RKS 2024 Film: A Freebie from the Visual Communications Archives: “Comfort Girls”

“Comfort Girls” is a 5-minute short film. The “Comfort Girls” initially appear in a Japanese garden in traditional Korean garb and sing before military officers of nations that have shaped the fate of a divided Korea. The officers sit at a table to a feast ravenously and disgustingly devouring food. The traditional quickly disappears andContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: A Freebie from the Visual Communications Archives: “Comfort Girls””

RKS 2024 Film: “Join the Club”: Politics/Cannabis/AID’s Cali Style All with Retrospect Stupidity: Canada’s Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival

If you reside in a legal recreational or medicinal cannabis consumption area perhaps you should take a moment to contemplate how “all those dope stores” you hear in frequent negative snippets of conversation may have ended up on the corner. It has been a mighty struggle to legalize both medicinal and recreational cannabis. Many haveContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: “Join the Club”: Politics/Cannabis/AID’s Cali Style All with Retrospect Stupidity: Canada’s Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival”

RKS Literature: Why the Aristocrats Heads Rolled in the French Revolution (Charles Dickens)

“We were so robbed by the man that stands there, as all we common dogs are by those Superior beings-taxed by him without mercy, obliged to work for him without pay, obliged to grind our corn at his mill, obliged to feed scores of his tame birds on our wretched crops, and forbidden for ourContinue reading “RKS Literature: Why the Aristocrats Heads Rolled in the French Revolution (Charles Dickens)”

RKS 2024 Film: “Our Time to Be Kind”: Of Tears and Trust: Of Science and Hysteria

“Our Time to Be Kind”, a Canadian documentary, is ostensibly a profile of Dr. Bonnie Henry the Provincial Health Officer of the Canadian province of British Columbia during that time of COVID pandemania where science and hysteria co-existed. As a Torontonian, British Columbia is a 5-hour flight away but Dr. Bonnie Henry was often onContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: “Our Time to Be Kind”: Of Tears and Trust: Of Science and Hysteria”

RKS 2023 Film: “Nisei”: An American Short Film That is Far From Sweet

Inspired by stories by the writer and director’s grandfather the award winning “Nisei” follows the journey of two Japanese American brothers during World War II, John and Minoru Miyasaki. Although many Japanese Americans were interned in “segregation camps” John and Minoru volunteered to join the 442nd Regimental Combat Team an all Japanese American unit thatContinue reading “RKS 2023 Film: “Nisei”: An American Short Film That is Far From Sweet”

RKS Literature: A Tobacco Addict in 1924 Speaks

“ I don’t understand how someone can not be a smoker-why it’s like robbing oneself of the best part of life, so as to speak, or at least of an absolutely first-rate pleasure. When I wake up I look forward to be able to smoke all day, and when I eat, I look forward toContinue reading “RKS Literature: A Tobacco Addict in 1924 Speaks”

RKS 2023 Travel and Wine: Pico’s Museu do Vinho (Wine Museum)

The Pico Museum consists of three separate museums on the island of Pico in the Azores of Portugal. There is the Whaler’s Museum, the Wine Museum and the Whaling Industry Museum. Oh yes whaling and wine say much about the history of Pico Island. Wine has played an important part in the Pico Island cultureContinue reading “RKS 2023 Travel and Wine: Pico’s Museu do Vinho (Wine Museum)”

RKS Literature: White Men and The Ravages of Their Diseases!

“It has been said, that the greatest curse to each of the South Sea Islands, was the first man that discovered it; and everyone who knows anything of the history of our commerce in these parts, knows how much truth there is in this; and that the white men, with their vices, have brought inContinue reading “RKS Literature: White Men and The Ravages of Their Diseases!”

RKS Literature: Revolutions in California!

“Revolutions in California are matters of constant occurrence in California. They are got up by men who are at the foot of the ladder and in desperate circumstances, just as a new political party is started by such men in our own country. The only object, of course, is the loaves and fishes; and insteadContinue reading “RKS Literature: Revolutions in California!”

RKS Literature: Monterey in the 1830’s

“Monterey is also a great place for cock–fighting, gambling of all sorts, fandangos, and every kind of amusement and knavery. Trappers and hunters, who occasionally arrive here from over the Rocky mountains, with their valuable skins and furs, are often entertained with every sort of amusement and dissipation, until they have wasted their time andContinue reading “RKS Literature: Monterey in the 1830’s”