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Melii And Sainvil Bubble With Tension In New Visual For HBK – RESPECT.

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

R&B Crooner Sainvil releases the new hedonistic visual to his moody single, HBK featuring Harlems own Melii today!

Directed by MARZ, the visual brings the songs seductive lyrics to life! We see Sainvil & Melii both do their best to restrain the tension between the two. But in the end, they cant help but to let their inhibitions go. HBK stands for Heartbreak Kid, which is a reference to the famous professional wrestler Shawn Michaels. Sainvil said its a metaphor for the guy who desperately wants to be emotionally unattached as well as belong to the streets, but in actuality, he is a one-woman man!

HBK is quickly becoming Miami natives most popular song and is featured on his sophomore EP, 2020 Was Hijacked. Released last month, the EP acts as a period piece that truly captures the essence of this historic year and will be an important body of work to look back and reflect on in the years to come! While relatively new to the music industry, Alamo Records first R&B signing was able to work with big-name producers like Mike Hector (Kendrick Lamar, Denzel Curry, SiR), Morgan OConnor (Juice WRLD, Gunna, Lil Durk), and AR (The Weeknd, Bryson Tiller).

The Weekend Edit: Party Like It’s 2021! – The Handbook

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

Pandemic party wear is our new favourite thing. Throw caution to the wind, dress up like your life depends on it, and get ready to dance like no ones watching. Were thinking hedonistic, glamorous and decadent excess is the perfect antidote to this year

If we could click our fingers and summon the mother of all parties something out of Baz Luhrmanns imagination is where wed like to be. But well try not to dwell on that. Despite going out outbeing, well, out of the question, you can still go all out where your wardrobe is concerned. After all, that backyard boogie for six deserves just as much attention.

From super luxe designer pieces, to the most expensive looking buys on the high street, pandemic party wear is our new therapy. And from full-blown sequins to sparkle your way through the Zoom office party in, to sumptuous velvets worthy of an intimate Christmas Day lunch, weve got this.

Here weve rounded up all the best dresses to see you through Christmas and well into the New Year

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The Weekend Edit: Party Like It's 2021! - The Handbook

How to be happy | | bryantimes.com – The Bryan Times

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

When Aristotle thought about what the greatest good was, he determined that it was for humans to achieve eudaimonia. Eudaimonia is basically the ancient Greek way of saying human flourishing, or living well or to put it simply, the good life. Now, Aristotle was not the first or the only philosopher to advocate for eudaimonia being the greatest good of human life. Many philosophers and philosophies, in fact, almost all of philosophy, advocates some system that will allow people to achieve eudaimonia. Aristotle thought it had something to do with virtue, but not entirely. The Stoics from which we get the word stoic thought that achieving eudaimonia came when you stopped striving against the universe and accepted life with all its ups and downs as it comes essentially narcotizing emotion and trying to live above the fray. The Epicureans and Hedonists thought you could get eudaimonia through pleasure. And there have been infinite variations of this, coming down to the day in which we live.

Why? Why are philosophers and thinkers so concerned with how to not only live, but experience the good life? Well, pretty obviously, because people want to live a good life. People, being fundamentally self-centered and self-interested, want to flourish. And the thing is that most of the great philosophies kinda get it right well, they get parts right.

But the thing that they get most right, the thing that all philosophies rightly recognize is that people want to flourish they want the good life. Aye, theres the rub: How to get it?

Well, lets look at SCIENCE and DATA and FACTS! I know that those are things that people talk about with hushed and holy voices when they arent shouting them at their political opponents. Well, a recent poll from Gallup demonstrates that in the year 2020, all classes of Americans had fewer members who rated their mental well-being as excellent. In fact, Americans self-diagnosis of mental health took significant hits. All groups are doing worse.

Well, not ALL groups. Some groups are actually doing better. Well, one group. One group is doing better. People who go to religious services EVERY WEEK are actually doing better. While other groups are losing 8-10% of their population from the excellent category seriously religious people are actually UP 4%!

Does this mean that becoming religious will make you happy? No. Does this prove the claims of Christianity? No. But it does seem to demonstrate what Christians have said for a long time since always we were made to worship God. We can only achieve our telos our purpose by worshipping the one true God. Real fulfillment in life comes from a life of worship, a life dedicated to Christ.

If you really want the good life, if you really want eudaimonia, then fulfill the purpose for which you were created: Live for Christ! Nothing else is worth dying for; nothing else is worth living for nothing else is really worth anything.

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How to be happy | | bryantimes.com - The Bryan Times

Leeds pubs and bars react as Tier 3 rule remains meaning they can’t open to customers at Christmas – Yorkshire Evening Post

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

Speaking to Commons, Matt Hancock praised areas under Tier 3 restrictions for their efforts in lowering coronavirus rates.

He praised people in areas under Tier 3 restrictions for their efforts in reducing coronavirus rates, but said we are "For the vast majority of places in Tier 3 were not making a change today."

Only, Bristol and North Somerset will move from Tier 3 to Tier 2.

This means Leeds, Bradford, Kirklees, Calderdale and Wakefield will remain in Tier 3.

Hospitality settings will only be permitted to continue sales by takeaway, click-and-collect, drive-through or delivery services.

This means that there is no change to the rules already in place for hospitality across Leeds.

Settings include those such as pubs, bars, restaurants and cafes.

--> Why Leeds is staying in Tier 3Bruce Lerman, co-owner of Hedonist Bar on Briggate in Leeds, said: "I knew it was coming, I didn't expect anything less.

"And to be honest, we weren't going to open anyway because it's safer for our staff to stay on furlough than for us to risk opening over Christmas and not have any trade.

"We're a wet venue so it would have been too risky."

Martin Greenhow is the owner of Mojo bars across the country including one on Merrion street in Leeds.

He said: "My position is that even with my bar open in Tier 2 in Harrogate, it's far from ideal and that's an understatement.

"Even if Leeds had gone into Tier 2 the restrictions make it unviable to open and it's a game of calculating whether we lose less for being open or closed as opposed to actually being able to break even or make a profit.

"We would be foregoing grants and furlough to open and actually it's not worth the effort.

"We sit and we wait until we go again."

Jonathan Simons is the owner of Distrikt Bar on Duncan Street in Leeds.

He said: "The news is disastrous I'm afraid to say.

"We were so excited about re-opening and we had spent a lot of money getting everything implemented for opening.

It feels like the government is suffocating hospitality and bars are really suffering."

Tier 3 is the highest alert level to be in place across England and the whole of West Yorkshire will stay under the strict Very High restrictions.

Pubs and bars in the city have now not been able to open since before the national lockdown which came in on November 5.

Tom Riordan, CEO of Leeds Council, said: "We put a strong and balanced case forward about whether Leeds could go into Tier 2.

"We are disappointed but maybe not surprised but we know this is no consolation for those in hospitality who have worked so hard to be ready to reopen."

Adam Jones, founder of Tattu Restaurant in Leeds, said: If we must remain closed in the interest of public health, businesses that cannot operate within the current restrictions need to see proportionate support.

"The misconceptions around the support provided to hospitality to date simply dont paint a clear picture of the reality for businesses in Tier 3.

"Current local restrictions grants are wholly inadequate to help with the mounting ongoing costs of forced closure, which for Tattu have grown to more than 700,000 since March.

Without specific sector evidence, theres a common perception that our industry is being unfairly targeted whilst other sectors have been allowed to reopen unchecked. Especially given the huge investment into Covid secure compliance systems that operators at all levels made to ensure our venues were as safe as possible.

We need to see evidence of long-term solutions. The current VAT cuts and rates relief are wholly insufficient if more than half of the sector cant benefit from them due to forced closure. Business rates holidays are essential for hospitality in 2021, with more targeted support for disproportionately disadvantaged businesses.

"The Furlough Retention Bonus was an important lifeline that many businesses had built into their cashflow.

"Its reintroduction would help offset the costs of holiday accruals, national insurance contributions and processing costs of keeping staff employed throughout the crisis.

Above all, we need to see better communication with our industry and in our regions.

"There has been a dangerous impact on the mental health of those learning the fate of their business through leaks to press before official announcements are made.

"This irresponsible governance of our livelihoods has been equally as torturous as the restrictions themselves, and yet it is completely avoidable.

The leader of Leeds City Council, Judith Blake, said: "As Leeds remains in Tier 3, individuals, businesses and organisations in the city continue to feel the negative impact of this pandemic.

"Many people are really struggling with worries about their health and finances.

"During this next phase, lets be kind to each other, help each other stay safe and support those who need our help."

The current rate in Leeds as of Thursday is 138.2 and the over 60s rate has gone down by 14 per cent over the last week.

Other restrictions include:- You must not meet socially indoors or in most outdoor places with anybody you do not live with, or who is not in your support bubble, this includes in any private garden or at most outdoor venues

- You must not socialise in a group of more than six in some other outdoor public spaces, including parks, beaches, countryside accessible to the public, a public garden, grounds of a heritage site or castle, or a sports facility this is called the rule of six

- People can leave their homes for any purpose and can socialise in outdoor places, subject to the rule of six

- Collective worship and weddings can continue

- Shops and wider leisure facilities including gyms can stay open

- Hairdressers and beauty salons can stay open

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Leeds pubs and bars react as Tier 3 rule remains meaning they can't open to customers at Christmas - Yorkshire Evening Post

Chadwick Bosemans final performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is one of searching intensity – iNews

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

Ma Raineys Black Bottom is set during a heady bygone era, conjuring up 1927 Chicago at the tumultuous height of blues and jazz, but it is far from a nostalgia trip.

An experienced blues accompaniment band working with the legendary Mother of Blues, Ma Rainey (Viola Davis), find themselves scuppered at every turn both by her battles with weaselly white music management, and by bristling internal tensions with an arrogant new horn player, Levee (Chadwick Boseman).

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Based on August Wilsons 1984 stage play of the same name, the film mainly takes place inside the recording studio, as the principals bicker, philosophise and grow frustrated with one another.

Davis is imposing and fascinating as Ma, who suffers no fools and proves difficult for all the right reasons: she has every good motive to be suspicious of her white management and refuses to give an inch, knowing that they will tolerate her attitude only for as long as it takes them to get her voice trapped in their little boxes.

Sweat pours down her face and bosom and, finely dressed and heavily made-up though she is, she reeks of world-weariness; her money seems to mean little on her way to record as she is stared down by notably lighter-skinned well-off black Chicagoans.

The film might suffer slightly from its theatrical origins, with its starchy old-time costumes and its confined feel. But for fans of the storied a bunch of people arguing in one room genre of movies, this shouldnt be too much of an issue, especially with such cracklingperformances.

The clash of personalities keeps things dynamic; old-time blues man Toledo (Glynn Turman) tells the classic yarn of the man who sold his soul to the Devil; weary bandleader Cutler (the stalwart Colman Domingo), is level-headed until religion enters the conversation. But Levee is the cat among the pigeons, cajoling and taunting.

The late Chadwick Bosemans final performance is one of searching intensity and live wire unpredictability as a spitfire of a young musician who doesnt grasp that what Ma Rainey says goes.

The anguish of his role is haunting, and in the limited space of that warehouse-style studio, each character brings with them a sense of the jumping, hedonistic world outside, where modernity clashes with the deep and long-festering racism of old. As Levees awful backstory is slowly revealed, we see the loose, conversational air of the film give way to an undercurrent of deep despair.

In a tragic, final-act turn, Mas conviction that white folk cant really understand the blues is expressed in deed as well as word. The poignant conclusion is as bitter as it is heartbreaking, because, fictional though it is, its story of racism, rage and lost promise shows an essential truth.

In cinemas and on Netflix now

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Chadwick Bosemans final performance in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is one of searching intensity - iNews

My Favorite Fiction of 2020 – The New Yorker

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

Speak the words top-ten list and another word, gimmick, floats to mind. Gratitude, the kind that one feels for a book that resides temporarily in ones body, is an awfully personal feeling to try to pass off as a public judgment. Add a pandemic and the act gets even trickier. Ive wondered how art might best meet this moment: with gentleness or rudeness, distraction or challenge. Ive thought, too, about what Ive asked of literature recently. Sometimes, when the world is dumb, its mental stimulation that Im hungry for, or, when the world is ugly, beauty, or, when its exhausting, refreshment. As consumers of fiction, we have needs both diverse and inconstant; meanwhile, the best of lists gallop on, kicking up clouds of strained comparisons. This years pronouncements arrive shadowed by melancholy and, even more than usual, a vague illegitimacy.

For instance, I am writing this list from the kitchen table of a woman who says that, in 2020, she could abide only cozy mysteries or escapist fantasies. But Ive found that, for me, literatures draws finally exist independently of plagues or coups. Whats changed for many of us is perhaps our relationship to other types of fictions, which dont necessarily come from novels. Narratives of American innocence, competence, and fellowship have eroded in the time of Trumps Presidency, COVID-19, and the George Floyd protests. Letting go of these stories might cause one to crave tidy whodunnits, or it might simply make one stubborn, intolerant of pretense. Having found myself in the second category (stubborn), I regret to announce that I will not be declaring the ten best fiction books of the year. Such lists are malarkey. Id be delighted to boss you aroundI assume thats why youre here, to receive direction or fightbut please just think of the titles below as ten worthwhile books, milestones of a sort, published in this Very Weird Year. And then read them.

The Glass Hotel, by Emily St. John Mandel

You should read this book because it is an intensely satisfying novel of ideas, which suggests that our identities are as fragile as our circumstances. Vincent is a bartender whose relationship with a white-collar criminal wafts her into a charmed existence; when her boyfriends Ponzi scheme collapses, she signs up to be a cook on a cargo ship. Her neer-do-well half brother, Paul, also craves a fresh start. Mandel expertly threads these and other story lines together, focussing on the ease with which a person can slip out of one life and into another; the novel is translucent with ghosts. We move through this world so lightly, one woman observes, like a voice from Beyondshe sounds amazed, dismayed, and a little relieved.

Leave the World Behind, by Rumaan Alam

You should read this book because it makes your skin tingle, like stepping into a deep, dark pool of present-day anxieties. Amanda, an advertising executive, and her professor husband, Clay, take their teen-age son and daughter to an Airbnb in a picturesque recess of Long Island. Their vacation is interrupted when an older couple, Ruth and G.H. Washington, arrive at the door, claiming to be the houses owners and warning of a power outage in Manhattan. From there, the text veers between two novels: a sharply drawn social satire, replete with love-to-hate bourgeois accentsincluding the most critically acclaimed grocery list of 2020and a disaster tale, with the texture of a nightmare. There are spiders and blood; the imagery of repressed horror, when it erupts, is shocking. Still, Alam maintains an arch tone through his omniscient narrator, who describes omens of ecological ruin with the same chilly detachment that he brings to Amandas polite racism. (The Washingtons are Black.) Such dryness differentiates Alam from Mandel, whose visions of disaster have a more sorrowful resonance, and yet the two authors are charting similar territory: the place where realism and surrealism meet, and life as we know it dissipates into life as weve never imagined it could be.

Where the Wild Ladies Are, by Aoko Matsuda

You should read this book because it pairs the delicate eeriness of traditional Japanese folklore with a kooky, contemporary sensibility. Each of Matsudas stories updates an old tale about the ghosts and fox spirits known, in Japan, as yokai. Here, though, the yokai work alongside the living at a mysterious incense company. Matsudas agenda is mischievously feminist. She likens womens potential to an otherworldly forceshape-shifting project managers complain about Japans glass ceilingand her male characters tend to come off looking ridiculous. (I dont have any exceptional talents, one helpfully says.) There is, too, an undertow of late-capitalist weariness: the workday, which makes spectres of the living, does not pause for the dead. The cheerful oddity of these tales reminded me of the writer Sianne Ngais theory of the zany. Zany art, Ngai suggests, blurs the line between play and labor, arousing feelings of suspicion, attraction, and exhaustion. But Matsudas book also possesses a simpler appeal: her yokai say things like Okay, thats cool, and, sometimes, they lose their tempers. Ghosts: theyre just like us!

The Office of Historical Corrections, by Danielle Evans

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My Favorite Fiction of 2020 - The New Yorker

BRIAN JOSEPH: On the joy and importance of small pleasures during COVID – TheChronicleHerald.ca

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

COVID has changed our world. In most regards, it has caused great harm, including economic devastation and death not seen since the Second World War.

But perhaps surprisingly, it has also provided the valuable opportunity to examine many old assumptions and practices governing the way we work, travel and relate to others.

And to ourselves.

Not for nothing has much attention turned to the dangerous and still weakly documented health effects of social distancing, of isolation and of loneliness. Ahead of the curve in this area, Great Britain appointed a federal Minister for Loneliness after their National Health Service documented and quantified the very devastating cost of loneliness for personal health, and for the national budget.

In many quarters, including our Atlantic provinces' daily papers, we are now seeing a renewed interest in the mental health effects of social isolation. Progressive public health researchers have known for many decades that the chief determinants of a person's health and of the well-being of the general population have relatively little to do with the chemical concoctions heavily promoted by Big Pharma.

In fact, our health normally depends very greatly on the quality and quantity of our human connections, on the safety and satisfaction of our work, on the quality of our food and the quantity of our exercise, recreation and hobby activities. (In emergencies like the current COVID epidemic, nothing replaces an effective vaccine!)

With the approaching Christmas season now threatening to be something of a Scrooge's delight on the socializing front, attention has rightly been turning to alternative ways to make merry. And here a little big-picture history might assist us.

It has taken about 500 years for many northern countries in the West to work through the general prohibition on pleasure that was a central aspect of the well-intentioned Reformers of the 16th century in Switzerland, Germany, Scotland and elsewhere.

At that time, live theatre, visual arts, recreational games, popular music and dancing were widely prohibited.

Thus, anthropologists and sociologists have never been tempted to label the strongest preserves of Reformer Puritanism, as hotspots of hedonism, pleasure or party fun. One of my Harvard professors wryly defined Puritanism as the lingering suspicion that somebody, somewhere might be having a good time! Indeed, we have to go all the way back to Englishman Thomas More in the 15th century to rediscover the kind of wholesome enjoyment of sensual pleasure that was for a very long time strongly discouraged as a result of the changes brought by the Reformation to Europe.

Now, in the bleak circumstances of our own day, it is truly time to rediscover the joy of pleasure, and the importance of pleasure for our mental and physical health.

With COVID threatening to be the Grinch that stole Christmas, we need to fight back against the gloom of these short, dark days and the widespread distress and death from the virus by finding new joys and renewing old ones.

Many will find themselves separated from loved ones this Christmas against their will. Here, the new means of communication such as FaceTime, Facebook, Zoom and Skype may help, if available. But perhaps nothing beats the low-tech telephone call. The sound of the human voice can work wonders. And what better time to reach out to family, friends, lost contacts, or schoolmates?

Now, everyone has an excuse, if needed: I was thinking about you and just wanted to check how youre doing with all this COVID stuff that's happening. These phone calls are especially important for our seniors living in painful isolation in long-term care homes.

Mother Nature has wired our bodies with many sensors to detect pain and pleasure. And at a very basic level, the best antidote to distress and pain is pleasure. They need not be expensive or large pleasures, but hopefully they can be safe pleasures.

There will be very few trips to Florida this year or cruises south, even for those able to afford them. But almost everyone has a favourite sweet treat! Even my most reserved friends will confess to liking some form of chocolate. (The medicinal effects of chocolate cry out for more research!)

New artistic pursuits, new languages, or new musical instruments are great candidates for joy and pleasure, even in isolation or quarantine. A good book, a good movie, a good online connection also have great therapeutic values.

For many Atlantic Canadians on the COVID frontlines in hospitals, schools and grocery stores, physical rest itself may be one of the seasons sweetest pleasures. For those with a traditional religious faith, few things have a more powerful beneficial effect than prayer. When we feel joy, our cells smile, and our endocrine system shouts ALLELUIA!

And for those looking for other fulfilling pleasures, they may find the advice for safe sex given by the New York City Department of Public Health at the height of the epidemic of interest, amusement or assistance. (The guidance offered New Yorkers by their Department of Public Health for safe sex during the worst ravages of the epidemic may be found here.)

Wherever the search for pleasure takes us, if safely done, it can be an adventure in rediscovering the natural ability of our bodies to refresh our spirits, bring a smile and create wellness and joy. Enjoying safe pleasure is a wisdom of the body that for too long has been repressed in the harried lifestyle of an urbanized, industrialized and the still somewhat Puritan culture of the West.

This year, perhaps more than at any time since the war years or the Great Depression of the 1930s, we need and deserve, a fulsome and wholesome immersion in healthy pleasures, large and small!

May the old carol ring true in your hearts this Christmas: God rest ye Merry Gentlemen ( and Gentlewomen!)

Heres wishing you and yours a safe and joy-filled holiday season!

Brian Joseph, a graduate of St. Francis Xavier University and Harvard, pursues safe pleasures in North Sydney where he continues his lifelong sociological studies of Western culture.

BRIAN JOSEPH: On the joy and importance of small pleasures during COVID - TheChronicleHerald.ca

The Hanukkah Menorah to Light Up the World – jewishboston.com

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

There is no better timing for the celebration of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, than the current period when the world is characterized by divisiveness and light is so much needed. Humanity now faces the impact of a global virus that has basically penetrated every corner of the planet while the pandemic of hatred and separation continues to spread worldwide. It is precisely the Jewish nation that has the power to ignite love above hatred and light above darkness.

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The word Hanukkah, from Hebrew Hanu-Koh, or park here, actually refers to a spiritual process. It represents the first stage of spiritual development in which we start correcting the desire for selfish enjoyment and invert it into a desire to bestow upon others, a state that liberates us from the darkness of separation, conflicts, arguments, ruthless competitiveness, and the drive to exploit and dominate others.

The holiday symbolizes our inner struggle to overcome our egoistic nature called the War of the Maccabees against the Greeks. The Greeks personify the hedonistic characteristics that yearn to control everything around us, in other words, for our egoistic attributes of self-indulgence to dominate. There is nothing wrong with wanting to enjoy. In fact, our very nature is a desire to receive pleasure. What is problematic is using our skills and talents in a self-centered way, for our self-aggrandizement rather than for the common good.

We see this in the way the Greeks adored competition and admired winners. The Jews, on the other hand, cultivated love your neighbor as yourself as the highest ideal. That principle has become lost in our endless quest for success at the expense of others, yet it is precisely what we need to reclaim and implement in order to raise the whole world to a positive state.

Therefore, the war described in the story of Hanukkah refers to an internal struggle that we have fought throughout generations. Even when we do not have an apparent enemy, our inner enemy always rebels within us, again and again pulling us toward worshiping various idols like power, fame, and control. We are still drawn to them, but we understand they are temporary and harmful and bring no good results.

The victory over the Greeks is the first step of every persons progress up the spiritual ladder. When we can rejoice in each others successes and share our concerns in mutual connection, we will realize what nature tries to teach us: that we belong to one single body. But today, the opposite happens and the Jewish nation is more separated than ever. Thus, these challenging times are an opportunity to realize that our most urgent call to action is to unite and become a positive example of connection like modern-day Maccabees who win the war over our egoistic inclinations. If we take just the tiniest step in this direction, we will see miracles along the way. We will see how a small lamp, the smallest jar of oil, will kindle a strong and warm fire that illuminates the life of every person.

The holiday of Hanukkah signifies the victory of light over darkness, unity over division. Indeed, such a victory requires no less than a miracle, but it is one within our grasp. We need only know how to light the candle to make it happen. Through our connection, we strike a match against the darkness and ignite the light in our lives. This is the brilliance of Hanukkah. Like with a match, a little friction transforms into a bright flame.

Happy Hanukkah!

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The Hanukkah Menorah to Light Up the World - jewishboston.com

The joy of a canceled Christmas – The Spectator US

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

Among the greatest bores right now are those friends who insist on telling you, usually as if its some kind of state secret, that COVID lockdown hasnt changed their lives very much. They work from home, anyway, you see. They were practicing social distancing before it was cool! Theyre not terribly social at the best of times. How lovely not to have to endure another dinner seated next to some tedious stranger or, worse, a drunken office party at this time of year. And I have to confess that I am one of those bores. Yes, I miss people a bit, or at least being around lots of people. But an excuse to be without them for days on end? I have every intention of taking full advantage of it until the vaccine.

But the real joy is COVIDs effective cancellation of Christmas. Were being given permission to cancel the most intense socializing of the year! For ornery types like me, whats not to like? No forced smiles, no mandatory cheer, no terrible gifts, no crackers and bad TV, and no totalitarian imposition on my bloody mood, thank you. I have, to be honest, been doing it for years. I havent been home for the holidays in decades, and Im not starting now. I send no cards; I give and accept no presents; I have no tree. My only regret at the effective abolition of this years plaguey Yuletide is that I cant travel, as I usually do, to some sunny and warm clime, where there is no snow, no evergreens, no holly, no ivy and no Christmas bloody pudding. I may try a flight to Miami, if I can get a really good mask for the plane. I went to Casablanca last year; Santo Domingo the year before. You should try it some time.

Its not entirely misanthropy, mind you. Im one of those with Christmas trauma, a function of a series of truly wretched Christmases in my troubled childhood, when my parents were in a constant state of verbal and physical warfare. Ive tried to get past it with therapy. I stuck it out with my in-laws in Detroit one year and they had seven, yes, seven, trees throughout the house. I bought a tinsel-tree in a store once, in a kind of cognitive behavioral therapy gambit. It didnt work. The echoes of screaming and yelling, burnt turkeys and slammed doors, cigarette smoke so thick you could barely see through it and awkward, glowering silences as my parents sullenly ate still ring in my ears. One Christmas Day, my mother lost it entirely and simply walked out into the snow in her nightie, to be picked up later and taken to a psychiatric ward, as a clinical depression struck her down.

You can try to forget these things. But some part of you never does. Im not the only one felled by this kind of memory at this time of year. The dread rises as the days shorten. But if theres one solace at the end of this awful year, it is that Ill finally have the best excuse of my life to be unmerry in peace.

I miss lesbians. It is true that most homosexual men dont have too many integrated in our lives, but most of us have a few. And we need them. They check our sometimes tenuous grasp of reality, they roll their eyes at our hedonism, they show us how marriages can last, and take care of us when we get sick. I generalize, of course. Many lesbians have little or nothing to do with men, including gay men. But there is a special chemistry between the men and women in the gay and lesbian worlds that its sad to see dissipate. Same-sex worlds can get unbalanced fast. We both need a bit of ballast from each other.

***Get a print and digital subscription toThe Spectator.Try a month free, then just $7.99 a month***

I used to marvel at lesbians capacity to subvert what it means to be a woman from the rigorous academics who always seemed to go by their initials to the dykes on bikes who were once the vanguard of gay pride celebrations. We had the lipstick lesbians, in their little black dresses, and their butch partners, often strapped into a bad tuxedo on social occasions. We had the baby dykes, who looked like members of various boy bands, and who could get into brawls after a few beers; and the quiet proper librarian types, always on the verge of shushing you, who could instantly command a room. And yes, we did have the familiar dreary groupthink but the exceptions sparkled all the brighter. Camille Paglia and Fran Lebowitz are pretty close to national treasures.

I miss lesbians these days because so many are now becoming men. Many of the sudden hordes of youngsters seeking a testosteroned transition to maleness today would once have been teen lesbians happy to expand the realm of femaleness to the most tomboyish of tomboys. But now, under the influence of queer theory and peer pressure, the tomboy is being told that whatever obstacles she may encounter, they can be resolved through male hormones.

That subversive, uniquely dykey, all-female space is narrowing. The social justice revolution has space for countless consonants, dozens of pronouns, but not so much leeway for women who love women and not men. Its too binary for a deconstructed non-binary world. In the 1980s, there were around 200 lesbian bars in the US. Now there are 15. As my friend the lesbian writer Katie Herzog puts it: Great. Well each get our own.

This article was originally published inThe SpectatorsUK magazine.Subscribe to the US edition here.

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The joy of a canceled Christmas - The Spectator US

A top 10 list of the best banned literary filth – The Irish Times

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

Many books promise sex on the front cover but which ones are really dirty? Ive consulted the blacklist compiled by the Irish censors, who banned thousands of books for smut, swearing and shagging.

The moral effect of literary sex was so incendiary that the government oversaw a strict censorship regime to control it. In order to save the nation from mass perversion, the censors banned the greatest writers of the 20th century as well as sex manuals and pulp fiction. From 1930 to 1967, the harshest censorship system in the Anglophone world thrived in Ireland. So many literary greats were banned that the blacklist was nicknamed Everymans Guide to the Classics.

This is a top 10 list of the best banned literary filth, from classic novels to bestselling popular fiction. Rude books are a perfect saucy stocking-filler for anyone who loves mugs with smutty jokes or nudey fireman calendars.

Since starting Censored, a podcast about books banned in Ireland, Ive read a lot of so-called dirty books from the blacklist. Too many were disappointingly tame, but others explore sex and gender identity in interesting ways. Ive done you the favour of reading and rating them so you can enjoy the best smut over the festive season. Best of all, these naughty books can be read anywhere because the nice covers wont give away your dirty secret. Granny will never know your filthy reading habits as you nibble Christmas chocolates. If you havent been able to get the ride this pandemic, at least you can read about it.

John Broderick: The Pilgrimage Lilliput Press, 1961It opens with Julia, respectably dressed as the dutiful, obedient wife of an invalid, offering tea to the local priest. But she is not wearing knickers as she is planning a quickie with her husbands nephew. Broderick also explores Dublins underground gay scene and how queer men lived double lives. The pragmatic hypocrisy of the books characters regarding faith and morality is wonderfully audacious. A short, punchy book that interrogates the lies around sexual identity in provincial Ireland.

Pamela Moore: Chocolates for BreakfastHarper Perennial, 1956Escape to sun-drenched Hollywood in a book about a troubled teenage girl searching for love and sex. The main character, Courtney, parties too hard but this is not an ode to hedonism. Its a classic coming-of-age novel featuring a teenage girl and should be read alongside TheCatcher in the Rye, which was also banned in Ireland. Written when she was just 19 years old, Pamela Moore became an American literary sensation for this sensitive, candid book about the complications of sexual identity.

Richard Yates: Revolutionary RoadVintage Classics, 1961An unflinching, clear-eyed account of a man trapped by conventional masculinity. Frank and April are the epitome of young middle-class suburbia but he shags a co-worker to distract himself from marital disharmony. Sex for Yates is an opportunity to explore the inherent violence of gendered social roles. This challenging subject matter and a step-by-step description of a DIY abortion ensured his book was banned in Ireland.

Rona Jaffe: The Best of EverythingPenguin Modern Classics,1958Don Draper read it in Mad Men, but Irish people couldnt buy this banned book until the late 1960s. A tale of three hard-working single girls trying to make it in New York. This book has been very influential there are echoes of it in the film Working Girl and the TV series Sex andthe City. Jaffe explored abortion, sexual assault in the work place and obsessive love. It documents sex in a time when a condom was the 16th of an inch between a single woman and a home for unwed mothers. If youve ever debated your love life with friends in a small rented apartment, this is the book for you.

JP Donleavy: The Ginger ManLilliput,1954Set in a damp, grotty and oppressive Dublin, this international bestseller is full of violence, sex and drinking. Donleavy wrote a book that was truly filthy and a case-study in toxic masculinity. It was so dirty the Irish censors banned it twice and a play based on the book was shut down by Archbishop McQuaid. The main character, feckless and revolting Sebastian Dangerfield, is so inexplicably charming that lots of lovely women shag him. Donleavy wanted to shock, referencing gay sex, sexual assault, contraception and mother and baby homes.

Kathleen Winsor:Forever AmberPenguin, 1944The perfect gift for a fan of chicklit or bodice rippers. This book pioneered the bonkbuster, long romance novels by women for women that featured copious shagging. It is hard to believe it was banned in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand but light-hearted, guilt and consequence-free sex is very transgressive. The adventures of Amber, a brazen adventuress, in 17th-century England will brighten the grimmest January day.

Joseph Heller: Catch-22Vintage, 1961War novels offer lots of opportunities for sex and Catch-22 doesnt disappoint. The first page suggests the then-scandalous possibility of gay love but frequent, explicit heterosexual encounters dominate the narrative. Men and women are trapped in surreal dilemmas so inventively explored that catch-22 now means an inescapable situation created by mutually conflicting forces. Irish people probably used the catchphrase before they could legally buy the book.

Muriel Spark: The BachelorsPolygon,1960Laughing at sex is uplifting and Muriel Spark couldnt resist satirising the cosy lives of complacent London bachelors. A cast of disparate characters are slowly drawn into a complicated story of fraud, blackmail and attempted murder. Along the way there is a crisis pregnancy, a gay priest, an attempt to coerce an abortion and much angst over free love. An Irish journalist who likes sex but fears promiscuity will damn his soul is an entertaining portrait of Irish emigrant masculinity. Spark did not write explicit sex scenes but she did explore the dilemmas of sexual attraction in a witty, amusing fashion.

John McGahern:The DarkFaber & Faber,1965Give the history buff in your life a copy of the book that changed Irish censorship forever. The scandal over The Dark led to McGahern losing his teaching job, when Archbishop McQuaid intervened to punish him. After this domestic cause celebre became international news, the government reduced the power of the censorship board in 1967. This is a powerful book that describes the midnight horrors of child sex abuse. Years before it became an acceptable topic for daytime radio, McGahern fearlessly exposed abusive adults, both clergy or parents.

Iris Murdoch: The Flight from the EnchanterVintage Classics,1956Murdochs rich and inventive novel is saturated with sexual tension and issues that feel extraordinarily contemporary. Out of her experience of being Irish in England, Murdoch wrote about refugees and identity in Britain. The vulnerability of the refugee characters to bureaucratic and political machinations is heart-breaking. She also explored image-based sexual abuse, political activism and gaslighting. There were many reasons to ban it but the threesome involving identical twin brothers may have given the censors a coronary or two.

Dr Aoife Bhreatnach hosts Censored, a podcast about banned books

Link:

A top 10 list of the best banned literary filth - The Irish Times

‘The Stand’ Early Buzz: The CBS All Access Stephen King Adaptation Gets Mixed Results – /FILM

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

Director Mick Garris adapted Stephen Kings post-apocalyptic tome The Stand into a TV mini-series back in 1994, but nowThe New Mutants director (and noted King fanatic) Josh Boone has taken a crack at it for CBS All Access. The nine-episode limited series premieres on that platform this week, and weve rounded up some early reactions from critics who have seen the first several episodes. Read the highlights below to get a sense of whether this is a show you want to check out during this holiday season.

Before we get into the reactions, heres the latest trailer for the series and its official description:

Based on the best-selling novel by Stephen King, CBS All Accesss The Stand stars Whoopi Goldberg, Alexander Skarsgrd, James Marsden, Odessa Young, Jovan Adepo, and many more. The limited event series will also feature an all-new coda written by Stephen King.

Rolling Stones Alan Sepinwall is mixed-to-negative in his review, specifically calling out the pilots odd decision to alter the structure of Kings novel:

In some ways, [this version of The Stand is] an improvement on the ABC version, thanks to several strong lead performances (particularly Alexander Skarsgrd as the Devil-ish villain, Randall Flagg, and James Marsden in his most convincing aw-shucks, All-American mode as Stu) and advances in digital effects and makeup that allow for a more believable end of the world than was possible to show a quarter-century ago.

But this newStandis troubling from the start or, rather, fromwhereit starts. Because for some baffling reason, this new version opts to begin in the middle.

From all accounts, Kings 1978 book has crackerjack pacing that hooks you from the start and races along, introducing its roster of characters and setting the stage for a clash between good and evil that would serve as an inspiration for untold movies and TV shows (including Lost, the showrunners of which regularly cited The Stand as a major influence). But this series seems to toss Kings linear storytelling out the window, instead opting to leap around in time.

That decision seems to be a big sticking point for people, but The AV Clubs Randall Colburn thought openingthe series on supporting charactersHarold Lauder (Owen Teague) and his longtime crush Frannie (Odessa Young) worked pretty well:

Its a bold move, but an inspired one. Harold wasnt written to be one of the storys main drivers, but his character serves as perhaps the purest vessel for Kings themes of free will and new beginnings, both of which form the spine ofThe Stands strong pilot episode. In flashbacks, we see a bullied Harold watch in wonder as his Maine hometown is decimated by a mysterious super-flu from which he appears to be immune. Unmoved by the death of his distant family, he sees the looming apocalypse as a fresh start, a stroke of fateespecially since the only other survivor in Ogunquit is his longtime obsession, Frannie (Odessa Young). As he thrives, Frannie collapses, broken by the loss of everyone and everything she loved. Both of them begin having strange dreams, some filled with a kindly, silver-haired prophet, others with an ominous dark man with big promises. One invites them to Boulder, Colorado, the other to Las Vegasboth with the intention to rebuild.

There are choices to be made: Do you continue? Do you evolve? And which of the two potential saviors do you seek out? Harold and Frannie have wildly different reasons for soldiering on, yet their fates remain tumultuously intertwined. If youre looking to shake up the structure of Kings novel, this is the way to do it.

The Hollywood Reporters Daniel Feinberg was underwhelmed by the series, dinging the show for many of the same structural problem Sepinwall took issue with:

Scene-for-scene, there are beats that are a little disturbing or a little scary, but glued together with insufficient artistry or consideration, theres no way for anything to build. Theres a draining of the storys inexorable gravity and tension, especially when you know which characters are already in Boulder and therefore which instantly recognizable character actors are there as flu fodder.

I thought I found my first fully positive reaction in Roxana Hadadis review at Variety, but nope she, too, has some problems with the way the show plays out:

The series first couple of hours, premiere The End and second episode Pocket Savior, build an exquisite amount of tension: The shifting locations capture the permeation of the outbreak; each cough and sniffle portends upcoming doom; and the series makeup department should be commended for making the physical effects of [the virus] Captain Trips very, very gross. But after those initial world-building episodes,The Standnever feels dirty enough neither in its presentation of the physical and emotional impact of all this sickness, loss, and death, nor in its consideration of the lure of [villain Randall] Flaggs totalitarianism-as-hedonism rule in his New Vegas bacchanalia.

You can read more reactions over at RottenTomatoes, but it sounds like this is a classic case of your mileage may vary.

The Stand premieres on CBS All Access on December 17, 2020, with new episodes arriving on Thursdays.

John McAfee Net Worth 2020 | Wife (Janice Dyson …

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

John McAfee is an English-American businessman and computer programmer who is best known as the founder of McAfee Associates.

In 2016, McAfee launched an unsuccessful bid for the Libertarian Partys presidential nomination during the election.

He was born on September 18, 1945, in Cinderford, England, UK, as John David McAfee.

His parents moved to Roanoke, Virginia, when he was young.

John described his father as ~an alcoholic and abusive. His father committed suicide when McAfee was 15 years old.

From 1968 to 1970, he was employed as a programmer by NASAs Institute for Space Studies in NYC.

In the early 1980s, McAfee worked on a classified voice-recognition program for Lockheed.

In 1986, the first computer virus hit PCs. About one year later, he founded McAfee Associates, a computer anti-virus company. The company created the first commercial antivirus software.

McAfee says he wrote the antivirus program in a day and a half.John also said that eight months after I started, there was $10m in the bank.

In the mid-1990s, he sold his shares in the software company and reportedly made $100 million.

Later, McAfee founded Tribal Voice, a company that developed the instant messaging program, called PowWow.

In 2001, he published the book Into the Heart of Truth: The Spirit of Relational Yoga. In the book, McAfee provides practices to help the reader develop in-depth self-awareness and alsowrites about the history of yoga.

In 2009, John started a company that he said would manufacture plants from the Belize jungle into antibiotics.

In 2012, he was considered a person of interest when his neighbor Gregory Faull was shot to death. Raphael Martinez, a police spokesperson, told FT: He is still just a person of interests the investigation. Later, McAfee left Belize for Guatemala, where he was arrested on charges of entering the country illegally. John was about to be deported back to Belize when he faked a heart attack.

On December 12, 2012, he was released from detention in Guatemala and deported to the US. Faulls death still remains unsolved.

In 2013, John started a company called Future Tense Central to produce a secure computer network.

In September 2015, McAfee decided to start a new political party called The Cyber Party. In December 2015, he announcedthat he would instead seek the presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party.He lost to former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson.

In May 2016, John was appointed as the CEO of the technology holding company, MGT Capital Investments (he left the company in early 2018). Also in 2016, he was the subject of filmmaker Nanette Bursteins Showtime documentary, Gringo. McAfee described the documentary as fiction.

On August 13, 2018, he took the position of CEO with the cryptocurrency company, Luxcore.

In March 2019, McAfee ordered to pay $25 million over Gregory Faulls murder. Later that year, he was arrested by the Dominican Republic Armed Forces while docking his yacht in Puerto Plata. He left detention after four days of confinement.

In December 2019, he announced his intentions to run for president in the US 2020 elections. John tweeted: The McAfee 2020 US Presidential Campaign has now formally begun.

In July 2020, McAfee tweeted that Intel corporation is suing him due to the use of the name GhostbyMcAfee.

John McAfee married Janice Dyson in 2013. She is more than 30 years younger than him. He reportedly met his wife in Miami on his first day back on US soil.

Janice said in an interview about their first meeting: It was, I dont know how to say it, magical cause he saw the hurt that was there.

The couple lives in a gun-filled mansion in Tennessee. His personal bodyguard John Pool is always at their side.

He was previously married to Judy McAfee.

Software creator McAfee remanded in jail in Spain – Deccan Herald

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

A top court in Spain on Thursday remanded in custody anti-virus software creator John McAfee pending a decision on his extradition to the United States where he is wanted for tax evasion.

The 75-year-old has been held at a prison near Barcelona since he was arrested in the Spanish city in October just as he was about to board a flight to Istanbul.

His arrest followed his indictment in June in the United States for tax evasion and wilful failure to file tax returns between 2014 and 2018, despite earning millions from consulting work, crypto-currencies and selling the rights to his life story.

If convicted, he could face up to 30 years in prison.

Spain's National Court rejected McAfee's appeal against his remand in custody, arguing that given the lengthy prison sentences he is facing there was a "serious risk" he would seek to escape justice as he has in the past.

His wife Janice has said on Twitter that he is "not doing well" and had faced delays in getting "proper medical care" in prison but the court said he had "ailments which are typical for his age" and was getting treated.

Since making a fortune with his eponymous antivirus software in the 1980s that still bears his name, McAfee has become a self-styled crypto-currency guru.

He has one million followers on Twitter, where he describes himself as a "lover of women, adventure and mystery".

McAfee made headlines after he moved to Belize and his neighbour in the Central American country was mysteriously murdered in 2012, a crime that remains unsolved.

When the police found him living with a 17-year-old girl and discovered a large arsenal of weapons in his home, McAfee disappeared on a month-long flight.

The dead neighbour's family later filed a wrongful death suit against McAfee and last year a court in Florida found against him, ordering him to pay the family more than $25 million.

In 2015, McAfee was arrested in the United States for driving under the influence. He again disappeared from view until January 2019, when he fled the country.

Link:

Software creator McAfee remanded in jail in Spain - Deccan Herald

Letter to the editor Follow the golden rule | Opinion | wvnews.com – WV News

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

A Jewish carpenter lived some 2,000 years ago and suggested how we should live our daily lives: In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you. Many people call it the Golden Rule, and it puts forward a goal for how we should treat each other i.e., like we want them to treat us.

How would this work in day-to-day life? Say for example you are at the movies. Everyone is wearing a mask and social distancing. Then someone has a heart attack. Most people would call 911 for an ambulance, because that is what they would want others to do if they were the one having the heart attack. Treat people like you want them to treat you. Simple.

Now lets say there is a major recession and millions of people lose their jobs. As a result, they lose their health insurance when they lost their jobs. As time goes on, people start having difficulty putting food on the table for their family because they have no income. How do we respond when we see our neighbors suffering during the recession for no fault of their own?

In Garrett County, we saw Mountain Laurel Medical Center and Community Action organize food drives to help our neighbors who are facing food insecurity. Treat others like you want them to treat you. Simple.

During the pandemic, however, some changed the rules for food stamps, taking food stamps from nearly a million people as they face increasing food insecurity. Does that make sense in a pandemic? Also, some are in court trying to take health care away from 20 million people during this pandemic. Is that how you would like to be treated?

Eight weeks ago, there were 75 cases of the coronavirus and no deaths in Garrett County. Today we have 1,130 cases and 14 deaths. Why? Our governor, commissioners and health department did the right thing and took aggressive, early steps to contain the virus. Those efforts worked in Garrett County until about two months ago because people in the county generally followed the rules. For their own safety and the safety of their neighbors, they treated others as they wanted to be treated.

The health department says there is some coronavirus fatigue after 10 months, but they also recognized that a couple of unique religious events in the county around Autumn Glory also contributed to the spike in cases and deaths. They were super spreader events.

The Constitution says that Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof That means people can start their own churches and believe what they want to believe. That does not mean that someone can hold a super spreader event that spreads the virus throughout the county and contributes to the death of 14 people.

Treat others like you want to be treated. Respect your neighbors. Wear a mask. Social distance. Follow the rules. Protect your community.

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Letter to the editor Follow the golden rule | Opinion | wvnews.com - WV News

Eurozone reformits not just the fiscal rules – Social Europe

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

At least as important is the reform of the procedure for preventing and correcting macroeconomic imbalances.

The Covid-19 pandemic has eclipsed the general overhaul of the economic-policy framework of the European Union and the eurozone initiated in February by the European Commission. Comprehensive reform of economic governance remains nevertheless urgent and indispensable.

Reform of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) and the Regulation on the Prevention and Correction of Macroeconomic Imbalances (MIP), within the framework of the six-pack and two-pack of the European Semester and other regulations, should again be at the centre of discussions, as soon asat the latestthe consequences of the pandemic have been dealt with.

The focus of debate seemingly will be on fiscal rules, as in the past. Currently, the post-Maastricht deficit and debt rules are suspended, a return to business as usual seems impossible, and alternatives are being intensively discussed.

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The concern is that at bestnot least because of the differing positions of the member statesthere will only be a revision of the fiscal rules. If this were to happen, however, the reform of economic governance would remain piecemeal and far behind the requirements of sustainable, stability- and employment-oriented macroeconomic development, in the member states and in the eurozone as a whole.

Fiscal rules only cover part of economic performance and are in themselves complex and problematic. They rely on estimation of a structural deficit, which is fraught with the well-known problems of cyclical adjustment and, in particular, of gauging potential output. An inherent flaw is the exclusion of the golden rule in the financing of public investment.

Last but not least, the cyclical component of the deficit is in any event directly linked to the macroeconomic context. The cyclical surplus or deficit stems from overall macroeconomic development and the operation of the automatic stabilisers. Discretionary fiscal measures can from the other side stabilise the cycle. In times of massive economic fluctuations and shocks, such as in the financial and eurozone crises and currently as a result of the coronavirus, these mutual effects around the cyclical component of fiscal outcomes are of major importance.

In the wake of the pandemic, reform considerations have been replaced in the short term by two massive discretionary measures, the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-27 and in particular the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), within the Next Generation EU programme. But these must be co-ordinated and aligned with the macroeconomic challenges to have strong and focused effects.

The volume of the RRF is considerable, as is the additional debt incurred. Since neither of these can probably be repeated, success must be assured.

First and foremost, the facility must be designed to reduceand certainly not exacerbatemacroeconomic divergences and imbalances among member states. A recent policy brief provides a positive forecast. Overall, it must foster sustainable and stable recovery.

As you may know, Social Europe is an independent publisher. We aren't backed by a large publishing house, big advertising partners or a multi-million euro enterprise. For the longevity of Social Europe we depend on our loyal readers - we depend on you.

The RRF cannot however accomplish these tasks alone. As unprecedented as it may be in absolute amount, its scope remains relatively limited, set against the volume of eurozone macroeconomic aggregates. It must be consistently embedded in a sustainable policy mix of all macroeconomic instruments by all decision-makers, in each member state and at the eurozone and EU levels.

The MIP is aimed at all macroeconomic aggregates. This distinguishes it from the Stability Pact, which only targets fiscal aggregates and these depend on macroeconomic development and policy at least as much as they influence them.

In the commissions programmatic paper on the Economic Governance Review, as well as in the scientific and political discussion, the MIP occupies only a small space compared with the Stability and Growth Pact. This weighting must be reversed.

That is the lesson to be learnt from the crisis in the eurozone around ten years ago, as high-ranking actors now acknowledge. It was a mistake to focus primarily on public finances. We should have monitored a broader spectrum of macroeconomic parameters the development of unit labour costs, current account deficits, real estate bubbles. The commission would have needed a mandate to tackle these imbalances in the same way as it tackled excessive public debt, said Klaus Regling, current head of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), as early as 2010.

With the MIP, there is now such a broad-based set of rules to prevent the central mistake identified by Regling, with its dramatic consequences, from happening again. But this requires reform of the procedure, especially the symmetrical alignment of upper and lower limits for the indicators and their concentration on exogenous variables economic policy can affect.

Macroeconomic wage and price trends play a central role here. Via a chain of effects, including on the real interest rate, wage and price developments have decisive influences on domestic demand, employment and the budget balance. And, taking into account additional imports induced by domestic demand, there is also an impact via price competitiveness on the balance of payments.

Moreover, the MIP regulations must be implemented in a targeted manner. Because of the procedures comprehensive approach, all macroeconomically responsible actors must participate.

At euro-area level, these include the European Central Bank, the commission, the finance ministers of all member states and representatives of the social partners. An analogous body should be set up in each member state. Both formations must exchange information, internally and with each otherabout the prevention and if necessary correction of macroeconomic imbalances and divergences, the regaining of a stable growth and employment path and the use of RRF resources towards these objectives.

A suitable format could be a Macroeconomic Dialogue at the level of the member states and one for the euro area. Both could be modelled on the existing EU Macro Dialogue, whether by creating a new forum or building on existing ones.

The discretionary measures introduced in the wake of the pandemic and comprehensive reform of the economic policy framework of the eurozone and the EU must be co-ordinated, simultaneously and consistently. At least as important as reform of the fiscal rules is reform of the procedure for preventing and correcting macroeconomic imbalancesand then their mutual co-ordination.

A German version of this article, Reform der Eurozonenicht nur die Fiskalregeln reformieren, was published in Makronom

Continued here:

Eurozone reformits not just the fiscal rules - Social Europe

More Than a Number: Losing Our Greatest Generation During COVID-19 – San Francisco Bay Times – San Francisco Bay Times

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

By Andrea Shorter

A few days from today, my maternal grandmother would have been 95 years old. She was not one for celebrating birthdays, but every year, her mindset about living in the present and aging was summed up in her often imparted cheery, wise quip: Age is nothing but a number.

I am now 55, and I believe the first time she told me this was around my 25th birthday, when I was probably having some cringe-worthy, mild anxiety attack, aka whining about getting older. Looking back, I dont remember anything so bad about my life and times at the ripe old age of 25. In fact, other than my grandmother setting my mind right about aging, I dont remember much about it all. Apparently, whatever my worries were at the time, my grandmother was as always right, that once I let go of my self-indulgence concerning aging, and just get on with it and have faith, everything was going to be alright.

A few weeks ago, unexpectedly, my grandmother fell ill with what would turn out to be coronavirus. She was hospitalized on a Monday. On the following Saturday evening, December 5, she would become one of the reported 2,190 lives in the U.S. taken away that day by coronavirus.

My grandmother was born in 1925, and lived her entire life in Indianapolis, Indiana. She was the daughter of a domestic worker and a janitor at Eli Lily, both up from the South. As a child, she described herself as a little red-headed one, a bit of a daddys girl as the youngest daughter of 5 children. She would graduate from the best known segregated high school in the city, and hold, from all accounts, one job in her life, as an elevator operator.

She married my grandfather shortly after his discharge from the Navy after World War II, including service on Treasure Island, way, way out in California somewhere. From my grandfathers GI benefits, they were eligible to build their own house in a project that built a middle-class neighborhood of other post-WWII African American veterans and their families. Many of the neighborhood dads worked as civil servants, in the auto industry, for the universities, or for big pharmaceutical companies. My grandfather became a firefighter for 30 years, and they raised their eight children together.

Obviously at aged 94, my grandmother was of the Greatest Generation, living through the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and all wars and conflicts since. She lived through being formally referred to as Negro, Colored, Black, and eventually as African American throughout all manifests of anti-black racial segregation and strife, including the recently declared reckonings with race in America of 2020.

My grandmother had style, grace, and a great sense of humor. She was quite the homemaker, a conservative and frugal child of the depression, but not cheap. She was always the first to get the new appliances and gadgets, and upgrade to the next when needed. She taught me how to use a good old fashioned pressure cookerstill my favorite cookware item!and would gladly help me by phone when I wasnt sure how to cook up the perfect corned beef and cabbage, or stew. She became unusually adept at computers in her 60s. If my technology professional brother was not available to rescue me from a computer meltdown of some sort, Id call her. Shed know what to do.

Above all, my grandmother was a woman grounded by and in her faith. She believed in a God greater than and beyond our mortal comprehension. She believed in kindness, fairness, and the golden rule. All of her life, she played by the rules. I sincerely doubt my grandmother even so much as got a parking ticket. If she ever did, I can only imagine it was just once.

Now, instead of living out her last days, moments, and breaths in the comfort of the home she built with my grandfather and raised her family, as any good woman nearing 95 years old should have, she was taken away by a pandemic that was avoidable but for arrogance, dereliction, and hubris.

Now, as of this writing, I am awaiting arrangements for a eulogy and celebration of my grandmother from afar, by remote video. This is not at all how anyone would have imagined we would come to gather at the end of my grandmothers well-lived life.

As much as I work to accept her passing with the peace, understanding, and grace that she would have expected of me, my anger and outrage are undeniable, ever-present. It didnt have to be this way, but it is. It is the reality of nearly 300,000 American families, and friends who have lost and continue to lose loved ones to what was clearly avoidable, unnecessary.

Age might very well be just a number, but like the many other family members and friends, I know that my loved ones life counted for far more than being just another number of the daily death tolls at the top of the hourly newscast. And, just like the many other family members and friends, I am glad and relieved at the news that a viable vaccine will soon be available to hopefully prevent more deaths. It goes without saying that I desperately wish a vaccine could have been available sooner, in time to protect my aged grandmother.

My grandmothers memory and legacy will live on with me, my family, and the legions of her friends and fans. It will. I am working to let her light shine through my heart, and not be clouded by the hurt and anger and pain roiling in me about how or why she left this Earth. I will do my best to honor her life lived in and by faith.

My faith is shaken, but not broken. Should I live to be 94, I will keep faith (and works) with our generation to do all in our power to never allow such horrific, preventable misery from happening again. Keeping the White House Trump-free is an encouraging start. Eighty million votes is a number we can build on.

Andrea Shorter is a Commissioner and the former President of the historic San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women. She is a longtime advocate for criminal and juvenile justice reform, voter rights and marriage equality. A Co-Founder of the Bayard Rustin LGBT Coalition, she was a 2009 David Bohnett LGBT Leadership Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Published on December 17, 2020

Continued here:

More Than a Number: Losing Our Greatest Generation During COVID-19 - San Francisco Bay Times - San Francisco Bay Times

Tennessee 2021 recruiting: Where Vols stand on signing day – The Athletic

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. Consider it the golden rule of recruiting in the SEC.

Its not over until they sign, Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt said Wednesday after introducing the newest members of his roster.

Of course, that works both ways. The first day of the early signing period came and went without any big surprises, and considering the general momentum of the Vols 2021 class, that can be categorized as a success.

The Vols class rocketed to No. 2 nationally in the offseason, a ranking artificially boosted by pure volume, though it still looked like a strong group likely to finish inside the top 10. But its been shedding those numbers since then and now sits at No. 15 in the 247Sports Composite, good for No. 6 in the SEC.

So Tennessees signing day? Consider the theme to be to be continued.

Five-star linebacker Terrence Lewis decommitted last month but placed the Vols in his two...

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Tennessee 2021 recruiting: Where Vols stand on signing day - The Athletic

Easing the EU fiscal straitjacket – Social Europe

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

Without major reform of the EU fiscal framework, Peter Bofinger argues, public investment will be insufficient in the wake of the pandemic.

The strong fiscal-policy response from the European Union needed to deal with the severe economic shock represented by the Covid-19 pandemic was only made possible by finance ministers agreeing on March 23rd, for the first time, to activate the general escape clause of the EU fiscal framework. It is very likely, however, that that clause will be reinvoked in 2021 and 2022. But what happens if the conventional rules are reinstated?

During the pandemic the state of public finances in all countries has deteriorated significantly. According to forecasts by the International Monetary Fund, in several euro-area member states in 2021 the ratio of debt to gross domestic product will be around double (Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal) or even triple (Italy, Greece) the 60 per cent ceiling set by the Maastricht treaty (Figure 1).

These high debts raise huge challenges for fiscal policy in the member states. The so-called six pack, which came into force in December 2011, obliges them to reduce the difference between their current debt and the 60 per cent benchmark by one 20th per annum. As calculations by the European Fiscal Board show, the requirement to bring debt below that limit within two decades implies running high budget primary surpluses.

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Even under benign conditions (nominal growth exceeding the nominal interest rate by half a percentage point), countries with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 120 per cent must achieve a primary surplus of 1.9 per cent, countries with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 150 per cent a surplus of 2.9 per cent. Comparing these figures with the average primary surpluses the highly indebted euro-area member states were able to achieve between 2014 and 2019, it obvious that the required debt reduction could only be realised with brutal austerity (Table 1).

The experience of the last decade shows that fiscal consolidation has a negative impact on public investment, as such expenditure is easier to cut than social spending or salaries for the public sector (Figure 2).

This outcome is hardly surprising, as public investment does not play a relevant role in the framework of the Stability and Growth Pact. The anchor of its rule book is the ratio of gross public debt to GDPtaking in the liabilities of the public balance sheet without any reference to public capital stock on the asset side. Nor does the 3 per cent budget-deficit constraint discount public investment. As the EFB points out, the so-called investment clause, which provides some leeway for debt-financed public investment, has rarely been invoked, primarily because it requires a negative growth forecast or an output gap below 1.5 per cent of potential GDP.

As a result, since 2012 net public investment in the euro area has been close to or even below zero (Figure 3). It has been much lower than in the EU member states outside of the eurozone and in the United States.

Restoring this fiscal framework after the exceptional regime of the Covid-19 crisis would thus make it impossible to finance the huge public investments required to deal with the simultaneous challenges of climate change, the consequences of the pandemic and the digital transformation.

An obvious starting point for reform of the Stability and Growth Pact is the 60 per cent anchor for public debt. It was derived as the average debt-to-GDP ratio of the EU member states in 1990. With the same procedure, a reference value of 70 per cent could be calculated for 2000, of 86 per cent for 2010 and 101 per cent for 2020.

Academic economists have been unable to derive scientifically a benchmark with which evidence-based economic policy should comply. A prominent instance was the 2010 paper by Reinhart and Rogoff which tried to establish a reference value of 90 per cent but was found to suffer from serious miscalculations. A 2014 IMF working paper concluded:

Our results do not identify any clear debt threshold above which medium-term growth prospects are dramatically compromised. On the contrary, the association between debt and medium-term growth becomes rather weak at high levels of debt, especially when controlling for the average growth performance of country peers.

As a consequence of this ambiguity, a former IMF chief economist and colleagues have recently proposed to replace fiscal rules by fiscal standards:

Whether debt is at risk of becoming unsustainable does not just depend on debt and deficit levels but on a host of uncertain economic and political factors. Fiscal rules, even complex ones, cannot account for this uncertainty, because it is impossible to predict and specify the relevant contingencies ex ante. Rules are bound to lead to mistakes, constraining fiscal policy either too much or too little.

The key decision for eurozone members is whether they are willing to abandon, or significantly weaken, the debt-reduction rule of the six pack. A new rule might taper the period for adjustment to 50 years or the same goal could be achieved on a discretionary basis, with country-specific medium-term debt targets decided by the European Commission and the Council of the EU.

Depending on interest rates and on projected nominal growth rates, such debt targets could leave room for primary deficits. To guarantee that this fiscal space was used for investments, the approach should be supplemented by a golden rule. Such a rulethe notion that public borrowing should finance investment but not mere day-to-day spendinghas the advantage over debt rules that it is widely accepted among economists. Even the conservative German Council of Economic Experts, when developing the countrys debt brake (Schuldenbremse) in 2007, explicitly included the golden rule.

The advantages and problems associated with the golden rule have been intensively discussed. The main problem is an adequate definition of investment. Should it be defined as gross or net? And should it be limited to bricks and mortar or defined in a more encompassing way as future-oriented investmentsincluding public expenditures on education and families, on better health systems and the fight against climate change?

Pragmatically, public investment could be defined as net investment plus all expenditures related to education, climate change, digitalisation and research and development exceeding the average of 2014 to 2019. Categorisation of expenditures as coming under the golden rule should require the approval of independent national fiscal watchdogs.

Within such a framework an expenditure rule could play an important rolein fact, many fiscal-policy reform proposals favour it. But to derive the concrete expenditure path a proper target for debt levels must first be established. Then a golden rule can ensure that a possible space for deficits is used for broadly defined public investment.

This article is a joint publication bySocial EuropeandIPS-Journal

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Easing the EU fiscal straitjacket - Social Europe

When Walmart and Amazon employees go viral – Vox.com

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

Hello from The Goods twice-weekly newsletter! On Tuesdays, internet culture reporter Rebecca Jennings uses this space to update you all on whats been going on in the world of TikTok. Is there something you want to see more of? Less of? Different of? Email rebecca.jennings@vox.com, and subscribe to The Goods newsletter here.

Theres a TikTok thats stuck with me ever since I saw it earlier this fall. Its of a Walmart employee named Shana announcing all the racist and sexist behavior she witnessed during her time on the job over the store microphone, calling out her coworkers by name. She ended with, I fucking quit.

Shana later updated the nearly 35 million people who watched her video, saying that, yes, her speech was actually broadcast throughout the store in Lubbock, Texas (theres video proof) and that as she walked out of the store she was met with tons of applause. A few people told her theyd never shop at Walmart again.

Its the only thing I could think about when reporter Michael Waters broke the news this week that the company is now trying to turn 500 of its employees into social media influencers who proselytize about Walmarts unique greatness. The program is called Spotlight and is only open to salaried, not hourly, employees, meaning that the vast majority of its 2.2 million workers are ineligible. Popular posts are rewarded with cash bonuses.

Retail employees from megachains like Sephora, Chipotle, and Starbucks have been going viral on TikTok since the app has existed, and for the most part, companies have tried to shut it down. A Panera employee was fired for her video exposing how its mac and cheese was prepared; a Chik-fil-A worker was let go for her viral video on menu hacks. Even when the content is inarguably innocuous or positive! big brands have bristled at the idea of their image being out of their control; just ask the Sherwin-Williams retail worker who was reportedly fired for simply sharing videos of how he mixed paint.

The only saving grace to Walmarts rather ethically dubious influencer program is that it doesnt appear to actually work: The two Walmart influencers Waters interviewed in his story have about 1,500 and 300 Instagram followers, respectively. Other brands that have attempted to turn their workers into stars have only succeeded when they chose TikTokers who had already built up massive followings, as was the case with Dunkin Donuts Crew Ambassadors program. (Consider Amazons laughable Twitter army of warehouse workers who flooded the site with pro-Amazon sentiments in 2019.)

But as the golden rule of social media authenticity suggests, the videos that travel the furthest are the ones that portray employees actual experiences. One of the first videos I saw when I opened the app this week was of a woman working silently and quickly in what appeared to be an Amazon fulfillment center.

Her captions begged viewers to shop local instead, arguing that the companys coronavirus safety measures are a joke, that its productivity tracking is inhumane, and that it spies on and retaliates against workers attempting to unionize. In other videos, she said that shed gotten two yeast infections in two months because she was so afraid of using the bathroom and lowering her productivity rates, and that the company has minimized the rising injuries among warehouse workers, especially during the peak holiday season. Please support businesses who care about their employees health and well-being, she wrote.

Its clear why brands like Walmart are trying to take more ownership of employees social media content: They want to cancel out the effects of videos like this, ones that centralize the lived experiences of the lowest-ranking workers rather than burnishing a companys image.

The problem, of course, is that this amounts to sponsored content, and nobody wants to watch that. Hearing Target employees tell you about the brands alleged practice of letting people steal from them until the total amount of stolen goods is equal to grand larceny is a lot more interesting than watching a Walmart worker show you his favorite Funko Pop dolls. And as long as TikTok is a platform driven by algorithmic popularity, the messy videos the ones where employees leak secrets, quit on camera, or expose union suppression will be the ones were most likely to see.

Of course, if Walmart manages to obtain a large enough stake in TikTok, all of this may be moot, and the platform could be reduced to an infinite scroll of creepily jubilant store greeters being forced to read from a corporate PR-approved script. Until then, retail workers of the world: Keep your cameras on.

Barely anyone in college turns their cameras on during Zoom lectures, but these students surprised their professor by showing their faces all at once. Spoiler: The professor cried, and so did I.

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When Walmart and Amazon employees go viral - Vox.com

Rep. Meuser and legislators who tried to overturn free and fair elections should apologize to Pennsylvanians – pennlive.com

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Danzig

Rep. Daniel Meuser,

I appreciate a lot of the good work you have done through the years for your constituents and Pennsylvanians. However, I believe your endorsement of the amicus brief to the U. S. Supreme Court was an unequivocal mistake. You owe your constituency as well as all Pennsylvanians an apology.

I have been a Republican since registering to vote at in 1980 age 18. Then, Republicans were identifiable by core policy principles states rights, support for family values including the rights of the unborn, fiscally responsible economic policy and a strong military supporting the expansion of liberty across the globe.

My father-in-law was a senior aide to Sen. Arlen Spector, managing both the Intelligence Committee and Veterans affairs for more than 20 years. I understand the complexities of big decisions. I also understand the difficulty communicating in a world with social media and contrarian experts who can pick apart the best intentions of good people.

What I cannot understand is your support for the disenfranchisement of Pennsylvania voters. Your explanation that the amicus brief merely states our belief that the broad scope of the various allegations and irregularities . . . merits careful, timely review by the Supreme Court is misleading and disingenuous.

The election was held weeks ago, and there hasnt been a single case filed that has been judged to present evidence of fraud or misconduct that could even remotely portend to overturn the results in any state - despite millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours invested by President Trumps advocates and attorneys. The relief sought by the case is to move the choice of electors from the voters to the state legislature. We can post, tweet and parse words all we want, this effort represents a giant leap from democracy to authoritarianism, and history will judge it as nothing less.

Our party is no longer the party of Lincoln or Reagan. Politics are now rife with mean-spirited partisan bickering, which has accelerated since the scandal of President Clinton and simultaneous explosion of electronic media. Two significant and demoralizing aspects of the Trump administration have elevated this trend to a level that undermines the future of our country.

The first started with President Clinton and Newt Gingrich and has been brought to its natural conclusion with Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham. Our elected representatives have thrown out the rule book. There is an acceptance that the ends justify the means.

I am delighted with the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. However, I couldnt convince a child of any consistent logic behind the refusal to consider Justice Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court when contrasted with the rush to confirm Justice Barrett.

It is the epitome of hypocrisy. When things get complicated, the Golden Rule is a pretty good measuring stick for how to proceed. Would you be OK with Democrats applying the same logic? Could you fault President-elect Biden for stacking the court? Mercifully, he seems disinclined to do so at the moment.

The second and more egregious threat has been President Trumps efforts to undermine democracy. In How Democracies Die, Levitsky wrote of key principles that undermine Democracies including,

Is any of this familiar? While there may be traces of such things in earlier elections, President Trump has amplified all of the above. He did so after winning the election in 2016. In 2020, he unapologetically campaigned on a theme that the only legitimate outcome of the presidential election was a Donald Trump victory. He insisted any other outcome was fraudulent. He used every governmental lever available to try manufacture that result.

What is truly amazing is not that a few areas of isolated election irregularities have been identified, but that there has been so little evidence of fraud. This should give Americans hope.

I recommend reading Man of the House: The Life and Political Memoirs of Tip ONeill. It is an account of how effectively a Hamiltonian government can work. Political disagreements did not create mortal enemies. Politicians with different views were capable of sitting behind closed doors and doing what is best for the country, not necessarily themselves, and sometimes not even for their own constituents. They recognized compromise was often best for their constituents in the long run.

There is no argument that the Texas attorney general has a legitimate interest in overturning the Pennsylvania election results or that of any other state. That any Pennsylvanian, much less an official re-elected by the exact process, would endorse such a suit is indefensible.

One can twist logic, but one cannot evade the fact that you supported a legal challenge to free and fair elections in Pennsylvania. This is my opinion, but it is also the determination of the U.S. Supreme Court. Even Justices Alito and Thomas stated they would not have granted relief. History will similarly judge those who joined you in support of the amicus brief.

I do respect the very good work you have done through the years, but I encourage you to publicly acknowledge and apologize for your support of the amicus brief to overturn the election results in our state.

Dr. Anthony T. Petrick is a professor of surgery and lives in Danville, Pa.

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Rep. Meuser and legislators who tried to overturn free and fair elections should apologize to Pennsylvanians - pennlive.com

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