ECLIPSED, that striking depiction, as fictional drama, of women in crisis – Liberian women to be specific – closed last night after its 15-week Broadway run.

But not before dedicating its 117th Golden Theater performance to saving the lives of Liberian women in reality. That life-saving work is being carried out on the ground by The Women: Global Cancer Initiative (TheWomen.org) whose main international program is testing for and treating female cancers in Liberia, and also sexually-transmitted diseases.   Continue reading “A Parting Broadway Gift to Women it Portrayed” »

THE THEATER WORLD, rightly, was shadowed but not fully darkened by the Orlando terrorist hate-crime, as the Tony Awards ceremony presented the all-conquering Hamilton cast performing the Battle of Yorktown – rather bizarrely, but pointedly and arrestingly – with firearms completely removed from the scene.   Continue reading “Media-fêted Lupita Aids Africa’s Cancer Women” »

THE DEVIL IS REPUTED by some to have had all the best tunes. But those claiming to be on the side of the angels can often have the better technique.

Sometimes, though, they’ll employ that advantage in what amounts to an abuse of power bordering on the devilish. Continue reading “Exposing a Questionable Practice Cloaked in Religion” »

UNNOTICED GLOBAL developments are something of an obsession with me. I had my attention stirred recently by a lot of media attention that focused on the whole continent of Africa being officially expected to lower its economic growth-rate this year. But I was stirred even more (with angry disappointment) by how few media outlets stressed how phenomenally high the continent’s growth-rate has been over the past twenty years.    Continue reading “Unheralded by Press, African Efforts Upgrade Food’s Value” »

THE SOUTH BY SOUTH-WEST Festival of 2016 finally finished this week. In the end it seemed, more sprawlingly than ever, to take over the city of Austin for even longer than I previously remember – and I’ve now been an attendee for a dozen years or so.

Maybe the (literally) biggest sign of how the Festival – or festivals, if we count the divisions of Film, Music and Interactive as separate entities – held gaudy sway over the entire Texan capital was the gigantic fairground Ferris wheel prominently erected for the events’ duration on Congress Avenue … suddenly an extra anchor for that main drag, second only to the great domed State Capitol at its northern end.     Continue reading “Cold Tech & Warm-Blooded Humanity, Integrated” »