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Today’s D Brief: US, NATO to pull out of Afghanistan; IC’s threat assessment; Biden diplomacy; Extremist airman; And a bit more. – Defense One

Posted on April 20, 2021 by Danzig

At long last: Americas military is leaving Afghanistan in September. Thats the big news we learned Tuesday, and expect to hear more about this afternoon when President Joe Biden addresses the topic in remarks planned for about 2 p.m. ET from the White Houses Treaty Room.

Also today: We could get a better sense of what Americas NATO allies think of Bidens decision. His Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin and top diplomat Secretary of State Antony Blinken are in Brussels to meet with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, as well as foreign and defense ministers from across the alliance and Afghanistan is just one of a few interrelated matters the officials are discussing today. Others include NATO support to Ukraine and the immediate need for Russia to cease its aggressive military buildup along Ukraines borders and in occupied Crimea, according to a statement today from Blinkens spokesman Ned Price.

But about Afghanistan: [T]he NATO Alliance went into Afghanistan together, adjusted to changing circumstances together, and will leave together, Price said.

According to the White House: We will begin an orderly drawdown of the remaining forces before May 1 and plan to have all U.S. troops out of the country before the 20th anniversary of 9/11, a senior administration official told reporters Tuesday.

NATO troops will also depart; but exactly how many is unclear. We have discussed the drawdown with our NATO allies and operational partners, that administration official said. We will remain in lockstep with them as we undergo this operation. We went in together, adjusted together, and now we will prepare to leave together.

Worth noting: At the moment, of the 9,600 NATO troops officially in Afghanistan, about 2,500 of them are American, though that number can be as many as 1,000 higher, the New York Times reports today from Brussels. The second-largest contingent is from Germany, with some 1,300 troops.

ICYMI: 500 more U.S. troops will be headed to Germanys Wiesbaden area possibly as early as this fall, Austin announced Tuesday from Berlin. The new troops would bring the total U.S. forces in Germany to about 35,500; and it sends a notably different message to NATO than the one from Bidens predecessor, who sought to reduce troop levels in Germany and add to troop levels in Poland.

[T]his move will also create more space capabilities, more cyber, and more electronic warfare capabilities in Europe, and it will greatly improve our ability to surge forces at a moment's notice to defend our allies, Austin said Tuesday. Some 35 local national positions and 750 family members will also be coming to the Wiesbaden areas, U.S. Army-Europe officials said in a separate announcement Tuesday.

Germanys reax: It is great news that not only has the withdrawal of troops...from Germany been halted, but, quite the contrary; we will be able to welcome an additional 500 U.S. troops, Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said while standing beside Austin in Berlin.

US, NATO Troops to Withdraw from Afghanistan by 9/11, US Official Says // Tara Copp: Decision for a September pullout follows rigorous policy review.

Afghanistans Situation Didnt Change. American Politics Did // Kevin Baron: The Biden administration says it can fight terrorism in a way that its predecessors called impossible. Can it?

HASC Chair: White House Is Slow-Rolling Defense Budget Details // Marcus Weisgerber: Get us the numbers before May 10, Rep. Adam Smith said Tuesday.

New ODNI Report Sees Growing Cyber Threats, COVID-Related Instability // Patrick Tucker, Government Executive: Intelligence heads will brief lawmakers on Wednesday about threats from China, Russia, others.

'I Felt Hate More Than Anything': How an Active Duty Airman Tried to Start a Civil War // Gisela Prez de Acha, Ellie Lightfoot, and Kathryn Hurd, ProPublica: Steven Carrillos path to the Boogaloo Bois shows the hate group is far more organized and dangerous than previously known.

Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief from Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. And if youre not already subscribed to The D Brief, you can do that here. On this day in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on the same night that a deserter in the Confederacy attacked Lincolns Secretary of State William Seward while he was being treated by an Army nurse in his home. Confederate Gen. Robert Lee had surrendered to the Union Army just four days earlier, but Lincoln and Sewards attackers thought there was still a chance the South could win the war. Seward somehow survived his attack; Lincoln passed away the following day. The South officially lost the war on May 9.

For the first time in two years, Americas top intelligence officials will testify on global threats to the U.S. That includes CIA Director William Burns; FBI Director Chris Wray; Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines; Army Gen. Paul Nakasone of the National Security Agency; and Defense Intelligence Agency's Army Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier. That started at 10 a.m. ET. Catch the livestream here.Some things theyre apt to bring up today: The worldwide effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is prompting shifts in security priorities for countries around the world, Defense Ones Patrick Tucker reports off the new worldwide threat assessment (PDF) from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which was released this week.In addition to COVID-19, A large section on cyber this year highlights the risk of supply-chain disruptions from China and particularly Russia. Read on, here.What does the future of U.S. cybersecurity look like? Thats what the Senate Armed Services Committee is looking into today during an afternoon hearing with NSA Cybersecurity Director Robert Joyce; the Defense Department's David McKeown and and Navy Rear Adm. William Chase III. That gets underway at 2:30 p.m. ET.

NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM leaders are headed before the House Armed Services Committee today. The ostensible focus of that hearing: National Security Challenges and U.S. Military Activity in North and South America. Thats scheduled for 11 a.m., and comes an hour after the House Foreign Affairs Committee began its hearing digging into Root Causes of Migration from Central America.

Biden talked with Putin on Tuesday. During the leaders second phone call, the U.S. president emphasized the United States unwavering commitment to Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity," according to a White House readout of the call. The Hill has a bit more.Russia vows two more weeks of military maneuvers near Ukraine as U.S. warships plan Black Sea sortie, AP reported Tuesday.Heres a roundup of Russias recent military moves in the region, from Defense Ones Patrick Tucker.

The U.S. has also dispatched an unofficial delegation to Taiwan, according to Reuters: Former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd and former Deputy Secretaries of State Richard Armitage and James Steinberg headed to Taiwan on Tuesday at President Joe Bidens request, in what a White House official called a personal signal of the presidents commitment to the Chinese-claimed island and its democracy. Read on, here.ICYMI: Chinese and U.S. naval forces have been particularly active in the Western Pacific and South China Sea in the past few weeks. More at CNN.

And finally today: A company in Australia knows how to break into encrypted iPhones. Thats why the FBI asked them to help in the case of the San Bernardino shooters back in December 2015 and its also why Apple is suing the company, the Washington Posts Ellen Nakashima and Reed Albergotti report after some respectable sleuthing.Who are these guys? Azimuth Security, which the Post describes as a publicity-shy company that says it sells its cyber wares only to democratic governments.Where this story gets interesting: Even Apple didnt know which vendor the FBI used, Nakashima and Albergotti write. But without realizing it, Apples attorneys came close last year to learning of Azimuths role through a different court case, one that has nothing to do with unlocking a terrorists device. Continue reading here.

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Today's D Brief: US, NATO to pull out of Afghanistan; IC's threat assessment; Biden diplomacy; Extremist airman; And a bit more. - Defense One

Can Afghan Forces Hold Back The Taliban Without U.S., NATO Troops? – Gandhara

Posted on April 20, 2021 by Danzig

A powerful presence in Afghanistan for nearly two decades, the withdrawal of the last 2,500 U.S. troops from the war-torn country has U.S. intelligence chiefs and policy advisers concerned the Afghan military will be unable to hold off extremist Taliban forces by itself.

And it won't just be U.S. forces that will be leaving.

Shortly after U.S. President Joe Biden's announcement of the pullout on April 14, NATO confirmed it will follow Washington's timetable and pull its remaining 7,000 non-U.S. soldiers out of Afghanistan by September 11.

In fact, Afghan government forces have been responsible for security in their country since 2014.

But they depend heavily on the U.S. military and its contractors for logistics, close air support, and the maintenance of crucial equipment.

A recent U.S. intelligence report -- an annual threat assessment delivered to the Senate shortly before Bidens withdrawal announcement -- warns that the prospects for a peace deal between Kabul and the Taliban will remain low during the next year.

The Taliban is likely to make gains on the battlefield, and the Afghan government will struggle to hold the Taliban at bay if the coalition withdraws support, the April 9 report predicted.

Kabul continues to face setbacks on the battlefield, and the Taliban is confident it can achieve military victory, the U.S. intelligence chiefs warned. Afghan forces continue to secure major cities and other government strongholds, but they remain tied down in defense missions and have struggled to hold recaptured territory or reestablish a presence in areas abandoned in 2020.

Meanwhile, an Afghan Study Group report issued by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) warns that the risks of state failure and renewed conflict are extremely high.

"A withdrawal would not only leave America more vulnerable to terrorist threats; it would also have catastrophic effects in Afghanistan and the region that would not be in the interest of any of the key actors, the Afghan Study Group concluded.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has responded with a brave face to Bidens withdrawal announcement, tweeting that Afghanistans proud security and defense forces are fully capable of defending its people and country, which they have been doing all along.

Biden insists Washington will continue to support counterterrorism efforts from a distance to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a base for terrorist attacks on the United States or its interests.

He notes the Afghan government has more than 300,000 security troops in its ranks, including many trained by U.S. and NATO forces during the past two decades.

According to the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the Afghan forces include about 187,000 troops within the Defense Ministry and about 118,000 paramilitary police under the command of the Interior Ministry.

The United States has also for years been delivering military equipment to bolster the combat capabilities of Afghan government forces.

Afghan Deputy Defense Minister Shah Mahmoud Miakhil says the government by the end of 2020 had received from Washington at total of 1,383 Humvees, 55 Mobile Strike Force vehicles, 10 Black Hawk helicopters, and four fixed-wing A-29 light-attack planes for close air support.

Preservation of the Afghan Security Forces is of vital importance to Afghanistans long-term stability and security, says U.S. Lieutenant General John Deedrick, commander of Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan.

Looks Good On Paper

But security analyst Ted Callahan, a former adviser to U.S. Special Forces in northern Afghanistan, says what exists on paper and what exists in reality is often very different.

What matters is what is available to the frontline troops, Callahan tells RFE/RL. Whenever something gets written up by the Afghan security forces, its usually quite positive. Everything looks good. Its working. Its where it is supposed to be. But then, when you go and check, nothing is there. Its missing. Its broken. Its been stripped of parts.

He says the reality is that "all of that equipment may very well have arrived at some point, but where is it now? What is its current condition? Who knows how to operate it? Who has the keys to whatever garage its locked into? Who has been selling it to other parties -- possibly even the Taliban?

Callahan says the combat power of Afghan forces suggests it should be able to hold off future Taliban assaults, but experience shows they probably will not be able to.

By any metric, Callahan says, the combat capabilities of Afghan forces are superior to the Taliban in terms of aircraft, small arms and light weapons, artillery, and manpower.

But he says "history has shown us that [government forces] lack the will, the commitment, and the discipline that the Taliban have. That intangible factor gives the Taliban the edge over the Afghan security forces.

Attrition of forces has also been a thorny issue plaguing the Afghan government since the earliest efforts by NATO and the U.S.-led international coalition to build up an Afghan security force that is loyal to Kabul.

The latest SIGAR quarterly report shows attrition at a normal level for the Defense Ministry -- about 2 percent per month -- despite increased pay incentives.

Meanwhile, SIGAR says the Interior Ministry has seen a slightly elevated monthly attrition rate of about 4 percent.

The concern is that falling morale caused by the U.S. withdrawal, along with potential difficulties in paying Afghan troops, will lead to even higher attrition.

Torek Farhadi, a former adviser to the Afghan government, says Kabul is entirely dependent upon U.S. financial support for the salaries and supplies for its forces.

The United States will continue [financially] supporting Afghan security forces, albeit at a lower level, but for some time to come, Farhadi told RFE/RL. The Afghan Air Force is more dependent on support from contractors for the maintenance of its aircraft. This support from the United States will also be necessary going forward.

Farhadi says Washington's attempts to get the Afghan government to forge a peace deal with the Taliban would make the army more capable "to address foreign terrorist groups [in Afghanistan] such as Islamic State and others.

But a deadlock in the peace talks held in Qatar since September 2020 between Kabul and the Taliban, as well as increased attacks by the militant group, have raised doubts about the prospects of any peace deal being reached.

Sustainability And Logistics

Callahan says the weakest link in the Afghan security forces is, arguably, its ability to sustain itself until a Taliban-Kabul peace agreement is reached.

There are very few aircraft in the Afghan inventory, and their ability to maintain those is pretty much nil -- especially with the U.S. providing Black Hawk helicopters to replace their [Soviet-built] Mi-17s, he says.

Basically, they would have about a one-year period in which all their aircraft would stop flying if the U.S. were to suspend assistance in terms of maintenance, training, and everything else that is required to fly a helicopter in Afghanistan, Callahan says. They obviously have huge problems there.

He adds that poor logistics and corruption keep vital supplies from getting to "where theyre supposed to be."

Because of those weaknesses, Callahan predicts the Talibans 2021 spring offensive will see the militants push pretty hard on some of the provincial capitals that theyve already surrounded -- places like Tarin Kowt [in Uruzgan Province], possibly down in Helmand. Kunduz is a perennial favorite up in the northeast," he says. "Weve already seen fighting in Badakhshan that suggests they may be shaping operations in advance of an assault on Kunduz.

Callahan adds that The combat weaknesses will be exposed first. But what is going to be the real problem for the Afghan forces is going to be moving things around getting ammunition there, getting men there.

Lack Of Coordination

Tactical coordination between Afghan security force units is also an issue.

Within the ranks of the Interior Ministry, the paramilitary police force has grown to some 118,000 officers within the past year under a program that dissolved local Afghan police units and brought them under the ministrys command.

Defense Ministry forces include the Afghan Special Security Forces, the Afghan National Army Territorial Force, and the Afghan Air Force.

The Afghan Air Force currently relies on U.S. airborne communication platforms and U.S. air-strike controllers to coordinate close air support for Afghan ground troops engaged in combat against the Taliban.

That has raised concerns about future ground-and-air coordination after the departure of the last U.S. and NATO troops.

Specific troop levels for individual units of the Afghan forces is classified by the Kabul government.

But Afghanistans elite special forces are thought to be comprised of about 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers -- grouped within a Special Mission Wing, the Special Operations Corps, General Command Police Special Units, and other elements.

There are a number of special operation forces and they have different command-and-control structures, Callahan explains. Not all of them are going to be housed in the [Defense] Ministry. Some are under the [Interior] Ministry.

"The largest is the commandos," he says. "That unit is not only the most capable but also the unit thats going to be called on the most in terms of retaking areas that are captured by [the] Taliban, whether urban or rural.... They get overused.

Callahan says the commandos are not supposed to be a holding force or a light infantry force. They are not supposed to sit in the field for weeks on end or guard checkpoints. But thats often how they are utilized.

In fact, SIGAR notes, for more than a year Afghan special forces have been restricted mostly to defensive postures in order to hold the Taliban back from Kabul and provincial capitals.

In the meantime, Taliban fighters have expanded the territory they control by seizing isolated rural checkpoints -- in some cases allowing the Taliban to surround provincial capitals.

The Afghan Territorial Force is larger than the Special Security Forces. The Territorial Force has been trained to provide security in less violent security zones and to carry out general-purpose troop responsibilities.

The problem is that the conventional Afghan National Army, by and large, tends to cluster in large garrisons, Callahan says. It has a very defensive posture and, thus, a defensive mindset. And it tends not to do many offensive operations against the Taliban.

But when commandos go into a city like Kunduz and clear the Taliban out, they need somebody to come in and replace them so they can rest, refit, rearm, and then go out on another mission, he says.

What tends to happen is they get stuck sitting in a recaptured city like Kunduz for weeks on end -- holding checkpoints and conducting minor operations on the outskirts trying to degrade the Taliban so they dont come back in and take it. It really creates this dysfunctional dynamic that weve seen for almost 10 years now where one unit of the security forces has to do almost everything.

"It creates a lot of wear and tear and it just degrades their abilities as well," Callahan says.

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Can Afghan Forces Hold Back The Taliban Without U.S., NATO Troops? - Gandhara

Richard J. Evans Staying Alive in the Ruins: Plato to Nato LRB 22 April 2021 – London Review of Books

Posted on April 20, 2021 by Danzig

Just over forty years ago, in 1980, I found myself by chance teaching for a semester at Columbia University, armed with the grandiose title of Visiting Associate Professor of European History, provided with a free apartment and paid a salary not far short of what I earned in a whole year as a lowly lecturer in the UK. Id never been to the US and knew nothing about Columbia or indeed any other American university. The faculty mostly seemed rather elderly to me, and so far as I could tell they lived upstate and only came in to New York City once a week to dispense their wisdom ex cathedra in very lofty and very lengthy lectures, which were later explicated for students by a phalanx of teaching assistants. Most of the professors evidently thought I was a grad student, and in any case it was the grad students on whom I quickly came to rely for my social life.

Several of my friends were engaged in teaching a two-semester sophomore course called Contemporary Civilisation, and at first I thought how admirable this was: the university introducing its students to the world today, no matter what subject they were majoring in. What a splendid preparation for life after graduation! My friends soon disabused me. It was a great books course. It began with Platos Republic and continued with the Bible, before going on to Augustine, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Smith and so on. There was, it seemed to me, little sign of contemporary civilisation. Fully occupied with delivering twice-weekly lectures on Europe from 1870 to 1919 and a weekly graduate class on imperial Germany, I considered myself fortunate that I didnt have to teach this course as well: Id have struggled to keep up since Id never studied anything remotely resembling it myself.

Contemporary Civilisation was Columbias version of what in other American universities went by the name of Western Civilisation. Like them, Columbia had introduced it in the aftermath of the First World War, with the intention of informing the next generation of Americans about issues of war and peace, and, more generally, telling them what their country had been fighting for. American and Allied propaganda in the war had portrayed the conflict as a struggle to defend European and American civilisation against German barbarism. The enemy then was the Hun: a term borrowed from an unfortunate speech given by the kaiser in 1900, when German expeditionary troops confronting the Boxer Rebellion were instructed to make themselves remembered as the actual Huns had been after they trashed the Roman Empire. A widely distributed American recruitment poster showed a gorilla-like figure standing before the ruins of Louvain cathedral, wearing a spiked helmet, with a club marked Kultur in one hand and a swooning, half-naked maiden in the other. The poster urged young Americans to destroy this mad brute.

In wartime propaganda, as in the newly created Western Civ surveys, civilisation was seen as the creation of Ancient Greece and Rome. Plato to Nato courses may have introduced the mediating influence of Christianity, but essentially they emphasised the classical origins of the civilisation which educated elites in Europe and the US claimed to defend. There were few major politicians in the first half of the 20th century, and for some time afterwards, who hadnt received a classical education. In Britain, Margaret Thatcher, a scientist, was a rare exception; far more typical is Boris Johnson, who likes to quote great chunks of Ancient Greek from memory.

In his original and engrossing book, the Oxford historian Paul Betts, an American who experienced Western Civ at first hand, perhaps underplays the classical origins of the idea. Civilisation in the classical tradition already incorporated many of its contemporary meanings, from advanced technology and material comfort to enlightened philosophising and artistic sophistication. When, in his television series Civilisation (1969), Kenneth Clark asked himself, What is civilisation?, the answer was: I dont know But I think that I can recognise it when I see it. What Clark recognised was very much the Western Civ idea, stretching back to the Ancient Greeks and given new life by the Renaissance. These assumptions were shared by Norbert Elias, whose The Civilising Process (1939) had charted the history of manners and civility, and the emergence of the modern state. What Betts shows, however, is that the term had many uses and many different definitions, even in the relatively short time between the end of the Second World War and the present day.

During the war, Goebbels proclaimed that Germany was defending European civilisation against the barbarism of the Bolshevik hordes. Nazi propaganda condemned the British barbarism demonstrated by the bombing of historic German towns an example, Goebbels said, of Englands assassination of European culture. Hans Frank, governor general of Nazi-occupied Poland, said his aim was to elevate the Polish people to the honour of European civilisation, even as he trashed and looted the vast art collections of the Polish aristocracy, banned performances of Chopin and sent millions of Jews and other Poles to their deaths.

Contemplating the heaps of dead and dying in the liberated concentration camps, the British MP Mavis Tate thought that German rule in Europe represented the negation of civilisation. She noted that it exposed the deep streak of evil and sadism in the German race, such as one ought not to expect to find in a people who for generations have paid lip-service to Western culture and civilisation. When the surviving German war criminals were put on trial at Nuremberg, the American prosecutor Robert Jackson told the judges that the real complaining party at your bar is civilisation.

In 1945, the victorious Allies faced many of the same problems they thought they had faced in 1918. But the destructive effects of barbarism were now greater and more obvious. For one thing, the scale of the material damage inflicted on Europe was unprecedented. Entire cities were razed. Tens of millions of people were starving, destitute and homeless. And the Nazis had departed radically from the widely understood standards of decency and humanity that were central to the concept of civilisation.

Initially, there was a marked reluctance on the part of the Allies to embark on a programme of re-civilising the Germans. Betts doesnt mention the Morgenthau Plan to deindustrialise Germany, which, though it was never formally adopted, exerted a powerful influence on American policy in the immediate aftermath of the war, but he does make clear that it wasnt until 1946 that food and funds and other kinds of aid began to flow into Germany. The Marshall Plan, which poured millions of dollars into Western Europe on the condition that recipient countries accepted the principle and practice of liberal democracy, was intended, in the words of the director of the CIA, Allen Dulles, to fulfil the task of saving Europe for Western civilisation. The reconstruction effort was driven by a growing fear that, without it, the Germans would become susceptible to Communist or neo-Nazi propaganda. The doctrine of collective guilt underpinned a policy of non-fraternisation with individual Germans until it was suggested that the Red Army, more lenient in this respect, might be winning over more Germans than the British and Americans might like. The Cold War had begun.

The re-civilising of Germany was made easier by the concession that Germany had been civilised before 1933, possessing legal norms that the defendants at Nuremberg knew they were violating. Amounting to a distinction between the Nazis and the Germans a distinction which wartime propaganda and early postwar reactions to Nazi atrocities had threatened to obliterate this helped the occupying powers in their efforts to re-educate ordinary Germans. While the British adhered to the well-established concept of the two Germanies, and tried to bring out the civilised tradition of Beethoven and Goethe while suppressing the uncivilised tradition of Bismarck and the kaiser, the French sought to convert the Germans by introducing them to the universal values of French culture. Germans themselves paid little attention, at least to begin with, as they tried to stay alive among the ruins.

American policy was driven by the belief that the Germans needed reconnecting with contemporary Western civilisation. This could prove tricky, however. When the CIA sponsored a travelling exhibition called Advancing American Art, showcasing work by Abstract Expressionists such as Adolph Gottlieb and designed to show that American culture was a world away from the pseudo-classicism of Nazi art and the crude propaganda of Soviet socialist realism, the House Un-American Activities Committee condemned it and funding was withdrawn. The CIA continued to promote exhibitions in Germany by Abstract Expressionists, but covertly. Backing these initiatives was another CIA-sponsored institution, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which supported magazines such as Der Monat and, in Britain, Encounter, to cultivate American values. For a long time, the identity of these magazines backers remained hidden from most of their contributors. Regardless of the controversy aroused when it was eventually exposed, the CCF illustrated a key aspect of the mainstream US concept of civilisation in the 1950s: its identification with liberalism.

Betts emphasises, perhaps overemphasises, the contribution of photojournalism to these efforts, though this enables him to include illustrations that give a good flavour of the period. Policies such as the shift in 1946-47 from starving the Germans to feeding them were made in the end by politicians, not journalists. The Cold War was remoulding Western civilisation into Judeo-Christian civilisation, a concept endorsed by Eisenhower in 1952, shortly before he entered the White House. Catholic-Protestant reconciliation underpinned the Christian Democratic idea that, as the Italian politician Alcide de Gasperi put it, Christianity lies at the origin of this European civilisation. Faced by the threat of atheist communism from the east, politicians relegated the classical heritage to a subordinate role. Whats more, downplaying democracy and human rights in favour of Christianity allowed the Catholic dictatorships of Franco and Salazar to be welcomed into the club.

The Cold War also brought the threat of nuclear annihilation. Eisenhowers warning in 1953 that nuclear war would mean the probability of civilisation destroyed was echoed by the Soviet premier Georgy Malenkov: he said it would bring the end of world civilisation. Fear of catastrophe encouraged the negotiation of agreements such as the 1949 Geneva Convention for the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, which strengthened similar agreements signed before 1914 but treated as a dead letter between 1939 and 1945 (and not just by the Nazis). For most people in Europe, though, civilisation in the 1950s meant material progress. America, as the French poet Louis Aragon complained, was a civilisation of bathtubs and Frigidaires. Betts cites a 1954 opinion poll which asked French women what they wanted out of life: 22 per cent said love and 54 per cent material wellbeing. Left-wing European intellectuals worried openly that American consumerism was undermining European civilisation and drowning it in a wave of Coca-Cola and rocknroll. American sociologists decried the dumbing down of civilisation in a levelled-out mass society. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, a proliferation of etiquette books emphasised the importance of civility and moderation, in contrast to the fascist values propagated before 1945.

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Bettss book is the attention he pays to the reconstitution of European overseas empires as part of the effort to reconstitute European civilisation overall. Integral to this effort was the familiar claim that the colonial empires were justified because they were extending the benefits of European civilisation to parts of the world that remained uncivilised in many ways. But in the climate of the postwar world this was a lost cause. Japans easy conquests in the Far East had torpedoed the claims made for British, French and Dutch superiority to Asians. India became independent in 1947. Brutal campaigns waged by the French in Algeria, and by the British in Malaya and Kenya, destroyed the idea that European civilisation meant peace, order and the defence of human rights. Both the US and the USSR distanced themselves from European attempts to cling on to empire. In 1956 there was the debacle of Suez. In 1960 Harold Macmillan recognised the inevitable when he conceded the power of anticolonial liberation movements in his wind of change speech.

African nationalist intellectuals were by now appropriating the language of civilisation for themselves. Colonialism, they argued, had corrupted or displaced African civilisations, whose achievements could be seen in spectacular archaeological sites such as Great Zimbabwe that had been ignored by the colonisers, or falsely ascribed to mysterious white people by racists such as Ian Smith. Hugh Seton-Watson, an anti-communist historian of Eastern Europe, claimed that decolonisation was not a glorious extension of democracy, but a tragic decay of civilisation, similar to the decline of the Roman Empire, and followed by the same result, reversion to barbarism. His views were echoed by other conservatives. But they were challenged by writers such as Lopold Sdar Senghor, who borrowed from the German anthropologist Leo Frobenius to argue there had been a major precolonial African civilisation. He had to be somewhat selective in his borrowings, since Frobenius, a friend of Wilhelm II, believed that the civilisation had been founded by white men and had degenerated once they abandoned it.

For newly independent African states, exhibitions of precolonial sculptures, masks and monuments provided evidence of a vibrant cultural heritage. This idea blended into the concept of world civilisation, which became influential in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Unesco, founded in 1945, expressed the idea in the multi-volume History of Mankind (1963-76), whose bland optimism and avoidance of controversial political issues was widely criticised by historians. Far more successful was the parallel forty-volume History of Civilisation series, which brought together a diverse collection of historians including Eric Hobsbawm, Friedrich Heer and Michael Grant to produce single-author volumes on particular time periods and parts of the globe. Underpinning the concept, developed by its enterprising publisher George Weidenfeld, was the French idea of civilisation as encompassing material life and economies, ideas and mentalities, science and the arts, alongside the politics, revolutions and wars that were the traditional subjects of history.

Unesco scored a far greater and more lasting success with its invention of World Heritage Sites, a popular idea that had its origins in the multinational effort to rescue Ancient Egyptian monuments and artefacts threatened in the 1960s by the building of the Aswan Dam. As they proliferated across the globe, World Heritage Sites succeeded in breaking the identification of civilisation and heritage with Europe. The initiative also ran counter to the Western designation of civilisation as Christian. Communist governments in Eastern Europe saw that they could put themselves on an equal footing with the West by propagating the idea of socialist civilisation, which they sought to extend to the global south, supporting liberation movements in colonies such as Angola and Mozambique and backing the anti-apartheid cause in South Africa. This challenged the concept of Judeo-Christian civilisation adhered to by spokesmen for apartheid such as D.F. Malan, who declared the racial differences between blacks and whites to be the physical manifestation of the contrast between two irreconcilable ways of life, between barbarism and civilisation, between heathenism and Christianity.

The backlash against the secular, progressive concept of civilisation found dramatic expression in Greece in the coup of April 1967, led by colonels in fear of a socialist victory at the upcoming national elections. The coup had been necessary, one of the colonels proclaimed, because we had arrived at a situation of anarchism in this country of Helleno-Christian civilisation. Greece is a mission, another said, and this mission consists of civilisation. This did not prevent them from arresting and torturing thousands of their opponents. Nor did it stop them adding the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles to their already extensive list of banned works. The coup earned the colonels condemnation across the globe, and few were sorry when the regime was brought to an end in 1974. But neither the overthrow of the Portuguese dictatorship in 1974 nor the death of Franco the following year prevented the return of civilisations identification with Christian conservatism in the following decade.

The Islamic revolution in Iran and the ascendancy of hardline theocracy sparked a sense that civilisation was in crisis, fanned ten years later by Khomeinis incitement to Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie after the publication of The Satanic Verses. When the end of the Cold War determined that Russia could no longer serve as the antithesis of civilisation in the eyes of Christian conservatives, Islam provided a handy substitute. Global politics, Samuel Huntington wrote in 1996, is the politics of civilisations, a politics in which the rivalry of the superpowers is replaced by the clash of civilisations. The sense that Christian civilisation was threatened by violent Islamist barbarians was deepened by 9/11, the Iraq War, the Taliban and Islamic State. Beheadings and public stonings werent civilised and nor was the destruction of ancient monuments such as the city of Palmyra and the buddhas of Bamiyan.

Unesco condemned these and other acts of cultural vandalism as crimes against world civilisation, though the civilised world did not scruple to exploit these crimes for its own purposes: between 2007 and 2009, customs officials at Heathrow confiscated 3.4 tons of antiquities looted from war zones in Iraq and elsewhere, intended for sale on the international market. Civilisation under threat was the theme of a BBC television series broadcast in 2018, which opened with video footage of the destruction of Palmyra. Entitled Civilisations, it was clearly intended to dethrone the Eurocentrism of Kenneth Clarks series of the 1960s. But Unesco-style liberal multiculturalism had to compete with the growing resurgence of older and narrower ideas of civilisation, summed up in Niall Fergusons 2011 TV series and book Civilisation, which argued that the West had achieved world dominance through a combination of competition, science, property-owning democracy, modern medicine, the consumer society and the Protestant work ethic. Even this upbeat account ended, however, with a warning that civilisation in the West was now under threat though if, as the subtitle asked, the West was about to become history, this was only because it had lost faith in itself.

Ferguson shared Unescos emphasis on scientific progress, legal accountability, human rights and democratic politics. But in his pessimistic concluding chapters, Betts charts the narrowing of the idea of civilisation to a strong identification with Christianity, political authoritarianism and scientific denialism. Real and would-be populist authoritarians, from Orbn to Trump, have uncoupled the idea of civilisation from many of the concepts with which it was associated in the Unesco tradition. Where George W. Bush, speaking in Warsaw in 2003, referred to democracy thirteen times, and talked, like his predecessors since Truman, of the free world, Trumps inaugural address in 2017 mentioned democracy only once. In Trumps parlance, Betts notes, civilisation replaced democracy and human rights as sources of allegiance and identity. In 2017, Trump declared that his mission abroad was to defend the civilised world against terrorism: Our civilisation will triumph.

In the view of modern conservatives, civilisation is Christian, and it is under threat above all from the Islamic world. In this view, secularism is too feeble a force to ward off the threat. This brings with it in turn a populist scepticism about secular science, above all the science of climate change, with its unacceptable attacks on material civilisation: cars, fossil fuels and all the other sources of global warming that have underpinned the prosperity and wellbeing of advanced industrial societies. On the far right, a racist understanding of civilisation has been used to warn the white majoritarian culture about the dangers of immigration. Orbn, who has built a wall on the Serbian border to keep out migrants, declares that he is defending the whole of European civilisation. Yet for liberals and the left, Betts observes, the idea of civilisation is a source of chagrin and loathing, a hangover from the era of imperialism. By vacating the field, they have left the rhetoric of civilisation to the right, to be deployed in the service of nationalistic and anti-democratic ambitions. Perhaps, given the many reconceptualisations of civilisation over time, this may change at some point in the future. But it doesnt look likely soon.

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Richard J. Evans Staying Alive in the Ruins: Plato to Nato LRB 22 April 2021 - London Review of Books

Local Sons of Confederate Veterans camp to hold memorial – The Albany Herald

Posted on April 20, 2021 by Danzig

ALBANY The Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 141 in Albany will host its annual Confederate Memorial Service Saturday from 9 a.m.-noon at the CSA Memorial Park on Philema Road.

The observance is held each year during April, which is Confederate History and Heritage Month in the state. The designation was ratified by the Georgia General Assembly in 2009.

The ceremony will pay tribute to the Confederate battle flag, according to SCV Camp 141 Commander James King.

The Confederate flag represents honor, faith, courage, dignity, integrity, chivalry, Christian values, respect for womanhood, strong family ties, patriotism, self-reliance, limited constitutional federal government, states rights, and belief in the free enterprise system, King said in a news release. It symbolizes the noble spirit of the Southern people, the rich heritage, the traditions of the South and the dynamic and vigorous Southern culture. No other symbol so proudly says Dixie as the Cross of St. Andrew waving in the breeze.

Liberals have falsely indoctrinated many black Americans to believe the flag represents racism, bigotry and a painful reminder of slavery. But white Christian Southerners who fly the Confederate battle flag are not the enemy of responsible black Americans who are working to better themselves.

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Saturdays memorial service will include a musical tribute to the Confederate States of America consisting of CSA songs and Southern Gospel. Music will be preformed by Ed Eschman and the band Southern Sounds. The formal memorial service will begin with an invocation by Pastor Bobby Brown, followed by a singalong of the Southern National Anthem, Dixie. George Ray Houston, the poet laurate of the Georgia SCV Division, will read the poem The Long, Lonesome Road.

The events keynote speaker is Eugene Bo Slack, who is the commander of the Sylvester SCV Camp Yancey Independents. He will present a summary of the lives of Christian CSA Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan Stonewall Jackson. Following Slacks speech, King will read the order and date of the secession of states that formed the Confederate States of America. Descendants of each state who are in attendance will stand to be recognized when the state in which their ancestor served as a soldier is called and a flower will be placed at the CSA Monument in memory of the soldiers of that CSA state.

A rifle and cannon salute by re-enactors in Confederate uniform will be followed by a singalong of Amazing Grace and the event will conclude with a benediction by Brown.

All members of the public who have an interest in Confederate history and heritage are invited to attend. For additional information contact King at jkingantiquearms@bellsouth.net or (229) 854-1944.

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Local Sons of Confederate Veterans camp to hold memorial - The Albany Herald

6 Confederate memorials could be removed from the Texas Capitol if state bill passes – KXAN.com

Posted on April 20, 2021 by Danzig

AUSTIN (Nexstar) State lawmakers on Monday are considering a bill that would remove certain Confederate monuments and memorials, and rename other parts of the Capitol Complex, due to Confederate ties.

Before laying out the bill in the House Committee on Culture, Recreation and Tourism, the author of the bill, Rep. Rafael Anchia, (D Dallas), held a press conference to rally support for the bill.

Confederate artifacts are undeniably a representation of hate, racism, and oppression, Rep. Anchia said, Theyre an insult to the many descendants of slavery to the many people who visit our Capitol today, in the state of Texas, and the intent of admission of the Confederacy are clear and indisputable.

The bill would require the removal of the following monuments from Capitol grounds:

It would also rename the John H. Reagan Building to the Jackson-Webber Building in honor of Nathaniel Jackson and John Webber.

Those testifying against the bill on Monday said the bill would be erasing history.

David Wylie, Republican Party of Texas, testified that it would in fact be rewriting history.

I cant agree with that. This calls for the removal of things that reminds people of where weve been, Wylie said, It shows what weve been through, and where we are today.

But, Rep. Anchia countered that the existing monuments rewrite history, and misrepresent the intent of the Civil War.

Instead of using tax dollars to celebrate and glorify people who are secessionists, people who were traitors to America, and people who wanted to preserve an institution, where one human could own another human and force that human to do labor on their behalf, raped that other human, own their children and their progeny as if they were property, we seek to change that, Rep. Anchia said.

The hearing for the bill is continuing into the evening, with 30 witnesses signed up to testify.

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6 Confederate memorials could be removed from the Texas Capitol if state bill passes - KXAN.com

From dystopia to utopia: How UK co-working spaces are redefining the new normal – UKTN (UK Technology News

Posted on April 20, 2021 by Danzig

The pandemic suddenly forced millions of workers out of the offices to work from home. Before the pandemic, flexible-office companies like WeWork made up a growing sliver of real estate 2.3% of leasable space in the US as of the first quarter of 2020, according to JLL research, and the sector has grown an average of 23% per year since 2010.

Now, insiders predict a short-term pinch for the industry, as employees fear returning to people filled floors and as some of the small businesses that relied on these spaces have reduced their headcount. Addressing these concerns will be of paramount importance for co-working space providers.

Addressing the elephant in the room

Given the current situation, anyone is bound to think twice before deciding to work out of a co-working space. Addressing these concerns that weigh down on everyones mind will be critical for co-working space providers such as Spacemade and WeWork. How will the companies make sure that users are comfortable enough to return back to coworking spaces?

To make this happen, Jonathan Rosenblatt, co-founder and co-CEO at Spacemade notes that establishing trust is of paramount importance. Businesses dont want to think about building compliance, air quality, sanitisers, extra cleaning and more, but they do want all of that to be taken care of. Thus, the trust rests with flexible workspace operators.

Spacemade is a first-of-its-kind operational partner for landlords looking to provide a bespoke flexible workspace offer directly to their customers. The group has over 100,000 sq ft of flexible office space under operation in London, Leeds and Bristol. The business was founded by Jonny Rosenblatt and Dan Silverman. Recently, the startup also bagged 1 million funding to grow its flexible workspaces in the UK.

WeWork, the most controversial name in this space, failed to become public, last year and got battered hard. Industry experts believed that it was time for the co-working player to make peace with the sunset, but a year and a pandemic later, the office-sharing firm is still standing strong.

UKTN also had a chat with Mathieu Proust, General Manager from WeWork UK and he emphasises how the company is working really hard to make sure their spaces are as safe as possible. The company has invested heavily in doubling up on sanitisation, installing HVAC systems for constant air filtration and regularly sanitising frequently used elements like door handles and lifts.

Additionally, it even changed the layout for some of its offices to enable a roomier environment and to shape users behaviour within a space. WeWork also obtained third-party certification from Bureau Veritas, which ensures that they are actually living up to the high standards of sanitisation.

Overall, establishing trust with consumers, having mitigations in place and delivering on promises of sanitising their spaces will be crucial for coworking spaces to thrive again.

Moving towards the flexible new normal

Both WeWork and Spacemade have numerous buildings available across London. While some of their spaces follow the modern dynamic workspaces landscape, others are collaboration hubs. These hubs are geared towards enabling idea exchanges with no traditional desk or chairs layout and a lot of whiteboards.

WeWork also recently launched All Access, which is its monthly membership. It is different from its standard subscription as one receives their badge, which grants access to any of the companys buildings around the world. Essentially, it makes the entire city your campus. One can open the app and decide if they dont want to work in the same location as yesterday. If they have a client meeting in Victoria, for example, they can work in a location nearby, Proust explains.

WeWorks Growth Campus

WeWork also recently announced an allocation of 15 million for subsiding rents for struggling SMEs. Additionally, in London and other cities, it will provide free mentoring and education opportunities to help SMEs recover.

It is no surprise that the work from home scenario has changed our lives forever. However, it is something that will be difficult to support indefinitely because it hampers collaboration and in turn, innovation. For smaller and even medium-sized companies, collaboration serves as an important tool to fuel innovation. WeWork aims to deliver it through Growth Campus.

Additionally, Growth Campus will also enable a new generation of entrepreneurs to come into the limelight. Proust calls them the COVID generation of entrepreneurs, which is something WeWork wants to be a part of. In the UK, specifically, we witnessed the rise of new entrepreneurs. Last year, new business formations stood at 13% and thats why we created Growth Campus, to do our part and give something back to the SMEs and the entrepreneurial attitude, Proust adds.

WeWork will consider any company under the new program if their employee headcount is below 20 and if they have a vision to scale within the UK or internationally.

Changes for co-working spaces in a post-pandemic world

Rosenblatt predicts that in a post-pandemic world, where almost everything is changing, the short-term outlook will be highly competitive. This is expected to create notably attractive pricing propositions for the customers. If this turns out to be true, it will be good news for end customers as it makes returning to the office even more attractive.

Talking about mid-to-long term changes, he says there will be a pretty seismic shift to a more flexible and hybrid work approach as flexibility also means one can repurpose their office. Flexibility is key and we see most businesses moving towards using space on demand with requirements such as different spaces for different uses throughout the week. This can be difficult for businesses to deliver without professional support from specialist co-working providers, Rosenblatt adds.

The future for coworking spaces

It can be difficult to accurately predict whats going to happen next in any sector at the moment. However, Proust opines that the future for co-working spaces is all about flexibility.

Proust notes, Now that places are reopening, were going back to a new normal. But what is the new normal? This could look something like enabling members to choose how many days they want to work and what can we set up for them. Do they want an exciting office? And those are the kind of problems we are solving.

Rosenblatts thoughts align similarly as well. He says, The question we need to ask is; if youre a team of 10, on the days that youre in the office, would you rather have a small leased space with no amenity, or would you rather have access to thousands of sq ft of the hospitality-driven workspace where you can be surrounded by new people to interact with?

New coworking spaces in the works

For current and future plans, Both WeWork and Spacemade are opening more co-working spaces across London and the UK. SpaceMade recently launched a new space, Neighbourhood Works at London Fields a few weeks ago and many new spaces are said to be in the pipeline.

As for WeWork, it recently opened up a new space in Shoreditch. It is also in the process of curating new workplaces all around the UK.

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From dystopia to utopia: How UK co-working spaces are redefining the new normal - UKTN (UK Technology News

Offspring’s first new album in nine years, 5 Things to Know – The Oakland Press

Posted on April 20, 2021 by Danzig

These are good times for the Offspring -- even if the California punk group's new album is called "Let the Bad Times Roll."

It's actually been nine years since the quartet's last studio album, albeit with an EP and some singles in between. "Bad Times," due out Friday, April 16, was recorded over the course of that interim with producer Bob Rock, and was previewed during 2015 with the single "Coming For You."

In addition to the album, the Offspring has launched a new video series, "How To: With the Offspring," which will share "a vast amount of useful knowledge -- starting with an episode in which frontman Bryan "Dexter" Holland and guitarist Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman teach viewers how to surf...

Despite the long gap between albums Noodles says the Offspring was never concerned about getting "Let the Bad Times Roll" finished and out. "We always knew we were gonna get to it eventually. It might seem like a saga from an outsider's standpoint, but it's really just something we've been working on when we're not touring, or when one of us (Holland) isn't working on his Ph. D. There's a lot of reasons why it took this long to get it done, but honestly the majority of this record, and I think some of the better parts of this record, came together in the last couple years. We just had a real creative time, and things started clicking."

The official music video for The Offsprings Let The Bad Times Roll.

Get the new song and pre-save the upcoming album LET THE BAD TIMES ROLL now at https://found.ee/OffspringBadTimesRoll

While "Bad Times" is not a concept record, Noodles says the title and title track, as well as songs such as "This is Not Utopia," were inspired by recent and current events. "It's kind of look at where we find ourselves in the world right now. Our country just went through four crazy years, politically and societally, and it's not over. We're still going through it. Then throw a pandemic on top of that. Things haven't changed that much in nice years since (the Offspring's last album). There's still plenty of (bad stuff) going on in the world that makes people go, 'Omigod!'"

"Bad Times" includes a stripped-down, acoustic version of the Offspring's 1997 single "Gone Away," an arrangement that's been part of the band's live set in recent years. "It really works live. We thought, 'Let's strip it down a little bit. Let's purify it, keep it to its simplest emotions.' It's really a dramatic moment in the show, and our fans really took to it. They've been asking, 'When can we get a studio version?' and eventually we thought, 'OK, we should try it. It's a great idea. Let's dee if we can pull it off,' and this is the result."

Noodles says the "How To" video series is "something that's just fun for us to do when we can't go out and play shows. We don't take it that seriously; It's like, 'Yeah, I know a little something about this...' Some of them are going to be more serious than others, but we want it short, sweet and easily digestible, but also something we know the fans are gonna dig."

With plans to tour the U.K. during November pending, the Offspring is using videos and interviews to promote "Bad Times'" release. Meanwhile the band is continuing to work on material with hopes that it won't take as long to release its next album. "There are some songs that we were working on that we can't put all the pieces together yet. You don't just trash 'em. We probably have four or five songs I want to say are done or close to done for the next record. Right now we're just focusing on getting this record out and touring some, but the next record is also in the back of our heads. We're definitely thinking about that."

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Offspring's first new album in nine years, 5 Things to Know - The Oakland Press

Broadway Baby: Michael Kors on 50 Years of Opening Nights, Diva Crushes and a Dream Revival – WWD

Posted on April 20, 2021 by Danzig

Michael Kors love of theater is a close second to his love of fashion.

He has been to hundreds, probably thousands, of live performances over the past 50-plus years, starting at age five, and has been deeply concerned about the shutdown of Broadway, which he calls the beating heart of New York, and how it has impacted some 87,000 jobs.

Our office is close to the Theater District so we feel part of the community, said Kors, who dedicated his 40th anniversary runway show to Broadway, including making a donation to nonprofit The Actors Fund. When people hear The Actors Fund they think actors, and its for them but also to support the entire army of talent behind the scenes that brings a show to light.We dont want this pool of talent to disappear.

While Kors has been trying to get his fix by streaming theater during quarantine, its not the same, he said. Recently, as New Yorks COVID-19 restrictions have eased, he was able to see Rufus Wainwright perform live as part of an audience of 40. I felt like someone had reconnected a body part that was missing, he said of the thrill, which he is sharing with viewers of his 40th collection film Tuesday, featuring Wainwright and appearances by a cavalcade of Broadway legends, including Chita Rivera and Billy Porter.

As a curtain raiser, WWD dished with the designer about his favorite opening nights, diva crushes, the show hed like to revive and design costumes for.

WWD: What was your first Broadway show?

Michael Kors: Ethel Merman in Annie Get Your Gun. Of course, I was five, so I had no way to know this was not the norm. My mom never took me to see the clunkers. To see Hair, she had to lie to my father and tell him we were going shopping. He thought it was not a good show for an 11-year-old.

WWD: Mine was Annie, and one of my classmates was an orphan, so we were all so jealous.

M.K.: Thats big.

WWD: Who are the divas youll always love? Besides Bette, because thats a given.

M.K.: When I was working at Lothars the hottest ticket was seeing Patti LuPone doing Evita, and you literally felt like you were blown out of your seat backward. Bernadette Peters Sunday in the Park With George, when the first act was finished, I had tears rolling down my face. Anyone who is in the creative world, that show knocks you out. And her voice broke my heart. Angela Lansbury in Sweeney Todd. How did Stephen Sondheim even conceptualize we were going to sit through a show about a mass murderer and find it entertaining? Watching Audra McDonald do Billie Holiday on the stage by herself in Lady Day at Emersons Bar & Grill, you are so riveted. Anything Goes is one of my favorites. When Sutton Foster finished the big tap number, and the audience is feeding off the energy on stage and each other, you cant recapture that on Zoom, streaming or film.

WWD:Did you see Starlight Express with the roller skaters? I loved that.

M.K.: [My husband] Lances first show was Starlight Express, it was Audra McDonalds first show, and Jane Krakowski was in Starlight Express. We were all at a dinner and they looked at me and said, You didnt go see it? I said No, roller skating was not meant to happen on Broadway.

WWD: What about Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard? That was a moment.

M.K.: We saw it with Glenn, with Betty Buckley, then we saw it in London with Rita Moreno, and Rita let me go onto the stage and got them to press the hydraulic lift, so I got to experience walking down the staircase when it was moving.

Actress Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard in New York, 2017.Greg Allen/Invision/AP

WWD: Thats big. Craziest experience in the seats?

M.K.: Opening night of revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, we sat down and the person in front of us was dressed all in white with an enormous picture hat on. Even though she was very fabulous from behind and I loved what she was wearing, I kept thinking she was going to ruin the show for me, so I leaned over to say something and realized it was Yoko Ono.

WWD: When I went to see Slave Play, they held the show 25 minutes because Rihanna was late.

M.K.: Did she get a standing ovation?

WWD: Oh no.

M.K.: At Lincoln Center for a celebration for Sondheims 80th birthday, we got there just as the lights were going down, and realized Sondheim was sitting directly across from us. I was knocked out being that close to him as he was experiencing all his work.

WWD: Soundtrack you listen to on repeat?

M.K.: A Chorus Line. I know every word, and I use some of the lyrics in life. All of them are taken from the recordings of the dancers, so they are often the perfect comeback or thought.

Lena Hall and Neil Patrick Harris on opening Night of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, 2014.McMullan/Sipa USA

WWD: Best song in A Chorus Line?

M.K.: I love the song, I Can Do That. In life, even if you think you cant, you figure it out. If you said to me, after 40 years what have you learned, its this: Know that things change thats the point and you have to say, I can do that. When I told them I didnt want to do Project Runway, then they said you are a critic at Parsons, you work with students at FIT, I said, I can do that.

WWD: And you did. Worst Broadway behavior youve witnessed? I remember seeing M Butterfly, and at the pivotal moment right before the characters identity is revealed, someone in front of me blurted it out.

M.K.: Thats terrible. We were in the theater the night Patti LuPone stopped the show because someone was using their cell phone. Watching her admonish that man was something. The night we saw Bruce Springsteen on Broadway, his fans were so rabid and started screaming Bruce, Bruce, Bruce and he very gentlemanly said, There will be a moment for that later. And later he let everyone take out their phones, cheer and take photos. The audience is not used to unplugging. Its the same with fashion shows, which people are now often watching through their phones. Backstage in the 80s, I didnt even have a monitor, I had a peep hole.

WWD: Do you remember the before times when you couldnt bring drinks and snacks to your theater seats? Are you team seat snacks or no?

M.K.: Never, ever. Intermission only. Give me a vodka on the rocks at the bar at Sardis during intermission and I run back in time for the second act.

WWD: Last show you saw before the COVID-19 shutdown?

M.K.: David Byrnes American Utopia. If it had to be my last memory, it was a spectacular one. And I dont want to sound like a shallow fashion person but that show was so chic. Chic! Chic! Chic! Everything about it.

David Byrne on opening night of American Utopia in New York, 2020.Greg Allen/Invision/AP

WWD: Fashion-wise, any other shows that have echoed with you?

M.K.: I remember seeing Lauren Bacall in Applause when I was young. It was so big city glamorous. Sign me up for black sequins for days.

WWD:Have you done costumes for Broadway?

M.K.: Not Broadway, but when I was designing Celine in Paris, I got a call from costume designer Arianne Phillips, she was working on the play Up for Grabs in London. She said, well, Madonna is starring, she plays a very powerful art dealer, and I thought the clothes you showed for Celine would be perfect for her character, who is very successful but not the nicest person the world. So she wore a lot of Celine.

WWD: You should do a Broadway show.

M.K.: Id love to redo A Chorus Line.

WWD:What are you excited to see after Broadway reopens? Ahem, Game of Thrones?

M.K.: To be honest with you, we will be so excited well go to things we dont even care about. I will go to a musical version of Designing Women.

WWD: Thats a great idea, you should produce that.

A Chorus Line, 1987.AP Photo

Broadway Baby: Michael Kors on 50 Years of Opening Nights, Diva Crushes and a Dream Revival - WWD

OPPO’s O-Tower Connects Ground to Sky in a Continuous Loop of Collaboration – Greenroofs.com

Posted on April 20, 2021 by Danzig

Camilla Borggaard, Head of Communications of BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group writes:

BIG Bjarke Ingels Groups design for the new OPPO R&D Headquarters will exemplify the OPPO design philosophy of pursuing the perfect balance between refined aesthetics and innovative technology, in a building that will be environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable a responsible citizen and iconic gateway to Hangzhous Future Sci-Tech City.

Founded in 2004, OPPO has grown over a short period of time to become Chinas largest smartphone company. The setting of OPPOs new R&D Headquarters in Hangzhous Future Sci-Tech City represents a commitment to the brands spirit of endless innovation in the pursuit of perfection. Hangzhou, colloquially know as Heaven on Earth, is not just a hub for innovation, but is also home to Chinas most popular natural attractions including three of the worlds 57 UNESCO Heritage sites. The city has been shaped by a rich cultural history of technology, information exchange and trade for over 5,000 years as one of the origin sites of the Silk Road and Grand Canal.

BIG began working with the leading global smart device brand at the beginning of 2019 to create an R&D Headquarters and Masterplan. The design expresses OPPOs mission of the elevation of life through technological artistry, with an overarching vision of being a sustainable company that contributes to a better world.

Technology at its best should be a seamless extension of life. The new OPPO R&D Headquarters embodies this notion, sitting with ease in the scenic wetlands of Hangzhou, while negotiating between the dense urban fabric on one side and the natural landscape on the other. It will be an architectural manifestation of an OPPO product: effortlessly elegant, while elevating the quality of human life in the city, said Brian Yang, Partner, BIG Bjarke Ingels Group

Image by IMIGO and BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group

Prominently located in the heart of Yuhang District, Hangzhou, OPPO R&D Headquarters rests between a natural lake, an urban center, and a 10,000 square-meter park. As an anchor point along a major access road stretching east to west from Hangzhou, the OPPO R&D Headquarters Tower will be an iconic landmark and gateway to the Future Sci-Tech City and Hangzhou itself.