Rep. Buck wants Twitter’s Jack Dorsey to testify about ‘censorship of conservatives’ and ‘cozy’ relationshi… – Fox News

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Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., on Thursday called forTwitter CEO Jack Dorsey to testify before Congress to address allegations of conservative content censorship and political bias.

Fox News spoke with Buck and asked if there were any plans to subpoena Dorsey, based on the fact that he was not present during a House subcommittee hearingwith America's big tech CEOs last month.

"Twitter was notably absent from the big tech hearing last month," Buck told Fox News. "It's time we hear from Jack Dorsey on Twitter's blatant censorship of conservative voices and willingness to protect the Chinese Communist Party's outright lies about the spread of thecoronavirus."

Google's Sundar Pichai, Amazon'sJeff Bezos, Apple'sTim CookandFacebook'sMark Zuckerberghad all been present to give testimony on Capitol Hill. In 2018, Dorsey said his company does not "shadowban" users based on their political beliefs in testimony before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules. We believe strongly in being impartial, and we strive to enforce our rules impartially, Dorsey said at that time.

Buck's also tweeted about the issueand included a side by side photo of two different headlines from The Hill. One said Twitter would be banning the Trump campaign until it removed a video promoting COVID-19 misinformation -- while the other headline claimed Twitter was allowing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to go unchecked with regard to facts and figures.

REP. KEN BUCK CALLS OUT GOOGLE'S CHINA CONNECTIONS FOLLOWING BIG TECH CEO HEARING ON CAPITOL HILL

"Congress needs to hear from@jack about Twitters clear censorship of conservatives and coziness to the Chinese Communist Party," he tweeted.

Buck has been an outspoken critic of the CCP's tactics and saidthere wasa consensus among both parties that the July hearing revealed nefarious efforts on behalf of big tech, meant tostifle innovation andcompetition within the free marketplace.

"It's absolutely clear that these platforms are using their position to stifle innovation and you hear it from both sides of the aisle," the Colorado Republican told Fox last month. "You hear the CEOs unable to speak to thespecific examples that they are being faced with."

Twitter did not immediately respond to a Fox News request for comment.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

"Theseissues of censorship and bias would not be as big of a deal if Twitter didn't have such monopolistic control over the marketplace," Buck added.

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Rep. Buck wants Twitter's Jack Dorsey to testify about 'censorship of conservatives' and 'cozy' relationshi... - Fox News

Lee says Google, Facebook and Twitter are censoring conservative voices – Deseret News

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SALT LAKE CITY Sen. Mike Lee used his new Parler account to tout the fight hes picking with Google, Facebook, Twitter and Squarespace over how each internet platform moderates content in general, and potentially targets conservative voices

Somehow, Im willing to be(t) this will get more likes and shares on Parer (sic) than it will on Facebook and Twitter combined. In any event, I picked a big fight today with Google, Facebook, and Twitter, Lee posted to his @SenMikeLee Parler account Thursday evening.

Parler has emerged as the social media darling of some conservative U.S. politicians and commentators, and Lee has even worked to pump up the platform by issuing an invitation to President Donald Trump to join the party. Ironically, that invitation was proffered on Twitter, where the president enjoys a follower list north of 80 million accounts.

Not surprisingly, Parler was not one of the addressees of Lees letter Thursday that instead went to the CEOs of Google, Facebook, Twitter and Squarespace.

Lee, who earlier this week announced the Senate antitrust committee he chairs will host a hearing focused on Google and its online advertising practices, said he is most concerned with company conduct he believes is based on political bias rather than consistent, across-the-board content policies.

I am specifically concerned about corporations wielding their power unilaterally to silence opinions they dislike, and thus warp the public debates their platforms present to the American people, Lee wrote. In recent years, conservative voices like The Federalist, PragerU, President Trump, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, Jr., churches, religious groups, Christian schools and others have found themselves deplatformed, demonetized or otherwise penalized for expressing their opinions.

Lees concerns mirror some lines of questioning that arose during a House antitrust hearing this week that featured the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

During that virtual hearing, Congressman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio reeled off a list of instances of purported censoring of, or content warnings issued to, conservative social media posters.

Jordan accused the group of tech executives of selectively censoring those expressing politically conservative opinions and cautioned them that If it doesnt end, there have to be consequences.

Lee issued his own admonishment of big tech companies and the power he says theyre using inappropriately.

I view your heavy-handed censorship as a sign of exactly the sort of degraded quality one expects from a monopolist, Lee wrote. In any other business you would never dream of treating your customers the way you treat those with views you dont like.

In another Parler post on Thursday evening, Utahs senior senator linked to a story posted by right-wing website Breitbart News claiming Google has been censoring the outlets content from search results since the 2016 election. Attached to the post was Lees comment, This is not ok, and it has to stop.

In his letter, Lee also called out tech leaders for their roles in taking down video content that circulated earlier this week that showed what was characterized as a press conference by a group calling itself Americas Frontline Doctors.

CNN reported that the video, which had not been viewed by the Deseret News, was published by Breitbart News and included a quote from a woman claiming to be a doctor who said This virus has a cure, its called hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and Zithromax, and You dont need masks, there is a cure.

Lee declined to take a position on the content of the video, but said he supported a social media arena of open dialogue.

While Im not in a position to endorse or refute any of the doctors comments, I believe that we should err on the side of encouraging more speech, not less, Lee wrote.

The heart of the letter goes to 11 questions seeking details of how each of the platforms manages content moderation in the stipulated areas of COVID-19; violent riots and how they are distinguished from peaceful protests; hate speech; protections of the unborn; misinformation; and terrorist influence.

The questions include how content standards are established, the scope of processes designed to screen moderators for bias, whether user consent about content moderation is appropriately established, if platforms coordinate with each other on content moderation and other issues.

Deseret News requests for comment via email and social media direct messaging to Google, Facebook, Twitter and Squarespace were not immediately responded to.

While Lee rattled the saber of bringing antitrust regulations to bear on the behaviors of U.S. tech monoliths, Sen. Mitt Romney struck a somewhat more measured tone in comments he made Thursday at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

I know theres great interest, sometimes politically, to go after some of the big tech companies, Google, Amazon and so forth and Facebook, and berate them for their market power, Romney said. And if they violate American antitrust laws, why, thats totally appropriate.

But I would note that were in a global competition. And China has been successful in driving a lot of Western companies out of business. Theyve not been successful in driving companies like these out of business. These are thriving and succeeding. The last thing we ought to be doing is trying to knock down businesses in the United States that are succeeding on a global stage.

Romney referenced the U.S. dominance, thus far, of China when it comes to innovation industries but cautioned against overreach when it comes to the companies that have solidified the countrys current high tech upper hand.

So, we need to be careful not to flex our muscle to berate those entities that are successful and are beating China, Romney said. Alibaba would like to replace Amazon. TikTok would like to replace Instagram. It just an area of concern.

Contributing: Dennis Romboy

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Lee says Google, Facebook and Twitter are censoring conservative voices - Deseret News

The White Houses plan to purge Chinese tech from the internet is just bluster for now – The Verge

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The US has unveiled a vague but aggressive plan to purge Chinese tech companies from Americas internet, creating what the Trump administration has dubbed the Clean Network the US internet as it currently stands, but minus a lot of Chinese tech.

Its an expansion of the White Houses 5G Clean Path initiative, which was announced earlier this year with the aim of keeping Chinese hardware companies like Huawei and ZTE out of Americas 5G infrastructure. The Clean Network program takes that anti-Chinese impulse and applies it not only to 5G but also telecoms carriers, cloud services, undersea cables, apps, and app stores. It would mean no Chinese apps in US app stores, no US data stored on the Chinese cloud, and no US apps on Chinese smartphones.

Announcing the plan yesterday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said a major aim of the program was to keep American citizens safe from Chinese spies and censorship. In what would be a serious escalation of the administrations current war against TikTok, Pompeo said that under the Clean Program, the US government would remove all untrusted Chinese apps like TikTok and WeChat from American app stores.

With parent companies based in China, apps like TikTok and WeChat and others, are significant threats to personal data of American citizens, not to mention tools for Chinese Communist Party content censorship, said Pompeo in the press briefing, reports CNBC.

But while the Clean Network program is grand in scope, its not clear how or if it can be enforced, especially with the Trump administration distracted by an election challenge in a few months time. Experts say the plan as it currently stands is rhetoric and bluster. There is no technical detail on how the administration might implement the aims it outlines, and theres no reference to the legislative tools that would be needed to make these changes happen.

The specifics dont add up terribly well. They dont speak to a good understanding of how networks function, or a very clear idea of how this is expected to be implemented, Maria Farrell, an independent researcher in international tech policy, told The Verge. That does make it seem like more of a rhetorical exercise.

Although the plan has invited comparisons with Chinas Great Firewall, Farrell says a better comparison might be with Russias approach to internet sovereignty. There, the government has been able to pass some laws in areas like data localization, mandating that data concerning Russian citizens is processed in Russia, but it doesnt have the control or resources that China has to directly oversee and censor the web so extensively.

Russia is mostly talk and no trousers, says Farrell. Compare that to America, which is a bit of talk and no trousers. Theyve got some of the rhetoric but nothing like the machinery you need, either technical or political or legal.

If the Trump administration is determined to push ahead with the Clean Program, though, it could still be hugely disruptive to the global tech industry by leveraging the tools of international trade. It was able to ban Huawei from using Googles software, for example, and could potentially apply those same rules to other Chinese smartphone makers. That could be hugely damaging to these firms, hampering their ability to sell devices in lucrative European markets, for example.

What might be harder to stomach for the White House, though, is the backlash it might receive if it bans not only TikTok but all Chinese-made apps from US app stores. On Twitter, games analyst Daniel Ahmad noted that some of the most popular mobile games in the US, titles like PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty: Mobile, are made by Chinese tech giant Tencent. Tencent also owns Finnish mobile studio Supercell, which makes the hugely popular Clash of Clans. Would that count as a Chinese app and therefore a vector for censorship and spying? The current Clean Network plan offers zero clues on questions like these.

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The White Houses plan to purge Chinese tech from the internet is just bluster for now - The Verge

Is the Gov’t Outsourcing Censorship Duties to FB & Google? – The Jewish Voice

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Were going to talk a bit about the organizations Facebook and Google, which as you must know, are two of the most powerful, influential and in our view, possibly dangerous groups that the world has ever produced. Imagine texting a message and having it blocked because an agent hired by your provider has determined that it is racist, homophobic, anti-feminist, too political, or just improper. But thats the way Facebook and Googlenow work with messages transmitted by their members. Countless members of Facebook have been punished and temporarily or even permanently barred for the contents of their communications. Joe Biden has gotten into the act by sending multiple letters to Facebook attacking the company for policies that allow politicians, Trump specifically, to freely make false claims on its site. If he becomes president, will he follow through with legislation banning what he considers false messages on any and all platforms?

The dangerous reality of asociety in which the expression of a certain opinion is turned into a crime has already been seen across Europe. Dutch citizens were reportedly visited by police and warned about posting anti-mass immigration sentiments on social posts. It can happen here. The sinister thing about what Facebook is now doing is that it is now removing speech that many may consider racist, along with speech that only some worker at Facebook decides is racist. Censorship is growing within these huge messaging platforms. What, if in the near future, racist speech appears to include anything critical of a black, brown or person of color, religion,politician, sports figure or any other media star? And that decision is made by a corporation controlling the messaging? Censorship?

Mark Zuckerberg, in recent Congressional hearings stated that his company aims to allow as much free expression as possible unless it causes imminent risk of specific harms or damage. We believe in values democracy, competition, inclusion and free expression. But he hires censors to go through our messages and are the judges and juries to determine if they are harmful to society. This doesnt sound right.

Rather than initiating and participating in violence, speech is one of the best ways for people to vent their feelings, anger, fear hate or frustrations. Put it down in words, rather than in hurtful physical actions. If the right to speak out about ones displeasures is banned, only violence is left. Free speech is at stake here. Every single dictatorship in recent memory Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Castros Cuba, were all replete with hate-speech laws that were intended to limit free speech that the state disapproved of.

Extremism still grew and flourished. We cannot tolerate such a situation here in America. We stand for the freedom of expression, the right to speak out. Let society either accept, condemn or ignore what you say. But you have the right to voice your opinion without being censored, banished or punished. And corporations should not have the right to determine what is hate, racist or xenophobic speech. Were treading in dangerous waters.

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Is the Gov't Outsourcing Censorship Duties to FB & Google? - The Jewish Voice

posthuman | The Chicago School of Media Theory

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The Oxford English Dictionary identifies the first appearance of the term post-human as Maurice Parmelees 1916 Poverty and Social Progress. In a section entitled Eugenic Measures and the Prevention of Poverty, Parmelee, a sociologist, wrote:

But even though it is not possible, at present at any rate, to do much to improve the quality of the human stock by eugenic means, it is interesting and profitable to consider what would be the result if socially undesirable types could be eliminated entirely or in large part . . . . [But] it is evident, in the first place, that it is inconceivable that human nature could be changed to the extent that is contemplated by [the] theory of perfectibility. Such changes would bring into being an animal no longer human, or for that matter mammalian, in its character, for it would involve the elimination of such fundamental human and mammalian instincts and emotions as anger, jealousy, fear, etc. But even if such a post-human animal did come into existence, it is difficult to believe that it could carry on the necessary economic activities without using a certain amount of formal organization, compulsion, etc.[i]

Parmelees passage identifies several important issues that run throughout the lexicographical history of the term post-human into the present day. In answering What is the post-human? a corollary set of questions arise: Are we already post-human or is post-humanism permanently stuck in the future? At what point does a human stop being a human? What is the relationship between humans and animals? Does scientific advancement necessarily improve the human condition, or ought we limit it? If our social configurations (states, laws, families) are predicated on human nature, what happens to that order when we alter our nature? These inquiries stretch across disciplines from physics to anthropology, but they coalesce over the figure of the post-human. I would like to outline how three major thinkersN. Katherine Hayles, Jean-Franois Lyotard, and Jrgen Habermashave contributed to our understanding of the post-human. Speaking from different backgrounds and fields of study, Hayles, Lyotard, and Habermas each provide a unique perspective of the post-human, establishing multiple points of consensus and disagreement.

I: Hayles

We can infer much from the title of N. Katherine Hayles seminal book How We Became Posthuman: taken literally, the past-tense became connotes that the transformation from human to post-human has already occurred. But Hayles notes the multiple ironies of her title, since her thesis is more complex than That was then, this is now.[ii] Her argument is that human subjectivity is always historically specific: the changes [from human to post-human] were never complete transformations or sharp breaks; without exception, they reinscribed traditional ideas and assumptions even as they articulated something new.[iii] In other words, an element of or precondition for the post-human has always been among us (or more accurately, in us)hence, her title. People become posthuman because they think they are posthuman, not simply because they use dishwashers, the internet, or genetic engineering.[iv]

But Hayles does not deny that a real shift is taking place. Hayles impetus for her research was the 20th centurys articulation, by science fiction authors and cyberneticists like Norbert Weiner, that a great new epoch could be reached with the arrival of conscious computers, cyborgs, robots, and other variations of post-human beings which could finally separate mind from matter. She opens her essay Visualizing the Posthuman with the claim that, no longer a cloud on the horizon, the posthuman is rapidly becoming an everyday reality through physical prostheses, genetic engineering, and digital and artificial environments, all of which are necessary, but not sufficient, elements of post-humanity. [v] It is not that such technologies create the post-human object; rather, they allow for the possibility of a post-human subject. Thus, [o]ne cannot ask whether information technologies should continue to be developed. Given market forces already at work, it is virtually certain that we will increasingly live, work, and play in environments that construct as embodied virtualities.[vi]

Hayles elaborates her thesis by examining the practices of reading and writing within the digital media environment. For Hayles, the computer and digital technology have created the conditions for new conceptions of identity and subjectivity that demarcate the post-human era. In contrast to the pre-modern oral subject (fluid, changing, situational, dispersed) and the modern written subject (fixed, coherent, stable, self-identical), the postmodern virtual subject can be described as post-human because its subjectivity is formed through dynamical interfaces with computers:

The physics of virtual writing illustrates how our perceptions change when we work with computers on a daily basis. We do not need to have software sockets inserted into our heads to become cyborgs. We already are cyborgs in the sense that we experience, through the integration of our bodily perceptions and motions with computer architectures and topologies, a changed sense of subjectivity.[vii]

For Hayles the central issue in post-humanism is whether the body is superfluous: Should the body be seen as evolutionary baggage that we are about to toss out as we vault into the brave new world of the posthuman? she asks.[viii] In its philosophy and practice, the modern age sought to separate mind from body. It is only on that premise, Hayles argues, that we could conceive of discarding the body while keeping the mind, as many utopian/dystopian fictions describe, in scenarios predicting the downloading of brain matter. Instead, Hayles says our minds are bound up with our bodies, irrevocably: there is an inextricable intertwining of body with mind . . . . We are the medium, and the medium is us.[ix]

Thus, Hayles conception of the post-human is marked by two characteristics: it is not a sharp or radical break, but is a historically specific conception of subjectivity, just as Enlightenment humanism was. Because of this, the full-blown post-humanism of science fiction is necessarily incomplete: we can never completely isolate the mind and discard the body. Hence, the future is not pre-determined, neither as a positivist utopia with minimal labor, or as apocalyptic dystopia of human oppression: Technologies do not develop on their own. People develop them, and people can be guided to better or worse decisions through deliberation and politics.[x] Hayles goal is not to recuperate the liberal subject.[xi] Such a fantasy, she notes, was a conception that may have applied at best to that fraction of humanity who had the wealth power and leisure to conceptualize themselves as autonomous beings exercising their will through agency and choice.[xii] The post-human is, for better or worse, here: but it does not really mean the end of humanity. It signals instead the end of a certain conception of the human.[xiii]

II: Lyotard

Perhaps most poignant image of the post-human emerges from a thought experiment conducted by Jean-Franois Lyotard in his text The Inhumane. There, Lyotard asks, what happens when the sun explodes, as scientists tell us it will, in 4.5 billion years? It will surely mean the destruction of the planet. For Lyotard, this scenario is the prerequisite for post-humanity, and consequently, the only one worth philosophizing about as the sole serious question to face humanity today.[xiv] Even a world destroyed by nuclear weaponry does not suffice to create the post-human:

[A] human warleave[s] behind it a devastated human world, dehumanized, but with nonetheless at least a single survivor, someone to tell the story of whats left, to write it down . . . . But in what remains after the solar explosion, there wont be any humanness, there wont be living creatures, there wont be intelligent, sensitive, sentient earthlings to bear witness to it, since they and their earthly horizon will have been consumed.[xv]

Lyotards post-human is thus grounded not in the transcendence of certain human capabilities or features, like Parmelees emotions or Hayles digital subjectivity, but on a fundamental altering of the world as we have ever known it. For Lyotard, such a universe cannot even be thought ofbecause to grasp it in our minds still taints it with the trace of humanity. The universal apocalypse must remain unthought: if theres [total] death, then theres no thought. Negation without remainder. No self to make sense of it. Pure event. Disaster.[xvi]

But this does not mean we must take the attitude of Epicurus, referenced by Lyotard to stand for those who preach to only augment ones own worldly happiness. In a tone of urgency, Lyotard suggests that we must make way for the coming of the post-human. What is at stake in every field from genetics to particle physics is how to make thought without a body possible . . . . That clearly means finding for the body a nutrient that owes nothing to the bio-chemical components synthesized on the surface of the earth through the use of solar energy. Or: learning to effect these syntheses in other places than on earth.[xvii] Lyotard expresses nostalgia about this inevitability, concluding that we must say to ourselves . . . we shall go on.[xviii] This serves as the impetus for his exegeses on aesthetics and art, whose etchings and engravings capture the last vestiges of humanity, as he affirms: let us at least bear witness, and again, and for no-one.[xix] The possibility of a witness implies the possibility of a human. Thus, Lyotard presents a radicalized vision of the post-human as an essentially alien thing, even suggesting that the post-human condition is beyond the scope of our imaginations. The post-human is not a half-man, half-robot: he has no attachment to the earth whatsoever.

III: Habermas

A staunch defender of the unfinished modern project of human freedom, liberal philosopher Jrgen Habermas The Future of Human Nature speaks directly to the concerns raised by Parmelee on improving the stock of man. Habermas starting point is 1973, when the human genome was cracked. This scientific advance has allowed for embryo research and a liberal eugenics of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, which can manipulate an embryos eventual gender among other capabilities.[xx] Habermas believes developments of biology call into question our natural idea of the human being, and consequently, our laws, societal organization, nuclear families, and even philosophies. Mankind has hitherto taken birth (roughly) as a given fact of the world, meaning we make the assumption that the genetic endowment of the newborn infant, and thus the initial organic conditions for its future life history, lay beyond any programming and deliberate manipulation on the part of other persons.[xxi] However, modern technology is obliterating the boundary between persons and things because the embryo becomes subject to design, like any other object or commodity. [xxii] For the first time, the human species can take its biological evolution into its own hands. The post-human corresponds to the reversal of Jean Paul Sartres humanism, whose sloganexistence precedes essenceis now definitively called into question: now, a decision on existence or nonexistence is taken in view of the potential essence.[xxiii]

Because new technologies are regulated by supply and demand[xxiv] they leave the goals of gene-modifying interventions to the individual preferences of market participants.[xxv] But Habermas thinks merely intervening in the market through legislation cannot resolve the underlying conflict: Legislative interventions restricting the freedom of biological research and banning the advances of genetic engineering seem but a vain attempt to set oneself against the dominant tendency.[xxvi] Genetic technologies have obvious upsides that justify their application, like the eradication of debilitating genetic disorders. But the question is whether the instrumentalization of human nature changes the ethical self-understanding of the species in such a way that we may no longer see ourselves as ethically free and morally equal beings guided by norms and reasons.[xxvii] The strange science fiction accounts of humans being improved by chip implants is for Habermas only an exaggeration of an already present reality.[xxviii] Because genetic modification occurs before the moment of consciousness, subjects have no way of knowing that their characteristics were, to some degree, designed for them. In other words, the salient point for Habermas is the anti-democratic nature of the post-human: there is no choice of a red or blue pill, to use the famous scene from The Matrix.

Thus, in the post-human, Habermas sees the fate of the enlightenment project of freedom. While he does not clearly mark the threshold between human and object, his conception of the post-human is one where humans are not free to create themselves, connecting the human with the philosophy of humanism. In the mold of the Enlightenment philosophers, Habermas views humans as self-governing beings with the capacity for reason; new technologies, especially embryonic ones, undermine that modern view, ushering in the post-human.

[i] Parmelee, p. 350.

[ii] Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, p.6

[iii] Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, p. 6.

[iv] Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, p. 6.

[v] Hayles, Visualizing the Posthuman, p. 50.

[vi] Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, p. 48.

[vii] Hayles, Condition of Virtuality, p. 12.

[viii] Hayles, Visualizing the Posthuman, p. 50.

[ix] Hayles, Visualizing the Posthuman, p. 54.

[x] Hayles, Condition of Virtuality, p. 14.

[xi] Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, p. 5.

[xii] Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, p. 286.

[xiii] Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, p. 286.

[xiv] Lyotard, The Inhumane, p. 8.

[xv] Lyotard, The Inhumane, p. 10.

[xvi] Lyotard, The Inhumane, p. 11.

[xvii] Lyotard, The Inhumane, p. 14.

[xviii] Lyotard, The Inhumane, p. 105.

[xix] Lyotard, The Inhumane, p. 203.

[xx] Habermas, The Future of Human Nature, p. 43.

[xxi] Habermas, The Future of Human Nature, p. 13.

[xxii] Habermas, The Future of Human Nature, p. 13,

[xxiii] Habermas, The Future of Human Nature, p. 50.

[xxiv] Habermas, The Future of Human Nature, p. 30.

[xxv] Habermas, The Future of Human Nature, p. 19.

[xxvi] Habermas, The Future of Human Nature, p. 25.

[xxvii] Habermas, The Future of Human Nature, p. 40.

[xxviii] Habermas, The Future of Human Nature, p. 41.

WORKS CITED

Habermas, Jrgen. The Future of Human Nature. London: Blackwell, 2003.

Hayles, Katherine N. How We Became Posthuman. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1999.

-Visualizing the Posthuman

-The Condition of Virtuality.

Lyotard, The Inhumane: Reflections on Time. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.

Parmelee, Maurice. Poverty and Social Progess. New York: Macmillan, 1916.

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posthuman | The Chicago School of Media Theory

What does it mean to be posthuman? | New Scientist

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By David Cohen

HOW would you like to be a posthuman? You know, a person who has gone beyond the maximum attainable capacities by any current human being without recourse to new technological means, as philosopher Nick Bostrum of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford so carefully described it in a recent paper.

In other words, a superbeing by todays standards. If this sounds like hyperbole, bear with me. Behind the jargon lies a fascinating, troubling idea. Were not just talking about someone like Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius, who is augmented with technology to compensate for his disabilities and thus can outrun many able-bodied Olympians.

No, we mean people who, through genetic manipulation, the use of stem cells, or other biointervention, have had their ability to remain healthy and active extended beyond what we would consider normal. Their cognitive powers (memory, deductive thought and other intellectual capabilities, as well as their artistic and creative powers) would far outstrip our own.

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Whatever it means to be posthuman, this discussion is too important to be left to academics

Is it possible to imagine such humans without recourse to science fiction clichs? And if we can, how would they affect how we see ourselves and each other? Would they change how we treat each other? Or create a society you would actually want to live in?

If this seems a stretch, consider this: preimplantation genetic diagnosis already lets us screen out some genetic abnormalities in our IVF offspring. And as evidence mounts for genetic components to the physical and cognitive traits we consider desirable, designer babies are surely plausible.

Then again, imagine if you were alive 150 years ago, and someone described life as it is today. Life expectancy then was a mere 40 years on average, with a few lucky individuals making it to 75 or more, though they would likely have succumbed to the first harsh illness they faced. Today, average life expectancy in rich countries hovers around 80; death and disease have all but disappeared from view, mostly into hospitals and hospices.

Our expectations of our bodies, their functional capacity and their term of service, are profoundly different from those of people living in the mid-19th century and, in the great scheme of things, that is a mere blink of an eye.

Have we reached a natural limit, or is there further to go? In his new book, Extremes, Kevin Fong, anaesthetist, part-time TV presenter and science cheerleader, recounts how maverick doctors exploring the extremes of our physiology have produced some amazing medical advances, giving us powers to suspend, control and augment life in ways that would have looked miraculous to our 19th-century counterparts.

Take one of Fongs examples, the practice of controlled cooling of core body temperature before certain types of surgery. In heart surgery, it prolongs the time surgeons have to operate before brain damage is irreversible. The patients heart is stopped, they are not breathing: to all intents and purposes, they are dead. Yet if reheated in the right way, with appropriate life support, they will awake as if from a deep sleep.

Just a few decades ago, a cold, pulseless, breathless body would be considered dead immediately, let alone after 45 minutes of suspended animation. Yet now we can snatch the patient back from the brink, blurring the line between life and death.

Advances in intensive care medicine, too, have endowed doctors with spectacular powers that effectively allow them to take complete control of the most fundamental parts of a patients physiology: their breathing, heart function and the chemical composition of their blood. Fong eloquently outlines the history of such advances, reminding us how experiments by plastic surgeons on second world war burns victims effectively paved the way for the first full-face transplants earlier this century.

He ends by devoting a couple of chapters to his other love, space exploration and the fate of the body out there. Astronauts, for example, lose muscle bulk and bone density in the gravity-free environment, and protecting them against this is no mean feat. Then theres the even greater problem of protecting the body from cosmic radiation a role Earths natural magnetic field does for us quite nicely.

The book is a heady ride through a cherry-picked crop of impressive discoveries in science and medicine, all of them made when the human body was pushed to what we now think of as its limits. And Fong weaves in his own personal experiences so that in places it feels like a thinly veiled autobiography. Hes had an impressive career so far (hes only just 42), working for NASA on space medicine, and as medic to a diving expedition. But you do occasionally wonder if some of this was written to impress his mates from university: it can all seem very Boys Own.

He does admit, however, that most of the improvements in life expectancy have been due to public health measures rather than high-tech medicine. His claim that the war between bugs and humans is won seems premature, especially in view of the growing disquiet among experts in infectious diseases that epidemics caused by antibiotic-resistant bugs are imminent: in the case of gonorrhoea it may already have begun.

Extremes is entertaining, informative, but intellectually lightweight. While Fong does attempt to draw together some of the threads in his book, instead of deep analysis of these undeniably revolutionary changes, we find trite comments about the human imperative to explore both outer space, and the inner space of our bodies because we must.

At the opposite end of the intellectual spectrum is The Posthuman, by philosopher and cultural theorist Rosi Braidotti. She could never be accused of triteness: her charge is one of incomprehensibility, since her language is dense and littered with allusions that make sense only to social science cognoscenti. It can sometimes sap the life out of what should have been a fascinating read.

That said, when clear, Braidotti is bracing. Her central argument is that medical science and biotechnology are fast remaking how we view our bodies, that they are becoming commodities to be traded. This matters greatly because it affects what we think is possible and reasonable to do to a person/body, and therefore has deep consequences for the moral and ethical dimensions of our choices in life. Poor women in India who rent their wombs out to rich families from developed countries are one manifestation; egg and sperm donors another.

Whatever your views on this, these practices can only increase. If you accept that our moral codes reflect to a fair degree the depth of our knowledge of contemporary issues at any one time, then just as our view of homosexuality morphed from repugnance to acceptance in under a century, so the multiple ways in which we can meddle with the body are likely to become the norm in the near future.

But theres an important proviso: these changes are happening dangerously fast, and will revolutionise all our lives, for good or ill. From Fongs extreme bodies to Braidottis bodies in extremis, the discussion is too important to be left to academics. To get the right briefing for this new frontier, we need someone with Fongs communication skills and Braidottis intellectual insight and gravitas to write a book to enlighten the rest of us.

This article appeared in print under the headline Whats death got to do with it?

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What does it mean to be posthuman? | New Scientist

ARTIST: Zachary Ian Garden featured in The Art of Tattooists – The News Herald

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Tony Simmons| tsimmons@pcnh.com

Zachary Ian Garden described himself as a lifelong creative, but he first became serious about art when he got his first job at a tattoo shop in 2007.

Garden, 32, is one of the local tattoo artists featured in The Art of Tattooists, the new exhibition opening Friday, Aug. 7, at the Panama City Center for the Arts.

Born in Panama City, Gardens youth was nomadic.

RELATED: Virtual art classes, at-home projects offered by Panama City Center for the Arts

When I was 2 months old, my family and I started our adventures. We moved/traveled abroad and around the states most of my childhood, he said in an authors statement provided by the Center for the Arts. We moved back to Panama City in 2002. As an adult, I have carried on the family tradition of traveling, but I always come back home.

RELATED: Center reopens with three new exhibits

A young father, Garden said his art style derives from an unexpected source.

I have always had the desire to create. ... Most of my art is inspired by my spirituality, he said. As a child, I was forced to go to church with my mom. I hated it. It caused a lot of resentment and negativity for years.

But then he experienced a spiritual awakening on his first trip to Cambodia.

You cannot deny the energy you feel there. That set me on the path to enlightenment Im on now, he said. Im not sure where the path will lead me, but Im excited for the journey.

Garden learned his art on the job, not taking any classes.

Thankfully, I did a three-year tattoo apprentice, he said. My friends at the shop taught me everything I know about painting. From there, I just made up what works best for me. I use a mixture of liquid acrylic, watercolor and India ink on watercolor paper.

A desire to make things that appeal to him is the basis of Gardens current work.

I spent too many years trying to make things I thought other people would like, he said. I am having more fun and enjoying the outcome better now. Mix that in with my spiritual journey plus my anxiety, and you get the art I create.

Though he has participated in local art shows at other venues, The Art of Tattooists is the first time Gardens work has been exhibited at the Center for the Arts.

I painted two of the pieces during quarantine. It was my way of showing how the isolation made me feel. See if yall can guess which two, he said. The other three were just ones I enjoyed making.

Garden said he had never thought about what it meant to be featured in a exhibit of this kind before the question was raised: I would have never thought twice about it, but if youre wanting to know what I hope to get out of it some exposure would be nice. Get my name out to people that dont know me yet.

Gardens portfolio can be viewed at his Instagram account, @zacharyiangarden.

The Art of Tattooists will be on display at the Panama City Center for the Arts, 19 E. Fourth St.,until Aug.29. Admission is free. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m, Tuesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.Saturdays. Visit PCCenterForTheArts.com for more details, including COVID-19 safety information.

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ARTIST: Zachary Ian Garden featured in The Art of Tattooists - The News Herald

Honey I Joined A Cult Coming To Brainwash PCs in 2021 – GameSpace.com

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Team 17 and Sole Survivor Games, at least one of which could say it has cult status, are about to blow your mind as they announce a new cult management simulator, Honey I Joined A Cult.

Coming to PCs in early 2021, Honey I Joined A Cult is a 1970s based cult management sim that challenges players to build and grow their very own cult. Taking at least a little inspiration from old school Theme Hospital, which also served as inspiration for the amazing Two Point Hospital, this brightly spiritual management sim challenges is a cartoonish twist on the classic management genre.

Thrust back to a simpler time, Honey I Joined A Cult allows players to developer their fledgling cult by recruiting new followers and acolytes. They will need somewhere to practice and study the most secret of paths to enrich your glorious cult leader, also allowing players to build a groovy headquarters for their followers. All this should, hopefully, increase each cults influence and make the organization as successful as possible. Of course, things wont always go smoothly. As things progress, players will face challenges from inside and outside the cult, not least the leaders ever-growing ego and an increasingly meddling media, all of which need to be kept in check in order for the cult to flourish.

Navigate these internal issues and there will be plenty of other things to do in Honey I Joined A Cult. The upcoming title includes a range of missions, rewarding cultists with extra resources, all of which will probably be squandered on your egotistical leader. Assuming you feel up to the challenge, you can join this cult when it arrives on PC in early 2021. For now, check out the reveal trailer above, maybe go wishlist it on Steam if youre up for enlightenment, and check out the official team 17 website for this groovy top down sim.

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Honey I Joined A Cult Coming To Brainwash PCs in 2021 - GameSpace.com

Pick of the Podcasts: Guru, Calm Down Dear, Give Me Some Good News – The Sunday Post

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When were troubled we look for help where we can find it. If its not friends and family then you might end up looking into self-help.

The industry is worth billions every year, which is no wonder since most of us have dabbled in at least reading a self-help book at one stage or another.

However, there is a dark side of enlightenment.

Where there are desperate people, there are those waiting to offer help for a price, of course.

Self-help gurus are especially big in where else? the US, where seminars, wellness camps and retreats are held for people to get better.

But it all comes with a cost.

In 2009, more than 50 followers of self-help guru James Arthur Ray approached the conclusion of a five-day Spiritual Warrior seminar they paid 8,000 or more to attend.

Rays instructions to followers towards the end of the retreat were to shave their heads, sit in a sweat lodge, and avoid drinking water.

Things didnt go well.

Rays workshop, in Sedona, Arizona, resulted in the deaths of three people, who died after taking part in the sweat lodge ritual.

Here, the mother of one victim, Kirby Brown, speaks in the Guru trailer.

Ray was later found guilty on charges of negligent homicide and sentenced to two years in prison.

According to Wondery, though, hes back in business.

The build up to the ill-fated retreat is covered in Guru, a new podcast from Wondery, hosted by Matthew Stroud.

This new series looks at the incident and how dangerous the self-help scene in the US where the industry is worth an estimated 10 billion can be.

James Arthur Ray isnt the only self-help guru people should have been wary of

Gure, Wondery, Apple Podcasts

Things might be a bit doom and gloom at the moment, but Give Me Some Good News is here to help.

Stand up comedian Nathan Caton is fed up of the negativity in the mainstream media.

So along with radio presenter Rich Wolfenden, Nathan gets a guest on Zoom and asks them to do one thing. Give him some good news! A bit like the anti-Room 101.

Have you ever been so excited about something that someones told you to calm down?

Then this is the podcast for you.Friends and broadcasters Sarah Gosling and Becky Hand are joined each week by a guest known for their enthusiasm to chat about whats gotten them enthused over the past week in culture, work, and life in general, and who inspired them to be like that.

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Pick of the Podcasts: Guru, Calm Down Dear, Give Me Some Good News - The Sunday Post

Opinion: Pandemic, floods, fires, hurricanes, extinctions nature is telling us it’s time to build our economy around inclusive wealth – Ensia

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August 6, 2020 As we move into the second half of 2020, its clear that we are facing a convergence of troubles of unprecedented proportion. Disruption of ecosystems has led to a global pandemic.

Climate change, chemical pollution and the sixth mass extinction are posing other Anthropocene-related threats. Its more obvious than ever how connected economies, health, environments and humanity are across the world. The unprecedented level of social disruption and economic shock has called for broad and global thinking, new strategies, and holistic indicators of human progress and resilience.

How did we get here? By basing our decisions on a short-sighted measure of human well-being. Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is conventionally used to measure economic growth and well-being, fails to account for the contributions of natural ecosystems. It treats the environment as a luxury good rather than an asset that generates benefits that can be measured in monetary terms (and, of course, as the bedrock upon which everything can exist). As a result, we dont give the environment sufficient weight in our decisions and the consequences of our decisions come back to haunt us in the form of disease, political instability, economic insecurity and more.

How can we get to a better place? Through something called inclusive wealth accounting a measure of true well-being, not just for ourselves, but for future generations. Inclusive wealth refers to the sum of social worth of manufactured capital (like building and machines), human capital (like health and skills) and natural capital (like biodiversity and ecosystem services). In short, it is a more inclusive way of accounting for the various elements that contribute to sustainability and human well-being.

Holistic Assessment

A GDP-based approach to measuring well-being focuses on produced or manufactured capital. It pays less attention to natural capital goods and services such as water, air, soil, biodiversity and scenic beauty that also benefit society. Even if the value of some ecosystem services is embedded in measures of GDP, many are often ignored and unaccounted for.

Inclusive wealth refers to the sum of social worth of manufactured capital (like building and machines), human capital (like health and skills) and natural capital (like biodiversity and ecosystem services). Image courtesy of UNEP

The Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI), first proposed in 2012 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and others and guided by legendary environmental economist Sir Partha Dasgupta of Cambridge, on the other hand, includes a holistic assessment not only of produced or manufactured capital, but also human capital and natural capital. It considers not only traditional kinds of wealth but also less tangible ones such as skill sets, health care and environmental assets that form the backbone of human progress and ultimately set the parameters forsustainable development.

A countrys inclusive wealth (IW) is the value of its natural capital, human capital and produced capital. By factoring in all three forms of capital, the IWI allows us to more accurately characterize the overall change to well-being. For example, when trees and biodiversity-supporting habitat are destroyed to build a school or hospital, natural capital decreases but human capital increases. This is very important for decision makers to know and critical for guiding efforts to enhance true sustainability.

Call to Action

Just as businesses do asset accounting, nations should do inclusive wealth accounting. And this accounting should include biodiversity and ecosystem health and resilience, which require investment to maintain and preserve. Because GDP does not factor in the benefits of natural capital, it doesnt incentivize the actions that are needed to protect biodiversity and the services it provides including reducing the risk of pandemic. To provide such protection requires accounting of all kinds of assets, especially natural capital. As the Resolution of United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) puts it, natural capital and natural resource valuation and accounting mechanisms can help countries to assess and appreciate the worth and full value of their natural capital and to monitor environmental degradation. Inclusive wealth accounting can encourage accountability and allow countries to monitor progress toward conservation goals.

The Dasgupta Review for the UKs Treasury has already started voicing the need for inclusive wealth accounting to keep track of change of natural assets and the emerging trade-offs.

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The IWI was not developed with the intention of replacing GDP as an indicator of progress. Indeed, the UNEP-led Inclusive Wealth reports show that it is possible to achieve per capita growth in GDP and inclusive wealth simultaneously.

The Inclusive Wealth Report 2018 estimates the inclusive wealth per capita over the period 19922014 in 140 countries. In spite of considerable data limitations, it found that on average natural capital declined. The inclusive wealth per capita (natural, produced and human) rose, but at a slower rate than that of the GDP per capita. This does not bode well for sustainability, because it means that part of the gain in GDP is coming at the expense of natural and human capital.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) require nations to strike a balance across various types of capitals produced, human and natural. GDP per capita is inadequate for the task. The notion of inclusive wealth formalizes a way that balance can be struck. If the SDGs are themselves to be sustainable, nations must provide estimates of changes of inclusive wealth per head.

The progress report on the SDGs suggests that, with just 10 years left to achieve them, we are lagging on almost every goal. We have an opportunity to fix this problem by adopting a credible and well-rounded indicator for true sustainability. Now, more than ever, we need to use the IWI as our measure of well-being.

Editors note: The views expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily of Ensia or UNEP. We present them to further discussion around important topics. We encourage you to respond with a comment below, following our commenting guidelines, which can be found on this page. In addition, you might consider submitting a Voices piece of your own. See Ensias Contact page for submission guidelines.

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Opinion: Pandemic, floods, fires, hurricanes, extinctions nature is telling us it's time to build our economy around inclusive wealth - Ensia

Amid the pandemic, can Colorado still lead on a just transition from coal? – Energy News Network

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A new draft report provides more detail on the states strategy as COVID-19 accelerates the crisis

In early March, a few days before the dark curtain of COVID-19 fell, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis was in the coal community of Hayden to speak about the concept of just transition the idea that workers and communities need help to new careers and new economic foundations as coal gives way to new energy sources.

Its an unprecedented goal in Colorado, and other states, too. But it remains an experiment.

Editors note: This is the first of two stories on Colorados transition from coal. The second installment will be published tomorrow.

Polis was in Hayden not to deliver answers, but rather to listen. Wearing a light-blue polo shirt buttoned at the color, Polis sat at a table normally occupied by town council members as he heard details of union contracts, updates on economic diversification strategies, and lectures, too.

You drive into our valley and you see nothing but blue skies, he was told, a reference meant to draw a contrast to the often polluted skies over Denver a source of resentment for some rural communities who feel theyre bearing the brunt of the states push to cut emissions.

In that long afternoon, he heard no easy answers for how Hayden, Craig and other coal-dependent communities in Colorados sagebrush- and aspen-edged Yampa River Valley will transition to life after coal. Days later, the coronavirus pandemic would begin occupying the governors every waking hour. It also muddled Colorados effort to assist workers and communities impacted by the transition from coal to other energy sources.

COVID-19 may temporarily frustrate the good intentions expressed by Colorado legislators in HB 19-1314, titled Just Transition From Coal-based Electrical Energy Economy. The state budget had to be cut 21%, and budget analysts expect deeper cuts next year and beyond. That will make it hard to find state funds to assist workers.

But then most of the impacts will begin in about five years. As one committee member says, it will probably be easier to ask for $10 million then than $1 million now. The law passed in May 2019 assumes state assistance, most directly for workers in coal mines and plants and on the railroads. It also seeks to assist impacted communities but does not presume to have all the answers.

An advisory committee whose 19 members are drawn from the ranks of state government, local governments, think tanks, and economic development institutions, has drawn up a draft report, released this week. A final report is due state legislators Dec. 31.

Colorados Just Transition law, passed in the same early morning hour on the final day of the 2019 legislative session as a bill establishing Colorados decarbonization goals, is the most systematic effort in the United States in regard to coal, says Dr. Dimitris Stevis, a professor of political science at Colorado State University who co-edited a book, Just Transitions: Social Justice in the Shift Towards a Low-Carbon World.

Other states in the West and Appalachia have addressed elements of the transition from coal, but community development expert Chris Markuson contends that Colorado has an opportunity to create the national model.

Colorado is the first state to think of just transition on a statewide basis, says Markuson, who directs the Colorado economic transition policy for the BlueGreen Alliance, a national coalition of environmental groups and labor unions.

Some think an even broader perspective is needed. There will be transitions and more transitions. Any number of towns will go through the same thing that coal towns are going through today, says Suzanne Tegen, assistant director at the Colorado-based Center for the New Energy Economy.

Some think that the just transition model being developed for coal will be applicable to the oil-and-gas sector. Others, such as Will Toor, the director of the Colorado Energy Office, point out a key difference. Oil and gas has always been cyclical, booming and busting, whereas coal has been steady in places like Craig and Hayden.

Coal, though, is now rapidly slipping. It has fallen from providing 68% of net electrical generation in Colorado to 45% in the decade ending in 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, while renewables more than doubled, to 25%.

Colorado ranks 11th in coal production among U.S. states. Half the coal is exported out of state, and half that to other countries, reports the EIA, and half is used for power production in Colorado.

By 2030, coal consumption in Colorado will decline far more. Nine coal-burning units three at Craig, two at Pueblo, three in or near Colorado Springs, and one north of Fort Collins are scheduled to close. Others operated by Xcel Energy, the states largest electrical utility, could also close.

We dont have time to waste, but we have time to get this right, says Wade Buchanan, director of the Just Transition office. He is, and will be for the foreseeable future, the sole employee of the office.

This shift will be easier for some communities than others. Colorado Springs, a booming metro area of more than 700,000, will provide more opportunities for workers than the remote Yampa River Valley, which is more than three hours from Denver. Theres a major airport at Hayden, but the flights cater to the rhythms of the mountain resort economy of Steamboat Springs 25 miles to the east.

Hayden and Craig depend almost exclusively upon coal. Theres some agriculture, and tourism, too, especially during hunting season. Visitors also stop along the way to or from Dinosaur National Monument, which lies 90 minutes to the west of Craig.

But even the motels in Craig rely far more on work crews than other travelers. At the Elk Run Inn, co-proprietor Randy Looper estimates that two-thirds of his customers are workers, mostly in town for temporary jobs at the coal units. Hunters are great; theyre neat people, he says. But workers make my business work.

School and other taxing districts rely even more heavily on the coal mines and coal-burning plants because of their reliance upon property taxes. At the Hayden School District, the Hayden Generating Station pays 57% of the property taxes to pay for a new K-12 school. It pays the same proportions for the local fire district and other taxing districts. When the coal plants close, the taxes of others will necessarily rise.

Coal built this country, whether you like it or not, says Doug Monger, a life-time resident of Hayden and a Routt County commissioner. We can go away from it now, but we need to figure out how not to throw us under the bus.

The Just Transition law is founded on obligation, one described in the statute as a moral commitment to assist the workers and communities that have powered Colorado for generations.

Colorados law also mentions the dirty side of coal beyond greenhouse gases, the disproportionately impacted communities who have borne the costs of coal power pollution for decades. A practical component also underlies the just transition movement. Creating a path forward for impacted communities eases the opposition to reducing emissions, points out Erin Overturf, deputy director of the clean energy program at Western Resource Advocates.

Colorados law came together conceptually in 2018 in a collaboration of social justice, environmental, faith and labor groups. The Colorado Peoples Alliance, a social justice organization formed in 2015, and SEIU Local 105, a union representing health care and service workers, initiated the discussions and were soon joined by the AFL-CIO and environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council. The groups coalesced into the Colorado Peoples Climate Movement.

A study was commissioned to probe what it would take to get Colorado in accordance with the goals of the Paris climate accords from 2015, and what a just transition would look like.

A Green Growth Program for Colorado: Climate Stabilization, Good Jobs, and Just Transition, found that 88% of all energy consumption in Colorado came from burning oil, coal and natural gas. To achieve climate stabilization, coal consumption needed to fall 70% by 2030 and oil and gas 40%. That same study reported investing $14.5 billion per year in clean energy projects in Colorado from 2021 to 2030 would generate about 100,000 jobs.

The Colorado AFL-CIO has had a major presence in both shaping the legislation and now sharpening the recommendation to legislators for what is needed next. Dennis Dougherty, the unions executive director, says his perspective was shaped by a resolution at the AFL-CIOs national convention in 2017. Resolution 55 recognized the need to rapidly shift from fossil fuel combustion because of warming temperatures and implicitly authorized members to work toward policies at the center of creating solutions that reduce emissions while investing in our communities, maintaining and creating high-wage union jobs and reducing poverty.

Lizeth Chacon, co-chair of the Colorado Peoples Alliance, said her group was motivated by reports of the poor air and water quality associated with energy development in disproportionately impacted communities, which tend to be lower income and places with people of color.

It was an academic discussion until the November 2018 election, when Democrats gained control of both houses of the Colorado Legislature. Dougherty said there was a realization that carbon-reduction goals and just transition had to go hand in hand. We didnt want to wait another year for a more perfect bill. We wanted to do it concurrently, he says.

Draft legislation was altered in one significant way before adoption. The original bill specified wage differentials and other benefits for displaced workers for three years. Polis, the new governor, discouraged prescriptive precedent. Needs of displaced coal workers, for example, might be different from those of workers displaced by automation. Displaced workers in other industries might also expect the same benefits page.

Also, while it mentions disproportionately impacted communities, it gives little clear direction on how this is to be addressed.

The bill passed on a party-line vote in the Colorado Senate at 2 a.m. in the final hours of the session.

Colorados just transition report distinguishes between needs of impacted workers and those of the larger communities where they work.

The draft report identifies a need for three and possibly four buckets of money to be drawn from state and philanthropic sources.

By far the largest need will be assistance to the 2,100 workers in coal mines, plants and railroads. Most make $80,000 to $100,000 per year, and it will be challenging, if not impossible, to find similar wages in new jobs while remaining in their communities.

A second monetary need will be the assistance to aid economic development by impacted communities. The Colorado law makes clear that the state wont decide how Craig, Hayden and other impacted communities will reinvent themselves. That has to be driven largely from the grassroots. It can, however, assist them.

A third and overlapping fund will be needed to help with the private or public sector strategies to attract investment capital into the communities. How do you incentivize capital and entrepreneurs in a relatively risky environment?

The fourth and final bucket, much smaller, will be the financing to continue and perhaps expand the Just Transition office, which currently consists of one employee.

Instead of precise figures, the committee is trying to create a formula. But then again, every communitys needs will be different.

Craig and Hayden have generally resisted the energy transition. In 2015, when a WildEarth Guardians lawsuit threatened the WyoColo Mine, signs went up around Craig saying, Coal Keeps the Lights On. Beer from a Colorado-based brewer who had supported WildEarth Guardians was removed from liquor stores and restaurant offerings. There was talk about economic diversification, but little energy was put into it.

Then in January, Tri-State said all three units at Craig would be closed by 2030. In the dark and cold of a hard winter, it shocked some in Craig.

Rawness remained in early March when Dougherty and other members of the Just Transition committee arrived in Craig to hear from the public. There was anger and denial, protests that Denver didnt understand Craig. But others had already been thinking about what comes next. A few remembered Craig before coal dominated the town.

Strategies for the next career for Craig and Hayden remain incipient, little more than thoughts. Nobody has yet any notion of how to create anything that will substitute for the solid middle-class wages and the enormous tax payments delivered by the coal infrastructure to the local school districts, even the fire and library districts.

Jennifer Holloway, executive director of the Craig Chamber of Commerce, has a long view of coal extraction. In 1942, her great grandfather died in a coal mine explosion at Mt. Harris, a now-abandoned coal community near Hayden. Today, one of her brothers works at the power plant in Craig.

Growing up here, the coal miners were all treated like astronauts, she says. Miners made more money than people with bachelors degrees, and if it was hard and dangerous work, there was also a sense of mission, to help communities prosper with the electricity that is produced.

Now, with the coal plants closing, theres a lost sense of mission. That loss may be just as important to the community psyche as the lost payroll and tax collections.

But coal also kept Craig from thinking about what else it might become, says Holloway. Now, it must confront that question directly.

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Amid the pandemic, can Colorado still lead on a just transition from coal? - Energy News Network

Union Los Angeles And Jordan Collaborate On Four Shoe Collection – Sneaker News

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West coast boutique UNION LA surprised suddenly with their Air Jordan 1s quite a bit back, both colorways replete with vintage ethos. For Fall/Winter 20, the imprint is following up their previous set with not just two but four different pairs for release at the end of August. From their duo of Air Jordan 4s to their Jordan Zoom 92 and Jordan Delta Mid, the Sophomore Album as they call it delivers a theme still retro-inspired and filled to the brim with Chris Gibbs personal touch.

The undisputed helm of the entire collection, the two Air Jordan 4s effectively retrace past ideas with new additions. Off-Noir, as a visual mirror of the aforementioned AJ1, brings the same palettes of black, white, red, and blue with a material composition plush and like that of Birkenstock sandals as Gibbs states. Its vibrant complement, the Guava, takes the same color story and dials it to a neon 11 the upper masked in bright pink while the accents adjacent mix in more saturated shades along with pastel blues and vintage yellowing. But while their palettes are significantly loud, the structural details are far more interesting as the tongue is loosely stitched down for a shorter look while the paneling adds an extra element for a profile unique to UNION themselves.

Then, though left out of previous leaks, the Jordan Delta Mid arrives as a tweaked replication of the Off-Noir pair. Blues dress the collar as black neutrals dye the majority, while subtler details deliver muted orange branding and red contrast stitch as well as heel counter panels. React foam ushers in the silhouettes attention to technical improvement while the general aesthetic is all UNIONs own doing. In a similar vein, the Jordan Zoom 92 reflects Guava in its choice of presentation everything translated to the Frankensteind silhouette via its eye stay molds, tooling, layered paneling, and the like.

Grab a detailed look at the entire set of footwear here, and with much more on the way, expect quite a large launch come August 29th.

UNION LA x Air Jordan Sophomore Album Release Date: August 29th, 2020

Make sure to follow @kicksfinder for live tweets during the release date.

Where to Buy

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Union Los Angeles And Jordan Collaborate On Four Shoe Collection - Sneaker News

At Least the Bulls Draft Odds Won’t Get Worse, Jordan’s Ball Fakes, LaVine’s Workout, and Other Bulls Bullets – bleachernation.com

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Yesterday, the significant other and I sat there with our feet up on the ottoman as we watched the Cubs game. And whenever my foot sits next to hers, I feel like a mega-giant human being. You need a beanstalk to reach me! Although, that feeling is usually proceeded by a humbling thought about the size of NBA players. For reference, I stand at roughly six-foot-three with a size 12 shoe, but compared to a lot of players in the league, thats nothing. Not to mention, Im not walking around with a ton of meat on my bones. Part of me wishes I could be the size of, say, Daniel Gafford for a day or two six-foot-ten and 234lbs. I have to imagine Id feel like a superhero.

I probably shouldnt speak too soon, though. The chances of more cons than pros at that height is rather high. Lets flesh some out. Cons: Buying clothes that fit well, sitting comfortably in a car, having enough legroom on an airplane, bending down super far to pet a cute puppy on the sidewalk, always having to be the person to grab things on the top shelf, laying in anything other than a king bed, staring at the top of peoples heads all the time and awkwardly catching their bald spots, and constantly dealing with theclassic hows the weather up there? Pros: putting things out of reach of others, always being able to see the stage at a concert, riding any ride ever, having an excuse to sit in more spacious areas, and of course potentially getting a better shot at the NBA and then making a ton of money.

Something to be happy about:

While not playing in the bubble is a constant reminder of how to trash the Bulls were, at least we know their draft odds will remain in a solid place. Were now only 19 days away from the Draft Lottery by the way, which I find to be pretty darn exciting. With little Bulls news to gnaw on right now, the draft lottery results will give us an opportunity to talk more realistically about the upcoming 2020 draft (which is scheduled for October 16th).

lolz MJ made everyone look so silly.

Michael Porter Jr. looks like hes on the verge of a breakout, but I wouldnt go as far as to say Bulls fans should be furious about not drafting him. (1) Its not like he went No. 8 overall, right behind Wendell Carter Jr., and (2) there were some serious injury concerns surrounding him. Also, lets not just write off WCJs value. I know Bulls fans arent entirely hyped about him right now, but many folks around the league still consider him to be one of the leagues rising stars.

Oh, and if you happen to like how Denvers built, we now have the guy who put together that team running the Bulls.

Reason 4,560 to fire Boylen: Other reporters around the league can make these jokes about the Bulls:

Speaking of which, nothing has changed on the Boylen front, according to K.C. Johnson. He continues to have a voice within the organization as the evaluation continues, and things will reportedly stay this way until at least September. Note: Theres more coming on Boylen soon, after another report from Joe Cowley, but I dont think youre going to like it. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, its not like the players have his back.

Id pass out after two minutes of a Zach LaVine workout.

Accurate.

Swirsky knows whats up.

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At Least the Bulls Draft Odds Won't Get Worse, Jordan's Ball Fakes, LaVine's Workout, and Other Bulls Bullets - bleachernation.com

Where To Buy The Air Jordan 1 Satin Red – Sneaker News

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Fall 2020, as teased by Jordan Brand only a few months ago, is poised to be one of the more eventful seasons in terms of its releases a set that includes the Air Jordan 3 in its raw denim inspired form, the revival of the Air Jordan 1 CO.JP, and even the ever-luxe, womens exclusive Air Jordan 1 Satin Red. A nod to the far and relatively recent past, the pair takes satin, faux snakeskin, and the beloved Black Toe colorway and delivers an offering nearly brand new. Bright red overlays are coated in the high quality fabrication from the toe cap to the eye stay and collar while the underlying base prefers a neutral white smooth leather. Black heel counters, ankle flaps, and swooshes then contrast with the reptilian texture, adding further dimension to an already tweaked homage. Grab a yet another look at these here and expect a release to arrive at Nike SNKRS and select retailers come August 6th.

In other news, the Air Jordan 5 Bel-Air should be arriving soon as well.

Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG WMNS Satin RedRelease Date: August 6th, 2020$170/$80/$60Style Code: CD0461-601 (Womens)Style Code: CU0449-601 (Pre-School)Style Code: CU0450-601 (Toddler)

Make sure to follow @kicksfinder for live tweets during the release date.

Where to Buy (After-market)

Where to Buy (W)

Where to Buy (PS)

Where to Buy (TD)

Images: Sneaker Politics

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Where To Buy The Air Jordan 1 Satin Red - Sneaker News

T.J. Warren is the Michael Jordan of the bubble – SB Nation

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T.J. Warren has been a certifiable bucket-getter his entire life.

As a sophomore at NC State, Warren led the ACC in both scoring (24.9 points per game) and field goal percentage (52.4 percent) to take home conference player of the year honors over eventual No. 2 overall draft pick Jabari Parker. What made Warren so fascinating to watch in those days wasnt just how much he scored, it was how he did it. Warren stockpiled points on a barrage of floaters and runners, leaning layups, and mid-range pull-ups. It seemed like he scored on everything but three-pointers.

The Phoenix Suns would tab Warren with the final pick in the 2014 lottery, where he established himself as a misfit scorer who didnt coalesce with the leagues larger trends. Namely: Warren still wouldnt shoot threes, even with the leagues long distance revolution in full swing. He failed to even attempt 100 three-pointers in a season through his first four years, despite averaging nearly 20 points per game in 2017-18.

Eventually, the Suns started another rebuild and Warren felt like a holdover from previous era. Last offseason, Phoenix essentially gave him away in a cash dump, trading him to Indiana just to get his contract off the books before free agency.

Warren is now playing the first meaningful basketball of his career on the Indiana Pacers, starting every game for a team thats currently No. 5 in the Eastern Conference. With his playoff debut just around the corner, the 26-year-old forward is showing everyone his game translates to the highest level of play.

Because right now, T.J. Warren is acting like the best scorer alive inside the NBA bubble.

Here are Warrens stats through three games in the bubble:

Best of all, the Pacers are 3-0 inside the bubble, one of only two teams that can say that right now. The other? Warrens former team in Phoenix. The Suns and Pacers face-off on Thursday, too.

Warrens bubble breakout started with the best game of his career: 53 points on 20-of-29 shooting from the field against the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday. It was one of the most impressive scoring displays weve seen all season.

Warrens outburst was the third-highest scoring effort in Pacers history, joining Reggie Miller and Jermaine ONeal as the only other to score as much in a game for the franchise. What stood out about Warrens effort was his unbridled confidence from three-point range.

The scorer who has always preferred to do his damage from inside the arc finally found his stroke from downtown. Warren hit 9-of-12 three-pointers in the game, hitting several shots from significantly behind the line to stretch the Sixers defense out as much as possible.

Just look at where he fired his final dagger of the night to ice the win for Indiana:

For a full breakdown of Warrens opening performance in the bubble, read Caitlin Cooper the best Pacers analyst around over at Indy Cornrows. Warren didnt stop there.

Two days after torching Philadelphia, Warren went off again against the Wizards. This time, he only shot 1-of-6 from three-point range, but he still dropped 34 points on the night. Warren had his mid-range and around-the-basket game going in full effect:

Warren has always been had great size for a hybrid wing, listed at 68, 220 pounds. He clearly kept up with his conditioning during the hiatus, and hes looking fast and strong since entering the bubble.

His ability to absorb contact, regain his balance, and finish around the rim has long been a key to his game. Yes, this finish comes over the pint-sized Ish Smith, but its indicative of how Warren has been getting buckets his entire career.

Warren came out hot again vs. the Orlando Magic on Tuesday. He went 7-for-7 in the first quarter on his way to 32 points for the night. Warren again had three-ball working for him, hitting 4-of-5 shots from deep, but he wasnt overly reliant on shooting from beyond the arc.

Instead, Warren was using his touch inside the arc to score in his signature ways. This looked like the player who once led the ACC in scoring:

The tough mid-range looks and long floaters Warren specializes in are the types of shots opposing defenses want to give up. As the game continues to slow down in the playoffs, Warrens deep bag of tricks inside the arc should become even more effective.

The Pacers were dealt a crushing blow when All-Star big man Domantas Sabonis had to leave the bubble to treat plantar fasciitis. Without him, Indiana has adopted a three-guard lineup with Malcolm Brogdon, Aaron Holiday, and Victor Oladipo starting together with Warren at the four and Myles Turner at the five.

The extra space has been a huge benefit to Warren. With shooters around the perimeter including Turner, who is 7-for-9 from three inside the bubble Warren has had all the room he needs to bully his way inside and finish even when the defense is keyed in on him:

The Pacers are largely an afterthought in the Eastern Conference playoff picture in the wake of Oladipos lingering quad injury and now Sabonis foot problem. Right now, theyre in line for a first round matchup with the Miami Heat that no one will expect them to win.

Fortunately, the Pacers dont really care. They will play their game and dare anyone to beat them.

Who knows what could happen in the playoffs? Fans are already having fun with just how great Warren has been inside the bubble.

Warren has been getting buckets for a long time, so dont say this scoring barrage came out of nowhere. For as long as theyre in the bubble, the Pacers will need him to keep it up.

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T.J. Warren is the Michael Jordan of the bubble - SB Nation

Jordan, son of Hall of Famer Dr Bly, commits to ODU football – wtkr.com

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NORFOLK Va.- It comes full circle for the Bly family, as former NFL All-Pro cornerback and College Football Hall of Famer Dr Blys son, Jordan, committed to Old Dominion University (ODU) on Aug. 5.

Dr is from Chesapeake (11 minutes from Norfolk) and went to Western Branch High School before playing three seasons at UNC in the 1990s.

Jordan had offers from Florida International, Pittsburgh and UNC-Charlotte but ultimately decided to go to ODU.

Jordan is listed as a three-star wide receiver by 247sports.com. In his junior season with the Myers Park Mustangs in Charlotte, N.C., Jordan racked up 501 yards receiving yards and seven touchdowns en route to a 12-1 record.

The Monarchs are looking to bounce back under new head coach Ricky Rahne after going 1-11 with Bobby Wilder last season, the same coach who led the team to the schools only bowl game win in the 2016 Bahamas Bowl.

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Jordan, son of Hall of Famer Dr Bly, commits to ODU football - wtkr.com

49ers expected to sign former top-five pick Dion Jordan to add depth to defensive line, per report – CBS Sports

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Watch Now: Report: 49ers Add TE Jordan Reed (2:22)

The San Francisco 49ers were in the market for a veteran defensive end, although the one they've apparently opted to add to the team is a surprise. Per NFL Network's Ian Rapoport, San Francisco is expected to sign Dion Jordan to a contract, choosing the former No. 3 overall pick over Ziggy Ansah, who worked out with the team earlier this week.

Jordan played seven games for the Oakland Raiders last season, finishing with two sacks, five pressures and two quarterback hits in seven games. He tallied just 173 snaps after serving a 10-game suspension to open the season for violating the league's PED policy. Jordan was suspended due to usage of Adderall, as his therapeutic use exemption had expired. He appealed the decision, but it was denied by the league. This was Jordan's second violation of the PED policy, the first being in 2013 after testing positive for a banned stimulant.

Despite being the third overall pick in 2013, Jordan's career has been a disappointment -- both on and off the field. Only starting four of the 50 games he's played, Jordan has just 10.5 sacks and 20 quarterback hits with the Miami Dolphins, Seattle Seahawks and Raiders. Jordan has violated the league's substance-abuse policy on multiple occasions, which included a diluted sample in December 2014 that led to a minimum one-year banishment from the NFL in 2015. He missed two full seasons before returning to the league with the Seahawks in 2017, signing with the team just 11 days after the Dolphins released him.

Jordan vowed to clean up his life and he's still continuing his NFL comeback. Knee problems have limited Jordan, but he'll compete for the No. 4 spot at defensive end withKentavius Street, Kerry Hyder, and Ronald Blair.Arik Armstead, Nick Bosa and Dee Ford have the top three end spots in the rotation on lockdown. If Jordan can crack the rotation, he has the opportunity to make an impact on one of the top pass rushing units in football.

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49ers expected to sign former top-five pick Dion Jordan to add depth to defensive line, per report - CBS Sports

Montgomery off his game in Yankees’ loss to Phillies – Newsday

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PHILADELPHIA After playing a doubleheader Wednesday that taxed their bullpen and staring down another doubleheader Saturday against the Rays, the Yankees could have used an effective and not to mention lengthy outing from Jordan Montgomery Thursday night.

They got neither.

Montgomery, excellent in his season debut last Friday against the Red Sox, was the opposite of that against the Phillies, allowing five runs in four innings of a 5-4 loss at Citizens Bank Park.

Other than Gerrit Cole, the Yankees have not gotten a lot of length from their starters.

Nothing beats several outings [in a row] from your starters that preserve guys down there in that pen, Aaron Boone said. [Over] the long haul we have to do a little bit better job of that.

The Yankees (9-3), who did extend their franchise record to 12 straight games with at least one home run to open the season when the slumping Gary Sanchez hit one out in the seventh inning to make it a one-run game, start a four-game series Friday night at Tropicana Field against Tampa.

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We should be OK tomorrow, Boone said of his bullpen. Well see how tomorrow transpires and see what our needs are heading into the doubleheader on Saturday.

Montgomery, who allowed one run and five hits over 5 2/3 innings against Boston in picking up his first victory since April 21, 2018, allowed those five runs and six hits against the Phillies (3-4), plunging his team in a 5-2 hole after three innings. The biggest blow came off a hanging curveball in the first that J.T. Realmuto hit out for a 3-0 lead.

Changeup was a little inconsistent, curveball wasnt there, said Montgomery, who allowed a two-run double to Phil Gosselin in the third on a 1-and-2 changeup to make it 5-2. Hung one to Realmuto [and] that kind of set the tone for the game I either had a really good inning or a really bad inning. The innings I actually attacked guys, we had pretty good results.

Boone, wanting to rest some of his top relief arms, such as those belonging to Adam Ottavino and Chad Green, got a combined four scoreless innings from David Hale and Jonathan Holder.

Phillies righthander Zach Eflin, making his season debut, allowed two runs (none earned) and four hits over four innings. A suspect Phillies bullpen held the Yankees down until the seventh when Sanchez, 2-for-29 with 18 strikeouts to that point, hit an opposite-field, two-run homer off Nick Pivetta to make it a 5-4 game.

I definitely think I was due, knowing how things were going for me, Sanchez said through his interpreter. It was my time to put a good hit on the ball.

Giancarlo Stanton doubled with one out in the eighth off Jose Alvarez, who retired Gleyber Torres for the second out and was replaced by Hector Neris to face Aaron Judge, pinch hitting for Brett Gardner.

Judge, given the night off along with DJ LeMahieu, fell behind 0-and-2 and struck out.

Neris retired Gio Urshela and Sanchez to start the ninth but LeMahieu, pinch hitting for Tyler Wade, singled. That brought up Mike Tauchman, who added to his already impressive total of big hits this season with a single (the outfielders two-run single in the second made it 3-2). Luke Voit, however, flied to the middle of the track in deep right-center to end it.

The Yankees went quietly in the third, the inning noteworthy only for Boone, between innings, apparently taking issue with a fan outside an entry gate in center blasting an air horn periodically duringTorres at-bat to end the inning (Torres flied to right). The umpires conferred and it was not clear if they, or anyone, had jurisdiction over the area directly outside the stadium but when the Yankees batted in the fourth the air horn was silent and it remained that way the rest of the game, though the small group of fans continued to cheer, chant and occasionally clang cowbells, which was the case the night before.

I didnt necessarily think they could do anything about it, Boone said, but at least it was something I wanted to point out.

Montgomery said he wasnt bothered by any of the noise but wasnt thrilled with it.

Its kind of messed up that theyre out there, he said, but it is what it is.

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.

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Montgomery off his game in Yankees' loss to Phillies - Newsday

Tear Gas and Thugs at the BLM Protests in Portland – CounterPunch

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On the 59th night of BLM protests on July 25th at the federal courthouse, I was one of the thousands of protestors who went there. It took me a while to struggle through my fears of getting infected with the virus and the limits to my mobility due to old age and hip arthritis. But like so many others, I could no longer stay home. I knew from my previous experiences at many protests over the years, against war, racism, ICE, inequality, and exploitation of workers, that the police were extremely violent, often attacking us with little or no provocations. What was new was that the police had been attacking the BLM protestors non-stop for 58 nights with tear gas, pepper spray, flash grenades, and non-lethal munitions. In contrast to their long history of using violence against non-violent protestors, the Portland police were seen protecting and fraternizing with white supremacist groups like the Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys at their rallies in this whitest of all US cities. When Mayor Ted Wheeler appeared at a protest last week, he was booed by many there, who called out Tear gas Ted. Later that night, Wheeler got a big dose of his own medicine.

The recent deployment of over 100 federal troops to Portland under Operation Diligent Valor by Trump added more fuel to the already fired-up protestors. Trump claims that he sent the feds there to protect federal facilities and officers against violent anarchists, but the reality is this: they have been deployed as an occupying army to crush the protests. Since their arrival in early July, unidentified federal thugs in camouflage have grabbed BLM protestors off the streets, putting them in unmarked vehicles, and detaining them for hours without charge. They have also escalated the violence at the nightly BLM protests at the (In)justice Center and the Federal Courthouse, working with the Portland police to attack non-violent protestors with tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, flash grenades, and non-lethal projectiles. The videos of their actions pepper-spraying people at point blank, firing an impact munition at 26 year-old Donovan La Bella , causing a skull fracture which required an emergency surgery, beating and pepper-spraying Chris David, a 53-year old Navy Vet who was just standing there, and attacking non-violent protestors night after night with copious amounts of tear gas and pepper spray have not only intimidated and terrorized people, but also enraged them.

So far, Homeland Security and the Trump administration have refused to withdraw the federal thugs despite lawsuits filed by Oregons attorney general, the ACLU, state legislators and activist groups. Many of us can no longer remain silent as these accounts of daily violence by the police and feds make clear that what is at stake is not only racial injustice and inequality, but also an attack on our 1st Amendment right to free speech and civil rights.

I was heartened to see so many recent newcomers like the Wall of Moms, the dads, veterans, teachers, union workers, nurses, doctors and healthcare workers at the protest, as well as the die-hards who had been at the frontlines for 58 nights. Their presence makes it much harder for Trump, his supporters and critics of the BLM protestors to separate us into good vs. bad protestors, or to demonize us all as violent anarchists. The government, police and law enforcement agencies have a long history of suppressing many political movements for social change in the past by using this strategy of criminalizing our right to dissent and by deploying police and law enforcement violence to crush the resistance.

Now is the time for us to meet this challenge to protect our rights and to resist being under the boot of a fascist police state. The stakes are high as what happens in Portland will soon be replicated in other cities as Trump threatens to send more federal troops to Chicago, Seattle, Albuquerque and other cities to squash the BLM movement and our demands for justice and equality for all.

As the crowds grew in numbers throughout the night, we sang and chanted words which have become mantras: No justice, no peace, Black Lives Matter, Hands up, dont shoot! Feds go home, Stay together, stay tight! Feds stay clear, the moms are here! Light projections of George Floyds last words flashed across the JC building. I cant breathe. Everything hurts. Please dont kill me. Mama, Im through. We read them in silence, while others were chanting Black Lives Matter over and over again. Other messages flashed by, The power of the people is greater than those in power, The Revolution is Live, Black Lives Matter.

There were thousands of us around midnight. We were there at this nightly ritual of resistance, waiting for the inevitable to happen. Several protestors were trying to pull down the metal fence, which had been reinforced recently. After much effort, some succeeded in breaching the fence at one location. We heard the disembodied voice announcing over the loudspeaker: This is the Portland Police declaring a riot and ordering us to disperse immediately or be subjected to chemical attacks and arrests. The protestors booed and yelled, Fuck the police! Feds out of Portland! in response. Then the attacks began. Loud explosions went off, and clouds of tear gas rapidly spread down the streets from SW 3rd and Salmon. People were screaming and running, ignoring shouts of Dont run!

Despite my old legs and hip arthritis, I managed to run through the waves of tear gas. For a few terrifying moments, my eyes were burning, and I was blinded and disoriented. Luckily, I was helped by the amazing medics, who treated my eyes with a saline solution. I saw them treat other protestors injured by pepper spray, tear gas and rubber bullets. The feds and cops came running towards us, and chased us further and further downtown. None of the protestors who were standing with me had done anything wrong, but the feds and cops kept firing tear gas at us. I saw a few people being arrested near the Apple store downtown. Dozens of police cars with sirens blasting, blue lights flashing, sped down the streets. It was scary how quickly Portland had been transformed from the City of Roses to Little Beirut. Then the police and feds marched off, got into their cars, and drove off. It was a surreal scenethe streets were suddenly empty and quiet again, as if nothing had happened. But we know better. Our resistance is growing, and we will be back!

All photos by Bette Lee.

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Tear Gas and Thugs at the BLM Protests in Portland - CounterPunch

Cyberpunk 2077 Night City Wire Stream Coming Next Week …

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Cyberpunk 2077 is getting closer, and CD Projekt Red has announced a new Night City Wire stream to detail more features and systems in the upcoming action-RPG. The next stream will debut on Monday, August 10 at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET.

CDPR shared the news on Twitter, with word that this edition of Night City Wire will focus on lifepaths, weapons, and the soundtrack. Lifepaths are essentially the character customization flowcharts, and according to the Cyberpunk Wiki the 2077 tabletop game offers three varieties: the StreetKid, the Corpo-Rat, and the Nomad. The video game adaptation may keep those intact or offer new ones entirely.

Meanwhile, the reference to Refused is about the Swedish punk rock band. They'll be writing and producing a soundtrack as Samurai, an in-world "chrome rock" band. CDPR announced this partnership in July, so this Night City Wire will be the first check-in since then.

The last Night City Wire focused on the world, the "Braindance" investigation mode, and the announcement of a tie-in Edgerunners anime.

Cyberpunk 2077 will release on November 19 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. For more details, check out our Cyberpunk 2077 pre-order guide.

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