Moms for Liberty removes two Northern Kentucky chapter leaders who posed with far-right Proud Boys – WCPO 9 Cincinnati

NEW YORK Moms for Liberty says it has removed two Kentucky chapter chairs from leadership positions after the women posed in photos with members of the far-right group the Proud Boys, one of several controversies that the conservative parental rights nonprofit has fended off in its rise to national prominence in public education.

The two women, who had led chapters in Boone and Campbell counties, appeared in photos with several men dressed in yellow and black Proud Boys clothing at a Nov. 4 rally in Frankfort, the Kentucky capital. The photos, posted on Facebook by another attendee, show the women smiling in Moms for Liberty clothing, as one helps to hold up a flag that reads, Appalachian Proud Boys Kentucky.

The former chapter chairs were removed because they demonstrated a lack of judgment and misalignment with our core values, the national Moms for Liberty organization posted Tuesday on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Moms for Liberty is in no way affiliated with the Proud Boys and does not condone involvement with the organization. We repudiate hate and violence, the group continued, adding that it wouldn't allow the actions of a few to define the rest of its members.

Since its founding in 2021, Moms for Liberty has gained popularity and generated forceful backlash for its efforts to elect right-wing school board candidates and to target references to race and LGBTQ+ identity in classrooms around the United States.

The group is no stranger to controversy. Earlier this year, an Indiana chapter of the group apologized and condemned Adolf Hitler after it was criticized for using a quote attributed to the Nazi leader in its inaugural newsletter.

In June, the Southern Poverty Law Center designated Moms for Liberty as an anti-government extremist group, arguing it uses parents rights as a vehicle to attack public education and make schools less welcoming for minority and LGBTQ+ students. Moms for Liberty has disputed the label, saying the groups efforts to fund and endorse school board races show it is not anti-government.

Voters opted for liberal and moderate candidates over conservative contenders in many high-profile school board races on Election Day last week. Moms for Liberty said about 40% of its endorsed candidates won.

The SPLC describes the Proud Boys as a hate group for its promotion of white nationalist ideas, involvement in violence and the role that some of its members played in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

About 60 Proud Boys members have been charged with federal crimes related to the assault, which was intended to halt the certification of Democrat Joe Biden's victory over Republican President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

More than half of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials in Washington In May, a jury convicted former Proud Boys national leader Enrique Tarrio and three lieutenants of seditious conspiracy charges for what prosecutors said was a plot to keep Trump in the White House after his defeat. Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years behind bars, the longest prison term for a Jan. 6 case.

In the photos posted on Facebook, the former Boone County Moms for Liberty chair joins several others flashing the OK sign with their hands. The Anti-Defamation League says that sign is sometimes used to symbolize white supremacist beliefs or the Three Percenter movement, a wing of the anti-government extremist militia movement.

Moms for Liberty said it would follow our current policies and procedures in selecting new chapter leaders. It did not respond to an inquiry about whether the two former leaders would be removed from the organization or allowed to stay on as rank-and-file members. Their names and contact information were removed from chapter webpages.

The former Campbell County chair declined comment in a phone call with The Associated Press, and the former Boone County chair didn't respond to an emailed query. ___

Associated Press writer Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring, Maryland, contributed to this report.

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Moms for Liberty removes two Northern Kentucky chapter leaders who posed with far-right Proud Boys - WCPO 9 Cincinnati

More Bad News for the Proud Boys: The Hotel Harrington Is Closing – Washingtonian

Hotel Harrington, DCs oldest continuously operating hotel, is closing. The downtown budget hotelwhich gained notoriety in recent years for its far-right clientelewill end its 109-year run on Dec. 12, as writer Steve Kiviat first reported.

Hotelier Harrington Mills and his business partner Charles McCutchen opened Washingtons Tourist Hotel in 1914 and expanded the original six-story property over the years to include two 12-story annexes. It became DCs first air-conditioned hotel in 1938, according to the Washington Post, and was home to a popular nightlife destination called the Pink Elephant Cocktail Lounge in the years following Prohibition. The hotel also hosted citys first TV station and transmission tower. (The Milt Grant Show, a teen rock-and-roll dance party program, aired live from the hotel in the 1950s.)

The property remained in the hands of the same family for its entire history. Longtime managing director Ann Terry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But in 2020, she told Washingtonian that owner Charles McCutchena nuclear physicist and grandson of the co-founderhad recently died, and a succession plan was being sorted out.

The hotel was an unassuming destination for foreign travelers and school groups in recent yearsuntil Donald Trump became president. The hotels dive-y drinking outpost, Harrys Bar, soon became a go-to gathering place for the MAGA crowd. The watering hole was popular for its proximity to the Trump hotel (now a Waldorf Astoria), but with more affordable drinks. For us, its more of an after-hours place. After the Trump closes, well typically end up there if were going to have a late night. Youll see familiar faces: other people who do Fox, some congressmen, but its not as common as at the Trump, Republican political consultant and commentator Harlan Hill toldWashingtonian in 2020.

Trump supporters packed Harrys Bar during the Million MAGA March in November 2020, singing God Bless the USA and waving a big blue lives matter flag in the street out front. Almost none of them were wearing masks despite the citys mask mandate at bars and restaurants at the time. A month prior, Trump himself had retweeted a video showing maskless supporters in the bar cheering and fist-bumping police. They city ultimately fined the bar $2,000 for its repeated Covid safety violations.

When the Proud Boys came to town in December 2020 to protest the election results, several hundred booked rooms at Hotel Harrington, making it their unofficial headquarters, the Washington Postreported. Clashes between the far-right group and anti-Trump protestors erupted near the hotel, resulting in four stabbings with serious injuries.

Harrys Bar will close alongside Hotel Harrington, Fox 5 DC reports. The fate of the hotels other restaurant, Ollies Trolley, was not immediately known.

Managing director Ann Terry tried to distance the hotel from the political controversy swirling around it at the time. Asked about the impact of the Trump crowd on the hotels reputation in 2020, she said, its not something we can control, really.

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Food Editor

Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind D.C.s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.

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More Bad News for the Proud Boys: The Hotel Harrington Is Closing - Washingtonian

This course uses science fiction to understand politics – The Edwardsville Intelligencer

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

(THE CONVERSATION) Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

Title of course:

Politics and Science Fiction

What prompted the idea for the course?

While watching Andor a science fiction TV series that is part of the Star Wars galaxy of films, books and TV shows I realized that what fascinates me most about science fiction is the political aspect, especially regarding power.

I decided to create an upper-level political science course that explores politics and government through the lens of science fiction, with a focus on literature.

What does the course explore?

We explore issues of racism, gender, anarchy and the end of civilization. I chose books that encourage students to focus on the political aspects of each work. At the beginning of the course, I ask students how closely they connect science fiction and politics. At the end of the course, students have the opportunity to revisit and revise their response to that question. By that point, students have participated in discussions, written papers and completed short assignments that ask them to explore and articulate political themes in each book.

I find that students in this course begin to take science fiction more seriously as a political genre, and those who come into the class as new readers of science fiction learn to appreciate its many subgenres and perspectives.

Why is this course relevant now?

As numerous state legislatures seek to restrict what can be taught regarding many issues, including race, its important to understand the power structures behind racism. Science fiction is an ideal way to explore issues of power and oppression.

Derrick Bell, the author of The Space Traders, is one of the originators of critical race theory, which holds that racism has been codified in American law and society. Bells story blends science fiction and politics to illustrate how politicians could use the Constitution and the law to extend racist policies to an extreme degree, all for the benefit of white Americans.

Whats a critical lesson from the course?

In one of the writing assignments I ask students to compare the political themes of Ursula K. Le Guins The Dispossessed including utopia, anarchy, gender and power to another work of science fiction that they enjoy. The goal is to help them make connections to political perspectives in other science fiction works and to get them to reexamine a piece of science fiction theyre already familiar with.

This semester, students made comparisons to political themes in multiple science fiction formats and subgenres including Star Wars, The Last of Us and The Hunger Games.

What materials does the course feature?

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Ursula K. Le Guins The Dispossessed, a novel that closely examines anarchy, utopia and gender relations.

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Stanislaw Lems The Futurological Congress, a novel about a future in which the government uses hallucinogenic drugs to create the illusion of utopia.

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Naomi Aldermans The Power, a novel that imagines a world in which women gain physical and political power.

What will the course prepare students to do?

This course is designed to expose students to themes in science fiction that will expand their understanding of politics and power. I ask students to explore and articulate the explicitly political aspects of science fiction. My goal is for students to leave the class with a new perspective on politics and government that will make politics more interesting to them and inform how they engage with works of science fiction, whether as books, movies or some other format.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/this-course-uses-science-fiction-to-understand-politics-201074.

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This course uses science fiction to understand politics - The Edwardsville Intelligencer

Work Utopia: Gaming Jobs On The Canary Islands – EarlyGame

They Canary Islands do not only offer some of the most beautiful places in nature and a relaxed, balanced way of life. No: They have also become a hub for Gaming- & Animation-companies and their young, talented employees.

When we as gamers are asked whether we'd rather work or play, the answer is usually pretty clear. We'd rather start the next round of Fortnite, play FIFA with our (inferior) homies, or hit the next highlight play on our main.

The only problem is that we also want new skins, new games, hardware, and sometimes even things like food and a roof over our heads. Money has to come from somewhere and if we don't want to live with our mom in the attic, we need a job.

At some point we all asked ourselves: Where do I want to work? Where can I not only earn a decent buck, but also actually enjoy the job? Work-life balance? Nice people? Topics that are actually interesting to me? Do these even exist?

Well, you are on EarlyGame. In this respect, the topic of gaming should already fit.

If I now tell you that there are jobs for you in gaming studios where you can earn good money, live your creative life, work together with like-minded people in a team including the best work-life balance in the world - and all that in perfect weather - that probably sounds like utopia to you.

Spoiler: It's not. These jobs are reality - on the Canary Islands. But let's start from the beginning.

Maybe you have heard of Riots Arcane? Of Disney? Of James Bond? These titles have one thing in common: they are produced in the Canary Islands. Many global top studios, production companies and countless smaller publishers are based on Tenerife or Gran Canaria. Loads of the biggest current series, films and games have Canarian DNA.

But why have these islands off the west coast of Africa recently transformed themselves into a stronghold for the media industry, akin to a more relaxed (and better tempered) Silicon Valley?

That's thanks to a group of people who have been working for some time to bring the world's most exciting companies to the Canary Islands. Pablo Hernndez and his team at Canarias ZEC have been tasked by the Spanish government with turning the islands into a center for modern entertainment and media. Companies are drawn here due to a multitude of reasons:

The infrastructure on the Canary Islands is miles ahead of that on mainland Europe, in many respects. Thanks to direct access to transatlantic fiber-optic links, the internet connections on the islands are faster than would ever be possible for the rest of Europe. This is of course enormously attractive, especially for companies that communicate and work online on a global scale.

On top of that, the Spanish government rewards companies that are set up on the Canary Islands with extraordinary tax incentives. More than 50% are paid back, which allows the companies benefiting from this to invest the extra money not only in innovation and growth, but above all in young talent.

And this is where you come in: fast-growing companies in the gaming industry are looking for employees from all over the world to strengthen their teams in the Canary Islands. Animation, programming, marketing, all kinds of design, project management, testing, and pretty much any other job you can imagine in the industry are on offer.

"Companies are especially looking for young people with ambitions in the gaming world," says Luis Torres, who leads the young and immensely successful team at Drakhar Studios. The studio has been in Tenerife for 4 years.

They haven't regretted the move from Madrid, their founding city, for a second: "The tax benefits allow Drakhar to not only keep up with older and larger competitors, but in most cases outperform them. This allows us to grow quickly with a creative, young team and land exciting new projects. We cover a wide range of games from Hotel Transylvania to horror games for an older target group - so there is something for all gaming lovers and everyone on the team can work on projects that suit them," says Luis, adding that for him personally, of course, the great quality of life is also a decisive factor. The whole team simply feels comfortable, like one big, constantly growing family with the common interest of gaming.

But game developers like Drakhar Studios, No Brakes Games or Rising Pixels are not the only ones to be found in the Canary Islands. We spoke earlier about Arcane: Fortiche, the studio producing for Riot, moved to Gran Canaria from mainland Europe a few years ago.

Remy Terreaux, animation supervisor for the worldwide mega-hit, was originally one of the reasons why the animation company was drawn to the Canary Islands. Very quickly, however, it became apparent that the huge tax incentive, infrastructure and relaxed, warm atmosphere quickly landed a team of the best talent in the entire animation industry on the Canary Islands.

"It's like working with friends, you get along blindly. Everyone is here because they want to create something great together. I came here for my own family, and have now found a second one working on Arcane," says Remy, who is currently leading the Arcane: Season 2 project. On that topic: Fortiche is still looking for new talents for this project, too, who bring experience and know-how from the scene, Remy emphasizes with a wink.

So if you've always wanted to work in gaming, get creative with other young gamers every day on the most exciting projects in the scene, and live on absolutely dreamy islands:

You know where to go.

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Work Utopia: Gaming Jobs On The Canary Islands - EarlyGame

Royce Da 5’9" Takes Fans To Heaven In New "Signs (Freestyle … – HipHopDX

Royce Da 59 is taking fans on a journey through his musical afterlife in his new video Signs (Freestyle) off his forthcoming EP check it out below.

The DetroitMC shared the dynamic video on Tuesday (March 28). In the stunning visual, he gives a full performance for his virtual fans in a Heaven Studios utopia comprised of metaverse statues, vegetation, and building structures on floating platforms.

Produced By. S.T.R.E.E.T.R.U.N.N.E.R, Royce moves through each verse with high energy while letting fans know that hes only focused on ascending to become the highest version of himself.

I aint slowin up/ New money, new money/ Old friends get the fuck on/ You a real n-gga and you fuck wit me, this is our song/ Ryan goin up, the rapper emphatically sings on the track.

Check out the video below:

Royces new single is one of the six tracks that will be available on his new EP, The Heaven Experience: Lost Sessions on Friday (March 31). Nickel Nine announced the album date in early March along with an innovative virtual experience for fans to enjoy.

The EP will be available across all streaming platforms through Heaven Studios Inc. in partnership with The Orchard and Passage, which is a Metaverse-based company. Fans can participate by buying the Heaven Experience Pass on April 4, according to a recent press release.

related news

March 17, 2023

The pass will offer exclusive opportunities to connect with Royce Da 59 throughout the year.

I have been searching for a better way to connect with my community for a while, but existing platforms havent lived up to my expectations, the Grammy-nominated rapper said in a recent statement. Passage delivers on all fronts.

The Heaven Experience passholders will benefit from connecting directly to Royce and his team, real-time engagement with the community and artists, and access to exclusive songs, performances, interviews, VIP events, meetups, apparel and more, the release said.

The full tracklist for The Heaven Experience: Lost Sessionsis as follows:

1. Signs (Freestyle) (Produced By. S.T.R.E.E.T.R.U.N.N.E.R)

2. Out The Barrell (Produced By. DJ Pain One)

3. Look At This (Uncle Joe) (Produced By. JUSTICE League)

4. Grown Ass Man (Produced By. DJ Pain One)

5. Royce & Reggie (Produced By. DJ Pain One)

6. Ion Wanna feat. Courtney Bell (Produced By. DJ Pain One)

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Royce Da 5'9" Takes Fans To Heaven In New "Signs (Freestyle ... - HipHopDX

Is this the new White Lotus? Inside Tatler’s tour of Thailand’s most … – Tatler

Such style and taste: more than 30 years on, the mothership of Aman still retains a sense of quiet, solid luxury. The open-sided, airy architecture and cascading, tiered slate pool designed by architect Ed Tuttle remains much imitated but never matched. At its core is the spa, an elegant temple to wellness, combining fitness, mindfulness and bodywork, where the yoga and Thai massages are exceptional. Here, you are kneaded and stretched by therapists using their whole bodies youll be astonished at some of the contortions your body accepts. Youll return home feeling bulletproof.

Book via Healing Holidays (healingholidays.com)

Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok

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The grandest oasis in the city and still the most stylish place to get over jet lag, where you can take the hotels boat for a cruise along the Chao Phraya River to watch daybreak over the Grand Palace. The food is phenomenal, whether youre savouring caviar and mashed potato at Le Normandie, or Thai classics from superstar chef Pom at the riverside Terrace Rim Naam restaurant dont miss her blue swimmer crab curry with wild betel leaves. The sensory feast continues at the spa, set in a traditional Thai wooden house in a garden that resembles a bougainvillea forest. Try the Tok Sen treatment: a synchronised sequence of tapping using wooden hammers, which helps clear blocked emotional energy.

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Is this the new White Lotus? Inside Tatler's tour of Thailand's most ... - Tatler

Remedios: Where new land might grow – Announcements – E-Flux

+ + + We abrade + + unbraid + +repeat ourselves + as crystal lattice + + +We make soil + +then mud + where we laid+ + alchemy + of our wet skinz + and gravity + +an origin + + where new land might grow + + +Natalie Diaz

Curated by Daniela Zyman.

Remedios: Where new land might growis a multi-perspectival exploration of practices of healing, repair, reparation, remediation, and restitution in the TBA21 Collection. Featuring contributions from over forty artistsincluding Amazonian, Pacific, indigenous American, African-diasporic, and European perspectivesRemediosinvites its public to engage with works of art for solace, respite, and replenishment while responding to the growing desire to change the contemporary world. Contributing tools, ideas, and artistic interrogations dedicated to the (re-)generative capacities of repair, the exhibition becomes a space of encounter providing a pedagogy of learning to live with brokenness and vulnerability in troubling times.

For some artists, healing begins with ceremonial practices; the purification of the spirit; the cadences of the body; or the curative articulations of language, sacred shapes, materials, and symbols. Other artists direct their care to the land, the environment, and the collective intelligence of their respective communities. Still others attend to the reparation of scars and traumas resulting from past injuries and present anxieties. Through all these different registers, repair is work and labor, performed and actualized in the here and now, not an abstract utopia.

Contributions to the exhibition consists of works such as a large assembly and ritual tent, a kupixawa, by the Amerindian Huni Kuin in collaboration with Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto; a mothership dreamcatcher by the indigenous American artist Brad Kahlhamer; and a filmic installation by Courtney Desiree Morris, which awakens the caminos of the African diasporic Orisha (deity) Yemaya, rooted in Santera, an Afro-Caribbean religion brought to the Americas by enslaved Africans. These works lay out a critical trajectory connecting the wisdom of ancestors to the present time. They are a curative and a source of strength and replenishment in the face of collective anxiety triggered by the profound transformation of ecological, political, and economic relations.

For the French-Algerian artist Kader Attia showing the wounds and repairing them with visible staples is both a testimony to their existence and a gesture toward completing the unfinished, and often denied, work of healing. While the wounds may have been inflicted in the past, the past lives in the same wounds that remain open in the present, as Sara Ahmed writes. Against the longstanding indifference of states and institutions, healing and restitution require more than remedying losses. Healing is multi-temporal and multi-dimensional. Addressing the historical and ongoing oppression and violence enacted by the colonial world order also means devoting vast resources to communities that demand reparations. It suggests a way of working with the plurality of experiences and worldviews that simultaneously challenge, construct, and open spaces of resistance, survival, and flourishing.

In Remedios,the empowering work of repair and healing is seen as an intervention and a methodology deployed to counter the worlds destruction of life and the perpetual forces of extraction and denial. The exhibition follows the invaluable intuition and guidance of artists, embracing the anticipatory illumination of art to promote curative labor, personal healing, and social transformation. It moves us to act collectively, to feel the imperative to do so, and to strive for, following Akimel Ootham and Mojave poet Natalie Diaz, an origin + + where new land might grow + + +.

Remediospresents works from the TBA21 Collection, including artists Marina Abramovi, Kader Attia, Cecilia Bengolea, Gabriel Chaile, Jos Covo, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Natalie Diaz, Olafur Eliasson, Noa Eshkol, Guo Fengyi, Newell Harry, Brad Kahlhamer, Sharon Lockhart, Thiago Martins de Melo, Asuncin Molinos Gordo, Courtney Desiree Morris, Eduardo Navarro, Shirin Neshat, Ernesto Neto and the Huni Kuin, Xiomara de Oliver, Daniel Otero Torres, Mnica Planes, PLATA with Vctor Barrios, Nohem Prez, Beln Rodrguez, Sandra Vsquez de la Horra, Klaus Weber, and Francesca Woodman, amongst others.

Opening program

Friday, April 157pmRemedios: Where new land might growOpening8pm+ + DREAM BONES + + BOWERY NATION + +Musical and poetic performance byBrad Kahlhamer with David Caro Torralba and Patricia Rezai

Saturday, April 1512pmMeet the ArtistsWith Courtney Desiree Morris, Brad Kahlhamer, Newell Harry, Mnica Planes, PLATA, and Sandra Vsquez de la Horra, moderated by Daniela Zyman5pmBendicinA ritual performance offeringProcessionby Courtney Desiree Morris with Martin Perna, Helena Martos, Antonio L. Pedraza and Coro Brouwer

About TBA21TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary is a leading international art and advocacy foundation created in 2002 by the philanthropist and collector Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza, representing the fourth generation of the Thyssen familys commitment to the arts and public service. TBA21based in Madrid, with situated projects in Venice and Crdobastewards the TBA21 Collection and its outreach activities, which include exhibitions, educational offers, and public programming. TBA21Academy is the foundations research center, fostering a deeper relationship to the Ocean and other bodies of water by working as an incubator for collaborative inquiry, artistic production, and environmental advocacy. For more than a decade, the Academy has catalyzed new forms of knowledge emerging from the exchanges between art, science, policy, and conservation in long-term and collaborative engagement through fellowships and residency programs. All activity at TBA21 is fundamentally driven by artists and the belief in art and culture as a carrier of social and environmental transformation.

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Gorizia-Nova Gorica: the concrete and revolutionary utopia of EGTC … – Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso

Transalpina Square in Gorizia, plaque marking the border line and commemorating Slovenia's entry into the EU- REDMASON/Shutterstock

EGTC GO is a European group of territorial cooperation: a tool shared between municipalities to experience territories, overcoming and transforming borders

Going from institutional protocols to concrete synergies, from political agreements to daily collaboration in an area where one rarely distinguishes between a "here" and a "there" of the Italian-Slovenian border: this is the evolution of cross-border cooperation for EGTC, European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation. For Tomaz Konrad, deputy director of EGTC, and for Tanja Curto, legal expert, the territory is unique, straddling the border and linguistic, cultural, and administrative diversities. We met with them to understand if this has always been the case and where new developments could lead.

"Along the border we have always collaborated, initially at a political-administrative level, through memoranda of understanding and discussion boards. We then took over with the intention of translating everything from a political level to a more technical sphere: an actual delegation to an "other" entity, which was an expression of everyone, of both nationalities, of all three municipalities, Gorizia, Nova Gorica, and Sempeter-Vrtojba. Before there was no cross-border entity: each municipality did its part, but without external coordination I remember the initial difficulties, with the first draft of the statute of the EGTC in October 2008, which was discussed, amended, and then approved in 2011, and with the appointment as president of Franco Frattini, then an MP elected in Friuli", introduces Tanja Curto.

Where did the push to create a "third party" body come from, which is usually considered a bureaucratic burden?

Tomaz Konrad: Without a doubt, from the bottom up, from the citizens, from the municipalities, from the people who then understood its strategic value. Previously, each partner had internal experts who collaborated on individual projects, so there was no real interaction. Now, however, working together is daily routine. We as EGTCs have a single administration made up of people who come from both sides of the border, we speak daily with people from all three municipalities, and this produces new ideas, new projects. Hence our vision of the area as a unicum: for us it is "the territory". And if before the mayors met two or three times a year, now they speak also three times a day. But obviously it would not have been possible without the regulatory basis that arrived with the European regulation of2006which established the cross-border territorial collaboration groups.

EGTC GO

The EGTC GO is an Italian public body with legal personality, founded in 2011 by the municipalities of Gorizia, NovaGorica, and Sempeter-Vrtojba to identify and address common challenges that can make the cross-border territory more competitive and attractive. The EGTC GO has jurisdiction over the territory of the three cities: it can go beyond the borders and face, for the first time, the challenges of a cooperation that plans and implements together, no longer thinking of three separate municipalities, but of one cross-border city, with no more divisions.

How was and how is the reception in the media? Do people speak with distrust of the EGTC, perhaps in Slovenia as Italian initiatives, and in Italy as Slovenian ideas?

Tanja Curto: No, it has never happened. If anything, there is some difficulty in getting all aspects of our work understood, which is very technical and which moves between different levels of legislation and regulations, from the European to the local one. However, our technicians have been able to transform cross-border cooperation into something practical, concrete at a territorial level, and we are slowly able to tell it, now that the project ideas are taking shape.

Tomaz Konrad: For us, there are no linguistic or national distinctions, we have never counted how many of our 11 employees are Slovenian and how many Italian these are not staff from the three municipalities, but staff from the EGTC. Of course, we take into account the interests of the various municipalities, but for us the primary interest is the interest of all three, not the sum but the synergy, which as always goes beyond the sum of the three. And the press also respects this vision, the newspapers write that these are works by the EGTC, not by the Italians or Slovenians.

Tanja Curto: However, quotas exist for the EGTC assembly, where the 14 members are half Italian and half Slovenian, and the Slovenian ones are the expression of the two municipalities (Nova Gorica and Sempeter-Vrtojba) on a demographic basis. The technical committees are instead made of people proposed by the municipalities, but not necessarily on a national or linguistic basis, competence is worth more. Let's say it's a fifty-fifty (50-50) shuffle. It's not mine or yours, it's ours, period.

Gorizia-Nova Gorica - bepsy/Shutterstock

Among the concrete things you have implemented, the Healthcare projectfor the integration of some healthcare services, the Isonzo-Soca cross-border park for cycle mobility, and support for Gorizia European Capital of Culture 2025. How is the response from the territory?

Tanja Curto: Involvement is always very high, also because our goals each time arise from established needs. Just look at the large participation we are seeing in the tenders for the "Smallprojectsfu nd", the fund for small projects in support of Gorizia 2025: we want to create a cultural, logistical, and economic substrate that can continue over time. And here there is a lot of desire to do. We filled the theatres during the info-days and are now collecting applications to distribute the first 3 million Euros by rewarding small initiatives between 30,000 and 200,000 Euros. In this case, the territory we are addressing is wider and includes five regions in Slovenia, all of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and the province of Venice.

When you talk about the territory, we understand how the frontier is truly invisible to you...

Tanja Curto: With Slovenia's entry into the Euro area, every barrier dissolved, and there was no longer any tangible sign of the border, except in the memory of people and those who had lived through more complicated times. But young people no longer say "I'm going there", if anything I go to that particular place, I go to that certain shop: they say the name of the place, not "in Italy" or "in Slovenia".

Tomaz Konrad: The proof of how connected cities are was during the pandemic. When Slovenia brutally closed its border overnight, there was a general uprising both here and there. All the ties consolidated over the last twenty years, exchanges, contacts, and so on, were broken: parents who take their children to school on the other side, or for sports activities, and families who live a little here a little there. Here, with that closure we understood how much we had forgotten about the border. On the other hand, unfortunately we also noticed how everything good that had been done over so many years could be erased with such obtuse policies, in a flash. Thankfully that did not happen, but we came close.

If you had to explain your work with a concrete example, which project would you choose?

Tanja Curto: Our technical role collides with the bureaucratic difficulties complicated by the regulatory stratification of institutions and states, therefore even a small work is a great work for us. I'm thinking of the cycle-pedestrian footbridge over the river: an infrastructure in Slovenia, created by applying the Slovenian contract code, but created by us who are an Italian public law body. A small example, but significant for us.

Tomaz Konrad: I think of what we have achieved withbikesharing in the city: you can pick up a bike in the Slovenian part and return it in the Italian part, a single card, a single tariff, all bypassing the complications that would have arisen having two managements different and separate nationalities. For me, this represents what we could achieve for other services by applying real cross-border cooperation: my dream is to be able to achieve joint cross-border public services, with a single manager covering the territory, on both sides of the border.

Il Gect GO

The EGTC GO is an Italian public body with legal personality, founded in 2011 by the municipalities of Gorizia, NovaGorica, and Sempeter-Vrtojba to identify and address common challenges that can make the cross-border territory more competitive and attractive. The EGTC GO has jurisdiction over the territory of the three cities: it can go beyond the borders and face, for the first time, the challenges of a cooperation that plans and implements together, no longer thinking of three separate municipalities, but of one cross-border city, with no more divisions.

This content is published in the context of the "Work4Future" project co-financed by the European Union (EU). The EU is in no way responsible for the information or views expressed within the framework of the project. The responsibility for the contents lies solely with OBC Transeuropa. Go to the "Work4Future"

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Gorizia-Nova Gorica: the concrete and revolutionary utopia of EGTC ... - Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso

Indianapolis Colts Owner Jim Irsay Ponies Up to Free Lolita the Orca … – Miami New Times

Update published 1:50 p.m. 3/30/2023: On March 30, the Miami Seaquarium announced that it had entered into a contract with the nonprofit group Friends of Lolita, AKA Friends of Toki, to transport Lolita the orca to an ocean sanctuary.

Owing partly to a contribution from Colts owner Jim Irsay, the group says it hopes to relocate Lolita within the next 18 to 24 months.

The original story follows below.

Is it actually happening? Is Lolita the orca finally going home to the Pacific Northwest after more than 50 years in captivity at Miami Seaquarium?

In an announcement of a "historic initiative" to "return our beloved Lolita from Miami Seaquarium to her home water," the marine park and nonprofit Friends of Toki claim a move is in the works, hinting at a partnership with Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay.

Irsay might be the angel investor to swoop in and bankroll the multimillion-dollar project, which would involve transporting Lolita, AKA Tokitae or Toki, to a sanctuary in her native waters in the Salish Sea.

The Colts owner and CEO is listed as a special guest at a March 30 press conference at the Intercontinental Hotel in Miami, during which the plan's details are expected to be announced. Irsay teased his involvement with the project in January, tweeting: "We're gonna try to save Lolita the Whale but I'm gonna need help and ocean blessings. Lots of red tape and hurdles. More info to come on this rescue effort. No guarantees."

The initiative comes on the heels of the March 9 death of 47-year-old Kiska, Canada's last captive orca, whose fatal bacterial infection grabbed global headlines and served as a reminder of how fragile older, captive orcas' health can be.

For years there had been plans to create a seaside sanctuary where Lolita could live out the rest of her life but amid staunch opposition to such a move from the Seaquarium's previous owners, those plans were, well, just plans.

Much has changed, however, in the past year and a half.

Lolita, who is in her mid-to-late 50s and nearing the end of typical orca life expectancy, was removed from public exhibition in March 2022 while ill with an infection that nearly killed her. She was no longer the star of the Miami Seaquarium, no longer generating revenue for the park, yet still racking up hefty medical bills.

In December 2022, Miami Seaquarium's new owner, Eduardo Albor, revealed that he'd be open to moving the famed orca from her tank to the Salish Sea off the coast of Washington state. Albor's proclamation about being "100 percent" committed to efforts to release Lolita set the animal-rights world abuzz, but, at the time, it was a cross-country trip without a set destination.

Meanwhile, Irsay's office contacted New Times after reading our story about the Seaquarium's change of heart and said the Colts' owner was interested in helping to free the orca.

A partnership apparently has since materialized between Irsay, Friends of Toki, and Albor.

Details are scant, but Irsay certainly appears able to provide substantial financial backing to develop and maintain a sea pen or other type of sanctuary. If she's moved to her native waters on the west coast, Lolita's new custodians may include indigenous Salish people, the Lummi Tribe, who view her and other orcas as sacred beings. The group has strongly advocatedfor Lolita's release from the marine park.

The project is expected to cost at least $15 million, according to Lummi Tribe media relations.

Irsay's office declined to offer further details and said more information would be released at the March 30 event.

Phil Demers, who got to know Kiska while working at the marine park Marineland in Canada for 12 years, says observers should temper their expectations. He says that a whale sanctuary was supposed to have been built for Kiska in Nova Scotia as far back as 2019, but the project was not completed before her death, on account of environmental concerns with the proposed site, logistical hurdles, and what Demers deems to have been unrealistic planning.

"I see a timely PR statement," Demers says of the recent announcement about Lolita, AKA Toki. "They see Kiska has died. They see more eyes on Toki and criticism growing."

During a flyover in December 2022 above the Miami Seaquarium, the animal-rights activist says, he saw Lolita's tank filled with green algae and other muck while the dolphin tanks appeared pristine. It reminded him of maintenance issues in Kiska's tank and convinced him that keeping Lolita at the Miami park while waiting for a faraway whale sanctuary to be built would put her health in peril.

"I'm seeing Toki in the same condition Kiska was in, and I'm seeing the exact-same messages being repeated," says Demers. "We can't continue to wait for a whale utopia to be built and wait for optimal conditions for her to enter this utopia... The longer we wait for perfection, the likelier it becomes that she is going to die."

He's advocating for the whale to be removed immediately to another, larger-scale marine park that, in his view, may be better equipped to care for her.

Veterinarian Jim McBain, whom Friends of Toki enlisted, said in December that water quality was getting better in the Seaquarium orca tank thanks to changes in the filter media and attempts to modernize the water recirculation system, which he conceded was outdated.

The Seaquarium tells New Times that there has been "significant improvement to the water quality" since the Dolphin Co., Albor's company, bought the Seaquarium in 2021. The company owns more than 30 marine-themed amusement parks and dolphin enclosures worldwide.

Lolita the Orca has been confined to Miami Seaquarium for more than five decades.

"These things will take time," says Michael Mountain, cofounder of the group.

As for Kiska's release, his group says that negotiations with Marineland had been stymied for an extended period after the park was criminally charged in Canada for alleged mistreatment of animals. (The charges were later dropped.) Mountain maintains that the COVID-19 pandemic also interfered with plans for Kiska's transport.

Charles Vinick, who serves on the Whale Sanctuary Project board and is the executive director of Friends of Toki, previously worked on the effort to move the captive orca Keiko back into the wild in the late 1990s. Keiko had starred in the 1993 movie Free Willy before a campaign mounted to free him from captivity. He was released into Icelandic waters in 2002 but died of pneumonia the following year at the estimated age of 27.

Plans for Lolita have not contemplated a full release to the wild but rather a transport to a monitored sanctuary.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) issued a statement saying that moving Lolita out of Miami Seaquarium would bring "long-awaited relief after five miserable decades in a cramped tank," which federal inspectors previously determined does not meet minimum size requirements.

"If Lolita is finally returned to her home waters, there will be cheers from around the world, including from PETA, which has pursued several lawsuits on Lolita's behalf and battered the Seaquarium with protests demanding her freedom for years," said PETA vice president and general counsel Jared Goodman.

Before she makes a trip back home, Lolita will likely undergo transport training that dolphin experts have long said would be a key part of preparing for the daunting move. Dolphin trainers interviewed by New Times over the years noted that it would be helpful if some of her Seaquarium trainers, with whom she's formed strong relationships, accompanied her en route. They are the best bets in making her feel safe throughout the trip.

A veterinary report released in February by McBain indicated that Lolita's health was improving from the infection.

"It's too early to get excited," reads the February 28 report. "However, there is reason to allow some optimism to enter the discussion."

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Indianapolis Colts Owner Jim Irsay Ponies Up to Free Lolita the Orca ... - Miami New Times

Poland bets on new economic community with Romania, Ukraine – EURACTIV

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki laid out his hopes to build a new economic community in Central and Eastern Europe with the participation of Romania and Ukraine on Tuesday in Bucharest, where he also criticised powerful Western countries for undermining the region for many years.

At the Polish-Romanian intergovernmental consultations in Bucharest, Morawiecki stressed cooperation between Poland and Romania is key to making the regions voice better heard.

We cannot look at the European Union as those who must be listened to and must always have the best solutions transported in a suitcase to Bucharest or Warsaw, he said, quoted by TVP public broadcaster.

In his speech, Morawiecki also praised his Romanian counterpart and the countrys president for pursuing a policy that aims for cohesion, synergy and efficiency between both countries.

According to Polands prime minister, countries in the region were used by stronger countries in the West and the East, noting that when the area first transitioned towards capitalism after the fall of Communism, the West was making use of us for its own goals.

Last week Morawiecki also laid out his vision for the future of Europe in a speech at Heidelberg University, Germany, highlighting the role of sovereign nation-states against a European federation.

Nothing will safeguard the freedom of nations, their culture, their social, economic, political and military security better than nation states, Morawiecki said, adding that other systems are illusory or utopia, warning of a further federalisation of the EU.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki laid out his vision for the future of Europe in a speech at Heidelberg University, Germany, highlighting the role of sovereign nation-states against a European federation.

The conservative Polish government has been on the frontline in

Morawiecki also suggested Poland and Romania should develop cooperation in a triangle with Ukraine, which would help to enhance investments and military strategic plans for the future and allow the creation of a new economic community in the region of Central and Eastern Europe.

For Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuc, 2022 was fruitful for the Polish-Romanian business community as trade between the countries amounted to 11 billion which represents an increase of 20% compared to 2021.

The Polish delegation arrived in Romania on Tuesday. Apart from Morawiecki, the consultations were also participated in by foreign, defence, European Affairs and culture ministers, among others.

(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | EURACTIV.pl)

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Poland bets on new economic community with Romania, Ukraine - EURACTIV

The noirish, alternative world of ‘The Biography of X’ – Document Journal

Author Catherine Lacy sits down with Document, discussing her latest novels take on narcissism, art-world celebrity, and the tragedy of US history

Early in Catherine Laceys beguiling new novel The Biography of X, the narrator C.M. Lucca recalls her wifethe iconoclast artist Xsuggesting they rough up another writer working on an unauthorized and unwanted biography about her career:

We might as well get right to it and have someone break his legs, or maybe just one leg or, better yet, a hand. Did I notice whether he was left- or right-handed? I felt then, as I often felt, that I was a mobsters wife, better off looking the other way.

Violence, in its many subtle and overt expressions, permeates The Biography of Xa sweeping, ambitious novel about art-world celebrity, the tragedy of US history, and how narcissism can both destroy and save us. The story follows former journalist and recent widow C.M. Lucca, whofollowing the publication of that other authors biographyseeks to set the record straight about her dead wife X. Digging into her past, however, and interviewing a parade of former collaborators, rivals, and friends, opens a Pandoras box of secrets, revealing that the woman C.M. Lucca shared a life with was far more complex and cruel than shed ever imagined.

Theres a noirish texture to The Biography of X, with the narrators research sending her on goose chases, interviewing a maze of Southern Christian fanatics, New York City socialites, and Italian activists. In many noirs, the protagonistoften detectives, but also journalistsdiscovers that the closer they get to the truth, the less knowable the truth becomes. C.M. Lucca, in trying to write the definitive biography of X, eventually confronts this messy reality: that there is no one authentic story about a human being, not even for those closest to us. For her, this is a violent revelationone that disfigures her own sense of self as much as her understanding of X, the great love of her life.

Ive been reading Laceys work since 2003, when we met during our first week at Loyola University New Orleans. I feel lucky to have witnessed her evolution as an artistfrom her early forays in creative nonfiction to her inventive, heady novels to The Biography of X, which, though also fiction, feels too expansive to simply be called a novel. Throughout, it blends fact and fiction, wholly rewriting US history and casting living novelists, journalists, and poets as sources on Xs life. The book is a provocative projectone that mirrors and refracts our own cultural obsession with celebrity and our nations broken politics.

Not unlike her prose, Lacey is warm and chatty, her thoughts often veering off in uncanny directions. Its something Ive always admired about the voice of her fictionthe way her characters narration wanders, indulging in detours and scenic routes, before concluding at eerie thematic vistas and insights. The narrator in X, however, is perhaps more controlled than usual, her cool voice belaying much hurt, grief, and rage. Though the book is ostensibly about Xa visionary performance artist and cult writer, a music producer for Tom Waits and David Bowie, a visual artist with a retrospective at MOCAI found myself just as drawn to its more humble narrator, and the ways she submerges her own needs to appease her charming, charismatic, and ruthless wife. At its essence, The Biography of X is about the often frustrating and violent nature of love. Because to fully understand someone, in all their complexities, one must celebrate their beauty as well as their venom.

Even if you havent grown up with that, theres a certain kind of person, like X, thats so good at creating a narrative around themself. You can get swept up with it.

Sammy Loren: One of the things I found most compelling about The Biography of X was the dynamic between C.M. Lucca and X. Like many relationships, there is this dance between pleasure and pain, love and hatred, where you almost cant tell the difference. What is it about someone who is powerful and dangerous and has a brutality in them like X that is attractive to someone like C.M.?

Catherine Lacey: I think its narcissism. A lot of people go through this, especially if you had a parent or an early love affair that established that deifying someone is the same as being in love with them. A lot of people that grew up in a religious atmosphere, similar to mine, have this problem, too. Because the foundation for the idea of love is being subjugated. The Christian love of God and love of Jesus that I grew up withespecially if youre femaleis very much about putting yourself at the mercy of someone. Even if you havent grown up with that, theres a certain kind of person, like X, thats so good at creating a narrative around themself. You can get swept up with it. Thats where cult leaders come from. Thats where religions come from. Its almost like being persuasive without even trying to be persuasive. Thats the most dangerous personnot somebody whos actually trying to control you. When you are finding a partner, you often look for someone who has qualities very different from your own, and I think thats part of what sustains the relationship. If theres something about the other person that you feel so far from and its like, How are they that way? And that question ends up being an animating force of erotic desire.

Sammy: Do you look at X as sort of a narcissistic celebrity?

Catherine: Oh, yeah. I mean, you know a million of these peopleyou meet them and youre like, What is so weird about this person? And then you realize that theyre surrounded by sycophants. You see micro versions of these people, like minor cult leadersits not necessarily even negative. Xs childhood was so damaging, and the world shes from was so manipulative, that I think you have to be a raging narcissist to get out of communities like that. It takes a huge amount of self-belief, which is adjacent to narcissism. For X, it sort of snowballed over the years as a survival strategy.

Sammy: X grows up in the South.

Catherine: A very extreme, much, much worse theocracy version of the South.

Sammy: What do you think coastal elites get wrong about the South?

Catherine: Everything. People think that it must be this kind of theocracy, like it is in the book. Its a much more politically mixed place, but it is controlled by a church-going culture. When people feel like theyre weird in the South, they tend to keep their mouth shut. I know a lot of queer people that live there now. Im surprised every time I go back.

The fact that theyre lesbians is the least interesting thing about them. Its not even really mentioned. Theres so much energy you end up wasting when youre having to justify your existence before you can do anything else.

Sammy: I love the novels alternative historythat the US breaks into three countries and Bernie Sanders becomes president; that the South builds a wall and turns into a Christian theocracy, and the North a socialist nation where Emma Goldman is a transcendent political figure. I wonder what you think X would make of our America?

Catherine: She would probably be on the dark web, right? Be a Dimes Square elder or something. I think she would choose the most combative position possible. The reason the book is the way that it is, is that I wanted these two women to be the people they were. Thats why the American history stuff is the way it is. The fact that theyre lesbians is the least interesting thing about them. Its not even really mentioned. Theres so much energy you end up wasting when youre having to justify your existence before you can do anything else. And if we remove that obstacle, then she can become a novelist, a publisher, a music producer.

Sammy: She can also become a full human, in that she can be all these great things and also all these horrible things. She can just be a regular monster.

Catherine: A regular monster, yeah.

Sammy: Thats what was fascinating about the alternative history. Even when you take away all of these prejudices, and you live in a quasi-socialist utopia, all these hierarchies between two people remain.

Catherine: Abusive, narcissistic people will exist even if everybody has universal basic income and healthcare. I dont have any delusions about the human spirit; people would [just] have more time to indulge their narcissistic qualities.

Sammy: Its a bottomless pit.

Catherine: I like the idea of arguing with the concept that narcissism is always negative. I want that word to get reinvented, or given more dimension. There definitely are abusive narcissists, but I wish that narcissist wasnt always a negative word.

Sammy: I see X as an alpha.

Catherine: Shes sort of like a cowboy, you know?

Sammy: Yeah, in this American way thats very readable to us. Something I also see, hidden throughout, is this sense of X taking a million loversand its charming, how the biographer is so nave about it. X is this Southerner that escapes and becomes this cowgirl in the West, and then a New York art star. Is there a relationship between promiscuity and wanting to be different people?

Catherine: For sure. Its through other people that you find different versions of yourself. I think a lot of friendships end when people cant find who they used to be, with that [other] person. You and I have been friends for 20 years; thereve been many different phases of that friendship. Theres something interesting that happens when you start to accumulate versions of yourself, between you and another person over time. Having sex with someone is the fastest way that you can see yourself as a totally different person, you know? What youre picking up on is that X was probably doing all sorts of stuff off-the-page, like that kind of promiscuity. I see no problem with it, morally. A person like X would maybe be using sex to access different corners of her own powerdifferent corners of her persona. But, I meanif youre gonna be promiscuous, do it because its fun, not because you wanna have power over somebody else.

People go insane if they cant form a coherent story about who they are, or where theyre from. Think about whats been going on in America. I dont feel like the country has a coherent sense of itself.

Sammy: That gets to the heart of the book, tootheres a question about who our partners are. I mean, C.M. writes a biography about X, who she thought she knew. And then the whole biography is like, I never really knew this person, to a certain extent.

Catherine: I would push against that. I feel like that keeps coming up in interviews and reviews, this, We can never really know the people that were with. That must be in the book. I just wouldve made more counterpoints, too, if I had realized how big of an idea it is.

Sammy: Im not trying to suggest that she doesnt know X. Im saying theres something about people that we cant ever actually know. And thats whats compelling about them.

Catherine: Of course. Its that gap that youre trying to bridge, and thats what keeps people together. When you start to think that you know everything about the person youre withone, youre definitely wrong, because nobody can know everything about another person. And two, you shouldnt be in that relationship anymore.

Sammy: Throughout the book, theres a blending of fact and fiction. Im curious, what was it about that impulse to rewrite who we are that was interesting for you to dig into with this book?

Catherine: People go insane if they cant form a coherent story about who they are, or where theyre from. Think about whats been going on in America. I dont feel like the country has a coherent sense of itself. Theres parts of the South that would like to go back to 1850, and parts of the South that would like to go to the year 3000. What are we aiming for as a country? Were too large, we dont have common goals. I kind of feel like it would make sense if we split into a number of different countries. And I dont think Im the only person advocating for that. Im not a political theorist at all, but Im fantasizing as a citizen.

Sammy: Were living in a very divisive moment in human history. In America, its on steroids, but even little countries that are homogenous are tearing themselves apart.

Catherine: Theres no utopic answer. I wanted to be clear: Even if the US had split into different countries, as it does in the novel, its not like the North would be some kind of socialist utopia. I dont feel like there is a utopia.

Sammy: I have this vivid memory; it must have been 2003. Im walking into the quad at Loyola and youre sitting there, writing in your Five Star notebook. Im like, What are you doing? Youre like, Im writingIve always wanted to be a writer. If you had to go back in time and talk to that version of yourself, what would you say?

Catherine: I feel like I would say to herand this is kind of crassto have sex with women sooner. Like, dont be worried about it. Because I feel that was my main crisis, underneath what I thought my problems were. And, also, I would tell her bisexual people exist. Thats it.

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The noirish, alternative world of 'The Biography of X' - Document Journal

Solana Price Prediction – SOL and these cryptos are surging in the … – Analytics Insight

The crypto market is on the verge of another bull run as we head toward the end of a very successful Q1. That quarter began with a bull run and it looks like it could be the same for Q2, that is even after news that the Federal Open Market Committee made to increase interest rates by 25 points. This isnt a huge increase but also isnt what the market would have been hoping for, it is predicted that the inflation level will be around 5.1% by the end of the year.

In a vacuum, this is bad news for the crypto market as ideally, the levels would be around 2%. However, the reasons that led to this rate hike actually favor the market. Everyone knows by now about the run on banks in the states and how the government had to intervene to protect deposits. Well, this is what caused this hike and that will likely cause a lot of disillusion for the traditional method of banking.

Many will turn towards cryptos that have shown growth in 2023 like Solana (SOL) and the even savvier investors will turn their attention to trending coins like Love Hate Inu (LHINU), Fight Out (FGHT), Metropoly (METRO), and RobotEra (TARO).

So without further adieu lets examine why these cryptos are going to surge.

As we can see from the chart above Solana (SOL) has enjoyed quite a bit of price fluctuation so far this year, however, it has overwhelmingly been positive with the price seeing over 100% growth since the start of Q1. March has been quite up and down as a month but experts are bullish about Solanas potential for growth.

Solana set out to be one of Etherums main competitors and in the summer of 2021 when the price was over $250 it looked like Solana was heading for a seat at the top table. The year and a half after that though was very bleak for the blockchain network as the price tumbled so far that it once hit below $10 dollars.

Now things are looking brighter however and experts are tipping Solana for consistent growth over the next 5 years.

Year

Minimum Price

Maximum Price

2023

$24.76

$31.45

2024

$33.17

$44.25

2025

$49.88

$51.03

2026

$75.33

$89.53

2027

$107.56

$137.89

As we can see the growth should be slow but steady until around 2025 when we will see Solana really start to take off again. Some experts would even argue this prediction is too cautious for the crypto that provides excellent Defi solutions and that the likely upcoming market growth will see Solana break $40 before the end of the year.

Either way it looks like Solana is a good investment opportunity at the moment. For those that would prefer to invest in an up-and-coming presale we also have the best options to get behind right now.

Meme coins like they will be one of the higher performing coins of 2023 and many experts think Love Hate Inu (LHINU) will lead the way once it goes live. The meme coin that doubles as a V2E platform will give people that chance to vote on the most interesting and pressing topics from around the world.

The white paper for this new crypto is quite impressive too. They are really thinking ahead with some of the steps and procedures they have put in place. Voters must stake LHINU for 30 days before they will be allowed to vote which will protect the polls integrity as well as the voters anonymity. THey will also sell 90% of the allocated LHINU during presale to ensure the coin has a future way beyond its CEX listings launch.

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There is a lot of competition these days jostling for superiority in the P2E sphere but we think a game that also helps people reach their fitness peak will be the standout coin of 2023. That is what Fight Out (FGHT) consists of, through their app users will get personalized workouts that will be tracked, once users complete the goals they can earn the in-app currency REPs.

When Fight Out users sign up they will be given soul bound avatars who will grow and develop alongside their owners. The cool part of this is that personal challenges arent the only way to earn REPs, weekly and monthly challenges will allow you to send your avatar into battle against other users so you can really test how far you are along your journey.

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The excitement around the presale of Metropoly (METRO) is certainly starting to build as experts cant wait to see how the first totally real estate focused coin fairs. How it works is the project has tokenized some of the most sought after properties from around the world into NFTs and fractionalized these so as to sell them for as little as $100 to interested parties.

It completely tears down all the barriers that currently stop the everyday person investing in real estate. Over 98% of real estate transactions still happen offline and this involves broker fees, paper work, mortgages and lots of other hindrances that make it so hard to enter the market. With Metropoly that will be a thing of the past.

>> Buy Metropoly Now<<<

RobotEra (TARO) is another game that many think will be one the most popular P2E opportunities in 2023. The game, which is sandbox-like in nature, tasks players with rebuilding the planet of Taro. They must do this with their Robot NFTs who they can also use to explore the planet and visit other peoples property.

TARO is the native currency and it covers all bases in the RobotEra universe. By this we mean it is also used as currency by players and can therefore be used for revenue. No coding experience is required so players should be able to build whatever they want to try to attract other players with the hope they will part with their TARO to visit your section of this new utopia.

>>>Buy RobotEra Now<<<

Solana looks like it is set to surf the upcoming bull run wave that the market should experience. However, many would suggest the 4 coins going through presale we have discussed are better investment options. How early they are in their lifespan and their low prices combine to make them the best investment opportunities in the market.

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Solana Price Prediction - SOL and these cryptos are surging in the ... - Analytics Insight

Bill & Ted Weren’t Always Going To Be The Stars Of Their Own Movie – /Film

Seeing that Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon were used to performing Bill and Ted as one-note characters, that remained their ambition for a Bill & Ted feature film. They envisioned a sketch comedy program, along the lines of "The Kentucky Fried Movie" or "Amazon Women on the Moon" that would feature Bill and Ted merely reenacting their stage shtick in brief snippets peppered throughout a movie. It was under advice from Chris Matheson's father, Richard, that they would expand Bill & Ted into their own story.

If the name Richard Matheson is familiar to you, it's because he is one of the most celebrated sci-fi authors of all time. Richard Matheson wrote the novel "I Am Legend," which was adapted into "The Last Man on Earth," "The Omega Man," and the Will Smith film of the same name. He also wrote the surprisingly profound screenplay for the sci-fi classic "The Incredible Shrinking Man," the teleplay for the "Twilight Zone" episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," and several of the amazing Roger Corman/Edgar Allan Poe adaptations in the 1960s. This was in addition to 100 short stories, several dozen novels, and many, many other teleplays. When Richard Matheson gives writing advice and also, he's your dad ` you'd best listen.

Once Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon began working on a Bill & Ted feature film, however, their first idea was a little more wicked than the kid-friendly premise that ended up in the final film.

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Bill & Ted Weren't Always Going To Be The Stars Of Their Own Movie - /Film

More from Focal and Naim – Stereophile Magazine

The second demo I heard in Focal Naim's spacious, hall-sized room was centered around the brand new Naim NSC 222 streaming preamplifier ($12,000) from the company's New Classic Series. This is big news in the realm of Naim, though it doesn't entirely replace Naim's last Classic Series, which was launched 50 years ago! The New Classic Series also includes the NSC 222 preamplifier (without streaming), the NAP 250 power amplifier, and the NPX 300 power supply. You might say the NSC 222 replaced Naim's Statement NAC S1 preamp ($129,999), but only at this show: The NAC S1 was supposed to be part of this demo but was damaged in transit. NSC 222 to the rescue!

Fortunately, the demo pair of Statement NAP S1 monoblocks ($130,000 each; 746W into 8 ohms) arrived unscathed, as did the mighty Focal Maestro Utopia Evo speakers ($100,000/pair). Cabling was from Naim's Super Lumina series.

Across a selection of Tidal-streamed tracks, this system delivered unfettered power and scale. Sounds were big, vivid, and close-upnot close-up in the hot-treble sense but in the sense of seeing the structure of notes. Yo-Yo Ma's cello revealed boundless texture and a richness free of artificial warmth.

When a system is equipped with a power output equivalent to one horsepower, it's tempting, as with a race car, to drive it fastwhich is exactly what Iain Richardson, Focal Naim's Ontario sales manager, did. With a mischievous smile and a preliminary warning, he launched Ghost Rider's bass-heavy audioshow chestnut, "Make Us Stronger." The soundstage blew open, sending sounds previously cemented in space hurtling toward us at breakneck speed (for a moment I was actually worried about my neck), and a bass beat that threatened to knock down anyone who was standing up. Exhilarating.

All prices are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise specified.

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More from Focal and Naim - Stereophile Magazine

Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s collaboration examined in … – Art Newspaper

Is there anything new to say about the mid-1980s collaboration between Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat? Dieter Buchhart thinks so. The co-curator of the exhibition Basquiat x Warhol: Painting Four Hands at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris says that research undertaken for the show reveals that the pair began collaborating earlier than previously thought.

Basquiat is thought to have first met Warhol in 1979 when the young artist tried to sell the Pop art master some of his postcards. The pair met more formally in 1982 when Bruno Bischofberger, the dealer representing both artists, took Basquiat to Warhols Factory studio in Manhattan for a photoshoot. The pair are thought to have created around 160 works together between 1984 and 1986, and the Paris show includes more than 80 paintings jointly created and signed by the two artists.

Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhols OP OP (1984-85) is one of more than 80 paintings on show in the exhibition at Fondation Louis Vuitton Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, NY; Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc/Licensed by ADAGP, Paris 2023. Courtesy Bischofberger Collection, Mannedorf-Zurich

In the autumn of 1983, Bischofberger proposed a collaboration between Basquiat, Warhol and the Italian artist Francesco Clemente. During their collaboration, Basquiat began to modify small silkscreen paintings after Warhol encouraged him to do so, Buchhart says. In an interview for our catalogue, Jay Shriver, Warhols painting assistant since 1980, shared that he was present at the beginnings of this collaboration. Warhol prompted Basquiat to paint on small silkscreens he had made, producing joint works that incorporated eggs, crabs, lobsters and dollar signs.

These early works have been dated 1984/85, which is inaccurate, Buchhart says. They were either done at the end of 1983 or the beginning of 1984 and are strictly seen as modifications and not collaborations, as Basquiat reworked existing works even though Warhol invited him to do so.

Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol's Arm and Hammer II (1984-85) The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New-York. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by ADAGP, Paris 2023

The exhibition also features absolute masterpieces, Buchhart says, such as Felix the Cat (1984-85) and Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper) (1985-86), which have not been exhibited before in a joint exhibition. On each punch bag, Warhol painted a portrait of Christ from a reproduction of Leonardo da Vincis The Last Supper. Over these, Basquiat repeatedly wrote the word judge and added his emblematic crown symbol.

Today, art historians generally link this work to the aggressive and tragic atmosphere felt by an entire community and beyond at the time of the murder of the graffiti artist Michael Stewart, who was very close to Basquiat, writes the co-curator Suzanne Pag in the catalogue. All of this was happening in the midst of the Aids crisis.

Crucially, the work China Paramount (1984) reflects the different world views of both men. Warhol inserted profiles of the then US president Ronald Reagan, who pushed for a free market economy, into the painting. Basquiat juxtaposes [the] Reagan heads with black skull faces, which in turn expose the utopia of progress and economic growth from which the African American population in particular still seemed to be excluded in the 1980s, Buchhart says.

Basquiat x Warhol: Paintings Four Hands, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, 5 April-28 August

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Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat's collaboration examined in ... - Art Newspaper

Art Attack: Goodbye to MoP, and Hello to New Exhibitions Around … – Westword

Month of Photography takes its final bow this weekend, though many offerings remain on view beyond March (see the schedule here). Beyond that photo finish, co-ops in Lakewood are cooperating with concurrent openings, and fledgling artists and curators show their stuff in various settings. And for something flashy, catch Scott Young at the Ramble Hotel.

Connect the dots below for an arterrific weekend.

Ron Cooper, "Varanasi."

Ron Cooper

Dennis Doyle, Entering atmospheric nowhere (clean air generator).

Dennis Doyle, Union Hall

Reed Weimer captured this artful plains landscape with a plastic Diana toy camera.

Reed Weimer

CU Denver Art Practices Group poster design by @kosiworld.

@kosiworld

Candace Shepard, Me-We, triptych.

Candace Shepard

XOCHITL: A Last Friday Arts Exhibition D3 Arts, 3632 Morrison RoadFriday, March 31, 5 to 8 p.m.The Latino artists of D3 Arts present XOCHITL: A Last Friday Arts Exhibition, a seasonal show inspired by spring flowers and warm weather. Live music and a couple of vendors are also on the roster. Come see whats happening art-wise in Westwood.

Melody Epperson, "Admiration."

Melody Epperson

A piece of Alex Branch's Ground Cover installation at Understudy.

Alex Branch

Scott Young, "FOOL."

Scott Young

Mark Sink Walk and Talk Lecture: Typed Live, Excuse Errors: A Mark Sink RetrospectiveRedLine Contemporary Art Center, 2350 Arapahoe StreetSaturday, April 1, noon to 1 p.m.The Mark Sink retrospective now on view at RedLine as part of Month of Photography is arranged by periods of personal history in a way that can only truly come to life through the memories of Sink himself. This walk-and-talk is your best opportunity to hear it from the horses mouth. Experience stories about Sinks place in the Warhol coterie, from his interactions with the underground art and new-wave culture of Denver in the 70s and 80s, and his influences from family history and other niche periods. Finally, eyeballing Sinks many eras as a photographer will help pull the show, which closes April 9, together in your mind.

Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to [emailprotected].

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Art Attack: Goodbye to MoP, and Hello to New Exhibitions Around ... - Westword

Allegra Hyde Balances Both Hope and Despair in Her New Short … – Shondaland.com

The opening story of Allegra Hydes sophomore short story collection, The Last Catastrophe, is called Mobilization. In just a few short pages and narrated in the collective we, it follows an entire society of people caravanning in RVs across America from a time of relative ease they can outrun all the bad news; they can chase the sunsets and form a tight-knit, freewheeling family until theres no more gas, and the end of time on Earth is rapidly approaching. Its a stunning opener that encapsulates the level of writing featured throughout this short story collection.

Hyde explores imagined possibilities of and for humanity from a couple in a moose costume trying to save the last remaining moose to a teacher who drinks Gatorade until her skin glows to ease the pain as she faces the end of her marriage, to mega-algorithms and the effects of late-stage capitalism and extraction and the book is a perfect balance of imagination, humor, darkness, and hope. Hyde has won three Pushcart Prizes, and her previous book, the novel Eleutheria, which also deals with ecological crisis, was a big hit last year and landed her on Late Night With Seth Meyers and The New Yorkers Best Books of 2022 list. The Last Catastrophe is a shining example of what it means to hold hope and despair at once in the face of the climate crisis, and the possibilities inherent in both.

Shondaland spoke with Hyde about catastrophe and hope, science and art, and global weirding.

SARAH NEILSON: Can you talk about the title of the book and about your relationship with the word catastrophe?

ALLEGRA HYDE: When it comes to the title of the book and the word catastrophe, I wanted there to be some ambiguity or maybe some possibility around how we conceive of that word. Because the last catastrophe could be read as the final catastrophe that ends us all, or it could be the last catastrophe before we make a change. And so Im interested in catastrophe as both something to be worried about and to recognize as a very real possibility but also as an opportunity for rethinking how we exist.

The Last Catastrophe: Stories

The Last Catastrophe: Stories

SN: Something that your work just engages with a lot is this small pivot between disaster and utopia or despair and euphoria, and how those things are so close to each other even though theyre kind of perceived as polar-opposite things. How do you explore the nearness of those things in your writing?

AH: I think when we open ourselves up to big possibilities or euphoria or utopia, lets say were also opening ourselves to potential disaster and disappointment and pain. And I think in that way, those two seemingly very disparate experiences are actually quite close, and they both have to do with a kind of vulnerability and risk.

SN: In the story Afterglow, you write, Shed appreciated scientists restless, unsatisfied demeanors, their near-spiritual commitment to failure in the pursuit of a granule of knowledge. The story goes on to say, She considered her work experimental in the scientific sense. She, too, sought stable earthly truths. Can you talk about the ways that science and art are intertwined for you?

AH: I admire scientists and admire people who devote themselves to studying an animal, or a particular place in the world, or a particular chemical process. I think theres a devotion or even a kind of spiritual commitment that can go along with that kind of work in the world. And in another universe in another multiverse, I guess maybe I would have been able to be a scientist, and Id be studying frogs. But that didnt pan out, and instead Im a writer. But as a writer, I do think I sometimes bring a kind of scientific approach to questions that interest me. Especially when working in a speculative mode, youre asking, What if, and youre testing possible answers to that question. And stories are our hypotheses, really, and so when Im writing, Im trying to write in a way that has a sound logic, even when its going to these absurd and sometimes silly places. I really admire writers like Ted Chiang, who has also talked about bringing that methodical, scientific approach to his work.

SN: Can you talk about the ways that you write about community and love in the book, and in what ways you engage with those ideas as a writer, especially as a writer of fiction in the face of a catastrophe or in the face of an ending that could be a beginning?

AH: I think in the end, all we have are each other, right? Its kind of sappy, but all we have is love. Theres so much pain and suffering and struggle in the world, and thats part of the human experience, but the great counterbalance to that is our ability to transcend circumstances through care and appreciation and through love. So, I tried to really highlight that in this collection. The stories go to some grim places, but I always wanted to show that even within the most terrible disasters, theres the possibility for mutual aid, for creating connections. And I hoped that by ending the story with the novella The Eaters, which ends on a note of trying to find connection and making a choice out of love, I offered up that possibility to the reader as an ending note.

SN: What is your relationship with nature and animals and landscape, and how did that inform some of the stories in this book and your work in general?

AH: I would describe the governing premise behind this book as that of global weirding, which is another way of thinking about global warming where its foregrounding not just temperature, but the fact that as our climate changes, everythings getting weird migration patterns, when things are blooming and thats affecting us as human beings in our societies and how we live. I wanted to take this idea of global weirding and think about it in fiction, often using metaphor and figurative devices to illustrate the reality of being alive now and probably being alive in the future. Im really interested in bringing ecological principles in general into greater focus but applying them to our human experiences. So, in a story like Endangered, which is about artists being endangered, Im clearly taking what we know about endangered animals and animals going extinct and applying this to a human profession. And my hope was that that kind of makes very real the reality of both animals out of nature and human beings doing their human things.

SN: Can you also talk about the role of the body, human and nonhuman, in the book? How does the body show up for you as something within this global-weirding paradigm?

AH: I want to show that whats happening in our environment and whats happening with the environmental crisis is not just a separate issue for birds and trees its also a human issue. By applying known aspects of our environmental crisis to the human body, Im attempting to show how we too are very much implicated in the impact of global weirding. So, in a story like Afterglow, I was trying to, on one hand, talk about pollution in the air and creating these dramatic sunsets, and also talk about pollution toxicity in the body. In the story, that means the character is drinking lots of Gatorade and consuming lots of chemicals. Shes doing that for her own reasons, shes coping with the end of her marriage, but again Im trying to create a parallel and to transpose a known environmental framework onto a human experience in a way thats recognizable.

SN: Whats the importance of humor for you as a writer?

AH: To be perfectly honest, it makes writing more fun when youre amusing yourself on the page. Because I never know if a story is going to be published, let alone whether its going to be a part of a book. And if I can be giggling alone in my room at my desk, thats a win. And the fact that humor might ultimately serve our future readers is really exciting. On another level, I think approaching the climate crisis and the ill effects of the Anthropocene with a sense of playfulness alongside a sense of steely resolve is easier because so many of these catastrophes are hard to look at, and thats why most people do not look at them or think about them at all. Myself included sometimes. Its a lot, its painful, but if we can look at things sideways, and if we can see things with a sense of mirth, its easier to process them and to ultimately maybe make decisions that move in the right direction.

SN: In the first story, Mobilization, theres a part where they say, Cant stop now. Its such a short line, but it captures a lot about the world of the story and the world we live in too, where we are on a trajectory that we cant stop, but we also have this need to keep moving. Is that something you were actively thinking about while you were writing? How does the theme of movement sort of show up in the stories and for you?

AH: I hadnt really thought about that before, but Im reflecting on the fact that I wrote a lot of these stories during the pandemic lockdown. So, I was writing them in this moment where everyone stopped moving, for the most part. And the pandemic lockdown proved to me and many other people that actually, we could abruptly all change everything about how we live and everything about how our society operates. That is in fact not impossible. I think when it comes to actually addressing something like climate change, theres a general feeling that we cannot change. We have to all use cars, we have to work five days a week, we have to be constantly consuming, living in single-family homes, etc., etc. But in fact, its well within our capability as a society to completely change that and to maybe live in ways that not only are more sustainable and will not bring us to climate catastrophe, but that actually would be more pleasant in many ways. Maybe that means having a three-day workweek to de-escalate capitalist ruin. I dont know. But I think that the idea of movement in the book is tied to the time when I was writing this, which was a time of no movement.

SN: Can you talk about the presence of the moon in the stories?

AH: The moon in some ways is just a recurring motif that, whether consciously or subconsciously, was a touchstone that can bridge stories. But I also think the moon so very much belongs to the natural world, or to the world of dreams and the subconscious and pagan celebrations and rhythms of the body that are inescapable. And maybe its secretly representing this god of ecology that is present through all the human drama and bulls--t that is swirling around through the stories.

SN: Can you talk about the role of tech in the book and how you engaged with tech, real and imagined?

AH: Yeah, I see technology, and the speculative technology like that super-algorithm, as being one facet of global weirding, although thats not necessarily obvious. I think its part of just a human apparatus connected to maybe consumption and hyper-productivity and control that feel ominous. Because this book does contain a lot of anxieties about what it means to live in the Anthropocene, exploring the dangers and potential ramifications of our technological trajectories was just part of capturing that overall vision of where we seem to be heading.

SN: Speaking of where were heading, the dedication reads, For who well be. Right now at this moment, who do you hope we will be? Who do you imagine we will be? What is your relationship with the word hope for us in the future?

AH: Despite everything, I for the most part remain committed to hope. And it doesnt mean I dont feel extreme fear and worry all the time when Im looking at the news and looking at projections, because I know that human beings do have such a capacity for adaptation, for ingenuity, and for care. The moments when Ive experienced either personal crises or been in disasters that are larger and affecting a larger group of people, Ive seen how people step up and come together and use that break in that habitual reality to reach out and support one another. And I really hold fast to that human capacity.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Sarah Neilson is a freelance culture writer and interviewer whose work regularly appears in The Seattle Times, Them, and Shondaland, among other outlets. They are an alum of the Tin House craft intensive, and their memoir writing has been published in Catapult and Ligeia.

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Allegra Hyde Balances Both Hope and Despair in Her New Short ... - Shondaland.com

Storming the BastilleAgain – City Journal

Karl Marx was a mediocre economist and a poor prophet. Still, he had some style. There is his famous aphorism about the men who make History but know nothing of the History they are making. Today, given the extreme agitation that has taken hold of French society, another of Marxs famous formulas comes to mind: History, Marx wrote, repeats itself twice, the first time as tragedy and the second as farce. He was thinking at the time of the farce of the future Napoleon IIIs coup dtat. In 1851, Frances new ruler decided to proclaim himself emperor, just as had his illustrious uncle, Napoleon I, a generation earlier.

If we apply Marxs aphorism to Frances current situation, we could enhance it by observing that, in France, History does not repeat itself twice but rather ten times. The French live in nostalgia of the storming of the Bastille and are always replaying the Revolution of 1789 every chance the government gives them. They take comfort in nostalgia for the barricades, persuaded that all revolutions are positive and that the power of the street is more legitimate than that of an elected democracy. The proof of this is that, since its constitution, produced in 1791, France has seen 14 more. This shows that the French do not believe in the virtues of the rule of law. And when they somehow fail to change constitutions, they are always amending one: the present one, which dates from 1958, the founding of our Fifth Republic, has already been modified 24 times. President Emmanuel Macron is considering a twenty-fifth, one that would introduce a right to abortion.

The sobering reality that all French revolutions have resulted either in dictatorship (Napoleon I, Napoleon III, Marshall Ptain) or in massacre (The Terror of 1793, the military repressions of 1830, 1848, and 1871) is not enough to prevent the French from backsliding; any pretext is good enough to justify overthrowing the government by violence. Sometimes this pretext has been legitimate, for example, the restoration of freedom of the press in 1830. Other pretexts are more doubtful, such as that of establishing a Communist regime in Paris in 1871 or, in 1940, bringing French law into line with Nazism. Of course, regardless of what the insurgents proclaim, revolutions are never popular. They are always guided by activist minorities to satisfy their own interests, ideologies, or whims.

Another particularity is that revolutions in France are always Parisian and are staged in a restricted part of the capital, as in a theater, around the National Assembly and the Latin Quarter. Students play their role, which is always decisive, in connection with leftist syndicate leaders and small Trotskyite sects that have never succeeded in getting elected democratically.

As for the present revolution du jour, it is hard to say whether it will turn out as tragedy or farce. Unlike all previous revolutions, this one is totally conservative (in the sense of being resistant to change). The government proposes to delay the retirement age from 62 to 64 in order to prevent the financial failure of the public retirement system, and the Left organizes to prevent any change. The evidence grows that there are no longer enough active workers to finance the retirements of those no longer working, and the Left proposes no alternative. A further paradox is that, in this debate, the Left takes a position against work, as if work were in itself something detestable. If we try to understand the hostility of the Left to this mini-reform of the retirement system, we find constant opposition to the market economy, to business, to capitalism, and to finance in all its forms. Retirement reform is therefore detestable to the Left (as well as to the extreme, anti-capitalist Right), because the fundamental reason behind it is financial: the Left is horrified by economics and by its arithmetic. It prefers utopia, a world where two plus two would make five rather than four. It puts up barricades against additions that come out right.

This does not excuse President Macron. He is a pure financial technician who fails to understand that the French do not want to be governed; they want to be inspired. Between tragedy and farce, the revolution, or what looks like a revolution, is a dream factory. Macron, to say the least, does not inspire dreams.

In this sense, Marx was right: people are prisoners of their history, and what we think, mistakenly, is the past, is never completely past. For the French, some Bastille, whether real or imaginary, will always be there for the storming; no one can avoid reliving some founding myth. Even the United States has plenty of them. Nothing in contemporary life can be understood except against the background of a collective past, however mythical. In politics, myths are real.

Guy Sorman, a City Journal contributing editor and a French public intellectual, is the author of many books, including Empire of Lies: The Truth About China in the Twenty-First Century. Translated by Alexis Cornel.

Photo by Aurelien Morissard/Xinhua via Getty Images

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Storming the BastilleAgain - City Journal

Vince McMahon bio ‘Ringmaster,’ more new must-read books this … – USA TODAY

In search ofsomething good to read? USA TODAY'sBarbara VanDenburghscopes out the shelves for this weeks hottest new book releases. All titles books are on sale Tuesday.

For more must-readbook recommendations, check out our interview with Jos Olivarez about his new poetry collection, and the March USA TODAY Book Club pick, "Promises of Gold;"the 20 books we were most excited for this spring, including the latest installment of Don Winslow's crime saga, "City of Dreams" and Laura Dern and Diane Ladd's memoir, "Honey, Baby, Mine";ourfavoritebooks of 2022that received perfect four-star reviews;and the juiciest celebrity memoirs released last year from Matthew Perry, Tom Felton, William Shatner, Jennette McCurdy and more.

Make sure to sign up for our books newsletter to have the latest books news delivered straight to your inbox.

Book bans are on the rise: What are the most banned books and why?

By Abraham Riesman (Atria, nonfiction)

Journalist Riesman, author ofTrue Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee,returns with another revelatory biography, this one of famed wrestler promoter McMahon, who launched the careers of Dwayne The Rock Johnson,John Cena and Hulk Hogan, then turned into a political power broker and powerful Donald Trump ally. Riesman's book argues Trump's presence as a performerin McMahon's programming was a dress rehearsal for his presidential candidacy. McMahon's wife, Linda,served in Trump's Cabinet.

Last year, McMahon announced his retirement as CEO of WWE after 40 yearsamid reportshe paid more than$12 million to four womenin a 16-year span to quiet allegations ofsexual misconduct and infidelity.

'The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee': Absorbing bio details dismantles myths surrounding Marvel comics icon

Riesman's 2021 warts-and-all biography of Lee made the case that thecomics iconwe know and love was as manufactured a character as Spider-Man. Through extensive research and interviews with friends, family, colleagues, industry professionals and various hangers-on, the book peeledaway layers of Lee's own unreliable narration to offer a more complicated understanding of an insecure man with thwarted ambitions,selfish and self-aggrandizing, with a legacy built on a shaky foundation of half-truths and obfuscation.

"Lone Women," by Victor LaValle (One World, fiction): In 1915, Adelaide Henry flees California and the secret that killed her parents to make her way in life as a Montana homesteader. But she drags with her a mysterious trunk, heavy with the horrifying secret she hastried to lock away.

"The Great Reclamation," by Rachel Heng (Riverhead, fiction): Hengs sweeping historical saga, set against a changing Singapore, follows Ah Boon, a gentle boy born with unique gifts, andSiok Mei, aneighbor girl,in a coastal fishing village in the waning years of British rule and on the cusp of Japanese invasion.

"Hang the Moon," by Jeannette Walls (Scribner, fiction): The author of theiconic memoir The Glass Castlereturns with a historical novel about Sallie Kincaid, an indomitable young woman who ascends to the top of a Virginia bootlegging empire during Prohibition.

"Skinfolk,"byMatthew Pratt Guterl (Liveright, nonfiction):In 1970s New Jersey, big dreamers Bob andSherylGuterl, a white couple, built a Noah's Ark family,raising two biological children alongside children adopted from Korea, Vietnam and the South Bronx. But their utopia couldn't withstand the reality of America's racial dynamics.

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Vince McMahon bio 'Ringmaster,' more new must-read books this ... - USA TODAY

Last Call at the Original Happy’s Stork Lounge – Miami New Times

"Miami Tavern Bombed," blared the headline on the front page of the final edition of the September 22, 1967, Miami News. "A bomb knocked in the rear of Happy's Stork Lounge on the 79th Street Causeway early today while hoodlum Anthony (Big Tony) Esperti was sitting at the bar with his girlfriend," began the account, which bore the byline of William Tucker. "It was the tenth recent bombing here in gang terrorism that North Bay Village Police Chief Earl Mitchell said goes back to the '20s when they would do anything to emphasize a threat."

The "they" to whom Chief Mitchell referred were the mobsters who frequented the restaurants and bars of North Bay Village in the 1950s and 1960s, when the archipelago of manmade islands inserted between the mainland and Miami Beach's Normandy Isle was a trs chic outpost in Dade County for fine dining and drinking. And it wasn't only wise guys who were drawn to the glitter and glamour of what is today a sleepy and underdeveloped bedroom community of 8,159 inhabitants situated in the heart of Biscayne Bay. Back then, the east-west causeway that slices through North Bay Village was lined with upmarket steakhouses and watering holes that lured top-drawer celebs like Judy Garland, Jackie Gleason, Frank Sinatra, and his fellow Rat Pack carousers. One of Ol' Blue Eyes' wingmen, Dean Martin, the boozy crooner from Steubenville, Ohio, opened a pub called Dino's in the Village in the mid-'60s and christened it the Show Place of the South.

An empty parking lot now marks the spot where Martin's tavern once catered to Hollywood's rich and famous. Right next to it is the last surviving vestige of an era when North Bay Village was the South Beach of the 1950s, and South Beach was better known as God's waiting room for the blue-rinse set. That relic is Happy's Stork Lounge and Liquor, a seedy, smoker-friendly dive bar that was licensed in 1952 to an underworld figure named Stefano Randazzo and lives on as a beloved mecca for the economy-class tippling set of North Bay Village, the Normandy Isles neighborhood of Miami Beach, and Miami's Upper Eastside.

A perennial contender for the title of the region's best dive bar, Happy's proudly retains its throwback ambiance and eminently affordable beers and cocktails. (A double-rail vodka and tonic lightens a patron's wallet by a mere $6.) But nothing is forever in this world, and sometime in April, Happy's is slated to move out of the strip-mall premises it has occupied for more than 70 years and into a more spacious and far brighter retail space 1,600 feet to the west.Whereas Happy's has always been a liquids-forward establishment, standard-issue bar snacks and appetizers will be on offer at the new location (which not all that long ago housed an upmarket taco restaurant), and cigarette smokers will be banished to an outdoor patio.

Nevertheless, 61-year-old Steven Inerfeld, who, in partnership with his kid brother Howard acquired Happy's in 1993, promises that the relocated bar will be "newer, better, and cleaner" than its storied predecessor.

Some longtime elbow benders are dubious of the so-called improvements.

"I'm apprehensive," says Kelly, a 64-year-old retired bookkeeper from Brooklyn and avid smoker who began frequenting Happy's in 2002 with her then-husband after they moved into an apartment nearby. "There's going to be food. And it's not just the food. It's going to be very different it's just not going to be the same."

Howard Inerfeld, 58, likes to think of Happy's as a real-life version of the cozy Boston bar that starred in the 1980s hit TV sitcom Cheers. "We're on a first-name basis with our customers," notes Belarusian bartender, Alexi. "We know what they like."

Passing the bar: Happy's has been a beacon on the 79th Street Causeway for nearly 70 years.

Photo by Jade Finlayson

"Mac's is way more touristy, whereas this is a 100 percent neighborly bar," opines Patrick Harrington, a thirtysomething database programmer from Maryland who began frequenting Happy's not long after he moved into a nearby condominium building in January 2009 and now serves as the bar's operations manager. "We drove two people home last night to make sure they got home safe because they are in the neighborhood. You don't get that at Mac's."

By their own admission, the Inerfeld brothers never would have budged from the bar's current address had it been up to them. But in May 2021, a Miami residential development behemoth called the Shoma Group bought the corner property where Happy's now stands for $7.4 million and ponied up another $8.4 million for the capacious adjacent parking lot. The company announced plans to raze the strip mall and, in its place, erect a 19-story condominium tower that will house 333 units and a Publix.

The Shoma Group's vision is one of several development projects that threaten to transform North Bay Village over the next decade into a blend of Brickell's gridlocked avenues and teeming sidewalks and the corridor of high-rises that tower over Collins Avenue in Sunny Isles Beach. In that sense, Happy's date with the wrecking ball can't be shrugged off as the inevitable fate of an expired relic from a bygone era. The bar's imminent uprooting is another cautionary tale highlighting the headlong plunge into hyper-development consuming great swaths of Miami Beach and Bay Harbor Islands, not to mention Miami's mainland bayfront.

"I'm honestly heartbroken because you get a taste of old Miami here where people who don't make a lot of money can go and relax, and it doesn't have to be a place that is all glitz and glamour," says 39-year-old schoolteacher Deniece Williams, gesturing from her barstool perch. "But I see North Bay Village turning into what many other neighborhoods like Brickell and downtown Miami are turning into."

The municipality's vice mayor, Richard Chervony, has already seen the village evolve into something quite different from the bland suburb he moved to 30 years ago. The Havana-born physician was drawn to North Bay Island which, unlike the other two isles that also make up North Bay Village, was zoned exclusively for single-family dwellings. Back then, Chervony says, the neighborhood was mostly Jewish and English-speaking.

The ethnic homogeneity of yesteryear has yielded to a predominantly Latin population composed of U.S.-born Hispanics and Latin American immigrants garnished with a splash of Brazilian nationals to complete the demographic cocktail.

Now 72, Chervony openly acknowledges the pro-development stance he has habitually adopted during his years as an elected member of the village commission. But he doubts whether all the development projects he and his colleagues on the commission have okayed will bear fruit during his lifetime.

"I'd love to see it happen, but I don't see it happening. None of these properties has a shovel in the ground," he tells New Times. "What I have seen is a lot of individuals purchasing these empty lots and selling us on the idea of developing them. But they keep flipping them instead."

"He was a grumpy old man," recalls Howard Inerfeld, who, along with his sibling Steven, met Goldlust in 1993 when they were negotiating the sale of the business. That he had the nickname "Happy" was wholly ironic in its provenance, Howard asserts. "Like a fat man is called 'Tiny' or a bald man is called 'Curly.'"

"Like a fat man is called 'Tiny' or a bald man is called 'Curly'": RIP Bernard "Happy" Goldlust, who lent the bar his nickname.

Photo by Jade Finlayson

"That was the air he would put out, in kind of a secretive way," says the 66-year-old land surveyor. "He was very observant and street smart, big-time. And if he knew something about the mob, he wouldn't tell you."

Much of the vintage patina that differentiates Happy's from more conventional dive destinations like On the Rocks in North Beach dates to Goldlust's 37-year tenure as its owner. The cash register nestled among the liquor bottles on the bar's western side has a distinctively 1950s look. The package-liquor side of the business boasts a black rotary telephone that operates on a landline and is straight out of that same decade. (It proved its worth when a hurricane knocked out local cell networks for days on end.)

Goldlust commissioned a sepia-toned mural that covers much of the eastern wall of the bar and depicts drinkers from different walks of life enjoying beverages and one another's company. Look closely, and you'll note that the elegantly coiffed woman clad in a mink stole and clutching a cigarette holder in her right hand is pockmarked with two small-caliber bullet holes, one just to the left of the part in her blond hair, the other slightly to the right of her left nostril.

Look closely at the mural and you'll note that the face of the elegantly coiffed woman is pockmarked with two small-caliber bullet holes.

Photo by Jade Finlayson

Goldlust survived his wounds. But by the early 1990s, he'd grown weary of the entrepreneurial life. He told a North Miami-based cousin of the Inerfelds that he was looking to unload the bar that bore his sobriquet, and a deal was done.

Steven Inerfeld (tending his bar) promises that the relocated Happy's will be "newer, better, and cleaner" than its storied predecessor.

Photo by Jade Finlayson

But fear not for the long-term prospects of the Inerfeld family business. Until recently, none of the brothers' three adult children had expressed even the slightest interest in inheriting the taps one day. That changed late last year when Steven's only child, physical therapist Brittany Inerfeld, pronounced herself an heiress-apparent, eager to learn the finer points of operating a liquor business whose hours are 10 a.m. to 5 a.m., 365 days a year.

"I grew up going to the bar as a kid, and it was torture," the 30-year-old Long Island native recalls. "But as it got closer to the reality of it closing, I realized how badly I didn't want to lose the place. I just want to keep the legend alive for my dad because everyone knows him from Happy's. I don't see it happening anytime soon, but whenever he feels the need to slow down, I'll help pick up some of the slack."

The barflies of North Bay Village and environs will drink to that.

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Last Call at the Original Happy's Stork Lounge - Miami New Times