There was no correction in oil prices last week, but the rise did slow. Oil rose a half percent in dollars and fell slightly in euros. Some political maneuverings around the oil issue did uncover interesting indications about future events, though. Last week the U.S. Congress was successful in forcing Bush to stop adding oil to the Strategic Reserve. Why, in times of rapidly rising oil prices, with all the political pressure that entails, would Bush not want to ease prices by a moratorium on filling up the Strategic Oil Reserve? Could it be that he is expecting to need a lot of that oil if he or Israel is able to attack Iran, with all the supply disruptions that would result? It can't just be a desire to enrich the oil companies, they already have more money than they know what to do with. Then there was the embarrassing public rebuff that the Saudis gave Bush by refusing to increase oil production. Is that tied to their possible opposition to an attack on Iran?

In any event, the bubble in energy prices is cause for a sick feeling of fear in populations around the world. Now that it's clear that the financial powers that be intend to inflate their way out of the mess they're in, it will be the average person who will pay the price. Unlike the high-tech stock bubble of the 1990s or or the housing boom of this decade that benefited a fairly wide spectrum of the population, the commodities bubble we are seeing now is causing widespread pain.

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Ashraf Abu-elhaje, an actor (1996) in the theatre of Jenin refugee-camp. Ashraf leads a large group of fighters in the battle of Jenin 2002. Ashraf was killed by a rocket fired from a helicopter.

Last night I sat through the screening of a documentary called "Arna's Children". Arna was a Jewish woman, who moved to Jenin refugee camp in Palestine and there created a center for children. The screening was organized by the 'Palestine Solidarity Campaign' to mark the 60th Anniversary of Al-Nakba - the Palestinians "day of Catastrophe" when the state of Israel was illegally established on their land. The film is the work of Juliano Mer-Khamis, Arna's son and an actor. Through the creative arts and games, Arna tried to help the Palestinian children of the camp express their feelings of anger, frustration and helplessness as they see their houses demolished by Israeli tanks, their people murdered by Israeli soldiers.

Juliano created a theatre group as part of Arna's center for children which helped give a voice and meaning to the lives of Palestine's children. It also allowed them to dream of a better future. But living in Jenin camp, under the occupation and brutal oppression by the IDF, we follow their lives to see that they did not become actors, painters, teachers, doctors, whatever it was they dreamed of. Many grew up to become resistance fighters, two of them killed by the Israeli army during fights, one during a "suicide attack".

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The bridge of the USS Bon Homme Richard, January 1964. Just months later, the guy on the right would guide his ship into the Tonkin Gulf, and the young man on the left would begin a remarkable transformation into a brooding rock god. The Bon Homme Richard, by the way, was launched on April 29, 1944, under the sponsorship of Catherine McCain, the grandmother of a certain presidential contender.

Until around 1913, Laurel Canyon remained an undeveloped (and unincorporated) slice of LA - a pristine wilderness area rich in native flora and fauna. That all began to change when Charles Spencer Mann and his partners began buying up land along what would become Laurel Canyon Boulevard, as well as up Lookout Mountain. A narrow road leading up to the crest of Lookout Mountain was carved out, and upon that crest was constructed a lavish 70-room inn with sweeping views of the city below and the Pacific Ocean beyond. The Lookout Inn featured a large ballroom, riding stables, tennis courts and a golf course, among other amenities. But the inn, alas, would only stand for a decade; in 1923, it burned down, as tends to happen rather frequently in Laurel Canyon.

Every day I take a little stroll through the internet to see if the world has woken up yet. Every day I see that it's the same world bent out of shape into the contortion of the moment. It reminds me of a man trying to escape back pain by adopting some posture that would be sure to make his back hurt if it didn't hurt already.

For some the sleep is dreamless and they lay motionless. For many others it is a restless dream that involves twisting and shifting and flailing about, hitting the bodies of other sleepers, all of them caught up in the total subjectivity of their own being. Millions of dreams bouncing off of each other like a runaway pinball machine attended by flashing lights and sound effects with a robot voice over the top announcing the ever changing circumstances that, though they possess an infinite variety of possibilities, are forever confined to the table until they go down through the bottom chute. There's one way in and one way out and only the one table. No one knows what goes on during the time when the ball is off the table. The ball never says anything about it. It just comes back and starts bouncing off of the bumpers, shooting through the gates and sliding in the aisles.