The news from the Middle East remains grim. The State Department has issued a worldwide travel advisory. China has dramatically expanded its nuclear arsenal. And a U.S. warship has intercepted multiple missiles near Yemen.
But fear not! Disciples of Bengali guru Sri Chinmoy have been trying to do something about it.
Today in The Free Press, Suzy Weiss reports from Queens, where the world’s longest certified footrace, which takes place in almost endless laps around a four-block loop for 3,100 miles, has just finished. “The goal,” says one participant of the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race, is “to bring humanity together.”
How’s that working out?
Also in The Free Press today, Nancy Rommelmann writes about this week’s big movie release. Killers of the Flower Moon marks a moment that Native American actors, including her father-in-law, have been dreaming of for decades: a major film in which they can tell their own stories, have their stories told, and be portrayed not as caricatures but as fully human.
You can find our latest coverage of the Israel-Hamas war here.
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Thanks to Bari and FP and Nancy Rommelmann and Tafv for this great read. I lived and worked on Rosebud (SD) for 25 years from the early 90's. Rez Dogs resonated as true in so many ways. All my friends lived for the next episode every week. An older movie of Sterlin Harjo is Mekko. It is a masterpiece in it's own way. My heart breaks to remember all the Elders I knew and loved who have gone on. They shared their stories and treated me as a relative. I am forever grateful.
On the 3100 mile race: I read an article in The Panama American Newspaper in 1959 about a world cyclist for peace, an Indian, Mishwal Giswal. He was a follower of Shamil Shamon (Idon't know if my spelling correct. It was a long time ago.)
Anyway my best friend and I were on the way to the interior of Panama and saw Mishwal peddling ahead of us. We stopped to talk to him and he gave us some pamphlets about the Shamil Shamon's peace initiative.. We offered to put his bicycle in the trunk and take him up the road but he refused. He was quite pleasant and I still think of him from time to time.
The upshot of all this is, the 3100 mile run for peace and Mishwal's ride are hollow gestures, well meaning but change nothing. The rainbow and unicorn crowd love BS like this.
These things don't bother me. They make me smile and shake my head.