Masks are the conservative thing to do – The Gazette

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With 350,000 Americans dead, we may be weeks away from losing 420,000, or more than all American deaths in World War II. Will you change your ways when the number becomes 5,000 per day? What if it becomes 10,000 per day?

Freedom, an idea Ive long been a public friend and vocal supporter of, should be defined as: your right to live your life how you see fit, as long as that doesnt prevent others from doing the same. Yes, this libertarian is saying: No man is an island.

Are individual liberties and a sense of community completely at odds? Were air-raid blackouts during World War II a violation of freedom, or simply a responsibility? When faced with the strong chance that your behaviors could harm others, is it still your right to act or not act any way you please?

Not shuttering those lights, drunken driving and not taking obvious COVID-19 precautions dont necessarily injure or kill someone else. But ultimately, directly or indirectly, it will.

That isnt freedom.

Thats you valuing your own temporary comfort and convenience over the lives of others. That doesnt make you a Patriotic American, it makes you a part of the biggest threat America has faced in 100 years. That isnt written in a hyperbolic sense, but in the shortage of body bags sense.

And when this virus kills or harms someone you love or maybe even you youll have wished you could take everything back. But by then, it will be too late, as its already too late for the 350,000 dead Americans and their families.

Embarrassingly enough, it seems this denier mentality is mostly slanted to one side politically. So hear this message from one of your own: Act right now.

This is our Nations biggest test, and its being failed, badly.

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Sean Curtin of Iowa City is an advocate for conservative views including the 2nd Amendment, civil liberties and criminal justice reform.

Sean Curtin

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Masks are the conservative thing to do - The Gazette

Biden’s Judicial Picks Should Include Lawyers Who Battled the Government in Court – Reason

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Libertarians are sure to be unhappy with plenty of incoming President Joe Biden's judicial picks. But there is one glimmer of hope on the courtroom front. The Huffington Post reports that the Biden team is looking to bring some much-needed professional diversity to the federal bench:

In a letter obtained by HuffPost, Biden's incoming White House counsel Dana Remus tells Democratic senators to try to find public defenders and civil rights attorneys in their states who they think would be a good fit for a federal judgeship.

"With respect to U.S. District Court positions, we are particularly focused on nominating individuals whose legal experiences have been historically underrepresented on the federal bench, including those who are public defenders, civil rights and legal aid attorneys, and those who represent Americans in every walk of life," reads the Dec. 22 letter.

That is welcome news. As Cato Institute criminal justice scholar Clark Neily has pointed out, there is a "wild imbalance" on the federal bench "between judges who used to represent the government in court and judges who used to challenge the government in court." Given that "nearly every court case pitting a lone citizen against the state represents a David-versus-Goliath fight for justice," Neily noted, "to further stack the deck with judges who are far more likely to have earned their spurs representing Goliath than David is unfair to individual litigants and a bad look for the justice system as a whole."

This is one point on which libertarians and progressives can agree. "The federal courts have largely become peopled with lawyers who are former prosecutors, which has entirely skewed the lens through which the law is seen. Public defenders have essentially been shut out," Sherrilyn Ifill, the head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, told an interviewer last month. "I'm not interested in a lot of Black prosecutors being appointed to the federal bench," she continued. "I'm not interested in cosmetic diversity. I'm interested in substantive diversity."

To say the least, Joe Biden is not the most promising figure from the standpoint of criminal justice reform. During his long career in politics, he stood out as an inveterate drug warrior and law enforcement booster. But it is never too late to make amends. If Biden is even remotely serious about pursuing criminal justice reform, one positive thing he can do as president is to nominate more judges whose experience includes battling the government in court.

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Biden's Judicial Picks Should Include Lawyers Who Battled the Government in Court - Reason

I lost a law school election to Josh Hawley. I moved on then, and he should now on Trump. – USA TODAY

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Irina D. Manta, Opinion contributor Published 3:15 a.m. ET Jan. 5, 2021

He beat me for president of the Yale Law School Federalist Society by exploiting the rules. He should follow my example and not contest Trump's loss.

Sen. Josh Hawley has made waves with his call for Republican senators to object to President-elect Joe Bidens election victoryand force Congress to voteWednesdayon whether to accept the Electoral College results.I invite Sen. Hawley to reconsider his misguided position and, instead, to do what I did when I lost an election to no other than him: show grace in defeat.The principle is the same whether the election is for president of the United States or, as with us, for president of a campus club.

Sen. Hawley and I were both members of the Yale Law School Class of 2006. While we had our differences, we shared a common bond through our joint participation in the schools fairly small Federalist Society, made up of mostly conservative and libertarian law students.

At the end of our first year, we were both electedas Vice Presidents for Events of the YLS Federalist Society. Collaborating in these positions in our second year proved difficult. I organized the lion's share of the groups events and frequently received no responses from him on emails I sent to him and the Societys president that year. This puzzled me because I thought ourgoal was to make the organization as strong as possible, and failure to communicate was an obstacle.

This isnt to say that Sen. Hawley didnt have his qualities as a vice president. For example, his marketing skills certainly contributed tostrong turnout at an event with the late Harvard Law School professor William Stuntz. While I did more work that year, Sen. Hawley knew better how to shine the spotlight on his contributions, which is an important skill in the political arena.

The YLS Federalist Societys presidential electionstarted rolling around the spring of our second year, in 2005, and it was traditional for one of the two VPs for Events to assume that role. Sen. Hawley and I each announced our candidacies. Shortly before the election, a friend tipped me off to how Sen. Hawley was planning to beat me, given that he was uncertain he coulddo so based onvotes only fromregular members who knew our records best.

Irina Manta on May 22, 2006, in the Lillian Goldman Library at Yale Law School.(Photo: Family courtesy)

Asappearedaccuratebased on the eventual turnout, Sen. Hawley had obtained from the sitting president the student email addresses for the YLS Federalist Society listserv (and the president, whom I had helped to win the previous year, did not volunteer that information to me at that stage). The rule was that anyone who had signed up for the listserv by a certain earlier date could vote in the Societys elections. This included a bunch of people whodid not attend events and had little or no involvement with the Society.

Hawley's White House path:Be No. 1 at pandering to Trump and trampling democracy

The rule, while easy to administer, was a bad one. It even had the potential for individuals to co-opt the Society for the sole purpose of destroying it. Historically, however, nobody had exploited that rule, to my knowledge. Instead, candidates had campaigned for votes from people actively involved withthe Society.

Law professor Irina D. Manta and Sen. Josh Hawley.(Photo: Manta by Carlos Farini. Hawley by Getty Images.)

I found out about Sen. Hawleys plans too late to counter them successfully. I lost the YLS Federalist Societys presidential election to him by a handful of votes.The presidency comes with a number of advantages, including entry to key professional opportunities. From my perspective, I was the more deserving candidate and cared more about the organization. The voting rules, again, were problematic, and Sen. Hawley exploited that all the way to victory for himself and the rest of his slate.

But you know what? As far as electoral fairness is concerned, none of that matters. The rules were the rules. The people who showed up to vote had the right to vote. I have no reason to believe that the person who counted the votes miscounted. Based on the system we had, which while flawed was hardly unethical, Sen. Hawley won and I lost. And not once did I attempt to contest that loss.

Sen. Hawley and I both ended up initially aslaw professors, but thenour paths split. He pursued political offices while I remained in academia (though also continued my own political activism). And while he has been one of President Donald Trumps loyalists, I have been the opposite, from my membership in Checks & Balances(a group of lawyers and academics committed to the Constitution and the rule of law)to my volunteer work for the Biden campaign in 2020.

On his way out the door: Congress should impeach Trump again and bar him from holding any future public office

Of course, the stakes are much higher when it comes to the presidency of the United States than that of the Yale Law School Federalist Society. Conversely, however, maintaining the integrity of the democratic system of our country vastly trumps doing so for a law school club. While Sen. Hawley is unlikely to succeed in his bid to hinder President-elect Biden from taking office, he is setting a dangerous precedent such that one day, a hostile Congress could overturn a rightful presidential election.

The courts have ruled repeatedly that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Some speculate that Sen. Hawley is simply posturing to position himself for his own presidential run someday. Even if this provided ethical cover for his actions (spoiler: it doesnt), he has the intelligence to find better tactics than erodingour democratic system.

Irina D. Manta is Professor of Law and Founding Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law at Hofstra University'sMaurice A. Deane School of Law. Follow her on Twitter:@irina_manta

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I lost a law school election to Josh Hawley. I moved on then, and he should now on Trump. - USA TODAY

Here we go again: What to expect as Georgia counts votes – Chattanooga Times Free Press

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ATLANTA (AP) This week will find us back in a familiar place waiting for Georgia to count votes.

With control of the U.S. Senate at stake, all eyes are on a runoff election that has Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler facing Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Millions of dollars have poured in, Georgians have been bombarded by advertisements and messages urging them to vote, and both sides have sent their heavy hitters to help turn out voters.

Some things to keep in mind as the polls close Tuesday night:

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

Perdue got about 88,000 more votes than Ossoff in the general election, but a Libertarian candidate's 115,000 votes kept him from topping 50%, which is required to win. Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Loeffler to the Senate in December 2019 after Sen. Johnny Isakson stepped down. She and Warnock were competing in a 20-candidate special election to serve the two years remaining in Isakson's term. Warnock got 1.6 million votes, while Loeffler got nearly 1.3 million and Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Collins placed third with nearly a million votes.

WHEN DOES THE BALLOT COUNTING START?

The polls are set to close at 7 p.m. EST on Election Day, and that's when ballot counting can begin. Absentee ballots must be received by the close of polls to be counted. Military and overseas ballots postmarked by Tuesday and received by Friday will be counted, and absentee voters also have until Friday to fix any problems so their votes can be counted.

No ballots, including absentee ballots received in advance of Election Day, can be counted until the polls close. But a state election board rule requires county election officials to begin processing absentee ballots verifying signatures on the outer envelope, opening the envelopes and scanning the ballots before Election Day. That should speed things up on election night. Still, some absentee ballots received by mail or in drop boxes up until 7 p.m. on Election Day will still need to be processed.

WILL WE KNOW THE WINNER ON ELECTION NIGHT?

Just like in November, it's very possible Americans will go to bed without knowing who won. All indicators point to the likelihood of very tight margins in both races.

Media organizations, including The Associated Press, often declare winners on election night based on the results that are in, voter surveys and other political data.

But in a close race, more of the vote may need to be counted before the AP can call a winner.

THE LEAD MAY VERY WELL SHIFT AS VOTES ARE COUNTED

In a close contest, look for the Republican candidate to jump out to an early lead. That due to two factors: First, Republican areas of the state usually report their results first. Second, Republican voters have been more likely to vote in person, either on Election Day or during the early voting period. Many counties release those in-person results first.

Meanwhile, heavily Democratic counties, including Fulton, DeKalb and Chatham counties, historically take longer to count votes. Democratic candidates could also make late surges because of late-counted mail ballots, which heavily favored Ossoff and Warnock, as well as Joe Biden, in November.

In November, Perdue held a lead of about 380,000 votes over Ossoff at 10 p.m. EST on election night. But Perdue's lead eventually fell below 90,000.

In a very tight race, it could take several days to determine a winner. In November, more than 5 percent of Georgia's votes were counted after noon on the day after Election Day. At that time, Donald Trump led Biden by 100,000 votes in a race that Biden eventually won after all the mail ballots were counted.

GEORGIA'S DONE A LOT OF BALLOT COUNTING ALREADY THIS ELECTION CYCLE

That is true and the trend could continue with the runoff. Under Georgia law, if the margin separating the candidates is within 0.5%, the losing candidate has the right to ask for a recount. That would be done by running the ballots through the scanners again, as happened when President Donald Trump requested a recount after the results showed him losing to Biden by about 12,000 votes.

But we're not likely to see a full hand recount like the one done for the presidential race during the general election. That was triggered by a requirement that one race be audited by hand. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger chose to audit the presidential race and said the close margin in that contest required a full recount. Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said the audit requirement doesn't apply to runoff elections.

___

Associated Press writer Stephen Ohlemacher in Washington contributed to this report.

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‘The Upswing,’ Social Connectedness and Wile E. Coyote | Confessions of a Community College Dean – Inside Higher Ed

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Along with celebrating the holidays and taking a badly needed break from email, one of the happier aspects of the break was getting a chance to read long-form prose in big, uninterrupted chunks. So I put on my political theorist hat for a while and read Robert Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garretts new book, The Upswing.

Putnam is best known for his earlier work on social capital, especially Bowling Alone. The new book is about social connectedness and its rise and fall in the United States over the last century. Social connectedness here refers to behaviors indicating concern for a larger group. Thats a necessarily broad brush, but Putnam and Garrett spend several chapters triangulating its meaning through quantitative analyses of trends ranging from age of first marriage to the choice of uncommon baby names to church attendance to pronoun use in literature to political ticket splitting. In case after case, they trace an I-We-I curve in which the culture of individualism appears not as an inexplicable deviation from recorded history, but as a recurring feature. In the early 20th century, as they tell it, individualism was rampant in the United States. Concerns for we got stronger from then until the early 1960s. Somewhere in the mid-1960s, the curve changed direction, and the we culture started abruptly to move back to a me culture.

Although theyre careful to tread lightly on the politics of it, it becomes clear that much of what progressives care about assumes some identification with a larger we. To the extent that appeals based on we fall flat, progressive causes will struggle. Putnam and Garrett use that framework, and their data, to argue that the popular image of civil rights progress is largely backward: in their telling, Black Americans economic situation was improving markedly throughout the early 20th century, with the upward slope plateauing after the 60s. Putnam and Garrett repeatedly use the image of taking the foot off the gas on all sorts of measures of social progress after the 60s, with varying degrees of plausibility. (They also make some weird unforced errors, such as the claim that President Carter initiated an affirmative action program to help correct gender imbalances in 1974. President Carter took office in 1977.) The claim is that when Americans were expanding the circle of we, great progress was possible; when the culture shifted to me, even the force of changed laws wasnt enough to keep progress moving forward.

As with any sweeping historical claim, its easy to find examples on both sides. For instance, much of the anxiety around conformity among 1950s social critics reflected a concern that the culture of we had grown too strong. The Lonely Crowd, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit and The Organization Man were all, in various ways, expressions of the fear of conformism gone too far. (Nearly every episode of The Twilight Zone can be seen the same way. Ayn Rands oeuvre is the reductio ad absurdum of this critique.) Having just seen the Russian revolution, the rise of Nazism, the rise of the modern corporation and two world wars in three decades, many thinkers of the time subsumed all of those under the category of collectivism. Much of the countercultural fixation in the 60s and 70s on smallness, localism and authenticity can be understood as a reaction to too much we.

In the decades since, by Putnam and Garretts argument, a sort of proto-libertarianism has become cultural common sense. We can see that in the decline of/assault on private sector unions, the spread of tax revolts and all manner of risk-shifting from the larger society to its individual members, such as the replacement of defined-benefit pensions with defined-contribution accounts. In 2016, a major-party presidential candidate declared on national television that tax evasion makes [him] smart, and he got elected anyway. Thats quite a distance, conceptually, from buy war bonds. Even the areas in which progressive causes have won, such as greater respect for the LGBTQ community, are broadly compatible with a libertarian outlook: in the current vernacular, you do you.

Putnam and Garrett get a lot right. I often claim that the reason community colleges struggle is that they were built to create a middle class for a country that no longer wants one. The chronology fits: the bulk of community colleges in the U.S. were established in the 1960s, just as the we culture was cresting. In their unabashed inclusivity, community colleges stand as living monuments to the idea of expanding the circle of we. As that cultural strand has been increasingly occluded by a more self-centered one, community colleges (and public institutions generally) have struggled. If education is understood as a private good, rather than a public one, then the community part of community colleges is an awkward fit. Perhaps thats why some community colleges are dropping that word from their names entirely. Now we use taxpayer funding to publish a college scorecard, to enable students to calculate the best return on investment. Thats not how public goods were ever supposed to work.

Still, something about their narrative didnt seem quite right. And thats where I turn to another great midcentury American thinker, Chuck Jones.

Jones was one of the minds behind Looney Tunes. My favorite of his creations was Wile E. Coyote, a hapless predator forever chasing the elusive Roadrunner. Wile E. was a tinkerer, in his way, though his affinity for Acme products never turned out well. One of the recurring jokes was that Wile E. would regularly find himself suspended in midair, having run off the side of a road, but he wouldnt fall until he looked down. Gravity didnt kick in until he looked. Once he realized what had happened, he blinked forlornly at the fourth wall and fell, landing with a cloud of dust.

When I tried summarizing The Upswing to my daughter, and I got to the part where the curve inflected in the 60s, she immediately asked the right question: Why then? Why then, as opposed to 10 years earlier or 10 years later? What was so special about the mid-60s?

Its about race, and the category of we.

If the book took a view beyond the U.S., it might have noted that more racially homogeneous industrialized societies adopted social democratic reforms much more quickly and thoroughly than the U.S. did. The vaunted bipartisanship of Congress in the 1950s was premised on racial exclusion in which both parties were complicit, if in different ways. The period of an increasingly we culture was also a period of severe immigration restrictions, as well as Jim Crow. We didnt mind locking up Japanese Americans in internment camps during the war, or making blackface singers some of the most popular entertainers in the country. The we at the time was defined against a clear and unambiguous they.

In the mid-60s, the boundaries between the we and the they were destabilized in ways that led many white Americans to start turning away from a common culture. The Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act and Fair Housing Act were abrupt shocks to many; looser immigration restrictions quickly led to a cultural diversification beyond what many white Americans took as normal. Although Christopher Laschs title The Culture of Narcissism often gets used as shorthand to describe selfishness, Laschs use of the term was more deliberate than that. He noted that what killed Narcissus, in the story, wasnt exactly selfishness; it was the inability to see where he ended and the pond began. Narcissism, in his telling, is the loss of clear boundaries between self and other. One reaction to that loss of boundaries is an anxious effort to fortify new boundaries. Imposing order, whether by building walls or by withdrawing from the public sphere to a self-contained bubble, offers the (ultimately false) promise of restoring a lost sense of security.

In other words, its not a coincidence that the moment at which much of white America was compelled to look was the moment at which many whites started to withdraw from the we culture. Like Wile E., the majority culture had been in an unsustainable position for some time, but didnt have to face it; once it did, it couldnt unsee what it saw. At this point, several decades along, a certain strain of herrenvolk populism has become a sort of lifestyle brand. Its based on the assumption that if Wile E. never looked, he never would have fallen. Its determined not to let its followers make that mistake.

The task for those of us who believe in inclusion as an ethical imperative is much more difficult than just waiting for the next turn of the cycle. It involves recognizing just how complicated a category like we actually is, and how much of it relies on contrast with a they. William James recognized the issue over a century ago, when he lamented American intervention in the Philippines. Noting how combat often brings out valor and loyalty, he called for a moral equivalent of war that would draw out those same virtues, without the brutality or imperialism. Banding together against a virus, or against a climate catastrophe, is still banding together. That may explain why some otherwise-intelligent people are so offended by public health campaigns; the campaigns imply the existence of a public, and the usefulness of collective action.

Thats exactly what makes them effective. Theres a lesson in there, if one is willing to look.

Inclusion is a choice. It has to be made over and over again, in ways large and small. Putnam and Garrett offer some sense of just how expansive the choice is, and how high the stakes are. On that, I couldnt agree more.

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2020, COVID-19 and Reflection on Human Immortality Tunji Olaopa – THISDAY Newspapers

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The year 2020 will go down in history as the annus horribilis for the human race; the year that millions of lives were forfeited to a tiny and inanimate virus with no sensate hope or ambition. Yet, the coronavirus has decimated millions, and left many millions more cowering in our helplessness. This is one terrible year when most humans, for whom death is often a distant thought, came face to face with the possibility of a sudden demise from a COVID-19 ambush. 2020 has been the very definition of uncertainty for everyone, from the mighty to the lowly. We all got sucked into the vortex palpable fearno one knew when the virus will strike, where it could be contracted, or how fatal it could be. COVID-19 became the most lethal of all the enemies humans have ever contended with. And it fueled our uncertainty in the very fact that we had no certain fact about its character and modus operandi.

As the usual tradition goes with the coming of a new year, we all welcomed 2020 with hope and resolutions. Governments made budgets, humans made plans, organizations made projections. The year was to be the usual in the trajectory of human activities and busyness. Children will be born, and adult will grow old and die. There will be achievements all around the world, and calamities too. The usual diseases will keep ravaging humanity, from cancer to tuberculosis. All the states of the world would battle their normal internal crises and predicament, and few resolutions would be made. And yet, we all neglected what had been on humanitys radar since humanity began its civilizational march many centuries ago; the very underbelly of humans desire to transcend themselves.

COVID-19 brought humanity very low. It humbled us at the very height of our civilizational achievements. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philosopher, once perceptively remarked: The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization. Since the Stone Age, and then the Industrial Revolution, humanity has grown beyond its cradle which is the earth. We not only concretized the fragility of the earth; we also have turned our attention to the space. Humanity has arrived at what Mark Twain called the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities. This validates the Yoruba adage that when humans have eaten and are surfeited, they then look for unnecessary distractions.

After civilization had settled the issue of survival, it was then time for humans to transcend themselves, especially through the discoveries of science and technology and its limitless possibilities and dangers in ways that are often indistinguishable. When humans cracked the secret of the atom, we arrived at the nuclear reactor as well as the nuclear atomic bomb. We now contemplate a posthuman world with the breakthrough with artificial intelligence.

In its very essence, civilization commenced as humanitys search for survival. It has now been transformed into an exploration of our possible immortality. To be human is not only to be mortal, but to also have the capacity to perceive the infinite, which we do not see in our finitude. Humanity is trapped in the yearning for infinitude; the desire to undermine our mortality and live forever. Abraham Lincoln puts it better: Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality. And so, once the first land was tilled and farmed, agriculture enabled humans to conquer starvation. But it also enabled an abundance that helped us to keep staving off death. With medicine, humans started to invade the genetic code to hold off the principle of ageing encoded into our being. We started battling diseases and sicknesses, and also death. Immortality therefore lies in the achievement of civilization for humanity. We have to keep overreaching ourselves in other to be able to overreach our mortality.

Unfortunately, civilization is what makes you sick, says Paul Gauguin, the French post-impressionist artist. But more than this, civilization already puts in stock the pointer to what will eradicate humanitythe nuclear threat, and the virus. Since the combined effort of humanitys brilliant scientists unlocked the secret of the atom, the human race has remained on the precipice of self-destruction. When Hiroshima and Nagasaki snowballed into the atomic mushroom, we saw in that catastrophe, the possibility of undermining our own race for immortality. That is the paradox of civilization: it contained the seed for our immortality and our destruction in unequal proportion. In other words, we are more likely to be destroyed than to achieve immortality. If humanity is destroyed, then there will be no one left to remember us. This is where the insight of Emerson leads usthe civilization we have invented to ensure our immortality is what will most likely kill and efface us and all the infinitude we ever hoped for.

The reality of our accelerated mortality came alive in 2020. Nature rebelled against the unmitigated assault on her sanctity and exploitation. A family of the coronaviruses jumped its boundary and landed in the civilized space of humanity. And we were not prepared because we have always underestimated the virus. After all, we seem to have got the structure of most of the viruses we know and their epidemiological features. The common cold is one of the most dangerous ailment afflicting humanity, but we seem to have tamed it. What can we not tame? Yet, we have arrived at the limit of human hubris. And it is neither yet from aliens in outer spaces nor from artificial intelligence. It is from a lowly virus that is inorganic and inanimate. There is less we know about the virus and its behavior than we really know. The novelty of the coronavirus effectively undermines the accumulated scientific knowledge about its type that we have stockpiled for decades.

Mercifully, 2020 has also become the year in which humanity has managed to get an understanding of the vaccination that will stop the virus in its deadly track. Of course, human beings have the resilience to always overcome whatever adversity is brought on them either naturally or by their own efforts. But then, humanity has brought itself too many times to the precipice of destruction not to take notice of the dangerous side of our existence and the search for immortality. Essentially, it is human hubris that brought the pandemic of 2020 upon us. It is our inability to take stock of our civilizational progress and how far we are willing to go to transcend our humanity. It is certain that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines, for instance, and all the others almost ready for us will provide instant relief from the scourge of the COVID-19. But should the fact of the vaccines, or human resilience in the face of troubles, blind us to how far-fetched our search for immortality is, or how dangerous?

Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician, has a piece of wisdom we can draw on: A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses. What insight do we need to urgently derive from this pandemic, and from others that have afflicted humankind? What deep lessons does COVID-19 teach us in 2020? It is simple: there is a need to de-escalate humanitys rush for self-destruction. If this family of coronavirus could make the fatal jump into the human host, there are so many more that can. Thus, the arrival of the breakthrough in vaccination against the coronavirus ought not be interpreted as the resumption of our human normality or the onslaught against nature. On the contrary, it ought to be a time to pause and reassess what it means to be human, and what civilization ought to mean.

And more than this, we need a redefinition of what it means to be immortal. Humans can only be immortal in the face of posterity and the state in which we leave the world. Posterity is our immortality. Unfortunately, the logic of civilization is often oriented towards a further exploitation of the universe with scant thought for what future generations will make of the progress we have achieved, and the failures we leave behind. It ought to be clear to humanity now that civilization is amok.

From the First to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, humans are barely managing the benefits of progress since we are ever confronted with the threat of imploding the world as we know it. 2020 and the pandemic make it very clear to us that we are nearer destruction, and the undermining of our own immortality, that we imagine. The COVID-19, uncontained, has the capacity to kill the whole of humanity. And we have barely even managed to get it arrested. And who knows what the future of more scientific and technological breakthrough holds? The coronavirus is insisting on the imperatives of weighing human progress on the scale of morality. Civilizational progress is not an unconditional good. It needs to be tempered by further thought on how our immortality can be retained in the womb of the future of those yet unborn.

Prof. Tunji Olaopa, Retired Federal Permanent Secretary & Directing Staff, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos, tolaopa2003@gmail.com, tolaopa@isgpp.com.ng.

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2020, COVID-19 and Reflection on Human Immortality Tunji Olaopa - THISDAY Newspapers

Recognizing Hall of Famer Paul Westphal – Suns.com

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Hey, now youre immortal, Paul Westphal said in relating what someone told him when they learned he was going to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

No, Westphal said during his induction speech in September 2019, responding to the well-wisher, immortality doesnt come from basketball.

As we pause to remember Westphal, and share how saddened we are at his passing, we recognize how prophetically spot-on he was.

Westy will not be immortalized for just playing basketball. He will be remembered for how he lived his life, and how he treated others.

The Phoenix Suns organization shares its thoughts and prayers with the Westphal family through this difficult time.

Westy will forever be remembered as a prominent Valley sports legend both on and off the court, said Suns Managing Partner Robert Sarver. He built an illustrious career as both a player and a coach. His legacy ranks among the most quintessential basketball icons of all time.

Westphal left an indelible signature on the Phoenix Suns franchise with his All-NBA talent, his brilliant mind and his elite character. From guiding the team on the court in the 1976 NBA Finals to leading them from the sidelines in the 1993 NBA Finals, Westphals legacy in Phoenix crossed decades and his overall impact on the organization is virtually unmatched.

Throughout the past 40 years, Westy has remained a great friend of the organization and as a trusted sounding board and confidant for me, Sarver continued. His number 44 will forever hold its place in our Ring of Honor, enshrined as one of the utmost deserving members.

Born on November 30, 1950, Westphal was a native of Torrance, CA, and spent 14 seasons with the Suns as a player and a coach.

The eventual Basketball Hall of Famer known as Westy was acquired by the Suns in a trade with the Boston Celtics in 1975 and spent six seasons as a player with Phoenix. He ultimately found his way back in the Valley a few years later on the Suns coaching staff from 1988-95. Due to his astounding career and impact across the NBA, Westphal was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on September 6, 2019.

There may be just a handful of people who have as much influence and significance on the history of the Phoenix Suns, Jerry Colangelo said. All he accomplished as a player and as a coach. Off the court, he was a gentleman, a family man, great moral character. He represented the Suns the way you want every player to represent your franchise.

Known for his high basketball IQ, Westphal was instrumental in leading the Suns to their first NBA Finals appearance in 1976 against the Celtics. This series featured The Greatest Game Ever Played a triple-overtime thriller during which Westphals quick thinking helped put the Suns in position to extend the game behind Garfield Heards famous Shot Heard Round the World.

He was cerebral in his game, Colangelo said. He was always thinking one step ahead. Even the infamous triple-overtime game in Boston during the Final series, when he was the one who said, 'Call the timeout.' which forced a free throw, but gave us the ball at halfcourt and set up the opportunity to tie the game, which we did. That's thinking right on the spot at the moment.

Westphal became a five-time All-Star (four with the Suns) and garnered All-NBA recognition for four consecutive seasons, including three selections to the First Team. He sits as the eighth-leading scorer in Suns history, totaling 9,564 points and averaging 20.6 points per game, and was inducted into the Suns Ring of Honor on April 15, 1989.

Westphal joined the coaching ranks upon retirement and came back to the Suns as an assistant in 1988. Once back with the organization, Westphal learned under fellow Suns Ring of Honor member Cotton Fitzsimmons as he brought his basketball intelligence to the sidelines. Even as an assistant coach, Westphal proved his worth and garnered credit for his player relationships and development skills, including that of 1989 Sixth Man of the Year Eddie Johnson.

He led by example, Johnson said. He didn't change off of the court. It's just a positive atmosphere that he exudes when he's around. He always greets you with a pleasant smile. You always feel like you are a part of his clique. He's somebody we can put on a pedestal.

Westphal spent four seasons in this role under Fitzsimmons before taking over as head coach for the 1992-93 season. His success came early and often, leading the Suns to the best record in the league and a trip back to the NBA Finals in his first season at the helm. During his time as head coach in Phoenix, Westphal amassed a record of 191-88, which ranks as the fourth-most wins of any head coach in team history while his .685 winning percentage is best in Suns coaching history.

We had a personal relationship that spans decades, Colangelo said. He played for me. He coached for me. I always had great respect for Paul and he added to the quality of my life just with his presence. I'm very thankful that I had the opportunity to be associated with him."

Westphal left an everlasting legacy on the Suns franchise and within the city of Phoenix. While his greatest accomplishments may have come in the Valley of the Sun, his ultimate impact on basketball stretches from a young high school star in Southern California through a storied career as player, coach and broadcaster.

Westphal attended Aviation High School in Redondo Beach, Calif., where he was named the 1968 California Interscholastic Federation Player of the Year as a senior. He attended USC and earned All-Pac 8 honors in all three seasons with the Trojans. USC retired Westphals number 25 jersey and he was inducted into their Athletic Hall of Fame in 1997.

Westphal was drafted 10th overall in the 1972 NBA Draft by the Boston Celtics where he spent the first three years of his career, including the Celtics 1974 championship season. He was traded to Phoenix for future Basketball Hall of Famer Charlie Scott on May 23, 1975. He also first left the Suns in exchange for a future Basketball Hall of Famer, Dennis Johnson, on June 4, 1980.

He played one season with the Seattle SuperSonics and two seasons with the New York Knicks, winning Comeback Player of the Year for the Knicks in 1982-83. He returned to Phoenix for the final season of his 12-year playing career in 1983-84.

Westphal began his coaching career in 1985 with Southwestern Baptist Bible College (now Arizona Christian University). After finishing the season 3-20 the year before, he guided them to a 21-9 record in his lone season. He was then hired as the head coach of Grand Canyon University, leading them to a 63-18 record over his two seasons, including a NAIA National Championship in 1988.

In addition to four season as Head Coach of the Suns, Westphal spent three seasons as head coach of the Seattle SuperSonics, five seasons as head coach of Pepperdine University, one season as an assistant coach for the Dallas Mavericks, three seasons as head coach of the Sacramento Kings, and finished his coaching career with two seasons as an assistant coach for the Brooklyn Nets.

Westphal is survived by his wife Cindy, and his son Michael and daughter Victoria.

Thank you, Paul. Rest in Peace.

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Recognizing Hall of Famer Paul Westphal - Suns.com

Tomase: There’s no defending voting for 10 Hall of Famers this year – NBC Sports Boston

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At the risk of denigrating the accomplishments of this year's nominees, it's hard to recall a weaker Hall of Fame ballot.

Of course Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens deserve enshrinement, depending on your tolerance for their truthfulness before Congress, but their case stopped being argued on its merits a long time ago.

I'll always consider Curt Schilling a slam-dunk choice for his postseason exploits alone, but I can see why others disagree, and frankly, in light of the comically toxic disinformation that spews from his feeds in a Deepwater Horizon-style geyser, I don't mind seeing him twist in the wind, because I am incredibly petty.

The fourth and final name on my ballot, Gary Sheffield, receives even less support, but I happen to believe he's one of the 30 greatest hitters ever, and if we won't reward that just because he plodded across the outfield like a hastily recommissioned Soviet Era tank, then what are we doing?

So we can quibble about this candidate or that, but here's what I can't countenance: examining this ballot and deciding that eight, nine, even 10 names belong in Cooperstown.

It is time to stage a BBWAA-wide intervention.

Over the last seven years, a record 22 players have earned enshrinement from the writers, finally breaking the PED backlog that basically coincided with the arrivals of Bonds and Clemens.

The 2021 ballot includes 25 names and if you pick 10 of them, that means you believe 40 percent of the qualifiers deserve immortality. That's not exactly an Ivy League acceptance rate, and we're supposed to be honoring the absolute best of the best.So what's going on?

Chalk it up to a pair of developments ruining our lives in different ways -- social media and the statistical revolution.

The former speaks for itself. Loudly. And not always with real people supplying the words.

Though the One True Ballot police have thankfully lowered their weapons since the overheated heyday of 2014, there's still an element of the voting populace that would rather satisfy Twitter banshees than defend leaving someone else's favorite player off their ballot. Easier to just check the maximum and then back away slowly with hands raised. "I would've voted for your guy, but the limit is 10. Can I go now? I have a wife and family."

I believe it was the great Ray Ratto who boiled this conflict down to, "I want a vote / you can't have one." The armchair experts -- whose theoretical ballots look suspiciously homogenous, by the way -- believe that their choices are The Way with the fervency of a Mandalorian. And if you disagree, it's to be expected, because that what happens when you entrust the vote to a group cursed with such breathtaking collective ignorance.

So where do they derive their preternatural confidence? Statistics, of course. The rise of analysts like Jay Jaffe of Fangraphs has given voters new ways to consider the ballot. Jaffe's case for Sheffield, for instance, helped clarify my own stance on his candidacy. (As an aside, I'm just not holding defensive metrics against someone who played the majority of his career before that data was even tracked accurately).

The larger point that's missed when considering his work, and others like it, is that it's not presented as definitive. Jaffe makes a case. His JAWS metric provides context for how a candidate's peak seasons compare to the average Hall of Famer's.

It's not meant to be absolutist, but it's often interpreted that way. When the Hall of Fame becomes an actuarial exercise of sorting career WAR and JAWS in descending order, and go bleep yourself if you even consider subjective measures like MVP votes or All-Star games or postseason dominance or hell, how watching Sheffield swing his bat like a cornered antihero made you feel, then we've lost our way in a style befitting today's broken game, where a Cy Young winner can get lifted in Game 6 of a World Series shutout after only two hits and 73 pitches, because that's what the numbers say.

The numbers also say that Bobby Abreu is a Hall of Famer. They say the same thing about Todd Helton and Andruw Jones and Scott Rolen and Billy Wagner.

They were all very good players. Rolen probably borders on great. But I'll again ask: what are we doing? Are we granting every above-average player immortality? Or are we holding the Hall of Fame to a higher standard than enshrining four out of every 10 nominees?

I know where I fall, which is why I'm comfortable submitting a ballot with four names total. Feel free to @ me. I will definitely ignore you.

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Tomase: There's no defending voting for 10 Hall of Famers this year - NBC Sports Boston

How are former Yankees doing in the Hall of Fame voting? – Empire Sports Media

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The voting process for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Class of 2021, ended on December 31. The ballot has 25 candidates in total, and eight of them spent at least part of their career with the New York Yankees.

Bobby Abreu, A.J. Burnett, LaTroy Hawkins, Nick Swisher, Roger Clemens, Andruw Jones, Andy Pettitte, and Gary Sheffield are among the Yankees that are eligible for immortality.

However, as of right now with 115 ballots published, no one is making the cut to get in. Players in the ballot need to get a minimum of 75% of the votes to gain immortality. So far, Clemens (72.2%) is the closest of the former Yankees, with Barry Bonds and Curt Schilling also flirting with the minimum threshold.

The results will be announced on January 26, and the inductees will be honored in Cooperstown, New York, on July 25, barring any COVID-19-related postponement.

So far, here are the former Yankees and their progress through 115 votes, per NJ Advance Media:

Four first-time candidates were elected to the Hall in the last three years: Chipper Jones and Jim Thome in 2018, and former Yankees legends Mariano Rivera in 2019 (unanimous election), and Derek Jeter in 2020.

Jeters case was notorious, as he fell just one vote short of being the second unanimous election to the Hall after his friend and former teammate Rivera.

Abreu appears destined to get the minimum votes to see his name on the ballot for next year (5%), but Burnett, Hawkins, and Swisher, so far, look as one-and-done candidates.

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How are former Yankees doing in the Hall of Fame voting? - Empire Sports Media

Keanu Reeves addresses rumours of him being immortal, jokes with Fallon in an interview – Republic World

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Keanu Reeves isfamousnot just for his acting skills and hit movies but his timeless John Wick hairstyle which has been popular since the film's first installment. Keanu Reeves fans argue that it isn't just his hairstyle that is timeless but fans think the actor seems to never age, some even suggest that the actor is immortal, in what has become a running trope. During one of his interviews when he was confronted about this, he expertly dodged the nonsensical non-seriousclaims. Read all the details about this interview here.

ALSO READ:'John Wick 2' Cast: Know The Actors Who Starred In This Keanu Reeves' Action Thriller Film

During an interview with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2017, the presenter of the show asked Keanu Reeves about the immortality claims by the fans. He confronted the actor with some pictures from the fan site Keanuisimmortal.com. He showed him a series of photographs which show that the actor looks similar to some of the historic figures shown. While the actor agreed that there are some similarities between all these personalities he neither accepted nor denied the claims made.

Reeves and Fallon both joked about the notion and theories of how Keanu could actually be immortal and has been alive for centuries. Although these jokes acknowledge the similarities it doesn't cancel the potential immortality theory. These jokes still seem like an expert dodge and another bit towards a confirmation according to some conspiracy theorists.

ALSO READ:Keanu Reeves Sports A Buzzcut, Chops Off Famous Long Locks For Upcoming Movie

ALSO READ:Cyberpunk 2077 Mix It Up Poster: Learn About The Controversial Ad In The Game

Keanu Reeves is not active on social media. The actor keeps a very low profile and doesn't share a lot of personal updates on the internet. Even after all his attempts to not be very social, the actor's fans have made him a social media superhero. According to the reports by Showbiz Cheat Sheet Reeves' acts of generosity and philanthropy have established the actor in everyone's good books. In 2019 when he went public about his relationship with his girlfriend Alexandra Grant the internet fanseven titled him asthe internet's boyfriend.

While there have been many memes surrounding the actor, many claims were made about his immortality and ageless looks. Fans have noted similarities between Keanu Reeves and many other historical figures such as Vlad the Impaler, artist Parmigianino and actor Paul Mounet. The 56-year-old actor resembles these popular figures who lived centuries apart.

ALSO READ:Keanu Reeves To Feature In Tom Cruise's Next Mission Impossible Film?

Get the latest entertainment news from India & around the world. Now follow your favourite television celebs and telly updates. Republic World is your one-stop destination for trending Bollywood news. Tune in today to stay updated with all the latest news and headlines from the world of entertainment.

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Keanu Reeves addresses rumours of him being immortal, jokes with Fallon in an interview - Republic World

The Meaning of Life According to Harry Potter and Soul – MuggleNet

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by Victor Chan

SPOILERS FOR SOUL AHEAD: PROCEED WITH CAUTION

Dumbledore once described music as a magic beyond all we do here (SS 128), a statement that Joe Gardner, the protagonist of Pixars Soul, would agree with. Indeed, Id like to believe that the magic of music is studied at the Department of Mysteries. Harry Potter and Soul both explore abstract concepts such as being in the zone, along with death and the meaning of life through a humanist approach. In Soul, characters search for their purposes in life, and although Harry was the Chosen One, he still had the agency to choose his life path. Here are three things that Harry Potter and Soul can teach us about the meaning of life.

At the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry is presented with two choices: go back or go on. Likewise, at the end of Soul, Joe is given another chance at life. Both character-defining moments occur in the heads of Harry and Joe. In Soul, 22 describes the Great Before as an illusion and hypothetical. In Deathly Hallows, when Harry asks Dumbledore where he thinks they are, Dumbledore replies, This is, as they say, your party (DH 712).

At the core of both Harry Potter and Soul is the idea that it is our choices that show what we truly are. The circumstances that we are placed in define us less than how we respond to being placed in those circumstances. In Harry Potter, Hogwarts students are Sorted into Houses based on their personalities and values. Soul explores the concept of a beforelife where souls are readied for life on Earth. One particular scene early on shows souls being assigned personalities, seemingly arbitrary. Joe asks, This is where personalities come from? to which another character replies, Do you think people are just born with them?

However, even though Hogwarts students are Sorted into Houses and souls are assigned personalities, Harry Potter and Soul reject determinism. In fact, in the Great Before, souls need to find their own spark.

In Harry Potter and Soul, characters grapple with the fear of the unknown. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore tells Harry that it is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness (HBP 566). In Soul, 22 has a cynical attitude toward what they think living on Earth will be like. In Harry Potter, Voldemort fears what Dumbledore describes as the next great adventure (SS 297). When Joe finds himself on the way to the Great Beyond at the start of Soul, he runs away from the light. Later in Soul, Joe says, Im just afraid that if I died today, then my life would have amounted to nothing.

Fear of the unknown holds people back from chasing that spark that makes life worth living. In Soul, we see an unnamed character with a stable, well-paying job in finance who is unhappy with their life but scared to make a career change.

Dumbledore believes that even though people fear the unknown in death, thats what makes it the next great adventure. This is shown in 22s character arc in Soul. When we first meet 22, they do not want to leave the Great Before to begin life on Earth. However, after they accidentally get sent to Earth and experience simple joys such as tasting pizza, feeling the wind blow, and catching a falling leaf in the palm of their hand, they do not want to return to the Great Before.

In Soul, when Joe tells his mother that music is all he thinks about, she says, You cant eat dreams for breakfast. Joes mother wants him to be realistic and settle on a career. This interaction transported me to Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone when we are introduced to the Mirror of Erised. According to Dumbledore, the Mirror shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts, and men have wasted away before itnot knowing if what it shows is real or even possible (SS 213). Dumbledore tells Harry not to dwell on dreams and forget to live (SS 214).

This idea of forgetting to live is explored in Soul. In the Great Before, lost souls are souls belonging to people who are disconnected from life because they cannot let go of their obsessions. Those souls are stuck in a state of limbo. In Deathly Hallows, a fragment of Voldemorts soul becomes stuck in limbo at Kings Cross. He was so obsessed with killing Harry that he never considered the possibility of Lily invoking an ancient form of magic, and he was so obsessed with immortality that he never considered that splitting ones soul could cause eternal pain and suffering in the afterlife. In Half-Blood Prince, a conversation between Voldemort and Dumbledore takes place where Voldemort says, Nothing I have seen in the world has supported your famous pronouncements that love is more powerful than my kind of magic, Dumbledore (HBP 444). In truth, Voldemort never searched for the power of magic based on love because he was obsessed with using the Dark Arts to gain power and immortality.

In Sorcerers Stone, Dumbledore tells Harry that people have wasted away before the Mirror of Erised, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible. When Joe finally gets his big break as a musician, he has an existential crisis. He had been dreaming of this moment his entire life, but when the moment finally arrived, it was underwhelming because he didnt feel any different. During a pivotal scene in the film, Joe realizes that its the little moments of joy that make life worth living, even if they may seem infinitesimal in comparison to the bigger picture at the time.

In Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore says that Voldemort was in such a hurry to mutilate his own soul, he never paused to understand the incomparable power of a soul that is untarnished and whole (HBP 511). Although Joes dream of a career in jazz is not as extreme as Voldemorts quest for immortality, both Harry Potter and Soul convey the importance of living in the moment and not developing tunnel vision.

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The Meaning of Life According to Harry Potter and Soul - MuggleNet

We Are All Related: Artists, Writers, and More Share Wishes for 2021 | Magazine – MoMA

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As we leave a very difficult 2020 behind, were grateful to have had so many incredible voices as part of Magazine, and for the places their words, ideas, images, and music have taken us. We asked some of our contributors to share a wish for 2021 in a form of their choosing; something theyre looking forward to, something they hope for, or something theyd like to see. Their responses below show the connections we still find through artand the uninhibited dancing in a crowd we still seek.

In 2021, may we welcome a world that is closer together. The pandemic has made us understand that we are one species, sharing similar goals and aspirations. The pandemic has also acted as a mirror, reflecting our good traits and exposing the hate and anger that all too often is the weak response to challenge. May we see this point in history as an opportunity for global compassion and kindness.

Read Taken for Granite: A Climber Sees Yosemite from a New Vantage Point

Image courtesy of Conrad Anker

Image courtesy of Conrad Anker

I am reading a great novel called The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson. My wish for 2021 is that this becomes a massively popular book that youd see on the coffee table in every home. This book encourages the kind of innovative thinking humanity needs. I also wish for all artists, musicians, and creative people to come out of this stressful time with healthy minds, so they can get back to making beautiful things.

Listen to A Portable Embrace

A wish for 2021: for a continued, widening arc of engagement, critical discourse, and art-work that is responsive to the seismic transitions of this present moment. This hope is that the growth and learning we have done together both in art and in the world over this past year continues to expand our perspectives and transform us alongside the transformations we see in the world.

Read Re-Imaging America

I cant imagine 2021 outside of my hope and dream of an end to COVID-19.

Explore Virtual Views: Faith Ringgold

In a year that has brought so much radical change to so many people, my wish is for a 2021 that brings increasing clarity and perspective, inner calm and balance, alongside enduring attention and commitment to systems of creative and holistic care of workers and artists and art workers through and beyond institutional spaces. Id also love to see it become possible to reconvene again on a dance floor as a collective celebration of continuing to hold and make space; the imagination and possibility there is one weve all longed for as weve sashayed across our living room floors alone with the speakers bumping at different points. Movement spurs thought and so my hope is for more ways to movemove our bodies, move one another, move the world.

Read Re-Imaging America

Like everyone, I wish for the return of civility and liberalism in our national discourse and the retreat of the virus that is COVID and the sickness that is Trumpism. In addition, I wish for antidepressants that dont have sexual side effects; my childrens recovery from the relative isolation that the virus has engendered; an honest reckoning with police brutality; more things sold with less packaging; travel; easeful death for people I love who are in decline; recovery for other people I know who are in decline; a boom market; more curiosity in my children; a release from the bonds of the screen for people who grow lonely as they interact with it; reduced anxiety; cures for what wants curing but not for anything else; art that is full of complex meaning but also looks nice on the wall; to stay the age I am a while longer; to keep my children from telling lies; to see the opioid epidemic stemmed rather than revenged; a pair of brown monk strap shoes; an end to global warming; peace in the Middle East; peace outside the Middle East; a new generation dedicated to equality but also respectful of merit; the end of the stigma around, indeed the word for, appropriationism; the rebuilding of the American educational system; beauty and truth in every day; a Pulitzer prize; a cure for psychosis; the cancellation of Brexit; a chance to go into orbital flight; the reuniting of separated children at the US border with their parents; immortality; the breakup of oppressive monopolies; athletic grace; and the ability, for me and everyone, to learn from human suffering.

Listen to The Case for Artistic Genius

I figure the planet-level stuff is sort of obvious. Personally, though? That Shuhada Sadaqat (Sinead OConnor) feel good and put out another record, that my 15-year-old start listening to me about her posture, that I get better about forgiveness and finishing things.

Read Another Country and listen to The Deepest Cuts

I dont have a wish, per se, but I have a new song and video called Cant Escape into Space, which is kind of a wish.

Wolfgang Tillmans, Cant Escape Into Space. Music written by Wolfgang Tillmans, Tim Knapp, Bruno Breitzke. Produced by Tim Knapp, Bruno Breitzke, Wolfgang Tillmans. Vocals and lyrics by Wolfgang Tillmans.

Listen to On My Own

Heres my wishI wish people would stop dying from COVID-19. I wish a vaccine was just a shot, a neutral thing that prevented a deadly disease. Thats a privileged position. Vaccines, like illnesses, are always loaded with cultural and political meaning. We are collectively deciding how much trust to place in our government institutions (and pharmaceutical companies), perpetrators of systemic white supremacy and violence against marginalized bodies. I hope we can trust these shots, and the trust is not broken. I hope we can be free.

Look at Love Sick

I wish that in 2021 we will be able look back on this strange and terrible year with relief and satisfaction that its over, and some prideeven joyin how we and our friends and colleagues and neighbors responded to its many challenges with dignity, responsibility, solemnity, but also creativity and humor. And that the habits and abilities forged in crisis dont leave us too quickly or fully.

Read Can Drawing Be a Crime?

My wish for 2021 is to de-center the human and to foreground the phenomenon within nature.

Read and watch Cooking with Artists: Anicka Yi

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We Are All Related: Artists, Writers, and More Share Wishes for 2021 | Magazine - MoMA

10 Strongest Gods In The DC Pantheon | CBR – CBR – Comic Book Resources

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As powerful as many of DC's heroes and villains are, they pale in comparison to the literal gods and goddesses that exist in that multiverse.

The DC landscape is filled with characters that absolutely boggle the mind in terms of unfathomable power. From heavy hitters such asThe Man of Steel, The Flash, and Shazam, these "terrestrial" heroes, for lack of a better term, pale in comparison to some of the entities that are capable of flipping these heroes worlds upside down.

RELATED:Flash: The 10 Most Powerful Villains Of The Fastest Man Alive

From reality warping to time-travel, these cosmic-level beings can, and in some instances, have made reality their will, bringing in the question of whether The Presence is obsolete in his position of DC's Supreme Being.

Superboy-Prime is an unfathomable force to be reckoned with that has thrashed both DC heroes and villains alike. Following the obliteration of his home universe in Crisis on Infinite Earths, Superboy-Prime would return from the Paradise Dimension alongside Alexander Luthor with a twisted scope of what he saw as a failing superhero landscape.

Believing the Post-Crisis heroes to be feigning heroism instead of upholding his idea of altruistic heroism, Super-Boy tumbled down the villainous rabbit hole, becoming the very thing he resented. Debatably the most powerful incarnation of Superman due to a lack of weakness to green kryptonite, Superboy-Prime has shattered dimensional barriers with sheer strength; subdued the JSA, Teen Titans, and Doom Patrol all at the same time; escaped the Speed Force; and was even held in a guarded quantum containment field after dispatching almost the entirety of the Green Lantern Corps.

Known as the First Lantern, Volthoom became the first being to harness the power of the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum, making him the most powerful ring bearer amongst all other Lanterns. Searching for a remedy to his now-dead homeworld, Volthoom used a device capable of multiversal space/time travel called the Travel Lantern to venture into the multiverse.

Coming across the Maltusians in the main DC universe, Volthoom would aid the ancient aliens in bearing their experimental power battery in exchange for being able to take it back to his universe. However, upon being exposed to the infinite power the spectrum wields, Volthoom's psyche shatters, turning him against the Maltusians and killing hundreds of them. His constructs are physical manifestations as opposed to light constructs, lending credence to the idea that reality-warping is well within his abilities, not to mention being nigh-immortal.

Father to the Raven of the Teen Titans, Trigon is the quasi-manifestation of evil and hatred in the DC universe whose existence stretches back before the Big Bang. While his "demonic" appearance gives the idea of him being some variety of a Hell Lord, he is, in fact, a decedent of an ancient celestial alien race called The Divine.

This race would summon the evils of a hundred galaxies called the Heart of Darkness to cleanse Trigons' corrupted soul but Trigon, in turn, wouldabsorb the energy, elevating his cosmic power and slaying The Divine. Capable of a myriad of abilities ranging from molecular reconstruction, immortality, and metamorphosis, Trigon also swindles women from other worlds into bearing his children, spreading his evil across countless universes.

Hailing from the 5th Dimension, a dimension where the laws of physics are none existent, Mr. Mxyzpltk is an imp who has been a prankster to the Man of Steel for nearly 80 years. Originally a jesterin the 5th Dimension, Mxy uses his reality-warping abilities to jovial lengths to annoy Superman until he is undoubtedly sent back to his dimension once Superman gets him to say his name backward.

RELATED:Superman: 9 Amazing Mr. Mxyzptlk Cosplay That Look Almost Just Like The Comic

Despite this nuanced caveat, he can travel through space/time and dimensional barriers; break the fourth wall; is immortal and completely self-sufficient; and theoretically can do anything his imagination wills such as increasing his size and defeating the Spectre by cracking the earth over his head.

The Anti-Monitor is the OG cosmic menace that was the main antagonist in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Having multiple retcons to his origin, his most recent one revealed he is the offspring of an ultra-cosmic being called Perpetua, who along with his brothers, the Monitor, and the Forger of Worlds, were in charge of creating, examining, and destroying multiverses.

Hell-bent on destroying all things in existence, his vast reality warping capabilities have seen large contingents ofDC superheroes face-off against him and fail. He can wipe out entire universes, distribute portions of his Anti-Matter power to other beings, and even wield the anti-life equation to dominate the wills of those he chooses. It is said that if he "dies," he is reborn in the 6th Dimension, the highest plane of existence that exists beyond time and imagination.

The Spectre is the physical embodimentof Gods' vengeance in the DC universe. Having multiple hosts over the character's tenure, the Spectre rejected the notion of mercy and in turn, was made to bond itself to a human soul in hopes that it would mitigate the wrath of God.

Originally an angel named Aztar who sided with Lucifer during his rebellion, Aztar would come to repent for his violation and as punishment was made to be the embodiment of God's judgment. Having faced off with immensely powerful characters including the Anti-Monitor and Parallax, the Spectre derives its power from The Presence, the end-all-be-all creator in DC comics, making him nigh-omniscient and nigh-omnipotent.Even when "killed" he can reconstitute himself, effectively making him immortal.

Originally from theWatchmenseries by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Doctor Manhattan and the rest of the Watchmen began strategically segueing into the DC Universe at the start of DC Rebirth in 2016. When Nuclear physicist Jon Osterman is ensnared in an intrinsic field subtractor,a machine that utilizes radiation to remove "intrinsic" fields from solid objects, he reconstitutes himself as a godly being who can perceive all space/time, at the same time, relative to his life personally.

Now a quantum being with unlimited power, Manhattan can telekinetically control subatomic matter making his capabilities unfathomably grand in scope. From limited time-travel,size-alteration, and immortality tobeing able to create life and alternate universes, Doctor Manhattan is truly acosmic being that is in a category of his own.

Lucifer was originally an Archangel named Samael whose existence extended back well before the creation of the DC universe. Rebelling against his father, The Presence, at the dawn of time, Lucifer's war against Heaven would result in him being cast into a void dubbed The Chaoplasm which would transform into a desolate and barren region known as Hell.

RELATED:Doctor Manhattan Vs. Lucifer Morningstar: Who Wins In A Fight?

Awaiting the day to be freed, Lucifer's frustration of a deceitful pre-destination being intrinsically tied to him overrides his positionand he releases the souls of Hell and retires to Earth, leaving Dream of The Endless to watch over the bleak dimension. From nigh-omniscience, chronokinesis, and reality alteration, Lucifercan manipulate any external force to the extent he desires, making him one of DC'smost powerful characters.

Crisis on Infinite Earths had the Anti-Monitor.Zero Hour had Parallax.Infinite Crisis had Superboy-Prime. Every "crisis-event" in DC served as either a character rework or line-wide, hard reboot, each withan antagonist giving the heroes, and sometimes villains, a rude awakening in how inept they were against their vast abilities.

Now, what if there was a cosmic menace so grandiose they were actually the puppetmaster, pulling the strings on these crisis-events to obtain complete and total control of the Multiverse? Well, that would be Perpetua. Hailing from the 6th Dimension, Perpetua is a Super Celestial who wastasked by the Judges of the Source to create new life within the Omniverse, however, desired to eliminate the judges instead. Now free of her captivity after being imprisoned, Perpetua is on a quest to destroy and recreate the Multiverse as the ultimate, end-all-be-all DC enemy.

Where Marvel has The One Above All, and Image Comics has Mother, DC's omnipotent creator of all things is known as The Presence. Only making a handful of nuanced appearances, The Presence is the Source of Creation, birthing the vast cosmic energies that inhabit the multiverse. His power, like his counterparts, extend beyond the multiverse and into the Omniverse. Anincorporeal entity whose power is the source of every other power or energy, The Presence is one of a kind among DC characters.

NEXT:10 Superheroes Who Have Beaten A God

Next 5 Characters Spider-Man Lost To But Shouldn't Have (& 5 He Beat But Shouldn't Have)

Trevon Gibbs is a 22 year old entertainer living in California with a keen interest in all things involving the overall medium of superhero epics. Trevons journey as a writer is in its beginning stages, but its one hes excited to be embarking on, and bring his eye and imagination of comic book superheroes, to you.

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10 Strongest Gods In The DC Pantheon | CBR - CBR - Comic Book Resources

#ComicBytes: Know about the origin story of Adam Warlock | NewsBytes – NewsBytes

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Any conversation around Infinity Gauntlet and Gems leads to Thanos, the Mad Titan.

But another important name in this context is Adam Warlock.

Although he has surprisingly not appeared in any MCU movie, he was mentioned in the mid-post credits scene of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

As he is now expected to appear in Vol. 3, here is his fascinating origin story.

Adam was created by the Beehive, a group of researchers, who wanted him to be a godlike creature, capable of achieving greatness.

However, since their intentions were not noble, their own creation, who was known as 'Him', sensed that something was wrong.

So he lashed out, damaged the research complex, injured his creators, and escaped.

However, Uatu (The Watcher) sent him back to Earth.

As he returned, he decided that Asgardian Goddess Sif was going to be his mate.

Since he had no experience as a living form, he opted to abduct the Goddess.

A bad decision by all means since Sif was a close friend of Thor, the God of Thunder.

As expected, Thor attacked 'Him', who proceeded to create a regenerative cocoon around himself to escape.

Upon his rebirth, 'Him' met the High Evolutionary, who renamed 'Him' as Warlock.

The High Evolutionary became a guide for Warlock as he gave him purpose and the Soul Gem.

Warlock then went to the High Evolutionary's artificial planet, Counter-Earth, where he fought the Man-Beast, and received the name, Adam.

However, in the process, he died and was reborn with more cosmic awareness.

Adam has cosmic awareness, which allows him to perceive cosmic and mystic occurrences from virtually anywhere in the universe.

His regenerative cocoon not only ensures his immortality but also makes him more powerful every time he's reborn.

He has superhuman strength and abilities like teleportation, flight, and much more.

Lastly, the Soul Gem allows him to move in and out of the soul world.

Warlock has played a significant role in every big event in the Marvel Universe since he is basically a Marvel God.

Furthermore, the possession of the Soul Gem has brought him face-to-face with entities such as Thanos and Mephisto on multiple occasions.

But, with his powers and constant allies like Pip the Troll, Gamora, Moondragon, and Drax the Destroyer, he is almost unbeatable.

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#ComicBytes: Know about the origin story of Adam Warlock | NewsBytes - NewsBytes

Book review: V.E. Schwab writes a book to leave you weeping and heartbroken – Sheffield Telegraph

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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue has been causing quite a stir in the book community and for good reason.

This beautiful book totally enchanted me and I ended up reading it two times in one month because it was just that good.

I initially picked up this book as the early reviews were raving and the premise of a romance including a character of the literal devil was intriguing.

But this novel blew my already high expectations out of the water.

V.E.Schwab wrote an epic tale of romance with a fast plot which kept me on my toes the whole time.

Addie LaRue makes a deal with the devil but not all is what it seems as instead of immortality he makes her invisible, figuratively.

She can live forever but any person that she meets will forget her as soon as she is out of their eyesight.

Leading to a rather miserable existence for the main character.

The novel follows Addie from the 18th century to present day and how she finds ways to leave a mark on the world despite the devil's curse.

This book brought about a few existential crises in myself as it forces you to ponder your own impact and what you would do differently if you never aged.

The biggest pleasure of this book was the unravelling of Addies past as she travels the world and slowly grows into herself.

Schwab doesnt give you all of this information in one go.

She slowly drip feeds you the secrets of Addies past which constantly surprise me.

By the end of this book I was an emotional wreck, Schwab tears out the reader's heart several times and I loved it.

If like me the never ending pandemic is extending your singledom then I would highly recommend this novel to fill that romance hole.

If you want to hear more of my book thoughts you can follow me on Instagram @lauraandrew95

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Book review: V.E. Schwab writes a book to leave you weeping and heartbroken - Sheffield Telegraph

Books To Add To Your Reading List In 2021 – WBUR

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One of the best things about starting a new year is compiling a new book list. So many gems dropped in 2020 and even more are slated to publish in 2021. Whether you're into nonfiction, fantasy or YA, we've put together this list of books we think would be a good addition to your "To Read" list. We want to thank GrubStreet's Writers of Color group for their local book selection suggestions!

Set in the fictional town of Bellport, Massachusetts, the novel follows the stories of multiple characters searching for their way forward.Bellport, a slowly dying, industrial town, doesn't seem to have much to offer but the characters in "The Talking Drum" are determined to see their dreams come to fruition.

Family secrets are uncovered in this memoir from Johnson recounting her family history. Decades ago, Johnson's white mother ran away to be with Johnson's Black father. What Johnson didn't know is that her mother orchestrated her own disappearance when she ran away. "Say I'm Dead" is a compelling tale about the legacy of racism in America, family and the power of love.

Even if you're not a fan of hip-hop, the impact of the genre on global culture is undeniable. ARTery contributor and music journalist Candace McDuffie lays out 50 rappers whose music and careers shifted the trajectory of hip-hop and the world at large. With beautiful graphics, this book is perfect for you if you love music and want to learn more about the stories behind the artists.

This young adult novel follows the story of Frankie Green, a young man growing up in Jamaica. Where he's from, people don't always make it out so when Frankie gets a scholarship, he thinks it's his ticket out. A series of unfortunate events gets in the way of his escape and he ends up working for his uncle's gang to pay off medical debt. Will Frankie ever make it out?

This book published at the beginning of the year but I've only just been able to get around to reading it. The story revolves around Willis Wu, a self-described "Generic Asian Man" with a penchant for acting and film. From his room in Chinatown, he dreams of making it big in the film industry. But are there more roles for him than just the "Kung Fu Guy?" As Willis embarks on his own personal journey, he unearths much more about Chinatown and his family in the process.

Haenyeo arefemale deep-sea divers, a tradition born in the Korean province of Jeju. With little equipment, haenyeo dive up to 30 meters and can hold their breath for up to three minutes. Junja, a young girl, is the most recent indoctrinated haenyeo in her family but she's still struggling to find herself in the aftermath of World War II. Her mother, also a successful haenyeo, dies suddenly after a diving trip and Junja finds her entire world out of whack. Armed with guidance from her cunning grandmother, Junja begins to carve out her own place, in love and in life.

This follow-up to Thomas' 2017 hit "The Hate U Give" takes us back to the Garden Heights neighborhood, but 17 years earlier than the events that unfolded. Mav is a young, charismatic man with plans of making it big with his girlfriend by his side. To make ends meet, he deals drugs for the King Lords. But things get complicated when his girlfriend gets pregnant. "Concrete Rose" tackles issues like Black masculinity and fatherhood as Mav figures out how to define himself in a world determined to box him in.

Are you one of those people who like a good dystopian fiction novel? This is one for you. Hernandez tells the tale of a not-so-distant world in which people of marginalized identities, including people of color, disabled and LGBTQ folks, are interned in labor camps. However, the emergence of a hero could disrupt the power structures that be and upend everything.

Since the resurgence of protests after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, there have been calls to get rid of the carceral state, including prisons, jails and the police department. For those new to abolition work, these concepts can sound counter-intuitive or difficult to grasp. Kaba, whose Twitter is full of resources and information on abolition, lays out abolitionist principles, shows us how we can transform harm and the way we view justice and, even more importantly, how we ordinary people are the change agents we've been waiting for.

Separated by a vast distance in a future where the world is heavily polluted, sisters Cee and Kasey have their work cut out for them. Cee is stranded alone, with only an android, on a remote island. Kasey, a STEM prodigy, lives in Earth's last remaining unpolluted city. But she's disillusioned with the moral bankruptcy of those living inside. Will these two sisters ever reunite?

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Books To Add To Your Reading List In 2021 - WBUR

DOL Issues New Tip Regulations: Will 2020 Be The Last Year Of 80/20? – Lexology

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Seyfarth Synopsis: Just before the holidays, the Department of Labors Wage-Hour Division issued its final pay regulations governing tipped employees. The final regulations, which were published December 22, 2020 and will be effective March 1, 2021, provide a ray of hope in what was an otherwise miserable 2020 for hospitality employers. The regulations codify the abolition of the 80/20 tip credit rule and guide the circumstances in which back-of-the-house employees can be included in tip pools. The regulations explicitly exclude managers and supervisors from taking a share of employees tips. In 2021, hospitality employers will have to watch how the courts interpret these regulations.

The End Of The 80/20 Rule?

The main course in the DOLs regulations, and one for which hospitality employers have grown hungry, is the end of the 80/20 rule at least from the DOL. The 80/20 rule has had a somewhat complicated recipe. As those familiar with the tip credit know, an employer can pay certain employees who receive tips from customers a wage below the minimum wage. This practice is permitted on the theory that the tips employees receive from customers will more than make up the difference. But doing so requires an employer to meet some technicalities, including that this tip credit can be taken only for the hours the employee spends working in a tipped occupation. So, for example, a server at a hotels restaurant can be paid the tip credit for the hours they spend as a server, but not for the hours they spend at the hotel as a maintenance employee. More difficult questions emerge, however, when the server spends part of their time on duties related to server duties, but that do not produce tips, such as cleaning or setting tables. Under DOL regulations, tipped employees are allowed to perform related duties occasionally, but the DOLs regulations have never defined those two terms.

To fill the plate, the DOL issued some opinion letters and then in 1988 the DOLs Field Operations Handbook an operations manual made available to investigators ultimately determined that a tipped employee could spend no more than 20% of their time on related duties (which remained undefined) and remain eligible to be paid under the tip credit. In other words, an employee would have to spend 80% of their time performing tipped job duties. The 80/20 dual jobs rule remained a little-known side dish until more than a dozen years ago, just after wage-hour collective and class litigation began its boom. As can be imagined, tip credit litigation blew up as well, with many cases generating seven-figure settlements centering on whether restaurant servers side work is a related duty and what percentage of time servers spend performing those duties.

In November 2018, the DOL sought to abolish the 80/20 rule through an opinion letter and a field assistance bulletin. In its place, the DOL explained that an employer may take a tip credit for time when an employee in a tipped occupation performs related non-tipped duties either contemporaneously with or for a reasonable time immediately before or after performing tipped duties. Under this rule, the DOL explained, when a tipped employee engages in a substantial amount of separate, non-tipped-related duties, such that they have effectively ceased to be engaged in a tipped occupation, the tip credit is no longer available. Further, the DOL defined related duties by stating that a non-tipped duty is presumed to be related to a tip-producing occupation if it is listed as a task of the tip-producing occupation in the Occupational Information Network O*NET.

Beginning in early 2019, however, as Seyfarth previously reported, district courts largely have refused to give it deference and have clung to the 80/20 rule. Several of them reasoned that the opinion letter and field assistance bulletin did not provide persuasive reasons for an abrupt change in position after decades of the 80/20 rule. Strangely, these district courts instead have chosen to defer to the no-longer-effective 80/20 rule, or have imposed it as a matter of judicial fiat.

Therefore, in the late 2019, the DOL issued a proposed regulation and then, last week, published final regulations that hopefully will be the death blow to the 80/20 rule. In doing so, the DOL largely restated, with some minor tweaks, the guidance from its November 2018 opinion letter and field assistance bulletin. Perhaps responding to some of the criticism of district courts, the DOL in these regulations sought to explain why it was abandoning the 80/20 rule. For example, among other reasons, it stated:

An employer of an employee who has significant non-tipped related duties which are inextricably intertwined with their tipped duties should not be forced to account for the time that employee spends doing those intertwined duties. Rather, such duties are generally properly considered a part of the employees tipped occupation, as is consistent with the statute.

It remains to be seen if district courts will defer to this guidance now that the DOL has officially codified the rule. They should, as this guidance is reasonable and went through lengthy notice-and-comment rulemaking. Further, employers must be mindful that some states (e.g, Connecticut, New Jersey) have enacted their own versions of the 80/20 rule, in which employers in those states will need to follow regardless of the DOLs new rule.

Back-of-House Staff May Collect Tips In Mandatory Nontraditional Tip Pools

In addition, the DOLs regulations also address amendments to the FLSA made in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018. The new regulations do not change longstanding regulations that apply to employers that take a tip credit under the FLSA. Employers that claim a tip credit must ensure that a mandatory traditional tip pool includes only workers who customarily and regularly receive tips. Under the new regulations, however, employers that do not claim a tip credit may now implement mandatory, nontraditional tip pools. In this scenario, tip pools may include employee who do not customarily and regularly receive tips, including back-of-house employees that may not be customer-facing, such as cooks and dishwashers.

Managers and Supervisors: Keep Your Hands Off Employees Tips!

The new regulations also explicitly prohibit managers and supervisors from keeping employees tips for any purposeeven in a nontraditional tip pool situation during which the employer does not take a tip credit and back-of-house employees are permitted to take a share of tips. In order to prevent employers from keep[ing] tips, the new regulations require employers who collect tips and redistribute them through a mandatory tip pool to redistribute the tips no less often than when it pays wages to avoid penalties. The regulations also require employers who collect tips and redistribute them through a mandatory tip pool to keep records of the same even if the employer does not take a tip credit.

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DOL Issues New Tip Regulations: Will 2020 Be The Last Year Of 80/20? - Lexology

Fitter and Happier? Work after the Coronavirus – Merion West

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Of all changes that have already been made to mitigate the threat of the deadly virus, the way we work has arguably undergone the biggest transformation.

Editors note: The following is a lightly edited version of the postscript from Al Binns forthcoming book The Incredibly Strange Creatures: Or How I Learned to Stop Being a Mixed-Up Zombie and Survive Modern Work!!?. Some of the statistics and figures cited have been updated so as to be current.

While editing this book, the world has been faced with an unprecedented disaster, one whose ongoing and conceivably lasting impact cannot be ignored. On December 31, 2019 the first cases of the flu-like illness, later known as COVID-19, were detected in Wuhan, China. In the months that have followed, the virus has evolved into a global pandemic with at least 83 million cases and approximately 1.8 million deaths. The alarming eruption of the virus has led many to draw comparisons to a wealth of post-apocalyptic fiction including the American medical disaster film Outbreak and even Emily St. John Mandels award-winning novel Station Eleven, in which a virulent new strain of influenza wipes out 99% of the earths population. While the similitude drawn to these dystopian narratives has seemingly prepared us for a level of devastation akin to that caused by Mandels Georgia flu, the extent to which this novel contagion will affect human life is not yet known. Amid the uncertainty about our future with the virus, what is certain is that, by the time this book is published, the world at-large will be a very different place.

Of all changes that have already been made to mitigate the threat of the deadly virus, the way we work has arguably undergone the biggest transformation. The sanctioned lockdowns and subsequent economic downturn have ravaged the retail and hospitality sectors, with millions of people already losing their jobs in the onset of a financial plight set to eclipse the Great Depression. For the past several months, those who have been fortunate enough to escape redundancy and the stasis of the federal pandemic unemployment compensation programor, indeed, other such temporary wage subsidy schemeshave been faced with making the substantial adjustment to working exclusively from home.

Formerly understood as a euphemism for sending a few emails then kicking back to watch daytime televisiona medium previously reserved for students and the long-term unemployedworking from home has long since been considered the Shangri-La of modern work. Sold as part of a utopian vision of the future, teleworking is broadly understood as a consequential step in the natural evolution towards the end of work. The roots of such lore can be found in the work of John Maynard Keynes, who in 1930 predicted that in the next century technology would have advanced sufficiently to allow workers to only work 15-hour weeks. Today, as we are faced with a global pandemicand with video conferencing software like Zoom and Microsoft Teams facilitating our enforced working from home statusit feels as though we have taken a meaningful step towards this Keynesian prophecy. Certainly, in light of what has already been discussed [in this book], whether it be the zombification and lack of self-worth experienced through the simulation of pointless work or the slow erosion of character and identity suffered through the ever-transient job market, the idea of relocating to the sanctuary of the home, even for the purpose of work, on first blush can only be understood as a welcomed reprieve.

The apparent benefits of this new normal were illuminated, for example, in a recent tweet by one banking firm:

Getting up later, Wearing whatevers comfy. No awkward lift chats. No bants. No fake laughing at bad jokes. Seeing your first family. No fighting over the temperature. No drama. No water coolers in sight. Working from bed. Not getting stressed about your commute or the weather. An office isnt a home. Do what works best for you.

However, while the pandemics novel imposition of exclusively working from home may appear as a precognition of a utopian future rushing in, this romantic account of teleworking fails to address the dark underbelly of our homes and workplaces permanently becoming one. Before the virus hit, the digital revolution had already been well theorized as facilitating and perpetuating the pervasiveness of modern work, seeing our employment assume a near omnipresence and enslaving us into a zombie-like existence. Nevertheless, while our work has long since followed us home at night, it has ostensibly remained localized to a device. Prior to the pandemic, work permeated the home through a phone that could be simply switched off or a laptop that could repose in a bag, out of sight. Of course, in 24-hour capitalism these options seldom present themselves as such, though they have at least remained physically possible. Significantly, with the hastened move towards remote working, this ubiquity has intensified as work itself has become manifest, inhabiting the same physical space as our homelives. In a very literal sense for some, the dinner table and the desk have become one.

In returning to the books central thesis on rediscovering Aristotelian virtue ethics as an antidote to the sickness of modern work, I argue that the transition to working from home full-time should not be embraced as a step towards the end of work, thus creating the ideal conditions for practicing the virtues and ultimately achieving our telos, eudaimonia. Rather, it should be rejected as a covert shift towards a life completely without leisure. After all, it is not the home that is seeping into work; conversely, it is our occupations that are visibly punctuating our abodes. Indeed, as our homelives are overcome with work, the time for leisure (and, significantly, that for practicing the virtues) is absorbed into an incessant and boundless working life, making the concept of worker happiness invariably strange, if not impossible.

Starkly, the fallout from this new working arrangement has already been felt. Since the start of the pandemic, the issue of work-related mental health has become more and more prominent, with a near 50% rise in mental distress reported by employees when compared with the time period between 2017 and 2019. Much of this could be attributed to the move towards working from home, which has been credited with enabling the length of the working day to increase. These initial statistics have sparked early but serious concerns, with some predicting that as well as being faced with an impending recession and mass unemployment, we are also heading into an unprecedented mental health crisis.

As the line between home and work becomes physically impossible to discern, the pursuit of happiness appears decidedly futile. Frustrated by our inescapable occupations, the question of self-actualization is rendered moot, as we endeavor to simply survive the pandemic and the changes it has brought to our employment. In light of this troubling thought, we may consider the soft supportive tone of the aforementioned banking firms tweet to become modulated into a cold computer speech: something reminiscent of the synthesized voice from Radioheads musique concrte track Fitter Happier, reminding us that these new arrangements have made us more productive.

With the abrupt transition to remote working leading to a significant increase in mental health issues, workers have begun to long for a return to the workplace; perversely pining for the awkward lift chats and stressful commutes that they previously dreaded. Consequently, with this U-turn comes the realization that teleworking is not the crucial step towards an end to work we had longed for; rather it can be understood as the opposite, the beginning of a truly endless and inescapable life of work. By extension, this realization depressingly calls into question whether the abolition of work is the inevitability Keynes seemingly promised.

In the face of this dystopian reality, it is unsurprising that workers are favoring a retreat to the workplace. However, if we make the permanent return to office, the danger is that we will once again stop talking about work-related mental health and, instead, simply count ourselves lucky to have a job. It is of grave concern that mass unemployment, the exacerbated levels of poor mental health as a result of the pandemic, and the associated failed working from home experiment will mask the inherent issues of modern work and make the extent of our pre-pandemic despair seem trivial, even acceptable. Amid the euphoria of such a reprieve, we may forget that before the pandemic work-related mental health was a significant issue, plaguing three in five of us at some point during our working lives. With this in mind, I suggest that it is now more important than ever that, wherever one works (whether it be in the office, the call center, the service counter, in the creative industries, on the retail show-floor or in the backroom of a warehouse), it is imperative that we keep talking about work-related mental health. We must continue to fight for structure and stability and the abolition of zero-hour contracts. Critically, in face of these new challenges, it is essential that we maintain a concerted effort to establish clear physical and mental barriers between home and work, if we are to avoid the ways of the mixed-up zombie.

Al Binns holds a masters degree in philosophy by research from Nottingham Trent University. He is the debut author of The Incredibly Strange Creatures: Or How I Learned to Stop Being a Mixed-Up Zombie and Survive Modern Work!!? (2021), forthcoming from ZerO Books. He can be reached on Twitter@Tsunami__Life

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Fitter and Happier? Work after the Coronavirus - Merion West

ICE in Dems crosshairs as Biden heads to WH – Boston Herald

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Last month, anillegal immigrant from El Salvador wanted back home for murder was deported via ICE Air after being caught in Framingham.

Will such arrests be few and far between under a Biden administration?

Abolish ICE has been a rallying cry on the left for several years, partly in response to President Trumps immigration policies, and partly due to the progressive penchant for viewing illegal immigration as more of a faux pas than a crime. Hence the politically correct term undocumented.

Biden himself has not called for the agencys abolition, but he has vowed to reverse many of Trumps immigration policies. And Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, while also not asserting that ICE should be abolished, had this to say about the agency: I think theres no question that weve got to critically re-examine ICE and its role and the way that it is being administered and the work it is doing, she told MSNBC. And we need to probably think about starting from scratch.

Harris has alsocompared the agency to the Ku Klux Klan.

As the Washington Times reported, Harris told ICE chief Ronald Vitello in a 2018 Senate hearing there was a perception that his personnel were using fear and intimidation in the same way the KKK did.

I thought it was totally unprofessional, unfair, Vitello told the Times. She can say whatever she wants about me personally, but she was trying to tar the whole agency. I think it was a disgrace.

Vitello said that if Biden and Harris won, CBPs in a world of hurt. ICE is going to be in a world of hurt if these two prevail.

And as the past month or so has taught us, there are many cooks throwing elbows in the kitchen.

New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has wasted no time in finding fault with centrist Bidens Cabinet picks. She commands media attention, as well as that of the progressive wing of the party.

Abolishing ICE isnt a radical thing to do, its a humane thing to do, she tweeted.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, though passed over so far for a post in Bidens administration, is nonetheless a player on Capitol Hill. She too, is no fan of ICE, posting on Facebook in 2018We need to rebuild our immigration system, start by replacing ICE.

Biden will face pressure to make radical reforms and America will face the fallout.

The December deportee, Marvin Alexander Figueroa-Mazariego, 40, was flown back to El Salvador.

Were very grateful that together with our HSI partnersthis dangerous fugitive who sought to avoid justice in his home country was removed from New England, said Todd M. Lyons, Field Office Director, ERO Boston.

Lyons added: We remain committed to seeking out and removing any illegally present criminal fugitives who think they can evade the law. Our focus will always be on those who continue to pose a potential threat by hiding in our communities in Massachusetts.

Catching criminal fugitives, staving off threats to public safety, arresting drug and weapons smugglers and confiscating kilos of fentanyl these are the things that ICE does.

If progressives get their way in undermining and diluting ICE operations, they will throw up serious roadblocks to any efforts to build back better.

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ICE in Dems crosshairs as Biden heads to WH - Boston Herald

‘Abolish the Senedd because we can’t win Welsh elections’ says Tory website – Nation.Cymru

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The Senedd. Picture by Senedd Cymru.

A Tory website has published an article calling for the abolition of the Senedd because the party cant win elections in Wales.

Michael Evans argues in Prydain Review that devosceptism is the inescapable future for his party because the idea that a Conservative Welsh Government is possible is a shallow lie.

He said that the Conservatives cannot win enough constituency seats to get an outright majority and that a deal between the party and Plaid Cymru was not possible.

Mr Evans also claimed that any Tory who tells you otherwise is disrespecting you and insulting your intelligence.

The Welsh Conservatives currently have 11 seats out of 60 in the Senedd, and would need to win 31 for an outright majority, which is an increase of 20.

Devosceptic

Mr Evans said: When faced with devosceptic opinions, there is a stock answer given by the leadership. It goes like this: Yes, devolution hasnt worked for 20 years, but thats Labours fault. We can make it work with a Welsh Conservative Government.

As Henry Hill has pointed out, this is a distinction without a practical difference. But it is also a dishonest position that diminishes those who trot it out.

Devolution is not just the Welsh Government, but the Senedd. And the Senedds electoral system is semi-proportional. Even Labour has never won an outright majority. A Tory who tells you that the Welsh Conservatives can win outright is lying to you, disrespecting you and insulting your intelligence.

The Additional Member System incorporates first past the post constituency results with the Dhondt method for allocating the 20 regional seats. In English, this means that the more constituencies you win, the fewer regional members you get.

The Conservative vote is fairly evenly spread across the five Senedd regions, meaning that their road to a majority has to be based on constituencies only.

This would be extremely tough even if it was just a first past the post election with the 40 constituency seats; in that scenario the Senedd Conservatives would need to improve on the successful 2019 Westminster tally. But with the Additional Member System it is impossible.

To win an outright majority, the Welsh Conservatives would need to increase their number of constituency wins from 6 to 31. This means that to get to a majority of just one, their must win seats would include Llanelli, Torfaen, Caerphilly, Neath, Ceredigion, Newport East, Ogmore and Islwyn.

When theyve never even won the Vale of Glamorgan at an Assembly election, one can see that the suggestion of winning all those seats is beyond absurd.

No coalition

He added: And there will be no coalition, not that the suggestion of one would assuage devosceptic concerns about devolution in any case. Plaid Cymru has ruled out a coalition with the Welsh Conservatives.

There is no scenario, other than being the larger partner in a coalition, that would be more preferable to Plaid than holding the Senedd balance and forcing a Labour minority government to dance to its tune.

There will be no Tory majority, and there will be no Tory-Plaid deal. There is a dawning realisation across the Party that the Welsh Conservatives cannot win. That devolved politics is a cul-de-sac for the Party.

The implication of this for the devolution debate in the Conservative Party is simple. Conservative MSs point to every problem with the Welsh Government, but have no viable solution. They cant win. They cant change anything. So solutions will be sought elsewhere.

Difficult questions are coming, and nobody is going to be fobbed off with the shallow lie that a Welsh Conservative government is possible.

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'Abolish the Senedd because we can't win Welsh elections' says Tory website - Nation.Cymru