Best Books & Fabulous Films

American Hustle

By Kai-Arne Zimny

“As far as I could see, peo­ple were always con­ning each oth­er to get what they want­ed. We even con our­selves. We talk our­selves into things. We sell our­selves things we maybe don’t even need or want by dress­ing them up. We leave out the risk. We leave out the ugly truth.”  — Irv­ing Rosen­feld (Chris­t­ian Bale)

Pho­to Cred­it: Wolg Gang

New Jer­sey, late 70s – Fraud­u­lent duo Irv­ing Rosen­feld (Chris­t­ian Bale) and Syd­ney Pross­er aka “Lady Edith Greensly” (Amy Adams) get caught in the act by FBI agent Richie DiMa­so (Bradley Coop­er). Smelling an oppor­tu­ni­ty for fame and recog­ni­tion, the agent decides to offer the crooked cou­ple a dis­hon­est deal that would force them to gath­er incrim­i­nat­ing evi­dence against four oth­er peo­ple. To avoid pros­e­cu­tion, Irv­ing and Syd­ney agree, not know­ing the object of the FBI’s inves­ti­ga­tion: sev­er­al cor­rupt con­gress­men, ruth­less mafia boss Vic­tor Tel­le­gio (Robert DeNiro), and most spec­tac­u­lar­ly Camden’s pop­u­lar and big-heart­ed may­or Carmine Poli­to (Jere­my Ren­ner). Polito’s ambi­tion to cre­ate jobs by revi­tal­iz­ing Atlantic City’s casi­nos might make him sus­cep­ti­ble to bribes by a fake Sau­di sheik. A game of deceit and con­flict ensues, not mak­ing Irving’s per­son­al dilem­mas – evolv­ing around his unpre­dictable wife (Jen­nifer Lawrence) and his beloved adop­tive son – any easier …

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Access America

Love no more? Catalonia and Spain

By Michael Lederer

Pho­to Cred­it: Michael Led­er­er — The two-arms-raised repli­ca of the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty was a gift to the town of Cadaqués from the man­ag­er of Sal­vador Dali.

CADAQUÉS, Cat­alo­nia, Spain – Dis­patch from Spain’s Cold Civ­il War.

Speak­er of the U.S. House Tip O’Neill once said, “All pol­i­tics are local.” In today’s world, no pol­i­tics are local.

Both Don­ald Tusk from the Euro­pean Union and Don­ald Trump from the Unit­ed States have issued recent state­ments sup­port­ing a view of the Cat­alon­ian con­flict as an inter­nal mat­ter. Yet the very fact that both lead­ers felt called to com­ment on it reveals that Barcelona’s rela­tion to Madrid has the easy poten­tial to affect wider inter­ests even as far away as Washington.

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Teaching Tools

Sexual Harassment in the 21st Century – Really?

By Sabrina Völz

Pho­to Cred­it: Mihai Surdu

If it wasn’t enough that Amer­i­can TV icon and edu­ca­tor Bill Cos­by was accused of sex­u­al assault, rape, and bat­tery – to name a few of the alle­ga­tions – now dozens of women (cur­rent­ly more than 65) have come for­ward about Har­vey Weinstein’s inap­pro­pri­ate sex­u­al behav­ior. Many of these women were pre­vi­ous­ly too afraid to pub­li­cal­ly share their sto­ries of sex­u­al harass­ment and assault. Or couldn’t because of non-dis­clo­sure agree­ments. Some­thing has to give. Read more »

Access America

Escaping Fundamentalism: An Interview with Charlene L. Edge (Part II)

By Maria Moss

Image Cred­it: https://charleneedge.com

After last week’s intro­duc­tion to the seduc­tive pow­er of the fun­da­men­tal­ist cult “The Way Inter­na­tion­al” and the prac­tice of speak­ing in tongues, in this install­ment, read­ers will find out more about both Char­lene Edge’s “fad­ed scars” as well as mem­o­ries of hap­pi­er times while serv­ing The Way. Char­lene also shares insid­er per­spec­tives on The Way’s teach­ings and com­ments on her rela­tion­ship to reli­gion and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty today. One of this tal­ent­ed memoirist’s great­est pas­sions has become her mis­sion to warn peo­ple about The Way, a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that not only con­trols all aspects of its mem­bers’ lives, but also their purse strings.

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Access America

Escaping Fundamentalism: An Interview with Charlene L. Edge (Part I)

By Maria Moss

Image Cred­it: charleneedge.com

In her award-win­ning book Under­tow, Char­lene Edge dis­sects her past as a long-time mem­ber of one of the largest fun­da­men­tal­ist cults in the Unit­ed States, “The Way Inter­na­tion­al.” Under­tow is a demon­stra­tion of the dan­gers of fun­da­men­tal­ism and the destruc­tive nature of cults. Through her per­son­al sto­ry, Char­lene Edge shows how a vul­ner­a­ble per­son can be seduced into fol­low­ing an author­i­tar­i­an leader and how dif­fi­cult it can be to find a way out.

Charlene’s expe­ri­ences with “The Way” depicts the down­ward spi­ral­ing of a col­lege stu­dent who – for rea­sons all her own – fell for a cer­tain kind of pro­pa­gan­da. Now, if it hap­pened to her, why not to you? To us?

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Best Books & Fabulous Films

Beatriz at Dinner: Comedy, Tragedy, Portrait?

By Bobbie Kirkhart

We first see Beat­riz (Salma Hayek) going through morn­ing chores, feed­ing her dogs, and light­ing a can­dle for deceased loved ones, includ­ing her dead goat. She’s in a rush to her work in a holis­tic heal­ing firm. Her last patient of the day is a house call for a mas­sage for Kathy, a wealthy woman in a gat­ed community.

After the house call, Beatriz’s car won’t start, so Kathy invites her to stay for the small din­ner par­ty she’s host­ing for her husband’s busi­ness associates.

It’s the stuff of com­e­dy, a movie you’ve all seen before: The wealthy matron invites an employ­ee to an impor­tant din­ner par­ty she’s host­ing for even wealth­i­er asso­ciates. We have rol­lick­ing fun watch­ing the crude man­ners of the out­sider expos­ing the pom­pos­i­ty of the wealthy. At the end, every­body real­izes that the sim­ple ways of the poor employ­ee are supe­ri­or to the smug friv­o­li­ty of the priv­i­leged. Every­body is hap­py. Every­body learns something.

Spoil­er alert: They didn’t go that way.

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