“Adam and Heather Benton uprooted their lives to move across the country this April to provide their daughter, Addyson, with medical marijuana for her myoclonic seizures.

From West Chester, Ohio to Castle Rock, Colorado, the Bentons are now able to provide their 3-year-old with cannabis medications that they say have greatly improved her quality of life.

For Addyson, doctors have prescribed an oil made from a strain of marijuana that is heavy in cannabidiol, or CBD, a non-pyschoactive component of pot, and low in tetrahydrocannabinol, called THC, the chemical that produces a high.

WCPO reporter Lisa Bernard-Kuhn and photojournalist Emily Maxwell caught up with the Bentons in their new city a few weeks after their move.

Ohio voters may be determining whether the issue of marijuana legalization will be on the ballot this fall.

Read more about Addyson’s story and Ohio’s race to legalize marijuana at www.WCPO.com/pot ”

Ohio Family Moves to Colorado for Daughter’s Medical Marijuana | Weed Revolution

““In a classic case of “unintended consequences,” the recently signed Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in Indiana may have opened the door for the establishment of the First Church of Cannabis in the Hoosier State.

While Governor Mike Pence (R) was holding a signing ceremony for the bill allowing businesses and individuals to deny services to gays on religious grounds or values, paperwork for the First Church of Cannabis Inc. was being filed with the Secretary of State’s office, reports RTV6.” * ”

The Young Turks: “Marijuana Religion Established In Indiana Under New Religious Freedom Law”

 “By the end of this hour I will be seen by many as a terrorist sympathizer, a Zionist tool, a self-hating Jew, an apologist for American imperialism, an orientalist, socialist, fascist, CIA agent, and worse,” the inimitable Anthony Bourdain introduced his vital Gaza/West Bank episode

Bourdain’s take on the Middle East for his television travel programmes is learned and dynamic, nuanced and empathetic. While the big-hearted New Yorker was on assignment in Madagascar, I interviewed him about his recent, lovely episode on Iran and his formative Beirut experience. Bourdain speaks about Iran’s exhilarations and complexities, imprisoned Iranian journalist Jason Rezaian, and falling in love with the Middle East in Lebanon during 2006.

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Bourdain: “What makes Iran special is the sheer difficulty of experiencing it as an American– and of understanding the complexities, the history, the context, the contradictions–and the ever changing political realities. It is a beautiful country, with an ancient and very rich culture that seems often to be at odds with its religious leadership. The people you meet in the street are overwhelmingly welcoming.

“Nowhere else I’ve been has the disconnect been so extreme between what one sees and feels from the people and what one sees and hears from the government. Iranians, however they feel about their government, tend to be proud, and opinionated. And their food is extraordinary. Fesenjan, Persian Pomegranate Chicken, is but one example.

“Iranian food is hearty and unpretentious. Food is expensive in Iran. Sanctions have bitten deep. Everyday Iranians feel it, not least in what they can put on their table. This in a culture where custom demands you always prepare and offer more good food than can possibly be consumed.

“Iran is deeply conflicted, exhilarating, heartbreaking. One of the exhilarations is Iranians’ eagerness to communicate, to express themselves, to show the world more about themselves than what we see on the news. An eagerness to be proud, to have fun is something you feel palpably in Tehran. The hospitality from strangers is extraordinary.

“I asked one host what he thought Americans would think of the episode. “They will start coming,” he laughed. I think simply seeing a few ordinary Iranians, doing ordinary things, is a departure from the usual footage of angry ayatollahs.  That alone will shock many. Shamefully, many, many people labour under the most simplistic of misimpressions: Iranians are not Arabs. Iran is not a desert. Not everyone is a fundamentalist. Iran even looks much different than how it does in films.

“Iran was a blank slate for us. We expected our expectations to be upended at every turn. So, unusually for us, we did not have a design or film style or pre-existing reference in mind. I always think about George Orwell. His essays are an inspiration.

“People everywhere I go, I have found, are overwhelmingly, good people, usually doing the best they can, often under very difficult circumstances. It’s worth remembering, never forgetting, that in Iran, there is no freedom of speech. That access to the Internet is restricted, and that having an opinion–or even appearing to have an opinion–can put you in jail. The reality of Iran is that what is permitted yesterday might very well be an offense today. The limits of permissible everyday behaviour, dress, expression, are being tested every minute.

“Iran’s contradictions and its’ perils are extraordinary, too. You can, as our friend, Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian found out, find yourself in prison for absolutely no reason at all. Total innocence is no assurance of safety. What we can do to help Jason is to keep his name and his situation in the public eye.  Beyond that, I am open to suggestion.  It is a very delicate line to walk.

“The Milad Tower, 1000 ft high, provides a good vantage point for looking over Tehran, considering it in all its complexity.

“Isfahan is also well worth a trip. Iran’s third largest city is about 200 miles south of the capital.  Its Islamic architecture is beautiful.

“Going to Lebanon in 2006 was when I first fell in love with the Middle East. Everyone should be required to spend time in Beirut before running their mouth about the Middle East. Until you spend time navigating those waters, you really don’t know anything.

 “Beirut is as different from Tehran as anyplace could be. Talk about contradictions? You can be rousted by Hezbollah one minute and be drinking Mojitos by a pool surrounded by girls in bikinis ten minutes later. It’s everything good and bad in the world in one gorgeous, mixed up, beleaguered, effortlessly cool, endlessly afflicted city.  Our whole crew, even those of us stuck there during the 2006 war, love the place. It even smells magical. Deeper, more intractable problems can hardly be imagined. But Beirut and Beirutis stand alone as must be experienced.

“Experiencing Beirut and Iran makes me hope we can do episodes on Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen.

Anthony Bourdain hosts the wonderful travel programme Parts Unknown on CNN. Alexander Bisley is a political and cultural freelancer for publications including the Guardian

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

CNN: “Anthony Bourdain on Iran: Not what I expected”

“CBS Sports pulled Rihanna’s intro to Thursday night’s NFL game between the Ravens and the Steelers following the release of video showing Ravens running back Ray Rice beating then-fiancée Janay Palmer in an Atlantic City casino elevator.

CBS said it pulled the intro last Thursday to maintain an “appropriate tone,” as Rihanna was beaten by then-boyfriend Chris Brown several years ago in another high-profile instance of domestic violence.”

Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks: “CBS Unjustly Punishes Rihanna For Ray Rice Controversy”

Mediaite has more

There’s no doubt that Robin Williams could make us laugh, but he did a whole more than that. He made us think and dream. Because he wasn’t afraid to tackle the tough social issues in our society. In his personal life he was involved in nearly 30 charity organizations and he was always quick to help with things like campaigning for the G.I. Bill, or raising money after Hurricane Katrina.

But in my opinion he taught us the most through his incredible acting and story lines. Here are some of the great movie roles that Williams played while teaching us that it’s OK to deal head-on with today’s social problems. To say that these roles show how progressive he was seems to diminish his talents somehow. I would say instead that through his acting, he taught us how to be human.

1. The Fisher King

In this movie Williams took on the problems of homelessness and mental health problems.

“There’s three things in this world that you need: Respect for all kinds of life, a nice bowel movement on a regular basis, and a navy blazer,”

The National Alliance for Mental Illness named this movie one of the top movies of all time to accurately portray mental illness. Robin Williams’ character plays a homeless man suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And for this role, Williams received an Oscar nomination. In addition to this great movie, Williams also helped organize Comic Relief, which raised money for the homeless.

2. Good Will Hunting

In Good Will Hunting, Williams tackled the issue of domestic violence.

“You’ll have bad times, but it’ll always wake you up to the good stuff you weren’t paying attention to.”

” I DON’T BLAME YOU! It’s not about *you*, you mathematical dick!”

In this movie Robin Williams played the role of a compassionate psychiatrist. He gives an Academy Award winning performance when he counsels Matt Damon’s character who has been severely abused. After learning of the boy’s violent beatings, Williams reveals that he was also abused as a child.

3. The Birdcage

Williams took on the issues of gender identity and homosexuality in this amazing film.

“Yes, I wear foundation. Yes, I live with a man. Yes, I’m a middle-aged fag,” Williams says as Armand in the movie. “But I know who I am, Val. It took me twenty years to get here, and I’m not gonna let some idiot senator destroy that.”

In The Birdcage, Robin Williams and Nathan Lane play a loving gay couple who eventually teach their son that there is no reason to be ashamed of his gay family. This film was one of several in which Williams tried to normalize cross-dressing.

4. Good Morning Vietnam

In this 1985 movie, Williams took on the subject of freedom of the press.

“Hey, we’re back. That last two seconds of silence was Marcel Marceau’s newest hit single, “Walkin In The Wind.” And now, here are the headlines. Here they come right now. Pope actually found to be Jewish. Liberace is Anastasia and Ethel Merman jams Russian radar. The East Germans, today, claimed the Berlin Wall was a fraternity prank. Also the Pope decided today to release Vatican-related bath products. An incredible thing, yes, it’s the new Pope On A Rope. That’s right. Pope On A Rope. Wash with it, go straight to heaven.”

In Good Morning Vietnam Robin Williams plays the role of Airman Second Class Adrian Cronauer, who is a radio DJ in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. He goes against his commanders and locks himself in the radio booth so that he can report the news and bombings that were actually going on.

And not only did Williams teach us about press freedoms at times of war, but his character also was kind and compassionate to the local Vietnamese people. He taught us many great things in his movies, and this one is no exception. Williams assimilated to the local culture instead of demonizing them. He realized that he could actually learn something from them.

5. Patch Adams

In Patch Adams, Williams took on the issues of patient autonomy and the importance of Universal healthcare.

“You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you, you’ll win, no matter what the outcome.”

“Our job is improving the quality of life, not just delaying death.”

In this movie, Williams plays the character Patch Adams. He finds out how to treat patients by admitting himself into a mental hospital. And because of his experience there he goes to medical school and becomes a doctor. He makes the point throughout this film that patients should be treated with dignity. Williams is great in this movie and he really shows us how important compassion and humor are for all of us.

6. What Dreams May Come

In this incredible movie, Williams tackles the subject of suicide.

“A whole human life is just a heartbeat here in Heaven. Then we’ll all be together forever.”

“What some folks call impossible, is just stuff they haven’t seen before.”

I have always loved this film, but now that Robin Williams is gone it seems even more important, and even ironic. In this movie, Williams character’s wife commits suicide after the death of her family and is doomed to spend eternity in her own private hell of despair. Through Williams’ character’s unselfish love and determination to spend it in hell with her because of his love for her, the two are reunited in heaven, along with their children.

Rest now Mr. Williams….your work here is done.

This work by Liberals Unite is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

Mirrored from Samuel Lynn Warde’s Liberals Unite

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

ABC News: “Robin Williams’ Interviews Throughout the Years”

Mindy Fischer is a lefty-liberal, freelance political writer. Follow her on Facebook and on Twitter.

Little-known fact: Lauren Bacall and former Israeli president Shimon Peres are first cousins, both with the birth name Perski.

Alert: Profanity.

Robin Williams At Kandahar AirField

May Mr. Williams rest in peace.

What do The Amazing Spider-Man 2, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Godzilla have in common? Aside from belonging to the summer blockbuster class of 2014, they all feature China in some form or another.

Many of these Chinese moments are fleeting – the future X-Men, for example, mount their last stand from a temple in an unspecified Chinese mountain range – but from an industry perspective, their inclusion is far from incidental. They are symptomatic of Hollywood’s renewed targeting of the tightly regulated Chinese film market, which is now the second largest after the US, making an estimated $3.6bn (£2.1bn) in 2013.

Sensing a gold rush, the Hollywood majors are scrabbling to incorporate more Chinese elements in their most lucrative blockbusters. They’re not just trying to pull in larger Chinese audiences (who typically enjoy US feature films), but to garner favour with China Film Group (CFG), the state monopoly that runs cinemas, produces, finances and distributes films, and controls the import of foreign titles.

Behind the great wall

Although Hollywood dominates the import quota, it is merely a big fish in a small pond – CFG only allows 34 foreign films a year, and American films that make it to Chinese screens are often subject to measures designed to protect domestic productions, such as competitive release scheduling. Crucially, these films also only keep a 25% share of their Chinese box office receipts.

In a bid to figure out the Chinese market and circumvent the so-called “great wall” quota, Hollywood has turned to the China Film Co-Production Corporation (CFCC) and the benefits of its “joint-production” model.

Sino-American co-productions count as domestic Chinese ventures, and they yield a healthier 38% box office return – but to do so they are required to include positive “Chinese elements”.

Michael Bay’s Transformers: age of Extinction, which opens in UK cinemas this weekend, is third American film to adopt this model. One of the most hotly anticipated summer blockbuster of 2014, it features a heavily China-inflected story.

Soft power

The film’s release was prefaced by the sleeper hit Looper and the summer tentpole Iron Man 3, both of which tested the waters of the co-production agreement in 2012 and 2013 respectively. Both films were jointly produced with Beijing-based DMG Entertainment, whose CEO Dan Mintz (originally a native of New Jersey) is widely regarded as “Hollywood’s Mr China”.

But given that from a financial perspective, Hollywood currently needs China more than China needs it, what exactly does China stand to gain from the co-production model?

The answer would appear to be “soft power” – the culture-based influence which political scientist Joseph Nye famously defined as “the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments”. China still suffers from something of an international image problem (to put it mildly); the co-production model offers the Chinese authorities an opportunity to use Hollywood’s global reach to transmit favourable narratives and images about China to the western (and westernised) world.

Beyond orientalism

Before granting joint-production status, the CFCC requires positive Chinese elements and a significant Chinese cast presence. In this regard, China is using its “hard” power-base (read: economic inducements) to compel Hollywood’s co-operation, effectively securing the Dream Factory as an adjunct Chinese soft power asset that can help spread Chinese dreams and culture around the world.

While Looper showcased Shanghai as an ultra-modern, global centre of the future, one that has a rehabilitating effect on an errant American, Iron Man 3 lends screen time to the famous Grauman’s Chinese theatre – now owned by the Chinese electronics multinational TCL, which signed a tie-in deal with Marvel Entertainment as part of a strategy to raise its company profile in the American consumer market.

Iron Man 3 also tellingly eschews the predictable Orientalist binary of “East threatens West” common in Hollywood’s output, most obviously by changing the ethnicity of its villain, the Mandarin. An archetypal “yellow peril” in his original comic book incarnation, the terroristic Mandarin of Iron Man 3 is divorced from his inscrutable Chinese origins.

Instead, Chinese characters feature largely in benevolent form, the main example being Dr Wu (Wang Xueqi), a skilled surgeon who utilises high technology to perform a life-saving operation on Tony Stark at the film’s close.

Box-ticking

Still, it’s difficult to not be cynical about Hollywood’s involvement in these prototype East-West hybrids, which largely pay little more than lip service to the requirements of co-production status.

The briefly seen Chinese setting of Looper was incidental (the foreign elements were originally set in France), and the Chinese version of Iron Man 3 features several Chinese scenes and faces that never made it to the international cut.

This sense of bare-minimum box ticking was not lost on the CFCC President Zhang Xun, who delivered a cautionary reminder to the great and good of Hollywood at the 2013 US-China Film Summit: “We want films that are heavily invested in Chinese culture, not one or two shots.”

Transformers: Age of Extinction clearly attempts to meet this standard. A joint venture between Paramount Pictures, the state-owned China Movie Channel (CMC) and its distribution partner Jiaflix Entertainment, it features Chinese actors (such as Li Bingbing) in substantial, China-affirming roles, plenty of Chinese product placement and huge action sequences set in Hong Kong and mainland China that feature national landmarks such as the Great Wall. And unlike Iron Man 3, the same version of the film will be released in all territories.

For Hollywood, indicators of the film’s Chinese success will be immediate, based on box office receipts that, going on early indications, promise to be spectacular.

For China, on the other hand, the film’s success will help take the measure of a less tangible, longer-term problem: whether the co-production model helps the country to develop its “soft” influence in the world.

Chris Homewood is Lecturer in German and World Cinemas at University of Leeds

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.

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Related video added by Juan Cole

Transformers: Age of Extinction Official Chinese Trailer (2014) – Michael Bay Movie HD

China View: “”Transformers 4″ recruits Chinese actors”

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When Algeria qualified for the knockout stage of the World Cup by winning against Russia, the Algerian press celebrated their team’s qualification as the greatest victory ever. In France large street celebrations were accompanied by the usual firecrackers and Algerian flags and were followed by clashes between groups of so-called supporters and the police. No really serious incident occurred, but that did not prevent extreme right groups such as Bloc Identitaire from conducting an intoxication campaign which drew systematically on the manipulation of images and wild rumours. Its supporters claimed that in the Lyon suburb of La Duchère, a church had been set on fire and that a building in the Barbès district of Paris was festooned with Algerian flags. No church had been set on fire and the building turned out to be in Algiers.

The extreme right National Front, which topped the poll in last month’s European election was happy to oblige, its leader Marine Le Pen asking that Algerian bi-nationals be deprived of their French citizenship. Fearing greater violence after the match between the Algerian and German teams on 30 June, the Ministry of the Interior put 25,000 police on the streets of major cities and the mayor of Nice banned the “ostentatious deployment” of foreign (i.e Algerian) flags. Algeria went down to an honourable defeat and the streets of France remained quiet.

Algeria’s victories against South Korea and Russia brought out the dormant pétainisme which characterises part of the French right (Pétain ran the fascist German-dominated government of the 1940s) . Arthur Asseraf noted that many French scholars and commentators only approach French colonies (and really, mainly Algeria) as a black box to solve problems of French history. “This is dangerous because Algeria ceases to be a real place where people live, breathe, hope, dream, and die, and instead becomes a mere problem or concept of French history. Approaching this subject through the prism of an interest in France, the kind of scholarship tends to exceptionalize France’s colonial and postcolonial history, without connecting it to developments elsewhere”(1). France ruled Algeria 1830-1962 and millions of Algerians, Arabs and African guest workers from the colonies came to France as immigrants. The victory of the French team in the 1998 World Cup allowed France to dream, for a few short months of la France Black, Blanc (white), Beur (Arab-French), a country that had integrated its many African and North African immigrants.

In the wake of 9/11 and the violent riots which engulfed France in the autumn of 2005, the mood changed as the French right took to wallowing in self-pity and xenophobia. More recently, many French media have indulged in an orgy of self-flagellation, with weeklies like Le Point decrying the decadence and collapse of the country. Radio commentators such as Eric Zemmour compliment the French coach Didier Deschamps for having re-established “rigor, order and hard work… traditional values of French peasant society”, oblivious to the fact that many of the French players are immigrants from Africa. The philosopher Alain Finkielkraut decries the delinquent suburbs where these players were brought up which are destroying the spirit of the city. The non-assimilated immigrant (it would have been the Jew in 1939) is the perfect foil for such feelings. Because of its close ties with France since it was conquered in 1830, and colonised until 1962, Algeria has become the inevitable “black box of French history”.

The emergence of Islam as one of the several languages of protest in the western world is not confined to France. It draws on Europe’s colonial past but also on contemporary global trends. The author of a recent book on relations between France and its north African immigrants tells us that French Muslims are “at war with France.” How can he possibly know 8 million Muslims, who are an extraordinarily mixed lot socially and in terms of their country of origin think? No where in the book is there any mention of Imazighen (Berbers) who are North African but not Arabs. He seems to think all North Africans in France and in the Maghreb are anti-Semite, displaying in the process a deep ignorance on modern Algerian history. He summons up many ghosts – colonialism, the Algerian war, Palestine, Islam and is at a loss to know what to make of them except that the Arabs are somehow involved in a vaguely outlined global insurrection..” He claims that Algerian supporters shouted “yaya djezair” (actually it would have been tahya al-djazair– i.e. Long Live Algeria). One is left wondering whether he really cares what they are saying in a language he does not understand.

What is happening in France is not unique to that country nor is it part of a global “Fourth World War.” France, the reader is told, might not need “ a psychiatrist but an exorcist” to shoo away the ghost of Algeria. As he resorts to a supernatural analysis in the first place, that is hardly surprising. His misreading of modern north African history is breathtaking: To suggest that the Tunisian people only evicted Ben Ali as a way of getting back at France is absurd and tragically reductive. As he draws sweeping conclusions from talking to a Moroccan in a bar in Tangiers of a taxi driver in Algiers, the reader could be forgiven for thinking that North Africans are not agents of their own history. Some assertions are simply absurd when the author tells us that Algiers shuts down at night unlike any other Mediterranean city except Gaza. He is in good company as France has the intellectuals it deserves: towering figures such as Camus, Simone de Beauvoir and Claude Levi Strauss have been replaced by midgets.

None of those who seem to fear an invasion of France by its colonial subjects, not least the Algerians, care to remind their audience that the poor banlieues or slums include millions of impoverished Portuguese and French people; that millions of young men and women of North and Black African origin people are married with men and women whose families have been French for generations; that millions of them have managed to get a good education and hold good jobs; that the mixes of Algerian and Black African hip-hop songs often top the charts, pointing to a rich culture which these gentlemen hold in deep contempt. As they attempt to frame every single action of North Africans as a violent insurrection against civilisation, they condemn themselves and their listeners to misreading current events in France. They display a contempt for historical facts, oblivious of the rich shared life between France and North Africa. They believe there can be no cohabitation and no forgiveness. Charles Martel famously stopped the Arab armies at Poitiers in 732 AD and history has been frozen since then.

What most of the world calls football (soccer) has offered a means of social advancement to the children of immigrants. The French team boats more and more children from the banlieues. The Algerian Football Federation has encouraged players of Algerian origin who live and play abroad to play for the mother country so to speak on grand occasions such as the World Cup. Recognising the what its diaspora can offer Algeria should be extended to other professional sectors of Algerian life, notably in economic and business matters. It would be naïve to think that football and politics can be kept a part anywhere in the world of multiple identities. Football, especially during the World Cup may be presented as a childish metaphor for war but millions of spectators on both sides of the Mediterranean will enjoy the spectacle if affords, oblivious of the inaccurate suggestion that it forms the backdrop to some ill defined intifada against la belle France.

(1) Arthur Asseraf – The Black Box of French History, Jadaliyya 29 May 2014
(2) Andrew Hussey, The French Intifada: the long war between France and its Arabs, Granta 2014

Francis Ghilès is senior research fellow at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (Cidob). He was the Financial Times’s north Africa Correspondent from 1981-95, and now contributes to newspapers such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, El Pais and La Vanguardia. He is a specialist in emerging energy markets and their relationship to political trends, and has advised western governments and corporations working in North Africa.

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Related video added by Juan Cole

AFP: “France arrests dozens after unrest over Algeria qualification”