Ferguson, Missouri

This anticlimactic failure to indict once again leaves aggressive, lethal policing comfortably in place across the United States. All the police forces, even those that routinely pay out millions of dollars in wrongful-death compensation, can pat themselves on the back that they're on the right track and proceed with business as usual--and their populations sink back into apathy and complacency?

Interstellar degradation.

So, yeah, I saw Interstellar. There were a few niggling things (ONCE would have been enough to quote Dylan Thomas--MAYBE twice--but then: enough) (what sort of engines are ordinary vehicles utilizing, that they can routinely keep tooling around in constant dust storms?), but the mass lists online of all the not-quite-perfect scientific details seem like a great deal of navel-gazing by people who HAVEN'T (and quite likely, never will) pulled together any sort of visionary epic. That the tragedy of what mankind has done to its home planet, the poignancy of close family interactions and loss, AND the mind-bending venture through time and space are pretty convincingly woven together into a whole is alone a cheer-worthy accomplishment, let alone that it's a beautiful and thought-provoking one. (And the whole "love" thing; I left that out of the quibbles. Over-belabored, what we can see with our own hearts and minds, and no, it's not "quantifiable.")
What I would have liked just an inkling of, in the end, is a mention--Any. Single. Mention.--of all the trillions of other creatures mankind has undoubtedly destroyed along with Earth. But not a single horse, cow, dog, cat, even passing bird is ever once seen, much less whales, gorillas, elephants, schools of fish, coral reefs... Presumably, having found a way to make their own escape, humans just left all the rest of creation behind to die? Or so it would seem.
Still, overall: kudos.

Ai Weiwei's new exhibition at Alcatraz, a first for the site, and in spite of his not being permitted to leave Beijing."It’s as if, in the years since his detention, Ai has given up on metaphor. He sees art less as a means of self-expression and more as a global lingua franca. Contemporary art, in his view, requires and perhaps even creates an audience committed to liberty. Presenting his art in a prison amplifies that goal twice over. ...Not all of Ai’s heroes are reachable, of course; Liu Xiaobo, Nobel Prize be damned, is still incommunicado in a prison in Liaoning."

K.I.S.S.: Wealth Distribution in the United States of America 

http://mashable.com/2013/03/02/wealth-inequality/

Please sign this Amnesty International petition to free

Liu Xiaobo and his wife:

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/chinese-leader-xi-jinping-release-imprisoned-nobel-peace-prize-winner-liu-xiaobo-and-wife-liu-xia-3?utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=url_share&utm_campaign=url_share_before_sign

3 Poets in Beau Jardin 10/18: Darrell Bourque, Carolyn Breedlove, Julie Kane

• 5:00pm until 6:00pm in CDT

• Three poets, including two Louisiana Poet Laureates, will read their work Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012, from 5 - 6 p.m. at Beau Jardin, on the riverfront. The event is free and open to the public.

Beau Jardin

100 Rue Beauport, Natchitoches, Louisiana 71457

 https://www.facebook.com/events/386554774747991/