Being the Ricardos

BEING THE RICARDOS Review By John Fraim 12/30/21 (Thanks to my good friend and “Wing Man” Jim Arter) Being the Ricardos is a 2021 American biographical drama film written and directed by Aaron Sorkin about the relationship between I Love Lucy stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.   Hayley Fitzpatrick with ABC News writes it offers a “revealing […]

The Changing Lights

Stacey Kent (born March 27, 1968) is a Grammy-nominated singer. Kent was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) by the French Minister of Culture in 2009. She is married to saxophonist, composer Jim Tomlinson who produces Kent’s albums and writes songs for her with his lyricist partner, […]

Prophecy & Population

We spend more and more time looking at smaller and smaller things. As a result, the great changes of the world are invisible to us today. We use all sorts of methods to predict and prophesize about the future but often the future is contained in the demographics of ages in nations. One of the […]

Yusef Lateef

America’s Real Introduction to Eastern Music  Yusef Lateef “Love Theme from Spartacus” John Fraim Certainly, one of the greatest (yet relatively unnoticed) trends in jazz was a movement towards the sounds of Eastern music in the 1960s. It was happening in rock for sure with the Beatles introduction to Ravi Shankar and the music of […]

Love Theme from Spartacus

I think one of the most beautiful songs ever written is “Love Theme from Spartacus” composed by Alex North. I’ve never heard the lyrics until today. It seems so appropriate for our times. Here, the song is interpreted by jazz guitarist Terry Callier. ________________________________________ Lyrics / Love Theme from Spartacus can it be, do you […]

Walter

______________________________________________ John Fraim I long for the times when Walter Cronkite used to tell America each night “And that’s the way it is.” I was a young kid in those days of the 50s living in LA and watching Walter on the small black television console with my parents. Life was simple in those years. […]

The Global Freedom Foundation

(A chapter in a story) John Fraim It was raining hard in the Bay Area the day he finished teaching his class in computer science at Stanford and drove down to the headquarters of the Global Freedom Foundation in Los Gatos. It was in a building that was modern in the mid-90s but needed a […]

Geneva

John Fraim John Fraim The Censorship Arms Race Internet censorship by authoritarian governments prohibits free and open access to information for millions of people around the world. Attempts to evade such censorship have turned into a continually escalating race to keep up with ever-changing, increasingly sophisticated internet censorship. Censoring regimes have had the advantage in […]

Oakapella

Oakstone Academy is Westerville, Ohio is the leading high school in central Ohio for the acceptance of children who are on the autism spectrum. This event was put on by LettuceWork a non-profit organization committed to finding work for autistic adults. I’m proud to have been a board member of LettuceWork for six years. _______________ […]

The Anxiety of Freedom

_________________________________________________ John Fraim  Freedom is a modern phenomenon with little presence in ancient periods of history. While many positive things are related to the idea of freedom, it has also brought about a modern phenomenon of isolation and loneliness never experienced before. The politics of freedom has been discussed by many, the inner psychology of […]