifelong health struggles (his chronic Crohn’s disease played a large part in his untimely passing). Also sprinkled throughout are archival interview snippets with Hopkins, as well as performance clips (although I wish there had been more of the latter). All in all, I think fans should be pleased and Hopkins neophytes intrigued enough to take a deeper dive into his catalogue.
In my review of the 2025 documentary Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, I wrote:
I’ll never forget the first time I saw Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard-although I wish I could.
Allow me to explain.
I was all of 24, living in San Francisco. I didn’t own a VCR (they were exorbitantly priced), so I was still watching the tube in (*shudder*) real time. Perusing the TV Guide one December evening, I was excited to spot Sunset Boulevard on the schedule for 8pm (I believe it was airing on independent Bay Area station KTVU).
For the uninitiated, Gloria Swanson’s turn as a fading, high-maintenance movie queen mesmerizes, William Holden embodies the quintessential noir sap, and veteran scene-stealer Erich von Stroheim redefines the meaning of “droll” in a tragicomic journey down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams (I’ve seen it many times since).
At any rate, I was comfortably ensconced on the couch, really digging the film (despite myriad commercial breaks). Approximately 20 minutes into the broadcast, the station unceremoniously cut away from the film for a news bulletin: former Beatle John Lennon had been shot and killed in New York City.
It was eerie kismet, as the film opens with the shooting death of the protagonist/narrator (played by Holden), and is ultimately a rumination on the dark side of fame.
Being an avid Fabs fan, it kind of harshed my mellow. Still does, actually-whenever the subject comes up.
It’s hard to believe that was 45 years ago (5 years longer than Lennon’s lifespan). Over the ensuing decades, there has certainly been no shortage of documentaries and biopics covering Lennon’s life and work. At this point, I think I’ve seen most of them.
Consequently, one would assume that there are very few secrets, revelations and angles left to explore. Yet, 2025 has seen the release of no less than two new Lennon documentaries (and the year is still young).
Now that the year is not so young (where does the time go?), and I’ve had an opportunity to screen One to One: John & Yoko (which had its HBO/MAX premiere November 14), I can share a few thoughts on yet another documentary about John & Yoko (enough already!).
Well I’ll be damned if co-directors Kevin Macdonald (One Day in September, The Last King of Scotland,Touching the Void, State of Play, Marley) and Sam Rice-Edwards haven’t assembled a fresh and absorbing take on an oft-told tale…but perhaps not for the reasons you may think.
Using beautifully restored performance footage from John and Yoko’s 1972 Madison Square Garden concert (a benefit for the children who were institutionalized at Staten Island’s Willowbrook facility) as a framing device, Macdonald and Edwards’ film is essentially an encapsulation of the intense sociopolitical turmoil in America from 1971-1973.
This time window encompassed an 18-month period when John and Yoko lived in a small Greenwich Village apartment, which coincided with their increasing political activism (which ultimately got them into hot water with the Nixon administration). Most of the “new” footage concerns John and Yoko’s behind the scenes plans for their “Free the People” tour, which was scrapped after a falling out with Jerry Rubin. The impetus for the 1972 Willowbrook benefit was a TV report by Geraldo Rivera on the shocking conditions in the children’s ward (believe it or not, there was a time when Geraldo was a real journalist).
On a more personal note, 1971-1973 also encompassed my high school years (I graduated in May of 1974), and watching the film triggered memories of witnessing mayhem and discord on Walter Cronkite’s nightly broadcast…images of police beating the shit out of protestors just a couple years my senior, the Attica prison massacre, hijackings, horrific scenes from Vietnam, and the emerging Watergate scandal as Nixon took office for a second term (is it any wonder many of us “of a certain age” entered adulthood with such a cynical worldview?).
The most unexpected takeaway from the documentary were the spooky parallels between then and now, vis a vis the political climate. The massive street protests against Nixon’s reactionary administration (No Kings, anyone?), the tribalism of “hardhats” (essentially the MAGAs of their day) vs. the antiwar protestors (“radical Leftist Democrats!”), footage of George Wallace from a 1972 presidential campaign speech where he goes off on a race-baiting diatribe about how Washington D.C. is (in so many words) a crime-ridden hellhole (sound familiar?).
The icing on the cake is when Nixon sics his justice department on John and Yoko and begins building a case for deportation, essentially as retaliation for their political activism . I mean, could you imagine that kind of thing happening in America in 2025?! Oh, wait…
(One to One: John & Yoko is now on the HBO schedule and available on-demand from MAX)
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 18, 2025)
“When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor.”—John Lennon
It’s nearly impossible to observe the disconnect of these privileged aristocrats carrying on in their gilded bubble while the impoverished and disenfranchised rabble sharpen up the guillotines without drawing parallels with our current state of affairs (history, if nothing else, is cyclical).
You can go back even further in time, and the same holds true. From my 2012 piece on the 1976 BBC-TV adaptation of I, Claudius:
While an opening line of “I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus…” could portend more of a snooze-inducing history lecture, rather than 11 hours of must-see-TV, the 1976 BBC series, adapted from Robert Graves’ 1934 historical novel about ancient Rome’s Julio-Claudian dynasty, was indeed the latter, holding U.S. viewers in thrall for its 12-week run.
While it is quite possible that at the time, my friends and I were slightly more in thrall with the occasional teasing glimpses of semi-nudity than we were with, say, the beauty of Jac Pulman’s writing, the wonder of the performances and historical complexity of the narrative, over the years I have come to realize that I think I learned everything I needed to know about politics from watching (and re-watching) I, Claudius.
It’s all there…the systemic greed and corruption of the ruling plutocracy, the raging hypocrisy, the grandstanding, glad-handing and the back-stabbing (in this case, both figurative and literal). Seriously, over the last 2000 years, not much has changed in the political arena.
Case in point…just this week, I was reminded of a scene from I, Claudius. This was the trigger:
Q: "Are you considering strikes on land in Venezuela?"Trump: "Well, I don't want to tell you exactly, but we are certainly looking at land now because we have the sea very well under control."
Given the Current Occupant’s predilection to utilize the royal “We” as his preferred personal pronoun, coupled with His Imperial Majesty’s somewhat grandiose proclamation that “We have the sea very well under control” (not to mention the Romanesque optics of that gaudily appointed Oval Office), this is the scene that instantly came to mind:
“Your emperor is amongst you once again. All his wars successfully concluded, and the victorious armies brought back to Rome. He had thought, in his divine innocence, that the roads might be lined with cheering crowds; he had thought that the streets might be strewn with flowers; he had thought that there’d be messages to greet him telling him of triumphs to be awarded. And what did he find, this conqueror of the Germans, this victor of the mighty Neptune? The streets empty of crowds and flowers, no triumphs rewarded, no games, no celebrations–but three miserable, old, ex-counsels waiting at the gates to meet him, and a room full of cowardly, stay-at-home senators who have spent all their time in the theatre and in the baths, while he has spent six months, living no better than a private soldier!? Yes! Your emperor has returned! BUT WITH THIS IN HIS HAND! (produces a frighteningly large battle sword from his robes) (The terrified senators remain silent for a few beats, until one steps forward)
Senator: (cautiously) But Jove, you ordered no triumphs!
Caligula: (amazed at the senator’s stupidity) Well, of course I ordered no triumphs, do you think I’d ordered triumphs for myself?!
Senator: But you ordered us not to order any!
Caligula: Yessssss, and you took me at my word, didn’t you? Typical! It didn’t occur to you that I might be leaving it up to you for your love to show itself freely; didn’t occur to you that it might be my natural humility speaking! “I ordered you not to celebrate”. But you ordered celebrations for the anniversary of Actiom, didn’t you? Didn’t forget to celebrate the defeat of my great-grandfather, Marc Antony! How many bottles of wine did you open, toasting his murder while I was doing battle with the sea? (to his soldiers) Show them our booty! Show them the plunder we gathered from old Neptune! (Four soldiers quickly empty two trunks of their contents; everyone watches in silent horror as thousands of dry seashells spill out onto the floor.)
Senator: Seashells?!
Caligula: (chuckling to himself with delight) Yes! Spoils of the sea; loot from old Neptune! Hee-hee! He’ll not take me on again in a hurry…
“Do you think I’d ordered triumphs for myself?!” Which reminds me of another funny story… remember Trump’s counter programming to the first “No Kings Day” last June?
“He had thought, in his divine innocence, that the roads might be lined with cheering crowds; he had thought that the streets might be strewn with flowers…” Well, Mr. President…as your favorite campaign rally song goes: “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” – even when you order a $45 million military parade in honor of your own birthday (give some people an inch, they think they’re a ruler). Historical sidebar-the mad emperor Caligula actually did declare war on the sea. All one can say about that is that he is long gone, but the sea is still here.
But hey…if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Via Snopes this past Thursday:
As activists planned another “No Kings” protest on Oct. 18, 2025, to voice discontent with the administration of Republican U.S. President Donald Trump, a rumor spread on social media that the president was planning a “show of force” by launching missiles over California.
The rumor claimed the administration planned on closing Interstate 5 “to shoot out missiles from ships” and into Camp Pendleton, a training facility for the Marines about 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
Users across social media sites such as Instagram (archived), X (archived) and Facebook (archived) shared the claim. Some suggested Trump planned on using the excuse of a military showcase in order to intimidate “No Kings” protesters, citing the administration’s attempts to characterize the protests as anti-American.
Many Snopes readers emailed us to ask about the veracity of this rumor.
On Oct. 15, 2025, the Marines posted a statement on their official website announcing “a live-fire Amphibious Capabilities Demonstration at Red Beach, Camp Pendleton” that would be followed by “a community Beach Bash at Del Mar Beach on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, to mark the Marine Corps’ 250th birthday and America’s Semiquincentennial.”
The statement said “the capabilities demonstration will feature integrated Navy and Marine Corps operations across air, land, and sea” and assured the public that “all training events will occur on approved training ranges and comport with established safety protocols.”
The statement also confirmed “no public highways or transportation routes will be closed” and that the White House would be capturing the event on film for a Nov. 9 television broadcast.
Snopes reached out to the White House for comment on the assertion that Trump intended to use the demonstration as a “show of force” against protesters and will update this article if we receive a response.
You’ve gotta at least give the Prez credit for trying, bless his heart. Meanwhile, members of the Court of the Orange King have kept themselves busy this past week sounding the alarm:
But ahead of the “No Kings” rallies across the country on Saturday, the GOP’s effort has taken a rather stunning turn.
The Trump team and its allies suggested that the rallies, which are likely to draw millions of people, will essentially be chock full of antifa, terrorist sympathizers and even terrorists themselves.
It’s baseless and ugly, yes. But it’s also highly suspect strategically.
The GOP rhetoric surrounding this and the Democratic base more broadly has grown remarkably pitched.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana has called them “hate America” rallies and said it’s “all the pro-Hamas wing and, you know, the antifa people.”
“This interview proved that the Democrat Party’s main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens and violent criminals,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News on Oct. 16.
(Deep breath) Let’s see how the No Kings Day rallies are going so far:
No kid should ever have to protest or advocate for their friends’ basic humanity.But they’re standing up at No Kings anyway.
So overall (if I may paraphrase Huey Lewis) …things are rockin’ in DC, San Antone and the Liberty Town, Boston and Baton Rouge, Tulsa, Austin, Oklahoma City, Seattle, San Francisco, too. The heart of democracy is still beating. On that note, let’s keep the party going!
The Beatles – “Revolution”
Frank Zappa – “Trouble Every Day”
Elvis Costello – “Night Rally”
Green Day – “American Idiot”
The Clash – “Clampdown”
Woody Guthrie – “All You Fascists Bound to Lose”
Bob Marley & the Wailers – “Get Up, Stand Up”
Graham Nash – “Chicago“
The Style Council – “The Whole Point of No Return”
Tracy Chapman – “Talkin’ About a Revolution”
John Lennon – “Power to the People”
Sly & the Family Stone – “Stand!”
Heaven 17 – “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang”
Public Enemy – “Fight the Power”
Rage Against the Machine – “Take the Power Back”
Gil Scott-Heron – “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 4, 2025)
I’m sure you’ve heard that the Eye of Sauron is now fixated on the Pacific Northwest:
Images of the mayhem have been pouring in all week:
Sorry…I should have prefaced with a trigger warning for sensitive viewers. My bad.
As a Seattle resident, I’m concerned my city could be next; particularly considering the anarchy permeating the mean streets of the Wallingford neighborhood where I live:
Then again, as evidenced in that hard-hitting report, local law enforcement has the situation in hand. Hopefully, cooler heads in the Trump administration will prevail. Oh, dear:
OK. Sure-that’s tough talk and all, but they are going to at least need a pretext before sending the troops to Seattle, yes? Oh, crap:
There’s such a fine line between the right to bear arms and the right to name bears.
On a more serious note, it is concerning that the Trump administration has been playing so fast and loose with the definition of “domestic terrorism”. In our current political climate, one person’s “activist” is another person’s “terrorist”, and vice-versa. For example, I’m old enough to remember earlier this year, when Attorney General Pam Bondi described Tesla vandalism as “nothing short of domestic terrorism” and vowed to “impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes”. That’s like, her opinion, man…but in my view, vandalizing a Tesla is…vandalism; however, if you purposely plow said Tesla into a crowd, that’s terrorism.
For reasons that hopefully become clear, I’m re-posting my review of the 2011 documentary, If a Tree Falls:
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 23, 2011)
Because you see, that was when I had my personal brush with “eco-terrorism”. I came to work one day, and espied a couple of Redmond’s finest standing outside the store, talking to the manager. Then I noticed interesting new artwork adorning the windows, writ large in dried ketchup and barbecue sauce: MEAT IS MURDER! It was signed “E.L.F.”. Apparently, several other restaurants down the street had also been hit (McDonald’s had had their locks glued shut).
So, as I was scrubbing to remove the graffiti, I wondered “Who is this ‘ELF’ …a disgruntled Keebler employee?” I had never heard of the Earth Liberation Front. I remember the manager saying “How much you want to bet this guy fled the scene in leather Nikes?” “Yeah,” I snickered, whilst contemplating the dried globs of Heinz 57 on my sponge “these suburban anarchists aren’t exactly the Baader-Meinhof Gang, are they?” (I can’t say that I felt “terrorized”).
Flash forward to 2001. I turned on the local news one night, and saw the UW Center for Urban Horticulture engulfed in flames ($7 million in damage). The arson was attributed to the E.L.F. “Hmm,” I pondered, “maybe they are sort of like the Baader-Meinhof Gang, ”
Or are they? According to the FBI, “Eco-terrorism” is defined as:
The use (or threatened use) of violence of a criminal nature against people or property by an environmentally oriented, sub-national group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature.
That certainly covers a lot of ground. One could argue that Johnny Appleseed was an Eco-terrorist. Sure, he’s a legendary conservationist and agrarian icon. However, he was against grafting, which resulted in a fruit more suitable for hard cider than for eating. Hence, the “environmentally-oriented” Appleseed was “responsible” for introducing alcohol to the frontier. And it’s inarguable that much “violence of a criminal nature against people or property” is committed under the influence. OK, that’s a stretch .
Then again, there are a number of “environmentally-oriented” types doing a “a stretch” in the federal pen right now for non-lethal actions that the government considers terrorism, and that others consider heroic. This is not a black and white issue; a point not lost on the directors of If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front.
So what type of circumstance can change a nature lover into a freedom fighter? Anyone can make a statement by holding up a sign or throwing on a “Save the Rainforest” t-shirt, but what motivates someone who decides to take it to the next level-throwing on a Ninja outfit and torching a lumber mill in the middle of the night? And what would they hope to achieve? Wouldn’t that just encourage corporations to cut down even more trees to replace lost inventory?
In order to convey a sense of the humanity behind the mug shots, co-directors Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman focus primarily on Earth Liberation Front member Daniel McGowan, who at the time of filming was facing a possible life sentence for his direct involvement in several high-profile “actions” (including the arson of an Oregon lumber mill) that resulted in millions of dollars in property damage. Holed up in his sister’s NYC apartment (and sporting a house arrest anklet for the first third of the film), McGowan candidly opens up about his life and what led him to change his own M.O. for making a statement from “environmental activism” to “domestic terrorism”.
The filmmakers parallel the timeline and details of McGowan’s personal journey with a study about the development of the E.L.F., adding present day interviews with his cohorts and archival footage of some of the group’s early “actions” (which were more in the realm of civil disobedience and passive resistance-like sitting in the path of bulldozers and camping out in old-growth trees marked for cutting). McGowan initially became involved with the environmental movement through “mainstream” activities, like “writing hundreds of letters” of protest and participating in peaceful demonstrations.
McGowan became frustrated with what he perceived to be the ineffectiveness of such actions. He sums it up with a rhetorical question: “When you’re screaming at the top of your lungs, and nobody hears you, what are you supposed to do?”
The tipping point for McGowan came in 1999, when he participated in the WTO protests in Seattle. There, through some of the more radicalized E.L.F. members, he became embedded with the relatively small band of black-clad “anarchists” who were disproportionately responsible for most of the property damage that occurred during the demonstrations (the majority of participants made a point after the fact to disassociate themselves from the anarchists).
From there, it was a relatively small jump to the more extreme acts that would lead to his eventual arrest and prosecution (he agreed to a “non-cooperation” plea deal that saved him from life in prison but still saddled him with 7 years and a “terrorism enhancement”).
The filmmakers give equal screen time to some of the law enforcement officials and prosecutors who made the case against McGowan and his associates. Although no one was ever injured or killed as a result of E.L.F. activity (astounding considering that there were approximately 1,200 “actions” perpetrated by the group during their heyday), there are still victims; and some of them appear on camera as well to offer their perspective.
Were these people “terrorists”? You almost have to get back to defining “what is a terrorist?” Or in this case, who are the real terrorists? One interviewee offers this: “95% of the native American forests have been cut down. Trying to save the remaining 5% is ‘radical’?” That’s a valid question. McGowan himself seems to be arguing (in so many words) that in a post 9-11 world, people have a tendency to make a “rush to judgment” without considering the alternate point of view (he suggests that the word “terrorist” has supplanted “Communist” as the demagogue’s dog whistle of choice).
I wonder if the filmmakers intend McGowan’s story to be a litmus test for the viewer (how far out on the limb would you be willing to go for your personal convictions?) If so, that’s a tough one. Part of me identifies with Daniel McGowan the environmentally-conscious idealist; but I don’t think I can quite get behind Daniel McGowan the criminal arsonist. For now, I’m just content to keep recycling and doing my part to think “glocal”. And in case you’re wondering…I haven’t stepped foot inside a Honeybaked Ham store since I quit working there 14 years ago. Those murderous bastards.
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 9, 2025)
Oh we will all burn together when we burn.
There’ll be no need to stand and wait your turn.
When it’s time for the fallout
And saint peter calls us all out,
We’ll just drop our agendas and adjourn.
You will all go directly to your respective valhallas.
Go directly, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dolla’s.
And we will all go together when we go.
Ev’ry hottenhot and ev’ry eskimo.
When the air becomes uranious,
And we will all go simultaneous.
Yes we all will go together
When we all go together,
Yes we all will go together when we go.
– – from “We Will All Go Together When We Go”, by Tom Lehrer (1928-2025)
The gentleman who wrote that jaunty singalong was musician, singer-songwriter, political satirist and mathematician Tom Lehrer, who slipped the surly bonds of Earth back in late July. He may be gone, but the message of that particular song (written at the height of the Cold War era) is as timely as ever; especially in light of remarks made earlier this week by the mayor of Hiroshima, Japan on the 80th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of his city:
The mayor of Hiroshima has led calls for the world’s most powerful countries to abandon nuclear deterrence, at a ceremony to mark 80 years since the city was destroyed by an American atomic bomb.
As residents, survivors and representatives from 120 countries gathered at the city’s peace memorial park on Wednesday morning, Kazumi Matsui warned that the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East had contributed to a growing acceptance of nuclear weapons.
“These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history,” he said in his peace declaration, against the backdrop of the A-bomb dome – one of the few buildings that survived the attack eight decades ago.
“They threaten to topple the peace-building frameworks so many have worked so hard to construct,” he added, before urging younger people to recognise that acceptance of the nuclear option could cause “utterly inhumane” consequences for their future.
Despite the global turmoil, he said, “we, the people, must never give up. Instead, we must work even harder to build civil society consensus that nuclear weapons must be abolished for a genuinely peaceful world.”
As applause rang out, white doves were released into the sky, while an eternal “flame of peace” burned in front of a cenotaph dedicated to victims of the world’s first nuclear attack.
The ceremony is seen as the last opportunity for significant numbers of ageing hibakusha – survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – to pass on first-hand warnings of the horror of nuclear warfare.
Just under 100,000 survivors are still alive, according to recent data from the health ministry, with an average age of just over 86.
Surely, our current U.S. administration is acknowledging this week of remembrance by contemplating ways it can do its part (on behalf of all Americans ) to help build that “genuinely peaceful world”…right?
Moscow broke its silence on President Donald Trump’s comments ordering two nuclear submarines to “the appropriate regions” in response to “provocative” remarks by a former Russian president.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian state media on Aug. 4 that the country was “very attentive” to the topic of nuclear non-proliferation and believed “everyone should be very, very cautious with nuclear rhetoric.”
Peskov also played down the significance of Trump’s comments, saying it was clear to Russia that U.S. submarines were already on combat duty. He said Russia had no appetite for getting into a prolonged argument with Trump.
Still, Trump’s deployment of the nuclear submarines appears to be the first time social media rhetoric has led an American president to apparently reposition parts of the United States’ nuclear arsenal. (Trump did not specify whether he was referring to nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed submarines.)
Trump said the move was in response to statements from Dmitry Medvedev, who was the Russian president from 2008 to 2012 and prime minister from 2012 to 2020. He is now the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council. Medvedev, who in recent years has taken to social media to post spiky, rabble-rousing comments aimed at the United States, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that Trump’s recent threats to sanction Russia, including a tariffs ultimatum, were “a step towards war.”
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin himself has frequently resorted to nuclear threats. The Kremlin has repeatedly suggested that Moscow could use nuclear weapons under certain circumstances.
The latest spat follows Trump’s trip to Scotland, where he said he was reducing his 50-day deadline for Russia to make moves toward trying to end its war with Ukraine – down to a new deadline of 10 or 12 days. That deadline is Aug. 8. Trump warned of “very severe” sanctions on Russia if it does not commit to a ceasefire.
Anyway, I think it would behoove any reasonable world leader to heed the warnings of the hibakusha. In solidarity with their message on this solemn anniversary, I am re-posting the following piece.
(The following was originally posted on August 3, 2024)
Happy End of the World: Top 15 Anti-Nuke Films
“The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.”
-J. Robert Oppenheimer
[Shame mode] All the times I’ve zipped by the I-82 turn-off to Richland, Washington while driving on I-90 and thought “hey, isn’t that where that Hanford superfund nuclear thingy is?” I’ve never stopped to ponder its historical significance. Adjacent to the Hanford Nuclear Site that was built in the early 1940s to house nuclear government workers at the height of the Manhattan Project, Richland is, in essence, a company town; a true “atomic city” with a problematic legacy.
Then again, according to Irene Lusztig’s absorbing documentary Richland (which I caught at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival), how “problematic” depends on who you talk to. Many current residents don’t see why anyone would fuss over the local high school football team’s “mascot”, which is …a mushroom cloud.
The town manufactured weapons-grade plutonium for decades following the end of WW2-to which they had a direct hand in “ending”, via providing the plutonium for the ”Fat Man” nuclear bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki. Lusztig incorporates archival footage for historical context; these segments reminded me of the 1982 documentary The Atomic Cafe. I wasn’t able to track down whether the film is streaming anywhere; but here’s the trailer:
Speaking of which…we are several days away from the 79th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. So what have we learned since 8:15am, August 6, 1945-if anything? Well, we’ve tried to harness the power of the atom for “good”, however, as has been demonstrated repeatedly, that’s not working out so well (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, et al).
Also, there are enough stockpiled weapons of mass destruction to knock Planet Earth off its axis, and no guarantees that some nut job, whether enabled by the powers vested in him by the state, or the voices in his head (doesn’t matter-end result’s the same) won’t be in a position at some point in the future to let one or two or a hundred rip. Hopefully, cool heads and diplomacy will continue to keep us above ground and rad-free.
After all, if history has taught us anything, it doesn’t take much to trigger a global conflict. Interestingly, just last week TCM ran their premiere showing of Nathan Kroll’s 1964 documentary The Guns of August. The film is based on historian and journalist Barbara W. Tuchman’s eponymous Pulitzer Prize-winning 1963 book, which focuses on the first year of World War I (1914) and the events leading up to it (Kroll’s film covers the entire conflict through 1918).
I hadn’t seen the film in decades; I’d forgotten how straightforward and sobering it was in illustrating how an unfortunate series of blunders, miscalculations, misinterpretations and failed diplomacy among the ruling houses of Europe triggered a conflict that ultimately led to 20 million people dead and 21 million wounded (military and civilian casualties combined).
Most famously, the flashpoint occurred on June 28, 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (presumptive heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne) and his wife Sophie, the Duchess of Hohenberg by a Bosnian Serb revolutionary (and the rest, as they say, is History).
Now we’d like to think that such arcane regional bickering and random acts of political violence half a world away from our comfortable living rooms cannot possibly lead to a horrific global conflict ever again…right? I mean, in this day and age? What are the odds?
The U.S. is adding to its military presence in the Middle East in an effort to help defend Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies in the coming days, as well as to protect U.S. troops, the Pentagon says.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Friday that he ordered more ballistic missile defense-capable cruisers and destroyers to the Middle East and Europe. An additional fighter jet squadron will also be sent to the Middle East. Austin added that the U.S. is also taking steps “to increase our readiness to deploy additional land-based ballistic missile defense.”
The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group will also be moved to the Middle East in order “to maintain a carrier strike group presence.” It will replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group after the end of its deployment.
This week, tensions in the Middle East pushed to a critical point after top leaders from the militant groups Hamasand Hezbollah were killed and Iran and its proxies vowed revenge. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Saturday that Tehran’s retaliation will be “severe and (taken) at an appropriate time, place, and manner,” Reuters reported. […]
Austin said in a statement on Friday that while the U.S. is taking additional measures to support Israel, its priority is to prevent a wider war in the Middle East.
Let’s hope so. In such volatile regions of the world, prevention is preferable to escalation.
Speaking of which …in light of the upcoming presidential election in November, one of the most pressing questions (no pun intended) voters should ask themselves before marking their ballots is this:
Whose finger would you rather see hovering over the proverbial “red button”? Which candidate is less likely to fumble the “nuclear football”? The what?
Officially called the “ Presidential Emergency Satchel, ” the “nuclear football” is a bulky briefcase that contains atomic war plans and enables the president to transmit nuclear orders to the Pentagon. The heavy case is carried by a military officer who is never far behind the president, whether the commander-in-chief is boarding a helicopter or exiting meetings with world leaders.
Today, nearly 80 years after the beginning of the nuclear age, the risks posed by nuclear weapons are escalating. U.S. presidential leadership may be the most important factor in whether the risk of nuclear arms racing, proliferation, and war will rise or fall in the years ahead.
As UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a June 7 statement: “Humanity is on a knife’s edge. The risk of a nuclear weapon being used has reached heights not seen since the Cold War. States are engaged in a qualitative arms race. [W]e need disarmament now. All countries need to step up, but nuclear weapons states must lead the way.”
American voters are increasingly aware and, according to recent polling, deeply concerned about nuclear weapons dangers. A 2024 national opinion survey found that a majority of Americans believe that nuclear weapons make the world more dangerous. Overall, just one in eight Americans (13 percent) think nuclear weapons are making the world a safer place, while 63 percent think the opposite, and 14 percent say neither.
In 2024, the candidates’ approaches to these dangers deserve more scrutiny.
How exactly the winner of the 2024 race will handle the evolving array of nuclear weapons-related challenges is difficult to forecast.
Just something to keep in mind come November. No pressure.
With those happy thoughts in mind, I thought I’d share my picks for the top 15 cautionary films to watch before we all go together (when we go). Uh…enjoy?
The Atomic Café – Whoopee, we’re all gonna die! But along the way, we might as well have a few laughs. That seems to be the impetus behind this 1982 collection of cleverly reassembled footage culled from U.S. government propaganda shorts from the Cold War era (Mk 1), originally designed to educate the public about how to “survive” a nuclear attack (all you need to do is get under a desk…everyone knows that!).
In addition to the Civil Defense campaigns (which include the classic “duck and cover” tutorials) the filmmakers have also drawn from a rich vein of military training films, which reduce the possible effects of a nuclear strike to something akin to a barrage from, oh I don’t know- a really big field howitzer. Harrowing, yet perversely entertaining. Written and directed by Jayne Loader, Pierce Rafferty and Kevin Rafferty (Kevin went on to co-direct the similarly constructed 1999 doc, The Last Cigarette, a take down of the tobacco industry).
Black Rain– For obvious reasons, there have been a fair amount of postwar Japanese films dealing with the subject of nuclear destruction and its aftermath. Some take an oblique approach, like Gojira or I Live inFear. Other films, like the documentary Children of Hiroshima and the anime Barefoot Gen deal directly with survivors (who are referred to in Japan as the hibakusha).
One of the most affecting hibakusha films I’ve seen is Shomei Imamura’s 1989 drama Black Rain (not to be confused with the 1989 Hollywood crime thriller of the same title that is also set in Japan). It’s a simple tale of three Hiroshima survivors: an elderly couple and their niece, whose scars run much deeper than physical. The narrative is sparse, yet contains more layers than an onion (especially considering the complexities of Japanese society). Interestingly, Imamura injects a polemic which points an accusatory finger in an unexpected direction.
The Day after Trinity– This absorbing 1981 film about the Manhattan Project and its subsequent fallout (historical, political and existential) remains one of the best documentaries I have seen on the subject. At its center, it is a profile of project leader J. Robert Oppenheimer, whose moment of professional triumph (the successful test of the world’s first atomic bomb, three weeks before Hiroshima) also brought him an unnerving precognition about the horror that he and his fellow physicists had enabled the military machine to unleash.
Oppenheimer’s journey from “father of the atomic bomb” to anti-nuke activist (and having his life destroyed by the post-war Red hysteria) is a tragic tale of Shakespearean proportion. I think this documentary provides a much more clear-eyed (and ultimately moving) portrait than Christopher Nolan’s well-acted but somewhat overwrought 2023 blockbuster Oppenheimer. Two recommended companion pieces: Roland Joffe’s 1989 drama Fat Man and Little Boy, about the working relationship between Oppenheimer (Dwight Schultz) and military director of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves (Paul Newman); and an outstanding 1980 BBC miniseries called Oppenheimer (starring Sam Waterston).
Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb- “Mein fuehrer! I can walk!” Although we have yet to experience the global thermonuclear annihilation that ensues following the wheelchair-bound Dr. Strangelove’s joyous (if short-lived) epiphany, so many other depictions in Stanley Kubrick’s seriocomic masterpiece about the tendency for those in power to eventually rise to their own level of incompetence have since come to pass, that you wonder why the filmmakers even bothered to make it all up.
It’s the one about an American military base commander who goes a little funny in the head (you know…”funny”) and sort of launches a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Hilarity and oblivion ensues. And what a cast: Peter Sellers (as three characters), George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens, Keenan Wynn, James Earl Jones and Peter Bull. There are so many great quotes, that you might as well bracket the entire screenplay (by Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George) with quotation marks.
Fail-Safe– Dr. Strangelove…without the laughs. This no-nonsense 1964 thriller from the late great director Sidney Lumet takes a more clinical look at how a wild card scenario (in this case, a simple hardware malfunction) could ultimately trigger a nuclear showdown between the Americans and the Russians.
Talky and a bit stagey; but riveting nonetheless thanks to Lumet’s skillful knack for bringing out the best in his actors. Walter Bernstein’s intelligent screenplay (with uncredited assistance from Peter George, who also co-scripted Dr. Strangelove) and a superb cast that includes Henry Fonda (a commanding performance, literally and figuratively), Walter Matthau, Larry Hagman, and Fritz Weaver.
There’s no fighting in this war room (aside from one minor scuffle), but there is an almost unbearable amount of tension and suspense. The final scene is chilling and unforgettable.
I Live in Fear-This 1955 Akira Kurosawa film is one of the great director’s most overlooked efforts. It’s a melodrama concerning an aging foundry owner (Toshiro Mifune, unrecognizable in Coke-bottle glasses and silver-frosted pomade) who literally “lives in fear” of the H-bomb. Convinced that South America would be the “safest” place on Earth from radioactive fallout, he tries to sway his wife and grown children to pull up stakes and resettle on a farm in Brazil.
His children, who have families of their own and rely on their father’s factory for income, are not so hot on that idea. They take him to family court and have him declared incompetent. This sends Mifune spiraling into madness. Or are his fears really so “crazy”? It is one of Mifune’s most powerful and moving performances. Kurosawa instills shades of Shakespeare’s “King Lear” into the narrative (a well he would draw from again in his 1985 film Ran).
Ladybug, Ladybug– I didn’t have an opportunity to see this chilling 1963 drama until 2017, which is when Turner Classic Movies presented their premiere showing (to my knowledge, it had never been previously available in any home video format). The film marked the second collaboration between husband-and-wife creative team of writer Eleanor Perry and director Frank Perry (The Swimmer, Last Summer,Diary of a Mad Housewife).
Based on an incident that occurred during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the story centers on how students and staff of a rural school react to a Civil Defense alert indicating an imminent nuclear strike. While there are indications that it could be a false alarm, the principal sends the children home early. As teachers and students stroll through the relatively peaceful countryside, fears and anxieties come to the fore. Naturalistic performances bring the film’s cautionary message all too close to home.
Miracle Mile- Depending on your worldview, this is either an “end of the world” film for romantics, or the perfect date movie for fatalists. Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham give winning performances as a musician and a waitress who Meet Cute at L.A.’s La Brea Tar Pits museum. But before they can hook up for their first date, Edwards stumbles onto a fairly reliable tip that L.A. is about to get hosed…in a major way.
The resulting “countdown” scenario is a genuine, edge-of-your seat nail-biter. In fact, this modestly budgeted, 90-minute sleeper offers more heart-pounding excitement (and much more believable characters) than any bloated Hollywood disaster epic from the likes of a Michael Bay or a Roland Emmerich. Writer-director Steve De Jarnatt stopped doing feature films after this 1988 gem (his only other feature was the sci-fi cult favorite Cherry 2000).
One Night Stand –An early effort from filmmaker John Duigan (Winter ofOur Dreams, The Year My Voice Broke, Flirting, Sirens), this 1984 sleeper got lost in the flurry of nuclear paranoia movies that proliferated during the Reagan era (Wargames, The Manhattan Project, Red Dawn, et.al.).
Four young people (three Australians and an American sailor who has jumped ship) get holed up in an empty Sydney Opera House on the eve of escalating nuclear tension between the superpowers in Eastern Europe. In an effort to quell their anxiety over increasingly ominous news bulletins droning from a portable radio, the quartet find creative ways to keep up their spirits.
Uneven, but for the most part Duigan (who scripted) deftly juggles romantic comedy, apocalyptic thriller and anti-war statement. There are several striking set pieces; particularly an affecting scene where the group watches Fritz Langs’s Metropolis as the Easybeats’ “Friday on My Mind” is juxtaposed over its orchestral score. Midnight Oil performs in a scene where the two young women attend a concert. The bittersweet denouement (in an underground tube station) is quite powerful.
Special Bulletin– This outstanding 1983 made-for-TV movie has been overshadowed by the nuclear nightmare-themed TV movie The Day After, which aired the same year (I’m sure I will be raked over the coals by some readers for not including the aforementioned on this list, but frankly I always thought it was too melodramatic and vastly over-praised).
Directed by Edward Zwick and written by Marshall Herskovitz (the same creative team behind thirtysomething), Special Bulletin is framed as a “live” television broadcast, with local news anchors and reporters interrupting regular programming to cover a breaking story.
A domestic terrorist group has seized a docked tugboat in Charleston Harbor. A reporter relays their demand: If every nuclear triggering device stored at the nearby U.S. Naval base isn’t delivered to them by a specified time, they will detonate their own homemade nuclear device (equal in power to the bomb dropped on Nagasaki). The original airing apparently panicked more than a few South Carolinian viewers (a la Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast in 1938). Riveting and chilling. Nominated for 6 Emmys, it took home 4.
Testament- Originally an American Playhouse presentation, this film (with a screenplay adapted by John Sacred Young from a story by Carol Amen) was released to theaters and garnered a well-deserved Best Actress nomination for Jane Alexander. Director Lynne Littman takes a low key approach, but pulls no punches; I think this is what gives her film’s anti-nuke message more teeth and makes its scenario more relatable than Stanley Kramer’s similarly-framed but more sanitized and preachy 1959 drama On the Beach.
Alexander, her husband (William DeVane) and three kids live in sleepy Hamlin, California, where afternoon cartoons are interrupted by a news flash that nuclear explosions have occurred in New York. Then there is a flash of a different kind when nearby San Francisco (where DeVane has gone on a business trip) receives a direct strike.
There is no exposition on the political climate that precipitates the attacks; this is a wise decision, as it puts the focus on the humanistic message of the film. All of the post-nuke horrors ensue, but they are presented sans the melodrama that informs many entries in the genre. The fact that the nightmarish scenario unfolds so deliberately, and amidst such everyday suburban banality, is what makes it very difficult to shake off.
As the children (and adults) of Hamlin succumb to the inevitable scourge of radiation sickness and steadily “disappear”, like the children of the ‘fairy tale’ Hamlin, you are left haunted by the final line of the school production of “The Pied Piper” glimpsed earlier in the film… “Your children are not dead. They will return when the world deserves them.”
Thirteen Days– I had a block against seeing this 2000 release about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, for several reasons. For one, director Roger Donaldson’s uneven output (for every Smash Palace or No Way Out, he’s got a Species or a Cocktail). I also couldn’t get past “Kevin Costner? In another movie about JFK?” Also, I felt the outstanding 1974 TV film, The Missiles of October (which I recommend) would be hard to top. But I was pleasantly surprised to find it to be one of Donaldson’s better films.
Bruce Greenwood and Steven Culp make a very credible JFK and RFK, respectively. The film works as a political thriller, yet it is also intimate and moving at times (especially in the scenes between JFK and RFK). Costner provides the “fly on the wall” perspective as Kennedy insider Kenny O’Donnell. Costner gives a compassionate performance; on the downside he has a tin ear for dialects (that Hahvad Yahd brogue comes and goes of its own free will).
According to the Internet Movie Database, this was the first film screened at the White House by George and Laura Bush in 2001. Knowing this now…I don’t know whether to laugh or cry myself to sleep.
The War Game / Threads– Out of all of the selections on this list, these two British TV productions are the grimmest and most sobering “nuclear nightmare” films of them all.
Writer-director Peter Watkins’ 1965 docudrama, The War Game was initially produced for television, but was deemed too shocking and disconcerting for the small screen by the BBC. It was mothballed until picked up for theatrical distribution, which snagged it an Oscar for Best Documentary in 1967. Watkins envisions the aftermath of a nuke attack on London, and pulls no punches. Very ahead of its time, and it still packs quite a wallop.
The similarly stark and affecting nuclear nightmare drama Threads debuted on the BBC in 1984, later airing in the U.S. on TBS. Director Mick Jackson delivers an uncompromising realism that makes The Day After (the U.S. TV film from the previous year) look like a Teletubbies episode. It’s a speculative narrative that takes a medium sized city (Sheffield) and depicts what would likely happen to its populace during and after a nuclear strike, in graphic detail.
Both productions make it clear that, while they are dramatizations, the intent is not to “entertain” you in any sense of the word. The message is simple and direct-nothing good comes out of a nuclear conflict. It’s a living, breathing Hell for all concerned-and anyone “lucky” enough to survive will soon wish they were dead.
When the Wind Blows– This animated 1986 U.K. film was adapted by director Jimmy Murakami from Raymond Brigg’s eponymous graphic novel. It is a simple yet affecting story about an aging couple (wonderfully voiced by venerable British thespians Sir John Mills and Dame Peggy Ashcroft) who live in a cozy cottage nestled in the bucolic English countryside. Unfortunately, an escalating conflict in another part of the world is about to go global and shatter their quiet lives.
Very similar in tone to Testament (another film on this list), in its sense of intimacy amidst slowly unfolding mass horror. Haunting, moving, and beautifully animated, with a combination of traditional cell and stop-motion techniques. The soundtrack features music by David Bowie, Roger Waters, and Squeeze.
And now to sing us out, the late great Tom Lehrer…
