Cartoons Thursday, a Ceasefire and the Commander-in-Beer

Plus music from Dua Lipa, Wilco and Feist, and a new film about the Starbucks strikers.

Oct 09, 2025

Greg Mitchell has authored 14 books and directed four PBS films since 2022. His latest, “The Atomic Bowl: Football at Ground Zero—and Nuclear Peril Today” has been airing over PBS stations and now streaming for free (key links to watch now and more here). A companion book is available, and you can read more or order here. The New Yorker magazine has a piece about the PBS film, which you can read here. And subscribing to this newsletter is still somehow FREE.

Ceasefire announced.

Cartoon showing a girl with a scarf that has the colors of the flag of Palestine. She is standing with her arms extended as a white dove comes flying towards her. She is standing on the rubble of ruined building. The ruins form the shape of a giant skull and rib cage.

Kimmel last night. If you are wondering, Stephen has been off this week.

Happy to report that my award-winning PBS film “Memorial Day Massacre” from 2024 became available for free from Kanopy this week, all you need is a library membership. Explores the “police riot” in Chicago—no, not the one I witnessed at the Democratic National Convention in1968 but the 1937 tragedy when cops shot and killed 10 labor activists. The only footage of the murders, a Paramount newsreel, was then suppressed until an investigative reporter and Congress took action. Narrated by Josh Charles. Here is the link. Trailer:

Now, a new film about a current labor struggle back near where I grew up:

“Baristas vs. Billionaires” (75 min.) tracks the inside story of Starbucks workers’ four-year organizing drive to form a union in Buffalo, NY. It’s directed by Mark Mori, whose credits include Academy Award nominee “Building Bombs” and Emmy winning “Kent State.” Writer and producer Glenn Silber tells me, “What’s so inspiring is the campaign is being entirely run by young organizers, many if not most of whom didn’t know what a union was before they got involved. As one coffee shop manager/organizer in Memphis put it, ‘I would call it a Millennial and Gen Z uprising for the workplace.’”

The world premiere of Baristas is tomorrow at the Buffalo International Film Festival which selected it as their Opening Night “Spotlight” film. Buffalo was where the first Starbucks coffee shop was unionized, and where much of the action in the film takes place. Director Mori is a former steel worker and United Steelworkers of America member.